REPORT SHEET

General Physics 1

Names: ___________________________________________________ Group No.: _____ Rating: ______

Grade/Section: _______________ Teacher: ___________________________ Date: ________________

Experiment 1.4 - Density Measurement

Objectives
After doing this activity, you should be able to:
1. determine density of liquids and solids
Materials Equipment
500 ml Distilled Water 1 Graduated Cylinder
A marble 1 Weighing Scale
1 Thermometer

A. Density of Distilled water

1. Weigh a dry 10 mL graduated cylinder and record the mass. Recall that a trailing zero is a
significant figure, and should be written down.
2. Obtain a fair amount of distilled water and measure its temperature. Remember to record this
number to the tenths of degrees.
3. To the best of your abilities, put 10 mL of water in the graduated cylinder. Record the volume,
remembering that you should estimate one place past the markings.
4. Weigh and record the mass. Be careful not to spill!
5. Do this three times, taking care to dry (as best as you can) the glassware in between trials.
6. Consult a reference book to determine the density of water at your observed temperature. Cite your
reference properly.

B. Density of a Marble
1. Weigh a marble and record mass.
2. Place 10 mL water in the graduated cylinder.
3. Place the marble inside the graduated cylinder and record volume of the marble as the volume of
water displaced less the volume of water. Record temperature
4. Determine density of marble.
Exercises/Problems:
1. The density of iron is 7.29 g/cm3. What is its density in the SI units of kg/m3? Show your calculations.

2. Why can density be used as a means for identification?

3. A miner discovered some yellow nuggets. They weighed 105 g and had a volume of 21 cm3. Were the
nuggets gold or “fool’s gold” (pyrite)? (The density of gold is 19.3 g/cm3 and that of pyrite is 5.0 g/cm3 at
20˚C.) Show your work to justify your answer.

4. A student wished to determine the density of an irregular piece of metal and one obtained the following
data: (a) mass of the metal: 10.724 g; (b) volume by displacement: (1) graduated cylinder with water: 31.35
mL, (2) graduated cylinder with water and metal: 35.30 mL. Show your calculations for determining the
density, and from the table below, identify the metal?