Conservation of Matter

As per the conservation of matter law, the closed system having some amount of mass will be remaining as constant with respect to time. Although there are some processes being undergone under the closed system, there will be no change in mass witnessed speaking about the isolated systems. However, there is also another statement, which is very much important in conservation of matter is that mass can be neither destroyed nor created. All that happens with mass is just rearrangement of the mass in terms of space. As a result, it can give rise to some new particles. In other words, if there is a chemical process taking place in any closed system, the product mass that we get once the reaction is complete must be equal to the mass of reactants used in the chemical reaction.

Although conservation of matter is pretty much related to chemistry, the matter conservation principle is approximately a law of physics. Unfortunately, there are certain complications in the law of conservation of matter. First of all, since there is much difficulty in measuring the exact amount of mass since they are not pretty well defined, they will be one of the major drawbacks of this law. In some cases, logically it has been proved that even the closed systems will not obey the law of conservation.

Of course, the process of mass conservation takes place even in open systems as well. It is obvious that when a system is kept open, there is nothing to be surprised when you find different types of energy entering the system and thereby making some sort of modifications in the total mass of the particle. However, the law of conservation of matter has been very much useful for various researches as well as for carrying out some chemical reactions to make some products.

Questions:

• For what kind of system is conservation of matter is applied?
• What kind of changes can be made in mass of a particle?