this post was submitted on 26 May 2026
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It sank to the bottom
There was no depth where it floated? Interesting.
Therefore no there isn't a depth where the weight of the seawater above compresses the water to a density equal to that of the bowling ball
Water's not compressible, so the density doesn't change with depth. Either the bowling ball is denser than water or less dense than water.
Water is compressible; it has a bulk modulus of about 2.2 GPa. So at the 1086 bar at the bottom of the Mariana trench (~109 MPa), it'll have compressed about (109 / 2200) ~= 5%. Materials with a different bulk modulus to water may start to float at sufficiently high depths.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulk_modulus#Selected_values
Water does change density with temperature, so it is denser the deeper you go. I doubt there's a normal bowling ball weight that would have the right density for it to float at some random depth though.