What do you think of this fact?
Popcorn in three minutes, yesterday’s leftovers, cold coffee warm again: it’s hard to picture a kitchen without a microwave. It all started with a pretty sticky pocket.
Chocolate next to the radar
Percy Spencer worked at Raytheon, a US company that built radar equipment. According to MIT’s Lemelson program, he was standing near a magnetron, a tube that produces microwaves, when he noticed the chocolate bar in his pocket starting to melt. IEEE Spectrum dates the scene to 1946, but according to MIT, Raytheon had already filed the patent on 8 October 1945. So the sources don’t fully agree on the year.
Spencer wanted to know more and put popcorn kernels next to the magnetron. According to IEEE Spectrum, they sputtered and popped all over his lab.
An oven the size of a fridge
In 1947, the first device hit the market: the Radarange. It had little in common with your microwave. According to IEEE Spectrum, the prototype was almost 2 meters tall and weighed about 340 kilograms. MIT gives similar figures. It was meant for commercial kitchens, not homes, since it cost several thousand dollars.
Only in 1967 did Amana, which by then belonged to Raytheon, release a countertop model for the home. According to IEEE Spectrum, it cost 495 dollars.
An inventor without a diploma
The oddest part of the story is Spencer himself. According to MIT, he left school at 12 to work in a weaving mill. He later taught himself math and physics from textbooks. By the end, he held over 100 patents.
Bonus fact: According to IEEE Spectrum, about 90 percent of US households had a microwave by 1997.
One of the best-known kitchen appliances in the world exists because a snack was in the wrong place at the wrong time.