Comments on Matter (Revised)

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In the classical physics observed in everyday life, matter is any substance that has mass and takes up space by having volume. This includes atoms and anything made up of these, but not other energy phenomena or waves such as light or sound. More generally, however, in (modern) physics, matter is not a fundamental concept because a universal definition of it is elusive; for example, the elementary constituents of atoms may be point particles, each having no volume individually.

Matter represents substance. Substance is something that can be felt and experienced. It is the essential aspect of any interaction. Without substance there can be no interaction, feeling and experience. Matter is one aspect of substance. The other aspect is field. An interface occurs between field and matter within an atom. In the atom we observe the field increasing in frequency toward the center, where it ends up as matter with mass.

Space is a manifestation of the extension property of field and matter. Without field and matter there is no space. The gaps between material objects are filled with gaseous matter and field. A vacuum is not entirely empty even when there are no atoms and molecules of gaseous material in it. There is still field in that vacuum for space to appear.

The idea that the fundamental constituents of atoms may be point particles is a mathematical conjecture. In reality, matter in atom reduces to field. The “volume” of matter reduces to cycles of field.

All the everyday objects that we can bump into, touch or squeeze are ultimately composed of atoms. This ordinary atomic matter is in turn made up of interacting subatomic particles—usually a nucleus of protons and neutrons, and a cloud of orbiting electrons. Typically, science considers these composite particles matter because they have both rest mass and volume. By contrast, massless particles, such as photons, are not considered matter, because they have neither rest mass nor volume. However, not all particles with rest mass have a classical volume, since fundamental particles such as quarks and leptons (sometimes equated with matter) are considered “point particles” with no effective size or volume. Nevertheless, quarks and leptons together make up “ordinary matter”, and their interactions contribute to the effective volume of the composite particles that make up ordinary matter.

Matter has shaped science’s viewpoint of reality. Even when field is discovered as a more basic substance, Science still uses matter as its reference point. This has led to considerable confusion in theoretical physics, which is now taken over by increasingly compartmentalized mathematical theories of Newton, Einstein and Quantum Mechanics.

Atom is not made up of point particles, but of field that is increasing in frequency toward the center of the atom. The “point particles” are high frequency regions of the field. The cycles of very high frequencies get compacted and appear as mass. Thus we have protons and neutron as regions of very high frequency and compactness at the core of the atom. The electrons are regions of relatively lower frequency and compactness that surround the nucleus of the atom.

Rest Mass is best understood as the inertia of a “particle”. Volume is best understood in terms of the cycles that make up the “particle”. Photons may be massless, but they are not inertia-less. They may not be matter but they are made up of cycles, which is the substance of field. Science, with its fixation on matter tries to evaluate field properties in terms of classical material properties of mass and volume. It refuses to go for a deeper understanding in terms of inertia and cycles. “Particles” such as quarks and leptons are mathematical conjectures that have not been encountered in reality.

Matter exists in states (or phases): the classical solid, liquid, and gas; as well as the more exotic plasma, Bose–Einstein condensates, fermionic condensates, and quark–gluon plasma.

These states of matter are essentially hybrids of field and matter.

For much of the history of the natural sciences people have contemplated the exact nature of matter. The idea that matter was built of discrete building blocks, the so-called particulate theory of matter, was first put forward by the Greek philosophers Leucippus (~490 BC) and Democritus (~470–380 BC).

Matter has been contemplated upon since the beginning of human consciousness.

Comparison with mass

Matter should not be confused with mass, as the two are not the same in modern physics. Matter is itself a physical substance of which systems may be composed, while mass is not a substance but rather a quantitative property of matter and other substances or systems. While there are different views on what should be considered matter, the mass of a substance or system is the same irrespective of any such definition of matter. Another difference is that matter has an “opposite” called antimatter, but mass has no opposite—there is no such thing as “anti-mass” or negative mass. Antimatter has the same (i.e. positive) mass property as its normal matter counterpart.

Mass is a quantitative property of matter. There is no such thing as “anti-mass” or negative mass.

Different fields of science use the term matter in different, and sometimes incompatible, ways. Some of these ways are based on loose historical meanings, from a time when there was no reason to distinguish mass from simply a quantity of matter. As such, there is no single universally agreed scientific meaning of the word “matter”. Scientifically, the term “mass” is well-defined, but “matter” can be defined in several ways. Sometimes in the field of physics “matter” is simply equated with particles that exhibit rest mass (i.e., that cannot travel at the speed of light), such as quarks and leptons. However, in both physics and chemistry, matter exhibits both wave-like and particle-like properties, the so-called wave–particle duality.

Matter is substance like field. Mass is a property like frequency.

