Split (2)

train · 226k rows

question stringlengths 3 301	answer stringlengths 9 26.1k	context list
How is one pepper/chilli variant spicier than another?	The concentration of capsaicin determines how spicy something is. There are also capsaicin analogs in nature that can activate the TRPV1 receptors (that are responsible for capsaicin binding) more strongly than capsaicin does. However, for the differences between peppers, the answer is capsaicin concentration. You can...	[ "Chilli peppers are indispensable to Malaysian kitchens, and both fresh and dried chilies are used. Chillies come in several sizes, shapes and even colours. As a general rule, two type of chilli cultivars are the most commonly available: the bird's eye chili (\"cili padi\"), which although small in size are extreme...
If we used Hydrogen, extracted from water, as an alternative fuel source, would we eventually run out of water?	Using hydrogen as a fuel source means that it must undergo a combustion reaction in order to release that energy. Hydrogen is not energy in itself but rather is an "energy carrier." The hydrogen H2 must react with oxygen O2 in order to release energy to be used. The product of said reaction is water. 2H2 + O2 -- > 2H...	[ "Hydrogen is produced by using excess wind power to electrolyze water to produce hydrogen and oxygen. The oxygen is used in the municipal water treatment plant nearby to speed up the biological process. The hydrogen is stored in low-pressure storage tanks at six bars and fuels two PEM Fuel Cell Micro Combined Heat ...
why didn't the us seize cuba during the cuban missile crisis?	That would've almost certainly caused an all out war between the US and the USSR, which would be very very bad due to the whole nuclear threat. Cuba was an ally of the USSR and the invasion would have been an act of war. By making the blockade, there was still a risk but that risk was lowered, as we can see since ultim...	[ "In the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, the top officials in Washington debated using rollback to get rid of Soviet nuclear missiles, which were threatening the United States. There was fear of a nuclear war until a deal was reached in which the Soviets would publicly remove their nuclear weapons, the United States w...
Was there a substantive difference between what the Anglo-Saxon gentry ate and what the subsequent Norman gentry ate? If I showed a Norman feast in AD1103 and Anglo-Saxon feast in AD994, could you tell the difference from the food?	Here's the thing--and I'm not trying to be glib here. We really don't know. Cookbooks really weren't a thing with either culture. We can look at midden heaps to find the remains (and seeds) of various food animals and plants, but that doesn't tell us much on how they were prepared or what they tasted like. Now, that...	[ "During the Medieval period, various types of fowl were consumed as food, with the poorer populations (such as serfs) consuming more common birds, such as chicken. However, the more wealthy gentry were privileged to less usual foods, such as swan, and even peafowl were consumed. On a king's table, a peacock would b...
Can an arthropod's exoskeleton repair itself the same (or in a similar) way as a human's endoskeleton?	Yes, if it's over living tissue. But it's not like human skin where it quickly patches itself, any significant damage to an exoskeleton basically means Mr. Bug is going to bleed to death. That's basically half of how lice combs work - They strip the eggs from hair shafts, and it just takes a minor injury to the adu...	[ "A robotic exoskeleton is a type of orthosis that uses actuators to either assist or resist the movement of a joint of an intact limb; this is not to be confused with a powered prosthesis, which replaces a missing limb. There are four purposes that robotic lower limb exoskeletons can accomplish:\n", "Exoskeletons...
Does a moving Charge get affected by its electric and magnetic field?	> This leads me to believe that a moving charge is not affected by its electric and magnetic fields. is this correct for an undergraduate college physics class? Yes, to this level of accuracy the charge is not affected by its own fields. If you go on to study quantum field theory, you have to renormalize the electro...	[ "A charged particle moving in a -field experiences a \"sideways\" force that is proportional to the strength of the magnetic field, the component of the velocity that is perpendicular to the magnetic field and the charge of the particle. This force is known as the \"Lorentz force\", and is given by\n", "A charged...
When were the first crowns with pointed sides worn?	I don't think this image shows a proto-typical crown. The bulb shape you see above and behind is most likely part of the headdress, since other images of Royal Iranian headdresses from this era clearly incorporate it. [Example](_URL_0_) To me the [diadems](_URL_1_) found in Mycenae Greek Royal tombs (circa 16th c...	[ "While many early crowns were uncovered circlets (and some European crowns continue to have this form (see e.g. the Danish crown), from the late Middle Ages onward it became traditional to enclose the crown in a head-covering or cap, in part due to the drafty nature of the cathedrals, castles, palaces and halls whe...
How long can a glass of water be sitting out and still be safe to drink?	In the overwhelmingly majority of cases no threat I would say. Microorganisms require nutrients and trace minerals (which depending on the water source can be in the water) and in appreciable quantities in order to reach a dosage number that could be pathogenic. Further it would need to be restricted to oral/respirat...	[ "Water itself is not a hazard to stable glass, but in the case of a piece with existing “glass disease,” it can accelerate problems associated with it such as weeping, and crizzling as mentioned above. Here, glass should not be kept in places where the threat of water exposure could occur, such as low to the ground...
credit card interest calculations	It depends on your billing cycle. There are a couple things to keep in mind: each bill you receive will contain charges you made between two dates, usually a month apart. This is your billing cycle. If a charge is between those two dates, payment is due on it. If it's a day later, it'll be in your next billing cycle a...	[ "Many credit card issuers give a rate that is based upon an economic indicator published by a respected journal. For example, most banks in the U.S. offer credit cards based upon the lowest U.S. prime rate as published in the \"Wall Street Journal\" on the previous business day to the start of the calendar month. F...
if the temperature is 37 degrees fahrenheit but the weather channel states "feels like 26 degrees" will water freeze?	uh i'm celcius but water freezes at 32 F i think? No it wont. The wind blowing makes it feel colder, it actually isnt any colder tho. Try this: lick a small part or your arm and then blow on it. the faster you blow on it, the colder it feels. same sorta thing outside	[ "Rain came in the night. The cold front that would blow away the smog was forecasted to arrive between 5 a.m. and 9 a.m. Shortly after 9 a.m. the wind arrived, moving mostly from the northeast between 6–10 miles per hour and bringing cooler temperatures in the 50s °F (10–15 °C). Glenn at the Interstate Sanitation C...
why is it easier to follow a line when cutting something?	A drawn line is just a visual reference. It makes it easy to check if your line is still straight without using complex visualisation. It's easier to draw a line once and simply compare rather than continually imagine a line whilst trying to cut something. Drawing perfect circles is difficult because the human body do...	[ "Cutting in line, also known as line/queue jumping, butting, barging, budding, skipping, breaking, shorting, pushing in, or cutsies, is the act of entering a queue or line at any position other than the end. The act, which may be taboo in some instances, stands in stark contrast to the normal policy of first come, ...
why is leather still such a popular luxury item for things like upholstery?	Leather is extremely durable, and a lot of people find the look, feel, and smell of it pleasant. It's been in continual use for thousands of years because it's just a great material. And the synthetic materials you mentioned are all petroleum derivatives.	[ "Leather is a highly sought after material due to its resistance to tearing, flexing and puncture. It is also a good insulator of heat and prevents the passage of air flow. In order for skins to be turned into leather they must go through the process known as tanning to stabilize the collagen for the duration of th...
how it can be economical for there to be two starbucks within 0.1 miles of each other	2 Starbucks > 1 Starbucks + 1 competitor.	[ "In October 2012, Starbucks announced plans to open 1,000 stores in the United States in the next five years. The same month, the largest Starbucks in the US opened at the University of Alabama's Ferguson Center.\n", "People in Seattle consume more coffee than in any other American city; one study stated that the...
