From Radar to Leftover Chinese Takeout
In 1945, engineer Percy Spencer was working for Raytheon and developing technology to be used in the ongoing war, when something in one of his pockets did something strange. Instead of ignoring it, he started experimenting, and our kitchens would never be quite the same.
Today’s Trivia Question
What WWII technology was Percy Spencer helping to improve when he stumbled on the idea behind microwave cooking?
Bonus points if you know what Spencer noticed happening in his coat pocket.
| A Few More for Fun… |
A melted candy bar was interesting, and Spencer was eager to determine if it was just plain old body heat or if he’d discovered something much bigger at work. So, he moved on to another food favorite.
What parameters best describe the first commercial ovens?
| A Few More Trivia Questions Before You Go… |
From one melted candy bar that turned wartime radar tech into a new way to cook, the microwave's trail runs through molecules, outer space, Hollywood, and a word that became useful enough to become a verb, among other things.
We are all familiar with using a microwave, and we even know if our own household model has any particular quirks. Engineers anticipated this…
Why does the plate inside most microwave ovens rotate while your food cooks?
Solving the physics inside the box was a challenge. Making that box small and affordable enough to put in an ordinary kitchen was another.
Convenience was now on the menu, but cheap convenience had to wait a bit. Even so, microwaves were becoming ordinary in kitchens, but elsewhere scientists were discovering that the universe had been broadcasting on microwave frequencies for billions of years.
Two scientists accidentally discovered the cosmic microwave background at Bell Labs in which state?
From whipping up a quick breakfast to evidence of the Big Bang, microwaves are more complex and mysterious than we can easily explain.
In American Hustle, what does Jennifer Lawrence’s character call her new microwave?
The character avoids the word microwave, which is interesting because the word was so new when countertop models began to appear that Better Homes & Gardens also thought of avoiding it and even tested another term.
Before “microwave” settled into the English language as both a noun and a verb, what alternative did Better Homes & Gardens try out?
Answers
Today’s question Answer: B. Radar. Spencer was an expert on magnetrons, vacuum tubes that generate microwaves and were crucial to wartime radar. While working around this type of equipment, he realized the energy coming from a magnetron was also producing heat. Bonus points if you knew it was a candy bar. Spencer realized that a candy bar in his pocket had melted while he stood near the magnetron. While most of us would have smacked our foreheads for putting a candy bar in a pocket and expecting it NOT to melt, Spencer knew he was on to something… | |
| 01 | Answer: D. Popcorn. Spencer placed unpopped kernels close to the magnetron and, sure enough, they began to pop and fly around the lab. It would be decades before microwave popcorn appeared on grocery shelves, but the idea worked! Making it practical was another matter entirely. |
| 02 | Answer: C. Roughly six feet tall and more than 750 pounds. It was Raytheon that introduced the “Radarange” commercially in 1947. Early models were tremendous, expensive machines meant for restaurants or commercial settings, and certainly not for dorm rooms, coffee breakrooms, or homes. The microwave would not be shrunk down to countertop size for another 20 years. |
| 03 | Answer: B. To pass the food through the fixed hot and cold spots. Microwaves bounce off the metal walls inside the oven, interfering with one another and creating standing waves. Some areas receive more energy than others, so the turntables move food through the hot and cold zones to heat evenly. This explains why, even after all the spinning, a single spot might remain cold while another feels like it might be liquid magma. |
| 04 | Answer: C. About $500. Amana introduced the countertop Radarange in 1967 for just under $500 (in 1967 dollars!). |
| 05 | Answer: B. New Jersey. In 1964, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson were working with an antenna at Bell Labs in Holmdel, NJ, when they found a mysterious microwave noise coming from every direction. It turned out to be radiation left over from the early universe. This earned them a share of the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physics. |
| 06 | Answer: C. The science oven. The character, Rosalyn, is deeply suspicious of the appliance and insists it removes nutrition from food, and totally ignores instructions about avoiding the use of metal inside the device, leading to a memorable cinematic kitchen disaster. |
| 07 | Answer: A. Micro-cook. The magazine used “micro-cook” in 1976, which was the same time that the word “microwave” began to be used as a verb, but it was microwave that prevailed. Now, if you’ll excuse me, my cold coffee needs a quick-sizzle. |
How did you do? Score 1 point for each correct answer and 1 point for each bonus you knew. Perfect score: 10.
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