Feature

Optical Novelty Filters

Jack Feinberg

Optical computers have been promoted as the remedy for the bottlenecks of electronic computers, but as Top: Protozoa without novelty filter. Algae is also visible. Bottom: Protozoa seen with novelty filter. Algae in background is no longer seen. yet no one has made a digital optical computer that can perform even the simplest of tasks, such as adding two 2-digit numbers. Analog optical computers are much easier to make than digital optical computers, and for some applications analog computers are better. A frog, for example, uses an analog computer to quickly compute the velocity and the predicted position of a careless fly, and the frog obviously does not need a digitally-precise value for the fly's velocity.

Publish Date: 01 December 1988