Subset (10)

eli5 · 25k rows

Split (1)

train · 25k rows

query stringlengths 20 300	positive listlengths 1 1	negative listlengths 1 1
I recorded some electromagnetic fields, is what I am seeing in the spectral frequency the pulses of electrical communication?	[ "it would help to know what you used to record it and what settings you used. There are some parts of the signal that look like interference from other devices and then theres something that looks extremly simple and rectangular like a garage door opener, or a rf plug." ]	[ "If you use a fretless guitar, you can pick any arbitrary frequency you want. You can also bend notes to get non-semitones out of a standard instrument. Beyond that, you start looking into instruments specifically designed to produce notes with smaller intervals. ...but based on my quick searching for microtonality...
How do thought-related actions get passed down genetically?	[ "At their most basic level, thoughts are just arrangements and behaviors of neurons. Genes build our brains, so genes can pass on at least some of our 'thoughts' even if its only in rough form. Really, it's more like passing on a predisposition to certain categories of thoughts." ]	[ "Your question presupposes that the behavior of pinching cheeks is an evolved behavior. Have you considered it might be a culturally learned behavior?" ]
Explain Greece abandoning the Euro like I'm 5 – using Disney Dollars	[ "Assuming the Disney employees aren't spending anything outside Disneyland, it'll work just fine. It's all about the perceived value of fiat money. If this Disney dollar in your hand will buy you just as much bread from the shop as the euro you previously used, why would you complain? It also allows the government...	[ "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)." ]
How come the items we purchase are always an irregular number? For example, instead of $59.99, why not $60?	[ "it's a psychological thing. $59.99 seems cheaper than $60, even though we logically recognize it's not." ]	[ "Doing that is the only way to differentiate between the top students. If the test is easy, and 5 people get 100%, then the professor has no way of knowing what advanced topics those students are struggling with. Be making the test difficult enough that no one gets 100%, it becomes possible to rank the top studen...
Why when something is scandalous is it referred to as 'event'gate? I.E GamerGate, PlebGate etc	[ "It comes from the Watergate scandal from the Nixon presidency. It became popular to describe scandals in that way, and just kind of hung around." ]	[ "Many of these differences are simply stylistic. Different countries and different time periods have different traditions/norms for newspaper article writing. Certain phrases fall out of style while others become more accepted. There's [a journal article from 1983](_URL_1_) which presents a study of readability whi...
If William Shakespeare's works contained 100s of words that he made-up, then how were they able to be understood?	[ "He didn't just create words out of thin air, he coined (or at least was the first to print) words based on existing words. For example, he's credited with coining the word \"bedroom.\" It's pretty easy to understand what he meant by that since the words \"bed\" and \"room\" already existed. Or the word \"invulnera...	[ "Well... first of all. the ones that are not buried underground we almost certainly already know about, so there's a big factor, so the \"new\" ones that are found are going to be in a spot, such as underground, that we don't know about. Many of these sites are quite old, and over time, flooding and changing climat...
Why is it almost consider a rule of thumb in most culture for a Woman to marry a man older than her? Does it carry any evolutionary advantage?	[ "My guess is that it actually goes the other way. Most societies are patriarchal, so it stands to reason that it is more the man's choice who to marry than the women's. A man will want to marry a younger woman because she will have more childbearing years ahead of her." ]	[ "It all comes down to when you want to pay your tax liability. A Roth allows you to pay it now to avoid taxes in the future. Most people expect to be earning more and thus have a higher tax liability in the future, so a Roth helps by giving you a source of income without your taxes increasing. Another benefit of a ...
Why is Theresa May struggling to strike a deal with the EU/ her own government?	[ "Because there are too many subplots. Not only is this a nearly impossible negotiation to begin with but her own party are being mutinous, the opposition are picking her apart and she made a silly coalition with the DUP, so also needs to take them into account." ]	[ "You know how a school bully might threaten to beat you up if you don't give him your lunch money? Governor Perry is accused of doing sort of the same thing by threatening to not give a woman's department money if she didn't resign from office. Since it was the governor doing it, he should know better. This would b...
Partisans: How many languages?	[ "Can you define what you mean by Partisan?" ]	[ "The dispatcher gets a translator on the line to assist, generally by a contracted service. This can mean delays, but is more practical than having an in-house translator at great cost. Bilingual dispatchers are desirable, but not always easy to come by. _URL_0_" ]
Why is an A considered the same as an A an octave higher? They don't sound equal at all, because of the difference in pitch...	[ "They actually sound extremely similar. Play two As one octave apart at exactly the same time, then play an A and an A# at exactly the same time You'll hear it. And once you do you won't be able to unhear it." ]	[ "Beating egg whites is a physical change to incorporate air into the structure. Clean steel doesn't react with egg white. The interactions of air and egg white continue with or without the beating. The beating works air into the egg, increasing its volume and changing the texture, but it's still just egg white." ]
During the Hundred Years War, how old would the oldest knights have been?	[ "There's no exact figure, but a knight or man-at-arms might serve an active battlefield role when he was in his early fifties, assuming he was still in fairly good health. It was common for English soldiers of the day to serve for several decades. Men-at-arms and archers at that age would likely be retinue captains...	[ "The way history class goes in Saudi Arabia is pretty much as follows: (We'll ignore the fact that much of the recent history glosses over some very important subjects) Grade 1-3: History of the Prophet Muhammad Grade 4-5: History of the Rashidun Khalifs (First 4 khalifs after the Prophet Muhammad) Grade 6-8: Hist...
How was Depression seen in the High Middle Ages? Was this different from Classical Greece/Rome?	[ "Follow-up: What was the the next course of action if the patient didn't improve with the standard remedy of their time?" ]	[ "For the basics, I'd start with Nehemiah Levtzion's (older) Ancient Ghana and Mali. Susan Keech McIntosh has a paper reviewing developments since that book was published, \"Reconceptualizing Early Ghana\" (Canadian Journal of African Studies 42 (2008), 343\\-373). Susan McIntosh and Rodney McIntosh have a wide rang...
