I write this having just read Richard Rhodes’ biography of Hedy Lamarr, Hedy’s Folly. It isn’t a long book, and it was an easy read. Rhodes writes well (as we would expect for someone who has won a Pulitzer), and the book covers an interesting history of how an actress and a composer came up with an idea that has changed the world.
The story is becoming better known, but is still not common knowledge. Lamarr and a musical composer colleague George Antheil patented in 1942 the basic notion for what is now known as frequency hopping spread spectrum communications. In a frequency hopping system, the devices hop rapidly from one frequency to another to prevent an adversary from jamming the signal. This is a basic technology for much of wireless and cell phone communications; in addition to the anti-jamming capability, spread spectrum methods allow for a larger number of devices to share the radio spectrum without undue interference. Because the patent was assigned to the US government for patriotic purposes, the technology remained classified for years and did not become commercially usable in the United States until a change in the FCC regulations in 1985.
I have often in my smaller classes assigned to students the names of those who have contributed to computing, and then asked one of them in the next class for a quick statement of why that individual should be remembered as part of the history. Hedy Lamarr is one of those names that students don’t recognize, but one they should. Rarely does an individual have such diverse accomplishments as she did, from being labeled “the most beautiful woman in the world” to being recognized by the Electronic Frontier Foundation with a Pioneer Award (1997) and having a web posting on the IEEE Global History Network (http://www.ieeeghn.org/wiki/index.php/Hedy_Lamarr).
Duncan Buell
CSTA Board of Directors