Hedy Lamarr became known as a Austrian actress in the 1920’s but proved to be more than just a pretty face. She was an Austrian born and raised in Vienna, Austria-Hungary to a bank director and a pianist. She was discovered as an actress in the late 1920’s and brought to Berlin. While acting she became a key role in the invention of spread-spectrum technology. Her co-inventor George Antheil and herself formed a concept on the idea of frequency hopping. Which basically was the method of sending radio signals from different frequency channels. Lamarr grew up in both a different time period and country than myself so our culture differs. I was raised a Christian in California while she was raised by Jewish parents in Austria in the early 1900’s. Another part of culture we differ on is her becoming a young actress in the 1920’s, while when I was that age I was attending college thinking about becoming a doctor.
One thing that caught my eye about Ms. Lamarr is her work wasn’t initially recognized, but she didn’t let that stop her she continued to lobby and fund raise to spread word on her invention. When her co-inventor and her originally developed they targeted helping the Navy to remotely control torpedoes, but despite their efforts the Navy passed on their technology. It was re-born again in the late 1950’s the engineers at the Sylvania Electronic Systems Division revived it. This later led to the use of Lamarr’s frequency hopping concept in secure military communications. Her work on spread-spectrum has played a part in many modern wireless technologies such as bluetooth, wi-fi, and Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA). Lamarr was honored with a special award the Pioneer Award by the Electronic Frontier Foundation in 1997 just three years short of her death. If Ms. Lamarr was still living today I would be encouraged to interview her, my first question to her would be, “What helped her to keep going on her technology when she wasn’t receiving the proper recognition she deserved?”
