70 Year Old Experiment Proves Pitch Is Viscous

[Kaiser6012]

Wait, what? Seriously? A pitch drop experiment (which, if you'll read the link up in the original post you can verify) has been running in Queensland since the 1920s, they'd proven long before this drop that pitch is a liquid. What this report is saying is only that someone caught the drop on camera, and even then in a hideously misleading way.

The article is poorly headlined in the extreme. Either link to the initial pitch drop experiment ( Link here. [http://www.physics.uq.edu.au/physics_museum/pitchdrop.shtml]) which proved in 1984 that pitch was viscous (which, by now, would be 86 years in the making), or change the headline to state that this is the first time that pitch has been observed dripping. What's up there now is just straight up wrong.

EDIT: Science away!

I thought something being liquid or solid depended on the temperature. (with a few exceptions)

It does. And it turns out pitch, at room temperature, is a liquid. Just a really viscous liquid. So viscous that it can be shattered. So people got confused because it flows reeeeeaaaaaalllllll sssssssllllllloooooowwwwww.
Each and every liquid has a viscosity, which is a fancy way of saying how well it pours. there are several factors that go into viscosity - molecule size, polarity of molecules, cohesion between molecules in the substance, that sort of thing. It's why glycerin (a liquid) pours faster than water (another liquid) pours faster than honey (yet another liquid) pours faster than pitch (so thick and goopy it's often mistaken for solid).

 

[The Great JT]

Hope it was worth the wait, science.

 

[Evil Smurf]

Why did we need to know this, science?

tho"

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Woah! Was I being controlled by the (SGN) Space Grammar Nazis? I hope that does not happen again.

 

[Alorxico]

What is pitch? What is it made of? I've never heard of it.

I direct you to Wikipedia, Good Gamer. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitch_(resin)

 

[1337mokro]

It probably cost like 10$ in total, mostly because you could just get interns watching the thing.

Undergrads, but yes.

Having worked for a research professor and his group, I can tell you that that $10 still has to come from somewhere and someone has to fund the experiment in order for it to be paid. Because that money certainly isn't coming out of the PI's pocket! And that's not including the wages and benefits of the support staff and campus accounting department needed to keep the project running.

I can only shudder to think of how many account numbers and fund codes a seventy year experiment would go through in due course.

(Captcha: black gold

Very amusing, Captcha. Good show!)

Intern is the universal term for the people that get to do the crappy jobs so their superior will like them enough to promote them.

Also that 10$ came from between the couch cushions. Of course the collection period was stretched out over those 70 years as well.

 

[Strazdas]

why this had to be proven? didnt we already knew? then again maybe 70 years ago we didnt.

The article is poorly headlined in the extreme. Either link to the initial pitch drop experiment ( Link here. [http://www.physics.uq.edu.au/physics_museum/pitchdrop.shtml]) which proved in 1984 that pitch was viscous (which, by now, would be 86 years in the making), or change the headline to state that this is the first time that pitch has been observed dripping. What's up there now is just straight up wrong.

actually that link you gave has a picture of a drop falling in 1979.

 

[Stormtyrant]

For a long time I honestly thought this was a news story about music :/

Same here, I've never even heard of pitch before until now. You learn something new every day I suppose.

Did you know a gram of DNA contains as much information as roughly 1 trillion CDs?

DNA is crazy stuff.

I've heard of pitch, but only very rarely and usually in some sort of fantasy setting. I'll chalk it up to being an American thing.

 

[Roxor]

I recall hearing about something similar in Australia years back.

 

[UltraPic]

Why did we need to know this, science?

tho"

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Woah! Was I being controlled by the (SGN) Space Grammar Nazis? I hope that does not happen again.

I suggest you do the same, I have never come across tho" in any dictionary or thesaurus.

Edit: D'oh I replied, http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/codeofconduct

 

[Evil Smurf]

Why did we need to know this, science?

tho"

GRAMMAR NAZI BOT PROGRAMMING AWAKENED

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Could not find results for "tho".
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Woah! Was I being controlled by the (SGN) Space Grammar Nazis? I hope that does not happen again.

I suggest you do the same, I have never come across tho" in any dictionary or thesaurus.

My Grammar Nazi overlords wish to inform you that was their point. They wish to say that if you want to use a word, you should use a real word.

 

[Not Matt]

*raises hand*
How is this relevant today? Most the information I could find say that while we USED to play with pitch to make stuff. We moved on to other materials, also: YOU LET SOMETHING NOBODY KNEW WHAT WAS CLEAN WATER AND TRANSPORT US!?! What more did you not research before using it. I hate to hear scientists come out and say "the origin of übercancer is potatoes"or ssomething. GLaDOS would be ashamed of you science.