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Memristor Breakthrough: First Single Device to Act Like a Neuron

spectrum.ieee.org

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Re: Memristor Breakthrough: First Single Device to Act Like a Neuron

#111

The news article mentions that the student on the paper has passed away. He died of suicide in his lab just a couple weeks after the paper was submitted to Nature [0]. Grad school is hard for a lot of people. Find someone to talk to if you're struggling. [0] https://padailypost.com/2019/02/16/engineering-student-found...

See: "Grad school is worse for public health than STDs" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21749279

And my comment there. And also my comment here (which links to more): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21629112

A good resource on suicide prevention: https://www.metanoia.org/suicide/ "When pain exceeds pain-coping resources, suicidal feelings are the result. Suicide is neither wrong nor right; it is not a defect of character; it is morally neutral. It is simply an imbalance of pain versus coping resources. You can survive suicidal feelings if you do either of two things: (1) find a way to reduce your pain, or (2) find a way to increase your coping resources. Both are possible."

A Basic Income could make a big difference to make it possible for people to live a graduate student lifestyle without the stress of navigating the social dysfunction of many (not all) graduate programs...

Re: Memristor Breakthrough: First Single Device to Act Like a Neuron

#112
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the slow "clock speed" the brain runs at, it produces a lot of heat. A quick search turns up 10-20 watts as a rough estimate. It's still petty competitive given what it's capable of.

Why do you say slow "clock speed"? Can we even use clock speed w.r.t brain? Genuinely curious.

It's a very rough analogy. The brain doesn't work like a computer chip, but it does work much slower than modern chips in neuron firings per second.
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