Question: How long do experiments go on for?

Anthony Caravaggi answered on 7 Mar 2017:

That depends on the study. My longest experiment involved finding out about hare populations in Northern Ireland and that took several months. On the other hand, I’ve done other experiments which have taken a few weeks.

Some experiments can take a very long time, however. For example, physicists at Trinity College in Dublin wanted to look at the viscosity of tar pitch. They had no idea that the experiment would be running for over 70 years before even one drop of tar pitch fell! That’s a long experiment.