# Tag Info

## Hot answers tagged states-of-matter

149

The premise is wrong. Not all materials exist in exactly three different states; this is just the simplest schema and is applicable for some simple molecular or ionic substances. Let's picture what happens to a substance if you start at low temperature, and add ever more heat. Solid At very low temperatures, there is virtually no thermal motion that ...

46

The next approximation beyond the ideal gas is given by the Van der Waals fluid equation. It is a phenomenological law which takes into account the finite size of the molecules and their interactions with themselves. When you plot several Van der Vaals isotherms for a given substance, you observe that some of them show a phase transition from gas to liquid ...

38

Here is an explanation that needs no explicit equations. Consider the following diagram, in which part1 and part2 represent the ice. The displaced water volume equals part2 volume and has as much mass as (part1+part2) Now look at what happens when both part1 and part2 melt: their mass does not change, it is (part1+part2) it becomes water. And we just ...

36

Good question. Assume we have one cube of ice in a glass of water. The ice displaces some of that water, raising the height of the water by an amount we will call $h$. Archimedes' principle states that the weight of water displaced will equal the upward buoyancy force provided by that water. In this case, $$\text{Weight of water displaced} = m_\text{... 34 Play-Doh is mostly flour, salt and water, so it's basically just (unleavened) dough. There are a lot of extra components like colourings, fragrances, preservatives etc, but these are present at low levels and don't have a huge effect on the rheology. The trouble with saying it's basically just dough is that the rheology of dough is fearsomely complicated. ... 32 The ultimate answer to a "why" physics question is "because". Physics is about observing and measuring nature and then finding mathematical models that fit the measurements and predict new behaviors under different conditions. Because we have observed these four states of matter. we have formulated mathematical theories called thermodynamics and quantum ... 28 Plasma is described as the 4th state of matter, which is what you get if you give so much temperature that the molecules begin to break up and ionize into positively and negatively charged fragments. Another Claim on the title '4th State of matter' is a 'supercritical fluid'. Sometimes people draw phase diagrams with it to show this '4th state of matter'. (... 26 Our physics prof once put it informally that way: A state is a set of variables describing a system which does not include anything about its history. The set of variables (position, velocity vector) describes the state of a point mass in classical mechanics, while the path how the point mass got from point A to point B is not a state. 23 Getting from gas to liquid is a matter of interparticle interaction winning over thermal agitation. There are several reasons why interparticle interactions are very weak in the case of helium atoms. On one hand, it is a noble gas and thus cannot form covalent bonds. On the other hand, it is very light hence highly non-polarizable: its Van der Waals ... 22 The definition of a state of a system, in physics, strongly depends on the area of physics one is dealing with and it comes as one of the initial definitions once such underlying theory has to be set up. In particular one has: classical mechanics: a state of a system is a point m\in TQ (or equivalently T^*Q) in the tangent bundle of the configuration ... 21 Fire is neither. Fire is a process involving both. Fire is the energetic combination of various substances with oxygen to release light and heat. In a gas fire, such as might be found on a stove or in a heater, a light hydrocarbon such propane is broken down into components of hydrogen and carbon which unite with oxygen from the atmosphere to form water ... 17 Basically the existence of different states of matter has to do with Inter-molecular forces, Temperature of its surroundings and itself and the Density of the substance. This image below shows you how the transition between each states occur (called Phase transitions). These transitions occur based on the change in temperature of the substance Now if ... 12 In simple terms, there isn't any space in the ice crystal lattice for the extra atoms and there is no way to plug either of the ions (or the whole salt molecule) into the growing pattern. So more and more water joins the frozen mass, leaving a more and more concentrated brine until essentially all the water is frozen and the salt remains behind. As ... 12 Yes, a plasma contains positive ions and negative electrons, but the positive ions don't need to be atoms. Actually the negative charges don't even need to be electrons. For example, plasma etching of silcon is done using a sulphur hexafluoride plasma that consists of (mainly) SF_5^+ and F^- ions. I'm not sure that the word plasma has a precise ... 12 This is one of those funny questions where the cart gets put before the horse. Matter doesn't "exist" in any state. It simply does what it does, in the way it does it. Humans, wishing to understand how different types of matter behave chose to create a system of three states. This choice is the key: the reason "matter exists in 3 states" is because we ... 11 Yes, of course, the freezing point will decrease by the pressure developed, while part of the water freezes. But do not underestimate the pressures! In such an experiment easily some thousand bares may be developed. (Depends on the rigidity of the vessel and the volume of water) Here is a video showing how freezing water cracks a cast iron sphere. (... 11 @MartinBeckett's already gave an excellent answer: Salt is excluded from ice because there is "...no way to plug the ions... into the growing [ice] pattern." This unusually long answer -- a mini-tutorial really -- is an expansion on his answer. I've added a long background section that uses informal, easily visualized analogies to define a number of related ... 11 Informally speaking, a complete description of a physical system is referred to as its state. Completeness of the state of a system means that it provides all the possible information about the system, i.e. everything that can be possibly known about the system has to be contained in the specification of its state. Every physical theory is ultimately based ... 11 Not quite sure what you are asking, but I can explain the difference between the three common states of matter on a qualitative scale: Solid: molecules form bonds with neighboring molecules, very little of these bonds are broken at any given time. Liquid: molecules form bonds with neighboring molecules for most of the time, but there are enough energy for ... 10 Matter is made up from point like fundamental particles, like electrons and quarks, that have zero volume. This puts us in the interesting position where the true volume of all matter is zero, and the only reason that everything doesn't instantly collapse into a point of zero volume is that the pointlike fundamental particles maintain a finite distance from ... 10 Formally, the incompressibility of a fluid is defined by the compressibility,$$ \beta=\frac1\rho\,\frac{\partial\rho}{\partial p}  where $\rho$ is the mass density and $p$ the gas pressure. This means that, the compressibility is the measure of how much the density (volume) changes when a pressure is applied. For water at standard pressure, this works ...

