Editor's Note: Scientific American 's George Musser will be chronicling his experiences installing solar panels and taking other steps to save energy in 60-Second Solar . Read his introduction here and see all posts here .

I came across the following unbylined news story from our June 1954 issue which I thought solarheads would enjoy. Not only does it recount the invention of the photovoltaic cell at Bell Labs , it provides one of the most elegant explanations I've seen of how the device works, though the predictions about its limited usefulness are charmingly dated. A brief excerpt from this story also appeared in the 50, 100 and 150 Years Ago column of our June 2004 issue.