•Your first reaction is "Huh?" Hedy Lamarr (yes, the "Extase" Hedy Lamarr) is being given a "Bulbie" award at the Invention Convention in Pasadena this year. In 1940, she and avant-garde musician George Antheil jointly developed a method for protecting US radio-guided torpedoes from enemy attempts t...

•I ran across a web site that contains info and a copy of the actual patent (including drawings) for the "Secret Communication System" that was patented by actress Hedy Lamarr in 1942. It's at http://www.ncafe.com/chris/patent Rick Inzero, Rochester, NY, rdi@cci.com

•Hedy Lamarr did invent spread radio, wherein several weak frequencies are used instead of one strong frequency, to enable clandestine transmission and hard to interfere with (hard-to-jam) reception. Radar goes back to Tesla for origins of idea that waves are reflected by metal objects, such as boat...

•Composer George Antheil and Hedy Lamarr (who was a mathematics wizard) had experimented with automated control of instruments. Together they submitted the idea of a secret communication system in June 1941. A U.S. patent was granted in June 1942 to Antheil and Hedy Kiesler Markey, her married name ...

•In the 090404 MMD Steve Bentley wrote: "A U.S. patent was granted in June 1942 to Antheil and Hedy [La- marr] for an early version of "frequency hopping," using a piano roll to change between 88 frequencies. This was intended to make radio-guided torpedoes harder for enemies to detect or jam." Most...

•The topic of the Lamarr-Antheil roll-driven torpedo controller crops up from time to time, and its essential curiousness tends to swamp the facts. The Wikipedia article is a little light on the subject, and it has never been properly described in MMD, so I thought readers might like to read the fol...

•After enjoying the stories on the Link Aviation Trainer and the connection with the player piano, I thought I should mention that there was another connection with war time and the player piano -- a connection that lasts right into the present day. Hedy Lamarr became romantically involved with comp...

•As a high school student about 1945 I wondered what it was that was being passed around the classroom. When it got to me, it looked like a tiny key-chain telescope. Putting it to my eye I was amazed to see a tiny image of Hedy in a wonderfully natural pose. (Probably the first nude pic I had ever s...

•-- forwarded message, please reply to sender and MMD -- On Friday August 11 at 9:00 PM The History Channel's new series "This Week in History" will premiere. The fascinating story of Hollywood-star Hedy Lamarr and avant-garde composer George Antheil's patent for frequency-hopping is part of the lin...

•New book on Antheil Lamarr -- the good and the ugly There's a new book out by Richard Rhodes about the invention of a jam-proof torpedo guidance system in 1940 by film star Hedy Lamarr and composer George Antheil, called "Hedy's Folly." Rhodes is a best-selling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, and s...

•Quite coincidentally, I wrote an article for the current Player Piano Group bulletin on this subject (it's in the post to subscribers as I write). There's a web site, written by Antheil's son, which contains the patent and a few articles about it. See http://www.ncafe.com/chris/pat2/index.html For ...

•As the collaboration of Hedy Lamarr and George Antheil has been a topic of discussion on MMD, I thought the following might be of interest. http://www.timeout.com/newyork/events/opera-classical/67664/613841/antheils-legacy "Antheil's Legacy" [at] 3-Legged Dog Art & Technology Center, 80 Greenwich S...

The next time you use a frequency-hopping cellular telephone, give a brief thought to the improbable woman who first patented some of its underlying technology 55 years ago -- "the most beautiful girl in the world," Vienna-born actress Hedy Lamarr. The sultry, sophisticated brunette star of such hit...

•-- forwarded message, please reply to sender and MMD -- Dear Jody, I am working on a short documentary about Hedy Lamarr for the History Channel and am trying to find an old player-piano in the Boston area to shoot on Wednesday of next week. Do you know of any people in the Boston area who own play...

•My brother is a Frank Zappa fan, and went along to a concert series last year at the Almeida Festival in London where they played a variety of pieces that inspired Zappa, including several Nancarrow pieces (arranged for string quartet). He got talking to someone who was a Nancarrow fan, and had ent...

•Hello MMD readers, Today I read another posting on the subject of the "Ballet Mecanique" composer. One thing to remember is that George Antheil was a "moving target" -- constantly in need of money and also possessing the ability to redefine himself on a moment's notice, to fit into the 'trend du jo...

•Hello MMD Readers, While we launched our illustrated page with the British patent drawings of 1924 some time ago, it wasn't until now that I mustered the fortitude to transcribe the five accompanying pages of descriptive text, written in "patentese" and using strange sentence structures. Possibly t...

•Am restoring a Credenza, wind-up, which has been damaged in a flood, rolled off a truck, and somewhere in its life was covered with some sort of finish over the original finish. Veneer is going back on pretty well. Doors warped bad, but with time and pressure, looking better. It has two doors. Havi...

•Thanks very much for your discourse on the Credenza. I just knew there was someone out there who could help me. Perhaps you can help me further. The set screws, on the main shaft on which the springs are mounted are, will not back out. One of them turns about one round and the other less than a qua...

•I also noticed that interest in the Music Box had gone down. I sent a note several weeks ago about some music boxes I have on hand that I would like to sell. [ We routinely publish relevant ads once in the MMD because they are [ newsworthy. This posting seems qualify, so I don't know why it was [ o...