Middle school6 min

Conservation of mass

Lavoisier's law, why it holds (atoms do not vanish), and how to use it to find a missing mass.

The essentials

1

Lavoisier's law

During a chemical change, the total mass of reactants used up equals the total mass of products formed: mreactants=mproductsm_{\text{reactants}} = m_{\text{products}} "Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed."
2

The explanation at the scale of atoms

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3

What is conserved and what is not

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4

The experimental condition

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ƒWrite my own sheetOr start from a blank page: rewriting a concept in your own words is how it sticks.