I hadn't known about Hedy Lamarr except that she had been mentioned in a few Mel Brooks films. Although I never understood the references to her, I never forgot her unusual name. I never heard of anyone named, "Hedy", before.
But this last week I read an article in Time Magazine about Hedy Lamar which blew my socks off!!! It turns out that Hedy was a co-inventor (along with a music composer named, "George Antheil") of the spread-spectrum broadband algorithm which is present in WiFi, CDMA, GSM and Blue Tooth algorithms, incorporated in all wireless routers and cell phone products all over the world!
How, and why did Hedy do this?
It turned out that Hedy was once married to an Austrian engineer who worked for a munitions plant which was taken over by the Nazis during WWII. Hedy fled both her husband, and the Nazis and landed in Hollywood USA where she continued her acting career and was cast in several major movies and was billed as, "The Most Beautiful Woman in the World." But she must have known a good deal about the Nazis' electronic communication protocol, and she wanted to help the Allies war effort by creating a torpedo communication protocol which would be immune to the Nazis electronic jamming techniques. She, and her co-inventor patented the idea but gave their spread spectrum algorithm free of charge to the US Navy.
As they say, "the rest is history"!!! It just goes to show you what you can do, and the impact that we can all have upon the world by having a unique idea and acting upon it. Hedy Lamarr should be an inspiration to us all.
R. Allan Worrell
Author: Father John's Gift
e-mail: alw3141@gmail.com
References:
1. Ben Cosgrove, Time.com, http://time.com/3881293/hedy-lamarr-stardom-scandal-and-one-amazing-invention/ , accessed 11/01/2017.
2. Author Unknown, Wikipedia.com, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedy_Lamarr, accessed 11/01/2017.
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