You guys! This is a serious question which has had me baffled for years, and you rattle on about female spoons, global warming and hourglasses.

I'll have you know that I use a state-of-the-art digital timer wich is synchronized with the atomic master clock in, er, wherever they keep the atomic master clock. And I lower the eggs into the water with a gender-neutral spoon.

I read the scientific article linked to above. Very interesting, but fails to clear up the mystery. Quote: "According to this formula, a medium egg (M~57 g) straight from the fridge (Tegg=4°C) takes four and a half minutes to cook, but the same egg would take three and a half minutes if it had been stored at room temperature (Tegg=21°C). If all the eggs are stored in the fridge, then a small (size 6, 47 g) egg will require four minutes to cook, and a large egg (size 2, 67 g) will take five minutes."

What they're saying is that a three-minute egg would be undercooked NO MATTER WHAT, and a large egg would be cooked in five minutes. This does not square with my independently observed, unbiased objective experience.

More research is needed.

Cheers,
Michael