Kind of interesting !
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Kind of interesting !
paul Mon 07 Jan 2013, 8:55 pm
You may be
aware of this story. I wasn't, but I found it
fascinating.
In 1933, a
beautiful, young Austrian woman took off her clothes for a movie director. She
ran through the woods ... naked. She swam in a lake ... naked. Pushing well
beyond the social norms of the period, the movie also featured a simulated
orgasm.
The most
popular movie in 1933 was King Kong. But everyone in Hollywood was talking about
that scandalous movie with the gorgeous, young Austrian
woman.
Louis B.
Mayer, of the giant studio MGM, said she was the most beautiful woman in the
world. The film was banned practically everywhere ... which of course made it
even more popular and valuable. Mussolini reportedly refused to sell his copy at
any price.
The star of
the film, called Ecstasy, was Hedwig Kiesler. She said the secret of her beauty
was "to stand there and look stupid." In reality, Kiesler was anything but
stupid. She was a genius. She'd grown up as the only child of a prominent Jewish
banker. She was a math prodigy. She excelled at
science.
As she grew
older, she became ruthless, using all the power her body and mind gave
her.
Between the
sexual roles she played, her tremendous beauty, and the power of her intellect,
Kiesler would confound the men in her life ... including her six husbands, two
of the most ruthless dictators of the 20th century, and one of the greatest
movie producers in history.
Her beauty
made her rich for a time. She is said to have made -- and spent -- $30 million
in her life. But her greatest accomplishment resulted from her intellect ...And
her invention continues to shape the world we live in
today.
You see, this
young Austrian starlet would take one of the most valuable technologies ever
developed right from under Hitler's nose. After fleeing to America, she not only
became a major Hollywood star ... her name sits on one of the most important
patents ever granted by the U.S. Patent Office.
Today, when
you use your cell phone or, over the next few years, as you experience
super-fast wireless Internet access (via something called "long-term evolution"
or LTE" technology), you'll be using an extension of the technology a 20-
year-old actress first conceived while sitting at dinner with
Hitler.
At the time
she made Ecstasy, Kiesler was married to one of the richest men in Austria.
Friedrich Mandl was Austria 's leading arms maker. His firm would become a key
supplier to the Nazis.
Mandl used
his beautiful young wife as a showpiece at important business dinners with
representatives of the Austrian, Italian, and German fascist forces. One of
Mandl's favorite topics at these gatherings -- which included meals with Hitler
and Mussolini -- was the technology surrounding radio-controlled missiles and
torpedoes.
Wireless
weapons offered far greater ranges than the wire-controlled alternatives that
prevailed at the time. Kiesler sat through these dinners "looking stupid," while
absorbing everything she heard ...
As a Jew,
Kiesler hated the Nazis. She abhorred her husband's business ambitions. Mandl
responded to his wilful wife by imprisoning her in his castle, Schloss
Schwarzenau. In 1937, she managed to escape. She drugged her maid, snuck out of
the castle wearing the maid's clothes, and sold her jewelry to finance a trip to
London.
(She got out
just in time. In 1938, Germany annexed Austria. The Nazis seized Mandl's
factory. He was half Jewish. Mandl fled to Brazil. Later, he became an advisor
to Argentina's iconic populist president, Juan
Peron.)
In London,
Kiesler arranged a meeting with Louis B. Mayer. She signed a long-term contract
with him, becoming one of MGM's biggest stars. She appeared in more than 20
films. She was a co-star to Clark Gable, Judy Garland, and even Bob Hope. Each
of her first seven MGM movies was a blockbuster.
But Kiesler
cared far more about fighting the Nazis than about making movies. At the height
of her fame, in 1942, she developed a new kind of communications system,
optimized for sending coded messages that couldn't be
"jammed."
She was
building a system that would allow torpedoes and guided bombs to always reach
their targets. She was building a system to kill
Nazis.
By the 1940s,
both the Nazis and the Allied forces were using the kind of single-frequency
radio-controlled technology Kiesler's ex-husband had been peddling. The drawback
of this technology was that the enemy could find the appropriate frequency and
"jam" or intercept the signal, thereby interfering with the missile's intended
path.
