question stringlengths 3 301 | answer stringlengths 9 26.1k | context list |
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Do humans ears "pop" if they are aboard a diving submarine? | No. When flying the cabin isn't airtight, and at 30k feet atmospheric pressure drops inside the cabin to a pressure roughly equivalent to 6-8k feet above sea level. This change in effective pressure in the cabin causes ears to pop.
When diving in a submarine the sub is watertight and there is the same amount of air a... | [
"Jacques-Yves Cousteau warned that earplugs are harmful to divers, especially scuba divers. Scuba divers breathe compressed air or other gas mixtures at a pressure matching the water pressure. This pressure is also inside the ear, but not between the eardrum and the earplug, so the pressure behind the eardrum will ... |
How did fascist governments achieve syncretism? | I'm not a scholar of the period by any means, but I think the best and simplest answer is that they didn't, at least nearly as successfully as they would have wished.
Japan's WWII government isn't widely considered fascist, as far as I know.
Italy's tried to implement a series of education reforms aimed at creating a n... | [
"On 31 October 1922, a party with similar policies and objectives came into power in Italy, the National Fascist Party, under the leadership of the charismatic Benito Mussolini. The Fascists, like the Nazis, promoted a national rebirth of their country, as they opposed communism and liberalism; appealed to the work... |
Why are some harmonies (octaves, fifths, etc) generally considered more pleasant than dissonant harmonies, or 'out-of-tune' instruments? | When a sound is produced in nature, it isn't a single frequency (which you can get from some synthesizers) but rather a multitude of frequencies. The note we refer to it as is the lowest audible frequency, or the fundamental frequency. The other frequencies sounded are all the integer multiples of the fundamental.
So ... | [
"Because most fifths in 12-tone Pythagorean temperament are in the simple ratio of 3:2, they sound very \"smooth\" and consonant. The thirds, by contrast, most of which are in the relatively complex ratios of 81:64 (for major thirds) and 32:27 (for minor thirds), sound less smooth depending on the instrument.\n",
... |
Hydrogen Combustion Engines & Climate | Even though water vapor is actually the gas that causes most of the greenhouse effect on our planet - responsible for roughly 30 of the 33 degrees of greenhouse warming Earth experiences - it reaches equilibrium on the order of a couple days. If water vapor climbs too high, it rains. Too low, and there's increased evap... | [
"The product of its combustion with oxygen alone is water vapor (although if its combustion is with oxygen and nitrogen it can form toxic chemicals), which can be cooled with some of the liquid hydrogen. Since water is often considered harmless to the environment, an engine burning it can be considered \"zero emiss... |
What language(s) did Kublai Khan speak? | Kublai Khan is thankfully well documented in our history, to the point where some of his writings survive. Furthermore, the Yuan Dynasty kept multilingual records and with the aid of Tibetan Lamas developed the 'phags-pa phonetic script that was used as a standard for languages within.
As we all know, Kublai Khan was... | [
"\"The Secret History of the Mongols\", written for that very dynasty, clearly distinguishes \"Khagan\" and \"Khan\": only Genghis Khan and his ruling descendants are called \"Khagan\", while other rulers are referred to as \"Khan\". Khagan or Khaan refers to Emperor or King in the Mongolian language, however, \"Ye... |
How Far Would Roman Soldiers (mainly non-Europeans) Travel for War/Military Orders? | The Roman army was a heterogeneous body, made up of soldiers from across the empire. Although in most places the majority of new recruits would have come from the local populations around bases (at least by the mid-imperial period), that did not stop units or individuals being moved around as needs changed. If an emper... | [
"Warren Treadgold estimates that the east Roman army had about 3,500 \"scolae\" or guards, 104,000 field army soldiers, with an uncertain number of sailors, and 195,500 border army soldiers, again with an uncertain number of sailors, in 395.\n",
"According to Vegetius, during the four-month initial training of a ... |
What was the organization and centralization of the Han dynasty military? | So the thing about the Eastern Han (which directly turned into the Three Kingdoms) was that it wasn't all that militarized in terms of having massive professional standing armies. The Eastern Han Dynasty specifically did not have large standing armies as it didn't want to recreate the chaos of the earlier Western Han D... | [
"The army of the Han dynasty was the primary military apparatus of China from 202 BC to 220 AD, with a brief interregnum by the reign of Wang Mang and his Xin dynasty from 9 AD to 23 AD, followed by two years of civil war before the refounding of the Han. \n",
"The army of the Ming dynasty was the primary militar... |
how does a b-2 bomber fly and maintain stability without a vertical stabilizer? | The B-2 uses what's called a split rudder to maintain yaw stability. [Here](_URL_0_) you can see the split rudder in operation.
Each split-rudder is actually two separate panels that swing out opposite vertically of each other. When the left split-rudder opens it produces drag and causes the B-2 to yaw left into the d... | [
"On a three-surface aircraft, the tailplane acts as a conventional horizontal stabiliser. In the stall condition, even if the main wing is stalled the tailplane can provide a pitch-down moment and allow recovery. The wing may thus be used up to its maximum lift coefficient, an advantage that may translate into a re... |
why do censored tv versions of movies make up weird phrases to fill in for bad words instead of just using normal more mild phrases? | If you pick a phrase that's pretty phonetically similar to the original one, it's going to match pretty closely with how the actor's lips move. For someone who hasn't seen the original, the change will be less noticeable.
As for phrases that don't make sense, I remember watching Snakes on a Plane, and the iconic line ... | [
"Certain stock criticisms are used as running gags, a number of which are ironic references to certain films, such as someone/something having \"gone to the \"Prometheus\" school of running away from things\" and \"Insert Character would be excellent at CinemaSins\" or \"No one will be seated during the...\" sugges... |
How were mixed-blood African American--Native American individuals viewed within both African American and Native American communities/societies prior to the 20th Century? | This is a great question. I don't have a full answer for you, unfortunately as I'm no expert on this topic.
One place to start might be investigating histories of slavery among Native peoples. It was not uncommon for male native masters to become involved sexually with their black female slaves. Thinking about Tiya Mi... | [
"In the United States since its early history, Native Americans, African-Americans and European-Americans were classified as belonging to different races. For nearly three centuries, the criteria for membership in these groups were similar, comprising a person's appearance, his fraction of known non-White ancestry,... |
what's the strategy businesses have when giving away free product with no purchase necessary (dominos' free pizza, chipotle's free burrito)? | I think it's more of an incentive for them to retain their client base by rewarding the customers one day out of the year with free product. For me as a customer, it leAves a positive impression on the company that just hooked me up with a free pizza/ burrito | [
"Domino's Pizza is credited with popularizing free pizza delivery in the United States. Pizza Hut began experimenting in 1999 with a 50-cent delivery charge in ten stores in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. By mid-2001 it was implemented in 95% of its 1,749 company-owned restaurants in the U.S., and in a smaller number ... |
who pays for what is done on reality tv shows and how these shows make a profit. | Reality shows, like game shows, are super cheap to make.
A top show like *NCIS* is paying millions of dollars per episode in actors salaries alone, not to mention writers, sets, and a huge production crew.
