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Gregg’s Eggcellent Eggsperiment #1

Posted in Blog, Learning outdoors, Something for the weekend, on 24 February, 2016.

Eggsperimenting with Gregg

We were lucky enough to have Greg Foot, Blue Peter Science presenter and all round fun science guy, come to our motorhome for some eggy science recently. He did a few different egg-themed eggsperiments with us before we tucked into boiled eggs and soldiers for tea!

Greg Foot’s first eggsperiment for us, was to crush an egg. Easy right? Well think again.

For this eggsperiment you need:

  • An egg (or two in case)

How it went

Squeezing the egg
Greg passed me the egg and told me to squeeze it. I felt the delicate shell as it was placed into my hand. As I began to squeeze it, I prepared myself for egg yoke all over my clothes. I was ready for the moment…but it never came. I released the egg and passed it to Amy.  She tried too but couldn’t do it either.

Why the egg didn’t crack (the sciencey bit)

The reason that we couldn’t break the egg wasn’t because we weren’t strong enough. An egg can’t be crushed by hand is because of the shape. It works in a similar way to an arched bridge. If you look at an arched bridge, it is in a curved shape. This is a very strong shape because it spreads the weight/force over the whole construction. It is the same with an egg. Eggs have evolved for millions of years to become this fantastic shape!

Why a ring can break and egg

mummy squeezing the egg
A bare hand can’t break an egg because the force is spread out over the whole of the egg’s shape but if you are wearing a ring, you can. My mum was wearing a ring on the day and so she tried and… well let’s say she defied the theory; she couldn’t break the egg, even with a diamond ring.

The egg should have broken because all of the force was focused on one point rather than spread out over the whole egg. It should crack because all the pressure is on one point of the egg.

A cracking time!

We enjoyed Greg’s experiment so much, we just had to give it another go…


So Greg, what is our next eggsperiment?

 

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