moore's law

Silicon wafers. Quantum computing. Light-based processors. Any way you slice it, scientists say that processor speeds will absolutely max out at a certain point, regardless of how hardware or software are implemented.

Lev Levitin and Tommaso Toffoli, two researchers at Boston University, devised an equation which sets a fundamental limit for quantum computing speeds. According to their studies, a perfect quantum computer can generate 10 quadrillion more operations per second than fastest current processors. They estimate that the maximum speed will be reached in 75 years.

About every two years, transistors shrink in size enough to place double the number on an integrated circuit than was possible during the previous two years. Its held true since the mid-1960s when the idea was first posited by Gordon E. Moore (today, its called Moores Law). If you were to plot the rate on a graph, youd see it come out as an exponential curve. Exponential curves start slowly and then ramp up quickly, theoretically approaching a limit but never reaching it. I say theoretically because in the very practical real world, a limit will always be reached due to environmental feedback. In silicon-based computing (what we use today), that limit may be only four years away.