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3e71dz | How much of the American population actually participated in the "decade-defining trends" of the 1960s (hippies/free love/etc.), '70s (disco), etc? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3e71dz/how_much_of_the_american_population_actually/ | {
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"This is a little more modern than my area of expertise, but if I recall my education, L. Yablonsky estimated between 200,000 and 400,000 hippies during the 1960s.\n\n_URL_0_\n\n_URL_1_\n\n",
"Perhaps looking at music and literature charts from the era might provide us with some information on the popularity of certain societal changes, movements, trends and fads. Has any historian here examined those sources and can provide us with some insight?",
"One of the quintessential disco albums was the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. It epitomized the entire era, a collection of some of the most popular hits of the 70s that were in the Saturday Night Fever movie with John Travolta. It's sold 15 million records in the US, topped the charts for months on release and stayed on the charts for over 120 weeks. There's several other things you can look at to see the popularity of disco at the time, but that is somewhat indicative.",
"This question is really hard to answer without clarifying what you mean by participate. You can be aware of a movement and even sympathize with it without joining the more extreme forms. Relatively few went to a \"love-in\", but a great number could hum a few bars of \"Love the One You're With\". Roughly a quarter of adults have gone mixed gender skinny dipping while only very few went streaking. Buying a button down shirt in the late 70s it was hard to avoid the disco fashion trends.",
"As others have mentioned, you'll need definitions beyond mere consumer preferences (\"I owned a tie dye shirt back in the day, so....\") to meaningfully distinguish participants from everyone else, which seems to make any collection of \"trends\" truly apples and oranges. For instance, to me, being a part of the hippie era would seem most definable around political participation; however, the disco era/\"me generation\" seemed defined in part by pulling back from formal politics. \n\nWith this approach in mind, for the hippie era I'd start with voting patterns, something where there's good concrete data. For instance, in the U.S., how many people voted for Eugene McCarthy for President in 1968? (an overt protest candidate) Likewise, how many voted for George McGovern, a liberal Democrat in 1972? (Although McGovern did win the party's nomination, and hence appears more \"mainstream,\" Richard Nixon had a famous quote to the effect of \"knowing\" he would win reelection as soon as he learned of McGovern's nomination, which suggests Nixon saw a clear distinction between McGovern's supporters and everyone else.) In both cases the number of supporters were quite small, and even if you add in more fringe candidates on the Left, by this definition the hippies were far smaller than popular culture/consumerism makes them appear. \n\nFwiw, these sorts of questions are really worth asking, even if they're often more challenging to answer. "
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52yyp2 | how did submarine engines work underwater before the advent of nuclear power? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/52yyp2/eli5_how_did_submarine_engines_work_underwater/ | {
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"IIRC before nuclear power, submarines used a combination of batteries and diesel engines. They would use the engines for surface travel or just under the surface by using a snorkel and then switch to battery power for deeper dives.",
"To expand on the point /u/Bladegrey made, American WW2 submarines were diesel-electric. Meaning that the diesel engines drove generators which could be switched to charge the batteries and drive an electric motor to power the screws, or only drive the motor. (The latter gave a little more speed.)\n\nGerman U-boats used direct diesel power on the surface and batteries when submerged.\n\nThe limited power of batteries and the slow speed they gave underwater meant that in practice, the submarine only dived for a) short submerged attacks b) evading, and later in the war or in dangerous waters c) hiding underwater during the day and recharging the batteries at night. Most attack runs happened on the surface.\n\nLate-war British/American radar technology and air superiority in the Atlantic led to German submarines being fitted with the (Dutch-developed) snorkel, through which air could be provided for diesel engines to run underwater.\n\n[Here's a comprehensive original American training video on how a WW2 submarine works.](_URL_0_)\n\n[Here are interviews with American WW2 submariners if you're interested in some stories.](_URL_1_) (Starts kinda in the middle of an interview.)"
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cdd1la | why do some websites redirect from their .com domain? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cdd1la/eli5_why_do_some_websites_redirect_from_their_com/ | {
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"It depends, if you own a large company, you don't want to have the same website running on two different servers, that's just redundant. Hence, if you own the rights to something like the .net and .com addresses to prevent squatting, the .net would just forward people to their .com address. This can also be the reverse, if you're a large non-profit, you might direct to your .org main site."
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8ato8r | what is the significance of protein structure/folding? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8ato8r/eli5_what_is_the_significance_of_protein/ | {
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"Imagine you have a easy to store, easy to make metal chain that folds up and transforms into a wrench. This wrench fits a specific bolt perfectly.\n\nThere are a bunch of chains that all individually make different size wrenches to do work, and we make all of these chains out of the same very few parts. It's all in what the order of the links are. This makes them fold up into the perfect wrench for whatever job we are doing.",
"Proteins are made up of something we call amino acids (aa for short). Think of these as lego pieces. These lego pieces are particular in that some are afraid of water but love fatty stuff like a cell membrane, others need to be surrounded by water etc. These lego pieces come together to form a protein and depending on how they come together they do certain things (different molecular bonds are formed and such). Just like how you can build a castle or a car from pieces, you can build proteins like insulin or a membrane receptor. And just like you put certain pieces in certain places in the castle, certain aa are needed in certain places of the membrane receptor (hydrophobic aa). So in summary: The structure of the protein determines it's function. Specific aa are needed to build the structure.\n\nNow if you want to go deeper, if you destroy the structure of the protein, by heating it up, or adding acid/base to it, you naturally would make it useless. Hence why we want our bodies at a certain temperature and at a certain pH (acidity). "
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1cszb7 | what are the known and theorized dimensions? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1cszb7/eli5_what_are_the_known_and_theorized_dimensions/ | {
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"In mathematics, the \"dimension\" of a space is, roughly, the number of things that you need to specify in order to pick out a point in that space. An example of a one dimensional space would be the number line. In order to fully specify a spot on the number line, all you need to do is name a number. An example of a two dimensional space would be the plane. In order to pick out a point on a plane, you need to specify two numbers: an x coordinate and a y coordinate. In three dimensional space, you need three numbers to pick out a unique point. \n\nFrom a mathematical perspective, nothing stops us from generalizing this upward into very high dimensional space. In a 100 dimensional space, you need exactly 100 numbers to pick out a single point. This isn't just an esoteric mathematical concept: lots of math is made simpler by applying our knowledge of 1, 2, and 3 dimensional spaces into higher dimensional spaces. What is the physical interpretation of 100 dimensional space? It doesn't matter. There isn't one. However, it can be very useful (or alternatively, very misleading) to bring our intuitive ideas about two dimensional space into higher dimensional space. It can help us solve lots of different kinds of problems to think about things like a \"99 dimensional plane in a 100 dimensional space\".\n\nPresumably though when you talk about \"dimensions\" you mean dimensions in the physical sense and not in the mathematical sense. You're thinking of height, width, and depth. And you're trying to imagine, like the fellow in the video this is posted *imagines* (and I can't stress enough, that video, as entertaining as it is, ought to be titled \"imagination time with an internet crank\") what it might mean to extend our *physical* notions of three dimensional space to higher dimensions.\n\nLucky for us there is a very natural way to think about the stuff called \"spacetime\" using the mathematical notion of dimension. Rather than simply thinking about three dimensional physical spaces, we think about a four dimensional space called \"spacetime\" where the fourth dimension is time. This makes a lot of sense and makes thinking about how the universe works much easier. Think about the earth rotating around the sun. Every year it comes back to the same place that it was one year ago (pretend that the sun is the unmoving center of the universe). Thus, its (x,y,z) in space coordinates don't tell us its position in *spacetime*—they simply specify a point where the earth is located once every year. In order to specify the earth's position in space time, we need to also say *which* time we are talking about the earth being at a certain spot. So we use four coordinates, (x,y,z,t), and thus, spacetime is a 4 dimensional space."
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3jka80 | why are drones becoming a big thing just now? hasn't the technology been around for quite some time? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3jka80/eli5_why_are_drones_becoming_a_big_thing_just_now/ | {
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"Cost effectiveness and battery capacity are the reasons — specifically cost effectiveness of manufacturing batteries with decent energy densities and output profiles.\n\nIt's *possible* today to build a lithium ion battery that will last for decades without significantly degrading in performance and a high energy density; it would cost millions due to the quality control and testing and hand-tweaking and exotic processes in manufacturing.\n\nA similar situation existed a decade ago with respect to lithium ion batteries just for laptops, which don't draw much current (unless they are designed more like desktops). Before that for iPods. Before that for Nickel Metal Hydride technology. Before that for alkalines. Before that for lead-acid batteries.\n\nThe challenges are similar to the ones faced by people who want to build large structures out of graphene: small structural or chemical flaws on the scale of individual atoms have a very large impact on the theoretical performance of the structure. ",
"It's cheaper now than ever before. Also, people are inspired to purchase them because they view cool videos that were shot using a drone on social media.",
"The tech is actually just now good enough on the affordable level. It needs to have gyro sensors and accelerometers and a flight controller to take your input and make the copter work. Multicopters are all \"fly by wire\", you are not directly controlling motor speed, a microcontroller is reading those sensors and your input and doing calculations for what the motors should do. Those packages 10 years ago were for helicopters and were rather expensive and difficult to use, but now cost $15 for a good one.\n\nAlso brushless motors are now commonplace and weren't then. You need something that can spin up and down fast for a larger multicopter and now that they are ~$20 including the speed controller package you can afford 4 or more of them. In the recent past, they were super expensive so if you wanted a copter you bought one, mounted it to a frame and that frame had blades and the swashplate with servos to move it. Nowadays that's actually the more expensive to repair and less reliable method. Thank the internet for bringing down prices on parts, mostly. "
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hholr | Why is the light coming from my laptop screen polarised? | [Here's a video demonstration with a polarised lense.](_URL_0_) | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/hholr/why_is_the_light_coming_from_my_laptop_screen/ | {
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"[And here's a video with your answer.](_URL_0_)\n\nBasically, the monitor works because the light is polarized.",
"Liquid crystal displays only work with polarized light."
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s3p7e | What is the standard of proof for accepting truths about ancient and/or pre-history? | I have just spent many hours watching the show "ancient aliens" on netflix, originally for the purpose of finding the location of the screen grab of the aliens meme (I was bored). But as I watched it, I found the lack of evidence/overall implausibility/use of suggestive language appalling. But that got me to wondering; what is the actual standard of proof for ancient history? What must anthropologists/archeologists present in order for historical theories to become accepted facts? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/s3p7e/what_is_the_standard_of_proof_for_accepting/ | {
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"Well, for one you speak very generally and you hedge your bets. Archaeological work tends to focus more on trends than snapshots.",
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Archaeologists look for trends as well as outliers and rely upon peer review. \n\nEvery single report I write I use words like \"appears to\" \"suggests\" etc. "
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pmt1g | why did people develop lighter skinned (i.e asians and europeans) while people retained their darker skin (i.e africans and indians?) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/pmt1g/elif_why_did_people_develop_lighter_skinned_ie/ | {
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"As our species moved north (from South Africa) through Europe a high concentration of melanin and thus darker skin became unnecessary for protection against the sun. Moreover, increased availability of vitamin D caused a change in the darkness of skins proportional to the degree north that the species 'traveled'.\n\n------\n\n_URL_0_\n\nLook at \"Evolution_Of_Skin_Colour\"",
"Our bodies can only make vitamin D with the help of ultraviolet light, or \"UV,\" from sunlight. Nearer to the equator, sunlight shines pretty directly through the atmosphere. Dark skin has with more melanin (dark color) and acts as a suncreen. Lots of melanin protects the body from sun damage and lets just enough UV through to make enough vitamin D to be healthy.\n\nHumans evolved near the equator, where dark skin makes sense. \n\nBut further from the equator, where sunlight has to travel through the atmosphere at an angle, more UV light gets absorbed and less UV light reaches the ground. Towards the poles, dark skin blocks out too much UV for the body make healthy amounts of vitamin D. Light skin, with less melanin, is more sensitive to UV light and helped people who moved to these areas stay healthier. But lighter skin is less protected from sun damage, and people with light skin can get skin cancer if they move to areas with more direct sunlight.\n\nSo, skin color is a balance between protection from skin damage and ability to make enough vitamin D to be healthy. Human groups have migrated over great distances over huge periods of time, and groups' skin colors got lighter or darker again as they adapted to the amount of UV wherever they lived. \n\nFor a little more depth, there's a great TED Talk on the topic: [Nina Jablonsky breaks the illusion of skin color](_URL_0_)"
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16a2hs | what is sudden adult death syndrome (sads)? | Over the past number of years I have heard of this, and have heard of two people in my locality between the ages of 16 and 20 passing away from what was put down to SADS... I've tried reading up on it, but I just can't make sense of what it means. Could someone explain it in simple terms to me, and what can be done to treat it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/16a2hs/eli5_what_is_sudden_adult_death_syndrome_sads/ | {
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"It refers to a death caused by a cardiac arrest (heart attack) where evidence of damage to the heart tissue is absent. That is to say, the heart will superficially look perfectly healthy in autopsy. \n\nIt's largely asymptomatic before a heart attack, hence 'sudden' but there can be early warning signs such as dizzy spells and palpitations. The treatment is simply regular electro-cardiograms to monitor people known to be at high risk, such as those with a family history and avoidance of physical or emotional exertion for those at risk. The primary causes are abnormal electrical activity in the heart and coronary disease. These can be brought on through surgery, such as the fitting of a pacemaker or through medication side effects, but in the case of young people they are usually congenital (present from birth.) \nMost people with the condition will have absolutely no inkling until they or a close family member wind up in the emergency room. The best advice is to consult your doctor if you get unexplained dizzy spells or unexplained palpitations. "
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qqefe | Is it possible to compute your latitude and longitude based on your surroundings like the sun, the moon and the stars? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/qqefe/is_it_possible_to_compute_your_latitude_and/ | {
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"It absolutely is. Your lattitude (North-South coordinate) is fairly easy to measure. Take the angle between the horizon and the north star (assuming you're in the northern hemisphere), and you've got it. Alternatively, if you were equipped with a table of the [sun's declination](_URL_2_) for the day, you could measure the angle between the horizon and the sun at noon. With a little more math, you could find your latitude at any time of day, armed with the knowledge that the Sun follows a roughly [sinusoidal curve](_URL_1_) as it travels through the sky.\n\nLongitude is quite a bit trickier, because the Earth rotates. Most seafarers used a method called [dead reckoning](_URL_0_), where the navigator would keep close track of the ship's speed and heading, and keep accurate and consistent records of position that way. \n\nMethods to calculate by celestial bodies included using a clock to measure the difference in events (sunrise, sunset, moonrise, moonset, etc) between where you are and where the clock is set to. For example, if your clock is set to Greenwich Mean Time, and you know that the sun is supposed to rise at 6:30 am, but it actually rises at 7:15, then you know you are roughly 45 minutes west. 1 hour = 15 degrees (24 hours = 360 degrees), so you are 11.25 degrees west of the Prime Meridian. It's not quite that simple because latitude affects the perceived sunrise and sunset, but that's the gist of it.",
"Latitude can be calculated from the stars. More particularly, the angle at which you see the northern star gives you an indication how far north you are (works only on northern hemissphere).\n\nLongitude cannot be calculated without a precise clock, because any indicator west or east of you, rotates as earth rotates (and additionally depends on the time of year).\n\nWith a clock and some time you could also determine you longitude by observing the sun.",
"That's what a [sextant](_URL_0_) is for",
"Before the invention of the harrison h1clock it was calculated by the moons of jupiter. Read longitude by Dava Sobel",
"Basically, if you measure the angle to a celestial body and have the exact time you use a set of tables and some arithmetic to draw a really large circle on the surface of the globe. You are somewhere on that circle. If you to the same things with another body, those circles intersect at two places. You are at one of 'em. If you are surrounded by water and your two points are in the Andes and the Indian Ocean, it's easy to narrow down! In practice, a third body and it's circle intersects the other two at one point... There you are! ",
" > Is it possible to compute your latitude and longitude based on your surroundings like the sun, the moon and the stars?\n\nYes, and this was the primary activity of navigators before GPS. One can use a sextant, an accurate clock, and a lot of mathematics to establish one's position anywhere in the world.\n\nI know this because [I sailed solo around the world](_URL_1_) pre-GPS. [Here is a picture taken from another boat of me making a sextant sight, somewhere in the Pacific](_URL_0_). Not a great picture, but you get the idea. :)",
"Yes.\n\nWith an accurate clock, and an [astrolabe](_URL_0_) you can calculate your latitude and longitude.",
"Greenwich Mean Time can be determined by measuring the angle between the moon and certain stars.\n_URL_0_\nLunar time was used by Joshua Slocum in the first solo circumnavigation, because he couldn't afford a chronometer.\nOnce time is known, the usual method of finding position in celestial navigation is through the intersection of two or more lines of position, each determined by measuring the altitude above the horizon of a star and using a nautical almanac.\n"
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5kyey5 | believers in jfk assassination conspiracy, could you please explain to me why there had to have been a second shooter when many experts say that only one would suffice? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5kyey5/eli5_believers_in_jfk_assassination_conspiracy/ | {
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"To put this simply because im at work and on my phone. I think 2 shots came from oswald ( the 3rd shell was kept in the chamber which was taughy in the military) \nFirst shot missed. Second shot his kennedys neck. Final shot came from a secret servive men standing and reacting to the 2 shots from oswald _URL_0_ the last shot was a accident.\n\nI saw this in a documentary and it seems very logical.\n\nJust my imo though. Sorry for the shitty formatting."
