All language subtitles for The.Secret.Genius.of.Modern.Life.S02E04.Microwave.1080p.HDTV.H264-DARKFLiX

Take three.

Hand speed.

Do you ever stop to consider
just how lucky we are

to be completely surrounded

by genuine wonders
of human ingenuity?

All of these super clever
bits of tech

designed just to make our lives
a little bit better.

The problem is,

we're now so used
to these devices...

These are plug-ins?

...that we've forgotten to remember
how clever they are.

I'm Professor Hannah Fry,

but you can think of me as your
extremely qualified tour-guide...

Oh, my gosh!

Hey, don't mess with me.

...to the secret genius
of everyday objects.

How do I get myself
in these situations?

In each episode, I'll take
one seemingly ordinary item...

...and I'll look at it...

Oh, yeah, there we go.

...in frankly obscene detail...

This tiny little bit is the thing
that makes your microwave work.

...meet the people
who helped make it...

We really like ears here,
we're kind of obsessed with them.

...and follow the twisty-turny
journey

through the history
of its invention.

ARCHIVE: Here, carelessness
could bring instant tragedy.

This time, it's the microwave oven.

There is a box in your kitchen,

that uses high-end particle physics

to beam invisible radiation around.

That sounds a little far-fetched,
but it's just not something

you really think about
when you're cooking your food.

So, how did World War Il
radar tech...

Look how small it is!

...a 1970s rubber engineer...

Could you get that turntable?

I have a turntable.

...and a 19th-century
physics experiment...

How many volts are you actually
going to do?

...bring us...

CRACK!
Oh!

...the microwave?

A microwave oven goes...

DING! DING! BEEP-BEEP!

...over 200 times a second,
in the UK.

Even the queen of the kitchen,
Nigella, has one.

I still need a bit of milk, which
I've warmed in the mee-crow-wah-vey.

Excusez moi-vey?

So, what does it
take to make a microwave?

I'm at Panasonic's
factory in Cardiff.

They've been making them here
for over 50 years.

1,000 microwaves a day
roll off these production lines.

That's a lot of pings.

If you think about how common
microwaves are,

this is a phenomenally
successful invention,

and yet, it's an object that we pay
no attention to whatsoever.

Frankly, I think we should respect
our microwaves a little bit more.

I think there's a lot
of technology that actually

goes on inside the oven
to generate the microwaves.

A man who knows there is
a lot more to microwaves

than meets the eye,
is chief engineer Gareth Jones.

So, I'll take you over
to the oven cavity area.

This is where sort of the
microwave first begins its life.

So, it's the first
sort of assembly process...

The babies... ..that we have.
The babies! The baby microwave.

I'm going to take apart
the microwave

and look at four key components,

from the turntable to the timer.

But I'm starting with
the powerful heating source

at the core of
every microwave...

...the cavity magnetron.

So, this is the cavity assembly,
and they're just adding key

component inside the microwave,
which is this magnetron.

That's...

This is the bit that makes
the microwaves?

That's what generates
the microwaves, yes.

So, without this,
you've just got a box?

That's the clever bit, yeah.
Yeah.

It's quite a good name, isn't it?

I work on cavity magnetrons.
Yeah.

This is... It sounds quite cool,
quite science fiction. Yeah.

Obviously, I now want to get my
hands on that cavity magnetron,

to see what makes it tick...or zap.

So, I've set up shop in this,
uh, shop.

I don't need to formally
introduce you to the microwave.

You've all used one before,
but what you probably haven't done

and definitely shouldn't do
at home is tear one to pieces.

Well, I'm going to need
to tread carefully because

this thing isn't particularly safe.

There we go. Oh, that's satisfying.

Now, let's get these
screws off the back.

And that's it, the magnetron.

I think I'm going to get in
a bit deeper, see what's inside.

Oh, yeah.

Oh!

Not convinced that was a good noise.

Is anyone else really hot?

Oh! Oh, yes, here we go.

I'm in.

Or so I thought.

Uh, inside the silver box,

which is inside the black box
is another cylindrical box.

Nothing a quick hack
with a saw can't fix,

and the magnetron is open.

We're in. OK.

This is the bit, this tiny
little bit is the thing

that makes your microwave work.

To help explain how a cavity
magnetron produces microwave energy,

I'm going to need to pucker up.

Now, you get a bottle of water,

and you blow over the top
of it like this.

As my breath flows over the hole,
the size and shape of the bottle

make it resonate
at a particular frequency,

creating...

...a sound wave.

Clearly, those flute lessons
were a waste of money.

The cavity magnetron has holes
or cavities that work

just like the hole in the bottle.

And it's a similar thing
that's happening inside here.

