Split (3)

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What does it mean as Paul Halmos says in his Naive Set Theory that "nothing contains everything"	[ "It simply means that there's no set that contains every possible element, and that we can't arbitrarily define any set we want.\n\nSet theory defines objects called \"sets\", which are simply collections of elements. For a given set, every possible element either is or isn't in this set. So given a set and an elem...
Why can't you "uncook" something?	[ "Most of what your asking is covering the difference between a physical change and a chemical change. :\n\n_URL_2_\n_URL_1_\n\nIn short a physical change would be melting ice or cutting up a stick of butter. It's different in form but essentially the same. \n\nChemical changes alter the chemical composition of some...
Why do Americans always cheer when they hear their hometown/state?	[ "Psychological tribalism. You associate with a group, so attention paid to that group can be seen as attention paid to you. You may not have strong association with your city/state, but what about your local/favorite sports team? If a comedian did a set on the same day a local team was playing, wouldn't he immediat...
Why does building a robot like the mars rover cost so much money?	[ "Are you talking about the Curiosity rover that is said to have cost $2.5 billion?\n\nIf so, some clarification might be warranted.\n\nNASA spread the $2.5 billion figure over eight years. The money spent went into salaries of engineers, programmers, managers, and independent contractors in over twenty states acros...
How does ticket scalping work?	[ "You buy the tickets when they're available, and then you sell them to desperate people for a higher price than you bought them. It's a generally scummy thing to do because you're just jacking up the price for no reason.", "person A buys tickets. Person B goes to buy tickets but they are sold out. person A sells ...
What is antimatter?	[ "Just like matter is made of particles, antimatter is made of (surprise) antiparticles. Antiparticles have the same properties as their \"normal\" counterparts, but they have opposite charge. The antiparticle of the electron is the positron, the antiparticle of the proton is the antiproton, and the antiparticle of ...
What's the difference between Meth and Adderall?	[ "[Aderall](_URL_0_) is a mix of different types of amphetamine salts and methamphetamine is another type of amphetamine (not present in Aderall).\n\nThere is a difference in their chemical structure and how fast they work. What's in Aderall works a lot slower than methamphetamine which has a way of fastly working...
Why can't we use physical tests to detect mental illness?	[ "We don't understand the brain nearly as well as we understand the circulatory system, though for some mental illnesses we are starting to be able to detect them with brain imaging technology. For instance, Schizophrenia.\n\n_URL_0_", "> I mean we can detect diabetes by looking at blood sugar\n\nThat's fairly str...
What makes the japanese market so different from the western one? Why japan has all these special edition albums, games, mangas, electronics, gadgets that are never released elsewhere?	[ "High import taxes force them to produce their own version for domestic market only. Plus, despite their efforts, they're fairly English illiterate so internationalized marketing doesn't work quite well there and needs to be localized heavily. Being a cultural galapagos also means they have unique tastes and demand...
What makes debts you owe be removed / halved in what you originally owe from Debt Collectors?	[ "Often times the original company you owe the money to, sells the debt for less than the original and writes it off as a business loss. For some businesses this is a better choice then spending money trying to collect the debt from you. The company that buys it will try and get you to pay them more than what they p...
What are trust funds and how do they work?	[ "Basically money that someone invests for some specific purpose or persons. \n\nA rich dude will create a trust for his 3 kids, or a scholarship fund, or charity or something... the trust will then have rules on how it may be invested, and how much will be paid out, when and to who. \n\nMany trust funds are set up ...
Why do certain "noises" (i.e., a fingernail scratching a chalkboard) irritate us so much?	[ "Certain sounds at particular frequencies are very unpleasant to the human ear, the sound of that falls into that range. However it isn't something that effects all humans the same, some tolerate the sound more so than others or are not bothered by it at all. I fall into the category of not being bothered by it at ...
What would happen if the US Government payed off all its debt?	[ "We would accrue new debt as we continue to borrow money to fund large scale efforts, unless the magical source of money that allowed us to pay off all our debt also funded that.\n\nNations aren't in debt because they can't pay their bills (at least, not always), they're in debt because it is useful to get a large ...
