Solar Oven
date: label: Date made
content: 1940
name: label: user
content: Abbot, Charles Greeley
label: maker
content: Abbot, Charles Greeley
notes: label: Description
content: Charles Greeley Abbot (1872–1973), the second director of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and the fifth secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, spent his scientific career measuring the intensity of solar radiation and seeking to correlate solar changes with weather conditions on the earth. He was also interested in the practical use of solar radiation. This cooker, which he built in 1940, uses a cylindrical aluminum mirror that is mounted parallel to the earth's axis to collect solar energy and focus it on a pyrex tube that is filled with a chlorinated benzene ("arochlor"); the energy is then transmitted to a square oven in which cakes and cookies could be baked. Abbot obtained a patent (#2,247,830) on this cooker in 1941.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Physical Sciences
label: See more items in
content: Energy & Power
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content: Natural Resources
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: PH.334632
label: catalog number
content: 334632
label: patent number
content: 2,247,830
label: accession number
content: 312088
objectType: label: Object Name
content: solar oven
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: mirror: 20 in; 50.8 cm
label: Measurements
content: thermometer: 7 7/8 in x 3/8 in; 20.0025 cm x .9525 cm