Physical Properties (Density and Viscosity)

The density of an object is its mass divided by its volume (d=m/v). A substance will have a higher density if it has more mass in a fixed amount of volume. For example, take a ball of metal, roughly the size of a baseball, compressed from raw metal. Compare this to a baseball made of paper. The baseball made of metal has a much greater weight to it in the same amount of volume. Therefore the baseball made out of metal has a much higher density. The density of an object will also determine whether it will sink or float in a particular chemical. Water for example has a density of 1g/cm³. Any substance with a density lower than that will float, while any substance with a density above that will sink.

Oil Sinking in a Glass of Water

Viscosity

Viscosity is defined to be the resistance to deformation of a particular chemical substance when a force is applied to it. In the example below, one can see two cubes falling into two different test tubes. The upper substance shows a violent reaction to the dropping of the cube. The lower substance simply engulfs it slowly without much reaction. The upper substance has a lower viscosity relative to the lower substance, which has very high viscosity. One may even think of viscosity in terms of thickness. The substance with more thickness has higher viscosity than a substance that is deemed "thin." Water has a lower viscosity than honey or magma, which have relatively high viscosities.

Viscosity of Fluids

Figure 1: Viscosity demonstration. The fluid on the left has a lower viscosity than the fluid on the right.