What is Matter? bY Ben smithhart

Defining Matter?

Matter is something that has mass and takes up space. It also involves texture, color, smell, etc. Matter can be water, food, rocks, rubber, etc. It involves pure substances and mixtures. Here's a link giving information and a video describing what matter is. http://www.visuallearningsys.com/catalog/title/VLC191

Pure Substances.

A pure substance is one of the things that makes matter. Their are more than one substances that makes matter like tin, sulfur, diamond, water, pure sugar, but they are all made out of elements. If their is only one type of atom in a substance. Then they only have one element. If its two or more different atoms. Its a compound. Also, if they are bonded together, it would be called a molecule.


An element is many thing like salt, sugar, sulfur. But they all have one thing in common. If they are one single element then they have only one type of atoms.


A compound is a element with two or more different atoms. Like carbon dioxide and sodium chloride.

Here's a example of the difference of a element and a compound. If you want to know more about pure substances. http://www.softschools.com/examples/science/pure_substances_examples/476/


Heterogeneous Mixture

A heterogeneous mixture is made of different substances that remain physically separate. Heterogeneous mixtures always have more than one phase (regions with uniform composition and properties). A mixture of sand and sugar is a heterogeneous mixture. A hetergeneous mixture is like oil and water. lf you look at the picture above, you can see that the dirt settles to the bottom of the glass. As you can tell, their is two different substances which involves suspension. Which is a heteregeneous mixture.


Suspension is when a particle or element is put into some thing like water, it will eventually settle down to the bottom of the glass and separate from the water. An example is, if you go to a beach and mix sand and water in a bucket you will form a suspension. Given time, the sand will settle on the bottom of the bucket to leave clear water.

If you would like to learn more on heterogeneous mixture. Go to http://chemistry.about.com/od/chemistryglossary/g/Heterogeneous-Mixture-Definition.htm

Homogeneous Mixture

Homogeneous is when to substances are mixed together where they blend into where you cannot tell the difference substances apart. Like the picture of milk above, it is milk mixed with chocolate. You cannot tell the to substances apart. Which also involves solution and colloid.


a liquid mixture in which the minor component (the solute) is uniformly distributed within the major component (the solvent). Just like the example of milk and chocolate above.



If you would like to know more about homogeneous mixture, go to http://chemistry.elmhurst.edu/vchembook/106Amixture.html


Created with images by skeeze - "milky way andromeda stars" • James St. John - "Gold mass (alluvial gold) (Kalgoorlie region, Western Australia) 1"

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