Mind over Computer 19
To give you some idea of how Moore's Law works, the graph shows growth in computing power over time; the y-axis is a logarithmic plot using engineering notation. Because the growth is exponential we rapidly end up with very large numbers. Scientists use a special notation to cope with these large and small numbers. In scientific notation a number is written out in a compact form. For example, three hundred can be written as 3.0 x 10’. To expand it back to a regular number you move the decimal point in 3.0 two spots to the right, making the number 300.0. A similar technique is used for small numbers. To expand 3.0 x 10? move the decimal point 2 points to the left, giving 0.03. Why use scientific notation? Well, once the numbers get large they would no longer fit on a page! We can shorten the representation of numbers even further by dropping the ‘3.0 x’ part and just looking at the order of magnitude. The number 10°, one with eighty zeroes after it, is the number of atoms in the Earth, and 10’ the number of particles in the known Universe. 10° meters is the ‘plank number’ believed to be the smallest dimension you can have, and 10!” is called a googol, named by Milton Sirotta, the
Moore’s Law is only one example
* Exponential Growth of Computing for 110 Years Moore's Law was the fifth, not the first, paradigm to bring exponential growth in computing
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Moore’s Law Extended by Ray Kurzweil
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