In Search of Viktor Schauberger’s Cosmic

Egg
After watching several videos about Viktor Schauberger and his work I became
curious about the shapes Schauberger held in prime importance. Callum Coats
presented Schauberger’s Cosmic Egg. Unfortunately there is was very little
information in the video about how to construct this egg.

Pentagram Egg
Really, I had not listened well to Coats’ description of the Cosmic Egg and went
off with only have the pentagram as the base shape from where the egg was
drawn in my head. This first I’ll call the Pentagram Egg. Although I liked this
shape, I didn’t feel that it was what I expected.

My search led me to an article by Jim Lyons. In The Ubiquitous Ovoid Lyons

describes the Golden Egg. The Golden Egg is defined as “its perimeter divided
by the sum of  its major & minor axes equaling the Golden Ratio.” Lyons Golden Egg
describes not only the actual values required, but also the thinking behind the
number with a diagram. Even with all this information, I have yet been able to
construct the egg as described and shown. I feel I’m just missing a subtle point.
I was however able to construct a shape that met the Golden Egg definition.

Frustrated, I went looking for Coats book Living Energies. Therein was only
slightly more information, but took note of all the details this time. Constructing
it by nails and string resulted in a magnificently shaped egg. Modeling on the Cosmic Egg
computer was much harder and the result not as elegant. One possibile
explanation is that the rations using the string were not to Schauberger’s
specifications.

Later, while playing with a Phi spiral, I stumbled upon a simple method to
construct an egg with Phi ratios. Even thought the appearance of this egg is
similar to the Pentagram Egg the radii are of the form R, 2R and 3R and the Phi
Egg the radii are Фn, Фn+1 and Фn+2 Phi Egg
The Cosmic Egg
Schauberger’s Cosmic Egg is created by first constructing a
pentagram. f
b c

Pins (A,B,C and D) are place in four of the vertices on the pentagon
formed when creating the pentagram. A E pin is placed at the base of o
a d
the circle which circumscribes the pentagram. A sixth pin is placed at
the crest of an arc struck with the radius OB. See figure 1.

A string is wrapped around the pins and tied in order to give the
proportions, as shown in figure 2, of:
OF’:OE’ = 1:1.5 e

A’D’:E’F’ = 1:1.5277778 Figure 1

A’O:OB’ = 1:1.8333333

One method to draw the egg on a computer is to treat each pin as a f’

focus of an ellipse.
A total of eight ellipses are needed to
describe the egg. Five are shown at the
right. The remaining three are mirrors. The
ellipses foci shown in figure 4 are: a’
O
d’

Top: B and C
Upper right: F and D; Upper left: F and A
Right: C and E; Left: B and E
Lower Right: D and E; Lower Left: A and E
e’
Bottom: A and D Figure 3
Figure 2
The Pentagram Egg
Steps to creating the Pentagram
egg
b Step 1.
Draw a circle the size desired to have at the
small end of the egg.
Step 2.
Draw an 36-72-72 degree isosceles triangle
(ABC) with the diameter of the circle as the
a c base.

b Step 3.

Draw a circle that is centered at the corner A

d e and has the radius passes through the
f
g ·
·
· h midpoint of the long leg at D. Repeat for the
opposite side.
Step 4.
a c
Draw a horizontal line GH through the
intersection of the two circles created in step
3.

Step 5.

f
Draw a circle that is centered F and has the
g h
· radius FA. This will be the large end of the
egg.

a c
The Pentagram Egg (continued)

A’ C’
b

Step 6.
d
Draw vertical lines from each of the points A
e
g · f · h and C.
·

a c

A’ C’

Step 7.
d
At the intersection of AA’ and GH draw a
e
g · · I h circle that with a radius that passes through
·
point I.

a c
The Phi Egg
This egg came about by trying to mirror a Phi spiral a center point. The mirror looked somewhat egg
shaped. Inspired, I decided to apply the Phi spiral approximation to get an egg.

