December 17th, 2002
High School
#334
Bose-Einstein Condensate
Well, I was in Chemistry class this morning, you see, and our teacher once again went over the properties of the three states of matter. (snore) Someone mentioned that plasma was the fourth state of matter, which I agree with. Then I remembered: Bose-Einstein Condensate. It’s a newly (1995) created state of matter, created by lowering the temperature of a gas (Rubidium) to such coldness (0.000 000 001 K) that all kinetic motion stops, and all the atoms of this substance just piles up and collapses into the same exact area. Plus, every atom of every element in this substance becomes identical. Wierd, huh? And confusing, too. Anyhow, it’s so neat that the scientists who created it received the Nobel Prize in Physics for it.
[Update] There are actually more than five states of matter.