question stringlengths 3 301 | answer stringlengths 9 26.1k | context list |
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Should Americans really be worried about radiation coming across the Pacific Ocean from Japan? | No. In fact, the [WHO found](_URL_0_) that even in Fukushima itself, the radiation levels were too low to affect fetal development. Risks of cancer went up slightly overall (4-7% above baseline, with 70% over baseline for thyroid cancer, keeping in mind thyroid cancer is one of the least dangerous kinds of cancer). Nearby, the levels were much lower. They found no discernible risks to any country outside Japan.
Most of the "news" reports of radiation in the US comes from a totally fake image of a radiation plume ominously arcing from Japan to the US. Like I say, it was a fake, but many news sites took it seriously because, to be frank, most people have absolutely no idea how radiation works or even what it is, and are therefore far more terrified of it than they should be, and therefore it makes for fantastically sensationalistic news. | [
"In September 2011, IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano said the Japanese nuclear disaster \"caused deep public anxiety throughout the world and damaged confidence in nuclear power\". Many countries have advised their nationals to leave Tokyo, citing the risk associated with the nuclear plants' ongoing accident. Non... |
how does discord make money if they have no advertisements? | They currently do not make money. They are planning to implement some premium or paid features in the future but as of now this really isn’t happening and they are just trying to spend money to grow their platform.
This is fairly common business practice in the software/tech world. | [
"A new type of service that has also become popular is sites that allow consumers to pay what they wish or pay by advertising on social networking sites. Sites like NoiseTrade.com and comeandlive.com are examples of sites that sponsor artists and allow users to download music in exchange for advertising for the art... |
- what are vpns and what kind of magic makes them unblock restricted websites and stuff? | At the point where your college network connects to the public Internet, there is a device that inspects the traffic in and out looking for "forbidden" sites.
If you pretend that your traffic to the Internet is being written on paper, it acts like a guard that reads all of the papers going in and out, and throws away any papers that it doesn't like. Unencrypted traffic (http) is like writing the stuff on paper and handing it to the guard. He can read everything on the page and decide if he likes it or not. Encrypted traffic (https) is like putting the paper inside of an envelope and putting only the address of where you want to go on the outside. The guard cannot see what is *inside* of the envelope, but he can see who you are sending it to and can decide of he wants to send it there or not.
With me so far?
Now, imagine that you had a friend on the outside who you could mail the papers to (inside of an envelope), and he will then mail them on to where you want them to go, and then mail you back the answers. The guard can see only that you are sending an envelope to your friend, and will let them through *even though your friend will be forwarding them to "forbidden" places.*
The VPN is an encrypted tunnel that acts like the envelope between you and your friend. The traffic destined for the "forbidden" sites is hidden inside of a tunnel to the VPN endpoint, and not to the eventual destination. | [
"VPN blocking is a technique used to block the encrypted protocol tunneling communications methods used by virtual private network (VPN) systems. Often used by large organizations such as national governments or corporations, it can act as a tool for computer security or Internet censorship by preventing the use of... |
how do rocket engines not crush themselves under their own thrust? | They are actually just more robust than they look. Careful engineering and design went into making them be able to withstand the forces they generate, a complex and technically difficult process called "rocket science". | [
"BULLET::::- Maximum engine thrust — The maximum thrust the rocket engine can produce affects several aspects of the gravity turn procedure. Firstly, before the pitch over maneuver the vehicle must be capable of not only overcoming the force of gravity but accelerating upwards. The more acceleration the vehicle has... |
Growing Universe? | The universe is not growing, it is expanding.
New matter is not being created. The distance between existing matter is just increasing at large scales. As far as we can tell, this is just a property of space. | [
"The theory of the expansion of the universe is a mark in the 21st Century's science of astrophysics. The vastness (13.4 Billion Light Years) of space is getting bigger; starting with The Big Bang through to today. Fazıl Say's music also seeks an enlargement of space, reflecting the mathematics of rhythm and harmon... |
why do galaxies form in clusters rather than spread out from one another? | Because after the Big Bang matter clumped in certain areas of higher density due to gravity. These clumps would become Galaxy Clusters. They in turn would clump up even more and the resulting smaller clumps would become galaxies. Note that Galaxy Clusters are actually themselves parts of bigger structures called Superclusters which follow the same principle. | [
"Clusters of galaxies consist of hundreds to thousands of galaxies bound together by gravity. Clusters of galaxies are often dominated by a single giant elliptical galaxy, known as the brightest cluster galaxy, which, over time, tidally destroys its satellite galaxies and adds their mass to its own.\n",
"Galaxy g... |
how is it possible to see a star that might’ve exploded thousands of years ago? | Light takes time to reach us.
A star that is a million light years away may have exploded a thousand years ago, but the light carrying that information hasn't reached us yet. | [
"In 185 CE, Chinese astronomers recorded the appearance of a bright star in the sky, and observed that it took about eight months to fade from the sky. It was observed to sparkle like a star and did not move across the heavens like a comet. These observations are consistent with the appearance of a supernova, and t... |
how does the military determine when someone gets deployed overseas? | Individual soldiers aren't deployed. Units are deployed.
When you're in the military you work and train on a particular base and in a particular unit.
Higher-ups determine what units will deploy based on a number of factors.
*Usually* a brigade will deploy. This is several thousand people, broken down into multiple battalions, which are broken down into companies.
That brigade will then spend several months getting ready to deploy, and will relive a currenly-deployed battalion, taking over thier area of operations.
This is a *very* basic, barebones example.
(Source- Veteran, former Army infantry) | [
"Upon arrival in the theater of operations, all personnel check in with the US Army Personnel Support Battalion located at the Army Life Support Area (ALSA), Ali Al Salem, Kuwait. From there, each company then heads to its base of operations, either at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, the Kuwait Naval Base, Camp Patriot, Ali ... |
why does it seem that people with mental disabilities are happier than those who don't? | It some instances, maybe they're not and simply cannot communicate. But for the rest, probably because they will never have the same worries and responsibilities. Many will be cared for their whole lives. Perhaps they dont have the capacity for that level of worry/anxiety. | [
"The tendency to adapt, and therefore return to an earlier level of happiness, is illustrated by studies showing lottery winners are no happier in the years after they've won. Other studies have shown paraplegics are nearly as happy as control groups that are not paralyzed, after equally few years. Daniel Kahneman ... |
Do we actually LEARN to walk, or do we ACQUIRE THE ABILITY to walk as our brains continue to develop? | Humans are born with a walking reflex that serves as the basis for walking behavior. Applying pressure to the bottom of the foot will cause the same leg to extend and the other leg to swing forward. Like many reflexes, this is based on nerves traveling from peripheral sensory receptors through the spinal column and back to muscle effectors. | [
"Consider the problem all infants face learning to walk. They spontaneously recognize that walking is more efficient than crawling--an instrumental valuation of a desirable end. They learn to walk by repeatedly moving and balancing, judging the efficiency with which these means achieve their instrumental goal. When... |
Given the evolution of language over time, if I were to step into a time machine and come out 10,000 years in the future, what are the odds that I could understand what anyone is saying? | Extremely unlikely. As far as I know, there are no languages being spoken today which were spoken 10,000 years ago.
However, things are different now. We now have recordings of how people speak. This is a very recent development, comparatively speaking - we've been able to record speech for less than 150 years, compared to millennia of writing. So, it's possible that language will change less, or more slowly, because we have these common recordings to keep language from changing too much.
On the other hand, the BBC's Received Pronunciation was the gold standard of English pronunciation for decades, but it is now losing ground to Estuary English. So, maybe recorded language does *not* "freeze" the vernacular.
You might also want to talk to the folks over in [r/Linguistics](_URL_0_) for a more in-depth answer.
| [
"The critical period hypothesis states that the first few years of life is the crucial time in which an individual can acquire a first language if presented with adequate stimuli. If language input does not occur until after this time, the individual will never achieve a full command of language—especially grammati... |
During the German occupation of France did soldiers pay businesses money for goods and services or was it just expected that they would get them for free? | Generally speaking they paid money for goods and services, though to be perfectly clear they paid with French money collected via taxes in France. As a general policy of Nazi Germany occupation costs were transferred to the occupied country.
This and other information about the Nazis' methods of economic exploitation can be found in Götz Aly's "Volksstaat", though I'm not sure whether there is an English translation.
| [
"A soldier would have to pay for food and forage beyond the supplied rations – and for any other extras such as beer – out of his wage. A loaf of bread usually cost around 5d (), while a dragoon soldier, earning daily, would have paid 6d for a ration of forage consisting of () of hay and one peck () of oats. From ... |
can people have smaller than average organs and what does it mean? | If you made it this long with little to no problems, I wouldn't worry about it.
Best thing to do is talk to your doctor about it. She would probably feel bad if she knew what she said made you uncomfortable and she didn't know/therefore couldn't explain things for you so you could feel better.
I'm almost 36 and was 7 weeks early at 4lb 5oz. I have a medically documented legit thick skull. Lol. A host of other problems too, but family genetics are to blame.
| [
"These areas were said to be proportional to a person's propensities. The importance of an organ was derived from relative size compared to other organs. It was believed that the cranial skull—like a glove on the hand—accommodates to the different sizes of these areas of the brain, so that a person's capacity for a... |
why are rooms with higher ceilings cooler than those with lower ones? | Hot air rises. A tall room can hold more hot air before it gets to the level where you can feel it. | [
"The rooms are well-sized, and have relatively high ceilings for cooling purposes, as when warm air can rise higher, the lower part of a room tends to be cooler. The lack of hallways allows for efficient cross-ventilation in every room. \n",
"The Lower Houses each have four floors, but are much narrower with each... |
[NSFW] What is the earliest reference we have to non-vaginal intercourse? | There must be something in the air. Just two days ago, /u/tjdraws asked a similar question and we got loads of answers from all over the world at _URL_0_
Of course, there's always room for more information...
| [
"A legal precedent in Israel classifying sex by deception as rape was set by the Supreme Court in a 2008 conviction of a man who posed as a government official and persuaded women to have sex with him by promising them state benefits. Another man, Eran Ben-Avraham, was convicted of fraud after having told a woman h... |
Why did Jell-o get so popular in the 1970s, especially as a savory dish? | The first thing to note is that Jell-O is a brand name product originating in the United States in 1845 (a [short history of Jell-O](_URL_4_)). It was created and marketed specifically as a gelatin dessert, available in various fruit flavors. However in the mid 20th century the Jell-O product became fused with another culinary tradition of savory gelatin dishes known as aspics.
Savory gelatin dishes are first mentioned in medieval European cookbooks (an example: [Gelye de chare](_URL_1_)). They appear to have begun as peasant fare, as a natural way of preserving cold meat as well as obtaining valuable protein from less edible scraps. However more refined means of preparing and presenting them lead to the creation of aspics (here's a [quick aspic history](_URL_5_)).
Aspics were far removed from their peasant origins, featuring expensive ingredients and spices formed into elaborate molds and appearing on the tables of the highest classes. The techniques were further refined and popularized as a food of the elite by famed French chefs [Marie-Antoine Carême, and Auguste Escoffier](_URL_3_). In fact, [Escoffier once wrote](_URL_2_):
> Aspic jellies are to cold cooking what consommes and stock are to hot. In fact if anything the former are perhaps more important, for a cold entree - however perfect it may be in itself - is nothing without its accompanying aspic or jellie.
However the production of aspics is the work of professional chefs. Or at least it is traditionally. It requires creating and clarifying a collagen rich stock followed by a meticulous and long process of layering, setting, and repeating. Despite Julia Child's valiant attempt to popularize this technique for the American home cook (her groundbreaking cookbook [Mastering the Art of French Cooking](_URL_0_) contains an entire section on aspics with such entrees as oefs en gelée - or poached eggs in aspic - and Poulet en gelée a l'estragon - or chicken tarragon in aspic), aspics largely remained a food of the rich.
However boxed gelatins (such as Jell-O and Knox) coupled with a refrigerator provided a quick shortcut, resulting in a gelatin mold that looked, if not tasted, like the elaborate aspics of the elite. By the mid 1950's 80 percent of American homes owned refrigerators. This was the era when the jello salad trend really took off, and (finally getting back to your original question) yes it was extremely popular throughout the 1950's and 1960's (though its popularity declined rapidly in the 70's and 80's). The Jell-O brand itself was caught up in the trend, producing new flavors (which have long since been discontinued) like "mixed vegetable," and "celery." | [
"Throughout the 1960s through the 1980s, Jell-O's sales steadily decreased. Many Jell-O dishes, such as desserts and Jell-O salads, became special occasion foods rather than everyday items. Marketers blamed this decline on decreasing family sizes, a \"fast-paced\" lifestyle and women's increasing employment. By 198... |
If sea level is rising, why are the beaches I know still the same size and shape? | Couple of things.
