An iron nail sink in water but a ship made of same material float on it. Why ?
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Because the surface area covered by nail is small than the ship.Likewse nail cannot displace the water equal to its weight whereas a ship has large surface area which exerts less pressure and it can displace the weight of water equal to its weight.
As the density of an iron nail is more than that of water, the nail sinks in water. This is understandable. But a huge ship made of iron floats. This is because of its shape. A ship is hollow in the middle. When the ship is in water the entire volume of the ship, including the hollow portion, displaces water to make space for itself. The volume of water displaced is much greater than the volume of the iron ship. Hence, according to Archimedes’ principle, the upthrust is more than the weight of the ship. That is why the iron ship floats in water.
In short, we can say that the shape of the ship makes its overall density less than that of water and hence the ship floats.
An iron nail has less volume so it experiences less up thrust due to which it doesn’t float. The iron spreads less water so it doesn’t float. On other hand, ship has large volume and higher surface area.