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Matter
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You are full of atoms. If we were to count them, it would be somewhere around a 7 followed by 27 zeros
(7,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 atoms). But you aren’t alone. Every person on earth has that many
atoms. If you include every animal, piece of plastic, machine, plant, or anything else you can imagine, you quickly
find out that atoms are present in everything both living and nonliving. This means we have just as much in
common with a car as we do a tree when you compare things on an atomic scale.
But does everything we see have atoms? That’s a trickier question. To help answer this scientific question, we
need to break our world into two groups, things with atoms and things without atoms. Those things with atoms
are referred to in science as matter. Atoms are the building blocks of matter, and it is defined as anything that
takes up space and has mass. Since we take up space and have mass, we are matter. The same thing goes for
the car since it takes up space and has mass. If we can figure out all of the things on earth that take up space and
have mass, we can find out how many items on earth are matter and those that are not matter.
Matter and Volume
All matter takes up space. Space is the simple word for the scientific term volume. Whenever we talk about
volume in science, we are referring to a measurement of how much space something takes up. You, for example,
take up space, not as much as an airplane, but lots compared to an atom.
We can measure volume many different ways. We could measure volume using a ruler
and calculator. Think back to how you did this in 5th grade. You can measure the length,
width, and height to find the volume of a regular solid like the one to the right. Recall that
the volume of a regular solid like a cube is simply the length x height x width.
Life isn’t always so perfect though. How would I measure the volume of a fish? Or the volume
of a human? Since we aren’t perfect as the regular solid is, we have to use other methods
because a ruler wouldn’t be accurate. For smaller objects like a small fish, we can use a piece
of equipment called a graduated cylinder. We’ve used these in class several times, and they
work perfect on smaller objects.
For humans, life is a little more complicated. In our case, we won’t fit inside a graduated cylinder. We have to
use a similar process to overflowing a bathtub. Because we take up space, when we enter water, the water rises.
If we can capture how much the water rises, we can use something called an overflow canister to capture it and
then use the graduated cylinder to tell us our volume.
The bottom line is that for something to have matter, it must take up space. If it takes up space, it must have
volume. No matter how small something is, if it takes up space it has volume. But volume alone doesn’t
determine if something is matter. It must also have mass.
Matter and Mass
Another characteristic of matter is that it must have mass. Mass and weight are very similar on earth. We
basically use them interchangeably. But scientifically, they are really quite different.
Let’s start by looking at the term weight. Weight refers to how gravity is pushing down on us. On earth you
might weigh 100 pounds because of the earth’s gravity. In outer space though, where gravity is basically zero,
you have no weight. On the moon, you might only weigh 20 pounds because of the moon’s gravity. So
depending on where you are in the solar system, your weight can change.
But do you really change? Are you losing atoms to get that lower weight? Hopefully, you just answered “no.”
You still have the same number of atoms (7 followed by 27 zeros). Nothing about you has changed except for
how much gravity is pulling you down. It’s this count of atoms that scientists refer to as mass. The problem is
science has a poor definition of mass. Unfortunately, we refer to mass as how much matter an object has.
In our science class we will be using a triple beam balance to
measure mass (picture to the right). On earth, this balance
will give us the same result as a scale like you might have at
home. And because on earth mass and weight are always
the same, we use them interchangeably.
So Is Everything Matter?
We can answer this question by using the definition of
matter. Everything that is matter has both mass and volume.
So the question is can something take up space and not have
mass?
The simple answer is yes. Heat looks like it takes up space when you see that wavy appearance on a hot summer
road. The problem is heat has no mass. The same goes for light and electricity. If you think back to your
elementary school days, you might remember that heat, light, and electricity all share something in common.
They are all types of energy (just like sound and chemical energy).
There are some things though that are really light, but still have mass. The air we breathe has a mass. It also
takes up lots of space. So even though it doesn’t seem to weigh anything, it actually has a mass.
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