One of the World’s Oldest Lab Experiments

In 1927 an experiment began at Queensland University. It is still ongoing, making it one of the world’s oldest continuous laboratory experiments. And its total production is so small it’s sort of like watching cold molasses flow.

Actually, it’s not molasses. It’s pitch, which is at least 230 billion times more viscous than water. It’s also the world’s stickiest substance. It’s so slow that no one has actually been around when a small drop falls from the lump.

The experiment itself involves a block of pitch. Pitch is so brittle that it can be smashed with a hammer, but actually behaves like a fluid. So scientists have watched this particular block of pitch for more than 95 years. Recently, however, there’s been a little excitement. Only eight drops have been produced since the experiment began, but now it looks as though a ninth is getting ready to fall. No one knows, of course, when it will actually fall. The last drop fell in 2000.

Professor John Mainstone has run the pitch experiment since the 1960s. He says that no one has actually seen a drop fall. Mainstone missed one when he stepped out for coffee and came back to find the new drop. A webcam failed in 1988 when another drop fell. A watch has been established and cameras are at the ready. Prof. Mainstone plans to share the impending drop with web users hoping to actually see it fall.

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