question stringlengths 3 301 | answer stringlengths 9 26.1k | context list |
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Since humans can change time-zones, can we adapt to longer days/nights? | Perhaps. The body's native circadian rhythms have a natural period (that is, what the circadian cycle would be like if you had constant darkness or light) that is very close to 24 hours, but is not exactly. This rhythm is modulated by light- which is how rhythms can adapt to a 24 hour rhythm and change in response to natural light patterns.
In order to adapt to a 32 hour day, it would be pretty severely desynchronized from the biological 24 hour pacemaker rhythm. You should actually have to do experiments, and this would be hard to determine. I think I heard that with people trying like the 28-hour days, people have difficulty entraining to a 28-hour clock, but don't trust this at all because I don't have a reference and don't even remember where I heard it from. | [
"The circadian rhythms of humans can be entrained to slightly shorter and longer periods than the Earth's 24 hours. Researchers at Harvard have shown that human subjects can at least be entrained to a 23.5-hour cycle and a 24.65-hour cycle (the latter being the natural solar day-night cycle on the planet Mars).\n",... |
how we use hubble's law to measure distances. | You see, the Universe is expanding. Not just at the edges, but everywhere. The space between any two points is expanding whether it is the space between galaxies or the space between your hands.
We know how fast space is expanding and we know how fast far away objects like galaxies SHOULD be moving. By comparing how fast we SEE them moving with how fast they SHOULD be moving, we can know how fast space is expanding between here and there. Since we know how fast space grows, we know how much space there must be between here and there to grow that fast.
Example: Making up numbers, let the speed space expands be 1 speed unit for every 10 distance units. We see a galaxy moving at 50 speed units. We know from various sciencing that it should be moving at 40 speed units. We conclude that 10 speed units must be from space expanding. From that we calculate that the distance to that galaxy must be (10 distance per 1 speed) 100 distance units. | [
"Starting in 1924, Hubble painstakingly developed a series of distance indicators, the forerunner of the cosmic distance ladder, using the Hooker telescope at Mount Wilson Observatory. This allowed him to estimate distances to galaxies whose redshifts had already been measured, mostly by Slipher. In 1929 Hubble dis... |
Does alcohol settle out of solution over time? | No. Alcohol and water are 100% miscible, meaning they blend together perfectly. For something to settle out of solution, you would need it to precipitate. | [
"Typically, the solvent serves as the fuel; thus cost and solubility issues leads to use of ethanol or other \"low cost\" alcohols to dissolve the precursors. The oxygen/alcohol aerosol undergoes rapid combustion within milliseconds, oxidizing all the organic components at temperatures up to 2000 °C leaving only me... |
how an empty pan left on a turned on stove burns? | Dont know about gas stoves but i do know that most pans/pots will melt before they catch fire (had a herion user as a roommate when we lived with my uncle as a kid) | [
"To use the stove, a small amount of fuel (preferably 2% salicylic acid in alcohol) is poured into the stove and ignited. The pot is then placed above the stove, on a windscreen or stand. The flame is small at first, only burning from the inner chamber. Once the fuel has warmed up (requiring about one minute) its v... |
What makes something an acid and what makes something a base? | The concentration of H+ ions in an acqueous solution is what defines acids and bases. A strong acid such as HCl will dissociate and you'll have tons of H+ ions (and tons of Cl- ions) in the solution. A strong base will dissociate too and the calculation is the pH is slightly more complicated. For now it suffices to say that at room temperature you have pH = 14 - pOH, so you can derive the pH from your concentration of OH-.
If the concentration of H+ is very high, pH it's low and it's an acid, if the concentration is low, pH is high, it's a base. pH usually ranges 0 to 14 and it's a logarithmic scale. 7 is neutral.
Foods: bitter or sour they are almost all acids, only a selected few are slightly alkaline (bases). NaHCO3 (baking soda) is mildly alkaline dissolved in water. Tastes salty because it has sodium in it. pH of a lemon is 2 (citric acid), pH of vinegar (acetic acid) is similar (but they don't taste the same), not does honey with a typical acid pH of 4, if I remember well. The are *no* foods that are as strong base as lemon is on the strong acid front.
Distilled water has a pH of 7 (it can't have another one), however you *always* drink water with some salts and minerals dissolved in it, this means you can have water with pH ranging from 6.5 to 8. Yes, it can be acid or alkaline. | [
"A substance can often be classified as an acid or a base. There are several different theories which explain acid-base behavior. The simplest is Arrhenius theory, which states that acid is a substance that produces hydronium ions when it is dissolved in water, and a base is one that produces hydroxide ions when di... |
What made the Normandy invasion so significant compared to the other battles in WWII? Why is this the one most often talked about? | I assume you mean what is the significance from an american/western perspective yes? In the larger ww2 scheme the invasion is certainly siginificant although probably not as significant as it's often regarded in the west.
But onward with the significance.
Normandy is important because it finally opened the much wanted **Western Front** in the war. The main demand that Stalin pressed on GB and the USA, at the summit meetings before 1944, was a western front to relieve some of the German pressure on the USSR. Until the invasion the US and GB contributions had been limited to sideshows in the Mediterranean and strategic bombing + of course the supplies sent to the Soviets through Iran and Murmansk. Normandy finally opened a land front close to the German heartland that the Germans had to defend (thus weakening the eastern front).
That is not to say that Normandy won the war or anything, mid 1944 the Russians were already beating back the Germans rather well through operation Bagration.
**Sheer size** might be a factor, it was indeed the largest amphibious attack ever performed, and it involved a large amount of troops from the western powers. Even more were involved if you count the breakout battles coming after the invasion. The french campaign was the main event for GB and USA in Europe, it was just a lot bigger than what took place in Italy and North Africa.
**Hollywood** can't be discounted in creating popular memory of events. In the years following you get movies like *The longest day* starring John Wayne depicting the invasion. Later on you get many more movies showing the invasion (Private Ryan & Band of Brothers come to mind).
The eastern front had no such coverage and besides by the time Hollywood was shooting movies of D-Day the Russians were the Red Enemy so their contribution to the victory was not something that got much attention. | [
"Victory in Normandy stemmed from several factors. German preparations along the Atlantic Wall were only partially finished; shortly before D-Day Rommel reported that construction was only 18 per cent complete in some areas as resources were diverted elsewhere. The deceptions undertaken in Operation Fortitude were ... |
how did the us go from a budget surplus under clinton to a massive deficit now? | THE most expensive thing (by far) in the world is war. | [
"The Congressional Budget Office reported in October 2009 the reasons for the changes in the 2008 and 2009 deficits, which were approximately $460 billion and $1.41 trillion, respectively. The CBO estimated that ARRA increased the deficit by $200 billion for 2009, split evenly between tax cuts and additional spendi... |
Does a phone get lighter as the battery drains? | Yes - charging the phone adds weight (all other things being equal). A really, really small amount. Your fingerprint on the phone makes significantly more difference. You probably scrape off more metal/plastic plugging in the charger than the mass equivalent in charging the battery.
[See...](_URL_0_) | [
"Starting batteries are of lighter weight than deep cycle batteries of the same size, because the thinner and lighter cell plates do not extend all the way to the bottom of the battery case. This allows loose disintegrated material to fall off the plates and collect at the bottom of the cell, prolonging the service... |
When did it become a common thing for employers to drug test their applicants? What events could be linked to the reason employers began doing it? | This is an interesting question without much historical background. This sub requires historical evidence prior to 1998 in its answers. There is not a lot from before 1998 on this topic. You may want to post somewhere else.
With that being said, the answer is three fold.
1) The drug war.
2) Drug testing in the workplace greatly reduces the cost of health care.
3) Drug testing is an excellent way to get rid of a bad employee immediately. In part it has become policy because in order to test 1 person, you have to test everyone to avoid legal troubles.
Drug testing in the workplace really began with the onset of the drug war. President Reagan began requiring drug testing for federal employees in 1986. Large companies immediately followed suit. As the drug war heated up, workplace testing did too. By the late 1990s employers started to question the cost/benefit of drug testing. Numerous studies— namely one done by the ACLU— revealed that marijuana use isn’t actually a signal of poor performance. At least not more so than the legal drug, alcohol. This supported the experience of the employers themselves who were spending significant sums of money to have the testing done. It still exists today for the reasons mentioned above. | [
"The Drug Free Workplace Act of 1988 didn't come into effect until the late 1980s, when more employers began attempting to eliminate drugs in the workplace. Before the Drug Free Workplace Act, there really was not a federal regulation that employers could use to enforce regulations on employees using drugs. Even th... |
How is it possible that the planet Mercury gets so cold and so hot on opposite sides? Shouldn't heat conduction make the entire planet roughly the same temperature? | Think of the earth as a counter example. The average temperature of the earth is 3000-5000 degrees Celsius if you take the entire volume into account. Conduction through rock obviously isn’t sufficient to bring the temperature of the crust anywhere close to the average. If temperature isn’t homogenous on earth, why should it be on Mercury? The reason the earth has a relatively stable temperature at the surface isn’t due to conduction, which is slow and local, but because of convection in the atmosphere. Weather carries energy around the globe and stabilizes the temperature. Mercury, with a much thinner atmosphere, gets a full blast of unfiltered sun in the day, and has little to hold the heat in at night, Hence the huge temperature swings as radiation moves more freely, both in and out of the planet. | [
"BULLET::::- Mercury, despite being close to the Sun, is actually cold during its night, with a temperature of about −180 °C (−290 °F). Mercury is cold during its night because it has no atmosphere to trap in heat from the Sun.\n",
"The internal heating within terrestrial planets powers tectonic and volcanic acti... |
why, when we look at younger people, do we perceive them as looking younger than us than we did at the same age. (aka me at 16 looked much older than whoever is 16 right now) | That's an opinion based thing. If I look at pictures of when I was 16, I look like a little kid. Then again 16 year olds also look like kids to me. Your perception of how people look changes with your age. | [
"Ageism has significant effects on the elderly and young people. These effects might be seen within different levels: individual person, selected company, whole economy. The stereotypes and infantilization of older and younger people by patronizing language affects older and younger people's self-esteem and behavio... |
why is our vision tinted blue after we face the sun with our eyes closed? | Detecting light requires chemical reactions inside the cells of your eye. The chemicals take a moment to reset/replenish before you can detect the light again. When you look at a bright light, it uses up these chemicals quickly, that's why you get momentarily blinded when looking at a bright light for a second. With your eyes closed, you only see the red light filtering through your eyelids, and you become red-blind, leaving mostly blue detectors working just fine. | [
"Looking directly at the photosphere of the Sun (the bright disk of the Sun itself), even for just a few seconds, can cause permanent damage to the retina of the eye, because of the intense visible and invisible radiation that the photosphere emits. This damage can result in impairment of vision, up to and includin... |
on my home theater system why are action sequences so thunderously loud but people talking barely audible. is it my setup or the film audio track itself? | Try bumping up the gain on your center channel. | [
"The sound in the film was complex for its time; it included dialogue spoken over ambient noises such as crowds at the airport and gunfire during the hunt. Film director Jean Prat said the film's soundtrack was \"of a perfection never equaled by any French film.\" Characters often talk at once or talk over each oth... |
How did the British view their Australian and New Zealander soldiers? | What time frame are you asking about? | [
"Before 1901, units of soldiers from all six Australian colonies had been active as part of British forces in the Boer War. When the British government asked for more troops from Australia in early 1902, the Australian government obliged with a national contingent. Some 16,500 men had volunteered for service by the... |
why do we have war, and why do we go to war? | Resources. Without resources we die. | [
"War is fought as a means of resolving territorial and other conflicts, as war of aggression to conquer territory or loot resources, in national self-defence or liberation, or to suppress attempts of part of the nation to secede from it. There are also ideological, religious and revolutionary wars.\n",
"War is of... |
why do some (ebay) auctions have "reserve" prices? | Starting at 0 entices buyers to begin bidding and then once they've started they will keep bidding past a point when they may have begun bidding earlier. | [
"BULLET::::- No-reserve auction (NR), also known as an \"absolute auction\", is an auction in which the item for sale will be sold regardless of price. From the seller's perspective, advertising an auction as having no reserve price can be desirable because it potentially attracts a greater number of bidders due to... |
How different are h.sapiens from today vs 1 mya? | Well, we only diverged from neanderthals around 500,000 years ago. So 1mya we would not be looking at h.sapiens exactly. That said I am interested in hearing more from someone who studies this and so knows more than me. | [
"The speciation of \"H. sapiens\" out of archaic human varieties derived from \"H. erectus\" is estimated as having taken place over 350,000 years ago, as the Khoisan split from other populations is dated between 260,000 and 350,000 years ago.\n",
"\"H. sapiens\" soon after its first emergence spread throughout A... |
Why does it take longer to get dark at night in some areas over others that are along the same or are close in latitudes? | Twilight lasts a longer time the further you get from the equator, because the Sun moves at an increasing angle to the horizon. The extreme case is the polar regions ( > 66 degrees from the equator), where the Sun never sets at all during summer, while at the equator it sets essentially perpendicular to the horizon, so it goes down fast.
Edmonton (latitude 53.5) is about 10 degrees closer to the pole than Toronto, and 16 degrees closer than San Jose. This makes a big difference.
Also, the Sun is not so far below the horizon at midnight, only about 13 degrees at Edmonton in mid-summer, versus 29 degrees in San Jose.
| [
"On a nightly basis they tend to be more active during the first portion of the night time (20:00-00:00); however, they don't seem to prefer bright or dark nights over the other. During adverse weather or if disturbed they will retreat to their burrow systems. They cover between per night; however, some studies hav... |
how did humans develop such that a well balanced human diet consist of a wide variety of foods when throughout most of human history we only had access to a few foods? | Eating sub optimally does not mean a swift certain death. It means a slightly lower quality of life (think of how you feel from a week of eating fast food vs a week of eating healthy), deteriorating more quickly (your brain may slow down faster as you age), a slightly higher risk of developing disease, etc.