$100K in remodelling is cheap by comparison. | [
"Reality television shows have faced speculation that the participants themselves are involved in fakery, acting out storylines that have been planned in advance by producers. \"The Hills\" is one notable example; the show faced allegations that its plots are scripted ahead of time. During the second season of \"He... |
Are there any recorded battles of submarines fighting other submarines? Or is that not a thing? | Submarines were used to fight submarines in both World Wars. In most cases, the targeted submarine was on the surface; only one submarine, *U-864*, was sunk by another submerged submarine. Attacks on surfaced submarines were still difficult. A submarine was a small target, hard to spot or to measure the speed of and wi... | [
"Another eight submarines went missing while on patrol and are presumed to have been sunk by Japanese mines, as there were no recorded Japanese anti-submarine attacks in their patrol areas. The other thirty-three lost submarines are known to have been sunk by the Japanese.\n",
"Post-war, Japanese records showed n... |
how is it so difficult for video game publishers to detect cheating on pc? | The fundamental problem is that the user has physical control over their own PC and the only information the game manufacturer gets is whatever their PC sends.
> Doesn't their code have digital signatures?
Sure, and those can always be defeated someone with enough time and perseverance. Let's say the code is runnin... | [
"Cheating in computer games may involve cheat codes and hidden spots implemented by the game developers, modification of game code by third parties, or players exploiting a software glitch. Modifications are facilitated by either cheat cartridge hardware or a software trainer. Cheats usually make the game easier by... |
During the passage of the 14th Amendment, what was the understanding regarding 'birthright citizenship'? Did Senators anticipate that it could be used to grant citizenship to children of immigrants? How soon after it's passage was it used to grant citizenship to non-slave immigrant children? | Okay, so given that I've been having this conversation with several different people today and have been working on issues regarding immigration and refugee policy for the past couple of months, I can answer this question fairly well, though I welcome anyone else who has different perspectives and additional resources ... | [
"The Fourteenth Amendment provides that children born in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction become American citizens at birth. At the time of the amendment's passage, President Andrew Johnson and three Senators, including Trumbull, the author of the Civil Rights Act, asserted that both the Civil Righ... |
how did social security start in the us in 1935? | As for your last question, absolutely. Even today we have serious issues, mostly with elderly people, concerning their ability to vote because they were born at home, never got a birth certificate, never got a SS number. Not that many decades ago you could manage pretty well without all the documents we have to have to... | [
"The Social Security Act of 1935 is a law enacted by the 74th United States Congress and signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The law created the Social Security program as well as insurance against unemployment. The law was part of Roosevelt's New Deal domestic program.\n",
"In January 1935, Roose... |
Apple announced new camera for their iPhones and are touting the superiority of "larger pixels" on the camera's sensor. How does having larger pixel area on the CCD improve digital image quality? | Especially in low-light situations, which pixel is likely to capture any one given photon, the smaller or larger one? Extrapolating to normal light situations, a larger pixel can capture more photons more quickly, and thus form an image sooner (think like shutter speed here) | [
"Speculation about the product began shortly after Apple released the iPad 2, which featured front and back cameras as well as a dual-core Apple A5 processor. Speculation increased after news of a 2,048-by-1,536 pixel screen leaked.\n",
"iPhone X's rear camera received an overall rating of 97 from DxOMark, a came... |
How libertine was sexuality in the Weimar Republic? | This isn't mean to preclude further answers and discussions but /u/kieslowskifan has made several good points about this [in this thread here](_URL_0_) discussing the research by Magnus Hirschfeld among other things. They correctly point out that the idea of a pro-sex Weimar Republic and an anti-sex Third Reich is uns... | [
"The phrase originated in Weimar Germany in the 1920s by Pastor Ludwig Hoppe of Berlin as a more general term of approbation at licentiousness. When Nazi Germany came into being after the failures of the Weimar government, the Nazis used the term \"sexual Bolshevism\" to refer to perceived sexual degeneracy, in par... |
Seen a lot of unlikely "friendships" in animals (prey-predator). How likely is this to occur in the wild? | This is likely possible in house pets or captives because they are well fed and somewhat infantilized. I suspect that if you withdrew food from a cat/mouse "friend" pair, once the cat became hungry it would eat the mouse. House pets are also bred for their docile characteristics, which resemble those of newborns (cat, ... | [
"Mutualism can contribute to the formation of interspecies friendships because it involves a pair of organisms experiencing mutually beneficial exchanges with each other which may lead to a long-lasting bond. The mutualistic relationship observed between coyotes and badgers after hunting ground squirrels together i... |
how do psychologists differentiate between someone with a personality disorder and someone who's just kind of an ass? | Like all disorders, it's a disorder when it negatively impacts your life and it's outside of your control. Do you really like to keep things neat and tidy? You might be obsessive compulsive. Are you pathologically incapable of not cleaning? Now it's a disorder.
When you are incapable of being a dick, gun to your head ... | [
"Apart from all these issues, an individual may not consider their personality to be disordered or the cause of problems. This perspective may be caused by the patient's ignorance or lack of insight into their own condition, an ego-syntonic perception of the problems with their personality that prevents them from e... |
how does lag compensation in games like cs:go work? | Lag compensation is a way for server to calculate players position based on the lag. For example, you looked north and went forward. You have lag, for 20 miliseconds. Normally "from your point of view" the screen would froze (and you would have reconnection screen). But instead of that, the server takes control of your... | [
"Lag due to an insufficient update rate between client and server can cause some problems, but these are generally limited to the client itself. Other players may notice jerky movement and similar problems with the player associated with the affected client, but the real problem lies with the client itself. If the ... |
why do people become less creative as they age? | This is anecdotal at best, who do you think is writing books, producing movies, making games and inventing everything you use? Not children.
| [
"In November 2014 Onarheim spoke on the subject '3 Tools To Become More Creative' at a TEDx talk in Copenhagen, Denmark. During the talk, Onarheim gave three examples of how to relearn creativity as adults. The theory is that as we grow up we forget how to be creative.\n",
"The creative process, which is a key co... |
is sharia law a legitimate threat in the us? | Muslims form less than 3% of the US population. I don't see how such a tiny group could impose its own laws on the US, any more than tiny Christian populations can impose Christian laws on Islamic countries. Even when the British rules vast swathes of the Islamic world they could not impose Christian or even European c... | [
"The role of sharia has become a contested topic around the world. Introduction of sharia-based laws sparked intercommunal violence in Nigeria and may have contributed to the breakup of Sudan. Some jurisdictions in North America have passed bans on use of sharia, framed as restrictions on religious or foreign laws.... |
how payouts/odds are determined for superfecta bets in horse racing | /u/WeDriftEternal implies this, but doesn't come out and state it:
There really is a **separate** pool of money for each bet type -- i.e., a Win Pool, a Place Pool, an Exacta Pool, and so forth. When you put $5 to place on horse 2, you're betting ONLY against other place bets.
