Hedy Lamarr (1914–2000) was the Austrian-born Hollywood star who co-invented frequency hopping: US Patent 2,292,387, granted in August 1942 to her and the composer George Antheil, described a jam-proof radio guidance system for torpedoes — the spread-spectrum ancestor of Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS.
Between takes on MGM sets she worked at a drafting table, turning knowledge of munitions gathered from her first marriage — to an arms manufacturer who sold to the Nazis — into an invention the US Navy shelved, then quietly adopted decades later.
