"Great Inventors: Hedy Lamarr" by Adventure Academy

One of the most remarkable minds of the 20th century belonged to a famous movie star, who was also a brilliant inventor. Who was this amazing woman and what did she invent? Well, she was born in Austria in 1914 with the name of Hedwig Eva Kiesler, but people came to know her by her stage name, Hedy Lamarr. Hedy knew as a child that she wanted to be a famous actress and she was determined to succeed. Movies were the newest thing and the biggest movies in the world were made in Hollywood. She planned to quickly become famous in Europe and then go to Hollywood. And when she arrived in America in 1938, that's exactly what Hedy Lamarr did. She enjoyed fame and fortune as a movie star, but in Hollywood, the people in charge of making movies mainly valued actresses for how they looked. Hedy Lamarr was not shy about voicing her opposition to this view. She was well known for joking that anyone could be beautiful as long as you just stood around and didn't think much. And Hedy Lamarr was always thinking. From the time she was young, Lamarr had been fascinated by math, science and engineering. As an adult, she even kept a small laboratory in her movie trailer and would work on ideas and inventions during breaks and filming. While Hedy Lamarr was enjoying her success in Hollywood, a deadly war had started in Europe that soon spread to much of the rest of the world. World War II. With her family still living in Austria, Hedy felt that she had to do something to help the war effort. An inventor friend of hers named Howard Hughes told her that the U.S. government had asked him to try to build the fastest plane in the world. While Lamarr thought about how to achieve this, she had an aha moment. I thought the aeroplanes were too slow, so I decided that's not right. They shouldn't be square. The wings. So I bought a book of fish and I bought a book of birds and then used the fastest bird, connected it with the fastest fish, and I drew it together. When I showed him the results, he called me a genius. Hedy Lamarr understood that she was not behaving as others expected her to. I was different, I guess. Maybe I came from a different planet. Who knows? But whatever it is, inventions are easy for me to do. Lamarr wanted to do even more to help with the war effort. She knew that one of the biggest problems the Americans faced was at sea. The enemy had found a way to interfere with the radio signals that control the torpedoes American ships use to defend themselves from submarines. This was a big problem. It made American ships almost defenseless. One day Hedy had another aha moment. Lamarr partnered with a brilliant friend and together they created and patented a secret communication system. It prevented the enemy from interfering with the torpedoes so they could reach their targets. Hedy Lamarr and her friend donated their invention to the United States military, but the men in charge did not think it would work. It wasn't until much later that Hedy Lamarr's invention was proven useful. Engineers used her invention as the inspiration for many modern communications technologies. So every time you use a cell phone, you are using technology that is partly based on Hedy Lamarr's invention. In 2014, on what would have been her 100th birthday, Hedy Lamarr was made a member of the National Inventors Hall of Fame. Hedy Lamarr had her own style and outlook on life. She never let anyone tell her what she could or couldn't do, and she was always thinking. I was different, I guess. Maybe I came from a different planet, who knows. But whatever it is, inventions are easy for me to do.