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Is there any evidence that men and women have "natural talents" that one gender are generally better at than the other? | [
"There are quite a few differences between the *average* abilities of each gender, but there are such vast overlaps that the best-performing females in each area do better than almost all males, and vice versa. If you're interested in researching the topic, [this Wikipedia article](_URL_0_) gives a decent overview ... | [
"Hi OP, this is a cultural question, so it would greatly assist anyone considering answering if you could specify which culture you're asking about. For example, the name of a cultural group / country / geographic region, plus a rough time period. Otherwise, this question is simply too broad, as it encompasses almo... |
How can a country "be in debt"? | [
"They can be in debt by being given money on the promise they'd give slightly more money back in the future. They owe money to other countries, people, companies, and other parts of their own government. They are paying interest to the people they owe money to. If they don't pay their interest or they don't repay t... | [
"It's relative. If the rates for pounds are more than dollars, one might sell dollars to buy pounds to get higher interest. This makes the cost of dollars go down (many sellers) and the cost of pounds of up (many buyers)."
] |
What evidence do we have that there was both anti-matter and matter at the beginning of the big bang? | [
"Trying to explain the asymmetry by special initial conditions doesn't help you, as we know that right after the inflation the universe was extremely hot and populated by very dense radiation, thus decaying (almost) democratically into matter and anti-matter."
] | [
"We do use antimatter currently for practical uses, ever heard of a PET scan? It would be the ultimate energy *storage* medium because gathering meaningful amounts of antimatter from nature is impractical. The best place to find it now is in the van Allen radiation belts."
] |
Do a particle's properties dictate how fundamental forces interact with them? | [
"The charge of a particle determines how strongly it couples to the electromagnetic field. In general, the quantities which determine how strongly particles couple to each other are called *coupling constants*. The coupling constants are parameters of the Lagrangian that you use to describe the theory."
] | [
"When you drive, your wheels are always between you and the road. Does this mean that you do not move up and down with the road? (Negating the effects of your shocks) you will still feel the entire topography of the road as if you were in direct contact with it. To avoid confusion it is better not to look at the fo... |
Why do we not learn about African history in high school? | [
"I think the unfortunate reality is that high school history curricula have to fit a lot of information into a relatively short amount of class time. there are certain events, domestic and international, that more directly impact the place we live in. Not saying that African history isn't important, fascinating, co... | [
"Horse meat isn't rare at all. You can get it in many parts of europe. Tastes ok too. Anyway, that's culture. The same reason we think that bacon and eggs is a breakfast food, and don't eat grasshoppers."
] |
What exactly does the Quantum Eraser Experiment tell us? | [
"The specifics vary by interpretation, but the overall point that I think is uncontroversial is that a \"measurement\" that does not imprint itself irreversibly upon the surrounding environment isn't really a measurement. It's that measurement should be looked at as entangling the quantum system with the surroundin... | [
"Watch this video by Veritasium: _URL_1_ I think it answers your questions."
] |
Where did Caesar get the boats to sail to Britain? | [
"He *probably* built his own, although it is quite likely that he the transports he constructed were largely based on Venetic designs. In his writings he readily admits to the superiority of their ships in the situation, and in a later campaign in Spain he has his soldiers build Gallic style ships."
] | [
"The person you link to has borrowed (~~or plagiarised - there's no citation~~ Edit: /u/Iguana_on_a_stick points out they do reference Eckstein on page 3, I only Ctrl-F'd the first page. My bad.) their main argument almost entirely from Arthur Eckstein's *Mediterranean Anarchy, Interstate War, and the Rise of Rome*... |
how is the deep web 400x larger than the surface web if the average person doesn't even know it exists? | [
"You don't need to know it exists. The deep web just means all the content that isn't indexed by a search engine. You ever go to a web site and sign up, and you get a page saying it sent you an email to confirm? And how if you hit refresh it says you'll need to re-send the data? That page is part of the deep web. I... | [
"Anyone that can EL5 this is a hero. One of the most widely respected books on the topic, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, is over a thousand pages, confusing, esoteric, and dense."
] |
How does fat "burn" when we exercise? Where does it go? | [
"Fat consists of bio molecules called triglycerides. The body breaks down these molecules to release heat, glycerol and fatty acids for fuel in metabolic pathways. The 'waste' products of this reaction are CO2 and water. The water is excreted through sweat, urine, and tears, and most of the CO2 is breathed out thro... | [
"I'm sorry that I'm no expert, but I remember reading about this the last time a similar question was asked: _URL_0_ Basically, you percieve time faster after your run because of endorphines released during the work out, which means that the music seems slower. This is apparently also why a lot of rock musicians pl... |
Why did Islam become dominant in Bangladesh and Indonesia, but not India or Southeast Asia? | [
"There was a bigger muslim population in India however with the population transfer after partition of India muslims moved to Pakistan and Sikhs and Hindus moved to India. Bangladesh which historically a part of India was called East Bengal and/or East Pakistan during the exchange. It became independent in 1971."
] | [
"From the exact same XKCD article that you linked: > (Climates can be hard to predict—for example, in our world, Somalia and French Guiana both sit on the equator, at the eastern coast of a continent, and seem like they should both receive a tropical sea breeze. But coastal French Guiana is dense rain forest while... |
What would happen to Sandra Bullock's character in "Gravity" if she kept falling in space? Would she fly out of the Solar system? | [
"> Would she fly out of the Solar system? No. She'd keep orbiting the Earth just like the shuttle she was on was doing before she was thrown off, because she was not given anywhere **near** enough added velocity to escape from Earth orbit. Most orbits are quite stable, and you need a *lot* of extra momentum to esca... | [
"> to follow a path through curved space? Not curved space, curved *spacetime*. Spacetime is a mathematical idea treating time as another dimension that objects move in. So yes, your path through time is important. You have no inertia relative to the earth, which is why you are pushing against it the whole time. Le... |
What was tourism (if it existed) like in the ancient world? The Middle Ages? | [
"Piggy-backing on what Mediaevumed already said, Medieval people traveled a lot for commerce as well. It was common for merchants in Barcelona or any other port to make trips to Egypt, Constantinople, or the Levant maybe once a year. If they were just going to North Africa, maybe more than than once a year. These t... | [
"Very poorly. Assuming you ask about the time period after we found out they were possible, before that they obviously weren't a thing, but before we found out why people died left right and centre. However, we soon found out that some combination of blood clotted, others worked fine."
