For Women's History Month - Women Who Inspired
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CrystalRaindrops — 3 years ago(March 28, 2023 07:36 AM)
I didn't know that about Hedy Lamarr and wifi. Cool!
Although one person (on a different site) says this:
Even though she came up with frequency hopping as a method of avoiding detection and securing a radio link, it is a giant leap of reasoning to state that this had anything to do with present day WiFi, point to point microwave or cellular, which are also attributed to this invention. Actually a contemporary of hers, Claude Shannon at Bell Labs, was really the brains behind the development of the modern technologies of forward error correction, digital coding and spread spectrum.
Another person says,
Modern Wi-Fi does not use frequency hopping, as Hedy Lamarr envisioned, and indeed though it was present in the original 802.11 Wi-Fi spec, it was removed in the 802.11b standard.
However, frequency hopping IS used even today in Bluetooth, so it would be more accurate to say that without her work there may well have been no Bluetooth.
Likewise, frequency hopping forms the basis of cellular phone networks as well, another technology that may not have become prevalent without Ms. Lamarr’s work.