It's definitely fun to see some of the sci-fi predictions that seemed out there, and realize how the computers we have now are actually more amazing in many ways than what Asimov was describing there:
It was a nice feeling to have a Microvac of your own and Jerrodd was glad he was part of his generation and no other. In his father's youth, the only computers had been tremendous machines taking up a hundred square miles of land. There was only one to a planet. Planetary ACs they were called. They had been growing in size steadily for a thousand years and then, all at once, came refinement. In place of transistors had come molecular valves so that even the largest Planetary AC could be put into a space only half the volume of a spaceship.
... and here I usually go off to college with a computer in my pocket (phone), another computer on my keychain (a storage one), and a couple of computers in my backpack (tablet and laptop), also I could cart along my mobile wifi hub, Nintendo DS, and if I really wanted to could get a digital watch and blutooth headphones, and I
still probably wouldn't have as a many computing devices on me as some other people.
Now the population doubles every ten years --"
VJ-23X interrupted. "We can thank immortality for that."
To be honest, only a man would write that. I need to work out the maths for this, but it seems excessive. e.g. if each woman had two kids, around age 20, then became immortal, then each 20 years, you're creating another breeding pair for each previous breeding pair. But the total number of "current breeders" only goes up linearly. So you'd have to assume an average number of children > 2 per woman. Perhaps the average family size is 4, with a median mother's age of 20.
Then you'd get on average a doubling of the breeding population every 20 years (1 couple turned into two couples). But this is
still only half the doubling rate Asimov suggests. Therefore either the mother's average age of birth is 10 years (all the nopes) or each mother is giving birth to
8 kids on average, at a median age of 20. Assuming 18 months as the minimum between kids for healthy babies, the mother needs to pop out 8 kids over 12 years centered on age 20, for Asimov's numbers to work out, so they start'em young in Asimov world.
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Topic: Tech News. Automation, Engineering, Environment Etc (Read 248271 times)