3.1.3. Conservation laws
V. I. Melnikov
The conservation laws (CLs) imply that some parameters of the object are independent of changes in other parameters. The general formulation of a typical CL is something like that: the parameter of the object being changed, the parameter of the same object remains constant. The validity of CL is substantiated experimentally. The nature of the standard CL can be interpreted as follows.
The object enters into interaction with the object . Suppose that not all volume (not all parts) of the object enters into interaction, but only some its part, say part 1, which is characterized by a variable parameter . Another part of the object (part 2) does not participate in the interaction, and its parameter does not change, just as the part itself. In other words, only the first part of the object enters into the CS in which the interaction process is going on. The second part is outside of CS and does not change. The corresponding conservation law records this fact experimentally. As a matter of fact, it focuses our attention on this fact and points to the imperfection of our separation of the universe into real individual indivisible objects, which turn out to be indivisible only formally for the given process. One object consists of separate parts (not on the volume basis!) which belong to different CLs, i.e. our historically formed notion on the separation of the universe into particular individual indivisible objects is adjusted.
The law of mass conservation in chemical reactions indicates that mass as the parameter of some part of matter does not vary because this part does not participate in the given reaction. However, in the reaction of nuclear decay this part enters into interaction and the mass changes (for example, the well known mass defect is observed).
The law of energy conservation indicates that the process of interaction is completely reversible in the course of the corresponding circular (or counter) transformations of the same CS parts. This should be recorded experimentally. However, the reversibility is not complete in open systems (it is proportional to the degree of openness), inasmuch as any actual CS is to some extent inevitably disclosed, Therefore, the CL formulation should be corrected with allowance for CS entropy changes. In this case the new CL should be referred to as the conservation law of the energy and entropy complex. Since entropy is measured in other units, which are under discussion and development, such a law has not been formulated yet. However, it is a problem of time rather than of principle.
Thus, the analysis of CLs with the help of the means of the ТCS demonstrates that our notion of actual objects, processes, and their parameters is conditional and approximate.
Furthermore, it is possible to assume that the actual "elementary" units of the universe are CSs (or АCSs in the abstract limit) as really universal units rather than various fundamental particles of the next level of smallness.