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#Physics #Astronomy Expanding Earth hypothesis and possible solutions to make it work!? | No, it's not just the mass problem.
There's also the entire geometry problem. Take the roundest egg you can find, break its shell into pieces. Now try and fit those pieces to a the outside of a football or basketball. You notice how the curvatures are all wrong? To get them to fit you have to either plastically deform, or break the shell pieces. Those breaks or stretches form radiating patterns. There is no such structure on earth.
As far as your solution goes: "So if we say that when the earth became solid it in fact had a solid shell constraining the innards of the planet" is just wrong. Gravity holds the body together, and as such the density profile through the Earth can't be tinkered with too well. Chemistry and physics won't let you just increase the density of the material in the middle. Particularly seeing as the EE nonsense requires the oceans to have opened 200 million years ago or so. That means we would have to:
1. See a chemical change in magmatism,a s the mantle source would be rapidly changing. That is not seen
2. Explain why our tomography images of the mantle show much older oceanic plates subducting.
3. Explain why the oceans opened at different times; the earth would have been forced into extreme assymetry looking at the seafloor dates we have
4. Explain the whole rest of planetary geology and tectonics which is otherwise beautfilly explained by plate tectonics. Without 4 billion years of plate tectonics then we have to find new ways to explain mountain ranges, mineralised provinces, arc volcanism, and a thousand other things.
TLDR: Expanding Earth is discredited for a lot of excellent reasons. No, that scheme proposed is not feasible. | [
"Although the expanding Earth hypothesis is nearly universally rejected by geoscientists, it has been defended recently based on detailed small-earth modeling by Klaus Vogel and James Maxlow and by many others worldwide based on other relevant data.\n",
"APEX science goals include studying the formation of stars,... |
why high fevers make us loopy/silly | The purpose of a fever is to cook whatever invader is inside of you. Your body is going into the most primitive for of survival so it's not too worried about higher level things such as say doing algebra.
Homeostasis (maintaining an even environment in the body) is very important for overall function. At a certain point of heating somethings can be stopped or sped up depending on the area/function.
This is a very basic break down | [
"A fever can be caused by many medical conditions ranging from non serious to life-threatening. This includes viral, bacterial and parasitic infections such as the common cold, urinary tract infections, meningitis, malaria and appendicitis among others. Non-infectious causes include vasculitis, deep vein thrombosis... |
Why did Early Christians call Hell "Hades" after the god rather than Tartarus? | Both Greek words, *Hades* and *Tartarus* do double-duty as both an abode for the dead, and a personified deity-figure, so the choice is not between naming a place after the god Hades and the use of Tartarus.
It's a little unclear whether *hades* first referred to the god or to the place, I have seen texts arguing for both derivations. Either way, the NT employs the term primarily to denote the place, and in translating the OT it stands for *Sheol*, similarily a dark shadowy place of the dead. Hades is used but a few times in the NT to personify death, but arguably not as a reference to the Greek god.
Why not Tartarus? The associations of Tartarus are different, it is a place below Hades, it is designated for the punsihmetn of the Wicked, and as a deity Tartarus is a primarodial force alongside Chaos and Earth. Within the Greek mythos, it came to be known as a place for the punishment of the Titans and a place to confine threats to the Olympian gods, so it's primary 'purpose' is not to hold the souls of dead human beings *en masse*, which is what Hades does. Only a verbal form of *tartarō* occurs in the NT, in 2 Pet 2:4, reasonably translated as 'thrown down to hell'. Alternatively, one should also look at the use of the word *gehenna* in the NT as a place of torment.
Of course, your question is actually a little backward, since the early Christians are talking about Hades, because they're functioning in Greek. *Hell* as an english word derives from the Old English *Hel*, with similar cognates across Germanic languages, which also seems to do double-duty as the place of the dead as well as a being ruling over the same place. | [
"The Christian doctrine of hell derives from passages in the New Testament. The word \"hell\" does not appear in the Greek New Testament; instead one of three words is used: the Greek words \"Tartarus\" or \"Hades\", or the Hebrew word \"Gehinnom\".\n",
"As the Catechism says, the word \"Hell\"—from the Norse, \"... |
why do i only seem to realize how drunk i am when i go to the bathroom? | Going to the bathroom is the experience that links me to all past drunk experiences. Every time I look myself deeply in the mirror and gaze into my soul. The experience transcends time. | [
"BULLET::::- Drunkenness is wrong because it injures one's health, and worse, destroys one's ability to reason, which is fundamental to humans as rational animals (i.e., does not support self-preservation).\n",
"Contrary to claims in movies, actually being drunk does not improve drunken monkey or drunken fist. It... |
How did America come to love sugar so much more than other countries? | At least part of the reason was [demand for rum.](_URL_0_) Rum is [made from sugar cane](_URL_1_), which we imported from the Caribbean, distilled into molasses and rum, then exported out again. Manufacture of rum was early Colonial New England's largest and [most prosperous industry.](_URL_2_)
I am sure there are others who could shed more light on this than I can, but I hope this helped. There is actually a really informative Good Eats episode (Pantry Raid X: Dark Side of the Cane, Season 12-Episode 15) which you might find informative. | [
"After its arrival to Europe in the sixteenth century, sugar was added to it and it became popular throughout society, first among the ruling classes and then among the common people. In the 20th century, chocolate was considered essential in the rations of United States soldiers during war.\n",
"The sugar market... |
Are there many cases of a 'food taster' actually consuming poison and dying on the spot? | I can't find any evidence of a poison taster actually dying from poisoned food or drink. There are a number of Roman tasters, or *praegustators*, who are known by name because their title was written on a tombstone, or through other records. Cause of death generally wasn't poison though. *Praegustator* was sometimes a high-ranking office under the Roman Emperors, similar to a *cursus honorum*, and although slaves might be employed to actually taste suspicious food or drink, the *Praegustator* was responsible -- on pain of death naturally -- for the Emperor's health. Some *praegustators* were patrician members of the imperial household, and some were imperial household slaves. I imagine the choice came down to who the emperor or aristocrat in question thought they could trust.
I think there are some modern misconceptions about the role of a food taster. There are plenty of fast-acting poisons that would show rapid symptoms -- potassium cyanide, hemlock, belladonna etc. But the ancient Romans, Greeks, Egyptians, Chinese, etc. were fully aware of dozens of other slower-acting poisons that a poison taster would never be able to detect in time to save the intended target -- arsenic being the king of these. Pliny the Elder described over 7000 known poisons, so the idea that such an unsophisticated method of detection would protect anyone from poisoning would have seemed as silly to the ancients as it does to us. Poison tasters were not intended to act as a "canary in a coal mine": their role was more involved and complicated.
Just focusing on the Romans for a moment, food tasters appear to have been employed for several reasons:
a) **Fashion**. [Marc Antony](_URL_1_) was so afraid of being poisoned by Cleopatra that he employed a *praegustator*, and this then became fashionable in imperial households.
b) **Deterrent**. The *praegustator* was also a kind of chef, responsible for food creation, and required to eat whatever the Emperor ate. Their own life was therefore on the line in making sure that the Emperor's food remained uncontaminated. Kind of a strong deterrent against doing a bad job. Also, deterrent 2, would-be poisoners would know that their efforts would have to penetrate this layer of security, with increased chance of detection, and that might prevent their attempt.
c) **Evidence**. People, even Emperors, often became sick for mysterious reasons. If both the Emperor and his *praegustator* died at the same time, with the same symptoms, after eating the same food, you would have legal and logical proof that poison was used. On the other hand, if the Emperor was obviously poisoned but the taster was feeling just fine, then they would be at the top of the line of suspects. [Halotus](_URL_0_), taster for Emperor Claudius, was widely suspected in the poisoning of Claudius. If in fact he was involved, he apparently enjoyed the protection of powerful people who stood to benefit from the death of Claudius, namely Agrippina and the successor to the throne, Nero.
d) **Training**. If your official job title is "poison taster," and your life is on the line every time you prepare a meal, then you're naturally going to study up on the known poisons and how they can be detected in food or drink. Many poisons have a characteristic smell, taste, or chemical reaction, some of which were known in the ancient world.
e) **Canary**. There is some evidence that tasters, especially slaves, could indeed be used as living poison detectors, although that wasn't their primary function.
EDIT 2: removed a section violating the "current events" rule. Included below as a comment. | [
"Two common cases of acute natural poisoning are theobromine poisoning of dogs and cats, and mushroom poisoning in humans. Dogs and cats are not natural herbivores, but a chemical defense developed by \"Theobroma cacao\" can be incidentally fatal nevertheless. Many omnivores, including humans, readily consume edibl... |
How much is actually known about the naming of US cities and towns after European cities? Did they really just give the city the same name as the place they came from? | Well, Wikipedia may not be the most nuanced and scholarly source for toponomic history. Pretty much every state has a book devoted to the sources of its placenames; the grandfather of them all is George R. Stewart's 1945 book *Names Upon the Land.*
Stewart (pp. 46-47) vividly imagines the discussions held at the Massachusetts General Court on 7th Sept. 1630, but all we really have as documentation is the Court's order: "It is ordered, that Trimountain shall be called Boston; Mattapan, Dorchester; and the town upon the Charles River, Waterton."
The names of towns in eastern England would have been familiar to most New England colonists, easy to remember, and thought fitting as a place name in a way that neither, say, *Zion* nor *Dead Raccoon* would have been. Names are a cultural construct, after all. | [
"Note that not all towns whose names are the same as a foreign city are named for that city. For example, there is only one US place named for the Boston in England. That is Boston, Massachusetts; all the rest were named for it or after someone named Boston. Also note that places named after people are not on this ... |
If we have a blind spot in the center of our vision from our optical nerve, how come when I close one eye I don't see a "hole" in my vision? | You do have a hole in your field of vision. Your brain is just reeeaaally good about making sure you don't notice it.
It uses details from what's around it to infer what *should* be there, and fills it in for you.
There are even certain tests you can do to make it noticeable.
Edit: For example, open [this image](_URL_0_), and size it so that the circle and cross are ~5 inches (13cm) apart. Look directly at the cross, cover one eye, and move your head towards the image. There will be a point where the circle goes away. This is your blind spot. | [
"The optic disc or optic nerve head is the point of exit for ganglion cell axons leaving the eye. Because there are no rods or cones overlying the optic disc, it corresponds to a small blind spot in each eye.\n",
"The optic disc or optic nerve head is the point of exit for ganglion cell axons leaving the eye. Bec... |
What do we actually know about the Big Bang? | "Big bang" can mean several things.
For a cosmologist, it's a theoretical framework which claims that the Universe was hotter and denser in the past. If you push the predictions to the edge, they predict a singularity. We don't know anything about this singularity because we know our laws of physics fail before reaching it. Some speculative theories try to go beyond it and predict things like a bounce, the creation of our Universe or some counterintuitive phenomenons.
For a layman, "big bang" is this singularity itself, considered as the creation of the Universe. There was nothing and BANG the Universe was created. But then there are a lot of strange questions: what was before the Big Bang? nothing? how can we create something out of nothing? did time exist before the Big Bang? what does "before" mean then? (The term "big bang" was invented by Fred Hoyle who didn't believe in this theory and wanted to mock it).
The problem is that Christians think this layman interpretation of the Big Bang looks strangely like the "fiat lux" of their holy book. You just have to change 7 days into 13.7 billions years and shuffle a bit the chronology and you can argue that the Big Bang was written in the Bible! That's exactly what the pope Pius XII did: he claimed in the middle of the 20th century that the current developments in cosmology were agreeing with the Bible. But one man managed to convince him that it was a terrible idea: Lemaitre. Georges Lemaitre was a Belgian scientist, one of the very first cosmologists. He was one of the few peoples who tried to apply the brand new general relativity from Einstein to the Universe and predicted the expansion. He was the first to consider seriously what happen when we go back very far in time and understood that the early Universe was like a "primeval atom". He was also a priest. But he was not one of the ignorant believers that r/atheism hates. He was smart enough to understand that science and religion shouldn't be mixed. He knew that if one tries to reconcile science and religion like Pius XII did (what is called "concordism") then it means that religion shoud be on the same level than science: it should be falsifiable. If someone proved that the singularity didn't happen and that the Universe already existed, would it mean that God didn't create the Universe? In the end, Pius XII was convinced and started to be more careful... | [
"\"Big Bang\" chronicles the history and development of the Big Bang model of the universe, from the ancient Greek scientists who first measured the distance to the sun to the 20th century detection of the cosmic radiation still echoing the dawn of time.\n",
"English astronomer Fred Hoyle is credited with coining... |
How did King Kamehameha unite the Hawaiian Islands one by one? | ##Part 1
In the work *Voices of Resistance and Renewal: Indigenous Leadership in Education* (2015), Housman writes concerning Indigenous leadership principles from a Hawaiian perspective in chapter three (pp. 49-75). In describing these principles, stories of Kamehameha's leadership are used to exemplify how these principles are enacted by the Hawaiian Peoples, which ultimately tell us how Kamehameha was able to unite all of the islands under his kingship. Lessons derived from these stories have resulted in a strong cultural identity that is integral to Hawaiian leadership and is necessary to build on these traditional leadership principles.
###Kamehameha
Kamehameha's personality and qualities have been considered, at least by the Hawaiian People, to have been a major reason in his ability to unite the islands. This was coupled with a spiritual aspect in that his future as a great leader was prophesied from his birth. These two factors enabled him to influence a number of the other chiefs and warriors from his homeland to unite rather than engage in total war against each other (p. 63). Among his characteristics and behavior that resulted in his inspirational image were:
* Respect for tradition
* Diligence and obedience regarding duties
* Perceived steadfastness and honor
* Dedication to the Gods, mentors, and people
These attributes of Kamehameha, though they may sound like an over indulgence into his character, are at least believed to be largely responsible for him gaining favor among other Hawaiian regents and the rallying of support from warriors who joined his unification efforts. By 1782, Kamehameha was already considered one of the strongest warriors among his people on the island of Hawaii. Successions of chiefs would soon lead to the beginning of conflicts that would see the rise of Kamehameha (pp. 64-66). [The following excerpt, as cited by the aforementioned academic work, outlines the buildup to this war:](_URL_0_)
> In 1780, Hawai'i Island ruler Kalani'ōpu'u met with his chiefs in Waipi'o Valley, telling them that, that after he died: his oldest son Kīwala'ō Kauikeaouli [Kīwala'ō Kauikeouli] would become the new ruler of Hawai'i Island; his son Keōuakū'ahu'ula [Keōua] would get land; and Kamehameha (Kalani'ōpu'u's nephew) would become chief of Kohala, on land that was Kamehameha's by inheritance.
> Kamehameha was also to be given guardianship of the family's feathered war god, Kūkā'ilimoku, along with the responsibility of caring for the heiau (sacred places of worship) associated with the war god.
> Kalani'ōpu'u then captured an enemy chief of Puna named 'Īmakakoloa [Imakaloa] for a human sacrifice ceremony to consolidate his chiefdom. 'Īmakakoloa was taken to the Ka'ū luakini heiau (where human sacrifices were performed) called Hālauwilua in Kamā'oa in the ahupua'a of Pākini;
> When Kalani'ōpu'u's son, Kīwala'ō Kauikeaouli [Kīwala'ō Kauikeouli], initiated the sacrificial ceremony, Kamehameha boldly stepped in and finished the ritual, placing 'Īmakakoloa on the altar.
> This action by Kamehameha caused controversy and led to a rift between Kīwala'ō Kauikeaouli [Kīwala'ō Kauikeouli] and Kamehameha, who then returned to Kohala.
> After Kalani'ōpu'u died in April of 1782, Kamehameha and Keōuakū'ahu'ula [Keōua] were both slighted by the redivision of lands of Hawai'i Island by Kīwala'ō Kauikeaouli [Kīwala'ō Kauikeouli], which took away from Kamehameha and Kona chiefs lands formerly under their rule.
> Chief counselor for Kīwala'ō Kauikeaouli [Kīwala'ō Kauikeouli] at this time was Keawemauhili, who was given large portions of Kona and Hilo.
> The redivision of lands on Hawai'i Island by Kīwala'ō Kauikeaouli [Kīwala'ō Kauikeouli] angered the Kona's chiefs, causing them to unite with Kamehameha, who became their leader.
