Telkes, Maria (1900–1995)

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Telkes, Maria (1900–1995)

Hungarian-born American physical chemist who investigated the practical uses of solar energy. Name variations: Maria de Telkes. Born Maria de Telkes on December 12, 1900, in Budapest, Hungary; died on December 2, 1995, in Budapest; daughter of Aladar de Telkes and Maria (Laban) de Telkes; naturalized U.S. citizen, 1937; Budapest University, B.A., 1920, Ph.D., 1924; never married; no children.

Maria Telkes, born Maria de Telkes in 1900 in Budapest, Hungary, developed her interest in science at an early age. In high school, she began to do extensive research on the sun and the possibilities of solar energy and learned to read the literature on the subject in four different languages. She received a number of academic prizes at Budapest University, from which she received a B.A. degree in 1920 and a Ph.D. in 1924. She taught physics in a Budapest school between 1923 and 1924.

On a visit to Cleveland, Ohio, in 1925, Telkes was invited to join the staff of the Cleveland Clinic Foundation. She continued her research as a biophysicist there until 1937, working for a time with Dr. George Crile on a series of experiments which led to the invention of a photoelectric mechanism for recording the energy of the human brain. She also collaborated with Crile on his book Phenomena of Life. After 1937, when she became a citizen of the United States, she was employed for two years as a research engineer at in the laboratories of Westinghouse Electrical and Manufacturing Company in East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development called upon Telkes to serve as civilian adviser during World War II. She developed a system for distilling fresh water from sea water, to be used on life rafts. In 1948, she applied some of the same technology to alleviate a water shortage in the Virgin Islands.

Telkes became a research associate in the solar energy conversion program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1939. A solar-heated house designed by Eleanor Raymond was built on the estate of a donor Amelia Peabody in Dover, Massachusetts. Telkes not only planned the system to be used in the house, but also lived in it for several months to test the system's effectiveness. The key to this solar-power system was the use of sodium sulphate decahydrate, a compound which crystallizes and retains heat. According to subsequent tenants of the house, it maintained a steady temperature, winter and summer. Telkes presented her plan at meetings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and at a forum sponsored by the New York Herald Tribune.

Telkes was the author of many scholarly articles on solar heating, thermoelectric generators and distillers, and electrical conductivity of solids and electrolytes. She did research at New York University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Delaware. She continued

experimenting, developing a solar-powered stove, and in the 1970s worked on an air-conditioning system which would store cool night air for use in the daytime. In 1977, she retired as a senior scientist at the University of Delaware but continued working as a consultant there into the 1990s. Ironically, she died in Budapest in 1995 on her first return visit since 1925.