WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.379 You know, when you look at the device you're 00:00:01.379 --> 00:00:03.940 probably using right now to listen to this, like 00:00:03.940 --> 00:00:05.440 your smartphone or your wireless headphones, 00:00:05.879 --> 00:00:08.000 there's this automatic assumption about where 00:00:08.000 --> 00:00:10.080 that technology came from. Right. You picture 00:00:10.080 --> 00:00:13.220 a very specific origin story. Exactly. It usually 00:00:13.220 --> 00:00:15.779 involves, I don't know, a garage in Silicon Valley 00:00:15.779 --> 00:00:18.019 or some engineers in short sleeve button downs. 00:00:18.219 --> 00:00:20.420 Or tech billionaires in hoodies writing code 00:00:20.420 --> 00:00:22.300 at two in the morning. I mean, it is the standard 00:00:22.300 --> 00:00:25.940 mythology of the digital age. We inherently associate 00:00:25.940 --> 00:00:28.850 this brilliant world -changing communication 00:00:28.850 --> 00:00:32.929 technology with a very specific modern type of 00:00:32.929 --> 00:00:36.789 person. But what if I told you that the foundational 00:00:36.789 --> 00:00:40.250 technology making your Wi -Fi and Bluetooth possible, 00:00:40.630 --> 00:00:43.250 like the actual underlying architecture that 00:00:43.250 --> 00:00:45.409 allows your wireless world to function without 00:00:45.409 --> 00:00:49.530 just constant interference, was a massive unpayable 00:00:49.530 --> 00:00:53.240 debt. to a 1940s Hollywood glamour icon. It really 00:00:53.240 --> 00:00:54.960 sounds like a movie script in itself, doesn't 00:00:54.960 --> 00:00:56.939 it? It totally does. We are talking about a woman 00:00:56.939 --> 00:00:59.920 who invented a secret torpedo guidance system 00:00:59.920 --> 00:01:02.859 in her spare time, literally sitting at a drafting 00:01:02.859 --> 00:01:05.359 table in her trailer, you know, between takes 00:01:05.359 --> 00:01:08.879 on a movie set. And yet it is entirely factual. 00:01:09.200 --> 00:01:11.939 And I think it forces us to reconsider how we 00:01:11.939 --> 00:01:16.239 as a society categorize Genius welcome to today's 00:01:16.239 --> 00:01:18.480 deep dive today. We're taking you on a journey 00:01:18.480 --> 00:01:20.959 through excerpts from the Wikipedia article on 00:01:20.959 --> 00:01:24.439 Hiti Lamar a Truly fascinating subject our mission 00:01:24.439 --> 00:01:27.629 today is to explore the ultimate dual life We 00:01:27.629 --> 00:01:30.069 want to understand how a woman who was relentlessly 00:01:30.069 --> 00:01:31.769 marketed as the world's most beautiful woman 00:01:31.769 --> 00:01:34.170 fundamentally laid the groundwork for the modern 00:01:34.170 --> 00:01:36.909 digital age. And, of course, why her sheer intellect 00:01:36.909 --> 00:01:39.250 was so systematically ignored by the world around 00:01:39.250 --> 00:01:41.569 her. Yeah, that's the real tragedy of it. Okay, 00:01:41.569 --> 00:01:43.329 let's unpack this. I mean, where does a story 00:01:43.329 --> 00:01:45.349 with this much contradiction even begin? Well, 00:01:45.349 --> 00:01:48.769 it begins in Vienna in 1914. She was born Hedwig 00:01:48.769 --> 00:01:52.049 Eva Maria Keesler. Hedwig Keesler. Right. And 00:01:52.049 --> 00:01:54.530 from the very start, you can really see the seeds 00:01:54.530 --> 00:01:58.170 of this dual identity taking root. On one hand, 00:01:58.269 --> 00:02:01.109 you have this young girl who, by age 12, is winning 00:02:01.109 --> 00:02:03.510 beauty contests in a society that highly values 00:02:03.510 --> 00:02:05.950 female aesthetics. But on the other hand, you 00:02:05.950 --> 00:02:08.550 have a father who recognized and really nurtured 00:02:08.550 --> 00:02:11.090 her deeply inquisitive mind. Oh, that's interesting. 00:02:11.409 --> 00:02:13.270 So he didn't just put the beauty pageant angle. 