I've had two responses from someone who says he's been able to balance an egg on the equinox. Here's the applicable portion of his email to me:
I have balanced many an egg on various equinoxes since the mid 1980's. I've
found over the years that you can't balance an egg on a really smooth
surface such as a highly polished hardwood floor, but I have been successful
on smooth concrete and also on a tiled kitchen floor (on the tile, not in
the groove between tiles). If you try to balance an egg, say five minutes
before the actual time of the equinox the egg keeps falling over. But there
seems to be about a two minute leeway on either side of the actual time of
the equinox when you can feel the egg right itself as if something is
pulling it. They remain "at attention" until someone knocks them over. I
think the longest I had one standing was about five days and once they fall
over they can't be stood upright again.
A friend, who's opinion I value greatly, told me that there is an energy
shift in the atmosphere which occurs during the equinoxes and this shift is
what influences the egg to balance. Scientific it's not, but then again not
everything can be evaluated or understood through science.
The first time I balanced eggs was in my mother's garage. Her garage has a
very smooth solid concrete floor. She was at work at the time and returned
home to her garage with three eggs standing on the floor. The eggs stood for
about three days until she returned home with the car and hit one of them.
The last time I balanced an egg on the equinox was a few years ago. I
balanced them in my work kitchen which has a tile floor. I placed a chair
over the egg before I left for work and returned the next morning to find
the egg on it's side. It seems the maintenance guy at work got curious and
knocked the egg over and he could not right it, nor could I.
Here's a response from a person who balanced the egg the hard way: I received this in November, 2001
I am as skeptical as anyone. When I heard this on a talk radio station, I
rushed home and tried it. Out of the three eggs left in the carton I tried
the first one and it worked. The other two I could not get to work. But the
thing that I don't understand with all of these experiments that say they
can do it on any day of the year and they take pictures and say see I told
you so. They are doing the experiment wrong. For they are all using the fat
end of the egg. I had it balancing on the small end. And not only that, it
stayed on its end for three days. three freaking days, I kid you not. It
finally fell when my roommates boyfriend didn't believe it was real, he
thought it was a fake egg. So he picked it up and tried again and he could
not get it to balance, neither could I. So many people do not believe this
but to me my girlfriend her cousin (our roommate at the time) and her now
husband have no doubts. Three days I tell you, three days on the small end.
Questions? Comments? Send Email to me at bob@bjmoler.org
Updated: 11/15/01