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5a92m3 | why is alcohol the only calorically dense compound that is also a drug? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5a92m3/eli5_why_is_alcohol_the_only_calorically_dense/ | {
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"Because alcohol is a fuel.\n\nCalories are just a form of measurement.\n\n1 calorie can raise 1ml of water 1 degree centigrade.\n\nAlcohol is a highly combustible material and therefore it is no surprise when it contains a large amount of potential energy.",
"The reason is two fold.\n\n1) you consume a significant amount of mass of ethanol relative to other drugs (a 5% vol/vol beer is 13.8 grams. With other drugs, one dose is typically on the scale of less than 0.1g.\n\n2)Ethanol is directly converted to acetic acid, which happens to be the fundamental two carbon unit the body uses for energy (sugars and fats also converted to this). Other drugs are excreted after metabolism where ethanol is used as food. "
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cl90wf | what's the difference between a point and a vector? | This just won't get in my brain.
If I'm in a 3d space and have a point, it has 3 values (xyz) that defines where in space it is.
If I have a vector it also has 3 values to define where it is (or is headed which seems to be the same since at the end of it's arrow, it basically still has a point, that it's pointing at, right?). So what's the difference? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cl90wf/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_a_point_and_a/ | {
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"~~A vector has more than three values to define it. In 3d space, it would require three to define its location, and at least two more to determine its direction and magnitude (length). It could also be defined by three values for its initial point and three more for its terminal point.~~\n\nSay if you had a point in 3D space whose coordinates were (100, 100, 100) - with those coordinates, you know the point's location. Now, if the point also had a speed... For example, if it were moving at a speed of 2 along the X axis. You could express that speed as a vector (2, 0, 0). Now that vector's coordinates are nowhere near those of the point, but that doesn't matter because the vector defines a direction and speed, not a location."
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17nxts | when i call a 10-digit number, and get the "it is not necessary to dial a 1 and area code...please try again" message, why can't the phone company just go ahead and complete the call? doesn't it have enough info? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/17nxts/eli5_when_i_call_a_10digit_number_and_get_the_it/ | {
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"Correct. It doesn't have enough \"info.\" You entered a sequence of numbers that weren't recognized as a valid telephone number. In anticipation of a common reason for that, the recorded message gave you a suggestion that *may or may not* have been applicable to you. But it's up to you to know whether following the instructions in the recording will solve your problem or not.",
"It's not general practice to require you to drop the 1-### I'm guessing it's a cheap fix for some old equipment that can't preparse the numbers and route them accordingly to local or ld. \n\n_URL_0_\n\nLocal number\nThe local number (or subscriber number) must always be dialed in its entirety. The first few digits in the local number typically indicate smaller geographical areas or individual telephone exchanges. In mobile networks they may indicate a network provider in case the area code does not. Callers from a number with a given area/country code usually do not need to (but optionally may) include the particular area/country code in the number dialed, which enables shorter \"dial strings\" to be used. Devices that dial phone numbers automatically can include the full number with area and access codes, since there is no additional annoyance related to dialing extra digits.\n",
"When you dial 1 you're accessing your CO's long distance trunks, thus making a local call over the LD circuits will incur LD charges so they do not route the call. Some new telco systems will recognize a local call and re-route that call to the proper trunks.",
"dear someog,\nmany many years ago, phone networks, the machines that make sure when you dialed mommy's number her phone would ring, were not very smart. to help them understand what we wanted, the engineers running them taught them this: if the first digit dialed is a 4, for example, then 6 more will come, and this is a local call. if it's 1, then 10 more will come, and this is a call to another state (like where grandma and grandpa live). if it starts with 011 then many more numbers will come, and this a call to another country (like aunty fighting in Iraq). now the networks grew up and learned to analyze (that's a big word for understand) almost any mix of digits you dial, so in many places adding the 1 doesn't matter. the problem is that some phone companies don't want to spend money, so they still have some of the old machines that need the specific number.\ntil;dr: some old carrier switches still need the full number formats",
"I work for AT & amp;T and it's simple the 3 digit area code you're dialing needs access to a PIC code which is usually an interstate carrier (long distance company) to have communication between two central offices outside of a certain range or switching station throughout the country. NOT dialing a one you are only open to whats called an LPIC or intra-Lata carrier which has specific access in a region, which by default is your local phone company. Most of the US I outdated and ran by CU . So the actual infrastructure archaic in its nature uses these specific codes to talk to one another. Simply put the phone company doesn't recognize the number you're dialing without the one cause its not in its region and just dialing it allows it to access it's PIC database to find the number. ",
"Huh. I live in Toronto and there is no problem with this.",
"+1 (###) (###-####) stops this from happening on my cellphone",
"Let's break down what you're actually doing when you make a call.\n\n1) International call code. You aren't using this unless you are calling international. Every country has one specific code you put in to tell the operator, \"Hey, I'm making an international call.\" This specific code for your country can be found most places and is usually designated in a phone number with a simple \"+\" sign. In most of North America this is 011.\n\n2) Country code. This is when you tell the operator what country you want to call. Wanting to dial the U.S.? Hit a 1. UK? 44. This keeps going and going. You have to use this if you're making a call inside of your country, but it's not close to you (different area code, see below).\n\n3) Area Code. Live in a country that's kind of big? You may need additional area codes. These are completely subjective and vary by regions within countries.\n\n4) The first three digits of a U.S. number have no significance other than the phone company usually tries to assign similar prefixes to general areas. Usually mobile phones will share similar prefixes with other mobiles, and landlines to landlines.\n\n5) The last four digits of a U.S. number are the only ones with no real rhyme or reason to how they do things. Some companies try to make this last four number something easy to remember (divisible by 100, all one number, etc.), but other than that there's no real pattern.",
"This was a real problem with modems when 10-digit dialing became a requirement. Most of the software required either 7 (local) or 11 (long distance) digit numbers. I lived in the Houston area when this happened, and updating software was a pain in the ass. You had to find someone with the update and put it on a floppy disk and \"sneakernet\" it over since the modem wouldn't work. ",
"after reading all the babble in this thread from landline apologists, i conclude that it's only because telcos are ornery and won't leave the stone age; cellcos were never there.",
"And why do websites ask me for my state and suburb once they have my post code?",
"I think the real answer may be that they intentionally did that so you would know if you were paying for the call. In other words, if you start dialing with a \"1\" you are paying long distance (either within the area code or to another area code) fees.\n\nFor example, if you live in a place with 7-digit dialing, you'd dial the 7 digits to make a free local call. You'd dial 8 digits (pressing 1 before the 7 digits) to make a paid call within your area code. This is still used in places where the region of the area code (potentially an entire state!) is bigger than the region of free calling (typically a 25-mile radius). In areas with multiple area codes that are all considered free local calls (such as the 281/832/713 overlay in Houston), you dial just the 10 digits to make a free local call. But if the number you are calling is outside the free local calling area, you press 1 first.\n\nThis way you always know when dialing the number whether you'll be paying for the call. The telco won't let the number go through if you dial it wrong, to force you to know that.\n\nAt least that's what I was told. Contradictory experience would be welcome to know.",
"I think it's only a mess in North America. When I lived in Britain BT was able to connect me when I entered the area code even when it was not necessary."
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3seeku | If the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere was instantly cut in half, (we don't want to kill the plants) how immediately would the effects on global warming been noticed? | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/3seeku/if_the_amount_of_co2_in_the_atmosphere_was/ | {
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"It could actually take a very long time for temperatures to drop to pre-industrial levels, and this is the most worrisome part of global warming. The reason is that the temperature rise driven by increased CO*_2_* levels is not just limited to the stronger retention of thermal radiation by the greenhouse effect. Indeed, if that were the case, then you would expect global temperatures to rapidly readjust to reflect the current CO*_2_* levels. However, the problem is that theCO*_2_* levels and the temperature increase that they cause are strongly coupled to the rest of the atmosphere through a series of interrelated \"feedback mechanisms\" such as water evaporating, ice melting, etc. As a result, the temperate tracks changes in CO*_2_* levels quite slowly. For example, if we were for example to reduce carbon emissions to the point that the CO*_2_* concentration would remain constant, temperatures would actually continue to rise for years, as shown in the bottom curve of [this graph](_URL_1_). \n\nSo now let's say we allowed the CO*_2_* concentration to rapidly fall, would this rapidly reverse climate change? Again the answer is no, [as you can see from these two graphs](_URL_2_). Even if the CO*_2_* levels would fall rapidly, it could take a *very, very* long time for temperatures to drop significantly. It is this lag that has led people to call global warming potentially irreversible on a timescale of centuries. In other words, if we allow climate change to get away from us within the next decades, the changes could continue to be felt for tens of generations. These results are discussed in greater detail in [in this great paper](_URL_0_).",
"Not actually here for help, I just want to harp on a technicality.\n\nThe *atmospheric* CO2 is actually just a fraction of the CO2 in the environment. The atmosphere interacts with various [carbon reservoirs](_URL_0_) - most significantly the oceans. These contain about 100 times as much carbon.\n\nSo halving the CO2 in the *atmosphere only* would certainly change atmospheric CO2 for some years, but it would return to about where we are now."
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14ngl9 | I just read over a thread from about 6 months ago regarding Howard Zinn and I had a question | Many people made the claim that he was not the best source for information, but when asked, basically nobody came up with an alternative. I am interested in finding another enjoyable source as I am about 1/4 through A People's History, and would like more to go on. Thank you! | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/14ngl9/i_just_read_over_a_thread_from_about_6_months_ago/ | {
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"Here's how I judge whether or not I will use a source in a paper: \n\nFirst, I look at the publisher. Academic and university publishers, such as Yale or Cambridge University Press, rarely publish tripe. If something is from a source like that, you can probably relatively sure of its accuracy. The same goes for articles in respected academic journals. \n\nIf the publisher is a popular publisher though, you should take a look at the author and his or her credentials. Is the person a professor at an institution like Cornell? And, equally as important, is the book on a subject in their field of expertise? If yes, then you are also probably safe. \n\nPeople outside of the academy, however, who are published in popular presses aren't necessarily useless either though. Check out their other books. Have they won Pulitzer Prizes for their writing before? Have they been active participants in the subject they are writing about? If yes, again, you are also probably looking at a good source. At this point, you should also be checking out the citations and bibliography (although doing this before certainly is a good idea as well). Has the person spent time in archives and used primary document collections? That's an indicator of a good source.\n\nLastly, if you find a book which is by some no-name amateur and is published by a popular press which is lacking citations and a comprehensive bibliography, you are better off spending your time with something else. \n\nUsing the process I outlined above, I would encourage you to take any issue that Zinn raises which peaks your interest and find books which meet the standards. Those will give you a good idea of scholarly though on whatever subject you are curious about. "
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3uvfgt | What was the experience of lower-class and PoC women/LGBT people in Weimar Berlin? | I have been doing some reading lately on Weimar Berlin, largely in reference to women's shifting roles and the rise of LGBT cultures/acceptability. While it's hard to generalize (especially given my limited reading), it sounds to me like women and LGBT folk absolutely faced discrimination, but were able to socialize in ways that were fairly unprecedented in many western European countries. For example, the New Woman was challenging norms by entering previously male-dominated spaces (e.g. universities), and homosexuals were able to be out in bars and clubs designated for them (although this was largely just for men and transwomen) due to the relatively lax policies of Meerscheidt-Hullesem. There was a present queer culture and a push for improved women's rights at the social and political level.
But how did the experiences of white, middle-class women and LGBT folk differ from that of lower-class folk and PoC?
In terms of class, obviously the lower-classes included white people. Were they ostracized from the middle-class dominance in Weimar culture?
In terms of race, while Germany is not necessarily the most racially diverse, there must have been Turkish, black, and other racial groups present, right? Were these people accepted by the white, middle-class groups generally speaking? Were they ostracized by their own communities? Were they more likely to face discrimination by those not in the community than their white, middle-class counterparts?
Note that I know my research is not incredibly rigorous. I am getting more books to be better read, but few of them seem to tackle class and race. So I completely understand if anything I said here is erroneous and said to be such by any commenters.
Sources I am basing a lot of this off of:
* Beachy, Robert. *Gay Berlin: Birthplace of a Modern Identity*. New York, NY: Vintage, 2014.
* Lybeck, Marti M. *Desiring Emancipation: New Women and Homosexuality in Germany, 1890-1933*. Albany, NY: SUNY, 2014. | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3uvfgt/what_was_the_experience_of_lowerclass_and_poc/ | {
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"If I might ask a follow up, was there any sort of LGBT community like we see in modern cities? If so, was there a greater acceptance of people of color within those communities or was there similar discrimination as (I assume) there was within mainstream society?"
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428bcj | Would European knights have tossed away their shield in favor of wielding a sword two-handed? | Apologies if this has been asked before, I searched and found a couple [mildly](_URL_0_) [related](_URL_1_) questions, but not exactly what I wanted.
I noticed in a lot of movies depicting medieval knights, they sometimes throw their shield aside to use their longsword two-handed instead. Is this something that actually happened? If so, was it more effective?
