Beauty and Brains

Most people know Hedy Lamarr as an actress, once dubbed “The Most Beautiful Woman in the World,” but few know about her contributions to technology, despite their use of technology she helped developed on a daily basis.

Her movie credits include: Samson and Delilah, Zeigfeld Girl, Algiers, White Cargo, and the Female Animal.  Her invention credits include an improved stoplight; a tablet that dissolved in water, creating a cola drink; and most notably patent for a telecommunications system that used frequency hopping to help create a more secure method of radio guiding torpedoes.

She enjoyed science as a young girl, and despite pursuing acting instead, alway kept a natural curiosity and even installed a drafting table in her house. When World War II hit, Lamarr felt compelled to help out the Allied cause. Her focus became torpedoes, which were very powerful but very hard to control. Radio guidance was key to controlling them, but signals were easy to jam. Hedy Lamarr, with the help of  composer George Antheil developed frequency hopping, where the signal would hop seemingly randomly from frequency to frequency, thus preventing jamming efforts. Lamarr and Antheil’s design involved a piano roll which alternated between 88 different frequencies.  They received U.S. patent number 2,292,387 on her “secret communications device” and submitted it to the US Navy who subsequently filed the patent away for many years. It wasn’t until the Navy was developing a sonobuoy that they resurrected the patent (after it had expired). Today frequency hopping is used in all sorts of communication applications. Cell phones, bluetooth, GPS, and any other technology that communicates wirelessly.

In 1997 the Electronic Frontier Foundation awarded Hedy for her contribution to technology. She was house ridden at the time and accepted the award over the phone saying, “It’s about time.”

Source: NPR