Comments on: More egg standing silliness

By: Skeptyk

Skeptyk — Fri, 31 Mar 2006 23:58:03 +0000

Ah, I figured out a way that made the eggs easier to stand: shake the egg so the gloop inside gets all busted and scrambled. The heavier yolk falls into the bottom as you set the egg end up on the table. Much easier, IMO.

My husband taught High School science and math for years, and his first year at one school, he saw the physics classes troop outside one cool March day with their teacher to stand eggs. Alas, it was not an exercise in critical thinking. The Physics teacher had been doing this for years.

It took one day, of course, to debunk, with gracious good humor all around, but, cheesh.

Actually those were the good old Enlightenment days, I guess, since, bythe time he left that school, the Chemistry teacher was promoting homeopathy and Reiki.

Thanks, Phil.

By: Robert Madewell

Robert Madewell — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 16:49:03 +0000

Correction: According to some websites hot water freezes first. Still in my experiment the cold froze fist.

http://www.school-for-champions.com/science/mpemba.htm

By: Robert Madewell

Robert Madewell — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 16:43:24 +0000

I have heard all my life about standing eggs on end only at eqinoxes. At a family gathering at Thanksgiving, I stood an egg on end, thus debunking the nonsense. A friend who watched me stand the egg up, still claims the “only at equinox” myth. (after being shown that you can stand an egg any old day of the year. By the way, I also conducted an experiment where I put 2 ice cube trays in the freezer. One was filled with cold tap water, the other with boiling water from a tea pot. According to my wife, the hot water freezes first. According to my experiment, the cold water freezes first.

By: Melusine

Melusine — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 13:23:54 +0000

The Bad Astronomer Says:
Nigel: they were raw. I am very good at standing eggs, so I donâ€™t need to cheat.

Is that on your resume? At least you have proof that you’re an “expert” egg-balancer. No, BAD cheating…no siree!

When the BA talks, his eggs get up and listen. ~woo~

By: The Bad Astronomer

The Bad Astronomer — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 05:33:55 +0000

Nigel: they were raw. I am very good at standing eggs, so I don’t need to cheat. Yes, it is fun to see lots of eggs standing up. And plugging? Duh.

By the way, the book was never in hard cover; it was laways paperback.

By: Dan Gerhards

Dan Gerhards — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 01:31:15 +0000

Nifty…I watched the whole thing. If you ever share videos again, please do it like this if you can. Sometimes it takes some dancing around for those of us on Linux systems to watch embedded streaming video, but this worked perfectly the first time. Thanks!

I read the book, and I recommend it!

By: Nigel Depledge

Nigel Depledge — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 14:48:38 +0000

Phil, I would have pronounced your name “platt” because it resembles the word “plait” (as in, to plait one’s hair), which is pronounced that way here. So now I know better.

Well, the clip was good. Three things, Phil:

(a) were those eggs raw or hard-boiled? Were you cheating?
(b) your family get-togethers must be something to behold, if you get several of you balancing eggs at once!
(c) you shameless plugger, you!

Incidentally, I noticed that Bad Astronomy is now available in paperback in good bookstores in the UK, too…

Also, you may have been a Bad scientist for assuming you couldn’t balance eggs on the pointy end, but you are a Good scientist because you changed your view when presented with appropriate evidence.