Density and Fluid Physics III-Galileo Laboratory Activity

Liquids do not have the same density. Density, as defined, is the mass in a unit volume of any substance.

To prove that liquids do not have the same density, an experiment was conducted last February 10, 2014.

The experiment was focused on exchanging the containers of the two liquids, without spilling the liquids.

In order to do that, we were given by the teacher with the following materials: oTwo containers of the same size filled with two liquids (Labelled Container A and Container B) oFilter paper o2 rubber bands and oPiece of paper

We were given 20 minutes in order to successfully finish the experiment.

Brainstorming, that’s what most of the groups did before touching the container

After a few brainstorming, some decided to identify what kind of liquid were those in the container. And they found out that inside the container A was oil and inside the container B was water mixed with food coloring.

After knowing that Container A was oil and Container B was water, the groups started to try transposing the containers of the liquids.

Though most of the groups were not able to do it with just one try, they did not give up. Especially on the first batch, since there were two batches, they conceptualize of different ways just to do it right.

As they continue doing their experiment, most of the results were like this:

As you can see, what they did was that, they placed the Container A (Oil) on top of Container B (Water).

But since Oil is less dense than water, oil will always be on top of water. So, in order to exchange the container of water and oil, Container B (Water) must be the one on top of Container A (Oil), so that the liquids will automatically exchange their containers.

Though most of the groups were able to do the exchange of container of the liquids, they all encountered the same problem. That is to return the containers to its original positions. Like this one:

Sad to say, but none of the groups were able to return the containers with the same amount of water and oil. 

Why did this happen? Well the reason why the groups found it hard to return the containers with the same amount of liquid, is that, as they conduct the experiment, they spilled some amount of oil and water. As a result to that, they do not have the same volume anymore making it hard for them to separate the containers containers.

Even with that problem of separating the containers, some were still able to fully separate the containers. Though the liquids do not have the same volume anymore.