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Dropped in it

In the category of boring-yet-interesting webcams, we bring you the Pitch Drop experiment, courtesy of Clive Taylor, at North Devon Healthcare NHS Trust. This immortalises, almost literally, the work of Professor Thomas Parnell, begun in 1927. Rush immediately to: http://www.physics.uq.edu.au/pitchdrop/pitchdrop.shtml
Parnell wanted to show that pitch (the tar-derivative used by boatbuilders, which can apparently be shattered by a hammer), has the properties of a fluid, so he poured some into a funnel. More than 70 years later, the eighth drop is about to fall. Don’t miss it.

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