Hydrostatic Balance for Dummies

Hydrostatic equilibrium in stars

The more science-y types on staff here at the Antisocial Network are often amused – and a little nauseated – by the lexicological thrashing that takes place when certain freelancers attempt to explain technical material by paraphrasing the words of people who actually understand the topic. It's especially amusing – and nauseating – when the writers start throwing in what they believe to be facts from their own body of knowledge. That's the classic problem we examine today, as presented in the WiseGEEK.com post "What Is a Hydrostatic Balance" by one Mal Baxter.

Baxter, making his first (but probably not his last) appearance here tried valiantly to answer the question, which is a bit ambiguous to begin with. After all, there is a device known as a hydrostatic balance, which is only tangentially related to the phenomenon known as hydrostatic balance. That latter has different meanings depending on the field of study. Our petroleum geologist notes with interest that WiseGEEK says that "What Is Mud Weight" is a related topic...

But never you mind. The reason we're here is that Baxter had some interesting problems as he attempted to describe the device known as a hydrostatic balance. For instance, he opened by citing Archimedes:

"If a person wanted to know how much gold or other less valuable metals were in a crown, as Archimedes famously did, it would be necessary to understand the principle of hydrostatic equilibrium, or hydrostatic balance..."

In fact, hydrostatic equilibrium has jack shit to do with the Archimedes experiment, which measured displacement (and therefore density), not "hydrostatic balance." Mal went on to "explain" that,

"To determine density characteristics using a hydrostatic balance, a substance is first weighed in the air, and then the same substance is dipped into a larger vessel containing water."

You don't need a hydrostatic balance to determine "density characteristics," Mal, you can use a regular old balance. The part about using water is for determining the volume of irregular objects, not "weighing" them. Of course, are we inclined to take scientific pronouncements on faith when the writer says,

"These two measurements are compared and formulated to describe the substance's gravity."

We can only assume that Baxter, unfamiliar with the physical property known as specific gravity, decided that the word "specific" meant "clearly defined" and decided to omit it as unnecessary... sigh. Baxter also tossed in this... weird set of phrases he thought clarified "hydrostatic equilibrium":

"Today the technology finds uses in applications such as gemology, astrophysics, geology, and atmospherics [sic]; on larger scales, the principle is used to describe characteristics of planets and stars..."

...all that from a scientifically illiterate freelancer attempting to reword a Wikipedia entry about a physics question. And people wonder where we come up with these Dumbass of the Day nominees!

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