Transcript

Who Invented WD-40, Duct Tape, and Super Glue?

From Today I Found Out · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 2 h 10 min · 24,495 words · 179 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "Who Invented WD-40, Duct Tape, and Super Glue?", an episode of Today I Found Out published January 6, 2026 (2 h 10 min, about 24,495 words). It mentions 15 people, works and ideas, including WD-40, Harry Coover, Ivan Norman Lawson, Rocket Chemical Company, Dr. Ken Barry.

What this episode is about

The exploration delves into the history and invention of WD-40, duct tape, and super glue, highlighting how WD-40 emerged from a Cold War context and its diverse applications beyond lubrication. It also addresses common myths about the product's effectiveness and origins, including the meaning behind its name.

Key takeaways

  • WD40: saving the world from rust while keeping secret the number of attempts it took to succeed.
  • Born during the Cold War, WD40 is a reminder that innovation often blooms in times of tension.
  • Who knew a nuclear deterrent’s best friend would be a water-displacing spray? Talk about multitasking!
  • WD40’s surprising applications prove that when life gives you sticky situations, a brush with creativity is key.
  • From missile maintenance to home remedies, WD40 is proof that necessity is indeed the mother of invention.

Who speaks in this episode?

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 15:00: Rocket Chemical Company, Ivan Norman Lawson, Dr. Ken Barry, Norman Lson
  2. – 30:00: Harry Coover, Loctite Corporation, Eastman Kodak Company, Vietnam War

Notable quotes from "Who Invented WD-40, Duct Tape, and Super Glue?"

  • Distinctive blue and yellow cans? And most importantly, what does WD40 even stand for anyway? As it turns out, the world's favorite multi-purpose spray has a surprisingly dark…
    about Cold War · at
  • The SM65 Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile designed by the Conveyor Corporation of San Diego, California. The Atlas was an advanced and innovative design, especially in the.
    about Conveyor Corporation · at
  • Rejecting one formula after another is inadequate. Finally, on the 40th attempt, Lawson hit Perert, a concoction that efficiently displaced water from metal parts, lubricating…
    about Ivan Norman Lawson · at
  • A potentially huge domestic market for their first and thus only product in 1958, the Rocket Chemical Company made WD40 available for private purchase in San Diego. From here…
    about WD-40 · at
  • WD40 to the Gulf Coast to help restore flood damaged emergency vehicles and other vital equipment. Three years later, in 1964, the United States began escalating military…
    about Vietnam War · at
  • History of WD40, considered instrumental in the brand's enduring ubiquity and success. Barry's major contribution was to focus the company's marketing on WD40's extraordinary…
    about Dr. Ken Barry · at
  • Finally awoke, he remembered nothing of his life before the accident. However, Coover would go on to make a full recovery and study chemistry at Hobart College and Cornell…
    about Harry Coover · at
  • And its invention was intimately tied to the rise of a giant innovative consumer products. In 1902, five Minnesota businessmen came together to form the Minnesota Mining and…
    about 3M · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Harry Coover — Person · Referenced inventor/chemist (superglue origin story) · 4 mentions · first at
    Presented as the key inventor behind cyanoacrylate adhesives (Super Glue), including its discovery at Eastman Kodak and later medical applications.
  • Ivan Norman Lawson — Person · Referenced inventor/engineer (WD-40 origin story) · 2 mentions · first at
    Described as the engineer who developed the water-displacing formula that became WD-40, but who was later under-credited and did not share in the profits.
  • Dr. Ken Barry — Person · Referenced executive/brand builder (WD-40 Company era) · 2 mentions · first at
    Portrayed as a pivotal leader who helped turn WD-40 from an industrial/aerospace product into a ubiquitous household brand through distribution and marketing strategy.
  • Norman Lson — Person · Referenced company president/marketing decision-maker (WD-40 early commercialization) · 2 mentions · first at
    In the episode, this name refers to a Rocket Chemical Company president whose identity is confused with Lawson in later accounts; he is also credited with the aerosol-can packaging idea in the narrative.
    Change of packaging. While initially WD40 was packaged in regular metal tins, in 1958, then company president Norman Lson hit upon the idea of offering the product in aerosol…

Companies & orgs

  • Rocket Chemical Company — Company · Business focus · 7 mentions · first at
    The original company behind WD-40, detailing its founding and evolution.
    It to be more easily applied to a wide variety of surfaces. By September of that year, the Rocket Chemical Company was turning out nearly 8,000 spray cans every day, while WD40…
  • Conveyor Corporation — Company · Referenced company · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as the company that designed the SM65 Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile, which used WD-40.
  • Eastman Kodak Company — Company · Referenced company · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as the company where Harry Coover worked when he discovered cyanoacrylates, leading to superglue.
    War. Shortly after graduation, Coover landed a job as a chemist at the Eastman Kodak Company in Rochester, New York. At this time, Kodak was looking for a synthetic replacement for the optical glass used to make aircraft gun sites.
  • 3M — Company · Referenced company · 4 mentions
    Mentioned as a company that developed adhesive tapes, contrasting with WD-40's development.
  • Loctite Corporation — Company · Referenced company · 3 mentions · first at
    Mentioned as a company that licensed and sold superglue under various brand names.
    The name Eastman 910. However, the company later coined the enduring name superglue. The formula was also licensed to the Loctite Corporation of Rocky Hill, Connecticut, who…

Products & tech

  • WD-40 — Product · Business focus · 1 mention · first at
    The main product discussed in the podcast, detailing its origins, uses, and impact.

Places & events

  • Cold War — Event · Referenced event · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as the historical context for the development of WD-40.
  • Sputnik 1 — Event · Referenced event · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as a key event that influenced the development of WD-40 during the Cold War.
    Silver wall orbiting the Earth represented a genuine existential threat. The same R seven rocket that had carried Sputnik into orbit could just as easily drop a nuclear bomb…
  • Vietnam War — Event · Referenced event · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as a period when WD-40 saw significant use by the military.
  • Hurricane Carla — Event · Referenced event · 4 mentions
    Mentioned as an event that boosted WD-40 sales due to its utility in disaster recovery.
    September 1961 pounded southern Texas and Louisiana, causing widespread flooding. In response, the Rocket Chemical Company shipped 36 pounds of WD40 to the Gulf Coast to help…
  • Statue of Liberty — Place · Referenced location · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as a large-scale application of WD-40 for protecting sections from the elements.
    Protecting sections of the Statue of Liberty in New York City from the elements. However, the company strongly discourages more unusual use of its products such as treating…

Full transcript with timestamps

There's an old engineers adage that goes, "If it moves but shouldn't, use duct tape. If it doesn't move but should, use WD40." For nearly 60 years, WD40, the iconic tool kit in a can, has been helping amateurs and professionals alike out of all sorts of sticky mechanical jams. In addition to its intended purpose as a penetrating lubricant and anti-corrosion agent, thousands of other uses have been claimed for this miracle liquid. From removing chewing gum, crayon, and tape residue to repelling insects, attracting fish, and even treating arthritis. But can WD40 really do all the things that people claim? Also, who came up with this product? And what is even in those distinctive blue and yellow cans? And most importantly, what does WD40 even stand for anyway? As it turns out, the world's favorite multi-purpose spray has a surprisingly dark origin. One that dates all the way back to the tensest

days of the Cold War. On October the 4th, 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the world's first artificial satellite. In the United States, this feat was met with panic and dread. In addition to dramatically showcasing Soviet technical superiority, the little silver wall orbiting the Earth represented a genuine existential threat. The same R seven rocket that had carried Sputnik into orbit could just as easily drop a nuclear bomb anywhere in the continental United States with almost no warning. In response, the US could only field a handful of medium-range ballistic missiles like the Redstone, Thor, and Jupiter, which had to be based in foreign countries such as Britain and Turkey in order to reach targets in the Soviet Union. Thankfully, however, a solution was in development.

The SM65 Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile designed by the Conveyor Corporation of San Diego, California. The Atlas was an advanced and innovative design, especially in the construction of its propellant tanks. In most rockets and missiles, the propellant tanks are separate components suspended within a rigid airframe. In the Atlas, however, the fuselage and tank walls were one and the same and made of extremely thin stainless steel. The so-called balloon tanks were kept rigid by the pressure of the propellants inside them. This made the Atlas extremely light and efficient for its size, but also meant that it had to be kept pressurized at all times, or else it would collapse like a full balloon.

The Atlas first entered service in 1959, eventually being deployed across 10 Air Force bases across the United States. As a strategic nuclear deterrent, these missiles spent the vast majority of their time sitting idle in their underground silos, exposing their stainless steel skin to attack by corrosion. To ensure that the nation's nuclear force would always remain in launch ready condition, Conveyor began seeking a means of coating the Atlas's skin and preventing the infiltration of moisture. Luckily, just such a product had recently been invented by a small local company. In September 1959, a group of California-based engineers and chemists, including Ivan Norman, Norm Lson, Gordon Dorson, John Gregory, and Sirill Sai Irving came together to form the Rocket Chemical Company, initially headquartered in Chula Vista near San Diego. Shortly after the company's founding, a US naval commander and

friend of the Lawson family asked Norm Lawson if he could develop a penetrating coating to protect machinery aboard naval ships from salt corrosion. Said coating, he explained, had to be stable and easy to store and apply. Lawson, who had a degree in mechanical engineering, but not chemistry, nonetheless accepted the challenge, and to the dismay of his family, set up a makeshift laboratory in his home garage at 1048 Myrtle Way in San Diego's Hillrest suburb. For months on end, Lawson experimented with dozens of mixtures of petroleum distillates, rejecting one formula after another is inadequate. Finally, on the 40th attempt, Lawson hit Perert, a concoction that efficiently displaced water from metal parts, lubricating them and protecting them from corrosion. Lawson turned over his formula to Rocket Chemical Company President Sai Irvin, who dubbed it WD40 for water displacement 40th formula. To test

Lawson's mixture, Irving took a mixture to San Diego's Emberard Arero docks, a major repair hub for tuna fishing boats. There, he convinced Sam Crefll, owner of the tuna boat Sun Europa, to test out the new product. Crelo and Irvin lifted the engine out of the Sun Europa, lowered it into the salt water, and left it overnight. The next morning, they doused the engine in WD40, and to their utter surprise and delight, it started without issue. So impressed was Crell with WD40's abilities that he offered to buy a 50% stake in Rocket Chemical Company. He followed through on this promise and was elected to the position of treasurer. From the Embaradero docks, word of the company's incredible new product spread quickly throughout San Diego, eventually reaching the Convey Corporation, who began buying large quantities of WD40 to protect the skin of their new Atlas missile from corrosion. It wasn't long before

engineers and mechanics at Convey began discovering new unexpected uses for WD40. From removing lipstick from collars to repelling ants, perhaps inevitably, these employees began taking cans of WD40 home with them to tackle all sorts of domestic tasks. Recognizing a potentially huge domestic market for their first and thus only product in 1958, the Rocket Chemical Company made WD40 available for private purchase in San Diego. From here, business accelerated at a rapid pace with the company moving into a 3,500 ft plant on Alvarado Canyon Road and expanding its distribution across the United States and even overseas to Latin America, Australia, and Japan. A large part of this success was thanks to a change of packaging. While initially WD40 was packaged in regular metal tins, in 1958, then company president Norman Lson hit upon the idea of offering the product in aerosol spray cans, allowing

it to be more easily applied to a wide variety of surfaces. By September of that year, the Rocket Chemical Company was turning out nearly 8,000 spray cans every day, while WD40 was carried in over 500 hardware stores throughout San Diego. But it was two major world events which caused WD40 sales to truly go through the roof. The first was Hurricane Cara, which for 14 days in September 1961 pounded southern Texas and Louisiana, causing widespread flooding. In response, the Rocket Chemical Company shipped 36 pounds of WD40 to the Gulf Coast to help restore flood damaged emergency vehicles and other vital equipment. Three years later, in 1964, the United States began escalating military operations in Vietnam, sending countless tons of corrosion-prone equipment into an extremely hot and humid environment. One soldier, who brought along a can of WD40 to protect his rifle from corrosion, wrote to the Rocket Chemical Company,

claiming that their product had saved his life. In July of that year, the company received an official government order for 233,000 aerosol cans and 355gal drums of WD40 for use in Vietnam, their largest contract so far. By 1966, the company had moved once again to a new 6,000 square foot plant on Napa Street, and sales of WD40 had reached nearly $5 million per year, a nearly 1,500fold increase in less than a decade. But in one of history's unfortunate twists of fate, the man behind the enormously versatile WD40 formula would not share in his creation's extraordinary success.

When Norman Lawson submitted his winning 40th formula to Sai Irving, he was rewarded with a bonus of $500, equivalent to just over $5,000 today. However, he received no company stock or other benefits and thus received no part of WD40's extraordinary profits. More tragically still, in official accounts of the creation of WD40, Lawson's name was mixed up with that of company president Norman Lson, leading to Len being credited with the invention of WD40 and Lawson being effectively erased from history. Ivan Norman Lawson died in 1967 at the age of 75. His historic contributions all but forgotten.

Meanwhile, the Rocky Chemical Company continued to go from strength to strength on the legendary versatility of its first and only product. In 1969, the company officially changed its name to the WD40 Company, Inc. This was for the simple reason that, in the words of then company President John Barry, "We don't make rockets." Barry, who joined the company the same year it changed its name, is a legendary figure in the history of WD40, considered instrumental in the brand's enduring ubiquity and success. Barry's major contribution was to focus the company's marketing on WD40's extraordinary versatility, turning it from a specialtity product for the armed forces and aerospace industry into a ubiquitous household product found in nearly every toolbox and kitchen drawer around the world. To this end, Barry ensured the WD40 was carried not only by hardware and automotive stores, but by grocery stores

and corner stores as well, explaining, "It's a numbers game. The more shelves we're on, the better the chance a buyer will pick us up, whether it's in hardware or sporting goods. He also encouraged customers to write in with unusual household uses for the products, which were then rolled into the company's advertising campaigns. By the 1970s, this list of non-standard applications had grown into the thousands and included, but was not limited to, deep breath here, loosening stuck zippers, removing crayon, lipstick, and duct tape residue, protecting silverware from tarnishing, keeping pigeons off balconies, treating ant stings, polishing floors, untangling jewelry chains, cleaning stainless steel, hiding cracks in ceramic and marble floors, lubricating children's playground slides, restoring leather furniture, lubricating artificial limbs, restoring flooded automotive distributor caps, keeping bathroom mirrors from

fogging, stopping squirrels from climbing bird feeder poles, removing scruff, Remarks from lenolium floors. I didn't make it. Attracting fish and treating arthritis pain are so close. Most of these uses have actually been tested and confirmed by the WD40 company, particularly those related to lubrication, cleaning, and preventing corrosion. Indeed, one of the largest scale applications of the product is protecting sections of the Statue of Liberty in New York City from the elements. However, the company strongly discourages more unusual use of its products such as treating antings, attracting fish, and treating arthritis on account of WD40's toxicity. Which does beg the question, what is actually in the little blue and yellow can that can? Alas, Iva Lawson's original formula was never patented, meaning that for 60 years, the exact composition of WD40 has remained a closely guarded trade secret.

