History of The Microwave Oven

they're quick to heat our leftovers pop our corn and cook up some bacon no kitchen will be complete without one of these light up peeping little boxes it's a button for defrost because this is the history of the microwave atom tragedy often times some great fails and the same could be said of the microwaves inventor Percy Spencer Spencer's father died when Percy was only 18 months old overcome with grief his mother dropped the baby off with an M and uncle at the age of 12 Percy left school although out of the academic environment he took a great interest in electricity and radio transmission some say his interest grew upon learning of the Titanic's disaster and that the inventive young man wanted to do something to foster radial power and prevent future tragedies at the age of 18 Spencer signed up with the United States Navy while serving his country he continued to learn all he could about metallurgy chemistry physics and calculus in addition he worked the wireless radio communication rules that would suit him later in his research for example on some cold days radio operators would huddle in front of the magnetron winters used to detect other ships these waves of energy produced by the emitters would warm the sailors Spencer we notice that and it would later help them with the Magnificent discovery after his service ended Spencer won to work at waiting a company known for his state-of-the-art devices as he worked on a magnetron he discovered that a candy bar in his pocket melted curious by that Spencer would later experiment with different food items such as eggs and corn kernels the results were cooked food and a breakthrough discoveries Spencer then coupled the magnetron with an enclosed metal box to focus the energy waves and speed up the cooking process Raytheon would later patent the device as the radar range on october 8 1935 as we know it today as solenoid the first commercial microwave sold in 1946 for a cost of $5,000 for the six foot tall and 700 pound contraption in 1967 the price dropped to four hundred ninety five dollars and by 1975 microwave ovens can be found fifty percent of American kitchen the popularity spread over time and 90% of homes had a microwave by 1994 microwaves work with non ionizing radiation which means that these little devices aren't harmful to their users the mesh covering on the doors allow light output bounce the waves back to the food metals such as aluminum attract those rage and low art so avoid using anything that is not labeled microwave safe the magnetron works on liquid entries but oils just aren't affected by the way so the next time you wait for those last kernels of popcorn to pop think about Percy Spencer and the work he did to make our food cook that much faster if you enjoyed this video then you may enjoy some of our other historical panels and if you really like this video please consider subscribing to this channel and becoming a part of history

Channel: History of Stuff

Views: 37,272

Keywords: history, stuff, educational, learning, junk, microwave, Percy Spencer, Raytheon, magnetron, emitter, radio, waves, food, tv dinner, microwavable, kitchen, cooking, Oven

Id: JaFAiDcV9Jg

Length: 3min 56sec (236 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 16 2017