Gabor, Dennis
GABOR, DENNIS
GABOR, DENNIS (1900–1979), British physicist and electrical engineer of Hungarian birth. Gabor wrote on electrical transients, gas discharges, electron dynamics, communication theory, and physical optics. He was also greatly concerned with the impact of science and technology upon society. Gabor taught at the University of Berlin-Charlottenburg as an assistant for two years. From 1926 to 1933 he worked first for the German research association for high voltage equipment and then as a research engineer in an engineering company. Gabor settled in England in 1933. Gabor theorized about a process of photographic recording which he named holography (1947). In the 1960s with the invention of laser beams the theory was realized, permitting cameraless three-dimensional full color photographic images. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1956 and became professor of applied electron physics at the Imperial College of Science and Technology, University of London, two years later. Gabor was awarded the Nobel Prize for physics in 1971.
[J. Edwin Holmstrom]