6 cool experiments with eggs

Easy and fun tricks with eggs every scientist should try

Rub­ber egg

How can we turn an egg into a boun­cy ball? Just soak it in vine­gar for 24 hours! Eggshells are made of cal­ci­um car­bon­ate, which dis­solves in vine­gar, leav­ing be­hind a film that holds the egg to­geth­er and makes it re­sem­ble a rub­ber ball!

Com­bustible gel

Have eat­en a boiled egg? Don’t throw out the shell–you can use it to make an ac­cel­er­ant! Let the shell soak in vine­gar for a week. Eggshells are made of cal­ci­um car­bon­ate, which dis­solves in vine­gar, form­ing cal­ci­um ac­etate. Add ethanol to your ac­etate so­lu­tion to make a com­bustible gel. This can be used as a dry ac­cel­er­ant on camp­ing trips.

Green omelet

Why are sci­en­tists so clever? Per­haps be­cause they start ev­ery day with a good break­fast! With this de­li­cious ex­per­i­ment, you’ll learn how to make a healthy chemist’s break­fast–specif­i­cal­ly, a fla­vor­ful green omelet. Just add some red cab­bage juice to your omelet be­fore you cook it. The al­ka­line na­ture of the egg whites will make the cab­bage juice turn green!

Egg in a flask

How can you trap an egg in a flask? Drop a few burn­ing match­es into your flask and rest a peeled hard-boiled egg on the rim.The heat from the burn­ing match­es caus­es the air in the flask to ex­pand, and as the air cools, it con­tracts, pulling the egg in. Voila! Your egg is trapped in the flask!

Sil­ver egg

The cheap­est way to ‘sil­ver-plate’ an egg is to black­en it over a flame, then sub­merge it in wa­ter. Voila – the black­ened egg be­comes sil­very! The soot coat­ing on the eggshell re­pels wa­ter, which leads to the cre­ation of a thin lay­er of air sur­round­ing the egg. This thin “shell” of air re­flects light rays and caus­es the egg to ap­pear sil­very.

Exother­mic re­ac­tion

How can you boil an egg with­out fire or elec­tric­i­ty? By mak­ing use of a chem­i­cal re­ac­tion! When com­bined, cal­ci­um ox­ide and wa­ter re­lease a lot of heat enough to even cook an egg!