Subset (10)

eli5 · 25k rows

Split (1)

train · 25k rows

query stringlengths 20 300	positive listlengths 1 1	negative listlengths 1 1
Dark Matter, in grade school we learned "matter" is something that has mass and occupies space. If dark matter doesn't interact with the electro-magnetic force, couldn't regular matter occupy the same space as it?	[ "'Taking up space' in particle physics means being subject to the Pauli exclusion principle, which says that certain kinds of particles can't occupy the same state as another, identical particle at the same time. This principle applies to particles called fermions, which include the quarks that make up protons...	[ "Binding energy from the nuclei. Binding energy is negative. In proton-proton fusion p + p - > d + e + ν_e, the mass of the products (deuterium + electron, neutrino is basically massless) is lower than the sum of the masses of the reagents by 0.42 MeV - remember that mass equals the internal energy (that's what E=m...
Pat Tillman, I feel like I'm missing something	[ "He was an atheist, and at his funeral John McCain had the audacity to say \"He's with god now\", to which his brother vocally objected. He stands as the poster boy for Atheists in Foxholes, because he was good-looking, charismatic, and genuinely a good person." ]	[ "They are already ex-military most of the time plus Govt doesn't get the \"official responsibility\" for any mishaps. Google Raymond Davis Pakistan for an example. There must be hundreds other as well but seemed to illustrate how well entrenched these practices are" ]
Why is trypophobia a thing?	[ "Clusters of holes are generally not good. Holes in flesh means you're injured or unwell. Holes in dirt means something lives inside them. Wasp nests tend to have holes in them. Clusters are generally not good. Spider eggs are clustered together. Maggots are clustered together (with holes!). They're just two things...	[ "This is more of an opinion or discussion question than a concept you're looking to have explained. Not really a topic for ELI5. Maybe /r/askreddit" ]
Since the yeast that makes bread rise works the same way as yeast for making beer or wine, does that mean there is alcohol in bread? If so, how much? How much would I have to eat to get drunk?	[ "Answering as an avid bread-baker and not a food scientist, the internal temperature of cooked bread is around 190F, whereas ethanol's boiling point is 173F. Ethanol is certainly produced by yeast during the bread fermentation, but what's there is likely almost entirely cooked off during baking. I've kept a sourdou...	[ "Yarr! Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained: 1. [ELI5 What are those \"worm\" like things floating in my vision. ](_URL_1_) ^(_7 comments_) 1. [ELI5: What are these things floating in my vision? Clear, worm looking things? ](_URL_0_) ^(_8 comments_)" ]
How can the universe be infinite if it’s still expanding?	[ "Think of a ruler going 1 to infinity. Now imagine on that ruler, the distance between 1 and 2 is growing larger, as well as the distance between all the numbers to infinity." ]	[ "There's no line of demarcation. Think of it as cities. As you're leaving town, you hit the suburbs. Things are more spread out and not as dense. By the end, you're passing houses every couple of miles. Then, you're out on the road by yourself with nothing but various gasses and dust. When you start to come up to t...
Many modern children are fascinated by dinosaurs. What were children similarly fascinated by before the discovery of dinosaurs?	[ "Not a historian, just someone who likes to lurk and learn new things, but I can maybe point you to a few similar questions I’ve seen about kids and their obsessions while you wait to hear from an expert. [This post](_URL_2_) has an ancient Roman source from u/rkiga that mentions a toddler obsessed with birds. Furt...	[ "Most jobs didn't really care about time - you got up when the sun came up and went to bed when the sun went down. There wasn't much of a concept of \"meet me at 11:30\" or \"be at work by 9\" back then - people worked when they worked. There was a brief period when clocks were not as common but people did need to ...
How much more efficient is riding a bike (on flat ground) than walking?	[ "Not a physics guy, but this link may help: _URL_0_" ]	[ "Are you asking what the probability that any cycle will occur or are you asking what the probability that a cycle of length k will occur for each k < n? Claim: Your graph will always have at least one cycle. Proof: Let P = p_1 p_2 ... p_k be the longest directed path in your graph. The arc out of vertex ...
The phrase/analogy "You can't have your cake, and eat it"	[ "Common sayings and proverbs don't have to make semantic sense. Ex: \"It's raining cats and dogs\". In this case though, it does make sense. Think of the 'have' as meaning 'keep' You can't keep your cake, and eat it too. Historically speaking, the proverb existed both with 'have/eat' order, and 'eat/have' order. Bu...	[ "because its not a violation of criminal law, its a violation of civil law. if you violate criminal law a police agency can arrest you because you may be causing a threat to public safety. downloading content illegally is never a threat to public safety. if you violate civil law you can be sued by an injured part...
What's happening with this potential government shutdown.	[ "Basically, the federal government spends the money congress says it should spend; we have a lot of that money in yearly budgets (congress passes appropriations bills, that basically say spend $x for y,z... between Oct/1 and Sept 30); all those appropriations bills expire on Oct 1, so after that, the federal govern...	[ "From our standpoint as users, nothing at all. From Reddit's standpoint, one of them means the backend computers told them \"sorry too busy\" and the other means that the backend didn't respond at all." ]
Solar Systems, Galaxies, the Universe; What's the difference?	[ "So a solar system is a star (or maybe a few stars all orbiting around eachother) and the things that are going around them, like planets and meteors. Galaxies are huge collections of stars, normally at least many millions of stars (and their solar systems). The universe is made up of a huge number of galaxies (bil...	[ "This video from Sagan will help. I couldn't explain it in a better way. _URL_0_" ]
So what would happen if a thimble full of Neutron Star were to suddenly transport itself instantly into empty space?	[ "It would expand phenomenally fast (might as well define it as an explosion), as the force compressing it would be gone. It would be at a very high temperature, but more than that the structure of a neutron star is extremely unstable and only held in place by the massive gravitational field of the star, so most of ...	[ "Think of it like a hose... and a room made of sponge. The light bulb is a hose, spraying water (light) everywhere. The room is a sponge, absorbing the water (light) all the time. The moment you turn the light off, it's like closing the faucet to which the hose is attached. It stops spraying water (light) everywhe...
