How Many States Of Matter Are There?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 6 ก.พ. 2025
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Let’s talk about states of matter. You know your states of matter don’t you? We have solids, liquids and gasses, and plasmas, quark-gluon plasmas, nuclear matter, bose-einstein condensates, neutronium, time crystals, and sand. Come to think of it, maybe I don’t know my states of matter. Or what a state of matter even is. Let’s see if we can figure it out.
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Hey Kids! Don't forget to stay hydrated and drink your H2O rather than than the Dioxygen Monohydrogen (O2H) as seen at 3:22! Well, I guess it's time to flip the old "Consecutive Episodes Without a Technical Error" Sign back to 0.
XD ok dude
I prefer to call it "alternative water" 😂
don't tell me what to do who's up for O2H pong
I can't believe I didn't notice this while watching
Par(i)ty water
I find soap foam fascinating. A combination of a liquid and a gas that partially behaves like solid. Fun to play with too!
@tst ccnt that sounds like a Pokemon attack
Along with sand (solid) and air (gas) acting as a liquid... can we combine a liquid and a solid to act as a gas?
@@Techy_Adi they found a new form of pokemon: the quaxly gabite plusle
@@a2pabmb2 that's how farts work. They start with liquid and solid food and end up as gas.
Interesting comment, seam like the universe itself had some kind of bubbling states visible in and after the CMB, and the question of why is our universe heterogeneous in it's distribution of matter seam specific to those. Maybe we are just a magical soup in a Cosmic Witch cauldron?
Nucleon as a frozen state of Quark-Gluon plasma is a fascinating concept that will change forever the way I look at the world. Epiphanies like this are the main reason I watch PBS Space Time. Thanks guys! 😄
Also, if regular crystalline nonmetals are the “solid” (fully bound electrons) and plasma is the “gas” (fully free electrons), then metals with their shared loose electrons are like a “liquid”
Can anyone explain how the CO2 AGW assertion fits into Scientific Law PV=nRT?
You do a great show on some great common knowledge information. Maybe you can explain to us regular IQ folks why the plasmas fields around our Sun has changed so dramatically. The extreme weather changes on planets and moons throughout our solar system is amazing. There is no doubt about the arrival of the next glacial ice age cycle and the frezzing condition humans will attempt to live through for 100,000 years average. Good luck humanity
I read this comment and said “is this guy for real?” Then I watched the video and mine own eyes have been opened!
Wow that's KooL your petty Good. Rock and Roll
And then there is the state of confusion. I only knew about 4 states of matter. This is fascinating to find out that there are more states of matter.
a "state" is just an energetic interaction generalization. These generalizations are aspects of our interpretation not of physical reality. There is no fundamental difference nor a sharp delineation between the states of matter. Asking how many states of matter there are is like asking how many different recipes can be made using flour, it entirely depends on how sharp your distinctions are. Each individual atomic interaction is a unique individual with evolutionary variation. We just summarize large groups of similar looking interactions into a "single thing"
um i only knew 3 states of matter and now a ton
What a epic pun xd
Same
Same
There maybe many states of matter, but in elections, there are really only a few states that matter
Brilliant.
Well said.
;)
Da dun tsss
😆
...nice!
Especially without the Electoral College…
If anyone reads this, here’s a fun question you can ask people: “Can you think of a system in which you mix a liquid and gas and get a solid WITHOUT any chemical reactions or change in temperature/pressure etc…?”
The answer is…
Whipped cream! The sneaky part is that cream at refrigerator temperature contains colloidal fat (a frozen emulsion if you like) and when you whip air into it those solid particles stabilize the air bubbles. When enough air bubbles are introduced a continuous structure-spanning interfacial solid network of fat droplets stabilizes the cream as a solid. If you keep whipping, the fat droplets aggregate further into clumps and the air bubbles are no longer stable. The fat droplets aggregate enough to phase separate, while the air is lost as nothing is stabilizing the bubbles any more. You’re left with a fat phase, which we call butter and an aqueous phase that we call buttermilk. Get yourself some heavy/double cream, a small plastic container, and a marble and churn your own butter in a matter of seconds!
Talking of cream and matter, ice cream is an interesting combination of states of matter. It’s a frozen emulsion stabilized foam embedded in a gel of ice crystals themselves embedded in a liquid sugar syrup. Delicious states of matter.
Underrated comment
The best states of matter are the delicious ones.
Perhaps the component elements of the foam are solids, but they act together as a liquid, slipping and sliding against each other.
@@patreekotime4578 No.
Party pooper here, thats still a liquid.
Not only that you ask for a mechanism where there is no change in pressure, what pushes the cream out?
It just takes the shape of the container temporarily, in this case the nozzle.
Having survived four separate courses on thermodynamics for materials science - phase diagrams of solid state alloys all day long - no one did such a good job of explaining what we were actually trying to study....... Also, the smashing snowballs analogy is glorious. Thank you!!
Rare to see another fellow MSE online 🥲
@@ryandych2985 hail fellow traveler! I did medical devices and metallurgy, how bout you?
@@peregrina7701 About to graduate in materials/metallurgical engineering, In the job hunt phase now!
