The power of Moore’s Law

WASHINGTON, DC: Fifty years ago, in mid-April 1965, the trade magazine Electronics published an article by an obscure engineer making a seemingly preposterous prediction: The number of electronic components (transistors, resistors, capacitors) that could be squeezed onto integrated circuits -- what we now call computer chips -- would double every year for a decade. The engineer was Gordon Moore, and his forecast, subsequently slightly modified, is now known as Moore’s Law. We have been living with the consequences ever since.

Moore’s Law is a quiet rebuke to those who think we control our destiny. The historical reality is that technological, commercial and intellectual upheavals -- often unforeseen -- set in motion forces that create new opportunities and threats. We struggle to master what we haven’t anticipated and often don’t understand. The explosion of computing power imagined by Moore is one of those spontaneous transformations that define and dominate our era.