question stringlengths 3 301 | answer stringlengths 9 26.1k | context list |
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how does an electric current produce a magnetic field? | The short super unsatisfactory answer is that it just does.
The longer answer is that what we define as a charge is actually a disturbance in the electric field, which is part of the electromagnetic field. A moving charge creates a disturbance in both the electric and magnetic field. The two phenomenons are intertwined. So its less that a current creates a magnetic field and more that a current and a disturbance in the magnetic field are part of the same thing. Its like asking why the crest of a sin wave creates a trough. They are intertwined to the point of one not being able to exist without the other. | [
"Magnetic fields can also be used to make electric currents. When a changing magnetic field is applied to a conductor, an electromotive force (EMF) is induced, which starts an electric current, when there is a suitable path.\n",
"A rapidly changing magnetic field induces a circulating electric current within a ne... |
how exactly does carbon-14 dating work? would it work on diamonds (which were once organic matter, i think), or are they just too old? | Carbon-14 dating is primarily for dating formerly living things. Carbon 14 is made in the atmosphere so its absorbed by living things through respiration. It maintains its levels while the thing is alive. When it dies the respiration stops replenishing the carbon so it starts to decay away since carbon 14 is radioactive. So you know the level in the environment and the level in the formerly living thing and the decay rate of carbon 14. So this tells you how old it is.
But the half life of c14 is 5000 years so it cant date anything older than 50000 years because theres no c14 left and it cant date anything less than 200 years old because we ruined the c14 levels in the atmosphere with the industrial revolution. | [
"The first method uses the principles of radiocarbon dating. A technical review (CEN/TR 15591:2007) outlining the carbon 14 method was published in 2007. A technical standard of the carbon dating method (CEN/TS 15747:2008) is published in 2008. In the United States, there is already an equivalent carbon 14 method u... |
why do appliance's volumes (eg. tv, radio) use an arbitrary 1 to x value instead of basing the value on decibels? | High-end stereos for audiophiles, or studio monitors, typically do use decibels.
The problem with decibels is that either you'd have relative loudness - where 0 is the maximum and anything softer is a negative number - or you'd have absolute loudness, in which case headphones would only go up to some small number and your stereo would go up to some other number. It'd be confusing for most people either way. | [
"There are multiple volume adjustments for different inputs and outputs on the system. The master volume affects all of these settings. The default and recommended value is 50% for all sources, which actually equates to a 0 dB amplification (none), while a 100% value causes a 16 dB amplification.\n",
"A volume un... |
what is all this controversy with thefinebros about? | Search before submitting | [
"On 24 July 2008, Hasbro formally sued Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla, along with their company, RJ Softwares. The suit claimed Scrabulous violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and infringed upon Hasbro's intellectual property rights. On 29 July 2008, Scrabulous was shut down on Facebook for users in North Amer... |
Geographers Diener and Hagen claim that Pacific Northwest tribes had a concept of property similar to modern Americans' - contrasting common claims that Native Americans had no concept of ownership. Where did the idea that Native Americans had no concept of property emerge? | Can you please expand on what Diener and Hagen said?
Speaking for groups in Washington State (Coast Salish, Quileute, Sahaptin, Chinookan), I'm finding a little hard to see property concepts being that similar to Modern American ones (there's some overlap but the differences are pretty significant). | [
"The Native Americans originally did not understand the concept of \"land ownership\". They consisted of many hunter-gatherer tribes who would overlap territories and occasionally had tribal wars, but did not \"own\" land. They believed in taking only what was immediately necessary from nature, and considering the ... |
are wi-fi and/or bluetooth, signals harmful to our health? | No, it's not true at all. They're completely harmless. | [
"\"Healthline\" has quoted Moskowitz's concerns about wireless Bluetooth devices, which \"because of the proximity... to the body or the head\" can result in exposures \"half as much or a third as much as you might get from your cell phone\".\n",
"The position of the United Kingdom's Health Protection Agency (HPA... |
Questions about the sinking of the USS Indianapolis | 1) No consensus whatsoever. The Navy's orders to Capt. McVay were to "zigzag *at (his) discretion*, weather permitting." These orders are equivocal, and when the *Indianapolis* was sunk, he was not zigzagging. The prosecution said that McVay should have been zigzagging. However, the commander of the Japanese submarine that fired the torpedoes testified at the court martial that zigzagging would have made no difference. That Admiral Nimitz immediately remitted McVay's sentence and he served until 1949 tells you what the commander of the Navy in the Pacific thought of the outcome. McVay was also the only commander to lose his ship in combat during WWII and be court-martialed for it. He was completely and legally exonerated by the Navy in 2001.
As far as who was to blame, that pretty much falls squarely on the shoulders of Commander Mochitsura Hashimoto, the captain of the submarine that sunk the *Indianapolis*.
2) A mix of bad luck and incompetence. When the *Indianapolis* was sunk, she maanged to get off distress messages which were received by three stations. One station commander was reportedly drunk. A second had given orders not to disturb him while he was asleep. The third, suspecting a Japanese trap, took no action.
"But the ship was due to arrive at Leyte on a certain date," you may say, "why wasn't anything done when she didn't arrive?" Well, that's where things get a little confusing. Ships' movement were kept track on at a number of different locations: in *Indy*'s case, the base at Leyte; the base of Commander, Marianas; and Commander Philippines. As movements for larger ships was assumed to be "on time", the latter two stations took her off the movement board at the scheduled time of arrival since they had heard nothing to the contrary The man in charge of the movement board at Leyte, however, knew immediately that the *Indy* was late... and did nothing about it. After all, it was hardly uncommon for ships to be delayed for any number of reasons. The *correct* response would have been to have reported the lateness up the line. The first the Navy officially knew she was missing was when survivors were discovered in the water three days later.
3) It actually was fairly well-known, particularly when Cmdr Hashimoto was called to testify against Capt McVay; this was the first time an enemy had appeared in court against a US office, and was considered quite controversial. Of course, the US press had a field day with it, even to the point of objecting to the cost of bringing Hashimoto to the US and putting him in a hotel (about $1800).
Sources:
*Abandon Ship!* - Richard Newcomb
*In Harm's Way* - Doug Stanton
*Sunk: The Story of the Japanese Submarine Fleet, 1941–1945* - Mochitsura Hashimoto (yes, the same)
*Left For Dead* - Pete Nelson & Hunter Scott
[USS _URL_0_](_URL_1_) | [
"USS \"Indianapolis\" (CL/CA-35) was a heavy cruiser of the United States Navy. At 00:15 on 30 July 1945, she was struck on her starboard side by two Type 95 torpedoes, one in the bow and one amidships, from the Japanese submarine , captained by Commander Mochitsura Hashimoto, who initially thought he had spotted t... |
seeing all of these harambe & deez nuts votes in the presidental elections, what would happen if one of them actually got the majority of the votes? | If the person behind the name *was* eligible, then he or she could get the job. In the last election in the UK, Lord Buckethead stood against Prime Minister Theresa May in her constituency: if he had one, she would have lost the PM job (since the PM has to be a MP), and he would have become an MP. | [
"An indirect presidential election was held in South Africa on 25 September 2008 following the resignation of the President Thabo Mbeki. The ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC), with a two-thirds majority in the National Assembly of South Africa, elected Kgalema Motlanthe as President. The ANC indicat... |
why do i find baby animals super cute, but human babies ugly? | Because baby animals are cute and human babies are ugly. | [
"In the opposite direction several animals who have a non-threatening appearance and actually look cute, cuddly, graceful and playful are often portrayed as adorable: rabbits, dogs, mice, kittens, sheep, seals, dolphins, chipmunks, monkeys, ladybugs, butterflies. Various pet owners tend to treat their pets almost a... |
how is it that mars has lost it's atmosphere to solar winds, but earth hasn't | The churning of earth's core creates our magnetosphere which protects us from the solar winds, it's like a shield protecting us from the sun's "bullets" (charged particles). The stronger the core churns, the stronger the magnetic field or shield. Mars' core is dead or dying, so it no longer has a strong magnetosphere to protect its atmosphere from the solar winds ("bullets"). So every blast just kept chipping away at it until it was gone. | [
"On November 5, 2015, NASA announced that data from MAVEN shows that the deterioration of Mars' atmosphere increases significantly during solar storms. That loss of atmosphere to space likely played a key role in Mars' gradual shift from its carbon dioxide-dominated atmosphere – which had kept Mars relatively warm ... |
What Is The Difference Between Basic Medicines? | don't look at the brand but the ingredients
tylenol is acetominophen an antipyretic and analgesit (decreases pain and fever)
acetominophen the brand name is irrelevant and many companies including big chains can market their own brand under whatever name they want.
how it works is pretty complex but [here](_URL_0_) if you care.
Ibuprophen is an non-steroidal anti-inflamatory. also, lots of brand names
works for fevers, pain, inflamation.
you really need only 1 or 2 OTC meds in your cabinet for regular aches and pains tylenol or ibuprophen will usually do it if you don't have chronic pain or chronic inflamatory syndromes
you definetly don't need more than 1 brand of any med in your home.
follow label instructions and if you find you use any Over hte counter med more than 3 to 4 days a week chronically you may want to talk to a doctor about it.
| [
"Medicines can be used to heal ailments on the exterior or interior of the body, to control the ageing of the body, or even to prevent death. The term medicine and elixir are virtually interchangeable because of the array of ailments they can influence. The difference between defining an elixir from a medicine was ... |
Why does even a laser beam spread out after a long distance? Can't we prevent that via lenses? How does this relate to focusing light that came to us over billions of light years? | The catch is that real laser beams experience diffraction and don't simply travel as rays. This means you have to take into account physical optics (the intrinsic wave-like nature of light) as opposed to geometric optics (treating the light like a bundle of rays).
Because of these physical optics effects, a beam with a finite radius w_0 will inevitably spread out so that it has twice the cross sectional area after a distance z_R, the [Rayleigh length](_URL_0_), where z_R = pi w_0^2 / lambda and where lambda is the wavelength of the light. Beyond the Rayleigh length, the beam diverges with an cone angle Theta = 2 lambda / (pi w_0). The only way to get a zero cone angle would be to go to the limit where lambda / w_0 is zero; this means either infinite frequency or infinite beam diameter after your lens, neither of which is possible.
Edit: added link | [
"Because of the non-uniform power density distribution in a Gaussian beam (as found in laser resonators) the refractive index changes across the beam profile; the refractive index experienced by the beam is greater in the center of the beam than at the edge. Thus a rod of an active Kerr medium functions as a lens f... |
How did Vikings and Lapps deal with gnats and mosquitos? | This doesn't address Scandinavia specifically, but you might be interested in [this earlier answer](_URL_0_) about the *ubiquity* of little itchy things in medieval Europe and how people just had to deal. | [
"Walruses are most known to attack people in boats, and can cause serious harm with their tusks or by capsizing the boat or kayak. A 1918 memoir notes a case in Spitzbergen where walruses capsized a boat, killing all aboard.\n",
"Some 33 British Vikings, fitted with slat armour, were deployed to Afghanistan at th... |
why do lemons sometimes become all green and moldy, while other times they become rock-hard when you forget to eat/use them? | If the fruit/food/meat dries out faster than bacteria/mold/fungus can replicate, then you just end up with a dried up husk or jerky. No matter the food, once the moisture content is low enough nothing will grow on it.
So that usually means items in areas of high airflow will end up in the hard state, whereas those in enclosed spaces or humid areas will end up in the spoiled/rotted state. | [
"The Moroccan professor Henri Chapot discovered that the acidity in the more common citrons or lemons is indicated by red on the inner coat of seeds specifically on the chalazal spot, violet pigmentation on the outer side of the flower blossom, and by the new buds that are reddish-purplish. The acid-free varieties ... |
Why did the descendants of Proto-Indo-European come to dominate so much of the world? | While welcome here, this might reach more informed audiences at r/askanthropology and r/linguistics | [
"Despite medieval invasions by Eurasian nomads, a group to which the Proto-Indo-Europeans had once belonged, Indo-European expansion reached another peak in the early modern period with the dramatic increase in the population of the Indian subcontinent and European expansionism throughout the globe during the Age o... |
How do historians distinguish between the Medieval and Renaissance periods in Europe? What are the major signs? | Similar question from 2 weeks ago:
[What ended the Middle Ages?](_URL_0_) | [
"As with all periods, there is a wide drift of dates, reasons for categorization and boundaries. In particular, the Renaissance, more than later periods, is thought to begin in Italy with the Italian Renaissance and roll through Europe.\n",
"Renaissance – cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17t... |
If I steep a tea bag in hot water, will it eventually reach equilibrium and stop diffusing flavor and caffeine? | Depends on how much flavoring and caffeine are in the teabag and the solubility of both in the water at your given temperature.
If the amount of flavoring and caffeine in the teabag is less than the maximum solubility of them in water, all of it will be dissolved into the water.
If you had numerous tea bags steeped in one cup of water then you may reach a point where the solution is fully saturated and can no longer take in any more solute (flavoring and caffeine).
Although I imagine it would take a large amount of teabags for one cup to reach a fully saturated solution.
You can also increase the solubility of a solution by increasing the temperature. | [
"In addition to CO process extraction, tea may be also decaffeinated using a hot water treatment. Optimal conditions are met by controlling water temperature, extraction time, and ratio of leaf to water, where higher temperatures at or over 100 °C, moderate extraction time of 3 minutes, and a 1:20 water to leaf wei... |
Is the universe making us smaller? | The metric expansion of space only happens on the very large scale. On a more local scale, the scale of galaxies and such, gravitational attraction overrides the expansion. | [
"The size of the Universe is somewhat difficult to define. According to the general theory of relativity, far regions of space may never interact with ours even in the lifetime of the Universe due to the finite speed of light and the ongoing expansion of space. For example, radio messages sent from Earth may never ... |
why aren't tv shows that follow criminals, like drug smugglers, forced to hand over footage? | Aren't they "handing it over" by publicizing it? | [
"While some captures featured in the show were easy and straightforward due to obvious oversights or mistakes by the offenders, many others were much tougher and sometimes required greater resources. Many criminals put together their game plan beautifully but were tripped up by a simple oversight (such as forgettin... |
Italian army during WW2 - what were conscription practices and how possible was it to avoid military service entirely? (Researching for a work of fiction) | How much "entirely"? Give him a "war-priority" job, or make him a very lucky career officer.
