If the crown was less dense than gold, it would displace

[keannu]

Considering the related "It would have been possible" in the past presumption sense, wouldn't "If the crown was less dense than gold, it would displace" have to be corrected to "If the crown was less dense than gold, it would have displaced"? I also think there's no absolutes in grammar as 5j said, but as the sentence denotes presumption about the past, "would have displaced" would be better. What do you think?

st169) The story of the golden crown, Archimedes' Eureka, does not appear in the known works of Archimedes. Moreover, the practicality of the method it describes has been called into question, due to the accuracy required in measuring the water displacement. Archimedes may have instead sought a solution that applied the principle known as Archimedes' principle. This principle states that a body immersed in a fluid experiences a buoyant force equal to the weight of the fluid it displaces. Using this principle, it would have been possible to compare the density of the golden crown to that of solid gold by balancing the crown on a scale with a gold sample, then immersing the apparatus in water. If the crown was less dense than gold, it would displace more water due to its larger volume, and thus experience a greater buoyant force than the sample. This difference in buoyancy would cause the scale to tilt accordingly.

 

[5jj]

The sentence is a simple past of 'If the crown is less dense than gold, it will displace more water'.

 

[emsr2d2]

If you wanted to use "would have displaced", then the sentence would read "If the crown had been less dense than gold, it would have displaced more water."