The Hologram and its Antecedents 1891-1965: The Illusory History of a Three-Dimensional Illusion Susan A. Gamble, Wolfson College This dissertation is submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Cambridge, 2004 ©2005 Susan Gamble ii Contents List of illustrations ....................................................................................................................................... iv Acknowledgements...................................................................................................................................... vi Preface........................................................................................................................................................... 1 Introduction................................................................................................................................................... 4 The link between a nineteenth-century photograph and the twentieth-century hologram....................... 4 Where and how did the ‘Lippmann-to-Gabor’ history originate?............................................................ 6 What advantages are gained in citing the Lippmann-to-Gabor narrative?............................................... 7 Did Gabor cite Lippmann’s work?........................................................................................................... 8 Did Leith and Upatnieks invent the three-dimensional laser hologram? ................................................11 What effect did military secrecy have on the development of the discipline’s history?........................ 14 The role of the Lippmann-to-Gabor history within the discipline of holography.................................. 15 The role of the image in scientific and popular displays........................................................................ 18 The structure and contents of this thesis ................................................................................................ 23 Chapter One Lippmann’s La photographie des couleurs ......................................................................... 28 Lippmann’s theory of 1891.................................................................................................................... 30 Lippmann’s spectra on display in London ............................................................................................. 37 The Conversazione, 1891, spectra by Charles Piazzi Smyth ................................................................. 41 The assistance of the Lumière Brothers ................................................................................................. 46 Conclusion.............................................................................................................................................. 49 Chapter Two Popular pictorial Lippmann photographs: the producers, the critics, the Nobel Prize, and the three-dimensional image ............................................................................................................................. 51 The first images ……………………………………………………………………………………... 53 The American Frederic Ives and his three-dimensional colour invention.............................................. 58 Photography and historical memory....................................................................................................... 62 Humbug theory: Frederic Ives the American critic................................................................................ 65 A successful public display of Lippmann photographs by the Lumière Brothers.................................. 69 The corporate versus the independent inventor: the Lumière Brothers and Frederic Ives..................... 71 Modernising Lippmann’s process in 1908, an American review by Herbert Ives................................. 75 A new use and discipline for Lippmann photography............................................................................ 78 Lippmann’s Nobel Prize and his proposal for a three-dimensional virtual image................................. 80 Conclusion.............................................................................................................................................. 89 Chapter Three Dennis Gabor’s Hologram of 1949.................................................................................... 92 Technology and modernity..................................................................................................................... 93 The fate of the untrusted researcher in Germany and Britain ................................................................ 95 Three-dimensional cinema and its relationship to Gabor, Lippmann and Herbert Ives......................... 99 Promoting technology in 1950s Britain................................................................................................ 101 Gabor’s hologram: an imaging solution for electron microscopy........................................................ 105 Other experimenters and the Gabor hologram ......................................................................................115 Gabor’s attempt to build an instrument.................................................................................................119 Conclusion............................................................................................................................................ 122 Chapter Four Emmett Leith and Juris Upatnieks and the three-dimensional hologram......................... 124 Introduction: Researching Cold War classified science....................................................................... 124 Gabor’s ‘wave-front reconstruction’ and the Willow Run Research Laboratories.............................. 127 Lensless photography: a press release in 1963..................................................................................... 135 The re-introduction of the Lippmann emulsion.................................................................................... 139 The first public display of the three-dimensional laser hologram........................................................ 141 Science in the popular press ................................................................................................................. 142 The three-dimensional hologram as featured in two popular colour publications............................... 144 iii Locating Dennis Gabor, the inventor, in 1963..................................................................................... 154 Conclusion............................................................................................................................................ 158 Chapter Five Dennis Gabor’s Nobel Prize for physics, 1971 ................................................................. 161 Disputes and new authors at the University of Michigan .................................................................... 162 Two teams seek the attention of the press............................................................................................ 167 Dennis Gabor re-positions himself in the new discipline..................................................................... 170 Can military-funded research function in the academy?...................................................................... 173 Gabor’s 1971 Nobel Lecture: an account of his invention................................................................... 177 Claiming the popular three-dimensional image as his own ................................................................. 182 A virtual inventor: the holographic portrait of Dennis Gabor.............................................................. 185 Searching for a three-dimensional hologram by Gabor ....................................................................... 189 Conclusion............................................................................................................................................ 192 Conclusion................................................................................................................................................. 196 A Cold War technology with a revivalist history...................................................................................... 196 Three-dimensional imagery: Gabor, H. Ives, Lippmann, and the Lumière Brothers........................... 203 Bibliography.............................................................................................................................................. 209 iv List of illustrations Fig.1.1. Newton’s Rings reproduced from the 1979 Dover edition of Opticks...................................28 Fig.1.2. Lippmann Solar Spectrum, circa. 1891 size approximately 60mm x 40mm, attributed to Gabriel Lippmann. Silver-halide emulsion on glass. Reproduced with permission from the Musée de l’Elysée Lausanne, Switzerland. ......................................................................................31 Fig.1.3. A Solar Spectrum by Charles Piazzi Smyth, photographic print on paper mounted on inscribed board. Reproduced with the permission of Royal Observatory, Edinburgh. ..............................43 Fig.1.4. Illustration from The Orthographic Beauty of the Parthenon..............................................45 Fig.1.5. Sketch by Charles Piazzi Smyth in a notebook, February-November 1874. Reproduced with permission from the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh ............................................................46