What are the oldest institutions (besides governments or churches) that are still active today?	The Order of the Knights of St. John, (also known as “The Knights of St. John”, “The Knights Hospitallers”, “The Knights of Rhodes”, “The Knights of Malta”, “The Sovereign Military Order of Malta”) were founded in 1099 as a religious and military order in Jerusalem, which also operated a hospital. They defended the Ho...	[ "The oldest public universities are the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Rutgers University, and The University of Georgia, although the overall oldest university now designated as public is The College of William & Mary, which was founded by a Crown charter in 1693 and was originally a private institut...
I watched a video recently of a gun being fired underwater and there was what seemed like a tunnel of air behind the bullet and I was wondering if anyone could explain to me what was going on?	This is called Supercavitation and you can read about it [here](_URL_0_). The linked article is probably more thorough than what I could write here.	[ "Immediately before the shooting, officers requested additional helicopters, a police helicopter, and the Long Beach Police Department's Mental Health Evaluation Team to assist in the situation, but claimed that when Zerby stretched his arms and pointed the nozzle at them, they heard a telephone ring and fired. For...
Why do marble busks of roman emperors have blank eyes?	The vast majority of ancient statuary looks incomplete because it is. The missing details used to be painted on. Given a millennia or two and the paints have largely been stripped away, sometimes intentionally by well meaning curators and the like who thought the remaining patina was simply weathering. We tend to thi...	[ "Crassus was somewhat infamous in later generations for his luxurious lifestyle. In particular, he was notably the first Roman to use columns made of imported marble, in this case from Mt. Hymettus in Greece. His contemporaries also mocked him for this luxury. A Marcus Brutus dubbed him the 'Palatine Venus' for the...
Is it possible to build an underwater speaker that compensates for the sound disortion due to the water?	As mentioned before, underwater speakers already exist. They mainly deal with the issue of water dulling our ability to perceive audible vibrations. The frequency of a sound wave only depends on the original wave and since frequency determines the note we hear, underwater speakers don't have to adjust the frequency. ...	[ "Technology exists where underwater speaker systems can be deployed around the designated area. This array of speaker systems can be programmed to send high powered frequencies which then blasts powerful 'disruption' signals into the water. The frequencies have a maximum disorientation effect on the diver(s), which...
why doesn't trader joes have sales?	You do sales for two primary reasons: get people into the store, or get rid of excess inventory. Trader Joe's has a nearly cult-like following...they don't need sales to get people in the store (they barely advertise anyway so having a sale wouldn't help much). They also have only about 1/10th the number of unique i...	[ "Trader Joe's discontinues individual products based on customer reactions more often than larger grocery chains to free up space for new items. Some products are exclusive to certain regions (e.g., midwest, east coast) of the United States depending on availability and popularity.\n", "Trader Joe's is an America...
what is the difference between a mood and an emotion?	Well we know what emotions are right? Happy, sad, angry, playful, etc. A mood is basically a state of being predisposed towards a certain emotion. In a "bad mood" would mean temporarily predisposed towards feeling emotions generally considered bad, such as angry or sad. What causes the predisposition is a combina...	[ "Mood, like emotion, is an affective state. However, an emotion tends to have a clear focus (i.e., its cause is self-evident), while mood tends to be more unfocused and diffuse. Mood, according to Batson, Shaw and Oleson (1992), involves tone and intensity and a structured set of beliefs about general expectations ...
why a man's height is a measure of his attractiveness to women?	That's online dating for you -- the things that are visible and quantifiable are disproportionately important on there. It's the tyranny of "what can be measured", and height is a lot easier to measure and filter based on than "sense of humor" or "kindness to animals". But look at the not-tall male hotties out ther...	[ "Men on average are taller and have a higher IQ than women however, women's IQ's have been rising significantly more over the years and have even surpassed men in other countries such as Iceland. This means that health and culture may be more of a factor to intelligence than height. The Trivers–Willard hypothesis s...
An element more ferromagnetic than iron?	Ferromagnetism in pure elemental metals is actually pretty uncommon. As far as I'm aware, the only pure elements which are ferromagnetic are iron, nickel, cobalt, gadolinium and dysprosium. (There may be more that are not ferromagnetic at room temperature but I can't think of them right now.) In order for a pure metal...	[ "Fe is the ferrous form of iron. This form of iron gives up electrons easily and is a mild reducing agent. These compounds are more soluble because they are more mobile. Fe is the ferric form of iron. This form of iron is very stable structurally because it's valence electron shell is half filled.\n", "Ferrous ir...
how does hyper-threading work and how is it better?	A processor can have multiple physical cores. Each core can process 1 instruction at a time. The core receives the instruction, schedules it, and then executes it. Hyperthreading allows the scheduling to be a bit more efficient. The core can now receive two instructions at once. It will still execute only one at...	[ "Hyper-threading works by duplicating certain sections of the processor—those that store the architectural state—but not duplicating the main execution resources. This allows a hyper-threading processor to appear as the usual \"physical\" processor and an extra \"logical\" processor to the host operating system (HT...
How is the evolution of animals such as bees and ants influenced by the low percentage of induviduals who can reproduce?	When you're talking about the evolution of bees and ants you're essentially thinking of every colony as a "superorganism", with all the inhabitants operating as a single entity and reproduction occurring via queens and drones. The fact that ants can sometimes select a new queen complicates the model somewhat. But the t...	[ "The social insects are remarkable because the great majority of individuals in each colony are sterile. This appears contrary to basic concepts of evolution such as natural selection and the selfish gene. In fact, there are very few eusocial insect species: only 15 out of approximately 2,600 living families of ins...
can you jump off something in mid-air and gain height? or will you just push the thing you're on down faster?	Both. If you're on free fall, you're probably falling anything between 200 and 400km/h. Your jump would, for about 1s or so, lower that speed down to something between 390km/h and 190km/h. Then you would accelerate back to something between 400km/h and 200km/h within a second or so. Average man can probably achieve u...	[ "is an activity that involves jumping from a tall structure while connected to a large elastic cord. The tall structure is usually a fixed object, such as a building, bridge or crane; but it is also possible to jump from a movable object, such as a hot-air-balloon or helicopter, that has the ability to hover above ...
why do we misspell words when we write/type but not when we speak?	Well, the idea of misspelling words when you speak is kind of nonsensical on its face, isn't it. But that doesn't rule out other kinds of linguistic errors. > Or maybe it is happening when I speak and I've just never noticed before? Basically, I think you're misunderestimating the number of mistakes people make in t...	[ "While some words admit multiple spellings, some spellings are not considered standard, and thus labeled as misspellings. A misspelled word can be a series of letters that represents no correctly spelled word of the same language at all (such as \"leik\" for \"like\") or a correct spelling of another word (such as ...
