Kinds of Matter

As we look about us we see material objects, such as a stone wall or a table. The chemist is primarily interested not in the objects themselves, but in the kinds of matter of which they are composed. He is interested in wood as a material (a kind of matter), whether it is used for making a table or a chair. He is interested in granite, whether it is in a stone wall or in some other object. Indeed, his interest is primarily in those properties (characteristic qualities) of a material that are independent of the objects containing it. 

The word material is used in referring to any kind of matter, whether homogeneous or heterogeneous. 

A homogeneous material is a material with the same properties throughout. 

A heterogeneous material consists of parts with different properties. 

with soft and hard rings alternating, is obviously a heterogeneous material, as is also granite, in which grains of three different species of matter (the mineralst quartz, mica, and feldspar) can be seen. 

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According to modern science, all various kinds of matter consist essentially of a few types of elementary particles combined together in different ways. Since these particles do not obey the laws of classical physics but the laws of modern wave mechanics, the problem of the constitution of matter is a quantum-mechanical many-particle problem of a much higher degree of complexity than even the famous classical three-body problem. 

The term nanosized cluster or nanocluster or simply cluster is used presently to denote a particle of any kind of matter, the size of which is greater than that of a typical molecule, but is too small to exhibit characteristic bulk properties. Such particles enter the size regime of mesoscopic materials. 

This paper analyzes the development of the concept of alkahest from its origins in the Paracelsian corpus to its mature form in the works of Joan Baptista van Helmont (1579-1644) and his successors. Historians of science have usually focused on the chemical aspects of the alkahest, taking into account especially the claims that it was a substance capable of dissolving all kinds of matter. This paper shows the medical implications of the alkahest it was not only a "solvent," but an important means of revealing nature s... 

In a vacuum (empty space), all forms of electromagnetic radiation propagate at a velocity of 300,000 km per second, when propagating through air, water, or any kind of matter, they interact with the matter and their velocity is reduced. Differences in the manner of interaction between different forms of radiation and different types of matter generally reveal information on the nature and the constituents of matter. 

Take a walk around your home and down the street. How many different kinds of material can you see In a short time, you can name hundreds of things. Yet all of them, from the sidewalk to the sky, are made up of some combination of only about one hundred basic kinds of matter called elements. 

The thermodynamic standard state of a substance is its most stable state under standard pressure (1 atm) and at some specific temperature (usually 25°C). Thermodynamic refers to the observation, measurement and prediction of energy changes that accompany physical changes or chemical reaction. Standard refers to the set conditions of 1 atm pressure and 25°C. The state of a substance is its phase gas, liquid or solid. Substance is any kind of matter all specimens of which have the same chemical composition and physical properties. 

Chemistry is usually divided into two portions. The first treats of the Chemical Agents, Heat, Light, and Electricity, and is commonly called Chemical Physics the second, of the chemical properties and relations of the various kinds of matter, inorganic and organic.59... 

Let me tell you, in conclusion, that the bath in which the bridegroom is placed, must consist of two hostile kinds of matter, that purge and rectify each other by means of a continued struggle. For it is not good for the Eagle to build her nest on the summit of the Alps, because her young ones are thus in great... 

You will draw upon these concepts in the next chapter, as you expand your understanding of the forces that are responsible for the millions of kinds of matter in the universe chemical bonds. 

Chemistry is the science that deals with matter. The Earth on which we live, as well as the rest of the physical world that surrounds us, is formed by quite different kinds of matter. The first task of the chemist is to identify and isolate all the component entities that, together, constitute the material world. It is interesting to remember here that the old Alchemy was considered as "the noble art of separation". 

About 100 different kinds of atoms make up all kinds of matter, and they are classified in a table—the Periodic Table of Elements—according to their construction. The center of any atom is a nucleus containing protons and neutrons. The protons have a positive charge and the neutrons are neutral so the nucleus is positively charged. Electrons, equal in number but opposite in charge to the protons, move around the nucleus in orbits. You might think of an atom like a solar system. The nucleus acts like the sun the electrons orbit the nucleus like the planets circle the sun. 

Elements and compounds constitute the world of pure substances. An element is a substance that cannot be decomposed by any chemical reaction into simpler substances. Elements are composed of only one type of atom and all atoms of a given type have the same properties. Pure substances cannot be separated into other kinds of matter by any physical process. We are familiar with many pure substances water, iron, mercury, iodine, helium, rust, diamond, table salt, sugar, gypsum, and so forth. Among the pure substances listed above, iron, mercury, iodine, diamond (pure carbon), and helium are elements. We are also familiar with mixtures of pure substances. These include the air that we breathe, milk, molasses, beer, blood, coffee, concrete, egg whites, ice cream, dirt, steel, and so on. 

From this point onwards we shall take the word matter to have its usual meaning, as the material fabric making up beings and visible or otherwise manifested things. In technical language, this kind of matter is said to be baryonic or nucleonic, that is, essentially made up of protons and neutrons. 

