Holography Handbook: Making Holograms the Easy Way [Paperback]

Fred Unterseher (Author), Bob Schlesinger (Author), Jeanne Hansen (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0894960164 | ISBN-13: 978-0894960161 | Publication Date: December 27, 2010 | Edition: 3

Scientific American “The Amateur Scientist” section. “Holography Handbook: Making Holograms The Easy Way by Fred Unterseher, Jeannene Hansen and Bob Schlesinger, is rich in detail about how to produce all kinds of hologram on a limited budget.” ************************************ Library Journal “This comprehensive book is a guide for non-technical people who wish to create their own holograms. Although holograms involve complex scientific principles, the authors describe and illustrate practical methods suitable for a “handy” person at a relatively modest cost. Explicit information is given on equipment required and where to get it, how to construct optical tables, and how to make and display various types of holograms. A clear style and many explanatory diagrams and illustrations make the projects easy to follow. For those interested in theory the authors provide a section with a commonsense approach. Another section relating holography to the human brain and to cosmology will intrigue many who have an interest beyond the mechanics of holograms. Recommended. ************************************ Booklist “For the amateur holographer, the authors of this practical manual emphasize a simple and easy method of creating three-dimensional laser photographs. Although some information on laser technology and holographic theory is included, the book in general supplies step-by-step instructions on holography basics and identifies elementary equipment and supplies. More complex techniques are described but not detailed in depth. A real hologram is to be included in each copy. Suppliers and resource addresses are noted. ************************************* New Scientist “The Holography Handbook coincides with the increasing interest in making hologram by individuals with little or no technical background. It serves to educate and is supremely capable of doing so, by explaining in readable and succinct terms how to make numerous different holograms. The illustrations, diagrams and text take you gently through each step, including: the selection of a location to make holograms, how to build or where to acquire the equipment needed, what to do with it once you have it, for how long, and the results to expect. It covers basic and advanced procedures, recommends approaches both optically and chemically and offers alternatives. This would make a useful handbook if it stopped there, but its authors recognize that the process is connected, and can be extended, to other areas of consideration, sot they quickly put it into historical perspective including chapters on light, its perception and properties , the art of holography and philosophical implications. The California humor of its authors comes though with a desire to provide entertaining and understandable explanations, manifest in their “KISS philosophy. Keep It Sweet and Simple”. In a book concerned with the production of holograms and their properties, the simplest way to demonstrate some of the points covered in the text would be to give each reader a hologram to examine - hence the sting in the tail. On the last page is a small embossed hologram, viewable in white light (a characteristic of most display holography today), which if you light it correctly, provides a 3-dimensional image. Previous publications have included holograms, but this is the first to explain how to make them yourself. To further emphasize the well though-out nature of this book, the back page, if you can bear to tear it out, can be cut, folded and glued to make a stand for the hologram. Any lending library adventurous enough to offer copies of this book would do well to keep a beady eye on the back page prone, as it will be to mysterious disappearance. Seductive things, these holograms.” Andrew Pepper

Editorial Reviews

Review

The Holography Handbook coincides with the increasing interest in making hologram by individuals with little or no technical background. It serves to educate and is supremely capable of doing so, by explaining in readable and succinct terms how to make numerous different holograms. The illustrations, diagrams and text take you gently through each step, including: the selection of a location to make holograms, how to build or where to acquire the equipment needed, what to do with it once you have it, for how long, and the results to expect. It covers basic and advanced procedures, recommends approaches both optically and chemically and offers alternatives.

This would make a useful handbook if it stopped there, but its authors recognize that the process is connected, and can be extended, to other areas of consideration, sot they quickly put it into historical perspective including chapters on light, its perception and properties, the art of holography and philosophical implications. The California humor of its authors comes though with a desire to provide entertaining and understandable explanations, manifest in their "KISS philosophy. Keep It Sweet and Simple".