why does it take 5 seconds for credit card/debit card companies to take money out of my account but 5 days for them to refund it?	Different systems... First you have to realize there is a difference between authorizations and postings. A charge is only "real" against your account when it's posted. It's posted when the merchant does their batch close (typically) except for debit. When you do a credit transaction there is an authorization aga...	[ "Any direct debit instruction that has not been used to collect funds for over 13 months is automatically cancelled by the customer's bank (this is known as a \"dormancy period\"). This can cause problems when the mandate is used infrequently, for instance, taking a payment to settle the bill for a seldom-used cred...
what is the downside to dams?	They can cause huge ecological damage by flooding the habitats of other animals when reservoirs are formed. They can also cause the downriver portion to silt up because the volume of water below the dam is lower so it doesn't wash away the silt as effectively.	[ "Dams are built on rivers primarily to store water for human use, generate hydroelectric power, and/or control flooding. Natural riparian ecosystems upstream of dams can be destroyed when newly created reservoirs inundate riparian habitat. Dams can also cause substantial changes in downstream riparian communities b...
Why didn't the US want to allow its western allies to keep their colonial domains?	By the US, you mean Rooservelt, because the US actually did help a few of its western allies (i.e France) try to keep their colonial domains after 1945. Especially with the start of the cold war. But also helped the colonized/ex-colonized (i.e Suez, Indonesia) after the war. But Roosevelt's basic view was that Europea...	[ "Competition over control of overseas colonies sometimes led to war between Western powers, and between Western powers and non-Westerners. At the turn of the 20th century, Britain fought several wars with Afghanistan to prevent it from falling under the influence of Russia, which ruled all of Central Asia excluding...
Koko the gorilla knew 1000 ASL words. If she had a child could she/would she have taught her offspring the same communication?	Keep in mind that most of the stories of Koko's huge vocabulary came via Penny Patterson, the woman who devoted her life to the project. Other experts threw shade at her claims, saying that Patterson read a lot into Koko's gestures, far more than was justified. Her fame and funding depended on the breathless reports ...	[ "Dr. Francine \"Penny\" Patterson, a student of the Gardners, in 1972 began an ongoing program to teach ASL to a lowlands gorilla named Koko. Unlike the Gardners she did not limit her English speech around Koko, and as a result Koko was reported to understand approximately 1,000 ASL signs and 2,000 English words. H...
how does apple ‘optimize’ their computers better then their competitors?	The fundamental difference is that Apple controls both hardware and software. So much like a game console that performs better than a vanilla PC with the same specifications because their developers can get every last bit of optimization out of the known hardware set. On a PC, Microsoft/Linux developers etc must be a...	[ "Apple when introduced to the highly competitive computer environment retailed for about $2000 but cost less than $500, as over 70% of its components were outsourced (Choo 1995). Instead, Apple focused on the design, logistics, software and product assembly. Due to the concentration of only a few knowledge adding s...
why do nerves take so long to heal? especially after an injury?	They just were never designed to grow. Nature does not replace your nerve cells. Those are basically yours for life. _URL_0_ "Most cells in our bodies’ organs and tissues, such as the liver, guts, or skin are continuously renewed. In contrast, the majority of the approximately 100 billion nerve cells in our brain a...	[ "In experiments where nerve injury is caused but nearby C fibers remain intact, increased spontaneous activity in the C fibers is observed. This phenomenon supports the theory that damaged nerve fibers may release factors that alter the function of neighboring undamaged fibers. Study of Remak bundles has important ...
Approximately, How important was the medias role in the Vietnam War?	It was in important in the aspect of bringing the war home to the average American where they could contrast what they saw on the news against what was said by the government. The following is something I wrote for [a similar question](_URL_0_) a month ago: The role of media during the Vietnam War has been something...	[ "Many within the US Government and elsewhere would blame the media for the American failure in Vietnam, claiming that media focus on atrocities, the horrors of combat and the impact on soldiers damaged moral and eliminated support for the war at home. Unlike in older conflicts, where Allied journalism was almost un...
Was there ever a Thieves Guild?	Organized theft has existed for a long time, but it has never been exceptionally popular. A few examples of references to such things: * In 1613 Cervantes published the book Rinconete y Cortadillo , a work of fiction which, among other things, detailed stories about a "Thieves' Guild". * Especially during the reig...	[ "A thieves' guild is a concept in fantasy fiction consisting of a formal association of criminals who participate in theft-related organized crime. Examples appear in the Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser story \"Thieves' House\" by Fritz Leiber, and role-playing games such as \"Dungeons & Dragons\". Though these more mod...
what is a 'whip' in us congress and what do they do?	The whip is a very senior role who ensures that the party leadership has the votes to pass their bills. The job is mostly informal (the whip doesn't have a ceremonial role) with lots of behind the scenes negotiations over favors, election support money, and logrolling and other perks to ensure that the majority leader...	[ "Whips are essential to the day-to-day running of the house. They assist the party business managers (the Leader of the House, Manager of Opposition Business in the House, Manager of Government Business in the Senate, and Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate and their four deputies) arrange the order of bus...
why are car designs nearly the same in all countries?	Because they all function pretty much the same and certain designs are used because they’re the most optimal.	[ "Despite being a global design initially, world cars have to have specific changes made per national laws/regulations, or cultural differences / market tastes where these are divergent. For example, fuel prices vary greatly in different countries, and this affects the choice of engine fitted.\n", "It is not curre...
Did dinosaurs urinate like mammals or poo uric acid like birds?	I believe they urinated as if you look at [coprolite](_URL_0_) (fossilised feces) of dinosaurs it looks like solid lumps which would suggest it's feces was solid and wasn't uric acid like birds.	[ "Michael J. Benton, a consultant to the making of the series and professor of vertebrate palaeontology at the University of Bristol, notes that a group of critics gleefully pointed out that birds and crocodiles, the closest living relatives of the dinosaurs, do not urinate; they shed waste chemicals as more solid u...
Why do so many things follow Normal Distribution?	This is a good question so I would be interested to hear how other people answer. As I understand it, one of the reasons it is so common is because of the central limit theorem, this tells us that any set of measurements of independent, identical distribution will converge to a normal distribution if you have a large ...	[ "The normal distribution is useful because of the central limit theorem. In its most general form, under some conditions (which include finite variance), it states that averages of samples of observations of random variables independently drawn from independent distributions converge in distribution to the normal, ...
