CPU's in the future...

[Nathelion]

Originally posted by: Idontcare

Originally posted by: myocardia

Originally posted by: BladeVenom
In ten years we will have 32x more powerful CPU's. In 50 years we will have blown up most of the planet and any survivors will be counting with sticks. In 100 years we will have re-invented the abacus.

Haha, I thought I was the only one who thought that. Welcome to the club, BladeVenom.

It's a tad optimistic on how quickly civilization will recover the invention of the abacus though. We'll be doing good to have re-learned how to farm (agriculture) without the pesticides and benefits of fossil-fuel powered irrigation systems.

You'd think the Amish might do allright for themselves, except for the hordes of famished mobs that will stream out of Philadelphia and proceed to strip-mine the countryside for food during that first winter.

Planet of the Apes wasn't so farfetched when you think about it...

Nah, all the population centers will be blown up. Africa will be the new center of civilization; why waste nukes on that place:?

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: james1701

Originally posted by: taltamir
Idontcare, you assume that somehow no educated person would survive and pass on their knowledge.

Just because they have the knowledge does not mean they will have the capability to use it. If someone knows how to build an intigrated circuit, will they have the capability to build a foundry to make the parts to build it? If there is a mass disaster, it will be too hard to get all the people together with all the knowledge to get everything working again. I think everyone should start learning how to farm again just to be able to eat.

No, but if you know about integrated circuits you should at least be beyond the STONE age... And most technology could be recovered rather quickly if people kept the scientific reasoning alive. The main hampering of development all those thousands of years was the fact humans were superstitious gits, quick to attribute everything to the divine and unwilling to actually attempt to acquire knew knowledge. With stores of knowledge being accumulated by pure accident.

With proper scientific reasoning, public education, and a dedication to research, AND scraps of knowledge to point you in the right direction, things could be rebuilt rather quickly.

Originally posted by: Nathelion

Originally posted by: Idontcare

Originally posted by: myocardia

Originally posted by: BladeVenom
In ten years we will have 32x more powerful CPU's. In 50 years we will have blown up most of the planet and any survivors will be counting with sticks. In 100 years we will have re-invented the abacus.

Haha, I thought I was the only one who thought that. Welcome to the club, BladeVenom.

It's a tad optimistic on how quickly civilization will recover the invention of the abacus though. We'll be doing good to have re-learned how to farm (agriculture) without the pesticides and benefits of fossil-fuel powered irrigation systems.

You'd think the Amish might do allright for themselves, except for the hordes of famished mobs that will stream out of Philadelphia and proceed to strip-mine the countryside for food during that first winter.

Planet of the Apes wasn't so farfetched when you think about it...

Nah, all the population centers will be blown up. Africa will be the new center of civilization; why waste nukes on that place:?

To prevent them from conquering us when we are our most volnerable? If you are going to be knocked back to the stone age, might aswell nuke the other people around to make sure nobody else comes in and wipes your remnants...

 

[rookcifer]

Originally posted by: Hulk
Based on past progress where do you think we'll be as far as desktop processor performance in 10 years, 50 years, and 100 years? How far will the performance be pushed?

Will desktop processors be capable of "supercomputer" performance in the near future?

10 years ago the fastest computer of the day was the Pentium II 450. In CPUmark99 that processor did about 34. A fast (say 3.2GHz) quad core C2D running four instances of CPUmark99 could score about 1800. That's about a 50x increase in performance in 10 years. Could we see another 50x increase in performance in the next 10 years? 1M Superpi times in a fraction of a second? HD video compressed at 50x realtime? Compress a two hour movie in two minutes?

Of course these are all really rough estimates but I'm curious as to what other people in this forum think will happen in the next 10, 50, or 100 years? I can't even begin to estimate how fast cpu's will be in 50 or 100 years.

Two words: Quantum Computing.

Forget about the future cpu's resembling anything like the architecture we see now.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: rookcifer

Originally posted by: Hulk
Based on past progress where do you think we'll be as far as desktop processor performance in 10 years, 50 years, and 100 years? How far will the performance be pushed?

Will desktop processors be capable of "supercomputer" performance in the near future?

10 years ago the fastest computer of the day was the Pentium II 450. In CPUmark99 that processor did about 34. A fast (say 3.2GHz) quad core C2D running four instances of CPUmark99 could score about 1800. That's about a 50x increase in performance in 10 years. Could we see another 50x increase in performance in the next 10 years? 1M Superpi times in a fraction of a second? HD video compressed at 50x realtime? Compress a two hour movie in two minutes?

