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Definition of matter
I realize that I'm bringing up a sore topic here. However, it is definitely ridiculous to retain a Newtonian definition of matter such as "anything that has mass and volume." This is especially true now that the very definition of space is becoming a hot new theoretical topic. Additionally, even Einsteinian views of relativity would render this definition as obscure and maybe even unnecessary, seeing as light also has effective mass (), and volume by definition is the occupation of space.
), and volume by definition is the occupation of space.
Instead, I would suggest we go along with a variation of Pauling's definition:
" any kind of mass-energy that moves with velocities less than the velocity of light."
In General Chemistry, Pauling was specifically contrasting matter to light, or radiant energy, so this definition would be overly confined in an article solely concerning matter. However, the actual idea can be used to formulate a more precise definition for this article by synthesizing this articles definition with Pauling's. I suggest the following:
"Matter is any kind of mass-energy that occupies space and moves through it with velocities lower than the speed of light."
☲Fireyair☲ (talk) 03:35, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
- You are arguing from the assumption that there is one single correct definition of matter. In particular you are arguing that that definition should be formulated to explicitly exclude light, while there is a significant community (mostly people working in GR or cosmology) that would count light as a form of matter. They basically define matter as "anything that causes spacetime curvature."TimothyRias (talk) 07:20, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
- I am not suggesting to define matter in that sense. The very idea of defining matter is through the implication that it significantly different from the only other form of energy in the universe; that is, light. Matter has always been defined as opposed to light. It is perfectly obvious from Einstein that matter and light are manifestations of the same central element. However, matter by definition is that which acts differently from light. Of course you can define light as matter, or matter as a light: they are one and the same after all!Think of it this way: if light were a type of matter, then the so called "speed of light" would actually be a speed of matter. Yet we still claim that matter cannot travel at the speed of light! Obviously, there is an emergent difference between energy manifested as light and energy manifested as matter. Whether this difference is intrinsic becomes an irrelevant philosophical issue. It's like distinguishing between a substance in the solid phase and one in the liquid phase. ☲Fireyair☲ (talk) 22:39, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
- You are still arguing that we need to adopt a single definition of matter as the "correct" definition in this article. That would be a violation of NPOV, since there are different equally valid definitions. Sometimes the term matter is used to distinguished from light, at other times matter is used to distinguish from spacetime and includes anything that "exists in spacetime" including light. The latter definition by the way is much closer to Aristotle's concept of matter. (His context was the discussion whether empty space was nothing). TimothyRias (talk) 08:02, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
- I acually think the main thing to know about the term "matter," is that it doesn't have a good scientific definition, and any reader needs to start from THAT fact. When you use the word, you may think you know what you're talking about, but many others will not, so stay away from it. After we get that essential problem out of the way, we can talk about some history and some suggested definitions by various people, and then leave it as one of those words that isn't nearly as useful as many laymen probably thought it was. SBHarris 00:49, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
- I completely agree. It would be an enormous help for this article if we could find a source that makes exactly that point. Otherwise, we are somewhat in a shady WP:SYNTH area with citing multiple sources providing incompatible definitions. TimothyRias (talk) 09:24, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
- I can only observe that dispite WP:SYNTH, a certain amount of synthesis is unavoidable in writing WP articles, and this is of that sort. If there are a number of views out there, the entire job of the encyclopedist is to summarize, present, and synthesize them into an article! Anything else would be somebody else's encyclopedia article, and plagiarism. I don't think it's any more unwikipedian to say that there are a number of different non-compatible views on the definition of matter, any more than any other routine job we do when writing an article (or a dab page, or a many-part definition on Wikionary). SBHarris 02:38, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
- I agree, it is somewhat unavoidable. Still it would be a great help for the article if there was an authoritative source backing the statement that there isn't a good scientific definition. Otherwise, you will keep on having authors arguing that there is one correct unifying definition, of which the others are just special cases, etc. But if we can't find such a source then we clearly have to fall back on the next best thing. TimothyRias (talk) 09:47, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
