One way of restating Archimedes’ Principle is that the mass of a block that is floating in a fluid is equal to the mass of the fluid displaced by the block. Imagine that we have a solid block in which all of the sides are 1 cm long—a cube with a volume of 1 cm³. We set it in a beaker of pure water and find that, when the block and water come to rest, 70% of the block is submerged underwater, so a = 0.7 cm and b = 1.0 cm.
(a) What is the volume of water displaced by the block?
(b) The density of the water is 1.0 g/cm³, so what is the mass of water displaced by the block? Multiply the volume of water by the density of the water. The mass of water displaced by the block is ___ g.
(c) Using the previous answer, apply Archimedes' Principle to find the mass of the block.