the.com/interaction
Two things touch, and neither leaves unchanged — that's the whole universe, basically.
means A reciprocal action or influence between two or more things, where each affects and is affected by the other.
from Built from Latin inter- ('between, among') plus actio ('a doing, a driving, a performance'), itself from agere ('to do, to act, to drive'). The word surfaces in English around the late 18th century in scientific contexts — chemists and physicists needed a term for forces or substances acting mutually upon each other, rather than one simply acting on an inert other. The prefix is the real engine of the word: action alone is one-directional, but inter- bends it back on itself, insisting that the doing runs both ways.
- drug version
- one pill meets another, chaos negotiates
- physics version
- forces only exist because particles bother talking
- social version
- small talk is interaction with the stakes removed