Definition

Based on atoms

A definition of “matter” based on its physical and chemical structure is: matter is made up of atoms. Such atomic matter is also sometimes termed ordinary matter. As an example, deoxyribonucleic acid molecules (DNA) are matter under this definition because they are made of atoms. This definition can extend to include charged atoms and molecules, so as to include plasmas (gases of ions) and electrolytes (ionic solutions), which are not obviously included in the atoms definition. Alternatively, one can adopt the protons, neutrons, and electrons definition.

Matter and field are basic forms of substance. Matter is condensed field.

Based on protons, neutrons and electrons

A definition of “matter” more fine-scale than the atoms and molecules definition is: matter is made up of what atoms and molecules are made of, meaning anything made of positively charged protons, neutral neutrons, and negatively charged electrons. This definition goes beyond atoms and molecules, however, to include substances made from these building blocks that are not simply atoms or molecules, for example electron beams in an old cathode ray tube television, or white dwarf matter—typically, carbon and oxygen nuclei in a sea of degenerate electrons. At a microscopic level, the constituent “particles” of matter such as protons, neutrons, and electrons obey the laws of quantum mechanics and exhibit wave–particle duality. At an even deeper level, protons and neutrons are made up of quarks and the force fields (gluons) that bind them together, leading to the next definition.

Molecules, atoms, protons, neutrons, and electrons are all constituents of matter.

Based on quarks and leptons

As seen in the above discussion, many early definitions of what can be called ordinary matter were based upon its structure or building blocks. On the scale of elementary particles, a definition that follows this tradition can be stated as: ordinary matter is everything that is composed of quarks and leptons, or ordinary matter is everything that is composed of any elementary fermions except antiquarks and antileptons. The connection between these formulations follows.

Quarks and leptons as basis of matter can be better understood as durable condensations of the field.

Leptons (the most famous being the electron), and quarks (of which baryons, such as protons and neutrons, are made) combine to form atoms, which in turn form molecules. Because atoms and molecules are said to be matter, it is natural to phrase the definition as: ordinary matter is anything that is made of the same things that atoms and molecules are made of. (However, notice that one also can make from these building blocks matter that is not atoms or molecules.) Then, because electrons are leptons, and protons, and neutrons are made of quarks, this definition in turn leads to the definition of matter as being quarks and leptons, which are two of the four types of elementary fermions (the other two being antiquarks and antileptons, which can be considered antimatter as described later). Carithers and Grannis state: Ordinary matter is composed entirely of first-generation particles, namely the [up] and [down] quarks, plus the electron and its neutrino. (Higher generations particles quickly decay into first-generation particles, and thus are not commonly encountered.)

Quarks and leptons are mathematically postulated particles. It is interesting to note that the connection between field and matter is yet to be established by science.

This definition of ordinary matter is more subtle than it first appears. All the particles that make up ordinary matter (leptons and quarks) are elementary fermions, while all the force carriers are elementary bosons. The W and Z bosons that mediate the weak force are not made of quarks or leptons, and so are not ordinary matter, even if they have mass. In other words, mass is not something that is exclusive to ordinary matter.

Fermions are concentrated regions of the field. Bosons are gradients of frequency between these regions of the field.

The quark–lepton definition of ordinary matter, however, identifies not only the elementary building blocks of matter, but also includes composites made from the constituents (atoms and molecules, for example). Such composites contain an interaction energy that holds the constituents together, and may constitute the bulk of the mass of the composite. As an example, to a great extent, the mass of an atom is simply the sum of the masses of its constituent protons, neutrons and electrons. However, digging deeper, the protons and neutrons are made up of quarks bound together by gluon fields (see dynamics of quantum chromodynamics) and these gluons fields contribute significantly to the mass of hadrons. In other words, most of what composes the “mass” of ordinary matter is due to the binding energy of quarks within protons and neutrons. For example, the sum of the mass of the three quarks in a nucleon is approximately 12.5 MeV/c², which is low compared to the mass of a nucleon (approximately 938 MeV/c²). The bottom line is that most of the mass of everyday objects comes from the interaction energy of its elementary components.

Field has substance and its gains mass as it condenses. Both condensed regions of the field and increasing gradients of frequency have mass.

The Standard Model groups matter particles into three generations, where each generation consists of two quarks and two leptons. The first generation is the up and down quarks, the electron and the electron neutrino; the second includes the charm and strange quarks, the muon and the muon neutrino; the third generation consists of the top and bottom quarks and the tau and tau neutrino. The most natural explanation for this would be that quarks and leptons of higher generations are excited states of the first generations. If this turns out to be the case, it would imply that quarks and leptons are composite particles, rather than elementary particles.

The Standard Model is a classification that mathematically explains the interactions at particle level.

This quark-lepton definition of matter also leads to what can be described as “conservation of (net) matter” laws—discussed later below. Alternatively, one could return to the mass-volume-space concept of matter, leading to the next definition, in which antimatter becomes included as a subclass of matter.

