• Archangel@lemm.ee
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    2 days ago

    Also weird how giant steel tankers float on the ocean. Especially when they’re weighed down by all that cargo. It’s practically unbelievable. I throw a tiny rock in the ocean, and it sinks…but not those giant steel boats? /s

    • ByteJunk@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Well… When you put one of those huge tankers in the water, it will move a LOT of water out of the way.

      As long as the tanker weights less than the weight of all that water it displaced, it will float.

      As you keep loading up the tanker with more cargo, it will go deeper into the water right? But this means that it is pushing more water out of the way (the water that used to be where the boat now is), which balances out the weight because that creates more buoyancy.

      A rock, on the other hand, is heavier than the water that it displaces, so it sinks like a tanker whose front fell off.

      • starman2112@sh.itjust.works
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        2 days ago

        As long as the tanker weights less than the weight of all that water it displaced, it will float.

        But steel is heavier than water

      • Saleh@feddit.org
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        2 days ago

        Since we are pedantic, what you say isn’t true.

        The tanker weights exactly as much as the weight of the water that it displaces. They are in balance. You describe it yourself. The tanker sinks deeper if it becomes heavier and swims more up as it becomes lighter.

        The measure of “boat swims” is not the weight of the displaced water. It is wether there is some boat wall left sticking out of the water to keep more water from entering and displacing the air that keeps the submerged volume in weight balance with the water.

        • ByteJunk@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          Since we’re being extra pedantic, what I said was:

          As long as the tanker weights less than the weight of all that water it displaced, it will float.

          This is factually true, and you didn’t disprove it.

          As for “boat wall sticking out of the water”, that’s just grasping at straws man. If that boat is fully waterproof, like a submarine, the definition holds up. Or if you consider that water entering the boat adds to the boat weight, then again it will hold true as it will weigh more than the water it displaces.

        • Jumi@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          So we have rising sea levels because there’s so many big ships in the ocean, got it.

      • dwindling7373@feddit.it
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        2 days ago

        Metal is heavier than water. Virtually every containber is fille to the brim with products, now I don’t know you but most everything we buy is heavier than water.

        It’s clear they have some kind of extra propulsion in those, most likely magnetic anti gravitation.