Physics Question of the Day

Ahoey said
What I find interesting is what possible reason could a person have to waste their time thinking about such crap. Ask a physicist he’ll crunch the numbers and give you an answer

No physicist would “crunch the numbers” to solve this problem. Absolutely no numbers are needed to solve it, just a solid understanding of the concept of density.

And that’s why the question is asked, because if you think you need numbers to answer the question, you don’t fully understand the concept of density or how it relates to real world problems.

Putting numbers into equations is easy, knowing which numbers and which equations requires practical understanding.

harrisonm said
True. A Real Physicist would not worry about a boat in a pool with rocks. But remember that this was a question on a physics test in college. I always thought it was an interesting question, and I thought I would share it.
Every Physicist in the world has taken a basic physics class and learned concepts like this as a stepping stone towards their eventual PHD. It's just like math. I like math. I took a lot of it and used it a lot over the years. You can have a PHD in math, but at some time, you had to have taken Algebra. Algebra is easy, but it is a stepping stone to geometry, trigonometry, calculus and beyond.

Exactly. Being able to answer the question shows that you understand the concept and its practical application, which is more important than the monkey skill of plugging numbers into an equation.