Question

Problem 8.3. Cube Floating in Water

A block of unknown material is floating in a bucket of water so that exactly one third of the block is above the water line and the remainder is below. The block is a cube with sides of length L.

a.) Without calculation, what can you say about the density of the block compared to the density of the water, i.e, is it greater than or less than?

b.) What is the volume of water displaced by the cube?

c.) What is the mass of the water displaced by the cube?

d.) What is the mass of the cube?

e.) If you could somehow compress the block so that it was half as tall, without losing any of the material, would the resulting block still float?

Answer 1