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The microwave oven was born in 1947 of research on... the anti-aircraft radar. The story begins in the 1930s, when British researchers design a device called "magnetron" capable of producing Ultrashort waves to detect the aircraft in flight, including at night. At the edge of the second world war, two American companies, Western Electric and Raytheon, then go into their manufacture.

It is seeking to improve the qualities of the magnetron that Raytheon engineer, Percy Spencer, melt a chocolate bar in his pocket. Intrigued, he places before the apparatus of the grains of corn into popcorn! Scientists already knew that the magnetrons exothermic heat at the same time as microwaves, but it's Spencer who first had the idea that it could use these waves to cook food. He filed a first patent in 1946 and 1947, Raytheon develops and markets the first microwave oven, the Radarange: a monster of 1.80 metres high and 340 kilos. Some best 1,000 will be sold in large restaurants, hospitals, or as the sleeping car porters transport companies, concerned by this mode of rapid preheating. It is this metal cage in which a magnetron generates microwave in cafeterias that the population began in the microwave. Reflected on the walls, they warm the food by vibrating molecules of water present in almost all foods, the frenetic pace of more than 2 billion times per second. Heat then diffuse surface to the inside of the food.

Late France trend

First domestic microwave oven is marketed in 1955 by the American company Tappan under licence from Raytheon. But it is another American company, Amana, which under this same license is really taking off the U.S. market beginning in 1967, with a four small and more economical ($500). Now Chinese and Japanese, and Korean firms in turn dominate the world market, to sell furnaces from 40 euros.

"This device is regarded by the French population as one of the 10 objects it cannot happen," said Aurelie Brayet, specialist of the history of the household arts at the University of Saint-Etienne. In 2007, according to the interprofessional group of manufacturers of household equipment, 85 of French households in were equipped with, which corresponds to annual sales of some 2 million devices over the past five years. However, the craze for the microwave date in France as of the end of the 1980's-only 20 of the households were equipped in 1990 - widely after the United States and the Japan. "The microwave has attracted to at the outset the Americans, always looking for time saving, and the Japanese, small portions steam cooking enthusiasts, explains Aurélie Brayet.". However, until the 1990s, the French it mostly used as a means of rapid heating of liquids.

Negative effect of the waves

Then, little by little, the dishes are passed as in the US, the refrigerator in the microwave. Mid-1990s, more affordable became frozen products have experienced a craze. "Nevertheless, in France, development joint markets of the microwave and the frozen food was first urban specificity of wealthy families, she said. The microwave has penetrated rural, yet well more equipped households in large freezers, less than ten years ago. "And, in the country of gastronomy, real cooking in the microwave took momentum in the past five years, largely through books of recipes and leaders who have advocated this mode of cooking now synonymous with quality.

Microwave presents risks The issue arose during its development. In the United States, in the 1960s, is the impact on the eye that was feared. Today, what are the effects of the waves on the body and food that are highlighted. Without however any impact on sales.

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