Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Rhodes delivers a remarkable story of science history: how a ravishing film star and an avant-garde composer invented spread-spectrum radio, the technology that made wireless phones, GPS systems, and many other devices possible.
Beginning at a Hollywood dinner table, Hedy's Folly tells a wild story of innovation that culminates in U.S. patent number 2,292,387 for a "secret communication system." Along the way Rhodes weaves together Hollywood’s golden era, the history of Vienna, 1920s Paris, weapons design, music, a tutorial on patent law and a brief treatise on transmission technology. Narrated with the rigor and charisma we've come to expect of Rhodes, it is a remarkable narrative adventure about spread-spectrum radio's genesis and unlikely amateur inventors collaborating to change the world.
- ISBN10 0307742954
- ISBN13 9780307742957
- Publish Date 7 August 2012 (first published 1 January 2011)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Publisher Random House USA Inc
- Imprint Vintage Books
- Format Paperback (US Trade)
- Pages 288
- Language English
- URL https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780307742957