It's in rocket fuel, and it's in your
drinking water. You'll find it in forests,
volcanoes and toothpaste.
It's in the sun, the moon
and every planet in our solar system way. Call
it the Adam. Its name comes
from the Greek word Ato, most meaning indivisible
Onley. Nowadays we know that's not quite
accurate.
Does it matter? Well, since it is matter, I guess the answer would be
yes. That's because science matters.
Welcome to science matters. I'm your host, Mike Moscatiello. For
thousands of years, people have wondered just exactly what the world and
universe we live in is made of. We've come to call the stuff
around us matter and just looking around,
it's plain to see that not all matter is the same.
Matter is all the stuff in the universe. Here on Earth, we commonly
find matter. In four states, we have solids,
liquids, gases
and plasma. Solid forms of matter tend to
keep their shape and relative amount of volume unless acted on by
some outside force liquids philip
their containers from bottom to top. This is due in large part
to the pull of gravity here on Earth, in a weightless
environment, liquids act differently. They take on strange shapes,
depending on the forces around. Gases are
more difficult to detect with the naked eye unless they
happen to be moving or way, use them to
fill some kind of container under conditions were normally
accustomed to. They spread out and fill in empty
spaces like solids and liquids. Gases can be
manipulated when acted on by outside forces.
Then there's plasma. Those solids, liquids and
gases are most abundant here on Earth, plasma is believed to be the
most common state of matter in the visible universe.
Plasmas air kind of like gases that have been electrically charged.
You've probably seen the effects of plasma made visible here on earth in the form of
lightning. Or perhaps you traveled
north and you've seen the aurora borealis, also called the
Northern Lights. Plasma can be seen in many
places, and you may even be watching plasma. Right now it's
the electrified matter you find in neon tubes,
fluorescent lighting and, of course,
plasma TV's. We don't work much with
plasma, since it's hard to get your hands on without getting shocked.
One thing is true of all forms of matter. They're all made of tiny
particles. The atomic and subatomic
stuff that makes up our universe from the largest
stars to the tiniest greens of sand
matter makes up everything we know of.
Hi, my name is Jerry Smith, and I'm general manager of Jackson's Ice Cream
Parlor, and I'm here to tell you that ice cream is science.
First of all, chemistry is involved in the composition of the ice
cream mix itself. We have to make sure that the butterfat
is balanced with the other ingredients so that it has a nice, creamy
texture. When you eat the ice cream, we also have to make sure
that the flavors are in the proper proportion so that it tastes good.
Physics are involved in the freezing of the ice cream. We have
machinery that is specially designed for the
purpose of producing ice cream and nothing else. It then
goes into a blast freezer. The blast Fraser
is actually a hardening freezer that is designed
to bring the temperature of the ice cream down very quickly
After the blast freezer, the ice cream has moved into what we call our holding
freezer, where it's held at around zero degrees
Fahrenheit after the holding freezer. We bring the ice cream right out
into the dipping cabinets, which you see when you visit our ice cream
parlor. That's where we scooped the ice cream right out of the
out of that dipping cabinet and into whatever Sunday you order.
And when you come to Jackson's, you can see for yourself. Why science
contest So good.
My favorite.
Most of what we observe happen with matter is based in large part on
the properties exhibited by something we can't directly see.
That something is called on Adam. And although we don't have any
clear photographs of Adam's over time, we don't know what to get a
pretty good idea of what they look like. Way
back around the fifth century BC a Greek philosopher named
Democratise came up with the idea that all matter was made up of
tiny, solid individual parts, which he called Adams.
But there were still many questions left to be answered. I am
asking the questions company and with technology the way it
was 2 to 3000 years ago. That was about as Faras
democratise could go with the no tidies your
fast as the wind enter the 19th
century, and John Dalton Dalton was an English chemist
and physicist who proposed the idea that Adam's were all tiny,
solid spears kind of like marbles.
Near the end of the 19th century, Joseph John Thompson gave us
a different view of the atom. Old J J still believe the Adam
was a solid sphere. But since he discovered Adam's have
negatively charged particles, he believed that the atomic spheres
proposed by Dalton had a positive charge. With negatively
charged parts invented within heading
into the 20th century, Ernest Rutherford gave us a model of the atom most
people are familiar with. He proposed a solar system
type of arrangement with a positively charged center orbited
by very tiny, very fast moving negative particles.
