this is a question in terms of my understanding of the timeframe of the concept of consensus. I am understanding it in a linear sequence- meaning that AFTER consensus is reached, a transaction occurs. I want to double check that understanding because I want to make sure that I understand that this happens sequentially, instead of occurring at the same time (meaning that is there a general threshold that is met for it to be said that there is consensus, and it is met, and the transaction is done, or, does verifying a transaction continue on for some time before it stops? Do the computers ever stop verifying if that is the case?) Are the number of computers in a network a fixed number, or is it open-ended where new computers are added fluidly?
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Each node when it receives a tx it verifies it independently. It does that before it puts the tx into its mempool or when it receives a new block of transactions where it verifies them again. 
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thank you for your reply— it seems like the data goes from tx-mempool-ledger (if confirmed).is the mempool specific to the node? meaning each node will have its own mempool before syncing to the concensus-reached ledger.
^correct?
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Correct each node has its own mempool and its not necessary that all nodes have the same content. Because not all txs might propagated to the node yet.
Miner nodes when constructing a block will pick txs from its own mempool at the time and then propagate the new block to the network.
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