Horace-Bénédict de Saussure

Horace Bénédict de Saussure, 1740 to 1799, was a Genevan geologist, meteorologist, physicist and Alpine explorer, often called the founder of alpinism and modern meteorology. His place in energy history is the solar oven: in 1767 he built the first known Western solar oven, a well insulated box with three layers of glass that trapped outgoing thermal radiation, and the highest temperature he reached was 230 degrees Fahrenheit. Wikipedia describes him as the first person to build a successful one. He also measured the strength of solar radiation at different heights on mountain summits. He was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1784, among other learned societies.