What does it mean to verify permissions in a UNIX system and, if you are a grandma on a Mac, do you need to repair them?	[ "Each file and folder in a UNIX system has a list of permissions, which are a list of rules describing \"who is allowed to do what to this file\". \n\nFor example, Bobby can read, modify, or delete a particular file but Charlie can only read it (won't be allowed to modify or delete it) and Danny can't even read th...
What is the purpose of electric motion detecting hand towel dispensers in public restrooms when we have cheap, mechanical, spring loaded dispensers which have no circuitry and always work?	[ "It's a hygiene thing too, I think. It means you don't have to touch the handle on the towel dispenser, which might conceivably be contaminated with someone else's fecal matter.", "you can control the usage by setting delays on how fast the sensor one will spit out the next piece limiting usage, saving trees/cost...
Why are programs allowed to use 100% CPU ?	[ "We bought the CPU to be used, not to sit idle. If one program wants all of the CPU and no other programs want any, why would the program that wants it not be given it?\n\nThe CPU doesn't have inertia. If someone else comes along and asks for CPU, it can be taken away from the first process in a tiny fraction of ...
why do bombs and missiles explode in the air above their target? Instead of hitting the ground/target and exploding?	[ "In an impact detonation (bomb that explodes when it hits something), that \"something\" absorbs most of the force of the impact. If it is the ground, a majority of that force is transferred into the ground and some of it is reflected back up into the air (think of a ball bouncing off the ground, it bounces back in...
Is there an "absolute hot", the hottest temperature possible, or can temperature be infinitely hotter?	[ "This is just conjecture, but as I understand, heat is a measure of the speed at which electrons are orbiting the nucleus of a given atom.\n\n0 kelvin and this orbit stops entirely.\n\nI hypothesize that, since as you dump more and more energy into these electrons they move faster, they'd eventually begin to approa...
Besides cannabis, are there any objects that naturally contain THC?	[ "Almost all living multicellular organisms produce THC as a part of the regulation of the metabolism. THC receptors are also present in all of these organisms. Species as different as the simple nematode and the mighty redwood tree all have THC receptors, and produce THC as part of their normal metabolic cycle. Thi...
Why do people puke when they over-exert themselves?	[ "It's a derivative of the flight-or-fight response. When you are exercising your sympathetic nervous system starts to take over the same if you were really scared. This makes sense from an evolutionary stand point, any time you would have been running you would have been in danger. The sympathetic system diverts en...
The Russian military's current capabilities	[ "In terms of what? They are (arguably) the second most powerful nation on earth. WAY behind the US of course but still significantly powerful. \n\nThe real trouble is that they are fully geared up to fight wars of 40 years ago.. They have lots of tanks, aircraft and ships but not much by way of stealth abilities ...
How do G force suits work?	[ "The compress the body in an attempt to keep the blood from leaving your head, which is what causes blackouts at high Gs.", "As dancingwithcats said the suit helps constrict (by using air bleeding from the jet )certain parts of your body to hinder the blood flow so the pressure is higher in the upper body. Higher...
How does fostering kids work?	[ "You sign up. Social services does some routine investigations to qualify or disqualify you. Then then place a child with you...and you get a monthly stipend of $600-800/mo plus some amount of foodstamps to feed the kid. \nTheres a caseworker assigned to you that has waaay too many foster kids to pay proper attent...
The different "grades" of gas, and how much it really matters.	[ "In one part of how a car engine works, a piston squeezes a mixture of gasoline and air, then a spark plug sets it on fire at a precise time.\n\nBut squeezing that mixture makes it hot, and sometimes it can make it so hot that it catches fire before the right time. This can push the engine backward, hurts your ga...