Thanks. | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/428bcj/would_european_knights_have_tossed_away_their/ | {
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"There's a technological development in place in Medieval Western Europe. People moved from chainmail to coat of plates reinforced by chainmail with added gauntlets, banded armour for legs and arms and so on. By the late 14th century, gothic plate armour had developed, and was of such high quality that the shield became superfluous.\n\nFor example, it seems like most of the Gotlander peasant militia that badly lost the Battle of Visby 1361 to Frisian and German mercenaries and Danish knights under command of Danish King Valdemar Atterdag wore coat of plate armour and were killed lying down after being wounded in the arms and legs - helmets were removed and a killing blow struck to the head in most cases - showing that even before gothic plate armour, it was hard to get through good quality torso armour.\n\nDuring the siege of Constantinople 1453, the plate-armoured Genoese mercenaries in service of the Eastern Roman Empire held the breach in the wall by lining up and having the ranks behind them propping them up, making sure they did not fall over - despite vast numeral superiority, the Ottoman forces including their famed Sipahis and Janissaries could not get through this line until the commander of the mercenaries, Guistiani, was wounded and carried away, at which point the morale of the rest of the men faltered and the Ottomans could break through.\n\nKnights and other well-off people who could afford plate armour and expected to meet others that could afford plate armour in battle started using axes, battle picks, maces and various polearms in order to penetrate their enemies' armour, as swords could no longer do it properly.\n\n[See this video of two men re-enacting a German military manual](_URL_0_) as you can see, knights started using their swords as clubs or polearms, aiming to trip or otherwise bring their opponent out of balance and then deliver a killing blow when he was on the ground and unable to defend himself.\n\nIf knights were well-armoured and realised the enemy force would be mostly be equipped with weapons that would have a hard time penetrating their armour, I can very well see them dopping their shields and using their swords two-handed. ",
"Take a look at some period artwork. In particular, the Maciejowski Bible (it goes by several names including \"crusader bible\" and Morgan bible). It dates from the mid-13th century, when mail and shields were still exceedingly common (as opposed to the later shift to plate armor).\n\nWhat you will notice is that while most knights depicted wield lances and one-handed swords, a few wield larger 2-handed weapons including axes and some sort of big chopper or cleaver (no physical examples of this weapon have been found thus far). \n\nIf you look at the guys using their weapons in two hands (and the guys just standing around), you'll notice they haven't *thrown away* their shields, like Orlando Bloom does in *Kingdom of Heaven*, but are wearing them slung on their backs. Most of the shields at this time, in addition to the *enarmes* (arm straps), had a longer strap called a *guige*. This strap was used to hang the shield from the neck or shoulders. When you're not using the shield or need your hands free, you just wear it slung across your side or back. "
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368nud | I've heard of westerners such as Matteo Ricci going to China very early on. Were there ever any Chinese or other East Asians like him who traveled West? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/368nud/ive_heard_of_westerners_such_as_matteo_ricci/ | {
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"Jonathan D. Spence. The Question of Hu. New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1988.\n\nHu was a Chinese convert to Christianity- thanks in part to the work of Ricci and the Jesuit mission to China. He went to France where he ended up in a mental institution after running away from the Jesuit he was supposed to be working for. Eventually he gets out of the institution when another Jesuit who speaks Chinese comes and finds out who Hu is and whats going on.\n\nHu was not alone; there were a dozen or so Chinese students who went to Europe to study with the Jesuits. Some of whom were essentially stranded in Europe when the French monarchy turned against the Jesuits and banned them from the country, cutting off financial support for the Chinese mission.",
"Zheng Weixin (1633-1673) was the first Chinese Jesuit priest and possibly the earliest Chinese person to visit Europe. His father was a Christian convert, so he was baptized at birth under the name Emmanuel de Siqueira. He departed from Macau for Europe in 1645. Zheng received a Jesuit education at the Collegio Romano, and taught as a professor there for three years. He later became ordained as a Jesuit priest after studying in Bologna and Coimbra. Zheng traveled back home to China in 1668, but his proficiency in Chinese had declined after living for over two decades in Europe. Further details can be found in Francis Rouleau's biography, \"The First Chinese Priest of the Society of Jesus: Emmanual de Siqueira, 1633-1673 (Cheng Ma-no, Wei-hsin,\" *AHSI* 28 (1959):3-50.\n\nIt's interesting that Zheng was able to successfully assimilate into Western culture, whereas John Hu—the Chinese convert described by /u/b1uepenguin—was not.\n\n"
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1owmf8 | Historically, were philosophers valued while they lived? | Or were the poor/struggled for their entire lives? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1owmf8/historically_were_philosophers_valued_while_they/ | {
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"Some philosophers were most definitely valued in their life. Aristotle is a good example of this as he was a tutor Alexander the Great and was well-known in his time. Here's a link to his Wikipedia page: _URL_0_",
"Many of the most famous Enlightenment philosophers were surely valued and influential in their time, though more controversial in their time than they are remembered today, considering they were thinkers and critics of their own political periods, and thus were disliked by people on the other political side."
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itr37 | Is recent weather activity due to a change in global temperatures? | Perhaps It's just me living in Michigan, but from what I've noticed, the past few years we have had a larger variation in weather. In the winter, its crippling snow storms, now, it seems like we have moments of severe heat, followed by crippling thuderstorms. I know events like these are happening around the world. Is it due to global warming? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/itr37/is_recent_weather_activity_due_to_a_change_in/ | {
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"Yes and no. Certainly an increase of average global temperature (which has been clearly demonstrated) allows for more extremes to occur in local weather. But asking something like \"is today's weather affected by global warming\" is similar to asking \"will eating this cheeseburger affect the length of my life\". You simply can not chalk up local short term weather to long term global effects."
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1bmh2e | Of all the countries that the U.S. promoted democracy in, which ones actual had long term stability and legitimacy? | And would France, Italy Germany, and Japan count? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1bmh2e/of_all_the_countries_that_the_us_promoted/ | {
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"I can only answer the second part of your question, the answer is no except for Japan where I am not sure.\n\nThe French revolution can be seen as being some what accelerated due to French participation in the American Revolution, but it was already well on the way and their involvement was not the crucial factor.\n\nItaly had a long tradition of democracy in the various city states which existed before it unified.\n\nGermany also had a democratic republic, the Wiemar Republic, before the Nazis rose to power."
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4upla6 | how can we "look back in time" through telescopes to galaxies that are millions of years old? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4upla6/eli5_how_can_we_look_back_in_time_through/ | {
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"Any time you are looking at something you are looking \"back in time\" because light has a maximum speed, it isn't instantaneous. If you look up at the sun, you aren't seeing the sun as it is now, you are seeing the sun as it was 8 minutes ago.\n\nSo, the further something is from us, the longer it takes light to get to us. So when we're seeing it, we're seeing it as it was long ago, depending on how far away it is.\n\nAnd we *can* and *do* see the Big Bang. It's called [Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation](_URL_0_)",
"Light travels at a set speed. (299 792 458 m / s, aka 671 million mph)\n\nSo, depending on how far away the object we are seeing it, the older the image we view actually is.\n\nFor close example, the light you are seeing from our Sun is actually a bit over 8 minutes old... It could have just exploded into a supernova, and we won't know about it for several minutes.\n\nThe long distance stars are just further examples of this; the further away it is, the older the image we are seeing is.",
"\"Look back in time\" makes it sound like some kind of time-travel is happening, but it's not.\n\nImagine your friend Bob takes a picture of himself, prints it out, puts it in an envelope, and mails it to you. A week later, the envelope arrives in the mail, you open it, and you look at the photo. You are seeing Bob as he looked a week ago when the photo was taken, not how he looks now. In that sense, you are \"looking back in time\" one week. But there's no magic or time travel happening here. It's just that it took a week for the image to get to you.\n\nLight travels at a certain speed. It takes time for light to get to us from sources like stars. If a star is far enough away, it can take many many years for the light to get to us. When we see that star, we're seeing how it looked years and years ago, instead of seeing how it looks now. That's why they say we are \"looking back in time\".\n\nWe can't just look back in time to any point we want though. You can't, for example, look at what your friend Bob looked like when he was born unless someone actually took a photo of him when he was born and saved it. We can only \"look back\" relative to how far away the object is we're looking at."
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36jnda | why do hip-hop/rap artists collaborate on albums more often than other genres? | Just wondering because I can get a Tech N9ne album with every other song featuring another artist, but go and buy a Rock album with just the guys on the cover. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/36jnda/eli5_why_do_hiphoprap_artists_collaborate_on/ | {
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"I've often thought about this myself.\n\nI would guess that hip hop as a whole is much more of a \"community\" than other genres, and thus it sports a competitive (yet collaborative) nature unfamiliar to the rest. Artists of other genres don't have nearly as much motivation to put someone else on the track because they have little in common other than style of music.\n\nRegarding lyrics, hip hop is also much more technical and nuanced with flow, style, rhyme patterns, and probably some other things, which I would attribute to the increased speed and number of words per verse. I think this lends itself pretty handily to the fact that the artists collaborate often, whether it's to try to outshine each other or offer supporting views.",
"It has a lot to do with production process, and just differences between genres. In hip hop, the people writing the music and making the beats are generally not the same people spitting the verses. So if a producer makes a beat, he'll get 3 or 4 different MCs on it to give it more variation or reach a larger audience.\n\nIt scales up, too. Top 40 producers will shell out literally hundreds of thousands of dollars to get a popular rapper on a track (listen to that new Taylor Swift song with Kendrick on it for a really blatant example). So you have producers deliberately seeking out multiple MCs or even \"buying\" verses to make the songs more interesting or more marketable.\n\nRock music is different. Even commercial rock bands generally try to give the impression that the people in the band are the ones writing and performing the music. So it's often less desirable, from a production standpoint, for a lot of outside collaborators to appear on a rock album. It's also more economical to just have someone else in the band sing if you want more voices. Or somebody's girlfriend. That always works.",
"Rock mucisians collaborate but it's more behind the scenes. Bob Dylan wrote songs for bands back jn the 70s and rock cans may work with each other in writing lyrics or producing albums.\n\nRap artists collaborate that way too but obviously there is more collaboration where the listener can hear it.\n\nIt doesn't mean rap is bad or that rap is all about the money. Lots of bad rock music and lots of good rap. And rock artists want to get paid as much as any rap artists.",
"Contrasting rapping styles can work well together over the same beat, contrasting singing styles usually sound weird or forced\n\nAlso its something that has just become ingrained in the hip-hop culture over the years",
"Scandinavian metal scenes are rife with collaboration. There are about four thousand Norwegian metal bands, but only about twelve actual musicians. "
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2m3je6 | if a lot of decommissioned satellites are just left in orbit, wouldn't it be increasingly harder for spacecraft to avoid hitting space debris? | Just read on the front page about the nuclear reactor that failed in space and was left in orbit where it will be for another 4000 years.
Is there usually a disposal plan for old satellites? I know that some satellites go out of orbit and crash-land on Earth. Is that the main way of disposal? Are a lot of decommissioned satellites just left to chill out in orbit until they become unstable?
And on a related note, how do spacecraft avoid hitting the multiple dead satellites and space debris on the way up? Do they have some sort of radar that warns them of collisions, or do engineers just calculate a path that misses all the debris based on the known orbits of debris/old flying junk? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2m3je6/eli5_if_a_lot_of_decommissioned_satellites_are/ | {
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"We [keep track](_URL_1_) of the junk, for the most part. \n\nThe space around our planet also has the advantage of being a very large volume, so you can fit quite a lot of stuff in there. That being said, collisions can happen.\n\nSome satellites are boosted to what is called a ['graveyard orbit'](_URL_0_), others are deorbited, and some fail to do either. ",
"It *is* becoming more and more difficult to avoid all the debris in orbit. There is a lot of discussion of what to do about it.\n\nThat said, a lot of planning goes into avoiding other objects in orbit. Part of that is keeping things in different orbits - remember not everything orbits at the same elevation.\n\nAlso, a common way a disposing of objects in orbit is to put them into a reentry trajectory that will cause them to burn up. Obviously, not everything had been sent back into the atmosphere to burn up."
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pj71h | a small emergency. eli5 an international wire transfer | I'm living abroad for a few months and I lost and then cancelled my debit card. No charges that were not my own were found but its going to be a few weeks before the new one will arrive. I have enough money to last a few days and can loan from a friend if need be but would prefer not to.
I've been told its possible to do a direct funds transfer to a local bank but I'm not sure how this works when I don't have an account with said bank.
Will someone ELI5 this process? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/pj71h/a_small_emergency_eli5_an_international_wire/ | {
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"First of all, I think we'd need to know which country you are in.\n\nAnway, take a look at IBAN: _URL_0_\n\nYou need to get an account you can access from where you are. Probably that means you need a local bank account."
]
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289zkx | why do coupons have expiration dates? | I mean, if a coupon expires, that lessens the chance that the costumer will go to the store and buy something. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/289zkx/eli5_why_do_coupons_have_expiration_dates/ | {
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"Coupons are a form of advertising. They are often meant to push certain products for a specified length of time. ",
"Coupons are accounted for by money set aside for the promotion. The expiration date let's the manufacturer move around that money to other promotions. You don't want to be in a situation where people redeem a large number of old coupons and you didn't budget for it accordingly. \n\n\n\nIncidentally, the coupon industry is rather interesting. When you give your coupon to a grocery store or merchant, that coupon gets sent to prison workers in Mexico who sort coupons by manufacturer. The coupons get weighed and the manufacturer cuts a check to the grocery store or merchant. ",
"Imagine the impact if a pizza restaurant sent out \"buy one get one free\" coupons, but instead of using them people just hoarded them for years.\n\nThe restaurant chain would make a certain amount of money every year.\n\nNow imagine that after 100 years or so people just started using those coupons every time they bought pizza. The restaurant chain would suddenly need to sell twice as many pizzas to have the same amount of income.\n\nCoupon expiration dates help companies prevent that kind of thing from happening."
