when did plasma become a state of matter
Plasma (physics) Plasma (from Ancient Greek πλάσμα​, meaning 'moldable substance'[1]) is one of the four fundamental states of matter, and was first described by chemist Irving Langmuir[2] in the 1920s.[3] Unlike the other three states, solid, liquid, and gas, plasma does not exist freely on the Earth's surface under normal conditions. Plasma can only be artificially generated by heating or subjecting a neutral gas to a strong electromagnetic field to the point an ionised gaseous substance becomes increasingly electrically conductive, and long-range electromagnetic fields dominate the behavior of the matter.[4]
Atom The idea that matter is made up of discrete units is a very old idea, appearing in many ancient cultures such as Greece and India. The word "atom" was coined by ancient Greek philosophers. However, these ideas were founded in philosophical and theological reasoning rather than evidence and experimentation. As a result, their views on what atoms look like and how they behave were incorrect. They also could not convince everybody, so atomism was but one of a number of competing theories on the nature of matter. It was not until the 19th century that the idea was embraced and refined by scientists, when the blossoming science of chemistry produced discoveries that only the concept of atoms could explain.