Not spherical; having a surface or shape that deviates from a perfect sphere, used especially in optics and lens design.
Composed of 'a-' (not) + 'spherical' (shaped like a sphere), from Greek 'sphaira.' The '-al' suffix forms an adjective. This is a more common modern English variant of 'aspheric.'
Your modern smartphone camera, your car headlights, and high-end corrective lenses all use aspherical surfaces—they're designed to bend light in specific non-uniform ways that actually correct problems traditional spherical lenses create. It's geometry defeating geometry!
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