00:00For almost a century, researchers have been running a single, continuous experiment to prove something that sounds entirely impossible —
00:09that a substance you can shatter with a hammer is actually one of the slowest-moving liquids on Earth.
00:15The setup began in 1927 at the University of Queensland.
00:20Physicist Thomas Parnell realized his students were trapped in a rigid way of thinking, assuming that solid and liquid were
00:27permanent, obvious categories.
00:28He wanted a demonstration that would break those assumptions.
00:32Parnell heated a batch of pitch — a derivative of tar and asphalt — and poured it into a sealed
00:37glass funnel.
00:38He let it sit for three years to allow the material to cool and settle completely, before finally cutting the
00:45stem to let gravity begin its work.
00:47To appreciate the weight, you have to understand pitch at room temperature.
00:51To the touch, it feels like a heavy, brittle rock. Strike it hard enough, and it fractures into sharp, jagged
00:57pieces.
00:57What began as a classroom demonstration became a generational test of patience.
01:03It suggests that whether we call a substance a solid or a liquid depends less on its immediate texture,
01:10and more on the timescale we use to observe it.
01:13The engine driving this experiment is a property called viscosity.
01:17Simply put, viscosity is a measure of how strongly a fluid resists flowing.
01:22This diagram shows the scale in action.
01:25Water flows quickly and easily, while honey provides much more resistance, moving in a thick, sluggish stream.
01:32Pitch sits at the absolute bottom of this scale.
01:35Its resistance to flow is so immense that gravity needs over a decade to pull a single, heavy drop away
01:41from the tip of the glass funnel.
01:42For decades, the drops fell on a reliable schedule of about once every eight or nine years.
01:48But eventually, the intervals between those drops began stretching out to twelve years and beyond.
01:53The delay was caused by a change in the environment.
01:55In the 1980s, the university installed air conditioning in the building.
02:01Cooling the room by just a few degrees thickened the pitch and slowed the flow even further.
02:07Because of its extreme viscosity, the pitch is sensitive to the slightest thermal shifts.
02:12A minor upgrade for human comfort was enough to disrupt the physics of a century-long study.
02:18Observing an experiment this slow requires a dedicated human element.
02:23Physicist John Mainstone took on the role, becoming the funnel's custodian for over half a century.
02:29Despite fifty years of continuous oversight, Mainstone never personally saw a single drop detach.
02:36One drop silently separated and fell over a weekend while the laboratory was empty.
02:41Years later, during a public exhibition of the experiment, Mainstone stepped away for a moment to grab a drink.
02:47By the time he returned, the drop had already hit the bottom of the beaker.
02:51In 2000, researchers tried solving the problem with a live webcam trained on the eighth drop.
02:57However, a local thunderstorm triggered a power failure, resulting in a dark screen and another missed data point.
03:05Mainstone's career highlights the friction between human planning and physical reality.
03:10We can maintain a single experiment for a century,
03:13but the actual event of the drop remains completely elusive.
03:18Mainstone passed away in 2013, just eight months before the ninth drop finally fell.
03:24He and Parnell were eventually awarded a shared Ig Nobel Prize,
03:28a parodic award for research that first makes people laugh and then makes them think.
03:34Custodianship passed to Professor Andrew White, who faced a practical challenge.
03:38He had to swap out the glass beaker below the funnel to ensure the pile of old drops didn't fuse
03:44with the newly forming tenth drop.
03:46A major milestone is approaching.
03:48The year 2027 marks exactly 100 years since Thomas Parnell first heated his pitch and filled that funnel.
03:56The apparatus has evolved from a lab curiosity into a global digital phenomenon.
04:01Thousands of people now watch a continuous livestream of the funnel, hoping to be the ones to witness the tenth
04:08drop.
04:08The pitch drop remains a monument to the value of scientific patients, proving that a simple vision can transcend individual
04:16careers.
04:17If you have the patience to wait a decade for a single drop of data, hit the like button, subscribe,
04:23and tell us in the comments what you think the next century will reveal.
04:27.
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