Optics on a roll
Apr 1, 2005
Prediction is very difficult, said Niels Bohr, especially about the future. Two decades ago optical computing was a thriving area of research that offered the prospect of computers much faster than those available at the time. Of course, computers are indeed much faster today than they were 20 years ago, but they are still not optical. However, there have been more than enough developments in other areas of optics, both pure and applied, over this period to compensate for that particular disappointment. Some of these advances were planned or predicted, but many were completely unexpected.
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