Engineering: 5 commandments

  • Authors:
  • Philip E. Ross

  • Affiliations:
  • -

  • Venue:
  • IEEE Spectrum
  • Year:
  • 2003

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Abstract

There are sublime, silly, real and true laws, and folksy rules of thumb laws that have come up from mathematical observations, pithy pronouncements, and even a few enduring self-fulfilling prophecies about technology. The article discusses how some laws have fared in time. These laws include: Moore's Law - the number of transistors on a chip doubles annually; Rock's Law - the cost of semiconductor tools doubles every four years; Machrone's Law the PC you want to buy will always be $5000; Metcalfe's Law - a network's value grows proportionately to the number of its users squared; and Wirth's Law - software is slowing faster than hardware is accelerating.