Final answer:
The law of conservation of matter states that matter is neither created nor destroyed but conserved in chemical reactions. This fundamental principle applies in chemistry to predict the outcomes of reactions and measure the mass of reactants and products. correct option is d) can be conserved by some adaptive strategies.
Step-by-step explanation:
The law of conservation of matter tells us that matter cannot be created or destroyed in a chemical reaction. Instead, matter is always conserved, meaning that the total mass of the reactants must equal the total mass of the products. In everyday terms, matter can simply be rearranged - for instance, during cellular respiration, carbon can be transformed from carbohydrate to carbon dioxide, but the total number of atoms remains constant.
To illustrate, when you consume food, all the matter from the food is accounted for even after digestion and assimilation; some is incorporated into your body while the rest is excreted. Although it can be difficult to measure outside of controlled laboratory conditions, this doesn't mean the matter is lost. In nature, matter goes through countless cycles of conversion and reorganization, continuously molding into different forms, but its atoms never vanish.
Matter can also be transferred, as seen in living systems where molecules combine and separate, ensuring the conserved nature of matter through continuous transformations. This conservation is fundamental in chemistry because it allows chemists to predict the outcome of chemical reactions and the amounts of substances involved.