  When a viscous fluid, like oil or syrup, streams from a small orifice and
falls freely under gravity, it forms a long slender thread, which can be
maintained in a stable, stationary state with lengths up to several meters. We
shall discuss the shape of such liquid threads and their surprising stability.
It turns out that the strong advection of the falling fluid can almost outrun
the Rayleigh-Plateau instability. Even for a very viscous fluid like sirup or
silicone oil, the asymptotic shape and stability is independent of viscosity
and small perturbations grow with time as $\exp({{\rm C} t^{{1/4}}})$, where
the constant is independent of viscosity. The corresponding spatial growth has
the form $\exp({(z/L)^{{1/8}}})$, where $z$ is the down stream distance and $L
\sim Q^2 \sigma^{-2} g$ and where $\sigma$ is the surface tension, $g$ is the
gravity and $Q$ is the flux. However, the value of viscosity determines the
break-up length of a thread $L_{\nu} \sim \nu^{1/4}$ and thus the possibility
of observing the $\exp({{\rm C} t^{{1/4}}})$ type asymptotics.
