A Letter to Leonardo da Vinci
Dear Maestro,
With the greatest respect and admiration, I’m writing to you across time and space, in answer to your question, “Will they ever - - -?” Yes, a million times yes!
We now traverse the heavens, to learn more about our sun and its planets; and present day visionaries discuss the day when we will travel still farther beyond to explore our galaxy. Science is also bringing us to the place where we see space and matter merge into one another, and all is energy!
One most exciting discovery is a beautiful thing to behold, - a light, whose beam is so pure it startles the eye. The colors are more brilliant than a hundred rainbows! It can beam as strong as our sun, or as gently as a distant star. It is called laser light. With it, so many things are possible. It can be made as delicate as the finest scalpel for surgery; and it can be made powerful enough to create energy, by fusing the invisible stuff of matter called atoms.
As a sculptor fascinated by science, and new materials with which to experiment, I have used resins clear as glass, to form and sculpt; - then there were sheets of film, brighter than polished mirror, there were colored lights gleaming like stained glass windows in the sun, and then there was the laser light! It made possible the capture of reflections of any object - nay, the space in which an object may or may not be, on an invisible film of silver. The waves of laser light that ripple through the space to the film are then darkened with solutions. This darkened film has caught forever that time and space in its true dimensions, and will divulge its secret information only when shone upon, with a beam of light shining from the same direction. But! If the light is shone from the opposite, - on the back of the waves, the information is reversed completely, like an empty purse turned inside-out, except - the outside is still the outside. What mystery, what joy! - to be able to capture space and form in light and put them in reverse dimension. The eye has never before seen such things. Holography is its name, from the Greek word ‘holos’, meaning ‘whole’. For the first time in our human history we can record information in its true dimensions; we have gone beyond the traditional symbol on the flat surface!
This is truly and exciting time to live; I’m sure you would find it inspiring. Wish you were here!
With sincerest regards,
Anait