Holograms: More Than Neat Stickers Response

Rubi Gatica, Italy Gatica, Danya Irazoque

Laura Metzger

ENGL 1302

February 26, 2015

Holograms: More Than Neat Stickers Response

            Movies have become one of the biggest industries in a short period of time. From black and white images without sound, to realistic and 3D images on big projectors. Now in 2015, we have come from big TV boxes to giant flat screens that weigh like paper and use water instead of mechanical engineering inside. Now that we’ve come almost a century of basic TV, we have come to the age of Holograms. A technological advancement from 2D images on a flat screen to real life 3D figures in midair.

            A Hologram is a three dimensional image formed by the interference of light beams from a laser or other coherent light source. The Hologram was put in the mind by the physicist Dennis Gabor. Gabor was trying to piece back together an electron telescope when the thought hit him. Gabor then further went into the study of holograms that led him to win a Nobel Prize in 1971 in physics. Further testing didn’t come until 1962, when two students from the University of Michigan were playing around with the theory of Gabor, when they produced the first laser hologram from physical objects such as a train and a bird.

Holograms are now in full use all over the country and in the world. They are used in museums for displays on many works of art. Though this was just the beginning of the history of holograms, with further testing after the horse play with the Gabor theories, further researchers comment, can a hologram hold the code for memory? Technology based companies are in the research of holographic memory. They have concluded that a holographic memory can hold up to one terabyte, more than the average computer and takes about 95 percent less space than the computer hard drive.  Holographic imagery turns out to be way easier and very efficient and hold a promise for the future of technological innovation on memory and screens. Though as much as the holographic memory turns out to be, there are lots of cons to it. For example, when setting up the holographic memory, two lasers are set up, one a spatial-light modulator and one to the specific region of the crystal, where the special data is going to be read. Then it the signal it send will create the digital image of the memory. These lasers, however, have to be precise and the accuracy is inevitable to have a successful reading on your holographic memory. With all these factors, holographic is turning out to be temporary. Though researchers are taking the challenges in these upcoming years to figure out how to outcome these factors.

In which case, although holograms are innovative and are becoming a very successful project, there are still many decades of in depth research. Holograms are a technological advancement that is in the making and will for sure be the next big things in the film industry, for which we all look forward to.

Citation

“Holograms: More Than Neat Stickers.” Today's Science. Infobase Learning, Sept. 2002. Web. 26 Feb. 2015.