There were plenty of notable ideas both before and after the Rutherford
model, but it finally took the work of Erwin Schrodinger in the
19 twenties to design a model of the Adam called the Electron
Cloud Way believe Schrodinger's quantum mechanical
model to be the best model of the atom in about the past
100 years or so. Although the solar system model still
comes in handy from time to time for analyzing atomic
properties, and designing corporate logos.
Let's start by meeting a leading authority on the subject,
Dr Adam, now observing the
professor himself. We can see that his structure resembles, in many
ways something almost as fast as the atom is small,
the solar system and there are certain
similarities. So what do
Adam's really look like? We've been able to analyze the
surface of substances and get an idea how atoms are
arranged. But we still don't have any clear, close up
pictures or video of real Adams.
So why do we bother learning about something so tiny? We can't
even see it? Well, Adams or the basic building
blocks of matter, Adams and atomic particles, or what all matter
is made up? And when we deal with properties of matters such as
temperature poured density for
chemical changes, we're dealing with properties of atoms and
combinations of atoms. What we learned about Adam's gives
us the information we need not only to better understand matter here on Earth,
but also throughout the universe.
Hello, My name is Diego Castano. I'm a theoretical particle physicist.
Our current understanding of the laws of physics and are astronomical
observations of the heavens. Lead us to believe that the universe
began 13.7 billion years ago in an event called the
Big Bang. Although our theories cannot take us back to the very
moment of creation, we believe we understand what happened
after that. The universe started very small and very hot and has
been expanding and cooling ever since. At first, the four
fundamental forces we observe in nature today electromagnetism,
gravity, weak and strong nuclear manifested themselves as
a single super force. Soon, gravity split off from the
others. The first form of matter so called grand unified matter,
appeared. It is an exotic form of matter, very different from what we see
today. The universe is still very hot, and in fact there's very
little matter. Most of it is energy. But as the universe expands and
cools further, more recognizable forms of matter appear,
such as electrons and quarks. The corks combined to produce protons
and neutrons, and the protons and neutrons fused yield light
nuclei. It's about 20 minutes after the big Bang. At this point,
after about 300,000 years, the universe is cool enough so
that the nuclei can capture electrons and become neutral
atoms mostly hydrogen and helium, fast forward
200 million years, and the first stars have formed and within them,
within their nuclear furnaces. The heavy elements are produced
carbon oxygen, things like that thes heavy elements air,
then scattered all around the universe through supernova explosions. And that
brings us to today all of the matter around this, all of the matter that makes us
shares this common history. If you
look around, you see different things made of different materials.
Part of the reason for this is that there's more than one kind of Adam.
But different kinds of Adam's have a lot more in common than
you might think. All the matter we know of could
be broken down into simple substances called elements.
Those elements are made of unique kinds of Adams.
At the center of every atom is an area called the Nucleus. This is
where we find most of the mystery associated with Adam's
that we've been able to manipulate it, break it apart and use it to our
scientific advantage. We've never actually seen what a
nucleus looks like up close. All the models you see of
Adam's are simply to help us make some kind of mental picture.
With that in mind, this model demonstrates for us how the nucleus
of an atom always contains one or more tiny particles called
protons. The number of protons tells us what kind of
element the animal form. For instance,
if the entire Adam has only one proton, we call it
hydrogen. If it has eight protons,
the atom is oxygen. 29 Protons makes a
cop to help us know which Adam is, which elements
have been organized into a diagram called the periodic Table.
The letter symbols on the table tell us the name of the element we're dealing.
Sometimes they seem to make sense. A. L stands
for aluminum M E stands for
neon C. L stands for chlorine,
but sometimes the symbols seem a little odd until you know
more about them. Take a you. For example,
it stands for gold. It comes from the Latin word or, um,
which means, well, gold.
Effie comes from the Latin Word pharaoh, which means iron.
The base of this ward is still used today for big iron wheels called
Ferris wheels. Silver used the symbol,
a G for our gentle there are
more than 100 known elements listed in the periodic table.
Most are naturally occurring, but some, believe it or not, were made
by people a sign from letters. There are
also numbers listed that tell us about the adams of each element,
every element in the table like this one. Carbon
has an atomic number. The atomic number tells
us how many protons are in every atom of that element.
Carbon atoms will always had six protons.
