Uploaded October 2025 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
What do popcorn, wi-fi and the Big Bang have in common?
The answer is microwaves.
The 1909 physics laureate Guglielmo Marconi made a revolutionary telephone that used microwaves. The technology kept evolving during World War II.
Some decades later, two other physics laureates made a microwave-related discovery. Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson – awarded the prize in 1978 – found the cosmic microwave background, an echo of the Big Bang that still fills the universe.
In other words, microwaves play small and big roles in our lives as humans. Both when you pop popcorn as well as when you reflect on the origin of humanity as a whole.
This content was created as a co-production between Nobel Prize Outreach and the BBC.
What do popcorn, wi-fi and the Big Bang have in common?
The answer is microwaves.
The 1909 physics laureate Guglielmo Marconi made a revolutionary telephone that used microwaves. The technology kept evolving during World War II.
Some decades later, two other physics laureates made a microwave-related discovery. Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson – awarded the prize in 1978 – found the cosmic microwave background, an echo of the Big Bang that still fills the universe.
In other words, microwaves play small and big roles in our lives as humans. Both when you pop popcorn as well as when you reflect on the origin of humanity as a whole.
This content was created as a co-production between Nobel Prize Outreach and the BBC.