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4gg86u | How much was academia boosted during the Vietnam war by people trying to avoid the draft? | I've met one person who claims he got his doctorate only because he kept taking courses to avoid having to be drafted. How common was this, and how much did the population of academics increase because of it? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4gg86u/how_much_was_academia_boosted_during_the_vietnam/ | {
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"There’s two components to this question. First, in comparison to other periods, did the number of doctorates dramatically rise during the Vietnam War era? Second, if so, what caused it?\n\n**Did PhDs rise?**\n\nLooking at the statistics, there is a clear rise in PhDs granted. The number of awarded doctorates in all fields was just 8,611 in 1957. (To put that in perspective, in 2014 there were [1,183 new PhDs](_URL_2_\n) in history departments across the US and a total of [52,760 PhDs](_URL_1_\n) in all fields.)\n\nBy the 1970s that figure had skyrocketted. In 1973 a total of 33,755 PhDs were awarded in the US. So, over the preceding decade and a half, the number of graduates increased by about 9 percent a year on average.\n\nThis also reflected the growth of PhD granting institutions. Prior to the 1920s America had less than fifty universities and colleges training PhD candidates. There were roughly 120 PhD granting institutions in 1950, a number that rose to ~ 290 by 1973. Only in the 1960s did universities in certain states (Maine, Idaho, Nevada, Puerto Rico) grant their first PhD.\n\nThe dramatic increase in PhDs was largely a response to the rise of higher education and the need for university level teachers, as well as the increase of federal funding brought on by the Cold War. The launch of the Sputnik satellite by the USSR in 1957 led President Eisenhower to declare that the USSR was surpassing the United States as a scientific and technological leader. In response the federal government increased its funding for fellowships, grants, and awards, causing higher education’s investments to doubled in this time period. In 1959 higher education accounted for 1.4 percent of Gross National Product. By 1970 it was up to 2.7 percent.\n\n\n\n**What were the causes?**\n\nMen enrolled in college/university level study could obtain draft deferments under The Selective Service Act of 1967. Once they graduated, or if they failed out, they became draft eligible again. However, graduate students also retained an exemption. Though still technically eligible for enlistment until the age of 35, most men were pulled from the 19-25 age group. You see where this is going … if you can stay in graduate school until past your 25th birthday, you were unlikely to be drafted. Or, if you were employed in a critical industry you could continue to receive deferments after graduation.\n\nBut soon thereafter President Lyndon Johnson issued [Executive Order 11360](_URL_3_\n). After 1968 graduate level educational deferments were only available to those “satisfactorily pursuing a course of graduate study in medicine, dentistry, veterinary medicine, osteopathy or optometry.” This eliminated the draft deferment for most graduate students. Thus, at the height of enlistment there was only limited deferment protection from enlistment for PhD students. By 1971, the ‘Vietnamization’ of the war was underway, what the Nixon administration called the withdraw of US ground troops in favor of South Vietnamese armed forces fighting. Thereafter, the risk of being drafted for Vietnam ended.\n\nThe number of undergraduate enrollments did increase as a result of the military draft. Between 1962 and 1970, the number of BAs awarded to undergraduates doubled in size. To really attribute causation, one study looked at the relative growth in enrollments between men and women during this period, since men were subject to the draft and not women. They argued that an abnormal rise of 4-6 percent in male undergraduate enrollments compared to women indicates that draft deferments resulted in a significant rise in male undergraduate enrollment (see Card & Lemieux citation below). In addition, they note, after the war ended undergraduate enrollments declined.\n\nThe share of BA graduates going on to receive a PhD was at 4 percent for those matriculating from undergraduate in 1954. It peaked in 1962 with 5.9 percent of university graduates going on to earn their doctorate. It went down precipitously thereafter, declining from 1965 onward. It was just 1.7 percent in 1974. The peak of PhDs attained per percent of BA students occurred in the late 1950s and early 1960s — before the Vietnam War, well at least before Americans started fighting in it — an era when draft enlistment was at its lowest since the Korean War, with emphasis on nuclear deterrence, air power, and not a large land army. There may well have been an impact on Master’s enrollment, but not on PhDs.\n\nKeep in mind this is not the total number of PhDs awarded. That figure rose throughout the late 1960s before reversing and declining after 1973. This is just the proclivity, or rate, at which BA graduates successfully attained a PhD. The rise in the number of PhDs earned is attributable mainly to the dramatic rise in the size of BA cohorts (i.e. entering classes) from the late 1940s onward. But the percentage of male students graduating with a BA between 1965-1971, the war years, and going on to earn a PhD decreased. But … the number of PhDs being awarded during those years did rise. Why? *It takes a long time to get a PhD!* Those people had enrolled five to seven years earlier. So while it may seem convincing that a record number of PhDs were awarded in 1968, those people actually enrolled back in 1960-63. In other words, they made their decision in the context of the ‘golden era’ of academic job growth and the Cold War expansion of education.\n\nHowever, the end of graduate deferments *did correlate to the decline in students entering PhD programs*. Just 3.7 percent of BA graduates in 1968 went on to obtain a PhD (recall it was 5.9 percent in 1962). This year saw the sharpest drop, as it was the year that Executive Order 11360 went into effect, ending the deferments. The propensity of women obtaining PhDs also fell by 1968, but at half the rate of men. This seems attributable to the uncertainty of the draft for male graduates. Why bother starting a 6 year program if you very well may have to leave it immediately for military service? \n\nIn some way this was a good thing. The golden era of academic expansion was ending and the number of PhDs was outstripping the number of new jobs. The war, in effect, helped orient the academic market to a better balance, in tune with more normal growth. Had the pre 1965 PhD enrollments continued apace, there would have been over 2,000 more PhDs for just those BA graduates between 1966-68.\n\n\nIn sum:\n\nDid the draft cause undergraduate enrollments to increase? **Yes**.\n\nDid the draft cause the number of MAs awarded to increase? **It seems so**.\n\nDid the draft cause the number of PhDs awarded to increase? **No**.\n\nDid the draft cause the number of PhDs awarded to decrease? **Yes**.\n\n------\n\nWilliam G. Bowen, *In Pursuit of the PhD* (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992).\n\nDavid Card and Thomas Lemieux, The American Economic Review, Vol. 91, No. 2 (May, 2001), 97-102.\n\nLori Thurgood, Mary J. Golladay, and Susan T. Hill,\n \"U.S. Doctorates in the 20th Century” *National Science Foundation* (June 2006), _URL_0_"
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"https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/february-2016/the-troubled-academic-job-market-for-... | |
5a0thn | why are negative g-forces harder to take in than positive ones ? | For instance, why is it that fighter jet pilots are able to resist positive vertical Gs of more than 6, but negative vertical Gs of 3 at most ? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5a0thn/eli5_why_are_negative_gforces_harder_to_take_in/ | {
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"Gravity exerts an effect on the blood in your vessels.\n\nIn positive G-force, the excess gravitational pull tends to cause your blood to stagnate in your calves, in the compliant and easily distensible veins. Pilots are able to withstand this by muscular training and by virtue of their G-suits, which inflate around the legs and body to prevent too much blood from pooling there. The body has compensatory mechanisms to keep blood flow moving to the brain, but in most cases, the most severe thing that can happen is a black out due to low blood flow to the brain.\n\nIn negative G-force, gravity tends to push blood towards the brain, where the veins sit in a closed, bony box that has limited space to expand, and even lesser capacity than the legs. This excess blood can compress nearby blood vessels, or even expand vessels enough to burst a few veins and arteries as well. This can be very serious and can lead to permanent damage, which is why pilots cannot tolerate excess negative Gs. Excess blood flow to the brain is poorly tolerated, since it doesn't have enough space to accommodate this extra blood, so the effects are much more serious.",
"Because we evolved in an environment where negative G forces are much rarer than positive ones. Our bodies evolved to adapt to what we are most likely to experience.\n\nIn particular, when you experience positive G, blood pressure decreases in your brain, and increases in your lower body. Your legs are pretty much must bone and muscle, and are relatively tough. Also, if a small blood vessel ruptures, the damage is fairly minor and heals quickly.\n\nNegative G increase blood pressure in the brain, which in not good. The brain is delicate, and even small ruptures in the blood vessels can be fatal.\n\n"
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10sycf | Is time a human construct or is it a property of our universe? | I do not know if my question is clear but I am uncertain how else to phrase the question. Some follow up questions: What is the proper definition of time in the physics community? Is a second always a second? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/10sycf/is_time_a_human_construct_or_is_it_a_property_of/ | {
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"General relativity says that even if time has nothing to do with humans, its relative passage will depend on various factors like mass and velocity, i.e., it will pass at different rates in different parts of the universe. Whether anything is just a human construct or an innate property of our universe calls for a much more philosophical debate, though. The Kantian understanding of time (which is just one among many), is particularly interesting I think.",
"The flow of time (arrow of time) has many definitions. For instance, there is the arrow of time in entropy which is the direction entropy increases is a system and the cosmological arrow of time which is the direction universe expands.\n\n_URL_0_"
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42m2wd | Was the narrowing of the rich poor divide and the rise of the social state in in Europe and elsewhere consciously promoted by the governments to lessen the appeal of socialist ideas? | If you look at the data about the income gap between rich and poor in the West and the rise of the social state in Europe, you'll see that it corresponds in time with the boom of the Soviet union and the other socialist countries.
To what extent was that coincidental and to what extent was it promoted consciously by the western governments to lessen the appeal of socialist ideas?
Conversely the widening of the income gap and the collapse of the social state in Europe and elsewhere coincides with the collapse of the socialist countries. Is this unrelated?
As a communist myself I've always heard by fellow communists that the social state has so particularly flourished in the Scandinavian countries because of the proximity to the USSR. Is there any grain of truth in this? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/42m2wd/was_the_narrowing_of_the_rich_poor_divide_and_the/ | {
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"Yes, to some extent. There was a conscious effort to come to a compromise whereby workers rights were protected and the capitalist class as well. This was done by centrist parties aiming to undercut the appeal of the far-left. This happened in the US as well, by the way. It's not really that people were looking to the soviet union as a model, but that there were domestic labor movements that had started before the Soviet Union had come about. In fact, many communists bemoan these policies for the exact reason that it reduces the appeal of communism. For example Marx wrote:\n\n\"However, the democratic petty bourgeois want better wages and security for the workers, and hope to achieve this by an extension of state employment and by welfare measures; in short, they hope to bribe the workers with a more or less disguised form of alms and to break their revolutionary strength by temporarily rendering their situation tolerable.\" -1\n\nSo basically it's politics, but isn't that what democracy is really about anyway? Each party tries to get votes however it can and they all try to get what their constituency wants, coming to some compromise. And besides, it wasn't *all* politics, there were other reasons to support the welfare state that included Christian social policies which basically supported health care and food for the poor, fuller employment, etc. We see this continuing today in Europe in the form of Christian democratic parties like Merkel's CDU.\n\n\nThe collapse of the social state movement in the US probably pre-dates the collapse of the Soviet Union in my opinion, but that's getting into the 20 year rule for this subreddit.\n\n1: _URL_0_\n\nI hope someone else can go into more detail, because I find this a very interesting topic of discussion and I know I cannot research it adequately. ",
"I think it goes back further, at least to the social reforms of the latter third of the 19th century, perhaps further to the erosion of magnate wealth. But the two world wars had a huge impact through taxes and high employment during and after the second. \n\nI'd say there are three elements: an attempt to sustain the political status quo by stealing some of the clothes of the left and thereby de-clawing it to some extent; the political and industrial action of socialist and labour movements themselves (as well as sincere bourgeois reformers); and recognition on the part of some economists and policy-makers that extreme inequality was no longer good business sense even if it had once served to concentrate capital for investment. Wartime national solidarity and sacrifice too had an impact, notably in Britain, even traditional Conservatives embracing the conviction that there must never be a return to the 1930s. \n\nThere is also an argument that demography played a key role, with falling mortality \"squeezing\" the working-age population and increasing their bargaining power, industrially and politically, until the post-WW2 baby boom from the late 1940s to the early 1960s reversed the pattern as its offspring entered the labour market in later decades. If so, we may face another reversal as those past working age - the very same boomers - increase, though the availability of vast globalised labour forces elsewhere may mean differentials stay as they are or continue to widen. \n\nThe later divergence seems to precede the Soviet collapse: in the UK its onset is largely associated with Thatcher's premiership, in the US it's been dated to 1968. But the subsequent collapse of the traditional left has certainly weakened the response to it (though the western left's troubles too pre-dated 1989 as the Cold War widened divisions within it, splitting social democratic parties, union confederations and later Communist parties themselves). \n\nScandinavia is indeed interesting. There I think the reasons are largely historical and cultural. While there were great medieval magnates, peasant subjection never reached the level characteristic of the period elsewhere in Europe, allowing the early development (puncuated by Denmark's inglorious but mercifully brief 18th-century experiment in statutory neo-villeinage) of substantial classes of farmers and free workers whose interests coincided (after much haggling) in the first steps toward social provision. "
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672444 | How accurate is this video about The Korean War by Knowledge Hub? | [Here's the Video](_URL_0_)
Some major points that I'm especially interested in learning about accuracy are
- 3:49 "Nobody believed the USA would get involved in Korea after a huge war like WW2."
- 6:29 "The American public had paid little attention to the war" (BTW This just feels wrong to me because my APUSH class talked about how furious the public was at Truman for not using an Atomic Bomb on North Korea and firing MacArthur, so I don't see how the public was not paying attention)
- 6:40 - 7:17 talks about how many government rose and fall in South Korea and how the country was in turmoil and economic ruin while the North was actually prosperous; and then the 80's came and South Korea become very powerful while North Korea become a dystopian cult society.
Thanks! | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/672444/how_accurate_is_this_video_about_the_korean_war/ | {
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"I can't give you much on American public opinion, but I can address your third point.\n\nIn the few years of division before war (1945-50), North Korea implemented a lot of *really popular policies*. This included land reform that parceled out property to the common people; empowering women to work outside the home; schools and daycares; and public work projects. At the same time, South Korea was busy attempting to stamp out leftists and prevent a left-leaning state from springing up and ousting the pro-American dictatorship in place. \n\nAfter the war, South Korea was *still* a dictatorship attempting to stamp out leftist opposition. Remember, this is the height of the Cold War. Priorities being what they were, the leadership in South Korea was more concerned with maintaining power than rebuilding. North Korea, with the support of both China and the Soviet Union, was able to immediately turn attention to reconstruction. South Korea remained under dictatorship/military rule for decades. They didn't elect a civilian president *until 1993*. It's difficult to imagine, because South Korea today is a massive developed economy, but North Korea was doing objectively better for a long time.\n\nThe cult-of-personality didn't really begin until the transition of power from Kim Il-Sung to Kim Jong-Il. While the elder Kim had legitimate credentials for leading the party and the state, Kim Jong-Il... not so much. So the veneration of Kim Il-Sung was designed to legitimize Kim Jong-Il's succession. That amazing state education implemented in interwar years turns out to be a perfect vehicle for indoctrination. The economic descent of North Korea is more linked to the winding down of the Cold War: without the Soviet Union and China providing resources and manpower, North Korea's economy stuttered. The country became isolated from the global economy (the same global economy that finally pulled South Korea into Asian Tiger status). This was followed by a famine in the 1990s and the collapse of the state distribution system. North Korea hasn't recovered.\n\nIt's hard to imagine how sudden this shift must have seemed. Imagine someone born in Korea, say, in the year 1910. This person is born the same year that the Korean king is ousted, and Korea annexed into the Japanese empire. If they were left-leaning politically, they might go to China in their late teens/early twenties and fight in the Chinese civil war, or perhaps join an anti-Japanese guerilla organization. Age thirty-five, their country is split in two, and they probably have relatives on either side of the border. Age forty, open war between countrymen. The literature from this period is heart-wrenching. Some parents had children fighting for opposing sides, and loyalties were divided.\n\nAfter the war, if this person is in North Korea, they enjoy an adulthood of fairly secure living, with work and education and land to own. But by the age of eighty, this person will have also seen their grandchildren starving to death, and their children possibly hauled off to re-education or work camps. \n\nIf this person is in South Korea, they will have watched as Americans slipped into old colonial institutions and continued the persecution of leftists. They will have worried about getting work and getting food; education is a luxury. But by age eighty, they will have seen successful democratic protests, and seen their grandchildren buy cell phones, and go to world-ranked universities, and never worry about food.\n\nTwentieth-century Korean history is *fascinating*. So many changes within such a short period of time.\n\nSome random thoughts inspired by the video:\n\n- I disagree with the characterization of Kim Il-Sung as a \"Soviet puppet.\" He was an anti-Japanese guerilla fighter prior to the war, with combat experience in China, and solid socialist credentials. There was significant friction between Kim and the Comintern in Russia, which is probably best exemplified by the obvious example given in the video: Kim Il-Sung was intent on unifying Korea *with or without* Soviet approval. And he made the attempt without Soviet support. During rebuilding, Kim Il-Sung often played China and the Soviet Union against each other to gain benefit. Hardly a puppet; he played his role to his own advantage.\n\n- I really appreciate that the phrase \"Northern aggression\" wasn't used to describe the invasion. While North Korea's invasion is undoubtedly the spark for the war snowballing into a Cold War proxy conflict, it helps to consider the context. Skirmishes had been on-going for months. Both sides were actively calling for unification by military means. North Korea was flourishing, supported by powerful allies (China, Soviet Union), and was implementing the promised policies that people had wanted under Japanese rule. From the northern perspective, South Korea had exchanged one colonial rule for another, and were no better off for it. It's inaccurate to paint North Korean motives as simple aggression. And I wish that was more well known.\n\nMy sources:\n\n[The Korean War: A History](_URL_3_) by Bruce Cumings\nThis is *the* book on the Korean War, one of the earlier \"revisionist\" academic works. It might give some insight into American perceptions of the \"Forgotten War.\" It's the book that I would recommend to anyone wanting to get a decent overview of the Korean War, because it addresses the issues with American scholarship (i.e. it's very biased about socialism).\n\n[\"Everyday Life in the North Korean Revolution, 1945-1950\"](_URL_1_) by Suzy Kim\nThis looks at the interwar years in North Korea, with particular focus on land reform, education, and women.\n\n[\"The Destruction and Reconstruction of North Korea, 1950-1960\"](_URL_0_) by Charles K. Armstrong\nThis looks at the socialist \"fraternity\" of states, and how Chinese/East German/Soviet aid was integral to North Korea's rebuilding and economic success in the immediate post-war period.\n\n[This entire issue of Cross Currents on \"(De)Memorializing the Korean War: A Critical Intervention\"](_URL_2_) is a useful look at how different players recollect the war in the aftermath.\n\nIf you can find it, I also recommend \"Socialist Korea: A Case Study in the Strategy of Economic Development\" by Ellen Brun and Jacques Hersh. It was written in the 1970s, and might give an interesting perspective on how people were explaining North Korea's progress at the height of its success."
