University:
University of Cambridge
Course:
0653 IGCSE | Science - Combined
Academic year:

2022
Views:

24

Pages:

2
Author:

anon

IGCSE Coordinated Science: The Particulate Nature of Matter Demonstrate understanding of the terms atom and molecule. Nice easy topic. This topic is called the “Particulate Nature of Matter”. The smallest of this particulate matter is the atom. “The atom is the smallest particle of matter, and thus cannot be further divided into simpler substances”. Atoms are extremely small. It is impossible to see it with your naked eye. It’s small, but fundamental. Everything is made out of atoms. Your computer is made of an agglomeration of billions and billions of atoms. You are made out of atoms. Your exam paper. Obviously, you can have different types of atoms, and these different types of atoms are what form elements and compounds, but we will not be discussing that today. Now, what happens when a group of atoms bond together? We call these molecules. The molecules are actually held together b y covalent bonds, but we haven’t learned that yet. A good example of a molecule is hydrogen. As hydrogen is formed of 2 hydrogen atoms, hence making it a hydrogen molecule, we write hydrogen symbolically as: H2 Other examples of molecules are: I2, N2, Cl2, S8 Iodine, Nitrogen, Chlorine, Sulphur