[Beowulf] Moores Law is dying

[Prentice Bisbal]

richard.walsh at comcast.net wrote:
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Ken Schuster" <ken at kschuster.org>
> To: beowulf at beowulf.org
> Sent: Wednesday, April 8, 2009 2:29:17 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
> Subject: [Beowulf] Moores Law is dying
> 
>>An IBM researcher says Moore's Law is running out of gas. IBM Fellow
> Carl Anderson, who
>>oversees physical design and tools in its server division, predicted
> the end of continued exponential
>>scaling down of the size and cost of semiconductors:
>  
>>"There was exponential growth in the railroad industry in the 1800s;
> there was exponential
>>growth in the automobile industry in the 1930s and 1940s; and there was
> exponential growth
>>in the performance of aircraft until [test pilots reached] the speed of
> sound. But eventually
>>exponential growth always comes to an end," said Anderson.
>  
> Mmm ... he may be right, but I do not like his historical references
> which seem
> to conflate engineering and economics.  Better to refer to the
> improvement in
> magnets or something similar.  But, I like the speed of sound reference
> because
> it suggests that there is a Moore's Law barrier to be broken.  There is
> a lot of
> talk about "walls" these days ... the memory wall, the power wall, ...
> but we with
> respect compute power we have a ways to go before we reach the
> Bremermann Limit.
>  

This is clearly off-topic, so please feel free to ignore:

I disagree with the sonic barrier wall analaogy. Is it that clearly
technical barrier the slowed down jet research, or did the nuisance of
sonic booms to people on the ground just make supersonic R&D less
convenient? I've heard that supersonic travel over land is restricted in
the US.


-- 
Prentice