Only a handful of company employees are privy to the secret. The WD40 concentrate is only blended in four factories in California, Louisiana, the United Kingdom, and Australia. And since 2018, Lawson's original handwritten notes have been securely locked up in a San Diego bank vault. The secrecy has inevitably led to rampant speculation as to the miracle spray's composition, with the most commonly circulated theory being that the main ingredient of WD40 is fish oil. Other more outlandish theories posit that the spray's distinctive smell comes from the vanilla extract vanilla and that the secret formula contains among other things the goop from lava lamps and even seamen.

The truth, however, is rather more mundane with the official material safety data sheet or MSDS for WD40 listing the basic ingredients as 45 to 50% low vapor pressure aliatic hydrocarbons, less than 35% petroleum base oil, less than 25% high vapor pressure aliatic hydrocarbons, 2 to 3% carbon dioxide as propellant. In 2009, Wired magazine sent a sample of WD40 to a lab for chemical analysis and discovered that the secret source is composed mainly of petroleum distillates including decane, nonane, tridocaine, undocane tetradane dimethyl napolene cycllohexane, mineral oil, no fish oil or ottosemen in sight. Sorry, these ingredients make perfect sense given WD40's abilities. Mineral oil is a proven lubricant. Nonane displaces water and decane tridocaine and undocane protect the mixture from freezing at low temperatures. The latter compounds are also found in the pheromone secreted by cockroaches, ants, and the red banded

stink bug, possibly accounting for WD40's distinctly sweet smell. However, the exact proportions of ingredients used in WD40 remains known only to its manufacturers, ensuring WD40's ongoing success. And what success it has been. In 2021, the WD40 company, which employs nearly 500 employees worldwide and sells products in 176 countries, posted net earnings of $70.2 million, while over the past decade, it stock has gone up nearly 200%, more than twice the growth of the benchmark standard and poor 500 stock index. And in recognition of the company's major contributions to the aerospace industry, in 2014, WD40 was inducted into the San Diego Air and Space Museum's International Air and Space Hall of Fame. All of this despite the fact that the company's flagship product has remained virtually unchanged for nearly 60 years with one notable exception. Ironically, due to a 2013 California Air Resource Board ruling

requiring all aerosols to contain 25% or less volatile organic compounds, WD40 cannot be sold in the state of its creation in its original formulation. For this reason, regular cans of WD40 sold in the remaining 49 US states and around the world are labeled not for sale in California. This does not mean, however, that there have been no changes at WD40. In 2003, the company introduced the big blast nozzle to allow their product to be more effectively applied to large areas, while in 2005, it rolled out cans with a permanently attached flip up smart straw, finally solving customers number one complaints, losing the little red applicator straw. The company has also attempted to diversify its product line, launching a variety of products, including specialtity WD40 formulations for use on machine tools and motorcycles, 3in-1 lubricating oil, lava hand soap, spotshot carpet cleaner, and 2000 flushes toilet cleaner.

However, the vast majority of the company's profits still come from Iva Lawson's original secret formula with a thousand uses, a testament to the power of a good product marketed well. So, the next time you reach for a can of WD40 to loosen a stuck bolt, lubricate your bike chain, get incriminating lipstick off your shirt collar, or if you are so inclined, free up an arthritic joint, remember that the miracle liquid in your hand owes its existence to the very real threat of nuclear annihilation. Now, there's a thought even WD40 can't unstick from your mind.

Ah, super glue. Along with duct tape and WD40, it is an essential component of any tool kit. Perfect for repairing everything from a chipped coffee mug to a cracked fingernail to that beloved toy the kids played with a little too roughly. Just dab a little bit of the sticky stuff on. Wait a few seconds and boom, the two parts are instantly bonded together and also to your hands. Love it or hate it, Superglue is one of the most successful adhesives in the world, accounting for more than $400 million in sales worldwide. And in addition to helping with minor home repairs, the substance has found applications in a wide range of fields, including medicine and criminal forensics. But how did this powerful and versatile adhesive first come to be? Well, as with many inventions, superglue owes its existence to one person being in the right place at the right time, and that person was Dr. Harry Coover. Harry Wesley Coover

Jr. was born on March the 6th, 1919 in New York, Delaware. His illustrious career as an inventor almost never happened. For at the age of 16, he was struck by a train while driving and fell into a coma for over a month. When he finally awoke, he remembered nothing of his life before the accident. However, Coover would go on to make a full recovery and study chemistry at Hobart College and Cornell University, graduating with a master's degree in 1942 and a PhD in 1944. His thesis was on a commercial synthesis process for vitamin B6, which was adopted by the US Army on the outbreak of the Second World War. Shortly after graduation, Coover landed a job as a chemist at the Eastman Kodak Company in Rochester, New York. At this time, Kodak was looking for a synthetic replacement for the optical glass used to make aircraft gun sites.

Among the many materials being studied was a family of polymers known as cyanoacrylates, normally a thick transparent gel. When exposed to moisture, cyanoacrylates spontaneously polymerize, the small molecular subunits or monomers assembling themselves into long, stronger, and more flexible chains. However, as Kuber later recalled, these compounds quickly proved less than up to the task. Quote, "I was working with some acryate monomers that showed promise, but everything they touched stuck to everything else. It was a severe pain." So, the team moved on to more promising materials and cyanoacrylates were quickly forgotten for the time being at least. In 1951, Coover relocated to the Kodak facility in Kingsport, Tennessee, where he was assigned to a team of chemists researching heatresistant polymers for jet aircraft canopies. While looking for an adhesive capable of bonding the various layers of canopy together,

Coover suddenly remembered the cyanoacrylates that he had experimented with 7 years earlier. Unlike most adhesive, cyanoacrylates needed no additional heat or pressure to cure, greatly simplifying the manufacturing process. The team thus began experimenting with the compound, synthesizing nearly a thousand different formulations. One day, Coover's colleague Fred Joiner attempted to measure the optical properties of formulation 910 by spreading the compound between the prisms of a machine called a refractometer. To his horror, however, the compound immediately cured, permanently bonding the prisons together. As one of his colleagues later recalled, he ruined the machine. Back in the 50s, they cost like $3,000, which was huge. For reference here, that would be about $40,000 today. But thankfully, Joiner was not reprimanded for this mishap. Instead, he and Coover immediately realizing the enormous

potential of cyanoacrylate adhesives filed for and were awarded US patent number 2768109 for alcohol catalyzed cyanoacrylate adhesive composition/s superglue and began refining the product for commercialization. The product first appeared on storeshelves in 1958 under the name Eastman 910. However, the company later coined the enduring name superglue. The formula was also licensed to the Loctite Corporation of Rocky Hill, Connecticut, who sold it under the name Loctite Quickset 404 and later Super Bonder. On January the 15th, 1959, Harry Coover appeared on the popular television show I've Got a Secret to promote his new invention. On live television, Coover used a single drop of superglue to bond a metal bar to a cable. Then, he and host Gary Moore grabbed hold of the bar and were hoisted off the stage, supported only by a thin layer of adhesive. Cooper would later appear in several television

advertisements endorsing various formations of superglue. From these humble beginnings, superglue spread quickly around the world, reaching all seven continents by the 1970s. In addition to assisting ordinary people making minor household repairs, and model makers stick their projects together. Superglue has also found applications in sometimes unexpected fields. Rock climbers and guitar players use it to toughen their fingers or to fix minor cuts and scrapes. Veterinarians use it to mend broken turtle shells. While in forensic science, cyanoacrylate vapor is used to reveal latent fingerprints. The oils, water, and other residues in the fingerprint, causing the vapor to polymerize into an easily photographed white crust. Superglue can even be used to light a fire in a survival situation.

When dropped onto a cotton ball or other kind of fine natural fiber, superglue underos an exothermic reaction powerful enough to ignite the cotton. But the application which Harry Coover was most proud of was in the field of medicine. One day in the early 1960s, Coover watched as his son tried to cut open a tube of superglue while building a model airplane. The knife slipped, cutting his son's finger, only for a drop of glue to spill from the tube and immediately seal the wound. Immediately recognizing the tissue bonding potential of superglue, Coover set about developing a formula that could be used to quickly staunch major bleeding in an emergency. This research soon caught the attention of the US Army then embroiled in the Vietnam War to quote, "During the Vietnam War, one of the generals came to us and said, I want this for us out there on the battlefield." When the medics go out on the battlefield, a

guy's got a big hole in his belly or someplace bleeding and he takes this and just sprays it and that instantaneously stops the bleeding. The biggest problem they had was stopping the bleeding so they could get the patient back to the hospital and the consequence was many of them bled to death. So the medics used the spray, stopped the bleeding, and were able to get the wounded back to the hospital. This was very powerful. That's something I'm very proud of. The number of lives that were saved. End quote. Despite the success, however, superglue as originally formulated was not ideally suited for medical use. Not only does the curing process produce large amounts of heat that can inflict serious burns, but it also releases formaldahhide, which can irritate the skin, eyes, and respiratory tracts. For this reason, in 1988, a much less irritating derivative called two octal cyanoacrylate was

developed and approved by the FDA and is now sold under various brand names, including Dermabond Traumal. Indeed, in many clinics around the world, medical grade superglue is now widely used in place of stitches for more minor wounds. Given the astounding versatility and utility of his invention, it is safe to assume that Harry Cooper became a very wealthy man. Right? Alas, this is not the case for while Kodak might have originated the product, they did not manage to capitalize on its success, and in 1980, the rights to Superglue were sold to the National Starch Company. As a result, Harry Coover never received any royalties from his creation. But this did not prevent Coover from having a remarkable career. By the time of his death of congestive heart failure on March the 26th, 2011, Coover held 460 patents, including for graft polymerization, olifin polymerization, and organo phosphorus chemistry. Over

his nearly 60-year career, he authored 60 papers and served as vice president of Eastman Kodak, director of research and development at Eastern Kodak chemical division, president of new business development at the Loctite Corporation, and board member at Riley Industries. The many awards he received for his lifetime of work include the Industrial Research Institute Medal Achievement Awards, the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, and an induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. And despite having invented many other products and processes, Coover was nonetheless proud of his most famous invention. His widow Muriel stated shortly after his death, quote, I think he got a kick out of being Mr. Superglue. Who doesn't love superglue? Nonetheless, Coover acknowledged the key role of luck in his discovery, stating in an interview, "The cyanoacrylate adhesive invention and discovery really involved one day of

serendipity and about 10 years of hard work." But whatever the case, one thing is clear. Superglue, like all good ideas, just sort of stuck. It has a light side, it has a dark side, and it binds the universe together. No, we're not talking about the force from Star Wars, but the handyman's ultimate secret weapon, duct tape. Essentially, a self-contained repair kit. This humble gray tape has seemingly endless applications. It can be used to bind wounds and cure warts, make clothing, shelters, and ropes, patch leaky boats and submarines, and even has saved the lives of astronauts in outer space. It is strong enough to suspend a car or restrain a bull elephant, yet can be easily torn with one's bare hands. The sheer versatility duct tape has is perhaps best encapsulated by the popular mechanics and engineers adage, if it doesn't move, but it should, use WD40.

If it moves, but it shouldn't, use duct tape. So, in a previous video, we looked at one half of the so-called redneck repair kit, exploring WD40's surprising origins as a compound for protecting nuclear missiles from corrosion and its evolution into a ubiquitous household product found in toolboxes and supply cupboards around the world. Today, we're going to look at the other half, examining how a product designed for a mundane and vital task during the Second World War became one of the world's most versatile and beloved tools. Now, before we begin, it's important to note that considerable debate exists regarding the actual name of this ubiquitous gray tape, with some referring to it as duct tape and others referring to it as duct tape. Worldwide, the preference appears to be for duct tape. And indeed, one of the tape's first commercial applications was for joining and sealing heating and

cooling ducts. However, the debate is complicated by the fact that one of the world's largest tape manufacturers, Mango Inc., brands its product as Duct Tape, complete with a duck mascot named Mango Tea Duck. Indeed, the term duct tape far predates the product we currently associate with the name, originally referring to plain strips of cotton duck cloth. First appearing in written records in 1899, duct tape was used to wrap electrical and structural cables to insulate or protect them from corrosion and damage. It was also commonly used for trimming dresses and other garments, constructing shoes and boots, and holding together the slats on Venetian blinds. Duct tape, as we know it today, is manufactured with a reinforcing backing of cotton duck cloth. And it is from this that the modern term duct tape is thought to originate, or the name could have originated from the tape's ability to repel water, as in the idiom water off a

duck's back. We will likely never know for sure, but we're getting ahead of ourselves. For in order to explore the origins of duct tape, we must first take a look at the evolution of adhesive tape itself. The idea of using flexible adhesive back tape for repairs might seem like an obvious and intuitive one, but like every other household product, it had to be invented by someone. No one is quite sure who invented adhesive tape, but among the very first commercial versions was a surgical tape introduced by Johnson and Johnson in 1898 for binding wound dressings. By the 1910s, tradesmen could readily buy friction and electrical tape made of cotton or linen tape impregnated with a rubber-based adhesive. However, the first truly popular household adhesive tape would not appear until the 1920s, and its invention was intimately tied to the rise of a giant innovative consumer products. In 1902, five Minnesota

businessmen came together to form the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company, better known as 3M. The company purchased a mine in order to extract the mineral corandum used in the manufacturer of sandpaper. Unfortunately, the mine failed to produce a profitable yield, causing the company to go bankrupt and be sold off. Lacking ready access to corandum, the new owners of 3M instead began importing a softer but cheaper abrasive mineral, garnet, from Spain. But despite nearly a decade of tireless research, the company struggled to find an adhesive that could adequately bind its garnet powder to a paper backing, leading to endless complaints from customers. All this would change in 1921 with the hiring of a scrappy young engineer named Richard Drew. Drew was the classic non-conforming misfit, expressing a profound disinterest in the traditional American workplace. For much of his teenage years, Drew earned a living as a

banjo player for various dance bands, eventually scraping together enough money to pay for an engineering degree at the University of Minnesota. After only 18 months, however, Drew dropped out of the program and turned instead to the local classified ads to find a job. Spotting an ad for 3M, Drew sent in a rather blunt and honest application letter, and his surprise, he was hired on the spot. But with no formal credentials to speak of, the 22-year-old Drew was relegated to the lower echelons of 3M and sent out to various auto body shops, the primary customers for 3M sandpaper to test the company's products in the field. And it was here that he made an important and highly profitable discovery. In the 1920s, two-tone paint schemes on cars were all the rage. But for those tasked with creating such schemes, the paint process was an exercise in frustration. Painters masked the transition between the two paint

colorings using butcher paper, newspaper, and surgical tape. However, the tape's adhesive tended to lift off the paint of the car body, leading to an endless cycle of painting, sanding, remasking, and repainting. Drew immediately saw a golden opportunity. Why not create a specialized masking tape with a milder adhesive that wouldn't damage paint jobs? Suddenly inspired, Drew rushed back to the 3M labs and in his spare time experimented with various adhesive formulations based on vegetable oil, glycerine, and various resins. Drew became so absorbed by the project that he began to fall behind on his work and was soon ordered by his superiors to abandon his efforts and returned to his primary duties.