And so it goes with superfectas, too. | [
"The superfecta is a type of wager in USA and Canada parimutuel betting in which the bettor, in order to win, must pick the first four finishers of a race in the correct sequence. This is even more unlikely than a successful wager in the trifecta, which requires correctly picking the first three finishers in order,... |
how do drugs work? | The aim, on most cases, is to activate your synapses by trying to imitate molecules that your body is producing on a daily basis. There's, of course, a wide range of effects, depending of which one you're activating on purpose. | [
"When drugs are taken orally, they enter the gut lumen to be absorbed in the small intestine and sometimes, in the stomach. In order for drugs to be absorbed, they must pass through the epithelial cells that line the lumen wall before they can enter the hepatic portal circulation to be distributed systemically in b... |
Why do we believe that extra (dark) matter is responsible for the increased gravitational force observed on galactic scales? | [good thread on this topic](_URL_0_) | [
"Scale relativity suggests that the fractality of matter contributes to the phenomenon of dark matter. Indeed, some of the dynamical and gravitational effects which seem to require unseen matter are suggested to be consequences of the fractality of space on very large scales.\n",
"Observations of gravitational ef... |
if lower frequencies mean less energy, why does bass seem so much more powerful than treble? | Because the described frequency/power relationship assumes the same amplitude.
Bass can be played at higher amplitude without being uncomfortable, and frequently has dedicated (large) speakers for it (woofers and subwoofers). Thus, the bass is played at a higher amplitude.
There is also the association of low-frequen... | [
"An unamplified acoustic bass' tone is limited by the frequency responsiveness of the instrument's hollow body, which means that the very low pitches may not be as loud as the higher pitches. With an amplifier and equalization devices, a bass player can boost the low frequencies, which evens out the frequency respo... |
How open were previous civilizations to children about sex? | Going to throw this out, though it's by nature very difficult to source.
Those who worked in agriculture would be around farm animals...dogs, sheep, goats, pigs, cows, horses, etc. All of these animals would at some point engage in sex or there would be no calves, foals, lambs, etc. It would not be a great leap of l... | [
"Prior to European contact, there were no known legal or social punishments for engaging in homosexual activity. Sex seems to have been a very open topic among the Indigenous people. Among the Arrernte people, sex plays were particularly ubiquitous, even among young children who would play \"mothers and fathers\" i... |
In Western cultures, it seems "normal" to have a different main meal everyday, but I would think this was not common before refrigeration and when most of society was agrarian. When did this become "normal"? | You might want to post this question also on /r/AskFoodHistorians
(Mods, I hope this is not a "bad" comment.) | [
"Meals have become ingrained in each society as being natural and logical. What one society eats may seem extraordinary to another. The same is true of what was eaten long ago in history as food tastes, menu items and meal periods have changed greatly over time. During the Middle Ages the main meal of the day, then... |
if almost all of the things we do are now digital resulting in paper usage dropping majorly, why is deforestation suddenly a massive issue? | The wood used for paper tends to be from sustainable forests that are primarily soft-wood. These trees tend to grow to their final height in 10-25 years. Deforestation in the Amazon and Borneo (just two examples) are of old-forest and hard-wood trees that take much longer to grow and sustain a much higher amount of bio... | [
"Deforestation is often seen as a problem in developing countries but also occurs in the developed world. Woodchipping to produce paper pulp is a contentious environmental issue in Australia. In the 1990s, the New Zealand government stopped the export of woodchips from native forests after campaigning by environmen... |
How were the pre Norman British kingdoms structured? | Hello, I wrote an answer [here](_URL_0_) a little while ago which addresses the how contentious and flawed the idea of **the** *Witan* in; to whit, it's largely an invention of Victorian Whig historians who wanted to create a false history of English Parliamentary democracy.
The question boils down to whether or not y... | [
"Before the Normans arrived, Anglo-Saxon governmental systems were more sophisticated than their counterparts in Normandy. All of England was divided into administrative units called shires, with subdivisions; the royal court was the centre of government, and a justice system based on local and regional tribunals e... |
is stock market a zero sum game? | No, because wealth can be created in the market through appreciation and dividend. | [
"The game has six stocks, which in fact are commodities. These six are gold, silver, Bonds, oil, industrials, and grain. During gameplay all the stocks are identical. Each stock begins costing a dollar apiece. Players are given starting money of $5000 and they buy shares in groups of 500, 1000, 2000, or 5000. The s... |
why don't the stars appear red near the horizon? | We do see this effect for the other objects. The moon is orange-tinted when close to the horizon. The same for stars, though it's near impossible to spot by eye. Human eyes have a really bad time seeing colours at low intensity and moreover the Rayleigh reddening is quite less than the variation in the actual colour of... | [
"When the spot was to be photographed again in November 1994 by the Hubble Space Telescope, it had disappeared completely, leaving astronomers to believe that it has either been covered up or vanished. The persistence of companion clouds shows that some former dark spots may continue to exist as cyclones even thoug... |
Do boats play a part in ocean levels? | The worlds oceans aren't just big, they are *really* big. At 360 million square miles across, times 1/8 of an inch, that's a rise of 710 cubic miles of water, 7.818 x 10^14 gallons, or 3.262 x 10^12 tons of water. The worlds largest ship, according to google, is an Ultra Large Crude Carrier (ULCC) and had a displacem... | [
"Boating is the leisurely activity of travelling by boat, or the recreational use of a boat whether powerboats, sailboats, or man-powered vessels (such as rowing and paddle boats), focused on the travel itself, as well as sports activities, such as fishing or waterskiing. It is a popular activity, and there are mil... |
please explain dmr or drm li5 | DRM is short for Digital Rights Management. (Or sometimes refereed to as Digital Restrictions Management, which is more accurate in practice)
What DRM does is restrict how a piece of purchased media can be used by using licences, It works by tying a piece of content to a particular device.
For example DRM can be used... | [
"DRM+ has been successfully tested in all the VHF bands, and this gives the DRM system the widest frequency usage; it can be used in band I, II and III. DRM+ can coexist with DAB in band III. but also the present FM-band can be utilized. The ITU has published three recommendations on DRM+, known in the documents as... |
excluding all religion, why are we not going insane over the fact that one day we, and everything and everyone, will die? | It is inevitable and there is nothing we can do about it. When you boil it down, you really only have two options.
1 - You can live your life for today, do what makes you happy, raise your family to continue your blood line and try to live a fulfilling life.
2- You can stress about the inevitable without actually ... | [
"Religion, Unger argues, is a vision of the world within which we anchor our orientation to life. It is within this orientation that we deal with our greatest terrors and highest hopes. Because we are doomed to die, we hope for eternal life; because we are unable to grasp to totality of existence or of the universe... |
why is moving the pawn in front of the king in chess, the most common first move? | You get advantage in chess in two ways.
1. Taking enemy pieces
2. Opening your higher pieces.
From my amateur understanding of chess:
Moving pawn near the rooks does nothing except weakens defence of a king if it chooses castling.
B and G pawns open only bishops, which is more viable because then you can attack r... | [
"Pawns move one step orthogonally forward and capture to one step diagonally forward, as in orthodox chess. A movement \"forward\" can be defined as one that places the pawn closer to the starting cell of its enemy king. Then pawns can capture to the sides of the cells they can move to. There is no double move and ... |
how do large ships with large anchors lift anchor to move again? | The anchor is designed to dig in when the ship is at some distance, so the anchor chain is at a shallow angle (far from vertical). To weigh anchor (re-raise the anchor), you move the ship close to the anchor so the chain is near vertical, then you winch it up. | [
"Most larger sea anchors will provide a mechanism to collapse the anchor for retrieval. This is called a \"trip line\", and attaches to the rear of the anchor, allowing it to be pulled in back first, shedding water rather than filling. This trip line can be rigged a number of ways, depending on the preference of th... |
Why didn't the European Empires for a collation and try take down the UK during its height? | I think you mean "coalition" and will avoid doing the joke about it. But, in short: Why would they have?