1) For Northern Europe, depends a lot on where you are. Throughout Northern Europe, a lot of the crust is still [responding isostatically to the removal of large ice sheets](_URL_2_), so in some portions of Northern Europe (especially Scandinavia, northern parts of Scotland/Northern Ireland, etc) coastlines are going up at [rates (image from previous page, scale is mm/yr)](_URL_1_) equivalent to or greater than sea level rise (which leads to an apparent sea level fall in those places even though globally sea level is going up). Also of relevance (and not just for Northern Europe) as discussed on that page, the actual rate of sea level rise will also vary by location based on local gravity etc, so as you alluded to, there are reasons why some places may experience more rapid and apparent sea level rise than others.
2) [Beaches are pretty dynamic things](_URL_0_), so it can be hard to perceive longer term change without detailed measurements tied to fixed datums. On a year to year basis (and even over a 20 year time period), you might expect to see more perceivable change on a [seasonal basis](_URL_4_) than you might be able to notice in terms of changes at rates of a few mm/yr.
3) Sort of in the same theme as the previous point, there are certainly places we can go and see dramatic apparent drownings of coastlines, but it can be hard to tease out what percentage of changes are due to which processes. Extremely low-lying areas are (understandably) the most sensitive to sea level changes, but they are also dramatically impacted by large storms, subsidence, etc. A good example are barrier islands. Take the Chandeleur islands off the coast of Louisiana, [they have a well documented history of progressive degradation](_URL_3_). Various things have contributed to this including a general pattern of subsidence (decrease of surface elevations) along the gulf coast, individual hurricane events, changes in sediment supplies, and sea level rise. Isolating these causes can be problematic (easy to see that a large hurricane fundamentally changes an area of the coast, but would the same storm have caused as much coastal change if sea levels were lower, etc). Here I'm also ignoring other anthropogenic effects that can be EXTREMELY significant for coastal morphology, e.g. erecting jetties, dredging, removal or addition of vegetation, etc, all of which can obscure other signals. | [
"The sandy stretches of the beach are only exposed at low tide. It is a Pleistocene raised beach where the surrounding geography shows evidence that the sea level was once thirty feet higher than it is today.\n",
"Shorelines lie at altitudes of above sea level; the variation is probably caused by slumping, measur... |
Guy Fawkes name is bandied about a lot in the plot of blowing up the UK Parliament in the early 1600s, however, who were the true masterminds of this plot and why is Guy Fawkes alone synonymous with this plot to the extent that there is a Guy Fawkes day as well? | The true leaders of the plot were Robert Catesby (1572-1605) a Warwickshire gentleman, and Thomas Percy (1560-1605) a member of the Percy family of northern nobles. Both of them were killed at the siege of Holbeche House in Staffordshire in a shootout with the Sheriff of Worcester's troops on 8th November 1605. Guy Fawkes got the notoriety because he was the first to be caught, he was the explosives expert who was also supposed to light the fuses, and because he was still alive at the time of the trial. The image of someone lurking with sinister intent in a vault beneath their feet also caught the public imagination.
The most accessible modern study of the plot and its organisation is probably Lady Antonia Fraser's The Gunpowder Plot (1996) | [
"Guy Fawkes is the character most associated with the plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament, however the instigator was Jesuit priest Robert Parsons from Nether Stowey, a short distance from Bridgwater. Parsons and his colleagues Edmund Campion and Ralph Emerson were Catholics, who wanted to put an end to the Pr... |
When was the first 'reboot' of an old film? Have there been trends of rebooting films in the past or is it mostly a modern phenomenon? | While ‘rebooting’ is a new term, remaking classic stories in a new medium is hardly new.
For example look at the history of Les Miserable in American medium. Though only published in novel 1862 by 1897, ‘Victor Hugo et les principaux personnages des misérables’, a short film by the Lumière brothers had come out.
Now we can say that this is a normal adaptation of a popular novel into a movie, just like Hunger Games and Bird Box.
But then in 1905 and 1909 four more short films came out, and again in 1913 a theater adaptation called ‘The Bishops Candlesticks’ - which only takes part of the novel, much like ‘The Great Comet’ did with War and Peace.
This story also goes beyond the theater and film, and into comics and radio (personally I recommend the 1937 Orson Wells production).
Then, for the next 100 years, every 3-5 years another adaptation comes out, culminating in this years BBC production - which is already getting grief from fans who primarily know the 1980 musical.
Some of these are obviously homages to the book- but there are others who are simply taking the shortened plot points from earlier films, which in my opinion- would place them firmly in the reboot category.
| [
"A re-versioned film is also possible. An example of a re-versioned film is Woody Allen's \"What's Up, Tiger Lily?\", in which the director wrote new English dialogue for the Japanese film \"International Secret Police: Key of Keys\" for comic effect. A director's cut, extended cut or special edition of an existing... |
Who's the earliest person to have been written about in history? | /u/stonedeye answered this one a while back in [this thread](_URL_0_) | [
"Early Bronze Age: 3rd millennium BC (approximate dates shown). The earliest written literature dates from about 2600 BC (classical Sumerian). The earliest literary author known by name is Enheduanna, a Sumerian priestess and public figure dating to ca. the 24th century BC. \n",
"The earliest known written record... |
If a photon experiences no time, could all photons we observe from our reference frame really just be the same photon in every possible position in the universe? | Nope. It's pretty trivial to show that a photon propagating along a geodesic trajectory cannot deviate from that trajectory. If it did, then there would exist some inertial reference frame in which the photon, during deviation, was not propagating at *c,* which is prohibited by the principle of covariance. | [
"Any explanation of what goes on in a specific individual observation of one photon has to take into account the whole experimental apparatus of the complete quantum state consisting of both photons, and it can only make sense after all information concerning complementary variables has been recorded. Our results d... |
how us govt. enforces that all children go to school (public, private, charter, etc) | The US government doesn't really get involved; it's a state level thing, and each state of the US does it differently. | [
"Compulsory education laws refer to \"legislative mandates that school-aged children [shall] attend public, nonpublic, or homeschools until reaching specified ages.\" In most cases, local school attendance officers enforce compulsory education laws, and all jurisdictions hold parents/legal guardians responsible to ... |
[Human Body] Are 'fast twitch' muscle fibers anatomically larger in size than 'slow twitch' ones? | I actually just graduated with a degree in Kinesiology, so it's good to see it be somewhat useful. The shortest answer is yes, FT muscle cells that have been exercised will be larger than slow twitch. It's the whole idea that human muscle cells grow solely by hypertrophy (growing larger) than hyperplasia (growing in number). However most research shows that mid-high weight (roughly 75%-90% of your 1 rep max) shows the best increases in muscle size over lifting only very heavy weights. ST fibers will grow in size, but not as significantly. If you had someone lifting a 5 lb. weight 50-100 times, then the biggest physiological change will be in number of mitochondria within that cell. | [
"Skeletal muscle is composed of long cylindrical cells called muscle fibers. There are two types of muscle fibers, slow twitch or muscle contraction (type I) and fast twitch (type II). Slow twitch fibers are more efficient in using oxygen to generate energy, while fast twitch fibers are less efficient. However, fas... |
Do the upper most limits of the atmosphere display surface tension? | I'd go as far as saying that surface tension has a completely null effect on stone skipping. It's primarily effected by the rotational speed of the stone, I believe.
The atmosphere doesn't have a surface tension. The atmosphere can be modelled (very approximately using Boltzmann statistics) to exist in a uniform gravitational field and as such it's pressure tends to zero has height is increased (to infinity). There is no defined boundary where the atmosphere 'ends'.
Additionally, surface tension relies on intermolecular forces. Gases are commonly modelled to be absent of intermolecular forces but if we were to consider including any we'd find that gravitational forces have a greater effect of the density distribution of the gas; the Boltzmann distribution model of the atmosphere will dominate and a defined boundary would still not exist.
I don't know the answer but I'd join you in believing that objects skip off of the atmosphere because of atmospheric lift. | [
"The Table works by manipulating atmospheric pressure to provide workpiece force against a surface. This increases static friction against forces of a cutter of various types used today. An atmospheric pressure, up to 29 inHg allows clamping force of approx 14 PSI at sea level.\n",
"Equation (9) is important beca... |
Poison Ivy, Oak, Sumac Immunity? Is it possible? | The reaction to poison ivy, oak, and sumac, is an allergic one. Just like other things, some people are allergic and some aren't. And just like other allergies, you can become sensitive over time, or you can become less sensitive over time. You might want to check out this [pubmed health](_URL_1_) article. [Wikipedia](_URL_0_) also has an article that seems to do a good job. If you've got any follow up questions, please come back and ask them! | [
"Poison oak is a native ground-cover in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The plants are most obvious during the part of the year when the leaves change color toward the red spectrum. Most of the years, the plants are only recognized by the shape of their lobed-leaves, making them more hazardous to the unaware.\n",
"BULL... |
How was Caesar's "Gallic War" created and distributed? | There are really a few questions here, some of which have no definite answer and others of which only have partial answers. In the first place, how were books published in the Roman world? In the second, how were they distributed? And finally, how was the *de bello Gallico* composed and prepared for publication?
The first thing that should be made clear is that the mass distribution of books was a laborious, time-consuming process. Books were copied by hand, and though the Romans in particular often had a quasi-industrial system for the creation of copies (Atticus had a private army of slaves that just copied any texts he got his hands on) the limitations of human copying cannot be exceeded. Although it seems that books were in fact rather affordable (there's very little evidence, but both at Athens and at Rome we get reports of books costing not much more than a day's wage) they were still luxury commodities, restricted to the literate population (in even the most generous estimates no more than 30-40% of the Roman world, which is quite staggeringly high for antiquity but rather unimpressive now) and requiring leisure time to be read and space to be kept. As a result, commonly texts were not "published" at all, in that they were never distributed for sale to the public at large. Instead, many texts existed as more or less personal copies, distributed by the author to friends and anyone who asked. Tacitus tells us that Caesar's and Brutus' poems were published in this way, *et in bibliothecas rettulerunt*, "and they gave them to collections." Which is to say that they did not offer them for sale but deposited them in libraries, probably those of their friends (as Rome did not yet have its own library). Tacitus has a low opinion of their poems, but notes that unlike Cicero they had the good sense not to distribute them widely--Cicero's poem about his own consulship was one of the most lampooned poems of antiquity. From there individuals might publish a friend's works of their own accord. Likewise a sort of system of private copying is attested. Manuscripts could be relatively rare, and it was often easier and more economical to have someone lend you a manuscript and get a slave to copy it than to buy or to order a copy.
In the event that a writer had prepared a manuscript for publication (how he did so we'll get to, since it's more difficult) he sent it off for copying, either self-publishing it or publishing it through a publisher. Our information for publishers is very poor. We know they existed, as we know that book shops existed (Martial mentions book shops in the Argiletum near the forum). But we have very little information about how they worked. Were they generally single individuals (and the massive households they supported), or were they companies? Did book shops often make their own copies? And what about selling/copying without permission? A text that was copied for private use from a manuscript borrowed from somebody was one thing, but it was quite another to sell such copies or publish under another author's name. There were no copyright laws in antiquity, and we have plenty of evidence of unauthorized editions (or forgeries not actually composed by the author) being published even within the lifetime of the writers who had written them. We really don't know. We *do* know that Atticus was the publisher *par excellence* of the ancient world. He published Cicero's works (among others), enlisting an army of scribes and proofreaders in their own expansive workshops. First, the process of deciding on publication. Cicero mainly published speeches and philosophical works during his lifetime: of his letters (just under 900 in total) probably none were published in his lifetime, although in 44 Cicero was preparing a collection of seventy letters to be published (was it?). The philosophical works were published by Atticus with Cicero's knowledge, while Cicero largely appears to have self-published his speeches--the letters were mostly (or wholly?) published only after Cicero's death. The letters to Atticus himself (Atticus prudently included none of his replies in the collection) may have been published as late as the first century AD. In any case, the process of the speeches/philosophical works and letters were rather different. In the first case, the texts were prepared documents, edited and finished by Cicero himself, and eventually handed over the copyists to replicate *en masse*. The letters, on the other hand, had to be collected, sorted, cataloged, edited, etc. We know from *Att.* 16.5 that the collection Cicero was preparing in 44 was to be sent to Atticus for publication but that it had been prepared by his freedman secretary Tiro, who kept copies of all Cicero's correspondence--after Cicero's death he and Atticus appear to have worked together to put together all Cicero's letters. The letters to Atticus are a special case, in that they appear to have been compiled by Atticus personally from the copies he himself had received from Cicero's messengers. In the case of scattered works like epistolary (in fact Cicero's letters are the only genuine, "non-literary" epistolary known to have survived, but that's another problem) or perhaps even poetic collections this work of sorting and collecting the manuscript was a major project.
