There are 86 billion neurons in the brain, what does this look like?
This is an orange:
Here it is in a NY sidewalk:
Next to the empire state building:
There are 86 billion neurons in the brain
Step 1 – volume of 86 billion oranges:
Volume of an orange is roughly 217.8 cm^3 –> converted to m^3 = 2.178 * 10^-4 m^3
Neurons in the brain (86 * 10^9) * (2.178*10^-4) = 18.7308 million m^3 of solid orange volume
Step 2 – Filling the entire volume of the empire state building in oranges:
This type of packing has been done many times, roughly, 0.61 (or 61%) of that space is comprised of (perfect) orange matter.
If each of the 86 billion neurons in the brain were the size of oranges, they would fit in 29.3 empire state buildings.
Let’s understand the scale (hard for me to even grasp):
Different neuron clusters are piecing together patterns depending on what we are doing, each one of our (adult) brains contains roughly 86 billion neurons (using AI to generate this image):
All fit into a brain, brain next to orange.
This is how truly densely and numerous neurons are inside our brains.
Now, let’s see how many miles that is in oranges:
That is
Your little brain (and mine) are a beautiful arrangement of this inconceivable number of neurons, allowing us to experience this world.
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