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why is integral of velocity equal to displacement? | An area under a function is the definition of an integral.
Or think of it this way: you have a height of a function on a graph. The slope of the function indicates if the height is getting bigger or smaller. Ex: if your function is a line with positive (upwards) slope that means the height is getting bigger as you move along the line. If downward (negative) the height is shrinking.
So graphically, that proves the formal definition of a derivative -- the rate at which something changes. Velocity is the rate at which displacement changes. So if you tried to indicate displacement as an area, the function bounding the top of it would be its rate of change, and therefore its velocity. Some examples:
If velocity = 1 m/s, then every second the displacement is 1 meter. If you only analyzed the displacement for 5 seconds -- from time 0 to time 5, the height of the velocity function would be 1 the whole time. But the width would be 5, and you know that 1 m/s * 5 sec = 5m. Graphically, the area under V from t0 to t5 is 1x5 which also = 5.
If velocity as a function is equal to 2t, that means that it's 0 at t0, 2 m/s at 1 sec, 4 m/s at 2 sec, etc. So the object is getting faster, which means during each second it moves more than in the previous second. Intuitively the displacement (height) should increase each second. In other words, it would look like a triangle, exactly the shape under the V graph. | [
"Now remember that the velocity function is simply the derivative of the position function. So what we have really shown is that integrating the velocity simply recovers the original position function. This is the basic idea of the theorem: that \"integration\" and \"differentiation\" are closely related operations... |
how exactly is a person's phenotype determined? does every gene in our dna influence our phenotype? | So to start, there are dominant and recessive genes. You have two sets of every gene (one from each parent), so when one is dominant and the other recessive, the recessive gene isn't contributing anything (in reality this can be a bit more complicated).
Then there's "non-coding" DNA, sometimes called "junk DNA". There's plenty of ways bits if DNA get into the genome. Viruses, mutations, etc. can all introduce random chunks of DNA with no biological activity. So this will also qualify. It's pretty unclear how much of human DNA is non-coding, but the upper limit of estimates is about 20%.
There are genes and traits associated with ethnicities, but it is important to be careful when talking about your DNA being a certain percentage Irish or something else. Genetic information codes for certain attributes, and certain regions have higher rates of those attributes. Scotland, for example, had a much much higher percentage of people with red hair than Mongolia. There are also trends in non-coding DNA, where certain random and mutations are more common in certain regions because someone got them and passed them along. This can also happen in functional DNA, as there are multiple ways for DNA to code for the same thing. But again, all of these things are correlations, so having a certain sequence of DNA means your ancestors are more likely to be from a certain region. There's certainly questions about the reliability of these markers. For one, theyre really only reliable if a population lived in an area for a very long time with little intermingling with other populations. | [
"A phenotype is the \"outward, physical manifestation\" of an organism.\" For humans, phenotypic differences are most readily seen via skin color, eye color, hair color, or height; however, any observable structure, function, or behavior can be considered part of a phenotype. A genotype is the \"internally coded, i... |
how do laser range finders work? wouldn't the laser bounce away when it hits the target? | if there is a visible dot on the surface, than atleast *some* of that light is being reflected back at you.
doesnt even need to be visible to you, as the device is going to be far more sensitive. | [
"The laser range finder only detects the distance of one point in its direction of view. Thus, the scanner scans its entire field of view one point at a time by changing the range finder's direction of view to scan different points. The view direction of the laser range finder can be changed either by rotating the ... |
The Anglican Church: Ancient Institution or Created by Henry VIII? | Not to any greater a degree than in other regions of Europe. The church in England, in all its guises, has possessed national character, expressed through saints' lives, relics, and architecture. In terms of a church hierarchy the Pope was the official ruler of the English church right up until Henry VIII said he wasn't. That's not to say, however, that there weren't struggles over power and authority between church and state. The murder of Thomas Beckett, for instance (allegedly on the orders or wishes of Henry II) resulted in a struggle between Henry and Pope Alexander III which resulted in Henry II doing public penance -- a humiliating act for a king. Despite the pope's official role as head of the church, there was plenty of contention over who got to wield the real authority throughout the middle ages. This was not unique to England by any means. Henry IV (of the Holy Roman Empire) also interfered in church governance, claiming the right to invest bishops and abbots. His penance was at least as humiliating as Henry II's -- he had to walk barefoot through the snow in a hair shirt.
I'm not sure what scholar you're referring to in your question, but the separate foundation of England in the early middle ages strikes me as revisionist as well. The standard narrative of the christianization of Britain begins with Pope Gregory the Great sending missionaries to evangelize the Anglo-Saxons. Gregory's orders were to not destroy the pagan holy sites but instead to sanctify them. Now we know that there were Christians in Britain before Gregory sent his missionaries. St. Patrick, for instance, was the son and grandson of a deacon and a priest in England around the early 5th century. But Gregory's mission, along with the arrival of Irish missionaries in the 6th century, began the process of converting the kings and leaders.
If one were to argue that the English church was founded independently, I'm hard-pressed to understand where and when the missionaries would have arrived. Again, not knowing which scholars you're referring to, I'm only guessing, but perhaps they would argue that the process of christianization happened under the Romans? That's true to an extent. Christianity did trickle into Roman Britain through merchants, soldiers, etc. But saying that there were Christians in Britain is very different from saying that a Church was founded, and that may be where the confusion arose.
One more thing with regard specifically to doctrine: the Pelagian heresy, which emphasizes human free will rather than original sin, started with the British monk Pelagius around the same time as Patrick. Not an auspicious claim to fame. | [
"Today, the Church of England is the established church in England. It regards itself as in continuity with the pre-Reformation state Catholic church (something the Roman Catholic Church does not accept) and has been a distinct Anglican church since the settlement under Elizabeth I of England (with some disruption ... |
Whats stopping us from using H2O electrolysis as energy storage for solar arrays? | People have been talking about the "Hydrogen Economy" since the 70s, but there are some significant issues that have plagued it, although a lot of smart people are working on the problems.
The first is how to store the hydrogen. First off, it is extremely flammable (think Hindenburg), and while the gas by weight is very energy dense, it is not very energy dense by *volume*. To make matters worse, because it is so small, it can escape many containers, and even [diffuse into steel or other metals making them brittle.](_URL_0_) This last issue can be avoided by expensive coatings that are already in use for natural gas pipelines.
Most attention has been put into the energy density by volume issue. These include high pressure hydrogen (bad because pressurization is expensive, as well as needing heavy, embrittlement-proof tanks), liquid hydrogen (bad because it is a cryogenic liquid @ ~20 K, again expensive to condense), storage as a metal hydride (reversible, but needs high pressures and temperatures), and probably most promisingly, adsorption on to other materials.
These adsorption materials are porous in specific manners, which could potentially store molecular hydrogen at high density without extreme conditions. These can be natural rocks such as zeolites, or complex synthetic [metal-organic frameworks](_URL_1_). A lot of current research still requires very low temperature conditions again.
Perhaps the real kicker is the energy efficiency. Electrolysis of water is only about 70% efficient, and a modern fuel cell has an efficiency of only ~40%. Compared to the nearly 90% efficiency that Li-ion batteries have from grid to application, hydrogen doesn't look so great. | [
"Even with HTE, electrolysis is a fairly inefficient way to store energy. Significant conversion losses of energy occur both in the electrolysis process, and in the conversion of the resulting hydrogen back into power.\n",
"This temporarily excess electric energy could alternatively be used in electrolysis of wat... |
how did people who found other people who speak a previously unknown language translate it to the point of perfection? | The same way children who previously don't know any language learn it to perfection: someone learns the unknown language. As soon as you've got a few people that can translate, the accuracy of it snowballs. | [
"Zamenhof's goal to \"enable the learner to make direct use of his knowledge with persons of any nationality, whether the language be universally accepted or not\", as he wrote in 1887, has been achieved, as the language is currently spoken by people living in more than 100 countries.\n",
"Kyle Brown, one of the ... |
What happened to General Montgomery after Operation: Market Garden failed? | tl;dr - Almost nothing changed in Montgomery's situation, he continued in command of the 21st Army Group which included most (all?) of the Commonwealth combat divisions, and several US units, until the end of the war.
For a while since the invasion of Normandy Montgomery had been pressing for Eisenhower to appoint a single commander for the ground troops in NW Europe. Naturally his intent that this commander would be himself. Remember that Montgomery was the ground forces commander for Operation Overlord, having command over Bradley and US 1st Army, until the command structure was changed in July 1944. He also wanted all the allies effort focused on a single push into Germany. Again his intent was he would command this push. Eisenhower resisted these suggestions, not least because the US was already providing the bulk of the armed forces in Europe, but found it difficult to argue against Montgomery's charisma and experience.
Following Market Garden, Montgomery continued to argue for a single commander and a single push but the over-worked Eisenhower was now determined to stick to the plan of advancing on multiple fronts. The relationship between the two became further strained and Montgomery wrote an ill-advised letter to Eisenhower which almost cost him his job in October. Eisenhower was forced to give Montgomery a direct order to open him the port of Antwerp to shipping in order to relieve the Allies logistics problems.
When the Germans launched their winter offensive (The Battle of the Bulge) on December 16th 1944 they quickly drove a wedge between the US 1st and 9th Armies on the north side of the bulge and the rest of the US 12th Army (see 1 below). Bradley's HQ was south of the Bulge and in order to simplify communications control of those Armies was temporarily transferred to Montgomery. Following the reduction of the pocket control was returned to Bradley, but the US commanders did not appreciate the interference and liked even less Montgomery's implication to the press that he alone had saved the Americans.
However, Montgomery's reputation in the UK was such that it was pretty much unaffected by the failure of Market Garden. After the war he commanded the British forces occupying Northern Germany, which became the British Army Of the Rhine (BAOR), was appointed as Chief of the Imperial General Staff and also served as Deputy Supreme Commander of NATO.
Some other points:
1. Montgomery was just one of three ground forces commanders under Eisenhower from August 1944 to the end of the war in Europe. The other two were Bradley, commanding the 12th US Army Group and Gen Jacob Devers, commanding the 6th Army Group^*. Patton commanded the 3rd US Army under Bradley (mostly).
2. Although Market Garden failed to achieve its ultimate goal of seizing the Arnhem bridge, the ground that was taken during the operation was crucial as a jumping off point when the offensive resumed in early 1945.
3. Patton would not have been appointed to command the 21st Army Group which, as noted, was largely composed of Commonwealth troops. Such a move would have been politically impossible.
principle source : Rick Atkinson, *The Guns at Last Light*
^* Devers command responsibilities were very complex and fluid and well outside the scope of this question. | [
"Montgomery's plan for Operation Market Garden (17–25 September 1944) was to outflank the Siegfried Line and cross the Rhine, setting the stage for later offensives into the Ruhr region. The 21st Army Group would attack north from Belgium, through the Netherlands, across the Rhine and consolidate north of Arnhem on... |
Are there any good online sources on the Opium Wars? | It is difficult to prove a negative, but from my experience the answer is 'basically no, unless you count output on this subreddit.' While academic consensus on the Opium War has swung decisively in the revisionist direction, most online articles continue to exaggerate the impact of the war and fail to cover the Chinese side in any significant depth. Going back to the paper medium, there are a couple of recent books intended for a wide audience – Julia Lovell's *The Opium War* and Stephen Platt's *Imperial Twilight* especially – which should be relatively accessible and not prohibitively expensive. If, however, you are insistent on the content being free and online, my answers on Opium War topics can be found [here](_URL_0_) and my rebuttal to Extra Credits' Opium War video series [here](_URL_1_). | [
"Inglis wrote about war over the opium trade in his book \"The Opium War\" (1976). Donald Gould gave the book a positive review describing it as a fascinating account. However, the historian John Fairbank concluded the book offered nothing new and covered less detail than other writers on the subject such as Peter ... |
How were the Persians able to field so vast armies? And what are the logistics behind such a monumental effort. | Hi! You might be interested in [this post](_URL_0_) I wrote recently about the Persian army numbers you find in sources like Herodotos and Xenophon. In short, these numbers are not reliable historic facts, but estimates that were meant to look plausible enough not to undermine Greek authors' credibility. They probably reflect the Greeks' (pretty ill-informed) estimates of the full manpower potential of the Persian empire, not the size of actual field armies. We are fairly certain that the numbers we get (such as Xerxes' army of 2.6 million in 480 BC, or Artaxerxes II's 1.2 million men at Kounaxa in 401 BC) are impossibly large; the logistical challenges would be far too great.
