question stringlengths 3 301 | answer stringlengths 9 26.1k | context list |
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How long would people actually wear clothes for before washing them? I'm interested in the difference between classes in, say, the high medieval period compared to the Victorian period and the thirties/forties (Western Europe). | I'm not sure this question is fully answerable due to the scarcity of primary sources on the subject (and the vast timespan involved here). However, it's worth remembering that, for the time periods you're talking about, men and women would wear a shirt/smock/shift/chemise underneath their outer clothing. Covering much... | [
"In England, which in this respect was typical of Europe, from the reign of Edward III in the Middle Ages until well into the 17th century, sumptuary laws dictated what colour and type of clothing, furs, fabrics, and trims were allowed to persons of various ranks or incomes. In the case of clothing, this was intend... |
why are there no salty fruits/vegetables? | because there is no natural mechanism to make salt except to extract it out of the ground unlike other flavors like sweet and sour where plants are able to make sugars and acids. Salt has to be extracted through it's roots and most plants are unable to grow in salty water. | [
"The agglomeration of salt around plant roots leads to barren white patches in the centre of many of the thousands of islands, which have become too salty to support plants, aside from the odd salt-resistant palm tree. Trees and grasses grow in the sand around the edges of the islands that have not become too salty... |
how does software work the same way with various processor architectures? | AMD and Intel CPUs have the same instruction set - so this means that both types of CPUs should be able to run the exact same code.
GPUs have separate instruction sets, but they have drivers, which translate what the computer is asking for into the instruction set for that particular GPU. | [
"In more traditional processor architectures, a processor is usually programmed by defining the executed operations and their operands. For example, an addition instruction in a RISC architecture could look like the following.\n",
"The architecture of most modern processors, with the exception of some embedded sy... |
why are a lot of people saying the em drive will not work when testing in space even though it's been tested to work on earth? | It's not known for sure that it works on Earth. It generates a very weak force. The most important part of your question is 'breaking the laws of physics.' It's a very experimental result, that no one knows for sure is happening, and if it is, has no idea how it is happening, and which overturns fairly solid physics be... | [
"In April 2015, the space enthusiast website NASASpaceFlight.com announced, based on a post on their site's forum by NASA Eagleworks engineer Paul March, that NASA had successfully tested their EM Drive in a hard vacuum – which would be the first time any organization has claimed such a successful test. In November... |
Do we even know the actual amount of energy your body gains from the metabolism of carbs/protein/fats? | > (food) Calories represent the amount of energy stored in the food, not the amount we get after metabolizing it.
No, food calories you see on labels and such are calculated based on the energy of what you actually take up. Otherwise they'd hugely overestimate the amount of energy there. E.g. pure cellulose fiber wo... | [
"One dietary Calorie contains 4184 joules of energy. The human body is a highly complex biochemical system that undergoes processes which regulate energy balance. The metabolic pathways for protein are less efficient than the metabolic pathways for carbohydrates and fat. Protein contains four calories per gram, alt... |
What does AskScience think of abiotic oil - the idea that oil is not limited and does not come from "dinosaurs"? | Most oil comes from zooplankton and algae. | [
"Corsi has also promoted the theory of abiogenic petroleum origin (as opposed to the scientifically accepted theory for the formation of petroleum from biological matter). In his book \"Black Gold Stranglehold: The Myth of Scarcity and the Politics of Oil\", Corsi disputes the academic consensus that oil is fossil ... |
Why were the Jews the only people in medieval Europe who were allowed to charge compound interest? | There's a lot of poor assumptions in these two short sentences.
First, the wealthy traders and other successful businessmen were overwhelmingly Christian. Jews did not "monopolize all of the business in the Western world", or even a lot of it.
Second, the Jews were not the only people in medieval Europe allowed to ch... | [
"It was the interpretation that interest could be charged to non-Israelites that would be used in the 14th century for Jews living within Christian societies in Europe to justify lending money for profit. As this conveniently side stepped the rules against usury in both Judaism and Christianity as the Jews could le... |
when you make a fist, how come your middle knuckle pops out more than the rest of your knuckles? | That bone (the 3rd metacarpel to be exact) is just a little longer than the other bones. | [
"The second type of knuckle curve is a breaking ball that is thrown with a grip similar to the knuckleball. Unlike a knuckleball, which spins very little, a knuckle curve spins like a normal curveball because the pitcher's index and middle fingers push the top of the ball into a downward curve at the moment of rele... |
how sanitising hand gels work? the stuff that doesn't require water and disappears when you rub it in. | hand sanitizers is composed of %70-90 grain alcohol, the alcohol poisons the bacteria to death and evaporates on its own. | [
"Hand sanitizer is a liquid generally used to decrease infectious agents on the hands. Formulations of the alcohol-based type are preferable to hand washing with soap and water in most situations in the healthcare setting. It is generally more effective at killing microorganisms and better tolerated than soap and w... |
If a website is able to grade your password as you’re typing it, doesn’t that mean that it’s getting stored in plain text at some point on the server? | Not necessarily.
1. It is not necessary to send your password to the server to grade it. That can be done client-side.
2. It is not necessary that a server _persistently_ stores a password in plain text, even though it may be sent to it as such.
However, if a client sends a password in plain text to a server and it ... | [
"Every page with a password form gives the user the option of storing the password for later use. To speed up the use of the website, when a user re-visits these pages, the username and password fields will be already filled in.\n",
"If a network administrator supplies a password that is too difficult to remember... |
where does the money for the local police force come from (in the us)? | State, county and local taxes along with some federal funds pay for the various police departments serving at a village, county and state level. The department is there to protect and enforce but does not have a social service role per se. Some have social workers who will help a person connect with social service agen... | [
"The Washington, DC Police Foundation (also known as the National Capital Police Fund) is a grant-making arm of the Federal City Council which provides grants to the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia (MPD). According to the Federal City Council, the foundation was created in 2000. It made a... |
how come our sense of touch is able to differentiate between things like granite and steel, or silk and cotton, or wood and plastic? | We are doing a lot of clever guessing using things we *can* feel:
1. Temperature differences -- some materials suck heat out of your hand much faster than others.
2. Texture -- which you feel as you move your hand along the material.
3. Adhesion -- how does the material cling to your skin when it's stationary, and whe... | [
"Felt is a textile material that is produced by matting, condensing and pressing fibers together. Felt can be made of natural fibers such as wool or animal fur, or from synthetic fibers such as petroleum-based acrylic or acrylonitrile or wood pulp-based rayon. Blended fibers are also common.\n",
"Touch is an extr... |
how can i determine if my isp is doing what they say they are or if they are doing it well. | Run a speed test a couple times a day and if you are getting sub-par numbers for download and upload then contact them and tell them whats going on and you want what you're paying for. | [
"A PPP endpoint can request a specific IP address from its peer. It can also ask the peer to suggest an IP address by requesting the address 0.0.0.0; the peer then sends its suggestion in an IPCP Nak packet, which the first peer must subsequently request in order to complete the negotiation. In practice, in protoco... |
what allows a country to "invade" another country? | What stops you from going into your brother's room and taking his cologne?
