the surface of the wall.

It might be tempting to think that the greater volume, and thus

greater weight, of water in the funnel at right in the photograph might force water into any
of the other vessels that contained a smaller volume, and thus weight of water. The wall of
the funnel, however, slopes, so that the forces it exerts on the liquid can be resolved into
horizontal and vertical components. So outside the cylindrical column above the stem of the
funnel, the vertical components support the weight of the liquid above the wall, and the
pressure at the base of the funnel is due only to the weight of this cylindrical column.
Whatever the shape of the vessel, the components of the forces of the vessel wall on the fluid
add in such a way that at any point within the vessel, the pressure depends only on the
surface pressure, gravity, density of the fluid, and the height of the column of fluid above that
point.

Another way of posing the hydrostatic paradox is to consider three vessels, as shown in
figure 17-11, for Question 4 in Chapter 17 of Physics, Part 1, by Robert Resnick and David
Halliday (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1977), p.379. Each vessel has the same area on the
bottom. The first is shaped like a beaker with the wall sloping outward from the bottom, the
second is shaped like an Erlenmeyer flask (wall sloping inward from the bottom), and the
third is shaped like a regular beaker (vertical wall). All are filled to the same level with water.
Since each is filled to the same level, the pressure at the bottom of each is the same, and since
the area of the bottom of each is the same, then the bottom of each vessel must experience
the same force (pressure multiplied by area). The question is why each of them has a
different weight when you put them on a scale.

For the third vessel, the straight-walled beaker, all of the water is above the bottom, so the
forces between the fluid and the wall are completely horizontal, and the forces against the
bottom are purely vertical. The downward force of the water against the bottom of the
beaker is just the weight of the cylindrical volume above it, so when you put it on a scale, the
scale reads the weight of the beaker plus the weight of the water inside. The pressure is the
weight of the water divided by the area of the bottom of the beaker.

The first vessel (with outward-sloping wall) is similar to our funnel. The water within the
cylindrical volume above the bottom exerts a force on the bottom of the vessel, which is the
same as the weight of the water in the straight-walled beaker. Outside this volume, the walls
exert a force that has a vertical component that supports the weight of the water. Thus, the
force on the bottom of the vessel is the same as that on the bottom of the straight-walled
beaker, but the extra volume between the sloping wall and the cylindrical volume above the
bottom, exerts an additional downward force on the vessel wall. So, assuming that the
weights of the two vessels when empty are not significantly different, when they are filled
with water to the same level, the one with outward-sloping walls weighs more than the
straight-walled one. Even though the volume of the vessel with outward-sloping walls is
greater than that of the straight-walled vessel, the pressure at the bottom of each is the same.

The second vessel, with inward-sloping wall, has a smaller volume than the cylindrical
volume of the straight-walled vessel. The inward-sloping wall, however, in confining the
water to this smaller volume, exerts forces on the water that now have downward vertical
components. The cylindrical volume of water below the surface (which is now a smaller
circle than the bottom of the vessel) is merely the weight of this volume of water, but outside
this volume, the vertical components of force contributed by the vessel wall add to the
weight of the water. The total force on the bottom of the beaker is thus the same as for the
other two vessels, and so is the pressure. Since the volume of water is smaller than that in the
straight-walled vessel, again assuming that the weights of the empty vessels are not
significantly different, the vessel with the inward-sloping wall weighs less than the straight-
walled vessel when you weigh them on a scale.

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