] |
Why is the American military held in such high regard in comparison to most other countries? | [
"The Vietnam War was very controversial. A lot of returning troops were called names, spit on, etc. Many of those soldiers also personally didn't agree with the war, they were just doing their jobs. And don't forget there was a draft -- so for many of those soldiers it was basically a choice between going to war, o... | [
"\"Just about everyone here\" Where is \"here\" for you? It sounds like your question's premise is based on a small sample set based on personal observation. Before your question is addressed, you should be making sure the premise is valid..."
] |
What actually causes refraction? | [
"The [Hugyens-Fresnel](_URL_0_) principle may help you here. It states that a wave front is made up of an infinite number of spherical waves. The sum of these spherical waves gives the resultant wave front. I don't know how to explain refraction itself, though."
] | [
"* Your glasses get scratched and dirty over time; and * Your eyes change as you age so your prescription changes. Often people get new glasses after a new optometrist's prescription so, naturally they work better than their old glasses."
] |
If matter can’t be destroyed, what happens to an object when it is vaporized? | [
"A vapor is still matter. So are the people who were \"vaporized\" in the atomic blasts in Japan; they were simply broken down into much smaller component parts, probably gas, ashes and dust. However, before they were vaporized, some of those poor people blocked the initial gamma ray burst and some part of the heat... | [
"This is pretty much how we preserve food (think about packaged cakes which last for months on the shelf). The bread would dry out very quickly in vacuo as the water would evaporate and be pumped out by the vacuum pump. This is why twinkles and the like are packaged with argon or nitrogen gas. The proteins in the b... |
How is lobbying legal in government? Isn't like a form of bribery. | [
"Lobbying in and of itself is not a form of bribery, it just often leads to hard to prosecute forms of bribery. Lobbying is just asking a representative to support an issue you care about. When you write a letter to your congressman telling him you want him to support same sex marriage, that is lobbying, and it is ... | [
"Because most people who do not live in a cave realized decades ago that this has been going on. Very few people and/ or countries are that naive, not to know that this is going on in every country in the world"
] |
In the American west, when a family moved from town to town, was there some way of transferring their money between banks? Or did they have to withdrawal all of it and take it with them? | [
"It depends on how much money they had. In a one way migration from town to town, If they were poor or even middle class they had it on them in a physical way, either in cash, coinage, or mostly they bought supplies with it (wagon, oxen, rifles, etc) before they left. Later migrations they might have a check or a b... | [
"So let's say I manufacture computer mouses. I need metal, plastics, lasers, and coding. We'll say I have all the other parts I need manufactured in house. So I trade computer mouses to miners for metal? And I pay my coder in mouses? Doesn't really work. Barter requires you to have the goods on hand that the person... |
How are lab rats given cancer? | [
"When I did my cancer research we injected the cancer cells directly into the vertebral bodies of the rats. The cancer cells were grown in culture and put into solution at a specified concentration and a known volume of that solution was injected. I’m sure there are other, newer methods now."
] | [
"You did right to start searching but use pubmed or NIH in your search criteria: _URL_1_ _URL_0_ these are peer reviewed research articles and meta-analyses of those articles/studies. You're asking for something that likely isn't in human trials or at least the longitudinal nature of your question can't be answere... |
when minimum wage goes up, is that a sign that the economy is improving or getting worse? | [
"passions run high on reddit when it comes to this. but no its not of sign that the economy is getting better or worse. it is in its entirety a political (and sometimes emotional) issue. however the outcome is usually bad. the government is not predicting that things will get more expensive, things get more expens... | [
"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... |
If there is a ninth planet in our solar system ten times more massive than the Earth, why haven't we found it yet? | [
"The thing about galaxies (clusters of stars) is that they are by definition very bright objects. And we detect exoplanets typically by pointing a telescope at a star and waiting for something to pass between the star and us. Any planet further than us from the sun will never pass between us and the sun - and will ... | [
"You actually can see it with the naked eye if you're in a dark spot. But it also has much lower surface brightness than the moon, so it doesn't appear nearly as bright, due to distance and intervening visual blocks."
] |
How does color blindness affect night vision? | [
"It may be simply that there are physically more rods than cones than a regular person - directly resulting in better \"night\" vision (contrast sensitivity) and worsened color perception. And/or in compliment that there is more cortex/brain processing spent on the information from the rod cells and less on the con... | [
"Yes, vitamin D synthesis is impaired, which may also explain higher rates of hypertension, diabetes, and some cancers. This article covers it: _URL_0_"
] |
How is the sugar coating on sour candy so much different than table sugar? | [
"From Wikipedia: *Sour sanding, or sour sugar, is a food ingredient that is used to impart a sour flavor, made from citric or tartaric acid and sugar. It is used to coat sour candies like Sour Patch Kids or to make hard candies tart, such as acid drops or SweeTarts.* It's not quite the same thing."
] | [
"I am no biologist, nor a medical professional, but I have had mouth ulcers. My assumption is because mouth ulcers are in a moist environment, and are constantly being irritated by things like your mouth/tongue movement, doesn't have the chance to scab over"
] |
Why is Canada's population almost 10 times less than that of the U.S. despite being neighbours, similar culture, and size? | [
"Their climate plays a huge role. If you look at a map 90% of their population is based/living within 100 miles of the US border. the rest of the country is livable, but will take a lot of work. the Winters can get extremely cold. -30F so the people do not live up there. Since the limited space the population is mu... | [
"Think of a rare baseball card. If there's only 10 of them in existence, then everyone would want them and they would be willing to trade hundreds of chocolate bars for it. Now think if they printed 990 more of that rare baseball card. Now everyone has one, and no one is willing to trade a chocolate bar for it."
] |
Why don't aircraft jet engines have a little mesh net that keeps birds and other things from being caught in the engine? | [
"At the speed they fly, it's like being shot with a bird-sized cannonball. A mesh won't do anything other than add more shrapnel to the engine."
] | [
"As a wind farm developer, let me direct you to the proper resource: _URL_3_ Essentially: > \"Wind turbines extract energy by slowing down the wind. For a wind turbine to be 100% efficient it would need to stop 100% of the wind - but then the rotor would have to be a solid disk and it would not turn and no kinetic... |
How do the blind learn to read Braile. and is it harder for a blind person to be hired? | [
"Based on my job (service coordinator for children with disabilities), I can answer the first question: there are schools specifically designed for children who are blind. Teaching braille is part of the curriculum, just like teaching to read by sight is part of the regular school curriculum. As for your question r... | [
"I'm guessing that you're mainly thinking of domesticated animals and not wild ones. In that case the answer is here _URL_1_ - The tl;dr = there is a coloring pattern (known as \"Merle\" in dogs) considered attractive in inbred domestic animals (think border collies). It confers a very high incidence of heterochrom... |
Why do we 'value' the life of one individual so much? | [
"I'd say at the most basic level we pay lip service to the idea that *every* individual life is valuable because we are all on some level aware that one day that individual life in question could be be either us or one of the (100-200) people we feel directly connected to, and at that time we would like to be able ... | [
"I initially was extremely sceptical, as the thread question is both wide-ranging and oddly specific. However, reading your explanatory post I got a much better idea of what it was you are looking for. You raise several valid points and I think the questions you are asking are interesting ones. But you mostly answe... |
If so many people have recovered from comas, why is the debate still up in the air as to aether or not they can hear us when we talk to them? Shouldn't we know definitively by now? | [
"No, because they are unconscious. Do you remember hearing stuff while asleep?"