The actual act of copying is, unfortunately, quite vague. We have lots of attestations of its occurrence, but we don't really know how it was done. Atticus had at least two groups of slaves in his publication houses, scribes and proofreaders, who were highly trained. His slaves worked in teams, who broke up the work to produce more efficiently and rapidly, which allowed Atticus to produce on what must have been a proto-industrial scale. How they did that we don't know. Did they sit in silence scribbling away? Were there supervisors keeping watch over the individual scribes making up a particular project? Did one workshop house only a single text, or multiple? How did the scribes all see the original, if they were copying different parts of it at the same time? There's a lot of recent evidence pointing towards the common use of dictation in mass copying. The evidence is hardly conclusive, and the argument still leaves a lot to be desired, but at the very least it seems decently likely that often proofreaders essentially worked by dictation. Manuscripts had to be collated after they were copied, which is to say it had to be ensured that they were all the same. From what little we can tell it seems likely that often a supervisor read out the original (or a good copy) to the proofreaders, who corrected their own texts when they differed from the exemplar. But it also seems that publication of manuscripts replicated by copying or dictation existed at simultaneously. So it's very hard to say. From here the publisher began distribution of the book, either by himself or through a private bookseller--the mechanism for this is very poorly understood.
**CONT**
1. Incidentally, 3.5 is also one of the places from which we know that private distribution of books was commonplace. Pliny mentions that he'll be happy to provide his supposed addressee (Baebius Macer) with copies of Pliny the Elder's works, of which he provides a complete list, which reads very much like an advertisement. | [
"The military campaigns of Julius Caesar constituted both the Gallic War (58 BC-51 BC) and Caesar's civil war (50 BC-45 BC) in 59 BC, which had been highly controversial. The Gallic War mainly took place in what is now France. In 55 and 54 BC, he invaded Britain, although he made little headway. The Gallic War ende... |
how do windows/glass reflect light if it's sole purpose is to let light through? | This happens because although windows are designed to let light through, they are not perfect. Glass lets through the vast majority of light, but always reflects some of it back.
So why don't we always see a reflection?
Well, the percentage of light reflected back is very tiny, and the percentage of light let through is very very big. So if there's an equal amount of light on both sides of the glass, then the amount let through "drowns out" the light that's reflected back.
The time when you will see your reflection in a window is when you are on the lighter side of the window, and the other side of the window is much darker. This is because, although the percentage of light getting through the window is high, the total amount of light coming from the dark side to the light side is low because there's so little light on the dark side to start with. On the other hand, the amount of light reflected back from the light side, although only a small percentage of the light available, might be as bright or brighter than the light coming through from the dark side. Because of this, your reflection is as bright as the image from outside, and you are able to see it. | [
"In the more complicated scenario of multiple reflections, say with light travelling through a window, light is reflected both when going from air to glass and at the other side of the window when going from glass back to air. The size of the loss is the same in both cases. Light also may bounce from one surface to... |
How far back in history would a current high school graduate have to go to be considered a leading expert in the various scientific fields, based on today's typical high school curriculum? | This is a great question. I can only really talk about one aspect, because it's the only area I know in enough depth to provide a decent answer. I'm going to focus on atomic theory (all things are made of atoms)
There's two ways to approach this. The simplest is to look at the history of atomic theory and see at what point it aligns with what is taught at highschool. So we could consider the discovery of the neutron in 1932 by Chadwick or the discovery of fission by Meitner as the turning point for atomic theory.
I think this is the wrong way to approach the question though. In order to be a leading expert it's not sufficient to simply propose a new idea; convincing other experts is much more important. This is the reason why Dalton is considered the father of atomic theory: he first produced convincing evidence for the existence of atoms, whereas the atomists of Greece were philosophically motivated.
Now we need to ask the question: what proof of atomic theory would an average highschooler be able to produce that would convince the experts of the day, using just the analytical techniques that existed at the time? This is a much harder question to answer, for two reasons. The first is that the history of science is usually glossed over, and so many students are simply unaware of how some of the widely accepted theories of today actually started. The second is the science learned at high school is highly simplistic, and often disguises the months or years of painstaking work that went into key experiments.
In order to actually answer the question, I'd disagree that a typical highschool graduate could ever convince the experts of the day of the validity of atomic theory. An exceptional student, who was aware of Einstein's work on Brownian motion, might have a bit more luck, particularly in the first half of the 19th century, but even then it would surprise me. | [
"Advanced degrees were not a criterion for professorships at most colleges. This began to change in the mid-19th century, as thousands of the more ambitious scholars at major schools went to Germany for one to three years to obtain a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in the sciences or the humanities. Graduate schools slo... |
how are sounds in video games and movies made from complete scratch? | Many of them will be pre-recorded and just saved into a pack that can be dragged and dropped in. The rest will be Foley sound which is just recording something that sounds like the action in a sound proof room. Off the top of my head the only one I can think of was snapping a piece of celery for a bone breaking. They're normally layered with many other sounds to create the best sound for the film | [
"With a love of arcade video games such as \"Space Invaders\" and the early \"Donkey Kong\" series, he said video games were the only place where he could find the kind of sound creation that he was looking for. He gained some experience in composing and arranging pieces, using the piano, and a computer by programm... |
Thinking about the umbilical cord, at what point is it the mother's DNA and at what point is it the baby's DNA? Is there a point where they're mixed? | The umbilical cord is entirely the baby’s tissue. But the placenta is the interface between the fetal bloodstream and the mother’s is the closest the two come to mixing. But they never actually do. During a healthy pregnancy and birth, a mother and her baby’s blood would never mix.
Edit: Placenta is half mother and half fetus. | [
"In placental mammals, the umbilical cord (also called the navel string, birth cord or funiculus umbilicalis) is a conduit between the developing embryo or fetus and the placenta. During prenatal development, the umbilical cord is physiologically and genetically part of the fetus and (in humans) normally contains t... |
What is the best way to learn about the American Civil War for a non-american? | I'm afraid my advice is rather conventional. If you are really wanting to get a proper understanding of the war, or of any aspect of history, you won't find it in movies, websites, video games, or documentaries. You have to read. Find accessible, introductory-level scholarly works, read them, then look at the references and sources they used. Read those that seem interesting. In this age of Amazon and Google books, you can generally preview anything that catches your interest. Gradually you will head off in more and more specialized directions.
If you're wanting specific recommendations, PM me with what you're interested in. For general introductory purposes, I will say that James McPherson's *Battle Cry of Freedom* remains the best option. | [
"James M. McPherson has helped millions of Americans better understand the meaning and legacy of the American Civil War. By establishing the highest standards for scholarship and public education about the Civil War and by providing leadership in the movement to protect the nation's battlefields, he has made an exc... |
in 2014, drunk driving absolutely dwarfed the statistics for terrorism (accounting for american blood spilled.) if was able to find these statistics on the internet within seconds, then why do we still have people believing that terrorism is the highest priority on american soil? | The answer, interestingly, is in your original question:
> If was able to find these statistics on the internet within seconds
Most people don't go looking. They react to information which is actively presented to them, and we don't put every auto accident on the news. People have a tendency to view salient issues as more likely, regardless of the actual statistics. If you put every terrorist attack on the television but no car crashes, people will assume that terrorism is a greater threat. | [
"The NHTSA estimates that about 18,000 people died in 2006 from \"alcohol-related\" collisions, representing 40% of total traffic deaths in the US. Over the decade 2001-2010, this rate showed only a 3% variation, and no trend.\n",
"A 2002 study found 41% of people fatally injured in traffic accidents were in alco... |
When did the word "mad" start to mean angry/upset rather than crazy in the US? | This is sense 6b in the Oxford English Dictionary under "mad" (adj.):
> Angry, irate, cross. Also, in weakened sense: annoyed, exasperated (with †against, at, with, etc.). Now colloq. (chiefly N. Amer.) and Brit. regional.
The earliest citation for this sense is from 1400, and there are citations from texts written in each century thereafter. This one from William James is interesting:
> W. James Varieties Relig. Experience xi. 264 "He can't ‘get mad’ at any of his alternatives; and the career of a man beset by such an all-round amiability is hopeless."
The quotation marks with "get mad" suggest that James perceived the phrase as colloquial (though not necessarily the adjective by itself in this sense).
In sum, the adjective "mad" has always had "angry" as a possible sense. The OED citations for this sense do seem to shift away from British writings toward American in the 20th century, but that isn't evidence that this sense is no longer current in British English. | [
"\"Mad\" is often credited with filling a vital gap in political satire from the 1950s to 1970s, when Cold War paranoia and a general culture of censorship prevailed in the United States, especially in literature for teens. Activist Tom Hayden said, \"My own radical journey began with \"Mad Magazine\".\" The rise o... |
what makes it so difficult to cure paralysis? | Nerves do not regenerate the way other cells do. Nerves when cut quickly close themselves off to the matrix outside of the cell, and can grow back a little bit, but we don't see nerves re-fusing together frequently. If we are able to manipulate the severed nerves to join together and the functionality stays the same we can cure part of paralysis.
Other ways paralysis can occur is muscle death. Muscle death is at this point irreversible as well. | [
"Analysis paralysis is when the fear of either making an error, or foregoing a superior solution, outweighs the realistic expectation or potential value of success in a decision made in a timely manner. This imbalance results in suppressed decisionmaking in an unconscious effort to preserve existing options. An ove... |
how far do the atoms in a rubber band stretch (separate) in relation to each other compared to the atoms in, say, a steel bar when you pull on it? | Rubber is actually something called a polymer which is a long chain of segments called monomers. These long chains are like a big pot of spaghetti. This is what gives rubber (and many other polymers) their ability to stretch and bend. The atomic radius of the atoms in rubber isnt really increasing its actually the polymer chains sliding over eachother much like when you take a scoop out of a pot of spaghetti.
In a steel bar all of the atoms are held together and are not allowed to slide past eachother like with polymers.
TL:DR The atoms aren't separating the molecules are and steel doesn't have molecules so it can't stretch the same way. | [
"There are actually several physical mechanisms that produce the elastic forces within the network chains as a rubber sample is stretched. Two of these arise from entropy changes and one is associated with the distortion of the molecular bond angles along the chain backbone. These three mechanisms are immediately a... |
what is the difference between a negative control and a positive control in experiments? | A negative control is a control sample you're expecting not to react
A positive control is a control sample that you are expecting to react
If you have to test a dozen samples for X and you have a test that turns blue in the presence of X then you would set it up with two control samples. One without X which should not turn blue(Negative control) and one with X which should turn blue(positive control).
If your negative control reacts that means that you have a lot of false positives and your test is no good. If your positive control doesn't react, that means you can't detect what you thought you could so you have lots of false negatives and your test is no good.
Some tests can only have a positive *or* negative control due to what they're testing, some can have both | [
"The simplest types of control are negative and positive controls, and both are found in many different types of experiments. These two controls, when both are successful, are usually sufficient to eliminate most potential confounding variables: it means that the experiment produces a negative result when a negativ... |
what is the business sense of walgreens, cvs and rite aid all being on the same street corner? | You and Timmy are both attracted to Wendy. Wendy is a cute-girl with blonde hair who ~~loves~~ really really likes a boy with money. In order to make money you and Timmy decide to sell Ice cream on the beach. When you first start selling, you start on one end of the beach and Timmy starts on the other end. You each receive 50% of the market because people go to whichever store is most convenient. (In this case its location. It can be a combination of things like previous history, etc). After a couple days you realize that you could gain more of a market share if you moved closed to Timmy. So you move your ice cream stand closer to the middle of the beach. Now you are gaining more market share than Timmy and making more money. Seeing that you moved closed to the middle, Timmy will move even closer to the middle of the beach in order to gain back the market share. Eventually, you will keep moving closer and closer until you are both right next to each other. Timmy will receive 50% of the guests on the left half of the beach. And you will receive the other 50% of the customers from the right half of the beach.
**EDIT::** To clear some things up:
Think of the beach as a field marked every ft 100 ft long. If you sell at 1/3 of the distance from the end, or the 33 ft line, then Timmy would move to the 34 ft line and gain customers on the beach from 34-100 ft and you would just gain customers from 1-33. Timmy would do this because this would gain him the most market share. Realizing this, you could move to the 35 ft line and steal the customers away from Timmy, but then Timmy would move to the 36 ft line and it would continue until you evened out at 50, or the middle.
This is how they teach you in economics. Thanks for all your comments :) | [
"In its 2009 business model, Walgreens are freestanding corner stores, with the entrance on the street with the most traffic flow, figuratively making it a \"corner drugstore\" similar to how many independent pharmacies evolved. Many stores have a drive-through pharmacy.\n",
"The River Oaks Shopping Center is a s... |
How does my TV know which pixel to light up? | Cathodes ray tubes use either precisely controlled magnets or electrostatic plates to deflect electrons shot out of a gun to precisely the right location on the screen, where each electron excites a phosphor on the screen, which then emits visible light.
