• Question: If everything is made of atoms and atoms are made of electrons and they're made of positive and electric charges, is the world just made of charges?

    Asked by 522bdta32 to Anna, George, Jodi, Rob, Stefan on 17 Nov 2014.
    • Photo: George Ryall

      George Ryall answered on 17 Nov 2014:

      Atoms are made of Protons, Neutrons, and electrons. Protons have a positive charge and electrons have a negative charge.

      Protons and neutrons are actually made of smaller things called quarks (both are made of three quarks each). We believe electrons are a fundamental particle – they aren’t made of anything else.

      There are 6 types of quark – up, down, top, bottom, strange, and charm (sometimes top and bottom are called truth and beauty).

      There are also photons (which is what light is made of) and things called neutrinos (trillions of these pass through you every second). As well as these there are a few other particles that make up matter.

    • Photo: Anna Scaife

      Anna Scaife answered on 17 Nov 2014:

      I think you could say that everything is made of waves 🙂

      Quantum physics tells us that if we examine the smallest building blocks of matter then they can behave like particles and they can behave like waves. We call it “wave-particle duality”.

      So even though there are lots of different particles (positive, negative, neutral) that make up the normal matter in the world, all of those particles individually can behave like waves. So everything is made of waves 🙂

    • Photo: Jodi Schneider

      Jodi Schneider answered on 18 Nov 2014:

      That’s a really great question!

      Yes, you can divide up the world into smaller and smaller STUFF — until they can’t get any smaller, as George says.

      AND those small STUFFs act together (in waves), as Anna points out.

      So, yes and no…

    • Photo: Stefan Lines

      Stefan Lines answered on 18 Nov 2014:

      I agree with Anna. Everything is waves. Wavey… strings? See String Theory.

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