Lava lamps?
Answer:
im pretty sure that the liquid is a wax that melts. When the "wax" is heated it decreases in density and rises to the top of the lava lamp, once the ''wax'' reaches the top it cools and then increases in density and falls again. This process is endless as long as theres a set temperature for this to keep going. i think thats basically it good luck :)
heating, cooling, floating, and inversive submersion
The simple answer to what is happening inside the lamp is a convection cycle. What happens is that the light bulb at the bottom heats the "lava". When cool, the "lava" is more dense than the surrounding water, so it sinks. However, when it is heated, it becomes less dense than the water, and it rises to the top. At the top, it is farther from the heat source, so it cools off again and becomes more dense than the water. Since it is now more dense again, it sinks to the bottom. Then the cycle repeats.
Not a scientific answer but simply....the "lava" gets lighter as it heats up on the bulb at the bottom, so it floats to the top of then NOW heavyer liquid......
Then as it gets cooler it sinks back down to the bottom again.
the two liquids have different density properties. When cold, the clear liquid is less dense than the darker liquid. When heated, the darker liquid expands faster than the clear liquid and becomes less dense as a result. Therefore when heated, the darker liquid rises to the top. When it gets to the top, far enough away from the heat source, it cools down, contracts (becoming less dense) and drops to the bottom of the lamp.
it's just what it does
do your own homework. Go to search and type in"lava lamps" then click on the different sites until you find the one you are looking for.
Craven Walker invented the fad Lava lamp in post WWII England - Read how this bright 60s invention came to be :inventors.about.com
Why can't you type in "how a lava lamp works" on Yahoo? You kids are so lazy now days...when I was in school, we had to search through books, encyclopedias, magazines etc. It was real research...You guys have the Internet at your fingertips and you still don't want to do your own research? That's really sad...
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