The world's longest running experiment

AProudLefty

AProudLefty

Black Kitty Ain't Happy
There should be a science and technology forum like other sites.

Time lapse April 2012 - April 2015.

High viscosity.


I vote for Science and Technology forum.
 
That's a great idea actually. The last one I was had had a science forum. Have you petitioned Damo?

I don't get what that is in the experiment though.
 
AProudLefty said:
There should be a science and technology forum like other sites.

Time lapse April 2012 - April 2015.

High viscosity.


I vote for Science and Technology forum.
Click to expand...

Why do we need to know the long term viscosity of pitch? What is the interesting scientific or engineering question being addressed?
 
AProudLefty said:
Isn't observation a part of the scientific process?
Click to expand...
I suppose observing any random thing could be of interest to somebody somewhere.


The scientific method usually starts with a hypothesis, and the observations follow and are supposed to corroborate or refute the hypothesis.
 
AProudLefty said:
There should be a science and technology forum like other sites.

Time lapse April 2012 - April 2015.

High viscosity.


I vote for Science and Technology forum.
Click to expand...

There should be a science forum.

I have been shoehorning scientific topics into the philosophy and religion forum because science was traditionally thought of as natural philosophy -- and the off topic category seems like its for the trivial and inane.
 
Cypress said:
There should be a science forum.

I have been shoehorning scientific topics into the philosophy and religion forum because science was traditionally thought of as natural philosophy -- and the off topic category seems like its for the trivial and inane.
Click to expand...

Other discussion sites have science and technology forums.
 
Cypress said:
There should be a science forum.

I have been shoehorning scientific topics into the philosophy and religion forum because science was traditionally thought of as natural philosophy -- and the off topic category seems like its for the trivial and inane.
Click to expand...

I know and I agree.
 
AProudLefty said:
There should be a science and technology forum like other sites.

Time lapse April 2012 - April 2015.

High viscosity.


I vote for Science and Technology forum.
Click to expand...

There are such forums if you look for them. I've been considering joining one of the physics ones (I can't determine yet which one would be best) to pose a question about string theory and resonant frequency I pondered a while back while reading some stuff on that theory.

By the way, watching grass grow is more exciting than watching pitch flow...

And in other news, government bureaucrats in Hayward California ruined an ongoing experiment by scientists by repairing a sidewalk and curb...

https://abc30.com/hayward-fault-sidewalk-residents/1415776/
 
Last edited:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitch_(resin)



Naturally occurring asphalt/bitumen, a type of pitch, is a viscoelastic polymer. This means that even though it seems to be solid at room temperature and can be shattered with a hard impact, it is actually fluid and will flow over time, but extremely slowly. The pitch drop experiment taking place at University of Queensland is a long-term experiment which demonstrates the flow of a piece of pitch over many years. For the experiment, pitch was put in a glass funnel and allowed to slowly drip out. Since the pitch was allowed to start dripping in 1930, only nine drops have fallen. It was calculated in the 1980s that the pitch in the experiment has a viscosity approximately 230 billion (2.3×1011) times that of water.[3] The eighth drop fell on 28 November 2000, and the ninth drop fell on 17 April 2014.[4] Another experiment was started by a colleague of Nobel Prize winner Ernest Walton in the physics department of Trinity College in Ireland in 1944. Over the years, the pitch had produced several drops, but none had been recorded. On July 11, 2013, scientists at Trinity College caught pitch dripping from a funnel on camera for the first time.[5]

Winchester College has a 'pitch glacier' demonstration which has been running since 21 July 1906, but does not have records of regular measurements.[6]
 
The cynic in me thinks that what it REALLY is?

The dude that set this up bet his buddy how long this completely useless experiment would be allowed to continue before someone throws it in the garbage.
 
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