Projection-based displays use optical lens to focus light to the right spot on a white screen.
Flat-panel screens (LCD, LED, plasma) have essentially a grid of pixels built into the screen and hardwired. Note that each pixel does not have its own wire. Rather, each row (or column) of pixels has its own wire, and a row's worth of information is sent in sequence through a single wire across the whole row, and then made to excite the right pixel through proper timing. But ignoring this complication, you can think of each pixel in a flat-panel screen as connected to its own wire supplying it information. | [
"The energy reaching the pixel comes from the whole solid angle by which the eyes see the pixel in the scene, not from its central sample. This yields the key notion of pixel footprint on surfaces or in the texture space, which is the back projection of the pixel on the scene.\n",
"If the computer controlling the... |
How are quantum mechanical wave function collapse and the second law of thermodynamics related? | They're not related in any fundamental sense. I mean, wavefunction collapse usually increases entropy, but so do lots of things. | [
"The cluster of phenomena described by the expression \"wave function collapse\" is a fundamental problem in the interpretation of quantum mechanics, and is known as the measurement problem. The problem is deflected by the Copenhagen Interpretation, which postulates that this is a special characteristic of the \"me... |
Why do we have separate systems for myelination of the central and peripheral nervous systems? | Their embryonic origin:
Oligodendrocytes myelinate the neurons in the central nervous system - They are both derivatives of the neural tube
Schwann cells myelinate the neurons in the peripheral nervous system - they are both derived from the neural crest | [
"In the peripheral nervous system (PNS) axons can be either myelinated or unmyelinated. Myelination refers to the insulation of an axon with concentric surrounding layers of lipid membrane (myelin) produced by Schwann cells. These layers are generally uniform and continuous, but due to imperfect nature of the proce... |
how did hitler manage to give so many people a job, building the army, the luftwaffe, the autobahn and many more at a time when the whole world suffered an economical crisis? | Well first off, the economy was already recovering before Hitler came to power. So he was given a better hand than just the flat out mega depression.
Second is that they basically did what the US did during the era but on a massive scale. Government controlled and centralized work force doing industrial and infrastructure developments.
Jobs like the autobahn, creating the aviation and car industry, building dams, and ext were basically newly invented jobs.
It was expensive busywork done for cheap. This generally results in a very short term bubble of prosperity.
Work long hours for low wage - > get a wage - > spend wage - > consumer market refreshed - > businesses can start hiring
And since the workers were so desperate the government could avoid cost by paying basically next to nothing. | [
"In August 1934, Hitler appointed \"Reichsbank\" President Hjalmar Schacht as Minister of Economics, and in the following year, as Plenipotentiary for War Economy in charge of preparing the economy for war. Reconstruction and rearmament were financed through Mefo bills, printing money, and seizing the assets of peo... |
does shaving with a razor on your legs dull the razor faster than using it on your face? | You have a lot more leg than face. Shaving your legs once is like shaving your face 10 times. | [
"Straight razors are also much easier to clean and can handle tougher shaving tasks, such as longer facial hair, than modern multi-blade razors, which tend to trap shaving debris between their tightly packed blades and are easily clogged, even with relatively short stubble.\n",
"Cuts from shaving can bleed for ab... |
Are there reported instances of PTSD or psychological trauma caused by violence amongst proto-agricultural Native American tribes or other proto-agricultural or hunter gatherer societies? | Speaking for the Cayuse: Symptoms of what is now called PTSD isn't present in accounts that concern warfare and warriors. War was considered more of a sport for the Cayuse than something to be dreaded (this isn't an uncommon view among other American Indian tribes). Warfare was such a big part of life that when American Missionaries came and asked the chieftains to cease the violence with their enemies, they flat out refused as it has brought them influence, wealth, and a way to keep young men out of trouble.
However, the Cayuse (among other tribes) waged war differently than the US, markedly so. The Cayuse fought for loot (horses, food, personal items), killing their enemies, personal glory, and slaves. This type of warfare is referred to as "Endemic Warfare". Endemic Warfare is on a much smaller scale than the warfare that many people are familiar with.
Source: The Cayuse Indians, the Imperial Tribesmen of Old Oregon | [
"The TRC also discovered that rural areas were disproportionately affected by violence, especially those of indigenous communities. Indigenous peoples have historically been the country's most marginalized population, and they became the groups most affected by violence. Although only 29% of the national population... |
How well developed were the roads circa 300 BC India - Mauryan Empire ? | No, the show you saw was wrong. I suspect it was the popular Indian TV series on Ashoka, which is a soap opera set in ancient times, not a historical work. Archaeological records show that Indian roads at the time were paved with stone, typically elevated for drainage.
The Mauryans were prolific road builders responsible for the construction of thousands of roads, but none had metaled surfaces, none were asphalted and pressed with steam rollers. We have descriptions of some of them from Megasthenes, who visited India as ambassador to Seleucus Nikator, and wrote an account in his book *Indika*. He mentions the forerunner of the Grand Trunk Road, which is one of India’s oldest and longest roads that still exists.
It extended more or less east-west from Afghanistan to the mouth of the Ganges, a distance of about 2,000 miles. There are no descriptions of the surface of the road, but there are many mentions of its other marvels – broad, tree-lined, distance markers placed every half-*kos* (about 1.25 miles) apart, wells dug at every *kos* for water, signposts where subsidiary roads branched off, hostelries and resting places at regular intervals for travelers. He says that typical trade roads were 32 feet wide, while Royal roads such as the Grand Trunk Road were 64 feet wide. Most of all he mentions the traffic on the road, about caravans with all kinds of trade goods from far off places that could travel uninterrupted from the Khyber Pass to the mouth of the Ganges.
| [
"The first evidence of road development in the Indian subcontinent can be traced back to approximately 2800 BC from the ancient cities of Harrapa and Mohenjodaro of the Indus Valley Civilization. Ruling emperors and monarchs of ancient India had constructed roads to connect the cities. Archaeological excavations gi... |
what happens when a us state losses a representative in the house due to population decrease? | Essentially it's like this, imagine a state with 3 equal districts, each have a candidate representing it.
[ Bob | John | Anna]
In the next elections they lose a representative due to a population shift. Bob will likely still run for his seat, as will Anna. But John can't run for that seat anymore because it's gone. So in the next election if he wants to stay in congress he has to compete against Bob or Anna (depending on which half he lives on):
[ Bob vs John | Anna vs OtherGuy ] | [
"Prior to the 2022 elections, each state apportioned more than one Representative will draw new congressional districts based on the reapportionment following the 2020 Census. Based on projections of population growth, Northeastern and Midwestern states such as Pennsylvania, New York, Rhode Island, Ohio, Michigan, ... |
why is canada's leader, stephen harper, supporting israel so enthusiastically lately? | * Israel doesn't really need Canadian support.
* It's good for Harper politically. To the best of my knowledge, the Conservatives & religious people in Canada are pretty pro-Israel, just like in America.
* Reddit is pretty anti-Israel. A lot of people aren't. I think that always seems to escape the minds of Redditors, who think that support of Israel is because of AIPAC or something.
* It's entirely possible that Harper is just very pro-Israel. That's well within his right. The entire West is pretty pro-Israel. Canada appears to be closer to the United States than Western Europe. Harper himself appears to be more enthusiastically pro-Israel than President Obama. | [
"The Harper government reversed many of these positions, re-establishing traditional Canadian support for Israel as a beleaguered democracy. In United Nations votes related to Israel, the Palestinians, and related issues, which almost always went against Israel, reflecting the large bloc of votes from the Organizat... |
why does walking on wet sand leave dry footprints? | When you step you compress the space between the sand particles. This forces the water that was occupying the spaces out. When you lift your foot, the sand remains more compact than it was before. Also water is cohesive. It likes to stick to itself (Think of a drop of water on a table. It's not going to spread to cover the table unless you give it reason to.). So the water remains where it was pushed away to, leaving the sand drier than that around it. | [
"Dilatancy is a common feature of the soils and sands. Its effect can be seen when the wet sand around the foot of a person walking on beach appears to dry up. The deformation caused by the foot expands the sand under it and the water in the sand moves to fill the new space between the grains.\n",
"They sometimes... |
How do we track a spacecraft in interplanetary space? | There are a number of ways, such as triangulation via radio waves, the probe having a star finder, and inertial guidance systesms which report back. Also measuring doppler shift to guage velocity relative to us. Correcting for doppler shift is important not just for this, but to also correctly decode the telemetry. | [
"Precise tracking of spacecrafts is of prime importance for accurate gravity modeling, as gravity models are developed from observing tiny perturbation of spacecraft, i.e. small variation in velocity and altitude. The tracking is done basically by the antennae of the Deep Space Network (DSN), with one-way, two-way ... |
What were the primary motivations for Danish Vikings to invade and settle in England starting at the end of the 8th century? | So a clarification question, are you more interested in settlement and invasion or the earlier raids marked as starting by the attack on Lindisfarne? There were was over 50 years from the first raids on England to the arrival of the Micel Here and the establishment of the Danelaw. | [
"With nearly the entire nation freshly ravaged by the Vikings, England was in a desperate state. The long-suffering English later responded with a massacre of Danish settlers in 1002, leading to a round of reprisals and finally to Danish rule (1013), though England regained independence shortly after. But Christian... |
AskScience AMA Series: I'm /u/OrbitalPete, a volcanologist who works on explosive eruptions, earthquakes, and underwater currents. Ask Me Anything! | Are there any new or troubling signs surrounding the Yellowstone Caldera? How prepared are we to deal with an event of that scope? | [
"A volcanologist is a geologist who studies the eruptive activity and formation of volcanoes, and their current and historic eruptions. Volcanologists frequently visit volcanoes, especially active ones, to observe volcanic eruptions, collect eruptive products including tephra (such as ash or pumice), rock and lava ... |
How does gender as an analytical concept advance our understanding of history? | Ahhh, you've made a classic mistake! Assuming gender studies is all about *women.* What makes you think men don't deserve some scrutiny? I actually had a [mini discussion](_URL_1_) with a couple of people on Tweedy Thursday you should take a look at, and for sure read the article I linked, it's very good, dry as toast I'll admit but 110% no-drama, no mumbo-jumbo.
So, from the phrasing of your post, I'm guessing you're a male. Having not even met you, both of us as members of a society where there is more or less a binary gender structure, I have already mentally catogorized you as one or the other, having no knowledge of your self-identity or your privates. But, now, in my mind, I don't know if you are a *man* or a *boy*. What level of masculine identity have you achieved in our society? Indeed, in our society, what makes a male a man and not a boy (or man-child?) Do you have a wife/husband, do you have a Good Job, do you support a family? And, here's the crux, *are these the things that are markers of masculine identity for our society?* Are these the things that are markers of masculine identity for all societies, for all times? If I go to modern Iran, how do men there build their masculine identity? If I go to 18th century Italy, how do men there think of themselves? And, of course, to pull it away from just masculinities studies, how do women across time and space build their identity? How does the society at large conceptualize gender? What importance does the society put on these gender differences, and what roles does the society dictate for them?
Gender is a big part of history, and a big part of how people thought of themselves and each other. When I study eunuchs in any place, I ALWAYS have to start from a position of understanding their basic male/female gender structure, because eunuchs are a special subset of men and how they're going to be placed in the society very much depends on how men are conceptualized.
Some other things gender studies can explain:
* [Why eunuchs even exist in the first place, why in some societies and not others](_URL_2_)
* [Why beards go in and out of fashion](_URL_0_)
* LGBT/queer studies field is obviously very dependent on gender studies to do its work
To sum up: it's a big part of society, so it's a big part of history! PS dudes count too in gender studies.
*(nobody actually try to debate modern male identity please, I used those as examples of how much it matters to any society)* | [
"The history of gender studies looks at the different perspectives of gender. This discipline examines the ways in which historical, cultural, and social events shape the role of gender in different societies. The field of gender studies, while focusing on the differences between men and women, also looks at sexual... |
Is it known what the Romans and Anglo-Saxons thought of pre-occupation British sites such as Stonehenge? | Both Anglo-Saxons and Romans recognized that time had a lot of depth, though precisely how old ruins were, and who built them, wasn't always clear. Some Roman authors like Lucretius had developed theories of human progress from stone tools to bronze to iron, and Babylonians and Egyptians both argued that the world was tens or even hundreds of thousands of years old. There was a lot of room in the classical imagination for ancient and forgotten civilizations to leave mysterious ruins behind.
The evidence we have from Anglo-Saxon England suggests that their ideas about prehistoric ruins were less historically specific. Anglo-Saxons were very *interested* in ruins: about half the cemeteries we've found from the fifth through seventh centuries CE were built on or near ruins, religious shrines and pre-Christian rituals seem to have been performed in connection with ruins, weapons were given as offerings at ancient burial mounds and hill forts, palaces (like Yeavering and maybe Lyminge) were built next to ancient ruins, and by the seventh century Anglo-Saxon kings were building new graves that directly imitated ancient ruins (like Sutton Hoo). In the middle and late Anglo-Saxon periods, ruins become the meeting sites for hundred courts (local government), the foundations of churches, and increasingly execution sites and places connected with fears of witchcraft, monsters, and dangerous elves.
