Solids, Liquids & Gases A look at the states of matter.

SOLIDS What are some examples of solids? – Well, we’ve got things like… Tables…ice cubes…skin…paper…

What IS a Solid?? Why are solids…solid?? We can usually tell whether something is a “solid” or not…but why exactly does it act that way? – In order to find this out, we need to return back to our microscopic view of particles. Let’s even use the Spring Model to help us!

The Spring Model for a SOLID For each side near a neighbor particle, we can imagine a spring. Generally speaking, the closer the particles, the stronger the spring!

The Spring Model for a SOLID See how rigidly knit these neighbors are? They don’t allow each other to go too far away, OR to come too close. Remember that these springs are our way of imagining what the Electric Forces are doing.

The Spring Model for a SOLID What would happen if we were to zoom out, little by little? LET’s TRY IT!

Zooming Out from a SOLID…

Zoomed Out from a SOLID… SOURCE: WOW! We were looking at an orange peel all along!

What about LIQUIDS?? What are some examples of Liquids…? How about water, vinegar, or rubbing alcohol? SOURCES:

What about LIQUIDS?? Liquids can “spill”…we know that much. But, why?? How about we ZOOM IN on this… …OLIVE OIL!!! SOURCE:

Zooming In on a LIQUID SOURCE: Let’s pour some out first…o-OOPS! Oh well…that’ll do. We’ll just…get down there…and zoom in…

Zooming in on a LIQUID

Zoomed in on a LIQUID It looks like they have NO problem getting around each other, but they’re still not getting far, are they…? Where are the springs??? – Well, here they are more like bungee cords or rubber bands…or….really FLOPPY springs… watch:

Zoomed in on a LIQUID “Really floppy springs…” See why we don’t show them? …yeah…better to just leave them out of the picture! There, MUCH better!

But, what…about…GASES…??? Where can we find some GAS to zoom in on?? – Oh well, that’s an EASY one!! We BREATHE something that’s a gas: AIR! – All we have to do is ZOOM-IN on some of what we’re BREATHING-IN! SOURCES:

Zooming in on a GAS

Zoomed in on a GAS Wow! Look at ‘em GO! Springs DEFinitely would not make much sense as a model for a gas, here…these guys are acting more like…BILLIARD BALLS!

So then… So we’ve looked at the 3 main phases of matter… There are still some questions left to be asked, though! – WHY do materials have different phases. – HOW do materials change their phase. …and…. – WHAT HAPPENS when materials go through phase changes? We’ll need to do an EXPERIMENT in order to find the answers to THOSE questions!