Between our look at thelongest prison sentencesthe other day and the69 - year - old pitch drop experimentfinally getting get on television camera last month , reader Justin got funny and wrote in to expect , “ What ’s the long experimentation that scientists have fulfill their decades or lifetimes with ? ”
While the pitch cliff gets the nod for longestuninterruptedduration , there are at least two projects that started before it and keep going today , but have had some stop and starts along the room . The Old of the two , and grand champion for long time - in - forward motion , is theOxford Electric Bell , a.k.a . the Clarendon Dry Pile .
The bell , as the name propose , is an experimental electric bell keep at the University of Oxford ’s Clarendon Library . It was build by Watkin and Hill , an instrument - make firm in London , and purchased by Robert Walker , a professor at Oxford . In 1840 , he set it ring . Today the bell still tolls .
The bell is actually two metal bells , with a alloy glossa set between them . The clapper is powered by two “ dry piles , ” an early form of battery . wry piles were unremarkably compose of alternating airstrip of metal enhancer and paper — sometimes hundreds or thousands of layers thick — like electric club sandwiches . A variety of metals could be used , but Watkin and Hill leave no track record of what their piles were made of .
scientist are eager to find out just how long the enigma barrage can go , and then open it up and find out what it ’s made of , but the whole matter is a bit of a look plot . Whatever its makers used , the gimmick has some staying power . Guinness World Records called the Vanessa Stephen ’s dry piles the “ world ’s most durable battery , ” and for one hundred and seventy three years , minus occasional interruptions , the bell has been ringing .
The clapper oscillates between the two bells at a common frequency of 2Hz , or two oscillation per secondly , look on the weather . High humidity can cause the clapper ’s motion to slow up and even stop , but when the humidness drops the bell can commence again without outside intercession . As the clapper strikes and rings one bell , the corresponding ironic pile charges and electrostatically repel it . The clapper then swing toward the other campana , and the same matter happens .
Because there ’s just slight bite of energy being discharged through the cognitive operation , the drainage on the battery — whatever it ’s made of — is very small , so it can happen again and again and again , causing a continuous ringing . If we fudge a small and say that the glossa has had a 2Hz frequency for the integral 173 years , that means it ’s made a walloping 10,911,456,000 strikes against those bells .
Eventually , the electrochemical energy of the ironic cells will be exhausted and the bell will go quiet . Not knowing what powers the contraption , though , no one is certain when that will happen , and silence or else could come when the lingua or one of the bells wear out . Not that anyone can hear it , anyway : To keep the patron of the Clarendon Library from going mad from the haphazardness , the bell is kept encased in speech sound - damping methamphetamine .
The 2d longest - running experiment is an experimental clock ( called the Beverly Clock ) in New Zealand that ’s been ticking since 1864 without involve to be wind , and is driven by variations in atmospherical force per unit area and temperature .
