A Lava Lamp on Jupiter


(YouTube link)

Neil Fraser wondered if a lava lamp would still work in the higher gravity environment of Jupiter. How such a question ever occurs to anyone is a matter of wonder in itself, but Fraser went ahead and built a ten-foot wide centrifuge in his living room to conduct the experiment to answer his question.
The centrifuge is a genuinely terrifying device. The lights dim when it is switched on. A strong wind is produced as the centrifuge induces a cyclone in the room. The smell of boiling insulation emanates from the overloaded 25 amp cables. If not perfectly adjusted and lubricated, it will shred the teeth off solid brass gears in under a second. Runs were conducted from the relative safety of the next room while peeking through a crack in the door.
Highlight this text for a spoiler: Yes, the lava lamp worked in 3G. Link -via Digg

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You are damn lucky the cooling air did not create a temperature difference between one side of the glass and other, because it would have exploded, and your room would have been covered in smoking hot oil.
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A pivoting cradle is standard for a centrifuge, BTW.
I hadn't realized you could get a phone to display gravity, though.
And it's Meccano, not Erector Sets.
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loupgarou - that's the whole point - lava lamps work by having two imiscible liquids which are very close in density. So close that when the waxy one is cool it's more dense than the liquid and when warm it's less dense.
Changing the strength of gravity won't change the /relative/ densities, so as long as there's still some gravity it will work. What would stop it working is an absence of gravity - then there'd be no incentive for the two liquids to move to top and bottom.
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