Physics 12 Section E01

Archimedes’ Principle
By: Inderjit Singh

Date Performed: September 18, 2019

Introduction
In this experiment, we have learned how to measure the buoyant force on a number of objects.
We used three different ways to measure the buoyant force. According to Archimedes’ principle,
a body fully or partially submerged in a fluid is buoyed up by a force equal in magnitude to the
weight of the fluid displayed by the body. In this experiment, that buoyant force was measured in
three ways and the results were compared. The first method, Force measurement method,
involved weighing an object first in air, then in water, and using the difference in weight as the
buoyant force. In the second method, called displaced volume method, volume of fluid displaced
by the object was measured to calculate the weight, and ultimately the buoyant force was
calculated using Archimedes’ principle. The third method, buoyant force equation method,
measured the dimensions of the object to calculate the volume and then, buoyant force by also
using its density.

Objective
(a) To measure the buoyant force on some solid objects totally submerged in water
(b) To determine the densities of these solids

Discussion
After successfully performing the tasks involved in this lab, and analyzing our results, we had
very low levels of error in our data based on our calculations. The highest error that occurred was
in the density of the aluminum metal object at 10.37% which is still quite low error. However,
it’s possible that some error could be due to the chance that the triple beam balance was not
correctly interpreted as balanced. This would be due to human error, and our judgment of the
scale being balanced when it wasn’t truly at its balancing point from which we collected our
data. These potential errors would have contributed to inaccurate values for the measured weight
of the bodies, from which we determined the density. Overall Archimedes’ Principle was proven
to be correct for this lab, as the purpose was to use this principle to determine the densities of
several materials. Given the small amounts of error in the calculated densities using this
principle, and reported values, Archimedes’ Principle is accurate.
Conclusion/Summary
1. The weight of an object on the water is lighter than its weight on the air.

2. The much buoyant force an object gets on the water, the much intention it has to float.

3. If an object on the liquid has smaller density than that liquid, it would float on that liquid.
Contrastingly, if an object has bigger density than that liquid, it would sink into that liquid.