Make: Technology on Your Time Volume 25

PRIMER

Photograph by Sam Murphy

HOLOGRAPHY

Capture magical 3D images without a camera.

By Frank DeFreitas

Holograms have fascinated both scientists and artists since the 1960s with their ability to re-create three dimensions. Back then, the equipment needed to produce holograms was cumbersome and expensive, but today you can create them using $5 laser pointers and other inexpensive and readily available materials.

Most light sources emit a mishmash of wavelengths at different phases, but the coherent light from a laser is at a single wavelength and all aligned in the same phase. When laser light strikes a motionless object, its reflections are ...