Speaker: Anja Drephal
Used in cell phone technology, bluetooth devices, and WiFi, Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS) is often said to have been invented in the early 1940s by none other than Hollywood actress and sex symbol Hedy Lamarr. This talk will present the undeniably entertaining history of a well-known actress moonlighting as a military inventor as well as give an overview of the 100-year-old history of frequency hopping and its past and present uses.
Imagine no WiFi, no cell phones, no bluetooth. (Everything’s better with bluetooth!)
It is often said that we owe the convenience of all these modern technologies to Hollywood actress Hedy Lamarr and her invention of Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS) in the early 1940s. Do we?
Born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler on November 9, 1914, the daughter of an affluent Viennese family became famous at age 18 for starring naked and faking the first onscreen orgasm in history in the Czech-Austrian film “Ekstase” – fame which led to a successful Hollywood career after Hedwig Kiesler emigrated to the USA and renamed herself Hedy Lamarr. “The most beautiful woman in the world”, as director Max Reinhardt called her, starred in more than two dozen Hollywood movies over the course of twenty years, all the while being bored by the intellectual limitations her job offered. On the subject of what it takes to be a Hollywood sex symbol, she is quoted to have said “Any girl can look glamorous. All you have to do is stand still and look stupid.”
Lamarr had always been interested in science and technology and wanted to help the United States' war effort during World War II by doing more than just using her fame and physical beauty to sell war bonds and entertaining the troops at the Hollywood Canteen. In her spare time, she thought about torpedoes: powerful, yet hard to control weapons which might hit their targets more precisely when guided by radio signals. Lamarr knew that the problem with radio signal