] | [
"We know very little actually. Instead, we have a model of what the entire state of the universe was like. In order for CMB, gravity, universal radius and other parameters to be correct in the model, then we can extrapolate backwards to figure out the universe at any point in time t0+, to *some* degree of accuracy.... |
how do your favorite foods get bland if you eat them all the time | [
"It's dopamine and desensitization. Game Theory did an excellent video on this when he explained why people get addicted to video games. Basically, it's like this: You drink your favorite soda/play your favorite game/listen to your favorite song, and you get that rush that makes you like it so much. Over time, your... | [
"I think we develop a \"been there, done that\" mentality in ways. I can not watch cartoons now. No matter what the topic. The irony is I just can't pay attention to cartoons."
] |
How are wireless devices able to generate electromagnetic waves at such speeds with perfect precision? | [
"Heh, \"perfect\" precision. The answer is they can't so they use line coding schemes to make it likely that the data gets through, the system detect most errors, and if possible corrects them. Then it's up to the higher level protocols to add additional error checking so an error is extremely likely. Basically, mo... | [
"The magic behind is that you don't need to connect to a Wi-Fi network to get the metadata like SSID. Google tracks every Wi-Fi router that doesn't have \"[_nomap](_URL_0_)\" at the end of it's SSID. Your's, mine, everyone's. They build a database of what SSID is where based on the related IP address. And while you... |
What is the acceleration of gravity at the bottom of the Mariana Trench? | [
"There is not much change at the bottom of the trench by inspection if you look at the size of the globe in comparison to the depth of the trench."
] | [
"Because the chart is the lowest recorded, not the lowest possible. We generally send probes to the temperate regions not the extreme poles. The temperature on Earth was recorded at or near the south pole, the one on Mars near the equator. [NASA says -153° C](_URL_0_) the the lowest possible on Mars. And with a li... |
The complete story of Kingdom Hearts. | [
"Oh goodness. Ill try to get on tomorrow and help out. I've been waiting years for this moment. edit: [THIS](_URL_0_) is my WIP. im in school but will update as soon as possible."
] | [
"I have a question for you. Do you want the version that is super, super long and includes a write-up on what actually went down at Munich, and the subsequent responses back and forth? Or do you want the shorter version that only talks about media coverage of the incident and how it changed things?"
] |
Ancient Rome, Marriage, Sex | [
"[relevant master thesis](_URL_1_) (.pdf-Warning) [relevant literature](_URL_0_) There's always the question of the effectiveness of moral legislation. It is often the case throughout history that morals are legislated, often more than once over a period of some years. This *usually* indicates that the legislation ... | [
"A follow up question for when this is answered: if it is possible to make one, would it be possible to mass-produce? I’ve heard of Roman “fast food”, so the concept was there, but if someone went back in time with the knowledge to do so, would it be achievable to get a Roman McDonald’s chain up and running?"
] |
Can I squish a germ to death with my finger? | [
"In theory you can, provided you press really, really hard and find a way to stop those little bastards from slipping out from under your death touch. In practice, no, you can't crush a germ with your fingers, not without mechanical assistance. There is a process called [Pascalization](_URL_0_) which uses pressure ... | [
"Of the tons of bugs that have crawled over or flown around you in your life, how many have you killed?"
] |
How the US comes up with ESRB ratings for games. | [
"The US doesn't set the ESRB ratings. ESRB stands for Entertainment Software Rating Board. It is part of the game industry, not the government. Its purpose is to keep the censor and rating of games withing the Game Industry instead of having outsiders do it. As far as how the ratings go, companies will send demos ... | [
"Actually we do. _URL_0_ The reason its so complicated is because we have so many dialects, accents, and speaking mannerisms. The program itself needs (I believe) a minute of speech from the subject before mimicing the speech."
] |
Why do we eat different foods depending on the time of the day? i.e. cereal for breakfast, burgers for lunch/dinner | [
"It's purely cultural. Check out these [articles](_URL_2_) on [breakfast around the world](_URL_0_) --- people in different places eat lots of different stuff for breakfast. There are some trends --- pretty much everybody wants something easy to prepare (eggs are popular everywhere), people in cold weather places t... | [
"There is a new theory on sleep floating around that is becoming more commonly accepted that the 8 hour continuous nights sleep is a modern evolution and previously Humans had two sleep sessions per night. They would go to bed for '1st Sleep' and wake up during the night, do something productive then return to bed ... |
Sometimes I see one cop pull over two cars. How the hell does this happen? | [
"Happened to me once. Heading along a four lane freeway in the wilderness going pretty fast, when a VW Golf passes me. A cop car comes screaming up from behind with lights flashing and I pull over. He goes right by me and heads after the VW. I breathe a sigh of relief and start on my way again. Around a couple of c... | [
"I thought this was interesting but figured that the most logical answer is that \"space is really big\" and that the orbits don't actually intersect (different planes, etc.) - they only appear to from specific perspectives. This older reddit thread backs that up. You might find it interesting: _URL_0_"
] |
Why is it that most domestic cats are afraid of water but big cats aren't? | [
"It depends on the species of cat. For example tigers love to swim but lions are more or less afraid of the water. I remember this because of an interesting discussion on Ligers(half-lion half-tiger) because it mentions that the constant swimming and climbing often freaks out the lion parent but is normal to the ti... | [
"A larger tile is going to be subject to a lot more force from wind. It would need to be thicker to avoid breaking if wind gets under it. It also takes more to hold it in place. When it does get damaged, it's more expensive to replace a large tile than a small one."
] |
If people having an education is good for the economy, why doesn't the government just make education cheaper/free | [
"The setup cost is immediate and it takes a long time to see the benefits (longer than the average term of office)."