(Schematic summary incoming)
In 1815, the Congress of Vienna reorganised european politics under the form of the "Concert of Nations" - five Great Powers were to dominate the continent: Great Britain, Austria, Russ... | [
"However, Britain chose not to attempt domination of the continent, in part because it calculated that its aims of achieving security could be more cheaply achieved if the European powers could be played off against each other. By doing so, it would be occupied on the European continent and unable to challenge Brit... |
why do certain sounds cause extreme discomfort when heard, despite not necessarily being too high/low pitched? | It's got more to do with sound frequency not sound level also known as decibels. Don't get me wrong 150 decibels is ungodly loud but at 10000 hertz you ain't gonna hear it so much a feel it. Feeling it can be worse sometimes. | [
"In a 2011 study, musicologists Michael Oehler and Christoph Reuter hypothesize that the unpleasantness of the sound is caused by acoustic resonance due to the shape of the human ear canal which amplifies certain frequencies, especially those in the range of 2000 to 4000 Hz (the median pitches mentioned above), at ... |
Did the NKVD/Red Army actually shoot at retreating troops in WWII ? | Yes they did, there were 10 201 documented cases of russian barrier troops (this is the general term for such units) shooting retreating soldiers. The vast majority where however merely detained and returned to active duty (~650 000 cases) or arrested (~25 000 cases).
According to Stavka order 1919 (September 12, 194... | [
"To aid the deception, the Red Army established fake army camps in the Ukraine and after German reconnaissance planes reported Soviet troop concentration in the area, panzer and infantry divisions were rushed south from Belorussia, leaving it vulnerable to a major assault.\n",
"During World War II, Red Army recon... |
in the us, why do more politically conservative states tend to receive more federal funding than liberal states but their politicians tend to want to cut federal funding levels? | Aside from some good (and bad) answers others have given, there's a chicken and egg argument. Lots of voters in these states think that federal funding has *harmed* the private sector and as long as the government continues to, in their mind, poorly spend money in their state, it'll keep it dependent on federal fundin... | [
"Several commentators have pointed out that the states that benefit the most by federal spending are the very states whose populations tend to vote for leaders who promise to reduce federal spending, while those that benefit the least from large government vote for politicians who promise to make it even larger at ... |
why does some water freeze into ice while other water turns into snow? | I'm not a meteorologist but from what I understand, snow occurs when the freezing temperature is at an altitude sufficient to freeze the cloud. While sleet occurs when the freezing temperatures are below the clouds and freeze already falling rain. Now when you Google your question to verify my answer you will know the... | [
"The surface environment does not play a decisive role in the formation of ice and snow. The density fluctuations inside drops result in that the possible freezing regions cover the middle and the surface regions. The freezing from the surface or from within may be random. However, in the strange world of water, ti... |
Did post-WW2 USSR purchase foreign weaponry in any significant quantity? (not just for reverse-engineering) | The info published by the US government in [1985](_URL_0_) indicates that weaponry accounted for .9% of Soviet imports that year. The table on the next page indicates that between 1981 and 1985, the Soviets imported 2 billion dollars worth of munitions from Poland, and 1.1 billion worth from Czechoslovakia.
I don't k... | [
"In addition, the poverty and desperation of the Russians, Ukrainians and allies of post–Cold War have led to the sale of many advanced Cold War-developed weapons systems, especially very capable modern upgraded versions, around the globe. World-class tanks (T-80/T-84), jet fighters (MiG-29 and Su-27/30/33), surfac... |
if a supreme court judge is supposed to be unbiased how can be considered left of right wing (isn't that a bias to begin with)? | There's no such thing as unbiased. Humans aren't robots and even if they were, different experiences would change their interpretation of things.
This thread from earlier today may be helpful: _URL_0_ | [
"In this instance, the Court did not divide along \"typical\" liberal-conservative ideologies. The conservative justices were evenly split, with Justices Scalia and Thomas joining three of the four liberal justices on the majority. Likewise, liberal Justice Breyer and Justice Kennedy – often the \"swing vote\" on c... |
straws float in soda? | The dissolved carbon dioxide forms (nucleates) in bubbles that affix themselves to the inside and outside of the straw, particularly where the straw's surface isn't totally smooth. These act as little buoyancy devices, and make the straw act as though it's lighter than the soda around it. | [
"A soda straw (or simply straw) is a speleothem in the form of a hollow mineral cylindrical tube. They are also known as tubular stalactites. Soda straws grow in places where water leaches slowly through cracks in rock, such as on the roofs of caves. Soda straws in caves rarely grow more than a few millimetres per ... |
if our brain can apply "motion blur" to fast moving objects we see in real life, why doesn't it apply the same to high framerate video or other fast moving objects on a screen? | Let's pretend your eyes only register 5 "dots". When you don't see anything, you might see "oooo". If you're looking at a static object, you'd see "Xoooo". Something moving at regular speed would go "Xoooo", "oXooo", "ooXoo", and so on.
Motion blur comes in when something moves across your field of vision faster th... | [
"Conversely, extra motion blur can unavoidably occur on displays when it is not desired. This occurs with some video displays (especially LCD) that exhibits motion blur during fast motion. This can lead to more perceived motion blurring above and beyond the preexisting motion blur in the video material. See display... |
why the french and english didn't constantly invade each other during their wars, despite being narrowly separated? | First, it is incorrect to say that England and France were constantly at war throughout history. There were long periods of warfare, but similarly long periods of peace.
Second, William the Conqueror most *definitely* counts, since not only was he from the exact region in question, but as Duke of Normandy, he was a v... | [
"Over the following years, neither England nor France found the strength to engage in all-out war with one another. French attempts to retake Boulogne failed, while English attempts to gain more territory around Calais and Boulogne also failed. Henry awaited a large French invasion fleet which never came, and subse... |
all the video file types and media types are blowing my mind. please help me understand vob,mov,avi,mp4,mkv, and h.256, mpeg-4, mpeg-ps, avc... and codecs | Ok, first things first, the extension just tells us what file type we're using. It's just some characters, after all. For example, `.mp4` tells us the file is using the MPEG layer 4 technologies.
So what is that? Well, they're usually containers. What is meant by "container" is that it contains multiple tracks. There'... | [
"It supports windowed and full-screen operations as well as multiple monitors. Images, video, and sound files in a range of formats can be done natively, with more additional capabilities supplied by the optional AVbin plugin, which uses the Libav package to provide support for audio formats including MP3, Ogg/Vorb... |
African Diet before the Columbian Exchange | To start off, I want to clear something up. In North America at least, the terms yam and sweet potato are often used interchangeably. However, botanically speaking, true Yams are numerous species all in the family _Diosocorea_ while sweet potatoes are in the family _Convulvaceae_.
