For a bit more background on the history of this experiment and why the previous drips were missed, check out this recent Radiolab podcast:
Trinity College experiment succeeds after 69 years
51–60 of 119 posts
Re: Trinity College experiment succeeds after 69 years
#52"Over several decades a number of drips did form in the funnel and fall into the jar, giving credence to the hypothesis that pitch is indeed viscous."
It sounds like the experiment, as designed, reached a conclusion in far less time than 69 years. It just took 69 years for someone to think about video taping it.
Re: Trinity College experiment succeeds after 69 years
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
How long would you have to run the centrifuge for? If it were 6-7 times faster, you would have to run a machine nonstop for 10 years. Seems like a tremendous waste of energy, heat from a motor which could affect the results, and a great likelihood of experimental equipment failure.
No, you could go a million times faster. A million! Here's an interesting resource: http://www.endmemo.com/bio/grpm.php Now, there might be reasons why a million g's might be a bad idea. Maybe 100K g's is a better choice. Someone with more expertise in centrifuge application could chip in and clarify this.
I'm not sure it would be valid. At a million g's, I'm a liquid. But most people would broadly speaking classify me as a solid (albeit one containing a lot of liquid).
Re: Trinity College experiment succeeds after 69 years
#54"Over several decades a number of drips did form in the funnel and fall into the jar, giving credence to the hypothesis that pitch is indeed viscous." It sounds like the experiment, as designed, reached a conclusion in far less time than 69 years. It just took 69 years for someone to think about video taping it.
Nope, assuming they designed it for scientific rigour. Without observation, it would be impossible to say, for instance, that some external force (vibration, wind, mischievous students) hadn't caused the drip to form or fall/break off. The experiment didn't reach a firm conclusion (to some level of certainty) without observation.
Re: Trinity College experiment succeeds after 69 years
#55I sort of take issue with "experiment succeeds". You don't (shouldn't) set up an experiment to prove or disprove something, merely to discover. I'm sure the issue, if indeed there is one, is with the reporting not the scientists though.
"Succeeded" sounds so much better than "rejected the null hypothesis."
Re: Trinity College experiment succeeds after 69 years
#56"Over several decades a number of drips did form in the funnel and fall into the jar, giving credence to the hypothesis that pitch is indeed viscous." It sounds like the experiment, as designed, reached a conclusion in far less time than 69 years. It just took 69 years for someone to think about video taping it.
Nope, assuming they designed it for scientific rigour. Without observation, it would be impossible to say, for instance, that some external force (vibration, wind, mischievous students) hadn't caused the drip to form or fall/break off. The experiment didn't reach a firm conclusion (to some level of certainty) without observation.
That's what the parent said: there were previous chances to definitively end the experiment by observing drips, but no-one thought to monitor it with a video camera until recently. There was no need to wait 69 years.
Re: Trinity College experiment succeeds after 69 years
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, you could go a million times faster. A million! Here's an interesting resource: http://www.endmemo.com/bio/grpm.php Now, there might be reasons why a million g's might be a bad idea. Maybe 100K g's is a better choice. Someone with more expertise in centrifuge application could chip in and clarify this.
I'm not sure it would be valid. At a million g's, I'm a liquid. But most people would broadly speaking classify me as a solid (albeit one containing a lot of liquid).
> At a million g's, I'm a liquid
Not really. You'll disintegrate in strange ways based on the relative density of your constituent parts.
: Another thought is that if you laid on a bed for 13 years (the time it took for a drop of pitch to form) without moving --ignoring tissue decay and other factors-- you'd probably "flow" just as you might in a high gravity environment. Gravity, like rust, never sleeps.
Yet, unless a domain expert says otherwise, I think your point is absolutely valid. However, pitch might just be the kind of substance that would be fine at a million g's. I don't know.
That's the reason for my request for comment from someone with centrifuge experience. At a million g's a lot of seemingly strange things can happen. However, perhaps 100, 1000 or 10,000 g's is reasonable. I used the million g example as an illustration of the attainable extreme in response to a comment that spoke about 6 or 7 g's. Clearly we can do better, far better.
In consultation with a domain expert (Chemist?) I would design the experiment to give results in somewhere between a day and a month. Faster if possible. The criteria would be to choose an acceleration that does not fundamentally change the nature of the substance under test. All we want to do is promote faster flow.
Re: Trinity College experiment succeeds after 69 years
#58"Over several decades a number of drips did form in the funnel and fall into the jar, giving credence to the hypothesis that pitch is indeed viscous." It sounds like the experiment, as designed, reached a conclusion in far less time than 69 years. It just took 69 years for someone to think about video taping it.
Why does a drop need to fall in order to prove the theory? Isn't seeing the drip forming enough?
Re: Trinity College experiment succeeds after 69 years
#59My favourite thing about this story is the various times that this and similar experiments around the world missed capturing the actual drip due to various glitches and snafus; imagine the howl of anguish of the researcher coming in one morning to find that yes something has finally happened after all these years, only to discover that some doofus had left the lens cap on ....
Re: Trinity College experiment succeeds after 69 years
#60http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitch_(resin)
"Petroleum-derived pitch is black in colour, hence the adjectival phrase, 'pitch-black'."
That was the most interesting thing I found in this experiment.