International Day of Women and Girls in Science
Only from the invisibility that women have suffered can it be justified that many of us don’t know about Hedy Lamarr; perhaps some of us know that she was an important actress in 1930s Hollywood, but few are aware that she fought against Nazi Germany and, above all, that she was the inventor of wireless technology. Today, when we connect to any Wi-Fi and wonder who invented this technology, we will know that the origin lies in a woman, in Hedy Lamarr.
Browsing the internet, we can find many facts about her biography, but there are few that focus on this aspect. Hedy Lamarr contributes to overcoming the stereotypes that women are often confined to. As an actress, she never gave up on her other passion, which was science, and in her case, technology. During her time, she coincided with World War II and volunteered to help as an engineer, since she had also studied in this field. Authorities told her to contribute by using her image as an actress to sell war bonds; but she didn’t want to limit herself to just this role. Yes, she was intelligent and attractive—a “both/and” that many sexist men cannot stand. Some people accepted Hedy Lamarr as a sexy actress, while others only acknowledged her as a scientist, but few accepted that she could be both—a sexy actress and a brilliant scientist at the same time. Hedy Lamarr did not allow herself to be pigeonholed; she knew she had much to contribute, as she later proved.
Hedy Lamarr offered a system based on transmitting messages or orders by breaking them into small parts, making it impossible to reassemble the message unless one knew the channel-hopping code. This system is what we know as frequency-hopping spread spectrum transmission, and it is the origin of our wireless technologies. It took time for her to be recognized for this discovery; when she was granted the Pioneer Award and acknowledged as an inventor, Hedy herself expressed it saying, “it’s about time.”
In this way, today we can enjoy Wi-Fi, but more importantly, today we can ask ourselves, “How many Hedy Lamarrs do we have around us?” Undoubtedly, many.
Article translated from Diario Feminista
Journalist of Diario Feminista