Hollywood (H)IT (Part 2)

 

PC Magazine starts the timeline for Wireless LAN in 1942. The first milestone mentioned in the timeline is: "Composer/pianist George Antheil and actress Hedy Lamarr patent a frequency-hopping radio encryption technique (later called spread-spectrum technology) and donate it to the U.S. Navy, which classifies it but finds it too unreliable for use in WWII."

Does it sound improbable that a Hollywood actress and a music composer who called himself the bad boy of music could invent a communication system that not only would become the basis for secret military communications but also fuel a wireless revolution almost six decades later?

Connecting the Dots
On the surface of it, coincidence seems to play a big part in most inventions, like the spread-spectrum technology. Deeper analyses reveal that behind the scene a number of acts serendipitously came together, indicating that most inventions happen because of a gradual synthesis of divergent bodies of knowledge. The sequence of events and happenings leading to the invention of spread-spectrum technology is no different.

There are numerous written accounts of the story behind the invention, including features by leading publications like Forbes, the New York Times and the American Heritage of Invention and Technology. In 1998, Lisa A. Marovich researched and wrote about it in her doctoral dissertation, "Fueling the Fires …

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