Subset (10)

eli5 · 25k rows

Split (1)

train · 25k rows

query stringlengths 20 300	positive listlengths 1 1	negative listlengths 1 1
Did the Tiananmen Square Massacre actually happen in the square or is it just called that because that's where the protests happened?	[ "Some geography would be helpful here. If you [take a look at the area (map is offset due to chinese GPS BS - stay in areal view)](_URL_0_), the Square itself is only the lighter grey area in the middle of the screen (surrounding the plain white literal square which is Mao's Mausoleum). You can see that it's surrou...	[ "Everyone 1) the Titanic itself would have a lifeboat seat for every passenger. 2) the communication between nearby ships would not have been cut off at night (in the original Titanic disaster, nearby ships did not hear the SOS because the wireless operators went to bed for the night), and all the nearby ships wou...
what aren't racial slurs directed towards other groups not protected under Freedom of Speech? (regarding the University of Washington frat)	[ "The first amendment ONLY protects you from legal action taken by the government. It doesn't protect your job, or your right to a higher education at a university. Furthermore, no right is absolute, and necessary infringements can be put in place." ]	[ "'Type safety' refers to how much a language checks the data types of variables. For example, checking that you aren't trying to perform math operations on strings of text. Some operators work differently on different data types. For example, 'x + y' might mean 'add the numbers x and y together', or it might mean '...
How can a 500mg pill be the same size as a 10mg pill?	[ "The pills aren't 500mg, the dose of the drug is. Some drugs need to be buffered differently so they will be absorbed by your body properly without causing a reaction. That could very well make a 10mg dose require a bigger pill than a 500 mg dose of a different drug." ]	[ "One big reason is map design. No road that goes north is straight. They are all designed to be curvy. This gives the impression that the map is larger because it takes longer to traverse." ]
What were other notable Cities in the Roman Kingdom/Empire other than Pompeii and Rome?	[ "I'm not sure what your asking for here, are you interested in places with major ruins that can be seen today, like Rome and Pompeii? Or do you just want to know about the major Roman cities of Italy, such as Milan?" ]	[ "Not a historian, just someone who likes to lurk and learn new things, but I can maybe point you to a few similar questions I’ve seen about kids and their obsessions while you wait to hear from an expert. [This post](_URL_2_) has an ancient Roman source from u/rkiga that mentions a toddler obsessed with birds. Furt...
Why do broadcast TV stations limit streaming? I thought they wanted more viewers.	[ "The ad revenue from streaming websites doesn't go to the broadcasters. It goes to whoever set up the site to steal their content and rehost it. This is why the Supreme Court has found time and time again that these services are illegal. It's the same reason musicians don't like it when you steal their music and pl...	[ "Normally when you download a file like off itunes or wherever you download the whole thing from one other computer or server. The easiest way I can picture torrenting is like plumbing, normally you only have one water pipe coming into your house that feeds all of the faucets etc which can result in low water pres...
How does PCP give humans such great strength?	[ "Phencyclidine works primarily as an NMDA-receptor antagonist. Behaviorally in humans, its effects are broad spectrum and can induce hostility, delusions and hallucinations - psychotic effects somewhat related to the positive symptoms seen in schizophrenia. No evidence exists that PCP can increase strength per se...	[ "[Rogue](_URL_1_), but seriously there are several studies on this. [Here](_URL_2_) is a news article. [This](_URL_0_) is a scientific article that relates epinephrine to loss of pigment. Epinephrine is linked to flight-or-fight response system. Hypothetically stress, or a \"shocking experience\" indirectly would ...
why are health care providers pulling out of the ACA?	[ "Because health insurance providers are profit companies, not non profit charities. The goal is to make money, not break even. If a product isn't profiting, the operating costs can be shifted to build up another product that is profiting." ]	[ "Netflix' player is based on HTML5, I can't say anything about the others. But I'm assuming that AMC, etc. have Flash-based players... and Flash has terrible performance when it comes to video decoding." ]
Is there such a thing as "dying of old age," or is every cause of death a concrete problem that can be addressed and prevented?	[ "This thread pops up a fair bit, a really good discussion occured [here](_URL_0_)" ]	[ "Let's say you have a 7 lane interstate. At each end there is a toll booth. In the past payments were processed manually and there was a receipt that had to print, but the printers were slow. Only do much traffic could get through. Fast forward to the future where you pay with the touch of a button and get an insta...
Why does E = mc² rather than ½mc²?	[ "E = mc^2 is the rest mass energy, and not the energy something has due to motion. The relativistic kinetic energy is given by γmc^2 - mc^2 , where γ is 1/sqrt(1-v^2 /c^2 ). This is derived from Einstein's postulates and Lorentz velocity transformations. When you do a taylor series expansion of the relativistic KE ...	[ "Think about things bouncing around. Imagine a box with a fan in it. Put 20 balls in ithe box. Now imagine a basket to one side just the right size for the balls. Turn on the fan. The balls jump around randomly. At some point a ball will fall into the basket. This will happen at a given rate which will depends on h...
LI5: Could you explain to me what linux is and why it's so different from Windows or Mac OS	[ "There are more than those 3 operating systems: examples are the three you listed, Unix and BSD. Unix is the grandfather of operating systems. BSD, Linux and Mac OS are all Unix-like OS'. Linux is an operating system (like Windows), but the main difference between Linux and Windows or Mac OS is that most Linux sys...	[ "Put simply - moving parts. A HDD needs to spin to the correct place, and the head needs to move to the correct part of the disk, before the data can be accessed. The only thing moving inside a SSD is electrons." ]
Is there any science behind epsom salts efficiency as a pain reliever?	[ "Epsom salts are basically magnesium, which helps relax muscles. And as a salt it's probably got some topical antiseptic properties too." ]	[ "> Nothing about it makes sense to me. How does this work? It is simple: Saps pay money for a red LED light and believe any pseudoscientific nonsense that is tossed their way. The scam artist makes a load of money off this fad. Of course it doesn't do anything, there is no evidence that the \"therapy\" works, but t...
How is next-to-eye display technology possible?	[ "Two main possibilities: * Using a laser to paint onto the eye. The laser can be programmed to draw images to appear at any apparent position. * Using a series of lenses and mirrors to create a longer image path to the eye. Looking at the Google AR glasses I suspect they are doing the latter. Probably generating th...	[ "I was curious, so I dug a bit and Google Translated their about page. > And now arcane text that I do not understand. To create paintings using convolutional neural network algorithm and artistic style by Leon A. Gatys, Alexander S. Ecker, and Matthias Bethge. For more information on this portal can be found at t...
