Sixty years ago, scientists at Bell Labs in New Jersey announced that the world finally had an efficient way to turn sunlight into electricity. On April 25, 1954, Daryl Chapin, electrical engineer, Gerald Pearson, physicist, and chemist Calvin Fuller demonstrated their invention, the first practical solar cell. It was made of silicon–which, by the way, would later become the prime ingredient in computer chips.
The following collection of images shows the wide variety of amazing, sometimes weird, and even funny usage of solar cells—whether from inside your pocket or in Earth’s orbit.
via Gizmodo
Calvin S. Fuller, physical chemist at Bell Laboratories, experimenting with the first solar cell that could generate significant amounts of electricity. Image: AT&T Archives