Except in this, it isn't a stream
of air, it's a stream of electrons.

And every single one of these
little cavities around here

acts like the water bottle does.

They resonate as the stream
of electrons passes over it,

translating that stream into a wave.

Except, this time, it's a microwave.

Unlike the sound wave,
I can't hear a microwave,

but we might be able
to see it in action.

Watch what happens
with this light bulb.

Don't do this at home, by the way.

Look at that!

Even though that light bulb
is not plugged in, it lights up.

This invisible energy
that is manipulating atoms

and moving electrons
and making stuff happen.

When the microwaves
hit the light bulb,

they cause charged particles
in the metal filament to move.

This creates heat, making it glow.

And it's a similar process that
cooks your food really, really fast.

ARCHIVE: There is now the
perfect marriage

as in this demonstration kitchen

between the freezer
and the microwave and quartz ovens.

So, why are microwaves so speedy?

Well, a standard oven
cooks by heating up

the air around the food, the outside
of whatever you are cooking

gets hot and that heat slowly
moves towards the centre.

But that's all changed now.

Microwaves don't bother
messing around heating the air.

They penetrate the outside
of your food, passing through,

causing water molecules on the
inside to jiggle about intensely.

That friction generates heat
and voila!

Hot baked beans.

All thanks to the cavity magnetron.

But how did this ingenious
bit of kit come to be

invented in the first place?

It began like all the best
British things,

with our fascination
with the weather.

It's the early 1920s

and scientists at the UK Met Office
are trying to give pilots

advanced warning of lightning storms
so that they can safely avoid them.

Cue Scotsman Robert Watson-Watt.

He understood that
when lightning strikes,

it generates a massive burst
of invisible radio waves.

He realised they could be detected
with a receiver

coupled to two antennas.

Weather will remain fine
here for a time.

The sky will cloud over
by about midday.

As the radio waves hit each antenna,

they do so at slightly
different times.

And so, using some simple triangles,
this difference was used

to give an accurate location
of the dangerous weather.

His revolutionary device called
the high-frequency direction finder,

or huff-duff, was so effective
that it could detect thunderstorms

over Africa, 2,000 miles away.

Watt's clever invention saved
many pilots from deadly storms.

But it would take war
to turn the huff-duff

into the cavity magnetron.

To show you how, I'm going
to recreate a World War Il

naval battle, but in miniature,

all with the help
of three men in a boat

down at the Chantry
radio-controlled boating club.

All right, guys?
Ah, hello there.

Hi, nice afternoon down the pond?
Yes.

I've brought my own boat.

Let's see how it goes.
Hang on, I'm going to pop it in.

OK. Well, it floats.

Oh, look at that. wow!

Before you ask, yes,
there is a point to this.

And so, back to a more serious time.

It's the late 1930s and
Europe is on the brink of war.

ARCHIVE: World conquest was
impossible without running smack

up against the rock called Britain.

There is a very real fear
that enemy forces will begin

a campaign of destruction that could
threaten our ships and aircraft.

The British Navy would have
no way of knowing where they were

until it was too late.

Step back in, Robert Watson-Watt.

He realised that if he could
adapt his huff-duff weather detector

into a new system that could emit
radio waves as well as detect them,

it might be able to tell him
where the enemy forces were...

...50 that you could attack them.

Down here, you've got these
teeny-tiny little domes.

Now, in reality,
these things were massive.

They were like 110 metres tall,
and they were positioned along

the coastline, chucking out
radio waves across

the surface of the water.

Now, as those radio waves go out,
if they hit something,

like a boat, for example,
they are reflected back.

And if you can detect
those reflections, you know

how fast the radio waves
are travelling, you can work out

how far away something is, and that
essentially then gives you radar.

Radar, radar that is the master-key
to everything in defence.

Radar has been fundamental
to navigation and detection

since this breakthrough in 1938.

But today, we're taking it
to an entirely new level.

Now, I have to tell you that
no-one has done this at this

scale before, sort of pond level,
duck radar, as it were.

So, have a look here, right?
We've got this little radar screen.

You can see there are some
dots here in the pond,

and those are the little buoys
out there.

But you see this dot here
that's moving across the screen?

That there, that's that boat.

You can see them perfectly.

Now, this gives you
a massive advantage.

It means you know where the enemy is

without actually having
to go out and spot them.

Its development was pivotal
to an Allied victory,

but it wasn't infallible.

The thing is, is that
the Germans were actually

one step ahead of avoiding our radar
without even meaning to,

because they had an incredibly
useful stealth weapon on their team.

Look at this.

One of their boats is a U-boat,
a submarine,

that below the surface of the water

is completely undetected
by the radar.

Do you see that?
See how that dot disappears?

That is so cool.

