Software, from First Principles

When you use your smartphone or laptop, it is easy to forget the sheer absurdity of the physical reality underneath. Behind that seamless experience lies centuries of effort from physicists, chemists, mathematicians, engineers, programmers, and designers. Inside your device is a slice of literal rock, purified to near perfection and carved with microscopic circuits. By just controlling the flow of electrons inside these circuits, we are able to make the rock calculate, remember, and think for us, sparing us the mental effort. A single operation takes less than a nanosecond, allowing your device to perform billions of calculations in the time it takes you to blink. This all works so seamlessly that, as users, we are spared from all the complexity, freeing us to simply focus on the task at hand.