christian huygens came up with the conservation of mass.
christian huygens came up with the conservation of mass.
who came up with the conservation of mass?
christian huygens
by the 18th century the principle of conservation of mass during chemical reactions was widely used and was an important assumption during experiments, even before a definition was formally established, as can be seen in the works of joseph black, henry cavendish, and jean rey. the first to outline the principle was given by mikhail lomonosov in 1756. he demonstrated it by experiments and had discussed the principle before in 1774 in correspondence with leonhard euler, though his claim on the subject is sometimes challenged. a more refined series of experiments were later carried out by antoine lavoisier who expressed his conclusion in 1773 and popularized the principle of conservation of mass. the demonstrations of the principle led alternatives theories obsolete, like the phlogiston theory that claimed that mass could be gained or lost in combustion and heat processes.
conservation of mass
mass and energy can be seen as two names (and two measurement units) for the same underlying, conserved physical quantity. thus, the laws of conservation of energy and conservation of (total) mass are equivalent and both hold true. einstein elaborated in a 1946 essay that "the principle of the conservation of mass [...] proved inadequate in the face of the special theory of relativity. it was therefore merged with the energy conservation principle—just as, about 60 years before, the principle of the conservation of mechanical energy had been combined with the principle of the conservation of heat [thermal energy]. we might say that the principle of the conservation of energy, having previously swallowed up that of the conservation of heat, now proceeded to swallow that of the conservation of mass—and holds the field alone."
mass–energy equivalence