Putting Holograms to Work

We spoke about that in our last podcast, and uh, in case you did not hear that, I'll catch you up on what a hologram actually is, all right, because it's not quite the way that we perceive it from what movies tell us, right, movies and TV have told us one thing. But what what we're specifically referring to here is a method of imaging something a three dimensional object in such a way as to create the illusion

of that three D object in a visual medium. But it's a physical visual medium, whether it's a screen or it's a plastic film or whatever. Essentially, what you're using as a laser beam and a beam splitter, so you split that laser beam into two beams. One of those beams you call the object beam, use mirrors to reflect that object. Beam onto an object, a three dimensional object, and that light bounces off the object and onto either holographic film or some sort of digital sensor. The second

beam is called the reference beam. You essentially direct that straight to the holographic film or the sensor without it having coming into contact with the object. Now, the information that the film picks up is these two different beams

of light, uh. And the and the way those those two beams interfere with one another, interact with one another, gives all the information you need to be able to create a three dimensional uh visual representation of that object, assuming that you are able to use the same sort of light that was used to create that object. Uh. And then if you were to hold like a film up, a holographic holographic film and that's got a hologram on it, it would look like there is a physical object just

on the other side of film. UM. And so that's that's your basis of holography. That's it. That's essentially how it works. UM. So it's a little different from our two D two rolling up and beaming out Princess Leiah, but uh, we mostly talked about in the last episode about using holograms or three D visualization effects for entertainment purposes.

But that's not the only use of them, is it. Well, you know that that's the way we mostly encounter three D, right, it's going to a three D movie or or looking at a three D hologram photo, you know, something that's for entertainment or art or aesthetic value. But yeah, it turns out that they're actually good scientific uses for holograms,

and some that can potentially even save lives. Sure. Well, Um and Joe, you were telling me about one about using holograms uh for uh in that life saving technique us with firefighters, right, So so think about this, Um, imagine you're a firefighter and you are you know, you're responding to a house call. You arrive at a large house that um is engulfed in flames, right, and you go inside. But immediately you have you have a problem. And I think a lot of us probably haven't even

thought about this. How do you know where people are? Right? If you have smoke and flames that are obscuring your vision, how can you see someone on the other side of it shouting very clearly? Then? Well, but even then it might be extremely and you might not be able to hear. But yeah, so so imagine you're in a big room and there might be a wall of flame between you

and or in a doorway whatever, you can't see beyond it. Um. And so this causes a lot of problems obviously, before responding to fire calls, do you risk your life going into a room that may not have anyone on the other side when uh, you know, if if there's no one there, then it would be tragic if a firefighter were to be injured or killed going in there to see if someone was there. Yeah. And I was just

looking at the study. I mean they say that in the United States there are three thousand deaths every year in house fires. Yeah, so this is a big problem obviously. Um. But the study I read was um from some Italian researchers, and they figured out something interesting. Okay, so previously we had some technological ways of getting through the obfuscation created

by smoking fire. We had infrared bolometry b O, L O, M, E, T E R bolometer UM and and that that scans in the infrared spectrum, and so this was really helpful in seeing through smoke. Right, But then if you're looking at flames infrared and heat, I mean you're talking about just seeing a big bright image exactly. The radiation from the flames themselves would disrupt the I R spectrum and you couldn't see You could see through smoke with with

the bolometers, but you couldn't see through flames. UM. And so what these Italian researchers figured out is that um by using holograms based on a continuous wave of laser digital holograms, they could actually sample through flames and they would be able to detect with these lasers holographic image of what was beyond. And this was on a scale of the correct size to detect human movement and pick

up the figures of a human shape. Pretty cool. So, just by using this laser and some holographic imaging, you were able to, uh to do something that otherwise would have been difficult or possibly even impossible to do. It's

a really neat implementation. I've got one, uh it's very science, which is using holograms to to image cells, uh, living cells C E L L S. So one of the problems with looking at cells if you're using a light microscope, right, cells cells don't aren't necessarily so small that light microscopes are useless. We can use light microscopes to look at

objects on that that size that scale. Well, what kind of light microscope to be you're talking about an optical microscope, like you look through a lens and yeah, that kind of like that's what I mean by light microscope, not like a scanning microscope and nothing like that. You're just using light and and lenses to be able to get

a look at something that's bright field exactly. So the problem with that is that, first of all, you're getting kind of a two dimensional look at a cell and you know, squished between you know, some some glass plates and uh so you're not really getting a true look at what that cell really looks like. You're you're getting

this top down, two dimensional view of it. Another problem is that often in order to get a good look at the stuff that's inside a cell, you usually need to use some sort of dye or fluorescent material to highlight parts of that cell. I imagine that's not good for the cell. Uh well, yeah, you're pretty much not gonna be able to look at living cells this way. At least they're not gonna be living for very long.

