Will a lava lamp work on Jupiter?

Let's start out the new week on a lighter note. I came in on the end of an email conversation among several of my MIT classmates. (We have exchanges like this. It might come from taking physics and calculus together. It might be indicative of some other problem. I'm not sure.)

Dave to Bill and Doug:

OMG. Look at this:

Lava Lamp Centrifuge

Would a Lava Lamp work in a high-gravity environment such as Jupiter? Would the wax still rise to the surface? Would the blobs be smaller and faster? With broad disagreement on the answers, I built a large centrifuge to find out.

http://neil.fraser.name/hardware/centrifuge/

Aside from being highly dangerous (the builder describes several scenarios), he did get the answer.

Bill to Dave and Doug:

Well, inquiring minds want to know…

Doug to Bill and Dave:

This falls under the heading of what I call "rabid research", wherein some nut job decides to answer a seemingly unimportant question with a proper scientific experiment. Correctly done, it should involve serious overkill & inventiveness.

Nicely done!

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Mr. Fraser's video is below. If you can't see it, click here:

As he notes:

The centrifuge is a genuinely terrifying device. The lights dim when it is switched on. A strong wind is produced as the centrifuge induces a cyclone in the room. The smell of boiling insulation emanates from the overloaded 25 amp cables. If not perfectly adjusted and lubricated, it will shred the teeth off solid brass gears in under a second. Runs were conducted from the relative safety of the next room while peeking through a crack in the door.