Kiesler's key
innovation was to "change the channel." It was a way of encoding a message
across a broad area of the wireless spectrum. If one part of the spectrum was
jammed, the message would still get through on one of the other frequencies
being used. The problem was, she could not figure out how to synchronize the
frequency changes on both the receiver and the transmitter. To solve the
problem, she turned to perhaps the world's first techno-musician, George
Anthiel.
Anthiel was
an acquaintance of Kiesler who achieved some notoriety for creating intricate
musical compositions. He synchronized his melodies across twelve player pianos,
producing stereophonic sounds no one had ever heard before. Kiesler incorporated
Anthiel's technology for synchronizing his player pianos. Then, she was able to
synchronize the frequency changes between a weapon's receiver and its
transmitter.
On August 11,
1942, U.S. Patent No. 2,292,387 was granted to Antheil and "Hedy Kiesler
Markey," which was Kiesler's married name at the
time.
Most of you
won't recognize the name Kiesler. And no one would remember the name Hedy
Markey. But it's a fair bet than anyone reading this newsletter of a certain age
will remember one of the great beauties of Hollywood 's golden age -- Hedy
Lamarr. That's the name Louis B. Mayer gave to his prize actress. That's the
name his movie company made famous.
Meanwhile,
almost no one knows Hedwig Kiesler -- aka Hedy Lamarr -- was one of the great
pioneers of wireless communications. Her technology was developed by the U.S.
Navy, which has used it ever since.
You're
probably using Lamarr's technology, too. Her patent sits at the foundation of
"spread spectrum technology," which you use every day when you log on to a wi-
fi network or make calls with your Bluetooth-enabled phone. It lies at the heart
of the massive investments being made right now in so-called fourth-generation
"LTE" wireless technology. This next generation of cell phones and cell towers
will provide tremendous increases to wireless network speed and quality, by
spreading wireless signals across the entire available spectrum. This kind of
encoding is only possible using the kind of frequency switching that Hedwig
Kiesler invented.
aware of this story. I wasn't, but I found it
fascinating.
In 1933, a
beautiful, young Austrian woman took off her clothes for a movie director. She
ran through the woods ... naked. She swam in a lake ... naked. Pushing well
beyond the social norms of the period, the movie also featured a simulated
orgasm.
The most
popular movie in 1933 was King Kong. But everyone in Hollywood was talking about
that scandalous movie with the gorgeous, young Austrian
woman.
Louis B.
Mayer, of the giant studio MGM, said she was the most beautiful woman in the
world. The film was banned practically everywhere ... which of course made it
even more popular and valuable. Mussolini reportedly refused to sell his copy at
any price.
The star of
the film, called Ecstasy, was Hedwig Kiesler. She said the secret of her beauty
was "to stand there and look stupid." In reality, Kiesler was anything but
stupid. She was a genius. She'd grown up as the only child of a prominent Jewish
banker. She was a math prodigy. She excelled at
science.
As she grew
older, she became ruthless, using all the power her body and mind gave
her.
Between the
sexual roles she played, her tremendous beauty, and the power of her intellect,
Kiesler would confound the men in her life ... including her six husbands, two
of the most ruthless dictators of the 20th century, and one of the greatest
movie producers in history.
Her beauty
made her rich for a time. She is said to have made -- and spent -- $30 million
in her life. But her greatest accomplishment resulted from her intellect ...And
her invention continues to shape the world we live in
today.
You see, this
young Austrian starlet would take one of the most valuable technologies ever
developed right from under Hitler's nose. After fleeing to America, she not only
became a major Hollywood star ... her name sits on one of the most important
patents ever granted by the U.S. Patent Office.
Today, when
you use your cell phone or, over the next few years, as you experience
super-fast wireless Internet access (via something called "long-term evolution"
or LTE" technology), you'll be using an extension of the technology a 20-
year-old actress first conceived while sitting at dinner with
Hitler.
At the time
she made Ecstasy, Kiesler was married to one of the richest men in Austria.
Friedrich Mandl was Austria 's leading arms maker. His firm would become a key
supplier to the Nazis.
Mandl used
his beautiful young wife as a showpiece at important business dinners with
representatives of the Austrian, Italian, and German fascist forces. One of
Mandl's favorite topics at these gatherings -- which included meals with Hitler
and Mussolini -- was the technology surrounding radio-controlled missiles and
torpedoes.