00:02:13.389 --> 00:02:15.969 Not at all. He didn't just buy her books. He 00:02:15.969 --> 00:02:18.469 took her on long walks through the city, deliberately 00:02:18.469 --> 00:02:21.150 explaining the mechanical causality of the world. 00:02:21.270 --> 00:02:23.770 Like how things worked. Exactly. He would break 00:02:23.770 --> 00:02:26.210 down how streetcars operated, the inner workings. 00:02:25.960 --> 00:02:29.199 of a printing press, the hidden gears inside 00:02:29.199 --> 00:02:31.800 everyday devices. So he was basically feeding 00:02:31.800 --> 00:02:34.879 an engineering brain. He taught her to look at 00:02:34.879 --> 00:02:37.699 a machine and ask, what is the hidden mechanism 00:02:37.699 --> 00:02:40.639 making this work? Precisely. But the world, of 00:02:40.639 --> 00:02:43.099 course, was much more interested in the surface, 00:02:43.340 --> 00:02:45.879 her face. Yeah. She was drawn to acting. And 00:02:45.879 --> 00:02:48.759 her sheer determination is pretty obvious early 00:02:48.759 --> 00:02:51.580 on. She actually forged a note from her mother 00:02:51.580 --> 00:02:54.689 just to get a job as a script girl. Which is 00:02:54.689 --> 00:02:57.370 such a bold move. Right. And that foot in the 00:02:57.370 --> 00:03:00.469 door eventually led to her starring in a notorious 00:03:00.469 --> 00:03:03.969 1933 Czech film called Ecstasy. Which became 00:03:03.969 --> 00:03:06.469 a defining and really controversial turning point. 00:03:06.550 --> 00:03:09.169 I mean, she was only 18 playing a neglected young 00:03:09.169 --> 00:03:12.590 wife. Just 18. Yeah. And the film achieved global 00:03:12.590 --> 00:03:15.250 notoriety for showing close -up scenes of her 00:03:15.250 --> 00:03:18.770 face during an orgasm alongside some brief nudity. 00:03:19.030 --> 00:03:21.110 And she maintained for the rest of her life that 00:03:21.110 --> 00:03:23.990 she was... completely duped by the director. 00:03:24.889 --> 00:03:27.590 She claimed he used high -power telephoto lenses 00:03:27.590 --> 00:03:30.370 to capture footage she had no idea was even being 00:03:30.370 --> 00:03:32.909 filmed. It was a massive scandal. The movie ended 00:03:32.909 --> 00:03:35.789 up being banned in the U .S. and Germany, but 00:03:35.789 --> 00:03:37.610 it won an award at the Venice Film Festival. 00:03:37.650 --> 00:03:40.530 That's wild. And that kind of scandalous global 00:03:40.530 --> 00:03:43.770 fame instantly made her a commodity. And the 00:03:43.770 --> 00:03:46.770 men who collected rare valuable commodities took 00:03:46.770 --> 00:03:50.050 notice, specifically Friedrich Mandl. Mandel 00:03:50.050 --> 00:03:52.770 was an extraordinarily wealthy Austrian arms 00:03:52.770 --> 00:03:56.229 merchant, a munitions manufacturer. He reputedly 00:03:56.229 --> 00:03:58.669 ranked as the third richest man in Austria at 00:03:58.669 --> 00:04:00.830 the time. Wow. More importantly for our story, 00:04:00.930 --> 00:04:03.229 though, he had deep political and military ties 00:04:03.229 --> 00:04:06.550 to Benito Mussolini and later Adolf Hitler. Lamar's 00:04:06.550 --> 00:04:08.490 later descriptions of her time with Mandel are 00:04:08.490 --> 00:04:10.909 just they're chilling. She essentially said she 00:04:10.909 --> 00:04:13.349 was treated like a doll, like an object of art 00:04:13.349 --> 00:04:15.569 that had to be guarded and imprisoned. She had 00:04:15.569 --> 00:04:18.399 absolutely no autonomy. None. But she was sitting 00:04:18.399 --> 00:04:20.959 in on his business meetings. Right. And what's 00:04:20.959 --> 00:04:23.939 fascinating here is that juxtaposition. You have 00:04:23.939 --> 00:04:26.740 this intense physical objectification happening 00:04:26.740 --> 00:04:30.720 in real time. She is treated purely as a decorative 00:04:30.720 --> 00:04:33.540 asset, pouring wine for fascists and military 00:04:33.540 --> 00:04:35.819 generals. Just the pretty young wife in the corner. 