Hedy Lamarr, a glamorous Hollywood actress from the 1940s, co-invented a frequency-hopping technology meant to prevent enemies from jamming Allied torpedo signals during World War II.

A closer look

Hedy Lamarr, a glamorous Hollywood actress from the 1940s, co-invented a frequency-hopping technology meant to prevent enemies from jamming Allied torpedo signals during World War II. She patented the idea alongside a composer, but the military ignored it for decades because they couldn't take a movie star seriously. Eventually, her brilliant concept became the foundational technology for modern Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and secure wireless communications. It is profoundly ironic that a system designed to blow up Nazi submarines is now the exact same invisible magic we rely on to stream true crime documentaries while sitting on the toilet, completely oblivious to the fact that our wireless doom-scrolling was made possible by a silver screen icon