Respect for his room and privacy = other nation's sovereignty
Fear of your brother hitting you = other nation's military
Fear of being spanked by your parents = other nation's allies invading you
Fear of being punished by your parents = sa... | [
"An invasion is a military offensive in which large numbers of combatants of one geopolitical entity aggressively enter territory owned by another such entity, generally with the objective of either conquering; liberating or re-establishing control or authority over a territory; forcing the partition of a country; ... |
if the moon had weather, would it be visible from earth? | Depending on the size of the weather incident, likely yes.
The average size of a hurricane is about 160km in diameter, but stronger ones (tropical strength) can be upwards of 400km.
The Mare Nectaris on the moon is approximately 330km in diameter, and is visible from earth - a storm even half that size would probabl... | [
"It is possible that these storms have been spotted from Earth: For centuries, there have been reports of strange glowing lights on the Moon, known as \"Transient lunar phenomena\" or TLPs. Some TLPs have been observed as momentary flashes, now generally accepted to be visible evidence of meteoroids impacting the l... |
Citation Questions for Chicago Manual of Style | I would use the full citation on the second article since it may have been published in some other collection and the full citation negates any confusion. Your format looks good at least according to my reading of Turabian... | [
"The Chicago Manual of Style (abbreviated in writing as CMOS or CMS, or sometimes as Chicago) is a style guide for American English published since 1906 by the University of Chicago Press. Its seventeen editions have prescribed writing and citation styles widely used in publishing. It is \"one of the most widely us... |
Why does CO2 take the form of small molecules with each carbon double-bonded to two oxygens, while SiO2 takes the form of silicon single-bonding tetrahedrally to four oxygens which also each bond to another silicon (forming large glass networks)? | The main thing here is atomic size. C and O are pretty similar in size which means that the overlap between the p-orbitals that form the double bond is excellent. This makes the C=O double bond very favourable.
On the other hand, Si is much larger than O. If there was to be a pi bond between them it would use oxygen's... | [
"The carbon monoxide has a very high bond-dissociation energy, the strongest of any neutral molecule, 11.65 eV. Carbon and oxygen together have a total of 10 electrons in the valence shell. Following the octet rule for both carbon and oxygen, the two atoms form a triple bond, with six shared electrons in three bond... |
the one electron universe theory | Its kind of cool, but its also probably wrong.
The idea is that all electrons and positrons are actually the same particle, just going back and forwards in time.
If you go back in time there can be two of you at once, say one of you in English class, and one of you in math class.
Then the two of you go back in time,... | [
"The one-electron universe postulate, proposed by John Wheeler in a telephone call to Richard Feynman in the spring of 1940, is the hypothesis that all electrons and positrons are actually manifestations of a single entity moving backwards and forwards in time. According to Feynman:\n",
"The Multiverse hypothesis... |
daily water intake.. | Science isnt clear on the coffee one. A [study](_URL_0_) suggests that consuming coffee as your main form of hydration might not be dehydrating. However, while coffee can be beneficial in more moderate doses, large amounts of it can have adverse effects.
As for the water flavorings, I do not know for sure if they're... | [
"For healthful hydration, the current EFSA guidelines recommend total water intakes of 2.0 L/day for adult females and 2.5 L/day for adult males. These reference values include water from drinking water, other beverages, and from food. About 80% of our daily water requirement comes from the beverages we drink, with... |
Has the dental health of house pets (cats and dogs primarily) improved since the introduction of fluoride to tap water? | Hello! Friendly local vet here. I am not a dental specialist, though I have talked to a few and taken a few rotations in a dental service. I cannot fully cite sources at the moment, as I am in bed, using my phone and this is my first comment/post to reddit and I don't have it all figured out.
Anyways, on to the scien... | [
"Dental caries remains a major public health concern in most industrialized countries, affecting 60–90% of schoolchildren and the vast majority of adults. Water fluoridation reduces cavities in children, while efficacy in adults is less clear. A Cochrane review estimates a reduction in cavities when water fluoridat... |
The Iron Man suit from the 2008 Jon Favreau movie has been stolen. This has me wondering about other crazy capers from throughout history. So in your area of expertise, what is your favorite historical heists? | Sorry, we don't allow ["example seeking" questions](_URL_0_). It's not that your question was bad; it's that these kinds of questions tend to produce threads that are collections of disjointed, partial, inadequate responses. If you have a question about a specific historical event, period, or person, feel free to rewri... | [
"The Man in the Iron Mask is a 1985 Australian made-for-television animated adventure film directed by Geoff Collins and produced by Burbank Films Australia. It is based on Alexandre Dumas' . It was written by Keith Dewhurst. The plot takes place years after \"The Three Musketeers\" (1986) - even though the latter ... |
Could somebody give me the historical significance on Dracula being in Transylvania? | Bram Stoker modeled Dracula partially on a 15th century Wallachian prince named Vlad Țepeș, who was also called Vlad the Impaler and Vlad Dracula (which denoted the family as belonging to the Order of the Dragon). During his life, he was famous as a military leader for resisting the Ottoman invasion of Transylvania, bu... | [
"Dracula - The Undead is a video game released in 1991 for the Atari Lynx handheld system. The game is loosely based on Bram Stoker's novel \"Dracula\" and features Bram Stoker in the story as the narrator.\n",
"Largely as a result of the success of Bram Stoker's \"Dracula\", Transylvania has become a popular set... |
why has the potency of marijuana increased over the past few decades? will the potency continue to increase? | The Iron Law of Prohibition. This is a term coined by Richard Cowan in 1986 which posits that as law enforcement becomes more intense, the potency of prohibited substances increases.
It is based on the premise that when drugs or alcohol are prohibited, they will be produced in black markets in more concentrated and p... | [
"At least 500 economists, including Nobel Laureates Milton Friedman, George Akerlof and Vernon L. Smith, have noted that reducing the supply of marijuana without reducing the demand causes the price, and hence the profits of marijuana sellers, to go up, according to the laws of supply and demand. The increased prof... |
why has such extreme corporate consolidation been able to happen in the past ~30 years? | I found the image you linked to pretty infuriating, so I didn't bother to decipher it.
But in general, no, antitrust law does not exist to prevent companies from getting big. It exists to prevent companies from engaging in anticompetitive behavior.
The whole topic of antitrust law is very big and complex, but the sho... | [
"The revaluation led to a massive increase in mergers in 1928 and 1929, beginning a process of industrial consolidation which culminated in 1932 with .88% of corporations (144) controlling 51.7% of corporate capital.\n",
"The new company had overlapping operations and to some extent the same customer base too. Th... |
In the concentration camp Ausschwitz, there is the sentence 'Arbeit macht frei' (Work sets free) written above the gate. What was the intention behind this? To fool newcoming prisoners? | **Part 1**
The thing is that we don't know the exact rational behind the use of the slogan over the gates of concentration camps. While it has been fairly easy to establish the beginning of the use of the slogan in connection with concentration camps and some historians have used the slogan in a very fruitful and inte... | [
"The phrase \"Arbeit macht frei\" (\"work shall set you free\"), which could be found in various places in some Nazi concentration camps (for example, on the entrance gates) seems particularly cynical in this context. The Buchenwald concentration camp was the only concentration camp with the motto \"Jedem das Seine... |
What were the benefits and potential downsides of selecting Normandy as the invasion point of France in WWII? | Pros:
Not the obvious target, more potential for surprise.
