Someone reminded me of that wife’s tale where it takes a crane to remove a mattress from a pool and that itself reminds me of how sometimes removing certain floaties from the pool could be needlessly hard at times while super easy other times. Why does this happen?
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> where it takes a crane to remove a mattress from a pool
Mattresses are made of fluffy materials, often held apart by things like springs. A relatively small portion of their volume is actually solid material, the rest being composed of air.
If a mattress is dropped into a lake then it will soak up water, displacing the air inside the mattress with the much heavier and more dense water. Then when you try to pull it out you are actually trying to lift up much more weight than with a dry mattress.
You can try this for yourself in a tub or shower with a towel. First feel how heavy the towel feels when dry, then wet it thoroughly under the water. Now feel how much heavier it is. Then you can wring out the towel and see some of the water be pushed out which you were also lifting.
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