Why Microwaves Are So Ubiquitous

If you’re wondering why microwaves are so ubiquitous in our modern kitchens, the answer lies in their convenience and energy efficiency. They also preserve the nutrients of your food and are very versatile, allowing you to heat things up from frozen dinners to steaming veggies. They don’t retain heat like conventional ovens, so they use less power to cook your food.

Microwaves are electromagnetic radiation, part of the radio frequency portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, discovered alongside radio waves in the late 1800s. They are absorbed by water and fat in food (and other materials such as plastics), which then generate heat to make your meal cook faster than traditional ovens. They can even rehydrate and defrost foods that you’d otherwise have to wait an inordinate amount of time for with a conventional oven.

When engineers at Bell Labs were working on microwave equipment for satellite communication and radio astronomy experiments, Arno Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson accidentally discovered that a microwave signal was coming from all directions in space, without much variation in intensity. They dubbed this cosmic microwave background radiation, or CMB, and shared the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physics for their discovery. Today, you’ll find microwaves in many forms of modern technology, including point-to-point wireless communications, wireless networks, radar, satellite and spacecraft communication systems, medical diathermy and cancer treatment, remote sensing, and industrial heating. They’re even used in collision avoidance systems and garage door openers. But despite their utility, microwaves are not exactly loved by everyone. In fact, some chefs have even portrayed them as singlehandedly dragging the art of cooking into the gutter.