The Percentage of an Iceberg Submerged in Water

Understanding Buoyancy:

An iceberg with a specific gravity of 0.917 floats in the ocean where the specific gravity of sea water is 1.025.

The percentage of the iceberg's volume that is submerged in sea water can be determined by the ratio of the iceberg's specific gravity to the specific gravity of the seawater. This results in approximately 89.46% of the iceberg being submerged.

Explanation:

The principle that dictates how much of a floating object is submerged in a liquid is buoyancy, which is directly linked to the concepts of density and specific gravity. In this context, we can use the specific gravities given to determine the volume of the iceberg that is underwater.

Specific gravity is defined as the ratio of the density of an object to a fluid (usually water). Therefore, when an object floats in a fluid, the fraction of volume that is submerged can be calculated as the ratio of the specific gravity of the object to the specific gravity of the fluid.

In this case, the specific gravity of the iceberg is 0.917, and that of the sea water is 1.025. Hence, the fraction of the iceberg submerged in water can be calculated as (0.917 / 1.025) which gives 0.8946, or 89.46 percent when expressed as a percentage. Thus, approximately 89.46% of the volume of the iceberg is submerged in sea water.