Chapter 1
MATTER IN OUR SURROUNDINGS
Plasma: The state
consists of super energetic and super excited particles. These particles are in the form of ionized gases.
The fluorescent tube and neon sign bulbs consist of plasma. Inside a neon sign bulb, there is neon gas and inside
a fluorescent tube, there
is helium gas or some
other gas. The gas gets
ionized, that is, gets charged when electrical energy flows
through it. This charging up creates a plasma glowing inside the tube or bulb.
The plasma glows with a special colour depending on the nature of the gas. The Sun
and the stars glow because of the presence of plasma in them. The plasma is
created in stars because of very high temperatures.
Satyendra Nath Bose Albert Einstein
Bose-Einstein Condensate: In 1920, Indian physicist Satyendra Nath Bose had done some calculations for the fifth state of matter. Building on his calculations, Albert Einstein predicted a new state of matter – the Bose-Einstein Condensate (BEC). In 2001, Eric A. Cornell, Wolfgang Ketterle and Carl E. Wieman of the USA received the Nobel prize in physics for achieving “Bose-Einstein condensation”. The BEC is formed by cooling a gas of extremely low density, about one-hundred-thousandth the density of normal air, to super-low temperatures.