Wow, I never knew this about this beautiful and smart woman.....👏🏻 👏🏻 👏🏻

[a kennedy]

Hedy Lamarr, often proclaimed “the most beautiful woman in the world.” The 26-yr-old Lamarr was thriving in Hollywood when, in September 1940, Nazi U-boats hunted down & sank a cruise ship trying to evacuate 90 British schoolchildren to Canada. 77 drowned in the bleak north Atlantic. Lamarr, a Jewish immigrant from Nazi-occupied Austria, who had been making America her home since 1938, was outraged. She fought back by applying her engineering skills to development of a sonar sub-locator used in the Atlantic for the benefit of the Allies. The principles of her work are now incorporated into modern Wi-Fi, CDMA and Bluetooth technology, and this work led to her to be inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2014.

So awesome.

[wryter2000]

1. Yup

She was brilliant

[badhair77]

2. Marie Benedict's historical novel

The Only Woman in the Room was based on Hedy Lamar’s story. My book club read it and we all enjoyed learning about her.

[RockCreek]

29. The audiobook is really well done too

I got it from the library, when I found Marie Benedict's novels. I had never heard of her until I came across this novel. (Or at least, I didn't remember hearing about her). It is an amazing story about an amazing woman who deserves to be remembered.

[badhair77]

31. Good to know.

I often forget about the audio version.

[CousinIT]

3. She is one of my historical SHEros. The women of ENIAC

Ada Lovelace, Grace Hopper, Williamina Fleming, Katherine Johnson, and many others: https://mashable.com/article/unsung-women-in-tech

A woman, Stephanie Kwolek, invented Kevlar, which is now used in bulletproof vests and aircraft. Where would we be without that material?

Few know of them because they were never entered into HIStory books, their contributions are ignored, or credit for their work was attributed to men or machines. Women programmed some of the machines, though.

My biggest SHEro today is Patty Wagstaff but mostly because I love watching aerobatics and airshows. https://pattywagstaff.com/

[SeattleVet]

24. Got to meet Grace Hopper twice; she was an amazing speaker and inspiration.

I still have and treasure the 'nanoseconds' she handed out, and also a packet of 'picoseconds' from her stint as a spokesperson for Digital Equipment Corporation after she retired from the Navy at just shy of her 80th birthday (way past normal military retirement age, but she had been recalled to active duty twice, and eventually had her service indefinitely extended by special approval by Congress).

The 'nanoseconds' were a length of wire 30cm (11.8 inches) long - the distance that light travels in a vacuum in that time. She used it as a visual aid when training programmers not to waste nanoseconds of CPU time (when memory and compute time were VERY expensive). She also showed a coil of wire 300 meters (984 feet) long to illustrate a microsecond. The picoseconds? That was a packet of ground black pepper.

"It's almost always easier to get forgiven than to get permission" was one of her mantras. Words to live by!

[CousinIT]

27. Wow. You are so lucky!

What an amazing memory.

[patphil]

28. It's almost always easier to get forgiven than to get permission

Great quote! I love it!

[Beartracks]

4. Ah, Hedy Lamarr...

v

==============

[a kennedy]

5. 🤣 😂 🤣

Loved him in this movie, Blazing Saddles. 😂

[COL Mustard]

11. A classic that has to stand on its own

Talk about a movie that can’t be remade!

[llmart]

6. Netflix had a documentary about her.

I learned all this information from that documentary. I never knew anything about her either.

[liberalla]

10. Yes, great movie! I checked out the dvd from the library.

Titled: Bombshell, the Hedy Lamarr Story

https://www.netflix.com/title/80189827

[byronius]

16. Excellent film.

[appalachiablue]

20. BOMBSHELL: *THE HEDY LAMARR STORY* TRAILER NO. 1 (2017)

[3Hotdogs]

7. I believe she also worked on the Norden bombsight.

[BlueMTexpat]

8. And of course, her intelligence

was not appreciated at the time, in part because she was a beautiful woman, but also because she was an Austrian immigrant. She developed the technology along with a composer named George Antheil.

I first heard the story, interestingly enough, during a tour of Radio City Music Hall in the Big Apple in 2015.

https://www.military.com/history/hedy-lamarrs-invention-changed-communications-heres-why-navy-rejected-it-during-wwii.html

This is a short, but worthwhile read.

