The first microwave was unveiled in … 1931?

Posted by: Scott    Tags:      Posted date:  December 18, 2011  |  1 Comment


Everything I know about the timeline of the microwave—which isn’t much—I learned from Wikipedia.

Date #1 to keep in mind: “The specific heating effect of a beam of high-power microwaves was discovered accidentally in 1945 … ” (I did know it was an accidental discovery, though not the year.)

Date #2 to note: “The use of high-frequency electric fields for heating dielectric materials had been proposed in 1934 … ”

If that’s the case, then how is it that the following article appeared in the February 1, 1931 issue of the New York Times, reporting that “cooking by means of electric waves was demonstrated here yesterday on a machine which produced a nicely prepared steak in five minutes” and that “the apparatus consists of an enamelled [sic] box about the size of a radio receiver which contains an ordinary high frequency machine”?

Is there something I’m not getting here because I’m scientifically illiterate? Wasn’t what happened in 1931—”cooking by means of electric waves” in “an enamelled box”—a microwave oven?

Educate me, all you big brains out there!





Comment for The first microwave was unveiled in … 1931?


James Wall

First — where did you get the clipping? That would have made this more interesting.

Second, Microwaves are not a trademark, they are specifically defined natural phenomenon. The word isn’t like Kleenex or something. So to be a Microwave the enameled box would have to use those specific waves, and no other, with leaves us with:

Three, the article is to vague to know.

I would say the problem here is one of words. In Science the denotation of a word is everything, connotations are problematic. So you associate “cooking by means of electric waves” and “an enamelled box” with a Microwave. But it’s not, it an “an enamelled box”, and nothing more, because nothing more is said. The jump you made isn’t valid, the words may connote a Microwave, but they do not denote one. This is the slipperiness that is so common and maddening in so much of the Right Wing’s commentary.

It may well be a true Microwave, but we can’t tell from what data we have. More data would be needed. I can think of a number of tragic circumstances for this being invented and then lost. In 1931 Germany was convulsing like Larry Talbot on it’s way to becoming the beast that attacked the world. A jewish inventor, a delay in getting a patent, you fill in the blanks.

Or it could have been something else working on a different principle, or it could have been a fraud. You just can’t tell from the piece.

I for one find the “secretive” aspect of this suspicious.