Over nearly a century of this undertaking, a mere nine drops of the pitch have descended from the funnel, and not one researcher has ever witnessed such an event firsthand.
The world’s longest-running laboratory experiment has been underway in Australia for close to a hundred years now. This singular trial, widely recognized as the “Pitch Drop Experiment,” commenced way back in 1927 at the University of Queensland.
The physicist Thomas Parnell aimed to clearly show that pitch, a derivative of tar, behaves as an exceptionally viscous fluid rather than a solid substance. To visualize this, he sealed it within an inverted funnel. Three years after initiating the setup, in 1930, he severed the funnel’s spout, allowing the material—a substance one hundred billion times thicker than water—to begin its sluggish descent.
The initial drop didn’t fall until a full eight years had passed. Since then, across almost a century, only nine drops have exited the funnel. The most recent one detached in 2014, with the next one anticipated sometime in the 2020s. The flow rate decreased subsequent to the installation of air conditioning in the building during the 1980s, which served to stabilize the ambient temperature.
Even with constant monitoring, none of the three custodians of this experiment—Thomas Parnell, his successor John Mainstone, or the current administrator, Andrew White—have ever actually seen a drop fall with their own eyes. The first custodian, Professor Mainstone, missed the drop in the year 2000 due to a failure in the live web feed and passed away just months before the subsequent drop fell in 2014.
The demonstration is still broadcast live, and the scientific community patiently awaits the tenth drop, solidifying this trial as a living emblem of scientific perseverance.
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