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.
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