Sinking of a horizontal cylinder.

We study the sinking of a dense cylinder initially supported horizontally at an air-water interface and then released. The sinking motion is studied experimentally and agrees quantitatively with a simple hydrodynamic model of the process. In particular, our model predicts that the time taken for the cylinder to become immersed in the liquid should be tsink approximately theta((lc/g)1/2), where lc is the capillary length and g the acceleration due to gravity, in good agreement with what is observed experimentally.