SPEED THAT EXCEEDS THOUGHT.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVII, Issue 10238, 30 August 1909, Page 2

SPEED THAT EXCEEDS THOUGHT.

The phrase, "as quick as thought" : s familiar enough, but compared with other forms of energy thought cannot claim any great credit for the swiftness with which its behests are carried out. For example, light travels through space at the rate of 186,000 miles per second, and electricity similarly puts a girdle around the earth at a speed well nigh incalculably swift. Our own mental and nervous processes vary greatly in individual cases in respect of their speed. It is curious to reflect that the characteristics of a person in regard to his particular mode of getting through life probably depend largely on the rate of discharge of his nervous force from nerve cells to and through his nerves. The question has arisen how fast nervous impulses travel along nerves, and at what rate, therefore, are thoughts we conceive when transformed into nerve force propagated from the brain' to the muscles they are destined to bring into play. Nerve force, according to an eminent authority, has been duly measured in respect of its speed by aid of the elaborate apparatus with which the physiological laboratory is to-day supplied. In man the average rate has been set down at about 114 feet per second. Hitherto scientists have been discussing the rate at which messages of the bodily telegraph system are sent from nerve centres along motor nervesor those destined to bring muscles into play. But a second class of nerves exist in the body, and these last are called sensory, because their duty lies in the opposite direction. They convey messages from the body to the nerve centres, these last acting, like the police, on information received, and dealing with such messages as occasion and our bodily interests demand. It would seem that conduction in the sensory nerves is quicker than in the motor ones.

Investigators give different rates, varying from about 168 feet to 675 feet per second ; an overage rate being about '2S2 feet. Possibly the increased rates depend on the fact that it is by means of our sensory or inward going nerves that we gain information regarding our surroundings; intelligence, this, which has often to be quickly acted upon in the preservation and interests of safety of the body.

The physiologist has made many interesting studies regarding what is called our reaction time. Hero we endeavour to calculate the interval which elapses hetwecn the impression made on our organ of sense and the making of a signal which registers the impression as received by the brain and translated into terms of consciousness. Helmholtz stimulated one hand, while the other signalled the receipt ,of the impression. Different results due, no doubt, to the varying nervous capacities of the individuals, were obtained. In one series the interval averaged the 0.1087 part of a second, and in another 0.1911.