Why don't clouds be lower?	[ "it has to do with presure, dry adiabatic lapse rates, and current tempturature. Clouds form from water molecules condensing on particulates in the air. But this doesnt happen until a certain temperature is reached relative to surrounding temperatures (like condensation on a cold can of beer, or from you AC) - as ...	[ "There can be regulation needs. Or simply aesthetic desire for more visibility (imagine all the buildings in a row arw 40 stories - they have good views front and back but nothing to the side. Make half the building 20 stories high and now three sides of the top half have good views - can charge more! There may not...
why in this modern age of materials are flour and sugar still sold in paper bags that never seem to be quite able to contain dry powder?	[ "Just FYI, a mill in Cortez Colorado makes \"Blue Bird Flour\", which is sold in the old fashioned cotton flour sacks... which don't do a very good job of containing dry powder either, but when you're done, you've got a nifty little cotton bag." ]	[ "I used to work in retail and the answer is poorly. We can't possibly track any given customer across hundreds or thousands of potential stores. The ban really has two purposes: - It is a deterrent - many customers are too afraid of consequences to show up at the store again. - _If_ we do recognize them, we have ju...
Is earth's rotation slowing down (even incredibly slowly) due to dust particles or comets etc.?	[ "It is slowing, but mainly due to tidal friction from the moon's orbit. The average day has increased by about 1.7 milliseconds in the last century. Eventually, one day will be the same as one month, and the Earth will only have one side facing the moon, like the moon does with the Earth. However, the sun will die ...	[ "This is related to a classical \"paradox\". Basically, you can't spin the record up, it will necessarily break. The (very difficult to grasp intuitively, IMO) fundamental concept at play here is that in a corotating reference frame constant time slices are non-euclidean. So trying to boost a static disk to rotat...
How many stars are within 113 light years (stars recieving commercial radio emissions)	[ "> you can (you can, right?) listen to them. Mostly, no, you cannot. The calculations used to determine if you are able to receive a signal are called a [\"link budget\"](_URL_0_). If you plug in the numbers, you'll find that to receive commercial transmissions from the earth at the distance of the nearest stars, y...	[ "It's a radome to cover the AN/APS-15 search radar, first fitted to an experimental model designated XPBM-3E then rolled out to production models starting with the PBM-3C (from Squadron/Signal's PBM Mariner in Action). The most common installation of APS-15, also known as H2X (and \"Mickey\" due to some early ins...
How does a medical condition like thyroid problems cause weight gain? Surely it still comes down to calorie control?	[ "You body uses most of your calories just to do the basic things it needs to do to stay alive. If you don't get enough thyroid hormones, your body does those things less, you don't burn enough calories, and you become fat, cold, weak and sleepy, even if you're not eating more food. If your body releases too many th...	[ "I shot both fashion and portrait photography and there is a simple explanation. When people look at themselves in a mirror they tend to look at their best angles. In an image you see the reality...all unflattering angles and facial expressions. In snapshots these are usually not good angles and expressions. So al...
Why does my dog tilt her head when she's curious?	[ "She's trying to hear you better. It's her way of concentrating on your voice. She cocks her head and points one of her ears so that it has a more direct line to the sound she is trying to pick up. This allows her to hear differences in tone and determine the location of the source of a sound. Also, you may have co...	[ "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...
If Jeff Bezos looses half of his money upon divorce, why is he worth all of the money when he is married?	[ "Because the money is his. If Jeff went into the bank while married he can take out every penny, but when they get divorced he loses whatever amount he ends up losing, giving it to his wife." ]	[ "Assuming you're not talking about second-hand or refurbished items: It's not that the seller on Amazon sells it cheaper, it's that the company sells it more expensively on their site. Companies usually don't sell their products directly to the customer - they have retailers for that. Presenting the product at a bi...
What are the most comprehensive databases of Holocaust-related documents?	[ "Your best bet at finding individuals is through the [International Tracing Service](_URL_0_), which USHMM has access to. The Central Names Index contains about 50 million items relating to some 17,500,000 people persecuted by the Nazis. If your family's information is available, it's likely included in ITS. USHMM ...	[ "I believe the [Stanford University Orbis project](_URL_0_) has a pretty good reputation on this sub. I've seen it alluded to several times without it's accuracy being contested. I would imagine it contains a degree of speculation and estimation but I'm not sure exactly how much." ]
Why can't passengers drink alcohol in cars?	[ "I think the main reason for these types of laws are to make the job of law enforcement easier. If it was legal to have open containers of alcohol in the car, then a ton of people would do things that resulted in having open containers of alcohol in the car. So now, every time a cop pulls someone over, they would p...	[ "MADD lobbied it through the Congress a few decades back." ]
- How does electricity travel through wire?	[ "Electricity is a stream of electrons. To ELI5, electrons bond weakly with metal, and can move along the metal from atom to atom much more freely than they can in many other substances. If you add a bunch of electrons on one side of the metal, it will push electrons along the metal until they get to the other end, ...	[ "Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained: 1. [ELI5: How did we figure out how many protons each element has? ](_URL_0_) 1. [ELI5: How did scientists figure out how many protons are in an atom? Or, even, what an atom is made of? ](_URL_1_)" ]
How do lizards change their skin color to their surroundings?	[ "They don't. The color change is a mating thing." ]	[ "Either she had multiple costumes on that are velcore that she can take off quickly or she has a quick change station with people helping her." ]
Why does the DEA bother with raiding dispensaries, particular in CO and WA where it's legal, given how futile and unpopular it is?	[ "The word is that the Denver Colorado dispensary was funded by money received from Mexican drug cartels. The DEA got word through an informant and shut it down. Tldr: local$$= ok Cartel $$= fed jail" ]	[ "I wouldn't call it the \"white house\" attorney general. It's the federal attorney general. There are state laws and there are federal laws. State attorney generals enforce the laws of their state." ]
So 99% of atoms are empty space, what would it take to squeeze through them?	[ "At least one of the following: 1) Ten times the mass (and gravity) of the Sun. 2) Six times the temperature of the core of the Sun. 3) Be a fermion without electric charge. 4) The heat of the core of the Sun combined with at least one tenth the mass of the Sun in pure helium to allow quantum tunnelling to occur w...	[ "The reason the air is so contaminated from smog is due to the gasses released by cars, factories, ect (known as greenhouse gasses) Currently there are multinational discussions to curb these emissions and thus start cleaning up the air. Unfortunately we're at the point where major and drastic action needs to take...
What makes a smell unpleasant?	[ "Well, some smells are \"delicious/awesome\" due to our past associations with those smells... But for the \"bad smells\", Chemistry has an answer: most of the foul smelling things out there also happen have certain chemical functional groups that permit them to bind quite strongly to metals. Thiols (S), amines (N...	[ "A few reasons, first you may remember from high school chemistry the ideal gas law. PV=nRT, where P=pressure, V=volume, n= number of moles, R is a constant and T is temperature. If you spray a pressurized gas (the propellant in the can), which is typically butane or propane, as the gas comes out of the spray nozz...
