question stringlengths 3 301 | answer stringlengths 9 26.1k | context list |
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what is the rationale for why we need to increase defense spending? | Because defense contractors get their profits from selling bullets, bombs, building cities, yada yada from the war effort. You really didn't know that? | [
"Military expenditure can impact the economy of a country and its growth through the demand effect. An increase of military spending, will increase the prosperity of the country and its employment rate, thanks to a rise of demand. It is link to the Keynesian multiplier effect, introduced by Richard Kahn in the 1930... |
if every living human body disappeared off the face of the earth all at once, would anything happen to the planet's orbit? | Yes! There would be change in the orbit of the Earth.
The Earth does not technically orbit the Sun, rather, the two objects orbit a common point in space, called the barycenter, about 450km from the center of the Sun. (still *well* within the Sun, but the Earth causes a 450km "wobble" of the Sun)
If all humans were ... | [
"After destroying a huge asteroid that was on a rapid collision course with Earth, a group of astronauts discover they have accidentally returned to their space station with an alien slime creature that feeds on radiation and can reproduce rapidly from its own blood.\n",
"Many of the same existential risks to hum... |
Did Otto von Bismarck really make the anti-war quote that's attributed to him? | That quote comes from his speech against Prussia going to war with the then weakened Austria. It had nothing to do with the "evil of war", he said it because Prussia's army wasn't anywhere near as strong as his colleagues thought it was at the time. The only people arguing for caution were the king and his court, he sa... | [
"From 1942, however, Bismarck had been opposed to the continuation of World War II, and had made contact with other members of the German aristocracy who were working against the Nazi regime – such as the Berlin police chief Wolf-Heinrich Graf von Helldorf, Colonel Claus Graf von Stauffenberg, and General Friedrich... |
what, exactly, happens to the body of the climbers in "the death zone" (i.e. on mount everest) that causes their death? | Some of the biggest factors are called HACE and HAPE; high-altitude cerebral edema and high-altitude pulmonary edema. Both of them involve fluid accumulating in a place where it shouldn't due to the body's stress at high altitudes - for HACE, fluid is accumulating in the brain, causing confusion and disorientation, wh... | [
"There are significant risks associated with climbing into the \"death zone\" of Everest, which has claimed many lives, as well as many limbs. One survivor of the 1996 Mount Everest disaster, Beck Weathers, was left on the mountain exposed at a high altitude on the south side of Everest because he was overcome by t... |
what do these things do individually in our bodies? | If you're familiar with the idea of a polymer, you already basically know what a protein is. Proteins are (usually) large, complicated molecules that are made of combinations of smaller molecules (amino acids). Different Proteins have different jobs, but most of the material that makes up the structures in your body is... | [
"The human body is the structure of a human being. It is composed of many different types of cells that together create tissues and subsequently organ systems. They ensure homeostasis and the viability of the human body.\n",
"A whole body is typically composed of numerous surfaces that have different orientations... |
It's not uncommon to see people wearing facemasks to prevent getting sick in part of Asia such as Japan, Korea, China etc. What historically is/are the reason(s) behind this cultural difference, and why did it never catch on in "western" cultures? | The practice of face mask use in Japan originated from when the Spanish Flu epidemic hit Japan. A decent article on the topic is "Pandemic Influenza in Japan, 1918-19: Mortality Patterns and Official Responses" by Geoffrey W. Rice and Edwina Palmer. To what extent this was a uniquely Japanese affair is hard to say. I'm... | [
"Surgical masks are popularly worn by the general public in East Asian countries to reduce the chance of spreading airborne diseases; in Japan, it is common to wear a face mask whilst ill to avoid infecting others in public settings. In Japan and Taiwan, it is common to see these masks worn while ill, as a show of ... |
Why do hurricanes weaken over land, while incredibly strong and violent tornadoes can form and sustain themselves entirely over land? | Tornadoes are localized wind vortices that form around storms or weather fronts. Hurricanes are weather systems that increase in intensity when warm most air rising off of a body of water strengthens the convection within it. Land does not provide that warm most air. | [
"Hurricanes, which are the severest form of a tropical cyclone, have caused a considerable amount of damage to universities located in coastal regions. They are capable of producing high winds and heavy rainfall but they can also have the power to create deadly storm surge and tornadoes. Due to the fact that they f... |
Why can't we solve for the wave function of another element than hydrogen? | The Hamiltonian for a one-electron atom in the center-of-mass frame is
H*_1_* = **p**^(2)/(2m) - Ze^(2)k/r.
You can solve this system analytically for its eigenvalues and eigenstates (see the Wikipedia article on then hydrogen atom, for example).
Now, this is the Hamiltonian for a two-electron atom:
H = **p***_1_*^... | [
"Hydrogen is an element inaccessible to Rutherford backscattering spectrometry since nothing can \"back\"scatter from H (since all atoms are heavier than hydrogen!). But it is often analysed by elastic recoil detection.\n",
"Therefore, water molecules can form an extended three-dimensional network. Introduction o... |
why does kissing make us... horny? | Your body reacts based on your knowledge and prior experiences: You expect that the person who kisses you finds you attractive and wants to do more than that. So you get horny. If high fives were a sign of affection in a different culture people would get horny after that too. | [
"Kissing stimulates the production of hormones responsible for a good mood: oxytocin, which releases the feeling of love and strengthens the bond with the partner, endorphins - hormones responsible for the feeling of happiness, and dopamine, which stimulates the pleasure center in the brain. Regular kissing protect... |
What impact (if any) will the new higher threshold for overtime pay have on postdocs, lab techs, and other grant funded research positions? | Postdoc and other grant funded positions are salaried, not hourly. There would be no effect. However, there has been an NIH budget increase next year for the first time in a while. That may have an effect. | [
"Overtime many economists have conducted empirical studies to try and determine the real life implications of a minimum wage on the labour market. This has led to disagreements between economists on whether a higher minimum wage does reduce employment as different studies have come to different conclusions. These i... |
how is the country (united states) with the largest deficit also the world's largest "super power"? | Superpower refers to military strength.
I think you mean debt instead of deficit (correct me if I’m wrong). Even though our debt is high, our GDP is massive. As producers and consumers, the US still dwarfs other nations. | [
"The United States is still considered by most analysts to be at the top of the world, both economically and in terms of military strength. With these abundant resources and power in the hands of the United States, they still remain as the leader \"in a single superpower world\". However, the emergence of new giant... |
why do helium-3 and deuterium in nuclear fusion produce 1 helium and an extra proton, instead of lithium which has 3 protons | It will form Lithium-5 initially, but Lithium-5 is exceptionally unstable with a half life on the order of 10^-24 seconds. All the lithium-5 that is formed quickly releases a proton and decays to stable Helium-4 | [
"The protons of hydrogen combine to helium only if they have enough velocity to overcome each other's mutual repulsion sufficiently to get within range of the strong nuclear attraction. This means that fusion only occurs within a very hot gas. Hydrogen hot enough for combining to helium requires an enormous pressur... |
why is russia divided into several oblasts, krai, and republics instead of just states or provinces, and what is the difference between a krai and oblast? | It's just the Russian equivalent of a State or Providence. They can be used interchangeably.
