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About 200 years ago the brilliant mathematician Leonhard Euler calculated the constant pi for the area of a circle to 600 decimal places. This fabulous achievement took him several years. One of the first computers spat out the constant pi worked out to 2,000 decimal places in a few seconds. As a routine task a modern computer gives the constant pi to 100,000 decimal places in a nano second = 1 milliardth of a second. Why did Mayan priests far the hearts out of the living bodies of their victims' Was it perhaps the memory of a misunderstood technique of operating used by the 'gods'? Today the 'brain' of a computer, its central core, operates with about one million information units. In computer jargon they are called ‘bits’. The human brain works in a very similar fashion. Molecular memory units and nerve switches store and process information. The child in the cradle already stores it—even if unconsciously. Throughout our life we store information, so that we can call on it when The central core of a computer works with a precision of a quite different order. Our brain works with more than 15 milliard switches, whereas a large modern computer uses only 10 million. Further elements can be set up between the switches by cross connections. Then why does a computer work so much more reliably than our brain? Because generally nine-tenths of our brain lies fallow, but the computer always has all its bits present. supplying of information by the electronic wonder is still in its infancy. needed. Only too often we have to admit that our brain does not operate very reliably with the ‘hoarded' knowledge.