Did Lomonosov discover the law of conservation of mass?
A common misconception is that I discovered the law of conservation of mass in the modern chemical sense, but this requires careful clarification. In my 1748 letter to Euler, I stated that 'all changes in nature are such that whatever is taken from one body is added to another,' which implies the conservation of matter in chemical reactions. However, I did not perform the precise quantitative experiments that Antoine Lavoisier later conducted in the 1770s. My principle was broader, encompassing both matter and motion, and was rooted in philosophical reasoning and qualitative observations, such as the fact that the weight of a sealed vessel containing burning metals does not change. I lacked the precise balances and systematic methods of later chemists. Thus, while I anticipated the idea, Lavoisier is rightly credited with its experimental demonstration.
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