If you can read Italian, then you should probably check [Virgilio Ilari's *Storia del servizio militare in Italia*](_URL_0_).
As a general word of caution though, the idea of avoiding military service entirely (as in, sitting out the great world conflict and having therefore a different set of personal experiences) is a problematic one - especially if you want them to be living in Trieste from 1940 to the early 1950s.
As for age limitations, the main core of conscription army was formed by the junior classes (1910-18) and senior classes (1901-09) - to which one should add the newly mobilized (1919-23) and, last and luckiest, the first third of 1924, and a few veterans from 1900 and likely some of the late XIX Century called back for the "territorial" army during 1942-43.
The total of the main 23 classes accounted for 9,729,786 men, which translated into 5,100,000 enlisted men at the time of mobilization. Conversely the number of exempt was of 960,000 - also at mobilization. Giving you a broad ratio for people who actively served in the army and those who possibly avoided service entirely (it's reasonable to assume that many of those originally exempt were later called to replace casualties, since the new classes could only cover some).
Most exempted from active service were nonetheless destined to the production efforts (5.2 millions belonging to the industrial mobilization, of which 1.2 were women though, and others may have been unsuitable for active service) - which was the main way to avoid service for someone who fell within the conscription classes, and was not necessarily a permanent insurance.
Paper-pushing jobs certainly existed within the army - but it was not really something that an enlisted man could have much control on. I suppose you can conjure some convenient circumstances to have them avoid combat anyways, since them being non commissioned officers fortuitously (or commissioned officers intentionally - not really the most sympathetic trait) assigned to a coastal fort seems to defy your purpose.
It's nonetheless worth noting that Trieste fell within the German Operationszone Adriatisches Küstenland after the armistice of September 8^th 1943 and administered from the Gau of Carinthia. Trieste and the neighboring region was also a strategic node for the transportation of goods and men from and to Italy, the Balkans and the territories under German occupation, as well as an increasingly relevant position in the partisan conflict across the border with Yugoslavia. It was likely the worst place in (former) Italy to conduct a safe existence during 1944-45, and to an extent continued to be so after that.
I am not an expert on the occupation regime, nor on the subsequent years; and I would advise you to ask further information as a separate question. But the events which occurred there, from the Holocaust properly speaking, to the ethnic cleansing of local populaces, to a prolonged civil war, are some of the aspects you may want to research before setting your story there.
As for our present subject, it certainly wasn't the best place to weather the storm. Italian residents previously mobilized would have been under strong pressure to join the German labor forces - or alternatively transferred to Germany or Poland with another 650,000 Italian Military Internees, provided that they had been in some fashion enlisted at the time of the armisitce, otherwise they would have likely been recruited for labor, but under a different denomination.
General estimates of Italians subject to conscription who managed to remain unaccounted for after 1943 exceed 2 millions - so that it was possible to stay out of both the RSI and the German labor forces. Another possibility, also going against your general intention, was joining the partisan squads (again, not the safest position around Trieste) or volunteering for the Social Republic. | [
"Recruiting military forces was difficult for the RSI, as most of the Italian army had been interned by German forces in 1943, many Italians had been conscripted into forced labour in Germany and few wanted to fight on Nazi Germany's side after 8 September 1943. The RSI became so desperate for soldiers that it gran... |
inspired by an earlier post on Germany, wondering how the formation of Germany’s states gave rise to the failed democracy in the Weimar Republic? | The fate of democracy in the Weimar Republic is the source of no small amount of debate within modern German historiography. Certain factors, however, can be generally agreed upon as contributing to the less than robust state of Weimar democracy in the run up to Hitler’s rise to power. Among these, the ones that seem most relevant to your questions as asked are the role of democratic/republican institutions in the German states prior to the creation of the Weimar Republic as well as the relationship between those institutions and the German people.
As is so often the case, it may be useful to begin with Napoleon, or rather, the aftermath of Napoleon’s conquest in Germany. While a Louis may have returned to the throne in France, neither there nor across Central Europe could the French Revolution and the reign of Napoleon be fully undone. The ideas and ideals championed by revolutionaries had spread to cities across the continent, and while the borders drawn at Vienna left France largely as it was before the war, the map of Germany was forever changed. These and other factors (especially economic factors) contributed to the revolutions that engulfed Europe in 1848. Students, liberals, workers, farmers, and others came together in states across the continent, unified more by their opposition to the status quo than any common vision for the future. In the German states this led to the National Assembly in Frankfurt, where much was debated and little accomplished. Unable to agree on much, and unable to convince the Prussian king to accept what he called a crown from the gutter, the representatives at Frankfurt ultimately disbanded after counter revolutionary forces restored control across the German states.
The assembly had been unable to accomplish much, and as it debated it had certainly not had any significant impact on the day to day lives of Germans. In its wake, many German states, including Prussia, created representative bodies to give their governments the appearance of democratic input without truly altering the nature of politics. Prussia carried this over into the new, unified German state created in 1871.
The “representative” government of this new Germany was nothing of the sort. For one thing, not every vote was created equal — rather, land ownership and other factors weighted things towards those the wealthy elite. More importantly, the Reichstag only truly had power over the purse. In addition, new elections could be called whenever the government wanted. This led to a situation in which the parties in opposition had no real experience in governing, nor in compromise — there was no power to exercise, and thus no reason to sacrifice principles for pragmatism. To do so would only alienate the constituents who supported you. As such, parties were relatively extreme in their rhetoric and inflexible. They appealed to their constituents, and drew them into a party-centric world of social events and camaraderie.
When the new German Republic was created at the end of World War I, a great deal changed. But not everything. The same political parties remained, for instance, and leading them the same politicians. And although the new constitution granted this Reichstag real power, it did nothing to change the fact that these politicians had leaned how to operate in a very different political reality.
The constitution itself created structural weaknesses, or at least the potential for them. While a nation with strong democratic traditions may have navigated them, the new Weimar Republic struggled with them — a proportional system the allowed a proliferation of tiny parties, for instance. With little in the way of compromise, coalition governments failed. And failed in a postwar context where many people needed the government to function more than ever. Indeed, the period after World War I saw new demands on government, not just in terms of whose interests they represented but what kinds of services they provided.
It didn’t help that there was distrust. What had democracy and representative government ever really accomplished beyond debate and rabble rousing? Germans had practiced democracy, sure, but to what end? The democratic culture that emerged in Germany and produced parties and all the trappings, but had little to show in terms of results. Indeed, Bismarck had wisely coopted the most important social programs of the left, providing a safety net for workers and retirees. These were things the government had provided, while stories claimed liberals and Democrats had only provided for Germany’s defeat in World War I, the so-called stab in the back. When, in this context, the new Reichstag seemed unable to accomplish anything, and kept holding new elections when coalitions failed, it would be easy to lose any faith one might have had in democracy. Especially in light of economic conditions — things were bad enough immediately after the war, with chaos in the streets, but when hyperinflation arrived in 1923, they got much worse. People still had jobs, but what they didn’t have was enough money to buy bread. Especially hard hit were widows and other pensioners, anybody on a fixed income.
In that context, the promise of a government that worked at all was highly appealing, and support drained away from the coalition of parties that tried to work within the constraints of the new Weimar constitution and to those on the left and the right that sought to replace it with something new.
-Margaret Anderson, Practicing Democracy: Elections and Political Culture in Imperial Germany
-Jeffery Herf, Reactionary Modernism: Technology, Culture, and Politics in Weimar and the Third Reich | [
"In 1919 a new democracy was formed in a German town known as the Weimar Republic. This new government was thought to be doomed from the start and after the hyperinflation of 1923, “money became so worthless that children could play with stacks of it.” Despite civil unrest in Germany and elsewhere in Western Europe... |
How does hydrogen peroxide make hair a lighter color? | Hydrogen peroxide is unstable, particularly in light, and emits oxygen free radicals. These oxygen free radicals combine with whatever materials they touch - in this case, hair. When they bind to a pigment, they damage the pigment molecule, which tends to produce a lighter color. Melanin is one common human pigment molecule that becomes lighter, but it is certainly not the only pigment. So yes, it depends on the base color of hair - in particular, on the proportions of the pigments contained in the hair being exposed to peroxide. | [
"Low levels of catalase may play a role in the graying process of human hair. Hydrogen peroxide is naturally produced by the body and broken down by catalase. If catalase levels decline, hydrogen peroxide cannot be broken down so well. The hydrogen peroxide interferes with the production of melanin, the pigment tha... |
Does the human body utilize the nitrogen in air? | [Molecular nitrogen](_URL_1_) is too inert to be used in any biochemical processes, and doesn't play a role in human metabolism.
Humans do use nitrogen (in the form of [ammonium](_URL_3_)) in various biosynthetic processes, but that nitrogen is derived from [amino acids](_URL_2_) obtained by breakdown of proteins (whether dietary or our own, eg. muscles during prolonged starvation). The excess ammonia is excreted via urine in the form of urea, produced in the [urea cycle](_URL_0_).
Edit: fixed spelling | [
"Nitrogen dioxide is an irritant of the mucous membrane linked with another air pollutant that causes pulmonary diseases such as OLD, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and sometimes acute exacerbation of COPD and in fatal cases, deaths.\n",
"Nitrogen occurs in all living organisms, and the nitrogen cy... |
What were some of the long term effects of the 1953 Iranian Coup? | These things are slippery of course. But there seems to be a pretty good argument for two major long term effects:
1. Short term: restoration of the shah as the center of power in Iran. At the time of the coup he was essentially in hiding, not from any major threat to his life, but from his responsibilities in general. He was perfectly happy to let the governing of the state alone. CIA and MI6 operatives had a hell of a time trying to convince him to take power back. But once it was his again, he wielded the power with a kind of destructive ambivalence. This was not great for Iran in any capacity. His secret police, Savak terrorized the people for 22 years, targeting all opposition groups. This meant that in the long term:
Opposition was unified against his government in the late 70's. However, the only opposition group left that could muster enough support and organization to offer an alternative to the government was the clergy led islamists. Savak's gutting of the more moderate opposition groups, and their variety, left the islamic revolution an open road to theocracy.
2. Template for regime change. The CIA and MI6 operatives very nearly failed in their attempts to oust Mossadegh. Some very strange circumstances tilted the balance, but it was far from a foregone conclusion and went one way and the other. Many of the operatives were shocked to discover the plan finally worked. The success of the plan gave the CIA a template for regime change that included misinformation, propaganda, and later, the training of police forces to stamp out opposition. They used these techniques to great effect in operations over the following 20-30 years. Operation Ajax was a massive success for the CIA, and it is not clear they would have pursued such methods in the future if it had failed. | [
"In 1953 the United States played a significant role in orchestrating the overthrow of Iran's popular prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh. The Eisenhower Administration believed its actions were justified for strategic reasons; but the coup was clearly a setback for Iran's political development. And it is easy to se... |
is time standing still at the speed of light? | this is kind of breaking my brain. so a photon at the speed of light (and time standing still) can travel EVERYWHERE and back again in the universe in no time at all?
universe
y u no easy to understand | [
"Special relativity indicates that, for an observer in an inertial frame of reference, a clock that is moving relative to him will be measured to tick slower than a clock that is at rest in his frame of reference. This case is sometimes called special relativistic time dilation. The faster the relative velocity, th... |
how long does a fly have to spend on your food before it has done anything that may pose any sort of health risk? | The analogy I always use to debunk any kind of "five second rule" type of thinking is a person with fingerpaint on their hands. If they touch something, a bulk amount of the sticky substance transfers to the surface the very instant that they make contact. There isn't a minimum amount of time that the paint-covered fingers have to remain in contact with that surface. If something gets touched, it's getting some non-zero amount of paint on it.
That's how cross-contamination works, too. Don't think of it in terms of the fly vomiting or breathing, or any kind of migration of bacteria somehow taking time to "walk" across from the contaminating object onto the clean surface, or any kind of other slow process like diffusion. The transfer is actually done when a small (could be microscopic) but still *bulk* amount of material breaks away from the contaminating object and adheres to the clean surface. If undesirable bacteria (or other dangerous substances) are present within the adhered material, then contamination has happened. | [
"The larvae emerge in 24 hours and feed for a period between 8 and 16 days, before crawling to a drier spot to pupate. The phorid fly's egg-to-adult lifecycle can be as short as 14 days, but may take up to 37 days.\n",
"The fly commonly infects humans by laying its eggs on wet clothes, left out to dry. The eggs h... |
How fast does something have to spin before it looks like a blur? | Your eyes can't detect any changes that happen under 10 milliseconds. Did you know the digits on your alarm clock aren't on all at the same time? They rotate every few milliseconds to save on power consumption / prolong life. | [
"If the same rotating object is viewed at 61 flashes per second, each flash will illuminate it at a slightly earlier part of its rotational cycle. Sixty-one flashes will occur before the object is seen in the same position again, and the series of images will be perceived as if it is rotating backwards once per sec... |
My teacher says that the 1800 election was the first time in world history that power was peacefully transferred between parties. It seems too general to be true. Is he right? | This seems to me like the kind of claim that can only be supported with a ton of goalpost moving on the terms of "peace," "transfer," and "party" against counter-examples.
EG 1 In 1714 the Throne of England was transferred from the House of Stuart to the House of Hanover. I would call this a peaceful transfer, but a) is this "between parties"? and b) does the Jacobite uprising of 1715 (a branch of the House of Stuart who had in 1688/89 been violently deposed led an armed rebellion) disqualify it as "Peaceful"? Similar questions could be asked of the transition from Tudor to Stuart England.
