Eureka! The Polytechnic of Milan updates the principle of Archimedes!
“A body immersed in a fluid receives an up-thrust equal to the weight of the displaced fluid”. Each of us has heard of the principle of Archimedes. But is it really always exact? A theoretical and experimental study, conducted by the Soft Matter Laboratory of the Polytechnic of Milan, directed by Roberto Piazza, in collaboration with Alberto Parola of the Insubria University, shows that it is not so: the wonderful insight that twenty-three centuries ago let the great man of Syracuse exclaim “Eureka” is indeed valid only for a macroscopic body, like a glass ball that falls into the water.
The advent of nano-sciences and of increasingly sophisticated tools of analysis has since long time hinted that the most ancient law of physics needs now an “update”. For more information visit the following web-sites:
http://www.galileonet.it/articles/4fec485772b7ab7a01000003
http://www.nature.com/nmat/journal/v11/n6/full/nmat3346.html