It is a common misconception to ascribe the stiffness and rigidity of solid matter to the repulsion of like charges under the influence of the electromagnetic force. However, these characteristics actually result from the Pauli exclusion principle.[citation needed] Since electrons are fermions, they cannot occupy the same quantum mechanical state as other electrons. When the electrons in a material are densely packed together, there are not enough lower energy quantum mechanical states for them all, so some of them must be in higher energy states. This means that it takes energy to pack them together. While this effect is manifested macroscopically as a structural force, it is technically only the result of the existence of a finite set of electron states.