Longest Running Scientific Experiment
Time and its Measurements Week:

In 1984, the European Journal of Physics published a report on the three longest-running scientific experiments. The youngest of the three experiments (shown above), begun in 1927, has been measuring the fluidity of high-viscosity pitch by counting the frequency of drops out of a funnel (they fall once every 8 or 9 years–though no one has ever been around to see it happen). The second oldest of the experiments is the Beverly Clock (shown at left) at the University of Otago in New Zealand, which draws its energy from ambient temperature fluctuations that cause the air inside an air-tight chamber to expand and contract. According to Beverly’s calculations, “one can obtain more than sufficient energy to drive an efficient clock mechanism, typically a one pound weight falling one inch each day, from a volume of one cubic foot of air expanding under a 6° diurnal variation of temperature.” The clock has not been wound since 1864. The title of longest-running scientific experiment belongs to the Oxford Electric Bell, which has been ringing continuously (though almost inaudibly) on the same pair of batteries in the Clarendon Laboratory at Oxford since 1840.
[Acknowledgements to AIR]
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