That 3D graph is not the best. As with the 2D graph, time is on the x-axis. That’s the bottom right of the graph pushing to the right. As with the 2D graph, the y-axis (which is the vertical axis) represents the level of technological development.

The third axis, the z-axis (which you see at the bottom left of the graph pushing further into the illustration), represents other areas of technological development that are brought about by advances in computation. Their development is also exponential.

I used “Mr. Spock’s chessboard” as another way to explain this. Rice on a chessboard is a good way to explain the power of doubling. But this doubling trend – computation – has the power to spawn other doubling trends which may feedback into the original doubling trend, other spawned trends, or may spawn entirely new trends.

For example, improvements in computation lead to improved understanding of quantum mechanics which may allow us to continue to improve computation when our ability to shrink transitors onto an integrated circuit runs out.

Clearly we are at the beginning of something very powerful.

Nevertheless, thanks for this nice summary!

Tuur