- I can only observe that dispite WP:SYNTH, a certain amount of synthesis is unavoidable in writing WP articles, and this is of that sort. If there are a number of views out there, the entire job of the encyclopedist is to summarize, present, and synthesize them into an article! Anything else would be somebody else's encyclopedia article, and plagiarism. I don't think it's any more unwikipedian to say that there are a number of different non-compatible views on the definition of matter, any more than any other routine job we do when writing an article (or a dab page, or a many-part definition on Wikionary). SBHarris 02:38, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
- I completely agree. It would be an enormous help for this article if we could find a source that makes exactly that point. Otherwise, we are somewhat in a shady WP:SYNTH area with citing multiple sources providing incompatible definitions. TimothyRias (talk) 09:24, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
- I acually think the main thing to know about the term "matter," is that it doesn't have a good scientific definition, and any reader needs to start from THAT fact. When you use the word, you may think you know what you're talking about, but many others will not, so stay away from it. After we get that essential problem out of the way, we can talk about some history and some suggested definitions by various people, and then leave it as one of those words that isn't nearly as useful as many laymen probably thought it was. SBHarris 00:49, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
- You are still arguing that we need to adopt a single definition of matter as the "correct" definition in this article. That would be a violation of NPOV, since there are different equally valid definitions. Sometimes the term matter is used to distinguished from light, at other times matter is used to distinguish from spacetime and includes anything that "exists in spacetime" including light. The latter definition by the way is much closer to Aristotle's concept of matter. (His context was the discussion whether empty space was nothing). TimothyRias (talk) 08:02, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
- I am not suggesting to define matter in that sense. The very idea of defining matter is through the implication that it significantly different from the only other form of energy in the universe; that is, light. Matter has always been defined as opposed to light. It is perfectly obvious from Einstein that matter and light are manifestations of the same central element. However, matter by definition is that which acts differently from light. Of course you can define light as matter, or matter as a light: they are one and the same after all!Think of it this way: if light were a type of matter, then the so called "speed of light" would actually be a speed of matter. Yet we still claim that matter cannot travel at the speed of light! Obviously, there is an emergent difference between energy manifested as light and energy manifested as matter. Whether this difference is intrinsic becomes an irrelevant philosophical issue. It's like distinguishing between a substance in the solid phase and one in the liquid phase. ☲Fireyair☲ (talk) 22:39, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
To avoid a nonce introduction here, I took a crack at writing a basic definition:
- ..and simply put, refers to the atoms and any particle which has mass, or to any subatomic particle (as a constituent of an atom) regardless if it itself has mass or not.
The ways by which things are conceptualized evolves over time, and thus occasionally present contradictions, but from an explanation point of view, its more important to associate matter -> mass, than it is to explain how in cosmological terms, even light has cumulative effects on curvature, and so on. Important, certainly, but perhaps also an abuse of the term "matter." -Stevertigo (w | t | e) 16:46, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
Lede
Trias' new lede is quite good. But the passage: "A common way of defining matter is as anything that has mass and occupies volume" - needs perhaps a little more detail, as "volume" is rather a strictly 3-d concept that, while simple, does not typically indicate what its ultimately talking about, which is dimension. -Stevertigo (w | t | e) 19:00, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
Defining matter
The Penrose approach “Matter is that which comprises physical objects – the “things” of the world” appears in this version of the article. It is a bit vague, but that isn't bad considering the long evolution of the concept described in the history section and the extensive discussion of definitions in the definitions section. It seems useful to have a lead-in formulation that can encompass all the later discussion and definitions.
Although the mass and volume definition is widely quoted, I believe the just-mentioned sections in this article very clearly establish that the popular meaning is not satisfactory for many purposes. For one thing, it is pointed out in the quarks & leptons section that mass attaches to particles that are not matter. The turn of the century history section makes clear that this mass and volume definition lost its authority some time ago, being incomplete at best, even in the late 19th century.
For these reasons, IMO the mention of this definition in the intro is simply to reflect common usage, but it shouldn't suggest in any way that this definition has any more solid support than being a popular conception.
