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Is it ever physically possible for a broken egg to reassemble into an unbroken one?
September 18, 2019 at 11:07 am
The conventional answer is that it would never happen. But couldn't it be the case that, while it would be extremely unlikely for a broken egg to be spontaneously reassembled into an unbroken egg, there's still nevertheless this very tiny tinge of possibility that this can happen (maybe a 1 out of a googolplex probability)?
The overall entropy may be increasing, but I don't see why the atoms that constitute a broken egg couldn't, by sheer coincidence, collect together in a way that the arrangement now constitutes an unbroken egg?
Let's see what our local physicists here have to say.
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RE: Is it ever physically possible for a broken egg to reassemble into an unbroken one?
September 18, 2019 at 11:51 am
Glue and a lot of patience?
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RE: Is it ever physically possible for a broken egg to reassemble into an unbroken one?
September 18, 2019 at 11:54 am
I'm not a local physicist (or even a long distance one), but I'm voting for 'impossible'. There would need to be some attracting force between the pieces of the broken egg. Since eggs are non-magnetic, the best candidate for the force would be gravity, which is far too weak to do the job.
Boru
‘I can’t be having with this.’ - Esmeralda Weatherwax
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RE: Is it ever physically possible for a broken egg to reassemble into an unbroken one?
September 18, 2019 at 11:56 am
I dunno about deep physics, but the eggshell when forms is just a soft membrane that solidifies just before the egg gets laid. Once that happens, the several broken pieces can't stick together without external adhesives like glue.
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RE: Is it ever physically possible for a broken egg to reassemble into an unbroken one?
September 18, 2019 at 1:11 pm
(This post was last modified: September 18, 2019 at 1:13 pm by Anomalocaris.)
(September 18, 2019 at 11:07 am)Grandizer Wrote: The conventional answer is that it would never happen. But couldn't it be the case that, while it would be extremely unlikely for a broken egg to be spontaneously reassembled into an unbroken egg, there's still nevertheless this very tiny tinge of possibility that this can happen (maybe a 1 out of a googolplex probability)?
The overall entropy may be increasing, but I don't see why the atoms that constitute a broken egg couldn't, by sheer coincidence, collect together in a way that the arrangement now constitutes an unbroken egg?
Let's see what our local physicists here have to say.
The sheer coincidence would have to be a lot more sheer than you think.
You are probably thinking the odds that the broken pieces would just happen to bump into each other in precisely the same configuration as before the egg broke must be astronomical. It is astronomical. But even if the staggering improbable happens, the egg still won't hold together. The egg is still just a bunch a broken pieces that happened to be arranged in the same configuration as before it was broken, and will fall apart again the very next moment. This is because when a solid substance fractures, as in the case of an egg shell, air and dust molecules adheres to the fracture surface, so that if you fit them back together again, no matter how precisely, the solids on either side of the fracture would still be prevented from reforming the chemical bonds that once held them together.
So what more does random chance have to do to make the egg truly reassemble into a unbroken egg? Random molecular motion of the air and airborne dust molecules that adheres to all the broken surfaces would have to contrive to simultaneously get most of them out of the way just at the precise moment when the broken pieces of the egg come together. I would bet the chance of that happening is many orders of magnitude less than even the chances that broken part of the egg would so happen to fit together in their original configuration.
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RE: Is it ever physically possible for a broken egg to reassemble into an unbroken one?
September 18, 2019 at 1:58 pm
(September 18, 2019 at 11:07 am)Grandizer Wrote: The conventional answer is that it would never happen. But couldn't it be the case that, while it would be extremely unlikely for a broken egg to be spontaneously reassembled into an unbroken egg, there's still nevertheless this very tiny tinge of possibility that this can happen (maybe a 1 out of a googolplex probability)?
The overall entropy may be increasing, but I don't see why the atoms that constitute a broken egg couldn't, by sheer coincidence, collect together in a way that the arrangement now constitutes an unbroken egg?
Let's see what our local physicists here have to say.
I'f you're trying a round about way to play the ressurection card I'm gonna slap you.
Being told you're delusional does not necessarily mean you're mental.
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RE: Is it ever physically possible for a broken egg to reassemble into an unbroken one?
September 18, 2019 at 1:59 pm
Hoodoo voodoo.
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RE: Is it ever physically possible for a broken egg to reassemble into an unbroken one?
September 18, 2019 at 2:50 pm
Never the less, Grandizer, is this really a physics question? IMO its more philosophical and if you don't know, thinking for the sake of thinking is not for me. Once you break an egg, its lost. Unless time travel, you can never unbreak an egg.
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RE: Is it ever physically possible for a broken egg to reassemble into an unbroken one?
September 18, 2019 at 5:17 pm
I tested this just after my last post. The broken egg has not reassembled itself.
I feel vindicated.
Boru
‘I can’t be having with this.’ - Esmeralda Weatherwax
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RE: Is it ever physically possible for a broken egg to reassemble into an unbroken one?
September 18, 2019 at 5:46 pm
(September 18, 2019 at 2:50 pm)LastPoet Wrote: Never the less, Grandizer, is this really a physics question? IMO its more philosophical and if you don't know, thinking for the sake of thinking is not for me. Once you break an egg, its lost. Unless time travel, you can never unbreak an egg.
The line between physics (at the particle level, especially) and philosophy can be a bit blurry, but I do think this is just as much a physics question than a philosophical one.
And no, this has nothing to do with supernatural events like the resurrection. It's just curiosity for me, and the fact that I spooked myself last night while looking at myself in the mirror, wondering if my reflection could ever deviate from doing the same things I'm doing in the real world ...
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