] | [
"You have a lemonade stand. You sell it for 50 cents a cup. One day you find out it's going to be very hot outside and people are going to want more lemonade. You figure you can get away with selling it for a little more since the demand is there. So you start charging 80 cents. You notice that the number of people... |
Why does poaching an egg (in a silicone pouch) take longer than boiling an egg in its shell? | [
"Silicone is a very good heat insulator. That is good if you want to poach the eggs slowly and get a soft, oozy texture but it also slows down the cooking to a snail’s pace. When hardboiling an egg, you just want to blast as much heat into it as possible, which is the exact opposite of poaching."
] | [
"Imagine you wanted to send a digital file to a friend of yours, but all you have is a telephone and the binary data contents of the file. You tell your friend \"when I say beep you write down 1, when I say boop, you write down 0\", and then you read the contents of the file to him over the phone \"beep beep boop ... |
How is there such a thing as Planck length, and why can we not surpass it? | [
"The Planck length is not a limitation of physical size, it's a limitation on the distance that can possibly be measured. Copied from Wikipedia: > Suppose we want to determine the position of an object using electromagnetic radiation, ie photons. The greater the energy of photons, the shorter their wavelength and t... | [
"Work is being done on getting spinal nerves to regrow and attach. So far its still in the rat testing stage but they are having good results. Also, there have been experiments with jumping the gap with electronics technology that are also showing promise. Turns out, if your can transmit the signals reliably across... |
Does the temperature have any (noticable) effect on air resistance? | [
"For something like a cyclist, the air drag is approximately proportional to air density, which is inversely proportional to absolute temperature. So, for example, from 20 C to -10 C (293 K to 263 K) there's about a 10% increase in density and thus a 10% increase in drag. Tire rolling resistance also increases at l... | [
"Your question is a little off, it's true that heating up super sonic flows will slow down the fluid, but heating up flow with a Mach number less than one will speed it up. This is called [Rayleigh Flow](_URL_0_). Heating up a gas in motion will cause the flow to approach mach 1, so it will slow down the velocity o... |
Is it possible to vibrate a wire fast enough so that it produces colour? | [
"In order to produce an electromagnetic wave, you need to have your wire at a length such that it's resonant frequency is equal to that of the wave you're trying to make. For visible light, this wavelength is very, very tiny (300-700 nm). To make a wire antenna with this resonant frequency (following length = wavel... | [
"Quoting [Wikipedia](_URL_0_) (a bit naughty, but it's a nice way to express what I think): > The proposed theory is inconsistent with quantum mechanics and critics have ruled it out on those grounds. Which is essentially saying what you pointed out, yes. If what they're doing is as easy as it sounds - just runnin... |
If humans were to become a multi-planet species, could humans on Planet A and humans on Planet B eventually become two separate species over a vast length of time in two possibly different environments? | [
"If humans were to become a multi-planet species then one would assume that they would be able to exchange genetic material between the populations on the various planets. The only way they would ever diverge into separate species is if the planets were somehow reproductively isolated from one another for a *very* ... | [
"It depends. The different colors are not a direct result of the different wavelengths, but rather, of how well each wavelength is absorbed by each of the 3 types of color-sensing cone cells in the human eye. Every color we see is due to an interaction between these 3 types of cones cells. So, the answer to your qu... |
Why does making a higher pitched voice at the end of a sentence make it a question? | [
"It's completely cultural. Some languages are tonal, which means that a word's tone is an inherent part of its pronunciation. If you change the tone from a falling one to a rising tone, you've mispronounced it and have likely said a different word entirely. In Mandarin questions are indicated by adding the word \"m... | [
"Lower right corner, there is your tray, click on the icon that looks like a keyboard, and change the setting to US English, or just US. If you don't have this little icon, look for a little taskbar that can be anywhere on your screen, usually at the top. Change it to US settings. It happens whenever you change yo... |
Why do so many homeless people have dogs? | [
"Dogs were originally bred for security purposes. They bond with humans, being part of their \"pack\", sleep lightly, and bark loudly. If you're living on the street, with all of your possessions right there for someone to grab, a dog would be a very, very good idea."
] | [
"Marketing. It makes the reader more easily relate to them. They aren't really a group of editors and publicitsts pushing the book, it's just that one person in a small town that wrote a story."
] |
Was it ever possible for an infantryman to rise through the ranks to attain a significant command, and if so how common was it? | [
"During the American Civil War many of the late war officer corps were extremely young for their rank. This was a result both of the heavy attrition suffered by Union forces and the constant need for rebuilding and expansion following the defection of many members of the army. Some of those officers did rise from e... | [
"Because that work is harder. Anybody, and I mean ANYBODY, can be trained to handle the lowest levels of most businesses. You don't need to be pushing much in the brain department to handle a register or stock a shelf. Fewer people have the skill sets required to manage a team of people to run a division. Even few... |
Why does a human body has the need to throw up when it is aware of something disgusting? | [
"Other answers are correct. Here is a shorter answer: vomiting is a simple attempt to discard things that might be poison, and the controls are not very precise."
] | [
"There is a part of your brain that is responsible for controlling emotional reactions (anterior cingulate cortex), and it becomes more active whenever we are under severe emotional stress. This leads to many reactions. Chief among them are the stimulating of the vagus nerves (found in the chest and abdomen region... |
Why is displayed karma set up according to links, instead of original posts? | [
"Reddit was originally a link-sharing site without any comments. Karma was only from links because it couldn't come from anywhere else. When they later added comments, they arbitrarily decided that comment karma should be separate from link karma. They just added a second karma system rather than changing the old o... | [
"Cooked something really nice? Show it. Lost a few/lot of extra pounds? Show your transformation off. Have kids that make you feel proud to be their parents? Show why you are. Have cats that you love? Sure why not, just show it, people love animals. People like to show others things that they are proud of."
] |
the Big Bang is widely quoted as having a volume of about 120 decibels, but how is that possible if there is no sound in Space? | [
"Whilst I'm not 100% on the information you've provided, there is a distinct difference that must be noted between Sound Being Created and Sound Traveling. Sound must travel through a medium, which fails in a vacuum. The Big Bang would definitely have created Sound, which would have traveled within the elements fir... | [
"Watch the first 2 minutes of the feynman lecture on fire. The universe is the wood, the death bubble is the fire (it expands at the speed of light btw), and the post-death bubble universe is very different (like how becoming two gasses (C02 and H20) is very different than being a piece of wood. There was some conc... |
If a black hole is infinitely dense, would it take an infinite amount of energy to manipulate? | [
"First, the density of a black hole isn't particularly well-defined. See the responses to [this recent question](_URL_0_) on the subject. Second, even if the singularity has, in some sense, \"infinite density\", it certainly doesn't have infinite *mass*. A black hole has some finite mass, and will behave gravitatio... | [
"We aren't really sure why, but it doesn't seem that something like that can be done. Think about it like your bladder; you can build up a need to urinate, but you cannot urinate so much that your bladder is more than empty."
