The Speed of Code
Your computer does 3 billion operations every second.
Let's zoom INTO one second and see what's really happening.
Use scroll wheel or arrow keys to zoom through time
Your computer does 3 billion operations every second.
Let's zoom INTO one second and see what's really happening.
Use scroll wheel or arrow keys to zoom through time
A second feels instant to us. But to a computer, it's an eternity.
Scroll to zoom into this second...
1 second = 1,000 milliseconds
A human blink takes about 150ms. Your computer can run millions of instructions in that time!
1 second = 1,000,000 microseconds
Sound travels just 0.3mm in a microsecond. Your CPU executes thousands of instructions in this time!
1 second = 1,000,000,000 nanoseconds
Light itself only travels 30cm in a nanosecond. This is where a single CPU cycle happens!
Computers are unbelievably fast
In the time you say "one", a computer completes 3 billion operations
Before you can even react, a computer has done 600 million things
Learn to write code and command billions of operations!
For teachers Computer science fundamentals, middle school through introductory college courses
In class: Billions of instructions a second: a good hook for why efficiency matters.
Students need no account and nothing to install, so it works on Chromebooks and as a sub plan.
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