I was pleased to discover today on the Improbable Research Blog (the people who hand out the Ig Nobel Prizes) that in fact, a lava lamp will work on Jupiter. That’s a relief!

What’s even more improbable though, is that the erector set centerfugist who made the video is none other than the mysterious Neil Fraser, who’s path I’ve been near-missing regularly since the early 90s like some kind of ghost comet. I’m not sure he’d even recognise my name, but we met once (working on the Schoolnet MOO) about 15 years ago, and since then we’ve been running in apparently the same social and technical circles without ever colliding again. I’ve been stumbling on his prolific digital breadcrumbs all over Slashdot, Makezine and Youtube – the guy has been busy in the past decade or so.

If you’re reading this, Neil – when we finally do meet again, we should run and jump at eachother and see if our meeting undoes the universe.