lab report: the egg experiment

[lauradi7dw]

What we know: it's possible to bring a mug of room temperature water to a boil in a microwave.
What we presume: microwaving a raw egg (in the shell)would cause a messy explosion.
What we wondered: whether submerging the raw egg completely in the room temp water would result in a hard-boiled egg.

The answer: after 1 minute 35 seconds, the egg exploded, splattering egg bits and water all over the inside of the microwave oven. The big enough to describe parts of the egg were about the texture of a poached egg. So the result shows that while one could cook an egg in the manner described, it's not a very good idea. A lot of clean-up was required, and I even took the precaution of wiping out the inside surfaces of the oven with diluted bleach, worrying about putting a culture medium into a warm place. This reminded me of the Phy-chem lab tables, which we're supposed to wipe down with lysol after our other clean-up chores. This makes no sense to me on days that we're not using bio-hazards, but whatever. I asked the teacher whether some day we might have a reaction between the Lysol and any accidentally leftover chemicals on the surface, but she said they'd thought of that, and no such interactions should occur.

Comments

[calygrey.livejournal.com]

So, what would happen if you microwave the egg-in-water inside a sealed container??

(Good idea cleaning with bleach; the egg will leave a lovely nutrient for future bacterial colonization!)

[lauradi7.livejournal.com]

We were wondering what if we did the same thing but did a needle prick in the eggshell first. I have a microwavable covered soup mug. As soon as a eat the soup currently stored in it, I'll try a combined experiment.