Question

A student has two different liquids in open beakers. she pours the liquid from one beaker into the other beaker, and she observes bubbles. after the bubbling stops, she finds that the total mass of the liquids is now less than the total mass of the liquids before they were mixed together. how can her observation be explained?

Answer 1

The loss of total mass and the observation of bubbles indicate a chemical reaction that produced a gas which escaped from the open beaker system, aligning with the law of conservation of mass.

Step-by-step explanation:

When the student mixed two different liquids and observed bubbles with a decrease in total mass, this indicates a chemical reaction occurred. The bubbling suggests the formation of a gas as a product of the reaction.

According to the law of conservation of mass, in a closed system, mass is conserved during chemical reactions. However, if the system is open, gases can escape, leading to a decrease in the observed total mass. In the student's open beaker experiment, the effervescence and resultant mass loss imply that a gas was produced and subsequently escaped into the surrounding atmosphere, thus explaining the mass difference.