Posts Tagged ‘perfect’
Schoolgirls crack the secret of cooking the perfect boiled egg
A group of schoolgirls claims to have discovered exactly what makes the perfect egg-and-soldiers breakfast.
The young eggheads from Sherborne Girls School in Dorset say Delia Smith was right all along…the perfect boiled egg does take six minutes.
The team of twelve science students took part in an experiment commissioned by the Royal Society of Chemistry and led by Professor Hal Sosabowski, principal lecturer in Chemistry at Brighton University. Setting out to test one of the nation’s all-time favourite breakfasts, the boffins confirmed not only the optimum time for boiling an egg but also the key variables that make up the perfect dipping soldier.
Their finds included:
*Margarine makes a stronger dunking soldier than butter
*White bread makes more effective soldiers
*Optimum toasting time is 2.5 minutes
*The perfect soldier dimension is 1.5cm in width
*The perfect boiled egg takes six minutes…
Sixth-form student Rosanna Younger, 17, came forward with the hypothesis that “applying margarine to toast will produce stronger soldiers than applying butter”.
She said “It has been really interesting to identify a strong trend in such a short time. We kept the experiment simple, focusing on one aspect of boiled eggs and soldiers. “I love butter on my toast but I might just have to swap over to margarine in future to ensure strong soldiers..!”
The school’s aim is “to provide a rich, all-round education enabling girls to enjoy fulfilling and active lives, have open and enquiring minds and develop the character and courage to make a valuable contribution to a changing world”.
I would suggest an additional variable in their consideration of butter vs. margarine coating the soldier in this recipe. What was the butterfat percentage in the butter they were using? I imagine that a higher bf-rating than the usual OTC stuff might make a difference.
Yes, this is one of my favorite breakfasts. Just a touch of fresh-ground tellicherry black pepper and a few flakes of Malden sea salt crushed between thumb and forefinger to dust the serving. Yum!
[And who would be silly enough to challenge Delia over boiled eggs]
Electrons are nearly perfect spheres
A 10-year study has revealed that the electron is very spherical indeed.
To be precise, the electron differs from being perfectly round by less than 0.000000000000000000000000001 cm. To put that in context; if an electron was the size of the solar system, it would be out from being perfectly round by less than the width of a human hair.
The Imperial College team behind the research, which was conducted on molecules of ytterbium flouride, used a laser to make measurements of the motion of electrons, and in particular the wobble they exhibit when spinning. They observed no such wobble, implying that the electron is perfectly round at the levels of precision available, reflected in the figure above…
The next step is to up that precision level even further, using new methods to cool the molecules to extremely low temperatures and control their motion. The results are important in the study of antimatter, and particularly the positron — which should behave identically to the electron but with an opposite electrical charge. If more differences can be found, it could help to explain why far less antimatter has been discovered in the universe than predicted by theory.
Keep on rockin’. Just imagine what sort of rotation could be achieved with spheres like this as the contact points in a bearing race?
