Swan neck flask
flask with a curved neck that traps particulate

A swan neck flask, also known as a gooseneck flask, is a round-bottom flask with a narrow s-shaped tube as its opening to reduce contact between the inner contents and external environment. The motion of air through the tube is slowed and aerosolized bacteria or other particles in the air tend to become trapped by moisture on the tube's inner surfaces. The contents of the flask thus remain free of microbes, a property showcased by French microbiologist Louis Pasteur in nineteenth century experiments used to support germ theory as the cause of fermentation over spontaneous generation from bad air (miasma).
“Swan neck flask” enters the record as flask with a curved neck that traps particulate. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Swan, neck and flask can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 28, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q11936221. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Swan neck flask” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.