The concept of mass-volume-space changes as substance shifts from matter to field.

Based on elementary fermions (mass, volume, and space)

A common or traditional definition of matter is anything that has mass and volume (occupies space). For example, a car would be said to be made of matter, as it has mass and volume (occupies space).

The confusion of space comes about because it is looked upon as independent of matter and not as the generalization of material dimensions.

The observation that matter occupies space goes back to antiquity. However, an explanation for why matter occupies space is recent, and is argued to be a result of the phenomenon described in the Pauli exclusion principle, which applies to fermions. Two particular examples where the exclusion principle clearly relates matter to the occupation of space are white dwarf stars and neutron stars, discussed further below.

The idea that matter occupies space is flawed. From matter to emptiness there is the gradient of field. Space is how we see the extensions of substance. The “empty space” that we see is actually the “invisible” field.

Pauli Exclusion Principle actually relates to the “extension” of condensed regions of fermions. Each fermion has its own extension defined by its quantum numbers.

Thus, matter can be defined as everything composed of elementary fermions. Although we don’t encounter them in everyday life, antiquarks (such as the antiproton) and antileptons (such as the positron) are the antiparticles of the quark and the lepton, are elementary fermions as well, and have essentially the same properties as quarks and leptons, including the applicability of the Pauli exclusion principle which can be said to prevent two particles from being in the same place at the same time (in the same state), i.e. makes each particle “take up space”. This particular definition leads to matter being defined to include anything made of these antimatter particles as well as the ordinary quark and lepton, and thus also anything made of mesons, which are unstable particles made up of a quark and an antiquark.

The antiparticle appears to be part of some interaction where particle reduces in condensation to a field.

In general relativity and cosmology

In the context of relativity, mass is not an additive quantity, in the sense that one can add the rest masses of particles in a system to get the total rest mass of the system. Thus, in relativity usually a more general view is that it is not the sum of rest masses, but the energy–momentum tensor that quantifies the amount of matter. This tensor gives the rest mass for the entire system. “Matter” therefore is sometimes considered as anything that contributes to the energy–momentum of a system, that is, anything that is not purely gravity. This view is commonly held in fields that deal with general relativity such as cosmology. In this view, light and other massless particles and fields are all part of “matter”

Mass is “high frequency cycles” that have become compacted. Both mass and frequency have energy as their common denominator.

Structure

In particle physics, fermions are particles that obey Fermi–Dirac statistics. Fermions can be elementary, like the electron—or composite, like the proton and neutron. In the Standard Model, there are two types of elementary fermions: quarks and leptons, which are discussed next.

Fermions are part of the substance, which is broadly represented by field and matter. Matter results from condensation of field; so we are basically looking at field as the spectrum of substance.

Quarks

Quarks are particles of spin − 1/2, implying that they are fermions. They carry an electric charge of − 1⁄3 e (down-type quarks) or + 2⁄3 e (up-type quarks). For comparison, an electron has a charge of −1 e. They also carry colour charge, which is the equivalent of the electric charge for the strong interaction. Quarks also undergo radioactive decay, meaning that they are subject to the weak interaction. Quarks are massive particles, and therefore are also subject to gravity.

Quarks are theoretical particles with postulated properties. They are simply dense regions of the field. Spin is eddy-like property of dense region. The charge represents one end of the frequency gradient.

Baryonic matter

Baryons are strongly interacting fermions, and so are subject to Fermi–Dirac statistics. Amongst the baryons are the protons and neutrons, which occur in atomic nuclei, but many other unstable baryons exist as well. The term baryon usually refers to triquarks—particles made of three quarks. “Exotic” baryons made of four quarks and one antiquark are known as the pentaquarks, but their existence is not generally accepted.

The strong interaction occurs between dense regions (of the field) of very high frequency gradient.

Baryonic matter is the part of the universe that is made of baryons (including all atoms). This part of the universe does not include dark energy, dark matter, black holes or various forms of degenerate matter, such as compose white dwarf stars and neutron stars. Microwave light seen by Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), suggests that only about 4.6% of that part of the universe within range of the best telescopes (that is, matter that may be visible because light could reach us from it), is made of baryonic matter. About 26.8% is dark matter, and about 68.3% is dark energy.

Dark matter and dark energy seem to relate to the field, which we see as “empty space”.

As a matter of fact, the great majority of ordinary matter in the universe is unseen, since visible stars and gas inside galaxies and clusters account for less than 10 per cent of the ordinary matter contribution to the mass-energy density of the universe.

The “empty space” is essentially made up of field that has a frequency less than that of baryonic matter.