EG 2 [The Restoration of Charles II](_URL_2_) was hailed as largely peaceful, with the general tone of the [Declaration of Breda](_URL_0_) being of forgiveness and peace. Does the exclusion of the regicides from that forgiveness, with their subsequent prosecution and execution disqualify that from being "peaceful"? Does this qualify as a "transfer between parties"? Again, I think this meets your teacher's definition, but the goal posts could again simply be moved.
E3 Queen Anne's Tory ministry (1711-14) led by [Robert Harley](_URL_1_) both entered and exited power without violence, but his rise and fall wasn't tied to any election, rather simply shifts in Royal favour (and the rise of the house of Hanover). But this is definitely a *party* affair. Does it count as a *transfer*? And what about the rise and eventual fall of the Walpole Whig Ministry which followed him? | [
"The 1800 United States elections elected the members of the 7th United States Congress. The election took place during the First Party System, and is generally considered the first realigning election in American history. Perhaps most significantly, this election was the first peaceful transfer of power between pa... |
Can you use embryonic stem cells to change someone's sex? | You can probably take some of your own cells, add some Yamanaka factors (which cause differentiated cells to revert back to stem cells) and grow those into sex organs to be transplanted. But if you are asking whether or not stem cells can permanently change a biologically male/female to the opposite sex I think the answer is not any time soon with our current technology. | [
"Inducing differentiation of certain cells to germ cells has many applications. One implication of induced differentiation is that it may allow for the eradication of male and female factor infertility. Furthermore, it would allow same-sex couples to have biological children if sperm could be produced from female c... |
If photons travel along waves with varying frequencies, but these waves all traverse distance at the same speed (c), then are the photons in higher frequency waves, which would be longer, traveling faster? | Both photons travel in straight lines.
The wave is not the path that the photon takes. The wave is a representation of the electromagnetic field associated with that photon.
| [
"Assuming a sinusoidal wave moving at a fixed wave speed, wavelength is inversely proportional to frequency of the wave: waves with higher frequencies have shorter wavelengths, and lower frequencies have longer wavelengths.\n",
"BULLET::::3. The interactions between the waves on the surface generate longer waves ... |
where did the idea of bears being cuddly and lovable and the idea of teddy bears in pop culture come from l, and why did we pick a animal that's a killing machine to give this image to? | President Theodore Roosevelt once became the subject of controversy for refusing to shoot a tied up bear during a hunting expedition considering it unsportsmanlike.
Teddy was his nickname, although he loathed being referred to as such.
This story resulted in the creation of various political cartoons depicting the stoic picture of the President and "Teddy's bear". Although the actual bear was an adult the cartoons portrayed the bear as a cute cub.
A number of companies began producing cute Teddy Bear toys as a result. Roosevelt loved the idea and adopted the stuffed bears as his mascot, and they've since become extremely popular children's toys. | [
"Bears are popular in children's stories, including Winnie the Pooh, Paddington Bear, Gentle Ben and \"The Brown Bear of Norway\". An early version of \"Goldilocks and the Three Bears\", was published as \"The Three Bears\" in 1837 by Robert Southey, many times retold, and illustrated in 1918 by Arthur Rackham. The... |
When an animal dies, what causes the individual cells to die out? | The cells in a multi cellular organism are kind of like people living in a community. Different people (cells) have specialised roles, like a farmer, who's role is to produce food, or a doctor who keeps people healthy.
With out all the roles being performed, people in the community would start to all die out. similarly, the cells in an organism require the work of all the cells to keep alive. Muscle cells for example have no way of getting any nutrients from the world the world around them, they depend on blood cells to deliver it to them.
I hope this is what you are after... | [
"In an animal, cells are constantly dying. A balance between cell division and cell death keeps the number of cells relatively constant in adults. There are two different ways a cell can die: by necrosis or by apoptosis. In contrast to necrosis, which often results from disease or trauma, apoptosis—or programmed ce... |
Are there any more effective methods than helmets to reduce the risk of brain injuries? | This is a major problem in NFL football these days, but as long as there is contact to the head there is a risk of injury. There is an idea floating around that removing helmets altogether would increase safety via a lack of security (knowing you'll be at risk) but I don't think anyone will go for that.
Sorry, not answering your question but I think this is relevant and I felt like typing something. | [
"BULLET::::- The US Army utilized the ARAMIS High Speed Camera system to see how ballistic impact would affect their helmets used in the field in order to see what changes could be implemented to reduce head trauma and damage.\n",
"In 1995 Swedish neurosurgeon Hans von Holst began evaluating the general construct... |
how come when a neutron star spins incredibly fast, it creates radio jets and becomes a pulsar? | Every neutron star spins rapidly and produces radio jets. This is because as the star gets compacted down it has to maintain its angular momentum, the same way a dancer brings their arms in to spin faster. The radio jets come from the fact that you have a lot of mass spinning very very fast, which produces very strong magnetic fields.
However, not all neutron stars will have their jets pass over the earth as it spins/wobbles. The ones that do are what we call pulsars(blazers if they're pointed directly at us). | [
"These stars gradually slow down over the eons, but those bodies that are still spinning rapidly may emit radiation that from Earth appears to blink on and off as the star spins, like the beam of light from a turning lighthouse. This \"pulsing\" appearance gives some neutron stars the name pulsars.\n",
"More plau... |
why do other countries (outside of the us) have little or no commercial breaks on tv? | As an example, I believe England has their stations technically run by the government, kind of like PBS here
The US on the other hand leases out different bands to companies (nbc, cbs, etc) so they have to pay for their costs | [
"In Denmark, commercial breaks are strictly prohibited and advertising targeted to children is restricted. Channels like Kanal 5 and TV3 are allowed to interrupt programs, as these channels are being broadcast via satellite from the United Kingdom.\n",
"In Norway, all advertising containing political messages and... |
why does mold grow slower in colder temperatures? | Life is just chemical reactions. Chemical reactions either produce heat, or take heat from their surroundings.
The act of reproduction is lots and lots of chemical reactions, some of which need heat from the surrounding environment. If there's less heat in the environment (it's colder), those reactions go slower. The entire chain of reactions is thus slowed down, and so the growth is slowed down. | [
"Few molds can begin growing at temperatures of or below, so food is typically refrigerated at this temperature. When conditions do not enable growth to take place, molds may remain alive in a dormant state depending on the species, within a large range of temperatures. The many different mold species vary enormous... |
what functions do d3 and 2 have in automatic cars and what situations should i be using them? | Those are your "low gears". They're good for climbing steep grades, towing, and you can also use them as an "engine brake" when you're going down a steep hill so you don't have to hit your brakes as much and wear them out. | [
"A level 3 vehicle is actually considered the first tier of highly automated vehicles, so vehicles equipped with this technology could be considered automated vehicles, although only in a very limited sense. Automated vehicles have what are referred to as Operational Design Domains (ODDs) which are individual sets ... |
Is a "runner's high" a minor form of Hypoxia? | Runner's high is caused by the release of endorphins caused by the strain of using your muscles for a prolonged time. | [
"Continuous aerobic exercise can induce a transient state of euphoria, colloquially known as a \"runner's high\" in distance running or a \"rower's high\" in crew, through the increased biosynthesis of at least three euphoriant neurochemicals: anandamide (an endocannabinoid), β-endorphin (an endogenous opioid), and... |
how cold does it have to be for food not to spoil? | All living organisms have a certain temperature range in which they function best. The reason why we refrigerate out foods is because all the most common contaminates have this range around 20-40C. So while the lowered temperature does not completely prevent growth, it greatly reduces it.
When you freeze food well below waters freezing point, you additionally rob the contaminants of liquid water which most common contaminants require for growth. The reason why we still set an expiration date on frozen food, is in case some rare and much more hardy contaminants should be present. And the fact that your freezer could malfunction or temporarily peak at higher temperatures.
If we were to lower the temperature by a lot, then MUCH fewer organism would be able to function and grow. Near 0K interactions causing chemical reactions would be so retarded that no organism could function. But it is extremely difficult and expensive to cool something down this much. We usually struggle by just cooling a handful of atoms to this level, you can forget about doing it with a couple kilo roast. | [
"Foods that spoil easily, such as meats, dairy, and seafood, must be prepared a certain way to avoid contaminating the people for whom they are prepared. As such, the rule of thumb is that cold foods (such as dairy products) should be kept cold and hot foods (such as soup) should be kept hot until storage. Cold mea... |
Philippines during Latin American Wars of Independence | I think this is a good opportunity to point out a major issue with historiography of the Philippines. That is, when people talk about Philippine independence they are doing so through the lens of mainly the Tagalog people, and to a lesser extent some other groups such as Bisayans. This naarative is of course quite dominant today probably in no small part because the most powerful groups in the Philippines are lowlanders in Luzon, which is where the Filipino Revolution took place. Many of the other parts of the Philippines are just ignored in historical narratives. The Filipino war of independence in 1896 is thought of as a defining moment for Filipinos because of these narratives, but in this post I am going to push back at that idea a bit.
That successful war of independence was simply one in a long line of rebellions and wars fought in the Philippines against the Spanish. That war was also a Tagalog war. What I mean by that is that the Katipunan was a group of elites from various Filipino backgrounds, but they were centered in Maynila. The movement was not exactly a national independence war (though upon defeating the Spanish, a Filipino republic was declared, the first republic in Asia, with Emilio Aguinaldo as president). This is important to keep in mind once I point out another part of the critique: not all of the Philippines was under Spanish control, or at least much of it was contested. Mindanao was very contested land, and Sulu was actually never incorporated into the "country" until the American colonial period. The highlands of Luzon were also not incorporated until the American period. These areas fought more or less constant conflicts against the Spanish from the 1500s up through that independence war in 1896. So, in fact, the Philippines already had a long tradition of revolt against the Spanish, and about half of the territory was either unconquered or fairly contested. Of the other half, much of it was relatively loosely administered and didn't actually have many Spaniards in it. In fact, for example, it wasn't until 1849 that official surnames were even adopted by Filipinos. This is mainly where the Spanish surnames in the Philippines originated; Jose Rizal himself did not have the same surname as his parents.
On the topic of influential revolts, it was a Cavite (another Taglog region) revolt in 1872 that helped inspire Jose Rizal. He dedicated Noli me tangere to the three Filipino secular priests that were executed in the wake of that revolt. The historian Cesar Adib Majul also discussed in fairly great detail what he called the Moro Wars against colonialists, which he broke up into six stages. Historiography has often ignored the "other half" of the Spanish Philippines, that is the areas that remained Muslim throughout the period. The sort of deification of actors such as Bonifacio, Aguinaldo, Luna, etc. is a willful ignorance of the fact that not only had there been other successful Filipino commanders against the Spanish, but that the celebrated war was a fairly regional thing. Basically, what I am trying to get across is that the Philippines was not an idle place, accepting the colonization. There had been active revolts and wars throughout the colonial period, and they clearly inspired each other.
References:
*The Promise of the Foreign: Nationalism and the Technics of Translation in the Spanish Philippines* by Vicente L. Rafael
*Muslims in the Philippines* by Cesar Adib Majul | [
"The Commonwealth of the Philippines was attacked by the Empire of Japan on December 8, 1941, nine hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor (the Philippines is on the Asian side of the international date line). The United States of America controlled the Philippines at the time and possessed important military bases ... |
- how were roads built and paved before large machines were invented? | Mostly by hand. They'd have [lots of people](_URL_1_) involved, though. Sometimes crews of hundreds or even thousands.
Even today, with all the large machines, there are inaccessible places or places where there's no financial incentive or other means to pay for it where they have to do it by hand. (In one such place, a man [spent 22 years](_URL_0_) cutting a road through a mountain by himself with a hammer and chisel, because the hospital was in another town and going around took too long, and his wife died.) You just line the guys up and set to. | [
"In the Industrial Revolution, John Loudon McAdam (1756–1836) designed the first modern highways, using inexpensive paving material of soil and stone aggregate (macadam), and he embanked roads a few feet higher than the surrounding terrain to cause water to drain away from the surface. With the development of motor... |
How accountable was the average member of Nazi German groups such as the Einsanzgruppen and the Reserve Police Battalion for the Holocaust? | In an academic sense, there are three categories to place those responsible for the Holocaust: perpetrators, collaborators and bystanders. (_URL_0_ - just one academic example, but Google searches for "Perpetrators collaborators bystanders" will bring Holocaust studies to the top; 'rescuers' are also included in these four categories.)
The average member would fall into one of these three categories, with the rare exception of those who became a 'rescuer.'
Can we include this in the historical debate of "How responsible is a soldier at war?" Should we shift all of the blame to Goebbels and Hitler for motivating a nation to hate? Probably not, considering that some "broke free" and participated in efforts to free captive Jews, homosexuals and Romany.
What about the militias who aided the Einsatzgruppen, who "were paid from the money and valuables stolen from the victims."? _URL_1_ Can we argue that anyone is more or less responsible because they were not a member of the German nation, and not susceptible to the propaganda of the Third Reich?
| [
"The \"Ordnungspolizei\" encompassed virtually all of Nazi Germany's law-enforcement and emergency response organisations, including fire brigades, coast guard, and civil defence. In the prewar period, \"Reichsführer-SS\" Heinrich Himmler and Kurt Daluege, chief of the Order Police, cooperated in transforming the p... |
does celibacy contribute to increased proficiency and productivity? | ELI5 rules dictate that I can't just reply with "no" but if I could, I would. Yes, there were some notoriously brilliant people who were celibate, but there are millions of people out there in the world right now who are celibate (either by choice, or because nobody will have sex with them) with absolutely no great abilities or advantages, and there have been thousand of noted brilliant people who led very normal sex lives.