This tension saw Kamehameha striking first in 1790 against Kalanikūkupule,^1 son of Kahekilinui'ahumanu [Kahekili], on the island of Maui. As you noted in the opening of the post, Kamehameha had foreign technology in his and his warriors' possession: muskets and even a cannon, which was named Robert, or *Lopaka.* (Kamakau, 1992). However, his tactics in the battle also led to his victory. Kamehameha was committed to his attack despite being outnumbered by the forces of the other chiefs who hadn't rallied behind him for the land reforms. Kīwala'ō, on the other hand, was not as committed to his defense. Five days of fighting occurred, which saw a number of smaller chiefs abandoning Kamehameha. Kīwala'ō joined forces with his brother, the instigator of these tensions, and gained numerical superiority. They had stationed canoes as a last resort in case Kamehameha would be able to shift the battle. Kamehameha had no such option for retreat. On the fifth day of battle, now known as the Battle of Moku-ʻohai, Kīwala'ō was killed and the remaining forces melted away (Housman, 2015, pp. 66-67). From the Hawaiian perspective, Kamehameha had also gained the favor of the Gods:
> [What chief was responsible for giving Kamehameha dominion? It was Keoua Kuahu-ʻula. But did not the ruling chief, Kiwalaʻo, join hands with Keoua? Yes, and that was when he broke the solemn command of Ka-lani-ʻopuʻu and his proclamation at Akahipapa. In what respect was Kiwalaʻo wrong? In first offering in sacrifice Kamehameha's men who had been killed by Keoua; that was as if he had consented to make war on Kamehameha. And for this reason the god transferred his power to Kamehameha. The offerings (mohai) and the gifts (alana) of Kiwalaʻo were an abomination to the god (Kamakau, 1992, p. 122).](_URL_1_)
Kamehameha would then engage in subsequent battles against chiefs who either sided with the land reforms that occurred on the Big Island or rebelled against him. His forces would be badly beaten by the combined forces of chiefs who's soldiers were known to be quite formidable. Yet, through a complex system of allies and reinforcements, along with tactical retreats, Kamehameha's army avoided total defeat. Compared to many of the other chiefs, Kamehameha also made sure to show respect for his mentors and obey their desires. In doing this, Kamehameha commanded greater respect from said mentors and the warriors they brought with them to fight alongside in these battles (Housman, 2015, p. 70).
###The Big Island
Kamehameha gained full control over the Big Island through his relations to the other chiefs and with the help of the weaponry seized from a European sloop. He committed himself to fighting against Ka-lani-ku-pule, ruling chief of Maui. Traveling in numerous canoes, they beached and built shelters on the shores of Maui. After a skirmish with an army sent out to assault them, Kamehameha received reinforcements and routed the army with the numerical advantage. Kapa-kahili, the lead warrior of the Maui forces, was chased down, defeated, and killed, which brought a ceasefire between Kamehameha and the Maui forces until he reached Wailuku. For several days, fighting continued, with Kamehameha being victorious, largely due to Lopaka, the cannon seized from the Europeans. No important chiefs were killed, but rather, they retreated to the other islands (Kamakau, 1992, pp. 146-148). "During the fight Ka-lani-ku-pule, Koa-lau-kani, Ka-mohomoho, and other chiefs escaped to Oahu. Ke-kuʻi-apo-iwa, Ka-lani-akua, and Ke-opu-o-lani were taken over the pass in ʻIao Valley to Olowalu, where they met Ka-lola's party and sailed to Molokai" (p. 149).
Keoua Kuahu-ʻula, another figure who was against Kamehameha, took military forces to the Big Island that was already mostly under Kamehameha's rule. He raided several locations, causing Kamehameha to return to the island of Hawaii from his encampment on Molokai. Keoua had taken control of several villages and was presiding over them as chief. Though several battles occurred once Kamehameha returned, the tide slightly shifted when another European shipment of weaponry arrived via ship under the command of Captain Kane and landed in Kamehameha's hands. They would later lose a number of these items to Keoua's army and the battles soon drew to a stalemate. According to Kamakau (p. 154), Kamehameha turned to their spiritual beliefs to support his efforts, which translated into political actions. | [
"The Hawaiian Kingdom ( Kingdom of Hawaiʻi) originated in 1795 with the unification of the independent islands of Hawaiʻi, Oʻahu, Maui, Molokaʻi, and Lānaʻi under one government. In 1810, the whole Hawaiian Islands became unified when Kauaʻi and Niʻihau joined the Kingdom of Hawai‘i voluntarily and without bloodshe... |
why does israel collect palestine's taxes? | Because Palestine doesn't really exist yet. It's a complicated situation. The lands that are 'Palestine' are technically still owned by Israel. It's what is called a de jure state. The territory is nominally controlled by the Palestinians but they do not have true sovereignty yet. | [
"Israel collects taxes on Palestinian imports on behalf of the PA and transfers the results on monthly basis. Israel forces \"all\" Palestinian imports (and its exports as far as allowed by Israel) to go via Israel. Within the West Bank, all goods are unilaterally routed by Israel via military checkpoints and cross... |
if cooking kills bacteria, why does it matter how long we leave meat out, or how often we thaw and refreeze it? | Cooking kills bacteria, but if the bacteria was alive long enough it could have left some pretty nasty stuff behind as waste. Cooking doesn't get rid of this waste and it can cause some serious health problems.
Freezing and thawing multiple times is just bad for the food as far as taste and texture goes, unless the thaw time is sufficient for stuff to grow on it, which brings us back to the first point.
Freezing stuff at a nice and low temperature well into the negatives will keep stuff safe to eat pretty much indefinitely, although the quality does tend to suffer after a few months as it will continue to crack and proteins still break down. | [
"Untreated meat decomposes rapidly if it is not preserved, at a speed that depends on several factors, including ambient humidity, temperature, and the presence of pathogens. Most meats cannot be kept at room temperature in excess of a few days without spoiling.\n",
"The decomposition of food, either plant or ani... |
What is the difference between Genetic Modification and Cross pollination? | Direct modification of genes is more potent, but I can't say that this makes it more or less dangerous. It's just a tool, and the risk is dependent upon the details of what you are doing. Responsible genetic engineering is just as safe as responsible cross breeding.
[This](_URL_0_) is a good read if you're interested in the topic. | [
"Hybrid pollination, a type of controlled pollination in which the pollen comes from a different strain (or species), can be used to increase crop suitability, especially through heterosis. The resulting hybrid strain can sometimes be inbred and selected for desired traits until a strain that breeds true by open po... |
why are 28 pages classified in the congressional 9/11 report? if the terrorists were being supported by another country, shouldn't that information be public? | The government keeps secrets for a lot of reasons. For example, suppose the report contained information only available to someone highly placed in certain governments, A.K.A. a spy. Releasing that info publicly would likely get them killed. | [
"A 2013 report to Congress noted that the relevant laws have been mostly used to prosecute foreign agents, or those passing classified information to them, and that leaks to the press have rarely been prosecuted. The legislative and executive branches of government, including US presidents, have frequently leaked c... |
How do doctors tell the difference between someone with ADHD and someone who just has a poor attention span (unfocused, undisciplined, etc.) ? | ADHD researcher here. If you are seeing someone who actually knows what they're doing, the process is a lot more intensive. You will go through a semi-structured interview about yourself, and then others who know you well (a parent, long time friend, etc) will be given the same interview about your symptoms. If both interviews come back with a high amount of endorsed symptoms, you will go through a variety of neuropsychological tests at which people with ADHD are known to perform poorly. Actual diagnostic criteria are, for adults, 5 symptoms of either inattentive or hyperactivity-impulsivity, according to the new guidelines set forth by the DSM-V.
In essence, the doctor (probably psychiatrist) will be able to tell if you actually have ADHD or not. Unfortunately, a lot of family doctors, even clinicians who claim expertise don't go through the proper procedures in diagnosis. | [
"The Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale is only applicable for adults with diagnosed or undiagnosed ADHD. A positive screening is not a proper diagnosis, but an indication that the adult should seek a healthcare professional for further analysis. Although the 6 question ASRS screener can be effective in diagnosing ADHD i... |
As we gain weight, do we store more blood? | Yes, though normally it's related to height compared to weight. That is why people get hypertension because the blood has to be pumped harder through the adipose tissue to prevent tissue death, a good example of this if you've ever seen "Body Worlds" with the cross sections healthy/obese arms & legs.
Here is a calculator to help determine blood volume, also I donate Platelets (I'm O+), occasionally whole blood, and rarely if needed granulocytes (aka White Blood Cells) for the Red Cross. I'm normally close to the FDA yearly Red Blood Cell loss limit.
_URL_0_
At my height the Red Cross says I cannot go under 190 lbs (a goal of mine as well), though I normally range from 200-220 and lately been closer to 230.
At 5'11", and 190 Lbs I have a Blood Volume of 5.536 Liters. At 230 Lbs, I have a Blood Volume of 6.121 Liters. I would have 6.129 Liters at a Heights of 6'5" and 190 Lbs. So 6" or 40lbs is roughly equal to .6L of Blood Volume.
| [
"Weight gain can be accomplished through the ingestion of and storage of carbohydrates and fat. Under normal conditions, adrenal hormone receptors, type I and type II, mediate the storage of carbohydrates and fats during eating. In some cases, obesity in individuals is due to the overproduction of corticoids leads ... |
Did Christians/Jewish groups ever perform acts of terrorism? | So this is a difficult question to answer due to the complex definition of Terrorism, however the answer is absolutely yes. For the sake of answering this question I am going to define terrorism as an act committed by a group against a civilian population in order to inspire fear. I am sure that some would disagree with this definition as too broad or poorly focused but I think it will suit for the purpose of answering this question.
Working in that framework there are still countless examples of Christian communities commuting acts of terrorism both against other Christians and against non Christian groups and societies. One conflict that featured frequent examples of terrorism was the Lebanese Civil War in which Christian and Muslim sectarian groups battled for control of Lebanon. Christian groups were guilty of countless acts of bombing, massacre, murder and torture during the course of the war. An excellent example of these acts were committed by a Maronite Christian group and was called the Tl al-Zaata massacre in which Maronite Christians entered a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon and killed thousands of refugees. Other bombings, revenge killings, and other forms of terrorism occurred daily during the course of the war, and atrocities were committed by both sides.
For an example of Christian on Christian violence one needs look no farther than Northern Ireland during the Troubles (the period of struggle between the Catholic groups who largely supported Northern Ireland joining the South, and the Protestant groups who favored staying a part of the United Kingdom). Again acts of terror were committed by numerous groups supporting both sides, most famously t the IRA and the UDF. The IRA is famous for its bombing spree throughout Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom for most of the seventies and the decades after. An excellent example of IRA terrorism would be the Hyde Park and Regent's Park bombing in which IRA soldiers planted bombs in London in an effort to spread fear throughout the English population and encourage them to abandon their claims of Northern Ireland. Again the Protestant forces committed many similar acts against the Northern Irish Catholic population.
Both of these Conflicts were notorious for the tremendous amount of what we today would call terrorists acts. They were a huge part of both struggles and the examples I have provide may not be the best, simply the first that came to mind. If you go throughout history you will find other examples of acts that would be considered terrorism committed by Christian groups. I simply chose these two conflicts to focus on because I have some familiarity with the subject and they are modern enough that I am less queasy about applying modern definitions to past acts. Both of these occurred at a time in which our modern definition of terrorism was largely established.
I have not studied terrorist acts committed by Jewish peoples, but would be surprised if there were not a comparable number to other groups.
This question, at least to me, seems to be asking in a roundabout way are Muslims the only ones who commit terrorism, and the answer is an emphatic no. Terrorism is not unique to any peoples or religion. I have not read extensively enough on the Jewish people to mention specifics but would be very interested if someone on this sub knows more.
Some broad sources that make great reading.
The Troubles-
Coogan, Tim Pat. (1995). The Troubles: Ireland's Ordeal 1966-1996 and the Search for Peace. London: Hutchinson.
The Lebaneese Civil War-
Friedman, Thomas, 1990, From Beirut to Jerusalem, London: Collins.
Fisk, Robert, 2001, Pity the nation: Lebanon at War, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
| [
"Most scholars today trace the origins of the modern tactic of terrorism to the Jewish Sicarii Zealots who attacked Romans and Jews in 1st century Palestine. They follow its development from the Persian Order of Assassins through to 19th-century anarchists. The \"Reign of Terror\" is usually regarded as an issue of... |
how come the f-35 program cost way more to develop than the f-22 despite being generally less technologically advanced? | F-35 is pretty much 3 different planes, that look similar.
* Navy version has different wings and modifications to frame to support carrier landing.
* Marine version has VSTOL.
* Air Force version has better performance. | [
"F-35 manufacturer Lockheed Martin responded to the Canadian announcement, \"although disappointed with this decision, we remain confident the F-35 is the best solution to meet Canada's operational requirements at the most affordable price, and the F-35 has proven in all competitions to be lower in cost than fourth... |
Did the Habsburg monarchs know about incest problems? | /u/cleopatra_philopater talked about royal inbreeding in [In societies where incestual marriage with very close degrees of relation was tolerated/celebrated (eg; brother-sister pairings in Egypt) did people ever notice or point out that the children of such pairings seemed to die more often than ones produced from non-incestual marriages?](_URL_0_) and [here](_URL_1_). | [
"The Habsburg marriage negotiations revolving around the marriage of Queen Elizabeth I to Archduke Charles show the way marriage was often negotiated in royal families. The first phase began in 1559, with the initiative for a matrimonial alliance between England and Austria. However, the first phase was a failure a... |
How close can two planets be to each other? | Yes, they most definitely will influence each other. How much? Well that depends on mass, distance, and just how different the planets are from each other.
So for your SciFi example, You're probably imagining two planets of roughly equal size in proximity to each other, peacefully coexisting. That's possible, sure, but unlikely. That would be called a Binary or Double Planet. The problem with that kind of setup is having them in a stable orbit around each other without violating the Roche Limit! "the closest distance from the center of a planet that a satellite can approach without being pulled apart by the planet's gravitational field."
But just for fun, lets assume that you're not talking about a peaceful coexistence! There are other ways planets can mess with each other without destroying each other. What if a planet decided to go wandering through the solar system, like Jupiter did around the time of the Late Heavy Bombardment, a period of history in the solar system where Jupiter may have gone from inside the asteroid belt to where it is now. If there were any planets between Mars and Saturn, we can virtually guarantee that Jupiter spit them out of the solar system because of it's gravitational field! That would be fun!
The truth is that planets interact with each others gravitational fields all the time. That's how we found Neptune. We noticed a little wobble in the path of Uranus, and using math we were able to predict the size and location of another planet. In literally a single night of observation, we found Neptune because we knew exactly where to look. MATH! (Youtube Video about it _URL_0_ but it's burried in with a lot of other gravity discussions)
For your last question, we don't know for sure of any planets that are actually Binary (Double) Planets, except maybe Pluto-Charon, but just using the word planet in that sentence kinda opens up a can of worms, so I won't go there. Some binary asteroids with components of roughly equal mass are sometimes informally referred to as double minor planets. These include binary asteroids 69230 Hermes and 90 Antiope and binary Kuiper belt objects (KBOs) 79360 Sila–Nunam and 1998 WW31.
Okay I gotta go to bed, I hope others keep the conversation going. Gravity is super interesting, and has an effect on everything over VERY large distances (but not astrological signs, that's just fooey!)
