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When archeologists dig deeper into the ground to uncover buildings and objects from the past, what is burring/building on top of them to put them so deep? Where is all of this earth coming from? | [
"It depends on the location and environment.\n\nIf the site was an ancient village or town that was abandoned and left to the environment, then over time nature would reclaim it. Anything that wasn't quickly degradable would be covered up by dirt, plants, grass, trees.\n\nWind and water can easily build up dirt and engulfing the rest that remains. If a building is left to its own demise and no upkeep, nature will claim it back relatively quickly in time.\n\nIf the site (ancient city) is still in use today, over time new buildings were built over original sites. It was easier to cover old buildings then tearing them completely down and hauling away the debris.",
"good question, I'm interested too.\n\nYou mean how come it's still intact but under 3 feet of earth, right?\n\nI wonder that whenever I watch Time Team and they're digging up a roman villa and the floor and walls are intact but deep under ground. \n\nMaybe the grass and moss slowly takes over, then trees grow out of the bricks and then they shed leaves and mud gets made? Strange that they stay so intact and together though isn't it?",
"> Where is all of this earth coming from?\n\n\nI think you have a slight misunderstanding. The entire surface of the Earth isn't buried x cm per year or anything like that. Only certain areas end up buried. Volcanic eruptions, mudslides, flooding, sinkholes, repeated dust storms, etc. can bury a certain area, preserving whatever was on the ground at that point."
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Why do humans have to chew their food so thoroughly when many other animals can just gulp down their dinner? | [
"Carnivores vs omnivores/herbivores.\n\nCows not only chew more than we do, they regurgitate and chew their food *again*.\n\nVegetable matter requires mastication to increase surface area and release nutrients.\n\nProtein and fat, cartilage, tendon, etc. don't have cell walls so they basically dissolve in the acidic environment of the stomach. \n\nBacteria in the intestines help digest as well, for all eaters.",
"It's not as important as we are led to believe. This dude Horace Fletcher around 1913 was obsessed with chewing (and pooping) and claimed that if you chewed your food a lot you can get more nutrients out. While there is some evidence for this in regards to tough vegetative matter, most of the food we eat just needs to be chewed enough to be swallowed comfortably. Fletcher coined the phase \"Nature will castigate those whose do not masticate.\""
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Do Islamic women also believe in the notion of having 72 virgins in heaven? | [
"The whole \"72 virgins\" thing is not necessarily a mainstream Muslim belief. It comes from something that Muhammad allegedly said but the evidence that he said it isn't always judged to be strong, and some believe that it is a mistranslation (and, as far as I can tell, all the actual hadiths say \"wives,\" not virgins. Could be wrong about that, though). However, terrorists tend not to be the most scholarly types and it's the type of thing you would tell people to get them to blow themselves up. There have been many female Muslim suicide bombers so one has to assume it's not totally lost on them.\n\nHowever accurate the 72 virgins trope may be, it does reflect a real Qur'anic concept called the Houris, who are essentially angels that live in paradise and are, shall we say, companions to Muslims in heaven (all Muslims, not just martyrs). It is implied that both men and women will be granted their company, but most references to them in the Qur'an and by Islamic scholars refer to them in the feminine tense (Arabic is a gendered language). Personally I'd chalk this up to 7th-century sexism since all the writings were done by men, but interpret it how you will.",
"That's still being disputed among those of the Islamic faith, with some attributing it to a bad translation. Shia Islam doesn't even include the controversial hadith that mentions 72 \"virgins\"."
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Is Antarctica stuck at the south pole? | [
"The antartic tectonic plate is generally rotating slightly towards the east and moving towards the Atlantic Ocean.\n\nI don't know the answer to your mantle convection question. However it is possible that eventually (geologically speaking so we're talking potentially billions of years) antartica could move between Africa and South America, becoming temperate again. \n\nLink below is to a recent paper on the Bement of the antartic plate. It's mostly dry but has some interesting plots of velocities of the different parts of the plate as well as those surrounding antartic.\n\n_URL_0_",
"Antartica does indeed travel around just as any other landmass would by means of continental drift - here is a [fantastic gif](_URL_3_) demonstrating three stages of it's recent(ish) movements. Incidentally, at the moment without all the snow and ice, Antartica would reveal itself to be an [archipeligo](_URL_3_) rather than a single body of land.\n\nIt has certainly sustained life in the past, and [fossils have been found in Antartica](_URL_3_) showing what kind of creatures lived there. Plantlife has also flourished in the past, for example in the Cretaceous period it was covered in subtropical forests."
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How come solid butter is white, and melted butter is yellow? | [
"Most solid butters I've seen have been yellow. But I believe that is because they add yellow colouring to it",
"Most solid butter is yellow. \n\nWhat determines how yellow is the breed of cow used, and the feed that they have. If they are grass fed they will tend to have darker yellow butter (and cheese)."
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What was so controversial about the Reagan administration? | [
"He backed governments in Central America that did some bad things. They killed men, women, and children and buried them in mass graves. Reagan denied that such graves existed. Later it turned out they did exist.",
"I'm no expert on the topic, but Reagan was a proponent of what he called \"Trickle down economics\" or \"Reagonomics.\" Basically, the idea was that if the government drastically cut taxes on the rich, they would have more money to pay more workers and increase worker wages. Thus, the money would trickle down from the top to the bottom. Unfortunately, public debt through this time more than doubled. However, many people still put forth this economic strategy, even though it was a decided failure. I'm sure there is someone here who can give you a more detailed explanation, but that's the basics."
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The logic behind the phrase "I'll give you 3 guesses and the first two dont count?" | [
"It's just an expression. It's meant to imply that the answer is so obvious that you'll only need one guess to get it right."
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What exactly causes animals to sometimes go berserk on humans they have bonded with their whole life? | [
"One of the big differences between \"domesticated\" and \"wild\" animals that we've bred into them is acceptance of the social order and relationships. For example dogs accept that you are the top dog when they are small, and you stay the top dog. Wolves don't have that bred into/out of them, so they will occasionally challenge your position or test themselves against it, and unlike an actual animal you aren't exactly going to be able to stand up to that challenge.\n\nThis is doubly true for normally solitary animals; a tiger doesn't usually share its range easily with other tigers, so you trying to live in close contact with it is just asking for a challenge or conflict."
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Why is keeping a cell phone in your pocket potentially harmful you? | [
"Short Version: It's not \n \nLong Version: It's nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooot. \n \nELI5 Version: Your cellphone isn't harmful in the same way the skin doesn't melt off your face every time you microwave a burrito. The radiation isn't strong enough to be harmful. Your average ejaculate contains MILLIONS of sperm cells. Even if the radiation kills a couple, it won't make any difference. In a similar way, you are technically being burned to death every time you step outside by the suns radiation - It's just not strong enough to be noticeable or cause any damage for the most part.",
"Lol this is a huge myth. It really is not in any way harmful."
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Why can't water catch on fire? | [
"the same reason carbon dioxide can't catch on fire: it's already fully burned. the oxygen in water is already joined to the two hydrogen atoms, and this is a very stable situation for the oxygen. so there's no free oxygen, which is one of the things you have to have to have a fire.",
"Water does not burn because it is at a low point in thermodynamic energy because its bonds are very strong. Things that burn, like gasoline, have weaker bonds (C-H and C-C bonds). These weaker bonds break during oxidation and stronger bonds (C=O and H-O) form, which makes the CO2 and H2O molecules more stable. The extra energy is released and we feel some of that as heat.\n\nGasoline + O2 - > CO2 + H2O + energy",
"It can react violently under some circumstances, but l'll skip those.\n\nFire is the result of atoms and their electron shells trying to find lower energy states.\n\nThe bonds between Oxygen and Hydrogen are already very low energy, and thus are generally quite happy where they are and don't want to react with (almost) anyone else.\n\nTherefore, it will not burn (react).",
"This question was answered earlier this year in r/chemistry. \n\nThey give a much better description for why it can't happen that any one else in this post.\n\n[Link](_URL_0_)\n\nEssentially, the hydrogen is as oxidized as it can get and adding any more oxygen produces hydrogren peroxide, but that reaction in endothermic, not exothermic."
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Why do skunks and cannabis seem to have a similar smell? | [
"The chemicals that \"give off\" the smell you are noticing belong to a group called \"terpenes\". Various terpenes are found all throughout nature and are the reason you are reminded of one item's scent by the other. I would venture a guess that a skunk and \"Skunk\" share a common or similar terpene. Limonene, for example, is common to both Cannabis and the ordinary orange peel. Source: the last time this was asked"
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Why is it illegal to sell someone a counterfeit version of a controlled substance, or to sell someone what they think is illegal, but isn't? | [
"Absolutely illegal, in fact it's treated as if they were real. Extasy for example does not even mean pure mdma, it can and regularly is pure meth, or caffeine, in either situation you can get the same punishment.",
"[Here](_URL_0_)'s a site that explanes it pretty well"
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Besides being catchy, why do songs get stuck in our heads? | [
"I've been told that songs we can relate to are ones we tend to favor. If we can think of ourselves as the subject in a song, we have a tendency to like it more."
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How does Wi-Fi on an airplane work? | [
"Satellite network engineer here.\n\nThe wi-fi portion of the link is just like in your home. 2.4ghz / 5ghz antenna /repeaters provide signal to your phone or device.\n\nThe satellite side is actually pretty exotic. Obviously because you are in motion the hardware on the plane needs to track the satellite in orbit. With receive only systems (television) your margin of error is a lot better. (ELIF5 - receive is easy, transmit to satellite is hard).\n\nSince this is 2 way communications the satellite antenna on the plane needs to send signal as well as receive, this requires a much more accurate tracking antenna. What was linked below is called a phased array antenna system. It doesn't actually use motors to track the antenna or \"move\". \n\nTo explain a phased array simply it uses electricity and other electromagnetic forces to change the radioactive nature of areas of the antenna, moving the \"direction\" the antenna is pointing without actually physically moving. This allows the antenna to be much flatter than a typical auto point satellite antenna.\n\nTwo Way Satellite Auto-Point Antenna\n_URL_0_\n\nPhased Array (what is on airplane)\n_URL_1_\n\nObviously better for aerodynamics!",
"Either by using satellites, [here](_URL_2_) you can see one example of what an satellite antenna can look like, or an [air-to-ground](_URL_3_) cellular network that's built to provide internet connectivity for airplanes.",
"That depends if you're talking about Wi-Fi inside the plane, or how the plane communicates with the surrounding world.\n\nInside the plane it will work just as it does on the ground. Radio-waves and such, it has been proven time after time that radio-waves (2.4GHz or 5GHz (IEEE 802.x)) does not interfere with other electronics within the plane.\n\nAs for the planes communication with the Internet, satellites."
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What would happen if all the members of the British Royal Family were killed and there was no heir to the throne | [
"The line of succession is pretty fucking long. If they were all wiped out, we'd have far bigger things to worry about than who gets to rule Britain, we'd be dealing with a huge cataclysm.",
"The British Royal family has the line of succession calculated out several hundred spots. For something to happen to kill all of the people on that list at once would mean that there is some kind of global catastrophe happening and there would likely no longer be a UK for them to lead.",
"It would be quite a massacre, there are about 5000 descendants of Sophia of Hanover alive today and scattered around Europe (she's the starting point of the current line of succession). If they're all dead then we're probably dealing with a zombie apocalypse or something. If they did all die then Parliament could look back up her family tree, find a surviving relative and modify the rules of succession, but we might also take it as a hint to give a republic a try.",
"[Here is a list of the first 5763 candidates](_URL_0_). Apparently it has been worked out.",
"Well technically there's always another heir unless there's some sort of massive wiping out of Europe and Europeans. The way it goes is that if a sovereign dies without issue you go up a generation and find the next heir there. Rinse and repeat until the throne is occupied. \n\nIf it actually happened I'm sure the royal archives and plenty of others could say offhand who the next in line for the throne not currently holding a royal title is, and it may well be they'd be granted the crown.\n\nIt may also be that, in light of such a crises, the UK/Commonwealth would decide to give up the monarchy entirely seeing as the institution largely died in a literal sense."
