Pitch drop experiment

Handruin

Handruin

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For those of you who read slashdot, you've probably seen this already, but I'm amused at this experiment so I wanted to share it.

The first Professor of Physics at the University of Queensland, Professor Thomas Parnell, began an experiment in 1927 to illustrate that everyday materials can exhibit quite surprising properties. The experiment demonstrates the fluidity and high viscosity of pitch, a derivative of tar once used for waterproofing boats. At room temperature pitch feels solid - even brittle - and can easily be shattered with a blow from a hammer (see the RealVideo® clip below). It's quite amazing then, to see that pitch at room temperature is actually fluid!

In 1927 Professor Parnell heated a sample of pitch and poured it into glass funnel with a sealed stem. Three years were allowed for the pitch to settle, and in 1930 the sealed stem was cut. From that date on the pitch has slowly dripped out of the funnel - so slowly that now, 72 years later, the eighth drop is only just about to fall.

They say no one has ever seen it drip... You can watch via the horrible realplayer if you have some spare time on your hands. :)

http://www.physics.uq.edu.au/pitchdrop/pitchdrop.shtml
 
Is there a point to this experiment? I mean is to find a way for insomniacs to get to sleep or what?
 
I've actually seen it in the flesh, as it were. :) It used to be in an entrance to one of the buildings, so you could press your nose to the glass and goggle if you wished.

It makes the prof's point very effectively, Bill. If someone told you that everyday materials that we take for granted were in fact liquids, it would be in one ear and out the other. To see it with your own eyes (normally impossible because it is just SO slow) really brings it home.

Things are not what they seem. :wink:
 
Interesting use of "as you know" there, Time. In this case, I guess the phrase ought to be "Ice, as you should know and actually already would know if you'd ever stopped to expend a synapse or two on the matter , also flows in glaciers". All of which is my way of saying "dunh - I knew that, just didn't think".
 
On the topic of liquids, has anyone ever wondered why there are only two elements that remain liquid at room temperature?
And of these two, one is mercury , which almost defies logic.
The other liquid I find strange is water. So dense it should be a solid....hhhhmmmm...what's going on there?
 
Ooops! I may have done a bit of assuming there. I see now you didn't necessarily mean water was the other element which remained a fluid at room temperature. Sorry.
 
A little food for thought-if glass was indeed also a supercooled liquid like pitch, then the glass funnel also would have dripped(or at least distorted) over the years. I heard a while ago that old window panes are distorted due to the manufacturing process, as that link by Mercutio mentions. If indeed glass really flowed, then the phenomenon should be measurable on modern windows over a period of a few years by using precision measurements of their thickness. To the best of my knowledge the glass holds its shape precisely, even in applications where millionths of an inch would be noticeable(i.e. large telescope mirrors and lenses).
 
Oh, glass becomes a liquid. According to one of those excellent articles that Mercutio linked to, all you need to do is have a nice warm room and plenty of paitence. You can see results (assuming you are using precision instruments) in as little as a few hundred years.
 
Please excuse ignorant question of humble self, Miss Tea, madam, but what is your meaning of "nice warm room" exactly?
 
jtr1962 said:
To the best of my knowledge the glass holds its shape precisely, even in applications where millionths of an inch would be noticeable(i.e. large telescope mirrors and lenses).
Click to expand...

Good point jtr, if glass was fluid all large telescope lenses would have to be replaced perioically. Imagine the logistics of renewing the lense in the hubble telescope :eekers:

You presume correctly flagreen, the other liquid element being bromine which appears to be a rather nasty substance.

Oooops! I should've said 'water should be a gas at room temperature' not a solid.

Anyway, check out this site to see for yourself how 'weird' water really is.
 
Not at all, Mr Ekaf. In this context, "nice warm room" simply means that you need to keep the temperature somewhere over 270 degrees C. Or, if you are in a hurry and don't have 200-odd years to wait, then perhaps a little warmer. 500 degrees should do it nicely.
 
Is also worthy of note that "water" is not "element". Even humble not-admitted-to-number-one-best-university student like me know that water is compound.
 
slo crostic said:
... if glass was fluid all large telescope lenses would have to be replaced perioically. Imagine the logistics of renewing the lense in the hubble telescope
Click to expand...
I don't know about that. There is relatively little gravitational effect in an orbiting satellite. So even a normal liquid would flow extremely slowly without something to start it off.

My impression is that glass is a liquid with a structure too strong to flow at room temperature under normal gravity. Theoretically, if you increased the gravity enough (or made the piece of glass big enough), you should eventually see some sort of flow. Unfortunately, glass will shatter under its own weight well before then. :)

And we haven't even talked about liquid crystal yet, a substance supposedly caught between solid and liquid states?
 
slo crostic said:
Oooops! I should've said 'water should be a gas at room temperature' not a solid.
Click to expand...

So that means you the part where you said it was so dense was incorrect as well?

Anyways, I think one of the reasons why water remains a liquid when you would otherwise think it should be a gas is due to the polarity of the molecule. The hydrogen bonding that results probably keeps it together.
 
e_dawg said:
So that means you the part where you said it was so dense was incorrect as well?

