![]() If you were to try to push the beach ball down and displace more water, the water would push back with a force greater than the weight of the beach ball. When you a beach ball in a tub of water, it displaces the mass of water equal to its own mass-about 0.01 kg. That’s more than the buoyant force of the water it displaced, so it sinks.Ī beach ball may have the same volume as a bowling ball, but it has a much smaller mass. However, the weight of the ball is more like 55 N. According to Archimedes’ principle, the water can “push back” with a force equal to the weight of the water that has been displaced.Ī litre of water has a density of 1 kilogram per litre (1 kg/L), so a bowling ball’s worth of water (4.5 L) can push back on the bowling ball with a force equal to 45 newtons (N). When the ball is submerged in the water, it displaces its volume in water. Let’s explore Archimedes’ principle by dropping a bowling ball into a tub of water. The water pushes upward against the object with a force (buoyancy) equal to the weight of water that is displaced. The ancient Greek philosopher Archimedes found that when an object is submerged in water, it pushes aside (or displaces) an amount of water with the same mass as the object. For example, if you add vegetable oil to water, the oil floats on top of the water because the oil has a lower density than the water. Sinking and floating applies to liquids too. Even though it’s heavier, wax has a lower density than water, so the big candle floats. Even though it’s lighter, the piece of clay has a higher density than water and therefore sinks. For example, imagine putting a small piece of clay and a large, heavy wax candle in a tub of water. You can really see relative densities at work when you look at a heavy object floating and a lighter one sinking. ![]() An object that has a lower density than the liquid it’s in will float. An object that has a higher density than the liquid it’s in will sink. The relative densities of an object and the liquid it is placed in determine whether that object will sink or float. Why do some things float, while others sink? You might expect heavier objects to sink and lighter ones to float, but sometimes the opposite is true. In the case of copper and aluminum, their atoms are arranged similarly, but copper atoms are smaller and have more mass than aluminum atoms, giving it a higher density.
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