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Currently we convey to the story of Mária Telkes, 1 of the developers of photo voltaic-thermal storage systems. Telkes was so committed to the entire world of solar power that when she was operating at the Massachusetts Institute of Know-how, she attained the nickname the “Sun Queen.” Around her life span, she registered extra than 20 patents, practically all related to harnessing the energy of the sunshine.
Her innovations that utilized photo voltaic electricity involved an oven, a desalination unit and one particular of the 1st photo voltaic-heated homes, the Dover Sunlight Residence, made in 1948. We read about Mária Telkes from Erin Twamley, a children’s reserve creator who shares the stories, professions and the superpowers of day to day females. She claimed she would appreciate to see Telkes in every single fifth grade classroom to encourage youthful persons.
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Johanna Mayer: In 1948, a odd residence appeared in Dover, Massachusetts.
Now, Dover is a well-to-do suburb of Boston, but it utilized to be rural farm region. Narrow roadways, yawning eco-friendly lawns, fields with horses. The houses tended to be stately Colonials, or possibly the more recent ranch style.
So when this new dwelling went up… it trapped out. Major time.
Some say the dwelling resembled a wedge of cheese. Imagine obtaining a triangular wedge of cheddar and placing it on the table with the large side going through down. Which is the shape of this household. The slanted portion of the cheese wedge – the back of the house – seemed rather normal, with brown siding and some home windows. But the other side of the wedge – exactly where the rind would be – was a futuristic house house. It was lined edge to edge with eighteen 10-foot-tall, imposing glass windows… created to beckon in the sunlight.
I’m Johanna Mayer, and this is From Our Inbox, a collection from Missing Females of Science. This strange home was called the Dover Sun Dwelling. And it was the brainchild of Hungarian-American biophysicist Mária Telkes.
Erin Twamley: &hairspMy title is Erin Twamley. I am a kid’s e-book creator who enjoys to share the tales, occupations, and superpowers of day-to-day women.
Johanna Mayer: Erin writes publications about what she calls “everyday superheroes” – women who work in STEM, or science, technologies, engineering, and math. It was Erin who initially wrote to us about Mária Telkes.
Erin Twamley: I would enjoy Dr. Maria to be in every single fifth grade classroom. Dr. Maria really assisted to condition some of our comprehension of what we can do with photo voltaic electricity.
Johanna Mayer: Mária Telkes was born in Hungary in 1900, and got interested in photo voltaic electrical power even though researching at the University of Budapest. By 1924, she’d gotten her PhD in physical chemistry, and she determined to move to the US to get the job done as a biophysicist at the renowned Cleveland Clinic. Biophysicists generally implement the rules of physics and math to organic programs – for case in point, when she was at the Cleveland Clinic, Mária worked on a photoelectric machine that recorded mind waves.
Soon after a several a long time, she moved to MIT. And she became so committed to the world of photo voltaic, that she before long acquired a nickname: the Sunshine Queen.
Over her life time, the Sun Queen would make extra than 20 patents, almost all of which had to do with harnessing the energy of that good significant burning ball in the sky.
Erin Twamley: I consider one particular of the neatest things that she came up with is named 1 of the initial solar ovens that would be easy to use, and that could be made use of in remote areas.
Michelle Addington: This a person is near and dear to my heart due to the fact I designed a transportable, lightweight solar oven when I was a mechanical engineering scholar.
Johanna Mayer: This is Michelle Addington – she’s the previous Dean of the College of Texas at Austin Faculty of Architecture.
Michelle Addington: We simply cannot understand the amazing volume of thermal electricity that is contained in the solar. We will not arrive near to comprehending it.
Johanna Mayer: Mária employed this observation to make an ingeniously uncomplicated photo voltaic oven. In essence, it was that insulated space with a window, shrunk down to oven sizing. Steel plates and mirrors inside of the box captured the solar wavelengths that arrived via the glass window – and the oven would warmth up to 350 levels. During a demonstration of the oven, Mária reported, “Everything seems to taste so considerably much better when it is cooked by the sunshine.”
When Entire world War II broke out, Mária was quickly reassigned to the U.S. Office environment of Scientific Analysis and Advancement. And she was tasked with solving a critical trouble: American soldiers, stranded in the Pacific theater, have been dying of dehydration. As soon as once more, Mária turned to the sunlight.
Michelle Addington: You acquire your saltwater. You sort of unfold it on a surface ideally a black surface wherever it is going to obtain direct sunlight. The drinking water will evaporate. Obviously the salt will be left powering. So the drinking water evaporates and it will obtain on a surface that’s above it. Thanks to area tension or friction, as the drinking water vapor collects on that area, it will start to condense.
Johanna Mayer: And voila – drinkable water. The armed forces would finally consist of her photo voltaic desalination device in its formal conventional-concern emergency professional medical kits.
And in 1948, Dr. Mária Telkes turned her emphasis to what would maybe be her most ambitious task nonetheless: the Dover Sunlight Property.That peculiar, cheese-formed household with a row of 18 windows, built to use photo voltaic electricity to warmth a dwelling.
