Would you expect Heddy Lamarr?
No, seriously! A film star from Hollywood's Golden Age, whose external life defied convention. Today, she is called the "mother of wi-fi," but for years her accomplishments were largely forgotten.
OK. So what exactly did she do?
It was one of the more important scientific innovations of World War II. Lamarr, with composer George Antheil, developed something called "frequency hopping spread spectrum technology."
Uh. ?????????
It is repeated switching of an object's carrier frequency during any radio transmission, with the purpose of reduced interference, and to avoid detection (and interception).
?
Think torpedoes. This technology made it very difficult for the enemy to detect the trajectory of the weapon. I'm sure that you can appreciate the value of their invention in a time of war. But, what were other practical applications? Electronic eavesdropping (not wiretaps, per se). Jamming multiple transmissions, etc. Probably one of the more significant branches from this parent tree was something called "CDMA" or code division multiple access. ?
CDMA allows for numerous signals to occur simultaneously during a single transmission. This is used in UHF cell phone systems, among other things, today. But, perhaps what makes this such a significant 'discovery' is that CDMA allows for analog to digital conversion. It was also extremely useful in covert transmissions. How? Think about it this way: James Bond sends a signal to M in a defined, patterned coded message. In order to receive this signal, M has to have a receiver set to the precise frequency. The Germans had also developed similar technology for their covert messages, called the Enigma machine. The bitch of breaking this method of communications is that there were millions of possible frequency combinations to act as a receiver code.
OK. obviously this is pretty technical stuff, and in World War Two, many different people were working on similar projects. But, it only takes one (or in this case) two minds to find the answer to a persnickedy equation. FHSS was an idea that had been kicked around for several years, but first appears as an abstract concept in a paper written by German physicist and engineer Jonathan Zenneck in 1908, but it is widely acknowledged today by the scientific community, that credit for FHSS truly belongs to Lamarr and Antheil, with an emphasis on the former.
The discovery of FHSS, is one of those inventions that had incredibly broad applications, particularly with regard to modern telecommunications. For example, it would enable any radio communication system to work without 'synchronizing the receiver' with transmission in something called a 'low data wireless application.'
https://medium.com/@solomontan_68263/learning-frequency-hopping-spread-spectrum-fhss-with-gnu-radio-7b1ab34b1b10
https://people.computing.clemson.edu/~westall/851/fhss_dsss.pdf
Check out those links for some other incomprehensible explanations.
FHSS was directly responsible for the successful development of future technologies, like Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth. Not bad, eh?
Alright, Now that we know what Heddy did, who was she?
She was born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler. Born on 11/9/1914 in Vienna. Hedwig? She was the daughter of a middle class family, and had a fairly typical, well balanced upbringing. But, from an early age Hedy had a problem: she was beautiful. Very.
She was really lovely, wasn't she?
As a teenager, she began to have an interest in film. She went on several auditions, and was eventually cast in an avante garde film entitled "Ecstasy."
"Ecstasy" was controversial, not just because of the nude scenes, but because the nature of those scenes. It really didn't have much of a plot--young girl marries older wealthy gentleman. Leaves said gentleman. Takes up with young lover, and the shit hits the fan. This was one of the first films to show a young woman having an orgasm (in an extremely polite way), that was not in any way to be viewed as pornographic. That seems pretty tame today, yeah? But in the early years of the twentieth century, this was pretty audacious, not to mention scandalous. It was also an impossible movie to make, given the atmosphere in Hollywood, who was firmly in the grip of the Hayes Commission.
Wha--? This was a privately appointed body, working in close connection with all of the major film studios. It dictated what kinds of intimate scenes and/or vocabulary could be shown to the American public. For many years, the Commission was the most powerful agency in the industry. It was from this body, that the ratings system for film came into being. So much for artistic freedom, eh?
She married early, to a one Fritz Mandl, who was also an arms dealer. And to whom did he sellf his wares, besides everybody? Uh, the Nazis.
Ummm. Needless to say, that marriage ended, and Lamarr eventually fled to the US, where she quickly entered into a contract with Metro Goldwyn Mayer. She was immediately cast opposite Charles Boyer in a film entltled Algiers. Charles Boyer. Yumm.
oh dear. my oh my.
This is what Heddy looked like in the film:
She was stunning, wasn't she? And, not someone you would stereotypically think capable of complex mathematical thinking. I know what you're thinking, but let's be honest: consider old-fashioned ideas about beautiful women.
After her star turn with Boyer, Lamarr was an immediate, international sensation. She went on to make a series of fairly successful films, starring opposite Hollywood's best and brightest male stars. Arguably, one of her most popular roles was starring opposite Clark Gable in the film "Boom Town."
However, she starred in many other films during her decades-long career, including another famous role in an adaptation of John Steinbeck's "Tortilla Flats."
I was stunned to learn that Hedy was Hal Wallis' first choice for the role of Isla Lunde in "Casablanca"--a part later played by Ingrid Bergman. Considering the later stature of that film, one cannot help but to consider lost possibilities....
It was in 1942, that Lamarr, together with composer George Antheil, developed an idea for a new type of radio signaling device, which I have already described above. This system would later become an important component in the development of systems working to control the security of military telecommunications, and cell phones.
Some discoveries have to wait for technology to catch up with them, and this was certainly true of this idea. However, it wasn't until 1997, that Lamarr and Antheil were recognized for their accomplishment by the Electronic Frontier Foundation Pioneer Award. Later that same year, Lamarr was given a BULBIE, one of the highest awards out there, for her contributions to the technology developed during World War Two.
In the 1950s, Lamarr's film career began to decline--it was the age of the bombshell (think Marylyn Monroe and Jane Russell), and she was not this type of woman.
In the 1960s, due to financial constraints, Hedy was arrested twice for shoplifting, but was never convicted.
She was married a total of six times. 6? Lets face it, Hollywood is not a place that fosters happy marriages. She had a total of three children.
In later years, Lamarr led a Garbo-like existence in Casselberry, Florida. She died in January, 2000, at the grand age of 85.
It was not until after her death (of course), that her contributions to telecommunications and science were recognized, and this was largely due to the production of a documentary on her life entitled "Bombshell." The film showcased her intellectual accomplishments, as well as her life-long battle with addiction...a not uncommon problem among actors in Hollywood.
It's a good watch, trust me, and does honor to individuals whose contributions were important during a difficult time.
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