Suppose you throw a cube-shaped object and a spherical-shaped object of equal volume in the same volume of water. the ball sinks and the cube floats. which explains why this might be?

the objects probably have different surface areas.

the objects probably have different densities.

in general, cubes float better than spheres because they are flatter.

The objects have different densities
They objects may possess the same volume; however, due to a difference in density, they do not possess the same mass within that volume. This means that they experience a different gravitational force, which causes one to sink and the other to float.

An  atom  (ours, not carroll's) consists of a positively charged  nucleus, surrounded by one or more negatively charged particles called  electrons. the positive charges equal the negative charges, so the atom has no overall charge; it is electrically neutral. most of an atom's mass is in its nucleus; the mass of an electron is only 1/1836 the mass of the lightest nucleus, that of hydrogen. although the nucleus is heavy, it is quite small compared with the overall size of an atom. the radius of a typical atom is around 0.1 to 0.25 nanometres (nm), whereas the radius of a nucleus is about 10-6  nm.  *  if an atom were enlarged to the size of the earth, its nucleus would be only 200 feet in diameter and could easily rest inside a small football stadium.read more on -