How do you sink an orange?
No, Gail, it’s Fred’s How, and you can’t cheat by just holding the orange down. Luckily, Fred has made it his life’s work to know this sort of thing.
How do you sink an orange? You have a bowl of water and… an orange. Go!
Gail, ever optimistic, thinks it’s easy, but as you’ve already seen…
…her orange sinks. And then she cheats by holding it down.
Gareth, master of science as he is, has no powers over an orange whatsoever. His floats.
But then, so does Fred’s. So far, the oranges are three for three. How is Fred going to get out of this?
He peels the orange.
You see, an orange is mostly water, so it’s more-or-less neutral in buoyancy – but the peel is spongey and contains lots of trapped air. So overall, the orange floats. Remove the peel, and the bit that’s left is more dense than water, so:
It sinks!
So that’s how you sink an orange – peel it first.