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Category
Gases
Summary
Gas is one of the four fundamental states of matter. The others are solid, liquid, and plasma.
A pure gas may be made up of individual atoms (e.g. a noble gas like neon), elemental molecules made from one type of atom (e.g. oxygen), or compound molecules made from a variety of atoms (e.g. carbon dioxide). A gas mixture, such as air, contains a variety of pure gases. What distinguishes a gas from liquids and solids is the vast separation of the individual gas particles. This separation usually makes a colourless gas invisible to the human observer.
The gaseous state of matter occurs between the liquid and plasma states, the latter of which provides the upper temperature boundary for gases. Bounding the lower end of the temperature scale lie degenerative quantum gases which are gaining increasing attention.
High-density atomic gases super-cooled to very low temperatures are classified by their statistical behavior as either Bose gases or Fermi gases. For a comprehensive listing of these exotic states of matter see list of states of matter.
The only chemical elements that are stable diatomic homonuclear molecular gases at STP are hydrogen (H2), nitrogen (N2), oxygen (O2), and two halogens: fluorine (F2) and chlorine (Cl2). When grouped together with the monatomic noble gases – helium (He), neon (Ne), argon (Ar), krypton (Kr), xenon (Xe), and radon (Rn) – these gases are referred to as "elemental gases".
The word gas was first used by the early 17th-century Flemish chemist Jan Baptist van Helmont. He identified carbon dioxide, the first known gas other than air. Van Helmont's word appears to have been simply a phonetic transcription of the Ancient Greek word χάος – the g in Dutch being pronounced like ch in "loch" (voiceless velar fricative, x) – in which case Van Helmont was simply following the established alchemical usage first attested in the works of Paracelsus. According to Paracelsus's terminology, chaos meant something like .
An alternative story is that Van Helmont's term was derived from "gahst (or geist), which signifies a ghost or spirit".
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