Creating the Ultimate Small Storage Particle

When will we reach an endpoint? The answer (after the jump) will surprise you

“When it comes to atoms, language can be used only as in poetry. The poet, too, is not nearly so concerned with describing facts as with creating images.” – Niels Bohr, recipient of the 1922 Nobel Prize in Physics

I’ve had this ongoing notion that researchers will soon reach the point of creating the ultimate small storage particle. In discussing this with some nanotech friends, they felt we may reach an endpoint when we get to the size of the electron. So I decided to run with that assumption and calculate out how long it would take, based on Moore’s Law, to reach a point where we are storing information on electrons.

Moore’s Law has been talked about so much in recent years that some people think it was actually a law enacted by Congress and signed by the President.

Moore’s Law is the empirical observation made in 1965 by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore.  He concluded that “the number of transistors on an integrated circuit will double every 24 months.” Although it is often quoted as doubling every 18 months, Intel’s official Moore’s Law page, as well as an interview with Gordon Moore himself, confirms his original thinking that it is every two years.

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