The beaches have a gradual slope in, which meant landing craft could ride right in to the beaches and their cargo be unloaded.
The beaches could support heavy vehicles (tanks, trucks etc).
A bit closer to Paris
Cons:
Further away from UK coastline which meant... | [
"Victory in Normandy stemmed from several factors. German preparations along the Atlantic Wall were only partially finished; shortly before D-Day Rommel reported that construction was only 18 per cent complete in some areas as resources were diverted elsewhere. The deceptions undertaken in Operation Fortitude were ... |
why does my stomach growl more in class than when im home all day if im starving at both places? | Your stomach can sense the stomachs of other people and has to show its dominance. So it makes loud growling noises to show that you are the alpha stomach and you are not to be messed with.
Also, your stomach will growl more when you are out on a date in a quite movie theater as a sort of mating call. Its a primal ins... | [
"\"\"We are having a particularly hungry period and [I] can quite truthfully say that our mouths water, and that we 'slaver' as dogs do before meals. Some of us find it advisable to rise slowly after lying down, as due to malnutrition, any rapid movement is apt to cause dizziness or even a black-out ... one morning... |
Do dyslexics have issues with all symbols, or just letters? | Currently studying an MSc in neuroscience. Whilst language acquisition or dyslexia aren't my field of work, for my undergrad it was my dissertation supervisor's focus and my younger brother has dyslexia, so I did a fair amount of reading around the subject at the time.
This characterisation of it being a mere effect o... | [
"When given a Navon figure test, people with dyslexia have difficulty automatically identifying graphemes with phonemes, but not with identifying numbers with magnitudes. On the other hand, people with dyscalculia have difficulty automatically identifying numbers with magnitudes, but not letters and with phonemes. ... |
A Question on the Veracity of a WWII book | Gerhard Stalling Verlag means "Gerhard Stalling Publishing House", Carell is the original author of the book, Gerhard Stalling is the original publisher. Incidentally a lot of the people working there had also been in the SS.
The 1970s Ullstein edition lists the following sources:
- Bekker, Cajus: Radar - Duell im D... | [
"World War II is a series of books published by Time-Life that chronicles the Second World War. Each book focused on a different topic, such as the resistance, spies, the home front but mainly the battles and campaigns of the conflict.\n",
"The Third World War Book is a study of the global events that traces the ... |
gauss's law | Gauss made a lot of law, so do you mean the law with an electric charge?
It says that "the electric flux through a closed surface is proportional to the charge enclosed in the surface".
**Flux**
The flux is how much electric field passes in the given area.
So, a first approximation could be E x Area. You can get b... | [
"Gauss' law states that \"the total electric flux through any closed surface in free space of any shape drawn in an electric field is proportional to the total electric charge enclosed by the surface.\" Mathematically, Gauss's law takes the form of an integral equation:\n",
"Gauss's law describes the relationship... |
the issue with 'grandfathered' unlimited mobile phone plans defaulting to tiered plans. | Companies used to make money 'selling' text messages and call minutes. People got internet and used texting and calling less, and internet more. They had cheap deals, so the carriers were essentially losing money. Since people will continue calling less and less, they figured they need to up the data costs. So yes, the... | [
"ISPs have proposed and have implemented in some cases a tiered service plan allowing users and content providers to pay for premium network lines. These tiered service plans are meant to reduce network congestion at certain levels of bandwidth by allowing high level users to purchase and have access to more availa... |
when a person has scoliosis why is it so risky to re-arange each bone to it's proper direction via surgery? | The bones are not made of dough, you can't just bend them all back into shape. You can't take apart the spine and put it back together because the spinal cord runs down the middle, not to mention all of the muscles and ligaments that hold your back together so you can stand and bend and move and breath.
If you push t... | [
"Although the cause of scoliosis can sometimes remain unknown (idiopathic scoliosis) there is treatment available that targets at strengthening the back muscles, for milder cases usually do not require medical attention, more severe cases require either muscle strengthening exercises aimed at the back muscles and e... |
the constitution, art. 1, § 7 par. 2 | It basically states that if a President doesn't veto the law within 10 days of receiving it, he loses his chance to veto it... unless Congress isn't in session at the end of those 10 days (which means both the President and Congress are ignoring the bill).
This is very similar to the way the President can appoint peop... | [
"Article Six establishes the Constitution, and all federal laws and treaties of the United States made according to it, to be the supreme law of the land, and that \"the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, any thing in the laws or constitutions of any state notwithstanding.\" It validates national debt cr... |
what makes water so special that its 1 ml in stp weighs exactly 1 gram? | You have it backwards. 1ml of Water isn't one gram by some crazy coincidence, the gram was **invented** to be the amount 1ml of water weighs, and all the rest of metric weight is based on that measurement | [
"One explanation begins by saying that initially the non-water weight is 1 pound, which is 1% of 100 pounds. Then one asks: 1 pound is 2% of how many pounds? In order for that percentage to be twice as big, the total weight must be half as big.\n",
"A study published in \"The Spokesman-Review\" on May 6, 1909, by... |
why is it that in the music industry, female pop stars tend to make so much more money than their male counterparts? | - Paul McCartney (800m)
- Michael Jackson (600m)
- Bono (600m)
You're comparing apples and oranges. Madonna, Celine Dion and Mariah Carey are decades-long international superstars. Jay Z, Justin Timberlake and Justin Bieber made music for less than a decade to largely American acclaim. | [
"Sherwin Rosen (1981) examined the economics of superstars to determine why \"relatively small numbers of people earn enormous amounts of money and seem to dominate the fields in which they engage.\" Rosen argues that in superstar markets, \"small differences in talent at the top of the distribution will translate ... |
why wasn't the continental us ever attacked in previous wars? | The continental US has been attacked several times.
Look at the War of 1812.
There were incursions during the Mexican-American War.
Though at sea, German U-boats sank a number of ships off the east coast and some in the Gulf of Mexico during WWII.
The Japanese captured a few islands near Alaska during the war, as w... | [
"The United States conducted two failed invasion attempts in 1812, first by General William Hull across the Detroit River into what is now Windsor, Ontario, and a second offensive at the Niagara peninsula. A major American success came in 1813, when the American Navy destroyed the British fleet on Lake Erie, and fo... |
What was the structure of a WW2 1942 British Infantry Rifle Company (Specifically companies fighting in North Africa)? | So this is the standard but there was always a lot of variation in this kind of thing on the ground with things like juggling ant-tank weapons.
Company HQ
1xMajor
1xCaptain as 2IC
1xCompany Serjeant Major
1xCompany Quartermaster Serjeant
1xStoremaster
3xOrderlies
1xBatman
2xDriver driving 15-CWT trucks
3x Rif... | [
"In the 1970s-produced serials, the British troops of UNIT are armed with standard British Army weapons such as the L1A1 Self Loading Rifle, Sterling submachine gun, Browning Hi-Power pistol and wear 58 pattern webbing. They are also shown utilising heavy weaponry such as bazookas, machine guns, mortars, and in \"T... |
I've heard it said somewhere that the Independence War was more "Brother against Brother" than the American Civil War itself where the phrase was made popular. How true is that? | Short answer? No.
