Eggs & Pressure

By John

My topic is eggs & pressure. I chose this topic because it sounded interesting and fun also I'd be doing it with my friend.

Some of the questions we tried to answer were if you drop an egg from 3ft in the air (other measurements) how far will it splatter? If it falls down stairs will it break? We thought of these questions because Matt's mom dropped an egg once and he measured it splattered.

Pressure is defined as force per square area, if an object has weight forced on itself its like a submarine in water they have pressure building up from the water. The greater the force the greater the pressure.

Our process was: We got an egg. Next we got a 21bs brick. Then we dropped the brick on the egg from 3ft in the air. Later I tried dropping a 41bs rock on the egg.

I discovered that when you drop a 41bs flowerpot on an egg from 2ft in the air it splatters 9in. Next I tried balancing a 21bs brick on the egg and it stayed on 32. 4 seconds without crushing. Then I tried dropping a 1 pound rock from 2¹/₂ ft in the air it splattered 14 in.

Students next year could try balancing more objects than dropping them on the eggs. And if we had more time we would find more information on pressure and try more experiments. One question new students can try is how much weight can an egg hold and for how long.

Bibliography

World book encyclopedia vol2 (P) Chicago, IL World Book Inc (under Pressure)