Computers keep getting faster and faster and now intel is unvailing the pentuim 4. in terms of MHz and Random Access Memory (RAM), how fast would the average human brain be? with these newer computer chips would computers eventually be able to surpass the speed and intelect of the human mind? sounds evil but i think i here Terminator music playing…
I’d always heard–even as far back as the old 286s from my childhood–that computers already -were- faster than the human brain.
But smarter? Not by a longshot. By itself–the computer at it’s core is only capable of very very mundane decisions. At least from what I understand.
-Ashley
Honda just unveiled a bipedal robot that walks stably. scary…
The movie is here
IIRC, the human brain runs at only 47 mhz but is MASSIVELY parallel.
–Tim
I guess it depends on whether you’re discussing “fast” in terms of FLOPS, or transmission speed, or something else.
In terms of transmission speed, a human brain is significantly slower than a computer. Computer electrical impulses move at a speed approaching c; neural impulses in myelinated tissue move at about 100 m/s, one three-millionth or so of computer transmission speeds.
In terms of OPS or FLOPS, though… well, that’s rather hard to say. I would guess a human brain is still faster. You have about a billion neurons in your brain, and probably twenty percent of those are involved in non-motor non-life-support endeavours–that is, in cognition of some sort. So, say two hundred million neurons involved in cognition. Each of these is much better than a transistor, which interprets two impulses and allows one exit impulses. A human cognition interneuron might interpret from as many as ten thousand signals, and output to just as many downstream neurons. (Talk about your fuzzy logic). The latest IC chips, by contrast, have about five million on/off transistors.
Therefore, my guess is that the human brain is still faster in terms of processing power.
Now, for simple operations a computer is undoubtedly faster. But I have serious doubts that we could build a computer which, given as its only input video of a baseball pop-fly in flight, could calculate the approximate trajectory of the ball in thre dimensions from the video, determine the ball’s landing point, and at the same time cause robot legs to run to that very spot and catch the ball.
LL
Signals traverse human neurons at speeds of about 30M/sec (100 F/sec).
The signal speed in modern microprocessors is ~210,000 km/sec (~0.7 lightspeed propagation for electrons in a conductor).
The ratio of signal speed is thus ~7,000,000:1 with the chip having the advantage. The human brain makes up for it’s speed deficit by using both cleverly assembled hardware, and highly optimized software that takes full advantage of the cpu-like features of each cell.
Actually, Lazarus, its about 200m/s. in each nerve cell, however, the impulses move at the speed of light (ie electricity) it is when the impulse passes across the gap between two nerve cells (called the synapse) that it slows down because a transmitter chemical has to move across the gap.
uhhh…ummmm… not very… uhhh fast… but… ummm, like, uhhh… we can do it… uhhhh better than, ummmm… those… uhhhh… komputerz… ummm, I uhhh think…
Um… no. I wish impulses travelled through my nerve cells at the speed of light.
Remember that it’s not really an electrical impulse that travels along your nerve cells, but a membrane potential difference that travels along neural membranes. The sudden high interior sodium concentration caused by an action potential causes the sodium channels near it to open, increasing the sodium concentration a few micrometers away, and propagating the action potential.
In the faster nerve cells–the ones with myelinated axons–this same thing happens, but because of the interesting insulating properties of the Scwann cells (in the periphery) or oligodendrocytes (in the central nervous system), the action potentials only propagate within the Nodes of Ranvier–between the nodes, the AP actually does jump rather quickly, but it’s due to ion diffusion both inside and outside the cell. This ion diffusion is faster than action potential propagation along a membrane, but is still not even a significant fraction of the speed of light.
FTR, according to Zigmond, Bloom, et al., Fundamental Neuroscience (an extremely thick and purple book that I used for my Neuroscience classes) the fastest propagation of an AP along an axon is about 120 m/s in large myelinated axons. Thin myelinated axons see speeds of 5 to 10 m/s.
LL <-- M.S. in Neuroscience
How hard can you throw it?
(sorry… had to be said… I’ll shut up now)
" its about 200m/s" Wow, I better run after it.
Engaging post pad mode…NOW!
Ever heard the grinding of a computer over something? Once computers are totally instant for everything they will rival human brains.
This is totally unanswerable. You may as well ask which is faster, a computer or a kidney. They are not even remotely comparable.