Polycarp1
Born-again Liberal Episcopalian
Rather, (and this illustrates how good science works), the Law of Conservation of Matter was a good first approximation of the truth about God's Universe -- "Within a closed system, the amount of matter present is a constant" is true to the extent that no subatomic reactions which are not self-cancelling occur in that system. However, since this includes all radioactivity as well as actual "nuclear reactions" of the power generation/atomic bomb type, it's actually fairly rare -- but the amount of matter converted into energy in, e.g., a hundred cubic feet of propane, while not zero, is so close to it as to be negligible. Even in the sun, 100,000 tons of hydrogen are converted to 99,999.994 tons of helium and a scad of energy. (Those figures are completely made up, because I don't have a handy reference to the actual quantity of either -- but they're accurate in terms of showing order-of-magnitude change -- it takes very little matter loss to produce an immense amount of energy.)
LoCoM was never precisely true -- but before the discovery of radioactivity and Einstein's theoretical work that was proven out by later research, it was a good approximation of the truth. LoCoM&E turns out to be accurate when the field of discussion is expanded to take into account nuclear reactions and radioactive substances.
And it too is subject to revision in the future -- to give you a far-out example, remember that experiment where the precise weight of a dying person is measured during the death process, and it is observed that the body weight decreases by a few milligrams at the moment of death (not attributable to a final exhalation of air, or something). Popular religious writings were quick to suggest that that demonstrates scientifically the existence of a soul -- which would be a reasonable conclusion but not necessarily proven. But join me in a thought experiment about it -- it's tested a thousand times and proves to be valid in all of them. Further, there are a dozen Near-Death Experiences recorded in the course of this, and weight reliably drops by the established few milligrams during the time the person is legally dead and having the NDE, and resumes "life weight" when the person is revived and the NDE ends. Then you might have grounds for a LoCoM+E+S.
So yeah, it's theoretically possible to do as you say -- but we have a far better chance of figuring out today what hurricanes will form and hit the West Indies and the southeast coast in 2007 than we do of handling that -- they're both classic cases of "chaotic processes" -- meaning that we don't have a sufficient grasp on how they work (and for theoretical reasons involving Goedel's conjecture may never be able to get a sufficient grasp on how they work) to do that sort of prediction/retrogressive study.
LoCoM was never precisely true -- but before the discovery of radioactivity and Einstein's theoretical work that was proven out by later research, it was a good approximation of the truth. LoCoM&E turns out to be accurate when the field of discussion is expanded to take into account nuclear reactions and radioactive substances.
And it too is subject to revision in the future -- to give you a far-out example, remember that experiment where the precise weight of a dying person is measured during the death process, and it is observed that the body weight decreases by a few milligrams at the moment of death (not attributable to a final exhalation of air, or something). Popular religious writings were quick to suggest that that demonstrates scientifically the existence of a soul -- which would be a reasonable conclusion but not necessarily proven. But join me in a thought experiment about it -- it's tested a thousand times and proves to be valid in all of them. Further, there are a dozen Near-Death Experiences recorded in the course of this, and weight reliably drops by the established few milligrams during the time the person is legally dead and having the NDE, and resumes "life weight" when the person is revived and the NDE ends. Then you might have grounds for a LoCoM+E+S.
This would be true if you had a precise rate of conversion for the universe as a whole. But there are a lot of things we don't understand about the universe as a whole, yet. Take for example the solar neutrino deficit -- if there is one thing about stellar physics established, it's that the sun must be undergoing hydrogen fusion by one of two processes in its core, and that these processes will generate neutrinos at a specific rate. While it is extraordinarily difficult to detect neutrinos, it can reliably be done -- and the measurements consistently give actual detection of neutrinos (therefore not a fault in the measuring process) but at a rate only one-third what is predicted by theory. Plus, we can impact two particles in a cyclotron with enough energy laden into them that when they collide, they give off two more particles, converting energy into matter. While this is pretty negligible as a human action, it's quite plausible that there are places, like the accretion disks of black holes and the hearts of pulsars, where this sort of process occurs at a significant rate.
So yeah, it's theoretically possible to do as you say -- but we have a far better chance of figuring out today what hurricanes will form and hit the West Indies and the southeast coast in 2007 than we do of handling that -- they're both classic cases of "chaotic processes" -- meaning that we don't have a sufficient grasp on how they work (and for theoretical reasons involving Goedel's conjecture may never be able to get a sufficient grasp on how they work) to do that sort of prediction/retrogressive study.
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