On Tue, 30 Jan 2001 14:57:57 -0800, Esat Atikkan <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>I am a Chem Eng turned Mol Biologist

My guessing record wasn't too good today.

>Actually G-L & Charles' law R identical.  depends if U
>R Francophile or Anglophile :->

I am a Chinophile!  :)

>> Which dive organization?
>
>NAUI

Bloody Hell!  :-)  <I just learned that from Strike>

>> >A favorite ITC question of mine is to ask to
>> >explain why Archimedes principle is such.

Ah, when I made my previous comment about your tears, I
misread your question as one to EXPLAIN the principle
rather than to explain the WHY of the principle.

My thought was that all Archimedes did was roll out of
the bathtub yelling Eureka, and everything about his
principle can be simply explained without having to
resort to any gas-law mumbo-jumbos that wasn't even
known to Arch.

>> I get the usual
>> >littany of volumes, densities, weights, showing a
>> >parroting of the textbook.  A few have taken the
>> bull
>> >by the head & explained Archimedes in terms of P
>> >differentials, brining tears to my eyes.

Now I see you were using the "modern gas-theory ammunity"
to explain WHY Archimedes discovered his principle without
knowing WHY.  That was why I said about Archimedes's
discovery itself,

>> Else Archimedes must have known lots of stuff I didn't
>> think he knew, or existed at his time, or mattered.

>It is not gas law stuff, but the Pabs on the bottom
>side of an object immersed in water is greater than
>the Pabs on top of it.  That delP leads to an upward
>force, hence the object has a tendency to be pushed
>upwards.  That force in counteracted by the wt of the
>object & the rest is the subject of diving phys
>classes under the name Archimedes' Principle.

I learned about Archimedes Principle when I was a
college sophomore in a General Science course (that
must have been close to Archimedes time <BG>) and of
course the explanation was simple, direct, without any
gas-law fanfare and the principle stuck with me for
years, long before I took up scuba.  :-)
>
>SO yes it brings tears of glee to my eyes when an ITC
>candidate is able to explain that.
>
>Safe bubbles
>Esat

Comprendo.  I probably would have flunked.  :-)  In our
business, students learned fast to tell the Prof what he
likes to hear, by roke or by brute memory, whether they
(the students) really understood it or not.   :-)

-- Bob.