It’s the question on everyone’s mind these days… Does a Lava Lamp work in a high-gravity environment such as Jupiter? Luckily Neil Fraser did all the leg work here and helped answer the question for you putting all our minds at rest.
This amazing experiment comprises of a lava lamp, camera, home-made centrifuge, Google Nexus One and a room large enough to handle a 50 kilo spinning centrifuge.
The centrifuge was built from Meccano and has a diameter of 3 meters. On one side is a holder for a Lava Lamp and Google Nexus One phone (for measuring gravity). On the other side is a camera to record how the lava lamp reacts and in the middle a complex motor system that needs to be oiled and kept running smoothly so it doesn’t spin out of control. The whole unit spins at 42 RPM.
When running, Neil describes the centrifuge as a terrifying device as a strong cyclone wind is produced in the room and with a 50KG weight you’d need to run if it detached from the base. Anyway, check out the video below to see this amazing experiment in action and to find out if indeed a Lava Lamp works at 2.3G. Things to note are that the Nexus One accelerometers report 2G while it should actually be 3G (bug in the OS reported to Google).
Via: TechEBlog
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