LANSING, Mich. (WLNS) – They smell. They are soft. They are edible. Hardboiled eggs are fairly common in the days leading to Easter. From egg salad to dying eggs, there are many uses for hardboiled eggs. Another use is to explain science.
Meteorology is founded on basic scientific fundamentals, and one being the Ideal Gas Law, which is represented with PV=nRT. P represents pressure, V is for volume, n represents a number for the amount of a substance, R is the ideal gas constant, while T is temperature.
The relationship between each variable can be shown by using an experiment called, egg in a bottle. To do the experiment, you will need a glass milk bottle, a peeled hardboiled egg, paper, match or lighter, and water.
Inside the bottle are air molecules, but when setting the egg on top of the bottle, it does not fall in because of size. To get the egg to slide into the bottle, the air molecules in the bottle need to be heated. By lighting the piece of paper on fire and putting it in the bottle, the pressure increases with the temperature. When the egg is placed back on top of the bottle, the flame loses oxygen and goes out causing cooling. The cooling causes the pressure to decrease allowing the air to suck the egg into the bottle.
Before doing this experiment at home, make sure you have a parent or guardian’s permission. Then light the paper on fire and place it in the bottle. Quickly place the egg on top of the bottle and let air pressure do its thing. Have a pan of water nearby as fire is involved. To get the egg back out, place the bottle around your mouth and blow air into the bottle. The change in air pressure will shoot the egg out of the bottle. Be careful to not consume or choke on the ash, paper, or dirty egg.
To watch the experiment, check out the egg-citing video above.
