“I etch a pattern of geometric shapes onto a stone. To the uninitiated, the shapes look mysterious and complex, but I know that when arranged correctly they will give the stone a special power, enabling it to respond to incantations in a language no human being has ever spoken. ...Yet my work involves no witchcraft. The stone is a wafer of silicon, and the incantations are software. The patterns etched on the chip and the programs that instruct the computer may look complicated
and mysterious, but they are generated according to a few basic principles that are easily explained.”