Question

having been given a newly discovered mineral, carry out a method in the physics lab on how to determine its specific gravity

Answer 1

Weigh a piece of the material, drop it in water and weigh the amount of water displaced. Specific gravity is the quotient between the mass of the mineral and the mass of water.

Step-by-step explanation

The specific gravity is the ratio of the mineral's density to the density of water at 23°C,

`specific\text{ }gravity=\frac{density\text{ }of\text{ }mineral}{density\text{ }of\text{ }water}`

Density, denoted with the greek letter ρ, is the ratio between the mass and volume of the substance,

`\rho=(m)/(V)`

If the mineral is a solid piece, we can weigh it - so we know the mass, and can find its volume by dropping it into water. Then, if we weigh the amount of water displaced, we have the mass of water as well - by Archimedes principle, the volume of water will be the volume of the object,

`specific\text{ }gravity=((m_(mineral))/(V))/((m_(water))/(V))=(m_(mineral))/(m_(water))`