TE
科技回声
首页24小时热榜最新最佳问答展示工作
GitHubTwitter
首页

科技回声

基于 Next.js 构建的科技新闻平台,提供全球科技新闻和讨论内容。

GitHubTwitter

首页

首页最新最佳问答展示工作

资源链接

HackerNews API原版 HackerNewsNext.js

© 2025 科技回声. 版权所有。

Trinity College experiment succeeds after 69 years

393 点作者 duggieawesome将近 12 年前

32 条评论

chm将近 12 年前
&quot;The experiment was begun by a colleague of Nobel Prize winner Ernest Walton in the physics department of Trinity in 1944.&quot;<p>Am I the only one who finds this insulting? They could at least name the guy!!!
评论 #6064222 未加载
评论 #6069991 未加载
robomartin将近 12 年前
The first thought that popped into my punny little brain was: Why didn&#x27;t they use a centrifuge to accelerate results?<p>The one variable that could be controlled is the gravitational force on the substance. If we were on the moon the experiment, as designed, would take far longer to produce a drop. By using a centrifuge they could have easily simulated significantly greater gravitational forces and arrived at a result much sooner.<p>EDIT:<p>The Queensland experiment data says that it takes about 13 years for a drop to form and fall [1]. You&#x27;d need less than 5,000 g&#x27;s to make it happen within a day or about 160 g&#x27;s to get results in 30 days.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/world-s-slowest-moving-drop-caught-on-camera-at-last-1.13418" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nature.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;world-s-slowest-moving-drop-caugh...</a>
评论 #6064976 未加载
评论 #6067875 未加载
评论 #6064305 未加载
评论 #6066455 未加载
peterkelly将近 12 年前
I bet the grad student involved is celebrating now that they can <i>finally</i> submit their thesis
评论 #6063806 未加载
评论 #6063878 未加载
评论 #6065916 未加载
duggieawesome将近 12 年前
It should be noted that this experiment is different than the Queensland experiment, which is still going on.<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitch_drop_experiment" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Pitch_drop_experiment</a>
评论 #6063667 未加载
kfury将近 12 年前
People have waited through so many failed attempts to record the drop that nobody wants to mention that they didn&#x27;t &#x27;really&#x27; record an unassisted drop. The bead is still connected when it hits bottom, and the tail doesn&#x27;t break until they raised up the suspended platform.<p>Check the video and notice that the suspended vessel jumps about 2 inches higher just after the drop.<p>It&#x27;s a good recording, but I&#x27;m looking forward to a better one in 2026.
jkn将近 12 年前
While I&#x27;m fond of this type of down-to-earth experiments, I&#x27;m curious about the scientific value of waiting for decades to observe the drop falling due to Earth&#x27;s gravity, versus placing the apparatus in a centrifuge, which I imagine would dramatically accelerate the process. Maybe the higher forces would affect the way the drop is formed, in a way that was deemed undesirable?
评论 #6065511 未加载
评论 #6064151 未加载
throwit1979将近 12 年前
Um, not to take away from the achievement of the result, but couldn&#x27;t this result have been obtained in much less time with higher force than 1G in, say, a centrifuge?
评论 #6064194 未加载
评论 #6064078 未加载
评论 #6067600 未加载
Peroni将近 12 年前
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitch_(resin)" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Pitch_(resin)</a>
评论 #6064682 未加载
morb将近 12 年前
Radiolab had an interesting segment about the Pitch Drop Experiment, interesting to listen: <a href="http://www.radiolab.org/2013/feb/05/never-quite-now/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.radiolab.org&#x2F;2013&#x2F;feb&#x2F;05&#x2F;never-quite-now&#x2F;</a>
评论 #6064261 未加载
Peroni将近 12 年前
I think (hope) it&#x27;s worth noting the location of this experiment. Trinity College, and the Irish in general, tend to gravitate towards romanticised notions. Even our scientists.<p>It honestly wouldn&#x27;t surprise me in the least if the experiment was initiated knowing full well it would take decades to complete but they went ahead anyway &#x27;for the craic&#x27;.
评论 #6063999 未加载
elmuchoprez将近 12 年前
&quot;Over several decades a number of drips did form in the funnel and fall into the jar, giving credence to the hypothesis that pitch is indeed viscous.&quot;<p>It sounds like the experiment, as designed, reached a conclusion in far less time than 69 years. It just took 69 years for someone to think about video taping it.
评论 #6064508 未加载
评论 #6064634 未加载
finnh将近 12 年前
I call shenanigans. In the time-lapse, the funnel &quot;jumps&quot; upward right when the drop falls (0:56). Unless the funnel&#x27;s mounted on a spring (?), this is a clear indication that somebody interfered with the drip. I declare this video null and void!<p>...or maybe the video camera just got jostled when all scientists started dancing around in their glee =)
