The smartphone that is probably within arm’s reach of you now has more computing power than the Apollo missions to the moon. No, really.
Before we get into the jaw-dropping info on this graphic, I would like to take a second to note that “teraflop” and “petaflop” are actual technical terms, and that that is awesome. Ok, back to business.
Not only is your smartphone more powerful than the Apollo missions, but your PS4 is more powerful than the late 90’s supercomputer that first beat a human at chess. 150 times more powerful, in fact. But here’s the thing that’s really going to bust your noggin – there’s more computing power in a singing birthday card than the entire Allied Forces possessed during WWII.
But the really fun stuff here is Moore’s Law and the future. Gordon Moore noted in the 70’s that the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit was doubling approximately every two years, and predicted that it would continue to do so. In 2015 the man himself expressed doubt that his “law” would hold up for much longer, as the physical limits of cramming transistors onto a circuit is reached, but we’ll see! Quantum computing, I’m looking at you.
Dive deeper into the history of computing with this infographic about the evolution of the microprocessor.