All of this suggests that ancient ruins were very important for Anglo-Saxons, but where did they think they came from?
Many historians have suggested that Anglo-Saxons recognized that barrows and old earthworks were built by the ancient Britons, and that families (especially Germanic immigrants) trying to prove their right to the land they lived on buried themselves near these ruins to connect themselves to the land's history. You can see some of this in Beowulf, where the builder of an ancient barrow is described with some of the same language used to describe Beowulf. The poet is clearly imagining the barrow builders (whom we know to be living in the Bronze Age in the second millennium BCE) as a clan basically just like themselves who, due to unknown misfortunes, died out sometime in the forgotten past. This belief, which while lacking in any specifics is still basically accurate, makes sense: Anglo-Saxons dug up a lot of mounds when they were burying their dead next to or inside them, and they knew there were human bodies inside them.
Many Anglo-Saxons must surely, as well, have recognized the difference between Roman and ancient ruins. The Byzantine Empire was alive and well during the Anglo-Saxon period, and there's surviving evidence of low-intensity trade between Byzantium and England during the entire Anglo-Saxon period. They must have been able to connect ruined fourth-century villas with stories of great stone Roman buildings across the sea.
But at the same time, they sometimes seem to have treated Roman and prehistoric ruins the same. At West Heslerton, a village in northern England, a ruined Roman temple was used as a shrine next to the houses of the living community, and prehistoric (Bronze Age) barrows were used as a ritual site in the nearby cemetery. They treated both spaces similarly (separating them from the contemporary spaces with fences and boundaries), but does that mean they thought they had the same histories? Or did they realize one was 2000 years older than the other? It's very difficult to say.
Some texts suggest that Anglo-Saxons didn't believe ruins to be strictly human places. The Wid Faerstica poem (a 10th century spell for curing aches and pains) talks about wild witches, elves, and the old pagan gods gathering together at barrows, and demons and monsters are often found in the same sorts of places where you encounter ruins. In most cases, it seems these monster moved in later, after the human builders of the ruins abandoned them, but an eighth-century poem (which may be about Stonehenge, which makes it the most straightforward answer to your question), [says they were built by ancient giants](_URL_0_):
> Fate has shattered the wondrous, mighty stones. The city is broken, the works of giants has perished. The top parts have fallen, the high rocks tumbled, the beams are bereaved, the mortar has failed, broken holes provide no shelter from the storms; the old ones are eaten away. The worldly craftsmen, now decayed, now departed, are held in the clutch of the earth; they have rested in the grip of the grave while a hundred generations of their nation have passed away. Only the wall, lichen-covered and stained red, has outlived one kingdom after another, and remains standing against the storms, its high curves fallen.
> [What their] hearts knew, their craft expressed through zeal for circle building. The foundations of the walls were wondrously supported and the surrounding earth-banks shone. There were many {standing stones} with many pinnacles, full of the sounds of war and of much banqueting and of earthly pleasures. Then swift fate changed all that. Men perished everywhere; the day of pestilence came; death took all the host of men; the warriors were stolen. The bulwarks decayed. The site was in ruins because those who should have repaired it were dead. Therefore these structures are mournful and these curved, red-stained remnants have fallen away from the circular beams. In their downfall they sank down to the ground, smashed to pieces.
> Before in this place had been many men, joyous and splendidly adorned with bright gold, proud and drunk, shining in their armour, with treasure, silver worked gems, wealth, riches, pearls and the bright fortress with its wide dominion. Near where the raised stones stand there is a warm stream with a wide spring. A wall surrounds it all, and within its bright circuit were the baths, warm and ready, conveniently placed. The flow…over the grey stone warm streams…the round pool…warm…where the baths were.
An absolutely wonderful book on this topic is Sarah Semple, *Perceptions of the Prehistoric* (2013). It's expensive, but you can read large sections on google books. If your local university library has it, or you can interlibrary loan it, I would strongly recommend giving it a read. | [
"The archaeologist Sir Mortimer Wheeler was the first to propose that the lack of early Anglo-Saxon finds in a triangle between London, Colchester and St Albans could indicate a 'sub-Roman triangle' where British rule continued after the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons. Since then excavations have revealed some early S... |
If you could take the average of all the temperatures of everything that exists in the world, would it always be the same? | No it would not always be the same. Energy cannot be created nor destroyed but heat can be generated and taken away through other forms of energy. For example with friction the kinetic energy will change into heat energy, but when a liquid is evaporating it will cool the surface it is on/ the remainder of the liquid as it takes energy from its surroundings.
Chemical reactions are either exothermic or endothermic processes, which means they either expel or require energy, meaning there is usually a heat change to go along with this. | [
"On the empirical temperature scales that are not referenced to absolute zero, a negative temperature is one below the zero-point of the scale used. For example, dry ice has a sublimation temperature of which is equivalent to . On the absolute kelvin scale this temperature is . No body can be brought to exactly 0 K... |
why isn't digital signature forgery a bigger problem? | They're not really safe or easy to verify, but neither are actual signatures. The signature is just supposed to be an indication that you read the document and approve it; it's not some foolproof method of guaranteeing you're the one who signed it (that's what notarizing is for). Digital signatures are easier to forge, but electronic delivery systems usually help determine who sent the document. For example, it's easy to type someone else's name in a signature line, but it's hard to upload that document on their website or send it from their email.
With pen and ink signatures it's harder to forge a signature, but still possible. And it doesn't really matter if you can forge the signature or not if you're sending a forged document to a person who isn't familiar with the person's signature. It is also much easier to fake the origin of a document that isn't sent electronically - you can't really tell whether Frank actually mailed it from his house or whether Joe just forged Frank's name and dropped the letter off in the neighborhood postal box.
Let's take your real-life example with the caterer. Say you did put “Joe Blow” down. Doesn’t the caterer know who you are? Wouldn’t that look weird to them? Even if it didn’t, what can you do now that you put down a fake signature? It doesn’t get you out of paying and the caterer still has your other information if they need to sue you. The real worry would having the caterer do something like forge your name on a contract for extra services that you didn’t request. That would still be difficult, though, because the caterer would have no proof of you sending the document (unless they also hacked your email, in which case that’s the bigger issue).
> How, then, do digital signature programs work
They just put text down. There's nothing special about them. For most legal filings in court you simply add "/s/ *Name*" at the bottom of your document in Word to sign it. And you can sign for other people using that method if you have their explicit permission in writing. | [
"Encryption and digital signature are two fundamental cryptographic tools that can guarantee the confidentiality, integrity, and non-repudiation. Until 1997, they were viewed as important but distinct building blocks of various cryptographic systems. In public key schemes, a traditional method is to digitally sign ... |
How reliable is the Old Testament's accounts of Judah and Israel? | There are a couple of schools of thought here. There is the Minimalist school, that really discounts a vast amount of the account. They only consider those parts that can be proven by archeological evidence to be accurate, and even then, only if it fulfills a few more criteria. So much of the account is brushed off.
The more classical school sees a large portion of the accounts as being historical. They see the accounts as being written in the same manner as other national epics and histories were written at that time. There’s a lot of exaggeration for sure, but there is a core of accuracy.
It also has to be taken into account that there are two competing accounts as well. Both the nations of Judah and Israel had their own accounts. That’s why we have multiple tellings of the same events, one came from the northern kingdom while the other came from the southern kingdom. And not, while writing history (or what amounted to history at that time) also were writing propaganda.
So it’s semi-reliable. But separating the history from everything else can be difficult. | [
"The historicity of the biblical account of the history of ancient Israel and Judah of the 10th to 7th centuries BCE is disputed in scholarship. The biblical account of the 8th to 7th centuries BCE is widely, but not universally, accepted as historical, while the verdict on the earliest period of the United Monarch... |
how can events in dreams provide context for events and stimuli that occur in the real, physical world? | Upvote because I have definitely experienced this.
In my dream something will be slowly falling over. Then it lands and I hear a sound. That sound was from a (real life) magazine falling off my dresser.
I don't believe it to be coincidence. I don't believe it to be supernatural. I believe that somehow my brain re-arranges the chronology of things to make sense of it.
Of course it doesn't matter what I "believe", what matters is what science can tell us. Unfortunately I have googled this many times and found nothing worthwhile. Please keep me posted if you do. | [
"The visual nature of dreams is generally highly phantasmagoric; that is, different locations and objects continuously blend into each other. The visuals (including locations, characters/people, objects/artifacts) are generally reflective of a person's memories and experiences, but conversation can take on highly e... |
Could a nuclear winter lead to an ice age? | According to this [excellent study] (_URL_0_) (pdf) about nuclear winter, a large nuclear war would cool global temperatures by 7-9 C, which is more than happened during the global ice age of 18,000 years ago.
Now, while the short-term effects would be devastating to the human race, I do not think it would be long term enough to fully cause an Ice Age. However, I may be wrong on this; I am by no means a climate scientist. Unfortunately, the above study only studies the effects through 10 years. | [
"Nuclear winter is the severe and prolonged global climatic cooling effect hypothesized to occur after widespread firestorms following a nuclear war. The hypothesis is based on the fact that such fires can inject soot into the stratosphere, where it can block some direct sunlight from reaching the surface of the Ea... |
Are there any surviving examples of great helmets pre-14th century? | Yes, there is a [13th century great helm in the Deutsches Historiches Museum](_URL_1_) - originally found in Schlossberg bei Dargen, Pomerania. Claude Blair and others date it to the second half of the 13th century. Note that unlike earlier great helms (such as thise illustrated on the West Front of Wells Cathedral) it has the beginnings of a truncated cone skull top, which you see more pronounced in the 14th century. Unlike 14th century great helms it does not extend very far down to protect the throat.
In addition to this example, there is one in the Castelo Sant'Angelo museum that Alan Williams and Blair both date to the turn of the 13th/14th century.
Though your title mentions great helms before the 14th century, your body text mentions before 1400, so I will also address that. There are a number of great helms dating from around 1300-1400. A famous example is the [Pembridge Helm](_URL_0_) at the National museum of Scotland. It is made of fewer pieces of metal (only 3 sheets) and has a face mask that dips to protect the throat, and a very high, tapered crown of the skull piece. It dates from around the middle of the 14th century.
References for further reading:
Claude Blair - European Armour 1066-1700 - a good overview of armour in the Middle Ages and Early Modern period. It describes the development of the Great Helm and includes pictures of at least 6 examples in the back.
Edge and Paddock - Arms and Armour of the Medieval Knight - covers any of the same subjects, but it is more recent and has more illustrations. | [
"The helmet is one of six Anglo-Saxon helmets known to have survived to the present day, and is by far the best preserved. It shares its basic form with the helmet found in Wollaston, Northamptonshire, and like the others—from Benty Grange, Sutton Hoo, Shorwell, and Staffordshire—is one of the \"crested helmets\" t... |
since we will eventually hit a wall of reducing the size of transistors on a computer processor, what else can we do to improve its performance? | There are a bunch of technologies that will continue to push performance forward for a while:
* [Asynchronous logic](_URL_3_). You know how CPUs are clocked, e.g., 3 GHz (3 billion cycles/second)? Using a clock makes it much easier to synchronize and schedule the work the processor is doing. Unfortunately, the clock itself takes power and needs to get routed around the chip, and all of the work the CPU does has to get chopped up into chunks that can get done within one clock cycle. [In 1997, Intel developed an asynchronous, Pentium-compatible test chip that ran three times as fast, on half the power, as its synchronous equivalent,](_URL_5_) but didn't commercialize it because designing asynchronous logic is much harder.
* [Photonic interconnects](_URL_4_) would eliminate the propagation delay of signals across the chip.
* Exotic semiconductors like [Gallium arsenide](_URL_1_), [Carbon nanotubes](_URL_0_), and even [diamond](_URL_2_) can be clocked higher than silicon. Silicon has the advantage of being cheap, easy to manufacture, easy to purify, easy to manipulate with "dopants" to change its electrical properties, easy to insulate (SiO2), and being very well understood.