Consider: Certain mental disorders cause a person to be very very brilliant at a specific subject, and very very remedial in other areas of their lives. It's much more statistically likely that Tesla and Newton had mental abnormalities that made them fantastic at math and science, but caused them to have very poor social skills, or no interest in sexual activity.
There are studies that suggest that for a man, going a few days without an orgasm can have a minor impact on some hormones in your system, notably testosterone, but there aren't any studies or stats suggesting that this has any meaningful impact on your mental clarity or abilities, and after a short while (7-10 days) things go back to normal as your body adjusts. | [
"\"Greater understanding of human psychology has led to questions regarding the impact of celibacy on the human development of the clergy. The realization that many non-European countries view celibacy negatively has prompted questions concerning the value of retaining celibacy as an absolute and universal requirem... |
How does an advance in telescope technology allow us to look "further back in time" when the speed of light obviously hasn't changed? | Very distant objects (such as the most distant galaxies observed to date, at about 12.7 billion light years away) - are extremely dim (because they are so far away).
The telescope where I work uses a 27 ft primary mirror (the worlds largest single piece mirror). TMT telescope, which is being constructed, will have a 90 ft (segmented) mirror.
A larger mirror means more photons which means you can see dimmer objects with more detail.
Exposure times for most instruments range from minutes to hours. More photons means quicker exposures... or more detail with longer exposures.
We can not see past about 380,000 years after the big bang. Light did not persist prior to that. The earliest light which can be seen is the CMB which has shifted into the microwave spectrum. | [
"Different physicists have attempted to measure the speed of light throughout history. Galileo attempted to measure the speed of light in the seventeenth century. An early experiment to measure the speed of light was conducted by Ole Rømer, a Danish physicist, in 1676. Using a telescope, Rømer observed the motions ... |
the tariff war in 2002 and how the proposed 25% tariff for steel imports from canada will hurt the us economy | This is argued every day with many viewpoints. This is ELI5.
If the leaders of a country want their industries to grow they impose tariffs, taxes on imported goods. That helps local companies produce these goods which means locals have jobs. Seems good.
Now imagine taking this further. You want your town to have industry and locals to have jobs. Suppose the town could actually impose tariffs on all goods brought in. Tax the milk, the bread, everything. Now supposedly local people have jobs. But there is no dairy in town so you are just paying higher taxes. The local bakery owner is a drunk and does not bake good bread. But he is protected by the tariff and can continue drinking and baking bad bread.
Further the other towns, or countries, reacted to these tariffs by imposing and raising their own. Suddenly your producers have no market.
Free traders say we do best with no tariffs. If something can be made very cheaply elsewhere, then imported, then we pay low prices. We specialize. They specialize. Prices for everyone are as low as possible. | [
"The temporary tariffs of 8–30% were originally scheduled to remain in effect until 2005. They were imposed to give U.S. steel makers protection from what a U.S. probe determined was a detrimental surge in steel imports. More than 30 steel makers had declared bankruptcy in recent years. Steel producers had original... |
how does someone live without a gallbladder? does it change how they eat? if so, how? | I live just fine without a gall bladder. I have not changed my diet in the slightest.
A gall bladder allows me to store bile, so that in theory, if I suddenly ate (say) an entire bucket of lard, I would have enough bile ready to digest it.
Instead, I am now relegated to eating that lard in small spoonfuls evenly throughout the day, to ensure the availability of the bile I can no longer store. | [
"The main purpose of the gallbladder is to store bile, also called gall, needed for the digestion of fats in food. Produced by the liver, bile flows through small vessels into the larger hepatic ducts and ultimately through the cystic duct (parts of the biliary tree) into the gallbladder, where it is stored. At any... |
I was brought up in Texas in the mid-late 90's and during middle school Civil War history we were taught that Robert E. Lee was a well organized masterful tactician, while Grant was a drunk who won more so due to resources and fortunate circumstances. How true is this? | It's hard to overstate just how off-base and factually incorrect this analysis is, at least from the Grant side of things. No offense meant to OP, who seems to have been the victim of what was, for a time, a standard Lost Cause interpretation of Lee and Grant, but this view is patently false.
Very quickly on Lee, there's been plenty written on this sub on Lee's abilities as a general and tactician, but to TD;LR things, yes: Lee was a fantastic military commander who demonstrated superb strategic and political acumen. Though far from perfect, and with more than a few tactical mistakes made during the American Civil War (his performance at Gettysburg, his refusal to go west in 1863 to deal with the crisis in that theater, his sometimes vague orders to subordinates), it is hard to imagine anyone doing better with the resources available. So in this regard, OP's history teacher was more or less correct in simplifying Lee as a "well organized masterful technician."
Okay, fair enough on that front - but let's get to Grant. First, the drunkenness. There is no verifiable record of Grant getting reprimanded or otherwise called out on the carpet for being drunk during the Civil War. Despite what Shelby Foote relates in Ken Burns' Civil War doc, there's no actual evidence of Grant going on a bender during the Vicksburg campaign, and while it is POSSIBLE that this happened, let's look at the facts. Rumors of alcoholism dogged Grant throughout much of his Civil War career, stemming from a very real concern about his drinking habits as a young officer in California. Again, no official records attest to this, but it is generally agreed upon by historians that Grant did have a drinking problem, one that became an issue for him when stationed away from his family in the 1850s.
Fast forward to the Civil War. As a West Point graduate and veteran of the army through the Mexican American War and service afterwards, Grant was a known commodity in military circles. He knew other regular army generals, and they knew him. In these circles, promotions and assignments were very competitive, and many of these officers (and their allies/benefactors) actively spread rumors, false or otherwise, to tarnish the reputation of others so as to make themselves look better. What's more, newspapers loved this kind of drama, so a small rumor or some back-stabbing gossip got around fast, and in this way, Grant's drinking became a popular topic when his star was on the rise.
Indeed, think of this like movie awards season: if you run a studio and you have a film in the running for best picture, you might spread rumors about a rival production to make it look bad, thereby increasing your own film's standing. It was no different during the Civil War, and throughout it all, Grant never faltered. Reading correspondence from politicians, fellow soldiers, friends, and family, you're not going to find one instance of a person attesting to having seen Grant drunk during the Civil War. Sure, there was plenty of "I know a guy who knows a guy who said he saw Grant drunk," but that was it.
So yeah, the drunken butcher myth just doesn't hold any water. Was he an alcoholic? Maybe? Grant seemed to purposefully abstain from alcohol in social situations, and there's enough evidence out there to suggest that he was very conscious of the "drunkard" rumors, but for such a famous drunk, there's very little in the way of public, verifiable accounts of him being drunk during the war.
Now, as a commander and tactician, we do have lots of evidence: none of it good for people like OP's Texas history teacher. Bruce Catton wrote extensively on Grant's abilities as an organizer, trainer, and leader during the early days of the war, when he commanded the 21st Illinois Volunteer Regiment (check out Catton's 'Grant Moves South' & 'Grant Takes Command' for more on this). He turned a rag-tag group of civilian recruits into a professional unit, no easy task, and continued to demonstrate his superb leadership abilities in a string of small victories that culminated in his hard-fought victory at Shiloh. I did an in-depth breakdown of his masterful generalship during the Vicksburg campaign here (_URL_0_), which laid out a blueprint for our modern understanding of "Total War." Lincoln, always known to be unsympathetic and quick to cut bait on generals that didn't grasp the full scope of the political as well as military necessities of winning the war, stood by Grant when the losses of the Wilderness Campaign piled up. I bring this up because it demonstrates that even then, smart minds understood that Grant wasn't just throwing bodies into the meat-grinder, but rather he was executing a series of flanking marches that kept pushing Lee further and further back to a point from which no more offensive campaigns could be launched. Grant's army pool was not bottomless, and those who point to his numerical advantage over Lee at this point disregard the very real public opinion factor that might have just as easily have turned the tide against Grant (in other words, if the Union's losses were as high as they were without quantifiable gains, Grant would have been sacked). Grant knew this, as did Lincoln, and the campaign proved to be a masterful example in generalship that forced Lee into a stalemate from which he never really recovered.
Lastly, Grant knew how to manage an army, and was damn good at promoting subordinates who knew how to get the job done (i.e., Sherman and Sheridan). Sure, Grant had missteps (the last attack at Cold Harbor, the Battle of the Crater), but if you study his campaigns, you'll see a deliberate, thoughtful, calculating commander at work every step of the way.
[Sources: Bruce Catton, 'Grant Moves South' & 'Grant Takes Command'; Jay Winik, 'April, 1865'; James McPherson, 'Battle Cry of Freedom'] | [
"Joseph Lewis Hogg (September 13, 1806 – May 16, 1862) was a politician and a Confederate States Army general from Texas during the American Civil War. He was also the father of Texas Governor Jim Hogg.\n",
"In the post-Civil War era, two of the most important Republican figures in Texas were African Americans Ge... |
Is it possible for an embryo to continue growing without developing into a fetus? | Theoretically, the cells that form the inner cell mass of the blastocyst could progress through division without initiating the process of differentiation, however, that would result in the spontaneous abortion of the embryo. Basically, even if it did just continue to divide, the embryo would be deemed unviable by the body, rejected, and subsequently flushed. | [
"Typically, a fetus develops from the viable zygote, resulting in an embryo. Gestation occurs in the woman's uterus until the fetus (assuming it is carried to term) is sufficiently developed to be born. In humans, gestation is often around 9 months in duration, after which the woman experiences labor and gives birt... |
[For everyone] I'm looking for examples of riots that were started for reasons we now find ridiculous... | I'd like to think that a hundred years from now we'll find any and all sports-related riots like the [Vancouver Stanley Cup riots](_URL_0_) completely ridiculous, but I'm not sure I have that much faith in people. | [
"The riots came on the back of a period of civil unrest, variously sourced from feelings transferring from the French Revolution, further changes in the Corn Laws, food shortages, and a general unhappiness of the population with their leading figures in politics and law. A proclamation banning \"seditious writing\"... |
why do we have an easier time sorting things by strings of numbers vs by strings of letters? (ex: t#124567 vs t# asedtz) | The order of numbers is meaningful, 2 comes before 7 for a reason. We are also used to counting up and counting down, which reinforces this order in our minds.
The order of letters is arbitrary, we could rearrange the alphabet and it wouldn't make much of a difference. There is nothing innate about K that makes it come before P, so it requires more mental effort to figure out their proper order. | [
"Pigeonhole sort, counting sort, radix sort, and Van Emde Boas tree sorting all work best when the key size is small; for large enough keys, they become slower than comparison sorting algorithms. However, when the key size or the word size is very large relative to the number of items (or equivalently when the numb... |
How can people predict when the next eclipse ,years from now, will happen, but can't predict the weather more than a few days from now? | Orbits and whether are both chaotic, so a tiny inaccuracy will grow exponentially until our model is useless. But with orbits, that's a *really* tiny exponent. With weather, things interact quickly. Small errors build up fast. With planets, you can model it almost perfectly as the planetary systems all orbiting the solar system's center of mass and the moons all orbiting the planetary systems' centers of mass, which isn't a chaotic system. The effects of the planets on each other is tiny, and it takes a long time for the tiny effects of those tiny effects to build up. As a result, we can predict weather on the order of a few days, but but we can predict the solar system for millions of years. | [
"This verse, and so many others like it, attempts to predict long-range conditions. These predictions have stood the test of time only because they rely on selective memory: people remember when they have predicted correctly and forget when predictions don't hold. One possible factor which could provide these predi... |
if dna contains informations about our whole body, why can we not regenerate certain body parts if they gets removed? | IKEA instructions do not equal a finished IKEA cabinet :) similarly, if you build the cabinet you no longer have the materials to build another one, even though you still have the instructions. You need more materials (which, for humans, basically boils down to stem cells).
This isn’t perfectly 1 to 1, though. Most of the genetic information that our bodies utilize is for the internal processes on the cellular level to ensure that things run smoothly and you stay alive. The most marked development that we make, which is in the womb, is only possible because of the highly malleable nature of stem cells. Those stem cells change into different cells once we’re born and are spread all over our respective internal systems, thus limiting their uses.
What I can’t answer, though, is why humans are unable to regenerate while other animals can. It’s definitely something that researchers are investigating, but there is no real concrete answer yet. The Darwinian explanation is that over the millions of years that those animals developed, evolution by natural selection ‘selected’ for traits that are most beneficial for that species’ survival. Evidently, humans did not need significant regeneration to survive! | [
"Cells cannot function if DNA damage corrupts the integrity and accessibility of essential information in the genome (but cells remain superficially functional when non-essential genes are missing or damaged). Depending on the type of damage inflicted on the DNA's double helical structure, a variety of repair strat... |
The Alaska Purchase in 1867 is often called Seward's Folly, dubbed so by detractors. Did many Russians oppose selling the land? If so, on what grounds? | Great question. **The principal Russian reaction against the sale was driven by people who had financial interests in the Russian American Company and those who saw it as a retreat from empire.**
First, let's talk about why the sale took place. The Crimean War of the 1850s had exposed a significant problem with Russia's possessions bordering the Pacific Ocean: namely, Russia couldn't adequately defend them. Grainger's *The First Pacific War: Britain and Russia, 1854-1856* is a good book on this topic. During the war, the Hudson's Bay Company successfully pressured the British government into making Alaska a neutral country during the war, but Russian-American Company shipping was not subject to that neutrality, and Russian mainland ports (used by the RAC) were attacked (with mixed success) by the French and British.
The Crimean War devastated RAC assets and left the company financially weakened (though it still paid dividends to owners). It also devastated the finances of the Imperial government, which needed liquidity to pay the costs of the war. At the same time, a booming United States appeared destined to control all of North America. Russia, which had been the friendliest European power to the United States for almost a century, had no desire to endanger that relationship.
