Trivial Pursuit

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Royal Merchant Steamer ?

 

No, though Royal is correct.

 

I recall a friend of mine told me it was a Royal Mail Ship.

 

It is, Lost Meme. /me hands you torch

 

On with the show;

What are all the states of matter?

 

Eeee, science! And the answer is:

Gaseous, liquid, solid, and plasma.

EDIT: Bah, I never bothered to learn the nonsense ones.

[ November 10, 2005, 03:31: Message edited by: Felinoid ]

 

You're missing three

 

Okay, I'll show my ignorance. Other than 'Bose-Einstein condensates' what are the others?

/sound of creaking rocking chair.

Back in my day we didn't even study plasma much less BE condensates. First three, then five, now seven?

 

I'm with you Nakia, there were only 3 states when I studied and I'd heard about Plasma but the rest ?

/sits on porch swing

Lemonade anyone ?

 

Hmm... So we have BEC's, the normal 3 and Plasma... I'll take a stab at Liquid Crystal (at one time folks were lobbying for this to take the coveted 4th state of matter slot, but plasma and BECs are waaayy cooler ) but the 7th eludes me... It can't be energy via E = mc^2 because energy is a mathematical abstraction rather than 'stuff'. All Einstein's equation covers is equivalence. So I'm stumped.

/me Strums banjo, a la Deliverance

 

/sound of creaking rocking chair

Thank 'e kindly for the lemonade, DarkStrider. Tastes good while we wait for Lost Meme to enlighten us.

This has turned into a community effort but since Felinoid posted the four main/real states of matter it's his turn.

 

Nakia got BECs right, but Liquid Crystals are not considered to be a state of matter.
Here's a hint before you all turn into hillbillies;
One of the states of matter was only recently discovered and is similar to BECs.

 

Aha, think I heard of one that's the opposite of BEC's (caused by extreme heat instead of cold) but danged if I know it's name.

/Pulls out corn cob pipe.

 

I'm with Felinoid, almost. There are only 3 states of matter: Solid, Liquid, Gas. Any others are just nonsense ones that have been made up to give physics students something to do their theses on. Let's leave fantasy fairy land and get on with the game, please.

 

Yeah, what I was taught (only...six years ago) was that there were only four, and even plasma was a little iffy. How about a new question?

 

Fine, a new question. I'll give it to the Big Cat, because he said the basic ones.
In case you're interested though, the missing states were:
Filament (e.g. lightning, solar coronae, ion jets)
Fermionic condensate - this is similar to Bose-Einstein condensate, but it comes from fermions not bosons.

 

Well, I thought you would be the one giving the new question, but...okay.

EDIT: Err, nevermind my previous question; I just realized that it wouldn't be fair to our international members to give an American sports question. So here's the new one:

What Sherpa guide had a Nepalese name that meant "Wealthy-fortunate Follower of Religion"?

 

Tenzing Norgay? (i.e. the only Sherpa guide I have ever heard of)

 

@ Lost Meme: firstly, gah! I was so close to posting Fermionic condensate, but we were never taught about it at Uni, so I thought I'd just made it up... You live and learn.

Secondly:

Err... Aren't these all examples of plasmas? Granted, plasmas strongly restricted by EM fields, but that kind of goes with the territory (I suppose a Z-pinch would be another example by that definition, correct?). I'm not doubting that someone may have tried to define it as a separate state of matter, I'm just questioning whether it's at all worth the tag, when those examples are just specific cases of plasmas.

 

I found nine states recognized by physics. Filaments was not one of them (I agree with Magpie, those appear to be plasmas, but then I'm a chemists)-- four of them all had to do with states of matter at extremely low temperatures (three at absolute zero).

Only five or six are recognized by chemists (liquid crystals and BE Condensates are sometimes mentioned).

For biologists the states are alive and dead.

For geologists there is only one state -- rock. Everything else is just waiting to be incorporated into the rock.