In the early 1990s, our long accepted (cc 1926) understanding of how a nerve encodes and conveys information was unexpectedly overturned by experiments on fast flying bats and insects. Around 1995, we began to realize we no longer knew what neurons actually do.

In the years since, many competing hypotheses have been advanced, suggesting various alternate neural encoding schemes. But the question of how a nerve communicates remains unanswered. It is a huge, gaping hole, at the most basic level, in our understanding of how the nervous system works.

The theoretical payoff is enormous. Suddenly the brain, which operates on impulses moving at velocities barely better than highway speeds – becomes in theory a dazzlingly fast and competent thinking machine. Which is, of course, exactly what the brain is in real life.