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Understanding Moore's Law
S. Blocher writes "Ars Technica has a great article up, 'Understanding Moore's Law', that I think most geeks should read. The misrepresentation of Moore's Law in the media has always been a real pet peeve of mine, and this article does a great job of looking at the flipside of the 'bigger and faster' thesis to show how the Law isn't really just about doubling computer power."
Is to give you an excuse to avoid work. See http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9912202 for a paper (in PDF) describing this
Yes, we should, and in fact, in reality if not in practice, we already have.
No scientist with half a head on his shoulders really thinks of laws as "laws" any more. They're observations of behaviour reduced to a mathmatical form for the purposes of understanding and prediction.
That is why it's Eintstein's *Theory* of Special Relativity, even though it is an even more accurate rendering of Newton's "Law." We gave up laws a century or so ago.
While at times language changes distressingly fast there are times when it seems impossible to change at all.
This is one of those times.
I'm afraid the resulting confussion, allowing President's to say dumb shit like "It's only a theory," may well never subside.
KFG
Quite simply, companies expect Moore's law to remain true. Software companies plan product lines in anticipation of processor capability doubling every n years. Processors are going to get improve at this rate, therefore we know how quickly bus performance and peripheral performance need to improve.
Semiconductor manufacturers know this. They plan product lines in a Moore's-law-consistent manner (not necessarily explicity, but surely as a matter of economics). If they're a little behind the curve, more money gets put into keeping up with it... or somebody else steps up and keeps it true. If they're at or ahead, they hold the course.
If someone were to introduce a processor that was 10x the density/speed of current processors, don't you think more resources would then go into peripheral design/heat management/software development to utilize the improvments, rather than continuing to focus on improving the processor?
The reason the law has held so long and seems to be so consistent is that it sets everyone's expectations, and people plan towards those expectations. Not less, not more.
You've all been Jedi mind tricked.
That is why it's Eintstein's *Theory* of Special Relativity, even though it is an even more accurate rendering of Newton's "Law." We gave up laws a century or so ago.
I beg to disagree.
Newton's laws are simple, definitive, and we're unlike to find anything that contradicts them--relativity deals with the shape of space, not how objects react to motion, and quantum mechanics, as far as they effect "objects", are just another force.
Classic Physics are undisputable--they can be observed by anyone with about thirty minutes of free time (or less). Relativity, on the other hand, has a rather smaller set of supporting data, and thus calling it a "law" isn't quite accurate just yet.
While at times language changes distressingly fast there are times when it seems impossible to change at all.
Most scientific laws are hundreds of years old--they've withstood the test of time. Relativity and other modern theories haven't withstood the test of time yet, but in a few centuries we'll be talking about "Einstein's Laws."
I'm afraid the resulting confussion, allowing President's to say dumb shit like "It's only a theory,"
You mean evolution, I assume.
The principle that living creatures evolve is observable, uncontestable, and hundreds of years old. High School students can test it with rabbits. Current evolution should be taught as and called "The Law of Evolution."
Now, when biologists start speculating about the fossil record, species relations, and where life came from, they're on territory that they can never prove to have a definite answer, and thus they should either use the same terminology that historians, not labcoat scientists use, or they should stick with "theory."