Buoyancy: The Water Pushes Back

You'll learnthat buoyant force equals the weight of the fluid an object displaces.

Wood floats, steel sinks — and the same steel floats in mercury. Weight never changed, so weight was never the rule. Watch the force ledger find the law that actually decides.

8 STEPS · 6 QUICK CHECKS · g = 10 m/s² · v5

BUOYANCY LAB

Before you start

What you're looking at

A tank of water with pine floating half-submerged at the surface and steel resting on the bottom.

The question

The same steel sinks in water but floats in mercury — so what actually decides?

Watch for

The force ledger weighing the upward push against the weight for each block.

What the symbols mean

Arrows show forces (up = buoyancy, down = weight); the ledger tallies them; densities are given in kg/m³.

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