From my humble abode on 3rd Otswe Street
ENVIRONMENT
In a previous post I have attempted to define the term
natural environment. Broadly speaking the natural environment comprise of two
parts: living and nonliving things. All living things are made up of nonliving
matter, particularly carbon, so to grow or reproduce; they must take in more
carbon. Plants, for example, take it from carbon dioxide in the air during
photosynthesis, while animals get it either by eating plants, or by eating
other animals that have eaten plants. Living things are plants, animals and other
life form. Nonliving things are generally categorized as earth, water and atmosphere
(air).
MATTER
The New Webster Dictionary of the English Language (1965)
defines matter as: that which occupies space and which becomes known to us by
our senses. Another sense of the word offered by the same Webster Dictionary
is: that of which the whole sensible universe is composed. The word originates
in Old French-materia, French-matiere; from Latin material, matter, from root
of mother.
Analyzing the definitions:
v Matter occupies space;
v And it is known by our senses(5)-
feeling, taste, sight, hearing and smell
v The whole sensible universe is
composed of matter- this includes the environment
ATOM
The name atom comes from the Greek
ἄτομος (atomos, "indivisible") from ἀ-
(a-, "not") and τέμνω (temnō, "I cut"),[3] which means
uncuttable, or indivisible, something that cannot be divided fr.[4]
The atom is the smallest unit that defines the chemical elements and their isotopes. Every material object, or substance that can be touched and felt, is made up of atoms. Everything that is solid, liquid, or gas is made up of atoms. Atoms are tiny; their size is typically measured in picometers (trillionths of a meter). A single strand of human hair is about one million carbon atoms wide.[1]
Every atom is composed of a nucleus made of protons and neutrons (hydrogen-1 has no neutrons). The nucleus is in turn surrounded by a cloud of electrons. The electrons in an atom are bound to the atom by the electromagnetic force, and the protons and neutrons in the nucleus are bound to each other by the nuclear force. Over 99% of the atom's mass is in the nucleus. The protons have a positive electric charge, the electrons have a negative electric charge, and the neutrons have no electric charge. Normally, an atom's electrons balance out the positive charge of its protons to make it electrically neutral.
ELECTRON
Though the word atom
originally denoted a particle that cannot be cut into smaller particles, in
modern scientific usage the atom is composed of various subatomic particles. The constituent particles
of an atom are the electron, the proton and the neutron; all three are fermions. Under ordinary conditions, electrons are bound
to the positively charged nucleus (proton and neutron) by the attraction
created from opposite electric charges. If an atom have more or fewer electrons
than its atomic number, then it become respectively negatively or positively
charged as a whole; a charged atom is called ion.
PROTON
Protons have a positive charge
and a mass 1,836 times that of the electron, at 1.6726×10−27 kg. The number
of protons in an atom is called its atomic
number. Ernest Rutherford (1919) observed that nitrogen
under alpha-particle bombardment ejects what appeared to be hydrogen nuclei. By
1920 he had accepted that the hydrogen nucleus is a distinct particle within
the atom and named it proton.
NEUTRON
Neutrons have no electrical charge
and have a free mass of 1,839 times the mass of the electron,[33]
or 1.6929×10−27 kg,
the heaviest of the three constituent particles, but it can be reduced by the nuclear binding energy. Neutrons and protons
(collectively known as nucleons) have comparable dimensions—on the order of 2.5×10−15 m—although the
'surface' of these particles is not sharply defined.[34] The neutron was
discovered in 1932 by the English physicist James
Chadwick.
QUARK
In the Standard Model
of physics, electrons are truly elementary particles with no internal
structure. However, both protons and neutrons are composite particles composed
of elementary particles called quarks. There are two types of quarks in atoms, each having a
fractional electric charge. Protons are composed of two up quarks
(each with charge +2⁄3) and one down quark
(with a charge of −1⁄3). Neutrons consist of one up quark and two down quarks.
This distinction accounts for the difference in mass and charge between the two
particles.[35][36]
The quarks are held together by the strong interaction (or strong force), which is mediated by gluons. The protons and neutrons, in turn, are held to each other
in the nucleus by the nuclear force,
which is a residuum of the strong force that has somewhat different
range-properties (see the article on the nuclear force for more).
There are researches about quark–gluon plasma, a new (hypothetical) state of matter. There are also some recent experimental evidences that tetraquarks and glueballs exist.
So the substance of the matter is that the environment is made of matter, in that it is that of which the whole universe is composed of. Atom is the smallest particle of matter. Nonetheless the atom has subatomic particles: electrons, protons and neutrons. The protons and neutrons form the nucleus of the atom, and the electrons surround the nucleus. Protons and neutrons contain even smaller particles called quarks. Research is pushing into newer areas of tetraquarks and glueballs
Reference:
Answers.com
Webster Dictionary of the English Language (1965)
En.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atom
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