What's the evidence behind diet causing acne?	[ "So this one is actually pretty well documented with Google Searches: _URL_0_ Foods that aid skin care: These foods increase overall skin health Vitamin A,E, & C rich foods Zinc & Selenium Proper Hydration Foods that may worsen acne Milk which comes from cows that have hormone supplements, there is still o...	[ "Adam Ruins Everything did an episode related to this, and they show their sources on screen Here's a clip: _URL_0_" ]
Is the current lethal injection the most humane way to kill someone?	[ "There's an interesting documentary [How to Kill a Human Being](_URL_0_), where a British journalist investigates the science and ethics behind state execution. He pushes himself to the brink of death several times to determine the most humane way to perform an execution." ]	[ "These shows are always a bit of fun and play creatively with the truth. Indeed ballistics isn't as cut and dried as \"every gun has a unique fingerprint, no two can ever be the same\". Marks are compared by eye, very similar guns will have very similar marks. Even much real life courtroom \"science\" is pretty poo...
Why are the first episodes of a lot of shows called pilot?	[ "A “pilot” is a term for a test run of something. The term “pilot project” refers to tentative model or solution that if it proves successful will become standardized or official. Many tv shows create “pilot” episodes that are then reviewed and later a decision is made to give a show a longer run. Amazon is famous ...	[ "This is like asking \"why does a fire burn itself out - what's the point of using up all the fuel if it can't sustain itself?\"." ]
What happens to the bodies of homeless people with no families when they die?	[ "It depends on where the death takes place but it's usually up to the locality. _URL_0_" ]	[ "The hospital gets that money, which it uses to defray the costs to treat uninsured patients who can't pay." ]
Did romance in the Qajar dynasty really have such unique gender/sexual dynamics?	[ "I haven't read it, but you might to look at [Women with Mustaches and Men without Beards: Gender and Sexual Anxieties of Iranian Modernity](_URL_0_) for more information on this. Not to discourage anyone else from answering, but as far as I'm aware we don't have any Persianists on the sub :/" ]	[ "Offhand, I have no idea what their lives would have been like, but I can recommend a book. Check out Empire Families by Elizabeth Beuttner, it's about the families of imperial civil servants and other administrators, and how they dealt with living in India. If you want to research them in particular, your best ...
Why are there no generic "store-brand" versions of very popular candy such as Skittles or Snickers?	[ "Well over here in the UK. ASDA which is owned by Wall Mart sells its own brand of all major sweets. Mars. Snickers, Twix, etc etc.....and they taste better at half the cost!" ]	[ "Let's say toll roads are run by Wal Mart. They then offer a discount - you can drive to Wal Mart for free, but still have to pay a toll when you go anywhere else. Sounds good, right? But then next year they double or triple the toll. Soon you can't afford to shop anywhere EXCEPT WalMart. Every other store then go...
What do pirates gain from uploading torrents?	[ "It depends on the pirate. There are entire forums dedicated to preserving things that have no way of being distributed. Old movies that were wiped because the studio needed spare film for example. People share them to keep them alive. Other pirates on the other hand, just seed things to balance out their ratio for...	[ "A new generation of people listening to their music. Said people may consider buying their other albums which are not free." ]
We have wifi, satellites that beam GPS to our phones, etc. Why can't we have something that'll charge our portable devices wirelessly?	[ "[We can](_URL_0_) power devices wirelessly: the handle of an electric toothbrush wirelessly sends power to the integrated battery to charge it. Just like the first half of an electrical transformer sends power to the other half, wirelessly. These devices can work because the emitter and the receiver are very close...	[ "For that you need mountains, with two lakes above each other, and a river to replenish the evaporated water. Most, if not all suitable sites are already used for that. *Construction is expensive, and the energy content is relatively low. As a theoretical exercise you can calculate the 'lake' sizes and heigh...
How would China devaluing its currency affect dollar denominated debt?	[ "China devaluing their currency would have the benefit of reducing the world market prices for their exports, boosting economic growth, but will make foreign currency denominated debt more expensive to service, since firms (and individuals?) will need to spend more RMB to buy the same amount of (for example) dollar...	[ "Hey there. I know you said something before about the middle ages, but I actually looked into something similar not too long ago. [Da Quin](_URL_0_) would be a good place to look. [This is also extremely relevant.](_URL_1_) That second link was amazing to me when I read it. From what I recall, the Chinese seemed t...
The IPCC says we should curb warming from anthropogenic climate change to no more than 2 degrees Celsius to avoid immense ecological/economic damage. What climactic threshold in degrees Celsius or CO2e must be reached in order for the Earth's atmosphere to engage in a runaway greenhouse effect?	[ "Runaway greenhouse effect means that it becomes so hot that the oceans just boil away. This is kind of impossible on Earth. [It looks like we might be able to trigger a runaway greenhouse effect if we burn all the fossile fuels in Earths crust roughly 10 times over.](_URL_0_) The 2 degree Celsius goal is more of a...	[ "It's not directly proportional. There are two things that need to happen for ice to melt: 1. The ice needs to be heated to the melting point of 0C 2. The ice then needs to gain energy to overcome the enthalpy of fusion, in a similar way that boiling water needs extra energy to go from a liquid at 100C to a gas (st...
Alpha Go and its decision making process.	[ "AlphaGo uses something called machine learning, which is essentially a way of classifying objects based on the classification of past objects that we give the computer. In this case the objects being classified are the states of the board. So we tell AlphaGo what the good and bad moves of past games were, and Alph...	[ "They plan the landing sites well in advanced. It is determined by terrain (will it be a safe landing), different features (what looks interesting to study), and by past landings (they want to spread out so they can study as much ground as possible)" ]
Victorian England Historians needed	[ "Try getting in touch with his regimental museum, the Royal Regiment of Horse Guards (The Blues) amalgamated and became the Blues and Royals in 1969, part of the Household Cavalry, so the Household Cavalry Museum would be a good place to start. (_URL_0_)" ]	[ "This might be easier for people to answer if you gave a specific time and place. Are we talking about Italian renaissance choir boys or Chinese imperial officials? Edit: specific time not a specific Tim" ]
Why is Saturn the only planet in the Solar System to have a stable polygon shaped (hexagon) storm?	[ "We dont really know why there is one there on Saturn in the first place. People are still figuring out why, theories worked on, models designed. So given we don't know 'why' yet its hard to then explain why only Saturn. Why does Jupiter have a Great Spot? Storms on these planets work on different mechanisms than o...	[ "Point a flashlight at the wall and turn it on. See the small circle? Now, let's say your flashlight is delivering xyz power to the wall. So xyz power is landing in that circle, right? Tilt the flashlight in any direction. The circle spreads out across the wall doesn't it? But you didn't change the batteries or any...
If a medieval knight in full plate mail got struck with lightning, would he escape unscathed?	[ "The resistance of the mail would be orders of magnitude lower than that of the knight, so it is unlikely that electrocution would occur as the majority of the current would be external. However, metal objects worn on the skin during lightning strikes [may result in burns](_URL_1_). A sharp discharge (rather than a...	[ "Not just support - but it's allowed. MMA fighters or boxers don't get arrested for their actions, unless the injuries are severe beyond the norm. It's an implicit agreement within hockey that it's part of the game, and you are free to _not partake in any fights as well_. In serious cases of injuries, criminal inve...
