The ''''law of conservation of mass/matter'''' (The Lomonosov-Lavoisier law) states that the mass of a closed system of substances will remain constant, regardless of the processes acting inside the system. An equivalent statement is that matter changes form, but cannot be created or destroyed. This implies that for any chemical process in a closed system, the mass of the reactants must equal the mass of the products.
The conservation of mass is widely used in many fields such as chemistry, mechanics, and fluid dynamics. According to special relativity, the conservation of mass holds strictly true for closed systems as seen by single observers. However, it is only approximately true for systems when viewed from multiple different reference frames (as is done when adding the separate rest masses of system particles).
Several forms of radiation are popularly said to show mass to energy conversion, in which matter may be converted into kinetic energy/potential energy and vice versa. However, such situations result from adding rest masses (see "mass defect" in binding energy), to get total mass, an operation not allowed in relativity. For a single observer, all forms of energy in such conversions continue to have mass, and thus mass is conserved in nuclear reactions unless energy is allowed to escape.
Tiny amounts of mass are thus gained or lost from systems when they lose or gain heat, or any kind of radiation, and this gain or loss is not taken into account. However, in many practical contexts, the assumption of conservation of mass is true to a high degree of approximation, even for systems which are not closed to radiation.
2006-09-16 10:18:09
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answer #1
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answered by Smokey 5
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There are two reasons: first, in order to demonstrate mass conservation, you have to make sure that no mass "escapes" your experiment, meaning you would have to do the burning in a sealed container and make sure that no combustion products escape.
Second, the burning process releases stored energy in the form of heat as well as molecular binding energy. It is very difficult to prevent heat from escaping, so the mass equivalent of the energy that escapes will not be accounted for. Admittedly this is a very tiny mass, but to demonstrate conservation you will need to measure mass to a very high degree of precision.
None of this is impossible, but it is difficult because of the containment of material and energy required and the precision needed.
This brings up a general problem of proving conservation laws by experiment. No matter how precise your measurement, there is always a possiblity that the differences are smaller than your experiment is capable of measuring, so technically an experiment cannot offer "proof" of conservation of anything.
2006-09-16 10:23:32
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answer #2
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answered by gp4rts 7
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As per the law of conservation of mass the weight of reactants and the weight of products must be equal.In case of wood after burning the weight of coal and ash will not be equal as some gases during the combustion will escape so your demonstration will go wrong.
2006-09-16 15:32:43
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answer #3
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answered by moosa 5
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There's just too much going on. You have gasses and soot given off as combustion products, as well as water and other volatiles being driven off as gasses. You also have to account for exactly how much oxygen is taken from the air to participate in the burning process. All these factors make it difficult to measure. The large number of compounds in the wood that are involved in combustion would make it hard to do a theoretical analysis, as well.
2006-09-16 10:54:24
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answer #4
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answered by injanier 7
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It is always difficult to prove because any reaction involves many pats which you have to deal with. As wood burns, a lot changes in the surroundings so you have to take all that into account.
2006-09-16 10:19:02
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answer #5
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answered by ? 4
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It would be hard to demonstrate this because as the wood burns some things get burned off and are no longer solids ie carbon.
2006-09-16 10:18:22
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answer #6
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answered by mapletreebymywindow 3
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to collect the various products of combustion and the volatiles will not be an easy job when wood burns unlike when a solid reacts with another solid with products also in the solid form
2006-09-16 10:18:59
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answer #7
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answered by raj 7
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wood does not burn. the gasses that are released do. the wood is put in carbon form and escapes as smoke
2006-09-16 10:21:30
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answer #8
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answered by rsplicer02 1
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"Scientists" attack Christianity and "Christians" attack technology. How can technology be used to attempt non-repeatable phenomena. Did "guy" exist 7,000 years in the past? It relies upon on the way you outline "guy." in case you outline "guy" as somebody who can checklist history, the respond would desire to be "no." whilst i grew to become into attending college, an prolonged time in the past, C-14 relationship grew to become into called an "absolute" relationship approach and limited to 50,000 years in the past. Now it fairly is seen a relative relationship device. It has alway been viewed as such via physicists and extends previous 60,000 years. C14 is created via bombarding the nitrogen unfastened on the suitable of the ambience with cosmic potential. If there is far less unfastened nitrogen, there is far less C14 created. much less C14 in an merchandise shows an older age. technology would not attack something. the 2d it does, it ceases to be technology. Scientists who take components like which will become clergymen of "technology" quite than observers of experiments and technology is all approximately repeatable technology. it fairly is the weak spot of all relationship structures. no one has ever examined them for 2 hundred,000 years... or maybe 60,000 years. the thought the forces that govern those structures are static is devoid of evidence. Even the belief of time has its limits. devoid of mass/gravity, time would not exist, in accordance ot Steven Hawkings. yet, then, the Biblical relationship is likewise per assumptions via some nineteenth century bishop. How long is an afternoon if the earth would not rotate on the subject of the sunlight... or if there isn't any sunlight. Then there is the subject of randomness. If a pail of ice without warning began to boil, could it fairly is a miracle or an twist of way forward for possibility? technology could say it grew to become into an twist of way forward for possibility possibly purely to take place as quickly as in 1000 billion trillion buckets of ice. faster or later, that that's possibility and that that's supernatural attain a nexus.
2016-12-15 09:02:50
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answer #9
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answered by ? 4
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ask my teacher dude LOL
2006-09-16 10:33:03
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answer #10
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answered by sk8rchik57 2
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