The Guinness World Record for the longest experiment is held by scientists at the University of Queensland, Australia, who have been running the “Pitch Drop” experiment for almost 100 years, and it could last another century. Started in 1927 by an Australian physicist named Thomas Parnell, the experiment aimed to measure both the fluidity and high viscosity of a substance called pitch, which is a derivative of tar and is considered the thickest known fluid in the world. world used to waterproof boats in the past.

What is the experience?

Parnell heated a sample of pitch and poured it into a sealed-stemmed glass funnel. He let the land cool and settle for three years. In 1930, he turned off the steam from the funnel and waited. According to the university“the experiment was set up for demonstration purposes” and was not maintained under specific environmental conditions. Instead, it is kept in a display case so that the flow rate of the land varies with seasonal changes in temperature.

After Parnell, the late Professor John Mainstone became custodian of the experiment in 1961 and operated it for 52 years. Since the experiment began, the pitch has slowly flowed out of the funnel – so slowly that it took eight years for the first drop to fall, and more than 40 years for five more to follow.

Since the last update, nine drops had dropped and another one is expected to drop this decade. However, due to various issues, no one actually saw a drop fall.

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Result of the experiment

Although pitch appears solid or even brittle at room temperature and can be easily broken with a hammer, experience has shown that the viscosity of the substance is approximately 100 billion times that of water. Moreover, there is still enough pitch left in the funnel for the famous experiment to continue for another hundred years.

In 2005, Maidstone and Parnell were awarded (posthumously) the Ig Nobel Prize – a satirical award that highlights obscure and insignificant achievements in scientific research. The Ig Nobel Prize aims to reward work that makes you laugh but also think.