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It's so obvious that it's practically proverbial. You can't unboil an egg.
很明顯又眾所周知的是。你不能把一個熟蛋變生。
Well, it turns out you can, sort of.
然而，其實在某種程度上你是可以的。
What thermal energy does to the eggs' molecules, mechanical energy can undo.
熱能對蛋的分子所做的事，可以依靠機械能將其還原。
Eggs are mostly made of water and proteins.
蛋主要是由水和蛋白質組成。
The proteins start off folded up into intricate shapes, held together by weak chemical bonds.
蛋白質最開始是折疊成一種復雜的形狀，依靠弱的化學鍵連接在一起。
Adding heat disrupts those bonds, allowing the proteins to unfold, uncoil, unwind and wiggle freely.
加熱能分解化學鍵，使蛋白質能夠展開，松繞，分離，變得可以自由擺動。
This process is called denaturing.
這個過程被稱為“變性”。
The newly liberated proteins bump up against their neighbors and start to form new bonds with each other,
新解放的蛋白質，會與鄰近的相互撞擊，并在其中形成新的化學鍵，
more and more as the heat increases, until finally, they're so entangled that they gel into a solid mass, a boiled egg.
當熱量變得越來越多后，最后它們將形成一個固體，這就是煮熟的蛋。
That entanglement might look permanent, but it's not.
這個過程可能看起來不可逆，但其實不是的。
According to a chemical idea called the principle of microscopic reversibility, anything that happens,
根據一個叫做微觀可逆原理的化學觀點，任何已發生的事情，
like egg proteins seizing up, can theoretically unhappen if you retrace your steps.
比如說雞蛋中的蛋白質變為固體的情況，如果你倒著做每一步，理論上應該可以將其還原。
But adding more heat will tangle the proteins further, and cooling them down will only freeze them,
但增加更多的熱量，只會使蛋白質糾纏的更緊，而冷卻只會凍住它們，
so here's the trick: spin them around ridiculously fast.
所以這里的秘訣是：將其極快的旋轉。
I'm not kidding. Here's how it works.
我沒在開玩笑。以下就是原理。
First, scientists dissolve boiled egg whites in water with a chemical called urea,
首先，科學家將煮熟的蛋白溶解，在水中加以一種名為尿素的化學物質，
a small molecule that acts as a lubricant, coating the proteins' long strands and making it easier for them to glide past each other.
它是一個小分子，起到潤滑劑的作用，附著在蛋白質較長的一股，使得它們更容易得滑過對方。