Good nutrition is just maximizing your optimal health, not something as polarizing as going from dying of every disease at 20 vs living forever. | [
"The digestive abilities of anatomically modern humans, however, are different from those of pre-\"H. s. sapiens\" humans, which has been used to criticize the diet's core premise. During the 2.6 million year-long Paleolithic era, the highly variable climate and worldwide spread of human populations meant that huma... |
Was Greek almost the official language of the United States? | tl;dr so essentially we had a vote to decide to print laws in German as well as English and it's possible utopians may have advocated making Greek Latin or French an official language (" considered in the late 18th century to be the languages of God, rationality, and democracy, respectively.") but there would have been nowhere near any sort of majority in support and a vote for that never happened.
I want to step back from the direct question and provide some historical context for the Mulhlenberg legend and the idea people proposed greek as the official language of the US since both are based on actual historical events.
1. greek proposal [The Marquis de Chastellux] (_URL_1_) was one of the liberal french nobles who went to america to support the revolution and was in the Académie française. Serving in Rochambeau's staff (be glad you don't have to read that guy's handwriting) he struck up a personal friendship with washington and in his letters he mentioned [some were proposing using Hebrew](_URL_3_) as the national language
> the proposal was, that it should be taught in the schools and made use of in all public acts. We may imagine this project went no farther but we conclude from the mere suggestion that the Americans could not express in a more energetic manner their aversion to the English.
Similarly 19th century american [Charles Astor Bristed](_URL_2_) appears to have made the claim that people were proposing Greek be the American language causing Roger Sherman to make a famous quip (see below)
the best claim for a direct quotation of the work i can find follows:
The American scholar and author Charles Astor Bristed wrote in 1855: “It is still on record that a legislator seriously proposed that the young republic should complete its independence by adopting a different language from that of the mother country, [like] ‘the Greek for instance.’ But this proposition was summarily extinguished by a suggestion of a fellow representative (Roger Sherman of Connecticut, delegate to the Continental Congress and a member of the committee that drafted the Declaration of Independence) that ‘it would be more convenient for us to keep the language as it was, and make the English speak Greek.”
I can't actually find a source before Bristed for the quote or event so it may be apocryphal.
2. the Mulhlenberg legend:
_URL_0_ (going to cite a good chunk from this)
> In April, 1987, an election judge from Missouri wrote to Ann Landers citing the following excerpt from the local Election Manual to support the argument that everyone's vote counts: “In 1776, one vote gave America the English language instead of German.” The statement is not strictly true, as many of Landers' more alert readers quickly pointed out...On January 13, 1795, Congress considered a proposal, not to give German any official status, but merely to print the federal laws in German as well as English. During the debate, a motion to adjourn failed by one vote. The final vote rejecting the translation of federal laws, which took place one month later, is not recorded.
The translation proposal itself originated as a petition to Congress on March 20, 1794, from a group of Germans living in Augusta, Virginia. ...the Aurora Gazette[:] “A great variety of plans were proposed, but none that seemed to meet the general sense of the House” (22 January, 1795, p. 3).
A vote to adjourn and sit again on the recommendation failed, 42 to 41, but there is no reason to believe from this close vote that more than token support existed for publishing the laws in German. The vote to adjourn seems to have been interpreted by the House as a vote of no confidence both in the committee's recommendation to translate the laws and in its recommendation on the distribution of the sets of laws once they were published in English...if sentiment on the issue in Congress was anything like sentiment in Pennsylvania, translation was probably opposed by a substantial majority of the representatives...
One month later, on February 16, 1795, the House once again considered the question... This time some of the actual debate has been preserved [see site]
The January vote on adjournment is sometimes known as “the Muhlenberg Vote,” after the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Pennsylvania's Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg, a Federalist who spoke German with difficulty, so it is claimed, and who was at any rate a member of a prominent family of assimilated Germans...tradition has it that Muhlenberg stepped down to cast the deciding negative, thereby dooming German in America to minority-language status [but we don't have the roll call]...
Nonetheless, Muhlenberg was blamed for selling out German language interests by **Franz Lher, whose 1847 History and Achievements of the Germans in America** presents a garbled though frequently cited account of what is supposed to have happened. **Lher places the crucial language vote not in the U.S. Congress, but in the Pennsylvania legislature, over which Muhlenberg had earlier presided.** ... However, Muhlenberg later did manage to irritate his German constituents by casting the deciding vote in favor of the Jay Treaty during the Fourth Congress, a move which drove his brother-in-law to stab him and which cost him the next election in 1796. This significant tie-breaker soon became confused with the earlier adjournment cliff-hanger, conveniently fleshing out the myth of the German vote (Feer 1952, 401).
the bold portion highlights where i think Ben Franklin got brought into this false narrative. A game of telephone caused Franklin, a figure everyone still knows, to replace a now obscure Pennsylvanian. | [
"During antiquity, Greek was a widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world, West Asia and many places beyond. It would eventually become the official parlance of the Byzantine Empire and develop into Medieval Greek. In its modern form, Greek is the official language in two countries, Greece and Cyprus, a... |
how these modern tiny loudspeaker / amplifiers sound so good? | I know part of this, much stronger permanent magnets. Back then we didn't have neodymium magnets, utilising those in speakers allows for much more powerful motion of the speaker cone so you can get much louder and better sound from a smaller speaker with less power supplied to the coil.
I'm 37 and I'm also really impressed at the quality and bass you can get from these tiny speakers you can plug into your phone or whatever. I wish we had them in the 90s. | [
"Mainstream modern loudspeakers give good sound quality in a compact size, but are much less power-efficient than older designs and require powerful amplifiers to drive them. This makes them unsuitable for use with valve amplifiers, particularly lower-power single-ended designs. Valve hi-fi power amplifier designs ... |
Is there a usage of quantum physics in our body? | Maybe. Known quantum effects in biology include long-range coherence during photosynthesis and [the magnetic field detection that birds use to navigate](_URL_0_). It's possible that [smell uses quantum effects](_URL_1_) to identify individual molecules, but from what I've read this is still a speculative hypothesis. There was a [recent paper](_URL_2_) arguing that entanglement of phosphorus in the brain is responsible for cognition, but this is not accepted. | [
"Main critique of Quantum theory and its application in the fields of neuroscience and cognitive and behavioural psychology is generally ascribed to the physiology of the brain's bio-environment and the discrepancy in the speed of the classical versus quantum processes in the brain dynamic. It has been argued by Te... |
why don't they use metal detectors before an mri scan? | I think it may just be an unnecessary expenditure since you are assumed to know if you have metal in your body, or it would at least be present in any medical records or be in there for some plausible known reason. | [
"BULLET::::- Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) uses a powerful magnet to produce images of internal organs and their functions. Metal objects are attracted to the magnet and are normally not allowed near MRI machines. The magnet can interrupt the pacing and inhibit the output of pacemakers. If MRI must be done, the ... |
Cold weather and lung disease - how are they linked? | This is pretty much asking for medical advice. You should go see a doctor.
There is a reflex that makes you cough a bit upon moving from warm air to cold air, but it's not severe and it does not last days. | [
"Common symptoms of the flu such as fever, headaches, and fatigue are the result of the huge amounts of proinflammatory cytokines and chemokines (such as interferon or tumor necrosis factor) produced from influenza-infected cells. In contrast to the rhinovirus that causes the common cold, influenza does cause tissu... |
How did contemporary, mainstream western ideas about fashion and gender develop? | At first I thought to break this down as a study of the changes in mens, womens, and childrens fashion starting around 1700. But, though I think the way we dress children plays a huge role in this answer I'm not sure that's the best lens to view it through. Instead, we're going to explore Ornamentation. It seems the easiest way to sum up fluff, frills, trimming, accessories and the time one has to put in to deciding, dressing, and wearing these things. With too much ornamentation men today are seen as effeminate peacocks. When women put no time into such things they are dressing overtly masculine and fall into stereotypes as well. I feel like cleanliness is a whole topic unto itself, so I'll likely skip that for now (I've been studying it a lot lately, but haven't made it into the 20th c. yet).
I'm going to start with the 18th century, because that's as far back as my expertise comfortably goes (it could certainly be extended further back as a topic, but there are more than enough changes between now and then). At this point there is clearly gendered clothing. Ornamentation is also gendered, not by amount but by type. A man's coat in the early part of the century could be covered in dozens of superfluous buttons, gold or silver lace trim, and embroidery. While the buttons numbers do decrease throughout the century, they have a brief stint of massive proportions in the 1780s/90s. Even English sporting clothes, the epitome of a masculine gentleman, were not immune from such touches. [The Spruce Sportsman](_URL_0_) of the 1770s has on a practical pair of leather breeches, boots, and is even still holding his rifle. But, his fine wool broadcloth coat is adorned in gold lace and silver buttons, his hat in gold braid. A set of silver buttons from around this time survive in the Colonial Williamsburg collection with provenance to William Lightfoot. They are large, silver buttons with hunting dogs and their names engraved upon them. The cuff buttons for the coat have tiny foxes. Clearly meant to be placed upon a hunting coat similar to that in the print, ornamentation of this kind was certainly not feminine.
There are plenty of prints during the later 18th century of dandies, fops, macaronis, puppies, etc. What I find terribly interesting is that, despite their clear opinions of this sort of dress being incredibly over-the-top and even sometimes absurd, I don't find images that imply them to be "gay". In [Is This my Daughter Ann?](_URL_1_) you see the macaroni gentleman being affectionate with his equally grand female lover. [The Covent Garden Macaroni](_URL_9_) eyes a lovely young lady out for a walk. That's not say they didn't see them as sexually absent or stunted (perhaps just distracted) as [this Henpeck'd Husband](_URL_7_) shows.
On the opposite end of this spectrum we find the rather butch women. They too are not shown to have sexual differences based on this persona, but rather as tough, uncultured, and low-class. They're a [common pair](_URL_3_) to the macaroni, usually bullying him about. Even [well-dressed women](_URL_8_) could be found in more aggressive and masculine situations. Masculine attire for women in the form of riding habits were around earlier in the century, but really took off in the 1770s. Thoughts on this were made very clear by images of [women clomping into the print](_URL_4_) complete with men's boots and coat. If you look closely you'll even see her foot trodding upon a paper saying "effeminancy". Clearly, [the fight over who wears the breeches](_URL_5_) was something of a topic. But, despite all of this it seems more to do with women asserting dominance, often paired with more masculine clothing, than seeing a plain or unkempt woman as lesbian.
This feminine dominance becomes even more of an issue in the 19th century. Prior to this is was not seen as demasculinizing for the wife to work. Many women in the 18th century did so in their own trade, their husbands, or mainly working out on the farm. While the optimal idea was to have the husband working in a profession (or trade if he must) and the wife at home taking care of the time-consuming household, it seems they had the idea that two incomes are better than one the same way we do today. Women in the workplace was not a threat. But, this changes in the mid-19th century. The middle class develops and from this the idea that the definition includes the woman keeping to her sphere of the home. The woman having to work meant that the husband could not support his family.
A major shift in men's attire begins to take place around the same time. We can look at the [1830s mens fashion](_URL_2_) and see an extremely feminine silhouette. Though, the colors are more subdued and "masculine" by todays standards and the trimmings are absent. A shift towards this takes place around the turn of the century. The fashion for English sporting attire takes full hold and items like boots become everyday wear rather than just for riding and sporting attire (previously they were not made to be walked in). I do have to note here that this shift was not due to Beau Brummel as history books love to attest. He might have been the epitome of a fashionable English gentleman, but saying he carried the reins on the fashion changes occurring is akin to saying Kim Kardashian made the rear-end popular (I refer you to Sir Mix-a-lot). While not covered in trimmings and gaudy colors, a great deal of time was spent by these gentlemen in dressing neatly and presenting an incredibly detailed and put-together appearance.
Women during the same time go through a very odd few decades. The 1780s fashions call for simpler styles with a great deal more masculine influence. The [redingote](_URL_6_), or great-coat, is incredibly popular and styled after a mans garment. This trend puts influence on jackets, pelisses, spencers, etc. over the next few decades. Women back away from this style influence in the late 1820s. Around the same time we see our men also trending towards a more feminine appearance.
Obviously, by the late 19th century men's attire has become the standardized business-like appearance we're accustomed to. I personally feel like there is a major tie-in to the gender separation of spheres during this time. Men are meant for the business/working world and should dress the part. Major changes in children attire come around this time as well. Up until the 1910s it was very common to dress children alike. Male vs. female didn't matter much until that little boy was out of diapers and fully potty trained. I even have images of my grandfather in a dress from the 1910s. A dress was just easier and it's not like the child cares. Surely, inventions of things like zippers, snaps, safety pins, and advancement in elastic make easily removable children's pants a possibility. But it still falls at rather a important shift in perception of gender.
By now men dress for work, women dress for fashion. In fashion, we find extremes that are not practical (like the horribly misguided anti-corset campaign from the turn-of-the-century claims, but that's another topic). The 1920s brings us boyish women. The reaction to this from the 1930s-50s is well studied as the pendulum swings to the opposite extreme for women's appearance. Post WWI and WWII there is a threat of women in the workplace, refusing to leave after being needed during the war. Combined with so many other changes, the 1950s becomes one giant Victorian revival to the extreme. It's shortly before this that blue for boys/pink for girls really takes off (thanks to advertisements to sell us more things). There is a nearly fanatical separation of masculine and feminine. I personally can't speak as well to the homosexual culture of this time outside of what we've all seen in media. There are definitely some more underground groups of cross-dressing, homosexuality, etc in the late 19th century. But the very public shaming of anyone even beginning to have comparative tendencies to these "deviants" seems to skyrocket in the 1950s.
