ME 3350 – Fall 16
handout 1.1
CONTINUUM HYPOTHESIS
MEASUREMENT OF WATER DENSITY
In order to measure the density of water, a scale and buckets of different volumes (  V ) are
used. Each time, water density is calculated as:  
m
, where  m is the mass of water in the
V
bucket of volume  V . The measurements are performed over a wide range of bucket sizes
(from the molecular scale to the macroscale) and are reported on the following plot:
1- At the molecular scale
V 
V 
V 
m 
m 
m 
 m V 
 m V 
 m V 
ME 3350 – Fall 16
handout 1.1
2- At the “normal” scale
V 
V 
V 
m 
m 
m 
 m V 
 m V 
 m V 
3- At the macroscale
V 
V 
V 
m 
m 
m
 m V 
 m V 
 m V