All this means to say that while swe... | [
"Archaeological research has shown that the cassava (yucca) was originally cultivated years ago the Peru. This culture, specifically the Americas, preceded the maize in many areas. But pre-Columbian food quickly organized around the corn and cassava. Its root was the food of the Indians of the pre-colonial era. The... |
retro eli5: how did those "pirate cards" work that unlocked all satellite tv channels during the late 90's - early 2000's? | The cards are smart cards (think of it like a sim card for your phone, but it works for TV instead).
Hackers found you could change the information on these cards with some rather basic smart card read/writers after some bugs were found in how the cards work. The card held only a little bit of data (about 8k), but ... | [
"BULLET::::- Hackers also discovered (after the commercial pirate code became public) ways of switching on \"dead\" cards using a computer and smartcard interface by sending a properly formatted and addressed activation packet to the card. Variations on this attack also allowed existing subscriber cards to be upgra... |
Is it true that during parts of 1942 the entire operational German surface fleet was stationed in Norway? | Yes but the operative phrase here is *operational*, the *Sharnhorst* and *Gneisenau* were both damaged during the Channel Dash/Unternehmen Zerberus. After the completion of Unternehmen Zerberus the state of the Kriegsmarine surface fleet was as follows:
Bismarch Class Battleships:
*Bismarck* \- Sunk in 41
*Tirpitz... | [
"M.F. 11s saw active service all along the Norwegian coastline following the German invasion, from Western Norway to North Norway. One M.F. 11, F.342, was among the first Norwegian units to make contact with the invasion forces. On 8 April 1940 Lieutenants Kaare Strand Kjos and Magnus Lie of the Trøndelag Naval Dis... |
How much light is absorbed in the deepest part of the ocean? | It's dark because the water above it is kilometers thick, not because the water is inherently dark. If you were to turn on a (waterproof, pressure proof) flashlight down there, it would illuminate. | [
"Light reflected from the sub-surface ocean is called water-leaving radiance and is used to estimate chlorophyll concentrations. However, only about 5–10% of light at the top of the atmosphere is from water-leaving radiance. The remainder of light is reflected from the atmosphere and from aerosols within the atmosp... |
is there a maximum amount of energy that can be harnessed from wind on earth? | hmmmmmm this is an interesting question. it kind of depends on what you mean by "maximum" For example, at any given time there is a maximum amount of energy that we can harness at that time. this is because of conservation of energy. However, the wind isnt going to stop blowing. so over time there is no limit to how mu... | [
"Globally, the long-term technical potential of wind energy is believed to be five times total current global energy production, or 40 times current electricity demand, assuming all practical barriers needed were overcome. This would require wind turbines to be installed over large areas, particularly in areas of h... |
is there a biological reason why men don't appear as frightened as woman during dangerous situations? | Men have a lower level of fear response and suffer fewer long-term fear effects than women. [Survey](_URL_0_)
From a purely sociological standpoint, men further conceal their fear response because it is socially damaging to them in a way that it isn't for women.
If you don't display fear, you tend to engender trust i... | [
"When men experience vulnerable feelings and other feelings that are associated with women, men can become frightened. According to Kierski (2007), the fear of the feminine then acts in two ways: a) Like an internal monitor to ensure that men stay within the boundaries of what is regarded as masculine, i.e. being a... |
Is the surface of the ocean relatively flat (i.e. the biggest difference in height are waves and the occasional storm surge) - or are there notable peaks and valleys? | Due to water’s cohesion, mountains on the ocean floor can cause a measurable bump on the surface. It would not be noticeable from a normal person’s point of view, though. The moon’s gravitational pull and the earth’s rotation also cause the oceans to be deformed. | [
"The significant wave height is generally much lower than that of the North Sea. Quite violent, sudden storms sweep the surface ten or more times a year, due to large transient temperature differences and a long reach of wind. Seasonal winds also cause small changes in sea level, of the order of .\n",
"A series o... |
how can your eyes sense that the lights are on in a room even when you've placed for hands over for eyes? | Because even when your eyes are closed some light still gets through your eyelids. Your pupils are also designed to expand when its dark so they can detect as much light as possible. If I’m not mistaken they can detect as little as one photon of light if it’s really dark.
So even if your eyes are closed, if there’s e... | [
"Rays of light travel in straight lines and change when they are reflected and partly absorbed by an object, retaining information about the color and brightness of the surface of that object. Lit objects reflect rays of light in all directions. A small enough opening in a screen only lets through rays that travel ... |
What's the difference between an explosion and a very quick burn? | "Explosion" only means rapid expansion and is not sharply defined.
However, "detonation" is. It means that the chemical reaction that creates the explosion spreads through the material faster than the material's speed of sound. Other explosions, in which the chemical reaction spreads slower than sound, are called "d... | [
"The speed of the reaction is what distinguishes an explosive reaction from an ordinary combustion reaction. Unless the reaction occurs very rapidly, the thermally expanding gases will be moderately dissipated in the medium, with no large differential in pressure and there will be no explosion. Consider a wood fire... |
Why is it that some muscles «burn» while exercised hard, while in others you experience more of a fatigue-like feeling? | **On crunches and 'the burn':**
Accumulation of metabolic waste product. When doing an exercise with a muscular metabolic demand similar to crunches (high rep pushups and squat jumps would be similar), the limiting factor is metabolic waste product buildup. The 'burn' you feel is the accumulation of metabolic waste... | [
"Discomfort can arise from other factors. Individuals who perform large numbers of repetitions, sets, and exercises for each muscle group may experience a burning sensation in their muscles. These individuals may also experience a swelling sensation in their muscles from increased blood flow also known as edema (th... |
why are utility poles made of wood? | wood is cheap and nonconductive. light poles where the wires are stretched from pole to pole can be wood as well. but light poles where the wires go down into the ground need to be hollow because you don't want the wires exposed to pedestrians, and that's easier with metal since it still needs to be sturdy and thin (si... | [
"Most utility poles are made of wood, pressure-treated with some type of preservative for protection against rot, fungi and insects. Southern yellow pine is the most widely used species in the United States; however, many species of long straight trees are used to make utility poles, including Douglas fir, jack pin... |
how are chords made from a scale? | There are four major types of chords: major, minor, augmented, and diminished.
**Major**
Major chords are the basic chords that make up any song you listen to. Every other chord is just a major chord with a little bit difference. That being said, the major chords are the simplest of all the chords. A major chord, or ... | [
"A chord is a line drawn between two points on the circumference of a circle. Look at the centre point of this line. For a circle of radius , each half will be formula_1 so the chord will be formula_2. The line of chords scale represents each of these values linearly on a scale running from 0 to 60.\n",
"These ch... |
i don't know anything about basketball. how big of a deal is jeremy lin? | He is pretty impressive - not just because of his race. Coming out of Harvard, not necessarily known for producing NBA superstars, he has shocked most people. He came off the bench to score the highest first 5 games of a person's career point total. Or, he has scored more points than has anyone else in their first 5 pr... | [
"On February 14, with less than a second remaining in the game, Lin made a game-winning three-pointer in the Knicks' 90–87 win over Toronto. The basket so amazed the Lakers (who were watching on television) that veteran player Metta World Peace ran past reporters shouting \"Linsanity! Linsanity!\" and waving his ha... |
why do so many people get away with downloading torrents? | For sites like The Pirate Bay, they're usually hosted in countries where it's difficult to get them removed.