Long answer? It depends on what you mean by "brother".
Up until shots were fired on April 19, 1775, most Americans believed themselves to still be loyal subjects of England (there was a strong movement in rural Massachusetts towards independence in 1775, but they were quite radical and were viewed ... | [
"\"Brother against brother\" is a slogan used in histories of the American Civil War, describing the predicament faced in families (primarily, but not exclusively, residents of border states) in which their loyalties and military service were divided between the Union and the Confederacy. There are a number of stor... |
Is there a reason that the planets go from small to big to small? Would that always be the case for other systems? | They don't. Mars further from the Sun than Earth and is significantly smaller. Its then followed by Jupiter the largest so the pattern if small - > big - > small is broken. Venus also isn't that much smaller than Earth. Nor are Uranus and Neptune that different. A [nice guide to size comparisons](_URL_1_) that shows ... | [
"The region of a planetary system adjacent to the giant planets will be influenced in a different way. In such a region, eccentricities of embryos may become so large that the embryos pass close to a giant planet, which may cause them to be ejected from the system. If all embryos are removed, then no planets will f... |
Why doesn’t air separate like other mixtures? | A mixture will separate more if (a) the mass differences between the components are large, (b) the height and gravitational acceleration are large, (c) the temperature is low, and (d) there is not much convection/wind going on.
Nitrogen and oxygen have very similar masses, and argon and CO2 are not too much heavier. W... | [
"Mixtures of gases with different molecular masses can be partly separated by sending the mixture through small holes of a thin wall because the numbers of molecules that pass through a hole is proportional to the pressure of the gas and inversely proportional to its molecular mass. The technique has been used to s... |
Why did Coca-Cola produce a clear version of Coke that could be disguised as vodka for General Zhukov and how long was this going on for? | Zhukov's "white Coke" was a product of the Coca-Cola Company's Technical Observer programme, established with the help of the US Army during World War II as part of a plan to raise morale among American troops by ensuring they had a constant supply of their preferred non-alcoholic beverage.
The story seems to have ori... | [
"White Coke (, \"colorless Coca-Cola\") is a nickname for a clear variant of Coca-Cola produced in the 1940s at the request of Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgy Zhukov. Like other clear colas, it was of the same original flavor, virtually unchanged by the absence of caramel coloring.\n",
"The colorless version o... |
What was the general consensus or feeling among American about the Red Scare? Were most Americans really afraid, or apathetic? | Can you clarify which Red Scare you are asking about? The First Red Scare related to Bolshevism and Anarchism from roughly 1916-1921 or the second Red Scare related to Communism in the late 1940s and early 1950s? | [
"The First World War and the Russian Revolution caused a \"Red Scare\" in the US, which also fanned feelings of xenophobia. During and immediately after the First World War, the concept of the melting pot was equated by Nativists with complete cultural assimilation towards an Anglo-American norm (\"Anglo-conformity... |
what is misogyny? | Misogyny (/mɪˈsɒdʒɪni/) is the hatred or dislike of women or girls. Misogyny can be manifested in numerous ways, including sexual discrimination, denigration of women, violence against women, and sexual objectification of women.
-_URL_0_
Gyn like gynaecologist.
If you think it is ok for men to sleep around but not w... | [
"Anthropologist David D. Gilmore also argues that misogyny is a \"near-universal phenomenon\" and that there is no male equivalent to misogyny, further defending manifestations of perceived misandry as not \"hatred of men's traditional male role\" and a \"culture of machismo\". He argues that misandry is \"differen... |
When, where and how did the concept of a wedding ring develop? | This answers the follow-up. In the Book of Kiddushin Chapter 1 (part of the Mishna), which was redacted around 200–220 CE, they recorded using money or something worth money with the stipulation that it should have the minimum worth of a Prutah, which is about 1/10th of the cost of a loaf of bread (or, according to so... | [
"The use of a wedding ring has long been part of religious weddings in Europe and America, but the origin of the tradition is unclear. One possibility is the Roman belief in the Vena amoris, which was believed to be a blood vessel that ran from the fourth finger (ring finger) directly to the heart. Thus, when a cou... |
What did Germans think about Nazi imagery? | > Also the Totenkopf (Deaths Head) shows up periodically, specifically on SS uniforms. Did this have some other kind of meaning?
The Totenkopf most definitely holds meaning outside of the SS, as it long predates the Nazis, having been a Prussian symbol for hundreds of years beforehand. That's precisely why the SS cho... | [
"In the case of Germany, the model was to be classical Greek and Roman art, seen by Hitler as an art whose exterior form embodied an inner racial ideal. It was, furthermore, to be comprehensible to the average man. This art was to be both heroic and romantic. The Nazis viewed the culture of the Weimar period with d... |
[Astronomy] Could the singularity at the beginning of our universe be observed in any way? | > Just as a thought experiment - if an observer existed would they be able to observe/detect (in any way) the singularity? If so what would it look like? And by extension - is it possible to observe the universe from outside of it, and could it possibly still look like the singularity for an observer outside of it.
... | [
"As with the event horizon in the Schwarzschild metric the apparent singularities at \"r\" and \"r\" are an illusion created by the choice of coordinates (i.e., they are coordinate singularities). In fact, the space-time can be smoothly continued through them by an appropriate choice of coordinates.\n",
"The cosm... |
how are horses that effective when charging into a line of soldiers? (such as in got) | 1. They're very fast.
2. They're very heavy
3. Mass x acceleration = force. There's a LOT of force behind a horse.
4. If it runs you down, you're in for a lot of broken stuff inside you.
5. If you get hit with a weapon, all the force is focused on the tip of that weapon. You dead.
6. Even if you spear the horse, a... | [
"At first it was not considered effective to use weapons on horseback, but rather to use the horse as transport. \"Mounted infantry\" would ride to battle, and then dismount to fight. For a long time, riders and charioteers worked alongside each other in the cavalry.\n",
"When people with horses clashed with thos... |
japanese and pornography | Its a combination of three things. (although this isn't the sort of thing that can be explained like a science. It's always going to come down to someones opinion, not fact.)
The first thing is that Japan is the only place to have always resisted colonization by the west. They stayed true to their roots and never full... | [
"Starting with erotic stories and wood block prints from before the 20th century, Japanese pornography evolved into distinct subcategories. In addition to pornographic videos and magazines featuring live actors, there are categories of pornographic manga (within Japanese comics), pornographic computer games (for bo... |
Do historians here have any advice for studying history in graduate school? | Don't do it unless you truly love history.
Do your language, and any other "grunt", work early.
You get out what you put in, don't waste your time. | [
"The Harvard University Department of History is home to some of the world's leading and most renowned scholars in history. The department focuses on multiple areas within history \"including social life, the economy, culture, thought, and politics. Students of history study individuals, groups, communities, and na... |
how can i build up a good credit score without racking up debt? | Regular (and responsible) use of credit and time. Keep your utilization low (i.e. your balance versus your credit limit) and make sure you pay on time and make sure you use it.
