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Aliza
Student
Bihar, Bihar, India
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Question
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States of matter
Can there be more than 5 states of matter on earth.
And what actually is plasma and B.C.E states of matter
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2 answers
Joseph Neilson
Radiation Detection Physicist
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Oxford, England, United Kingdom
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Joseph’s Answer
Yes, there are more states of matter. There's several states that don't neatly fit into the "conventional" states - like liquid crystal, which has a crystal structure like a solid but can still flow like a liquid. Have a look at States of matter on somewhere like Wikipedia to find several more.
A plasma is like a gas, but given more energy to the point that the electrons are stripped away from the atoms, leaving ionised nuclei (ions). That means it is affected much more by electromagnetic fields.
A Bose-Einstein Condensate (BEC) is a bizarre quantum-mechanical state. It's formed from a gas, but at very low density and cooled to near absolute zero. In normal states of matter, each atom will have a different amount of energy and a different quantum wavefunction to describe it; but in a BEC, atoms are so cold they are in the lowest energy quantum state, becoming identical to each other, so quantum effects that usually only apply to individual atoms can apply to the whole BEC at larger scales.
However, I might add that this is a careers website - if you want to know more about states of matter, perhaps another question site like Physics Stack Exchange would be a better place to ask for more detail. If you would like to know something specific about getting into physics applications or research as a career, feel free to ask here.
A plasma is like a gas, but given more energy to the point that the electrons are stripped away from the atoms, leaving ionised nuclei (ions). That means it is affected much more by electromagnetic fields.
A Bose-Einstein Condensate (BEC) is a bizarre quantum-mechanical state. It's formed from a gas, but at very low density and cooled to near absolute zero. In normal states of matter, each atom will have a different amount of energy and a different quantum wavefunction to describe it; but in a BEC, atoms are so cold they are in the lowest energy quantum state, becoming identical to each other, so quantum effects that usually only apply to individual atoms can apply to the whole BEC at larger scales.
However, I might add that this is a careers website - if you want to know more about states of matter, perhaps another question site like Physics Stack Exchange would be a better place to ask for more detail. If you would like to know something specific about getting into physics applications or research as a career, feel free to ask here.
Thomas Holt
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Thomas’s Answer
There certainly could be additional states of matter beyond the five that are typically recognized (solid, liquid, gas, plasma, and Bose-Einstein condensate). However, it is difficult to say definitively what those might be because our understanding of the physical world is constantly evolving. For example, just a few hundred years ago we did not even know about plasma or Bose-Einstein condensates!
One possibility for a sixth state of matter could be something akin to a quark-gluon soup. This is a state in which quarks and gluons are deconfined and can move freely throughout space. This state is thought to have existed immediately after the Big Bang.
One possibility for a sixth state of matter could be something akin to a quark-gluon soup. This is a state in which quarks and gluons are deconfined and can move freely throughout space. This state is thought to have existed immediately after the Big Bang.