From pitch to drops

October 14, 2005 2:07 PM

Longest lab experiment
posted by dov3 (21 comments total)

So do you figure they'll actually have a camera set up to record the next drop in 2012 or thereabouts?
posted by Faint of Butt at 2:16 PM on October 14, 2005

I'd say it's a repost but after 3 years, 4 months and 8 days (or 28231) it's neat to see the huge changes!
posted by substrate at 2:18 PM on October 14, 2005

Not only huge changes, but also it won the Ig Nobel Prize this year
posted by dov3 at 2:25 PM on October 14, 2005

I'm coming to the opinion that the longest lab experiment will turn out to be revealed on the television show "Lost." ;-)

"The Other are likely "whacked out" test subjects of a 30 - 40 year set of experiments by the Hanso Foundation.
posted by ericb at 2:26 PM on October 14, 2005

"The Others"
posted by ericb at 2:27 PM on October 14, 2005

What I wonder, what if you want to repeat the experiment? do you wait for the first one to be over or you start the new one before getting the whole results?
posted by dov3 at 2:27 PM on October 14, 2005

ericb, at the pace Lost is going it probably will be the longest TV drama show. Do not take me wrong, I love it but it is just too slow.
posted by dov3 at 2:29 PM on October 14, 2005

Do not take me wrong, I love it but it is just too slow.

Yeah -- it drags on-and-on. I'm of the mind to stop watching and wait for Season 2's DVD set -- and have a marathon viewing during a cold, rainy weekend.
posted by ericb at 2:34 PM on October 14, 2005

I will never complain about my graduate career again....
posted by Moral Animal at 2:35 PM on October 14, 2005

"Lost" refers to every viewer's time. And we will never get it back.
posted by davejay at 4:57 PM on October 14, 2005

Notwithstanding the Ig Nobel fame, "slower than pitch in a funnel" will never replace "molasses in January".
And nothing will ever be more slippery than greased weasel shit on a doorknob.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 5:24 PM on October 14, 2005

Notwithstanding the Ig Nobel fame, "slower than pitch in a funnel" will never replace "molasses in January".

How about "Mefi page delivery on a monday morning"?
posted by uncle harold at 6:06 PM on October 14, 2005

It's "molasses running uphill in January," if it's really slow.
posted by five fresh fish at 7:40 PM on October 14, 2005

It's "molasses running uphill in January," if it's really slow.

Ah, your comment invokes the "Great Molasses Flood in Boston" (of January 1919) -- previously discussed here.
posted by ericb at 7:58 PM on October 14, 2005

Now, if only someone would have the patience to try this with glass, we wouldn't have wild-ass speculation trumped about.
posted by dhartung at 8:25 PM on October 14, 2005

It won an Ignoble?

I don't get it. Looks like a pretty neato experiment to me, including scientific merit and everything.
posted by sour cream at 11:56 PM on October 14, 2005

I'm not sure it's the longest running experiment in history...
I can't find any references, which is annoying, but I seem to recall Isaac Newton filled a long glass tube with two different coloured liquids of equal density, such that there was a clear boundary between the two. He then put the tube, upright, in one of his homes, and measured how quickly the undisturbed fluids completely diffuse into each other.
Newton died in 1727. The experiment is still running...
posted by YAMWAK at 1:41 AM on October 15, 2005

We're just about to start an experiment where we bury nuclear waste in a mountain. Then will see whether someone gets curious and digs it up again. The experiment will go on for 100 000 years.
posted by springload at 8:31 AM on October 15, 2005

Second longest lab experiment: how long can my parents keep a jar of rotting dijon mustard in their fridge?
posted by ori at 5:11 PM on October 15, 2005

How would dijon mustard go rotten in the fridge?
posted by five fresh fish at 9:21 PM on October 15, 2005

Given a faulty fridge and plenty of time, that's not really as big a problem as you might imagine.
posted by ori at 2:25 AM on October 24, 2005