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1qge38 | Do historians in general have a 20-year rule? At what point do historians start talking about more recent events in a historical context? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1qge38/do_historians_in_general_have_a_20year_rule_at/ | {
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"I think the short answer to this question is no. Historians frequently write about the recent past, frame their inquiries in the context of recent events, and seek to intervene in contemporary debates. My dissertation, for example, extends through the year 2000 because I'm interested in providing historical context for a pressing contemporary issue on the island I study.\n\nThat being said, putting some years between the historian and historical actors can be very helpful, particularly in certain types of research. Historians who rely on declassified documents as primary material may have to wait for those documents to be made available. Historians whose work focuses on a living subject may find that certain archival documents like diaries and letters aren't available until that subject passes away. Any number of other issues could prevent key sources from becoming accessible to researchers until some years after the fact.\n\nHistorians who write about the recent past may not be able to offer a complete, “total” history of their subjects. But that's true of historians who work on any time period––our interpretations are always evolving in light of new insights and new evidence. I personally feel that historians help to keep their work relevant by engaging with contemporary issues and being willing to engage with the contemporary era. But there are a variety of perspectives about this.",
"The obvious answer is that every historian is different, but I'll get into it in a bit more detail.\n\nReally it is on a case by case basis; it really all depends on what you are trying to say. The idea of \"scope\" is very important in history. \"What general temporal area am I looking at (e.g. 1961-1973) and why did I choose that time?\" Most history monographs (either books or articles) have to set a very clear scope for their paper. The scope of a paper can tell you a lot about what they are trying to argue.\n\nFor instance, I recently read an article which covered just one year of Victorian British politics discussing one particular issue. The scope was very firm: one year. Now, basically the thrust of the argument was that despite the commonly held notion that Queen Victoria was largely just a figurehead monarch, she could still exert some political influence through the power of \"consultation\" and \"suggestion\".\n\nSo why does scope matter to this question?\n\nWell, scope really influences what you can say about something. Generally speaking (not always the case), a narrow scope usually means that the conclusion or claim of the article/book will be fairly narrow. In the above example, the historian is just trying to argue that there still were SOME ways that the British Monarch could wield governmental power in the late Victorian period. Now this is a fairly narrow point. He was not arguing that Queen Victoria was still ruling the country behind the scenes or that the British Monarchy had never REALLY changed, just that the Queen still had some form of influence at that particular time (which is still an important point to make).\n\nSo really, getting back to your specific question, it is a question of scope. Someone could, for instance, write an article about \"The Effects of 9/11 on American Foreign policy from 2001-2003\". While there may be some inherent problems with this sort of argument (e.g. critical distance from the event, political bias, etc.), from a scope perspective it works fine as long as it does not attempt to make their claims too grandiose. If they stick ot the basics of Foreign Policy, then a good paper could come of it.\n\nThe problem with many historians is that they often don't like making tightly-packed, subtle arguments; everything has to be broad and elaborate. It is often not enough to say that \"Foreign Policy shifted from a focus on A to B\". Instead, they have to argue that \"This shift in foreign policy from A to B was part of a larger pattern of militarism across the early 21st Century\". There is always this inherent desire to shoehorn your specific argument into a larger theme. This problem is one which becomes compounded when discussing the last 20 years.\n\nWhile connections to larger themes is very important in discussing history, these themes are often hard to identify without some critical distance. For example, most historians agree that WW1 was just sort of the \"last gasp\" of the Old Order of Europe, but few people living through it would likely have recognized it as such.\n\nThere is no INHERENT problem with histories of the last 20 years or so. If Historians can sort of reign themselves in and make solid and well-defined claims within their chosen scope they can often produce quite interesting and topically relevant histories. The problem is suppressing this desire we have to constantly \"think big\". \"Thinking big\" is a wonderful part of history, but it does required some \"distance\" from an event.\n\nPut simply, the \"20 year rule\" is more of a warning than a hard limit: \"here be faulty conclusions\". ",
"No, they don't. For example, [Joel Beinin](_URL_0_), a well known and well respected social and economic historian of the Middle East is best known for books like *Workers and Peasants in the Modern Middle East* and *Workers on the Nile: Nationalism, Communism, Islam and the Egyptian Working Class 1882-1954* (also notable is his sweet mustache). His most recent book is an edited volume *Social Movements, Mobilization, and Contestation in the Middle East and North Africa* (2011) which obviously came out in response to the \"Arab Spring\" uprisings. His chapter in that book is called \"A Workers' Social Movement on the Margin of the Global Neoliberal Order: Egypt 2004-2009\". I don't think it's that different methodologically or theoretically from his earlier work, except that it focuses primarily on the first decade of the 21st century, not the first half the 20th century.\n\nGood history can really only take place when you have good primary sources. When those become available varies. For social history, they are very often available rather quickly. For diplomatic and military history, this can sometimes take a rather long time as sometimes key documents take decades to be declassified. In other cases, limited access to archives is the problem. When holocaust-denier David Irving sued Deborah Lipstadt for libel in 2000, the eminent historian Christopher Browning pointed out that the main reason there's still debate among historians about how many Jews were killed in the Holocaust (five million? six million) is lack of access to Soviet/Russian records. Bad-ass historian Timothy Snyder in his book *Bloodlands* (2010) does go through the relatively newly opened archives and comes to a more definitive estimate of 5.7 million. But that shows you how long good history can take in certain subjects--and how much it can be driven by the availability of documents.\n\nOkay so why do *we* have a blanket 20-year rule on the sub? Mostly, it's because questions from more recent periods tend to devolve into not very useful, not very historical, and not very /r/askhistorians-y. As the non-American mods have pointed out over modmail, this is especially noticeable to anything even touching upon contemporary American politics. If someone were to, for example, ask a question about why the Khmer Rouge agreed to turn over Pol Pot in 1998 or the repercussions of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, we could probably get our normal level of insightful comments. On the flip-side, even questions about, say, Reagan's (or, to be fair, Thatcher's) policies in the 1980's or even things as far back as gun policy in the 19th century can lead to a politically charged debate with a lot of bad comments that have to be deleted as just patently unhistorical. Suddenly, everyone's an expert and history (surprise, surprise) reinforces their political beliefs. It was established before I joined the mod team, but it's safe to say that the 20-year rule was instituted as a sort of convenient compromise. It's okay because the more recent questions aren't cut out of the \"rigorous\" side of reddit entirely, but just redirected to /r/asksocialscience, which will take /r/askhistorians type questions from more recent years. These more contemporary questions generally would be more likely (but not exclusively) dealt with by sociologists, political scientists, economists, anthropologists, and psychologists anyway. However, there's a reason why /r/asksocialscience has stricter posting guidelines (every single top-level comment *must* provide sources or refer to a recognized social scientific theory or something along those lines) than /r/askhistorians. When it comes to the present day and contemporary politics and society, everyone claims expertise. As a mod of both, I can tell you that /r/asksocialscience has a noticeably higher proportion of comments deleted.",
"While I will say that no, historians don't generally have a 20-year rule, I will also preface that statement by saying that historians of the recent past do kind of exist in some sort of purgatory floating in between being seen as legitimate or illegitimate in today's academic world. For the most part, recent history is something that an accomplished historian does as a side-project, often some type of \"pop\" history, a la Sean Wilentz's *The Age of Reagan* (great book, by the way). A lot of this comes from contemporary historians questioning one of the most basic precepts of historical study, that the past is wholly different from the present. In the words of the American Historical Association's president in 2008, \"The basic principle\" of modern historiography is based \"on the disappearance of the past from the present, its movement from visibility to invisibility.\"\n\nRecent historians, including me, don't really agree with that statement. (My work focuses on the American experience with Islamic terrorism from 1982-2003). We see the past and present as two things that are inextricably intertwined. Because of this, you also see many recent historians being concerned with issues such as periodization. I'll use my work as an example. Historians typically divide the Cold War and the post-Cold War eras into two distinct time-frames. But in saying that the Cold War ended in 1989 or 1991 with the collapse of Communism, historians are also (often inadvertently) propping up certain triumphalist narratives that are more helpful in supporting the promotion of national exceptionalist myths than providing accurate history. Thus, many historians argue, the U.S. \"won\" the Cold War because of the Soviet Union's collapse. A historian of the recent past (like me, and as I argue) says \"Hold on, let's look at events that followed to see if this narrative holds up.\" Let's take, for example, the American encounter with radical Islam in the late Cold War period, a time in which U.S. officials under-estimated the scope of the Islamist movement in the Middle East and were too wed to the Cold War idea that nation-states (in contrast, to non-state actors) were the primary, if not only, driving force of political events. Many of the faults leading to 9/11 and the American response to the attack tie back to old Cold War concepts of world affairs. We saw this continue even up to 2003 when the Bush administration seemed unable to grasp the idea that al Qaeda could have operated on their own and without the help of some state sponsor of terrorism like Iraq, leading to disastrous consequences for both the U.S. and the Middle East. Taking 9/11 into account, or really many events of the post-Cold War era, shows that the most accurate response to who won the Cold War is \"no one.\" I hope this very brief, very general summary can give you a glimpse into how important recent history can be when placed within proper historical context. Recent history can offer, to a much larger degree than histories of earlier eras, a clear *prescriptive* function for policy-makers precisely because notions of a difference between the past and present are eliminated. The recent past *is* in large part the present, and knocking down that artificial temporal divide makes understanding the contemporary world much easier.\n\nAnother reason historians of the recent past are in academic purgatory is because they often don't often rely on archival resources, the most sacred of objects to the \"true historian.\" Thus, when I proposed my current thesis to one of my current professors (who I persuaded to my cause and has been incredibly helpful), she asked two questions: do you have any archival sources to work with, and is there a substantive field of scholarly, particularly *historical* scholarship, on this topic. My answer to each was a definitive \"no.\" I saw her eyes twitch whenever I said that I would like to focus on the public discourse about terrorism by looking at news outlets and presidential speeches on, (oh sweet jesus!) *the internet*. After much fumbling to explain myself, I convinced the professor that this would still provide a very useful, very important historical narrative if it was framed in the correct manner. \n\nThis then gets at the other main point for recent historians: know your limitations. There is no way that I would be able to offer an accurate history if I focused on government policy. Too much material was--and will be for the next 3 decades--classified. But by saying that I was focusing exclusively on the public discourse of the topic, meaning using those sources that were (of course) readily available to the public since the time they were published/spoken, I was able to still write a very relevant type of contemporary history. \n\nNote, however, that my thesis stops at 2003. I ultimately make the claim that the events of 9/11 reintroduced a consensus among government officials, the media, and the public about the ideological under-pinnings of U.S. foreign policy and America's place within world affairs, a consensus that revamped many of the ideological justifications of the Cold War (an event that likewise did not pop up immediately after WWII. Instead, the idea of a Cold War and the threat of international communism was a construct that had to be built over several years in the late 1940s and 1950s to justify American expansion and overseas intervention. So, too, I argue, did the War on Terror). I did not move my time-line any further to the present simply because we have no idea how the War on Terror will play out. Will it continue to be accepted or will it rejected? How much will it be reformed or how much has it already been reformed? These are issues the historian can't answer. I can and did, however, have enough resources to say that this ideological construct of a new international threat meant to justify an give meaning to U.S. foreign policy did emerge by 2003. This gets at the other main point about how recent historians have to limit themselves in regards to how far their resources can really support their conclusions.\n\nWhile there's way more that could be discussed, I unfortunately can't do so at the moment. I may come back later and provide some more stuff about writing about the recent past. If you're truly interested in the subject matter and want a good resource focusing on the philosophical/methodological aspects of writing contemporary history, check out the book *Doing Recent History: On Privacy, Copyright, Video Games, Institutional Review Boards, Activist Scholarship and History that Talks Back* from the University of Georgia's *Histories of Contemporary America* series. "
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yjve9 | Is there a quick way to ascertain if an explosion is caused by a meteorite or a nuclear weapon? | I was reading Cosmos by Carl Sagan and he brought up a good point, that Earth might be struck by a meteorite and immediately self-destruct. I know meteorite impacts don't cause radioactive fallout, but would we be able to detect that before deciding to retaliate? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/yjve9/is_there_a_quick_way_to_ascertain_if_an_explosion/ | {
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"One of the immediate effects of a nuclear detonation is an [electromagnetic pulse \\(EMP\\)](_URL_1_). Basically, all electronics within a certain radius would get completely fried.\n\nA good example of this is the nuclear test [Starfish Prime.](_URL_0_) For a 1.4Mt nuclear blast, it blew out streetlights and telecommucations some 1500km away in Hawaii, completely cutting off all telephone calls from Kauai to the other islands."
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_pulse#Post.E2.80.93Cold_War_nuclear_EMP_attack_scenarios"
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cet2y2 | why do diesel trucks often keep their engines running while refueling despite it being illegal for gas cars to do so? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cet2y2/eli5_why_do_diesel_trucks_often_keep_their/ | {
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" Gas vapors will ignite if you provide a source of ignition, diesel won't. Diesel fuel is basically a very light oil that only combusts when a vapor of it is mixed with air then compressed until it explodes. Diesel is so stable it's not as dangerous to work with as gasoline.",
"Well, depending on your jurisdiction, I’m not sure it is legal to be refuelling a ‘running’ vehicle.\n\nHowever, Diesel is far less volatile than petrol (gas). It takes certain conditions to get diesel to ignite/burn, usually not found outside of a Diesel engine. You could take a puddle of diesel fuel and throw a match on it, nothing much would happen.\n\nDo that to gas, and up she goes. In fact, a significant spark can achieve the same thing, so little energy is required to ignite petrol/gas because it vaporises - and therefore, mixes with oxygen - so easily.\n\nPerhaps that it why you see people doing this, although running diesel vehicles are certainly hot enough, and producing other electrical activity, sufficient to ignite stray petrol/gas vapour nearby."
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50zhnp | Surviving ancient music? | [deleted] | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/50zhnp/surviving_ancient_music/ | {
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"I'm going to direct you to a previous answer I did on this subject. Let me know if you have any follow up questions. _URL_0_"
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"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4j7k1g/how_do_we_know_what_the_music_of_ancient/"
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1z1pyy | the positives and negatives of a global economy. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1z1pyy/eli5_the_positives_and_negatives_of_a_global/ | {
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"Positives: You can buy and sell things from a much bigger market, getting better prices for inputs and outputs or consumables.\n\nBad: You have to compete with everyone else in the world who's doing the same as you, so if your job or skills or product can be duplicated in a different country at a lower cost, enjoy being homeless.",
"Pro: distribution of resources.\nFaster spread of technology.\nLarger pool of money.\nEveryone doesn't have to be a farmer!\nCheaper products.\nCons: shifts in the economy affect everyone.\nLess gov control of the market (bad for autocratic governments)\nAnd most importantly: Industrialized countries quickly dominate everyone. An example is Europe, which used the industrial revolution to dominate the world for a time."
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3t2urx | the use and subsequent decline of the long s ("ʃ") | I recall this being used pre-WWI, but at a certain point it obviously fell out of favor in writing.
I'm really curious what became of the long s. What was it used for, and when did people decide that it really wasn't that worth using? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3t2urx/eli5_the_use_and_subsequent_decline_of_the_long_s/ | {
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"The [long s](_URL_2_), or *ʃ*, was a way of writing the soft s sound. It came from the ancient [Roman writing style](_URL_1_). Always pronounced essentially as we would today, it grew out of fashion as it became more and more similar to the letter *f*. Although different regions lost it at different times starting as early as the [1780s](_URL_3_), America and English in general gave up on it in the early [1800s](_URL_0_). Some say when the *The Times* switched its typeface to make it easier to read it was the final straw. Eventually practically just won out.",
"The first comment is correct; in addition you should know that it has always been common, in handwriting and in printing, to write letters differently depending on their surroundings. For example, the \"tilde\" symbol as we know it (õ, ã, etc.) arose as a shortcut for an N that was next to a vowel; many other letters were *also* written above their neighbor when the combination was common, although these have dropped out of use). Ç (the cedille) has a mark underneath it that was a (gradually disappearing) z under the c for the common combination \"cz\", whereas the Germans compressed \"sz\" into ß. Æ and Œ, ligatures of two common vowel combinations in Latin and Greek, are still with us today. You can find some more examples in this document: \n\n_URL_0_\n\nSo ʃ and s were (like i and j, or u and v) two different ways of writing S that started as the sole S-form in two different forms of handwriting, and then were recombined in hybrid use, based on ease of writing and ease of reading in context with the other letters written at that time. I don't know all of the reasons why the ʃ/s system was more stable than the i/j and u/v system, but at least part of it is that in the non-cursive system ʃ had loops coming down above the next letter and going back under the previous letter, which wastes space at the beginning or end of a word. In cursive, meanwhile, ʃ was clearly faster to write (much like modern cursive f, while for s you end on a backstroke and many people lift the pen to write the next letter) and also more resembles S than the cursive s does. \n\nIt just took time for the similarity of ʃ and f (especially in printing, which dropped the descender, and then added a half-bar to avoid the similarity of undescended-ʃ to l) to be annoying enough, and the loss of compactness to be unimportant enough, for someone to *make* a typeface that used only s and never ʃ. That was I think the 1720s and the conquest of printing was complete within 100 years; and people who no longer saw ʃ in print stopped writing it during the following century.\n\nBy the way, ʃ is still in use in math (for integration) and linguistics (for the sound we write as \"sh\")"
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"http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/37982/use-of-f-instead-of-s-in-historic-printed-english-documents",
"http://www.historyofinformation.com/expanded.php?id=2729",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_s",
"http://www.absurdintellectual.com/2011/01/02/a-history-and-usage-of-the-s-long-s/"
... | |
3g4qf5 | Could you charge a black hole by feeding it electrons or protons? | Title says it, is it possible for black holes to have a net electrical charge? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/3g4qf5/could_you_charge_a_black_hole_by_feeding_it/ | {
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"Yes, it's called a [Reissner-Nordstrom](_URL_0_) black hole. In fact, a black hole's properties are entirely determined by its electric charge and angular momentum.",
"Follow up question: Could you un-blackhole a black hole by feeding it antimatter?",
"Photons are the gauge bosons of Electromagnetism. So how can the charge of a black hole exist, if the electric force caused by it cannot be felt outside the event horizon since photons cannot escape it? Or am I completely misunderstanding gauge bosons?"
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hyanv | If a sociopath loses his/her memory (amnesia, etc), is he/she still a sociopath? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/hyanv/if_a_sociopath_loses_hisher_memory_amnesia_etc_is/ | {
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"You really need to clarify the question.\n\nA sociopath is someone without empathy. According to the DSM-IV, a sociopath has 'antisocial personality disorder.' \n\nThey are unable to relate to the feelings of others. This is associated with violence towards others, since they are unable to empathize.\n\nIt appears to be independent of memory."
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1k87oe | Were there any instances in the post-Civil War south of recently freed slaves seeking revenge against their former owners? | "Revenge" meaning murder, maiming, etc. | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1k87oe/were_there_any_instances_in_the_postcivil_war/ | {
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"Only sort of what OP wanted, but in the [Lowry War](_URL_0_), some of the Lowry gang (mix of freemen and ex-slaves), took revenge on white plantation owners they thought wronged them at least partially for ideological reasons. If anyone looks into this deeper, they might find some stories of individual Lowry gang members who took more direct revenge like the OP was asking about.",
"This is a communication from a former slave to his former master that's a powerful read, but it's a moral opposite to violent revenge: [To My Old Master](_URL_0_). It doesn't answer your question, but I hope it adds to the discussion."
]
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"http://www.fold3.com/page/3545_henry_berry_lowrie_the_lumbee/"
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6hfv2r | What is the best explanation for why the London high rise burned for 24+ hours and didn't collapse, whereas the WTC buildings did after an hour? | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/6hfv2r/what_is_the_best_explanation_for_why_the_london/ | {
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"My understanding comes from what I learned in a structural firefighting class. During the World Trade Center event the rivets holding the structure together expanded faster then the structural steel and this caused them to \"pop\" out of there holes. Metal buildings are notoriously dangerous for fire fighters because of how intense heat can warp and bend the structure.\n\nIt is possible the other building was more concrete then steel. So it would not have the same issue. I'm not sure exactly how it was built.\n\nPopular mechanics did a great article refuting all the conspiracy theory claims on the World Trade Center. I would recommend reading it if you want to understand what happened better.\n\nSorry I didn't really supply a solid answer, good luck!",
"The WTC buildings collapsed under their own weight, and this process was quickened by the weakening of their metal support structure due to the intense heat and the impact of the airplanes.\n\nThe London high rise was only 24 stories high (as opposed to the WTC buildings' 110 each), which means it had significantly less weight exerting pressure on its structural support. In addition, the WTC buildings suffered structural damage as the result of the airplanes' impact, whereas the London high rise suffered no such impact.\n\nIt's too early to comment on how factors such as flame temperature or material of construction might have affected this process as well.",
"Primarily the fuel from the planes provided an accelerant to burn though. Add to this the much more flammable office supplies and larger open-floor plan and you have a massive open bonfire fueled by kerosene and paper. Jet fuel might not melt steel beams, but it warped them and caused the rivets to fail. The steal beams collapsed under the much higher loads they supported and being the primary load bearers resulted in a catastrophic structural failure which led to the WTC buildings collapsing.\n\nConversely, the london high rise flat is supported by concrete and inter-connected steal beams which even if they were to fail would not result in catastrophic structural failure - The concrete still partially supports some of the building load. The fact that the flats are isolated rooms also helps prevent a hotter fire from taking hold and the lack of a substantial accelerant such as kerosene (although there was rumour of a potentially flammable coating being applied to the buiding to make it look newer) prevents the temperatures from reaching high enough to cause enough damage to the buiding which would lead to collapse. Also the firefighters had better access to the building than with the WTC buildings.\n\nThere was still a danger of the flat collapsing, as with any out of control building fire. But it was much less than the WTC buildings in comparison.\n\ntl;dr: Lighter building, loads partially supported by concrete, isolated small rooms, limited accelerant and easier fire fighter access.",
"Grenfell tower is made of reinforced concrete, and the WTC was steel. Concrete performs better than steel under fire loadings. The WTC collapse mechanism was the build up of thermal gradients causing excessive moments to build up in the exterior columns. Also factors, fuel load, insulation, and active/passive fire protection measures. The most important being its construction material.\n\nA paper on Mechanics of Wide Flanged Steel Sections under Thermal Gradient:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nConcrete > Steel for fire loading.\n",
"Metal conducts heat and bends in a fire, it's one of the worst things to make something out of if you want to prevent fire, and that's what the WTC was made of. Concrete is an good insulator and doesn't bend under heat so you'd expect it to be way better at resisting fire."
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2cz5qg | what would happen if my innocence is proved after i've been in prison for a long time ? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2cz5qg/eli5_what_would_happen_if_my_innocence_is_proved/ | {
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"Some folks sue and win large sums of money. Some folks get an apology. Some folks get a bill for room and board. It can depend on your jurisdiction, the good/bad faith conduct of the people who established your guilt, and the potency of your legal representation.",
"As far as money it varies by state. Some states have special funds set aside to pay out for such incidents, some don't, some people have to sue, for others it just need to fill in the right forms.\n\nFound an article about Louisiana in particular.\n\n_URL_0_\n\n\nApart from some cash from the state there are other considerations. None of which I can answer with confidence.\n\n* How does this show up on official records and background checks for employment?\n* What about crimes commited in jail? How are they treated?\n* How hard is it to get a job? How does a person explain a 5 year blank spot on their resume?\n* If you were in a technical field how do you refresh your skills to get a job? \n* If you plan on going to college the dorm system might be a bad fit now that you are much older the your dorm mates.\n* Is a person who was in prison for 5 years even insurable as far as medical insurance goes?\n* How much counseling does the wronged need? Prison is harsh and PTSD needs to be treated.\n\n"
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eo9sqj | why some drugs destroy teeth? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/eo9sqj/eli5_why_some_drugs_destroy_teeth/ | {
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"Some are acidic and destroy the enamel, some make you grind your teeth, some make you forget to even take care of your dental hygiene, and some do all 3!",
"Not an expert, but with meth for example it constricts your salivary glands for long periods. This drys your mouth out, makibg your enamel more susceptible to cavities. This combined with a craving for sweets means usually drinking things like soda to curb the dry mouth.",
"Some drugs suppress saliva production, which will negatively impact your teeth. Others are stimulants that made you grind your teeth with nervous energy.\n\nBut it is also largely a lifestyle thing. If your money is going to drugs instead of food, housing, and dentistry, you whole body, teeth included, will suffer.",
"What they said plus people that go days on end on a bender don't practice good hygiene. When you're tweaked out for a days or weeks at a time you're not likely to be brushing/ showering etc. You're whole body takes damage/ gets dirty, but unlike your teeth, your body can repair much of it. Damage to your teeth is permanent. Damage to your skin/hair/nails isn't."
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30o02t | Why is the Soviet Union more accepted in society than Nazi Germany? | Why are Soviet fanboys more accepted in society than Nazi German Fanboys? The Soviet union carried out many atrocities too, and killed many MANY more than Nazi Germany did, but you can still see people with clearly pro-soviet material being accepted into society, but if anyone were to do the same related to Nazi Germany they are shunned? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/30o02t/why_is_the_soviet_union_more_accepted_in_society/ | {
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"Some examples of what you actually mean would be nice. "
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2ac2d6 | What do the values of spin mean? (i.e 1, 1/2, etc) | When a particle rotates (even though it doesn't make sense to say that such a small object can rotate, but the effect is the same) it creates a tiny magnetic field around it. That's why you can have spin up or down. Two poles. But what do the values mean, exactly, and how are they calculated? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2ac2d6/what_do_the_values_of_spin_mean_ie_1_12_etc/ | {
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"The spin actually has an existence and meaning independent of magnetic fields.\n\nIn classical physics, we use *angular momentum* to describe how much rotational motion there is -- something rotating around a bigger radius has a greater angular momentum, something rotating at more revolutions per second has a greater angular momentum. Angular mometum is conserved, adn this arises because the equations of physics are unchanged by rotations of the coordinate system.\n\nIn quantum mechanics, this same invariance under rotations leads to the quantum analogue of angular momentum. We often call this *orbital angular momentum*, even though things aren't really orbiting, borrowing from the classical picture.\n\nBut now you add relativity to quantum mechanics, and something remarkable happens. Yes, things still have orbital angular momentum (the thing that generalizes classical rotational motion), but it turns out that they can have an additional piece of angular momentum that doesn't come from motion in any sense at all, but that they just get to have by existing. We call this angular momentum things just have because they exist *spin*.\n\nThis is not unprecedented. Relativity teaches us that in addition to the energy things get to have from their motion (kinetic energy) and position (potential energy), they can also have energy just by existing (this is what mass represents!). It turns out something analogous happens with angular momentum.\n\nRemember, angular momentum is conserved, even with relativity and quantum mechanics, because the laws of physics are unchanged by rotations of the coordinate system. In 3 spatial dimensions, the mathematical properties of rotations restrict the possible values of *spin* to 0, 1/2, 1, 3/2, etc. (More properly, we start with the Poincaré group in 3+1 dimensions and work towards this conclusion from there.)\n\nWhen something has spin *s*, it means the total intrinsic angular momentum it has just for existing has magnitude (hbar)sqrt{*s*(*s*+1)}, where hbar=Planck's constant/2(pi). If you then pay attention to the direction of angular momentum and ask how much of it lies along any particular direction, if it has spin *s*, the only amounts it can have along that direction are (hbar)*s*, (hbar)(*s*-1),(hbar)(*s*-2),...,-(hbar)*s*. These results all follow from the connection between angular momentum and rotations. \n\nAs an example, when *s*=1/2, along any particular direction, the only values you can get are (hbar)(1/2) and -(hbar)(1/2), and those are what we mean by spin up and spin down. The Delta baryons, which have spin 3/2, can have along any particular direction (hbar)(3/2), (hbar)(1/2), -(hbar)(1/2), or -(hbar)(3/2).\n"
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17t5mu | if smoking marijuana increases the heart rate, making the heart beat faster, isn't someone who smokes on a daily basis setting themselves up for an irregular heart beat? | I am in no way against marijuana. I smoke almost every day! But I was stoned yesterday and this thought popped into my head. Technically speaking you do have an irregular heart beat if you smoke on and off all day every day because it increases the heart rate, then when you come down your heart rate goes back to its regular rate of beating, correct? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/17t5mu/if_smoking_marijuana_increases_the_heart_rate/ | {
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"Exercise also makes your heart beat faster.",
"An irregular heart beat is called arrhythmia. This happens when your heart does not beat at a steady rhythm. Heart rate is the number of beats per minute. You can have an irregular heartbeat at normal, high, or low heart rates. Therefore, no, using any substance that raises your heart rate is not necessarily going to cause arrhythmia.",
"Also:\n > Don't be Walter. Conversations and explanations are much better when you do not come with a strong opinion already established and simply ask, \"am I wrong?\"",
"That's why weed smokers must listen to Pink Floyd or reggae. "
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cyj9fl | why do so many sites contain anti-bot captchas? what purpose do the bots serve and why are they being regulated? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cyj9fl/eli5_why_do_so_many_sites_contain_antibot/ | {
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"Bots can serve many purposes. One example is guessing peoples' passwords - if you get your password wrong two or three times then you may be asked to do a captcha. Another example is flooding a site with activity in hopes of giving the server too much to handle and breaking part of its software. Another purpose of bots is making fake accounts for various reasons. Websites really don't like any of these things, so they install captchas to keep the bots at bay.",
"Captchas are also being used to train AIs. Everytime you log in you are looking at pictures and showing AI what a sign is or what a bus is. It is outsourcing literally thousands of hours of AI definitions.",
"To stop spam. Bots collecting info or creating accounts. They’re trying to verify it’s a human."