On an episode of Sleepy Hollow, Det. Mills asks time-traveling Revolutionary War soldier Ichabod what the heck the Fathers were thinking with the Second Amendment, and he says that several of his compatriots had misgivings about it. Was there any actual historical pushback on the Second Amendment?	There was a fair amount of discussion about the 2nd amendment but it really doesn't matter in a historical context. You can see [this](_URL_0_) for the total scope of the conversation, however to understand the 2nd amendment properly you need to understand the Supreme Court. Starting with Marbury v. Madison the role...	[ "The Petition profoundly influenced the rights contained by the Constitution of the United States. The clauses relating to the billeting of troops later helped form the Third Amendment to the United States Constitution, which states that \"No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the co...
which is better, a 2.4 ghz single core processor or 1.6 ghz dual core processor?	Impossible to answer. Clock speed itself doesn't determine how "fast" a processor is. A 2.4Ghz Pentium 4 isn't the same as say, a 2.4Ghz i3 even if we pretended the Pentium 4 had two cores like the i3 would. Dual core processors are better at multitasking and multithreaded applications. If the processors are otherwise...	[ "Core 2 Quad processors are multi-chip modules consisting of two dies similar to those used in Core 2 Duo, forming a quad-core processor. This allows twice the performance of a dual-core processors at the same clock frequency in ideal conditions.\n", "The Core 2 brand improves upon the original Core processors by...
why is it difficult to produce fake checks with some of the security features such as gradually fading ink and watermarks?	Good security features require expensive equipment to reproduce. In order to copy gradually fading ink, the forger would have to scan the fade perfectly and reproduce it perfectly. Watermarks require the paper to be treated in a specific way, and can't be reproduced with a printer. Big companies that print checks (or...	[ "An ink signature could be replicated from one document to another by copying the image manually or digitally, but to have credible signature copies that can resist some scrutiny is a significant manual or technical skill, and to produce ink signature copies that resist professional scrutiny is very difficult.\n", ...
how do wall street firms (like the one mitt romney ran) make money acquiring businesses and shutting down the entire operation?	Think of it like a car. Maybe you have a car that's only worth $1,000USD. You sell the engine for $500USD sell the transmission for $300USD sell the wheels for $50USD each, you've already made back your money and now anything else you sell is money in your pocket.	[ "Romney soon switched Bain Capital's focus from startups to the relatively new business of leveraged buyouts: buying existing companies with money mostly borrowed from banking institutions using the newly bought companies' assets as collateral, then taking steps to improve the companies' value, and finally selling ...
Do tectonic plates ever break? What about fusing? What would happen if this ever did occur?	They can do both. Plates breaking apart is known as rifting, and is thought to be caused by rising plumes of hot mantle material. Rifting in progress can be seen in the East African Rift. There is a line of active volcanism and crustal extension extending from the southern end of the Red Sea to the northern end of Moz...	[ "All tectonic plates have internal stress fields caused by their interactions with neighboring plates and sedimentary loading or unloading (e.g. deglaciation). These stresses may be sufficient to cause failure along existing fault planes, giving rise to intraplate earthquakes.\n", "In the history of Earth many te...
what happens to the roof of your mouth when you eat hot food?	The tissue lining the roof of your mouth is not skin, it's more sensitive tissue. What might be equivalent to putting a hot iron on your arm, could be compared with hot melted cheese on the soft tissue in your mouth. It isn't as tough as skin...thus, causing it to blister like skin would.	[ "The roof of the mouth is termed the palate and it separates the oral cavity from the nasal cavity. The palate is hard at the front of the mouth since the overlying mucosa is covering a plate of bone; it is softer and more pliable at the back being made of muscle and connective tissue, and it can move to swallow fo...
In general, what role did the Catholic Church play in the Spanish Civil War?	After the outbreak of war many churches were burnt and atrocities were committed against clergy members. Conservatives and fascist sympathizers around the world seized upon this as propaganda to prove that Franco's opponents were a bunch of Godless Commies and anarchists. In fact there was some truth to this claim. In ...	[ "During the Civil War in Spain started in 1936, Catholics largely supported Franco and the Nationalist forces in the Spanish Civil War of 1936–1939. Anti-clerical assaults during what has been termed by the Nationalists Red Terror included sacking and burning monasteries and churches and killing 6,832 members of th...
We all know that shadows move, but cannot consciously perceive their movement. What is the minimum velocity at which the average human can consciously perceive movement?	As near as I could find, under optimum conditions the slowest movement you can see is 1-3 arc minutes per second. For reference, the moon is about 30 arc minutes and moves across the sky at about .25 arc minutes per second.	[ "Illusions of self-motion refers to a phenomenon that occurs when someone feels like their body is moving when no movement is taking place. One can experience illusory movements of the whole body or of individual body parts, such as arms or legs.\n", "Although the edge of a shadow appears to \"move\" along a wall...
If I had one magnet push another magnet by repelling it, do I have to provide more force to push the second magnet?	Yes. The second magnet provides a repulsive force in the opposite direction to the motion you're trying to effect. Presuming the magnetic field strength is large enough that the magnets will 'push' each other apart enough that they won't touch, then you'll feel that repulsion force as opposing your applied force. Ther...	[ "Few materials can be made to magnetically levitate stably above the magnetic field from a permanent magnet. Although magnetic repulsion is obviously and easily achieved between any two magnets, the shape of the field causes the upper magnet to push off sideways, rather than remaining supported, rendering stable le...
Is it possible for a spacecraft to enter an atmosphere 'slowly'? What forces would need to be at play to avoid violent atmospheric entry?	Yes, it's technically possible, but it's ludicrously difficult. It's not as simple as overcoming gravity with thrust. When you're in low earth orbit, you're not stationary above the surface, you're moving at something like 8 kilometres per second (26 times the speed of sound), so if you want to avoid dramatic frictio...	[ "Another limitation is the atmosphere, if any, of the available planet. The closer the spacecraft can approach, the faster its periapsis speed as gravity accelerates the spacecraft, allowing for more kinetic energy to be gained from a rocket burn. However, if a spacecraft gets too deep into the atmosphere, the ener...
How did 19th (and earlier) century sailing ships provision themselves well enough that men could live on them for years?	There are a couple of factors in play here that could vary depending on the situations. I interned on the US brig Niagara for 3 weeks, sailing her along the Great Lakes so I feel like I have some helpful input. The classification of the ship would determine how big her crew was. Ships are classified by how many masts t...	[ "Sailing ships sometimes continued to be an economical way to transport bulk cargo on long voyages into the 1920s, even if steamships were also used for such transports and became more common. Sailing ships do not require fuel or complex engines to be powered; thus they tended to be more independent from requiring ...
when someone chokes on the liquid there drinking, what causes it?	The liquid get's into the lungs where it prevents air from reaching a large section of the lung's surface.	[ "Often the victim has the mouth forced or wedged open, the nose closed with pincers and a funnel or strip of cloth forced down the throat. The victim has to drink all the water (or other liquids such as bile or urine) poured into the funnel to avoid drowning. The stomach fills until near bursting and is sometimes b...
Is there any difference on looking directly at the sun depending on the time of the day, in regards to the damage sone to the eye?	The earlier or later in the day it is, the safer it is on your eyes. More atmosphere for the sunlight to travel through, means the less intense the light is going to be. I'm not sure the numeric intensity and exactly how much light is still moving through the atmosphere as I am not at a place I can calculate it, but I ...	[ "Looking directly at the photosphere of the Sun (the bright disk of the Sun itself), even for just a few seconds, can cause permanent damage to the retina of the eye, because of the intense visible and invisible radiation that the photosphere emits. This damage can result in impairment of vision, up to and includin...