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"https://cross-currents.berkeley.edu/e-journal/issue-14",
"https://www.amazon.com/Korean-War-History-Library-Chronicles/dp/081297896X"
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36gjhb | why do children hate going to sleep so much? it feels so good! | It seems pretty universal that kids hate going to sleep. It also seems universal that adults love hitting the pillow after a long day. Children are the masters of doing what feels good at the moment without regard to others. Why do they hate sleep so much when adults can't seem to get enough? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/36gjhb/eli5_why_do_children_hate_going_to_sleep_so_much/ | {
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"Well, kids like to be active, not lazy. They dont work all day. Adults, however, do work all day, and are much more tired at the end of a day.",
"I think it has more to do with them having to go to bed while others, adults and older kids, are allowed to stay up. Why would you want to be told to go to sleep when other people are up still having fun and doing things? That's why kids think bedtime sucks. That, combined with the fact that adults work all day and are tired (getting old sucks sometimes too), while kids still have a ton of energy at 8pm.",
"i hated going to bed especially if it was still light out. i always thought there was so much more i could be out doing and it just left me with an empty feeling in my gut.\n\nand yet i would up a fight getting out of bed in the morning haha"
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1eg6sm | why some people believe there is a correlation between guns and freedom. | Not a troll, I've just never heard any simple answer to this. I get that part of it is in case you need to overthrow a tyrannical government, but isn't that strictly speaking, "treason"? Also, are people who live in countries where fewer people carry guns and have stricter gun controls less free? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1eg6sm/eli5_why_some_people_believe_there_is_a/ | {
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"This is a somewhat loaded question, and the answer is somewhat subjective, but the basic premise is that in our constitution, which is the document upon which our *entire country* is based, it explicitly states that the people shall be allowed to have guns. Not all countries have that, so in that sense, it's a freedom that America gives its citizens.",
"I'll begin by saying that I'm French (so I don't know much about Murica freedom and guns :) )\nWhat I understand thought is that in so called \"free\" countries, the state is the only entity who's allowed to use legitimate violence (cops can force you physically to get in a car, put your arms behind your back...).\nThe citizen are only allowed violence in very restricted circumstances, exceptions.\nI guess people feel that relying too much on the state to use legitimate violence ends up leaving them very vulnerable to regimes that would shrink the liberties (dictatorship and such).\nI have to say that I believe if an American general decided to take over the government, he would face a much stronger opposition (military speaking) than he would in France for instance.\nIt is kind of the same subject as privacy protection vs crime/terrorist control. Allowing the government agencies to know anything they want on anyone may be a powerful tool to fight crime/terrorism but it put the whole democracy in a very scarringly vulnerable position.\n\nTLTR: A kind of \"spontaneous-citizens-army\" may be seen as a good way to avoid the establishment of dictatorships.",
"Disarming the population of a country is historically a prelude to oppression and genocide. The ownership of guns is considered a barrier to this scenario; the Gestapo are less able to kick down your door and search for undesirables if many citizens can meet them with a bullet.\n\nOverthrowing a tyrannical government would indeed be treason. So would killing Hitler; who cares?\n\nPeople who live in disarmed countries with strict gun control are not necessarily less free (except on the issue of guns of course). But they do lack a safeguard against oppression.\n\nThe expectation isn't necessarily that a citizen uprising could completely overthrow the government, just that oppressive measures that would warrant an armed reaction can be met with some level of force. Our efforts in the Middle East should prove how dangerous guerrilla warfare can be without any real hope of conventional military victory. Resistance could be as simple as Nazi soldiers on leave in occupied countries coming back a few men short every night, falling to men with long knives in their coats and cold anger in their hearts.\n\nThose same old men now find themselves not allowed to carry a knife without a permit showing it is required for their job.\n\nIn fair weather and good times the right seems pointless and dangerous. But it isn't there for the good times.",
"A gun allows you to personally protect yourself, your family, and your belongings. If you are beholden to the government to protect you how \"free\" are you really?\n\nI don't 100% agree with this but I think their are some elements of truth to it and I think it's something to consider.",
"I believe by infringing upon citizens right to own firearms would simply disarm law abiding citizens. Criminals are criminals because they don't care about breaking the law.\n Them, like you and I, must feed themselves and their family. Unlike you and I-I assume though, they are willing to do by any means necessary. If a disarmed citizen were to get in their way the said criminal would likely act in a violent way.\n Therefore many want the ability, legally, to defend themselves by any means necessary to protect them and their families. \nIf decreasing the number of deaths is truly the goal we may as well make alcohol/cars illegal as they cause more deaths than guns. We tried that before (with alcohol). I don't believe guns are the problem, the operators-the people- are the problem. "
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i5fiz | When something is orbiting another object in space is it really just free falling toward that object but keeps missing? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/i5fiz/when_something_is_orbiting_another_object_in/ | {
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"As opposed to what?\n\nThat's what the saying is supposed to make you realize. Free falling *means* that you're only feeling the effects of gravity. If you're orbiting another object in space, you are therefore free falling towards it in a way such that you never hit it.",
"According to Newtonian phyisics, this is exactly right. See [Newton's cannonball.](_URL_0_) I am no expert on the relativivstic stuff, so I'll let a physicist fix this if necessary.",
"That's a valid way to look at it.\n\nA more valid way is to decompose the object's motion into two parts: the \"down\" part that points toward the source of gravitation, and the \"sideways\" part that points at a right angle to the \"down\" part.\n\nThe magnitude of the \"down\" component of motion depends on how far away from the source of gravitation this object is; the closer it is, the faster it wants to fall, and the farther away it is, the slower it wants to fall. So at any given distance, there's exactly one \"sideways\" component of motion that will exactly balance out the \"down\" component is such a way that the object moves in a perfect circle; for other values of the \"sideways\" component, you get elliptical orbits, and for even-more-different values you get degenerate or hyperbolic orbits.",
"Yes, anything in orbit is in free fall."
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4owhy0 | why is florida the only state where alligators and crocodiles live side by side? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4owhy0/eli5_why_is_florida_the_only_state_where/ | {
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"Alligators are more tolerant of colder water and weather, and thus are found not only in Florida but in Georgia, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, Arkansas, North Carolina and South Carolina.\n\nCrocodiles are much more susceptible to cold and for that reason they are only found in Florida, and only in south Florida. They require consistent, year-round tropical temperatures. Even a cold snap in south Florida can kill crocodiles, while alligators may continue to thrive.",
"Because it is where the tropical biome (crocodile home) meets the wet woodlands biome (alligator home). And because biomes don't have walls. But I hear Trump wants to put one up.",
"Alligators are found in only two places in the world, The United States, and China. Crocodiles are found everywhere except Europe and Antartica.\n\nMost regions only have one major type of crocodilian, with the exception of South America, where Caimans live.\n\nThe American Crocodile and American Alligator overlap in small areas of Florida. The Alligator is set up for cooler conditions than most other members of the crocodilian family.\n\nAmerican Crocodiles like very specific conditions (mix of fresh/salt waters, and temperatures), and were being out-bred by the American Alligators as humans devastated these specific habitats.\n\nIronically, the American Crocodile has had a resurgence because of Nuclear Power facilities, and their retention ponds, which create the specific conditions that the American Crocodile prefers. They bring in salt water to cool the reactors which creates the brackish water the Crocodiles prefer.\n"
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31vf5h | What was the historical significance of Beowulf on literacy? | My professor was lecturing about Beowulf, and how it was one of the first works written in vernacular instead of Latin. Is this true? I decided to write about it for my research paper, but cannot find a source for that, and he can't seem to recall where it is he learned it.
Edit: What I'm getting at is, Beowulf aside, what were the views on literacy and education among common people in the era? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/31vf5h/what_was_the_historical_significance_of_beowulf/ | {
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"Beowulf survives in a manuscript that was probably written in the early 11th century, and there's a lot of debate about when exactly the poem itself was originally written; you see dates between the 7th century and 11th, but it was probably the 9th or 10th. This means it was almost certainly not one of the first vernacular (English) poems to be written down; that honor might go to the Dream of the Rood, which survives on the Rutwell Cross from the 8th century, or Caedmon's Hymn (which survives in Bede, in Latin, from the 730s, but was pretty indisputably originally written in English). And there's the Y Gododdin, which was probably equally early if not a bit older, written in Welsh.\n\nOf course, we're talking about *writing* in the vernacular; we know that there was a vibrant culture of storytelling across England (and, honestly, in every culture), and that was definitely happening in the vernacular. The large number of Old English poems and histories that survive from the Anglo-Saxon period aren't remarkable for being in the languages that people spoke; they're remarkable for being preserved in those languages. And that is a somewhat unique thing we see in England during the early middle ages. All the laws were written in Old English instead of Latin (Frankish and Visigothic laws were in Latin), and things written in Latin like Bede's history, many saints' lives, and much of the bible, were translated into Old English, copied, and preserved.\n\nWe're also at a tricky point for the idea of the 'vernacular' language. Many parts of the post Roman world, like France, were speaking languages that had started out as Latin and were still in the processes of evolving toward their modern descendants. When Gregory of Tours wrote his history in 6th century France, he wrote it in an educated Latin that's certainly much more sophisticated and traditional than the language the peasants were speaking, but I don't know if you could say it wasn't the vernacular. It was just very old fashioned compared to the contemporary, (d)evolved Latin that was well on its way toward becoming French. And many churchmen - at least, the ones well enough educated to write - had a grasp of the basics of classical latin (though often little more than the basics). So in those regions, the contrast between Latin and the common language was a little more like our relatioinship to Chaucer (we can recognize that middle english and modern english are related, but we can't start talking in middle english without proper training). It wasn't, perhaps, as unnatural for people in France and Visigothic Spain to conduct official business in the older, more traditional, more religiously meaningful language as it was for people to use Latin in England were, as far as we can tell, the Roman language had been largely replaced on a popular and official level by languages more closely related to Germanic dialects.\n\nAt all events, if you want to know more about translation from Latin to Old English, [this book might be a helpful starting place](_URL_0_)."
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11953n | - how my dog knows it's me coming to the door, before he can even see me. he barks at everyone but me, but he has no line of sight on me. | I live in a bad neighborhood so I just have a door with a peephole, and one window facing outwards (to the street) that is covered by a chest of drawers. My dog is obviously a genius of epic proportions, but I'd like to know how the clever bastard does it. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/11953n/eli5_how_my_dog_knows_its_me_coming_to_the_door/ | {
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"Do you come home at the same time every day?",
"Not sure if you arrive home in a car or not but my dog probably identifies me by the following sounds:\n\n* Distinctive engine noise of your car\n* Sound of your car door closing\n* Sound of keys entering the lock\n\nA dog can easily tell the difference when someone else's car drives by versus yours and similarly the resulting sounds that you make when arriving home are unique and identifiable by your dog.\n\nMy wife was once walking our dog before I had gotten home from work. I rode my motorcycle to work that day. She noticed that the dog's tail started wagging and she started pulling hard on the leash almost a half a minute before I was within earshot of my wife. \n\nGranted my bike is louder than my car but I also drive a Subaru WRX which has a turbocharger and if you listen carefully cars with turbos makes a whining noise when the turbo spools up. My dog would also get excited and happy whenever a WRX drove by or was nearby.\n\nThey have amazing hearing and they can tell.",
"I can tell my boss is walking down the hall at least 30ft away, her heels just click a certain way. I'm sure your dog knows how you walk.",
"The same way I can tell which person is moving around the house without looking by the way their footsteps sound.",
"It might be smell in a combination with other reasons.\n\nDogs have a much better sense of smell than us and if he knows your scent then when he smells it combined with foot sounds outside he will assume it is you",
"Heightened sense of smell."