Degenerate matter

In physics, degenerate matter refers to the ground state of a gas of fermions at a temperature near absolute zero. The Pauli exclusion principle requires that only two fermions can occupy a quantum state, one spin-up and the other spin-down. Hence, at zero temperature, the fermions fill up sufficient levels to accommodate all the available fermions—and in the case of many fermions, the maximum kinetic energy (called the Fermi energy) and the pressure of the gas becomes very large, and depends on the number of fermions rather than the temperature, unlike normal states of matter.

These are dense regions of the field clustering together.

Degenerate matter is thought to occur during the evolution of heavy stars. The demonstration by Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar that white dwarf stars have a maximum allowed mass because of the exclusion principle caused a revolution in the theory of star evolution.

These clusters have size limitation.

Degenerate matter includes the part of the universe that is made up of neutron stars and white dwarfs.

Strange matter

Strange matter is a particular form of quark matter, usually thought of as a liquid of up, down, and strange quarks. It is contrasted with nuclear matter, which is a liquid of neutrons and protons (which themselves are built out of up and down quarks), and with non-strange quark matter, which is a quark liquid that contains only up and down quarks. At high enough density, strange matter is expected to be color superconducting. Strange matter is hypothesized to occur in the core of neutron stars, or, more speculatively, as isolated droplets that may vary in size from femtometers (strangelets) to kilometers (quark stars).

Strange matter is a particular form of quark matter. It is theoretical.

Two meanings of the term “strange matter”

In particle physics and astrophysics, the term is used in two ways, one broader and the other more specific.

The broader meaning is just quark matter that contains three flavors of quarks: up, down, and strange. In this definition, there is a critical pressure and an associated critical density, and when nuclear matter (made of protons and neutrons) is compressed beyond this density, the protons and neutrons dissociate into quarks, yielding quark matter (probably strange matter).
The narrower meaning is quark matter that is more stable than nuclear matter. The idea that this could happen is the “strange matter hypothesis” of Bodmer and Witten. In this definition, the critical pressure is zero: the true ground state of matter is always quark matter. The nuclei that we see in the matter around us, which are droplets of nuclear matter, are actually metastable, and given enough time (or the right external stimulus) would decay into droplets of strange matter, i.e. strangelets.

Strange matter is the theoretical projection of matter under very high pressure.

Leptons

Leptons are particles of spin − 1⁄2, meaning that they are fermions. They carry an electric charge of −1 e (charged leptons) or 0 e (neutrinos). Unlike quarks, leptons do not carry colour charge, meaning that they do not experience the strong interaction. Leptons also undergo radioactive decay, meaning that they are subject to the weak interaction. Leptons are massive particles, therefore are subject to gravity.

The frequency gradient of these dense regions lies in lower gamma regions of the spectrum and it is less steep also.

Phases

In bulk, matter can exist in several different forms, or states of aggregation, known as phases, depending on ambient pressure, temperature and volume. A phase is a form of matter that has a relatively uniform chemical composition and physical properties (such as density, specific heat, refractive index, and so forth). These phases include the three familiar ones (solids, liquids, and gases), as well as more exotic states of matter (such as plasmas, superfluids, supersolids, Bose–Einstein condensates …). A fluid may be a liquid, gas or plasma. There are also paramagnetic and ferromagnetic phases of magnetic materials. As conditions change, matter may change from one phase into another. These phenomena are called phase transitions, and are studied in the field of thermodynamics. In nanomaterials, the vastly increased ratio of surface area to volume results in matter that can exhibit properties entirely different from those of bulk material, and not well described by any bulk phase (see nanomaterials for more details).

Phases are sometimes called states of matter, but this term can lead to confusion with thermodynamic states. For example, two gases maintained at different pressures are in different thermodynamic states (different pressures), but in the same phase (both are gases).

There exist more phases of matter than what we are normally familiar with.

Antimatter

In particle physics and quantum chemistry, antimatter is matter that is composed of the antiparticles of those that constitute ordinary matter. If a particle and its antiparticle come into contact with each other, the two annihilate; that is, they may both be converted into other particles with equal energy in accordance with Einstein’s equation E = mc². These new particles may be high-energy photons (gamma rays) or other particle–antiparticle pairs. The resulting particles are endowed with an amount of kinetic energy equal to the difference between the rest mass of the products of the annihilation and the rest mass of the original particle–antiparticle pair, which is often quite large. Depending on which definition of “matter” is adopted, antimatter can be said to be a particular subclass of matter, or the opposite of matter.

The concept of annihilation of matter appears to be an interactions that reduces the dense regions of field in frequency. The antimatter could be a region of the field that has a polarity opposite to the usual polarity.

Antimatter is not found naturally on Earth, except very briefly and in vanishingly small quantities (as the result of radioactive decay, lightning or cosmic rays). This is because antimatter that came to exist on Earth outside the confines of a suitable physics laboratory would almost instantly meet the ordinary matter that Earth is made of, and be annihilated. Antiparticles and some stable antimatter (such as antihydrogen) can be made in tiny amounts, but not in enough quantity to do more than test a few of its theoretical properties.

