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Unit 3: Matter Page 20
wondering how come you’ve never temperature is called absolute
heard of it before? (By the way, zero. At absolute zero, there is no
blood plasma is different from this energy and no atomic movement.
stuff, and a good thing too!) Space is 3 degrees Kelvin. (We’ll
get deeper into this concept when
Well, there is very little of it on we get to the thermal energy
Earth and the plasma that is here lessons.)
is very short lived or stuck in a
tube. Plasma is basically ionized Scientists have discovered that if
gas or in other words it is gas that you get certain types of atoms cold
is electrically charged. The stuff in enough (less than one millionth of
florescent light bulbs is plasma. a degree above absolute zero) you
Plasma TV’s have plasma (go get this bizarre thing called a Bose-
figure) inside of them. Lightning Einstein condensate. When the
and sparks are actually plasma! atoms get that cold they move so
slowly that they kind of blend
Bose-Einstein Condensate together into one big atomic mush.
Satyendra Nath Bose and Albert
Now let’s talk a bit about the Bose- Einstein predicted that this state of
Einstein condensate or the BEC if matter existed in 1924. Seventy
you want to be hip. Each form of one years later in 1995, two
matter corresponds with a level of scientists at the University of
energy. Plasma is the highest Colorado using magnets and lasers
energy state of matter. So made it happen.
energetic, in fact, that it can give
off light. BEC is the lowest energy Solids
state of matter.
So now that we’ve gotten those
In fact, BEC only happens at bizarre states of matter out of the
energy levels that are almost as way, let’s talk about some stuff
low as possible. Basically that really matters (haha…couldn’t
temperature is a measurement of resist at least one pun). Something
energy. The higher the to keep in mind is that everything
temperature, the higher the energy is made of the same stuff, atoms.
of something and vice-versa.
Theoretically the coldest anything What makes the solids, liquids,
can ever get is 0 degrees Kelvin, gases etc. different is basically the
(the same as -273 degrees Celsius, energy (motion) of the atoms.
or -459 degrees Fahrenheit). This From BEC, where they are so low
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