What's the MATTER with you?

Blog Post #1

(October 21, 2015)

Today we started our new unit, math and measurement. I knew right away that this was going to be one of my weaker units because of that dreadful 'M' word--Math. I was never the best at math. 

Aside from that, our lecture today was on matter, mostly a review from freshman year. 

There are different states of matter, but the three main ones are:

Solid

Liquid

Gas

There are also different types of properties:

Chemical - observed when changing into another substance

Physical - observed WITHOUT changing into another substance

Other key terms to know:

Homogeneous Mixture: A mixture which has uniform composition and properties throughout.

Ex; a teaspoonful of table salt stirred into a glass of water.

Heterogeneous Mixture: Any mixture that is not uniform in composition. Using various techniques, the parts in the mixture CAN be separated.

Example; a bowl of fruit loops cereal (cereal itself, milk)

Filtration: A technique used either to remove solid impurities from an organic solution or to isolate an organic solid.

Distillation: The separation of a liquid mixture into its components on the basis of differences in boiling points.

Chromatography: A process in which a chemical mixture carried by a liquid or gas is separated into components as a result of differential distribution of the solutes as they flow around or over a stationary liquid or solid phase.

(Crash Course on Solids)