@@RyanDych good luck!! :)
I never comment, but this is hands down the greatest quantum, physics and space channel out there. I have learned so much from you Matt! I I love how you explain and break things down to make it easier to understand. Just keep up the amazing work and I’ll be here every time you post a new video!
Have you seen 'Finland Ended Homelessnes' and 'Unions are Good'?
By the TH-camrs Some More News and Second Thought?
I tthink they are pure, unfiltered Awareness-Raisers and really need to be watched and if judged to be
helpful to be seen more, emailed to Big TH-camrs.
@@slevinchannel7589 they should be watched, but what does that have to do with physics?
Such an amazing channel. Been watching since Gabe blew my mind with the best “layman” explanation of general relativity EVER. This channel has been a masterpiece from day one.
@@GalacticNovaOverlord It doesnt.
Cant i just recommend Stuff to my fellow Fans?
I prefer ScienceClic
This episode absolutely blew my mind.
Carl Sagan himself would be so proud of your work and that of the entire team. Thank you, Matt, and the entire PBS space-time crew. You truly shine a light into life and make this world better and more self aware. Thank you for your hard work!!
yeah, if only you spoke slower like him... not all viewers are native English speakers (or listeners...)
I second the invocation of Sagan.
@@AlejandroFernandezDaCosta you can always adjust playback speed in the settings. Or turn on CC. I'm not a native English speaker yet I have no issues understanding this video.
why in a heck does this video confuse statistical mechanics with states of matter in crowds, and, traffic or even cosmology
@@janpahl6015 at 11:14 he asks if all of the stuff you mentioned really are states of matter. he did say no but by convention they can be good interpretations for behavior of multiple freely moving objects.
the one 2nd grader watching this is boutta get so much clout in science class
Underrated comment
@@Bstknkunderrated comment comment
Nah! I was that kid. We had no internet but we could find the info in libraries, reading stuff like this, plus both my parents were chemical engineers. But I knew not to be the kid always raising my hand because it wasn't safe when the teachers weren't looking. Even then I ended up having to do someone's homework. But I didn't catch nearly as bad as a guy who really got bullied. Maybe because I'm female but I really think I just didn't show my nerdiness quite as much. Also, teachers don't always love a kid who can call their mistakes out. It's much safer to play the dumb kid who gets bad grades, then no one wants you to do their homework.
They always brainwash you lmao
@@DR-bp1yuMaybe it's safer, but what's the fun in that? Once I've learned that bullies can be kept at bay using cleverness and that teachers care about how their class perceives their competence school stopped being scary. Once you stop fearing being different or being alone, "peer pressure" can't hurt.
The snowball analogy for explaining particle collisions is the single best way of envisioning these experiments that I have encountered. Well done. I can see it perfectly.
Smashing snow analogy is neat, but I still like to think of it as: Smashing cars on a highway at high speed and watching the parts fly out to understand how internal combustion engines work.
I'm surprised at how few people have heard of plasma. Way back when I was in middle school, I remember us learning about solids, liquids, gases, and (to a lesser degree) plasma. Over time, I of course learned about the other states of matter, but I thought that just those four were elementary enough. It appears I was wrong.
yeah, when I was in middle school, only the "smart kids" knew what plasma was
I mean I knew what plasma was but only because I asked my teacher what fire was and he said it’s plasma
in the early 70s the science teacher sent me out of the classroom after he asked the class what are the three states of matter and I added Plasma to my answer. Learning Conformancy to the Norm is what they teach at school.
@@djmewtwo6981
fire isn't plasma though. Plasma appears fire-like but real fire is just a reaction
@@djmewtwo6981I asked Alexa (ai).
PBS is a blessing. As a casual science enthusiast, this content is so consumable and interesting, and thoroughly researched!
Liquid Crystal would have been an interesting one to cover, too. Since it's one that occurs naturally and is present in our daily lives. Essentially a crystalline structure that allows cross-flow like a liquid while maintaining its crystalline state.
I didn't know of any naturally occurring liquid crystals? Where do they appear?
@@alexpotts6520 Cell membranes are actually a liquid crystal. Additionally, micelles are a type of liquid crystal. However, artificial liquid crystals exist all around us. For instance, the display your reading this on is most likely a LCD (Liquid Crystal Display).
Yup. Similarly, plasma crystals are super interesting too!
@@asdfasdf-dd9lk whoa first time hearing of plasma crystals. I'll look it up
@@webx135 Yea, relevant search term is Coulomb crystals if you're interested.
I made an oath I'd never look at PV=nRT ever again after stepping out of my GCSE physics class, but you made this genuinely enjoyable! I made it the entire video without being emotionally harmed :)
I'm drunk give me a break
There's been so many new bursts of research into new states of matter. I'm legit excited to watch this!
I thought of way storing and transporting and releasing energy are bundles of wires . Looped and folds around each other around center.
This is really cool and all, but the thing that I'm most impressed is that he explained how these very strange and abstract scientific concepts can be actually useful in your concrete everyday reality
Thats a scam
I love this video! The description of temperature and pressure as summary statistics of a group of objects and then states as being emergent properties that arise when those statistics meet certain criteria immediately gave me a much more solid (heh) understanding of what states of matter are - something that countless years of education failed to do!