00:04:36.040 --> 00:04:38.800 Exactly. But in those dining rooms, surrounded 00:04:38.800 --> 00:04:41.480 by munitions experts discussing the absolute 00:04:41.480 --> 00:04:44.220 cutting edge of applied science, specifically 00:04:44.220 --> 00:04:47.290 the challenges of weapon guidance systems, She 00:04:47.290 --> 00:04:50.009 was quietly absorbing everything. It has to be 00:04:50.009 --> 00:04:52.310 the ultimate spy scenario. Oh, definitely. She's 00:04:52.310 --> 00:04:55.389 hiding her brilliant mind in plain sight. Everyone 00:04:55.389 --> 00:04:57.629 in the room is looking at her, dismissing her, 00:04:57.949 --> 00:04:59.470 completely oblivious to the fact that she has 00:04:59.470 --> 00:05:02.069 a mind like a steel trap. She is taking mental 00:05:02.069 --> 00:05:04.730 notes on the theoretical limits of radio -controlled 00:05:04.730 --> 00:05:06.629 technology while they just think she's pouring 00:05:06.629 --> 00:05:08.850 drinks. And eventually, the physical confinement 00:05:08.850 --> 00:05:11.310 becomes too much. I mean, think about the sheer 00:05:11.310 --> 00:05:13.970 willpower it must have taken to escape that life, 00:05:14.410 --> 00:05:16.209 knowing the power of the man she was dealing 00:05:16.209 --> 00:05:19.670 with. It's staggering. In 1937, she finally made 00:05:19.670 --> 00:05:22.360 her move. Now, historical accounts vary a bit 00:05:22.360 --> 00:05:24.980 on the exact method. Right, the escape story. 00:05:25.420 --> 00:05:27.740 Yeah, she either disguised herself as her own 00:05:27.740 --> 00:05:30.540 maid to flee to Paris, or she convinced Mandel 00:05:30.540 --> 00:05:32.759 to let her wear all her most extravagant jewelry 00:05:32.759 --> 00:05:35.439 to a dinner party and simply vanished into the 00:05:35.439 --> 00:05:38.240 night. Both sound like movie scenes. They really 00:05:38.240 --> 00:05:40.939 do. But either way, she successfully escapes 00:05:40.939 --> 00:05:43.569 her physical confinement in Europe. Only to walk 00:05:43.569 --> 00:05:45.810 right into a different kind of confinement in 00:05:45.810 --> 00:05:48.189 America, like an intellectual one. That's a great 00:05:48.189 --> 00:05:50.410 way to put it. She makes it to London and manages 00:05:50.410 --> 00:05:54.209 to secure a meeting with MGM's Louis B. Mayer, 00:05:54.449 --> 00:05:57.850 who is actively scouting Europe for talent. He 00:05:57.850 --> 00:06:01.670 offers her $125 a week and she turns it down 00:06:01.670 --> 00:06:04.529 cold. A phenomenal display of agency for a refugee 00:06:04.529 --> 00:06:07.110 fleeing a controlling marriage. She knew her 00:06:07.110 --> 00:06:09.310 value as a commodity, even if she resented it. 00:06:09.490 --> 00:06:12.009 Right. And then she books herself onto the exact 00:06:12.009 --> 00:06:14.670 same ocean liner Mayer is taking back to New 00:06:14.670 --> 00:06:17.310 York. Brilliant. By the time that ship docks, 00:06:17.470 --> 00:06:19.949 she has completely charmed him and negotiated 00:06:19.949 --> 00:06:22.970 a contract for $500 a week. A huge increase. 00:06:23.329 --> 00:06:26.129 Mayer changes her name to Haiti Lamar, partly 00:06:26.129 --> 00:06:28.870 to distance her from the ecstasy scandal, naming 00:06:28.870 --> 00:06:31.689 her after the silent film star, Barbara Lamar. 00:06:32.329 --> 00:06:34.610 And he immediately starts marketing her to the 00:06:34.610 --> 00:06:36.329 American public as the world's most beautiful 00:06:36.329 --> 00:06:39.089 woman. And the marketing strategy worked flawlessly. 00:06:39.319 --> 00:06:42.540 She achieves massive Hollywood success, starring 00:06:42.540 --> 00:06:46.079 in Algiers in 1938, Boomtown with Clark Gable 00:06:46.079 --> 00:06:49.939 in 1940, and later her biggest hit, the religious 00:06:49.939 --> 00:06:53.620 epic Samson and Delilah in 1949. Massive hits. 00:06:53.759 --> 00:06:55.420 But if we connect this to the bigger picture, 00:06:55.879 --> 00:06:58.100 the studio system was incredibly restrictive. 