"Any girl can be glamorous. All you have to do is stand still and look stupid."-Hedy Lamarr
Born Hedwig Maria Eva Kiesler in Vienna, in 1915, Hedy Lamarr came to Hollywood and made a memorable impression on the silver screen for her performance in the film “Ecstacy” (1933) and as Delilah in “Samson and Delilah” (1950).
Today cellular telephony is a common household term. It is made possible by a technique in electronic communication called the Spread Spectrum Technique (SST).
However, like many technological inventions, SST was designed for an entirely different purpose-to control armed torpedoes over long distances using radio waves without giving the enemy a chance to detect or jam them. The two people who invented the scheme were Hedy Lamarr, the glamorous Hollywood star of the late 1930s and George Antheil .
Lamarr met George Antheil at a party in Hollywood. Lamarr shared with Antheil her idea for a secret communication system to guide torpedoes to their target. Lamarr and Antheil knew that they had something that could help win the war. They submitted their proposal for an MIT electrical engineer who ironed out the technical defects. They submitted their patent proposal in 1941 and on August 11, 1942, they were awarded the patent. If they had developed their invention commercially, they stood to gain financially. Instead, according to Antheil’s son, ‘they gave it to the government for the war effort.’
The Navy, however, refused to take the SST seriously. Lamarr tried again. She made an offer that she would work at the National Inventor’s Council. She was told that she would be of better service to the war effort by remaining in Hollywood and raising funds for the war. It was in the early 1960s that the term ‘spread spectrum’ began to be used. Lamarr’s dream came true when the Pentagon implemented her ideas in the secure communications during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962.
Initially it remained a military communication technology till in mid-1980s. The US military declassified it and the commercial sector began to develop it for consumer electronics.
Today cellular telephony is a common household term. It is made possible by a technique in electronic communication called the Spread Spectrum Technique (SST).
However, like many technological inventions, SST was designed for an entirely different purpose-to control armed torpedoes over long distances using radio waves without giving the enemy a chance to detect or jam them. The two people who invented the scheme were Hedy Lamarr, the glamorous Hollywood star of the late 1930s and George Antheil .
Lamarr met George Antheil at a party in Hollywood. Lamarr shared with Antheil her idea for a secret communication system to guide torpedoes to their target. Lamarr and Antheil knew that they had something that could help win the war. They submitted their proposal for an MIT electrical engineer who ironed out the technical defects. They submitted their patent proposal in 1941 and on August 11, 1942, they were awarded the patent. If they had developed their invention commercially, they stood to gain financially. Instead, according to Antheil’s son, ‘they gave it to the government for the war effort.’
The Navy, however, refused to take the SST seriously. Lamarr tried again. She made an offer that she would work at the National Inventor’s Council. She was told that she would be of better service to the war effort by remaining in Hollywood and raising funds for the war. It was in the early 1960s that the term ‘spread spectrum’ began to be used. Lamarr’s dream came true when the Pentagon implemented her ideas in the secure communications during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962.
Initially it remained a military communication technology till in mid-1980s. The US military declassified it and the commercial sector began to develop it for consumer electronics.
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