On boiling an egg

Abstract

Dwek and Navon1 give the temperature of boiling water on the top of Pike's peak as 91° C; at an altitude of 14,110 foot the atmospheric pressure should correspond to a boiling point of 86° C. I can, however, confirm their observations from experimental results obtained at 7,300 foot (93° C boiling point); these indicate that an egg may be hard-boiled in 12 minutes. My results support these authors' contention that considerably less than 12 h is required, either at 91° or 86° C, to hard-boil an egg. © 1973 Nature Publishing Group.