George Antheil was a polymath, an avant garde musician who self-styled himself into Hollywood as the “Bad Boy of Music”. A side interest was female endocrinology, and he authored “The Glandbook for the Questing Male”. Born in New York of German parents, experienced in the affairs of Europe, active in the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League, and, in 1940, author of “The Shape of the War to Come”, he knew what was on the cards.
Hedy Lamarr was the world’s most beautiful woman. She had been married to a fascist Austrian armaments manufacturer before she fled the marriage and the country for Hollywood. A side interest was inventions; she is reputed to have suggested to Howard Hughes that he should streamline his planes and he is reputed to put his technical staff at her disposal.
A tale goes that after Lamarr the actress sought out Antheil the author about enlarging her bust without surgery, the conversation turned to how to guide torpedoes to their targets without interference. There’s a joke in there somewhere, but the result was extraordinary. In part inspired by the dots on piano rolls, the pair patented their work on 11 August 1942.
In 2014, Lamarr and Antheil were inducted into the US National Inventors Hall of Fame. Here’s that institution’s blog:
In reaction to reports of the German military jamming the signals of British torpedoes during World War II, Lamarr worked with Antheil to find a solution. Together, they invented a frequency-hopping system. This system allowed ships and torpedoes to communicate through multiple radio frequencies while reducing the risk of detection, jamming and interference. Lamarr and Antheil received a U.S. patent for this invention in 1942.
The frequency-hopping system eventually made an impact far beyond the field of military communications. Today, this technology is considered an important development in wireless communications. In fact, Lamarr and Antheil’s work may be allowing you to read this on your phone or computer right now!