As far as the downloading of torrents, after the whole Napster/Kazaa thing in the 90's, it was VERY bad PR to prosecute downloaders. They prefer to chase the uploaders now. | [
"The first business model that dissuades illegal file sharing is to make downloading digital media easy and cheap. The use of noncommercial sites makes downloading digital media complex. For example, misspelling an artist's name in a search query will often fail to return a result, and some sites limit internet tra... |
why is laptop performance worse while using battery than while plugged into power? | Simply because your computer is trying to save on power. You can set it up so it's the same but your battery will drain really fast. Also, when your plugged in your computer doesn't need to care about battery depleting since it's charging it. | [
"It is most effective on laptop computers. Laptops are specifically designed to allow power use to be both monitored and controlled. In particular, many laptop computers can measure the rate of battery use (when not connected to mains power). PowerTOP uses this feature to estimate power usage in Watts and battery l... |
How did the majority of young men being war veterans shape society in the 1920s and 30s? Is this thought to have had an impact on the rise of extreme governments in Europe? | Oh yes indeed. Impromptu militias and the presence of armed political action committees catalyzed the rise of fascism in Italy.
Italy did not come out of the First World War in good shape. Between 1919 and 1920 frustrated (and unemployed) demobilized soldiers who came home from the front to a country in the midst of ... | [
"World War II had a significant impact on changing family roles. Because of the draft, workers were scarce in many industries and employers began to fill jobs with women, mainly in nontraditional positions. This increase in working women became one of the few times in history where women were praised for work outsi... |
Difference between the Shogun and the Emperor in Japan? | What you wrote is a common way the two systems are characterized, but it's vastly oversimplified in a couple of ways. First, we need to narrow down when we're looking at since the shogun system was around for about 600 years. Second, we need to define the concept of "state" that we're working with, which in premodern... | [
"The role of the Emperor of Japan has historically alternated between a largely ceremonial symbolic role and that of an actual imperial ruler. Since the establishment of the first shogunate in 1199, the emperors have rarely taken on a role as supreme battlefield commander, unlike many Western monarchs. Japanese emp... |
how can airport security scanners detect certain things, rather than just metal? how can it determine the difference between a gun and a watch if they're both made of metal? | Are you confusing an X-ray and a metal detector?
A metal detector will be set off by anything metallic, your keys, change, laptop or a gun. It doesn’t really scan for things.
A X-ray will show you the contents of a bag, and you can (sort of) visually distinguish each item | [
"Clothing and other organic materials are transparent to millimeter waves of certain frequencies, so a recent application has been scanners to detect weapons and other dangerous objects carried under clothing, for applications such as airport security. Privacy advocates are concerned about the use of this technolog... |
explain cricket like i'm 5 (and american) | **Simpler version, baseball comparitive**
It's like baseball with two bases. There are two batters on the field at one time from one team and the whole of the opposition's team are fielding.
* Scoring:
In order to score, a batter must hit the ball far enough away to buy time so each batter can run from their 'base' ... | [
"BULLET::::- Number of innings – (Note that British baseball uses the cricket terminology of \"innings\" as both singular and plural, while baseball uses \"inning\" for the singular.) In British baseball, each team has two innings. An innings ends when all 11 players are either dismissed or stranded on base. A regu... |
If the sun were to suddenly vanish, what would we feel first? The effects of no light, or the lack of gravitational effects from the sun? | Both light and gravity propagate at 'c', if that's what you're asking. Until ~8:20 after the sun disappeared, you would notice nor be able to measure any difference.
However, I would recommend against thinking of impossible hypothetical situations - the sun *can't* just disappear, and for reasons that are very importa... | [
"Shen hypothesized that rays of sunlight refract before reaching the surface of the earth, hence people on earth observing the sun are not viewing it in its exact position, in other words, the altitude of the apparent sun is higher than the actual altitude of the sun. Dong writes that \"at the time, this discovery ... |
How valid is the analogy between Conway's Game of Life and biochemical complexity? | I think the Game of Life is mostly useful as an illustration of how very simple rules can result in very complex behaviours. While I haven't heard of anything resembling actual life spontaneously arising in a Game of Life (as you correctly pointed out, any structures above a certain level of complexity will inevitably ... | [
"Since its publication, \"Conway's Game of Life\" has attracted much interest, because of the surprising ways in which the patterns can evolve. \"Life\" provides an example of emergence and self-organization. Scholars in various fields, such as computer science, physics, biology, biochemistry, economics, mathematic... |
What was the justification for the CIA's coup of Iran in 1953? What benefits, if any, stemmed from this action? | Kinzer's book is very good. The central dynamic was economic: the US had established ARAMCO in Saudi Arabia, with a 50/50 split of oil revenues, and there was an expectation that Iran should have the same deal. The British, however, were entirely intransigent in negotiations, famously insisting that paying one cent mor... | [
"Eventually, the CIA's involvement with the coup was exposed. This caused controversy within the organization and the CIA congressional hearings of the 1970s. CIA supporters maintained that the coup was strategically necessary, and praised the efficiency of the agents responsible. Critics say the scheme was paranoi... |
How did the Greek city states organize, and communicate in order to organize, there collective forces in order to repel the Persian invasion led by Xerses I? | According to Herodotus, the Greek city-states were willing to accept Spartan leadership.
So even though the Greek navy was at least half Athenian, and the Spartans were not known for their naval ability, and in fact the strategy was set by Themistocles the Athenian, the official commander of the Greek fleet was the S... | [
"In 481 BC, a congress of Greek city-states was held, during which 30 or so states agreed to ally themselves against the forthcoming invasion. The Spartans and Athenians were foremost in this alliance, being sworn enemies of the Persians.\n",
"In 481 BC, Xerxes sent ambassadors to city states throughout Greece, a... |
if cologne is so cheap to make, why can we so easily tell the difference between a "cheap" cologne and a good cologne? | Cologne for the most part is cheap to **manufacture**. Finding fragrances that have mixtures of scents and undertones that complement each other well in a mixture of certain proportions and strengths is more of an art rather than science. Cheap colognes care less about the intricacies and go for easily manufactured ble... | [
"Crude is considered \"sweet\" if it is low in sulphur content (< 0.5%/weight), or \"sour\" if high ( 1.0%/weight). Generally, the higher the API gravity (the \"lighter\" it is), the more valuable the crude.\n",
"In the 20th century, the term took on a second meaning. Fragrance companies began to offer lighter, l... |
why do we suddenly care about the nsa and what it is doing? what has changed? | Up until this most recent whistleblower came forward, it was widely suspected that the NSA was engaging in mass domestic spying. The only difference is that now we have official confirmation of it. | [
"The global surveillance disclosure has caused tension in the bilateral relations of the United States with several of its allies and economic partners as well as in its relationship with the European Union. On 12 August 2013, President Obama announced the creation of an \"independent\" panel of \"outside experts\"... |
how do non-conspiracy theorists explain the points that 911-theorists point out? | Building 7 collapsed because debris that hit it from the Twin Towers set fires in the building. There wasn't enough water available to put out these fires, so they eventually melted key structural components, making it fall.