This hurts my head a little, but that's a good thing! I love that this channel isn't afraid to get into the complicated parts of science.
Which parts of science aren't complicated?
I'm glad you wrote that your head hurts a little. That's a perfect description for how I feel, too. I had a good math and science background many years ago in college but have either forgotten a lot or never solidified much of it into my vocabulary. I watch these videos, following along nicely, then BAM!, a word or concept starts to get blurry for me, especially when getting into quantum science.
I was glad he talked about how crowd density could be considered a "state of matter" ... how its properties can change. It was exactly what I needed to bring me into focus again.
This is the easiest going episode of PBS I've seen. Normally I have to have a bucket nearby so I can scoop my brain back into my skull afterwards. 😂
Yeah, but the channel sure is afraid to get into the simple parts. Watching this i feel like i cheated my way into an university class.
@@1112viggo unfortunately actual understanding of most of these subjects requires a good fundamental course of 500+ hours with a solid pre-existing mathematical base, home assignments, communicating with tutor and peers and of course exams. It's practically impossible to actually explain complex subjects in a popular video series.
It is, however, entertaining if you're satisfied with understanding things at a level "this thing exists and it's related to this area of science" or you already know it but partially forgot.
This episode was the right level of "I get it enough to not zone out when it gets complex" and ranges from the tangible to delightfully sci-fi (in the sense that we aren't poking our fingers inside stars).
I press the back button a lot
🛡
3:21 Ah yes, my favourite molecule, HO2
Lol how did they mess that up
The moment I noticed that was the moment I became skeptical of the whole video. If you make a mistake in a novice topic I won't trust you in the expert topic.
@@apokalypthoapokalypsys9573As a scientist, silly mistakes happen all the time and it can be quite tough to catch them when your brain just automatically corrects them. Nobody is perfect, especially on a project as complex and time intensive as a long format video on a difficult topic. Have a little grace
Well... its not impossible.
Moght be an acid.
@@mihaleben6051 hydroperoxyl radical (HO2 or HOO-) is a weak acid, see Wikipedia for more
Just saw an article the other day about some funky '2-time' state of matter to go with the other pile of states and thought "we need a Spacetime episode on this"
If consciousness is a state of matter dies mean imagination actually exist. Can we send that state to another State
@@osmosisjones4912 I think they mean using differences and transitions between states of matter as a model to think about the interactions between various other subjects, kind of like applying advanced math to market theory to illuminate market trends, or using economic theory to deeper understand baseball as in Moneyball. Just imagine what a quantum physicist could do with the menu at Cheesecake Factory!
I think what I find weirdest is how “concrete” phase changes can be. Like, an ice cube doesn’t melt by slowing decreasing viscosity throughout as temperature goes up and pressure goes down. Instead, it just STOPS increasing in temperature and has ice more or less INSTANTLY change to water, which continues until there is no solid ice, and the liquid water can continue to increase in temperature
And in the case of, say, lava, it can also be continuous.
Phase changes really are weird.
nerd
Latent heat of energy
To be fair, water is one of the weirder edge cases of state changes, being one of the very few substances that for a small temperature range, actually contracts on increasing the temperature. Just because it's a common substance doesn't make it conventional.
That depends on whether the solid is a crystal or not. Ice has a crystalline structure, so it has an exact melting point where it turns into a liquid instantly. But for something that does not have a crystalline structure, like candle wax, it does not have an exact melting point and instead melt into a liquid slowly
If there is one thing the universe likes to do, it's to repeat laws and interactions on different scales, that's for sure. The more you look at it, the more you realize that everything is connected and that any law or theory is an expression or a consequence of a similar one on a different scale. Truly fascinating. It all looks so... organized.
except for quantum effects. Quantum has no analogy or repeated laws on larger scales, which is one big reason it is so confusing and makes no sense. Like you don't see the Heisenberg uncertainty principal replicate itself when measuring the position and momentum of stars.
@@MyNameIsSalo I'll freely admit that my knowledge in quantum mechanics is very lacking, but I am nonetheless of the opinion that the issue there lies in our models. For example, I'm fairly captivated by the many universes hypothesis, because as far as I'm awere it allows us to explain many quantum laws as direct consequences of standard particle interactions (including the uncertainty principle), because it allows particles to interact with a copy of themselves from a different universe.
@@MyNameIsSalo on the other hand, you could also go in the opposite direction and claim that many astronomical phenomenon that still elude our understanding (dark energy, just to name one) have some kind of connection to the quantum world, which would mean that quantum laws actually do profundly affect all scales of reality and we're just unaware of that, but I don't like that take. It feels like a "quantum mechanics of the gaps", if you will.
Yes, time to love the beauty of science once again using cosmology and "Space Time".
Thank you for makin' my day, Matt. ❤
@Don't read profile photo Uh... what? That's an unfair demand! Come on.
Tho techincally, that is not you name, but your moniker. So, I did not raed your name after all. Neener!
Can anyone explain how the CO2 AGW assertion fits into Scientific Law PV=nRT?
Hello mr white
Phase transition is much easier to define: it's a discontinuity in the equation of state. Now, it might seem natural to define states of matter as regions enclosed by such discontinuities. However, the problem is that some phase transitions don't really form well defined areas, because some phase lines just end instead of connecting to other lines, for example the critical point of water.