How do the developers of an app like Snapchat, which is free and doesn't run advertisements, make money? (Enough to be almost bought out for 3 BILLION)	[ "TL:DR Snapchat is a simple application and is not worth much by itself. The reason that it is worth that much is because of its number of users. Firms are only interested in their growing number of users worldwide because this would potentially increase their own customer base for their own products. English is my...	[ "You have too much money for your piggy bank. You want to keep it some place safe. A bank offers to keep it for you AND will pay you a little each month on top IF you let them lend the money to other people. This is called interest and you are earning it. These other people will pay the bank for the use of your mon...
Why doesn't a venomous snake get sick/die if it eats a prey in which it injected its venom?	[ "Most snake venoms needs to enter the bloodstream to have a harmful effect, part of the reason why they bite their pray. When they eat their pray, any toxin that may be remaining in its system will simply be broken down by the snake's digestive system and rendered inert." ]	[ "You've pretty much got it. When you combine a bunch of ingredients in a flavored liquid, at first the flavors of the liquid will either just coat the pieces or barely penetrate the surface. As you let it sit, the flavors penetrate deeper into each piece of food, and each ingredient starts to give up its own juices...
Who was the last female dictator of a nation?	[ "Follow up questions: /u/yodatsracist mentions that there are no (unambigulous) female dictatorial powers till date. However, the world has seen many female monarchs in different kingdoms across the world. 1. Why does this disparity exist? For example, even to this day, the Queen of England comes to mind. 2. Have a...	[ "Hi there -- while we've approved this question, we would like to remind potential respondents of our [current events](_URL_0_) (AKA \"20-year\") rule -- it's fine to discuss events through 1997 (inclusive) and their effects, but not events after 1997. Thanks!" ]
Why do people from the US never identify with English culture? I often read about Italian-American, Irish-American, Chinese-American, you name it, but not a single time have I read someone proud of her/his English origins.	[ "Well, I suppose I am well-suited to answer, as my mother was English. 1. English is sort of the default origin. It is just not remarkable in the US. 2. There was never a huge 19th century immigration wave, like with so many other immigrant communities. So, there was never really a time when immigrants from the UK ...	[ "Thar be prosodic cues be makin' English sound English, e'en ye canna hear all the words over the wind whippin' through the sails. Summat these be the way the pitch be risin' and fallin' o'er the sentence; summat others be the ways we be combinin' sounds or no in English. I reckon ye may be findin' these rules fer ...
What happened to the economy the first time the government raised the minimum wage?	[ "It's been raised 3 times in my life... and nothing bad happened.Cities didn't come to a halt, the world did not end. I had more money in my pocket after taxes... for the 2nd & 3rd increases, I didn't see a change because I was earning way more than the minimum. I like how people still subscribe to the idea that i...	[ "Let's say toll roads are run by Wal Mart. They then offer a discount - you can drive to Wal Mart for free, but still have to pay a toll when you go anywhere else. Sounds good, right? But then next year they double or triple the toll. Soon you can't afford to shop anywhere EXCEPT WalMart. Every other store then go...
What's the "Fit to Work" and why are people dying?	[ "The government had concerns that many people were claiming disability when they were fit for work. So they fetched in a private company to reassess those claiming disability benefits. There has been much concern that they were overly zealous in finding people \"fit for work\". Many of those carrying out the assess...	[ "The Chi-Square test helps to determine whether the function has correlation with the data. Remember, that there tons of types of functions and they vary in their progression. For example you won't adapt a linear function to an exponential one. What you should do is to do a graph and choose your x, y. You do one gr...
The difference between a Therapist, Psychiatrist, and a Psychologist.	[ "Therapist: A person who doesn't necessarily have a degree (but they very often do). But works to help people through problems such as bereavements or social anxieties. Psychologist: A person who studies the human brain and behaviour. These people mainly do research into why we are what we are. They study all types...	[ "/u/sleighur answered this well, but to add: Engineers will know their materials, and have massive charts to consult. What foundation works best with this soil? What are the environmental hazards (earthquakes? heavy rain? ice and snow?)? What does the client want (big windows means big clear spans which means big s...
In the Middle Ages, would a defending army ever place their army outside the castle walls during a siege?	[ "It was done sometimes. If you know that the place is not well-prepared for a siege (e.g., not much food or water), or you think you have a chance to defeat the enemy force before they get expected reinforcements, battle outside the walls can be safer than a siege. Also, if you fight just outside your walls, you ca...	[ "A player is said to be in an offside position if they are simultaneously: 1. In their opponents half of the pitch. 2. In front of the ball (ie. nearer to the opposition goal line than the ball is). 3. There are fewer than two opposition players between the player and the opposition goal line. A player in an of...
Why do humans (or animals in general) need to drink water if it is already produced through cellular respiration?	[ "Humans produce about 1kg of CO2 per day. This is 22.7 mols of CO2. The simple equation for respiration of glucose is C6H12O6 (s) + 6 O2 (g) → 6 CO2 (g) + 6 H2O (l), so 22.7 mols of H2O will also be produced. This is about 410ml, or less than two cups, of water per day, total. If you take 20,000 breaths per day, yo...	[ "Here in California, 90% of water is used for environmental and agricultural purposes and 10% is for urban use (water used at your home). I'd say our biggest net water loss comes from Almonds. 10% of all water in California is used to make almonds even though they make up less than .5% of our State's GDP. If we fo...
If earth stopped rotating what temperature would the side facing the sun reach?	[ "Keep in mind that if it stopped rotating entirely, there would still be one day per year as the Earth moved about its orbit. If you want one side to be permanently facing the sun, you want the Earth to be tidally locked with the sun." ]	[ "Like instantly? We'd all keep moving at thousand miles per hour. We would all die pretty much instantly. The only people who might make it would be in the air. I'd imagine the oceans would fuck shit up too. Imagine the Pacific Ocean, all of the Pacific Ocean, all at once, rushing into California at a thousand mile...
What's the "secret code" behind all those letters, numbers, and symbols that are spray painted on the street, typically before/after construction?	[ "Yay, I get to be relevant today! Usually these are locates. Before you start digging, you're supposed to call a locate service. The service is completely free for anyone, and is paid for the utility companies. They pay for it because it's in their best interest that you don't accidentally run into it with your equ...	[ "A simpler explanation of why one-time pad encryption can't be cracked: Let's say our adversary is sending encrypted text messages in English. With most encryption systems, you can try decrypting that message with every possible key. Most keys will just give you random-looking characters, and one will give you a pr...
