X-Message-Number: 21419
Date: Tue, 18 Mar 2003 10:48:30 -0800
From: Pat Clancy <>
Subject: Re: math and the end of the universe
References: <>

Responding to randy:

 >> So, let's see, the human brain has on the order of 10^15
 >>synapses. Even if each synapse could have only 2 states (which is not
 >>the case), that's 2^(10^15) states, which is slightly larger than
 >>10^10^14 (that's 10 following by 10^14 zeroes).  So the size of the
 >>training data set is on the order of this size. A neural net will need
 >>on the order of thousands of training iterations; let's assume just
 >>1000. Now assuming each training iteration took just a nanosecond
 >>(highly unrealistic), that's (10^3)*(10^(10^14))*(10^(-9)) =
 >>10^((10^14)-6) seconds, still approx. 10^10^14 seconds.

 >
 > Hmmm. I think I disagree.  Assuming a minimum Order of 10*(10^14), ==
 > 10^15, I get (10^3)*(10^15)*(10^(-9)) == 10^(3+14-9) == 109 seconds
 > required to train the network.
 >

No, it's not 10*(10^14), it's 10^(10^14). (I should have parenthesized 
10^10^14 to make it clearer). That is, 10 followed by 10^14 zeroes, not 
10 followed by 15 zeroes. Your subsequent conclusions are therefore 
based on an incorrect number.

Pat Clancy

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