The better question is, how do *conspiracy theorists* explain the collapse of building 7? If i... | [
"There are many conspiracy theories that attribute the planning and execution of the September 11 attacks against the United States to parties other than, or in addition to, al-Qaeda including that there was advance knowledge of the attacks among high-level government officials. Government investigations and indepe... |
Is the "Teddy Roosevelt read 1 book every day" fact true? | While there were certainly some days when reading was impossible, he did average several books a day and was considered, along with Jefferson, to be one of the most well-read presidents in American history according to David H.Burton's The Learned Presidency and Edmund Morris' Roosevelt Trilogy comprising The Rise of T... | [
"Roosevelt was an enthusiastic singlestick player and, according to \"Harper's Weekly\", showed up at a White House reception with his arm bandaged after a bout with General Leonard Wood in 1905. Roosevelt was an avid reader, reading tens of thousands of books, at a rate of several per day in multiple languages. Al... |
How do soldiers know they have been defeated, and what happens to them afterward? | I can speak with regards to current military. There are Standard Operating Procedures with regards to POWs, and in any attack, from 8-man section to a 10,000-man division, the first thing done is called an Ammo/Cas report. That stands for Ammunition and Casualties. This is done by a specific member of each formation, a... | [
"Once a battle is over, the player is given a debriefing, which provides a rundown on how many enemies were killed, what losses were made in a unit, and how much experience a unit receives. Losses are divided into two types – injured soldiers of a unit are unable to return until after the next battle, while those k... |
Has three generations of heirs to the UK throne ever happened before? | Do you only want to count strictly vertical inheritance (father to son to grandson and so on) and not horizontal inheritances due to childlessness or abdication? If you counted horizontal ways and other times when power was in contention you'd have far more examples.
For example, during the War of the Roses there wer... | [
"In 2015, pursuant to the 2011 Perth Agreement, the Commonwealth realms changed the rules of succession to the 16 thrones of Elizabeth II to absolute primogeniture, except for male heirs born before the Perth Agreement. The effects are not likely to be felt for many years; the first two heirs at the time of the agr... |
who was aaron swartz and what is the controversy over his suicide? | I'll actually try to explain this like you're five, because that doesn't ever seem to happen on here anymore.
-------
Aaron Swartz was a man who was a part of a whoooole lot of really cool things. He helped to make a thing called "RSS" which helps people learn all the stuff they want to without going to all the diffe... | [
"Stahl committed suicide during the 1907 spring training season in West Baden, Indiana, by drinking four ounces of carbolic acid. The reasoning behind Stahl's suicide has remained a mystery for over a century. He was known as a carefree, fun-loving man and had many love affairs going on throughout the country. He m... |
. if i watched 15 minutes from a 90 minute youtube video, do i get charged data for the entire 90 minute file ? what about the ads . | you don't stream the entire file at once. Youtube doesn't stream the entire thing to you anymore, just sightly ahead of what you watch. They want to save data too, after all.
yes, ads do use data too. they are not magical. | [
"The prosecution also charged the defendants with transmitting six obscene video clips over the Internet through the extremeassociates.com website. The six video clips were entitled \"valeriejospit\", \"jewel\", \"PZ Summer Breeze\", \"dp-gangbang-7gen-X\", \"miacum\" and \"analasspirations1\", and ranged in length... |
2 people recently died in Italy because of a WW2 unexploded ordnance. Are they eligible to be counted as civilian war casualties? | _URL_0_ This has been answered before, and generally casualties are restricted to the active dates of a war. Credit to /u/DoctorWhoToYou | [
"It also contains 66 local civilian war dead from World War II killed by German bombing and shelling between 1940 and 1945, 127 military burials from World War I (including three unidentified Naval ratings), and 54 from World War II.\n",
"BULLET::::- The Italian government put military war deaths at 651,000 (kill... |
If humans can get extra chromosomes, can other creatures get extra ones too? | [This chimp was born with an extra chromosome](_URL_0_), but he was not mentaly defective.
He had some human-like characteristic, like walking upright and straight face. He also seemed more interested in mating with humans than monkeys. His is not a happy story, but at least he died in pace and quiet. | [
"The extra chromosome is occasionally found in the mosaic state, i.e. some of the cells carry the marker chromosome. However, mostly because of the marker's instability and tendency to be lost during cell division (mitosis), some cells are completely normal with 46 chromosomes. Occasionally, cells may have more tha... |
why, after a restaurant goes out of business, do people often remodel and open a new similar restaurant in the exact same location? | Someone always thinks they can do better-- and often times they do. But no matter where you are, the restaurant business is quite hard, so don't kill someone for trying and failing, most restaurants fail, even in prime locations!
That being said... opening a restaurant is very expensive and difficulty to start, one o... | [
"The restaurant has achieved popularity which has led to celebration by some when brought to new locations, and the opening of a new restaurant often becomes an event. When one opened in Scottsdale, Arizona, there was a four-hour wait for food, and news helicopters whirled above the parking lot.\n",
"Although the... |
vote brigading. what is it? | its akin to [not searching](_URL_0_) | [
"Vote brigading is massively coordinated online voting. It refers to the practice of affecting reviews or scores on websites that feature crowdvoting, such as online stores or review websites, by calling on large numbers of people to submit (often false) reviews, thus boosting or decreasing ratings artificially. Th... |
how have so many cold blooded animals been able to survive through the various ice ages? | For one thing, no Ice Age completely covered the world in ice. We think the equatorial regions we're always free of ice. | [
"The dependence and preference for ice and snow is believed to have an evolutionary basis dating back to the last ice age, approximately 2.6 million years ago. In a period where the earth was covered in ice pans, the ancestors of pagophilic mammals developed the ability to hunt on and around ice out of necessity. S... |
When you get a cut or open wound within the body say, the colon, how does it not become quickly infected and thus possibly lethal? How does the body defend against the possibility of serious infections within the body in areas that have so much bacteria like the intestines? | [Gastrointestinal perforation](_URL_0_) is nasty business. [This overview](_URL_1_) of perforative peritonitis in India is pretty readable.
> There are 3 progressive stages of peritonitis. Primary stage, which lasts for a period of 2 to 24 h, is characterised by initial response of peritoneal cavity mesothelial cells ... | [
"Normally-commensal bacteria can harm the host if they extrude from the intestinal tract. Translocation, which occurs when bacteria leave the gut through its mucosal lining, can occur in a number of different diseases. If the gut is perforated, bacteria invade the interstitium, causing a potentially fatal infection... |
How large can a gas planet become before it turns into a star? | Yes, there is a maximum size for gas planets, above which they become a substellar object and then a star.