I was always told that my great grandpa worked on U-Boats during WWI (German side). Can you tell what rank he was from this picture?	[ "He was an Oberleutnant zur See. [Link](_URL_0_) (WW2 link - but ranking remained the same)" ]	[ "According to John Man^1 it was called this as Genghis's family was known as the 'Golden Clan', and the Mongolian word ord/orde meant a palace, or for the Mongols a tent. Hence Batu's (initial leader of the khanate) apparent use of a gold coloured tent as his 'palace', and the shift of ord/orde to horde led to the ...
Over the years when Edward IV, Mary I and Elizabeth I reigned over England and Ireland, how did the average villager view the constant religious changes that were implemented?	[ "Side question: How many religious changes were actually made under Edward, considering that his father never really considered himself a protestant, making Edward the first protestant king. And were those all reverted under Mary?" ]	[ "Is this a homework question? It says in our [rules](_URL_2_): Our users aren't here to do your homework for you, but they might be willing to help. Remember: AskHistorians helps those who help themselves. Don't just give us your essay/assignment topic and ask us for ideas. Do some research of your own, then come t...
- What tends to happen to a person if he/she was bullied throughout childhood?	[ "Pressure can make diamonds or it can bursts pipes." ]	[ "There's nothing wrong with reposting a question, if it's gone a long while without an answer. I posted a question several months ago, and it got zero response, so after a month or so went by, I cut and pasted the post into a new post, and that one got several quality answers. As long as you wait a good long while ...
What is the Classical definition of a tyrant/tyranny?	[ "Oddly enough, the connotations around the Greek word tyrannos are pretty similar to how we think of modern dictators, or at least in Athens. Your analysis is pretty good, although I should stress it was not an entirely morally neutral term. In much the same way that we can talk about and admire an Ataturk or a L...	[ "It's pretty simple, really: Microsoft [adopted TNR as a default system font](_URL_0_) in Windows in 1992. Windows achieved remarkable dominance — it still holds more than a 90% share of [the desktop OS market](_URL_1_) — and Microsoft Office achieved similar success in the productivity software market. So essentia...
If you can refract light/heat in a mirror, why can’t you refract electricity?	[ "Refraction is an effect only seen in waves. Visible light is a wave. Infrared radiation (heat) is a wave. Electricity is a flow of charged particles (electrons) that shifts charge from one place to another. Now, because quantum physics is weird, electrons are also waves, and EM radiation is also particles. But in ...	[ "This is not totally factually correct but may help you to visualise it. Think about your tap at home. The water pressure from the pump at your water supplier is always the same but the rate at which water flows changes depending on how far you open the tap. A power source always has the same voltage (pressure) but...
How do we know that the milky way is not moving close to the speed of light?	[ "There is no absolute measure of the velocity of the galaxy (or of anything else). One can only speak of the velocity of one thing relative to another." ]	[ "Any physically straigth line will always appear arc shaped if it covers long enough area of your vision. Its just our brains can make us realise they are really straigth if there is enough context. For the case of milkiway center there isnt. Cameras can cause further confusion. Its like inverse version of the prob...
Using they in place of he/she	[ "Whether by circumstance or preference, it's sometimes useful to have a genderless pronoun when referring to someone. As it happens, the [singular they](_URL_0_) has existed for centuries to serve this exact purpose. It's not a new idea, though it has gained increased popularity recently." ]	[ "Referring to the year as Two thousand X is a bit of a holdover from the last decade. I don't hear it much anymore. its increasingly being referred to as Twenty X and will be going forward." ]
Besides the wars of the roses, are there any other examples of, "Bastard Feudalism" in the medieval world? (Including beyond europe!)	[ "Could you specify what you mean by \"bastard feudalism\"? The word feudalism is problematic enough already." ]	[ "[The Fordham Internet History Sourcebooks](_URL_1_) are pretty much go-to in terms of finding major/commonly-assigned primary documents in simple text format. The faculty in my department use Fordham docs a ton in assigning readings. I use the [Public Records Office of Northern Ireland](_URL_0_) online selection, ...
How does a screen show yellow if has only red, blue & green dots?	[ "Paint and light colors combine differently. Red light and green light make yellow light, you can test it for yourself. More information here. _URL_0_" ]	[ "They use a combination of colour changing and conductive ink. The ink is conductive so that when you touch the two points, current can flow. The colour change occurs with temperature. So what you do is create a gradually widening strip of the colour changing conductive ink. The narrow part takes the least power...
Why are tech companies removing the traditional headphone jack from their devices?	[ "There appear to be two main reasons, though I don't know how much emphasis is placed on each by each company: * The ongoing quest for thinness: a 3.5mm jack socket, with case and connections, can easily be 6mm across * The desire to close the \"analogue hole\", in the same way as has been done with HD video. A dig...	[ "And which style of outlet should the entire world adopt? _URL_0_ It would take a substantial amount of money for a nation to swtich over all its outlets, and the benefit isn't sufficient enough to justify the cost, especially when adapters are a much more cost-effective work-around solution." ]
Is there a second complex plane?	[ "I think what you're getting at is Quaternions. The bane of computer graphics artists and video game developers everywhere: _URL_2_" ]	[ "Umm I don't think that's the story as to why we are \"different\" than animals. Many different organisms have lateralized brains. The major difference is our incredibly developed cerebral cortex, most notably the prefrontal cortex and its connections to other brain regions. _URL_0_ \"Specialization of the two hemi...
Can we forget things by learning "too much"?	[ "You remember things better when you reinforce those memories. If you specialize in a certain field, then you're constantly reinforcing the original or similar information. As a generalist, you don't focus as much on the same information, so you don't reinforce it as much. You aren't pushing out the old information...	[ "There is no actual point in time. There is only the evidence for any particular place and time For example for 100 years ago there is a wealth of evidence, and yet historians still constantly argue the detail for events at that time . WW1 still has detail that has been \"lost\" but which archaeologiss and historia...
Why and how does our sense of touch sometimes register something cold as wet instead?	[ "Cold things often have water condensation on them (from the air) so they might just very well be wet." ]	[ "While there are several different technologies, the most common technology now is [capacitive sensing](_URL_0_). There is a layer of conductive sensors covered by a second insulating layer. When you finger touches the screen it changes the capacitance. This design effectively traps charge in the sensor behind the ...
