OT: My avatar

[cohenzone]

I knew who the woman in the avatar us, but only recently learned of her brilliance.

 

[64Zcode]

Once upon a time I worked in a place where the only entertainment available was the Armed Forces Radio & Television Service (AFRTS).
Instead of commercials they had informational blurbs and a couple of them were about her contributions to the war efforts and her scientific accomplishments. Very impressive.

 

[Aluminny69]

Yes, I watched it. Parts of it were very sad but it was extremely interesting. Incredible mind and a patriot. The show said that in today's dollars she raised about 300 million dollars for the war effort. This was after the U.S. Navy and National Inventors Council deep sixed her frequency hopping idea that the show said is a basis for Bluetooth, GPS, etc. She never received anything for her invention since she allowed by mistake her patent rights to elapse. She was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame posthumously.

More specifically, her frequency hopping invention was a guidance system for torpedoes. German U-Boats wreaked havoc in the Atlantic during the first few years of the war, sinking many merchant ships. If the Navy had taken her seriously, a lot of lives could have been saved.

 

[my2cents]

No doubt Ms Lamarr had a great "Hedy" on her shoulders.

 

[BBallF]

More specifically, her frequency hopping invention was a guidance system for torpedoes. German U-Boats wreaked havoc in the Atlantic during the first few years of the war, sinking many merchant ships. If the Navy had taken her seriously, a lot of lives could have been saved

That's right. The issue was jamming the radio controls on torpedos by U-Boats as I understood it because it was on one frequency. With her invention, that would not take place. It wound up in a warehouse someplace much like the ending of Indiana Jones and the Lost Ark.

 

[Scud49]

Hedy Lamarr's memorial in Vienna. The 88 rods are for the frequencies in her patented Spread Spectrum invention. The balls are information packets encoded on those frequencies. If you stand in the right spot, you can see her face.