Rescuers In Northeast India Use The Archimedes' Principle To Save An Elephant In Distress

An elephant, who accidentally fell into a dry, 25-foot deep well in Northeast India, lived to see another day thanks to the quick-thinking rescuers' scientific knowledge. The chain of events unfolded early in the morning on Tuesday, January 28, 2020, when residents of Amliya toli village, in the state of Jharkhand, awoke to the cries of the stranded pachyderm and called the forest department for help.

When the rescuers arrived, they instantly realized that pulling out the massive mammal, estimated to be about 30 years old, was not a feasible option. Fortunately, the forest department officials had been paying attention in their science class and were well aware of the Archimedes' principle. The physics law of buoyancy, which explains how ships stay afloat, states that when a body is partially or fully immersed in a fluid, it experiences an apparent loss in weight that is equal to the weight of the fluid displaced by the submerged part of the body.

In this case, that meant filling the well with enough water to displace the elephant's weight. It took the three motorized pumps over three hours to add the hundreds of gallons needed to enable the heavy mammal to float up to the surface. However, it was well worth the effort. The heartwarming video shows the villagers cheering as the animal, using the makeshift ramp excavated by the rescue team, pulls itself out of the well and scampers away to safety in the nearby forest.

Resources: NDTV.com, Yahoo.com