ElI5: We were taught about the 3 states of matter in school, but there’s a 4th state called plasma. Why weren’t we taught about all 4 states together?

Question

ElI5: We were taught about the 3 states of matter in school, but there’s a 4th state called plasma. Why weren’t we taught about all 4 states together?

In: Physics

Answer 1

Grade school science was kinda last holistically planned in the 1940s, everything since is roughly bolted onto the shell of that. (math is Similar, any math that was useful for World War II engineers gets to be core, anything useful for computers or statistics or things modern stuff cares about is kinda taught slightly at the edge)