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- What's the matter?
- Who is Atom?
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What's the matter?
Separating mixtures is a big part of the mining industry and the recycling
industry. Making mixtures is essential to concrete and pottery. Most
things around us--rocks, air, water, dirt, classrooms, people--are mixtures.
Solutions are a kind of mixture. A solution of a solid in a liquid, or a gas
in a liquid, or a liquid in a liquid, is usually clear. Milk obviously isn't
a solution, then, is it? It's a suspension. And if you drink homogenized
milk, it's milk that has been mixed so energetically that it doesn't
separate out into its parts. When I was a kid, milk wasn't homogenized.
The cream in it rose to the top. You had to shake the bottle before you
poured the milk out.
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Who is Atom?
You may think matter is solid, but that's an illusion. Matter is made up of
energy and empty space. This is no consolation when you fall off your bike,
because it really hurts when the energy and empty space of two things - the
pavement and your body - collide.
Niels Bohr suggested that the electrons traveled around the nucleus in
orbits, like planets around the sun. The current theory is more that the
electrons exist in probability clouds around the nucleus. The Heisenberg
Uncertainty Theory says it is impossible to know both the location and the
speed of an electron at the same time. It's not just hard, it's impossible.
Can't be done.
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