Isn't the separation of mixed oil and water decreasing entropy?	[ "So for any change to occur spontaneously, the gain in entropy and the loss in enthalpy are summed to get the free energy, and the difference gives you the free energy. If the change in free energy is negative for the change, it will happen spontaneously. ΔG = ΔH - TΔS So you can have spontaneous changes that ha...	[ "The main problem is that detergent is largely ineffective at removing it from surfaces like dishes, most notably industrial dishwashers. Hand washing is effective, but alcohol hand sanitizers are not. No lipid envelope just means usual methods of removing it don't work well." ]
Why do elevators decide to wait at the floors they do?	[ "The simplest solution is to have elevators wait whereever they were called last. Some controllers are smart enough that they can be configured to move empty elevators around to prevent having multiple elevators waiting on one floor, and to minimize the wait time on high-demand origin floors. The exact algorithm ...	[ "The process you seem to be missing is... well, it's your actual question. Sometimes, it takes longer to write. You don't always have the same level of inspiration, you don't always have the same level of motivation, and every writer has to occasionally fight with writer's block." ]
What does the pope do on a day to day basis?	[ "Conducts services, prays, solve church issues, sign things, etc" ]	[ "The CEO of Nestle has very controversial views such as saying that \"access to water is not a basic human right\". _URL_0_ _URL_1_" ]
How do radio stations know how many receivers are listening to them?	[ "They don't. They do a poll. They look at a map and say \"there are 3.5 million people in the area where they can easily listen to this radio station, let's call 3,500 of them and ask them if they've listened to the station in the last week.\" So they do it, and they find out that 173 of the 3,500 people have liste...	[ "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." ]
What happens if a severely handicapped child is put up for adoption but never is?	[ "The state will step in (if you are in America) and the now young adult will be put on disability. or if the disabled person is not able to partially care for his/her self they will most likely be sent to a special needs nursing home." ]	[ "Likely the store was not able to sell it for a high enough price, compared to the price the distributor was willing to give for the return. It literally would cost them money to sell you the product, making it \"toxic\" As for the later call, they probably were denied the return, meaning they had to get rid of the...
Why are most southern US states, which tend to be poorer, heavily Republican when that political party doesn't support the working class?	[ "A lot of people think that politics is completely economic, but that's pretty narrow. A lot of people are what's called \"values voters\", meaning that their key political motivation at the polls are politicians views on moral and social issues. Values voters will often completely overlook a politician's views on ...	[ "It is generally attributed to a magazine article written by a French anthropologist named Alfred Sauvy in 1952. He drew a parallel between the emerging three blocs of the world: western/capitalist/liberal (first world), eastern/communist/autocratic (2nd world), and \"other\" (3rd world), and the traditional French...
What is the difference between an LLC, a company, a corporation etc.?	[ "This question gets asked a lot. Please use search: _URL_3_" ]	[ "Processing power. Your IPhone may be good and a marvel of miniaturization, but it isn't nearly as powerful as your laptop. The laptop can process all of the complex images and ads far faster than your phone can because your laptop processes everything faster." ]
Why aren't X-Rays, CT Scans, and MRI's part of preventative care? Wouldn't it significantly reduce the amount of late-stage cancer discovery and thus reduce cancer-caused deaths, among other things?	[ "Many reasons. First, they're not always helpful in discovering cancer as a primary tool, particularly xrays. Second, they're not without their own concerns. Xrays, for example, expose us to radiation. They're to be used when indicated, limiting exposure as much as possible. CT scans use an even higher dose of ioni...	[ "Chernobyl happened and scared the shit out of enough people that it severely set back nuclear power." ]
How do fans cool air?	[ "They don't cool air at all. In fact, they make it a little bit warmer (like pretty much everything that moves or uses electricity, fans generate some heat). But moving air helps your body stay cool. The main way your body gets rid of heat is by sweating. The sweat on your skin evaporates and takes some heat with ...	[ "I'm pretty sure part of it has to do with water (sweat) molecules being knocked off of your skin (evaporating) more easily, and water evaporating off your skin takes some heat with it, which is why you sweat in the first place" ]
How Babchenko's faked death lead to the capture of would-be assassins.	[ "From what I gather the Russian military sent an agent into Ukraine who tried to hire a hit man, offering different people about $30,000 to kill the journalist. One of the people who was asked ended up telling the Ukrainian government about the offer. So why fake his death? Most likely the Ukrainian government had ...	[ "Follow up question: what happened to the soldiers who survived? Were they converted to laborers for the cleanup effort or still used as soldiers under the new government? Because having a couple hundred thousand armed unemployed people doesn't sound like an option." ]
How does a $916M loss, in a single year, allow someone to avoid paying taxes for the following 18 years?	[ "CPA here. I hate Trump, and there are tons of great reasons to hate the guy, but this is just one cherry picked data point that doesn't really tell us anything. The article you read is one big facepalm. That huge loss is called a Net Operating Loss, NOL. The rules for an NOL are pretty clear, and let you deduct t...	[ "There are a lot of people in the world who don't care about laws, or the laws of other countries, or the property rights of other people. For example if you stole a piece of art from someone in England that a wealthy member of the royal family in Saudi Arabia wanted they probably don't care at all that it was stol...
In the middle-19th Century and before, was there any useful sea-to-land artillery?	[ "During the battle of Diu in 1509, Ottoman, Egyptian, and Indian forces sought to draw a Portuguese fleet into Diu harbor, the idea being that Diu's artillery batteries would provide support for the coalition's ships as the Portuguese attempted to destroy the enemy fleet. Instead, the Portuguese carracks-which were...	[ "There was a quite good documentary ([Kanalinseln im Krieg](_URL_4_)) on german television a few weeks ago (I just found, it's at least a year old), and I don't know if those ever get translated into english. But it might be a starting point, and maybe you can find a subbed version on the net the [BBC](_URL_5_) has...
How do console emulators work? How can a computer, designed not with the intent of being used for emulators, accurately emulate a game console with nothing more than free software?	[ "From a purely theoretical standpoint, any digital computer can emulate any other digital computer, provided that you know how the target system works, and not necessarily in real time. An emulator is just a program that reads the program code for a game system and acts on the code in the same manner as the game sy...	[ "This is way too broad of a question to answer in any helpful manner. At the most basic level, a charity works by providing goods or services to those in need. There are nearly limitless goods or services a charity can provide, though, and nearly limitless ways to define populations in need. A lot of charities do w...
Why is the fight between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao considered by some to be the most important match in the history of boxing?	[ "it's important because the two fighters have very good records, and completely different styles. Mayweather's defense is considered to be one of the best there is, and pacquiao's attack, speed and power for his size, is also considered to be the best there is. The two styles are going to clash pretty hard during ...	[ "hi! in addition to /u/Jack_of_all_offs' link, here are a few more related discussions you may find of interest * [To what extent was the Tiananmen Square movement actually motivated by democracy?](_URL_1_) * [I've just read that there was no massacre of students in Tiananmen Square on June 4th 1989. What's the dea...