] |
How is it that we can not feel hungry but still crave and eat snacks? | [
"Two reasons: 1. Chemical needs: Cheetos, salami, both high in sodium...you wanted something salty. Rice, carbs. Dal...idk what dal is and am to lazy to google it. I'm guessing your proper dinner wouldn't have been a salty mass of carbs though. 2. For some people (most?) eating brings an emotional high. Not a high ... | [
"Advertising. Companies spend billions of dollars to instill that \"need to buy something\" in you, by bombarding you with messages (both overt and subtle) telling you that your value as a person is tied to owning things or \"treating yourself\". > Buy this $499 barbecue grill and be the envy of your neighbours! W... |
Why do you get car sick while not paying attention to the road, but not while closing your eyes? | [
"Basically your brain is receiving conflicting signals from your eyes and ears. If you are looking at the floor when in a car or on a bus or a book your eyes are telling you that you are not moving. But your ear is telling your brain that you are indeed moving. So instead of your body realising you are reading a bo... | [
"I just explained this in another thread, but essentially it is called the \"Bernoli principle\" and like others have pointed out, it has to do with pressurized air. When you pucker your lips, air is pressurized as it leaves your mouth. When it leaves your mouth, it expands into the air and as it expands it absorbs... |
We know that different hot temperatures kill bacteria and mold in food preparation, but can excrement from the organisms still cause health issues? | [
"Yes, a lot of bacteria damage host tissue through toxins (called exotoxins), e.g. the bacteria that cause botulism and tetanus. A few of these toxins can be heat stable and still cause disease after the bacteria that produced them die. [Wiki on exotoxins](_URL_0_)"
] | [
"There is something similar called the nocebo effect: if you believe something will make you ill, it will. This is what is seen in people that get a rash from being near a Wi-Fi router - whether it's turned on or not. It's not the Wi-Fi signal that's causing the rash, it's the belief. Whether the same is true for... |
Why is norovirus such a problem on cruise ships? | [
"Norovirus is food-borne and can also be transmitted by contact with contaminated surfaces. It's a problem in any setting in which large groups of people live in close quarters, especially if they eat food from the same source, and especially if their food source cannot easily be disinfected on a regular basis. A l... | [
"Additionally: security. Since you can only use tokens at the establishment they don't have to worry nearly as much about the hundreds of dollars worth of credits sitting in the cash box of a dozen or more machines. They just need the one or two money changers to be extra secure."
] |
How do wolves and other predatory animals know which part of the prey to attack first? | [
"They watch their parents do it for a few weeks before doing in themselves. And the chain keeps going back until one wolf tried going for the throat and it worked better for survival (way oversimplifying)."
] | [
"Sort of. As you can see in Jurassic park 3, they can find out the shape of the voice box and get an idea of the nature of their vocals. They probably couldn't work it out exactly, and a lot of Jurassic Park is sort of filled in gaps."
] |
If sounds are measured in wavelengths, how does speech recognition software work? | [
"The cool thing about sound waves (and just about sort of wave you can imagine) is that you can break them down into fundamental wavelengths of sound. When you speak, the sound is not coming out at a single tone, but rather, it is (at first glance) a very messy wave full of different frequencies. While the tone you... | [
"I would suspect something like binaural recording would come into play. You can listen to the results here: _URL_0_"
] |
Why were rectal thermometers ever used, and why do we not use them anymore today? | [
"Rectal remains the method of choice in veterinary medicine."
] | [
"Some dumbass Pi Kappa Alpha at University of Tennessee decided that it would be a brilliant idea to pour alcohol up his ass to get really drunk. Ended up getting hospitalized and once news spread of this idiots actions the story ended up getting picked up by a lot of media outlets. Pi Kappa Alpha ended up getting ... |
What's the difference between normal gas and diesel? | [
"From what I understand, It's the way that the engines are designed to combust. Basically, they have to ignite the fuel in the right place in the right way, and different fuels' chemical makeup affects that."
] | [
"If somebody hacks your credit card & runs up charges, calling the card issuer & telling them will allow you to simply NOT pay for those fraudulent charges. If somebody hacks your debit card, that money is already out of your bank account and you have to fight to get your money BACK. Given that little tidbit, I'm ... |
why are things more funny as a kid? | [
"Things stop being funny when you've seen them too often - and this isn't just true of specific funny things, but entire classes of funny things. Seeing someone get a custard pie in the face isn't all that funny when you've seen it a lot. When you're young, everything is new, so it has a lot more chance to be funny... | [
"Imagine you draw a bunch of dots pretty close to each other on the surface of a deflated balloon. Then blow it up. The dots are much bigger and farther apart."
] |
Why do I often start itching all over my body just as I'm about to fall asleep? | [
"I've no idea if this is true but I read somewhere that your brain will send signals that you need to itch to tell if you're actually ready to fall asleep yet. If feel these and respond then you're still too alert to fall asleep. I think I read it when I was looking up Lucid Dreaming."
] | [
"There is no chemical bond between the elements on the surface of your skin and the mattress, however there are chemical bonds holding your skin together."
] |
How are we able to so accurately calculate Pi? | [
"Another point is that many digits of PI do not matter. A value of π with 39 digits is accurate enough to compute the circumference of the visible universe to the accuracy of the diameter of a proton. Take it out to 70 digits, and you can calculate it accurate to less than a Planck length, which is the smallest mea... | [
"Go to a new area of Australia (or wherever). Comb one acre very carefully, cataloging every species. Figure out how many new species there are. Do this in a few different places, figure out about how many new species there are in general, and extrapolate."
] |
What exactly causes objects to be pulled into anything that's "sucking" it in? What forces those objects to move towards the suction? | [
"The fan inside the vacuum cleaner (or the act of inhalation) moves air and creates a pressure difference. Air from other places (i.e. outside the nozzle or mouth) rushes in to equilibrate, taking with it whatever is in its path. Simply put."
