How does the human brain store memories?
Our brains can store a lifetime of memories — faces, facts, experiences from decades ago. How does the brain physically store all that information? Where do memories 'live'? Why do we forget some things and remember others? Why are early childhood memories so fuzzy? Could the brain run out of room?
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2 Answers
There's a great explanation of this on the HowStuffWorks website, and the NASA site has good material too if it's space-related. Both are written for normal people, not scientists, so you won't get lost in jargon.
I'm a physics grad student and this is one of my favorite questions to explain. The key insight is that our everyday intuition doesn't always apply at extreme scales — very small (quantum), very large (cosmological), or very fast (relativistic).
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