That said, it's certain that the Persians would have been able to field larger armies than their Greek enemies; modern scholars' estimates for their largest armies tend to range between 60,000 and 150,000. These numbers are entirely plausible given the vast manpower reserves of the Achaemenid Persian empire. This was the largest empire that had ever existed. It covered some of the world's most densely populated areas, such as Egypt, Phoenicia and Mesopotamia. Even if they required each of their satrapies (administrative districts) to supply only a modest number of men, their royal armies would soon reach a vast total. To these levies and locally raised mercenaries the Persians would add their own standing forces: the king's royal bodyguard of 10,000 infantry, and the Persian cavalry raised from estates across the empire.
The logistical challenges of fielding such forces were immense. Every man and horse needed food and drink; food and equipment needed to be carried either by humans or by pack animals, each of which needed food and drink as well. Armies tended to march with large throngs of merchants, craftsmen, engineers, cooks, guides, servants, entertainers and sex workers in tow. The Persian king travelled with an enormous entourage of courtiers, councillors, concubines and companions. Moving all these people required careful organisation and a tremendous amount of resources. It was practically impossible for an army to carry its own supplies for more than a few days' marching.
Herodotos describes the two ways in which the Persians solved these problems. The first was to "call ahead", so to speak, and order the assembly of supply dumps along the route where the army was to march. In friendly territory this was easily done using local food and fodder surplus. It was more than the Greeks themselves ever managed in logistical terms, though, and provoked some admiration in the Greek historian. Greek practice was typically to rely on local markets, and the Spartan king Agesilaos was praised for the simple expedient of having such markets arranged in advance to ensure a supply of food would be available for his men to buy.
The second solution was simply to requisition supplies from the territories the Persians were moving through. Herodotos reports a Persian practice, also attested elsewhere, to subject these territories to a special tax called the King's Dinner. This meant in theory that a particular city or region would have the honour of setting up a banquet for the king, but in practice that the area's food stores would be used up to feed and entertain the Persian army and allow the king to engage in royal generosity towards his loyal followers. Herodotos tells us that the island of Thasos was made to supply the King's Dinner at a cost of 400 silver talents (about 8,000 years' worth of wages for a skilled worker). Where no supply dumps were set up, then, the Great King simply solved his logistical problems by squeezing his subjects for everything they had. | [
"At the beginning of the invasion, it is clear that the Persians held most advantages. Regardless of its actual size, it is clear that the Persians had brought an overwhelming number of troops and ships to Greece. The Persians had a unified command system, and everyone was answerable to the king. They had a hugely ... |
Is there a reason that the letters towards the end of the western alphabet (the last five in particular) are less frequently used than the others? | keep in mind that they are less frequently used *in english*. spanish uses y and z quite a bit. french uses x all the time. italian also uses z a lot. so while they might not be common letters in english, they are common in other languages | [
"By the 1920s and 1930s, letters were being rapidly constructed across the West. Although the pace has slowed since then, newly constructed letters continue to appear today. Meanwhile, many letters are fading due to lack of maintenance (especially in cases where the school that created the letter has closed), or ha... |
what are the us voting for today? | Congress gets voted in more often. The House of Representatives(like your House of Commons) gets completely re-voted every two years, so they're all up for election, and the Senate(vaguely similar to an elected House of Lords) is on staggered 6-year terms, so 1/3 of them are up for election. Also, there's a lot of state and municipal elections and referendums that get bundled into it, including 36 of the 50 state governors. | [
"BULLET::::- November 29 – In a statement, President Clinton says \"the United States House of Representatives cast an historic vote for American workers, farmers, and families\" that night demonstrating \"our confidence in America's ability to compete and win in the global economy.\"\n",
"\"How to Vote in Every ... |
expiration dates for painkillers (details inside) | You are looking at date Filled vs date expired. Not date manufactured vs date expired. These drugs are created in large quantities but that doesnt mean they all get distributed at the same time. So the ones you got in 2013 and the ones you got in 2015 could have all been made in 2013. Drugs do expire. | [
"If ricin is ingested, symptoms may be delayed by up to 36 hours but commonly begin within 2–4 hours. These include a burning sensation in mouth and throat, abdominal pain, purging and bloody diarrhea. Within several days there is severe dehydration, a drop in blood pressure and a decrease in urine. Unless treated,... |
To what extent is modern US law derived from Roman law? | Louisiana has a system of civil law, unlike the common law in the rest of the United States. It's codes are derived from French and Spanish law as opposed to English law. | [
"Roman law is the legal system of ancient Rome, including the legal developments spanning over a thousand years of jurisprudence, from the Twelve Tables (c. 449 BC), to the \"Corpus Juris Civilis\" (AD 529) ordered by Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian I. Roman law forms the basic framework for civil law, the most wid... |
why do we say "on the plane", "on the train", but "in the car"? | I thought it was because you can walk around ON a train and plane, but you can't really walk around IN your car. On is for platforms. | [
"It is called a train because the cars follow one another around the track, the same reason as for a railroad train. Individual cars vary in design and can carry from one to eight or more passengers each.\n",
"In Japan, railway directions are referred to as and , and these terms are widely employed in timetables ... |
Light splits in all colors, so is light just a ray of photons with different colors? | Yes. You can think of sunlight for example as a very large stream of photons of a variety of colors (wavelengths). For sunlight, the distribution looks like [this](_URL_0_). | [
"Light from many different sources contains various colors, each with its own brightness or intensity. A rainbow, or prism, sends these component colors in different directions, making them individually visible at different angles. A graph of the intensity plotted against the frequency (showing the brightness of ea... |
How did the free peasant republic in Dithmarschen in the 15th and 16th centuries actually function? | I've basically covered this on a podcast, so let me start with that.
Your answer is in this episode:
_URL_0_
That show was actually about the region south of Dithmarschen. But the cause of their freedom was the same:
It's swampy and tough economics there. There were NOT actually independent on paper. They were under the Bremen Archbishop, for example. But since that was tough to enforce, and the people so poor that they were all basically egalitarian and helped each other -- no nobility formed. Just like in East Frisia.
Added to that, it was a buffer state between Denmark and the German empire. So, just weak jurisdiction to begin with. Far away and usually not worth the trouble.
The Franks (Charlemagne) just gave up on the region after holding it for 20 years.
Technically there were under Hamburg (church-wise) ..but probably barely even knew that (in the 11the century control was just nominal on paper, really).
What you are referring to is the same that happened in other remote, coastal areas. They eventually founded a "Bauernrepublik" or Farmers (Peasant's) Republik. Meaning they elected 48 judges to run things.... which... just like in East Frisia, eventually started to come from fewer and fewer families, and the judges dynastic families became the de facto nobility.
The local "militia" were good at fighting in the Watt. They could even just open the dikes and flood the enemy.
Don't underestimate the border factor though.. Even in the 19th century they were still kinda part of the Danish crown, and part of Bismark's Prussia, until wars were fought. But just the fact that they weren't clearly and directly ruled gave them a lot of freedom. Only 1866 was it really, finally, officially part of Germany (Schlesswig Holstein Prussia).
Sorry about the lack of sources. I can update this later.
| [
"In 1653, peasants of territories subject to Lucerne, Bern, Solothurn, and Basel revolted because of currency devaluation. Although the authorities prevailed in this Swiss peasant war, they did pass some tax reforms and the incident in the long term prevented an absolutist development as would occur at some other c... |
Catharism was a militant heresy that gained strong support in Southern France in the 13th century before being suppressed in the two decade Albigensian Crusade. Two or three centuries later, Southern France again became a bastion of militant religious heresy with French Huguenots. Any connection? | I've asked a few questions about Cathars on this sub, and it seems that a lot of historians question whether the Cathars even existed at all.
You might want to look at this answer about Cathars from u/sunagainstgold
_URL_0_
| [
"12th-century France witnessed the growth of Catharism in Languedoc. It was in connection with the struggle against this heresy that the Inquisition originated. After the Cathars were accused of murdering a papal legate in 1208, Pope Innocent III declared the Albigensian Crusade. Abuses committed during the crusade... |
why is the tachometer (rpm counter) so large in a car's dashboard (as large as the speed dial)? how is the information useful to the average driver? | Great if you drive a manual. Tells you if your revs are too high and you need to shift up, or too low and you need to shift down. No idea why you'd want one on an automatic. | [
"A tachometer (revolution-counter, tach, rev-counter, RPM gauge) is an instrument measuring the rotation speed of a shaft or disk, as in a motor or other machine. The device usually displays the revolutions per minute (RPM) on a calibrated analogue dial, but digital displays are increasingly common. \n",
"The ele... |
Would you hear an explosion in space from Earth/Endor? | You might hear a sonic boom from very large piece of it entering the atmosphere near your location - but the sound of the blast itself would not be heard as the vacuum of space prevents sound transmission | [
"Astronomer Philip Plait has described the explosion and resultant shock wave as \"the most dramatic effect ever filmed\", but states that in reality it would be more likely for the explosion seen in \"Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country\" to generate a spherical shock wave. He finds the effect to be more plausi... |
Were there any universally agreed upon "rules of engagement" for hand-to-hand combat in pre-firearm era battles? | > I know some of the bloodiest combat happened after formations broke
The bloodiest combat would happen after the formation of *one side* broke, and almost all of the blood would come from them.
> but were there rules to how you fought with the enemy, i.e. one-on-one.
Don't do it because it's stupid and suicidal?
The most basic, fundamental rule that governs battles before the gunpowder era (and it's mostly true of later eras too) is that if you have two friends around you and the guy you are facing doesn't, he is going to die and you are going to live. Because of this, almost everything about fighting is about how to ensure that you can maintain the safety of a formation.
Hollywood movies often show battles as first having organized lines which then break down into a disorganized general melee. This is completely wrong, and would never happen. The moment your line fails, you don't continue fighting the enemy, you either do everything in your power to rally our friends and form a new line, or you flee the field. Because your enemy is certainly going to try to rebuild his line, and the moment they succeed, they will completely roll over you.
| [
"Duels were common in much of South America during the 20th century, although generally illegal. In Argentina, during the 18th and 19th century, it was common for \"gauchos\"—cowboys—to resolve their disputes in a fight using working knives called \"facones\". After the turn of the 19th century, when repeating hand... |
how does the brain create brand new words? | Creativity. You could have merged together "rustles" with "cramp" or just added a c to the beginning because it was amusing to 8 year old you. Or you just randomly thought of it and it stuck.
For an example not involving language, imagine a purple creature the size of a chihuahua with a handlebar mustache and monocle. Chances are, you can picture this thing that does not actually exist in real life. Why did I choose these specific features? Because I was actively trying to be random and then when I added the handlebar mustache my brain associated the monocle with it so I added that too. | [
"In order to create a new word, the speaker first selects one or two physically and psychologically salient aspects. The search for the motivations (iconemes) is based on one or several cognitive-associative relations. These relations are:\n",
"When a person produces a word, they are essentially turning their tho... |
modern militia purposes? | The are a remnant of an earlier time. The truth is they aren't all that important, but many states feel strongly about maintaining their right to have one (Which is the true point of the 2nd Amendment).
In theory, in the event of an invasion or the like they would join the fight. The thing is, that is also what the National Guard and the regular military is for. | [
"The idea of a militia, or body of citizen Soldiers as distinct from career soldiers, was borrowed from England and dates in this country from 1636, when three militia regiments were organized for the common defense in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Militia companies were eventually organized throughout colonial Ame... |
In theory and practice, how did the fascism of Italy and Austria differ from the fascism of Nazi Germany? | Italian Fascism was a hybrid ideology in practice: it drew elements from socialism (state interventions in economy, an emphasis on welfare policies like public housing schemes, state sanctioned free time activities), liberalism (a tendency to favor industrial and financial interests), totalitarian measures (heavy handed propaganda, total elimination of academic freedom, widespread delation, violent opposition to dissenters) "old school" nationalism/traditionalism (militarism, close ties with the Catholic Church, obsequious - if insincere - deference to the monarchy).
This was just a result of the complex web of political counterweights Mussolini had to move in as a politician. He had many feet in one shoe, having to appease the King, the Pope, the Catholic working masses, the wealthy, the army.
Hitler, on the other hand, had a very tense relationship with the religious establishment. He did, however, rule a nation where antisemitism was relatively widespread and historically present - maybe not the raving, all-encompassing hate for Jews he and his cronies adopted, but prevalent enough.
