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Everything
is made of matter
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Everything around you is made up of
matter. Chocolate cake is made up of matter. You are made of
matter. The air is made of matter.
* Matter takes up space.
All matter takes up space. Your
computer is taking up space on the desk. You are taking up
space on the chair.
* All matter has mass.
Mass is how much there is of an
object. The unit for mass is a gram. A coin has the mass of
about one gram.
You can see some matter (like a
lemon) but some matter is invisible (like air). You can hold
some matter in your hands (like a spoon), but you can't hold
a cloud!
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If you are having trouble
understanding matter, look all around you. You can see
matter makes up the walls of your house and your classroom.
Matter is large and matter is small.
Matter is what makes up a carrot and
a knife and a finger and the air you breathe. You can't see
the air, but if it wasn't there, you wouldn't survive, would
you?
Do you get it yet?
Scientists believe that all matter is
made of very small particles called atoms.
Let's take this carrot and a
knife:
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Let's get closer and closer to the
smaller parts of the carrot - particles of carrot!
Chop up the carrot as small as you
can chop, and you still won't be able to make it small
enough to get down to single particles or atoms.
The very smallest parts of the carrot
are called atoms. But you can't see them with your
eyes!
Anything you see and can feel is made
of atoms. All atoms are too small to be seen with the naked
eye or even a microscope, although there are some new types
of microscopes that are now able to see larger atoms such as
gold.
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Atoms can be all the same kind, or
maybe a mixture of different kinds of atom. Scientists think
that there are only around 110 different kinds that make up
EVERYTHING.
Gold is made of one kind of atom -
gold atoms. Salt is made up of two different kinds of atoms
- sodium atoms and chlorine atoms. On their own, sodium
atoms make up a metal. On their own, chlorine atoms make a
poisonous gas. But combined together, they make up the salt
you pour on your chips - isn't that amazing?
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These are grains of salt seen under a
microscope. They are not single atoms though - they are
groups of atoms stuck together to make salt
crystals.
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