At some point in the next few months, a tendril of black tar-like substance will drop from a glass funnel and land in a beaker under a bell jar in what is thought to be the world's oldest scientific ...

In 1927, Professor Thomas Parnell of the University of Queensland in Australia set out to teach his students a lesson, and that lesson is still going on today and has at least another 100 years to go.

I had never been to a “Home Show” before. Although I was a homeowner for many years (in what seems like a lifetime ago), I never saw myself as someone who would stroll down aisles of vinyl-clad ...

Atlas Obscura on Slate is a new travel blog. Like us on Facebook, Tumblr, or follow us on Twitter @atlasobscura. To view the experiment that the University of Queensland's School of Maths and Physics ...

In 1927, a physics professor named Thomas Parnell launched an experiment on viscous liquids. 85 years later, we're still waiting for his results. It all began with a funnel, a beaker, and some melted ...

Sticky challenge One of the 37 pitch-drop experiments sent by Trinity College Dublin’s School of Physics to secondary schools all over Ireland. (Courtesy: Karl Gaff, TCD School of Physics) Nothing is ...

Grass grows quicker. Paint dries faster. Yet there’s something irresistible about watching the glacial flow of pitch. And now a long-forgotten experiment with pitch has come to light, probably the ...

It is designed to show that the brittle pitch is in fact, a liquid. Progress is so slow that now, 86 years later, only the ninth drop is forming No-one has witnessed the drop including the scientist ...