1942: Hedy Lamarr, once described by German actor-director Max Reinhardt as “the most beautiful woman in Europe,” receives a U.S. patent for a frequency-hopping device designed to guide radio-controlled torpedoes while making them more difficult to detect in the water. Holding the patent with her is George Antheil.

It’s the incongruity of the patent holders with their invention, as much as the invention itself, that is remarkable. Lamarr, a Viennese-born movie actress, would eventually be given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Antheil, an American avant-garde composer of orchestral music...

The jet fighter of the future could fire lasers, evade radars and heat-detecting sensors, and slip software viruses into enemy computer networks. All this while flying farther and more often, and using less gas. At least that’s what Air Force chief scientist Mark Maybury envisions for the planned successor to today’s F-22 and F-35 stealth fighters.

The new fighter, called “F-X” by the Air Force, could enter service sometime after 2030 and be heavily influenced by an increasingly popular aerospace design trend called the “More-Electric Aircraft,” Maybury said in a July presentation. In essence, ...