How fast is a character that can move at the Speed of Thought?

[promeus]

I know this may sound unquantifiable,but how fast would a character be if they could move at the speed of thought?

From my research a simple thought can be processed as low as 300-to 700 milliseconds.

How many machs would such a character be if they could move within this time concerning the situation below?Would they reach any at all?Where I got the thought from.

 

[I like Serena]

Well, that is not a speed - it is a time.

Taken literally, Athena would descend Mount Olympos in about half a second.
Since mount Olympos is 3 km high, that would make about 6 km/s, which is about mach 20, which would leave quite a shock wave.

An alternative interpretation (more like drab reality), is that Athena only "started" to descend mount Olympos in the time it took her to think of it.
No second thoughts - just immediate action.
For the story line there would be no difference at all.

 

[promeus]

Well, that is not a speed - it is a time.

Taken literally, Athena would descend Mount Olympos in about half a second.
Since mount Olympos is 3 km high, that would make about 6 km/s, which is about mach 20, which would leave quite a shock wave.

An alternative interpretation (more like drab reality), is that Athena only "started" to descend mount Olympos in the time it took her to think of it.
No second thoughts - just immediate action.
For the story line there would be no difference at all.

Oh thanks for the conclusion,and correcting my unit error. Mount Olympus in the series I was talking about actually has a higher elevation compared to its realistic counterpart.When the Titans were climbing it,they were rather dwarfed when compared,and these beings are generally taller than the empire state building (1250ft).I'll get more pictures and a calculation to further elaborate soon.

 

[Khashishi]

I would interpret the speed of thought as the speed of nerve impulses.
That depends on the organism and nerve type (especially if it's myelinated or not).
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_potential#Taxonomic_distribution_and_evolutionary_advantages
it says the conduction speed is somewhere around 30m/s, which is pretty slow.

 

[Rorkster2]

I'd agree with khashishi, i imagine that it would be as fast as the electrical nerve pulses can move inside the brain. But a thought isn't neccasarly all made in the same time. One thought could be a pulse activating a part of a brain which in turn sends a signal acrosse the brain to access a memory. On the other end a thought could be a complex repetition of electrical pulses that speed acrosse the brain many times in order to conjur the thought

 

[Ryan_m_b]

Speed is distance over time. It is meaningless to discuss speed of thought as it is not something traveling anywhere but an emergent property of traveling impulses.