If there was ever a creator of wealth on a fantastic scale, ever a changer of custom and social values, ever a determinant of where our culture is headed and why, it's Moore's Law. Gordon Moore didn't so much invent his law as observe it—the apparently inexorable increase in the number of transistors that could be etched on the same silicon wafer. Moore's Law rule of thumb says computers will either double in power at the same price or halve in cost for the same power every 18 months. It's an insidious effect, one that has increased silicon density by a billion times in the last 50 years, and in the process placed more computing power in my wristwatch than was used to win World War II. But now some people predict Moore's Law is in danger of being repealed.
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