Profile of Dr. Percy Spencer from a 1958 Issue of Reader's Digest
An old profile of the man who
invented the microwave oven.
PERCY SPENCER is the nosiest man I have ever known. Now 63, he still has an intense, small boy's compulsion to explore every wonder in the world around him. The results of his relentless curiosity have touched the lives of each of us.
Recently I walked into his office at the Raytheon Manufacturing Co. in Waltham, Mass. - an office befitting the senior vice-president of one of the nation's largest electronic' manufacturers. "Hi, Don," the stocky, shirt-sleeved Down-Easter shouted from behind his desk. "Where'd you get the shoes?"
The moccasin-type shoes weren't that different, but I knew Percy. Were the shoes comfortable, he asked. Would they wear? Why were they stitched like that? In a minute I had one shoe off, so that he could examine it. He wanted to know just how it was made.
The story is typical of Percy Spencer's direct, homey approach, which he brings even to the miracle world of modern electronics. One day a dozen years ago he was visiting a lab where magnetrons, the power tubes of radar sets, were being tested. Suddenly, he felt a peanut bar start to cook in his pocket. Other scientists had noticed this phenomenon, but Spencer itched to know more about it.
He sent a boy out for a package of popcorn. When he held it near a magnetron, popcorn exploded all over the lab. Next morning he brought in a kettle, cut a hole in the side and put an uncooked egg (in its shell) into the pot. Then he moved a magnetron against the hole and turned on the juice. A skeptical engineer peeked over the top of the pot just in time to catch a faceful of cooked egg. The reason? The yolk cooked faster than the outside, causing the egg to burst.
