Lavoisier's Law of conservation of mass

[JGHunter]

Hi, I'm writing a short story which addresses an issue in time travel that I don't really see getting addressed, and I was wondering where I could find the original quote where it is written that mass or energy can neither be created nor destroyed? I'm aware the original won't be in English, I'll provide a translation underneath, but it will preface the story.

 

[hmmm27]

"Rien ne se perd, rien ne se crée, tout se transforme." courtesy of Wikipedia.

Also, a handful saying the same thing in various stages of eloquence and length.

 

[JGHunter]

Thank you! Which Wikipedia page did you find this on by the way?

 

[hmmm27]

One about a 400 year old chem textbook ; hang on... here.

 

[DrStupid]

I'm writing a short story which addresses an issue in time travel that I don't really see getting addressed, and I was wondering where I could find the original quote where it is written that mass or energy can neither be created nor destroyed?

Keep in mind that conservation laws are limited to isolated systems and a system that can be left or entered (e.g. with a time machine) is not really isolated. If you just define that time machines must comply with conservation laws than they need to transport all involved conserved quantities in equal amounts in both directions. That would be a strong limitation that could be quite interesting for the story. Including the second law of thermodynamics would make it even more challenging.