There are few women in the tech fields, interesting to see such a beautiful woman made this contribution.
“That’s *Hedley*.”
Intersil Semiconductor has a conference room named after her.
“She didn’t build that.” - Obama
In one of Hollywood’s first nude scenes (maybe THE first) she ran naked through the woods :)
I read about this years ago and about her idea. A truly remarkable and exceptionally beautiful woman, to boot.
/johnny
This thread worthless without daguerreotypes!
Technically, what she conceived of (frequency hopping) is different than the direct sequence spread spectrum used for Wi-Fi, but - close enough. Credit where due. Makes you wonder how many of today’s pop culture idols have enough between their ears to come up with a similar idea?
Let’s see...Lady Gaga? Some rapper? Whoever has been acting in all those movies that aren’t worth watching?
More history about frequency hopping.
http://www.eetimes.com/design/microwave-rf-design/4235369/A-short-history-of-spread-spectrum
... Nikola Tesla, the prolific Serbian-American inventor and radio pioneer, filed a U.S. patent, granted on March 17, 1903 which doesn’t mention the phrase “frequency hopping” directly, but certainly alludes to it. Entitled “Method of Signaling,” the patent describes a system that would enable radio communication “without any danger of the signals or messages begin disturbed, intercepted, interfered with in any way”.
Tesla’s patent details a system whereby transmitter and receiver are synchronized and hop between two channels (although the patent notes any number of channels could be used) by altering the carrier frequency in a predetermined sequence to avoid interference. ...
In 2003, Portman graduated from Harvard College with an A.B. degree in psychology.[26][28][29][30] "I don't care if [college] ruins my career," she told the New York Post. "I'd rather be smart than a movie star
As a student, Portman co-authored two research papers that were published in scientific journals. Her 1998 high school paper, "A Simple Method to Demonstrate the Enzymatic Production of Hydrogen from Sugar", co-authored with scientists Ian Hurley and Jonathan Woodward, was entered in the Intel Science Talent Search.[42] In 2002, she contributed to a study on memory called "Frontal Lobe Activation during Object Permanence: Data from Near-Infrared Spectroscopy" during her psychology studies at Harvard.[43][44] This publication placed Portman among a very small number of professional actors with a defined Erdős–Bacon number.[43][45][46]
Her inventions have not gone unnoticed - here and others:
http://w2.eff.org/awards/pioneer/1997.php
Movie Legend Hedy Lamarr to be Given Special Award at EFF’s Sixth Annual Pioneer Awards
Electronic Frontier Foundation Media Release
Burlingame, CA - March 12, 1997 - In what the organization’s spokesman describes as “a unique event both for EFF and for the Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conference,” the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) will honor former movie actress Hedy Lamarr with a special award this evening for her co-invention of spread-spectrum broadcast communications technologies. Lamarr will be honored along with Johan Helsingius of Finland, and Marc Rotenberg of Washington, D.C., whose work for civil liberties on the Net has earned them each a 1997 Pioneer Award.
I thought this one was going to go in the pile with the one about Captain Kangaroo having 38 confirmed kills as a Marine sniper in Korea. But the story checks out.
She was also the first “girl gone wild” with the first full frontal scene in a movie.
Of celebrity, she allegedly commented “...any woman can be glamorous, just stand there and look stupid...”
Spread spectrum frequency hopping........
She built that!!!!!!!!
If I’m not mistaken the frequency hopping idea was based on the simple concept of the player piano roll. And I think (again not sure) that her and her coinventor were sitting at a piano when they had their inspiration. Since she not only could act, invent but was also musical.
I think that the enemy was jamming radio commo between ships and their torpedos. I think the idea as that if each end of the radio commo hopped frequencies according to a “key” that could be represented in a player piano roll, the enemy wouldn’t have the key and therefore couldn’t interfere. Apparently the technique wasn’t ever implemented by the time the war ended.
I could have all of this wrong but it’s how I remember the story anyway!