Realistically most ships between the 1600s and 1700s carried cargo mostly not gold, so what did pirates do with all those random assortments of wheat, cotton, tea, and stamps?	There were black market merchants, smugglers, counterfeiters, and launderers of goods that they could sell it to. Smuggling probably being the largest one. Not every port was secured or had a harbormaster who cared (bribed) enough against pirates sailing in to sell their goods. If it was, pirates could offload their go...	[ "Before the middle of the 19th century, the incidence of piracy resulted in most cargo ships being armed, sometimes quite heavily, as in the case of the Manila galleons and East Indiamen. They were also sometimes escorted by warships.\n", "Mercantile trade brought risks of shipwreck and piracy. Such risks were of...
is there any evidence to suggest that current animals have evolved to overcome specific environmental challenges due to human intervention? i.e. roads, buildings, pollution?	Yes, definitely. A very early and popular example are/were moths in Manchester in England. Basically, the moths tended to be the color of tree bark for camouflage, but in the 19th century soot from factories in Manchester caused the trees to be darker in color. Moths with darker bodies and wings skyrocketed in populati...	[ "BULLET::::7. Responsibility when intervening in a habitat: Researchers have a responsibility for reducing the disruption and any impact of the natural behaviors of the animals, including those who aren't a direct test subjects in research, as well as the population and their surroundings. Most research and technol...
why can’t the usa government build a good website?	They don't need to. Companies build good websites because they want to draw in new customers and keep the existing ones. The government knows you don't have a choice. They also have a different set of priorities. They're concerned foremost with having the information & services you need, accessibility requirement...	[ "BULLET::::- Corporate and government websites are usually contributed to expressly by employees of a particular company or department of the government. There is usually a small amount of funding that is solely devoted to the internet division of a particular camp. There is also a need to have servers and a large ...
how does communism function in modern societies (e.g. russia and china) and how does it differ from communist regimes 80 years ago?	Russia is not communist any longer (the USSR fell in the late 80's). China isn't the Maoist communist nation it once was BUT, since officially, the Chinese government still controls everything (for the betterment of the Chinese people, of course) the industry that has risen up is largely unregulated and dangerous for ...	[ "According to Marxist–Leninist theory, communism in the strict sense is the final stage of evolution of a society after it has passed through the socialism stage. The Soviet Union thus cast itself as a socialist country trying to build communism, which was supposed to be a classless society.\n", "A communist soci...
How can you get a tan through glass if it blocks all UV rays?	Short answer: Glass doesn't block all UV rays. UV radiation comes in two types, UVA and UVB. UVB is responsible for the most intense burning, and is blocked by untreated glass. UVA penetrates deeper into your skin and is responsible for tanning, and also penetrates untreated glass. Long answer: As a general ru...	[ "Photochromic lenses filter 100% UVA as well as UVB. UVB light is more energetic and causes sunburn as well as skin damage including cancers, UVA light causes skincancers but not usually sunburn. UVB is blocked by all glass, UVA light is not blocked by ordinary windows or lenses glass.\n", "BULLET::::- Organic UV...
why are ar-15’s so controversial while many other semi-automatic rifles and handguns with lower round capacities have almost identical lethality capabilities if multiple magazines are utilized that only take a second or so to swap out?	It's not so much that the other guns are considered ok, but AR-15's are just well known, so they're kind of the poster boy. Like, if you asked someone what a semi-automatic was, the first thing that pops into their head is an AR-15. It's an extremely popular gun, both in sales and pop culture. It's also been used in...	[ "Some AR-15-style rifles have features limiting use of detachable magazines to comply with state regulations. A few unusual versions are incapable of semi-automatic fire. Nearly all versions of the civilian AR-15 have a pistol grip like the military versions, and some have folding or collapsible stocks like the M4 ...
technology.	Language. Humans have a capacity for language that allows us to pass on complex abstract ideas from one generation to the next. Many other animals can communicate via language, but not to the same degree. Early technology included making stone tools (like knives) and boats to cross rivers and lakes. It took thousands...	[ "BULLET::::- Technology is the branch of knowledge that deals with the creation and use of technical means and their interrelation with life, society, and the environment; it may draw upon a variety of fields, including industrial arts, engineering, applied science, and pure science. Technology \"is core to human d...
why do you hear so many new sounds when you listen to a song with headphones?	For full-sized speakers, like computer speakers or a fully-fledged audio system; and headphones/earphones/In-ear monitors, it's either the quality (how well it can reproduce sound), or the response (what frequencies it can reproduce). When you say you can hear "many new sounds", you are probably referring to the mid ...	[ "M Shadows continued: \"I'd put this in the \"we fucked up\" category,\" \"Mixing and mastering happened while we were in Europe and we were getting stuff sent over and all listening on different headphones. Old mix just pushed it a little far but no one had a set of speakers we trusted being on the road and such. ...
the names you americans have for students in certain years and what they mean (like sophomore, freshman, etc.).	Freshman: First year student in high school (secondary school) or college (university) Sophmore: Second year Junior: Third year Senior: Fourth Year (final year)	[ "BULLET::::- The United States military academies officially use only numerical terms, but there are colloquial expressions used in everyday speech. In order from first year to fourth year, students are referred to as \"fourth-class\", \"third-class\", \"second-class\", and \"first-class\" cadets or midshipmen. Uno...
how do we know how fast and in what direction the stars/galaxies are moving relative to us?	When you have objects moving at relativistic velocities (that is, at significant fractions of the speed of light), you get color-shift of the light coming off that object. If it's moving away from you, the light is shifted red. If it's coming closer, it's shifted blue. This is an example of an effect known as Doppler...	[ "The rotational/orbital speeds of galaxies/stars do not follow the rules found in other orbital systems such as stars/planets and planets/moons that have most of their mass at the centre. Stars revolve around their galaxy's centre at equal or increasing speed over a large range of distances. In contrast, the orbita...
what are some of the direct effects of the coral reef collapse?	A large percentage of the world's protein is extracted from the ocean. Places like the barrier reef in Australia are important for providing spawning grounds and nurseries as well as breeding habitat for many species. Fisheries will suffer from this kind of habitat loss. The physical reduction of the reef structure wil...	[ "The coral reefs are under significant threat due to rising ocean temperatures and carbon dioxide concentration, as well as sea level rise. As a result of these and other stresses, the corals that form the reefs are projected to be lost by mid-century if carbon dioxide concentrations continue to rise at their curre...
what makes a director so important in film and why do they get paid so much?	they direct the movie. They are the leading person who says how things are structured, how the actors move and behave, the lighting and the camera position..pretty much all of the most important aspects of a movie, along with all of the things that separate a good movie from a great one.	[ "The director is one of the few positions that requires intimate involvement during every stage of film production. Thus, the position of film director is widely considered to be a highly stressful and demanding one. It has been said that \"20-hour days are not unusual\". Some directors also take on additional role...
what do diplomats do?	They represent the government of the country they are from. They attend meetings, work out agreements, and attend cultural events. Basically, if a foreign government needs to talk to the government of the other country, they can do it through the ambassador. Ambassadors can also conduct business on behalf of their gov...	[ "A diplomat (from ; romanized diploma) is a person appointed by a state to conduct diplomacy with one or more other states or international organizations. The main functions of diplomats are: representation and protection of the interests and nationals of the sending state; initiation and facilitation of strategic ...
