WEBVTT - A Holographic Wedding 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:12.440 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, 0:00:12.440 --> 0:00:15.920 and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:15.920 --> 0:00:18.880 I'm an executive producer with iHeart Podcasts. And how the 0:00:19.000 --> 0:00:23.440 tech are you? So? I have an interesting topic today. 0:00:23.640 --> 0:00:28.640 An artist named Alicia Framus plans to do something unprecedented. 0:00:28.880 --> 0:00:34.159 She plans to get married to an artificially intelligent hologram, 0:00:34.680 --> 0:00:37.800 which is really in sort of her words, not mine. 0:00:38.080 --> 0:00:40.880 And there is a lot to unpack there. I've got 0:00:41.440 --> 0:00:43.839 a lot of questions. Now, some of those questions are 0:00:43.840 --> 0:00:47.800 actually technical, right, some of them are ethical, some of 0:00:47.800 --> 0:00:51.440 them are just downright skeptical. So, for example, what does 0:00:51.479 --> 0:00:55.320 she mean by hologram? That is a term that really 0:00:55.360 --> 0:00:59.880 means a specific thing but frequently gets misused to me 0:01:00.200 --> 0:01:03.720 other things. And then who developed the AI and how 0:01:03.840 --> 0:01:07.240 was it trained? And what does she specifically mean by AI? 0:01:07.480 --> 0:01:12.319 Are we talking just strictly generative AI? So essentially, you know, 0:01:12.400 --> 0:01:15.520 a chat bought type thing like you know, open AIS, 0:01:15.640 --> 0:01:19.240 chat GPT. Is that what she means by AI? Does 0:01:19.280 --> 0:01:22.680 she mean something beyond just a generative AI? Is it 0:01:22.760 --> 0:01:28.520 AI that would have some form of control over the hologram? 0:01:28.560 --> 0:01:31.160 I mean presumably that would happen right, Like the AI 0:01:31.240 --> 0:01:34.960 would be able to determine where the hologram could be 0:01:35.360 --> 0:01:39.399 directing its quote unquote attention, all that kind of stuff, like, 0:01:40.080 --> 0:01:45.800 how is the AI supposed to sense her? What elements? 0:01:45.800 --> 0:01:49.200 What technical elements are there so that the hologram AI 0:01:50.200 --> 0:01:54.560 has a quote unquote awareness of where she happens to be. 0:01:54.680 --> 0:01:56.760 You know, if you're with an actual other person, they 0:01:56.800 --> 0:02:00.960 can direct their attention toward you in very way, But 0:02:01.400 --> 0:02:04.360 a hologram can't do that on its own right. You 0:02:04.360 --> 0:02:06.200 would have to pair it with something else, like a 0:02:06.240 --> 0:02:09.720 camera system or something, and have some computer vision elements 0:02:09.800 --> 0:02:13.239 to process that in order for the hologram to face 0:02:13.320 --> 0:02:16.760 the correct way. Like, there are a lot of technical 0:02:16.840 --> 0:02:19.920 questions that go along with this. Also, to what extent, 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:24.320 if any, will any agency of authority recognize this union 0:02:24.520 --> 0:02:27.720 if she's to get married to a hologram? What does 0:02:27.760 --> 0:02:31.240 that mean? Does it? I don't think it actually means 0:02:31.280 --> 0:02:34.160 getting married in a legal sense. It is more of 0:02:34.160 --> 0:02:36.959 a symbolic thing, which is fine. This is an artist 0:02:36.960 --> 0:02:40.760 we're talking about, and in fact, the purpose of her 0:02:40.960 --> 0:02:45.000 art is largely to ask questions that we don't necessarily 0:02:45.000 --> 0:02:47.560 have the answers to So this isn't just me being frustrated. 0:02:47.600 --> 0:02:50.359 I mean, some of it is frustrating, but it's also 0:02:50.680 --> 0:02:53.960 the point of the whole exercise is to start asking 0:02:54.040 --> 0:02:57.880 questions like what does this mean for the future, because 0:02:57.919 --> 0:03:02.480 Alicia on her website or someone on her behalf points 0:03:02.520 --> 0:03:05.919 out that in the future we are likely to see 0:03:06.200 --> 0:03:11.799 cases of people wanting to have actual relationships with artificial constructs. 