matter can neither be created nor destroyed

    " Matter can neither be created nor destroyed" seems to have become a bit of barroom philosophy--I do not understand why. No matter, it has a plain and simple meaning--to a physicist or scientist. To a physicist, matter is atoms--what stuff, or "matter" is made of. If we burn a log, say, we have "destroyed" the log, but at an atomic level, the atoms of carbon, and the other elements which made up the log have merely been converted to some other form. The atoms are all still there. We don't have the log anymore, but there are carbon atoms in the atmosphere, and ashes in the fireplace. On an atomic level, we do not make or "create" matter, either. We may melt metal in a foundry to make car parts, but we didn't "create" the stuff out of which the metal was made--we dug it up out of the earth--from a mine. We didn't "create" it, but only altered its form. No human has ever "made" an atom.