Energy & Power
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.
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Modular fluorescent lamp
- Description
- In the wake of soaring energy prices in the 1970s, several manufacturers quickly introduced new lamp designs to meet a demand for efficient lighting devices. General Electric mounted a circular fluorescent tube on an adapter that housed a starter and ballast, and that could screw into an ordinary fixture. Called the Circlite, this hybrid product was introduced to the public in 1976.
- Since circular fluorescent tubes were already a mature product (originally developed in 1943), GE could take advantage of existing research data and production lines for the Circlite. Also, retailers and consumers were familiar with circular lamps, which eased resistance to the introduction of the new unit. The modular design allowed users to replace the tube when it failed, without having to replace the more expensive ballast package. Ultimately, GE and other manufacturers produced several versions of the lamp and refined the product. A light-weight electronic ballast replaced the heavier, less-efficient magnetic ballast used in this 1978 model, for example. As of today Circlites remain in production.
- Lamp characteristics: A modular fluorescent lamp with three components: ballast, mounting frame, and lamp. Ballast: aluminum medium-screw base with brass contact and a glass insulator. A plastic skirt houses a magnetic ballast and a receptacle for a circular fluorescent lamp frame. Mounting frame: a three-arm plastic frame (made in two halves) with a sliding switch to release the ballast. The ballast mounts at center of mounting frame. Lamp: circular fluorescent tube with soft white colored phosphor.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca. 1978
- Date made
- ca 1978
- manufacturer
- General Electric
- ID Number
- 1997.0388.25
- accession number
- 1997.0388
- catalog number
- 1997.0388.25
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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Section of rectangular vacuum chamber of SPEAR (Stanford Positron Electron Accelerating Ring) at SLAC
- Description
- Section of rectangular vacuum chamber with integral sputter ion vacuum pump. Since the complete vacuum chamber makes up a closed circular apparatus (SPEAR), object 1980.0177.03 has an arc-shaped length. Section cut away to reveal titanium sputter in vacuum pump.
- SPEAR (Stanford Positron Electron Accelerating Ring) at SLAC was completed in 1972. SPEAR consists of a single ring some 80 meters in diameter, in which counter-rotating beams of electrons and positrons were circulated at energies up to 4 GeV. SPEAR was the first storage ring/colliding beam facility (collider) to provide important new discoveries in elementary particle physics, e.g., the J/psi meson that is made up of a combination of a quark and an antiquark of an entirely new kind (charm quark) and a third lepton in addition to the electron and the muon (tau lepton). Subsequently, the SPEAR facility has served as an intense x-ray source for research in physics, chemistry and biology. For detailed information, see:
- http://www-ssrl.slac.stanford.edu/content/spear3/spear-history
- https://www6.slac.stanford.edu/news/2011-06-02-shedding-light.aspx
- Date made
- 1970-1972
- maker
- Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
- ID Number
- 1980.0177.03
- accession number
- 1980.0177
- catalog number
- 1980.0177.03
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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Penning cold-cathode ion source for neon, both parts
- Description
- Brass Rectangular base to which is screwed cylindrical sopper discharge chamber shell with copper water cooling tubing cemented around the outside and a tantalum insert around the exit slot. Water cooled copper rod with insulated high voltage coaxial power lead fits into slot in shell with tantlum button cathode at top and bogtom of discharge chamber.
- Specimen consists of used shell sandblasted clean with new tantalum cathodes and slot insert. Top cathode button the most common, so called "alternate" non water cooled arrangement. Word "neon" printed in capitals indicates shell used with neon gas. Tantalum replaceable lids lacking.
- Demonstrates cold cathode heavy ion source.
- ED Hudson, ML Mallory and SW Mosko, "High Performance Heavy Ion Source For Cyclotrons," "ORNL-TM-3391" (May 1971)
- Used with Oak Ridge 63-in. cyclotron (see object ID no. 1977.0359.41).
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1971
- manufacturer
- Oak Ridge National Laboratory
- ID Number
- 1977.0359.16
- catalog number
- 1977.0359.16
- accession number
- 1977.0359
- collector/donor number
- 76S6 type #6
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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Ship Tools from the Propeller Indiana, Shovel
- Description
- All the hand tools were found in the engine and boiler space below decks in Indiana’s hold, indicating that they were used for the machinery. The crew used the shovel to add coal to the fires.
- date made
- mid-1800s
- when the Indiana was found
- 1972
- ID Number
- 1979.1030.59
- accession number
- 1979.1030
- catalog number
- 1979.1030.59
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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Propeller Indiana’s Cargo of Iron Ore
- Description
- On 6 June 1858, the propeller Indiana sank in Lake Superior transporting its owner, three passengers and 280 tons of iron ore from Marquette, MI to Sault Ste. Marie, MI. The ship was insured for $9,000; the ore was insured separately for an undisclosed amount. One contemporary newspaper stated that it was the “first cargo of Lake Superior iron ore ever lost on the lakes.”
