🚀 go-pugleaf

On Tue, 2 May 1995, Jay Cutler wrote:

> Yesterday in a ninth grade high school class we held a contest on "HOW
> HIGH AND HOW MANY TIMES AND HOW HARD AN EGG COULD BE DROPPED IN A PACKAGE
> SMALLER THAN 20 CM X 20 CM X20CM."
> I thought we were studing Newton's second law.  Now I'm not so sure.  The
> package that did by far the best was a container filled with mud packed
> around the egg.
>
> Why does the egg survive the mud package better than foam, popcorn,
> saltwater, and hey! What was the person trying when they put the egg into
> a container of saltwater?
>
        It sounds to me like you might have some very insightful students.
In view of Pascal's principle it would seem that a liquid would be an
excellent choice for assuring that the pressure exerted on the egg shell
would always be applied uniformly.  The egg is designed to withstand that.

An obvious problem would be keeping the egg surrounded by the liquid.  I
suppose mud is a compromise.  You sacrifice a bit of liquid property in
order to keep the egg from moving to the side of the container.  Salt
water may have been an attempt to resolve the same problem by matching
the densities of egg and liquid.

I'm impressed.

Everett Hinton
Central Community College
Hastings, Nebraska