Chinese scientists float new finding on buoyancy after eureka moment
- Researchers discovered that objects dropped into water from different heights can have different submersion depths
- It inspired them to develop a tiny robot and they say a controllable floating state could be used in areas like water conservation
Legend has it that the ancient Greek scientist Archimedes discovered the law of buoyancy in a bath and ran naked through the streets of Syracuse shouting “eureka!” – or “I have found it”.
That is, the buoyant force was equal to the weight of water displaced by his body, and the buoyancy was fixed each time he entered a tub.
Fast-forward 2,000 years, and scientists in Beijing have had their own eureka moment, finding in a recent study that objects dropped into water from different heights can have different submersion depths.
Led by Song Yanlin, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Chemistry, the researchers said they made the discovery by accident when they threw some small fruit into water.
The fruit went up and down, and stopped at different depths. The higher the drop, the more deeply the fruit was submerged.
“We were very excited when we discovered this interesting phenomenon,” said Li An, lead author of the team’s paper published in the American peer-reviewed journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in March.