Sucked An Egg Into A Bottle
March 05, 2011 Filed in: Science
Science experiment time! I got this idea from one of the books I bought recently. I tried to see if I could get a hard boiled egg into a bottle that it was too small to fit in. This is done using fire and air pressure. You light a fire and put it inside the bottle and then you quickly place the egg on top of the bottle. Kids, don’t do this without adult supervision.
The first step was to boil some eggs. Borrowing a trick from Alton Brown, I like to boil eggs in an electric kettle. I stuck the eggs into the kettle, let it come to a boil and turn off, and then I set a timer for eight minutes. After that, I put them in some ice water to stop them from cooking.
I originally tried to get the egg to fit into a Patron tequila bottle.
On the first couple tries, I couldn’t get enough pressure change for the egg to move a whole lot. I found a tip online that said to light a piece of paper to get a bigger flame.
This was when I got the egg to really change its shape.
Sadly, the egg broke because it was too large for the bottle. It would get stuck at the yolk and split.
I actually tried this a few more times with the Patron bottle before coming to the conclusion that it was too small. I either needed smaller eggs or a slightly larger bottle opening. I ended up going with the latter.
I found a milk bottle we kept that I thought might work well.
The very first attempt with this new bottle was a successful one.
It was so awesome and happened so fast that I wanted to try it again. Here’s a compilation of the best clips from this experiment. On my last attempt, I used air pressure to get the egg to push itself out of the bottle.
So, why does this happen? When the fire is lit inside the bottle, the air molecules move and spread apart. When the fire goes out, the molecules cool down and move closer. This would normally suck air from outside the bottle but since an egg is blocking the passageway, it sucks in the egg.
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