Psychedelic Science!
Know what I always thought was totally enlightening? A lava lamp! Yeah, they’re so kewl. I don’t know if you’ve got one, but you turn it on and the stuff all flows all meditative like through the water… and the whole thing glows. Totally trippy!
Seems like, lava lamps is really science! Who knew? Here’s how it works. So, the lava lamp’s got two things in it, right? There’s the liquid, and then there’s the thicker stuff that goes up and down. How’s it move? It looks like magic! But it’s really science, see?
Here’s the physics: Heavy things sink, and light things float. Sounds really non-scientific, right? Cuz like a rock will sink, but a leaf will float. Science guys say, “Dense things sink, and less dense things float.” That’s cuz a really tiny rock and a really gigantic, humongous leaf might weigh the same… but the rock is smaller. It’s got more weight for its size. So it’s dense.
Anyway, heat makes things expand… they get bigger. So when the thick stuff in the lava lamp gets hot, cuz of the bulb at the bottom of the lamp heats it up, it expands. That means it’s less dense. So it goes up…. then it gets to the top, cools off, gets more dense again, and falls down. Up and down, up and down, as it gets hotter and colder. Kewl!
You can even make your own lava lamp at home. That’s one thing I like about science, is you can build things with it. Here’s a link that shows you how: http://www.oozinggoo.com/howto.html
And if you want to know some cool non-science stuff about lava lamps, here some info about the guy who invented them! He sounds like a bit of a wacko…. like me! http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa092297.htm
