A Cook's Tour of Computational Origami

Computational origami is an algorithm by which one can reshape another algorithm. (An algorithm is just a recipe by which a computer solves a problem.) This reshaping allows problems to be more efficiently squeezed into a computer or distributed across many computers. The technique was invented to squeeze a complex problem into the simple optical digital processor that was announced earlier this year. However, the technique is also applicable to distributing a complex problem over a group of computers as in the case of parallel processing.