Energy & Power - Overview
The Museum's collections on energy and power illuminate the role of fire, steam, wind, water, electricity, and the atom in the nation's history. The artifacts include wood-burning stoves, water turbines, and windmills, as well as steam, gas, and diesel engines. Oil-exploration and coal-mining equipment form part of these collections, along with a computer that controlled a power plant and even bubble chambers—a tool of physicists to study protons, electrons, and other charged particles.
A special strength of the collections lies in objects related to the history of electrical power, including generators, batteries, cables, transformers, and early photovoltaic cells. A group of Thomas Edison's earliest light bulbs are a precious treasure. Hundreds of other objects represent the innumerable uses of electricity, from streetlights and railway signals to microwave ovens and satellite equipment.
"Energy & Power - Overview" showing 23 items.
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Laser Dyes
- Description
- Scientists first made lasers using solid crystals or mixtures of gasses in 1960. Lasers using liquid dyes were developed in 1965. Dyes proved useful for making lasers that could be tuned over a range of light frequencies, somewhat similar to a musical instrument that can be tuned to different sound frequencies. Each of these five glass ampoules contains about 1 microgram of dye in a solution with 50 milliliters of ethyl alcohol. The glass ampoules are storage containers. In operation a dye is typically pumped through the laser apparatus.
- These dye samples come from the Atomic Vapor Laser Isotope Separation Program (ALVIS) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Light from a copper-vapor laser changed color (or frequency) by passing through a given dye, resulting in a laser beam with a specific frequency. Different frequencies equal different energy levels. Since atoms absorb energy at different frequencies, changing the laser light's color is a good way to impart just the right amount of energy needed to separate atoms such as isotopes that are almost, but not quite, identical.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1984
- maker
- Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
- ID Number
- 1985.0236.12
- accession number
- 1985.0236
- catalog number
- 1985.0236.12
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Home-made Laser
- Description
- The term “home-made laser” almost seems a contradiction but that is not the case. This gas laser was built by high school student Stephen M. Fry in 1964, only four years after Ali Javan made the first gas laser at Bell Labs. Fry followed plans published in Scientific American's "The Amateur Scientist" column in September 1964, (page 227).
- The glass tube is filled with helium and neon and, as the magazine reported, "seems to consist merely of a gas-discharge tube that looks much like the letter 'I' in a neon sign; at the ends of the tube are flat windows that face a pair of small mirrors. Yet when power is applied, the device emits as many as six separate beams of intense light."
- The discharge tube is the only piece of this particular laser that remains. The flat windows (called "Brewster windows") are square instead of round, and the electrodes are parallel to the gas tube instead of perpendicular. Otherwise it resembles the drawings in the magazine. Fry later earned a Ph.D. in physics with a dissertation on lasers.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1964
- date ordered, given, or borrowed
- 1985-03-15
- maker
- Fry, Stephen M.
- ID Number
- 1985.0269.01
- accession number
- 1985.0269
- catalog number
- 1985.0269.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Laser for Compact Disc Player
- Description
- As scientists and engineers came to better understand lasers, they developed a multitude of uses for this light source. The development of Compact Discs (CDs) and Digital Video Discs (DVDs) revolutionized the audio and video recording industries. Lasers are essential in making and playing both types of discs. Scientists refer to laser light as "highly coherent," meaning that the photons stay tightly focused rather than spreading out like the light from a flashlight. Coherent light can be focused on a very small spot. The pits on CDs and DVDs are microscopic.
- This is the laser assembly from a Sony model D-5 "Discman" portable CD player. Donated in 1985, it shows how small lasers had become only 25 years after their invention. This object also shows the dramatic decrease in the amount of power needed to operate a laser. The power supply for Theodore Maiman's 1960 ruby laser is about 6 feet tall by 2 feet square and weights about 500 pounds. By contrast, the Sony "Discman" weighed less than 1 pound and operated on AA batteries.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1983
- 1984
- maker
- Sony Corporation
- ID Number
- 1985.0387.01
- accession number
- 1985.0387
- catalog number
- 1985.0387.01
- model number
- D-5
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Laser Target Designator
- Description
- A beam-type weapon, long familiar to science fiction fans, became a reality after the invention of lasers. That reality differed from fictional “ray guns” however. Rather than destroy a target directly, a solder used this battery-operated, portable laser to illuminate a selected target. A missile or other munition equipped with a special sensor detected the reflected light then homed-in on, and destroyed, the target.
- This model AN/PAQ-1 laser target designator was developed at Hughes Aircraft Company following Theodore Maiman's creation of the first successful laser in May 1960. Before donating the laser to the museum in 1987, the U.S. Army removed a classified component so the laser will no longer function.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1984
- maker
- Hughes Aircraft Company
- ID Number
- 1987.0026.01
- accession number
- 1987.0026
- catalog number
- 1987.0026.01
- model number
- AN/PAQ-1
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Supermarket Scanner
- Description
- On 26 June 1974, the first installation of supermarket scanners entered service in a Marsh supermarket in Troy, Ohio. This Spectra Physics model A price scanner, is one of those first ten scanners. A package of Wrigley's chewing gum became the first purchase made with scanners that could read the new Uniform Product Code (UPC or barcode). Mounted within the unit a helium-neon laser projected a beam onto a rotating mirror and thence up through a glass plate on the top surface. The light reflected from the code label on the package and was detected by a photo-diode. A computerized cash register matched the signal from the photo-diode with information in a stored database to determine which product was being scanned.