Undeterred, Drew continued to pursue the project at home. And after two years of work, he finally came up with a formula that worked. thin strips of crepe paper coated in a mixture of cabinet makers glue and glycerin that stuck firmly to many surfaces and created a crisp masked edge but could be easily peeled away without damaging the underlying paint. However, Drew's supervisor William Mcnite did not see the potential in the invention and refused to pay for a machine to massproduce the tape. But Drew, to fire to the end, refused to let the matter rest and instead exploited a clever loophole to make his vision a reality. As a researcher, Drew was authorized to make purchases of up to $100. So he purchased the tape machine piece by piece in $99 installments and assembled it himself. When Mcnite eventually discovered what Drew was up to, instead of reprimanding the young engineer, he commended him on his

creativity and tenacity and introduced state managerial policy that would soon become a 3M trademark. If you have the right person on the right project and they're absolutely dedicated to finding a solution, leave them alone. Tolerate their initiative and trust them. Meanwhile, Drew's masking tape proved a hit among auto body painters, allowing elaborate paint schemes to be quickly and easily created. However, it was still far from perfect. Early versions had adhesive applied to the edges, but not the center of the tape, frequently causing it to fall off the car body.

During one field trial, an angry painter growled at Drew, "Take this tape back to those Scotch bosses of yours, and tell them to put more adhesive on it." At the time, scotch was a slur, meaning cheap or stingy. Nevertheless, the name stuck and was used by 3M to brand a wide variety of adhesive tape products, including Richard Drew's next great invention. In 1927, rival manufacturer Deont introduced cellophane, a thin, transparent, and moisture proof plastic sheeting, which proved popular with bakers, grocerers, and florists for wrapping their products and keeping them fresh. When customers began seeking a strong but aesthetically pleasing means of securing and sealing cellophane wrapped packages, Richard Drew invented the world's first fully transparent adhesive tape, which 3M launched in 1930 as scotch tape. The timing could not have been better. The Great Depression had created a culture of make, do, and

mend in which cash scrapped people began repairing existing household products instead of buying new ones. Scotch tape proved ideal for this task and virtually flew off the shelves, making 3M one of the few major companies to thrive during the depression. As an official history of 3M explains, almost daily new ideas sprang up for using the tape to make old things do. It was used to mend book pages, sheet music, window curtains, and even small rips in clothing. Bankers used it to repair paper currency. Secretaries found it perfect for patching broken fingernails. Farmers discovered they could use it to seal cracked eggs. Housewives used it to cap canned milk, remove lint from clothes, secure bait on mouse traps, and repair cracked ceiling plaster. Goodier used the tape to cover inner ribs and beams of its derigibles, creating an anti-corrosive shield. Richard Drew died in 1980, but his legacy lives on with

Scotch brand masking and cellophane tape still forming the cornerstones of 3M's vast line of products. However, Scotch Tape's popularity would only be a taste of things to come for an even more versatile product was about to be invented. The origins of what we now know as duct tape date all the way back to 1927 when engineers Johnny Denoi and Bill Gross of Johnson and Johnson's Rebelite division developed a new cloth-based surgical tape designed to be torn by hand rather than cut with scissors. But it would take a world war and the determined efforts of a dedicated mother of two for the true potential of that concept to be realized. In 1943, 52-year-old Versa Stout was working at the Green River Ordinance Plant in Illinois, where she was tasked with inspecting boxes of blank cartridges used to launch rifle grenades. The cartridges were packed 11 to a box with the box coated in wax to keep out moisture. The flaps of the box

were sealed with a wax coated paper tape, one end of which was left loose so a soldier could pull on it to open the box. But there was a problem. The fragile paper tab often broke when pulled, leaving soldiers scrambling to claw open the boxes in the heat of battle. Stout, who had two sons serving in the Navy, worried that this design flaw was putting the lives of American servicemen at risk. Thankfully, she had a simple solution. Seal the boxes with a stronger adhesivebacked cloth tape. Stout presented her fix to her supervisors. And while they liked the idea, they did nothing to implement it.

Undaunted, Stout did what any reasonable person would do. She wrote directly to Franklin D. Roosevelt, the president of the United States, saying, "Now your son, my son, and our neighbor's son must pull this tape off some way, perhaps with his teeth or his knife if he is lucky enough to have one. Nine chance out of 10 he hasn't any. I suggest we use a strong cloth tape to close seams and make tab of same." It worked fine. I showed it to different government inspectors. They said it was all right, but I could never get them to change tape. I have two sons out there somewhere. One in the Pacific Island and one with the Atlantic Fleet. You have sons in the service. Also, we can't let them down by giving them a box of cartridges that takes a minute or more to open. The enemy taking their lives that could have been saved. Had the box been taped with a strong cloth tape that can be opened in a split second. I

didn't know who to write to, Mr. President. So, I've written you for hoping your boys, my boys, and every man that uses the rifle grenade that this package of rifle cartridges may be taped with the correct tape. Amazingly, her gamble paid off. President Roosevelt, impressed by Stout's persistence and ingenuity, forwarded a letter to the War Production Board, which instructed Johnson and Johnson to implement her solution. For her initiative, Stout also received the Chicago Tribune's War Worker Award. The tape that Revelite came up with was produced by coating a strip of cotton duck with waterproof polyethylene on one side and a rubber-based adhesive known as Poly Coat on the other. The tape was strong, waterproof, yet easily applied, removed, and torn to length using one's bare hands. colored standard army olive drab green. The tape was sent in large quantities overseas where it soon found

dozens of uses besides sealing ammunition boxes such as taping together fuel cans and repairing tents, vehicles, and weapons. As mentioned previously, the tape was initially known as duct tape, either due to its use of cotton duck fabric or its water repellent qualities. The Air Force also referred to it as 100 mile perph tape for its ability to withstand high-speed winds. While in the Navy, it was known as EB tape after the Electric Boat Company, which used the tape extensively in the construction of submarines and torpedo boats. After the war, the manufacturing rights to duct tape were acquired from Johnson and Johnson by the Melvin A.

Anderson Company of Cleveland, Ohio, who made it available for purchase in hardware stores. In civilian use, the tape found dozens of new and creative uses, including sealing the joints in metal ventilation ducts. In response to this new application, in the early 1950s, Melvin Anderson began producing tape with a metallic gray finish to match metal duct work. And thus the modern term duct tape came to be. Or so the story goes. In reality, the term duct tape does not appear in print until at least 1960 and did not enter common use until the 1970s, making the connection between the term duct tape and the tape's postwar use in repairing ducts a dubious one at best. Indeed, despite the tape's legendary versatility, about the only thing it's not good at is actually repairing ducts.

In 1998, physicists Max Sherman and Elaine Walker at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory applied a variety of ceiling materials, including regular grade duct tape, to the joints of sheet metal ventilation ducts, then ran hot and cold air through the ducts to simulate regular operating conditions. Surprisingly, of all the materials tested, duct tape fared the worst, often shrinking, drying up, delaminating, or breaking. As Sherman stated of the experiment, it failed reliably and often quite catastrophically. and nothing else except duct tape failed. It's thus more than likely that the term duct tape is simply a corruption of the earlier word duct tape or the result of confusion between silver duct tape and similar looking heatresistant metal tape designed for use in heating ducts. This combined with Mango Inc's trademarking and repopularization of the old term duct tape means that at the end of the

day both names are equally valid. Chances are whichever name you use, most people are likely to know exactly what you're talking about. But whatever it's called, duct tape has acquired a legendary reputation, being able to solve nearly any problem under the sun. As a result, a veritable cult surrounds the endlessly versatile substance. It's the go-to tool of many pop culture characters from Angus MacGyver to Red Green. It's had its abilities tested and confirmed dozens of times on the TV show Mythbusters and is the subject of an annual festival held every June in Avon, Ohio. Mango, the makers of the duck brand tape, even sponsor a stuck at prom contest, awarding scholarships for the best formal wear constructed of duct tape. The tape has also evolved considerably from its humble wartime origins and now comes in dozens of varieties from matte black gaffer tape for theater and film use to fiberglass

duct tape for heavy duty applications as well as every color of the rainbow. And the tape is big business. Every year, Mango alone manufactures enough duct brand tape to circle the earth 20 times. While the global duct tape market is valued at a whopping $4 billion. According to Tim Lyberg and Jim Berg, authors of a series of bestselling books on duct tape, the secret to the tape success is simplicity and a uniquely self-contained nature. It's the quick fix. Whack on some duct tape and you're done. It comes with no directions and no expectations as how to use it. Name any other tool that is totally self-contained. With hammers, you need nails. Screwdrivers, you need screws.

Indeed, the tape's myriad applications speak for themselves. In addition to repairing household items and making clothing, duct tape has been used by runway models to enhance cleavage, by athletes to support weak joints, and by veterinarians to repair horses hooves. Many first responder manuals contain instructions on how to use duct tape to temporarily suture wounds, particularly sucking chest wounds. Duct tape has even been found to be more effective than liquid nitrogen cryotherapy for eliminating warts. But perhaps nothing speaks to duct tape's legendary versatility more than its storied use by the United States's space program. On April the 11th, 1970, NASA's Apollo 13 lunar landing mission was thrown into chaos when an oxygen tank exploded, severely crippling the spacecraft and threatening the lives of astronauts Jim Levelvel, Fred Hayes, and Jack Swag.

With the functionality of the command service module Odyssey compromised, the astronauts were forced to retreat into the lunar module Aquarius, using it as a makeshift lifeboat. There they faced a myriad of problems, including limited electrical power and oxygen, freezing temperatures, and haze developing a urinary tract infection. But most concerningly of all were the steadily rising carbon dioxide levels in the cabin which threatened to poison the crew within hours. Like the CSN, the Luna module was fitted with lithium hydroxide scrubber canisters designed to remove CO2 from the air. However, they were designed to support two astronauts on the lunar surface for a day, not three men for 6 days, and they quickly became saturated. Worse still, while the LM used round canisters, the CSM used larger square canisters that didn't fit into the LM receptacles. Tasked with literally fitting a square peg into a

round hole, engineers at NASA's mission control in Houston worked non-stop for two days to come up with a solution using only materials and tools found aboard the spacecraft. The solution they came up with involved encasing the square CSM canister in a plastic bag and using a space suit oxygen hose to connect it to the LM receptacle. But the two major problems, sealing the bag to the hose and supporting the bag so it didn't collapse against the canister, cutting off the flow of cabin air. The latter problem was tackled using the cardboard cover of the now obsolete flight plan, while the second was solved using that indispensable part of the astronaut's toolkit, a roll of gray duct tape. Thanks in part to duct tape, the makeshift repair worked perfectly and the astronauts survived the rest of the journey, splashing down safely in the Pacific Ocean on April the 17th. As Ed Smiley, one of NASA engineers who came

up with the solution to the CO2 scrubber problem, recalled in a 2005 interview, "When I knew there was duct tape on board the spacecraft, I felt like we were home free. One thing a southern boy will never say is, "I don't think duct tape will fix it." Duct tape would also play a vital, if less dramatic, role in the very last Apollo mission, Apollo 17, which launched on December the 7th, 1972. As on the previous two missions, the crew of Apollo 17 were equipped with a folding battery powered vehicle known as the Lunar Roving Vehicle, or LRV in order to cover greater distances on the lunar surface. Shortly into their burst Luna EVA on December the 11th, command module pilot Harrison Schmidt accidentally caught his geological hammer on the LV's rearright fender extension, breaking it clean off. While on an Earthbound vehicle, this would have been a minor inconvenience at worse. On the moon, it was potentially

disastrous, for the fender prevented the LRV from throwing up clouds of notoriously abrasive lunar dust. Indeed, after only a few minutes of driving without the extension, the LV was so thickly covered in dust that the batteries began to overheat. After spending several minutes dusting off the vehicle with a brush, Commander Eugene Cernin attempted to fix the fender extension back into place with an ever handy roll of good old-fashioned American grade tape. Unfortunately, the omnipresent dust also stuck to the tape, preventing it from sticking properly and causing the hastily repaired fender to fall off after only a few minutes. Faced with the prospect of being unable to use the LRV, Zernan and Schmidt tried a different approach. Inside the Luna Module Challenger, they used duct tape to laminate together four paper maps and create a makeshift fender extension.

Inside the relatively dust-free environment of the LM, the tape retained its regular stickiness and when clamped to the LRV fender, the crude extension worked perfectly. This successfully abated the dust thrown up by the vehicle until the end of the mission. More recently, duct tape once again came to the rescue during the STS-51D mission of the space shuttle Discovery, launched on April 12th, 1985. As part of its mission, Discovery deployed two communication satellites, the Canadian Telat 3 and the American Sinc.

However, upon being launched from the shuttle's cargo bay, Singom failed to deploy its antennas, or the Kicker rocket motor that should have launched it into its desired orbit. After determining the satellite sequencing lever had not been successfully pulled during launch, the crew of Discovery improvised a pair of tools nicknamed fly swatters from tool extension poles, plastic notebook covers, and of course, duct tape. These were mounted to the end of the shuttle's robotic Canada manipulator and used to grab and throw the syncom sequencing switch.

Unfortunately, the satellite still failed to launch and had to be returned to Earth for repairs. It was finally launched by the SDS511 mission launched in August of that year. Given this illustrious track record, we can only imagine that every NASA employee who read Andy Weir's 2011 novel, The Martian, let out a hearty amen when protagonist Mark Wodney proclaimed, "Yes, of course, duct tape works in a near vacuum. Duct tape works anywhere. Duct tape is magic and should be woripped. Ah, the microwave oven. Perhaps the most con of mod cons. Whether you're zapping a mug of lukewarm coffee back to life, rewarming some leftovers, or heating up a frozen burrito for the fourth time this week, this handy little vise will get the job done quickly and efficiently without the mus and fuss of a regular stove or oven. But have you ever wondered how this seemingly magical box manages to cook your food without flames

or heat? or who invented in the first place and why? Well, the answer may surprise you. For the key working components inside this kitchen appliance found in every kitchen, break room and hotel suite was once the most closely guarded military secret in the world. A key technological breakthrough that was instrumental in winning the Second World War and shaping the modern world as we know it. This is the long and surprisingly fascinating story of the microwave oven. Hotels have microwaves in them. That's the most shocking thing from this part for me. Like I don't think I've ever stayed in a hotel with a microwave in it. Is that an American thing? The origins of the microwave oven stretch all the way back to the discovery of radio waves. In 865, Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell published the groundbreaking paper, a dynamical theory of electromagnetic fields, in which he postulated that

visible light is composed of interacting electromagnetic fields and laid out the physical laws today known as Maxwell's equations governing the behavior of these waves. Maxwell's theories predicted the existence of an entire spectrum of electromagnetic waves varying in frequency and wavelength. In 1888, German physicist Hinrich Hertz, whose name is now the official unit of frequency, succeeded in generating and detecting long low-frequency electromagnetic waves, confirming Maxwell's predictions. Herz's discoveries not only inspired later inventors like Gigmo Maronei, to develop wireless communications, aka radio, but also laid the groundwork for the discovery of the rest of the electromagnetic spectrum. While the spectrum is continuous, for the sake of convenience, it is usually divided into seven main regions or bands according to wavelength. Radio waves down to 10 m, microwaves from 1 m to 1 millime,

infrared light from 100 to 1 microme, visible light from 700 to 400 nanome, ultraviolet light from 400 to 121 nm, x-rays from 10 nm to 100 pome. And finally, gamma rays 10 pome and below. In the 1910s and 20s, it was discovered that highfrequency electric currents and shortwave radio signals could induce heating in various materials including human tissue. This led to the development of diathermy, a method for electromagnetically heating muscles and other deep tissues still widely used in physiootherapy to this day. The application of this technology to the field of cooking was readily apparent.