With exception to the true Schauberger egg, I

R Ф2
find this egg the most visually appealing. It is
also the simplest to construct. Ф4
B

R Ф3
R Ф4 R Ф4
Ф1
Create the first four squares of the Phi spiral.
This could be Ф-1 Ф0, Ф1, Ф2 (shown below), Ф1, Ф2, Ф3, Ф4 and A O
so on. Let these be designated by Ф1, Ф2, Ф3 and Ф4. Ф1
R Ф3
Scribe a half circle of radius Ф3 from point O. Ф3

From the 3rd square’s interior corner scribe an arc of radius Ф2

Ф4.
At point A a distance of Ф1 from the outer corner shared by
the 3rd and 4th squares scribe an arc of radius Ф4.
From the interior corner of the 3rd square scribe an arc of
R1.000
radius Ф2. Point B is where this arc intersects the vertical
A
from the interior corner of the 3rd square
R2.618 R1.618
From B draw an arc of radius Ф2 to contact the two arcs of
radius Ф4.

R1.000
R1.618
The Golden Egg
This egg is hard for me to classify and I am even reluctant to present it here. Since I had spent much time
to reach some type of end, I will include it here for reference. I do not claim that it is the shape or method
that Mr. Lyons presented. Please review his article at:
http://www.britishdowsers.org/EEG_site/archive/articles/atd2002_issue25/TheUbiquitousOvoid_
m.htm
Included here is an excerpt for convenience and reference. Excerpt from The Ubiquitous Ovoid
by Jim Lyons
The basis of creating an ovoid or egg shape is to use a
generating triangle from which circular arcs can be drawn.  The
shape is shown in Fig.  2.   There are two key angles - a , b with
respect to a base line, two units long.  Three arcs are struck,
firstly R1 from the cross over point of the lower triangle. 
Secondly two identical arcs of radius R2 are drawn as shown
from both sides of the baseline so as to match the tangent lines
of adjacent arcs.  A third arc of radius R3 is drawn from the
intersection of the top sloping lines.  The resulting shape is a
very general ovoid.  By varying all parameters, a wide variety of
shapes can be generated.  From the infinite number of shapes
possible, a certain combination of the above 5 parameters
generates the Golden Egg which is characterised by its
perimeter divided by the sum of  its major & minor axes
equalling the Golden Ratio – Phi f = 1.6180339..  The
parameters needed are –
   a = 45o  ,  b = 18o  ,  R1 = 2/f.1/f² ,  R2 = (2/f)² . 1/f² + R1 , 
 R3 =f/2. 1/f²
The angle b is a pentagon angle, i.e one half of 36o , the key
numbers are ratios of the radius of the inner
pentagon, 1/f², where the outer circle is assumed at unit radius. 
The radii for the golden egg are respectively – R1 is the radius
of one nested pentagon greater than this value, R2 is the radius
of the second nested pentagon plus R1 and R3 is the radius of
the first inner nested pentagon.
 This analysis shows that the Golden Egg can be drawn by the
standard ovoid drawing procedure, if the correct parameters are
selected.  It can be shown that this corresponds to the shape of 
a projected slice through a hyperbolic cone at 45o and at a
The Golden Egg
(continued)

α=45°

β=18° R2
’

R0
R3
R=1

The key problem encountered is that R3 is

not tangent to R2. This problem is the
same if drawn graphically or
mathematically.
R0=1/f2=1/Ф=1/
(1.6180339887)
R
2
=1/2.6180339887=0.381966011 2)
=(2/f)(1/f2)=(2/1.6180339887)(1/(1.6180339887)
1

(1.236067978)(0.381966011)=0.472135954
R2=R2’+R1=(2/f) (1/f2) +R1=(1.527864046)
2

(0.381966011)+0.472135954
R3=(f/2)(1/f2)=(0.809016994)(0.381966011)=0.309016994
0.583592135+0.472135954=1.055728089
The Golden Egg
(continued)
• First create a pentagon with a vertex at the
topmost position.
• Inscribe a circle which will be the widest
portion of the egg.
• Circumscribe 4 additional pentagons around b
the first with the vertices of the previous at the
midpoint of the side of the next pentagon.
• From the vertex of the 3rd circumscribed (A)
pentagon draw a line at 45° that crosses the e c
centerline at B.
a
• From the vertex at point C on the 4th
circumscribed pentagon strike an arc through
point D. Point D is 18° below the horizontal
and is located at the intersection of the line d
passing through the center of the first circle
and the circle.
• Repeat the arc from point E.
• From B strike an arc that is tangent to the
arc centered at C and E.
The perimeter divided
by the sum of the major
and minor axis is
1.6202.

Please note that there are most likely

multiple solutions in order to obtain this
ratio. Please play with the arrangement.
Fun is in the experience.