The Structure of Matter

Abstract

The physical chemistry we have presented so far is concerned with objects and actions comparable to the human scale: meter, kilogram, second. Physical chemistry is fairly successful in describing this, macroscopic, world. To understand the properties of materials at atomic scale you have to reduce the size of everyday objects by billionfold or more, to nanometer (10⁻⁹ m), piconewton (10⁻¹² N), or attosecond (10⁻¹⁵ s). Physicists have taught us how to look at this world and we have come a long way toward understanding matter and energy at atomic scale. Then there is the middle world (“Middle Kingdom”), where actions are neither atomic nor macroscopic but mesoscopic – from mesos, Old Greek for middle – and where objects measure tens or hundreds of nanometers; therefore nanoscience and nanotechnology. This is a matter of intensive current study.