BIS Review 95/1997  -2-  Thus, it should come as no surprise that, over the past century, by far the largest part of the growth in America’s real gross domestic product is the result of new insights and, more broadly, new information about how to rearrange physical reality to achieve ever-higher standards of living.
The amount of physical input into our real GDP, measured in bulk or weight, has contributed only modestly to economic growth since the turn of the century. We have, for example, dramatically reduced the physical bulk of our radios, by substituting transistors for vacuum tubes. Thin fiber optic cable has replaced huge tonnages of copper wire.