Italians were never that antisemitic, culturally, so Mussolini's platform reflected that.
| [
"Italian Fascism was expansionist in its desires, looking to create a New Roman Empire. Nazi Germany was even more aggressive in expanding its borders in violation of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles. The Nazis murdered the Austrofascist dictator Dollfuss, causing an uneasy relationship in Austria between fascism and ... |
why and how do electronic devices draw only as much current from a power source as required in that very moment? | Everything draws only as much as it needs.
Electricity flows a little like water, for ELI5. You open the radio a little when you need just a little, or all the way when you want a lot.
Your television, to pick one, draws just a little power while it waits for you to turn it on. Then when it's on, it draws more to turn on the lights, change the sounds and so on.
More specifically, like water, the ability to take as much as it wants (up to what's available) is always there. When parts of the electronics are used, and they need more, they take more. Different circuits close, allowing there electrons to flow, and more electricity gets used. | [
"Active devices of an electronic system (transistors, ICs, vacuum tubes, for example) are connected to their power supplies through conductors with finite resistance and inductance. If the current drawn by an active device changes, voltage drops from power supply to device will also change due to these impedances. ... |
Is vaporizing really healthier than smoking? | "Less detrimental to health" is likely to be the best ruling you'll get on this, and Boston University Medical Center's study seems to support this position. Here is the relevant quote from the physorg article regarding the research:
> "Few, if any, chemicals at levels detected in electronic cigarettes raise serious health concerns," the authors said. "Although the existing research does not warrant a conclusion that electronic cigarettes are safe in absolute terms and further clinical studies are needed to comprehensively assess the safety of electronic cigarettes, a preponderance of the available evidence shows them to be much safer than tobacco cigarettes and comparable in toxicity to conventional nicotine replacement products."
> The report reviewed 16 laboratory studies that identified the components in electronic cigarette liquid and vapor. The authors found that carcinogen levels in electronic cigarettes are up to 1,000 times lower than in tobacco cigarettes.
_URL_0_ | [
"Repeated exposure over a long time to e-cigarette vapor poses substantial potential risk. Although companies state that e-cigarettes are safe, there is no scientific evidence to support this view. Long-term data showing that vaping is a \"healthier alternative\" than cigarette smoking does not exist. There is litt... |
Light travels so fast that, for all intents and purposes, it's either there or it's not. So what am I seeing when I turn a light off and slowly watch the bulb or housing dim and glow faintly in the dark? | If this is a lamp you "burn"; one with a filament or an arc-lamp. These work by heating an excitable gas inside the bulb, that gas releases light. That gas and filament are pretty hot, and don't cool instantly, just because you've turn the power off.
I've seen this with CFLs and other Florescent lamps as well, the issue being basically the same principle.
This can also result from faulty wiring, in that "off" on the switch isn't actually breaking the circuit, that's a hazard. | [
"Some witnesses describe the light as appearing to approach them several times before retreating. Others report that the lights were able to keep pace with them when they were in a moving motor vehicle.\n",
"\"Where His Light Was\" comes from the perspective of when you're walking through a hard time, it feels da... |
How does Gesture Recognition work? (Computing) | There's a lot of techniques for this, and it's an active research area in man-machine interaction and artificial intelligence. If all you have to do is write an introductory section, look up some survey or review papers on the field. [This](_URL_1_) ([PDF](_URL_2_)) is a good one, as is [this one](_URL_0_) ([PDF](_URL_3_)). Be advised that most algorithms aren't exactly trivial, and involve some knowledge of AI; nonetheless, those papers should be enough to get you started. | [
"Gesture recognition is a topic in computer science and language technology with the goal of interpreting human gestures via mathematical algorithms. Gestures can originate from any bodily motion or state but commonly originate from the face or hand. Current focuses in the field include emotion recognition from fac... |
how significant was finding the rosetta stone? | From an archaeological and histological perspective, massively significant. Before the discovery of the Rosetta Stone we were unable to decipher hieroglyphics from ancient Egypt. The Rosetta Stone had 3 blocks of characters on it, the top was Egyptian Hieroglyphics, the middle was Demotic script and the bottom was Ancient Greek. They all said the same thing.
Because we already knew and understood Ancient Greek it allowed us to translate the Hieroglyphics. With this knowledge we were then able to learn what Hieroglyphics meant and unlocked all the texts written in tombs and monuments and all that jazz.
| [
"An 1803 article on the Rosetta Stone was amongst the earliest published research. The first detailed account of the medieval French Royal Gold Cup in the British Museum was published in one of the last papers, of 1904, by Sir Charles Hercules Read.\n",
"Jean-François Champollion uses the Rosetta Stone to unlock ... |
how were cameras allowed inside of concentration camps? | Well the Nazi's documented and kept thourough records of the concentration camps. plus the vast amounts of scientific literature garnered from the medical experiments performed on prisoners has proven very usefull in modern medicine | [
"\"Nuit et Brouillard\" (\"Night and Fog\", 1956) was one of the first documentaries about the Nazi concentration camps, but it deals more with the memory of the camps than with their actual past existence. Realising that standard documentary techniques would be incapable of confronting the enormity of the horror (... |
how does the price of the dollar affect the economy of foreign countries? | If the price of the dollar (exchange rate) is low, it means that countries with a different currency can buy the same US products for less money. Example: company A sells 100 products for 100 USD to a foreign company B. Now the exchange rate falls and 100 products now cost 95 dollars. This might look not great for company A, but now company C would also like the cheaper products. Therefore a lower exchange rate makes US products more compatible with foreign products. US firms will probably have more orders and exports.
This is one reason why Germany is fairly interested in keeping the Euro low, since it "boosts" exports. (Not the best for the Euro area as a whole, since most countries import a lot) | [
"The shift toward a more pluralistic distribution of economic power led to increasing dissatisfaction with the privileged role of the U.S. dollar as the international currency. As in effect the world's central banker, the U.S., through its deficit, determined the level of international liquidity. In an increasingly... |
what stops the bones in your foot from ripping through your flesh and skin with all the pressure from walking and running? | The bones aren't that sharp and your skin isn't that weak. That's really the long and short of it. | [
"Arthritis-related problems include pain, stiffness, inflammation and damage to joint cartilage (the tissue that covers the ends of bones, enabling them to move against each another) and surrounding structures. This can result in joint weakness, instability and deformities that can interfere with the most basic dai... |
on reddit, why are links to youtube, sometimes written as "_url_0_" (dot after u, before b), next to the title | Because that's what youtube gives you when you click the "link" option from the "share" box. It's designed to save a few extra letters for stuff like twitter where that matters. | [
"BULLET::::- Linking: Redlinks (Wikipedia links for which no article yet exists) link to the \"edit\" page, instead of the default \"Google search term\". By default, anonymous article creation is not allowed.\n",
"Assume that an urn contains two red balls and one green ball. One ball was drawn yesterday, one bal... |
Did the Persians really have massive casualties at the battle of Thermopylae? | They suffered heavy casualties *but* that's relative to the losses incurred by a winning side. The thing with ancient and medieval battles is that the majority of losses in a battle were suffered by losers when they routed - the winners could cut them down as they fled. The actual losses on the winners side (losses suffered from the actual hand-to-hand fighting) tended to be low, a fraction of the losers.
So take Herodotus' accounts of Persians being driven on by whips and dying by the score on the end of Greek spears with a massive boulder of salt. There's a lot of Greek tropes present and modern scholars don't believe this is what happened. So the Persians did suffer heavily for a battle that they still won, not Pyrrhic levels but significant.
Also ignore the visuals you usually see of ancient/medieval combat where two sides just smash into each other in a confused melee. We don't know how combat worked but we know it wasn't like that. The current model has the two sides fighting hard for a few minutes then pulling back a safe distance to catch their breath and psych themselves up for the next bout. Rinse and repeat. If the Greeks could rotate their forces (and presumably the Persians with their large army could do the same) they'd keep their forces fresh. Losses in this phase would be low as most would be fighting defensively (e.g. trying not to be hit more than trying to score a hit). Only the most motivated badass/hardcore soldiers would have the nerve to 100% commit to offensive fighting.
Lastly remember that it was a combined Greek army that fought at Thermopylae and that they rotated contingents so all the Greeks present fought at some time. The final stand was by the Spartans **and** the Thespians. Supposedly the Thebans were also forced to stay behind but surrendered immediately - not sure how accurate that part was, Athens and Thebes did have a rivalry. Furthermore the Helots (Spartan serfs who were traditionally treated atrociously) who accompanied the Spartiates almost certainly died alongside them. | [
"During the second Persian invasion of Greece, after great losses at the Battle of Thermopylae and the Battle of Artemisium, the Greeks once again brought the Persians to blows in the Battle of Salamis in the year 480 BC. The Greek fleet numbered 378 triremes while the Persian may have numbered more than four times... |
physical nature of genes. | Genes are separated from each other by non-coding regions on chromosomes. In fact, the majority of the DNA in humans is never expressed as a protein product, and we're not entirely sure what a lot of it is for.
I talked about the structure of DNA in the reply to the above poster,
adding on to that, every three DNA nucleotides forms a codon - there are special "Start" and "Stop" codons - the START signal is basically a complex that is designed to attach to the DNA replication machinery in your cells. It will keep reading down the line and producing a mirror image copy of everything it reads until it reaches a "Stop" codon. | [
"Genes have other attributes beside biological function, chemical properties and cellular location. One can compose sets of genes based on proximity to other genes, association with a disease, and relationships with drugs or toxins. The Molecular Signatures Database and the Comparative Toxicogenomics Database are e... |
Clothing in Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic Greece | Clothes in ancient Greece are basically just a variety of rectangles. The most basic garment is a chiton and that is essentially piece of cloth folded around the body in a U shape. The opening fell on one side of the body, under the arm. The garment is then pinned on the shoulder and tied at the waist. If you're really fancy, it might be sewn up on the open side or at the shoulders. Sometimes (especially for women), the garment would be wide enough to make sleeves by sewing/pinning at points along the arm.
The basic cloak is the himation, again just a giant rectangle of cloth (though usually a wool rather than linen) which men usually wore something like a toga, while women would often drape over their heads.
Now to get on to some of these other questions:
for labor or sport a man would either wear a shorter chiton or gird the extra material up into his belt, female huntresses (more myth than reality, though likely there were women who had to do physical labor) also dress like this. Hunters might also wear animal pelts tied around their shoulders or at their belts.
Soldiers wear a distinct short cloak pinned on one shoulder called a chlamys (yes, like chlamydia), a traveler might also wear this as well as a wide-brimmed felt hat called a petasos and might carry a walking stick. Tall, knobby walking sticks appear to be a general affectation of aristocratic city boys as well.
A woman, particularly a higher class one, might wear a peplos, which is essentially the same thing as a chiton, just the top is folded over, creating a kind of ruffle that fell to the waist.
Clothes were expensive, so the wealthy had more clothes, more layers, thicker cloths, and more ornament. There's a little uncertainty over use of dyes and the ones they had were likely not very strong, but art suggests that the wealthy probably wore clothes with woven patterns on the edges. The poor would own less clothes and less ornate and shorter. Young children were probably only dressed as much as the weather demanded. Slaves also probably owned little or no clothing depending on what their work required.
If you're looking for some visuals, I would recommend taking a look at some images on ancient pottery (a lot of museums have pictures of their collection online), some of these tend to the less realistic end of the scale (eg, foreigners wearing animals skin and (!) pants, theatrical costumes idealized naked youths), but they can give you a good idea without the interference of modern aesthetics. | [
"Clothing in ancient Greece primarily consisted of the chiton, peplos, himation, and chlamys. Ancient Greek men and women typically wore two pieces of clothing draped about the body: an undergarment (chiton or peplos) and a cloak (himation or chlamys). Ancient Greek clothing was mainly based on necessity, function,... |
How did amber encapsulations happen? | It probably landed on this poor guy or he fell into it. The weight of the Amber is irrelevant, once it's encapsulated the antenna have plenty of time to spring back before the Amber hardens. Bugs die of oxygen deprevation relatively quickly. Amber is not this pretty in nature, this was almost definitely cut/polished to show this little dude off. | [
"Amber is heterogeneous in composition, but consists of several resinous bodies more or less soluble in alcohol, ether and chloroform, associated with an insoluble bituminous substance. Amber is a macromolecule by free radical polymerization of several precursors in the labdane family, e.g. communic acid, cummunol,... |
if 52*7 is 364 where do we get our extra day to make a 365 day calendar year? | There are 52 FULL weeks in a year, and 365 FULL days. Those extra fractions make the extra day each year and the extra day every four years. | [
"There are 365.2422 solar days in the mean tropical year. Several solar calendars have a year containing 365 days. Related to this, in Ontario, the driver's license learner's permit used to be called \"365\" because it was valid for only 366 days. Financial and scientific calculations often use a 365-day calendar t... |
Can something be genetically modified "on the fly" and see results in a (relatively) short period of time or is that something that has to be done before birth? | You can't just re-engineer a somatic cell (non-sex cell) and expect to see changes in the whole body just because of that one change (all of its daughter cells will be different, but only them). You can re-engineer somatic cells with a virus (a.... retrovirus?) which actually changes the DNA of a cell and then moves on to a new cell and keeps going and going.