During the Crimean War, the RAC (before the *modus vivendi* with the British government was reached) had even contemplated a fake sale of assets to Americans in order to shield the RAC from British depredations. This led to persistent rumors through the late 1850s that Russia was preparing (or had already) sold Alaska to the United States. It seems likely that only the American Civil War prevented an earlier sale.
In 1858, Admiral-General and Grand Duke Konstantin, Tsar Alexander's brother, ordered an inspection team to be sent to Russian America to examine how well the RAC was handling the territory. Konstantin, as head of the Russian Navy, was perhaps the leading proponent of a sale. He comprehensively knew its vulnerability in the event of war, and he also knew what the Crimean War had cost. That inspection team, which included a representative of the finance ministry, and one from the Navy, was organized in 1859 and left for Alaska in 1860. They completed their report in 1862.
Much to their surprise (they had come in with a negative viewpoint), Pavel Golovin and Sergei Kostlivtsov "had to report in clear conscience and justice that they found everything in proper order."
They actually recommended *against* liquidating the colony, but they did recognize the military vulnerability and urged reforms and limitations of the company's privileges in the territory. A commission met to consider the two men's inspection reports and make recommendations. Of note, they recommended the ban on liquor importation be lifted, and liquor licenses be put into place. Even though the committee's final report noted, "all the financial resources of the country could hardly be sufficient to repay the expense of its defense or even simple administration," it nevertheless concluded, "In spite of the small value to us of the American Possessions as far as industries and trade are concerned, there are political reasons which make their preservation by us an absolute necessity. Only by strengthening our foothold in North America can we call ourselves masters of the Northern precincts of the Pacific Ocean, the control of which for many reasons is a desirable object for a powerful Empire."
Despite this olive branch, the committee's recommendation included reform proposals, some hotly opposed by the directors of the RAC. The RAC enjoyed its monopoly and did not want to pay more to the imperial government to maintain it. In the end, the RAC's board of directors rejected a new 20-year charter under the proposed conditions, based on the notion that they were too severe.
At the end of 1866, the issue of Alaska came before foreign minister Gorchakov, who was busy dealing with the consequences of the Austrian-Prussian war. He nevertheless sided with Konstantin in favor of the sale. Finance minister Reutern also chimed in with agreement, and so did von Stoeckl, the ambassador to the United States. In December 1866, the emperor agreed that negotiations should be opened with the United States for a sale.
There were still opponents, mostly RAC directors (especially Ferdinand von Wrangel), and some lower-level bureaucrats, but the leading figures of Russia had lined up behind a sale. The Minister of Internal Affairs, Count P.A. Valuev, was against the sale, but he was presented with it only after the fact and never spoke of it publicly. He wrote in his diary, dated March 22:
> "News was received of cession by us of our American possessions to the United American States for 7 million dollars. None of us knew about this except Prince Gorchakov, the Minister of Finance, and Krabbe. Strange phenomenon and a depressing feeling. . . . We sell part of our territory on the quiet and do a bad turn to England, whose Canadian possessions now still more exclusively contradict the Monroe Doctrine."
When the sale took place, Russian newspapers were "unprepared for the unexpected news, and for awhile a certain confusion was felt," Nikolai Bolkhovitinov writes in *Russian-American Relations and the Sale of Alaska*.
The newspaper *Birzhevye vedomosti* (Exchange Gazette), which Bolkhovitinov calls "the organ of Russian business circles," stated in its first commentary that, "True, Russia does not get much benefit from its American possessions, and for political reasons she does not have great need to retain them, but in any case there is hardly anyone who would think of offering our government such an insignificant sum as 7,000,000 dollars for Russian America."
The newspaper *Golos* wrote strongly against the sale: "We do not know where such rumors originate and for what goals they are disseminated, but one thing is certain, that notwithstanding their evident impossibility, they deeply anger all true Russians," it wrote on March 23, 1867.
The paper said on March 25 that the RAC had "conquered territory and established colonies on it with great sacrifice of labor, capital, and even the blood of Russians, with which they sealed the right of Russia to possess this region."
This was a rare bit of public dissent from a Russian newspaper, which was forced to call such things "rumors" in order to evade Imperial censorship, which would come down hard on any newspaper speaking against an action of the government.
On March 29, the *St. Petersburgskie vedomosti* referred to "the sincere and insincere howls of robust patriotism that resounded from various corners of our journalism" following the sale. That's undoubtedly referring to the fact ─ obliquely, because of censorship ─ that not everyone was happy with the sale.
*Moskovskie vedomosti* didn't doubt the reasons for the sale, but it wrote on May 14 that "Our American colonies now ceded to the United States were discovered, brought under Russian sovereignty, and built up solely by private enterprise, at a cost of no little labor and expense. In the course of over eighty years, they supplied Russia with profits of no less than 100 million rubles silver in the form of various types of furs. Recalling this, we cannot be indifferent either to the interests of the colonies, nor to the interests of the company."
Russian newspapers also dodged censors by publishing foreign accounts hostile to the sale. Nevertheless, the furor died down as the months passed.
By September 1868, *Birzhevye vedomosti* wrote in its September 1868 issue that "rapprochement between Russia and North America, these two colossi on either side of the ocean, was not only possible but also in both their best interests."
It furthermore called the Alaska Purchase a "goodwill concession" to the United States and as a result took the "first step toward a Russian-American alliance," a step which "eliminated every cause for future conflict which might have arisen between Russia and the United States."
A bit of wishful thinking, perhaps, but reasonable given the previous century of relations.
Cassius Clay, the American ambassador to Russia, wrote in a letter to William Seward on May 10 that the Russian attitude could be summed up in a single sentence: "All right, we sold to you too cheaply, but it all remains in the family."
***
A note on "Seward's Folly" as well. That term was used only by a handful of Radical Republican newspapers and politicians, who were engaged in a bitter political conflict with the more centrist and conservative Republicans, including President Andrew Johnson. In 1958, Richard Welch published a paper in *American Slavic and East European Review* that surveyed contemporary newspapers and found the vast majority in favor of the Alaska Purchase. He concludes that "Seward's Folly" was an amusing slogan but had little popular opinion behind it. Most Americans believed in the expansion of empire and thought that over the following century, Alaska would be a valuable source of minerals, possibly even becoming a great breadbasket for agricultural development, given enough attention.
***
As for reading, I'd suggest Ronald Jensen's *The Alaska Purchase and Russian-American Relations*, pretty much anything by Bolkhovitinov (pretty much the god of Russian-American relations studies), and Lydia Black's *Russians in Alaska* is a wonderful introductory text to the whole period. | [
"In 1867 Russia and the United States concluded the sale of Alaska, a process which had begun as early as 1854 during the Crimean War. Gorchakov was not against the sale but always advocated for careful and secret negotiations, seeing the eventuality of the sale but not the immediate necessity.\n",
"The purchase ... |
What is the historical consensus on Reagan's presidency | The consensus is still forming. However, Reagan is neither the icon he is portrayed as on the right or the demon of the left. The historical consensus on Reagan's presidency is still developing and is an exceptionally contentious topic, though I think it will ultimately settle on the notion that Reagan was a strong president overall (particularly with regards to the Cold War) who had significant flaws/blind spots (the developing world and economically underdeveloped communities in the U.S.)
The initial historiography painted Reagan as a disinterested, uninvolved leader; the "amiable dunce" that Clark Clifford described him as in 1981. Biographers Lou Cannon and Edmund Morris both subscribe to this to varying degrees and point to the scathing memoirs of advisers like David Stockman and Donald Regan as evidence. Stockman is particularly brutal, arguing that Reagan had no understanding of economics and would frequently launch into tangents that had little to do with the substance of meetings but everything to do with Reagan's talking points. Critics also point to Reagan's lack of attention in the Iran-Contra crisis and the general failure of his domestic policy to improve the plight of African-Americans and blue collar workers as further evidence of his failures as president. This school also tends to argue that Reagan had little to do with the end of the Cold War, ascribing greater agency to Gorbachev in ending it.
Recent years have seen a movement to rehabilitate Reagan, and portray a much more dynamic leader; particularly in the field of Soviet-U.S. relations. They show Reagan as deeply involved in the development of his foreign policy and as someone willing to go against his party, as seen in H.W. Brands newest biography of him. The memoirs of Caspar Weinberger (SecDef) and George Schultz (SecState) both support this, as do most of the documents from his administration. The new school ascribes significant agency to Reagan in ending the Cold War, highlighting his deft handling of the Soviet Union (in particular his ability to demand change, but not crow about it when it occurred, which provided Gorbachev some protection from domestic critics).
My research largely conforms to the latter school. Internal administration documents show Reagan as the driving force behind US-Soviet policy and demonstrate that he often proceeded with his initiatives (like SDI, nuclear abolition, and others) over the violent objections of his staffers. A major reason why the initial historiography is so negative is that Reagan's political opponents painted him as anti-intellectual and as a dunce. This began in his first campaign for governor when his opponent argued that he was just an actor, and the firing of Clark Kerr as the leader of the California university system (though in reality the Board of Regents who Reagan did not appoint bear the blame for this). These allegations continued throughout his political career, as Reagan tended to play up his common man image, despite the fact that he was a lifelong voracious reader who consumed the most important academic and popular works of his time. Another part of the issue is that Reagan's objectives of "crusade for freedom" and "peace through strength" seem at odds with each other. The first implies frequent conflict and the second peace, albeit with an aggressive posture. Reagan didn't see it this way, believing that the Soviets would only respect a strong U.S. military and that the "crusade for freedom" did not necessarily mean war with the USSR, but rather a dogged adherence to U.S. values from a position of strength.
Ultimately, Reagan is an exceptionally complex political figure as he tended to compartmentalize his life and avoid conflict. This, along with his universally acknowledged charisma, led many people to believe they knew the "true" Reagan, as he often left people feeling good about themselves and believing they had convinced of their position.
TLDR: There is no historical consensus yet. However, Reagan is certainly not "the worst president in our history," and once the historiography balances out will likely reside within the top 30% of U.S. president, largely due to his role in peacefully ending the Cold War.
Edit: Changed my percentage from 10% to 30% since I realize that Reagan isn't going to be top 5. I'm a historian not a mathematician. | [
"Despite the continuing debate surrounding his legacy, many conservative and liberal scholars agree that Reagan has been the most influential president since Franklin D. Roosevelt, leaving his imprint on American politics, diplomacy, culture, and economics through his effective communication and pragmatic compromis... |
how do ancestry reports work? | Scientists have collected DNA from different ethnic groups all over the world. There are certain markers on DNA or RNA, they can calculate what mutations have occurred and how fast they happen.
Mitochondria (the powerhouse of the cell) are only inherited from your mother and have their own separate DNA, so you can compare all groups until you find a common ancestor (Mitochondrial Eve). There's a similar test for men, Y-chomosomal Adam.
Africans have the most genetic diversity, since those groups that left would have had a bottleneck and less variation. | [
"When estimating ancestry, most methods use nonmetric traits, or observable traits. The researcher looks at different morphological traits indicative of an ancestry. This causes more biases in the estimation. Researchers can also use metric traits from \"Standards\" and input the measurements into FORDISC to receiv... |
I'm aware of why so many Irish left their homes in the 19th C, but what about Scandinavians, Germans and Chinese? What made them come to North America in large numbers? | From Sweden, mainly
* an increase in population
* failed crops 1867–1869.
* no religious freedom
* the pull factor of emigrants writing back/helping others to emigrate
Obviously the causes changed over time. The small village where I'm from, many left in the mid 1800's due to religious reasons, later it was more economical.
This is in Swedish [Emigrantinstitutet](_URL_2_) and [here](_URL_2_kunskapsbanken-13048.asp)
A very fascinating story is the book called [Emigrants (4 books actually) by Wilhelm Moberg](_URL_0_). It is very closly based on the diaries by emigrant [Andrew Peterson](_URL_1_)
| [
"As a result of the Great Famine in Ireland, many Irish families were forced to emigrate from the country. By 1854, between 1.5 and 2 million Irish had left their country. In the United States, most Irish became city-dwellers. With little money, many had to settle in the cities that the ships landed in. By 1850, th... |
Spanish / Latino Historians: How long did it take for countries (Mexico for example) to comprehensively adopt Español as their national language? | You might want to clarify your use of "comprehensive." You can still find villages in Mexico where every single person speaks Tzotzil or Tzeltal or something, and only one or two speak Spanish. | [
"In the Philippines, a variation of Spanish that was primarily based on Mexican Spanish was the \"lingua franca\" of the country since Spanish colonization in 1565 and was an official language alongside Filipino (standardized Tagalog) and English until 1987, following a ratification of a new constitution, where it ... |
how did kings know how much was in their coffers and avoid having it picked at by treasurers? | This is still a problem in the present day. The answer is: you have another, independent person (an auditor) come in and make a separate count. And you warn the treasurer that this is going to happen, again and again, so they'd better not cheat because they'll get caught.
For a while the Chinese Emperor forgot to do this, and when he finally announced that auditor were coming, his staff burned down the treasure storehouse because, presumably, they knew their thefts would be found out. | [
"The master of the treasury or treasurer (, , , ' or ', ) was a royal official in the Kingdom of Hungary from the 12th century. Although treasurers were initially responsible for collecting and administering royal revenues, they adopted more and more judiciary functions and turned into the highest judges of the rea... |
how did the united states first distribute and get people to use the dollar? | Early dollars were silver coins. Minting coins was just creating a standardized amount of silver to simplify using it as a commodity.
