I know, it's not glass, but hey...
ossi...@hotmail.com
viscosity of pitch. Now, pitch is definitely a fluid, but it can be
"smashed".
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200510/s1476928.htm
The relevant passage:
"Watching paint dry
Professor John Mainstone and the late Professor Thomas Parnell of the
University of Queensland in Brisbane win the Ig Nobel physics prize.
Professor Mainstone says that in 1927, Professor Parnell started what
has now become the longest ever running laboratory experiment,
involving ultra-slow moving drops of black tar or pitch falling from a
funnel.
The experiment is designed to show that pitch, which can be smashed
with a hammer like a brittle solid, will actually flow like a fluid, if
you leave it for long enough.
There have only been eight drops since the experiment began, and
scientists expect to wait about a decade between drops, Professor
Mainstone says.
He took over custodianship of the experiment when Professor Parnell
died.
"So far nobody has actually observed when the moment at which the drop
parts company with the rest of the pitch in the funnel," he says.
"In the year 2000 we thought we had it covered by having the thing
under video surveillance," he says. "But unfortunately that new piece
of technology failed at the crucial time."
Professor Mainstone admits that some might think his job is worse than
watching grass grow or paint dry but he is proud to note the experiment
is featured in text books.
He says he is still collecting useful data on the viscosity of pitch,
which is about 100 billion times greater than water.
The webcam <http://www.physics.uq.edu.au/pitchdrop/pitchdrop.shtml> is
working again so the pitch drop experiment can be viewed live. The next
drop is not expected before 2011."
--
Richard F.
"...if you keep my mouth sufficiently full, I can't offer any
lines of argument" - Deborah Stevenson gives sound debating
advice in a.f.u.
d
news:1128661554.6...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
That's quite a famous experiment :) Must be the most boring job in the
world.
Jack Campin - bogus address
> University of Queensland in Brisbane win the Ig Nobel physics prize.
>
> Professor Mainstone says that in 1927, Professor Parnell started
> what has now become the longest ever running laboratory experiment,
> involving ultra-slow moving drops of black tar or pitch falling
> from a funnel.
They're johnny-come-latelys. Lord Kelvin set up a trough of pitch
in the Natural Philosophy (i.e. physics) department at Glasgow
University which has been flowing slowly downwards into a wrinkled
puddle since the late nineteenth century.
I'll be in Glasgow in the next couple of weeks, maybe I'll take
a photo of it. It looks like an unidentifiable part of a large
pachyderm.
============== j-c ====== @ ====== purr . demon . co . uk ==============
Jack Campin: 11 Third St, Newtongrange EH22 4PU, Scotland | tel 0131 660 4760
<http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/> for CD-ROMs and free | fax 0870 0554 975
stuff: Scottish music, food intolerance, & Mac logic fonts | mob 07800 739 557
Andrew Gray
> I'll be in Glasgow in the next couple of weeks, maybe I'll take
> a photo of it. It looks like an unidentifiable part of a large
> pachyderm.
I know Glasgow isn't the most salubrious of cities, but come on, be
fair...
--
-Andrew Gray
andre...@dunelm.org.uk
Michael Kuettner
<ossi...@hotmail.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag news:1128661554.6...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
> The IgNobel Awards have recognised a 74-year experiment into the
> viscosity of pitch. Now, pitch is definitely a fluid, but it can be
> "smashed".
>
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200510/s1476928.htm
What do you mean with "no gl*ss fl*w[1]" ?
> Professor Mainstone admits that some might think his job is worse than
> watching grass grow or paint dry but he is proud to note the experiment
-----------------------^
Here it is; the new TINSK[2] approved code.
Didn't you get the new manual[3] ?
<snip>
Cheers[4],
Michael "please destroy that message after reading[5]" Kuettner[6]
[1] There is no TINSK
[2] old obsolete code which never existed anyway. Ask Luigi and Guido.
[3] No such manual exists. This sentence was copied here by mistake.
[4] No, this is _not_ a masonic handshake.
[5] This internym was inserted by the NSA to discredit [1]
[6] Never heard of that guy !