More Egghead

Egghead science continues with an explanation of Moore’s Law…the prediction made by Gordon Moore (co-founder of Intel) in 1965…that explains why we went from crazy expensive, room-sized computers to iPods, laptops and miniscule cell phones for the masses…in just four decades.

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Moore noticed an early trend in the chip industry…that the number of transistors, at an optimal minimum cost, doubles every two years. A transistor is the most basic machinery that makes a computer work – it is the gate keeper to the 1s and 0s of binary code. And it’s got a special ability to be scaled down, exponentially, and still function. Nothing in history has had this ability. So transistors have scaled down, becoming smaller and smaller, and thus many and many more can fit on a single chip. And this growth in the number of transistors has followed a pretty solid pattern (it has a lot to do with cost as well…cost has decreased as number of transistors increased – that’s why all of us can afford these powerful gadgets…and why we’ve seen such a profound revolution in the use of technology in our lives.)

This entry was written by Christie, posted on January 14, 2008 at 4:54 pm, filed under Video. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.

Instant Egghead: the new vodcast from Scientific American

Time to get smart. It’s party season folks, and you got to be on top of your conversational game as you sip creative cocktails in big comfy chairs beside the fireplace. A new video series from Scientific American takes an abstract scientific idea and breaks it down to a bite-size piece of clarity…giving you the perfect accessory to your new dapper threads: something worthwhile to talk about.

The first of the series kicks off with our space and universe editor, George Musser, explaining DARK MATTER.

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This entry was written by Christie, posted on November 26, 2007 at 12:04 pm, filed under Video. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.

Pay the writer!

No more life affirmation books. All we need is Ellison ranting in our ear.

Brilliant.

This entry was written by Christie, posted on November 23, 2007 at 7:44 pm, filed under Video. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.