Moore soon hired Mead as a consultant, and for many years, the Caltech visionary spent each Wednesday at Intel’s facilities in Silicon Valley. Though Gordon Moore had first graphed the exponential increase in transistor density in his famous 1965 article, Mead coined the term “Moore’s Law” to describe it. “In the next ten years,” Mead predicted in 1972, “every facet of our society will be automated to some degree.” He envisioned “a tiny computer deep down inside of our telephone, or our washing machine, or our car” as these silicon chips became pervasive and inexpensive.
