Posted: 3/21/2002 12:19:24 PM EDT
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You are in a canoe (hmm?). You are in a green canoe, floating in a swimming pool. In your lap you have a 100 pound anvil. You take the anvil and drop it over the side of the canoe, whereupon it sinks to the bottom of the pool. What happens to the water level in the pool? Does it go up? Go down? Or, stay the same? |
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Water level stays the same in the pool, but the canoe rides a little higher. Density of canoe goes down so it displaces less water thus water level goes down slightly, but anvil hits water thus raising it back up by the same amount. Density of you + anvil + canoe stays the same since all parties are present in both cases. |
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Ding, Ding. Francisco and IMHO are our big winners today... Tell them what they have won Johnny. Seriously now (I'll try for at least a Minute). In order to float the anvil, the canoe must displace 100 LBS of water. Since the anvil sinks it is displacing less than 100 LBS of water. Therefore the water level in the pool drops. |
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To explain: When floating (in the canoe) the anvil displaces its weight in water. When sunk it displaces its volume in water. Since the anvil is denser than water (that's why it sinks) the volume of the anvil is less than 100lbs of water, hence lowering the water level. Oops, Green_Canoe already explained it. |