"Reflections on the Rise of Information Technology"
By Doug Peterson
Physics students at the University of Maryland are routinely given an impossible assignment. They attempt to re-create the old parable in which a single grain of rice is placed on the first square of a chessboard, two grains on the second square, four grains on the third square, and so on - a doubling of rice across all 64 squares.
By the time students reach the 30th square, the number of grains of rice fills a wastebasket. And at the 32nd square, the rice is so plentiful that it must be piled on a table, said Robert Lucky, keynote speaker at CSL's Golden Anniversary celebration.
"It's the second half of the chessboard that gives you a lot of problems," Lucky said. "By the last square, the rice would cover the whole earth."
Lucky, corporate vice president of Telcordia Technologies, noted a curious connection between the parable of rice and Moore's Law - the exponential law predicting that the number of components on a transistor would double roughly every 18 months.
"The interesting parallel," he said, "is that since 1947 and the invention of the transistor, there have been exactly 32 doublings. We've come exactly to the end of the first half of the chessboard. The second half lies before us."
The seemingly impossible task of doubling the number of electronic components across the second half of the chessboard has caused many to raise the million-dollar question: How long can Moore's Law hold out?
"People keep saying that Moore's Law will end," said Lucky before an overflow crowd in CSL's auditorium. "But right now the best thought is that it will go on for at least 10 more years.
"My feeling," he added, "is that Moore's Law is not just a law that deals with physical technology. It's a law of economics, of life itself. It must go on. Technology must have an exponential growth because anything else is technological death."
He said exponential growth can also be seen in other technologies in which you can quantitatively measure progress - such as wireless capacity or Internet traffic.
"Although the amount of Internet traffic is a subject of dispute, no one has disputed that it has been growing exponentially for a long time," Lucky said.
But how long can this growth go on? What will the electronics world look like when CSL celebrates its 100th anniversary?
To keep this force alive, Lucky said it's going to take people with the kind of vision exemplified by Claude E. Shannon, who founded information theory just a few years before CSL came into being. He compared Shannon's fundamental theory to a work of art.
However, Lucky fears that in today's electronics world, "we're all chasing the dollars wherever they might be," and the dollars are seldom in the kind of basic research that Shannon did. "Where are the fundamental concepts coming from today?" he asked. "The only places that have a shot are places like CSL, and there aren't very many of them."
According to Lucky, Shannon was an inspiration for generations because instead of giving prescriptive formulas, he showed us what was possible. And the power of seeing what is possible is potent. For example, Lucky said that more airplanes were built in the decade following the Wright Brothers first flight than in any other decade since.
"Everybody in his garage wanted to build an airplane because it was possible," Lucky said. "We need young Shannons to come through here at CSL and show us what is possible."
By Doug Peterson
Physics students at the University of Maryland are routinely given an impossible assignment. They attempt to re-create the old parable in which a single grain of rice is placed on the first square of a chessboard, two grains on the second square, four grains on the third square, and so on - a doubling of rice across all 64 squares.
By the time students reach the 30th square, the number of grains of rice fills a wastebasket. And at the 32nd square, the rice is so plentiful that it must be piled on a table, said Robert Lucky, keynote speaker at CSL's Golden Anniversary celebration.
"It's the second half of the chessboard that gives you a lot of problems," Lucky said. "By the last square, the rice would cover the whole earth."
Lucky, corporate vice president of Telcordia Technologies, noted a curious connection between the parable of rice and Moore's Law - the exponential law predicting that the number of components on a transistor would double roughly every 18 months.
"The interesting parallel," he said, "is that since 1947 and the invention of the transistor, there have been exactly 32 doublings. We've come exactly to the end of the first half of the chessboard. The second half lies before us."
The seemingly impossible task of doubling the number of electronic components across the second half of the chessboard has caused many to raise the million-dollar question: How long can Moore's Law hold out?
"People keep saying that Moore's Law will end," said Lucky before an overflow crowd in CSL's auditorium. "But right now the best thought is that it will go on for at least 10 more years.
"My feeling," he added, "is that Moore's Law is not just a law that deals with physical technology. It's a law of economics, of life itself. It must go on. Technology must have an exponential growth because anything else is technological death."
He said exponential growth can also be seen in other technologies in which you can quantitatively measure progress - such as wireless capacity or Internet traffic.
"Although the amount of Internet traffic is a subject of dispute, no one has disputed that it has been growing exponentially for a long time," Lucky said.
But how long can this growth go on? What will the electronics world look like when CSL celebrates its 100th anniversary?
To keep this force alive, Lucky said it's going to take people with the kind of vision exemplified by Claude E. Shannon, who founded information theory just a few years before CSL came into being. He compared Shannon's fundamental theory to a work of art.
However, Lucky fears that in today's electronics world, "we're all chasing the dollars wherever they might be," and the dollars are seldom in the kind of basic research that Shannon did. "Where are the fundamental concepts coming from today?" he asked. "The only places that have a shot are places like CSL, and there aren't very many of them."
According to Lucky, Shannon was an inspiration for generations because instead of giving prescriptive formulas, he showed us what was possible. And the power of seeing what is possible is potent. For example, Lucky said that more airplanes were built in the decade following the Wright Brothers first flight than in any other decade since.
"Everybody in his garage wanted to build an airplane because it was possible," Lucky said. "We need young Shannons to come through here at CSL and show us what is possible."
See Robert Lucky speak on the progress of telecommunications in the past 50 years
"Where are the fundamental concepts coming from today? The only places that have a shot are places like CSL, and there aren't very many of them."
Robert Lucky, Telcordia Technologies
Robert Lucky
Corporate vice president, Telcordia Technologies
Popular speaker and frequent guest on numerous television shows,
including Bill Moyers' "A World of Ideas."
Lecture Title: "Reflections on the Rise of Information Technology"
Delivered: October 26, 2001
Corporate vice president, Telcordia Technologies
Popular speaker and frequent guest on numerous television shows,
including Bill Moyers' "A World of Ideas."
Lecture Title: "Reflections on the Rise of Information Technology"
Delivered: October 26, 2001