It’s your turn. Kids.

According to New York Times, computation performance improved over 43 millions times over the last 15 years (that’s when “Windows 95” came out). A factor of 1,000 can be attributed to hardware improvements and software claims 43,000 times of the credit. This means, compounded annually, hardware improved 58% year over year and software 103%. I am so much awed by this. A young kid in college today has access to computation that is more than 43 millions times better than when I was in college. By software alone, he or she can be 43,000 times more efficient than I could.

When I was a graduate student, I spent nearly all my spare time in the library. The general routine begin with the index table where articles of periodicals are published. I would peruse those indices searching for papers that are of interest. Then I will read the abstracts to judge how relevant the paper was to my study. Next I will spend long time hunting the specific publication and copying the said article. After studying it, I would usually hunt down its references and repeat the same process. With each article, I would make an index card of it with pertinent information. As time went by, I had a collection of papers and boxes of index cards. That constituted the “literature review” section of my thesis, the famous chapter 2. It was a long and laborious process that made me an expert of the field. The training was vigorous. I felt I could research any topic and become an expert.

Somewhere in these 15 years, I think, the technology reached a saturation point. As someone on the “mature” side of the spectrum, I don’t see young kids these day being that much more productive than when I was at their age. We merely attacked different kinds of problems. Those problems in “platform” or “foundation” were largely solved by my generation. The new generation focused more on application and integration. But when it come down to raw productivity, in terms of the number of complex problems solved per unit of time, they seem about the same. Of course, the new generation is solving problems that we couldn’t even imagine then. But the new generations will always stand on the shoulders of the previous ones.

Guess this blog is a challenge to those who are the new generation. Hey kids, we gave you 43 millions times more computational power. What are you going to do for my grand kids?

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