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50 free States of Matter trivia questions with answers — science & nature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Solid, liquid, gas — and then plasma, superfluids and condensates colder than deep space. This trivia about matter in science covers the classical states, phase changes like sublimation and deposition, melting and boiling points, what a gas actually is, and the strange states physicists have made in the lab. It works for a classroom review or a science-themed quiz night. Every answer is sourced, with a short explanation so you learn something even when you miss.
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Q 01How many states of matter are observable in everyday life?
Four
Neon signs and lightning are everyday examples of partially ionised plasma.
Q 02Particles in a liquid stay close but slide past each other, so a liquid keeps what?
Its volume but not its shape
That is why a liquid keeps its volume but takes the shape of its container.
Q 03Which state of matter has both a definite shape and a definite volume?
Solid
A solid can only change shape through an outside force, such as being broken or cut.
Q 04Which state expands to fill both the shape and the volume of its container?
Gas
Gas particles are far apart and move freely, which also makes gases compressible.
Q 05What does plasma contain that ordinary gas does not?
Free-moving charged particles
The ions and free electrons respond to electric and magnetic fields.
Q 06Liquid crystals, used in LCD screens, share properties of which two states?
Solids and liquids
Austrian botanist Friedrich Reinitzer discovered them in 1888 while studying cholesterol derivatives.
Q 07Roughly what fraction of ordinary matter in the universe is plasma?
About 99.9%
Stars are almost pure balls of plasma, and it dominates the gas between galaxies.
Q 08Who introduced the term "plasma" for ionised gas in 1928?
Irving Langmuir
He borrowed the word from blood plasma, which carries corpuscles the way the gas carries electrons.
Q 09Which scientist proposed a "fourth state of matter" in an 1879 paper on low-pressure discharges?
William Crookes
Crookes' glowing tubes were an early glimpse of plasma half a century before the word existed.
Q 10The word "gas" was coined by which 17th-century chemist?
Jan Baptist van Helmont
It was probably a phonetic spelling of the Greek "chaos", pronounced with a Dutch guttural g.
Q 11The word "gas" is thought to be a transcription of which Ancient Greek word?
Chaos
In Paracelsus's terminology, chaos meant something like "ultra-rarefied water".
Q 12Unlike a liquid, a gas is described as what kind of fluid?
Compressible
Liquids are nearly incompressible, keeping their volume even under pressure.
Q 13Which of these is a noble gas made of single atoms?
Neon
Hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, fluorine and chlorine exist as two-atom molecules; the noble gases are monatomic.
Q 14Gas particles spreading out to fill a container evenly is called what?
Q 21Gas changing into liquid is called condensation; what is it the reverse of?
Vaporization
It happens when vapour is cooled or compressed to its saturation limit, as on a cold window.
Q 22Evaporation happens where on a liquid?
At its surface
Boiling, by contrast, forms vapour bubbles inside the bulk of the liquid.
Q 23Why does sweating cool you down?
Evaporating molecules carry energy away
The energy removed from the vaporising liquid lowers the temperature of what remains.
Diffusion
Diffusion is one of the four gas behaviours that Boyle, Charles, Dalton and Avogadro studied.
Q 15Which equation sums up the gas behaviour studied by Boyle, Charles and Avogadro?
The ideal gas law
It links pressure, volume, temperature and amount of gas in a single equation.
Q 16A solid turning directly into a gas, as dry ice does, is called what?
Sublimation
Solid iodine and the naphthalene in mothballs also sublime readily.
Q 17Dry ice is the solid form of which substance?
Carbon dioxide
At normal pressure CO2 has no liquid state, so it sublimes straight to gas at −78.5 °C.
Q 18At what temperature does dry ice sublime at normal atmospheric pressure?
−78.5 °C
Liquid CO2 only forms at pressures above about 5.1 atmospheres.
Q 19Which preservation method removes water by letting ice sublime under a vacuum?
Freeze-drying
The food is frozen first, then its ice turns to vapour without ever melting.
Q 20Water vapour turning directly into frost without becoming liquid is an example of what?
Deposition
It is the reverse of sublimation and how hoar frost forms on leaves in sub-freezing air.
Q 24At 1,905 metres altitude, water boils at roughly what temperature?
93 °C
Lower air pressure means a lower boiling point, which is why mountain cooking takes longer.
Q 25Whose 1941 theory of superfluidity earned a Nobel Prize in 1962?
Lev Landau
Kapitsa had discovered the effect in 1937; Landau explained it and later won his own Nobel.
Q 26Which metal has the highest melting point, about 3,414 °C?
Tungsten
That heat resistance is why it was used as the filament in incandescent light bulbs.
Q 27Which element does not freeze at all at normal pressure, even near absolute zero?
Helium
It needs more than twenty times atmospheric pressure before it will solidify.
Q 28Which is the only metal that is liquid at standard temperature and pressure?
Mercury
Bromine is the only other element that is liquid under those conditions, and it is not a metal.
Q 29Gallium melts at about 29.8 °C, which means it will melt where?
In a person's hand
Unlike mercury, liquid gallium wets glass and skin, which makes it messy to handle.
Q 30Which non-metal element is liquid at room temperature?
Bromine
Mercury and bromine are the only two elements that are liquid at standard conditions.