CURIOSITYYou’d Never Guess Which Famous Faces Were Also Brilliant Inventors4 min read

Hedy Lamarr’s Other Career

Hedy Lamarr was the biggest screen goddess of the 1940s. She was also, in her spare time, working on weapons technology for the Allied war effort. In 1942, she co-patented a secret communication system with avant-garde composer George Antheil — the patent filed under her married name, H.K. Markey.

The idea used frequency-hopping spread spectrum: radio signals that rapidly jump between frequencies, making them nearly impossible to jam. The immediate application was unjammable torpedo guidance against German U-boats. The long-term application turned out to be rather larger. That same core technology underpins Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS. Lamarr never saw a cent from any of it; her patent expired before the technology found its commercial footing.

Houdini’s Escape Route for Everyone Else

Harry Houdini made a career out of getting out of things. Sealed crates, locked tanks, submerged containers — he escaped from all of them. So it tracks that when he turned his mind to invention, he thought hard about what happens when a diver can’t.

In 1921, he patented a deep-sea diving suit with a built-in escape mechanism. The design allowed a diver to rapidly shed the entire suit while submerged, no tools or assistance required. He aimed it at naval divers and professional salvage crews, never at himself. It was never mass-produced. But as a window into how Houdini’s brain worked, it’s hard to beat.