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why does pouring a beer or soda into a tilted glass produce less bubbles (or head) than pouring straight into a glass? | [
"Ahem. Avast ye! Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained:\n\n1. [ELI5: Why does tilting a glass while pouring beer reduce the foam at the top? ](_URL_0_) ^(_6 comments_)\n1. [ELI5: Why does beer foam when you pour it directly into a glass from a pitcher/fraught/can but when you pour it into a tilted glass there is little to no foam ](_URL_5_) ^(_13 comments_)\n1. [ELI5:Why does beer foam less when poured into a tilted glass? ](_URL_7_) ^(_4 comments_)\n1. [ELI5: Why does tilting a glass when pouring Beer prevent an overflow of foam? ](_URL_4_) ^(_3 comments_)\n1. [How does tilting a pint glass have an effect on the amount of head on the beer? ](_URL_6_) ^(_2 comments_)\n1. [ELI5: Why does pouring beer into a glass on an angle produce less head? ](_URL_8_) ^(_3 comments_)\n1. [ELI5: how come pouring a beer with my glass tilted cuts down on the amount of foam but doing the same with a soda doesn't change the amount of fizz? ](_URL_2_) ^(_2 comments_)\n1. [ELI5: Why does holding the glass at an angle stops poured beer/soda from foaming? ](_URL_3_) ^(_2 comments_)\n1. [ELI5: Why does tilting your cup to the side reduce the amount of head when pouring a beer? ](_URL_1_) ^(_5 comments_)"
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How do drilling companies drill 7000+ feet below the surface? And when it comes to fracking, how do they begin drilling horizontally that deep underground? | [
"Basically when the drillers get to the depth where they want to start deviating from vertical there are directional parts of the drill bit they start pointing in a direction other than straight down to increase the angle of inclination. The angle is usually measured in degrees per 100ft. So the transition of vertical to horizontal is relatively gradual. They are able to do this from the huge amount of weight pushing down on top of the bit. \nThe joints of drill pipe from surface to drill bit are very heavy. They pump drilling mud through this hollow drill pipe and out the end of the bit this is what causes the bit to rotate and penetrate through the rock. The mud exits the drill bit and is circulated back up to the surface between the hole and the drill pipe; also carrying the rock cuttings to surface for hole cleaning purposes. \nSignals are pulsed through the mud column down to the drill bit and control the directional movement of the bit. \nSorry the comment was a little long but things tend to get misinterpreted with this sorta thing. \nSource engineer working with a drilling co.",
"By either using a rotary kelly, or a top drive drilling rig. Basically, you have a derrick which is the tower up in the air, and suspending from the tower via drill line is either a kelly or a top drive. A kelly fits into the rotary table on the floor of the drilling rig, the rotary rotates and turns all the pipe that has been put into the ground (aka the string). A top drive is a motor suspended below the block which turns the drill string, eliminating the need for a rotary and kelly. \n\nThe driller can control how much weight is put on the drill string by the block, and how fast to rotate the drill string via the rotary or the top drive. Pushing down on and turning the drill string with the drill bit attached, causes drilling.\n\nAs far as horizontal or directional drilling goes, in the contract there will be a depth at which the drilling contractor will need to kick off. They have drilled vertically up until this depth. The crew then trips the pipe (pulling some to all of the pipe out of the hole and putting it back in multiple times) to clean the hole up and then puts all the pipe in the derrick. This is where the pipe is sitting on the floor of the rig and tied off up in the derrick. A directional crew then comes out and their tools are put in the hole, the main tool being a mud motor attached to the bit, along with other various tools and then drill pipe on top. \n\nWhen they get to the bottom of the already drilled hole, they have a specific angle they need to build up so they do what is called sliding. They lock the rotary or keep the top drive in position to whatever direction they need to travel, so basically all the pipe in the ground is not spinning. The mud motor in the bottom of the hole (attached to the bit) will be the only thing spinning by way of pump pressure, and by adding weight via the block they will be able to move out horizontally at whatever angles they need, gradually.",
"Oh this is definitely something I can help on.\n\nThe first thing to realize is that when a company starts drilling the well bore is never empty, as in there is always fluid in the well to replace the rock that is being removed. Drilling fluid has several very important purposes but mainly achieves three things. It keeps the well in balance, it cools everything, and it removes the cuttings generated at the bit. This sets up the basic principals for how companies can drill so deep into the earth, now onto how to drill directionally. \nThe key to this is remembering that you don't drill a well all the way down with the same tools. To simplify this think of a well as being broken into three sections, the vertical, the curve and the lateral. At the top of the curve (also known as the 'kick off point' or KOP) the entire drill string (pipe, tools and bit) will be removed and a new set of tools will replace those used to drill the vertical. The most important changes will include a more steerable bit and a motor which has a slight bend in its housing, so now this setup kind of looks like a bendy straw with a slight bend in it. At this point companies use downhole motors (which converts the fluid movement into rotational movement) to drill directionally while keeping the bit oriented in one direction. If we revisit our bendy straw, think of slowly pushing it through jello. As you push it, since the straw isn't straight it will curve off in the direction that the bend is in. Now once you've reached the bottom of your curve you can again swap out all of your tools and bit and start drilling the lateral. This process has its own complexities but in essence is very similar to drilling in the vertical.\n\nSorry for formatting I'm on mobile. If you have any other questions, just ask.",
"First comment hit it pretty well.\nTwo things you will look at are rpm, the rate at which the drill string is being turned and weight on bit, how hard you are pushing on the bit.\n\nThey attach pipe after drilling say every 120 ft (it varies a lot depending on where you are, typically it's multiples of 30 ft or 40ft). So drill 120 ft, connect pipe that's 120 ft in length, and keep going like this. \n\nTo go horizontal you go gradually over a relatively long distance ( first poster explains more thoroughly).\n\nSource : worked in deepwater drilling operations"
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How do CD players read CDs? | [
"With a narrow laser beam pointed at the cd. If the light reflects back to the sensor, it's a 1, if the light gets reflected at a different angle away from the sensor, it's a 0.",
"CDs have tiny microscopic pits in them that correspond to either a 0 or 1 in binary code. The CD player shoots a narrowly focused laser at the CD, the light from the laser bounces off the CD and into a sensor. When the laser passes over a pit in the CD it bounces in a different direction and misses the sensor. When the light sensor reads light or no light it registers a 0 or 1."
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No Child Left Behind | [
"You dislike it for the wrong reasons.\nNo Child Left Behind means that teachers' salaries depend on how their students preform on standardized tests. Obviously, this means that all good teachers migrate away from poor schools where their pay will be docked.",
"My old psychology teacher told me this- \"If no one is left behind, no one gets ahead.\"",
"NCLB ties federal funding to state education systems to academic achievement at the the district level. States are rewarded when they show academic progress, and when academic progress is not made, the state/fed steps in and restructures the schools. This response is just the tip of the iceberg, but if you can think of more specific question, I am happy to answer. \n\nNCLB does not require educators to \"teach to the test,\" rather, it pushes a standards based curriculum. Simply stated, this means students progress is measured based on what the are expected to learn that year (the content standards), NOT based on how well the teacher thinks he or she has done. At the end of the progress monitoring period (i.e., the school year, or the course), the student takes a test, and if the student passed the test, he or she is check as having made adequate yearly progress (AYP), and if he has not passed the test, he is check as not having made enough AYP. The students scores are gather and AYP is assessed for the school, then the district, and then the state. \n\nHere are some pros: \n1. Data based decision making--districts are now expected to make decisions about student interventions based on actual test scores. \n2. Access to education--students who received a less rigorous education (typically rural or low SES) are now required to be exposed to the same curriculum as suburban kiddos. \n3. Research based instructional methods--the intentions are good here, but there are issues with ethics and validity of the studies. \n\nThere are a lot of cons, largely because NCLB was written by legislators, under a not very empathetic administration. \n1. Charter schools--Some people think charter schools are great, but we are finally getting research that indicates that scores for typical students don't vary significantly between a charter and public school. In other words, if you took a typical student from a public school to a charter, he will do about the same. Charter schools are almost always for profit though, and do a lot of fund raising, pay teachers more, and don't always have to accept students with disabilities. \n2. Achievement of students with disabilities, student who are english language learners, and students who receive free/reduced lunch is consistently lower than achievement of typical students. This is another thread all together. \n3. Unrealistic expectations--the goal for NCLB is for 100% proficiency for students. Not happening. Not every student has the capacity to learn to Algebra. \n4. Useless test scores--the scores students earn on tests aren't tied to post-secondary outcomes. Universities, military and employers don't ask for them. \n\nTo address some of the other comments on this thread: \n1. NCLB is NOT pay for performance. That is a state initiative to increase teacher performance. \n2. The government does not make the tests students take. Companies are hired by the school districts to make the tests. \n3. The government does not say what students are supposed to learn. There is a national curriculum that is adopted voluntarily by the states. \n4. NCLB does not require teachers to \"teach to the test.\" Teachers are expected to teach the material that will be on the test, that is EXACTLY WHAT STANDARDS BASED INSTRUCTION IS.",
"It's a federal mandate. Schools must meet federal standards (measured by standardized test scores) and if they don't meet them then they lose funding. It didn't work very well. Results showed that math scores increases a bit and reading scores pretty much stayed the same. If you're interested in research in the current education situation I recommend Waiting for Superman. Get some tissues, and not the good reason."
] |
Can someone give me a basic intro to cars and what parts make up a car? | [
"This is by no means a complete list, and not even ten percent of what you should know. I am not a mechanic, nor am I even that good of a shadetree mechanic, but I'm bored at work, so I'm going to give you a quick rundown of terms. As far as modding or racing goes, simply owning a car and keeping it running will consume 100% of your automotive time as a teenager. Just trust me on that one. Cars are a constant pain in the ass. \n\nEngine Parts:\n\nAir Intake: This is where air gets sucked into the motor. How fast it is sucked in is regulated by the throttlebody, which is connected to the \"gas\" pedal. The \"gas\" pedal isn't a gas pedal at all; it's an air pedal.\n\nHead: This is the top part of the motor. The intake and exhaust valves live here. The actions of these valves are timed by the cam(s). SOHC means \"Single Overhead Cam\", and DOHC means \"Dual Overhead Cam\". The cams are driven by, and their speed controlled by, your timing belt, which is connected to the crankshaft.\n\nCrankshaft: This is what the pistons are connected to. It's shaped in a way where each time a piston gets forced down by gasoline exploding, force is imparted into the shaft as a rotating motion. \n\nBlock: The \"block\" is the part of the motor that the crankshaft and pistons live inside. It is a separate piece of metal from the head, and in between them, there's a head gasket that keeps oil inside the combustion chamber, and water (antifreeze) outside. \n\nFuel: Your car has fuel injectors. They are like the little atomizer thing on a windex bottle. Every time the computer in the car decides the engine needs gas, the fuel pump pushes gasoline from the gas tank to the fuel rail, where the injectors live. \n\nSpark: This is the other thing needed for combustion. You have a coil pack that runs off of the alternator. Electricity flows from the alternator to the coil pack, where the voltage is turned up a great deal. It then goes to a distributor, which splits it into 4, 6, or 8 wires, depending on how many cylinders you have. The ends of these wires are connected to the spark plugs, where it shorts across a thin gap causing the gasoline to explode. \n\nAccessories: There are a lot of devices that are driven by belts attached to the motor. These include the following - \n \n alternator - an electric generator driven by the motor. it powers all electronics in the car. it also charges your battery for you while you drive the car, too. \n power steering pump - this is a pump, that pumps power steering fluid into the steering rack. when you turn the wheel, this pump pressurizes the rack, which pushes on your tie rods, which are connected to the front wheels, causing them to turn left or right. If it breaks, you can still steer the car, but all the steering force comes from your arms moving the steering wheel. \n A/C compressor - I don't understand air conditioning systems.\n Water pump - usually, this is driven off of the timing belt. On some cars, it's driven off of an external belt. You can't see your timing belt, by the way. It's behind the front of the engine. The water pump's job is to keep antifreeze flowing through the motor in order to keep it cool. It pushes it all through the motor, and into the radiator, where wind from the highway cools it, and the cycle repeats. \n \nTransmission: The transmission interfaces with the flywheel on the back of the motor. The motor makes the transmission spin. A series of gears creates a tradeoff between power and efficiency, and the output shaft runs back to the differential. The differential is a T-splitter. It's a set of 90 degree gears that take the sideways rotation of the transmission, and turn it into longways rotation of the drive axles, which make the wheels turn. \n\nSuspension: Tie rods are what steer the front wheels. Ball joints are what hold all four wheels vertical. Your springs absorb blows from the road, keeping the car level, and the shocks control how fast the springs expand back to their original size. There's WAY more to suspensions than this. I don't understand all of it. \n\nAgain, this is a hilariously, woefully incomplete rundown of a car. I just felt like writing. Wikipedia will help you. r/cars will help you. After you buy a car, locate a forum for that model of car on the internet, where other people can help you. \n\nThey are not mysterious machines, but they're certainly not simple either.",
"Buy a shitty car. Buy the repair guide for that car (Hayne's Manuals are pretty comprehensive) and pledge to never take it to the mechanic.\n\nYou will be surprised what you can learn when your ride to work depends on it."
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Why do America and the UK not use the same "main" painkiller? Aspirin vs Paracetamol | [
"In the US (and Canada) Paracetamol is called Acetaminophen, which goes by the brand name Tylenol. Tylenol is in fact one of the top pain killers used. In addition to Acetaminophen, Ibuprofen (Advil), and Acetilsalicylic Acid (Aspirin) are probably the most common painkillers in North America.",
"When people say \"take 2 aspirin and call me in the morning\", it's because the phrase has become a cliche. It's an outdated saying that doesn't reflect the products people actually use.\n\nAspirin isn't that widely used in the US and much of what's being sold these days is being used for it's benefits to heart health (low-dose aspirin reduces the risk of certain types of heart attacks). Paracetamol (known as acetaminophin and Tylenol here) is more commonly used than aspirin. [A quick look for marketshare info](_URL_0_) shows that the top brands are Advil (ibuprofen), Aleve (naproxen), Tylenol (acetominiophen/paracetamol/APAP) and then Bayer (aspirin). While that doesn't cover specifics of the generics that people buy, it's reasonable to assume consumer preferences are similar there.",
"Besides what other people said, it should be noted that everyone in the US calls acetaminophen/paracetamol \"Tylenol\". Tylenol still is an actual copyrighted brand, whereas aspirin is (now) a generic word. You said that you're going based off of movies, and films generally try to avoid using brand names unless it's product placement.",
"Aspirin was really popular decades ago, and old people still use it or refer to it, even when they use other products. \n\nAcetaminophen probably has the worst set of side effects, and in personal experience is the least effective though, but different people seem to have different effects.",
"Let’s clarify the language: Painkillers refer to prescription narcotics. Pain-relievers are OTC like Tylenol."
] |
Why is it that controlling your breathing helps to moderate pain? | [
"It isn't the breathing, exactly. \n\nIt's the focus. Focus on your breathing, it helps distract from focusing on your pain. \n\nI think it also helps keep you from hyperventilating and going into shock.",
"A large percentage of pain is mental -- how your brain is responding to the urgent signals from your sensory neurons.\n\nFocusing on your breathing is a mild form of meditation, which calms your mind and, as a side effect, softens emergency responses such as pain and terror and anxiety."
] |
when it's hot out, why doesn't corn start turning into popcorn? | [
"Popcorn pops because corn kernels contain a small amount of water. When the water is heated enough to boil, steam is produced, which increases the pressure within the kernel. When the pressure difference (between the corn kernel and the atmosphere) is high enough to rupture the kernel, it pops.\n\nWater boils at 100 Celsius at one atmosphere of pressure. Nowhere in the world where corn is grown does it even get close to 100 Celsius.\n\n(This is a slightly simplified version of what happens. There is also some oil inside the kernel, which will boil at a lower temperature. In general, popcorn kernels will pop at about 80 degrees Celsius.)"