* Widespread use of programmable hardware (FPGAs). The CPUs we use today are general-purpose. They are optimized to handle a wide variety of tasks, but truly excel at none of them. Nowadays a computer has lots of fixed, specialized hardware that you use only some of the time to decode video, render 3d graphics, decrypt data, and so on. If instead most of a computer's hardware was reconfigurable, it's as if entirely different chips, optimized to do different functions, can be swapped in and out on the fly. | [
"As the limit in reduction of transistor size is reached with current technology, active networking concepts are being explored as a more efficient means accomplishing computation and communication. More on this can be found in nanoscale networking.\n",
"As it becomes more difficult to manufacture ever smaller tr... |
how do muscles regenerate between sets of an excercise? | Energy for you muscles to contract comes from burning sugar (glucose). Afterwards there is burnt sugar (pyruvate) left over that prevents more sugar from coming in to get burned. If there is enough oxygen (aerobic) the burnt sugar can be whisked off, but if there isn't enough oxygen (anaerobic) the burnt sugar is temporarily moved out of the way and stored as acid (lactic acid).
Your muscles can only hold so much acid until until they stop working properly (the burning feeling). Once you rest for a bit and have more oxygen the acid is turned back into burnt sugar and removed. | [
"Tendons, connective tissues, and molecular structures within a skeletal system can act as power amplifiers by storing energy gradually and releasing it rapidly. This amplification process is possible because spring-like tendons are not limited by the same rate limits imposed upon muscles by their intrinsic enzymat... |
how can sugar/sugar based things like candies go so long without spoiling but eating sugar and not brushing your teeth causes bacteria to flourish? or fermenting alcohol for that matter, why do bacteria like sugar sometimes? | Highly concentrated sugar creates an environment toxic to bacteria. Once you dilute it with some water, it's food for them. | [
"Because of its high sugar concentration, bacteria are not usually able to grow in candy. As a result, the shelf life is longer for candy than for many other foods. Most candies can be safely stored in their original packaging at room temperature in a dry, dark cupboard for months or years. As a rule, the softer th... |
why do astronauts not experience the effects of being in an anechoic chamber in space? | Apparently, it's crazy loud in the ISS, to the point that it can cause issues with sleeping. Reason being, they're living inside a giant machine that has all types of systems going 24/7...AND there is no atmosphere or attached ground to dampen, absorb, and dissipate vibrational energy (sound) bouncing around the craft. It only is able to dissipate eventually after material flexing and internal air pressure damping converts it to heat and it is radiated away as infrared. | [
"During astronauts' spaceflight, they are in a very extreme state where there is no gravity. This given state and the fact that no change is taking place in the environment will result in the weakening of sensory input to the astronauts in all seven senses.\n",
"BULLET::::- Sight- Because of the zero gravity, the... |
How much do we know about Marco Polo's journeys? | It is clear that polo was indeed in China, and was received at the Mongol court. We know this from Chinese records. But it is also clear that he was not considered terribly important.
Part of the confusion on the Chinese side concerns a Persian who had a similar name and did have an important role in Chinese politics. Some historians have conflated the two, giving Marco more importance than he deserves.
As far as the omissions you cited. It is not a foregone conclusion that a low level trading emissary would have been given a tour of the wall at any point. In fact, such a tour would likely be considered unwise, for obvious reasons. In addition, the wall was in terrible shape in the early 13th century. It was not repaired and effective in the capital region until the early Ming.
Ditto for the printing press. Why show some yahoo from the west the secret to your superior documentation system?
Lastly, foot binding was not common in polo's time. It did not become widespread practice until the Ming and Qing periods. | [
"Though he was not the first European to reach China (see Europeans in Medieval China), Marco Polo was the first to leave a detailed chronicle of his experience. This book inspired Christopher Columbus and many other travellers. There is substantial literature based on Polo's writings; he also influenced European c... |
why does hollywood seem to use the same soundboard sounds for things like cats and babies? | Because they often do.
They're called "stock sound effects". There are certain noises out there that are free for use (at least within a production company) and were recorded previously. Obviously, if you don't have to pay or get legal authorization for use, or pay to record/edit your own version, it's much easier/cheaper to use.
The "Wilhelm Scream", "generic phone ring", heck, even fart noises, were recorded long ago and re-used as needed just because it's cheaper/easier than trying to re-create. | [
"Sound in early Bollywood films was usually not recorded on location (sync sound). It was usually created (or re-created) in the studio, with the actors speaking their lines in the studio and sound effects added later; this created synchronisation problems. Commercial Indian films are known for their lack of ambien... |
What does "sunlight" do that incandescent light can't do? | You're right that they both emit at roughly blackbody distributions, but according to [Wikipedia](_URL_0_), the Sun's blackbody temperature is ~6500 K, while incandescent light bulbs have a blackbody temperature in the range 2700 - 3300 K.
That means that the sun *does* produce "excess" light at higher frequencies, much like light therapy does. That "excess" is the big difference between sunlight and incandescent light, even if most of it isn't in the visible spectrum.
This is especially important because those higher frequencies of light (into the UV-B range, that the sun produces a lot of and a light bulb produces little of) stimulate the production of Vitamin D in the body. | [
"Incandescence is exploited in incandescent light bulbs, in which a filament is heated to a temperature at which a fraction of the radiation falls in the visible spectrum. The majority of the radiation however, is emitted in the infrared part of the spectrum, rendering incandescent lights relatively inefficient as ... |
What was the first European army to use lines of musket infantry and fire by volleys in battle? | The second question part of the question is easier to answer than the first.
Firing by volleys was an innovation popularized by Maurice of Nassau and the Dutch army and first used at the battle of Nieuwpoort in 1600. Technically, his troops used the Arquebus and not the musket, but musket has become a more common term for all blackpowder smoothbore firearms.
The first question regarding "lines of musket infantry" rather depends on what you mean. Spanish Tercios were some of the earliest pike & shot formations to use tightly organized lines of firearm wielding troops, although infantry wielding firearms were not unknown before the Tercios appeared in the early 1500s. If you mean infantry formations comprised of entirely "musket" (i.e. not arquebuses, and not muskets supported by pikes) wielding troops, perhaps the Swedish Forces under Gustavus Adolphus in the 1630s were the first to deploy detachments of musket infantry that were supported by cavalry rather than pikemen. The pike did not entirely disappear from European infantry formations until around 1700. | [
"In the 18th century, European armies lay emphasis on volley fire because of the inaccuracy and limited range (100 yards) of the flintlock muskets. Armies approached one another in linear formations. Several different methods were used: in the Swedish army, a battalion would approach the enemy, fire one or several ... |
Sir Mackenzie Bowell, 5th Prime Minister of Canada? | As I've established before here, electoral history is a great love of mine, so please excuse the flair!
Within the Westminster parliamentary system, it is not necessary for the leader of the government to also be the majority leader of the lower house, though it is certainly more convenient (and today, surely unthinkable for anything else to be the case, at least in western liberal democracies). In the absence of the Prime Minister serving in the House of Commons, a Leader of the Government in the House was chosen in Bowell's stead; three Conservative MPs fulfilled this function during Bowell's premiership. The last, Charles Tupper, succeeded Bowell as Prime Minister.
**Source:** Robert Marleau and Camille Montpetit, *House of Commons Procedure and Practice* (2000). Digitised [here](_URL_0_); see footnotes 3 and 4 to the table of party leaders. | [
"William Lyon Mackenzie King (December 17, 1874 – July 22, 1950), also commonly known as \"Mackenzie King\", was the dominant Canadian political leader from the 1920s through the 1940s. He served as the tenth prime minister of Canada in 1921–1926, 1926–1930 and 1935–1948. He is best known for his leadership of Cana... |
checksums | Checksums are a very simple way to make sure that a message or a code doesn't have any mistakes in it. Checksums aren't perfect but they don't have to be perfect to be useful, especially when the medium used to store or transport the message might be unreliable.
This is how they work. I want to send the following message:
explain like im five
But I can only send it with smoke signals and it's easy for the rings to get blown away on the wind. I could solve this by sending the message a bunch of times until I can be sure you got the whole thing but that makes my arms tired. Instead, I'm going to break it up into lines and put the number of letters at the end of each line like this:
explain 7
like 4
im 2
five 4
I've only added four more characters to the message but now when it gets to you you'll be able to tell whether any of the words has the wrong number of letters and you'll know which word it's missing from too. This makes it a lot easier to find mistakes and that, in turn, makes it easier to fix the mistakes.
Of course, the numbers could go missing too so it might be a good idea to send the grand total too. If we put the number 17 at the end then the other person knows how many characters they should have received. If we put it at the start then they'll know how many to expect. This way, if one of the numbers is missing, we can figure out what it should be by subtracting the ones we did get.
So, at the cost of six extra characters, our 17 character message has three layers of protection which work together to be about as good as sending the whole message several times but a lot less work! And, since it's based on simple counting, we can easily use this to measure really big messages and make sure they get through without any mistakes. Even if we do find a mistake, we can simply ask for the bit where the mistake is instead of asking for the whole message all over again. | [
"Checksum schemes include parity bits, check digits, and longitudinal redundancy checks. Some checksum schemes, such as the Damm algorithm, the Luhn algorithm, and the Verhoeff algorithm, are specifically designed to detect errors commonly introduced by humans in writing down or remembering identification numbers.\... |
Watering with carbonated water? | This is probably not a good idea. Carbonated water is more acidic than regular water because it contains carbonic acid and this will decrease the pH level of the soil. Changing the pH like this could be harmful or deadly for the plant. | [
"Modern variants of water coolers have been equipped with options for sparkling water as a result of increasing demand for carbonated beverages and also a greater awareness to healthy living, resulting in preference for carbonated water over sweetened carbonated beverages. This works with the addition of a mixer ta... |
does eating food affect the absorption of painkillers? | Pharmacist here. It depends which drug specifically. In the case of acetaminophen/paracetamol, food may slightly slow down how the drug is absorbed in the small intestine but it's mostly negligible and the recommendation is to take it regardless of food.
As for ibuprofen, it's generally recommended to take it with food, mostly to avoid side effects (stomachaches or ulcers). It's thought that food actually increases the absorption of ibuprofen but again, the difference in absorption isn't very significant.
If you have more detailed drug-related questions I would suggest calling your local pharmacist :) | [
"BULLET::::- Food effect: A short trial designed to investigate any differences in absorption of the drug by the body, caused by eating before the drug is given. These studies are usually run as a crossover study, with volunteers being given two identical doses of the drug while fasted, and after being fed.\n",
"... |
Why don't planets have 3D orbits? | The solar system originally formed from a huge spherical cloud of gas and dust. Within this cloud, each molecule was attracted to every other molecule by gravity. The cloud was rotating (like everything else in the universe), so it started with some net angular momentum. In effect, this means that as the molecules moved about in this cloud, there were a few more which orbited around the center of the mass of the cloud in one direction than in the opposite direction.
Over time, the gravitational attraction between the particles caused the cloud to condense to a smaller volume. However, as the radius of the cloud decreased, the angular momentum needed to be conserved, so the rotation velocity increased. A familiar example of this is when an ice skater starts spinning slowly with arms outstretched, and rotations more quickly as she pulls her arms in to her body.
As the cloud was contracting, not all parts of the cloud were pulled toward the center equally. Those particles around the plane perpendicular to the axis of rotation felt centrifugal "force" - actually just their linear momentum - keeping them from moving towards the center and fighting against gravity. Particles closer to the axis of rotation felt this less, and were pulled in more. Thus, the cloud became a disk, just as a blob of pizza dough thrown in the air with a spin flattens out into a pie shape.
Once the gas and dust was generally planar, the primary gravitational forces would be towards overdensities in that plane. So, for instance, if two particles bumped into each other and stuck, they'd create a larger particle with more gravitational force. As they move around the disk, they pull other particles towards them, creating even larger particles, ad infinitum, eventually forming the planets, asteroids, etc. that we see today. | [
"An alternative possibility is that the planet has a high axial tilt, like Uranus in the Solar System. The problem with this explanation is that it is thought to be quite difficult to get a planet into this configuration, so having two such planets among the set of known transiting planets is problematic.\n",
"Th... |
Why was The Blitz ineffective at demoralizing the British population? | It's rather hard to state definitively; as Richard Overy puts it in *The Bombing War: Europe 1939-1945*, "for the historian... any attempt to suggest what might have led to social breakdown even in one city is an exercise in speculation." Certainly before the war there was a rather apocalyptic view of strategic bombing, theorists like Giulio Douhet suggesting that an enemy could be defeated by shattering civilian will to resist, so thought was given to civil defence; Stanley Baldwin gave a speech in 1932, ["A Fear for the Future"] (_URL_0_) (including the famous line "the bomber will always get through"), in which he said "I will not pretend that we are not taking our precautions in this country". As tension built in the run-up to war organisations were put in place e.g. through the Air Raid Precautions act of 1937 and with the establishment of the Woman's Voluntary Service (WVS) in 1938, so the population were preparing for bombing raids (particularly the prospect of gas attack), efforts increasing with the declaration of war in 1939 including the evacuation of almost 1.5 million people from threatened cities (though with no actual attacks, almost two thirds had returned by January 1940).
