August 26

[The Story Teller]

August 26
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The Microwave Oven
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“To maintain maximum attention, it’s hard to beat a good, big mistake.”
—David D. Hewitt
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Since World War II, the pace of American life has increased so dramatically that it appears we are trying to create an instant society. Consumers demand instant service. Many stores offer instant credit. There are instant potatoes, instant stock market quotes, and point-of-sale displays for instant buying decisions. A major component of our fast-paced society is the microwave oven, which essentially has provided man with the first new way to cook food since fire. Although it was bound to be discovered eventually, the microwave oven was invented “by accident” by Dr. Percy Spencer.



The apparatus that led to the development of the microwave oven was the magnetron, a device originally used in radars that was invented in England by Sir John Randall and Dr. H. A. Boot. Spencer, an engineer at Raytheon Company, was testing a magnetron after the war when he noticed that a candy bar in his pocket had melted. To find out what had taken place, Spencer exposed other foods to the magnetron’s presence. Popcorn popped and an egg exploded, half-cooked from the inside out. Building on that research, Raytheon developed a commercial microwave oven, but because of the bulkiness of vacuum-tube technology, it was expensive and few were sold. Tappan introduced a much smaller home model in 1952, and the stage was set for a revolution in the way Americans cooked.



Consider This: Many new ideas are developed “by accident,” but it is those persons who possess the curiosity to follow up on unusual occurrences who often make the real discovery.



Submitted by Richard