6/4/2002: The pitch-drop experiment
 

http://cellar.org/2002/pitchdrop.jpg

It doesn't look like much, but what you have there is a scientific experiment that has been in progress since 1927.

Pitch, a derivative of tar, is very much like a solid, but a Queensland scientist wanted to prove that it has "fluidic" properties. In other words, that it flows like water. It just has an extremely high viscosity.

So, in 1927, he heated some pitch and put it into a glass funnel. He let the pitch "settle" for three years, and then in 1930 he cut the bottom off the funnel. And then the pitch began to drip.

In December 1938, the first drop fell.
February 1947, the second.
April 1954, the third.
May 1962, the fourth.
August 1970, the fifth.
April 1979, the sixth.
July 1988, the seventh.

And recently, the eighth drop fell. Amazingly, nobody has ever seen a drop actually fall. They had a webcam on it for the last drop, but there was a glitch during the actual drop...!

The full story:

http://www.physics.uq.edu.au/pitchdrop/pitchdrop.shtml

Very, very cool.....

If ever there was an instance where this expression applied:

"Somebody has way too much time on their hands!"

:D

nice product placement as well... just for a sense of scale don't you know

I wonder why it took 14 years for that 8th drop to fall, given that the other drops happened about 7-9 years apart.

Cool years?...
This is just a wonderfully weird object. Does anyone know the estimated time to complete the experiment?

wow. so when did the scientist die? or is he not yet dead? maybe i should read the story. ahem.

okay, i read the story and still don't know. so my question, then, is...how many drops did he live to see? not see, but rather know about.

PARNELL, Thomas

Born Northants, England, 5 July 1881; died Brisbane 1 September 1948. Education, St. John's College, Cambridge (B.A. 1903). Tutor, Trinity College, University of Melbourne, 1904-11. Lecturer in physics University of Queensland 1911-18; professor 1919-48. A.I.F. 1917-19.

I'm gonna be painting my living room soon. Maybe I'll point a webcam at the wall, so people can watch the paint dry. In the name of science.

I am 4 in pitch drops. that's a lot of pitch.

timeline
 

here's a visual representation of the 'drip' timeline.

now, if someone could cross reference this with the average yearly temperature and humidity whereiver this thing is, maybe there would be some correlation. Of course that person would have to have much more free time than I do. :)

And I've been alive for six of them . Wow.

14 years...
 

if you read the comment from professor mainstone here you will see that he mentions the school's decision to air-condition the hall where this experiment resides, causing it to drip much much slower.

14 years is a long time
 

I bet if you just heated up the funnel with a propane torch you wouldn't have to wait so long.

Glass is also a 'liquid' with an even higher viscosity
 

There are very old windows in Europe where there is a visible 'thickening' at the bottom. A liquid indeed, but flowing ever so slowly!

so he lived for two of them. thanks for the info :) i'm what you might call "too lazy to look that shit up"

Airconditioning!

I read an article somewhere on this - the pitch USED to flow faster during the summer, now it flows faster during the winter. The rate changed when the put in AC

and there's a link to that article posted (fourth preceding) by snubber ;)

Undergraduates
 

Those who started this year will see only one drop as an undergraduate.

At least, most of them will . . .

I have an experiment like this, although it is not nearly as interesting. My earth sciences teacher in eight grade said that given infinite time, water could disolve anything. Now I doubt the authenticity of this statement since pure gold would never rust/deteriorate/dissolve. Anyway I never liked the fact that US Currency makes it through the wash. Seems like if paper disolves in water, dollar bills, which are paper money, should come apart in water. So I took a martenelli's bottle and filled it with water. I let is sit a couple days to degass. Then I put a $1 bill in and corked it. The water is now quite dirty but the bill is still intact. I know this is a crime but it is my money.

Short version: If you look at the panes of glass in really old windows, you'll find that there are ones that are thicker at the top, thicker at the side, thicker at the bottom, etc. The variation in width comes from the imperfect manufacturing process, not from the supposed "fluid" properties of glass.

You are now my personal hero. Can we hire you part time to do this?

Well, I obviously didn't mean this post for you!

I meant it for lazy people like me who didn't want to wade through the other stuff on that page. You're clearly the exception to that.

So is it gonna drip anytime soon? Did we miss the last one?

you'd have at least another year or so to wait, but probably more since they put in aircon.

That uni happens to be the one my husband lectures at. I'll ask him tomorrow if he knows about it.

that'd be great, thanks. I was trying to see of there was a projected "drip date" but came up empty.

Given enough time the experiment will work, but one problem exists. US currency, dollar bills, is not made from paper. They are made from cotton.

I asked Dazza if he's ever seen this experiment and he said he had, but that it was about the most boring one he'd ever seen. He doesn't know when the next drop is going to be. Apparently they have stopped working on trying to predict that sort of thing. He said that maybe some undergrad might take on he experiment down the track and try to work it out. He then went on to say that it might take a while for the student to get a mark for the paper though.

[thread] OK, LJ has got me doing it now - I read the thread title as:
"The Bitch drop experiment" maybe thats cuz I just talked to my ex. [drift]

I thought this was going to be about the doppler effect.

Whats the web camera link? I want to put it up on my screen so can catch the next drop.

That way I can be on talk shows and write a book.