Bellz Theorem, 5: Sun Battery
Act 2 opens on the roof. Out in the country the phone lines kept dying, because their dry cells rotted in the damp, so Daryl Chapin went looking for power from the sun. Selenium gave him about half of one per cent; Gerald Pearson's silicon about five times that; its shine threw the light back, so Calvin Fuller dulled it, and early in 1954 his best cell reached nearly six. On 25 April 1954 the solar battery turned a 21-inch toy Ferris wheel for the press, and the New York Times said it may mark the beginning of a new era. Its first real job was the one it was made for: a farm phone line near Americus, Georgia, in October 1955, the sun charging its battery. Then the sky took it: Vanguard 1, March 1958, the first of the satellites run on sunlight. Labelled liberties: Dot, Gus and Mr. Pruitt are made up (Pruitt never handed Chapin the job), and so is the roof. Chapin, Fuller and Pearson are house-style puppets, not likenesses. Song: Sun Battery, made for the show.
True story Every fact on screen was checked before release (2026-11-04). The dialogue is invented.
Cast
7
Sources
- APS News: April 25, 1954, Bell Labs demonstrates the first practical silicon solar cell
- IEEE Milestone: First Practical Photovoltaic Solar Cell (selenium 0.5%, Pearson's silicon 2.3%, Fuller's dull coating, nearly 6% early 1954, the 21-inch Ferris wheel, Vanguard 1)
- Bell System Memorial: the solar battery trial on a rural line near Americus, Georgia, installed October 1955
- Soperton News, 13 October 1955: solar power switched in on the line, and farmer George L. Mathews made the first call
- National Inventors Hall of Fame: Daryl Chapin (from early 1953, new sources of power for transistor telephone systems)