Otherwise it would be much easier to re-engineer a zygote, that way the changes will affect the whole body. But, there are issues with that as well. Any changes made will be passed on to that person's offspring, regardless if they would want it or not.
A merging of these two techniques would be something like: grabbing the already-determined, somatic cell in an embryo and changin that. Though I'm not too sure of the pros/cons of that. | [
"Opponents argue that the long-term effects of releasing millions of GM-flies are impossible to predict. Dead fly larvae could be left inside crops. Helen Wallace from Genewatch, an organisation that monitors the use of genetic technology, stated \"Fruit grown using Oxitec's GM flies will be contaminated with GM ma... |
How can I make water boil faster? | If you aren't already doing this, putting a lid on the pot brings water to boil much more quickly. The salt question is addressed [here](_URL_0_), essentially it's equivalent to boiling a smaller quantity of water (so you might as well just make your noodles in a smaller amount of water, skipping the salt.) | [
"BULLET::::1. Boiling: Bringing water to its boiling point (about 100 °C or 212 F at sea level), is the oldest and most effective way since it eliminates most microbes causing intestine related diseases, but it cannot remove chemical toxins or impurities. For human health, complete sterilization of water is not req... |
how to legitimately change your last name? | I just recently did this! I can't tell you about maybe something weird in your county, but you go to your county of residence. It was super easy. I filled out forms and showed up on the date and time that they have open for name changes. The judge asked why I wanted to change it, I just said I preferred my mother's maiden name, and it was done. It was about $120 I think, and that included three signed and sealed court orders. You'll need those to change your name on your credit cards/bank accounts/drivers license/etc.
They don't really care that you're doing it or anything, you just swear under oath you're not trying to run from anything (like debts) and you're good. I did it in Snohomish County in WA, if you happen to be from there. :) | [
"A woman who had changed her last name to one that was not her husband's original surname was trying to claim control over her inheritance. The court ruled in her favor, \"At common law a man may change his name, and he is bound by any contract into which he may enter in his adopted or reputed name, and by his know... |
Would there ever be a way to dissolve plaque without damaging teeth? | Not quite, dental plaque is a biofilm formed by bacteria, not a crystal. Certainly not made of enamel. As for alternative methods to remove it, I'm not in the field, so I not sure what's available. | [
"Plaque is a soft yellow-grayish substance that adheres to the tooth surfaces including removable and fixed restorations. It is an organised biofilm that is primarily composed of bacteria in a matrix of glycoproteins and extracellular polysaccharides. This matrix makes it impossible to remove the plaque by rinsing ... |
Did medieval armies have NCO's or something like a centurian to help lead troops into battle? | Yes. Here is an earlier [post I did specifically on the ranks of the Eastern Roman Empire (c. 1000).](_URL_0_)
> Well obviously there is wide latitude in ranks as there are any number of Armies from that era. I'll use one that I have a book handy for as an example.
>
> For the Byzantine/Eastern Roman Empire circa turn of the millenium, the basic unit was the bandon, which is roughly similar to a company in modern military terms.
>
> The bandons were commanded by komes (count). With the infantry, the 256 man unit was broken into sixteen platoons of sixteen men each led by a lochaghos and assisted by NCO ranks known as dekarchos, pentarchos, tetrarchos and ourahos. The first three mean "leader of ten, five and four" respectively, while the last means "file closer".
>
> A 300 man cavalry banda was divided into three hekatontarchia, each commanded by a hekatontarchos. The senior hekatontarchos was the illarches, and the second in command to the komes. Later, the hekatontarchia was eliminated and the primary division was into six allaghia commanded by kentarchos (they were still outranked by the hekatontarchos, who oversaw two allaghia each). Allaghia were composed of five dekarchiai of ten men, and the ranks were the same as the infantry there, with dekarchos, pentarchos, tetrarchos and ourahos.
>
> Above the bandon level, came the moirai - moirarchai commanding, or dhoungoi - dhoungarii commanding. The number of banda varied, but they seems to have been made up of anywhere from two to five of them. After that was the turmai or merai, commanded by the turmarchai or merarchai respectively, and were made up of three moirai.
>
> Now, my book (Byzantine Armies 886-1118 by Ian Heath) doesn't give modern equivalents, but we can make reasonable comparisons (I'm just guessing here roughly based on the number of men they commanded, so don't take this part as certain)
>
> Turmarchai/merarchai - Col./Brigadier General
>
> Moirarchai/dhoungarii - Lt. Col./Col.
>
> Komes - Captain/Major
>
> Hekatontarchos -Captain
>
> Lochaghos/Allaghia - Lieutenant
>
> Dekarchos - Sergeant
>
> Pentarchos - Corporal
>
> Tetrarchos - Corporal
>
> Ourahos - Lance Corporal | [
"The Non-Combatant Corps (NCC) was a corps of the British Army composed of conscientious objectors as privates, with NCOs and officers seconded from other corps or regiments. Its members fulfilled various non-combatant roles in the army during the First World War, the Second World War and the period of conscription... |
why do some radio stations (usually more popular or "mainstream ones) raise the pitch or speed up the songs they play? | Just so the song is shorter. Sometimes they will cut sections out of songs too. What comes to mind is when Metallica released death magnetic back in '08.
[The shortest song is 5 minutes, and the next shortest is 6:25](_URL_0_)
I forget which songs they were always playing exactly. "The day that never comes" was one of them but there was another also. They would chop whole sections out of that song (it is 8 minutes long....), specifically they would chop out a "bridge" which Metallica tends to have in their songs and tends to be repetitive. | [
"Radio has always had to balance listeners' desires with the need to deliver a predictable audience to advertisers. In the past, if listeners felt a song was too monotonous or repetitive, they could tune to a different station. Now, however, there is less choice available, and that song might be playing on a nearby... |
"for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction". is there anything in the universe where this isn't true? | Well, sure. There are all kinds of situations of one thing "acting" on another without getting "acted" on back, because "acting" is not a scientific word. That definition of Newton's Third Law is very vague and actually has no real meaning. A better definition is:
"For every force there is an equal and opposite force". I'm sitting on a chair now, and the weight of my butt is pressing against the chair with ~195 lbs of force, because I'm fat and not good at dieting. The chair is also pressing against me with 195 lbs of force, and I know that this is the case because my butt is deformed, and I can feel pressure in the nerves on my skin.
If we restrict the definition to what it properly should be, then yes, this law is universal and applies to all possible scenarios. | [
"The use of the word reaction derives from Newton's third law, which essentially states that if a force, called \"action\", acts upon a body, then an equal and opposite force, called \"reaction\", must act upon another body. The force exerted by the ground is conventionally referred to as the reaction, although, si... |
Why did the silk road and the other primary east-west trade routes cross through the desert instead of going north through the Eurasian steppes? | It's important to remember that very few (if any) traders travelled the entire length of the silk road- it was more like a relay of different traders.
The central Asian deserts were already populated by nomadic people with a long tradition of trade, which facilitated the establishment of the greater trade routes in the way that they were. | [
"The general assumption that the Silk Roads connected east and west is an over-simplification. This southern Taklamakan route also connected with trans-Tibetan plateau routes linking Central and South Asia. In addition, the modern hydrology visible on Google Earth suggests a number of south to north courses through... |
What obscure folk tale/s from your area of speciality might have rivalled Grimm's fairytales if they had been helped to spread among Western culture at the right time? | The tales of Hershele of Ostropol are quite entertaining. They're relatively well known amongst some Jews and Ukrainians. | [
"Grimm Tales is a play by British poet Carol Ann Duffy, based on the original fairy tales written down by the Brothers Grimm. The play was first published in 1996. In 1997 she published a sequel, More Grimm Tales. Not all of the stories that were produced by the Brothers Grimm were adapted in the play. The ones tha... |
WW2 - U-boats vs the D-Day invasion fleet | It was infeasible because it was suicidal. The invasion convoys were escorted by several dozen destroyers, frigates or other escort ships with Anti Submarine weapons on board. The RAF coastal command flew numerous patrols over the English Chanel, Particularly the western approaches, near Cornwall.
Doneitz did send four U-Boats to the waters off of Normandy, but all four were sunk, without accomplishing anything, vis-a-vis the dense concentration of merchant ships the Allies had in that area.
Samuel Elliot Morrison has the complete order of battle for the US Navy, Royal Navy, Canadian Navy and Polish Navy for D-day in his book "The invasion of France and Germany 1944-1945" which is part of his fifteen volume set "History of US Naval Operations in World War II" | [
"The use of these boats during the D-day invasions at Normandy is shown in \"Saving Private Ryan\". The boats were also used in a scene during the 1985 film \"Invasion USA\", in which communist guerrillas land on a Florida beach.\n",
"The Higgins boat was used for many amphibious landings, including Operation Ove... |
how /r/adviceanimals isn't a default sub even though it has more subscribers than /r/explainlikeimfive? | It used to be, and redditors got tired of the same misused full-of-shit memes clogging the page. I'm guessing reddit admins did as well. | [
"Recommender systems are information filtering systems which attempt to predict the rating or preference that a user would give, based on ratings that similar users gave and ratings that the user gave on previous occasions. These systems have become increasingly popular and are used for movies, music, news, books, ... |
how much money is there in the world in total and how's it measured? | For a while counting is the simplest way to measure money. I say that because eventually it gets tricky.
There is of course the cash money. Money in our pockets and in the cash drawers of registers. That is the smallest amount. It is counted as it is produced and banks count it as it comes in.
Then there is money on deposit. That also is countable. Once banks count their deposits they are allowed to loan a fraction of this money out. So they like deposits. The money they loaned out was in a sense the money which is deposited. But in another sense it was new money.
Some banks have drawing rights. They are allowed to borrow money on paper, or to be electronically debited. They can loan this money too. This money was created by granting the drawing rights.
Now take the money loaned out as mortgages. They can be bundled and offered for sale. it is future money but can be sold today in a bundle. We just created more money.
If you are worried those loans will not be paid then the bundle of loans can be discounted. The bundle will be sold for less than their face value because some loans will go into default.
Guarantees can be bought and sold that these bundles will be good. More money is created that way. They are just guarantees. But money will be paid if the defaults exceed the expected amount.
There is where it gets fuzzy. sometimes these credit default swaps, that is what they are called. are not reported to be counted. The assets of big corporations are used to back the defaults. The regulations are loose. There is not enough accountability and the amount is hard to count. But this kind of money is easily the largest pile of nonexistent money. | [
"\"All the Money in the World\" grossed $25.1 million in the United States and Canada and $31.8 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $56.9 million, against a production budget of $50 million.\n",
"In 1990, total currency in circulation in the world passed one trillion United States dollars. Afte... |
why you can get a heart attack if you're shocked or scared. | An increase in heart rate and/or blood pressure can dislodge fatty deposits in the arteries that feed the heart. If they break off they can block the supply of blood to parts of the heart. That's a heart attack. The heart muscle then begins to die. | [
"People with panic attacks often report a fear of dying or heart attack, flashing vision, faintness or nausea, numbness throughout the body, heavy breathing and hyperventilation, or loss of body control. Some people also suffer from tunnel vision, mostly due to blood flow leaving the head to more critical parts of ... |
Why did French revolutionaries prefer an emperor to a king? | In 1799, the French Directory was a corrupt political machine that used war to divert attention away from problems within France (such as how corrupt they were) and using war to gain funds for both the government and themselves. The coup of 18 Brumaire would drive the corrupt Directory away and place Napoleon with two other consuls as the head of the French government.
The first thing that was done was clearing away all the rats that plagued the French government and pushing the corruption out and promoting meritocracy within the government. Further, the Napoleonic Code (Civil Code of France) would be unrolled during the first five years before Napoleon would be crowned Emperor. Overall, Napoleon would drive the French government to one of chaos to one of efficiency and quality.