More generally, governments promote the use of their currency by requiring that tax and court-ordered debts be paid in it. If you have to pay your taxes in dollars and you don't have enough, you find a way to buy dollars in exchange for whatever it is that you currently have and the government will be ready to sell those to you should it come to that. | [
"After the Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4, 1776, discussion arose over what sort of currency should be adopted in the United States. At the time, people in North America relied upon a mixture of foreign coins, none of which were struck to a consistent standard, making day to day financial transact... |
Saturn V Launched From The Moon; How Fast Would It Go? | By my rough calculations, the three stages of a Saturn V with no payload unencumbered by gravity or air resistance would be able to achieve the following speed relative to their initial velocity:
5.7 km/s + 5.6 km/s + 10.3 km/s = 21.6 km/s which is 48,000 mph. | [
"The Saturn V was launched 13 times from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida with no loss of crew or payload. the Saturn V remains the tallest, heaviest, and most powerful (highest total impulse) rocket ever brought to operational status, and holds records for the heaviest payload launched and largest payload capac... |
when and why did universities start inflating their tuition rates so much? | because maximum profit can't be made if you don't raise prices when customers are able to get a free loan and pay | [
"Between 2007-08 and 2017–18, published in-state tuition and fees at public four-year institutions increased at an average rate of 3.2% per year beyond inflation, compared with 4.0% between 1987–88 and 1997–98 and 4.4% between 1997–98 and 2007-08. One cause of increased tuition is the reduction of state and federal... |
the differences between 501c4, 501c3 and llc, and 527. | The ones that start with numbers are tax-exempt organizations under the IRS tax code.
501c4 is for social welfare organizations and employee assosiations.
501c3 is pretty broad and includes religious institutions, charities, educational institutions, amateur sports institutions, animal cruelty prevention, etc. etc. etc.
527 is for groups that campaign for political candidates.
An LLC is a limited liability company and is a way to organize a business so that the owners are not personally liable for the liabilities of the business, but it is taxed like a sole proprietorship. It is not an inherently tax exempt status.
What kind of tax exempt status you file for, and how your organize your group legally, completely depends on what the purpose of your group is. Section 501c lists something like 29 different categories of tax exempt organizations. | [
"501(c)(3) organizations, named after the section of the Internal Revenue Code that defines them, are the most common category of nonprofit organization in the United States. They make up 74% of all tax-exempt organizations as of 2013, encompassing organizations with charitable, educational, or religious missions.\... |
what is the common ancestor of birds? | A dromaeosaur theropod definitely seems to be the best fit. Archaopteryx seems to be fairly basal (close to the ancestor of all birds). | [
"With the new insights generated by the DNA-DNA hybridisation studies of Sibley and his co-workers toward the end of the 20th century, however, it became clear that these apparently unrelated birds were all descended from a common ancestor: the same crow-like ancestor that gave rise to the drongos. On that basis th... |
is there a way to get over phobias? | Different things work for different people. Some people get help from hypnosis, some have a really gradual desensitization/exposure therapy. [This is a link](_URL_0_) to a self desensitization therapy. My advice would be to skip past the nonsense pre-reading to "step 1." Essentially the most common way to get over a phobia is to practice relaxation techniques enough that you get really good at them. Then, you spend a few minutes every day on a "hierarchy of exposure" where you use those relaxation techniques. For you, as an example, the hierarchy might be for the first few weeks, to think about a bug far away from you, then a few weeks after that might be to think about a bug outside your house, then inside your house, then inside the room, then actually seeing a bug, then actually touching the bug. After each thing (like thinking about the bug far away), you'd practice relaxing yourself every day until it became second nature to be relaxed in that situation... then you'd move on to the next thing. | [
"Another method used to treat patients with extreme phobias is prolonged exposure, in which the patient is exposed to the object of their fear over a long period of time. This technique is only tested when a person has overcome avoidance of, or escape from, the feared object or situation. People with slight distres... |
why do we grab our chest when we are startled? | I just did a quick google a managed to find a little info that may help
The responses of people to a startling incident vary widely between the fight, fly, or freeze options. When startled, people may wildly flail their arms, or suddenly raise their limbs in protective poses, or duck to avoid an object. The shocked and surprised often back pedal, jump back, or run away from a frontal stimulus. They may clutch a rail, or furniture to prevent from falling. Their knees may buckle, causing them to fall down. They may drop the things they are holding.
They may freeze, or instantly follow orders. They may clutch their chests, faint or even suffer a temporary heart attack The aggressive ones may curse or throw things at the object, which startled them, or strike out at them.
So it sounds like it clutching your just is a response you hafe in order to protect your torso. | [
"BULLET::::- Crackles, rattling or ‘junky’ feelings deep in the chest associated with breathing effort – usually progressively worsening with increasing shortness of breath and may be cause for a panic attack\n",
"\"No sooner did I make this suggestion than I thought I sensed the appearance of a marvelous trembli... |
what is a sanctuary city in the usa and what is typical daily life like for illegal immigrants who live there? | A sanctuary cities is one whose local government refuses to help the Federal government in checking to make sure an immigrant is here legally, or retaining someone who is here illegally till the Federal government can take them into custody. The Federal government can still send agents after you, they just do not get help from the local government which makes it easier for you to avoid capture and easier for you to keep from being found to begin with. | [
"There has been controversy around sanctuary cities, one response from the state and local governments. Many American cities have designated themselves as sanctuary cities and many other state and municipal governments discourage the reporting of illegal immigrants to U.S. immigration and Customs Enforcement. A san... |
how do lotteries that reward $1000 a day work? | That really is not that much money in lottery terms. That is $365,000 a year. Over 10 years that is only $3.65 Million, and $14.6 Million over 40 years.
$14.6 million is not that much money in lottery terms. | [
"In some online lotteries, the annual payments are only $25,000, with a balloon payment in the final year. This type of installment payment is often made through investment in government-backed securities. Online lotteries pay the winners through their insurance backup. However, many winners choose lump sum, since ... |
I just watched Armageddon and it got me thinking, if an apocalyptic-sized asteroid were on a collision course with Earth, does Nasa have any plans in place to destroy it before contact? Or would we actually all be screwed? | You wouldn't want to destroy it, you'd just end up with a big ball of sand coming at you (if it didn't reform), which would impart just as much energy onto earth, just in a different way, and still have catastrophic results.
What you want is a [gravity tractor](_URL_0_), which will slowly deflect it.
Do we have one built right now? No. Do we have finalized plans on how to build one? No.
Would we, If we saw one coming, have something out together quickly? I certainly hope so. Our odds at survival would be directly proportional to how much earning we had. | [
"In 2016, a NASA scientist warned that the Earth is unprepared for such an event. In April 2018, the B612 Foundation reported \"It's 100 per cent certain we'll be hit [by a devastating asteroid], but we're not 100 per cent sure when.\" Also in 2018, physicist Stephen Hawking, in his final book \"Brief Answers to th... |
Did lancers really use their lances as javelins? | From the video link you seem to suggest that you are talking about "lances" in the sense of the Crimean War period. Could you please clarify this is what you mean?
Actual kontos and thrusting spears (such as those used by cataphracti) were fully 3 to 4 meters long and would *wholly* unsuitable for throwing. They would not have been discarded by the wielder until they splintered or were otherwise ruined.
I'm inclined to call this video storytelling fabrication but I'd like to pin down your timeline before being sure. | [
"The lance is a pole weapon designed to be used by a mounted warrior or cavalry soldier (lancer). During the periods of classical and medieval warfare, it evolved into being the leading weapon in cavalry charges, and was unsuited for throwing or for repeated thrusting, unlike similar weapons of the javelin/pike fam... |
How much more advanced and safer is a nuclear power plant built today compared to one built in 1986? | Engineering?
Chernobyl was based on a stupid reactor type that is not built any more. In addition the operators were actively overriding multiple safety rules and mechanisms - something that won't happen any more because we have an example how that can end. Another accident like Fukushima is not completely impossible if something really bad happens (like one of the most violent earthquakes and tsunamis in recorded history). Chernobyl will stay a unique event.
It is very difficult and problematic to assign numbers to big accidents. They are so rare that there is not enough data to determine it experimentally. | [
"The next nuclear plants to be built will likely be Generation III or III+ designs, and a few such are already in operation in Japan. Generation IV reactors would have even greater improvements in safety. These new designs are expected to be passively safe or nearly so, and perhaps even inherently safe (as in the P... |
If energy cannot be created or destroyed, how come the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate? Where does the energy for this expansion come from? | "Energy is conserved" is a "lie to children". What I mean is that it is a statement that is close to true that we are told to keep things simply. Like all lies to children it is not complete. The full statement is "Energy is conserved in flat, unchanging spacetime". From a mathematical point of view, energy is conserved only in systems with time-translational invariance. This just means that if the structure of your universe (as opposed to the things in it) doesn't change in time then the total energy won't either.
Unfortunately, our universe does change in time. When you have changing space metric it is very difficult to even talk about "Total Energy". The normal approach is to have some measurement of energy density at each point and then integrate over the volume to get the total. So you have a box with stuff in it and you can add it up to get a total.
**What happens when the box changes?**
Well the most obvious contribution to energy is the easiest; mass. If we have our box with some mass in it, when we double the size of the box then the mass density halves but the total mass stays the same. So mass is conserved.
The next most obvious form of energy is light. Light is our first problem, if we have a box with photons in it then we increase the size of the box the photons become stretched out, redshifted. Their energy decreases. So the total energy afterwards is lower. This is particularly fascinating to me, in the early time after the big bang, the universe was massively radiation dominated and was also expanding far FAR FAR faster than it does now. This means that the total energy of the universe was decreasing rapidly during this time. Would have reduced by many many many orders of magnitude.
Gravitational potential energy is even more tricky. If we have two stars in our box and we increase the distance between them by stretching the box then they are further apart but have retained their kinetic energy. So we have more energy this time. (This one is more tricky as the expansion of space itself is affected by gravity).
All of this is just with an expanding universe! Accelerating expansion is even worse. /u/pundaren already mentions Vacuum energy. What we think Dark energy is is a constant negative pressure in all space. What is important about it is that it doesn't get diluted meaning it's density is constant. This means when we double the volume of our box and keep the density constant we get double the amount (of negative pressure).
*Since our universe is currently dominated by dark energy this term also dominates, that means that over time the total energy in our universe is increasing.*
So we have various forms of energy and all of their densities respond differently when we expand our universe, some of these change the integrated energy. This isn't a problem because we know that Energy is only conserved when a system is invariant with a translation in time and our universe is not, so we don't need to be surprised when our law doesn't hold for an evolving universe.
**edit:** since a few people have commented about it. By box I mean the spacetime metric, not an actual box. When I say the box expands I mean the coordinate system expands. This means that the volume elements you are integrating over evolve in time which means time translational invariance no longer holds as at different times your metric is different. This means that there is no longer any energy conservation. This is the reason why I frame my explanation in terms of an integration of a density over a volume.
**edit 2:** I'd also like to reiterate that most my post is giving concrete examples of how energy is not conserved in our universe. The reason why they are not conserved is still very simply because the condition (time-translational invariance, ie that your metric does not change in time) that gives rise to the energy conservation law is not valid in the FLRW metric that describes our universe. In fact, as /u/hikaruzero points out "the thing that is conserved in a time-translational invariant system" is our best working definition of energy in the first place.
**edit 3**: last edit probably [I responded to a question about the zero energy hypothesis here](_URL_0_). I feel it is important to address so that is my thoughts on it. | [
"The expansion of the universe reaches an infinite degree in finite time, causing expansion to accelerate without bounds. This acceleration necessarily passes the speed of light (since it involves expansion of the universe itself, not particles moving within it), causing more and more objects to leave our observabl... |
why does gillette advertise against their own product? | Gillette is by far the leader in the razor market. The Fusion blades are more expensive than the Mach 3 blades, so they get the most bang for their buck by convincing Mach 3 users to upgrade rather than getting others to switch from competitors. | [
"However, the advertisement faced criticism and threats of boycotts, for misandry, constituting left-wing propaganda, virtue signalling, and promoting contempt against Gillette's customer base while never mentioning or showing razors or shaving in the commercial. British journalist and television personality Piers ... |
why isnt the number 11 pronounced onety-one? | English is a Germanic-derived language, and Germanic cultures counted by twelves sometimes instead of tens. This is why the concept of a "dozen" exists.
The words *eleven* and *twelve* come from *einliff* and *twaliff*, Germanic words meaning "one left" and "two left", i.e. you have one/two left after taking ten away. | [
"11 (eleven) is the natural number following 10 and preceding 12. It is the first repdigit. In English, it is the smallest positive integer requiring three syllables and the largest prime number with a single-morpheme name.\n",
"Eleven derives from the Old English ' which is first attested in Bede's late 9th-cent... |
I found this piece of paper behind a photo of a German WW2 soldier can someone help me identify it? | Hiya,
From my limited German, it appears to be an issue of orders to an [occupation force? Literally "something-land-service."]. I'll leave it up to any number of actually-fluent German speakers to provide more information. More importantly, I'm chiming in to note that under our [Privacy rule](_URL_0_), any personally-identifying information for individuals outside the public-eye in the last 100 years is off limits on /r/AskHistorians. I don't see anything that could be considered such on your document, so I've gone ahead and approved this thread, but I ask all respondents to please keep that rule in mind and notify the mod team if there's any such information that I've missed.
Thanks for your understanding.
| [
"On 2 May 1945, in Kleinmachnow just outside Berlin, two Red Army soldiers stopped Lampe demanding his papers. At this point, Lampe had lost so much weight he did not resemble the photograph on his papers. He was shot a few minutes later because he failed to explain himself to the soldiers.\n",
"In 1961 and 1966,... |
Did Roman propaganda have any basis in fact? | I can speak a bit about the Parthians. In essence, it was a mixed bag, because in some cases, there was respect, in others not so much.
