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

The first three states are things that people encounter every day. The fourth is something most people will never encounter in their lives, and even physicists researching it specifically do so with a lot of protective equipment (or telescopes) between it and them. Telling second graders about it would just make the other three states more confusing.