‘s Gravesande used this balance for amoung other things determining specific gravity and for precision weighing. But its most famous application was with ’s Gravesande’s bucket’. He used it to demonstrate Archimedes’law which stated that an object weighs less under water than out of is, with the difference being equal to the weight of the water displaced. The brass cylinder hangs from a bucket of the same material. Establish equilibrium. Put the hanging cylinder in a glass of water, which breaks the equilibrium. Fill the bucket with water, whereupon the equilibrium is seen to be restored. Because the cylinder is made so that it fits exactly inside the bucket, this proves Archimedes’law experimentally.