But, men are still expected to appear incredibly clean-cut and business like. While this doesn't exactly happen instantly when jumping out of bed in the morning, it's not something to fuss over. At least not for the men. Wives fussing over their husbands appearance was more normal, even if it does bring about the nagging woman trope.
Past this point I feel out of my element. It seems more closely tied to the stereotypes of homosexuals and their appearance than what is considered main stream fashion. While the macaronis of the 18th century didn't have their fashion extreme directly connected with those stereotypes of being gay, the fashionable extreme of the late 20th century certainly did. The same goes for the plainer, even more masculine women. The shift really occurs in the later half of the 19th century, but almost back-pedals with trouser-wearing, bike-riding feminists (or even flappers) and the indulgence of the 1920s that even reached men's attire. The post-WWII cultural reaction puts a quick end to that trend. | [
"The history of Western fashion is the story of the changing fashions in clothing for men and women in Europe and other countries under influence of the Western world, from the 12th century to the present.\n",
"1850s fashion in Western and Western-influenced clothing is characterized by an increase in the width o... |
why do people leave useless answers to amazon product questions? | You actually get an email from amazon, asking you if you can answer the questions (usually a product you recently bought).
My best guess would be that they think they are directly asked by that person. Doesn't make much sense, but so doesn't answering the question with a bad answer. | [
"The Amazon Seller Central help section provides sellers on the Amazon Marketplace with guidelines and answers to frequently asked questions. Despite the existence of this help section, a recent study has shown that 50 percent of surveyed sellers incorrectly believe that you cannot directly ask buyers for a product... |
Does the supermassive black hole in the center of our galaxy have any effects on the way our planet, star, or solar system behave? | The premise that the black hole is holding together the galaxy is wrong.
Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole thought to be at the center of the Milky Way, is estimated to be the mass of about 4 million suns.
To put that in context, the milky way is estimated to have between 100-400 billion stars with a mass of about 12 trillion suns. This makes Sagittarius A* less than .0001% the mass of our galaxy. So no, it does not affect us.
Having said that, there are a few stars that orbit Sagittarius, and quite fast. [link](_URL_2_)
---
What does affect us, though?
[here's an interesting thing to look at](_URL_1_)
The image on the left shows how the galaxy should be moving, predicted by the mass distributions and densities we observe from all sources of light. The image on the right shows how it is actually observed to be moving.
This is exactly why dark matter is hypothesized to exist. The image on the right is only possible if there exists an enormous amount of mass greater than that of the galaxy and outside of it. Just a quick search shows an artists rendition of it, but the scale is roughly accurate: [dark matter halos!](_URL_0_)
| [
"BULLET::::- It is not near the galactic center where once again star densities increase the likelihood of ionizing radiation (e.g., from magnetars and supernovae). A supermassive black hole is also believed to lie at the middle of the galaxy which might prove a danger to any nearby bodies.\n",
"This nebula is se... |
Why did German soldiers pay homage to Joan of Arc during WWII? | This is somewhat of a complex answer and she stretched far beyond German homage.
1. It wasn't as much an homage to Joan of Arc the person, but more so what she began to symbolize in the late 19th century. Following the Franco-Prussian War, Joan of Arc began to represent a hopeful pride in a weakened nation. From Robert Frank's "Collaboration and Resistance, Images of Life in Vichy France 1940-1944
[…] there were different versions of Joan; two or three images, sometimes complementary, sometimes concurrent, prevailed: the Saint and the patriot always, the daughter of the people sometimes. The leftist republican and radical preferred the second and the third; the rightist favored the first while honoring the second.(1)
#2 Édouard Adolphe Drumont
Drumont was the founder of the Antisemitic League of France. Throughout Drumont's writings, would use Arc as a symbolic hero for his cause.Joan of Arc was described as a baptized Aryan by Drumont, an “aryenne baptisée” in La Libre Parole, May 30, 1894. (2) As she had already become a symbolic figure in many European societies,her believed Aryan qualities allowed her to be a cookie cutter icon.
The figure of Joan was exploited by anti-Semites in Algeria , with Drumont drumming up the troops. The anti-Semitic rioting that broke out in Algiers and Oran during the Dreyfuss Affair was carefully prepared: influenced by Drumont’s book La France Juive, which saw a ray of hope in Algeria’s anti-Semitism
It is important to keep in mind that since the Dreyfuss affair led to a spark in this anti-semitic movement, it also reignited upon his death in 1935. With his death, Drumont's attack on Dreyfuss was reignited although he had been writing about Joan of Arc for years.
If the roots of the nazi genocide of Jews can be found in the anti-Semitism surrounding the Dreyfus Affair, as Drumont’s newspaper Libre Parole so deftly states on the front page of the Sunday, May 15, 1938 issue (“De fait, Hitler est venu bien après Drumont… [et] l’Antisémitisme ne sauraît donc être un terme synonyme d’hitlérien”), one might also suppose that the roots of Vichy’s Joan could be found with Edouard Drumont, Charles Maurras, and even Hilaire Belloc in translation, as well as in some of the Joan propaganda used during World War I. Posters attest to that fact: there is one with Joan in chains standing over churches in flames (representing Rouen), with the slogan: “Les assassins reviennent toujours… sur les lieux de leur crime”56. But a better conclusion might be the idea that Propagandists always come back to the strong symbol, and Joan of Arc is one of the strongest symbols available to the French people and the rest of humanity. (3)
* 1 Robert Frank, Collaboration and Resistance, Images of Life in Vichy France 1940-1944, tr. Lory Frankel, NY: Harry N. Abrams, 2000, 213.
* 2 Drumont’s article was entitled “Les dernières fêtes de Jeanne d’Arc” (La Libre Parole, May 30, 1894), quoted by Neil McWillliam, “Conflicting Manifestations: Parisian Commemoration of Joan of Arc and Etienne Dolet in the Early Third Republic”, French Historical Studies 27.2, Spring 2004,
* 3 Reproduced in Laurent Bonnet and Louis-Marie Blanchard, En chemin avec Jeanne d’Arc, Rennes: Ouest France, 2004, 121. | [
"During World War I, it was common for French soldiers to carry an image of Joan of Arc when going into battle. Although she was not canonized a saint until 1920, Joan of Arc represented the devotion of the soldier who fought for France. The lyrics of the song portrays the French soldiers' calling out to Joan of Ar... |
why is it that we typically make eggs, bacon, pancakes, etc. for breakfast & why does it seem so wrong in a sense if we eat anything other than those typical breakfast foods for breakfast? | Conditioning. If you were raised on pizza and soda for breakfast, milk and cocoa puffs would seem weird. | [
"Common breakfasts include fried eggs and tomatoes seasoned with various spices, and scrambled eggs mixed with vegetables. Soft-boiled eggs are often made when members of the household are sick as many believe it to be very healthy. Harissa, a traditional Assyrian porridge made of chicken, wheat, and a generous amo... |
Why are sumo wrestlers able to maintain their athleticism while morbidly obese, but others of the same weight become bedridden and are at risk of sudden death? | sumos aren't morbidly obese. Turns out the bodyfat percentage on a lot of them is in the 15-30% range. Pair that wil the fact that they physically train, and you have, essentially, a power lifter body on a wrestler | [
"The negative health effects of the sumo lifestyle can become apparent later in life. Sumo wrestlers have a life expectancy between 60 and 65, more than 10 years shorter than the average Japanese male, as the diet and sport take a toll on the wrestler's body. Many develop type 2 diabetes or high blood pressure, and... |
Meat and colon cancer | The best you can do is take a recommendation from a reputable source like the American Cancer Society. They have looked at all of the data as a whole and use that to make an informed recommendation. Most importantly, THEY HAVE NOTHING AT STAKE. They want to decrease cancer. You will find many studies (like the one in Dr. Briffa's blog post) that find red meat to be healthy are funded by meat producers. One study is not enough, one study can be wrong or botched, but many studies are much less likely to be so.
_URL_0_
*Risk factors linked to things you do*
*Some lifestyle-related factors have been linked to colorectal cancer. In fact, the links between diet, weight, and exercise and colorectal cancer risk are some of the strongest for any type of cancer.*
*Certain types of diets*
*A diet that is high in red meats (beef, lamb, or liver) and processed meats (like hot dogs, bologna, and lunch meat) can increase your colorectal cancer risk. Cooking meats at very high heat (frying, broiling, or grilling) can create chemicals that might increase cancer risk. Diets high in vegetables, fruits, and whole grains have been linked with a lower risk of colorectal cancer, but fiber supplements do not seem to help.*
Another good source-
_URL_1_
*These two studies are impressive, and they don’t stand alone. A meta-analysis of 29 studies of meat consumption and colon cancer concluded that a high consumption of red meat increases risk by 28%, and a high consumption of processed meat increases risk by 20%.* | [
"On October 26, 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer of the World Health Organization reported that eating processed meat (e.g., bacon, ham, hot dogs, sausages) or red meat was linked to some cancers.\n",
"BULLET::::- The International Agency for Research on Cancer of the World Health Organizatio... |
I'm a penniless, but free, peasant living in Italy at the beginning of the Renaissance. What can I do to start making money and rise into the bourgeoise class? | In Florence you would find things... difficult, to say the least, but perhaps easier the younger and more talented in whatever craft you knew. At the time of the Renaissance, all meaningful means of production in Florence was tightly controlled by their respective guild, called *Arti*. The largest and most powerful was the cloth weaver's guild, the oldest, the dyer's guild, and included trades of nearly everything that you could think of. You were not free from the tight control of the guild, either, if your trade did not directly fall underneath one of seven to twenty-eight different guilds in Florence at the time for many trades were lumped in with their needed means of production as well. For example, painters fell under the *Arte dei Medici e Speziali*, the Physicans and Apothecaries' guild, because they had to go to pharmacies to purchase their dyes and pigments.
The different guilds worked as a unit to accomplish quite impressive goals. Establishing quality control, work hours, social safety nets for the families of guild members, along with instruction in their trade and craft for young boys taken in as apprentices and protection from foreign competition.
However, while that is fantastic for anyone in the guild, you are a penniless dirtmonger supposedly with no significant connections to anyone important anywhere, or you would have used them to get your children or yourself ahead in life. You can't just set up your own stall, either, since the guild might literally come and destroy your work, and have the legal impetus to do so. You can't exactly sign up for the guild, either. To join the guild you had to have three things: to have paid an entrance tax, to have some amount of competence in the craft, and to be a legitimate son of a member. Since you are penniless, it can be safely assumed that you are not in fact, a non-bastard son of member of a guild and you can't pay the entrance tax anyways.
However, you remember what I said about it being easier the young and more talented you were? The other way to join a guild was to be taken in by a Master of the Guild as a *garzoni*, an apprentice as a boy. Apprentices were promising young men who Masters thought might further the Guild's reputation with their skills, and were taken in to be instructed in the craft and to assist the masters in their work. Something like an internship that lasted many, many years.
The masters, or *capomasetri* each ran a *bottege*, a workshop which if you were young and talented enough, you might be taken in. It would be quite a long shot, however. With no one to vouch for you, no one to sponsor you and no one to please and favor by taking you in, a master would be taking quite the risk in taking on an utterly unknown peasant from nowhere. Your work would have to be quite exceptional, assuming upon being presented with your piece of work, they didn't just spit in your face and demand to know who's work you stole.
That said, if you could rise up through the ranks and marry the right people, you might just reach the rank of Master of the Guild, of which there were only a few in each *Arti*. And then, finally, you would well and surely reach the "bourgeoise" class.
This is not optional, by the way. You can't just be be only an artistic genius at this time period. My memory might be bad and I don't have m books with me, but I can't think off of the top of my head a single artist from the Renaissance that didn't find their "humble" beginnings under someone's tutelage in a workshop, in which case they already had a massive advantage over most of Florence's population. In Florence, everything was tied to the guild, unless you're taking about post-Medici ascendancy, in which case everything was tied to Cosimo's deep, deep pockets.
| [
"As a cultural movement, the Italian Renaissance affected only a small part of the population. Italy was the most urbanized region of Europe, but three quarters of the people were still rural peasants. For this section of the population, life remained essentially unchanged from the Middle Ages. Classic feudalism ha... |
why do some runners/drivers get a head start in pro races? | If you're talking about racing around an oval track, the competitor on the outside has to cover a longer distance than the competitor on the very inside, which is unfair if they all started at the same time. | [
"Drivers ride across one of three courses in a three-lap race with power-ups and shortcuts to help lead them to their victory. To win, a driver must finish in first place out of 4 ranks. Drivers can drift to earn nitro boosts and do barrel rolls for shields, which prevent drivers from receiving damage and may ricoc... |
Were there copies of the information in the library of Alexandria in other places around the world? | [This thread](_URL_0_) from /u/XenophonTheAthenian seems like it may answer your questions (or at least parts of them). | [
"The Bibliotheca Alexandrina (English: Library of Alexandria; \"\", ) is a major library and cultural center located on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea in the Egyptian city of Alexandria. It is both a commemoration of the Library of Alexandria that was lost in antiquity, and an attempt to rekindle something of t... |
cellular respiration, why is it so important in maintaining animal health, growth and reproduction? | Cellular respiration isn't like, important in maintaining health. Its like saying a heartbeat is important in maintaining health.
