On Jan 22, 1998 you wrote:
>
> Weigh them. The gold one will be lighter, because Gold is
>measured in Troy weight.
>
> Similar to the "which is heavier, a pound of feathers or
>a pound of gold" question.
>
> (even non-trick questions deserve trick answers)
>
> In the real world though, you could spin them into each
>other and note the rebound. The gold one will have a higher
>moment of inertia because of peripheral weighting.
>
>--
>Trevor Boicey
>Ottawa, Canada
>tboicey@brit.ca
>http://www.brit.ca/~tboicey/
Trevor:
How about measuring their density?? All you would need to do is to
get their weight and determine the volume of each cylinder. The volume
would most easily be found by a water displacement method, i.e, fill a
graduated measuring bowl with water(to some volume, not all the way full),
add the cylinder and measure the volume increase. Simple subtraction would
give the volume of cylinder(for the aluminum cylinder, using the formula for
volume of a cylinder should suffice). Dividing the mass by the volume will
give a density for each, easily comparable with a known literature value.
Their are problems with this technique, however...one is limited by the
accuracy of the measuring bowl and the scale used.
Matt Milkevitch
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