States of Matter

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the science of matter and the states in which it can exist. Most people are familiar with the idea that a substance like water can exist in solid, liquid and gaseous forms. But as much as 99% of the matter in the universe is now believed to exist in a fourth state, plasma. Today scientists recognise a number of other exotic states or phases, such as glasses, gels and liquid crystals - many of them with useful properties that can be exploited.

→ Listen on BBC Sounds website

Guests

• Andrea Sella 3 episodes
  Professor of Chemistry at University College London
• Athene Donald 3 episodes
  Professor of Experimental Physics at the University of Cambridge
• Justin Wark 3 episodes
  Professor of Physics and Fellow of Trinity College at the University of Oxford

Reading list

• Andrea Sella at University College London
  
• Athene Donald at the University of Cambridge
  
• Justin Wark at the University of Oxford
  
• State of matter - Wikipedia
  
• States of matter - General Chemistry Virtual Textbook
  
• Liquid Crystals
  
• Perspectives on Plasmas - the fourth state of matter
  
• Supercritical fluids
  
• Supercritical carbon dioxide
  
• H2O: A Biography of Water
  Philip Ball (Phoenix, 2000) Google Books →
• The Fourth State of Matter: An Introduction to Plasma Science
  Shalom Eliezer and Y. Eliezer (Taylor & Francis, 2001) Google Books →
• Stuff Matters: The Strange Stories of the Marvellous Materials that Shape Our Man-made World
  Mark Miodownik (Viking, 2013) Google Books →
• Gases, Liquids and Solids and Other States of Matter
  D. Tabor (Cambridge University Press, 1991) Google Books →

Related episodes

• Plasma
  
  13 Oct, 2016 530 Physics
• Water
  
  28 Mar, 2013 540 Chemistry
• The Vacuum of Space
  
  30 Apr, 2009 530 Physics
• Dark Matter
  
  12 Mar, 2015 520 Astronomy
• Chemical Elements
  
  25 May, 2000 540 Chemistry
• Laws of Nature
  
  19 Oct, 2000 500 Science
• Kinetic Theory
  
  23 May, 2019 530 Physics
• The Photon
  
  12 Feb, 2015 530 Physics
• The Science of Glass
  
  28 May, 2015 620 Engineering
• Panpsychism
  
  25 Jan, 2024 120 Epistemology

Experimental. For more related episodes, visit the visual explorer.

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Programme ID: b03zdbr4

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03zdbr4

Auto-category: 530 (Physics)

Hello (First sentence from this episode)

Hello, most of the matter we encounter in everyday life appears in one of three states, solid, liquid or gas.