Explosion with a slow-burning fuse: origins of holography in Ann Arbor, Michigan

The subject today known as holography emerged from research in three diverse locations and having distinct origins, aims and methods: at a commercial electrical laboratory in Rugby, England, from the late 1940s until the mid 1950s; at the Vavilov State Optical Institute in Leningrad from the late 1950s and again from the mid 1960s; and, from a classified research laboratory operated by the University of Michigan beginning in the mid 1950s and accelerating from the early 1960s. The scientists, engineers, artisans, entrepreneurs and companies in that third location dominated the subject through the 1960s, making Ann Arbor, for a time, the 'holography capital of the world'. Based on extensive unpublished documents, artifacts and interviews with some two-dozen participants (much of it as yet unavailable in publicly accessible archives), this paper focuses on the origins of the subject in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It also explores how the initial explosion of interest was transmitted to other research groups, firms, artists and the wider public.