评论 #6064180 未加载
ryen将近 12 年前
Have they analyzed the dripped substance? My first thought is that it could be from condensation formed on the pitch over a large amount of time due to temperature gradients.
shabble将近 12 年前
The Beal seed viability experiment[1] has been running for 120+ years, and iirc they keep increasing the interval between trials because there are only so many seeds stored, and so far they haven&#x27;t had a significant failure in germinating and growing them.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.amjbot.org/content/89/8/1285.full" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amjbot.org&#x2F;content&#x2F;89&#x2F;8&#x2F;1285.full</a>
tragomaskhalos将近 12 年前
My favourite thing about this story is the various times that this and similar experiments around the world missed capturing the actual drip due to various glitches and snafus; imagine the howl of anguish of the researcher coming in one morning to find that <i>yes</i> something has finally happened after all these years, only to discover that some doofus had left the lens cap on ....
matt1将近 12 年前
For a bit more background on the history of this experiment and why the previous drips were missed, check out this recent Radiolab podcast:<p><a href="http://joshuafoer.com/radiolab-the-pitch-drop-experiment/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;joshuafoer.com&#x2F;radiolab-the-pitch-drop-experiment&#x2F;</a>
评论 #6064691 未加载
wooptoo将近 12 年前
The title is misleading. The experiment did succeed before, it just hasn&#x27;t been captured on camera.
评论 #6064956 未加载
defective将近 12 年前
I think, after a few missed drops, that I might have added a backup camera.
评论 #6064049 未加载
adjustafresh将近 12 年前
Anyone else reminded of those old Heinz Ketchup ads...Anticipation <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoLoyg3JKRQ" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=uoLoyg3JKRQ</a>
carlsednaoui将近 12 年前
Heard about this the Pitch Drop Experiment on Radiolab couple weeks ago. Very interesting episode: <a href="http://www.radiolab.org/2013/feb/05/never-quite-now/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.radiolab.org&#x2F;2013&#x2F;feb&#x2F;05&#x2F;never-quite-now&#x2F;</a><p>&quot;...the Pitch Drop Experiment is so slow, you can watch it for hours (check out the live cam) and not detect the slightest movement. But that doesn&#x27;t mean nothing&#x27;s happening. Professor John Mainstone tells us about his desperate attempts to catch the flashes of action hiding inside this decades-long experiment.&quot;
ISL将近 12 年前
If you wanted to do this experiment with reasonable statistics, it&#x27;s quite amenable to parallelization. Pitch is cheap, funnels are cheap, dusty basement shelves are (potentially) cheap, and webcams are inexpensive. Doing ~300 of these in parallel wouldn&#x27;t be hard, and would allow considerable investigation of systematic effects.<p>Decade-scale experiments aren&#x27;t hard, but they do require planning.
dokem将近 12 年前
why did the pitch have to drip? Isn&#x27;t the fact that a drip was forming proof that the pitch was flowing?
评论 #6067767 未加载
user24将近 12 年前
I sort of take issue with &quot;experiment succeeds&quot;. You don&#x27;t (shouldn&#x27;t) set up an experiment to prove or disprove something, merely to discover.<p>I&#x27;m sure the issue, if indeed there is one, is with the reporting not the scientists though.
评论 #6064232 未加载
评论 #6064571 未加载
评论 #6067882 未加载
评论 #6064309 未加载
评论 #6069985 未加载
codezero将近 12 年前
Science has been confirming results for a long time without the aide of video proof. This sounds like fluff. It&#x27;s cool fluff, but it&#x27;s pretty ridiculous to assert that the theory couldn&#x27;t be proven without video proof.
donutdan4114将近 12 年前
View this one live: <a href="http://smp.uq.edu.au/content/pitch-drop-experiment" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;smp.uq.edu.au&#x2F;content&#x2F;pitch-drop-experiment</a>
thehme将近 12 年前
This is really cool. I only wish we knew the name of the &quot;colleague of Nobel Prize winner Ernest Walton&quot;, so he can get credit for this.
mathattack将近 12 年前
There couldn&#x27;t have been an easier way to test this?
aarondf将近 12 年前
That pitch was a little thick and quite slow. 6&#x2F;10.
juice13将近 12 年前
What&#x27;s up with one sentance per paragraph? Feels like reading the simple wikipedia.
adamrneary将近 12 年前
&quot;...the scientific value was questionable...&quot;
marco-fiset将近 12 年前
Am I the only one to think that this is pretty boring?
cupofjoakim将近 12 年前
Dude, I&#x27;m finding this hilarious. 69 years to prove that something is a fluid? I picture two really old scientists watching the tape, only to have one of the old geezers turning to the other to spill the sacred words: &quot;Told you so&quot;.
评论 #6063664 未加载
评论 #6063763 未加载
评论 #6063816 未加载