News You Can Bruise for 2004 August 25

Comments:

Posted by Ian Bicking at Wed Aug 25 2004 17:17

I feel like the third one would be a good Tom the Dancing Bug strip. There would be that moment when you were poised to break the egg, wondering if your future self would show up to stop yourself from breaking the egg. Of course, your future self can only show up when you have already broken the egg and found it was not boiled. Are YOU your future self, or are you your PAST self, who your true self (which is in the future) will save? Or is the egg boiled?

Another good way to do confirm that an egg is boiled is to put the eggs in a pan, covered by about 1" of water. Bring the water to a boil, then wait ten minutes. Remove the eggs from the stove and run cold water over them. Then you are sure the egg is boiled.

Maybe you could put food coloring in the water when you boil your eggs. That idea is useful AND fun.

Posted by Susie at Wed Aug 25 2004 18:03

You can distinguish between good and bad eggs on whether they float or not, but I suspect both cooked and raw eggs sink. Unless they are bad, in which case, don't eat it.

Posted by Kristofer Straub at Wed Aug 25 2004 18:27

There may be a way to split a chicken such that the collision creates an egg pair, each with an unknown cooked/raw state, traveling in opposite directions. Then by cracking one of them in a moving pan, you collapse the wave function of the other without even observing it.

Posted by Nick Moffitt at Wed Aug 25 2004 18:52

For reference, the links to "how to boil an egg" and "how to tell if an egg has completely cooked" appeared in clickolinko because we were convincing a very drunk Carlos Laviola of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to drink water and eat an egg so as to ward off the morning regrets.

Essentially, I think a good razor is to investigate whether the egg was boiled by someone who was drunk or sober.

Posted by Brian Danger+Hicks at Wed Aug 25 2004 19:35

I use (or rather would use, if the situation ever came up, which it doesn't) the Alton Brown method to detect boiled or raw egg. You take the egg and spin it, then you stop the egg's spinning, making sure to touch the egg for as little time as possible while doing so. If the egg returns to spinning it is raw, and if not it is cooked.

And, according to the rules of Crummy, I win, since I managed to give an answer that involves both inertia and Alton Brown.

Posted by Rachel at Wed Aug 25 2004 19:49

I shake the egg. I can feel the yolk giggle if it is raw. Or perhaps it is just my imagination.

Posted by Frances at Wed Aug 25 2004 20:28

Did anyone think of just ASKING the egg? We've got all these fancy schmancy methods, now, did anybody ask how the egg is feeling? Noooooo..... humble egg would have nothing to say!

Posted by George Gesslein II at Wed Aug 25 2004 21:40

This is easy. Others are making it hard. It takes a second and a table top to tell if an egg is hard-boiled. Set it on the table, give it a jerk in either direction with your wrist, the raw egg will resist, the hard egg will happily spin fast.

Posted by Kristofer Straub at Wed Aug 25 2004 22:08

Mr. Funercise would not let you eat a raw egg, it's dangerous. Have him make the decision. He knows how to tell.

Posted by jcoab brenendes at Wed Aug 25 2004 23:16

ok, your best bet is, as someone already said, spinning and stopping. raw eggs spin again. but the reason you would do this is a simple one- every easter after the egg hunt, all the cousins and aunts and uncles get together for a special sort of ritual- the egg fight. not as violent as you'd hope, it's still fun- two people hold an egg each and bash the pointier part of the egg against their opponent's. the loser eats the egg, the winner goes on to another match. eventually, an overall winner emerges and is celebrated, but just as celebrated is the sap who found the one egg that was decorated but not cooked, pratically identical to the others. knowing you have this egg is a bit of a bummer, but it allows you to select who you want to get raw egg on (usually you want to single out aunt maggie) and ask them for a match first. true story.

Posted by Ian Bicking at Thu Aug 26 2004 02:33

You put the egg in a warm place, and let it sit for a few weeks. If, upon reinvestigating the egg you find a chick (dead or alive), the egg was not boiled.

Posted by Kevan at Thu Aug 26 2004 10:09

Write "unboiled" in water-soluble, non-toxic paint on all eggs when you buy them, or encourage retailers to do so during the packing process.

Genetically engineer a chicken to lay eggs with transparent shells, or simply switch your diet to a species that already does this. (Frogs, perhaps.)

Attach RFID chips to all eggs (or encourage battery farms to implant them in vivo), and fit appropriate scanners around your kitchen and cookware.

Install a small, counter-top Magnetic Resonance Imager.