wat is brainwave?

Philosoft

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A brainwave is the measure of the total electrical activity of the brain at time T. It is measured with an electroencephalograph, which provides a graphical representation of the activity.

Reductively, a brainwave is the interaction of the electrical activity within every neuron. Brainwaves have recognizible patterns which fall into four categories: alpha, beta, delta, theta.
 
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Deamiter

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Brains don't actually emit any kind of wave like that. It's actually not a wave in a physical sense. It is only called a brain wave because the activity in the different types of brain waves is pretty periodic. As Philosoft said, it is only a measurement of electrical activity, or the sum of all the electrons emitted by neurons in the brain.

Nothing actually gets outside the brain except some rogue electrical signals that are picked up by electrodes in an EEG (again as Philosoft said). There is a very minute magnetic field as with any electrical current, but it is so small that it is very difficult to measure -- especially outside the body!

I assume that you were wondering about telepathy (since you asked about transverse/longitudinal) and waves that are emitted, but I can assure you that there is nothing emitted by the brain except for this tiny magnetic field. If telepathy truly existed (based on these magnetic fields), the magnetic field from a person standing next to you would be washed out a million times by the magnetic field in your home!

In essence, the label 'wave' is a bit of a misnomer. Brain waves are waves the same way that a clock is a wave. They both have regular patterns, but neither gives off any sort of physical disturbance that is normally called a wave in physics.
 
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Philosoft

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quantumspirit said:
do brains emit whole photons, something both electric and magnetic, I was thinking something ELF (extremely low frequency) or SLF (Super low frequency)?
There are a number of differing opinions about the total possible output of the brain. The average action potential amounts to perhaps 40 mV at its peak, but there's no consensus on how much of that is in the 2-40 Hz range that shows up on an EEG. High estimates put the total electrical output of the brain at 10 watts or so, but that's an extrapolation to a brainstate wherein all neurons fire at once - something that's exceedingly unlikely to occur.
 
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quantumspirit

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Deamiter said:
I assume that you were wondering about telepathy (since you asked about transverse/longitudinal) and waves that are emitted, but I can assure you that there is nothing emitted by the brain except for this tiny magnetic field. If telepathy truly existed (based on these magnetic fields), the magnetic field from a person standing next to you would be washed out a million times by the magnetic field in your home!
No, but now that you mention it, yes! Maybe telepathy does exist in limited form, and only to those whose brains are wired to transmit and receive some form of electromagnetic communication. I am not suggesting mind reading, but things like moods and strong emotions can be shared by such persons with no face-to-face communication, which would include "body language". It would be like these brains had radio transmitters, but at an ultra low frequency.
 
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