00:06:58.319 --> 00:07:01.300 Her image was strictly curated. You really have 00:07:01.300 --> 00:07:03.279 to wonder about the psychological whiplash there. 00:07:03.660 --> 00:07:06.160 She escapes a literal warlord who treated her 00:07:06.160 --> 00:07:08.779 like a trophy, only to sign a contract with a 00:07:08.779 --> 00:07:11.339 studio boss who does the exact same thing just 00:07:11.339 --> 00:07:13.500 on a movie screen. Yeah, she traded one gilded 00:07:13.500 --> 00:07:15.740 cage for another. She was consistently cast as 00:07:15.740 --> 00:07:18.560 the exotic, glamorous seductress. She was given 00:07:18.560 --> 00:07:20.920 very few lines, and the lines she did have were 00:07:20.920 --> 00:07:23.120 almost insulting to her intelligence. A prime 00:07:23.120 --> 00:07:26.779 example is her 1942 film White Cargo. She plays 00:07:26.779 --> 00:07:29.579 a character named Tondelayo, and her most famous 00:07:29.579 --> 00:07:33.290 provoc - line is simply, I am Tondaleo, I make 00:07:33.290 --> 00:07:36.389 Tiffin for you. Imagine having an engineering 00:07:36.389 --> 00:07:39.230 mind that understands munitions and applied science 00:07:39.230 --> 00:07:42.069 and your job every single day is to stand in 00:07:42.069 --> 00:07:44.050 front of a camera and ask to make someone Tiffin. 00:07:44.250 --> 00:07:47.310 It's absurd. It makes me wonder, was being the 00:07:47.310 --> 00:07:49.790 world's most beautiful woman actually a massive 00:07:49.790 --> 00:07:52.720 liability for her intellect? The world paid her 00:07:52.720 --> 00:07:55.279 strictly to be looked at. They were entirely 00:07:55.279 --> 00:07:57.360 unaware of the genius sitting in their makeup 00:07:57.360 --> 00:07:59.920 chairs. The boredom must have been suffocating. 00:08:00.100 --> 00:08:02.720 To survive the tediousness of a film set where 00:08:02.720 --> 00:08:05.560 lighting setups can take hours, she needed complex 00:08:05.560 --> 00:08:07.819 problem solving, so she started inventing. Wait, 00:08:07.959 --> 00:08:10.899 on set? Yeah. She sets up a drafting table right 00:08:10.899 --> 00:08:13.139 there in her trailer. That is incredible. She 00:08:13.139 --> 00:08:15.199 invents an improved traffic light. She creates 00:08:15.199 --> 00:08:17.379 a bouillon -like cube that you could drop into 00:08:17.379 --> 00:08:19.779 water to instantly make a carbonated soda. Like 00:08:19.779 --> 00:08:22.199 an early Alka -Seltzer kind of thing. Exactly. 00:08:22.300 --> 00:08:24.899 She is actively flexing her mental muscles to 00:08:24.899 --> 00:08:28.079 keep her brain from atrophying. But then, World 00:08:28.079 --> 00:08:30.240 War II escalates, and she turns her attention 00:08:30.240 --> 00:08:33.720 to a very real, very deadly problem. Okay. Right. 00:08:33.720 --> 00:08:36.379 So she begins thinking about a critical vulnerability 00:08:36.379 --> 00:08:39.220 the Allied navies were facing. They needed to 00:08:39.220 --> 00:08:42.019 use radio signals to guide their torpedoes to 00:08:42.019 --> 00:08:43.980 the target. Right. But the problem was that the 00:08:43.980 --> 00:08:47.159 Axis powers could easily intercept those singular 00:08:47.159 --> 00:08:49.919 continuous radio frequencies. Once they found 00:08:49.919 --> 00:08:51.850 the frequency, they could blast it with interference, 00:08:52.110 --> 00:08:54.570 essentially jamming it and send the torpedo completely 00:08:54.570 --> 00:08:56.990 off course. So she takes the military knowledge 00:08:56.990 --> 00:08:59.370 she absorbed at Mandel's dinner table, and she 00:08:59.370 --> 00:09:01.649 realizes she needs to figure out a way to protect 00:09:01.649 --> 00:09:04.529 that radio signal from being jammed. This is 00:09:04.529 --> 00:09:06.289 where George Antheil enters the story, right? 00:09:06.470 --> 00:09:09.129 Yes, George Antheil. And he is not a scientist 00:09:09.129 --> 00:09:11.669 or a munitions expert. He's an avant -garde composer. 