Condensed States of Matter

The condensed states of matter are solids and liquid - states in which the atoms or molecules are fairly close together and their behavior is determined (at least in part) by the attractions between them.

What you need to remember from previous units:

Before you can study the condensed states of matter, you need to make sure that you understand the phases of matter, intermolecular attractions, the relationship between heat and temperature, Boltzmann diagrams and the relationship between Boltzmann diagrams and temperature.

New stuff

To understand condensed states of matter, we need to understand phase changes. This involves knowing the names of each phase change, but it also means understand the relationship between phase changes and temperature, between phase changes and heat and between phase changes and pressure.

We also need to understand phase diagrams, how phase diagrams show phase changes, triple point, critical point, and the meaning of the slope of the solid/liquid line on the phase diagram.

Given that the most common liquid we all deal with is water, we need to understand some of its properties such as surface tension. Understanding surface tension will also lead to understanding soap, how soap cleans things, how soap behaves in water and the formation of micelles, how micelle formation relates to salad dressing and lastly how soap affects surface tension.

We also need to know the basic types of solids and what holds them together. Specifically, we need to understand ionic solids, metallic solids, molecular solids and network solids (such as graphite, diamond and quartz)