Mária Telkes - Popularly known as ' The Sun Queen '.
                     MÁRIA TELKES - 
POPULARLY KNOWN 
AS  THE SUN QUEEN 
INTRODUCTION
 Mária Telkes, who would later come to be known as "The Sun Queen," was born in Hungary in 
1900 where she attended school and obtained a PhD in physical chemistry. 
 In 1925, she emigrated to the United States to work as a biophysicist.
Source: marthastewart
EARLY LIFE
•Telkes was born in Budapest, Hungary, on Dec. 12, 
1900. 
•She developed an early interest in science and 
studied physical chemistry at the University of 
Budapest, earning a bachelor’s degree in 1920 and 
a doctorate in 1924. 
•She emigrated to the United States one year later 
to begin working at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation 
as a biophysicist.
Source: invent.org
CAREER
•In 1937, Telkes started working at Westinghouse Electric 
as a research engineer. Her work here represented her 
first venture into solar technology, as she developed 
devices that converted heat energy into electrical 
energy. 
•In 1940, she joined the Solar Energy Conversion Project 
at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and 
began focusing on advancing the practical uses and 
applications of solar energy.
Source: invent.org
MEDIA SAVY
•Telkes was also media savvy. She knew that research 
programs would only fully embrace solar research if the 
public got excited about it. She frequently appeared in 
popular magazines and newspaper articles, where she 
voiced her enthusiasm for solar.
•The publicity helped her connect with modernist 
architect Eleanor Raymond, who agreed to work with 
Telkes to build the house she had envisioned. Together, 
they secured private financing from Boston 
philanthropist Amelia Peabody and built what came to 
be known as the Dover Sun House in 1948.
Source: spie.org
THE DOVER SUN HOUSE
•Constructed for about $20,000 in 1948 with 
funding from Boston sculptor Amelia Peabody, one 
of Telkes’ major accomplishments was helping to 
develop and build the Dover Sun House: “the only 
existing house heated solely with solar energy.” 
•Exhibited at an MIT symposium titled “Space 
Heating with Solar Energy” in August 1950, the 
Dover House was wedge shaped and had 18 
windows lining the south-facing wall along the 
second story.
Source: YouTube
THE DOVER SUN HOUSE 
CONTD.
•With its ability to store heat at an impressive seven 
times the efficiency of water, on sunny days, the 
salt would melt and absorb heat, thereby cooling 
the house during warm weather. During cold days, 
the salt would cool down and recrystallize, exerting 
its stored heat.
•The Dover House was able to regulate its 
temperature for two and a half winters. The 
experiment ended because the continuous melting 
and cooling of Glauber salt prevented the 
substance from mixing properly, causing the 
house’s heating system to fail.
Source: YouTube
SOLAR HEAT & ENERGY
•MIT, meanwhile, went to work building Solar III, 
which would use a water heat-sink method and, 
this time, also human inhabitants. But it was the 
Dover Sun house that wowed the press—perhaps in 
part because it was an unusual collaboration 
between three women and it was featured on a 
1949 cover of Popular Science.
•The house's solar-heating system functioned for 
three years before the Glauber's salts corroded the 
metal containers and made them leak. 
Nonetheless, the project succeeded in capturing 
the imagination of the public, who now had "solar 
heat" and "solar energy" in their vocabulary.
Source: YouTube
A LASTING LEGACY
•During World War II, Telkes developed a solar 
distillation device included inside the U.S. 
military’s emergency medical kits. Designed to 
be used by downed airmen and sailors, this 
portable device gave soldiers the ability to 
remove salt from seawater through vaporization. 
Once the water was cooled, soldiers had access 
to safe, potable drinking water.
•This same technology was later scaled up and 
redesigned to meet the water needs of the Virgin 
Islands, and it remains in use to this day.
Source: theverge.com/
HALL OF FAME
•Since the beginning of human civilization, people 
have used the natural energy produced by the sun 
(a staggering 38,460 septillion watts per second) to 
grow crops to cook food. However, as technology 
has continued to evolve, so too have the ways in 
which we are able to harness and store solar 
energy for even more specialized purposes.
•National Inventors Hall of Fame® (NIHF) Inductee 
Mária Telkes devoted her professional life to this 
undertaking, and in the process invented some of 
the world’s first solar heating systems, solar ovens 
and even a solar-powered water distilling system.
Source: indianexpress.com
THANK YOU TELKES