What is meant by the word 'now'? Most of us would think that 'now' is when we perceive something happening at the exact moment that it actually happens. This is of course incorrect. The fastest our Brain can process the information our senses supply it with is in a time of 80 milliseconds. This means that we can never actually know what is happening 'now', all we know is what happened a fraction of a second ago. This means that if the area you live in was attacked by a nuclear bomb, your brain would be destroyed before you would be able to process any pain as we live a fraction of a second in the past. Another factor that puts us slightly into the past is that electrical impulses in our body travel at about 115 meters per second (about 250mph) meaning that if we are driving a car at this speed and we don't see and obstacle 115 meters away, we will be dead before we even process what is happening. An experiment you could do at home is to tap yourself on your toe and your nose at the same time. now we know that you should feel the tap on your nose first as the information needs to travel a shorter distance to your brain. The reason why they are felt at the same time is because your brain doesn't instantly give you the feeling that you are being touched, rather it tries to detect any other touch on your body at the same time. This is a quick experiment that will show you that taller people live more in the past than shorter people. Another weird thing is that when we look in the mirror, it takes the light 3.335640952 x 10^-9 seconds to travel the meter or so to your mirror and back to your eyes. Added with the delays of processing information, this means that you can never see yourself in the mirror as you are right that instant.
Saturday 21 April 2012
WE LIVE IN THE PAST!
What is meant by the word 'now'? Most of us would think that 'now' is when we perceive something happening at the exact moment that it actually happens. This is of course incorrect. The fastest our Brain can process the information our senses supply it with is in a time of 80 milliseconds. This means that we can never actually know what is happening 'now', all we know is what happened a fraction of a second ago. This means that if the area you live in was attacked by a nuclear bomb, your brain would be destroyed before you would be able to process any pain as we live a fraction of a second in the past. Another factor that puts us slightly into the past is that electrical impulses in our body travel at about 115 meters per second (about 250mph) meaning that if we are driving a car at this speed and we don't see and obstacle 115 meters away, we will be dead before we even process what is happening. An experiment you could do at home is to tap yourself on your toe and your nose at the same time. now we know that you should feel the tap on your nose first as the information needs to travel a shorter distance to your brain. The reason why they are felt at the same time is because your brain doesn't instantly give you the feeling that you are being touched, rather it tries to detect any other touch on your body at the same time. This is a quick experiment that will show you that taller people live more in the past than shorter people. Another weird thing is that when we look in the mirror, it takes the light 3.335640952 x 10^-9 seconds to travel the meter or so to your mirror and back to your eyes. Added with the delays of processing information, this means that you can never see yourself in the mirror as you are right that instant.
What is meant by the word 'now'? Most of us would think that 'now' is when we perceive something happening at the exact moment that it actually happens. This is of course incorrect. The fastest our Brain can process the information our senses supply it with is in a time of 80 milliseconds. This means that we can never actually know what is happening 'now', all we know is what happened a fraction of a second ago. This means that if the area you live in was attacked by a nuclear bomb, your brain would be destroyed before you would be able to process any pain as we live a fraction of a second in the past. Another factor that puts us slightly into the past is that electrical impulses in our body travel at about 115 meters per second (about 250mph) meaning that if we are driving a car at this speed and we don't see and obstacle 115 meters away, we will be dead before we even process what is happening. An experiment you could do at home is to tap yourself on your toe and your nose at the same time. now we know that you should feel the tap on your nose first as the information needs to travel a shorter distance to your brain. The reason why they are felt at the same time is because your brain doesn't instantly give you the feeling that you are being touched, rather it tries to detect any other touch on your body at the same time. This is a quick experiment that will show you that taller people live more in the past than shorter people. Another weird thing is that when we look in the mirror, it takes the light 3.335640952 x 10^-9 seconds to travel the meter or so to your mirror and back to your eyes. Added with the delays of processing information, this means that you can never see yourself in the mirror as you are right that instant.
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