Dennis Gabor
Facts
Photo from the Nobel Foundation archive.
Dennis Gabor
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1971
Born: 5 June 1900, Budapest, Hungary
Died: 8 February 1979, London, United Kingdom
Affiliation at the time of the award: Imperial College, London, United Kingdom
Prize motivation: “for his invention and development of the holographic method”
Prize share: 1/1
Work
During the 19th century photographic methods were developed that resulted in two-dimensional images. In 1951 Dennis Gabor discovered a way of producing images with the illusion of depth. The method was based on interference—interaction between light waves—and coherence—light waves aligned in phase with one another. Light falling on an object is captured on photographic film along with a reference beam that did not fall on the object. When only the reference beam falls on the developed film, the light is bent so that a reproduction with depth is produced.
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