Lava lamp

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An original Mathmos Astro lava lamp.

A lava lamp (or Astro lamp) is a decorative novelty item, invented by British accountant Edward Craven Walker, the founder of Mathmos, in 1963. The lamp contains blobs of coloured wax inside a glass vessel filled with clear or translucent 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.


A blue lava lamp.

A classic lamp contains a standard incandescent bulb or halogen lamp which heats a tall (often tapered) glass bottle. A formula from 1968 U.S. patent consisted of water and a transparent, translucent or opaque mix of mineral oil, paraffin wax and carbon tetrachloride.[1]p 2 line 30 The clear water and/or mineral oil can optionally be coloured with transparent dyes.

Common wax has a density much lower than that of water, and would float on top under any temperature. However, carbon tetrachloride is heavier than water (also nonflammable and miscible with wax), and is added to the wax to make its density at room temperature slightly higher than that of the water. When heated, the wax mixture becomes less dense than the water, because the wax expands more than water when both are heated.[1]p 1 lines 40 and 45 It also becomes fluid, and blobs of wax ascend to the top of the device where they cool (which increases their density relative to that of the water) and then they descend.[1]p 1 line 47 A metallic wire coil in the base of the bottle acts as a surface tension breaker to recombine the cooled blobs of wax after they descend.

Video of an orange lava lamp in operation



The bulb is normally 25 to 40 watts. Generally it will take 45–60 minutes for the wax to warm up enough to freely form rising blobs, when operating the lamp at standard room temperature. It may take as long as 2 to 3 hours if the room is below standard room temperature.



Former Lava Lamp factory, at 1650 Irving Park Road, Chicago

A British accountant Edward Craven-Walker invented the lava lamp in 1963, after watching a homemade egg timer made out of a cocktail shaker filled with liquids bubbling on a stove top at a pub.[4] His U.S. Patent 3,387,396 for "Display Device" was filed in 1965 and issued in 1968.[1] Craven-Walker's company was named Crestworth and was based in Poole, Dorset, in the United Kingdom. Craven-Walker named the lamp "Astro", and had variations such as the "Astro Mini" and the "Astro Coach" lantern.

Craven-Walker presented it at a Brussels trade show in 1965, where the entrepreneur Adolph Wertheimer noticed it. Wertheimer and his business partner William M. Rubinstein bought the U.S. rights to manufacture and sell it as the "Lava Lite" via Lava Corporation or Lava Manufacturing Corporation.[citation needed] Wertheimer sold his shares to Hy Spector who took the product into production, manufacturing and marketing the Lava Lite in his Chicago factory at 1650 W. Irving Park Rd in the mid-1960s.[citation needed] These are now made in China.[citation needed]

In the 1990s, Craven-Walker, who had retained the rights for the rest of the world, took on a business partner called Cressida Granger. They changed the company name to Mathmos in 1992. Mathmos continues to make Lava Lamps and related products. Astro lavalamp was launched in 1963 and celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2013.[5] Mathmos lava lamps are still made in the original factory in Poole, Dorset.


In 2004, a man from Kent, Washington was supposedly killed while attempting to heat up a lava lamp on a kitchen stove while closely observing it from only a few feet away. The heat from the stove built up pressure in the lamp until it exploded and a shard pierced his heart causing fatal injuries.[6]


See also[edit]


  2. ^ "Toxicological Review of Carbon Tetrachloride". U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. March 2010.  EPA/635/R-08/005F
  6. ^ Lava Lamp Death at; AP story (via Fox News)

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