Our group will research Hedy Lamarr, an Austrian-American actress of Jewish descent, and the system of radio-guided torpedoes she created for the US Navy during World War II. Lamarr was a prominent actress in the 1940s and was deemed the “most beautiful woman in the world”, but more importantly, she received a patent for an early form of spread-spectrum technology that was intended to make radio-guided torpedoes harder for enemies to detect. Before becoming a prominent actress, she was married to Friedrich Mandl, a munitions manufacturer for the Axis powers, and secretly gathered information about torpedo technology during conferences that Mandl held at their house. Lamarr hated the Nazis and wanted to develop a solution to prevent enemies from jamming the systems and locating Allied torpedos. She fled from Austria and her husband, and later co-invented a system of “frequency hopping” with George Antheil in America. Originally her invention was rejected by the US Navy but was later used during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 and employed in modern military technology. In addition to her invention, she used her fame as an actress to sell war bonds and …show more content…
We will also discuss how Lamarr’s stand against the Nazis formed the basis of wireless technology used today. Through our research, we will argue that Lamarr took a stand not only for patriotism, but also by “staking a claim”; she was determined to be recognized for her invention, not just for her beauty.
Preliminary list of questions our research will answer:
What events during World War II motivated Hedy Lamarr to “take a stand” against the Nazi?
How did her invention with George Antheil impact the future of wireless