Of course these are all really rough estimates but I'm curious as to what other people in this forum think will happen in the next 10, 50, or 100 years? I can't even begin to estimate how fast cpu's will be in 50 or 100 years.

Two words: Quantum Computing.

Forget about the future cpu's resembling anything like the architecture we see now.

Apologies in advance for linking to something that requires a subscription but Scientific American had a wonderful article on the misperceptions of the capabilities quantum computing and the majority of the salient points can be seen for free in this linked preview:

The Limits of Quantum Computers
Quantum computers would be exceptionally fast at a few specific tasks, but it appears that for most problems they would outclass today's computers only modestly. This realization may lead to a new fundamental physical principle

http://www.sciam.com/article.c...s-of-quantum-computers

The preview does not do the article any jsutice, the article was quite insightful and explained well the limitations in the type and scope of problems that quantum computing can do, let alone the even shorter list of problem types it can do faster than a modern processor.

 

[v8envy]

Originally posted by: taltamir

No, but if you know about integrated circuits you should at least be beyond the STONE age... And most technology could be recovered rather quickly if people kept the scientific reasoning alive. The main hampering of development all those thousands of years was the fact humans were superstitious gits, quick to attribute everything to the divine and unwilling to actually attempt to acquire knew knowledge. With stores of knowledge being accumulated by pure accident.

With proper scientific reasoning, public education, and a dedication to research, AND scraps of knowledge to point you in the right direction, things could be rebuilt rather quickly.

Sitting around pontificating laws of nature requires leisure time. If a huge portion of your day is spent grubbing for roots and tubers and running from lions you're not going to be making too many scientific advances per day, on average.

Ditto public education. You have to be at a certain level of efficiency as a society to 'waste' cycles on luxuries like that. Alternatively, you have to be at a certain level of advancement where an educated workforce is a necessity.

Peasants with a thorough understanding of algebra and physics offer little value add to a Feudal lord. Likewise, an illiterate employee is relatively worthless to the modern CEO.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: v8envy

Originally posted by: taltamir

No, but if you know about integrated circuits you should at least be beyond the STONE age... And most technology could be recovered rather quickly if people kept the scientific reasoning alive. The main hampering of development all those thousands of years was the fact humans were superstitious gits, quick to attribute everything to the divine and unwilling to actually attempt to acquire knew knowledge. With stores of knowledge being accumulated by pure accident.

With proper scientific reasoning, public education, and a dedication to research, AND scraps of knowledge to point you in the right direction, things could be rebuilt rather quickly.

Sitting around pontificating laws of nature requires leisure time. If a huge portion of your day is spent grubbing for roots and tubers and running from lions you're not going to be making too many scientific advances per day, on average.

Ditto public education. You have to be at a certain level of efficiency as a society to 'waste' cycles on luxuries like that. Alternatively, you have to be at a certain level of advancement where an educated workforce is a necessity.

Peasants with a thorough understanding of algebra and physics offer little value add to a Feudal lord. Likewise, an illiterate employee is relatively worthless to the modern CEO.

New Scientist recently had a great article discussing the "instability" of modern civilization thanks in no small part to the fact that everyone is so narrowly specialized and incapable of doing the everyday basic things to survive "outside the confines of modern civilization".

The original article requires a subscription to view anything other than the abstract/preview...but for some reason these folks at "climate ark" have the entire article up for public viewing so here you go:

Disturbingly, recent insights from fields such as complexity theory suggest that they are right. It appears that once a society develops beyond a certain level of complexity it becomes increasingly fragile. Eventually, it reaches a point at which even a relatively minor disturbance can bring everything crashing down.

http://www.climateark.org/shar...come.aspx?linkid=97741

 

[taltamir]

there are many survivalists (especially nuclear survivalists) who train in knowing general knowledge and the ability to rebuild.

And again, who graduates college or even highschool without hearing about crop rotation, farming, the wheel, agriculture, a gun, etc.

the explosion of leisure time occured when about 5000 years ago someone decided to grow their food rather then hunt / search for it. Suddenly there is LOTS of free time... even without specialized knowledge a fairly intelligent person with good background in physics should be able to advance a village to at least the iron age. And educate a generation of people with scientific reasoning and scraps and tales of knowledge that would allow further, and rather quick, improvements.

Things that are common knowledge today were completely ungraspable for people just a few hundred years ago, up until a few hundred years ago people thought the world was made from four (or five) elements, now EVERYONE has heard of atoms, protons, electrons, and chemical bonds.
It is a LOT easier to try to recreated a printed circuit when you know you are trying to get an electron flow and silicon is involved rather then by trying to mix the "right amounts" of fire, water, earth and air elements...

 

[Fardor]

lol, it's impossible to know