- Spectra Physics and NCR jointly developed the system, and provided the laser scanner and the computerized cash register, respectively. A group called the "Ad Hoc Committee of the Grocery Industry" developed the barcode itself. Organized in 1970 by the consulting firm McKinsey & Co., the Ad Hoc Committee consisted of senior executives of leading firms in the grocery industry. The coding system they devised had an enormous impact on a wide range of applications, most notably for retail sales and inventory control.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1974
- maker
- Spectra-Physics Scanning Systems, Inc.
- ID Number
- 1994.0180.01
- accession number
- 1994.0180
- catalog number
- 1994.0180.01
- serial number
- 006
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Prototype Excimer Laser
- Description
- Ralph Burnham and Nick Djeu made this prototype excimer laser in mid-1975 while at the Naval Research Laboratory. A modified carbon-dioxide laser known as a TEA laser (Transversely Excited, Atmospheric pressure), this laser used a mixture of xenon and fluoride gasses to produce a pulse of ultraviolet laser light. Ultraviolet light has a shorter wavelength than visible light and thus a higher energy level.
- The term "excimer" refers to a molecule of two identical atoms that remains stable when in an excited state. The first laser to use such molecules was made in Moscow in 1970 and used molecules consisting of two xenon atoms. Lasers using molecules of differing atoms (technically called an exciplex-laser) were made by several teams of researchers in the US early in 1975. Burnham and Djeu's breakthrough lay in using a commercially available TEA laser to generate the excimer laser pulse. Their apparatus was much smaller and used less energy than prior excimer lasers that were energized by electron-beams.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- ca 1976
- maker
- Naval Research Laboratory
- ID Number
- 1996.0343.01
- accession number
- 1996.0343
- catalog number
- 1996.0343.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Ruby Laser
- Description
- Lasers have served as teaching tools in more ways than one. This ruby laser, made by General Electric (GE), inspired teenager Ebe Helm from New Jersey to learn more about lasers.
- Mr. Helm wrote: "this laser head was originally on display in the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia as part of an electromagnetic spectrum exhibit from GE. It was a working unit that would fire downward on a spool of typewriter ribbon when a button was pushed. The hole it burned could be observed from several angles around its display and through large magnifying lenses arranged over it. ... I first saw this laser on display during a class trip in 1972. The laser had been on display for some years, possibly since the 1960's, and was not working. After it had been removed to a basement store room I managed to talk the Franklin Institute into giving it to me in 1976. I used the components to make an operational ruby laser in 1977 at age 17."
- Mr. Helm donated this laser, and several others, to the Smithsonian in 2005.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1978
- maker
- General Electric Company
- ID Number
- 2005.0034.01
- catalog number
- 2005.0034.01
- accession number
- 2005.0034
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Home-made Laser
- Description
- This carbon-dioxide gas laser was assembled and operated in 1979 by teenager Ebe Helm in the basement of his parent's New Jersey home. As Helm told museum staff, "The laser operated at 9000 volts, 120 milliamps, on alternating current. Because my gas supply was very limited, it functioned as a static, non-flowing gas laser. It did not function at the expected pressure of 4-10 torr, but only above 60 torr, well off the range of the vacuum gage I was using. The target is a building block donated from the nursery school that my mother operated from our home."
- Mr. Helm donated this and other lasers to the Smithsonian in 2005.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1979
- maker
- Helm, Ebe
- ID Number
- 2005.0034.02
- catalog number
- 2005.0034.02
- accession number
- 2005.0034
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Experimental Ruby Laser
- Description
- This is an experimental ruby laser made in 1963 at Ohio State University. Edward Damon, a researcher at the University’s Antenna Laboratory, made this and several other lasers during his investigation of Theodore Maiman’s successful ruby laser experiments of three years earlier.
- An important part of science consists of replicating the experiments conducted by other researchers and confirming their results. Like Maiman's 1960 laser, Damon's 1963 laser used a photographer's helical flashlamp to energize the ruby crystal. It demonstrated the use of mirrors external to the ruby rod instead of mirrors deposited in the crystal itself. The mirrors are on adjustable mounts that allowed Damon to make a variety of experiments with this unit.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1963
- ID Number
- 2009.0228.01
- accession number
- 2009.0228
- catalog number
- 2009.0228.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Experimental Ruby Laser
- Description
- This is an experimental ruby laser made in 1963 at Ohio State University. Edward Damon, a researcher at the University’s Antenna Laboratory, made this and several other lasers during his investigation of Theodore Maiman’s ruby laser experiments of three years earlier.
- In addition to replicating Maiman's 1960 experiments, Damon wished to explore variations of the ruby laser. Unlike Maiman's laser, this laser does not use a spiral flashlamp to energize the ruby crystal. Instead, Damon placed three linear flashlamps parallel to the rod-shaped laser crystal. Firing these lamps simultaneously provided energy to the crystal. The laser also demonstrates a water cooling technique still used in some lasers today.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1963
- ID Number
- 2009.0228.02
- accession number
- 2009.0228
- catalog number
- 2009.0228.02
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center