Most importantly, he was popular. In several plebiscites, Napoleon was overwhelmingly elected as Consul for Life and then Emperor (David G. Chandler states in his *Campaigns of Napoleon* that it seems that it was a democratic and fair election process, although the vote for Emperor was tainted with a few hundred odd votes from members of the military clumped together).
I would say that it goes down to the effectiveness of leadership. Louis XVI was a well meaning and kind man that was not a born leader, Napoleon was a man that took charge and had people work toward his will. Further, the people were tired and wanted peace, which Napoleon brought with an effective government, something Louis XVI didn't and couldn't do. | [
"Initially, such rulers of Europe as Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor viewed the revolution in France as an event between the French king and his subjects, and not something in which they should interfere. As the rhetoric grew more strident, the monarchies started to view events with distrust. Leopold, who had succeed... |
What is the most significant historical artifact that has been stolen or appropriated by a state after rediscovery? | I can't say that this was a re-discovery, but one of the more interesting examples of something like this was when Texas revolutionists attacked and killed General Santa Anna and his army. They stole his wooden leg, and it was held in a museum in what I believe was Illinois. Apparently, Mexico hates him, but the government still wants it back. We just haven't returned it yet. This is very apparent since he died in exile and was buried in a grave in Los Angeles.. But this was after about 150 years or so of having the museum that held the leg decline to give it to Mexico.
Reflecting further on this, I believe it may the Illinois State Military Museum, or something to that affect, just don't quote me on it. There is also a second leg that was captured, again from Santa Anna. However, this one is just a peg leg held in what I know for sure is Oglesby Mansion. It is rumored that Lieutenant Abner Doubleday used it as a baseball bat. | [
"The museum announced in July 2006, that 221 minor items, including jewelry, Orthodox icons, silverware and richly enameled objects, had been stolen. The value of the stolen items was estimated to be approximately $543,000 but by the end of 2006 several of the stolen items were recovered.\n",
"One of the most val... |
What makes gecko feet walk on whatever surface? | To answer, we first need to consider the gecko's feet on a larger scale. On the bottom of each foot is thousands of small hairs. At the tip of these hairs are thousands more microextensions. These hairs are the key to the foot's adhesive properties. On the molecular level, the hair interact via van der waals forces with the surface. Van der waal forces are a type of transient force that creates a temporary dipole (more in a bit).
A polar molecule is simply a molecule with an uneven electron distribution, aka an uneven charge. Some molecules are polar, like water, which has a partial positive charge on the hydrogens and a partial negative charge on the oxygen, since more negatively charged electrons are clustered around the oxygen molecule. Other molecules are nonpolar, and have an even distribution of electrons. Methane (CH4) is a nonpolar molecule. The electrons are distributed evenly between Carbon and the four hydrogens.
There's a common phrase in chemistry that "like dissolves like," which means polar molecules like to mix with other polar molecules and nonpolar molecules like to mix with other nonpolar molecules. Water and ethanol, both polar, mix because of this. Water (polar) and oil (nonpolar) separate and do not mix because of their different polarity properties.
It's easier to visualize how two polar molecules can mix. Each has a charge (or a partial charge) and opposite charges on the molecules can attract and interact. In the case of how two nonpolar molecules interact, the visualization is a bit more complicated.
Although nonpolar molecules have an overall even electron distribution, there are transient periods in which the molecule does have a slight partial charge. That is to say, the electron distribution is not static. There are random times when one side of the molecule will have a more electrons (and thus be more negatively charged) than another side of the molecule. It has spontaneously become a dipole. Now if we split our imaginary nonpolar molecule in half we can imagine a side that is briefly negatively charged (side A) and a side that is briefly positively charged (side B). Because opposites attract, the molecules that are next to our spontaneous dipole become affected. So a neighboring molecule that is next to negatively charged side A will rearrange it's electrons so it becomes slightly positively charged on the side closest to A. This action has now made a second molecule a temporary dipole. Likewise, molecules closest to positively charged side B will rearrange their electrons so that they are more negatively charged closest to B. Again, we have another dipole! *These are van der waal forces* and are one of the ways nonpolar molecules can interact.
A gecko's feet hair utilizes this mechanism on a molecular level. It's why a gecko can climb equally well up a polar or a nonpolar surface. The number of hairs on the foot, as well as the number of microscopic tendrils coming off of the tips of these hairs, greatly increases the foot's surface area and the number of molecules that will be able to interact with a surface.
So in brief, the hairs create increased surface area which allows temporary electrostatic interactions to form between the foot and the surface enabling the gecko to crawl up it with grace!
source: _URL_0_, _URL_1_ | [
"Gecko feet are the most famous reversible adhesion mechanism in nature. The anti-fouling ability of feet allows geckos to run on dusty ceilings and corners without the accumulation of dirt on their feet. In 2000, Autumn et al. revealed the origin of gecko’s strong adhesion by investigating the surface features of ... |
5: why is it so hard to replace plastics with another material with similar properties? | Cost: plastic is extremely cheap to produce (also to recycle), currently nothing as cheap exists so companies will keep using what makes them the most money.
Properties: there actually aren't many materials with similar properties:
- recycled/compostable plastics aren't as maleable and mess up the recycling of normal plastics.
- paper, well just see the outrage of paper straws
- metal costs too much and is heavy
- the cutting edge "plastic killers" don't currently work on large scale due to lack of technology/knowledge in how to scale (eg. Nanostructures)
In actuality plastics are probably the most important, useful and revolutionary material technology in history. It would also be the most environmentally friendly material if we would be able to close the loop and recycle most of it. Problems only arise when it ends up in nature, which I personally believe to just be due to severe incompetence on parts of government, companies and to some extent people.
AFAIK "fact" to take forward: Producing paper straws rather than plastic ones is often a net loss in terms of GHG emissions, habitat loss and chemical intensity.
Use this to always think about the whole life-cycle of products and on the many different ways the environment can be hurt. | [
"Recycling plastics presents the difficulty of handling mixed plastics, as unmixed plastics are usually necessary to maintain desirable properties. Mixing many plastics results in diminished material properties, with even just a few percent of polypropylene mixed with polyethylene producing a plastic with significa... |
why farmers give their cows nose rings | It's to attach a leash to. It's very painful for a cow to pull against a lead when it's attached by the nose, so this allows humans to walk them around. If it were around their neck, there's no wah you'd get them to move unless they wanted to. | [
"A nose ring is a ring made of metal designed to be installed through the nasal septum of pigs (to prevent them from rooting) as well as domestic cattle, usually bulls. In pigs, nose rings are alternatively pierced through the rim of the nose. Nose rings are often required for bulls when exhibited at agricultural s... |
how does mental illness start? | It's a large category, including different illnesses with several different causes. These can include:
- Chemical imbalances
- Traumatic experiences
- Inadequate care during the first 3 years of life
- Brain injury
- Genetic abnormalities
- Long-term stress | [
"A mental disorder, also called a mental illness or psychiatric disorder, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. Such features may be persistent, relapsing and remitting, or occur as a single episode. Many disorders have been described, with signs a... |
Why doesn't the water from the river mix with the water from the sea? | It is mixing. Just slowly and in places you can't see. The different densities, salinities and turbidities are very large so it will always take a long time to mix. Furthermore both bodies of water are being replenished so the mixing is counterbalanced. It is likely you are seeing the top of a less dense plume here overlying the dense ocean water with a large surface within the water column where mixing takes place. Because fresh water is less dense it stays on top. The waves and turbulence do mix the water but not fast enough to dissipate the plume. | [
"If the river water has a higher density than the surface of the receiving water, the river water will plunge below the surface. The river water will then either form an underflow or an interflow within the lake. However, if the river water is lighter than the receiving water, as is typically the case when fresh ri... |
I don't understand how a serf and a slave in Medieval Europe were different? Was serfdom just slavery with extra steps? | Serfs were a bit similar to slaves, but a slight bit more well off. While slaves were considered the property of their owners, serfs were not. And while they did not live the luxurious lifestyles of those they served, they still had their place, and had their limited rights (even if these rights may or may not have been actually enforced). Serfs were essentially attached to land, with feudal contracts. The owner of the land could not sell the serf to another and force him to go somewhere else, and if their lord sold the land they lived on to another, the serfs most often followed.
Serfdom was more of a contract. Serfs lived and worked the land that the Lords owned, and in return had the Lord’s protection and a place to live/work. Now a serf could not leave the land without his Lord’s permission, and could not sell the land, they still had a bit of freedom, and a day or two per week when they could work for themselves to raise money.
This most often began when one accumulated a very large amount of debt. He would then go to a lord, and get into a feudal contract of serfdom. This meant that the Lord would protect the man and slowly pay off his debt, in return for the man living on the land and working the fields for said lord. Then the man’s children became serfs to work off the debt, so on and so forth.
So unlike slaves, serfs had rights, and actually got something back from their work, even getting paid.
This actually became an issue for the Lords during the Black Plague, because most serfs died off, allowing the remaining serfs to demand more payment for their work, allowing the serfs more free time to hone crafts skills and move away from their lords, and into the cities for better paying jobs, but that is a whole another story.
Tldr: slaves were property and treated as such. Serfs were citizens in contract with their lords, receiving paychecks and actual compensation for their work, as well as having rights, but they were still attached to the land, and leaving serfdom was extremely difficult. | [
"Serfdom is the status of many peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to manorialism, and similar systems. It was a condition of debt bondage, which developed during the Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages in Europe and lasted in some countries until the mid-19th century.\n",
"In contrast to other Europ... |
why does it mess up my counting when someone starts saying random numbers | It's not just counting which is effected by other people talking. A similar experience can be had when someone else talks to you about a similar topic at the same time as you try to speak (it's often used as a demonstration of what it's like to live auditory hallucinations). Sadly I can't find a video demonstrating the effect but I can speak first hand of it's effectiveness.
I understand this works on similar vine as demonstrated in the following video regarding speech jamming and how the brain takes all it's inputs sound, touch etc and that stronger signals can overpower weaker ones.
_URL_1_
This seems to be an international link to the segment in question
_URL_0_
This is an alternative source for the same episode with the relevant time stamp for anyone that the first link doesn't work on. | [
"In a random sequence of numbers, a number may be said to be cursed because it has come up less often in the past, and so it is thought that it will occur less often in the future. A number may be assumed to be blessed because it has occurred more often than others in the past, and so it is thought likely to come u... |
How did the Romans communicate their laws to newly conquered, non-Latin speaking territories? | I'm going to speak in broad and general terms here, since you've asked a question that concerns a wide area both geographically, as well as temporally and in terms of existing, previous legal practices (conquered Greek or Hellenistic cities, f.e. would have their own extensive bodies of law, while Germans wouldn't, while in other conquered territories local administration was built up *ex nihilo*, f.e. in Germany on the right bank of the Rhine). Roman law is also not a monolithic body, so this is only a general overview.
Often, newly conquered territories weren't directly subject to Roman laws. That was, broadly speaking, the situation of most land that was conquered by Rome in Italy and during republican times until the 1st century B.C. Those lands that didn't directly become Roman territory (*ager romanus*) or were settled by Roman colonies (*colonia civium Romanorum*) were under their own autonomous laws. The allied cities (*civitates foederatae*, *liberae* or *stipendiariae*) were autonomous in internal affairs, while Rome was in control of external matters.
For the most part, this is also true of the Roman conquest of territories in imperial times, say Gaul, Germany, Britain, the Balkans and Danube region. Roman rule initially was rather indirect, focussed on controlling and integrating the leadership and aristocracy of local groups, generally organized along the lines of *gentes* (peoples) or *civitates*, citizenships or groups centered around ethnic lines. So in newly conquered Roman territories, Roman law wasn't too relevant for most people, since the local *civitates*, client kingdoms, tribes or cities would govern their internal affairs largely after their own fashion. Gradually, they would be more integrated into the Roman polity, or new *civitates* or *coloniae* might be founded. Colonies would have Roman citizenship and generally have municipal laws modelled after the example of Rome, but generally cities retained a degree of local legal autonomy.
