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 18 items.
Page 1 of 2
Daystrom 046 Mainframe Computer, "Little Gypsy"
- Description
- This section of the Daystrom 046 consists of the multiplexer, logic cabinets, and auxiliary memory. The 046 was manufactured by Daystrom's La Jolla division and was the company's first product utilizing transistors and core memory. Daystrom guaranteed a 99 percent availability, which was demonstrated at Louisiana Power & Light's Sterlington Plant. This 046 is the second purchased by Louisiana Power & Light. It was installed at the Little Gypsy Power Plant in 1961 in LaPlace, La., and was the first computer to control a power plant from startup to shutdown.
- Date made
- 1961
- maker
- Daystrom Incorporated
- ID Number
- 1990.0551.01
- accession number
- 1990.0551
- catalog number
- 1990.0551.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Reproduction Steinmetz Patent Lamp
- Description (Brief)
- A reproduction of Charles Steinmetz’s 1912 mercury vapor lamp made for defense of U.S. patent 3,234,421.
- date made
- 1965
- maker
- General Electric Lighting Company
- ID Number
- 1996.0084.02
- catalog number
- 1996.0084.02
- accession number
- 1996.0084
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Production Incandescent Lamp
- Description (Brief)
- A krypton-filled lamp in original package. Krypton gas made incandescent lamps slightly more energy efficient.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1966
- maker
- DURO-TEST Corporation
- ID Number
- 1997.0387.21
- accession number
- 1997.0387
- catalog number
- 1997.0387.21
- 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
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
Experimental Laser Crystal
- Description
- A major breakthrough marks only the beginning of a scientist's work. In November 1960 Peter Sorokin and Mirek Stevenson, at IBM's Watson Research Center, successfully demonstrated a second type of laser. They energized a crystal of calcium-fluorine treated with a variety of uranium (written in chemical symbols as CaF2:U3+) to generate a pulse of laser light.
- Sorokin and other colleagues experimented with many elements as they learned more about both pulsed and continuous-wave lasers. This crystal, from mid-1962, was the first one made of strontium, fluorine and samarium (SrF2:Sm2+) to successfully operate. Laser research was a very competitive field. Despite their efforts at IBM, Sorokin told museum staff that a team from Bell Labs, "made the first CW [continuous wave] solid-state laser using an ordinary crystal of CaF2:U3+. After that achievement we abandoned our CW efforts and went on to other topics." Those other topics included significant early work on generating laser beams using liquid dyes.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1962
- ID Number
- 1985.0268.06
- catalog number
- 1985.0268.06
- accession number
- 1985.0268
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Laser Discharge Apparatus
- Description
- This is the discharge unit for the third type of laser invented. Dr. Ali Javan and his colleagues William Bennett and Donald Herriott demonstrated this laser at Bell Labs in December 1960. Using a mixture of helium and neon gasses, this laser emitted a continuous beam of light at 1.153 nano-meters, in the near-infrared part of the spectrum. Their successful demonstration proved crucial for many applications. The first supermarket scanners, made by Spectra Physics, used a helium-neon laser, as have many other commercial devices.
- Ali Javan came to the U.S. from Iran in 1948 and trained in the laboratory of maser inventor Charles H. Townes at Columbia University. When he received his Ph.D. in 1954, Javan went to work at Bell Labs where began investigating the possibility of making a laser using a gaseous medium. His laser was the first gas laser as well as the first laser to produce a continuous beam of radiation.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1960
- maker
- Javan, Ali
- ID Number
- 2008.0153.01
- accession number
- 2008.0153
- catalog number
- 2008.0153.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Ruby Crystal from Maiman Laser
- Description
- This is a ruby crystal from Theodore Maiman's experiments of May 1960, and may be the first crystal to generate laser light. The synthetic crystal was mounted in a small holder that also contained a spiral flashlamp of the type photographers used. When the lamp flashed, the light pulse stimulated the atoms within the crystal. The atoms released that energy in the form of a laser light pulse.
- Maiman earned a Ph.D. in physics from Stanford in 1955 and went to work at Hughes Research Laboratories the following year where he worked on masers. After attending a conference in September 1959, Maiman ran experiments investigating the possibility that a ruby crystal might be capable of emitting laser light. The experiments proved successful when, on 16 May 1960, he and assistant Irnee D’Haenes demonstrated the first operating laser. Rather than producing a continuous beam, their ruby laser operated in pulses. Their success caught the scientific community by surprise and was a pivotal moment in the history of lasers.
- This crystal was one of several in the laboratory at the time of the experiments. No one knows with certainly which crystal actually generated the first laser light, though when the crystal was donated to the Smithsonian in 1967, officials at Hughes reported that this crystal was indeed the first.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1960
- associated date
- 1960-07
- associated institution
- Hughes Research Laboratories
- maker
- Maiman, Theodore H.
- Hughes Aircraft Company
- ID Number
- EM*330048
- catalog number
- 330048
- accession number
- 288813
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Head Piece from Maiman Laser
- Description
- This object may be the first laser. It was made by Theodore Maiman and his assistant Irnee D'Haenens at Hughes Aircraft Company in May 1960.
- In 1959 Maiman attended a technical conference on the subject of lasers. Maiman heard several speakers state that ruby was unsuitable for a laser but grew troubled by some of the numbers they cited. When he returned to his lab at Hughes he began experimenting. By May 1960 he and D'Haenens constructed several small metal cylinders. Each contained a photographer's spiral-shaped, xenon flashlamp that surrounded a small cylindrical crystal of synthetic ruby. When they fired the flashlamp, the burst of light stimulated the ruby crystal to emit a tightly focused pulse of light--the first operating laser.
- Hughes Aircraft donated this and several other pieces of Maiman's apparatus to the Smithsonian in 1970. The crystal mounted inside is from a 1961 experiment. While the donation records indicate that this is the first laser, Maiman wrote that he received the first laser as a gift when he left the company in April 1961. Several experimental models were made during the research, a common practice. So we may never know which unit actually generated the first laser light.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1960
- associated date
- 1960
- maker
- Maiman, Theodore H.
- Hughes Aircraft Company
- ID Number
- EM*330050
- accession number
- 288813
- catalog number
- 330050
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
- Next Page