I.

INTRODUCTION

Although density usually refers to mass per unit volume, in some situations the term can be used
differently. For example, the “number density” of objects is the number of whatever it is you’re counting
within a unit of volume. The charge density is the amount of electric charge per unit of volume.
Population density is also used as a measure of the number of people per unit area or volume. In
general, density means the amount of something within a certain amount of space

Density has obvious importance when it comes to the buoyancy of objects. Broadly, if something is
denser than water (having a density over 1,000 kg/cubic meter) it will sink, but if something has a lower
density than water, it will float.

More technically, something will start to float when the weight of the water it displaces (due to the
surface area making contact with the water and how far it pushes the water down) matches the weight
of the object, but if this never happens it will sink. If the object is denser than water (for example, a
block of steel), the weight of the water it displaces can never match the weight of the object, so it will
continue to sink.

Aluminum is a good example. It is denser than water, but a piece of aluminum foil stretched out will
float on water because of the large surface area making contact with the water. However, if you roll the
same amount of foil up into a ball, the surface area in contact with the water becomes much smaller and
the mass is concentrated above it, so the greater density of aluminum wins out and the foil will sink. This
is why boats made of denser materials than water will float, even though a single block of the material
will sink: The whole structure has a lower density than the block because it contains a lot of air or less
dense material too.

The difference in density is also why oil floats on the surface of water. The density of oils range from
around 0.91 to 0.93 g per cubic centimeter, just less than the density of water. You can perform many
experiments on this simple basis, showing that more dense liquids will sink to the bottom of a container
of water while less dense liquids will float.

Since density and mass are so closely related, you can calculate the mass of a certain amount of a
substance easily provided you know its density and the volume of the substance. This can be useful in
engineering and other applications. Use the simple formula:

m=ρ×V

This is useful in many different situations. For example, if you know how much space there is in a van
and what the maximum safe load the van can carry is, you can work out whether filling it with a specific
material will be safe. You could also use the ρ = m ÷ V version of the equation to work out what the
densest material you could safely transport is.
 II. OBJECTIVES
1. To have knowledge about density.
2. To calculate the densities of different substances.
3. To compare the densities of different liquids.

CONCLUSION

Density is a measure of how much mass is contained in a given unit (Density = Mass divided by volume).
Four different liquids were put into a cylinder to see how the densities of these items stacked up against
each other. Each liquid’s density was looked up and charted and then the experiment was conducted.
The layers created a type of density 4 layer column. The alcohol is on the top of the cylinder because it is
has a less density than other while the maple syrup is at the bottom because it has higher density. If
mass is a measure of how much “stuff” (atoms) there is in an object or liquid, density is a measure of
how tightly that “Stuff” (atoms) is packed together. Every liquid has a density number associated with it.
Water for example, has a density of 1.0 g/cm3 (grams per cubic centimeter – another way to say this is
g/mL, which is grams per milliliter).