Post by mikef6 on Dec 19, 2017 1:38:25 GMT
Escaping the German invasion of Austria, young Hedwig (Hedy) Kiesler, already a major movie star in her own country, traveled first to London and then to the U.S. to join the MGM stable under Louis B. Meyer. Her beauty dazzled men and women alike, but few saw beneath the surface. Her father had been an amateur scientist interested in technology and had tutored his daughter in the years before the war. Hedy liked to invent things, but, even though she had some great ideas and intuitive leaps, she didn’t have the engineering education to construct many of the inventions she inspired. When she learned that Allied ships were being sunk in the Atlantic with considerable loss of life because the torpedoes fired at the German U-Boats were not accurate and the submarines were fast enough to get out of the way and to interfere with any kind of radio control of the torpedo’s. Lamarr came up with the idea now known as “frequency hopping,” that is, the radio device that controlled the torpedo would constantly change its frequency in a predetermined pattern and the torpedo would changing its receiving frequencies at the same time. She and her partner got a patent for a device for frequency hopping. It was never used by the United States until years later after the patent had expired. From the first military use of frequency hopping in the late ‘50s, the technique’s uses grew. Today, frequency hopping lies at the basis of Wifi, cell phones, and Bluetooth among many other applications. Of course, at this point there are dozens, perhaps hundreds, of people who can take credit for different improvements and uses, but the first conception goes back to a glamorous movie star who the whole world expected to just always be superficially glamorous for them. The documentary also covers Lamarr’s six marriages, drug addictions, legal problems, nervous breakdown, and final days as a recluse in Florida. An amazing tale.
