George Antheil

American composer who shocked audiences in the 1920s with his use of jazz rhythms and mechanical devices in symphonic music. He began study of piano at age six. During a tour in Berlin, 1922, he introduced his composition, "First Symphony." He lived in Paris until 1933 when he moved to the U.S. to compose for films, while still continuing his work for the concert halls.

In 1941, Antheil and the actress Hedy Lamarr developed a radio guidance system for Allied torpedoes that used a code (stored on a punched paper tape) to synchronise random frequencies, referred to as frequency hopping, between a receiver and transmitter. It is one of the techniques now known as spread spectrum, widely used in telecommunications. This work led to their being inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2014.

Antheil died from a heart attack on 12 February 1959 in New York aged 58.