00:09:11.669 --> 00:09:14.750 He knows a composer. Yeah. Back in the 1920s, 00:09:14.769 --> 00:09:16.889 he had written a piece called Ballet Mécanique 00:09:16.889 --> 00:09:20.169 that involved synchronizing 16 player pianos 00:09:20.169 --> 00:09:23.429 using paper piano rolls. Wow, OK. The collaboration 00:09:23.429 --> 00:09:25.450 between them is where the mechanical causality 00:09:25.450 --> 00:09:28.750 of their invention takes shape. Lamar understood 00:09:28.750 --> 00:09:32.169 the radio vulnerabilities of torpedoes, and Thiel 00:09:32.169 --> 00:09:34.629 understood the mechanical synchronization of 00:09:34.629 --> 00:09:37.110 automated instruments. So how does that work? 00:09:37.820 --> 00:09:40.639 A player piano works by pulling a continuous 00:09:40.639 --> 00:09:43.340 paper roll with punched holes over a tracker 00:09:43.340 --> 00:09:46.480 bar, right? Correct. When a hole passes over 00:09:46.480 --> 00:09:49.320 a slot on the bar, it triggers a mechanism to 00:09:49.320 --> 00:09:52.299 strike a specific piano key. So how does a piano 00:09:52.299 --> 00:09:55.100 roll steer a bomb? Well, they realized that those 00:09:55.100 --> 00:09:57.220 punched holes didn't have to trigger piano strings. 00:09:57.580 --> 00:09:59.500 They could trigger electrical switches inside 00:09:59.500 --> 00:10:03.360 a radio transmitter. Lamar and Antheil hypothesized 00:10:03.360 --> 00:10:06.519 putting a miniaturized paper roll mechanism inside 00:10:06.519 --> 00:10:09.080 the submarine's transmitter and an identical 00:10:09.080 --> 00:10:11.580 roll inside the torpedo's receiver. OK, I see 00:10:11.580 --> 00:10:13.299 where this is going. If you start them at the 00:10:13.299 --> 00:10:16.100 exact same millisecond, the holes passing over 00:10:16.100 --> 00:10:18.580 the tracker bar would force the radio transmitter 00:10:18.580 --> 00:10:21.539 and the receiver to jump to a new frequency simultaneously. 00:10:21.980 --> 00:10:24.820 Here's where it gets really interesting. Think 00:10:24.820 --> 00:10:27.639 about it like this for you listening. Imagine 00:10:27.639 --> 00:10:29.299 you're trying to have a private conversation 00:10:29.299 --> 00:10:32.960 with a friend in a very crowded, very loud room. 00:10:32.980 --> 00:10:35.700 A great analogy. If you just speak English on 00:10:35.700 --> 00:10:39.279 a single frequency, anyone can eavesdrop or shout 00:10:39.279 --> 00:10:42.259 over you to ruin the conversation. But what if 00:10:42.259 --> 00:10:44.340 you and your friend constantly switch languages 00:10:44.340 --> 00:10:47.460 from English to French to Spanish to German at 00:10:47.460 --> 00:10:50.320 the exact same microsecond in a pre -arranged 00:10:50.320 --> 00:10:52.899 sequence that only the two of you know? Right. 00:10:53.080 --> 00:10:55.379 Anyone trying to listen in or anyone trying to 00:10:55.379 --> 00:10:58.179 jam your signal just hears a split second blast 00:10:58.179 --> 00:11:00.679 of static before your conversation has already 00:11:00.679 --> 00:11:03.220 moved on to a different frequency. That is the 00:11:03.220 --> 00:11:05.690 essence of frequency hopping. The communication 00:11:05.690 --> 00:11:07.789 signal is spread across multiple frequencies, 00:11:08.090 --> 00:11:10.190 hopping from one to the next in a synchronized 00:11:10.190 --> 00:11:12.350 pattern. It's brilliant. If the enemy doesn't 00:11:12.350 --> 00:11:14.370 possess the paper roll with the correct sequence 00:11:14.370 --> 00:11:17.029 of holes, they cannot predict the next frequency 00:11:17.029 --> 00:11:20.009 and therefore they cannot jam the torpedo. The 00:11:20.009 --> 00:11:22.889 genius here is the synthesis of two completely 00:11:22.889 --> 00:11:26.230 unrelated fields, military munitions and avant 00:11:26.230 --> 00:11:29.190 -garde music. It requires an incredibly flexible 00:11:29.190 --> 00:11:32.129 interdisciplinary mind to look at the paper roll 00:11:32.129 --> 00:11:35.110 