Not Making Smaller Atoms (v2)
Channel: Ian Phillips
Date: 25/01/2021

"Scientists investigate that which already is; engineers create that which has never been." - A.Einstein. By 1833 the knowledge about physical materials had advanced to a point where the first electronic amplifier was made. It was a relay, but it enabled the creation of the first control systems which found immediate use for military and commercial purposes ... Electronics had arrived, and the world didn't look back. Powered by this success, physical science raced onward. 114yrs later, in 1974 the first transistor appeared, and within the next 15yrs the first integrated circuit and the discovery of Moores' Law. With each step the sophistication of the control systems grew, and the products based on them ever cheaper and more pervasive ... And society, became increasingly dependent on them. Through all of this, Physicists have increased their knowledge about our 118 elements, but the atoms themselves haven't changed. And today as the size of the individual transistors approach the size of the atom itself, the possibilities to maintain this 'logarithm of expectation' has obvious limits. After 186yrs are we approaching the end of the electronic system scaling, that society has accepted as a fundamental law?