Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

For my project im doing a experiment with eggs,water and salt. I have a question on how does the salt push the egg up?

Allanzhivkovich,

The water does not exactly "push the egg up." Rather, the egg floats.

Salt water is more dense than pure water, so things float more easily in it. Salt water is denser than pure water because salt is heavier than water.



I hope this helps.

- UltraHeavyShadow

How does the salt pick up the egg and make it float?

Does the amount of water matter when you put the salt in?

bob

Does the water have to be a certain amount to make a egg float or does that not matter?

Hello. Please keep all questions to one thread so that our experts can best help you based on what has already been discussed.

Good luck, and thanks for using Science Buddies!

Hi Allanzhivkovich,

I'm assuming that this is your project:https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... p003.shtml

Although the salt-water is more dense than the pure water, that's not exactly why the egg floats on the salt-water.

The egg is placed on something denser than itself, the salt-water. This allows the egg to float. While pure water is less dense than the egg, causing the egg to sink.

Density is a fundamental concept in science, especially for your project. In order to get a better grasp of it, some background research is always good. You can get a head start in the project guide: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... background

Does the water have to be a certain amount to make a egg float or does that not matter?

Adding water makes the solution less concentrated, which is what the project guide means by a "dilution". Does changing the amount of water in the solution affect the egg's buoyancy, or how well it floats? That's a great question to try and answer through your experiment. Remember, density is measured as mass/volume and the addition of water means an increase in both mass and volume.

As seen in the procedure from the project guide, the amount of water added to the solution will be the thing that you change in your experiment to see what happens. to get a better idea of its role check out this link:https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... bles.shtml

Good luck, and please keep us updated on the results of your eggsperiment, we're really interested. If you have anymore questions, we'd be happy to answer