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2nst1m | How does vegetation survive in radiation-heavy zones like Chernobyl while humans cannot? | After watching the video of [drone footage above Chernobyl](_URL_0_), I've been curious as to how the plant-life has managed to overtake the city with such high levels of radiation? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2nst1m/how_does_vegetation_survive_in_radiationheavy/ | {
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"Humans could live in Chernobyl, but one would risk encountering a hot piece of equipment or material could be dangerous. [This site](_URL_0_) gives a few helpful tables on current radiation levels around Chernobyl. For reference, 1uSv/h continuous exposure is 8.8mSv/year, which is triple the average natural background radiation dose. The lowest dose that is known to increase in the risk of cancer is 100mSv/year. Of course, the site includes the dose level of the claw that was used in the cleanup operation, which would give you a normal year worth of dose if you sat on it for 12 hours.",
"[_URL_0_](http://news._URL_0_/2009/05/how-plants-survived-chernobyl)\n\n > The radiation zone beans looked odd even before the protein analysis. They weighed half as much and took up water more slowly than their low-radiation counterparts. And on a molecular level, the beans were even stranger, the researchers report in the June Journal of Proteome Research. When compared with normal plants, beans from the high-radiation area had three times more cysteine synthase, a protein known to protect plants by binding heavy metals. They also had 32% more betaine aldehyde dehydrogenase, a compound found to reduce chromosomal abnormalities in human blood exposed to radiation. Seed storage proteins, which provide nitrogen for germinating seeds, also showed up in different concentrations--some higher, some lower--than in regular soy.\n\ni couldn't find any better sources than that sorry. That more directly answers your question, that they grow but grow weird. I also remember something about plants being less susceptible to plant cancers because no one part will cause critical failure. so you have a cancer on a leaf, the leaf falls off, you have cancer on a stem, the nutes flow around the bad part. and also wont metastasize(spread) through the rest of the plant causing global failure [-popsci-](_URL_2_)",
"Not only plant but also bacteria and other wild life in the region itself, it has been irking me for a while was it the force of the environment that has changed those species to adapt, or were they capable of survival in those very same environments from the beginning.",
"There will be other good posts about how radiation affects plants vs. animals, but also keep in mind survivorship bias in what you see. You are seeing plants that can tolerate higher levels of radiation, and you aren't seeing all the usual species (for that region) which cannot.",
"The embarrassing truth is that humans are more destructive to animals and plants than anything else, up to and apparently including nuclear disaster. Chernobyl is a land without humans, and this is such a massive survival benefit to plants and animals that it makes up for the radiation. (We don't only intentionally kill animals and plants intentionally, our activities and our absolute iron-fisted redesign of every aspect of our spaces squeezes plants and animals out of areas we inhabit.)\n\nAlso remember that people can survive in Chernobyl, it's just quite unhealthy to do so. At this point, quarter of a century after the disaster, the danger is cancer, not radiation poisoning, ie you would elevate your risk of cancer and thus may die earlier than you otherwise would. This is both a reason why people don't live there, and why plants and animals can. Animals get cancer too, but often don't live long enough - they tend to die of predation, injury, disease, or starvation first.\n\nLastly, the radiation in Chernobyl is not evenly spread. You can be perfectly safe in one place while only a few hundred feet away the radiation is dangerously elevated (such as near buried debris from the accident). This is bad for humans, who move around their environment a lot (and live for a long time, and don't die from predators, etc), but is a non-issue to a tree, which stays in the same place it's always been.\n\n",
"Chernobyl, and Pripyat, really isn't very radiation-heavy anymore. At this point, the radiation levels are so low that it's more like \"well, you probably could survive, but just to be safe, don't build a house here\". But there are people in the surrounding area who refused to evacuate, and they're still alive.",
"Observational Bias. \nEven at the height of the disaster, the majority of victims didn't just drop dead on the spot like one would expect to see in a movie. They died hours, days, weeks and months later. \nNow that radiation levels are lower in most areas, symptoms of radiation poisoning will take longer and in most cases not be obviously due to radiation poisoning unless diagnosed after examination. \n\nSo, for example, suppose we have forgotten about the accident and the dangers of radiation and large numbers of people move back. Many of the people would live long enough to be killed by something other than radiation poisoning. Many more would die of radiation poisoning, but unless you were familiar with the symptoms, you would likely shrug and think, \"hmm.. Must have been cancer.\" Only if you were familiar with expected death rates in non-radiation zones would you think, \"Man, 25% of my neighbors are dying of cancer??? That's much higher than normal. We need to get out of here!\" \n\nNow take this and apply it to plants: \n- the death rates are much higher than normal, but most casual observers don't know the expected death rates of plants and don't stick around long enough to track this data over the lifetime of a particular plant or group of plants. \n- most people don't examine dead plants for cause of death. They simply think, \"Hmmm. Dead plant.\", not \"Holey moley! 25% of the plants are dying of radiation sickness!\" \n- most people's reaction to a 25% death rate amongst plants might think, \"Hmm. Dead plants\", while a similar death rate amongst humans would be much more striking and ghastly.\n\nDisclaimers: \n- Rates given are for illustrative purposes only. I have no idea of the actual rates.\n\nTL;DR: The rate of death is much lower than 100%, so at any given time, there are more living than dead. The death rates are still much higher than acceptable for humans (and plants, for that matter.)"
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ezxp2e | how does a meteorologist detect lighting? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ezxp2e/eli5_how_does_a_meteorologist_detect_lighting/ | {
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"Lightning detection takes advantage of the radio frequency pulse that lightning causes. Several antennas collect the signals and the timing gives the direction.",
"Next time there is a lightning storm turn on your car radio. Tune it to an AM frequency that is just static, no broadcast. Every pop, click, and static burst you hear is lightning. You can listen to storms from miles away."
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20dnwk | Before the wide spread of coffee and tea, what were other popular stimulants or pick me ups in European culture? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/20dnwk/before_the_wide_spread_of_coffee_and_tea_what/ | {
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"Salep was big in the 17th and 18th centuries across northern Europe. Still is in Turkey, the Balkans, and the middle east.",
"In Medieval Europe the upper classes would use a wide and heavy mix of spices in their food. Some of these such as a liberal use of pepper would have had a stimulating effect. For the very rich, their actual food couldn't be tasted at all under the spices, it was just a vehicle for the spice. \n\nAt some tables spice platters were a common feature, foregoing the actual food altogether, just passing a silver platter of various spices in divided compartments around the guests before and after a meal. Guests consumed spoonfuls of pepper, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, cardomon, nutmeg, sugar, salt, and others as we would a cup of espresso, or a glass of sherry. Spices were consumed liberally on food, on their own, or as solutions in wine or water. Medieval wine was often composed more of spices than of the juice of grapes.\n\nSpice certainly stimulated the palate and so had an enjoyable effect on the person. Not only did it have a physical effect, it was also what the medieval mind imagined paradise to be like. All descriptions of paradise iwere largely based around liberal descriptions of the smell and taste of a wide variety of spices. So it would have had a transcendental effect on the mind in this sense also.\n\nSource: Tastes of Paradise: a social history of spices, by Wolfgang Schivelbusch and David Jacobson\n\nBut saying this, medieval Europe was psychopharmacologically poor. Other cultures had coca, khat, opium etc., but the European commoner had nothing but alchohol, which they drank constantly as their sole liquid sustanence, water being full of disease.\n\nBut humans being what we are, no society would put up with such poverty of circumstances, people like to feel good. So in the absence of physical stimulants,the medieval European commoner would participate in cultural stimulants, which were often just as effective, producing very pronounced somatic effects. Group participation in religious sermons for instance produced a very striking group experience very similar to the effects of stimulating drugs. Some preachers were known for being able to make an entire crowd collapse in deep eruptions of weeping or powerful exhalations of ecstasy. These sermons were often preached outside though, without modern sound equipment, and the records show that the crowds numbered int their thousands. Most of the crowd therefore wouldn't have heard the preacher's words at all, but they experienced the stimulant effect nevertheless. There were also many solitary stimulant experiences as well as can be seen in the records of powerful ecstasies experienced by certain mystics like Julian of Norwich or Margery Kemp, such an experience being compeltely alien to us, since we are used to only experiencing such heightened sensations under the influence of pharmacological agents.\n\nRead [this fascinating article](_URL_0_) for further information.",
"In Sweden, *ölsupa*, a thin gruel made with wine or beer (or in rare cases mead) as a base was a popular hot drink before the introduction of coffee and tea.\n\n*Ölsupa* is made with wine or beer (rarely mead) as a base. If you were affluent, you would use Rhenian wine or German beer (which could be 4-6%), if you were less affluent, you used the local weak beer (1-2%). The beer or wine was mixed with milk and a small amount of flour and heated. Depending on how thick you wanted your *ölsupa*, what time of year it was and how affluent you were, you could mix in any combination of cinnamon, ginger, egg yolks, salt or sugar.\n\nKing Karl XII was very fond of *ölsupa* for breakfast, eating it while the rest of the \"court\" (as it was in the field) often ate meat.\n\nEdit: Spelling.",
"Keep in mind, Coffee in particular may be slightly older than you might expect. Although it's not exactly relevant to the question, setting the dates helps establish the time period we're talking about. \n\nCoffee (as in the plant), is native to west africa, and the first instances of making drinks from Coffee beans was in the 1500's in the Arabian peninsula. Possibly in the city of [Mocha, Yemen.](_URL_3_). There are actually several different origin stories for coffee. \n\nIn any case, by the late 1500's Coffee was widely spread throughout the middle east, and was arriving in southern europe, particularly Venice, which was a port for much of the european trade with africa and the middle east. \n\n[In 1600 Pope Clement VIII](_URL_0_) was asked by his advisors to ban coffee, because of claims it was a \"bitter intervention of satan.\" He is purported to have stated: \"This devil's drink is so delicious...we should cheat the devil by baptizing it.\" \n\nCoffee also made its way into central europe through the Ottoman empire, and into England and the Netherlands through their trade with the far east. The first Coffeehouse opened in Vienna in 1673 and at that same time England had 3000 Coffee Houses. It remained an expensive drink for many years, but Coffee was definitely \"widespread\" in Europe by 1700 or so. \n\nTea has a similar and slightly newer history in Europe. Tea began to arrive in England in the mid 1600's. \n\nSo when you say \"before the wide spread of cofee or tea\" we're talking, effectively about pre-16th century europe. \n\nTo the extent you consider it \"European Culture\" to go as far back as Rome, [there's this thread from 8 months ago](_URL_1_) asking whether the Ancient Romans had the equivalent of a cup of coffee. \n\nThe top answer recounts what some other people say in this thread. It was relatively common for people to drink diluted wine in moderate quantities throughout the day. Although alcohol is *technically* a depressant, consuming just a little bit tends to perk people up. This works more on a psychological level than a physical one. If you're just a little bit drunk aches and pains and being tired don't matter quite as much. \n\nIn non-roman cultures alcohol played a similar role, but I suppose you can also look at folk medicine a bit. [Chervil](_URL_2_) AKA french parsley has a very mild stimulant effect, and was used in eastern european folk medicine for various remedies. See e.g. Chervil Tea. \n\nI'm not an expert on herbalism, but many other herbs also have stimulant compounds that may, at times, have been used for various folk medicines. I don't know enough to say how widespread they are. \n\n\n\n"
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jzem5 | what is the deal with al jazeera and why is there such a stigma against them in the us? | I've never watched Al Jazeera before. I hear about its virtues ONLY on Reddit. Everyone talks about how it's one of the last great news sources.
But in real life, it seems like most people think it's some terrorist channel. Why? How did this happen? How did it become "infamous"? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/jzem5/eli5_what_is_the_deal_with_al_jazeera_and_why_is/ | {
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"I think the stigma comes from two main sources:\n\n* After 9/11, they broadcasted the Taliban's/Al Qaeda's videos, which, a lot of people felt like gave those groups credence, recognition, and some would argue, favor. \n\n* Speculation but... (personal bias here) a lot of Americans are (unfortunately) horribly ignorant, so, people are distrusting of something with an Arabic name. This is also combined with wild speculation on politician's and the US media's part to portray Al Jazeera's content as anti-American. I remember hearing nothing but negative things for a long time about it after 9/11. \n\nThey do a really good job on presenting a fairly unbiased view though, and people get the sense that they're presenting real news, and not just commercialized garbage. ",
"I think the stigma comes from two main sources:\n\n* After 9/11, they broadcasted the Taliban's/Al Qaeda's videos, which, a lot of people felt like gave those groups credence, recognition, and some would argue, favor. \n\n* Speculation but... (personal bias here) a lot of Americans are (unfortunately) horribly ignorant, so, people are distrusting of something with an Arabic name. This is also combined with wild speculation on politician's and the US media's part to portray Al Jazeera's content as anti-American. I remember hearing nothing but negative things for a long time about it after 9/11. \n\nThey do a really good job on presenting a fairly unbiased view though, and people get the sense that they're presenting real news, and not just commercialized garbage. "
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bxqw2m | During the D-day invasion did the allies use smoke grenades and smoke mortars to cover their advance on the beaches? I don’t think I’ve seen any examples of that in movies. | Maybe it just doesn’t look as cool in the movies to see a massive cloud on the beach and Germans randomly shooting into it. I haven’t read anything saying this either but admittedly I’ve only read into it a little. The pictures from D-day don’t seem to show any smoke clouds either except for the ones created by bombs going off. | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/bxqw2m/during_the_dday_invasion_did_the_allies_use_smoke/ | {
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"Smoke directly on the beaches during landings was as much of a hindrance as a help. On Omaha beach smoke and dust from naval bombardment and resultant fires caused navigational difficulties for the landing craft, compounded by a strong current, and many landed east of their planned area. This in turn caused issues for the troops in fulfilling their planned assignments, especially where units were separated and had difficulty forming up to start with. The smoke did provide cover in some areas for the US troops to advance, but also obscured enemy positions from naval bombardment from the destroyers offshore. \n\nAppendix 3 - Smoke Plan of Operation Plan No. 2-44 of the Western Naval Task Force, Allied Naval Expeditionary Force specified that \"Smoke may be used to screen (a) Convoys, (b) Transport Area,(c) Boat Lanes, (d) Beaches, (e) Gunfire support ships, (f) Minesweeping, and (g) Ports against (h) Observation for control of gunfire, and (i) Air attack\" and cautioned officers to bear in mind at all times \"(a) the danger of isolating or interfering with effective fire from other units whose task may be more important. (b) the danger of isolating units which must emerge from the smoke into an enemy field of fire.\" In the event there was little danger of air attack, but the flanks of the invasion were screened from German coastal guns by RAF Boston light bombers fitted with Smoke Curtain Installations (S.C.I.), 342 (Free French) Squadron in the west and 88 Squadron in the east. ([88 Squadron Boston crossing the channel] (_URL_0_); [Boston being reloaded with smoke cylinders] (_URL_2_); [BBC People's War account of Squadron Leader George Louden of 88 Squadron] (_URL_1_).) \n\nOff Utah beach the destroyer USS *Corry* was not covered by the smokescreen from 342 Squadron and was hit by artillery fire, sinking either from the shelling or after hitting a mine; off Sword beach the smokescreen laid by 88 Squadron shielded Allied ships from shore observation but the double-edged nature of smoke meant that it also concealed three German torpedo boats making a sortie out of Le Havre. They burst out of cover, fired 18 torpedoes at the fleet, and safely retired back behind the smoke; despite the mass of Allied ships were in the area, including the battleships Warspite and Ramillies, the only ship hit was the Norwegian destroyer *Svenner*."
