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In 1927 Dr. Thomas Parnell at the University of Queensland heated a sample of petroleum pitch, also called bitumen, and poured it into a glass funnel, with a sealed neck, set in a ring stand. Three years later, in 1930, he broke the neck off the funnel and set it aside. It took eight years for the first drop of pitch to fall. The experiment has been running continuously ever since, and has produced a total of eight drops to date. The man shown in the photograph above is Dr. John Mainstone, who is the experiment's current custodian.
The most recent drop fell in November 2000, which means the next one should be falling sometime in the next couple of years. The funnel contains enough pitch to run, it is estimated, at least another hundred years. To date, no one has ever witnessed or photographed a drop falling, but that's likely to change with the next one. The University of Queensland maintains a webcam showing a live view of the experiment at all times. The photograph below shows a screenshot I captured of it just this morning:
How is this an experiment? I'd say it's more of an egghead's curiosity piece to keep on a desk.
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They are directly measuring the viscosity of pitch at room temperature, which, because it is effectively a solid (if you strike it with a hammer, it will shatter like glass), has probably not been done before, and certainly not on such a large scale.
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I used to walk past this everyday on the way to Physics class in my first year, back then it was set out in the hall/building foyer between two lecture theater doors. Always made me think about science, as knowledge that one generation passes on to the next and the idea that not everything has to have a fast answer. Plus it just kinda cool in a geeky way.
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