174 THE SEVEN FOLLIES OF SCIENCE 



way he found that it would spin like a top and he said it 

 was boiled. Testing all the eggs in this way he soon picked 

 out the raw ones, and when they came to use them his 

 companions found that he had not made a single mistake. 



This is a very pretty experiment and one that does not 

 seem to be generally known. It is easily tried at the 

 breakfast table whenever boiled eggs form part of the bill 

 of fare. 



And a good deal of fun may be had by providing two or 

 three eggs, some boiled hard and some raw and all cold 

 and asking some one to pick out the boiled from the raw. 

 Very probably the candle test will be the one that first 

 suggests itself, and it is amusing to watch how many fail- 

 ures result. When the simple method here described is 

 shown it always causes a good deal of surprise to those 

 who have not seen it before. 



The reason why the raw egg will not spin is obvious: 

 The time during which the fingers act on the egg is not 

 long enough to impart motion to the contents if they are 

 liquid; when the contents are solid, the movement of the 

 fingers is imparted to the whole egg from the very start, 

 and when let go, the entire mass continues to rotate like 

 a top. 



