Win 5 dollars.

[Izzy]

Re: Win 5 dollars.

Get a PVC pipe the length of the drop and fill it with water and then drop the egg down it.

Or just get one of these.

[hi19hi19]

Re: Win 5 dollars.

Get a PVC pipe the length of the drop and fill it with water and then drop the egg down it.

Three problems with this... first you'd want to use something like corn syrup, water isn't that viscous in the first place.
Secondly, getting a piece of PVC that is like 10 stories tall is not particularly cheap.
And finally, 75 grams

p.s. use something like caulking compound. 10 million centipoise viscosity no problem, 4 months later your egg reaches ground unharmed!

[leonid]

Re: Win 5 dollars.

use a portal gun

[hi19hi19]

Re: Win 5 dollars.

btw i was real bored so here's the calculation:

Large US egg = 60g
Balloon membrane + some superglue let's call it 5g. In reality you're probably going to have to use a thicker weather balloon or multiple smaller balloons so this could be too low.

That means you have a max 70g of helium to counteract 65g of egg and balloon.
-Magical Algebra-
At average room temperatures helium provides buoyant force at a rate of about 0.9 Liters of helium/gram, so you'd need 58.5 Liters of helium to counteract the force entirely. This is honestly cutting it a little close, so you might want to go more conservative here but whatever.
Using m=(PVM)/(RT)
Pressure inside a balloon is surprisingly usually only slightly greater than pressure outside of the balloon (the pressurizing force of the balloon skin is not very great at all, something not a lot of people expect) so we can sort of ignore that part of the equation and use P=1 atmosphere. Using room temperature T=293K (same as I used when calculating volume/mass lifted ratio) we can calculate that 58.5 Liters of helium will only have a mass of about 9.7 grams. Since a lot of this is estimated, the mass may be greater, but remember even if I am off by 500% it still works haha

In summary:
Yes. Not only will this work, you will have about 60 of your 75 gram budget to spare

If the teacher complains, whip out your notebook and Ideal Gas Law that bitch.


EDIT- disclaimer it's been approximately forever since I did chemistry and I'm tired.
I invite some of the many people smarter than me on this site to correct me if I am wrong somewhere ._.

[rushyrulz]

Re: Win 5 dollars.

weight vs. mass argument

The egg isn't being dropped from the Moon onto Earth.

As weight(N) = mass(kg) * gravity(m/s²), when gravity is a constant, weight is directly proportional to mass.. so for this experiment one gram weights .00981 newtons and that weight is constant as long as you remain on Earth.

The gist of what I'm saying is that you can fill up a balloon the size of a pickup truck, and as long as it weighs less than 1/6 of a pound

Weight(N) = mass(kg) * gravity(m/s²)
Earth's gravity constant: 9.81 m/s²
x = .001 * 9.81
x = .00981 Newtons
1 gram = .00981 Newtons
75 grams = .73575 Newtons
1 Newton = .22481 pounds force
.73575 Newtons = .165 pounds force
.165 to fraction ≈ 1/6

you're in the clear.

EDIT: weigh everything before you pump it full of helium or whatever to get the mass. Ideally everything should be weighed in a vacuum, but what can ya do..

[Izzy]

Re: Win 5 dollars.

Three problems with this... first you'd want to use something like corn syrup, water isn't that viscous in the first place.
Secondly, getting a piece of PVC that is like 10 stories tall is not particularly cheap.
And finally, 75 grams

I don't think an egg would break if you threw it into a lake. But yea, that would weigh a lot.

[UserNameGoesHere]

Re: Win 5 dollars.

The egg isn't being dropped from the Moon onto Earth.

As weight(N) = mass(kg) * gravity(m/s²), when gravity is a constant, weight is directly proportional to mass.. so for this experiment one gram weights .00981 newtons and that weight is constant as long as you remain on Earth.

The gist of what I'm saying is that you can fill up a balloon the size of a pickup truck and as long as it weighs less than 1/6 of a pound

Weight(N) = mass(kg) * gravity(m/s²)
Earth's gravity constant: 9.81 m/s²
x = .001 * 9.81
x = .00981 Newtons
1 gram = .00981 Newtons
75 grams = .73575 Newtons
1 Newton = .22481 pounds force
.73575 Newtons = .165 pounds force
.165 to fraction ≈ 1/6

you're in the clear.

EDIT: weigh everything before you pump it full of helium or whatever to get the mass. Ideally everything should be weighed in a vacuum, but what can ya do..

Except the gas itself, having a negative weight (since it's lighter than the Earth's atmosphere) but a positive mass (since all particles have positive mass) can't be calculated like that. Your formula doesn't account for atmosphere -- this isn't done in a vacuum and in this case that makes a huge difference. (Your formula would give a negative mass -- incorrect).

hi19hi19 seems to have more the correct ideas if you want to go this route. If it's even allowed. But you must show your work to prove the mass is within acceptable bounds.

-edit-

Personal recommendation is still something along the lines of what darkshark and justin_ator presented. Go hybrid that up. It's probably easier to come up with a structurally-sound design over trying to work out obscure math details. Remember -- triangles are structurally strong.

[hi19hi19]

Re: Win 5 dollars.

Also, if you're not going with a weather balloon, remember that you want to keep your egg sitting vertically.
It's a lot more structurally sound that way- after all, it's designed by nature to have the weight of a hen sitting on it!

[leonid]

Re: Win 5 dollars.

put the egg inside a hen and drop

[25thhour]

Re: Win 5 dollars.

Use a parachute attached to the egg surrounded with padding

[UserNameGoesHere]

Re: Win 5 dollars.

Use a parachute attached to the egg surrounded with padding

Simple and works

[rushyrulz]

Re: Win 5 dollars.

Except the gas itself, having a negative weight (since it's lighter than the Earth's atmosphere) but a positive mass (since all particles have positive mass) can't be calculated like that. Your formula doesn't account for atmosphere -- this isn't done in a vacuum and in this case that makes a huge difference. (Your formula would give a negative mass -- incorrect).

Did you just completely skip over my edit or..
I clearly said to weigh everything before the addition of weight-reducing gases. It's not my formula, it's scientific law. My buddy Isaac made it, it's actually his 2nd.

[UserNameGoesHere]

Re: Win 5 dollars.

Did you just completely skip over my edit or..
I clearly said to weigh everything before the addition of weight-reducing gases. It's not my formula, it's scientific law. My buddy Isaac made it, it's actually his 2nd.

Look man, I don't want to be mean, but I'm having a serious case of the facepalm here.

You are neglecting that you need to INCLUDE the mass of the gas. And you need to show in your calculations that the mass of the gas plus the mass of everything else is within the allowed limits. Weight has nothing to do with this. Your buddy Isaac would probably not approve of neglecting gas mass.

--edit--
By the way if you did it in a vacuum it would work exactly like that. And in many cases atmosphere, wind resistance, and things like that are ignored in calculations (they don't exist in a vacuum). In this case it really matters though -- nontrivially. Not merely ideally but you'd have to use a vacuum to get answers that are even vaguely close to correct.

[hi19hi19]

Re: Win 5 dollars.

The problem with measuring the mass of gas in a balloon using a vacuum is that it would pop the balloon haha

Anyway yeah, there's two methods I recommend in the end:
Parachute + padding
or helium balloon + padding.
Or you could use a balloon and a parachute I guess. In the end, something to slow the fall and something to cushion the impact, profit.

[alloyus]

Re: Win 5 dollars.

Hard boil it