ABSTRACT
The word ‘material’ usually suggests something useful or substantial or practical while ‘matter’ implies a more theoretical and fundamental point of view. However, convention rather than logic determines some of the word usages. The first decision to be made in formulating comprehensive models of materials for ourselves is whether matter is continuous and infinitely divisible, or whether in subdividing it we eventually reach a particle that is indivisible. Modern scientists derived the word ‘atom’ from the Greek atomos, ‘without cutting’. The Greek philosopher Anaxagoras was the subject of one of the first historically documented cases where a scientist was put on trial for beliefs in conflict with the currently accepted model. The development of a model of matter proceeds by successive approximation, providing a better fit for our observations as we refine it. Sometimes when scientists abandon a model they retain the terminology associated with it, a practice that tends to perpetuate a false model.