Can you force Psychopathy?	> If a certain very traumatic or life changing event happens, psychopathology after traumatic stress - > cf. post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) > can it force Psychopathy(turn your amygdala off) there's a lot more to it than reduced amygdala activity in certain conditions > can it speed up the rate for de...	[ "Psychopaths also have a markedly distorted sense of the potential consequences of their actions, not only for others, but also for themselves. They do not, for example, deeply recognize the risk of being caught, disbelieved or injured as a result of their behaviour.\n", "In regards to the lack of prosocial behav...
what is the problem with 4chan users?	Replace "4chan users" with "humans" and you'll see that one group is not too different from the other	[ "4chan is one of the Internet's most trafficked imageboards, according to the \"Los Angeles Times\". 4chan's Alexa rank is generally around 700, though it has been as high as number 56 at times. It is provided to its users free of charge and consumes a large amount of bandwidth; as a result, its financing has often...
why it's ok that every time i write a check i give someone my bank account number	It's definitely a risk. A celebrity in computer science used to reward people who found his errors, but had to stop using real checks because posted images (for the incredible bragging rights) were probably leading to bank fraud. _URL_0_ The US banking and payments system is incredibly backward. Don't keep a life-alt...	[ "This is particularly valuable for taking business checks or company checks because often the identity of the person writing the check has little to do with the company check. In the account history database, a good account with no flags would receive full approval, regardless of the status of the employee who writ...
The annexations by Poland in 1938	Casus belli: Territorial claims, based on supposed Polish ethnic majority in those regions. -- To understand the roots of this conflict we need to realize that various parts of Silesia changed hands several times throughout many centuries. The kingdom of Poland, the kingdom of Bohemia, the kingdom of Hungary and the ...	[ "In September 1939, the Soviet Union, following the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany, occupied eastern Poland after the 1939 invasion of Poland. The former Polish territories referred to as West Belarus were incorporated into the Belarusian SSR, with an exception of the city of Vilnius and its surroundings...
how an anarcho-capitalist society would work on the level of an industrialised nation.	Private Security and Dispute Resolution in a Free Society ----- --- Preface & Concepts: * Burden: It is unfair to place the burden on Voluntarists to solve all of the world's problems. Only liars, thieves, con artists, and politicians (I repeat myself) make that nonsense claim, make the situation worse...	[ "Anarcho-capitalism advocates the elimination of the state in favor of a \"laissez-faire\" economic system. In an anarcho-capitalist society, law enforcement, courts and all other security services would be funded voluntarily through the marketplace rather than through confiscatory taxation and money would be priva...
what is wrong with big data?	The ability to track and connect people that don't want to be tracked and connected. Lots of people do things that they don't want tied to other aspects of their lives that are in no way illegal but can cause them harm because of things like discrimination. For example, while being gay has become more socially acceptab...	[ "\"Big data\" is a field that treats ways to analyze, systematically extract information from, or otherwise deal with data sets that are too large or complex to be dealt with by traditional data-processing application software. Data with many cases (rows) offer greater statistical power, while data with higher comp...
why are doctors, lawyers, etc allowed to share stories online anyonomously? aren't all of these stories confidential?	If something is revealed to you in confidence then in practice, you are not suppose to reveal any identifying information about the person. So it is one thing for me to mention I am a youth counselor and I have seen all kinds of suicide attempts with multiple hangings off of shower heads in the bathroom, but it would ...	[ "In the United States, unlike doctor-patient or lawyer-client confidentiality, reporters are not afforded a similar legal shield. Communications between reporters and sources have been used by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies as an avenue to information about specific individuals or groups related to pend...
when showering the temperature has to be above 37°c (98°f) because below bodytemperature feels cold, but when it is 28°c (82°f) outside it feels warm, how?	Temperature is absolute but heat capacity and conductivity are not. Air is diffuse and can't wick away heat very well. Water is dense and can draw heat off very rapidly. 85 degree air can't draw body heat away as fast as you can produce it, 85 degree water can.	[ "Colder dense air outside and hot less dense air inside causes higher air pressure on the outside to force the shower curtain inwards to equalise the air pressure, this can be observed simply when the bathroom door is open allowing cold air into the bathroom.\n", "Water left stagnant in the pipes of showers can b...
Why were crosses used for crucifixions?	[Here is an earlier discussion of the shape of the crucifixion device](_URL_0_) that covers a lot of this. Although I'm sure there is more that can be said. TL;DR - A simple stake often was good enough. "Cross" is an English word that came much, much later, so we should be careful about projecting English meanings b...	[ "The crucifix is a principal symbol for many groups of Christians, and one of the most common forms of the Crucifixion in the arts. It is especially important in the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church, but is also used in the Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Assyrian, and Eastern Catholic Churches, as well as by t...
why does work appear to go by faster when making an effort to never look at the clock?	It has to do with where your focus is and the fact that your brain doesn't count time like a clock does. It works in memories. If you focus on the clock, you're making memories of time. So when you think back you remember each time you checked the clock and some feeling associated with that knowledge (usually dispair...	[ "In addition to this, general relativity gives us gravitational time dilation. Briefly, a clock in a stronger gravitational field (e.g. closer to a planet) will appear to tick more slowly. People holding these clocks (i.e. those inside and outside the stronger field) would all agree on which clocks appear to be goi...
how do mod chips in game consoles work?	When you turn on a game console, a program runs that looks for a valid license "key" on the disc. This key is provided by the company that made the console to the people who made the game. In order for the game to play, the console validates this key. Thanks to private-public key encryption, this key is kept secret ...	[ "CHIP-8 is an interpreted programming language, developed by Joseph Weisbecker. It was initially used on the COSMAC VIP and Telmac 1800 8-bit microcomputers in the mid-1970s. CHIP-8 programs are run on a CHIP-8 virtual machine. It was made to allow video games to be more easily programmed for these computers.\n", ...
What prompted our Hunter Gatherer ancestors to begin the "Agricultural Revolution?"	This will probably be best asked at /r/anthropology Still the theory i learned was a simple carrying capacity one. A hunter gatherer needs 6400 acres per person, a farmer needs 8000 square feet. _URL_0_	[ "Starting at the transition between the Middle to Upper Paleolithic period, some 80,000 to 70,000 years ago, some hunter-gatherers bands began to specialize, concentrating on hunting a smaller selection of (often larger) game and gathering a smaller selection of food. This specialization of work also involved creat...
