PHP Objects & Static Methods 

(Object Oriented Programming)

Objects
In object-oriented programming (OOP), objects are the things you think about first in designing a program and they are also the units of code that are eventually derived from the process. ... Each object is an instance of a particular class or subclass with the class's own methods or procedures and data variables.

Static Methods
In object-oriented programming (OOP) the methods that belong to a class definition are called static methods. (Sometimes they are called class methods, but this is confusing.) A static method is part of a class definition, but is not part of the objects it creates. Important: A program can execute a static method without first creating an object!