matter
Sign in to savethumb|Hydrogen in its plasma state is the most abundant ordinary matter in the universe.
AI overview
Matter is the physical stuff that makes up everything in the universe, from the objects around us to distant stars and galaxies, with hydrogen in its plasma form being the most common type. Understanding matter is fundamental to science because it helps us explain how the universe works and how things interact with each other.
AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.
Article
31 sectionsContents
- Related concepts
- Comparison with mass
- Relation with chemical substance
- Definition
- Based on atoms
- Based on protons, neutrons and electrons
- Based on quarks and leptons
- Based on elementary fermions (mass, volume, and space)
- In general relativity and cosmology
- Structure
- Quarks
- Baryonic
- Hadronic
- Degenerate
- Strange
- Two meanings
- Leptons
- Phases
- Antimatter
- Conservation
- Dark
- Energy
- Exotic
- Historical and philosophical study
- Classical antiquity
- Age of Enlightenment
- 19th and 20th centuries
- See also
- References
- Further reading
- External links
thumb|Hydrogen in its plasma state is the most abundant ordinary matter in the universe.
In classical physics and general chemistry, matter is any substance that has mass and takes up space by having volume. All everyday objects that can be touched are ultimately composed of atoms, which are made up of interacting subatomic particles. In everyday as well as scientific usage, matter generally includes atoms and anything made up of them, and any particles (or combination of particles) that act as if they have both rest mass and volume. However it does not include massless particles such as photons, or other energy phenomena or waves such as light or heat. Matter exists in various states (also known as phases). These include classical everyday phases such as solid, liquid, and gas – for example water exists as ice, liquid water, and gaseous steam – but other states are possible, including plasma, Bose–Einstein condensates, fermionic condensates, and quark–gluon plasma.