Post by Deleted on Jan 15, 2015 22:29:38 GMT
Extra Credit: What is Matter?
- To answer the question of what is matter one must first discover where the word Matter comes from. It turns out that in recent history the word matter actually originated from the word mother, which was actually very surprising to find out. To get a glimpse of what matter is you can simply look at any object that may be in your line of sight. For example, If I'm staring at a tree that's outside I can easily see it's made up of wood and leaves, and if I were to examine it closer I would see tiny cells that make up the tree, because all living things consist of cells. However, probing even further I discover these cells are made of smaller things called molecules, and are in turn made up of trillions of Atoms that are extremely small. In fact everything on Earth is made up of Atoms and the different ways an Atom can be configured in turn determines the certain appearance or form matter can take. The term Atom actually originates from Democritus who believed things were formed from these small particles that couldn't be cut into smaller particles. Then in the 20th century Max Planck and other great scientist discovered atoms actually consist of smaller parts called a nucleus and an electron and that It didn't stop there, because even inside them were photons and quarks. So you see matter isn't just one single thing, it is actually composed of many different layers of things, that when under certain conditions can do or form different things.
- To answer the question of what is matter one must first discover where the word Matter comes from. It turns out that in recent history the word matter actually originated from the word mother, which was actually very surprising to find out. To get a glimpse of what matter is you can simply look at any object that may be in your line of sight. For example, If I'm staring at a tree that's outside I can easily see it's made up of wood and leaves, and if I were to examine it closer I would see tiny cells that make up the tree, because all living things consist of cells. However, probing even further I discover these cells are made of smaller things called molecules, and are in turn made up of trillions of Atoms that are extremely small. In fact everything on Earth is made up of Atoms and the different ways an Atom can be configured in turn determines the certain appearance or form matter can take. The term Atom actually originates from Democritus who believed things were formed from these small particles that couldn't be cut into smaller particles. Then in the 20th century Max Planck and other great scientist discovered atoms actually consist of smaller parts called a nucleus and an electron and that It didn't stop there, because even inside them were photons and quarks. So you see matter isn't just one single thing, it is actually composed of many different layers of things, that when under certain conditions can do or form different things.