Where do they get the lookalikes for criminal line-ups?	[ "I'm pretty sure that's just a thing in movies. OR they take in people with a record who fit the general description of the suspect." ]	[ "This probably isn't the answer you are looking for, but you need to be more specific about what you mean. How similar is \"identical\"? What factors are you considering when comparing two people? Keep in mind that one individual can have a range of [appearances](_URL_0_). I am an identical twin, and my twin and I ...
Why are the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg independent?	[ "The majority language in the Benelux is Dutch, not French or German." ]	[ "Most of the countries' names are that way for historical purposes. A prime example would be Georgia (the country). Georgians actually call their country Sakartvelo, which can be approximated with Latin characters just fine. But since they spoke a unique language and wrote in unique text ( საქართველო ), people jus...
How can most low-end phone have a better processor speed than higher-end laptops?	[ "number of cores and clock speed (GHz) do not necessarily indicate raw processor power. You also cannot add the GHz of multiple cores to get a number that means anything." ]	[ "Really really simple explanation. The energy in bread and flour is contained in little batteries (sugar molecules). But, the batteries in flour have a coating over the plus and minus terminals that slows the electricity that can flow out of the battery. If you cook the flour (bread), the heat removes the coating o...
If bending pressure is applied to points on a glass rod that brings the glass within ~99.9% of shattering, and then the pressure is released, does the glass have the same material strength as before?	[ "Glass specifically is a bit more complicated. Being a brittle material, it typically only bends within the linear region - meaning that it will reach its ultimate strength and break before undergoing any sort of plastic deformation or work hardening. However, glass experiences what is known as static fatigue, whe...	[ "Light is a form of electromagnet radiation. It has a frequency that's in a particular range which we can see, but there are lots of other frequencies we can't see. The idea that electromagnetic radiation can pass through things is probably not at all strange to you. For example: - Light can pass through air, water...
What are telomeres and how do they impact aging?	[ "Telomeres have been compared with the plastic tips on shoelaces, because they keep chromosome ends from fraying and sticking to each other, which would destroy or scramble an organism's genetic information. Yet, each time a cell divides, the telomeres get shorter. When they get too short, the cell can no longer di...	[ "Thank you for your submission! Unfortunately, your submission has been removed for the following reason(s): You can find the basic answer with a google / wiki search. Please start there and come back with a more specific question. If you disagree with this decision, please send a [message to the moderators.](_URL...
why do American airports not have smoking sections?!	[ "Having a smoking section in an indoor building is like having a peeing section in a pool. America has largely moved on from smoking. About two decades ago, there was a huge movement to get smoking banned in indoor public places, and that's what was done in most places. Basically, my right to not inhale secondhand ...	[ "Costs money to build and maintain the facilities, some countries don't feel like taking on the burden of that cost." ]
Why is it that when you cramp flexible circles together you get hexagons (honeycomb) specifically, and not any other shape?	[ "It's worth pointing out that if you do this sort of experiment in practice, you don't just get hexagons, you only get 'mostly hexagons' which is the sort of behavior that you'd find if it was a practical optimum, and there are other metastable packings." ]	[ "The amount of information that's possible to store in a given chunk of space depends on its surface area instead of its volume. This is weird; the number of hard drives or sheets of paper you can store depends on volume, so why would a more efficient storage medium only scale with surface area? You can mathemati...
A contractor told me that most American homes from the 1950s and 1960s have wood floors because FHA was the most common mortgage provider at the time and FHA required wood floors. Is this true?	[ "No. The mid-1950s into the early 1960s was the triumph of the full-carpeted home. The carpet industry lobbied the U.S. government to include the cost of carpet in the cost of the home overall when calculating mortgage values and rates--making carpeted homes more attractive purchases. I talked about the history o...	[ "Hydrofluoric acid might be what you're thinking of. It is a highly corrosive and dangerous acid. Though technically a weak acid, it can burn through most things, including flesh and bone as well as glass. If you watch Breaking Bad, Season 1 that's what they used. A vat full will definitley get rid of a body. Smal...
what would happen if Russia declared war on Ukraine? Would any countries get involved?	[ "Well I think the reason the EU havent done anything yet is because the central powers won't get behind it. If the EU spoke as one voice e.g. stop trading, then Russia would recall troops, but the EU won't do that Why you ask? France is building them aircraft carries and wants the contracts intact Germany's main fu...	[ "If your next door neighbor is trampling flowers in your backyard, and your much larger, much bigger neighbor from across the street decides to try and stop him, it's in your interest to just let him do that, whether with implicit or explicit approval. ... especially when you can't get to that corner of the backyar...
How thin is the border of an event horizon?	[ "At fixed time, an event horizon is precisely two-dimensional with no thickness at all." ]	[ "I think what you're asking about is called [two point discrimination](_URL_0_) and is dependent on where on the body you measure. It can be as fine as being able to sense 1 mm gaps and as wide as being unable to sense gaps of several centimeters. This is a product of specialized nervous circuits in the skin which ...
How light can be converted into sound	[ "Stimulated Brillouin scattering. Light has an electric field which is vibrating ~ 10^15 times a second. This is too fast for the positive and negative charges that make up materials to respond to. Like shaking a slinky too fast. Now take another light wave at a slightly different frequency, propagating in the opp...	[ "It's true, and it is indeed referring to the kinetic energy of the snowflake. Astronomical sources are very, very faint. As faint as starlight is, there is far, far more energy coming out in optical wavelengths than in radio. If you were to put a cell phone on the moon, it would be one of the brightest non-s...
Why are there so many sharks in shallow waters on the U.S. coast of the Atlantic Ocean all of a sudden?	[ "It's summer, and this happens every summer. Sharks kill only 10 people a year, but shark attacks are sexy news. Coconuts kill far more... but that isn't news. So really you're just hearing more about an normal annual event." ]	[ "You mean the Animal Planet one? Hype and marketing. Then it became a euphemism for menstruation (I'll fill you in if you want, but it's gross sex stuff...) and took on a life of its own." ]
Tattooing was illegal in NYC from 1961-1997...apparently. What were some New Yorker attitudes about tattoos in the 5 years or so before the ban and why did it take so long to repeal it?	[ "I'm really sorry I missed it, but they New York historical society recently had an exhibit about tattooing in New York. Especially addressing some of the culture around tattoos during this period. _URL_1_ _URL_0_ As the article you linked mentions. The stated reason was a hepatitis outbreak in the 60's. I think th...	[ "MTV was a subscription channel, the idea was to get people to pay every month for the music videos. By 1994, the end of the VJ era, this business model had clearly failed. Not enough kids would tell their parents \"I want my MTV\" and there were just too many other music and music video outlets for MTV to command ...
