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Born in 1914, Hedy Lamarr was a famous American actress who pioneered the technology that would lead to WiFi, GPS, cell phones & Bluetooth communication.

Lamarr was brilliant. Among many fascinating inventions, she developed a new communication system with composer George Antheil that used “frequency hopping” among radio waves.

Once called the “most beautiful woman in the world," Lamarr is now remembered as "the mother of Wi-Fi."

smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian… #science #history #HistoryRemix

Hedy Lamarr publicity photo for the film The Heavenly Body, 1944

Thank This World War II-Era Film Star for Your Wi-Fi

As the National Portrait Gallery acquires a film poster of Hedy Lamarr, it’s worth reflecting on her double life as an actress and a pioneering inventor
Alice George (Smithsonian Magazine)
#science #history #historyremix
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Paul
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Paul
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if you are going to make a point of her nationality, please also mention that she was born in Austria and moved to the US as an adult.
in reply to Paul

Sheril Kirshenbaum
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Sheril Kirshenbaum
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@PaulDelaustro These posts always start much longer & details are lost to fit.

Lamarr's story is especially fascinating & I encourage everyone to read more. She is truly incredible. And yes, she was an Austrian-American Jewish immigrant.

@Paul
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Gilian "Jill" Spain🎧
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Gilian "Jill" Spain🎧
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and Tesla experimented with it it heavily giving her credit at the time, only to still be ignored at the time...
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

OSIRIS
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OSIRIS
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She named one of the conference rooms in our previous office (Grace Hopper, Nikolai Tesla and Alan Turing were some of the others)
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

AV MB
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AV MB
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Bluetooth uses frequency hopping. Original WIFI (802.11 back in 1990s) did use frequency hopping. GPS does not use frequency hopping. I think GSM cellular (back in the day) used frequency hopping. We belittle her amazing accomplishments by exaggerating them. They don't need to be exaggerated: they're awesome already.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Stefan Scholl
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Stefan Scholl
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Kimberly Moravec comes to a different conclusion: kimberlymoravec.medium.com/no-…

“So Hedy Lamarr wasn’t involved in the development of the Wi-Fi protocol, she wasn’t the first to think up frequency hopping, and frequency hopping isn’t used in modern Wi-Fi in any case.”


No, Hedy Lamarr did not ‘make’ Wi-Fi - Kimberly Moravec - Medium

Why she wasn’t a science genius and how Wi-Fi really got made. “No, Hedy Lamarr did not ‘make’ Wi-Fi” is published by Kimberly Moravec.
Kimberly Moravec (Medium)
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Yusuf Toropov
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Yusuf Toropov
• •
who new? Breakthrough nude scene AND the mother of the remote workplace
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Sanjay Thakur
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Sanjay Thakur
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Thanks for sharing about Lamarr and such a fascinating women with ethereal beauty .I didn’t know about her at all and after you shared I did read something about her and shared not on Twitter but with my school and college friends group .To my surprise none were aware .🙏
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Third spruce tree on the left
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Third spruce tree on the left
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Amazing woman. And not to in any way diminish her contributions to science and Hollywood, she's also the defacto Mother of Corel Draw (although the matter wound up in litigation as they used her likeness without permission).
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

CJ the Awkward Lefty
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CJ the Awkward Lefty
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dang she is gorgeous, but that is so interesting and cool about her inventions. Thank you Hedy for my cell phone I guess!
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

FeralRobots
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FeralRobots
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also invented those little pills that were supposed to make a fizzy drink when you added water. They weren't very good but I loved them because they were cool.

Point being she invented pretty much her whole adult life. At one point she quipped she was only still making movies to pay for the inventing.

