Gustaf Dalén

Inventor and engineer

Swedish inventor who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1912 and designed the Aga cooker.

Gustaf Dalén grew up on a farm in Västergötland and trained as an engineer in Zürich and Stockholm. He became head of AB Gasaccumulator, which made lighthouses and gas lamps.

He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1912 for a regulator that controls the gas lighting in lighthouses and buoys, and lost his sight in an accident the same year. He then designed the Aga cooker, a cast-iron stove that stores heat and that is still made today.

• The Aga cooker