For example, I have a couple of my regular monthly bills that auto-bill to my credit card and I can just pay it off right away. All it tak... | [
"Credit scores assess the likelihood that a borrower will repay a loan or other credit obligation based on factors like their borrowing and repayment history, the types of credit they have taken out and the overall length of their credit history. The higher the score, the better the credit history and the higher th... |
Do sleeping pills decrease the quality of sleep? | There's are a number of [different sleep aids](_URL_4_) that influence sleep architecture quite differently. Acute insomnia can sometimes be remedied by various benzodiazapines or Z-drugs - Z-drugs are similar to Benzos but have reportedly lower dependency rates- like Zoplicone. These drugs tend to influence delta wave... | [
"Dietary and nutritional choices may affect sleep duration and quality. One 2016 review indicated that a high carbohydrate diet promoted shorter onset to sleep and longer duration sleep than a high fat diet. A 2012 investigation indicated that mixed micronutrients and macronutrients are needed to promote quality sl... |
how did america win the revolutionary war even though they were massively outmanned, outgunned, and outfunded? | France and Spain. There were more French soldiers at Yorktown than American. Our allies turned it into a world war, and did most of the winning. The US really only won Saratoga and Yorktown, and this was just enough to get the French involved and have them win our independence for us. | [
"The British Army during the American Revolutionary War served for eight years in campaigns fought around the globe. Defeat at the Siege of Yorktown to a combined Franco-US force ultimately led to the loss of the Thirteen Colonies in eastern North America, and the concluding Treaty of Paris deprived Britain of many... |
What happened to Mithraism? | It bears stating that Roman religion was much more practical than we tend to view the concept of belief from modern examples. It wasn't focused on how fervent your faith was. Instead the point was in correctly performing the necessary prayers and rituals to curry favour with a specific deity. Above all, Roman religion ... | [
"The Mithraic Mysteries, colloquially also known as Mithraism, was a 1st–4th century neo-platonic mystery cult of the Roman god Mithras. The near-total lack of written descriptions or scripture necessitates a reconstruction of beliefs and practices from the archaeological evidence, such as that found in Mithraic te... |
what's the difference between a cold, a virus, and a flu? | A virus is a piece of genetic material wrapped in a coating that helps it penetrate cells and insert itself into the cell's genome. This often makes the organism sick; many diseases are caused by viruses. Viruses are *sort of* like bacteria, except they are much simpler. In fact, viruses are not technically alive, beca... | [
"Well over 200 virus strains are implicated in causing the common cold, with rhinoviruses being the most common. They spread through the air during close contact with infected people or indirectly through contact with objects in the environment, followed by transfer to the mouth or nose. Risk factors include going ... |
Did North American megafauna, like short-faced bears or sabertooths, prevent humans from spreading throughout the continent? | You might try asking this in /r/askanthropology as it deals with a prehistoric time. | [
"Unlike grizzly bears, which became a subject of fearsome legend among the European settlers of North America, black bears were rarely considered overly dangerous, even though they lived in areas where the pioneers had settled. Black bears rarely attack when confronted by humans, and usually limit themselves to mak... |
How much power did the Medici family have? | To keep the discussion going, as not too much was answered already, who did the Medici family interact with? Since they were such an influential family, who are some of the important people they may have or definitely had influenced? | [
"The House of Medici ( , ) was an Italian banking family and political dynasty that first began to gather prominence under Cosimo de' Medici in the Republic of Florence during the first half of the 15th century. The family originated in the Mugello region of Tuscany, and prospered gradually until it was able to fun... |
How strongly does diet correlate to vividness of dreams? | Generally diet probably doesn't affect it that much, universally - eating more pasta rather than rice, or green leafy vegetables vs. cucumber, or similar.
Both of your examples aren't just what someone's eating, but rather much larger changes. Not eating enough is gonna make a brain panic, and alcohol is a drug that ... | [
"It is hypothesized that dreaming might be a way of improving mood in non-clinical populations. The evidence for this phenomenon has been collected from home dream reports in psychotherapy and from laboratory dreams collected after waking a participant in a REM sleep phase. Adults often remember dreams which have a... |
why does a car falling off a jack and onto a person underneath kill them, but when my ankle got stuck under a tire for a few moments i only got a moderate sprain and contusion? | Are you asking why a half ton car falling on your head or chest is often fatal, but the same car falling on your foot may not be fatal? | [
"If a ball joint fails, the results can be dangerous as the wheel's angle becomes unconstrained, causing loss of control. Because the tire will be at an unintended angle, the vehicle will come to an abrupt halt, damaging the tires. Also, during failure, debris can damage other parts of the vehicle.\n",
"Even when... |
When and why did Taiwan's primary language shift from Taiwanese to Mandarin, the language of its main enemy? | Two answers:
1. 1945
2. It didn't
These answers depend entirely on what you mean by "primary". If you're talking about which language is the majority language, it's still Taiwanese/Hoklo/Hokkien/閩南/台語. That's the language most people have as their mother tongue, regardless of how we're defining that particular can o... | [
"Mandarin is commonly known and officially referred to as the national language () in Taiwan. In 1945, following the end of World War II, Mandarin was introduced as the official language and made compulsory in schools. (Before 1945, Japanese was the official language and taught in schools.) Since then, Mandarin has... |
What happens to an injured blood vessel? | Let's say someone gets shanked in their leg during a street fight and compromises a small artery. For simplicity's sake we'll ignore other aspects of the trauma and focus on the arterial injury.
Immediately after the injury, hemostasis occurs. This is begun by a brief period of *arteriolar vasoconstriction* (basical... | [
"Blood vessel permeability is increased in inflammation. Damage, due to trauma or spontaneously, may lead to hemorrhage due to mechanical damage to the vessel endothelium. In contrast, occlusion of the blood vessel by atherosclerotic plaque, by an embolised blood clot or a foreign body leads to downstream ischemia ... |
how can "supplements" (vitamins, protein shakes, etc...) be believed to have any effect at all if you can't use them as a primary source for nutrients? | Macronutrients. Vitamins contain none of them and meal replacement supplements don't do a great job of providing them. In addition, your body needs some bulk to the food it gets. Fiber is important and other non-digestible materials help keep all that beneficial bacteria in your gut happy and healthy. "Supplements" are... | [
"As with the minerals discussed above, some vitamins are recognized as essential nutrients, necessary in the diet for good health. (Vitamin D is the exception: it can alternatively be synthesized in the skin, in the presence of UVB radiation.) Certain vitamin-like compounds that are recommended in the diet, such as... |
Given enough time, will our deserts eventually turn from sand to powder do to weathering? | The biggest deserts do have very fine sand. But if it gets fine enough, it tends to get picked up by the wind, carried far away, dropped into the ocean, where it sinks down to the bottom, building up into sedimentary rock..... and the cycle repeats. So there's some sort of lower limit on sand grain size, related to t... | [
"Historic desertification is the study of the desert-forming process from a historic perspective. It was presumed in the past that the main causes of desertification lay in overuse of the land resulting in impoverishment of the soil, reduced vegetation cover, increased risk of drought and the resulting wind erosion... |
Do galaxies form around supermassive black holes, or do supermassive black holes form in the center of galaxies? | The true answer is that science does not yet know for sure the exact answer to this question, but it seems to be that they formed inside proto-galaxies in the first billion years of the universe.
