Saturday, November 24, 2007

Sir Columbus, that was cheating !!

In the famous story of Egg of Columbus, according to Wiki at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egg_of_Columbus Christopher Columbus said:

'My lords, I will lay a wager with any of you that you are unable to make this egg stand on its end like I will do without any kind of help or aid'. They all tried without success and when the egg returned to Columbus, he tapped it gently on the table breaking it slightly and, with this, the egg stood on its end.
Hey foul! Sir Columbus, that was cheating!!

It can be done without any tricks !! It just takes technique without any other help or aid !!

Here are the prove:























Since when I was in primary school till my university days, I have always believe the egg would stand on the midnight of the 7th day of the 7th month of the Chinese Calender, this is similar to the western myth of the ability ot making egg stand during Equinox. The thing is the myth is really powerful and for many years; my sisters and me did stay up till midnight (in village those days, everyone especially the kids sleep at about 9pm) on that day, tried it and found that it really works!! The eggs would stand till the next morning and the weird thing is when we tried to make them stand again after they toppled, we somehow could not do that again. (There is moral to this story, will leave it to next blog >.< )

People used to explain this as the gravity effect of stars, sun etc. but somehow it puzzled me since I know from physics the effect would be just plain too little.

Only until my university days, I accidentally found that this could be done on any other days and times!! The above are photos of the prove!! I took those photos when I demonstrated this to a friend a few weeks ago.

NO tricks and NO aid, just pure technique !!

Will tell you how it is done in another entry...leave it to you to try on your own first. :)

Damn.... too bad I was not there when Columbus make that bet !!

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10 Comments:

At 7:20 AM, Blogger William Ban said...

Maybe the late Columbus meant duck egg?

 
At 8:25 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Spoiler Alert: Don't look at the links below if you are keen on challenging yourself to make an egg stand. :)

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/515583/magic_trick_make_a_egg_stand_straight/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8-74COIJRs

 
At 6:29 PM, Blogger YP said...

Sir Ban, it should apply to chicken eggs or duck eggs or other eggs with shell.

Why someone go to post spoiler la....

 
At 6:36 PM, Blogger YP said...

Huh..the two 'spoilers' above are no spoilers at all, didn't explain anything and didn't show anything...

Anyway, try out on your own, it is easy, just need patience, the technique is just a bit of common sense, more on that later.

Please do not post spoiler here.

 
At 10:09 AM, Blogger Nee Shen said...

No wonder the sea water has risen up and spill over to the roads in bayan lepas. This happens a few times in the year where the moon is full and looked closer to earth.

 
At 12:49 AM, Blogger YeeJen said...

find the point of equilibrium. but i don't think it's at the tip of the egg.

 
At 8:40 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Do you spin them?

 
At 10:22 PM, Blogger William Ban said...

Maybe you boil the egg first before you spin? (Very unlikely though)

 
At 1:57 AM, Blogger YP said...

Sir yeejen: of course it is to find the equilibrium point.. but how?

Sir lobak: nope, you don't spin it.

Sir ban: If you cook it, then there is no way to make it stand any longer unless you cook it in a certain way, I think..

 
At 4:39 PM, Blogger lobak said...

How bout holding the egg upright, cooking the bottom part with a thin layer of water, so the upper part remains uncooked, while the lower part becomes solid.

 

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