0:03:11.800 --> 0:03:16.600 I mean, we've already seen examples of that before with AI, 0:03:16.919 --> 0:03:21.600 like boyfriends and girlfriends to varying degrees of success, and 0:03:21.760 --> 0:03:25.600 so it's really just an extension of that. Now, keeping 0:03:25.600 --> 0:03:27.960 in mind that Framus has made a career out of 0:03:27.960 --> 0:03:32.680 exploring the depths of human experience, including loneliness, it's only 0:03:32.760 --> 0:03:36.040 fair that we acknowledge the artistic element of this event. 0:03:36.200 --> 0:03:38.400 Is what I was just saying a second ago. I mean, 0:03:38.440 --> 0:03:41.120 you could call this just a stunt, and to some 0:03:41.240 --> 0:03:44.200 extent I could see that being a fair assessment saying 0:03:44.200 --> 0:03:47.800 this is kind of a stunt. But you know, we 0:03:47.840 --> 0:03:53.240 also have to admit that AI is playing an increasingly 0:03:53.360 --> 0:03:56.920 larger role in our lives, for good and for ill, 0:03:57.400 --> 0:04:00.720 and keeping in mind AI means lots of stuff right. 0:04:00.800 --> 0:04:03.440 It's not just the jurni of AI. We see AI 0:04:03.960 --> 0:04:07.160 being incorporated all over the place. Some cases it's not 0:04:07.400 --> 0:04:11.800 nearly as obvious, but it's certainly there, and like it 0:04:11.880 --> 0:04:14.200 or not, things like AI and robotics are going to 0:04:14.200 --> 0:04:18.039 play a part in physical relationships in the future as well. 0:04:18.360 --> 0:04:21.200 We humans are complicated creatures, and sometimes it means we 0:04:21.279 --> 0:04:24.760 might find it challenging or even impossible to find another 0:04:24.880 --> 0:04:27.719 human with whom we can share ourselves, and perhaps it 0:04:27.800 --> 0:04:31.200 might be easier to engineer a simulation of a person 0:04:31.400 --> 0:04:34.039 to fill those needs. This, of course, is not a 0:04:34.080 --> 0:04:37.240 groundbreaking idea. There are plenty of science fiction stories that 0:04:37.279 --> 0:04:41.919 have explored this concept thoroughly. There's the phenomenal science fiction 0:04:42.040 --> 0:04:45.479 film from twenty fourteen titled Ex Makina, in which a 0:04:45.560 --> 0:04:50.080 narcissistic tech billionaire brings a computer programmer to a remote 0:04:50.160 --> 0:04:54.200 mansion to judge whether a female presenting robot has self 0:04:54.200 --> 0:05:00.040 awareness and true intelligence that has elements of romantic feeling 0:05:00.160 --> 0:05:03.360 between a human and a robot. Or there's the equally 0:05:03.400 --> 0:05:06.480 phenomenal nineteen eighty seven film Making Mister Right, in which 0:05:06.560 --> 0:05:10.000 John Malkovich plays both an anti social human engineer and 0:05:10.040 --> 0:05:13.719 his robotic duplicate who seems to actually be more human 0:05:13.760 --> 0:05:17.200 than his human creator. And I'm being a little cheeky 0:05:17.200 --> 0:05:19.240 when I say that Making Mister Wright is equal to 0:05:19.400 --> 0:05:21.960 X mock it Up. I don't actually believe that, but 0:05:23.279 --> 0:05:26.040 it is a movie, and it does explore this idea 0:05:26.279 --> 0:05:30.720 from a romantic comedy perspective. Anyway, most of these science 0:05:30.720 --> 0:05:34.039 fiction stories at some point explore what it means to 0:05:34.080 --> 0:05:39.240 be human, or what intelligence actually means, whether an artificial 0:05:39.279 --> 0:05:43.880 construct can experience emotional connections, what effect this could have 0:05:44.040 --> 0:05:46.240 on humanity as a whole, and a host of other 0:05:46.320 --> 0:05:49.440 philosophical and ethical concepts. And based on what I've read, 0:05:49.480 --> 0:05:52.560 Alicia Framus is looking at the issue from a very 0:05:52.640 --> 0:05:58.479 human perspective. Can we seek and receive emotional fulfillment from 0:05:58.600 --> 0:06:01.720 an AI creation? But before we get into all that, 0:06:02.320 --> 0:06:05.440 let's talk about the tech. Because this is tech stuff. 0:06:05.480 --> 0:06:09.880 We need to talk about holograms and artificial intelligence in general. 