Many people do that realize this but many American states are legally called commonwealths. A commonwealth is no different than a state but the name was chosen to be used in place of state. For example Massachusetts is a Comm... | [
"Oblasts are a constituent political entity in a federal union under the Government of Russia with representation in the Federation Council, and serve as a first-level administrative division. Each oblast features a state government holding authority over a defined geographic territory, with a state legislature, th... |
What were some pre-modern weapons that were considered "too cruel" to use in combat? | Assassins weren't hugely popular between states. Likewise, spies were hung or shot without trial. Kidnap and ransom of one's family was frowned upon but people still did it. Scorched earth policies are horrendously cruel to their victims but that's never stopped Tilly (30 Years War), the English (Peninsular War) or the... | [
"Firearms factor heavily in Filgaia's mythology. Called \"ARMs\", these weapons represent the world's ever-growing warfare technology, and, unlike the first \"Wild Arms\", are not considered inherently dangerous. Similar technology is used to create other mechanical weaponry not common in normal Western fiction, in... |
Nearsightedness and window screens. Something that has made me wonder for years. | That's just focussing. You don't have to be near-sighted for that to occur. Your eyes need to adjust their focus for short and long distance vision. If I remember correctly, your eyes have two "modes," one corresponding to close things (I think within about 20-40 feet away), and one corresponding to things farther than... | [
"Everysight's first generation projection system was developed in 2004. This version was a small micro-HUD, which used a staged beam combiner integrated within a panel window device located in front of the user's eye. This allowed the user to view the surroundings while looking at real-time information, projected f... |
why is it easy to tear paper in half but not to pull it apart? | You've stumbled onto a key concept in engineering, which is the difference between [normal stress](_URL_1_) and [shear stress](_URL_0_).
In normal stress (tension or compression), you're pushing or pulling in line with the atomic bonds, like pushing/pulling on a spring. In shear stress, you're forcing lines of atomic... | [
"Tearing is the act of breaking apart a material by force, without the aid of a cutting tool. A tear in a piece of paper, fabric, or some other similar object may be the result of the intentional effort with one's bare hands, or be accidental. Unlike a cut, which is generally on a straight or patterned line control... |
Where does the material for different geological strata come from? | Yes and yes. Water, wind, and gravity erode rock into sediment which is carried to the sea (or lakes) where it is deposited. Sediment is always "trying" to reach sea level.
James Hutton, the father of modern geology, noticed this back in the mid-1700s and realized that without some form of regular uplift to countera... | [
"Geologists study rock strata and categorize them by the material of beds. Each distinct layer is typically assigned a name, usually based on a town, river, mountain, or region where the formation is exposed and available for study. For example, the Burgess Shale is a thick exposure of dark, occasionally fossilifer... |
Someone please explain to me why this happens. | There are two factors at play here: At low temperatures, metals become brittle and hence less able to resist fracture. At high temperatures, they become softer (closer to melting) and hence also weaker. There will be some optimal temperature that maximises the strength of each metal or alloy (the peak on the graph), bu... | [
"\"What Happened\" is not one book, but many. It is a candid and blackly funny account of her mood in the direct aftermath of losing to President Donald J. Trump. It is a post-mortem, in which she is both coroner and corpse. It is a feminist manifesto. It is a score-settling jubilee. It is a rant against James B. C... |
Is the beginning of bartering seen as the start of economics or is the starting of using coins? | I would recommend that you ask this on [/r/AskAnthropology](_URL_0_). They will better be able to help you. Historians only use available records to make a argument about how something occurred or why it occurred. Since agricultural societies predate written records, it is prehistoric (meaning that there are no written... | [
"The use of barter-like methods may date back to at least 100,000 years ago, though there is no evidence of a society or economy that relied primarily on barter. Instead, non-monetary societies operated largely along the principles of gift economy and debt. When barter did in fact occur, it was usually between eith... |
why aren't all dreams lucid? | Because the part of the brain that controls logic is pretty much off. If it was on all the time we would realize how odd it is to be flying or whatever. It's when we become aware of the bizarre that we stop and think, "I must be dreaming". | [
"A lucid dream is a dream during which the dreamer is aware that they are dreaming. During a lucid dream, the dreamer may gain some amount of control over the dream characters, narrative, and environment; however, this is not actually necessary for a dream to be described as lucid.\n",
"Though lucid dreaming can ... |
why do we have a saying for when someone sneezes, but not for when someone hiccups? | Hiccups have never been an indication of impending death, a sneeze has, though. There was a time when plagues and diseases were ravaging whole countries and killing millions. A sneeze was not only an indication of possible sickness but even death. God bless you really does go back that far. | [
"In certain parts of Eastern Asia, particularly in Chinese culture, Korean culture, Japanese culture and Vietnamese culture, a sneeze without an obvious cause was generally perceived as a sign that someone was talking about the sneezer at that very moment. This can be seen in the \"Book of Songs\" (a collection of ... |
what exactly is the difference between chilblains and frostnip? | Frostnip is a precursor to frostbite and is caused by ice crystals forming under the skin.
Chillblains are caused by a circulation problem in small capillaries due to cold but not necessarily freezing temperatures. | [
"Frostbite is a vampire novel written by Richelle Mead. It is the second novel in the #1 \"New York Times\" bestselling series, \"Vampire Academy\". \"Frostbite\" continues the story of the main character, Rose Hathaway including her bond with Princess Vasilisa \"Lissa\" Dragomir, her budding romance with her instr... |
how do the deaf understand techno? | Loud music, particularly bassy loud music creates waves in the air that can be felt, rumbles in the floor, etc. Raves also have lots of interesting lighting and people. They think it's fun and interesting. What greater "understanding" of techno do you think there is? | [
"In Orson Scott Card’s series (including \"Ender’s Game\"), the artificial intelligence can be spoken to while the protagonist wears a movement sensor in his jaw, enabling him to converse with the AI without making noise. He also wears an ear implant.\n",
"BULLET::::- Artificial Intelligence and intelligent machi... |
how skyscrapers are built | You dig a deep pit until you hit bedrock, form the substructure of the skyscraper using beams and build the structure of the rest of the skeleton. Generally they will have a single core for the building made of reinforced concrete with thick steel beams and girders.
