The Pitch Drop Experiment
This is a nice bit of science. Pitch is a tar dervivative and appears at room temperature to be a solid. In fact it is a highly viscous fluid as The Pitch Drop Experiment shows.
Glass has the same property. Although very solid and brittle at room temperature, the glass in very old church windows is thinner at the top than the bottom because the glass has 'flowed' downwards over the years.
Glass has the same property. Although very solid and brittle at room temperature, the glass in very old church windows is thinner at the top than the bottom because the glass has 'flowed' downwards over the years.
posted by phylos @ 23:22
6 Comments:
Gravity is having the same effect on my belly .... BUGGER!
nice new look--i am re-lurking again--busy month
hey Em
Nice to see you back,
I'm sure they said on QI last series that glass didn't show the same effect. I'm going to check the website and flaunt your faults before you....Mwahahahah
Flash on the QI site has this to say "Twopints(thats not me) - welcome. Although this idea is fairly widespread, our researches indicate that it's wrong and that glass is a bona fide solid. Our understanding is that the reason why glass in old buildings is thicker at the bottom of the pane is that they lacked the technology to make it perfectly uniform in thickness, so they put the thicker edge at the bottom because it stood up better that way."
I need to now locate my primary school headmaster Mr Higginson and pop him in the eye. Thanks to him I have been touting falsehoods about glass in two hemispheres.
I'm speechless - another myth busted
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