Scientists couldn’t have thought of a better word than ‘matter’ when they use it to describe the material that the universe is made up of.
Do you know why?
To give more meaningful definitions, scientists observe things like an investigator would. Yeah, that’s what scientists do. They turn detectives and become really good at it when they want to find something or come up with reasons to support their theories.
Let’s do the same.
Look around at the things you can see. The objects in the room and outside. Think about the objects you can’t see. The far away planets, stars and galaxies. Every living and non-living thing is a part of this universe. Right?
Compare these wide range of objects. What are their features? Do they have colour? Are they of definite shape? What about their size and weight? And their form?
An investigator’s list would look something like this:
- Table - Has colour, has a definite shape, is smooth, opaque, heavy, big.
- Car - Has colour and shape, made of different parts, very heavy, bigger.
- Trees - Have colour and shape, very heavy, big.
- Planets - Coloured, spheres, very very heavy and gigantic.
- Toys - Are colourful and of different shapes, light, small.
All these objects in the list have some common features. They have:
- Colour
- Shape
- Texture
- Size
- Weight
What about water and air? They don’t have colour and neither are they of definite shape. And other gasses and substances? New kinds of material have to be considered too. Then there are so many very tiny objects in this universe that we cannot see with our naked eyes like bacteria, molecules, atoms. What about them?
To take all the possible objects into account, we’ll have to revise our list of common features. Colour and shape have to be crossed out.
We are left with:
- Size
- Weight
Every object in this universe carries some weight and is of some size, however tiny, indefinite or invisible it might be.
But it’s not easy to comprehend what size means here, specially for gasses, liquids and molecules.
Can we think of a way to help us understand what size means for all objects?
Since all objects have some size they surely must occupy some space no matter how small or big. This means that all objects occupy space. This gives us a common feature for all objects in terms of space (by volume).
If you look at the second feature, weight; we can’t use it because weight depends on the gravity of a place. For example, a rocket weighing 1000 tons on Earth is about 165 tons on Moon and 380 tons on Mars because the gravity is different on each of these places.
What can we use in place of weight then?
A quantity that remains the same anywhere in the universe and that’s mass, because mass is independent of gravity.
Hence, we can conclude that all objects in this universe occupy space and have mass; and help in making the universe.
But why use the word ‘matter’ and not ‘objects’ to describe the material that makes the universe?
The word ‘matter’ originated from the Latin word ‘materia’ that was used for referring to materials used in construction. Centuries ago, people must have started using matter to refer to materials used in the construction of universe and it stuck.
Moreover, objects can be composed of different materials/substances. Like a car is made up of different components and materials. Therefore, it makes more sense to use the word ‘matter’ to describe the materials that make everything in the universe.
Thus, the universe is made up of matter. And matter is anything that has mass and occupies space (in terms of volume).
Point of note
Another point of doing this investigation is to show and know that instead of following something scientific or unscientific blindly, we can reverse the steps to verify logically that whatever has been stated as a fact or is being considered true is factually correct and not wrong or fabricated. Nothing should be taken at it’s face-value unless you can verify the information yourself, not even stuff that scientists propose, media publishes or social networks publicise.
Though it might not be possible to cross-check everything, there are people who dig the truth out when they have serious doubts about something that is in their field of interest or domain and do the impossible.
Have doubts? Raise questions, find answers.