From the core you will brace the building with more... | [
"One common feature of skyscrapers is having a steel framework that supports curtain walls. These curtain walls either bear on the framework below or are suspended from the framework above, rather than resting on load-bearing walls of conventional construction. Some early skyscrapers have a steel frame that enables... |
why can't other large companies set up their own internet service that is wifi based? | * That's not what their business is
* It's a MASSIVE investment for a comparatively small return
* Even if you are able to solve all the current problems with long-distance WiFi connections (Look at LTE. It's the best we've got right now and I still wouldn't trust it for all the internet usage I go through), it's sti... | [
"Due to competition laws, every DSL or cable Internet user has to pay separately to the infrastructure provider and to the Internet service provider (ISP). Infrastructure is provided by Bezeq (via dial-up and DSL) and Hot (cable Internet). All cellular companies (Pelephone, Partner, Cellcom and Mirs) provide wirele... |
what is the sputtering sound tractor trailers make when slowing down ? | Engine braking. No fuel comes into the cylinders and the engine acts as a compressor. What you hear is the sound of air in the exhaust. | [
"A teardrop trailer is an aerodynamically shaped semi-trailer with a curved-roof that differs in shape from the traditional rectangularly shaped trailer. The trailer is meant to be paired with a compatibly designed tractor unit leading to greater fuel efficiency of the tractor-trailer combination. As such, the \"te... |
When did it become popular to use acronyms in the English language? And why? | It might be worth cross-posting your question to r/linguistics. | [
"The widespread, frequent use of acronyms across the whole range of registers is a relatively new linguistic phenomenon in most languages, becoming increasingly evident since the mid-20th century. As literacy rates rose, and as advances in science and technology brought with them a constant stream of new (and somet... |
why were hops ultimately chosen as the go-to beer "seasoning," now used almost exclusively instead of spice sachets, etc.? | Hops act like a natural preservative of sorts. People started to notice that hopped beers lasted longer, so it became a vital ingredient. Just fyi, those seasoned beers you like most likely have hops, just like 99% of beers out there. If you dislike hops, but like flavorful beers, look for malty types or wheat beers... | [
"The use of hops in beer was written of as early as 822 by a Carolingian Abbot. Flavouring beer with hops was known at least since the 9th century, but was only gradually adopted because of difficulties in establishing the right proportions of ingredients. Before that, a mix of various herbs called gruit had been u... |
why does the nba have franchises in such odd locations, while mlb and nfl mostly cover the same cities? | It has to do with the history of the NBA vs the ABA. NBA formed first, putting teams in the cities you'd expect. ABA formed second and put teams in places without teams already (by definition, *not* the typical cities to have teams). When the two leagues merged in the 70's, some ABA teams remained, which is why there a... | [
"The only areas with at least two franchises in all four sports are New York and Los Angeles, which are the largest and second-largest cities and the two largest metropolitan areas in the United States. In New York, four of the metro area's nine major sports franchises play outside the city limits and three outside... |
why do game developers always seem to overdo it when it comes to balancing games? | with major changes, it pushes forward a new meta, new strategies, new ways to attack and defend. It the best weapon gets tweaked with just minor tweaks, people will most likely still use it in the same fashion, but if they nerf it to bits, suddenly people will actually have to go out and find new ways to do shit | [
"PC development is different. Game developers try to account for majority of configurations and hardware. However, the number of possible configurations of hardware and software inevitably leads to discovery of game-breaking circumstances that the programmers and testers didn't account for.\n",
"Balancing the gam... |
How much was known about radiation sickness before the United States dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. | US knowledge of bomb effects is somewhat out of my expertise, but tangentially related, so here goes. They knew radiation poisoning was a thing, and that it was deadly. Long term effects of non-lethal doses, like cancer and birth defects were largely unknown.
It's not like everyone who gets exposed to radiation auto... | [
"The medical effects of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima upon humans can be put into the four categories below, with the effects of larger thermonuclear weapons producing blast and thermal effects so large that there would be a negligible number of survivors close enough to the center of the blast who would experience ... |
why is syria potentially america's problem, and not the un's? | The UN is pretty powerless most of the time. In this case, Russia, a close ally of Syria, doesn't want the UN to intervene, and they have veto power.
The list of humanitarian crises where the UN couldn't intervene, or didn't until it was too late, is quite long. It usually comes down to power struggles and political... | [
"\"Foreign Policy\" journalist Thomas E. Ricks wrote in his blog on ForeignPolicy.com, that one of the additional reasons he saw for declining to intervene in Syria is that doing so against the will of the American people, as American Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power had recently advocated, is \"prof... |
starcraft and its culture | Starcraft is a real-time strategy game for the PC, originally released in the late 90s. It was created by Blizzard Entertainment, also known for the Warcraft and Diablo series. Starcraft II was released a couple years ago after a 10+ year hiatus. The game revolves around collecting and using resources to create an army... | [
"StarCraft is a military science fiction media franchise, created by Chris Metzen and James Phinney and owned by Blizzard Entertainment. The series, set in the beginning of the 26th century, centers on a galactic struggle for dominance among four species—the adaptable and mobile Terrans, the ever-evolving insectoid... |
Why doe the Universe have so much angular momentum? | I wouldn't say that the universe has angular momentum. But all the systems you mentioned started from very dispersed material gradually collecting in shallow gravity wells, which attract material around it (including material in other gravity wells). when two collections of material converge, the angular momentum of th... | [
"Conservation of angular momentum states that J for a closed system, or J for the whole universe, is conserved. However, L and S are \"not\" generally conserved. For example, the spin–orbit interaction allows angular momentum to transfer back and forth between L and S, with the total J remaining constant.\n",
"Le... |
What would happen to a human body if it was exposed to say 2000°C for just a 1000th of a second? | It would have to do with what kind of medium the temperature was being carried through. That makes a difference because it'll determine how much energy is transferred to the body. Air wouldn't transfer very much because the thin layer of air next to the skin would transfer a little heat, then act as a thermal insulator... | [
"Profound hypothermia (< 14 deg°C) usually isn't used clinically. It is a subject of research in animals and human clinical trials. As of 2012, the lowest body temperature ever survived by a human being was 9 °C (48°F) as part of a hypothermic circulatory arrest experiment to treat cancer in 1957. This temperature ... |
So, if a visible star went supernova (in our reference of its light reaching Earth), how fast would be see it explode? | There's a confusing typo in your question, but all visible stars are within our own galaxy and moving at velocities far less than the speed of light relative to earth. So we would see the supernova play out in approximately real time. This has happened in the past, and is the source of the word 'nova' in the context of... | [
"The distance is estimated to be around 6,000 parsecs and has a high luminosity of between and . It has a high radial velocity of . According to the studies of Jura \"et al\" (2001), the star may explode as a supernova in the next 100,000 years.\n",
"The first confirmed superluminous supernova connected to a gamm... |
What was the long-term aim of the alliance between Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan? Was it simply an alliance of convenience against Great Britain or was there some longer-term vision behind it? | The intent of the Alliance between Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan was to squeeze *Russia*, not Great Britain. Or rather "to squeeze the USSR".
