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Hedy Lamarr (2018)

womenshistory.org

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Re: Hedy Lamarr (2018)

#21

Post by shakow »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #4
HL33tibCe7 wrote: post #3

Like many stories of this kind, the idea that this person "pioneered the basis" of these technologies seems massively overblown. What she and Antheil patented was a system that used frequency hopping to help guide torpedoes, using a piano roll to switch between the frequencies. They did not "invent" frequency hopping, which had been discussed in the literature for 30 years already.

But a piano-roll (presumably of type she discovered in music boxes) is quite ingenious solution for synchronised key sequences, for the technology of the time. Kinda similar analogical transfer going on for the Jacquard loom as early "program storage".

I don't think OP says that her work was not smart or non-innovative, merely that presenting it as “pioneering frequency hoping” is over the top.

E.g. Hoare did a lot of smart things with Rust bringing real-world impact, still you wouldn't write on his epitaph that he “pioneered programming languages”.

Re: Hedy Lamarr (2018)

#22

Post by zmgsabst »

anonym29 wrote: post #18
HL33tibCe7 wrote: post #3

Like many stories of this kind, the idea that this person "pioneered the basis" of these technologies seems massively overblown. What she and Antheil patented was a system that used frequency hopping to help guide torpedoes, using a piano roll to switch between the frequencies. They did not "invent" frequency hopping, which had been discussed in the literature for 30 years already.

[flagged]

“Pinkwashing” is garden variety bigoted myth making.

And it hurts both men and women — as bigotry tends to do.

Re: Hedy Lamarr (2018)

#24

Post by jwkpiano1 »

anonym29 wrote: post #18
HL33tibCe7 wrote: post #3

Like many stories of this kind, the idea that this person "pioneered the basis" of these technologies seems massively overblown. What she and Antheil patented was a system that used frequency hopping to help guide torpedoes, using a piano roll to switch between the frequencies. They did not "invent" frequency hopping, which had been discussed in the literature for 30 years already.

[flagged]

Except this was an actual real accomplishment, whose out of patent idea was used later by the Navy: https://physicsworld.com/a/a-tale-of-two-lives/. The application was indeed original, as evidenced by the receipt of a patent for it. You can argue with how the work is described here, but trying to claim it wasn’t a real accomplishment or is somehow comparable to someone adding a bunch of consts is absurd.

Re: Hedy Lamarr (2018)

#25

Post by HL33tibCe7 »

anonym29 wrote: post #18
HL33tibCe7 wrote: post #3

Like many stories of this kind, the idea that this person "pioneered the basis" of these technologies seems massively overblown. What she and Antheil patented was a system that used frequency hopping to help guide torpedoes, using a piano roll to switch between the frequencies. They did not "invent" frequency hopping, which had been discussed in the literature for 30 years already.

[flagged]

Another thing I find uncomfortable about this kind of "pinkwashing" is that it papers over the actual reality of history, which is that (with a very small number of exceptions) women simply didn't get get the opportunity to be "pioneers" in technology, because of the incredibly unfair nature of society at the time. In a fairer society, someone like Lamarr, who was clearly extremely intelligent and curious, might well have gone on to be a pioneer. But that wasn't the reality at the time - and we should acknowledge that.

Re: Hedy Lamarr (2018)

#26

Post by HL33tibCe7 »

jwkpiano1 wrote: post #24
anonym29 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Except this was an actual real accomplishment, whose out of patent idea was used later by the Navy: https://physicsworld.com/a/a-tale-of-two-lives/ . The application was indeed original, as evidenced by the receipt of a patent for it. You can argue with how the work is described here, but trying to claim it wasn’t a real accomplishment or is somehow comparable to someone adding a bunch of consts is absurd.

It was a real accomplishment, no doubt, but it's not an accomplishment of the order that the article claims.

Re: Hedy Lamarr (2018)

#27

Post by jwkpiano1 »

HL33tibCe7 wrote: post #26
jwkpiano1 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except this was an actual real accomplishment, whose out of patent idea was used later by the Navy: https://physicsworld.com/a/a-tale-of-two-lives/ . The application was indeed original, as evidenced by the receipt of a patent for it. You can argue with how the work is described here, but trying to claim it wasn’t a real accomplishment or is somehow comparable to someone adding a bunch of consts is absurd.

It was a real accomplishment, no doubt, but it's not an accomplishment of the order that the article claims.

Agreed. The reply I was responding to went way too far in the other direction, though, which is why I took issue with it.

Re: Hedy Lamarr (2018)

#28

Post by peoplefromibiza »

HL33tibCe7 wrote: post #25
anonym29 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Another thing I find uncomfortable about this kind of "pinkwashing" is that it papers over the actual reality of history, which is that (with a very small number of exceptions) women simply didn't get get the opportunity to be "pioneers" in technology, because of the incredibly unfair nature of society at the time. In a fairer society, someone like Lamarr, who was clearly extremely intelligent and curious, might well…

> women simply didn't get get the opportunity to be "pioneers"

It is bigger than that.

Virtually no one had that opportunity.

Lamarr was lucky enough to be part of a very small élite where "her father was deputy director of Wiener Bankverein, and in the end of his life a director at the united Creditanstalt-Bankverein. Her mother, a pianist and a native of Budapest, had come from an upper-class Hungarian-Jewish family.". She had a lot more opportunities than most of her contemporaries.

Re: Hedy Lamarr (2018)

#29

Post by fortran77 »

HL33tibCe7 wrote: post #3

Like many stories of this kind, the idea that this person "pioneered the basis" of these technologies seems massively overblown. What she and Antheil patented was a system that used frequency hopping to help guide torpedoes, using a piano roll to switch between the frequencies. They did not "invent" frequency hopping, which had been discussed in the literature for 30 years already.

And the spread spectrum as used in modern devices is not frequency hopping.
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