] | [
"No. Nothing at all would happen. The same vacuum (it's not actually a vacuum, but let's call it close enough) that would be acting on the end of that tube would be acting on the rest of the atmosphere. The same air that is in the rest of the atmosphere would be inside the tube. Think about it this way: let's say ... |
Why do nuclear reactions release so much energy? | [
"Nuclear reactions are more energetic because [nuclear binding energy](_URL_5_) (involved in nuclear reactions) is orders of magnitude higher than [electron binding energy](_URL_1_) (involved in chemical reactions) or [gravitational binding energy](_URL_6_) (involved in objects falling). The [nuclear binding energy... | [
"I don't have your exact answer but a relevant fact: nuke plants are considered slow to start and stop, and are therefore treated as part of the baseload (left on for long periods of time), while other types of plants (such as natural gas, hydroelectric) are pretty quick to adjust and are used for most adjustments.... |
How do movies like Inception and Gravity film zero gravity shots without actually being in space? | [
"The Vomit Comet (and similar services) as well as wires and camera tricks."
] | [
"Studios, apart from money, already have resources to produce these. It's like asking if a VW Beetle is manufactured purely by just spending money. There's a factory already in place, and they purchase the raw materials and sell the result. So the studio will pay for these things, and they keep the returns. The dis... |
Is the official explanation for the JFK assassination generally accepted as accurate by historians? | [
"While we wait for someone to respond specifically to this question, here's an older post [about the JFK assassination.](_URL_0_) where u/maestro876 answered u/Goodguystalker. Thanks!"
] | [
"Hi - we as mods have approved this thread, because while this is a homework question, it is asking for clarification or resources, rather than the answer itself, which is fine according to [our rules](_URL_1_). This policy is further explained in this [Rules Roundtable thread](_URL_3_) and this [META Thread](_URL_... |
Why can't dishwashers dry plastic containers properly? | [
"it is because the item does not retain heat long enough. water will retain temperature the longest, followed by ceramic, then metal, then wood, then that really thin plastic they make tupperware out of. So liquid in a ceramic coffee cup will stay hotter than in a metal coffee cup, and both will stay hotter than in... | [
"[This is someone's doctoral thesis which contains information on the vibration of flat plates. On page 38 of the PDF (31 of the document), you will see some vibrational modes drawn for a flat plate. The higher-frequency AA mode ought to look familiar.](_URL_0_) While this is water and not a flat plate, the behavio... |
Is sucralose bad, and why is it in GNC multivitamins? | [
"As far as I know, and many studies have confirmed, it's not bad."
] | [
"They don't. It's a marketing ~~lie~~ gimmick. I used to work for a company that did a similar thing by mail. New customers were supposed to sign up by a certain time for special rates but as a specific matter of policy we'd give those rates to *anyone* who mailed back the special offer."
] |
Why, when yoga balls and beach balls are so light, can they knock over grown adults when kicked at them? | [
"I'm not enough of a mathematician to give you the specifics, but the farther the object hits away from your center of gravity (like a shot to the face would), the more likely the impact is to knock you off balance. If you're already off balance, you'll fall down. There's probably a name for this, but I don't know ... | [
"It seems like it depends on the size of the room, how structurally stable it is, and how adherent the paint is to itself. As you added successive layers of paint, supposing they adhered perfectly to each other, you would be adding to the weight on the ceiling. This would prove a challenge to the structure upholdi... |
If AC power can go up and down, then how do lamps not flicker on and off | [
"Conventional incandescent light bulbs have filaments which don't cool quickly enough to really display the effects of the oscillating AC power. Fluorescent and LED lights contain their own transformers which impose their own flickering on the light they output, although this is usually a manageable level."
] | [
"Your nerve was pinched and now it's getting back on line. Most people think it's lack of blood supply but it's not."
] |
Does fire weigh anything? | [
"Fire is in itself a really fast reaction with oxygen, releasing energy in the form of heat and light. The answer to your question depends on what you mean by fire. If you mean the reaction, no, that doesn't have mass, just like walking doesn't have mass. If you mean the flame though, that is actual chemical comp... | [
"The amount of heat needed to convert an element is [momentous](_URL_0_). Most organic matter is converted into [carbon dioxide and water](_URL_1_) and the rest, as Quarkster has pointed out, remains within the ash."
] |
Why is the US such a strong supporter of Israel? | [
"The British had a real strong hold in the Middle East for ages. After World War I, the US had established itself as a world power, or at least up and coming. The British exited that part of the world, withdrawing much of what they had there and the US inherited their mess. However, through one major letter between... | [
"Greetings everyone. In the few minutes this sub has been up, it's attracting sub-standard responses. Just a reminder of a few of the rules: * no responses covering events/conditions post-1994, per this sub's \"20-year rule\" prohibiting discussion of current events * no anecdotes * no speculation OP: your question... |
How was the first programming language made before any language existed? | [
"binary. Basic computers were just a bunch of switches that you turned on and off to get intended results."
] | [
"Your asking essentially the chicken or the egg. Example, Did you stomach evolove first and create your brain and extremites to feed it. Or did your brain grow your stomach to power it. Har to say, as without something to feed the stomach, we would have no stomch. Without the brain to run everything, we wouldn't ha... |
What does China really export to the rest of the world in 2015 ? | [
"In 2014, China's top 10 exports by cash value were: > - Electronic equipment: US$570.9 billion (24.4% of total exports) > - Machines, engines, pumps: $400.8 billion (17.1%) > - Furniture, lighting, signs: $93.4 billion (4%) > - Knit or crochet clothing: $92 billion (3.9%) > - Clothing (not knit or crochet): $... | [
"Former Sprint sales rep here; I can't specifically say where any one retailer gets their stock, but I know in our (Sprint Store) case, Apple would regularly supply us with extra cables, headphones, etc, in case any in stock were damaged or missing, and we would receive them with replacement phones for service orde... |
What is atmospheric noise, and how can it be used to make random number generators? | [
"Atmospheric noise is a bunch of naturally occurring wave frequencies, kind of like radio waves, cell phone waves, etc, but a different range of frequencies. Since noise is completely random, you could assign a number to each amplitude of the signal. And if you take one measurement at an instant, the amplitude of t... | [
"They have the following names: jerk, snap, crackle, pop. They occasionally crop up in some applications like robotics and predicting human motion. [This paper](_URL_0_) is an example (search for jerk and crackle)."
] |
Why are you only given 21 days to pay a speeding/parking ticket, while 30 days is considered standard with most other bills? | [
"A bill and a ticket are completely different things. A bill is a recurring service that is charged to you at regular intervals, and monthly is typical because it is that nice spot between not requiring a ton of labor sending out the bill while also not extending the customer too much credit. A ticket is a guilty p... | [
"We communicate with space ships by turning our message into radio waves, sending those radio waves through space, and having the space ship pick up and translate the radio waves into the message. Radio waves travel at the speed of light. Over very large distances, even something traveling at the speed of light can... |
Why in ancient times anything but a pure wife was rejected, but some men married widows? | [
"Men didn't prefer virgins because they got to be the first. It was about legacy. Everything they had and were would be passed on to a son, and they wanted to make sure that boy really was his son. Marrying a virgin helped ensure this. Not only could the husband be sure she was not pregnant with another man's chil... | [
"commercialism. if you were happy with your old stuff, you wouldn't need to buy new stuff. all the designers and manufacturers come out with new looking stuff and market the old stuff as ugly and new stuff as pretty in order to make money. our tastes are hugely influenced by others."