0:06:10.240 --> 0:06:12.520 And this is going to be tricky because in most 0:06:12.560 --> 0:06:15.560 of the articles I've come across, there's a distinct lack 0:06:15.600 --> 0:06:19.839 of technical information about Framus's project. There are plenty of 0:06:19.839 --> 0:06:23.039 photographs in which Framos appears with a ghostly image of 0:06:23.040 --> 0:06:25.440 a man. In fact, I can't help but walk away 0:06:25.440 --> 0:06:28.320 with the impression that Framus is engaged to a forced 0:06:28.440 --> 0:06:31.000 ghost from the Star Wars universe, because that's what it 0:06:31.040 --> 0:06:34.880 looks like. But these are clearly manufactured images, right, These 0:06:34.880 --> 0:06:38.240 are not actual pictures of her with a hologram. It's 0:06:38.400 --> 0:06:41.600 just pictures that go along with the concept of her 0:06:41.720 --> 0:06:46.000 artistic project. There's not really a holographic rogue gentleman posing 0:06:46.000 --> 0:06:48.720 with Framus in a courtyard, because that would be very 0:06:48.720 --> 0:06:53.360 hard to pull off. Any sort of three dimensional projection 0:06:53.920 --> 0:06:57.440 would require a lot of equipment, and you couldn't just 0:06:57.760 --> 0:07:02.960 have some hologram spawned taneously appear in any given location. 0:07:03.120 --> 0:07:05.280 That's not how they work. It's not like you know 0:07:05.680 --> 0:07:12.040 in Quantum Leap or Star Trek or you know, a 0:07:12.080 --> 0:07:15.800 Red Dwarf probably the best example. There's no way for 0:07:15.840 --> 0:07:18.560 a hologram to just be free roaming, and of course 0:07:18.600 --> 0:07:21.280 it wouldn't be a hologram anyway, but we'll get into that, 0:07:21.280 --> 0:07:24.840 it's not really a hologram. So according to numerous pieces, 0:07:25.320 --> 0:07:27.680 and I suspect all of these pieces traced back to 0:07:27.840 --> 0:07:31.040 like a single press release on the matter, because a 0:07:31.040 --> 0:07:34.000 lot of it seems to be pulling from Alisha Framus's 0:07:34.040 --> 0:07:38.240 own website. The figure that will accompany Alisha Framus at 0:07:38.280 --> 0:07:41.040 the wedding ceremony the summer in Rotterdam will be a 0:07:41.160 --> 0:07:45.000 quote unquote holographic sculpture. Now that can mean lots of 0:07:45.000 --> 0:07:48.640 different things. It could mean that there's an actual physical 0:07:49.000 --> 0:07:53.120 figure like a mannequin, like a blank mannequin, and this 0:07:53.360 --> 0:07:57.760 hologram quote unquote will be projected or otherwise displayed on 0:07:58.000 --> 0:08:02.040 the figure, sort of like a three D mapping projection thing. 0:08:02.760 --> 0:08:05.480 Because again, it's really hard for me to imagine a freestanding, 0:08:05.560 --> 0:08:08.720 ephemeral hologram made up of only light saying I do. 0:08:09.200 --> 0:08:11.400 It's not that it would be impossible, but you would 0:08:11.440 --> 0:08:13.360 have to put in a whole lot of work to 0:08:13.440 --> 0:08:16.760 create the projectors. And maybe that is what's going to happen. 0:08:16.760 --> 0:08:19.600 I mean, this is a big artistic project, so maybe 0:08:20.120 --> 0:08:24.760 there will be the equipment. But doing this you need 0:08:24.800 --> 0:08:27.400 a lot of control over your environment in order for 0:08:27.480 --> 0:08:31.120 it to have the right effect, because if you have 0:08:31.280 --> 0:08:33.920 too much ambient light, it's really going to mess things up. 0:08:34.240 --> 0:08:37.160 So let's talk about light and holograms. Now, this is 0:08:37.200 --> 0:08:40.080 a very complicated topic. And I want to say that. 0:08:40.240 --> 0:08:42.720 You know, back when I worked at houstuffworks dot com, 0:08:42.880 --> 0:08:46.120 our senior writer, our head writer, Tracy Wilson, who is 0:08:46.160 --> 0:08:47.680 now one of the co hosts of Stuff You Missed 0:08:47.679 --> 0:08:51.320 in History Class, she nearly went bananas working on this article. 