Because of this, in our physics course "state of matter" did not even have a strict definition, what actually matters is a phase transition: a process when matter discretely goes from one state to another if you change some macroscopic property by an arbitrarily small value.
Instead of a portal what about accelerated space between to spinning objects pulling on space Time or tunnel of quantum tunneling
I noticed there was no mention of the free energy, but that might be too advanced for a video such as this.
@@timothymimeslayer *flashbacks to physical chemistry*
There’s a chemistry kid on TH-cam who did an amazing demo of a supercritical liquid. His channel is NileRed. He built a pressure chamber with a plexiglass porthole bolted to the side of it. You could actually see the liquid turn into a cloud and sort of float around inside the chamber. Very cool stuff.
most industrial cooling systems, will have a view window where you can see the super critical phase of the coolant too
omg yes I loved that video!! I loved it sm I changed my online names to supercritikal for a bit lol
NileRed is 31, and so definitely not a kid lol
Did you just call NileRed a kid
not really a kid if hes in his 30s, has a bachelors and a professional lab
This video is mindblowing! It connected so many subjects for me that were learned disjointedly and I had never realized the big picture! Incredible to consider the emergent properties of various common phenomena and occurrences from this perspective. Thank you so much!
Seriously the best ever video on the subject. "Let's see if we can figure it out together", exactly how I was taught physics.
I love that you end on the discussion of consciousness as a state of matter. when you were talking about emergent properties mid video, thats exactly what I jumped to.
Goodness I love this channel. When a roofer like myself can get educated on the regular with quality stuff like this, the world ain’t so bad after all.😊
Small error at 3:43 - pressure is inversely proportional to volume not density. It's directly proportional to both density and temperature.
Another comment: I think many of the more unconventional "states of matter" described here can more accurately be described as phases. I would define a phase to be more broadly the emergent properties that arise from local interactions between constitutive units of a larger whole as you define a state of matter here. Instead, I would say a state of matter is a specific type of phase that is described by characteristic interactions between *indistinguishable* components. People and grains of sand are distinguishable so I'd argue they form phases but not states of matter. Similarly, we don't call glasses or amorphous solids a new state of matter because their emergent properties still resemble crystalline solids even if they don't have exactly the same emergent properties.
Your point sounds a more logical approach to me..👍 Especially in subatomic instances.
That definition of the state of matter makes sense and is more in line with the concept as vaguely I understood it in the high school. But your comment got me wondering and I'd be very grateful if you, or anyone, could explain this to me. Since I'm not a physicist, nor chemist, I'd like to ask about the criterion which determines distinguishability of constituent parts. As a lay person, I instinctively consider to be distinguishability affected by the conditions of measurement, such as distance of the point of observation or the intensity of magnification, acuteness of measurement devices, etc. Are the conventional states of matter such that their constituent parts are indistinguishable in every conceivable condition of measurement?
To put it more plainly, I'd like to know if the, say, crystalline grid (EDIT: actually, I meant lattice in my native language, we have the same word for both, that's why I used incorrect term) is just a representation, a model if you will, that we use to understand the properties of solids, or if there is a situation in which it is possible to make out individual atoms or atomic bonds.
Also wanted to make this comment. The definition of state of matter in the video fits better as definition for the phase. In fact, in wiki I can see the exact definition of phase and can't see clear definition of its particular case - state of matter. At the same time there's a consensus that different crystal structure of solids or, for example, different magnetic order of solids are different phases but the same state of matter.
After all, it seems to me it's better not to use the poorly defined term "state of matter" at use the term "phase" only to avoid ambiguity between people.
Every time I hear "time crystals" all I can think of is Asimov's thiotimoline.
Fun fact: "The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline" was published while Asimov was working on his doctorate. He knew he had passed his thesis defense when one of the panel asked about the properties of thiotimoline.
It's wild when I went to school there was 9 planets, and 3 states of matter.
Nah there probably were more, but people weren’t educated on it as much
Plasma for example was discovcered in the late 1800s so it means that you were just not taught about it in school.
Not really, Plasma has been known for like over a century, it's just not taught until like middle school or highschool
after rearranging the ideal gas equation PV=nRT, we get PM=DRT where D=density,
from which we come to a conclusion that pressure is directly proportional to density 3:41
I learned something about myself once.
I'm not just the "4th state is plasma" guy.
I'm also the "Bose-Einstein condensate" guy.
And _also_ the "quark-gluon plasma" guy.
When you go to university you're no longer the first guy because everyone is that guy.
i think here at pbs space time, we're all the time crystal guy now
But they are probably not "sand" guy, "humans" guy or "galaxy" guy
Civil engineers model traffic like gases and liquids with a kind of wave equation. It's called traffic flow theory.
As determined by the price of flammable liquid fuel called gas (gasoline).
But that's dumb since traffic doesn't just simply follow the path of least resistance like a gas/fluid...
@@CertifiedClapaholic They assume cars don't change lanes.
Not only that, but each particle (driver) has wildly divergent destinations that even they tend to be unsure of.