But let's back up. First we should *very quickly* talk about how unlikely the alliance is, on the face of it. Relations between the two powers historically had been strained. ... | [
"But there was another western nation which did value the Japanese - Nazi Germany. Indeed, Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan wanted to form an alliance. A formal treaty of alliance was signed between Germany, Japan and Italy on 27 September 1940. Japan used the moment to move into northern Indo-China. This had been a... |
why can't hiv be treated with chemo therapy | I'm confused as to why you think it would be. The virus is still there. It would just attack the new T-cells. Chemotherapy specifically targets rapidly growing cells. Viruses are not cells and wouldn't be effected by a chemotherapy treatment. | [
"Many other drugs including common antibiotics may cause bone marrow suppression. Unlike chemotherapy the effects may not be due to direct destruction of stem cells but the results may be equally serious. The treatment may mirror that of chemotherapy-induced myelosuppression or may be to change to an alternate drug... |
what is the difference between a wet market and a farmer's market? | A wet market is just slang for a market that sells perishable goods. When people say wet market they usually mean markets that sell live animals for food and either slaughter it for you or sell it to you live. Most farmer's markets just sell produce and meat. | [
"A farmers' market is a physical retail marketplace intended to sell foods directly by farmers to consumers. Farmers' markets may be indoors or outdoors and typically consist of booths, tables or stands where farmers sell their homegrown produce, live animals and plants, and sometimes prepared foods and beverages. ... |
How does light from the sun shining from behind and over my CRT monitor, but not shining on to the screen, produce glare? | It's not producing glare, your eyes are adjusting to the bright light by reducing your sensitivity to light (like walking outside). Because your sensitivity is decreased, you can't see your relatively dim screen anymore. | [
"In conventional black and white (B&W) televisions, the CRT screen has a uniform coating of phosphor that emits white light when struck by electrons. The beam from an electron gun at the back of the tube is deflected (most commonly) by the varying fields from magnetic coils so it may be directed at any point on the... |
why do some stalkers want to kill their idols that they love so much? | There is probably a better explanation of it but it's sometimes something along the lines of "If I can't have you then no one can" | [
"Stalker and its hate are strengthened by the deaths of goblinoids, so it always seeks to inspire war, conflict, and death. Stalker has no worshippers, but many fear it. It has no priests or shamans. Goblinoids usually do not bother to attempt to propitiate Stalker, as it seldom does any good. The only exception th... |
what is the reason that some electrical devices with huge voltage ratings don't kill you, and what are the electrical properties that cause this? | For an honest to God five year old, I'd say voltage is like the mass of the electricity moving, amps are the speed. If a semi truck bumps into you, you'll be fine, whereas a bullet that has orders of magnitudes less mass but plenty of speed will cause you trouble. I'm no electromagician though. | [
"Exceeding the power rating of a device by more than the margin of safety set by the manufacturer usually does damage to the device by causing its operating temperature to exceed safe levels. In semiconductors, irreparable damage can occur very quickly. Exceeding the power rating of most devices for a very short pe... |
why is everyone making such a big deal about hillary clinton's emails? | Edit: it was pointed out to me that at the time of Clinton's tenure in office, using a government issued email wasn't legally required, only strongly suggested.
Government employees, especially high ranking ones, are required to use official government email addresses and servers for their work related issues.
There... | [
"Publish June 30, 2008: Hillary Clinton's campaign had it all: near-death moments, hard-won triumphs, dysfunctional relationships—and a staff consumed with infighting over how to sell their candidate. It was a battle that revealed why she came so close to victory, as well as why she didn’t make it.\n",
"During th... |
When sneaking or trying to do something quiet, why do I unconsciously tighten my jaw muscles? | Sneaking around is tense stuff. Do you tighten them in other tense situations? If so that may be a correlation. | [
"BULLET::::- Limited range of mandibular movement, which may cause difficulty eating or even talking. There may be locking of the jaw, or stiffness in the jaw muscles and the joints, especially present upon waking. There may also be incoordination, asymmetry or deviation of mandibular movement.\n",
"The tensor ty... |
how could mj have been so broke if he owned the rights to all the beatles songs? | Ridiculous purchases and not paying his debts. There's always going to be more and more ridiculous things to spend money on. | [
"Lennon began writing \"Strawberry Fields Forever\" in Almería, Spain, during the filming of Richard Lester's \"How I Won the War\" in September–October 1966. The Beatles had just retired from touring after one of the most difficult periods of the band's career, which included the \"more popular than Jesus\" contro... |
why doesn't the radio work when you start the engine? | The starter motor sucks up a great deal of current as it starts the engine. There isn't really any electricity to spare for the radio while the starter motor is drawing current. | [
"The \"spark\" radio transmitters during Collins time could not transmit sound (audio) as modern AM and FM radio transmitters do. This was because the discharge of a spark cannot produce continuous waves, but only damped waves. Instead they transmitted information by telegraphy, the operator turned the transmitter ... |
why do cars take longer to start when in cold weather vs warm weather? | Gasoline burns when it's a mixture of gasoline vapor and air. When it's cold it is harder to evaporate it | [
"A cold start is an attempt to start a vehicle's engine when it is cold, relative to its normal operating temperature, often due to normal cold weather. A cold start situation is commonplace, as weather conditions in most climates will naturally be at a lower temperature than the typical operating temperature of an... |
what is the "halting problem" in relation to something being turing complete? | Halting problem means that
It's impossible to make a program that sees if another program runs indefinitely
For example this pseudo code would run forever
10 X = 0
20 PRINT "Hello world"
30 X = X + 1
40 IF X > 0 GO TO LINE 20
X will never get 0 or under and so the code will run forever. This is ea... | [
"In 1936, Alan Turing proved that the halting problem—the question of whether or not a Turing machine halts on a given program—is undecidable, in the second sense of the term. This result was later generalized by Rice's theorem.\n",
"The halting problem for Turing-complete computational models states that the dec... |
Do all stars have sunspots? What would a sunspot on VY Canis Majoris be like? | It's a very interesting question, actually. Very large stars have a very different [stellar structure](_URL_2_) than our Sun. Our Sun is [convective](_URL_3_) at the surface. A giant star would be [radiative](_URL_1_) at its surface.
The convection of the Sun is one of the major driving forces behind the appearance... | [
"The commonly observed starspots are in general much larger than those on the Sun: up to about 30% of the stellar surface may be covered, corresponding to starspots 100 times larger than those on the Sun.\n",
"Both stars in the system are red dwarfs. The primary component of the system is only 23.7% as massive as... |
Is the Karrick process the best way to use coal? | Offhand, there is the [Fischer-Tropsch](_URL_0_) process which converts a feedstock such as coal or biomass to synthetic fuel/oil and other byproducts. Some researchers at my university (Colorado School of Mines) are working on reactors to run a F-T process on combined coal-biomass feedstocks. | [
"The Karrick process was invented by Lewis Cass Karrick in the 1920s. Although Karrick did not invent coal LTC as such, he perfected the existing technologies resulting the Karrick process. The retort used for the Karrick process based on the Nevada–Texas–Utah Retort, used for the shale oil extraction.\n",
"The K... |
stack (programming) | A stack is a data structure. Like a stack of plates, the last plate you put on the stack is the first one you take off. This is known as LIFO, last in first out. A stack is useful if you are working on a task A and get interrupted by task B. You put A on the stack and start to work on B. When you're done with B, y... | [
"A stack-oriented programming language is one that relies on a stack machine model for passing parameters. Several programming languages fit this description, notably Forth, RPL, PostScript, BibTeX style design language and many assembly languages (on a much lower level).\n",
"A stack is a standard C++ container ... |
how does anything live on islands where the max elevation is less than about 20 feet? | The same waves typically peter out as the sea floor elevation rises towards the island.
