Hedy Lamarr Patented the Idea Behind Wireless
On this day · 11 August 1942
A 1940s movie star and an avant-garde composer co-invented a radio trick that quietly underpins Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS.
On August 11, 1942, the U.S. Patent Office granted U.S. Patent No. 2,292,387 for a “secret communication system” to Hollywood star Hedy Lamarr and avant-garde composer George Antheil. Lamarr filed under her married name, Hedy Kiesler Markey.
Their idea was frequency hopping: a transmitter and receiver would jump together among many radio frequencies in a rapid, seemingly random pattern, making the signal nearly impossible to jam or intercept. To keep both ends in sync, the pair borrowed a mechanism from Antheil’s world of music — a perforated paper roll like those that drive a player piano.
Switching among scattered frequencies turned a vulnerable signal into something that sounded like noise.
The goal was to guide radio-controlled torpedoes past enemy jamming during World War II. The Navy shelved the design as impractical, and the patent expired before earning Lamarr a cent.
Decades later, the concept resurfaced. Frequency-hopping spread spectrum became foundational to modern wireless communication, echoing through technologies like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS.
Sources & references
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