Bowling Balls Float!

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Captain Ahab

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Redbug made a post a few months ago about adding structure to his pond using bowling balls:

Here is what he wrote:

redbug said:
Darn I was hoping they were bowling balls I was gonna claim them.
they make great structure . My 1 farm pond has around 75 sitting on the bottom. The local alley is still looking for them. I go in with an empty bag and leave with 3 new additions to my rock pile


Name with held to protect the innocent :lol:


A few evenings ago I took a few old bowling balls to my local lake to add structure - just like Redbug did. To my surprise, the floated.

A little online research (just like Doc Watson does) and I came up with this:

Let's start with some properties of water. How heavy is 8 pounds? It just happens to work out that one gallon of water weighs 8 pounds. Hmmm? Something smells a little fishy because 8 pound bowling balls float. If one gallon of water weighs 8 pounds and an 8 pound bowling ball takes up more space than a gallon of water, the ball will float! What did Archimede say about all of this? When an object is placed in water it will displace it's weight in water. The 8 pound ball is displacing 8 pounds of water. However, the ball also takes up more volume than 8 pounds of water, so it floats. It might be less confusing to simply say the 8 pound ball is less dense than water and the 16 pound ball is more dense than water where density is the mass of the ball divided by its volume. Hey, are you pulling my leg? NO! The bowling balls that we used on television were legitimate, competition-sanctioned bowling balls. For those disbelievers, the water was real, too. We suggest using an 8 pound ball for your less dense ball since it floats fairly high but a 9 pound ball will work just as well. A 10 pound ball will almost "hover" in the water! Anything heavier than 11 pounds will sink.


So, my problem was that the bowling balls must not have weighed more then 11 lbs. (I think they were 10 lb balls!!!!!!)

Anyway, the barely floated but certainly made no bottom structure

67-260x250.jpg
 
esquired said:
Redbug made a post a few months ago about adding structure to his pond using bowling balls:

Here is what he wrote:

redbug said:
Darn I was hoping they were bowling balls I was gonna claim them.
they make great structure . My 1 farm pond has around 75 sitting on the bottom. The local alley is still looking for them. I go in with an empty bag and leave with 3 new additions to my rock pile


Name with held to protect the innocent :lol:


A few evenings ago I took a few old bowling balls to my local lake to add structure - just like Redbug did. To my surprise, the floated.

A little online research (just like Doc Watson does) and I came up with this:

Let's start with some properties of water. How heavy is 8 pounds? It just happens to work out that one gallon of water weighs 8 pounds. Hmmm? Something smells a little fishy because 8 pound bowling balls float. If one gallon of water weighs 8 pounds and an 8 pound bowling ball takes up more space than a gallon of water, the ball will float! What did Archimede say about all of this? When an object is placed in water it will displace it's weight in water. The 8 pound ball is displacing 8 pounds of water. However, the ball also takes up more volume than 8 pounds of water, so it floats. It might be less confusing to simply say the 8 pound ball is less dense than water and the 16 pound ball is more dense than water where density is the mass of the ball divided by its volume. Hey, are you pulling my leg? NO! The bowling balls that we used on television were legitimate, competition-sanctioned bowling balls. For those disbelievers, the water was real, too. We suggest using an 8 pound ball for your less dense ball since it floats fairly high but a 9 pound ball will work just as well. A 10 pound ball will almost "hover" in the water! Anything heavier than 11 pounds will sink.


So, my problem was that the bowling balls must not have weighed more then 11 lbs. (I think they were 10 lb balls!!!!!!)

Anyway, the barely floated but certainly made no bottom structure

67-260x250.jpg

David, David, David....

You're supposed to "Plug the drain, fill the sink with water, and take the plunge with Steve's floating science challenge.", not throw the **** things in your local lake !!!!! [-X [-X [-X

Here's a link to a more layman friendly version of the experiment. :mrgreen:
 
BassAddict said:
Ahabs head.
Will it sink or will it float,
Or C
Will it need to be cleaned up by Hazmat before it contaminates the lake?

Please discuss among yourselves........

Does it need to be severed from the body to conduct this experiment?
 
Hhhhhjmmmmmmmmm........ My wife has a ball in the basement, not the one tied to my leg but the one she used to bowl with. It may be making a trip to the pond.
 
Popeye said:
BassAddict said:
Ahabs head.
Will it sink or will it float,
Or C
Will it need to be cleaned up by Hazmat before it contaminates the lake?

Please discuss among yourselves........

Does it need to be severed from the body to conduct this experiment?

To preserve the integrity of the experiment it would need to be severed, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.
 
Are yall really all that surprised that an 8 lb object will float? My boat weighs a few hundred lbs and it floats #-o
 
MOE said:
Are yall really all that surprised that an 8 lb object will float? My boat weighs a few hundred lbs and it floats #-o


good point! there is a ghost fleet of concrete ships that are in the chesapeak bay. from WWII
 
First, I've enjoyed reading this post. Made me go Hmmmmmm a few times too.

Second, I'm also glad you guys have kept it clean. There's a whole lot of opportunity to take it somewhere else.

Third, I'm surprised at how easily impressed some of us are. I think I might try another experiment and start a post about my big deck and see if anyone is surprised.

Just sayin'. :wink:
 
fender66 said:
First, I've enjoyed reading this post. Made me go Hmmmmmm a few times too.

Second, I'm also glad you guys have kept it clean. There's a whole lot of opportunity to take it somewhere else.

Third, I'm surprised at how easily impressed some of us are. I think I might try another experiment and start a post about my big deck and see if anyone is surprised.

Just sayin'. :wink:
You've got a big deck ???? :shock: :wink:
 
DocWatson said:
fender66 said:
First, I've enjoyed reading this post. Made me go Hmmmmmm a few times too.

Second, I'm also glad you guys have kept it clean. There's a whole lot of opportunity to take it somewhere else.

Third, I'm surprised at how easily impressed some of us are. I think I might try another experiment and start a post about my big deck and see if anyone is surprised.

Just sayin'. :wink:
You've got a big deck ???? :shock: :wink:

Huge! 38 foot long! Too big for me to walk around with for sure. And.....I like having parties on it.
 
So.......

Im thinking there is more to this mystery. I need to find my balls under the deck and go check this out for myself.

Rats, its a 12 lbs ball.
 

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