To think of microwave technology as a bystander in global challenges rather than an active participant is to undersell its importance, writes UT’s Anton Atanasov.
Microwave technology has permeated society so thoroughly that it has become as ever-present as air. It connects us, entertains us, provides us with information, broadens our perspective, extends our capacity for empathy, feeds our curiosity and destroys the cultural myopias that have gripped us since antiquity. In other words, microwaves play a crucial role in the shaping of modern society, with all its flaws and virtues.
It does the vast field of microwaves no justice to consider it a mere bystander in the global challenges that define our generation. Such reasoning will always treat the infinite potential of microwave technology as a static, perpetually reactionary response to existing global challenges. What we need instead is an exploratory reasoning in which we ask – what are the roles of global challenges for microwaves? Because claiming the spectrum, mastering the impedance and taming the EM waves have provided us with a new sense.
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