Holograms To Hold: New Ways Of Visualizing Light In 3-D

If you like science fiction, you probably enjoy a good 3-D hologram. Now, thanks to a little bit of crafty engineering plus your smartphone, you too can make a hologram that would be worthy of any starship’s bridge or R2-unit’s display.

Get the whole word in your hands with these computer-generated holograms!
(Image courtesy techeblog.com.)

Thanks to the minds at London 24, you can make thinks slightly more surreal with little more than a smartphone.  To achieve the desired holographic effect, just follow these steps:

-cut an old CD case into four small trapezoidal shapes, 1 centimeter at the top, 3.5 centimeters at the sides, and 6 centimeters at the base.  Use graphing paper to help with accuracy.

-using clear tape, connect the trapezoids into a square-shaped funnel

-play a special video that will combine four different reflections, placing your trapezoid-square in the middle of the screen

That’s it!  Now, even if the entire universe is one giant hologram, you’ve done your part to perpetuate the illusion.  You’re a holo-god, all holo-holy.  Now if only they could make them bigger, tangible, and susceptible to your wishes…

"Sic 'em, Cthulu!" -maybe someday
(Image courtesy highsnobiety.com.)

P.S. - Okay, fine, we know that's not a "real" hologram, but science has been working away on those as well.  According to popsci.com, scientists from the Digital Nature Group have succeeded in making tangible (if tiny) holograms using lenses, mirrors, and a Galvano scanner inside a spatial light modulator, which all help direct ultra-fast lasers to scorch the air into bright little flights of plasma.

The bright points of light, called voxels, manifest in a resolution of 200,000 dots per second.  When touched, they feel something like sandpaper or static shock, and can visibly react to touch (like forming a check in a check-box, or "breaking" a touched heart.)  So possibly, with the help of some lightning-fast lasers, we'll have some interesting new artwork (and communications, and video games) appearing out of thin air in the near future...

Yes, laser-fried, ionized air...we love you too.
(Image courtesy mashable.com.)