of a player piano. and realize it can be used 00:11:35.110 --> 00:11:38.090 to secure a weapon of war. Exactly. So they write 00:11:38.090 --> 00:11:39.990 it up, submit it to the National Inventors Council, 00:11:40.169 --> 00:11:43.389 and on August 11, 1942, they are officially granted 00:11:43.389 --> 00:11:48.830 U .S. patent $2 ,292 ,387 for a secret communication 00:11:48.830 --> 00:11:50.940 system. They solved the jamming problem. They 00:11:50.940 --> 00:11:54.059 did. They take it to the U .S. Navy, fully expecting 00:11:54.059 --> 00:11:56.720 to help the Allies win the war. And the Navy's 00:11:56.720 --> 00:11:59.220 response? Outright rejection. Complete rejection. 00:11:59.820 --> 00:12:01.740 The Navy claimed that the mechanism would be 00:12:01.740 --> 00:12:04.460 too large to fit inside a torpedo. Furthermore, 00:12:04.659 --> 00:12:06.580 the National Inventors Council informed Lamar 00:12:06.580 --> 00:12:08.519 that she could better serve the war effort by 00:12:08.519 --> 00:12:10.879 using her celebrity status to sell war bonds. 00:12:11.519 --> 00:12:13.480 I have to pause on the Navy's excuse here. Yeah. 00:12:13.600 --> 00:12:15.419 They claimed the mechanism, which was literally 00:12:15.419 --> 00:12:17.720 based on the tiny mechanical clockwork of a player 00:12:17.720 --> 00:12:20.419 piano roll, was too big. That was the official 00:12:20.419 --> 00:12:22.799 line. Are we supposed to believe the US military, 00:12:23.139 --> 00:12:25.580 with all its engineering might and resources, 00:12:26.220 --> 00:12:28.720 couldn't figure out how to miniaturize a paper 00:12:28.720 --> 00:12:32.149 roll to fit into a torpedo? It feels much more 00:12:32.149 --> 00:12:34.690 likely that the military brass were simply incapable 00:12:34.690 --> 00:12:37.950 of taking military technology seriously because 00:12:37.950 --> 00:12:40.230 it was being handed to them by a Hollywood actress 00:12:40.230 --> 00:12:42.769 and an eccentric piano composer. This raises 00:12:42.769 --> 00:12:45.070 an important question about systemic bias and 00:12:45.070 --> 00:12:47.250 the historical consensus strongly aligns with 00:12:47.250 --> 00:12:50.110 your skepticism. The military establishment simply 00:12:50.110 --> 00:12:52.409 could not see past her packaging. They just saw 00:12:52.409 --> 00:12:55.389 the movie star. They saw Hedy Lamarr. glamorous 00:12:55.389 --> 00:12:58.029 movie star, not Hetty Lamar, defense contractor. 00:12:58.090 --> 00:13:00.169 Yeah. They essentially told her to go look pretty 00:13:00.169 --> 00:13:03.250 and raise money. And she complied because she 00:13:03.250 --> 00:13:05.909 wanted to help the allies. She went on tour with 00:13:05.909 --> 00:13:08.350 a sailor named Eddie Rhodes. She did. She would 00:13:08.350 --> 00:13:10.809 bring him on stage, flirt with him and promise 00:13:10.809 --> 00:13:12.610 the audience she would only kiss him if they 00:13:12.610 --> 00:13:15.289 bought enough war bonds. She raised millions 00:13:15.289 --> 00:13:18.289 of dollars for the military. But meanwhile, her 00:13:18.289 --> 00:13:20.690 brilliant patent just sat in a filing cabinet 00:13:20.690 --> 00:13:22.950 gathering dust. The tragedy of that timeline 00:13:22.950 --> 00:13:26.610 is profound. The technology was completely shelved 00:13:26.610 --> 00:13:30.269 during World War II. It wasn't until 1962, during 00:13:30.269 --> 00:13:33.269 the Cuban Missile Crisis, that the Navy finally 00:13:33.269 --> 00:13:35.830 implemented a version of frequency hopping in 00:13:35.830 --> 00:13:40.230 an operational system. 