The 5th State of Matter
Explaining the Bose-Einstein condensate
Almost everyone knows the three states of matter: solid, liquid, and gas.
We learn about them in middle school during science class and we constantly interact with them in our day-to-day life. Each of these three states have their own unique physical properties based on the interactions between the atoms that they are made up of.
Beyond these three “core” states, some of us are also familiar with a fourth state of matter, plasma.
Like gas, plasma has no fixed shape or volume. The density of plasma is also less intense than that of a solid or liquid. However, plasma is set apart from these states because of a particular trait that manifests within the individual atoms themselves.
For context, the atoms of a gas contain neutral molecules and atoms. In other words, the net charge is 0; it is neither positive or negative.
With plasma though, its atoms are charged. For example, when an atom loses an electron (or two or three), the atom becomes ionized. Having a missing electron, the ion’s positively charged protons outnumber the negatively charged electrons. As a result, the plasma is made up of positive atoms and negative electrons.
