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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.
The charged particles channel into plasma’s distinctive electrical and magnetic properties. Manmade applications with plasma include neon lights and particular types of flat-screen TVs. In nature, plasma’s special characteristics are responsible for natural phenomena like aurora borealis.
Neat, huh? But if my calculations are correct, that’s only four states of matter.
The fifth state is something new altogether.
Unlike solids, liquids, gases, and even plasma, this fifth type of matter does not occur naturally. It’s completely manmade! And it’s not necessarily made on Earth either.
The fifth state of matter, the Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC), originated in a correspondence between the German-born physicist Albert Einstein and Indian physicist, Satyendra Nath Bose.
In 1924, Bose was working to tackle the principles of how light and matter interacted with each other. Bose challenged the foundation of Planck’s…