[Fla Dem]

9. For those who might be interested in watching the movie. Thank you llmart for mentioning it.

[iluvtennis]

12. Wow, just wow. This STEMer loves it 😍. n/t

[Grumpy Old Guy]

13. She also helped invent packet switching.

She developed a system for radios to continue switching frequencies in sync with each other so no one could listen in.

[sab390]

14. I had never heard of it

And my father was sonar tech in a sub during WWII. When he mustered out he spent his civilian life designing subs. Never heard this story.

[jg10003]

15. another jewish contribution to the world

[mahatmakanejeeves]

17. Additional reading:

From Dennis Donovan:

Sun Aug 11, 2019: 77 Years Ago Today; Hedy Lamarr & George Antheil receive patent for Frequency-hopping spread spectru

From Tuesday Afternoon:

Sat Nov 9, 2013: Happy Birthday, Hedy Lamarr!! Please Read ...

[Sneederbunk]

18. ...

[EYESORE 9001]

19. It's 'Hedley'

I’ve known of her brilliance for awhile now, and I’m embarrassed to admit that I haven’t read anything extensive or detailed about her work and research. It’s time to read up!

[jaxexpat]

32. So gratifying, scrolling down the responses and finding the first thing that....

came to mind already posted. I love DU, it's Headly and life is wonderful.

[johnp3907]

35. Someone had to say it!

[nuxvomica]

21. IIRC, she was mostly self-taught

I wrote a short story years ago about androids designed to look like Bogie and Bacall for a movie a billionaire wanted to make. Their personalities were programmed by hyper-analyzing all of their film footage but they made a mistake with Bacall by accidentally including some Hedy Lamarr movies. Armed with Lamarr's engineering skills, Bacall figures out a way for the couple to escape.

[willamette]

33. I would read that!

Better yet, a movie. I don't suppose you know a screenwriter ...

[Bernardo de La Paz]

37. That has come true nowadays with generative AI analyzing movies. You were prescient. . . . . nt

[Joinfortmill]

22. This is when 'Amazing' really applies.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

23. Yes, partly amazing woman! Sad to note that she

wasn't financially secure later in life, it seems. “

Actress Hedy Lamarr is suing motion picture funnyman Mel Brooks for $10 million, charging he exploited her name and identity without permission in the film Blazing ‘Saddles’.”

The article continues, “A western full of flagrant puns and outlandish humor on everything from race relations to homosexuality, features a heinous villain named ‘Hedl[e]y Lamarr’. Throughout the picture, the villain is addressed as ‘Heddy’ and is completely at a loss to convince people his name is Hedley.”

https://www.thethings.com/mel-brooks-was-sued-by-hedy-lamarr-10-million-joke-in-blazing-saddles-how-much-he-paid/

[rogerballard]

26. I read that Frank Sinatra and Lucille Ball among others...

Helped Hedy with food and money when she fell on hard times.

[lostnfound]

41. If only she had gotten royalties on her inventions nt

[colorado_ufo]

25. So glad to learn this about her! Thank you very much!

So many wonderful contributions and contributors, forgotten and unhonored.

[Hekate]

30. Yes, she did 💖

This is a great thread, btw

[dai13sy]

34. Thank you for this

I had no idea she was so brilliant. Amazing! I love finding out this kind of info and she used her brain for good.

[elleng]

36. Awesome INDEED!!!

[raising2moredems]

38. Yep..

and I'm surprised the misogynists/religious nuts haven't figured out a way to claim it was really a (hetero) male who came up with the idea. I highly recommend reading about "old Hollywood" - starting in the 1910s/1920s. Fascinating history and a number of decent books re: events/actors/actresses.

[cos dem]

39. She invented an anti-jam technique called frequency hopping.

Absolutely critical to a lot of modern communication technology, including stuff you've never heard of. The use of player piano scrolls to set the frequency offsets on the transmitter and receiver was really clever.

I set up a development server a few years ago. Took awhile for everyone to get used to the extra 'r' in the hostname.

[marble falls]

40. How about 'smart and beautiful', or just 'smart' ...

... one never hears 'average looking and smart' or 'smart and average looking' or 'extremely ugly and smart', does one?

"Madam Curie, plain looking and smart ..."