Topic: Buoyancy
Can you drown in the dead sea?
Your answer must be yes, right?
You must be thinking that anybody who cannot swim will obviously drown, whether it is a swimming pool or the dead sea.
However, that is not 100% true.
Confused?
Let me explain to you.
When an object is partly or wholly immersed in a fluid, an upward force is exerted by the fluid on that object.
This tendency of the fluid to exert an upward force on the object is called buoyancy or upthrust.
This upward force is called buoyant force.
So, do you finally get it?
Let me give you one more example.
Place a piece of wood in water and push it downwards.
What do you observe?
It seems like something is pushing the piece of wood upwards, right?
Water exerts an upward force on the wood.
That is why the wood is getting pushed upwards.
This force is called buoyant force and the tendency of water to exert that buoyant force is called buoyancy.
Dead sea has a huge amount of salt dissolved in it as compared to any other sea or ocean.
The presence of this salt increases density of water present in the dead sea.
Higher density leads to greater buoyant force.
As the dead sea has very high density, it exerts enough amount of buoyant force to make us float on it.
So, if we can float on the dead sea, we are definitely not going to drown in it.
