In 1927, Professor Thomas Parnell wanted to show his physics students a simple truth:
Some things that look solid… aren’t.
So, he began an experiment that would outlive him—and most of his students.
He poured a thick, black substance called pitch into a glass funnel. It looked like a rock. But pitch is a liquid—just an incredibly slow one.
He waited three years for it to settle. Then, in 1930, he cut the tip of the funnel.
And waited.
It took eight years for the first drop to fall.
And every drop since has taken about a decade to follow.
To date, only nine drops have fallen. That’s it.
It’s called the Pitch Drop Experiment, and it’s still going today at the University of Queensland in Australia.
It holds the Guinness World Record for the longest-running laboratory experiment in history. And it’s taught us that pitch is 230 billion times thicker than water.
Scientists tried filming the eighth drop with a webcam.
The camera glitched. The drop fell… unseen.
Even now, the setup remains—quiet, undramatic, but still moving.
And maybe that’s the point.
That in a world of instant everything, there’s beauty in patience.
That science isn’t always explosions—it’s also the hush of time passing.
And that even the slowest things… still move.
(Tom: This is particularly relevant to how we maintain our bodies and the speed at which we age them. Most changes, constructive or destructive, occur so slowly that in this age of 15 minutes of fame most people do not pause long enough to contemplate the long term consequences of their actions.
And what is a criminal? A person who does not predict the consequences of or take responsibility for their actions.
Am I saying that I have been criminally irresponsible for some of my past actions? Tough pill to swallow, but yes, I am.
I continue to assess my planned actions and modify them to improve outcomes.
This last week I have added some weight training and a rest day to my exercise regime and started eating even less in order to lose the next lot of weight to take me to my target level of fitness.
What are you changing this week?)
