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Topic: Humpty Dumpty (Read 660 times) |
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alien2
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Humpty Dumpty
« on: Jun 5th, 2007, 8:59am » |
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1. How could you extract content of an egg by damaging least of its shell?
2. You are flying in a plane over Greenland. There are no other flying devices or birds for that matter anywhere close and the weather is fair. You throw an intact egg from high altitude, but it doesn't break when it touches the icecap. How is it possible? 
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Three Hands
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Re: Humpty Dumpty
« Reply #1 on: Jun 5th, 2007, 9:07am » |
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1. Get a very fine-needle syringe and use a fair bit of patience
2. Parachutes and lots of padding do wonderful things for keeping eggs intact...
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alien2
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Re: Humpty Dumpty
« Reply #2 on: Jun 5th, 2007, 9:25am » |
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on Jun 5th, 2007, 9:07am, Three Hands wrote:1. Get a very fine-needle syringe and use a fair bit of patience
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I've accepted this fine answer! But most people don't have the syringe at home because they are afraid of it, so what answer would you suggest then? 
on Jun 5th, 2007, 9:07am, Three Hands wrote:
2. Parachutes and lots of padding do wonderful things for keeping eggs intact... |
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No, there were no other objects. I hope that was clear before.
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towr
wu::riddles Moderator
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Re: Humpty Dumpty
« Reply #3 on: Jun 5th, 2007, 9:44am » |
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on Jun 5th, 2007, 9:25am, Iceman wrote:| I've accepted this fine answer! But most people don't have the syringe at home because they are afraid of it, so what answer would you suggest then? |
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Get out a needle, nail or screw, dril holes on opposite sides of the egg and blow
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Wikipedia, Google, Mathworld, Integer sequence DB
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alien2
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Re: Humpty Dumpty
« Reply #4 on: Jun 5th, 2007, 9:52am » |
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You got it. The kid who told me this, said that he uses a thumbtack on Easter.
I, myself, tried it once: I made the smallest hole on one side of the egg, and then a hole a little bit bigger on the opposite side, about trice bigger. Then I successfully blew the inside
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| « Last Edit: Jun 5th, 2007, 9:54am by alien2 » |
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Grimbal
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Re: Humpty Dumpty
« Reply #5 on: Jun 5th, 2007, 9:56am » |
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1. Let it hatch. You are not the one damaging it.
2. I think I have proposed it before. Drop the chicken with the egg.
3. I hide my answers to make it look like I seriously consider them to be valid solutions.
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alien2
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Re: Humpty Dumpty
« Reply #6 on: Jun 5th, 2007, 10:00am » |
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on Jun 5th, 2007, 9:56am, Grimbal wrote:1. Let it hatch. You are not the one damaging it.
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You got it. 
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SMQ
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Re: Humpty Dumpty
« Reply #7 on: Jun 5th, 2007, 12:28pm » |
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2. I was working on the theory that the egg could freeze solid on the way down and land in the snow (to keep from shattering), but I don't think there's enough time at a cold enough temperature for that to work.
The only reference I could find says that bird egg whites freeze at around -40.
Currently in most of Greenland it is a few degrees above freezing on the ground, and a bit colder than -40 at 36,000 ft (11,000 m). The temperature at that altitude doesn't vary much with the seasons, but in the winter temperatures on the ground of -40 are not uncommon, so it's possible that in the right conditions the air could be below the freezing point of the egg for the whole way down.
However, an egg (with a mass of 75g, a cross-sectional area of 11 cm^2, and a coefficient of drag of 0.25) dropped from 11,000m will only take about 2 minutes to fall -- nowhere near long enough to freeze solid, especially with the air temperature only a little bit below its freezing point.
Maybe it was frozen aready? Or it landed in really deep, fluffy snow? That was way too much research and math for this riddle! 
--SMQ
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--SMQ
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Grimbal
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Re: Humpty Dumpty
« Reply #8 on: Jun 6th, 2007, 2:24am » |
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In the movie "The march of the emperor" you can see a penguin egg that gets abandoned on the ice and quickly freezes. The inside gains volume by freezing, so the egg breaks open.
Maybe a steel egg?
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JiNbOtAk
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Re: Humpty Dumpty
« Reply #9 on: Jun 6th, 2007, 6:37pm » |
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You could always boil the egg first. Boiling an egg for more than 2 hours over medium fire should make the shell as hard as rock. ( I've tried it ) Depending on how high you're flying, I'd say the egg should be able to survive the fall.
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Grimbal
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Re: Humpty Dumpty
« Reply #10 on: Jun 7th, 2007, 12:48am » |
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Another possbility: You drop part of the icecap from the plane with the egg, making sure they get in contact.
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