The fact that a potato chip floats in a sugar solution has nothing to do with osmosis but is caused by differences in density.
The density of a potato chip is lower then that of sugar water, so it floats.

osmosis is the effect that a concentrated salt (or any other water soluable substance) 'attracts' water. This effect explains why you'll never see any bacteria for fungy growing in yer suger jar, even though bacteria can eat sugar. The sugar concentration is so much higher then the concentration of all things in the bacteria (it's solid sugar) that it would pull all the water out of the bacteria, killing it.

hope that helps

(Edited by The Noid 09/03/2002 16:10)

thanks very much