Ever wonder who we should thank for those late-night reheated leftovers? Believe it or not, the microwave oven was born from a melted chocolate bar and one curious engineer who couldn’t stop asking ‘why?’ Here’s how a tiny detail changed kitchens around the world.
Key vocab
雷达 – léi dá – radar
微波 – wēi bō – microwave
辐射 – fú shè – radiation
融化 – róng huà – to melt
好奇 – hào qí – curious
实验 – shí yàn – experiment
专利 – zhuān lì – patent
发明 – fā míng – invention
习以为常 – xí yǐ wéi cháng – to be accustomed to; to take as normal
口袋里融化的巧克力：微波炉的意外发明
1945年，美国工程师珀西·斯宾塞在一家叫做雷神公司的国防企业工作。他的工作是研究雷达技术——一种用于探测飞机和船只位置的军事技术。这种技术依靠一种叫做磁控管的装置来产生微波辐射。斯宾塞每天都在这些设备旁边工作，已经习以为常了。
有一天，他站在一台正在运行的磁控管旁边，突然注意到口袋里的巧克力融化了。这件事本身并不是很奇怪——雷达设备会产生热量，这是众所周知的。但是斯宾塞是一个非常好奇的人。他没有忽视这件小事，而是开始思考：为什么巧克力会融化得这么快？
他决定做一个实验。他把一些爆米花放在磁控管旁边。不久，爆米花开始噼里啪啦地弹出来。斯宾塞非常兴奋，继续实验。他把一个鸡蛋放在磁控管旁边。鸡蛋爆炸了。
斯宾塞意识到，微波辐射能够从内部加热食物，速度比传统的加热方式快得多。这是一个全新的发现。他马上把这个想法告诉了公司，雷神公司在1945年申请了专利。
两年后，第一台商业微波炉诞生了。它的名字叫”雷达炉”，但是它和今天我们家里用的微波炉完全不同。它将近两米高，重量超过三百公斤，价格相当于今天的五万美元左右。这种微波炉只有餐厅和军队的厨房才用得起。
直到1960年代末，体积更小、价格更便宜的家用微波炉才开始出现。到了1970和80年代，微波炉逐渐成为全世界普通家庭厨房里的标准电器。
这个故事告诉我们一件有趣的事：很多改变世界的发明，并不是科学家坐在实验室里苦思冥想出来的，而是在做别的事情的时候，偶然注意到了一个小细节，然后问了一句”为什么”。斯宾塞没有忽视口袋里融化的巧克力。正是这一点好奇心，改变了全世界人做饭的方式。
The Chocolate That Melted in His Pocket: The Accidental Invention of the Microwave
In 1945, American engineer Percy Spencer worked at a defense company called Raytheon. His job was to research radar technology—a military technology used to detect the position of aircraft and ships. This technology relied on a device called a magnetron to produce microwave radiation. Spencer worked next to this equipment every day and had long since gotten used to it.
One day, he was standing next to a running magnetron when he suddenly noticed that the chocolate in his pocket had melted. This in itself wasn’t very strange—it was well known that radar equipment generated heat. But Spencer was a very curious person. He didn’t ignore this small matter; instead, he began to think: why did the chocolate melt so quickly?
He decided to do an experiment. He placed some popcorn next to the magnetron. Before long, the popcorn began to pop with a crackling sound. Spencer was very excited and continued experimenting. He placed an egg next to the magnetron. The egg exploded.
Spencer realized that microwave radiation could heat food from the inside, much faster than traditional heating methods. This was a completely new discovery. He immediately told the company about this idea, and Raytheon applied for a patent in 1945.
Two years later, the first commercial microwave oven was born. It was called the ‘Radarange,’ but it was completely different from the microwaves we use in our homes today. It was nearly two meters tall, weighed over three hundred kilograms, and cost the equivalent of about fifty thousand dollars today. Only restaurants and military kitchens could afford this kind of microwave.
It wasn’t until the late 1960s that smaller, cheaper home microwaves began to appear. By the 1970s and 80s, the microwave gradually became a standard appliance in ordinary family kitchens all over the world.
This story tells us something interesting: many world-changing inventions were not the result of scientists sitting in a lab racking their brains, but rather of someone noticing a small detail by chance while doing something else, and then asking ‘why?’ Spencer didn’t ignore the melted chocolate in his pocket. It was precisely this bit of curiosity that changed the way people all over the world cook.