Anyways, I think one of the reasons why water remains a liquid when you would otherwise think it should be a gas is due to the polarity of the molecule. The hydrogen bonding that results probably keeps it together.
Click to expand...

Water is really freeky stuff, and even if logically it should be a gas it is still very dense... More dense than ice...

And that's definatly a polarity thing, although no actual bonding takes place the molecules are atracted to each other since the oxygen atom has a negative charge and the hydrogen atoms have positive charges, the way they are arranged puts the charges on oposite sides of the molecule.

Water could be viewed as both a positive and a negative ion depending on the angle, and can become either, hydroxy(OH) for example is the negative ion which found in pretty much all bases, and hydronium(H3O) is found in acids along with the hydrogen ion...

Water.... it's weird shit...
 
Ekaf-Ami said:
Is also worthy of note that "water" is not "element". Even humble not-admitted-to-number-one-best-university student like me know that water is compound.
Click to expand...
Ekaf-Am'i,
I came across this new book by Jane Corbin and couldn't help but notice the striking resemblance between the picture on the cover and your portrait. Can you explain?

corbin.jpg
 
e_dawg said:
slo crostic said:
Oooops! I should've said 'water should be a gas at room temperature' not a solid.
Click to expand...

So that means you the part where you said it was so dense was incorrect as well?
Click to expand...
That is the part I was refering to e_dawg. Perhaps I should've made myself more clear.

Another funny thing about water is that it is practically incompressible, or at least for all intents and purposes can be considered so.

btw, I definitely agree with you Sol, water is really weird shit.
 
flagreen said:
I came across this new book by Jane Corbin and couldn't help but notice the striking resemblance between the picture on the cover and your portrait. Can you explain?

corbin.jpg
Click to expand...

Ahh, Mr Flagreen, sir, yes.

Person pictured on cover of your book is, in fact, self. Being full-time student in Madrid, and despite such small amounts of money as are sent to me by my mother in Bagdad (blessings be upon her), I am needful of income and am most kindly employed on irregular basis by photography studio as model. Perhaps one day I will be spotted by Hollywood Talent Scout and become Superstar of Silver Screen.

Or perhaps not.

You have seen famous British moviie by Mr David Lean - Laurence of Arabia? Perhaps you recall scene where Laurence (Mr Peter O'Toole) meeting with Sherif Ali (Omar Sharif) for first time? My great mother (great mother? mother of my mother - I am sometime unsure of correct English) is accessory to that famous scene. (Third camel from left.)
 
Mustafa Hussein said:
Ekaf? My nef-you! How is your mother? Why peeple not friendly here? They no like arab?
Click to expand...

Not friendly? We built you an 18,000 hole golf course in 1991. You didn't like it? We're planning on building you another one in a few months. It's a gift from all Americans to your leader.

Steve
 
SteveC said:
Mustafa Hussein said:
Ekaf? My nef-you! How is your mother? Why peeple not friendly here? They no like arab?
Click to expand...

Not friendly? We built you an 18,000 hole golf course in 1991. You didn't like it? We're planning on building you another one in a few months. It's a gift from all Americans to your leader.

Steve
Click to expand...
Ahh.. now Mustafa see. Big boom boom ha? Goats run, Mustafa run, tent no run. Goats ok, Mustafa ok, tent gone. You buy Mustafa new tent? Mustafa like America. Go Jets right? go George Bush. See Mustafa like America. New tent ok? You buy?
 
Very nice mustafa my friend.

But what to do with goats? I think know what you person likes to do with goats they say but I don't'. Filthi busterd.
 
NRG = mc² said:
Very nice mustafa my friend.

But what to do with goats? I think know what you person likes to do with goats they say but I don't'. Filthi busterd.
Click to expand...
What to do with goats? You nuts? Goats for mother's milk. For kabobs. Good. Muatafa very proud of goats. Now Mustafa's nefyou Ekaf-Ami, he has own ideas. One time when American and British drop boom boom, Mustafa rent truck to move goat herd to mountains for safe. Mustafa's brother Hosni went to town and get it. He bring truck back where goats, Mustafa, and Ekaf-Ami wait. Planes come. Boom boom all around. Ekaf get scared. Goats get scared. Mustafa get scared. Hosni say "get goats in truck quick!". Mustafa jump in truck instead and say "Screw the goats! We go!". Ekaf-Ami say "You think we have time?". What you gonna do with nefyou like that?
 
Look, Mouse-stuffer, I don't care if your house is sane. Just take your goats and your bestial nephew and clear off! Otherwise you'll go home to your Dad in a bag. :bibber:
 
Sol said:
Water is really freeky stuff, and even if logically it should be a gas it is still very dense... More dense than ice...
Click to expand...

Keyword: Phase

Liquid water is denser than solid water (ice) because hydrogen hydroxide (HOH, H2O) expands as it enters its solid phase -- which defies the norms of all other molecules. Water at a temperature of somewhere about 1.5ºC ~ 2ºC is found at the bottoms of deep fresh water lakes in cold climates because water at this temperature is at its highest density, and the colder ice is found floating on top of the lake.


 
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