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Methods of Changing Matter

Matter can be changed or combined in three different ways, by :

  •Physical mixture - in which the molecules remain unchanged but are moved around to form mixtures, solutions, and colloids (for example, water and salt form salty water and molecules of nitrogen, oxygen and other gases form air).
  •Chemical reactions - which rearrange the atoms to form different molecules (for example, molecules of gaseous hydrogen can be combined with molecules of gaseous oxygen to form liquid water).
  •Nuclear reactions - which rearrange and possibly transform subatomic particles to create different atoms (for example, fusion in the Sun's core, in which hydrogen nuclei are crushed together to form helium nuclei).


All matter is composed of molecules. Molecules are composed of atoms, which consist of a nucleus surrounded by a cloud of electrons. The nucleus is composed of protons and neutrons, which are themselves composed of quarks.

Each of the above-mentioned methods of changing matter involves rearranging constituents of the substances - from rearranging molecules, to rearranging atoms, to rearranging subatomic particles.


Go to Phases of matter

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