5 STATES OF MATTER

You were probably thought in school that there are 3 states of matter- the Solid, Liquid and Gas; well, i'm not saying that those were wrong, but there are two more you might not be very familiar with, and they are;
1.The Bose-Einstein Condensates(BECs), and
2.The Plasmas.

As you know, the quantity that differentiates all states of matter is TEMPERATURE. This means that two different states do not exist at the same temperature for a particular substance, except for cases of change in state, of pure substances(e.g. Water changing to Ice, both at 0 degree centigrade). In other words, all these states of Matter exists at different temperature ranges as arranged below;
1) BECs: Close to absolute Zero, 0Kelvin or -273.15 degrees Centigrade i.e. Sub-Cooled.
2) SOLIDS: Relatively just cool to Warm.
3) LIQUID: Relatively warm to Hot
4) GASES: always Very Hot apart from natural gases that exists at room temperature.
5) PLASMAS: Superheated temperatures.

(Note: i didn't specify any given temperature because different substances exists naturally in different states at room temperature. E.g. At Room temperature, Iron is Solid, Water is Liquid, Oxygen is gas, mercury which is a metal like iron is also liquid.)

Now Let's briefly explain each of these with examples.

1. Bose-Einstein Condensates
This state is still under current study and more Nobel prize awards awaits people in this field.
It occurs at close to absolute zero temperatures, where almost all the elementary particles (called bosons) in a substance all settles and exists in the same quantum level (as opposed to Pauli's Exclusion Principle). Hence, the electrons in a BEC, all becomes almost identical.
E.g. of BECs are Superconductors, atoms of ribidium gas at 170nanoKelvin, etc.
BECs 'wrecks' a lot of chemistry principles and that of physics but they are the most ordered state of matter.
Read more on BECs here.

2.Solids
Are highly ordered state of matter with high restriction of motion. They do not flow, are more dense and has fixed shapes and volumes.
The tablet, phone or computer you are using now to read this is a solid.

3.Liquids
Liquids flows, are not very compressible and has a fixed volume but not fixed shaped - takes the shape of their container.
Milk is a liquid.

4. Gases
Gases are not very disorderly and moves randomly to fill any container they are placed in - in other words, they don't have fixed volume or shapes. Gases flows like liquids but is compressible.
Air is a mixture of gases.

5. Plasma
hmm, another interesting one. Anyway, plasmas are just ionized gases. They occur at super-heated temperatures where the molecules of gases starts getting charged.

Fact: Plasmas are the most abundant state of matter in the whole universe, wow.
Anyway, they deserve it since they make up more of space.
E.g. The air around a lightening, the gases in the light bulb, the core of the sun, stars, etc.

Hope you had fun learning? Drop your comments and questions.

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