Who Balances Eggs On Equinox?

On this equinox podcast bonus episode, we're cracking the code with some egg-cellent info on the whole can you balance an egg on equinox theory, including some fun eggs-tra information like... what do you mean chickens have earlobes?!?! Join us for all the Egg-quinox balancing egg info. 

(Sorry about all the yolks. I hope they're cracking you up.)

ALSO:

• GRAB OUR FREE BUSTER DEDUCTION SHEET TO USE WITH THE EPISODE
• HEAD OVER TO GET MORE LEARNING AFTER LISTENING IDEAS FOR THIS TOPIC ON PARENTBUSTERS.COM

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:00

Welcome to parent busters, a fun podcast where parents and kids can learn about weird things together.

Speaker 2 0:06

Today, we are going to be cracking open the hard foiled truth about our subject. Uh, would you like tell the people what the subject is?

Speaker 1 0:18

And

Speaker 2 0:18

Yes, I brought egg puns.

Speaker 1 0:20

Excellent. Today our episode is who balances eggs on Equinox. Yeah.

Speaker 2 0:28

Who

Speaker 1 0:28

Does that? If you didn't know we're Jackie and Ella, and before we do anything else, we're gonna give you our two truths and a lie for this episode.

Speaker 2 0:37

So yeah, we're gonna get this episode, crack a lack and okay. I'll be done for now.

Speaker 1 0:40

Eggs. Rolling.

Speaker 3 0:43

Please hold for a very important message.

Speaker 2 0:47

Okay. So two truth lies works like this. Each episode we start with you guess that two truth and one lie about the topic

Speaker 1 0:55

You guests, which two things are true, and which one is a lie,

Speaker 2 0:58

Then listen to the podcast and see if it can determine which ones are the truths and which are the why. Listen to N because then we'll give you the answers

Speaker 1 1:07

And for you parents out there, if you haven't already pause the podcast right now, because you can go over to our website@parentbusters.com, we have AFL, a free download called the Buster deduction sheet. You can download and use it with the podcast.

Speaker 2 1:23

Seriously. We're not yawing you. There's a place on there where we can, where you can write.

Speaker 1 1:29

Excellent. It's the only pun I can think of.

Speaker 2 1:32

Okay. I'm gonna try that part again. There's a place on there where you can write down two truths and one life for this topic. Guess your answers before you listen and write down other fun things you wanna about during the podcast.

Speaker 1 1:44

And it's just another fun way that you can continue to learn together with your kids, which was one of our goals, uh, when we started this podcast. Yeah. So let's get started with our two truths and a lie for who? Balances eggs on Equinox. You ready?

Speaker 2 2:03

Yes, I am.

Speaker 1 2:04

Okay. So I'm, so I'm gonna read through our two truths and a lie. That means two of them are true. And one is a

Speaker 2 2:11

Also true

Speaker 1 2:13

Lie.

Speaker 2 2:13

Oh yeah. That makes

Speaker 1 2:14

Sense. And if you're using our Buster deduction sheets, there's a part at the top where you can indicate, uh, your guesses, which ones you think are true. And which ones you think, which one you think is a lie. So here we go.

Speaker 2 2:26

Let's talk about the egg Equinox.

Speaker 1 2:30

So number one, two truths and a lie. You can only balance an egg on Equinox. Number two for our two truths and a lie. You can balance an egg any day.

Speaker 2 2:40

Ooh.

Speaker 1 2:41

And number three with you can balance a broom any day, not just on Equinox

Speaker 2 2:48

Magic. Ooh. And we wish you good luck on seeing on how you can decipher which ones the lie.

Speaker 1 2:56

I like it. Excellent.

Speaker 2 2:59

Can you

Speaker 1 3:00

Stop? No, I can't.

Speaker 2 3:01

You can't think of any, I mean, it's, I guess it's just a skillet. It's too over easy for me.

Speaker 1 3:06

You're cracking me up. Well

Speaker 2 3:08

Done. Finally.

Speaker 1 3:09

Thank you. Okay. So let's do a little background in case you didn't know. I mean, I think you would probably honestly have to be living under a, a rock the past few years. If you didn't see this, because it seems around spring Equinox every year, you see a ton of videos on social media and people talking about, can you balance an egg?

Speaker 2 3:32

Uh, can I button it's the technic, if you wanna call it technically it's the ver Equinox switches. The spring Equinox.

