We’ve all seen the video of the battleship hitting that massive wave, but how can ships take that much of a beating/that much water and stay afloat and in one piece? Smaller boats for recreational use would almost all sink if they were to stuff their bow on a proportionately sized wave so what’s the difference?
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So, the idea here is very simple and it’s called Archimedes’ principle. Since you are just 5, you can just assume this is a magic which works all the time :
“Upward force applied on the ship (or object) by the water (or any liquid) is equal to the weight of the water displaced.”
Too technical ?
Let’s take an example:
You are a boat and you went into ocean ( swimming pool ). Now, when you entered ocean you displaced some water because you also need some space right ?
Let’s say that water weighs 10 kg ( although weight and force is taken in newton but for simplicity I’ll go with kilograms ) so, you would get a 10kg equivalent push from the water below you.
You can just assume that if your weight is 50 kg then you’ll just feel 50-10 = 40kgs.
If you can somehow displace 50 kgs of water then your weight will be balanced by the force applied by water below you and you will float (50 – 50 = 0)
When ships are designed, engineers do take care of what level of stress (or force) that can be applied on the bow or stern so, that ship still follows the principle and displaces enough water to keep ship floating.
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