And at the 1933 Century of Progress exhibition in Chicago, electrical giant Westinghouse demonstrated the rapid cooking of foods like steak and potatoes by placing them between two metal plates attached to a 10 kW 60 mehertz shortwave radio transmitter. But while impressive, the required equipment was bulky, expensive, and dangerous, and the technique failed to take off. The dream of cooking food rapidly without flames would have to await the development of a revolutionary piece of technology whose invention was driven by the needs not of medicine or gastronomy, but of war. Our story properly begins in 1934 as Europe was once again gearing up for war. The inter war period saw huge leaps in aviation technology with aircraft going from rickety contraptions of woodwire and fabric to sleek powerful all-metal machines capable of flying at speeds hundreds of kilome per hour and altitudes tens of thousands of meters

high. So advanced were these new weapons that military planners boasted that the bomber will always get through and that future wars would be ended swiftly and decisively by destroying the enemy's military and industrial assets from the air. In the United Kingdom, these developments caused a not insignificant amount of anxiety, as the nation had already gotten a taste of the horrors of aerial bombardment during the First World War. Unfortunately, the Royal Air Force's infrastructure for detecting and tracking incoming enemy bombers had barely evolved over the previous two decades, depending largely on the human aircraft spotters of the Royal Observer Corps. Sound locating devices called acoustic mirrors were also installed at several RAF bases, but these were of dubious utility. While this equipment could give an incoming aircraft's bearing, it could not measure its range.

While the faint sound of distant aircraft was easily drowned out by other noises. Furthermore, as sound travels at slightly over, 1200 km/h, and even bombers of the era could reach over 400 km/h, an aircraft's position would have changed significantly by the time it was detected. This forced the Royal Air Force to adopt the strategy of standing patrols, whereby fighters continuously circled likely approach routes to major targets being relieved by other aircraft when their fuel ran out. As can be imagined, this was a very inefficient strategy, extremely costly in terms of aircraft, engine hours, and fuel. So, in the late 1930s, the RAF introduced specialized interceptor aircraft like the Hawker Fury and the Hawker Huracan, uh, which could remain on the ground and upon receiving an attack warning, quickly take off and climb to operating altitude. However, there could never be enough of these aircraft to cover the

entirety of the UK. Some means of detecting incoming aircraft was still needed in order to vector the interceptors onto their targets. Thankfully, a solution soon appeared in the form of radio detection or RD, what today is widely known as radar. While the invention of radar is typically credited to the British, like all big important ideas, it was actually developed independently in several different countries at around the same time. During his 1888 experiments with radio waves, Hinrich Herz discovered that these waves could be reflected off metallic objects. Similar effects were later observed by radio pioneers such as Maronei and British engineer Charles Samuel Franklin who in a 1922 paper delivered before the Institution of Electrical Engineers wrote quote I also described tests carried out in transmitting a beam of reflected waves across country and pointed out the possibility of the utility of such a

system if applied to lighouses and light ships so as to enable vessels in foggy weather to locate dangerous points around the coasts. It now seems to me that it should be possible to design an apparatus by means of which a ship could radiate or project a divergent beam of these rays in any desired direction. Which rays, if coming across a metallic object, such as another steamer or ship, would be reflected back to a receiver screened from the local transmitter on the sending ship and thereby immediately reveal the presence and bearing of the other ship in fog or thick weather.

Indeed, such a device had already been patented in 1904 by German engineer Christian Halsmire under the name obstacle detector and ship navigation device. Based on contemporary radio technology, the device used a simple high voltage spark gap and a coher receiver to project a burst of radio waves and listen for the echo, allowing ships, icebergs, and other hazards to be detected at night or in dense fog at ranges up to 3 km. It could also measure the approximate range of a contact by triangulating the strength of the echoes from various angles. But while now widely recognized as the first practical radar set, unfortunately Hullsmar's invention failed to attract any military or commercial interest. But in 1933, physicist Rudolph Kunhold, scientific director of the marine or German Navy, began experimenting with radio devices for detecting and tracking ships at sea.

After some initial failed experiments, he joined forces with amateur radio operators Paul Guna Herbslow and Hans Carl Friha von Villinsson and formed a private company called GMA. In June of 1934, the company built a 70watt transmitter and receiver operating at a frequency of 600 meghertz and a wavelength of 50 cm and succeeded in detecting large ships in Ke Harbor at a distance of 2 km. Unlike Christian Hlesmire's device, the range of contacts was determined by pulsing the radio beam and measuring the time it took for each pulse to travel back and forth. The echoes were also displayed visually on a brawn cathode ray tube. In September 1935, Jimmer successfully demonstrated their equipment to the Kregs Marine, who immediately ordered it into production as the Sea Tact, the world's first operational shipborne radar. The technology was also later adapted into the Freya early warning radar to defend

German territory against enemy bombers. But while the Germans initially led the world in radar technology, development work was ordered halted shortly after the outbreak of the Second World War. This was because German leaders assumed the war would be over in a matter of months. Therefore, advanced technologies like radar and jet propulsion would not be needed. Meanwhile, in Britain, the development of radar was spurred by the most unlikely of circumstances. In 1934, articles appeared in German newspapers claiming that the German military was developing a death ray that used powerful radio beams to shoot down enemy aircraft. Intrigued and apparently desperate for any military advantage, however far-fetched, Dr. Harry E.

Wimperis, the Air Ministry director of scientific research, contacted Dr. Robert Watson Watts of the National Physical Laboratory Radio Research Station in slow and asked him if such a death ray were feasible. Watson Watt passed on the task to his colleague Arnold Wilkins who later recalled I received the request on a piece of tornoff calendar. Watson Watt liked using that sort of thing being an economical Scotsman. The request I soon deduced was to assess the feasibility of a death ray as he was asking me to calculate the amount of radio energy which must be radiated to raise the temperature of a man's blood to be heated at a certain distance. end quote.

To the disappointment of science fiction fans everywhere, it took Wilkins less than half an hour to calculate that the power requirements of a working death rate were far too high to be practical. However, in his report, he asked if there was anything else the radio research station could do to help the air ministry. He soon remembered reading a post office report from the previous year, claiming that an aircraft flying across an experimental VHF radio telephone link had caused the received signal to fade and wondered whether such a radio beam could be used to detect and track aircraft at long distances.

Discussing the matter with Watson and Watt, Wilkins realized that if they used a radio beam with a wavelength of 50 m, the 25 m metal tubing wings of the Handley Page Hayford, the RAF standard bomber at the time, would act as a halfwave dipole antenna, reflecting back a much stronger signal than previously assumed. Intrigued by this possibility, the Air Ministry Defense Committee commissioned Watson Watt to prepare a scientific report on radio detection or RD, which he submitted on February the 12th, 1933 under the title detection and location of aircraft by radio methods.

In this remarkable paper, Watson Watt not only laid out the fundamentals of radar, but predicted other technologies such as radiobased identification friend or foe or IFFF systems for aircraft. Impressed the air ministry requested a live demonstration of his theory scheduled for February 16th. In classic British make do in men's fashion, Watson Watt was forced to beg, borrow, and steal much of the equipment needed for this demonstration. For the transmitter, he used the BBC's shortwave radio station at Daventry, transmitting at a frequency of 6 MHz and a wavelength of 49 m. And for the receiver, he borrowed equipment built by the radio research station, Sir Edward Appleton, to study the Earth's ionosphere and packed it into an ancient Morris commercial van.

Ian Wilkins drove the van to a field outside of the town of Weeden near Daventry, where they set up their receiving aerials. The following day, witnessed by Air Ministry observer AP Row, the paired hunched over a glowing cathode ray tube display in the cramped van while RAF pilot flight leftenant FL took off and flew his Hayford bomber at 3,000 m on a predetermined course between Daventry and Weeden. As the bomber lumbered past at 144 km/h, the team watched as the glowing green dot slowly climbed up the tube, the signal only being lost when the aircraft was 13 km away. According to legend, Watson Watt triumphily declared, "Britain is once more in Ireland." Oh, with the basic principle of radio detection proven, Watson Watt received £10,000 from the Air Ministry, an enormous sum in those days to further develop the technology. In May 1935, he and his colleagues set up an experimental establishment on an island at Orford

Ness in Suffukk, officially named the ionospheric research station to conceal its true purpose. Progress was incredibly swift. After only a month, the team succeeded in tracking a Westland Wallace aircraft out to a range of 27 km. While just a week later, they accidentally detected a flight of three RAF Hawkaharta fighters at a range of 32 km and discovered they could track each aircraft individually. The team soon established the optimal wavelength for long-d distanceance detection, 10 m, and a convenient method for displaying the returned echoes. The cathode ray tube displays were fitted with a timebased circuit that made a phosphorescent dot oscillate rapidly across the screen forming a horizontal line. Echoes returned from the aircraft would deflect the dot upward creating peaks along the line. The closer the contact, the further left along the line the peak formed, allowing the aircraft's range to

be determined. Altitude was measured by comparing the return of signals to two horizontal antennas, one mounted above the other, while bearing was measured by compass returns to two crossed aerials. This allowed the position of an incoming aircraft to be determined in three dimensions with a high level of accuracy at up to 200 km. However, at the original signal pulse rate of 25 per second, it could not detect aircraft at ranges under 30 km. To solve this, the rate was increased to tens of millions of pulses per second. At this point, the technology was still known simply as radio detection. But American researchers gave it the name radio direction finding and ranging or radar for short. With all the technical details worked out, in early 1936, Watson Watts team began constructing the first operational radar station at Bourssey Manor in Suffukk. The transmitting and receiving aerials being

mounted on 100 meter tall steel and wooden towers. Initially used for technical development and training of future radar crews. In May 1937, the Boursy Manor installation became the first site of the Chain Home or CH radar network designed to defend England's southern and eastern coasts. By the time it became fully operational in the spring of 1939, chain home totaled 20 radar sites stretching from the aisle of white to the further of fourth. To detect low-flying aircraft, a second parallel network called chain home low based on gun laying radar sets operating at a wavelength of 1.5 m was also installed along with the Royal Observer Corps. Chain home formed the early warning component of the so-called Dowing system named after Air Chief Marshall High Dowing, commander of RAF Fight Command. The coordinates and heading of enemy bomber formations were transmitted from chain home and ROC stations to a filter room at fighter

command headquarters at Bentley Priary in London where ground controllers many of the members of the women's auxiliary air force or wft plotted this information on a giant map and guided the appropriate fighter units to make the interception. By providing early warning and directing aircraft to specific targets, the dowing system allowed Britain's limited fighter force to be deployed with maximum efficiency and effectiveness. Compared to contemporary German and later wartime designs, chain home was relatively primitive and inefficient. Instead of mechanically scanning a narrow beam, it projected a giant flood light across the entire sky, a system which consumed huge amounts of power. Despite this, however, the network used readily available technology, allowing it to be made operational just in time for the outbreak of the Second World War. A fact which would soon grant the British an enormous strategic advantage. Meanwhile,

the Germans watched with curiosity as the chain home towers began popping up along the English coast. While they assumed they had something to do with aerial defense, the stations looked so different from German designs that they could not be certain. So, in the spring of 1939, General Wulf Gang Martini, head of the Luftwaffa signals branch, ordered the mysterious towers investigated. For this mission, he commandeered an unusual vehicle, the LZ130 Graph Zeppelin, the last German rigid airship and the sister ship of the ill- fated Hindenburg.

Fitted with signals intelligence equipment, Graph Zeppelin left its hanger in Frankfurt on July the 12th, 1939 and headed to board Z on the English coast, cruising just out of sight of the experimental station. Yet, instead of the pulseed radar signals they were expecting, the German radio operators just heard random static. No matter how they adjusted their equipment, they could detect nothing. After cruising up and down the English coast for several hours, the airship gave up and returned home empty-handed. She returned early the next month on another spy mission, but was equally unsuccessful, leading the Germans to conclude that the British had no working early warning system. Of course, Chain Home was in fact fully operational and its operators accurately tracked the giant airship throughout its two spy flights. So why didn't Graph Zeppelin detect their signals? Well, the simple fact was that German radars worked at

wavelengths of around 50 cm, and they expected the British equipment to be similar. But Chain Home worked on a much longer 10-meter wavelength. The Germans simply hadn't set their detection equipment to detect the right frequencies. This oversight uh was to have dire consequences in the summer of 1940 when the Luftwaffer set out to destroy the Royal Air Force on the ground and forced the British to negotiate peace terms, an aerial struggle now known as the Battle of Britain. Though early in the battle, the Germans made some dive bombing raids against the chain home radar stations, this campaign was half-hearted and quickly abandoned. Not only did the Germans fail to recognize the vital importance of the stations, but the installations themselves proved difficult to attack and any damage inflicted was quickly repaired. This failure was to cost the Germans dearly.

For aided by Chain Home and the Dowing system, within 2 months, RAF Fight Command succeeded in chasing the Luftwaffer out of the daylight skies, shooting down 1,736 German bombers and fighters at a loss of just 915 British aircraft. The Germans thus switched to making nighttime raids against civilian centers like London, Liverpool, and Coventry. Kicking off the infamous Blitz. Developed just in the nick of time, the chain home radars played a vital role in saving the Royal Air Force from destruction and allowing Britain to survive another day. But as the first phase of the Battle of Britain drew to a close, the system began to show its major shortcomings. While Chain Home and the Dowing system could track incoming enemy aircraft and vector fighters onto an interception course, the actual interceptions had to be made visually. However, when the Germans switched to nightbombing, this became

all but impossible. had. For the first few months of the Blitz, Britain's air defenses proved all but useless against the nocturnal intruders. Solving this problem would lead to one of the greatest technological breakthroughs of the entire war. Meanwhile, the RAF's bomber command turned the tables on the Germans and began flying regular bombing raids on Germany and occupied Europe. But just like the Germans, the British quickly discovered that bombing in daylight was suicide and atrocious losses at the hands of the Luftwaffa fighters forced them to switch to night bombing. However, this created problems of its own as navigating to a target and dropping bombs accurately in pitch darkness proved all but impossible.

Indeed, in the early days of the bombing campaign, it was determined that over 90% of bombs fell on open countryside several kilometers from the intended target. Even worse, by this time, the Germans had recognized the utility of radar and developed their own even more sophisticated version of the dowing system known as the Himmel or four post to bed or the Cam Huba line after General Major Joseph Cam Huba. Early warning of incoming enemy bombers was given by a chain of coastal radars cenamed Freya after the queen of the gods in Germanic mythology operating at a wavelength of 1.2 m. Once the bombers had passed the coast they were handed over to a network of smaller radars cenamed versberg operating at a wavelength of 50 cm which could accurately track individual bombers and direct search lights, anti-aircraft guns and night fighters toward them. As in the dowing system, all of this was coordinated from central command rooms,

largely staffed by female auxiliaries known as the Luftwafa Helin. Her first German knight fighters, like their British counterparts, had to make the actual interceptions visually. But from 1942 onwards, they were increasingly equipped with the 61 cm FPG 202 Likenstein airborne intercept radar, whose distinctive branching aerials mounted to the aircraft's nose, were nicknamed mattress or stags horns. The technical details of the Camhuba line, which inflicted unsustainable losses in the early days of the night bombing campaign, were soon worked out by British intelligence by various methods, including signals, intelligence, aerial reconnaissance photographs, the breaking of the German Enigma cipher, and even a daring raid on February the 27th, 1942, code named Operation Biting, in which a team of British airborne troops parachuted into a Wersburg site in Bruno and France to capture pieces of the

radar and some of its operators, but that's a story for another video. But once the British knew how the system and its various components worked, they very quickly set about developing countermeasures. The first of these was simply to form the bomber force into a single concentrated stream and fly them through a single point in the Cam Huba line, swamping the Versburg radars and preventing night fighters from being accurately guided towards individual targets. However, the Germans quickly countered this tactic by deepening the line to include multiple overlapping defensive sectors and placing large radar controlled anti-aircraft batteries around major industrial targets like factories. Undeterred, the British turned to a series of increasingly sophisticated electronic countermeasures. The first of these, code named tinsel, jostel, and airborne cigar jammed night fighters radios by broadcasting white noise generated by

microphones placed in the attacking bombers's engines, preventing ground controllers from guiding them to an intercept. Later when night fighters began being equipped with Likenstein airborne radar, another jamming device code named piper rack was developed to counter it. Mandrel was used to jam the Freya early warning radars. Moonshine was a transponder which made a single decoy aircraft appear on radar like an enemy flight of bombers, luring German air defenses away from the main force while perfectos triggered the night fighters identification friend or foe or IFFF transponders revealing their positions. Rather more devious and amusing was Operation Corona, in which German-sp speakaking radio operators aboard the bombers impersonated the German ground controllers, causing mass confusion among the night fighter force.

