Here’s a good practical question for the mathematicians and chemists and physicists:
You mass an unknown solid in a small empty aluminum cup (87.893g)
You mass a flask with it’s stopper (174.732g)
You fill the flask completely with alcohol making sure no bubbles are in the flask and remass (431.451g)
You insert the solid into the flask, replace the stopped, and remass the flask with alcohol and solid (515.642g)
You know the density of the alcohol to be .813 g/mL
What is the density of the solid? I found it out to be around 8.5 g/mL. But I might have some percentage error. I used the method of Density = Mass / Volume to get that answer. But I’m not sure if my answer is even right. Any dopers wanna give this a shot?
Your information is incomplete. How did you measure the volume of the object? Is the flask graduated so you can measure the volume of a liquid inside it? What was the shape of the unknown solid? Was it a familiar shape such as a cylinder or cube that you could make measurements and calculate the volume from the known volume formula?
According to the paper I have, the information is all there. I’m assuming I made up a number somewhere. . . should have written this down instead of just using a calculator. . .
The flask is said to be an “Erlenmeyer Flask” and the solid doesn’t say anything regarding shape.
If it helps the temperature of the alcohol is also given as 25.5 Celsius.
You are missing information. The solid could have more volume and be less dense and you could still get the same total mass in the end. You could remove the solid again though and re mass the somewhat lesser filled flask for a very good approximation of the displace mass, hence displaced alccohol volume hence volume of solid hence density of solid.