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"http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/11/a2688311.shtml",
"http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205211823"
]
] | |
biwo4e | Why do some birds hop while some of them walk? | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/biwo4e/why_do_some_birds_hop_while_some_of_them_walk/ | {
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"A few moment's searching found this RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) page: _URL_0_\n\n > Most small garden birds, like tits and finches, hop rather than run. This is because the majority of them spend most of their time in trees. Hopping is a useful way of getting quickly from branch to branch. There are always exceptions. Wagtails are small birds, but they spend much of their time on the ground chasing insects and so they run, rather than hop. \n \n > Birds that run or walk, such as partridges and moorhens, spend much of their time on the ground. Hopping all the time would use up a lot of energy, and so they have evolved to walk more smoothly. It also helps with speed – birds that spend a lot of time on the ground need to be able to quickly run into cover to escape from a potential predator! Exceptions to this rule are magpies and jays, which hop. Although they do spend time on the ground, they spend more time in the trees than other members of the crow family, like rooks and carrion crows, which run.\n > \n\nI'd be willing to say they probably know what they're talking about.",
"To complement u/CopperSeaUrchin's reply, there is some evidence that the bird's structure lends itself to either hopping or walking as being more efficient.\n\nGeijtenbeek, van de Panne and van der Stappen devised a [computational model for simulating muscle based locomotion](_URL_0_). More specifically, the model hard wires parameters for the \"shape\" of the entity, and the model figures out how best to use the muscles to move (via genetic algorithm). In their simulations, they observe both walking, running and hopping [emerge](_URL_1_) as the best form of locomotion for different parameters.",
"This paper (_URL_0_) goes into the energy usage and other aspects of walking vs running vs skipping. (I don't think there is much discussion of hopping, in the sense of both feet moving exactly the same)",
" \n\nAlmost all birds are capable of doing both, but it’s normally more energy efficient for small birds to move by hopping. Their light bodies are easy to bounce into the air and they cover much more distance in a single hop than a walking stride from their short legs.\n\nFor heavier birds, the extra load on their joints favours a gait that leaves one leg on the ground at all times. Plus, longer legs make walking faster."
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"https://www.cs.ubc.ca/~van/papers/2013-TOG-MuscleBasedBipeds/2013-TOG-MuscleBasedBipeds.pdf",
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgaEE27nsQw"
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"https://royalsocietypublishin... | ||
7pdetm | gaussian distrubition - what it is, and how it works | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7pdetm/eli5_gaussian_distrubition_what_it_is_and_how_it/ | {
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"Essentially, the Gaussian distribution (or normal- since that's what I'm used \nto, I'll call it that from now on) is a kind of \"default\" for calculating the \nchance that a continuous data point will fall in some range, or above some \nthreshold, or below, or... you get the point. The exact way to do this depends \non the \"distribution\" of the data being used, but (at least in certain cases) \nthe distribution resembles the normal one for sample sizes over 30. In fact, \nit's so normal to use it (hence the name) it's actually causing serious problems \nin the modern world because it's been forced onto data that it doesn't fit!\n\n\nTo understand how it works, you need to understand the bell curve- if you \nhaven't seen it, any article on the Gaussian distribution will include a copy. \nThe basic shape always stays the same for any data. However, the peak will \nsit over the mean, and the graph is stretched or squashed to reflect \nthe standard deviation. To use it, then, is all you have to do is find the \narea of the graph that sits over whatever interval you want to find the chance \nfor- usually, this is done using tables of the area to the left of any given \npoint with some subtraction if required, but it's the same underlying idea. \nThe area under the curve happens to work out to exactly one because the curve \nflattens at the ends, so the area corresponds exactly to the probability.\n\n\nIf there's anything else you want to know, feel free to ask!",
"The Gaussian distribution is the formal name for the statistic that it will be more probable to have a middle value than the max/min value.\n\n\nSimple case: Get two dice. Each die has a side from 1-6. So two dice has a minimum of 2, and maximum of 12. But there is only one way to make 2 (1+1) and much more ways to make, say, 7. (1+6, 2+5, 3+4, 4+3, 5+2, 6+1) \nIf you count all the possible outcomes (2-12) it looks sort of a like a bell curve (the shape of a bell with the middle being much higher than the ends)\n\n\nThere is much more to this than just the shape with probablity but will will need a ELI10-15. Look up the wiki page! Hehe"
]
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6dxilu | What do historians today make of the 1952 "Stalin note" that offered a demilitarized and unified Germany? | Was it a genuine offer? If so, why were the Soviets making it? If not, how could it have been used cynically? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6dxilu/what_do_historians_today_make_of_the_1952_stalin/ | {
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"From an [earlier answer of mine](_URL_0_)\n\nThe Stalin Note (or correctly, note*s*) was an event in the Cold War that elicited a great deal of controversy in both Germany and in the West when Stalin first broached the topic. The debate at the time swung around two poles among both policymakers and intellectuals. The first camp considered it a ruse on the part of the Soviet dictator to drive a wedge in the emerging Western alliance and give the Soviet bloc the moral high ground in the de facto division of Germany. While the first camp found wide currency among Western policymakers, the second position was that the offer was genuine and offered a last minute chance to not only end German division, but deescalate the Cold War. The \"lost chance\" interpretation of the Stalin's offer became somewhat entrenched among the FRG left, especially among the SPD, and featured prominently in the New Left's wider revisions of the Cold War's origins. In recent years, Noam Chomsky has emerged as the most prominent paladin for the Stalin Notes, and the linguist's somewhat slippery approach to historical analysis has further muddied the waters. The fall of the Berlin Wall promised to resolve this issue, but this has proven to be illusory. Historians' post-1989 estimation of the Notes' sincerity have a marked tendency to fall into this binary, with some important wrinkles and nuances that suggest the genuine/false dichotomy is too simplistic of a picture. \n\nTwo of the more prominent advocates for the \"lost chance\" interpretation are Rolf Steininger and Wilfred Loth. Steininger posited that Stalin's German policy was too contradictory to support the idea that he wanted either a permanent division or to achieve a conquest over the whole of Germany via politics. Instead, Steininger holds that Stalin was willing to sacrifice the GDR and the SED if he could achieve a desired outcome of a neutral Germany. Stalin's willingness to put Ulbricht onto the chopping bloc was done in no small measure because the Soviet dictator feared that the US would harness the resurgent FRG's economic power to its cause, while the GDR had proven to be a drain to Soviet power. Thus it made geopolitical sense to sacrifice the SED. Likewise, Loth argues that:\n\n > Stalin did not want a GDR. He wanted neither a separate state on the territory of the Soviet occupation zone nor a socialist state in Germany at all. \n\nFor Loth, the GDR was Stalin's \"unwanted child\" and his efforts to achieve a unified Germany on favorable conditions were stymied by the West, but also the SED and hardliners within the Soviet military government. According to Loth's formulations, the Stalin Note was a brief window of opportunity to achieve a settlement of the German question in a form amenable to Stalin, but the political constellation that supported the Notes was ephemeral. \n\nLoth's 1994 book *Stalins ungeliebtes Kind* came under wide attack in the German press and academia, but his core thesis has seeped into a number of Anglophone accounts of the Cold War. Although Loth's access to Soviet archives was quite limited and subsequent work with these ministerial documents undercuts important parts of his thesis, some aspects of the \"unwanted child\" argument have proven quite important for this matter. Loth has noted that what both SED and Soviet considered \"democratic\" was often quite different than Western understandings of the term (a \"fundamental tension between system and program\") and this certainly color's the Notes' offer of Soviet support for a united democratic Germany. Moreover, scholars like Loth and Steininger brought new emphasis upon the actions of the SED as important players in the process of German division, and not reduced them into the spear-carriers for Stalin that was common in older literature about the GDR. \n\nBut with regards to the 1952 Stalin Note, a good deal of scholarly work has undercut a good deal of the Loth thesis. On the basis of Soviet ministerial archives Loth did not have access to, Peter Ruggenthaler tartly notes:\n\n > The Stalin Note aimed to achieve several objectives: a neutral Germany was definitely not one of them. In other words, on the basis of an extensive study of the Soviet sources that are capable of shedding light on the genesis of the Stalin Note, the thesis that the GDR leadership was informed about the Stalin Note only on the eve of its presentation has finally become completely untenable. \n\nInstead, the Note was neither a ploy nor a genuine offer, but rather an attempt to give the Eastern bloc a *Persilschein* for German division. Similarly, Dirk Spilker contends that there was a pervasive gap between expectations and reality in Moscow over German affairs and while Moscow may have expected the Note to have a greater impact in the FRG, much of the SED leadership was more blase about its potential. The Note, according to Spilker, was of a piece with the Soviet's German initiatives- not particularly serious, often done without full consultation of the SED, and done in the expectation that they would encourage left-wing elements in the FRG to reject Adenauer and the West. \n\nThe most forceful rejection of both the \"Lost Chance\" interpretation of the Notes is the German scholar Gerhard Wettig. Instead of examining the Notes through the lens of the German Question like Spilker, Wettig instead frames the Notes as part of the USSR's larger strategic position. The success of the *Wirtschaftswunder*, the talk of the EDC and the FRG's imminent rearmament all prompted Stalin to make some kind of diplomatic *démarches* so that Soviet policy in Europe could retain some initiative. The Notes' reference to a reunified German military provided the Soviets cover for engaging in their own military build-up of the GDR, started in 1951, while painting the West as the central instigator of German rearmament. In this formulation, Wettig posits that Stalin held only two possible solutions to the German Question: a united Germany with significant Soviet control, or a partitioned Germany. In this context, the Note was a diplomatic tool designed to be rejected. \n\nOne of the important facets of Wettig's analysis of Stalin's behavior was that the Soviet dictator liked to keep his options open. The Notes' rejection, according to Wettig, kept the German Question from being permanently settled by objective facts on the ground. Like Loth's concepts of SED agency, this is an important insight into Soviet and GDR policy in this period. Despite being somewhat diametrically opposed in their interpretations of the Stalin Note, both Loth and Wettig are important reminders of the importance of the wider German and geopolitical contexts that shaped the genesis of the Notes and their offer. The notes were part of a larger tapestry of Soviet policy, not an end onto themselves. \n\nThis renders many of the basic questions surrounding the Stalin Note somewhat moot. Although scholars on both sides of the debate have employed archival and interview evidence to support their positions, the restricted access to relevant Soviet ministerial archives as well as Stalin's own rather secretive methods of doing business denude these sources of some of their evidentiary power. One persuasive explanation advanced by Norman Naimark that helps explain the futility of looking for a smoking gun in the archives is that Stalin's German policy really did not exist as a coherent entity. In the Soviet military occupation, the left hand often did not know what the right hand was doing. Thus while SVAG set up its own political parties anticipating division, Soviet economic teams ruthlessly dismantled the Eastern zone's industry, making a viable separate Soviet zone state a much more difficult proposition. The lack of any central policy ceded a good deal of initiative over the contours and form of German division to the West. Both the Soviets and their SED allies often had to be responsive to developments in the Western zone like the creation of Bizonia as well as manage their own unpopularity. Context mattered, and by having no real policy, Soviet responses were more akin to damage and spin control than pushing for a specific agenda. \n\nThe Stalin Notes were thus rather like Schrodinger's Cat: they were both genuine and fake at the same time. As with the physics experiment, the observer can impact the outcome. For those of Loth's bent, the Notes were a road not taken because Stalin's open-ended approach diplomacy meant he could have made important concessions to the FRG political establishment. Conversely, the same set of evidence could point to the folly of accepting them as Western acceptance would have brought in too many variables for the aging Soviet dictator to accept. Even with the current weight of evidence supporting the likes of Wettig, the Stalin Note remains something of a Chinese Box which elides any simple estimation of it as a good-faith offer or as a ruse. "
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33uxnq | why does most graffiti look similar? | Obviously this is pretty objective, but to a person who doesn't pay attention to graffiti details, why does so much of it seem to be consistent in the style, font, etc? Is it the same person or people doing it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/33uxnq/eli5_why_does_most_graffiti_look_similar/ | {
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"I'm gonna have to take a guess here and say that people are influenced by other people and add their own touch to it. The average person may not notice that difference, just like the average person doesn't notice brushstrokes in a painting? There really are so many styles though that if you pay attention you will see a difference. ",
"There are graffiti styles and they develop in different regions. So in one place you will see a lot of similarities. Also, the really well done pieces are quite possibly members of a crew who will have their own variation of a similar style. BTW I'm no expert so these are speculations but ya.",
"It looks similar to you because you haven't learned how to distinguish styles or quality. If you had, you'd be able to pick out good from bad. ",
"Although graffiti varies signifigantly if you pay attention, at first glance i know what you mean. Similar curved 's' and sharp yet bubbley, overlaping letters, etc? I would think that It is just an easily noticed and selfidentifying style in that subgenre of art. Why does most heavy metal sound like, what could be described as the heavy metal sound? It is an easily recognizable selfidentifying quality. Otherwise it might just be jazz..."
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4o8rpv | Is human DNA 'hashable' or does it change too much over time? | I was discussing using a blockchain as a birth register with a friend. The idea is basically to genetically sequence a baby and create an identity on the blockchain using a "hashed" (as in Computer Science's SHA-512) version of its genome. I want to use a non-reversible hash to not have to place the full genome on the blockchain - for privacy reasons.
Could a genetic test in the future produce the same hash to verify someone's identity? Or does the human genome change too much over time? | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/4o8rpv/is_human_dna_hashable_or_does_it_change_too_much/ | {
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"No. But not because human DNA would change. But because accuracy of our sequencing hardware is not good enough. The thing with hashing is that even single bit difference results in completely different hash. Modern sequencing equipment is only [precise to 99.9%](_URL_0_) and that is for slow/expensive techniques. And while it might get much more precise in the future, I'm skeptical that getting perfect precision is achievable.\n\nInstead of hashing whole genome, you could instead hash only parts of it. And then you decide if they are same by telling how many hashes fit. You could also only hash parts that are different among humans. It is known that majority of genome is same between all humans. "
]
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_sequencing"
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mkw67 | How come there is no cure for lupus? Is anyone working towards one? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/mkw67/how_come_there_is_no_cure_for_lupus_is_anyone/ | {
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"I don't know why we don't have a cure, nor how close we are to one. But with [15,800](_URL_0_) papers showing up in google scholar for this year alone, someone certainly is doing something with lupus research!",
"Lupus patient here\nVery little is known about the disease It wasn't until this year that there was a drug that existed solely to treat lupus. Most people treat it with malaria drugs (what I take) and steroids, or chemo in more severe cases. There are people working on it, people send me articles about it every once in a while. I know there's research going on with stem cells and lupus like this one: _URL_0_\n\n_URL_1_\n\nI know I read one involving rats a while ago I'll have to look for it\n",
"The diagnosis of Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a diagnosis of exclusion. You need to rule out many other diseases before you can just diagnose SLE in most cases.\n\nOur current knowledge states SLE involves your own body recognizing itself as a foreign substance. It makes antibodies against itself which promote the body's self-destruction.\n\nThis is exactly what makes treatment so tricky. We have to find a way to try and shut off the body's immune response against itself *without* reducing immune effectiveness against actual pathogens.\n\nSo far we have not found an effective way to do this and current treatment is based off of balancing drug dosage (such as steroids) and patient immune competence.\n\nTo answer your second question, there is tons of research in fields of medicine which have \"incurable\" diseases of western populations. This includes SLE.",
"I don't know why we don't have a cure, nor how close we are to one. But with [15,800](_URL_0_) papers showing up in google scholar for this year alone, someone certainly is doing something with lupus research!",
"Lupus patient here\nVery little is known about the disease It wasn't until this year that there was a drug that existed solely to treat lupus. Most people treat it with malaria drugs (what I take) and steroids, or chemo in more severe cases. There are people working on it, people send me articles about it every once in a while. I know there's research going on with stem cells and lupus like this one: _URL_0_\n\n_URL_1_\n\nI know I read one involving rats a while ago I'll have to look for it\n",
"The diagnosis of Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a diagnosis of exclusion. You need to rule out many other diseases before you can just diagnose SLE in most cases.\n\nOur current knowledge states SLE involves your own body recognizing itself as a foreign substance. It makes antibodies against itself which promote the body's self-destruction.\n\nThis is exactly what makes treatment so tricky. We have to find a way to try and shut off the body's immune response against itself *without* reducing immune effectiveness against actual pathogens.\n\nSo far we have not found an effective way to do this and current treatment is based off of balancing drug dosage (such as steroids) and patient immune competence.\n\nTo answer your second question, there is tons of research in fields of medicine which have \"incurable\" diseases of western populations. This includes SLE."
