The concept of optical computing is reintroduced with an important new twist — optical computing not as a digital machine, but as an analog engine able to serve as a hardware accelerator for existing ...

A computer that processes analog data is known as an analog computer. Analog computers store information in physical quantities in a continuous format and use measurements to perform computation.

Analog computers have been used extensively in the past, for things like tide calculations, but in the semiconductor era things have mostly gone digital. Even where you have analog elements, like DRAM ...

A new study shows that metamaterials can be designed to do "photonic calculus" as a light wave goes through them. A light wave, when described in terms of space and time, has a profile that can be ...

When your only tool is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. That’s an old saying and perhaps somewhat obvious, but our tools do color our solutions and sometimes in very subtle ways. For ...

At one time a scientist or engineer trying to solve a tough problem with electronic computation had the choice of an analog computer, a digital computer, or both together in a hybrid configuration.