] |
why does time seem to pass faster as I get older? | [
"I've heard in the past that it's because it's relative. When you're ten, a year seems like forever because it's a tenth of your entire life. When you're fifty, a year seems like hardly any time at all because it's literally just a 50th of your entire life, etc",
"The older you get, the fewer truly \"new\" experiences you encounter in a given year. Remember your first kiss, your first date, your first drunken bender (okay you likely don't remember that one), and so on and so forth? Well, as long as those \"firsts\" happen closely together, time seems like it's going on forever.\n\nBut once most of your life is day-to-day routine and the exceptional experiences are rare, it feels as if a year passed by, and you didn't even notice it.",
"How many times have you brushed your teeth in your life. Can you remember more than a handful of times that you were brushing your teeth, and recall in detail what else you had been doing, what you were wearing, what you did that day? \n\nNow how many times have you had to go to the hospital in your life. Can you remember why you had to go each time, and what it was like? \n\n\nUnless you are a doctor, or routinely enjoy hospitals for the heck of it, then you probably can clearly recall every hospital visit, but not brushing your teeth. \n\nYou do one every single day, and brushing your teeth on one day, is pretty much like brushing your teeth on any other day, so what's to remember? Your mind does a kind of memory aggregation where if a new memory is similar to memories you already have, it doesn't record the new memory with a lot of detail, and instead it just lumps and averages it into the existing memories. \n\nI brush my teeth every day, but my memory of doing so is a kind of amalgam of every time I've brushed my teeth and any memory of other things like how much sleep I got the night before, or what I felt that day, or what I wore, are lost in the averaging of the memory. \n\nBut life changing, traumatic, or exceptional moments in our lives stand out vividly in our memory, with far more detail. These memories will usually stay with you your entire life. Your first kiss, your first job, your first child, your first wife, your first funeral, first divorce, first breakup, etc. \n\n\nNow I will make my point. If you do something new, you remember it vividly and that memory seems to fill more time. \n\nDo the same thing every day, and there is nothing particularly new for your mind to grasp, and it instead aggregates and averages that memory with all of the other memories. \n\nWhat is the sense of time passing if it's not remembering what you did today, yesterday, last week, this year. \n\nWhen you are young, everything is new. Everything is an experience you're doing for the first time. Something as novel as getting into a car is terribly exciting. \n\nWhen you're middle age and getting older, you have likely done most of the things you're likely to do on a daily basis. They won't be new and exciting anymore, they will be mundane. And this monotony of un stimulating daily grind is what makes time seem to go by faster. You live the same day, get up for work, shower, brush, commute, do work, come home, eat, watch tv or game, and go to sleep. Repeat daily......\n\n\nIf you want to make a month seem like a year and reverse the faster passing of time there is one thing you can do. Do something different every day. \n\nLearn new hobbies. Meet new people. Read new books. Visit new places. Eat at new diners. Whatever you would typically do every day, do something new as much as you can rather than something routine. \n\n\nDo this for a month, and you will feel like that month lasted a year. \n\nOn the other hand, do the same thing day in and day out, and life just keeps going faster and faster."
] |
What causes bad morning breath? | [
"Bacteria have had all night to multiply in your mouth without any water or food to wash away/dislodge them. Your mouth also dries out, especially if you breathe through your mouth, which further worsens it."
] |
Why do toenails grow much slower than fingernails? | [
"Two theories:\n\nMost of it has to do with blood supply. Your fingertips get more blood than your toes (this is why frostbite affects toes more easily than fingers). More blood means that the portion that produces the nail gets more nutrients so that it can produce more nail. This is also why in the summer, the higher temperatures makes your vessels swell slightly so nail growth is increased.\n\nSecondly, there is a \"trauma\" theory. Your dominant hand's nails grow faster than the nails on the other hand because the dominant hand is under more stress and strain. More impact on the nail makes your body think that the nail is in use so it regrows faster. Your toes are usually not under any of this \"trauma\" when they are covered in shoes and socks so they end up growing slower.",
"sunlight (vitamin D) promotes nail growth. most people keep their toenails in shoes and their finger nails exposed to the sun."
] |
How does pain radiate from one part of the body to another? | [
"Not every organ we have is innervated directly though the central nervous system, meaning it can't send pain signals to the brain. For example, your diaphragm doesn't have a way to make your brain realize there's something wrong, so it sends the the pain signal through the next branch it's connected to so the brain can receive the information. when your diaphragm hurts, you feel it in the top of your shoulders because the nerve patterns of those areas of your body are close. It's very confusing, and people often dismiss important pain signals because they think they are unrelated to the problem at hand.",
"Back in time we evolved from segmented worm-like creatures. Each segment had it's own nerves (and other body systems). Our spinal arrangment is a remnant of this. As we evolved more specialized body parts, nerves from certain segments became the ones that connected to different systems, sometimes quite remote from each other. Pain in one part served by a particular nerve system can \"cross-talk\" to related connections."
] |
What causes a cowlick? | [
"It more so depends on your hair follicle. This is what determines which way the hair grows out of the scalp. So essentially cowlicks are tufts of hair where their follicles cause them to grow in such a fashion. \n\nAlso, considering this is an internal thing, we can't change our follicles, so you can't really \"fix\" a cowlick. People will tell you you can train your hair, which is true, but only to a certain extent. Truly the only thing you can do is work with what you got and get some appropriate products and a knowledgeable hair dresser to help you work around it.\n\n\nI can talk more about your scalp if that didn't answer the question the extent to which you were looking. But that's the quick answer.\n\nTL:DR Your Hair follicles determine the growth direction of your hair which sometimes results in cowlicks.",
"Believe it or not, it's a consequence of the [hairy ball theorem.](_URL_0_)"
] |
How does digital clock work? | [
"There is a special elements called a quartz. It is the same thing that beach sand is made of. It has a special property of converting different Energies. With pressure it turns into heat, with light it splits light, and with electricity it creates a vibration.\n\nSome quartz crystals make a very stable vibration. Imagine one of these quartz could do 1000 times the second perfectly. We learned how to measure that has had to turn that into a clock.\n\nYou may be familiar with counting seconds as one one thousand or one alligator. Running electricity through a piece of quartz crystal splits one second into to one thousand beats per second. By making a device that can separate every 1000 beats we can create a stable clock.",
"Typical household digital clocks do not rely on quartz crystals for timekeeping. These clocks sample the AC voltage from the wall outlet. The frequency of this voltage is very well controlled at 50 or 60 Hz (varies by country) The clock measures the passage of time by counting how many times the electricity cycles. After 50 or 60 cycles, one second has gone by and the clock updates the display accordingly. The power distribution company strives to keep the frequency correct since varying frequency has a negative impact on the performance of the grid. The clock is incredibly accurate because of this. \nInterestingly, old style electric motor clocks also exhibited high accuracy for the same reason. In this case, though, a synchronous motor is used that spins once for each voltage cycle. 50 or 60 revolutions then equated to one second, so time could be mechanically displayed very accurately."
] |
Why is it substantially easier for me to drum my fingers from pinkie to thumb than thumb to pinkie? | [
"Probably just because you haven't practised doing it one way but do practice the other way because you do it out of habit. I've never really thought can do it both ways without a problem, and if you tried for about a week you probably would be able to as well.\n\nI think this because I remember what it was like learning to play the guitar. When you begin playing moving your fingers in the correct way is incredibly difficult and it feels like you would never be able to do it, but then all of a sudden one day you realise that you can play all kinds of things without looking/thinking even though you once thought your fingers couldn't move like that.",
"Theory: that's how your hand works to grab things (outside in) so it's a more natural motion"
] |
How do they justify using government money to help build new sports stadiums? | [
"decisions about money are often determined by whether or not the people making the decision think that decision will make other people spend more money on things they profit from. if enough people in city planning / government think a new stadium will bring more people to the city to spend money there, then they do it in the hopes that eventually the city will have a profit overall.",
"Professional sports team can be sometime very important for a city and surrounding. It give prestige to a city, it bring more people in the city, both to live in or to visit, it bring more money in the city, etc.\n\nSo it give a lot of negotiating power in the hand of the team. The team can threaten to leave the city if they don't help with the cost of the stadium, in that case the city have the choice to help them and secure the presence of the team or to risk them leaving because another city was ready to give money for a new stadium on their territory.\n\nThe problem is that most economist deny those claims. Studies seem to indicate that professional sport team have near zero impact because it doesn't increase the amount of money spent. Most people have a fixed budget for entertainment and for most team, it doesn't bring people from out of town like a concert would.\n\nSo usually it end up as a political move. If you are the Mayor that let the profession team go away from the city, you probably won't come back in office next election.",
"> It isn't like they get some profit sharing from the team afterwards.\n\nBut they do. All that tax revenue is essentially profit sharing. Taxes on tickets, property taxes, sales taxes on food, beverages, additional taxes on alcohol, etc. etc. etc."
] |
LI5: Why do we enjoy music? | [
"[This Ted talk](_URL_0_) has some info on that.\n\nI would say it has to do on harmonics, how notes relate to each other. \n\nIn regards to pitch, they're all vibrations. An A4 would be around 440 Hz, when you go up an octave it doubles, so an A5 would be 880. This means that for every 2 cycles of A5, there is exactly 1 cycle of A4. Think of [this](_URL_1_) Those lights are each an octave separate. Now, if they were on a less harmonic relation, the frequency in which these lights light up at the same time would reduce.\nThis is in regards to harmony, as for timbre I wouldnt really know why the same melody might \"feel\" more enjoyable in one instrument than another and how the different combination of instruments would give out different feelings.\n\nThink of a melody, it might not sound great, but once you arrange some instruments playing a harmony it usually sounds better. So, my theory would be that it all goes down to the relationship of how often the [\"lights\"](_URL_1_) light up at the same time. One light flashing without others doing other frequencies would be slightly more boring, unless it's a simplistic style I would say. Imagine that gif with different colors, and many more lights. Try and picture how different patterns would look and how at a great scale they could even make different combination of colors depending on the patterns.\n\nIm not sure if I explained it, I started typing and just drifted off for a bit, hope atleast your knowledge of how music works has increased.\n\nBtw, feel free to correct me anyone, I'm not an expert on this.",
"While I don't know the answer to your question, I do know that there are rules to what does or doesn't sound harmonious and if we can feed them to a machine, that machine can generate original music that follows those rules and the result is indistinguishable from what a human would do.\n\nIf you are interested you can get [more details](_URL_2_) about it."
] |
"Peter's Map" | [
"You mean the Gall-Peters projection map.\n\nIt is a map that correctly represents the size of continents. Meaning that Greenland doesn't look as big as Africa on it.\n\nWhile it gets the area right it gets shape, direction and distance wrong, meaning it is useful to compare the size of places but a bad tool to navigate by.\n\nSince more typical map projections like the mercator make places closer to the poles look bigger than places closer to the equator some people have ignored the reason why these projections get chosen and declared them to be 'racist' and the Peters map a better alternative. Some extend it and turn the map upside down to further emphasize the point.",
"The Gall-Peters map is weird... it claims to show that the world \"really\" looks like, but it really doesn't, it's hugely stretched out and strange-looking. All you have to do is look at the globe, and you will see how inaccurate it is.\n\nNo map is perfect, because there's no way to put the surface of a globe directly onto a rectangular surface. But I prefer the Robinson map: _URL_0_"
] |
Why is queen Elizabeth also the queen of many independent sovereign nations (former colonies) ? | [
"Because those countries have so far not decided to become republics. They are known as the Commonwealth Realms (note that is different from simply being a member of the Commonwealth of Nations).\n\nMany of Britain's colonies did not violently break away from the British Empire. It was a gradual transfer of power until the point they were independent countries. So there was no big overhaul of their constitutions post-independence, nor was there much anger towards Britain, hence they retained the monarchy.\n\nMany former colonies have become republics. And a few current Commonwealth Realms have stated their intent to become republics at some point in the future (Barbados and Jamaica I think). As they are independent countries, they are free to do that and the UK cannot stop them (nor would it want to).",
"Because they chose to have her as their head of state. All countries that have her as the Head of State are called Commonwealth realms, which means they are members of the Commonwealth of Nations that have Queen Elizabeth II as the monarch. They're all sovereign nations that voluntarily choose to recognize her as head of state and maintain ties to the UK.",
"She takes the part of a symbolic head of state.\n\nIn the US the president is an actual head of state with powers over military and policy. In many other countries (most of Europe) a president is just there to represent the country with little or no actual powers. Countries are run by prime ministers chosen by parliaments, elected by the people.\n\nSome of the former British Empire nations chose to not bother with presidents at all and just go with the Queen."
] |
How are dams built? What kind of environmental effect do they have on the surrounding areas? | [
"Building a dam is quite simple. You have done it a billion times in that stream in the forest. You simply build a wall where the water wants to flow. This stops the water and the water starts to fill up and expand over more and more area until it can find an exit or there is enough water to flow over the wall. Since the river or stream will keep on sending water to your dam it is impossible to contain it all forever. \n\nSo what you do is that you put in a way to let some of the water keep flowing after you have reached the desired water level. So that it will maintain that level. In an electric plant that water outlet is placed at the bottom of it, and in the outlet there is a huge fan,when the water flows through there it spins the fan that then uses that energy to make electricity.\n\nHumans are not the only ones that make dams. Their also made by nature itself when trees fall over or big rocks fall into streams, etc. Beavers also make dams, there is an beaver dam so big in Canada that you can see it from [space!](_URL_0_) \n\nThanks to that beaver dam a lot of the area around has been transformed into wetlands where many animals thrive. It is the same with the dams we humans create, that some animals will love the lakes they create. But there are also many animals that will hate it. You see the animals and plants living there are all used to the way things are, many of them have evolved to live in just such an area and if you suddenly turn it into one big lake they will all have to move or die.\n\nThink of your own room, what if we suddenly filled it with water? It would be a lot of fun splashing around in it for a while! But what happens when you want to sleep? All cold and wet around you, can't lie down or you will drown. You can move into another room, but your sister already has the only other room available, so you will have to either share that small space with her, or fight about it, or probably both. You won't like it and neither will she. It is the same with the animals.\n\nSometimes dams are built in the migratory patterns of fish, stopping them from coming home. This is the same as if someone built a huge wall around our house that you could never ever get past.",
"They mess up the fish living in the river because different fish will thrive in the lake created. Obviously there is also a loss in land habitat because suddenly there is a bunch of water there."
