Hedy Lamarr

Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler—better known by her stage name Hedy Lamarr—became a big screen legend in the 1930s and 40s for starring in such Hollywood films as “Algiers,” “Comrade X” and “Samson and Delilah.” But while the Vienna-born actress was often dubbed the “most beautiful woman in the world,” she also possessed a sharp mind that she put to use as an inventor. In the 1940s, she teamed with avant-garde composer George Antheil in pioneering a new method of “frequency hopping,” a technique for disguising radio transmissions by making the signal jump between different channels in a prearranged pattern. Lamarr devised her “Secret Communications System” as a potential guidance tool for Allied torpedoes in World War II, but the U.S. Navy ignored the technology after she handed over her patent in 1942. Other inventors later expanded on her groundbreaking ideas, however, and similar “spread-spectrum” systems are now used in everything from communications satellites to cellular phones.