] |
What causes an electron to emit a photon? | [
"I didn't have time to watch the videos, but I would imagine he's referring to processes such as Bremsstrahlung rather than spectral line emissions (in atoms). In general it's known as \"braking\" radiation. An electron interacts with another particle (or generally a nucleus), and the resulting stopping force caus... | [
"The formula E = mc^(2) holds only when in the rest frame of the particle (or system of particles). A single light particle has no rest frame, and so it's not the correct formula. The full formula, valid for all particles (massless or not) and in any frame is E^(2) = (mc^(2))^(2)+(**p**c)^(2), where **p** is the mo... |
Did American teenagers in the 1950s actually play "chicken" by driving their cars toward a cliff like in the movies? | [
"i was under the impression \"chicken\" was to drive head on into another car or something until the \"chicken\" or coward, turned."
] | [
"In The Recollections of Rifleman Harris, they walked, everywhere. I mean miles and miles and miles. All the time. That kind of constant movement will keep you trim. For example, when Harris enlisted, he walked to where his training and post were, then walked to port to take a boat to Ireland where he walked everyw... |
Why do washing machines get instantly destroyed when you throw a brick in it? What's the science behind it? | [
"Because the spinning cylinder has a huge amount of kinetic energy, and adding a brick causes the load to be unbalanced. That unbalancing means a large portion of the rotational energy converts into linear energy (similar to how vibration works in sex toys or video game controllers except with vastly more energy in... | [
"Most games like this use a light gun (_URL_0_) with a diode which receives light from the display to sense where the gun is pointed. Essentially, when you pull the trigger the screen goes black for a moment except the areas with ducks in them, which turn white. If the diode in the gun is aimed at the white light, ... |
At what altitude on earth is the air pressure roughly equivalent to the surface pressure of the Martian atmosphere? | [
"> The surface pressure on Mars is equivalent to the range of pressures on Earth at altitudes between ~30 km and ~60 km. --[Math Encounters Blog](_URL_0_) > At altitudes above 50,000 feet [_15.2 km_] man requires a pressurized suit to be safe in this near space environment. --[A Brief History of the Pressure Sui... | [
"To add a concrete example to what's already been stated: [The Sahara desert fertilizes the Amazon rainforest.](_URL_0_) Equatorial trade winds carry mineral dust (carbonates and oxides, mostly) from the Bodele depression in the Sahara to South America, significantly increasing the productivity of the Amazon basin.... |
Why does one testicle hang lower than the other? | [
"It may be to protect them. They can get out of eachother's way if one can roll over the top of the other. Not to much if they're hanging side by side."
] | [
"Evolution. People who didn't get that weird feeling when dangling their limbs from the trees they were sleeping on were killed by cheetahs."
] |
Does my phone still play my music when the volume is set to 0? Or does it just move the time on the song? | [
"Still decoding the song. You can verify this by looking at the spectrum analyzer while on mute."
] | [
"Fun fact, it's not a good idea to run a microwave with nothing inside. The energy feedback between the empty chamber can bounce back to the magnetron, and overload it. Basically, the food inside is absorbing energy, which heats it up. Metal is also a bad idea, because that energy can interact in different ways, fr... |
Why do some dogs wipe their feet after "doing their business"? | [
"One of my pugs nearly always scratches the ground after finishing up. She was raised around cats. The Catahoula Leopard Dog I used to own learned to scratch from the pug."
] | [
"Humans and several animals have the ability to subsitize-- to ascertain the number of a thing without actually counting. Not all animals are able to subsitize, and it's very hard to subsitize above about 5, at which point we resort to counting. If you ever look at some coins and immediately know there is three of ... |
Why use bolt actions in WWI and WWII when lever action rifles were popularized around 1870? | [
"Have you ever shot bolt and lever action rifles? That would help you get a feel for this easier than reading about it. There are a few issues here. Lever actions are more difficult to fire from a prone position or leaning on a flat surface like a bench. Bolt actions are more accurate over distance, partly becaus... | [
"Your question is like: > Why do people keep telling me to take a pill my doctor prescribes when in ye olden days people didn't have access to the same pills? Clean water is way easier to get now than it was then. Since you have access to clean water you should use it. In the same way, getting a doctor to prescri... |
In the periodic table, why does the D block start with 3d, rather than 4d? | [
"The 4s shell is actually lower energy than 3D. This means the 4S shell fills first before 3D. If you look at period 3, you’ll see that the 3D isn’t filled in that period. Here is a diagram of the electron shell energies which determines fill order. _URL_0_"
] | [
"Ken Jordan's group at Pitt does a *ton* with different ice forms. Here's a link to his group page: _URL_0_ The publications there go into a lot of detail, but here's a bit of a TL;DR: The ice that you and I typically find every day has the oxygens arranged in a hexagonal lattice, but many of the hydrogens are diso... |
Why is compiled code impossible to access unless the uncompiled source code is available. Can’t game devs get a retail ROM and decompile the code from that? | [
"It's not that easy. Once it's been compiled, you can't decompile it. Think of the code like the recipe for a cookie. If you have that recipe, you can make that cookie any time you want. But if the cookie is baked, you can't just look at it and figure out the recipe. You'd have hints, sure, but the full recipe can'... | [
"Imagine you are a travelling salesman, and you spend most of your time driving from place to place across the country. Today you need to get from Denver to Dallas. You could use High Level Navigation. You know how to get from Denver to Wichita, Wichita to Oklahoma City, and Oklahoma City to Dallas. String those to... |
Kind of a trivial question, but how aware of tigers was Europe throughout history? How come they don't show up as much as the lion on European coats of arms? | [
"Europeans have always been very much aware of tigers, since tigers lived very close to Europe. As late as 1900 Caspian tigers occurred in Georgia, which was colonized by Greeks in antiquity and known as Colchis. The earliest record of the tigers in Europe is of an animal brought to Athens by the Greek general Sele... | [
"The Eurasian steppe does not go on forever. Travel far enough to the north and you reach taiga and temperate forest. And there are mountains bordering it from the Carpathians in the west to the Greater Khingan in the east. Also, the steppe nomads conducted extensive trade with settled peoples."