Antimatter seems to act like a highly reactive chemical that quickly exhausts itself.

There is considerable speculation both in science and science fiction as to why the observable universe is apparently almost entirely matter (in the sense of quarks and leptons but not antiquarks or antileptons), and whether other places are almost entirely antimatter (antiquarks and antileptons) instead. In the early universe, it is thought that matter and antimatter were equally represented, and the disappearance of antimatter requires an asymmetry in physical laws called CP (charge-parity) symmetry violation, which can be obtained from the Standard Model, but at this time the apparent asymmetry of matter and antimatter in the visible universe is one of the great unsolved problems in physics. Possible processes by which it came about are explored in more detail under baryogenesis.

There is no mystery. The situation is similar to the lack of highly reactive chemicals in our daily environment.

Formally, antimatter particles can be defined by their negative baryon number or lepton number, while “normal” (non-antimatter) matter particles have positive baryon or lepton number. These two classes of particles are the antiparticle partners of one another.

This “mystery” simply indicates some inconsistency in the mathematical theory at particle level.

In October 2017, scientists reported further evidence that matter and antimatter, equally produced at the Big Bang, are identical, should completely annihilate each other and, as a result, the universe should not exist. This implies that there must be something, as yet unknown to scientists, that either stopped the complete mutual destruction of matter and antimatter in the early forming universe, or that gave rise to an imbalance between the two forms.

This area is highly speculative. The mystery could be of our own making.

Conservation of matter

According to CP Symmetry, the two quantities that can define an amount of matter in the quark-lepton sense (and antimatter in an antiquark-antilepton sense), baryon number and lepton number, are conserved—or at least nearly so, considering CP violation. A baryon such as the proton or neutron has a baryon number of one, and a quark, because there are three in a baryon, is given a baryon number of 1/3. So the net amount of matter, as measured by the number of quarks (minus the number of antiquarks, which each have a baryon number of -1/3), which is proportional to baryon number, and number of leptons (minus antileptons), which is called the lepton number, is practically impossible to change in any process. Even in a nuclear bomb, none of the baryons (protons and neutrons of which the atomic nuclei are composed) are destroyed—there are as many baryons after as before the reaction, so none of these matter particles are actually destroyed and none are even converted to non-matter particles (like photons of light or radiation). Instead, nuclear (and perhaps chromodynamic) binding energy is released, as these baryons become bound into mid-size nuclei having less energy (and, equivalently, less mass) per nucleon compared to the original small (hydrogen) and large (plutonium etc.) nuclei. Even in electron–positron annihilation, there is actually no net matter being destroyed, because there was zero net matter (zero total lepton number and baryon number) to begin with before the annihilation—one lepton minus one antilepton equals zero net lepton number—and this net amount matter does not change as it simply remains zero after the annihilation. So the only way to really “destroy” or “convert” ordinary matter is to pair it with the same amount of antimatter so that their “matterness” cancels out—but in practice there is almost no antimatter generally available in the universe (see baryon asymmetry and leptogenesis) with which to do so.

There is definitely a bias in this universe that has created the electromagnetic spectrum of gradually condensing field that ends up in matter. The expectation of complete symmetry is, therefore, inconsistent.

There seems to be a balance between high density regions of the field converting to low density regions and vice-versa, with net existing as a spectrum.

Other types

Ordinary matter, in the quarks and leptons definition, constitutes about 4% of the energy of the observable universe. The remaining energy is theorized to be due to exotic forms, of which 23% is dark matter and 73% is dark energy.

Dark energy and dark matter have to be part of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Dark matter

In astrophysics and cosmology, dark matter is matter of unknown composition that does not emit or reflect enough electromagnetic radiation to be observed directly, but whose presence can be inferred from gravitational effects on visible matter. Observational evidence of the early universe and the big bang theory require that this matter have energy and mass, but is not composed ordinary baryons (protons and neutrons). The commonly accepted view is that most of the dark matter is non-baryonic in nature. As such, it is composed of particles as yet unobserved in the laboratory. Perhaps they are supersymmetric particles, which are not Standard Model particles, but relics formed at very high energies in the early phase of the universe and still floating about.

Dark matter could be condensed regions of the field that are not as dense as the known particles, but exist in the lower gamma region of electromagnetic frequency.

Dark energy

In cosmology, dark energy is the name given to source of the repelling influence that is accelerating the rate of expansion of the universe. Its precise nature is currently a mystery, although its effects can reasonably be modeled by assigning matter-like properties such as energy density and pressure to the vacuum itself.

These could be regions of the electromagnetic field that are lower in frequency than the gamma region.