Why did they need to close the airspace over Sydney because of the current hostage situation?	[ "It happens all the time during critical incidents. Usually the goal is to keep media aircraft back so they do not interfere with law enforcement operations." ]
What are the potential health risks to humans of pervasive plastic contamination?	[ "Plastic filaments and particles can interact with receptors on the outside of cells, and can freely enter cells by moving through the fatty cell membrane to disrupt processes inside the cell. The downstream effects are poorly understood, and could be anything from nothing, to interfering with hormone cycles and me...
Why is stock only traded 6hrs/day, 30hrs/week?	[ "In general, limited hours help the market remain stable.", "There's all sorts of ways to trade stuff 24/7, it's just that the major stock markets officially close down during the night/holidays/etc. But there's a bunch of stock markets across the globe, there's stock futures (where you're basically agreeing that...
do workout supplements (such as pre-workout that claims to increase the ability of your blood to deliver oxygen to muscles) actually work, and if so what actually happens to your body?	[ "Somewhat. They work by increasing levels of nitric oxide in the body, which regulates blood pressure by relaxing the blood vessels. You can't supplement nitric oxide directly, but two amino acids, L-arginine and L-citrulline, cause the body to produce it. While L-arginine is a popular product, it is poorly absorbe...
What causes stains to become permanent?	[ "Color compounds are usually fairly large molecules, and the fabrics in your clothes are made of even larger polymer chains. Big molecules like this can interact [non-covalently](_URL_0_) (so no chemical bonds, just atoms sticking to each other through Van der Waals forces, charge groups, and other weak forces). No...
If sound is typically vibration travelling through air, how can I hear someone through a wall.	[ "Wall vibrates too, but less than air, then transers the vibrations to air around you\n\nEdit: grammar" ]
Why does the Violin (or any of it's kind) sounds so compressed when played inside a car, and sounds normal when played in any room?	[ "Most instruments, really anything that makes sound will be like that, even clapping your hands. It's all about acoustics, basically how the sound bounces off the walls and back to you. An orchestra sounds gorgeous in a large and well-designed room because the sound bounces off the walls again and again, surroundin...
What was building 7? Why do conspiracy theorists use it as an example? what is the "real explanation" behind its collapse? What do the theorists think happened?	[ "The World Trade Center was a complex of seven buildings. The twin towers were 1 WTC and 2 WTC. Four other buildings were on the same block, and 7 WTC was across the street.\n\nWhile only the twin towers were struck by planes, their collapse caused substantial, irreperable damage to all the other buildings part of ...
How come my face becomes numb after eating a persimmon?	[ "This is not typical. Is it possible you are allergic?" ]
Why does bacon sometimes get that green shimmer?	[ "Are you talking the same [shimmering color sometimes seen on roast beef?](_URL_0_)" ]
Why do we pronounce "colonel" as "curnel/kernal?"	[ "The same reason we in Britain pronounce \"Lieutenant\" as \"Leftenant\". That's the way the word was said when we stole it off the French." ]
Karl Marx's Manifesto	[ "The communist manifesto was a short pamphlet authored by Marx and his colleague Friedrich Engels. It briefly summarized key concepts of communism, outlined the differences between communism and socialism, and pointed out the flaws with contemporary capitalist societies.\n\nThe most important ideas put forth by the...
Why is it that people from the United States call themselves American when they aren't the only country located on the north and south continents?	[ "Seriously? Nobody knows?\n\nFor historical reasons. The same way British people still call themselves English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish despite living in a single country for ages.\n\nUnited States declared its independence in 1776 as 13 independent American States (the name used) and passed the constituti...
How do babies learn to talk? What process does their brain go through?	[ "There are different perspectives and competing theories on this, and each has it's own level of detail. Here's what I think, but it's probably not the accepted version, and it's not really ELi5!\n\nThe brain is a pattern matcher. It goes through data and isolates similarities from differences to create saved...
Why am I "Innocent until proven guilty in a court of law", but only found "not guilty" and not "innocent"?	[ "You (and your lawyer) are under no obligation to prove your innocence, nor your \"not-guilty mess.\" The onus (burden) is on the prosecution to prove that you are guilty, and your job is to refute their accusations and show, if possible, that they can't be true.\n\nThat's what presumption of innocence means. If ...