While it does happen, the waves produced out at sea dont carry the same force as a tidal wave, as only the surface water is raised (vs a tsunami in which the entire depth of the ocean is raised) | [
"There are a number of \"high islands\" which rise no more than a few feet above sea level, often classified as \"islets or rocks\", while some \"low islands\", such as Makatea, Nauru, Niue, Henderson and Banaba, as uplifted coral islands, rise several hundred feet above sea level.\n",
"On Earth, the elevations c... |
Has any country ever managed to wage a two or more front war and win? | I'll go so far as to say that Israel's 1948, 1967 and 1973 wars are the quintessential examples of how to win a multi-front war. In all three, they leveraged superior air power to great effect and emphasized concentration of force, defeating enemies in turn. I suggest Michael Oren's *Six Days of War* and Abraham Rabino... | [
"The two countries have made contradictory claims of combat losses during the war and few neutral sources have verified the claims of either country. The PAF claimed it shot down 104 IAF planes and lost 19 of its own, while the IAF claimed it shot down 73 PAF planes and lost 59. According to the independent sources... |
why does turning the music down in the car help you better find a parking spot | Your brain finds it easier to process sounds so prioritises them.
When you turn the music down it's got less work to do | [
"When the car is parked, the car's steering wheel and instruments sit in an \"idle\" position on the centre console to allow the driver easy entry. The steering wheel and instruments assume their correct positions when the driver presses the start button and the headrest rises from the seat once the driver is seate... |
the (arbitrary) difference between species and subspecies? | > how is it decided that the variation within a species has become large enough to classify an animal as a different species altogether?
When someone feels it is, but one of the criteria they're supposed to use is that the two groups can't (or don't) regularly interbreed. This usually is a good signal that substanti... | [
"A subspecies is a taxonomic rank below species – the only recognized rank in the zoological code, and one of three main ranks below species in the botanical code. When geographically separate populations of a species exhibit recognizable phenotypic differences, biologists may identify these as separate subspecies;... |
why does it look like time goes one second backwards when you look at an analog watch? | The short version is your eyes are moving faster than your brain can deal with it, and you're experiencing lag. While your eyes are trying to focus on the new target (the watch), your brain isn't able to interpret the images for a short time. Once it "catches up," the brain realizes it has a gap in its memory, so it ta... | [
"A common occurrence of this illusion is known as the stopped-clock illusion, where the second hand of an analog clock appears to stay still for longer than normal when looking at it for the first time.\n",
"An analog watch has hands to show the time. One for the hours is short and thick. One for the minutes is l... |
why is the top of the wine cork smaller, thus easier to put its end first back into the bottle | Not an expert but I'd assume expansion of the cork through absorption of wine/liquid on the bottom end due to its contact and proximity to the liquid within the bottle. This environment also ensures the bottle stays sealed after bottling.
(Edited for spelling) | [
"Although cork was historically chosen to seal wine bottle for other reasons (including its inert nature, impermeability, flexibility, sealing ability, and resilience), cork's poisson's ratio of zero provides another advantage. As the cork is inserted into the bottle, the upper part which is not yet inserted does n... |
light years - light travel distance vs proper distance | That's not why the universe is 14 billion years old. That would make it seem like Earth is the center of the universe. The observable universe is 46 billion light years in any direction, 93 as the diameter. The reason we can see them is because everything used to be much closer together, but everything is moving away f... | [
"The light travel distance of the light that we observe from UDFy-38135539 (HUF.YD3) is more than 4 billion parsecs (13.1 billion light years), and it has a luminosity distance of 86.9 billion parsecs (about 283 billion light years). There are a number of different distance measures in cosmology, and both \"light t... |
Considering the Higgs field permeates all of space how is it related to a vacuum? | In field theory, we work with it being given that there are space and time. The *vacuum* is the field configuration that minimizes the energy. It turns out that it takes less energy to have a non-zero value of the Higgs field throughout space than it would to have no Higgs field. Thus the vacuum in the Standard Model... | [
"Unlike other known fields such as the electromagnetic field, the Higgs field is scalar and has a non-zero constant value in vacuum. The existence of the Higgs field became the last unverified part of the Standard Model of particle physics, and for several decades was considered \"the central problem in particle ph... |
veterinarians: How similar are the treatments for different animals? | Former Vet-tech here.
Most of the veterinarians I worked with only felt comfortable with dogs and cats. We had one Vet at the office who would do some exotics (mostly stuff like hamsters, but he would see the occasional reptile), but for the most part there are veterinarians who specialize in those kind of animals. As... | [
"Most veterinary physicians work in clinical settings, treating animals directly. These veterinarians may be involved in a general practice, treating animals of all types; they may be specialized in a specific group of animals such as companion animals, livestock, zoo animals or equines; or may specialize in a narr... |
how does a company actually go about planting 20 million trees? | You plant whips; these are 12 - 36 month olds bare stems with root buds usually about a foot long. You can literally just stick them in the ground. This is regularly done on quite large scales and there are suppliers who grow and prep these. My father in law and his brother planted ~ 50 acres of their farm with mixe... | [
"WeWOOD promises to plant one tree for each watch sold. For this purpose, WeWOOD works with American Forests to plant trees in North America and Trees for the Future to plant trees in other countries. By the end of 2013, the company had planted 250,000 trees. Of these 50,000 trees were planted in Ghana, 7,500 in Te... |
How powerful are satellite signals? | GPS satellites are supposed to be about the power of a car headlamp - imagine a 50 watt bulb illuminating a hemisphere of the globe! The signal is incredibly weak, about 400 times weaker than background noise. In fact the signal is so weak that you can't pick up the GPS signal unless you know what the signal is.
