Name: Non-Standard Measurements
Uploaded: 2019-07-19
Duration: 1 min 24 s
Description: Accurate weight measurement is not always a requisite. Sometimes an imprecise comparison of objects could help. There comes the role of non-standard units fo...

Question

Boats and ships are floating objects. Explain.

Accepted Answer

The floating boats and ships can be explained on the basis of Archimedes' principle. According to this principle, anybody partly or wholly immersed in a liquid experiences an upward force called upthrust which is equal in magnitude to the weight of the liquid displaced by the body. A nail made of iron sinks in water, but a ship made of iron does not. The reason is that a nail is solid and the density of iron is greater than that of water. The weight of the nail is more than the buoyant force of water on it. So the nail sinks in water. On the other hand, the ship is hollow and the empty space contains air. This makes the average density of ship less than that of water. Therefore, a ship floats on water. A floating ship displaces a weight of water equal to its own weight including that of the cargo. This is the reason why a boat or a ship floats on water.

Boats and ships are floating objects. Explain.

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