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4iyv0p | Is Magma the Same? | Is all magma the same? for example if you have a piece of shale and it melts into molten rock (magma), would the magma be the same magma as molten marble? Or would the magma be made of a different combination of materials. | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/4iyv0p/is_magma_the_same/ | {
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"No. The chemical compositions of your two hypothetical melts would be different and thus the physical properties would be different.\n\nThis is more easily discussed in terms of more realistic magma/lava types that we see regularly. In considering types of magma, we usually think of them in terms of what types of rocks they will form when they solidify and crystallize. For lava (and rock types) we commonly see at the surface, we can think of a continuum between basalt (mafic) to rhyolite (felsic). The principle difference, or at least what we use to classify them, is the percentage of SiO2 (silica) but this accompanied with various differences in composition and thus resulting mineralogy. These differences in composition importantly cause differences in other properties like temperature of solidification, density, and viscosity. The ultimate cause for the differences in composition can be tied back to formation mechanism and location. This [page](_URL_0_) from a course at Penn State goes through the basics of some of the physical differences in different types of magma/lava."
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20gwmb | why do they remake classic/awesome movies and ruin them? why don't they take lousy movies and remake them into something good? | Yes, I realize it's just about money and marketing. But aren't they concerned that it would harm their reputation as a filmmaker/actor? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/20gwmb/eli5why_do_they_remake_classicawesome_movies_and/ | {
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"People like copying things that were great so they can get recognition. Recreating and reconstructing something lousy takes work and is a risky move I guess",
"For the same reason awesome foreign movies get remade by Americans and almost without fail they suck horribly; people without your sensibilities need their media spoon fed. American movies have sucked for a long long time and the movies that make big bucks are made for the adolescent in everyone; avengers, pacific rim etc. ",
"It's considered too risky. If a production company has a choice between remaking a classic movie that did well or remaking a crappy movie that did poorly, they're going to go with the classic movie because it comes with guaranteed brand recognition. They don't care whether or not the movie turns out to be good, they only want to hype it up enough to get people into the theaters; that's where they make the majority of their money.\n\nIt's the unfortunate result of an art form that's mostly controlled by people who aren't artists.",
"They ruin them for you, someone who has watched the classic films and is a fan of them. But to others they rebooted the series/made the film relevant. There is confirmation bias at play here because all the remakes you now about are worse, but you probably enjoyed the remakes where you hadn't seen the original."
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gd7rs | How does reflection work in an atomic level? | Initially, speaking from my chemistry background, I'd think it's absorption / emission events. After reading more, it's apparent that's not the case. We're dealing with solid state materials here, and I see terms like bandgap and phonons thrown around, but those don't explain it for me too well. The former explains the wide range of absorption energies; the latter explains that it's not atomic absorption we're dealing with.
The main source of my confusion is this property: angle of reflection = angle of incidence. What quantum mechanical property allows for such a phenomenon to exist? I suppose I can imagine elastic collision leading to an inversion of the momentum of light in the normal axis, while momentum is conserved in the other axis, but that's just hand-waving using the classical model.
I'm sure this is entry-level solid state physics. Any explanation is much appreciated!
Edit: I've studied introductory quantum mechanics, and I'm on my way to completing a forensic chemistry degree. | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/gd7rs/how_does_reflection_work_in_an_atomic_level/ | {
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"Dimpl3s explanation here isn't really correct. A photon striking an atom can be absorbed and re-emitted, but this isn't what causes reflection. While a ball bouncing off a wall isn't a good model, classical physics does a pretty good job of explaining reflection and refraction. In these contexts, quantum mechanics can confuse more than it explains. \n\nSo, in your reflective substance, you as a rule have a bunch of free electrons. Not free as in free to leave the material, but free to move about between atoms. And they have a broad _continuum_ of energy levels, _not_ discrete levels as in an atom. In a solid those discrete level of the atoms 'smear out' into bands. So that's your so-called \"conduction band\" in a conductor. And reflective materials are normally conductors for the same reason that they're reflective (it even extends to many conducting polymers). If it's not a conductor, then the electrons can't move about (if all states are occupied, you have a band-gap. This is the equivalent in a solid of the HOMO-LUMO gap in chemistry).\n\nThe end result of all that is that metals, to a decent enough approximation, work as if they're a nice, homogeneous medium. Now, since electrons are charged, they will change their movement if you expose them to an electrical field (Stark effect). In chemistry terms - the orbitals and their energy levels will distort a bit in response to an electrical field. So it's electrically polarizable. So this is why classical theory works: A metal acts, to a decent approximation, like a homogenous, electrically-polarizable medium, at least for fields that don't vary too slowly or too quickly for the electrons to react.\n\nSo what happens here is much like a solid ball hitting a rubber wall. The wall compresses and then responds by pushing the ball back. When light hits the material, it induces an electrical (and magnetic) polarization among the electrons. When they return to their original positions, that in turn gives rise to the same field. The less hand-waving explanation is to take your polarizable-continuum model and combine that with Maxwell's equations, and you end up with the Fresnel equations that describe reflection and refraction from the classical point of view.\n\nQuantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics add more detail to this, and describe facts that can't not be described classically, such as atomic/molecular spectral lines being discrete, stimulated emission, and a whole bunch of nonlinear optical effects. But there's no need to go to QM for reflection, which to a large extent is adequately described classically.\n\nTo get back to what I said at the top: This is not to be regarded as an absorption/emission process. (such as fluorescence, which is what dimpl3s described) The electrons involved in the reflection aren't being excited between discrete states (nor do they _have_ discrete states). One way to view it, is that it's rather the states _themselves_ which are changing (which is what happens in the Stark and Zeeman effects) in response to the field. This is fundamentally a different process than proper absorption and re-emission. On the level of individual atoms, it's Rayleigh or Raman scattering. \n\n",
"[Watch this. It's a lecture by Richard Feynman on Quantum Electrodynamics. He goes through reflection for a good part of the lecture. It's an amazing lecture, watch it.](_URL_0_)"
]
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3zo91w | how does denuvo drm work? | If Denuvo DRM works by pre-emptively encrypting a software's instructions and then decrypting the instructions in real-time to execute on the CPU, why can't you simply grab the key used to decrypt the instructions from the RAM? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3zo91w/eli5_how_does_denuvo_drm_work/ | {
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"You can grab the key from RAM and use it to decrypt the executable. No DRM system can prevent someone from copying the program if it's running on their system, because the code must get decrypted at some point in order to execute. All DRM and obfuscation can do is make it more difficult to crack - you cannot make it impossible."
]
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[]
] | |
b7wqkc | What would it have been like to be a spectator at the games in a Roman coliseum? | Asking again without the title error.
We have pretty good ideas of what the games would have been like in Roman coliseums, but what would it have been like to be a fan in the stands? How different would it have been from modern arena sports? I imagine there would have been plenty of food and drink, but were there streakers running across the sand pit behind the gladiators? Were there ever fights in the crowds? Did they do the wave? What would life in the stands have been like for the average game-goer in the Roman era? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/b7wqkc/what_would_it_have_been_like_to_be_a_spectator_at/ | {
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"I can certainly comment on the availability of food a drink, and the attendance in Israel. \n\nTypically local salesmen would be allowed to enter the stands to sell produce. Though this was unregulated, typically they avoided local cuisine and instead sold Roman delicacies, such as larks' tongues, wrens' livers, chaffinch brains, jaguars' earlobes and wolf nipple chips. Animals were even imported from Italia itself, such as Tuscan bats, which were typically fried.\n\nYou might think that with such highbrow food that the behaviour of the crowd would match it, but you'd be wrong. Local politics and the tense atmosphere would often create tension between segments of the crowd - particularly notably the Judean's people front and their rivals (splitters!!!!), around the first century, leading to severe civil unrest and vandalism. However, poor attendance meant the impact of this was generally limited. It may also be suggested that this indirectly led to a better understanding of Latin among the population, especially with regards to verb conjugation and agreement.\n\nSource: Jones, Cleese et al, 1979\n\n"
]
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[]
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3r3ovf | if time is infinite, won't everything exist again in the future? | If time is infinite, then won't everything eventually come to be again? Like a loop? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3r3ovf/eli5_if_time_is_infinite_wont_everything_exist/ | {
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"Just because something is infinite doesn't mean it contains all permutations.\n\nThere is an infinite amount of numbers between 2 and 3, but none of them are 4.",
"Time is a measure created by humans. Moments of the universe are infinite if you go ahead with the presumption that the universe is infinite.\n\nAnd in that, highly doubt a loop. Since if we're talking about the sane universe, elements of the universe barely ever retrace their steps. Every element constantly transforms to something else, without anything ever being the same again. And infinity (also alternate realities referencing quantum physics) allows room for infinite transitions in the existence of elements of the universe. ",
"I didn't think we thought time *was* infinite? Just absurdly, unimaginably long.\n\nIsn't the 'heat death' theory of the fate of the universe fairly widely accepted these days? And isn't the implication of it that eventually, over insane periods of time, all energy will be annihilated and that everything, including time, will end with it?"
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5klcf0 | why do people have such a difficult time admitting their ignorance of something? | Aside from fanatical egos and narcissism, why is it difficult to admit ignorance and ask for information on a topic that one has trouble discerning? I think it would be much more progressive to admit ignorance and attempt to fill in those intellectual gaps, but hey, that's just me. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5klcf0/eli5_why_do_people_have_such_a_difficult_time/ | {
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"In school, you're not allowed to say \"I don't know.\" You have to put forth whatever you do know or infer, and do it with confidence. At the least, this was my experience. Schools push this attitude because it gets you places in higher education and when getting a job. Of course, this is just my theory from my experience. I really am ignorant of the real reason. I was amazed when I graduated and joined the work force where people so easily said that they had no idea to their bosses. ",
"If there's one person you **have to** be able to depend on, it's yourself. You may have friends and family members you rely on and such, but the *ultimate* person responsible for your safety and survival is yourself. \n\nSo regardless of how intelligent you are or aren't, looking at evidence that you're wrong or you screwed up can be quite difficult and emotional. Because it means you let *yourself* down. Your brain promised the rest of you \"I know what's going on\" and then didn't. It's no fun!\n\nEven people who are good at taking criticism or good at admitting their ignorance likely **still** feel a negative emotional response to the proof of their oops in front of them. They're just good at managing their response and re-focusing on something productive.",
"This is something that comes with experience.\n\n[The Dunning-Kruger Effect](_URL_0_) came from a study that showed incompetent people don't know they are incompetent and see themselves as experts.\n\nIt takes the realization that one doesn't know as much as they think to break that effect."
]
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2g78m0 | What causes such a drastic difference between H2O and H2O2? | I asked this question in my chemistry class and my teacher couldn't really answer it, I'd like to know more about the subject! But basically, why does just adding another oxygen molecule cause the compound to become so much more volitile than water? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2g78m0/what_causes_such_a_drastic_difference_between_h2o/ | {
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"The oxygen oxygen single bond is quite weak in peroxide H-O-O-H. While there are lots of factors determining reactivity, one way to look at it is how easy the bonds in the molecule are to break. Things with weak bonds tend to be reactive and things with strong bonds tend to be un-reactive. Oxygen forms strong bonds with carbon and hydrogen and a range of metals and inorganic elements, so if you put peroxide near these things you will break the oxygen bond and form new stronger bonds. This general statement is a reasonable guide for all chemical reactivity.\n\nThere is an extra wrinkle in that the O-O bond tends to spontaneously split homolytically (that is the two shared electrons are split so each O gets one each). This leaves each oxygen with an unpaired electron, which is called a radical. Unpaired electrons are extremely reactive and will go fishing for electrons from basically anything. This is really just another result of the weak O-O bond."
]
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[]
] | |
5q3kj1 | Where chirality is present, are both enantiomers of the given molecule formed in equal amounts? | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/5q3kj1/where_chirality_is_present_are_both_enantiomers/ | {
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"No, in certain systems it will not be 50%. Obviously biological systems such as amino acids that are D chirality as these are essentially all made that way by enzymes. There is no L amino acids, they are all made with D chirality. \n\nThere are also small differences in the stability of say R vs S isomers or intermediates in the end products so you will often see some differences in the number of each.\n"
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nlefy | Are some nerves on different body parts connected somehow? | I'm not sure how to go about explaining this sensation I have. It seems like a nerve or group of nerves on different parts of my body are "connected" somehow. By this I mean occasionally when I scratch a specific spot on my back I will feel a pinpoint sharp pain on the skin on my elbow. It just happened again, while I was cleaning up in the restroom.. Each time I wiped there was a pinpoint of sharp pain on the skin on my chest. This is about how specific I can get about this.. Its an odd sensation.. Any ideas what this is? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/nlefy/are_some_nerves_on_different_body_parts_connected/ | {
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"All nerves are connected at some point. They all return to the spinal cord lt the Brain. However, not in the manner you described. It is more than likely referred pain.",
"All nerves are connected at some point. They all return to the spinal cord lt the Brain. However, not in the manner you described. It is more than likely referred pain."
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1ppgl8 | when the us "sends aid" to foreign countries such as israel, what is actually exchanged? | I read today that the US cut $5 billion from food stamps and approved nearly $500 million in aid to Israel? What does this mean? What are the terms of this transaction? It can't simply be just a $500 million transactions between governments. I imagine the money is in the form of food or other goods/supplies.
