Mindstein maneuvers the Saffron Submersible again for a few moments. From this vantage point, it is easier to see several gates on the neuron.

All is silent in the Saffron Submersible as everyone watches the blazing display of color and movement as several neural impulses pass by. Mindstein speaks quietly: “The neural impulse is really a thing of beauty. A delicate dance of sodium and potassium ions that propagates itself down the length of the axon. Quite a remarkable adaptation for a cell, don’t you think?”

Silence returns as students sit, awestruck, by the remarkable dance unfolding in front of their eyes. Finally one student speaks up. “Professor, how fast is the neural impulse? Since we are watching it take place and the neuron is very small, it must be quite slow.”

Mindstein replies, “Oh, it is much faster than it looks: faster than the blink of an eye, in fact. But since we are so small, we are experiencing time dilation as well. It’s all relative, you see. But to answer your question a little more precisely, the neural impulse travels about 1 or 2 meters per second in neurons like the one we are looking at. If you think about it, that is a rather slow rate of travel. If all neurons were so slow, it would take nearly a full second for an impulse from the toe of a tall basketball player to reach his brain. That would be intolerably slow. So neurons have another trick up their sleeve that allows them to send messages much, much faster.”