A lecture about an experiment
Do the preparation task first. Then listen to the audio and do the exercises.
Preparation
Transcript
In today's lecture we're going to be talking about experiments, and I thought it might be interesting for you all to learn about the world's oldest continuously running laboratory experiment that is still going today. In fact, it holds the Guinness World Record for being the longest-running experiment. This experiment began in 1927 and has been going ever since.
It's called the 'pitch drop' experiment and it was created by Professor Thomas Parnell at the University of Queensland, Australia. Parnell was the university's first physics professor, and he wanted to show in this experiment that everyday materials, such as pitch, can have quite surprising properties.
You see, when pitch is at room temperature, it feels solid. You can easily break it with a hammer. However, it isn't in fact solid. At room temperature, pitch is many billions of times more viscous than water, but it's actually fluid.
In 1927, Professor Parnell took a sample of pitch. He heated it and poured it into a glass funnel. He allowed the pitch to cool and settle – for three years. He then turned the funnel upside down and cut the top off it.
Since then, the pitch has slowly dropped out of the funnel. How slowly? Well, the first drop took eight years to fall. It took another forty years for another five drops to fall. Today it's been almost 90 years since the experiment started. Only nine drops have fallen from the funnel. The last drop fell in April 2014 and the next one is expected to fall in the 2020s.
The experiment has a tragic story associated with it. Professor Parnell died without seeing a pitch drop. His replacement, Professor John Mainstone, became responsible for the pitch drop experiment from 1961. He held the job for 52 years, and missed seeing the drop fall three times – by a day in 1977, by just five minutes in 1988 and finally in 2000, when the webcam that was recording the experiment suffered a power outage for 20 minutes, during which time the pitch dropped.
The pitch drop experiment is something we can all participate in now. There's a live web stream that allows anyone to watch the glass funnel and wait for the fateful moment. A similar experiment to the Queensland pitch drop was set up in Dublin, and the video of the moment the pitch actually dropped went viral on the internet. It's interesting to see how a very slow event can spread news so quickly.
I know the Newton's Prism Experiment by Isaac Newton Newton used a glass prism and placed it in the path of a beam of sunlight entering a dark room through a small hole.
When the sunlight passed through the prism, it spread out into a band of colors such as red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet. This is what we now call the visible spectrum. From this, Newton concluded that white light is composed of different colors, and the prism separates those colors.
Hello, my name is Tiaranada Rasikah Hisma from Tanjungpura University.
One experiment I have heard about is the experiment with monkeys and bananas. In the story, the monkeys were punished when they tried to get the bananas, so they learned not to touch them. Later, even when the punishment stopped, the monkeys still stopped each other from getting the bananas. I think it is interesting because it shows how animals can learn a behavior and continue doing it even when they don't know the reason.
My name is Dwi Cici Dzulhijah, I am from Tanjungpura University.
I think the pitch drop experiment is really interesting. I was surprised that pitch looks like a solid thing, but actually it is a very thick liquid. I also think it is crazy that one drop can take many years to fall. The story about Professor Mainstone missing the drops was also kind of funny but also unfortunate. For me, this experiment shows that doing science needs a lot of patience.
There is one more famous experiment the name of it is humanity. How humanity was born? Early humans evolved from a shared ancestor with modern apes and chimpanzees. Gradual changes over long periods led to walking upright, bigger brains, and tool use. This slow biological development is explained by the science of evolution. But in fact why nobody seen this by his own eye's But in fact why nobody seen this by his own eye's ? Why from the acients till now wasn't any proof evidents, only - bla-bla-bla...
Yes, I know of another experiment, such as Double-Slit Experiment (Physics, 1801 / 1927): Thomas Young originally designed this experiment using light to prove it acts as a wave. Decades later, quantum physicists fired individual electrons through two narrow slits onto a detection screen. Instead of creating two straight lines, the particles created a wave-like interference pattern. Even stranger, when researchers placed detectors at the slits to see which slit the electron passed through, the particles stopped behaving like waves and acted like physical balls, revealing that matter behaves differently when observed.
Yes, I know of another experiment, such as Double-Slit Experiment (Physics, 1801 / 1927): Thomas Young originally designed this experiment using light to prove it acts as a wave. Decades later, quantum physicists fired individual electrons through two narrow slits onto a detection screen. Instead of creating two straight lines, the particles created a wave-like interference pattern. Even stranger, when researchers placed detectors at the slits to see which slit the electron passed through, the particles stopped behaving like waves and acted like physical balls, revealing that matter behaves differently when observed.
no, only investions
is it possible to break a liquid with a hammer?
Sorry, why in the task 1 / question 5 the answer is "He took over the experiment in 1927."?
In the transcript we find
"His replacement, Professor John Mainstone, became responsible for the pitch drop experiment from 1961. He held the job for 52 years"
hence the right answer should be
"He was responsible for the experiment for over fifty years."
shouldn't it?
Hello Vladsh,
The question asks 'Which of the following sentences is not true about Professor John Mainstone?'
John Mainstone took over the experiment in 1961, as you said. Therefore the statement is not true.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team