How airlines lose luggage?	[ "It's pretty rare that they lose luggage; more often than not when your luggage doesn't arrive, it simply got put on the wrong plane. In those cases, they know (or will shortly know) where your bag is. It just is in a place where you're not. That said, I did have a coworker that experienced truly lost luggage, and ...	[ "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." ]
How harsh was Genghis Kahn's Childhood?	[ "Well if I remember correctly, he killed his older brother for possibly stealing some food, he was taken hostage several times, his wife was kidnapped and raped, his father was murdered by a rival clan, and he lived on the steppe without a clan to protect him or his family. So, pretty fucking harsh." ]	[ "The only example I can think of is Saddam Hussein's son used one in Iraq. Uday Hussein kept an iron maiden in his torture chamber. _URL_0_" ]
Why don't we have an ELI5 Politics subreddit alongside this one?	[ "Because as the side bar states this sub is: > Appropriate for questions about current events, history, politics, culture and more. Outside of the US election or the odd other massive event the level of politics questions are never high enough to swamp this sub or justify a new one." ]	[ "Yarr, ye forgot yer searchin' duties, for ['twas asked by those what came before ye!](_URL_0_) Enjoy yon molderin' explanations, and remember [rule 9](_URL_1_)." ]
Why do news stations, such as Fox News, want to be firmly associated with any kind of political party? Wouldn't they want to reach the most viewers possible? This surely limits their viewership.	[ "People like to hear things they agree with. Trying to be as unbiased as possible is much less profitable than targeting a demographic and getting them locked-in. Why would Fox want to compete in the Center-left news game against a half dozen already established companies when they could go after the right-wingers ...	[ "With some of those apps, they might have take care of underlying processes in the operating system that could be compromised by their removal. Additionally, Apple is somewhat dedicated to... I guess the best way to put it is give a consistent experience across devices. They feel that is a good way to reinforce th...
Why does air conditioning or opening windows in a vehicle help alleviate a person's car sickness?	[ "Afaik, motion sickness is when your inner ear fluid (responsible for your balance) says you are moving but your other senses knows you are sitting in one spot in the car. The two signals mixup and your brain cant handle the conflicting information - hence out comes the breakfast. When you actually feel the moving ...	[ "I've never been to USA, but if you are refering to faint flickering than it's caused by atmosphe. It's same effect when you look at tarmac on hot day. The air over the ground is much hotter and rises. The hot is at the same replaced by colder air from above and mixing of those two causes the image to warp and flic...
Why does home networking and wifi still feel like you need to be a wizard to get it to work right?	[ "There is a reason why networking is sometimes considered a whole 'nother ball game compared to standard IT work. You have devices that run very simple and yet still finicky software/firmware, trying to be compatible (i.e. with other devices that may have been made at different times with different technologies, al...	[ "Imagine you're trying to find a coffee shop in a city. If you've been there recently, it should be pretty easy to find. If it's been 10 years since you've been to the coffee shop or the city, it might take you a LONG time to find. It also might take long to find if you've been to other, similar coffee shops in the...
If there was higher levels of neon in the atmosphere, would lightning storms be colourful?	[ "The color of lightning depends almost entirely on the gases in the atmosphere where it discharges. Based on that, I would say if there was enough neon we would see more orange tinted lightning. However I don't know how much more would be needed to make a noticeable difference (e.g. 0.01% neon or 30% neon)." ]	[ "The Universe is a dynamic place. Stars have been observed to move around, some quite fast. We have seen a number of [supernovae](_URL_6_) throughout the centuries, including many in other galaxies in more recent years. [Supernova 1987A](_URL_3_) has changed since we first saw it (this is really the post-supernova)...
Are there any carnivorous animals that only eat other carnivores?	[ "First one that came to mind for me was the Northern Fur Seal. Other seals or sea lions may follow this pattern, but can't confirm that. _URL_0_ My guess is that you'll be more likely to find these types of anumals in the marine environment, particularly animals that spend some part of their life in the open ocean,...	[ "Dan Carlin's outstanding Hardcore History podcast has a 3-parter called \"Punic Nightmares\" that covered the three punic wars including much of the Roman perspective on the Carthaginians, Hamilcar and Hannibal. It's the best podcast I've ever listened to. You can find it for free on itunes or download it and supp...
If nuclear blasts can cause cancers in people, why is radiation therapy used to treat cancers?	[ "> might be wrong here, but radiation therapy is much less intense and is more localized Radiation therapy is more intense and localized. The aim is to have something non-invasive which will kill the affected cells, getting rid of the cancer without needing to cut the person open or seriously damage other nearby...	[ "By the time you get to the point of tooth pain, the infection has usually progressed past the point where antibiotics are useful. Because of low blood flow to individual teeth, antibiotic chemotherapy would take (at minimum) several days to completely clear out an infection. If clearing is incomplete, the infectio...
Why do older generations use ellipsis (…) in place of other punctuation so often?	[ "Ellipsis indicates removed text. So, it's appropriate when you want to use a quote while removing text from the middle." ]	[ "Imma answer your question, but first let me tell you about this time I watered the lawn on a warm july afternoon, there were clouds in the sky and childrens laughter.... ok seriously, who knows, maybe they just like to hear themselves type, or create an emotional connection to the recipe, perhaps they are just kil...
How is it that sometimes extremely tall people (7ft) don't have extremely tall parents?	[ "Because genetics don't work that perfectly. People's height is not hard-coded in their DNA. Plus, Kevin Durant may have very tall ancestors that are not his parents." ]	[ "It is a mixture of both, though there is strong evidence for dislike of some compounds (such as PROP and PTC) as being genetic. These are bitter compounds that are found in broccoli and some other bitter vegetables. When presented with a liquid solution of PROP, for instance, some people find it intensely bitter w...
