Madame Chairperson, Esteemed Members of this August Committee,
Members of the House of Representatives, and Mr. Speaker of the House
of Representatives: Thank you for allowing me to address you on this
most urgent matter.
My name is Jeffery Adkins. I am a science teacher in California.
Like my colleague of long ago, Hans Christian Oersted, I have
stumbled upon a discovery so monumental it may have implications for
the future course of our civilization. But you know that, or else you
would not have invited me to speak to this special subcommittee and
its observers.
Of course, many of you are familiar with Moore's Law, but some of
you are not, and hence I must begin by describing this rule. This
rule was first stated by Gordon Moore, the cofounder of Intel, who
observed that computer processing speeds have been roughly doubling
every 18 months since the middle of the last century.
A little known but important corollary to Moore's Law is that the
energy density of the computer chip must increase at the same time,
for what is electronic circuitry but a conduit for the motion of
electrons. These electrons - the same ones which create static
electricity when you scuff your feet across the floor - collide with
atoms in the microscopic wires that carry them, causing friction and
releasing heat. Thus, as a computer processor becomes more powerful,
it must necessarily pump more electrons in an ever smaller space,
because even the short distances electrons travel inside of computer
chips introduce unwanted delays in computation.
Computer manufacturers have for years managed to keep up with
Moore's Law in much the same way the Russians successfully defended
against the Germans in World War II: they traded space for time.
Smaller spaces yielded shorter travel times, thus enabling faster
computer chips.
I'm sorry to say to the distinguished representative from
Washington State, there is no physical basis for hoping that smaller
electrons may be found in the future. Yes, Madame Chairperson, I am
about to come to the point, if I may be allowed to continue.
Thank you.
Now, the accompanying graphs show the progression of Moore's Law
for processing speeds (that's the one on the left) and the graph on
the right shows the corresponding increase in energy density (that's
the one on the right).
My discovery has to do with the energy density necessary to
achieve processor speeds which will undoubtedly be sought in the next
few years. The dashed line in both graphs represents data points
which have not yet occurred.
According to the graph, you can see that when processor speeds
reach a minimum of a Petahertz - which is approximately 1000 times
faster than today's microprocessors on a typical Wintel PC - the
energy density will require the output of a small electrical
substation to power a single Pentium XIX chip.
Furthermore, the energy requirements in just 30 years will be such
that a single home computer will require the energy output that is
currently used by the entire state of Delaware. Within my lifetime,
and within the lifetime of most of the members of this committee, the
energy requirements will exceed the energy currently used in the
entire states of Nevada, Oklahoma, and your home state of Washington
State.
Focusing the amount of energy we are talking about - assuming it
is even available to use - in such a small space, implemented in as
many workstations as we typically employ today, will have several
negative side effects.
The first of these is that the excess waste heat generated in the
environment is certainly going to increase the rate of global
warming; the calculations in appendix B of your handouts show that
the temperature of the earth will rise 8° in the first month
after the Pentium XIX is deployed, which will complete the melting of
the polar ice caps and force the complete evacuation of most U.S.
coastal cities.
This is a dramatic claim, but one that can be easily verified by
any high school physics student.
However, and I am finally getting to the point, Madame
Chairperson, energy has mass, which is a lesson we learned from
Albert Einstein many years ago. The amount of energy concentrated in
these Pentium XIX chips will be such that so many electrons will be
squeezed in so small a space in the name of computing efficiency that
a critical mass will result.
No, I do not mean such as occurs in a nuclear warhead. Instead,
this is far, far worse. What happens when mass is squeezed to this
degree, gravity can actually overwhelm the natural tendency that
electrons have to repel each other. Essentially, a process which
normally occurs in the centers of supernovae will be repeated in the
center of the Pentium XIX chip: the center of the CPU will become a
small black hole.
The density of a black hole is such that no material object can
contain it, and upon activation, I estimate that the core of each
Pentium chip will fall through the chip, the circuit board, and the
chassis of the computer, gaining mass as it goes, eventually coming
to rest at the center of the earth.
What happens then?
A small black hole - - not to mention tens of millions of them,
one generated by each power-up of the Pentium XIX chip - will eat
our planet form the inside out, and within the space of several weeks
the entire earth will be destroyed. I am not talking about radiation
effects, gravitational tide effects, or other known side effects of
black holes; I am merely including the mechanical stress on the earth
as it literally eats itself from the inside - not to mention the
time-warp effects as we fall into the black hole itself.
Madame Chairperson, esteemed committee members, we must stop this
event before it occurs. I urge you not to approve the petition from
the representative from Intel to allow development of this chip. It
will surely bring an end to life as we know it, and an end to the
American Way of Life.
At stake is not only our way of life, but of all human life on
this planet - indeed the existence of the planet itself. Briefing
papers have been inserted into your packets, with references and
signatories from all the major universities not affiliated with
Microsoft and Intel (both of them), judging them to be independent
parties in this matter.
Are there any questions?
Yes, there is an alternative. Instead of building ever-faster
computers to keep up with the computational demands placed upon them
by the gaming community, I would suggest a strategy of increasing the
efficiency and elegance of computer programs, which for the
foreseeable future could more than compensate for increased processor
speed, particularly in the Windows operating system PDQ. In fact,
there is an alternative already available which uses orders of
magnitude less energy than the current Pentium chip and which can
provide a more than adequate computing experience.
No, I won't need a power cord to power my portable computer. The
battery is sufficient for several hours of computing, unlike the
current thirty-three second battery lifetime of most Wintel portables
and their accompanying liquid-nitrogen closed-loop multistage CPU
coolant systems.
It's called a Macintosh, and I'll be happy to demonstrate one for
you during the break.
No, I'm sorry, you'll have to take that up with the Justice
Department, Madame.
Thank you for your time. Please consider these graphs as you make
your decision. I yield the remainder of my time for the members to
observe the demonstration.
Look, you can even hold this computer without fire-resistant
gloves.
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