THE VIDEO SHELF · holography
How are holograms possible?
3Blue1Brown explains how holograms record a 3D scene on 2D film, using wave diffraction and phase. The video includes demonstrations of several real holograms.
Why HN readers recommended it
HN commenters call it the best explanation of how holograms work, and one says it transformed their understanding.
This is a summary from the source dataset, not an endorsement by Hacker News or the video creator.
Video & recommendation details
- Creator / channel
- 3Blue1Brown
- Topic
- holography
- Format
- explainer
- Level
- general
- HN recommenders in dataset
- 3
- HN mentions in dataset
- 3
- Recommendation years in dataset
- 2024–2025
These counts and years describe the included Hacker News records; they are not YouTube views or the video’s publication date.
From the original HN conversations
Excerpts from the recorded comments. Follow each source for the full comment and surrounding discussion.
On this very topic, this might be one of my most favorite videos ever single-handedly changing my understanding of holograms: [VIDEO]
omneity on Hacker News · 2025-09
In Hololuminescent DisplayNot to take away the brilliance of what is achieved but I think hologram is the wrong word. This is purely about caustics. Amplitude engineering rather than phase. The calculations are just assuming light as particle, not light as wave. A true hologram uses diffraction …
injidup on Hacker News · 2024-10
In The Physics of Magic Windows (2021)Yea I have some ideas, but I haven't found an easy way to implement it yet. The term of art that I'm exploring is called "Holographic Interferometry". Sibling poster gave you a link to regular interferometry. But basically, if you split the laser beam, one …
aeonik on Hacker News · 2025-04
In Raspberry Pi Lidar Scanner
Summaries, classifications and recommendation records are from the HackerTube source dataset. Read about this library and its limitations.