The s... | [
"All satellites broadcast at the same two frequencies, 1.57542 GHz (L1 signal) and 1.2276 GHz (L2 signal). The satellite network uses a CDMA spread-spectrum technique where the low-bitrate message data is encoded with a high-rate pseudo-random (PRN) sequence that is different for each satellite. The receiver must b... |
Driving in rural VT yesterday I noticed spiral icicles hanging from a few power lines along the road. One section had about 5 of them almost touching the ground (~20 ft.). Any idea what would cause this? More details inside. | They're hanging from power lines, which will oscillate in the wind. That could cause it. I'll bet if you knew the freezing rate, wind speed and direction, and powerline length and thickness you could graph the size of the coils of ice as a periodic function, or at least get pretty close. | [
"By 2009, the ground and first floor windows and doors had been boarded up, and green netting attached across each end to prevent falling debris causing injury to passers-by. Demolition of the adjacent spiral car park began in April 2010, but due to complications with an electrical substation was halted soon after,... |
what "run as administrator" does to a software? | Software runs on top of the operating system. Normally the software should not be altering the operating system that it's running on. Back in the 90s and early 2000s there were LOTS of problems with windows and viruses, mainly because Windows allowed any software to alter itself to whatever needs the software had. V... | [
"A system administrator, or sysadmin, is a person who is responsible for the upkeep, configuration, and reliable operation of computer systems; especially multi-user computers, such as servers. The system administrator seeks to ensure that the uptime, performance, resources, and security of the computers they manag... |
since we have invented the combined shampoo and conditioner in a bottle, why are we still persisting with one bottle for shampoo and one bottle for conditioner? | The good stuff isn’t in a combination bottle. Also the ratio of shampoo to conditioner a person needs depends on that person. | [
"The first commercially produced dry shampoo was sold in the 1940s, but the product existed before that. By the early 1940s, the Stephanie Brooke Company of Jersey City, New Jersey had developed Minipoo, the first brand of commercially produced dry shampoo powder. Minipoo was marketed to women and children for use ... |
It is common knowledge that Honeybees are disappearing in alarming numbers. But it is also known that all insects are disappearing in alarming numbers. Is there a connection? Are bees disappearing at the same rate as other insects? | Honeybees are not disappearing in alarming numbers. Its a common misconception that they are. [USDA numbers for the past 3 years](_URL_1_).
Number of Honey bee colonies in the U.S.
|Year|January|April|July|Oct|
:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|
|2018|2.63 million|2.69 milion|N/A|N/A|
|2017|2.64 million|2.69 million|2.99 million|... | [
"Vanishing of the Bees is a 2009 documentary film by Hive Mentality Films & Hipfuel Films, directed by George Langworthy and Maryam Henein and released in the United Kingdom in October 2009. The story is centered on the sudden disappearance of honey bees from beehives around the world, caused by the poorly understo... |
I'm a shipowner in Britain during WW1 and my ships are be requisitioned by the Navy. How am I compensated for my loss? | Ships requistioned by the Royal Navy from British citizens during WWI fell into two main categories: liners requisitioned for use as Armed Merchant Cruisers (AMCs) and trawlers, yachts and drifters hired for patrol duties. The former category included several ships that had been built using money loaned or invested by ... | [
"The Admiralty paid £53,676 compensation to the B&CDR for the loss of the ship but the railway found that a new ship would cost £64,000. Given the changed economic circumstances after the First World War the company decided not to replace her.\n",
"In 1942, shipowners who had lost ships (either as a casualty of w... |
how can doctors a see a babies organs like their kidneys with ultrasound? | Sound waves go through soft substances and reflect of surfaces where the density changes. Baby kidneys are a different density than the rest of the baby-inards (not a medical term). That change in density causes a reflection that the ultrasound processor can use to produce a display image. | [
"Ultrasound is routinely used in urology to determine, for example, the amount of fluid retained in a patient's bladder. In a pelvic sonogram, organs of the pelvic region are imaged. This includes the uterus and ovaries or urinary bladder. Males are sometimes given a pelvic sonogram to check on the health of their ... |
Are extremophiles a relatively recent evolution, or does it appear that life on earth quickly spread to all available environments? | There's good evidence that extremophile organisms are among the most ancient on the planet. Many archaeal species are often found in extreme environments (high pressure, high salinity, high heat, no sunlight etc...) and the archaea are likely to have branched from the last common ancestor of life very early indeed.
Ho... | [
"Extremophiles have adapted to live in some of the most extreme environments on Earth. This includes hypersaline lakes, arid regions, deep sea, acidic sites, cold and dry polar regions and permafrost. The existence of extremophiles has led to the speculation that microorganisms could survive the harsh conditions of... |
No offence or racism intended, but is it possible that some African Americans are better at physical activities because they were selectively bred during slavery? | Africa has more genetic variety than any other continent, and also a very high level of environmental variety.
And not all physical activities are alike. Kenyans and Eritreans perform better than anyone else in the world at distance running; both countries are in Northeast Africa, and have towns at very high altitude... | [
"In the United States, due to the influence and laws making slavery a racial caste, and later practices of hypodescent, white colonists and settlers tended to classify persons of mixed African and Native American ancestry as black, regardless of how they identified themselves, or sometimes as Black Indians. But man... |
how is it that being able to pass a top secret security clearance test isn't part of the process of running for president? | > I'm genuinely curious as to how this isn't part of the process. Is there any test at all?
This is a simple necessity of a democratic style of governance. If you create a process by which an entity must approve of a candidate before they can be elected, then that entity actually is in charge of who gets the positio... | [
"Under normal conditions, the President of the United States is required by Title to \"ensure that the congressional intelligence committees are kept fully and currently informed of the intelligence activities of the United States, including any significant anticipated intelligence activity as required by [the] tit... |
what's happening when i'm overthinking about something? |
So, your question is a little bit broad, but the easiest way to explain it is, overthinking something is usually brought on by a stressful or potentially stressful situation.
With that being said, you can overthink any topic if you tried, and here is why.
Though "overthinking" is a slang term, we don't use that wo... | [
"\"I'm Thinking of Ending Things\" is narrated by Jake's unnamed girlfriend. They met in a pub during a college trivia night, and Jake gave her his phone number. Several weeks later he takes her to meet his parents on their remote farm. She has been considering \"ending things\", but has not told him yet. It is a l... |
why are we more sensitive to background noises when we have less sleep? wouldn't our senses be more dull without sleep causing us to hear less background noise? | With better sleep, our brains are able to function more efficiently, allowing us to focus on tasks better and not be distracted as easily, even if we can sense things more easily as well. | [
"Noise can make sleeping difficult on occasions, whether from snoring, talking and social activities in the lounge, people staying up to read with the light on, someone either returning late from bars, or leaving early, or the proximity of so many people. To mitigate this, some wear earplugs or eye-covering sleepin... |
Does it get significantly harder to heat water another degree as temps go up? | To add to what /u/DCarrier said, in practice it gets harder, because the hotter the pot of water gets, the more heat it [radiates](_URL_0_), and the stronger the convection currents around the pot (causing heat lost to the air). Furthermore, if you use an electric kettle, the resistivity of the resistive heating elemen... | [
"A short period of hot weather can increase temperatures in the surface layer of water, as the warmer water tends to stay near the surface and be further heated by the air. In this case, the top warmer layer may have more oxygen than the lower, cooler layers because it has constant access to atmospheric oxygen. If ... |
Why was the USSR peace offer to Finland during the Winter War so generous, all things considered?? | As soon as the war began to turn sour for their German co-belligerents in 1943, Finland began to seek a graceful exit from the conflict. Secret negotiations were conducted by the Finnish government with the Allies in 1943 and 1944, but no conclusive agreements were ever reached. Meanwhile, the USSR began a bombing camp... | [
"The Soviet Union argued that it was the only rightful government for all of Finland that was capable of ending the Winter War and restoring peace; however, before the end of the war, the Soviets gave up this interpretation to make peace with the preexisting government of Finland, which was still recognized by the ... |
why are some people's voices much louder or softer than others? | Vocal chords. Diaphragm. Breath control. Projecting.