Notation: Some text copied from other sources, because i'm tired! | [
"The two planets are in a 4:3 resonance, meaning that every time the outer planet orbits the star three times, the inner planet orbits the star four times. The two planets are separated by only 0.35 AU (52 Gm). Because of the small separation between the two massive planets, the gravitational tugs between the two p... |
how do altimeters work? (altitude detecting gauges) | Most of them are essentially pressure gauges. The higher you are above a given level the lower the air pressure. | [
"The altitude specified by the device is not the indicated altitude of the standard barometric altimeter. A radar altimeter measures absolute altitude - the height Above Ground Level (AGL). Absolute altitude is sometimes referred to as height because it is the height above the underlying terrain.\n",
"An altimete... |
why some movies get low rating on imdb and rotten tomatoes but it's still enjoyable and well liked by a lot of people? | Because an enjoyable movie doesn't necessarily have to be a good movie. The directing or acting or whatever could technically be "bad" but you still might like the story for example. | [
"The film has been widely criticized for having a lackluster plot and weak dialogue by users and critics alike on IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, and Netflix. Ratings range from 2.6/5 stars on Rotten Tomatoes, with one critic review each for fresh and rotten, to 4.2/10 on IMDb with overwhelmingly negative reviews from criti... |
What causes the magnetic moment of charged particles like the electron? | I don't think you'll find a deeper "reason". It is a particle property, just like the electric charge and the mass. | [
"In atomic physics, the electron magnetic moment, or more specifically the electron magnetic dipole moment, is the magnetic moment of an electron caused by its intrinsic properties of spin and electric charge. The value of the electron magnetic moment is approximately . The electron magnetic moment has been measure... |
Did Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley change R & B and Rock and Roll in any significant way, or did they just popularize the music among white Americans? | Not an expert, but I'm currently taking a History of Rock class and I might be able to shed some light on this, regarding Elvis specifically. First a little bit of background:
It's generally agreed upon that the common ancestor of almost all popular music of the 20th century began with ragtime in the early 1900s – jaunty, upbeat piano music that you'll often hear when watching old silent movies, and Scott Joplin came to be regarded as the King of Ragtime. Going from here, we get jazz – which more or less diverged into its own distinct genre around the time of the beat generation – and we also get the blues, which has perhaps been the most dynamic genre of music in America. We start with classic blues (e.g. Bessie Smith), then rural/delta blues (Robert Johnson), gospel (Soul Stirrers), Chicago blues (Muddy Waters), jump blues (Louis Jordan), club blues (Nat King Cole), boogie-woogie (Pinetop Smith), doo-wop (The Ink Spots), and pretty much all of this blends and culminates into rhythm and blues, which at this time is *extremely* close to what actually came to be known as rock n roll.
Looking at all this, one should note that literally every person I've listed so far was black. Up until the time of Elvis, almost every significant advance in *western popular music in the 20th century* (thanks /u/Dak105) was done by black artists, but large record companies were not keen on releasing so-called "race records" for fear of alienating their white customers. A solution to this was to produce sanitized, dumbed down covers of popular black music (Pat Boone) that ended up topping the charts, despite being vastly inferior to their source material. One of the first big breakaways from this was Bill Haley & His Comets, whose cover of "Rock Around the Clock" was, for lack of a better term, actually *good,* and was extremely successful.
Soon after, Elvis comes onto the scene and becomes wildly famous by covering songs originally produced by black artists. But unlike Pat Boone, Elvis' marketability was not based on being a safe, wholesome artist that white parents could enjoy along with their kids, catching a lot of flak for his dancing style on stage. Growing up in the south, he was heavily influenced by the music of his black neighbors, and melded this with elements of country and western in a style that came to be known as "rockabilly." So while it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that Elvis stood on the shoulders of black artists and popularized a segregated genre of music, his versions of songs have significant stylistic deviations from their original recordings, while at the same time not watering them down. There's also the idea that the singer is more important than the songs, and Elvis was probably the biggest example of that notion up to that point, being the legend that he was. This requires a somewhat looser interpretation of rock n roll to encompass things other than just the music itself, but hopefully this all helps to answer your question.
edit: clarification | [
"Country music and country gospel loom large in the choice of songs. The songs of such country and Western legends as Bill Monroe, Ernest Tubb, Hank Snow and Gene Autry are among those featured. Lewis played most of the piano and Presley took nearly all of the lead vocals. The other participants easily follow Presl... |
Was getting attacked by large predators a problem for early American colonists or frontier settlers? | Governor Bradford only makes a single mention of wolves in the context of actual encounters. While scouting for a location to set up their colony some were heard howling in the darkness and frightened off with gunfire.
> So being very weary, they betooke them to rest. But aboute midnight, they heard a hideous and great crIe, and their sentinell caled, "Arme, arme"; so they bestired them and stood to their armes, and shote of a cupple of moskets, and then the noys seased. They concluded it was a companie of wolves, or such like willd beasts; for ove of the sea men tould them he had often heard shuch a noyse in New-found land. 127
[_URL_0_](_URL_0_)
Governor Winthrop, leader of the later Puritan settlements in Massachusetts mentions wolves in 1630 and 1631 respectively.
1630
> The wolves killed six calves at Salem, and they killed one wolf.
1631
> The governor, being at his farm house at Mistick,
walked out after supper, and took a piece in his hand suppos-
ing he might see a wolf, (for they came daily about the house,
and killed swine and calves, etc. ;) and, being about half a mile
off, it grew suddenly dark, so as, in coming home, he mistook
his path, and went till he came to a Uttle house of Sagamore
John, which stood empty.
[_URL_1_](_URL_1_)
Bears go unmentioned in either account. They are more likely to be mentioned in the accounts of settlers in the Carolinas, bears are common in the swamps of North Carolina/Southern Virginia.
The only reference to Lions is a ship by that name trading with the settlers. | [
"Frontier warfare during the American Revolution was particularly brutal, and numerous atrocities were committed by settlers and native tribes alike. Noncombatants suffered greatly during the war. Military expeditions on each side destroyed villages and food supplies to reduce the ability of people to fight, as in ... |
how do computer screens work and how do they display images | In LCD monitors an electric current is sent through the crystal,rearranging the 'spin' of the picture to display a certain color. There are 3 layers, a plastic screen, a color censoring sheet and the crystal _URL_0_ see the color a backlight at the bottom of the monitor is passed through the setup so you can see it.
CRT monitors use an electron current through the tube, going row by row, very quickly to create an image | [
" A monitor displays information in visual form, using text and graphics. The portion of the monitor that displays the information is called the screen. Like a television screen, a computer screen can show still or moving pictures and It’s a part of Output Devices.\n",
"Normally, the software in a computer treats... |
why is it only red light that develops photos? what makes red able to do this as opposed to any other color, or even natural daylight? | Red light doesn't develop photos. Photos are developed with chemicals. They use red lights in dark rooms because black and white film is insensitive to red light, so you can see what you're doing without exposing the film more.
For colour film, you in fact open the film and put it in a lightproof tank, in a lightproof bag, after which you can just turn regular lights on. You just see them using the red lights in the movies because pitch black rooms don't make for the most exciting footage. | [
"Implementation of color photography was hindered by the limited sensitivity of early photographic materials, which were mostly sensitive to blue, only slightly sensitive to green, and virtually insensitive to red. The discovery of dye sensitization by photochemist Hermann Vogel in 1873 suddenly made it possible to... |
why does doubling cooking temperature not cut cooking time in half? | That would lead to a burned exterior and a raw or undercooked interior. It takes time for heat to be conducted through what it is you're cooking, and your goal is to reach a certain *internal* temperature without destroying the exterior. | [
"The higher temperature causes food to cook faster; cooking times can typically be reduced to one-third of the time for conventional cooking methods. The actual cooking time also depends on the pressure release method used after timing \"(see Pressure release methods for details)\" and the thickness and density of ... |
Were there different ethnic neighborhoods in the city of Rome where ethnicities clustered, such as the Chinatowns in various US cities? | To a point. Around the Aventine, for example, there has been found a cluster of Palmyrene inscriptions, which indicates that there was a community there. Palmyra was an oasis city in Syria at the center of a number of trade routes that is famous for the strength of its local identity and the visibility of the expression of this identity in other areas. So just because the Palmyrenes were a very visible community does not mean they were unique, and indeed there are scattered literary and epigraphic references to other communities (Tyrean, Ephesian, Narbonensian, etc) resident in Rome.
But these aren't really like Chinatown. Rather these are trade stations. In the pre-modern world, and even today, long distance trade relied on extended networks of interpersonal connection. It would not be a matter of an Ephesian merchant sailing from Ionia to Rome, selling his cargo, and returning. Rather this cargo would follow along channels well established through diaspora communities--perhaps an Ephesian merchant in Rome would make a deal with a Roman merchant, who is willing to deal with Ephesians because his friend dealt with them in the past and found them trustworthy, they would pool their funds together, send a message to an shipper in Ephesus, who would sail to Sicily, pick up a cargo of grain, and go to Rome where it would be purchased and sold by the Ephesian and Roman merchants. These aren't massive immigrant communities like Chinatown, but wherever you see long distance trade you can almost be certain there are these same small, tightly knit and well connected diaspora communities. In aggregate, these made up fairly large and influential segments of the population, contributing to the stunning diversity of the city.
That being said, the closest equivalent was probably the communities of different Italian areas. The different neighborhoods of Rome had very distinct characters, in terms of religious festivals and identity. It is likely that these sometimes to a degree corresponded to different areas of Italy. But outside of that, it is difficult to know whether there was an "Egyptian quarter" or "Spanish quarter". While there were an awful lot of foreigners in the city of Rome, many were likely fairly well integrated into the city itself, not the least because quite a few arrived as slaves.
Good sources for this are Steven Dyson's *Rome* and taco Terpstra's *Trading Communities in the Roman World*. | [
"New York City and the surrounding area, including Long Island and parts of New Jersey, is home to 12 Chinatowns, early U.S. racial ghettos where Chinese immigrants were made to live for economic survival and physical safety that are now known as important sites of tourism and urban economic activity. Six Chinatown... |
are organs the same size for everyone or are they bigger for naturally bigger people and vise versa? | While there is some amount of variance, the average dimensions and weight of organs are the same throughout all of humanity according to a rough *height* metric. A 6'5" adult male would have about 30% larger lung size than a 5'10 adult male, assuming all other factors are "average".
Fatter people will have heavier organs due to fat deposits, but the overall size of the organs won't change based on their current weight. A 5'10" fat person will have the same rough size/shape organs as a 5'10" anorexic, just with extra fat. | [
"There are also criticisms of size and organ trade-offs, including criticism of the claim of a trade-off between body size and longevity that cites the observation of longer lifespans in larger species, as well as criticism of the claim that big brains promoted sociality citing primate studies in which monkeys with... |
What were the Finns doing during the Viking age? What kind of contact did they have with their Nordic neighbors? | 'the Finns' are in fact very problematic term for the Viking Ages.
Do you mean the word as current Finlanders, or, 'the Finns' in contemporary and medieval Scandinavian sources?
If you mean the former, it would be very difficult for me to answer except for very general outlines, based on the meager archaeological finds. On the other hand, the latter roughly corresponds with the now Saami people.
I wrote briefly the relationship between the hunting people like the Saami people in the Far North and the Norsemen in the Viking Age in the later part of my answer to [What did pre-modern societies, such as the inuits, who lived in the far north think about the incredibly long days in the summer and incredibly long nights in the winter?](_URL_0_), so if you are interested in the latter, please check the link above.
| [
"The Vikings from Scandinavia were born into a seafaring culture. With the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and the Baltic and North Sea bordering the southern borders of Scandinavia, seafaring proved to be the means of communication for Scandinavians. \n",
"Contact between Sweden and what is now Finland was considera... |
why are some things transparent when in liquid form but not in solid form? | It all depends on the bonds forming (this is actually more of a chemistry question). When a thing changes states (like solid to liquid) the way its molecules bond changes and these bonds might form structures that bend light in a different way. | [
"Most liquids and aqueous solutions are highly transparent. For example, water, cooking oil, rubbing alcohol, air, and natural gas are all clear. Absence of structural defects (voids, cracks, etc.) and molecular structure of most liquids are chiefly responsible for their excellent optical transmission. The ability ... |
what should i do when someone around me has a seizure? | Help them to the ground and put them in the recovery position. Call 911 regardless. Worst case they'll just check his vitals and leave. Seizures can cause permanent damage the longer they run. EMS will have Clonazepam they can give to help ease the seizure. They'll also check for a medic-alert bracelet or necklace that should have further instructions/contact info.
Source: Parent of a 12 year-old epileptic. | [
"Potentially sharp or dangerous objects should be moved from the area around a person experiencing a seizure, so that the individual is not hurt. After the seizure if the person is not fully conscious and alert, they should be placed in the recovery position. A seizure longer than five minutes, or two or more seizu... |
Reddit, why doesn't corn on the cob turn into popcorn when heated in the microwave? | Certain [genetic varieties of corn](_URL_0_) have different propensities for popping. Zea mays averta is most commonly used for popping corn, while zea mays saccharata is a type of sweet corn (that you would eat off the cob). They differ in a way (starch content I believe) that makes one structurally "right" to pop, while the other is not. | [
"Microwave popcorn is unpopped popcorn in an enhanced, sealed paper bag intended to be heated in a microwave oven. In addition to the dried corn the bags typically contain solidified cooking oil, one or more seasonings (often salt), and natural or artificial flavorings, or both. With the many different flavors, the... |
how did non-contemporary technology navigators/explorers get to their desired destination with such accuracy? | Latitude can be calculated very simply by measuring the angle of the sun at Noon with a sextant. Longitude is measured using a clock, by subtracting the time difference between local Noon (measured with that same sextant) and Greenwich time (you have to carry a watch set to GMT on the voyage).
Cook had both of these technologies, the sextant and a clock. The issue is that 1700s clocks are extremely finicky and easy to break and prone to going off time. And Cook compensated by carrying quite a few clocks along and averaging the difference. Later explorers would get even more anal on the clock front, During Darwin's HMS beagle voyage, the captain took along 34 clocks. | [
"Many skilled underwater navigators use techniques from both of these categories in a seamless combination, using the compass to navigate between landmarks over longer distances and in poor visibility, while making use of the generic oceanographic indicators to help stay on course and as a check that there is no mi... |
Did the Neanderthals have music? | Possibly.
In Slovenia in 1995, a paleontologist named Dr. Ivan Turk found a section of cave-bear femur at least [46,000 years old](_URL_1_) (and probably older than 50,000 years old) that appears to be a [Neanderthal flute](_URL_2_). It was found in a layer of earth linked to the Middle Paleolithic (meaning: when Neanderthals were there), and appears to have been made by whacking stone or bone points - "piercing tools" - into the femur with a mallet.
You can hear a reconstructed version of that instrument [being played here](_URL_3_) (the first composition is Albinoni's *Adagio*, which is kind of suitable, since it's a reconstructed piece of music, though over a much smaller span of time).
Other [very, very old flutes](_URL_4_) have been credited to early *Homo sapiens* (and credited as the [earliest musical instruments](_URL_0_)), but, as usual, there's some debate.
Unlike the Slovenian flute, they appear to have been made by splitting bones apart, scraping their insides, then boring holes into the bone or ivory with a sharp object. More like a knife and less like an awl - definitely different technology.
The cave bear femur seems to have been made using [Mousterian](_URL_5_) technology - Neanderthal stuff. The vulture bone seems to have been made using [Aurignacian](_URL_6_) tech - early *Homo sapiens*. Although I think the current consensus is leaning more and more to the two groups (Neanderthals and modern humans) living in the same areas around 40,000 years ago, so the lines between one or the other might be a little hard to pin down.
| [
"Archaeologist Steven Mithen speculates that the Neanderthals possessed some such system, expressing themselves in a \"language\" known as \"Hmmmmm\", standing for Holistic, manipulative, multi-modal, musical and mimetic. In Bruce Richman's earlier version of essentially the same idea, frequent repetition of the sa... |
why are the careers of famous people so damaged by rape allegations when there's been no trial? | There have been accusations since at least 2000 of Cosby behaving inappropriately and his career wasn't damaged. None were proven and he settled out of court on some. His career isn't being damaged by **one** rape allegation it's being damaged by **multiple** rape allegations that seem very credible. At some point it starts becoming believable that he did do some bad things. Even if they aren't technically criminal acts the things he seems to have done are disliked by the public.
Basically though the answer is that when your career is based on people liking you when people stop liking you, whether it's fair or not, you lose your career. | [
"Although rapes are becoming more frequently reported, many go unreported or have the complaint files withdrawn due to the perception of family honour being compromised. Women frequently do not receive justice for their rapes, because police often do not give a fair hearing, and/or medical evidence is often unrecor... |
Why didn't the Imperial German Navy, make more attempts at commerce raid in World War I. | There are essentially two phases to German commerce raiding in WWI. The first was carried out by cruisers and auxiliaries that were based in the German colonies. However, these were hunted down relatively soon after the declaration of war. In 1915-17, we see the second phase, consisting mainly of converted merchant ships which tried to run the British blockade.
The main raiders in the first phase of the war were the cruisers that had been based in German colonies before the war. In addition to von Spee's squadron based at Tsingtao, the cruiser *Königsberg* was based in German East Africa, while the *Karlsruhe* was in the Caribbean. They were joined by a number of passenger liners which were given guns; *Kronprinz Wilhelm* was armed by *Karlsruhe*, *Prinz Eitel Friedrich* by von Spee at Tsingtao and *Cap Trafalgar* by the gunboat *Eber* off Brazil. The liner *Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse* was the only raider of this phase to be in European waters at the start of the war. Armed in German waters, she slipped out before the British established an effective blockade.
