It is a popular trick for each group with a spring equinox: Spring Equinox Egg Balance at its end, and as if by magic, it works! An idea? Because Earth’s gravitational pull is precisely aligned with that day – and the Earth’s angle at its orbit around the sun – the eggs are able to stand on end. And it’s not just eggs. It’s brooms, and… at least, in the sense.
Sadly, though, this impressive stunt has nothing to do with equinox. Believe it or not, eggs (and yes, brooms) can be weighed at their edges every day of the year, not just one. Don’t you believe it? Here is what really happens.
Definition Of Spring Equinox?
First things first: What is an equinox, and why are there so many rumors? Also known as the vernal equinox, the spring equinox refers to one of the two days each year when the sun is well placed above the equator and the day and night are approximately equal. In fact, the word equinox is derived from the Latin aequi, meaning “equal night.”
The spring equinox usually takes place on March 19, 20, or 21, and the 2020 equinox is Thursday, March 19.
What has to do with eggs?
It is said that the practice originated in China as the Lunar New Year tradition, in the sense that the perfect alignment of the earth and the moon on that date helps to balance gravity.
However, while the concept of egg equation in the equinox is supported without YouTube videos and successful first-person experiments, Snopes clearly states that “since most people have never seen or tried to measure eggs at its edges on any day without the equator… many of them are from experience they believe that something special must happen that day.
Challenging To Balance an egg
According to Wystan Benbow, PhD, Astrophysics astronomer, Harvard & Smithsonian, and director of VERITAS, “while it may be challenging to balance common objects such as an egg or a broom at their end, it is never too easy or too difficult for him to date. This is because the earth’s gravitational pull is the same every day, no matter where it ‘comes from’ toward the sun. ”
Amy C. Oliver, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory Public Affairs Officer, and Visitor & Science Center Manager for Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory, agrees. “The spring equinox only signs a pending change in time, and there is no change in gravity on Earth,” he explains. “The only thing the eggs will do in the spring is bring the chicks into the world and be hidden in the garden by the Easter Bunny. It doesn’t matter what day of the year it is.