Like many great science inventions of the past, the microwave oven was stumbled upon during another research project. The man who stumbled upon this great kitchen appliance that we use today, is Dr. Percy Spence, a self-taught engineer who worked for the Raytheon Corporation. Dr. Spence was working on a radar-related research project involving a new vacuum tube called a magnetron. It was during this research one day that he had noticed a candy bar he had in is pocket melted. Being a scientist this caught his curiosity