How the Human Brain Contends With the Strangeness of Zero | Quanta Magazine

The brain remains the single most sophisticated object in the known universe—by a staggering margin—even in an era of mobile devices, spacecraft, and particle accelerators. It outpaces our most powerful supercomputers, all within a volume measured in cubic inches, powered by nothing more than a fraction of the calories we consume each day. The stor

To understand math is to reprogram your intuition. It is, above all, a matter of neuroplasticity. The secret techniques of mathematicians are neither more nor less paranormal than those that allowed Ben Underwood to see the world by clicking his tongue. As long as we treated our mental activity as something magical, mathematics was fundamentally im

The brain has a certain computing capacity which may be enhanced but not indefinitely. There is only so much sensory information that neural networks can process.

But neurons are slow, so in that half a second, the information entering your brain can only traverse a chain one hundred neurons long. That is, the brain “computes” solutions to problems like this in one hundred steps or fewer, regardless of how many total neurons might be involved.