Three States of Matter

Md. Saifur Rahman

Three States of Matter

Anything that has a certain mass and occupies space is matter. At normal room temperature, some matter may exist as solids, some as liquids, and some as gases.

For example, at normal temperatures sugar, edible salt, marble, etc. exist as solids; water, oil, kerosene, etc. exist as liquids, and nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, etc. exist as gasses. Again, changing the temperature, the same matter's state can be transformed into any solid, liquid, or gaseous state.

Below is given a short discussion on the properties and characteristics of solids, liquids, and gaseous matters.

Solids

A solid matter has a specific mass, volume, and shape. Molecules of all matter have a force of attraction. It is known as an intermolecular attraction. This force is the most in solid matter. As a result, the molecules in solids stay very close to each other in a fixed state and they take a fixed dimension that cannot be compressed with pressure. Again, a solid matter hardly changes shape when the temperature is raised.

Liquids

Liquids have specific mass and volume but do not have a shape. Liquids take the shapes of their containers. Since the molecules of a liquid remain farther from each other than those of solids, the intermolecular force of attraction is also less than solids. Such matters do not change volume when force is projected on them but the volume increases with the rise of temperature. This change in volume is greater than that of solids.

Gases

Gases have specific mass but they do not have specific volume or shape. Whatever quantity of gas is put into any size of the container, it takes over the full size of that container. The molecules in gases stay further than those of liquids or solids. The intermolecular force of attraction is also very low among them. A small quantity of pressure is enough to compress gases and in the same way, a small amount of temperature is enough to increase the volume of such matters.