This is how Percy Spencer invented the microwave after a candy bar cooked in his pocket

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This is how Percy Spencer invented the microwave after a candy bar cooked in his pocket

The microwave has evolved into one of the most popular household appliances in the world, but few people know that it was invented entirely by accident. Percy Lebaron Spencer was an American engineer and inventor and is the most famous as the inventor of the microwave oven but there is more interesting stories to be told about him.

How a peanut candy bar melted in his pocket

In 1945, Percy Spencer, an American self-taught engineer, was working in a lab testing magnetrons, the high-powered vacuum tubes inside radars. One day while working near the magnetrons that produced microwaves, Spencer noticed a peanut butter candy bar in his pocket had begun to melt - shortly after, the microwave oven was born.

According to Nasa

Today, Percy Spencer's invention and research into microwave technology is still being used as a jumping off point for further research in radar and magnetron technologies.

Different wavelengths of microwaves are being used to keep an eye on weather conditions and even rain structures via satellites, and are able to penetrate clouds, rain, and snow, according to NASA. Other radar technology use microwaves to monitor sea levels to within a few centimeters.

Rod Spencer, grandson of Percy Spencer said

"My grandfather was watching a microwave testing rig, and he realized that the peanut-cluster bar in his pocket started to melt - it got quite warm," reported Business Insider.

"So he put two and two together and he decided to get some popcorn, so he sent the popcorn in and it started popping all over the place," Spencer said. "The next morning, he brought in an egg. One of the engineers who was a little disbelieving in terms of a microwave's ability to cook, just as he was looking over, the egg blew up in his face."

Spencer and his employer invented RadarRange

Spencer and his employer Raytheon patented the "RadaRange." (image:Wikimedia Commons/Acroterion)

With his newfound knowledge on how to cook food in mere seconds, Spencer and his employer, Raytheon, patented the invention, which they called the "RadaRange." Two years later, Raytheon launched the RadaRange as the first commercial microwave oven, weighed 340 kilograms, and stood just shy of six feet tall.

The early microwave oven:

Percy Spencer with the first Microwave oven

The early microwave oven, were as large as a refrigerator, would take twenty minutes to warm up before you could cook anything, but they were ten times more powerful than anything you can buy today, so a potato was cooked in thirty seconds. The RadaRange failed to take off immediately due to its steep price and the public's fear of the new technology.

Evolution of the microwave oven after being a commercial failure:

The refrigerator-sized appliance was shrunk down to a more manageable size

The microwave oven eventually became known as Raytheon's largest commercial failure and the reason why it was like so many other failures was because saw the cool technology but didn't understand the market.

Eventually, the refrigerator-sized appliance was shrunk down to a more manageable size. Percy Spencer was later immortalized for his invention, and was inducted in the National Inventors Hall of Fame, which honors other famous inventors like Thomas Edison and the Wright Brothers.