A bartender once asked a patron, hey What is the matter
The guy at the bar replied: matter is anything which has mass and occupies space
haha no but seriously what is matter?
Hey everyone Julia here for DNews
It’s one of the basic things you learn about in science class.
The difference between solid, liquid, and gas.
Objects can move through different states of matter depending on the density of their
particles.
Solids exist when their particles become so densely packed together they don’t move
around so much.
And their atoms don’t move at all, they’re in a fixed position.
Solids don’t change shape based on what container their in.
In liquid atoms can move freely, but they remain touching.
These particles are held together by weak intermolecular attraction.
You might remember that it takes the shape of whatever container it’s in, but still
retains a consistent density, like a subway car during rush hour.
Gases on the other have have no volume or real shape.
Their molecules are too far apart.
But they bounce against each other a lot so a gas will expand indefinitely.
Because of this bouncing, gases have a high kinetic energy.
Plasma, while not so common here on Earth, is found throughout the Universe and might
even be the most abundant form of matter in the universe!
You might recognize plasma in that glowing gas that makes Neon signs glow.
Or maybe from our sun!
Which is just big ball of burning gas roiling into a plasma.
When gas gets energized, electrons get freed from atoms and makes ions, turning the gas
into a plasma.
Plasmas, like gas, take the shape of whatever contain they’re in and are really good conductors
for magnetic fields and electricity.
So that’s the big four of states of matter.
But is that all there is to the story?
Just like the recent additions to the periodic table were made in a lab, so were these new
states of matter: Bose-Einstein condensates, degenerate matter, supersolids and superfluids,
and quark-gluon plasma, which is created inside of particle accelerators.
And the latest edition: Jahn–Teller metals.
An international team of researchers published their findings the journal Science Advances.
The researchers created a new type of material that could change the way we make electronics.
A Jahn-Teller metal does all kind of things, it acts like insulator, superconductor, metal,
magnet.
But its superconducting properties are the most interesting.
Superconductors are super exciting.
They’re currently used in MRI machines, making digital circuits, and in highly sensitive
scientific equipment like particle detectors.
These materials can transfer electricity without resistance or losing any energy through heat
or sound.
Unfortunately, these materials only work when it’s super cold, like -405 degrees fahrenheit.
Which costs a lot of money to cool down.
But this discovery can conduct at a “high” critical temperature, -211 degrees, which
could be cheaper and more versatile.
The material is composed of buckyballs, which are a type of round molecule made up of carbon.
Rubidium atoms put pressure on these molecules and control the distance between them, changing
the phases the material goes through.
It can shift from an insulator to a metal.
Let me put that in English, by changing the pressure on the material, it can change the
way it conducts electricity.
It doesn’t conduct well at low pressure, and basically acts like an insulator, but
at high pressure becomes a metal.
But during this transition, it’s in a state that’s never been seen before!
It still looks like an insulator, but the electrons can move around just like in a conductor.
While we’re still a long way off from using this material practically, it’s still really
cool.
It could be one step on the way to high-temperature superconductivity.
Speaking of what’s the matter…
what about dark matter?
We may have evidence that it exists!
Julian breaks down subatomic particles and explains why
in this video.