The residence was funded by the philanthropist Amelia Peabody and with the assistance of the popular architect Eleanor Raymond, Mária designed a home fit for a Solar Queen.
Here’s how it labored. These home windows? They have been sunlight collectors. There were two layers of glass, divided by some airspace and backed by a black sheet of metal. As the sunshine shined, the air in that place would heat up. And Mária put huge vats of Glauber salts near that heat air.
Michelle Addington: And so what would take place is these kind of salts started to liquefy. They were being absorbing and absorbing and absorbing and absorbing and absorbing heat. They essentially functioned as a battery. You know, so if there was no area for them to dump the heat, you know, they would just maintain going a lot more and extra liquid.
Johanna Mayer: So how do you extract the heat air from those salts?
Michelle Addington: Merely just type of go air about that. If you passed air above that, you started off to interesting down these substantial containers of salts. You’d warmth up the air as you ended up cooling down the vats of salts, as they had been providing up their warmth.
Johanna Mayer: Admirers circulated that warm air all over the house.
Michelle Addington: This authorized for secure ailments it acted as a fantastic battery, uh, and it could functionality for a number of times without having acquiring solar on it because of the total of vitality that was contained inside this form of substantial assortment of vats.
Johanna Mayer: For two yrs, the residence functioned pretty considerably as prepared. A family moved in, and took up residence in the cheese-shaped Sun Household, offering excursions to reporters and curious rubberneckers alike. It was the only residence in the planet heated entirely by photo voltaic electric power. But for the duration of the third New England winter, chilly difficult truth set in.
Michelle Addington: Two issues: The salts on their own are particularly alkaline and hence specified to corrosion. And corrosion is basically what sunk the task.
Johanna Mayer: Finally, simply because of the limitless melting and cooling and recrystallizing of the Glauber salts, the substance wasn’t becoming blended properly.
And the other difficulty? Very well, it’s just one that it’s possible wasn’t top rated of intellect for Mária again in the ‘40s, but is necessary for us to assume about now.
Michelle Addington: The most significant problem is the fact that cooling is a single of our our major wants. So much of the concentrate, of the entire passive photo voltaic movement, a whole lot of organic techniques for buildings was created on the assumption that we essential heat. Which is not the planet that we’re in. It truly is quick to heat. It can be actually really hard, requires significantly additional electricity to amazing, 3 situations much more power to transfer a BTU of heat out of a building than it is to place a BTU of warmth into a building.
Johanna Mayer: By 1954, the Sunshine House’s photo voltaic heating process officially went dark. But Mária Telkes was not discouraged. The Sun Queen realized that no one residence could respond to the world’s solar energy issues.
She as soon as claimed: “The issue of the sunlight-heated residence cannot be solved by 1 or two experimental residences. But each individual new household is a further experimental stepping stone toward the use of the sun as a gasoline source.”
Dr. Mária Telkes died in 1995, at age 94. But her legacy life on. Right now, the quantity of people putting in photo voltaic panels in their houses is consistently soaring – and in a modern Pew analyze, 39% of owners surveyed explained they ended up severely considering going solar.
And to individuals people nonetheless considering… I’ll go away you with the Sunshine Queen’s personal phrases, from 1951: She wrote: “Sunlight will be employed as a supply of vitality quicker or afterwards anyway. Why wait?”
Katie Hafner: Thanks to Erin Twamley for composing to us about Dr. Mária Telkes. If you want to study much more about her children’s reserve sequence on women of all ages who function in STEM, check out her web site. There’s a backlink in our episode description.
This episode of Dropped Ladies of Science: From Our Inbox was made by Johanna Mayer and engineered by Aaron Peterson. The senior producer was Erica Huang. Our executive producers are Amy Scharf, and myself, Katie Hafner. Lizzy Younan composes our tunes. We get our funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Basis and Schmidt Futures. And Paula Mangin did our great From Our Inbox artwork. PRX distributes us and our publishing associate is Scientific American.
Below at Misplaced Females of Science, it is our target to rescue female experts from the jaws of obscurity, but we want your help! If you know of a woman scientist who’s been lost to heritage, permit us know! You can go to our site to deliver us an e mail at lost females of science dot org. You will also discover the cell phone quantity to our idea line. We love having phone calls to the suggestion line. I’m Katie Hafner. Thanks for listening.
Many thanks for listening.
Further more reading through:
Libguides: MIT Properties: Dover Sunshine Household.” Dover Sunlight Residence – MIT Properties – LibGuides at MIT Libraries, libguides.mit.edu/c.php?g=175920&p=1160875.
Nemethy, Andrew. “In 1948, We Were being Human Guinea Pigs in the Strangest House in Dover – The Boston Globe.” BostonGlobe.Com, The Boston World, 20 Mar. 2019. ww.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2019/03/20/have been-human-guinea-pigs-strangest-property-dover/mxDe6r7xWHg3oMhUjDntPN/tale.html
“The Marvelously Creative Lifetime of Mária Telkes.” PBS, Public Broadcasting Provider, March 17,2023
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