Hedy lamarr and spread spectrum signal

I'm watching a PBS about an Austrian woman made famous in hollywood who helped invent a way to guide torpedo's by creating a "player piano" style way of preventing signals from being hijacked by the enemy. I've visited normandy and studied ww2 a bit. After seeing this I was feeling amazed at the coincidence of the idea.

originally posted by: sanitizedinfo
I'm watching a PBS about an Austrian woman made famous in hollywood who helped invent a way to guide torpedo's by creating a "player piano" style way of preventing signals from being hijacked by the enemy. I've visited normandy and studied ww2 a bit. After seeing this I was feeling amazed at the coincidence of the idea.

You have given me the first explanation of how her patent worked.

So the torpedo or missile has a list of changes that matches a list of changes by the controller that shoots it.

That's HEADLY!

(Sorry, couldn't help it)

a reply to: sanitizedinfo

Ah Hedy Lamarr, I watched a few of her movies back in the 90s on the Turner Network, I loved her. Imagine my surprise when I learned about ten years ago she was a woman of science as well!

originally posted by: Spader
That's HEADLY!

(Sorry, couldn't help it)

padresteve.files.wordpress.com...

a reply to: Semicollegiate

It's called frequency hopping. The Idea was far to advanced to use during WWII, but is used now, on garage door openers!

a reply to: botay
No, it's not called frequency hopping... And no it was definitely not too advanced for that era. If you MUST compare it to something modern it's really more similar to the checksum system we use to ensure the integrity of packets when transmitted wireless or wired.
. Except that it's applied to a setup to switch frequency of the control signal using a set of rules both the torpedo and controller are built with integrated into their controller. Also frequency hopping was within the capabilities of the combatants of both sides. Not using digital signals of course, but that doesn't mean they couldn't do it.

originally posted by: roguetechie
a reply to: botay
No, it's not called frequency hopping...

Sorry, but frequency hopping is ABSOLUTELY one way to do spread spectrum. And it would likely be the one you'd use back then, as it's about the easiest.

a reply to: Bedlam
Bedlam,
My point was twofold. One the actual intent of the development, which was as a method of ensuring signal integrity, and two I actually explicitly stated that it was frequency hopping just not in the way or at the speed it's done now. My post was poorly constructed in retrospect, but I just get so damn tired of this bull# and tragically narcissistic belief that pre digital age technology was primitive garbage. Especially since the people spouting this nonsense usually couldn't pass even a low grade STEM basic concepts test with a ti-8x and an open book!!
As one of a very few people who actually understands how easy we have it today compared to the people in STEM fields of that era it makes me genuinely worry for the future honestly. If you were to switch the average American college graduates of that era with modern ones, leaving each in the others place. ... Can you honestly tell me most graduates of today would even be employable in 40's or 50's America? Whereas, give the graduates of that era 3 weeks to 3 months to acclimate and start to get a feel for the technology and they would be star employees in high demand!

Lady Ada Byron, Lord Byron's daughter, invented a computer control language and helped Charles Babbage develop and finance his Analytical Engine, a 19th century steam powered punch card controlled analog computer capable of even floating point division in it's ultimate but unfinished version. imagine if the computer age had started over 100 years earlier than it did.

The programming language ADA is named in her honor.