- The ship landed upright and slightly bow down on the lakebed in 120 feet of water; the bow split open and ore spilled out onto the sandy bottom. The deck of the shipwreck remains covered with iron ore today, and the cargo hold is filled about three feet deep with ore as well.
- Samples of the ore were recovered in 1979; upon analysis, they revealed that a high percentage of pure iron.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date propeller Indiana sank
- 1858-06-06
- samples of the ore were collected
- 1979
- ID Number
- 1979.1030.12.01
- catalog number
- 1979.1030.12
- accession number
- 1979.1030
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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Experimental Compact Fluorecent Lamp
- Description (Brief)
- Experimental Solenoidal Electric Field lamp with internal coil. Air-core coil, not a ferrite, energizes the gas.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1975
- maker
- Anderson, John M.
- ID Number
- 1998.0050.18
- accession number
- 1998.0050
- catalog number
- 1998.0050.18
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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Self-ballasted Mercury Vapor Lamp
- Description (Brief)
- This lamp was designed as a retrofit for mogul based, 500 W incandescent fixtures. Discharge lamps such as mercury vapor lamps require a ballast to prevent self-destruction. The goal with this product was to improve energy efficiency in the luminaire without requiring installation of a separate ballast. Also, the light emitted by the incandescent filament in this lamp would provide a minimal amount of color correction for the blue-green mercury discharge. Characteristics: brass mogul-screw base with glass insulator. Side-tipped, quartz arc-tube with two main electrodes (tungsten coil-on-coil on mandrels), a coiled tungsten starter electrode (a single-arch filament adjacent to the lower main electrode), multi-piece leads (stranded wire to solid wire to flat plate to ribbon to molybdenum wafer to electrode), flat presses. Mercury condensed on lower electrode. A C-9 tungsten filament (with 5 two-piece supports mounted to a glass bead affixed to one support frame-member) acts as a ballast resistance and is in series with the arc-tube. Crimp connectors on leads, spot-welds on mount-structure. A thermostatic (bi-metal) switch is in series with the starting electrode. Glass-tube insulators on filament legs, and ceramic insulator on switch. Getter dispenser mounted near stem-press. Tipless, PS-style envelope. See Duro-Test form 992 (High Intensity Discharge Lamps), page 3; and form 971-8210GTO15M (Fluomeric Lamps). Given to donor by an engineer who rescued the lamp from a south Baltimore warehouse which was being demolished around 1981. Fluomeric is a registered trade-mark of Duro-Test (as per 1955). Richard Neubert of Duro-Test reported that Jewell was a subsidiary of Duro-Test until 1981, and marketed the lamp under the trade name "Super Lumen" until around 1975. The trade-names were then consolidated and Jewell sold Fluomeric until 1981.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1978
- maker
- Jewell Products Inc.
- ID Number
- 2003.0030.03
- accession number
- 2003.0030
- catalog number
- 2003.0030.03
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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Environmental Button
- Description (Brief)
- Several types of renewable energy sources are available as alternatives to non-renewable, carbon-based fuels. This button advocates the use of solar energy to generate electricity. It was distributed in 1978 by Solar Action, the Washington, D.C.-based organization that helped to organize Sun Day (3 May 1978.) For many people, the 1970s energy crisis was a call to action to change how electricity was generated and used. Making the choice to “go solar”—and encouraging others to do the same—reflected growing optimism about the potential of clean, accessible solar energy.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1978
- maker
- Edward Horn Co.
- ID Number
- 2003.0014.0400
- accession number
- 2003.0014
- catalog number
- 2003.0014.0400
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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Experimental Projection Lamp
- Description (Brief)
- Mini-arc projection lamp. Reflector has a dichroic film that reflects visible light but transmits infrared light.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1976
- maker
- General Electric Company
- ID Number
- 1996.0147.39F
- accession number
- 1996.0147
- catalog number
- 1996.0147.39F
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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Experimental Lamp Components
- Description (Brief)
- Gemini lamp filaments and quartz body. A tungsten wire coiled around a 7mil mandrel, with 6 recoiled segments.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1972
- maker
- Fridrich, Elmer G.
- ID Number
- 1996.0147.44
- catalog number
- 1996.0147.44
- accession number
- 1996.0147
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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High Pressure Sodium Lamp
- Description (Brief)
- "Ceramalux" high pressure sodium lamp. The clear arc tube transmits more light than regular sodium lamps.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1970
- maker
- Westinghouse Electric Corporation
- ID Number
- 2001.0084.05
- accession number
- 2001.0084
- catalog number
- 2001.0084.05
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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Tungsten Filament Lamp
- Description (Brief)
- "Longer Life - Less Light” incandescent lamp. The life rating, light output and efficiency of an lamp are all linked.