Cellular respiration for animals..i guess, is how every cell gets energy to carry out(most) chemical reactions.
The Adenosine TriPhosphate molecule (ATP) that you see people typing out in this thread saying its energy for your body is what is the great yield from cellular respiration. Though the body technically "uses" it and you can say its the way energy is made in your body thats not entirely true.
Cellular respiration (wether it be calvin or krebs cycle respiration, aka plant or animal), is a type of chain reaction to really get Adenosine Diphosphate another phosphate group to make that molecule you keep hearing (ATP).
So the reason why is basically this molecule is set up in a way that the 3 phosphates on this adenosine-ribose complex (as per the term adenosine Triphosphate), is the perfect shape to manipulate the rest of the chemicals in your body. This is the "energy" you hear people associate with ATP.
In almost every single reaction in your body, you have like thousands of intermediary proteins, compounds, hormones, whatever, that will be involved to make a cell do something. ATP is flooded everywhere to allow those things to change their shape and in doing so allows the process to happen. When the molecules change their shape energy is being transferred, this is why you hear people associate it with energy.
Now your question however, you're trying to imagine like cellular respiration being important in the process of health, growth, reproduction,.. whatever.
The thing is, ATP (and therefore cellular respiration) is technically why these molecules are moving and changing in the first place. Its not like an important factor, like oil in an engine, cellular respiration is the process of an engine. Its the entirety.
Any biological mechanism you can think of probably involves atp somewhere. Any mechanism. Ever. So it's hard to denote cellular respiration like that. Growth, health, reproduction, these are on whole entire magnitudes of biological mechanisms that are going on, but just focus on one cell doing a n y t h i n g. Theres cellular respration, because you need ATP to have that happen.
ATP virtually makes the chemistry happen in biology. Without this molecule to change the shape (and therefore transfer energy, and in biology changing shape is the basic chemistry of the situation anyways), you would need something else to change the shape of molecules to control the chemical reaction you are trying to get at, like making a protein, moving a vesicle inside a cell, a ribosome creating protein from RNA,. i could almost list every single biological complex known and you would need the energy catalyst ATP to do it somewhere somehow. ATP causes biochemistry to happen, and there's no other chemical that can work well for that on this earth with earths biology, otherwise it would be dominant everywhere, but now we are going into evolutionary principle.
Not even mulling over glycolisis or other forms of ATP production as its hardly ever found as the main contributor to ATP in most living organisms, and in almost every case is just an inefficient form of the calvin and krebs cycle of cellular respiration. | [
"The physiological definition of respiration differs from the biochemical definition, which refers to a metabolic process by which an organism obtains energy (in the form of ATP) by oxidizing nutrients and releasing waste products. Although physiologic respiration is necessary to sustain cellular respiration and th... |
in what context would you decide between saying "muslim" or "islamic"? | Muslim and Islamic are interchangeable when used as an adjective. For example "Muslim architecture" and "Islamic architecture" are both correct. However "muslim" is also a noun that refers to a follower of islam and is not interchangeable in that context. For example you would say "John is a muslim" but not "John is an islamic" as the latter makes no sense | [
"The word “Islam” is derived from the Arabic word \"aslama\", which denotes the peace that comes from total surrender and acceptance. A Muslim may experientially behold that everything happening is meant to be, and stems from the ultimate wisdom of God; hence, being a Muslim can therefore be understood to mean that... |
In a zero gravity environment if I were to punch forward would I move with the punch? | No, as your hand moves forward your body will go backwards, but after both are done moving you will be stationary relative to your initial position. | [
"Jon Fitch appeared on the November 5, 2008, episode of \"MythBusters\", \"Coffin Punch\". The MythBusters were attempting to determine if someone could punch their way out of a coffin. For his part, Jon Fitch laid on his back and punched up into a sensor, attached to a punching bag that was a few inches above Fitc... |
Did the British Isles have their own variant of Vulgar Latin? What happened to it? | It's a difficult question, because evidence is scarce one way or another : the consensus is that Vulgar Latin might have been an urban language, especially in the south-eastern regions and place of active Roman institutions (such as York), which shared everyday use with British speeches, in a probable diglossic relationship, meaning that Vulgar Latin was the high social language.
Still, Britain was comparativrly to the other provinces of western Romania, significantly under-develloped and without a real effort of Roman settlement safe near Roman camps, and especially in the western and northern margins, Britton was probably still an everyday language, but with the preservation of a Briton's cultural life. There's even an expression used by Roman soldiers for natives, in the Vindolanda's Tables : "Little Bretons" (Brittunculi) hinting at a cultural and political rupture as late as the early IInd century, which is at best less apparent in the Germanic limes.
British Vulgar Latin, as far as it can be told giving the limited evidence there is (few inscriptions, study of borrowed Latin words in Germanic and Brythonic speeches), seems to have followed a similar evolution than in Gaul or Spain with maybe some antiquated pronounciation, maybe out of hyper-correction, sometimes, while classical and institutional Latin survived on its own too.
Basically, Roman Britain shared a same Vulgar Latin linguistic ensemble with other latinized Roman provinces without apparent radical difference : a Gallo-Roman was probably able to understand a Britto-Roman without too much troubles, maybe able to identify the origin of this person thanks to their accent.
Situation is much more difficult to assert after the collapse of Roman Britain in the Vth (namely the disappearence of urban life and the ruin of provincial romanisation) that took place. Certainly usage of Latin didn't vanished overnight and even in the VIth century there's evidence of an institutional, memorial use. We don't have evidence on how and when Vulgar Latin survived in Britain, but it certainly did giving the loanwords in Anglo-Saxon, Gaelic and Brythonic speeches.
Theories over a "Britto-Romance" speech, meaning there the evolution of British Vulgar latin severed from mainland evolution do exist, but lacks some definitive evidence. Eventually, it is possible that it went trough a specific evolution mirroring Gallo-Romance, but the jury is still out until some proof can be made.
By the time Vulgar Latin speeches in the mainland gave birth to specific Romance languages (roughly after a period of four centuries, after the IVth, which wasn't only set by linguistic but as well institutional matters), there's no evidence that you had remaining Latin speakers in England. It's not clear what happened, but the social and cultural basis for Vulgar Latin was damaged enough that it probably favoured either a return to Brythonnic once Romano-British peoples were left with the former less romanised regions of Britain, and in areas giving birth to early Anglo-Saxon kingdoms the promotion of Germanic speeches as the language of the petty-kings (maybe, altough it's debated, with a hint of cultural apartheid).
& #x200B;
& #x200B; | [
"It is not known when Vulgar Latin ceased to be spoken in Britain, but it is likely that it continued to be widely spoken in various parts of Britain into the 5th century. In the lowland zone, Vulgar Latin was replaced by Old English during the course of the 5th and the 6th centuries, but in the highland zone, it g... |
Why is there vapor that comes off really cold things? | It's the result of atmospheric water vapour condensing into droplets. | [
"Mist is a phenomenon caused by small droplets of water suspended in air. Physically, it is an example of a dispersion. It is most commonly seen where warm, moist air meets sudden cooling, such as in exhaled air in the winter, or when throwing water onto the hot stove of a sauna. It can be created artificially with... |
why do we fall asleep faster when the environment is being rocked/swung about (i.e. car, baby's bed, ship)? | Surprisingly, it looks like the science is still out on this.
My two cents would be that it is a hypnotic effect though. Continuous rocking is also a soothing / coping habit for people experiencing anxiety. I would presume it gives the brain a predictable pattern to work with - and that predictability calms the mind.
You might say "calms it how? Just because something predictable is occurring, doesn't mean something unpredictable isn't going to come along." Which is of course true - but the brain has limited resources. With rocking motions, some of those resources are now taken up by predictable stimuli, and leave less resources to imagine unknown stressors. | [
"Many adults find rocking chairs soothing because of the gentle motion. Gentle rocking motion has been shown to provide faster onset of sleep than remaining stationary, mimicking the process of a parent rocking a child to sleep.\n",
"This phenomenon implies that a sleeping driver often does not react and begin to... |
what exactly does the little blue gel pad at the top and the rubber pad at the bottom of my razor do? is it just for style and we all assume it actually does something like add comfort or something but it actually does nothing? | They're lubricant. They both help the razor slide more smoothly across your skin but also leave moisture behind to prevent your skin from drying out.
The one at the bottom would help with function as you don't want hair to catch on the blades. The one on top would be more for comfort.
If you learn how to shave properly, they're both redundant. You should have adequate lubrication on your skin before the razor touches it and you should be using some kind of after-treatment for comfort. | [
"The general design of a gel pen is similar to that of a regular ink based pen, with a barrel containing the writing mechanism and a cap, and a reservoir filled with ink. The barrels can be created in many different sizes and designs; some have finger grips of rubber or plastic. The size of the nib or pen tip range... |
why does the us use a state system? | Because originally the USA were thirteen pseudo-independent colonies under the British crown. Contrary to common belief, the "united" states of America never got on with each other historically. Not all thirteen even rose up against the British to begin with, so when they eventually did unify they kept a federal system whereby each state retains some autonomy, but are "united" in the sense that there is a central government which has a limited jurisdiction over all (now 50) states. As such, all the states have some say in the laws of all but remain independent enough for differences between them to persist.
*edited 52 to 50 because apparently that's how many states there are now lol | [
"States are the primary subdivisions of the United States. They possess all powers not granted to the federal government, nor prohibited to them by the United States Constitution. In general, state governments have the power to regulate issues of local concern, such as: regulating intrastate commerce, running elect... |
how bugs (not referring to tiny ones) somehow get through screened windows with no noticeable entrances. | Info: are you talking like stuck between the screen and a closed window?
If so, many screens, while sealed into the screen frame itself, are able to be open and closed. They can run on a little track in the side of the window frame and can actually leave a small gap at the top (between the screen frame and window frame). While many bugs, like cockroaches, look huge, some can slide into places as thin as the thickness of a quarter. So even a small gap that you don’t notice or can’t see can be an exploitable entrance for bug kind. | [
"A window screen (also known as insect screen, bug screen, fly screen, wire mesh) is designed to cover the opening of a window. It is usually a mesh made of plastic wire, or other pieces of plastic and stretched in a frame of wood or metal. It serves to keep leaves, debris, spiders, insects, birds, and other animal... |
What are the origins of the Roman *Triarii*, and why did they assume the role of "the 3rd Line of defense?" | Ok I'm going to take a stab at this.
The Roman Army under the Etruscan kings was modeled after the Greek Phalanx with rounded shields (*hoplon*) and long spears. In 387 BC the Battle of Allia occurs and Rome is sacked. After the Gauls are driven back the phalanx is changed to the more recognizable legion with standardized weapons and armor for the most part. Livy discusses the organization of the Roman Army in 340 BC. Livy states that a legion was 5000 strong. After the phalanx was done away with the army was broken into groups known as *maniples* which consisted of two centuries in one *maniple*. A century was made up of 60 men for *hastati* and *principes*, and 30 men for *triarii*. The first line was known as the *Hastati* and was comprised of 15 *maniples* of heavily armored younger recruits with each *maniple* accompanied by twenty light soldiers (*leves*) who carried spears and javelins. The second line was another fifteen *maniples* of *principes* who were older and more experienced soldiers. The third line consisted of three types of soldiers: 15 *maniples* of veterans (900 *triarii*), the *rorarii* and the *accensi*. *Triarii* translates to roughly "men of the third rank". It is likely that they were present in the Samnite Wars (343-341 BC, 324-304 BC, 298-290 BC).
In the 4th century BC men were sorted into classes according to wealth, the *triarii* being the richest after the mounted *equites*. *Triarii* were armed with spears (*hastae*) about 2 metres (6½ feet) long. They also carried swords, or *gladii*, about 84 centimetres (29 inches) long. They used *clipei*, large round Greek shields, and bronze helmets. Armor consisted of heavy plate mail or chain mail depending on wealth and personal preference.
The role of the *triarii* was to be a last line of either attack or defense in battle. If the *hastati* failed to break the enemy the more experienced *principes* would move in. If they failed then the *triarii*, the most experienced and best equipped, would move in to either finish the enemy of provide cover for the *hastati* and *principes* to retreat. This led to the saying "rem ad Triarios redisse", "it has come to the triarii"- meaning things were not going well.
This pretty much gives a brief glimpse into the the origins of the triarii until they were reorganized in the late 3rd century BC. If you have any questions or need something clarified (I'm pretty tired so this may have come out as one big incoherent mess) feel free to ask. If anyone sees something wrong please say so. Sources below.
Sources
Southern, Pat. The Roman Army: A Social and Institutional History. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2006 (This is a really good starting book to help understand the Roman military)
Matyszak, Philip. Legionary: The Roman Soldier's (unofficial) Manual. London: Thames & Hudson, 2009. ( A little childish but a very easy and fun read with good facts.)
Matyszak, Philip. The Enemies of Rome: From Hannibal to Attila the Hun. London: Thames & Hudson, 2004.
Livy: The Early Histories of Rome | [
"Rorarii were soldiers who formed the final lines, or else provided a reserve thereby, in the ancient pre-Marian Roman army. They may have been used with the \"triarii\" in battle near the final stages of fighting, since they are recorded as being located at the rear of the main battle formation. (Note that the say... |
How often were horse riding accidents when it was the primary form of transportation? | Did you have a specific time period or country in mind for your question? And are you interested in just horse-riding accidents or also accidents involving horse-drawn vehicles? I own an old history of the English courts in the 1860s that lists statistics for accidents involving both riders and passengers in horse-drawn vehicles as well as details of specific incidents. I'd be glad to post some footnoted info from that source if it fits your question.