] |
Why does listening to people with certain types of accents sound pleasing (similar to an ASMR effect)? | [
"Accents are produced by the vocal pallet being worked in different ways. Some accents fall onto deeper more bassey areas of the vocal pallet cresting a deeper resonant sound which can be quite nice and soothing. Other accents come up through the pallet and have a real tenor quality (think Canadians)\n\nYou can think of it like singing different vocal sounds will produce a response in you based on your vocal tastes."
] |
I pay a monthly fee for cable TV. Why are there commercial advertisements, and, more importantly, why are movies censored for language? | [
"You may a monthly fee for the cable company to hook you up to their data-distribution network. Ads exist to pay for individual programs. And movies are censored because the channel that broadcasts them want to censor them. If it's not being broadcast over the air, they aren't *required* to censor them, but may choose to do to to maximize the size of their audience.\n\nIf you want an analogy to the \"paying for cable\" vs \"ads\" thing, it's like the fact that you have to pay for an Internet connection, but you still also have to pay for things like some music streaming services or online game subscriptions.",
"The advertisement is to pay to make the expensive original content, or to cover the costs of buying the rights to air syndicated old shows.\n\nThe censorship is for different reasons, usually a hold over from a long ago passed law/regulation back when people cared more about that kind of stuff."
] |
Why does melted cheese taste different than plain cheese? | [
"I believe it has something to do with the enzymes and proteins that are reorganized once introduced to a higher temperature.",
"The matrix of milk proteins that provide cheese its structure break down, and the cheese takes on a creamy texture. Our nervous system is stimulated by creamy textures. The sensations associated with melted cheese connote calorie dense fat.",
"I also wonder why freshly shredded cheese tastes better than sliced..",
"I cooked for a while. From my experience in the trade the colder the temperature the less one can taste. Which leads to how I might explain this \"change.\" Faster moving molecules interact with the senses better. Smell is seventy percent of taste after all.",
"I'm pretty sure this has to do almost entirely with the maillard reaction generated from the higher temperature. The unfolding amino acids are now linear residues which have contact with the sugars in the cheese. This generates an array of complex flavor molecules. I would also speculate the flavor would be quite different between cheeses wit various levels of sugar. Something that has been aging for years like a parmesan would have less sugar than a quickly produced American. The additional sugar gets you that very rich flavor. Speculation based on the biochemistry and cheese knowledge. \n\nMost likely this is about American cheese. On average, American cheese has a much higher lactose/sugar level higher than other conventional cheeses, which may be why this question was asked. The protein parts get all up in bed with the sugar to create new aromatic compounds. They both go in caterpillars and come out butterflies. Delicious cheesy butterflies.\n\n\nIt's not until enough heat enters the system that this reaction can occur. Thats just what were doing by introducing the heat",
"Same reason the cooked bread doesn't taste like it's doughy form, heat changes the chemical state of the cheese",
"Always wondered if melted cheese is healthier than normal. Anyone know?"
] |
How do global rules of war work? How does one enforce the rules while at war with another country? What would stop an opposing power from breaking these rules? | [
"If you break the rules, you will be sanctioned. This makes it a lot harder to access the global market, making you poorer and less able to fight the war. If you lose the war then you may be tried in a court for war crimes and imprisoned.\n\nAlternatively, the enemy may start to commit war crimes against you and your soldiers become scared and demoralized and become a less effective fighting force.",
"The basic idea is if you break one of the rules alot of people dont l like you, or the other side starts doing the same thing.\n\nFor example in WWII the allies and the germand both had gas to use, but they had a implied agreement to not use it since it was such a terrible weapon.\n\nThe rules were kinda enforced on the battlefield as well. Like in WWI soldiers with serrated bayonets were executed if the enemy found them. (It wasent really a rule, but it was a very cruel weapon so thats how they got people to stop using it).\n\nSadly in guerilla warfare its extremely hard to follow alot of these rules, take vietnam for example with bombing of civilian targets because the VC were hiding with them.\n\nBasically in war there are rules that are not followed as well as they should or as others are. Especially killing civilians (im looking at you Japan). But things like using fire, glass, or gas dont happen because it causes an extreme amount of unnecessary suffering (which is very demoralizing).\n\nTl;dr if they dont use gas i wont use gas because i dont want my troops to fight in gas.",
"The rules of war are enforced by international pressure. If you break them, other countries you would be considered justified in using diplomatic, economic, and military pressure against them.\n\nThis can be a complicated matter, and is there is no automatic procedure that will try and punish a country that violates the rules of war. For example, Syria is using chemical weapons, a clear violation, but Russia supports Syria and China opposes military intervention on general principles, so they are questioning the accuracy of the reports to make the violation less clear.",
"Most of the rules are laid out in the Geneva Convention, _URL_0_\nYou can't really enforce the rules during the war, unless you capture those who have committed the violation and send them to International Criminal Court, the boy that handles such violations.",
"if you break the rules, you're court martialed by your own government or tried by the winners, whoever has the bigger stick. \n\nand they're not laws. they're gentleman agreements.",
"In general, 'rules of war' are enforced by practical expediency.\n\nFor example, if I summarily execute all captured prisoners, then my opponents will probably do the same.\n\nLikewise, any weapon I use on you, you'll use on me.\n\nSince World War II, the world hasn't seen a military conflict between the great powers. This means that the conflicts it *has* seen are mediated to some extent by those powers - one or more sides of the conflict is backed by a power that imposes rules on them lest they withdraw their aid.",
"They don't. They're just excuses used by victors to justify punishing the defeated.\n\nAll other arguments are false."
] |
Why does the ISS not spin to create artificial gravity? | [
"One of the points of the ISS is being able to do experiments in zero gravity. A spinning station would defeat that purpose.\n\nBut also, complexity. More complexity equals higher costs, and AFAIK the ISS already went over its budget as it is.",
"Spinning doesn't just create uniform gravity everywhere like they show in the movies. If the structure is too small. The force felt at the feet would be much stronger than the force felt at the head (because the feet would be moving faster than the head). This condition causes most people to vomit.\n\nAlso, the ISS doesn't have an axis on which to spin about to create artificial gravity. It's built like a bunch of tubes connected every which way, so spinning it would cause astronauts in some sections to be pressed flat against the sides and astronauts in other sections to be weightless.",
"Probably due to mechanical stresses. Much lighter and weaker parts can be used if you don't have to hold your shit together. \n \nAnd in space, complexity is bad.",
"If you wanted this kind of a spacecraft, a la Cowboy Bebop, you'd have to design it like a ring. Why? As you move away from the center of rotation radially, you experience more or less force. I'd imagine it would be a lot more difficult to construct a ring, then set it into rotation, then have a part that is not rotating for docking purposes, communications antenna and solar panel orientation, etc. The ISS is like 80m wide and 120m long IIRC, meaning that if it was a ring of comparable size, it would have to rotate around .1 rev/s to achieve similar \"gravity\" to earth. Which doesn't seem like a lot, and it probably isn't, but that's also going to put stress on the components in the space station which means they have to be built more rigorously which means they weigh more which is already a huge problem."
] |
Why does the glass at the top of my car windscreen/windshield appear blue? | [
"It appears blue because it is specifically tinted blue to keep the sun out of your eyes without significantly impacting visibility."
] |
How does eating food stop one from feeling the effects of Cannabis? | [
"It doesn't. It just gives a burst of energy, but it in NO WAY sobers you."
] |
How does one body hair (like arm hair) grow so much longer than all the others? | [
"I have the same issue, sometimes I get one hair on my arm or stomach that grows to be 4 inches or more. Always on my left side, too. I always assumed that it was a mutation. Hair goes through growth and resting cycles and I always assumed that the mutant hair wasn't getting the message to rest or fall out.",
"Most people are completely unaware of the fact that the individual hairs on your head and body grow independently of one another. Each hair follicle produces hair based on its specific genetic instruction and can be affected by oil build-up and irritants. It’s also possible that the hair follicles will produce hair that is of a different texture than the other hair follicles. The variance is generally very slight, but if you look closely, you will see some differences between individual hairs. The proof of this is most apparent in the fact that different hair follicles produce differently colored hairs"
] |
If your mouth has more germs than your anus, why is it easier for you to get sick from putting your mouth on someone's anus rather than kissing them? | [
"Because \"number of germs\" is not in any way a good indicator of how likely you are to get sick. Your body contains many many billions of bacteria, most of which are actually beneficial to your body. In this specific case, E. coli (a gut bacteria) is responsible for the sickness. Early in your life, one strain of E. coli colonizes your body; your immune system will ignore that strain. But someone *else's* strain will make you sick.",
"Bacteria in your mouth are largely either neutral or beneficial to your health. Probiotic bacteria are helpful in breaking down food. Other bacteria are in there to help protect gum health. The baddies in your mouth typically lead to gum decay, cavities, or bad breath - not things we enjoy, but also not something that will make us sick.\n\nBacteria in your anus are also important. Lots of probiotics there, too. However, there are also bacteria in the gut that are sometimes transported out the bunghole and aren't meant for ingestion. Fecal coliform is the perfect example. Know how sick *E. Coli* usually makes people? This guy is the same family, but it lives in your gut. \n\nThings that live in your gut should usually stay there."
] |
is there a way to conceptually describe a 4th dimension in terms of our 3 dimensional world? | [
"The way that made it sort of click to me is like this:\n\nImagine that you, a 3D person, get transported into a 2D world. You can still perceive depth, but nobody around you can. They only have up and down, and forward and back, but no Z axis.\n\nNow imagine someone stuck you in a 2d jail and you didn't particularly feel like staying in there. Functionally this would be kind of like someone sticking you in a square of tape on the floor and expecting it to contain you. In other words, you'd just step over (or around, depending on your orientation) the silly line and go about your business.\n\nNow to a 4D person in our 3D world, it'd be much the same. They'd look at our prisons and go \"Why don't the prisoners just go red or green and get out of jail?\" and to them, red and green would be an axis of their spatial dimensions just like up and down are for us.",
"Here's how I conceptualize it:\n\n0D: A single point\n\n1D: Take the point and drag it out to create a line\n\n2D: Take the whole line and drag it up to create a plane (a square)\n\n3D: Take the whole square and drag all of it to the side at once to create a cube\n\n4D: Imagine that the whole cube is a single point, and drag the whole cube to make a line where each point on the line is an entire cube. Note that in 3D space, each point appears to overlap with the previous point because the cubes have thickness (unlike the 0D point), but the cubes are actually not touching each other.",
"Try thinking about how a 2D plane would move in 3 dimensions. A sphere looks like a circle. It gets bigger and smaller, as you move the plane. Now extrapolate to 3 dimensions. A hyper sphere looks like a sphere to us, but changes size as we move through the fourth dimension.",
"Well, your eyes only see in two dimensions, but your brain helps you understand that something continues to exist even when your view is blocked by a nearer object. \n\nThe macro world has only three dimensions, so getting more than that's going to be tricky. Some approaches use time, or color as others have proposed, but that's not the same. In a 4D universe you can hold a coffee cup in each hand and push them inside each other. One coffee cup passes through the other because although they are in the same 3D coordinates they are at a different place in the unseen 4^th dimension. Like a hologram, they pass through each other and can be brought back apart without spilling or mixing the coffee inside. Clearly this all has to be done inside your head.\n\nPerhaps you could put on VR goggles tied to a 4D simulation and experience this, but you'd be looking at 4D in stereo 2D. That's quite a leap for your brain to make.",
"The conventional way is to imagine a new perpendicular axis sprouting from the xyz plane, just like how the z-axis is created from the xy plane. However, this description is not the easiest to conceptualize.\n\nIf you want to think about it spatially, I highly recommend a tool for visualizing 4D cubes and rotating it in 3D space. You can rotate it to where it looks like a 3D cube as a starting point and go from there. This is analogous to closing one of your eyes and turning a cube so that it appears as a square to your remaining eye.\n\nA better way to conceptualize nth dimensions is to think of the coordinates as a range of possible points on each axis. I know someone mentioned this already with color, but I believe it is important to imagine the values all as integers. This is perhaps the easiest way.\n\nThe idea is you have \"fixed\" ranges in which points on the 4th axis can vary if the first three are fixed. Imagine a 2D unit circle on the xy plane centered at the origin. If you fix a single value for x, let's say 0, then its location on the y axis is either 1 or -1. As you trace the y-axis from 1 to -1 counter-clockwise, you will find that it moves between 0, -1, and back to 0 on the x-axis. Alternatively, if you trace the same path going clockwise, X ranges from 0 to 1 and back to 0 again.\n\nThe same idea is true for nth dimensions. Simply put, a dimension is a way of plotting a point along multiple axes. A hyperbolic example would be a fitness map for a small, polypeptide. It has 20 constituent amino acids, representing a 20th dimension map. Clearly, visualizing this in 3D space is a futile effort, as well as exploring that *entire space* for even a tiny polypeptide. For example, even a 10 AA long sequence has 10^20 possibilities, which is far to difficult to conceptualize spatially. However, using the axes slider approach, one can effectively use the 20 dimensions to explore fixed points, i.e. specific, unique AA sequences and explore the \"distance\" between unique AA sequences. This is an extremely useful and powerful method of applying nth dimensional analysis.",
"The easiest visual to think about is having a conceivable 4th dimension (time) and moving a 3D object to it. \n\n[We can see where this police car was, and where it is, by looking at the light trails](_URL_0_). But that's not very helpful; there's no 4D object here, right?\n\nWell, imagine if the *entire car* was visible at each light-point. A long sausage of car - **one** car, not multiple images of the same car. Each blinker and bulb being the same one - just in different spaces (not really \"at the same time\", but in this length of time). \n\nThat still doesn't give you a 4th spacial dimension (at least, not a macroscopic one), but that's the easiest way to think about it. You won't get an easy-to-view/conceive spacial dimension, because it's not there. \n\nTime is a dimension. If we can see where something is and where it was, if we join those points, we treat time like a 4th dimension. That's the best I've got.",
"You can think of other dimensions as colors or temperatures. Pick a coordinate using the XYZ axis (3D), and you have a single point. A 4th dimension would be the color of the point (think of it as a point on a 4th axis, shown as a map scale on the bottom of the graph). Next, what is the temperature of the point? You could think of that as a 5th dimension. This is at least my understanding, and I’m sure there are way more complicated and convoluted ways of looking at it.",
"I saw a really good explanation in a thread about tesseracts a few days ago. brb gonna find it\n\nedit: [here it is](_URL_1_)"
] |
How does the fuel gauge work in a car? | [
"Go to your toilet and lift the lid off of the water holder. Flush the toilet. See that little floaty thingy? Thats what in your fuel tank. The car takes a measurement of how high that float it floating (by using electronics it can measure how far on a stick that floater has floated up). Take a volume measurement with the float being the heigh and you get how much fuel you have.",
"Alternative to a \"float\" there is also capacitive sensors. Meaning that the tank measure the electrical potential between two of the sides. Electricity can flow more easily through certain materials and the air/gas mixture in the empty part of the tank has a distinctly different potential to the area filled with liquid gasoline. The sensor than gauges how empty it is based on the low potential (pure air) and the high (full of gasoline)."
