Principles of Flight - Matter

Air - page 1

To begin our study of aerodynmics we should ask what seems like a strange question:

What is air?

We all know what air is. It's that stuff that surrounds us all the time that we walk through and breathe without even thinking about it. But scientists and engineers need a more precise definition than this so that we can measure and predict how air will behave.

Air is a type of matter. Matter is the technical term for the stuff all physical things is made of. Matter has two basic qualities.

It takes up space.
It has mass.

Matter typically exists in groups of atoms and molecules and can be in solid, liquid or gaseous forms. Air is a gas

	solids, liquids, and gases

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Last modified: Tue May 27 11:20:21 PDT 1997