Not during World War 11, obviously,
but in our duck-radar version.

Just like our model, the U-boats
evaded radar by submerging.

They were absolutely lethal.

However, they did have one weakness.

Periodically they had to surface,

making their small
conning towers visible.

This could be exploited,
but it would need an entirely new

kind of radar system that could
detect the tiny towers.

In 1940, a solution was developed

from a couple of Brummie scientists

called John Randall and Henry Boot.

Don't make names
like that any more.

They came up with this,
which is a cavity magnetron.

The key component inside the
microwave, which is this magnetron.

This new invention emitted higher
frequency radio waves

called microwaves.

These were better at picking up
smaller targets

and shorter micro...waves, meant
the antennas could get smaller, too.

Instead of giant towers,

the whole thing could shrink down to
something the size of a shoe box.

And look how small it is.

So, this thing could shoot out
incredibly powerful microwaves,

but it could fit inside
of the nose of an aircraft

and thus detect submarines and boats

and planes from the sky.

This powerful and mobile radar
system could even spot

the tiny conning towers of a U-boat.

I mean, this is the thing that
largely swung the war in our favour.

Unfortunately, not doing me
much help on this pond.

Where's my boat gone?

Uh, where's my boat?

You're over there by the bridge.
Oh, wow!

The development of the cavity
magnetron was a pivotal moment

in World wWar II.

But how did it make it out of the
military and into our kitchens?

For that, we need a story
about a candy bar.

Oh, oh, that's a great picture.

I didn't even remember
I had this picture.

This is...

This is my grandfather.

This is Barry Spencer.

His grandad, Percy, is known as
the "father of the microwave oven”.

My grandfather was awesome.

He was incredibly curious.

I think 8th Grade is as far as
he got with his formal education.

Everything else
he learned on his own.

He loved to build things,
to take materials and things

he learned from other machines and
apply those and build new things.

That was what he liked to do.

Percy's natural talent
for inventions didn't go unnoticed.

In 1940, while working at
electronics company Raytheon,

his expertise
won them a massive contract to work

on the newly invented
cavity magnetron.

Raytheon had this amazing invention.

That's when they started
thinking about,

"Well, what else can we do
with this?"

Legend has it that Percy was
standing next to a test magnetron

when its microwaves zapped his
pocket and melted his nut cluster.

And that was when Percy
had his light-bulb moment.

He was like, "Well, let me just see
if it can heat food," you know,

and, "Oh, look, it heats food."

Curious, he put other objects
in its path

and discovered that
popcorn kernels popped,

and eggs exploded.

He invented this extremely
important device,

the microwave oven.

In the early 1940s,
Percy submitted dozens of patents

related to the magnetron
and microwave cooking.

Even patenting today's
movie night staple.

Yeah.

My grandfather invented
microwave popcorn.

Put it in, popcorn gets popped,
simple as can be.

In 1947, Raytheon launched
the world's first commercial

microwave oven.

And in a throwback to its radar
origins, called it the Radarange.

The self-taught inventor from
New England had created something

that would end up
in kitchens across the world.

I think of him a lot.

Yeah, sometimes I just, you know,

sitting there waiting the 30 seconds
to heat something up.

And I think, "Wow, so convenient.”

And it's amazing that this was my
grandfather's, you know, invention.

Percy's revolutionary idea
was a defining moment

for the cavity magnetron.

In the 1950s,
scientists experimented

with the cavity magnetron
in various ways,

communications, traffic control
and frozen hamsters.

British scientists who were trying
to transform organ transplant

storage were experimenting
with cryogenically frozen hamsters

when they realised
that microwaves were

the perfect way to bring them back
from the dead.

But microwave ovens,

the magnetron's most promising use,

weren't an immediate success.

The original Radarange cost
the equivalent of £50,000

and was a mighty six feet tall.

But by the 1970s,
magnetrons were cheaper and smaller

and microwave oven sales
began to soar.

Eight automatic settings,
work out the power and cooking time.

By the end of the 20th century,

the cavity magnetron ushered in
a powerful and fast way to cook.

However, it brought a potential
new danger to the kitchen.

Microwave ovens use powerful
radiation to cook our food.

To be safe, it needs to be harnessed
within the confines of the oven,

and that is the job

of our next component,

the Faraday cage.

The thing about microwaves is they
are potentially quite dangerous.

Just popping that in there.

Yeah, that was a phone that
I just put in the microwave.

Just bear with me.

Microwave ovens produce powerful
waves of energy that can burn you

if you are exposed to them.

Anyway, you've got all of these
microwaves bouncing around,

you don't want any of them
to escape.

And so, there is something built in
to one of these

to stop that from happening.