Why is reading good for the brain?	[ "I can think of two important reasons. First reading and comprehension increases vocabulary and your understanding of language. Second is what you learn from the material. Even fiction can train your brain to make connections or think in ways that you hadn't before.", "My brother has his sword, King Robert has hi...
What is revisionist history and why is it bad?	[ "Revisionist history is when somebody has an idea he or she wants to support and then goes back and reinterprets historical events to create that support, sometimes interpreting events to mean the opposite of what an objective analysis would conclude.", "Something is 'revisionist history' if it's teaching somethi...
Why do we call Earths moon "The Moon", when every other moon in the solar system have their own separate name?	[ "We started calling it the moon before we had discovered what a moon really was, or that other planets had their own moons.", "Some people brought up the point about languages, which could change the Moon’s “real name” in a culture. but there is a catch. The Moon is the name that’s been approved by the Internatio...
Why do countries have different voltage for appliances ?	[ "First, I believe you mistyped and meant 120/240v in the US.\n\nThere is a trade-off between voltage and power lost due to resistance. Very few things in your house use even 120v, so why so much voltage?\n\nFirst you need to know some simple concepts about electricity. For a certain amount of power running through ...
Why and how is the middle east in such chaos in the past decades?	[ "There are a lot of different reasons and a lot of different factors for the state of basically anything. You can't really boil it down to one thing, but it's worth trying I guess. History and all its political, cultural, geographical, and economic factors play a role in the way things are today. \n\nI'm not a MENA...
Why is it my jaw (below the ear) hurts after I blow up a balloon that's tough to inflate?	[ "The eustachian tube is what is hurting; it was stretched by the air pressure used to inflate the balloon, and is sore.\n\n The reason it feels like it is coming from your jaw below the ear, is a phenomenon called referred pain. The same nerve branch that brings pain signals to your brain from your jaw, there, is...
How are people identified by their dental records?	[ "Everyone's teeth and jaws are different, like everyone has a different fingerprint. And dental work like fillings, caps, etc, and their placement make dental structures even more unique. \n\nI have taken college courses in basic forensic techniques, but I'm not a forensic scientist, so I can't tell you exactly ...
How did Seth Bling manage this code injection in Super Mario World?	[ "Start with: Computers are (to oversimplify) really complicated calculators. This also goes for video game consoles (and their emulators)\n\nVideo games (like all programs) are ultimately really complicated calculations.\n\nIn order to reduce the load on a computer's ability to perform the \"calculations\" (aka re...
Why is it Creationists disbelieve in evolution? More so, is there something in the bible that disputes evolution? Could God not have "created" evolution?	[ "If one believes in a literal interpretation of the Bible, then there's really no room for evolution.\n\nIt is certainly possible to believe in evolution and God, if you don't take a literal view of Genesis.\n\nThe theory of evolution involves random mutations that were beneficial and therefore bred true in offspri...
Why are the republican/democrat debates called debates? There's hardly any debating going on.	[ "They're mostly called debates to lend some gravitas to the situation.\n\nWhat they are these days, however, is joint press conferences.\n\nIt would be nice to have actual debates, but that would require politicians who are willing and able to think on their feet, and argue in defense of a position, rather than req...
How come I'm not related to people that have the same last name as me?	[ "Last names didn't always exist. So when they did start existing, sometimes unrelated people chose the same last name. (It's also been long enough since the development of last names that you might be related really far back.)", "one reason, in spanish countries at least, orphans used to get the last name \"igles...
If you melt a penny or rip up a dollar, are you combating inflation, since that cash is no longer in circulation? or is inflation less straightforward?	[ "Yes, you are combatting inflation, but the amount of new currency that is added to the economy everyday is so massive that unless you were to orchestrate a huge money burn, you couldn’t make any sort of difference" ]
I've read that quantum computers can easily break all our current security protocols. How do they do this?	[ "Quantum computers are good at following several \"paths\" to a solution at once, essentially doing calculations in parallel rather than sequentially. One of the applications for this quantum superposition simultaneous search power is finding prime numbers, which is normally super difficult: if you want to find out...
