It decreases i guess. just make sure,though i'm mostly correct.
Answer: It is important for an equation to be balanced because if it is not then the reactants won't match the products.
Explanation: I don't know if you will understand this but here:
Let's say you're cooking eggs, you're reactants so to speak would be 3 eggs and 1 tablespoon of oil so you put it together using heat and a pan. Your products have to match what you have in the beginning. You cannot have an equation that looks like this
Reactants = 3eggs + 1Tbsp oil ---pan/heat---> 6eggs + 1 cup of oil
You cannot get something from what you don't have. The number of how much of an element you have must be the same of both sides of the equation.
Science is constantly changing as new things are always being discovered, therefore "it is consistent and does not need to change with new discoveries" is false.
It has many different uses like being used to make the tube of a vacuum cleaner and also can be used to make oil in space crafts.