Most people believe that there are only three states of matter- solid, liquid and gas. These people are what I like to call wrong. There are really seven known states of matter, and probably more yet to be discovered.
The first state of matter is Bose-Einstein Condensate. You see, heat is really just how fast molecules move. The faster they move, the higher the temperature. Well in this state of matter, molecules barely move at all. It doesn't happen in nature, but this state of matter is as cold as something can get.
Of course there are the three most basic and widely known states of matter, solid liquid and gas. You may have heard of plasma, as in a Plasma TV. But you probably don't know that plasma is also a different state of matter. In fact, it is the most common state of matter in the Universe. All stars, including our Sun, are made up off plasma. On earth only a few things are made of plasma. Plasma TVs, fluorescent lights, and lighting are three examples of plasma on earth.
The sixth state of matter is called beam. Unlike all other states of matter, the molecules in beam are very structured. In all other states of matter, the molecules flow freely and randomly. But for some reason in beam, all of the molecules move in the same direction. Also unlike other states of matter, beam doesn't create heat by friction with other beam particles. They create heat when they hit other molecules that are not moving in the same direction.
The seventh, and to me the most interesting state of matter is thought wave. Little is known about this state of matter. But, it scientists think that this state of matter has no limit of how fast it can travel, which I think is really cool.
-M T