Helium will always have two protons. Radan
always has 86. Aside from
protons, we confined other parts in the nucleus called
neutrons. Number of neutrons is sometimes, but
not always equal to the number of protons on the periodic
table. Each element has a second number listed, called the Atomic
Weight. If you round off the atomic weight and
subtract the atomic number, it tells you about how many
neutrons Aaron, an Adam of that element. So for the element
carbon, see if we round off the atomic weight to
12 and subtract the atomic number six.
We come up with six as the number of neutrons.
If we try it with the element potassium listed with a K for the Latin
word Callie, Um, we round the atomic weight off to
39 subtract 19. This
gives us 20 neutrons in potassium atoms.
And what about hydrogen? One minus one
equals zero. That means no neutrons and hydrogen.
Now, that doesn't mean hydrogen can never have neutrons, in
fact, but in what we consider to be a regular
balanced according to the periodic table it doesn't
usually have. The number of neutrons in Adam can
differ, so you can get different forms of the same element
thes Adam's air called isotope. And that's why the
atomic weights listed for elements have decimals. Atomic
weights are average weights, and when we subtract, we're
estimating the number of neutrons. One of the most
interesting parts of the atom isn't found in the nucleus. It orbits the
nucleus at great speeds. That part is called the
electron. Electrons are much, much smaller than
protons or neutrons are, in fact, with proton. With the
size of a ping pong ball, an electron would be tinier than a grain of
sand. By comparison, they're further away from the nucleus than
you might think to using our ping pong ball example.
You'd have to go about a mile in any direction to come across the first electric.
Well, you get the idea. Electrons
are relatively far from the nucleus but still part of the atom,
so most models you see are adjusted for viewing.
A balanced. Adam has the same number of electrons as protons,
same as the atomic number. But since electrons aren't bound
by the strong force that holds the nucleus together, they
tend to come and go more freely, sometimes creating
brilliant displays. Electricity is
the movement of loose electrons from one place to another,
where they going well, electrons are, said
heavy property called negative charge. These
negative charges push away or repel one another,
so they're headed to a place where there's less negative charge,
a place where there are fewer electrons. Why, then,
do electrons hang around orbiting the nucleus of Adams?
Well, that, my friends, is because of the protons.
Protons have a property called a positive charge, and that
attracts the negative charges and tries to keep them in a sort of
orbital dance around the nucleus. Positively charged
protons, like negative charges, repel each other,
yet the nucleus stays together. This is because of a strong
nuclear force that keeps protons and neutrons together in a
nucleus. Without this force, the nucleus of
atoms would just break apart. And
so one week and so with everything
else. That's not to say the nucleus of Adam's can't be
split apart, but they are split. Breaking.
The strong nuclear force releases incredible
energy. Hi,
I'm Michael Aguinaga from the Museum of Discovery in Science, and
this is a Tesla coil. I can use it to make
electrons jump through the air. Watch.
A spark, you see, is a lot like lightning. A bunch of tiny
loose electrons build up a negative charge in one place.
Then they jump through the air to a place that's more positive.
This is called an electrical discharge. When the electron make the
lead, they heat the air and it glowed.
Here's another device that makes a spark. It's called the Jacob Bladder.
Electrons make the air glow as they discharge from one
rod to another. Beer around the discharge gets hot
and hot air rises. This makes the FARC move
up the rod. Electrons don't
always discharge. Sometimes they build up a negative charge in one
place by touching the top of this van de Graaff generator on
gaining electrons. My hair sticks up because the negative
electrons build up in my hair and repel one another.
Loose electrons can charge discharge and do amazing
things, and as you can see,
they can even go to your head.
Adams don't always stay all by the loans themselves. Often they
link up and bond with other atoms. In fact, most of
the stuff around you and even you happen to be made up of
combinations of atoms bonded into various
substances Ever heard of H 20
No electrons in orbit around a nucleus can be lost by one
Adam and grabbed up by another. This creates what we
call ions ions air simply Adams, that
have more protons than electrons or vice
versa. When an adult loses electrons, the whole darn
thing then has a more positive charge overall. So we call it
a positive ion or cat eye on.
When Adam gains electrons and has more negative than positive
charges, it's called a negative ion or an
IA. Under the right circumstances,
positive and negative ions can come together and bond.
It's called an ionic bond because the positive and
negative Adams excuse me ions
are attracted to one another. This makes a substance
called sodium chloride, also known as table
salt, instead of losing and gaining electrons.
