Archimedes Principal

[lhenslee]

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This question might not be relevant to anything on the MCAT but I just wanted to make sure.

In the Archimedes "eureka" story, how do you know that the crown is gold just by looking at the displaced water? Wouldn't anything with the same volume as gold displace the same amount of water as long as it was more dense than water?

 

[murdoc9]

in the story, you have a completely gold crown and one that was suspected to be made of both gold and silver. if both have the same mass, the one with gold and silver must occupy a greater volume because silver is less dense than gold.

 

[lhenslee]

OH! That makes so much sense, thanks.

 

[ecoli]

It relies on the knowing the relative densities of pure gold and silver... which I guess they could have figured out using equal masses of pure gold and silver and figuring out the volume using liquid displacement.