How Many States Of Matter Are There?

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Let’s talk about states of matter. You know your states of matter don’t you? We have solids, liquids and gasses, and plasmas, quark-gluon plasmas, nuclear matter, bose-einstein condensates, neutronium, time crystals, and sand. Come to think of it, maybe I don’t know my states of matter. Or what a state of matter even is. Let’s see if we can figure it out.

Enjoy Mark Rober’s Liquid Sand Hot Tub- Fluidized air bed

Enjoy ICMS’s Dynamics of Crowds

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Hosted by Matt O'Dowd
Written by: Fernando Franco Félix & Matt O'Dowd
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[pbsspacetime]

Hey Kids! Don't forget to stay hydrated and drink your H2O rather than than the Dioxygen Monohydrogen (O2H) as seen at 3:22! Well, I guess it's time to flip the old "Consecutive Episodes Without a Technical Error" Sign back to 0.

[crossroadsbymbed]

the one 2nd grader watching this is boutta get so much clout in science class

[renderproductions]

There maybe many states of matter, but in elections, there are really only a few states that matter

[kermitefrog]

And then there is the state of confusion. I only knew about 4 states of matter. This is fascinating to find out that there are more states of matter.

[godofmath]

I'm surprised at how few people have heard of plasma. Way back when I was in middle school, I remember us learning about solids, liquids, gases, and (to a lesser degree) plasma. Over time, I of course learned about the other states of matter, but I thought that just those four were elementary enough. It appears I was wrong.

[CATinBOOTS]

Nucleon as a frozen state of Quark-Gluon plasma is a fascinating concept that will change forever the way I look at the world. Epiphanies like this are the main reason I watch PBS Space Time. Thanks guys! 😄

[jhuyt-]

I find soap foam fascinating. A combination of a liquid and a gas that partially behaves like solid. Fun to play with too!

[peregrina]

Having survived four separate courses on thermodynamics for materials science - phase diagrams of solid state alloys all day long - no one did such a good job of explaining what we were actually trying to Also, the smashing snowballs analogy is glorious. Thank you!!

[getbonked]

3:21 Ah yes, my favourite molecule, HO2

[keithbromley]

If anyone reads this, here’s a fun question you can ask people: “Can you think of a system in which you mix a liquid and gas and get a solid WITHOUT any chemical reactions or change in temperature/pressure etc…?”

The answer is…



Whipped cream! The sneaky part is that cream at refrigerator temperature contains colloidal fat (a frozen emulsion if you like) and when you whip air into it those solid particles stabilize the air bubbles. When enough air bubbles are introduced a continuous structure-spanning interfacial solid network of fat droplets stabilizes the cream as a solid. If you keep whipping, the fat droplets aggregate further into clumps and the air bubbles are no longer stable. The fat droplets aggregate enough to phase separate, while the air is lost as nothing is stabilizing the bubbles any more. You’re left with a fat phase, which we call butter and an aqueous phase that we call buttermilk. Get yourself some heavy/double cream, a small plastic container, and a marble and churn your own butter in a matter of seconds!

Talking of cream and matter, ice cream is an interesting combination of states of matter. It’s a frozen emulsion stabilized foam embedded in a gel of ice crystals themselves embedded in a liquid sugar syrup. Delicious states of matter.

[MaceG]

This episode absolutely blew my mind.

Carl Sagan himself would be so proud of your work and that of the entire team. Thank you, Matt, and the entire PBS space-time crew. You truly shine a light into life and make this world better and more self aware. Thank you for your hard work!!

[spindash]

I think what I find weirdest is how “concrete” phase changes can be. Like, an ice cube doesn’t melt by slowing decreasing viscosity throughout as temperature goes up and pressure goes down. Instead, it just STOPS increasing in temperature and has ice more or less INSTANTLY change to water, which continues until there is no solid ice, and the liquid water can continue to increase in temperature

[lynthecookiek]

This is really cool and all, but the thing that I'm most impressed is that he explained how these very strange and abstract scientific concepts can be actually useful in your concrete everyday reality

[maxhaxx]

The snowball analogy for explaining particle collisions is the single best way of envisioning these experiments that I have encountered. Well done. I can see it perfectly.

[triplelmatt]

I never comment, but this is hands down the greatest quantum, physics and space channel out there. I have learned so much from you Matt! I I love how you explain and break things down to make it easier to understand. Just keep up the amazing work and I’ll be here every time you post a new video!

[obscurity]

There’s a chemistry kid on YouTube who did an amazing demo of a supercritical liquid. His channel is NileRed. He built a pressure chamber with a plexiglass porthole bolted to the side of it. You could actually see the liquid turn into a cloud and sort of float around inside the chamber. Very cool stuff.

[flipxd]

PBS is a blessing. As a casual science enthusiast, this content is so consumable and interesting, and thoroughly researched!

[webx]

Liquid Crystal would have been an interesting one to cover, too. Since it's one that occurs naturally and is present in our daily lives. Essentially a crystalline structure that allows cross-flow like a liquid while maintaining its crystalline state.

[jakkos-net]

I love this video! The description of temperature and pressure as summary statistics of a group of objects and then states as being emergent properties that arise when those statistics meet certain criteria immediately gave me a much more solid (heh) understanding of what states of matter are - something that countless years of education failed to do!

[chuckmoney]

It's wild when I went to school there was 9 planets, and 3 states of matter.