The Connections in the Brain

Two neurons can communicate with each other at a synapse, which is the computational unit in the brain. The typical cortical synapse is less than a micron in diameter (10-6 meter), near the resolution limit of the light microscope. If the economy of the world is a stretch for us to contemplate, thinking about all the synapses in your head is mind-boggling. If I had a dollar for every synapse in your brain, I could support the current economy of the world for ten years. Cortical neurons on average fire once a second, which implies a bandwidth of around 1015 bits per second, greater than the total bandwidth of the Internet backbone. How many seconds will the sun shine? 1017 sec Our sun has shined for billions of years and will continue to shine for billions more. The universe seems to be standing still during our lifetime, but on longer time scales the universe is filled with events of enormous violence. The spatial scales are also immense. Our space-time trajectory is a very tiny part of the universe, but we can at least attach powers of 10 to it and put it into perspective.

Notes:

Terrence Sejnowski on the incredible three-pound universe.

Folksonomies: neurology

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This Will Make You Smarter

Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Brockman , John (2012-02-14), This Will Make You Smarter, HarperCollins, Retrieved on 2013-12-19

Source Material [books.google.com]

Folksonomies: science