Happy birthday to #inventor Hedy Lamarr (1914 – 2000) & Hollywood star. Born Hedwig Keisler in Vienna, she gained fame after her risqué & notorious starring role in Machatý's ‘33 film Ecstasy. Mandl, 1st of 6 husbands, objected & tried unsuccessfully to buy all copies of film. Hedy objected to him, a munitions manufacturer, dealing with fascists despite both being of Jewish heritage. She learned secret of her beauty was 🧵1/n
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to "stand there and look stupid” though a math prodigy, & astute innovator. So while Axis leaders & arms dealers attended their lavish parties, she gained sensitive military intelligence. She decided to leave him & made her escape disguised as her own maid (by drugging her & stealing her clothes), before annexation of Austria. In London Louis B. Mayer, who renamed her 'Hedy Lamarr' & hired her to work for MGM. She went on to make Hollywood films & was known as one of the most beautiful women 🧵2/
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in the world. In ‘40, spurred by tragic U-boat sinking of a boatload of refugees, she put her mind to national defense. Torpedoes were guided by single frequency radio signals vulnerable to jamming. She had the idea that if multiple frequencies were employed, like a radio station which varied its channel unpredictably, it would be impossible to find & jam it & the signal could be encoded across a broad spectrum. The difficulty would be in synchronizing transmitter & receiver. 🧵3/
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She met her neighbour, avant-guard composer Antheil at a party. He had been working on automated control of musical instruments! This was the answer. Together they developed her frequency-hopping idea, encorporating his tech for synching pianolas & on August 11 1942, US Patent Number 2,292,387 for “Secret Communications System" was granted. This early version of frequency hopping used a piano-roll to change among 88 frequencies (like 🎹 ). 🧵4/5
Though the US navy did not adopt the method until ‘62 blockade of Cuba & other patents also contributed to modern methods, today we recognize Hedy Lamarr as an important pioneer of wireless tech! Lamarr's & Antheil's frequency-hopping idea serves as a basis for modern spread-spectrum #communications tech like WiFi
https://minouette.etsy.com/listing/183846671
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