a large scale mechanical bond, velcro forms one on a medium scale, and some textile adhesives (glue) form one at a small scale. Chemical Two materials may form a compound at the joint. The strongest joints are where atoms of the two materials share or swap electrons (known respectively as covalent bonding or ionic bonding). A weaker bond is formed if a hydrogen atom in one molecule is attracted to an atom of nitrogen, oxygen, or fluorine in another molecule, a phenomenon called hydrogen bonding. Chemical adhesion occurs when the surface atoms of two separate surfaces form ionic, covalent, or hydrogen bonds. The engineering principle behind chemical adhesion in this sense is fairly straightforward: if surface molecules can bond, then the surfaces will be bonded together by a network of these bonds. It bears mentioning that these attractive ionic and covalent forces are effective over only very small distances – less than a nanometer. This means in general not only that surfaces with the potential for chemical bonding need to be brought very close together, but also that these bonds are fairly brittle, since the surfaces then need to be kept close together. Dispersive In dispersive adhesion, also known as physisorption, two materials are held together by van der Waals forces: the attraction between two molecules, each of which has a region of slight positive and negative charge. In the simple case, such molecules are therefore polar with respect to average charge density, although in larger or more complex molecules, there may be multiple "poles" or regions of greater positive or negative charge. These positive and negative poles may be a permanent property of a molecule (Keesom forces) or a transient effect which can occur in any molecule, as the random movement of electrons within the molecules may result in a temporary concentration of electrons in one region (London forces). In surface science, the term adhesion almost always refers to dispersive adhesion. In a typical solid-liquid-gas system (such as a drop of liquid on a solid surrounded by air) the contact angle is used to evaluate adhesiveness indirectly, while a Centrifugal Adhesion Balance allows for direct quantitative adhesion measurements. Generally, cases where the contact angle is low are considered of higher adhesion per unit area. This approach assumes that the lower contact angle corresponds to a higher surface energy. Theoretically, the more exact relation between contact angle and work of