And that sprinkle of "residual self-image." | [
"Bone conduction is one reason why a person's voice sounds different to them when it is recorded and played back. Because the skull conducts lower frequencies better than air, people perceive their own voices to be lower and fuller than others do, and a recording of one's own voice frequently sounds higher than one... |
How do fruits and vegetables stay "fresh" in their peels after they're picked? | Peel is like a nutrition storage for the fruit and it provides nutrients to the fruit itself but once it's depleted it rots.peel also prevent fruit do come in contact with different gases in atmosphere which are harmful for it. | [
"After the fruits are picked and washed, the juice is extracted by one of two automated methods. In the first method, two metal cups with sharp metal tubes on the bottom cup come together, removing the peel and forcing the flesh of the fruit through the metal tube. The juice of the fruit, then escapes through small... |
What kind of polarization does light have before it goes through a polarizing filter? | It depends on the source of the light. For the most part, something like sunlight is unpolarized, meaning that it is comprised of a random assortment of all different polarizations. A polarizing filter blocks all the components of the light source that are not propagating in the right direction.
However, there can b... | [
"A Faraday filter, magneto-optical filter, FADOF or EFADOF (Excited Faraday Dispersive Optical Filter) works by rotating the polarization of the light passing through the vapor cell. This rotation occurs near its atomic absorption lines by the Faraday effect and anomalous dispersion. Only light at the resonant freq... |
why does wine age in the bottle, beer goes skunky in the bottle, and whiskey doesn't change in the bottle? | Beer goes skunky because there are certain flavor compounds from hops that break down when exposed to UV light, from sunlight or even in-store fluorescent lights.
Even some beers age in the bottle. Sierra Nevada beers are often bottled early, and finish aging as they make their way from the brewery to distributor and... | [
"Bottle variation that increases over time typically comes from the packaging. Exposure to heat or light can cause a wine to mature more quickly or even make it taste \"cooked\". Bottles aged in the chilly cellars of Sweden's alcohol monopoly are famous for tasting younger than the same wine stored at a more typica... |
if digestion takes 6-8 hours how do people experience diarhea symptoms in hours? | Diarrhea happens precisely because digestion *hasn't* happened yet. Yes, normally it takes hours for food to make its way through your stomach and intestines to slowly absorb water and nutrients, but diarrhea is bypassing all that. Your gut has a ton of nerves, and when it senses something is amiss for any reason, it t... | [
"Gastrointestinal symptoms can appear 24 hours after ingestion of affected molluscs. They may include vomiting, nausea, diarrhea, abdominal cramps, and haemorrhagic gastritis. In more severe cases, neurological symptoms can take several hours or up to 3 days to develop. These include headache, dizziness, disorienta... |
why do some wwii-era propeller planes have a cable from near the cockpit to the tail/wings? | its the antenna
if im right older radio used lower frequencies which worked well with super long antennas | [
"Propeller aircraft use one or more propellers (airscrews) to create thrust in a forward direction. The propeller is usually mounted in front of the power source in \"tractor configuration\" but can be mounted behind in \"pusher configuration\". Variations of propeller layout include \"contra-rotating propellers\" ... |
what exactly are complex numbers, how can someone just invent new numbers and expect other people to accept them? | People didn't think negative numbers were a thing either until someone invented/discovered them and convinced people. Imaginary numbers really aren't that different. If you look at some very basic equation you can see the need for both the arise.
* x + 1 = 2
* x + 1 = 0
* x^2 = -1
The first one is easy. The second... | [
"In simple terms, a method can be devised so that every formula or statement that can be formulated in the system gets a unique number, called its Gödel number, in such a way that it is possible to mechanically convert back and forth between formulas and Gödel numbers. The numbers involved might be very long indeed... |
why does intermittent fasting lead to "longer living" and healthier aging? | It is my understanding that it causes the body to go into more of a survival mode, rid itself of dead cells that were kind of hanging around not doing any good, and jump start creation of new stem cells. But the mechanism of action for this is still being studied and is not fully understood at this time. | [
"A 2018 review of intermittent fasting in obese people showed that reducing calorie intake one to six days per week over at least 12 weeks was effective for reducing body weight on an average of ; the results were not different from a simple calorie restricted diet, and the clinical trials reviewed were run mostly ... |
marijuana. | "Marijuana" is a special word for the common hemp plant, or cannabis — which is a plant that has been used for thousands of years for a lot of different things; such as rope, fabric, paper, oil, and drugs. The word "marijuana" or "marihuana" used to be a rare slang expression, but government people in the early 20th ce... | [
"Marijuana, also known as cannabis, is a euphoriant and hallucinogenic drug prepared from the dried leaves of the strong-smelling plant \"Cannabis sativa\". Marijuana is a commonly used drug, legal in many states.\n",
"Marijuana is a preparation of the Cannabis plant intended for use as a recreational drug and as... |
why does the word "smelly" carry a negative connotation? | "Smelly", quite obviously, comes from the verb "to smell".
"Smell" is an interesting word. The first recorded use of the word is from the late 12th century, when it appeared in Middle English (as smillen, smellen or smyllen). Some sources say there's no written record of it having been used in Old English before that,... | [
"In the United Kingdom, \"odour\" refers to scents in general; but in the United States, and for many non-native English speakers around the world, \"odor\" generally has a negative connotation as a synonym for \"stink\". An unpleasant odor can also be described as \"reeking\" or called a \"malodor\", \"stench\", \... |
Were there any major changes in the relations between England and its allies during and soon after the process of Oliver Cromwell becoming Lord Protector? | I answered a similar question a few weeks ago which you might find relevant:
[_URL_0_](_URL_1_) | [
"As Lord Protector, Cromwell was aware of the Jewish community's involvement in the economics of the Netherlands, now England's leading commercial rival. It was this—allied to Cromwell's tolerance of the right to private worship of those who fell outside Puritanism—that led to his encouraging Jews to return to Engl... |
why are our heads propelled forwards rather than backwards when sneezing? | A sneeze is the autonomic equivalent of squeezing a near empty ketchup bottle. When you're trying to get ketchup out of the bottle, you rapidly thrust it at the food and bring it to a sharp stop while simultaneously squeezing the bottle. A sneeze is like that. The head is brought forward and then rapidly stopped whi... | [
"There is much debate about the true cause and mechanism of the sneezing fits brought about by the photic sneeze reflex. Sneezing occurs in response to irritation in the nasal cavity, which results in an afferent nerve fiber signal propagating through the ophthalmic and maxillary branches of the trigeminal nerve to... |
mitochondrion. | Mitochondria are responsible for aerobic respiration, which is an extremely efficient process for getting useable chemical energy (in the form of ATP) from the breakdown of glucose.
