"*It's been said in my hearing that the speed of technological advancement in this field is increasing exponentially."
Hmmm... It depends what they actually mean by "the speed of technological advancement". If they mean good old Moore's Law (doubling the number of transistors/computation power every 18 months), which is indeed an exponential increase against time, then that's been running dead on schedule for several decades... but is now at last slowing down.
"I think there will be a point when computers do all we want them to do as fast as it's convenient to us for them to do it, and if we've got any sense we will then turn our inventive zeal to other directions, like a workable real-time FTL drive."
For the average man on the street, we've already reached that point several times before. What happens is that Certain People turn their creative zeal in the direction of inventing new and more demanding things for everyone to want to do with their computers! Meanwhile, the folks who are trying to invent a real-time FTl drive are precisely the folks for whom the biggest and most powerful computers on the planet still aren't celever enough or fast enough. Have you seen the data storage requirements for the LHC (never mind the processing requirements for figuring out what the hell the bugger's trying to tell us)? I could fit a good few more seasons of Doctor Who onto *them* drives, even in Ultra High Definition Fluid Flow 3D (or whatever probably much pithier and less comprehensible name they end up giving to the next big advance in TV "quality")... =:o>
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2011-04-07 04:57 am (UTC)Hmmm... It depends what they actually mean by "the speed of technological advancement". If they mean good old Moore's Law (doubling the number of transistors/computation power every 18 months), which is indeed an exponential increase against time, then that's been running dead on schedule for several decades... but is now at last slowing down.
"I think there will be a point when computers do all we want them to do as fast as it's convenient to us for them to do it, and if we've got any sense we will then turn our inventive zeal to other directions, like a workable real-time FTL drive."
For the average man on the street, we've already reached that point several times before. What happens is that Certain People turn their creative zeal in the direction of inventing new and more demanding things for everyone to want to do with their computers! Meanwhile, the folks who are trying to invent a real-time FTl drive are precisely the folks for whom the biggest and most powerful computers on the planet still aren't celever enough or fast enough. Have you seen the data storage requirements for the LHC (never mind the processing requirements for figuring out what the hell the bugger's trying to tell us)? I could fit a good few more seasons of Doctor Who onto *them* drives, even in Ultra High Definition Fluid Flow 3D (or whatever probably much pithier and less comprehensible name they end up giving to the next big advance in TV "quality")... =:o>