Why does contact with cell phones deactivate magnetic strips on hotel keys but not on credit cards, etc?	[ "That's just what we tell you. Honestly, they just stop working sometimes and need to be reset. Because the card comes from an outside company, most employees won't know it's inner workings or what's gone wrong with it or the program that it runs on. So when something does go wrong it looks better if it's not the ...	[ "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 are Cashmere sweaters so expensive?	[ "Two main reasons. First, the quality of properly harvested cashmere is very high. Merino, another soft wool, is about 24 microns diameter max, while cashmere is about 19. Harvesting cashmere is labor intensive. I'm sure you've seen how sheep are simply shorn with electric clippers. High quality cashmere is harvest...	[ "billion dollars industries spend a lot on security. the answer is the same as if you'd have asked \"now that all money is digital, how come someone just doesn't hack millions of dollars into their account\"" ]
If I have mosquitoes in my house, can I just abandon my house for X days and they'll all starve to death?	[ "No. they will not starve The only mosquitoes that eat blood are pregnant females. Non pregnant females and males eat all manner of things. > Mosquitoes do not feed on blood. The female mosquito requires a blood meal for development of her eggs. > Mosquito adults feed on flower nectar, juices, and decaying matte...	[ "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...
The difference between liberals and conservatives.	[ "Liberals support change while conservatives believe in tradition." ]	[ "Plan B one time shot of hormones, birth control long term doses of hormones, finding the right birth control requires a doctor to adjust as needed. There is not a one size fits all birth control pill." ]
How can Google settle tax avoidance in the UK over the past decade with a £130m payment, when in 2013 alone they paid £20.5m on $5.6bn UK profits, whilst corporation tax was allegedly 23%?	[ "HMRC often settles for a substantially lower amount than it is owed in order to save time and money chasing companies. They operate a 'Something is better than nothing' approach with big companies that are good at avoiding tax because they know that they probably won't get anywhere near the full amount anyway, and...	[ "Taxes. Delaware does not have a state corporate income tax for corporations that are based in Delaware but do no business in the state. Basically, if you operate your business entirely in, say, Iowa (the state with the highest state corporate income tax), but put your corporate headquarters in Delaware, you don't ...
What happens to the hardware after a huge IT hardware flop (Z10, Surface Pro, Fire Phone)	[ "The remainder is sold off for low prices and then if they don't sell in time they are crushed and put into a landfill." ]	[ "There are a couple reasons. Furniture in general has a large profit margin. As far as furniture goes mattresses are probably the easiest to sell as just about everyone has one, and they get replaced more frequently than other furniture items, and mattresses are always one of the top comments when a thread comes up...
How are borders protected where two countries share a beach for instance?	[ "[This](_URL_0_) is a picture of Border Field State Park. It is the US/Mexico border reaching the Pacific Ocean. On the other side of the fence is Tijuana, Mexico. On the near side is California, about 20 miles South of San Diego. As you can see the fence goes out into the water a bit, and the US side is crawling w...	[ "Hi, I've approved the post, but just a note to you and potential respondents: this subreddit has a 20-year rule against discussing current events, so any answers will have to cut off at 1997. If you're looking for answers that can include 1998-2012, do consider x-posting elsewhere, eg. a foreign affairs sub like /...
Would using power from a stirling engine to cool the engine's 'cold end' be a net loss or gain of power?	[ "That would be a net loss of power because no machine (stirling engine, fan, refrigeration unit, or helicopter) is perfectly efficient. Friction will soak up some of that energy somewhere along the line. It may be possible to compensate for some of that inefficiency with good engineering, but that will only make th...	[ "Usually on such systems, the output runs through the rails. So, AC comes in through the wire, activates the windings on the traction motors, and then exits through the metal wheels to the rails. The rails themselves are usually welded or bolted together, so a continuous circuit can be made. Another option is to h...
How do Epi-pens help people in anaphylactic shock?	[ "Epi pens contain a dose of epinephrine, which is a hormone secreted by the adrenal glands that (among other things) constricts blood vessels and dilates airways. Anaphylactic shock kills people by shutting off airways. So giving someone an epi pen helps keep their airways open long enough to get to a hospital or ...	[ "> ... why can't I \"get use\" to the food? In some cases you do. A significant number of food allergies are childhood phenomenons that someone does eventually grow out of. And a study from Stanford not too long ago concluded that it is possible to prevent allergies, peanuts in particular, by exposing new borns to ...
Why do people leave useless answers to Amazon product questions?	[ "You actually get an email from amazon, asking you if you can answer the questions (usually a product you recently bought). My best guess would be that they think they are directly asked by that person. Doesn't make much sense, but so doesn't answering the question with a bad answer." ]	[ "You can change to \"simple English\" on the left side of the page, in the list of languages. And it will show you a more basic explanation of the topic written in language everyone should be able to understand." ]
[Quantum Computers] Why use Hydrogen instead of a heavier element?	[ "Because it would be immensely difficult. You're measuring the wavefunction of one proton and one electron in a hydrogen atom. In the uranium atom, the wavefunction is a combination of all the new electronic wavefunctions and have to account for all their interactions." ]	[ "My house is mostly air but I still say that it's a brick house. The water is just filler. It's there so that chemicals can float about and react more easily, water is vital to life but it's doesn't define us like carbon does." ]
Prior to Iceland, what was the last large uninhabited island to be permanently settled?	[ "While CrossyNZ is right about New Zealand, which is likely the biggest latest..but by your criteria of more than 3,000 population there's also Madeira, which right now has about 200,000. It was settled circa 1520 by the Portugese, in their expansionist period. Apparently an obstacle to settlement was due to the fa...	[ "Not to discourage further discussion, but [this previous answer](_URL_1_) to a similar question discusses L'Anse Aux Meadows in Newfoundland, which may answer your immediate question." ]
Since the further you look you in space, the older objects are, and since the universe is constantly expanding, does the visible universe have a warp or curve to it, as objects further away have expanded less than closer objects?	[ "It's true that when we look at a distant object it's somewhere else now than where we're seeing it. In fact it might not even exist at all anymore. You can't really say that the objects we're seeing have expanded less, though, since the expansion of the universe is overcome by the gravitational forces that hold ga...	[ "As your velocity with respect to an object increases, the object is physically contracted in your frame of reference, but it doesn't appear to be contracted. This, which might seem counterintuitive, is ultimately because in addition to length contraction, light from different points of the object arrive at you...