@@thedatatreader While that's true, in the grand scheme of things they still have mostly similar destinations based on the time of day when you look at the larger picture. From urban to business or retail or industrial districts and back to urban later in the day. It's obviously not perfect but if it's one thing I learned from my metal detecting hobby is that humans despite appearing chaotic are actually mostly predictable and unoriginal. :) Find the pattern get the rewards. Or course no system is perfect but "good enough" is often good enough.
Much thanks for sneaking in 20 seconds of my simulation at the 10:57 mark ... a nice, welcome, surprise... :)
It's been so long since I've been in school. But I still remember to this day in either my fluid dynamics class and lab and some problems that involved open channel flow of ping pong balls. I don't recall details, but I do recall that that was actually a problem we experimented with and had to figure out how to deal with. And this video reminded me of that.
A state of matter is a human idea so there are as many states of matter as we understand there to be.
This is the first video of yours that I was able to completely understand. Usually I get lost around the 5 minute mark but sometimes it can be 2 minutes or occasionally 8 minutes, but I always end up in a brain fog of missing math and lack of physics knowledge. Hooray for one I could really enjoy all the way through.
I have watched this twice once while sober the other after an edible and I can tell you that while more confusing I feel I understood the concept a bit better. I still don't understand completely but I kind get it and am glad that are people more intelligent working these things
This explains so much stuff I'd wondered as a kid, and now as a 4th and 5th grade teacher myself, may help to dispel the confusion some of my students occasionally express.
Just tell them that states of matter are just that, states of matter and not states of atoms. When matter is not forming atoms it can behave in very weird ways
To think of consciousness as it's own state of matter, and to come to that realization, was truly fascinating. I love these kinds of videos.
Particularly good episode.
I've been into emergent properties for a while. They're everywhere and eerily similar. So similar infact, that they fundamentally describe themselfs. Hands down one of the best tools i've stumbled uppon for simulation modeling and general understanding of physics, from the fundamentals up to the cosmic.
Nice pfp
@@vinny.montgomery why, thank you good sir!
Seems like the "critical" requirement for calling something a state is the presence of phase transitions where we see relatively sudden jumps in macroscopic properties. Do all phase transitions corresponds to different states?
Edit: thinking more, states seem to arise because we are trying to obtain simpler models which work in some stable regions of the phase space (e.g. PV=nRT), as opposed to the full blown complicated theory (say GUT). Would that mean relativistic, Newtonian, and quantum are all different states? Also, would aliens with their own math come up with the same states as us? Perhaps we can use some information / computational notions of "complexity of a theory" to define states.
ok
This comment has given me a lot to think about. Thank you for taking the time to write it out logically and coherent!
I'm sorry sir, we're all out of Complexities of theories. Try again next week.
"Transition from relativistic, Newtonian and Quantum are all different states". Now that's an idea!
All phase transitions correspond to different states of matter. But some states of matter can also be transitioned into each other while avoiding phase transitions. For example, water can be transitioned to steam by boiling it (via a phase transition) or gradually over time if you go around the critical point in its phase diagram.
I guess one analogy of a state transition would be crossing a river: you can transition from one river bank to the other one by swimming (phase transition). But you can also go a really long way around the river to get to the other bank without ever touching the water, this is analogous to going around the critical point: technically two banks of any river are connected with each other, just very far away. Because of this, when you're standing next to a river, its two banks look like two different land masses (two different states), but technically you can walk from one to the other if you want to without transitioning the river, it'd just take a longer path, so in some sense they are the same land mass.
And exactly as in this analogy, phase transition is well-defined: it's you crossing the river. But states of matter are not always well defined because technically two different banks of a river can be smoothly connected to each other the long way around the river in the same way how liquid water can be smoothly transitioned to steam without boiling it if you go around the critical point.
Sand is definitely a separate state of matter. A single grain can totally ruin an egg sandwich
3:21 I would like to see that chemical substance one day! O2H is something I look forward to.
Wow!
Well it's a gas with a bit of alkali fog. Doubtless not very good for your skin and mucus membranes.
@@ShadeAKAhayate Wait, it’s actually a real chemical called Hydrogen Peroxyl.
yes, finally something I can understand! I hope.
0:10 Nope lost me.
Same 😂
mario
Ten seconds is probably a record
Hearing a guy explain the building blocks of the universe with the relaxing music in the background is exactly what I needed tonight
I know why I keep watching. First, I like to learn, not only about physics, but a bunch of stuff. Second, I like the channel and how things are presented... And third, watching videos help with my depression.
So... Here I am. 😬
9:40 This is a misconception I've seen before. "Liquid sand" is not a state of matter as far as thermodynamics is concerned. The confusion comes from mixing two similar sounding concepts from two very different fields of physics. A LIQUID is a thermodynamic phase and a state of matter, whereas a FLUID is a system in macroscopic motion which we can model using fluid dynamics.
The latter field involves using partial differential equations as a function of space and time. Gases and liquids show obvious fluidlike behaviors, but so do glaciers and glass if you observe them at longer timescales.
In thermodynamics, however, there is no time-dependence. The mathematical formalism is built around comparing the stability of states of equilibrium and calculating the changes between them. Phase transitions are associated with large changes of size-extensive macroscopic properties like volume or entropy, and this is why a phase diagram has statistical properties like pressure and temperature as variables. None of these processes depend on time or flow velocities.
