going, how large it is, what it is. Your brain processes incredibly fast. Then you can coordinate, your hands go up and you catch it. It's an astonishingly complicated thing to do. And you do it generally without thinking. So, that's something that brains are really, really good at. Solving that kind of problem. We don't think it's a big deal. But there's not a computer or robot in the world that could have sat in the front row and done what you just did. Right, so my second paper because that's an illustration of the brain thinking fast is to do something a machine will find very easy to solve. I take this piece of paper and fold it in half, fold in half again, and I keep doing that. You realise after a few times, six or seven times, I can't keep folding it. But imagine I could keep folding it. I folded it that way 100 times. Right? How thick would it be? How thick would that piece of paper be? SPEAKER: If you folded it so many times... DAVID HALPERN: It'll be incredibly narrow. The question is how high does it end up, roughly speaking? Can I get someone? SPEAKER: (Inaudible) DAVID HALPERN: No, it's going to be more than that. SPEAKER: 'Cause it goes on and on and on. DAVID HALPERN: Exactly. So, roughly, distance wise? SPEAKER: (Inaudible) DAVID HALPERN: What's that? Four metres to the moon, someone said. Let me just tell you what the answer is. Roughly speaking. So, to give you a sense, that's the entire Milky Way. Right? It would be about 10 times bigger than that. OK? Because it's an exponential function. You go home, talk to your kids, you figure it out on the calculator, you'll see it's about that sort of size. It's in some sense an incredibly simple calculation. You put in the thickness of the paper and then it's the exponential of 100. We're rubbish at it, right. We're not very good at that kind of thing. So it's not surprising we tend to make certain kinds of errors when we make decisions about sensible things to do with our
going, how large it is, what it is. Your brain processes incredibly fast. Then you can coordinate, your hands go up and you catch it. It's an astonishingly complicated thing to do. And you do it generally without thinking. So, that's something that brains are really, really good at. Solving that kind of problem. We don't think it's a big deal. But there's not a computer or robot in the world that could have sat in the front row and done what you just did. Right, so my second paper because that's an illustration of the brain thinking fast is to do something a machine will find very easy to solve. I take this piece of paper and fold it in half, fold in half again, and I keep doing that. You realise after a few times, six or seven times, I can't keep folding it. But imagine I could keep folding it. I folded it that way 100 times. Right? How thick would it be? How thick would that piece of paper be? SPEAKER: If you folded it so many times... DAVID HALPERN: It'll be incredibly narrow. The question is how high does it end up, roughly speaking? Can I get someone? SPEAKER: (Inaudible) DAVID HALPERN: No, it's going to be more than that. SPEAKER: 'Cause it goes on and on and on. DAVID HALPERN: Exactly. So, roughly, distance wise? SPEAKER: (Inaudible) DAVID HALPERN: What's that? Four metres to the moon, someone said. Let me just tell you what the answer is. Roughly speaking. So, to give you a sense, that's the entire Milky Way. Right? It would be about 10 times bigger than that. OK? Because it's an exponential function. You go home, talk to your kids, you figure it out on the calculator, you'll see it's about that sort of size. It's in some sense an incredibly simple calculation. You put in the thickness of the paper and then it's the exponential of 100. We're rubbish at it, right. We're not very good at that kind of thing. So it's not surprising we tend to make certain kinds of errors when we make decisions about sensible things to do with our