Why is a "shotgun approach" to medical lab testing is considered bad medicine?	[ "Money. Just because people go on WebMD and self-diagnose doesn't mean their doctor will recommend the tests they want, nor does it mean their insurance companies will pay for those tests. If you've got cash and the test is low-risk, they'll do it. But you won't see them taking spinal taps just because you ask nice...	[ "Multiple requests from the same type of place (several car dealerships, several mortgage brokers, etc.) within a short time are combined to count as one inquiry, so go ahead and shop around. Part of your credit score is how much debt you have. If you are trying to take out a lot of new debt, then you will probably...
How can we tell that the Super Bowl had 111.5 million viewers when multiple people watched the same TV at different parties?	[ "It's not like those numbers are actually derived from counting the number of eyeballs watching screens at any given time. Certain people (Nielsen families) are selected by the Nielsen Media Research corporation and given special set-top boxes which report back to Nielsen when the TV is on and what's being watched....	[ "For direct downloads from a server, they have to either seize the logs of the server, or work with ISPs or other men in the middle to figure out who is downloading what. For bittorrent and similar peer to peer systems, it's pretty trivial. Find a torrent you want to monitor, join the downloaders, log the IPs of th...
- Our bodies signal us that we are hungry but we generally have a lot of energy stored as fat. Why is that? What is the hungry feeling is telling us in fact?	[ "Hunger is triggered by the Hunger Hormone called Ghrelin. Ghrelin is produced by the body during times you usually eat. So if you always eat at 8am, 1pm, 6pm, you'll always feel hungry at those times. When you eat, the food becomes short-term energy which lasts around 6-24 hours. Excess short-term energy not used ...	[ "Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained: 1. [ELI5: Why can't I hear very well while yawning? ](_URL_5_) 1. [ELI5: Why can't I hear while I am yawning? ](_URL_2_) 1. [ELI5: Why when we yawn we can't hear anything until the yawn is done? ](_URL_0_) 1. [ELI5: Why can't I hear when I yawn? ](_URL_4_...
How come we can't see the milky way with special goggles or glasses the way photographers and film makers use special filters to record and capture the night sky?	[ "To get these incredibly vivid pictures of celestial objects, the photographers will have exposure times of anywhere from a few seconds to many hours (in addition to being in a place with minimal light pollution). So, in order to see these same images, you'd need to take all the light that falls into your eye over ...	[ "Light from the sun radiates in straight vectors away from the surface. The radiation only changes direction when scattering, remitting, and reflecting from particles and gases. On earth, light pollution exists because the gases of the atmosphere reflect back some of the light emitted from the surface." ]
When an EM wave travels in a vacuum, does one field produce the other? If so, shouldn't there be a 90 degree shift between the E and M fields?	[ "Take a look at [Maxwell's equations](_URL_0_) in vacuum. The rate of change of B is related to the curl of E and the rate of change of E is related to the curl of B. The rate of change of a sine wave is greatest when it crosses the axis, and so is the curl (the direction of the field is opposite on either side of ...	[ "A few more interesting facts: 1) The earliest morse code transmitters used to establish the first intercontinental radio links were nothing more than rotating disc dragging a series of conducting plates across a metallic lead and generating a shower of sparks (google SPARK GAP TRANSMITTER). As discussed elsewhere ...
Can satallites take photos of planets outside of our solar system?	[ "We do have direct images of a few planets. The catelog claims 50 confirmed but recently I heard one of the founders of (one of) the first planets thinks only 10 or so are really legitimate (this might be out of date by 6 months to a year to be honest). & nbsp; The problem with direct observations of planets is th...	[ "Nope. What do you imagine they were doing? Calculating an orbit isn't any harder (actually, much easier) than playing Angry Birds." ]
Why do bands bring have their own speakers and amplifiers if everything is just run through the arena's PA system?	[ "Like their guitar amps and stuff? A guitar amp does a whole lot more to influence the actual sound and tone than the PA. A guitarist's amp is pretty integral to his whole sound, so he'll want it to be consistent, and he'll want control over it. Then the venue will put a mic on his amp to connect it to the PA." ]	[ "Imagine you have a computer on your house. Now you want to connect that computer to your friend 100 miles away. How do you do it? You could lay a 100 mile cable, but do you have the permissions to dig up roads and pathways? You would use a company whose cables were already there, and just use that network of cab...
Why does some steel get discolored when heated?	[ "It sounds like you're describing the effects of oxidation. Your grill is probably stainless steel. It doesn't oxidize at low temperatures, but when heated, the alloying metals (like nickel, chromium manganese) can oxidize, producing a variety of colors." ]	[ "You're asking a question which defines an entire field of study called \"petrology.\" Suffice it to say that a whole host of physical parameters control what kinds of minerals form from a given melt, including temperature, pressure, cooling rate, and yes, slight differences in the composition of the parent melt." ...
Why isn't the human body comfortable at 98.6 degrees if that's our internal temperature?	[ "Your body is a like a heater that is always on; it cannot be turned off because that heat is produced by and required to maintain a delicate environment for your life processes. Heat only flows from hot to cold. If temperatures are equal, there is no cold for the hot to flow to. If 98F is ambient temperature then ...	[ "Because most people will see it as a lower value. Just like stuff are advertised for 19.99 and a lot of people will think of that as \"less than twenty.\" 3.699 gets rounded in people's heads as three-sixty, not three-seventy. In a couple of days you can train your self to see the real value, 19.99 actually means ...
What is something commonly taught in high school history (USA or Canada) that is false?	[ "My father is a history teacher in the US, although he, like me, is English. HE wouldn't say he teaches anything that is factually false but there are often times when the textbooks and his fellow teachers put interpretations onto events which he strongly disagrees with and believes to not be true, although it is s...	[ "During WWII, the US needed a lot of aluminum for building bomber and fighter planes. The process to refine aluminum from bauxite uses huge amounts of electricity. To generate enough electricity, dams were installed through a large part of the Tennessee Valley. Water flowing through the dams turns generators to pr...
why aren't traffic lights made with one light that changes color instead of three. Wouldn't they be easier to manufacture and install?	[ "Several reasons. Technology has only recently evolved to where this would actually work. Prior to LEDs, all bulbs were white with colored filters in front of them and having the filters change mechanically would be a huge failure point. Our eyesight notices movement much quicker than color changes and the change i...	[ "Couple things to consider. First, when you get tried in court, prosecutors will try to get you convicted for every crime you committed, not just the biggest one. So you may be on trial for murder, but also assault, battery, kidnapping, brandishing a weapon, etc... You may be found guilty for any number of them, a...
