van Helmonts experiment

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Jan Van Helmont was born on December 30th 1664. Jan Van Helmont wanted to prove plants use materials from the soil to perform photosynthesis. So he performed an experiment where he took a pot of soil and a willow seedling and weighed the pot of soil and the willow tree separately. Then he planted the willow tree by sunlight and watered it every day. After five years of performing photosynthesis he took the tree out and weighed it. The tree gained 150 pounds. Then he weighed the pot of soil thinking that the weight of the tree came from the pot of the soil but the weight of the pot weighed nearly the same from when he started. So he wondered were all the weight came from and the only thing that he could think of is that the weight came from the water he added. But he forgot about the weight that came from the carbon dioxide out of the air. Helmont contributed to finding out one of the reactants of photosynthesis. (Water)

materials experiment soil willow separately planted watered five photosynthesis weighed gained soil pot weight same wondered weight water air