Rolling right along, here's the second episode of our video podcast, "Instant Egghead."
Ever wonder why Apple puts out a newer, tinier iPod every two freaking seconds? Or why you're watching this on a laptop instead of a blinking, blooping Star-Trek-style wallputer? Moore's Law is the reason. Christie Nicholson explains how it works-- in pretty much the lowest-tech way possible.
Written, produced and edited by John Pavlus // Shot by Steven Boling
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Comments
David says:
"...explains how it works..." She explained more what it is than how it works -- which would have required some discussion of how transistors work, i.e., some actual science.
November 27, 2007 8:30 PM
Rose says:
This is a great idea. This 60sec intro got me really interested in the topic and now i'm digging for more!
oh and in response to David's comment: the whole point of the series is to introduce people to a concept/idea--> if you want to learn the ins and outs of how transistors work then this feature is obviously not going to divulge that much detail and honestly it would not accomplish its goal if it did.
November 29, 2007 12:25 AM
Christopher Mims
says:
@Rose: Holla!
November 29, 2007 3:25 PM
Peter
says:
So, since this is a science-y website, let's do the numbers. Moore's Law says, roughly, that the number of transistors that will fit into a given volume doubles every 18 months. Let's see if it works for memory. The IBM-PC made its debut in about 1982, using a 360K floppy disk. That's 360,000 bytes that could be stored on a square piece of plastic nominally 5-1/4 inches in each dimension. 1982 was 25 years ago, and dividing that time by 18 months means that, according to Moore's Law, there have been about 17 doublings (all right, 16-2/3) in the density of data storage since that time.
Okay, I did the rest of this in an Excel spreadsheet, which tells me that 17 doublings is a factor of 131,072. Multiplying that by 360,000 bytes, I get 47 GB -- about 47 billion bytes that should fit into a volume about equal to that 1982 floppy disk. Round numbers, it seems to me that's a pretty good fit with today's reality. If anything, it's an underestimate.
So what happens if this growth continues for another 25 years? I multiplied my 47 billion (today's density, according to Moore's Law) by 131,072 (17 more doublings), to get about 6 petabytes--6 million billion bytes. In other words, what Moore's Law is saying is that by the year 2032 everyone should be able to carry about 6 PB of data around in a pocket-size container. (I like that, because my initials are PB.) Not bad when you consider that the entire works of Shakespeare--according to my good old Gutenberg download--amount to about 5.6 million bytes: one-billionth the capacity of whatever your flashdrive looks like in 2032.
November 29, 2007 4:19 PM
Just A Guy says:
To Peter: Careful now, Moore's law refers only to the increase of transistors count per volume. It does not mention storage capacity per volume. CD's, Floppys, Harddisks don't use transistors to store the data (hard disks actually contain transistors in small chips, but they are used for data logic, and data control rather than for storing it physically). RAM memory is subject to Moore's law, but then RAM memory is not a solid candidate for mass storage solutions.
It's only with the [relatively] recent [mass] use of flash memory that Moore's law may start to apply to storage capacities, due to the fact that flash memory stores data using floating-gate transistors and flash memory based drives (flash based SSD's) seem to become the new standard in the next few years. Anyway, this drives are also subjects to other limitations than Moore's law.
February 3, 2008 8:09 AM
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