What is conservation

Conservation Laws

A conservation law is a hypothesis based on observation and experiments which cannot be proved. These can be verified via experiments.

Law of conservation of Energy

• According to the general Law of conservation of energy, the energies remain constant over time and convert from one form to another.
• The law of conservation of energy applies to the whole universe and it is believed that the total energy of the universe remains unchanged.
• Under identical conditions, the nature produces symmetric results at different time.

Law of conservation of Mass

This is a principle used in analysis of chemical reactions.

• A chemical reaction is basically a rearrangement of atoms among different molecules.
• If the total binding energy of the reacting molecules is less than the total binding energy of the product molecules, the difference appears as heat and the reaction is exothermic.
• The opposite is true for energy absorbing (endothermic) reactions.
• Since the atoms are merely rearranged but not destroyed, the total mass of the reactants is the same as the total mass of the products in a chemical reaction.