Tag der Erfinder was created in 2005 by Berlin entrepreneur and inventor Gerhard Muthenthaler. The date of November 9 was chosen specifically to commemorate the birth of Austrian-born actress and self-taught inventor Hedy Lamarr (born Nov 9, 1914, in Vienna). In 1941, appalled by Nazi U-boats torpedoing passenger ships, Lamarr teamed up with avant-garde composer George Antheil to design a 'Secret Communication System' (US Patent 2,292,387). By synchronizing radio frequencies using 88-key miniature piano rolls, they invented spread-spectrum frequency hopping. While unadopted by the US Navy until the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, their breakthrough serves as the direct mathematical and engineering foundation for modern Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, CDMA, and GPS communications.
Tag der Erfinder was created in 2005 by Berlin entrepreneur and inventor Gerhard Muthenthaler. The date of November 9 was chosen specifically to commemorate the birth of Austrian-born actress and self-taught inventor Hedy Lamarr (born Nov 9, 1914, in Vienna). In 1941, appalled by Nazi U-boats torpedoing passenger ships, Lamarr teamed up with avant-garde composer George Antheil to design a 'Secret Communication System' (US Patent 2,292,387). By synchronizing radio frequencies using 88-key miniature piano rolls, they invented spread-spectrum frequency hopping. While unadopted by the US Navy until the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, their breakthrough serves as the direct mathematical and engineering foundation for modern Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, CDMA, and GPS communications.
