MATTER JUST ISN'T WHAT IT USED TO BE! Or so we might believe, in light of evolving views within the world of physics. It wasn't that long ago we were all taught that matter was a fairly substantial thing.
Recently, while talking with a physicist in England, I was confronted with the casual comment that matter is more a mathematical probability than simply the thing that looks and feels so definite. And then a friend in California who is an astrophysicist explained that when I push against the wall, well, I haven't really made contact with something solid. I'm just getting a little push back from some resisting electrons. And of course, quantum physics raises questions about just how much of a role the observer may actually be playing when he thinks he is seeing an independent object across the room!
OK, maybe matter isn't what we always assumed. But I'll bet these guys who are redefining what we've all felt pretty sure about over the last couple of hundred thousand years, pull those material covers up to their chins on a cold winter night, just like I do! And like the rest of us, they will depend on what seems a fairly substantial spoon when having a bowl of soup.