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277l99 | When you drink water, how is it distributed around the body? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/277l99/when_you_drink_water_how_is_it_distributed_around/ | {
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"Once water is absorbed through the GI tract, it enters the bloodstream as plasma volume and is carried throughout the body. There is no specific distribution (eg the body does not route water specifically to an organ), but the flow is just determined by the circulatory dynamics. From there, water follows a general distribution guided by the **60-40-20 rule**. Typically your body's water weight is 60% of your mass. From there, 2/3 (or 40% total body mass) is intracellular water. Of the remaining 1/3 (or 20% total mass) that is extracellular, about 3/4 (15% of total) is contained in the interstitium around your cells while the last 1/4 (5%) is contained in the vascular system. \n\nWhen you take in fluid, **where it goes within those compartments depends very heavily on the osmotic characteristics of the fluid**. This comes into play a lot with intravenous fluid administration in terms of deciding the right choice of fluid to give. Giving isotonic water with dextrose results in a even distribution of 2/3 going to the intracellular space and 1/3 staying in the extracellular space, as the dextrose is metabolized and the water is evenly distributed by volume space. However, giving normal saline (0.9% NaCl) results in most of it staying in the extracellular space because the salt creates an osmotic pressure keeping the fluid from entering the cells. In patients who have pathologies resulting in increased loss of vascular fluid through extravasation (eg bad edema from heart failure) we'll sometimes give an albumin solution as that is thought to favor keeping fluid within the vascular compartment.",
"How do levels of thirst affect how it feels when you drink water? There are times when I'm relatively dehydrated (like after working in the lawn outside, or hiking, etc. on a hot day), and I can drink a pint of water and it feels like it absorbs before it even hits my stomach. There are other times where drinking more than a sip is uncomfortable. Does the body change when it needs water to make it easier to ingest, or is it simply a perception thing?",
"Side question, which I've always wondered but never been bothered to ask (I dont think it merits its own thread).\n\nThey recommend you drink X amount a day. Does drinking X in one sitting (say, within an hour) differ than if I evenly distributed X throughout the day?",
"Related question: Does drinking a couple large glasses of water have a significant impact in raising the pH of stomach acid, thereby denaturing the essential enzymes needed for digestion? How does the stomach react to such sudden increases in pH?",
"Would drinking less water cause you to hold less water subcutaneously (under the skin)? I notice that if I haven't drank anything for a while, my cheeks get sunken whereas if I have drank a lot of water, my cheeks seem much chubbier/full. What's the reasoning behind this?",
"A little bit gets absorbed in your upper respiratory (mouth and throat), which reduces your feeling of dryness after being in the heat or exercising. The vast majority of water is absorbed not in your stomach, but in the small intestine. Some of it also gets absorbed in the large intestine. It gets absorbed into the bloodstream, then follows more or less what /u/arumbar said, osmosis from the bloodstream to those othe parts of the body."
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1qjrlx | i'm studying a course in engineering and.... | was told that if you where to travel from point A to point B, a distance of 1000 miles for example, if you where to make the same journey, but from point B to point A, it would only be 998 miles due to the curvature of the planet. How is this possible? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1qjrlx/eli5im_studying_a_course_in_engineering_and/ | {
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"Either you're misunderstanding the example given, or whoever gave you the example is confused. \n\nThe only thing I can think of that might make sense is if the professor were trying to explain how different geometries can have different properties, so that the distance between A and B in a straight line (i.e. through the Earth) is shorter than the over-land distance (which takes the form of an arc of a [great circle](_URL_0_)).",
"The best way I can understand the question is that it's actually talking about the *rotation* of the planet. If you fly a plane from A to B traveling with the Earth's rotation, you'll travel a longer distance than when traveling the other way, since in that case your end point rushes up to meet you.",
"In some cases, it is possible to shorten the distance between two points using the curvature of the earth. For example, if point A and point B are on the same latitude line, but very far to the North, it would seem to make sense to fly directly East or West to get there using the shortest distance. However, an arced path is typically shorter, since the closer to the North Pole you get, the less distance you have to travel to change you longitude."
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d80ysp | What exactly did Germany want to take after WW1? | What I mean is:what did they want to take after WW1,if they won? I heard things like that they wanted to make Mittelafrika or they wanted to puppet Belgium,etc.
I'd also like to know about Bulgaria,Austria-Hungary,and the Ottomans,but it's not the main point. | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/d80ysp/what_exactly_did_germany_want_to_take_after_ww1/ | {
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"This has been answered very well before [here](_URL_0_) for both Germany and the other members of the Central Powers."
]
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"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/34v81a/what_were_the_territorial_objectives_of_the/cqyfi2k?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x"
]
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1avlgs | Are there any historically important inebriated mistakes? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1avlgs/are_there_any_historically_important_inebriated/ | {
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"There must be; it was a policy in ancient Persia to consider important decisions once while drunk, and once while sober. If it sounds good both times, it must be a really good idea.",
"[Alcibiades](_URL_5_)' profanation of the [Eleusinian Mysteries](_URL_2_) in 415 BC comes to mind. The simple version is that Alcibiades, one of Athens' greatest (and most controversial) generals, was accused of having parodied the rites of Eleusis during a [drunken party](_URL_0_). This was a Very Bad Idea - the rites themselves were sacred, and secret, and the Athenians took those oaths of secrecy so seriously that we *still* don't know what the rites were. It was even worse because the mockery of the rites came to light during an investigation into *another* blasphemy: the mutilation of the herms. The herms were guardian statues, sacred to Hermes, scattered throughout Athens, square pillars with crude faces and erect phalli carved into them; someone (or someones) went through Athens one night and mutilated *all* of them in the way you would expect drunken young men to mutilate phallic statues. And *this* blasphemy was especially bad because it took place on the night before the (controversial) [Athenian invasion of Sicily](_URL_1_) was scheduled to depart, meaning that it was not just an insult to the gods but an attempt to sabotage the success of the expedition, which, by the way, Alcibiades was leading.\n\nKeeping all this straight? Good? Good. Well, Alcibiades was accused of involvement in both these blasphemies, convicted in absentia (since he was off on the expedition) and sentenced to death. Demonstrating that it is Also A Very Bad Idea to sentence your generals to death when you can't actually get to them, Alcibiades promptly defected to Sparta, which Athens had been fighting for the past fifteen years, and convinced them to intervene on behalf of the Sicilians. (The Spartans grew tired of Alcibiades pretty quickly - rumor has it that he seduced the queen of the Spartans - and he defected again, to Persia, and then defected from Persia *back* to Athens. Alcibiades had an interesting career.)\n\nPrimary sources for the whole mess can be found [here](_URL_4_).\n\nAlso, Alexander of Macedon killed one of his own generals, [Cleitus the Black](_URL_3_), in a drunken brawl, but that seems comparatively minor."
]
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"http://ablemedia.com/ctcweb/consortium/ancientolympianshermes7.html",
"http://en.wikip... | ||
1ludz0 | Is cinnamon actually spicy simular to jalepenos and peppers measured with the Scoville heat units, or is it a different reaction? | Edit: Thank you for all of your replies. | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1ludz0/is_cinnamon_actually_spicy_simular_to_jalepenos/ | {
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"The active component in cinnamon is [cinnamaldehyde](_URL_1_), while hot peppers contain [capsaicin](_URL_2_). Capsaicin is spicy because it activates an ion channel protein in nerve cells called TRPV1 that is also activated by heat. According to [this abstract](_URL_0_), cinnamaldehyde activates a different ion channel protein, TRPA1, producing a similar pain sensation. So the chemistry is not identical, but is somewhat similar."
]
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinnamaldehyde",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capsaicin"
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77sp78 | why people with bad eyesight see better when they close their eyes a little? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/77sp78/eli5_why_people_with_bad_eyesight_see_better_when/ | {
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"Although I don't have an answer to your original question, the word you are looking for is \"squint\".",
"When you squint you change the shape of the eye. The change is closer to the shape of a normal eye, which improves the person's vision. Unfortunately, the strain on the eye muscles will cause headaches and such.\n\nThis is why teachers can tell when to recommend that kids get their eyes checked.",
"Changing the eye shape is part of it, but squinting can also reduce the effective size of your pupil (the black part, which is the hole the light actually goes through). Having a smaller hole, called an \"aperture\" in optics and photography, leads to sharper images. There's a decent illustration in this figure from wikipedia, which might help:\n_URL_0_\n\nThe idea with the smaller aperture is that it blocks out some of the rays which would be coming in at different angles and not focusing to quite the right spot. Without those rays, the image looks cleaner overall. (This also means that you can see more sharply when it's bright out and your pupil is small than when it's dark and your pupil gets big.)\n\nYou can see this effect in action by simply looking through a tiny pin hole. Even if you make a little hole with your thumb and finger and look through it, you may be able to see the focus of a distant object change a little as you shrink the hole down. (Although you'll also be looking through the blurry image of your fingers themselves.) In fact, a \"pinhole camera\" with a small enough hole forms perfectly focused images of objects at any distance even without a lens, meaning they have an infinite \"depth of field\"."
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25wo1z | Were there many Western Christian Heresies between the 7th century and the 11th century? And why did so many Catholic heresies (Catharism, Waldesianism, Patarians, etc) seem to arise in the high medieval period starting around the 12th century? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/25wo1z/were_there_many_western_christian_heresies/ | {
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"Since there haven't been no takers yet, I'm chime in even though the medieval West is outside my specialty.\n\nI'd suggest that you start by checking out the Bogomils, a 10th-century Bulgarian movement that's a likely source of the spread of some Eastern heresies to the West. The movement was itself influenced by Paulicianism from Armenia and was responsible for spreading the dualism that flourished out on the Eastern fringes of the Christian world. Although there's some scholarly debate, the Cathars and Patarenes (as well as several other groups) have long been treated as offshoots of Bogomilism, and if that's the case, it sheds some light on the second part of your question, i.e., why so many of these groups seemed to pop up in the couple of centuries following. Look at Appendix V of [this book](_URL_0_) for a very brief summary of the evidence."
]
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a77pwk | How did that big chunk of Hungarians end up in the middle of Romania? | [This](_URL_0_) is what I'm talking about. | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/a77pwk/how_did_that_big_chunk_of_hungarians_end_up_in/ | {
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"As it has gone about 3 months without a response, I'll take a crack at it. If nothing but for the archives (which was how I found this question!).\n\nThe area you are referring to is called the Szekely Land and its origin dates back to the historical kingdom of Hungary. A map for reference:\n\n[_URL_0_](_URL_0_)\n\nThe kingdom of Hungary existed with these borders (more-or-less - excepting the Turkish conquest when it was partitioned) from c. 900 - 1918.\n\nThe Pannonian Basin was invaded by the Magyar confederation (the nomadic ancestors of the Hungarians who fought on horseback) under the rule of Almos and his son and successor Arpad beginning in c. 900.\n\nOriginally pagan, they used the fertile grasslands of the region as a staging ground for their raiding operations, which they launched into the neighboring Holy Roman Empire, Italy, and Balkan Peninsula. This made them but one of many nomadic peoples to do this (along with the Huns, Avars, and Mongols).\n\nAfter a dramatic defeat to Emperor Otto the Great at the Battle of Lechfeld, the Magyars embraced a sedentary lifestyle. They began to adopt the European feudal system and ultimately King Stephen (one of Arpad's descendants) accepted a crown from the Pope and began the process of making Hungary a Christian kingdom.\n\nNow, getting back to your question. Part of this is difficult to answer as we don't have the greatest knowledge of the demographics of Hungary throughout its history. The Pannonian Basin has been home to many peoples over time - Celts, Romans, Huns, Avars, Slavs, Germanic peoples, Romanians, and Hungarians - all of these at different times inhabited the area. Often our sources for the inhabitants come from Roman or Greek writers who did not have direct knowledge of the area's population.\n\nThis makes developing a demographic history difficult; we are forced to speculate to what extent the latter waves of migrants intermarried with the existing populations, to what extent they constituted a ruling class or brought with them demographic change, how homogeneous or heterogeneous the area was, and so on.\n\nFor example there is one hypothesis that the kingdom of Hungary (excepting Croatia) was of a relatively homogeneous \"Magyar\" culture prior to the Turkish conquest, but as a result of the invasion much of the region was depopulated. Then, waves of Serbs, Germans, and Romanians were encouraged to settle into the area as a means of repopulating it beginning in c. 1600. This then (as proponents of the idea would argue) results in the ethnically diverse situation we find Hungary in in the later eras.\n\nI myself feel the reality is that Hungary was always an ethnically diverse nation, with only a plurality being ethnic Magyar, but I digress.\n\nIn regard to Transylvania which you have posted an image of, we know that the kings of Hungary granted several charters for this area beginning around c. 1200 to two groups of people - the Szekelys and the Saxons. It is likely then, like now, the majority of the \"land beyond the forest\" was inhabited by Vlachs (Romanians) and the kings wanted to bring these settlers in to expand royal power there.\n\nThe Szekelys (who are the ones you see in green) have an unclear origin; their mythology says they are the descendants of the Huns but this is dismissed by scholars. The working theory is that they are simply a subgroup or a subtribe of the Magyars (they have been shown to be the same people genetically and linguistically) who relocated to Transylvania likely to fulfill their historic purpose there as \"border guards.\" Their job was to represent the ethnic Hungarian majority at the boundaries of the kingdom and defend it against neighboring peoples (in history this would have been the peoples migrating in from the steppe - like the Pechenegs and Cumans).\n\nThe Saxons were German settlers brought into the area to facilitate economic development. Traditionally there were seven towns granted special charters by the king for German habitation; this is the origin of the German name for Transylvania, Siebenburgen - \"Land of the Seven Cities.\"\n\nWe don't see much of a legacy of the German habitation in the area, but the Szekelys still make up the ethnic majority in several counties.\n\nHow this area ended up a part of Romania dates back to the end of World War I, when in the peace agreement the Entente powers decided to redraw boundaries in Europe based on ethnic self-determination, and reward the minor Entente powers (Serbia, Romania) with land. The Treaty of Trianon was specifically signed with Hungary, which (along with other changes) resulted in the Vlach-majority Transylvania being given to Romania.\n\nSo in summation this area of green is a legacy of the medieval Hungarian kingdom that you can see in modern Romania!"
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8dfxfa | how is is possible for a business to remain open for year(s) while operating at a loss? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8dfxfa/eli5_how_is_is_possible_for_a_business_to_remain/ | {
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"Investors. Investors pump money into the business in hopes of eventually seeing a return/profit.\n\nLook at Amazon.",
"Well, first and formost, just because you are operating at a loss doesn't mean that you are running a bad business. You could be making investment in your business that has you losing money, but that is fueling future growth. Amazon has been like this - they keep reinvesting their profits into new, high growth markets. Amazon is a very profitable business, but they choose to focus in being even _more_ profitable rather than just enjoying where they are at.\n\nSecondly, depending on how you account for things, you can operate at a loss on paper yet still be generating profit. This is why most businesses are evaluated on different statements and metrics - no one measure tells the whole story. \n\nFinally, even if your business is operating at a true loss, if you have someone willing to keep investing in it, then you can run until their investment runs out."
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32pamq | american curfew laws, what are they? | So I've just seen a post on /r/offbeat about a kid not being given a ticket for being out after curfew. Like, is being out after dark a crime which you can be fined for? I always thought it was a rule given to kids by their parents, not law enforced | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/32pamq/eli5_american_curfew_laws_what_are_they/ | {
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"It depends in where you live, there is a legal curfew for minors in a lot of places, but unless you're super young I don't think cops would bother if you aren't being suspicious",
"Depends on where you live and the circumstances.\n\nSome places have no laws about when you can be out. Some places have laws saying that people under 18 can't be out after X O'clock. Some places have laws saying that you can't be out on foot after X O'clock.",
"Yeah, it is. It happened to me once. From what I can tell, how seriously they take this law depends on the area. For instance I used to live ain a very safe suburb, so I'd go walking at night as a kid, and nobody cared. But when I moved to a dense area with more crime and went out, I got the curfew violation.\n\nA second form of curfew law is daytime curfew. This is when you get caught being out durign the day, when you should be in school. This is considered a much more serious violation than a nighttime curfew, for obvious reasons.\n\nAs for why during the night? A lot of reasons. High crime in an area would result in it, either to attempt to stop kids from committing crimes, or to protect them from those who do commit crimes."
]
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[],
[],
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9ufwi2 | how is blizzard able to delete dislikes on their trailer? | The video URL doesn't seem to be changing, are they shadily paying YouTube to delete dislikes? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9ufwi2/eli5_how_is_blizzard_able_to_delete_dislikes_on/ | {
"a_id": [
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"It might be that YT has processes in place to delete accounts that may or may not be bots to prevent review Bombs or other issues. Any social media platform has these mechanisms in place, although there are likely folks that get unfairly targeted if they base account/comment deletions on the age of the account, for instance. \n\nBots are increasingly becoming an issue, so these mechanisms are certainly important. ",
"Basically, youtube can detect where users are coming from by a \"referral\" session sent by all modern internet browsers (like Chrome, or FireFox). With knowing information like this, as well as other factors, they can determine if the dislike is genuinely upset at the video's content, or just an upset gamer coming from a reddit post. Basically, now they have all this data, they can remove \"brigade\" dislikes as they're not helpful to the youtube platform."
]
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[],
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] | |
20l2c2 | Does the Earth light up the moon's night? | On full moons you can see pretty clearly at night. If we went to the dark side of the moon now, would we be able to see by the light of the earth? How would the lumens compare from the moon onto earth's surface to the earth on the lunar surface? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/20l2c2/does_the_earth_light_up_the_moons_night/ | {
"a_id": [
"cg4gyzg"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"Lets say the moon was positioned between the earth and the sun (but not *perfectly* between), and you stood on the side of the moon that faced earth (near side of the moon, and coincidentally the \"dark side of the moon\"). Under those circumstances, the earth would cast quite a bit of light. About 15 times brighter then a full moon would appear on earth.\n\nTechnik: radius of the earth is almost 4x that of the earth. Thus, almost 16x the surface area. This doesn't account for the reflectivity of the earth vs the moon."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | |
5qkvu6 | Who were the Latins and why did the Romans speak their language? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5qkvu6/who_were_the_latins_and_why_did_the_romans_speak/ | {
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"The Latins were the inhabitants of Latium, the region bounded roughly by the Tiber, the Apennines, and the Liris valley. The city of Rome, then, occupied (and still does) a position on the northern end of the Latin plain, the volcanic plain that extends to the south of the city. The tradition is that under their eponymous king, Latinus, whose name goes back as far as Hesiod, the *aborigines* intermarried with Aeneas' Trojans, who settled at Lanuvium. The Latin settlements throughout the plain show descent from the Villanovan culture. The tradition holds that Alba Longa, a traditionally Trojan site around...oh, maybe 25 km south of Rome, initially held hegemony over the Latins, who were slow to develop a political identity. Alba's destruction transferred leadership of the Latins to Rome, where a Latin population had politically unified with a Sabine one, with Etruscan influence entering the city in enormous quantities sometime later. The Romans formed a Latin League by the early fifth century at the latest, and traditionally earlier than that under the leadership of the Etruscan kings--certainly by the late sixth century the Romans held certain hegemony over the other Latins, and the earliest known Roman treaty, the sixth century treaty with the Carthaginians, has Rome negotiate for all the Latins. The Latin League remained in existence until the mid fourth century, when the other Latins revolted and allied themselves with the Samnites. They were defeated and the league dissolved, with individual cities becoming *municipia*, being granted the *ius Quiritum*, or maintaining strictly Latin rights until integration later. Additionally the Romans planted citizen colonies throughout Latium, such as the one at Antium, and a few cities (e.g. Praeneste) remained allies until quite late.\n\nThe Romans spoke Latin because they were Latins. Their case was slightly unusual in that the early city was something of a melting-pot and also included Sabines and soon after Etruscans, and the influence of their languages can be seen quite strongly on Roman Latin, but the Romans always identified most closely with their kindred to the south. Latin cult centers at Alba and Nemi were among the most important political points for the early city, and even during the period of Etruscan kingship the tradition holds that the Romans continued to turn most of their attention to the south"
]
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[]
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3eodt9 | how has the u.s. government continued to get away with breaking/changing 500+ treaties with american indian groups? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3eodt9/eli5_how_has_the_us_government_continued_to_get/ | {
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"text": [
"The Native Americans had no means to enforce their treaties. The US was overwhelmingly more powerful and could essentially do as it wished."
]
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[]
] | ||
2cew0e | What happens to a magnet if i melt it ? | Lets say I have a standard North / South rectangular magnet and started to heat it up.
Would it become a sphere like my thinking says it would ?
Or perhaps stay in its original state but be a liquid ?
| askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2cew0e/what_happens_to_a_magnet_if_i_melt_it/ | {
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"Once you meet the [Curie Temperature](_URL_0_) the magnet will lose it's overall cohesive magnetism. This generally happens long before the metal reaches its melting temperature. Iron for example has a Curie temperature of 1043 K, but doesn't melt until 1811 K.",
"Merits explaining the basics of why a magnet is a magnet. As you may know, magnetism is caused by charges moving. In the case of a permanent magnet, the moving charges are supplied by electrons spinning. This means that each iron atom is basically a tiny magnet because it has an unpaired electron giving it a magnetic field. The block of iron becomes what we think of as a magnet when those little magnets are line up. Heating the iron causes the atoms to move around more and more, until they are no longer lined up. The magnet will stop being magnetic because of the heating long before it melts. As /u/AsAChemicalEngineer mentioned, reading up on Curie Temperatures will tell you more about this.\n\nEdit: Something to look up is ferrofluid, which is a liquid that is magnetic. It doesn't have a magnetic dipole itself, but it responds strongly to magnets. If you touch a magnet to ferrofluid it'll pick up and form a ball of ferrofluid. I got to play with it once, and it's super cool; You expect the ball to be like most liquids, but it's actually shockingly strong, and feels more like soft rubber than a liquid. It also works as a really good bearing allowing you to roll the magnet over a surface.",
"I'd think that a good simulation of a magnet that had a room-temperature Curie Temperature would be Ferrofluids. These are fluids that contain tiny magnets covered in a surfactant to prevent the clumping of the magnets together (i.e. it keeps the tiny magnets seperated and... fluid). What you'll find is that it lays there in a pool: the particles orient to have a net-neutral state. But, exposing it to a magnet leads to rather fun results. :)\n\n_URL_0_"
]
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curie_temperature"
],
[],
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"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmKMIBvdm9M"
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6kxqm0 | can you get knocked out while sleeping? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6kxqm0/eli5_can_you_get_knocked_out_while_sleeping/ | {
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"Yes. Being asleep is a different brain state than unconsciousness. If you suffered sufficient injury to the brain you could be knocked out despite being asleep. It might take a while for anyone to notice you weren't waking up, but once you received medical attention, the doctors would know you weren't just sleeping. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
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516k2h | How and when do gut bacteria get into our gut? | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/516k2h/how_and_when_do_gut_bacteria_get_into_our_gut/ | {
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"As soon as you are born, you get bacteria that is laying everywhere, which settles in your stomach, within 1 to 2 years babies get the normal gut flora that an adult has.\n\nThere are studies that say some bacteria can colonize the gut in fetuses though, but it's still mostly just from the enviroment"
]
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] | ||
a275yx | why does getting snuggly and cozy during a storm feel so pleasurable? is there a biological reason for this? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a275yx/eli5_why_does_getting_snuggly_and_cozy_during_a/ | {
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"You're body is warm, relaxed, well fed, well protected and stress free now. So your body is releasing happy hormones like endorphins to make you feel good. \n\n.....and a nice poem , which is unrelated : \n\nFate whispers to the Warrior\n\n\" a storm is coming \" \n\nAnd the Warrior whispers back \n\n\" I am the storm \" ",
"During the condition of violent weather you perceive the danger and the discomfort inherent in the exposure to those conditions. When you perceive yourself to be isolated from harm manifested by environmental conditions you experience the psychological state of safety. Free of fear from physical and psychological harm you attain a state of equanimity and the physical comfort you derive from the conditions you have created in your immediate environment during the storm interval are readily perceived. The emotional component of your perception is subjective but this reaction to \"safe from storm conditions\" is shared by many in your species group.\n\nIt may be the case that endorphins are released in the brain during perceived \"safety\" but without direct testing this is only speculation. It is difficult to define individual perceptions of \"safety\" and the addition of subjective states like \"snugly\" and \"cozy\" introduce variables that entertain tactile sensation and point pressure perceptions which are difficult to quantify for any specific individual.\n\nIn a reductive sense the fact that you perceive you are temporarily safe from a perceived threat amongst conditions that you perceive to be pleasurable might be the generative mechanism of your perception of pleasure. Without a detailed understanding of what generates pleasure in the Human brain, particularly your brain, we will never understand completely why you feel the way you do but we can come close to expressing a model of your potential reactions and perhaps this may help you understand why you feel and react the way you do."
