Brisbane's UQ is home to the famous Pitch Drop experiment, which holds the Guinness World Record for the longest-running laboratory experiment. The experiment demonstrates the fluidity and high viscosity of pitch, a derivative of tar that is the world's thickest known fluid and was once used for waterproofing boats. Thomas Parnell, UQ's first Professor of Physics, created the experiment in 1927 to illustrate that everyday materials can exhibit quite surprising properties. At room temperature pitch feels solid - even brittle - and can easily be shattered with a hammer. But, in fact, at room temperature the substance - which is 100 billion times more viscous than water - is actually fluid. In 1927 Professor Parnell heated a sample of pitch and poured it into a glass funnel with a sealed stem. He allowed the pitch to cool and settle for three years, and then in 1930 he cut the funnel's stem. Since then, the pitch has slowly dripped out of the funnel - so slowly that it took eight years for the first drop to fall, and more than 40 years for another five to follow. Now, 87 years after the funnel was cut, only nine drops have fallen - the last drop fell in April 2014 and we expect the next one to fall sometime in the 2020s.
The experiment is on display in the foyer of the Parnell Building. The experiment is able to be viewed between 7am-8pm daily, with entry via the door from the Great Court. The Physics Museum itself is open 8am-5pm on weekdays but you don't need to visit the museum to answer the questions for this cache.
In the glass cabinet containing the Pitchdrop Experiment there is a quote from a novel. To log a find on this virtual cache please visit the Experiment display, locate the quote from the book and answer these questions.
1 The title of the book and the author's name.
2 The page number the quote is from.
3 The first and last words of the quote.
4 Tell me what tool is on the shelf directly in front of the quote.
Bonus point if you know another novel that mentions the Pitch Drop Experiment.
Feel free to log the cache when you have sent these answers to me via Message Centre (or email), I will contact you only if I need clarification of your answers. Feel free to include a photo of yourself with the experiment but please make sure not to include the quote in the photo.
This Virtual Cache is part of a limited release of Virtuals created between June 4, 2019 and June 4, 2020. Only 4,000 cache owners were given the opportunity to hide a Virtual Cache. Learn more about Virtual Rewards 2.0 on the Geocaching Blog.