Introduction to Engineering Design (IED) EOC Practice Test

Density measures how much mass is packed into a given volume. It is defined as mass divided by volume, so density = mass per unit volume (m/v). This means that increasing mass in the same volume or shrinking the volume for the same mass raises density. The idea of mass times volume would give a different quantity with inappropriate units, not density. The inverse, volume per mass, is the reciprocal of density and is called specific volume, not density. And density isn’t limited to air; every material has its own density under given conditions.