You hold in your hands the first special issue of Technology Review for 2000. It's on a subject we think will increase in importance not just through this year but for the rest of the decade and perhaps for the rest of the new century. That subject: What happens after current silicon-based computing technologies begin to reach the limits of their rapid increase in speed?

For the last four decades, computers have presented a remarkable picture. While dramatically increasing in speed and computing power, they've also dropped precipitously in price. Underlying this pattern is a rule of thumb known as "Moore's Law," named for Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, who formulated it in the 1960s. Moore hypothesized that engineers would be able to squeeze more circuit elements into integrated circuits at a pace that represented a doubling every year or so.