So in short: Sand with air flown through it is definitively a fluid, but it is not a liquid. There is no observable phase transition between "solid sand" and "liquid sand", and "liquid sand" does not exist in a state of thermodynamical equilibrium. In fact, a state with zero macroscopic flux (fluid flow, diffusion, thermal conduction, etc.) is the definition of thermal equilibrium! Calling
I work in HVAC now, for the last four years actually. When I began watching these I had a decent understanding of the relationship between Temp/Pressure but holy cow do I have an absolute respect for it these days.
And it really helps a small brain like myself understand concepts like these so much more having learned about a compressible and non compressible, condensables and non-condensables and the state shift of various different things.
Really cool.
I was surprised that Bose-Einstein condensates were not talked about in more detail in this video.
Why is that surprising?
@@pyropulseIXXI They are very interesting
@@pyropulseIXXI It is one of the states of matter
there was a lot that was skipped
Amazing, isn't it? Every way you explore the space-time, you keep seeing the same fundamental properties emerge over and over again, like variations on the same theme. The universe is like a fractal in that respect. I am surprised you haven't done an episode on the fractal cosmology yet.
Not me eating a particular kind of fudge brownie and thinking that fudge may as well be its own new state of matter 35 minutes later
9:59 it looks like he even surprises himself by saying this
He deserves 100M subscribers
But he doesn't care.thats what curious mind does ❤️
Love and respect from India
States of atoms, states of sand, state of galactic material, state of sub-atomic particles...
Again a new way to think! Love this channel.
It might be the mushrooms....but, this is one of the best videos yet from this guy.
Discussing the wetness of water and the ideal gas law at such a high level while being interesting and having production value is impressive.
Did he say water wasn’t wet?
Thanks for the time-crystal-clear explanation!
Nice thinking of an atom nucleus as "quark snow" - but my mind can't visualise a "frozen gluon", as it represent an enormous binding energy. Those "Trillions of Kelvin" possibly was the normal energy density of the Space itself right at the moment of the Big Bang? The "Quark Snow" includes the incredible heat energy of the moment of Creation...
Gluons do not freeze. They are massless gauge bosons. They can only travel at _c._
It's not the gluons and quarks individually that "freeze" or "melt", but rather collectively. When bound into discrete hadrons, they are "solid", while when freely mingling as a soup of elementary particles and force interactions, they are "liquid".
I feel that TH-camrs teaching things on YT teach you things better than in schools
It makes me so sad when everyone forgets about supercritical fluids, they are a unique state of matter that is similar to both liquids and gases but are not either.
So could neutrinos be considered to be time crystals since they oscillate between types or will that oscillation cease if neutrinos had their temperature reduced to absolute zero?
A crystal is a solid with a repeating pattern to it. A singular fundamental particle would not qualify.
they're leaving out light on purpose . I'm Smarter.
individual particles dont have temperature, temperature is an emergent property that emerges out of the kinetic energy of the bunch of particles that you're measuring, but that's a nice observation though, i guess they could be considered as a sort of time "crystal"
@@matthewhafner962 “regular” crystals, the ones you talk about, are crystals in space, as in they have a recurring pattern in space. “Time” crystals on the other hand, have a recurring pattern in time; meaning that the material oscillates through a pattern of states through time in a recurring fashion.
If they repeat in time yes, but what we need to understand is what the oscillation is a function on and see how that is relative to thermal energy/total energy (perhaps energy might change to something we cannot measure (dark energy-esque stuff)).
I'm just gonna say right now, Time Crystals sound like a resource in a mobile RPG that you need to pay money for.
That’s literally the case, and the first time I heard of time crystals
Holy cow, I loved this episode! Just going from what could be a (somewhat misleading) simple concept such as a "state of matter" and going into what consciousness could be. Really great job
One more to add to the list: Black hole matter. Humans don't know much about it, but it certainly seems that a phase transition occurs when the density passes a certain threshold. It may even be possible for another threshold to exist beyond that, like maybe if it compresses enough it turns into a big bang?
The kid who mentioned plasma in 3rd grade grew up to be this guy.
I was hoping for more on time crystals. ever since i first read about them I was wondering what separates time crystals from resonant cavities like what is found in microwave generator or good old fashion LC tank circuits.
As far as I understand, it’s just a neat trick with quantum computers where you can make them oscillate forever without adding (or removing) energy. Sort of like a frictionless merry go round.
They have an episode on time crystal
A 'true' time crystal would be a system at its lowest energy state which repeatedly oscillates between two stable states. It would form a 4D pattern in space and time. A lot of 'forced' time crystals require energy to be constantly input to prevent the state from decaying; they are unstable to energy loss, though they CAN be considered a sort of metastable time crustal.
Another awesome example of the same particles having two different states of matter in the micro and macro, is just under our feet: Plate tectonics! On small scales, the temperature in the asthenosphere is not hot enough to actually melt the rocks to liquid magma, so it's mostly solid on the
I am glad you talked about pressures effect on state change. Most people ignore pressure and only talk about temperature.
Yesterday's tragedy in South Korea reminded me of this video. If only his advice at 10:30 was well heeded...