What affect did Old English and Middle English have on Anglo-Norman French?	[ "This is essentially a linguistics question. I recommend submitting to /r/linguistics." ]	[ "Uk Language? Pills will get you proper munted. Like out yer bonce. It'll make you think chubbers are buff and pull shapes all night. Draw makes you want to cotch. Then you get bare munch and need to smash a mint Aero and Potnoodle, maybe a maccie d's. Chang will make you Brap." ]
Did the Soviet Union reinforce the pavement near Red Square?	[ "They use different tracks for tanks on parade, designed specifically to not tear up the paving (it has a lot less grip). EDIT: Here is a photo of what I mean (this isn't a different track per say, it's a rubber insert that serves the same purpose) _URL_0_" ]	[ "Hey! I don't want to discourage other answers, especially since this is only part of the answer to this question, but [this answer](_URL_0_) on the question of how to find the place you were searching for in Rome itself might be of interest. Also see /u/cerapus answer in the same thread, which makes the very perti...
The political connections of major news sources.	[ "The only political 'connection' is that Roger Ailes, the man in charge at Fox, has had memos leaked showing that they specifically push a conservative agenda. In comparison to Fox, the rest of the networks look liberal. However, to call NPR 'very liberal/democratic' is unsubstantiated. NPR can be called intellectu...	[ "I'm just going to point out that accusing wealthy Jews of pulling the strings of power behind the scenes for nefarious purposes is, well, not exactly a new thing." ]
Why is both helium 3 and deuterium required for a fusion reaction?	[ "I didn’t watch the video, but deuterons can definitely undergo fusion with other deuterons. DT fusion has a higher Q-value, which means more total energy released, but DD is possible as well. The Coulomb barrier depends much more strongly on Z than on A, so since deuterium and tritium and both isotopes of hydrogen...	[ "In Chernobyl, somewhere around [6 tonnes of nuclear fuel](_URL_0_) were released. The bomb in Hiroshima contained only 64kg of Uranium." ]
What exactly is a secular jew?	[ "You see this a lot in (Reform) Jewish suburbs. Think Woody Allen, bagels and lox, Yiddish lessons and Jewish movie festivals, Philip Roth novels--that sort of thing. The secular Jewish family lights Hanukkah candles and maybe has a seder with grandparents, but that's about it. Secular Jewish children learn all abo...	[ "The author is probably talking about the Jüdisches Zentralmuseum which I have written about [here](_URL_0_)." ]
“If it wasn’t for us you would be speaking German” was a common phrase when i was growing up. Has there actually been cases of national language change following the invasion of a sovereign nation?	[ "Your question is complicated by the fact the for most of recorded history the idea of a “national language,” or even a nation, did not exist. Invasion is one of the fundamental ways that languages have spread and evolved throughout history. To answer your question, we’d have to limit ourselves squarely within the...	[ "You should definitely start with 'The Norman Conquest: A Very Short Introduction', by George Garnett. If you don't know about the 'A very Short Introduction' series, they are little 100-or-so page books written by lecturers and tutors of top British universities, and the majority are at Oxford (as they are printed...
Do snowflakes exist formed from things other than water?	[ "Carbon dioxide forms snow on Mars. This \"dry ice\" can be purchased from any local gases dealer. It's often used for temporary refrigeration, and was much more common before everyone had a fridge. It looks much like water ice. Hydrocarbons form liquid seas on Titan, a moon of Saturn. Methane and nitrogen form ice...	[ "A few videos on youtube by people who make that kind of stuff: _URL_0_ _URL_1_ You need to start with a seed crystal which you dip in the saturated solution and then as the water evaporates the salt precipitates on the seed crystal. You may be increasing the speed of the evaporation by heating and that may be caus...
How does wireless charging work, like for your phone? Why can’t we expand this to something room-sized (or even larger) to always have our devices charging?	[ "It uses induced currents. Basically the wires in the charger are wrapped in a ring. When elections move in that ring it makes a magnetic field. That magnetic field then causes motion in the electrons of a similar ring in the device. This causes the charging. There are some attempts to add this form of charging to ...	[ "Simply put for the same reason drinking water when you're not thirsty isn't as refreshing as when you're REALLY thirsty. Anticipating the bodies' needs doesn't trigger the same reward responses in the brain as fulfilling a need that is already present. Your muscles don't NEED to stretch right now, so you can't ant...
Why do computer screens appear to have that warped effect when a picture is taken of them?	[ "One common cause of distortion is because the screen refreshes its image line by line, and a digital video camera reads the image sensor line by line as well. These rates are usually out of sync, meaning that one frame of video will show more than one frame from the monitor." ]	[ "Actually, Isaac Newton studied the exact thing you are talking about. It's called a phosphene, and it's created by the stimulation of the retina by means other than light, such as a magnetic field or an electric current. In your case, it's simply the physical pressure exerted on your retina. [Source](_URL_1_)" ]
Why doesn't membrane encasing organelles conjoin with other membranes?	[ "If a cell membrane was entirely lipid then this would be very possible. However, around 75% of the membrane is actually made up by membrane based proteins, which do not behave in the same way as lipids (i.e. conglomerating to reduce entropy). Endo/exocytosis involves the interaction of protein molecules which trig...	[ "Nothing is stopping them. [ReactOS](_URL_0_) is a binary-compatible windows clone, for example. As for Apple's OS X, it itself is a clone/fork of [FreeBSD](_URL_1_)." ]
Why do some pens cost hundreds of dollars?	[ "Why do some pens cost hundreds of dollars? Because some people will pay hundreds of dollars for a pen." ]	[ "Becsuse all tux's basically look the same, just different sizes and are a basic loose fit. Easy for many men to wear the same thing. But theres a bajillion styles of wedding dresses and different styles for different shapes and they're usually fitted. Odds of finding a generic sized dress in a style you like that ...
The difference between an atomic bomb and a nuclear bomb.	[ "Nuclear bombs and atomic bombs are the same thing. The other poster effectively summarised the difference between fission and fusion bombs--commonly known as atomic and hydrogen bombs respectively. Nonetheless, both could likely be described as 'nuclear' bombs, as both fusion and fission bombs rely on nuclear reac...	[ "Ask Reddit is for personal opinions, stories, and the like. Essentially subjective answers to questions without hard answers. Something like \"whats your favorite food\" is a good post there ELI5 is for getting a simplified answer or explanation to a question that you don't understand. A good thread here would som...
How does communication between two languages initially develop?	[ "Usually via description of similar objects. For example, Dog in English is Perro in Spanish. Even if an English person didn't know any Spanish, and vice versa, they could both learn and establish that this furry four legged creature currently wiping it's ass all over the rug because it has worms, is known as dog/p...	[ "Either the border stays where it is, or the countries or states involved negotiate land swaps so that the border can be corrected. [Here](_URL_0_) you see the French-German border along the Rhine river, but at a couple of points it cuts across land where the river has silted up slightly, a process I imagine was ac...
