The pitch drop experiment is a long-term experiment which measures the flow of a piece of pitch over many years. Pitch is the name for any of a number of highly viscous liquids which appear solid, most commonly bitumen. At room temperature, tar pitch flows at a very slow rate, taking several years to form a single drop.
Read more about Pitch Drop Experiment: University of Queensland Experiment
Famous quotes containing the words pitch, drop and/or experiment:
“He maintained that the case was lost or won by the time the final juror had been sworn in; his summation was set in his mind before the first witness was called. It was all in the orchestration, he claimed: in knowing how and where to pitch each and every particular argument; who to intimidate; who to trust, who to flatter and court; who to challenge; when to underplay and exactly when to let out all the stops.”
—Dorothy Uhnak (b. 1933)
“O make harmonious mix of voice and string
To him by whom the skies with clouds are lin’d;
By whom the rain, from clouds to drop assign’d,
Supples the clods of summer-scorched fields,”
—Bible: Hebrew Psalm CXLVII (Paraphrased by The Countess of Pembroke)
“Mathematics alone make us feel the limits of our intelligence. For we can always suppose in the case of an experiment that it is inexplicable because we don’t happen to have all the data. In mathematics we have all the data ... and yet we don’t understand. We always come back to the contemplation of our human wretchedness. What force is in relation to our will, the impenetrable opacity of mathematics is in relation to our intelligence.”
—Simone Weil (1909–1943)