toh@u1100a.UUCP (Tom Huleatt) (04/18/84)
until, just as suddenly, it disappeared. :-)
A friend told me that for a certain time (hours, I believe)
during the spring or fall equinox, raw chicken eggs can be
made to stand on their ends. She said that she had tried
it once, and that it had worked!
Does anyone know if this is true, and if so, why?
Thank you, Tom Huleatt @ Bell Communications Research
Piscataway, NJ
{ihnp4,allegra,pyuxww}!u1100a!tohpalmer@uw-june.UUCP (04/20/84)
<>
Some raw chicken eggs can stand, some can't. It doesn't matter
what time of year it is, the only things that matter are the shape of
the egg, its surface roughness, and how fresh it is (stale eggs lose
water to evaporation through the shell, lowering their centers of
gravity. Stale eggs also tend to have more flexible yolk sacks,
allowing the heavy yolk to slouch lower in the shell, again lowering
the c.g.)
From an egg stander in good standing:
David Palmerlew@ihuxr.UUCP (Lew Mammel, Jr.) (04/20/84)
I heard of a news item about the equinoctial egg effect this past equinox. Somebody in New York put on a demonstration or something. The idea, to repeat, is that eggs will stand on end more easily for some few moments around the equinox. I feel competent to state that there is absolutely no physical effect which is even a candidate for explaining such a phenomenon. If I'm wrong it won't be the first time I got egg on my face, but I think this one can be classified with the razor sharpening pyramids. Lew Mammel, Jr. ihnp4!ihuxr!lew
rpw3@fortune.UUCP (04/24/84)
#R:u1100a:-64200:fortune:8600016:000:694
fortune!rpw3 Apr 23 20:02:00 1984
And then there's the old parlor trick of getting an egg to stand up
on the WRONG (narrow) end!
The trick is, you spill a SMALL amount of salt (or sugar or dirt)
on the table, stand the egg up in the salt, and blow the excess
salt away. Generally this will end up leaving only the 3-4 grains
of salt that are actually holding the egg balanced, so you can pick
up the egg and give it to someone (saying, "Here, YOU do it!"), and
no one will ever see the salt.
(Hmm... is there more salt in the air at equinox??? ;-} )
Rob Warnock
UUCP: {ihnp4,ucbvax!amd70,hpda,harpo,sri-unix,allegra}!fortune!rpw3
DDD: (415)595-8444
USPS: Fortune Systems Corp, 101 Twin Dolphin Drive, Redwood City, CA 94065BATALI%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA (04/25/84)
From: ihnp4!ihuxr!lew at Ucb-Vax
I heard of a news item about the equinoctial egg effect this past
equinox. Somebody in New York put on a demonstration or something.
The idea, to repeat, is that eggs will stand on end more easily for
some few moments around the equinox.
Actually, the news story I saw claimed that it worked only on April 1.