Does the ice cube in a glass theory matter?
The water level remains the same when the ice cube melts. A floating object displaces an amount of water equal to its own weight. Since water expands when it freezes, one ounce of frozen water has a larger volume than one ounce of liquid water. A completely submerged ice cube weighing one ounce, for example, displaces MORE than one ounce of liquid water. The cube will rise until the volume remaining under the surface displaces only one ounce of water. If you could remove the ice cube and leave a ‘hole’ in the water where the cube used to float without disturbing the surrounding water, that hole would take exactly one ounce of liquid water to fill. Let the ice cube melt. Since it is now one ounce of liquid water, putting it back into the ‘hole’ will exactly fill it and leave the remaining water undisturbed.