0:08:51.360 --> 0:08:53.160 She did a phenomenal job. By the way, I'm not 0:08:53.320 --> 0:08:56.920 no shade on Tracy. She did far better writing this 0:08:57.040 --> 0:09:00.280 article than I would have. And I say that because 0:09:00.320 --> 0:09:05.080 it's very challenging to break down a hologram into a 0:09:05.160 --> 0:09:08.800 simple concept that you can explain, because it's one of 0:09:08.800 --> 0:09:10.960 those things where it's like an onion. In order to 0:09:11.040 --> 0:09:13.760 understand the hologram, you peel away a layer and you say, well, 0:09:13.800 --> 0:09:16.640 we really need to talk about interference, and we need 0:09:16.679 --> 0:09:19.960 to talk about things like reflection and refraction. We need 0:09:20.000 --> 0:09:22.560 to talk about how light travels as a wave or 0:09:22.559 --> 0:09:25.240 a particle. Then you strip it away again. You start 0:09:25.280 --> 0:09:27.920 getting further and further down, and you realize, oh, my 0:09:28.000 --> 0:09:31.360 starting point is so far back that this article is 0:09:31.360 --> 0:09:34.960 going to last fifty pages or this podcast will go 0:09:35.800 --> 0:09:38.240 four hours. We're not gonna do that. We're going to 0:09:38.400 --> 0:09:41.640 take a much more service level approach, because one it 0:09:41.640 --> 0:09:43.800 would take me a lot more time to really get 0:09:43.800 --> 0:09:46.960 my head wrapped around it, because while I did take 0:09:47.000 --> 0:09:50.920 physics in school and I loved physics, it has been 0:09:51.080 --> 0:09:54.840 like thirty years since I took those courses, and I 0:09:54.880 --> 0:09:57.720 would have to do a whole lot of research in 0:09:57.800 --> 0:10:00.880 order to dust the ring rust off my my brain 0:10:01.440 --> 0:10:06.440 and then I could maybe tackle it. So we talk 0:10:06.679 --> 0:10:11.320 about holograms. It means a specific thing, and one way 0:10:11.760 --> 0:10:15.040 to really break it down is to start with how 0:10:15.080 --> 0:10:19.079 a normal photograph works to contrast it with a hologram. 0:10:19.559 --> 0:10:24.280 So let's talk about photography. And with photography, you've got 0:10:24.320 --> 0:10:27.160 your camera and you point your camera at something interesting. 0:10:27.440 --> 0:10:30.319 Let's say it's your favorite tech podcaster ordering a burrito 0:10:30.360 --> 0:10:33.320 at a food truck, something that happens on a fairly 0:10:33.320 --> 0:10:36.679 frequent basis. And here's what happens. When you push the 0:10:36.720 --> 0:10:40.560 button to actually take the picture. Light from the scene, 0:10:40.640 --> 0:10:43.920 light reflecting off of your subject, in this case a 0:10:44.360 --> 0:10:48.200 tech podcaster ordering a brito. Light from that reflects off 0:10:48.240 --> 0:10:52.640 of those objects and enters into the camera through the lens, 0:10:53.080 --> 0:10:56.120 and the lens focuses the light to a point that's 0:10:56.120 --> 0:10:59.320 actually behind a shutter. So when the shutter's closed, no 0:10:59.400 --> 0:11:02.080 light can pass beyond that. But the shutter when you 0:11:02.120 --> 0:11:05.360 push the button opens and this shutter could be mechanical, 0:11:05.400 --> 0:11:08.199 it could be electronic. You know, it doesn't really matter 0:11:08.240 --> 0:11:10.200 for the purposes of this. The point is that it 0:11:10.240 --> 0:11:12.920 allows light to come through. The light moves through an 0:11:13.000 --> 0:11:16.440 opening called the aperture, and then it passes to hit 0:11:17.000 --> 0:11:20.800 a medium, a recording medium, which could be film in 0:11:20.880 --> 0:11:23.760 the old days, or it could be a digital sensor. 0:11:23.920 --> 0:11:26.960 Probably a digital sensor. I mean, unless you happen to 0:11:27.080 --> 0:11:30.000 like shooting on film, and maybe you do. It's pretty cool. 0:11:30.360 --> 0:11:33.320 I enjoy it. The medium makes a record of the 0:11:33.440 --> 0:11:35.760 light that entered in through the scene, and what you 0:11:35.880 --> 0:11:39.080 end up with is a two dimensional image of whatever 0:11:39.120 --> 0:11:40.560 it was you were taking a photo of, in this 0:11:40.640 --> 0:11:45.080 case tech podcast or ordering a brito. Now, as you're aware, 0:11:45.480 --> 0:11:48.520 this image is limited to a single angle. You know, 0:11:48.640 --> 0:11:51.320 the angle what you were at when you took the photo. 