In #MESExperiments 38 I show that stirring a column of water causes an egg to rise 33% faster and fall 25% slower than a ping pong ball, thus confirming Viktor Schauberger's rising egg experiment. Viktor Schauberger was an Austrian forester, inventor, and scientist that maintained the unique perspective that water was a living entity and prefers to move in a vortex manner. From this perspective, he stated that a shape that allows water to flow as a vortex around it would be able to move through water much easier than other shapes, such as a sphere. Viktor demonstrated this by his rising egg experiment, which involves stirring a column of water causing an egg to rise faster than a ping-pong ball filled with saline water to have the same buoyancy as the egg.
In order to validate his rising egg experiment properly, I used a plastic egg that was similar in size to a ping pong ball and filled them both with salt water until they sunk freely downwards. Then I performed the rising experiment 10 times each for the ping pong ball, the egg with broad side down, and the egg with broad side up. I timed the total time, and then I timed the rising only and falling only times. I did the experiment many times to minimize the influence of any variables such as stirring speed, water rotation rate, or position of the egg/ball in the cylinder.
At the start the egg fell faster than the ball indicating it was a bit more buoyant but, due to the water being in constant rotation after stirring, the egg with the broadside up fell 25% slower than the ping pong ball. In total, the egg with the broadside up rose 33% faster than the ping pong ball, while the egg with the broadside down still rose 18% faster than the PPB. Pretty amazing stuff!
Stay tuned for #MESExperiments 39...
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For reference here are screenshots of the experiment.