What should Hitler have done (differently) to win in the WWII; and what the Allies could have done to end the war earlier?	Well this is a very broad question, naturally, and involves a lot of hypotheticals (and therefore a lot of debate), but lets seize on the 'big' arguments that have been made. Naturally, first and foremost, Hitler's invasion of Russia is usually deemed a foolish move, however, this is speaking with hindsight. It is mor...	[ "This strategy is exemplified in then-U. S. Senator Harry Truman's statement in 1941 regarding the invasion of Nazi-Germany and its Allies, Italy, Hungary, Finland, Romania of Russia, \"If we see that Germany is winning we ought to help Russia, and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany, and that way let the...
What speed would an airplane have to travel at to stay in perfect perpetual darkness at the equator?	Well the distance between each degree of longitude is about 70 miles. 15 degrees of longitude equals an hour difference in the time zone. So for a plane to stay in darkness it would have to be travelling at 1050mph. edit: The 70 miles is the distance at the equator.	[ "Later in 1919, upon returning to the U.S., Read predicted: \"It soon will be possible to drive an airplane around the world at a height of 60,000 feet and 1,000 miles per hour.\" The next day, \"The New York Times\" ran an editorial in reaction, stating: \"It is one thing to be a qualified aviator, and quite anoth...
how can i use the pronunciation things on wikipedia?	The reason we use those symbols is because we need a way to explain how something is pronounced no matter what language it's spoken in. There are hundreds of languages in the world, and hundreds of possible sounds that are used in languages. That doesn't mean they're completely different - there are lots of sounds tha...	[ "Unlike spelling reforms, we can actually keep a word's original spelling intact but add pronunciation information to it, e.g. using diacritics. Phonetically Intuitive English is a Chrome browser extension that automatically adds such a pronunciation guide to English words on Web pages, for English-speaking childre...
What happens when you heat metal past it's melting point?	To answer this question you need to look at the phase diagram of the alloy in question. For the Zinc Copper system it's very messy _URL_0_ All the Greek letters are different crystal structures. So you might have a solid which is CuZn, Cu2Zn or CuZn2... They are mixed and happy being with each other. Now how you r...	[ "The metal is first melted in contact with a carbon source, possibly a graphite crucible inside which the melt is carried out or graphite powder/chunks that are placed in the melt. Keeping the melt in contact with the carbon at a specific temperature dissolves the carbon atoms, saturating the melt based on the meta...
Why is it so much more difficult to develop cooling products as opposed to heating ones?	Ultimately it's because of the [second law of thermodynamics](_URL_0_). The production of thermal energy "waste heat" is a classic example of the second law in action. All you have to do to build a heater is to, basically, waste all your energy as heat. A simple resistor, common in electric blankets and similar heat...	[ "This cooling technology not only strongly improves the product quality, but also increases the shelf life of product and at the same time it reduces the cooling costs compared to the conventional cooling method available.\n", "Cooling of components can be achieved by air or liquid cooling. Liquid cooling seems t...
what is it about toothpaste that makes everything taste so bad after using it?	One of the ingredients, temporary disables the part of your tastebuds that detect sweetness.	[ "Children may experience gastrointestinal distress upon ingesting excessive amounts of flavored toothpaste. Between 1990 and 1994, over 628 people, mostly children, were treated after ingesting too much fluoride-containing toothpaste. \"While the outcomes were generally not serious,\" gastrointestinal symptoms appe...
What caused Japan to develop such a martial tradition with such an emphasis on honor? (and honorable suicide) Also, was the Emperor ever a powerful figure prior to the Sengoku Jidai?	Sorry don't have the sources in front of me. If someone can write a more detailed answer with sources feel free to delete this one. The emperor wasn't powerful during or after the Sengoku Jidai. Even after the Meiji Restoration he wasn't powerful either. The last time the emperor had any actual power was probably ...	[ "The growth of the samurai class from the 10th century gradually weakened the power of the imperial family over the realm, leading to a time of instability. Emperors have been known to come into conflict with the reigning shogun from time to time. Some instances, such as Emperor Go-Toba's 1221 rebellion against the...
When the Earth was at its earliest state, was the night sky almost completely black, due to how light from the stars hadn't traveled as far?	According to [this column](_URL_0_) which answers a similar question, the sun likely formed in a cluster containing many other stars. So for a few tens of millions of years, the night sky would have had more and brighter stars on display to the naked eye than are visible today (unaided).	[ "The nighttime sky on Earth is black because the part of Earth experiencing night is facing away from the Sun, the light of the Sun is blocked by Earth itself, and there is no other bright nighttime source of light in the vicinity. Thus, there is not enough light to undergo Rayleigh scattering and make the sky blue...
Can the placebo effect activate the immune system?	Yes, probably, but there are a lot of unknowns. Studies have shown that placebo's can effect certain immune responses, but not every immune response seems to be effected in the same way. Even imagination exercises can produce changes in immune response like white blood cell count or immunoglobulin levels in a certain a...	[ "In the narrowest sense, a nocebo response occurs when a drug-trial subject's symptoms are worsened by the administration of an inert, sham, or dummy (simulator) treatment, called a placebo. According to current pharmacological knowledge and the current understanding of cause and effect, a placebo contains no chemi...
how 3d movies went from using blue/red cellophane glasses to just "sunglasses"?	The key idea of any 3d is to project 2 images on to the screen, and have each eye register only one of them. With red/blue, you would show one image in only blue color, and another image in only red color, using different shades of red. If you looked at the entirely-red-shades image through lens that was color red, yo...	[ "In 2011, Green created \"2-D\" glasses, which allow one to watch 3-D movies in 2-D. The glasses were originally created for those who experience discomfort watching 3-D movies (such as Green's wife) and consist of either two right or two left lenses from a pair of regular 3-D glasses.\n", "Bob Longino of the \"A...
Does anyone know if the number of blades on a fan has any correlation with airflow or noise?	It definitely has to do with noise; the sound produced is due to the frequency of blades passing a given point. The more blades, the higher the frequency, both of passing the point and of the sound. But since less speed is needed the more blades there are, the less energy goes into the sound, which means it will be q...	[ "A fan is a propeller with a large number of blades. A fan therefore produces a lot of thrust for a given diameter but the closeness of the blades means that each strongly affects the flow around the others. If the flow is supersonic, this interference can be beneficial if the flow can be compressed through a serie...
What exactly was the Gulf of Tonkin incident?	A crucial fact that is fundamentally important that is of the 2 separate incidents the first on August 2 is not disputed by either side as occuring. The main controversy for that then is if the Maddox firing warning shots was provocation and what was the legal status of North Vietnam's territorial waters claims. Maddo...	[ "The Gulf of Tonkin Incident was an alleged pair of attacks by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam against two American warships in 1964.One night a U.S. ship was sailing in North Vietnam when they thought they were being attacked. The president at this time decided that he needed to make a statement and asked congr...
