Way back in 1965, when transistors were just graduating from things that looked like 6mm diameter top hats,

Gordon Moore noticed that the number of transistors on a microchip was doubling every 2 years. He predicted that this trend would continue for the coming 10 years. He later revised it to 18 months and said that this trend would continue indefinitely.

His prediction, which became known as Moore’s Law was quite accurate for many years, but the rate of doubling has, more recently, slowed down. The reason is that we’re still stuck with silicon as the building block for transistors and you can squeeze that technology so far, but eventually something’s going to have to replace it. So far, no significant alternative has yet been found to be viable, but my guess is that it won’t just be some other material, but some entirely new approach that will arise from the dramatic pace at which modern physics is advancing.

Watch this space!