MadSci Network: Physics
Query:

Re: The fifth state of matter is BEC, not whatever you stated. Isn't it?

Date: Sat Jan 21 07:46:50 2006
Posted By: Bart Broks, Grad student, Department of Applied Physics
Area of science: Physics
ID: 1137370983.Ph
Message:

Hello CookieMonster,

Interesting question! You are asking whether the fifth state of matter is a quark-gluon plasma, or a Bose-Einstein condensate. I'll start by reviewing the first four states of matter.

The first state of matter is the solid state. You can recognize a solid because it has a fixed shape, and a fixed volume. Generally, matter is solid at low temperatures. The molecules in the substance are in a matrix, sometimes orderly, and sometimes not.

The second state of matter is liquid. A liquid has no fixed shape, but does have a fixed volume. The molecules are pretty loose, and can be rearranged pretty easily, but they are still so close that you can't compress them. Liquids can only exist in a particular range of pressures and temperatures. Carbon dioxide, or dry ice, does not have a liquid phase at normal pressures, for instance.

The third state of matter is a gas. A gas has neither a fixed shape nor a fixed volume. The molecules are very far apart, and barely notice each other's presence. If you cool or compress a gas, it may become a liquid or a solid again.

Okay, these states of matter have been pretty well-known since the dawn of mankind, and are in my opinion a bit boring. The fourth state of matter is the plasma state. Plasmas are like gases, but in a plasma, a significant fraction of the molecules are ripped up, and there are many charged particles. Plasma is also the state of matter I study for a living. The Sun is an example of a plasma, and so is lightning, and fluorescent lamps also contain a plasma. As you can see from these examples, plasmas are pretty energetic things! Calling plasma the fourth state of matter is pretty well entrenched, although some insist it's only an extension of the gas phase.

While man has only been able to manipulate plasmas for a short while compared to the other three states, it's still a pretty old state compared to the candidates for the fifth state of matter.

The Bose-Einstein condensate is a state of matter that is very, very cold. These atoms are also put in a very low energy state. Now, a quantum mechanical phenomenon may occur that had been predicted in the 20s by Bose and Einstein (hence the name). Basically, you can think of molecules being a bit fuzzy and squishy. Normally, they bounce so hard the little bit of squishy fuzziness doesn't matter, but if you make them VERY cold, they don't bounce much, and become like a big soft fuzzy blanket. In this blanket, the difference between "this" atom and "that" atom disappears. This state of matter was only created a decade ago, in 1995-it's quite new.

The quark-gluon plasma is almost the exact opposite. If you make matter extremely hot, and compress it, you rip it up completely-the molecules become atoms, the atoms lose their electrons, the core disintegrates, and even the particles that form the core, the quarks and gluons, get ripped up, and the whole thing fuses in to some sort of a huge mess, where, again, you can't really tell what this or that atom is. This state of matter may have been made in the 1980s and 1990s-we are not exactly sure. It is thought that the universe was a quark-gluon plasma the first microseconds after the Big Bang.

So, which one is the fifth state, and which is the sixth state? Well, they both haven't been around long enough to really entrench a name. And it doesn't really matter, either-it's just a cute name that's perhaps a bit easier to write than Bose-Einstein condensate or quark-gluon plasma. That leaves me at a formal answer for your question. I would not use the term "fifth state of matter", because it's a bit ambiguous, but if either is the fifth state, it's the Bose-Einstein condensate.

Hope you like this answer!

Regards,

Bart

[note added by MadSci Admin: Perhaps someday we will talk about a sixth state of matter, allowing the BEC to be the "fifth", and the QGP to be the "sixth". But what's in a name?]


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