• Question: What Is the Universe Made Of?

    Asked by 12parrk to Lyn, Katy, Paul, PB, Ruth on 21 Jun 2013. This question was also asked by 12swanb.
    • Photo: Peter Balfe

      Peter Balfe answered on 21 Jun 2013:

      Thanks to uncle Albert, and e=mc2, we can say energy…

    • Photo: Ee Lyn Lim

      Ee Lyn Lim answered on 21 Jun 2013:

      Deep, deep question! Many of the world’s best physicists are losing sleep over this 🙂

      At first we thought atoms. Then what are atoms made of? Protons, neutrons and electrons. But what are protons and neutrons made of? Quarks. And what are quarks made of…? That’s where it gets tricky.

      Like Peter said, we think they’re made of pure energy. It’s really hard to understand why we think that, and what experiments we can do to prove it, but here’s a video that tries to explain it in a simple way: http://www.phdcomics.com/tv/#007

    • Photo: Katy Brown

      Katy Brown answered on 25 Jun 2013:

      Well, everything on this planet is part of what the universe is made of! Plus all the other planets and stars. These are all ordinary matter, which makes up 4.9% of the universe. The rest is 26.8% dark matter and 68.3% dark energy, although these terms probably mean as much to you as to me!

    • Photo: Paul Waines

      Paul Waines answered on 25 Jun 2013:

      two things- energy and matter. Both come in many forms, depending on what aspect of the universe you are talking about, and physicists find it very hard to define the meaning of these words, but basically the universe is made of these two things, arranged and used in a multitude of ways…

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