Round and flat
Special pictures called holograms make things look real. When light
shines through the film, you see the pictured thing from all sides.
Your dog was chasing a big red ball when the picture was taken. The ball
was round—but the one in the picture looks like a flat red circle. Why
doesn’t the ball in the picture look like the real ball?
When you look at something, you really see two different pictures. Your
eyes are about three inches (7.5 centimeters) apart. So each eye gets a
slightly different view. The two views blend into one picture that makes
things look round or flat, far or near.
The camera works somewhat like your eye. But with one lens, it sees only
one view. When you look at the picture, your eyes have nothing to blend.
So a picture of something looks flat.
A special kind of camera has two lenses set a small distance apart. It
takes two pictures at the same time. But each lens \”sees” a slightly
different view, so each picture is a little different. The pictures are
put in a special viewer, so that you see one view with each eye. Then
both pictures blend together. Whatever you look at seems round or flat,
near or far.
With a laser beam, people can make special pictures called holograms
(HOHL uh gramz). Hologram means something like \”whole picture.” And
that’s just what a hologram is—a picture that shows a whole thing.
The picture is taken with laser light instead of ordinary light. And it
never gets printed on paper! The hologram can only be viewed by shining
a beam of light through the film. The picture you see then looks
completely real. You can even look over, under, and around the things
that are in the picture.
