MySimulator · Science shorts
WHY ICE FLOATS
One cube. Two forces. A simple explanation.
SEED 956168
60 SEC · HIGH
01 / QUESTION
The floating mystery
+30 kg/m³ · denser water experiment
Archimedes · at equilibrium
ρ ice / ρ water = 91.7%
Down: 24.68 kN · Up: 24.68 kN
Displaced: 2.516 m³ · Side: 1.40 m
Displaced: 2.516 m³ · Side: 1.40 m
Why does a solid piece of ice stay at the surface?
00:00 / 01:00
The science ▾
Floating equilibrium: ρwater g Vsub = ρice g Vcube.
Therefore Vsub/V = ρice/ρwater, and for a vertical cube, the same fraction of its height is underwater.
Model: a uniform rigid cube in still fresh or denser water, at rest, with gravity 9.81 m/s². Densities are user-adjustable and approximate; real ice varies with temperature, bubbles, and impurities.
Visual simplifications: faint waves, bubbles, introductory drop, and salt motes are cinematic illustrations; the reported measurements describe the exact static equilibrium, not hydrodynamics. Saltwater is represented by a change to water density, not fluid mixing. We ignore capillarity, melting and container-wall forces.