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

Because there are more than 4, and if you want the complete list it will get very very complicated, and involve a lot of quantum physics. (Superfluids, Einstein-Bose-Condensates, Supersolids, …)

It’s a lie for kids to keep things simple and allow kids to first understand the basics before they are exposed to concepts where they are missing a bunch of other knowledge to properly understand it.

Also plasma isn’t really so different from a gas. It’s just ionized gas, and there is no well agreed upon line where a gas is considered a plasma because there are partially ionized gasses too. So if something is a plasma or not depends slightly on context