This simple and apparently innocent question has stirred up
considerable controversy among scientists since the time of Newton. A complete answer
is by no means easy because the theory of relativity has changed old
conceptions which for years were considered to be established facts.
Newton in his experiments with the prism broke up a beam of
light into its component parts and produced the different colors. Having done
this, he threw all these colours together again to bring back the original white
light.
Newton later suggested the corpuscular theory of light in
which light was supposed to consist of minute particles or corpuscles shot out
from the luminous body. He attempted to explain the various phenomena of reflection,
refraction and polarization by modifying the properties of these corpuscles to
fit the various conditions.
The wave theory and many other theories are used to
understand about optical world. If we want to develop our knowledge in
optics, we should understand many other concepts. Like the basics of
reflection, refraction, diffraction, interference, polarization, coherent source
of light and so and so.
At present laser and hologram technology is growing. With
the help of these principles, we can understand about modern virtual image
formation. The hologram technique is one of the very interesting concepts which creates holographic images.
The Basics of Holography
Holography technology is one of the growing technologies. Holography is a Greek word that means whole writing. The principles of
holography were first put forward by Dennis Gabor in London.
His invention consisted of a method for improving the
resolution of images obtained with an electron microscope. Dennis Gabor announced
his concepts in 1948, and he was awarded the Nobel prizes in Physics in 1971
for his study of three-dimensional lensless methods of photography.
Gabor technique was to cause a beam of coherent light to be scattered
from an object. The two sets of waves coming together on a photographic plate
would produce interference fringes.
This holographic technology is used in many fields like
medicine, these holographic images are very useful during laser operation.
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