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the woman who co-invented the technology that powers your wifi, your bluetooth, your gps, and your cell phone was billed by mgm as the most beautiful woman in the world. the u.s. navy rejected her patent, saying it was too complicated to build. they used it anyway, for decades, without ever paying her…
november 9 1914, vienna. hedwig eva maria kiesler. banker father, pianist mother. acting school by 16. at 18 she married a man named friedrich mandl.
mandl was one of the largest weapons manufacturers in europe. he supplied the regimes of his time. he took his teenage actress wife to his business dinners. she sat and listened to engineers talk about advanced communication systems for four years.
1937. she swaps clothes with the housekeeper and walks out of the castle in her uniform. paris. divorce. london. louis b. mayer of mgm signs her on the spot. hollywood renames her hedy lamarr.
algiers 1938. boom town 1940. ziegfeld girl 1941. samson and delilah 1949. on the poster of every film she made, the same six words. the most beautiful woman in the world.
1940. she pairs up with an avant-garde composer named george antheil. she draws a system for switching a radio signal across dozens of frequencies so fast that interference cannot disrupt it. antheil maps the switching to a player-piano roll. it works.
august 11 1942. u.s. patent number 2,292,387. "secret communication system." they assign it to the national inventors council and hand it to the navy for free.
the navy says it is too complicated to build. they shelve it.
1962. twenty years after they shelved it, the defense department quietly deploys frequency-hopping on its ships. her idea. her patent had expired three years earlier. she never received a dime.
1997. ieee 802.11 wifi. frequency hopping.
1999. bluetooth. frequency hopping.
gps. cdma cellular. all of it.
1997, three years before the end. the electronic frontier foundation gives her a lifetime achievement pioneer award. she is 82. she accepts it by phone from her florida apartment. her son reads the speech because she cannot afford to travel.
january 19 2000. casselberry florida. 85 years old.
2014. the national inventors hall of fame inducts her 14 years too late.
her patent number was 2,292,387. your phone runs on it. her name is on the poster of films nobody watches anymore.
the most beautiful woman in the world built the invisible world you live in.

English
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