We still aren't sure how supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in the early universe grew to be so big so fast, but the general... | [
"This nebula is seen as circumstantial evidence that the magnetic fields at the center of the galaxy are extremely strong, more than 1,000 times stronger than those of the Sun. If so, they may be driven by the massive disc of gas orbiting the central super-massive black hole.\n",
"A supermassive black hole, creat... |
How comes that Portugal dont talk spanish if they was surronded by Spain since was fundated? | Voy a responder en Español dado que su nombre de usuario y comentarios en otras partes de Reddit están en ese lenguaje.
La lengua que se conoce como Español es en realidad "castellano". Es decir, la lengua del reino de Castilla. Existen otras lenguas en España que no son oficiales y difieren del castellano tanto como ... | [
"La Plataforma per la Llengua has complained again by campaigns that Catalan is the only European language with so many million speakers that is neither official of European Union nor of a state of European Union. In 2009 a report was written, it complained more than 500 actions that Catalan people need to use Span... |
how do people (not in cars) get stuck on train tracks? | I suspect you're misinterpreting the stories.
It feasibly could be possible that someone could get their foot jammed between a rail and a tie and not be able to extricate themselves, but I imagine that is extremely rare.
When people not in vehicles are killed by trains it's almost always because either
1. they we... | [
"Trains can travel at very high speed, but they are heavy, are unable to deviate from the track and require a great distance to stop. Possible accidents include derailment (jumping the track), a collision with another train or collision with automobiles, other vehicles or pedestrians at level crossings. The last ac... |
why is peanut butter half the price of actual peanuts if it takes more effort to produce it? | You assume the peanuts that go into a jar of peanut butter are the same ones that go into a bag of peanuts. They're not.
The food that you buy whole (e.g. peanuts, tomatoes, potatoes, strawberries) are the best of the crop. The food that you buy processed into some other form (e.g. peanut butter, tomato sauce, tater ... | [
"Peanut butter is a food paste or spread made from ground dry-roasted peanuts. It often contains additional ingredients that modify the taste or texture, such as salt, sweeteners, or emulsifiers. Peanut butter is popular in many countries. The United States is a leading exporter of peanut butter and itself consumes... |
wall of sound | Phil Spector came up with this idea that there should not be any silent parts in a song and that the more sounds he could stuff into a record the more powerful it would be. From what I read they would grab anyone hanging around the studio to shake tambourines or maracas etc. to add to the professional musicians playing... | [
"The Wall of Sound (also called the Spector Sound) is a music production formula developed by American record producer Phil Spector at Gold Star Studios in the 1960s, with assistance from engineer Larry Levine and the session musician conglomerate later known as \"the Wrecking Crew\". The intention was to exploit t... |
Was the colonial tactic of "stand in a line and shoot" really the best tactic for war, or the product of not knowing how to best use guns? | SO before really getting into the meat of this answer we should probably dispell some misconceptions you have. First, this is more normally referred to as the [Napoleonic](_URL_2_) style tactics. He didn't invent them but he did to a degree perfect them. There is no typical "colonial warfare" but in most instances on t... | [
"The best-known proponent of the tactic was the Duke of Wellington who used it repeatedly during the Napoleonic Wars to defeat the French infantry. By placing a ridge between his own army and his opponent's, and having his troops lie down, Wellington was able both to better protect his troops from French artillery ... |
European colonial primary sources? | For New Zealand there's an extremely good range of sources that have been digitised.
The University of Auckland hosts a very good collection of sources on the [Early New Zealand Books](_URL_6_) website, covering essentially the entire 19th century.
There is another pretty good collection hosted by Victoria University... | [
"The library offers approximately 90,000 printed titles and 900,000 licensed online resources on the history of Europe from the mid-15th century. There is an emphasis on general European history and international history, as well as on church history and the history of theology since the period of Humanism and the ... |
With the magnetic poles switching, what is the danger of a solar flare occurrence during the switch? | I can only imagine this is inspired by the talk about mars in the mercury in danger from solar flares thread or the same tv show that spewed nonsense to inspire that comment in the first place.
I'll restate some things I mentioned there.
We have gone through thousands of reversals and every reversal, lasting thousand... | [
"Data from THEMIS show that the magnetic field, which interacts with the solar wind, is reduced when the magnetic orientation is aligned between Sun and Earth – opposite to the previous hypothesis. During forthcoming solar storms, this could result in blackouts and disruptions in artificial satellites.\n",
"In so... |
how kids learn to talk ? | From basic caregiver/parent interactions. It usually starts with basic sound forming or "cooing" and mumbles to eventually mentally and physically developing enough to start forming words. By age 3, most kids will know and understand around 500 words. At around age 5 it spikes to around 5000 words.
My own personal 2 ... | [
"When children acquire language and learn to use language for communicative functions (pragmatics), children also gain knowledge about the participation in conversations and relating to past experiences/events (discourse knowledge), and how to use language appropriately in congruence with their social situation or ... |
how does one nation's pilot warn another nation's pilot they've violated a nation's airspace when they speak two different languages? | There are international rules regarding everything when it comes to air traffic. Chances are, the Russian pilots did speak English.
However, there are also [established signals between aircraft] (_URL_0_) you'd learn in your pilot training.
I'd assume the Turkish pilots used the "you're being intercepted, follow me" ... | [
"BULLET::::1. Each nation has absolute sovereignty over the airspace overlying its territories and waters. A nation, therefore, has the right to deny entry and regulate flights (both foreign and domestic) into and through its airspace.\n",
"The United States does not recognize the right of a coastal nation to app... |
My grandfather passed away recently and left me with three firearms, I was hoping to learn more about them. | ~~Looks totally worthless, but I'll drive up to Baltimore and take it off your hands, free of charge!~~
The rifle is a Wz. 29, that is to say, a Polish Mauser, based off the German K98 and chambered in 8mm Mauser. Very good historical value, and a collector would pay a lot for one in good condition, especially with a ... | [
"Among the oldest firearms in the museum's permanent collection are a Netherlandish or South German snap matchlock target rifle, c. 16th century; a German sporting crossbow, c. 17th century; and an Austrian wheellock rifle, c. 18th century. Other early model firearms include a variety of rifles and handguns made by... |
How was Nazi Germany able to slow the Soviet advance on Berlin so much between February and May 1945? | It was a combination of factors, but principally **ferocious resistance, overstretched logistics and environmental factors.** I should point out that the map you've linked is somewhat misleading. The penultimate Soviet attack, the drive to the Oder, commenced on Jan. 12 from bridgeheads over the Vistula River (in the v... | [
"Joseph Stalin's decision to delay the push toward Berlin from February to April has been a subject of some controversy among both the Soviet generals and military historians, with one side arguing that the Soviets had a chance of securing Berlin much quicker and with much lower losses in February, and the other ar... |
why is blackmail called blackmail? | In Middle English 'male' meant tribute which itself was derived from the Old English 'mal' which meant a lawsuit or an agreement. Black of course tends to refer to things which are seen as bad, shady, etc. So it's a shady form of tribute. | [
"Blackmail is an act of coercion using the threat of revealing or publicizing either substantially true or false, and often damaging, information about a person, to the public, family members, or associates unless certain demands are met. It may involve using threats of physical, mental or emotional harm, or of cri... |
why is it that when you shut your eyes really tight, dull amorphous shapes cloud your field of vision? | Not a scientist, but I believe the pressure stimulates the color and light comes in your eye and tricks them into 'seeing' nothing | [
"The eyes are never completely at rest. They make fast random jittering movements even when we are fixated on one point. The reason for this random movement is related to the photoreceptors and the ganglion cells. It appears that a constant visual stimulus can make the photoreceptors or the ganglion cells become un... |
what exactly does "not microwave safe" mean when it comes to dishware and why do dishes marked this way heat up when microwaved? | Microwaves cook via microwave radiation. The object absorbs the energy, and the molecules rotate and hit each other, causing heat.
