Who Invented The Conventional Microwave Oven
Microwave oven is one of the best inventions ever made by a human being. Besides warming the food, it can also be used for cooking, boiling, defrosting and baking purpose. It is a kitchen appliance which can be used for variety of purposes. Lets find out who invented this great product.
Dr Percy Spencer was an engineer working at Raytheon Corporation. In 1946, he was heading a research project about radars. While he was working on the project and a new vacuum tube ‘magnetron’, he found that the candy bar in his pocket had melted due to the heat produced.
Surprised by the outcome, be began to study in detail about the process that happened and did several other experiments. One of the experiment was that he put some popcorn kernels near the tube and was surprised to see the popcorn cracking and scattered all over the room.
Next, he decided to conduct another test which involved an egg. He placed the egg near the tube and waited and watched along with his team.
Due to extreme pressure the egg began to shake. The heat inside the egg rose so much that it exploded. The yolk was scattered all over his colleagues face. Thus they realized that other food articles can be cooked using low density microwave energy.
After a lot of research work Dr. Spencer created a metal box and the box was connected to microwave power. It was designed in such a way when the door of the box was opened the microwave power will heat the inside of the box and when the door was closed, the heat created will be retained inside. This was enough to cook the food that Dr.Spencer had placed inside, within seconds. That was the first time food was cooked in a microwave oven.
Further, the food engineers worked on this technology to develop the idea further. In 1946, a company called Raytheon filed a patent for using microwave to cook food. Thus , similar to what Dr. Spencer had created, the redeveloped product was first put in Boston restaurant for testing and it was a huge success.
Then, in 1947, the first microwave oven was commercially created . Initial units were huge of about six feet and was seven fifty pounds in weight. They were priced exorbitantly at 50 00 dollars each. But still it was nothing as compared to the great use that it had. At that time some kind of plumbing material was used to cool the oven.
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