Is the "saltiness" of one's sweat influenced by factors such as sodium intake and/or water retention?	[ "Sweat is produced by salt being actively pumped into the sweat gland. Water follows it, by osmosis: the increase in volume pushes fluid down a duct and to the skin. This duct actively removes salt from the sweat, but doesn't allow water back in, so you get sweat which is less salty than the proto-sweat which actua...	[ "At the heart of the minty matter is a protein called the transient receptor potential cation channel subfamily M member 8 (TRPM8), which is expressed in sensory neurons. TRPM8 is an ion channel, a type of protein that regulates the movement of ions across the membranes of cells. Just like only certain keys can ope...
If oil takes millions of years to be made, how much of it is made each year?	[ "Here's an [article at livescience](_URL_1_) that says essentially what others in this thread are saying. * We don't know how much oil reserves are in the Earth. * There's no defined length of time that is required for organic material to be converted into petroleum. * The rate at which oil is created is ~~likely~~...	[ "In addition to the other good answers already here, there's also the fact that not only do we not know how life did originate, we don't yet have any idea how it could have originated. We know that commonplace chemical reactions can create simple molecules called amino acids. These are found in nature all the...
Whats the difference between a 401(k) and putting x% of your salary in a savings account?	[ "The biggest difference is that your 401(k) is what's referred to as a tax deferred account. The money you deposit is not taxed until it is withdrawn. This may seem like a trivial distinction since you're taxed on the money either way but the reasoning is based on the assumption that the 401(k) is a retirement acco...	[ "Well for starters you don't get more than one take, if you're performing live and you miss a note you can't just call redo. You are also standing on stage having the sound blasting from giant speakers, not ins a sound tight area with special equipment to pick up and fine tune every little bit of sound. And of cour...
Are there "mirrors" for the non-visible part of the EM spectrum?	[ "Absolutely. That's how we have radio, infrared, UV, etc telescopes. The coating you use to optimally reflect the wavelength you're interested in changes, but the physics is the same. For example, the upcoming [James Webb Space Telescope](_URL_1_) has gold coated mirrors, because gold optimally reflects the infrare...	[ "The fact that they're transverse just means that the electric and magnetic fields are perpendicular to the direction of propagation. So the electric field, the magnetic field, and the momentum of the light wave are all mutually perpendicular vectors." ]
Between the USA and the UK, what's the difference between how much freedom each other has?	[ "According to Reporters without Borders, in terms of Freedom of the press, the USA ranks below the UK. Source : _URL_0_ Though in practice the difference is surely not noticeable in everyday life and from an average person's point of view. I'm don't live in the US or the UK btw, I'm French and American though (dual...	[ "One thing to point out is the terrain. Iraq is in the populous parts of the country pretty flat, with a semi good road network across the country making it easy to move people around, and larger cities and towns to organize around. Afghanistan is some of the most inhospitable terrain on earth. With little nation...
Why is it traditional for the bible's pages to be so thin?	[ "Because there's a lot of them so if they weren't thin the book would be much thicker and heavier." ]	[ "> I've heard a lot about the Domesday Book, but it just doesn't seem very important Allow me to disabuse you of this notion. The Great Survey, called the Domesday Book from the 12th century onward, is not only the model for every public record that came after it, but also the most comprehensive and important work ...
Why does sucking on your cut make it feel better?	[ "Your nerves are like the internet... You only get so much bandwidth. Activating multiple touch receptors surrounding the injury distracts you, because the pain signals have to compete with the other signals going to the brain." ]	[ "writing on a tablet so I'll be concise - a scab is made out of platelets (cell fragments in your blood) and fibrin (polymerized protein also in your blood). Injury to a vessel starts the coagulation cascade, which immediately plugs the injury with platelets and reinforces the scab by cleaving fibrinogen in your bl...
Does there have to be inflation?	[ "There doesn't have to be, there doesn't even have to be money, but the majority of economists believe that having a small, regular amount of inflation helps society by encouraging investment and spending, as well as easing growth more generally." ]	[ "The microwave makes the marshmallow hot and marshmallows have a lot of air trapped inside them. When air gets hot, it expands. So it's not really the marshmallow \"inflating\", it's the trapped air expanding." ]
Will the various emission car scandals effect the estimated rates of Carbon Dioxide and Nitrogen in the atmosphere?	[ "Carbon dioxide went up from pre-industrial 270 ppm to 400 ppm now. But that is not only due to cars. Nitrogen oxide levels are high around big cities. In Europe, that is to a large extent due to cars with diesel engines." ]	[ "It varies, but not much individually. The problem is when everyone does it. It's kind of like why you're taught not to pick a flower from a garden when growing up. You alone, picking one flower, is not going to be noticed, it's not going to affect the plant or garden overall, but if everyone picks just 1, very s...
When it comes to budgeting a movie, what causes a movie like Pixar or something with alot of CGI to be so expensive? What part of creating a CGI is the majority of the money going to?	[ "The software and facilities is a big cost, but not the largest. The largest cost is for the people who make the movie. When you want a live actor to walk across the screen you hire one person to walk across the screen. It takes a few seconds. When you want to show an animated person walk across the screen a pers...	[ "Your employer takes money out of your paycheck throughout the year to pay your local, state, and federal taxes. The amount they take out, however, is just an estimate how much tax you will probably owe at the end of the year. There's no way for the state, local, and federal governments to know what you actually do...
My girlfriend lost a pill-case full of pills in her car for a few years. When we found it, the pills had grown "crystals." What happened? (picture)	[ "The volatile components have cyclically sublimed and re-crystallized due to external temperature change, with crystals growing larger at each cycle. The acicular (needle-like) crystals look like salicylic acid." ]	[ "He's covering the sugar in a hydrophobic coating. Scotchgard is a common one. [Here](_URL_0_) is a video of sand with a hydrophobic coating. Note that when he picks it back up out of the water, it's dry. This happens because water won't stick to or penetrate a hydrophobic surface. So, the sand/sugar stays \"dry\" ...
How do you know what good poetry sounds like?	[ "First, there's alot of cliches and tropes repeated words and phrases can get overbearing Sometimes amateur poets will find a technique and go too far (rhyming, alliteration, etc) The overall message of the poem. Is it engaging? Is there imagery and metaphor in the poem? If anyone who enjoys poetry were to read th...	[ "Same reason why certain food can taste nasty. It’s just not your taste. You’ve adapted to your own style. Nothing wrong with that, imo." ]
The Fibonacci Sequence	[ "Write down two numbers. Let's start with 1 and 1. Write from left to right. Add your first two numbers and write down the result to the right of the ones you already have (it should be 2). Now, take the two numbers furthest to the right (1 and 2) and add them together, and write down the answer to the right (3). K...	[ "I don't get these at all, but with the regularity of these threads it seems that everyone else in the world does. What gives?" ]
Why is honey and lemon good for singers when it never gets near the vocal cords?	[ "Not sure what the honey does, but lemon water helps cut the phlegm in my throat. Makes it so I can sing without rattling or hitching." ]	[ "Theoretically it could if the conditions where right: * A condensation altitude (where clouds form) low enough to be affected by the sound pressure * Supercooled water droplets in the air column above the sound source. In terms of weather at ground level they would most likely be close to 100% humidity and 0 degre...
