Re: Can atoms be created or destroyed?

In ordinary physical or chemical processes atoms are conserved; they cannot be created or destroyed. A physical process is something like evaporation or melting which, basically, only changes the separation between atoms. Water and ice,for instance,are both H₂O. Freezing does not link them to other atoms in new ways. If the latter occurs, then you have a chemical change, something like burning, rusting or digestion, processes that create new materials by recombining or disassociating the same old atoms.

As a result when we die, most of our atoms will be recycled in a sense and they will be part of future humans, plants, animals, or just flow in rivers for that matter.

I say "most" because radioactive atoms are not conserved. Some atoms have unstable nuclei and these break down into smaller elements. Potassium-40 and carbon-14 are such examples, which breakdown into calcium and nitrogen, respectively, each totally different atoms. Another kind of nuclear reaction occurs in stars where smaller hydrogen atoms fuse to produce larger helium atoms. In some of these reactions,two atoms become a single one. In larger, exploding stars, many of the bigger atoms essential for life such as carbon and iron are formed by processes in which atoms are not conserved.