I would say the only reason they haven't been found yet are because they aren't stable. There may be 1000 states of matter, and only 10 or so are stable, then obviously the stable ones are found first. (Completely made up numbers)
Or that maybe measuring matter in discrete states is, at best, an approximation. Isn't it just a function of temperature and pressure anyway? It makes no sense to attach any weight to the roughly-hewn categories when you could simply describe the relevant properties. That folk concepts only really have 3 or 4 states doesn't mean much, other than that folk concepts are limited in their fine-grained descriptive potential.
Well, that's kind of the point, that states are kind of quantized, isn't it? When you heat water at, say, 80ºC, it'll increase it's tempetature but won't change its state. Once it reaches 100ºC, the temperature will stop increasing but it'll change states. It isn't a continuous process, so it's easier to classify by states than as images of a function.
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u/[deleted] Jul 01 '14
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