Michigasling

December 31st, 2010 at 12:04 PM ^

In 1962 Emmett Leith and Juris Upatnieks of the University of Michigan recognized from their work in side-reading radar that holography could be used as a 3-D visual medium. In 1962 they read Gabor's paper and "simply out of curiosity" decided to duplicate Gabor's technique using the laser and an "off-axis" technique borrowed from their work in the development of side-reading radar. The result was the first laser transmission hologram of 3-D objects (a toy train and bird). These transmission holograms produced images with clarity and realistic depth but required laser light to view the holographic image.

http://www.holophile.com/history.htm

It took almost 50 years for Denard to bring the 3-D train-bird hologram to its peak performance.  (I'm sure that's what Leith & Upatnieks had in mind.)

MGlobules

December 31st, 2010 at 8:51 AM ^

with some great quotes from Diaz, a D coordinator. The 'we wuz like' might infer that these guys are clowns; sounds like they're pretty clear-eyed about their task.