History of the Microwave Oven

The Discovery...

Like many great science inventions of the past, the microwave oven was stumbled upon during another research project.  The man who stumbled upon this great kitchen appliance that we use today, is Dr. Percy Spence, a self-taught engineer who worked for the Raytheon Corporation.  Dr. Spence was working on a radar-related research project involving a new vacuum tube called a magnetron.  It was during this research one day that he had noticed a candy bar he had in is pocket melted.

Being a scientist this caught his curiosity.  He preceded to try new experiments with the magnetron.  He placed a few popcorn kernels near the tube and waited to see what would happened.  It turned out that the popcorn kernels started sputter, crack and then pop in to popcorn all over the floor.

The next day Dr. Spence tried another experiment, this time with an egg.  He placed the egg next to the tube, and watched with another curious colleague.  The egg started to tremor and quake.  This was do to the quick change in temperature by the tube which was cause high pressures to arise inside the egg.  The egg eventually exploded, but not before Dr. Spence's curious colleague went in for a closer look.  As he did the the egg exploded covering his face with hot yolk!

Dr. Spence, after the two experiments, concluded that the melting candy bar, the popping popcorn, www.gallawa.com/microtech/history.html    and the exploded egg where do to exposure to low-density microwave energy. 

The First Oven...

By late 1946 the Raytheon Company had already filed a patent proposing that microwaves be used to cook food.  Engineers of the company went to work quickly trying to make a microwave oven for economical use.  By 1947 the first commercial oven was placed on the market, after a test run in Boston restaurant. 

These first units where massive in size and expense.  They stood 5 1/2 feet tall and weighed over 750 pounds, and costing a pretty penny of 5000 dollars...EACH!  But that's not all the magnetron, which generates the microwave energy had to be cool.  This was done by a water cooling system which required an additional expense of installing plumbing to the oven.

Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, these new giants where not very popular at the beginning.  But, this was only the beginning, and things were about to change.  New improvements were soon made to the first giant which made the oven's much more smaller and economical.  Prices dropped dramatically and engineers designed a new magnetron that was air-cooled instead of water which took care of the additional plumbing problem.                                                                                                            www.gallawa.com/microtech/history.html

Microwave ovens became a blessing to food venders.  Microwave ovens allowed food to be kept refrigerated until the point of cooking, which offered fresher food, less waste, and in turn lead to happier customers and money saving service.

The First Consumer Oven...

www.sanyo.com/appliances/microwaves/downloads/EM_P842W.jpg

Between 1952-55, a company called Tappan introduced the first home model microwave oven priced at $1295.  But this was just the beginning for home microwave ovens.  A little over ten years later in 1967 the first countertop, domestic oven was introduced.  It's previous counterpart was still very large, about the size of a normal everyday gas oven.  This 100-volt oven, which was much smaller and safer only cost $500.