Percy Spencer
	Shortly after World War ll, Percy Spencer, already known as an electronic genius and war hero, was touring one of his labs at the Raytheon company. He stopped suddenly in front of a magnetron. A magnetron is a power tube radar set. Feeling a sudden and strange idea, Spencer noticed a bar of chocolate in his pocket that had begun to melt. Spencer who had a 120 patents in his life time, knew how to apply his curiosity, so he did what any good inventor would do he went for some popcorn. He didn't feel like a snack so he asked for some un popped popcorn. Holding the bag of corn next to the magnetron, Spencer watched the kernels explode into puffy white morsels. From this experiment Spencer and Raytheon developed the microwave oven. The first microwave oven weighed a hefty 750 pounds and stood five feet six inches tall. At first, it was used exclusively in restaurants, railroad cars and ocean liners-places where large quantities of food had to be cooked quickly. But cooking experts quickly noticed the oven's shortcomings. Meat refused to brown,french fries went white and limp. To make matters worse, Raytheon chairman Charles Adams' cook quit because Adams demanded he prepared food by the microwave oven. In fact, it took decades after the invention of the microwave oven for it to be refined to a point where it would be used by a public consumer. Today, Percy Spencer's invention cooks all kinds of food around the world. By: Aoife Gaynor