]
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[],
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1xg1rv | how do people releasing recipe/cookbooks avoid copyright infringement | A recipe for grilled salmon is gonna be pretty much the same any cook book you look at. Sure some may have more salt, some less. I can see how Gordon Ramsay can release a cookbook and not have a problem, but for the "no-name" people's books in the bookstore, how do they get away with it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xg1rv/eli5how_do_people_releasing_recipecookbooks_avoid/ | {
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"text": [
"The only things copyright protects is the text instructions, pictures, etc. The actual ratios of ingredients cannot be copyrighted.\n\n[edit] _URL_0_"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl122.html"
]
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18fcbl | Do any forms of photography capture more wavelengths of light than we can perceive? | For example, could you ever tell the temperature at which a photo was taken because the chemicals reacted to infrared? Or to radio waves?
Edit: Sorry my question wasn't totally clear. I know it's possible to observe other forms of light through specialized photography, but I was thinking of a CSI type scene where one takes an ordinary photograph, or perhaps a digital file and accesses information beyond the visual range. | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/18fcbl/do_any_forms_of_photography_capture_more/ | {
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"This may not be quite what you're asking, but here is some relevant information:\n\nThere are films sensitve to the infrared, and ordinary films are sensitve to the ultraviolet, as discussed [here](_URL_1_). Though I believe it's no longer produced, [Kodak Professional High-Speed Infrared Film (PDF)](_URL_0_) was sensitive out to 900 nm wavelengths.\n\nYou can also have infrared or ultraviolet sensitive CCDs for digital photography, and even your standard digital camera has some [sensitivity outside the visible range](_URL_2_).",
"Yes, infrared photography that can detect temperature exists, though its usually digital. I'm sure chemical could be done, the real tricky part is in the lens given that infrared, well far infrared, doesn't go through glass. \r\r\rNeat trick, the infra red LED on your TV remote can be seen by cheaper, or night vision, digital cameras that lack an near infrared filter. Try it with your phone camera. Granted your eyes can very faintly see this, the camera picks it up quite well. \r\rRadio waves can be used for imaging, but unless you looking at space the resolution is poor. Resolution is related to wavelength, and radio waves are millions of times longer than visible so the resolution sucks. Good microscopes use things with very high wavelengths, like electrons, because their wavelengths are tiny. ",
"The general term for that is [hyperspectral imaging](_URL_0_).",
"Regular digital sensors are sensitive to UV-light. Most of the UV-light is filtered out by the glass of the lens or by an UV-filter.\n\nI managed however to photograph a Great Tit (*Parus major*) in full sunlight, and noticed that its head has a lot of blue on the photo. With our own eyes its head is simply black. See [here](_URL_0_)"
]
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"http://www.kodak.com/global/en/professional/support/techPubs/f13/f13.pdf",
"http://people.rit.edu/andpph/text-infrared-ultraviolet.html",
"http://www.naturfotograf.com/UV_IR_rev00.html"
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperspectral_imaging"
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"http://takaita.wordpress.com/... | |
2m8xet | why does putting bread into hard brown sugar soften it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2m8xet/eli5why_does_putting_bread_into_hard_brown_sugar/ | {
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"text": [
"It adds moisture without making the sugar wet keeping the molasses from crystalizing "
]
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[]
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5boa4e | The male angler fish famously attach itself to its female, fuse with its body and shares its circulatory system. How do they manage this without triggering an immune rejection like for a transplant ? | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/5boa4e/the_male_angler_fish_famously_attach_itself_to/ | {
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"text": [
"I just want to give your question an answer since you aren't getting one. The answer is nobody knows. Angler fish are deep sea fish so even seeing them is rare, studying their antibodies in action would be near impossible. I will say this, however. Many organisms have developed mechanisms to deter rejections from a host body. Most parasitic species have to do this. I imagine the male angler does something similar, but I'm just speculating."
]
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[]
] | ||
1vcqag | When did the Roman "broken line" formation become impractical or obsolete as a military strategy and what factors led to its decline? | Edit: I apologize for any ambiguity, I am indeed referring to the manipular formation: _URL_0_ | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1vcqag/when_did_the_roman_broken_line_formation_become/ | {
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"I'm not sure which formation you're refering to. The romans used many formations depending on the era, the enemy, the grounds and a host of other factors. When you say \"Broken line\" it could be either the pre-battle quincunx formation or maybe even the Zama formation, both formations are technically \"broken line\" though the quincunx formation is not an actual battle formation and the zama formation was a very risky move for specific purposes. \n\nOther than these cases romans generally held a solid line, usually in triplex acies (tripple line, most famously in the republic era).",
"If you could specify/diagram which formation you are talking about, that would be great. \n\nIn the meantime, if you're up to some light reading, Lendon's Soldiers and Ghosts is a great walkthrough of changes in the Roman army, from the phalanx all the way to Late Antiquity, so you could find your info in there. There is also a well illustrated book, Warfare in the Classical World, which may aid your search.",
"1600- hear me out. It is one thing to ask when the Romans stopped using a broken line, but the formation itself remained effective for quite some time (although perhaps it fell out of usage for a while).\n\nThe Spanish army throughout the 16th century adopted many Roman military customs, one of which were the fluid tactical formation called tercios, made up of pikemen, swordsmen, and arquebusiers. Although their base units, the company, was about three times the size of a Roman century, they did utilize a broken line. Reserve units could be brought up to fill in the gaps, or small units of arquebusiers would flank around the enemy unit to provide enfilading fire. \n\nAs the so-called Military Revolution of the Sixteenth Century (see book of that title by Geoffrey Parker) progressed, a greater proportion of European army ended up armed with firearms. In 1503, the Spanish army had perhaps 1/6 of their army equipped with guns, by the Battle of the Dunes in 1600, the Dutch fielded an army almost entirely out of units of firearm equipped soldiers. Although it was a very close battle, the Dutch and British defeated a veteran Spanish force, in large part due to superiority of firepower.\n\nEventually, firepower, and the most efficient formation for its application, a relatively unbroken line, eclipsed the broken lines which had proven so effective for close combat. "
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1wd1mf | How does a telescope affect the time required for light emitted from a distant object to enter my eye? | I understand that the view, through my naked eye, of a distant object is a function of the distance from the object to my eye and the speed of light. However, if I were to gaze at Jupiter through a telescope to see a celestial impact, I would see the events much sooner than someone viewing the same event without aid. How does the telescope affect me? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1wd1mf/how_does_a_telescope_affect_the_time_required_for/ | {
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"The telescope doesn't make a difference. The light travels for the same amount of time regardless, so you're \"seeing into the past\" by the same amount of time regardless of what instrument you use. The telescope just collects more light and makes the image bigger and brighter.\n\n[Here](_URL_0_) is a similar question from a week ago.",
" > However, if I were to gaze at Jupiter through a telescope to see a celestial impact, I would see the events much sooner than someone viewing the same event without aid.\n\nYou would not. You would see them at the same time, but your view would be magnified.\n\nIt's just like looking at a bird through a pair of binoculars. All the telescope does is magnify something far away so it looks bigger.",
" > However, if I were to gaze at Jupiter through a telescope to see a celestial impact, I would see the events much sooner than someone viewing the same event without aid.\n\nIt is still a function of the distance from the object to your eye and the speed of light. If anything, through a telescope would be slightly *more* distance, since the light has to move through the telescope and be redirected into your eye, rather than traveling in an essentially straight path. So all things being equal, you'd see something (infinitesimally) later."
]
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"http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1vok8q/how_does_looking_further_into_space_let_you_see/"
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q7i9i | what is so great about the dr dre beats headphones? | Why is everyone spending $150+ on these? Are they really that great? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/q7i9i/eli5_what_is_so_great_about_the_dr_dre_beats/ | {
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"text": [
"People find them stylish.",
" > Why is everyone spending $150+ on these?\n\nBecause marketing.\n\n > Are they really that great?\n\nNo.",
"Mostly nothing; in terms of sound they're pretty average headphones. It works on the idea that people *think* they are better because they are more expensive. If I remember correctly they're made by the same company that sells expensive hdmi cables (Monster). It's really not possible to make hdmi cables that give better image quality than the cheap ones, much to the dismay of people who bought into the marketing.",
"They're made by the same company that makes Monster Cables if that says anything...which means, they're simply overpriced. Wearing them is telling the world, you're a sucker.\n",
"I remember hearing a story when I first started working with customer service. two customers are shopping for a frying pan, there is a 20 dollar pan that has all the features you are looking for, and a 30 dollar pan that has a big sticker saying its a 50 dollar value, and you're saving 20 bucks.\n\nsome customers will buy the cheaper pan, you're making eggs and bacon, who cares how much you \"saved\". other customers will buy the 30 dollar pan, and be psyched about how much better it is because they saved 20. Same goes for people who shop at kohls, hsn.\n\nNow imagine there is a 40 dollar pan, and every famous person in the world is seen cooking with it. you dont see any specific advertisements, but everyones using it, and this pan is avaliable at the best cooking store in your neighborhood.\n\nThis is marketing, and monster/beats do it well."
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6aehpf | does fat acts as insulation for your body? | Recently I lost some weight and I noticed that I became more sensitive to cold. Does fat tissue helps to keep warm or is false? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6aehpf/eli5_does_fat_acts_as_insulation_for_your_body/ | {
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"text": [
"Yes. Fat is insulation that helps keep you warm. Many animals in colder environments use layers of fat to maintain warmth. "
]
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[]
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231pes | Native Americans use for oak trees and acorns? | What were some uses that native americans would use oak trees and acorns for? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/231pes/native_americans_use_for_oak_trees_and_acorns/ | {
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"Hopewell communities were making acorn flour with complex processing to remove bitter tannins 2,000 years ago. ",
"You can read about use of Garry Oak acorns by Northwest Coast tribes [here](_URL_0_) (it's a PDF download, the first article is the one). This has been seriously underestimated by archaeologists but evidence is mounting that acorns were an important supplement to the diet in this area, even though they required extensive processing (leaching) to make them edible.\n\nThe reference is, if you don't want to download it:\n\nBethany Mathews 2009.\n\nBalanophagy in the Pacific Northwest: The Acorn Leaching Pits at the Sunken Village Wetsite and Comparative Ethnographic Acorn Use.\n\nJournal of Northwest Anthropology Volume 43 (2): 125 –140."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
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"http://blogs.nwic.edu/briansblog/files/2013/04/Trad-Resources-Vol-1.pdf"
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4mi8uc | what is this special relationship britain has in the eu? | What is this special relationship Britain has in the EU? i keep hearing it with the EU exit very close for the British, but i keep hearing England has this different relationship, What is it, why is it so, what gives the British the right to have it? and can we maintain it after brexit. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4mi8uc/eli5_what_is_this_special_relationship_britain/ | {
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"text": [
"I apologise if this goes against the guidelines, but I had this discussion with a friend of mine and he informed me that the UK (mainly London) is the banking hub of the EU. Since the UK doesn't have a tremendous amount of exports anymore we made up for it with our banking processes, and London has become the main banking hub of most EU countries. I beleive this is one of the reasons for the special relationship but I would need to double check my sources.",
"The UK has various opt outs of EU initiatives, while still being a member. For example the UK is not bound to adopt the Euro currency, where as the other EU countries which don't use the Euro yet are supposed to start using it eventually (except Denmark, they also have an opt out, and Sweden exploits a loophole to avoid it).\n\nThe UK is also not the \"Schengen zone\" which allows borderless travel throughout most of Europe. Although the UK is not unique in that regard because a few other EU countries are not in it."
]
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2chqce | what happens to a rod fixed on one end and spinning at the speed of light? | If a rod was fixed on one end, spinning in circles, and close to the fixed end was moving at the speed of light, wouldn't the outer end of the rod be moving faster than light to make up for the longer distance it was traveling in the same amount of time? Would time slow down the closer to the end of the rod? Or would it be impossible for the rod to physically keep up and it'd break? Throw in the factors of this happening in a vacuum, that the energy is somehow already there to get the rod spinning that fast in the first place, and all the other stuff that probably needs to be there to even make this happen. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2chqce/eli5_what_happens_to_a_rod_fixed_on_one_end_and/ | {
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"Well, first of all nothing with mass can move at the speed of light. As you get faster and faster, the required energy gets exponentially closer to infinity. In any case, any actual rod would disintegrate long before you got anywhere close to c.",
"Impossible apparently!\n\n_URL_0_",
"There are several possibilities, because it would take infinite energy to move any part of the rod at the speed of light.\n\nSo - if the rod was rigid, it would break somewhere between the fixed end and the part that needs to go at light speed to keep up. Somewhere along that distance one group of atoms need to pull the adjacent group with infinite force... That's going to break whatever bond there was between them.\n\nIf the rod was flexible... It would bend, and probably wind into a coil given how fast the inner part is spinning.\n\nLastly, if the rod was infinitely strong, you just wouldn't have enough energy to spin the inner part at any speed that requires going faster than light along the rod.",
"When you spin the rod, it bends before the end of it starts moving. If you take a long indestructible rod it will likely bend into a spiral before the end starts moving, that's why some thought experiments mention that the rod is *unbendable*. But then you can't spin it at all. ",
"I am 99% sure that relativity wouldn't even come into this. As you spin a rod faster and faster (assuming the acceleration is gentle enough that the rod doesn't bend), the stress in the rod generated by centrifugal force will eventually overcome the yield stress of the material and the rod will break at the base where the force is strongest.\n\nFor the pedants, I'm talking about [reactive centrifugal force](_URL_0_)- the real force that balances the centripetal force.",
"All good answers. Thank you. I guess I was probably stretching science/physics into something a bit more philosophical since it can't actually occur. I suppose if it somehow supernaturally did, then the answer would be just that: the outer end of the rod would be moving faster than the speed of light. But that's the same as saying, \"What would happen if the center of the sun turned to ice?\" Well...that's impossible. But if it were to occur, then the answer would be that the center of the sun would be ice and you would be a wizard."
]
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[],
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"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPsG8td7C5k&t=1m36s"
],
[],
[],
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactive_centrifugal_force"
],
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3ofpd7 | how did the gameboy color and the gameboy advance 'know' the colors they had to use for original gameboy games that were black and white? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ofpd7/eli5_how_did_the_gameboy_color_and_the_gameboy/ | {
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"The gameboy color contained a small database of known games with ideal color palette for it (chosen between 12 palettes that the gameboy color could offer for uncolored games.)\n\nIf a game was not in its database, then it didn't choose. The default was the green-themed palette.\n\nGames are identified with a small, unique number, which uniqueness was ensured by Nintendo attributing them for the right to make cartridges of the game.\n",
"It didn't. The original gameboy only knew 4 colors (2-bit grayscale), and the GBC just swapped those colors with a 4 color palette. However, it differentiated between specific objects, and the background, so in the end most games used 8~10 different colors when colorfied. You could swap these palettes during boot by pressing a direction on the d-pad and A/B/nothing.\n\nBut some games just looked awesome! That is because the GBC came shipped with some specific palettes for specific games. That's why some games like Link's Awakening or Pokemon looked so awesome in color."
]
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[],
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2eau92 | Why doesn't Ebola-Zaire kill bats? | One prevailing idea is that the Zaire strain of Ebola traveled 2,500 miles from the DRC to West Africa via bats. Do we know specifically what (broad) molecular mechanisms allow bats to carry filoviruses like Ebola and Marburg without destroying their vasculature and organs like they do in humans? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2eau92/why_doesnt_ebolazaire_kill_bats/ | {
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"Killing a host quickly with a hemorrhagic fever is not a very good way spread a virus, because the host will often die before it has a chance to infect another individual. The ebola virus (is thought to) initially exist in bats, as a non-lethal pathogen. Basically, it just so happens that when it infects humans it results in a really horrible and rapid death, but that is not what the virus intended to do (I know I shouldn't personify viruses, but it makes it easier to explain). The virus is much more evolutionarily fit when it is passed among healthy bat hosts. Humans with ebola are just accidents.",
"One hypothesis is that [bats are immune to this virus](_URL_1_), because this was for any reason, a selective pressure to them, so, eventually, the bats acquired resistance to the molecular mechanisms the virus uses to infect the host; or [bats are only a vector](_URL_0_), thus, the virus doesn't infect because if they did so, they won't have a way to spread out.\nOther ideas are that bats aren't the only vectors, environmental factors are required to activate virus infection. But, most likely, more research is required to achieve better understanding about this issue."
]
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[],
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"http://jid.oxfordjournals.org/content/179/Supplement_1/S127.full.pdf+html",
"http://www.nihbrp.com/Citations/completed/HumanHealthEcologyTeam/filoviruses-Ebola_and_Marburg/Groseth_Ecology_Ebola_2007.pdf"
]
] | |
61mbs0 | Was George Washington really a brilliant strategist? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/61mbs0/was_george_washington_really_a_brilliant/ | {
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"\"Brilliant\" is a bit of a tough term to define, as, for that matter, is \"strategy\". A colonel lecturing at the US Army War College in 1939 pointed to a previous writer who \"quotes nineteen different definitions [of strategy] and then makes up one of his own\" (Weigley, xvi). However, I'll take the question in the spirit in which it is intended, while giving a more general answer which fits the general nature of the question. Broadly, historians tend to agree that in terms of keeping the Revolution going, Washington was an outstanding...something. They often disagree as to what, exactly--general, politician, moral force, etc. I'll use a source which answers your question very directly here, rather than delving into multiple obliquely related narratives. \n\nRussell Weigley, in his *The American Way of War: A History of United States Military Strategy and Policy*, spends a chapter focusing on Washington and his strategy. He points out that GW's strategy was shaped by a military poverty which created challenges that were very different from what modern American commanders face. Thus, he took on the strategic defensive as his main technique for winning the war, which in turn put him in a position to avoid and even lose battles in an effort to keep the Continental Army, and consequently the Revolution, intact. His hope was that by making the war costly, and--later, once it became an option--depending on France to do the heavy lifting abroad, he would be able to convince the British to just...go away. On what may be considered a strategic level as well, Weigley states that GW was an abysmal cavalry general (in part due to lack of same) and an outstanding chief of intelligence--perhaps the best battlefield commander to ever serve in that role in the US military. Weigley concludes that while Washington's strategy may have prolonged the war needlessly, it worked, which is the ultimate measure of effectiveness. So, brilliant strategist? Perhaps, in some regards. Competent strategist? Certainly. If you ask a more specific question you may get more/better information for your intended result. \n\n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
bdpxae | Why did Paris become France’s largest and most powerful city through the Middle Ages and after? | It’s up in the colder north, not near the ocean, and not near the Mediterranean where much of the wealth and trade was at during antiquity and early Middle Ages. How did the spot where Paris resides become the Paris we know? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/bdpxae/why_did_paris_become_frances_largest_and_most/ | {
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"The emergence of Paris as a main city in Late Antiquity and Early Middle-Ages is rather, at the contrary, due to its geographical situation both human and politic.\n\nFirst, Ile-de-France isn't that cold : mild to warm winters with mild summers, it's climatically much less cold than Brittania or Germania. \nThen, while not set on the coast, the Seine is a perfectly navigable waterway, [which is remembered in Paris' arms](_URL_0_).\n\nThe preceeding Gaulish oppidum of Lucotetia (maybe set some kilometres westwards of the modern city, at Nanterre) as it emerged in the IIIrd century is better understood trough the trade ways between Britain and North Sea from one hand, and Mediterranean Sea on the other, trough the Rhone and Seine rivers (which formed one of the tin trade ways since centuries) which took a great importance between Romans and Aiduoi after the Roman conquest of southern Gaul ([Parisioi being under Aiduoi's political influence](_URL_1_)) for exemple in the really fructuous wine trade for Gaulish and British consumption. \nThe role of the Seine in Lucotetia/Lutetia's prosperity is highlighted by the importance of *nautae*,a fraternity of traders and ship owners present in other river ports (such as Lyons)..\n\nAfter the Roman conquest, this wouldn't change much in spite of Lutetia's \"relocation\" to its current center : the city remained fairly prosperous and a similar urban romanization to what happened elsewhere in Gaul (municipal ervegetism, imperial acknowledgement, Latin and Roman Law, etc.). But it wasn't that important and was actually not that discernible from other provincial secondary cities and beyond main cities of northern Gaul such as Rheims. Even the division of the province and the establishment of Lugdunensis IV propelled Sens as regional capital.\n\nStill, the city grew in importance with the Late Empire : it controlled a fortified crossing point on the Seine, it waterway trade allowed the city to be easily supplied and to garrison a fluvial patrol, and it was far enough from the limes or raided shores. Julian made the city his headquarters during the campaigns against Alamans. This centrality gave Paris (from the usual Urbs/Civitas Parisianorum, then Parisius) an importance not relative to its demographic or institutional weight, while being relatively spared the worst of the Late Empire (suburbs surviving, on both banks, the fall of the Empire) at the contrary of important cities such as Rheims or Trier, while other main cities in Gaul tended to decline (Saintes as soon as the IInd, Lyons in the IIIrd) \nAs Franks took over Gaul, Paris not only kept this role but it began to overshadow other provincial cities of northern Gaul : Clovis made Paris one of his main residences (at the imitation of Julian and Valentinian? The presence of the palatial-baths network certainly played a major role) and his successors, while sometimes making Paris the capital of one specific sub-kingdom, still considered the city important enough to jointly share its jurisdiction and benefices.\n\nThe Merovingian period of Paris seems to have been prosperous, the city gaining back some peripheral areas abandoned in the Late Empire, in no small part thanks to this royal protection and the same old Rhone-Seine axis from Provence to Anglo-Saxon Britain carrying prestigious Mediterranean goods. It's not that Paris dramatically blossomed in early Middle-Ages, than other cities either declined or didn't beneficed from royal patronage and religious ervegetism.\n\nEven the decline of Mediterranean trade in the VIth to VIIth centuries didn't that impaired Paris' fluvial port, even if the Carolingian period is traditionally considered to coincide with a decline (at least political) of the city as the trade roads shifted to North Sea/Rhine. By Carolingian times, Paris was considered the natural chief city of Francia (understood as the region between Loire and Meuse, roughly)\n\nBut as Vikings raided multiple times Paris's port and city while long-range trade largely vanished. These raids significantly damaged Paris, however, and reinforced its decline compared to neighbouring cities, especially Orléans during the reign of Robertians and early Capetians.\n\nNevertheless, at the end of the general crisis of the Xth century, Paris' location and semi-institutional importance only grew again for the same reasons than before. Capetians favoured their main residence in the same time it became a major trade place (at first for grain produced in the fertile region).\n\nFar from disadvantaging the growth of Paris, its location in conjunction with political importance and support, allowed it to become a demographic giant in medieval era, comparable to Italian cities in size and population, while other Gallic cities remained part of an urban network without one really going out of the lot (at the exception of Orléans in the VIIIth and IXth centuries) to rival Paris."