Fully 70% of the matter density in the universe appears to be in the form of dark energy. Twenty-six percent is dark matter. Only 4% is ordinary matter. So less than 1 part in 20 is made out of matter we have observed experimentally or described in the standard model of particle physics. Of the other 96%, apart from the properties just mentioned, we know absolutely nothing.

— Lee Smolin: The Trouble with Physics, p. 16

The confusion is coming from the fixed idea that space is independent of matter and field. That is not so. Space is always accompanied by presence of field.

Exotic matter

Exotic matter is a concept of particle physics, which may include dark matter and dark energy but goes further to include any hypothetical material that violates one or more of the properties of known forms of matter. Some such materials might possess hypothetical properties like negative mass.

This seems to be a conjecture projected from an inconsistent mathematical theory of particle physics.

Historical development

Antiquity (c. 610 BC–c. 322 BC)

The pre-Socratics were among the first recorded speculators about the underlying nature of the visible world. Thales (c. 624 BC–c. 546 BC) regarded water as the fundamental material of the world. Anaximander (c. 610 BC–c. 546 BC) posited that the basic material was wholly characterless or limitless: the Infinite (apeiron). Anaximenes (flourished 585 BC, d. 528 BC) posited that the basic stuff was pneuma or air. Heraclitus (c. 535–c. 475 BC) seems to say the basic element is fire, though perhaps he means that all is change. Empedocles (c. 490–430 BC) spoke of four elements of which everything was made: earth, water, air, and fire. Meanwhile, Parmenides argued that change does not exist, and Democritus argued that everything is composed of minuscule, inert bodies of all shapes called atoms, a philosophy called atomism. All of these notions had deep philosophical problems.

The first confusion seems to be between matter and emptiness. It is difficult to visualize emptiness.

Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC) was the first to put the conception on a sound philosophical basis, which he did in his natural philosophy, especially in Physics book I. He adopted as reasonable suppositions the four Empedoclean elements, but added a fifth, aether. Nevertheless, these elements are not basic in Aristotle’s mind. Rather they, like everything else in the visible world, are composed of the basic principles matter and form.

For my definition of matter is just this—the primary substratum of each thing, from which it comes to be without qualification, and which persists in the result.

— Aristotle, Physics I:9:192a32

The word Aristotle uses for matter, ὕλη (hyle or hule), can be literally translated as wood or timber, that is, “raw material” for building. Indeed, Aristotle’s conception of matter is intrinsically linked to something being made or composed. In other words, in contrast to the early modern conception of matter as simply occupying space, matter for Aristotle is definitionally linked to process or change: matter is what underlies a change of substance. For example, a horse eats grass: the horse changes the grass into itself; the grass as such does not persist in the horse, but some aspect of it—its matter—does. The matter is not specifically described (e.g., as atoms), but consists of whatever persists in the change of substance from grass to horse. Matter in this understanding does not exist independently (i.e., as a substance), but exists interdependently (i.e., as a “principle”) with form and only insofar as it underlies change. It can be helpful to conceive of the relationship of matter and form as very similar to that between parts and whole. For Aristotle, matter as such can only receive actuality from form; it has no activity or actuality in itself, similar to the way that parts as such only have their existence in a whole (otherwise they would be independent wholes).

Matter forms as emptiness is “disturbed”.

Seventeenth and eighteenth centuries

René Descartes (1596–1650) originated the modern conception of matter. He was primarily a geometer. Instead of, like Aristotle, deducing the existence of matter from the physical reality of change, Descartes arbitrarily postulated matter to be an abstract, mathematical substance that occupies space:

Descartes arbitrarily postulated matter to be an abstract, mathematical substance that occupies space.

So, extension in length, breadth, and depth, constitutes the nature of bodily substance; and thought constitutes the nature of thinking substance. And everything else attributable to body presupposes extension, and is only a mode of extended

— René Descartes, Principles of Philosophy

For Descartes, matter has only the property of extension, so its only activity aside from locomotion is to exclude other bodies: this is the mechanical philosophy. Descartes makes an absolute distinction between mind, which he defines as unextended, thinking substance, and matter, which he defines as unthinking, extended substance. They are independent things. In contrast, Aristotle defines matter and the formal/forming principle as complementary principles that together compose one independent thing (substance). In short, Aristotle defines matter (roughly speaking) as what things are actually made of (with a potential independent existence), but Descartes elevates matter to an actual independent thing in itself.

Descartes postulated that extension is the property of matter and thinking is the property of thought; and the two are independent of each other. But to Aristotle, matter and thought were complementary principles.

For Aristotle, things were made of matter. But for Descartes matter was a thing in itself.

The continuity and difference between Descartes’ and Aristotle’s conceptions is noteworthy. In both conceptions, matter is passive or inert. In the respective conceptions matter has different relationships to intelligence. For Aristotle, matter and intelligence (form) exist together in an interdependent relationship, whereas for Descartes, matter and intelligence (mind) are definitionally opposed, independent substances.

