HOLOGRAPHIC VISIONS: A HISTORY OF A NEW SCIENCE

Sean Johnston is both a historian of science and an optical physicist. This has put him into an ideal position to compile what is by far the best and most comprehensive history of holography to date. For such a relatively young science (it really got going only in the early 1960s with the invention and availability of the continuous HeNe laser), he has produced a dense tome and a veritable mine of detail and well-researched information. As one who was intimately involved with some of the work he reports on (my picture is on p. 129), I can attest to the painstaking effort he made in putting this book together and also to the veracity of what he reports (at least concerning what our efforts involved). Not many who are intrigued with and admire the little 3-D color holograms on their credit cards (and even built in to some modern currencies) are familiar with all the research that went into making these possible. I think it is safe to say that probably most also do not realize that the beginnings of this field go back to 1947 when Dennis Gabor began to think about wave-front reconstruction in an effort to improve the resolution of electron microscope images which were still pretty crude at the time. Hampered by the light sources he had available, he was still able to make the first in-line holograms back then and even gave them that name. As Sean Johnston reports he was able to patent the scheme and eventually received the Nobel Prize for physics in 1971 for his pioneering efforts. Johnston has provided a wonderfully detailed account of how the field developed from there. He has "dug" deeply and broadly, citing all the early "players" and bringing together the developments that were taking place at various laboratories on both sides of the Atlantic (and on both sides of the Iron Curtain) and from a number of disparate scientific disciplines, including sonar and radar engineering. Lest one think his account might be too dry, the rivalry for primacy he portrays in chapter 5 and the early efforts in the world of art make fascinating reading (even for one who was mixed up in it!). The story of the New York City Museum of Holography (which eventually moved to MIT) is there as well as chapters delineating the commercialization of this new medium. Even a letter from David Bohm to Dr. Gabor is included. The extensive index and 40 pages of references are an unsurpassed resource as well. I especially like the reproduction of the hologram made of Queen Elizabeth (made in 2004) (p. 414). Although this compilation may provide too much information for those just casually interested, anyone who seriously wishes to delve into the background and also learn about the current state of this field (as of 2005) would do far worse than consult Holographic Visions.