"This oven cooks without heat"
Posted 06.11.2012 at 12:29 pm
8 Comments
Oven Without Heat
This article originally appeared in the April 1968 issue of Popular Science. You can explore more of our archives--stretching back 140 years--here.
A baked potato in six minutes flat...piping-hot biscuits in about 20 seconds...a sirloin steak (rare) in five minutes--these days my wife can cook elaborate dinners, made with fresh food, in less time than it takes to read the directions on a TV dinner. Her secret is our new microwave oven, made by International Crystal Mfg. Co., 10 N Lee St., Oklahoma City.
The "oven" is really a stainless-steel-surrounded cavity (the cooking chamber) hooked up to a miniature radar set. Radar waves (at microwave frequencies) piped into the cavity penetrate the food and heat it internally.
Because there's no conventional heat source inside, my wife cooks on paper plates (they don't absorb microwaves, so they stay cool) making clean-up easy. The tablet-top unit costs $575. [Note: In 2012 money, that microwave cost just north of $3,800 (!).]
Mmm, Microwaved Steak:
Five minutes after shutting oven door, my wife removes a fully cooked steak and a baked potato--on an uncooked paper plate. A safety interlock turns off microwaves when door is open.
Microwave Guts:
The oven's heart is a magnetron oscillator tube that generates microwaves at a frequency of about 2.5 billion Hertz. The waves are readily absorbed by foodstuffs, and are converted to cooking heat.
From "Personal-Use Report: This Oven Cooks Without Heat, in the April 1968 issue of Popular Science. You can explore more of our archives--stretching back 140 years--here.
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Why would you do that to a stake.
I could forgive their ignorance the first time, I guess.
"...The oven's heart is a magnetron oscillator tube that generates microwaves at a frequency of about 2.5 "billion" Hertz..."
Really? "billion"?
Back at the time when this article was originally written, science and engineering clearly would write it as 2.5 GHz. This strictly an author error of this article.
@robot,
Popular science is written for consumption by the masses, hence, "Popular". Prior to the days when every home had a computer whose storage capacity and processor speeds involved the prefix giga, only folks reading trade and scientific journals would have known what it means and most probably still don't. Popsci does a fine job of explaining things in lay terms.
emneumann,
I clarified that the writer of this article made an error. I did not say anything bad about PoPSci.
Point of fact from me, I enjoy the magazine PoPSCi and it website, so you understand me clearly.
The fact I pointed out a technical error you took it emotionally personall then felt the need to defend PoPSCi. That is your problem. I think the website PoPSCi is fine. Take care.
Pah, what's next? Lights that turn on when you clap your hands?
this came out around the same time that "we went to the moon". yeah its alien technology.
"You take the blue pill – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill – you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes." -Morpheus
I wonder......
When the first bug was put in a microwave?
When the first live animal was put in a microwave?
When CDs were first put in a microwave?
When the first clothing was put in the microwave?
:( when I saw this article I though someone had invented a 21st century microwave that could overcome the "nothing I put in this damn thing comes out with the right texture or flavor" effect but I doubt that will ever happen :~(