Hey, StarTalkians, we've got yet another Things You Thought You Knew episode.

We're talking about small molecules, the temperature of light, and food gone bad.

Check it out.

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Do you have any idea how small molecules are?

Well, seeing as I can't see them, I'm going to say I do not.

Right. And even if you did say you knew,

I would say you didn't know. I'm just pulling rank here. I'm just saying molecules. I mean, think about it. Our understanding of the existence of atoms did not even come into age until the 20th century.

Atoms were still a hypothesis, right, that there'd be this sort of smallest unit of a material

called the atom. By the way, the word atom from the Greek means indivisible. So they imagined

that there was some individual minimal part of a thing.

But, of course, we bust atoms all the time.

So, no, they're not indivisible, but we kept the term.

Right.

We kept the term atom to describe the electrons, protons, neutrons,

the classical particles you learn about in high school chemistry and maybe physics.

So molecules are... particles you learn about in high school chemistry and maybe physics.

So molecules are, I could give an example, okay, and this is my favorite example of them all.

So I ask you, think about how much water there is in the world in all the oceans.

Okay.

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