5 ms·

Pitch Drop Experiment

82 points by luu 3y ago

horacemorace 3y ago
I was happy to discover an inadvertent pitch drop experiment in my 100 year old house attic. The blob of glassy pitch was used to seal a spot in the original roof sheeting and has made 2 drops underneath so far and is working on a 3rd.
- Mtinie 3y ago
  Photos would be awesome! For science.
rzzzt 3y ago
I always wondered who is watching this stuff happen. The 2013 drop was "televised" according to the article (they pointed a webcam at it) - in all other cases, did they just shut the lights on the experiment only to find the drop gone the next day?
- eitally 3y ago
  I don't see why this seems strange. Heck, every time a corpse flower blooms (in the US, at least) it's publicized and frequently streamed on the web. https://wtop.com/local/2022/06/rare-exotic-and-very-stinky-flower-blooms-at-us-botanic-garden-2/ https://wtop.com/local/2022/06/rare-exotic-and-very-stinky-f...
sandworm101 3y ago
I love the picture with the Duracell 9v. Geologists traditionally use pennies to show scale. A penny was sent to mars on the Curiosity rover. Nope. Physicists are different than, to quote Sheldon, the "dirt people". They will use a Duracell. https://science.nasa.gov/resource/lucky-penny-on-mars/ https://science.nasa.gov/resource/lucky-penny-on-mars/
- zik 3y ago
  To be fair I have no idea how large an American penny is - it's not a very precise indication of size for anyone who's not American.
  - JadeNB 3y ago
    > To be fair I have no idea how large an American penny is - it's not a very precise indication of size for anyone who's not American. It is reasonably precise, at least "good enough for government work"—the size is federally specified https://www.usmint.gov/learn/coin-and-medal-programs/coin-specifications https://www.usmint.gov/learn/coin-and-medal-programs/coin-sp... —just not familiar.
    - gerdesj 3y ago
      Provided your audience realizes that a US "penny" is a thing. I live in a land that actually has a unit of currency called a penny, the US does not. W Germany used to have a pfennig and I can't remember what 100th of a Dutch gilder was called Thankfully we have tamed our penny somewhat, from the wild beast it used to be. It used to be abbreviated to "d" and there were 12 of them to the shilling (s) and 20 shillings to the pound (l ie: £, which is what happens when you get the ink pen out). In 1971 we decided to stop taking the piss and fall in line with the rest of the civilized world and decimalise: One squid = 100 pennies! So the US call their cents "pennies". How cute 8) Those odd abbreviations I mentioned earlier - LSD for pounds/shillings and pence. They are sort of derived from libra/sestertii/denarius ie Roman currency units. I've glossed over florins, sovereigns, groats and all the other weird and wonderful coinage of the realm. We were not alone, most countries have some pretty odd past coinage and currency ... or didn't bother and stuck with barter for simplicity.
      - tree_enjoyer 3y ago
        The parent comment you are replying to is making a statement about precision vs other metrics such as user familiarity, accuracy, etc. The size of an American Penny and a 9v battery are both very precise, the former even more so. The lack of universitality is a different argument, the tangent your comment discusses. "Precise" has a precise meaning, and it was a pedantic (though in a way I appreciate) comment on that. Your lack of familiarity with "American" pennies does not change that they are a very well defined size. This often comes up in science discussions because to many lay people "Precise", "Accurate" and other terms are used interchangeably, when they have distinct meanings
patall 3y ago
