Would modeling collisions using Coulomb forces be useful?

[pantheid]

Hi, I am trying to decide on a topic for my senior project, and my professor and I fleetingly discussed my idea of writing a program that models collisions of macroscopic objects using the mutual repulsive forces of their valence electrons rather than standard conservation laws. My question is, is this a worthwhile pursuit? Would trying to analyze collisions in this way make it more complicated, or might this be more useful than using conservation laws in some scenarios?

 

[Vanadium 50]

What do you think you will learn from this?

How do you plan on modeling 10^23 electrons?

 

[pantheid]

I was intending to use a continuous distribution of charge over a weirdly shaped surface, rather than just individual charges.

 

[Simon Bridge]

You are thinking of modelling the valence electrons as some sort of restricted-motion fluid over the surface of the object with a fixed distribution of positive charge under it?

It would depend on the application ... there is no way to tell in advance if it will be useful.
I have a feeling it is the sort of thing people try every now and again.