Innovation Trailblazer — Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler
This is the seventh in a series of posts called “Innovation Trailblazers Revisited” that Matt Tomlinson and Crystal Collier are publishing under our Innovation Trailblazers series.
Not Just a Pretty Face
If you stop to think about it for a moment — when you are in a crowded room, it may not be easy to hold a conversation, but the fact that it’s still possible is somewhat of a miracle. The relatively narrow range of human speech means that when everyone is talking at the same time, there is a lot of noise on that channel. How do our brains sort everything out from the chaotic mix of sounds our ears are hearing?
This same problem exists in many areas, most notably for radio signals. Talk to anyone about radio, and they will usually think of the signal identifier for their favorite radio station (WAMU 88.5, KUT 90.5, etc…). That’s a straightforward system called frequency modulation (FM), where the station transmits on a specific frequency band. There are also AM stations that use another even simpler amplitude modulation.
The challenge with both of these conventional approaches is that they don’t solve the “crowded room” problem, because they require a central authority to control who broadcasts on which frequency. If a bad actor wanted to transmit on any channel, they could do that, and everyone would suffer.
This problem has been around since the dawn of radio and confounded hundreds. In our digital world, the concept of analog radio is still very relevant. You are likely reading this article on a wireless device within a “crowded room” of other electronic devices. My modest office has at least 25 gadgets with radios. Most of these are broadcasting and listening on a few relatively narrow ranges of the electromagnetic spectrum (2.5Ghz, 5Ghz, etc…) for Cellular, GPS, WiFi, and Bluetooth service.
Someone solved the problem, but who?
That someone happened to be a good actor, who had a unique perspective into the way the Nazi’s were waging war against the allies in World War II.
Hedy Lemar was marketed in Hollywood as “the most beautiful woman in the world.” As an actor, her role was to show up, be beautiful, say her lines, hit her mark, and create an emotion in the viewing audience. While acting was her lifelong dream, she realized she could do more — she was curious, intelligent, and wanted to solve problems nobody else could. She didn’t set out to be an innovator, but unexpectedly she discovered that she was an innovator at heart.
Her first husband was an Austrian arms manufacturer, so Hedy often overheard conversations with Nazi generals about the war effort. They paid no attention to her because she was just a woman, and she used this to her advantage to understand what they were planning.
When she was finally able to immigrate from Europe to the United States to restart her acting career in Hollywood in 1938, she found herself bumping into other innovators and inventors like Howard Hughes. Howard encouraged her passion for technology and problem-solving and provided her resources to experiment and iterate.
In 1939 when the Battle of the Atlantic started in full force, Hedy and the world watched helplessly as German U-Boats sunk hundreds of boats and killed thousands. She remembered overhearing conversations between her former husband and Nazi generals about weapons and thought she had to do something to help.
She partnered with a friend and composer George Antheil on a “Secret Communications System,” which they patented (2,292,387) in 1942 for an elegant solution to the “crowded room” problem using a system we now call Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA). It’s a system to allow everyone in the room to speak a slightly different language by spreading their conversation over multiple seemingly-random channels at once.
She initially hoped the military would use this in their torpedo technology. Early torpedoes would go in the direction they were initially sent and could not be controlled once launched. Though if there were an unjammable signal to allow for steering the torpedo, it would provide a significant advantage.
The military classified her research and put it on a shelf for years, never using it for torpedoes (though eventually using it for sonar buoys to find submarines).
When her research became known to the public, it was the basis for a broader range of study called Frequency-Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS). This led to a wide range of innovations like cell phones, GPS, Bluetooth, and WiFi.
Heady wasn’t limited by who people thought she was. She set out to solve problems and change the world. It took a few decades, but in 1997 she was the first woman to receive the Invention Convention’s BULBIE Gnass Spirit of Achievement award, known as the “Oscars of Inventing.”
Innovation can come from anywhere.
References:
- Official website
- Awards and Honors
- NPR interview with her biographer
- Excerpt of the book “Hedy’s Folly”
- Hedy pre-Hollywood