I am not sure what I expected, but when I visited it ~10 years ago, it was surprisingly unspectacular. Just an open-door university building with a small hallway. On the wall a glass cabinet with the experiment&camera, and a few texts. But if I hadn't known the building, I would never have found out about it, no signs, nothing.
leoc 3y ago
One thing the article doesn't mention, but which the text visible in the image does, is that Kelvin's pitch glacier was created to demonstrate ideas about how the luminiferous ether worked! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminiferous_aether https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminiferous_aether Is John Allen the only scientist to miss out on both a Nobel and an Ig Nobel? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Allen_(physicist) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Allen_(physicist)
- LudwigNagasena 3y ago
  Another fun fact, Lorentz transformation was created to explain why we can’t detect ether even though we move relatively to it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorentz_ether_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorentz_ether_theory
gcanyon 3y ago
I used to have a version of this experiment myself -- there was a desk toy that was a transparent tube with dark caps at either end and a somewhat viscous liquid inside. Because of refraction, bubbles in the tube looked much larger than they were, and so perhaps 30 of them would flow up, in about a minute, each time the tube was flipped. I bought one in 1996 or so, and picked the one that was the slowest -- it took maybe two minutes at the time. This turned out to be because the liquid was -- very slowly -- evaporating out of the tube, and getting thicker. Within a year, it took about 5 to 10 minutes. Within five years, it took over an hour. After ten years it took weeks. After fifteen years, it took most of a year. I last flipped it over in something like 2015, and after several years it appeared to be pretty much unmoving, although I assume it was still making progress. I used to joke that I wanted it to be flipped one last time and placed beside me in my coffin, but I lost it in a move several years ago.
- flxfxp 3y ago
  Do you remember what it was called? Brand?
  - gcanyon 3y ago
    This looks similar: https://www.glowstoregifts.com/products/traveling-bubble-ooze-tube https://www.glowstoregifts.com/products/traveling-bubble-ooz... But that says it takes 30 minutes, which is definitely slower than even my slowpoke version was at the start.
divbzero 3y ago
A pitch drop was first captured on camera on 11 July 2013 at Trinity College Dublin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7jXjn7mIao https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7jXjn7mIao
neilkk 3y ago
> In October 2005, John Mainstone and the late Thomas Parnell were awarded the Ig Nobel Prize in physics, a parody of the Nobel Prize, for the pitch drop experiment. Embarrassing that the Ig Nobel prize has so little understanding of what valid science is. The awarders seem to be motivated by chasing the approval of very ignorant and biased people in the general public and the media.
- rcxdude 3y ago
  The Ig Nobel prize isn't always intended to target 'invalid' science or otherwise mock the awardees. It's mostly meant to highlight odd or obscure work. The wording they use is scientific work that "makes people laugh and then makes them think". Though it does look like it's more like a mix of both: earlier years especially do have awards that are more satirical in nature.
  - neilkk 3y ago
    In other words they have attempted to rebrand themselves after justified criticism that they were promoting the mindset that sees climate change as fictional and academic enquiry as a waste of time.
yuki69536 3y ago
[flagged]