Of these, the cruisers *Emden* and *Karlsruhe* had the greatest effect. *Emden* was detached from von Spee's squadron before it crossed the Pacific on the route to the Falklands. She operated in the eastern Indian Ocean, capturing or sinking 23 merchants, a French destroyer and a Russian cruiser, before being sunk by HMAS *Sydney*. *Karlsruhe* operated against British shipping in the South Atlantic, capturing 16 ships, but would be sunk by an internal magazine explosion in November 1914. *Königsberg* captured one merchant, and sank the British cruiser *Pegasus*, but would be forced into the delta of the Rufiji river by engine issues. She was quickly bottled up by the British, and sunk by British monitors in July 1915.
For the most part, the liners were more able to remain at sea. *Cap Trafalgar* was caught and sunk by the British armed merchant cruiser *Carmania* off the Brazilian island of Trinidade on the 14th September 1914 (ironically while *Cap Trafalgar* was disguised as *Carmania*). *Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse* captured two merchants, but was herself sunk by HMS *Highflyer*. *Kronprinz Wilhelm* managed to capture 15 ships. However, British patrols caught her tender (carrying coal and supplies). Low on fuel, and suffering from engine problems, she was forced to seek internment in the USA. A similar fate would befall the *Prinz Eitel Friedrich*. She sank eleven ships in the Pacific, but would seek internment in March 1915.
Following this, the German Navy was forced to change tack. With no ships left outside Germany, any raiders had to run the British blockade. Aware that this would catch most cruisers or liners, they began to give merchant steamers hidden armaments, in the hope they could sneak past the British patrols. These ships would also have more efficient engines than liners, and hence a longer range. The first such ship was the *Meteor*, which made two sorties, primarily as a minelayer. On the second, a British patrol caught her, and her crew scuttled her. In December 1915, the most successful of these raiders, the *Moewe* made her first sortie. She laid two minefields, one off the Orkneys, sinking the battleship *King Edward VII*, and the other off the Gironde. She continued into the Atlantic, before returning to Germany in March, having captured 57,776 tons of shipping. *Moewe*'s second sortie came in November 1916, slipping out of the North Sea disguised as a Swedish ship. She made another patrol of the Atlantic, narrowly avoiding a British cruiser, and being damaged by the armed merchantman *Otaki*. She sank 24 ships, totalling 119,600 tons, on this cruise, but would not make another sortie. Also leaving Germany in November 1916, the *Wolf* slipped out of Kiel, carrying 465 mines and (in an innovation for auxiliary cruisers) a seaplane. She laid a number of minefields off key ports in the Indian Ocean and western Pacific, and raided Allied shipping in the region. She sank 14 ships, while her minefields sank another 13. The last successful raider was the *Seeadler*, leaving Germany on the 21st December 1916. Somewhat unusually for a raider, she was a sailing ship. On Christmas Day, she was stopped by a British AMC, the *Patria*, but managed to escape serious inspection. *Seeadler* patrolled the Pacific, capturing 28,000 tons of shipping, before she was wrecked on the island of Mopihaa on the 31st July 1917.
Not every raider managed to escape Germany. In February 1916, a raider (confusingly also called *Wolf*) ran aground and sank while leaving Kiel. Later that month, on the 29th, the *Greif* was encountered by the British AMC *Alcantara*, as the RN had been pre-warned by radio decrypts and a submarine sighting. However, *Greif* was able to close. Fire was opened at a range of 800 yards, with the German ship initially doing heavy damage. However, the AMC *Andes* and the light cruiser *Comus* were close to the battle, and reinforced Alcantara. *Grief* was soon sunk, but *Alcantara* would join her, having been hit by a torpedo fired by *Grief*. The last raider, the *Leopard*, was stopped by the boarding vessel *Dundee* on the 16th March 1916. While *Dundee* was heavily outgunned (she was armed with two 4in guns, compared to five 5.9in and four 3.4in on the German ship), clever positioning on her captain's part allowed her to do heavy damage to *Leopard*. Reinforced by the armoured cruiser *Achilles*, the British soon sank *Leopard*.
This description of the experiences of German raiders should show some of the reasons why the Germans made comparably few attempts to use surface raiders. Without a network of bases at which ships could rearm, refuel and refit, they lacked the ability to make effective long patrols. The scale of Allied patrolling made prolonged action hard to achieve. Similarly, the British blockade meant that attempting to reach the main shipping routes was difficult. Finally, the Germans had comparatively few ships that could operate in this way - cruisers were more useful with the fleet, while freighters were useful for trading with the Scandinavian neutrals, or as blockade runners. Submarines had none of these issues. For much of the war, they could evade British patrols in the North Sea, which had little effective way to find a submerged submarine. Subs could sit in shipping lanes for prolonged periods without fearing Allied retaliation, unlike a surface raider. Submarines also gave little warning to a merchant target. As a result, the main way in which the Germans fought the commerce war was with submarines.
Sources:
*Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany and the Winning of The Great War at Sea*, Robert K. Massie, Pimlico, 2005
*Fighting the Great War at Sea: Strategy, Tactics and Technology*, Norman Friedman, Seaforth, 2014
*German Commerce Raiders 1914-18*, Ryan K. Noppen, Osprey, 2015
*Blockade: Cruiser Warfare and the Starvation of Germany in WW1*, Steve R Dunn, Seaforth, 2016
*History of the Great War - Naval Operations*, Julian S Corbett and Henry Newbolt, Longmans, 1920
*History of the Great War - The Merchant Navy*, Archibald Hurd, John Murray, 1921
*Review of German Cruiser Warfare 1914-1918*, Admiralty, O.U. 6337 (40), 1940
| [
"At the start of the war, the German Empire had cruisers scattered across the globe. Some of them were subsequently used to attack Allied merchant shipping. The British Royal Navy systematically hunted them down, though not without some embarrassment from its inability to protect allied shipping. For example, the d... |
what is the source of the idea that animals and insects can "smell fear?" any credibility to fear having a smell? | When people are scared, their breathing and heart rate both increase. Your body temperature rises, and you exhale more CO2 than normal.
Insects can detect this, and are attracted to you. Not because of the fear, but because a big hot CO2 making thing flailing around is probably worth investigating. Keep in mind, much of insect communication is through scent and chemicals (pheromones). So, I guess you can say they "smell" the fear.
When it comes to larger animals, like a bear or lion, again, they aren't "smelling fear", but they certainly are perceiving it. These animals largely communicate through body language-rearing up, bearing fangs, rolling on their back, etc. Some things, like "cowering" are universal. These animals can certainly perceive your fear and can act on the situation knowing you are scared and therefore not a threat.
By making yourself not look scared, by making yourself intimidating, large, noisy, and aggressive, the animal knows you are not scared, that you ARE a threat, and that they may get hurt if they attack you. Even if they win, they don't want a fight that looses them an eye or breaks a leg, and are likely to just back off.
(Note: Not guaranteed, especially for animals far bigger than us (like a Grizzly) or anything defending it's home/babies or mating. Your best bet is always to stay away!) | [
"A related concept is labeled \"biased learning\" (Alcock 2001:101–103) and \"prepared learning\" (Wilson, 1998:86–87). For instance, after eating food that subsequently made them sick, rats are predisposed to associate that food with smell, not sound (Alcock 2001:101–103). Many primate species learn to fear snakes... |
Was ancient Mesopotamia democratic before power was consolidated by kings and emperors? | The idea of "Primitive Democracy" in ancient Mesopotamia seems to still hold currency. Jacobsen's work has been cited and elaborated in books by several big-name assyriologists like Saggs, Oppenheim, and Kramer.
I found [this conference paper](_URL_0_) by one Benjamin Isakhan which gives a pretty thorough review of the relevant material; he echoes much of Jacobsen's work and provides quite a few additional substantiating examples from archaeological research, such as the excavations at Ebla (which have revealed "a sophisticated political culture involving some 11,000 public servants" and kings who were "...elected for a seven-year term and shared power with a council of elders;" see [Manglapus, 2004](_URL_1_)), the general assembly in ~2300 BCE at Kish to elect a king (who took the throne-name *Iphur-kish*; 'Kish assembled'), and the political power of the temple community of Early Dynastic Lagash, which H. Frankfort characterized as "...show[ing] a strongly democratic character".
Moving to the 2nd millennium BCE, he also brings up the assembly of Nippur which persisted "well into the Ur III period (~2150-2000 BCE)" and the bicameral assembly of Sippar that lasted a good 300 years, from 1890-1590 BCE, and which retained judicial authority even after being suborned by the Babylonian empire and having much of its upper house "infiltrated by royally-appointed officials" (see Leick, 2001, *Mesopotamia: The Invention of the City*).
Isakhan's paper goes on a bit and cites what looks like a very interesting article dealing with the 1st millennium BCE (Dandamayev, M. 1995. *Babylonian Popular
Assemblies in the First Millennium*) but I can't find a copy online, and that's a bit beyond the scope of your question anyways.
There *is* a somewhat alternative model of early Mesopotamian statecraft to be found in the work of some Marxist assyriologists, specifically thinking of I. M. Diakonoff. He seemed to generally be in agreement with the basic idea of primitive collective governance in early periods of Sumerian history, but focused more on how that tendency waned with the advent of despotic states.
There were some interesting points raised in his paper/book chapter *The Rise of the Despotic State in Ancient Mesopotamia* that I'd like to quote, but I'll have to wait until I can find a copy of it again.
But yeah, definitely check out Isakhan's paper, the bibliography is chock-full of pertinent stuff. | [
"Kings, emperors and other types of monarchs in many countries including China and Japan, were considered divine. Of the institutions that ruled states, that of kingship stood at the forefront until the American Revolution put an end to the \"divine right of kings\". Nevertheless, the monarchy is among the longest-... |
How do the chains on a bicycle work? | Torque is the result of multiplying force by distance. The reason that it's easier to turn a nut with a wrench is because you are applying the force some distance away from the axis. Move twice as far away, and you only need half the force to develop the same torque. Bicycle gears work the same way. In the lowest gear, you pedal over a large distance (the arc swept by the pedals) to move the chain a small distance (the arc swept by the selected sprocket), amplifying the applied force in the process. At the rear sprocket, you step down again by selecting the largest sprocket, which sweeps the shortest arc for a given chain travel. When you get going, you need less force and more speed, so you change the gear ratio accordingly, but starting out in top gear is very difficult because you can't develop the necessary torque - just like trying to loosen a nut without a wrench. | [
"A bicycle chain is a roller chain that transfers power from the pedals to the drive-wheel of a bicycle, thus propelling it. Most bicycle chains are made from plain carbon or alloy steel, but some are nickel-plated to prevent rust, or simply for aesthetics.\n",
"While a chain tool is required to shorten simple ch... |
what are spider venoms made from, how does a spider produce it? | Spider venom is not all the same, but most are neurotoxins which are polyamines or polypeptides. Spiders produce it from a gland they have. | [
"Spider venoms work on one of two fundamental principles; they are either neurotoxic (impairing the nervous system) or necrotic (dissolving tissues surrounding the bite). In some cases, the venom targets vital organs and systems.\n",
"Spiders in this genus are specialised spider killers. They attack potential vic... |
why do our eyes burn/sting when something gets in them? | The eyes are one of, if not the most sensitive part of the body, it's simply them getting irritated.
Just like a corrosive substance will irritate your skin, the eyes are so sensitive that dust, smoke or even an eyelash will cause pain. Because they are so important, we evolved with super sensible eyes to protect them. | [
"Chemical eye injury may result when an acidic or alkaline substance gets in the eye. Alkali burns are typically worse than acidic burns. Mild burns produce conjunctivitis, while more severe burns may cause the cornea to turn white. Litmus paper may be used to test for chemical causes. When a chemical cause has bee... |
Is it possible to use cosmic rays to generate electricity? In other words could we use cosmic rays to power solar panels or other types of materials? | Sure, in principle. But the remnants of cosmic rays that reach sea level are minimally ionizing radiation, which means that they don't deposit very much energy into things. You won't get much energy from them. | [
"The sun's rays can be used to produce electrical energy. The direct user of sunlight is the solar cell or photovoltaic cell, which converts sunlight directly into electrical energy without the incorporation of a mechanical device. This technology is simpler than the fossil-fuel-driven systems of producing electric... |
When the Mongols were poised to attack Europe, how aware was western Europe of the impending attack? | They were on the whole pretty unconcious of the threat. The only prior knowledge Europe had had of the Mongols came from garbled stories that Crusaders had heard about Mongol conquests in the East. As they had very little idea as to what was actually going on they came up with a distinctly distorted image. The rumors of Christians being present in these mysterious armies (indeed many Mongols were Nestorians, an eastern branch of Christianity) and the fact that these armies were also attacking the Islamic world lead them to see them as the armies of Prester John. Prester John was a European tale of a rich and powerful Christian king who ruled far off in the East.
So clearly when the Mongols rock up in Europe the Europeans have no idea what's going on. This is reflected in the panicked chronicles written at the time, the gist of them is that they've been hit by suprise and don't know what's going on. This is reflected in the monk's attempts to work out who these invaders are. The sheer foreigness and lack of knowledge of the Mongols meant we get some interesting guesses. We have suggestions ranging from their being the armies of the Antichrist heralding the apocalypse to their being one of the lost tribes of Israel (this idea inspires a few pogroms). This complete lack of knowledge indicates that Europe had no idea what hit it.
When I get home I'll see if I can find more details for you. | [
"The advance into Europe continued with Mongol invasions of Poland and Hungary. When the western flank of the Mongols plundered Polish cities, a European alliance among the Poles, the Moravians, and the Christian military orders of the Hospitallers, Teutonic Knights and the Templars assembled sufficient forces to h... |
why do oil refineries/wells have these burning tubes? | I used to work at a refinery, and by talking with the operators there are several reasons. First, there are a lot of byproducts that are created that would be harmful such as Benzine-based derivitives. The best way to dispose these are to burn them.
Secondly, it's a venting system. If there is a failure in the alkaline or cat-cracker unit (different parts of the refinery that do specific reactions) the system pressure can build. If that happens the system is purged through the towers.
related, random story:
One night, not long after 9/11 I was working the 3rd shift guarding our south tank farm (there was a small contained leak being worked on by contractors and I managed the gate- even though everyone had left for the day, but whatever). So I'm sitting in the car, chillin when this heavy fog rolls through.
It's not bad but it's getting very thick (this is near a port in the gulf) when suddenly I hear a loud bang. I can't see anything so I'm flipping out trying to call on the radio to figure out what was going on. [Here is where I was](_URL_0_). So all the lights around me go out and a few seconds later I hear the ground rumbling. Then everything turns orange. I do what everyone does and sit back in the car, trying not to soil myself and figuring "This ain't worth $7.25 an hour... I'm going to floor it and gtfo"
A couple minutes later I was still there though and a break in the fog showed that the flares were venting, the flames were about 100 feet in the air.
What happened was that the refinery to my left (Valero?) had lost power causing a power spike and chain reaction power failure to all the surrounding refineries. As per proceedure the gasses were vented via the flares to prevent a nasty explosion. | [
"Pipelines transmit gas to boilers, dryers, or kilns, where it is used much in the same way as natural gas. Landfill gas is cheaper than natural gas and holds about half the heating value at 16,785 – 20,495 kJ/m3 (450 – 550 Btu/ft3) as compared to 35,406 kJ/m3 (950 Btu/ft3) of natural gas. Boilers, dryers, and kiln... |
if most voters disagree with corporate lobbying and company funded candidates, then why do we still vote for them? | Some states experimented with severe term limits for politicians in the 1990s. The idea was supposed to be that if you kicked out all the career politicians and forced voters to elect fresh faces who had no ties to lobbyists, then you would get a corruption-free system.
It didn't work *at all*. It turns out that if you take a bunch of gee-whiz bumpkins and give them offices in the state capital, they have no idea what the correct state regulatory policy on the hygienic slaughter of cattle should be, or how frequently state highways should be repaved and how important the runoff is for the quality of the water table, or what the deadweight loss of various sorts of sales taxes might be... the end result is that when you kick out career politicians, you switch from lobbyist-influenced government to lobbyist-*run* government, because the naive legislators have no idea what they're doing and have to rely on the lobbyists for advice.