I wouldn't describe the air+sand mixture as a liquid. It's more accurate to just describe it as a fluid (or fluid-like)! Something I've always had to stress is a fluid is not a liquid. Air is a fluid for example. A fluid is loosely just something that flows. But the point being made here is still valid (you are giving it liquid like properties).
Yeah, I would also call it a fluid. State of matter being a composite of solid and gas, having liquid-like properties. That makes me wonder, if we had a composite of plasma and liquid, would it have gas-like properties...?
If you ask whether sand is a liquid or a gas, it's pretty clear that it's more of a liquid than a gas. Sand doesn't expand in volume to fill its container, but it does change its shape to match its container. By a definition I was taught in school, that makes it a liquid, and not a solid nor a gas.
@@Mr.Nichan Well fluidized sand (which I believe is the correct terminology for the sand+air mixture) does have some properties of gas. The sand near the top layer bounces a lot and also doesn't usually keep to a well defined volume (due to their surface moving around a lot, albeit it doesn't change overall volume by much). Fluid is again the best description to use not liquid or gas
@@ZenithWest169 sounds like a partial pressure to me. Y'know, the behavior on the surface of a liquid?
@@twistedtachyon5877 Do you mean vapor pressure? Yeah I thought the surface behavior could mimic vapor pressure. Also what would be the difference for a super heavy gas?
After watching this video I can understand much more about states of matter than before. Thanks a lot for your video!
Woah, this episode had me wondering if civil engineering already applies fluid dynamics to things like traffic patterns (which include pedestrians, bikers, cars, busses, etc.) and how we could possibly think about designing systems to better handle this flexibly.
They do, but very rarely and most of the time onl in places where such things occur regularly, like football stadiums. In Germany it became popular in civil engineering after the Loveparade Desaster in Bochum.
That was also my idea that I post above. Really interesting idea to apply to vehicle traffic problems.
6:46 *I am a special Snowflake*
Ever since I saw the wild kratts on pbs kids as a child, I have been obsessed with science and getting to know our existence. And now that I have learned of pbs terra I feel like pbs grew my entire personality and life around science. And boy do I love it!
Really interresting video and I like the philosophical aspect of it too :)
And it puts the phrasing "A sea of stars" into a literal perspective :D
7:40 so what would happen at the triple point of Quarks and Glons between Hadron Gas, Quark-Gluon Plasma, and Colour superconductors? Is there any known region in the universe where that is roughly achieved? Would the Hadron gas in that situation be able to form its own chemistry yet again, giving rise to different kinds of hadrons which together could form their own states of matter?
One of the most profound episodes of SpaceTime describing a life changing perspective.
Seems like Bose-Einstein Condensates deserve their own episode. They're something that's often mentioned, but never gone into in any great detail, and they's a staple of science fiction often mined for some undefined use. What could a Bose-Einstein Condensate actually be used for?
Did you know there's a not-so-great-but-watchable sci-fi movie called _Spectral_ with Bose-Einstein condensate as the plot twist?
I think they already did that one, try to scroll through their videos
It's responsible for superfluidity in low temperature helium and superconductivity in various materials. Superconductivity is useful for making powerful electromagnets that don't waste a ton of electricity to resistance.
So, if quark gluon plasma behaves like a liquid, and if a neutron stars may have a core composed of quark gluon plasma, does that mean it has a gooey center?
It's caramel on the outside, and gooey nugget in the inside 😋
That's a spicy meatball!
I started watching PBS documentaries on NOVA. Since then I have loved watching all of the other science and history channels they have. I cannot believe I did not know about these channels for some many years!
I remember reading somewhere that the universe never wastes good concepts. Instead, it recycles them for every level of observation. At the most fundamental level we have the superstrings, then the strings of polymers, most prominently the DNA, then at the highest level we have the cosmic strings. And so it is with the states of matter.
1:57 I'm pretty sure there's no such thing as "stayed in school for too long"
I mean if you are 30 and still in school as a student, there is probably something wrong.
Loved this! As a chem teacher, I think I'm gonna show 5 min at a time of this video at the end of class if we're having a really productive day.
I've never ever have thought about states of matter this way, and for so long it has been weird trying to explain conscience as a thing, but it's true that is an emergence property of matter within ourselves
It doesn't really make sense to describe consciousness as a state of matter though, since states of matter are generally on-off states - something is either a liquid or is not a liquid, with no gradient between that state and other states. Consciousness, by contrast, along with other properties of the mind, can exist to varying degrees, rather than simply being true or false. That doesn't align well with how states of matter work, so it's not a good analogy IMO.
@@harbingerdawn unless its supercritical fluid.
@@genialefyr Actually supercritical fluid isn’t a change of degrees either. It’s either a supercritical fluid or it isn’t. If it’s not then it’s just a liquid gas mixture with the liquid and gas having very close but not matching densities.
@@genialefyr Yes, though my understanding is that that's less of a gradual phase change and more of a breakdown in distinction between gas and liquid, since their densities become the same at those temperatures and pressures, so they mix freely. Whether that distinction really matters is something I can't say with my limited knowledge on the subject, but it seems different than how the mind works.
