States of matter
There are five main states of matter. Solids, liquids, gases, plasmas,
and Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC) are all different states of matter.
Each of these states is also known as a phase. Elements and compounds can move from one phase to another when specific physical conditions
are present. One example is temperature. When the temperature of a
system goes up, the matter in the system becomes more excited and
active. Scientists say that it moves to a higher energy state. Generally, as the temperature rises, matter moves to a more active state.
A gas is usually converted to a plasma in one of two ways, either from a huge voltage difference between two points, or by exposing it to extremely high temperatures.
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There are five main states of matter. Solids, liquids, gases, plasmas,
and Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC) are all different states of matter.
Each of these states is also known as a phase. Elements and compounds can move from one phase to another when specific physical conditions
are present. One example is temperature. When the temperature of a
system goes up, the matter in the system becomes more excited and
active. Scientists say that it moves to a higher energy state. Generally, as the temperature rises, matter moves to a more active state. |
| solid |
 |
| liquid |
 |
| gas |
The plasma state is often misunderstood,
but it is actually quite common on Earth, and the majority of people
observe it on a regular basis without even realizing it. Fire,
lightning, electric sparks, fluorescent lights, neon lights, plasma
televisions, and the stars are all examples of illuminated matter in the
plasma state.
A gas is usually converted to a plasma in one of two ways, either from a huge voltage difference between two points, or by exposing it to extremely high temperatures.
Heating matter to high temperatures causes electrons to leave the
atoms, resulting in the presence of free electrons. At very high
temperatures, such as those present in stars, it is assumed that
essentially all electrons are "free," and that a very high-energy plasma
is essentially bare nuclei swimming in a sea of electrons.
The collapse
of the atoms into a single quantum state is known as Bose condensation
or Bose-Einstein condensation is now considered a 5th state
of matter.
Recently,
scientists have discovered the Bose-Einstein condensate, which
can be thought of as the opposite of a plasma. It occurs at
ultra-low temperature, close to the point that the atoms are
not moving at all. A Bose-Einstein condensate is a gaseous superfluid
phase formed by atoms cooled to temperatures very near to absolute
zero. The first such condensate was produced by Eric Cornell
and Carl Wieman in 1995 at the University of Colorado at Boulder,
using a gas of rubidium atoms cooled to 170 nanokelvins (nK).
--Under
such conditions, a large fraction of the atoms collapse into
the lowest quantum state, producing a superfluid. This
phenomenon was predicted in the 1920s by Satyendra Nath Bose
and Albert Einstein, based on Bose's work on the statistical
mechanics of photons, which was then formalized and generalized
by Einstein.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_matter,
http://www.chem4kids.com/files/matter_states.html,
http://www.chem.purdue.edu/gchelp/atoms/states.html,
http://www.edinformatics.com/math_science/states_of_matter.htm )
A new state of matter
 |
| The unusual arrangement of cells in a chicken's eye, shown here,
constitutes the first known biological occurrence of a potentially new
state of matter known as 'disordered hyperuniformity' |
This new state of matter has been discovered in the eye of a chicken.
Gaze deeply into the eye of a chicken, and what do you see? Researchers at Princeton University and Washington University in
St. Louis say they see in the bird's eye the first known biological
occurrence of a strange state of matter known as "disordered
hyperuniformity.
("http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/26/chicken-eye-weird-state-of-matter_n_4854897.html)
 |
| The breakthrough was made by researchers studying minute light sensitive
cells known as cones responsible for the perception of colour. |
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