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Unstoppable: Hedy Lamarr

Dr Julia Ravey and Dr Ella Hubber tell each other inspiring tales of pioneering female inventors – the stories they wish they’d known when they were starting out as scientists.

Dr Julia Ravey and Dr Ella Hubber both have a love of science, but it turns out there’s a lot they don’t know about some of the leading women at the front of the inventing game. In Unstoppable, Dr Julia and Dr Ella tell each other the hidden, world-shaping stories of the engineers, innovators and inventors they wish they’d known about when they were starting out as scientists. This week, the story of the Hollywood starlet whose brilliant ideas would go on to revolutionise the way we live.

Known as the ‘most beautiful woman in film’ during the 1940s, Hedy Lamarr was one of the most in demand Hollywood actresses of her time. But she wasn’t just a movie star. From a young age, she also had a knack for inventing – she liked to take her toys apart just to see how they worked. And she carried this passion into her adult life – creating an invention that laid the groundwork for technology many of us couldn’t live without: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS.

But it didn’t come without struggle. Dr Julia and Dr Ella take us through Hedy’s remarkable journey, and we get a first-hand look into Hedy’s life from her daughter Denise Loder-DeLuca.

Presenters: Dr Ella Hubber and Dr Julia Ravey
Producers: Ella Hubber and Julia Ravey
Assistant producer: Sophie Ormiston
Production Coordinator: Elisabeth Tuohy
Editor: Holly Squire

(Photo: Hedy Lamarr, Austrian-born American actress and inventor. Credit: Eric Carpenter/John Kobal Foundation/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

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26 minutes

Last on

Mon 20 May 2024 00:32GMT

Broadcasts

  • Mon 13 May 2024 19:32GMT
  • Tue 14 May 2024 04:32GMT
  • Tue 14 May 2024 12:32GMT
  • Mon 20 May 2024 00:32GMT

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