Author:
Laura McKinney
Date Of Creation:
7 August 2021
Update Date:
10 May 2024
Content
We usually speak of three states of matter:
- Solid: The particles are held together by strong attractive forces that prevent them from moving around. They have a constant shape and volume, although they can expand (increase in volume when heated) or contract (decrease in volume when cooled).
- Liquid: Particles are held together with forces a little weaker than in solids, so they can move around. They have constant volume. Their shape adapts to the container that contains them.
- Gases: The particles have almost no attractive forces that bind them together. They move quickly and in any direction. Its shape and volume adapts to the container that contains them.
In addition, there are two other states that are not commonly mentioned:
- Bose-Einstein Condensed State. It was first observed in 1955. They are superfluid gases cooled to temperatures close to absolute zero.
- Plasma state: Plasma is the state that certain substances reach at low temperatures and extremely high pressures. Under these circumstances, the impact between the electrons is very violent, causing them to separate from the nucleus.
That is to say that in the plasma there is a mixture of positive nuclei and free electrons. That is why it is a state in which electricity conduction.
Examples of plasma state
- Sun: Like other stars, the sun is a plasma heated by nuclear fusion.
- Solar winds: movements in the sun's atmosphere.
- Nebulae: made up of gases, mainly hydrogen and helium.
- TV or monitor screens: Plasma displays contain neon and xenon gases.
- Fluorescent tubes: inside there is mercury vapor.
- Electric arc welding: can be done under gas protection.
- Rockets: the rockets eject materials in plasma state.
- Fusion reactors: inside, the matter it is in the plasma state.
- Plasma lamps- Invented by Nikola Tesla to investigate high voltage.
- Lightning bolts: During a thunderstorm, we can observe the plasma state in lightning that looks like lightning bolts.
- Ionosphere: the part of the Earth's atmosphere that lies between the mesosphere and the exosphere.
- Northern Lights: luminescence that occurs in the night sky, usually in polar areas.
It can serve you: Examples of Solids, Liquids and Gases
