11 Dec /13

Hologram

Holograms go back to 1947 when Dennis Gabor (a Hungarian Jew who escaped to Britain) came up with the theory of holography for which he won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1971. He introduced the word in a 1949 paper to the Royal Society of London. The word holosgram originates from the Greek “holos” (whole) and “gamma” (message). The initial discovery came when Gabor was trying to improve electron microscopes using light that had one colour, originated from a single point and had only one wavelength. The idea of a 3D picture moved forward only with the vast improvement of the laser and sources of light in 1960.

The first book with a hologram was in 1985 (The Skook by J.P. Miller). Because generating a hologram is still relatively expensive, the hologram now regularly features on relatively high-value products, such as credit cards, banknotes or passports.

Global attention was drawn to holographic speakers when Prince Charles gave a holographic pre-recorded keynote speech at the 2008 Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi. Now you may meet a hotel concierge, an information service at the airport or a receptionist in hologram form. In the future, it is possible that there will be a hologram of the product you are interested in on the shelf. What a long way from Gabor’s Ph.D thesis in 1927: Recording of Transients in Electric Circuits with the Cathode Ray Oscillograph.

Did you like the article? Then please like and share it on Facebook, tweet it on Twitter or add it in Google+.