Plants get mass from the air, specifically carbon dioxide. The results from both VonHelmont's experiment and the radish seed experiment support this idea. In VonHelmont’s experiment, the plant gained 164 pounds in 5 years while the soil only lost 2 ounces in weight.These results reveal that a plant does not receive its mass from soil. The roots of the plant absorbed water from the soil in order to photosynthesize causing the soil to lose 2 ounces overtime. In the radish seed experiment, the seeds with light and water increased in mass while the seeds with just water decreased in mass. The seeds that received just light had no significant change in mass. This data rules out the possibility of plants getting their mass from water or sunlight.The
