Matter and you

Hello world (and students),
It has been far too long since my last post! We have now been talking about the little parts of matter for a long time now. Just to put it back in perspective, everything you see and to involves matter! One interesting thing I remembered today while looking at this picture was that everything is interconnected. The way that sodium interacts with the element chlorine is based on its electrons and its size. Without these atoms our brains wouldn't function and our food wouldn't taste very good. The way carbon can make 4 bonds with other atoms makes it the backbone of every protein, fat, and carb that you eat. The way that oxygen craves a few atomic buddies makes water, and gives it the unique properties it has. And all these atoms can be traced back to the big bang 14 billion years ago. Complex atoms like iron, uranium, and Silicon were born from exploding stars. We are one piece in a puzzle of shifting, cooling, changing matter in the long long long history of the universe. You should feel pretty special to be made of 7,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 atoms. You are breathing the same oxygen that was used in George Washingtons DNA, and you are drinking the same water that some one celled organism absorbed 3 billion years ago as life was just beginning on Earth. You are important, take care of what you have. Science can help us appreciate our place in the world.

Smith