Different molecules have different compositions which sometimes causes them to react more aggressively when exposed to the radiation. Others are resistant to influence of the radiation, wh... | [
"Microwave ovens are frequently used for reheating leftover food, and bacterial contamination may not be repressed if the safe temperature is not reached, resulting in foodborne illness, as with all inadequate reheating methods. While microwaves can destroy bacteria as well as conventional ovens, they do not cook a... |
Why did American WW2 propaganda refer to Hitler as 'The Hun'? | Kaiser Wilhelm II had told the German troops putting down the Boxer Rebellion to act like Huns had done under Atila and make the Chinese no longer dare to even utter the name "German". This was later turned into Allied propaganda during WWI against the Germans, and I guess it stuck into WWII as well. | [
"Steven Watts wrote that Adolf Hitler \"revered\" Ford. He quotes Hitler as saying, \"I shall do my best to put his theories into practice in Germany\", and says that Hitler modeled the Volkswagen, the people's car, on the Model T. Several themes from the \"Dearborn Independent\" articles appear in \"Mein Kampf\". ... |
why should fiscal conservatives have any interest in creating more jobs? | This is really going to be tough to tackle while conforming to the "no bias" rule, because we're talking about *opinions* here.
But in general, fiscal conservatism is the school of political thought which says that a government should do *as little as necessary*. This is as opposed to fiscal liberalism, which is the s... | [
"Liberals typically argue for government action or partnership with the private sector to improve job creation. Typical proposals involve stimulus spending on infrastructure construction, clean energy investment, unemployment compensation, educational loan assistance, and retraining programs. Liberals historically ... |
clouds | Depending on temperature and humidity of the air, tiny droplets will either grow larger, or they'll evaporate. Clouds are not "water vapor" since vapor is invisible. Many clouds are just like fog, only formed at high altitude. The highest clouds are made of ice crystals rather than droplets.
Open a bottle of cola. ... | [
"In meteorology, a cloud is an aerosol consisting of a visible mass of minute liquid droplets, frozen crystals, or other particles suspended in the atmosphere of a planetary body or similar space. Water or various other chemicals may compose the droplets and crystals. On Earth, clouds are formed as a result of satu... |
Is there a significant difference between a dwarf planet and a regular planet other than an arbitrary size cuttoff? | Nothing necessarily changes about the object itself, what changes is the way it interacts with other objects. A 'planet' is capable of clearing out other stuff in similar orbits, a 'dwarf planet' is not.
There is no size cutoff. Whether an object clears its neighbourhood or not depends on its orbit as well as its mass... | [
", Mike Brown lists it as highly likely to be a dwarf planet, due to its size. However, Grundy et al. propose that the low density and albedo, combined with the fact that TNOs both larger and smaller – including comets – have a substantial fraction of rock in their composition, indicate that it and similar objects ... |
how and why are tech companies rated so highly on their valuations? | Part of it is because when a company raises money, they want to have a higher value each time they raise money as this signals that the company is growing.This helps existing investors build up value by investing early and with continuing investment. Each time this company runs out of money, they have to raise more to ... | [
"An instance in which the price to earnings ratio has a lesser significance is when companies in different industries are compared. For example, although it is reasonable for a telecommunications stock to show a P/E in the low teens, in the case of hi-tech stock, a P/E in the 40s range is not unusual. When making c... |
we eat solids, drink liquids, but can we use gas as a food source? | Technically, yes. But there are issues associated with it.
Usually, you breathe gas into your lungs, not your stomach.
It also needs to stay in your stomach long enough to be digested.
Needless to say, vapourised foods are stupidly hot. etc. | [
"BULLET::::- Liquid diet: A diet in which only liquids are consumed. May be administered by clinicians for medical reasons, such as after a gastric bypass or to prevent death through starvation from a hunger strike.\n",
"A liquid diet is a diet that mostly consists of liquids, or soft foods that melt at room temp... |
What was the Axis plan for the United States in the event of a European/Asian victory? | Hello! Japanese military leaders expanded the scope of their military operations in December 1941 (troops had already been fighting in China since 1937) thinking that war with the United States was inevitable. Although different commanders disagreed on strategy, it seems the general aim was to force the Americans to su... | [
"The Axis powers interpreted these diplomatic agreements as a potential alliance against them. In Tokyo, the Atlantic Charter rallied support for the militarists in the Japanese government, who pushed for a more aggressive approach against the US and Britain.\n",
"In December 1941, the United States of America de... |
Where would a country's gold and money have been stored in medieval times? | Medieval English kings were usually itinerant in their kingship, travelling round their realm. King John changed location 2,702 times during his reign, staying less than three days in any one place in 88% of cases.^[1] However, not all of the government travelled with the king at all times; by 1200 the Exchequer had a ... | [
"In the fourteenth century, a hundred and fifty European states and local coin-issuing authorities made their own copies of the florin. The most important of these was the Hungarian forint, because the Kingdom of Hungary was a major source of European gold (until mining in the New World began to contribute to the s... |
Do kids/teens learn new skills faster than adults? | Not necessarily faster, but they do have a greater ability to master skills because the brain loses plasticity (ability to change/rewire and form new connections) as we grow. As an adult, the brain still has some plasticity, but not as much as a child's does. | [
"It is asserted that this ability to learn on their own makes it more likely that later, when these children are adults, they can continue to learn what they need to know to meet newly emerging needs, interests, and goals; and that they can return to any subject that they feel was not sufficiently covered or learn ... |
what's really happening to your body during a "charley horse"? also, where did the term derive from? | Where the name came from: A 1907 Washington Post story, found by the American Dialect Society, stated that “charley horse” was used in reference to pitcher Charley “Old Hoss” Radbourne who often suffered with cramps during games in the 1880s.