Speaker 1 3:41

It is said on spring Equinox, there's equal gravity between the earth and the sun on that day. And people say that it, it, it, you can balance an egg. So it, if you get an egg on spring Equinox, you're supposed to be able to stand it up and it will balance straight

Speaker 2 3:59

UN boiled egg,

Speaker 1 4:01

An UN boiled egg. So in case you didn't know, an Equinox is the day, when is a time period when the day and night are of equal length and it occurs any guesses, how many times a year?

Speaker 2 4:13

Twice,

Speaker 1 4:14

Twice a year. That's right. Spring Equinox, which I'll already told us is really called

Speaker 2 4:19

Ver

Speaker 1 4:20

And the fall Equinox, which is called the OT Equinox.

Speaker 2 4:24

Autumn OUM. Yeah. Yes.

Speaker 1 4:26

There are claims that during the Equinox, you can stand an egg on end because of the pole of equal gravity between the north and the PA south pole. What do you think? Huh? You think that this is a wives tale. Do you think this is a superstition thing? Do you think it's true?

Speaker 2 4:41

I feel like my original thought was like, oh, I could see it quite possibly being something with like the gravity. No,

Speaker 1 4:49

Agreed. I, I had the same thoughts also, but the truth is you can balance an egg on the Equinox. You

Speaker 2 4:57

Must be. And every other day of the

Speaker 1 5:01

That's, right? Because the spring or fall balance and egg on that day is actually a myth. Uh, Susie Girton, the education manager at the astronomical society of the Pacific says, quoting, if you can do it on the Equinox, you can do it any day of the year. However, it's hard.

Speaker 2 5:22

Yeah. There's a lot of things that go into it scientifically that needs, that gets the right conditions for it to be able to stand up.

Speaker 1 5:31

And I would think a lot of practice, right?

Speaker 2 5:33

Yeah.

Speaker 1 5:34

Um, I have a little tip though. If you wanna try it at home, brilliant. According to Nat geo, you can make a tiny amount of salt on the calendar, on the couch. You can make a tiny mound of salt on the counter and then balance the egg and then you gently blow away the salt from underneath it. Oh, and it'll balance.

Speaker 2 5:55

I have seen, I've seen and heard that

Speaker 1 5:57

We're totally doing it. And if we don't forget, we're gonna post the video over on our website.

Speaker 2 6:02

You can go and see me feel doing everything in this that we mentioned in this podcast.

Speaker 1 6:08

Yeah. So definitely head over parent to parent busters.com after this episode, because we're gonna try have L lo B the, uh, guine pair. Oh boy. And try these things out. So, um, where did all this start then? If you, if it's truly just a myth, because if you can balance it on the Equinox, you can balance it on any day. Where did all of this start?

Speaker 2 6:30

My guess would be like, we talked about people think it's like, oh, it's the gravity things are aligned. Which

Speaker 1 6:36

Kind of makes sense.

Speaker 2 6:38

I mean, it can, yeah, it does kind of make sense. What's never gonna be like perfectly aligned gravity wise on like everywhere in the world on that certain day, you can do it. Nothing's always gonna be

Speaker 1 6:51

E I found a little bit about where the origin started, but it's kind of a little murky. I looked up some information from somewhere called Astro society and they did some research on it. And they stated that the myth may have started in Chinese folklore and passed down in stories throughout time, which is honestly how I feel a lot of our things get yeah. Started.

Speaker 2 7:14

That is so cool.

Speaker 1 7:15

Uh, they found in the Astros society, uh, page, they said that it was reported on by someone named Annalee Jacoby in March 19th, 1990 4, 19 45 issue of life magazine. And then it was picked up by other news organizations. So they think that it just kind of perpetuated from that being syndicated through other news organizations that, and according to study in china.com in China at the beginning of spring, there's something called erecting the egg, where if a person can balance an egg or make it stand up on that day, they're said to have good luck for the entire year.

Speaker 2 7:57

Maybe off the try that,

Speaker 1 7:59

I mean, I'm all up for good luck, aren't you

Speaker 2 8:01

Seriously?

Speaker 1 8:02

So another thing that you'll see going around on social media for the spring Equinox is a lot of people say, if you can balance an egg, you can also balance a broom, which means you can stand a broom upright, and it will balance on the Equinox. But as you probably already guest,

Speaker 2 8:20

It's not just on

Speaker 1 8:23

Equinox. So if you are talented yeah. Enough to be able to stand a broom up on Equinox, you can stand that broom up any old way.

