Who invented the parabolic cooker?

The ancient Greeks first used parabolic mirrors in the third century BCE. Archimedes used a “burning mirror” in an attempt to repel Roman ships during the infamous siege of Syracuse.

Modern usage of the parabolic cookers has been traced to the beginning of the 18th century. In the 1760s, Horace de Saussure invented a solar oven that could reach a temperature of 230° C. In the mid 1800s, scientists and inventors across Europe and the United States built solar cookers of various types and efficiencies.

The contemporary design for a parabolic cooker was pioneered by Dr. Gerhard Doetsch, a German engineer, in the mid-1900s.