How many states of matter exist?

1 Answer
Sep 11, 2016

At least #21#, possibly as many as #26# or more

Explanation:

Rather than enumerate them all, note that there are #4# classical states:

  • Solid
  • Liquid
  • Gas
  • Plasma

  • #6# known non-classical states (e.g. liquid crystal)

  • #8# known low temperature states (e.g. Bose-Einstein condensate a.k.a. BEC)
  • #3# known high energy states (e.g. Degenerate matter (white dwarf and neutron star material))

Then there are #5# proposed states:

  • Supersolid
  • String-net liquid
  • Superglass
  • Dark matter
  • Equilibrium gel

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_matter for more details.