Science & TechnologyGreek → English
Hologram
/ˈhɒləɡræm/noun
A recording of a light field that reproduces an image in three dimensions.
The Greek roots
ὅλος
hólos
whole, entire
γράμμα
grámma
written thing, letter
Literally: “whole writing”
The story of the word
Dennis Gabor was trying to sharpen the electron microscope in 1947 when he worked out how to record the phase of a wave as well as its brightness, and he called the record a hologram because it holds the whole of the wave. Cut one in half and each piece still shows the entire scene, from a narrower angle, which is exactly what the name predicts. Practical holography had to wait for the laser in the 1960s, and Gabor's Nobel came in 1971.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 1940s
Same family
holisticcatholicholocaustdiagram
In a sentence
The hologram on the banknote shifts colour as you tilt it under the light.
What concert promoters call a hologram is usually a sheet of film and a clever projector.