This entry was edited (2 years ago)
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

H4Heights 🇪🇺🇵🇸🇺🇦🇨🇦
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H4Heights 🇪🇺🇵🇸🇺🇦🇨🇦
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The frequency hopping was used to avoid the guidance systems in torpedos from being jammed in WW2. It used a mechanical system to synch frequencies, but it was the genesis of Bluetooth.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Miss Hap
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Miss Hap
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We named our dog "Hedy" after Lamarr. She hasn't made any breakthroughs on communication technology yet, but she is really good at puzzle toys, and learned to open doors.
A dog sits, looking attentive.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Lassielmr
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Lassielmr
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yup, Austria eventually recognised her. There’s a road named after her in Vienna and the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information installed a quantum telescope on the roof of the University of Vienna, which they named after her.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Tipiak75 :kirby:🍜
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Tipiak75 :kirby:🍜
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Such a deeply impactful legacy, in hindsight, one century later. Very impressive.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Richard
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Richard
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My understanding is that Lamarr invented a feature called "slow frequency hopping," which if used with other encryption techniques can make it a bit harder to decrypt an encoded message. If I got that right, it's a clever idea but not as fundamental as you suggest. Can someone correct me if I got that wrong? Thanks!
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

ZeichenTaten
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ZeichenTaten
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It should also be mentioned that Hedy Lamarr sided with the Allies in 1937 as an opponent of Nazism.

In Germany, the Lamarr Institute for Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence at TU Dortmund University and Fraunhofer IAIS was named after her in 2022. (lamarr-institute.org)

As a side note, Disney is said to have modeled his "Snow White" after her, and the comic book character "Catwoman" was also inspired by her.

Lamarr Institute for Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence » Lamarr Institute

The scientists of the Lamarr Institute are dedicated to research and development in the field of Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI).
flame info (Lamarr Institute)
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Comrade Weez
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Comrade Weez
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Lamarr's frequency hopping idea was brilliant and indeed led to improvements in secure radio communications as well as WiFi but she was a bit ahead of her time. The technology available in her day was mainly vacuum tube/valves & relays. Frequency hopping needed solid state electronics- transistors- which were not invented until 1947 for the speed and frequency stability needed to make it work. But work it did and produced vast improvements in the field.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

ruthlessone
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ruthlessone
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I have read that she felt she was not taken very seriously at first by the scientific and military communities because she was beautiful and of course, also a woman 🙁
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Dave Byrne
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Dave Byrne
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what an incredible person she was. It’s not as if spread spectrum radio is easy to do today let alone in the 40s before transistors. I can’t believe no one has made a movie of her war time exploits. It would be A fitting tribute.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Str8nger
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Str8nger
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highly recommend the documentary Bombshell.

pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/b…


Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story ~ About Hedy Lamarr Documentary | American Masters | PBS

Hollywood star Hedy Lamarr (Ziegfeld Girl, Samson and Delilah) was known as the world’s most beautiful woman – Snow White and Cat Woman were both based on
matherc (American Masters | PBS)
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Andrew Shikiar
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Andrew Shikiar
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are you aware of any good biographies on her? I actually have “find a Hedy Lamarr biography” in my reading list.
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Miragee
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Miragee
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There is a wonderful PBS American Masters program about Hedy Lamarr. pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/m…

Hedy Lamarr | American Masters | PBS

View all Hedy Lamarr content on the American Masters website.
American Masters | PBS
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

gmoke
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gmoke
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There's a story ready to be written about Hedy Lamarr and Ada Lovelace meeting.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Max M. Miller
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Max M. Miller
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One of my favorite anecdotes of history. She was clearly a trailblazer and amazingly talented person.
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🐌’s Pace
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🐌’s Pace
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What a magnificent package altogether!
Hedy Lamarr, Mother of Wi-Fi. Who knew!
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Bertl Huber
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Bertl Huber
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In Austria, our new renovated parliament, we got a new room "The hedi Lamarr Saal"
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Ana
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Ana
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and she was never taken seriously and her patents were allowed to lapse with no royalties paid because she committed the sins of not only being a woman but also being a beautiful one.

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