Edit: My apologies for not contributing what I could find in my books, I am moving house at the moment and most of them are still packed. I haven't been able to find the relevant one. | [
"In 1836, the company possessed 12 locomotives, 135 wagons and transported its passengers from end to end in six hours. Accidents were a regular occurrence as people would sometimes walk along the railway line. From 1844, the use of horse traction was terminated and the entire journey was done in only 2 and a half ... |
why does the dish for my satellite tv have to face south to receive signal? | Because, if you live in the northern hemisphere, that's where the satellite is.
They're in a geosynchronous orbit - which means they're above the equator and orbit the earth in 24-hours. So they stay in the same spot in the sky. | [
"The dishes worked by receiving a low-power C-Band (3.7–4.2 GHz) frequency-modulated analog signal directly from the original distribution satellite – the same signal received by cable television headends. Because analog channels took up an entire transponder on the satellite, and each satellite had a fixed number ... |
why do some diseases tend to localize to specific areas while others remain more general? for example, hand, foot, and mouth disease, or genital herpes. | I suppose you're talking about communicable diseases. It all depends. But for viruses for instance, they can never infect a cell unless they bind to a receptor and get internalized. Not all cells express a receptor for a given virus, for example that's why you don't get the flu in your leg it binds to receptors in your airways. HIV to B cells in the immune system. Bacteria on the other hand, it depends on how they evolved. Some bacteria evolved mechanisms of immune evasion in particular environments, like the intestine and salmonella. Bacteria like to hide from the immune system because it's pretty good at killing them, so they tend to stay in the interstitium or in cells where the infection took place. H pylori for example evolved to dig into the mucosa in the stomach and hide from the acid by secreting a neutralizing buffer in its vicinity. Prions are another form of pathogen, they infect other prion proteins that are otherwise healthy. These proteins are most commonly found in the brain, so that's where prion disease progresses. You get the idea, but there's a lot more to the story obviously | [
"The route of transmission is important to epidemiologists because patterns of contact vary between different populations and different groups of populations depending on socio-economic, cultural and other features. For example, low personal and food hygiene due to the lack of a clean water supply may result in inc... |
Potato Famine | Not to discourage further discussion, but you might be interested in this previous answer on the subject by u/mikedash:
* [Was England's role in worsening the potato famine one of neglect or did they actually try to increase the suffering?](_URL_0_) | [
"The proximate cause of the famine was a natural event, a potato blight, which infected potato crops throughout Europe during the 1840s, precipitating some 100,000 deaths in total in the worst affected areas and among similar tenant farmers of Europe. The food crisis influenced much of the unrest in the more widesp... |
Why does the ball in this gif go in the direction it does? | [Here's](_URL_0_) the video that gif came from. The Magnus Effect is what they're demonstrating. The video does a good job explaining what's happening, but here's a short version: the ball moves through air, but because it's spinning the interaction with the air is different depending whether the air is moving with the spin or against it. Those two different "sides" of the ball result in different forces on those different sides. The force on the side where air opposes the spin moves the ball in a direction (like you saw in the gif/video). | [
"The circular motion of the balls is commonly represented in cartoons as the archetypical juggling pattern, somewhat at odds with reality, where the cascade is more common. By constantly reversing the direction, the box pattern can be formed.\n",
"The reason that spin on a football makes it curl is known as the M... |
Assuming identical atmospheric and other planetary conditions, is a hotter sun always brighter? | Luminosity is a product of the surface area and temperature, so if you have two stars with equal surface temperatures and different radii, the one with the larger radius will have a greater luminosity. Likewise, a star with a temperature 2,500 K cooler than the Sun could be hundreds of thousands of times more luminous with the right radius, as you'd expect from a red supergiant or hypergiant.
For stars that are still fusing hydrogen in their cores (main sequence stars), like the Sun, there is an intrinsic relationship between mass, temperature, luminosity, and lifetime. There'll be individual variations based on the star's exact age and composition, but as a general rule, increasing the mass causes a main sequence star's temperature and luminosity to increase, and its maximum age to decrease. When you [plot them by colour (which gives you the temperature) and luminosity/magnitude](_URL_0_), you'll notice that they fall along a strip with the lowest-mass stars at the cool/red end, which is where the "main sequence" term comes from.
For stars that have moved past core hydrogen burning (generally giants of some sort or other) though, the temperature and luminosity will depend more what's happening in its interior at any given point in time. Mass and chemical composition will still determine their general post-main sequence evolutionary path though. | [
"BULLET::::- Coronal heating problem: Why is the Sun's corona (atmosphere layer) so much hotter than the Sun's surface? Why is the magnetic reconnection effect many orders of magnitude faster than predicted by standard models?\n",
"BULLET::::- Coronal heating problem: Why is the Sun's corona (atmosphere layer) so... |
why do cars that are not driven rust while cars that are regularly driven do not? | 45 years working on cars and restoring them. I don't agree with your question, most cars that just sit do not rust worse than those that are driven, especially up north with all the salt on the roads. What data/experience are you deriving your question from? | [
"These vehicles are generally not rust-prone compared to contemporary vehicles of the time, however rust tends to occur in the usual places where moisture and mud tend to accumulate. Areas to check are below the windscreen on both sides of the car, the firewall where the heater is mounted, and the lower sills, espe... |
Why did the Japanese never adapt with anti-submarine tactics in response to U.S. submarine warfare in World War 2 that devastated Japanese merchant fleets? | Part of the reason was an obsession on the part of the Japanese Naval General Staff on the idea of a decisive battle - in 1890, an American strategist called Alfred Thayer Mahan published an extremely influential book called *The Influence of Sea Power Upon History*. This espoused the idea a single, decisive naval battle could decide the outcome of the entire war, and was widely studied in Japan.
Much of the IJN's planning before and during the war was therefore based on the idea of bringing the American fleet to such a battle somewhere in the Western pacific, with the big gun battleships of the IJN hopefully being able to triumph. In this type of short decisive conflict there is much less need for anti-submarine warfare (ASW).
There was also a cultural reason why few resources were devoted to ASW. The code of *Bushido* - the Samurai warrior culture which permeated the Japanese military meant that few officers found any "honor" in the relatively unglamorous work of escorting merchant ships, and placed more importance in offensive action rather than defense. Instead, Japan's destroyer's trained extensively to fight surface actions in line with the Mahanian doctrine.
Source: *The Conquering Tide: War in the Pacific Islands, 1942-1944*, Ian W Toll. (2015). | [
"The Imperial Japanese Navy, obsessed with the \"decisive battle\" doctrine, ignored the vital need for defense against submarines. The German and American submarine campaigns against their opponents' merchant shipping demonstrated the need for anti-submarine warfare. While the Allies took extensive measures to com... |
Why are particles in a superposition state 'forced' into a certain state due to observation/measurement? | This is an often asked question - and for good reason. While physicists agree on the basic ideas of measurement, they do not agree on the deeper (arguably philosophical) nature of it.
> I've always just wondered how measurement or observation can have an effect on a particle without directly interfering.
It certainly cannot. What physicists refer to as measurement requires interaction. What happens during interaction between two particles is that they become a pair of entangled particles. Let's say you have a, A, particle that is in superposition of spinning A={UP **and** DOWN}. Now let's say we make it interact with another particle, B, and they become entangled as the state AB = {UP, UP **and** DOWN, DOWN}. So they're in a state of both spinning up **and** both spinning down.
Let's say we ignored particle B and just looked at A. If we perform an experiment on A alone after it has become entangled with B we would discover that the state of A is now A = {UP **or** DOWN} . What's interesting is that this particle no longer behaves like it's in superposition. It's in one state or the other, not both. It looks like it has been measured! But if we performed an experiment with both A and B we would see that they're not measured. Entanglement is strange. I could show the math, but I doubt it'd help.
During what we call a measurement A doesn't just become entangled with a single particle B, but entangled with the entire measurement apparatus and the surroundings through a process called decoherence. The measurement apparatus is not just one particle more than 10^24 particles. Like before, performing an experiment on just A will make A look like it has been measured.
If you wanted to perform the experiment that showed A was not measured, you would have to perform an extremely complicated experiment on the entire measurement apparatus. That is way, way beyond our abilities, so we say that for all practical reasons, the particle has been measured. And some people even go as far as saying that because we can't show that A is entangled with the measurement apparatus, there is no entanglement.
| [
"The non-classical nature of the superposition process is brought out clearly if we consider the superposition of two states, \"A\" and \"B\", such that there exists an observation which, when made on the system in state \"A\", is certain to lead to one particular result, \"a\" say, and when made on the system in s... |
Is it theoretically possible to freeze photons? | The particles in a system do not "freeze" at absolute zero. A system at absolute zero should be defined to be in its quantum mechanical ground state. Because of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, this does not correspond to "no motion," since setting all particles to having zero motion will result in infinitely fluctuating positions. Also, for example, no two electrons can occupy the same state (the Pauli exclusion principle), so in a system with many electrons you need some electrons to occupy very highly excited states. In an ideal metal at zero temperature, some electrons have an average momentum of ~10^6 meters/second, so this can be very different from "no motion."
> Can we [humans] ever go sub absolute zero?
We cannot, due to the [third law of thermodynamics](_URL_0_), which essentially says that it takes an infinite number of steps to go from any finite temperature to zero temperature. However, a lot of systems at low-enough temperatures behave similarly to their zero-temeprature ground state, so in many cases working at T=0 is actually a fine approximation. Many aspects of electrons in a metal at room temperature can be calculated by a T=0 approximation, since the relevant energy scale is very large (see the example above).
Actually, I should say that your example with photons is a little special, since describing a gas of photons at a given temperature requires you to account for the fact that photons can be created and destroyed with no extra cost in energy. So as you heat up the system, more photons are created, and as you cool it down, photons can be annihilated out of the vacuum. At zero temperature I think the system will just go to the "photon vacuum" where there are no photons. But keep in mind that describing your system as having a temperature T implicitly means that your system is exchanging energy with something external with a temperature T. | [
"However, because this experiment would be difficult to arrange, a table-top version that uses optical cavities to trap the photons long enough for achieving the desired delay has been proposed instead.\n",
"Sometimes this effect is interpreted as \"a system can't change while you are watching it\". One can \"fre... |
how do animals, like squirrels & foxes, know what is food and what isn't, in urban environments, especially processed foods. | First they learn from parents by what is being presented to eat and what they see being eaten.
Second they have some instincts to avoid or pursue certain smells or tastes.
They learn by trying, if they puke up something that still looks and smells like that thing they ate, then they avoid it later. Particularly if it causes pain. Same with messes coming out the other end.
And finally, as others said, they often don't and end up eating something not food. Maybe "harmless" in that it is not nutritious but not dangerous, or might be something bad for them.
& #x200B;
Some animals suffer greatly around us and others (trash pandas) do just fine. | [
"Rodents have advanced cognitive abilities. They can quickly learn to avoid poisoned baits, which makes them difficult pests to deal with. Guinea pigs can learn and remember complex pathways to food. Squirrels and kangaroo rats are able to locate caches of food by spatial memory, rather than just by smell.\n",
"F... |
Does high pH water have a lower capacity as a solvent to dissolve more because of the electrolytes and minerals already in the water? | It depends on the ions that are already in the water. If the ions are also the same ions that are in the substance you are trying to dissolve, then the substance will dissolve less. If the ions can react with the ions in the substance you are trying to dissolve, then the substance will dissolve more. And if neither of these occur, then your water will behave just as pure neutral water in terms of dissolving your substance. | [
"The aqueous solubility of PH is slight; 0.22 mL of gas dissolve in 1 mL of water. Phosphine dissolves more readily in non-polar solvents than in water because of the non-polar P-H bonds. It is technically amphoteric in water, but acid and base activity is poor. Proton exchange proceeds via a phosphonium (PH) ion i... |
how do some cars have a birds eye view of of the car when they’re parking? | The car has cameras in the front, rear, and in the two side mirrors. Those images are stitched together (kind of the same way that your phone creates a panorama) to give a kind of 360° view of the car's surroundings. That image is then displayed in such a way that it looks sort of like a bird's-eye view instead of like the 360° panorama that it actually is. | [
"In the bottom image the novice is busy estimating the distance between the left wall and the parked car, while the experienced driver can use his peripheral vision for that and still concentrate his view on the dangerous point of the curve: If a car appears there, he has to give way, i. e. stop to the right instea... |
how did nicknames for names like richard and charles become dick and chuck and other ones like that when they are so different from their original form? | Some of my friends told me that Dick comes from Richard due to the original nickname of Richard being "Rick". After that, Dick came to be due to its rhyming with Rick. | [
"The Germanic first or given name Richard derives from the old Germanic words \"ric\" (ruler, leader, king, powerful) and \"hard\" (strong, brave, hardy), and it therefore means \"strong in rule\". Nicknames include \"Richy\", \"Dick\", \"Dickie\", \"Rich\", \"Richie\", \"Rick\", \"Ricky\", and others.\n",
"An al... |
why is it that light can travel for a billion years across the universe, but as soon as you flick off a light switch it disappears instantly? | The second part is your real question, you are wondering why the light disappears instead of bouncing around in the room. The answer is that it does bounce around in the room, it is just that it bounces around so fast that it is absorbed effectively instantaneously. Material absorbs light, the less light it absorbs the more reflective it is. But even the most perfect mirror absorbs some of the light that hits it. Light just travels so damn fast that even really reflective materials absorb it 'instantaneously', although if you could measure how many times it bounces back and forth you'd find it takes ever so slightly longer to go dark in a room made of mirrors than your normal off-white semigloss. | [
"They are said to appear from between ten and several hundred in a line, and just when one thinks that they have increased, they would suddenly disappear then multiply once again. In the Nagano Prefecture, a ton of lights like that of a paper lantern would appear in a line and flicker.\n",
"Some parts of the univ... |
How does lava stay hot until it hits the surface? | It's only the bits touching the air that seem to cool very rapidly at the surface. The more inner parts can take months to cool, as they become insulated by the solidified outer layers. Even in this case the convective cooling of the air is helping speed up the cooling of the lava.
