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by smhinsey 2338 days ago
I would love to be wrong because this tech is very interesting, but I feel like I have developed a pretty good bullshit detector in my time online and quotes such as "VES being the Fifth State of Matter (Fifth Essence - Quintessence)" stick out to me as being discrediting.
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Honestly, I have lost track of state of matters. How many are there? 3? s,l,g? Plasma? Bode Einstein Condensate? I vaguely remember at least three more.
Apparently in physics, there is less talk about states than about phases [1]. There are four fundamental states basically all matter can be in: solid, liquid, gas, plasma, but then you can get philosophical about what constitutes a state. Is a superfluid a liquid? I think there is a stronger case for Bose-Einstein condensate to be a separate state but one could argue otherwise. Crystalline vs amorphous solids could easily be argued as being different states etc...

Really, phases are more clearly defined, but more numerous, and change from one material to another.

And then you are left with the task of defining colloids, gels, aerosols...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_(matter)

There are over a dozen more exotic states of matter: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_of_matter