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What is everything made out of?

That seems like a simple question, and it also seems like a reasonable question.

I'd like to know what I'm made out of, what my food is made out of, what kittens are made out of, what lava is made out of. It's also an ancient question. I'd like to know what I'm made out of, what my food is made out of, what kittens

are made out of, what lava is made out of. It's also an ancient question. I think one that people

have been asking, since people have been asking, you know, any questions. The Greeks famous

for asking questions in their sexy robes thought that everything was made of earth, air,

water, and fire. And modern science,

of course, has made a lot of progress here and uncovered some pretty weird and kind of shocking

news about what everything is made out of. What seems like smooth and continuous matter is

actually made up of tiny little bits that are woven together into some extremely fine mesh.

And we are all made of the same basic bits, sum together to make me or you or kittens or lava,

the world is made of particles.

But our curiosity doesn't just end because we have that answer.

We want to know, what are these basic

bits? How do we think about them? What mental pictures should we have in our mind? Are they

tiny dots of stuff or rippling waves or some other concept that's too alien to even imagine?

And what does it tell us about the universe that these are its basic building blocks, or are they? So today

on Daniel and Kelly's extraordinary universe, we'll be tackling the basic yet confusing, the simple

yet deep, the important but impossible question, what is a particle. Welcome to Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe. I'm Kelly Weiner Smith. I'm a

parasitologist and I'm particularly excited to be here today.

You know, that might have been really cute if I had been able to pull it off, but I didn't.

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