The Best Way to Drop an Egg Without Breaking It, According to Science

Here’s hoping Humpty Dumpty reads the news. In research out today, scientists have apparently figured out the safest way to drop an egg without it breaking. Researchers at MIT conducted the study, published Thursday in Communications Physics. After nearly 200 experiments, the team determined that dropping an egg horizontally is more likely to keep it intact than a vertical drop—completely contrary to folk wisdom. MIT and many other schools regularly host an “egg drop challenge” for their students. The goal is simple enough: use some ingenuity and basic materials like toothpicks and twine to construct a contraption that will keep their eggs from breaking once dropped. But according to study researcher and engineer Tal Cohen, both teachers and online sources will often also recommend that the egg stays vertical to further lower the risk of cracking. The underlying assumption behind this advice is that the egg’s vertical structure resembles an arch, and arches are very good at redistri ... Read full article.