Speaker 2 8:34

Yes. Miss Jacqueline, have you ever attempted this, uh, dangerous feet?

Speaker 1 8:40

No, because that would indicate that I actually sweep our house and that's a whole different podcast. Yeah.

Speaker 2 8:47

Gross.

Speaker 1 8:47

Gross, I think. Yeah.

Speaker 2 8:49

And that's a different podcast.

Speaker 1 8:51

Um, it also depends on the kind of broom that you have. Yeah. And the type of bristles.

Speaker 2 8:56

Yeah. If you have one of the ones where the handles are kind of off centered yeah. On the broom, how's

Speaker 1 9:02

That work

Speaker 2 9:03

Not well.

Speaker 1 9:04

Yeah. I would think

Speaker 2 9:05

Speaking from experience,

Speaker 1 9:06

Have you tried to balance a broom?

Speaker 2 9:08

Definitely. I've done it.

Speaker 1 9:10

Come on over. We're gonna show you on the parent busters.

Speaker 2 9:14

One time I can't balance a broom is when I'm,

Speaker 1 9:17

We're gonna test it out. So

Speaker 2 9:18

How we're putting into the

Speaker 1 9:19

Internet on BBC, Dr. Becky Smith Hurst, she's actually an astrophysicist from the university of Oxford and I'm coding here from BBC. She said she could not believe the amount of misinformation being spread about this online broom balance. She said in itself is not impressive. It's a party truck trick. The broom is wide at the bottom and at the right angle can be balanced. So if it's wide at the bottom and has the right angle to it, it can be balanced. We feel the same gravitational pool at all times of the year. She said, so no matter whether it's the spring Equinox or, or not the way the earth is tilted would never be the cause of ordinary objects. Just balancing. Yeah. Wow. Dr. Smith hu. Well, way too. Uh, ruin first our bubble

Speaker 2 10:07

One. Wow.

Speaker 1 10:08

Way to be scientific.

Speaker 2 10:10

Yeah. So do you know the origin of this? Because a lot of people think lot people have quoted NASA of saying this as saying that a broom can balance by itself on the Equinox. Although NASA doesn't have any public statements that you can go back and find on it that we know of may, they're just trying to sweep it under the rug.

Speaker 1 10:33

I see

Speaker 2 10:33

What you did. Thank you for fake laughing at my terrible

Speaker 1 10:36

T

Speaker 2 10:37

Stop.

Speaker 1 10:40

Okay. Actually that did. I saw that too. And it came from Twitter user when they tweeted NASA saying that the broom can be balanced on Equinox. And the day after NASA tweeted a video of one of the scientists balancing a broom a day after Equinox, and then they say that anti quote, this is another social media hoax that exemplifies how quickly pseudoscience and false claims can go viral. And then they went on to say, while this hoax was harmless, it also shows why it's important for all of us to do fact checking

Speaker 2 11:11

Way to go NASA, to ruin all the fun with your all science and stuff and rocking.

Speaker 1 11:16

It's so true. The, because I feel like we're living in such an age where we all just, um, share things and we jump on board of whatever viral craze there is.

Speaker 2 11:26

You don't do any research into it, right? Because you're like, oh, this is popular. It must be true that

Speaker 1 11:31

No NASA makes a good point. Even though it's something as harmless as balancing a, an egg or a broom on equal in ox, I think there is a good lesson there.

Speaker 2 11:40

Yeah. Having like TikTok, Twitter, these kind of things just spread so

Speaker 1 11:43

Quickly. Well, you wouldn't really know about TikTok, but they or

Speaker 2 11:46

Twitter

Speaker 1 11:47

Go

Speaker 2 11:47

There. You know what? I'm just, I'm assuming.

Speaker 1 11:50

Um, so NASA said for the broom balancing basic physics works every day of the year, not just on the Equinox. Whoa. So I think we can confidently say these two things balancing an a on Equinox and a brew money Equinox are kind of true, but not true.

Speaker 2 12:11

We're gonna say for the simple version sake of it, it's busted.

Speaker 1 12:18

It is not true. Correct. But

Speaker 2 12:21

My technicality, it is also true.

Speaker 1 12:23

Huh? If you can balance it on Equinox, then you can balance it on any day, but go over and see if Ella can balance a broom or an egg on a any day. That'll be a lot of fun. Oh. So let's talk about our two truths and a lie. Okay.

