Conservation law

A conservation law states that some measurable quantity in an isolated system stays the same as the system evolves. Energy, momentum, angular momentum, and electric charge are the standard examples. Conservation laws are not assumptions bolted onto physics; each one follows from a symmetry of the underlying laws, a result proved by Emmy Noether in 1918. When an apparent violation shows up in an experiment, physicists usually conclude that something has been overlooked rather than that the law has failed, and that reasoning has repeatedly led to the discovery of new particles.

Why it matters

Conservation laws let you predict the outcome of a process whose details you cannot compute, and they are the main tool for spotting when a measurement is incomplete.

Also written: conservation laws

Where it comes up

Physics

Read about Conservation law on Wikipedia

Sources

  1. Conservation law English Wikipedia
  2. Conservation of energy English Wikipedia
  3. Symmetry and Symmetry Breaking Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

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Conservation law: definition and where it comes up | amphi