The bottom line is that you shouldn't think of lobbying as pure corruption (although there is some of that, especially with the way politicians make money after they retire from politics) but instead as a research-subsidy from corporations to congress-critters. Ideally, every congressmen should have all the resources he needs to have his own team of researchers come up with an independent answer to any technical question he wants to ask about a law or regulation he needs to take a position on. In practice this doesn't happen, so congressmen rely on research that lobbyists do instead; but the more you rely on their research, the more beholden you are to their policy agenda.
(You could compare it to the way that some underfunded schools get corporate subsidies.)
Anyway, most voters disagree with lots of things about our political system *in general*, but everyone loves their own congressman. People say they don't like pork, for example, but they love the federal road money their rep got to fix the local interstate. And overall, people just have incoherent and under-informed views about the federal government. For example, people want to cut the federal budget *overall*, but they want to expand almost all of the most expensive programs. They seem to think lots of money is spent on programs like foreign aid (1%) and NASA (0.1%), which they don't value. | [
"BULLET::::- In January 2010, the Supreme Court held that the government may not keep corporations or unions from spending money to support or denounce individual candidates in elections. While corporations or unions may not give money directly to campaigns or coordinate their activity with campaigns, they may seek... |
explain how american investing works. buying/selling stocks, bonds, trusts. | Stocks involve giving money to a company in return for a say in how it is run and a share in its future profits. If the company does well, you can resell the stocks to someone else for more than you bought them.
Buying a bond means you are lending money to a government. After a predetermined amount of time, they must repay that loan to you with interest.
A trust is a reserve of funds that one party has left for another party in the care of a third party. The funds cannot be touched until conditions are met, usually when the recipient reaches a certain age. | [
"Davis believes stocks represent ownership interests in real businesses and therefore devotes significant time and resources to rigorous fundamental analysis of companies, all while maintaining a strict valuation discipline based on a concept known as “owner earnings” (i.e., the normalized cash earnings power of a ... |
why cables - like laptop charging cable and phone usb cables- stop working without any obvious damage ? | The wire inside the cable might break over time, that's why sometimes your headphones work in only certain positions, and then stop working altogether. It might also be that the electronics inside the adapter got messed up due to prolonged use, since using it makes it heat up. I hope that answer was detailed enough. | [
"Many cables claiming to support USB-C are actually not compliant to the standard. Using these cables would have a potential consequence of damaging devices that they are connected to. There are reported cases of laptops being destroyed due to the use of non-compliant cables.\n",
"Tripping on an iBook cord or yan... |
What did middle class Russian women wear in the late 1700s and early 1800s? | What do you mean "middle-class?" The middle class is an extremely recent phenomenon and is largely only has significance as a sociological category in the United States. In the 1700-1800s in Russia we are still deep in the system of Soslovie which is most similar to European feudalism so really there is no "middle class" and in Russia's case on even an emerging mercantile or protoindustrial group with any sense of political coherence. If you are looking for a merchant's wife or something it would be extremely traditional clothing- usually home-made-, a richer serfs (there is differentiation in Serdom depending on the region) it would be the same. However, these are tiny, tiny groups. | [
"Early nineteenth century dresses in Russia were influenced by Classicism and were made of thin fabrics, with some semi-transparent. Elizabeth Vigée Le Brun wore these types of dresses with a short skirt (reaching to her ankles) when she lived in Russia between 1785 and 1801 and many Russian women copied her style.... |
Do Dark Matter and/or Dark Energy remain of the same quantity through time? | Dark energy and dark matter are two completely different things which unfortunately share similar names. While the density of dark energy remains constant as space expands over time (and is itself the cause of the accelerated expansion), dark matter much like any other matter dilutes as the universe expands lowering in density over time. | [
"The final component, dark energy, is an intrinsic property of space, and so has a constant energy density regardless of the volume under consideration (\"ρ\" ∝ \"a\"). Thus, unlike ordinary matter, it does not get diluted with the expansion of space.\n",
"This class of theories attempts to come up with an all-en... |
How did scientist come up with and prove carbon dating? | So, as you may know, the number of protons in an atom determines what kind of element it is. In it's stable form, carbon has 6 protons and 6 neutrons, and is otherwise known as carbon 12. Nitrogen, the next element on the periodic table, is most stable with 7 protons and 7 neutrons, aka nitrogen 14.
Sunlight in our atmosphere causes atomic particles, like neutrons, to be blasted around (I can explain this more if you'd like). When normal Nitrogen 14 in the atmosphere comes into contact with a free flying neutron, it causes that nitrogen atom to gain the neutron, but also to immediately lose a proton. Since the atom now has 6 protons, it is officially carbon, but since it also has 8 neutrons, it is an unstable (and radioactive) form of carbon, Carbon 14. Carbon 14 behaves just like regular carbon, but since it is radioactive, it slowly decays into stable Carbon 13. This decay can be detected using a Geiger counter and its relative abundance can be quite easily measured.
Carbon 14 is generated in the atmosphere at a very constant rate, making it's concentration both in the air and inside every LIVING thing quite predictable (about 1 per trillion carbon atoms). However, when organisms die, they stop recycling carbon, so they no longer collect new Carbon 14. The Carbon 14 that they do have slowly decays, so the organism's concentration of the radioactive isotope is also slowly depleted.
Depending on when an organism lived (whether it's a tree 50,000 years ago or a squirrel 30 years ago) it will have some amount of Carbon 14 remaining. As such, the ratio of carbon 14 to stable carbon atoms can give us a very accurate measure of how long ago this organism stopped taking in new carbon (died). This is the basis of carbon dating.
TL;DR - carbon 14, a radioactive isotope of carbon, is generated at a constant rate in our atmosphere. Its concentration in the atmosphere is mirrored in all living organisms. When an organism dies, it's concentration of c14 slowly depletes. Depending on the ratio of remaining radioactive carbon to stable carbon, we can quite accurately estimate how long ago the organism lived. | [
"In 1947, Braidwood had learned about carbon dating from his Chicago colleague Willard Libby, and he began to use the method in order to make his dating of artifacts more precise. Also in 1947 the Oriental Institute's Jarmo Project in Iraq was launched by Braidwood. It was an early example of an excavation aiming t... |
Why doesn't lightning travel at the speed of light. | Photons travel at the speed of light i.e the light entering your eyes from the lightning bolt. The actual particles travelling through the lightning bolt is electrons and they don't travel at the speed of light, like electrons in a circuit. Simply put, electrons have mass and therefore they can't travel at the speed of light, a lightning bolt is a stream of electrons and can therefore not travel at the speed of light. | [
"Leonardo da Vinci wrote in a notebook: \"Every body that moves rapidly seems to colour its path with the impression of its hue. The truth of this proposition is seen from experience; thus when the lightning moves among dark clouds the speed of its sinuous flight makes its whole course resemble a luminous snake. So... |
Question for someone that understands the FDA drug approval process. | As a result of that FDA report, mifamurtide was denied approval by the FDA
> As previously announced, in the U.S., the Company continues to work with the COG as well as external experts and advisors to gather patient follow up data from the Phase 3 clinical trial of mifamurtide and to respond to other questions in the non-approvable letter the Company received from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The Company plans to submit an amended New Drug Application (NDA) for mifamurtide in mid-2009 and expects to be in a position to provide an update on the progress of the filing, including timing, following a meeting scheduled with the FDA in March.
([link](_URL_0_))
As you can see from that quote above the company intends to seek reapproval from the FDA. However this is a few years old, so I'm unsure of the current status of the drug.
To put it simply, if a drug is denied approval by the FDA, this isn't a lifelong ban and the drug can never be remarketed. Presumably the company would have to show studies and proof that the concerns that caused the FDA to withdraw approval have been alleviated.
> In May 2007, the FDA's Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee (ODAC) voted 12 to 2 that the data in the NDA do not provide substantial evidence of effectiveness of L-MTP-PE in the treatment of patients with non-metastatic, resectable osteosarcoma receiving combination _URL_1_ May 2007, the FDA's Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee (ODAC) voted 12 to 2 that the data in the NDA do not provide substantial evidence of effectiveness of L-MTP-PE in the treatment of patients with non-metastatic, resectable osteosarcoma receiving combination chemotherapy. ([link](_URL_2_))
From the above article it seems that the FDA's sole concern was the efficacy of the drug (that is how well it worked). If they can show with further studies that the drug performs better and the FDA are happy with that then it is possible for it to gain approval once again.
However, a drug, in an unchanged form, is unlikely to vastly change its efficacy rating over time. Meaning if it doesn't work well enough for the FDA, and current studies all show similar efficacy ratings as before, then it's probably not going to satisfy the FDA and probably won't gain reapproval.
This is similar to drugs with bad side effects, for example the drug rimonabant was approved in the 2000's for obesity and weight loss, however the drastic side effects that caused depression and suicidal tendencies were only really discovered once the drug was on the market. Subsequently the drug was removed from the market both in the USA and the EU. Now a drugs properties are usually inherent to their design, so it's not really likely that that drug in the same state will suddenly have lost these dangerous side effects.
I hope that helps, and that the wall of text wasn't too hard to understand! | [
"The purpose for adding FDA-approved indications in the United States is to ensure that healthcare providers can easily identify appropriate use of drug therapy. Gaining FDA approval is based on the body of scientific evidence supporting the effectiveness of a drug treatment. The scientific evidence is gathered in ... |
Did Henry VIII make divorce legal only for himself, or for the whole nation under the Church of England? | Just to make a distinction... Henry VIII never actually divorced any of his wives.
* Catherine's was an annulment. It was declared an invalid marriage due to her previous marriage to Henry's brother, Arthur.
* Anne Boylen's was an annulment. It was declared an invalid marriage due to her (supposedly) incestuous relationship with *her* brother George.
* Anne of Cleve's was also an annulment, due to never having been consummated.
* Catherine Howard was executed without divorce or annulment.
Anyone in Henry's realm could seek an annulment. But the grounds for such were fairly difficult to prove, and courts were reluctant to grant them in general. Apparently only a handful of annulments a year were granted in all of England. The most common form of legal action was a type of legal separation called "divorce from bread and board." That allowed the spouses to set up separate homes, but they didn't allow the parties to remarry. Even that was only granted upon proof of adultery or extreme cruelty. Divorce itself required an act of parliament and was almost never granted, and certainly wasn't granted to the common folk. As far as I can tell there was no change in any of the laws or the application of the laws during Henry's reign. Both annulments and separations remained very rare. In Tudor England it really was "Til death do you part" unless one was the king.
Sources.
Martin Ingram, *Church Courts, Sex and Marriage*
Lawrence Stone, *The Family, Sex and Marriage in England 1500-1800* | [
"In order to allow Henry to divorce his wife and marry Anne Boleyn, the English parliament enacted laws breaking ties with Rome, and declaring the king Supreme Head of the Church of England (from Elizabeth I the monarch is known as the Supreme Governor of the Church of England), thus severing the ecclesiastical str... |
why do you lose your radio signal(fm) when you've driven a fair distance into a tunnel, but you don't regain it until you're completely out of it? | It depends on the direction the FM signal is coming from. Think of it like a beam of light (actually, radio signals technically *are* light!) where solid structures casts shadows.
If the light is shining towards the entrance of a tunnel, then the inside of the tunnel is still lit up near the entrance. At the exit, the shadow of the mountain or building still blocks light past the tunnel exit. That is why different places have different signal strengths.
It depends on where the FM transmitter is and where the blocking objects are.
---
**EDIT:**
This is one explanation, but if you find that it doesn't matter which side of the tunnel you enter/exit, then this next explanation may be what's happening...
If you think of the FM signal as having a particular address (the frequency), then you can only read the signal if you know exactly where it is, and you actually have to know much more accurately than the number you put into the radio. Luckily, your FM radio can find the exact address once you give it the ballpark number and is able to stay locked onto that signal.
The hard part is finding it in the first place, since once you see it, you can follow it even if the signal becomes faint. However, your FM radio can't find it if it's too faint to begin with. So on both sides of a tunnel, the signal is weaker, but you can still hear it as you go in since you've locked on to it. When you come out, your radio needs to wait for the signal to be bright enough to pinpoint and lock on to it again.
Other answers explain this in more detail: it's called a phase-locked loop. | [
"In analog radio systems, as receiving stations move away from a radio transmitting site, the signal strength decreases gradually, causing the relative noise level to increase. The signal becomes increasingly difficult to understand until it can no longer be heard as anything other than static.\n",
"Although radi... |
what causes the vibrant clouds when a rocket is launched at night | You're seeing condensation trails from the rocket exhaust. As the rocket fuel burns, it creates water vapor. That water vapor condenses and freezes in the upper atmosphere. It happened to show up very well in this launch because of the time of the launch. It was past sunset & dark on the ground, but the sunlight was still visible at the launch altitudes so you could see the faint reflections of the setting sun off the ice crystals. The colors were from the same reason sunsets give you crazy colors, the sunlight is filtered through much more atmosphere. | [
"These condensation clouds can often be seen appearing around space-bound rockets as they accelerate through the atmosphere. For example, they were frequently seen during Space Shuttle launches, about 25 to 33 seconds after launch, when the vehicle was traveling at transonic speeds. Similar effects were also visibl... |
for those of you who are looking for a simple explanation of complex things: simple wikipedia | Unfortunately, only has a very small fraction of the pages real Wikipedia has. | [
"There are many variations on how to express this objection. William F. Vallicella holds that organized complexity as such does not need explanation, because when in search of an ultimate explanation, one must in the end accept an entity whose complexity has no external explanation. Dawkins has stated that we shoul... |
why can't you make a bit-for-bit copy of a disc and use that as the original? | The disks used on gaming consoles have special components of the data tracks near the inside of the disk. These components can be neither read nor replicated by standard drives. Only the drives used in the consoles themselves can access and utilize these proprietary features. | [
"Copy Control also does not prevent copying a disc by recording it as analog audio through a computer's sound card, which only causes a slight degradation in audio quality. More substantial is the loss in recording speed. This weakness, inherent in all digital copy prevention systems, is known as the \"analog hole\... |
why does putting pressure on a specific point on your neck 'cure' a creak in the neck? | It's possible you have a "pinched nerve" essentially the muscles in your neck are cramping and by pressing on it you release some of that pressure on the nerve. It's also possible that it's just simple muscle fatigue and pressing on the affected muscle group stretches it out like stretching out your back. As for exactly how stretching helps with fatigued muscles I'm not sure. | [
"Neck stiffness, stiff neck and nuchal rigidity are terms often used interchangeably to describe the medical condition when one experiences discomfort or pain when trying to turn, move, or flex the neck. Possible causes include muscle strain or sprain, cervical spine disorders, meningitis, and subarachnoid hemorrha... |
People say that a nuclear bomb is equivalent to X tons of TNT. Well, if X tons of TNT were actually there instead of a nuclear bomb, will it have the same effect? | It's an equivalency of energy
They could also equate it too calories or joules but tnt they think is more relatable
To answer your question directly no it would not explode the same simply because a nuclear bombs volume is smaller than that many tons of tnt and many other factors | [
"So, one can state that a nuclear bomb has a yield of 15 kt (63×10 or 6.3×10 J); but an actual explosion of a 15 000 ton pile of TNT may yield (for example) 8×10 J due to additional carbon/hydrocarbon oxidation not present with small open-air charges.\n",
"The 15 megaton (Mt) nuclear explosion far exceeded the ex... |
Do the theories of /r/pornfree and /r/nofap hold any scientific weight? | User SteezmasterJones has alluded to the argument about pornography affecting our respect for women and objectification, which I don't know of research that directly speaks to the question, so I'll tackle this from a different angle. Novelty, habits, and habituation.
Society seems to have welcomed the advent of digital media into their lives. However, little attention has been devoted to the potentially harmful effects of use of such media on users’ cognition and behavior. For instance, multi-tasking has become so engrained as a necessary employment qualification that many have overlooked how such working styles foster increased distractibility to irrelevant, peripheral environmental stimuli (Dempsey, 2009; Ophir, Nass, & Wagner, 2009). Further, since the inception of the Internet, individuals are reporting decreased instances of in-depth, concentrated reading, while browsing and page skimming has concurrently increased (Liu, 2005). This creates a major difference between Internet porn and DVD/VHS porn in how it affects us.
What this speaks to is a two-fold system: 1) that humans crave novelty, and 2) that habits form in conjunction with repeat patterns of behavior.
