Reference: Postulate Mechanics
Have you ever wondered what everything around you is made of? Not just rocks and water, but also sunlight, and even your own thoughts? It turns out the universe is made of three big things: matter, energy, and thought.
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Matter
Matter is all the stuff you can touch and hold — like a rock, a chair, or a glass of water. It has a set shape and it stays put unless something moves it. That’s called inertia — it’s like how a heavy backpack doesn’t just fly off your desk on its own.
If you break matter into smaller and smaller pieces, you eventually get to something called an atom. Atoms are so tiny you can’t see them, but everything solid around you is made of them. If you break an atom apart even further, it stops acting like regular matter.
Matter can be solid (like ice), liquid (like water), or gas (like steam), depending on how hot or cold it is.
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Energy
Energy is the opposite of matter. Instead of sitting still, energy is always moving and spreading out. Think of light from the sun or the heat from a campfire — you can’t hold it in your hand, but you can definitely feel it.
Energy moves in waves, kind of like ripples on a pond. It comes in tiny packets called quanta (one is called a quantum). That’s the smallest “chunk” of energy possible.
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Thought
This one might surprise you — thoughts are a kind of substance too! You can’t touch a thought, but you can sense it in your mind. A thought starts as a tiny idea (called a postulate) and then grows into bigger ideas, theories, and conclusions as you think things through.
Thoughts have their own kind of “space” and “time” — like how a really big idea can feel like it fills up your whole mind, or how you can get stuck on a thought and just can’t let it go.
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Putting It All Together
Most scientists only think about matter and energy as “real” things. But this chapter says thoughts are real too — they are a third kind of substance that makes up the universe.
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