Why is it called the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" when it's not a democracy or a republic?	[ "Your mum wants to get you to eat some food you don't like, so instead of just calling it cabbage, she calls it delicious super tasty munchy fun time. But the cabbage is severe famine and human rights violations.", "it's like how the Patriot Act takes away all your rights.", "It's a form of propaganda called th...
The most popular coding languages and their uses.	[ "Well, to begin, there are what is known as \"interpreted\" languages and then there are \"Compiled\" languages. Most scripting engines, like PHP or CSS use what is known as an \"interpreted language.\" C, C#, C++ and other languages that the end user never really sees the source code for are called \"compiled\" la...
How does a computer screen work?	[ "Your monitor has a grid of tiny little boxes called pixels (short for picture element). Each one of these can be controlled independently to display a certain color and brightness. Your computer figures out how to draw your screen by filling in each pixel and sending that information to the monitor. It does this u...
Why is the Euro more valuable than the American Dollar?	[ "It doesn't really matter if one number is bigger than the other number. What matters is how many Euros you get and how much stuff you can buy with a Euro. So if I have 3 Euros, but it costs me 3 Euros to buy some candy, then I have no more Euros left! But if I have $2 and it only costs $1 to buy some candy then I ...
How come the suit (pants, shirt, jacket, tie) became the norm for formal dressing everywhere and not something else?	[ "After the French Revolution western men (including American men) rapidly abandoned the frilly flamboyant fashion characteristic of the Rococo era and adapted a much more conservative fashion of England. The modern suit was developed in the 19th century by an Englishman named [Beau Brummell](_URL_0_). He wore well ...
Student Loan Default and its consequences?	[ "What to expect:\n\n1. Your credit will drop like a rock. Don't expect to see it above 530 for at least 6 years, even with aggressive credit building.\n\n2. They will call you constantly. If they can't reach you, they will call your references, until they find a way to get in touch with you. Keep in mind that it is...
Why do many companies nowadays see tattoos as being "unprofessional"?	[ "Because in much of modern history the people with tattoos have been people very often associated with unsavory organizations, crime, and violence. I think you can understand why companies wishing to present a professional and safe environment would shy away from hiring those with tattoos. That general attitude has...
Sleep deprivation - If you have a sleepless night and then proceed to get the recommended 7.5 hours of sleep the following days, for how long will you be in a sleep deprivation?	[ "We just talked about this in my psychology class today. There's a case study about this guy who, as a high school student, wanted to break the record of longest number of days without sleep (which was 11 days at the time). He made it 12 days, probably with some \"micro sleeps\" here and there. He suffered all kind...
Gabriel's horn, having trouble visualizing it.	[ "Well, you could just consider it being made of lego blocks instead. Each block with length of 1 along x-axis, first one that covers the entire horn from x=1 to x=2 would have side length of 2 * 1. Basically, you're approximating upwards, so that lego is bigger than it needs to be near x=2 but that's fine. So lego ...
Why is cheese such a big deal to the French?	[ "Back before refrigeration, food either went bad or had to be preserved somehow. Meat and milk would quickly go bad. France is known for its sauces as a way to cover up the rancid meat. Cheese was a way to preserve milk so it wouldn't spoil as quickly.", "Good cheese is good stuff. It can be amazing if you get th...
instead of fighting green energy, why don't coal and gas companies invest in it?	[ "The current energy companies have every motivation to get in on \"green energy \". There are just a few problems: It is more expensive to produce than traditional fossil fuels, or only effective in a few areas or times, or doesn't have the necessary capacity.\n\nOften the only reason we see green energy is because...