Why did President McKinley name his parrot "Washington Post"?	[ "Follow-up: If not the newspaper, did it have anything to do with the John Philips Sousa march, \"The Washington Post\"?" ]	[ "Edit: STSCI people have [posted an explanation](_URL_4_). There's also a [youtube video](_URL_3_) which explains it around 1:45. The long and short of it is that Hubble was tracking background stars throughout those images, and its orbit around the Earth meant that the comet had noticeable parallax which cause...
why is new antibiotic development not profitable?	[ "It's profitable, but it's very, very hard. There are many researchers working on the problem, but they can only discover things so fast. The key is to avoid behavior that makes it easier for bacteria to gain resistance to the drugs we have." ]	[ "Whenever you hear that something kills cancer in research / in a petri dish... just remember that a gun kills cancer in a petri dish, too. Often times the most promising ground-breaking research doesn't pan out farther down the line when they start trying to apply it to full grown humans. Maybe it breaks down in ...
Why are round icecubes better or more efficient than square icecubes?	[ "This is physics, not chemistry Spherical ice \"cubes\" would melt more slowly since spheres have the lowest surface area per unit volume. This might be considered efficient in the sense that the ice would last longer. Also, the bigger the sphere, the more \"efficient\" it would be (thanks, square/cube law). These ...	[ "The egg never falls too far from the nest. And by that I mean, if you roll a sphere, it will keep rolling in that direction. If you roll an elliptical shaped object, it will roll in one direction, but only in a certain way. an egg shape is special though. if you roll an egg, it will roll in a circle pattern, and s...
How come people are not experiencing discomfort during highspeed train rides?	[ "Once you're at full speed, there's no acceleration. And you can accelerate to full speed as slowly as you like. The speed of the train says nothing about its acceleration." ]	[ "SciShow did an episode on motion sickness last month, you can find it [here](_URL_0_) Personally, I am not well versed enough in it to answer your question directly. Edit: Adding to the comment since I believe I have violated the rules of ELI5. My understanding is that 30% of the population is immune to motion sic...
How does one become a General of the Armies?	[ "Well for starters we'd need to have another World War. General of the Armies would be in command of everything. They outrank everyone in every branch. There's not a lot of need for that. We've only had 2 and one of them was awarded posthumously (Washington). So you'd have to be out and away the most experienced ...	[ "Read. Read this subreddit. Read this subreddit's [Popular Questions](_URL_1_). Read some of [this subreddit's recommended books about history](_URL_2_). Read some of [this subreddit's recommended academic resources](_URL_0_). Read. That should keep you occupied for a year or five. And, it'll get you started!" ]
Why is honey dangerous to toddlers and infants?	[ "Honey often contains botulism spores, growth of botulism is suppressed when there is low water activity (such as in honey), and it's suppressed when the pH is low. It needs to get 125'C to kill the spores. Botulism produces one of the most toxic poisons known to man when it grows. The temperature to kill botulism ...	[ "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." ]
why do phone batteries last longer in the cold, but suffer no battery loss in heat?	[ "If batteries last longer cold then wouldn't then suffer batter loss while hot by definition? I mean if the batter lasts X minutes cold then it would last something less than X while warm. That is battery loss..." ]	[ "The temperature sensors in your skin can only detect relative changes in temperature. Not absolute temperature. You can show this by doing a simple experiment with three cups of water. one cup of ice water, one cup of room temperature water, and one cup of hot water. Place a finger of your right hand in the ice w...
Aerodynamic "Drafting"	[ "So there was a mythbusters about drafting and how to reap the benefits of it. You are assuming that they air that the drafting is collapsing in such a way that the second car is experiencing more drag force from the air, when good drafting puts you in the pocket of air before it collapses. Then when they use the s...	[ "Defense Distributed has said their ghost mills, plastic guns and 3d schematics are intended to upend gun control. Whether this is a \"problem\" would depend on which side of that argument you are on." ]
If we ate potassium in the same quantity as we ate sodium would it be harmful? If so what would the effects be?	[ "Most sodium we intake is in the form of sodium chloride (table salt), and the FDA recommends we eat 1500mg of salt a day, [though the average person eats 3300mg.](_URL_1_) If we replace all of that with potassium chloride, it's not likely to be harmful. KCl is used in lethal injections to stop the heart, but the ...	[ "I think the premise of your question is a bit flawed for a couple of reasons: * The KMT's military and the PVA that invaded North Korea were completely different beasts. The KMT army was a mechanised military that was organised along Soviet lines, whereas the PLA and PVA were mostly light infantry. The KMT army ha...
What causes us to be pushed upwards into the restraint when riding an amusement park 'Drop Tower'?	[ "They aren't free fall. The carriage is actually being propelled downwards at first, which causes the passengers to be 'lifted up' in relation to the carriage." ]	[ "> wouldn't there be a little gravity on the ship as well? There is. You answered your own question. Gravity provides the centripetal force necessary to keep the craft in orbit. If you intended to ask why astronauts are weightless in space, it's because they and the ship are in constant freefall, falling around the...
Why are there so many japanese people with names that end with -moto? Like Yamamoto, Miyamoto, Matsumoto, etc...	[ "\"moto\" means \"origin.\" Thus Yamamoto would roughly mean \"of Yama\". So Takeshi Yamamoto would be \"Takeshi of Yama.\"" ]	[ "A variety of things. Some were jobs - Smith comes from \"Blacksmith\" Others were locations - So if you are from the town of \"Dale\" you might be called \"Cawn of Dale\" which just got shortened to \"Cawn Dale\". Others were earned titles - So the last name \"Armstrong\" might have come from someone who was \"Str...
Is there a simple sequence of moves on a Rubik's cube that will cycle through every possible arrangement?	[ "I am going to interpret your question in this sense: you apply the sequence of moves, then look at the position you got, then apply the sequence again, then look at the new position, and so on. So not considering the intermediate positions you encounter during the sequence. Then the answer is no. If there was...	[ "A QR code is just a computer-readable piece of text. The computer doesn't look it up in a service or anything, the QR code itself contains a URL or a number or whatever other piece of text you want to put in it. So if two people wanted to put the same number or same URL in a QR code, they'd end up with the same co...