Deep below the ground, there are no convection currents in the surrounding crust to speed up the cooling of the magma. But that doesn't mean it does not cool down at all. There are a great many igneous rock formations that appear to have formed from the solidification of subsurface magma chambers. It just takes a very long time. | [
"Because the eruptions occur with the volcano underwater, the form of lava typically erupted is pillow lava. Pillow lava is rounded balls of lava that was given very little time to cool due to immediate exposure to water. Water pressure prevents the lava from exploding upon contact with the cold ocean water, forcin... |
Why would the high pressure of Jupiter's atmosphere destroy a probe? | We actually send a probe to sample Jupiter's atmosphere called Galileo, it fell into a region without many clouds though and Nasa didn't get much useful data back if (I recall).
Virtually any probe would eventually get crushed and melt as it fell deep into Jupiter's atmosphere because it gets really really hot and very very dense, not something our technology could survive for very long.
If we could send back the data in time we could definitely investigate Jupiter's atmosphere. | [
"A major problem in sending space probes to Jupiter is that the planet has no solid surface on which to land, as there is a smooth transition between the planet's atmosphere and its fluid interior. Any probes descending into the atmosphere are eventually crushed by the immense pressures within Jupiter.\n",
"Over ... |
what happens next since justice scalia passed away? | Obama is going to appoint a new justice and that Justice will need to be confirmed by Congress. This is a pretty huge deal since the old court was pretty evenly split on issues because about half the court was liberal and half was conservative with John Roberts being the swing vote. Now the majority is going to be liberal. | [
"Scalia died in his sleep at age 79. His body was discovered on the morning of February 13, 2016 in his room at Cibolo Creek Ranch in Shafter, Texas. He had gone quail hunting the afternoon before, and then dined. The justice was pronounced dead of apparent natural causes. His physician, Rear Admiral Brian P. Monah... |
what does obamas executive order on immigration do exactly? | From what I heard on Fox News, it shreds the constitution. | [
"OLC also approved as lawful President Trump's travel ban (\"Travel Ban 1\") on January 27, 2017. OLC put its imprimatur on an executive order that prohibited all refugees, immigrants, non-immigrants (travelers, students, patients coming for surgery, etc.), and green card holders from certain Muslim-majority countr... |
Is good posture an indicator of good health? | Another anecdote: I teach a few yoga classes a week, and I run. Yoga focuses closely on alignment in legs and feet, as well as the spine. When running at the park, I notice that almost all the good runners have their feet pointed straight forward and use good form. The people huffing and puffing slowly down the trail often have supinated or pronated feet. I don't think running is necessarily great for correcting lower leg alignment; I think people with poor alignment get shin splints and stop running. In almost any sport, people with good posture will get injured less, and injuries can be as small and common as a sore muscle that causes you to miss a workout. | [
"There is evidence that interventions that are successful in improving subjective well-being can have beneficial effects on aspects of health. For example, meditation and relaxation training have been found to increase positive affect and to reduce blood pressure. The effect of specific types of subjective well-bei... |
How would saturn-like rings affect life on an earth-like planet? | Saturn's rings are actually not very dense. They don't really have an impact on Saturn's surface, so you could probably easily assume the same if they were around an Earth-like planet. Here are my thoughts:
> how would they appear in the sky?
Most likely, they would be planar around the equator. So, someone standing on the equator would just see a "line" that is the edge on ring passing directly overhead going from east to west. However, the Sun would not follow that line perfectly because we have seasons. Sometimes the Sun would be north of that line, and sometimes south.
> Would they have a bluish tint reflected from the oceans?
No. From the surface, they will be dim (like how the moon is dim during the day), but still visible. They will have a bluish tint during the day due to the scattering of the atmosphere. At night, they could really be any color, it really is determined by the composition. Most likely they'd be a light grey or white.
> Would they cast shadows on the surface, and would these shadows be regular or irregular in passing over given spots?
This is a really interesting question. Like I said, the rings are super dense, so light can still pass through. There would be a small shadow, but it wouldn't be pitch black. More like twilight I would think.
The shadows would be very irregular, depending on the time of day and season.
Other thought:
Saturn's rings have gaps in them caused by the gravitational effects of their moons. Some moons are actually within the rings, and some moons are beyond them but pulling gaps in the rings... | [
"Besides Epimetheus, instruments located another previously undiscovered small moon and an additional ring, charted Saturn's magnetosphere and magnetic field and found its planet-size moon, Titan, to be too cold for life. Hurtling underneath the ring plane, the probe sent back pictures of Saturn's rings. The rings,... |
What determines the frequency of a photon? | Conservation of energy in the process that created the photon?
I don't think I understand the question. | [
"The frequency of a photon is proportional to its energy. As a bound electron transitions between different energy levels of an atom, it absorbs or emits photons at characteristic frequencies. For instance, when atoms are irradiated by a source with a broad spectrum, distinct absorption lines appear in the spectrum... |
why do lighters have smaller flames when cold and bigger flames when warm? | Butane gets thicker when cold so it doesn't come out as fast so it only produced a small Flame. | [
"In fires (particularly house fires), the cooler flames are often red and produce the most smoke. Here the red color compared to typical yellow color of the flames suggests that the temperature is lower. This is because there is a lack of oxygen in the room and therefore there is incomplete combustion and the flame... |
how did charles manson influence his followers to do such drastic acts? | The same way that Hitler did. He had a very strong charismatic personality that was capable of getting people to trust him, believe and follow what he said.
> I just can't imagine people being convinced so easily
And that is where you are wrong. People are very easily convinced of things and history is full of charismatic people taking advantage of it. | [
"Charles Manson was a lifelong criminal who had been released from prison just in time for San Francisco's Summer of Love. With his long hair, charisma and the ability to charm a crowd with his guitar playing, his singing and rhetoric, Manson exhibited many of the outward manifestations of hippie identity. Yet he h... |
what is final fantasy? what is the plot, and why is it so damn famous? | Every one of them are almost completely disconnected from the others, so trying to think of them as a whole will make it really hard to get it. They all take place in different worlds, with different characters and different mythologies.
They do have a few common elements, but they're usually not very story-relevant so don't get too stuck on them.
Essentially, every Final Fantasy game should be thought of as a stand-alone JRPG.
Final Fantasy built its fame on some of its very popular (and for good reason) earlier titles. I could be wrong, but I gather that 7 is the game that built the massive fame it now has, although it was still great before 7 came around; 6 has a pretty die-hard fanbase.
The general consensus is that it's been a very long time since the last "good" final fantasy game was released, many arguing that 10 was the last title in the series that was faithful to the original quality and spirit of the franchise, but there's some dispute on that. It seems that the general consensus is that Final Fantasy 6-10 were the games produced in the 'golden age' of final fantasy, but there's quite a lot of dispute even among those titles.
TLDR: They're all different games, and the old ones made them famous enough that there's a lot of die-hard fans that still talk about them. Mix that with newer fans from the newer games and you get a lot of mixed messages. | [
"\"Final Fantasy\" is a media franchise created by Hironobu Sakaguchi, and developed and owned by Square Enix (formerly Square). The franchise centers on a series of fantasy and science fantasy role-playing video games (RPGs). The eponymous first game in the series, published in 1987, was conceived by Sakaguchi as ... |
Asian exploration of America | Asian cultures did expand into North America. Migrations from Sibera and Alaska were particularly notable. The Thule started colonizing Dorset lands as late as the 1200s:
_URL_1_
There are no written records of any of this, so it has to be pieced together through archaeological evidence. No ones even really sure what happened. There's no real evidence of mass violence between the Dorset and Thule, but we do know they didn't interbreed:
_URL_0_
| [
"The Museum of the Americas (\"Museo de América\") is a national museum that holds artistic, archaeological, and ethnographic collections from the Americas, ranging from the Paleolithic period to the present day. The permanent exhibit is divided into five major themed areas: an awareness of the Americas, the realit... |
What happened to the French Foreign Legion during WWII? Was the legion divided, or did most of the legion go to either side? Were there ever any attempts by Petain's government to establish a foreign legion from Axis Powers? | I think this is a question that I can actually answer. I wrote my undergraduate thesis on the French Foreign Legion's demographics from 1914 to 2014.
The French Foreign Legion was very fractured during the Second World War. There was no central command that organized all of the different garrisons and formations of the Legion. You have Legionnaires fighting for the allies, for the axis and not fighting at all. Furthermore, they change sides depending upon France's status as a liberated/occupied state.
A large part of the Legion fell under the command of the Vichy Government, who subsequently released 2,000 German Legionnaires to the Nazis. Most of them were communists, or of Jewish heritage. On a related note, when Italy joined the war, many of the Italian Legionnaires were sent back to their homeland. To fill the manpower shortages France ends up activating many elderly, unfit Legionnaires living in retirement. I should also note that not all German legionnaires were sent back to Germany. Germans made up an incredibly large part of the Legion's non-commissioned officers corps. In 1934, 44% of the Legion was German/German speaking and 21% of the NCOs were German/German speaking. This prevalence of German speakers actually alarmed the French government, who worried that if another war broke out that the Legion would be incapable of defending France from a German invasion. There were actual fears that the Germans were purposely sending young men to the Legion in order to subvert it. There is little evidence that this was the case, but the paranoia was sufficient enough that little in the way of material/emphasis was placed on the Legion in the years leading up to World War 2, and by 1939 it was a bent and broken sword that France would have much rather pretended did not exist.
So, you have some Legionnaires fighting for Vichy France. Those that were stationed in North Africa get folded into the German Afrika Korps. They fight in North Africa, and they fight in the Levant. When the Germans are defeated on that continent, many of the Legionnaires switch sides and begin fighting for the allies again.
In Asia, you have the French garrisons in Indochina. Eighty to one hundred Legionnaires escape European France and seek solace with the 5th Infantry Regiment in Indochina. The French forces in this part of the world sit out the war. They allow the Japanese to occupy Indochina, but are not taken into custody by Imperial forces.
In 1941, you have Legionnaires landing with the allies during Operation Torch (30% of them were Spaniards who had fled Spain when they lost the Civil War in that country). They had fought in Norway, and were under command of the *Armee d'Afrique*, which would go on to see service not only in North Africa, but Italy, France and even Germany. This is one of the fighting formations of the exiled French Government under Charles de Gaulle.
Now, I must admit that I do not know what you mean by, "...any attempts by Petain's government to establish a foreign legion from Axis powers." The best I can gleam off of that portion of your question is whether or not Petain's government accepted foreign volunteers into it's armed forces. I must admit, I am ignorant, but an educated guess based upon my research would suggest that the Legion under Petain was struggling to survive as a military unit; fending off the awkward attempts of the other axis powers to absorb it completely.
Sources:
Geraghty, Tony. *March or Die: France and the Foreign Legion*. London: Grafton, 1986. Print.
McLeave, Hugh. *The Damned Die Hard*. New York: Saturday Review, 1973. Print.
Porch, Douglas. *The French Foreign Legion: A Complete History of the Legendary Fighting Force*. New York, NY: Harper Collins, 1991. Print. | [
"The Foreign Legion played a smaller role in World War II in mainland Europe than in World War I, though there was involvement in many exterior theatres of operations, notably sea transport protection through to the Norwegian, Syria-Lebanon, and North African campaigns. The 13th Demi-Brigade, formed for service in ... |
In Greek mythology does Hades ever actually do anything morally questionable? | The story that immediately pops into mind is the [Kidnapping of Persephone](_URL_0_). Hades takes Persephone, daughter of Zeus and Demeter (God of Agriculture), as his wife against the wills of Zeus and Demeter. Demeter falls into deep anger and brings famine across the world and will not relent until Persephone is returned. Hades relents, but not before tricking Persephone into eating a Pomegranate seed, forcing her to remain in the underworld. In a compromise, Zeus' mother said that Persephone will spend 6 months with Hades and 6 months with Demeter each year. This is the explanation story of the seasons. This easily falls under Morally Questionable. | [
"Hades suffers a degree of self-hatred, as his realm (and by extension, himself) is filled with suffering. Hades has difficulty appreciating and expressing his own values, even if he tries to flatter occasionally. This includes going so far as refusing to believe it is possible for a Lasso-ensnared Diana to be capa... |
Why did agriculture develop independently all over the globe in the last 10000 years but not before? | Before that time period was [the last Ice Age](_URL_6_), which lasted for many thousands of years. The climate was so arid and difficult to survive in that it was not really possible for anyone to survive in one place long enough to discover & develop agriculture, since these groups of people were required to move around to be successful at [hunting & gathering](_URL_4_).
There has been no evidence found of any type of homonids knowing how to cultivate plants before the last Ice Age, in the previous warm period ([the preceding interglacial](_URL_3_)), since only materials like bones and rocks can survive over such a vast amount of time. However, it is fairly safe to say that it is unlikely that they understood how to cultivate plants on a meaningful scale that early in their development. In addition, it is believed that there were relatively few homonids in the previous interglacial ([the Eemian](_URL_2_)), so it is likely that the naturally-occurring amounts of plants and animals could sustain a small, thinly-spread population without plant cultivation being neccessary.
