All Eggs May Stand Up Now!
Did you ever try to stand an egg on its end? Well, I have. It seems that there is a myth that the Winter Solstice is one of the only days that you can stand a raw egg on the tip of its shell. It doesn’t specify which end, but it is supposed to be one of the few days during a year that it can be done. The other day is the Summer solstice. Actually, the scientific myth is that it can only be done on the Spring and Autumnal Equinoxes when day and night are equal.
You can’t tell me a myth like that and not have me 1) try to prove that it is correct and 2) disprove that those are the only days that it can be done. I love a challenge.
Now realize that you are not allowed to cheat, like putting a cup holder underneath the egg or some other support. You must have the egg free standing on its own, and it can’t be a cooked hardboiled egg.
Here are some tips: Number one is to ensure that you have a level surface to put it on. Any tilted surface will not work as the egg will lean and then roll. The next thing is that you need to have is very steady hands. This is not easy to do. Because of the pressure of trying to be perfect, your hand naturally tends to shake a bit. The third piece of the puzzle is, and this should be obvious, you need to stand the egg on the fatter end of the egg.
That being said, it is still very difficult to do. But after multiple tries on different Equinoxes, I managed to stand and egg on its end. It is doable. The idea is that the position of the moon and sun and their gravitational pull at that time of year makes this feat possible.
So the next challenge is whether it can be done at any time of the year and at any time of the day. To answer that, one has to try to do it.
Standing an egg on its end is not as simple as it sounds. In truth, I was able to do it at different times during the year; however, the number of times that I tried it and the effort that it took was not worth it, in my humble opinion. I should have accepted the proof after my first successful attempt on a non-known day. But I can get obsessive at times. In fact as soon as this meeting is over, I’m prompted to try it again.
As for the rest of you…Give it try, and good luck.