After alerting of this deception, the Germans switched to using female ground controllers, assuming that the RAF would not send wsup up in operational aircraft. But the British were already one step ahead and had set up a team of German speakaking ws at a highowered transmitting station at Hollywood Manor in Kent. This scheme often resulted in darkly hilarious scenes as one of Ruth Tosek later recalled quote they would say destin steamer an enemy voice don't listen to it don't listen to it and we would reply see us intig steamer we are the real voice this would go on until the pilot became completely confused and didn't know who was who the most effective allied radar countermeasure was ironically the simplest code named window this consisted of strips of aluminium foil cut to half the wavelength of the German Versburg radar 26.5 cm creating a half-wave dipole antenna that would radiate back a much

stronger echo than a random aircraft signature. Dropped in bundles from attacking aircraft, window completely overwhelmed the radars, rendering them useless. Indeed, so effective was window that for months the British hesitated to deploy it, fearing that the Germans would quickly copy it and retaliate in kind. Ironically, the Germans had developed an identical weapon code named Dupal, but also hesitated to use it for identical reasons. However, RAF bomber command losses soon became so high that Prime Minister Winston Churchill ultimately gave the order to open the window. The first large-scale operational use of this doomsday weapon was during Operation Gamora, the 24th of July 1943 firebombing raid against the port city of Hamburg. As expected, window proved devastatingly effective, completely blinding the German defenses and leaving search lights, anti-aircraft guns, and night fighters to grope

uselessly around the night sky. This allowed the 746 bombers to reach the city almost unopposed and deliver their deadly payloads. The summer of 1943 had been unusually hot and dry, turning Hamburg into a tinder box and allowing the incendiary bombs to touch off a gigantic firestorm, a self-sustaining flame tornado that generated winds of up to 240 km/h, sweeping citizens off their feet like droid leaves and sucking the air out of air raid shelters. The raid destroyed 61% of Hamburg's houses and killed 51,000 of its citizens for the loss of just 12 RAF aircraft. Indeed, afterwards, Albert Spear, Hitler's Minister of Armament, stated that if raids of similar size have been conducted against just five more major German cities, the Allies could have won the war in 1943. With their radar network rendered ineffective, the Germans switched to a tactic code named wild sa or wild boar in which night

fighters flew above the enemy bomber streams and made their interceptions visually by spotting their targets silhouetted against the search lights and fires on the ground below. Later they also developed systems called Wlouse and Nuremberg that could distinguish between moving bombers and stationary clouds of window or detect the specific reflections produced by spinning aircraft propellers. Night fighters were also equipped with Likensstein SN2 and Neptune radars operating at frequencies immune to window in the Fensburg and Knackos devices which allowed the fighters to home in on Allied bombers Monica tail warning radar and the H2S ground scanning radars. These advancements allowed the Germans to resume inflicting heavy losses against Allied bombers starting in early 1944. As a result, the Allies were forced to remove Monica from their aircraft and only turn on their radars at the last possible moment. But

if the Germans ever considered retaliating against Britain using Dupal, they would have found this countermeasure wholly ineffective thanks to a key technological breakthrough. A device capable of producing extremely shortwave centrometric radar beams. The development of this device was initiated by the Royal Navy which wanted a more precise radar to allow warships and patrol aircraft to detect small targets like surfaced Ubot and aim their guns in poor visibility at long distances. In 1939, the Admiral T contacted a team at the University of Birmingham under Dr.

Marcus Olant who would later play a key role in the Manhattan project that developed the atomic bomb. Olphant assigned the task of developing centimetric radar to research fellow John Randall and post-graduate student Harry Boot who began experimenting with a device known as Clyron. Used in many early radar sets, the Clystron was a type of amplifying vacuum tube that bounced a beam of electrons between two resonant cavities, creating an oscillation that generated highfrequency radio waves. Unfortunately, Clyrons could only generate practical radar beams at wavelengths down to 50 cmters.

At shorter wavelengths, the power requirements became impractically high. Randel thus abandoned the caestron and focused on another device known as the split anode magnetron. In November 1939, the pair sketched out an unusual device they dubbed the cavity magnetron. This consisted of a solid cylindrical anode made of copper with a central cavity and six smaller resonant cavities arranged around it and connected by slots. A cathode injected electrons into the central cavity, while a powerful magnet caused the electron beam to swirl around its edge past the openings to the peripheral cavities, creating a resonance in a similar manner to blowing air across the mouth of a bottle and hopefully generating wavelengths of 10 cm or less. When Randel and Boot presented their concept to Olivant, he was not overly enthusiastic. But given the discouraging lack of success with other approaches, he tacidly approved

their experiments. With resources almost non-existent, Randall and Buu were forced to resort to the string and ceiling wax approach that had characterized British physics for over a hundred years. High voltage transformers were scred from the Royal Navy base at Portsmouth, while an old teaching electromagnet was unearthed in one of the university labs. Other components like the copper anode and high voltage rectifiers Randall and Boot manufactured themselves. Emblematic of the make, do, and men's nature of the endeavor, the ends of the prototype were vacuum sealed using two half penny coins and sealing wax. The methods used to test the exotic new device were equally crude. To measure its power output, Randall and Boot connected the Magnetron to a series of light bulbs, increasing the power until the bulb burned out before swapping in a new one. By this method, they measured the maximum output to a

whopping 400 W. To measure the emitted wavelength, they used an apparatus known as a leer line, a pair of parallel wires attached to the magnetron along which a light bulb could be slid, the bulb lighting up at each half wavelength. To the pair's astonishment, their first prototype produced a wavelength of 9.87 cm, almost exactly what they were aiming for. News of the breakthrough at the University of Birmingham, spread like wildfire through the British military establishment, who immediately ordered that top priority be given to its refinement and deployment. By June 1940, the General Electric Company Laboratories in Wembley, Essex, had developed the NT98, the first practical mass-produced aircooled cavity magnetron, light enough to be installed in aircraft. These early magnetrons suffered from the problem of random frequency jumping. But this was soon solved by Dr. J. Seers by strapping

alternate resonant cavities with heavy copper wires. So urgent was the need for these magnetrons that the first production models were manufactured in great haste using a drilling jig made from a cult revolver cylinder. In August 1940, with Britain under threat of Nazi invasion, a delegation of scientists known as the Tisard mission traveled to the United States, bearing Britain's most important technical breakthroughs, including an early production cavity magnetron. This gift allowed magnetrons to be mass-produced in American factories and opened the doors for further exchanges of key military technology. Is it to overstate the importance of the cavity magnetron to the course of the second world war with this now largely overlooked breakthrough ranking higher than more well-known technical developments like jet propulsion or the atomic bomb. Indeed, American historian James Benny Baxter

III later declared the Magnetron to be the most valuable cargo ever to reach these shores. In late 1941, British Bristol bow fighter night fighter aircraft began being equipped with the airborne intercept or or A1 Mark 7 radar, which produced a narrow 25 kW beam with a wavelength of 9.1 cm that could accurately pinpoint enemy aircraft in pitch darkness at a range of between 120 m and 10 km. Previous airborne intercept radars operating at wavelengths of 1.5 m were plagued by random echoes from the ground below, limiting their effective range to around 5 km. This technology allowed the Royal Air Force to finally sweep the Luftwaffer from British skies, bringing the dreaded blitz to an end. Meanwhile, centrometic radars fitted in Royal Navy and RAF Coastal Command aircraft like the Vicas Wellington Consolidated B24 Liberator and Consolidated PBY Catalina allowed them to detect even the periscopes of submerged German hubot.

Previously, these aircraft were fitted with the less sophisticated airtos surface vessel or ASV Mark II radar operating at a wavelength of 1.25 m. While these sets allowed aircraft to detect a surface dubot at a range of 100 km, the Germans soon developed a detector called MTOX that allowed them to crash dive and escape before an attacking aircraft came into firing range. With the introduction of the Magnetronbased ASV Mark III, however, the Ubot had nowhere to hide and were forced to spend more and more time submerged, greatly reducing their effectiveness more than any other breakthrough. The cavity magnetron helped turn the tide of the battle of the Atlantic, the longest fought of the entire war and the only one which Winston Churchill admitted truly frightened him. The magnetron also played a major role in Allied strategic bombing against Germany and occupied Europe. As previously mentioned, when

the British switched from daylight to night bombing early in the war, they discovered that accurately reaching and bombing specific targets using traditional methods like celestial navigation and dead reckoning was all but impossible. RAF bomber commands thus switched from precision bombing of industrial and military targets like factories and airfields to a strategy of area bombing with incendaries against large population centers. They also copied the pathfinder strategy pioneered by the Luftwaffer during the Blitz wherein an elite group of aircraft with highly skilled navigators flew ahead of the main bomber force to mark the target with flares and incendiary bombs. To further increase their accuracy, the Pathfinders soon adopted a variety of electronic navigation aids, another technique copied from the Germans. The first of these code came was introduced operationally in 1942 and consisted of

three transmitting stations designated AB and C spaced around 160 km apart. These stations transmitted synchronized pulses such that depending on his position an aircraft navigator would receive the pulses from one of the stations ahead of the others. If all the points where all three signals were received simultaneously were plotted, they formed long hyperbolic curves known as isocchrome similar to the isobar pressure lines on a weather map. These curves intersected with each other at certain points forming a huge grid projected across the European continent.

Hence the code name G for grid. Against this grid, aircraft could fix their position. The great advantage of G was that it was entirely passive. the receiving aircraft emitting no signals which could give away its position and could be used by any number of aircraft at once. Also, unlike German beam systems, it gave no indication as to the target of a particular raid. G inspired the creation of a similar American system known as Lauran or long range navigation, which remained in use until the 1980s as a general maritime navigation aid for personal and commercial vessels. However, while G could get a bomber to a particular city, it was not accurate enough to guide it over a specific target like a factory and had a maximum range of 250 km, too short to reach the heart of Germany.

Consequently, in early 1943, the British developed a more sophisticated system code named Obo. Unlike G, Obo was an active system incorporating a special transceiver aboard the aircraft which received and returned signals from a pair of transmitting stations in Britain. The first dubbed cat kept the bomber flying along a circular course intersecting with the target. If the pilot drifted off this course, he heard a string of Morse code dots or dashes in his headphones, as in the ubiquitous Lauren's blind landing system, prompting him to correct left or right. Meanwhile, the second station code named mouse kept track of the bombers's position and sent a signal when it was over the target, automatically triggering the release of the bombs. The accuracy of Obo was around 100 m at 400 km, enough to hit a factory in Germany's industrial roar area. However, it could not reach as far as Berlin, and being an active system

gave off signals that German night fighters could home in on. The British thus set about developing a self-contained navigation system whose reach would only be limited by the range of the aircraft carrying it. This system took the form of HS2, a modified version of the airborne intercept radar pointed downwards, allowing ground features like coastlines, rivers, and canals, and towns to be identified in pitch darkness or through thick cloud. This was accomplished using a rotating parabolic antenna caused in a streamlined radome and a circular plan position indicator with a persistent phosphor that refreshed itself with every rotation of the cursor. The classic image of a radar screen that we're all familiar with today. The system was originally named BN for blind navigation, but it was soon renamed H2S, the chemical formula of the pungent gas hydrogen sulfide. allegedly after a comment made by Professor

Frederick Linderman, scientific adviser to Winston Churchill, quoting him here, "It was stinking because it ought to have been done years before." Interestingly, the RAF was initially hesitant to deploy H2S since it was feared that the Germans would capture and copy the top secret magnetron technology. Indeed, experiments had proven that the copper anode at the heart of the magnetron was virtually indestructible and would likely survive even the most violent crash or self-destruct, charge largely intact. Technicians were thus assigned to develop an alternate version using the well-known Clyron tubes, but this proved technically infeasible. In the end, the strategic benefits of deploying H2S were deemed to outweigh the risks, and the system was first deployed on a mission in January 1943 when Short Sterling and Handley Page Halifax bombers of seven and 38 squadrons successfully located and marked the city of Hamburg in

extremely bad weather. H2S played a vital role in the latter stages of the Allied bombing campaign in Europe. While a similar blind bombing radar called the ANAPQ10 was used by American Boeing B29 Superfortress bombers against targets in Japan. As predicted, the Germans did manage to capture and copy magnetrons from downed Allied aircraft and produce their own centrometric airborne intercept radar, cenamed Berlin. But these did not see service before the war ended. One of the Allies's greatest secret weapons, the Cavity Magnetron, made an outsized contribution to the war effort, likely shortening the conflict by several years. This is particularly impressive given that Randall and Boots's original prototype, including the half penny pieces used to seal the ends, is estimated to have cost only £200, a bargain by any measure. Other radar technology played a similarly key role in the conflict. For example, tiny

radar sets known as proximity fuses were placed inside anti-aircraft artillery shells, allowing them to explode when they passed close to a target. Such fuses were vital in allowing the US Navy to fend off Japanese kamicazi suicide attacks and the British to defeat the German V1 flying bomb or doodle bug. And for more on this incredible battle, please do check out our previous video, A Wing Tip of Prayer, the insane way British pilots defeated Germany's secret weapon. and radar ultimeters based on tail warning radar sets were used to detonate the two atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, helping to deliver the killing blows that finally brought the war to an end. Now, by this point, you're probably thinking, "What the does this have to do with microwave ovens?" Well, as you'll recall from the very beginning of the video, microwaves are defined as electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength between 1 meter and 1

millimeter. Exactly the kind of radiation generated by a cavity magnetron. But while experiments with cooking food using shortwave radiation had been conducted before the war, it took a happy and hilarious accident for the wartime sword of radar to be beaten into the peace time plowshare of everyone's favorite kitchen appliance. In 1945, Percy Spencer, an engineer at the Rathon Company in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was working on the magnetron of an active radar set when he reached into his pocket for a snack. To his surprise, he discovered that his Mr.