]
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"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/Maps_of_Eduens_people-fr.svg"
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a0u5qn | When people spoke in a formal way in the past, was it actually formal? Or did it feel casual to them? | I'm mainly thinking about the 19th century.
Did saying 'good day sir, how are you?' feel the same / carry the same meaning as saying 'what's up man, how's it going?' does now - or was life just experienced in a more formal way back then?
Would a me born 150 years ago would feel as casual as the me born now? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/a0u5qn/when_people_spoke_in_a_formal_way_in_the_past_was/ | {
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"Historical linguist here. I've got a few insights, but you may be interested in asking on r/linguistics to find some more experts on the subject.\n\nI can't speak to whether \"life was just experienced in a more formal way back then\". We may have that impression about the past (in certain cultures) but it may have more to do with the type of language used in surviving records. Today, we can find recorded examples of casual language pretty easily (e.g. on Reddit, Youtube) because it's easy to self-publish and we have a culture of publishing informal things. But depending on what era you're talking about, having your voice recorded and/or writing something down in a form likely to last was a bigger deal, so the language we see in those records is not necessarily a great indication of the way people would have spoken at home with their family and friends.\n\nIn any language and any era, you'll likely find some significant linguistic variation based on register. That is, just as today we have \"how are you\" and \"what's up\", similar contrasts existed in older forms of English (just look up \"1800s slang\" for some examples).\n\nSometimes a form that used to be just the normal way of saying things becomes over time restricted to more formal situations. My research is on Romance languages, so I know better examples with that than with English. In French, \"I don't know\" used to be *Je ne sais pas*. Nowadays, the *ne* is usually left out in casual speech: *Je sais pas*, but you still hear the *ne* sometimes if the style is more formal. [Source](_URL_0_). Although I don't know as much about English, I think a similar example might be the use of contractions: \"I do not know\" vs \"I don't know\".\n\nHowever, it's not automatic that the regular, casual speech of yesterday becomes the formal speech of today. Sometimes words or phrases simply die out, and aren't used in any situation, formal or informal. Nobody still says \"bully\" the way that Teddy Roosevelt did. Other times, a previously standard form can become restricted to a particular type of usage, but not necessarily formal situations. Again, in my area of expertise of French, the simple past tense (*Je fus* instead of *J'ai été* for \"I was\") used to be totally normal, but now it's restricted to literature. So some writers are still publishing books where they use that tense, but it's never really used in speech, even if it's a very formal situation. Another example from English is the thee/thou/thy/thine form of \"you\". Those words are still used in some Christian religious traditions as part of the language of prayer (due to influence from the King James version of the Bible). But they are not used in formal situations in general.\n\nMaybe someone else can provide more quantitative data on how much of the language restricted to formal registers today used to be informal. My intuition, although I don't know for sure if this is true in English, is that today's formal language is derived from yesterday's formal language for the most part, and changes very slowly, while informal language changes much more rapidly. So 100 years ago, the slang was very different but the polite forms would still be pretty recognizable.\n\nDoug Biber has written a lot about register variation, and I see that [this book of his](_URL_1_) has a chapter about variation over time, but I haven't read it.\n\n & #x200B;"
]
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"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0388000101000158",
"https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=c2eN9Z5uNdQC&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=formality+linguistics+diachronic&ots=OgFLtI27Ce&sig=Oi1BvxguXWbbhO6tVqqVcLPa--I#v=onepage&q=formality%20linguistics%20diachronic... | |
1qb3uk | NSFW? Attitude towards rape in America. (1750's-1870's) | Unsure if this qualifies as NSFW so I'll do it anyways just in case.
I was just hoping if anyone could tell me how rape was handled/treated in the this time period. I plan on doing a presentation about women's rights from around the revolution through reconstruction.
**Explanation:** I ask this because of a poem written by Louisa Cheves McCord, a woman **against** women's rights, or at least for the feminine ideal. In this poem she states:
> A women-nature holier than the man's--
> Purer of impulse, and of gentler mould
Women in this time were held to higher moral standards than men, as they are today. Similar to the "White Man's Burden" those considered to have a higher moral understanding were responsible for those who did not. It's clear that this persists today when a woman is raped and we hear people ask "what was she wearing?" or "she should have known better than to go down that street." How/was it different? Better? Worse? Sources given would be appreciated.
**edit**: a lot of stuff | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1qb3uk/nsfw_attitude_towards_rape_in_america_1750s1870s/ | {
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"This is a great question. I've done a bit of historiography research on this topic.\n\nIdeas of consent didn't quite exist for a lot of this time. Women were supposed to be flirtatious and coy, so saying no was sometimes considered just part of the cat and mouse game. Women who claimed rape were often vilified, even little girls who were raped were said to have wanted it (as young as toddlers). It was incredibly hard to make a rape accusation stick in court. This also became more complicated when race came into play.\n\nI have an entire historiographic paper I would be happy to share with you if you are interested in the longer answer to this.\n\nHere are some books if you'd like to do some further research yourself:\n\n- Martha Hodes, *White Women, Black Men: Illicit Sex in the Nineteenth-Century South* (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997)\n- Diane Miller Sommerville, *Rape and Race in the Nineteenth-Century South* (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004)\n- Sharon Block, *Rape and Sexual Power in Early America* (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006)\n- Richard Godbeer, *Sexual Revolution in Early America* (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 2002)"
]
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[]
] | |
1x7lrz | how when lifting weights, i lift until i don't have the strength, then 60 seconds later it's back. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1x7lrz/eli5_how_when_lifting_weights_i_lift_until_i_dont/ | {
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"text": [
"Its called Momentary Muscle Failure. As your lifting weights, your cells use up its energy and oxygen. When you take the 60s break, your blood gets oxygen back to your muscle cells",
"Your muscles are an extension of what you do with your lungs... Run on a treadmill at 10 or 12 speel or higher for however long you can. At a certain point, your lungs cant draw in enough oxygen to fuel your body, for many reasons:\nMaybe youre fat, out of shape, siclke cell anemia, etc, etc.\n\nThe hemogoloin in your blood cant get the oxygen from your blood to your body and back out again fast enough... Like juggling.\n\nLets say youre juggling 3 bowling pins, add another, and another, and another. Eventually you will get to the point where you just simply dont have enough hands. If you magically grew a hand or (capacity) then you could juggle more pins. Now if i slowly take a pin away, it gets easier and easier for you.\n\nSo, when you stop lifting, youre catching your breath, allowing your body to take in oxygen and expell Co2 out of your system until you can do it again. There are other properties to this, but this is a general picture of it.\n"
]
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27gj8m | why do jeans have rivots? | Was there a structural, manufacturing or historical reason?
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/27gj8m/eli5_why_do_jeans_have_rivots/ | {
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"text": [
"They are sturdier than stitching alone. Plus they are usually in places where several layers overlap so it helps hold it all together I assume.\n\nEdit: spelling"
]
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[]
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6zvsq3 | if someone is sentenced in the court of law to not go near a computer(as a part of their punishment), how are they expected to make a living? | Most jobs now-a-days require a computer. If a person is barred from using a computer, what happens to them? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6zvsq3/eli5_if_someone_is_sentenced_in_the_court_of_law/ | {
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"This has happened to hackers convicted before, some find other things to do or end up hiring programmers who can get near computers to implement their designs. Some become security consultants. ",
"Carpentry. Cooking. Child care. Road paving. Picture framing. Pottery. Farm equipment driving. Teaching tennis. ...",
"You are expected to do a job that does not involve computers. Physical labor, cooking, stocking a store, janitor, farming, etc. ",
"As a side note - I wonder if those same people that are sentenced to not use a computer are able to use a smart phone? I mean, if you get right down to it a computer could be defined as a lot of different things that people use everyday without realizing (cash registers, ATM, are a couple I can think of quickly).",
"Having no access at all to a computer is a rare case. Most cases, felons are not permitted to have any *unsupervised* access to computers or internet. This is checked on and enforced by a parole officer, and is only enforceable for the period of parole or probation as defined by the court judgement. \n\nThey are allowed to use a computer at work, as long as the employer can monitor and provide logs to law enforcement as needed. Same for public library access. Access has to be login restricted and browsing history and usage has to be logged and reported.\n\nA personal home computer or smartphone is a no go. An exception might be made for a computer at home, so long as the parole officer or other law enforcement is satisfied that it cannot connect to the internet and it can and will be taken at any time for a forensic inspection. ",
"How about DON'T DO THE BLOODY CRIME IN THE FIRST PLACE?!?!"
]
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2yt96t | Can a dream that we don't remember affect our mood when we we wake up in the morning? | Can a bad dream make us depressed in the morning? Can a pleasant dream make us enthusiastic and motivated? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2yt96t/can_a_dream_that_we_dont_remember_affect_our_mood/ | {
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"I don't have any sources, but I imagine it would. The forgotten dream could act as a priming cue for the events of the day. I doubt it would be a large effect, though research into subliminal perception has shown that we can be affected by stimuli that we did not consciously perceive. I'd imagine the dream would work in the same way.\n\nI could also see the dream affecting your associative networks, but that's just a guess. Perhaps a very vivid dream could cause lasting effects in your neural structure and function, which would then cause subsequent effects in the morning despite a conscious awareness of the particular dream.\n\n\nWish I knew more about dreaming but that's all I can come up with right now.",
"Lots of work has shown that your moods (even your [behavior](_URL_1_)) can be affected by influences outside of conscious awareness. It would be extremely difficult to study whether dreams that you don't remember *specifically cause* moods (because you can't randomly assign people to experience happy or sad dreams, or to remember or forget dreams (although you could poll a ton of people and build a multi-level model)), but I think it is appropriate to say that the evidence suggests no obvious reason why this wouldn't be the case.\n\nAs Quasarstoquarks suggests, evidence from experiments on [Priming](_URL_0_) have shown that influences outside of conscious awareness can make people more cooperative, more obedient, more competitive, and happier (and can even make people walk more slowly). The same should be true for dreams that one experienced but can not remember."
]
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"http://people.virginia.edu/~tdw/nisbett&wilson.pdf"
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1bg4az | What was the typical composition of armor units in WW2? | I'm interested in understanding the typical composition of armor platoons, companies, and battalions in World War Two. I'm happy to hear about whichever nation you can tell me about. Ideally, I'd like to know how many tanks, what sort, how much infantry, etc. Thanks. | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1bg4az/what_was_the_typical_composition_of_armor_units/ | {
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"Bayonet Strength has breakdowns of Armoured Divisions for the [British](_URL_0_), [Americans](_URL_2_), and [Germans](_URL_1_). They're all according to the Official War Establishments of each nation, so you'll see stuff like 'Cruiser tanks' or 'Infantry tanks' being referred to with the British, but otherwise, that'll answer all your questions.\n\nAs far as individual Squadrons and Troops are concerned, for the Commonwealth, by D-Day the establishment was typically 3 Squadrons of 4 Troops of 4 Shermans + 1 Firefly each, plus an HQ Squadron with two Shermans, an AA Troop with 6-8 Crusader III AA tanks, a Reconnaissance Troop with 11 Stuarts, 4 ARVs, 9 Daimler armoured cars for communicating between Squadrons and HQ, and then your ancillary support vehicles - trucks, jeeps, etc.",
"The problem with the Germans was that there was no such thing as typical in reality. The Germans were quite fond of Kampfgruppen which were ad hoc units. A Kampfgruppe was a force put together to accomplish an objective. When the objective was accomplished, or the objective was given up, the Kampfgruppe was disbanded. These were tailor made forces for the objective. If they needed more tanks they had more tanks than usual. If it needed less tanks it'd have less tanks. \n\n",
"In this post, I will be detailing the armor strengths allotted to one of my favorite German formations, the Großdeutschland Panzer-Grenadier-Division. I will also describe the divisions other combat sub-units. As /u/panzerkampfwagen points out, German units were often far from their strength at full establishment. Below the regimental level, sub-units were formed and dissolved fairly regularly to accommodate for losses and reinforcements. \n\nTOE of the Großdeutschland Panzer-Grenadier-Division (July, 1944)\n\n- Panzer Regiment Großdeutschland (3 Abteilung)\n\nAbteilung 1: Panzer V (Panther) \n\nAbteilung 2: Panzer IV \n\nAbteilung 3: Panzer VI (Tiger)\n\nEach abteilung was divided into a stabs-kompanie and four companies of tanks. There were also supply and workshop columns at the regimental level. The standard Heer panzer platoon at this point in the war would have been assigned 3-5 tanks, and the company headquarters section would have controlled an additional 1-2 tanks. Please note that the Panzergrenadier Division Großdeutschland, despite its name, was actually stronger than normal Heer Panzer Divisions, which only included 2 abteilung of tanks. The Division also had one more infanterie battalion in each infanterie regiment.\n\n-Panzergrenadier Regiment Großdeutschland\n\nThis regiment included 3 battalions, which each controlled 4 companies of infantry. The regimental commander additionally maintained direct control over the 13th-16th companies (Infantry Guns (Basically Light Artillery), Combat Engineers, Anti-Tank, and Anti-Aircraft). The first battalion was equipped with Sdkfz. 251 armored personnel carriers. \n\n-Panzer Fusilier Regiment Großdeutschland\n\nThis unit was organized in the same manner as its sister regiment.\n\n- Panzer Aufklarung Abteilung Großdeutschland\n\nThis formation included its own supply column, a squadron of Panzer 38t \"Hetzer\" tank destroyers, two squadrons of mechanized panzer grenadiers, and a heavy weapons squadron containing anti-tank guns and mortars.\n\n- Heeres Flak Abteilung Großdeutschland\n\nThis units first, second, and third batteries operated heavy 8.8 centimeter flak cannons, the fourth and fifth batteries controlled medium AA pieces, and the sixth operated light AA cannons.\n\n-Panzer Artillerie Regiment Großdeutschland\n\nThis regiment contained four abteilung. The first was supposed to be entirely self-propelled, with the first and second batteries operating Wespe vehicles, and the third manning Hummel self-propelled cannons.\nThe remaining abteilung controlled three (two in the case of 4. Abteilung) batteries equipped with weapons of varying sizes.\n\n-Sturmgeschütz Brigade Großdeutschland\n\nThe Stug brigade controlled three batteries of 10 vehicles each. It also contained a staff company and its own logistics units.\n\n-Panzer Pionier Battalion Großdeutschland\n\nThe combat engineer battalion included a staff company, the first (mechanized) company, three additional motorized companies, and two bridging columns. \n\nSource:\n\nThe History of the Panzerkorps Großdeutschland (Volume 2) by Helmuth Spaeter\n\n\n\n\n"
]
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"http://www.bayonetstrength.150m.com/German/Divisions/german_divisional_organisations.htm",
"http://www.bayonetstrength.150m.com/UnitedStates/Divisions/united_states_army_divisional_organisations.htm"
],
... | |
8812u1 | if the human body consists of 70-80% water, and if said water were to be drained out, what would my actual weight be? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8812u1/eli5_if_the_human_body_consists_of_7080_water_and/ | {
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"I feel like this is just a question of simple math with the unknown variable being OP's original weight. What is the concept to be explained here?"
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fyf9f4 | Do organisms like bacteria or tardigrades sleep? Or something equivalent to sleep? | Im not sure how to think about this. I always associated sleep with having a brain and some degree of consciousness, but thinking of an organism that never shuts down and always works sounds, well tiring i guess | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/fyf9f4/do_organisms_like_bacteria_or_tardigrades_sleep/ | {
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"Yes. Plants, too, will stop photosynthesis after eight to twelve hours depending on species and latitude, and instead their metabolism switches to the same as animals have: Use O2, produce CO2. \n \nBacteria can become periodically dormant; during that time they don't undergo cell division and their metabolism slows. However it is important to note that particularly for Bacteria that make spores, this is a direct survival strategy because in that state, they are more likely to survive any adverse conditions. \n \nI don't know anything particular about tardigrade sleep but Caenorhabditis elegans - a thread worm that is extremely popular in biological research - does sleep, too. It has slightly over ~~40~~ 300 neurons in total and we know what every single one does, but it also periodically reduces its overall activity and rests - sleep for all intents and purposes. Perchance to dream? Who knows.",
"Almost everything goes through a dormant period, but the kind of sleep that we do that is critical for brain function is rare in living things and limited to animals. Not even all mammals do it. Dolphins, for instance, only shut part of their brain down at a time, so they never fully sleep. Most things just go through a dormant period to reduce resource use and waste production when resources are scarce.",
"Depends on what you mean by sleep. If you’re just referring to a time where an organism has little to no activity then yes. \n\nPretty much every animal at some point stops being active. \n\nIf you mean sleep as in the organism goes into a form suspended awareness then no. For that I assume you’d have to have a brain. But I’m not an expert so grain of salt."
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1lb0n1 | why isn't there a law that stops copycat bills from being written/voted on again just months after it was voted against? | I understand that sometimes we need to vote on something again because it was written poorly the first time, but thinking of things like SOPA. Can't they say, we will not look a bill that pushes this agenda again for at least one calender year? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1lb0n1/why_isnt_there_a_law_that_stops_copycat_bills/ | {
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"Doubtful. It probably violate the first amendment by limiting the right of the people to petition the government with a redress of grievances.",
"A couple of reasons:\n\nFirstly, how do you define the agenda? Can only one healthcare bill be voted on per year? Only one bill discussing Medicare? Only one bill discussing cuts to Medicare? There are lots of bills on similar subjects- they don't all have the same agenda.\n\nSecondly, remember that the point of resubmitting bills is to compromise. Someone can make changes that were argued before and resubmit. That's a good thing- bills shouldn't be accepted on their first try. Compromise and discussion is a good thing.\n\nFinally, remember that the people that wanted SOPA are still in office. Why wouldn't they try to pass a bill they still support? There's no reason for congress to agree to only discuss each subject once a year- a year later, everyone will still be there and the discussion will be had again.",
"The simple reason is that no law has been passed, so such an idea can't be enforced. As for why such a law would be unlikely to help:\n\n- Situations change. Imagine there is a bill to declare war on Japan. It's rejected. The next day, Japan attacks Pearl Harbor. Now declaring war would make sense, but now it would impossible to do so.\n\n- It's hard to distinguish between \"written poorly\" and changed ideas. I honestly can't think of a good way to differentiate between modified slightly and corrected for writing issues.\n\n- Attitudes change over time. Things like gay marriage have gotten much more favorable reputations over a short period of time. Is it right to delay marriage rights to people just because there was one too many opponents a few months ago, possibly with different legislators?\n\n- The law wouldn't really solve anything. If a large proportion of the legislature thinks, \"We just voted on this. There's no point in doing this again,\" then the bill won't get brought up or they can invoke cloture. Cloture is a procedure where if 2/3 of senators present agree to it, debate ends automatically. This procedure already exists and it is more useful since bills can be looked at on a case-by-case basis. "
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cyqm20 | What's the smallest organism that's considered an animal to ever exist? | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/cyqm20/whats_the_smallest_organism_thats_considered_an/ | {
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"The smallest living animal is probably a type of parasitic cnidarian of class Myxozoa, the smallest of which (*Myxobolus shekel*) reaches about 8.5 µm when fully grown: _URL_0_\n\nEdit: I am not aware of any known fossil animal that’s smaller, though of course it’s possible!"
]
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myxozoa"
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2jvgxi | Are there differential equations whose numerical solution suggests that there is an analytical one, but we haven't found it yet? | If the numerical solution to a differential equation stays within a very close range to a function, e.g. sin(x) +- 0.00001, it strongly suggests that the analytical solution would be sin(x).
Are there examples where this is the case but we are unable to prove it, that is we can't derive the analytical solution from the differential equation? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2jvgxi/are_there_differential_equations_whose_numerical/ | {
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"If we suspect something is a solution to a differential equation (like sin(x) in your example) we'll just plug it in to the equation to check if it's correct. This obviously wouldn't show that sin(x) is the most general solution, but checking if it is a particular solution would be rather easy.",
"There exist theorems in DE that tell us if \n\n* A Solution exists\n* If it it unique\n\nSo we really don't need to rely on numerical methods to tell us if we should go looking for solutions. We know they exist, but perhaps they have no analytical expression, perhaps not even as special functions (Like Airy, Bairy, Bessel Y, Bessel J, etc).\n\nThat being said, you raise a good question about experimental mathematics. Can experiment give insight into mathematics? Traditionally, it is the opposite. My former advisor works in this field, and if you have further questions, PM them to me. Maybe I can ask him."
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p3gcr | Is having a conversation with passengers in a car any different than having one with someone on a handsfree device? | There's a lot of hooplah about using cell phones while driving, and some states have banned handsfree devices as well. My question, therefore, is this: If you use a handsfree device that allows you to never take your hands off of the wheel or eyes off of the road, is it any different than conversing with a passenger? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/p3gcr/is_having_a_conversation_with_passengers_in_a_car/ | {
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"The scientific literature is mixed on the dangers of talking on a cell phone versus those of talking with a passenger. The common conception is that passengers are able to better regulate conversation based on the perceived level of danger, therefore the risk is negligible.\n\n_URL_0_",
"The explanation I have heard is that the brain must use more focus to process a (any) conversation where the other party cannot be seen. Normally, we relate and communicate face-to-face not only verbally, but visually as well. We pick up on facial ticks and body language during a discussion that communicates for more than just the words coming out of a speaker's mouth. \nWhen we cannot see the other party's face and body during a phone conversation, our brain must work harder in order to assess the communication being made. Simply put, our brain gets distracted from driving while it tries to cope with the limitations of audio only conversations. So whether your hands are free or not, the distraction comes from the brain having to work harder to understand the speaker and not from having to work harder juggling a phone and steering wheel. \nNotice how people often pace a room when speaking on the phone? It's a stress release behavior because the brain can't easily process what it otherwise would use to effectively understand the communication. Citation needed. Hope this was helpful."
