Evening Experiment: Make a Lava Lamp
By Mark Steer
Lava lamps have retained their charm even though they were popular in the 1970s. There’s just something so relaxing about watching those blobs blobbing up and down all evening. If that sounds good, but you’re feeling a bit light of wallet, here’s a way you can make your very own lava lamp…ish.What to do
- Get a 2-litre plastic bottle and fill it half full of vegetable oil. Please don’t use the left overs from lunch, that’d be nasty.
- Top the bottle up with water coloured with food dye. Put in a good few drops of dye (ten or so) to make sure that you get strong colours.
- Find an antacid tablet from somewhere – Aunty Carol’s probably already got hold of them due to her digestive troubles so see if you can prise them from her grasp.
- Drop an eighth of one tablet into the bottle.
- Sit back and watch your wondrous creation as globs of coloured water rise and fall with pleasing monotony. It might be time for a bit of a snooze.
- Once the reaction is over you can always restoke it by adding another small piece of antacid tablet.
What’s happened
| How it's done in video form. And a good demonstration of why you should only use a small amount of the tablet. |
When you add the antacid, it falls through the oil fairly benignly, but starts to react then it hits the water. It undergoes a chemical reaction which releases bubbles of carbon dioxide.
Water is attracted to the bubbles and is dragged up through the oil as the CO2 makes it way to the surface on a pleasingly slow and slightly meandering path.
Once it gets to the top the carbon dioxide is released into atmosphere (don’t worry, it’s not too much; you can offset the emissions by planting a small bush in the New Year). With the gas gone, the coloured water has nowhere to go but down, returning to bottom of the bottle.
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This experiment has been adapted from Mick O'Hare's excellent book How to Fossilise your Hamster see more at www.newscientist.com/hamster.
How about trying one of our other top tens:
This experiment has been adapted from Mick O'Hare's excellent book How to Fossilise your Hamster see more at www.newscientist.com/hamster.
How about trying one of our other top tens:
- Top Ten Crazy Xmas Gifts
- Top Ten Geek Holidays
- Top Ten Stupid Science Studies
- Top Ten Work-related Ills
- Top Ten Killer Vegetables
- Top Ten Weird Drinks
- Top Ten Grim Parasites
- Top Ten Things Science Hasn't Explained
Hub image: Michael W
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