Here is a quote from Justin epitomizing Trogus:
"Each man has several wives, for the sake of gratifying desire with different objects. They punish no clime more severely than adultery, and accordingly they not only exclude their women from entertainments, but forbid them the very sight of men. They eat no flesh but that which they take in hunting. They ride on horseback on all occasions; on horses they go to war, and to feasts; on horses they discharge public and private duties; on horses they go abroad, meet together, traffic, and converse. Indeed the difference between slaves and freemen is, that slaves go on foot, but freemen only on horseback. Their general mode of sepulture is dilaniation by birds or dogs, the bare bones they at last bury in the ground.[6] In their superstitions and worship of the gods, the principal veneration is paid to rivers, The disposition of the people is proud, quarrelsome, faithless, and insolent; for a certain roughness of behaviour they think becoming to men, and gentleness only to women. They are always restless, and ready for any commotion, at home or abroad; taciturn by nature; more ready to act than speak, and consequently shrouding both their successes and miscarriages in silence. They obey their princes, not from humility, but from fear. They are libidinous, but frugal in diet. To their word or promise they have no regard, except as far as suits their interest."
--Justin 41.3
As you can see, some of these ideas seem a little ridiculous: only eating meat that has been hunted? Or doing everything on horseback? And here is the thing, I can't prove to you that Justin was right or wrong, and as much as I want to believe that he is wrong, as before I can't prove it. However, what I can say is that we should look at the sources critically, and realize that owing to the geopolitical hostility between Rome and Parthia, it makes sense that Trogus would stereotype. And since stereotypes have some basis in fact, we can argue that a few elements from the account have some basis in truth. I also am not sure where the supposed homo-erotic attitudes towards the Parthians are expressed, I have not heard of it in the sources. If you could provide that, I would be very thankful.
Ok, now that I think I have answered your question, I am going to hijack it to make a point: sometimes modern historians (particularly, military historians) look down on the Parthians. They are viewed as weak, and not really a challenge to the Romans and had Trajan only been younger, the Romans would have pushed into India. I hate this idea--I really do--because it sort of washes away the accomplishments and capability of the Parthians. This was a power that was an minor, unimportant border kingdom in the 240s BC, and arose to prominence in the 170s BC to go toe-to-toe with arguably the most powerful empire at the time (the Seleukids) and basically reduce them to Syria and its environs. Or how about the fact that the Romans had been running a train through the Mediterranean in the Second and First centuries BC, conquering powers left and right, and yet outside Carrhae, with a mere army of 10,000 men against 40,000 Romans, Surena defeated them in battle. But no guys, that was a fluke, because Crassus was basically an idiot, and had a true Roman general been there like Caesar and Pompey, the Parthians would have been wrecked. You see that happens? The battle becomes a Roman defeat, not a Parthian victory.
And I bring all these points (not directed at you OP, you have been quite respectful and naturally critical of Roman-centricness--a good quality in an ancient historian) because too often in my experiences, people will belittle the Parthians in contrast to the Romans and we can see it a bit in some popular historians--most particularity Dan Carlin (he did an AMA a few years ago here, and basically dismissed the Parthians and their army). In fact, I would rather trust ancient authors about their perceptions of the Parthians--
Justin again:
"Being assailed by the Romans, also, in three wars, under the conduct of the greatest generals, and at the most flourishing period of the republic, **they alone, of all nations, were not only a match for them, but came off victorious**; though it may have been a greater glory to them, indeed, to have been able to rise amidst the Assyrian, Median, and Persian empires, so celebrated of o]d, and the most powerful dominion of Bactria, peopled with a thousand cities, than to have been victorious in war against a people that came from a distance; especially when they were continually harassed by severe wars with the Scythians and other neighboring nations, and pressed with various other formidable contests."
You can see not only that the Parthians defeated the Romans, but also had to contend with neighboring powers and yet despite the terrible geopolitical situation, they fell finally to an internal revolt.
| [
"Another striking example of propaganda during ancient history is the last Roman civil wars (44-30 BC) during which Octavian and Mark Antony blamed each other for obscure and degrading origins, cruelty, cowardice, oratorical and literary incompetence, debaucheries, luxury, drunkenness and other slanders. This defam... |
why are kids taught to use "x" to mean multiplication until the age of ~11, when they switch to "·"? | It is very important that they learn what a punctuation mark or decimal point is. It may be difficult for young kids to discern the difference between . and · especially when handwritten.
x as a multiplication symbol only works until you need to learn algebra. Then x becomes a variable. It is then necessary to use a different distinct multiplication symbol. | [
"Although there has to be a stark difference in the choices for infants to recognize the correct matching set of numbers (1:3 vs 1:2), this seems to prove that infants have an innate numerical sense, but it may not be the same numerical sense as older children. Around the age of three and a half years children lose... |
Are there any theories/speculation which attempt to explain the logic behind quantum information decomposing following observation? | The electrons don't actually change from a wave to a particle, that's just a convenient (but now severely outdated) approximation. The particles actually follow the same rules all the time. [Here](_URL_0_) is a very good introduction that uses the many worlds interpretation (which is poorly named, it just means using the same quantum rules for every system, including observers)
The quick answer for the double-slit experiment is that if you don't check which slit it went through, it doesn't matter which way it goes, and all paths are allowed to interfere (wavelike behavior). Identical world states are the only ones that can interfere, and there's no difference between "electron went left" and "electron went right" because it ends up in the same place.
When you do check the slits you prevent the electron from interfering with itself because now there's a difference between left and right. Because you measured the particle, your state now depends on the electron's state, and the electron appears to choose one of the possible states at random.
(disclaimer: not everyone agrees with the next part.) The reason the electron now appears in only one state is because *you* split into a bunch of different states, and each of you sees one of the possible states of the electron. People get freaked out by this idea, but it happens *all the time* with smaller systems of particles and we are made of those particles.
The most common interpretation doesn't work like what I said. In that system, any interaction with a particle makes it randomly assume one of its possible states. These models are both equally good at predicting what we see, but one of them treats observers differently and one of them has more uncomfortable implications about reality. There are others which I won't describe but which also work for calculation. | [
"Quantum decoherence is the loss of quantum coherence. In quantum mechanics, particles such as electrons are described by a wave function, a mathematical representation of the quantum state of a system; a probabilistic interpretation of the wave function is used to explain various quantum effects. As long as there ... |
where do we find the room to bury the dead? | Individual graveyard burial generally doesn't last forever. Eventually the soft parts of a body will decompose and the remains are dug up and stored more efficiently in something like an [ossuary](_URL_0_).
Also not everyone practices burial in this way. Cremation (burning the body and collecting the ashes) remains popular in many countries and is very efficient with its land use. Some people prefer to have their ashes scattered, and even if they're stored in an urn it's usually small enough that the family can take it home, or they can be efficiently stored elsewhere.
Then there's more unusual practices like sky burial where all of the body is deliberately fed to birds and other scavengers. Like cremation and scattering, this doesn't require any land for remains or a permanent marker. | [
"A tomb (from \"tumbos\") is a repository for the remains of the dead. It is generally any structurally enclosed interment space or burial chamber, of varying sizes. Placing a corpse into a tomb can be called \"immurement\", and is a method of final disposition, as an alternative to for example cremation or burial.... |
how much water is on the international space station? | Yep, recycling is critical, since there's really no feasible way to constantly be sending new water tanks into space to refill drinking water supplies.
From what I've read, the ISS is able to keep a reserve of 530 gallons of drinking water in case of emergencies. Since the ISS is made up of various modules that were sent into space at different times, I'm not entirely sure which module was launched with the reserve water.
The ISS is actually split into two sections: The American side, and the Russian side, and each side has a different recycling system. The American part has equipment that collects condensation in the air, shower water, and urine, and turns it back into drinkable water, and that equipment produces somewhere around 3.6 gallons of drinkable water per day. On the Russian side they produce about the same amount of water, or a little less, but they only collect condensation and shower water. In fact the U.S. astronauts sometimes borrow the Russians' pee when they want to make a bit more drinking water. | [
"Final internal transfers continued throughout the day. Around 1,400 lbs of water from \"Atlantis\" to the Space Station was handed over. During 5 days of joint work, the crews also transferred 2,100 pounds of to be returned experiments and items.\n",
"BULLET::::- 2007 Peter O. Andreychuk, Leonid S Bobe, Nikolay ... |
The Nazis refered to themselves as socialists, but also spoke of their struggle against marxism. How did they distinguish their beliefs from the Soviets? Was it just thinly veiled xenophobia? | At first, the National Socialist Party did have a leftist component, and the party even put out a plan that called for the redistribution of capital. Hitler, however, only promoted socialism in order to garner as much support as possible--he supported rightist policies that appealed to the upper class at the same time. The dissonance between the left and right wings of the Nazi Party served Hitler as he rose to power (i.e., when he only needed to garner support from as many people as possible without worrying about implementing policy), but once in power Hitler had to address this dissonance. He did so during the so-called "Night of the Long Knives" when he arranged the murder of several prominent socialists in the Nazi Party (most notably Ernst Röhm, co-founder of the Nazi Party, who declared upon Hitler's rise to power that the Nazi Party had achieved the "national" component of National Socialism and now needed to pursue the "socialist" component). Thereafter, "socialism" existed within the National Socialist Party in name alone.
/u/depanneur [answers this question in the FAQ section of the subreddit](_URL_1_). /u/panzerkampfwagen [provides a similar answer in the FAQ](_URL_0_).
| [
"The Bolshevik movement and later the Soviet Union made frequent use of the \"fascist\" epithet coming from its conflict with the early German and Italian fascist movements. It was widely used in press and political language to describe either its ideological opponents (such as the White movement) or even internal ... |
different types of radiation | Think of radiation as a wave. The energy of a particle determines what wave it is. Kind of like light from stars. The higher the energy the whiter it is. On the lower energy scale you get red. Now as an atom starts to decay certain particles are released due to the weakness of the atoms containment energy. Depending on which type or types of particle escape you get different forms of levels or waves radiation. | [
"Radiation is the evolutionary process of diversification of a single species into multiple forms. It includes the physiological and ecological diversity within a rapidly multiplying lineage. There are many types of radiation including adaptive, concordant, and discordant radiation however escape and radiate coevol... |
how humans didn't get eaten by predators who heard babies screaming when humans lived in the wild. | Predators (at least modern ones anyway) look for easy meals. It's not worth risking injury.
If you find a human child *by itself*? Snacktime.
If you hear a crying child, go to the noise, and find several adult humans with pointy sticks and fire? Not worth the risk. | [
"The children and the animals hear a commotion upstairs, which is the result of the carnivores feeding on the poultry, so the children decide to climb on the giraffe's neck, but are overcome by the others. The tortoise convinces most of the carnivores to eat the children next, only the lion and one of the cats are ... |
What was Kurdish society like before the Arab invasion? What do we know about Pre-Arab Kurdistan? | One thing that I remember that really stuck out to me when I read the Anabasis, by Xenophon was when they were traveling through the Kurdish mountains of what modern northern Iraq/turkey.
In the book, a unit of Greek mercenary hoplites gets stuck deep in Persian territory, after their Persian rebel commander is killed. They then have to fight their way back to Greek territory. As a unit of heavy infantry they don't have too much trouble surviving and moving north until they encounter the Kurds.
Xenophon describes them as a barbaric people "ADDICTED TO WAR" and they end up fighting pretty much a running battle the entire time they are moving through the Kurdish area.
Hopefully a real historian will chime in, with more to say. | [
"Kurds fled to Jordan as a result of the Kurdish massacres in Turkey in the 1920s and 1930s, more Kurds arrived to Jordan from Palestine during the Nakba and the 1967 Palestinian exodus and later Kurdish refugees arrived to Jordan from Iraq after the Gulf War. There are also many Iranian Kurds in Jordan as refugees... |
when would a doctor use stitches, and when would he use staples? | They are interchangeable. Sort of.
A stapled wound and one closed with a non-absorbable suture are similar. Both require medical aid to remove, and for this reason day surgery and short stay surgery usually use absorbable sutures. These dissapear over a few weeks as the body breaks them down.
Certain procedures are normally stapled though. For example if there is a risk of bleeding, especially if it will quickly affect the patient, eg carotid surgery where a haematoma might obstruct an airway.
There's also surgeons preference, and speed issues, so.... Either in many situations!
EDIT: There is potentially a greater risk of [infection with staples](_URL_0_) however.
Source- 20 years OR experience | [
"Stitches is a 1985 American comedy film directed by Rod Holcomb as Alan Smithee and starring Parker Stevenson, Geoffrey Lewis, and Brian Tochi. It depicts the misadventures of three students in medical school.\n",
"Popularly known by the brand name Band-Aid, an adhesive bandage is a self-sticking taped and small... |
If our sun didn't give off UV rays could we stare at it without damaging our eyes? | no. It's not just UV rays that are the problem. (otherwise, with glasses on, with a UV coating, you would be able to. **you should not try this**). It's the fact that your eye's lens focuses light. Like a magnifying lens on an ant. It's simply depositing too much energy into your retina and can damage the tissue.
I would wonder, though, if you could look at the sun directly from, say, Mars. The intensity is diminished, so perhaps it'd be safer (really it's probably an intensity integrated over time problem, where staring at the sun for extended periods of time become problematic) | [
"Viewing the Sun through light-concentrating optics such as binoculars may result in permanent damage to the retina without an appropriate filter that blocks UV and substantially dims the sunlight. When using an attenuating filter to view the Sun, the viewer is cautioned to use a filter specifically designed for th... |
how is it that populations of people all across the planet in different countries all developed at relatively the same rate, when there was no means of communication between them? | They didn't develop at the same rate, it's just that the weaker ones were destroyed/absorbed by more powerful and technologically advanced ones. There's just little record of them left.
