
Eggs less likely to crack when dropped on their side, according to science
The Hindu
Egg experiments reveal surprising results on cracking patterns, challenging common beliefs about egg strength and fragility.
Eggs are less likely to crack when they fall on their side, according to experiments with over 200 eggs.
What does this mean for the best way to crack an egg for breakfast? Not much, since a break around the middle is the best way to get the golden yolk and runny whites to ooze out.
But scientists said it could help with hard-boiling eggs in a pot: Dropping eggs in horizontally may be less likely to cause a stray crack that can unleash the egg's insides in a puffy, cloudy mess.
It's commonly thought that eggs are strongest at their ends — after all, it's how they're packaged in the carton. The thinking is that the arc-shaped bottom of an egg redirects the force and softens the blow of impact.
But when scientists squeezed eggs in both directions during a compression test, they cracked under the same amount of force.
“The fun started when we thought we would get one result and then we saw another,” said Hudson Borja da Rocha with Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who helped run the experiments.
The researchers also ran simulations and dropped eggs horizontally and vertically from three short heights up to 0.4 inches (10 millimeters).

Climate scientists and advocates long held an optimistic belief that once impacts became undeniable, people and governments would act. This overestimated our collective response capacity while underestimating our psychological tendency to normalise, says Rachit Dubey, assistant professor at the department of communication, University of California.




