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From: minsky@media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky)
Subject: Re: Holography
Message-ID: <1995Feb15.142605.2135@news.media.mit.edu>
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Cc: minsky 
Organization: MIT Media Laboratory
References: <wareham.51.003B754E@vision.ee.queensu.ca> <3hs500$1p7@woodstock.socs.uts.EDU.AU>
Date: Wed, 15 Feb 1995 14:26:05 GMT
Lines: 31

In article <3hs500$1p7@woodstock.socs.uts.EDU.AU> osborn@socs.uts.EDU.AU (Tom Osborn) writes:
>wareham@vision.ee.queensu.ca (Paul Wareham) writes:
>
>>Hi,
>
>>I was just wondering if anyone here has put any thought into holographic 
>>models for use in physics, psychology, brain research, vision,  etc.  I've 
>>been reading a book by Michael Talbot called " The Holographic Universe" and 
>>some of the concepts seem to have merit, although very generalized.
>
>>I guess I will eventually wonder how I can apply to my field - Digital 
>>Communications.
>
>Willshaw's original paper is in Nature, 1976, I think. The algorithm is
>provided, and estimates of memory capacity. The pop science elaborations
>of the ideas need a critical reading...
>
>Tom Osborn.

Well, there the great paper: Willshaw, P.J., Buneman, O.P. and H.C.
Longuet-Higgins, "Non-Holographic Associative Memory, @i[Nature], vol.
222, pp960-962, 1969, in which he shows that a superimposed random
(hash-like) coding has many of the virtues and few of the deficiencies
often attributed (usually falsely) to holograms by a computationally
much simpler encoding.  Their scheme achieves this while maintaining
the ability to store order of 0.63 of the original digital bit
capacity.  


