You are sitting in a boat floating on a very small pond. You take the anchor out of the boat and drop it into the water. Does the water level in the pond rise, fall, or remain the same? Explain your answer.

The water level in the pond will fall slightly. When the anchor is in the boat, the boat displaces enough water so that the buoyant force on it equals the sum of the weight of the boat, your weight, and the weight of the anchor. When you drop the anchor into the water, it displaces just its volume of water (rather than its weight as it did while in the boat.) The total weight of the boat becomes less and the boat displaces less water as a consequence since the anchor is now resting on the bottom of the pond.

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