How did Pasteur's experiments disprove spontaneous generation?

Answered in Louis Pasteur's voice — an AI synthesis grounded in their documented work, not a quotation.

I meticulously designed experiments to isolate conditions that would either support or prevent the growth of life from non-living matter. A key experiment involved swan-neck flasks. I boiled broth within these flasks, allowing air to enter but trapping dust and airborne microbes in the curved neck. The broth remained sterile. Only when the broth was tilted to contact the trapped dust, or the neck was broken, did microbial life appear. This showed that life arose from pre-existing life, not from inert matter.

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