Thanks To Percy Spencer, We Can Microwave Popcorn
We can thank Percy Spencer for our late-night microwave snacking. But this wasn’t always the case. In the 1940s, Spencer was working on a project related to radar. He was in the process of testing a new vacuum tube. There was a chocolate bar in his pocket, and after messing around with the tube, he noticed it melted quite rapidly.
He aimed the tube at several other objects, like popcorn kernels to see what would happen, much like a powerful weapon. These items were also heated, and he concluded that this energy could fit into an application for food. Following this accidental discovery, the microwave was born. Life wouldn’t be the same without microwavable popcorn (Interesting Engineering).