US Patent 11119527 Light-based, non-binary computation device

An optical numerical computation device relates light from a plurality of light sources to calculate an arithmetic solution. The optical numerical computation device includes input circuitry, pre-calculation circuitry, calculation circuitry, a light collection cavity, and a plurality of light computation components. The pre-calculation circuitry and calculation circuitry cause light sources to emit light representing the values of input operands, which is subsequently related within the light collection cavity. Sensors then generate resultant outputs at values indicative of the sensed light value. The respective wavelengths of light used may be associated with an operand arithmetic sign or an order of magnitude.