Teachers taught us the 3 states of matter, but there’s a 4th called plasma. Why weren’t we taught all 4 around the same time?

Question

Teachers taught us the 3 states of matter, but there’s a 4th called plasma. Why weren’t we taught all 4 around the same time?

In: Planetary Science

Answer 1

There are more than 4 states of matter. There are more than 5 states of matter. In fact, it turns out to get difficult at some point to decide if an observation is a new state of matter or not. But most people agree there are 3 states of matter that every person interacts with every day.