ATP is a useable form of chemical energy that many processes in your body require to carry out your functions, including your muscles. No... | [
" Mitochondria are organelles found in all but one eukaryote. Mitochondria provide energy to the eukaryote cell by converting sugars into ATP. They have two surrounding membranes, each a phospholipid bi-layer; the inner of which is folded into invaginations called cristae where aerobic respiration takes place.\n",
... |
why is a sawed off shotgun more deadly than a regular one? | It's not any more deadly. The main issue is that they're much easier to conceal. | [
"A sawed-off shotgun (or \"sawn-off\") refers to a shotgun whose barrel has been shortened, leaving it more maneuverable, easier to use at short range and more readily concealed. Many countries establish a legal minimum barrel length that precludes easy concealment (this length is in the U.S. and 24 inches in the U... |
(or slightly older) - what is the relationship between the us dollar and middle eastern oil? | I can answer 1 and 3. I don't know anything about 2.
1) Other countries have to buy US dollars in order to buy oil. Depending on how favorable the exchange rate is for their home currency that day this could cost them more or less. The US doesn't have to go through the extra step of converting our currency before buyi... | [
" Perhaps one of the most significant moments in American economic involvement in the Middle East came in 1933 with Ibn Saud, founder and king of the new Saudi Arabian kingdom awarded concessions to the American company, Standard Oil of California. While the British had been the main western power involved in the M... |
Travel experience at light speed? | It works like this: Time for you will always move at the same rate. One second per second. Always.
The only time you will ever hear different is if you talk to a friend that is moving relative to you. That conversation would go like this:
friend: Hey. I'm glad we have these magic cellphones that le... | [
"In 2018, the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency made public a 2010 report that surveyed multiple different approaches to faster-than-light travel. One physicist who reviewed the report explained, that, while the theories were legitimate, they did not represent \"something that's going to connect with engineering any... |
if the illuminati is such a huge conspiracy and such a huge group, why do we have so little information about them? | They don't actually exist.
You can't find concrete information about a phantom. | [
"Many conspiracy theories propose that world events are being controlled and manipulated by a secret society calling itself the Illuminati. Conspiracy theorists have claimed that many notable people were or are members of the Illuminati. Presidents of the United States are a common target for such claims.\n",
"Th... |
how does walmart know what i've bought in store? | If she used a credit card or a debit card your name is on those accounts and they know who you are. So if she bought with cash this is creepy, but all other payment methods has a link to her account in some manner. | [
"BULLET::::- Scanning Products: Allows user to scan items at home or in store to find similar products in nearby stores or online and compare prices. This can also be done with a name search. The application has partnerships with over 40,000 retailers, including Barnes & Noble, Best Buy, Nordstrom, Sears, Target, a... |
How would an army attack a castle in medieval Japan? | This gets into generalization, but I don't think the overall concept of a seige would vary much because of how a castle was designed. Specific tactics might vary a lot based on specific layouts, but the overall concepts are pretty much the same.
Castles work (or "worked) because it is difficult to take them from a... | [
"A typical military confrontation in medieval times was for one side to lay siege to an opponent's castle. When properly defended, they had the choice whether to assault the castle directly or to starve the people out by blocking food deliveries, or to employ war machines specifically designed to destroy or circumv... |
why does asphalt on the highway sound different on different sections of road? | Higher air voids in the asphalt mix make it quieter to ride on as the air is not forced through the tire thread. This is a function of the different aggregate sizes and % of those sizes in the mix
In contrast, concrete is pretty much solid and is very loud | [
"Most roads are cambered (crowned), that is, made so that they have rounded surfaces, to reduce standing water and ice, primarily to prevent frost damage but also increasing traction in poor weather. Some sections of road are now surfaced with porous bitumen to enhance drainage; this is particularly done on bends. ... |
why are we still using inflatable tires on our vehicles? | As compared to what alternative?
Air filled tires are a relatively simple invention that lacks a more complex but better alternative. | [
"Companies started to use tire manipulators mostly because of safety and effectiveness. In the past, many people were injured, or even killed by heavy tires exploding or falling. It was also time consuming to change tires. Mainly for these two reasons companies realised there is a need for special equipment that ca... |
Does the pull strength of a magnet lowers when it is pulling multiple objects versus one heavy object? | If I understand correctly- you're basically asking if the magnetic attraction is a fixed amount that needs to be spread out to everything near it, or if it pulls them all seperately and equally.
If that's a misinterpretation, sorry and lemme know how to fix it!!
If that's your question, then it's the latter. Regardle... | [
"The attraction from a fixed strength magnet decreases with increased distance, and increases at closer distances. This is unstable. For a stable system, the opposite is needed, variations from a stable position should push it back to the target position.\n",
"As gravitational pull increases, the magnet's acceler... |
what is the purpose of those "safe/supervised injection sites" and how are they better than just trying to stop drug use? | I've used these services when I had an active addiction. It makes all the difference in the world in terms of helping you eventually quit.
Think of it as having periods of life-threatening lack of caring about yourself.
Using IV drugs, especially heroin, is like having the ability to feel bliss and oblivion at the p... | [
"The provision of supervised injection sites, also referred to as safe injection sites, operates under the premise of harm reduction by providing the injection drug user with a clean space and clean materials such as needles, sterile water, alcohol swabs, and other items used for safe injection.\n",
"Supervised i... |
if you gave everyone in your country one billion dollars what would happen to the economy? | In the spirit of ELI5, let's pretend that the country we're talking about has 100 people in it.
Let's say that, right now, the total amount of currency that this country has is one million dollars.
Divided by one hundred people, the average amount of wealth is $10,000 per person.
If you suddenly printed one hundred ... | [
"In 2010 national governments spent an average of $2,376 per person, while the average for the world's 20 largest economies (in terms of GDP) was $16,110 per person. Norway and Sweden expended the most at $40,908 and $26,760 per capita respectively. The federal government of the United States spent $11,041 per pers... |
how is water from a well potable? | the way water flows down into ground reserves acts as a natural purification process. most often well water is naturally clean enough, but modern day wells is treated as a precaution, but prior to this, people regularly drank well water untreated. | [
"A water well is a mechanism for bringing groundwater to the surface by drilling or digging and bringing it up to the surface with a pump or by hand using buckets or similar devices. The first historical instance of water wells was in the 52nd century BC in modern-day Austria. Today, wells are used all over the wor... |
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