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Dear all,

We have a guy in my village who has a weird feature. He holds an egg in his hand and walks around and when the egg points upward towards him, there is water under him. For each construction project, contractors call him to identify if there is water under the land plot. People tried the same thing and the egg was not responsive. He now does this as a part time job. Whats the scientific explanation to this?
I really checked the calendar to see if it's april 1st.
I would love to set a date and meet and show you this first hand
Regardless of the veracity of this guy, i always wonder how people like this discover their talent /power : " one day i was coming back from abou jean/ali with a pack of 6 eggs and they all started pointing toward me when i inadvertently stepped into a pond".

All jokes aside, i believe that most of us are scientists or scientific based mind, the first step to confirm every theory is to gather evidence, any chance you could film him?
why do people tend to believe in superpowers whenever they encounter anything they can't explain?
History of mankind is full of superpower shit just because they wanted to take the easy route.

Of course you can always choose the easy route to interpret anything you don't understand or explain, the other choice is to examine it try to understand and interpret it scientifically and obtain evidence.

Supernatural incidents is long gone, just exactly when they invented camera :)
It's very simple, What happened is not possible with the laws of physics of this universe maybe it'll work in another dimension who knows :)

edit: to answer your question its neither superpowers or physics it is simply a mind trick he obviously is intelligent enough.
dsoftware.king just brilliant :)
I can answer also first question - because or they are too lazy to work on real explanation(science is hard), or they want to make subject mystical to cash it, or they are mentally deficient.
Eggs, sticks, pendulum, I have seen many variants of this.
And someone did this next to our house in the mountain, and Ibrahim had to dig for days, and found nothing.
Anyway, even before that, I am generally not interested in such things so I won't spend much time thinking and discussing that!
I suggest the egg should be fried or boiled and eaten. Hey maybe the egg is tricked, maybe there is some moving device inside?
Thanks for the reply guys. I am by no means attempting to deceive anyone. I did some searchng before I posted and found nothjng and hence the post. I am just as curious as everyone else. Thanks all!
Jad, we are not doubting your intentions, but come on we are supposed to be geeks. Dont take the easy route, dont just take the easy route, if this thing is of your interest then you should observe it closely, examine it, interpret it and come up with a scientific explanation. It maybe just another trick
I hope that oneday a super power arises and heal amputees :)
He's probably scamming people, so let's say it's magic
6 months later
Just an update, since I saw that person and he is still practicing what he's doing. Did a little more research, its called "Water Dowsing" in case anyone is interested.
neither superpowers nor physics ... it's probability

You said "in our village" ... It may just be that your village is rich in water, and he makes use of this
5 days later
vlatkozelka wroteneither superpowers nor physics ... it's probability

You said "in our village" ... It may just be that your village is rich in water, and he makes use of this
He actually freelances in a lot of places now, and is paid to do it and he has a very high success rate, so regardless of what's written above, he is doing his thing and is growing exponentially now.

I don't see why everyone here is mocking me or him, it was just a question I asked and I don't think it's necessary to have such intentions or approaches while replying. I'm not here to entertain myself with this post, I just asked a question. What's more wrong are the reactions i'm getting rather than the question I'm asking.

There is an explanation out there that may be true or not, and had I read about it before I posted than I wouldn't have brought this post up, it's called "Dowsing" in case anyone is interested.

Thanks, and thank you to those who actually replied with good spirit.
jad594 wrote
vlatkozelka wroteneither superpowers nor physics ... it's probability

You said "in our village" ... It may just be that your village is rich in water, and he makes use of this
He actually freelances in a lot of places now, and is paid to do it and he has a very high success rate, so regardless of what's written above, he is doing his thing and is growing exponentially now.

I don't see why everyone here is mocking me or him, it was just a question I asked and I don't think it's necessary to have such intentions or approaches while replying. I'm not here to entertain myself with this post, I just asked a question. What's more wrong are the reactions i'm getting rather than the question I'm asking.

There is an explanation out there that may be true or not, and had I read about it before I posted than I wouldn't have brought this post up, it's called "Dowsing" in case anyone is interested.