Why don't we launch for space from a high flying aircraft?	[ "That's how SpaceShipTwo is launched. It's fine if you don't care about orbiting, just getting high up. But the energy you need to get fast enough to orbit is about 25 times the energy you need just to up and fall back down." ]	[ "Most of the time the people who go to these places are either already successful or some kind of athlete. The majority of the people you are talking about already have a lot of money to finance these trips. The alternative is usually some kind of athlete like the ones you see on YouTube doing extreme sports (base ...
Why is it that some old TV shows on Netflix, like "The West Wing," look like they're in HD, while other old shows, like the British "House of Cards," look like they were filmed on video?	[ "Wait, The West Wing is finally on Netflix? scrambles away to check and clear his schedule for the next 2 weeks" ]	[ "If I recall correctly from an advertising class I had at university, the Big Mac that gets shown in those advertisements is ingredient for ingredient exactly the same as the ones you get when you order it at your local restaurant. HOWEVER, for the advertisement, they spend hours meticulously preparing it as one ...
How does the "captcha" that has a checkbox with the caption "I am not a robot" help prevent spam accounts, ect.?	[ "That's a Google ReCAPTCHA. The checkbox is actually a small program that is watching how you use the webpage - what browser version you're on, what plugins you have, the order you fill out the information boxes, and how you move the mouse. Then, the program uses that information to make an educated guess on whethe...	[ "\"America\" can't, but Texans in his district certainly can. Once every two years they get the opportunity Mr. Smith is a congressman, and he represents one particular place. Only people from that place get to vote for or against him. Unfortunately Mr. Smith represents a wealthy area near Austin, Texas where I sus...
The phrase "You've got your work cut out for you"	[ "From what I can determine the original form of the saying was to “have one’s work all cut out”, as in a tailor already has all of the cloth cut, so they don’t have much work to do. Since then the phrase has adapted and changed (like many idioms) but kept the current meaning (which doesn’t match quite as well to th...	[ "Point a flashlight at the wall and turn it on. See the small circle? Now, let's say your flashlight is delivering xyz power to the wall. So xyz power is landing in that circle, right? Tilt the flashlight in any direction. The circle spreads out across the wall doesn't it? But you didn't change the batteries or any...
How are dictionaries organized in languages like Mandarin that have a symbol for each word rather than an alphabet?	[ "Some dictionaries are organized by radicals. Most Chinese characters are made up of smaller characters called radicals. 好 being 女 and 子. Since 女 is on the left, you would search by that using the number of stroke. Once you find all the 女 entries, they're organized by number of extra strokes. So 女 is three strokes ...	[ "Each of them has a special meaning on the command line, so if they showed up in filenames they would lead to ambiguity. \\ is the path element separator on Windows and / is both the path separator on Unix-style systems and the normal command switch character. : is the character that indicates a drive name as well ...
I just read about a tiny hormone chip which is inserted into your arm that can prevent all periods and pregnancies for a few years. How does this work, and is it trusted? If so, how is this not a very big deal?	[ "A small pellet or rod containing etonogestrel. It releases a constant amount for a few months to a year, and the hormone acts similar to birth control pills to prevent ovulation, and thus pregnacy. The actual procedure is simple. A small incision is made and the device inserted and the skin is sealed with a stich...	[ "Detect an incoming missile? Absolutely. We've been able to detect ICBMs shortly after launch with over-the-horizon radar (now supplemented with satellite surveillance) since we began developing them in the 1950s. Stop an incoming missile? Much harder, and whether we could do so today is an open question. There are...
Why do my feet stick so strongly to the floor of the shower if I stand in one place too long?	[ "It may be something to do with a temperature difference. Or maybe because the water pools around your feet and creates a little vacuum under your foot. I'm just guessing." ]	[ "I don't think \"sticky\" is something that has a precise meaning in chemistry. I think what it comes down to is the relative strength and balance of many types of [intermolecular forces](_URL_1_) that are at play. Take honey for example. It has lots of carbohydrate molecules like [fructose](_URL_0_). This molecule...
How do seeds buried in the ground know to send the seedling up towards the top instead of further down or sideways?	[ "Plant cells have little starchy organelles called statoliths - they're much heavier than other components of the cells. The statoliths fall to the bottom of the cells. In cells in the stem, statoliths on the bottom of the cell trigger the hormone auxin to inhibit growth on the lower part of the cell. This makes ...	[ "> does the satellite emits one signal that is interpred by every single user on his own or do the satellite do any calculus that it send to the user. The satellite emits one signal. This signal contains, among other things, information on the time that it was emitted. GPS receivers collect this signal from multipl...
What does board mean in room and board?	[ "If someone is offering \"room and board\", they are offering to house and feed you (generally). This sometimes is forgotten, but that's what it means." ]	[ "Facebook also allows advertisers to place a \"pixel\" on their website to track you and retarget you with ads. So, if you went to the airbnb website, you got retargeted by a pixel." ]
The entire series of the show LOST (spoiler warning ahead probably)	[ "Plane crashes. Show is cool, like survivor but with plot, and budget. People get angry about being stranded. They fight amongst themselves. They find bunkers, they learn they are not alone. Silly radio has silly number sequence. If it's not entered into an old computer, the world ends. Show is still cool. Then com...	[ "That would depend on who and when the determination was made, and the intelligence of the being to recognize the evidence. For example, lets assume all visible signs of human activity were non existent, would some future being recognize our existence because it found evidence of plastic in the genetic code of fish...
Why don't tornadoes go into a major down town area with sky scrapers?	[ "It's due to the size of cities. They can go through download areas, but you have to realize that downtown areas are very very small in comparison to the size of tornado alley. [List of downtown tornadoes](_URL_0_)" ]	[ "Not science disclaimer: This is not science. Land is sold by the acre which is surface area. The whole point behind very tall buildings like the Burj Khalifa is to maximize that patch of planet that it is built upon. When the design constraints begin at the very bottom, the only choice is to go up. Pyramids ha...