Goodb Bar chocolate bar had somehow melted into a sticky mess. This effect had been observed by several other technicians, but Spencer was determined to know more. He thus embarked on a series of legendary experiments as recounted in a 1958 Readers Digest article. He sent a boy out for a package of popcorn. When he held it near a magnetron, popcorn exploded all over the lab. The 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 peaked over the top of the pot just in time to catch a face full of cooked egg. The reason the yolk cooked faster than the outside, causing the egg to burst. These experiments confirmed that it was indeed the microwaves emitted by the magnetron and not something else like radiated heat that was heating up the food. Today we

know the microwave ovens work because the constantly changing electromagnetic field causes molecules like water and fat with a strong dipole structure that is one negatively and one positively charged end to rotate rapidly generating heat that is transferred to the rest of the food. This is why dry low-fat foods like crackers don't heat up when placed in a microwave. Contrary to popular belief, however, microwaves don't cook food from the inside out. Rather, this effect occurs when there is a greater concentration of absorbent moisture inside the food than on its surface, such as in the classic hot pot with its tongue searing molten lava filling.

Also, microwaves emerging from the magnetron bounce around randomly inside the oven and interfere with themselves, producing zones of varying power density that can cook different regions of a food item at different rates. However, this effect is usually countered through the use of a turntable to slowly rotate the food or a motorized wave guide to more evenly distribute the microwaves around the interior of the oven. While Spencer's supposedly serendipitous discovery has become the stuff of legend, in reality, the development of the microwave oven was a gradual process involving dozens of small discoveries and developments by multiple technicians. Nonetheless, on October the 8th, 1945, Spencer filed US patent 2,495,429 for a method of treating food stuffs in which he outlined basic technical details such as the optimal frequency 2.45 GHz, power and cavity size for effective cooking. Alarmingly, the oven

design in his patent featured a conveyor belt for moving food past the magnetron, and open ends which have allowed facemelting microwave radiation to leak out of the appliance. In a follow-up patent filed in 1949, Spencer described the now ubiquitous process of microwaving popcorn. While in a 1951 patent, he described how to broil a lobster in a microwave by shoving a pencil-like rod up its behind prevent the tail from curling and becoming harder to cook. As if lobsters didn't have it hard enough already. Based on the work of Spencer and others, in particular engineers Lawrence Marshall, Fritz Gross, and Marvin Bach, in 1947, Rathon produced the first prototype microwave oven. The first of which was installed in a Boston restaurant for testing. Another prototype was incorporated into a delightfully named Speedy Weeny vending machine in New York's Grand Central Terminal, which dispensed freshly microwaved hot dogs.

Later that year, Rathon finally launched the world's first production commercial model under the brand name Radar Range. But while today we think of microwave ovens as compact, convenient countertop appliances, the first Radar Ranges were absolute behemoth, standing at 1.8 meters tall and weighing 340 kg. They consumed 3 kilowatt, three times as much as a modern microwave, and produced so much waste heat that they had to be water cooled. With an eye watering price tag of $5,000, that's $68,000 in today's money. These units were far out of reach of the average consumer and were instead intended for use in restaurants, cafeterias, airliners, and ships galls.

With one example being installed aboard the revolutionary nuclearpowered cargo ship and passenger liner, MS Savana in 1961. In 1955, Rathon licensed its microwave technology to appliance manufacturer Tapan, who introduced the first microwave oven designed for consumer use, the RL1. Designed to be mounted to the wall like a conventional oven, the RL1 still cost a whopping $1,295 or $11,000 in today's money, resulting in disappointing sales. But technology was rapidly improving, and soon more reasonably priced models with lighter air cooled magnetrons began to appear on the market. In 1964, the Sharp Corporation of Japan introduced the first microwave oven with a rotating turntable to address the traditional problem of uneven heating. And at around the same time, the Litten Company developed a magnetron that could survive a no-load condition, that is running with nothing in the ovens to absorb the

microwaves, making microwave ovens much safer and long-lasting. Finally, in 1967, the Amanda Corporation, a subsidy of Rathon, introduced the countertop radar range, the first compact microwave oven as we would recognize it today. The model took an unusual approach to promoting even food heating, using a rotating wave guide or mode stirer to distribute the microwave beam, allowing the food to remain stationary. With a price tag of $495 or $5,000 in today's dollars, it was still very expensive. But with simplified designs and advances in manufacturing techniques, the price gradually fell and throughout the 70s and 80s, microwave ovens began to be found in more and more homes. Indeed, while only around 40,000 microwave ovens were sold in the United States in 1970, by 1975 this number had risen to nearly a million. And while only 1% of American households owned a microwave oven in 1971, by 1986, around 25% did. By 1997,

this figure had risen to an astonishing 90%. With the exception of Japan, where the popularity of micros benefited from simpler and cheaper to manufacture magnetron designs, adoption has been slower elsewhere in the world, with 88% of Canadian, 65% of French, 5% of Indian, 40% of Russian, 38% of South African, and 16% of Vietnamese households owning a microwave oven by the turn of the 21st century. And as microwave ovens became increasingly popular, manufacturers began adding additional features. For example, in the early 1970s, Tapan began offering hybrid models that incorporated both microwave capability and conventional oven heating elements. In 1975, Amner introduced the first automatic defrost feature with their RR4D model. While the following year, their RR6 model incorporated the first fully digital microprocessor controlled control panel. Since then, microwave ovens have more or less

settled around a standard design with different brands or models differing largely in their styling, control panel layout, and number of cooking modes like defrost, popcorn, etc. Indeed, as of 2020, nearly all microwave ovens sold in the United States, regardless of brand, are manufactured by a single company, the Meda Group, headquartered in Beijo in China. Most consumer microwave ovens consume between 600 and,200 watts of power and operate at the same 2.45 45 GHz frequency established by Percy Spencer in 1945. As many telecommunication companies operate at microwave frequencies, in 1947, Rathon and General Electric petitioned the Federal Communications Commission or FCC to set aside a section of the electromagnetic spectrum for use by microwave ovens, medical diiaother machines, and other specialized equipment so as to not interfere with vital communications networks. The two allocated frequencies 915 plus -25 MHz

and 2450 plus - 50 MHz are today known as the industrial scientific medical or ISM bands. The 915 MHz frequency is commonly used by industrial microwave ovens as the longer wavelengths penetrate deeper into the food and raise its temperature faster, speeding up the overall cooking process. Interestingly, no matter how many power or specialized cooking settings a microwave has, the Magnetron always operates at a constant power output. Different heat settings are thus achieved through duty cycling modulation, i.e. switching the magnetron on and off for a different period of time. This way, the rate of total amount of energy deposited into the food can be controlled. For example, if a microwave is set to half power, then the magnetron would be switched on only half the time.

Similarly, since ice absorbs microwaves less efficiently than liquid water, the defrost setting keeps the magnetron switched on for even less of the total cooking time, allowing the food to defrost slowly without overheating and prematurely cooking it. By contrast, inverter microwaves use solid state switching gear as opposed to the traditional transformer and electronic relay, allowing them to operate the magnetron continuously at low power. This heats the food more slowly and evenly, preventing the formation of hot spots that can prematurely cook or ruin sensitive sugar and fat-rich foods like meat, dairy, and desserts. In addition, inverter microwaves tend to be more energyefficient than traditional designs. Given their ability to cook meat and fish, it goes without saying that the microwaves produced by a magnetron are potentially dangerous to living tissue. Particularly vulnerable is the eye, which having no cooling

blood vessels of its own, is prone to overheating when exposed to microwaves, potentially resulting in the formation of cataracts later in life. Thankfully, the microbes produced by a microwave oven are fully contained by the applianc's metallic cage, which acts as a Faraday cage, named after the great English physicist Michael Faraday. Paradigm ages exploit the fact that rapidly changing electromagnetic fields cannot penetrate a closed electrical conductor and are widely used to protect sensitive electronic equipment from external radio frequency interference or RFI or in this case prevent electromagnetic radiation from getting out. But the walls of a Faraday cage need not be solid. So as long as any openings are smaller than the wavelength of the radiation in question, said radiation will be effectively blocked.

This is why the window in the door of most microwave ovens is covered in a fine metal mesh. Further safety is provided by a set of interlocking switches that prevents the magnetron from operating while the door is open. Thanks to these features, you can watch your microwave burritos spin around and around without fear of your face melting off. And of course, no discussion of microwave ovens would be complete without addressing the most taboo of household scientific experiments. Putting metal in the microwave. The reason this is generally frowned upon is because metallic objects like forks and aluminium foil act like radio antennas, absorbing microwave energy and converting it into an electric charge.

If the object in question has sharp edges, these will concentrate this electric charge, exceeding the breakdown potential of the surrounding air and throwing off lightning like arcs called corona discharges that could potentially start a fire. Even worse, smooth metallic objects can reflect microbes back at the magnetron, causing feedback that can ultimately overload and destroy the component, rendering the entire oven useless. Finally, absorbed microwaves can cause metallic objects to become extremely hot, posing a burn hazard.

Indeed, this effect is sometimes exploited by manufacturers of microwave food. The packaging for pizzas, pies, and other items that would normally become soggy when cooked in a microwave often incorporate a thin metallic layer that absorbs and radiates heat back onto the food, creating a deliciously crispy crust. But unless you have a special microwave set aside specifically for mad scientific experiments, please take our advice. Don't put metal in the microwave. Now, while radar sets and microwave ovens are the most common and famous applications for the magnetron, they are indeed far from the only ones.

Indeed, high-powered microwave emitters are widely used in industry for applications as diverse as softening plastic before molding, drying potato chips, and roasting coffee beans and peanuts. And newer, more exotic applications are being discovered all the time. For example, in 2023, researchers at Australians Macker University developed a method for using microwaves to selectively decompose the silicon in expired solar panels, allowing the other component materials like glass, plastic, and metal to be safely recycled. In the traditional recycling method, solar panels are crushed, heated to 1400° C, and treated with harsh solvents to dissolve away the plastic components, an energyintensive and environmentally unfriendly process.

Similarly, in 2022, researchers at Mitsoy Chemicals in Japan announced a method for using microwaves to decompose polyurethane foam into its component chemicals without the use of toxic solvents. Meanwhile, a team at the Korea Electrotechnology Institute or Kerry, led by Dr. Sunzin Jung, has developed a device designed to bombard agricultural fields with microwave radiation, selectively killing pests hidden under the soil without the need for pesticides. Even more exotic engineers at Penn State University have devised a microbased method that could eventually be transported to the moon and used to smelt minerals found in the lunar dust or regalith either to extract valuable metals like titanium or build permanent structures on the lunar surface. In the grand tradition of cheeky tech acronyms, the team dubbed their creation smelting with microwave energy for lunar technology system for insitue resource

processing or smelt. From defeating the Nazis and Imperial Japan to making dinnertime a bit more convenient to smelting metals on the moon, The Cavity Magnetron has come a long way and stands as one of the greatest stories of swords into plowshares in modern history. Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I'm going to microwave a burrito. Few popular games have attracted as much speculation controversy and condemnation as the Ouija board. While to some this simple board covered in letters is little more than a harmless toy, to others it is a dangerous tool of the occult responsible for untold cases of corruption, demonic possession, and madness. But what's the truth? Where did this iconic divination tool come from?

And how does it work? It doesn't. But look, dim the lights, call upon the great beyond, and let's find out, shall we? Though divination, the art of contacting the gods or the spirit realm to predict the future, is as old as human history, the Ouija board is a much more recent development, tracing its origins to the spiritualist movement of the mid-9th century. In March of 1848, two teenage sisters, Margaret and Kate Fox of Hyesville, New York, claimed to be able to communicate with spirits via faint wrapping sounds heard in response to tapping or snapping their fingers.

Connecting these wrappings with the letters of the alphabet, the Fox sisters identified the spirit as belonging to Charles B. Rosner, a traveling peddler who had been murdered by the house's previous owner and hidden in the cellar. While a search of the seller revealed no human remains, Margaret and Kate's older sister, Leah, recognized the commercial potential of the girl's abilities and became their manager, taking them on a nationwide tour financed by showman PT Barnum. Their act became a sensation, kickstarting a worldwide craze for psychic performances and seances. This mania was further fueled by the mass slaughter of the American Civil War as millions of grieving Americans flocked to spiritualist mediums in the hopes of contacting their departed loved ones.

One prominent adherence of the time was Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of Abraham Lincoln, who began holding seances at the White House following the death of her son William of typhoid fever in 1862. While in 1888, the Fox sisters admitted that their abilities were a fraud. Of course, as they had produced the wrappings themselves by clicking their toe joints, it was already too late. Spiritualism had taken the world by storm, gaining illustrious adherence such as Emperor Napoleon III, HG Wells, Te Lawrence, and even Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who created Sherlock Holmes.

Spiritualist mediums used a variety of methods and tools to communicate with the spirit realm. Sances were typically conducted in a darkened room with a medium and participants arranged in a circle. The medium would then enter a translike state in which they would channel messengers from the great beyond. Sometimes, like with the Fox sisters, spirits would communicate through their rapping noises, which the medium or an assistant would translate, while other times the spirit spoke directly through the medium's voice, with the message often being called out one letter at a time, presumably so the ghosts could show off their spelling abilities or some such. In extreme cases, the spirits would manifest more dramatic phenomena such as levitating the seance table, making trumpets and other instruments play on their own or causing a strange gelatinous substance called ectoplasm to emanate from the

medium's body. Another common communication method used by mediums was psychography or automatic writing, whereby spirits would act through a medium or even directly through a writing instrument to spell out messages. At its simplest, automatic writing involved the medium holding a pen or pencil as they slipped into a trance with the spirits guiding their hand to write out messages. Another variation involved placing a stick of chalk between two slates and binding the slates together and then waiting for the magic to happen as things rubbed around.

When the sance was finished, the slates were pulled apart to reveal a message in white within. Some practitioners, however, found these methods overly laborious and sought more efficient tools with which to communicate with the spirits. In 1853, French spiritualist leader Alon Carday described the creation of such a tool. During a seance held on June the 10th of that year, one participant attached a pencil to a small upturned basket and invited the other guests to lay their hands on it. Together, the participants acted collectively to write out messages from the spirits. This crew device soon evolved into the plchet, French for little board, a small platform designed to glide across a table and hold a pencil or other writing instrument. Use of the plchet quickly spread across Europe and to North America with a cottage industry springing up overnight to feed the demand for the devices.

Placets were manufactured in all shapes and sizes with American versions usually being shield or heart-shaped and from all sorts of materials including wood, hard rubber and glass. While early plchets were designed to write out messages directly on paper, spiritualists soon developed a simpler version that was used at top a board inscribed with letters and words. These so-called talking boards were first recorded used in spiritualist camps in Ohio in 1886. Around this time, a trio of Baltimore businessmen named Elijah Bond, Ernest Reich, and Charles Kennard decided that the spiritualist talking board might make a popular parlor game.

On May the 28th, 1890, they took out a patent for their own version. This new talking board featured a layout distinct from earlier versions with the 26 letters of the alphabet laid out in two arcs. The numbers 0 to 9 in a straight line below and the words yes and no and goodbye at the bottoms and the corner of the board. In later versions, hello and other words or symbols were sometimes added. Completing the board was a triangular wooden plchet with a hole in the middle that players would use to spell out messages. In 1891, Charles Kennard, owner of the Kennard Novelty Company, began manufacturing and selling the board under the trade name Ouija with advertisements proclaiming the new product as quote Ouija the magic game.

