# Can you fry an egg on a concrete sidewalk? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 8, 2001, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-fry-an-egg-on-a-concrete-sidewalk/75436 "2001-08-08T11:17:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Chas.E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e99b99/32.png) [@Chas.E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chas.E)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2001, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-fry-an-egg-on-a-concrete-sidewalk/75436/1 "2001-08-08T11:17:34Z")
It seems that every year I see some stupid local weatherman on TV trying to fry an egg on the pavement during hot weather, and of course it never works. Is it impossible to fry an egg on the pavement? What conditions would be necessary for success? If it IS impossible, then what started this silly idea in the first place? ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2001, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-fry-an-egg-on-a-concrete-sidewalk/75436/2 "2001-08-08T12:14:18Z")
I’ve seen it done on a car roof in hot weather; metal gets hotter in the sun than concrete, probably something to do with conductivity and so on, but I’ll leave the explanations to the physics people. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2001, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-fry-an-egg-on-a-concrete-sidewalk/75436/3 "2001-08-08T12:52:47Z")
I haven’t seen it done on a sidewalk, but I saw a WWII newsreel showing a German soldier in North Africa frying an egg on a Panzer. > [@](#): > > If it IS impossible, then what started this silly idea in the first place? A bit of hyperbole perhaps? Like “raining cats and dogs” or “faster than greased lightning”? ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2001, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-fry-an-egg-on-a-concrete-sidewalk/75436/4 "2001-08-08T13:22:09Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Chas.E \* > \*\*It seems that every year I see some stupid local weatherman on TV trying to fry an egg on the pavement during hot weather, and of course it never works. Is it impossible to fry an egg on the pavement? What conditions would be necessary for success? If it IS impossible, then what started this silly idea in the first place? \*\* See Opal’s post [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=79018). ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Duality](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.duality/32/4098_2.png) [@Mr.Duality](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Duality)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2001, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-fry-an-egg-on-a-concrete-sidewalk/75436/5 "2001-08-08T14:00:17Z")
your link leads nowhere. ---
**Author:** ![mongrel\_8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@mongrel\_8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mongrel_8)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2001, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-fry-an-egg-on-a-concrete-sidewalk/75436/6 "2001-08-08T14:14:42Z")
I remember reading that the temperature had to be something like 140 degrees fahrenheit to fry an egg. But from a quick websearch I get a variety of answers. 105 degrees: [http://www.dmagazine.com/july00/pulse07003.shtml](http://www.dmagazine.com/july00/pulse07003.shtml) (see sidebar at right) 300 degrees: [http://www.georgiaeggs.org/eggtrivia.html](http://www.georgiaeggs.org/eggtrivia.html) 145 degrees: [http://www.eng.iastate.edu/explorer/eggs/link6.htm](http://www.eng.iastate.edu/explorer/eggs/link6.htm) And here’s a site for a town that hold a egg frying contest: [http://www.whatsgoingon.com/coolest.cgi/place/20010624/](http://www.whatsgoingon.com/coolest.cgi/place/20010624/) Mr. Duality, Jeff’s link worked fine for me. ---
**Author:** ![Threadkiller](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/aca169/32.png) [@Threadkiller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Threadkiller)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2001, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-fry-an-egg-on-a-concrete-sidewalk/75436/7 "2001-08-08T14:45:09Z")
It’s _easy_ to fry and egg on the sidewalk. Simply light a fire on the sidewalk of your choice, let it burn for long enough to heat up the concrete. Sweep away the fire (if you want to _eat_ the egg be really thorough with this part) add one egg and watch that sucker fry! ---
**Author:** ![schief2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cab0a1/32.png) [@schief2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/schief2)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2001, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-fry-an-egg-on-a-concrete-sidewalk/75436/8 "2001-08-08T15:22:28Z")
As a kid growing up in Phoenix, my friends and I conducted a number of amateur experiments in this vein. IIRC, our official results were: Sidewalk: no cooking detectable on repeated attempts Pavement: ditto Manhole cover: the “white” of the egg eventually changed from clear to kind of cloudy and translucent (but we only tried this once, so we never determined if it was a fluke or not) Our conclusion was that it’s generally impossible to cook an egg on the sidewalk/street, even if you’re in the desert and it’s 112 outside. And also that standing around in bare feet while watching such attempts is a really dumb thing to do. ---
**Author:** ![gazpacho](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6f9a4e/32.png) [@gazpacho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gazpacho)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2001, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-fry-an-egg-on-a-concrete-sidewalk/75436/9 "2001-08-08T15:30:04Z")
Isn’t one of the ways to tell if the pan is hot enough is to splash a little water on the pan and see it dances around on the pan because it is boiling away so quickly it kind resting on steam. To my mind this means to FRY and egg the sidewalk has to be quite a bit above 212F. COOKING and egg is probably much lower but I don’t know. I am sure that the eggs are not 212F all the way through. ---
**Author:** ![hawthorne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@hawthorne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hawthorne)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2001, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-fry-an-egg-on-a-concrete-sidewalk/75436/10 "2001-08-08T15:44:23Z")
I don’t know about concrete either, but I’ve seen it done on a tennis court at the Australian Open. It was seriously hot (43C IIRC) and the players were standing in puddles between points. The egg turned white on contact with the surface. ---
**Author:** ![Lyllyan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b2d939/32.png) [@Lyllyan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lyllyan)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2001, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-fry-an-egg-on-a-concrete-sidewalk/75436/11 "2001-08-08T16:21:56Z")
When I was about 8 years old, my friends and I tried this. Our street had been newly paved with asphalt, and it sure burned our feet, so why not an egg? We ended up with a big slimy mess. Later that summer, we also tried sitting on the street in our bathing suits as long as we could, then rushing to the water filled wagon, in order to see steam rise, just like in the cartoons. That didn’t work either. The very next year, the family went out to California for vacation. At one stop, my mom pointed out a roadrunner. I excitedly looked around for a 6 foot tall purple bird tearing up the road and saying “beep beep”. I was rather disapointed when I finally saw the small, nondescript thing walking around in the dust. ---
**Author:** ![bughunter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/aeb1de/32.png) [@bughunter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bughunter)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2001, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-fry-an-egg-on-a-concrete-sidewalk/75436/12 "2001-08-08T18:53:50Z")
I’ve seen half-successful attempts to fry eggs on manhole covers too, on Tampa-St. Pete TV stations when I lived there. But yesterday I saw for the first time someone _baking cookies_ on the dashboard of a car left in the sun, windows up, to demonstrate the danger of leaving kids/pets/rental videos in the car on a hot sunny day. They were holding up some sort of electronic thermometer, but the camerman completely failed in capturing it’s display, and I didn’t hear the anchorperson report the actual temperature in the car. Them cookies looked good, though!