We know about Native Americans being decimated by the colonists from Europe with far superior tools and tech. There are still tiny tribes in the world today that are pretty much in the stone age compared to other societies. | [
"Small world networks, which are common in traditional societies, are a natural consequence of alternating \"local\" and \"global\" phases: new, long-distance links are formed during the global phase and existing links are reinforced (or removed) during the local phase. The advent of social media has decreased the ... |
How does the size of an atom change as you move through the periodic table? | Atoms rarely exist in isolation; they're bonded with other atoms, and that tends to change their sizes. For example, Oxygen picks up two extra electrons and this bloats it enormously. Beryllium gives up two electrons, and that shrinks it enormously. Here's a [table that shows both the isolated and the ionized sizes](_URL_0_). | [
"Generally speaking, the number determines the size and energy of the orbital for a given nucleus: as increases, the size of the orbital increases. When comparing different elements, the higher nuclear charge of heavier elements causes their orbitals to contract by comparison to lighter ones, so that the overall si... |
Since Temperature is a measurement of how fast molecules vibrate, would it be possible to heat molecules to a point where their vibration approaches the speed of light? | Well it's not just the vibration, it's the rotational and translational kinetic energy, and in fact _all_ forms of energy in a solid contribute to their temperature, but it doesn't really matter to the question.
Anyway, while there's nothing stopping you from adding more energy, and more vibrational energy does mean faster vibrational motion (and that motion certainly obeys special relativity), there's a limit to how much vibrational energy a pair of atoms can have, namely the energy of their chemical bond. If they vibrate with more energy than that, they'll simply fly apart.
After that point, they don't have vibrational energy any more, as there are no bound atoms to vibrate, just a gas of atoms. But they still have kinetic energy. So if you keep heating them, they'll move faster translationally.
I don't know what kind of implications with time dilation (or relativity) that you were thinking of, though. | [
"Note that in this example we have assumed that temperature is low enough that heat capacities are not influenced by molecular vibration (see heat capacity). However, vibrational modes simply cause gammas which decrease toward 1, since vibration modes in a polyatomic gas give the gas additional ways to store heat w... |
can defense attorneys 'throw' a case if they know their clients are guilty? | Yes, they could 'throw' a case.
However, that's a serious ethics violation which would almost certainly cause disbarment if found out, and not only that, the conviction could then be appealed based on ineffective assistance of counsel (embodied in the 6th amendment).
If it makes it easier to wrap your head around, think of defense lawyers defending the integrity of the judicial system, not just their client. The idea being, the system must obey all of its own rules in proving that someone is guilty, or else it's a dishonest system and could easily "prove" that an innocent person is guilty next time. Defense lawyers are there to help ensure the system stays honest. | [
"A defense attorney tries to prove the innocence of his client on a murder charge, despite witness after witness testifying against him. However, during a cross examination of a crucial witness, the lawyer is able to establish the real truth.\n",
"Even when the charges are more serious, prosecutors often can stil... |
How did the Romans farm? Did the way they do it change throughout the ages? | The really quick answer: The Roman *ideal* was that of the yeoman, or small landholder, who self-sufficiently farmed his own little plot with the help of his family and a handful of slaves. In reality, however, this ideal was already decaying by the time we start to have good data on Roman life; by the middle Republican period, land was already being consolidated in the hands of a wealthy elite, and it was more common for small farms (where they existed) to be worked by tenant farmers, who rented their farms rather than owning them.
(The pattern is pretty common in the ancient world, by the way, in places where private ownership of land and a monetary economy exist - Rome and Greece, for instance. A small farmer who has one bad year often has to stake his land as collateral for a loan to get by. Two or three bad years in a row, he loses his land to the wealthy man who offered him a loan. Much of the class turmoil of the Republic - the rise and fall of the Gracchi, for instance - had to do with the demands of the plebs for redistribution of land out of the hands of the senatorial oligarchy, and promises of land to soldiers and veterans were common - Octavian, for instance, fought a minor civil war in Perusia because the people of the region objected to his confiscating *their* small farms to give small farms to his soldiers. But that's beside the point.)
Anyway, senators were grabbing huge tracts of land wherever they could, for both practical economic reasons and on the basis of the Roman moral assumption that agriculture was the only respectable form of profit-making for a Senator to engage in. It helped that senators, unlike the other classes, didn't pay land taxes. It also helped that Rome's foreign conquests were supplying her with massive numbers of slaves to *work* such enormous fields. By the late Republic, Roman agriculture was transitioning to *latifundia* - huge monoculture estates worked by large gangs of slaves, similar to the cotton plantations of the Old South - and by the High Empire such *latifundia* had almost completely replaced both small farm ownership and tenant farming, the countryside was full of slaves and wealthy pleasure villas, and poor free citizens, without recourse in the country, were fleeing to the grain doles of urban Rome and swelling its population to unprecedented heights.
As to *what* they grew: the standard Mediterranean triad, grapes, olives, and wheat, were predominant crops, though by the Imperial period trade links were stable enough that entire provinces could specialize in one of those crops (monoculture is not a modern invention by any means). The area around Rome itself became a garden of sorts, producing luxury foods for upper-class urban tables - not just a wide selection of fruits and vegetables and meats, but more exotic livestock like snails, dormice, and songbirds.
Agriculture was important to the Roman elite (see 'only moral profit' above) and quite a few people wrote handbooks and guides. Here are three good primary sources on Roman farming: [Cato's *de agri cultura*](_URL_2_) - 2nd century BC, writing about at the time when the small family farm was transitioning to the large for-profit farm - [Varro's *de re rustica*](_URL_0_) - 1st century BC - and [Columella's *de re rustica* and *de arboribus*](_URL_1_) - 1st century AD, at a time when (as he laments) farming was considered the business of slaves and overseers and actual farm *work* was seen as unworthy of free men. Pliny the Elder's Natural History discusses agriculture in some detail; Vergil's Georgics is useless in terms of *how* to farm, but is interesting in its *moral* stance, its valorization of a small-farm lifestyle that was already on its last legs. For modern sources, K. D. White's *Roman Farming* is a good basic discussion, drawing, in large part, from the sources I just mentioned. | [
"In the 5th century BC, farms in Rome were small and family-owned. The Greeks of this period, however, had started using crop rotation and had large estates. Rome's contact with Carthage, Greece, and the Hellenistic East in the 3rd and 2nd centuries improved Rome's agricultural methods. Roman agriculture reached it... |
How much would a Roman Denarius be in USD today? | This is not a simple question to answer, unfortunately. Different goods had drastically different price ranges back then due to differences in supply and technology. Since the prices of goods are the only real metric by which we can compare currencies, this means you could get a wide range of values.
[Doug Smith](_URL_0_) claims that, specific to the price of bread, a denarius would be worth perhaps $20 USD. Comparing clothing, on the other hand, would result in a much higher value. Put simply, prices for everything were different back then, so there's no objective way to compare the currencies. | [
"The Roman emperor Augustus collected funds for his military aerarium in AD 6 with a one percent general sales tax, known as the \"centesima rerum venalium\" (hundredth of the value of everything sold). The Roman sales tax was later reduced to a half percent (\"ducentesima\") by Tiberius, then abolished completely ... |
why isn't time read literally as numbers but instead the letter o is said to represent zero? | In English (at least American English) unless you have a bunch of zeros in a row you almost always say "O" for every single number, not just time. | [
"There is a need to maintain an explicit distinction between digit zero and letter O, which, because they are both usually represented graphically in English orthography (and indeed most orthographies using Latin script and Arabic numerals) with a simple circle or oval, have a centuries-long history of being freque... |
standard error in measurement. i have no idea. what is it's relation to standard deviation? (rhyme not intended) | Standard Deviation refers to variability in general. If you're learning this in a class, it probably is implicitly meant as the standard deviation of the sample in most cases.
Standard Error is the standard deviation of whatever measure you're trying to estimate. Since in statistics you're typically looking for the mean, Standard Error given no other context generally refers to the Standard Error of the sample mean. In other words, it's the standard deviation of the means of various samples (Technically, they have to be the same size samples, and indepentedly, randomly drawn from the population).
For exmaple, say we care about the average height of people in New York. You hire 300 people to take independent random samples of 100 people throughout the city. This will give you 300 samples of size 100 each.
You then take the mean of each of these 300 samples to come up with 300 sample means. The standard deviation of these 300 sample means should be roughly equal to the standard error estimate from any one sample.
Hope this helps | [
"In regression analysis, the term \"standard error\" refers either to the square root of the reduced chi-squared statistic or the standard error for a particular regression coefficient (as used in, e.g., confidence intervals).\n",
"Standard deviation refers to the extent to which individual observations in a samp... |
how do reality shows record reactions in monologues like they are happening for the first time? | The people giving the interviews are asked to reenact their initial reactions. Its all just good (or in most cases, bad) acting. | [
"Generally the format follows that of a reality show where live video taping is done in areas with paranormal activities or hauntings. Sometimes re-enactments or experiments are done to explain a specific phenomenon or sightings. At the end of the episodes, live call-ins allow home viewers to ask questions or infor... |
How can gravity possibly be accounted for by quantum theory? | What we don't know is how to solve for the curvature of a particle that doesn't have reasonably precise position and momentum (quantum particles). So far no approach we've thought of has really worked out right... | [
"While a quantum theory of gravity may be needed to reconcile general relativity with the principles of quantum mechanics, difficulties arise when applying the usual prescriptions of quantum field theory to the force of gravity via graviton bosons. The problem is that the theory one gets in this way is not renormal... |
how does viagra actually work..? | Without getting really technical, Viagra is a type of drug called a Vasodilator. Vasodilators relax the muscles and arteries so more blood can flow through them. Think of a Vasodilator as a hose. If you have a hose that has a 1 Inch Diameter, only so much water can flow through it at full blast. A Vasodilator would turn that 1 Inch Diameter hose into a 2 Inch Diameter hose so now significantly more water can flow through the hose at full blast. This is often why Vasodilators are often prescribed to people who have low blood pressure. For your own information, the opposite of a Vasodilator is a Vasoconstrictor. It does the exact opposite of a Vasodilator; instead of increasing the amount of water that can flow through a hose, it restricts the amount of water that can flow through the hose by decreasing the hose's diameter.
Viagra, in particular, works because the it targets specific mechanisms in the Penis that are directly tied to vasodilation. Without getting too deep in the interactions, Viagra prevents an Amino Acid that happens ot be found in the muscle tissue and arterial linings in the penis from "degrading"... eh... Being used up. Viagra basically "blocks" the body's mechanisms from removing this Amino Acid while the Viagra is in your system. Eventually it gets used up, but Viagra slows the process down significantly. As there is more of this Amino Acid, more blood will rush through the arteries in your Penis and result in longer lasting erections.
That help? | [
"In the US even though sildenafil is available only by prescription from a doctor, it was advertised directly to consumers on TV (famously being endorsed by former United States Senator Bob Dole and football star Pelé). Numerous sites on the Internet offer Viagra for sale after an \"online consultation\", often a s... |
bedsores | When you press down on your skin it prevents your blood from moving naturally. This lack of blood to the area causes the tissue to break down over time, if left over a prolonged period of time it can cause pretty severe damage and infection.
Safe rule of thumb for prevention and healing of minor injuries, change position every 2 hrs. If its more than reddened skin (stage 1) it needs to be seen by a health care provider. | [
"Flaser beds are a sedimentary, bi-directional, bedding pattern created when a sediment is exposed to intermittent flows, leading to alternating sand and mud layers. While flaser beds typically form in tidal environments, they can (rarely) form in fluvial conditions - on point bars or in ephemeral streams. Individu... |
how do leases work? | Be careful if you drive a lot, there are sometimes fees for excessive mileage.
Also, most people consider Leasing, financially, the worst possible choice in terms of "owning" a vehicle. So I would recommend you be absolutely 100% sure that having a brand new vehicle means that much to you before going forward. | [
"Lease and release is literally the lease (tenancy) of non-tenanted property by its owner followed by a release (relinquishment) of the landlord's interest in the property. This sequence of transactions was commonly used to transfer full title to real estate under real property law. \"Lease and release\" was a mode... |
since the hypothalamus is located near the brain and it regulates the body's temperature, how would the human body react if the head is at one extreme temperature and the rest of the body is at an opposing extreme temperature? | The hypothalamus doesn't sense its own temperature in order to regulate the body. It gathers the data from nerves all over the body and uses that. If most of your body is hot but your head is cold, the hypothalamus will "know" that and will tell the body to cool itself down.
Also, your body is usually pretty good at evening out the temperature throughout, because of the blood flowing around. So even if your head is in a much colder *environment*, that doesn't mean that the head *itself* is much colder (except a few extremities like ears and nose). What's more important is the total or average heat exchange between your body and the environment around you. | [
"In many respects, the hypothalamus works like a thermostat. When the set point is raised, the body increases its temperature through both active generation of heat and retention of heat. Peripheral vasoconstriction both reduces heat loss through the skin and causes the person to feel cold. Norepinephrine increases... |
how do actors appear dead in movies and films so that their chest isn't moving from breathing and their heart beating | The simplest method is for the actor to hold their breath during the take. The heartbeat isn't a problem, because that's not noticeable.
A scene involving a dead body may last quite a long time, but like most scenes will typically be composed of a number of different shots, each shot lasting just a few seconds -- so an actor only needs to hold their breath for a very short while each time.
Sometimes they do breathe, and if you're sharp-eyed, you'll notice it. Of course, an actor playing a corpse can ruin a shot by coughing, sneezing or even laughing, but that's not a problem either: reset everything, and reshoot the scene.
On stage, it's more of a problem, obviously. In fact, "dead" actors involuntarily laughing is such a big problem, that in British theatre it is known as "corpsing". This has become generalized to any situation where an actor laughs inappropriately; any time you see a reference to an actor "corpsing", it means they ruined the shot by laughing.
Of course, these days it's possible to use CGI to make an actor's chest stop moving, if the movie's budget will allow. Another technique is to use a dummy in shots where viewers won't be able to see the difference: in the movie *Swiss Army Man*, for example, Daniel Radcliffe plays a corpse washed up on a beach. For some shots, they used [a creepily lifelike -- if that's the right word to use for a dead body -- dummy](_URL_0_). | [
"In several cases, actors or actresses have died prior to the release of a film: either during filming or after it has been completed, but is yet to be released. In the case that the actor dies during filming, their scenes are often completed by stunt doubles, or through special effects. Only people who actually ap... |
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