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has been estimated that the human brain is capable of thinking a
lot of thoughts. A figure was put on these thoughts by Pyotr Anokin
of Moscow in 1968 whose research calculated that the total number
of possible thought patterns was 1 followed by 10.5 million zeros.
That is a very large number. So large in fact that it vastly outnumbers
the number of particles in the universe which is 1 with just 80
zeros after it.
You can
do this calculation yourself as we know the mass of the average
solar system, we know how many solar systems in the average galaxy
and we know how many galaxies in the known universe. In that mass
we know that it's made of a certain number of atoms, each with a
certain number of subatomic particles. Even taking into account
quarks and mesons. And even taking into account proposed dark matter.
But that's an 'average universe' I hear you say, ok so we'll make
all our guesses above average. We’ll be very generous. It
still comes to 1 followed by 80 zeros. There's nothing you can do
to push it to 1 followed by 81 zeros. Even if you go mad and say
the universe is twice the size it is it would only be 2 followed
by 80 zeros.
The number
of particles in the universe is this: 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.
So what does 1 followed by 10.5 million zeros look like? The average
novel has around 400,000 characters in it. If I was to type out
the number of thoughts our brains could have it would mean I would
have to type out a 1 followed by enough zeros to fill around 27
novels. Our brains have an awful lot of potential don’t they?
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