In 1963, British entrepreneur Edward Craven Walker invented the Astro lamp. His inspiration came from a device he saw in a country pub in Dorset, England, which used two immiscible fluids as an egg timer. While this device was rudimentary, Craven saw its potential and decided to refine the concept and turn it into a lamp. Setting up a laboratory in a small shed, he experimented with different ingredients in various bottles. He discovered that one of the best containers was a Tree Top orange squash bottle, whose shape would go on to define the Astro Baby Lamp, or Astro Mini, as it was initially called. Craven, along with his wife Christine, founded the company Crestworth (later known as Mathmos) to manufacture the lamps. They operated from small buildings in an industrial estate in Poole, Dorset.
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Edward Craven Walker and Christine
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| Astro Lamp_1963 Advert |
The lamp consists of a bolus of specially colored wax inside a glass vessel, which is filled with clear or translucent liquid. The vessel is placed on a base containing an incandescent light bulb, whose heat causes temporary reductions in the wax's density and the liquid's surface tension. As the warmed wax rises through the liquid, it cools, loses its buoyancy, and falls back to the bottom of the vessel.
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Modern Astro Lamp by Mathmos
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