Remarkable, interesting, and mystifying game. Great mouth making game for parties. Apparently answers questions concerning past, present, and future. There are several hypotheses as to where the name Ouija came from. Charles Kennard claimed that the game received its name in April 1890 at a seance held at a boarding house on 529 North Charles Street in Baltimore attended by Kennard Elijah Bond and Bond's sister-in-law a medium named Helen Peters. During the seance, Peters asked the board what it wanted to be named, to which the attending spirit replied, "Ou J A claiming it was an ancient Egyptian word meaning good luck." Moments later, a perturbed Peters reached to her neck and pulled out a chain at the end of which was a locket containing the image of a woman and the signature Ouija. Kenners asked Peters if she'd been thinking about the locket during a seance. Peter said no and the name stuck. While no

such word Ouija exists in ancient Egyptian shock horror, at least one element of Kennard's account is plausible. The woman in Peter's locket was most likely one Maria Louise Ramy, a popular French writer of romance and adventure novels who went by the pen name Weda. In the 1890s, Reese's image and signature had become a popular talisman for educated forward-thinking women like Helen Peters. It is thus likely that Kennard simply misread Weeder and Ouiji and an iconic brand name was born. Whatever the case, in 1892, Kennard lost control of his company, which was then taken over by his foreman and furniture polisher, William Fold. Fold immediately proceeded to rewrite the history of the Ouija board, claiming that he himself had invented it and that its name was the combination of the words we and ja French and German for yes. Under F's leadership, Ouija board sold in steadily greater numbers, reaching peak

popularity in the 1920s. There were two main reasons for this surge. The first was the massive resurgence of spiritualism triggered by the Great War, which like the Civil War left millions grieving and desperate to make contact with departed husbands, brothers, and sons. The second was the freewheeling anything goes culture of the jazz age which encouraged young people to seek out all sorts of new fangled fads and thrills including casual dabbling in the occult. Indeed, by this time the game had become so normal and inoffensive that in May 1920 artist Norman Rockwell, patron saint of wholesome Americana, depicted a couple using a Ouija board on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post.

Ouija boards continued to sell well through the Great Depression and beyond with Fold opening additional factories to keep up with demand. In 1944, a single New York department store sold over 5,000 sets. While in 1967, after Fold sold the rights to the Parker brothers, over 2 million Ouija boards were sold, beating out even perennial bestseller Monopoly, which by the way, most people play wrong, which actually makes the game kind of suck. We covered that recently on our sister channel, Fact Quickie. Today, Ouija is a trademark of Hasbroing, or which continues to manufacture talking boards in all sorts of shapes, sizes, colors, and themes, including a glow-in-the-dark edition, perfect for those late night seances. But not everyone sees the Ouija board as harmless fun. From the very beginning, the talking board was roundly condemned by many Christian denominations who saw the game as a dangerous tool of the occult. Many of

these critics have pointed to Deuteronomy 18 10-12 in the Bible which states, "Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft or casts spells or who is a medium or spiritualist who consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord." Similarly, the Catechism of the Catholic Church in its prohibitation of divination, quote, "All forms of divination are to be rejected, recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead, or other practices falsely supposed to unveil the future."

Religious opposition to Ouija boards was further fueled by purported cases of demonic possession brought about by the game. The most famous of these involved a 14-year-old Maryland boy named Ronald Hunkler, who allegedly became possessed in 1949 after using a Ouija board. Hunkler underwent a month-long exorcism. Holy By Jesuit priest Father William Bordon. An event which later formed the basis of author William Peter Blatty's 1971 novel The Exorcist and its infamous 1973 film adaptation. Ouija boards have also been blamed for driving players insane. In her 1971 memoir, Confessions of a Psychic, parasychologist Susie Smith claimed that using a Ouija board caused her to become mentally disturbed. While in his 1924 book, 30 Years Among the Dead, psychologist Dr. Carl Wickland wrote that quote the cases of several persons whose seemingly harmless experiences with automatic writing and the Ouija

board resulted in such wild insanity that commitment to asylums was necessitated. Religious opposition to Ouija boards persists to this day with many organizations including the Dutch reformed churches, the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Sod and Human Life International issuing strict prohibitions on its members using the boards. In 2001, a church in Alamagordo, New Mexico, carried out a mass burning of Ouija boards as well as Harry Potter books as symbols of witchcraft. While in 2010, Human Life International spokesman Steven Felen decrieded Hasbro's launch of a pink Ouija board for girls, stating, "There's a spiritual reality to it, and Hasbro is treating it as if it's just a game. It's not Monopoly. It really is a dangerous spiritual game."

And for Hasbro to treat it as just another game, is quite dishonest. And I think we can be absolutely certain here that Hasbro cared. While whether Ouija boards can actually cause demonic possession or insanity in its players, similar to Monopoly is a question science may never answer. But I mean, it's vanishingly unlikely, isn't it? The game presents at least one tantalizingly graspable mystery. How is it able to spell out such coherent answers when no single participant can control the plet? Are the players somehow unconsciously communicating with one another and coordinating their movements or is some other force entirely at play?

Interestingly, investigators into this phenomenon predate the introduction of plchettes and talking boards as spiritualist tools. In 1853, English physicist Michael Faraday, most famous for discovering electromagnetism, conducted a series of clever experiments to determine whether the phenomenon of table moving during seances was caused by the participants or some other force. In his first experiment, Faraday fixed a number of cardboard sheets to a table using a sticky putty made of wax and tarpentine, which was formulated to be strong enough to offer significant resistance to movement, but soft enough to remain in place once moved. Faraday then drew pencil lines on the table to mark the initial position of each cardboard sheet and instructed participants to place their hands on the sheets while conducting a seance. Per Faraday's logic, if it was some outside force and not the participants who moved

the table, then the participants hands would lag behind the table, causing the cardboard sheets to move in the opposite direction of the table. If, on the other hand, it was the participants who were moving the table, then the sheets would move in the same direction as the table. In every case, the sheets moved in the same direction as the table. Shocking, we know. In a follow-up experiment, Faraday sandwiched a set of glass rollers between two plates, bound the plates together with rubber bands, and passed a vertical hay stalk through a hole in both plates such that if a participant moved their hands even slightly, the angle of the hay stalk would change. When participants were challenged to keep the hay stalk perfectly vertical throughout the seance, all movement of the table suddenly ceased, proving that it was the participants who were moving the table and not the other way around. Oh my god,

who would have thought this? What Faraday's experiments were an early demonstration of a phenomenon known as automatism, coined the year before by physician William Benjamin Carpenter, known today as ideoter effect, automatism refers to carrying out a motion or task without being aware of doing so. In the case of the Ouija board, professor of neurology Terren Hines explains in his 2003 book pseudocience and the Paranormal, quote, the plchet is guided by unconscious muscular exertions like those responsible for table movement. In both cases, the illusion that the object, table, or plchet is moving under its own control is often extremely powerful and sufficient to convince many people that spirits are truly at work. The unconscious muscle movements responsible for the moving tables and Ouija board phenomenon seen at seances are examples of a class of phenomenon due to what psychologists call a disassociative

state. A disassociative state is one in which consciousness is somehow divided or cut off from some aspects of the individual's normal cognitive, motor, or sensory functions. End quote. Ideo phenomena can be surprisingly powerful and lead to some truly bizarre effects as demonstrated by a series of experiments carried out by professor of psychology Dr. Ron Renink, psychology post-doal researcher Helen Gashau, and computer engineer Professor Dr. Sydney Fels of the University of British Columbia in 2021. In a move that definitely does not foreshadow a future descent into a cult- themed super villain, the team constructed a Ouija playing robot which experimental subjects were told was controlled by a human player in another room. In reality, there was no other player and the robot was designed to amplify the motions of the lone subject. Subjects were then instructed to the Ouija board to answer a series of yes or no trivia

questions and the results were astonishing. When subjects were asked to answer the questions verbally, they got the answers right only about 50% of the time. But when they used the Ouija board, the accuracy jumped to 65%. That's genuinely incredible. In a follow-up experiment, subjects started off playing with another participant, but some point during the experiment, the subject was blindfolded and the other player, actually a confederate of the researchers, removed their hands from the planchet. Yet, despite being the only ones actually moving the plchet, subjects still answered questions with 15% more accuracy using the Ouija board than not using it. These results suggest that the subconscious mind is a lot more knowledgeable than we previously thought. As Dr. Fels later explained, you do better with the Ouija board on questions that you don't really think you know, but actually something

inside you does know, and the Ouija board can help you answer above chance. Now that we have some hypothesis in terms of what's going on here, accessing knowledge and cognitive abilities that you don't have conscious awareness of, the Ouija board would be an instrument to actually get at that. Now we can start using it to ask other types of questions. That's incredible. And thank you for watching. It has been called one of the hundred worst ideas of the 20th century, the single greatest affront to public intelligence, and an abomination. You've heard it in dozens of classic and not so classic television shows. From I Love Lucy to The Andy Griffith Show, The Big Bang Theory, and even Seinfeld and MASH.

Those aorious guffles and claps, scandalized ooze and sentimental a so persistent and over the top that the unseen audience must be inhaling a steady stream of nitrous oxide. It is, of course, the laugh track, aka canned laughter. One of the strangest and most reviled devices in all of popular entertainment. But if the laugh track is so universally loathed, how did laugh tracks remain so ubiquitous for so long? Who invented the strange practice? And why is its use all but died out in recent years? Well, prepare to laugh and clap on Q as we dive into the fascinating history of the television laugh track. While the pre-recorded laugh track is a relatively recent development, the use of artificial applause or laughter to shape an audience's reaction far predates the invention of television, dating all the way back to classical times. For example, when first century AD Roman Emperor Nero performed on stage, he

packed the theater seats with a chorus of 5,000 legionnaires commanded to cheer and sing his praises. In the 16th century, French poet and playwright Jean Dar gave away tickets to performances of his plays in exchange for the recipients clapping or cheering loudly. This practice eventually led to the establishment of organized bodies of professional applauders known as claxs who could be hard to fill out an audience and enhance their reactions. By the early 19th century, clacks had become institutions onto themselves with different categories of clackers available depending on the client's needs. Commissire would memorize the entire show and point out its best qualities to their neighbors between acts. Reers laughed rockously at the jokes. Plur cried loudly at sad or dramatic moments. Chatios or ticklers kept the audience in a good mood while bissers cried pissbiss or again to request an encore. Clers took advantage

of the communal nature of live entertainment where the audience is an integral part of the overall experience. As anyone who's tried to watch the Rocky Horror Picture Show or The Room can attest, entertainment just differently when experienced with others. Fast forward to the 20th century and the invention of radio, which inherited many of its dramatic conventions from the theater, including the use of studio audience to provide authentic reactions and replicate the communal feeling of in-person shows. In the early days of radio, when shows could only be broadcast live, producers were limited to whatever reactions the audience had in the moment. In 1935, however, German inventor Fritz Flumer invented the Magneetapon, the first modern realtore tape recorder. While so-called wire recorders, which recorded sound magnetically on an extremely thin steel wire, had existed for several decades,

these were temperamental and prone to distortion. Repairs and editing were also difficult as two pieces of recording wire could only be joined by tying a knot which produced a loud hiss or pop as it passed by the playback head. The Magnetaphon, on the other hand, used paper, later plastic tape covered in a layer of iron oxide, which not only produced far superior sound quality, but was also much easier to repair or edit by simply gluing two pieces of tape together. Magneetaphons were used extensively by Adolf Hitler to broadcast supposedly live speeches across Germany simultaneously. After the war, magneetapon technology was brought to the United States by pioneering sound engineer Jack Mullen and radio producers and performers across the country immediately recognized its potential.

Among the first artists to take advantage of the new technology was Kuner Bing Cosby, whose radio show, which ran from 1949 to 1952, was scheduled for the same time slot each week on both the East and West Coasts. to avoid having to perform the same show a second time for West Coast audiences. Crosby began pre-recording his broadcasts using magnetaphon. This also gave him the flexibility to record multiple takes and edit together the best possible versions of an episode. This process, however, created unexpected problems. For example, sometimes the audience wouldn't react as expected to a particular joke or their reaction would become more subdued over multiple takes. Editing different segments together sometimes also caused laughter or applause to be cut off at the splice. Crosby and Mullins soon hit upon the idea of inserting pre-recorded audience reactions to fill in the gaps and the modern laugh track was born. As

for where these laughs originally came from, Mullins later explained, "The hillbilly comic Bob Burns was on the show one time and threw a few of his then extremely racy and off-color folksy farm stories into the show. We recorded it live and they all got enormous laughs which just went on and on, but we couldn't use the jokes." Today those stories would seem tame by comparison, but things were different in radio then. So script writer Bill Morrow asked us to save the laughs. A couple of weeks later he had a show that wasn't very funny and he insisted that we put in the salvage laughs and thus the laugh track was born. End quote. This practice was quickly adopted by dozens of other radio shows. Typically laugh tracks were only used to sweeten or enhance the reactions of live studio audiences by filling awkward silences or covering over editing splices. But in certain cases, shows were recorded without a live

audience, and the reactions were simply added in afterwards. When television took off in the post-war era, it in turn inherited many of its practices and conventions from radio, with early shows being recorded on a fixed set in front of a live audience, similar to a theatrical play. Most of those shows used a single camera setup wherein each scene was recorded multiple times from different angles, all which would then be edited together to create the final episode. As with pre-recorded radio shows, this created a number of problems when it came to audience reactions. Once again, sometimes the audience wouldn't get a joke and fail to laugh appropriately, or a joke would get stale when repeated over multiple takes. Other times, an audience's laughter or applause would be too loud or too drawn out, drowning out the dialogue or interfering with the pacing. Enter the central figure of our story and the

father of the modern television laugh track, Charles Douglas. Born in 1910 in Tonipar, Nevada, Douglas obtained a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Nevada before moving to Los Angeles to work as a sound mixer for CBS working on live radio broadcasts. When the US entered the Second World War, Douglas joined the Navy, which recognizing his skills sent him for special training at MIT and Bowen College. He then joined a research team responsible for the development of the shipborne radar.

