The mechanisms class was charged with creating egg-cracking Rube Goldberg machines for the first week’s assignment. Rather than breaking the egg shell through brute force, we tossed around the idea of dissolving the egg shell entirely.
Luckily there was some muriatic acid lying around the shop, so we ran a quick experiment. The shell dissolves, but it takes about 20 minutes, and what’s left isn’t a broken egg, but a layer of internal membrane which keeps the de-shelled egg intact. Interesting, but not well suited to the purposes of our machine-to-be, so we shelved the idea.
(Maybe it was too clever by half to begin with.)
(Science music by Boards of Canada.)