1) Evolutionarily speaking, organisms are naturally prepared to seek out novel stimuli, which are necessarily more interesting and worth our attention than the familiar. This is because such stimuli has potential as a significant source of pleasure or pain, and identifying such sources facilitates survival by reducing uncertainty in the external environment. In the brain, novelty seeking is mediated by the mesolimbic dopamine system, which is a primary pathway connected to pleasure production (Fink & Smith, 1979; Bardo, Donohew, & Harrington, 1996; Hansenne et al., 2002).
However, with repeated exposure, organisms will habitually adapt to these stimuli, and over time will exhibit increasingly desensitized or intense arousal (i.e. sympathetic) responses. Importantly, though, the positive incentive remains to attend to any future novel stimulus, given the uncertain utility regarding its potential survival value.
MAIN POINT 1: Internet and internet porn is virtually unlimited, offering ceaseless novelty.
2) With a medium offering constant novelty, and porn that is uncommon to our daily routine and therefore especially novel, frequent use eventually becomes conditioned habit, even if one is not proactively looking for specific content (Ouellette & Wood, 1998; LaRose, Lin & Eastin, 2003; Wise, Kim, & Kim, 2009). This is why the internet is addicting, and internet porn moreso. This is why you can't get off reddit, either. It's a variable reinforcement schedule where at some random interval you will find something interesting (hmm that's new), relevant (for porn: hmm, that really turns me on), and successful (porn: this is a way to give me lots of pleasure at minimal expense of effort). Porn is especially novel in triggering access to sex that we don't always get, but in a simulated form. Eventually you are creating a habit that associates touching yourself with the images on the screen, and learn that this is the way arousal and orgasm is achieved (especially as you learn the right way that works for you, rather than someone else).
MAIN POINT 2: Repeat engagement in a given behavior yielding positive/satisfying outcomes is associated with an increased likelihood of engaging in that behavior in the future (habit, Law of Effect).
Ever have a ton of tabs open at the same time? Ever keep searching for the right scene? Ever keep skipping ahead in videos? Ever find yourself watching material many would consider very disgusting/dirty/risque/unusual? This is all a joint function of our evolutionary craving for novel stimuli, and seeking the same level of arousal (the "need more to get same high effect" of habituation).
MAIN POINT 3: Frequent use of internet porn for sexual gratification makes you more likely to seek out internet porn for sexual gratification (novelty X habit X dopaminergenic reward), making other means of sexual gratification less likely.
I can't speak to how porn affects our objectification of others, but it does change the way we habituate and create associations between ourselves and sexuality--associations that undermine physical contact with OTHERS, that undermine communication and presence, and that undermine our own physiological responses to visualizations of sexual content (virtual or real). Hebbs Law: Neurons that fire together, wire together. At the same time, you are becoming better at quick information processing and filtering irrelevant stimuli, but at what cost? And especially recognizing that your need for novelty will actually never be fully satiated.
| [
"Several journalists have criticized NoFap after having participated in its programs. According to Elizabeth Brown, neuroscientists have questioned some of the claims made by people on NoFap. One psychologist, David J. Ley, wrote: \"I'm not in opposition to them, but I do think their ideas are simplistic, naive and... |
Why are Uranus's moons equatorial? | So first, let's get this out of the way: The idea that Uranus got knocked on its side by a severe impact early on is an old theory, and in the past 20 years this idea has strongly fallen out of favor. It turns out it's almost impossible to have an impact large enough to turn Uranus on its side that doesn't completely obliterate the planet.
The working theories now are that either there was a near miss (simulation show that it's quite likely Uranus and Neptune changed places early in the history of our Solar System, with some near passes in the process), or that Uranus lost a moon and the planet was tidally disrupted in the process, or [possibly both](_URL_0_).
Whether it was a near miss or a moon loss, though, the immediate situation afterwards leaves Uranus orbiting on its side with the moons still in the equatorial plane - and that's not going to be a stable configuration over billions of years. Those moons will raise tidal bulges on the planet, which in turn get dragged over the planet as it rotates. These off-center bulges then create a source of non-centered gravitational attraction, pumping up their inclination until they eventually fall in line with the equator. | [
"Like the other giant planets, Uranus has a ring system, a magnetosphere, and numerous moons. The Uranian system has a unique configuration because its axis of rotation is tilted sideways, nearly into the plane of its solar orbit. Its north and south poles, therefore, lie where most other planets have their equator... |
why does polishing a white object to a high sheen not turn it into a mirror? | There are two kinds of reflection: specular reflection and diffuse reflection.
Specular reflection is when a beam of light hits an object, and is reflected back in one *specific* direction. If you shot a laser at a specular reflective surface, it would bounce right back and look pretty much the same as it did going in. Specular surfaces (like mirrors and metal) are shiny.
Diffuse reflection is when the reflection fans out. If you shot a laser at a diffuse surface, it would lose its coherent "laser-ness" and look like a regular non-concentrated light. Matte surfaces are diffuse.
You may have noticed that specular surfaces tend to be very smooth, while diffuse surfaces tend to be rough. That's not coincidental. For an analogy, imagine bouncing a ball off of a smooth surface like a floor: you can guess with pretty much 100% certainty what direction it's going to bounce in. Bounce a ball off an irregular surface like a floor covered with random objects? Yeah, you have no idea where that ball's gonna go.
Polish works by filling in *minor* surface irregularities. The polish itself, however, is frankly not a very good specular reflector. That's why if you overpolish a metal, it'll actually get worse. If you try to polish a rough surface, you're just filling in the big irregularities with a substance that still doesn't specular reflect very well. | [
"Diffuse reflection from solids is generally not due to surface roughness. A flat surface is indeed required to give specular reflection, but it does not prevent diffuse reflection. A piece of highly polished white marble remains white; no amount of polishing will turn it into a mirror. Polishing produces some spec... |
if pain is your body's way of telling you to stop doing something, then why does exercise hurt? | Med student currently procrastinating from my dissertation on pain here. Pain is a signal warning you of potential damage. In the case of exercise, you are ripping muscle fibres among other things, hence it is painful. In a wider sense your body cannot tell if something will be good long term, only short term, this is why large brains and the ability to plan are such an evolutionary advantage.
Edit: This is a response I posted further down, going to put it here so people will see it and hopefully it will clear up some things.
"Lactic acid is thought to be a factor in the early stages, however evidence suggest that a variety of factors are at work. These include arachidonic acid derivatives and other inflammatory pain inducing chemicals from the torn muscle fibres, the build up of lactic acid, ionic imbalance, free radical damage etc. Delayed onset muscle pain is very much from the inflammation of muscles in response to damage. However this is ELI5 so I skipped over most of it." | [
"An exercise should be halted if marked or sudden pain is felt, to prevent further injury. However, not all discomfort indicates injury. Weight training exercises are brief but very intense, and many people are unaccustomed to this level of effort. The expression \"no pain, no gain\" refers to working through the d... |
how does baking soda remove scratches from spectacles | It is a really mild abrasive. It will only remove tiny scratches. That is also why it is a tooth whitener.
Basically if it doesn't fully dissolve, it is slightly harder than glass and grinds it down.
| [
"Baking Soda or Dry Ice Blasting is an environmentally sustainable method of removing graffiti. This process involves using abrasive particles to safely remove the paint without damaging surfaces. Surfaces that respond well to blasting are concrete, brick, stone, wood, and glass.\n",
"Baking stones can be cleaned... |
today's xkcd comic, "where citations come from". | I hope this doesn't double-comment. I submitted a response and it didn't work (damn IE). Here goes again:
The punchline is the fact that just because a Wikipedia article has a "source" listed does not mean that fact is true. The storyline is as follows:
1. Joe makes up a random "fact" and posts it on Wikipedia
2. A news company finds this "fact" and, without doing any additional research, reports this "fact" in a news article
3. Sally sees that this "fact" came from Wikipedia and finds it questionable. She marks it as "needing a source"
4. Phil is reading Wikipedia and comes upon the "fact" that Joe wrote and sees that it is marked as "needing a source." Phil then does a simple Google search and finds the article written by the news company (point 2). He then marks that article as the source of the fact
5. People now quote this article as fact. They say "It's on Wikipedia and it has a source." Since they don't have the timeline, they don't realize that the article reported the fact before it had a source and then became the source of the fact. | [
"The \"Comiclopedia\" is an online encyclopedia which features biographical information and illustrations, comic strip images, album covers, frame grabs, and memorabilia about every individual comics artist whose name can be identified by signature. All artists are alphabetized and can both be looked up by name or ... |
why do people prefer someone who is a lot like them than someone who is not? | This is both quite a bit of a generalization, and very much subject to individual taste. While there's some truth there, it's absolutely not that simple. And there's also the conventional wisdom (equally flawed) that opposites attract.
A decent article on the subject: _URL_0_
| [
"In a 1984 interview, Carroll said \"I've never played a role quite this unlikeable. And I like that. I like that very much because I think very often, particularly minorities, it's almost required of them that they are nice people, and I don't want to play a nice person.\"\n",
"They also pass somewhat weird comm... |
why a car maneuvers better in reverse than forwards. | The front wheels of the car are the steerable wheels, they tell the back wheels where to go. It is easier to place the static wheels where they need to go first and then adjust the front accordingly. | [
"In a normal turn, rear wheels follow the front ones because resistance to motion in the forward direction (in which the wheels turn) is significantly less than in the sideways direction. The latter provides the centripetal force that makes the rear end of the car follow the turn. When the driver locks the rear whe... |
Why does the Pauli exclusion principle cause the strong nuclear force to be repulsive at short distances? | The strong force between nucleons, the **residual** strong force, is sort of an amalgamation of many quark-quark interactions. It's sort of analogous to intermolecular forces in chemistry, where it's a manifestation of some kind of Coulomb interaction between many particles.
If you look at potentials for modeling intermolecular forces (like the Lennard-Jones 6-12), you see the exact same behavior. There is a repulsive core, also attributed to Pauli exclusion.
So it's not unique to the residual strong force, it's true for atoms and molecules in chemistry too.
It's not that being close together automatically violates Pauli exclusion, it's just that when you have identical fermions with similar quantum numbers, it will be disfavorable for their wavefunctions to overlap significantly. Wavefunction overlap is the best notion of "closeness" you can come up with for quantum-mechanical particles described by wavefunctions.
Due to Pauli exclusion, identical fermions have a natural tendency to "dislike" having their wavefunctions overlap in space, which is why you get this kind of repulsive behavior in Fermi gases (an atom or a nucleus can be treated like a gas of identical fermions). This is why you have degeneracy pressure in Fermi gases (the pressure which resists gravitational collapse in white dwarves and neutron stars).
You can think of the "dislike" for wavefuncttion overlap as a repulsive force which tries to push the particles into a region of space where more states are available to them. If you have two electrons at the same place, they cannot have the same spin state. But if they are very far away, with little wavefunction overlap, they can have whatever spin states you want. So they want to exist in a region where they have more available states. This is what Pauli exclusion is, it's not a "force" in the traditional sense, but it's a lack of available states for identical fermions. And it can be modeled by adding a highly repulsive core in your interaction potential.
There is another sense in which Pauli exclusion affects the form of the residual strong force which isn't really related to locations in space, and it isn't really analogous to intermolecular forces. Unlike the forces between atoms and molecules, the residual strong force is highly spin-dependent. And contrary to intuition, it can be favorable for nucleon spins to be **aligned** rather than anti-aligned (which you'd expect if this was a magnetic dipole interaction).
Some background information:
Nuclei are just a bunch of protons and neutrons, both of which are fermions. All protons are identical to all others, and all neutrons are identical to all others. Using the isospin formalism, you can combine protons and neutrons into a single category of identical fermions called "nucleons". So a proton and a neutron would be treated like the same particle, just where the "isospin" quantum number (technically its third component) is the only thing different.
Using the isospin formalism, nuclei are systems made of only one kind of particle, but we have to worry about an extra quantum number. Since nucleons are identical fermions, we have to worry about Pauli exclusion.
Now look at the simplest nontrivial (A > 1) nuclei you can form, just A = 2.
Stepping away from isospin for a second, we know the possible combinations are pp, nn, and np.
Back to isospin though, there are really **four** combinations, a "singlet" (np with total isospin 0) and a "triplet" (pp, nn, and np, all with total isospin 1).
Since nucleons have isospin 1/2 and spin 1/2, the spin and isospin algebras are exactly identical. So the possible spin states are identical: a spin 0 singlet or the spin 1 triplet.
In both cases, the singlet is antisymmetric under particle exchange and the triplet is symmetric.
And Pauli exclusion says the total nucleon wavefunction must be antisymmetric, since nucleons are identical fermions.
Now let's look at the experimental facts. In nature, there exists only **one** state in the two nucleon system which is bound. It's the isospin singlet, np commonly known as the "deuteron". The deuteron has no excited states, it's the most weakly bound nucleus in existence (in the ground state).
So in fact, **all** members of the isospin triplet are unbound. This is the diproton (pp), the dineutron (nn), and the "first excited state" of the deuteron (np).
How can we explain this? What causes the energies of these systems to be that much higher for isospin 1 than isospin 0?
Pauli exclusion says that the total wavefunction must be antisymmetric. So if we ignore orbital angular momentum (assume the lowest energy states will have zero orbital angular momentum, which will turn out to be false, since the deuteron ground state is an admixture of L = 0 and L = 2).
So the orbital angular momentum part of the wavefunction is symmetric. That says that the product of the spin part and isospin parts must be anti, so they must be opposites (one symmetric, the other anti, and vice versa).
So the isospin singlet must be a spin triplet and the isospin triplet must be a spin singlet, according to Pauli exclusion.
And the residual strong force is very spin dependent. It is this spin dependence which contributes to the energies of these systems, and causes the deuteron ground state to be bound (barely) and the others to be unbound.
The nuclear spin-spin interaction, as I mentioned before, is apparently attractive for aligned spins and repulsive for anti-aligned spins. If you would have considered this as a magnetic dipole-dipole interaction, you'd think the opposite. It's like playing with two toy magnets which align N-N and S-S, it completely defies intuition.
So Pauli exclusion and the spin dependence of the nuclear force are the reason why the deuteron is bound in the ground state, and all three members of the isospin triplet (diproton, dineutron, and deuteron excited state) are unbound. | [
"At short distances (less than 1.7 fm or so), the attractive nuclear force is stronger than the repulsive Coulomb force between protons; it thus overcomes the repulsion of protons within the nucleus. However, the Coulomb force between protons has a much greater range as it varies as the inverse square of the charge... |
How has the image of Death (the grim reaper) changed over time? When and why did he come to be represented with a dark hood and scythe? (X-Post Art History) | re your second question, there was a similar post a couple of months ago, so check it for previous responses:
[Where did the grim reaper as a symbol of death come from?](_URL_1_)
... also, this post won't really answer your first question (I don't think), but you may find it interesting as the thread includes many examples of death figures in various times and cultures
[How did/do different cultures anthropomorphize Death? How universal was the "Grim Reaper" version?](_URL_0_) | [
"\"The Reaper's Image\" is a horror story by American writer Stephen King, first published in \"Startling Mystery Stories\" in 1969 and collected in \"Skeleton Crew\" in 1985. The story is about an antique mirror haunted by the visage of the Grim Reaper, who appears to those who gaze into it.\n",
"The more or les... |
why do some exercises really have a noticeable effect on my muscles and others just makes my muscles tired? | In the first scenario (curls), you're working your muscle near its maximum ability. This causes small tears in the muscle, and your body rebuilds those tears stronger than they were before as a way to adapt to it (get stronger).
In the second scenario (circles), you're not working your muscle as hard as you can: you're just working it so *long* that it's exhausted. It wasn't beyond your muscle's ability.
What *does* improve in that scenario is your muscle's endurance. If you did arm circles to absolute exhaustion every day, you'd be able to do it for longer and longer. Your arms may not get stronger, though. | [
"Research has clearly shown that exercise is beneficial for impaired muscles, even though it was previously believed that strength exercise would \"increase\" muscle tone and impair muscle performance further. Also, in previous decades there has been a strong focus on other interventions for impaired muscles, parti... |
Has an earth year always been 365.25 days? | No, it has been considerably different from 365.25 *days* in the past, but the reason is not that the orbital period has changed significantly but rather that the length of a day has.
The rotation of the earth is slowing, due to the influence of the moon, and this causes days to get longer. There were more days in a year in the past, but this was due to the days being shorter.
