| When there is a battle for processing speed | | | | On the other hand, your brain which is made up |
| between your brain and the computer that you | | | | with one trillion cells with 100 trillion connections |
| use for your daily work, which one do you think | | | | between those cells, can understand any number |
| will emerge as the winner? | | | | of speakers. It may even understand multiple |
| Most people have something like a Pentium | | | | languages at the same time. Your brain can also |
| computer running Windows, or a Macintosh. A | | | | process complex visual images, control your entire |
| computer like this can execute approximately 100 | | | | body, understand conceptual problems and create |
| million instructions per second; your particular | | | | new ideas. |
| computer at home may run twice that fast or | | | | You brain can also store memory that up to as |
| slower. | | | | long as 100 years, with a total "hard disk space" |
| But in this world, the fastest computer in the | | | | of about 5 million MB, or even more? When you |
| world is your brain, the most unbelievable element | | | | are in your 80s, the times when you enjoyed |
| of a human body. Why do I say so? Let me just | | | | when you were young, you can recall them in a |
| give you some examples to further support my | | | | matter of seconds, which is much faster than a |
| point. | | | | personal computer provided it can survive at top |
| Just imagine that your personal computer is just | | | | performance for more than 10 years. |
| starting to understand human speech, and starting | | | | There is a super computer that is built by a |
| to take dictation. It can only understand one | | | | Japanese company, which has a theoretical |
| speaker and the dictation software will definitely | | | | maximum speed of 1 petaflop (1 guadrillion |
| make a lot of mistake. Therefore, with 100 million | | | | operations per second), which is pretty fast, but |
| instructions per second, your particular computer | | | | still is not as fast as your brain. |
| may not be able to handle it. | | | | |