- GE "Longer Life / Less Light Lamp". According to a GE engineer, this was an attempt at truth in advertising to show that the public would not buy a long-life lamp if they knew that lumen output was reduced. The unappealing color and type-face of package may indicate a half-hearted effort to sell this product. The lamp was produced in response to the Brooks Committee Congressional hearings into lamp life (1964-66) - the details on the package mirror the argument GE made to the Committee. Characteristics: medium-screw base with glass insulator. CC-6 tungsten filament with center support, crimp connectors, dumet leads. Tipless A-shape envelope with internal frost [IF] coating.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1978
- ca 1968
- maker
- General Electric Company
- ID Number
- 2003.0030.08
- accession number
- 2003.0030
- catalog number
- 2003.0030.08
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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Experimental High Pressure Sodium Lamp
- Description (Brief)
- An experimental high pressure sodium lamp with unusual monolithic arc tube seals. Possibly made by Kurt Schmidt.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1975
- Maker
- General Electric
- ID Number
- 1997.0388.11
- accession number
- 1997.0388
- catalog number
- 1997.0388.11
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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Preampliier for multiwire proportional chamber from J-particle experiment of S. Ting at Brookhaven
- Description
- One signal amplifier on rectangular plastic circuit board. Apparently one of these preamplifiers would have been plugged into one corresponding socket of Mulitwire Proportional Chamber 1989.0050.01.1. A sticker accompanying this object reads "8 wire signals [from associated socket on chamber] get amplified .0002V to .8V" (to output to the computer). Similarly for all sockets of all four chambers in each of the two arms of the spectrometer setup at the Brookhaven Alternating Gradient Synchrotron, which was used to measure electrons and positrons resulting from decay of a hypothesized massive "J" particle.
- Rectangular green plastic circuit board, with electronic components soldered on upper surface. As viewed from front of board: at left end of bottom edge are 12 contact strips, only 8 of which are connected to the circuits. Near the right end of the bottom edge are 10 such contact strips. Protruding from right edge are 10 pairs of short wires, which are inserted into a green plastic connector fitting, which has 9 contact sockets on the other side.
- For background on the multiwire proportional chamber from J-particle experiment of S. Ting at Brookhaven see description for object ID no. 1989.0050.01.1
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1972-1973
- designer
- Becker, Ulrich
- ID Number
- 1989.0050.01.2
- accession number
- 1989.0050
- catalog number
- 1989.0050.01.2
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
-
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
-
Multiwire proportional chamber from J-particle experiment of S. Ting at Brookhaven
- Description
- This object consists of a rectangular frame (steel, copper) holding signal wires (gold plated wires) separated by planes of high voltage wires (Cu-Be wire). Three planes of signal wires oriented at 60 degree increments; at +80, +20 and at -40. In operation, the entire chamber was filled with gas: 80% argon to provide an ionization medium for creating a detectable electrical signal; and 20% methylal, both as a spark extinguishing and as a cleaning agent (to prevent ageing of the wires due to carbon deposits). This chamber is one of four from left arm of the spectrometer setup at the Brookhaven Alternating Gradient Synchrotron (AGS), which measured electrons and positrons resulting from decay of a hypothesized massive "J" particle.
- Basic Principles and History
- A multiwire proportional chamber (MWPC) is constructed with alternating planes of high voltage wires (cathode) and sense wires (anode), which are at ground. All the wires are placed in a special gas environment. Spacing between planes is usually on the order of millimeters and voltage differences are typically in the kilovolt range. When a charged particle passes through the gas in the chamber, it will ionize gas molecules. The freed electrons are accelerated towards the sense wire (anode) by the electric field, ionizing more of the gas. In this way a cascade of charge develops and is deposited on the sense wires. The smaller the diameter of the sense wires, the higher the field gradient near the wire becomes. This in turn causes a larger cascade, increasing the efficiency of the chamber.
- Georges Charpak built the first MWPC in 1968. Unlike earlier particle detectors, such as the bubble chamber and the first generation of spark chambers, which can record the tracks left by particles at the rate of only one or two per second, the multiwire chamber records up to one million tracks per second and sends the data directly to a computer for analysis. In 1992 Charpak received the Nobel Prize for Physics in acknowledgment of his invention of the MWPC, an electronic particle detector that revolutionized high-energy physics experiments and has had applications in medical physics.
