Density is mass per unit volume. How do you determine it?

Density is mass per unit volume. How do you determine it?

• A. By measuring mass and volume and dividing mass by volume.
• B. By measuring its brightness and texture.
• C. By weighing it while submerged in water.
• D. By crushing it and counting particles.

Answer: (A)

Density tells us how much matter is packed into a given amount of space, and you figure it out by dividing mass by volume. First, measure the mass with a scale. Then find the volume: for a regular-shaped object you can multiply length by width by height; for an irregular object you can use water displacement to see how much water it pushes out. Once you have both numbers, divide the mass by the volume to get density. Common units are grams per cubic centimeter for solids or kilograms per cubic meter for liquids, and remember that 1 mL equals 1 cm^3. For example, if a solid weighs 200 g and occupies 50 cm^3, its density is 200 ÷ 50 = 4 g/cm^3. This helps explain sinking or floating in water: objects with density greater than water (about 1 g/cm^3) tend to sink, while those with less density tend to float. Other ideas like brightness or texture don’t tell you density, and simply crushing something and counting particles isn’t how density is determined.

Density tells us how much matter is packed into a given amount of space, and you figure it out by dividing mass by volume. First, measure the mass with a scale. Then find the volume: for a regular-shaped object you can multiply length by width by height; for an irregular object you can use water displacement to see how much water it pushes out. Once you have both numbers, divide the mass by the volume to get density. Common units are grams per cubic centimeter for solids or kilograms per cubic meter for liquids, and remember that 1 mL equals 1 cm^3. For example, if a solid weighs 200 g and occupies 50 cm^3, its density is 200 ÷ 50 = 4 g/cm^3. This helps explain sinking or floating in water: objects with density greater than water (about 1 g/cm^3) tend to sink, while those with less density tend to float. Other ideas like brightness or texture don’t tell you density, and simply crushing something and counting particles isn’t how density is determined.