How Do Boats Float?
If you throw a crowbar in the ocean, it sinks. Yet, a ship, which has a weight many times that of a crowbar, manages to float in the water. This interesting phenomenon known as buoyancy is the reason that boats float. In short, boats float because their design exploits the principle of buoyancy. The properties of buoyancy were first described by the Greek mathematician Archimedes, in what we now call Archimedes’ Principle. This principle states that any object, wholly or partly immersed in a fluid, is buoyed up by a force equal to the weight of the fluid displaced by the object. What is displacement? Archimedes is said to have made this famous discovery in the bathtub, which makes sense, because a bathtub is a great place to research buoyancy and displacement. He discovered that when you place an object (such as a bathing scientist) into a fluid, the level of the fluid rises, because the object has displaced some of the fluid. Archimedes realized that any object placed in water will di