Thanks, and thank you to those who actually replied with good spirit.
I'm always intrigued by these things that have no scientific explanation yet many people swear by them. I remember when I was a kid our neighbors used such a person and they dug a pit where he pointed and water was there.

I did a bit of wiki reading on dowsing and it says "Dowsing is considered a pseudoscience, and there is no scientific evidence that it is any more effective than random chance." yet the success stories you shared with us and which I've heard before say otherwise.

Now if we were discussing the persons who claim they can find gold underground, then I'd say yeah that's a complete scam because they never find any and it's just a scheme to make money from uneducated people, but if those who claim they can find water were not successful enough, then they'd be labeled the same way as the "gold-explorers".

Anyway, I studied in Engineering, I truly believe in science, but yes this is something that makes me question how real/fake it is versus how successful it is.
18 days later
Superpower? Definitely not. Physics? Absolutely yes. As you said it is commonly known as water dowsing, but another commonly used name is ideomotor effect. It is used with an object that has high level content of liquid like an egg or a coconut, or using 2 L shaped rods or a pendulum. It is heavily done in farming cultures like India and African countries. It requires some practice, but by flexing your muscles in a specific manner, the coconut or egg will topple to the side once you step on an area with groundwater underneath. Here is a link to a Youtube video where the presenter shows how to topple the coconut or egg to detect groundwater: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fDprYQQNW4.

If I were you, I'd get myself a coconut and train next to a well. Once I get good at it, I do it free of charge just to mess around with that guy.

[Edit] By the way, the reason for the toppling motion is electric charge distribution in one's body, the coconut/egg/L rods/pendulum, and the terrain with or without water. When a terrain has water, your body's motion above the terrain give rise to static electricity, which goes into the object in one's hand. In case of the egg or cocount, it topples the object over. In case of L rods or pendulum, they deflect. Another Youtube video for L rod water dowsing is shown here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3LhnrFrrEw [/Edit]
mesa177 wroteSuperpower? Definitely not. Physics? Absolutely yes. As you said it is commonly known as water dowsing, but the scientific name is ideomotor effect. It is used with an object that has high level content of liquid like an egg or a coconut, or using 2 L shaped rods or a pendulum. It is heavily done in farming cultures like India and African countries. It requires some practice, but by flexing your muscles in a specific manner, the coconut or egg will topple to the side once you step on an area with groundwater underneath. Here is a link to a Youtube video where the presenter shows how to topple the coconut or egg to detect groundwater: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fDprYQQNW4.

If I were you, I'd get myself a coconut and train next to a well. Once I get good at it, I do it free of charge just to mess around with that guy.
Are you being serious? the only physics i see is gravity and his muscle movement. The ideomotor effect is not related to physics.
DNA wrote
mesa177 wroteSuperpower? Definitely not. Physics? Absolutely yes. As you said it is commonly known as water dowsing, but the scientific name is ideomotor effect. It is used with an object that has high level content of liquid like an egg or a coconut, or using 2 L shaped rods or a pendulum. It is heavily done in farming cultures like India and African countries. It requires some practice, but by flexing your muscles in a specific manner, the coconut or egg will topple to the side once you step on an area with groundwater underneath. Here is a link to a Youtube video where the presenter shows how to topple the coconut or egg to detect groundwater: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fDprYQQNW4.

If I were you, I'd get myself a coconut and train next to a well. Once I get good at it, I do it free of charge just to mess around with that guy.
Are you being serious? the only physics i see is gravity and his muscle movement. The ideomotor effect is not related to physics.
I should have mentioned the static electricity part. And yes I'm dead serious. Makes for a very neat trick. Edit added to the post.
I am no scientist but i would say apart from how he gets the egg to move he comes into the site already sure of whether there is water or not.. He probably gets to that decision based on previous attempts, geography and knowledge of the area and luck.. The problem itself has only two outcomes so he already has a 50 percent chance of being right and if he has some scientific background and knows about the geology of the region he might already be aware of th answer or at least it will boost his odds, and if he is always consulted he will probably know the region and could do a well informed guess which with his already high odds can mean he has an 85 to 90 percent to be true... Not to mention he will probably make up for any bad calls with his silver tongue like most con artistd do... So the guy never loosrs