0:11:51.640 --> 0:11:54.280 You can't turn the image around in the photo and 0:11:54.960 --> 0:11:58.160 see what you know. I I'm sorry, I mean your 0:11:58.200 --> 0:12:01.280 favorite tech podcaster look like on the opposite side. You 0:12:01.280 --> 0:12:03.839 can't flip it around, say oh, and here's the backside 0:12:03.920 --> 0:12:07.400 of that photograph. You're just limited to that single perspective. Now, 0:12:07.480 --> 0:12:11.360 let's go a step further and talk about three D photography. Now, 0:12:11.840 --> 0:12:14.200 one way to achieve a three D effect would be 0:12:14.240 --> 0:12:16.640 to use two cameras, and these two cameras would be 0:12:16.679 --> 0:12:19.720 slightly offset from each other, similar to how your eyes 0:12:19.920 --> 0:12:22.880 are offset from each other. Right, you have one toward 0:12:22.920 --> 0:12:25.040 the left, one toward the right. So when you're looking 0:12:25.040 --> 0:12:28.040 at something, your brain is taking in visual information from 0:12:28.160 --> 0:12:31.160 two slightly different angles and then combining that into a 0:12:31.240 --> 0:12:35.400 single image in your brain, and the two cameras will 0:12:35.400 --> 0:12:38.040 take a picture at the same time from slightly different perspectives, 0:12:38.120 --> 0:12:42.360 kind of mimicking that physical effect. You then present this 0:12:42.600 --> 0:12:45.760 pair of images that are offset from one another, and 0:12:45.800 --> 0:12:47.280 you do it in such a way that the viewer 0:12:47.320 --> 0:12:50.520 will get a different image for each eye. And you 0:12:50.559 --> 0:12:52.560 can use various filters to do this. So in the 0:12:52.640 --> 0:12:55.000 old days, back in the mid twentieth century, like the 0:12:55.080 --> 0:12:58.320 nineteen fifties, you might use a real cheap pair of 0:12:58.360 --> 0:13:00.360 three D glasses where you have a red filmilter for 0:13:00.400 --> 0:13:02.680 one eye and a blue filter for the other eye. 0:13:03.040 --> 0:13:05.880 And so let's say it's red for the right, blue 0:13:05.880 --> 0:13:10.280 for the left, and in one of the sets of 0:13:10.320 --> 0:13:13.400 images you would have it tinted blue, which would be 0:13:13.679 --> 0:13:17.560 blocked by the blue lens, so that eye, the left 0:13:17.559 --> 0:13:20.360 eye would not see that set of images, but the 0:13:20.440 --> 0:13:22.480 right eye would. The other set of images would be 0:13:22.520 --> 0:13:25.840 tinted red, so your right eye behind the red filter 0:13:26.080 --> 0:13:29.679 would not see those images. It'd be filtered out by 0:13:29.800 --> 0:13:33.000 the lens in front of your eye, so your left 0:13:33.040 --> 0:13:35.079 eye would get one set of images, your right eye 0:13:35.080 --> 0:13:36.840 would get the other set of images. Your brain would 0:13:36.840 --> 0:13:39.480 combine the two in your head, and voila, you have 0:13:39.800 --> 0:13:42.280 what appears to be a three dimensional shape in front 0:13:42.320 --> 0:13:44.840 of you. Now these days, you're more likely to use 0:13:45.040 --> 0:13:48.480 a different method like polarized light, and you would have 0:13:48.600 --> 0:13:51.560 light polarized in one way so that the left eye 0:13:51.559 --> 0:13:54.319 would see those sets of images, and polarize the different 0:13:54.360 --> 0:13:56.360 way so the right eye would see those set of images, 0:13:56.400 --> 0:13:59.200 and again your brain combines it. The brain part is 0:13:59.240 --> 0:14:02.440 the same, it's just how you end up filtering out 0:14:02.679 --> 0:14:05.680 one set versus another. So that's how most three D 0:14:05.840 --> 0:14:08.480 films work these days. You can also have active three 0:14:08.559 --> 0:14:12.560 D glasses. These have electronic shutters in them, and they're 0:14:12.679 --> 0:14:16.960 timed so that they turn off and on in time 0:14:17.080 --> 0:14:19.880 with the sets of images that are displayed on a screen. 