What is the PLASMA?

[fushigidane2001]

Please explain

and what is the plasma burn

[Pyanfar Chanur]

Plasma is the forth state of matter (solid liquid gas) it is extremly hot, so hot infact that we can only get it on earth when we do nucliear stuff. It can be found in suns and nebuli tho.

A plasma burn is just a burn that onewould get by comming into contact with plasma, from a warp core probobaly.

[EnsignParis]

Plasma is what stars are made of.

It only exists at extremely high temperatures, temperatures that occur usually only on stars. Even objects that are gasses at extremely low temperatures (carbon dioxide, nitrogen etc) will only turn into plasma at temperatures that rank in millions of degrees.

Also, there may be a fifth form of matter. At extremely low temperatures (as in temperatures millionths of a degree from absolute zero), I heard that strange things happen to the atoms of a substance, which may give evidence to a fifth form of matter.

[Alpha6006]

WOW Brilliant answers you 2. I am now amazed.

[sabertooth1217]

i agree with alpha, you guys know what your talking about

[webtaz99]

If you are talking about plasma at extreme temperatures (such as would be produced by the warp core), then a plasma burn would a very serious thing. The temperatures involved are so high that flesh would not just be cooked but vaporized! Just gone...

A really scary thing would be a plasma leak. Even live (supercritical) steam, if it is squirting out of a small hole, can cut a human body in half!
Of course, plasma is so hot that the hole would get bigger, and bigger, and bigger....

[Whitehero]

Indeed, plasma is found in extream temperatures, however, it is the temperature that creates the plasma. All plasma is is say, take the sun for example, every hydrogen/helium has been turned into a charged particle.

And, fushigidane2001, if you were to look around, there was an earlier thread on this subject.

Here's the link:
http://startrekvoyager.com/viewtopic.php?t=12809

[webtaz99]

In addition to heat, electromagnetic fields can strip electrons from atoms.

Almost all ST tech involves precise control of EM fields.

[starnova]

how about blood plasma?

[Solitary Poet]

Plasma is not actually a fourth state of matter the word simply means that the substance exists in more than one state of matter at once some forms of plasma exist in all forms of matter at once. As for blood it is actually a solid and a liquid at once, Jell-O is also a plasma!

[webtaz99]

[Sonic74205]

Well plasma in startrek and real life i think is different.
Cuz you can get them plasma balls

In Star Trek: Undiscovered Country you find out that plasma if "ionised gas"

[Five - seveN]

[marinedalek]

[webtaz99]

Data smashed the outer cylinder. He released the coolant, not the plasma. Still, there should be integrity force fields or something, considering the effect of coolant on organic matter.

[Five - seveN]

[starnova]

mybe the borg disable the forcefield when they took over enginerring.

[webtaz99]

Then they got what they deserved!

[Solitary Poet]

Plasma is often called the "Fourth State of Matter," the other three being solid, liquid and gas. A plasma is a distinct state of matter containing a significant number of electrically charged particles, a number sufficient to affect its electrical properties and behavior. In addition to being important in many aspects of our daily lives, plasmas are estimated to constitute more than 99 percent of the visible universe.

In an ordinary gas each atom contains an equal number of positive and negative charges; the positive charges in the nucleus are surrounded by an equal number of negatively charged electrons, and each atom is electrically "neutral." A gas becomes a plasma when the addition of heat or other energy causes a significant number of atoms to release some or all of their electrons. The remaining parts of those atoms are left with a positive charge, and the detached negative electrons are free to move about. Those atoms and the resulting electrically charged gas are said to be "ionized." When enough atoms are ionized to significantly affect the electrical characteristics of the gas, it is a plasma.

In many cases interactions between the charged particles and the neutral particles are important in determining the behavior and usefulness of the plasma. The type of atoms in a plasma, the ratio of ionized to neutral particles and the particle energies all result in a broad spectrum of plasma types, characteristics and behaviors. These unique behaviors cause plasmas to be useful in a large and growing number of applications important to our lives and to the world around us.

Origin of the Term "Plasma" for Ionized Gases

Many wonder how the term "plasma" became applied to an ionized gas. Irving Langmuir, a researcher working to understand electric discharges, was the first to use the term in this way. The following explanatory excerpt is from: G. L. Rogoff, Guest Editorial, Special Issue on Applications of Partially Ionized Plasmas, G. L. Rogoff, Ed., IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science, vol. 19, p. 989, Dec. 1991. (See helpful definitions below.)
During the 1920's Irving Langmuir was studying various types of mercury-vapor discharges, and he noticed similarities in their structure - near the boundaries as well as in the main body of the discharge. While the region immediately adjacent to a wall or electrode was already called a "sheath," there was no name for the quasi-neutral stuff filling most of the discharge space. He decided to call it "plasma."

While his relating the term to blood plasma has been acknowledged by colleagues who worked with him at the General Electric Research Laboratory, [1], [2], the basis for that connection is unclear. One version [2] of the story has it that the similarity was in carrying particles, while another account [3] speculated that it was in the Greek origin of the term, meaning "to mold," since the glowing discharge usually molded itself to the shape of its container. In any case, it appears that the first published use of the term was in Langmuir's "Oscillations in Ionized Gases," published in 1928 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences [4].

Thus the term "plasma" was first used to describe partially (if not weakly) ionized gases. The term plasma apparently did not find immediate widespread use in the scientific community. It did eventually catch on, however, but in some cases the term was inappropriately limited to highly ionized gases.

REFERENCES

[1] L. Tonks, "The birth of 'plasma'" Amer. J. Phys., vol. 35, pp. 857-858, 1967.

[2] Letter from H. M. Mott-Smith to A. M. Bueche, Apr. 20, 1967 (on file at Communications Operation, General Electric R&D Center, Schenectady, NY).

[3] S. C. Brown, "A short history of gaseous electronics," in Gaseous Electronics, vol. 1, M. N. Hirsh and H. J. Oskam, Eds. New York: Academic, 1978, pp. 1-18.

[4] I. Langmuir, "Oscillations in ionized gases," Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. U.S., vol. 14, p. 628, 1928; also available in The Collected Works of Irving Langmuir, vol. 5, C. G. Suits, Ed. New York: Pergamon, 1961, pp. 111-120.

Definitions:
Discharge: An electric discharge is the glowing gas that carries electricity between two electrodes when voltage is applied between them.

Quasi-neutral: "Quasi-neutral" refers to there being about equal numbers of positive ions and negative electrons in the gas; if there were exactly equal numbers of opposite charges, the gas would be exactly electrically neutral. (A plasma need not be exactly electrically neutral.)

Partially ionized: The terms "partially ionized," "weakly ionized" and "highly ionized" indicate qualitatively what fraction of the gas atoms are charged.

[starnova]

whoa! thats alot of info.

[webtaz99]

(applause)

That didn't hurt - did it?

[starnova]

so in easy terms its ionized gas?

[Solitary Poet]

YUP.

[starnova]

thanks

[EnsignParis]

a mod can delete this