- The MWPC in the J-particle experiment of S.C.C. Ting at Brookhaven
- The 1976 Nobel Prize in physics was shared by a Massachusetts Institute of Technology physicist who used Brookhaven's Alternating Gradient Synchrotron (AGS) to discover a new particle and confirm the existence of the charmed quark. Samuel C.C. Ting was credited for finding what he called the "J" particle, the same particle as the "psi" found at nearly the same time at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center by a group led by Burton Richter. The particle is now known as the J/psi.
- Ting's experiment took advantage of the AGS's high-intensity, 30 GeV proton beams, which bombarded a stationary beryllium target to produce showers of particles. The decay modes of these particles were identified using a two-arm spectrometer detection system. J particles decay into various combinations of lighter particles; one of these combinations is an electron and a positron. A small fraction of these enter the detection system, one particle in each arm of the spectrometer. Then dipole magnets deflect them out of the plane of the intense beam and measure their momentum; Cerenkov counters measure their velocity; multi-wire proportional chambers their position; scintillator hodoscopes their moment of passage; lead-glass and lead-lucite shower counters their total energy.
- In each spectrometer arm there are 4 MWPCs (Ao, A, B, C) with 2 mm wire spacing and a total of 4,000 wires on each arm. There are eleven planes of proportional wires (2 in Ao, 3 each in A, B, & C), and in A, B, & C the planes are rotated 20 degrees with respect to each other to reduce multitrack ambiguities. To ensure the chambers have 100% uniform efficiency at low voltage and a long live time in the highly radioactive environment, a special argon-methylal gas mixture at 2 deg. C was used.
- The identification of the J-particle and its significance
- A strong peak in electron and positron production at an energy of 3.1 billion electron volts (GeV) led Ting to suspect the presence of a new particle, the same one found by Richter. Their discoveries not only won the Nobel Prize; they also helped confirm the existence of the charmed quark -- the J/psi is composed of a charmed quark bound to its antiquark.
- The J/ψ (or J/psi) is a very special particle. Its discovery was announced in 1974 independently by two groups: one lead by Samuel Ting at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) in New York and the second lead by Burton Richter at Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) in California. J/ψ is special because it established the quark model as a credible description of nature. Having been invented by Gell-Man and Zweig as a bookkeeping tool, it was not until Glashow, Iliopoulos and Maiani (GIM) that the concept of quarks as real particles was taken seriously. GIM predicted that if quarks were real, then they should come in pairs, like the up and down quarks. Candidates for the up, down, and strange were identified, but there was no partner for the strange quark. J/ψ was the key.
- Like the proton or an atom, the J/ψ is a composite particle. This means that J/ψ is made of smaller, more elementary particles. Specifically, it is a bound state of one charm quark and one anti-charm quark. Since it is made of quarks, it is a “hadron“. But since it is made of exactly one quark and one antiquark, it is specifically a “meson.”
- For further details, see
- http://hitoshi.berkeley.edu/129A/Cahn-Goldhaber/chapter9.pdf
- http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1976/ting-lecture.pdf
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1972-1973
- designer
- Becker, Ulrich
- ID Number
- 1989.0050.01.1
- accession number
- 1989.0050
- catalog number
- 1989.0050.01.1
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
-
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
-
Laser Amplifier Section
- Description
- This is one section of a laser amplifier tube from the Shiva experimental fusion apparatus, operated at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory from 1978 through 1981. Scientists used the Shiva device to test theories about how lasers might be used to trigger a nuclear fusion reaction. The research program was part of the continuing quest to harness nuclear fusion as a source of energy.
- Lasers are useful in this type of research since they emit a narrow beam of intense radiation. Shiva focused the energy of twenty laser beams on a tiny target of nuclear fuel to determine how the fuel would react. This amplifier tube is a short section of one of the twenty beam paths and contains panels made of neodymium glass that focus the light beam.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1977
- maker
- Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
- ID Number
- 1985.0236.11
- accession number
- 1985.0236
- catalog number
- 1985.0236.11
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
-
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
-
Penning cold-cathode ion source head for carbon
- Description
- Copper shell with attached water cooling tubing.
- Specimen heavily used, not sandblasted, shows extensive corrosion around exit slot. Word "CARBON" in capitals inscribed on outside of shell indicates its use for carbon ion beams
- Demonstrates cold cathode wear.
- ED Hudson, ML Mallory and SW Mosko, "High Performance Heavy Ion Source For Cyclotrons," "ORNL-TM-3391" (May 1971)
- Used with Oak Ridge 63-in. cyclotron (see object ID no. 1977.0359.41).
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1971
- manufacturer
- Oak Ridge National Laboratory
- ID Number
- 1977.0359.17
- accession number
- 1977.0359
- catalog number
- 1977.0359.17
- collector/donor number
- 76S6 type #7
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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