For Aristotle, matter and mind exist as one. For Descartes, matter and mind are separate and opposite in nature.

Descartes’ justification for restricting the inherent qualities of matter to extension is its permanence, but his real criterion is not permanence (which equally applied to color and resistance), but his desire to use geometry to explain all material properties. Like Descartes, Hobbes, Boyle, and Locke argued that the inherent properties of bodies were limited to extension, and that so-called secondary qualities, like color, were only products of human perception.

Descartes argued that the inherent properties of bodies were limited to extension, and the so-called secondary qualities, like color, were only products of human perception.

Isaac Newton (1643–1727) inherited Descartes’ mechanical conception of matter. In the third of his “Rules of Reasoning in Philosophy”, Newton lists the universal qualities of matter as “extension, hardness, impenetrability, mobility, and inertia”. Similarly in Optics he conjectures that God created matter as “solid, massy, hard, impenetrable, movable particles”, which were “…even so very hard as never to wear or break in pieces”. The “primary” properties of matter were amenable to mathematical description, unlike “secondary” qualities such as color or taste. Like Descartes, Newton rejected the essential nature of secondary qualities.

To Newton the “primary” properties of matter were amenable to mathematical description, unlike “secondary” qualities such as color or taste.

Newton developed Descartes’ notion of matter by restoring to matter intrinsic properties in addition to extension (at least on a limited basis), such as mass. Newton’s use of gravitational force, which worked “at a distance”, effectively repudiated Descartes’ mechanics, in which interactions happened exclusively by contact.

Newton developed Descartes’ notion of matter by attributing to it the intrinsic properties of extension, hardness, impenetrability, mobility, and inertia. He was troubled by the notion of gravity as “action at a distance.”

Though Newton’s gravity would seem to be a power of bodies, Newton himself did not admit it to be an essential property of matter. Carrying the logic forward more consistently, Joseph Priestley (1733-1804) argued that corporeal properties transcend contact mechanics: chemical properties require the capacity for attraction. He argued matter has other inherent powers besides the so-called primary qualities of Descartes, et al.

Priestley argued that matter has other inherent powers besides the so-called primary qualities of Descartes.

Nineteenth and twentieth centuries

Since Priestley’s time, there has been a massive expansion in knowledge of the constituents of the material world (viz., molecules, atoms, subatomic particles), but there has been no further development in the definition of matter. Rather the question has been set aside. Noam Chomsky (born 1928) summarizes the situation that has prevailed since that time:

What is the concept of body that finally emerged?[…] The answer is that there is no clear and definite conception of body.[…] Rather, the material world is whatever we discover it to be, with whatever properties it must be assumed to have for the purposes of explanatory theory. Any intelligible theory that offers genuine explanations and that can be assimilated to the core notions of physics becomes part of the theory of the material world, part of our account of body. If we have such a theory in some domain, we seek to assimilate it to the core notions of physics, perhaps modifying these notions as we carry out this enterprise.

— Noam Chomsky, Language and problems of knowledge: the Managua lectures, p. 144

So matter is whatever physics studies and the object of study of physics is matter: there is no independent general definition of matter, apart from its fitting into the methodology of measurement and controlled experimentation. In sum, the boundaries between what constitutes matter and everything else remains as vague as the demarcation problem of delimiting science from everything else.

The primary boundary is between substance and emptiness. The substance starts out as a gradient of disturbance (change from emptiness) with increasing levels of disturbance as we see in the electromagnetic spectrum. The upper level of this spectrum solidifies into atom that forms the basis of matter.

In the 19th century, following the development of the periodic table, and of atomic theory, atoms were seen as being the fundamental constituents of matter; atoms formed molecules and compounds.

The common definition in terms of occupying space and having mass is in contrast with most physical and chemical definitions of matter, which rely instead upon its structure and upon attributes not necessarily related to volume and mass. At the turn of the nineteenth century, the knowledge of matter began a rapid evolution.

The extents of substance (field and matter) are generalized as space. The “empty space,” in reality, is the field.

Aspects of the Newtonian view still held sway. James Clerk Maxwell discussed matter in his work Matter and Motion. He carefully separates “matter” from space and time, and defines it in terms of the object referred to in Newton’s first law of motion.

Matter forms only the upper end of the electromagnetic spectrum. The extent of the field is perceived as the “empty space”. The duration of substance is perceived as time.

However, the Newtonian picture was not the whole story. In the 19th century, the term “matter” was actively discussed by a host of scientists and philosophers, and a brief outline can be found in Levere. A textbook discussion from 1870 suggests matter is what is made up of atoms:

Three divisions of matter are recognized in science: masses, molecules and atoms.
A Mass of matter is any portion of matter appreciable by the senses.
A Molecule is the smallest particle of matter into which a body can be divided without losing its identity.
An Atom is a still smaller particle produced by division of a molecule.

