Don’t you just love lava lamps?

I got a lot of weird looks when I excitedly told people about two years ago that I had just bought a lava lamp. But what’s not to love about them? Plus they are great for teaching. These days kids don’t know them any more, so they are missing out on a really nice mental image of how convection works. Be it in the Earth’s mantle or in the ocean…

“Lava” flow.

When I moved into my new flat, for the first week I only had an inflatable air bed and my lava lamp in my living room (oh, and a lot of boxes of course). So I have spent a lot of time looking at how the flow changes over time.

Today, all I want to share is this 9 minute movie of the lava lamp. But I’m working on a post where I’m discussing the temporal development of the flow. Sounds interesting? Stay tuned! :-)