What is Buoyancy?
Have you all ever wondered what buoyancy is and from where it comes? Buoyancy or up thrust is an upward force exerted by a fluid that opposes the weight of a partially or fully immersed object. A buoyant force has to be there as an object is always deeper in a fluid than the top of the object. This means that the force from the top of the object has to be greater than the force from the downwards.
Who discovered Buoyancy?
The famous Italian scientist named Archimedes discovered Buoyancy. Archimedes took one mass of gold and one of silver and both were equal to weight on the crown. He filled water in a vessel till the brim and he put the silver into the vessel and saw how much the silver displaced. He then put in the gold into the water and saw how much water the gold displaced. Archimedes saw that gold displaced less water than silver. This is how the existence of Buoyancy and Buoyant force came into play in the world of physics. This experiment made Archimedes very famous and inspired the physics world.
This is one of the simplest diagrams to explain buoyancy. So, as we know that an object immersed in a fluid experiences an upward force called the buoyant force. As the object is immersed into the fluid the pressure at the bottom and top differ. The pressure at the bottom of the object is larger or greater than the top. And what we call ‘buoyancy’ is the difference in pressure result in a net upward force on the object which we define as buoyancy.
How can Buoyancy are seen in Daily Life
All of you must have sat on a boat or seen one float? You might be thinking how is it related to Buoyancy guess what it is directly related to buoyancy. This is because when the boat is floating on water there is an upward force which keeps it floating. This force acts at the bottom of the boat helping it to float. And we all know that a boat is not completely immersed in water only the bottom surface or the base is immersed. Therefore, all the upward force or you can say up thrust (buoyancy) is acting on the base of the boat.
This diagram supports the explanation given above. With this we come to an end to an insight of buoyancy. In this article we learned all about what is buoyancy, how it can be seen in real life, which discovered it and we saw some diagrams related to the explanations. Hope it’s informative and interesting!
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