Archimedes' Buoyancy Principle Explained. Sinking or Floating?

 Archimedes’ principle, commonly referred to as the Archimedes’ buoyancy principle, explains why some objects float while others sink in water. It states that an object will float if its weight is less than the mass of the water it displaces and will sink if it weighs more than the displaced water. Most boats are designed to take advantage of this principle so that they can carry cargo across large bodies of water without having to worry about them sinking! Here we’ll explain how Archimedes’ buoyancy principle works in order to help you better understand why your boat always seems to stay afloat.

How does an object float in water?

It is a common observation that many objects will float in water. However, an object's ability to float depends upon its density. Density refers to how tightly packed together atoms are within a given material. When placed in water, an object that has a lower density than water will displace a certain volume of water and will float; likewise, an object with greater density than water will sink because it displaces more volume of liquid than it weighs (Newton’s third law). This can be understood by looking at Archimedes’ principle, which states that if you place an object (of known weight) into a fluid (such as seawater), it will displace an amount of fluid equal to its own weight.

How many objects float in a swimming pool?

Everyone wants to know how many objects can float in a swimming pool. The reason is that if you want to fill your pool with as many toys and pool supplies as possible, you want to be able to figure out what will float, and how much room they'll take up. This might seem like it should be an easy question, but when all of these weird items are floating in a swimming pool, it gets complicated fast. You have soccer balls and footballs, baseballs and lacrosse balls; you've got kid floats for toddlers, floats for adults and forteeza rings for kids who just started swim lessons...it's almost like some kind of experiment in physics!

When did Archimedes discover the buoyancy principle?

Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer and inventor, Archimedes of Syracuse was born around 287 BC in Syracuse (Sicily), Greece. He was a brilliant man who made many discoveries. He was also a philosopher and dedicated to his studies.

Related to floating, why does an iceberg float on water?

The reason that an iceberg floats has to do with how much air is trapped inside it. A good rule of thumb for why an iceberg floats is about 1/10th of an iceberg's mass comes from ice (which means 90% of its mass is air). An iceberg can float if its density, which depends on its composition and size, is less than 1 g/cm3. If a chunk of ice had a density greater than 1 g/cm3 it would sink; similarly, if a smaller chunk had a density less than 1 g/cm3 it would float. This might sound obvious, but density-sinking-floating isn't always as simple as that.

Why doesn't your bath tub overflow when you turn on hot water faucet?

The reason is that water molecules do not get pulled out of their container by bathtub faucet, but actually move inside it. The more heat you apply to water molecules, more energy they are going to have. When you turn on your faucet and apply heat to bathtub water in it, warm, less dense molecules rise toward top of container and cooler denser ones sink towards bottom (density is directly related to temperature). As a result your tub remains unchanged. But when you toss an object into your tub, heated bathtub water molecules will be drawn towards colder object as a result equalizing temperature levels between these two objects.

How do boats float even though they're not hollow like bath tubs and buckets are?

The secret is in displacement. Even if you completely filled a bathtub with water, it wouldn't sink all the way to the bottom of your bathtub—the air inside it would displace water and keep it afloat. The same principle applies to boats, and it's due to Archimedes' law of buoyancy: an object that floats displaces its own weight in water.

How can submarine submerge without sinking due to water pressure on its hull when underwater?

Water pressure increases in direct proportion to depth. At a depth of 20 metres, water exerts twice as much pressure on your body as it does at 10 metres. At 40 metres, three times as much; at 60 metres four times, and so on. If you were to completely submerge an object at sea level, water would exert a pressure of one atmosphere (atm) - which is equivalent to 14.6 pounds per square inch (psi) – on every square inch of its surface area.