@@joshs5577 the joke was that at the critical point the phase boundaries no longer exists. Making it a supercritical fluid, with physical properties of a gas but phase of a liquid. Which is indistinguishable from either gas or liquid.
Also, as supercritical fluid can change into either gas or liquid without a phase change, saying that its either supercritical fluid or not is therefor wrong as it is already gas and already liquid, as seen from that the energy required for the SCF to become liquid (or gas) is 0. Density is not relevant. This is about phase changes, not how dense it is.
he forgot the state of wyoming
@JessTalkTV Sick burn 😂
Gave me a giggle
@JessTalkTV LOL
Underrated comment.
who?
THIS IS ONE OF THE BEST PIECES OF MEDIA THAT INTERNET CAN OFFER ME
An interesting and distinctive property of phase transitions is that the temperature stop increasing or dropping until the phase transition is complete, at least between the more well-known states of matter. Does something similar happen with transitions between the more exotic states of matter?
this vid blew my mind. i always thought of states of matter as something pointless to understand. this has made me appreciate my chemistry class a lot more
Electron plasmas are cool, they give us quantum dots and are used in quantum computers. Aren’t they their own state of matter?
Hi Matt. From Melbourne, Australia. I thought of phase changes and states of matter after watching this video. In my 3rd year polymer science lectures in 1980, I learnt some polymers have a glass tranistion temperature, then a melting point. Further heating probably results in degredation / denaturation and not boiling. So no liquid phase occurs until after the "rubbery" one. And then there are the meta stable substances like glass and pitch? Solids with viscosity. So how may states of matter and phases are there really? B. Carn the Blues.
Hi Bevan, and thanks for your thoughts on this topic!
I agree that behaviour of polymers can be pretty complex. For instance, while the transition at melting point is of first order, the glass transition temperature you are referring to involves a second-order transition. This means properties such as specific heat capacity don't show an abrupt jump, but their slope as a function of temperature changes.
However, only semicrystalline polymers (which present partially packed chains) show both of these transitions. Other polymers are totally amorphous, and are only able to transition between glassy and rubbery states. They become less viscous as you increase the temperature further, but can't be considered liquid as no melting transition ever occurs. And then they eventually degrade or decompose, as you mentioned.
On a side note, I find phase diagrams fascinating, as they usually represent phases of a substance in equilibrium but other (metastable) phases can be achieved when taking time into account. For example, how melting the crystalline quartz in sand and cooling it back down turns it into amorphous glass. Or how cooling rates during quenching are essential for obtaining specific phases (martensite and bainite) in steel.
This makes you wonder how to properly define a state of matter. I think this video does a good job at tackling the topic, as a solid is intuitively understood based on emergent properties like rigidity rather than on the particular phase (or phases) it's composed of.
Materials sience is awesome!
Also if anybody made it reading this far, thank you and have a nice day :)
Alright, a Tegmark shoutout! That guy's book is wild.
Sand, or any dust in this case, are not different state of matter. There is just a lot of small solid particles, that are interacting with each other.
There is also such thing as chemical systems (term can be mistaken due translation), a system, where material of one state of matter mixed with other material, often of other state of matter, and as so this system as whole has other properties.
Like, sand in the water behaves differently. There's also thing like aerosol - gas with solid or liquid particles in it.
If you mix oil and water, you get other kind of chemical system, where small liquid bubbles formed in other liquid.
It might have been better to describe liquids as being "practically incompressible" or "nearly incompressible", since they are compressible, just not under the conditions we're used to dealing with every day. As an earthly example, the water at the bottom of Challenger Deep is compressed by nearly 5% compared to the water on the surface (ignoring the temperature difference, which would exaggerate the difference in density).
It's useful to think of liquid as a gas that has already been highly compressed, so that it takes a lot of additional pressure to compress it further!
What about elasticity? We have the whole field of engineering where we deal with solids being compressed all the time. And if solids can be compressed, I don't see why liquids should be any different.
The way you call us:"Hi kids!" Makes me feel I started to learn, late
6:51 such a nice example! Thank you for such an intuitive but still radically new perspective, at least for me, on understanding matter.
It feels to me like this emergent property ceases to exit at our visual scale, so the upwards scaling of such emergence is either hidden to us or not available due to distance between any such objects (maybe it is the same thing after all). I almost want to say this emergence requires the object to not immediately fuse with another of itself (like black holes), but then "immediately" is a relative term and the duration can always be long enough. I guess you could also talk about the state of the black hole swarm in the center of the galaxy.
So this pretty much meaningless train of thought tells me not to ignore how time dimension also should scale with space. The larger the space, the larger time of motion you need to intuitively detect the emergent property. But is this a property of reality, or a property of the way our conscious experience is wired?
There IS a relation, at any given scale there's an associated minimum time. A shorter intervals than this, nothing sensible can be said about that scale. This relates to the finite speed of light, cause and effect and information. But the larger a system is, the longer you need to observe it (Or let it 'run') before any characteristics become apparent, emergent or otherwise.
What is the matter
How is this top comment
@@Coconutwaterfan no clue
Not much, what is the matter with you?
@@robyngwendolynshiloh5277 good one
When I clicked on the video: Let's see if I'm missing one...
Now, after watching it: How many more can I learn? I want to know more!!!