How does an anarchy work?	[ "It doesnt. I mean, people will argue for it, but there has been no proof that a system of anarchy would be anything more than complete and utter chaos." ]	[ "This CGP Grey video does a really good job of explaining it all. _URL_3_" ]
Why have I never seen the tabs on takeaway ('takeout') packaging actually used by staff?	[ "Not sure but I've seen them pressed more often when I order for multiple people. I think it's just a shorthand so the customer knows which drink is which and which box has which burger. So when my mom orders for me and my sister and herself she can easily give my me coke, my sister her root beer, etc.." ]	[ "I don't know where you experienced this but I do it all the time. I bought a tv one day. It came up to $500 and something. I handed the dude 4 100 dollar bills, and told him I was going to put the rest on a card. He punched in the $400 and got my new Total of $100 something. Then I ran my card like normal." ]
Why do butchers shops hang meats like sausages vertically to cure? It seems like whatever juice is inside would pool at one end, resulting in a inconsistent product (dry at the top and more saturated at the bottom).	[ "There is not supposed to be any juices and no room for it to move within the meat. The meat is hung up to make it harder for vermin to reach it." ]	[ "It's mostly arbitrary. In old-style CRT displays, the image was generated by physically moving an electron beam across the screen in horizontal lines starting from the top. (EDIT: and for historical reasons, even more recent signal formats like VGA, DVI and HDMI typically use the same ordering.) So the simplest wa...
With the possible future of super resistant bacteria ahead, should people be getting surgery now in preparation?	[ "It is dramatically more dangerous to undergo surgeries that are not medically necessary than it is to undergo surgeries in a hypothetical future wherein our ability to combat bacteria is more limited." ]	[ "What happens under the Affordable Care Act: if you already get health insurance through your job: Your children can stay on your health plan until they turn 26. Other than that, nothing else changes. if you don't get insurance through your job: You are required to have health insurance one way or another. ...
Is there any truth to Scandinavian women being gorgeous because the Vikings only brought back the hot women from their pillages?	[ "I feel fairly confident writing this off, even without digging too deeply into the specifics of history. Why? Simply, \"gorgeous\" is not a constant, and is in fact a constructed and mutable idea. Even if Scandinavian women do in fact match current Western standards of beauty better than others (which is unproven...	[ "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." ]
When sharpening or honing a knife, what is the reason for pushing the edge towards the sharpening stone or honing rod instead of pulling it away from it?	[ "As you push the knife against the sharpening stone you're pushing (Very small amounts of )material away from the point of the blade, but when you pulled the knife back you'd be pulling material to the point. The pulled material would be softer so the blade wouldn't hold its edge as long." ]	[ "So, the fact that the earth is rotating fast compared to the position of the moon causes tides in our oceans. Simplified, the presence of the moon is dragging a lot of water all around the planet every day. This costs energy, of course, and that energy is taken from the Earth's rotational speed. Simplified, the pr...
Why does flour and other powdery things clump when water is added?	[ "Inside those clumps is dry flour. The surrounding flour holds the water tension creating the clump. Thats why you have to mix the flour thoroughly in order to break the water tension in each indivual clump. EDIT: I had used the wrong spelling for the word \"tension\"." ]	[ "It varies depending on the fruit and the machine. In the case of tomatoes, there is a machine with camera banks that take color samples from them as they fall, and judge whether they are ripe based on how red or green. Any that is unripe is hit with a paddle and removed from the line. In the case of cranberries, n...
Can anyone explain why the estimated range of the North Korean Unha 3 Launch Vehicles only reach Alaska?	[ "U.S. Intelligence here. The numbers you see on unclassified websites are usually not correct. Both parties have far more accurate numbers. I can't go into details on that exact system. Unfortunately, information like that is classified. That being said; yes, you can increase the range of a missile by reducing the ...	[ "Simply put their country is in a shambles! When people get unhappy they rebel, so their glorious leader must keep another enemy in sight so that the people direct their energies outwards." ]
What defines a food as a "breakfast" food?	[ "It's entirely cultural. For example, as a Brit, what a country like Germany typically has for breakfast (cold meats and cheeses) seems odd to me." ]	[ "Well i dont sleep good at night time very often, so when i get home from school i crash right away. Im guessing its just based on your body clock and what time you eat/go to sleep. Basically it just depends what your daily schedule is...." ]
if someone snores while asleep, why don't they snore when awake?	[ "When you sleep your entire body relaxes to a much deeper level than if you were awake but relaxing. For some people, the soft tissue at the back of the throat relaxes so much that it obstructs the airway and causes snoring. If it obstructs the airway completely, it's called Apnea and can be quite dangerous to your...	[ "The sound of your speech normally resonates through your sinuses and out your nose in addition to your mouth. Shen you pinch it closed it doesn't anymore; and actually echoes back through your sinuses and out your other. Same reason your voice changes when you have a cold and are \"stuffed up\"." ]
Why, during a crescent moon, can you only sometimes see the outline of the "dark" part of the moon?	[ "This is caused by earthshine, which is where light from the sun is reflected back from the earth and partially illuminates the face of the moon. The reason this is only seen during a crescent moon is due to such a small proportion of the moon reflecting the sun's light." ]	[ "You mean like a solid black line or rectangle? It's for tracking, the machine that makes the cuts has a sensor to watch for those so it knows when to cut and if it is cutting right." ]
Does Fermat's Principle of Least Time explain why light refracts, or is it just an interesting mathematical side effect of the actual mechanism?	[ "I recommend listening to Feynman describe the sum-over-histories model of quantum electrodynamics (for which he and two other men won the 1965 Nobel prize in physics): [Here's the video.](_URL_0_) There are a lot of amplitudes, phases, and little spinning clock analogies involved. Essentially, light takes all poss...	[ "What does it prove? That Jeff Tupper is awesome. What does it achieve? Nothing, by itself. Tupper's formula is strongly related to the concept of a [Quine](_URL_0_ (a program that produces its own source code as output), which is itself strongly related to the concept of [fixed point](_URL_1_ (roughly, a fixed poi...
Why did Europeans not settle in West Africa even after they were able to treat tropical diseases?	[ "You might want to cross-post this to /r/AskHistorians. Just a suggestion." ]	[ "Firstly, europa is a lot further away than mars which presents two problems- reduced power capacity from solar requiring controversial RTGs and the distance requiring more fuel, more course corrections and therefore a higher cost. We dont really have a good idea of the landscape of europa so a lander mission would...
My classics professor stated that Apollo was considered to be more powerful than Zeus, and only through "godly" diplomacy was he kept in check. Which classical writings support this interpretation, and is this an accurate way to explain the relationship between Apollo and Zeus?	[ "Not THAT related to the question, but what is the difference between the god Apollo, and the titan Helios. Is there one? If there is one, why did the greeks worship 2 sun gods, even tho they had only one in the sky?" ]	[ "Ice ages come and go every few ten thousand years. It is generally accepted that Milankovitch Cycles are responsible for long-term climate changes, driving glacials and interglacials. The Milankovitch Cycle is a combination of the Earth's axial tilt, orbit eccentricity and equinox procession. Orbit eccentricity ...
