University of Queensland scientists began the pitch drop experiment in 1927 to prove that highly viscous materials like pitch are actually liquids, not solids.

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University of Queensland scientists began the pitch drop experiment in 1927 to prove that highly viscous materials like pitch are actually liquids, not solids. The experiment consists of tar slowly dripping through a funnel, and it moves so agonizingly slowly that only nine drops have fallen in nearly a century. Adding insult to injury, the original professor who started it missed every single drop, and the custodian of the experiment in the 1980s went to grab a coffee and missed the drop he had waited years to see. It is the ultimate scientific troll, a ninety-year-long practical joke played by physics on impatient academics who just want to see a black blob fall into a beaker. We now have a dedicated livestream pointing at this funnel twenty-four hours a day just to ensure we catch the tenth drop, proving that humanity will invest ridiculous amounts of technology just to watch literal tar not move. Science is mostly just waiting around and hoping you do not blink at the wrong decade