0:14:20.240 --> 0:14:22.520 So the left eye gets one set, the right eye 0:14:22.520 --> 0:14:26.520 gets another set, and what's actually happening is your screen 0:14:26.720 --> 0:14:29.240 is alternating these sets, but doing so at a very 0:14:29.320 --> 0:14:32.880 very high frequency that you wouldn't necessarily notice without the 0:14:32.880 --> 0:14:35.320 glasses on. Now, the point is this approach creates a 0:14:35.320 --> 0:14:37.960 three D effect, but you're still working under limitations because 0:14:38.000 --> 0:14:40.760 while the image will appear to have depth to it, 0:14:40.800 --> 0:14:42.920 like it'll look like it's coming off the screen, or 0:14:42.960 --> 0:14:46.760 that the screen itself has depth, you can't walk around 0:14:47.280 --> 0:14:50.560 the image and view it from different angles. It can 0:14:50.720 --> 0:14:52.680 look like you might be able to do that, but 0:14:52.800 --> 0:14:54.360 then if you were to get up and move to 0:14:54.400 --> 0:14:57.200 a different part of the room, you would not actually 0:14:57.960 --> 0:15:01.080 have a change in perspective. It would still be the same. 0:15:01.080 --> 0:15:03.360 It would still have depth, but it wouldn't have changed 0:15:03.560 --> 0:15:07.560 perspective at all. There's no parallax, and parallax is quote 0:15:07.680 --> 0:15:10.640 the apparent displacement or the difference in apparent direction of 0:15:10.680 --> 0:15:13.840 an object as seen from two different points, not on 0:15:13.920 --> 0:15:16.760 a straight line with the object end quote. That's according 0:15:16.760 --> 0:15:20.120 to Merriam Webster. So to achieve parallax, you would need 0:15:20.160 --> 0:15:23.640 a way to project a hologram, which we will talk 0:15:23.680 --> 0:15:36.040 about after we take this quick break. All right, To 0:15:36.120 --> 0:15:39.080 talk about holograms, we do have to understand a little 0:15:39.120 --> 0:15:42.320 bit about how light works and that it travels in waves, 0:15:42.640 --> 0:15:44.920 but it also can travel as a particle. We know 0:15:45.000 --> 0:15:47.360 that because of quantum physics. But we're going to leave 0:15:47.360 --> 0:15:49.240 that for now. We're just going to talk about the waves. 0:15:49.600 --> 0:15:54.640 So waves are of the same type, can interact with 0:15:54.680 --> 0:15:57.960 each other. Right, You see this in water, So a 0:15:58.000 --> 0:16:02.560 classic example in keeping water and light behave in different ways, 0:16:02.600 --> 0:16:05.800 but it's similar enough that we can kind of make 0:16:05.880 --> 0:16:10.600 this analogy. But if you have a still pond, and 0:16:10.720 --> 0:16:14.400 you've got two pebbles, and you drop those two pebbles 0:16:14.760 --> 0:16:16.840 where they are a couple of feet away from each other, 0:16:17.400 --> 0:16:20.000 When they make contact with the water, they obviously each 0:16:20.080 --> 0:16:23.400 cause ripples to radiate outward from the point of contact. 0:16:23.680 --> 0:16:26.600 And because you drop these two pebbles fairly close to 0:16:26.640 --> 0:16:29.640 each other, the ripples from one are going to interact 0:16:29.640 --> 0:16:33.440 with the ripples of another, and they will end up 0:16:33.560 --> 0:16:36.440 interfering with one another. Well, the same sort of thing 0:16:36.520 --> 0:16:41.920 happens with light. So to create a traditional hologram on film, 0:16:41.960 --> 0:16:46.240 that's one way to create a hologram. The basic approach 0:16:46.600 --> 0:16:50.200 is to use a laser and a beam splitter, and 0:16:50.280 --> 0:16:52.400 you put whatever subject it is that you want to 0:16:52.400 --> 0:16:55.440 capture as a hologram. Let's say it's a vintage nineteen 0:16:55.480 --> 0:16:58.680 eighties action figure of mister T. You put that in 0:16:58.800 --> 0:17:02.840 line with a path for part of this laser beam. 0:17:03.040 --> 0:17:05.800 So you direct this laser beam through the beam splitter, which, 0:17:06.040 --> 0:17:10.320 as its name implies, splits the beam into two identical lasers, 0:17:10.760 --> 0:17:14.560 and one of those beams ends up following down a 0:17:14.560 --> 0:17:19.560 path and is directed by mirrors to hit mister T. 0:17:20.400 --> 0:17:23.280 And this is the object beam. It's the object beam 0:17:23.320 --> 0:17:26.560 because it's the beam that actually interacts with the object. 