Saturday, April 30, 2022

Sunday, May 1

 In 1927, a professor at a laboratory in Brisbane warmed up some pitch and put it in a sealed funnel.  Pitch is a black substance, like tar but hard and brittle.  Three years later, the professor cut the end off the funnel and put it on a tripod over a container.

 

It took eight years but, eventually, a drop of the pitch fell into the container.  The object of the experiment was to prove that pitch is a liquid, not a solid.  Since that first drop, eight more have fallen, the latest in April 2014.  It’s not a regular thing and depends on the environment. Sometimes the apparatus has been in a cupboard, at other times in a draughty corridor, under cool fluorescent tubes or hot halogen lights.

 

The funny thing is that no one has seen a drop fall.  At the Brisbane Expo, four or five people watched it constantly; it was a hot day so they went out for a drink .. and the drop dropped.  In 2000, a live stream was set up for a Millennium Event but an electrical storm cut the power, and the drop dropped.  

 

The Pitch Drop experiment is looked after by a senior scientist.  John Mainstone took on the responsibility in 1961.  In April 2014, he told his wife he wouldn’t be home because he believed a drop was imminent.  He stayed at his post all Friday night and all day Saturday, Saturday night and Sunday.  By Sunday evening, exhausted, he went home … and the drop dropped.

 

The current custodian is Professor Andrew White and more than 35000 people in 160 countries today are sweating on the 10th drop through a live internet feed.  Probably they’ll be waiting a while yet.  Pitch flows 10 times slower than continental drift.

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