In this video, we're going to begin our lesson on atoms, which are the smallest unit of matter. Now the term "matter" is used by scientists to refer to anything that takes up space and has mass. So this includes all living organisms like me and you, but also nonliving things too like rocks and oceans and the device that you're watching this video through. Pretty much anything that takes up space and has mass will be matter. So matter is really, really, really broad, and it's going to be at the top here of our lesson for that reason. It includes living and nonliving things. Now all matter, regardless of if it's living or nonliving, is going to be made up of at least one chemical element, and that's exactly what we're saying right here. It's gonna be made up of at least one chemical element. Now, the term "chemical element" is defined as a pure substance that's made up of only one type of atom. Over here in our image, you can see that all matter is made up of at least one chemical element, and chemical elements are made up of atoms. And so the atom can therefore be defined as the smallest unit of an element. Now, because atoms make up elements and chemical elements make up matter, we can also define the atom as the smallest unit of matter, and that's exactly what we're saying right here and up above in our title.
Now once again, atoms are going to make up both living and nonliving matter. So let's take a look down below at our example image to get a better idea of some of these concepts. Notice on the far left over here, we're showing you an image of a diamond and of a honeybee in this plant. Now, the diamond and the honeybee, because they both take up space and have mass, they're both considered types of matter. Now the diamond of course is going to be nonliving matter, whereas the honeybee and the plant are going to be living matter. Now if we zoom into the diamond here, which you can see is the diamond structure that we're showing you over here, which is made up of all of these C's that we see here. And these C's represent a type of element, and so it's made up of just one type of element which is the element carbon, which is abbreviated with just a C. Now, if we zoom into one of these chemical element symbols, one of these C's, what you'll see is that it is a carbon atom. And so here on the far right, we're showing you a representation of a carbon atom.
Now, in our next video, we're going to talk more about the structures and properties of atoms. But for now, you should notice that nonliving matter like diamond is gonna be made up of at least one chemical element, and the smallest part of a chemical element is going to be the atom itself. Now similarly, down below with the honeybee and the plant, when we zoom into one of its chemical structures, you can see that it's going to have a sugar like, for example, glucose, which is a sugar that can be found in these living organisms. And what you'll notice is that this glucose structure over here actually has multiple types of elements. In fact, it has 3 types of elements: it has the same carbon element as the diamond, but then it also has the element oxygen and the element hydrogen, and you can see those throughout this glucose structure here. Now if we zoom into just one of the chemical elements of hydrogen here, what you'll see is that the smallest unit of this element is a hydrogen atom. And so this is the representation of the hydrogen atom. And once again, we'll talk more about the components of the atom and the properties of the atom moving forward in our course.
But for now, this here concludes our introduction to how atoms are the smallest unit of matter. And once again, the biggest takeaway is that all matter is going to be made up of chemical elements, and the smallest unit of a chemical element is the atom. So I'll see you guys in our next video.