Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

We are having a hard time understanding how to keep the spring scale and object horizontal. If we do a brick and a frisbee we don't quite understand how to keep the brick from sinking.

Hello jenreh,

I’m assuming that you are working on the project described here:

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... p022.shtml

After reading through the project information I think you want to use items that will sink in the water. If you use a frisbee you should submerge it in the pool.

I don’t think you can get the spring balance and object perfectly horizontal. But you can try to keep a low angle between the balance and object. Using a long leader between the object and balance should help with this.

I hope this helps and good luck with your project. Please post again if you have more questions.

A. Norman

Jenreh,

A. Normal has the right idea. While you cannot keep the spring scale perfectly horizontal, you can hold it just above the surface of the water and get "close enough" for purposes of this experiment. However, it may be difficult to do with very dense objects that will sink rapidly like a brick. The faster you move sideways, the less time the object will have to sink, so you can keep the scale more horizontal. I haven't tried this experiment in person (no pool to test it with!) so I don't have a good intuition for what types of objects work well. If the brick sinks too fast I would try something a little less dense.

-Ben