0:17:27.000 --> 0:17:29.480 Some of the light reflects off of mister T and 0:17:29.560 --> 0:17:33.240 hits your recording medium, so our holographic film in this case, 0:17:33.280 --> 0:17:37.359 the film it gets this light hit and captures the information. 0:17:37.800 --> 0:17:40.600 Now the other beam, because remember we split into two, 0:17:40.880 --> 0:17:43.000 the other beam goes down a different path from the 0:17:43.000 --> 0:17:47.560 first one, and mirrors redirect it so that this beam 0:17:47.640 --> 0:17:50.879 hits the recording medium directly. It does not interact with 0:17:50.920 --> 0:17:54.480 mister T. It pities the fool. Instead, it just hits 0:17:54.520 --> 0:17:57.520 the holographic film. So this is what we call the 0:17:57.600 --> 0:18:00.400 reference beam, and the reference beam and the object beam 0:18:00.520 --> 0:18:05.440 interact at the medium. There's interference created by these two beams, 0:18:05.680 --> 0:18:08.880 and the result is that the recorded data on that 0:18:09.000 --> 0:18:12.280 film allows for the creation of the hologram. It contains 0:18:12.320 --> 0:18:17.360 the information, and after developing the film and by illuminating 0:18:17.400 --> 0:18:19.639 it in a specific way, which depends upon your method 0:18:19.640 --> 0:18:21.760 of creating the hologram in the first place, you can 0:18:21.840 --> 0:18:24.440 create an image that appears to have three dimensions. Now 0:18:24.760 --> 0:18:26.600 we're talking about film here, right, so we are still 0:18:26.600 --> 0:18:30.360 talking about a picture. The picture itself is effectively two dimensional, 0:18:30.359 --> 0:18:32.600 technically has three dimensions, but it's thin, so you don't 0:18:32.600 --> 0:18:34.240 really think of it that way. It's like a piece 0:18:34.240 --> 0:18:37.720 of paper, right, But the image on this photograph would 0:18:37.720 --> 0:18:40.720 appear to have three dimensions, right, Like you would stand 0:18:40.720 --> 0:18:43.160 in front of the photograph and you'd be able to 0:18:43.280 --> 0:18:45.239 lean to the left or lean to the right and 0:18:45.320 --> 0:18:50.400 see different angles of the imaged object. But you couldn't 0:18:50.520 --> 0:18:53.040 do a full three hundred and sixty degree walk around 0:18:53.280 --> 0:18:56.000 of it, because again, it's a photograph, right, It's just 0:18:56.040 --> 0:18:59.359 like a regular picture. If you were to walk around, 0:18:59.359 --> 0:19:01.159 you would just see the back of the photograph. It 0:19:01.160 --> 0:19:04.000 would just be a blank surface, but from the front, 0:19:04.080 --> 0:19:09.040 from the viewing angles, you could see different three dimensional 0:19:09.160 --> 0:19:14.040 aspects of this object. And that's a really cool effect. 0:19:14.040 --> 0:19:16.679 That is a hologram. And you might say, well, that 0:19:16.720 --> 0:19:20.720 doesn't sound like a freestanding hologram, not the way that 0:19:20.760 --> 0:19:24.320 Alicia Framus is talking about, and it's not because a 0:19:24.359 --> 0:19:26.920 lot of the stuff that gets billed as a hologram 0:19:27.280 --> 0:19:30.199 isn't really a hologram at all. It's something else, and 0:19:30.480 --> 0:19:34.160 it could be one of many things if you think 0:19:34.200 --> 0:19:37.960 about like the hologram of Tupac Shakur at the twenty 0:19:38.000 --> 0:19:43.240 twelve Coachella Festival. Now, Tupac Shakur was killed in nineteen 0:19:43.320 --> 0:19:49.080 ninety six, so obviously a tragic moment, and this was 0:19:49.119 --> 0:19:52.679 like a triumphant moment to see Tupac Shakur performing in 0:19:52.680 --> 0:19:56.000 front of a live crowd at twenty twelve's Coachella. And 0:19:56.080 --> 0:19:58.280 it was said to have been a hologram, like a 0:19:58.359 --> 0:20:02.440 holographic image of Shakur performing in front of the crowd. 