Is the messages to the brain travel faster than light?

Answer 1

No. A long time ago, in a book I read as a kid, I saw the speed of nerve conduction
given as 123 meters per second ... about 275 miles per hour, and only about 36%
the speed of sound.

I don't know how true that number is. After all, when I was a kid, the meter had
just been invented and people were still just learning how to use it. But it does
make the point that the speed of "messages" through the body from one place to
another is not instantaneous, and it's not the speed of light, and it's not even the
speed of electric current through a wire.

If it's actually 123 meters per second and I stub my toe, it takes about 0.014 second
for my brain to get the message and register pain. That's a considerable amount of
time ... long enough for the sound of the "clunk" to be heard almost 16 feet away, in
the next room.

For that matter ... my own ears have heard the "clunk" before the message has
reached my brain by way of my toe nerves and spinal cord, and my brain is sitting
there saying "Oh wow, man, I heard that ! That's gonna hurt when it gets here !"