I would agree that choosing 1991 as a starting point for a Moore's Law relation on Project Gutenberg production is arbitrary. At the same time, however, let's think about using this same logic for the semiconductor industry. Rather than choosing some arbitrary starting point for our measurements, let's go straight back to the beginning. The first germanium transistor was invented in 1947, and it had a minimum feature size of 0.002 inches, or about 5.08x10^-5 meters. According to Moore's law, this feature size should reduce by half roughly every 18 months, correct? By that prediction, the feature size should have since been reduced by half 38.667 times. That would give us a minimum feature size in today's transistors of 1.16x10^-16 meters, or 0.000001 Angstroms. Of course, the diameter of an atom is on the scale of Angstoms, meaning that under Moore's Law we should now be fitting nearly one million transistors within a single atom...needless to say we are nowhere close. Therefore, the semiconductor industry is only keeping up with Moore's Law in as much as Project Gutenberg is. I didn't take the time to compare other features of the first semiconductor transistor (or the first integrated circuit), as I had a bit more trouble locating other data, but I suspect the result would be the same. The point, of course, is that Moore's Law serves to indicate an exponential growth rate over whatever time frame you choose to apply it. Regardless of where it starts, it gives a pretty good idea of this. Do I think that it is particularly applicable to Project Gutenberg production? No, not really. But it is a term that the public is familiar with, and thus Michael finds that it is a useful term to use in advertising just how much work PG has been doing over the past decade (and a half). Can we really think in terms of "keeping up with Moore's Law?" Probably not, it doesn't make much sense, though the semiconductor industry does it every day, and going back to the very beginning, they are much farther away from Moore's Law than we are. - Scott Schmucker Joshua Hutchinson wrote:
*sigh*
The only thing your chart proves is that applying Moore's Law to PG production is a waste of time.
1991 is NOT when production started. It is not when PG started. It is just the point in time you chose as the starting point to attach Moore's Law.
What people are saying is this:
MOORE'S LAW DOES NOT APPLY TO PG PRODUCTION. WE WOULD BE BETTER OFF JUST ANNOUNCING WE HAVE "X" NUMBER OF TEXTS INSTEAD OF COMPARING IT TO A "LAW" THAT ISN'T EVEN MEANT TO BE USED THIS WAY.
Admit it, Michael, 1991 is just an arbritrary date. Just because "regular production" started in 1991 ... bull. We had regular, once a year, production before that.
Josh
PS BTW, if you are going to say no one "read the message above," you might want to actually quote what we supposedly didn't read. As it is, I'm assuming we all read the same thing as you, but had a slightly different level of reading comprehension, since we all seemed to get something completely different from it than you did.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Hart" <hart@pglaf.org> To: "The gutvol-d Mailing List" <gutvol-d@lists.pglaf.org> Subject: [gutvol-d] Addition to PG History PT1 Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 07:34:58 -0800 (PST)
Well, it would appear those in question did not read the message above, at least they did not reply to any of the points made, so I am duty bound to explain in a bit more detail, as to how there are no other choices other than Project Gutenberg's first effort at a regular production schedule in 1991 as a starting point.
Here are various starting years and results for Moore's Law used to project the growth of Project Gutenberg.
START TOTAL START TOTAL START TOTAL START TOTAL YEAR NUMBER YEAR NUMBER YEAR NUMBER YEAR NUMBER ACTUAL 1971 BASE 1971 1979 BASE 1979 1990 BASE 1990 1993 BASE 1993 NUMBER/YR
1971 1 1 1971 1974 4 4 1974 1977 16 7 1977 1980 64 1979 9 9 1980 1983 256 1982 36 9 1983 1986 1024 1985 144 10 1986 1989 4096 1988 576 1990 10 10 1989 1992 16384 1991 2304 1993 40 1993 100 42 1992 1995 65536 1994 9216 1996 160 1996 400 365 1995 1998 262144 1997 36864 1999 640 1999 1600 1550 1998 2001 1480576 2000 147456 2002 2560 2002 25600 4260 2001 2004 4194304 2003 589824 2005 10240 2005 102400 14944 2004 2007 16777216 2006 2359296 2008 40960 2008 409600 ????? 2007
As you can plainly see, starting Moore's Law at any other date than ~1991 is inappropriate not only because the numbers make it obvious, but also because 1991 was the first year of regular production growth for Project Gutenberg.
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