Density Lens

High density or high index lenses are used in some eyeglasses....

https://www.warbyparker.com/learn/what-are-high-index-lenses

What kind of dressing goes on word salad?

Dis-dressing!

How about a flexible lens that can change shape according to internal pressure?

The lens could be made of a variable density profile.

When a kid in eighth grade we filled a large rectangular aquarium with saturated sugar water and let settle overnight. Shinning a flashlight into one end, the beam would bow and we could project that light from the other end at just about any angle. And even rotate that angle. Seeing that flashlight beam bow like that stayed with me. What if the example was one of many radii. One should be able to set the incoming and outgoing angle.

The sugar water gradient was not adjustable, but what if it was adjustable with directional density?

I have not heard of this dynamic otherwise since then. As far as I know, only ricochet is used to gather light.

Oh you mean like this....

..."A graded-index or gradient-index fiber is an optical fiber whose core has a refractive index that decreases with increasing radial distance from the optical axis of the fiber.

Because parts of the core closer to the fiber axis have a higher refractive index than the parts near the cladding, light rays follow sinusoidal paths down the fiber. The most common refractive index profile for a graded-index fiber is very nearly parabolic. The parabolic profile results in continual refocusing of the rays in the core, and minimizes modal dispersion....."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graded-index_fiber

As Rixter pointed out, the term "density" has a number of meanings. I assume you were referring to density as mass/volume. In general, transparent substances with higher densities (M/V) have higher indices of refraction. Thus your Aquarium had a higher index of refraction at deeper levels.

This vertical gradient of index of refraction would indeed bend a beam of light downward.

Rixter showed a very nice illustration of how hotter air near the ground (the opposite of your sugar-water gradient) bends light upward to create the optical illusion commonly called a mirage.

There are less commonly conditions where the air near the surface is colder than the air above (an inversion). Under such conditions, rays of light leaving an object somewhat above horizontal are bent downward, so the observer perceives the object to be at a higher location than its real location. I once watched traffic moving along a highway that was about 65 miles away on the other side of Lake Michigan. Of course the curvature of the water over that distance would normally mean that traffic would be below the horizon. I know this phenomenon as "looming"; there is another name, which doesn't come to me at the moment...

Fata Morgana ...

Exactly. Thank you. Only we didn't have lasers. If the input angle was set and constant, and if that gradient were adjustable, then the output angle is adjustable. We need to put a lever on that density gradient, to set a focal distance.

As for the fiber cable, I hadn't thought of a index gradient. Or aware of the term. I was hoping for some kind of real time variable index gradient.

I was curious if any work had been done with this density dynamic. Establishing and controlling a density gradient for bowing light.

If the starlight bending from our sun comes from density and not space-time, then the focal point might be much shorter.

I don't think you can actually bend light itself, you can reflect it in a number of ways, but light as a rule travels in a straight line...You can bend space/time near a gravitationally significant mass and the light appears to bend, but it is following a straight line through space/time....You can focus light rays with a lens that is shaped properly to refract light at an angle...still not bending....You can take a fiber optic strand and bend it, but the light is just reflecting off the interior surface of the glass rod, or engineered internal reflective crystalline structure...and as Rixter has noted, density collates with clarity, so the density of a lens has nothing to do with bending light, and focusing light has everything to do with angles and refraction...