Hedy Lamarr
1914–2000 · Austrian-American · 20th Century
Known for: 'The most beautiful woman in the world' who also invented frequency-hopping spread spectrum — the tech behind WiFi and Bluetooth
Hedy Lamarr was an Austrian-American actress AND inventor who co-developed frequency-hopping spread spectrum technology during WWII — the foundation of modern WiFi, Bluetooth, and GPS. Hollywood never took her seriously as an inventor; the military ignored her patent.
What Hedy Lamarr would be watching
The “if they lived today” Q&A on this page gives Hedy Lamarr The Imitation Game (2014) as a favourite film. Their reason: “Another genius dismissed by their era.” Rankquant scores it above 83% of films, drawn from 824 IMDb reviewers individually re-centred rather than averaged raw. The full film & TV rankings are built the same way.
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