Who Invented the Microwave?

Who Invented the Microwave?

By Andrew Kim

The microwave’s contribution to the cooking industry has been massive, and spawned a whole new generation of “fast food”. Things like noodles, popcorn, rice; anything that needs heating to be cooked was made available to the people who may not have the time, money or effort to cook the more traditional and accepted way.

Ever had any leftovers? Chicken, Spaghetti, Pizza… There are many foods that you need to go through a little bit of trouble to heat up. Unless if have the power of the MICROWAVE! Eating leftovers was never so easy!

Compared to how much we use this wonderful invention, it is quite surprising that most people do not know how the microwave works and how it was invented.

So who did invent the microwave? Well, inventing this was actually a complete accident! The person who did was called Percy Spencer. He worked for a company called Raytheon, and back in World War II, they were developing microwave radar transmitters.

In 1945, on one casual day, Spencer found out that a candy bar that was in his pocket was starting to melt. The microwaves from the radars have been heating up his candy bar.

After a bit of playing around and researching, he figured out that the microwaves may have been gathering up to heat food. Spencer made the very first oven using microwave technology.

But how does the microwave oven work?
Microwaves are absorbed by water, fats, and sugars and it is converted to heat. And since the microwave only needs to heat the food itself and not the things around it, it uses up a lot less energy than traditional ovens.

When the microwave first came out, almost six feet tall (183cm) and weighed about 750 pounds. (340 kgs) It was also $5,000, which would be equal to over $52,000 today.

So the next time you heat up something in the microwave, you’ll know a little piece of the history behind this amazing invention.