i would like to share this sequence of events
Viennese Jewish actress Hedy Lamarr marries ethnically Jewish Austrofascist arms dealer (and purported party-thrower for Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini and then-biffles with Hermann Göring), Friedrich Mandl, who forces her to convert to Catholicism and have a Catholic wedding
Turns out he’s a controlling fuck (who was surprised) who hated that she simulated a climax on screen and kept her from her acting career so she fled and made a career in Hollywood, but as wartime approached she felt guilty for having a luxurious career as the state of the world became what it was, and wanted to do something about it
She comes into contact with American-born avant-garde composer, pianist and female endocrinology enthusiast George Antheil, of German heritage, because she wants suggestions for bigger tits, but they end up talking about torpedoes instead
The two of them invent a weaponized player piano, using a mechanism from one of Antheil’s avant-garde compositions and the knowledge Lamarr gained from her shitty marriage to a fascist arms dealer, which used frequency-hopping spread-spectrum technology (which gave way to WiFi, GPS, and Bluetooth) to encrypt torpedo torpedo attack signals by use of a piano roll, where all 88 keys matched a different frequency making it too difficult to jumble and send torpedoes off course
I reiterate, a conversation about wanting bigger tits led to the conceptualization of a torpedo encrypter controlled by a piano meant to defeat the Nazis
It got patented in 1942 but the US Navy was too hesitant to use technology from outside the military so it didn’t get used
Hedy instead sold kisses and a lunch even went for $4.5 million, for war bonds, and she dubbed herself “just a plain gold-digger for Uncle Sam”
The Cuban Missile Crisis happened, after which the patent had already expired, and the US Navy used her technology
She only ever got any recognition in 1997 for this, three years before her death. Her ashes are scattered in the Vienna Woods.
I know there are a ton of “all hail our mother of wifi Hedy Lamarr” posts out there but I don’t know if any of them quite capture the beautiful absurdity of how this genius ended up doing what she did, so
All Hail our Mother of Wifi Hedy Lamarr
and the scene that pissed off her fascist husband, may we all make fascists as uncomfortable as possible