In addition, one thing to understand about Roman law is that it was not so much codified as it was a cumulative body of jurisdiction. There were the famous twelve tables in the beginning in the early republic, but those covered only narrow areas of law and were not applicable to many of the legal questions that would arise later in Rome's history. The most important sources for Roman law - besides the twelve table law and recognized customs - were edicts and judgements arising out of legal practice, as well as statutes or special laws formulated by the public assemblies, the senate or the emperor to deal with very specific circumstances. One of the most important sources for this was the *praetor*, a high ranking office whose responsibility was judging cases between citizens. In the beginning of his annual term of office, the *praetor* would publish an edict in which he stated which types of cases, or actions (*actiones*) he would grant for judication, which remedies he would offer to settle legal disputes, and which not.
*De jure*, he didn't create new law (that wasn't in his powers), but in effect he made what the Romans called *ius honorarium*, by choosing which legal remedies he would grant (or was persuaded to create for unforeseen circumstances), he created a body of legal instruments that could be used and referred to in the future. In the conquered provinces, this role was taken over by the governour similarly to how the *praetores* spoke law at Rome, by their edicts. For the provinces, these edicts by the governour were one important source of law.
A second important source of law for the provinces was the emperor himself, who might either set law by decree, decide to hear cases brought to him by provincials himself or settle legal disputed brought to him by provincials (often the governour himself, of which many examples survive in the letters between Pliny in his function as provincial gouvernor and the emperor Trajan) either by provocation or by letter (*epistula*), to which the emperor gave answer (which was calles subscription, since he wrote his answer below the letter, and later rescript). Appeal to the governour or emperor was one often used example to settle disputes in the provinces.
So, how were such things made public? Thankfully, we have quite a few examples of these. Usually, they would be inscribed into large bronze tables (many of these legal acts contained a clause that they were to be *in aere incisa*, inscribed into bronze), and hung up in a public place. This is the case for many municipal laws that survive, especially from Spain, for example the municipal law of the *colonia Iulia Genetiva*, modern Urso. [This is one of the tables containing chapter 61-69](_URL_1_), and you can check a translation of the surviving fragmente [here](_URL_0_). Others are known f.e. from Irni, the *lex Irnitana* also being interesting in this context. The lex Irnitana contained a clause that specified up to which amounts in dispute the local magistrates were responsible for judication, and when the case should be brought before the provincial gouvernor, and also (in chapter 85), that the local magistrates were require to put up, in legible writing and in a public place, those edicts of the provincial governour according to which they would judge local cases.
Many of these municipal laws show close parallels to Roman civil law, in the modelling, duties, responsibilites of the magistrates and the political organization itself. Edicts by the senate pertaining to Roman subjects were also published in the same way, the most famous example probably being the *senatus consultum de Bacchanalibus*, which outlawed practice of the Bacchanalian cult throughout Italy (and thus also in allied towns!) and consequently was hewn into bronze tables put up all over Italy, of which one example survives from Tiriolo.
A famous case of imperial judication is well known from several examples found in the Greek provinces. It seems that the provincial governour, the proconsul, had tried to force a Roman senator living in Asia to take a travelling Roman into his home against his will. Against this, the governour petitioned the emperor, and received a harsh reply: "Sacred letters (from the chancellery of the Emperor, sc. imperial ruling). You seem to us to be ignorant of the *senatus consultum*. For if you had conferred with (your) experts, you would know that a roman senator is not required to take in a guest against his will." This decision seems to have been (unsurprisingly) popular with local senators, and so it was put up in inscription in several places such as Antiochia Pisidia, Ephesos and Paros [f.e. CIL III 14203, 8), and surviving examples have been found in urban contexts, so probably close to senatorial estates who thus communicated to possible uninvited guests that they were not really required to house them. They were also put up in latin as well as in Greek, to prevent people from putting the language barrier forward as an excuse.
To bring this to a conclusion, the Romans were usually quite anxious about having those laws according to which public life was ordered publicly displayed for anyone to see (to read, well, that is an interesting question if you consider that probably only a fifth of people could read, and less comprehend the legalese). Newly conquered people were usually left to govern their own affairs under the patronage of Rome, and cities could be granted their own legal autonomy that would continue throughout imperial times. Relevant laws and legal decisions would be inscribed, either on bronze or sometimes less durable materials like whitewashed wood (which of course do not survive), for anyone to read who was interested and literate. In cases were local law didn't apply, Roman law could be brought in to settle disputes. But since Roman law was a cumulative body of legal decisions, the possibility remained in most cases to petition the local governour or the emperor to pass judgement, and this was done often, and the results (if advantageous), proudly displayed.
Sources and further reading:
* D. Johnston, Roman Law in Context (Cambridge 2004)
* D. Knibbe - R. Merkelbach, Allerhöchste Schelte (Zwei Exemplare der Sacrae Litterae aus Ephesos), Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 31, 1978, 229-232.
* E. Metzger, Agree to Disagree: Local Jurisdiction in the *lex Irnitana*, in: A. Burrows, D. Johnston, R. Zimmermann, eds., Judge and Jurist: Essays in Memory of Lord Rodger of Earlsferry (Oxford 2013) 207–225.
* K. Tuori, The Emperor of Law. The Emergence of Roman Imperial Adjudication (Oxford 2016)
| [
"Latin became the language of conquered areas because local people started speaking it, and not because the population was displaced by Latin-speakers. Latin was not imposed officially on peoples brought under Roman rule. Saint Augustine observed that Romans preferred for Latin to be adopted \"per pacem societatis\... |
What were the most sought after professions in the Ancient and Classic era? | Could you please specify more exactly what you're interested in? Antiquity encompasses a period of several thousand years, with myriad peoples and cultures interacting with each other for every moment of that time. Depending on time and place there are vastly different cultural and social attitudes and approaches towards various means of accumulating wealth and various trades. For example, while the mercantile classes appear to have been fairly powerful and prestigious at Carthage, you won't find the same respect for merchants in Rome even as late as the Principate.
In addition to when and where it might be worth it for you to clarify what you mean by a profession and what you mean by "sought-after." The first is mainly for the purposes of semantic (and rather pedantic, sorry) clarity--members of the senatorial class were not ideally supposed to have a profession, as in a trade, and made their money off of land-trading and rents mostly, which we might consider a profession but not an occupation. The latter is essential to your question, however--do you mean professions that are the most respected or those that are sought after because they provide the greatest opportunity for wealth? Those are not necessarily the same thing--to use my Roman example again, while merchants often could amass large fortunes the occupation was dominated in the Principate by non-*nobiles* and freedmen | [
"According to the World Almanac website, nominations for the second-oldest profession include: actors, casino gambling, con men, Gangsters, counterfeiting, gigolos, glassmaking, interpreters, journalism, moving companies, pharmacists, pickpocketing, pimpery, piracy, press agents, prostitutes, spying, and quackery. ... |
is there an actual quote from bible that condems homosexuality? | It depends on what you believe 1 Corinthians 6:9 says
The Apostle Paul warns people against being "arsenokoitai" in the original Greek language text. Arsenokoitai were male shrine prostitutes that claimed to sell religious ritual sexual experiences.
Some people believe the sin of the arsenokoitai was homosexuality, and that Paul is warning people not to be homosexual. Other people believe the sin of the arsenokoitai was being profane in selling their bodies at the temple, and that Paul is warning people away from that kind of degradation of a holy place in general. | [
"Cecil Gutzmore at the University of the West Indies has written that religious fundamentalists believe that the Bible variously declares homosexuality to be an \"abomination\", a \"vile affection\", \"unseemly\", \"not natural\", or a \"form of ungodliness\".\n",
"The Bible refers to homosexuality numerous times... |
how do you get four first degree murder charges from one death? | This is a case of 'throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks'.
Or to put this another way - if you really piss the government or wrong person off they can really fuck up your life.
Normally if you punch your girlfriend that's one count of domestic violence. But if the prosecutor really hates you that can be 5-10 different charges. Just to list a few - threatening (when you make that loud sound as you prepare to hit), first degree assault (when the fist connects), causing bodily injury (the bruise), failure to stop and render medical aid (not calling the ambulance for your girlfriend), endangerment of a child (if there's a kid asleep anywhere in the house), failure to report a crime against a child (for not calling the cops on yourself after you endangered a sleeping child 3 rooms away). I'm sure an actual prosecutor could think up a few dozen more. Some of these are dependant on state.
In IL you can be charged for murder for any felony that results in a death - so one murder for the murder, one murder for beating her, one murder for having a gun in the house, one murder for the drugs. She could probably have found a dozen more felonies to charge him with murder for if she really wanted to.
Normally acts committed at the same time the sentences are served at the same time - but if the judge doesn't like you he may order them sequentially served with any or no justification.
Murder means, literally, whatever the government says it means. In AZ it can mean "walked into the wrong house with my friend and the homeowner shot him to death while I laid facedown on the ground with my hands on my head".
You're making the mistake of assuming words mean what they normally mean. To the government they can mean literally anything they decide. That's how sexual assault can be a wholesome, enjoyable experience for all involved. | [
"In the state of Washington, a person is found guilty of first degree murder when there is a premeditated intent to cause the death of another person. Murder in the first degree is a class A felony. If a person is convicted of first degree murder, he or she will receive a life sentence. If an aggravating circumstan... |
why do foreign names get spelled and pronounced differently in english? | Because they have different origin languages. English is Germanic in origin, converts semi-ok to Romanic languages but not really. Nordic languages have different letter sets, and the Chinese has different inflections on syllables, makes its tough | [
"Other words (\"e.g.\" the French word \"née\", meaning \"born\", and used with maiden names) have been adopted more recently, and are still considered to be foreign, retaining their diacritics and often being written in italics to show their foreign status. However, they are usually pronounced in an English way (\... |
What is the actual rarity of male calico cats? | It's a surprisingly complicated question as there's more than one way to get a calico/tortie male cat, including mutant coat patterns that look like calico but aren't produced by the same genes that produce a calico pattern in females. As such, there's no simple answer for "how rare".
More in-depth information can be found here:
_URL_0_ | [
"From among the above cats noted, the most popular cat breeds to be renowned for their hypoallergenic quality are the Siberian and Balinese. These cats produce much fewer protein allergens in comparison to regular domestic household cats or other cat breeds. Cats that have some Balinese ancestry might produce lower... |
why does starting task manager when my computer is frozen seem to unfreeze it? | Task manager has top priority, so if any other program is hogging up the computer in an endless cycle you can force it to shut down. | [
"Because the window controls are being rendered by the application process, if the application freezes the controls will often become unresponsive too. This can make it more confusing when trying to close unresponsive applications as the display server has to detect this. \n",
"In computing, a hang or freeze occu... |
what's the deal with yellowstone? | Yellowstone sits over a massive hotspot and is a supervolcano.
While it would be very bad if it erupted, the danger is rather hilariously overblown by Hollywood. Granted, Wyoming and parts of Idaho and Montana would be gone, and the states immediately east and southeast of Wyoming (so, Colorado, the Dakotas, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, and Kansas) would have a lot of ashfall and a slight but still significant global temperature shift for a few years (honestly, less than 5 years), that would be it. Anything West of the Rockies, or East of the Appalachians, would be basically unscathed other than a very light dusting of ash.
It would be less of a "everyone on Earth is going to die" and more of a "North America is going to kind of suck for the next decade" kind of thing. | [
"\"Yellowstone\" is an American television series created by Taylor Sheridan that is set to premiere on June 20, 2018 on the Paramount Network. Yellowstone follows \"the Dutton family, led by John Dutton played by Kevin Costner, who controls the largest contiguous ranch in the United States, under constant attack b... |
why do people get diarrhea when they are dehydrated? | For the most part it's the other way around. People get dehydrated because they have diarrhea due to sickness, etc. When you have diarrhea you aren't absorbing the water from your digestive tract, which causes the dehydration. | [
"Diarrhea, also spelled diarrhoea, is the condition of having at least three loose, liquid, or watery bowel movements each day. It often lasts for a few days and can result in dehydration due to fluid loss. Signs of dehydration often begin with loss of the normal stretchiness of the skin and irritable behaviour. Th... |
What is the best scientific paper you have read? | A message from the moderators:
Please do not post a top-level reply to this thread unless you are contributing a paper from the peer-reviewed literature. If possible, please link to a PDF of the article that can be downloaded by everyone, not just those with journal subscriptions.
Also, arXiv is not a peer reviewed source. | [
"Nebert has published more than 650 papers in numerous scientific fields. He was recognized by Eugene Garfield [Institute for Scientific Information (ISI)] as “among The 1,000 Contemporary Scientists Most-Cited, 1965-1978,” and “among the Top 0.1% Contemporary Scientists Most-Cited, 1981-1999” — from a compilation ... |
why are other standards for data transfer used at all (hdmi, usb, sata, etc), when ethernet cables have higher bandwidth, are cheap, and can be 100s of meters long? | USB cabling and receptacle buses are cheaper than ethernet cables.