1962. Yes. But by 1962 00:13:40.230 --> 00:13:43.250 the Lamar and Thiel patent had been expired for 00:13:43.250 --> 00:13:45.730 three years. Meaning they never saw a single 00:13:45.730 --> 00:13:48.620 dime. for an invention that changed the course 00:13:48.620 --> 00:13:51.419 of communication technology. Not a cent. Today, 00:13:51.679 --> 00:13:53.820 frequency hopping is the foundational technology 00:13:53.820 --> 00:13:56.919 for spread spectrum communications. It is the 00:13:56.919 --> 00:13:59.259 underlying architecture that protects data from 00:13:59.259 --> 00:14:02.240 interception and interference in secure wireless 00:14:02.240 --> 00:14:04.399 networking. It's everywhere. When your Bluetooth 00:14:04.399 --> 00:14:07.000 connects only to your specific speaker in a room 00:14:07.000 --> 00:14:09.259 full of devices, or when your Wi -Fi network 00:14:09.259 --> 00:14:11.039 functions without crossing signals with your 00:14:11.039 --> 00:14:13.580 neighbor's router, you are utilizing the direct 00:14:13.580 --> 00:14:16.309 descendants of Lamar and Antheil's patent. literally 00:14:16.309 --> 00:14:18.649 powers the modern wireless world. But because 00:14:18.649 --> 00:14:20.529 she was dismissed in her prime, her life took 00:14:20.529 --> 00:14:22.809 a very complicated and often painful turn. It 00:14:22.809 --> 00:14:25.850 did. As we move into the 1950s, the inevitable 00:14:25.850 --> 00:14:28.750 reality of Hollywood sets in. Her youth starts 00:14:28.750 --> 00:14:32.000 to fade and the starring roles dry up. She attempted 00:14:32.000 --> 00:14:34.059 to take control of her career by producing an 00:14:34.059 --> 00:14:36.360 epic film in Italy called Loves of Three Queens, 00:14:36.759 --> 00:14:39.080 where she actually played multiple roles. But 00:14:39.080 --> 00:14:41.779 she lacked the necessary producing experience, 00:14:42.320 --> 00:14:44.799 couldn't secure adequate distribution, and lost 00:14:44.799 --> 00:14:48.340 millions of dollars in the process. Ouch. And 00:14:48.340 --> 00:14:50.840 from there, the narrative of her life becomes 00:14:50.840 --> 00:14:53.159 a series of desperate attempts to reclaim her 00:14:53.159 --> 00:14:56.000 own identity, constantly hitting brick walls. 00:14:56.699 --> 00:15:00.240 She became a U .S. citizen in 1953, but by the 00:15:00.240 --> 00:15:02.240 1960s, things get decidedly dark. Yeah, they 00:15:02.240 --> 00:15:04.639 do. Her autobiography, Ecstasy and Me, is published, 00:15:05.059 --> 00:15:07.200 but she publicly claims it was ghostwritten and 00:15:07.200 --> 00:15:09.879 the sensationalized contents were entirely fabricated. 00:15:10.159 --> 00:15:12.059 She ended up suing her own publisher over it. 00:15:12.200 --> 00:15:14.419 The later decades of her life were heavily marked 00:15:14.419 --> 00:15:16.940 by litigation and increasing isolation. She sued 00:15:16.940 --> 00:15:19.500 Mel Brooks, right? She did. She sued Mel Brooks 00:15:19.500 --> 00:15:23.059 for $10 million because he named a corrupt politician 00:15:23.059 --> 00:15:25.740 character, Headley Lamar, in his comedy Blazing 00:15:25.740 --> 00:15:28.039 Saddles. They eventually settled. And she sued 00:15:28.039 --> 00:15:30.440 Carell draw, too. Yes, for putting an illustration 00:15:30.440 --> 00:15:33.120 of her face on their software boxes without permission. 00:15:33.899 --> 00:15:35.960 She was even arrested twice for shoplifting, 00:15:36.320 --> 00:15:39.860 once in 1966 in Los Angeles and again in 1991 00:15:39.860 --> 00:15:42.299 in Florida, where she was charged with stealing 00:15:42.299 --> 00:15:45.759 about $21 worth of laxatives and eye drops. The 00:15:45.759 --> 00:15:49.179 lawsuits and the arrest, they really feel symptomatic 00:15:49.179 --> 00:15:51.720 of a deeper loss of control. I mean, she spent 00:15:51.720 --> 00:15:54.720 her entire life having her image, her name and 00:15:54.720 --> 00:15:57.779 her intellect used or dismissed by others. Absolutely. 