Speaker 2 12:38

That sounds awesome. Let's do this.

Speaker 1 12:40

Okay. You can only balance an egg on Equinox, true or false.

Speaker 2 12:44

That is the lie

Speaker 1 12:47

Lie. We proved that you can balance an egg any day because we did it.

Speaker 2 12:54

We tested it. Uh, you're gonna have to check out that video

Speaker 1 12:58

On Instagram.

Speaker 2 12:59

Yep.

Speaker 1 13:00

And, uh, it wasn't on Equinox and one of us was able to balance. I won't tell you who, okay. Number two for a two and a lie. You can balance an egg any day.

Speaker 2 13:13

That is is true.

Speaker 1 13:15

It's kind of true for one of us

Speaker 2 13:18

Laugh. Can you not Look?

Speaker 1 13:21

So the truth is you can balance an egg on any day because it doesn't need to be Equinox with enough practice. And if one of us is good enough to do it four times,

Speaker 2 13:33

Why are you still, still at me?

Speaker 1 13:35

I don't know. I don't know. The third one, that two, the third truth and lie that we said wa was with practice. You can bounce a broom any day,

Speaker 2 13:44

Which is also true.

Speaker 1 13:46

It's true. We haven't tried it yet, but we still might. I guess.

Speaker 2 13:51

I mean, we should. I feel like I've done it before though. Yeah.

Speaker 1 13:55

I don't. I'm just worried that we don't have a, do we sweep our house?

Speaker 2 14:01

Um, we

Speaker 1 14:01

Sweep the outside. I,

Speaker 2 14:03

Yeah, we have, we have broom.

Speaker 1 14:05

Okay. We'll just go with, we have a broom. Yeah. And so those are our two truths and a lie head on over to our Instagram account. It's parent busters and try your own.

Speaker 2 14:16

Wow. That was an excellent joke.

Speaker 1 14:20

I tried, uh, I thought really hard for that one. And you can try your own balancing egg experiment and we also have more lessons. So don't forget to learn after you listen and head over to our website, we have a lot more for you to do over there.

Speaker 2 14:36

Yeah. Get crack. Acking

Speaker 1 14:38

Say later. Hey, thanks for listening. If you like what we're doing here, please leave us a five star review. So Ella knows that our homeschool research didn't go to waste, please. Also we are parent busters on Facebook, Insta and Twitter. So join us over there

Speaker 2 14:54

Too, but not on TikTok because someone said I can't be on TikTok right now.

Speaker 1 14:59

That is correct. Hey, you know what else? Parents head over to our website. Parent busters.com. Wow.

Speaker 2 15:06

How original.

Speaker 1 15:08

Wow. But did you just say how wow, how original? No, yes. That's right. Our website is named exactly the same as our podcast.

Speaker 2 15:17

Yep. Parent busters.com.

Speaker 1 15:20

Um, anyway, parents head over to parent busters.com because there's more learning after listening. We have a ton of ideas to go along with things you heard in the podcast and fun. You can continue learning with your kids together.

Speaker 2 15:34

Wait, wait, wasn't there a printable or download you wanna talk about?

Speaker 1 15:37

Oh yeah, that's right. Uh, thank you. There's also a download parents that you should head over to grab before you even listen to any of the podcast. It's the printable Buster deduction sheet. And it's from our bud, a buddy club. I don't know why I can't get that out. It's just like a ton of bees or something.

Speaker 2 15:56

It's a tongue twister.

Speaker 1 15:57

Anyway, it's a principle Buster deduction sheet, print this out and your kids can write down their guesses on the topic. And, uh, there's a space in there for the two truths and a lie that we do before every podcast. Then you're gonna listen to the podcast together and then you can document any facts you learn. You can, uh, right now the two truths in the lie that you find out. And there are, uh, lots of other things that you can do with those deduction sheets. So head over and check it out. It's free.

Speaker 2 16:28

Yeah. It's really fun.

Speaker 1 16:29

Join us for our next podcast. We would tell you when they are, but we really don't know right now. We'll figure it out though.

Speaker 2 16:37

And we'll let you know when we figure it out. If we figure it out, we'll probably figure it. I don't know.

Speaker 1 16:43

I hope we figure

Speaker 2 16:44

It out. I really hope then this recording time would just go to waste.

Speaker 1 16:49

All right. We'll see you guys on the next episode,

Speaker 2 16:51

Have a good, uh, I and whatever insert time of day it is. Bye.