50 years is a mind-blowing time
The human mind cannot perceive a ratio of one billion. Let one million billions. Maybe what we can sort of perceive is that every 10 years, computer power increases a thousandfold. Though I doubt most people can imagine what that power increment would mean. Nor can they picture what new avenues will open up.
In 1957 ... there were fewer than 2,000 computers total, and they were essentially used to crunch numbers. They were huge, expensive, and unreliable; sometimes, they caught on fire. There was no word processing, no spreadsheets, no e-mail, and no Internet. Programs were written on punch cards or paper tape, and memory was measured in thousands of digits. ... Moore’s Law predicts that in fifty years, computers will be [correction: one million billion --ed.] times more powerful than they are today. I don’t think anyone has any idea of the fantastic emergent properties you get from a billion-times increase in computing power. ... But I can guarantee that it will be incredible, fantastic, and mind-blowing.
Leave a comment