Wireless
weapons offered far greater ranges than the wire-controlled alternatives that
prevailed at the time. Kiesler sat through these dinners "looking stupid," while
absorbing everything she heard ...
As a Jew,
Kiesler hated the Nazis. She abhorred her husband's business ambitions. Mandl
responded to his wilful wife by imprisoning her in his castle, Schloss
Schwarzenau. In 1937, she managed to escape. She drugged her maid, snuck out of
the castle wearing the maid's clothes, and sold her jewelry to finance a trip to
London.
(She got out
just in time. In 1938, Germany annexed Austria. The Nazis seized Mandl's
factory. He was half Jewish. Mandl fled to Brazil. Later, he became an advisor
to Argentina's iconic populist president, Juan
Peron.)
In London,
Kiesler arranged a meeting with Louis B. Mayer. She signed a long-term contract
with him, becoming one of MGM's biggest stars. She appeared in more than 20
films. She was a co-star to Clark Gable, Judy Garland, and even Bob Hope. Each
of her first seven MGM movies was a blockbuster.
But Kiesler
cared far more about fighting the Nazis than about making movies. At the height
of her fame, in 1942, she developed a new kind of communications system,
optimized for sending coded messages that couldn't be
"jammed."
She was
building a system that would allow torpedoes and guided bombs to always reach
their targets. She was building a system to kill
Nazis.
By the 1940s,
both the Nazis and the Allied forces were using the kind of single-frequency
radio-controlled technology Kiesler's ex-husband had been peddling. The drawback
of this technology was that the enemy could find the appropriate frequency and
"jam" or intercept the signal, thereby interfering with the missile's intended
path.
Kiesler's key
innovation was to "change the channel." It was a way of encoding a message
across a broad area of the wireless spectrum. If one part of the spectrum was
jammed, the message would still get through on one of the other frequencies
being used. The problem was, she could not figure out how to synchronize the
frequency changes on both the receiver and the transmitter. To solve the
problem, she turned to perhaps the world's first techno-musician, George
Anthiel.
Anthiel was
an acquaintance of Kiesler who achieved some notoriety for creating intricate
musical compositions. He synchronized his melodies across twelve player pianos,
producing stereophonic sounds no one had ever heard before. Kiesler incorporated
Anthiel's technology for synchronizing his player pianos. Then, she was able to
synchronize the frequency changes between a weapon's receiver and its
transmitter.
On August 11,
1942, U.S. Patent No. 2,292,387 was granted to Antheil and "Hedy Kiesler
Markey," which was Kiesler's married name at the
time.
Most of you
won't recognize the name Kiesler. And no one would remember the name Hedy
Markey. But it's a fair bet than anyone reading this newsletter of a certain age
will remember one of the great beauties of Hollywood 's golden age -- Hedy
Lamarr. That's the name Louis B. Mayer gave to his prize actress. That's the
name his movie company made famous.
Meanwhile,
almost no one knows Hedwig Kiesler -- aka Hedy Lamarr -- was one of the great
pioneers of wireless communications. Her technology was developed by the U.S.
Navy, which has used it ever since.
You're
probably using Lamarr's technology, too. Her patent sits at the foundation of
"spread spectrum technology," which you use every day when you log on to a wi-
fi network or make calls with your Bluetooth-enabled phone. It lies at the heart
of the massive investments being made right now in so-called fourth-generation
"LTE" wireless technology. This next generation of cell phones and cell towers
will provide tremendous increases to wireless network speed and quality, by
spreading wireless signals across the entire available spectrum. This kind of
encoding is only possible using the kind of frequency switching that Hedwig
Kiesler invented.
paul- Posts : 7740
Join date : 2011-08-19
Age : 72
Location : Morphett Vale Sth. Aust.
Re: Kind of interesting !
Hammy Mon 07 Jan 2013, 9:19 pm
Very Interesting. Hedy Lamarr was referred to in Mel Brookes' wonderfully funny movie, Blazing Saddles. How about that.
Hammy- Posts : 4446
Join date : 2011-08-09
Age : 65
Location : The Rock
paul- Posts : 7740
Join date : 2011-08-19
Age : 72
Location : Morphett Vale Sth. Aust.
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