After 69 Years, 'Pitch Drop' Experiment Finally Caught On Video

After 69 Years, 'Pitch Drop' Finally Caught On Video In The Trinity College Experiment

After 69 years, One of the world's longest running laboratory experiments has finally recorded the fall of a drop of tar pitch on camera for the first time. A similar, better-known and older experiment in Australia missed filming its latest drop in 2000 because the camera was offline at the time.

 The Queensland experiment, performed to test if pitch is solid or liquid, won the 2005 Ig Nobel prize for physics and holds the Guinness Book of World Records record for longest running laboratory experiment, has been running since 1927.

The Dublin pitch-drop experiment was set up in 1944 at Trinity College Dublin to demonstrate the high viscosity or low fluidity of pitch — also known as bitumen or asphalt — a material that appears to be solid at room temperature, but is in fact flowing, albeit extremely slowly.

Pitch-drop experiments involve heating a sample of pitch and pouring it into a sealed glass funnel. The pitch is given time — three years in Parnell’s experiment — to settle and consolidate before the sealed stem of the funnel is cut.

Physicists at Trinity College recently began to monitor the experiment again. Last April they set up a webcam so that anyone could watch and try to be the first person ever to witness the drop fall live.

Physicists at Trinity College recently began to monitor the  'Pitch Drop' experiment again

At around 5 o'clock in the afternoon on 11 July, physicist Shane Bergin and colleagues captured footage of one of the most eagerly anticipated and exhilarating drips in science. “We were all so excited,” Bergin says. “It’s been such a great talking point, with colleagues eager to investigate the mechanics of the break, and the viscosity of the pitch”.

Both the Trinity College and the University of Queensbury pitch drop experiments have resulted in drops of pitch falling free of the viscosity cup, but at the rate of about one drop per decade. The viscosity of pitch is in the neighborhood of 20-100 billion times the viscosity of water.

Asked about the value of this demonstration, Bergin’s colleague Denis Weaire says, “Curiosity is at the heart of good science, and the pitch drop fuels that curiosity”.

 Prof. John Mainstone, who has spent most of his life waiting to see a drop fall with his own eyes, congratulated the Trinity College team. “I have been examining the video over and over again,” he says, ”and there were a number of things about it that were really quite tantalizing for a very long time pitch-drop observer like myself.”

A drop of pitch from the Trinity College experiment has been recorded in the process of falling, as shown in the video below. Despite efforts by the Queensland researchers, none of the eight fallen drops have been observed to fall. A ninth is expected to fall later this year that can be viewed live via a webcam and has a broad following across the globe.

A ninth drop is expected to fall later this year that can be viewed live via a webcam and has a broad following across the globe

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Write by: RC - Saturday, July 20, 2013