9

Solid phases differ by the arrangement of the molecules. Molecules in solids stay at the same place so you can have different geometrical arrangements (different phases). In liquids and gases, molecules always move, so you cannot define a fixed arrangement.

8

A quick comment on your terminology. The description "non-Newtonian" just means the stress/flow rate graph is not linear i.e. there isn't a single constant viscosity coefficient. The fluid you describe is what we colloid scientists call "dilatant", and it is certainly non-Newtonian. However there are lots of other non-Newtonian fluids such as tomato ketchup ...

8

I've just remembered that there was once a suggestion to use a mixture of xenon and oxygen under high pressure to allow people to float/fly/swim in it. It was also stated that water could be lighter than such a mixture. According to Smithsonian Physical Tables the critical point for xenon is $16.6\,\text{C}^{\circ},\quad 60\,\frac{\text{kg}}{\text{cm}^2},\... 8 I'm going to guess the toy you actually have in mind is the stuff sold in the US under the name Silly Putty . Play-Doh is used primarily as a "modeling clay" for sculpture - which means it needs to behave as a "plastic" - it's yield strength needs be low enough to enable it to be worked into a figure, but high enough that reasonable sized figures don't ... 8 Wikipedia quotes Other substances that expand on freezing are silicon, gallium, germanium, antimony, bismuth, plutonium and also chemical compounds that form spacious crystal lattices with tetrahedral coordination. EDIT:The same paragraph says silicon dioxide also exhibits this property. 8 I mean, they are heavier than air. No. Water is$H_2O$which has a molecular weight of 18. Nitrogen is$N_2$which has a molecular weight of 28. Oxygen is$O_2$which has a molecular weight of 32. Argon is$Ar\$ which has an atom weight of 40. So a water molecule has a mass that is less than that of all the significant components of air. But ...

8

Whilst the question is I think largely a matter of conjecture, let me point out that matter exists in basically two phases inside a white dwarf. The outer part of a white dwarf is a gas, albeit a very dense one, consisting of a degenerate gas of electrons and a non-degenerate gas of completely ionised ions. The inner part can (if it has cooled sufficiently ...

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