If you ever seen Star Wars or similar type of science fiction movies or TV series, you would be familiar with the idea of holograms. A hologram is what makes 3-D communication real. You’re no longer talking to just voices, or voices with videos, you would be communicating and interacting with a 3 dimensional projected image of your caller on the other side. With no further a-do, check out this video explaining how the latest technology – the hologram “beam” system used by world class news report centre, CNN:
[youtube jRck4hpWRKs]Alright, all these teleport-style-like news report is pretty cool? How is this useful?
These are basically the few possible spin-off products of this hologram technology:
1. 3D television and entertainment systems – How cool is it to watch shows and TV in 3D? and see your favorite character or person from literally every angle?
2. 3D reality gaming – Who says Wii is active gaming? 3D reality gaming will make the Wii gaming system look like the primitive tool used by cave men.
3. 3D holographic communication – Why go meet someone when you can bring them to you?
I know what you are thinking. How does hologram actually work? I will tell you how, and present you with the cool science fiction technology behind the hologram in a nut shell.
In order for you to see an object, the object has to either reflect light, or emit light. That is why we need screens to project images. The most important property the hologram has is the divisible property; this property allows you to see a projected image from almost every single angle. The divisible property allows the hologram to be split in half, and still contain the whole image in the smaller pieces. This is the basic principle behind holograms.
There are multiple ways to produce the hologram and its effect. Regardless of the method at which is it achieved, to produce a hologram, you must enlarge the image with a laser and lenses (the opposite of what cameras do). Then the image is projected onto a light-sensitive emulsion (which records the interference of light pattern and phase difference between light waves) The amount of light makes the emulsion darker and lighter, then through a process of bleaching, the film gets lighter and the fringes of the image are captured.
The most important part is that the interference fringes we get from the light-sensitive emulsion then reflect some of the light and diffract light too. So, the image is being emitted to every direction in respect to the holographic film. If you like, you can imagine the film having countless tiny microscopic mirrors reflecting copy of the image to every direction, only difference is that the image itself rotates as it is being reflected in different direction.
Okay, this is the basic idea of hologram. Still don’t really understand how hologram works? Click here for the full picture.
To understand concepts of holograms, you might find some knowledge of optics(behavior of light), electromagnetic radiations(nature of light) and lasers(cohesive light) helpful.
Any problems? You are welcome to comment on how this works, or just share your fascination about hologram technology.