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Chemistry: 3.7 Density 154 Views


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Description:

Having trouble with density? Don't worry, you're not dense. It's just a bit of a dense topic. Take a look at this video and we'll tell you everything you need to know.

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:03

Meet Mortimer Thumb he's Tom thumb's lesser-known little brother [Mortimer waving next to his brother]

00:08

emphasis on little. For the past year Mortimer has been building his own boat

00:13

he dreams of setting sail in steering his homemade ship from one end of a

00:18

beaker filled with water to the other. When you're Mortimer's size well it's

00:22

safer to dream small. He finally completes his cube-shaped boat and is

00:26

ready for the adventure of his lifetime, but he's a bit nervous he really doesn't [Mortimer looking apprehensive]

00:31

want his boat to sink. So to determine whether or not his boat will float he

00:36

has to consider its density and compare it to the density of water. Well the

00:41

formula for density is just mass divided by volume. Mortimer knows that if his

00:47

boat is less dense than water it'll float if it's denser than water, well then [Boat floating and then it sinks]

00:52

not so much... He knows that the density of water is one gram per cubic centimeter

00:57

even if he didn't know he could figure it out the beaker is a 500 milliliter

01:03

beaker full of water. 1 milliliter is the same as a centimeter cubed so the beaker

01:09

can hold 500 cubic centimeters of water well if Mortimer could get a big person

01:14

to help him measure the mass of the water, he'd find that it comes out to 500 [The beaker of water is put on a scale]

01:19

grams well 500 grams divided by 500 cubic centimeters reduces to 1 gram over

01:24

one cubic centimeter so there you go. All right now for the boat. Mortimer takes a

01:29

couple of separate measurements first he finds the mass of his little boat

01:33

plopping it onto the scale he discovers that the 'Voyager' weighs in at exactly 15

01:39

grams. Next he finds the volume of his boat he knows that the volume of the

01:44

cube is the area cube so he starts by finding the area of one side of his [Mortimer measuring up his boat]

01:49

little boat there, four centimeters times four centimeters is 16 centimeters and

01:54

since he then has to multiply by the depth of the cube, so four centimeters

01:59

there as well, it looks like the volume of his boat is 64 cubic centimeters.

02:05

All right now using the density formula, Mortimer takes the mass 15 [Board showing Mortimer's working]

02:09

grams and divides it by the volume 64 cubic centimeters and he winds up with point

02:15

23 grams per cubic centimeter meaning that the density of his vessel is much

02:21

less than the density of water so this puppy is going to float. Happily Mortimer

02:26

drops his boat into the beaker of water and hops in ready for the adventure of a [Mortimer chucks his boat in and then jumps in himself]

02:31

lifetime, unfortunately he sort of forgot to take into account his own mass... [Mortimer and his boat sink]

02:37

Oh well, little man overboard.

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