How do I explain the physics of an egg drop?

Friday, June 12th, 2009 | Physics

nancy c asked:


For my egg drop project, me and my partner put our egg in a jacket and stuffed it all into a pillow case. When we threw it off a two story building, the egg didn’t break. For our lab, we need to explain why we used the materials we did and how our egg didn’t break with physics, but I don’t know how to. Help please.

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  1. What ideas are there on building a model rollercoaster for a physics project? jowoods25 asked: I’m looking to build a model rollercoaster...
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1 Comment to How do I explain the physics of an egg drop?

macman
June 15, 2009

When the egg hits the ground, the ground exerts a force on the egg. The force causes the egg decelerate, that is to change its velocity, from very high to zero in a very short time (or distance). When you put padding around the egg, you are effectively increasing the time or the distance for the egg to come to a stop, this means that the average acceleration is much smaller, and so is the net force exerted on the egg. The less force, the less acceleration, the less damage. Incidentally this is the same reasoning behind air bags in cars.

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