Talk:State of matter

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someone posted "LOOK A FLYING MONKEY!!! Where's the thump-thump? I've got a jar of dirt!" in here, I tried to remove it but somehow this sentence is not showing up in the edit boxes?

I took care of that. We probably had an "edit conflict", that is, we both tried to edit the article at the same time and I was quicker on the draw. --Art Carlson 09:05, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Hey, i'm still seeing the flying monkey thing...

It probably got stuck in your cache. Try going to the page and then reloading it. --Art Carlson 08:47, 31 January 2007 (UTC)


Contents

[edit] States of Matter

Strange matter and especially the Quark-gluon plasma are not really a state of matter (not in the same sense as, liquids, gases, solids, and Bose-Einstein Condensates)

Shouldn't superfluids and "supersoilds" classify as a type of Bose-Einstein Condensate.74.15.1.123 01:44, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Gels are colloids, so they are mixture and don't belong here.209.62.171.141 (talk) 23:35, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Links to other languages

this article is written in many more

I added [[de:Aggregatzustand]], which already had a back-link to this article. Is there any way to search for inter-wiki links to a particular article? --Art Carlson 09:12, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

But wait! then aren't there seven states of matter?

  • BEC (Near absolute zero)
  • solid
  • liquid
  • gas
  • plasma (borderline between energy and matter)
  • Light (energy)
  • Beams (anything faster than the speed of light)

And then there would also have to be a stste below absolute zero I have no idea what do you think.

Then try reading the article.User:Art Carlson|Art Carlson]] 19:38, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dark matter

The article asserts "the most common state of matter in the universe is plasma", but shouldn't this be qualified somehow since we don't know what state dark matter is in? --TotoBaggins 20:43, 5 June 2007 (UTC)


Anyone know the temperature in which everything is a liquid or gas when warmer than?? (In other words, all solids are colder than that temperature.) Georgia guy 18:10, 8 July 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Question

A common question is how many states of matter are there. Well, can anyone put the answer in the article? Mfbabcock 22:29, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't think there is any definite answer, because there is no definite criterion as to what constitutes a new state of matter. Centuries ago only three were recognized, but now every few years someone decides that his/her favorite system has novel enough properties to be called a new state. Almost as bad as asking how many biological species exist. Dirac66 23:20, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Flansburgh vandalism

Obviously we need to get the John Flansburgh references out of this article if we want anyone to take it seriously at all.

Done. Dirac66 23:20, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Odd article

This feels like someone's taken up most of the article with the results of their own phD project. Am I missing something or would this information not be better organised by demerging the 'State-of-matter as a method of classifying musical instruments' section to its own article and creating something more meaningful out of combining the remnants of this one with the 'List of states of matter' article?

I'm not anything close to a physicist so I can't edit it myself, but as a casual reader it seems to be a very odd article indeed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mrcakey (talk • contribs) 20:20, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

I second your proposal. At the moment List of states of matter is a list with explanations and is in fact a better article on "States of matter" than this one. Dirac66 (talk) 01:30, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

I tried to clean up the article from a Chemistry Professor's perspective. I personally feel that talking about ones favorite phase as a new state of matter does a diservice to the field. 150.250.89.221 (talk) 15:11, 25 March 2008 (UTC)DJDahm

Can you reword this to avoid first-person pronouns? Also, you introduced a plastic state doesn't appear on List of states of matter, adding to the confusion, and linked to a dab page rather than like so: plasticity. However the description of heating a solid to make it flow sounds more like it would be better to link to glass transition temperature to me. Or maybe it would just be better to pick a different example that already appears in the list of states of matter, like liquid crystals? (I'm being critical here, but your edit is an improvement) Bazzargh (talk) 17:02, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The Plastic State

A problem is that the "List of Chemical States" article tends to be written as a Physicist sees things, and I have written things from a Chemist's perspective. The "plastic state" is a widely used term, but I don't have any "official" reference right now. You certainly get a lot of hits on Google. I don't want to mess with the "List" article site becasue its focus is quite different than this one. I could include in the description of the plastic state that there are two transitions: one which is between a solid (or glass) and a plastic, and the other a true melting state. Of course, many thermosetting plastics don't ever melt, they decompose. I just thought we needed an article that describes the "states of matter" in simple terms, and prepared the reader for the fact that they would sometimes see others, and to not make too much ot that. Should the title of the article be changed to read "States" instead of "State"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by DJDahm (talk • contribs) 18:09, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't disagree with any of this. The problem with plastic state is just that the audience you've aimed this at will be surprised when they find that plastic state isn't mentioned anywhere else on wikipedia, and why the plasticity article doesn't match the description here. I agree that something like this would be good though. That's why I'm suggesting using a different example, one for which we do have followup information to lead the reader in. Anyway I'm going to jump in and fix up the grammar/link issues, I'll leave the content alone for now. Bazzargh (talk) 21:45, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
Ok, done for now. The 'most important' and 'very weak' lines are somewhat questionable, but I wanted to leave the meaning as you wrote it. See WP:APT for some discussion about phrases like this in articles. A state of matter is just a name given to a behavioural approximation that works for many materials; solid, liquid, gas just happen to be the most useful at STP. Its worth pointing out that the nature of the plasma transition is different, though. Bazzargh (talk) 23:41, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Much Better. I've been looking through the literature for definitions of the "plastic state", and while the term is used, the definitions given tend to be for "plastics" (usually centering around something being "moldable"), and "plasticity". Rather frustrating. Do we need to go into glass transition temperatures and such? DJDahmDJDahm (talk) 06:32, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Not in detail, it would make the article too technical. But its difficult not to mention it in relation to this state, while still providing links to further detail. You could either avoid it by using a different example, or just use the phrase to link to the in-depth article. e.g.: Some solids have what is known as a glass transition temperature, similar to a melting point. When heated beyond this temperature they soften, and to some degree, flow, but don't seem to really take on the shape of their container like a liquid. Bazzargh (talk) 10:53, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Distribution diagram

Can you use this diagram in your article? :-) --81.27.125.210 (talk) 11:52, 16 April 2008 (UTC) (RokerHRO)

[edit] At temperatures slightly closer to absolute zero, it will attempt to 'climb' out of its container.

Is this because of superfluidity? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.111.77.24 (talk) 00:39, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes. This applies however to superfluid helium-4 and not to the gaseous Bose-Einstein condensate of rubidium made by Ketterle et al. I have revised this section to make the distinction between the two types of BE condensates. Dirac66 (talk) 16:31, 9 June 2008 (UTC)