“Plasma” (in the scientific, not medical, sense) is a word thrown around a lot these days. Known best for its role in “Plasma” TVs, it is used in several different consumer applications.
Although many would think of plasma as some sort of special substance, it is actually much simpler. Like the three commonly-known “states” of matter (solid, liquid, and gas), plasma is another such state of matter. It occurs at temperatures much higher than gasses, and, like a gas, plasmas are extremely erratic, moving all about at high speeds. The most notable characteristic of plasmas is that they give off a lot of light (the colors depend on the material).
Plasmas may seem exotic, but everyone sees an example every day: the Sun gives off light because its matter is in a plasma state. Similarly, lightning is actually just air excited to a plasma state by stream of electricity. Plasma TVs have many small bubbles of gas which are excited to a plasma state to give off the colorful, brilliant light that makes them so popular.
Tags: element, lightning, material, matter, Plasma, plasmas, state, state of matter, sun, TV
2008/05/28 at 8:47
Or KDE Plasmoids
http://www.linux.com/feature/114560
2008/05/28 at 8:56
…I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that, Mike.
2008/06/06 at 17:39
Also, anyone who lived a full childhood has seen a plasma: it’s in a plasma ball.
Also, ionized gases are the operating principle behind a Geiger counter. A nonconductive gas fills a tube with a window. When radiation, usually beta because alpha is too large, enters, it may temporarily ionize the gas, causing it to conduct, making a click.