Was it common for Allied soldiers to execute Nazi guards when they liberated concentration camps out of revenge or anger?	Yes, Allied soldiers did summarily execute concentration camp guards or allow prisoners to do it themselves. A famous example took place in the hours after the liberation of Dachau by elements of the 42nd and 45th Infantry Divisions. The remaining German guards (some SS but mostly Volkssturm militia made up of old m...	[ "Some SS members were subject to summary execution, torture, and beatings at the hands of freed prisoners, displaced persons, or Allied soldiers. American soldiers of the 157th Regiment, who entered the concentration camp at Dachau in April 1945 and saw the human deprivation and cruelty committed by the SS, shot so...
is sound physical or chemical?	Sound is energy converted into vibration through air. Technically the physical stimulation of air hitting your eardrum. Therefore, it's a physical thing. All chemicals are physical, but not all physical things are chemical. But here's my question(s): 1. Why would sound of all things be chemical? 2. In what world are...	[ "The stimulus modality for hearing is sound. Sound is created through changes in the pressure of the air. As an object vibrates, it compresses the surrounding molecules of air as it moves towards a given point and expands the molecules as it moves away from the point. Periodicity in sound waves is measured in hertz...
I've heard several claims of groups claiming to have quantum computers, but others not being sure if they're working or not. Why is it hard to tell if it is doing the quantum stuff?	We don't know yet what kind of machine D-Wave has actually built. It remains to be proven that it solves _anything_ faster than a classical computer. Scott Aaronson is summing the current (give or take a few months, I haven't spotted any relevant publications in that interval) state [here](_URL_0_).	[ "Because quantum computers use quantum bits, which can be in superpositions of states, rather than conventional bits, there is a misconception that quantum computers are NTMs. It is believed by experts (but has not been proven) that instead, the power of quantum computers is incomparable to that of NTMs, that is, p...
What did the Ottomans call their firearms?	> What kind of guns existed in the Ottoman Empire during Suleiman’s reign? I'll try to answer your question, sorry if it doesn't satisfy you, though the period i cover ranged from the 16th to the early 18th century. - Large/Siege Guns This is what the Ottomans were famous for. From the 15th century they had ...	[ "The musket first appeared in the Ottoman Empire by 1465. In 1598, Chinese writer Zhao Shizhen described Turkish muskets as being superior to European muskets. The Chinese military book \"Wu Pei Chih\" (1621) later described Turkish muskets that used a rack-and-pinion mechanism, which was not known to have been use...
are humans supposed to eat meat?	Yes, we are omnivores, we can and do eat meat. We very very recently have developed a sufficient logistical food transportation system to allow us to not eat meat. But we needed to eat meat to survive * up until globalization. * Not be severely malnutrition-ed	[ "BULLET::::- – meat is animal flesh that is eaten as food. Humans are omnivorous, and have hunted and killed animals for meat since prehistoric times. The advent of civilization allowed the domestication of animals such as chickens, sheep, pigs and cattle, and eventually their use in meat production on an industria...
what's the benefit of displaying a menu price without tax included? plenty of countries include the tax in the final price but the u.s adds it separately.	If your competition doesn't show the price tax-included, it makes their products seem less expensive (even if they're the exact same price or a little higher). In addition, it allows advertising to be done for prices across boundaries where the tax rates might be different (such as across state borders - or sometimes ...	[ "Concepts similar to the list price exist in many countries, but equivalents of the list price often cannot be compared directly internationally as products and services may differ to meet different legal requirements, and price figures communicated to consumers must include taxes and duties (for example) in the EU...
Is a body's Roche limit affected by its size?	It does, the critical distance is 1.26 times the primary radius time the cube root of the density ratio. Up the primary radius and the distance increases. Keep in mind the distance is from the center of the primary not it's surface.	[ "But note that, as defined above, the Roche limit refers to a body held together solely by the gravitational forces which cause otherwise unconnected particles to coalesce, thus forming the body in question. The Roche limit is also usually calculated for the case of a circular orbit, although it is straightforward ...
plato's form of the good	You can get a better answer by asking for a more specific explanation. Here is a summary in a few sentences. Plato observed that some things are better than other things of the same kind. There are good tables and bad tables. He guessed that the difference between a good version of something and a bad version is th...	[ "Plato identifies how the form of the Good allows for the cognizance to understand such difficult concepts as justice. He identifies knowledge and truth as important, but through Socrates (508d–e) says, \"good is yet more prized\". He then proceeds to explain \"although the good is not being\" it is \"superior to i...
how did we get the images of our universe?	For universe? We just point cameras in every direction and snap a picture. For our galaxy however it's a bit trickier. Because we are roughly on the outside, we can estimate size of our galaxy, density of stars and whatnot. Then we compare it to pictures of other galaxies. When you see a picture of the milky way with ...	[ "The collection of images includes many photographs and diagrams both in black and white, and color. The first images are of scientific interest, showing mathematical and physical quantities, the Solar System and its planets, DNA, and human anatomy and reproduction. Care was taken to include not only pictures of hu...
why are emergency/survival matches still a thing when you can have two or three cheap bic lighters do a way better job for a way longer time while taking up less space and weight? is their any real benefit to having emergency matches over emergency lighters???	Well it depends allot on what type of emergency matches you have, but one issue I've had when camping is in a flood my lighter got water in it and was dead, but my survival matches were fine once dry. Matches have fewer points of failure aswell, you just need the match and heat, often just an abrasive surface. Li...	[ "Safety matches are classified as dangerous goods, \"U.N. 1944, Matches, safety\". They are not universally forbidden on aircraft; however, they must be declared as dangerous goods and individual airlines or countries may impose tighter restrictions.\n", "The Firestar is a compact, reliable and accurate handgun w...
when we launch space missions, what's stopping other nations from believing that's a targeted bomb or nuke and how is it different from an actual attack?	First of all, its not like a space agency fires up this massive and amazingly complex rocket with complete secrecey, and goes "surprise! Its STS-134. You know, delivering supplies to the ISS. Yeah, usually we plan these things but we had a spare shuttle stack lying around and a few astronauts were looking for something...	[ "On 29 March 2019, President Donald Trump suggested that Japan should develop their own nukes, because it's too expensive for the US to protect Japan and several other countries have it already in Asia such as China, Pakistan and Russia. He said \"it's going to happen anyway.\"\n", "According to game theory, beca...
why is death by firing squad so bad?	[This](_URL_0_) says it can take about three, I imagine fairly painful, minutes to die. I can't vouch for the particular timing, but given how variable the damage from a gunshot wound can be, it seems reasonable that at least some share of firing squad deaths would be slow and torturous. That said, I am not sure if...	[ "The execution places were each sealed off by Einsatzkommando members or police officials subordinate to them, so that for the people right near the shooting pit waiting for their deaths there was no possibility of escaping their doom. In fact, they had the opportunity – this circumstance demonstrates a particular ...
Hi! I'm looking for some video/audio files of famous speeches from World War II.	For some basic WWII audio/video archives you can peruse starting from this link: _URL_0_ For Hitler and Axis files, which I believe is what you are trying to locate, this site has quite the library: _URL_1_ Hope this is a good starting point for you adventures and studies!	[ "Forgotten Voices of the Second World War is a book written by Max Arthur that consists of interviews with soldiers, sailors, airmen and civilians of most nationalities who saw action during World War II. The interviews were drawn from the Imperial War Museum's sound archive. Many of the recordings had not been hea...

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