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Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hi there,
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. My name is Chris Pollette.
Speaker 1: I'm an editor here at how Stuff Works, and with
Speaker 1: me is writer Jonathan Strickland. Hey there, Yeah, we were
Speaker 1: coming up with ideas for the tech Stuff podcast, and um,
Speaker 1: instead of doing an article, we we found one of
Speaker 1: those concepts that runs across several of our articles. And
Speaker 1: it's called Moore's law. That's right, and uh, don't let
Speaker 1: the name fool you. It's it's not actually a law.
Speaker 1: You're not gonna get in trouble. If you break it,
Speaker 1: you'll probably get a round of applause. Moore's laws is
Speaker 1: more of a concept that's kind of been tweaked a
Speaker 1: bit over the years. It's not exactly the same thing
Speaker 1: as it was when Gordon Moore proposed it back in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty five, but in general the concept remains pretty
Speaker 1: much the same. Yeah. As a matter of fact, Gordon Moore,
Speaker 1: who was the founder of intel Um, actually didn't even
Speaker 1: want to call it More's law. His friend from cal
Speaker 1: Tech a professor cal Tech, decided to call it More's law.
Speaker 1: It was a concept that doctor Moore Um proposed than
Speaker 1: a paper with the exciting title Cramming More Components on
Speaker 1: the Integrated Circuits that was published in Electronics magazine in
Speaker 1: ninet And basically what War's law is is, you know,
Speaker 1: he said, as you make uh semiconductors, the more transistors
Speaker 1: that you put on a chip, you will be able
Speaker 1: to duck to double that within the span of a year.
Speaker 1: And uh, you know, he actually had to revise it.
Speaker 1: It's not a law. He had to revise it because
Speaker 1: of the way they manufacture chips. That actually went up
Speaker 1: to uh one and a half years and then two years,
Speaker 1: and you know, now it's starting to slip a little
Speaker 1: bit as the laws of physics are catching up with manufacturing, right.
Speaker 1: And and the definition was tweaked also by saying, okay,
Speaker 1: instead of just saying the number of transistors, maybe maybe
Speaker 1: we should word that as in a computing power, like
Speaker 1: every two years, the computing power on a on a
Speaker 1: chip doubles um. And this has pretty much been holding
Speaker 1: truth throughout the history of of electronics and computing, uh,
Speaker 1: mainly because not not from a technological standpoint, although that
Speaker 1: plays a huge role as people improve manufacturing techniques and
Speaker 1: things like that, But really from a commercial and social standpoint,
Speaker 1: we're talking about companies that they have to meet expectations
Speaker 1: now because everyone knows about Moore's Law, and everyone knows
Speaker 1: that a computer has to be twice as powerful as
Speaker 1: it was two years ago, and now companies feel like
Speaker 1: that that's actually a standard they have to meet. It's
Speaker 1: no longer dictated by technology, it's dictated by expectation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's true. Um. If you go into Intel's website,
Speaker 1: they actually have a section of the site dedicated to
Speaker 1: Moore's Law, and if you read through it, you know,
Speaker 1: you don't even really have to read very deeply into it.
Speaker 1: They talk about how they are attempting to keep that standard.
Speaker 1: So it's it's kind of funny that, you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's this nebulous artificial Yeah. Yeah, but they're they're trying
Speaker 1: to make it happen. One of the funny things about
Speaker 1: Dr Moore's prophecy, though, in in nineteen sixty five, is
Speaker 1: um he said that in his paper he says that
Speaker 1: if they are able to meet these standards, that we
Speaker 1: would be able to have certain conveniences, you know, can
Speaker 1: that are able to uh to make our lives easier,
Speaker 1: such as you know, computers in the home or mobile
Speaker 1: communications devices. So he predicted cell phones. Yeah. Um. The
Speaker 1: the interesting thing here is that Moore's law can't go
Speaker 1: on forever, and that's because of the laws of physics.
Speaker 1: The laws of physics state, specifically quantum physics that when
Speaker 1: you get down to a certain level, uh, things, the
Speaker 1: things that a circuit needs to be able to do,
Speaker 1: you just can't do at a certain size. And we're
Speaker 1: talking about just a few nanometers in size, and a
Speaker 1: nanometer is a billion of the eater, so it's very
Speaker 1: very tiny. Well, at five nanometers, a logic gate can
Speaker 1: no longer perform, electron gate can no longer perform what's
Speaker 1: meant to do? Now? These gates, what they do is
Speaker 1: they allow electrons to pass through or not pass through.
Speaker 1: That ends up translating into a one or a zero
Speaker 1: basic bits here. But an electron gate that's five nanometers
Speaker 1: are smaller in size, can't do that because an electron
Speaker 1: can tunnel through it. It doesn't actually make a hole,
Speaker 1: it just passes through. It's as if it's on one
Speaker 1: side at one moment and on the other side of
Speaker 1: the other, and and somehow it just passes through. It's
Speaker 1: one of those weird things about quantum mechanics. So you
Speaker 1: can't make anything that size because you can't control the electrons.
Speaker 1: So that that's that's really the limit. Even if we
Speaker 1: figure out a way of making things that's small, it
Speaker 1: won't work. I also read that of course, as you
Speaker 1: increase the number of transitions, you're also increasing the amount
Speaker 1: of electricity that it needs, and that also affects the
Speaker 1: amount of cool ing that you're going to have to
Speaker 1: have because that everything up so um. It's just a
Speaker 1: matter of time, I guess, before we reach the end
Speaker 1: of Moore's law, and then we'll have to see what
Speaker 1: manufacturers do to to, you know, just pump up computers
Speaker 1: and electronics just that much more, right, whatever tricks they
Speaker 1: pull out of their bags. Well, if you'd like to
Speaker 1: read more about articles that in which we mentioned More's law,
Speaker 1: and you can read Jonathan's how quantum computing will work
Speaker 1: and how PCs work, And there are several others on
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com that are up today that
Speaker 1: you can check out. So for now, thank you. Very
Speaker 1: much for listening. For more on this and thousands of
Speaker 1: other topics, does it how stuff works dot Com Let
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