0:20:02.720 --> 0:20:05.840 It wasn't a hologram. Instead, it was an example of 0:20:06.080 --> 0:20:10.439 a very old effect called Pepper's ghost illusion. It actually 0:20:10.600 --> 0:20:14.240 traces its history back to the nineteenth century, and it 0:20:14.280 --> 0:20:16.720 takes its name from a guy named John Henry Pepper 0:20:17.040 --> 0:20:19.959 who was an inventor in the United Kingdom and involves 0:20:20.000 --> 0:20:22.880 a few different elements. So you have your audience who 0:20:23.520 --> 0:20:26.040 happen to be in a very specific place, right, Like, 0:20:26.200 --> 0:20:29.040 you can't do Pepper's Ghost in theater in the round, 0:20:29.160 --> 0:20:31.919 it wouldn't work. But if your audience is in a 0:20:31.960 --> 0:20:35.320 specific spot relative to the stage, you can do it. 0:20:35.760 --> 0:20:38.560 So you need your staging area as in the actual 0:20:38.600 --> 0:20:41.119 place where the audience is viewing. Then you need the 0:20:42.359 --> 0:20:45.639 hidden staging area it's outside of the audience's view. And 0:20:45.680 --> 0:20:48.600 then you have to have an angled, transparent and reflective 0:20:48.800 --> 0:20:52.760 surface at a forty five degree angle, and that's important. 0:20:52.800 --> 0:20:54.639 You need to be able to see through the surface 0:20:54.640 --> 0:20:57.399 because otherwise you're just looking at a screen, right. You 0:20:57.520 --> 0:21:00.080 need to be able to have it be reflective or 0:21:00.080 --> 0:21:01.879 else slight. It's not going to be able to really 0:21:02.200 --> 0:21:04.320 interact with it in a meaningful way, and it has 0:21:04.320 --> 0:21:06.880 to be angled in order to get the proper effect 0:21:06.920 --> 0:21:10.320 for the audience. So the angled surface, which typically is 0:21:10.400 --> 0:21:13.920 something like a pane of very very clean glass, acts 0:21:13.920 --> 0:21:17.240 as a sort of reflective screen and performers in the 0:21:17.359 --> 0:21:20.800 hidden room are very well lit. So again, this hidden room, 0:21:20.880 --> 0:21:23.240 the audience can't see it. It's off to the side, 0:21:23.640 --> 0:21:27.200 and it has a straight line to the reflective surface, 0:21:27.280 --> 0:21:30.880 but not to the audience's point of view. And it's 0:21:30.960 --> 0:21:33.280 very well lit because it needs to be bright enough 0:21:33.440 --> 0:21:38.359 so that the glass, the angle glass, captures the reflection 0:21:39.200 --> 0:21:42.960 of the performers. The audience can then see the reflections, 0:21:43.400 --> 0:21:46.960 and because the reflections are on transparent glass, and because 0:21:46.960 --> 0:21:50.200 they can see through the glass or whatever other material 0:21:50.520 --> 0:21:53.760 is being used, they can have the effect of these 0:21:53.800 --> 0:21:58.000 figures being incorporated in the scene that's on the stage. 0:21:58.800 --> 0:22:02.000 Those figures can also appear in substantial and you get 0:22:02.040 --> 0:22:06.760 this ghost effect. So in depending upon how you've lit 0:22:07.000 --> 0:22:10.800 the stage and the figures that are in the hidden room, 0:22:11.119 --> 0:22:15.000 they might look transparent ghostly. You could even have other 0:22:15.040 --> 0:22:18.800 actors on stage, like live actors on stage within the 0:22:18.840 --> 0:22:22.399 audience's view and they can appear to interact with the 0:22:22.520 --> 0:22:26.719 ghostly figures that are also present. So it's a pretty 0:22:26.760 --> 0:22:29.960 cool effect. If you've ever ridden the Haunted Mansion ride 0:22:30.000 --> 0:22:33.359 at Disneyland or disney World, you've seen this effect in action. 0:22:33.800 --> 0:22:37.159 There's a large ballroom scene that features numerous ghosts, and 0:22:37.200 --> 0:22:39.520 these ghosts fade in and out of view in front 0:22:39.560 --> 0:22:43.520 of your eyes. They are actually reflections created by Pepper's ghost. 0:22:43.880 --> 0:22:47.400 Above and below your doom buggy track. There are staging 0:22:47.440 --> 0:22:50.879 areas with these figures in them, so they're above you 0:22:50.960 --> 0:22:54.680 and below you, and the areas that they're in have 0:22:54.800 --> 0:22:57.720 lights that turn on and turn off, so when the 0:22:57.800 --> 0:23:00.679 lights come on, then you can see the reflection of 0:23:00.680 --> 0:23:03.280 the figures. When the lights go off, the reflections disappear, 0:23:03.400 --> 0:23:06.360 So the effect you have is that these ghostly images 0:23:07.160 --> 0:23:10.959 manifest and then disappear in front of your very eyes. 0:23:11.320 --> 0:23:14.919