By Kathleen Moncrieff
On Friday afternoon, undergraduate physics students gathered for a barbecue and to drop eggs from the top of the Spencer W. Kimball Tower for their annual opening social.
The University Police were called Friday afternoon at the beginning of the social due to reports of smoke on some floors of the Spencer W. Kimball Tower from a barbecue outside on the lawn.
More than 100 students, faculty members and their families gathered for the event sponsored by the Society of Physics Students, the BYU chapter of a national organization.
Niki Farnsworth, a senior and president of the Society of Physics students, dropped the eggs from the observation deck on the roof of the SWKT. The physics students came up with various ways to try to protect the eggs, which were dropped inside clear plastic cups.
Some used crumpled paper, extra plastic cups and even water as insulation, while others used fins and tails to try to slow the eggs” descent. Of the approximately 30 eggs dropped, only five survived the 13-story fall.
Ryan Hess, whose egg was among the survivors, said his winning strategy involved setting the egg in the top of a paper cone inside the cup, and attaching a long paper tail to the top of the cup.
Hess said he felt the problem with a lot the eggs that broke was the streamer on top wasn”t long enough to keep the cup from tipping over and just falling broadside.
After the egg drop, David Allred, a professor in the physics department, made liquid nitrogen ice cream for those who stayed. Allred made the ice cream by pouring liquid nitrogen into a mixture of milk and sugar and stirring quickly while the ingredients froze almost instantly.
“It”s really good,” Farnsworth said.