Just about everyone gets a charley horse in their legs or feet once in a gre... | [
"Quest has been credited in several accounts with coining the phrase \"Charley horse\" to describe a sudden leg cramp or sprain. In The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, baseball historian Bill James relies on an origin story set forth in multiple accounts published in 1906, and attributed to former outf... |
Did Ghandi ever actually fail his "chastity tests?" | Obviously, if he failed he did not tell anyone. But seeing the harshness of his *Brahmacharya* lifestyle, including many fasts and wearing only a simple *dhoti*, one can think he was strong enough. | [
"Fletcher inspired Russell Henry Chittenden of Yale University to test the efficacy of his mastication system. He was also tested by William Gilbert Anderson, director of the Yale Gymnasium. It was here that he participated, at the age of fifty-eight, in vigorous tests of strength and endurance versus the college a... |
what is synchronicity and the concept of collective consciousness | Synchronicity is the idea that there is no such thing as a coincidence, the universe has an order and meaning behind everything.
The collective unconscious is the idea that, at the bedrock of our minds, is a universal shared set of symbols that are innate and shared with everyone.
There's no rational scientific reaso... | [
"Synchronicity was a principle which, Jung felt, had explanatory power for his concepts of archetypes and the collective unconscious. It described a governing dynamic which underlies the whole of human experience and history — social, emotional, psychological, and spiritual. The emergence of the synchronistic parad... |
if money is man made, and so is the economy, why can't we just reset everything when something like the recession happens? | First, let's distinguish between "arbitrary" and "man made". If something is arbitrary, it has no real meaning or value one way or the other. Distinguish that from "man made," which simply means that humans were responsible for it.
The thing with currency is that yes, it is man made, but it is only partially arbitrary... | [
"But the world has noise and entrepreneurs make mistakes. They make things others don't want. Thus, they don't work as hard, money is wasted and the economy is harmed. When this happens on a massive scale, there is a bust.\n",
"The problem of having a recession can occur through forced savings through the use of ... |
why does the definition of "cool" change? why do fads exist? | It changes because the "cool" thing is no longer a novel concept. People often want to have the newest technology/fashion/etc, and so when seemingly *everyone* has the same thing, it stops being cool.
Trends come back for the same reason - for example, neon was pretty popular in the 90s, then everyone wore it, so i... | [
"Similar to habits or customs but less durable, fads often result from an activity or behavior being perceived as emotionally popular or exciting within a peer group, or being deemed \"cool\" as often promoted by social networks. A fad is said to \"catch on\" when the number of people adopting it begins to increase... |
Why did Elizabeth I never marry? | There is actually a lot of speculation about this but the most predominant answer I have seen is that she knew it were undermine her ruling authority. There are further theories out there involving the Spanish, or psychoanalytic writings about her relationship with her sister Mary or father but that entirely depends on... | [
"Contrary to what some historians have said about her elusiveness when in marriage negotiations with suitors or their representatives, Queen Elizabeth I was known to be straightforward in her various courtships. In 1565, when in the midst of the Habsburg matrimonial project, Elizabeth promptly dismissed the rival F... |
What happens if a white dwarf is accreting mass slowly until he reaches the tipping point to become a neutron star? | A white dwarf that accumulates matter from a partner star causes what is called a nova. Matter collects on the surface until a certain point where the star "explodes" in a nova. However the star usually survives this. | [
"The neutron star appears to belong to the \"high mass\" variety being at least . It is very likely to have a mass less than as the theoretical maximum mass based on the equation of state for a neutron star. The pulsar has a spin period of 685 seconds, but shows relatively large spindown rates thought to be due to ... |
When the electron in the excited atom loses the quantum it gained, does it go back to its original level? | A general excited state can usually decay to the ground state through multiple pathways, and the dominant pathway is not necessarily the most direct one. There are selection rules which suppress certain decays relative to others. So usually, you'll end up with some kind of cascade of multiple photon emissions, where ea... | [
"When a molecule absorbs a quantum of energy that corresponds to a transition from one molecular orbital to another molecular orbital, the resulting electronic excited state is also properly described as an exciton. An electron is said to be found in the lowest unoccupied orbital and an electron hole in the highest... |
what the hell is going on in europe with the migrants and mass sexual assault? | Thanks man. Hopefully they don't remove your post. I couldn't find the ELI5 answer in the searches either. | [
"The number of assault gang rapes were significantly higher in periods prior to 2015 and the European migrant crisis, with the exception of 2016 where the New Year's Eve sexual assaults in Germany nearly doubled the number of cases. In 2017 there were 122 cases, the fewest since the German reunification in 1990. Th... |
Why doesnt chimerism cause developmental problems the way trisomy does? | I assume you’re talking about X-linked chimerism, like calico cats?
Chimerism is actually the natural state for all double X individuals. In all cells, only one X chromosome is active at all times. Early in development as an embryo, one X chromosome in every cell is randomly turned off, and then all cells that come f... | [
"Chiasma formation is common in meiosis, where two homologous chromosomes break and rejoin, leading to chromosomes that are hybrids of the parental types. It can also occur during mitosis but at a much lower frequency because the chromosomes do not pair in a regular arrangement. Nevertheless, the result will be the... |
what causes the rhythmic beating of helicopter blades in motion? | Vortexes!
A wing moving through the air creates high pressure below it and low pressure above it. At the tip of the wing, the high-pressure air from below spills sideways and swirls around to the top of the wing, creating a [wingtip vortex](_URL_0_).
The rotors of a helicopter are just like the wings of a plane, so ... | [
"Ground resonance is an imbalance in the rotation of a helicopter rotor when the blades become bunched up on one side of their rotational plane and cause an oscillation in phase with the frequency of the rocking of the helicopter on its landing gear. The effect is similar to the behavior of a washing machine when t... |
how come at night when i change the angle of my rearview mirror it receives less light? | [Really old picture](_URL_0_), but it explains it nicely. | [
"On manual tilt versions, a tab is used to adjust the mirror between \"day\" and \"night\" positions. In the day view position, the front surface is tilted and the reflective back side gives a strong reflection. When the mirror is moved to the night view position, its reflecting rear surface is tilted out of line w... |
when a bullet hits a bone and shatters it how does modern medicine fix it? | Osteopathic med student here. Very complex situations with bone fractures will usually result in a bone graft. A surgeon will take a section of bone from somewhere else, one place would be from a donor. A shattered bone is referred to as a comminuted fracture, or when the bone is in *at least* 3 pieces. The main object... | [
"When a bone is fractured as a result of an injury, the two fragments may be displaced relative to each other. If they are not, usually no treatment is required other than immobilisation in an appropriate cast. If displacement does occur, then the space separating the fragments fills with blood shed by the damaged ... |
Was the spear actually that effective as an anti cavalry weapon? | To put some context around massed spear formations vs cavalry, the terrain, weather and objectives of each opposing army are going to affect which comes out on top.
The cavalry has mobility and 'impact' for want of a better term. A disciplined cavalry charge can shatter the cohesion of a body of infantry receiving a... | [
"In the late period of the Roman Empire, the spear became more often used because of its anti-cavalry capacities as the barbarian invasions were often conducted by people with a developed culture of cavalry in warfare.\n",
"The spear was in use for hunting as early as five million years ago in hominid and chimpan... |
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