If matter can not be created or taken away, how exactly do trees grow?

Question

I know this sounds strange but I was walking the other day and I was thinking about highschool chemistry and science and started thinking about matter- how it already exist, cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed. Then how does anything grow- such as a tree or child? Other than water being the main mass made up of that matter, is the rest all nutirents? If a tree starts out as a seed, what goes into the tree as matter to make it as large as a tree (I understand about the tree dying, decaying and returning the matter perhaps the the soil. Same with a human. (I've been reading way to much Douglas Adams- sorry!)
Any insight into this would be great!

Answer 1

Mathematician is mostly correct.
This is actually a good question. In the documentary "A Universe of their Own", they asked graduating Harvard students almost this same question and nearly none could correctly answer it.
The vast majority of the matter in a tree comes from water and carbon dioxide. Only a very tiny amount comes from the soil, relatively speaking.
Trees take up carbon dioxide through their stomata, and water through the roots. The vast majority of this water transpires right on through the tree.
But with this carbon dioxide and water, the tree uses the energy from sunlight to make glucose (a sugar) and oxygen. It gives the oxygen to the atmosphere.
The hydrogen and oxygen in the glucose come from water and the carbon in the glucose comes from the carbon dioxide.
The tree takes the glucose and eventually assembles this simple sugar into more complex sugars such as sucrose and polysaccharides. These may be further assembled into huge cellulose molecules. Cellulose is basically "fiber", like in paper fibers, and the cellulose of cell walls (found only in plants). That's what becomes "wood" as those cells die and are left inside the tree.
zahbudar and greg don't fully understand the process.

Answer 2

Trees take water and minerals from the soil to make cellulose which is the tree structure. The cellulose is
pumped full of sap which is a water based fluid of
foods and minerals for the tree's continued growth.
As the tree sheds its leaves and other debris, those
materials decompose on the surface of the ground
and replenish the supply of minerals in the dirt at the
base of the tree, continuing the process.

Answer 3

the mass of the tree, child, building, whatever seems to be 'growing' is being fed to it. A tree consumes water & nutrients from the soil, as well as carbon dioxide from the air. It takes these chemicals, breaks them down in a usable form (like we do the food we eat), and applies them in the building of it's mass.

Answer 4

In the course of a lifetime you injest food which carry nutrients; those nutrients then go on to construct bone from calcium and create body cells from proteins and various other nutrients. This is the same with trees; their roots soak up nutrients and water to grow, then it dies and decomposes to to create more nutrient rich soil for another tree to grow from. The soil is loaded with a lot of protein and nutrients and molecules of gas and various other elements. In the Hindu religion there is a god called Shiva which is shown preforming a dance of creation from existing matter, than grows from existing matter then dies which gives off its matter to create another cycle of life and death. Same with stars. They form form a cloud of gas and matter which collapses from its own gravity to form a star, it lives it dies in a supernova, which explodes the old matter into space, to start the cycle over. Any questions?

Answer 5

The mass of a tree comes from the water it gets from the ground, the nutrients it gets from the ground and the gasses it gets from the air. The amount of mass from the gasses is actually quite considerable and should not be neglected.

Answer 6

Tree: gains carbon dioxide from the air, and water, fixed nitrogen, and minerals from the soil.

Answer 7

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Answer 8

You are what you eat --- literally! Same goes for plant life. Water and nutrients from the soil, carbon (from CO2) from the air.

Answer 9

matter I belive can be destroyed however energy cant. living things use what they ingest to make themselve grow. Protiens minerals etc... you are what you eat