However, after the worst of the last Ice Age ([the Last Glacial Maximum](_URL_1_)) was finished, the climate began to warm up to the point that our planet entered the current warm period called the [Holocene](_URL_0_). Over several thousand years, this reliable climate has allowed humans enough stable, warm weather to stop surviving by only hunting and gathering, and to settle down and discover new ways to survive, such as agriculture, animal husbandry and new technology.
As the human population slowly [increased over the last several thousand years](_URL_5_), the naturally-occurring amounts of food were not able to sustain the larger population, and much of the available arable land was occupied. Therefore, people found that it was increasingly desirable to aquire more food from their own land instead of fighting with other people (wars) over food supplies, so cultivation of plants became more and more necessary, causing the rise of agriculture in many different areas. | [
"The development of agriculture enabled the human population to grow many times larger than could be sustained by hunting and gathering. Agriculture began independently in different parts of the globe, and included a diverse range of taxa, in at least 11 separate centres of origin. Wild grains were collected and ea... |
why do cultures who rely heavily on rice in their diet typically use white rice which has less nutritional value than other types of rice? | One of the reasons why Asians have used mainly white rice over the years is that white rice lasts longer in storage than brown rice. The essential fatty acids found in brown rice usually begin to go bad after approximately 6 to 12 months of storage, the exact amount of time depending on how much oxygen is available. When brown rice is polished down to make white rice, many of the essential fatty acids are lost, allowing white rice to last longer than brown rice without going bad.
Another reason why many Asians prefer white rice is that they have become accustomed to how easy it is to chew and digest. Brown rice requires more chewing power to properly digest than white rice does.
Some Asians refuse to eat brown rice because to them, it's a sign of poverty. Many Asians who are above 40 years of age have been deeply conditioned to believe that prosperous people eat white rice while peasants eat brown rice.
Finally, many Asians choose white rice over brown rice because white rice is less expensive. White rice is far less expensive to produce and distribute because it is in greater global demand and produces higher profits because of its longer shelf life.
[Source](_URL_0_) | [
"Because many children in VAD-affected countries rely on rice as a staple food, genetic modification to make rice produce the vitamin A precursor beta-carotene was seen as a simple and less expensive alternative to ongoing vitamin supplements or an increase in the consumption of green vegetables or animal products.... |
how a gamma ray burst could kill us all at any moment | Gamma ray bursts occur when very dense stars die and go supernova - basically, they explode. If such a star were to explode close enough to our Solar System, dangerous gamma rays would bathe the Earth, killing us off - think a dangerous nuclear leak, but on a cosmic scale.
The odds of a gamma ray burst affecting us are astronomically small, however, so don't let that fact keep you up at night. | [
"A gamma-ray burst is an extremely luminous event flash of gamma rays that occurs as the result of an explosion, and is thought to be associated with the formation of a black hole. The burst itself typically only lasts for a few seconds, but gamma-ray bursts frequently produce an \"afterglow\" at longer wavelengths... |
Does losing sight in your right eye affect the functioning of the left side of the brain? and does this only impair your eyesight, or are there other implications ? [effectively you are reducing the input of visual information to the left side of the brain, thus reducing its functionality ] | It is a common misconception that the image from the left eye is processed in the right hemisphere of the brain, and vice versa. In fact, it is the left half of your *visual field* that is processed by the right hemisphere (i.e. everything to the left of the center of your gaze), and vice versa. So both hemispheres actually receive input from both eyes. You do see a little further to the left with your left eye, and a little further to the right with your right eye, but most of your visual field has coverage from both eyes. Importantly for your question, this means that after going blind in one eye, both hemispheres still receive roughly equal amounts of visual input (visual input is lost, but it is lost from both hemispheres).
Losing sight in one eye will affect your depth vision somewhat, because you lose binocular disparity as a depth cue. However, there are many other [cues for depth](_URL_0_) that the brain uses, so you'll still be able to navigate the world with very few problems, although you may find it harder to catch a ball (for example).
Other than that I don't know of any additional side-effects. | [
"A homonymous hemianopsia is the loss of half of the visual field on the same side in both eyes. The visual images that we see to the right side travel from both eyes to the left side of the brain, while the visual images we see to the left side in each eye travel to the right side of the brain. Therefore, damage t... |
Is it possible for a planet to be larger than the star that provides light for it, so that the sun revolved around the planet? | Actually, regardless of the relative sizes of the sun and the planet, both would orbit around their combined center of mass. It's just that when one is much bigger than the other, the combined center of mass is very close to the center of mass of the larger body. For simplicity and convenience, it is often said that the small one orbits the large one, while in fact both orbit each other. [Here](_URL_0_) is a diagram of the combined center of mass of the entire Solar System relative to the Sun. | [
"Direct imaging can give only loose constraints of the planet's mass, which is derived from the age of the star and the temperature of the planet. Mass can vary considerably, as planets can form several million years after the star has formed. The cooler the planet is, the less the planet's mass needs to be. In som... |
why do roads appear more curved as i drive on them compared to the way they appear on maps? | Scale.
When driving if the road curves ten feet you will feel it.
To a map maker that small curve doesn't matter when they draw the road.
Same thing with hiking trails. I've been on some flat trails that simply just did small ups and down.
if the turn isn't large the map won't record it. | [
"Such curves are more commonly found in a railway line of travel but are also used in roads. The characteristic U shape, or even slight balloon shape, of such a curve resembles a horseshoe, hence the name. On roadways such curves, if the hard curve is tight enough, are typically called hairpin turns.\n",
"In curv... |
what actually decides when i'm born if i'm a boy or a girl? | Your dad's sperm.
Your DNA (the blueprints to build a complete human), is broken up into like little chapers, called chromosomes. Everyone has two copies of all 23 chapters. Or you have 23 chromosomes from mom (the egg) and 23 from dad (the sperm) for a total of 46 (you need all 46 for everything to work but thats another ELI5).
Now of those 23 (remember you have a copy of each) only one determines sex, #23, the sex chromosome.
All fetuses are defaultly female, the only thing that makes them into a male is two certain hormones at very specific times. The codes to make these hormones are found on a chromosome called Y.
So lets do some deductions. If Y is the chapter than makes the "turn this baby chick into a baby dude" signal; and your mom isn't a dude, then she doesn't have Y. She has the Y's female copy, called X. Actually remember she has two X's (every chromosome has a copy). She got one X from her mom and one from her dad. No Y, so no signal to make a dude, so when she was an fetus it defaulted to a female, the natural sex.
So when her eggs are formed and she gets to give one of her copes, she can only give an X, thats all she has. But you dad, he's a dude, so he as an Y, and since he's from a man and woman, the other #23 he has is an X. So when his sperm form there is a 50/50 chance it gets an X copy or a Y copy.
So its the sperms, with its X or Y than when it fertilizes the egg, which can only have an X, that makes the sexual determination. | [
"Many parents form gendered expectations for their child before it is even born, after determining the child's sex through technology such as ultrasound. The child thus is born to a gender-specific name, games, and even ambitions. Once the child's sex is determined, most children are raised in accordance with it to... |
what happened in world war 2, and why did it happen? | 1. War happened. You'll learn more when you reach middle school and take your history lessons.
2. Because we treated the Germans really badly after WW1 they elected a Adolf Hitler, a known power tripper, as their leader who eventually attacked Poland starting the European front, and because the Japanese were also on a really huge power trip and attacked basically whole of Asia and America starting the Pasific front. | [
"The end of World War II in Asia occurred on 2 September 1945, when armed forces of the Empire of Japan surrendered to the forces of the Allies. The surrender came almost four months after the surrender of the Axis forces in Europe and brought an end to World War II.\n",
"World War II is generally viewed as havin... |
Have regulated languages evolved as much as English? | **short answer:** No, not usually.
**long answer:** It's important to remember that even though there are these "governing bodies", perhaps most famously L'Académie française and Real Academia Española, they don't actually hold power over people's speech. There was some recent news about the Swedish Academy updating their dictionaries and a lot of people (on Reddit) were upset because they saw it as the government saying certain slang words were now encouraged, but that's not actually the case.
The Academies, generally speaking, have two functions:
1. Document the language, to include changes in usage or new vocabularies. This is particularly useful when a country (Republican China in the 1930s being a great example) needs to standardise terminology for things like the [STEM fields](_URL_0_), when before that point everyone's kinda using their own translation of foreign terms, if not just the foreign terms as they were in the original language.
2. Determine and maintain the standard form of the *prestige dialect*, the form used for academic publication, passing of laws, official documents and the like. This is what we refer to as a [register](_URL_1_). How you speak with your friends out drinking at the bar is another register. How you talk to your elderly grandmother is another register. When you're writing an essay to get into college, it's not that they're testing how "correct" your use of the language is (even though that's what they themselves might think they're doing) but rather they're checking your ability to use that register effectively. For some people, switching registers is actually not something they have much experience with.
However when it comes to natural speech, these Academies have little influence, and the language continues to change. The extreme case would be that the Academy-dictated register stays the same for so long that people stop associating it with the thing they're speaking. However that mostly doesn't happen because the people running these Academies have some sense and they do adjust to changes in usage when they become more widespread.
Languages change. There are some things that accelerate or reduce change. For example languages in contact with other languages will change a bit quicker regarding certain features. We see this tied to wars and historical migrations, not just in the sense of one group conquering another, but also in peaceful migrations where aspects of one language have been adopted by another, or where two languages with two different complex ways of handling the same function tend to merge resulting in a much simpler single way of doing that. I can give you specific examples from history but it's all going to be in East Asia, so let me know if you're interested.
Additionally, languages/varieties with fewer speakers have greater potential for change if there's nothing unifying them (mass media for example) because the naturally occurring changes can pass through the group more easily. You see this in places like Albania which is tiny but had huge diversity of dialects simply because for a very long time people stayed in and around their villages, effectively isolated, and without pressure from other dialects to maintain some conformity.
The way you could argue that the Academies, or lets even just say "standard dialects" slow things down is really if you only look at the group of speakers who are well off and in power. However even then it's largely not really there but is just their perception. As a loose rule in sociolinguistics: everyone thinks their dialect matches the standard, even when it verifiably doesn't.
Hope that helps. Let me know if I can expand on anything. | [
"Languages, especially standard varieties or official languages used in courts of law, for administration of government, and for the promulgation of official works, tend to acquire formally regulated norms over time. Once English became the language of administration of law in England, a form of late Middle English... |
what is a financial audit ? | Somewhere along the lines you filed some paperwork with the government saying how much money you made that year. The government blindly accepts that information as true and uses that to figure out how much taxes to charge you. An audit means they are going to double check to make sure that everything you said was true. If you were dishonest or forgot some information you may have to pay back-taxes. | [
"A financial audit is conducted to provide an opinion whether \"financial statements\" (the information being verified) are stated in accordance with specified criteria. Normally, the criteria are international accounting standards, although auditors may conduct audits of financial statements prepared using the cas... |
a grenade explosion | > Why can such a small thing do so much damage?
Explosives are designed to be just that. You stuff explosives into a small, contained space and it makes it even more violent. The case is made of thick steel, so when the explosion ruptures it, it throws shrapnel all over the place and tends to make quite a mess.
> Why won't it explode immediately?
There is a fuse that times it so that it takes several seconds for it to explode. Thus allowing enough time for someone to throw it and take cover. | [
"The grenade proper is a container of explosive material with an iron fragmentation band. The fuse was of the impact sort, detonating when the top of the grenade hit the ground. A long cane handle (approximately 16 inches or 40 cm) allowed the user to throw the grenade further than the blast of the explosion.\n",
... |
What is the environmental impact of air conditioning? | Air condition uses 18% of electricity in US homes, which is first on the list:
[_URL_1_](_URL_0_). | [
"The are some measure that seems like adaptation, but can lead, in fact, to more climate sensitivity and more climate change. For example reliance on air conditioning give relief from the heat, but can create an addiction to it, e. g. intolerance to any uncomfortable climate. Air conditioning also consumes 20% of a... |
Independent Cities - How did it come about that St. Louis and Baltimore are the only two US cities not a part of their respective county? | This does not directly answer your question about St. Louis, but Virginia also has cities being independent from the counties. It is he only state in the nation this way. This evolved from the colonial times and codified in the 1970's. Here is a link to good background summary:
_URL_0_ | [
"An independent city and a major U.S. port in the state of Missouri, St. Louis has a history going back to an early French settlement in 1764. It is built along the western bank of the Mississippi river, which marks the border of Missouri with Illinois. It was founded by French fur traders and Pierre Laclède and Au... |
If Christianity came from the Middle East, why are there no Middle Eastern countries with a Christian majority? | Christians in the Middle East largely converted to Islam over the centuries. However, there are still substantial Christian minorities in some Middle-Eastern countries.
Lebanon has a large Christian population, currently making up 40% of the population. Christians were, in fact, the majority religious group in Lebanon from its independence in 1943 to the Lebanese Civil War of 1975. Christianity is still the majority religion of the Lebanese diaspora.
In terms of absolute numbers, Egypt and Syria have the most Christians of any Middle Eastern country, although in both countries they make up only around 10% of the population. | [
"Christianity, which originated in the Middle East in the 1st century AD, is a significant minority religion within the region. Christianity in the Middle East is characterized by the diversity of its beliefs and traditions, compared to Christianity in other parts of the Old World. Christians now make up approximat... |
why aren't all humans dark skinned? | Vitamin D.