If our DNA varies from person to person, how do we know how closely human DNA resembles that of orangutans?	[ "It's true that if one were to be calculating the exact difference, one could only do so between an individual human and an individual orangutan. However, the difference between the two species is so much larger than that between individuals of either species that that latter difference is completely negligible f...	[ "Contrary to what others have said here, the blood normally given for transfusions is not whole blood and does not contain white blood cells. Blood given for transfusions comes in the form of packed red cells. This is whole blood that has been spun down and most of the plasma has been removed. These red cells are ...
Nationalism - what road to take?	[ "You might also want to post this question in Thursday's Reading & Research thread--that's a great place to ask for book recommendations. :) Good luck!" ]	[ "I talked about the historiography of “No Irish Need Apply” in [this earlier answer](_URL_0_), if you’re interested!" ]
Time Dilation- Why does the speed you are traveling affect time?	[ "One of the best comments ever posted on reddit: [Why exactly nothing can go faster than the speed of light](_URL_0_) Anything else is a pale imitation." ]	[ "Have some friends stretch a sheet taut and hold it parallel to the floor. This represents spacetime. Place something small on the sheet between center and edge - a sheet of paper crumpled into a ball. Note that the paper does not move. This is your stationary object. Now place something larger and heavier in the m...
Why is the blue part of a flame hotter than the red/orange?	[ "TL;DR is that blue light is higher energy than red ligit. This means that the hotter something is the more energy there is so the more blue the fire appears. There are [more things than temperature](_URL_0_) that effect color, depending on what chemicals are burning. Copper burns green or blue, lithium burns red, ...	[ "There is a general convention that flammable gasses like propane, butane, acetylene etc have left handed threads. Other inert or oxidising gasses e.g. compressed air, nitrogen, argon, oxygen etc etc have right handed threads. This is so that you can't accidentally connect a cylinder of oxygen to a pipework system...
How are companies like MetroPCS and T-Mobile able to say they cover 99% of Americans?	[ "Likely based on maps of coverage area, overlaid with maps of where people live. The accuracy of either type of map isn't perfect (if coverage is blocked by a very specific hill in an otherwise-covered area, for example). But it's feasible to cover basically all of a big city, and these small urban areas contain ...	[ "If you put enough traffic on a freeway, no mater how wide the freeway is, no one can get anywhere. the same thing applies to networks, where if you flood them with enough traffic, with fake cars that don't actually want to get anywhere, nothing can get where it wants to go." ]
How can a distiller like Jack Daniel's meet doubled demand within one year when their product takes 4 years to age?	[ "Jack Daniels complies with \"straight bourbon\" classification, which requires a minimum of two years in barrels. It's a blended whiskey, meaning that some of it may be older, and that blend can be varied. The company doesn't go in to exact details about blends and aging." ]	[ "I worked on Law & Order: SVU for 2 seasons. Basically each episode was prepped (pre-production: location scouting, rough blocking, casting, etc) in 8 working days (M-F). The same episode was then shot the following 8 working days. Then after that, it would go into post-production (editing and such). The director n...
why hasn't a large, fast, vicious animal like a T-Rex evolved to dominate the food chain	[ "Because there are no large predators like the T-Rex around anymore. Throw in the humans are much smarter. If we were to ever encounter such an animal, even though we would be like bit size doggy-bags of blood, flesh and deliciousness, we would find a way to kill it. It's happened with almost every other predator ...	[ "There are a few reasons why this doesn't occur. One has to do with the way mRNA (messenger RNA) is coded and the fact that mRNA needs to go through processing before it can be used for translation. During this processing sections of RNA are removed in order to provide a proper reading sequence. It is also importan...
What makes water so "special", in other words such an essential and ubiquitous substance?	[ "Entire college courses are taught on this subject! Some things: polar solvent where a large number of other atoms and molecules can be mixed in. small molecule that is liquid at temperatures that are good for protein and nucleic acid molecules to be active high vapor pressure at good temperatures, too. (so water c...	[ "Taking photos is a nice way to put it, but basically what we did was test the optical properties of anti-hydrogen and compare them to the known optical properties of hydrogen. The reason this is significant is because up until the recent measurement, it was entirely theoretical (albeit with a very strong predictiv...
Is there a sort of "World History Book" that gives a general overview over all the important eras, nations and events so that I have a sorta overview of things I want to read more about?	[ "There’s almost no answer to this question that won’t have its detractors and critics. World history books, especially those driven by narratives, are notoriously prone to generalizations and trying to synthesize historical processes into one sweeping and concise overview. That being said: Toynbee’s “A study of his...	[ "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 is sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS) in every product even with its negative perception	[ "99% of people don't know what SLS is or care about it. They've never heard anything negative about it & they don't look at labels to see if it's in their products. There's no reason to reformulate products because a tiny fraction of people, who probably hate all \"chemicals\" anyways, have taken interest in a part...	[ "Because they would get sued. The legal system isn't like some kind of beep-boop robot that overlooks totally obvious loopholes. Any company that claimed \"No, we were really advertising the endorsement of Bill Gates, plumber, from Bumfuck, Nebraska.\" would get laughed out of court. As /u/Snewzie pointed out with ...
How true is the notion that fat people were seen as desirable in the past?	[ "There are still places where it's desirable now. Tonga or Nauru, for example." ]	[ "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...
What's this programming lingo of branches mean?	[ "A branch is when you have an if / then / else code. So you might have some code which goes: setupSomeStuff(); logTheUserIn(); Until this point, the code has only one possible route, but it can do one of two things: if( loginSuccessful() ) userDoesStuffWithProgram(); else reportFailedLogin(); so...	[ "Okay. So let's say that you want to bake a cookie just like the ones that grandma makes. You could try to eat her cookie, and then using your knowledge of baking sort of reverse engineer it, but it would be an incredible hassle and very hard to do. But if you had the recipe she used, it would be very easy to figur...
Best biography on Jefferson? Not really his life, but instead his beliefs and ideas.	[ "I think his creation of the Jefferson Bible sheds some light on his beliefs, at least in terms of religion and morals. _URL_0_" ]	[ "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_...
