Egg Challenge

POTW : Egg Challenge
Many books on boiling eggs require them to be boiled for 3-8 minutes, some
say for about 5-10 minutes and others require 10-12 minutes or longer. Now,
for an average person who wants to boil an egg, from a scientific perspective,
the window of 3-8 minutes is quite large and many parameters such as size
of egg etc. have been left out as well. So, through this problem we will be
discussing in depth about the perfect boiled egg.
Ultimate Boiled Egg : Formula 1

Thanks to google, and Peter Barham’s book ”The Science of Cooking”, I
found the most detailed formula for boiling an egg so far: Dr Charles Williams
(Charles D. H. Williams) provided a quality-based hard-boiled egg formula;
he even built a website about hard-boiled eggs, and gave the derivation pro-
cess of the formula.

2 Twater − Tegg
t = 0.451M 3 ln 0.76 ×
Twater − Tyolk
1
Data: Tegg = initial temperature of egg (◦ C) ; Twater = water temperature(◦ C) ;
Tyolk = ideal temperature at the boundary between egg white and egg yolk(◦ C) ;
t = cooking time (minutes); M = egg mass (grams).
Ultimate Boiled Egg : Formula 2

If the mass of egg cannot be measured correctly, Peter also gave a formula
using circumference of the thickest part of the egg.

2 Twater − Tegg
t = 0.0152c ln 2 ×
Twater − Tyolk
Data: t = boiling time of eggs (minutes); c = egg circumference (centimeters).
My colleagues at the University of Oslo also made an experiment demon-

strating Barham’s formula. Barham’s formula gives the time for the center
of the yolk to reach the desired temperature; Williams gives the time for the
yolk-white boundary to reach the desired temperature. I did an experiment
with 50 eggs. When the ideal egg yolk temperature is 63◦ C and the water
temperature is 100◦ C, the time given by the two formulas are similar, but
the variance of the circumference formula is larger (as shown in the figure);
When the egg yolk temperature is higher or the water temperature is lower,
the time calculated according to the Williams formula is longer. Which of
the two formulas is more scientific needs further experiments to find out.
1. Assuming that the above two formulas are correct, and assuming that
the egg is perfectly round, what is the average density of the egg? At
2
sea level, the boiling temperature of water is 100◦ C, and the initial
temperature of the egg is generally 4◦ C (from the refrigerator) and the
ideal egg yolk temperature is 63◦ C. (Since there is some difficulty to
measure the circumference of an egg, the accuracy of these formulas is
doubtful.)
2. Now, we will try to derive the formula proposed by Williams. Regard-
less of the difference in physical properties between egg yolk and protein
and the latent heat of egg phase transition, there is a positive spherical
egg whose specific heat is c, the density is ρ, the thermal conductivity
is κ, the radius is a (both are constant), and the initial temperature is
Tegg . It placed in water which is at a constant temperature Twater and
heated evenly. The egg is at a distance r from the center, and the tem-
perature at time t is recorded as T (r, t). Now consider the thin layer
between r and r + dr from the center, as shown. Please think about
the meaning of the following three mathematical expressions, and list

the relationship between them.
∂T (r, t) ∂T (r + dr, t)
4πρcr2 dr·[T (r, t+dt)−T (r, t)]; 4πκr2 ; 4πκ(r+dr)2
∂r ∂r
3. Prove that T (r, t) satisfies the following differential equation:

τ0 r2 ∂T

∂ 2 ∂T
r = 2
∂r ∂r a ∂t
Also find the expression of the constant τ0 in the formula. The param-
eters after section (4) can be represented using τ0 directly.
3
4. It is known that the following wave function is the solution function
of the differential equation of (3) sub-problem, please substitute it for
verification and express ω by k.
Bk i(ωt−kr)
Tk (r, t) = e
r
Note that k is a real number and ω is an imaginary number.
5. It is known that T (r, t) must satisfy the following boundary conditions,
please write the reason.
T (r < a, 0) = Tegg ; T (a, 0) = Twater ; T (r, ∞) = Twater
In order to satisfy the above conditions, please explain why the solution
function of T (r, t) can be written as the following Fourier expansion.
From this, it can be known that k must be certain specific values to
meet the conditions, and find these values, and also find the expressions
of the function g(r), constants C1 and C2 .
∞
X (−1)n−1 2C t
T (r, t) = Twater + (Tegg − Twater ) g(r) × sin (nC1 r) e−n 2
n=1
n
Note: A continuous function f (x) with a period of T can be expressed

as a Fourier expansion as follows:
∞
X 2nπx 2nπx
f (x) = a0 + an cos + bn sin
n=1
T T
wherein,
1 T
Z
a0 = f (x)dx
T 0
T
2 T
Z Z
2 2nπx 2nπx
an = f (x) cos dx; bn = f (x) sin dx
T 0 T T 0 T
2
6. In the above formula, because e−n C2 t decays rapidly at n ≥ 2, only n =
1 needs to be considered. If it is known that the egg yolk occupies 33%
of the total volume of the egg, please prove that the
h time required for i
2 water −Tegg
the egg to be cooked can be expressed as λM 3 ln 0.76 × TTwater −Tyolk
,
and find the expression for λ.
4
7. The known physical properties of egg white and egg yolk are as follows:
c κ ρ
Yolk 2.7 J g−1 K−1 3.4 × 10 −3
W cm−1 K−1 1.032 g cm−3
Protein 3.7 J g−1 K−1 5.4 × 10−3 W cm−1 K−1 1.038 g cm−3
Substitute these into the (6) sub-problem to find out whether the value
of λ is close to 0.451( min · g−2/3 )?

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POTW : Egg Challenge

Ultimate Boiled Egg : Formula 1

Ultimate Boiled Egg : Formula 2

Data: t = boiling time of eggs (minutes); c = egg circumference (centimeters).

My colleagues at the University of Oslo also made an experiment demon-

the meaning of the following three mathematical expressions, and list

3. Prove that T (r, t) satisfies the following differential equation:

Note: A continuous function f (x) with a period of T can be expressed

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