Jiansen Lu
As a matter of fact
June 16th 2008 11:13
I can remember clearly learning in science class during junior high school that there are 3 states of matter: solid, liquid and gas. Cool, easy, got it.
Although working in the field of science today, I've managed to avoid as much information about physics and chemistry as I can. I'm better at other things. Anyway it's obviously worked, because the other night at the pub someone mentioned something about a fourth state of matter - plasma. I thought, hey cool!
So when I came home to look this up, I was first of all happy to see that yes, there is a 4th state of matter! Plasma - a hot neutral gas composed of equal numbers of electrons and ions. Interestingly, plasma is the most common state of matter in the universe, filling the interplanetary and interstellar spaces, and being the constituents of stars. The difference between plasma and normal gas is that plasma, being made up of charged particles, is influenced by electric and magnetic fields, whereas normal gases are not.
The thing that surprised me was that, when looking this up, I stumbled across a website entitled "Chem4kids.com" that simply stated there are five states of matter, the fifth one being a rather obscurely titled "Bose-Einstein condensates"!
According to Wiki:
"a Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC) is a state of matter of bosons confined in an external potential and cooled to temperatures very near to absolute zero (0 K or -217.15 °C). Under such supercooled conditions, a large fraction of the atoms collapse into the lowest quantum state of the external potential, at which point quantum effects become apparent on a macroscopic scale."
Well all I can say is, if that's what they're learning on Chem4kids.com these days, I'm glad I graduated when I did!
Image from Wiki, showing a ball of expanding plasma.
Really Long Link
Although working in the field of science today, I've managed to avoid as much information about physics and chemistry as I can. I'm better at other things. Anyway it's obviously worked, because the other night at the pub someone mentioned something about a fourth state of matter - plasma. I thought, hey cool!
So when I came home to look this up, I was first of all happy to see that yes, there is a 4th state of matter! Plasma - a hot neutral gas composed of equal numbers of electrons and ions. Interestingly, plasma is the most common state of matter in the universe, filling the interplanetary and interstellar spaces, and being the constituents of stars. The difference between plasma and normal gas is that plasma, being made up of charged particles, is influenced by electric and magnetic fields, whereas normal gases are not.
The thing that surprised me was that, when looking this up, I stumbled across a website entitled "Chem4kids.com" that simply stated there are five states of matter, the fifth one being a rather obscurely titled "Bose-Einstein condensates"!
According to Wiki:
"a Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC) is a state of matter of bosons confined in an external potential and cooled to temperatures very near to absolute zero (0 K or -217.15 °C). Under such supercooled conditions, a large fraction of the atoms collapse into the lowest quantum state of the external potential, at which point quantum effects become apparent on a macroscopic scale."
Well all I can say is, if that's what they're learning on Chem4kids.com these days, I'm glad I graduated when I did!
Image from Wiki, showing a ball of expanding plasma.
Really Long Link
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keep it up Heidi