I looked at the microwave as I took out my re-warmed cup of coffee before putting in the milk and taking to the table by the computer.

So of course I started thinking about microwaves and microwave ovens.

I don’t know much about either.

I do know that there was a time when we didn’t know much about microwaves, and, before that, nothing.

Microwaves are electromagnetic radiation wavelengths shorter than other radio waves but longer than infrared. 1 meter to one millimeter, and they travel by line of sight. They’re part of that universe of invisible radiation below and above the spectrum of visible light. Infrared, then visible light, the range we learned mnemonically as ROYGBIV, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet, then ultraviolet and all those shorter rays that penetrate, like x-rays that can cause cancer, and those famous cosmic rays we hear so much about.

I won’t review again the history of physics, which went beyond the early 1900s where we thought we knew everything and classified atoms as building blocks, then went subatomic, and relativity threw us for a loop and we decided we did not know it all and some things remain invisible.

I remember in my early youth how inventions were constantly being invented. This tendency goes way back before history when early man discovered fire, what it can do, how to carry it from place to place, then how to start it, create fire and control it. One giant leap for mankind.

And then television was invented sometime before I was born. I grew up in a family too poor to own a TV, but I had seen them at the neighbors’ houses and was fascinated. Those old frosted long photo tubes with an enlarged rounded end where the picture was. My uncle in New York had an early early one, round screen about 9” in diameter, that they probably used during the war. Progress was fast, three channels broadcast past midnight, and TVs got bigger and cheaper. Now they have flat-screen TVs as big as the wall. I look behind them to see where the tube is, and all the entrails. I’m confounded by a world beyond me that is all around me but I’m still living in it. Go figure.

Anyway, microwaves, by which I mean the microwave oven.

I don’t pretend to know how it works. Somehow invisible electromagnetic waves are generated behind the closed door with a window you can look through to see how things are going in the plastic or glass containers rotating on a turntable like my record player.

My record player has three speeds. Mostly 33 1/3 rpm for long-play 12” records, then slower longer speeds for the old six-inch or ten-inch records of cheap plastic for children or single songs, and 78 rpm for the old heavy early records with the deep grooves that needed their own needle that wore out and had to be replaced, even as the grooves themselves wore away sometimes leaving dust that had to be removed by a special brush that we also used to clean the 33 1/3 long- play records. When we didn’t put a record on the turn table, we put something else on it and watched it spin around.

Just like the microwave oven.

Early microwave ovens, we just called them “the microwave,” came with all kinds of warnings. Be sure the door is closed. Don’t stand too close, because some of the microwaves may escape and invisibly penetrate your body, possibly causing cancer by prolonged exposure. For heaven’s sake, never put metal in the microwave, like a fork on the plate, or aluminum foil that wrapped the burrito, because even a little shred can make the microwave go crazy and escape out into the kitchen where you’re probably standing.

So I grew up to mistrust and fear, and only now have calmed down. I watch the food heating, frozen foods hot on the surface but cold or frozen in the middle. It’s like the things they sell at the County Fair, always trying to come up with something new for the current season, when they started offering “deep-fried ice cream.” I still haven’t tried it.

But, anyway, microwave ovens. They’re usually in the kitchen, on a shelf. They don’t just heat things up, they can actually cook food. There are all those buttons to push, some with numbers, one that says “Stop,” one that says “quick” or “30 seconds,” and a little bar that opens the door.

I’m used to cooking things in the oven, a real oven, a gas oven.

There are electric ovens, and they cook too, but I’m leery of them. So are professional chefs. They want a gas stove where they can control the flame and monitor the curated result. The current debate over electricity or gas, and protecting the environment which we are abusing, leading to laws mandating electric vehicles, outlawing gasoline and drill baby drill. We’re on the cusp of change. But if they outlaw gas stoves, chefs will go on strike and we’ll lose gourmet.

Which leads me again to why I was thinking about microwaves. I know they can cook food in half the time of gas. It’s awkward to stop the process, open the door, stir the pyrex pot, re-insert and push the continuation button.

I guess I could (learn to) cook in the microwave.

I could break the eggs onto a plate and they would rotate to sunny-side up.

I do know enough not to try to cook the egg in an unbroken shell. It would explode.