World’s Longest-Running Experiment of the Day
World’s Longest-Running Experiment of the Day: The longest-running scientific experiment in the world involves a funnel full of tar pitch that has been slowly dripping through a funnel for the past 85 years.
The experiment was started in 1927 by physics professor Thomas Parnell of the University of Queensland, Australia, to prove to his students that pitch is a viscous fluid. He melted the pitch, put it in the funnel, and waited for it to drop.
The first drop of pitch fell eight years later, with another nine years after that. No one has actually seen a drop fall in person.
Today, the experiment has its own live webcam, where fans are currently awaiting drop number 9 Professor John Mainstone, who has been the custodian of the experiment since 1961, says it could keep going for another 100 years.
[popsci]
