The Magnetron: How Military Projects Create Commercial Consumer Products is a timeline showcasing how the multi-cavity magnetron came to be beginning with work from 1912, all the way to the second world war where interest peaked, and then the modern-day microwave oven which is its most common use. In researching information for this project, I was only able to find either old papers or books, and odd looking websites that feature a design usually attributed to the early days of the web. To try and balance the fact that the sources near to a century old in a lot of cases, I looked to cross-check them as best as possible, which is how I usually ended up on those odd looking websites. Unfortunately, here, there is an unfortunate consequence that the author of one of the books used, The Microwave Oven by Helen J. Zante, does not exist anywhere on the web. But, as if things were not worse, his book features the most comprehensive overview of not just how to "master" a microwave oven, but also bits and pieces of its history, regulations, and of course mechanisms. And, to add to that, a lot of the events are labelled under the 40s in a lot of the sources used, yet oddly, it does seem that the multi-cavity magnetron was complete in 1941, though it continued to receive work, and had further developments through the MIT Radiation Lab. This is, understandably, a bit confusing, and I myself am not sure about this "40s" facet, but this is the nature of researching something with military origins: information becomes very rare, especially if it is something underresearched in the fields it pertains to.
On the brighter isle, I now have learnt a monumental event of the second world war that, as far as I can tell, gets put under the rug in a manner of speaking. This is because, sources state that the development of microwaves based RADAR gave the Allies the boost needed to fight Nazi Germany, who by then was on the verge of invading Britain and winning over a majority of the European continent. Of course, finding any information on these radars proves near impossible, even if some of these systems became decommissioned. What may have gone better in creating this timeline is if instead of looking for sources detailing the history, I went digging into the records to create the history myself, but that would be a multi-year long project as it would involve browsing through tons and tons of papers, books, and records all of which would date to the past, but could be compiled into a comprehensive history piece of writing. Definitely not worth doing so for a timeline, which demands simplification, as only so much information can be inputted. Although, what could help the timeline is finding time to read the few books available on the subject, but then those sources date to between the 60s to 80s, with one from the 2000s or 2010. Still, altogether, pretty dated.
To end this reflection, I would say I am happy with how it turned out despite the setbacks, but if given a second chance, I would lower the number of online articles by finding more time to read the books, even if they are decades old, as they contain more "substance" per se. I know where to go to improve, and am now knowledgeable of a historic event that changed the course of a very important war, and am also even more knowledgeable on the origins of the "elusive" magnetron.