Hollywood Communications

Are you reading this article on a cell phone? Maybe you’re on the wifi at a local coffee shop. Well, this article, and anything else you browse while waiting for your frappuccino, is delivered to your mobile device thanks to a 1940’s Hollywood starlet. Digital communications wouldn’t exist without the elegant brilliance of Hedy Lamarr, another prominent woman in science.

Austrian born, Hedy Lamarr debuted in America opposite Charles Boyer in the 1938 film Algiers [1]. She became a sensation thanks in large part to her beauty, working with Hollywood headliners like Clark Gable, Jimmy Stewart, and Judy Garland. Her biggest success was her titlular role in Samson and Delilah, the highest grossing film of 1949 [2]. But Hollywood started to typecast Hedy as the seductress—roles that required very little beyond looking pretty. Bored with her acting career, Hedy switched to inventing [3].

Her first few inventions were flops, including a tablet to automatically carbonate water (which Hedy admitted made the drink taste like alka seltzer) [3]. Then she focused on military inventions to help the Allies in WWII. At a dinner party, Hedy met composer George Anthiel, and chatted about radio communications used to control torpedoes [1]. These signals could easily be intercepted or jammed by the enemy, but Hedy realized that randomly changing the frequency of the transmission might make radio communications harder to decipher.  The two started working on a “frequency-hopping” procedure they later patented [4].

Source: Krzysztof S pl / Wikimedia Commons

Hedy and George’s ‘frequency-hopping’ system was inspired by paper piano rolls, where up to 88 perforations in a roll of paper control which keys are played on self-playing pianos. But instead of playing a song, the paper rolls would control the frequency of the radio message. Transmitting and receiving stations would synchronize identical paper rolls, allowing communications to hop between frequencies seemingly at random [4]. With the transmitter and receiver hopping frequencies to the tune of Camptown Races, the Nazis wouldn’t be able to lock in on a signal to intercept communications or jam the frequency.

Hedy and George’s invention was never used in WWII, but it was adopted for military communications during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Later, Hedy and George’s invention would form the basis of secure digital communications via satellite, wifi, and cellular phones [5].

Each of these mobile devices trades something akin to an electronic piano roll, to sync their communications and prevent interference between signals.

This technology wasn’t widely adopted until after their patent expired, so Hedy didn’t strike it rich in the digital age. But she was recognized for her invention in 1997 with an Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Pioneer Award and was the first female recipient of a BULBIE Gnass Spirit of Achievement Award [5].

Hedy once said “Any girl can be glamorous; all you have to do is stand around and look stupid” [1]. Lucky for the internet, it was all an act.

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References
[1] “Hedy Lamarr Biography“. Biography.com. Retrieved 22 May 2016.
[2] Barton, Ruth (2010). Hedy Lamarr: The Most Beautiful Woman in Film. University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 9780813126104.
[3] “‘Most Beautiful Woman’ By Day, Inventor By Night”. NPR. 22 November 2011.
[4] “Patent 2,292,387“. United States Patent and Trademark Office. Filed 10 June 1941. Retrieved 22 May 2016.
[5] “Hedy Lamarr – Invention of Spread Specturm Technology“. Famous Women Inventors. Retrieved 22 May 2016.

Women in Science

My latest article for LadyFreethinker.org focuses on stereotypes against female scientists. While researching for this article, I stumbled upon a study that found most people can only name one prominent female scientist (Quick! Who can you name?). I quizzed myself and Marie Curie popped into my head, along with Rosalind Franklin and a few others from UCSF and Berkeley where I did my graduate and postdoctoral studies. But I have to admit, the names of women were harder to think of than those of famous male scientists. I couldn’t even remember Rosalind Franklin’s full name without a quick google. I’m so ashamed.

As penance, I’ve decided to do a recurring set of posts on female scientist for Gene of Interest. These women were trail blazers in a field that did not welcome them-some would argue still doesn’t.

Marie Curie

Though most people already know of her, I’ll start with Marie Curie. Born Maria Sklodowska, in Russian-occupied Poland in 1867, both of her parents were teachers. She studied at Warsaw’s “Flying University,” an underground university that accepted women at the time, but longing for a real degree she eventually moved to France to pursue her masters at the Sorbonne University in Paris [1].

In France, she changed her name to Marie, the French version of Maria. She met Pierre Curie at the Sorbonne and the pair bonded over their mutual love of science. They pushed each other to pursue PhDs, working in Pierre’s modest lab. At first the pair worked on separate projects: Pierre on crystals and magnetism; Marie on a new type of ray emitted by uranium discovered by Henri Becquerel. Marie found that uranium caused the surrounding air to conduct electricity. This property depended only on the amount of uranium, regardless of its form or the surrounding chemical composition. From this, she hypothesized that radiation came from the atom itself, a landmark discovery [2].

Marie and Pierre Curie

Even though she regularly asked Pierre for advice, Marie made it a point to establish ownership of her ideas. Research into the properties of uranium was entirely her idea, and she knew that no one would believe a woman had developed this work on her own [3]. As her work developed, Pierre found her research more interesting and eventually abandoned his own work to help her full time.

In the summer of 1898, Marie and Pierre published a paper on their discovery of a new element they named ‘polonium’ after Marie’s native Poland. Just months later, they published another paper on a second element they named ‘radium’. They also coined the term ‘radioactivity’ [4]. Their work won them a Nobel Prize in Physics, an award that almost didn’t include Marie. Pierre had to convince the committee to add Marie’s name to an award for work that was almost entirely hers [5].

Marie Curie was the first woman awarded a Nobel Prize. A few years later, for her discovery of ‘polonium’ and ‘radium’, she was awarded a second Nobel Prize in Chemistry, and became the first person in history to win two Nobel Prizes [6].

Sadly, little was known about the dangers of radiation at the time. Marie Curie would often walk around with samples of radium in her pockets. Her laboratory notes emit radiation to this day [7]. After years of exposure to radioactive material, Marie died of aplastic anemia.  In 1995, both Pierre and Marie’s remains were moved to the Pantheon in Paris, in honor of their great scientific achievements [8].

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References
[1] “Marie Curie – Biography“. Nobelprize.org. 4 July 1934.  Retrieved 6 April 2016.
[2] “Research Breakthroughs (1897 – 1904)“. American Institute of Physics. 2000.
[3] Robert William Reid (1974). Marie Curie. New American Library. ISBN 0-00-211539-5.
[4] “The Discovery of Radioactivity“. Berkeley Lab. 9 August 2000.
[5] “Recognition and Disappointment (1903 – 1905)“. American Institute of Physics. 2000.
[6] “Marie Curie – Facts“. Nobelprize.org. 4 July 1934. Retrieved 6 April 2016.
[7] “Marie Curie’s Research Papers are Still Radioactive 100+ Years Later“. Open Culture.com. 8 July 2015.
[8] “The Radium Institute (1919 – 1934)“. American Institute of Physics. 2000.