# Condensed matter?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/condensed-matter/1013702
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [February 1, 2025, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/condensed-matter/1013702 "2025-02-01T02:28:44Z")
**Posts on this page:** 12
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2025, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/condensed-matter/1013702/1 "2025-02-01T02:28:44Z")
Is there a relatively easy way to explain condensed matter and how it is condensed. Does it continue to condense as in " Time and pressure". Does it’s tolerance for heat go up as it condenses?
---
### Author:  [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2025, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/condensed-matter/1013702/2 "2025-02-01T02:33:25Z")
Is this what you are referring to or are you trying to describe something else?
> **[Condensed matter physics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condensed_matter_physics)**
>
> Condensed matter physics is the field of physics that deals with the macroscopic and microscopic physical properties of matter, especially the solid and liquid phases, that arise from electromagnetic forces between atoms and electrons. More generally, the subject deals with condensed phases of matter: systems of many constituents with strong interactions among them. More exotic condensed phases include the superconducting phase exhibited by certain materials at extremely low cryogenic temperatur...
---
### Author:  [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2025, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/condensed-matter/1013702/3 "2025-02-01T02:33:47Z")
NM, I think the E\_C\_G has a better bead on this
---
### Author:  [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2025, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/condensed-matter/1013702/4 "2025-02-01T03:26:49Z")
You could reasonably say that as an area of study, condensed matter physics is all about the nature of states of matter when you cool it down far enough that some annoying effect of heat goes away and a hitherto unimportant force starts to be important.
So in principle any baryonic matter is condensed matter, but only if you are comparing the first moments of the universe to later. Which we aren’t.
Cool stuff down to the point that electric forces overwhelm thermal energy and gasses go to liquid or solid. The phase of the matter changes, and new physical properties emerge. Continue to cool it down, eventually thermal jostling reduces to the point larger scale quantum effects start to become important and you enter superconducting and related physics. Go really low and cool the matter to as close to zero thermal energy as we can and quantum effects can reach far enough to observe things like Bose Einstein condensates.
So “condensation” is arguably not just about solids and liquids versus gas, plasma etc. it is about the physics of materials in regimes identified by phase changes occurring at lower temperatures. Whether you consider a superconductor as a condensed metal might be just a question of semantics.
“Tolerance the heat” is an odd question. Pump energy into matter and its temperature rises again. There are effects on the boundaries of phase changes that make things complicated. The most obvious in ordinary life being the latent heat of evaporation of water, or latent heat of freezing of water. Depends what “tolerance” means. Definitely condensed matter physics however.
The specific heat of materials depends on the phase. Superconducting materials can have a much lower specific heat than when not superconducting, so they heat up and transit out of superconducting with only the tiniest amount of input energy. Just the mechanical movement of a winding settling in the coil of a superconducting magnet is enough to add enough energy to take it above superconductivity and lead to a quench. Which is bad.
“Phase of matter” is being used perhaps loosely here. The horse has long since bolted on being too precious about what “phase” means.
---
### Author:  [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2025, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/condensed-matter/1013702/5 "2025-02-01T03:32:45Z")
Condensed matter is something that only exists in a lab, or maybe in the darkness of space. It’s not going to be very useful for most people.
---
### Author:  [@Typo\_Knig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Knig)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2025, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/condensed-matter/1013702/6 "2025-02-01T03:56:56Z")
Like the link engineer\_comp\_geek posted says, it’s just solids or liquids - those are everyday types of stuff. As opposed to gases, or plasmas (gases so hot the atoms ionize), or elementary particles. The term “solid state physics” fell out of favor, probably to include liquids. I have my doctorate in condensed matter physics, I hope you can trust me on this.
---
### Author:  [@Typo\_Knig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Knig)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2025, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/condensed-matter/1013702/7 "2025-02-01T04:09:42Z")
> [@HoneyBadgerDC](#):
>
> how it is condensed. Does it continue to condense as in " Time and pressure". Does it’s tolerance for heat go up as it condenses?
This is an area of physics whare a lot of everyday experiences are helpful. Think about ice melting into water, and water boiling into steam. If you reverse that process, you can chill steam until it starts forming liquid water drops, and then freeze the liquid water into ice. In some conditions, like high altitude clouds in a snowstorm, ice can form directly from the cold water vapor.
Or think about "Dry Ice’, which is frozen carbon dioxide. At the temperature and air pressure we humans see at the Earth’s surface, solid CO2 evaporates directly into a gas, skipping the liquid phase. Make a room cold enough, and one could freeze the CO2 out of the air. I wouldn’t want to be in that room when it happens - it’s really cold!
Once you have a liquid, the molecules are pretty much all in contact, so most liquids are hard to compress. It can be done, with either temperature or pressure, or both. Solids often form crystals with more space between the molecules, which is why ice is less dense than water, and why ice floats in water. Water freezes into solid ice at zero Celsius, but its greatest density is about 4 degrees Celsius. And yes, one can compress solids with increasing pressure or lowered temperature. Things contract in the cold.
All of this depends on the material, and the various crystalline (or non-crystalline) states. It gets complicated. Heat tolerance gets more complicated than I’m willing to describe late on a Friday.
---
### Author:  [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2025, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/condensed-matter/1013702/8 "2025-02-01T04:18:58Z")
> [@engineer\_comp\_geek](#):
>
> Is
Yes, I think so . I really don’t know anything about it at all beyond what I stumble across now and then but I see it refereed a lot. I think of extra dense matter on superstar’s things like that. I was wondering what happens when it condenses. I know we can put tremendous pressure on things here but it doesn’t really condense the matter.
---
### Author:  [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2025, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/condensed-matter/1013702/9 "2025-02-01T04:23:14Z")
> [@Typo\_Knig](#):
>
> All of this depends on the material, and the various crystalline (or non-crystalline) states. It gets complicated. Heat tolerance gets more complicated than I’m willing to describe late on a Friday.
I was thinking more dramatic like 1 gallon of condensed matter might way as much as the empire state building.
---
### Author:  [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2025, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/condensed-matter/1013702/10 "2025-02-01T04:41:26Z")
Yeah, neutronium is a pretty wild form of matter, but certainly counts as condensed. I know physicists who have worked on properties of such matter. Not exactly easy to get experimental data, but observations of pulsars provides some interesting insights. That pulsars might have star quakes is pretty cool. That the exact profile of a quake might map to QCD is seriously cool. Hard to actually prove, but remarkable idea.
---
### Author:  [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2025, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/condensed-matter/1013702/11 "2025-02-01T05:25:10Z")
It really is fascinating I envy the people who work on things like that. Even with computers these guys have t be super smart.
---
### Author:  [@Typo\_Knig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Knig)
#### Post date: [February 2, 2025, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/condensed-matter/1013702/12 "2025-02-02T01:38:10Z")
If you like science fiction, the novel Dragon’s Egg might be a fun introduction to the physics of neutron stars. [Dragon's Egg - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon's_Egg?wprov=sfti1)