Thus, I support this version. Brews ohare (talk) 14:36, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
- Our job is to reflect what is 'widely quoted' rather than one editor's opinion as to the truth ... abtract whose keyboard is capput
- Hi Abtract: Well, that's part of the job anyway. And it is one thing to point out the commonly used definition, and it is another thing to venerate it.
- However, I'm learning with these things that sometimes they can be changed for a short time because nobody is looking, but anything that attracts more than a couple of editors is a lost cause. The careful deliberations of the past are forgotten, the hair splitting is water under the bridge, the beautiful resolutions of detail are a thing of the past. So fogetaboutit, that's my motto. Brews ohare (talk) 01:00, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
- Problems arise when multiple sources make conflicting statements. In that case, ideally we find an authoritative source that deals specifically with the different views. If no such source is available, then we are left with trying to assert which source is more authoritative. In this case I'd say that the Penrose reference is much more authoritative than the statement in a condensed matter physics textbook since the latter is: a) written by a less prominent author b)deals with a limit context 3) for an audience with limited knowledge. (In the later source a discussion of matter in a context of quantum physics and relativity would be a hopeless digression which its audience would not be expected to follow.) As such, I see a strong case for putting the admittedly vague definition of Penrose first, quoting the volume/mass definition later as a common example of a more exact but not universal definition of the concept.TimothyRias (talk) 10:51, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
Some suggestions for improvement of this page.
Here are some ideas for how this page could be improved in general:
- Increase focus on the structure and properties of matter rather than the definition. The definition of matter is typically vague. This makes it hard to say something about the topic within WP guidelines. A general reader coming to this page, will however be less interested in esoteric discussions of how exactly matter is defined, then just hearing about its properties.
- The "Structure of matter" section could be restructured to have more of a large to small scale flow. That is start with the structure compounds, a move to increasingly fine structure like molecules, atoms, subatomic particles, etc. This has the advantage of starting with material that is fairly accessible and slowly moving to more involved theories, leaving space at the end to discuss speculative ideas about even finer structure of matter. (Like strings)
- Much of the material in some of the definition subsection about building blocks, probably would be better at home in the structure section.
- The phases section has become a long laundry list of different possible phases. This article is not about phases however, we have a dedicated article for that phase (matter). This section should be brought down to a more concise and to the point summary of the phase (matter) article.
TimothyRias (talk) 15:00, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
- Sounds good. Need any help? Sebastian Garth (talk) 16:32, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
- The only problem with the "building blocks" or "particulate theory" is that it includes only ordinary matter. However, in its favor, it describes the entire history of the topic up to the introduction of dark matter and dark energy, which is still a very mysterious topic. In other words, we have many centuries to attest to the power and fascination of the "building block" concept. As such, the "building blocks" approach makes a good framework for the various segments of the article, and it is nicely organized around this idea. A different organization around "structure and properties" at this stage is a "gleam in Timothy's eye" and needs to be fleshed out here to show it has some organizational capacity. Brews ohare (talk) 17:45, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
- Dark matter is assumed to made out of "building blocks" just like any other type of matter. The building blocks of dark matter are different then from "ordinairy matter". Dark energy is slightly complicated as its nature is completely unknown. For example, it may turn out that it takes the form of a pure cosmological constant and should be considered part of the gravitational sector of the theory rather than part of the matter sector. If it is to be part of the matter sector then it is likely to have building blocks as well.TimothyRias (talk) 22:51, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
- The only problem with the "building blocks" or "particulate theory" is that it includes only ordinary matter. However, in its favor, it describes the entire history of the topic up to the introduction of dark matter and dark energy, which is still a very mysterious topic. In other words, we have many centuries to attest to the power and fascination of the "building block" concept. As such, the "building blocks" approach makes a good framework for the various segments of the article, and it is nicely organized around this idea. A different organization around "structure and properties" at this stage is a "gleam in Timothy's eye" and needs to be fleshed out here to show it has some organizational capacity. Brews ohare (talk) 17:45, 18 August 2010 (UTC)