The Case of the Missing Mass: Students have completed the experiment of combining vinegar and baking soda. They notice that their beginning mass in the video does not match the ending one. Use the equation(below) and the Law of Conservation of Mass to explain why the students have NOT destroyed atoms in their experiment. This is the chemical equation for the experiment:

The law of conservation of mass states that atoms cannot be created not destroyed, so they could not have destroyed it. This means that the experiment had to be open (which means there is no barrier that keeps all the solution in, like a plug or a bag). When the liquid in the equation turned into gas, the gas floated away from the solution, making the ending mass smaller than the beginning.