"who discovered RADIOACTIVITY" !!!!
By the way, since we're on the internet, I'd like to remind people of Hedy LaMarr, who was a friggin genius.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedy_Lamarr
During World War II, Antheil and Lamarr discussed the fact that radio-controlled torpedoes, while important in the naval war, could easily be jammed by broadcasting interference at the frequency of the control signal, causing the torpedo to go off course.[
citation needed] Lamarr had learned something about torpedoes from Mandl. Antheil and Lamarr developed the idea of using frequency hopping to avoid jamming: using a piano roll to randomly change the signal sent between a control center and the torpedo at short bursts within a range of 88 frequencies in the radio-frequency spectrum (there are 88 black and white keys on a piano keyboard). The specific code for the sequence of frequencies would be held identically by the controlling ship and in the torpedo. This basically encrypted the signal. It was impossible for the enemy to scan and jam all 88 frequencies, as this would require too much power or complexity. The frequency-hopping sequence was controlled by a player-piano mechanism, which Antheill had earlier used to score his
Ballet Mecanique.[
citation needed]
On August 11, 1942,
U.S. Patent 2,292,387 was granted to Antheil and "Hedy Kiesler Markey", Lamarr's married name at the time. This early version of frequency hopping, although novel, soon met with opposition from the U.S. Navy and was not adopted.
[12]The idea was not implemented in the USA until 1962, when it was used by U.S. military ships during a
blockade of Cuba after the patent had expired. This work was honored in 1997, when the
Electronic Frontier Foundation gave Lamarr a belated award for her contributions.
[4] In 1998, an
Ottawa wireless technology developer,
Wi-LAN Inc., acquired a 49% claim to the patent from Lamarr for an undisclosed amount of stock (Eliza Schmidkunz,
Inside GNSS).
[13]
Lamarr's and Antheil's frequency-hopping idea serves as a basis for modern spread-spectrum communication technology, such as Bluetooth, COFDM (used in Wi-Fi network connections), and CDMA (used in some cordless and wireless telephones).
[14] Blackwell, Martin, and Vernam's 1920 patent
Secrecy Communication System (
1598673) seems to lay the communications groundwork for Kiesler and Antheil's patent, which employed the techniques in the autonomous control of torpedoes.
only the most blinkered historian would argue that Churchill was more competent than Thatcher. He was a good wartime prime minister because he was charismatic and belligerent but he also happened to be a lecherous alcoholic and was responsible for many blunders.
