Plasma

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Short Description of Topic

The Main Idea

Plasma is essentially ionized gas in which each of the molecules lost an electron. This can happen in nature in the forms of lightning or on the surface of the sun as examples, but it can also be artificially induced using electric fields or other methods for example. Plasma is one of the four fundamentals states of matter and it behaves very differently from the other states.

A Mathematical Model

What are the mathematical equations that allow us to model this topic. For example [math]\displaystyle{ {\frac{d\vec{p}}{dt}}_{system} = \vec{F}_{net} }[/math] where p is the momentum of the system and F is the net force from the surroundings.

Connectedness

1. How is this topic connected to something that you are interested in?
2. How is it connected to your major?
3. Is there an interesting industrial application?

History

It was originally discovered by Sir William Crookes. He discovered the foreign matter by chance in a Crookes tube experiment. The name "plasma" was not used until 1928, when Irving Langmuir, an American chemist and physician coined it as such, as the glowing matter discharge looked a lot like the shape of a Crookes tube; the origin of the word is a Greek word, πλάσμα, meaning "anything formed", like the discharge that took on the shape of the tube.

See also

[Electric Fields, http://www.physicsbook.gatech.edu/Electric_Field]

Further reading

Books, Articles or other print media on this topic

External links

[1]

References

Chabay & Sherwood: Matters and Interactions -- Modern Mechanics Volume 1, 4th Edition Luo, Q-Z; D'Angelo, N; Merlino, R. L. (1998)