Lava Lamps

You might have seen one of those in a bookshelf or on a desk, sitting idly as a background prop. Have you ever wondered how they work and where they came from?

Where are they from?
They were invented in 1963 by a British man named Edward Craven Walker, who created one after observing an egg timer that had liquids in a container, and when exposed to heat from the bottom, it appeared to flow. And so in 1965, he filed a patent for this novel toy and it was granted. He set up the Crestworth company in the United Kingdom and started producing lava lamps under the name of "Astro". To this day, they are still manufactured in the UK in the same factory.

On the other hand, Edward Craven Walker sold the rights to manufacture them in the United States to Lava World International, which made them in Chicago but have suffered from plummeting quality since moving production to China.

So how do they work?
Between the base and the lid of the lava lamp is a bottle, which contains water, wax and surfacants that allow the molten wax to float the bottom and come back down to the bottom. On the very bottom of the bottle where most of the molten wax sits is a metal coil that helps returning wax re-coalesce back into the large lump.

Inside the bottom of the lava lamp is an incandescent light bulb, which functions as both a light source for illuminating the wax and providing heat for the bottle. The heat of the lightbulb melts the wax, which reduces the density of the wax enough that sections of it will float to the top. At the top, where it is cooler, the density of the wax will increase again - and when it is above that of the liquid, it will fall back down, where it rejoins the large wax bubble at the bottom.

I hoped you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it! Take care, and I'll see you next time.
Emerald out.