Holography Handbook by F. Unterseher, J. Hansen and R. Schlesinger (review)

give lectures on basic holography to a lay audience [l]. Reference 1. Reprinted by permission from G. Saxby, Practirot Holography (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1988) pp. 443--445. FOURIER OPTICS; AN INTRODUCTION by E. G. Steward. Ellis Horwood, 1983. An excellent introduction to the subject at undergraduate level. Topics include FraunhOfer diffraction, Fourier series and periodic structures, optical and crystal diffraction gratings, convolution and correlation, optical imaging and processing, holography (very briefly), interferometry, spectroscopy and astronomical applications. Unlike many student textbooks, the author's delight in the subject shows through clearly [1]. Reference I. Reprinted by permission from G. Saxby, PractiCIJIHolography (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1988) pp. 443--445. IMAGES by C. A. Taylor. Wykeham, 1978. A very thorough discussion of the models used in the investigation of optical images, leading to a unified overview of all types of image information in terms of diffraction. The treatment is nonmathematical and the general level is that of the sixth-form student [1]. Reference I. Reprinted by permission from G. Saxby, PractiCIJIHolography (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1988) pp. 443--445. HOLOGRAPHY HANDBOOK by F. Unterseher,J. Hansen and R. Schlesinger. Ross Books, P.O. Box 4340, Berkeley, CA 94704, U.S.A., 1982.408 pp., illus. Trade, $16.95. ISBN: 0-89496-017-2. This is a do-it-yourself manual of practical holography, a cookbook rather than a textbook. The style reflects the authors' exuberance. All the layouts work, though-no doubt in the interests of simplicity, which the book emphasizes --not all of them have been optimized for image quality. Much space has been used up on whimsical illustrations that have little relevance to the text, and a great many pages from catalogs of equipment have been reprinted without comment. The parts of the book that deal with the theory of holography and with philosophies based on concepts ass0ciated with holograms are not altogether satisfactory. Nevertheless, for the complete beginner in holography this book is a mine of useful information and guidance, and is warmly recommended [1]. Reference I. Reprinted by permission from G. Saxby, Practirot Holography (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1988) pp. 443-445. THE MIND'S EYE: READINGS FROM SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN byJeremy M. Wolfe, ed. W. H. Freeman, New York, N.Y., U.S.A., 1986. 127 pp., illus. ISBN: 0-7167-1767-0. Reviewed byRudolfAmheim, 1133 South Seventh Street, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48103, U.S.A. A selection of 12 research papers cannot be expected to give a coherent and systematic survey of what is known about visual perception today, butJeremy Wolfe, the editor of the present collection, does succeed in offering characteristic facets of recent concerns and revelations in his field. Although the readers of Scientific American deal less directly with the physiological mechanism ofvision than with the images produced by it, they will be curious to know, for example , how insects manage to scan the visual world by means of a spherical array of hexagonal lenses or how the range of color vision in fishes is determined by the light conditions of particular underwater environments. The ways in which the nervous system translates the optical impulses into percepts interests us more directly also for the reason that the processes whose effects are observed in consciousness are likely to resemble structurally their counterparts in the brain. Here the most spectacular discoveries are the tiny detectors of shape, spatial orientation, and movement found by David H. Hubel and Torsten N. Wiesel in the primary visual cortex of monkeys and cats. The recordings supplied by those receptors represent only the most elementary step leading from the pointshaped retinal cells to what we know as recognizable shape. Even so, they were greeted by not a few workers in the field as the final answer to the question of how the nervous system creates percepts. All too well did the discovery suit the traditional notion that complex phenomena are simply the sum of their elements. It deserves to be noted, therefore, that Hubel and Wiesel, in their article reprinted in the present book, insist on observing that the primary visual cortex "cannot by any stretch of the imagination be the place where actual perception is enshrined". Most relevant though this...