|
A lava lamp is a novelty item typically used for decoration rather than illumination. The gentle flow of randomly-shaped blobs of wax suggests the flowing of lava. The lamps are available with a wide variety of container styles and colours of wax and liquid. Image File history File linksMetadata Size of this preview: 206 × 598 pixelsFull resolution (495 × 1437 pixel, file size: 93 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) Lavalampe (GNU-FDL, selbst fotografiert) Source: german wikipedia, original upload 12. ...
Image File history File linksMetadata Size of this preview: 206 × 598 pixelsFull resolution (495 × 1437 pixel, file size: 93 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) Lavalampe (GNU-FDL, selbst fotografiert) Source: german wikipedia, original upload 12. ...
A novelty is a small manufactured adornment, especially a personal adornment. ...
Look up lava, Aa, pahoehoe in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...
How it works
The lamp consists of an illuminating bulb which heats up the lamp's contents, a glass bottle containing water and a translucent mix of wax and carbon tetrachloride (although other combinations may be used), and a metallic wire coil. The glass bottle sits on top of the bulb. The metallic wire coil is hidden in the base of the lamp, on which the glass bottle is sitting. Transparent glass ball In optics, transparency is the property of allowing light to pass. ...
R-phrases , , , , S-phrases , , , , , Flash point Non flammable Supplementary data page Structure and properties n, εr, etc. ...
The wax is slightly more dense than the water at room temperature, and slightly less dense than the water under marginally warmer conditions. This happens because the wax expands more than the water when both are heated. For other uses, see Density (disambiguation). ...
While common wax is much less dense than water and would float in it at any temperature, a heavy, nonflammable solvent is added to tune the wax density to be just slightly higher than that of water.
When the lava lamp is turned on, the light bulb heats the bottom of the glass bottle which in turn heats the contents of the glass bottle in this vicinity.
Wax at the bottom heats until it melts, and eventually becomes less dense than the liquid above it. At this time, a portion of the wax rises towards the top of the container. Near the top, away from the heat source, the wax cools, contracts, and as its density increases it begins to fall through the liquid towards the bottom of the container again. Part of the reason for the shape of the lava lamp is that at the narrow tapered end there is more surface area per unit volume of liquid, therefore making liquid in this area experience a higher rate of cooling than that at the bottom, even if the lamp itself were off. This is a macroscopic, visible, form of convection heat transfer, although it also occurs on a molecular scale within the liquid itself. The difference in temperature between the top and bottom of the globe is only a few degrees. Macroscopic is commonly used to describe physical objects that are measurable and observable by the naked eye. ...
Convection in the most general terms refers to the internal movement of currents within fluids (i. ...
One mass of wax may rise as another falls. The metal coil at the bottom helps to overcome the surface tension of the individual wax droplets, causing the descending blobs to coalesce into a single molten wax mass at the bottom of the container. The cycle of rising and falling wax droplets continues so long as the bottom of the container remains warm and the top of the container remains cool. Operating temperatures of lava lamps vary, but are normally around 60 °C (140 °F). If too low or too high a wattage bulb is used in the base, the "lava" ceases to circulate, either remaining quiescent at the bottom (too cold) or all rising to the top (too hot). Surface tension is an effect within the surface layer of a liquid that causes that layer to behave as an elastic sheet. ...
Coalescence is the process by which two or more droplets (or bubbles) merge during contact to form a single daughter droplet (or bubble). ...
Celsius is, or relates to, the Celsius temperature scale (previously known as the centigrade scale). ...
For other uses, see Fahrenheit (disambiguation). ...
Chaotic behavior makes the movement of the wax unpredictable. The Lavarand system used this unpredictability as the basis of a hardware random number generator. For other uses, see Chaos Theory (disambiguation). ...
Lavarand™ is Silicon Graphics name for its method of generating pseudo-random numbers out of the patterns made by the floating material in lava lamps. ...
In computing, a hardware random number generator is an apparatus that generates random numbers from a physical process. ...
History An Englishman, Edward Craven Walker, invented the original and best-known lava lamp in the 1960s. His U.S. Patent 3,570,156 for "Display Device" was filed in 1965 and issued in 1968. [1] He named it the "Astrolight" or "Astro Lamp" and presented it at a Brussels trade show in 1965, where the entrepreneur Adolph Wertheimer noticed it. Wertheimer and his business partner William Rubinstein bought the American rights to the product and began to produce it as the "Lava Lite"® via a corporation called Lava Simplex International®. Wertheimer dropped out of the development of the product, while Rubinstein went on to manufacture and market the "Lava Lite" in his Chicago factory in the mid-60's. The lamps were a huge success nationwide throughout the rest of the '60s and early '70s. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (555x1878, 33 KB) A picture of a lava lamp. ...
Image File history File links Download high resolution version (555x1878, 33 KB) A picture of a lava lamp. ...
Edward Craven Walker (1918 – August 15, 2000), born in Singapore, is mainly remembered as being the inventor of the psychedelic Astro Lamp, known in the United States as the Lava Lamp. ...
The 1960s decade refers to the years from 1960 to 1969, inclusive. ...
Year 1965 (MCMLXV) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar) of the 1965 Gregorian calendar. ...
Year 1968 (MCMLXVIII) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...
For other places with the same name, see Brussels (disambiguation). ...
Year 1965 (MCMLXV) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar) of the 1965 Gregorian calendar. ...
The lava lamp became an icon of the 1960s, where the constantly changing, brightly coloured display has been compared to the psychedelic hallucinations of certain popular recreational drugs. Lava Simplex International also produced the "Wave Machine"®, the "Gem Light"®, the "Timette Wall Clock"® and the "Westminster Grandfather Clock"®. Look up icon in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...
The 1960s decade refers to the years from 1960 to 1969, inclusive. ...
For psychedelics, see psychedelic drug. ...
For other meanings, see Drug (disambiguation). ...
In 1986, Mr. Rubinstein and his partner Hy Spector sold Lava Simplex International to Eddie Sheldon and Larry Haggerty of Haggerty Enterprises. Haggerty Enterprises continues to produce and sell the Lava Lamp product line in the US. In the 1990s, Mr. Walker, who had the rights to England and Western Europe, sold his rights to Cressida Granger whose company, Mathmos, continues to make Lava Lamps and other related products. Only Mathmos lava lamps, are still made on the original factory where they have first been made, therefore keeping the original stunning flow of their original lamps.
Explosiveness An episode of the TV show MythBusters demonstrated that heating a lava lamp on a stove could cause the lamp to explode, and injuries sustained from such an explosion could be fatal.[1] The inspiration for that experiment came from a news story concerning a Kent, Washington, man who in 2004 died after a lava lamp that he was heating on a stove exploded, sending glass shards into his chest.[2] MythBusters is an American popular science television program on the Discovery Channel starring special effects experts Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman, who use basic elements of the scientific method to test the validity of various rumors and urban legends in popular culture. ...
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: MythBusters The cast/crew of the television series MythBusters performs experiments to verify or debunk urban legends, old wives tales, and the like. ...
Coordinates: , Country United States State Washington County King Founded May 28, 1890 Government - Mayor Suzette Cooke Area - City 28. ...
Image:Http://www1.istockphoto.com/file thumbview approve/2272667/2/istockphoto 2272667 lava lamp closeup isolated on white.jpg
See also This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...
References
External links Wikimedia Commons has media related to: |
Feeds |
Contact