Nice little article about Moore's law in the Mercury(free subscription). What I didn't know was that Carver Mead coined the term and that Moore was embarrassed about it:
All of the fuss over Moore's Law comes as a bit of a surprise to Moore himself. He says he was embarrassed when his friend Mead coined the term ``Moore's Law,'' and he couldn't bring himself to utter the phrase for about 20 years.
Followers of the Future Salon and Accelerating Change know that this exponential growth is not only happening since the beginning of the computer industry, but as Ray Kurzweil observes in his The Law of Accelerating Returns since the beginning of time:
Indeed, we find not just simple exponential growth, but "double" exponential growth, meaning that the rate of exponential growth is itself growing exponentially. These observations do not rely merely on an assumption of the continuation of Moore's law (i.e., the exponential shrinking of transistor sizes on an integrated circuit), but is based on a rich model of diverse technological processes. What it clearly shows is that technology, particularly the pace of technological change, advances (at least) exponentially, not linearly, and has been doing so since the advent of technology, indeed since the advent of evolution on Earth.
If that is true, you should get to know more about it and there is a whole conference focusing on this theme again this year: The Accelerating Change 2005. We are happy to announce that Ray Kurzweil will keynote the event.
Mark,
Check this http://wantitnow.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?MfcISAPICommand=WantItNowView&adId=6955863859
Intel seems be willing spending $10000 for a copy of the magazine where Moore presented his law.
Eddy
Posted by: Eddy De Clercq | April 12, 2005 at 05:34