On the inevitability of Moore's Law

Kevin Kelly has written a really interesting piece about Moore's Law, which is the tendency for the number of transistors on an integrated circuit to increase exponentially. In it, Kelly explores what drives Moore's Law and what it means for the future.

Since the rate of these explosions of innovation can be varied to some degree by applying money or laws, their trend lines cannot be fully inherent in the material itself. At the same time, since these curves begin and advance independent of our awareness, and do not waver from a straight line under enormous competition and investment pressures, their course must in some way be bound to the materials.

The only slightly disappointing aspect of the article is that he stops short of speculating about what it is about these materials that generates Moore's Law-like growth...the geometry, chemistry, and physics involved.

Will Moore's Law slow down due to

Will Moore's Law slow down due to a lack of research funds? I've wondered for awhile whether Moore's Law didn't have more to do with the economics of the semiconductor industry than with engineering limits.

Profile of Ray Kurzweil on the occasion

Profile of Ray Kurzweil on the occasion of the publication of his latest book, The Singularity is Near. "This individualistic, mechanistic ethos, his critics argue, also blurs Kurzweil's predictive power, because it ignores all the ways in which technologies are bounded by social forces." Gotta love his quest for immortality though.