You’ll be surprised to know that a computer can only do one thing at a time. Only one. Really!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sometimes, your computer chip might contain multiple “cores”, but at the core level, it can basically do only one thing at a time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You may ask, “So does my computer use 10 cores when I have 10 programs open at the same time?”, and the answer is “No”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So how can the computer “multitask” by doing so many things simultaneously?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The answer is – that it’s able to only do one thing at a time, but it’s able to do that thing very fast. Extremely fast! Like 0.3 nanoseconds fast!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
(How quick is 0.3ns? Blink your eyes. That just took about 3 million times longer than 0.3ns)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By doing its tasks quickly, it is able to finish one thing and move on to the next thing so quickly, that it looks like 2 things happening at once.<\/p>\n\n\n\n