How well did Confederate soldiers integrate into the U.S. military once the Civil War ended?	[ "Joseph Wheeler, a Confederate cavalry general in the Civil War, went on to serve as a major-general during the Spanish-American war and forgetting himself in the heat of a battle yelled [\"Let's go, boys! We've got the damn Yankees on the run again!\"](_URL_0_). It’s a bit of an anecdote, but the fact the governme...	[ "Just because there weren't insurgencies in the modern sense doesn't mean there weren't rebellions and uprisings. Rome had a notoriously difficult time keeping down the people of Germania, Gaul and Britannia, for example but the rebellions usually played out through more traditional military conflicts. One disadva...
The Anatomy/Pleasure Centers of the Vagina	[ "That's not really appropriate for a five year old. Come back in a few years. And it us safe to say, that women are so complicated there's no possible way to ELI5 this subject. They are all so very different." ]	[ "A couple of archived threads contain a lot of good information. From February 2014, [this one here](_URL_6_) has a top-level comment about medieval Europe and a lot of further information in the comments below. And then [this one](_URL_5_) covers Rome, South American cultures, China, Japan, ancient Greece, and anc...
Stumped me and my Dad: When I'm looking at a street light far in the distance on a dark night, why isn't/is my face illuminated, even slightly? Doesn't the light need to reach my eyes for me to perceive it?	[ "Your eyes are receiving the light directly when you look at the light. If it has to reflect off a diffuse surface (such as your face), absorption and further dispersion occurs and very little light from this reaches your pupil. Think of it in terms of areas collecting light. Let's say your pupil is 5mm across. The...	[ "When light moves from one medium to another, it refracts (distorts). The eye evolved underwater, so it evolved to have fluid inside it so light would move from the water into the eye without refraction. Your eyes have adapted to compensate for the refraction that happens when light goes from the air to the fluid i...
What will happen if I shine a green LED light on a red object?	[ "As red objects absorb green and reflect red, the object will appear black with a small residual reflection of green depending on the material." ]	[ "I've actually built one for a science fair before. I used _URL_0_ as a reference guide: _URL_2_ _URL_1_ It worked, but know going in that you will not get a huge amount thrust. Your setup would probably do better, but it will still most likely not be a lot. What I ended up doing that had a more striking visual eff...
What properties in sand make it better to melt icy roads than salt?	[ "It's more about traction from what I understand. It doesn't melt the ice so much as give your tires something on top of the ice that isn't as slick as...well, ice." ]	[ "The movie was [Days of Thunder](_URL_0_) and he was talking about [Slipstreaming or Drafting](_URL_1_). As to your question, this depends on * The velocity of the cars * Geometry of both cars * Atmosphere status (temperature, rain, snow ... although they have very little effect at higher speeds) On the street it's...
Why hasn't a North Korean attempted to assassinate Kim Jong Un yet?	[ "Whoever carries out the assassination of Kim Jong Un has this to look forward to: - A death sentence. - A death sentence being placed on several generations of their family, and possibly other relations (such as known friends or their entire hometown). - No certainty that it would change anything at all." ]	[ "billion dollars industries spend a lot on security. the answer is the same as if you'd have asked \"now that all money is digital, how come someone just doesn't hack millions of dollars into their account\"" ]
Why the sky appears to be blue, when actually the air has no color ?	[ "It's due to [Rayleigh scattering](_URL_0_) - sunlight passing through the atmosphere is scattered as a function of wavelength. Shorter wavelength light, such as those near the blue end of the spectrum, is scattered more. When you look up at the sky, what you're seeing is light from the sun that's travelling tangen...	[ "The distance between the atoms is very small in comparaison with visible wavelength. The light does not have the resolution to differentiate the atoms from the empty space. You don't have rays of light that pass through the empty spaces. At this scale the medium is perceived as uniform with a refractive index and ...
Why does the sun appear more "yellow" during sunrise and sunset?	[ "There is more air between the you and the Sun. The more air the light has to go through, the higher the chance that some of that light will interact in a way which causes it to deflect or be absorbed. Also, the shorter the wavelength (closer to violet in the rainbow) the higher the chance that this will happen. Wh...	[ "If it shines for 14 hours where you are, it shines for 14 hours everywhere else at the same latitude, in the same hemisphere. I.e., if you go exactly East, or exactly West, you'll encounter places where it shines the same amount of hours. However, in the other hemisphere (Southern, if you're in the Northern one), ...
What's going on when you swing your hands around really fast and start to feel prickly all over your hands?	[ "Yes, it's blood, or lack thereof. Blood gets pumped around your body by your heart, the blood feeds and takes oxygen to the tissues and cells of your body. It also removes \"waste\" from those cells. When you spin your arms quickly, the gravitational force forces the blood in your arm to the hands. The problem is ...	[ "The heart has four different chambers and they need to beat (or contract) in a certain order in order for blood to be pumped properly. To do this, there's something called a \"conduction pathway\" that is essentially a wire that goes along the heart, forking out to its different part and an electric signal travels...
What causes apparent temperatures and why are they typically hotter than reality in summer and colder in winter?	[ "I'm not an expert in Australian weather terms, but here in Canada we actually have two different terms for this kind of thing: humidex and wind chill. The humidex is used in summer, and is typically higher than the \"real temperature\", because humid air feels hotter than drier air. The body cools itself by swea...	[ "In terms of time the Sun spends above the horizon, yes, over a year it averages out to be the same everywhere on the planet. In terms of total sunlight, though, it does not. While the Sun does remains constantly above the horizon at the poles for 6 months out of the year, the highest it ever gets is 23.5 degre...
Is there a difference between the brain of a heterosexual being and a homosexual being?	[ "Every facet of your personailty is represented in your brain in some fashion, this goes for your sexuality as well as your favorite food, taste in music, etc. As for whether there are any large-scale, reliable anatomical/chemical differences, the general consensus is that no, there are not. A few papers have claim...	[ "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 air is made up of 78% nitrogen and only 21% oxygen, why do all living creatures need oxygen in order to live and not nitrogen?	[ "Oxygen is much more reactive than nitrogen. You can get energy out of combining oxygen with carbon to form carbon dioxide, or by combining it with hydrogen to get water. Carbon makes for a great building block for life since it is so versatile in its bonding. Life needs a lot of complexity which carbon facilitates...	[ "A few reasons, first you may remember from high school chemistry the ideal gas law. PV=nRT, where P=pressure, V=volume, n= number of moles, R is a constant and T is temperature. If you spray a pressurized gas (the propellant in the can), which is typically butane or propane, as the gas comes out of the spray nozz...
