  We show that dispersive propagation of light followed by phase detection has
properties that can be exploited for extracting features from the waveforms.
This discovery is spearheading development of a new class of physics-inspired
algorithms for feature extraction from digital images with unique properties
and superior dynamic range compared to conventional algorithms. In certain
cases, these algorithms have the potential to be an energy efficient and
scalable substitute to synthetically fashioned computational techniques in
practice today.
