Dennis writes:

In article , says...

Most people know plasma TVs as those unbelievably thin display monitors that
can be hung on your wall just like pieces of video art. (To give you an idea
of the space-saving advantages of plasma technology, consider this: A
40-inch TV may be two feet deep and weigh upwards of 150 pounds, while the
same size plasma display might have a depth of, say, 6 inches and weigh half
as much.) But this isn't your average slimmed-down television set. The
display itself consists of thousands of "cells," which are individual glass
compartments injected with neon-xenon gas suspended in plasma-hence the

"suspended in plasma"? Huh? "Plasma" is the ionized state of matter.

The gas is ionized by an electrical discharge and thus the name plasma TV.
It ionized gas results in the production of ultraviolet (UV) light. The
phosphors of each cell convert the UV to light - red, green, and blue -
3 cells for each pixel. A plasma TV is more like an array hundres of
thousands of fluorescent lamps than a CRT.

See for example: http://www.dtvcity.com/plasmatv/howplasmaworks.html

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