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phones_and_driving_safety#Comparisons_with_passenger_conversation"
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8oshke | Prominent Land Revolutions In History | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/8oshke/prominent_land_revolutions_in_history/ | {
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"Sorry, we don't allow [\"example seeking\" questions](_URL_0_). It's not that your question was bad; it's that these kinds of questions tend to produce threads that are collections of disjointed, partial, inadequate responses. If you have a question about a specific historical event, period, or person, feel free to rewrite your question and submit it again. If you don't want to rewrite it, you might try submitting it to /r/history, /r/askhistory, or /r/tellmeafact. \n\nFor further explanation of the rule, feel free to consult [this META thread](_URL_1_)."
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4rptki | how pokemon go works. | I couldn't find any info online. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4rptki/eli5_how_pokemon_go_works/ | {
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"The basics of it are fairly simple. It uses your phone's GPS to know your location, and it makes polimon appear when you \"look around\" using the phone camera. \n\nThe locations to find pokemon are culled from a list of public interest locations the same as any GPS program does. So it knows where public parks and things of that nature are located. \n\nAfter all that, it's just a standard game layed on top. \n\nIt's made by the same people who made Ingress several years ago and it's basiclly very similer in the way it incorporates AR elements. Hopefully it'll be more widely played than ingress and will be more relevant longer term. "
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3ezg2w | Why is the refutation of Hawking's theory on black holes scientifically acceptable? | What makes the explanation of why Hawking's theory of black holes, [as given](_URL_0_) by Suskind and t'Hooft, scientifically acceptable?
Their argument says: "Hawking's math is uses quantum theory and Hawking's math is correct. Hawking's math says information is destroyed. However a principle of quantum theory says information cannot be destroyed. If information is destroyed then our understanding of physics is undermined and that is not useful to physics therefore Hawking is wrong".
How could that possibly be a scientifically or logically acceptable answer? Doesn't that just mean there is an error with the assumptions of quantum theory that require information to remain? Is mathematics not the substance from which the "principles" arise?
My head is full of fuck. | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/3ezg2w/why_is_the_refutation_of_hawkings_theory_on_black/ | {
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"It's not a solved problem so the refutation is philosophical. Susskind and t'Hooft are exceedingly smart people, they justify their conclusion by holding information conversation as the more fundamental principle in physics. To them, they know GR must be incomplete at some level, therefore the extension/modification to GR should retain information conservation. \n\n > Doesn't that just mean there is an error with the assumptions of quantum theory that require information to remain? \n\nIt could very well be that, or it could be a problem with general relativity. Or even both. We really don't know as we have no experimental way to determine the outcome. As I understand it Hawking has since conceded his position that black holes truly destroy information, but the argument that he used to convince himself is controversial.",
"The problem with using quantum theory close to a black hole is that you obviously cannot ignore gravity, which is done in all usual quantum theoretical calculations, as we do not have a good way to include gravity in quantum theory. Hawkings conclusions therefore lead to a paradoxon (Information cannot be destroyed in QM < - > Information is destroyed when applying QM to black holes). From this point, it is maybe the more reasonable approach to assume that we don't understand what is going on there and that we need a new theory.",
"Hawking's calculation, like most calculations of QFT in curved spacetime, does not have the spacetime *react back* to the quantum matter, as it strictly speaking should (and which is the main problem of quantum gravity). It assumes that the state of the background spacetime does not change at all in response to the infalling matter. So it's leaving out what could be an important mechanism in getting information out of the black hole. There are approximations involved that might be forgetting important parts of the problem. Keep in mind that, as you said, Hawking applied QM to the black hole problem. Since information is conserved in QM, and he concluded that information is destroyed in this scenario, the calculation cannot actually be *fully* correct. The approximations left out certain features of the problem that may be very important. That Hawking was \"wrong\" in this sense is not actually in question; what's in question is whether or not the fully detailed description (whatever it is) modifies this conclusion.\n\nIn general QM is usually considered more fundamental than GR. Quantum mechanics is a different type of *logic*, essentially, than classical mechanics. It's not just another random differential equation; the structure of QM is logically distinct from any form of classical reasoning, and also seems quite 'rigid', in that attempted modifications are usually immediately ridiculous. QM is a broader principle, not a single theory. GR is only experimentally observed \"in aggregate\", looking at large cumulative effects, and so there's more potential for some small-scale effect to modify the theory in the direction of QM. Moreover we have at least one theory of quantum gravity (string theory, whether or not it's actually correct) in which QM is unmodified but GR is. The conservation of information *seems* to be the case here, but a fully detailed description hasn't been found. So the comparative difficulty of destroying information vs making GR quantum is seen as a sort of 'theoretical evidence' that modifying GR and conserving information is probably the right way to go, since we know that in principle it's an approach that can actually work. Of course that's not definitive until all the details are laid out, which hasn't happened yet and we may still end up being surprised."
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1l3zsv | what exactly does it mean to be socially liberal but economically conservative? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1l3zsv/eli5_what_exactly_does_it_mean_to_be_socially/ | {
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"It's to hold liberal positions on social value issues (abortion, gay rights etc.) while holding conservative positions on economic questions (against government intervention in the marketplace, against taxation, for balanced public budgets, against Keynesian policies = the state moderating the effects of boom-and-bust business cycles by stimulating demand (with debt funding) during the bust).",
"Both positions are characterised by a belief that the government should stay out of way of the people. Socially this can mean that the government souldn't be telling people what drugs they are allowed to put into their bodies, or what kind of person they're allowed to marry, while economically it may involve the belief that the government souldn't tax or regulate businesses as much as it does.",
"It means you like gays, but you won't buy them a drink. \n\n...in seriousness, it means you have liberal-like political and social values; financially, you are conservative, and you do not spend freely (not a \"cheapo\", but more so, fiscally shrewd)."
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hjt7k | Need help debunking alternative medicine [Biology, Atomic Physics] | So, my mother has gotten into alternative medicines which I consider to be total malarkey, such as this [Safe Connect Plus House Shield](_URL_0_). What these devices claim to do is " exposes the electrical current to a natural subtle energy field composed of a range of frequencies that are vital to your health".
I've taken the shield in question apart, and it appears to be a simple lightbulb with motion sensor. Can anyone see a problem to point at to prove the fraudulency of this "house shield"
Of course, if there turn out to be truth behind this, I'll eat my shoe. | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/hjt7k/need_help_debunking_alternative_medicine_biology/ | {
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"So, for science I went to read this website. But you don't have to: \n\n > Safe~Connect Plus+ House Shields soften and reformat the electrical emissions with 200+ encoded balancing frequencies for home or office! This thoroughly exposes the electrical current to a natural subtle energy field composed of a range of frequencies that are vital to your health, keeping you safe and grounded. One House Shield protects up to 2000 sq ft. For a two-story house, we recommend using one upstairs at one end and another downstairs at the opposite end of the house. These Shields are approx. (110 mm/4 inches) tall from the base to the tip and come in stylish designs. Even though these plug-in units are created with an LED bulb, the bulb will eventually go out, but the energetic harmonious field will not stop being emitted – thus they last forever. Just plug these attractive Shields into any outlet as you would a night light, and it will make your entire home and office safe from the weakening effects of electrical wiring, appliances, computers, vacuum cleaners, etc.!\n\nI really don't know what to say about this. I is such nonsense that there is no gripping point to start arguing against it... Can someone else try?"
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2796do | What exactly happened when President Reagan fired all the striking air traffic controllers? How were they replaced? Was air safety compromised? | I realize that it's not clear in the question that I would also be interested in what lead to the impasse and what the public's reaction was to the firings. | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2796do/what_exactly_happened_when_president_reagan_fired/ | {
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"Edit: Shiny things scare me, but I appreciate the sentiment!\n\nEdit 2: I will answer all questions I can, I'm amazed at the attention this got :P.\n\nIn usual fashion with me, this will be a long answer...\n\nSo, let's start with some basic overview.\n\nIn 1980, despite the general dislike of Reagan by organized labor, he managed to gain the endorsement of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO). However, in early August of 1981, when PATCO voted to strike over demands for increases in wages and benefits, Reagan gave them two days to get back to work or be fired.\n\nIn what was to be one of Reagan's shows of resolve, he ended up firing more than half of them within the next two weeks (over 11,000 controllers). Wilentz notes that, \"Not in living memory had the federal government crushed a strike so effectively.\"\n\nHow did they get to this point?\n\nReagan was, as I said, famous for his resolve. In this matter, he believed unflinchingly that the air traffic controllers were unnecessarily endangering the public with their strike, and that the strike was illegal. As a result, he prepared a contingency plan.\n\nThe air traffic controllers had gone into the strike demanding increased wages and benefits. This was not entirely unreasonable. When the inflation rate jumped to 7.62% in 1978, the number of public sector strikes spiked 18% as pressures were made for raises. Between 1973 and 1981, too, federal pay raises regularly failed to keep up with inflation, and as a result federal employees (on average) saw their pay (after being adjusted for inflation) cut by 3.1% each year during that span.\n\nThis especially hurt air traffic controllers. They had no other place in the private sector to go to, and they were highly trained for years to get to where they were. They were also mistreated by the FAA, which McCartin notes as telling controllers (when controllers were going through bankruptcy) to \"'discharge their private financial obligations' in a manner that avoided creating 'an unfavorable image of the Federal Government.'\"\n\nThis, including the volatility of the workplace (affirmative action was especially slow in taking hold, for example) and the structural changes the controllers were dealing with (as well as advocacy on their behalf for pay raises by the International Federation of Air Traffic Control Associations founded in 1961) led to the \"seeds of resistance\".\n\nNow, it's also important to note that controllers, while seeing themselves as \"regular, suburbian people\", also received higher incomes, lived in better houses, and enjoyed more job security than most others. Still, despite this, through the 1970s the perception of inflation cutting into their wages continued to grow. It got to the point that an internal survey by PATCO in 1977 said only 40% felt they earned enough for a few luxuries, and the majority felt they were \"just getting by\".\n\nIn 1977, too, there was already the seed of a strike. When the contract PATCO had with the FAA expired in July 1977, the FAA's position hardened and they became tough negotiators (aware that the administration didn't want to give up much). The White House never intervened, but the influence was felt nevertheless in the FAA's position. In response, PATCO planned to picket the nation's airports on November 21 to get public support (this ended up being a huge organized effort, pulling off the \"...largest organized picketing campaign in the history of federal sector trade unions\"). Still, the FAA did not budge. So PATCO set a deadline of December 15, saying there would be major trouble if the FAA refused to meet its demands, while PATCO assessed how many members would favor a slowdown and how many a full-on strike. On December 13, negotiations entered \"round-the-clock\" mode, and the FAA conceded on numerous points (better arbitration for disputes, expansion of the training program, and so on). In return, the contract was to last 3 years. However, there remained some in PATCO who said they had not gotten enough, and wanted blood. They were quieted, and it was assumed that the next President (who, in the scheme of usual incumbents succeeding, was thought to be Carter most likely) would be able to negotiate in 1981 near the start of their term from a powerful position of public approval. So the contract was left, though it passed with only 62% of the controllers voting to accept it (the lowest percentage of the three votes til then). Now, the airlines announced they would not honor some portions of the FAA deal (a small one related to international flights as part of the FAM program), and PATCO leadership contemplated a strike once more. However, this seemed so trivial there were many misgivings over it despite initial support, so a warning of a \"slowdown\" that might come was given to the airlines. The airlines didn't budge. On May 25 delays began, and despite the airlines securing an injunction, PATCO continued. PATCO denied responsibility, of course, to avoid fines. Despite FAA support for this movement, there was not significant support for the job action itself, which made PATCO's position a lot weaker, and the airlines *still* held up (as the FAA attempted to suggest that bad weather and other factors were the reason for the slowdown). Because support was, at this point, collapsing, PATCO gave in and the slowdown was called off on June 8. PATCO didn't win their international flights.\n\nCue 1980.\n\nAlready, tensions were brewing. There were a *lot* of problems. As McCartin puts it:\n\n > Atlanta Center controllers began refusing call-in overtime assignments in order to pressure their facility to schedule overtime in advance...New York controllers threatened not to handle aircraft from the Soviet Union or Iran, citing as their reasons the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the U.S. hostages being held by Iranian revolutionaries. In Miami, the FAA concluded that controller Ron Palmer directed a Braniff International Airways jet into a thunderstorm in retaliation for the airline’s refusal to honor controllers’ FAM flight requests.\n\nThese actions didn't go unnoticed by the FAA leadership, who began to prepare for the negotiations themselves. Plans were made to trim the sectors across the airspace governed by the FAA by 30%, as a strike contingency plan where the sectors would be consolidated. The FAA expected that half the controllers might walk out, and was intended to work for about a month (keeping two thirds of flights in the air for a month, anyways), which was presumed long enough to break the strike.\n\nPATCO figured it had a strong position, so it asked for some extraordinary demands to be met. It asked for a $10,000 across-the-board increase in pay for all controllers (10% increase after a year), a cost-of-living allowance that would raise controllers’ wages 1.5 percent for every one percent increase in the consumer price index, a 30 percent bonus for time controllers spent conducting on-the-job training, and a four-day workweek with three consecutive days off.\n\nOn October 1, 1980, these demands were mailed to the union's membership, and the leadership genuinely believed it could win that fight. Many accepted the idea that this was a place to start, and that starting high would help them win more in the end. Now, PATCO knew they didn't like Carter. They lost income under him, lost the early retirement program and immunity program, and were generally unhappy with his administration. Reagan seemed like a far more moderate force on labor, despite his party, and PATCO drew on how he handled a 1969 firefighter strike as California's governor. He was extraordinarily moderate, avoided taking sides, and appeared to be willing to work with all involved. They liked this better than Carter, so they went with him. PATCO, then, agreed to endorse Reagan at a news conference on October 23, 1980, if they received a letter detailing their campaign contributions from him (likely to have a piece of paper that said \"You owe us\", effectively). Reagan, in the letter, promised to address the concerns PATCO held, but did not accept the demands of PATCO. Nor did he deny them. It sounds a lot like campaign fare of history: \"We'll help you if you pick us!\", but PATCO thought it was Reagan's way of staying ambiguous enough to toe the line and help them.\n\nThey were wrong.\n\nWhen talks formally opened on February 12, 1981, they were...different. The Reagan administration had retained high-pressure, tough-hitting lawyers from Morgan, Lewis & Bockius (who were known for these types of negotiations and for their aggressiveness). Even the talks progressed strangely. They began on the smaller issues, and when reaching the larger issues (like the pay), the administration indicated this was a nonstarter and a more realistic offer had to be made. Again, quoting McCartin's book:\n\n > \"...both sides were treating these talks differently. This was evident when PATCO first put its pay demands on the table in the late spring. When the federal negotiators explained that these items were nonnegotiable, PATCO negotiators responded by saying, 'We’ll work it out on the picket line.'\"\n\nA strike deadline was set (in May), for June 22, 1981. Reagan and the FAA had until then to acquiesce, or face the strike. This demand changed quite a lot.\n\nWhereas before, Reagan and the White House had taken a backseat to FAA planning, they became very actively involved in negotiations. On June 5, they offered a new package, one of the best ever offered to a federal sector. There would be a 5% addition to base salaries, exemption for controllers from federal caps on premium and overtime pay, a 10% increase in the differential for night-shift pay, a guaranteed paid half hour lunch, a stipulation that crowded facilities would have controllers on-site only 6.5 hours a day at most, and severance pay that would give any controller medically disqualified after at least five years on the job a one-year salary in lump sum payment.\n\nContinued below!",
"I was a full performance level controller at Chicago O'Hare Tower at the time of the PATCO strike. I survived the strike, and went on to have a successful ATC career until retiring in '99. I commend the OP for his well researched and very accurate accounting of that time. For those interested, what follows here is a rather lengthy anecdotal account of some of my own thoughts and experiences at the time.\n\nFirst, with regard to the original June 22, 1981 strike date. This meeting was presented to PATCO members as a head count for what seemed to be a pretty well planned strike (seems like a silly concept now, but in those days, illegal strikes had been called by teachers, police, and other groups, and very often successfully). We were all to report to our assigned union hall-- and if enough people to fill the various quotas had shown up at the PATCO meetings held nationwide that night, there would have been a strike that night.\n\nI say \"various quotas\" because the numbers considered necessary to call the strike were actually a well researched and complex formula giving extra weight to high density facilities and other factors that would affect the nationwide infrastructure. PATCO leaders were convinced that, with the right combination of Center and high-density terminal controllers participating, they couldn't lose-- and they may have been right. But the numbers weren't there, so Poli did as promised-- he didn't call a strike and he made the best deal he could (which was actually a WORSE deal than one he'd turned down earlier in the evening, before Drew Lewis figured out the numbers weren't there).\n\nStill, it was a victory-- in reality, PATCO won that night. Because Reagan, through Drew Lewis, gave PATCO something never before won in the federal government sector-- concessions on pay and benefits. If PATCO had ratified that agreement, it would have been a huge victory for federal unions across the board.\n\nBut, human nature being what it is, the thought process of many controllers went like this: they gave us these concessions at the mere threat of a strike-- what would they give us if we actually called one? So a movement to vote against ratification of the June 22 agreement began, not just supported by, but LED by Poli and his militant board.\n\nPeer pressure was the name of the game. No secret ballots allowed-- the vote was conducted in my facility (O'Hare) by having the facility president call each controller to the front of the room, singly, individually, and by name. There, we had a choice of posting our ballot in one of two boxes, for or against ratification. Those that voted against ratification were cheered; those that voted for ratification were jeered, booed and vilified. Many, many controllers that had confided privately that they intended to vote for ratification changed their minds on the spot rather than stand up to the ridicule. The few of us that voted to ratify were not-so-cordially invited to leave as soon as our votes had been cast. Both locally and nationally, the result of the vote was overwhelming against ratification.\n\nThen comes the August \"strike vote\". First, it should be noted that there NEVER really was a strike vote in traditional terms-- the question asked was always, \"If the Executive Board should call a strike, will you participate?\". The militant Executive Board, fearful of obtaining similar numerical results to the June exercise, quietly changed the rules and threw out the weighted calculations-- a vote to walk out by a controller at Appleton or Omaha now carried the same weight as one from O'Hare. Controllers that were not at the meeting because they were on leave were counted as strike participants. Many \"choir boys\", the name for the PATCO members who called in their numbers to the national from locals across the country, later admitted to fudging the numbers in every way possible to achieve the desired pro-strike result.\n\nThe overall membership, of course, knew none of this-- they thought the same rules were in effect as had been in June, with weighted numbers and complex studies and formulas virtually ensuring victory. But the Executive Board had gone rogue, were determined to strike, and most of the membership was just along for the ride. Had that foul play not occurred, there never would have been a strike-- many controllers who might have walked in June would have never gone in August, had they known the data was being doctored.\n\nOne more thing: while some of the folks that lost their jobs in this debacle believe they risked their careers knowingly and in support of a worthy cause, many more may be telling themselves that now-- but they're kidding themselves. In the months leading up to the strike, even at O'Hare, known for it's militancy, ardent strike supporters were a relative minority. For most controllers, the question came down to simply this: \"All I care about is being on the winning side-- can they really fire us all?\"\n\nIt wasn't about supporting a particular side, it was about being on the side that won, whichever it was. Those that thought PATCO would win the battle, agreed to walk, because they wanted to have a job when the dust settled. Many of those that chose not to walk, did so for the same reason-- they didn't think PATCO could pull it off, and they, too, wanted to have a job when the strike was over. There were some that made their choice on principle-- \"I signed an oath\"-- but not nearly as many as the more righteous among us imagine there were.\n\nThis was not a strike of principle, it was one of a little bit of greed and a lot of self preservation. I know of no one, not one controller, who would have said on the night before the strike, \"I'd rather not have this job at all than work it under present conditions.\" But, that wasn't the choice they thought they were making-- and by the time they figured out it was, it was too late for most.\n\nI felt bad for my colleagues that lost their jobs, but to this day, I feel no responsibility for it. I loved that job (even under salaries and working conditions at the time), I spoke out against the strike (knowing there'd be little public support and that other unions had already declared their intention not to cross our picket lines), I counseled my friends against it, and I \"did the math\" that showed the absurdity of the PATCO promise to use their strike fund to provide full salaries to anyone that lost their jobs. it wasn't easy, though-- especially when crossing picket lines filled with former friends who guaranteed they'd make life intolerable for me, \"when we come back\".\n\nAnd, I got lucky:\n\nOne thing that isn't generally known is that, while all controllers had at least 48 hours to consider the consequences of their actions before being fired, many (including me) had many more. Here's why:\n\nThe way the FAA chose to interpret the 48 hour edict was, \"...any controller that fails to report within 48 hours of his first scheduled shift after the President's speech will be fired.\" Since the President spoke on Monday morning, the first scheduled shifts after the speech were at 2pm on Monday. So the deadline for those people to return to work was 48 hours later-- 2pm on Wednesday. That's how long they had to see which way the wind appeared to be blowing and make a decision that would affect the rest of their lives. The peer pressure was intense-- and most folks with a Wednesday deadline lost their jobs.\n\nBut, what of those that's first scheduled shift was later in the week? Their 48 deadline moved, according to their scheduled shift. Best case scenario was a controller who had finished a midnight shift at 7am on Monday morning, just a few hours before the President's speech:\n\nFor these people, Monday was a full work day, since they'd worked a midshift prior to the beginning of the strike. Tuesday was a day off, as was Wednesday. So, their first scheduled shift was on Thursday, at 4pm. But, that's just when their 48 hour clock began-- it didn't end until 4pm on Saturday. So those people (and I was one of them) had the luxury of observing events and the public reaction to the strike for up to 72 hours longer than those with early deadlines. By then, it was already becoming clear which way the cards were going to fall-- so the decision to cross the picket line was much easier, and far greater numbers of controllers with later deadlines chose to cross the picket lines than those with early ones.\n\nI'd like to think I'd have made the same decision either way. But I know others who felt as strong or stronger against the strike than I did, but had early deadlines-- and despite their protestations that they'd NEVER go on strike, they failed to show up for work by deadline, and they were fired. I have some knowledge of the tactics used to intimidate those people into staying home-- they weren't pretty, they weren't fair, and I don't blame those controllers for capitulating to it. Many of them felt they had to choose between protecting their families or protecting their jobs-- and, given the same circumstances, I might have chosen the same path they did. "
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13cqsl | the concepts of ontology/ontological primitives, terminological relations, analysis, empiricism and skepticism. | This is really a post on the behalf of several confused computer scientists.
We have a class intended to help us with writing our dissertations. One of our assignments is to write about our dissertations focused around the ideas in title, and several articles we've read such as; Quine's Two Dogmas of Empiricism, Descartes' Discourse on a method, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
The main problem is we're still not really understanding the concepts, anything we read online confuses us more.
