Gamma Eggs

I imagine this has happened to everyone. I was just peacefully making breakfast and listening to the radio while a Geiger counter happily clicked away. The counter is on because there is supposed to be a decent solar flare happening at the moment. Then the question hits: "I wonder how transparent an egg is to Beta and Gamma radiation"? And is there a different between a raw vs. a hard-boiled egg? For the sake of science and humanity, clearly we have to find out! With a calculator and Google I could probably figure it out. But its much more fun to design an experiment for it.

WARNING - Stream of consciousness rambling follows as I think about this :-)

I would think that eggs have a high hydrogen count and may moderate neutrons fairly well. And I would think that as long as the shape of the yolk and white within the egg remains the same when boiled or not it might be the same. That is if the neutrons are passing through the egg at exactly the same angle and distance then that variable doesn't matter a lot. But then, thinking as I type, the structure/alignment of the eggs atoms relative to each other must change between between being cooked or not. Also the stink from boiling eggs (which I find gross) is Hydrogen Sulfide (which incidentally is also a poison), getting created and exiting the eggs. So it means the eggs are losing hydrogen and therefore some neutron interactions will be lost. And does boiling an egg make it lose some other mass as well?

So I designed an experiment to find out. And I don't want you to lose too much sleep over the question, so I will post the results when I have them.

Google Sites

Report abuse