Question

It is the end of the spring semester and you are celebrating the demise of PHY 103 and kicking
back on the Terrace with your favorite beverage (water with one ice cube). You go to the vendor
and have him fill up your strangely shaped, square bottomed cup (L = 0.2 [m]) after he puts in a
perfect ice cube (density ice = 900 [kg/m3]) with side length s = 0.1 [m] and volume Vcube = 0.001
[m3]. You have the vendor stop filling in the water (water = 1000 [kg/m3]) as soon as the cube
floats in water of a depth h = 0.2 [m]. You smile, reminiscing about how stupid PHY 103 was
and how it possibly can't have any meaning in your life. Going back through your memories,
you suddenly recall that idiot tutor mentioning that the water level won't change as the ice melts.
You decide to put his claim to the test and bet your friend $20 that the water height will not
change, all the while wondering if that fool is going to cost you a bunch of money and vaguely
speculating if you could feel more certain about the bet by employing your mad fizix skillz from
PHY 103. Do you win the bet, or will you have to track down that moron tutor to demand he
reimburse you the $20? Use g = 10 [m/s2] to simplify things.
Solution
Thinking back to Archimedes' Principle, you remember that the weight of the ice cube will be
equal to the buoyant force on the ice cube, so you can find the submerged depth d of the ice
cube...
ice V cube g=water s2 dg
Or...
d=

ice V cube
2

water s

( 900 )( 0.001 )
=0.09 [m]
( 1000 ) ( 0.1 )2

So, the submerged volume of the ice cube is:

2

V submerged =s 2 d=( 0.1 ) ( 0.09 )=0.0009 [ m3 ]

Thus, the total volume of water in your glass in that instant is...
V water =V filled cup V submerged =L2 hs2 d=( 0.2 )2 ( 0.2 )0.0009=0.0071[m3 ]
After sitting for a long time and musing over how much you despised PHY 103, you find the ice
has completely melted! The original ice cube had a mass of...
mice= ice V cube =( 900 ) ( 0.001 )=0.9 [kg ]

This ice has now melted into the same mass of water and will occupy a volume of...
V melted =

mice
0.9[kg]
=
=0.0009[m3 ]
water
kg
1000 3
m

[ ]

Much to your surprise and joy, the volume that the melted ice occupies is exactly the same as
that which was displaced by the submerged portion of the ice cube!! That means the water level
in the cup stays the same and you win your $20 bet (and your tutor wasn't full of it and PHY 103
was worth something).
Hope that helps!