We suggest a new optical solution for solving the YES NO version of the Exact Cover problem by using the massive parallelism of light. The idea is to build an optical device which can generate all possible solutions of the problem and then to pick the correct one. In our case the device has a graph-like representation and the light is traversing it by following the routes given by the connections between nodes. The nodes are connected by arcs in a special way which lets us to generate all possible covers (exact or not) of the given set. For selecting the correct solution we assign to each item, from the set to be covered, a special integer number. These numbers will actually represent delays induced to light when it passes through arcs. The solution is represented as a subray arriving at a certain moment in the destination node. This will tell us if an exact cover does exist or not.
In @cite_29 the idea of sorting by using some properties of light is introduced. The method called Rainbow Sort is based on the physical concepts of refraction and dispersion. It is inspired by the observation that light that traverses a prism is sorted by wavelength. For implementing the Rainbow Sort one need to perform the following steps:
@cite_29
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Rainbow Sort is an unconventional method for sorting, which is based on the physical concepts of refraction and dispersion. It is inspired by the observation that light that traverses a prism is sorted by wavelength. At first sight this "rainbow effect" that appears in nature has nothing to do with a computation in the classical sense, still it can be used to design a sorting method that has the potential of running in ? (n) with a space complexity of ? (n), where n denotes the number of elements that are sorted. In Section 1, some upper and lower bounds for sorting are presented in order to provide a basis for comparisons. In Section 2, the physical background is outlined, the setup and the algorithm are presented and a lower bound for Rainbow Sort of ? (n) is derived. In Section 3, we describe essential difficulties that arise when Rainbow Sort is implemented. Particularly, restrictions that apply due to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle have to be considered. Furthermore, we sketch a possible implementation that leads to a running time of O(n+m), where m is the maximum key value, i.e., we assume that there are integer keys between 0 and m. Section 4 concludes with a summary of the complexity and some remarks on open questions, particularly on the treatment of duplicates and the preservation of references from the keys to records that contain the actual data. In Appendix A, a simulator is introduced that can be used to visualise Rainbow Sort.