There's another way. Adam's Comte bond together to make stuff they can share.
Electrons. Some electrons that orbits the nucleus of an atom
are further away than others. Electrons that are the farthest
out are called valence electrons.
When two or more Adams come together and share valence electrons, it's
called the co Vaillant Bond H 20 What we
commonly call water is a product of availing bonding
between two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen.
Without this particular co Vaillant fund, life as we know it
wouldn't exist. Yes, it's a good thing for us that different
forms of matter act and react the way they do to help
keep all of our solids, liquids,
gases and plasmas working.
Welcome to the Science Matters Home Laboratory. Today we're studying
bonding. You might be curious to know why you care about bonding. You
care about bonding because bonding predicts properties. If you've ever touched
tasted her smelled anything, you've experienced its bonding.
Let me show you some examples because bonding is all around us.
Paint sticks, too, and protect your house because of bonding. Paint
is co violently bonded. Latex
and tires hold air because rubber is co violently bonded.
Did you ever notice the clothes go in dirty?
But they come out clean? This
is all Duta bonding, hydrogen bonding, and I've set up in
experiment to demonstrate why clothes come out clean from the washing
machine. This is water.
Water is a co Vaillant compound, but water has another bonding property
called hydrogen bonding. Hydrogen bonding is responsible
for the surface tension on this water, but it's also
responsible for the fact that oil fruits,
this is soap soap is also a co Vaillant compound, but
so breaks the hydrogen bonds and water to show that I'm going
to add a few drops of soap to this test tube,
but none to my other. This is the control I shake
and presto. You can see that when I added
so broke the hydrogen bonds and the oil dissolved in the water
in your washing machine, so open water mixed to dissolve away your dirt
and your clothes come out clean. But bonding isn't just about
clean laundry. It's good eating too in the kitchen,
many of the salts that we use our ionic compounds dissolve in our foods
to give us such rich, great flavor.
Mmm bonding is so good for science
matters. I'm J. P. Keener bonding appetite.
Once you start making large quantities of matter by putting Adam's
together, interesting properties begin to emerge.
Understanding what Adam's do helps us to better understand our
world matter exhibits certain
properties called physical properties. Things we can
observe, such as color, shape,
size odor soluble ity is
a physical property that describes the ability of a substance to dissolve
another. Physical property is density. Density
tells us how much matter is packed into a given amount of space.
Thes two balloons have approximately the same volume of matter filling
them. They take up about the same amount of space,
but the matter in one has greater density than the other.
This balloon is filled with water, this one with their
the one with water is taking the same amount of space. But it's much
heavier because liquid water has greater density than the
combination of gases in the air. Why do drops of water
falling on the surface of a penny try to stay together. They
have surface tension, a physical property that causes
surface of water to behave like a thin, elastic
film. Surface tension is caused by cohesion,
a sort of sticking together of tiny particles made from the same kind of
matter. Cohesion causes surface particles to be
attracted to the others below it. This causes tension
on the surface, and it's white drops of liquid form spears as
they fall. It's also believed to be the reason stars and
planets take on a spirit KAL shape on a much larger scale.
Physical properties help us describe a substance as it could be observed through the
senses. But there are other properties that help us describe matter.
Chemical properties tell us about a substance and how it may
react with the outside world. Oxidation is a
chemical property that could cause some materials to rust.
Flammability is a chemical property that tells us how easily something
ignites and burns. The
potential of hydrogen or pH tells us how
strong and acid is like vinegar
or how strong an alkali it is like baking soda.
Mixing these two substances vinegar and baking soda
together causes a reaction due to a chemical property known as
reactivity. Another property matter exhibits
his radio activity. It sounds like it has something to do
with how quickly you changed between radio stations.
In reality, radio activity has to do with the way Adam's of a
substance. Umit particles, or waves of energy, is the
change. Over time, all the properties have mattered.
Physical and chemical have to do with Adams the way they
act and react with one another. The closer we come to
understand Adams and what makes them do what they do
better will understand ourselves, world
and the entire universe.
As much as we know or think we know about matter and
Adam's, there's still much, much more that we have left to learn.
We've never seen an Adam, and frankly, we're not even sure if there's
anything there to see. We know that there are smaller
particles that make up the already tiny parts of Adam's. But
what makes up the tiny parts that make up the tiny parts
and where does it end that we have yet to find out
all in good time, all in the science of things and