Upfront

But, in 1940, she and George Antheil, pianist and music composer, entered the world of communications from an entirely different angle. At the age of 27, Lamarr along with Antheil filed US patent number 2,292,387 for what they called their “secret communications system.” The system was originally designed to prevent wartime enemies from detecting or jamming radio signals used to control armed torpedoes. The antijamming technology involved the transmission of frequencies that jumped or “hopped” between random frequencies within a much broader spectrum than that used for normal transmissions. A receiver set to the same code as the transmitter could then receive the “random” signals without detection.

The technology was so far ahead of its time that Lamarr’s original patent had expired before the advent of such communication techniques as CDMA, WLAN, and wireless local loop, which make extensive use of the frequency hopping technology.

Although Lamarr never reaped any fiscal benefits from her communication innovation, she was finally honored for her work when she received the Electronic Frontier Foundation Pioneer Award in 1997.

Hedy Lamarr was 86 when she died in her home in January.

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