flotation (flotas hon)

[Formerly also written (accom.) floatation; Nor is this individual life of the units provable only where free flotation in a liquid allows its signs to be readily seen. H. Spencer , Prin, of Sociol., § 218. The fruit consisted of racemes, or clusters of nutlets, which seem to have been provided with broad lateral wings for flotation in the air. Dawson, Geol. Hist. of Plants, p. 133. 2. The science of floating bodies. - Plane or line of flotation, the plane or line in which the horizontal surface of a fluid cuts a body floating in it; the dividing line between the part of a ship or other floating body be low the surface of the water and that above it. In ships this line has an intimate relation to their buoyancy and equilibrium. Stable flotation, a phrase applied to that position of a floating body in which it is not capable of flotation being upset by the exertion of a small force, but, when slightly disturbed, invariably returns to its former position.