That is super interesting about the hourglass. I never considered that, but it makes sense. The sand is transitioning from a higher energy state to a lower one within a gravitational field. Each grain gains momentum during the fall, then exerts that force on the structure when it hits the bottom.
The lava lamps don’t start in a stored energy state. They add thermal energy that causes the convection, but the entire time there’s a conservation of momentum within the lamps.
It’s super cool idea, but I’m pretty sure the chandelier would be stable, not wobbly.
The wax itself moves constantly around the lamp and has mass. Since the frequency this occurs in and the mass within each blob that moves up or down is somewhat random, I would imagine there are times when more mass moves up than down in different parts of the chandelier.
I would expect that it would ever-so-slightly wobble because of that.
Conclusion: we have our opposing theories and an experimental design.
That wax is displacing water. Wax go up, displaced water go down. And they have very similar densities since the movement is so slow. So the net movement of mass is even smaller than what you’d assume.
There is still some movement, more importantly there is some rotational movement as water and wax swap places. So there is some gyroscopic effect exists, stronger than the linear forces.
So if that chain has too little friction (or if it was a string instead of chain) and the chandelier itself not so much mass that will absolutely dominate the lamps, then indeed some really chaotic and even otherworldly wobbling could be seen due to rotational momentum.
But I’m afraid it would be absorbed by the chandelier mass and the friction on the chain.
That is super interesting about the hourglass. I never considered that, but it makes sense. The sand is transitioning from a higher energy state to a lower one within a gravitational field. Each grain gains momentum during the fall, then exerts that force on the structure when it hits the bottom.
The lava lamps don’t start in a stored energy state. They add thermal energy that causes the convection, but the entire time there’s a conservation of momentum within the lamps.
It’s super cool idea, but I’m pretty sure the chandelier would be stable, not wobbly.
The wax itself moves constantly around the lamp and has mass. Since the frequency this occurs in and the mass within each blob that moves up or down is somewhat random, I would imagine there are times when more mass moves up than down in different parts of the chandelier.
I would expect that it would ever-so-slightly wobble because of that.
Conclusion: we have our opposing theories and an experimental design.
We must test this, for science!
That wax is displacing water. Wax go up, displaced water go down. And they have very similar densities since the movement is so slow. So the net movement of mass is even smaller than what you’d assume.
There is still some movement, more importantly there is some rotational movement as water and wax swap places. So there is some gyroscopic effect exists, stronger than the linear forces.
So if that chain has too little friction (or if it was a string instead of chain) and the chandelier itself not so much mass that will absolutely dominate the lamps, then indeed some really chaotic and even otherworldly wobbling could be seen due to rotational momentum.
But I’m afraid it would be absorbed by the chandelier mass and the friction on the chain.
It would have to be very slight indeed, since the wax needs to be close to neutrally buoyant in order to rise and fall with the heat currents.