Physics and information technology: an interplay between science and engineering

In the last decade of this century and millennium, the computer and communication revolution has shown its power to transform the society. In this talk I will reflect on my personal experience of witnessing this revolution from an observation post in Silicon Valley. In particular, I will emphasize the role of physics and the interplay between science and engineering in this development. Information technology is often viewed as based on some physics discoveries and inventions such as the transistor and the semiconductor laser. Much of the subsequent development, the integrated circuit being a good example, has been an engineering feat. With shrinking dimensions of the circuits we are approaching the quantum limitations, requiring new types of computer architectures based on fundamental physics concepts. In this context we may ask if we should include the basic concepts of information and information handling as part of physics. Finally I will include some remarks on the views of physics as seen in the eyes of a group of politicians. This is based on a personal experience as past chairman of a parliamentary committee on science policy in Sweden.