Eric Kisch wrote:

>Uncle Dave Lewis writes:
>
>>Just last year the military acknowleged that the missle guidance system
>>which he and Hedy Lamarr devised in the 1940s is the very one which they
>>now use.
>
>Whoa!  This in the middle of a long posting on A's music and recordings
>of it.  I'd love some more details.  A.  and the beautiful Hedy (no need
>to call me Hedley!) the geniuses behind our missile defenses that won the
>cold war.  Now that's a best seller in the making if ever there was one.
>More, please.

Absolutely true.  This story makes the rounds every now and again.  Forbes
magazine did a story on it several years ago.  Sorry I can't be more
specific.

Mitch Friedfeld

 [Lamarr was quite the amateur inventor; even brilliant in some respects.
 Here's a short description from "Invention & Technology" magazine:

    In 1942, at the height of her Hollywood career, Hedy Lamarr patented
    a frequency-switching system for torpedo guidance that was two
    decades ahead of its time.  It never made her any money.  But the
    concept was taken up by engineers in 1957 and became the basic tool
    for secure military communications.  It was installed on the ships
    sent to blockage Cuba in 1962, about three years after the patent
    expired.

 What's not mentioned here is that the algorithms she developed became
 the basis of spread-spectrum technology that makes all kinds of secure
 wireless communications (like secure cell phones) possible, in both
 military and commercial applications.  That should be enough of that.
 -Dave]