Hedy Lamarr. And in the movie to shoot nude, and in the enemy torpedo pulnut

Hedy Lamarr ( Hedy Lamarr ) - was a popular Austrian and then American film actress in the 1930s – 1940s, as well as an inventor.

In 16 years, left home. Entered the drama school, began to act in films.

At 23, after four years of an unsuccessful marriage, he added a sleeping maid and ran away. On the ship "Normandy" she departs from London to New York.
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The Electronic Frontier Foundation awarded Lamarr in 1997 an award (for an invention almost 60 years ago), and 49% of the patent rights were bought by WiLan , and in 2014 they included inventors in the Hall of Fame.

November 9, the birthday of Hedy Lamarr, in German-speaking countries, is celebrated as Inventor's Day.

But the story of life. State examination at the military department of FEFU, 2005.

Captain first rank:
- Private MagisterLudi , you have the last question. Answer, it means you have passed the exam, but note that this topic is not in your curriculum. How to ensure communication between the ship and the base, so that the enemy could not drown out the frequency on which you transmit the message?
- Pseudo-random frequency tuning.
- Passed.

The captain of the third rank silently made a facepalm in the corner of the audience, because for the past six months he had forced me and three other guys to comb the Internet on his candidate’s topic at the HRCSP. The chairman of the commission, the captain of the first rank, naturally, did not know this.


“If you use your imagination, you can look at it. I hope you make use of your imagination. ”

Patent for "Secret Communication System"

Hedy Lamarr, in 1942, under his real name Kiesler, along with his friend, avant-garde composer George Anteil , received a patent for the “Secret Communication System”, which included the transmission of spurious channels at different frequencies.

Secret communication system US 2292387 A

www.google.com/patents/US2292387

If you report the target coordinates of the controlled torpedo remotely only at one control frequency, then you are firing and the enemy easily intercepts the signal, moreover, it can drown it or redirect the torpedo.

Lamar proposed synchronously, in accordance with a specific algorithm, changing the carrier frequency of the rocket transmitter and receiver. So the enemy will not be able to "wedge" into such a communication channel. Lamar proposed to create guided torpedoes.



During the game with Anteyl four hands on the piano, Lamarr recalled how in conversations with her ex-husband the Germans complained that they could not direct torpedoes at the target using a radio signal, since the enemy’s ships jammed signals with interference on the same frequency. Hedy suggested that you can send part of the signal at one frequency, and then switch to another to transmit the next part of the signal. When matching the transmitter and receiver in terms of frequency hopping, something like a four-hand game would result, and the signal could become resistant to jamming interference. Lamarr also suggested that the mechanical matching of the transmitter with the receiver could occur through a piece similar to a roller of a mechanical piano. A roller with pins and a chronometer drive looked compact enough to fit in the hull of a naval torpedo. In addition, according to Lamarr, the system could use a set of 88 radio frequencies - according to the number of piano keys.


Together with Anteyl, they developed the following algorithm: it is necessary to use a random code on the transmitter, it will change the transmission channel, then it will be possible to synchronize such frequency transitions on the receiver.


The change of communication channels is a guarantee of secure information transfer. To ensure synchronism of frequency change, Lamar and Antheil used ribbons with holes, such as paper tape in a mechanical piano.

At that time, pseudo-random codes were used to encrypt information that was transmitted over permanent (unchanging) open communication channels. Hedy Lamar and George Antheil took a step forward: they began to use the secret key to quickly change the channels of information transfer.

The test of 12 mechanical pianos that took part in the production of “The Mechanical Ballet” by George Anteil, confirmed the performance of the system. In 1940, the idea was presented to the National Council of Inventors of America. Its chairman, Charles Kettering, who led the research department of General Motors, advised the authors to submit an application for an invention.

Lamar and Anteil already in August 1942 received a patent number 2292387 "Secret Communication System" (Secret Communication System). The patent includes a description of secret communication systems, including the transfer of spurious channels at different frequencies. This development has become the basis of Spread Spectrum - spread spectrum communications, today it is used everywhere: in mobile phones, GPS and WiFi. United States Navstar Global Positioning System (GPS) is the largest system in the world that continuously transmits spread spectrum signals. Thus, the development of Hedy Lamar is one of the most significant technical works of the 20th century, moreover, the basis of the modern US military power. All the advanced technologies of the present are indebted to Hedy Lamar.

Crowdfunding

The US Navy leadership was skeptical of the patent. In 1942 the invention was never implemented due to the unreliability of mechanical components. The idea was classified and for years laid under the cloth. In addition, non-expert officials, reading the patent, exclaimed: "Do you want to put a piano in the torpedo?" The inventors did not receive money from the government for the implementation of the project, but Hedy Lamar did not give up: she received money for the allies in a different way: she gave a kiss to any man who spends $ 25,000 on military bonds. As a result, she collected 17 million dollars .

In 1950, fame, beauty, and technical mindset helped Hedy Lamar get an offer to star in an Emerson commercial (televisions and radios). Advertising turned out more than successful. So the invention was remembered only at the end of the 50s, when they switched to electronic components.

Already in 1960, the term Spread Spectrum ( Methods of Spread Spectrum ) appeared, which developed the ideas of Lamar and Anteyl. The US Department of War developed and successfully implemented a secret communication system (with a spread spectrum base), which was used even in 1962 during the Caribbean crisis.

Corel

In 1998 The symbol of Corel Draw (vector graphics program) was the portrait of Hedy Lamarr. Drawing her portrait became the winner of the competition for the best graphic work, organized by the corporation Corel. The portrait of Hedy, the work on which lasted about six months, consisted of more than 5,000 graphic objects. Hedy Lamarr sued Corel.

Lawyers for Corel argued that the image of the actress is a “digital likeness,” not a photograph. As a result, the parties came to an agreement whereby Corel received a five-year license to use the exterior of the actress on the boxes with her product, and Lamarr herself - a “tidy” amount. [ proof ]


In the computer game Half-Life 2, Professor Isaac Kleiner has a handy headcrab Heady Lamar, the name was given to the character in honor of Hedy Lamar.

Congratulations on the 101st anniversary of Google

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Together with the company Edison we continue the spring marathon of publications.

I will try to get to the primary sources of IT-technologies, to understand how they thought and what concepts were in the minds of the pioneers, what they dreamed about, how they saw the world of the future. Why did you think “computer”, “network”, “hypertext”, “intelligence amplifiers”, “collective problem solving system”, what meaning did they put into these concepts, what tools they wanted to achieve a result.

I hope that these materials will serve as an inspiration for those who are wondering how to go “from Zero to Unit” (to create something that had never happened before). I would like IT and “programming” to stop being just “coding for the sake of dough”, and recall that they were conceived as a lever to change the methods of warfare, education, a way of working together, thinking and communication, as an attempt to solve world problems and answer facing humanity. Something like this.

0 March. Seymour papert
March 1. Xerox alto
March 2, "Call Jake." NIC and RFC history
March 3, Grace "Grandma COBOL" Hopper
March 4 Margaret Hamilton: "Guys, I'll send you to the moon"
March 5, Hedy Lamarr. And in the movie naked to play and torpedo the bullet into the enemy
March 7 Gorgeous Six: girls who had a thermonuclear explosion calculated
March 8, "Video Games, I'm your father!"