Buoyancy Problems

Question

An 96 inches x 3.5 inches x 1.5 inches is floating in water with its wide side up. The board is made of spruce and it floats so that 0.5 inches of the thickness is sticking out above the surface of the water. What is the density of spruce?

Answer is 670 kg/m^3

I am having trouble understanding buoyancy in general. I would appreciate your response in detail showing the step by step process to solve the question like this one. :)

Answer 1

Hi Julie,

In the attached video, I show how to arrive at a density of 670 kg/m³ using Archimedes' Principle and by writing weights in terms of densities and volumes.

Best of luck in your studies!

-Joel