scott wrote:
>> As an aside... How much heat does the human brain generate?
> 
> Given 
> that the human body generates about 100W, I think the 6W figure is too 
> low, as some of the heat from the brain will be taken into the body by 
> the blood stream (liquid cooling!).  I guess around 20W would be a more 
> sensible figure.

http://vadim.oversigma.com/MAS862/Project.html

Suggests that the entire body consumes about 100W, and the brain itself 
uses 20 - 40 W. (So... a pretty significant fraction, considering that 
the human body is *not* a data processing device, primarily.) That's how 
much energy it *uses*, I wonder how much of that ends up as heat?

>> (By every estimate I've seen, it has vastly superior theoretical 
>> computational power compared to any supercomputer yet built by man.)
> 
> If my computer were as slow as me doing sums it would probably run on 
> solar power in the dark!  And if I tried to do 3 billion sums in one 
> second my head would surely explode.

Well, you say that, but how many "sums" does it take to compare a 
snippet of sound to many millions of other recorded examples like it and 
determine that, yes, this is The Beetles singing "All you need is love"?

The human brain doesn't work the same way a computer does. This isn't 
exactly news. Indeed, this is why computers are useful in the first 
place! But based on the number of switching elements in a computer vs 
those in the brain, AFAIK the brain comes out rather favourably.

(The same website above gives the number of transisters in a Pentium IV 
as K * 10^7, while the number of neurons in a brain is K * 10^11. Kind 
of a big difference...)

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