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Microwave Rave
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10129 |
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Section : |
NATURAL SCIENCE
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| Issue
Date : |
4 / 1993 |
2,941 Words |
| Author
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Bruce V. Bigelow
Bruce V. Bigelow is a free-lance science writer in San Diego
and a reporter for the San Diego Union-Tribune. |
The magnetron, a wartime technology, made a successful transition to peacetime use in a multitude of products.
Fred Sterzer seemed nearly apoplectic. Sitting in his Princeton, New Jersey, office an exasperated Sterzer tried to convey the extent to which microwave technology has permeated society. But it was like trying to explain the background noise of the universe.
Microwave research and development today comprises an enormous field. Hundreds of scientific papers are published each year. Yet most people know microwaves only as a quick way to zap a TV dinner.
As president of the microwave Medical Technology Company (MMTC), Sterzer oversees development of microwave components for industrial, military, space, and medical applications. He holds more than 35 patents and served as director of microwave technology at the David Sarnoff Research Center in Princeton until 1987.
Since its introduction in the late 1960s, the microwave oven has become a popular consumer appliance--as basic as the refrigerator and the kitchen range.
Yet radar, telephone, television, and satellite communication also rely on microwave technology. Industry uses microwaves to make steel, bond plywood, heat ceramics, and dry paints, among other things. Navigation now uses microwave signals from satellites to triangulate a position anywhere on the globe. A vast array of missile guidance and electronic warfare technologies use microwaves, as do satellites and spacecrafts such as Voyager and Magellan.
Microwaves are used to increase the rate of high-speed computing, open garage doors, and even shuck oysters. (Microwave energy heats the muscle that holds the shell shut and creates enough steam to pop the mollusk open.)
In the near future, microwave clothes dryers could join the pantheon of household appliances. Operational prototypes are already being tested in California and Oregon [see "Drying Clothes with Microwaves," THE WORLD & I, February 1992, pp.236-241].
At MMTC, Sterzer focuses on developing ways to use microwaves to heat cancerous tumors, to measure blood flow, and to monitor vital signs. Microwave sensors built into flight helmets could warn jet fighter pilots of imminent
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