This is a significant effect over geological time scales; at the time of the moon's formation a day lasted as little as 2-3 hours; by 620mya a day had extended to 21 hours.
_URL_0_
It is not however a significant effect over historical time scales, the length of the year and day were not significantly different thousands of years ago, no.
It's a lot easier to change rotational period than orbital period, incidentally, even major impact events have little effect on orbital period. | [
"BULLET::::- Earth's orbit (Sidereal year): The Hindu cosmological time cycles explained in the \"Surya Siddhanta\"(c.600 CE), give the average length of the sidereal year (the length of the Earth's revolution around the Sun) as 365.2563627 days, which is only a negligible 1.4 seconds longer than the modern value o... |
what makes a password stronger than another? | Because some types of attacks will do what's called a 'dictionary attack' and try dictionary words and thing based on them (apple, Apple, APPLE, etc). If you have to brute force a password (meaning try every possible combination) then as you add numbers, case, and specials the number of possible combinations goes through the roof (keep in mind, on average you'd have to try 50% of the possible combinations to get it right).
Having those all be possible characters in a password increases the amount of possible passwords and hence makes it hard to guess. | [
"Using strong passwords lowers overall risk of a security breach, but strong passwords do not replace the need for other effective security controls. The effectiveness of a password of a given strength is strongly determined by the design and implementation of the factors (knowledge, ownership, inherence). The firs... |
Why did a US ship shoot down Iran Air 655? | So, the Iran Air tragedy is rooted in the larger Iran/Iraq conflict. The US, at different times, supported both sides in an effort to produce a politically acceptable victory. But most importantly, the US favored stability, and tried to prevent further escalation of the war. After all, both Iraq and Iran were massive oil exporters, and they both sent most of their oil through the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz.
That meant that the US had an interest in keeping the Strait open, while Iran and Iraq hoped to cut the others access to the Strait off. Because of this, the US Navy stood as sort of a middle man, keeping both sides from blockading oil shipments, and simultaneously putting itself between two hostile warring parties. In 1987, an Iraqi fighter attacked the USS *Stark*, [which was damaged](_URL_1_), and 37 American sailors were killed.
This escalated tensions, but by 1988 tensions were escalated again by the Iranians, who began to mine the Strait. An American ship, the USS Samuel B. Roberts hit an Iranian mine, and was also damaged. This provided justification for a massive American operation against the Iranian navy, which was brutalized in a one day operation called [Operation Praying Mantis](_URL_0_).
Mantis destroyed several several Iranian ships, and crippled Iran's ability to interdict the Persian sea lanes. But the Iranian air force could still launch major attacks against "neutral shipping" (read, tankers carrying oil to the west). Because of this, the US implemented a quasi-No Fly Zone, which was really directed against Iranian combat aircraft. This set the stage for the disaster.
Now, the airport that IA 655 launch from was also a military facility, and it did have several F-14 Tomcats. What happened to IA655 is hotly debated by both sides. The captain and crew at the time argued that the *Vincennes* made several attempts to contact IA 655, while detecting its steep climb to 14,000 ft. The crew interpreted this movement to be the beginning of an attack run by the F-14, in which it would climb high then dive towards a target and launch missiles. Thus, when the *Vincennes* couldnt contact the F-14/IA655, they assumed the contact was hostile, and engaged the target.
A more unbiased account of the attack was generated in the years after the incident, which essentially concluded that the *Vincennes* and its crew had attacked IA655 while it was flying in a civilian flight lane, while it was broadcasting on civilian frequencies (in English, the international language for flight control), and despite the fact that IA655's flight profile didnt *really* look like that of an F-14 in an attack run.
So, to your question, *why* did the *Vincennes* attack IA655. The Iranians argue a position which is somewhere between outright malice and downright incompetence. I think they might push that line a bit far, but there is a kernel of truth to that claim. Remember first what I talked about in the beginning, things in the Persian Gulf were tense. The US had had two ships damaged, and had just humiliated the Iranian military. Capt. William C. Rogers was justified in trying to prevent casualties among his command. Further, tensions on the *Vincennes* were more pronounced, as the ship had recently engaged Iranian patrol boats which had attacked the ship.
But at the same time, Capt. Rogers came out of the incident pretty badly. The most common (American) explanation for the incident is something called "scenario fulfillment," which is pretty much what it sounds like. The *Vincennes* had entered a combat area, and had been training on the ships advanced Anti-Aircraft weapons (it was the first AEGIS equipped Cruiser). The crew had naturally been training on how to identify and intercept a hostile F-14 attack, so when IA655 fulfilled some of those characteristics, the crew began to reenact one of their training scenarios. To them, IA655 *was* an F-14, simply because they had only trained how to deal with hostile air threats.
But at the same time, Capt. Rogers had gained a reputation for aggressive action. The other captains in the region had regarded him as a sort of loose was gunning to prove his ship and his crew in an area which had just seen hostilities. Rather than keep a cool head, and halt the wish fulfillment of his junior officers, Rogers embraced the potential threat, and responded in a characteristically aggressive manner.
Its probable that the IA655 incident was just one long and tragic accident. But everything which followed the incident politicized the tragedy, and gave Iran fodder for their propaganda machine. For example, Bush senior refused to apologize for incident. The *Vincennes* received awards for her tour in the Gulf, and Capt. Roberts was awarded commendations for his conduct while in command of the ship. The US Navy did its best to try and pretend like the incident never happened, and that only gave Iran ammunition to cry foul. Because of this, IA655 is still a hotly debated issue, while many of other airliner shoot-downs have largely been forgotten, like [KA007](_URL_2_) | [
"Thereafter, Iranian attacks on neutral ships dropped drastically. On 3 July 1988, , while engaged in a fierce gun duel with Iranian boats, mistook Iran Air Flight 655 for an Iranian F-14 and shot it down over the Strait of Hormuz. All 290 passengers and aircrew aboard the Airbus A300B2 died, including 66 children.... |
I want to learn about the past 120~ years of European history. | May I suggest the French Revolution as a starting point? For both social and military history. Hitler also refers to it many times in Mein Kampf it played directly into his thinking.
It was also the starting point for the century that was filled with revolutions which had an immense impact.
I don't have any sources at the moment but I do want to suggest reading the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx, it is really short and a surprisingly easy read and it played a huge part in the social aspect of the last century.
_URL_0_ | [
"European History Online (\"Europäische Geschichte Online, EGO\") is an academic website that publishes articles on the history of Europe between the period of 1450 and 1950 according to the principle of open access.\n",
"BULLET::::- Robinson, James Harvey, and Charles Austin Beard. \"Readings in Modern European ... |
Is it actually possible to run across water? | According various [online calculations](_URL_0_) a person would need to run at about 80km/h in order to generate enough thrust against the water.
Smaller animals, like like basilisk lizard , have less mass and a higher power to weight ratio and can briefly run across the water. | [
"\"'Running across the world\"\" is a difficult task, taking years to accomplish.Technically it would be impossible to run across the world having bodies of water, especially the vasts oceans, separating one land mass from another. People who attempted to run across the world have their run divided into several leg... |
How useful are cryoprotectants in preserving tissue? | One of the main uses of cryoprotectants is to prevent ice crystals from forming. We're mostly water, so freezing tissue causes the water to form crystals which rips cells apart.
A lot of it depends on what you're using as a cryoprotectant. I see you're interested in humans. I work with yeast, and we use 25% glycerol in the media and store strains at -80 C. | [
"Cryosurgery is an old modality for the treatment of many skin cancers. When accurately utilized with a temperature probe and cryotherapy instruments, it can result in very good cure rate. Disadvantages include lack of margin control, tissue necrosis, over or under treatment of the tumor, and long recovery time. Ov... |
how does someone with insomnia continue living? | From personal experience, You can last atleast 5 days with a 30 minute nap somewhere around day 3-4.
Also, It's not like Insomniacs never sleep. They just have trouble falling asleep and staying asleep. | [
"No other person with total insomnia has lived for such a long period of time. It was likely that he died for other reasons, not sleep deprivation, as his insomnia did not seem to have any effect on his health.\n",
"BULLET::::1. Transient insomnia lasts for less than a week. It can be caused by another disorder, ... |
how does the ufc get away with paying their fighters so little? | Supply and Demand, to put it simply.
The public is apparently willing to pay hundreds of millions to watch Mayweather and Pacquiao, and just the same UFC fighters are apparently willing to fight despite not receiving such massive payouts. If, as a collective whole, UFC fighters were unwilling to fight without getting better pay then either the public would decide to throw more money at them, or it wouldn't and they'd either have to walk away or stay at the pay they currently get.
Basically, they are compensated based on the demand for the service they supply. | [
"UFC fighters are paid per fight, with amounts depending on how well-known the fighters are and how well sponsored a fighter and an event is. Fighters will typically get paid money to fight, called show money, with an additional bonus if they win, called a win bonus. Despite not being officially confirmed by the UF... |
why does stretching a muscle help it heal faster? | There is no good evidence that shows static stretching does anything useful. Dynamic stretching (which is actually just moving around) is evidence based to be useful. | [
"An active stretching regimen can strengthen muscles because stretching affects muscles in a way similar to strength training, just on a smaller scale. A stretching regimen has been shown to increase weight-lifting abilities, improve endurance, and assist in plyometrics. Research shows that StretchTrainer users can... |
Speed of light VS Age of the universe? | This has been asked a bunch of times, check these out
[_URL_0_](_URL_0_)
[_URL_3_](_URL_3_)
[_URL_1_](_URL_1_)
[_URL_2_](_URL_2_) | [
"Another adjunct, the varying speed of light model was offered by Jean-Pierre Petit in 1988, John Moffat in 1992, and the two-man team of Andreas Albrecht and João Magueijo in 1998. Instead of superluminal expansion the speed of light was 60 orders of magnitude faster than its current value solving the horizon and ... |
if all the baby boomers start pulling out their money from rrsp/rifs and "the market" in general, will the stock market suffer? | The question is not if... it is when.
Baby Boomers are not going to die and leave those accounts to the children, they will be spent on vacations, medical expenses, their kids/grandkids college educations! | [
"It is expected that the aging of the baby boomer generation in the US will increase the demand for this type of instrument and for it to be optimized for the annuitant. This growing market will drive improvements necessitating more research and development of instruments and increase insight into the mechanics inv... |
The evolution of sleep (questions inside) | All eukaryotes, and some prokaryotes (cyanobacteria) exhibit circadian rhythms; only in the phylum 'bilateria' have we seen photoperiodism thought (this is a once in a lifetime/season event that is critical to the organisms fitness).
There are several proposed reasons for sleep, but nothing is proven. Because DNA damage from UV light is high, it is thought that organisms who need to be in sunlight evolved to replicated their DNA at night. In fact several circadian rhythm genes have been shown to be involved in DNA repair; and when radiation is received during the 'subjective day/night barrier' the damage appears to be much greater. Shift swing workers and slight attendants have been shown to have an increased rate of tumor formation. The idea of sleep itself may be due to the fact that early animals weren't very smart and probably would get hurt walking around at night (where they would spend energy for finding less food aswell).
There is evidence that sleep helps consolidate memories, turning short term ones into long term ones (part of the reason a good sleep before a test is so important). it is thought that many of the cells in your brain and body use the sleep time to replenish their supplies of whatever they need to work well.
Fun fact: sea faring birds (like the seagull) can put half their brain to sleep at a time, then switch, allowing them to fly for days at a time.
Double fun fact, a cryptochrome photoreceptor present in the molecular feedback loop is the descendant of a photolyase that mediates DNA repair in visible light (not present in placental mammals)which was the result of a while genome duplication event | [
"One challenge studying sleep evolution is that adequate sleep information is known only for two phyla of animals- chordata and arthropoda. With the available data, comparative studies have been used to determine how sleep might have evolved. One question that scientists try to answer through these studies is wheth... |
why does a laptop's battery life decrease over time? | Most (if not all) modern batteries in laptops and electronics are lithium-ion (li-ion) based.
When you charge it, an electric current carries lithium ions from a lithium cobalt oxide cathode to a graphite anode.
When you turn on the device, the ions then run in the opposite direction, to the cathode.
Each time you charge it, some of those ions, now on the other end at the cathode, won't make the trip back to the opposite end at the anode. This is because the charging causes the internal structure of the cathode to degrade, making it less efficient.
Over time, more and more ions get stuck at the cathode, and battery capacity goes down.
Higher temperatures also speed up the reaction that degrades the cathode. If you've left your phone or whatever on a charger for a while, you'll notice it gets quite warm. This is degrading your battery faster, get it off! | [
"Battery life is limited because the capacity drops with time, eventually requiring replacement after as little as a year. A new battery typically stores enough energy to run the laptop for three to five hours, depending on usage, configuration, and power management settings. Yet, as it ages, the battery's energy s... |
Are some liquids heavier than others? | Indeed they do. Liquid water has a density of 1000kg/m^3, liquid mercury has a density of around 13500kg/m^3, and liquid steel is around 8000kg/m^3. The weight of liquids works no differently than solids. The only difference is that they flow and thus must be put in a container to be weighed. | [
"A heavy liquid is a solution or liquid chemical substance with a high density and a relatively low viscosity. Heavy liquids are often used for determination of density in mineralogy, for density gradient centrifugation and for separating mixtures.\n",
"It is referred to as \"heavy\" because its density or specif... |
Why is it that mass transportation in America was never fully developed? In addition, why did America grow such a large car culture? | I'm currently abroad and don't have access to my books, but I think I can do enough from memory to at least give this a go.
Your question has a bit to unpack — what would a "fully developed" mass transit system look like, for example? Does New York City have a system that measures up to developed-nation standards? If so, then what about Chicago, Boston, Washington, or San Francisco? Perhaps the places that are coming first to mind are the sprawly masses of the American South and West that grew most spectacularly in the 20th century, like, say, Houston, or Phoenix, where there's little question that lacking a car is a significant burden, the rail network is minimal, there are many places the buses don't go, and those who don't have a car are overwhelmingly in such a position due to poverty. You also might be thinking of the extensive suburbs with inadequate bus and rail connections even in those cities with functional mass transit systems.
If we go back to the years between World War I and World War II, though, we would see a different picture. Most large American cities were covered in privately-owned streetcar networks at this time, though private auto use was increasing astronomically as cars became more affordable. Still, the level of income inequality at the time meant that for large swaths of Americans a car was still a luxury. As such, well-developed transit networks were a necessity. Even for the middle class, the paucity of limited-access highways — the first in the US, the [Arroyo Seco Parkway](_URL_0_) connecting Los Angeles to the suburb of Pasadena, wasn't opened until 1940 — meant that the streetcar networks were important for getting to work on time. This wasn't just the case in urban America, but in the increasingly fashionable suburbs as well, many of which were connected to their urban cores via high-speed "interurban" streetcars. Take [this example](_URL_1_) from 1937 of an interurban that connected Chicago to suburbs more than 50 km/30 miles away and ran late into the night. As was typical for the era it connected suburbanizing rural communities to the city center, via dedicated tracks in the countryside and sharing space with urban rail in the city proper (these were elevated in Chicago; elsewhere they were often street-running). There were also commuter rail and metros in the cities large enough to warrant them, nothing that you could call undeveloped by the standards of the time.
Ultimately it was the rapid expansion of US suburbia after World War II, though, that led to changes in transportation infrastructure. As such, the main resource I'm going off of here is the venerable history of American suburbanization from the colonial period onward, *Crabgrass Frontier* by Kenneth Jackson. He makes the convincing argument that the American love for the suburbs drove its reliance on the personal car, not the other way around. Of course it helped that the US enjoyed a long economic boom from the end of the 1940s well into the 1960s, and it helped that the country was full of cheap farmland and real estate developers eager to get rich quick. But economic and political factors alone don't explain the rush to flee the cities and fill up new single-family houses on the urban fringe. Cities were seen as crowded, dirty, unsafe. It didn't help that they were full of immigrants, Jews, and, increasingly, blacks, and many Americans of that era were quite racist. (A good book on *that* aspect of American suburbanization in particular is *Bourgeois Nightmares* by Robert Fogelson, which looks at Los Angeles as a case study.) The 1944 GI Bill, which among other things provided for low-interest home loans for returning WWII veterans, fed into those cultural norms by favoring new construction in ethnically homogeneous neighborhoods, and by systematically excluding black veterans from the program. These new housing developments were privately constructed and often lacked connections to mass transit, but they were cheap and the need for a car was a small sacrifice to attain the American Dream of home ownership. As cars became more firmly established as the future of suburban mobility, demands for highway infrastructure reached a fever pitch, culminating in the massive giveaway to the real estate and auto industries that was the Interstate System, authorized in 1956, which provided for federal money to build or upgrade limited-access highways not just between cities, but within urban areas. All new Interstate highways were required to be toll-free, further enhancing their utility compared to mass transit — this was not necessarily true of those built previously.
