The law of conservation of matter states that during a chemical reaction, the total mass of the substances involved remains constant. This means the mass of the reactants (substances that react) is always equal to the mass of the products (substances formed).
This principle was first discovered by the French scientist Antoine Lavoisier in 1785 through detailed experiments. He concluded that matter is neither created nor destroyed during a chemical reaction, only rearranged. This law is fundamental to understanding chemical reactions and is applied in balancing chemical equations.