Is it possible for a man involved in a ponzi scheme to escape the scheme before it collapses? if so how?	[ "By the nature of what a Ponzi scheme is, it's impossible to escape. Let's say you invest $100 with me. I promise you $120 by the end of the year. You tell your friend about me, so she invests $100 with me as well. I have $200 of \"invested\" money. You decide you want to pull your money out. I give you your initia...	[ "Let's say you wanted to gamble at the horse track. You think Three-Legged Limpet is the horse to win on (despite having only three legs). You decide to place a $100 bet, but you don't have $100 on you now (payday isn't until tomorrow). The bookie agrees to take only $20, with the understanding that you will pay up...
For how long will a bug survive if I swallow it whole?	[ "I have no personal experience, but perhaps another related question. I've heard that if you swallow a live cockroach, it will fight the force of your esophagus and attempt to crawl out before reaching the stomach. Is this true?" ]	[ "why would you eat your mentor? but the reaction will cause you to vomit uncontrollably sort of like putting baking soda in vinegar." ]
Why can you only check your credit score once a year?	[ "You can only check it once a year FOR FREE at each of the three credit bureaus, because law. You can pay to check it as often as you want, however." ]	[ "The bacteria that grows on meats (esp chicken and pork) are matured and the meat may be rotten by that date. If cooked, bacteria is killed and the meat is given a new state, which is cooked. Think of it as the meat being given a new life after getting close to dying." ]
Does dark skin absorb more heat?	[ "Dark things absorb more light because that is what it means for something to be dark. Something is white if it reflects (almost) all of the light that hits it. Something is red if only red light is reflected. Something is green if only green light is reflected. A perfectly black object (See: Black Hole) does not r...	[ "A trait of sickle-cell Anemia is that it makes the people that have it resistant to Malaria. Now, under normal conditions, having sickle-cell Anemia would be a purely negative trait. However, in areas where Malaria is common, such as sub-Saharan Africa, having Sickle Cell Anemia might actually improve your chances...
During the Islamic Golden Age, it seems philosophers were divided by whether they thought the Quran was created or whether it always existed. Why was this such an issue?	[ "Edit: To the point of philosophers being divided, the popular opinion of the \"Rationalists\" at this time was that the Quran was created. The \"Traditionalists\" believed it was coeternal with God because it was God's literal word and God himself is eternal. It seems that sometime during the reign of the Abassid ...	[ "Karachi (largest city in Pakistan) is currently experiencing some large problems; both in crime, and politically. This is in part due to [Altaf Hussain](_URL_0_) who is the founder and leader of the [Muttahida Quami Movement](_URL_1_) - a political party in pakistan based in the city of Karachi. The problems surro...
How did society withstand the sun prior to sunscreen?	[ "For thousands of years, people in sunny regions had dark skin, while people in non-sunny regions sometimes had light skin, due to evolution. Only in recent centuries, with modern transportation, have millions of people been moving huge distances. So the problem of \"I have the wrong skin color for this climate\" i...	[ "I don't have my anthropology textbook at hand so I don't have a source to give, but google 'Inuit sunglasses'. Bone goggles with a narrow slit. I'd love to hear if there's any scholarship on this invention, but you'd have to think they were invented in prehistory." ]
Paper claims to have discovered "mirror neutrons". Bullshit or breakthrough?	[ "First a disclaimer: while my tag says nuclear physics, this is a very different corner of nuclear physics from my own. I'm hesitant to use a word as strong as \"bullshit\", but I also wouldn't jump on board this result too firmly. Ultracold neutron experiments are notoriously problematic. Neutrons are very hard ...	[ "> If they don't interact through Standard Model interactions, how can we ever directly observe them? We can observe them if that part of the Standard model is wrong. > And if we can't, how do we know that they exist? We don't know that they exist. If our everyday low-energy neutrinos are Majorana fermions, then t...
Why can some brands completely rip off other brands designs on certain products?	[ "Per a quick google search, they are often lawsuits for this. However, I’d hazard a guess that court costs and lawyer fees are factored in before moving forward. Generic copy at Walmart maybe only profits 40k$, but the lawsuit would cost 200k for both sides. It’s now a loss to sue and not worth moving forward. Adid...	[ "In most places, there are few laws regulating what prices a retail store can charge. They charge what the market will bear, and with a captive market it will bear a lot more than normal. Keep in mind that most such shops have a high overhead, since they have to pay special fees to the airport operator to sell in t...
How does turning something "off and back on" usually fix the problem?	[ "/u/KJBenson is on the right track. Computer glitches in particular are usually caused by weird circumstances. Microsoft Word doesn't freak out because it can't open text documents, that would make it always useless and broken. It freaks out because it's trying to open a text document that is being examined by your...	[ "Apple's main brand theme is \"it just works\" one of the big reasons for that is they control hardware and software, and using a limited number of options means all options can be rigorously tested. Microsoft (computers) and Google/Android (phones) release software and allow hardware vendors to choose hardware to...
Why does snow exist? Why is it not just ice?	[ "Snow is ice, it is created when water droplets are falling through cold atmosphere causing crystalline structures to form. These crystalline structures are what snow is. You can also get sleet which is basically ice balls. Sleet is when the rain freezes into snow then thaws then refreezes on its way down." ]	[ "Our built up immunity can last a really long time... against viruses that don't change / evolve very much (like polio, chickenpox, etc.). But the cold and flu are constantly changing, they're like viruses on crack cocaine just constantly on the move and lookin' for that next high (in this case, the high would be i...
In the days of early video games (like 1977-1997) often there were complaints of not enough tools provided by the manufacturers (Atari, Nintendo, Sega, etc). These were sometimes solved and sometimes not. How were they solved and why sometimes not?	[ "Before I can try to answer this question I have to ask, what do you mean by 'tools' in the context of this question?" ]	[ "They used the patched conics method. With this you basically reduce the equation to a 2 body equation. You are orbiting the earth, then you are orbiting the sun, then you are orbiting jupiter, then you are orbiting the sun again, then saturn... Of course this like any other simplification is going to introduce er...
Why do companies continue to sell products that have a poor design?	[ "Same reason Nickelback keeps making music... people keep buying the shit." ]	[ "Serious answer: It's one more moving part that could break, and it costs maybe 1 cent extra. Slightly-less-serious answer: I work in phone support, and you would be shocked by how many people can't find and press a power button, even it it's the only button on the device. Most people can at least manage to unplu...
