letters Saturday Experiments?
T o the Editor: The title "Friday Experiments" made me think for a moment that I had found a long-sought reference. It had to do with Thomas Edison. The story, which I have never been able to verify, was that Edison built a vacuum triode, discovered some unusual effect3, but later dismissed it all as a "Saturday night experiment." Can any reader help to get the straight of this?
"Handbook of ivfeteorology," McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York, N. Y., 1945, p. 1031. Water boils at 85.g°C at this pressure. We put 8 large grade AA eggs with an average weight of 59 3 g in a thermostat at 85.9'C. Beginning at 1000 see, eggs were removed and opened at intervals of 200 sec. The one at 1800 sec was the first judged to be done. The experiment was repeated with 4 eggs (57 1 0.6 g) removed a t 100-sec intervals, beginning at 1500 sec. The Principle Investigator consumed all of the eggs removed near the critical time. The egg heated for 1700 sec (about 28 min) was hardboiled. I t is very well to have theoreticians guess about the pressure at the top of Pike's Peak, hut let whoever has a real problem, like getting an egg properly cooked, appeal to an empirical kineticist.
The Hard-Boiled Egg Controversy
To the Editor: Atop Pike's Peak, an egg in boiling waterwill be hardboiled in 28 1minutes. This letter should end for all time the great hard-boiled-egg-at-the-top-of-Pike'sPeak controversy which began with the statement of Moore that the depressed boiling point of water there would lengthen the 10-min cooking time required at sea level to 12 hrs [see C. R. GATZ,J. CHEM.EDUC., 46, 534 (1969) and the references therein]. TrotmanDikenson challenged this statement, guessing that i t would take less than 20 min. Finally G a t presented a calculation arriving at a time of 85 min. All of these numbers appear to be based on a combination of hearsay and hypothesis. Still worse, Gatz says "chemical kinetics are of doubtful applicability to hard-boiled eggs." This is a particularly galling statement hecause of the absence of any kinetic measurement in the derivation of the various times and the fact that these theoreticians did not even get the correct boiling temperature. The pressure a t the top of Pike's Peak (altitude about 14,000 ft.) is normally 446 mm Hg [F. A. BERRY, et al.,
*
T o the Editor: Whatever the merits of her isenthalpic/isentropic model [J. CHEM.EDUC.,46, 534 (1969)], Miss Gatz cannot toss off a lo temperature difference between theory and experiment "by invoking a slight amount of pollution." If one may employ the laws applicable to dilute solutions, then a 2 m solution of some ideal non: electrolyte would be required to produce this I" elevation! This hardly constitutes "slight pollution." It is somewhat more probable, as I have been trying to persuade my students for years, that when water boils at a slightly higher temperature than expected (assuming normal pressure), the thermometer is in error.
Volume 46, Number 12, December 1969
/
879