And also, uh, it means that you know, it's it's still not a true representation of what the cell looks like. You're you're altering the look of the cell, and you have to in order to be able to get a look at these things. Uh So, one way that some scientists have looked at at imaging cells that would give you a more realistic look at what a cell appears to be and also be able to look at living cells in more or less real time. Right now, it's not quite real time. It's there's a delay, but um

is using a hologram. You actually use a split laser beam. Just like I was saying before. You have that reference beam and the object beam. The object beam in this case is making contact with cells. And uh, then you record the pattern of face shifts from the object beam and you record the information using a digital camera. You recombine the beams. Then you get that interference pattern from the two beams, and you analyze that using a computer with special software that then we'll build a three D

image based upon all of that information. So yeah, the computer is doing all the work for you. Once you've designed the software, I mean, you can build the software first. This incredibly complex program that yeah, but you don't have to rewrite it every time, so so yeah, then you can process the data using that software, build the three D model of the cell. You can even take slices digital slices of the cell and take a look at it.

So you can take cross sections of a cell. Very useful, and you don't have to use the dyes or fluorescence to be able to get a look at the inside of it. Uh. Now, there was a team at a polytechnical university in Switzerland ep f L, which is a pardon my French call Polytechnique Federal de Lozanne. It's a terrible fringe French. Yeah, my high school French, which was many many years ago, has mostly faded from memory, so

I do apologize. But the the technique does give the ability to observe cellular behavior in real time, and you can even see how living cells react to different types of stimuli. But this could be really useful in medicine because you could actually apply a tiny cellular dose of medicine to living cells and observe the reaction. So that way you know before you've ever gone to test on any sort of large organism exactly, not not even a human.

But yeah, you're just looking. You can look at just the cells and if the cells immediately die off, you think, all right next, unless it's you know, something like a cancer cell, in which case, if the cancer cells dies off in the healthy cell doesn't, then you're thinking we

might be onto something. Yeah. So um, so they actually showed uh in a paper, they demonstrated the growth of a neuron and what they did was they took a holographic image of a neuron cell every minute for an hour as it was growing, and then they played back that sequence of images. So you've got the animation of a neuron cell growing in three dimensions. Flipbook there. Yeah.

And of course the really important part here is using a very low intensity laser because lasers do generate heat, and of course if you generate too much heat, you would damage the scales, right, So that is an important part of this is that they have to use a specific kind of low intensity laser and not one of those high beams that you might use on you know, inanimate objects. I think that's amazing that they can they

can sample holography on a scale that's small. I wouldn't have thought so well, you know, they they're using lasers that have a precision of a nanometers. That's really tiny. It is. Holograms are incredibly precise. They're they're they're very high definition, right right, Yeah, they they are taking incredibly tiny measurements based upon the acts of photons. So, I

mean that's pretty tiny. So you can get pretty precise. Now, great, if you you can't get too much further down the nanoscale, because eventually your nanoscale you're going to go beyond the range of visual the visual spectra acuity here, you're going to run out of photo sensitive space. Yeah, you would. Essentially you could switch to other parts of the electromagnetic

spectrum and sample it that way. If you were able to find a way to to digitally interpret that information into a means that would create it a visual representation for us, then that would work. But you know, you can only go so far with visual with actual light light that's visible to us, you know, using something like an infrared laser as opposed to a red or green or laser. So yeah, it's it's usually red lasers I think in the in the creation of these non scientific

entertainment holograms. But but anyway that that precision actually ties into one thing that I was reading about, which is holography of being used in conjunction with something called optogenetics. UM. This is research being done at the technog Israel Institute of Technology and UH. Optogenetics is UM. It's a therapy that's used to UM to deliver light sensitive proteins to eyes, to to retin as specifically that have been damaged, usually by some kind of disease that leads to degeneration. Like

UM writtenments that one right there. Even I even even syllablized it out for myself, and I was just like, yeah, no, I have no idea, I can't read. It's no, these are not English words. That does that does sound like something in Harry Potter is pigmentosa anyway, UM so so yeah, so so damaged damaged nerve cells is the output of

this disease and it can eventually lead to blindness. UM and optogenetics takes takes these proteins from algae or bacteria, and UM allows a cell that it's inserted into to begin to be photosensitive again. So it's gene therapy. It's gene therapy right so so right now we haven't even gotten into the hologram part, right, right, Yeah, this is this is just putting in pitting in proteins that give some photosensitivity back to cells that otherwise have been losing

that exactly. Yeah. And and and this is an incredibly cool therapy. Um. The the only problem with it is that these newly photo sensitive cells um aren't quite working at the same optimal levels that they would have been originally, and so researchers are are still looking into the best way to deliver light patterns to these cells so that they can so that they can interpret the signals as naturally as possible. Right, So essentially you're talking about kind

of activating these cells through pulses of light exactly. Yeah. And uh, the what's key they've found is is um intensity, precision, and diffusion of the stimuli. And that's a tough combo to get. That's a really tough combo to get. But it's also exactly what a hologram is, right, Because a laser on its own is very precise, but the other it won't fulfill the other criteria. Right. It's very precise and it's very intense, but when you've output it into