What exactly is sous-vide? Isn't it just boiling the food?	[ "Here's how it works. You wrap your food in plastic and put it in a water bath set to a precise temperature. It turns out that for protein foods, it's not how long they cook that determines how done they are, but the maximum temperature reached. So sous-vide lets you control precisely whether a steak is rare, mediu...
How did translations of the first languages go about?	[ "Do you mean how do peoples who speak different languages learn each other's language?\n\nThis can be done in much in the same way as the fundamentals of language are taught: lots of ad hoc sign language. You could start with the basics such as \"My name is X. What is your name?\" and progress to pointing at object...
Why are some medications race-based?	[ "There's sufficient genetic difference between various human races to create different reactions to certain drugs, or increase the possibility of certain reactions in certain races. \n\nAn example of one such difference is a genetic switch in some Asians that floors them completely when they have one drink because ...
How does Publix (a grocery chain in the SE United States) make a profit when they offer so many buy one-get one (BOGO) deals?	[ "The store doesn't fund those sales - the manufacturer does. The manufacturer then uses this marketing expense as a tax write-off. \n\nSource: used to work in the industry.", "There's no single reason. Sometimes the profit margin really is so high, they can do that and still make a profit. This is particularly tr...
Why do many large companies lease their office/retail space instead of owning it?	[ "There are a couple of reasons I can think of.\n1. A lease is nearly a 100% write off as it is an expense. If a company gets a loan on the building only the interest would be a write off. \n2. Buying a building with cash locks in a lot of capital to a single asset. Capital that could be used for other ways of incre...
If another Winter frost hits and kills all the newly sprung animals and flowers, would they simply procreate and bloom again when it gets warmer, or would everything be dead until next Spring?	[ "They would continue procreating when the weather warmed up for good. One frost doesn't wipe out every organism out there. If one event was capable of destroying everything none of us would be here.\n\nRelax! Spring is coming for good, hopefully soon, and all the new plants and animals will come along with it." ]
If Muhammad was "just" a prophet, then why do Muslims treat his persona at a level above what modern Christians treat Jesus Christ?	[ "You have an important misconception in your question. Jesus IS seen as God in mainstream Christianity. All mainstream Christian groups are trinitarian and agree on this point. This is core Christian doctrine.\n\nThere are only a very small number of fringe churches that are nontrinitarian, (such as the Mormons) an...
Why do we clap for celebration?	[ "The truth is ... we did not evolve from apes. We evolved from Sea Lions." ]
How do you "get" depression? Do things that make life miserable alter the chemicals in our brains, are certain people more likely to be depressed?	[ "There's a difference between regular depression and clinical depression. Everybody gets regular depression when something depressing happens. \n\nClinical depression is a completely different animal. It's not \"oh my dog died and I'm depressed.\" If you are clinically depressed, it last weeks, months, even years ...
How can people function on only a few hours of sleep?	[ "Polyphasic sleep is supposedly one way - I tried it a couple of times, but I suck at sleeping during the day, so it never worked out for me.\n\nCheck out the various patterns at the Wikipedia page: _URL_0_ ... I would LOVE to get the Uberman pattern going, if it actually works - look at the remark about the Dymaxi...
How did calendars developed thousands of years ago such as the Julian calendar keep track of time so efficiently?	[ "Actually, they didn't get it quite right, to the point where they had to eliminate about 10 days in the fall, about 500 years ago, to correct the accumulating error.\n\nSide note: I had an astronomy profession in college (where I learned about this) who also taught history. One of her favorite exam questions was...
Why is general anaesthesia so common for wisdom teeth removal, if it isn't necessary?	[ "It varies from patient to patient. But the general rule is to try and avoid exposure to general anesthesia for ~~unnecessary~~ procedures that do not really need GA. It is advised to remove wisdom teeth one at a time under local anesthesia (several weeks to months apart) instead of removing them all at once whic...
Most of my money is a number in a bank database. What is there to stop a bank artificially inflating someone's number?	[ "It is not just 1 number, it's the sum of a transaction history that is cross-referenced to the various accounts that put money in or took it out of your account. If you just made one number bigger, the whole thing wouldn't balance and that would be picked up by the auditors/accountants.", "I think OP is asking w...