Is noise additive in terms of causing hearing damage?	[ "I first want to mention that the \"long term safe\" levels aren't precise, and quieter is better. Sound is measured in dB, which is a logarithmic unit. If your headphones are emitting 80 dB to your ears, and let's say the airplane is emitting 80 dB to your ears, the total sound to your ears would be 83 dB." ]	[ "This site: [_URL_0_](_URL_0_), in French only, sorry, measures and reports air pollution levels due to fire at Notre Dame, and to this day, there is no significant decrease in air quality. But that's for classical pollution sources and measured over larger areas, so the measurements are not very local and very nea...
Why does an aluminum pan get too hot to touch in the oven but aluminum foil does not?	[ "Aluminum foil is very thin and able to dissipate its heat far faster than a relatively thick pan." ]	[ "I had to consult his Nobel prize lecture to get some of the experimental details. It is well worth a read. _URL_0_ Lenard seems to have worked with electrons with energies around 30 keV (that is, accelerated by 30000 volts). Electrons of these energies will be fairly efficiently absorbed by materials on a length s...
Why do employers care about how many hours I work? Why isn't it just about results?	[ "At least two reasons. 1. Many jobs need to be covered for a certain amount of time, even if this includes idle time, and you can't speed them up. Examples include a receptionist, an on-call firefighter, and an assembly-line worker. 2. Many employers have not learned how to measure their employees' productivity, so...	[ "Sugar tastes good. When faced with a choice between that which is smart and that which is pleasing, most people will spend their money on the latter. A business exists to sell people what they want to buy, not what some might feel they should buy." ]
How is electric vehicle more environmental friendly when manufacturing of lithium-ion is hazardous?	[ "It's debatable. How do you compare the environmental impact of burning gas and adding more CO2 to the climate change problem with the possible environmental impact of lithium ion technology production? They're not really the same thing, so economists and environmentalists will have to look hard at the ramification...	[ "Firstly - There are several countries that have changed enviromental policies, especially in Europe. However, the main reason some countries aren't doing more is that those kind of policies won't win your next election. Higher taxes on fossil fuels and meat for example is a good method to reduce CO2 emmisions, but...
If natural selection favors traits that increase the chances of reproduction, are traits that keep people alive in the early years of their life (but don't necessarily help as much later on) more likely to be passed on in the human race, than traits that help for a lifetime?	[ "The most likely traits to be passed on are those that help an organism to survive to maturity to reproduce, so if it's useful say for an organism to have 2 horns instead of 1 for the first 5 years of its life, it might get that trait, even if once it matures it only needs 1 horn, the 2nd might help it early on" ]	[ "People are very bad at assessing long term risks. We haven't evolved to handle dangers and risks of long term activities. Even though we intellectually know the risks, it is hard for us to translate that intellectual knowledge into behavior, as it does not tell our instincts that it is dangerous. We instinctively ...
I've heard that galaxies across the universe are moving away from us at faster than the speed of light. How is this so? I thought nothing can move faster than light.	[ "It is true that, according to special relativity, nothing can move through spacetime faster than the speed of light. However, the large-scale structure of the universe is described by general relativity, not special relativity, and in general relativity there is no prohibition on the apparent velocities of distant...	[ "My understanding is that we are moving towards the Great Attractor, as in overcoming expansion by that amount. Otherwise they would say we were be receding from the Great Attractor. Using the other posters math, that is instead how much expansion is slowing down our approach." ]
Calculating Probability of Being Born on Father's Day.	[ "Roughly 1 in 365 to be born on a specific day... 1/365 * 1/365 for two to be born on the same day? (there are leap years and days then there are small variances from month to month and weekday to weekday, [see here](_URL_0_) but it isn't by very much.)" ]	[ "Why is your data in ratios? If it is weight or something you can just use a t-test. If you want to compare expected vs observed results use a chi-squared goodness of fit test. Is this just the weight of black sees compared to the weight of yellow? If so perform two tailed t-test." ]
How does emergency call work on cellphones even if they dont get any signal from their carriers?	[ "Because any carrier will support a 911 call, even if you are not on the network. If the phone is unable to reach any carrier, it will fail." ]	[ "Former telemarketer here, 1. When you register on the DNC List it is only active for a certain amount of time. After about a year you need to renew yourself on whatever website you used to register. 1. Tell the telemarketer that you are on the DNC List. They may be working with older information, and will have...
Why is time defined as the fourth dimension?	[ "\"dimension\" in math doesn't need to be geometric. A dimension is just a relevant variable in an equation, basically." ]	[ "I haven't rendered any projections yet, but I do make cross section animations/pictures of non-polytope objects in 4D, 5D, 6D, etc. Here's a few: [4D Tori (donuts)](_URL_4_) [4D Spherinder (sphere prism, hypercylinder)](_URL_11_) [4D Cyltrianglinder (triangle x circle)](_URL_7_) [5D Conindrone (pyramid of the pris...
What is the best example of "This molecule is awesome, but its diastereomer/enatiomer will kill you"?	[ "MPPP is an opioid analog that was first synthesized in 1947. It can get you high, relieve pain. It's structural analog and synthesis byproduct, MPTP, is a selective killer of dopaminergic neurons. It will give you Parkinson's even if you so much as inhale it." ]	[ "High coercivity vs. low coercivity. You're never going to need to re-write the information on the magnetic stripe of your credit card, so its stripe has high coercivity. That means it took a lot of energy to produce, but will take a lot of energy to erase. Hotel keys need to be re-written almost daily, so their st...
Why,when it's not actually that cold, but cold enough to see you breath, do you need to breath out with a "haaaaaa" and not a "pfffffffffff" to see your fog breath?	[ "What you're seeing is the moisture from your lungs condensating. You need a big enough volume of air moving slowly enough to make this happen. As it gets colder, the volume and speed that works with will change." ]	[ "Sound travels in waves yeah? Well sound bounces off of structures to get to places. Off of the ground, buildings, etc. When it snows it adds a layer of snow, which usually isn't packed tightly, so it doesn't reflect a lot of that wave back as well. It's like hitting a baseball with a wooden bat verses a pool noodl...
Why isn't Alpha Centauri the brightest star visible?	[ "Because Alpha Centauri is not bright enough for its closeness to make it the brightest thing in the sky. Instead it is one of the brightest things in the sky, with only two other stars being brighter when seen from earth." ]	[ "Ha, I wrote a paper on this once. If I had to boil it down to one cause... I would say its the fact that in the US railroad infrastructure is (mostly) owned by private companies, which is fairly unique in the world. The US has the most sophisticated and impressive freight railroad transportation in the world (thin...
