This is based on two articles, (Freedman, and Wilczek) one exploring the low-temperature range down to very nearly absolute zero, the other up to extremely high temperatures close to those the Universe experienced fractions of a second after its birth in the Big Bang.

The steps that matter undergoes as we descend the temperature scale might be outlined as follows:

1. Gases liquefy – this is condensation. Forces of attraction between molecules overcome the kinetic energy that tends to keep them apart. Density increases greatly.

2. Liquids crystallize into solids or stiffen into glasses. Crystals are highly ordered, while glasses remain disordered like liquids, but become rigid.

2a. Note: some substances go directly from gases to solids at ordinary atmospheric pressures, e.g. carbon dioxide to dry ice. At higher pressures there is a liquid phase.

3. At various temperatures below their freezing point, some solids undergo phase transitions toward an even greater order: e.g. from paramagnetism to ferromagnetism at the Curie point, where all the molecular or atomic magnets become permanently aligned in the same direction; and from ordinary electrical conductivity to superconductivity, when there is no longer any resistance to the movement of electrons through the solid. This is thought to be due to the formation of Cooper pairs, when two electrons, which are fermions unable to occupy the same space at the same time, pair their spins to become bosons, which can occupy the same space at the same time, and thus attain higher coherence.

4. At very low temperatures below their condensation point, some liquids, e.g. helium, undergo a phase transition to the superfluid state, at which viscosity disappears and other properties change drastically. Like superconductivity, this transition is also due to the attainment of quantum coherence on the macro scale. Quantum phenomena can now manifest at the macro level. All the molecules are coordinated as a whole.

5. It is hypothesized, and has now been observed, that at temperatures within a few millionths of absolute zero (which itself can never be reached), so-called Bose-Einstein condensation may be observed, a condition in which all the bosons occupy the same space at the same time. All the atoms condense into a single entity, all “go schlump”, in the words of physicist Carl Wieman. “It’s like one big fuzzy atom”, says Daniel Kleppner. “An identity crisis for matter.”

We note that order increases as we descend the temperature scale. The units (atoms or molecules) can form crystals and eventually even more coherent condensates as molecular motion slows down and almost comes to a stop. At ordinary temperatures, the attractive forces trying to produce cohesion and coherence are disrupted by the rapid thermal motions and cannot manifest themselves. At higher temperatures, entropy overcomes enthalpy; at lower temperatures this is reversed. The cross-over points differ from one substance to another.

Outlining the steps as we ascend the temperature scale shows us other transitions, this time disrupting the ordinary units of matter to smaller and smaller fragments.

1. Molecular aggregates break up, e.g. water goes to steam. In the liquid phase, water molecules form hydrogen bonds that tie them together. In steam these intermolecular bonds no longer exist. For water this transition occurs at 373 degrees K. In general, we can put the transition temperature at about 102.
2. Molecules break up into their constituent atoms; e.g. steam dissociates into hydrogen and oxygen gas at about 103 degrees K.
3. Atoms ionize into nuclei and electrons, usually in steps as the outermost electrons are ripped off first, then the more tightly bound inner ones. This is a transition from a gas to a plasma (air to fire in the ancient Greek 4-“element” scheme). A plasma is luminous because it contains a gas of photons, also called black-body radiation. This occurs at about 104 degrees K.
4. At much higher temperatures, attainable only in stars and in particle accelerators, nuclei break up into protons and neutrons. This is the boundary between nuclear chemistry and nuclear plasma, reached at about 1010 degrees K.
5. The next boundary has not yet been reached in the laboratory, though scientists are working toward it, and is not reached in stars either. It is presumed to have existed fleetingly at the Big Bang. Here protons and neutrons break up into quarks and gluons. Temporarily quarks may associate as pairs into pions, and there is a “pion gas”, analogous to the photon gas in ordinary plasma. Below this transition quarks are “confined” within protons and neutrons, but here they break loose from the confinement. Strange quarks also form. This is postulated to occur at about 1012 degrees K. [This state of a “quark-gluon soup” has now been reached – see Scientific American, April 2000]
6. At slightly higher temperatures, the quark pairs separate, the original “symmetry-breaking” at the dawn of the Universe is overcome, and the “vacuum” (which in the quantum-electrodynamics theory is not at all empty) regains its original symmetry
7. Theoretical calculations show that at about 1015 degrees K, the weak and electromagnetic forces (two of the four basic forces of nature) unite into a single electroweak force. Another symmetry-breaking step is overcome.
8. Much hotter still, and more theoretically tenuous, the strong force unites with the electroweak force, at about 1030 degrees K. If and when the fourth force, gravity, unites with the other three forces, is not known.

As the Universe exploded into being, these steps occurred in reverse, it is postulated, as the Universe cooled. Some think that above 1030 degrees K, if it could be attained, it would be possible to grow other Universes.

In this “temperature zoom”, we have gone from macrocoherence to a symmetric vacuum in 32 orders of magnitude. It is worth noting that these end points represent two very different kinds of order – but order nevertheless. Super-coherence and super-symmetry. Think on it.