A sense of balance

March 20 marks the ver­nal equinox, the first day of spring. Spring is, of course, a time to shed your long woolen undies and revel in the joys of nature. The flow­ers will explode with color, the birds will sing their sweet songs and nature will be reborn after the long dead time of winter.

Spring is also a time to ask pro­found ques­tions, and I can’t think of a greater issue than one that has per­plexed humans since the dawn of human intel­li­gence. Can we bal­ance an egg on its end on the ver­nal equinox?

Well, of course we can. Before you accuse your neigh­bor­hood astron­omy colum­nist of being a hard-boiled pur­veyor of scram­bled mytho­log­i­cal insan­ity, read on, skep­ti­cal reader.

The egg has always been a tasty sym­bol of spring­time. Con­tained within the egg is the promise of new life. Chris­tians give their chil­dren eggs on Easter day, a spring­time cel­e­bra­tion that has obvi­ous ties to death and rebirth.

We mark the first day of spring by purely astro­nom­i­cal means. Earth orbits the sun once a year. We have sea­sons in the first place because our planet’s axis of rota­tion is tilted about 23 degrees with respect to the path of its orbit. On the sum­mer sol­stice, the first day of sum­mer, the north­ern part of Earth’s axis is pointed toward the sun. As a result, the north­ern hemi­sphere leans in toward the sun. The sun’s rays hit our hemi­sphere more directly, from straight above us, so to speak. On the first day of win­ter, the win­ter sol­stice, our hemi­sphere is pointed away from the sun. The sun’s rays hit us at a more glanc­ing angle, and colder weather results. The entire process is reversed for the south­ern hemi­sphere, of course.

The ver­nal equinox hap­pens half way between the two sol­stices. Earth’s axis is pointed per­pen­dic­u­larly to the sun. Egg bal­anc­ing afi­ciona­dos believe that the tilt of the axis some­how bal­ances out the sun’s grav­ity, and ovoid mad­ness sweeps the planet. Sim­i­lar astro­nom­i­cal con­di­tions exist at the autum­nal equinox, of course, but the first day of fall appar­ently doesn’t egg peo­ple on in the same way.

Any astronerd will tell you that ver­nal egg magic is a bunch of hoo-ha. Earth spins on its axis. Your grav­i­ta­tional ori­en­ta­tion with the sun is con­stantly chang­ing. Also, the moon exerts far more grav­i­ta­tional force on planet Earth. The tides hap­pen pri­mar­ily because of the moon’s grav­ity. Luna is up there mov­ing around like crazy accord­ing to a com­pletely dif­fer­ent cycle than Earth’s rev­o­lu­tion around the sun.

Eggs are prob­lem­atic to bal­ance for two rea­sons. They must rest on a sin­gle point on their sur­face. It’s sim­ply dif­fi­cult for the ama­teur ovum bal­ancer to find the eggs-act grav­i­ta­tional cen­ter­line of the ovoid. Also, the yolk of an egg is much denser than the clear part, and the yolk sits high in the egg. The high cen­ter of grav­ity makes the egg want to fall over. Try bal­anc­ing an ice pick and you’ll see what I mean.

Still, with a lit­tle patience you should be able to bal­ance an egg on March 20. In fact, you should be able to do it on any day of the year if you know the tricks of the trade. The main trick, which I have poached from var­i­ous old magic books, is to try a whole mess of eggs. Even­tu­ally, you’ll find one that bal­ances bet­ter than the rest. Take a care­ful look at the “magic” egg. You’ll see lit­tle bumps on the bot­tom in just the right places that help the egg stand upright.

You can sig­nif­i­cantly increase your appar­ent abil­ity by shak­ing the egg repeat­edly before you start. You’ll spread the yolk out within the egg and lower its cen­ter of grav­ity, mak­ing egg bal­anc­ing a rel­a­tive breeze. (Hold the egg firmly but not too tightly. You don’t want to get egg on your face.) Don’t fol­low the com­mon advice and hard boil the egg. It spoils the spring­time magic if you can’t crack the egg after you’ve per­formed the trick.

Old myths die hard. If you know peo­ple who still believe in the grav­i­ta­tional magic of the ver­nal equinox, then the yolks on them.

Tom Burns directs Ohio Wes­leyan University’s Perkins Obser­va­tory. Call 740–363-1257 to find out about our pub­lic pro­grams. tlburns@owu.edu

Posted by Tom Burns on Mar 12 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.