'''Matter''' is the substance of which a physical object is composed. In
physics, it is everything that is constituted of elementary
fermions. All
gauge bosons (of which the
photon is one), which mediate the four fundamental forces, are thus not considered matter, even though they certainly have
energy and some also
mass.
Matter thus consists of
quarks and
leptons. Quarks combine to form
hadrons, primarily
baryons and
mesons, through the
strong interaction and are actually thought to be always thus confined. Among the baryons are the
proton and the
neutron which further combine to form the
nuclei of all
elements of the
periodic table. Usually these nuclei are surrounded by a cloud of
electrons. A nucleus with as many electrons as protons, which is thus electrically neutral, is called an
atom, otherwise it is an
ion.
Chemistry is the
science that studies how nuclei and electrons combine to form
compounds.
In
bulk, matter can be in several different phases, according to particle density and
energy density or alternatively
pressure and
temperature, such as
Bose-Einstein condensated,
superfluidic,
liquid,
fluidic,
gaseous,
solid and plasma. As circumstances change, matter may change from one phase to another. This phenomenon is called
phase transition and is studied in the field of
thermodynamics. In small quantities matter can exhibit properties which are entirely different from those of the bulk material.
See also
----
Matter, in the sense of
content, is also used in contrast to
form.
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