] |
How does the calculator count? | [
"This is not really ELI5 but maybe it helps:: _URL_0_"
] |
Why are there so many Martial Arts in Asia? | [
"Asian cultures did not necessarily produce more martial arts. They just preserved them better. \n\nHowever, it's true that in China's case, education in militarized martial arts was more prolific than in other cultures. Folk fighting styles were commonly practiced by all people everywhere, but a high proportion of commoners in China also knew how to wield proper weapons of war. This can be attributed to the difference between Chinese and European monasteries.\n\nChinese monasteries were huge landed estates, filled with a lot of wealth and resources. At many points of its history, the Chinese states were consumed in war with one another, forcing the monks to institutionalize martial arts in order to defend themselves. The Northern and Southern Shaolin Temples were destroyed multiple times, and many monks went into hiding among the general populace to escape persecution, spreading their teachings among the locals. Eventually, many of the folk martial arts they practiced declined in popularity and styles derived from Shaolin kung fu became the norm.\n\nThe European situation was different, but martial arts still became wildly popular. Wrestling and later fencing was practiced extensively by all nobility, producing dozens of different schools and styles.\n\nSome of those martial arts you named are modern. Kendo, Tae Kwon Do, and arguably Muay Thai were all made in the 20th century, though they were derived from older martial arts.",
"There's no more martial arts in Asia than there is in Europe. We just view them as foreign so they stick out more. Fencing, wrestling, gymnastics, boxing, and parkour are all European martial arts that are practiced today. Go back in history and you'll find dozens of styles of hand-to-hand combat and sword fighting arts across the continent.\n\nMilitary cultures tend to standardize the way they fight and turn it into a practiced art no matter where they come from. There are even martial arts from sub-saharan Africa and pre-colonial America.",
"Most martial arts are inexpensive (requiring little equipment besides your body and farm implements). Swords and armor are very expensive.\n\nPeasants could learn karate, kung fu, etc and gain a modicum of self-defense without breaking the bank."
] |
What exactly is sleep? And why do we do it? | [
"Sleep is the brain's \"clean\" cycle.\n\nYour brain cells aren't connected directly to the bloodstream. There's a barrier in the way, the *blood-brain barrier*, that prevents random chemicals in the blood from affecting brain function. You wouldn't want your personality to change based on what you had for lunch, for example.\n\nThis means that the brain cells need some other way to get nutrients and dispose of their waste. So they use the *cerebrospinal fluid* (CSF). CSF is a nutrient soup that surrounds and fills the brain. It flows slowly through the brain, and nutrients float around in it to be absorbed by the brain cells. But those cells have to expel waste - they expel their waste into the CSF, too. And the CSF doesn't flow fast enough to really carry that waste away, so it just sits there, building up. By the end of the day, the cells are basically floating in a soup of their own waste products, which is bad for brain function. So the brain enters sleep mode.\n\nDuring sleep, channels around the brain open up. The day's old and grimy CSF is pumped out, and fresh CSF is pumped in, flushing away all those waste products. By morning, you wake up with a squeaky-clean brain."
] |
When Animals interact with each other why do they not look at one another in the eyes like humans do? | [
"A lot of animals see eye contact as intimidating. Looking an animal in the eyes can be a way to assert dominance. Dogs will usually try to avoid eye contact with a dominant individual, and they'll look down in submission. \nOther animals always try to maintain eye contact. Domestic sheep will usually only graze when they can make eye contact with other sheep."
] |
Is the number of open gays increasing or is the ratio because of the change in times? | [
"Both. Population increase and the fact that people are not as afraid to come out and say they are because ridicule is less than it once was.",
"Very hard to say. Homophobia means we can't have very good stats because not everyone could tell the truth."
] |
Why don't we simply desalinate/clean ocean water for situations like droughts? | [
"It's very expensive currently, and you have the problem of brine left over. The process is not perfect so you don't end up with pure water on one side and salt on the other, you get about half salt-free water and the other half is doubly-salty water, or brine. Disposing of brine is a problem. It is usually put back into the ocean but it needs to be done slowly or it sinks to the bottom and raises the salinity at the ocean floor to dangerous levels for the creatures that live there.",
"Desalination needs huge amounts of energy, which makes it expensive.\n\nIf you have pure desalinated water delivered to your home, your average monthly bill would be about $200-$250 - and that's before you've started turning on sprinklers.",
"They probably could, but it's expensive and unless a company wants to pick it up and sell the water it would mean more taxes."
] |
When something hits me in the nose but doesn't make me bleed, I smell something that I never smell in other situations. What is this smell? | [
"Iron from blood vessels bursting inside your nose. Your smelling the iron in your blood most likely.",
"Could be micro capillary bursts that means you bleed but not in any way that's going to be noticeable unless you use a fiber-optic scope and look.\n\nYou could be smelling that.\n\nCould be that after getting struck there's a slight amount of swelling/edema and that alters your sense of smell temporarily. Think of it like a concussion for your olfactory nerves.",
"Smell is just our brain interpreting the pattern of activity of olfactory receptors in the nose. Normally, this pattern of activity is induced chemically; the molecules in the air or your food bind to some of those receptors causing a specific pattern of activity that your brain interprets as a specific smell. But if you got hit in the nose hard enough, it's possible that your olfactory receptors could be activated mechanically. The pattern of activation you would get from that hit would be different from any other pattern your brain has experienced so it would interpret as a different smell. This is just a guess though."
] |
How is aborting a pregnancy because the child would be special needs not eugenics? | [
"It is in a sense. But Eugenics usually refers to a political commitment or government policy designed to \"purify\" the gene pool by removing certain people from it. Deciding not to have a child because of the emotional or economic costs---or the belief that the child's life will be painful---of expected health issues is similar, but lacks the larger \"goal\" that makes eugenics eugenics.",
"The parents aren't aborting the fetus because it brings down the \"genetic quality\" of a population. I think the parents couldn't care less about that. \n\nThe parents are thinking about the child's quality of life and how their own might change if they decide to raise the child.\n\nEdit: because I need others to catch my mistake.",
"Because couples/the mother still have a choice to make. In practicing eugenics you would abort every child that would not further the cause of the perfect race. A woman (and her partner) that make this choice, do it for their own personal reasons.",
"The idea of Eugenics is to try and improve a species as a whole, to get rid of undesirable characters, but not inherently damaging ones. Such as killing all short people, or all redheads, etc because they are undesirable traits, and you are trying to improve the species.\n\nAborting a child because they are special needs (such as Down's Syndrome) is different. It's stopping a child from being born that doesn't have the ability to live a full life, that would need constant care, and most likely would never have children, but may still be capable of realizing that they are not living a full life, that they are dependent on others and that they might not fill their biological purpose (to reproduce) meaning that the child being born, may lead to a person living that is depressed because they realize all that. It would be unnecessary psychological distress not just on themselves, but on their loved ones and caretakers who would have to deal with all this.\n\nBut the most important part (in my opinion) is that aborting a special needs child who may never have children is different than aborting a ginger baby. That ginger child has the ability and chance to go on and have kids and fulfill their biological purpose. The special needs child does not, so aborting them doesn't impact the genetic field later on.\n\nAnd just so we are clear, I am not talking about people with asperger's, I am not talking about people with slight mental retardation, both of which are groups where they still require help, but for the most part can still maintain jobs and lives and have families. When I mention special needs, I am talking about people with Down's Syndrome, who will never be able to live on their own, who will not be able to hold down a \"normal\" job* and who cannot reproduce, people with severe autism that are left speechless and without the capability to communicate beyond a few words to a few select people, people who are not able to survive without constant care from another person.\n\n*Normal jobs being jobs that exist in everyday life such as factory worker, shelf-stocker, mail person, etc. I realize that there are groups that employ those with disabilities in order to give them self-worth and a job, but those are often jobs that pay them a pittance and have more asterisks than the European Union.",
"According to Merriam-Webster, [eugenics](_URL_0_) is an effort to improve the genetic makeup of a species. \n\nParents who choose to abort special needs pregnancies usually don't do so in an attempt to improve the species, but because they believe the child would have a low quality of life, or because aren't personally prepared to raise a special needs child. It's a decision based on individual factors, not the genetic \"quality\" of the human species.\n\nAdditionally, many disorders that make a person intellectually disabled also make that person sterile. A eugenicist would not automatically choose abortion, because choosing to either abort or have a sterile child would both have no impact on the gene pool.",
"Eugenics is an attempt to \"improve\" humanity by killing off people who seem to be defective in some way. People who want eugenics think that this process will make humans stronger or smarter over many generations. Parents who abort a child who would be special needs are not doing so to change humanity's future. They may just feel that they personally would be overwhelmed by the extra care required to raise such a child."
] |
How does a queen bee/ant spawn and create their own colony? | [
"When a hive gets too large they will raise a generation of new queens. These queens then leave the hive at maturity along with a few males and a bunch of workers effectively splitting the hive. This is what is happening when you see a bee swarm (most of the time). They go and look for a new place to start a hive leaving only a fraction of the workers, some males, and a queen at the original hive. Once they find a place to start a new hive they start laying eggs and thus establish a new home. \n\nSome species of ants do similar things. Others grow a single giant colony that only changes if there is something that forces the colony to split. In which case some species of ants will have some metamorph into a new queen, some will feed special foods to larva to make them develop into a new queen.",
"There are breeder ants, I think the queen kills them if she sees them so they avoid her, could be wrong on that. \n\nAnyway, they fly very high into the sky, some have reported as high as passenger jets. \n\nIn the sky they mate and the female breeders land back on the ground and begin to dig a small tunnel where they lay their first eggs and begin their lives as a queen. \n\nI'm certain someone below/above will eventually explain this better than I have."
] |
Why the Fibonacci Sequence is important | [
"Most people say the fibonacci sequence is important, because phi pops up and that's in nature everywhere. That doesn't really make it important(also, most of the places people \"find\" phi are pretty forced and not actually there.) Anywhere, I'm just saying that the fibonacci sequence isn't really important. I mean, it's extremely interesting, but doesn't really make it important per se. It's just cool. That's math. It's cool for its own sake.",
"They're useful in number theory and for solving certain types of combinatorics problems.\n\nIn computer science they're used in one version of a merge sort and also for the \"Fibonacci heap\" data structure.\n\nYou can also use them to convert from miles to kilometers, but that's just a coincidence.\n\nThey do have some relation to the arrangement of leaves on a stem or the knobs on a pineapple.",
"It's not necessarily the process that is important, but the numbers. Most flowers have petal arrangements of numbers in the sequence, and by dividing a term in the sequence and its preceding term, you approach a value called phi(the golden ratio). Phi appears in some proportions of the body, and some people seem to find these proportions visually appealing. Artists such as Dali used these proportions in their paintings, and some insist that phi can be applied to things like stocks, without too much basis.",
"It shows up in nature all of the time (for example look up images of a Nautilus shell). This was important to many ancient cultures because mathimatics were accossiated with their religions (e.g. they believed the gods designed nature in this way, and by studying it they would be \"closer to the gods\")."
] |
Can a cat/dog comprehend what's on the tv screen? | [
"I'm going to remove this, as it's not really an ELI5 question. \n\n > ELI5 is for requests for easy-to-follow explanations of complex concepts and subjects. That means no questions that are just looking for straightforward answers, *that are subjective*, a request for a guide/walkthrough, or that are objective but not asking for an explanation of an answer. ELI5 is absolutely not a repository for any question you have."
] |
Why when you donate blood or get blood work done, do they take it from your veins rather than arteries or muscle? | [
"Taking blood from an artery is possible, but much more risky as you bleed much faster from an artery. You don't get blood from a muscle. In order to get enough blood, you must be in a vessel big enough to draw from. That rules out capillaries (with the exception of finger sticks for blood glucose testing). Your only practical option is to draw from a vein.",
"There's a couple of reasons. First of all, veins are closer to the surface than arteries, so they're easier to see and get to. They have thinner walls and are less sensitive to pain. The pressure is also lower which minimizes bleeding while the puncture heals.",
"You won't get enough blood from muscle as the small capilleries are responsible for blood there. Veins are used because there is much less pressure with them rather than arteries, and in the unlikely event something goes wrong, it is fixed easier than a cut artery."
