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 201 items.
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Incandescent lamp with tantalum filament
- Description
- By the late 1890s, carbon filament lamps were no longer the hand-made devices demonstrated by Thomas Edison. He and many others had refined them into mass-produced, reliable products. But the energy efficiency of carbon lamps remained poor, leading researchers—especially in Europe—to seek better filament materials. In 1902 Germans Werner von Bolton and Otto Feuerlien invented a filament made from element number 73, tantalum. Tantalum lamps produced 5 lumens per watt (lpw), much better than the 3.2 lpw of the carbon lamps of that day.
- The electrical resistance of tantalum was lower than carbon, though. In order for the total resistance of a tantalum lamp to match the total resistance of a carbon lamp, it had to have a much longer filament. In order to support the longer filament inside a bulb of reasonable size, von Bolton and Feuerlien used a series of hooks attached to the lamp's central glass stem. The filament wound up and down within the bulb. Though the design looked complex, it worked well and was later adopted for the tungsten filaments that replaced tantalum around 1910.
- This particular lamp was made by the inventors' employer, Siemens and Halske. Tantalum lamps became the first metal filament lamps offered for sale in the U.S. and in 1909 became the first lamps to carry the trade-name Mazda.
- Lamp characteristics: Brass medium-screw base with skirt and porcelain-dome insulator. A tantalum filament with 11 upper and10 lower support hooks. The support hooks are angled in order to keep tension on the filament, which tended to sag during operation. The stem assembly features soldered twist and crimp connectors, a Siemens-type press seal, and a cotton insulator. Tipped, straight-sided envelope.
- Date made
- ca 1907
- date made
- ca. 1907
- maker
- Siemens & Halske
- ID Number
- EM*239147
- catalog number
- 239147
- accession number
- 46578
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Incandescent lamp with ductile tungsten filament
- Description
- In 1904 several European inventors almost simultaneously developed lamp filaments made with the metal tungsten. These gave better energy efficiency than older carbon lamp filaments. However, tungsten proved a difficult metal to work. A pressing technique called "sintering" was used, but the resulting filaments were brittle and could not be bent once formed. Called "non-ductile" filaments, they required a complex mounting structure with several filaments placed one after the other in the electrical circuit.
- William Coolidge, working at the General Electric Research Laboratory in Schenectady, New York, began investigating how tungsten lamps might be improved by making a bendable or "ductile" wire. In 1909 he found an answer. By putting an ingot of sintered tungsten through a series of hot swagings and drawings through successively smaller dies, bendable wire of many diameters could be made. GE began selling Coolidge's lamp under the trade name "Mazda" beginning in 1910. Since it was the second generation of tungsten filament lamps, it became known as the Mazda B.
- Mazda B lamps sold well throughout the 1910s and 1920s. The heavy copper hooks supporting the filament in this particular example tell us this is an early Mazda B lamp. It dates from around 1911.
- Lamp characteristics: Brass medium-screw base with skirt and two glass insulators. Drawn tungsten filament with 6 upper and 5 lower heavy-copper support hooks. The black material seen on the lower hooks is called Needham's getter. It bonds chemically with oxygen and helps keep the filament from burning up. The stem assembly features crimp-style connectors, offset leads, a Siemens-type press seal, and a cotton insulator. Tipped, straight-sided envelope with taper at neck.
- Date made
- ca 1911
- date made
- ca. 1911
- ID Number
- EM*318637
- catalog number
- 318637
- accession number
- 232729
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Reproduction Edison Lamp with Box
- Description (Brief)
- This lamp was mass-produced for the centennial of Edison’s invention.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1979
- ID Number
- 1984.0314.03
- accession number
- 1984.0314
- catalog number
- 1984.0314.03
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Prototype Reflector Lamp
- Description (Brief)
- Reportedly the first ellipsoidal reflector lamp. See U.S. patent #4,041,344 issued to Frank LaGuisa.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1976
- maker
- General Electric Company
- ID Number
- 1985.0410.01
- accession number
- 1985.0410
- catalog number
- 1985.0410.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Standard Carbon Lamp
- Description (Brief)
- Typical carbon filament lamp tested at the National Bureau of Standards.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1905
- ID Number
- 1992.0342.01
- catalog number
- 1992.0342.01
- accession number
- 1992.0342
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Standard Carbon Lamp
- Description (Brief)
- Typical carbon filament lamp tested at the National Bureau of Standards.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1905
- ID Number
- 1992.0342.02
- catalog number
- 1992.0342.02
- accession number
- 1992.0342
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Standard Carbon Lamp
- Description (Brief)
- Typical carbon filament lamp tested at the National Bureau of Standards.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1905
- ID Number
- 1992.0342.03
- catalog number
- 1992.0342.03
- accession number
- 1992.0342
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Standard Carbon Lamp
- Description (Brief)
- Typical carbon filament lamp tested at the National Bureau of Standards.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1905
- ID Number
- 1992.0342.04
- catalog number
- 1992.0342.04
- accession number
- 1992.0342
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Standard Carbon Lamp
- Description (Brief)
- Siemens & Halske carbon filament lamp tested at the National Bureau of Standards.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1903
- maker
- Siemens & Halske
- ID Number
- 1992.0342.05
- catalog number
- 1992.0342.05
- accession number
- 1992.0342
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Standard Carbon Lamp
- Description (Brief)
- General Electric carbon filament lamp tested at the National Bureau of Standards.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1909
- maker
- General Electric Co.
- ID Number
- 1992.0342.10
- catalog number
- 1992.0342.10
- accession number
- 1992.0342
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
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