USB has greater port density, and will fit cleanly into thinner form factor platforms.
USB 3.0 has ~5 gbps transfer rate, whereas cat5e gets stable 1gbps. Getting 10Gbps typically requires cat6e ethernet cables or fiber, which are not exactly flexible and definitely not as cheap.
Copper ethernet is also rated for 100 meters; you would not get very good throughput at 100s of meters on copper. Granted, this isn't typically a requirement for USB based eqpt either.
Eli5 edit:
1. USB cable and especially the equipment you plug into (buses/controllers) cheaper than ethernet
2. Fit more USB ports in tiny space (known as port density)
3. USB faster than ethernet for price, especially on modern solutions like USB-C
4. Ethernet is better at longer distances, which is why networking equipment uses it, but your keyboard does not need to | [
"UTP cable is also the most common cable used in computer networking. Modern Ethernet, the most common data networking standard, can use UTP cables. Twisted pair cabling is often used in data networks for short and medium length connections because of its relatively lower costs compared to optical fiber and coaxial... |
how do the moon's phases work | The bright part of the moon is simply light reflecting off the sun. So the phase completely depends on the angle between the sun, earth, and moon. So you'll notice on a night with a full moon, the moon is approximately on the complete opposite side of the earth. During a new moon, it's approxmiately in the same area of the sky as the sun. All other phases are simply breaking down the angle. If the sun-earth-moon angle is acute, it'll be a crescent. If it's obtuse, it'll be a gibbeous. At a right angle, it's a half moon.
edit: I say approximately, as they don't always line up perfectly. When they do, we get an eclipse. | [
"The lunar phase or phase of the Moon is the shape of the directly sunlit portion of the Moon as viewed from Earth. The lunar phases gradually and cyclically change over the period of a synodic month (about 29.53 days), as the orbital positions of the Moon around Earth and of Earth around the Sun shift.\n",
"In w... |
what is so special about the blu-ray format? | Blu Ray isn't a type of video. It is a type of data storage system.
Blu-Ray just uses lower wavelength (bluer) light in the laser it uses to read the disk when compared to a DVD. This lets the system read smaller spots on the disk. The ability to read smaller spots means that a disk of a given size can have more distinct spots (more memory) using blu-ray than using a typical DVD system. The ability to have a single disk with much more memory lets us fit long stretches of high quality video (e.g. 1080p) on a single disk. | [
"Blu-ray Disc specifies the use of Universal Disk Format (UDF) 2.50 as a convergent-friendly format for both PC and consumer electronics environments. It is used in the latest specifications of BD-ROM, BD-RE, and BD-R. In the first BD-RE specification (defined in 2002), the BDFS (Blu-ray Disc File System) was used.... |
I've always wondered: if I am in an airplane that is traveling JUST under the speed of sound, and I sprint down the aisle, would I break the sound barrier? | No because the air that you're in is moving as fast as you are so your person is never near the speed in its immediate surroundings to break the sound barrier.
Now if you were on the wing or top of said aircraft somehow and could run against the wind, I hypothesize that you would break the sound barrier. | [
"In subsonic flight, the plane pushes the air ahead of it out of the way as it moves. When a plane is traveling faster than the speed of sound (i.e. faster than air molecules normally travel) the air ahead of it is not pushed out of the way: the air remains still until the plane has approached to within half an inc... |
Can a beam of light bend if the source rotates or moves in the same way water does from a rotating sprinkler? | I am as far from an expert on this subject as you can get, but I'm pretty sure that once water or a laser beam, or any other sort of "stream" of particles or molecules leaves whatever source releases it, the source no longer has any effect on it. The water stream bends because gravity pulls it down, and it only seems to turn with the sprinkler because more water is constantly being released. The water that already was released remains on the same trajectory as which it started.
Light beams can be "bent" or redirected by objects in their path, but any motion of their source after they have left it should have no effect on them whatsoever. | [
"Light reflected from the tilted beam splitter is made parallel using a lens and split by slits into two beams, which traverse a tube carrying water moving with velocity \"v\". Each beam travels a different leg of the tube, is reflected at the mirror at left, and returns through the opposite leg of the tube. Thus, ... |
i'm 27 and i'm starting to notice something. are adults looking and acting younger? or is it my perspective on age that's changing? | I think it's the fact that you're aging. I'm in my early 40's and I see little kids driving cars and working, having spouses and even babies! Little kids I say.
The "hot" young guys look like *potentially* hot men. I don't look at them and think, "Hmm, I could eat him up." Instead, I think he will be a good looking man when he grows up.
I look in the mirror these days and wonder who the heck is looking back at me, and where this roll of belly fat came from (cause my size 0 jeans don't fit for the first time in my life).
I see men in their late 40's, with gray hair and wrinkles, and I think of them as the opposite sex instead of my dad's buddies.
I read what utes say about politics on the internet, and chuckle because I used to think that way too.
You're only 27. Just wait, it gets funner! (Ok, not really funner...) | [
"BULLET::::- Depressed mood. According to Cox, Abramson, Devine, and Hollon (2012), old age is a risk factor for depression caused by prejudice (i.e., \"deprejudice\"). When people are prejudiced against the elderly and then become old themselves, their anti-elderly prejudice turns inward, causing depression. \"Peo... |
how can margins of error be trusted? | The margin of error isn't "We know we're only possibly wrong by this much" it's "This is the known accuracy of our instrument under what we believe are operational conditions."
You can still be wrong. | [
"The accuracy paradox is the paradoxical finding that accuracy is not a good metric for predictive models when classifying in predictive analytics. This is because a simple model may have a high level of accuracy but be too crude to be useful. For example, if the incidence of category A is dominant, being found in ... |
in the u.s. why are female locker rooms (showers etc.) so private when male locker rooms are almost always wide open practically forcing young boys and men into group showering etc.? | As a guy who found the shower situation in highschool to be extremely awkward, I think men are just raised to be cool with it. I was never cool with it but my class mates had absolutely no problem with it. I was unaware the girls showers were different. We had a square room with shower heads lining the walls, I thought it was normal and I was the weird one for not being okay with it. | [
"Supporters of single-sex toilets point to the specific needs of women, such as menstrual hygiene, and argue that these require sex-segregation in public toilets, for reasons of personal comfort and privacy, and this is especially true for teenage girls.\n",
"However, it is questionable whether the lower level of... |
what will happen with opec planning to halt production? how does it affect oil prices? who is winning and losing? | No one is planning to halt production. Saudi Arabia and Russia have agreed to freeze production at current levels. Considering Russia is already running 100% production and Saudi Arabia is damn near 100% and neither Iraq nor Iran will agree to the freeze it is unlikely to mean much of anything. | [
"OPEC claims to generate profits for oil firms by adjusting the petroleum supply and supporting prices. However, the strategy does not help it to substantially dominate the Megacorpstate in order to obtain gradual rise of income and revenues. If the organization decides to adjust supply to increase revenues, the na... |
why aren't our pupils always dilated so that we see more all the time? | Stare into a bright light. How much can you see?
When your pupils dilate it is to allow more light into your eyes. Letting in more light in dark situations helps you see better, but letting in more light in a bright situation makes it harder to see and can damage your eyes. | [
"BULLET::::- Pupil dilation - Pupil dilation may be harder to detect by most people. Sexual desire may be a cause of such dilation. It may also be an indication of attraction. Physiologically, eyes dilate when it is darker to let in more light.\n",
"The \"latency\" of pupillary response (the time in which it take... |
how can there be cameras with large resolutions like 42mp and be just a couple thousand dollars, yet a video camera of that resolution be $40-70,000? why does it seem to be so much more difficult to make? | Take your phone into a dim room and take a picture. Now take a video. The picture will be brighter and more detailed even though it's using the exact same sensor. It requires a lot more light sensitivity to take 30 pictures a second than one picture.
It also takes a lot faster data transfer. (Even if you set your phone to save photos on an SD card, videos will still be recorded on the faster phone memory and transferred later) one photo can fit on a small memory chip and slowly transfer to the removable card. A video doesn't have that luxury because there are continual pictures coming. | [
"Some photographic still cameras such as DSLRs can exceed 5K resolution when capturing still images, but not when capturing video. For example, the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV announced in August 2016 has a maximum resolution of 67204480 pixels (around 30 megapixels in a 3:2 aspect ratio) which is used for high resolution... |
How wide are rainbows if we consider all wavelengths? | This has been asked before: _URL_0_
The gist of it is that water absorbs most light below about 200nm and above perhaps 2000nm, so the edges of the rainbow beyond the visible spectrum start to get dimmer. | [
"Supernumerary rainbows cannot be explained using classical geometric optics. The alternating faint bands are caused by interference between rays of light following slightly different paths with slightly varying lengths within the raindrops. Some rays are in phase, reinforcing each other through constructive interf... |
why dont car batteries need recharging? | The alternator uses engine power to charge it while you’re driving. So it is being recharged, but you don’t need to plug it in. | [
"The oldest form of rechargeable battery is the lead–acid battery, which are widely used in automotive and boating applications. This technology contains liquid electrolyte in an unsealed container, requiring that the battery be kept upright and the area be well ventilated to ensure safe dispersal of the hydrogen g... |
AskScience AMA Series: I'm Andrew Revkin, the strategic advisor for environmental and science journalism at the National Geographic Society-AMA! | I feel like [this article](_URL_0_) from 2010 was a wake-up call to the poor state of science journalism. Do you think things have gotten better or worse since then? | [
"NOAA's research, conducted through the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR), is the driving force behind NOAA environmental products and services that protect life and property and promote economic growth. Research, conducted in OAR laboratories and by extramural programs, focuses on enhancing our unde... |
What kind of sounds does a human fetus hear in the womb? | Babies hear the lower end of the frequency spectrum when they're in the womb. They can get a lot out of that, though. Byers-Heinlein 2010 presents some compelling evidence that newborns of bilingual mothers actually come out of the womb with an ability to distinguish their mother's two languages. They can do that because even when you filter out frequencies above 200-300 Hz, the frequencies that really contain most of the information we need to process speech, there is still find a lot of stuff particular to certain languages or speakers. You can distinguish between voiced stuff (vowels, consonants like d, z, n, r, l) and not-voiced stuff (consonants like t, s). You get intonational contours and pause durations, too. | [
"Numerous studies have found evidence indicating a fetus's ability to respond to auditory stimuli. Research indicates that fetuses of 33–41 weeks gestational age can not only hear, but also distinguish their mothers' voices from others. See also a UK study on child's \"Hearing and listening in the womb\": and UK ma... |
Concerning the SR-71 Blackbird: What did the USSR know about the plane? What did they think it was capable of? Did they attempt any similar designs of their own? | Finally something I can help answer! My senior thesis was done on the A-12 program.
So firstly, I need to mention that the SR-71 was a variant of the A-12 Oxcart program developed by Lockheed for the CIA. Most of my information is coming from the development of the A-12.
For your first question. The USSR was aware of the capabilities of the SR-71 as a result over overhead satellite reconnaissance that the Soviet Union carried out over important military installations. In this case being the Nevada Test and Training Range and Groom Lake. Around 1964 the Ambassador to the USSR in Moscow was given a sketch of the A-12's top down silhouette that had been drawn after space based infa-red cameras had gotten a picture on the runway. (Interesting note. The ground crews would draw absurd plane shapes on the runway and heat them up with lamps to mess with Soviet intelligence when the A-12 project was temporarily grounded after this incident)
The soviets also had a trawler monitoring A-12 reconnaissance flights leaving Japan during overflight of Vietnam and North Korea during the USS Pueblo incident. The Advanced notice of the trawler allowed SAM crews in Vietnam to successfully track the A-12s overflight even though they couldn't engage it.
Can't speak on 2 or 3 because I don't know that much about soviet black projects. But there was an incident before the Gary Powers shoot down where Khrushchev threatened to shoot down the next U-2 that the CIA sent over Russia.
Stealth edit while I sit in the waiting room of the dentist. There actually was a nuclear interceptor variant of the blackbird ordered by the air force known as the YF-12 that would have carried 2 nuclear weapons. The initial order of 12 was either included in the first batch or SR-71s or canceled in favor of the 71. Its difficult to find any information on them other than that it was planned.
