Eggs-tra Bounce: What Did You Eggs-pect? - Experiement #346

"Can an egg be changed chemically by placing it in different compounds?

You will need:
2 whole raw eggs (in shell)
glass of water
glass of vinegar

What to do: Put one egg in a glass of water and let it stand for a full 24 hours. Place the other egg in the vinegar and let it stand for the same length of time.

What happens: The egg in the water remains the same, while the egg in the vinegar compound now feels and looks like a rubber ball, and no longer has a shell! If you drop it a short distance into the sink, it will actually bounce! Now you know how this experiment got its name.

Why: In the vinegar, a chemical change took place in the eggs. The acetic acid (vinegar) reacted with the calcium carbonate of the eggshell. The change cause the shell to soften and disappear, while the egg in the glass of water did not chemically change. Chemists would say that the shell of the egg in the vinegar becomes "decalcified"."

What happened when CKS tried it?: As soon as we put the eggs in the bowls, the egg in the vinegar had bubbles STRAIGHT away!

The next day, the shell was gone and it looked sort of yellowish and it was squishy and bigger than the egg from the water.

I tried bouncing it in the sink. I bounced it 4 times and then on the 5th time, it popped and the yolk came out. All that was left was a skin and the yolk.

The other egg was hard and small and really white with the shell still on - it didn't seem any different to me.

CKS rating: 5 stars - Better than TV!