At about 13 times the mass of Jupiter, a planet starts to transition to a brown dwarf. The coolest brown dwarfs have temperatures around room temperature. These get as large as ~80 Jupiter masses, and above abo... | [
"BULLET::::- In 2007, a planet of the star was announced by astronomer Simon J. O'Toole. The planet (designated HD 159868 b) is likely to be a gas giant. The orbit is extremely eccentric at the average distance of 2 astronomical units (AU), ranging as close as 0.62 AU to as far as 3.38 AU. During its orbital period... |
Given an infinitely powerful computer, what are the minimum preconditions it would need to simulate a universe similar to our own? | We don't know the answer to this yet. It depends on what the fundamental rules of physics end up being. It could simulate *very nearly* a universe that is very similar to our own excepting the very early stages of the big bang and maybe certain quantum processes would be adjusted by "fudge factors" rather than a fundam... | [
"BULLET::::- Grover L.K.: QUANTUM COMPUTING: How the weird logic of the subatomic world could make it possible for machines to calculate millions of times faster than they do today \"The Sciences\", July/August 1999, pp. 24–30.\n",
"BULLET::::- Grover L.K.: QUANTUM COMPUTING: How the weird logic of the subatomic ... |
why do we need to turn off the car when pumping gas. | One *should* turn off the engine when pumping gas considering that while you pump the gas into the tank, some gas fumes escape and occupy the air around you. If those gases reach an ignition source, it could be quite disastrous for those nearby.
Having lived in upstate NY during the winter myself, your family were pr... | [
"The first situation is with a female whose vehicle won't start for any reason, so she rapidly \"pumps\" the gas pedal in hopes that it will. After it does start, it may need \"revving\" to keep the engine running. This sub-form may also be labelled as cranking.\n",
"The accelerator pump can also be used to \"pri... |
Why is the radiation level so high on the surface of Europa? | The magnetic field of Jupiter traps charged particles (mostly electrons, protons and some heavier nuclei) from the solar wind and Io's volcanic eruptions, causing them to form belts in the space around the gas giant. Europa and other moons orbit within this region of trapped radiation. At the surface of Europa, an unpr... | [
"The radiation level at the surface of Europa is equivalent to a dose of about 5400 mSv (540 rem) per day, an amount of radiation that would cause severe illness or death in human beings exposed for a single day.\n",
"The diagram indicates a main radiation exposure of 20mrad/d = 73 mGy/a. JPL reported that MARIE-... |
Who was Tito, and why was his death a cause of the break up of Yugoslavia? | Josip Broz, commonly known as Tito, was certainly one of the more skilled politicians of the last 75 years and an important figure in European and international politics. While I would contest the direct connection between his death and the break up of Yugoslavia (I'll get to that), it is undoubtedly true that Tito was... | [
"At the end of the war, the Partisans, led by Josip Broz Tito, emerged victorious. Yugoslavia subsequently became a Communist state. Tito died in 1980, and his death saw Yugoslavia plunge into economic turmoil. Yugoslavia disintegrated in the early 1990s, and a series of wars resulted in the creation of five new st... |
Approximately when, and why/how, did Saturday become a traditional day off from work in North America and Europe? | The Saturday day off was first created by the England mill company in 1908 for the Jewish Sabbath which they are not religiously allowed to work but the company that made the 5 day work week a popular thing was most likely ford | [
"In 1908, the first five-day workweek in the United States was instituted by a New England cotton mill so that Jewish workers would not have to work on the Sabbath from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. In 1926, Henry Ford began shutting down his automotive factories for all of Saturday and Sunday. In 1929, the A... |
how does the us protect its technology from being stolen when selling f-35s and other military technology to foreign nations? | First, we generally only sell technology to our allies. This means that we aren’t too worried about those people stealing from us, because it’s easier for them just to buy more rather than trying to build their own.
Next, that shit is *really* complicated. While it’s certainly possible to copy things (and stuff like t... | [
"The Japanese government has discussed whether the export of F-35s containing Japanese products to Israel violates their laws against arms exports to countries involved in or likely to be involved in military conflicts.\n",
"On 21 April 2009, media reports, citing Pentagon sources, said that during 2007 and 2008,... |
what are some known barriers to learning? | Nothing! Failure is sometimes the best teacher you can have. Those things are confusing to tons of people...not everyone is willing to admit it though. So you've learned that! | [
"Some of these barriers include the lack of time balancing career and family demands, finances and transportation. As well, things such as confidence, interest, lack of information about opportunities to learn, scheduling problems, entrance requirements and problems with child care can be barriers in learning. Dist... |
when were we, the human species, separately classified as our own species? | So before there were humans there were an unknown number of humanoids—animals that were somewhere between our common ancestor with other primates and ourselves. Some were very like us like neanderthals and others were very different. There were periods when humans would interbreed with these other species so the origin... | [
"Extant human populations have historically been divided into subspecies, but since around the 1980s all extant groups have tended to be subsumed into a single species, \"H. sapiens\", avoiding division into subspecies altogether.\n",
"Until the late 1980s, as many as 32 subspecies were described and proposed; re... |
Why is plasma opaque to radiation? | It has to do with the plasma cutoff frequency.
_URL_0_
Essentially, there is a point in a plasma where the EM waves will always reflect off the plasma. So it forms a sort of wall that prevents light with a frequency below the cutoff frequency from escaping. It is also what causes the gamma double flash for nuclea... | [
"In an optically-thin plasma the matter is not in thermodynamical equilibrium with the radiation, because collisions between particles and photons are very rare, and, as a matter of fact, the square root mean velocity of photons, electrons, protons and ions is not the same: we should define a temperature for each o... |
what does it means if something is "basic" on the ph scale. and how is it different form acid. why do acuds and bases both burm, melt, dissolve things | In liquid water, the water molecules tend to dissociate into hydrogen ions (H+) and hydroxide ions (OH-). In pure water there are always equal amounts of H+ and OH-, so the pH is neutral which is 7 on the pH scale. An acid is a substance that also has at least one hydrogen that can dissociate from it. When dissolved in... | [
"Acetic acid is an example of a weak acid. The pH of the neutralized solution is not close to 7, as with a strong acid, but depends on the acid dissociation constant (p\"K\") of the acid. The pH at the end-point or equivalence point in a titration may be easily calculated. At the end-point the acid is completely ne... |
How accurate is Downton Abbey? | Just a note that not everyone who may know the intricacies of 20th century British life also watches the show. May help to specify particulars you're interested in. | [
"Series two was highly acclaimed. On Rotten Tomatoes, it has fresh rating of 100% based on 24 reviews, with a weighted average of 8.9/10. The site's critical consensus reads, \"With its excellent cast and resplendent period trappings, \"Downton Abbey\" continues to weave a bewitching, ingratiating spell.\" On Metac... |
metabolism and the effects of anorexia and smoking can have on it | I'm not sure what effect smoking has but with anorexia you aren't taking in much or any food and you're body doesn't like that. You're body is then unsure of when it's next meal is going to come so it slows down you're metabolism in order to conserve the energy it currently has. | [
"Smoking has been linked to a variety of disorders of the stomach. Tobacco is known to stimulate acid production and impairs production of the protective mucus. This leads to development of ulcers in the majority of smokers.\n",
"Another of her major accomplishments was the development of the first radiotracers t... |
Will sea levels ever go down and if so, how? | Yes, sea levels have, can, and will (eventually) go down. This [paper](_URL_1_) is a good reference for (1) presenting records of how sea level has changed in the past (e.g. Figure 2) and (2) discussing mechanisms that influence sea level (e.g. Figure 1). Let's consider the mechanisms generally and then return to the q... | [
"Sea levels are expected to get up to one meter higher by 2100, though this projection is disputed. A rise in the sea level would result in an agricultural land loss, in particular in areas such as South East Asia. Erosion, submergence of shorelines, salinity of the water table due to the increased sea levels, coul... |
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