Why are casinos allowed to harass and assault card counters for doing what is essentially legal?	[ "Ever seen a sign at a convenience store \"We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone\" ? In many states and countries with casinos, that is part of the casino laws. _URL_0_ They can't really \"harass\" you, and they can't take away any of the money you've already won, but they can refuse to deal you another ...	[ "I don't know, I know that the table is called a plotting table, and searching retrieved information on the tables, the electronics behind them, the mapping process and history...the name of the objects being pushed around but not the name of the stick. I would suggest contacting [The museum](_URL_0_) that maintain...
What is Compression Artifact?	[ "While not an actual answer at all, here's a neat relevant thing. [The video explains itself.](_URL_0_) A small warning, the sound gets quite unpleasant before too long edit: actually, I forgot, it's sort of a digital recreation of [this](_URL_1_), which is also pretty interesting." ]	[ "a program is like a piece of cloth occasionally a hole is found so you put a patch on it but the cloth remains the same size when you want to make a cloth a blanket then you make it bigger this is called bloat" ]
Why, in America, are organisations allowed to 'donate' money to political figures to support certain interests?	[ "> We have really stringent laws about this sort of thing. So does the US, and people know how to do it properly to be within their legal rights." ]	[ "I'm not normally one to naysay a request for knowledge, but this is not exactly a topic that can be explained like you were five. It requires a fairly extensive level of prior knowledge and understanding just to pose that question, and any answer posted is likely to be incomplete, wrong, or misleading. Sorry, but ...
Why are some people heavy sleepers and others aren’t?	[ "People shut down their brains to different levels when they fall asleep. Some people's brains don't shut down as much so they're senses are still somewhat sensitive and can make them wake up to noise, while others with shut down brains they will be harder to wake due to dull senses." ]	[ "It depends on many factors: * Energy consumption rate * Body weight and fat * Age * Genetics * Many, many other ones" ]
In a nutshell, what were the steps L. Ron Hubbard took to create a cultlike following?	[ "Appealing to people that are \"lost\" and maybe \"down and out, looking for purpose\" is the first thing people who form cults are looking to put out. They show that they want to give people like that a place to belong when really all they want is control over them and to have a following." ]	[ "Wildlife photographer here. They do it with long lenses, and weeks of squatting in cold, damp nature blinds, waiting for the right scene to happen in front of them. I cruise around Yellowstone for days at a time with a 600mm lens looking for critters. Or if you happen to be Walt Disney, you cheat. For the 1958 wil...
Why is Apple able to sue and win against Samsung but Xerox does not sue Apple and Microsoft?	[ "In exchange for the opportunity to invest in Apple, Xerox PARC gave Apple’s engineers a tour and a demonstration of their work. The result was the Apple Macintosh. The compensation was in the form of $1 million dollars worth of pre-IPO Apple stock. The demo took place in 1979. Xerox received its compensation in ex...	[ "Each culture has an 'in' to a particular business in each area. So, one Korean family will come and open a dry cleaning business. When their cousins come, they will tell them the tricks of the trade and the regulations and have the business model set, so their cousins open up another cleaning business one town ove...
At what point did humans decide to clean their asses after defecating?	[ "You have asked what is actually a fairly popular question. [It even has a section in the FAQ](_URL_0_) You might find some decent answers there." ]	[ "No. The mid-1950s into the early 1960s was the triumph of the full-carpeted home. The carpet industry lobbied the U.S. government to include the cost of carpet in the cost of the home overall when calculating mortgage values and rates--making carpeted homes more attractive purchases. I talked about the history o...
If an object travels linearly between two points, does it encounter every conceivable point between said points?	[ "Yes. This is similar to [Zeno's arrow paradox](_URL_0_). There's two resolutions: Mathematical resolution: The infinity arises only because you choose to subdivide the trajectory into infinitesimal parts. As the ball moves, its trajectory can be represented by a straight line. The line has a finite length. Just be...	[ "I'm not sure what level of technical detail you want to get into, but I'll let you know from now that the actual science and mathematics behind secure quantum cryptography is incredibly complex and difficult to explain. The simplified answer to your question is that there exists technical means by which you can de...
How and why is the wasp's stinger area still actively moving despite the wasp already killed?	[ "Death twitches. Most animals, humans included, will continue to twitch even after death. This is caused by the body's muscles expanding and contracting on their own, adjusting to the built up tension from normal use as well as the blood and energy settling. It usually stops after a minute or two." ]	[ "The dance language is universal but there are regional dialects. While the specific parts of the dance language are the same, such as the waggling of the abdomen to represent distance and the the angle of rotation to represent direction, the exact translation between waggles and angles to specific distances and di...
If clouds are water vapor, how are there clouds in the arctic? Wouldn't all clouds just freeze almost immediately?	[ "A cloud is made of droplets which condense out from water that's \"dissolved\" in the air (water vapour) into a visible form of clouds. Clouds that are higher in the atmosphere or that are found in already-cold climates are made of ice crystals. Even on hot sunny days sometimes, and depending on where you live, i...	[ "The phase of a material y both a function of pressure and temperature. [here](_URL_0_) you can see a sketch of a theoretical carbon phase diagram, you can see that there are specific regions for two crystalline phases (graphitic and diamond) and also a liquid and a vapour regions. According tho that diagram, if yo...
In the 70s we referred to non-coding DNA as junk DNA and it made up 98% out DNA structure. What do we know about that 98% nowadays? What don't we know?	[ "Sorry to be a pedant, but it's \"piqued,\" not \"peaked.\"" ]	[ "A few more interesting facts: 1) The earliest morse code transmitters used to establish the first intercontinental radio links were nothing more than rotating disc dragging a series of conducting plates across a metallic lead and generating a shower of sparks (google SPARK GAP TRANSMITTER). As discussed elsewhere ...
When I'm thinking about something i have a 'voice' in my head, how does a deaf person experience this? (answer from an actual deaf person would be awesome!	[ "Apparently, their inner voice is not sound based like that of a person who can hear, but a visual-based inner voice that is typically seen as writing, sign language, or pictures. This is simply because that is their reality, their way of communicating, their way of understanding, their language... Which is why it ...	[ "They don't know, unless they have been specifically trained for a certain location. Guide dogs work on a veto system; the blind person walks wherever they want and the dog will stop them if it is dangerous. The dog for example wouldn't particularly want to cross the street but the owner would, and when they came t...
What did people in the Middle Ages think of static electricity?	[ "Not to discourage other answers, but this is a very popular question and has a [great answer](_URL_0_) given by u/hillsonghoods. I think the long and the short of it is best summed up by /u/hillsonghoods' sentence, \"It’s worth remembering that, in antiquity and the middle ages, the workings of the natural world w...	[ "Follow up. Would they be able to figure it out considering the travel times involved in traveling between the hemispheres back then?" ]

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