A Lava Lamp on Jupiter

That’s awesome! Though I must add, there’s NO WAY I’d put my phone near that Lava Lamp!

That’s pretty cool. We also now know that video cameras work on Jupiter.
One possible fly in the ointment: Lava lamps work based on heat rising against the downward force of gravity.
In this experiment the heat is rising perpendicular to the force of the simulated gravity.

michaelb1, it’s not heat that is rising but less dense material. If a material were to contract when heated and become more dense (a few do) then it would sink.

there must be applications for this. Why do it? I’m asking an honest question here. Really cool experiment but what would be the point (besides just that it’s cool)?
thanks!

Kevin G, the way the lamp is aligned, centrifugal force does appear to be acting as gravity would. Your claim that gravity operates DOWNWARDS really means “towards the center of the attracting mass”. In this case, the centrifugal force generated by spinning the lava lamp ever so speedily, generates G forces of over 2 times Earth’s gravity (as can be seen on the iPhone). This does indeed mimic the effect of gravity.

Now, if the center of mass of a massive item is above your head, then gravity is operating UPWARDS. If you align the centrifuge differently, then it is not operating perpendicular to the gravitational force. But in any case, the G meter in the iPhone does read out over 2 Gs.

If you’re still angry about this experiment, please find someone to give you a hug.

You can see the effects of the uneven cooling because of the strong draught on one side.

The genius of this rig is the pivoting cradle. You have both gravity and the centrifugal force acting on the lava lamp, so it wouldn’t be directly horizontal, but rotated slightly when you add the two vectors together.

why does it work at all?

i mean, don’t centrifuges work to sort all the items in the container by density? why dont’ we see all lava and medium sort into layers

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.

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.

Where do you think asterhhoids come from?