My breakfast each morning is two boiled eggs, two slices of toast and a glass of Ayran. For those of you who don't live in Turkey, Ayran is a drink of yoghurt, mixed with cold water and salt. Sometimes I might deviate from this selection but only if my wife can persuade me to, for example, have a bowl of porridge. Well this morning I stuck to my normal routine, which included my well-tried cooking method for the eggs to ensure the right outcome, neither hard nor soft. The eggs are placed in the pan and covered with cold water, then when the water starts to boil, the eggs are cooked for four minutes, no more no less ........perfect! :-). In order to ensure accurate timing, I often watch the pan and wait for the water to boil, at which point I start my electronic timer, which has been preset for four minutes. This seems to take forever because, as we all know, a watched pot never boils!
So why do you need to know about my bizarre breakfast routine? Well, what is normally a mundane ritual turned put to be quite exciting this morning. As I observed the water heating up, I noticed the eggs started to rotate counterclockwise around the perimeter of the pan, quite slowly at first but gradually speeding up and at the point of time when the water had started to boil, they were doing one rotation every two or three seconds. I remained composed and started the timer. I use a medium-sized pan and what I observed during the boiling period was truly amazing, the eggs started growing! After four minutes cooking, the eggs, which were still rotating, had filled the pan and were the size of Ostrich eggs! They were each too big to stand in an egg cup, but I love eggs , so I just cracked them open and sampled the end product - absolutely delicious!
So what had happened to my eggs? These days, with the availability of the Internet, there is no excuse for failing to understand almost every phenomenon, although I must admit on this occasion, my Internet research was extremely time consuming. But eventually I discovered the Looflirpa Phenomenon, named after Professor Looflirpa who discovered it in the late 19th century. To cut a very long story short, under certain conditions, currents in water when it is being heated can cause a rotation of the water. This is particularly the case if the heating element (on my cooker, a gas flame) is not central to the bottom of the pan. Apparently, if the rotating current causes the eggs to swirl at a rate of greater than 0.3 revs/sec, growth of the eggs can occur, although this effect is extremely rare. So this morning I was privileged to experience an extremely rare event.
But hang on a minute, check the date, Professor LOOFLIRPA, what's that surname backwards? Yes, you've got it........APRIL FOOL! :-D
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