Empedocles made no attempt to create a new theory of matter. Instead, he tried to reconcile the thoughts of his various predecessors. He took Thales s theory that everything was made of water and Anaximenes s idea that the primal substance was air, and added two more elements, earth and fire. Empedocles didn t believe that one kind of matter could be transformed into another. Earth couldn t be changed into water, or water into earth, for example. Thus there had to be more than one element. 

Unfortunately, most of the terms which the alchemists used to designate their Elements and Principles are terms which are now employed to designate specific substances. The word fire is still employed rather as a quality of many things under special conditions, than as a specific substance but earth, water, air, salt, sulphur, and mercury, are to-day the names applied to certain groups of properties, each of which is different from all other groups of properties, and is, therefore, called, in ordinary speech, a definite kind of matter. 

Since the time of Lavoisier, since the last decade of the eighteenth century, careful chemists have meant by an element a substance which has not been separated into unlike parts, and they have not meant more than that. The term element has been used by accurate thinkers as a useful class-mark which connotes a property—the property of not having been decomposed—common to all substances placed in the class, and differentiating them from all other substances. Whenever chemists have thought of elements as the ultimate kinds of matter with which the physical world is constructed—and they have occasionally so thought and written— they have fallen into quagmires of confusion. 

They also state that, nonetheless, it is their Matter that engenders, nourishes and ultimately makes manifest that ever-desired Phoenix, and that it does so without the addition of any foreign matter. It must be made known however that their Matter is composed of two and even of three things Salt, Sulphur and Mercury. Nevertheless, all three are nothing but the Fixed and the Volatile, and these are what are to be joined and reunited during the course of the operations. The results are solely a kind of matter which they then call Androgyne, Rebis, and so forth. °... 

Early scientists and philosophers invested much effort in the search for the fundamental substance or substances—the simplest kind of matter that comprises the world and all of its various materials. The ancient Greek philosopher Thales (ca. 635-556 b.c.e.) postulated that water is the fundamental substance. Although this idea may not sound realistic today, the hypothesis was a reasonable one. Life depends on water and Earth contains a huge quantity of water in oceans and rivers water falls from the sky as rain and seeps through the ground in wells. The ancient Greek philosopher Empedocles (ca. 495-435 b.c.e.) expanded the list of fundamental substances to four—water, earth, air, and fire. 

Shaw, B. (1987) A Wreath of Stars. New York Baen Books. Two worlds made of different kinds of matter coexist until the approach of a star shifts the orbit of one of them. 

Despite a tendency to overestimate the primacy of the four-element scheme - there have been, as we have seen, many others - this idea goes some way towards explaining the longevity of Empedocles elements. They fit, they accord with our experience. They distinguish different kinds of matter. 

I have found no evidence that Macquer considered the possibility that ordinary kinds of matter could be destroyed. Only phlogiston and possibly the matter of heat (which is closely related to phlogiston) seem to have been subject to this kind of destruction. 

Sntri n awo CourovirD Mattsb.—All kinds of matter are divided into two great classes,—tubatanm, and om pound tubtlaneet. A simple substance is one out of which it is impossible to obtain, by any known process, two or more essentially different kinds of matter. A compound substance, on the other hand, is one which can be resolved into two or more simple substances. The simple substances at present known are sisty-two in number, and are termed elemetUt. By the combination of these elements with each other, all the infinitely vaiied forms of terrestrial matter are produced. 

When an element is isolated, or separated from every other kind of matter, its atoms still exist, except in a few cases, in combination with each other. In many instances the atoms of isolated elements are associated in pairs when thus combmed. Such an isolated atom or group of atoms constitutes aue/smen-... 

The kinds of matter are five, an ether being added to the four elements of Empedocles and Plato. This ether is, however, not supposed to exist as a constituent of substances of this world, but to be the substance from which are formed the heavenly bodies and the sphere of the heavens in which these are set. This ether is eternal and unchangeable. Below the zone of the heavens lies the zone of fire, lightest of the four elements, and below this the air, and then water between the air and the earth which is the heaviest of the four. Characteristic motion is the property of the five elements. The most perfect motion is circular and this belongs to the ether, which has no tendency to approach the center of the universe nor to fly away from it, and the circular motion belongs to the eternal and unchangeable. All other motions may be resolved into... 

So far, you have learned about three kinds of matter elements, compounds, and mixtures. Which box below contains only an element Which contains only a compound Which contains a mixture ... 

Substance any specific kind of matter whether element, compound, or mixture. 

Take water, on the other hand. You will learn to break water up into two kinds of matter — each of them an element. A thing in which two or more elements are combined chemically is called a COMPOUND. In a compound the proportions of the different elements that make it lip are always exactly the same. 

Air also consists of different kinds of matter, but they are not combined chemically — they are simply mixed together. When you make a MIXTURE, you can mix the ingredients together in any proportions that suit you. 

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