It's called a Faraday cage

and I've just put the cameraman's
phone inside of one.

If I call Marco
the cameraman's phone

while it's inside
of the microwave...

The number you've called
is currently unavailable.

Hmm, hasn't connected.

Let me just try again,
but this time, with the door open.

MOBILE RINGS

And now, it goes straight through.

So, what's going on?

Mobile phones communicate
via microwave.

I wouldn't worry.

The power of the microwaves
that your phone are using

are so tiny, they're not enough
to fry your brain.

When the oven door is closed,
this microwave link is broken.

And that is because
there is a Faraday cage

inside this that is blocking
all of the microwaves.

To show you this special
little cage,

I'm going to need to up my game.

I'm going to have to use
one of these.

I mean, how else do you get
a microwave door off?

Hoo hoo hoo!

Oh, you know what?

I've just noticed, there's actually
two screws on the top.

I could have just used
a screwdriver!

With the sides and the door
so carefully removed,

the Faraday cage
is finally revealed.

But what you are left with,
the main body of your microwave,

it is just... It's just a metal cage
and this is enough to stop

the microwaves bouncing through
and leaking out.

But wait, isn't putting
metal in the microwave a no-go?

Well, kind of.

Microwaves can induce concentrated
electric fields in metal objects,

especially sharp edges or corners
like forks or tinfoil.

If electric charge accumulates
excessively, sparks will fly.

But on the smooth metal walls
of the microwave oven,

these currents scatter harmlessly,
avoiding sparks altogether.

But there is a problem.

You can't have metal
all the way around because,

well, then you wouldn't be able
to see what your food looked like.

And that brings me to the most
interesting part of the cage,

which is this bit here.

The door.

Yeah!

There are two components
to this now.

So, there is a bit of glass,
which is see-through,

and there is this metal mesh.

These little holes are enough
to stop microwaves from escaping.

And this is enough to stop
that mobile phone from ringing.

The Faraday Cage is so crucial
for preventing radiation leaks,

it's now found
in every microwave oven.

But to find out where it came from,

we have to go back
to the early 19th century.

The year is 1836, and a young,
and, may I say,

very dapper English scientist
called Michael Faraday,

has discovered that the new
wonder of the age, electricity,

has a powerful
but invisible property.

You don't need me to tell you
how powerful electricity is,

but the thing that you do need
to know is that electricity

comes with this invisible field.

Known as an electric field,

it's a space where electricity
can flow even without wires.

It's really hard to show you.

Unless you've got
an industrial-sized

electric field generator,

also known as a Tesla coil.

This one is housed in a special
high-voltage lab in Germany.

It can produce a powerful electric
field that can cross the room.

It's enough to light up
fluorescent light bulbs

that aren't even plugged in.

Faraday wanted to understand how
this powerful new force behaved.

He had a theory that might
help contain it.

You'd have seen this in school.

You rub a balloon,
you create static electricity.

This gives the balloon a charge,

which produces an electric
field around it.

And you can't see it
until it interacts with something.

Ah.

Faraday charged different materials
and noticed some

conductors of electricity
behaved in a surprising way.

This charge sits all on the outside

and none of it is on the inside.

Now, that seems like
quite a simple thought,

but, actually, this is quite
a revolutionary idea.

If the charge stays on the outside,

then things inside would be
protected from the effects

of potentially
dangerous electricity.

And not just in a balloon,

but even inside a well-known
conductor like metal.

If Faraday was right,
well, then, surely he should be able

to stand inside something
while it was being electrocuted

from the outside.

And so, he set about building
himself a tinfoil room.

He electrified the cage
until it generated huge sparks,

an experiment I'm already
regretting agreeing to attempt.

I'm going to use a slightly more
modern version here of a cage.

And now all I need is
some lightning.

That's delivered from the high
voltage Tesla coil above me.

And...should be fine in here.

Now I know how those
frozen hamsters felt.

Being electrocuted...in theory.

How many volts are you
actually going to do?

Um, around 1.2 million volts.

How do I get myself
in these situations?

What would happen
if I poked my finger through?

Not advisable.
As in, I'L die?

Might happen, yeah.

Oh, my goodness me,
what have I done?

Charging.

OK. Achtung.

Charging.

Fire.

And fire.

ELECTRICITY CRACKS

SHE WHIMPERS

I mean, that's
genuinely like being shot.

The conductive metal
redirects the electric charge

of the lightning
across the outside surface,

meaning there's no electric field
on the inside of the cage.

So, me and the fluorescent
light tube that I'm holding

remained completely protected
from the 1.2 million volts.

You have to imagine,
that in the 19th century,

Faraday emerges completely unharmed.

But what he'd done, he'd proven
that the inside of the cage

is completely safe from the outside.