] |
What do other languages call the planet we live on? | [
"_URL_0_\n\nActually a lot of European languages call Earth some variation of Terra, which is the Latin name for Earth. Scandinavian languages use a variation of the word Jord. All in all, the word for Earth in each of these languages usually has the same literal meaning - ground/soil, land, or both."
] |
Simulacra and Simulation by Jean Baudrillard | [
"It's a complex book, and you're going to be hard pressed to narrow it down to a single argument... Long story short? It's largely about arguing that things which we perceive to be \"fake,\" or \"copies,\" of reality are in fact completely separate from reality to begin with, and that the thing we assume it to be copying may not actually have ever existed to begin with.\n\nConsider running on a treadmill- some people would argue that it's a poor copy of what actual running is like. But really, running on a treadmill is so unlike \"real,\" running that you might question if it's a copy at all, or just this thing that is what it is regardless of the existence of real running. And then, Baudrillard would argue, \"real,\" running itself was maybe never real in the first place, but is this thing we've come to think is true AFTER the invention of the treadmill- we only think it's real AFTER we have something \"fake,\" to compare it to, even though really, historically, running wasn't a means of exercise so much as it was a means of transit or sport, so \"real running,\" is sort of more fake than the treadmill (running for exercise), which was just this thing that somebody came up with."
] |
What is hypothyroidism and how does it pertain to obesity? | [
"Hypothyroidism is the term meaning \"extremely low thyroid-ism\". This basically means due to something, your thyroid gland does not produce the amount of specific hormones it needs too(not just the hormone thyroid but a lot of other ones in conjunction, remember just how many of these endocrines rely on eachother). \n\nThe thyroid is huge for the basic \"control knobs\" that control your entire metabolic process within the human body. \n\nWhen this control structure is extremely lowered, the result is a huge mess of problems associated with your metabolism being slowed down. You might be hungry, lethargic, more insulin resistant, agitated, not getting enough minerals and vitamins, and so on. There's a lot of problems that can occur from hypothyroidism, because one of the most essential glands in your whole entire hormonal system is unbalanced.",
"I've got hypothyroidism. A cheap drug called synthroid (hopefully) takes care of all the related problems for me."
] |
Why do most people prefer sleeping in a colder room under covers/blankets than being warm without blankets? | [
"It was explained to me this way, (not sure if it's true) the body goes into a Simi state of hibernation when it's colder. Therefore you sleep better. At least I do."
] |
Why do some hand lotions burn my hands? | [
"You are allergic to one or more ingredients in them. Start comparing ingredient list from ones that dint to ones that do to figure out what it is.\n\nFor example, I can't use products that have tree extracts. It will give me a rash."
] |
If electronic voting machines are so easy to hack, why hasn't a group exposed the loop hole publicly so that the problem can be solved? | [
"It's like saying \"If a PC is so easy to hack, why hasn't it been solved yet?\" They're so easy to hack because they're based on PC's and there are uncountably many ways to do it if you're serious enough",
"In order to take something apart to figure out how it works, you have to get your hands on it. Voting machines aren't something you can go down to Walmart and buy nor are they a service you can just repeatedly hammer from the Internet. You'd have to physically steal one or work for the company that builds them to be able to fuck around with them enough to prove they could be manipulated.",
"You need access to the machine, the source code and other information. And all that stuff is tightly protected. Even when people attempt to double check the records and the code after the fact, they get stonewalled.\n\nBasically voting officials and the makers of the machine feel that secrecy is the only way to ensure their machines are unhackable- not an unreasonable position, but a bit shortsighted, since there might be something they overlooked. It also means that there's no transparency, so code could be written in *at the source* to manipulate the vote, and nobody would be able to prove it, without breaking the law themselves, at which point their testimony would be suspicious. A conspiracy minded person would say the system is set up to allow voter machine based voter fraud, as the protections are more effective at stopping independent investigation of the voting machines than at stopping hackers.",
"The machine doesn't really matter. What does matter is the \"vote counter\". If voting machines just port their data to a data base then modifying that database would be the easier and better bet.",
"Voting machines have been hacked over the years. [Google Search](_URL_0_)"
] |
Why do some LED displays seem to "jiggle" if I make a low growling noise with my throat or chew crunchy food? | [
"You're causing your eyes to vibrate, which leads to the illusion that the LED display is actually vibrating.",
"LED displays blink very quickly because they use multiplexing. Take a typical 7 segment display like one that can be found in clocks or calculators. It's composed of 7 (or often 8, when it includes a decimal point) LEDs that together make up an \"8\" shape. By turning on the right segments, you make numbers from 0 to 9.\n\nNow suppose you're making a clock. You need to display 4 digits. Each digit has 7 segments. In total this would be 4*7 = 28 wires. That is a lot. Many cheap microcontrollers dont' have enough pins for that.\n\nSo a solution is to use multiplexing. 7 wires are used to select which segment is lit, and 4 wires are used to select which digit is currently enabled. This way you only need 11 wires.\n\nThe way this works is that instead of keeping all 4 digits constantly lit, the clock very quickly switches between digits, so fast you normally don't see it. Unless you shake your head, in which case the effect can break.",
"Holy shit someone else has noticed this too?\n\nI thought I went insane."
] |
When going to bed after a day at the waterpark, doing rollercoaster or at sea, I can feel the "movements" of the day. Why is that? | [
"Your inner ear detects your movements and send signals to your brain so you can respond to the situation and balance. Your eyes are also sending similar information. Eventually your brain gets used to the same signals being sent at regular intervals (waves being regular at the beach). Your brain starts to expect this movement as normal, and keeps compensating. When you return to land, your brain is still compensating for motion that isn't there. There's lots of other stimulus for the rest of your day at the beach so you might not notice, but at the end of the day when you are in a quiet, dark room with little stimuli you'll feel that compensation again, and feel like you're still rocking. \n\nYou can override the signal by giving your brain something else to base stability on (same thing for when you have the dizzies after a few too many drinks). You can put your hand or foot on a flat surface and your brain will recognize that you aren't actually moving. Anecdotally, I've found that touching the floor or a table works better than a wall when lying down.",
"When you do something like ride a roller coaster, it messes with fluids in your ear that are responsible for the feeling of dizzyness. Have you ever spun around, then stopped, but it still felt as though you were spinning? That's because the fluids are still all out of whack and leaning whichever way you were spinning, giving your brain the illusion of continuing to spin. Same thing here."
] |
Why is the number pad on my keyboard opposite of the number pad on my phone? | [
"> There isn't a definitive answer, but the most cited theory seems to be that the telephone keypad has letters associated with numbers, so 1 2 3 across the top made more sense. Otherwise, the end of the alphabet would be at the top.\nCalculators, and therefore computer keypads had 1 2 3 at the bottom because it is more ergonomically efficient.",
"Both devices started with a different history.\n\nOld adding machines had the small numbers on the bottom and worked their way up. This progressed on to cash registers, and then calculators, and the onto your computer keyboard. While it used to be a long straight line up, as the mechanics and eventually electronics were able to handle faster typing, the shape changed to the compact 3x3 square (plus zero) we use now with the low numbers still at the bottom.\n\nBefore the touch tone (push button) phones we use today, we had rotary phones. Those phones had their numbers in a circle with 1 at the top and 9 at the bottom. When the technology for push button phones came about, they kept the numbers in that order. It is also said the Bell Labs ran a bunch of usability tests and that people found that layout easier to use. They were at one time even considering 2 rows with 5 numbers in each row.",
"Short answer: convention. Both keypads evolved separately and stuck before there were a chance to standardize the two. Long answer: Numberphile [has a good video](_URL_0_) explaining Bell Lab's research on the new button layout to replace radial phones. Summary of the video is that people were allowed to choose their own layout and half of them put 1-3 on the top row, and it had fewer mistakes of other variations. Texas Instruments made the few hand-held calculator with 7-9 in the top row which was inspired by desktop adding machines. Nobody saw a reason to change. [Mental Floss](_URL_1_) tackled this a while ago."
] |
Why was there no space or time before the big bang? | [
"No one knows. We can speculate. We know because of Einstein and other cosmologists that the universe is expanding. Because of this it can be tracked back to a time when it was a single point with infinite density. But we don't understand why or how it happened yet."
] |
What's the big deal with pi? | [
"Pi the number is the circumference of half a circle in relation to the radius."
] |
How do comas work? | [
"There are a lot of reasons for a person to be in a coma, with varying gravity and reversibility, so take whatever I say next with a grain of salt, since it may not apply to a particular situation in your mind. \nSome comas are caused by damage in nervous structures responsible for keeping the person awake (Google ascending reticular activating system), or even diffuse brain damage after a huge stroke, a long period of cardiac arrest, brain swelling, severe head trauma, and so forth. When this happens, the body may continue to develop it's basic functions, while the structures supporting counsciousness are no longer active"
] |
Why isn't anyone(as in a country) doing anything to help Syria? What is going on? | [
"Who said nobody was doing anything?\n_URL_0_\n\n_URL_1_\n\n_URL_2_\nIf you're referring to sending in the troops, that's a much different and much more complicated issue."
] |
If a plane were to be flying as normal and then gradually on a steeper and steeper slope away from earth, what would happen? | [
"Airplanes have a ceiling above which they cannot fly. It depends on their engine power and the amount of lift generated by their wings. Yes they could overshoot this ceiling but would falter, stall, and descend. The pilot could regain control and fly at the highest possible altitude.\n\nAirplanes use the air to burn their fuel. They can never fly in space. To go into orbit a craft must speed up to about 17,000 miles per hour. This is impossible unless they are out of the atmosphere. To operate outside the atmosphere rockets must be used.",
"As the atmosphere gets less dense, the airplane's engines (whether propeller or jet engine) will start having problems. Partly because it needs more \"stuff\" there to push through the jet engines, but also oxygen for combustion of the fuel.\n\nSo they would sputter for awhile, and if you kept trying to gain altitude, they would just stall."
] |
Why are the lakes Michigan and Huron not considered the same body of water? | [
"I live less than 2 hours from the Mackinaw Bridge. They are usually considered to be individual lakes because of their currents around the straights of Mackinaw, making some very rough waters. Lake Huron's current runs counterclockwise along Canada and Michigan while Lake Michigan's runs clockwise along the Lower Peninsula, clashing between St. Ignace and Mackinaw City."
] |
The solution the Zeno's paradox. | [
"Here's the fancy math version.\n\nLet's imagine that you're trying to go one foot. Zeno's paradox says that in order to do so, you have to go half the distance, then half that distance (a quarter), then half that distance (an eighth), and so on, so you'll never get there.\n\nSo, the distance you have to travel is\n\n1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + ...\n\nand so on, where the \"...\" means \"continue this pattern on to infinity,\" just like Zeno's paradox says. So, we'll never get there, right?\n\nWell, no, not according to math. Watch this. Let's say that\n\nk = 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + ...\n\nLet's multiply everything through by two. We thus have\n\n2k = 1 + 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + ...\n\nBut the whole \"1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + ...\" stuff was how we defined k, so\n\n2k = 1 + k\n\nk = 1 = 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + ...\n\nOkay, cool. The fuck did I just do?\n\nWhat I just showed is that even though the sum goes on to infinity, it *converges* to 1. Zeno's paradox says that we'll never get there, but the math says that we do. I can keep taking steps, and I'll get there given an infinite number of steps.\n\nThat's not really a great answer, though. The math I just did requires that we take an *infinite* number of steps in order to get there, so it's pretty much just confirming Zeno's paradox. What'd I do wrong?\n\nWell, who says that it takes the same amount of time to travel half the distance as it does to travel a quarter? That doesn't make sense. It takes half the time to close a quarter of the distance compared to half the distance, because a quarter is a half of a half.\n\nLet's say that it takes me one second to walk one foot (I'm pretty old). It thus takes me half a second to walk half a foot, a quarter of a second to walk a quarter of a foot, an eighth of a second to walk an eighth of a foot, and so on.\n\nHow long does each step take? Well, speed is distance divided by time, so time is distance divided by speed. I'm always walking at 1 foot per second, so all I have to do to find the amount of time it takes to walk one foot is divide all of the terms in my original expression for \"k\" by 1. Thus:\n\nt = k/1 = k = 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + ...\n\nand thus\n\nt = k = 1\n\nWhat's the difference? When I was talking about the *distance* I traveled, it seemed completely arbitrary to say that I can somehow take an infinite number of steps to get to my goal. That seems silly, because you could never possibly take an infinite number of steps.\n\nHowever, when I talk about *time*, things are very different. A second is going to pass, no matter what I do. In fact, an infinite number of subdivisions of time is going to happen every single second of my life, whether I'm moving or not.\n\nFactoring in time allows me to just outright say \"yeah, the universe forces the series to converge because time *has* to get there.\"",
"Simple, nonmath answer:\n\nZeno only considers consecutive half-way points. The other points exist; they are just not being considered.\n\nBy only going looking at the half way points you never look at the end point in distance *or* time. You get infinitely close to the end distance and infinitely close to the end time. But just because you choose to only focus on time close to the end doesn't mean that time itself slows down and you never reach there. It just means that you never consider that time."
] |
How does a caller to 911 from California able to give an address from Kansas during the swatting incident? Are 911 operators not local? | [
"It is very, very easy in this day and age to use software to make a phone call from either an anonymous number or spoofing a number. Even an anonymous call would have to be taken seriously by a 911 operator since obviously they can't risk the chance of not acting on a reported hostage situation.\n\n911 operators are located at or near the area they are servicing.",
"My friend installed an ip phone service at his parents so they could make local phone calls to Canada. From Eastern Europe. They could call a Canadian 911 operator while being on the other side of the world."
