Following the basic premises of continuum mechanics, stress is a macroscopic concept. Namely, the particles considered in its definition and analysis should be just small enough to be treated as homogeneous in composition and state, but still large enough to ignore quantum effects and the detailed motions of molecules. Thus, the force between two particles is actually the average of a very large number of atomic forces between their molecules; and physical quantities like mass, velocity, and forces that act through the bulk of three-dimensional bodies, like gravity, are assumed to be smoothly distributed over them. Depending on the context, one may also assume that the particles are large enough to allow the averaging out of other microscopic features, like the grains of a metal rod or the fibers of a piece of wood.