Tuesday 25 June 2013

Bizarre liquids: Pitch

Science isn't all spaceships and thermite*. Some of the strangest science makes watching paint dry look like F1 racing.

Take pitch for example.

Y'see pitch has the molecular structure of a liquid. But pouring it takes patience - it takes around ten years for one drop to form and fall. The University of Queensland has had a cup of pitch pouring out of a funnel since 1927.

The ninth drop is expected to fall this year.



This liquid is twenty three billion times thicker than water. You can smash it with a hammer like glass, but watch the chunks long enough and they'll start to flow.

I have heard that, the last time a drop fell into the dish, the guy whose job it is to watch the experiment was down the hall taking a whizz.

He probably wasn't happy about that......

*Although that is what most scientists joined up for.

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