What makes the planets and moons round?	[ "Basically, gravity pulls equally in all directions. Round things are uniformly the same distance from the center, so gravity pulls them into that shape." ]	[ "Your eye is not perfectly spherical and the area where your iris begins forms a small mound on top of it, contact lenses are shaped in such a way that they cling to the edges of this mound keeping them firmly in place until removed" ]
If our cells are constantly renewing/being replaced then why do we die?	[ "Essentially they're being replaced with slightly worse copies every time. So after a while the quality degrades to the point of no longer functioning. If you know the children's game called telephone, it's kind of like how that message gets distorted with each replication" ]	[ "Computers run on sets of instructions telling it how to run all the parts of the computer and build an interface so you can use those parts. Say you're following a recipe for a cake. Then you finish the cake and someone comes along with a better way to make a cake by adding another ingredient and changing how muc...
Why do people still need to fight so hard for net neutrality if they already voted into office a president who promised to support it? Why didn't the democratic voting process settle it?	[ "Sadly, campaign promises are not enforceable. It's all too common for a politician to say one thing during the election then either ignore it or handwave it off later on when they don't follow through. Interestingly, this is illustrative of the real difference between a [\"real\" democracy](_URL_1_) where we'd vot...	[ "> how does moving some nonexistent boundaries change the way the election will go? [Take a look at this picture](_URL_0_). There are 9 blue voters and 6 orange voters. A, B, and C show three ways of redistricting the map. In option A, blue wins all three districts by a 3-2 vote. In option B, blue wins 2 districts ...
How can the universe create itself?	[ "They don't make any claims to know how the universe was created and definitely not that it created itself. They've laid out the scientific theory that at one point in time, our universe was concentrated into a high density, high temperature state after which it started to expand, which is what we can measure curre...	[ "This video from Sagan will help. I couldn't explain it in a better way. _URL_0_" ]
Would a cure for cancer or heart disease not cause an economic collapse?	[ "Even without a cure for cancer or heart disease, there is a need to continuously adjust retirement age based on projected lifespans. I don't see anything really new there. On the other hand, cancer and heart disease have a cost much higher than just the costs of treatment. Individuals that suffer from these condi...	[ "Every area is susceptible to some kind of disaster. We still need access to ports/ vacation areas (hurricanes/tsunamis), timber (forest fires), agriculture (tornadoes), movies and computer parts (earthquakes/forest fires/droughts/mudslides). It's just \"the cost of doing business.\"" ]
If you were forced to jump from a ten story building, what could you do, if anything, to ensure your survival?	[ "Don't tense up. Go limp, while still trying to land on your feet and roll forward. No guarantees of survival, but it might help reduce the amount of force your body experiences." ]	[ "Get a protractor, tape or glue a straw to the straight edge, and tie a weighed down string to the middle. When you get on the plane, look down the straw at a star that you can easily pick out from the night sky (hope you're travelling at night!) and is viewable from both hemispheres, and mark where the string hang...
If our bodies reproduce all the cells in our bodies, why don't our scars get replaced with new cells?	[ "The scar isn't a bunch of dead cells. It's tissue that scars. That is, the entire structure of the tissue is damaged, causing the cells to regrow in a different, \"scarred\" pattern. The cells are fine; their organization is screwed up." ]	[ "hi production horticultrlist here. no the exocarp (peel) of a fruit will not grow back, but it will (plant depending) attept to form a scab to protect undeveloped fruiting bodies. most mature fruit will likely rot. any specific plant you had in mind when you asked?" ]
How do doctors tell the difference between someone with ADHD and someone who just has a poor attention span (unfocused, undisciplined, etc.) ?	[ "ADHD researcher here. If you are seeing someone who actually knows what they're doing, the process is a lot more intensive. You will go through a semi-structured interview about yourself, and then others who know you well (a parent, long time friend, etc) will be given the same interview about your symptoms. If bo...	[ "Imagine you're trying to find a coffee shop in a city. If you've been there recently, it should be pretty easy to find. If it's been 10 years since you've been to the coffee shop or the city, it might take you a LONG time to find. It also might take long to find if you've been to other, similar coffee shops in the...
In computer networking, wHat is the difference between a port and a socket?	[ "If your computer were an apartment building, with programs living in the apartments, the address of the building would be your computer's IP address, and the apartment numbers would be the ports. So if you want to talk to a specific program, you need to know which computer, as well as which port on that computer...	[ "Looks price and class. That's it. When you pay for an escort you're paying for \"the girlfriend experience\" you talk to them eat with them you know go on a \"real\" date but at the end you know your getting lucky. With a whore your getting some drug addicted pimp abused woman who only wants to get you off as fast...
Why do a lot of spacecraft use gold foil?	[ "Because it is almost optimal for everything from heat transfer to electrical conductivity, corrosion resistance and shielding from radiation. Just about any of those uses it is amazing at." ]	[ "The same way that astronomers find out almost everything. They use [spectrography](_URL_0_). Absorbtion colors - the specific colors of light that get emitted when light is absorbed by matter - tell you exactly what element or molecule did the absorbtion and emission. This process works with suns, atmospheres, pla...
If there is no absolute space, how is velocity determined?	[ "All velocity is relative. That's what 'relativity' means. If you are travelling close to the speed of light, you only know this if you can judge it by looking at passing objects. From their point of view, you are travelling close to the speed of light and will suffer time dilation, length contraction and the like ...	[ "We essentially don't - we just guess But it's a VERY educated guess. Physicists over the years have conducted thousands and thousands of experiments that have shown that the laws of physics remain constant. In the absence of any evidence or any (provable) theory to say otherwise physics is able to proceed under th...
how come if you jump up in a moving plane you don’t move further back in the plane?	[ "It is the same as if you jump up in a moving train, as much as the plane is moving forward at 600km/hr, so are you. So even though it seems to you that you jumped straight up and landed in the same spot, you actually carried on moving forward with the plane. Theoretically, if the plane started accelerating as you ...	[ "It's not you specifically that's gaining mass, it's the entire Earth-you system. You and the Earth are bound together by your mutual, attractive gravitational interaction. When you increase your altitude, you are increasing the potential energy stored in the system, and thus increasing the mass of the *entir...

Subsets and Splits

No community queries yet

The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.