Wikijunior:Particles/Introduction

Wikijunior:Particles
	Introduction	Matter

Everything is made of matter. Almost everything, that is. There are two criteria that determine whether something is composed of matter:

Matter must have mass;
Matter must take up space.

As you know, air takes up space. Therefore, air is matter. In fact, if you were hot enough you could turn into gas too, just like air. That will be explained later.

Here are some other examples of matter:

You
Other living things
Your schoolbag
Your science textbook

However, not everything is made up of matter. Here are some common exceptions:

The light that comes out of lamps
The sound from your radio

But how does this all link to particles? As you will learn later, matter is made up of particles. Since almost everything around us is made of matter, learning about particles is essential in explaining further topics. This book will help you begin your quest by introducing the properties of particles and explaining the types of objects made up from matter. This book is based on the curriculum of chapter 6 of form one in Hong-Kong, but you don't have to be a Hong-Kong-er to read this book!

Using this book

Children can use this book in a number of ways.

To find out more about our world and fulfill their curiosity.
As a set of notes for studying and future reference.
To use within the curriculum of a class.
And pretty much anything else that you can think of.

If you are reading this book as an e-book on page Wikibooks, feel free to edit or modify this book! If you are reading this offline or as a pdf, the url of this book is http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikijunior:Particles.