Mathmos Lava Lamps were invented by Edward Craven-Walker in 1963, based on a wartime egg timer, and are still made in the same factory in Poole, England to the present day. Since then, Mathmos have been responible for a wide range of contemporary and sophisticated styles of lighting in new and interesting ways throughout the years. Taking its name from the 1968 erotic science-fiction film, Barberella, Mathmos refers to a sea of slime. In fact, the 'slime' we see illuminated inside the lava lamps are actually molten wax, rising with the heat radiating from a bulb at the bottom, and then falling once cooled at the top.