Abstract
Last month, the Newscripts gang brought you a tale of slow science: the famous pitch drop experiment that has been going on at Australia’s University of Queensland since 1927 (C&EN, July 29, page 72). The setup, which features a funnel full of pitch left to drip ever so slowly, is described as the longest-running laboratory experiment by the folks at Guinness World Records. The column prompted Don Borseth, a retired chemist in Williamston, Mich., to send us a note contesting the pitch experiment’s claim on the title. “Is Lord Kelvin’s experiment on the diffusion of a copper sulfate solution still being observed at the University of Glasgow?” he asked. “If so, is it not a longer running experiment than the pitch-flow one?” Good question. In 1872, Sir William Thomson, eventually known as Lord Kelvin, set up two vertical 17.5-foot glass tubes in a lecture theater designed for the experimental aspects ...
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