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.
- New eBook additions
- Available now
- Popular eBooks
- Try something different
- New kids and teen additions
- Book Club Picks
- Series Starters
- It's a Mystery!
- See all
- New audiobook additions
- Available now
- Popular audiobooks
- Try something different
- New kids and teen additions
- Listen Up: Great Narrators
- Audiobooks for your Commute
- Sweet nothings in Your Ear
- For the Love of Listening (to audiobooks)
- See all
- New magazine additions
- Popular magazines
- New kids and teen additions
- Try something different
- Business & Finance
- Let's Get Crafty
- Health & Fitness
- Cooking up Something Good!
- Celebrity Magazines
- Sports
- Family & Parenting
- Tech & Gaming
- Fashion
- See all