The Best Way to Tell What Something Is Made of Is to Blow It Up

If modern physics has taught us anything it is this. When you want to know what something is made of, you have three good options. You can smash it into something else at very high velocity, you can burn it, or you can blow it up. This has worked for everything from subatomic particles to asteroids. (Stars constantly do this to themselves for us.)

But the problem with this strategy is that you need at least two of whatever you are looking at. Because once you have analyzed the composition of some thing, it is not made of that stuff anymore.

Really, it's not made of anything anymore.