Matter is a specialed aspect of substance. The general aspect of substance is the field.

Rather than simply having the attributes of mass and occupying space, matter was held to have chemical and electrical properties. In 1909 the famous physicist J. J. Thomson (1856-1940) wrote about the “constitution of matter” and was concerned with the possible connection between matter and electrical charge.

All substance has inertia and frequency of cycles. For matter inertia is large and frequency of cycles is compacted into mass. All other properties can be explained from these two fundamental properties.

There is an entire literature concerning the “structure of matter”, ranging from the “electrical structure” in the early 20th century, to the more recent “quark structure of matter”, introduced today with the remark: Understanding the quark structure of matter has been one of the most important advances in contemporary physics. In this connection, physicists speak of matter fields, and speak of particles as “quantum excitations of a mode of the matter field”. And here is a quote from de Sabbata and Gasperini: “With the word “matter” we denote, in this context, the sources of the interactions, that is spinor fields (like quarks and leptons), which are believed to be the fundamental components of matter, or scalar fields, like the Higgs particles, which are used to introduced mass in a gauge theory (and that, however, could be composed of more fundamental fermion fields).”

The current description of matter is heavily theoretical.

In the late 19th century with the discovery of the electron, and in the early 20th century, with the discovery of the atomic nucleus, and the birth of particle physics, matter was seen as made up of electrons, protons and neutrons interacting to form atoms. Today, we know that even protons and neutrons are not indivisible, they can be divided into quarks, while electrons are part of a particle family called leptons. Both quarks and leptons are elementary particles, and are currently seen as being the fundamental constituents of matter.

Quarks and leptons are theoretical entities.

These quarks and leptons interact through four fundamental forces: gravity, electromagnetism, weak interactions, and strong interactions. The Standard Model of particle physics is currently the best explanation for all of physics, but despite decades of efforts, gravity cannot yet be accounted for at the quantum level; it is only described by classical physics (see quantum gravity and graviton). Interactions between quarks and leptons are the result of an exchange of force-carrying particles (such as photons) between quarks and leptons. The force-carrying particles are not themselves building blocks. As one consequence, mass and energy (which cannot be created or destroyed) cannot always be related to matter (which can be created out of non-matter particles such as photons, or even out of pure energy, such as kinetic energy). Force carriers are usually not considered matter: the carriers of the electric force (photons) possess energy (see Planck relation) and the carriers of the weak force (W and Z bosons) are massive, but neither are considered matter either. However, while these particles are not considered matter, they do contribute to the total mass of atoms, subatomic particles, and all systems that contain them.

The Disturbance theory sees particles (fermions) as made up of the frequency cycles of the field, and force carriers (bosons) to be made up of frequency gradients in the field.

Summary

The modern conception of matter has been refined many times in history, in light of the improvement in knowledge of just what the basic building blocks are, and in how they interact. The term “matter” is used throughout physics in a bewildering variety of contexts: for example, one refers to “condensed matter physics”, “elementary matter”, “partonic” matter, “dark” matter, “anti”-matter, “strange” matter, and “nuclear” matter. In discussions of matter and antimatter, normal matter has been referred to by Alfvén as koinomatter (Gk. common matter). It is fair to say that in physics, there is no broad consensus as to a general definition of matter, and the term “matter” usually is used in conjunction with a specifying modifier.

The basic building blocks of matter (substance) are the cycles of disturbance. Each cycle of disturbance is an oscillation between electrical and magnetic energies, just like a cycle of pendulum is an oscillation between kinetic and potential energies. Each cycle has energy equal to the Planck’s constant ‘h’.

Matter (substance) is basically a spectrum of cycles whose frequency is compacted into mass. The spectrum of substance goes from zero frequency (emptiness) to extremely high frequencies (mass). This spectrum may be looked upon as a field that is increasingly becoming dense. Solid matter lies at the upper end of this spectrum.

The history of the concept of matter is a history of the fundamental length scales used to define matter. Different building blocks apply depending upon whether one defines matter on an atomic or elementary particle level. One may use a definition that matter is atoms, or that matter is hadrons, or that matter is leptons and quarks depending upon the scale at which one wishes to define matter.

The wavelength and period of cycles shrink with increasing frequency. This is seen as the condensing of space (extents) and time (durations). Matter consists of highly condensed space and time that exists within extremely expanded space and time of field. The length scales of the two are not the same.

These different forces are frequency gradients that lie at different sections of the spectrum. Their position on the spectrum determines their nature as gravity, electromagnetism, weak interactions, and strong interactions. These gradients have different degrees also.

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