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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.
Astounded with what he found, he began to conduct other experiments. While he placed some popcorn kernels near the tube and stood a few feet away, Dr. Spencer saw the kernels popping and sputtering all over the lab.
In yet another experiment, he placed an egg near the magnetron tube and asked another colleague to witness what happened with him. The egg, reacting to the application of extreme pressure, began to tremble. The temperature inside the egg caused the egg to explode, sending yoke all over the lab.
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.
Next, Dr. Spencer constructed a metallic box, the opening of which he connected directly to the source of the microwave energy. As the power could not escape the box, it remained concentrated inside the given space. When he put food inside the box and applied the microwave energy to it, the food cooked almost instantaneously. This was the first time food was cooked using low-density microwave technology.
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.
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 Stainless Steel Microwave.
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