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 6 items.
Experimental Tungsten Halogen Lamp
- Description (Brief)
- Early experimental tungsten halogen lamp made in mid 1955 by co-inventor Elmer Fridrich.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1955
- maker
- Fridrich, Elmer G.
- ID Number
- 1996.0147.01
- catalog number
- 1996.0147.01
- accession number
- 1996.0147
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Experimental Tungsten Halogen Lamp
- Description (Brief)
- Experimental tungsten-halogen lamp made during a study of the effects of differing concentrations of iodine.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1955
- maker
- Fridrich, Elmer G.
- ID Number
- 1996.0147.04
- accession number
- 1996.0147
- catalog number
- 1996.0147.04
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Experimental Fluorescent Lamp
- Description (Brief)
- Experimental fluorescent lamp. A glass rod on each stem assembly allows higher current levels and raises efficiency.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1958
- maker
- Westinghouse Electric Corporation
- ID Number
- 2001.0084.13
- accession number
- 2001.0084
- catalog number
- 2001.0084.13
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Experimental Fluorescent Lamp
- Description (Brief)
- Experimental fluorescent lamp with internal structure. A spiral glass rod allows higher current levels to be used.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1958
- maker
- Westinghouse Electric Corporation
- ID Number
- 2001.0084.14
- accession number
- 2001.0084
- catalog number
- 2001.0084.14
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Maser Focusing Assembly
- Description
- This object, the focusing assembly from the second maser, was made at Columbia University in 1954 by a team led by physicist Charles H. Townes. Maser stands for Microwave Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. Masers operate on the same principals as lasers, but they amplify microwaves instead of light. In fact, masers came first. Microwaves have lower energy levels than light and so were easier to produce, although the maser was not a simple invention.
- After working on microwave radar and other devices during the Second World War, Townes undertook investigations of microwave spectroscopy at Columbia University. Working with James Gordon and Herbert Zeigler, he successfully demonstrated an ammonia-beam maser in April 1954. The unit was quite large so Townes developed a smaller unit later that year, several pieces of which were donated to the Smithsonian in 1965.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1954
- associated date
- 1953
- maker
- Townes, Charles H.
- ID Number
- EM*323893
- catalog number
- 323893
- accession number
- 260038
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Wave guide with ruby crystal
- Description
- This is an experimental device made by Theodore Maiman at Hughes Aircraft in late 1959 or early 1960 as part of the series of experiments leading up to the demonstration of the first laser in May 1960. This object features a cube-shaped ruby crystal mounted at one end of a microwave wave-guide. Maiman sought to test the response of the synthetic ruby crystal to microwave stimulation. Other researchers claimed that ruby would be a poor material to use in a laser. Maiman thought otherwise.
- After Charles Townes invented the microwave-emitting maser in 1954, researchers began trying to move to the higher energy levels of infrared and visible light. They referred to such devices as "optical masers," and only later did people adopt Gordon Gould's term, "laser." This experimental piece clearly shows the influence of microwave technology. The metal tube is not a stand but rather a hollow guide that channels microwaves to the ruby crystal. The results of this and other experiments led Maiman to ultimately choose a cylinder of ruby rather than a cube for his laser.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1959
- associated date
- 1960
- associated user
- unknown
- associated institution
- Hughes Research Laboratories
- maker
- Maiman, Theodore H.
- Hughes Aircraft Company
- ID Number
- EM*330052
- accession number
- 288813
- catalog number
- 330052
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center