In his celebrated historic-epistemological work Identité et réalité, Émile Meyerson claimed that the scientific conservation principles were first suggested and accepted for philosophical reasons, and only afterwards were submitted to experimental tests. One of the instances he discussed in his book is the principle of mass conservation in chemical reactions. Meyerson pointed out that several authors, from Antiquity to Kant, accepted the idea of quantitative conservation of matter; and Lavoisier himself was strongly influenced by a priori ideas, using this principle instead of attempting to test it. This paper will review Meyerson’s claim and historic evidence, focusing especially the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, when the principle of mass conservation was tested in highly accurate experiments. Instead of confirming the principle, some of those experiments led to the detection of anomalies. Hans Landolt, for instance, noticed that there were some small violations of the principle. He observed mass variations of about 10−6 in chemical reactions produced in hermetically sealed glass tubes. Since Landolt was a famous chemist, his results produced a strong response. Several researchers repeated his experiments, with different results. Landolt himself improved his experiments, with a balance that could detect mass changes of 10−7. After changes of the experimental procedure, the chemical reactions did not show significant mass changes. There was not, however, any “crucial experiment” “proving” that mass was conserved. The observed anomalies were set aside mainly by theoretical reasons, after the discovery of radioactivity and the development of the theory of relativity.

中文翻译：

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Émile Meyerson 和化学反应中的质量守恒：先验期望与实验测试

在他著名的历史认识论著作 Identité et réalité 中，Émile Meyerson 声称科学保护原则最初是出于哲学原因被提出和接受的，然后才被提交给实验测试。他在书中讨论的实例之一是化学反应中的质量守恒原理。迈尔森指出，从古代到康德，几位作者都接受了物质数量守恒的思想；而拉瓦锡本人也深受先验思想的影响，使用这一原则而不是试图对其进行检验。本文将回顾 Meyerson 的主张和历史证据，尤其关注 19 世纪末和 20 世纪初，当时质量守恒原理在高精度实验中得到检验。而不是确认原则，其中一些实验导致了异常现象的检测。例如，汉斯·兰多尔特 (Hans Landolt) 注意到有些地方违反了该原则。他观察到密封玻璃管中产生的化学反应的质量变化约为 10-6。由于兰多尔特是著名的化学家，他的研究结果引起了强烈反响。几位研究人员重复了他的实验，得到了不同的结果。兰多尔特本人改进了他的实验，其天平可以检测到 10-7 的质量变化。改变实验程序后，化学反应没有表现出明显的质量变化。然而，没有任何“关键实验”“证明”质量是守恒的。在放射性的发现和相对论的发展之后，观测到的异常主要由于理论原因而被搁置一旁。