To measure the volume of a regular shaped rock, simply fill up a container with volume markings to a desired quantity of water. Record this quantity. Then place the rock in the water. Record the new volume. Find the difference between the new volume and the old volume and you will have the volume of your regular shaped rock.
For complex shapes finding the volume is quite difficult. You could do it one of three ways:
Simplify the rock's shape, say as a sphere, then use 4/3(pi)(radius^3) to find the volume.
Or you could integrate the surface area. I suggest you look up how to do this, since it cannot be easy taught. If you are looking for a simple answer, stick with the first method.
Another method is, if you know the density of the rock you can weigh it and find the volume using:
mass/density = volume
Get a plastic container large enough for the pebble to fit into. Put a hole in the plastic container about a centimetre or two below the top. Fill with water.
Get a measuring device eg measuring cylinder or something that has accurate graduations on the side like a good quality measuring jug.
Put your plastic container over a funnel of some device to collect the water. Drop the pebble in without splashing. The collect water is the volume of the irregular shaped object.
In the laboratory, a tin with a spout on it is used, the tin is filled to the spout and then the runoff is collected into a measuring cylinder. You could possibly substitute a teapot.
How would you determine the volume of a rock? Put some water in a measuring beaker (say 2 litres) Put the rock in. Measure the rise in liquid. The volume of the rock is the difference.
fill the measuring cup and then put the rock in it and see how much spilled out and that much volume it has
Since some rocks rather majority of the rocks have irregular shape we use WATER DISPLACEMENT METHOD
Measure the volume of the water it displaces.
If you place the rock in a known volume of water, the amount of water displaced will be the volume of that rock.
You would determine the volume of water it displaces and measure it.
You could weigh it. You can also determine its density by comparing it to an equal volume of water, but first you would have to determine how much water it displaces to determine its volume.
Not always easy. Since density is defined as the mass of a unit volume of material,you would measure the volume of the rock by putting it into a container half filled with water and then measure the volume change.
A measuring jug is all you need for the volume and a mass balance is needed to determine mass.
Determine its volume by how much water it displaces, then divide mass by volume
If you want to determine the density of an object, you would measure the mass and volume, then divide mass/volume to determine density. This can help determine the composition of the object. For example, if you find a rock that looks like a gold nugget. The density of gold is a known value, so one of the tests in determining if you are holding real gold would be to determine the density of your rock. This is one example. Another (maybe more 'real world' for you). Shipping and cargo companies measure the volume of packages as they go by on the conveyor belt, so that they can figure how many will fit in a particular truck.
To determine the density of an object, you need its mass and volume. If the object is oddly shaped, you can determine its volume by measuring the volume of water displaced when thee object is submerged in a container of water.
Fill a graduated cylinder full of water, than drop a rock inside. The amount that the water rises will determine the volume of the rock. Amount of water level increase=volume of rock.
I would assume that you would use displacement to determine volume when the object is extremely complicatedly shaped.
You would first determine the mass of the egg. Then you would need to determine the volume of the egg through water displacement. Then you would need to divide its mass by its volume, and that will give you the density.
- to determine the chemical nature of a rock - to determine the age of a rock by comparison
Determine the mas and the volume.