The further north you go, the less sun you get year-round. UV-rays from sunlight are used in the skin to metabolise Vitamin D, an essential vitamin. Less melanin in the skin (the stuff that makes your skin dark) means less UV blocked and more Vitamin D and better bone growth. | [
"Humans with dark skin pigmentation have skin naturally rich in melanin (especially eumelanin), and have more melanosomes which provide a superior protection against the deleterious effects of ultraviolet radiation. This helps the body to retain its folate reserves and protects against damage to the DNA.\n",
"Dar... |
Is there a scientific reason why we assume the foetal position when we are in pain? | bodily instinct will be to protect itself and given that all our vital organs are in our torso shielding them with our un-vital arms and legs is just instinct so any horrible pain humans usually resort to instinct.
But its different for some people because everyones pain threshold is different so what may be horrible pain for someone may be bearable by someone else | [
"Pain is usually considered to be strongly transparent: when someone is in pain, he knows immediately that he is in pain, and if he is not in pain, he will know he is not. Transparency is important in the study of self-knowledge and meta-knowledge.\n",
"It is generally assumed that the tendency to catastrophize p... |
if doma gets overthrown in the scotus will same sex marriage be legal everywhere in the us? or will each state have to pass it individually still? | DOMA does two main things:
1. Makes it law so that if one state legalizes same sex marriages, all states do not have to recognize it.
2. Denies federal marriage benefits to same sex couples, even in states where they are legally married. This is Section 3 of the law.
The part being talked about right now at SCOTUS is section 3. The rest or the law isn't bring contested right now, and though I believe they COULD strike down the whole act if they wanted to, it in very unlikely.
Section 3 is really all that the federal government has to do with recognizing same sex marriage, legal same sex marriage comes at the state level.
State-level SSM *is* being talked about, in the Prop 8 case (Hollingsworth v Perry), but SCOTUS watchers say the court is extremely unlikely to issue a ruling legalizing same-sex marriage everywhere. | [
"On February 22, 2018, \"La Nación\" reported that the Sala IV was reviewing six lawsuits seeking the legalisation of same-sex marriage in the country. On March 9, 2018, the Attorney General recommended to the court to abide by the IACHR ruling and declare article 14 of the Family Code, which prohibits same-sex mar... |
why isn't government used software open source? | I'm a government person involved in purchasing SW. And the short answer is they do.
The long answer is much of the SW they need must be custom and the government is not really interested in paying someone to write SW and then hiring other people to fix it when it breaks. They've tried that, it never ends well. On top of that, support is a very much something they need, if it breaks they want a number to call. The last thing is price, governments have budgets, they need to make all the stuff cheap, if open source can do it, all the better.
That results in a few things, if open source can be used, they'll always end up paying someone else to be the support for the stuff they use, they'll never use debian directly, but they are more than happy to sign up for a RHEL contract and let them deal with it, this has the effect that it isn't always the cheapest option because free software is unsupported and that's a nonstarter. Another issue is the cost of investing into development and it's predictability, spending $10 million to develop a system, and then finding it doesn't work, dropping another $5mil fixing it, and then 5 years later you need to pay $5mil for it again? How do they forecast that? What happens when it's over budget? What is the contractor decides to refuse to work for a reasonable fee? Training a new contractor is expensive and takes time. No, that doesn't work. It is FAR easier to just sign a contract with a vendor who says it's $500/machine/yr, and it's guaranteed to always be updated, and they'll always fix bugs within a year at no extra cost. The contractor selling that package is going to be very against open source, because their income is dependent on keeping that contract. They will spend whatever they have to to avoid open source, and avoid contaminating their code with things like GPL that could allow their competitors to take it. It's irrelevant that open source is cheaper, they are the ones getting paid. It has the side effect that it's unlikely to see open source voting SW because the government already has a signed contract for existing SW. | [
"Open source in education — Colleges and organizations use software predominantly online to educate their students. Open-source technology is being adopted by many institutions because it can save these institutions from paying companies to provide them with these administrative software systems. One of the first m... |
Is there a chance of siblings not sharing any genetic material? | The chance is so small it's basically zero.
You don't get a whole single chromosome from each parent, for example you getting copy 1 of chromosome 5, and your sister getting copy 2. Chromosomes [randomly swap pieces](_URL_0_) between each other during sex cell creation. So your chances of being "unique" are many times greater than 2^23 (which is already a fairly large number). | [
"Theoretically, there is a chance that they might not share genes. This is very rare and is due to there being a smaller possibility of inheriting the same chromosomes from the shared parent. However, the same is also theoretically possible for full siblings, albeit (comparatively) much less likely. Because of the ... |
What capabilities would the now abandoned Super Colliding Superconducter have had compared to the LHC? Are there any questions it could have answered that the LHC cannot? | The SSC was expected to run up to 20 TeV (TeV is a measurement of energy, Tera-electron Volts) while the LHC is only going to hit 7 TeV in 2014. Using the standard model they can predict what range of energy certain particles will have, for instance before the LHC fired up they figured the higgs boson had between 115–130 GeV (Giga-electron volts). The couldn't find the higgs boson with the tevatron (the biggest collider before the LHC) because it couldn't produce enough energy to create the boson. The SSC would produce almost triple the energy of the LHC, allowing scientists to examine particles that they don't even know exist.
EDIT: To add to this, I think supersymmetry predicts that there are particles with orders of magnitude more energy for each subatomic particle that exists. To prove this they would need a lot of energy, possibly more than the LHC can produce in order to create these particles. | [
"The LHC was shut down on 13 February 2013 for its 2-year upgrade, which was to touch on many aspects of the LHC: enabling collisions at 14 TeV, enhancing its detectors and pre-accelerators (the Proton Synchrotron and Super Proton Synchrotron), as well as replacing its ventilation system and of cabling impaired by ... |
Today marks the anniversary of the last time the United States declared war - WWII. What is the difference between a declaration of war and a military engagement? | When congress passes legislation that uses the term "Declaration of War" in the title, it's often referred as the formal Declaration of War. U.S. congress has not **formally** declared war since WWII. The only difference between formal declaration and authorization of war by Congress is using the "Declaration of War" in the title. Vietnam War, Gulf War, 2001 war in Afghanistan and 2003 Iraq War were all authorized by Congress without using the term "Declaration of War". There was nothing fundamentally different. Constitution gives Congress the power to declare War but it does not require using any formalisms.
Sometimes U.S has been involved in military engagement that was authorized by UN Security Council Resolution and funded by Congress. President may interpret the law and assume that there is no need for authorization from Congress to carry out the United Nations resolutions.
See also [The War Powers Resolution of 1973](_URL_0_). | [
"BULLET::::- President [[Harry Truman]] delivered Presidential [[Proclamation 2714]], which officially ended American hostilities in World War II. The declaration, cited in statutes and regulations concerning the definition of World War II service for purposes of veterans benefits, noted that \"a state of war still... |
Are there any issues in which the historical record and archaeological evidence strongly disagree with each other? | The legend of the Dorian Invasion would be a good example of this. The Ancient Greek literary tradition held that Spartan rule over the region of Lakedaimon was established during this Invasion (also called the Return of the Herakleidai), in which the Dorians (to whom the Spartans belonged) descended into the Peloponnese and drove out the local ruling classes. This was supposed to have happened at some point in the distant past, possibly in the 10th century BC. It gave the various Dorian peoples of the Peloponnese an epic origin story, and explained why local dialects had disappeared in favour of Dorian Greek by the end of the Greek Dark Age.
In theory, it seems plausible enough that this legend would go back to an actual historical event. Mass migrations frequently lead to the replacement of one ruling elite with another, and incursions from the Balkans into mainland Greece were certainly not uncommon in later times.
The only problem is that there is not a shred of archaeological evidence to back it up. There is no sign of violent conflict, no evidence that the material or civic culture of Lakedaimon changed dramatically during this period, and nothing to suggest that its culture became different from that of other Greek areas.
For this reason, scholars now assume that the idea of a Dorian Invasion was an explanation invented by the Greeks in hindsight, rather than a surviving tradition about a real historical event. | [
"Historical evidence also converges in an analogous way. For example: if five ancient historians, none of whom knew each other, all claim that Julius Caesar seized power in Rome in 49 BCE, this is strong evidence in favor of that event occurring even if each individual historian is only partially reliable. By contr... |
If heat is the jiggling of particles which can't exceed the speed of light, does this mean there's an "Absolute Hot" similar to absolute zero? | Even ignoring all the other (non-trivial) subtleties, the important take-home point is that temperature of a substance is (basically) the average kinetic energy of its particles, and even though speed has a maximum, kinetic energy doesn't. This is because the usual relationship between velocity and kinetic energy (1/2 mv^2 ) is only an approximation that holds at low velocities; in the high-speed case, kinetic energy gets arbitrarily high as speeds approach the speed of light.
I've ignored lots of subtleties, as I said, in terms of which reference frame we're talking about, how you define energy, how temperature might behave in (speculative) ultra high energy physics, and so on, but I think this is the big conceptual point in answering your question. A maximum speed doesn't equate to a maximum kinetic energy, or temperature. | [
"Since temperature relates to the thermal energy held by an object or a sample of matter, which is the kinetic energy of the random motion of the particle constituents of matter, an object will have less thermal energy when it is colder and more when it is hotter. If it were possible to cool a system to absolute ze... |
Why is that an ARM based processor and an x86 based processor cannot be compared clock for clock. | You can't compare even different core architectures using the same instruction set clock for clock.
Generally ARM instruction set is more RISC-like than x86. On average, each instruction does little less than x86 instruction. Binary sizes for ARM are little bigger than for x86 (10-15% bigger).
Many other different parameters between the processors change over time.
Currently ARM processors are superscalar, in-order design. It can execute multiple instructions per clock cycle but only on order. Most x86 designs don't have that restriction. Intel Atom series however does. Currently ARM has much better integer performance than Intel Atom, but much worse floating point performance.
| [
"ARM processors use ARM register banks for fast interrupt request. x86 processors use context switching and fast interrupt for switching between instruction, decoder, GPRs and register files, if there is more than one, before the instruction is issued, but this is only existing on processors that support superscala... |
My buddy's dad found this rock on their farm. Apparently a meteorite may have hit the region, could this rock have been affected by that collision? | I haven't found a lot of peer-reviewed journal articles about the impact, but what I've found seems to indicate it happened 83 million years ago. At that time, that part of Alabama/Georgia was under a shallow sea. I'm rather skeptical that a rock that large would be found in overlying sediments, especially a farm. However, it could be.
I'm not a geologist, but the rock is very interesting. It's hard to tell, but that almost looks like a fossil leaf or something, but if the rock is igneous, then there would be, of course, some other explanation.
You might want to dig up a reliable peer-reviewed citation as to the bolide impact before others answer. | [
"In May 2009 Manfred Cuntz, a professor of physics and the director of the astronomy program at the University of Texas at Arlington, was called in to investigate a supposed meteorite impact. Cuntz along with other experts, a Fox TV film crew and the property owner met at the site. They found a refrigerator-sized g... |
Are Cloudless Tornadoes possible? | I'm assuming you mean actual tornados since you can of course have phenomenon like dust devils which can be invisible, but these don't form the same way as tornados.
The process of creating a tornado is much more complex than just two air masses colliding. The conditions that are required for a tornado to form, result in thunderstorms. For example, you need strong updrafts and downdrafts for a tornado to form. Strong updrafts/downdrafts only exist within thunderstorms. You can have part of the tornado be invisible, near the ground. However this is usually only for a short period when the tornado first hits the ground, before the condensation funnel reached the ground. | [
"Although it is rotating wall clouds that contain most strong tornadoes, many rotating wall clouds do not produce tornadoes. Absent the co-position of a low-level boundary with an updraft, tornadoes very rarely occur without a sufficiently buoyant rear flank downdraft (RFD), which usually manifests itself visually ... |
how does a country first react if they are being invaded by another country? | Normally there is some form of advanced warning, in some cases a declaration of war in others intelligence gathering indicating a build up of forces on the border area. The general first action is a mobilisation of the army, so all on leave etc. army forces report to designated areas to arm and deploy. It then depends upon the nature of the attack and the defensive measures used sometimes the border zone will be strongly defended other times they will allow territory to be taken in order to enable full mobilisation of the armed forces. | [
"To declare war on other countries, the president or congress of the country proposes a Natural enemy law. If the vote passes, the two countries are at war and each region is attacked either by order of the president or automatically by the game every 24 hours. In wars, the citizens of the respective countries figh... |
Is friction affected by surface area? For instance if I bought bigger tires for my car would I stop faster? what is the equation for this? | Contact area does **not** affect frictional force.
You might be surprised (I was!), but think about a 1kg 2x1x1cm block on a ramp. Put the brick down sideways, and the surface area is 2cm^2. That 1kg is being distributed over that whole 2cm^2 with a force of 500 grams per cm^2.
Now stick that block on the 1x1 side. Now the surface area is 1, but the mass is still the same. The same 1kg is being distributed over 1 cm^2, so the force is twice as big per unit area.
Alright, cool. If we keep the mass of the car the same, there's no effect. But if the wider tires make the car more massive (and I suspect they do), there would be a very small effect proportional to the added mass of the wider tires.
I suspect this is not what you're getting at, however. The answer to your question is, broadly, no.
Additionally, the equation generally used is Force of friction = coefficient of friction * normal force (essentially the weight of the object).
Sources: Amonton's Laws via Wikipedia.
Edited to add follow-up question for anyone with more physics knowledge than I: Why do drag racers have wider tires? | [
"New models are beginning to show how kinetic friction can be greater than static friction. Kinetic friction is now understood, in many cases, to be primarily caused by chemical bonding between the surfaces, rather than interlocking asperities; however, in many other cases roughness effects are dominant, for exampl... |
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