Our project is dedicated to illustrating how density affects substances. Density is defined through the equation m/V, which indicates that it portrays the mass per unit of volume for a particular substance. In our experiment, we poured substances of various densities in order to show that substances of different densities would separate, or form layers. They would eventually mix, yet it would be a slow process.
For the particular experiment, we mixed molasses, glycerine, liquid soap, water, sunflower oil, ignition gel (or paraffin) and alcohol (we were going to use more complex ingredients, yet with no lab available, we used home materials). The densities are as follows: Molasses - 1.4 g/mL; Glycerine - 1.26 g/mL; Liquid Soap - 1.06 g/mL; Water - 1.00 g/mL; Sunflower Oil - 0.92 g/mL; Ignition gel (Paraffin) - 0.880 g/mL; 95 % Ethyl Alcohol - 0.8 g/mL.
Our experiment proved to be in consistency with the hypothesis that the substances are going to be layered according to decreasing density (from bottom to top). Therefore, our experiment was successful and thus illustrated the varying densities of different substances.
At the end of our experiment, we added a small plastic object, and observed what its position is going to be like in the ‘tower’ of substances. It floated along the glycerine layer, which suggests that glycerine has the most comparable density to plastic, which may raise new questions for discussion.