Transistors are the greatest achievement in the Human History

Intel unveiled a 14nm chip a few months ago. (And rumor has it that they can go smaller. They said a few years ago that they saw a "clear path" to the 10nm node and that they'd have it by 2015, 7 years before the industry is expected to get there).

This is INSANE, considering that Silicon's crystal structure has a lattice constant of .543 nm. A TRANSISTOR IS LITERALLY TENS OF ATOMS ACROSS. And we do this with basically better versions of developing photographs, but even super-high-tech machines doing this work is like you drawing the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel on your thumbnail.

Seriously, transistors are by far the greatest accomplishment of humanity. It should literally be impossible to do some of the things we do. In them, we control the impossibly small, fast, and slight. Through them, we control the world.

I recommend reading "Silicon Earth" by JD Cressler to anybody interested in just how freaking cool Semiconductor Devices are.

Also read - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadwell_(microarchitecture)