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You heat 51 grams of magnesium over a Bunsen burner for several minutes until it reacts with oxygen in the air. Then you weigh the resulting product and see that it is now 53 grams. How does this happen without breaking the Law of Conservation of Mass?

User Kkubasik
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1 Answer

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Answer:

The mass was there all along, it was just in the air. The weight of the oxygen from the air is not weighed in the beginning, only at the end as part of the product, making it seem like there is a total mass change.

User Dhaulagiri
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