After the war, he returned to CBS and became its technical director, first for radio and then for television. It was here that he first discovered the persistent problem of inappropriate audience reactions and set about finding a solution. Combing through CBS's extensive recording library, Douglas isolated and mixed together various snippets of laughter and applause in order to create realistic sounding reactions. Much of this work was carried out in his home in his spare time, much to his wife's annoyance. wrote, "I would go to bed at night and through the vents, I'd hear him editing laughs for sound effects, applause. It became kind of irritating to me." Initially, Douglas's premixed laughter and applause were used sparingly to fill in awkward pauses or replace reactions that were either too subdued or too loud, a practice known as sweetening. But artists and executives quickly recognized the power of canned laughter

to guide and enhance the reactions of audiences watching at home. According to legend, while watching a post-production editing session, comedian Milton Burl once commented, "As long as we are here, this joke didn't get all that we wanted." After Douglas inserted a pre-recorded laugh, Burl allegedly quipped, "See, I told you it was funny." From that point onward, pre-recorded laugh tracks were increasingly used to replace large segments or even the entirety of a live audience's reaction rather than merely sweetening it. The first American television show to use a laugh track was the 1950 NBC sitcom The Hank Mun Show, followed soon after by ABC's The Pride of the Family. But as the use of the laugh track expanded, new technical problems began to appear. The tracks themselves were laborious to mix and add. Due to the primitive recording technology available at the time, the process of adding the laughter camera

footage was just too time-conuming for weekly television. Furthermore, using the same segments of laughter over and over again grew repetitive and artificial sounding. Douglas thus set about developing a machine to streamline the process. In 1953, after two years of work, he produced a working prototype which he dubbed the laugh box. Resembling a small piano, the device featured a set of eight typewriter keys which when pressed played short snippets of various laughs, claps, and other audience reactions, 320 sound bites in total. These sounds were stored on lengths of audio tape wrapped around 32 motorized drums, 10 clips per drum, which rotated past moving magnetic playback heads. This was similar to the operation of the Melatron, one of the first commercial synthesizers introduced in 1963 and made famous by bands like the Beatles. By playing multiple snippets together like chords and varying their duration using a foot

pedal, Douglas could spontaneously create realistic sounding laughs and applause like a musician playing a musical instrument, following along with the onset action as it was being recorded. Savvy businessman, Douglas kept the inner workings of the Laugh Box tightly under wraps. All the keys were unlabeled with only Douglas knowing which ones played which sound clips and what order those clips would play in. He amassed and memorized an enormous library of different reactions. All given amusing labels such as the guy who gets the joke early, housewife giggles, and the one who didn't get the joke but is laughing anyway. There was also a 30-cond titter track of lowintensity laughter used to fill out the louder gapors and belly laughs or fade in different reaction segments. Douglas later added in additional reactions such as oo's and a and whistles for surprising or romantic moments and even the sound of audience

members shifting in their seats enhancing the illusion of there being an actual audience in the studio or theater. The tape reels and the interior of the mechanism of the laugh box were kept secure by heavy padlocks. And when it came time to swap out the reels, Douglas would disconnect the machine and wheel it into a corner or behind a curtain to prevent people from peering inside. Even the source of Douglas's laugh library remains something of a mystery. Though it is generally accepted that at least some reactions came from performances of the French mime Marcel Maro and pantomime segments from the red skeleton show which having no dialogue provided clean interference-free laughter perfect for mixing. Thanks to such tactics, Douglas was able to maintain a near monopoly over the laugh track business that he himself had created. Proving the Joker's adage that if you're good at something, never do it

for free. By 1954, he had amassed enough clients for his services to quit CBS and strike out on his own, naming his company Northridge Electronics, after the LA suburb where he and his family lived. CBS tried to claim ownership of the Laugh Box, arguing that had been developed on company time. However, Douglas managed to prove the fact that he had invented it on his own time and retained rights to the invention. The Laugh Box proved an instant hit with television executives who were now freed from the inconvenience of having to assemble live audiences and force them to sit through often long and tedious taping sessions. Soon Douglas's workload had expanded to the point that he was forced to hire and train additional staff, starting with his son, Robert.

This proved a wise decision for studio executives soon recognized that different laughmen, as they came to be known, were better suited to different material. As Jason Cocker notes, since more than one member of the Douglas family was involved in the editing process, it was natural for one member to react differently to a joke than another. Charlie himself was the most conservative of all. So, producers would put in bids for other editors who were more liberal in their choice of laughter. Yet, despite his monopoly, Douglas never gouged his clients, charging only what a regular sound engineer would be paid for a similar amount of work. For example, for a 5-hour recording session of the 1953 sitcom The Pride of the Family, he charged only $100, which is around $1,200 today. But not everyone was a fan of the Laugh Box. A 1954 article in Variety magazine revealed that two CBS shows, Life with Father and That's My

Boy, had been cancelled because the sponsors did not want to be associated with fake audience laughter. The studio subsequently announced that from then on, all of its productions would be recorded in front of a live studio audience. Veteran British actor David Non, a producer on the anthology series FourStar Playhouse, was even more vitriolic in his condemnation of canned laughter, stating in a 1955 interview that, quote, "The laugh track is the greatest single affront to public intelligence I know of, and it will never be foisted on any audience of a show I have some say about." It's just a little like telling a person he doesn't know what to laugh at, taking humbly the hand as though he were a child. I'm not fully aware of the theory behind it, but if my guess is right, the feeling is that people laugh at the sound of laughter, or if they hear others laughing, they figure that what they're

watching must be funny, whether they at home think so or not, so they go along. What utter rubbish. Some people have been kind enough to think of me as a so-s so comedian. That's very nice. But if I can't get my laughs on their own merits without some kind of phony stimulus, then I don't want the laughs. Who would? The first time I heard a laugh track, I assumed there was a live audience. And I found myself a bit stunned because certainly none of the dreary going on there on the screen was worth so much as a smirk. Not even that smirk of mine. I had only two alternate guesses. The studio audience was thoroughly polluted. Or else they were tickling one another. All this wild indiscriminate mirth. Then I learned what it was all about. It was a dreadful lesson. End quote. In 1967, legendary comedian Groucho Marks complained that quote, "Those phony recorded laughs on television comedies have done more to

destroy comedy than anything else. The laugh track has made it too easy for writers. They know that if a joke doesn't go over, it can be covered with a laugh track." Yet, despite accusations that laugh tracks were being used to coers laughs out of unfunny material, according to Douglas's son, Robert, this was never his father's intention. Quote, "He always contended that it was for making the show technically better. It was because they couldn't use laughter from the studio because of sound problems or because the laughter covered up dialogue. Indeed, Robert Douglas blames much of the hate directed toward laugh tracks on the techniques overuse by a handful of television producers.

Quoting again, on some of the shows, it was abused. They wanted to keep adding more and more laughs and it would go way overboard. They thought it was going to be funnier and it wasn't. A lot of producers would have had the laughter almost louder than the dialogue and that ruins it. It's a tool, like music is, like sound effects, like dialogue. It's everything combined together to make a show flow along and have a nice pace to it. It's all timing. With skill and a little luck, a wellexecuted laugh track can be a work of art, contributing to a larger work of art. We've been around for a long time, and it fills a need in the industry. We don't expect to be the main ingredient in a show. It's just part of the puzzle that puts together the shows that make for great television. But whatever the original intent, there was no stopping the rise of the laugh track. As Robert Douglas explains, all it took was for a couple

of shows to be big successes. Then, of course, all the sponsors were totally behind it. At one time, my dad had a list of the top 40 rated shows, and he was doing 20 of them. Indeed, by the 1960s, there was hardly an American prime time television show that Charles Douglas didn't have some hand in. Far more than a simple crutch to cover mediocre comedy, the laugh track actually allowed the medium of television to evolve, freeing producers not only from studio audiences, but from the confines of the studio itself. Scenes could now be filmed outdoors or in other more diverse locations, and many more takes films and combined to produce the best possible product. A tedious process no live audience could be expected to sit through. By the 1960s, many shows such as Bewitched and I Dream of Genie also began integrating extensive special effects shots, which could not be easily filmed in front of a

live audience. The watershed moment, though, came in 1965 when CBS prepared to debut its World War II prisoner of war comedy, Hogan's Heroes. To gauge the effectiveness of canned laughter, executives showed test audiences, one version of the pilot episode with a laugh track and another without. Due to the more cerebral nature of the show's humor, the unsweetened version fell flat, while the version with the laugh track was much better received. As a result, the show was broadcast with a laugh track throughout its entire six-year run. Other shows also owed much of their early success to the use of a laugh track. For example, the technique was used on the CBS's sitcom, The Monsters, to tone down the scarier aspects of the concept and maintain a light-hearted comedic tone. As the use of laugh tracks became increasingly ubiquitous, it noticeably altered the way television shows were written and

filmed with writers, producers, and directors adjusting the pace of dialogue and adding frequent pauses to accommodate canned laughter. The same pauses which make episodes of Friends or The Big Bang Theory so incredibly awkward to watch when the laugh track is removed. Charles Douglas's peculiar innovation had completely changed the face of television storytelling. But as ubiquitous as it was, Douglas's process wasn't perfect. With only 320 clips in the laugh box's library, it was inevitable that certain clips would eventually repeat. Normally, the gap between these repetitions was long enough that regular audiences wouldn't notice. But some laughs, such as a particularly high-pitched woman's streak, one television executive dubbed the Jungle Lady were so distinctive that they were eventually retired from Douglas's regular rotation. However, some laugh tracks recorded in the 1950s have remained in circulation and

appeared on more recent shows like Frraasier, meaning that Jim Car's comedian Andy Corman's rant in the 1999 film Man on the Moon is actually correct. Quote, "I hate sitcoms, George. They're just stupid jokes and canned laughter, and you don't know why it's there, but it's there. And that's dead people laughing." Did you know that those people are dead? Douglas's original laugh box was also prone to various technical glitches, though sometimes this resulted in unintentional comedy gold. For example, during the creation of a laugh track for the 1960s variety show Rowan and Martin's laughing, which did not use a live studio audience, a key on the laugh box became stuck so that instead of full audience applause, the episode's closing credits were accompanied by the sound of a single person clapping. The operator apologized for the blunder, but the producers thought the effect was hysterical and kept it in for the

duration of the show's run. Yet, despite these glitches, serendipitous though some of them might have been, Douglas and Northridge Electronics continued to use the same equipment and tapes well into the 1970s, leading to a noticeable degradation in the quality of their laugh tracks as the tapes began to wear out. This complacency eventually led to the emergence of challenges to Douglas's decades long monopoly, including Sound One, a company founded by Douglas's former protege, Carol Pratt. In 1977, Pratt introduced a more sophisticated laugh track generator based on cassette tapes, which not only offered greater playback quality than Douglas's antiquated realtore system, but could also generate stereophonic laugh tracks to match advancements in television broadcast technology. In the 1980s, Douglas's son, Robert, began developing an all digital version of the laugh box.

But computer processors at the time were not fast enough for the task. So, it wasn't until 1990 that he finally unveiled a working machine. Still, the digital laugh box was even larger than its analog predecessor, containing a whopping 11 hard drives, and it cost half a million dollars to develop. Yet, these innovations proved too little, too late. For by this time, the heyday of the television laugh track was long over. In the 70s, studios began moving away from single camera movie style shows and back towards multi- camera setups filmed in front of live audiences to create a more authentic feel. One of the most famous examples was All in the Family, which was heavily marketed on its live studio audience. The nature of television comedy was also changing with programs like the Carol Burner Show and MASH tackling more timely and serious topics. Indeed, series producer Larry Galbar fought hard for Mash to air

without a laugh track. Quote, just like the real Korean War, but it was overruled by CBS. Quoting again, I always thought it cheapened the show. The network got their way. They were paying for dinner. Nonetheless, Galbar was able to negotiate a vital exception. Quote, "Under no circumstances would we ever have canned laughter during an O scene. When the doctors were working, it was hard to imagine 300 people were in there laughing at somebody's guts being sewn up." As the series went on and became increasingly dramatic, use of the laugh track was gradually dialed back.

But even when it was employed, the ry ironic humor of MASH meant that Charles Douglas's aorious over-the-top laugh tracks created for an earlier, more innocent age of television were now in Congress. and inappropriate studios thus turned to more subtle restrained compositions from competitors such as Carol Pratt Sound One. Indeed, his company dominated the television scene from the late 1970s through the 1990s, providing laugh tracks for shows like Lever and Shirley, Happy Days, and New Hart. Yet, despite the increased subtlety and sophistication of its implementation, the very concept of the laugh track continued to attract critics with Jeff Reno, a writer for Mor and Mindy and co-creator of Moonlighting, stating, "My knee-jerk reaction is that I've never liked them. They're manipulative and are usually way too affusive for what are often really mediocre jokes. Audiences get trained to

laugh at the place they know a punchline belongs, whether it's funny or not. Others, however, recognize the utility of the laugh track when properly employed with Arnold McGon, creator of comedy anthology series Love American Style, explaining, "I discovered if you didn't hit people over the head with it and didn't abuse it, it really helped to enhance a show. People laugh when they hear other people laughing. You just have to show them where those laughs belong." But as television comedy continued to evolve, the laugh track started to become more and more unnecessary. While early television tried to emulate the communal experience of radio, which itself was trying to emulate the communal experience of live theater, the rise of cable satellite and online streaming services led to television viewing being understood as more of an individual activity. This period saw the rise of mockumentary

style shows like The Office and Parks and Recreation, which use alternate techniques like one-on-one interview segments to give the audience space to react to the comedy. These developments serve to push the laugh track further and further towards the dust bin of television history. Today, even shows that are commonly maligned for their use of a laugh track, such as The Big Bang Theory are actually filmed in front of live studio audiences with scenes shot outside the studio later being screened to those same audiences to capture their authentic reactions. And while Laugh Men continue to work in the industry nowadays, they are largely used for the purpose of sweetening, filling in gaps in the audience's laughter or toning down reactions which interfere with dialogue and pacing. As Chuck Law, creator of The Big Bang Theory and Two and a Half Men, has stated, "I do not and never have sweetened my shows with

fake laughs. I've always thought it was a pretty hateful and self-defeating practice." And according to Steve Levitian, creator of Just Shoot Me a Modern Family, quote, "When used properly, the laugh guy's job is to smooth out the soundtrack, nothing more." The rise and fall of the laugh track poses an obvious question. Did this muchlothed innovation ever actually work? Can canned laughter actually trick audiences, even modern savvy ones, into enjoying mediocre comedy? And funnily enough, the answer appears to be, well, yeah. In a 2019 study led by Cecil Kikchi, researchers at University College London had participants listened to jokes in silence and with pre-recorded laughter and asked them to rate how funny the jokes were. They discovered that the addition of laughter increased how funny the jokes were perceived to be. There is a significant difference between the baseline ratings and the joke and laughter ratings of the

neurotypical adults irrespective of type of laughter. Furthermore, the increase in perceived humorousness was modulated by the kind of laughter. The addition of spontaneous laughs led to jokes being rated as funnier than with the addition of posed laughs. But while laughter acts can certainly help enhance humor, it is not an all powerful brainwashing technique. In a 2002 study conducted by neuroscientist William Kelly of Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, participants had their brain scanned using functional magnetic resonance imaging or fMRI while they watched an episode of Seinfeld.

Following each joke, Kelly observed that the participants left posterior temporal cortex and inferior frontal cortex, areas of the brain associated with resolving ambiguities, immediately lit up. Next, to find out if their reactions were being driven by the laugh track, the same participants were made to watch an episode of The Simpsons, which does not employ a laugh track, as well as an episode of Seinfeld with the laugh track removed. In both cases, researchers observed the exact same neural activity, indicating that the laugh track does not have that great of an impact on what we find funny. But love it or loathe it, it cannot be denied that the laugh track and the technology and artistry that made it possible has had a profound and lasting impact on the medium of television. Indeed, the father of the laugh track, Charles Douglas, was awarded a lifetime achievement Emmy by the Academy of Television Arts and

Sciences for his contributions, while his son Robert has won no fewer than 11 Emmys for adding audience reactions to shows as diverse as Cheers, the Academy Awards, and the Super Bowl. Following a storied career that saw him go from unknown sound engineer to one of the most sought after men in Hollywood, Charles Douglas passed away in 2003 at the age of 93. Thank you for watching.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Who Invented WD-40, Duct Tape, and Super Glue?"?

Harry Coover (Guest), Norm Lawson (Guest), Sai Irvin (Guest), John Barry (Guest), Charles Douglas (Guest).

What is "Who Invented WD-40, Duct Tape, and Super Glue?" about?

The exploration delves into the history and invention of WD-40, duct tape, and super glue, highlighting how WD-40 emerged from a Cold War context and its diverse applications beyond lubrication. It also addresses common myths about the product's effectiveness and origins, including the meaning behind its name.

What is mentioned in this Today I Found Out episode?

15 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including WD-40, Harry Coover, Ivan Norman Lawson, Rocket Chemical Company, Dr. Ken Barry, Norman Lson. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Who Invented WD-40, Duct Tape, and Super Glue?"?

The episode runs 2 h 10 min; the transcript is about 24,495 words in 179 timestamped sections.

More from Today I Found Out

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated January 24, 2026.