] |
Why does a ship captain face prosecution for abandoning his or her sinking ship? | [
"I thought he faced manslaughter charges for running the ship aground, which is different than abandoning the ship. I could be wrong though.",
"it's Italian maritime code of conduct that the captain of a ship that is in distress be the last to leave after the passengers and the crew. the Italian code isn't particularly different from that of other countries.\n\nin part it aids the safety of the passengers because the captain and his officers should be there to help control the chaos. it's also part tradition of ship's captains having more than a working relationship with the ship."
] |
why can I not wake myself up from dreams even when I'm conscious of the fact I'm dreaming? | [
"Are you sure you are actually conscious of being in a dream rather than merely dreaming that you are conscious within a dream?",
"TIL being able to wake myself up from a dream is not normal.\n\nI couldn't tell you how I do it -- when I decide I don't like a dream, I just wake myself up somehow and dream something better.",
"At the risk of sounding like a weirdo:\nI have some experience with lucid dreaming (so being aware that you are in fact dreaming), allthough by growing up, those experiences are just not happening as much anymore.\n\nYou just have to find your own trick. The only reason you'd really WANT to wake up, is if you're scared of something (*cough* pussy!). Been there... Alot. The trick for me was turning around facing whatever it was, and pulling my eyes open as far as I can for a while (in the dream).\n\nThe moment that you actually wake up is... Weird. While my eyes are as wide as they can be in my dream, you can slowly feel your real eyes opening. But they feel SUPERheavy. As in, if you give up really wanting to wake up, you'll be asleep again in 2 minutes, and not even remember ever being awake!\n\nLucid dreaming is fun, just experiment in them, and you'll find all sorts of cool tricks!",
"if you're concious then you can learn how to wake yourself up :) i do it when i'm having a really bad dream. when i'm sure that i really am concious, then i just scream really really loud in my dream, which then makes me scream in real and then i wake myself up with my own scream :P it works really well",
"I can't offer an explanation, but I do know that during REM sleep, the body is in a state of paralysis, which might be why physical actions do little to wake you up.",
"Hmm, usually the moment I realize that I am dreaming I wake up. I am not sure why you don't."
] |
I'm salaried weekly to make the same amount as what a 40 hour hourly wage employee would make. Does the min wage increase (which increases hourly wage) affect my salary? | [
"I'm not sure what 'salaried weekly' means. I presume it means you have an annual salary, which you are paid an equal portion of 52 times a year.\n\nIf that's the case, then no, minimum wage increase means absolutely nothing to your pay. It only affects people who punch a clock and are paid hourly.",
"Unless you have some employment contract that says your weekly salary is specifically tied to the minimum wage, then no, your salary will not change. (From reading your post it appears that somebody took the minimum wage at a particular time, multiplied it by 40, then made that amount your salary. If that's the case, then your salary won't change.) Good luck.",
"Not automatically.\n\nBut there is a different minimum wage for salaried employees, which works out to $11.50/hour if you work 40 hours. Often they'll raise that whenever they raise minimum wage.",
"No, for the most part professional jobs that are salaried are exempt from the fair labor standards act. You aren't subject to minimum wage, overtime, or some other rules."
] |
Why is the trade deficit with China so bad? | [
"China makes most of what it needs, and sells most of what other countries want.\n\nThey have little incentive to buy things from countries like the UK, and we have lots of reasons to buy stuff from them.",
"China has cheaper cost of labor which is vital for an economy with such a huge amount of manufacturing. Many western economies are primarily services. Goods are always needed services less so. Oversimplification."
] |
Why does alcohol enhance one's taste and appetite? | [
"I wouldn't say all alcohol enhances taste. Wine of various types can add an interesting and compatible side note to various foods. Cheeses, for example.",
"More than moderate alcohol consumption lowers your blood sugar therefore increasing your desire for food."
] |
Why can i be injected with radioactive liquid for a bone scan and not get sick? | [
"It's a very small amount of radioactive material. You are constantly receiving radiation all the time so while this is a larger amount than normal it's not at all enough to make you sick. Your cells can handle it easily.\n\nAccording to this, the amount of radiation you receive from a bone scan is 6.3 mSv\n\n_URL_1_\n\nAccording to this chart from xkcd:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nThat's about 1/10 of the yearly dose considered absolutely safe for a US radiation worker."
] |
Why does repeating a word or phrase over and over make it lose meaning in your brain? | [
"It’s a phenomenon known as Semantic Satiation. It’s just as you describe; one will say a phrase or word so many times that it eventually temporarily loses its meaning. \n\nInterestingly enough, there’s also a phenomenon where if you engage in Semantic Satiation, doing the task at hand will become slightly more difficult. \n\n_URL_0_\n\nEdit: There’s a more so “explain like I’m an adult” explanation on the phenomenon where tasks become more difficult if you verbally repeat them, but I couldn’t find much (on the cellular or neurological level) as to why Semantic Satiation in specific occurs.",
"words only have meaning when you use them with other words...\n\nso by using it improperly over and over (repeating it nonsensically), your brain eventually begins to believe it really means nothing."
] |
Why do planes often pass the destination airport and land from the other direction? | [
"As a rule, planes take off and land into the wind. This means the speed over the ground is lower. Air is very much like a river. If you are swimming up the current, you are traveling slower in relation to the shore. Going with the current, you travel much faster. In both cases you are swimming at the same speed through the water.",
"Whenever possible, planes land flying against the wind. This gives them more lift, meaning they can approach the runway and touch down at a lower speed. This reduces the length of runway needed to stop and also reduces the wear on the tires. Of course, this means that if the plane was flying with the wind during the flight, it has to go past the airport and come back around to land against the wind."
] |
why is it totally ok and expected to haggle some items (like cars and apparently mattresses), while others have a fixed price? Why can't we haggle the price of chips or an iPhone? | [
"You're more than welcome to try, but for pretty much anything from a chain or franchise store, the prices aren't set by the guy behind the register. He has no authority to change the prices of the items being sold and he risks his job doing so. Now if you went to a local mom & pop corner store where the owner's also the guy behind the counter, then yes, you could theoretically haggle over the price of a can of soda.\n\nAnother thing is volume. The guy selling you chips or soda have no incentive to offer you a better price because there's likely a dozen people behind you in line who would be more than willing to buy the item at the price being sold. One or two iphones or bags of chips being sold is not going to change their bottom line at the end of the day.\n\nCar dealerships and mattresses, however, are sold in smaller volumes but for larger revenue. Manufacturers often include rewards for those who sell their inventory faster as well. There's more incentive for the middleman (the dealership) to make their sales, as each one has more of an impact. For car dealerships, throwing in small extra or shaving off a few thousand doesn't hurt their margins as badly because they bank a lot of revenue on maintenance and other repair services, which can only be done once they sell you the car. They're not just selling you a product, they're selling you a commitment...one they can profit off of down the road.",
"Amount of inventory and volume of sales. High amount of inventory or sales means little or no haggle. Lower inventory or low sales volume creates better opportunity for haggling.",
"You are welcome to try to haggle with any item you buy. However, your biggest obstacle will be the employee's ability to alter the price of the deal. At most businesses, the employees do not have any ability to alter the price of the item. Doing so will get them fired, so they aren't going to find your attempt to haggle very funny.\n\nIf you can find a business that gives its employees the ability to change prices, then they will be willing to haggle. Car salespeople, mattress salespeople, etc are given the ability, grocery store cashiers are not.",
"Galaxy Note II - at an independently owned Verizon store. I totally haggled the price.\n\nWe took the kids to a pumpkin patch and my friends son wanted two pumpkins. He said \"sure, but you have to haggle the price down\". He traveled to the Middle East often and said he wanted his kids to be good at negotiating. The kid was beaming when he got them at half price.\n\nI do haggle sometimes at department stores on suits, jewelry, etc.",
"Try haggling anywhere the person you're talking to had the authority to lower the price.\n\nI once negotiated a discount on China at a department store. I saw it was dusty and the only one of its kind left, so it was obviously just taking up valuable shelf space. \n\nI got the China set for 90% off. Ten years later and I'm still proud!",
"It's mostly about volume. Haggling is tiring and time consuming for the staff - fine if you're selling 2 mattresses an hour, not fine if you're checking 1000 items per hour at Food Lion. Therefore, volume businesses like Food Lion discourage haggling, but negotiations on price *do* occur there - advertised specials, manufacturer's coupons, loyalty cards and private label items being the main means.",
"It's just the culture of the items. The item itself really doesn't matter all that much. many car dealerships are moving towards \"no haggle\" pricing. You can open a burrito shop and haggle with customers over the price if you want.",
"The iPhone has something called MAP pricing. Apple tells the retailers what they're allowed to sell the iPhone for, and if they sell it for less, Apple will take away their ability to order any more Apple products from them.",
"Commissions are part of the overhead. Salesmen also get bonuses for units moved. They can trade commissions for those bonuses so there is wiggle room in the price.",
"I always ask for a cash discount. I always pay cash and get like 10-15% less."
] |
How does a democracy work if the majority of individuals don't understand most of the basic concepts involved within their government? | [
"Well technically speaking, the US, alongside practically all other modern countries around the globe, isn't a 'democracy' - it's a 'representative democracy'. Effectively, this means the electorate don't *need* to be knowledgable in politics and the economy to make the political scene 'work', as they elect people who (supposedly) are knowledgable in the aforementioned areas. Representative democracies allow for people to be somewhat engaged in politics in a semi-regular fashion, whilst not having to dedicate their lives to being 'politically aware' - people can just get on with their lives.\n\nAlso, I don't particularly think understanding how the House of Representatives and the Senate influences decision making when it comes to picking a president.",
"It doesn't work very well, really. You've just identified one of the major flaws with democracy, because not only does it mean that people generally won't make well-informed decisions, it means that politicians resort to strategies that boil down to marketing in order to make people believe them.\n\nThe fact is though, that regardless of how dysfunctional it has the potential to be, democracy still works a lot better than any other political system we've come up with.",
"For one we are not a true democracy. \n\nWe are a federated republic, that uses democratic methods to elect the representatives that form the governing body."
] |
Why can I not just walk up to a drive-thru window & order food? | [
"It would be a liability to have pedestrians in a lane built for cars to travel through. If they allowed people to do it they would be responsible when someone got run over.",
"* there is a safety issue, having pedestrians in a lane intended for cars\n* there is a pranking issue, as it is pretty easy to order then run off...with a car, you are pretty much stuck",
"Probably easier to stab someone through the open window if you're on foot, that's why you see signs that say 'for the safety of our employees, no walk-ups in the drive thru.'",
"Some fast food chains will let you do this after their lobby is closed but the drive-thru is open. I know the BK in my hometown allows truck drivers to walk up since their truck is too big to fit in the actual lane. Depending on your frequency of visits if they know who you are they will be more likely to allow it, especially if there are no vehicular based orders to be filled.",
"Not walking, but as kids on hot summer nights we would always drive our bicycles through the drive through. Everyone thought is was weird at first but it caught on pretty quick."
] |
The recent addition of 80 million years to the age of the universe. | [
"I think it is unfair to claim that scientists found an extra 80 million years, what they did was refine predictions based on more sensitive data. Using the previous set of measurements of the background radiation the prediction for the age of the Universe was 13.6 billion - 13.8 billion years, the newer, more sensitive calculations place the actual measurement closer to the 13.8 billion year mark. \n\nIt would be like using a ruler that only had 1 foot increments on it and getting an approximate answer, and then later using a more accurate ruler with markings for centimeters... it would be unfair to ask where the extra length came from if all that happened was a more accurate measurement took place."
] |
What's the big deal about /r/ShitRedditSays? | [
"There's a common perception that the members of SRS go around downvoting posts they disagree with en masse (the \"downvote brigade\"). Their official rules *do* discourage their members from doing just that so I don't know how true it is, but I think a lot of the hatred stems from that generalization.\n\nThey've also developed their own sort of \"culture\" with in-jokes and stuff that a lot of people take seriously at face value. If you spend enough time actually reading their posts you can clearly tell when they're being sarcastic but I guess the casual viewer can't, so they assume they're serious about everything."
] |
The new iPhone 6 and if it's better than current phones | [
"It's a typical Apple release. Incremental improvement in the specifications, interesting new capabilities. In 2014, all phones are powerful, and specs are interesting only when then enable new capabilities.\n\nHere's the interesting new stuff in the iPhone 6:\n\n* Apple Pay Payment system. Scan your credit cards and pay with your phone; leave your wallet at home. Other makers have had NFC payment solutions, but Apple has the juice to sign up enough retailers to get to critical mass, so this is one that will be widely usable.\n* Improved camera. Image stabilization. More clever post-processing to improve image quality. Better video capture.\n* Two sizes, with near-identical features. Bigger and bigger-er.\n* Improved battery life, especially in the bigger-er one.\n* Enhanced motion processor, enables more data for fitness tracking\n* Lots of new features in iOS 8, but they'll be available to recent older iPhones.",
"It's another incremental upgrade. Nothing worth crapping your pants over. Comparable hardware to many phones out there already out or in the pipe."
] |
How do pressurized cabins work? | [
"I assume you mean pressurized **aircraft** cabins.\n\nOn most turboprop and jet aircraft, the engines produce a large amount of hot compressed air. This air is ducted into the aircraft body, cooled to a comfortable temperature, and released into the cabin.\n\nSome aircraft, such as the 787, do not draw pressurized air directly from the engines. Instead, they use separate air compressors, powered by the engines, to make enough compressed air to pressurize the cabin.\n\nPressure is regulated by an electronically-controlled outflow valve that changes its position depending on the pressurization needs of the aircraft. If the cabin pressure is too low, the valve closes down until air from the engines raises the cabin pressure to the desired level. If the cabin pressure is too high, the valve opens up until the cabin pressure drops to the target level. In its fully open position, the valve is able to release air faster than the engines provide it.\n\nSee [cabin pressurization](_URL_0_) on Wikipedia for more information."