So if anyone could explain them to us like we're five that would be fantastic. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/13cqsl/eli5_the_concepts_of_ontologyontological/ | {
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"Never done an ELI5, so my apologies if it's a disaster.\n\nYou see a cat or you imagine a unicorn.\n\n* Do either of those things exist as is - i.e. as you see it or imagine it - or do they reflect some hidden reality that you cannot see or imagine? Ontology provides the means for asking useful questions about that problem. Plato, for example, said that the cat and the unicorn are 'shadows' of some higher 'form'.\n\n* An ontological primitive says that even though a real cat and imaginary unicorn are different, they can be 'reduced' to a common factor, entity, property, or principal. \n\n* Analysis says that both the cat and the unicorn exist, and that you can empirically test the cat.\n\n* Guys like Quine and Popper say that when you get right down to it, you cannot define any quality between a cat and a unicorn that is different (i.e.' the problem of demarcation'), even though you can pet the cat while the unicorn 'disappears' as soon as you stop thinking about it.\n\n* Reductionism is an empirical method that takes an object and finds its constituent parts. For example, humans - > organs - > cells - > molecules - > atoms - > particles - > strings. The long-standing interpretation is that an object can be explained by its parts. Analysis depends on its general application. We can begin to characterize a cat by describing what its made of.\n\n* Emergence (emergentism) recognizes the importance and success of reductionism, but says that characterizing the state of all strings, particles, atoms, etc. will NOT tell you if the cat is going to barf on your lap tomorrow, or if the unicorn will start singing Rhianna songs in ten seconds.\n\n* Descartes realized that if you shave a cat, it remains a cat even though it looks completely different. He started asking why - what makes a cat a cat? - and came to realize the only thing he could say for sure was that he himself existed since he was doubting himself ('I think therefore I am'). This was the start/revival of the western skeptical tradition.\n\nCouple points on logic:\n\n* Deduction is going from the general to the specific (i.e. all cats are mortal, Garfield is a cat, therefore, Garfield is mortal). It can be applied in a pure, abstract ontological sense (Descartes' proof of God), or in an empirical sense (i.e. a scientific study).\n\n* Induction is the reverse process going from the specific to the general. Garfield hates Mondays (true), Garfield is a cat (true), therefore, all cats hate Mondays (false). Despite two true premises, a false conclusion is reached. Many philosophers believe induction is 'broken', or a bad source of knowledge.\n\n* Empricism, reductionism, and deduction - and to a degree ontology - are like peas in a pod. Very successful. On the other hand, emergence appears to be valid by virtue of induction being 'broken'. \n\n\n\n\n\n",
"Empiricism is the idea that knowledge is derived from experience, not anything else. It is in contrast to rationalism, which is the idea that knowledge can be derived from reason and logic without experience. Many early Greek thinkers advocated rationalism — they would just *think* about the big questions, rather than actually trying to solve the answers in the real world. The modern scientific method uses empiricism though — scientists don't sit and think about questions they would like to answer; they go out and do experiments and experience the answer for themselves, and only draw conclusions based on what they can actually detect in some way.\n\nSkepticism comes in two main varieties — philosophical skepticism, and so called rational skepticism or scientific skepticism. Philosophical skepticism is the position of doubting *everything*, even the existence of the external world, or the self. Scientific skepticism is being doubtful of claims about the world that don't have empirical evidence. Scientific skepticism is generally considered one of the most important intellectual tools a person can have — it's pretty much the opposite of being a gullible fool. Philosophical skepticism doesn't generally bring a lot to the table — doubting the existence of everything makes any discussion almost pointless."
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7t9rne | Concept of “Africa” | Historically how was the continent of Africa seen? Did other civilisations recognise “Africans” as an independent polity? Was North Africa seen as its own distinct subcontinent? Was Africa associated with “Blackness”? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7t9rne/concept_of_africa/ | {
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"While there will always be more that needs to be said on this subject, I recommend starting off with these posts:\n\n[On the (un)helpfulness of the standard isolation of North Africa from Sub-Saharan Africa in historiography](_URL_3_) by /u/commustar\n\n[To what extent were the Romans in contact with native African tribes? How deeply did Rome explore, but not necessarily conquer or colonize, the African continent?](_URL_1_), [on Sub-Saharan Africans in the Roman Mediterranean](_URL_4_) and [on race and skintone in Greco-Roman Egypt](_URL_0_) by yours truly \n\n[It seems as if the early Caliphates were far more successful than the Roman/Byzantine Empires in establishing trade with non-Mediterranean West Africa. If that is the case, why is that?](_URL_2_) by /u/textandtrowel\n",
"Please bear in mind this is a very simplified answer and there are many points that would really benefit from a more detailed explanation. This is by no means an exaustive answer, since your questions, while compelling, are also really ample in scope!\n\nThat said, let's get to them, first things first: The notion of Africa as we know it today, as acontinent, or rather as an unifying entity that encompasses the whole of the societies, their cultures and histories that existed in that area, is a product of colonialism. As an european construct formulated for administrative and political purposes, the concept of Africa is elaborated after imperialistic domination led to the blurrying of borders, the erasure of traditions and cultural elements and the forced mingling of ethnical groups despite possible previous mutual indispositions.\n\nThese processes led to the first generation of post-colonial african historians and politicians to try and formulate historical narratives that denied eurocentrism by affirming african agency and celebrating their achievements. This historiographical effort, led mostly by Joseph Ki-Zerbo and his group, intended to retake the concept of Africa and make it into a cornerstone for the building of national and pan-african identities. More recent historiography points this ressignification process as a consolidation of the notion of Africa as we know it today, a homogeneizing representation to many different ethinicities, cultures, societies and historical trajectories.\n\nThis is all to say that until very recently, the continent of Africa wasn't particularly seen as one thing or another because it wasn't conceived as such. Up until the nineteenth century, there was no idea of the continent of Africa as a single entity among europeans. What there was is the understanding that in those lands existed tribal groups, kingdoms, empires, caliphates, etc, and these weren't necessarily understood to be related to one another, in much the same way that different european kingdoms weren't seen as part of a greater body, despite sharing sociocultural similarities among them. \n\nThe great posts linked by u/cleopatra_philopater deal with how multiple perceptions about the different african ethinicities and societies went in Antiquity, and also with the matter of how african geography stablished natural regional divisions and populational and economical fluxes on the continent. I'll focus on what I know best, late medieval and early modern periods. \n\nNorth African societies being more well known in Europe for their mediterranean presence since Antiquity, a more interesting question is how aware late medieval europeans were of sub-saharan african people. A possible answer is that the former knew the later existed to some extent, even if in a very limited or mythical way. For example, some sources mention the Kingdom of Ethiopia - be it tied to the legend of Prester John, which circulated both orally and in writing at least since the twelfth century; or in hagiographical narratives present in Jacobus da Varagine's Legenda Aurea that represented it as a land where there were demons, for instance.\n\nContact and awareness grew considerably during the early modern period, seeing as the Portuguese, Spanish and later English empires set up trading posts and forts all along the western african coast to viabilize and safeguard the slave trade. \n\nThis ties in with your question about the recognition of african polities as independent - taking into account the narratives about powerful african kings that circulated since the Middle Ages; the fact that actual european presence in african lands was considerably limited until the nineteenth century colonization process allowed them to exert actual domination on the continent; and that up to that point in time European agents such as soldiers, administrators and merchants had to mostly work within the limits imposed by the rules of the lands where they acted, the answer to the question is yes, in most cases they did recognize the sovereignity and independence of the polities they dealt with. One could argue Europeans did so because they were forced to by circumstance and/or convenience, but the fact of the matter is they knew they were dealing with governing bodies capable of producing and enforcing their own laws and customs, and respected these while on their lands. This would change with colonial domination, but then the process of replacement of previous political structures and erasure of ethnical identities would begin to give rise to the imperial concept of Africa.\n\nBibliography:\n\n[\"A Pirâmide Invertida\"](_URL_0_, by Carlos Lopes. A paper in Portuguese about early post-colonial african historiography and the transition to more recent productions. Sadly, it's probably unavailable in English.\n\n\"Legenda Aurea\", by Jacobus da Varagine.\n\nUNESCO's General History of Africa Collection, vols. I, IV, VI, VII."
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"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/69nsex/how_would_an_egyptian_in_alexandria_at_the_turn/?st=jcwx4746&sh=410d66e8",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7q8l57/to_what_extent_were_the_romans_in_contact_with/dsr93nc/?st=jci3t7ym&sh=735459e9",
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4g32ns | if the population is predicted to stabilise at 9 billion, how will an economy based on growth sustain itself? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4g32ns/eli5_if_the_population_is_predicted_to_stabilise/ | {
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"An economy can be based on productivity growth regardless of population growth. This happens through capital investment or education or technological advances.",
"People will always want more and better things and conditions in their lives. Therefore, despite a stable population the economy shall always have the need and scope for growth.\n\nAs long as resources still need to be used in a sustainable manner (future shifts to more renewable sources of energy, efficient natural resource management, tapping unused human resource), human consumption still to be made more efficient, the economy would be able to grow in a sustainable manner.",
"Okay looks like no one has studied economics here. Let me tell you, growth in population does not support economic development/growth. In macroeconomic theory(Solow Model) population growth has a negative impact on growth because as population grows, capital per person goes down. And output/person = y/l = f(k/l).",
"Is it really predicted to stabilise at 9 billion? And why that number as oppose to any othe number?"
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9ndtwx | To what extent was the conquest of modern Mexico by the Spanish due to the decisions of Cortes himself rather than the circumstances the Spanish found themselves in upon arrival? | sorry if this question isn't in line with the rules. | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/9ndtwx/to_what_extent_was_the_conquest_of_modern_mexico/ | {
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"I think the Spanish conquest of Mexico would have ended very differently had anyone but Cortez led the expedition. Say what you want about Cortez, and there’s a lot of horrible things about him, and personally I’m not a fan, but he was a tenacious individual. After La Noche Triste most leaders would have given up, but Cortez simply would never accept defeat despite suffering enormous losses by the Mexica. Same reason why the Romans ultimately triumphed over the Carthaginians. It didn’t matter how many battles Hannibal won, the Roman people never surrendered. "
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2to0ge | dear "pro" redditors, how can i (newbie redditor) have the best possible reddit experience i can get? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2to0ge/eli5_dear_pro_redditors_how_can_i_newbie_redditor/ | {
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"Be yourself. Read the sidebar. Learn your history. Upvote or downvote appropriately. Don't repost. Use the search feature. Don't piss off the hive mind. Remember there is a human on the other side of the conversation. Explore smaller subs. Oh, and have fun. \n\nP.S. Fuck Jenny.\n\nEdit: Could someone please post a link to the History of Filth for me? ",
"Seriously, read the sidebar when you want to post in a new subreddit. Just do it, you'll save everyone's time."
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21rzvm | i live in the united states. what happens if i don't have health insurance by the "cut off day" tomorrow? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/21rzvm/eli5_i_live_in_the_united_states_what_happens_if/ | {
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"You'll have to pay a penalty of either $95, or 1% of your annual income, whichever is greater. The penalty will increase each year. In 2015 it’s 2% of income or $325. In 2016 and later it’s 2.5% of income or $695, with adjustments for inflation.\n\n**Edit:** For all the people who are asking me about specific circumstances simply because I have the top comment: I'm just a guy who knows how to google things. If you have legitimate questions about something as serious as your own, personal insurance choices, don't ask me; ask one of the [healthcare navigators](_URL_0_) whose job is to help people understand all their options (for free).",
"What about for those of us who are under 26 and uninsured? Is our parents' insurance supposed to cover us or are we on our own?",
"Because this is a popular and very pertinent topic, we have designated it a featured thread! Unlike Official Threads, not all Affordable Care Act (Obamacare)-related questions need to be posted in this thread, but we still want to distinguish it because it's a quality topic that we feel people should see.",
"Similar question:\n\nI'm a college student graduating in April. I believe my university's health coverage expires upon my graduation. Am I in trouble?",
"My girlfriend who makes less than 20,000 a year got obamacare and had to pay 150 a month. Thanks Obama.",
"Do I have to do anything if I'm insured through work? Do I have to do anything on the website at all?",
"Soo what is going on?\n\nI am totally out of the loop. 27 American contract worker, no insurance and PT student. So I need what now? I need to sign up for health insurance, or else I pay a fine? I don't think I've been to the doctor for 10 or so years. I've probably made under 15K in the past year, pretty much living off of savings until the seasonal contracts start up again.\n\nJesus, I feel like I've been living under a rock.",
"If you aren't able to sign up due to technical problems, don't stress. You will not get penalized if you miss the deadline, so long as this is your reason. The government wants you to sign up ASAP, but they won't punish you for being a few days late.\n\n[Source: Washington Week](_URL_0_)",
"Is it possible for us to decide as a people to just say \"fuck this\" and completely disregard that they're trying to do things? I mean we have more power anyways. If enough people just decide they don't care about a policy because it could be implemented better, I don't think there's much they could do.",
"Can anyone explain the fucking logic behind this?\n\nWe're broke as it is, who the fuck thinks we have the extra money for another bill/fine? It's very unnecesary to FINE people over not being able to afford health insurance.",
"What about if your employment that provides insurance ends?\n\nIm a freelancer and currently I work at a job that provides insurance. But in a month or two the project will deliver and I'll be let go.\n\nWhat does \"not have insurance\" really mean in the eyes of the govt? If I have insurance 7 months out of the year am I clear of the fine? What is the criteria of judging someones coverage?\n\nAnd since Im insured now, but wont be soon, I wont have a chance at the exchange and will have to get more expensive insurance directly from a provider?",
"I still think the $95 penalty shouldn't be legal. \n",
"I'm unemployed, living with my girlfriend. Been unemployed for a long time, and the job market is terrible. My state declined to expand their medicaid, so I'm pretty sure my application will be denied. This is really, really frustrating.",
"What if I'm going to be eligible for insurance through my work in a few weeks? Should i still get a months worth of insurance to cover till then? ",
"Okay can someone PLEASE help me? I made an account just to ask!: I'm 18 years old, I graduated from High School last June. I am unemployed and have never had a job. I have NEVER had healthcare or any health insurance whatsoever because I came from a very poor family. What the hell do I do? What does this mean to me? Someone please help? ",
"Good explanation on how Republican states turning down free money from federal medicaid expansion on ideological grounds will leave millions without insurance.\n\n_URL_0_",
"Paying $700 this year in additional taxes, for nothing. ",
"You are required by law to have health insurance in the us? Holy fuck. What about people on fixed incomes? Even $95 a year could be the difference between eating and going hungry. ",
"To be honest, not much. First you have to ask yourself a few questions:\n\n* Are you covered under your parents' insurance? \n* Are you under the age of 26 if so?\n* If not, are you privately insured through your employer?\n* Have you bought a private plan by yourself?\n\nIf you don't have insurance through any of these options, /u/AnteChronos pretty much summed it up. \n\nBut, taking another view, if you are healthy, can see into the future (and know you won't get injured or sick), then it may be much cheaper for you to simply pay the fine... for now.\n\nBut anyone who has the funds should definitely consider at least signing up for a silver plan. People who forgo medical treatment because of the associated costs due to lack of insurance are actually a big reason that healthcare costs are so high.\n\nWhy, you ask? Because the costs to treat someone who comes into the ER after neglecting their minor ailments who now has a full-blown emergency have to be diffused somehow, even if they can't pay for it. Bummer.",
"Props to WunPump. Most people wouldn't try to understand this. You asked a great question, this a good way to be involved no matter what side of politics you live on.",
"So what are my options?\nI'm a type 1 Diabetic so I need insurance.\n27, Non-Smoker, No Income, and I'm in NC ",
"It seems insane to me that there is no universal healthcare. You would think it would be a national priority. It never fails to astound me. ",
"I've only tried to apply 5 times now and every single time they've been \"unable to verify my identity.\" Oddly enough, they had no problems processing my tax return or my FAFSA. So, I'll probably have to do a year without insurance and pay their $95 fine, not that I could afford insurance even if my identity was verified correctly.",
"Do you have to be a citizen to do this? Resident?",
"What if you're waiting for forever for Cover California to accept your documents? \nI've signed up months ago, but my application isn't complete because they won't process my uploaded passport, drivers license as proof of residency.",
"To be noted: if you start your application by the cut off date (March 31) you have until the 15th of April to complete your app. So if you need to research more, just complete the first part of the application and go back",
"Windows XP and Obamacare in nearly the same fucking week. Really sucks for those procrastinating, living-under-a-rock types. ",
"excuse me, but what the hell is the point of having health insurance if the deductible is like 6000?\n\nI live in germany and have a private health insurance plan - > I pay 120 Euro's /month and have a 600 Euro deductible.\n\nTHe 'cheapest' plan i could get in the US where i used to live is 150 Dollars monthly with a 6000 deductible? \n\nYOu crazy, bro's?",
"Drone strikes from what I understand",
"As usual the media has done a bang up job of helping the public understand. ",
"What if you dont have a job or income?",
"You'll get punished for not being able to afford it.",
"Great. Now my family literally can't afford to live.",
"Nothing really. They're gonna keep (illegally) pushing the date forward without congressional approval. ",
"The real question is why didn't we just expand medicare to cover everyone. The system is already in place. The ACA is a clusterfuck because of the insurers, the pharmaceutical industry, and HMO's that are controlled by the top 3% that control our economy and social programs.\n ",
"Not a damn thing. If you get a tax refund next year they'll take out the fine. Just make sure you don't get a refund. Fuck them.",
"I think the United States did this whole healthcare thing backwards. Instead of reducing the cost of healthcare so people can actually afford it, we are now forcing insurance coverage to make sure those costs stay high. It's sort of like the housing market; if everybody's got money, the price of houses go up. ",
"Would this cut of date affect minors at all? Assuming you don't count what the parents do before the cut off I mean.",
"Stop with these rants of \"is this really freedom?\" What obamacare really wants to achieve is a long term thing. If we all got health insurance today we would see a huge price drop in health insurance because we are all putting money into the pot and the more money insurance companies get the less we will have to pay in the long run. You kids need to understand something before you go on complaining about it. I know a lot of people cant afford it today but thats the reason its being done this way. Something like health insurance prices can't be fixed over night.\n\nPS: I can't afford it either",
"So I pay a fine to the gov ever year and don't buy insurance like the last 10 years of my life. I get sick go to doctors. Because so many people don't pay the doctor they charge ridiculous rates. I was charged $80 for one 400mg Ibuprofen the last time I need medical treatment. Ok so they charge me a ton because people cant pay and because of that I can't pay. When I see $80 for one Ibuprofen I don't even consider paying. Now all you fools who buy insurance have to pay for me to not have it and can never afford it. You could argue that I still owe a ton of money and that will hurt my credit but the fuck wants credit? So I can do what get more bills? Nope I just wait till the bills pile up and when they actually start doing something about getting the money I owe that's when I go bankrupt and start over. What a great system...\nI do pay bills that are reasonable. When I have a cold the clinic will see me for $150 bucks. That I can handle. That seems fair and deserves payment. When I got in a car accident and auto Insurance refuses to pay hospital bill of 8 grand for literally 4 stitches in my lip I stop giving a fuck. ",
"Another question -\n\nWhat happens if you have been trying to get enrolled in an insurance plan since November 2013 and due to various issues beyond your control(errors, red tape and miscommunication between _URL_0_, the insurance company and your State's Dept of Health and Human Services) you are now waiting for your case to be resolved and will likely miss the deadline to be enrolled?\n\nEdit - Oh, I forgot to mention the part where I paid the premium for coverage to start in April... but as of today I still don't have an actual insurance policy... And it's looking like we will paying for medical bills out of pocket until this gets resolved.",
"Will the monthly premiums go down each subsequent year? The cheapest plan for me is $183/month and doesn't even have dental/vision. ",
"Hmm... I can pay one payment of $95 or pay probably at least that once a month? Seems like the smarter decision to just pay the penalty and move on. ",
"I've been unemployed since mid-January and am about to relocate and start a new job in roughly a month. After reading through the comments it looks like I'll have to eat the cost of the penalty even after I eventually get insurance through my employer.\n\nAlso, I watched my SO signing up and the deductibles and monthly costs are mind-blowing considering what she makes, especially since she gets most of her income from tips. 250-300 per month and 5-6k deductibles, and vision and dental aren't even covered? So frustrating.",
"So, what happens if I don't get insurance? I pay a fine.\n\nSo what happens if I don't pay that fine? I go to jail.\n\nJail has free doctors. This is stupid. Why don't we just cut back on military/police/government spending and actually have a free health care.",
"I live in Europe, and my son is in the States. He is attending university but is not working. Will the cut off date apply to someone not working? I support him 100% financially. I don't want him to get hit with a huge bill when he finally does begin working. ",
"You'll just get fined by the government for refusing to pay for old people's medical treatment. No big whoop.",
"What I see here are a lot of ignorant people unwilling to inform themselves through the official channels, but more than willing to complain about their President, Congress, governor, state legislature, etc. Grow up! Yes, this law is complicated. Yes, it affects a lot of people. Today is the deadline (which should have been three months ago), and you're looking for information today on Reddit? Have some introspection and take responsibility for your actions, and maybe if you learned something on your own, you'd do a better job voting.",
"this is kind of dark that they are forcing you to buy something. i didn't know about a punishment for not signing up",
"My wife has health insurance right now (from her parents) but she turns 26 in three weeks. What will happen then?",
"Signed up... can't login... resets don't work... sites not working properly. =(",
"So, a lot of people are just making jokes. So I guess I'll actually answer the question. It's a penalty of $93 (Or very close to it... I forget the exact amount) or 1% of your annual income (whichever is greater). This penalty will be levied when you file your Tax Return for this year. No, you will not go to jail if you don't buy insurance... but failing to pay the penalty will be regarded as Tax Fraud akin to failing to pay any other form of taxation you owe. \n\nIn essence, this entire thing is just a round-a-bout and overly complicated way for the government to simply levy a Health Care Tax and ensure that most people (everyone ideally) has health coverage. It had to be done this way to gratify insurance companies and because Single Payer is obviously communism that would destroy American freedom... /end sarcasam",
"what if you have insurance through veterans disability, the VA, do you still have to pay?",
"So it's actually a lot cheaper for young people who are healthy to just pay the fine and visit the E.R. incase of emergency.\n\nACA is fail. If the penalty for not enrolling is lower than the cost of enrolling no one is going to enroll based off the penalty. Then all that's left is arguments on what \"may happen\" if you don't, and those have never been effective.",
"Technically I did sign up before the deadline but I don't have any money to pay for it. Not sure if I will get fined. The fine is sort of adding insult to injury - no pun.",
"got mine done in December. had first doctor visit friday. got lab work done today and x-rays of my uber flat feet for my physical next week. first in over ten years. _URL_0_",
"So....I have over 150k worth of student loan debt....I seriously clear out my entire bank account every month to these assholes. The cheapest insurance plan I can get through obamacare is $200 / month....I CANNOT afford this every month. I guess there goes my tax return next year. I want to break the fuck down and cry....I don't know what to do. ",
"To answer the original question:\n\n* Go to _URL_0_, create an account and answer the questions.\n\n* If you are single and make less than $12,000 a year, you be able to get Medicaid. Have them forward the application to your state's Medicaid office. Cost to you $0\n\n* If you make too much for Medicaid, you may be able to get extended-Medicaid, provided your state pass the extension law.\n\n* If your state didn't extend Medicaid, you will get a penalty exemption, print it out and use it to avoid tax penalty on your taxes, next year.\n\n* If you make too much for the extended Medicaid exemption, look over the plans. You may or may not get the health care subsidy, the cut off is around $35,000 for a single person. Chat with an agent if your questions aren't answered with the FAQ.\n\n* Pick a plan, find one you can live with. Deductibles range from $5,000 to $500 (annual out-of-pocket cost for medical services). \n\nThe only way to know how this affects you is to go to _URL_0_ and find out. Don't take my word for it. ",
"See this is the problem with the \"law\".. All it does it MAKE people buy health insurance. Even if you make 25k a year the cheapest plan and it is coverage is still a total rip off. It solves nothing.",
"For those responding to posts about qualifying for Medicaid if you cannot afford obamacare. That is kinda the issue.....there is no Medicaid expansion for the poor in nearly half the states, and in the poorest states with the highest numbers of uninsured. So, the advice \"just get Medicaid\" doesn't apply to most uninsured people who are poor. ",
"What a stupid fucking system....\n\nYour country is doomed if it can't even figure out a basic service like healthcare...so pathetic."
