full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Henry Markram: A brain in a supercomputer

Unscramble the Blue Letters

And we've got the mathematics to describe this pscroes. So we can describe the communication between the neurons. There literally are only a hnfudal of equations that you need to simulate the avtctiiy of the neocortex. But what you do need is a very big computer. And in fact you need one ltaopp to do all the calculations just for one neuron. So you need 10,000 laptops. So where do you go? You go to IBM, and you get a supercomputer, because they know how to take 10,000 laptops and put it into the size of a refrigerator. So now we have this Blue Gene supercomputer. We can load up all the neurons, each one on to its processor, and fire it up, and see what happens. Take the magic crapet for a ride.

Open Cloze

And we've got the mathematics to describe this _______. So we can describe the communication between the neurons. There literally are only a _______ of equations that you need to simulate the ________ of the neocortex. But what you do need is a very big computer. And in fact you need one ______ to do all the calculations just for one neuron. So you need 10,000 laptops. So where do you go? You go to IBM, and you get a supercomputer, because they know how to take 10,000 laptops and put it into the size of a refrigerator. So now we have this Blue Gene supercomputer. We can load up all the neurons, each one on to its processor, and fire it up, and see what happens. Take the magic ______ for a ride.

Solution

  1. carpet
  2. process
  3. handful
  4. activity
  5. laptop

Original Text

And we've got the mathematics to describe this process. So we can describe the communication between the neurons. There literally are only a handful of equations that you need to simulate the activity of the neocortex. But what you do need is a very big computer. And in fact you need one laptop to do all the calculations just for one neuron. So you need 10,000 laptops. So where do you go? You go to IBM, and you get a supercomputer, because they know how to take 10,000 laptops and put it into the size of a refrigerator. So now we have this Blue Gene supercomputer. We can load up all the neurons, each one on to its processor, and fire it up, and see what happens. Take the magic carpet for a ride.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
human brain 4
perceptual bubble 3
neocortical columns 3
neocortical column 3
brain works 2
grand piano 2
digital models 2
pine tree 2
electrical objects 2

Important Words

  1. activity
  2. big
  3. blue
  4. calculations
  5. carpet
  6. communication
  7. computer
  8. describe
  9. equations
  10. fact
  11. fire
  12. gene
  13. handful
  14. ibm
  15. laptop
  16. laptops
  17. literally
  18. load
  19. magic
  20. mathematics
  21. neocortex
  22. neuron
  23. neurons
  24. process
  25. processor
  26. put
  27. refrigerator
  28. ride
  29. simulate
  30. size
  31. supercomputer