World’s longest lab experiment still going strong, via webcam

In 1927, a physics professor named Thomas Parnell launched an experiment on viscous liquids. 85 years later, we’re still looking forward to his results. All of it began with a funnel, a beaker, and a few melted tar pitch. Parnell, a professor on the University of Queensland in Australia, hoped to illustrate that brittle tar pitch actually behaves as a liquid when kept at room temperature. To prove this, he melted some tar pitch, let it cool for 3 years, and placed it in the funnel, held over the beaker. The primary drop rolled down the funnel eight years later. The second one came nine years after that. By the point the third rolled around, Parnell had already gave up the ghost. Following his death, the experiment was shelved, quite literally, in a closet, before Professor John Mainstone revived it shortly after joining the University of Queensland in 1961. In 1975, Mainstone successfully lobbied the university to lay the experiment on display, but he likely could’ve never imagined how large an audience it will ultimately have. Today, actually, the experiment is on display 24 hours an afternoon, via a dedicated webcam. It has been hailed because the world’s longest running lab experiment, and it’s available for gazing on the source link below. Mainstone expects the subsequent drop to return down the pipeline sometime next year, but you almost certainly shouldn’t hold your breath. The last drop ran down the funnel in 2000. Unfortunately, it was never recorded on video, because of an exceptionally untimely camera malfunction.