How can people with Down's Syndrome donate blood	[ "Red blood cells do not have a nucleus, and therefore no DNA. Assuming that there is not a separate mutation/issue that impacts RBC production, their red blood cells would be normal. Not sure about other blood products.", "Red blood cells do not have a nucleus therefore they do not have any chromosomes or DNA...
How does the Federal Government have jurisdiction on First Nation land?	[ "Major Crimes Act (18 U.S.C. § 1153): The Major Crimes Act (enacted following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1883 Ex Parte Crow Dog decision) provides for federal criminal jurisdiction over seven major crimes when committed by Indians in Indian country. Over time, the original seven offenses have been increased to sixtee...
Why is Morrissey so popular amongst Latinos?	[ "Latino here, In my opinion Morrissey's style of singing is very similar to Mariachi style, including song lyrics and such. Having grown up with maricahi music, listening to Morrissey just feels very similar.", "Someone had the same question and made a documentary about it:\n\n_URL_1_\n\nEDIT: This article sums ...
What do physicists mean when they say space is curved?	[ "Because spacetime behaves like it's curved by the presence of mass and energy. What does curvature mean? Let's say we have two points and we draw a straight line between them. Now let's say we want to increase the length of the line while keeping the endpoints fixed. How do we do that? We curve it so that it's no ...
Why did a law need to be passed telling federal employees that they couldn't participate in insider trading?	[ "This is how I understand it. Can someone please fill in the details or correct me on this?\n\nPart of the reason is because, technically, a lot of what they were doing wasn't \"insider\" trading. Typically, insider trading happens (e.g.) when you work for a company or are someway involved in a company and you ha...
Why do problems and stresses that don't seem like a big deal during the day suddenly seem life threatening and world ending when you wake up at 2:30 AM?	[ "I'm not sure what 'stresses' you are taking about, but I'm going to take a guess at what you mean and work from there. \n\nYou are at your most vulnerable when you are asleep. You are effectively unconscious and many of your senses are non-responsive or at least sort of 'muted' as it were. This means that when you...
Why do we just "click" with some people?	[ "Because our personalities relate in some manner. I figured this out by looking into it and wondering my friends were my friends. It really just came down to being weird, funny, spontaneous, talkitive and stuff like that. My brain just likes these people and gets a 'high' off of them. Sorta like a drug", "I'm com...
How are mathematicians and astronomers able to predict solar and lunar eclipses thousands of years in advance?	[ "Because it's simply a math problem involving physics equations.\n\nConsider a math problem from your school text book where there are a pair of train tracks leading from Chicago to St. Louis which is 250 miles away. A train leave Chicago at noon going at 50 mph while at the same time a train leaves St. Louis trave...
Why do people's voices get super deep/groggy in the mornings?	[ "I looked this up because I was curious. Basically it's gunk (phlegm?) that builds up in your throat overnight from your horizontal position, then goes away once you're upright." ]
If every blood donation is screened for HIV, why is it dangerous to let a group with a higher rate of HIV donate blood?	[ "Window period of HIV testing: this is the time between when you acquire HIV and when an HIV test becomes positive. If you donate blood between those two time points, that unit of blood may transmit HIV.\n\nImperfect testing: the tests used to screen the blood supply for communicable diseases are very good, but not...
Why do we crave the cold side of the pillow?	[ "I can only speak from my experiences, but I'm much more comfy when my ears are cold. A warm pillow makes my ears too warm. So I flip the pillow and it feels more pleasant against my ears and keeps them cool." ]
What is actually going on inside your body when you "get the wind knocked out of you"?	[ "Your solar plexus is a bundle of nerves. If you are hit there, the nerves are shocked for a while, and cause your diaphragm to be paralyzed. This keeps you from breathing.", "After being \"winded\" many times, I've developed a method to recover quickly. Now this might be an actual thing that is well known about....
