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We may have been wrong about the fundamental building blocks of the universe all along multicolored abstract painting
Matter is what makes up the universe, but what makes up matter? This question has long been tricky for those who think about it â especially for the physicists. Reflecting recent trends in physics, my colleague Jeffrey Eischenand I have described an updated way to think about matter. We propose that matter is not made of particles or waves, as was long thought, but â more fundamentally â that matter is made of fragments of energy.
From five to one
The ancient Greeks conceived of five building blocks of matter â from bottom to top: earth, water, air, fire and aether. Aether was the matter that filled the heavens and explained the rotation of the stars, as observed from the Earth vantage point. These were the first most basic elements from which one could build up a world. Their conceptions of the physical elements did not change