Once The Blitz did begin in earnest, the damage inflicted was not as severe as pre-war worst case scenarios; the Luftwaffe was not a strategic air force, though as the largest in the world at the time it still presented a major threat. The switch to night bombing increased the pressure on the defensive infrastructure, with shelters that were limited at the best of times not being intended for habitation, lacking bedding, sanitary facilities etc., but the government did respond, led by newly appointed Home Secretary Herbert Morrison, though shelter construction competed for resources with anti-invasion defences. In some areas large numbers of people became "trekkers" who left cities at night to sleep in nearby towns, villages, or even open country and tents; though Coventry suffered a devastating raid on 14/15 November 1940, there were comparatively few casualties.
The image of a stoic population saying "Britain can take it!", buoyed by government efforts such as the documentary of the same name, was undoubtedly not universal, debunked to varying degrees by works such as *The Myth of the Blitz*, but Overy concludes that the key elements in maintaining stability were material assistance from state and local authorities in the form of assistance, food and shelter after attacks, and various psychological coping mechanisms including religion and fatalistic bravado allowing people to normalize the experience and continue their lives. | [
"As the war progressed, the military effectiveness of Germany's aerial bombardment was very limited. Thanks to the Luftwaffe's shifting aims, the strength of British air defenses, the use of early warning radar and the life-saving actions of local civil defense units, the aerial \"Blitz\" during the Battle of Brita... |
why do people like to make people angry? | In my experience making someone angry is someone's way of feeling powerful by affecting someone. Probably because whoever enjoys causing people to be angry feels out of control in their own life. Also provoking someone to be angry is an easy way to get them to act aggressively and acting aggressively in modern society is frowned upon and whoever was acting that way is often seen as being in the wrong regardless of how they got to be distressed enough to act on their anger.
Tl;Dr: I understand it's a common bully/abuse/manipulation tactic. | [
"An angry person tends to anticipate other events that might cause them anger. They will tend to rate anger-causing events (e.g. being sold a faulty car) as more likely than sad events (e.g. a good friend moving away).\n",
"A person who is angry tends to place more blame on another person for their misery. This c... |
Why does Pluto orbit the sun on a different plane to the planets? | Yes, it's not uncommon. The more massive a body is, the harder it is to lift it out of the plane.
In the particular case of Pluto, during the Solar System's early years, interactions with Neptune produced the inclination (I'm not sure how detailed an explanation you'd like, but Neptune migrated outwards and caught Pluto in a mean motion resonance. Further migration produced more inclination.)
In general, interactions between planets, and/or minor planets can take them out of the plane. The other planets aren't exactly in a plane either - Mercury is inclined at 7 degrees, a little less than half of Pluto's value. | [
"Pluto's orbital period is currently about 248 years. Its orbital characteristics are substantially different from those of the planets, which follow nearly circular orbits around the Sun close to a flat reference plane called the ecliptic. In contrast, Pluto's orbit is moderately inclined relative to the ecliptic ... |
demyelinating neuropathy | The way the brain works is a series of electrical impulses caused by an action potential. This doesn't work like the matrix says it does. This potential is actually caused by positive charges, potassium and sodium. Myelin is a fatty protein that surrounds some neurons. Other neurons are surrounded by swann cells that share identical purpose. These fatty proteins help propagate the action potential. In a nut shell, they speed how fast the potential moves. The faster it moves, the faster your cells can communicate.
In demyelinating neuropathy, your myelin starts to unsheathe. It no longer functions the way it is supposed to, and the propagation slows down significantly. What you get is a criss cross of signals. Where as before you have perfect coordination, now some of your muscles receive identical signals milliseconds to seconds after they're supposed to. Think of it this way, you have many muscles, and you have to coordinate each one perfectly in order to do anything. When that coordination is no longer there, everything becomes jittery and quirky. Your body compensates for movements because your muscles don't react fast enough because your neurons can't signal fast enough because the myelin is gone. When your body compensates, it does so too slowly, and you must compensate for your overcompensation. This endless loop creates jitters and shakes.
Very basically, your body has communication issues. If you think of your neurons as highways, demyelination is like having different speed limits. You'll get to where you're going, but it will take a lot longer to get there. As for what protein this disease affects I do not know. I only studied the physical effects, not the genetic or protein linked effects. | [
"A demyelinating disease is any disease of the nervous system in which the myelin sheath of neurons is damaged. This damage impairs the conduction of signals in the affected nerves. In turn, the reduction in conduction ability causes deficiency in sensation, movement, cognition, or other functions depending on whic... |
why are ebola patients being treated in a wide range of places instead of all being contained in one treatment area, or ones with close proximity? | Transport can be dangerous and increase the spread of infection. If you can get the treatment to the patient, better to keep him isolated to reduce the chance of spreading the disease. Also, if you centralized all the patients, one crazy nut could fire bomb the location in some deranged attempt to "save the world." There are other reasons I heard while taking biology classes in college. Bottom line, let the doctors figure it out, they are the professionals and certainly know more than the media or the politicians. | [
"Although the WHO does not advise caring for Ebola patients at home, in some cases it became a necessity when no hospital treatment beds were available. For those being treated at home, the WHO advised informing the local public health authority and acquiring appropriate training and equipment. UNICEF, USAID and Sa... |
If Photons don't have a mass/charge, why don't they go through matter? | I remember in a Sixty Symbols video in which professor Moriarty explained that photons are absorbed by matter. In the very small spectrum of light that we can observe, ROYGBIV, the rays are absorbed into a matter and light is produced by the electrons they excite. Something see through like glass has an energy activation level that is too high for a photon to excite those electrons, which is why glass is see through, light just passes right on through.
When you take an X-Ray, the x-radiation excites the electrons in your body and produces an image to scanners that can see that light. We cannot, however, observe that spectrum of wavelength and that is why when you take an X-Ray you do not see your leg flashing when the radiation is bombarding your leg.
Hope this helps. I can answer only with a very limited scope of knowledge.
Source: _URL_0_ | [
"The photon, the particle of light which mediates the electromagnetic force is believed to be massless. The so-called Proca action describes a theory of a massive photon. Classically, it is possible to have a photon which is extremely light but nonetheless has a tiny mass, like the neutrino. These photons would pro... |
why is seemingly every photo tagged with a “getty images” watermark? how big are they? and are they just an image host or do they also employ photographers? | Getty is huge. They buy images from existing photographers and then aggressively protect copyright. I don't believe they employ their own photographers, but prefer to buy images from others. | [
"Watermarks are used to introduce an invisible signal into a video to ease the detection of illegal copies. This technique is widely used by photographers. Placing a watermark on a video such that it is easily seen by an audience allows the content creator to detect easily whether the image has been copied.\n",
"... |
The Enola Gay was able to fly into Japan without resistance due to similar flights done by the US that were believed to be recon, but did these previous flights get attacked and did these men die without fighter support so that the Enola Gay could complete its mission? | By the summer of 1945 there simply put was NO Japanese air force left in any effective manner. Squadrons had been withdrawn to caves and hidden hideouts to serve as suicide attacks when the invasion came. And AAA batteries had been concentrated around Tokyo, and even then by the summer ammunition was running dry and rationed for the coming invasion.
The B-29 also had a service ceiling that was right up against or a bit over most Japanese fighters at over 30k ft. The USN had also spent the entire summer with the carrier task force standing off the home islands and systematically destroying targets of military value, to the extent even that battleships sailed into range and fired on coastal targets with their guns. The eroded state of Japanese air defenses by August 1945 is something that should be stressed.
Curtis Le May even was quoted as saying in July 1945, "it was safer to fly a combat mission over Japan than it was to fly a B-29 training mission back in the United States"
from your post in the other tread but reposted here for more visibility.
A good book i read years ago on the topic was Closing the Circle: War in the Pacific, by Edwin Hoyt | [
"While one crew chose to land in Russia due to their bomber's unusually high fuel consumption, the other fifteen planes then headed for their recovery airfields in China. Most of the other crewmen who participated in the one-way mission bailed out over China when their B-25s ran out of fuel; however, the Green Horn... |
Why did Captain James Cook doubt Australia's existence prior to his first great voyage? | It must be understood what Cook was doubting.
The concept of a Terra Australis was one largely based on an idea that the earth had to be balanced and that the land in the Southern Hemisphere had to roughly equal land in the northern hemisphere, at the same latitudes. It was a concept largely based on aesthetic reasonings. The idea was that around 30° - 50° south the Indian and Pacific Oceans had to hold land bodies large enough to "counterbalance" North America, Europe, and Asia. Africa and South America being clearly insufficient for such counterbalancing.
Cook had no such philosophical beliefs. The Pacific was incompletely mapped. But it *had* been mapped. He was familiar enough with those explorations that it was clear to him that no Asia sized body existed on similar latitudes. That doesn't mean that largish bodies couldn't be found. He expressed no surprise at New Zealand nor did he express surprise at Australia. He clearly expected both and was prepared to map them.
But Australia was not the Terra Australis people were predicting. It was too far west for one thing. For another it was far too small. What people expected to find was that Tasman's discoveries would prove to be peninsulas of a much larger continent that would extend all the way to the southern pole, and cover most of the distance to South America.
Cook knew there was no such massive continent there. His mapping of New Zealand and the east coast of Australia actually put another nail in the Terra Australis coffin. It should have been just south of Tahiti. It wasn't. But for someone who had studied Tasman, and the Spanish explorers, he already knew that. Islands? Sure. Even very large (Australia sized) islands? Sure. A large icy continent to the south? Also sure. He explicitly said he didn't have any preconceived notions of the far south. But for Terra Australis to be real it should have extended from Tonga to Easter Island, and south to Antartica. The Spanish had been through the area enough Cook had no real expectation to find such a land.
The name Australia really only began to be applied to the current continent after the putative continent was disproven. Prior to that it was known as Tasmanland, New Holland, New South Wales, and other names. Once the original great southern continent was proven to not exist, the name shifted to next closest thing. But it was not the fabled continent he had been tasked to find. | [
"In 1770, Lieutenant James Cook wrote that he had claimed the east coast of Australia for the United Kingdom and named it New South Wales, while on Possession Island off the west coast of Cape York Peninsula. However, it seems that no such claim was made when Cook was in Australia. Cook was not authorized to make s... |
how did filmmakers achieved visual effects in the 70s and early 80s? | Well [here](_URL_0_) is an example how some of the effects in Empire strikes back came to be | [
"A number of innovative visual effects techniques were used during production. According to Cameron, work on the film had been delayed since the 1990s to allow the techniques to reach the necessary degree of advancement to adequately portray his vision of the film. The director planned to make use of photorealistic... |
Is it possible to refract radio waves at such a series of angles, that you end up with visible light? | No. Two issues:
1. When entering a material with a different refractive index, the wavelength does change, but not the frequency. Radio waves stay radio. Visible, visible.
2. The refraction angle affects nothing. | [
"Radio frequencies (RF), from low frequencies through the microwave region, have wavelengths much longer than visible light. Although this means that it is not possible to focus the beams nearly as tightly as for light, it also means that the aperture or \"capture area\" of even the simplest, omnidirectional antenn... |
Did British/English society change in any significant way due to the American Revolution? How did it change the way Britain dealt with the rest of her colonies? | Regarding the American revolution changing the way Britain dealt with the rest of her colonies, it does seem to have had an effect. Charles Cornwallis, the general who surrendered to US and French forces at Yorktown in 1781, ending the war, was appointed as governor general of India in 1786. One of his significant reforms in India was the implementation of the Cornwallis code, which among other things, banned anyone of Indian descent, as well as British people born in India, from top administrative posts in the East India company. The lumping of both these groups together shows that it was not just racial considerations behind this, but the fear of letting the 'country born' (ie those born in the colony) have too much power. Cornwallis thought that this was the cause of the American revolution. | [
"After the conclusion of the Seven Years' War in 1763, Britain had emerged as the world's dominant power, but found itself mired in debt and struggling to finance the Navy and Army necessary to maintain a global empire. The British Parliament's attempt to raise taxes from North American colonists raised fears among... |
Why was the 'hand tucked in the shirt' pose (think Napoleon) so popular in early photographs? | In 1738 Francois Nivelon published A Book Of Genteel Behavior describing the "hand-in-waistcoat" posture as signifying "manly boldness tempered with modesty." | [
"The hand-in-waistcoat (also referred to as hand-inside-vest, hand-in-jacket, hand-held-in, or hidden hand) is a gesture commonly found in portraiture during the 18th and 19th centuries. The pose appeared by the 1750s to indicate leadership in a calm and firm manner. The pose is most often associated with Napoleon ... |
what tests are scientist's willing to invest in now that there's water on mars, whereas before they wouldn't? | Well I imagine now they would be more interested in searching for signs of life, as they now know that is a distinct possibility with liquid water. | [
"Understanding the extent and situation of water on Mars is vital to assess the planet’s potential for harboring life and for providing usable resources for future human exploration. For this reason, \"Follow the Water\" was the science theme of NASA's Mars Exploration Program (MEP) in the first decade of the 21st ... |
could armored dinosaurs like ankylosaurus and nodosaurus swim? | Very unlikely, because the Ankylosaurus was a walking tank. It weighed between 5 to 8 tons and was 6–8 metres long when fully grown.
