15 research outputs found
Attributing scientific and technical progress: the case of holography
Holography, the three-dimensional imaging technology, was portrayed widely as a paradigm
of progress during its decade of explosive expansion 1964–73, and during its subsequent
consolidation for commercial and artistic uses up to the mid 1980s. An unusually
seductive and prolific subject, holography successively spawned scientific insights, putative
applications and new constituencies of practitioners and consumers. Waves of forecasts,
associated with different sponsors and user communities, cast holography as a field on the
verge of success—but with the dimensions of success repeatedly refashioned. This retargeting
of the subject represented a degree of cynical marketeering, but was underpinned by
implicit confidence in philosophical positivism and faith in technological progressivism.
Each of its communities defined success in terms of expansion, and anticipated continual
progressive increase. This paper discusses the contrasting definitions of progress in holography,
and how they were fashioned in changing contexts. Focusing equally on reputed ‘failures’ of some aspects of the subject, it explores the varied attributes by which success and failure were linked with progress by different technical communities. This important case illuminates the peculiar post-World War II environment that melded the military, commercial and popular engagement with scientific and technological subjects, and the
competing criteria by which they assessed the products of science
Holographic cinematography
Two methods for holographic cinematography are described and analyzed: the scatter-plate and the lens methods. The advantages, capabilities, and limitations of each are given. © 1972, Optical Society of America
Ultrafast, Cross-Correlated Harmonic Imaging through Scattering Media
this paper are for images formed through diffusers that have no specular component. For such severe scatterers, the abundance of forward-traveling light disappears, and the utility of time gating as an ultrafast shutter rapidly diminishes when applied in isolation. Then light emerging from the scattering medium generally contains enough randomized wave-vector bandwidth per unit time that image information is highly distorted at all delays. Nevertheless, as shown experimentally here, and as we explain in Sections 3 and 4, use of very short pulses in combination with phasematched frequency conversion techniques can facilitate effective imaging in this regime. Signals from time slices anywhere within the scattered object pulse provide satisfactory imaging when angular selectivity is combined with time gating in the detection scheme. Even at the low average power levels attainable from cw mode-locked oscillators, this method is successful without electronic processing of the imag