And what works for an electric
charge also works for microwaves.

Microwaves also cannot
penetrate the cage.

And because they're generated inside
the oven, when the microwave energy

hits the Faraday cage, it bounces
around inside, but can't escape.

Do you remember
this little guy here?

The front door of microwave
is completing a Faraday cage

inside of your machine.

And this is what stops
the microwaves

that are generated
on the inside from escaping.

Faraday died before microwaves
were discovered.

So, he never knew that his cage
would change the world

one ready meal at a time.

The first Faraday cages
were scientific instruments

used in experiments to push
the boundaries of our knowledge

of physics and electricity.

But in the 1940s, with
a development of microwave ovens,

they moved into being
everyday objects.

Those first test models used
a galvanised rubbish bin and lid

to contain the microwaves.

And it did the job, although
it wasn't much good for seeing

if your lasagne was ready.

And then in 1955,

domestic microwaves with a
custom-built metal cage came along.

Cut to today and the bonkers thing
is that their design

has hardly changed at all.

But we have now found
more uses for Faraday cages.

They keep radio waves
from interfering with

MRI scanners in hospitals.

Every plane is basically a giant
Faraday cage that protects us

from lightning strikes.

And for the more paranoid among us,
Faraday bags are a way to ensure

no-one is snooping
on your phone or laptop.

Back at the Panasonic factory,
they build their Faraday cages

with safety in mind
from the very beginning.

We need to ensure there's
no leaking basically.

The microwaves are not escaping.

Meet the Faraday cage guru,

or as he prefers to be called,

mechanical engineer
Thomasz Moishko.

I mean, this is the Faraday cage
being formed, then? Yes.

The birth of the beast. Yes.

It began life as individual
sheets of metal.

And so, you are glueing them
together

to make sure that the microwaves
can't escape?

Uh, so they're crimped.

So, we ensure the whole back
of the appliance is fully sealed.

I see.

With the Faraday cage complete,

each microwave is then scanned
by a radiation-detecting robot.

What's the robot doing?
Smashing...

Selecting the power.
..smashing the buttons. Yeah?

And then selecting the time,
then start.

Oh, what's inside it?

Um, so that's, we call it a pizza.

The pizza, sadly,
is just a powered LED mat

that shows the oven is working.

I mean, just add pineapple to really
top the disappointment, lads.

How often do you get them
breaching, breaching the door?

It's happened sometimes, you know,
it's... Nothing's perfect.

But we normally find them,
and everything will need adjusting,

come back for the same tests
and we're checking again.

But, generally, you are quite good
at making microwave cages? Yes.

There's one last process
before the microwaves are boxed up

and shipped out.

So, we're taking a picture
of every single oven,

so we know what is the cosmetic
condition of each appliance

before it leaves leave the factory.

Yeah, the picture is taken there.

And there.

The next component appears
to be a simple rotating dish,

but without it, you'd have
unevenly cooked food.

It's the microwave's spinning soul,
the turntable.

There is one slight problem
with microwaves.

Let me show you what
I'm talking about here.

OK, so let me just get rid of
this turntable for a second.

And, uh, let's have a sweet treat,
shall we?

Microwave some marshmallows.

So, inside this,
you've got your magnetron.

It's firing out microwaves.

And so, if you try and heat up your
food without using the turntable,

there'll be some sections
which are, like, volcano hot

and other sections that are
totally untouched and stone-cold

as when they went in.

You can see this really clearly
on a thermal camera.

You have got this white-hot ring
around the outside

where things are
completely melted,

and then a central ring where the
marshmallows are still really cold.

What's happening is that
as microwaves enter the oven,

they reflect off the walls
and combine with each other.

In some places,
the waves cancel each other

out along the middle line,
resulting in low-energy cold spots.

And in others,
they amplify each other at the peaks

and troughs, creating hot spots.

The result is known
as a standing wave,

and it gets stuck in this pattern.

That shape of that wave,

the hot bits and the cold bits
inside your microwave,

they're not going to change.

And so, if the wave won't change,

you have to move the food to make
sure that it gets all cooked.

And that is why microwaves
need a turntable,

to move food through the hot spots
of the standing wave

so it cooks evenly.

Um, there you go.

They're all gone squishy.

It's just a plate
of molten gooey mess.

Molten, gooey,
delicious mess, that is.

This is my job, by the way.

This is what I do for a living.

The turntable hasn't always been
a feature in microwave cooking.

The first microwave ovens
of the 1950s had no turntable.

To avoid cold spots, you had to
periodically turn the food by hand.

For decades, they tried
and failed

to come up with
a satisfactory solution.

A paddle, or stirrer, helps
to distribute the microwaves

evenly inside the cooker.

