Anaya Nolan
The law of conservation of mass, also known as Lavoisier's Law, states that in a closed or isolated system, matter cannot be created or destroyed, only changed in form. The law is of great importance in chemistry, enabling scientists to embark on quantitative studies of the transformations of substances. The discovery of the law is credited to multiple scientists, including Mikhail Lomonosov, who noted it in his diary as a result of an experiment in 1756, and French chemist Antoine Lavoisier, who meticulously documented experiments that proved the law in 1774.
| Characteristics | Values |
|---|---|
| Creator of the Law of Conservation of Mass | Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier, with earlier work by Mikhail Lomonosov and later work by Jean Stas |
| Year of Discovery | Around 1785 |
| Creator of the Law of Conservation of Energy | Scottish mathematician William Rankine |
| Year of Coining the Term | 1850 |
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What You'll Learn
The Law of Conservation of Mass
The idea of mass conservation, along with the understanding that certain "elemental substances" could not be transformed into others by chemical reactions, led to the concept of chemical elements and the idea that all chemical processes are reactions between invariant amounts or weights of these elements.
The discovery of the Law of Conservation of Mass is attributed to the French chemist Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier, who made the discovery around 1785. Lavoisier conducted experiments with metals and observed that the mass gained by a metal during a chemical reaction was equal to the mass lost by the surrounding air. This led to the understanding that matter can undergo changes, but the total mass remains constant. Lavoisier's work built upon earlier research by Mikhail Lomonosov, who first outlined the principle in 1756, and Joseph Black, Henry Cavendish, and Jean Rey, whose works dated back to the time of Hero of Alexandria.
While the Law of Conservation of Mass holds in classical mechanics, it does not apply universally. For example, in open systems where energy or matter can enter or exit, mass may not be conserved. Additionally, with the advent of special relativity, the law was challenged as it was shown that mass and energy are interchangeable. However, unless nuclear reactions or radioactivity are involved, the amount of energy entering or leaving a system is typically too small to significantly impact the overall mass.
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The Law of Conservation of Energy
The history of the concept of energy conservation goes back to the 17th century. In 1639, Galileo published his analysis of the "interrupted pendulum", which can be described as conservatively converting potential energy to kinetic energy and back again. In 1669, Christiaan Huygens published a brief account of his laws of collision, listing the sum of kinetic energies and linear momenta of colliding bodies as invariant before and after the collision. Isaac Newton's 1687 publication of Principia, which set out his laws of motion, marked the start of quantitative theoretical physics. However, the principles set out in the book were insufficient to tackle the motions of rigid and fluid bodies.
In the 1840s, Julius Robert Mayer, James Prescott Joule, and Hermann von Helmholtz discovered and formulated the basics of what we now refer to as the law of conservation of energy. They used terms such as "living force", "tensional force", or "fall-force" instead of "energy". In 1850, the Scottish mathematician William Rankine first used the phrase "the law of the conservation of energy" for the principle. In 1851–1852, William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) and William J. M. Rankine began to use the word "energy" to denote any kind of "force" across all branches of science.
In 1905, Albert Einstein established the general equivalence of energy and mass with his theory of relativity, and the concept of "energy" was generalized into the form used today. In 1907, Einstein announced his discovery of the equation E=mc^2, merging the laws of conservation of energy and mass into the Law of Conservation of Mass-Energy: the total amount of mass and energy in the universe is constant.
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The Law of Conservation of Charge
The conservation of charge is similar to the conservation of energy and momentum. In all these cases, a measurable property remains constant within an isolated system. For example, the Law of Conservation of Energy states that energy cannot be created or destroyed but can only change forms or be transferred from one object to another. Similarly, the Law of Conservation of Charge implies that the total charge in any closed system remains constant, even as individual charges are transferred or redistributed within the system.
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The Law's Application in Classical Mechanics
The law of conservation of mass can only be formulated in classical mechanics, where the energy scales of an isolated system are much smaller than the mass of a typical object in the system. The law can be formulated mathematically in fluid mechanics and continuum mechanics using the continuity equation. This equation states that for a given closed surface in the system, the change in mass enclosed by the surface over any time interval is equal to the mass that traverses the surface during that time.
The law of conservation of mass was widely used by the 18th century, although an expression of the law can be dated back to Hero of Alexandria's time. One of the first to outline the principle was Mikhail Lomonosov in 1756. The law was challenged with the advent of special relativity, as mass is not generally conserved in open systems. However, unless nuclear reactions are involved, the amount of energy entering or escaping such systems is usually too small to be measured as a change in the mass of the system.
The law of conservation of energy states that the total energy of an isolated system remains constant over time. In a closed system, the total amount of energy can only change through energy entering or leaving the system. Energy can be converted from one form to another, such as chemical energy to kinetic energy in an explosion, but it cannot be created or destroyed. This law can also be rigorously proven by Noether's theorem as a consequence of continuous time translation symmetry.
The laws of conservation of energy, momentum, and angular momentum are derived from classical mechanics but remain true in quantum mechanics and relativistic mechanics. Conservation of linear momentum expresses that a body or system of bodies in motion retains its total momentum unless acted upon by an external force. Conservation of angular momentum of rotating bodies is analogous to the conservation of linear momentum, with the rate of rotation remaining the same unless a twisting force, or torque, is applied.
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The Law's Application in Special Relativity
The law of conservation of mass can be formulated in classical mechanics, and it was widely used by the 18th century. However, the law was challenged with the advent of special relativity.
Special relativity, a theory developed by Albert Einstein, states that the laws of physics are identical in all inertial frames of reference. This means that the laws of physics do not depend on objects being at absolute rest. For example, an observer on a train will observe the same natural phenomena on the train, regardless of whether the train is moving or not.
The second postulate of special relativity states that the speed of light is constant for all observers, regardless of their motion or the motion of the light source. This contradicts classical mechanics, which states that the speed of light varies depending on the motion of the observer and the light source.
Special relativity has several implications, including time dilation, length contraction, and the Lorentz transformation of velocities. Time dilation refers to the phenomenon where time measured between two events by observers in motion differs. For example, astronaut Scott Kelly spent almost a year on the International Space Station, moving much faster than his twin brother, Mark Kelly, who remained on Earth. Due to time dilation, Scott Kelly aged slightly slower than his brother, with only a negligible difference due to the fact that he was not moving near the speed of light.
Special relativity also predicts the equivalence of mass and energy, as expressed in Einstein's famous equation, E = mc². This equation shows that mass and energy are interchangeable and that even a tiny bit of mass contains a large amount of energy.
Overall, special relativity has altered our understanding of the concept of time and has had a significant impact on modern life, particularly in the field of GPS technology.
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Frequently asked questions
The law of conservation of mass was discovered by an amateur French chemist named Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier around 1785.
The law of conservation of energy was first termed as such by Scottish mathematician William Rankine in 1850. However, it was later claimed by Peter Guthrie Tait that the principle originated with Sir Isaac Newton.
The law of conservation of mass states that matter cannot be created or destroyed in chemical reactions. In other words, the total mass remains the same.
The law of conservation of energy states that energy cannot be created or destroyed. Instead, it can only be converted from one form to another or transferred from one object to another.
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