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Tar Pitch Drop Captured On Camera
New submitter Ron024 sends this news from Nature:
"After 69 years, one of the longest-running laboratory investigations in the world has finally captured the fall of a drop of tar pitch on camera for the first time. A similar, better-known and older experiment in Australia missed filming its latest drop in 2000 because the camera was offline at the time. The Dublin pitch-drop experiment was set up in 1944 at Trinity College Dublin to demonstrate the high viscosity or low fluidity of pitch — also known as bitumen or asphalt — a material that appears to be solid at room temperature, but is in fact flowing, albeit extremely slowly. ... The Trinity College team has estimated the viscosity of the pitch by monitoring the evolution of this one drop, and puts it in the region of 2 million times more viscous than honey, or 20 billion times the viscosity of water. The speed of formation of the drop can depend on the exact composition of the pitch, and environmental conditions such as temperature and vibration."
Glass bubbles do no rise in panes of glass. Glass is not a liquid.
http://io9.com/the-glass-is-a-liquid-myth-has-finally-been-destroyed-496190894
Nobody seems to be able to decide what the heck glass is. You've got the controversial cathedral glass thickness reports. Then you've got the slightly more easily provable fact that it shatters. The consensus seems to be that it's not completely solid and from there, people can argue all they want. But since the tar was inside glass and we have to assume the glass morphed, their measurement isn't completely accurate. So...time to start the experiment over again, lol
But that's not the only reason. The luminosity in the room changed slightly and the material is black. That means it changed temperature slightly, which over 69 years could cause significant viscosity measurement inaccuracies. Plus, the room probably wasn't even properly climate controlled anyway.
So let's start it over and do it right this time! Forget landing on Mars, we need to know the viscosity of tar, damn it!
It would be very likely because that is exactly what they did for stability reasons.