] |
Why is posting your own content considered bad? | [
"What's frowned on is spamming all of the content from your website to Reddit & trying to use it as a free advertising platform. If you're actually participating in the community & posting interesting stuff (and commenting on links other than your own), it's not a problem.\n\nImagine you're throwing a party & some asshole that nobody really knows shows up & tries to sell everyone life insurance. That'd be annoying. Compare that with a guy that's friends with everyone and overhears somebody saying they're looking to buy a used car & tells them about the one he's selling.\n\nSee the difference?",
"This post is not asking for a layman-friendly explanation to something complicated or technical, so it doesn't belong here. Entirely subjective questions generally belong in /r/askreddit."
] |
How is the length of a radioactive isotopes half life determined? | [
"The halflife of a substance is the amount of time it takes for _half_ of it to decay. So, in the case of Carbon 14, if you start with 1kg of it, you'll have .5kg in 5715 years.\n\nNow, you don't actually have to wait 5715 years to figure that out. By observing and measuring it, you can determine the rate of decay and extrapolate what the half life will be. \n\nThink of it like the speed of an object. I can say that a car traveling at 100mph will complete 100 miles in 1 hour, but I don't need to wait a _full hour_ to figure that out. If I observe it traveling 25mi 15 min, then I can extrapolate it will complete 100mi in 1 hour.",
"Half life is just a convenient number for measuring decay over time. We can measure the decay over a a couple different shorter periods of time, and we extrapolate from that how long the half life is.",
"How about ELIHighSchooler. If radioactive matter has a half life then the number of atoms over time is a formula: A(1/2)^(rt)\n\nBy counting right now at t=0, we get A(1/2)^0 = A.\n\nBy counting in an hour... Or a day... Or a year.... Say at t=1, we get A(1/2)^r.\n\nNow we solve for r. Using a little algebra, it turns out the half life is 1/r. And it only took a little algebra.\n\nThe tricky part is how we count atoms. One way is to count the clicks on a Geiger counter: each click is a particle coming from the decay of an atom.",
"If you can figure out you eat one cookie a day you can figure out how long it'd take to eat half the cookies. You don't need to wait till half of them are gone to figure out how long it took for that to happen. As long as the rate is reasonably predictable and won't change."
] |
If we could make giant ants, would they be just as strong as small ants? | [
"No, in fact they would quickly die. \nIn many engineering/biological topics there is something called the Square-Cube Law: If you grow/shrink something some properties vary by the square of the amount you are shrinking, others by the cube of the amount your shrinking. \nThe thing is weight is a property of volume, so that varies by cube.\nStrength on the other hand is a property of cross section(every cross section of something must bear the entire weight).\n \nSo say we have a 1inch cube of muscles: \n1x1x1 = 1 cubic inch of muscle weight \n1x1 = 1 square inch of muscle strenght \n \nLets double the size of the muscle to a 2 inch cube: \n2x2x2 = 8 cubic inches of muscle weight \n2x2 = 4 cubic inches of muscle strength \n \nBy doubling the size of the muscle we have halved it's strength to weight ratio. \nThis means that as we increase the size of a muscle we are getting less and less additional gains in lifting ability, eventually it stops being able to lift the muscle itself. \n \nGrowing an ant to that size would not only prevent it from standing up, the ant itself would collapse into a soup of ant bits, since an ant has no bones, it maintains it's structure through the strength of it's outer shell (which would thus vary by square). Also ant's breathe through their outer shell, and surface area is another vary by square thing.",
"You can't just scale organisms up and down like that. Say that you made every dimension of an ant 1000 times bigger. That will make the surface area of the ant 1000^2 times bigger and its volume/weight 1000^3 times bigger. It's bodily systems probably wouldn't function.",
"Check out these [slides](_URL_0_). They explain that as something is scaled up, the weight of it rises at a much faster pace than it's strength. Therefore, the giant ant would not be able to support its own weight."
] |
Why is "bloody" a bad word? | [
"\"Bloody\" is the modern form of of either \"God's Blood\" or \"By Our Lady\". It's part of a family of curses called 'Minced Oaths'. \n\n\"Gadzooks!\" = \"God's Hooks\" = The cross/nails of Christ.\n\n\"Blimey!\" = \"God Blind me\"\n\n\"Zounds!\" = \"'S Wounds\" = \"God's Wounds\"\n\nAnd one you will not have heard outside of the UK and AU, \"Strewth\" for \"God's Truth\"."
] |
What makes a bad joke bad and why is it viewed in distaste when there is a clear humor? | [
"Jokes, at their core, are about subversion. The set up is mundane, common, understood. The punchline, a surprise, unexpected. \n\n\nTheres a reason they're called dad jokes. \n\n\nKids haven't heard them before, puns and play on words that they've only recently gotten comfortable with are novel and fun. \n\n\nAs we get older, even jokes we haven't even heard before may become unfunny because though its still something we were unfamiliar with, it wasn't a surprise, it wasn't novel in conception. I haven't multiplied every number ever by 2. But if I've done it enough times, I can extrapolate what would happen. Multiplying yet another number by 2 will get a result that I can anticipate or something I'm familiar with.\n\n\nThat's actually at the core of why most professional comedians refuse to apologize and tend to try to push the boundaries, they are always searching for subversion and a counter to expected thought.",
"I think it has a lot to do with the audience and the timing. Especially the timing. Even a lame joke can get laughs if delivered at the perfect moment. That said, if the mood isn’t right or it’s delivered to late, even a good joke can fall on its face.",
"Its not bad, but people who know you or have ecpectations from you ( mind you even strangers can have expectations from you ) are dissapointed",
"Your example is supposed to be a \"bad joke\"? I'm not sure I understand now if you're asking why certain jokes aren't funny, or why certain jokes are considered to be in bad taste despite being funny."
] |
How a phone vibrates? | [
"it has a tiny little motor that spins a weight around. the weight is off-balance, so it makes the phone shake.",
"A tiny motor with a off-set mass (cam) on the motor's output shaft. When the phone gets a call, the motor spins and the mass *wobbles*, creating the vibration.",
"Inside your phone there's a [little motor with a wonky wheel stuck to it](_URL_0_). \n\nWhen the motor spins this wheel it makes the whole phone vibrate."
] |
Why are meals at American schools so expensive? | [
"Have you ever been to a baseball game? That same food would probably cost you $10.\n\nSchool lunches are run by a business who is (ultimately) a profit seeking entity. That being said, school lunches are generally pretty cheap unless you're going for the \"premium\" food such as pizza which is often brought in from the outside.",
"This may be specific to your school. In many schools meals are very cheap -- so cheap that the staff feel forced to use cheap ingredients.",
"> why does it cost 5 dollars to get a hot dog and chips at a school that would probably cost 3 dollars tops if you bought it at the store?\n\nYou're also paying for somebody to transport, store, cook, and serve the food at the school. They also give you a place to sit and eat your food, dispose of waste, etc. All that overhead adds to the cost of the lunch that you're not thinking about when you compare the price of the food.",
"I remember lunch costing something like $1.75 about 10 years ago/\n\nIt'd come with a burger, fries, milk and cookie. Does school lunch really cost $5 now?"
] |
how dangerous are my uncovered florescent lights regarding UV rays | [
"Not dangerous. There is a coating in the lamp that absorbs UV rays",
"Do you hug them for an hour or more a day? If not you are probably just fine."
] |
What, exactly, led to the Holocaust? | [
"After ww1 Germany as a country became really broke and poor due to the sanctions the treaty of Versailles put on them. The government had to pay back money to all the other countries for all the damage that happened because of the war. \n\nHitler blamed this on the Jewish people saying that while the true blooded Germans were away fighting, the Jews stayed home and kept getting rich off the war. He even went so far as to say the harsh sanctions imposed on Germany by the treaty that ended the war were there because the Jews allowed it to be.\n\nHitler's policies started to positively affect the economy for Germany and people began to notice their lives were getting better. They started having good to eat and money to spend and it was all thanks to Hitler and his political views. Germans remembered the famine they survived and were in no hurry to live that life again so they obeyed the voice that put food on their tables and restored Germany to the super power it could be.",
"Yes they started with recording who all the Jews were, then segregating. It was a systematic demonization of the Jewish culture before the holocaust officially began with the arrests and extermination",
"Anti-Semitism has been present in Europe for centuries, in various forms and with various justifications.\n\nIn the 19th century, now-discredited theories on race held that the various \"races\" had identifiable, inherent traits, and that \"races\" could be organized into a hierarchy (typically with white, Germanic Europeans - or \"Aryans\" - at the top).\n\nThe Volkisch movement saw the world as a battle for world domination between the Aryan and Jewish races. Volkisch leaders (very much pre-Nazism) believed that Jews should be stripped of their rights, property and citizenship, and either expelled from Germany or outright killed. Anti-Semitism was very much a common feature of life in Germany in this period, in all sectors of society.\n\nJews were therefore among the groups that the majority of the population were disposed towards scapegoating. One of the most obvious examples of this came after the German surrender in WW1. Germany had been fed constant propaganda during the war about how Germany was on the cusp of victory, right up until its defeat. There was a refusal to accept that the German army had been militarily defeated, and the German high command strongly promoted the idea that the army had been betrayed by politicians at home.\n\nThis was a particularly popular view among German soldiers returning from the front, which included Adolf Hitler. Liberals and Communists were blamed for Germany's defeat, both of whom were accused in Anti-Semitic writings of being Jewish-controlled movements to weaken Germany.\n\nIt's important to understand the way in which the Nazis, and Hitler in particular, perceived a relationship between Jews and Communism. In their mind, Communism was a Jewish plot to control the world (the number of prominent Jewish Communists certainly helped sell the idea), and Jews were therefore trying to spread Communism into Germany from the East. An attempted Communist revolution immediately after the end of the war - leading to battles on the streets of Berlin and Munich - certainly helped cement that idea. Hitler himself described his actions as being a fight against \"Jewish Marxism\".\n\nOf course, the Nazi Party was very skilled at combining left and right-wing rhetoric into one. In addition to perceiving Communism as a Jewish plot, it also identified capitalism as being a system controlled by the Jews as well. The Wall St Crash of 1932, which propelled the Nazis into power, provided the perfect ammunition for them: the capitalists (Jews) had destroyed the economy in order to weaken Aryan people and encourage Communist revolution (also Jews).\n\nIn power, the Nazis proceeded to strip Jews of their rights. The 1935 Nuremberg Laws stripped them of their citizenship, forbade sex between Jews and non-Jews, banned Jews from voting and holding public office. In subsequent years, employment and property rights were greatly restricted in an attempt to impoverish Jews. Practicing Judaism was, of course, outlawed. Pogroms made a comeback, most notably the \"Kristalnacht\" of 1938.\n\nQuick note: the Nazis defined a Jew as someone with three or four Jewish grandparents, regardless of that individual's religious practices. Many Germans who did not previously consider themselves to be Jews suddenly found themselves being persecuted along with those practicing the Jewish faith. This was a race-based thing to them, not a religious one (although they did make use of religious rhetoric when it suited).\n\nThe initial Nazi plan for the Jews was to resettle them outside of Europe. Diplomatic efforts were made to arrange the transport of Jews to French Madagascar, alongside British Rhodesia, Australia, Italian Abyssinia, Siberia and British Palestine (the Nazis in fact had an agreement with the Zionist Federation of Germany to transport Jews to Palestine right up until the outbreak of the war).\n\nInitially, concentration camps were designed as holding centers until such a transfer too place and not places of extermination (although death was still common).\n\nAfter 1939, things got increasingly worse. Camps became a source of slave labour for the war effort, and working people to death became the new norm. Those not fit to work were killed immediately.\n\nThe number of deaths was increased in other occupied countries by the creation of death squads, often consisting of local pro-Nazi groups such as the Croatian Ustasi, who hunted down and killed partisans and undesirables such as Jews.\n\nIn occupied Poland, ghettos were established to house Jews and other sources of slave labour (the largest being in Warsaw). These quickly became unruly sources of resistance, and by 1942 the Nazis (now no longer advancing in Russia) began reducing the population of these ghettos. The Wannsee Conference in January 1942 brought us into the \"Final Solution\" period, which involved transporting all Jews (and others) in occupied territories to Poland with the express purpose of extermination. This is the period of putting people into cattle trains, and the time of the highest number of killings. The worse the war was going for Germany in Russia, the more brutal the killings became.\n\nThe Holocaust of course also affected many other targeted groups, but each of them is a slightly different issue that needs to be explored on its own.",
"Germany had a huge depression after WW1 many Jews ran business and banking they became easy targets to blame. giving the German people something to rally behind."
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If women on birth control don't menstruate, why do they have periods? | [
"I think I know what your asking but here is a correction to your question:\n\nPeriod = Menstruation\n\nYou mean to ask: \"If women on BC don't *ovulate*, why do they *menstruate*?\"\n\nThe answer is they don't. While on standard hormone replacement pills the signals they create will block both ovulation and menstruation. In the standard BC regimen, a woman will take three weeks of hormone pills to block ovulation, then one week of placebo pills (the ones usually have a diffrent color in the packaging). The three weeks on hormones blocked ovulation or the development of a viable egg to travel to the womb and get fertilized, and the week off removes the hormone trick and lets menstruation occur. \n\nNewer BC regimens and implants and IUDs remove or eliminate many of these \"off weeks\" and will block both ovulation and menstruation for longer blocks of time. \n\nThere is a balance of risks and preferences that a woman must make with her doctor before selecting a method of BC. Many will elect for BC that allows for fewer periods but there is an increased risk of breakthrough bleeds where small amount of the uterine lining will still menstruate and also removes fewer check points to detect BC failure. Thats right, one advantage to the old one period a month pills are they have a failure check built in the schedule, if you go on the placebo week and you don't get a period, you can go get checked for pregnancy with a doctor as BC, pill or not, is never 100% foolproof.",
"Birth control pills stop the ovaries from releasing eggs every month, but they don't do anything to stop the buildup of the uterine lining. When a woman switches to the placebo pills, the loss of hormones causes that lining to break down, just like it would in a normal period"
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