Audio vacuum tubes	[ "Hey, one I can answer! \n\nFirst off, the \"information\" that enters a tube is not audio, it is just an electrical signal. \n\nThe internal components of a vacuum tube are the cathode, anode, grid, and heating element. The small signal (~mv) that needs to be amplified enters the tube via the grid, which rests be...
What if any economic impact will the Large Hadron Collider have on mankind?	[ "It's impossible to know, but you might be surprised. Some quick examples:\n\n1. The Internet as we know it today was the result of the work of Tim Berners-Lee, an employee of CERN, the operator of the LHC. He coupled the Internet, the largest node of which was then at CERN, with the concept of HyperText (which all...
Why are Jews so made fun of?	[ "[Here is a \"Simple to Remember\" explanation of the six main reasons why](_URL_0_), written by folks who have a lot of experience with this question.", "They have a distinct religion/culture from the rest of the people around them. People make fun of people that are different." ]
How can Libertarians oppose the militarization of police forces yet ardently support the 2nd Amendment?	[ "There is absolutely nothing at all hypocritical about the position. The difference is that police are agents of the state whose word and direction represent the will of the state. The more militarized a police force the more the state is able to control the populace. There is also NO Constitutional provision pr...
Why don't they package soda and beer the same? Like why do we have 30 racks of beer and not soda?	[ "There ARE 30 packs of soda. Walmart sells them. [Here's a link for 30 cans of Diet Mt Dew](_URL_0_) If you want to see other examples you can google 30 pack of soda, thats how I found that link.", "Do you mean something like this _URL_1_ . In short the do package beer and soda the same, minus the 2 liter bottl...
Why is it so hard for smokers to stop smoking?	[ "There is a lot of ritual involved in smoking and a lot of nostolgia for most people that goes beyond the physical addiction. \n\nMany people have their work tied in mentally to cigarette breaks. The stress is the stress of that ritual being disrupted. For a smoker the smoke break is like waiting for Christmas and ...
Why is it that I visit websites and Facebook/Google automatically know that and give me targeted ads?	[ "When you visit websites that link to pages of interest, they send your pseudo identity and your interest profile to central ad servers. When you visit another page that has an ad spot for a remarketing ad, they pull your identity and interest profile and select those ads that are best matched to you. Your p...
Why do flies keep on landing on the same spot after scaring them away	[ "Because they have very limited mental capacity. They are like a very primitive computer programm. \n\nFind food source. Avoid fast moving thing on collision course. Breed. \n\nThey can't process that there is an entity that doesn't want them to come to a certain spot.", "A fly's brain has a bag of tricks. One of...
Was there ever a "wood age"?What do we know about wooden(and other perishable) tools?	[ "No, there was never a point in human history where we could use wooden tools but not stone tools. \n\nThe \"stone age\" is just a term used to describe when we used tools that were naturally occurring. \n\nWe used fire hardened spears and flint knapped with stone.\n\nEdit- Flint knapping not flint mapping.", "Fo...
The ongoing mental imagery debate.	[ "here we go i will post what i think and say it is true, and then someone will post why what i post is wrong and then you will have the correct answer :) \n\n\none side says we use the same pathways in the brain when imagining something as we do when we actually see it.\n\nthe other side says no that is not true, ...
Why are death row inmates housed separately?	[ "People care less about obeying rules when they are about to die. At this point what do they have to lose? Did Jerry over in cell D12 make a rude comment about your mother? Maybe Jerry should get stabbed 12 times with a sharpened tooth brush. What are the guards going to do about it? Kill you? lol!", "It is custo...
Not so long ago thieves were mutilated for their crimes, today they can easily get off with a warning or probation. What lead to this?	[ "Rule of law and civilization happened.\n\nIn the old days it wasn't just that violent punishments were more common, it was that violence itself was much more common than it is today.\n\nDespite all the wars happening around the world, if you lived in the last hundred years you were less likely to die a violent dea...

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