Hal, a weapon expert, owes his name to another expert who studies weapons.
From 65438 to 0946, American electrician Spencer worked in Racine Company. His task is to install military radar antenna. Americans love chocolate, and Spencer often has this high-calorie food in his work clothes pocket. He puts a piece in his mouth from time to time, which makes his work more exciting. Soon, Spencer discovered a puzzling phenomenon: the chocolate in his pocket often melted even in winter, as if it had been baked by fire.
At first, Spencer suspected that his body was very hot or sweaty at work, but once, he just climbed the radar tower and took out the chocolate, and found that it began to melt. Looking around, there is no stove, only the radar is emitting powerful electromagnetic waves. Therefore, he speculated that electromagnetic waves have the function of heating food.
After experimental research, Spencer confirmed his guess: there are microwaves in the electromagnetic waves generated by radar, which can penetrate chocolate blocks and cause molecular oscillation of chocolate; The violent oscillation of molecules produces heat, so the chocolate melts.
Since microwave can heat chocolate, it can naturally heat meat, vegetables and other foods. Racine Company was very interested in this discovery of its employees and organized a special research team to start developing new cookers. 1947, Racine applied the magnetron invented by Hal to a new cooker, manufactured the world's first microwave oven, and put it on the market for trial sale.
Since then, mankind has a brand-new cooking method. Traditional cooking is inseparable from fire, and there is no fire in the microwave oven; The traditional cooking method is to heat the food from the outside and wait for the heat to diffuse slowly into it, while the microwave oven heats it from the inside out and penetrates into the food from the beginning!
Although this unprecedented stove has no flame and does not burn, it can make people say "goodbye" to annoying lampblack, but it is not popular in the market. The reason is not only beyond the inventor's expectation, but also reasonable: the special way of microwave heating food from the inside and the special phenomenon that the furnace wall is still cold after the food is cooked are deeply surprising and frightening! In this way, the microwave oven, which was regarded as a monster by people, soon disappeared from the counter of the store.
1960, Japan Sharp Electric Company thought that microwave oven would be a profitable product, so it bought patented technology from the United States and put it into commercial production. But the microwave oven was unlucky and was given a cold shoulder again. It wasn't until 1974 that the failed microwave oven became a hot-selling product. Because at this time, due to the high development of science and technology and the popularization of scientific and technological knowledge, people have accepted this "monster".
The rise and fall of microwave ovens inevitably reminds people of the era of invention: the birth of an invention is bound to be closely related to the scientific and technological level at that time; The popularization and use of an invention must also be closely related to people's living standards and scientific and technological knowledge at that time.