For years, scientists have tried to crack a mathematical mystery: Is there an equation that can perfectly describe each and every bird egg? Variable shell shapes complicated things. But it turns out the answer is simple. A formula using just four easily measured dimensions can calculate the shape of any avian egg, be it round as a ping-pong ball, a smooshed sphere, oblong or a curvaceous pear, researchers report in an upcoming issue of the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.
It was that last shape that had eluded the eggs-perts. They found themselves yoked to an equation that couldn’t accurately describe pyriform, or conical, eggs. Previously,
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