Do your eggs whistle?

Deviled eggs are great for potlucks, sliced eggs add protein to summer salads, and all that egg boiling provides an opportunity for some interesting  science observation.  You might be surprised at what physics is lurking in your kitchen!

Boiling eggs are noisy!  Shrill whistling sounds accompanied the cooking process in this photo, and you can see why.

Those little bubbles were escaping from all the eggs.  The Pony Artist was very interested in the little bubbles.  I told her that I thought they were made of air that was expanding inside of the egg.  She was fascinated to learn that there can be air inside of an egg.  I explained that the shell allows air to pass through it, providing oxygen to the chick inside.  At this point, she became very concerned that we were preparing to eat baby chicks.  I assured her that this was not the case.  Eggs containing chicks do not make their way to grocery stores, and are not generally eaten --at least not in our culture.

While we were on the subject of cooking eggs, I explained that it is important to turn up the temperature on the water slowly when cooking eggs.  Causing the expansion to happen to quickly will break the shell.  I also demonstrated that phenomena this week, but did not photograph the ugly results.

 Finding all three states of matter, liquid, gas, and a solid, composing a single object is fascinating to me.

Has anything fascinating appeared in your kitchen recently?







Other posts that may interest you:

I Spy: Rot!

Does your child know how to get the fastest ride from a merri-go-round?