The problem of uneven cooking
was impacting on microwave sales.

A spinning solution that could be
added to your microwave to even

things out would come from a man
trying to solve a rubber problem.

Half of your meal is burned,

and half of your meal is ice cold

because of this problem
with microwave.

That is Gary Mandle.

In the early 1970s, he was working
with microwave technology,

but not in domestic ovens.

So, I had a winter job after
high school with this company

called Gerling Moore, which made
industrial microwave ovens.

Kind of, custom things.

And my job was as an assistant to
the chief engineer Peter Jorgensen.

He took me under his wing,

and they had this contract with
Goodyear Tire to vulcanise rubber.

Vulcanised rubber is the tough stuff
that wellies and tyres are made of.

It's produced by heating natural
rubber with chemicals,

but it's a tricky business.

And so, Goodyear hoped that this new
microwave tech would make it easier.

The vulcaniser was a large microwave
oven, about six feet squared,

and it had a Pyrex tube about
eight, ten inches in diameter.

And hard rubber would come in
one end of the tube

and as the tube rotated,
it would roll down into the tube

through the microwave cavity

and the microwaves would
vulcanise the rubber.

Only, it wasn't quite going to plan.

So, as the rubber
went down the tube,

you would have these standing waves.

Ah, yes, the cause of the dreaded
hot and cold spots.

And it would melt the rubber
and eventually it catches fire.

This happened over and over again
until one night, they'd had enough.

At that point, we've put out another
fire on the vulcaniser

and it's late at night

and Peter and I
are exhausted working this.

They began chatting
about the problem.

So, what we had to do, was find
a way to rotate the object inside

so that it would pass through
where these standing waves were.

And that's kind of what took us
down the road to the turntable.

It was a eureka moment,
though, sadly, not for Goodyear.

There's no way
we can do a turntable in here.

We can't have the tube of Pyrex
spinning around the room.

But in smaller cavities
like a home oven,

we could have something
in the bottom of the oven

that spun and passed the food
through these waves.

They were convinced that a turntable
that could be added into any

microwave would sort out
the hot and cold spots.

What was unique about our idea was,

one, the turntable itself.

Something that was portable
that you could put in your oven

that would rotate the food
and cook it evenly.

And at the end of the day,
we both decided,

we're going to quit
and we're going to pursue this.

He quit, I quit, and then,
we started working on it.

It took seven years
to complete the design,

but finally in 1980,
they received a patent

and the microwave industry
immediately saw the potential.

The patent was published.

And it couldn't have been
two days later,

we got a letter from Nordic Ware,

"We need to talk to you."

They came up with an offer
almost right away.

Nordic Ware took exclusive
rights to the patent

and started producing turntables.

The reaction was huge.

It wasn't 150,000 units a year.

It was millions of units
a year and...

...could you get the turntable?

Ah, there's a turntable?

I have a turntable.

Wow!

$5 rebate!

5% rebate.

Betty Crocker approved!

This simple turntable that
you added to your microwave

solved a problem that had been
plaguing the industry for decades,

and it changed Gary's life.

It turned my family from starving...

...to...we actually were able to,

you know, really start
getting our lives together.

When I go in the store, you'll see
a microwave and it's very nice

to go and point at that and say,

"I had something to do with that."

And I'm very proud of that.

It wasn't until the mid-1980s
that turntables were fitted

as standard in microwaves.

Japanese manufacturers Sharp,
were the first to sell them

with built-in spinning plates
and other brands soon followed.

However, to make sure your food
is cooked perfectly,

the microwave needs
one last, but fundamental part.

Without our final component,

your food is either overdone
or undercooked.

The crucial key to making sure
everything is cooked just right.

It's the timer.

As anyone who's ever exploded
their dinner in the microwave

will tell you, when it comes
to microwave cooking,

timing is everything.

So, you can tell
even before I open the door,

you can tell that
that's going to be overcooked?

I know that they're not happy
in there, the beans.

Yeah, so...

That's Victoria Simone,
Panasonic's head home economist

and titan of timing.

She knows that every second counts.

The only other thing that
I use my microwave for,

occasionally,
is to cook a baked potato.

Victoria spends her life working out
how long different foods take

to microwave,
to provide timing guides.

So, she's slightly horrified
by my approach.

So, chuck it in, nine minutes or so.

That's what I would do.

Just kind of guessing at the time.

It's almost ready now.

All | know is, this is going to be
a delicious evening meal for me.

I mean, look.

Delicious.

Enjoy.
You smell the burning?

Does smell a little bit in there!

It'll be delicious!

What are you trying to say?
What are you trying to say?

Look that's...
Oh, that's beautiful.

