Question

What are the building blocks of matter?

Answer 1

Hint: Everything around us in the universe is made up of either one or a combination of fundamental substances called elements.

Complete answer:
An element is often called a pure substance because it cannot be created or dismantled by ordinary chemical reactions.
However, in the natural world, elements rarely occur alone, they combine via chemical bonds with other elements to form compounds.
Our body can build various essential chemical compounds using these elements but cannot itself build these elements from the scratch. These come from external sources like food, air and water.
For example, the food we eat is broken down via the process of digestion into small components - sometimes even elements. Elements cannot be broken down further. Some of the common elements abundantly found in the human body are - carbon (C), oxygen (O), hydrogen (H) and nitrogen (N).
All the unique properties of an element are retained in a tiny entity called an atom. Atoms are the smallest building blocks of an element and hence, that makes atoms the building blocks of matter.
Even atoms have now been found to be made of smaller particles called subatomic particles. These are mainly of three types - protons, neutrons and electrons.
Protons are positively charged subatomic particles found in the nucleus of the atom. Neutrons are also present in the nucleus however, they do not carry any charge. Both these subatomic particles give the mass to an atom.
Electrons are the negatively charged subatomic particles that spin around the nucleus. They do not contribute to the mass of an atom however, they can determine the overall charge or ionization properties of an atom.

Note:
All elements and compounds in nature are made of fundamental particles called atoms. These are the building blocks of matter.