Talk:Plasma/Archive 1

"plasma" for the state of matter: the article had both:

• "(first used in 1928)" in the header list; and
• "first applied to ionized gas by Dr. Irving Langmuir, an American chemist and physicist, in 1929." at the end.

removed for now until someone can track down the correct date. -- Tarquin

Can someone please explain how solar wind is a form of plasma? --dave

This article says that plasma is the most common form of matter because it makes up most of the visible universe, but some believe that most of the matter in the part of the universe we can see is not visible because it does produce its own light. So we really don't know how common it is, do we?

what about quark-gluon plasma? in regular plasma, the atoms still have electrons orbiting in lower orbits, right? is there a state where it is just a soup of electrons and nuclei? is there a state where protons neutrons and electrons are all separate? - Omegatron 21:54, Apr 30, 2004 (UTC)

I have a question - is metallic hydrogen a form of plasma? --FermatSim 17:42, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

plasma

Can plasma be in any other phase of matter? (like solid or gas)

It is a useful but in some cases arbitrary distinction to talk about phases of matter. It makes most sense when two phases exist in physical contact, like water vapor above liquid water. If you just have a sample of water, its phase is not well defined. You can manipulate the temperature and pressure so that it makes a transition from liquid to gas (unambiguously), loops around the critical point, and then makes another transition from liquid to gas. So should you call it a liquid or a gas in between? It is also disputed whether glass should be considered a solid or a liquid.

That said, the electrons in a (solid or liquid) conductor can behave like a plasma, and if a gas is 1% ionized it becomes a plasma with respect to its electrical properties, although its physical properties are hardly changed.

Art Carlson 11:26, 2004 Oct 22 (UTC)