This weight was built up by the huge amount of osteoderms and bony plating on the animal. Frankly it's astounding that they could even stand.
Given the amount of weight and density, it's also of note that the Ankylosaurus couldn't move quickly at all except for its tail in times of distress, meaning that the Ankylosaurus would have had a lack of bouyancy as well as movement to keep it afloat | [
"While long thought to have been aquatic or semiaquatic, hadrosaurids were not as well-suited for swimming as other dinosaurs (particularly theropods, who were once thought to have been unable to pursue hadrosaurids into water). Hadrosaurids had slim hands with short fingers, making their forelimbs ineffective for ... |
the phenomenon in our universe known as dark flow | The first and most important thing to know about it is that it's not actually known to be a thing at all.
For starters, ignore everything in the universe smaller than a galaxy. In fact, you can *pretty much* ignore everything smaller than a galactic *cluster.* We're talking about a very large scale here.
If you look at all the galactic clusters we can see in the sky, you'll find that they're all moving a little bit, kind of like dust motes in a sunbeam. This one's drifting that way, that one's driving that other way, and so on. This little random motion is called *peculiar* motion. Not because it's *weird,* but because it's *specific to* each galactic cluster we look at.
It's widely assumed — because the math tells us this should be the case — that the peculiar motions of the galactic clusters should be evenly distributed. That is, there should be no *net* peculiar motion. Everything should be drifting around randomly, not moving in some overall direction.
However, *one particular* analysis of astronomical measurements suggested that maybe there is a very tiny net motion to the galactic clusters we can see. But this is just *one particular* analysis. And it's not a simple analysis, either; it comes only after a lot of very complicated math has been done to crunch the raw data collected.
Which means, in essence, nobody knows if this thing really exists or not. It's entirely possible that it's just a methodological error; in fact, several prominent cosmologists have gone on the record saying this is probably the case, and some researchers have crunched the data in a different way and haven't found the anomaly in question.
So until cosmologists collect a *lot* more data — over many more decades — it will probably remain an open question. If it were a simple methodological *error,* like a mistake in the math, it probably would've been identified by now. But if we collect more data and analyze that, cosmologists may find that what looked like a meaningful anomaly was actually just part of a bigger, entirely consistent picture.
So worst case, it's something unexplained that will never have any direct affect on any person who ever lives. Best case, it's just a math glitch that will go away when subjected to better examination. | [
"In astrophysics, dark flow is a theoretical non-random component of the peculiar velocity of galaxy clusters. The actual measured velocity is the sum of the velocity predicted by Hubble's Law plus a possible small and unexplained (or \"dark\") velocity flowing in a common direction.\n",
"In astrophysics, \"Dark ... |
why are there 'war crimes' which are different to 'crimes' isn't killing someone simply murder? | A state of war between (or within) states is a time we've pretty much universally recognized that traditional law and order don't matter. However, in the wake of WWI and the many absolutely horrible weapons that were deployed, many countries sought agreements to the conduct of war along certain agreed upon rules. These have been formalized and breaking them is a "war crime" rather than a civil or criminal violation. | [
"A war crime is an act that constitutes a serious violation of the laws of war that gives rise to individual criminal responsibility. Examples of war crimes include intentionally killing civilians or prisoners, torturing, destroying civilian property, taking hostages, performing a perfidy, raping, using child soldi... |
Looking for recommendations | Understand that overview histories are inherently flaws as they seek general portraits that can be easily picked apart, and they carry with them embedded subjective points of view. That said, I find these two entertaining and well crafted: [the series by Michael Wood](_URL_1_) and the series by [Simon Schama](_URL_0_). | [
"BULLET::::- Recommender system: The basic idea of recommender systems is to present a selection of items to the user which best fit his or her needs. This selection can be based on items the user has bookmarked, rated, bought, recently viewed, etc. Recommender systems are often used in e-commerce but may also cove... |
Whenever I buy a lottery ticket I remind myself that 01-02-03-04-05-06 is just as likely to win as any other combination. But I can't bring myself to pick such a set of numbers as my mind just won't accept the fact that results will ever be so ordered. What is the science behind this misconception? | I'm not sure if there is a name for this heuristic, but is has to do with our ideas about randomness and what we think a "typical" set of random numbers or events looks like.
Another example of this occurs when you ask people to simulate flipping a coin 100 times. In the sequence of heads and tails that they write down, people will include many fewer and shorter chains of repeating values than would be statistically expected. For example, people rarely write down a sequence of 8 or more heads or tails and usually don't have more than one such sequence. However, these are actually much more likely to occur in 100 flips than people expect and a computer would generate more and longer sequences.
Edit: as others have pointed out, this is an example of the representativeness heuristic and gambler's fallacy. | [
"Henry E. Kyburg, Jr.'s lottery paradox arises from considering a fair 1000-ticket lottery that has exactly one winning ticket. If this much is known about the execution of the lottery it is therefore rational to accept that some ticket will win. Suppose that an event is very likely only if the probability of it oc... |
Does there exist/could there exist life that uses radiation as a food source? | Already happened.
_URL_0_ | [
"The irradiation of vegetables and other agricultural produce by ionizing radiation can be used to preserve it from both microbial infection and insect damage, as well as from physical deterioration. It can extend the storage life of food without noticeably changing its properties.\n",
"Food irradiation is essent... |
What would happen to someone if they grew up in a low gravity environment such as a moon colony? | In addition to the low bone density and weak muscles, I'd imagine they'd be really sick from constant radiation exposure. But I don't see any impediment to them coming to earth, although they might have to start off in a wheelchair. | [
"The health of the humans who may participate in a colonization venture would be subject to increased physical, mental and emotional risks. NASA learned that – without gravity – bones lose minerals, causing osteoporosis. Bone density may decrease by 1% per month, which may lead to a greater risk of osteoporosis-rel... |
wound healing. what is it in our body that makes it heal cuts, burns, scrapes, etc. | In your blood are little things called platelets (or thrombocytes if you want to get specific). When you get cut, your brain tells them to fix the hole, as otherwise you could get infected etc. The platelets stick together again and again until a clot is formed, which stops continuous bleeding from the wound, otherwise whenever you got cut, you'd bleed to death (like you might if you had haemophilia). The bigger the cut, the longer it takes as it takes more platelets to fill the gap.
Then, any bad cells/bacteria that get into your body through the cut are destroyed. Followed by the edges of the wound beginning to pull together and close up. As the wound is closed, unneeded cells essentially die, and the body makes collagen (a protein) and skin cells to repair the wound back to normal.
As humans are bigger and more complex than lizards and other creatures that can regenerate, regenerating entire limbs would be very difficult to control - the regenerated limbs may be smaller than before (this happens in lizards every now and then) or inefficient in some way, not to mention the entire process would be costly for the body - if a human loses a limb, there is HUGE blood loss, if a lizard loses its tail, it is able to stop the blood flow to that area so it won't bleed to death, humans cant do this.
I'm not sure about the rate of healing, but it generally takes a similar amount of time for wounds of similar sizes, assuming they have a normal immune system and aren't lacking in anything the body needs for the process.
And no, Wolverine is fictional and is a property of Marvel. Hugh Jackman is an actor and possesses none of Wolverine/s abilities other than looking like a badass | [
"Wound healing is a complex process in which the skin, and the tissues under it, repair themselves after injury. In this article, wound healing is depicted in a discrete timeline of physical attributes (phases) constituting the post-trauma repairing process. In undamaged skin, the epidermis (surface layer) and derm... |
why are so many candidates with little chance of winning seeking presidential nomination? | There might be several motivations:
* The first one is the 'you never know factor'. You can't win the elections if you don't run and a sudden surge in popularity could theoretically carry you all the way to the office.
* Just running, while not winning, increases your familiarity with the voters. Laying the groundwork now might help make you a more viable candidate in future elections.
* Even if you don't win, running makes it possible to introduce ideas you hold dear. You might not get the victory, but maybe ideas you brought up become more visible.
* Presidential candidacy offers you a massive bump in media visibility which may help you do things like sell books or land high-profile jobs. | [
"Much to the chagrin of the National Republican Congressional Committee, several high profile candidates it has courted for the race have all decline to seek the nomination. Potential challengers that have ruled out a bid include State Assemblyman Greg Ball, Orange County Executive Ed Diana, ex-White House Press Se... |
can you actually go blind from looking at a solar eclipse with out proper eye protection? why? | Your pupils get large because the light levels are low, but it's still giving you a lot of UV light. Your pupils would normally get smaller to protect you from such a thing, but the eclipse fools this mechanism.
You absolutely can go blind, or at least have seriously damaged eyesight from retinal damage caused by ultraviolet light. Don't ever do that, seriously. Don't look directly at the sun, and never during an eclipse. | [
"Since looking directly at the Sun can lead to permanent eye damage or blindness, special eye protection or indirect viewing techniques are used when viewing a solar eclipse. It is technically safe to view only the total phase of a total solar eclipse with the unaided eye and without protection; however, this is a ... |
Has a mythical creature ever turned out to be real? | This might be ironic considering the popularity of the recent post on giraffes, but to my knowledge the lanky yellow animals themselves were seen as mythical creatures in China during the Ming dynasty.
They called it the Qilin - and it was meant to represent good fortune and a good omen. It was meant to be vegetarian and have a tame, quiet disposition.
In the early 15th century, Chinese admiral Zheng He commanded one of the largest fleets in human history to travel and explore the Indian Ocean and surrounding areas. Eventually, the massive Chinese fleet of junks reached the Eastern Coast of Africa. They traded with local merchants (some sources suggesting near Somalia) and received Zebras, Giraffes and other exotic animals.
There are *rumours* that the Chinese had to cut a hole in the deck of the vessels to accommodate their long necks, but these have been unsubstantiated and unsourced. (But I SO hope that was true).
Upon return to the Chinese Court, apparently, it was an absolute revelation and was just the most astounding sight for the Chinese. It would have been akin to the Greeks finding a three headed dog or something along those lines.
Here's a drawing of the a giraffe's arrival in China: _URL_0_
This drawing from the 15th century is titled "Qilin brings Serenity [...]"
So, there you have it. I feel like I've personally learned far too much about giraffes today... | [
"A legendary, mythical, and mythological creature, also called a fabulous beast and fabulous creature, is a supernatural animal, often a hybrid, sometimes part human, whose existence has not or cannot be proved and that is described in folklore but also in historical accounts before history became a science.\n",
... |
Light is oscillating electric and magnetic fields. Does this mean that *any* moving charge can create light? | [Yes!](_URL_0_). A strong or fast moving charge is required.
Edit: As long as it's not moving at a constant speed. And, I just that's not the paper I wanted to link to. | [
"Since light is an oscillation it is not affected by traveling through static electric or magnetic fields in a linear medium such as a vacuum. However, in nonlinear media, such as some crystals, interactions can occur between light and static electric and magnetic fields — these interactions include the Faraday eff... |
What did the ancient Greeks look like? | We must remember first and foremost that Ancient Greece was not a collective entity and the way that the Athenians presented themselves was certainly not the same as how a Persian or a Macedonian would present themselves. | [
"These have been called \"Greek-looking foreigners\" wearing Greek clothing complete with tunics, capes and sandals, typical of the , and using Greek and Central Asian musical instruments ( the double flute aulos, or the carnyx-like Cornu horns), possibly pointing to the Indo-Greeks. The men are depicted with short... |
How can patients have half of their brain removed (Hemispherectomy) and still have their memory and personality unaffected? | Hemispherectomy is usually only performed when there is such vast damage to one side of the brain that it is essentially not useful. So, yes, it matters which half is removed. If you simply removed one half of the brain in a normal person, there would be very significant detrimental effects. However, even in someone with a damaged hemisphere, there are almost always major changes in personality, and the person's memories are disrupted at least to some degree. Additionally, they will lose some control of their muscle movements. | [
"Brain plasticity has helped explain the recovery process of brain damage induced retrograde amnesia, where neuro-structures use different neural pathways to avoid the damaged areas while still performing their tasks. Thus, the brain can learn to be independent of the impaired hippocampus, but only to a certain ext... |
why does the united nations need permanent members? | The permanent members of the security council were the most power countries at the time of the formation of the UN. They would not join the UN without the powers of veto and permanent status being given them. Without them there is no point in having the UN as it would have absolutely no power or authority without their economies and militaries backing it. | [
"The permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (also known as the Permanent Five, Big Five, or P5) are the five states which the UN Charter of 1945 grants a permanent seat on the UN Security Council: China (formerly the Republic of China), France, Russia (formerly the Soviet Union), the United Kingdo... |
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