Where we are Today is Like Where the Egyptians were with Microvave Ovens

Today, microwave ovens are commonplace, but before the 1940s, they were completely unknown. Imagine how overwhelming such technology must have seemed thousands of years earlier at the time of the Egyptians.

All the necessary materials existed in their time. But they did not have the shadow of a notion of how to build one. The key component, the magnetron tube, is basically a series of shapes formed so that when electrically excites it, it oscillates at great power. Not unlike taking a piece of wood and carving it into the shape of a whistle, and suddenly, you seemingly breathe life into an inanimate object.

The Egyptians would have also needed electricity. Simple battery power would have sufficed. A battery consists of acid, such as lemon juice, and two different metals for the electrodes, such as copper, iron, lead or others. A jar is filled with the acid with the electrodes dipped in to it without touching. For higher voltage, connect in series.


A more sustainable electrical source is a generator, either powered by wind or the Nile River, which looks pretty slow moving for this purpose. A generator's main components are a coil of wire and a magnet along with knowing the right way to orient them together.

The materials needed to make microwave ovens were readily available at the time of the Egyptians. The laws of nature were the same as they are today. The air could carry radio waves and the metals and juices could carry electricity. But one thing was missing. The notion that such a thing was possible. Or that a thousand other things we take for granted today were possible.

What was lacking was a whole series of cultural structures. The idea of engineering was almost non-existent. The great pyramids were engineering feats, but they did not generalize their methods to other fields. Instead, it was more of a priesthood, with secret ritualistic practices that were actually pragmatic steps learned over previous generations of building smaller pyramids. They thought it was a divine secret that was blasphemous to share. In retrospect, this was a huge mistake that caused hundreds of generations to spend longer times warming up baby bottles, except that they didn't have those either.

Modern engineering consists of a specialized education, heavily steeped in math and science. Most importan of all, the methodology used by engineers guided by the belief that alternatives can be systematically tested and improvements can be made. The math and science of ancient Egypt were weak at the time but the methodology was possible.

Similar revolutions in thinking would have to be made in the scientific method that allows the discovery of the laws of nature from which new products are eventully made. And better math was needed. Quite an elaborate infrastructure, and one that the Egyptians would have had no reason to believe was the right sort of institutions nor would pay off in any significant way. And with all those things, a microwave would not have been the first result of their effort, but the thousandth or ten-thousandth. But they were in power for a long time.

What would have changed their methods more quickly would have been an almost accidental innovation, such as a microwave oven or something less complicated than that, by an individual that was unusually methodical and transparent in the use all these disciplines. It would have shown in one shot, all the pieces needed to do research and development that will create wonderful new products.

Even in modern times, this rarely happens. The inventions are made public but the methods of discovery are kept secret. Such methods, often with limited further benefit to the inventor, could hold the secret to far-futuristic creations if someone in a different field, seeing nature from different vantage point, would use them. We already do these things to a certain extent, but our routine has added a kind of limitation. A new level of technological capability may depend on going beyond the amount of sharing we currently do if only for a while. Like the ancients, this may only be one aspect of a multi-pronged approach that we need to get to the next level.