Food For Thought
Remember those vinegar and baking soda volcanoes, and the membrane from inside an egg shell that allowed ink to pass through one way while keeping the water from passing through the other way? Those, and a few other more dramatic demonstrations
Food For Thought
Remember those vinegar and baking soda volcanoes, and the membrane from inside an egg shell that allowed ink to pass through one way while keeping the water from passing through the other way? Those, and a few other more dramatic demonstrations were meant to convince us that science was cool. Well, it is, and I have continued conducting experiments well into my adult years. Most of them have had to do with eggs, vinegar, or both. Not all of them produced the expected results, some of them were done to entertain my children and grandchildren.
The soft-shelled egg: Place a raw egg (shell on) in a small bowl deep enough to allow you to cover the egg completely. Fill the bowl with vinegar. Twice a day, check the egg by picking it up with your fingers. After a few days, the egg will feel like a water-balloon– soft and rubbery. This is because the vinegar has leached all the calcium from the egg’s shell. I have no idea what to do with this soft egg, so see no reason to do this experiment. Throw the egg away.
Knot a chicken bone: I have read that vinegar will soften a small chicken bone so that it can be tied in a knot. The bone must be a raw bone, however, as a cooked one has been permanently set. Choose a long, thin bone, such as from a wishbone or wing-tip. Soak it in vinegar until it is soft enough to bend easily without breaking. Tie the bone in a knot. I see no reason to tie a chicken bone in a knot, so haven’t personally conducted this experiment. The accidental ones seem to have been the most interesting. Here are two of them:
Disappearing egg: I ha