Very long ago (85 years) Pitch drop experiment was started and this is still running. Yeah, you read it correct ( still running) you can even watch it live right now. Here’s the link Live herelive Before you head on to watch it live, let me tell you a brief short story of this longest running experiment.
The experiment’s creator was Professor Thomas Parnell, the first professor of physics at The University of Queensland. In 1927 he setup the experiment to demonstrate the viscosity of pitch – the thickest fluid known to exist.
Professor Parnell heated some pitch and poured it into a glass funnel, then left it to cool for three years. In October 1930 the bottom of the funnel was cut and the pitch began to flow.
It took eight years for the first drop to fall. The next five drops each took seven to nine years to fall, with the sixth drop falling in April 1979.
Till date no human watched a drop falling.
Well… Yeah the funny thing is the creator of this experiment missed that event two times. The first time few minutes before this rare event, he went for a coffee. The second time he was very determined to Watch it and fixed cameras to capture everything but ironically the camera failed just before the event.
Finally he permanently fixed 3 cameras and started a live telecast on the Internet.
And recently the camera captured the drop fall… Here’s the video. And the tenth drop was expected to fall in 2020.
informatic cool stuff 