holographic format, it's also very diffused. Right. So that's that's the combination of things that make it ideal for this kind of therapy, all right. And so so what they're looking at is creating um prosthetic or or goggles or something like that that will uh interpret data, you know, interpret visual data and project it as a hologram onto onto the surface for people to see and and then

let your cells do the rest of the work. Interesting. Wow, So so you what you're saying is you'd have a pair of glasses that we're showing you holographic images, okay, and that yeah, that that are that are optimized for your new cells to interpret that information. That's really cool, yea. Yeah. So yeah, it turns out there's quite a few uses for holograms beyond uh, you know, some protection on a credit card or or currency or UA tupac. You know

that's not a hologram. I also think we shouldn't necessarily play down the purely esthetic benefits of three D imagery. Sure, um, because also when you think about it, uh, imagine Star Trek or or any other very easy for me to do. Yeah, just imagine it just trek and the words will come. But no, I think about so they've got like a holidack, right, the next generation forward? Yes, right, right, Okay, they've got a room they can go into that reliably creates what

can we Yeah, yeah, I would say ir reliably. Sorry, that creates a convincing three D effects to people, And I can actually see why this would be a more than trivial goal. Sure, if you're exploring space, I mean, we're we're children of this planet Earth, and uh, we're very very accustomed to our environments. You know, seeing trees and thinking the blue sky makes us feel good, going

to the ocean. Yeah, I can't imagine that it would be good for your psychological state to be trapped in a metal or you know, fully synthetic spaceship all the time. All right, well, don't don't. Don't They have studies about how long people are allowed to be on submarines before they will, in fact go stare crazy and try to kill everybody. I think it varies from person to person. I don't think it's like, you know, he's got two days to go. I don't think that's the case. But

it's a little bit what you thought. That's what she was suggesting, Like, no, but I was interpreting it the way I would want to know. There are there are

certainly studies that go into this. I mean that was the whole point of the the project, where people were supposed to be sequestered from all of society for like six months or something in order to kind of simulate the conditions that would happen if if you were to create a Mars colony, for example, so that you would be able to see how long can someone go without that?

And of course we don't have the benefit of something like a Holio deck to recreate these scenes, so psychologically it's going to be very demanding upon anyone who takes upon that sort of endeavor to to you know, especially talking about going to Mars. I mean, most most of the projections I see right now are talking about that being a one way trip. So you go, you set up shop, and that's where you are for the rest

of your life. Well, I mean, you can imagine for a lot of people, it's not that they don't want to see Mars, I mean, going to Mars would be amazing, is that they don't want to leave Earth, right or they don't want to see Mars all the time. Ever, and depending upon how how well that that place is made forever maybe very short. Well, yeah, it's just that it's not the addition of Mars that makes it a scary short opposition. It's the subtraction of Earth, yes exactly.

But but a Holi deck would at least psychologically give you some sort of release from that or even in training purposes, going back to medicine, if a if a doctor in training could have a fully holographic haptic hologram that you could interact with, all right, So that way, when when your hand would seem to come into contact with whatever it is, you would get the feedback from some sort of device so that you would have a a from your sense of touch, you would have that

same sort of feedback as you're getting from your sense of sight. Right, And they're they're starting work on that. There's a bunch of researchers that are working on that problem precisely. Um. You know, also in in a in a smaller scale, if you go to Disney World, the new Hitchhiking ghosts at the end of the Mansion ride involve a little bit of interactive three D imaging that is tracking like a connect with track your your motion. The motion of the guests in the cars and having

the animations interact with you that way. Right, Yeah, I'd have to imagine that kind of thing would really be almost required if you were going to have good tell asurgery, right, And people have talked about telesurgery, and there's there's telesurgery now, right, But to really get the kind of control that the surgeon needs, I mean, it would seem like you you'd have to have some kind of simulation of three D. Usually, yeah, Usually there's a some sort of simulation of three D

as well as a device that the surgeon holds that gives some haptic feedback. Often there's also a a ratio for how far the surgeon moves versus how far the robotic arm that actually is holding the the surgical tools, how far it moves, So you can do some very precise, very delicate surgery hundreds of miles away from the you know, the surgeons one place and the patient somewhere else. You

can actually do very delicate surgery that way. But it is important to build these systems in place, both for the imaging aspects so that the surgeon is is doing exactly what needs to be done and the whole feedback loop, so that you know, everything is uh, it's not just the visual cues that the surgeon is working off of. But yeah, I'm sure we'll see holograms worked into other aspects of things that are useful and things that are entertaining.

Not that entertaining doesn't have its own use, but I'm really excited about where the future is in this and uh and speaking of the future like we have been. If you guys out there have any suggestions for topics that we should cover in Forward Thinking, please get in touch with us. Send us an email our addresses f W Thinking at discovery dot com, or go to f W thinking dot com and check out our blogs, check out the video series. You can listen to other episodes

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