Sources are from the Official CIA release of A-12 program documents. [link](_URL_0_)
I will be happy to answer other questions relating to this wonderful plane.
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"The Soviet Union refused to cooperate with international experts while they investigated the incident and did not provide any data from the plane's \"black box\". The airplane was dismantled and all equipment transferred by helicopter onto a barge in Kandalaksha Gulf. The deputy chief commanding officer of Soviet ... |
Why is it impossible for objects weighing less than 0.02 milligrams to form a black hole? | A black hole of mass less than around .02 milligrams or so would have a Schwarzschild radius of around a Planck length or less. At this scale, general relativity cannot be trusted; we need a theory that incorporates general relativity and quantum field theory. Thus, at the very least, we can say that such a black hole could not be described by general relativity.
But we can go further. Quantum mechanics tells us that an object with such a mass would have a Compton wavelength greater than its Schwarzschild radius, which would make it not possible to constrain this mass to be in a small enough region to form a black hole. It is reasonable to expect this to hold even in the eventual quantum theory that incorporates gravity, and if so, that would preclude the formation of a black hole with such a mass.
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"A small mass has an extremely small Schwarzschild radius. A mass similar to Mount Everest has a Schwarzschild radius much smaller than a nanometre. Its average density at that size would be so high that no known mechanism could form such extremely compact objects. Such black holes might possibly be formed in an ea... |
why are humans and most other species dependant on water? is it just coincidence that 70% of earth is covered in it? | We need a liquid that can act as a medium for our bodies to do all the important things it does.
Water is an easily accessible one that is made up of two commonly found atoms. It's electrically neutral, non corrosive/toxic/flammable and doesn't react with a lot of stuffs. It's melting and boiling temperature range is just right to not damage the structure of cells at the distance that the Earth is from the sun.
There is no other liquid that fulfills all of the aforementioned criteria. | [
"Lawrence Smith, the president of the population institute, asserts that although an overwhelming majority of the planet's surface is composed of water, 97% of this water is constituted of saltwater; the fresh water used to sustain humans is only 3% of the total amount of water on Earth. Therefore, Smith believes t... |
How well does the movie "Master and Commander" portray the life of 19th century British sailors? | Pretty well, actually. The costumes, props, sets, everything was pretty meticulously researched and they do a very good job of avoiding anachronisms or introducing stuff that's just flat out fiction. About the only thing that *really* made me raise my eyebrows was the fact that the *Acheron* was supposedly a "44 gun privateer, Boston-built". That means it would have construction very similar to the *USS Constitution*, which needed a crew of about 450, including a complement of Marines. That's obscenely huge for a truly independent privateer, unless the term privateer was supposed to be a colloquialism for an actual French warship operating independently in foreign waters.
The clothes, the battle scenes, and how the men conducted themselves on the ship day-to-day is spot on. They did a great job showing how cramped, wet, dirty, and smelly life aboard a sloop or sixth-rate frigate would be. The little things, like a servant for every officer during the dinner scene in Aubrey's cabin, and how messy and disgusting the surgery scenes in the wardroom were during the battles were excellent. Showing the separate room for the lantern adjacent to the magazine, and the powder room sailors going barefoot were good too. The *Rose* is a replica of the *HMS Rose* of the era, so the construction of the ship is about as accurate as we'll get without using the *Victory* to film scenes, or going back in time.
People like to complain about little technicalities, like the amount of live-fire gunnery practice they did halfway through the movie, in the middle of nowhere, with no chance of re-supply. That's a needless and expensive expenditure of shot and powder; the vast majority of gun exercises would have been "dry runs", where everybody went through the motions but didn't actually touch off any rounds. However, it's a movie and they needed to fold that "getting better" montage in somewhere sensible, so I get it.
**TL;DR-** A few minor, minor quibbles, but the movie is pretty spot.
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"The film was a fictional account with Brian Donlevy's character being based on Major James P. S. Devereux, commander of the Wake Marine detachment. MacDonald Carey's was based on Major Henry T. Elrod and Captain Frank Cunningham. Walter Abel played the naval commander who in real life was Commander Winfield S. Cun... |
Musketball vs. Bayonet | You may be interested in [this older answer](_URL_0_) from u/PartyMoses on bayonets and their (non)use in warfare, which posits that bayonets were never much actually used for stabbing, but for intimidation. | [
"A bayonet lug is a standard feature on most military muskets, rifles, and shotguns, and on some civilian longarms. It is intended for attaching a bayonet, which is typically a long spike or thrusting knife. The bayonet lug is the metal mount that either locks the bayonet onto the weapon or provides a base for the ... |
why do middle/high schools start so early when students are going through growth spurts and need the most sleep? | I was once told that elementary, middle and high school start time were offset so they could use the same buses for all three.
As to why the older students get the earliest start? I'd guess it's because older students can take care of themselves for the time between when they get off school and their parents get off work. | [
"Due to the fact that almost 70% of teens don't get enough sleep, there are increases in stimulant abuse, weight gain, risk of diabetes, immune disorders, mood swings, depression, and suicidal ideation, as well as reduced impulse control. In addition, early school start times have been associated with drowsy drivin... |
how do you order complex numbers? | Only one-dimensional quantities have the property of 'order' you're talking about.
As a result, if you want to 'order' a multi-dimensional value you first need to project it into a single dimension. The common ways to do this for complex numbers would be to either take the magnitude (distance away from the origin) or the angle (rotation off the x-axis). | [
"The complex numbers can be defined by introducing an abstract symbol which satisfies the usual rules of algebra and additionally the rule . This is sufficient to reproduce all of the rules of complex number arithmetic: for example:\n",
"Complex numbers can be entered in either rectangular form (using the key) or... |
what is groundhog day and why is it important? (i'm from the uk) | It's February 2nd. If the groundhog sees its shadow (i.e. if it's sunny), then there will be six more weeks of winter, otherwise spring will come early. It is not important whatsoever. | [
"Groundhog Day (Pennsylvania German: \"Grund'sau dåk\", \"Grundsaudaag\", \"Grundsow Dawg\", \"Murmeltiertag\"; Nova Scotia: Daks Day) is a popular tradition celebrated in Canada and the United States on 2 February. It derives from the Pennsylvania Dutch superstition that if a groundhog (\"Marmota monax\", also cal... |
What is the current state of Japanese historical scholarship in Japan itself? | > how much access do Western (English-speaking, primarily) historians have to Japanese primary sources?
Are you asking how easy is it for foreign historians to gain physical access to Japanese primary sources or are you asking to what extent have Japanese primary sources been translated into foreign languages? | [
"Scholarship on Japan is also within the purview of many organizations and publications dealing with the more general field of East Asian studies, such as the Association for Asian Studies or the Duke University publication \"\".\n",
"The Cambridge History of Japan is a multi-volume survey of Japanese history pub... |
In one my my professor's lectures, he mentioned that Japan tried to surrender before Hiroshima, and the US rejected the proposal. After Nagasaki, they accepted a nearly identical proposal to the one they rejected. Is this true? | Like most stuff that gets introduced in lecture courses, it's mostly right, but more complicated.
Prior to the decision to drop the bomb, some members of the Japanese political leadership were working behind the scenes to try to negotiate a conditional surrender whose terms did (in many ways) closely resemble the unconditional terms of peace that was later accepted.
But both the American public and the American government were hostile to the idea of a conditional Japanese surrender, while the Japanese public and military were vehemently opposed to the idea of an unconditional surrender.
So much so, in fact, that even if U.S. forces had been willing to consider a conditional surrender and it had been a politically feasible option, U.S. military strategists believed that, even if Japan's political elite were acting in good faith during negotiations, they would never be able to convince the Japanese hardliners in the military to accept the negotiated outcome and actually surrender.
So your prof is right in that there were negotiations and discussions on the table to end the war without the bomb, largely on terms that wound up being acceptable after the bomb. But whether or not that alone made the bomb unnecessary depends on whether or not one believes that those negotiations would have been politically feasible to the people and powers that be on either side of the Pacific without the bomb.
If you're looking for sources on it, "Marshall, Truman, and the Decision to Drop the Bomb" by Gar Alperovitz, Robert L. Messer and Barton J. Bernstein talks about this a bit, as does (iirc) John Chappell's *Before the Bomb*. | [
"Ward Wilson wrote that \"after Nagasaki was bombed only four major cities remained which could readily have been hit with atomic weapons\", and that the Japanese Supreme Council did not bother to convene after the atomic bombings because they were barely more destructive than previous bombings. He wrote that inste... |
why did it snow recently in the middle east and why does it happen so rarely? | Deserts aren't big on precipitation of any kind. They also play host to violent temperature extremes. Below zero temperatures in winter nights contrast with sun hot enough to kill. The cold is just as bad for snow as the heat, as you need water in the air to form the snow, before it can fall. | [
"Much of the Middle East usually have little or no snow during the winters due to much warmer conditions caused by the moderate sea effects from the Mediterranean Sea. However 3 feet (90 cm) of snow fell in a storm 2004, which was the worst since 1950.\n",
"A major snowfall event affected portions of the Middle E... |
if someone really did have multiple personalities and each personality had no idea what the others do, what would happen if one of the personalities murdered someone or committed another terrible crime? | Realistically, if we're assuming this is in the United States, this condition would be brought forward and evaluated by a designated mental health official. If it was determined that the crime was committed as a result of these personalities, the individual would likely get to plead insanity and be admitted to a mental hospital for rehabilitation and treatment. | [
"These personalities can then be transplanted (upon the person's actual death) to other people, \"living\" alongside the Host, providing him or her with a new insight on life, and on their field of expertise. As the possession of extra personalities can be a mark of prestige, it has become fashionable in high socie... |
what is that pressure sensation we feel in our chest when we get a spike of anxiety? | I believe it is adrenaline, the fight or flight reflex. But modern man doesn’t necessarily have the same fight or flight reflex as our ancestors - it’s more fight, flight or freeze. Most people freeze but the body still release the adrenaline used from the original fight or flight. | [
"Anxiety and stress elevate the body's level of cortisol and adrenaline, which in turn can interfere with the normal functioning of the parasympathetic nervous system resulting in overstimulation of the vagus nerve. Vagus nerve induced palpitation is felt as a thud, a hollow fluttery sensation, or a skipped beat, d... |
why are people so polarised? | In my opinion, that polarization has been there. The difference is that now everyone has an anonmomous voice and the more extreme elements are the ones that get all the attention. Not every Christian wants to kill abortion doctors. Not every Liberal is a Sociallist. Most people just want to live their lives. | [
"Popular polarization, or mass polarization, occurs when the electorate's attitudes towards political issues, policies, and people are starkly divided along partisan lines. Members of the electorate and general public typically become less moderate in cases of popular polarization. In the U.S., media accounts typic... |
how does removing a storage device from a computer too soon damage the files on the storage device? | Imagine you are drinking water out of a cup through a straw and pull the straw out of the cup mid sip, you wont get all the water out. Now imagine you have different cups with different liquids. If you put the straw in the wrong cup, you might get koolaid instead of water. No big deal. However, you could also put it into poison and die.
With respect to the SD card or flash drive, if you pull it out while it is in the middle of writing data, you run the risk of corrupting the file because the transfer was incomplete because the device was removed.
I am sure this is a terrible explanation, so I will wait until a better one comes along, lol.
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"If an external data storage device is unexpectedly disengaged or accidentally removed while copying files onto it, the user is given the chance to retry the operation without restarting that file copy operation from the beginning; this gives the user the chance to reconnect that external data storage device involv... |
Is there any evidence to suggest that biracial people are less susceptible to genetic diseases? | There are certain diseases that are more common in populations with more restricted gene pools--Tay-Sachs and Ashkenazi Jews, for example.
However, keep in mind that what we think of as "race" is not a particularly useful concept in terms of genetics. [There's likely more genetic diversity *within* Sub-Saharan Africa](_URL_0_)(what we would call "black people) than there is *outside* of it! A man from Nigeria and a woman from Lesotho might be more genetically different than a man from Nigeria and a woman from Germany. The idea of race looks at a specific set of obvious but fairly arbitrary phenotypes (skin colour, hair texture and colour, eye colour) and ignores other phenotypes, both obvious (like height!) and not visible (biochemistry).
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"Some diseases are more prevalent in some populations identified as races due to their common ancestry. Thus, people of African and Mediterranean descent are found to be more susceptible to sickle-cell disease while cystic fibrosis and hemochromatosis are more common among European populations. Some physicians clai... |
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