A lava lamp (or Astro lamp) is a decorative novelty item, invented by British accountant Edward Craven-Walker in 1963. The lamp contains blobs of colored wax inside a glass vessel filled with clear liquid; the wax rises and falls as its density changes due to heating from an incandescent light bulb underneath the vessel. The appearance of the wax is suggestive of pāhoehoe lava, hence the name. The lamps are designed in a variety of styles and colours.
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Famous quotes containing the words lava and/or lamp:
“We walk on molten lava on which the claw of a fly or the fall of a hair makes its impression, which being received, the mass hardens to flint and retains every impression forevermore.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“As one lamp lights another, nor grows less,
So nobleness enkindleth nobleness.”
—James Russell Lowell (1819–1891)