The invention that changed the world

by Robert Buderi

"The Invention That Changed the World is the great and largely untold story of the colorful band of brilliant scientists who created the microwave radar systems that not only helped win World War II but set off a veritable explosion of scientific achievements and technological advances that have transformed our daily lives." "The story begins in September 1940 with the arrival in Washington of a team of British scientists bearing England's most closely guarded technological secrets, among them the cavity magnetron, a revolutionary new source of microwave energy that was to pave the way for radar systems small enough to fit on planes and ships. The magnetron's arrival triggered the most dramatic mobilization of science in history as America's top scientists enlisted in the "war within the war" to convert the British invention into a potent military weapon. Developed in a top-secret rush at the Radiation Lab on the campus of MIT, microwave radars eventually helped destroy Japanese warshi