Does this not bring you back
to school dinners?

I mean, that's really quite cooked,
isn't it?

I thought I was doing
all right there.

Can you imagine how happy my kids
are to have me as their mum?

Luckily, thanks to experts
like Victoria, most foods come

with precise instructions to set
on the microwave's handy timer,

avoiding incinerated
spuds altogether.

But how did we get
the timer of today?

Humans have been obsessed
with measuring time since, well,

the beginning of time, but we only
started measuring our cooking time

properly once we got accurate
ovens in the 20th century.

Early kitchen timers
were hourglasses,

followed by mechanical,
wind-up timers -

chicken-shape optional.

But when microwaves
came along in the 1940s,

they were the first ovens that had
to include an integrated timer

as standard.

To find out why,
we have to go back to Percy Spencer,

and the very first prototype
microwave oven.

There is one story,
possibly apocryphal,

that one day, Percy was
trying to demonstrate

the effect of the microwave
by trying to cook a raw egg.

He cut a hole in the side
of a kettle, placed an egqg in it,

and then directed
microwaves towards it.

This whole circle of engineers,
including one who is

extremely eager, he's peering over
at this sort of vibrating egg

in the middle and then ends up
getting splattered in the face

with the egg.

Which is unfortunate,
but the egg was cooked.

Higher, higher!

To avoid egg on your face, timing is
everything with microwave ovens.

After Percy's incident,
the guy who founded Raytheon,

a guy called Laurence Marshall,

he becomes totally obsessed
with the microwave oven

and he's hoping that this might
be the thing that can save

the company from all
of its financial troubles.

But Laurence knows the commercial
success of this crazy new oven

will be jeopardised if customers
face exploding eggs

or overcooked food.

So, every free moment,
he'd come out of the boardroom

to get stuck in on experimenting
with timing.

He realises that there is a really
delicate balance to be struck,

not just about the amount of energy
that's going into the food,

but also with the time
that you are cooking it for.

So, he gets his engineers to make
him a sort of home-made microwave,

he uses a trash can, gets a
magnetron and shoves it in the side.

He starts using it to heat up
cups of water.

“Not good enough!" cries Marshall,
we have to use real food.

He nips down to the grocery store,

and he gets himself an absolute
shed load of a new product

that they have just released, which
is pre-packaged gingerbread mix.

I mean, who doesn't love
a bit of ginger?

Night after night, he tried cooking
gingerbread with different amounts

of microwave energy and time.

He knows if you put
the power on too low

and for too short a time, you're
going to end up with something

that is just a bit
of a squidgy mess.

However, too much energy
for too long and you get...

I mean, that's quite the...

That's quite the aroma.

Oh, my gosh!

Can you see the smoke?
This is not going to...

This is... Whoa!

SHE CHUCKLES

This is not going to be the thing
that really sells the microwave

as an effective cooking tool.

BLEEP!

Ah, so, Laurence Marshall, how's
your microwave experiment going?

OK, delicious.

I mean, I think that's
probably the wrong combination

of energy and time.

Shall we try again?

But after a lot,
a lot, a lot of gingerbread,

a lot of smoke,
and a lot of squidgy dough,

he realises that there is
this sweet spot in the middle.

Oh, look at that!

It's cooked.

It's cooked!

Laurence's obsession with timing
meant that when the first

Radarange microwave was launched,
it came with a built-in timer.

This allowed for incredibly
precise speed cooking.

Take, for example, the Speedy Weeny,

Raytheon's microwave
hot-dog vending machine.

Installed in Grand Central Station
in 1947,

its on board timer meant that it
produced the perfect hot dog

every time in just 20 seconds.

History doesn't record
if it also served condiments.

Timer precision improved
throughout the '50s and '60s

as more complex mechanical versions
came on the scene.

The new Norelco has three simple
dials that lets you cook

everything the others cook,
only easier.

Digital timer displays made
their first appearance in the 1970s.

Another feature to consider is
an easy-to-read digital timer,

which lets you set up to 60 minutes
of continuous cooking

or defrosting time.

By the 2000s, our timers were
getting cleverer than ever.

Our microwaves are great
at reheating and some cooking,

but they have their limits.

What if, one day, microwave ovens
could cook a whole Sunday roast?

Sound too good to be true?

It could be the future.

A new oven promises a glimpse
into what the next generation

of microwave cooking
might look like.

I know you're a proper posh chef,
but today,

I mean, you basically
brought out an ice cube.

That's chef Cesar Fernandez.

And, yes, he's putting a massive
ice cube into a microwave.

You're going to microwave
an ice cube?

What do you think
is going to happen?

I mean, it's going to melt,
obviously.

Maybe that's what will happen.
Maybe not. OK.

