I didn't know this about Hedy Lamarr - did you...?

in the navy back then we used multichannel for communications. broadcast and received on 16 channels on the same radio frequency... i think i have posted such under another name in my diary somewhere....
 
Yes i knew about Ms. Lamarr, also about the Coral Castle guy.
He was not the only man to build a castle in Florida, tho Carl Clough never got the attention that Leedskalnin did and i think he liked it that way. (Why is a story for another time.) Having trouble finding any thing on him with various search engines--tho found some with same name born later, maybe relatives?

When he moved to Ruskin, Fl sometime probably in late 30's or early 40's, he built a couple of houses and rented them at reasonable prices to poor people. He apparently painted and also did billboard advertisements to earn $$. Our house that was burned down was originally his, he moved out because he built himself a castle off in the mangroves at end of the dirt road, he actually dug a moat connecting the river to an inlet so his property became an island and Dad helped him various projects including putting in a winch to operate a drawbridge over his moat. (Which is why he was selling the house to Dad at reasonable price.) Instead of Coral he used a mix of ground up shells and concrete (he called 'shellcrete') to build his 'dream' home, castle style.
 
Interesting. I was reminded of an interview with Paul Newman, who had similar thoughts.
He was asked "What is it like to have so many women fans who find you so good looking?"
He replied, "I could puke." Good looks are something you're born with; you didn't earn it or work for it & it has nothing to do with your talent, ability or character."
 
I did know about Hedy Lamarr. Her role in helping develop frequency hopping was very important to the development of secure communications, but it is her role in developing Spread Spectrum Technology that is extremely impressive. The mathematics behind spread spectrum is simply formidable.

One of the features of spread spectrum signals is that two or more or them can exist on the same frequency at the same time since they are mathematically orthogonal to each other. Modern cell phones have incorporated this technique in addition to frequency hopping. This is why so many people in close proximity to each other can all be yacking away on their modern cell phones without interfering with each other. If, per chance their does happen to be too much going on in a certain portion of the spectrum, then the frequency hopping feature comes into and the phone will go to a different portion of the spectrum.

In the world of advanced communication, Hedy Lamarr is a real hero.
 
What a difference she has made upon our lives is amazing and yes, I've known about her for quite some time. The more amazing thing though is that her contributions to science and technology aren't more well known. There are 365 days in every year, maybe one of them could be set aside as a day to remember Ms Lamarr. Not a holiday like Juneteenth but just a day of remembrance. She did some pretty positive things too! Or maybe just a day to remember the unexpected good ideas that came from people who we mostly might never have thought of otherwise for their contributions to improving our lives.
 
well I was going to post a reply to spread spectrum technology but after thinking about it I decided to not make a comment because of the equipment still being in use.......!!
 

You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top