Explain why a 2 ton ship floats but a 2 ton steel ball sinks.?

Question

Please explain why a 2 ton shipp would float but a 2 ton steel ball would sink. I am confused with this and need answers QUICK!!!!!!!!!!!! Please help!

Answer 1

This is all about buoyancy.

Buoyancy works to make things SEEM lighter than they are. This is because to push something into a fluid, you have to displace some of the fluid to do it. The fluid wants to get back in, so it's essentially trying to force the object out again. The amount of force this applies depends on the volume of the object, and the density of the fluid.

For example, if you push a two-liter bottle under water, there's two liters of water you're going to be pushing out of the way. Those two liters of water typically weigh about two kilograms, or roughly five pounds, so you'll feel five pounds of pressure pushing back up. OR whatever's in the bottle seems to weigh five pounds less...

This also explains why boats can float (their weight is much less than the water they displace) and steel balls don't (their much lower volume doesn't displace much water) and how changing the volume of something can make it float or sink (like if you hold a lot of air in your lungs instead of making them empty).

This works in the atmosphere too. By walking around on the ground, you're displacing some air that wants to be where you are. Air is a lot less dense than water, but it still provides you with a little buoyancy, if only a few grams' worth. But this is enough to make helium and hot-air balloons float!

Answer 2

Steel Floats

Answer 3

boyant force... the key word is not mass or weight.. let me give u a small example, water have the ability of surface tension, meaning that it builds a layer, a surface that allows an object or thing to be suspend in it, given if it satisfy certain rules... SHIP weigh the same as steel ball, BUT... the WEIGHT of the ship is DISPERSE through a LARGE Volume...or degree of space... therefore the FORCE is diverted out ... reducing its ability to sink, but covering more WATER surface pushing it UP... steel ball are concentrated in small VOLUME, doesnt divert the force... if u want toIncrease the BOYANT Force ---- spread it over a large Area of Water, reducing the weight, build up the boyant force of water... the-end..

Answer 4

Because with a ball the steel it facused in 1 very small area
with the ship the weight is distibuted of a large area so on the water it seems weightless

Answer 5

Floating objects possess the property of buoyancy.
A floating body displaces a volume of water equal in weight to the weight of the body.
A body immersed (or floating) in water will be buoyed up by a force equal to the weight of the water displaced.

Any body completely or partially submerged in a fluid (gas or liquid) at rest is acted upon by an upward, or buoyant, force, the magnitude of which is equal to the weight of the fluid displaced by the body. The volume of the fluid displaced is equal to the volume of the portion of the object submerged.

Answer 6

the 2 ton ship has compartments above the water line that holds enough air to keep it afloat. the steel ball contains no air therefore sinks.

Answer 7

Ok. Let's get a few things straight. If you put a 2 ton ship on a carpark it won't sink. Same story for a 2 ton metal ball. They sit 'on top'.

Now, you put the same objects in water, the water 'gives way', it flows aside (technically called 'displacement') But when you push water aside it wants to 'flow back' (try creating a 'hole' in the surface a pond with your hands..). Depending on how much water you move aside (displace), that much water is going to try to push it's way back into that space. Every cubic metre of seawater that is displaced weighs 1030kg, and that 1030kg is going to try and push back into the 'hole' in the water the object has just made. If your metal ship is big enough it is going to push aside (displace) so much water that the 'push' of the water trying to get back into that space is going to 'hold' the ship up. On the other hand if your metal ball is relatively small it won't push aside enough water to hold up the weight of the ball, and it will sink.

The key then is the amount of water that is displaced, which in the case of a ship includes the volume inside the hull of the ship. However, if your 2 ton ship had a space inside of it the size of a basketball, and walls 40 foot thick it too would sink like a stone. And if your 2 ton ball was a thousand feet across, had walls a sixteenth of an inch thick and was hollow, it would float like a tennis ball. It all depends on how much water the object pushes aside when it settles in the water.

You can calculate how much water you need to 'push aside' to hold up any given object, by looking at the density of the object you are trying to 'float'. Basically if the density of the object is less than the density of water it will 'float'. If seawater's density is 1030kg per cubic metre, and the density of steel is 7850kg per cubic metre how can steel ever be less dense than water and hence float? Simple - by incorporating air or some other substance that is substantially less dense than seawater inside the steel object. Air - by the way - has a density of 1.275kg per cubic metre.

So an object that displaced 9 cubic metres of seawater (a box lilk space 3m*3m*3m) could weigh up to 9270kg and still float. That's a lot of 'weight'. Obviously 9 cubic metres of Steel (70,650kg) will sink like a stone, but 1 cubic metre of steel enclosing 8 cubic metres of air will weigh (together) 7860kg. A 7860kg object (with sinking 'force') weighs less than the 9270kg of displaced water (with 'pushing back' force), so the object floats. Incidentally a steel box 3m*3m*3m made from a cubic metre of steel would have walls approximately 1.85cm thick.

Don't get hung up on the 'air' component though. A solid piece of wood doesn't contain any significant amount of air but will float because it weighs (up to but generally not more than) 900kg per cubic metre. This is less than the weight of the water it would displace (1030kg) so it floats. Similarly an oil tanker contains oil, not air (oil weighs 850kg per cubic metre). Because the oil weighs less than the sea water it displaces, an oil tanker floats. If you loaded the tanker with sea water instead of oil, it would sink.

But also consider you said 'float' and there are other liquids than seawater. Liquid mercury for instance weighs 13,500kg per cubic metre. It seems to me a solid ball of steel (one cubic metre's worth) weighing 7850kg ought to float in liquid mercury. You can run this experiment with a stainless steel ball bearing (it's a little easier this way).

It is also possible to reduce the density of seawater in a localised area, which would result in any ship passing across that 'patch' suddenly losing the benefit of a significant proportion of that 'pushing up' force (effectively it then sinks). How? By injecting air bubbles into the water, just like you see in a fish tank. It has been suggested that this could have been the cause of some unexplained ship sinkings in the past. It's another experiment you can run 'at home' or in the classroom.

Answer 8

The ship displaces more water -- it has a larger volume.

Answer 9

The only song I really liked on this one was Cole Summer.

Answer 10

lot more surface area and the water cant get in