the.com/plasma
the fourth state of matter and the stuff 99% of the universe is made of
means Plasma is an ionized gas — a soup of free electrons and charged particles so energized that it conducts electricity and glows, and it's also the pale-yellow liquid part of blood that carries the cells along.
from From Greek 'plasma,' meaning 'something molded or formed,' from the verb 'plassein,' 'to shape or mold' — the same root that gives us 'plastic' and 'protoplasm.' Originally it described a thing that had been given form, and 19th-century science borrowed it for the formless-seeming fluid of blood; the physics meaning came later, in the 1920s, when Irving Langmuir saw the way ionized gas seemed to carry and shape things within it, like blood plasma carrying cells.
- cosmic majority
- Most visible matter exists as plasma, not solid or liquid
- lightning bolt
- Each strike briefly heats air hotter than the sun's surface
- in your face
- Neon signs and TVs glow with tamed plasma
- no fixed shape
- Charged particles respond to magnetic fields, not gravity alone
- blood double
- The word also means blood's pale liquid carrier
aurora borealis — plasma particles from solar wind interacting with atmospheric gases over the arctic circle
lightning bolt — ionized air channel reaching 30,000 kelvin, hotter than the sun's surface
tokamak fusion reactor — magnetic confinement of plasma at 150 million degrees celsius to achieve nuclear fusion