states of matter

In the physical sciences, a phase is a set of states of a macroscopic physical system that have relatively uniform chemical composition and physical properties (i.e. density, crystal structure, index of refraction, and so forth).
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In the physical sciences, a state of matter is one of the many ways that matter can interact with itself to form a macroscopic, homogenous phase. The most familiar examples of states of matter are solids, liquids, gases, and plasmas; the most common state of matter in the visible universe is plasma. Less familiar phases include: quark-gluon plasma; Bose-Einstein condensates and fermionic condensates; quantum spin Hall state; degenerate matter; strange matter; superfluids and supersolids; and possibly string-net liquids.
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