] |
Instead of eating regular meals, can I just drink protein shakes with a lot of calories? | [
"Do you want problems with your shit? Cause that's how you get problems with your shit."
] | [
"The things that are likely to fall on you when you are outside are: 1. Taller. 2. Heavier. 3. Often electrified. In principle... yes an empty field full of grass with no trees around would be a great place to be during an earthquake. However buildings are designed to withstand earthquakes, and so you should be saf... |
How do they determine the demographic breakdown of an election (e.g. 50% of hispanic male voters over 45 voted for...) when ballots are secret? | [
"Exit polls are surveys taken of people after they have voted. _URL_0_"
] | [
"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... |
Why does coke fluff and foam so fast when you put it in ice cream? | [
"The icecream gives all of the trapped CO2 a reason to come out of suspension and form bubbles. It's called \"nucleation\" and it makes stuff like rootbeer floats difficult. Try putting the icecream into the soda rather than pour soda over icecream."
] | [
"Because the Spanish didn't bring back chocolate (as we know it today). They brought back what we would call cocoa or cacao, the beans, nibs, or powder. It was the Dutch who figured out ways to the reduce the bitterness and remove the cocoa butter, to make Dutch cocoa. An Englishman figured out how to make moldabl... |
Would a person that grew up in low/microgravity end up taller or shorter than they would have in 1 g? | [
"Not sure if this has been tested from birth, but astronauts grow taller in low gravity due to the lack of compression. I think developmentally one would expect a taller child, though musculature and bone structure would be poorly suited for a 1g environment, this is part of why astronauts need to exercise so much ... | [
"You get the full year's worth of radiation. From an outside point of view, we see that time is dilated and the astronaut is moving very slowly inside their spaceship. But we see the spaceship take a full year to reach its destination, and gets hit by all this radiation along the way. From the astronaut's point of ... |
Why do we hate the feeling of nails on a chalkboard, or other stuff like that? | [
"Amateur speculation: in toothed animals, it's [pseudo-pain meant to keep them from biting a rock](_URL_1_). How do animals learn to never chew on hard materials that wreck teeth? It's not very painful, after all. They need something that feels horrible, but isn't pain. It makes that EEURRRRRTTT noise that informs... | [
"This is a more scientific answer than it sounds: it's all in your head. Try having a friend hold a pen there randomly half of the time. You guess when it's there, the more you guess the closer to chance you should get."
] |
Does the existence of the blood-brain barrier means that most supplements (or nootropics) we take will not benefit our brain (chemistry)? | [
"Your doctor is a bit dim if he thought that was sufficient reasoning. It is true that most substances don't pass the blood brain barrier. But brain drugs are mostly selected *because* they can pass the blood brain barrier. It's not really disputable that the drugs will have an effect on the brain, the only questio... | [
"When a plant grows it is utilizing substances called \"metabolites\" which is basically the stuff that allows the tree to grow. \"Primary Metabolites\" are the ones that help the tree actually physically grow bigger, they help the leaves grow in size, they help the roots grow deeper into the ground etc. Then there... |
Why do I get carsick when looking at something in the car (e.g. a phone), but not if my eyes are closed? | [
"Motion sickness is caused by the signals from your eyes conflicting with the signals from other senses, such as the sense of balance, motion, etc. If you are in a car, you can feel the car moving. If you look outside, the feeling and the sight of the car moving works together so you know that you are moving. If yo... | [
"I learned about this researching how to help my kid be a better sleeper. Essentially, you are over-tired. There is a \"sweet spot\" for everyone regarding the time they should go to bed (just the right level of drowsy). Once you get past that, your brain thinks there must be an important reason for you to continue... |
Why are crimes of passion generally received with less criticism and therefore, lesser sentences? | [
"Well because our society sees premeditating a crime as worse than acting spur of the moment. This is because if you plan a crime out, you have ample time to consider the \"right vs wrong\" and stop going through with it. It means you had time to consider the consequences and went ahead with it anyway. We all know ... | [
"A lot of it is to do with the whole \"innocence of childhood\" idea that came through a lot during the 19th & 20 Centuries. I'm not all that well-versed in childhood studies. We used to have a user flaired in the History of Childhood but it seems no more. Anyhoo I've asked/answered similar questions so you might f... |
Why does chocolate sink AND float in coke? | [
"The Coke is supersaturated with respect to carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere. In laymans terms that means that the Coke has more CO2 then it 'wants' to hold under normal conditions. After you open the bottle the CO2 starts to come out of solution and tries to form bubbles where it's easiest. It turns out that... | [
"Remember when you played with play dough as a kid. If you mixed all the colors up you just end up with a big brown lump?"
] |
How do atoms 'share' electrons? | [
"Electrons exist in regions of space known as orbitals. Atoms have orbitals, and molecules (multiple atoms bonded together) have orbitals as well. When you transition from talking about atoms by their lonesome to molecules, you have to change the language you're using. Those orbitals are no longer localized to sing... | [
"You are missing the fact that the current isn't all carried on a single \"wire\" - there are tons of little circuits, each carrying a very small current, but adding the magnitudes all those little currents up does indeed equal many amps of electrochemical current. The little currents are all independent of one ano... |
What happens if you hold something completely still in space and then let go of it? | [
"1) If you could release it without imparting any movement, then it would stay perfectly still. However that's hard to do. 2) No. 3) Yes, the ISS (all objects in it), is constantly falling towards the Earth, though its horizontal velocity causes it to \"miss\" continuously."
] | [
"in short, no, the pattern will not change. Observing in this sense doesn't actually mean observing. When people say the electrons are being \"observed,\" they really mean that they are being \"measured.\" By passing them through the slit, you are essentially measuring their position - you know that they are in the... |
Racism (Baltimore Riots) | [
"It's an excuse to be assholes. I live in St. Louis, which is where the Ferguson debacle was. Half of the stores there are closed. They do it to themselves."
] | [
"This is kind of a vague question, maybe if you could narrow it down to a specific place and year or decade? Mannerisms and culture change within society on a very quick turnaround (think about the differences in culture between now and 1990 alone) so it would help if you could specify"
] |
How do scientists measure the amount of CO2 in the Atmosphere. | [
"Maybe I'm being too literal with your main question, but we measure with CO2 sensors, one is sitting right next to my desk. Inside they often consist of an infrared light and a light sensor, with a little pump to suck in the air into the light chamber. Put simply, CO2 blocks the infrared in proportion to concentra... | [
"They don't. They have really really good camera's that can take a picture from really far away."
] |
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