82 points by luu 3y ago

I was happy to discover an inadvertent pitch drop experiment in my 100 year old house attic. The blob of glassy pitch was used to seal a spot in the original roof sheeting and has made 2 drops underneath so far and is working on a 3rd.

Mtinie 3y ago
Photos would be awesome! For science.

rzzzt 3y ago

I always wondered who is watching this stuff happen. The 2013 drop was "televised" according to the article (they pointed a webcam at it) - in all other cases, did they just shut the lights on the experiment only to find the drop gone the next day?

eitally 3y ago
I don't see why this seems strange. Heck, every time a corpse flower blooms (in the US, at least) it's publicized and frequently streamed on the web. https://wtop.com/local/2022/06/rare-exotic-and-very-stinky-flower-blooms-at-us-botanic-garden-2/ https://wtop.com/local/2022/06/rare-exotic-and-very-stinky-f...

sandworm101 3y ago

I love the picture with the Duracell 9v. Geologists traditionally use pennies to show scale. A penny was sent to mars on the Curiosity rover. Nope. Physicists are different than, to quote Sheldon, the "dirt people". They will use a Duracell. https://science.nasa.gov/resource/lucky-penny-on-mars/ https://science.nasa.gov/resource/lucky-penny-on-mars/

zik 3y ago
To be fair I have no idea how large an American penny is - it's not a very precise indication of size for anyone who's not American.
- JadeNB 3y ago
  > To be fair I have no idea how large an American penny is - it's not a very precise indication of size for anyone who's not American. It is reasonably precise, at least "good enough for government work"—the size is federally specified https://www.usmint.gov/learn/coin-and-medal-programs/coin-specifications https://www.usmint.gov/learn/coin-and-medal-programs/coin-sp... —just not familiar.
  - gerdesj 3y ago
    Provided your audience realizes that a US "penny" is a thing. I live in a land that actually has a unit of currency called a penny, the US does not. W Germany used to have a pfennig and I can't remember what 100th of a Dutch gilder was called Thankfully we have tamed our penny somewhat, from the wild beast it used to be. It used to be abbreviated to "d" and there were 12 of them to the shilling (s) and 20 shillings to the pound (l ie: £, which is what happens when you get the ink pen out). In 1971 we decided to stop taking the piss and fall in line with the rest of the civilized world and decimalise: One squid = 100 pennies! So the US call their cents "pennies". How cute 8) Those odd abbreviations I mentioned earlier - LSD for pounds/shillings and pence. They are sort of derived from libra/sestertii/denarius ie Roman currency units. I've glossed over florins, sovereigns, groats and all the other weird and wonderful coinage of the realm. We were not alone, most countries have some pretty odd past coinage and currency ... or didn't bother and stuck with barter for simplicity.
    - tree_enjoyer 3y ago
      The parent comment you are replying to is making a statement about precision vs other metrics such as user familiarity, accuracy, etc. The size of an American Penny and a 9v battery are both very precise, the former even more so. The lack of universitality is a different argument, the tangent your comment discusses. "Precise" has a precise meaning, and it was a pedantic (though in a way I appreciate) comment on that. Your lack of familiarity with "American" pennies does not change that they are a very well defined size. This often comes up in science discussions because to many lay people "Precise", "Accurate" and other terms are used interchangeably, when they have distinct meanings

patall 3y ago

I am not sure what I expected, but when I visited it ~10 years ago, it was surprisingly unspectacular. Just an open-door university building with a small hallway. On the wall a glass cabinet with the experiment&camera, and a few texts. But if I hadn't known the building, I would never have found out about it, no signs, nothing.

leoc 3y ago

One thing the article doesn't mention, but which the text visible in the image does, is that Kelvin's pitch glacier was created to demonstrate ideas about how the luminiferous ether worked! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminiferous_aether https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminiferous_aether Is John Allen the only scientist to miss out on both a Nobel and an Ig Nobel? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Allen_(physicist) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Allen_(physicist)

LudwigNagasena 3y ago
Another fun fact, Lorentz transformation was created to explain why we can’t detect ether even though we move relatively to it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorentz_ether_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorentz_ether_theory

gcanyon 3y ago

I used to have a version of this experiment myself -- there was a desk toy that was a transparent tube with dark caps at either end and a somewhat viscous liquid inside. Because of refraction, bubbles in the tube looked much larger than they were, and so perhaps 30 of them would flow up, in about a minute, each time the tube was flipped. I bought one in 1996 or so, and picked the one that was the slowest -- it took maybe two minutes at the time. This turned out to be because the liquid was -- very slowly -- evaporating out of the tube, and getting thicker. Within a year, it took about 5 to 10 minutes. Within five years, it took over an hour. After ten years it took weeks. After fifteen years, it took most of a year. I last flipped it over in something like 2015, and after several years it appeared to be pretty much unmoving, although I assume it was still making progress. I used to joke that I wanted it to be flipped one last time and placed beside me in my coffin, but I lost it in a move several years ago.

flxfxp 3y ago
Do you remember what it was called? Brand?
- gcanyon 3y ago
  This looks similar: https://www.glowstoregifts.com/products/traveling-bubble-ooze-tube https://www.glowstoregifts.com/products/traveling-bubble-ooz... But that says it takes 30 minutes, which is definitely slower than even my slowpoke version was at the start.

divbzero 3y ago

A pitch drop was first captured on camera on 11 July 2013 at Trinity College Dublin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7jXjn7mIao https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7jXjn7mIao

neilkk 3y ago

> In October 2005, John Mainstone and the late Thomas Parnell were awarded the Ig Nobel Prize in physics, a parody of the Nobel Prize, for the pitch drop experiment. Embarrassing that the Ig Nobel prize has so little understanding of what valid science is. The awarders seem to be motivated by chasing the approval of very ignorant and biased people in the general public and the media.

rcxdude 3y ago
The Ig Nobel prize isn't always intended to target 'invalid' science or otherwise mock the awardees. It's mostly meant to highlight odd or obscure work. The wording they use is scientific work that "makes people laugh and then makes them think". Though it does look like it's more like a mix of both: earlier years especially do have awards that are more satirical in nature.
- neilkk 3y ago
  In other words they have attempted to rebrand themselves after justified criticism that they were promoting the mindset that sees climate change as fictional and academic enquiry as a waste of time.

yuki69536 3y ago

[flagged]