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Geometrical Optics

• peter_d_sherman 6y ago
  >"Underlying mathematics As a mathematical study, geometrical optics emerges as a short-wavelength limit for solutions to hyperbolic partial differential equations." PDS: Here's a weird question: Can we get computation via light wavefronts and specifically shaped lenses? Now, I know about optical computers and how they can implement AND/OR/NOT/etc. gates via light. For the purpose of this question, I'm not talking about anything like traditional logic gates or anything that's boolean in nature... I've seen mechanical analog computers from a long time ago that used specific-to-computation 3D shaped objects to either perform calculating derivatives or differentials (forget which), so I'm wondering if the same effect is possible using lenses specifically curved for specific calculations, and what those wavefronts or wave patterns and lenses would look like, if they existed... In other words, what is computable given any light wave pattern (analog), and the ability to create any lens design pattern, no matter how strange-looking or complex? ?