In a book concerned with the production of holograms and their properties, the simplest way to demonstrate some of the points covered in the text would be to give each reader a hologram to examine - hence the sting in the tail. On the last page is a small embossed hologram, viewable in white light (a characteristic of most display holography today), which if you light it correctly, provides a 3-dimensional image. Previous publications have included holograms, but this is the first to explain how to make them yourself. To further emphasize the well though-out nature of this book, the back page, if you can bear to tear it out, can be cut, folded and glued to make a stand for the hologram. Any lending library adventurous enough to offer copies of this book would do well to keep a beady eye on the back page prone, as it will be to mysterious disappearance. Seductive things, these holograms. -- Andrew Pepper, New Scientist Magazine

For the amateur holographer, the authors of this practical manual emphasize a simple and easy method of creating three-dimensional laser photographs. Although some information on laser technology and holographic theory is included, the book in general supplies step-by-step instructions on holography basics and identifies elementary equipment and supplies. A real hologram is to be included in each copy. Suppliers and resource addresses are noted. Bibliography, glossary, index. -- Booklist

From the Publisher

This book has sold over 85,000 copies and is unquestionably the best selling book on how to make holograms on the market. The subtitle "Making Holograms The Easy Way" says it all. The book is 408 pages in oblong format and has 75 halftones with literally hundreds of illustrations in a carefully orchestrated step-by-step manual. Designed to make so any person can buy the book and with it alone they can send off for materials they need and make their own holographic studio.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 408 pages
• Publisher: Ross Books; 3 edition (December 27, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0894960164
• ISBN-13: 978-0894960161
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,117,097 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Make your own holograms in your own basement darkroom, July 14, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Holography Handbook: Making Holograms the Easy Way (Paperback)

The authors explain, with numerous photos, how to set up a 4'x4'x1' sandbox table, full of 1600 pounds of sand, all "floating" on partially inflated inner tubes for making your own holograms. That way, when the garbage truck goes past the house, no vibrations will disrupt the inertial stability of your optics lab. And you can put the lenses and mirrors on long sticks and just push them into the sandbox! This is a real how-to manual, with numerous practical tips for setting up lasers, mirrors, shutters, exposure meters, timers, viewing objects, and the hologram-capturing film that will become your own holograms, if you follow the steps and invest about $1000.

Where to buy lasers? How does it all work? How do I set up the tabletop? This is a lab manual that doesn't subject us to much optics math, but rather inspires us to marvel, and guides us with easy to follow sketches to find personal and expansive philosophical answers, without really telling us what we'! ! ll find when we have so followed. There is a even section on "the holographic brain", "holocosmology" and other artistic and philosophic excursions.

Wonderful photos show Dr. Dennis Gabor who conceived of a hologram in 1948, while working on the electron microscope, 13 years before the laser was invented. One shows him accepting the Nobel Prize. He looks a little like Salvador Dali.

This book could perhaps be the basis for a "hologram merit badge" for, say, a group of kids from ages 9-13, let by an adult who needs an excuse to actually set this all up. Laser safety is explained, too.

"These are the early days of holography," the author muses in the preface, "we might compare ourselves to photographers working prior to 1860....We welcome you, as a fellow pioneer, to join in the excitement of being involved in it from the beginning."

And you won't need much more than this book to delve deeply into this wizardry, either. W! ! ell, ok, the sand.

8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Fair, but occasionally impractical, September 27, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Holography Handbook: Making Holograms the Easy Way (Paperback)

The idea of using a sand table for home holography keeps appearing over and over. As any optician knows, sand and grit are what are used to grind glasses, and they're also what cause people to buy new ones.

A sand-based optical bench sounds like a great (read "cheap") idea, but it's simply impossible to get rid of the floating grit. Even if it's later sealed up, pouring the sand gets grit all over. It only takes one tiny speck to throw Newton's rings all over a setup. OK, that's relatively harmless (unsightly, but harmless), but it could equally well get into and ruin a spatial filter.

I found the theory section of this book hard to follow, despite several degrees in engineering.

This is by no means a bad book. It has much useful information. Go to the library and borrow this one, then make use of the good parts. But buy Iovine's excellent book "Homemade Holograms" instead.

5.0 out of 5 stars So easy a 15 year old can use it, November 7, 2010

By 

Rico - See all my reviews

This review is from: Holography Handbook: Making Holograms the Easy Way (Paperback)

I bought this book when I was 14 years old, built the vibration isolation sandbox table, put together PVC mounts for basic optics and mirrors I bought and literally made reflection holograms in the bedroom of my parents house using this book, developing plates in the bathroom sink with all windows blocked out. I futher went on to make more advanced multi-beam, transmission holograms using advanced equipment. Not sure how up to date the sources for equipment and materials are, for that was 25 years ago. But everything you need to know to get started in holography is contained in this book and its conveys the information in a simple, straight forward manner that almost anybody can use. The authors did a terrific job. Highly recommended.