Have you ever put metal into a microwave? Back in the 1950's, some of the soldiers stationed on the "DEW Line" kept themselves warm by standing in front of the radars. Bad idea, but Raytheon then converted the idea into the microwave oven... (One of my first jobs was helping the Public Health Service find leaking microwave ovens which caused eye cataracts in restaurants where they were used.) -----Original Message-----
From: Mike Stay <metaweta@gmail.com> Sent: Jan 2, 2020 2:21 PM To: math-fun <math-fun@mailman.xmission.com> Subject: Re: [math-fun] There are other kinds of corner reflector?
On Thu, Jan 2, 2020 at 3:04 PM Bill Gosper <billgosper@gmail.com> wrote:
loud. In the 60s, I worked at a naval air station where a visiting photographer was severely burned when all the flashbulbs <https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Brownie_Hawkeye_with_Flash.jpg> went off in his pockets. (That sparkly stuff is "magnesium wool"!))
The radar caused the flashes to go off? Wow!
I'm not quite old enough to remember single-flash bulbs, though they must have still been in use when I was a kid, but I do remember flashcubes: https://tinyurl.com/rldhhgv -- Mike Stay - metaweta@gmail.com http://math.ucr.edu/~mike https://reperiendi.wordpress.com