]
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"https://localhelp.healthcare.gov/"
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"http://www.theatlanticcities.com/politics/2013/11/biggest-obamacare-losers-cities-states-wont-expand-medicaid/7537/"
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[],... | ||
5gpveq | the problem with social securitya and why im told i will have to work till i'm 75? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5gpveq/eli5_the_problem_with_social_securitya_and_why_im/ | {
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"SocSec works just fine and you should be able to retire at 62.... until Congress decided to borrow from it. But they will pay back what they took right? Wrong, they take our money and then they tell us that SocSec is in trouble and we have to work longer all because they don't want to ever pay back what they took. \n\nCongress = Thieves!\n"
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[]
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tp1as | How long would it take for a small group of isolated humans to be unable to mate with the rest of the population? | Let's say that a small population is sent into space in a completely self sustaining ship. The population is perfectly preserved throughout the whole time in space. How long before the point in which if they returned to earth, they would essentially be a different species without being able to mate with the current population on earth? Would there be a slowing of evolutionary pressures acting on humans because of technological advances on earth? This is assuming that the earth isn't destroyed and everything progresses as normal for those not on the ship. | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/tp1as/how_long_would_it_take_for_a_small_group_of/ | {
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"Even if there were no evolutionary pressures acting on the population, they would gradually become separated anyway. This is because of an effect called genetic drift.\n\nGenetic drift occurs because mating occurs (essentially) at random in a finite population. For every gene, there are multiple alles (versions of that gene), and from one generation to the next, the frequency of the different alleles in the population change a little bit just by chance; like if you flipped a coin 10 times you'd expect to get five heads, but getting six or four or even larger variations still happens. These fluctuations of frequency mean that every allele tends to become fixed (that version of the gene is present in every individual) or extinct. \n\nSo if you have two totally isolated subpopulations, how fast the two would become genetically distinct (assuming no massive selection pressures, which would change the model slightly) depends on the size of the two populations. The smaller your sample size, the larger the effects of chance (if you flip a coin 10 times, you'll get a larger percentage difference from the expected one than if you flip 100 times), so smaller populations are more affected by drift. The time taken for an allele to become fixed or extinct is about 2.77N generations, where N is the population size. \n\nIt'd be difficult to say exactly how long it would be before the two could no longer breed, because the types of mutations and how they affect the population are so variable- after all, just because two populations have distinct versions of a gene does not mean they can't interbreed. However, you can measure how different the genes of two populations are using the Fixation Index: a value of 0 means no genetic variation, a value of 1 means total separation. The current fixation index of humans is about 0.12, so we've got a long way to go. \n\n_URL_0_"
]
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[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_drift"
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436ufp | regarding the recent discoveries about joyce and woolf, how can novels have 'fractal structures'? what does this even mean? | Recently numerous articles have emerged claiming that many classic novels have a 'fractal' structure, and this may contribute as to why they are so beloved.
- _URL_1_
- _URL_0_ | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/436ufp/eli5_regarding_the_recent_discoveries_about_joyce/ | {
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"In math \"fractal\" means that the image is self referencing. They have some use in structures, but [this HTML5 video demostrates what a fractal is in a more pure mathematical sense](_URL_1_)\n\nI'm only skimming the article, but it seems like they're saying the chapters in a novel follow a similar plot structure as the book itself, and that the scenes inside of the chapters follow that same basic plot structure. So, if you remember from high school lit the 'classical story structure' of \"introduction, rising tension, resolution, falling tension, conclusion\", that means that the chapters in a book following that story structure would itself have an introduction, rising tension, resolution, falling tension, and conclusion. \n\nIt's interesting that they did this, but it's not actually *new* in the world of story telling to say \"your chapters and scenes should have a distinct story structure\". [This is a video from 2012 that nicely ELI5's the concept using Star Wars](_URL_0_). ",
"\"To determine whether the books had fractal structures, the academics looked at the variation of sentence lengths, finding that each sentence, or fragment, had a structure that resembled the whole of the book.\"\n\nSo it seems to be much more at the sentence level than in terms of plot. It's much easier, or rather, it's much easier to do intentionally at the level of plot because plot is in bigger \"chunks\" and so it's easier to organize into a self-referential structure.\n\nAnyway, I think what this means essentially is that when you analyze the variations in sentence length, throughout the book, you see that the pattern at a micro-level, is the same as when you zoom out and look at the book as a whole. So you know how a fractal is self-same all the way down? (Cauliflower, which has a fractal structure, always looks like cauliflower, no matter at what level of magnification you look at it.) These researchers are saying that Finnegans Wake is the same all the way down, so to speak.\n\nThis is not the first study to take this tact re: Finnegans Wake. This book is from 1997: _URL_0_\n\nIt draws some of the same conclusions, but it's written by literary scholars, not scientists, and so it's much more theoretical/interpretive, if you catch my meaning.\n\nThere's lots of this type of weird mathematical game-play in 20th century literature. Though almost certainly Joyce didn't intend this fractal quality, there are writers, particularly in the French Oulipo movement, who played lots of games with the structures of their novels, embedded bizarre organizational patterns in them. This is straight from the Wikipedia page:\n\n\"Oulipo (French pronunciation: [ulipo], short for French: Ouvroir de littérature potentielle; roughly translated: \"workshop of potential literature\") is a loose gathering of (mainly) French-speaking writers and mathematicians who seek to create works using constrained writing techniques. It was founded in 1960 by Raymond Queneau and François Le Lionnais. Other notable members have included novelists Georges Perec and Italo Calvino, poets Oskar Pastior, Jean Lescure and poet/mathematician Jacques Roubaud.\n\nThe group defines the term littérature potentielle as (rough translation): \"the seeking of new structures and patterns which may be used by writers in any way they enjoy.\"\n\nConstraints are used as a means of triggering ideas and inspiration, most notably Perec's \"story-making machine\", which he used in the construction of Life A User's Manual. As well as established techniques, such as lipograms (Perec's novel A Void) and palindromes, the group devises new methods, often based on mathematical problems, such as the knight's tour of the chess-board and permutations.\"\n\nI think the Oulipo movement is really what even made these kinds of investigations into the patterns and structures of literature a legitimate way to look at a novel or a poem. They showed people that if you could engineer weird experiments inside a novel, you could probably reverse engineer them in other novels, or could at least see if some of the same things are going on (albeit coincidentally) in them, which is I think what this Joyce experiment is sort of doing. "
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"http://phys.org/news/2016-01-world-greatest-literature-reveals-multifractals.html",
"http://electricliterature.com/classic-novels-by-james-joyce-and-virginia-woolf-contain-mathematical-mulitfractal-structures/"
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"http://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/76mhw3hn9780252022791.html"
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26m7aq | Would a magnetic monopole generate a field that behaves similarly to the gravitational field? | I have high school level knowledge of science, im sorry if this question is dumb. If they exist, would there be "north" and "south" monopoles? In a universe conformed of this monopole particles, would there be magnetic black holes? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/26m7aq/would_a_magnetic_monopole_generate_a_field_that/ | {
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"The magnetic field around a point magnetic \"charge\" would be analogous to that of the electric field about a point electrical charge, with lines of magnetic force emanating or converging radially, depending on the sign of the charge. \n\n > If they exist, would there be \"north\" and \"south\" monopoles? \n\nYes.\n\n > In a universe conformed of this monopole particles, would there be magnetic black holes?\n\nYes. The [Kerr-Newman metric](_URL_0_) describing the geometry outside a charged, rotating black hole can be extended to include the effects of magnetic monopole charge. "
]
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1rs8a0 | if mouthwash kills germs, then why don't we spit it back into the bottle? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1rs8a0/if_mouthwash_kills_germs_then_why_dont_we_spit_it/ | {
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"who says you can't? As long as you do it to your own bottle, it's ok. Just don't do it to someone else's bottle.",
"Because germs aren't the only thing in your mouth? Most people are sorta against ingesting old food particles and plaque. ",
"Because germs are not the only things in your mouth, there are also bits of food, and plaque, and if youspit mouthwash back in to the bottle it'll get gross fast. Plus a small amount of the mouthwash stays in your mouth, so you'd gradually have less mouthwash.",
"If you only use a towel to dry yourself off after your clean why ever wash it... ",
"If you did this you would be adding your spit to the bottle every time and so the mouth wash would become dilute and ineffective. Also it would be gross. "
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12sxlz | the projected "fiscal cliff" that is to come before year's end. | Edit: So, based on everyone's comments, I see why and how this could be disastrous for our economy, but what about interest rates? Not just at my local bank but at central banks and trading among countries. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/12sxlz/eli5_the_projected_fiscal_cliff_that_is_to_come/ | {
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"Republicans put up a fight the last time the national debt limit had to be raised. It got down to the wire. The agreement said that taxes would go up and spending would go down (mostly hitting the military). With this agreement, the national debt limit was raised.\n\nIf this agreement goes into effect as planned, it's suggested the proposed tax increases and spending cuts would slow the economy greatly, perhaps pushing it into another recession. But, Democrats don't want to cut spending outside of the military, and Republicans don't want to raise taxes. And nobody wants to touch the big spending items, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. \n",
"The fiscal cliff is a term that essentially describes the automatic federal spending cuts, expiring tax breaks and tax increases that are set to come into effect this coming January. This would cut the federal budget by 607 billion according to the Congressional Budget Office's data release. This can all change, however, if Congress either makes changes or extends the deadlines. \n\nThe taxes, benefits, and other such measures included in this fiscal cliff include: \n\n1. Bush tax cuts- capital gains rate goes up to 20%. Dividends would also be taxed as ordinary income, not at 15%. \n2. Social Security tax- Currently at 4.2%, would go to 6.2%. \n3. Alternative Minimum Tax- right now applies to ~4.5 million people, would change to apply to ~33 people. \n4. Medicare- a new Medicare tax on investment income at 3.8% would take effect. \n5. Many other reimbursements, benefits, and tax provisions would also either come into effect or go away. \n\nThis drastic change in taxation and benefits would most likely create a short term set back to the economy, therefore hurting other economies across the globe that depend on the US demand for their products and/or services. \n\nThat's about all I got on this. Hope it helps. ",
"\nThe Markets are collapsing partially as a result of Obama's election and partially as a result of the \"fiscal cliff.\" What exactly is that? The market's worrying basically breaks down into 3 different points of concern.\n\nA) The European Economy - Because of the large amount of trade we do with Europe, large-scale economic developments there will inevitably affect the United State's economy. Right now, the EU and many member nations have put deep cuts in spending in place to control their budget shortfalls. This has led to slow growth, a weakened European economy, and bailouts from the more prosperous nations (Germany, the Nordic States) to the less-so (Greece, Ireland, Spain). If one of those economies either defaults (thus forcing a large drop in the Euro's value) or leaves the European Union (same effect), then the negative effects will trickle over to the U.S. This is the first concern.\n\nB) Obama Regulations - Even though many liberal-leaning websites do not buy into this, part of the reaction of the markets is to Obama's re-election and the inevitable regulation overhaul that comes with it. Part of the market is reacting to uncertainty surrounding how much he'll actually be able to (or even want to) enact. Obama's stated plan calls for a reduction in the overall tax rate for corporations to 20% coupled with the elimination of many tax loopholes. I don't know for sure, but I imagine the net effect of this would be more net taxes paid by corporations. If Obama is serious about deficit reduction, he won't allow the share of taxes corporations pay to decrease. However, this plan does have positive effects on business. A) More clarity in the tax code will allow businesses to use less resources trying to find the optimal tax structure. Those resources can be used to invest in other projects. B) Many of the loopholes on the chopping block allow corporations deduct costs incurred when jobs and plants are created abroad. By eliminating that loophole, people believe that corporations will be more likely to produce and invest domestically, improving the economy state-side. The loopholes are significant, because many much more progressive nations have lower corporate tax rates and still maintain global competitiveness (see: Sweden, Norway).\n\nC) **THE FISCAL CLIFF (SEQUESTRATION)** - This is the largest concern, politically and economically right now. The fiscal cliff that people believe is going to hit on January 1, 2013 is primarily spending cuts and tax increases scheduled to automatically go into effect at that time. During the 2010 budget negotiations, because Congress was unable to reach a deficit reduction agreement, they signed a bill into law that will automatically cut a trillion from defense, roughly $1 trillion from entitlement spending, and will allow the Bush tax cuts for all Americans expire. This is called sequestration. The idea was that if programs valued by both democrats and republicans were on the chopping block, they would both be more incentivized to come to the negotiating table. The worry is now that they will be unable to cooperate and will allow these cuts togo into effect. These cuts are deep enough to cause a second recession. It isn't really a \"cliff\" and won't happen immediately, but if all of the measures in the sequestration go into effect, it will hurt. I don't believe either side would want to see this happen. Congress has three choices:\n\n* They can prevent some of the spending cuts and tax hikes to go into effect. On the plus side, this would mean the economy would continue to grow in the short term, preventing immediate danger. On the downside, this doesn't address the growing deficit, which would continue to grow. The more money we owe as a nation, the higher interest we'll begin to pay. This leads us towards Greece.\n\n* They can let the sequestration occur. On the downside, the drastic cuts in spending and increases in tax would assuredly halt economic growth and create another recession. On the upside, we cut the budget deficit in half, immediately. \n\n* The third option is a \"Grand Bargain,\" which would find the middle ground. It will most likely contain a mixture of spending cuts and tax hikes. Taxes will probably be raised on those making more than $250,000/yr, while not raised for middle Americans. Defense and Entitlement Programs (such as Social Security and Medicare/aid) will likely see significant, but not traumatic cuts. The only real sticking point preventing this agreement from happening is the tax hikes for those making over $250,000. Many Republicans have signed a pledge to never raise taxes, and believe that only raising taxes on those making money is class warfare and socialism. I think despite that resistance, this is still most likely to occur. Now that he does not need to win an election, Obama can basically say, \"if you don't allow me to raise taxes on the rich, I'll just let the taxes go up for everyone.\" The Republicans really don't have a response, because they cannot attempt to blame it on Obama in the next election, and they don't want to take the flak for allowing taxes to go up. It's basically compromise or die.\n\n\nUltimately, I think some sort of bargain will be reached, and disaster averted. It probably won't be the \"Grand Bargain\" many hope for, but it will be enough to prevent this debate from happening again in the near future. I personally hope they simplify the tax code for everyone, raise taxes on the rich (with tax hikes on all once the economy is booming), cut defense spending drastically, and reform entitlement spending so that costs stemming from those programs won't continue to grow exponentially. I don't think all of that will get done, but I don't think we'll hit the \"fiscal cliff\" either. \n\nEDIT: Formatting"
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2yrxfl | if nasa tests their new rocket with 3.5 million pounds of force, how do they stop the rocket from crumpling, or shooting off? | _URL_0_
That's a lot of force... | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2yrxfl/eli5if_nasa_tests_their_new_rocket_with_35/ | {
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"See the giant piece of concrete in front of the rocket? That's sunk in the ground, and while it doesn't weigh 3.5 million pounds, the reactionary force resisting the rocket's push is equal to 3.5 million pounds. As for why the rocket doesn't crumple, the rocket is basically packed solid with fuel, and designed to resist the force trying to push the walls of the rocket apart, which isn't as strong as you might imagine since the rocket is a shaped charge that is designed to explode toward the rear.",
"Its nose isn't pushing on the concrete anchor. It's mounted to the ground/anchor just like it would be mounted to another rocket while standing up. Since it's designed not to crumple when attached to another rocket, it isn't crumpling during the test."
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3nsem7 | difference between a microcontroller and an embedded system | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3nsem7/eli5_difference_between_a_microcontroller_and_an/ | {
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"A microcontroller is a small computer with everything it needs to perform computation--RAM, long-term memory, processing, etc.\n\nAn embedded system is a computer system with a processor (possibly a microcontroller) hooked up to various electrical and/or mechanical components to perform some task directly as part of a larger system, without conventional user interface (e.g. keyboard, mouse, monitor).\n\nSo you could have a microcontroller doing non-embedded work if you hook it up to a conventional user interface, or you could have an embedded system that is powered by a non-integrated microprocessor with discrete chips for RAM, I/O, etc. Very often microcontrollers will be the choice for embedded systems, though, and typically the use for microcontrollers will be embedded systems. "
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2yu9ch | bounty hunters and bail bonds, how do they work? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2yu9ch/eli5_bounty_hunters_and_bail_bonds_how_do_they/ | {
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"Your brother gets arrested and needs you to bail him out for $10,000. But you don't have $10k.\n\nSo you come to me, the bail bondsman. You give me, say, $1,000 (10%), and I'll put my own $10k up to bail out your brother. When he shows up to court, the state gives me back my money, and I keep your thousand bucks. Everyone's happy.\n\nBut wait, you say your brother didn't show up to court? He ran off across state lines? Now I'm down $10k. I hire a bounty hunter to go find him in the next state over, arrest him, and bring him back to court, so I get my money back, minus whatever I paid the bounty hunter. \n\n"
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5bv0tz | why are there voter registration deadlines in the us? | What was the original reason for enacting deadlines on voter registration in the US? Wouldn't you want the system designed to allow any eligible person to vote, or are there good reasons for those deadlines? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5bv0tz/eli5_why_are_there_voter_registration_deadlines/ | {
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"The time is required to verify that you do, indeed, seem eligible to vote; and to prepare lists for each polling place of everyone who's eligible to vote there.",
"A lot of that depends on the state. My state you can register the day you vote. You just show your ID basically."
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[],
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1sus9j | Hitler once claimed that in the months before he invaded Poland, some 62,000 Germans were killed by the oppressive Polish. Is there any truth to this? | While exaggeration and outright lies are to be expected from Hitler, I wonder which he employed here. Did even 1,000 Germans die to Polish persecution in the months before World War II?
Edit: referring to Germans living in Poland at the time.
Link to his claim (speech declaring war on USA, roughly 2/5 of the way down the page): _URL_0_ | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1sus9j/hitler_once_claimed_that_in_the_months_before_he/ | {
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"text": [
"That is probably referring to the [Bromberg massacre](_URL_0_).\n\nAnd to the mod who foolishly removed this comment further down, check the dates. The events of the Bromberg massacre happened during 1939. The speech Hitler made which is linked in this thread was in 1941. And yes, he retroactively made an accusation on how Germans were treated from said event to justify the invasion even further.\n\nNo wonder AskHistorians is turning into a barren [deleted] wasteland."
]
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"http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/hitler_declares_war.html"
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[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bromberg_massacre"
]
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68vvid | how do charities get away with not spending donated money on the designated purpose? | Who/what regulates what % of the money goes where? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/68vvid/eli5_how_do_charities_get_away_with_not_spending/ | {
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"operating costs. Some charities need people to actually manage where the money goes, how it gets spent, it cant all be 100% volunteer hours for everything so there will need to be some employees.\n\nWithout these kinds of people and employees, the money donated may never reach its intended destination.",
"It depends on the country and regulations involved. Pretty much all charities have some expense that's not for the designated purpose... salaries, office rent, office supplies, etc.\n\nIn most countries, their financial reports are a matter of public record so the people donating can see where the money goes.",
"Charities are largely unregulated. So long as they don't make fraudulent claims, they can spend their money pretty much however they like.\n\nAlso, designated purpose is pretty fuzzy. A charity set out to feed the homeless, but they need to do a lot of other things to make that happen. They need staff, they need management, they need fundraising, and other overhead to meet their goals. It is hard to draw a line where there designated purpose ends and fraud begins.",
"Most charities in the US are what are called 501(c)(3) organizations, which comes from the section of the law where they are defined. A 501(c)(3) organization is a non-profit organization that is not allowed to lobby and is organized for charitable, religious, educational, scientific, or literary purposes (or for testing for public safety, fostering amateur sports competition or preventing cruelty to children or animals).\n\nUsually such organizations have a board of directors and executive director. Usually either the board or the executive director will determine the budget, including what % of the money goes where. The money is pretty much allowed to go anywhere as long as it's for the organization's stated purposes or for keeping the organization running (payroll, development, etc.). \n\n501(c)(3) organizations have to file special tax forms indicating how the money was spent, so interested groups can usually find out how a charity spends money. In fact, many groups do this routinely and rank charities based on how much money actually goes directly to the cause they promote.",
"Depends what you mean by \"designated purpose.\" There are many donations that come with all sorts of restrictive in terms of when, where, and for what items it can be used for. Often these have to be accounted for both in reporting back to the fonating agency as well as accounted for in annual audits.\n\nIf you are asking why part of the money you donate online to feeding the homeless goes to pay the salary of the people who work there, it is because that's what it takes to feed the homeless. The money doesn't turn from annonline credit card payment to a calorie in someone's diet. It turns into an agency that provides the service, adheres to local regulations, builds partnerships with local agencies to reach the most people possible, hosts events so that it can keep feeding people next year, trains volunteers, manages payroll, negotiates deals with food providers, maintains a kitchen, manages annual audits, etc.\n\nAs for deciding what percentage is appropriate to go where, typically:\n\nAn unpaid board of directors (who often are bug donors themselves and therefore invested in a well run company) choose an executive director/ceo, who is responsible for deciding the most appropriate use of resources. That is then reported out on publically accessible tax filings (_URL_0_ you can see them all for free). It is then up to the public, major donors, institutional funders etc to decide whether they agree that the impact is appropriate to their contribution.\n\nThere is still the rare case of fraud like in any business, but given the required public transparency, audits, and the fact that unpaid people are the ones legally on the hook (generally diminishing as much as possible conflicts of interest), these cases are pretty rare. Unfortunately because they sre rare, they get a lot of press when they happen.\n\nTldr: in most case a ceo/ed decides how the money is best used, who in turn is held accountable by a board of directors, an auditor, major donors, and the general public."
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ft9hvn | if you fired a gun from a moving train,what happen to the bullet? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ft9hvn/eli5_if_you_fired_a_gun_from_a_moving_trainwhat/ | {
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"Um, it would leave the barrel and head towards whatever is in front of the muzzle?\n\nIn the wild west people fired from trains all the time. Sure didn't stop the bullets from killing people who weren't on the train. Watch a western movie..."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | |
2odho4 | What theoretically happens in the event pf a photonic boom? | Assume the object is traveling 10x the speed of light. Would the object pass, the you see it (in theory), and eventually hear it? If this is the case. Have some further questions. | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2odho4/what_theoretically_happens_in_the_event_pf_a/ | {
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"A charged object moving through a medium faster than light can propagate in that medium, like a very fast electron through water, emits what's called Cerenkov radiation which we see as a blue glow, often in [nuclear reactors](_URL_0_). It is roughly analogous to an electromagnetic sonic boom.\n\nIf things could go faster than light in a vacuum, they would emit electromagnetic or gravitational Cerenkov radiation and quickly lose energy. The fact that we observe cosmic ray protons with extremely high energy from beyond the galaxy suggests experimentally that they do not exceed light speed.",
"One thing i know about (hypothetically) about traveling at 10x the speed of light is that you break the causality principle, which basically means that cause happens before effect. If we, for instance, are talking about someone firing a gun, you would fire the gun before you pull the trigger, which doesnt make any sense to us"
]
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[
"http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/Advanced_Test_Reactor.jpg"
],
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