ONE DROP EVERY EIGHT OR NINE YEARS.

ONE DROP EVERY EIGHT OR NINE YEARS. There are some kinds of crude oil in California that are extremely viscous. So viscous that at room temperature you can turn a glass container of the crude upside down and no drop will flow out. But perhaps you just have to wait a longer time. Instapundit linked to this description of a science experiment (or, as the Popsci article by Amber Williams notes, a demonstration) that has been running since 1927. The physicist who set it up wanted to demonstrate that “tar pitch, a derivative of coal so brittle that it can be smashed to pieces with a hammer, is in fact a highly viscous fluid.” The tar pitch is kept at room temperature. Every eight or nine years a drop (or “dollop” falls and is collected. No one has ever been there when a drop has fallen., but there is now a webcam focused on the tar pitch. This article has the webcam and a picture of tar pitch which has been shattered by a hammer.