What is a hologram? The word itself is from the Greek meaning “whole” “message”. Holography as a science won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1971 for the groundbreaking discovery of Dennis Gabor, who first invented the technique in 1947. A hologram is a recording of an interference pattern that can then reproduce a 3D scene using diffraction, creating a wavefront reconstruction of the full original scene rather than just a 2D representation from one perspective.
Here we’ve put together some great resources to help you understand holograms, holography, and the science, art, and techniques behind this amazing 3D imaging medium.
Of course, our favorite way to learn about holograms it to make them yourself with our Hologram Kit, self-developing hologram film, and the many add-on upgrades to make bigger holograms and even color holograms. But we’ve also included here some great videos explaining the concepts behind holograms, some reference books that go into detail about techniques, and also some videos of people out there just making incredibly cool holograms. Enjoy!
The video above, titled “How are Holograms Possible?“, has now become one of the most popular Youtube videos for explaining the science behind holography. They are up to over 7M views! And the guy behind 3Blue1Brown, Grant Sanderson, is a good guy, who posted LitiHolo in his pinned comments pointing people to our DIY hologram kits for any of those 7M viewers who want to make their own holograms. Thanks Grant!
This is The Thought Emporium, and a great mix of some of the understanding behind what a hologram is, and also delving into making some real holograms. He’s also a great guy, and used our LitiHolo self-developing hologram film for his video and tests. At the time, our Full-Color Hologram Kit was not available (was on hiatis), and while that would have been a much easier way for him to make his color holograms if available, he went on to give it a shot with some of his own tinkering and got some cool color hologram results.
Resource Books
If you are looking to dive deeper into holography and different hologram techniques, here’s the books we typically recommend:
- Holographic Imaging by Stephen Benton, Mike Bove (2008) – This is the book written by the legendary holography demi-god Stephen Benton, who invented the rainbow hologram (used on credit cards and other silvery holograms) and taught at the MIT Media Lab (my grad school professor!). Probably more at the level of high school, college, grad school readers, it does have some math concepts, but keeps it within the bounds of geometry and algebra. Very solid of good science understanding, but also goes on to discuss the concepts and techniques behind some advanced concepts like digital holograms, hologram printers, and even holographic television.
- Practical Holography by Graham Saxby (1988 original) – A classic, now in its 4th Edition, I think. Very solid and heavy on methods for almost all areas of holography, including transmission, reflection, rainbow holograms, stereograms, embossed holograms, and even holographic data storage. Has some great pictures and diagrams, and comes with an embossed hologram on the front cover.
- Holography Handbook by Unterseher, Hansen, Schlesinger (1982) – Going back in the “way back machine” for this one, but it is also a classic. These guys developed very hands-on techniques for using sand tables and inner tubes as vibration isolation equipment, and methods for making holograms using plumbing supplies for mounts and hardware, and full chemical developing recipes for the wet-processed silver-halide film. Now, with a Hologram Kit, you can make your own holograms on a standard table or desk with only about 1 sqft of space, inexpensive laser diodes, and self-developing film. But these guys pioneered a hard place where none of that was available, but they still wanted holograms!
- Light Science, Physics and the Visual Arts by Rossing, Chiaverina (2020 2nd Ed.) – More along the lines of an educational text book (published by Springer), this covers the broader subject matter of light, color, waves, diffraction and interference, but also has a dedicated chapter for Holography. Very well done, and includes a nice reference to LitiHolo and our work to help make holograms and color holograms more accessible to educational groups and students (has a nice picture of one of our color holograms as well). Also, you can find Chris Chiaverina’s article from Physics Teacher here, on using our LitiHolo Hologram Kit in classrooms to demonstrate holograms for students.
More Videos
Now let’s get back to some more videos! These are more on the “making holograms” side, but are some really cool videos of people making their own holograms and showing you their process. We’d love to see all these people trying out their holograms with our LitiHolo self-developing hologram film so that they could skip the chemical development, or the DCG custom film plates, and just focus on the great hologram results, but their work is super cool and we love it!
Holo Dan – Youtube
LaserboyHolo – Youtube
Holocreators GmbH – Youtube
Keep checking back here at the LitiHolo Blog for more hologram resources, and also make sure you take a look at our Hologram Kits for making your own holograms, and also our new 3D Hologram Printer for making your own digital holograms.
Make sure you sign up for our LitiHolo email list to be alerted when more hologram resources and blog posts come out. Thanks for helping to grow the Hologram Community, and for supporting LitiHolo. Make more holograms!
– LitiHolo