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Holography Pioneer Passes Away
Hal-9001 writes "The New York Times has an article on Emmett Leith, professor of electrical engineering at the University of Michigan and inventor of three-dimensional holography, who passed away on Dec. 23, 2005. Professor Leith and his coworker Juris Upatnieks displayed the world's first three-dimensional hologram at a conference of the Optical Society of America in 1964."
He's no longer creating an interference pattern with the living.
I know this is a bit off topic, but since the news is a bit old and I wanted to mention this weeks ago, I figure the slashdotters will like it.
The Museum of Holography is an awesome visit if you come to Chicago for any reason. It is minutes outside of downtown and half hour from O'hare. It is really an interesting place (a bit commercialized lately) and the greatest thing is it completely passed the Wife Acceptance Factor as Oprah's HARPO studios is just down the street. Drop the lady off at their store and hit the Museum of Holography.
It came with a bunch of optics, a laser, sandbox, film, etc. I wonder if Bill Gates was bored one weekend and started shooting the laser at some of his Windows XP cd-roms?! Those CD's are incredible, they are one big hologram!
A man with a letter "H" on his forehead was seen walking away.
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No, as the article says, Dennis Gabor invented holography and coined the term "hologram", in 1948.
Leith created the first laser holograph, which was a big deal, and made holographs vastly more practical, and he deserves tons of credit for that, but not the same as inventing the field. There's a reason Gabor won a Nobel prize.
Professional Wild-Eyed Visionary
Holigraphists don't die, they just gradually fade away.
I was lucky enough to have Prof Leith teach my optics class at Michigan about 10 years ago. At one point, he took the entire class over to his lab to show his latest work as well as share his outstanding personal holography collection. Still recall the 20"x30" self-portrait he received from a Soviet scientist: amazingly crisp and clear (used Dichromated gelatin rather than film). Always had stories to tell...