Meanwhile, within the cities, many civic leaders had become convinced that city centers would become obsolete if they didn't provide for the middle class to easily drive in and out of them. As the federal government subsidized Interstate construction *through* city centers, mayors rushed to bulldoze paths for the new highways through poor and/or minority neighborhoods, displacing residents and generally making large swaths of the city unpleasant to live in. The influx of autos onto city streets had already rendered streetcars much less useful as they were frequently stalled by traffic. The build-up of the freeways was only one of many nails in their coffin, as the companies holding them went bankrupt and local governments had little desire to step in to save them. In most of the country, the elite and middle class saw them as impediments to progress, as they just got in the way of your car. Freeway traffic at the time was light. Cars were seen as more modern and efficient. There was little appetite for large mass transit infrastructure projects; where failing streetcar systems were bought up, they were often converted to bus systems which could more cheaply use the newly built auto infrastructure. Buses were presumed an adequate substitute for those who could not afford cars, though their numbers dwindled as decreasing ridership on these comparatively inadequate systems made it more difficult for their operators to turn a profit. Only rail lines with dedicated rights-of-way (i.e., commuter rail, or underground and elevated urban rail) were generally salvaged by local governments, as the number of people they moved could not easily be matched by private vehicles and their rights-of-way were too narrow to be used by buses or cars. And only later was mass transit widely seen as a necessity for the urban poor and thus requiring government subsidy.
American mass transit continued to decline in the decades following as suburbs expanded and cars became more affordable and necessary. City dwellers did not begin to seriously rebel against the destruction caused by urban freeways until the 1960s–70s, with San Francisco and Manhattan being notable early exceptions. (This parallels trends in Canada and Western Europe — see, for instance, [this article](_URL_2_) in the *Guardian* about activism against auto-centric infrastructure in Amsterdam around the same time period.) Pushes toward government funding of urban mass transit were fitful at this time, with federal subsidies going to new systems in San Francisco, Atlanta, and Washington, DC. However, the successes of their initial buildouts in the 1970s coincided with the economic turmoil following the 1973–74 oil crisis. Despite a view that reducing car dependence would be a good thing, a lack of government intervention — and a lack of funds to do so even if such a thing were palatable — meant that suburbanization continued unabated. The election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 and his subsequent drastic cuts to the federal budget made any massive changes to the status quo untenable. During this decade we start to see light rail lines built on the cheap in cities previously lacking rail systems. None of these were planned on a scale to where they could supplant more than a fraction of the auto traffic in their respective regions.
I almost forgot about Amtrak. The US national rail provider was formed by a public-private takeover of failing intercity passenger lines in 1971; freight railways retained ownership of the tracks themselves. Conservatives in Congress tried to kill it for many years after. Expanding or substantially improving it was a non-starter for quite some time.
The "car culture" question is an interesting one which I don't have a satisfying answer to. But I wouldn't necessarily assume that there is something uniquely extensive about the car culture in the US as opposed to other places. After all, many other countries, such as Germany and Japan, have been known for their auto enthusiasts. I would argue that a great deal of how widespread car culture is perceived in the US has more to do with its high levels of car ownership and the extent of infrastructure that relies on the personal auto. With this being the case, a car is necessary for a great deal of what Americans do in their spare time. What might look like car culture is in large part an integration of a very necessary tool into many facets of American lives, along with entrepreneurs taking advantage of this necessity by catering to people already on the road — hence drive-thrus, motels, big box stores, and so on. | [
"The introduction of the Interstate Highway System and the suburbanization of America made automobiles more necessary and helped change the landscape and culture in the United States. Individuals began to see the automobile as an extension of themselves.\n",
"The advent of the automobile signaled the end of railr... |
why do we sometimes feel sorry (or emotional) for inanimate objects? | I think it's because we tend to personify things. And that happens when we're kids, thru pretend play. And toy story doesn't help. I remember when I was little thinking my toys were alive when I wasn't around. Damn! If I had only written that out as a story.... I could have been rich!! | [
"Displacement of object: Feelings that are connected with one person are displaced onto another person. A man who has had a bad day at the office, comes home and yells at his wife and children, is displacing his anger from workplace onto his family. Freud thought that when children have animal phobias, they may be ... |
How does a source of light, with finite surface area, send light in infinite directions? | If you go far enough away, it will no longer be continuous, and you'll only detect the occasional photon. If you set up a large detection screen, there will be finite distance between the locations where photons are detected. | [
"A directional light source illuminates all objects equally from a given direction, like an area light of infinite size and infinite distance from the scene; there is shading, but cannot be any distance falloff.\n",
"In nature, a light source emits a ray of light that travels, eventually, to a surface that interr... |
why aren't the scopes of sniper rifles on the side any more? | This was done because those guns fed from stripper clips, which required loading straight down from the top. Well, you can't put a scope in the way of your bullets or it's not much of a rifle anymore.
When countries switched to magazine feeds from the bottom of the rifle, you could mount your scope in line with the barrel. This has all sorts of advantages.
It reduces parallax consideration to one axis. Basically your scope and your bullet aren't pointing at the same spot. They're a few inches apart. The closer or further a target, the more this difference changes where you need to aim for the bullet to hit. With the scope centred, you don't have to worry about left/right. Only up/down.
Scopes in line mean the shooter can position themselves directly behind the rifle in line with the shot. Which helps with posture and recoil. Meaning the shot is more consistent.
With the scope centred, the rifle doesn't want to cant (try to lean to the heavy side). Meaning your rifle is easier to hold level. Again, more consistent and accurate shooting. | [
"The single most important characteristic that sets a sniper rifle apart from other military or police small arms is the mounting of a telescopic sight, which is relatively easy to distinguish from smaller optical aiming devices found on some modern assault rifles and submachine guns. \n",
"The telescopic sights ... |
how do birds know not to fly in the path of a kite and its strings? | No, but they have hearing to detect the buzzing of the wind in the lines. They also have excellent collision avoidance hardware in their brains and they use this sort of sound cue to stay in formation for long flights. | [
"Square-tailed kites can glide or soar, depending on the positioning of their wings. For gliding, the birds wing are held in medium modified dihedral, and when soaring the wings are in a medium to strong dihedral, and the tips of the primary flight feathers are curled up. These birds are well suited to flight, and ... |
what is actually happening when, after a day in the ocean or riding rollercoasters, the body will almost simulate the feelings when you're staying still? | There's a few reasons why this happens, and it's actually been a source of contention for centuries now. This is part of where the term "Sea Legs" comes from.
When you are on a boat, or a roller coaster or other similar behaviours, your brain, vestibulocochlear system (The tubes of fluid in your ears that help maintain balance) and muscles all grow accustomed to that environment.
What you're actually experiencing after coming back from such things is actually almost the opposite of what you were feeling; your body is so used to that swaying motion of a boat that the complete steadiness of dry land temporarily "Confuses" it.
Have you ever been on a trampoline for a moderate length of time? That's a very similar scenario; after coming off the trampoline your legs feel heavy and your muscles seem weak because you've become used to the "Springy" terrain.
It's a similar situation here; You're used to the movement, and in its absence your brain is preemptively simulating movement that is no longer there, making you feel like you're moving even when you're sitting still. | [
"After being on a small boat for a few hours and then going back onto land, it may feel like there is still rising and falling, as if one is still on the boat. It can also occur on other situations, such as after a long train journey or after working up a swaying tree. It is not clear whether sea legs is a form of ... |
a lot of celebrities that aren't nominated for anything still get to go to the oscars. how do they decide of the non-nominees who goes and who doesn't? | Last year's winners (for the big categories) are invited to present their award this year. The Academy invites other A-list people to present or sit in the audience for ratings and prestige, especially if they had a movie this year.
Studios get a certain number of seats that they can give to anyone, obviously executives and actors they're promoting are often selected. The Academy members (over 6k) have a lottery to determine which of them gets tickets.
Then of course all the nominees and presenters get a +1, and they'll often be dating celebrities. | [
"The winners were announced during the awards ceremony on February 25, 2007. With his latest unsuccessful nomination for Best Actor, Peter O'Toole became the most nominated performer without a competitive win. Another oddity in the Best Actor category is that four of the five nominees were only nominated in that ca... |
why do we include "indigo" in the rainbow? | > I have always believed that "indigo" was included in the rainbow simply to make the acronym Roy G. Biv work
It's the other way round - the acronym comes from the colour names.
We have Newton to thank for the names of the colours in the spectrum. He initially distinguished five colours (red, yellow, green, blue, violet) and added orange and indigo later to make the number up to seven for no reason other than that's the number of notes in a scale. Go figure. In other words, it's made up, and the only reason we say there are seven colours in the rainbow is tradition.
Source: [Wikipedia article](_URL_0_) | [
"Indigo is a deep and rich color close to the color wheel blue (a primary color in the RGB color space), as well as to some variants of ultramarine. It is traditionally regarded as a color in the visible spectrum, as well as one of the seven colors of the rainbow: the color between violet and blue; however, sources... |
Why does the Double Jeopardy Clause exist? What was the Founding Fathers' reasoning for not re-trying someone when new evidence arose? | The reasoning for including it in US law is discussed in many modern cases. To use one example (**Green v The United States 355 US 184 (1957)**)
> _"The State with all its resources and power should not be allowed to make repeated attempts to convict an individual for an alleged offense, thereby subjecting him to embarrassment, expense and ordeal and compelling him to live in a continuing state of anxiety and insecurity, as well as enhancing the possibility that even though innocent he may be found guilty"_
However its path back through history is much older. In fact - we know that it was part of Athenian law in about 355 BC or so. That's because when Demosthenes was defending 'the young son of Chabrias', he mentioned as part of his argument:
> _"Now the laws forbid the same man to be tried twice on the same issue, be it a civil action, a scrutiny, a contested claim or anything else of the sort"_ (You can see this in [**'Against Leptines'** [Line 147]](_URL_3_))
It even survived into the Roman era - Iulius Paulus stated that _'after a public acquittal a defendant can again be prosecuted by his informer within thirty days, but after that time this cannot be done'_ . (Ref: [The Opinions of Paulus - Title XVII](_URL_2_) And Justinian I's collection of Roman Law which was published in 533 A. D ("The Digest of Justinian") stated that _'The governor must not allow a man to be charged with the same offense of which he has already been acquitted'_.
This then moved into Canon Law (the Catholic church) under Pope Gregory IX in 1234. This proclamation was "An accusation cannot be repeated with respect to those crimes of which the accused has been resolved". Being a church, however, it uses the Bible to justify this rather than existing laws - in particular St Jerome's interpretation of the Bible verse (written about 7 BC) that 'affliction shall not rise up the second time' [Nahum 1:9](_URL_4_)
This then shifted into English law.
**So why did the fledgling USA adapt that particular law?**
We know that the early colonists were very familiar with **Blackstone's Commentaries on English Law**, because they often quoted it to support their claims that the British Parliament was exceeding its lawful authority.
However the colony were also very familiar with the problems the strict English version of double jeopardy caused. Not only was the English version of 'double jeopardy' only limited to capital offenses. Even then it wasn't much help because it was too easy for the crown to simply abandon the case when it was clear that they were losing and then resume it later.
So it was made much more general - in 1641 the Puritan Nathanial Ward published the Colony's first legal code : _"No man shall be twise senteced by Civill Justice for one and the same Crime, offence or Trespasse"_ [Massachusetts Body of Liberties #42](_URL_1_)
However that definition had a problem - strictly speaking it could prevent someone from appealing a court and getting a lighter sentence. So during the constitutional convention James Madison used a slightly different definition of "No person shall be subject ... to more than one punishment .." and after more lawyering it became the Fifth Amendment as:
> **"No person shall ...be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb;**
That was cleverly written - as it doesn't prevent someone asking to be retried years later to be found innocent - simply that they can't be 'put in jeopardy' because of the retrial.
If you want more (including extra references) I've relied largely on :
[David S. Rudstein, A Brief History of the Fifth Amendment Guarantee Against Double Jeopardy, 14 Wm.
& Mary Bill Rts. J. 193 (2005)](_URL_0_)
It's a fascinating area,
-- Mac | [
"Finally, the Court had held in \"Forman v. United States\" that a new trial following a reversal—no matter the ground—never constitutes double jeopardy: \"It is elementary in our law that a person can be tried a second time for an offense when his prior conviction for that same offense has been set aside by his ap... |
why do certain songs turn us on? | You do know that being "turned on" means that you're horny, right? | [
"\"Turn Up the Music\" is an uptempo electronic dance, and house song, which last for a duration of three minutes and forty-nine seconds. Instrumentation is provided by pulsating beats, synthesizers and percussion. \"Rap-Up\" described the production as \"synth-heavy\". The song opens with Brown singing \"Turn up t... |
Is the Periodic Table the best design we have or just the most common? | The periodic table is organized using the number of protons an element has (which determines the element) and also by electron orbitals. This is why elements in the same group (column) behave chemically similar. If you take a basic college level chemistry course, most of what you learn are the properties of matter used to organize the periodic table, such as electron shells.
The organization is useful for a number of reasons. There are also a number of trends, such as molecular weight increases from the top left to the bottom right, while electronegativety increases from the bottom left to the top right. Without getting into specifics, trends like this mean that the periodic table is set up in a meaningful and useful manner.
I suppose there is nothing to stop someone from setting it up differently, but it would not be as useful a reference organized another way. I seriously doubt there would be a "more efficient" method of organizing it. | [
"The periodic table of mathematical shapes is popular name given to a project to classify Fano varieties. The project was thought up by Professor Alessio Corti, from the Department of Mathematics at Imperial College London. It aims to categorise all three-, four- and five-dimensional shapes into a single table, ana... |
how do movie productions supply "era specific" props? | Typically they outsource. They don't own all the props, other companies make/collect and loan them to them for the production, or they hire another company for set construction if it needs to be specific. Some bigger companies have in house prop designers too for really specific and important props. It depends on the size of the production and the purpose of the prop whether or not itll be custom made or rented.
Edit: also props typically aren't real. Most likely it'll be a replica made to look period accurate, but isn't an actual piece from the time. Sometimes they can be though. Just depends on the specific production. | [
"It exhibits original props, costumes and sets from feature films. There is also a section on how films are made, including information on all the major studios. Original pieces include costumes and props from British films, 'Little Nellie' from \"You Only Live Twice\", an original Superman meteor, the Rank Organis... |
Why does a magnet fall slowly through a conductive pipe? | Wikipedia:
An eddy current (also known as Foucault current) is an electrical phenomenon discovered by French physicist Léon Foucault in 1851. It is caused when a conductor is exposed to a changing magnetic field due to relative motion of the field source and conductor; or due to variations of the field with time. This can cause a circulating flow of electrons, or a current, within the body of the conductor. These circulating eddies of current create induced magnetic fields that oppose the change of the original magnetic field due to Lenz's law, causing repulsive or drag forces between the conductor and the magnet. The stronger the applied magnetic field, or the greater the electrical conductivity of the conductor, or the faster the field that the conductor is exposed to changes, then the greater the currents that are developed and the greater the opposing field. | [
"Currents bound inside the atoms of strong magnets can create counter-rotating currents in a copper or aluminum pipe. This is shown by dropping the magnet through the pipe. The descent of the magnet inside the pipe is observably slower than when dropped outside the pipe.\n",
"As the magnet moves with respect to t... |
how does right and left handiness work? and why can't i do things as well with my off hand? | Increased motor dexterity isn't free, it takes up real estate in the brain. And since you, and in particular your primitive ancestors, seldom needed to have it both hands, you are better off using that brain space just once, and letting the rest be used for other things.
It is kind of like having an umbrella. One umbrella is kind of a hassle to carry around, but can really come in handy. Two umbrellas is twice the pain in the ass, and rarely offers an benefit beyond what one would. | [
"Also, it is not uncommon that people preferring to use the right hand prefer to use the left leg, e.g. when using a shovel, kicking a ball, or operating control pedals. In many cases, this may be because they are disposed for left-handedness but have been trained for right-handedness. In the sport of cricket, some... |
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