For example, at room temperature H2O (water) is a liquid, CH4 (methane) is a gas, NaCl (salt) is a solid, why?
What are the properties of a molecule that determines its state?
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What causes the different states of matter is how the molecules interact with each other, if the forces between the molecules are very strong the substance is a solid, an example of very strong union is ionic or metallic bonds, ionic bonds is where atoms rip electrons of each other and are both left with different electrical charges.
If the forces are weaker the substance is a liquid, here it gets more complicated, as some liquids are composed of molecules that have something called polarity, which means that different parts of the molecule have more positive and some have more negative charge. And some other molecules are completely non polar. The more polar a liquid is, the stronger the attraction between the different polarities in the molecules, the stronger the attraction the harder it is for that liquid to become a gas.
Gases have next to no force between the molecules.
So it comes to the forces between the particles, strong forces means solid, weaker forces means liquid, next to no forces means gas
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