I don’t think there are any calculations, except for an average of the time between past drops. But it seems quite likely to change that time, as now the drop has some degree of support from below to offset the pull of gravity.
Will it ever drop? At some point if the weight is supported below I could see the rest of the pitch flowing in like soft serve ice cream.
It has finally dropped, as can be seen from the live view: UQ Pitch Drop Experiment.
The custodian has taken the opportunity to place a new, empty beaker underneath.
Huzzah!
So I guess this thread is now going to become dormant before being revived as a zombie in about 2027.
You win the thread, sir. Well played.
Is there a video of the actual drop?
So it dropped even though the bottom was already resting on the previous drop? Seems they should refill the funnel, or the drops will get slower and slower.
Probably more interesting to observe that slowing than to just keep it going. Anyway, probably have another couple of decades to think about the issue…
The Wikipedia article on the experiment includes some details that I haven’t seen in any of the newspaper articles, and states that the ninth drop did not actually drop unaided:
I like the mention that the pitch is flowing 10 times slower than Australia is moving northwards. Yes, we’ve made something that can’t catch up to continental drift.
It’s not that impressive. You should have seen how my grandmother used to drive.
Continental drift - 5 mm/month (6 cm a year)
Fingernail growth - 3 mm/month
Pitch (here) - 0.5 mm/month (10 times as slow as continental drift)
Take a look at this machine. It’s an electric motor driving a series of 1/50 reduction gears. It will take more than two trillion years for the final gear to make one revolution. The output shaft is embedded in concrete.
That is so cool. Is there video of that running?
If so, I hope the background music is John Cage’s ASAP.
Quote:
The ninth drop touched the eighth drop on 17 April 2014. However, it was still attached to the funnel. On 24 April 2014, Pitch Drop custodian Andrew White decided to replace the beaker holding the previous eight drops before the ninth drop fused to them. While lifting the bell jar, the wooden base wobbled and the ninth drop snapped away from the funnel.
Shouldn’t they have to start all over again? You mess with your controls, you skew your data.
I don’t think the experiment was ever intended to be especially ‘controlled’, but simply a demonstration of the fluidity of a seemingly solid substance. The conditions would have changed quite a lot over the years. The apparatus has been moved around from location to location - it was hidden away in a cupboard for a while. And air-conditioning was installed in the building at some stage, stabilising the temperature and increasing the period between drops.
Mainstone wouldn’t have messed it up. Damn noob.