How can a solution to a problem suddenly pop up?	[ "Subconscious mind solves it for you with all of the acquired knowledge and experience. This won't happen if you've no knowledge." ]	[ "I find that sometimes you just need a lot of luck. It's incredibly hard for an undergraduate piece of work to be totally original. It was by pure chance that I discovered a peculiar phenomenon during the British Civil Wars and there was a very recent article discussing it. I took this as a starting point and just ...
Why is junk food so addictive?	[ "because it's designed to provide all the things that your brain thinks are good for you. sugars fats and salts. junk food are calorie dense. that's what you can survive on. if end of the world comes, you're better off with a backpack full of soda and snickers than a backpack full of baby carrots and celery." ]	[ "Go watch the movie Supersize Me and report back your findings." ]
How do we know that company sales numbers are true? Could the company make them up?	[ "Companies lie or make up numbers, or are misleading in their accounting pretty regularly. Some get caught, some don't. There are a variety of safeguards in place to prevent this from happening with publicly traded companies and lesser safeguards with private ones, but it still happens." ]	[ "They do it by using a control group during the studies used to demonstrate the drug's efficacy. The drug is approved because it causes a significantly higher recovery rate in patients versus the placebo. The difference between the recovery rates of the two experimental groups is an important statistic which can be...
Why did the black death largely avoid Poland?	[ "Two principle reasons: 1. As someone mentioned before, cats were not killed in Poland due to a lack of supersition in reagards to those animals, so there were far fewer rats carrying Oriantal fleas. 2. More importantly, Poland was at that time rulled by on of its greatest kings in history, Kazimierz III Wielki, wh...	[ "This sounds like a \"polltype question\" which is not appropriate for askhistorians. sorry." ]
Do police use wires like in the movies?	[ "A wireless transmitter or recording device used to be large and cumbersome, and lead to the movie trope of building suspense wondering if the hero is going to get caught. Movies don't like to lose their tropes, even when technology passes them by. Like hotwiring a car." ]	[ "some of the series at the end do a brief section about how they go about capturing the footage that they showed. They make their own custom rigs with various types of cameras to help them get shots. They leave camera 'traps' in places and hope to get lucky with them. They wander around following research or local ...
Why are debits instantaneous, but refunds take several days to show up?	[ "Debits are not instantaneous. A hold for that money is put on your account immediately, but the vendor doesn't see that money for a day or two. Similarly, it takes a day or two for them to send it back to you." ]	[ "Basically if you plot the image density versus integrated energy on a pixel, you will find that no system is perfectly linear. Even the time of exposure (shutter speed) can affect the results. Film was especially bad in this respect. And lead to things like [\"Black lightning\"](_URL_1_) on photographs. Caused by ...
Why do people who speak more than one language interchange their vocabulary in basic conversation?	[ "It is because, sometimes, some things and concepts are better described in one language and don't exit in the other. This happens more often in the things we use daily." ]	[ "It depends on the movie. Sometimes, they'll have the original actors record \"clean\" versions when they're doing the normal additional dialog recording after filming. There's even some productions where they'll film takes with the \"clean\" dialog during principal photography. Other times, they'll just use voice...
Why are biracial children a blend between two races and not spotted or striped?	[ "You don't get spots or stripes when you stir chocolate milk mix into milk... I believe the appearance of stripes and spots would have to be written into their genes As neither parent genetically had stripes or spots, this is out of the question." ]	[ "You're in essence asking about what makes something a species. This is a question which is regularly asked and answered here on /r/askscience. Here is the Friday discussion FAQ from a year ago which covers a lot of issues around defining species _URL_0_ tl;dr: Interbreeding is not the only metric through which org...
Why do we find little animals cute?	[ "The purpose is to evoke care and affection for the own offspring. For mammals this is of course very important as they have to rear their offspring for a considerable time. Mammals all use the same kind of signals (big eyes, big head with small body) and that is why this automatic response works across species bou...	[ "Evolutionary its just not important. Looking normal is but eye sight that worsens after puberty didn't effect your chance of reproducing. People with horrible eyesight at birth simply didn't make it to reproduction. But the last while since we civilized its been less important to survive since accommodations are m...
If saltwater is made from sodium chloride and water, how come saltwater doesn't spontaneously react and explode.	[ "Salt is what you get after sodium and chlorine have reacted violently and let off a whole bunch of energy. It's the \"spent fuel\" of that reaction, if you will. For sodium to react with water, it would have to be non-ionized, or metallic. In salt, it's ionized already, and it can't further react with anything."...	[ "Normal road salt is NaCl, it is effective from 0 to -15. At lower temperatures, CaCl can be used down to about -23. At lower temperatures still, the priority is tire adherence rather than ridding the road of ice, so abrasives (sand) or sand/salt mixtures are used. In more northern communities, say around Kirkland ...
; How does water pressure change from huge pressure(fire hydrant strength) to a relatively low pressure(like a faucet) considering all water comes from the same system of pipes?	[ "As a plumber, you are confusing pressure with volume. If you hook up a pressure gauge to your hose faucet, you will have around 65 psi or so. A fire hydrant will deliver a much greater volume of water at same pressure, measured in gallons per minute. A typical sink faucet delivers 2.3 gpm at 65 psi. Fire hydrant w...	[ "Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained: 1. [ELI5: Whistling ](_URL_6_) 1. [ELI5: How does whistling work? And how is it different from blowing? ](_URL_0_) 1. [ELI5: How does whistling work? (Wind/air pressure to sound with whistles, bottles, or lips.) ](_URL_4_) 1. [ELI5:How does whistling work...
What went down in the OWS subreddit?	[ "I only have a tenuous grasp of the situation, but what I gathered was that some dick (username: [TheGhostOfNoLibs](_URL_1_)) finagled his way into a moderator spot on [/r/occupywallstreet](/r/occupywallstreet). Several people were complaining that he directly opposes just about everything the OWS movement stands f...	[ "Hi there -- while we've approved this question, we would like to remind potential respondents of our [current events](_URL_0_) (AKA \"20-year\") rule -- it's fine to discuss events through 1997 (inclusive) and their effects, but not events after 1997. Thanks!" ]
After the World Trade Center collapsed on 9/11, where did the people who originally worked there find work?	[ "The World Trade Center rented floor space to other companies. After 9/11 those companies would've set up their offices in some other building. The specifics will be different for each company." ]	[ "_URL_0_ It's amazing how often buildings are owned by a different company than the one that occupies it. For example, a hotel company may not own the hotel, a retail company may not own the store. Sometimes when a high-rise is constructed, a certain percentage of the building will be sold off to become individuall...

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