Philip Panicker: There are presently 5 states of matter that are accepted by some circles. The 5th one being Bose-Einsteinian condensate, that is, the state of certain matter at temperatures close to 0 Kelvin. This state has been observed only very recently, as predicted by Eistein and Bose in the 1920s. Many accept plasma as a 4th state of matter because we cannot use the theories used in gas dynamics to model plasma behavior. We use new empirical models for plasma modelling but nevertheless the theories we have do give us good approximations and predictions. And the plasma cosmologists are able to model cosmological phenomenon and make accurate predictions, suggesting that plasma cosmology is indeed a better system than the mainstream cosmological belief systems of big bang theorists. Many school textbooks will only list 3 states of matter, but those who work more closely with plasma will put it in its own class. Charles White: The " Bose-Einstein condensate is taught even less to be state of matter unto itself than even plasma is. Plasma which is nothing more than ionized gas is really an event that happens when the atoms in a gas become super hot. Bose-Einstein Condensate is actually the opposite. It is once again a GAS that the atoms have become super cold. So cold that the atoms are said to bond together in more of a glop forming one super atom as they are no longer on motion. In reality it would look more like across between a solid and a extremely dense liquid. Many want to break plasma and B.E.C. down and reclassify them scientifically as their own states, because of the process in which they come into existence and how they appear in a structural model, but the main reason that not everyone accepts them as their own states of matter is because they still can be subjected on the surface to qualify as one of the original three states of matter.
Posted on: Tue, 11 Jun 2013 21:47:04 +0000