Physics, according to me.

Quite literally just wrote the following while trying to finish my Physics homework.

1. Suppose a piece of wood is burned. All the products produced are carefully caught and their masses are measured. (Ignore any effects suggested by the Special Theory of Relativity.)

a. Describe what would be observed.

b. Name and state (define) in your own words the fundamental conservation principle that would explain what would happen.

c. Explain what would happen in terms of the fundamental conservation principle. Be explicit and accurate in describing what changes occur and what is conserved.

Obviously you would be staring at a block of wood - watching it turn to smoke and ash; supposing, of course, that you actually sat there for however long it took and just stared at the log…which seems a silly waste of time to me, unless you were using the wood to keep warm. But then I would assume you were in the company of someone much more interesting than that block of wood – a nice cup of hot coco, or a beautiful man for instance – and would instead be focusing your attention on them, but that's just me here assuming - which really is all this is anyway isn't it? Because you are assuming I would actually collect all the ash and smoke in a bag following the process and carefully measure their masses - but isn't it much more likely that I'd be counting the marshmallows in my drink, or chatting with the handsome man to my left, and paying no attention  to the smoke at all? Except for the few moments when the wind decided it would be kind to blow the fowl stuff in my face and make it impossible for me to laugh at the cute mans joke...



Don't worry - I deleted the paragraph and started over before I actually submitted the assignment. But honestly - I was much more detailed in the answer above...