But, yeah, let me just get my
block of ice inside the oven.

All right,
so let's see what happens.

After seven minutes,
how has the ice fared?

I'm expecting
a miniature tidal wave

to greet me as I open the door.
Go on.

Oh, OK, literally
nothing has happened.

The ice remains entirely intact.

The ice didn't cook,
but something else has.

Let's just reveal
what's inside the ice block.

Oh!

So, as you can see in here,

we've got a perfectly cooked
piece of fish.

Gosh, look at that!
Oh, my gosh, it's falling apart.

Can I try some?

It's perfectly cooked. It is.

It's perfectly cooked.

Cesar's ice stunt shows
that this is no ordinary oven.

Instead of a cavity magnetron,

it uses a silicon chip that converts
electrical energy into microwaves.

And crucially, this means it can
generate different frequencies

of microwave, depending
on the foods you want to cook.

Hold on a minute.

Inside the ice,

it's still very, like, frosty.

Like, there's actual
frost on the inside.

And then it's hot.

It's hot.

It's properly hot.

The technology was originally
developed for reheating

transplant organs.

A job of ultimate precision.

So, let's give it a bit
more of a challenge.

Right, I'm hosting a dinner party.
That is a good trick.

But, ultimately, you want something
a bit more substantial to feed them.

Something else that you can do with
the Dialog Oven is actually

doing multi-component dishes.

Also known as meat and two veg.

So, as you can see in here,
in this tray, I've got a fillet

of pork wrapped in a bit of Parma
ham with some really nice seasoning.

And then, I've got a nice
selection of vegetables,

specially picked for you.

You are going to separate
this out though, right,

presumably when you cook it?

After all, each of the ingredients
have a very different cooking time.

No.

So, literally everything is going
to go in together at the same time

and after 15 to 20 minutes, every
single component will be perfect.

I'm sceptical,
but I want to see it in action.

Place it in the oven.

15 minutes might sound
like a lot for a microwave,

but actually, it's cooking
an entire meal in less than

half the time it would take
in a conventional oven.

And it smells really good
and then, just come over here.

Close this little guy.

Oh, look at this!

I love a bit of courgette.
Oh, crunch.

Crunch. But cooked. Yeah.

Shove it all in at once and see,
see if you can distinguish!

Here we go.

Oh, my gosh!

That's genuinely amazing.

That's genuinely amazing.
Thank you.

You still got, like,
a bite in the courgette.

The meat is really soft.

And then there's like just
a tiny bit of kind of crispiness

on the mushrooms.

Eat your heart out, Nigella.

But how does this mee-crow-wah-vey
perform such magic?

The way the oven works
and the technology,

that we call the Dialog,

means that the oven can actually
create a dialogue

between the oven and the food.

Clever sensors inside the oven
monitor how much energy

or microwave radiation
the food is absorbing.

An algorithm then adjusts
the strength

and frequency of the microwaves
to ensure all parts of the meal

are perfectly cooked
when the timer goes off.

We can send enough kilojoules

or enough energy
into each component,

so everything is going to be
perfectly ready at the end.

Like, genuinely,
I'm properly blown away.

Thank you, thank you.

There's just one tiny thing
about this microwave.

It costs nearly ten grand.

So I think it's probably
going to stay

a product of the future
for some time yet.

The microwave oven has been a staple
in our kitchens for almost 70 years.

A culinary marvel that uses a
World War Il surveillance device...

Do you see that?
See how that dot disappears?

That's so cool!

...and 19th-century discoveries
about electricity...

How many volts are you
actually going to do?

Um, around 1.2 million volts.

Oh!

...to cook our meals super quick.

It's almost ready now.

All | know is, this is going to be
a delicious evening meal.

They may have started
as futuristic miracles,

but, today, we kind of
just take them for granted.

I mean, if anything,

they're a bit of an eyesore
on your kitchen counter.

When you actually think about
what they are doing,

they are playing around
with very technical,

high-end particle physics here.

They're like using electromagnetic
radiation to manipulate

water molecules at the atomic level.

It's like, there is something
kind of magical

about how far humans have come

at manipulating
the laws of nature

that we could find
microwaves boring,

that we could possibly
find them mundane.

Next time,

it's headphones.

What?

It's the story of an electrocuted
19th-century opera singer...

Where is it? Ow!

Yeah, I felt that.

...chopper pilots
in the Korean War...

It's incredible how much
difference it makes.

...and a 1950s jazz trumpeter.

This is what started it all.

SHE STRUMS

What do I think about how we could
design mobile phones

to be more sustainable?

Well...

If you want to find out how
I answer or to learn more

about how technology and product
design can be more sustainable,

go to...

...and follow the links
to the Open University.