Is sound the 6th phase?

[1234chaos11]

i was just wondering, is there a slight chance that sound can be the sixth phase. we all know that the phases are solid, liquid, gas, then plasma, but yeah i'm just wondering if there is a chance....

[Phi for All]

No.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3441643.stm

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Sound is simply matter in one of the other phases vibrating. You can have sound travel through water (jump in a swimming pool), air (of course), solids (put your ear on a table and tap it), and presumably the other phases such as plasma, although I'd hesitate putting your ear to plasma.

 

No extra phase necessary.

[timo]

We all know that the phases are solid, liquid, gas, then plasma.

I don't know that and I think that is wrong or at least incomplete. In theoretical physics (and those branches of experimental physics that I am familiar with) phases mean that a substance can be in different states for which some (macroscopic) property significantly differs. For the transition between fluid and gas, for example, a suitable property would be the density. There's other phases and phase transitions that are just less commonly mentioned but just as valid as phases as the classics. Examples:

- Transition between ferromagnetic and paramagnetic state in iron (-> magnetisation)

- Transition between isotropic and nematic phase in liquid crystal systems (-> nematic ordering parameter).

- Different lattice systems (relative positions of the atoms) in crystals (-> dunno).

- Transition from superconducting to non-superconducting state by change in temperature (-> electric resistivity).