Dennis Gabor

Physicist, born in Budapest, Hungary. After obtaining a doctorate in engineering in Berlin (1927) he worked as a research engineer, but left Germany in 1933. In 1948 he joined Imperial College, London, and was appointed professor of applied electron physics (1958–67). He is credited with the invention in 1947 of the technique of holography, a method of photographically recording and reproducing three-dimensional images, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1971.

For other uses, see Gabor (disambiguation).

Dennis Gabor (Gábor Dénes) (5th June, 1900, Budapest – 9th February, 1979, London) was a Hungarian physicist and inventor who is most notable for inventing holography. While working in Britain, Dennis Gabor invented holography in 1947, an achievement for which he later received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1971.

Born as Dénes Gábor, Dennis Gabor studied at the Technical University of Budapest and, in Germany, at the Charlottenburg Technical University in Berlin. Dennis Gabor eventually wrote his Ph.D.

Having fled from Nazi Germany in 1933, Gabor was invited to Britain to work at the development department of the British Thomson-Houston company in Rugby, Warwickshire. While working there, he invented holography in 1947, an achievement for which he later received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1971.

The research of Gabor focused on electron optics, which lead him to the invention of holography. Gabor published his theories of optical imaging and holography in a series of papers between 1946 and 1951.

Gabor also researched how human beings communicate and hear;

At the time Dennis Gabor developed holography, coherent light sources were not available, so the theory had to wait more then a decade until the first practical applications were realized.

In 1948 Gabor moved from Rugby to the Imperial College London, and in 1958 became professor of Applied Physics until his retirement in 1967. Gabor wrote, "The best way to predict the future is to invent it."

Due to rapid development of lasers and a wide variety of holographic applications (e.g. art, information storage, recognition of patterns), Dennis Gabor achieved acknowledged success and worldwide attention during his lifetime.

Dennis Gabor is briefly mentioned in Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace, in which he is referred to as "quite possibly the Antichrist" by Hal.

The Potsdam Technology Center, Potsdamer Centrum für Technologie, is located on Dennis-Gabor Strasse in Potsdam.