Here is a nice description of an experiment on-going since 1944 to capture the once-in-a-decade events when a drop of pitch falls through a funnel. Last Thursday, it happened, and webcam technology meant that the pitch drop was finally documented. Pitch is an example of a non-Newtonian fluid – a material whose flow properties are weird (to use the technical lingo — cornstarch in water is the classic example). Research in non-Newtonian fluids is happening in our Department.
This event was even more exciting than the discovery of the Higg’s boson! There are two versions of this experiment running – one in Australia and the one described above, in Ireland. The experiment in Australia is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest running scientific experiment. The pitch is actually Newtonian, but with a huge viscosity – about 230,000,000,000 times higher than water.