Mar 01 2010

Who Invented The Conventional Microwave Oven

Published by at 1:18 pm under Uncategorized

One of the greatest kitchen appliances ever developed is the microwave oven. Indeed, it\’s hard to think of a kitchen appliance that is so versatile. You can use it for everything from boiling water to reheating cooked foods to thawing, baking and even heating water. Did you ever wonder who invented this little kitchen god?

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.

In another experiment along with his colleague, he placed an egg near the magnetron tube.

Dr. Spencer and his colleague then realized they had something, but neither was quite sure what it was. They only knew that the results of these experiments showed that food could be cooked using low-density microwave energy.

After this, Dr. Spencer created a metal box and connected it to the microwave source. The result was that there was an enclosed space from where the energy could not escape. Then Dr. Spencer put some food inside the box and the temperature rose quickly and the food was cooked. Hence this was the first time ever when microwave energy was used to cook food.

This idea was further refined by other engineers. Raytheon Corporation filed for patent rights and proposed the use of microwaves for cooking food. For the first time, an oven built with the same technology was first placed in a restaurant in Boston for a trial period. It was a great success and the microwave oven was born.

In 1947, the first microwave oven was launched in the market. The earlier models were very big and very heavy. They were also very expensive, costing almost $5000. Also the ovens were getting over-heated and needed to be water cooled. Initially, the manufacturers installed spiral coils around the oven. Water was circulated through these coils and hence the oven was cooled.

If you\’d like to learn more about this, then you need to check out Panasonic Stainless Steel Microwaves.

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