The making of “Friends”

Friends Hologram of Snoopy and WoodstockFor the latest Holography Forum contest I made a hologram of Snoopy and Woodstock.

I’d originally planned for the final hologram to be a bit different but I’m happy with what I’ve got.

Read on for the making of Friends.

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Holography exhibit at Stephens College

Through October 6th, 2006.

Upon entering the Davis Art Gallery, the panes of glass mounted on
stands and hanging from the wall seem transparent, as if you could see
the entire exhibit by peering through a single pane.

But with a few steps forward, a sudden, silent firework explodes,
flooding your retina with colored lights that seem to jump from the
glass sheet. By moving your head and feet, a pattern of circles and
triangles form and continue to alter as you change your vantage point.

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Room-temperature Bose-Einstein condensate

According to uni-protokolle.de:

A group of physicists led by Prof. Sergej Demokritov from the Institute of Applied Physics, University of Münster, in cooperation with physicists from Kaiserslautern University of Technology (Germany), Oakland University (USA), and Kiev University (Ukraine) has recently found a tricky way to enhance the number of magnons in the gas significantly by exciting additional magnons using microwaves. Thus, the number of magnons in the gas could be increased considerably. Although the additional magnons exist only during one millionth of a second, the scientists were able to investigate the gas behaviour using a laser probe beam technique. Thus, the scientists from Münster who are performing their work in the Münster Center for Nonlinear Science, have succeeded to show that additional magnons in fact initiate the condensation of magnons in a collective quantum state even at room temperature, as it was predicted by A. Einstein. A report on this work has been recently published in Nature.

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China starting to get more aggressive?

Alright, so China’s already aggressive in a number of ways.

Now they’re getting into the act by testing their laser systems on spy satellites.

According to Defense News:

China has fired high-power lasers at U.S. spy satellites flying over its territory in what experts see as a test of Chinese ability to blind the spacecraft, according to sources.

Given that China is the current leader in cheap lasers, I wonder what kind of power they’re holding back for military use.

If you keep looking over the fence at you neighbor’s back yard, you’re going to get poked in the eye, so it’s not surprising that China might be worried about U.S. forces stationed on their doorstep

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Be careful with your shopping

Related to the entry I made back on June 5, it’s apparently becoming increasingly easier for people to steal your information while you’re shopping on insecure sites.

The Washington Post has a new article and related blog entry available showing just how easy it is for scammers to hack into some sites and retrieve your credit card information.

Be careful out there.

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October 19th set dance workshop

Maldon Meehan & Ronan Regan will be in the Plano, TX area Thursday, October 19th and have offered to teach a workshop on the Connemara Set and steps that go with it. If you haven’t seen set dancing and the fancy footwork that can be added to spice it up, take a look at this video showing some of the Clare Plain set.

You won’t be expected to dance like that by the end of the workshop, but you will learn the figures in the Connemara Set and basics of the steps that go with it. It’s a lively and quite popular set.

The location for the workshop has not yet been determined and depends entirely on how many people can attend and what studios are available. It will most likely be held in the Plano area. The workshop will run from 7:00 – 9:00pm and will cost $15 per person.

If you are interested and can plan to attend the workshop please contact us as soon as possible so we can determine how much space we’ll need. This is a fantastic opportunity to learn a fun dance from two talented instructors; don’t miss it!

If you know someone who might be interested in this workshop, please pass the word on.

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Intel, UCSB HSL laser chip

Intel and UCSB have developed a hybrid silicon laser and both emits and guides light. This could have wide-ranging effects on the telecommunications and computer industry.

This breakthrough addresses one of the last major barriers to producing low-cost, high-bandwidth silicon photonics devices for use inside and around future computers and data centers.

It’s pretty easy to imagine very high bandwidth connections between devices that would allow all sorts of computing extensions using less space on the desktop and without one central "box" that many of us have become used to.

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Cell piercing with lasers

Researchers at St Andrews University have developed a method of using a femtosecond laser to pierce cell walls to allow drugs and DNA to enter the cell. The cell is able to heal itself but not before material is assimilated into the cell.

The art of using a laser to make a hole or pore in a cell membrane is called photoporation. Such a procedure creates an opportunity for DNA to enter the cell before the pore closes and the cell heals itself. If the DNA is then transcribed and translated into a protein, the process is known as optical transfection

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