Hologram of Toy Train
date: label: date made
content: 1963
name: label: maker
content: Leith, Emmett N.
notes: label: Description
content: This glass plate records the hologram, “Toy Train” by Emmett Leith and Juris Upatnieks. Made in late 1963, this hologram demonstrated their method of making high-resolution three-dimensional images of three-dimensional objects. Their success at the University of Michigan’s Willow Run Laboratory came after several years work on advanced radar techniques and lensless photography for defense purposes.
label: Description
content: Leith and Upatnieks created this transmission hologram by exposing a black and white photographic plate to the laser light reflected from a toy train model. The image is reconstructed in three dimensions when the correct laser light shines through the glass. When they displayed this hologram at a conference in April 1964, other scientists lined-up to see their breakthrough. “Toy Train” was not the first hologram ever made, but the quality of the image stunned everyone. And so it became the first hologram many people heard about. Since then, many other types of holograms have been devised.
label: Description
content: In 1948, British scientist Dennis Gabor had used two beams of electrons to record a microscopic image. He then tried to make images of larger objects using filtered light from an arc lamp but obtained poor results. The invention of lasers in 1960 gave researchers a better light source for making three-dimensional photographs and spurred Leith and Upatnieks’ work.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
topic: label: subject
content: Science
label: subject
content: Hologram
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Photographic History
label: See more items in
content: Science & Mathematics
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Emmett N. Leith and Juris Upatnieks
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: PG.69.186.05
label: catalog number
content: 69.186.5
label: accession number
content: 285032
objectType: label: Object Name
content: hologram
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: glass (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 5 in x 4 in x 1/4 in; 12.7 cm x 10.16 cm x .635 cm