All About Elements

I think the easiest way to explain this, these are the building blocks of nature, of our universe.

And, but wait, wait a minute, Mr. O'Keefe.

I, I thought atoms were the building blocks of our universe.

And yes, the smallest piece of anything around us is an atom, but here's the point about these atoms.

There's specific types of atoms, and that is an element, and those elements, there's only 118 of them, and they make up everything.

From, yes, the three different phases of matter.

They're in solids, liquids, and gases.

So we're gonna learn everything about these elements, what atoms are, how they're different, how they work together, and basically, how is it that all these elements create everything around us.

We'll also learn about its history.

How is it that we came to know all these? We identified and could see different elements, like gold and silver, right through to ancient times, but there's so many that we have not been able to, even to this day, identify.

So hold on.

Stay with me.

Hey, I don't have all the answers.

There's no way I have the answers.

I'm always learning, and if there's anything that you can get out of my podcast, is just be curious.

Look to learn more.

Yes, all this is so fascinating, and if you look back on chemistry class or you just have these horrible memories, I hope I can just get rid of them because this is so fascinating.

So everything that you can think of, the basics, protons, neutrons, electrons, molecules, isotopes, ions.

I- i- ions? What's goin' on? They all sound complicated, but they're not.

Each describes something easily that we can all understand.

So what is an element? It's a pure substance made up of only one kind of atom.

Again, the smallest unit of anything in matter is an atom.

But what identifies a element is it's a certain type of atom.

For example, gold is an element.

Oxygen is an element.