00:15:58.350 --> 00:16:01.210 refused to see her on her own terms, which forced 00:16:01.210 --> 00:16:04.029 her into a deeply defensive posture for the last 00:16:04.029 --> 00:16:06.610 third of her life. She completely retreats from 00:16:06.610 --> 00:16:08.870 public life, moving to Florida. She becomes estranged 00:16:08.870 --> 00:16:11.210 from her eldest son, and eventually she stops 00:16:11.210 --> 00:16:13.690 seeing people in person altogether. It's so sad. 00:16:13.769 --> 00:16:15.389 She communicated with her friends and family 00:16:15.389 --> 00:16:17.809 almost exclusively over the telephone. It is 00:16:17.809 --> 00:16:21.409 a profound human cost. When we evaluate her legacy, 00:16:21.590 --> 00:16:24.529 there is a stark, almost painful contrast between 00:16:24.529 --> 00:16:27.289 the global, invisible connectivity her brilliant 00:16:27.289 --> 00:16:30.070 mind eventually enabled and the severe physical 00:16:30.070 --> 00:16:32.389 and emotional isolation she experienced in her 00:16:32.389 --> 00:16:35.110 final years. It is the ultimate tragic irony. 00:16:35.419 --> 00:16:38.779 Hedy Lamarr gave the world the fundamental mathematical 00:16:38.779 --> 00:16:41.059 and mechanical concept for wireless connection. 00:16:41.679 --> 00:16:44.019 But she ended her life completely disconnected 00:16:44.019 --> 00:16:46.799 from society, talking to the few people she had 00:16:46.799 --> 00:16:49.259 left almost entirely through a copper telephone 00:16:49.259 --> 00:16:52.240 wire. Yeah. She died in 2000 at the age of 85. 00:16:52.559 --> 00:16:55.500 She did eventually receive a measure of posthumous 00:16:55.500 --> 00:16:58.820 vindication, though. In 1997, the Electronic 00:16:58.820 --> 00:17:01.679 Frontier Foundation honored her with their Pioneer 00:17:01.679 --> 00:17:04.740 Award. And in 2014, she was finally inducted 00:17:04.740 --> 00:17:06.789 into the the National Inventors Hall of Fame. 00:17:06.910 --> 00:17:08.690 Better late than never, I guess. An honorary 00:17:08.690 --> 00:17:11.190 grave was even created for her in Vienna's central 00:17:11.190 --> 00:17:13.789 cemetery. But, you know, these accolades arrived 00:17:13.789 --> 00:17:15.849 long after the prime of her life. So what does 00:17:15.849 --> 00:17:18.230 this all mean? For you, the listener, the takeaway 00:17:18.230 --> 00:17:20.289 from this deep dive is about the inherent danger 00:17:20.289 --> 00:17:23.410 of looking only at the packaging. Hedy Lamarr 00:17:23.410 --> 00:17:26.390 was handed a very specific script by Hollywood, 00:17:26.730 --> 00:17:29.190 by her first husband, by the U .S. military. 00:17:29.289 --> 00:17:31.250 They all looked at her face and told her exactly 00:17:31.250 --> 00:17:33.680 what her role was supposed to be. Right. but 00:17:33.680 --> 00:17:36.500 she wrote her own code behind the scenes. She 00:17:36.500 --> 00:17:39.180 refused to let her mind atrophy just because 00:17:39.180 --> 00:17:42.420 the world was incapable of valuing anything other 00:17:42.420 --> 00:17:44.900 than her physical beauty. She remains a lasting 00:17:44.900 --> 00:17:47.400 testament to the fact that intellect and innovation 00:17:47.400 --> 00:17:51.240 do not adhere to our societal stereotypes. True 00:17:51.240 --> 00:17:53.920 genius often hides exactly where we are conditioned 00:17:53.920 --> 00:17:56.559 not to look for it. Think about the phone or 00:17:56.559 --> 00:17:59.089 the computer you're using right now. It is connected 00:17:59.089 --> 00:18:01.589 seamlessly to the world without a single wire, 00:18:02.049 --> 00:18:04.210 all thanks to an idea sketched out between takes 00:18:04.210 --> 00:18:06.869 on an MGM studio lot by the world's most beautiful 00:18:06.869 --> 00:18:08.990 woman. And it leaves you with this final thought 00:18:08.990 --> 00:18:11.769 to mull over. If the inventor of the foundational 00:18:11.769 --> 00:18:14.589 technology for our digital age was hiding in 00:18:14.589 --> 00:18:17.109 plain sight in a glamorous ball gown, who are 00:18:17.109 --> 00:18:19.009 the brilliant minds we are entirely ignoring 00:18:19.009 --> 00:18:21.150 right now simply because they don't look the 00:18:21.150 --> 00:18:21.869 part of an innovator?