Have you ever wondered what would happen to an egg if you cracked it deep underwater? Yeah, we haven’t either. Leave it to a pair of Aussie divers to jump in and try it out to see the results. Two instructors from Go Dive Brisbane dove into 32 meters of water with a half dozen eggs intent on solving the underwater mystery, the results they got were interesting, as well as what happened to the eggs when they were done.
For us Americans that don’t use the metric system, 32 meters converts to about 105 feet of water, so these guys were deep. When the divers broke the egg, the result was not a gloppy mess, but rather the egg remained in a ovoid shape until it, well, disappeared!
The science behind the result is not too difficult to understand. Because of the weight of seawater, objects at considerable depth have much more pressure placed on them. The greater the depth, the higher the pressure. At 100 feet of water, the pressure felt is equal to about three times the our normal pressure on land (about 45 PSI). With all of that force pushing in on the egg, it can maintain the ovoid shape. The reason that the egg looks yellow is the fact that raw egg whites are nearly transparent, so it’s hard to make them out on video.
Divers have reported playing tennis underwater with eggs like this using coffee stirrers, perhaps a new Olympic sport? Hey if trampoline can be an event, why not this?
As for the disappearance of the egg, we will let you watch the video to find out how that happened.