  Slow flow of the viscous liquid is a thought-provoking experiment that
challenges students, academics and public to think about some fundamental
questions in modern science. In the Queensland demonstration, the world-longest
running experiment earning the Ig Nobel prize, one drop of pitch takes about 10
years to fall, leading to problems of actually observing the drops. Here, we
describe our recent demonstration of slowly-flowing bitumen where appreciable
flow is observed on the time scale of months. The experiment is free from
dissipative heating effects and has the potential to improve the accuracy of
measurement. Bitumen viscosity was calculated by undergraduate students during
the summer project. The worldwide access to the running experiment is provided
by webcams uploading the images to a dedicated website, enhancing student
education experience and promotion of science. This demonstration serves as an
attractive student education exercise and stimulates the discussion of
fundamental concepts and hotly debated ideas in modern physics research:
difference between solids and liquids, the nature of liquid-glass transition,
emergence of long time scales in a physical process, and the conflict between
human intuition and physical reality.
