Columbus’ Egg
When Christopher Columbus returned from America, at the dinner given in his honor by Queen Isabella, it is said that someone at the table stated: “You have done nothing great, anyone could have made this voyage.” Then Columbus took a boiled egg and challenged the bystanders to try to stand the egg upright… no one succeeded. So, he showed them a very simple way to stand it up… a solution that was so simple, that since then, when there is a problem that seems very difficult, but its solution is very simple, we say that this problem is like Columbus’ egg. So, he turned to the one who insulted him in the first place and said: “Everyone could set the egg upright, but I thought of it first!!!”. What was his solution? Columbus simply hit the egg hard on the table, breaking it!
(Another version, according to the painter and architect Giorgio Vasari, the Italian architect Filippo Brunelleschi had designed a very heavy and large dome for Santa Maria del Fiore, a cathedral in Florence, Italy. As with Columbus, he used the same trick when asked to reveal the plans for the dome, because it would be “impossible” for a such construction and he refused to reveal them. When they all failed to stand the boiled egg upright, he broke it and set it on the marble, telling them that what you think is “impossible”, is very easy if you know the way. That’s how he got the assignment of the project…)
A magician managed to “magically” make a boiled egg stand upright without using Columbus’ solution… Read the answers to find out how:
- The Magician had simply hidden a toothpick under the tablecloth, and touching the tablecloth, he would touch the boiled egg to it and the spectators were amazed and puzzled to see the egg standing upright!
- The Magician already has the boiled egg ready to stand on the table without a tablecloth!
Preparation: we pour some salt on the table and fix the egg on it. Then we blow the salt, and it seems to fix itself upright! The rest of the salt under the egg is not visible, so now we can invite the viewers to the room with the egg and the table and surprise them.