I'd prefer some detailed responses (which I understand is kind of contrary to ELI5, but /r/askreddit and /r/answers didn't seem like the right places to ask this). Thanks! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ppgl8/eli5_when_the_us_sends_aid_to_foreign_countries/ | {
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"Basically, they get money, but they are required to spend most of it with US corporations. In that sense, it's as much a subsidy to US defense contractors as it is foreign aid.\n\n_URL_0_\n",
"In general you can think of Aid as the US government buying things from US companies for other countries.",
"In a $15 trillion dollar economy, we can afford to spare $500 million to prevent another Holocaust. Israel faces an existential threat. It always has. Whereas the Palestinians face a quality-of-life threat, accompanied by threats to their individual security and safety due to their own organizations attacking Israel from domestic areas as a bait for Israeli retaliation, which always results in casualties. \n\nYou can never tell when it comes to the news. They have a terrific way of skewing and bullshitting numbers. Cutting food stamp money would galvanise the lower classes to vote democratic. Ending aid to Israel would end a lot of Jewish backing of liberal candidates. Google 'constituency'",
"They are in the form of loan guarantees. \n\nLoan guarantees are essentially the explicit agreements between two people - or two nations - that if one defaults on a loan the other is obligated to pay it back. It is not free money. \n\nThe loan guarantees are not grants - not one penny of U.S. government funds are transferred to Israel and, ideally, the United States will never have to pay out even a single dollar. To date, Israel has never defaulted on a loan guarantee debt obligation."
]
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15bi2x | veganism. the what can be used from animals? what cant? | im really curious. and dont read to good, so eli5 please!
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/15bi2x/eli5_veganism_the_what_can_be_used_from_animals/ | {
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"Anything that comes from animals, vegans do not have anything to do with it. Milk, eggs, some soaps, leather, feathers, if it has to do with an animal, its a no-go. \n\nSource: my mom used to be a vegan."
]
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23xbbu | Why is it that when you have a cold, one of your nostrils is blocked, and when it finally clears, the other one blocks? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/23xbbu/why_is_it_that_when_you_have_a_cold_one_of_your/ | {
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"Because your nostrils split their workload. Throughout the day, they each take breaks in a process of alternating congestion and decongestion called the nasal cycle. At a given moment, if you're breathing through your nose, the lion’s share of the air is going in and out of one nostril, with a much smaller amount passing through the other. Every few hours, your autonomic nervous system, which takes care of your heart rate, digestion and other things you don’t consciously control, switches things up and your other nostril does all the heavy lifting for a little while. The opening and closing of the two passages is done by swelling and deflating erectile tissue - the same stuff that’s at work when your reproductive organs are aroused - up in your nose.\n\nThe nasal cycle is going on all the time, but when you’re sick and really congested, the extra mucous often makes the nostril that’s on break feel much more backed up.\n\nThere are at least two good reasons why nasal cycling happens.\n\nOne, it makes our sense of smell more complete. Different scent molecules degrade at different rates, and our scent receptors pick up on them accordingly. Some smells are easier to detect and process in a fast-moving airstream like the decongested nostril, while others are better detected in the slower airstream of the congested nostril. Nasal cycling also seems to keep the nose maintained for its function as an air filter and humidifier. The alternating congestion gives the mucous and cilia (the tiny hairs up in your nose) in each nostril a well-deserved break from the onslaught of air and prevents the insides of your nostrils from drying out, cracking and bleeding.\n\nhope that helps =)\n\nsource: _URL_0_",
"Does sleeping or being active when one nostril is open as opposed to the other more prevelant? \n\nLike if you want to sleep, breath with your left nostril, and if you want to wake up and feel energized, breath through the right.",
"How does this change ( or does it) in people with a severe deviated septum (meaning that bit separating your nostrils is bent, most often from getting a broken nose, I'm told), to the point where you can't breathe well out of one side?",
"Follow up question:\n\nWhen I hold my breath I notice that at some point somewhere in my nasal membranes, something dilates. It happens when holding breath underwater too, right before your lungs start to involuntarily move and struggle for oxygen. If I have a stuffy nose and I hold my breath to this point, it clears up. Does anyone have a scientific reason for this? It was always explained to me as a dilation of the nasal passages due to the body thinking you are suffocating."
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i5bn6 | Can we "fix" our genome so that we can synthesize Vitamin C? | So apparently humans (as well as other apes and monkeys) [can't synthesize Vitamin C](_URL_0_) which is why we get scurvy without proper nutrition. I don't know what we can and can't do these days with genetics: Can we just repair the gene in embryos and begin birthing a race of assuredly scurvy-free humans? Any idea on what, if anything, else this would affect in those people? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/i5bn6/can_we_fix_our_genome_so_that_we_can_synthesize/ | {
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"Why would we *want* to? Vitamin C is not hard to find under most conditions. It's cheap in supplement form, too.",
"i guess we *could* implement the biochemical pathway, but a much more important issue is the regulation of that pathway. it isn't just being able to, it is about making enough and not too much. also, there are dozens of other biochemical pathways that can be impacted if we introduce this new ability into people (assuming that we even could). it would take a lot of trial and error and even if they started right now, i don't think we could get it working within the next 50 years.",
" > Can we just repair the gene in embryos and begin birthing a race of assuredly scurvy-free humans?\n\nThis technology exists, although all regulatory bodies would regard it as unethical to do germline genetic engineering in humans. You wouldn't necessarily repair the existing gene; you'd just stick a new one in.\n\n > Any idea on what, if anything, else this would affect in those people?\n\nWe've done without this gene for over 60 million years; our metabolisms have adapted and work well enough the way we are now. Adding this enzyme might upset some kind of balance, eg by diverting the precursor molecule away from its normal use. Or it might all work out nicely. I don't know! Let's try it.\n",
"While we're at it we might as well fix ourselves to make [linoleic acid](_URL_0_) too."
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1y0i99 | Is "now" the same for everyone and everything in the galaxy? | I understand relativity, I understand that the faster you go, the slower time goes for you (or, the faster time goes for everyone else, since it would appear time was going the same speed for yourself). But is "now" the same for everyone? Maybe the rate of change of now is faster or slower, but do people/things/space lemmings all operate on the exact same "now"? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1y0i99/is_now_the_same_for_everyone_and_everything_in/ | {
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" > Is \"now\" the same for everyone and everything in the galaxy?\n\nNo, it's not. Because the laws of relativity result in some observers seeing events happen faster or slower than others, this means that the idea of \"simultaneity\" (now-ness) is frame-dependent (different for each person). Two people can observe two different events and the first person can see event A happen before B and the other person can see event B happen before event A, or see both happen at the same time.",
"No. A famous thought experiment illustrates this:\n\nImagine person A is on a moving train. He sends out two light signal from the middle of the train, one backwards and one forwards. Since the distances to the front and the back are equal, and light moves at a constant speed, the light pulses reach the front and back of the train simultaneously.\n\nHowever, person B stands on a platform. To him, the light going forwards has to travel longer, since the train will have moved forward by the time it reaches end point. Similarly, the light traveling backwards has a shorter distance to travel. Since the speed of light is constant also for B, the light has to reach the back of the train *before* it reaches the front.\n\nSo the exact \"now\" when the light hits the front and back of the train, are simultaneous for A, but not for B."
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44t0qo | i've never seen a fat bird. is that because flying is vital for them to survive so natural selection kills them or because birds simply don't get fat? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/44t0qo/eli5_ive_never_seen_a_fat_bird_is_that_because/ | {
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"You've never seen [a fat bird](_URL_1_) before? You're [missing out](_URL_0_).",
"People commenting here don't know what they're talking about. Birds do get fat the closer you get to the cold extremes (arctic, mountain peaks). You've never seen one because, I assume, you haven't been to these types of places. Furthermore, you wouldn't know how fat the bird is until you kill and butcher it, but I promise, there are fat birds.\n\nYes, flight is a big part of their survival, but so is fat in the cold weather. As with most things, there's a balance. When colder season come, birds store fat. Not enough that they cannot fly anymore, but they do store fat. When it's time to migrate, a lot of that fat gets burned off."
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2bdr9x | How did the Vandals managed to invade North Africa? | Considering that they lived far away from there and not even in coastal areas, and what are their motives conquering a place that is really far away? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2bdr9x/how_did_the_vandals_managed_to_invade_north_africa/ | {
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"By the time Vandals invaded North Africa, they were situated in Spain for over a decade, so passing into Africa was a next logical step.\n\nIt is worth mentioning that, like with most successful \"barbarian\" invasions, it was really a civil war between Romans that created the opportunity. The governor of Africa, count Bonifacius invited the Vandals to support him against his nemesis, Aetius. By the time he changed his mind, it was already too late.\n\nRomans (from both east and west) made a few attempts to reconquer Africa, but all of them failed until the expedition of Belisarius in 533 AD. From that point on, the diocese of Africa remained Roman until Arabs took it in 699 AD."
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1ce73h | Monday Mysteries | Notable Disappearances | As [announced last week](_URL_0_), we're going to give something new a try on Mondays for a bit to see how it fares.
The "Monday Mysteries" series will be focused on, well, mysteries -- historical matters that present us with problems of some sort, and not just the usual ones that plague historiography as it is. Situations in which our whole understanding of them would turn on a (so far) unknown variable, like the sinking of the *Lusitania*; situations in which we only know that something *did* happen, but not necessarily how or why, like the deaths of Richard III's nephews in the Tower of London; situations in which something has become lost, or become found, or turned out never to have been at all -- like the art of Greek fire, or the Antikythera mechanism, or the historical Coriolanus, respectively.
For our first installment, we'll be focusing on **notable disappearances**.
Any time period or culture is acceptable as a venue for your post, and the person in question can have vanished under any circumstances you like. Please make sure your prospective comment includes at least a brief thumbnail sketch of that person's life, why it's worth talking about them, the incidents surrounding their disappearance, and a best guess as to what actually happened. If there are competing theories, please feel free to delve into them as well.
If you have any additional questions, please feel free to post them below. Otherwise, get to it! As is usual with the weekly project posts, moderation in this thread will be somewhat lighter than usual. Top-level comments should still attempt to be properly substantial, but there's a great deal more leeway for discussion, digression, and so on. | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1ce73h/monday_mysteries_notable_disappearances/ | {
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"Lord Lucan's always been interesting one. A playboy aristocrat goes through a very acrimonious separation, losing his three children. Racked by alcoholism and accruing massive gambling debt, he tries to get his children back. One night, in 1974, he bludgeons the childrens' nanny to death, and attacks his estranged wife. He then informs his mother that she should take care of the children, drives to a friend's house (where his car was found) and promptly disappears. Noone knows what happened to him, some claim he killed himself, others that he was quietly arrested, others that he survived with a second life and a new identity. It may well be solvable - if the right piece of evidence turns up before too long (photographs, travel documents etc.). But until that crucial little thing shows up, it'll remain a mystery.",
"I can't speak to a specific case, I'm afraid, but one of my favorite pages on Wikipedia is [List of people who disappeared mysteriously](_URL_0_). Given the nature of Wikipedia, I'm sure there are some dubious entries, but it's still a neat read.",
"I'd like to talk about Masanobu Tsuji. For those familiar with the Pacific theatre of operations, you probably know him as a man with an incredibly aggressive demeanour. His behaviour and strategic decisions led to such disastrous clashes as Nomonhan 1939 and Guadalcanal 1942 but also successes as Malaya 1942 and Singapore 1942. \n\nHere was a man who could easily be labelled as a psychopath. A man who ate the liver of a downed allied airman in Burma and is quoted as saying \"The more we eat, the brighter will burn the fire of our hatred for the enemy\". Historian Brian Moynahan said that his \"taste for human flesh did not come from hunger as much as it did from sadistic insanity\". With a multitude of war crimes in his record, he was never charged for it and returned from hiding in Thailand to Japan. During the period between 1950 and 1961, he embarked on a political career that carried him from the House of Representatives to the House of Councilors. Here is where it gets interesting. In 1961, Tsuji travelled to Laos which was at the height of its civil war. He was never heard from again. \n\nThe question remains: Why did a man in his late 50's travel to a country which he had no apparent connection to in the height of their civil war? Before his trip, there is a claim by a certain Kenshiro Seki that he was told that I’m going to Laos on orders from Prime Minister Ikeda\". Why the Japanese prime minister Hayato Ikeda wanted to sent Masanobu to Laos, if that's what he actually wanted or ordered, is undetermined. In a postcard he sent to his brother, dated April 20 1961, he tells briefly about his time in Laos (\"I saw Laos. War and festivals are taking place at the same time and in the same place.\") yet promises that he would return in June to attend the funeral of his younger brother. He closed by telling his brother to not disclose any information about this trip. While we can merely speculate on his fate (and I'd rather not go into the constant yet exaggerated rumours of Masanobu being a spy, a VC/NVA commander or CIA operative), it is safe to assure that sometime between April and June, something happened which prevented him from returning to Japan. He was decleared dead in 1968.",
"This isn't a true disappearance, but since you allow disappearances from the historical record, here is one I find particularly galling: Gaius Suetonius Paulinus. He is most famous today for his brilliant victory over Boadiccea, but his career goes well beyond that. He performed to high distinction in Libya, was the first Roman general to cross the Atlas Mountains, ended the power of the Druids in Britain by his conquest of Anglesey, mentored two very successful future Roman leaders (Agricola and Cerialis) and gained great success fighting for Otho against Vitellius in the Year of Four Emperors (Otho did lose, but not through fault of Suetonius).\n\nThen he disappears. He apparently obtained a pardon from Vitellius, but we have no idea what happened to him afterwards. This is quite irritating, and not only because he is, along with Corbulo, arguably the most successful Roman general of the Julio-Claudian period and thus of note in his own right. More details of his career would also give invaluable information on the careers of the imperial elite outside of the Imperial family, as right now we only have roughly complete information for those whose careers ended badly (like Agricola and Corbulo).",
"Angela Luther.\n\nEDIT: I fixed mentions of Luther below where I accidentally typed in a comrade's name, Irmgard Moeller)\n\nDuring the 1970s the Red Army Faction terrorized Germany with their efforts to kickstart a global revolution by attacking the German state and American forces in Germany. Their \"revolution\" kicked off properly in May of 1972, when members of the Red Army Faction (also known as the Baader-Meinhof Gang), placed bombs at the US base in Frankfurt, killing an American and maiming many others. In subsequent weeks the blew up police stations, printing plants, and other locations. Angela Luther and Irmgard Moeller drove two cars onto the US Base in Heidelberg and the bombs left in those cars killed three more Americans in the most horrific way possible.\n\nWithin the next month, the entire leadership of the Red Army Faction had been captured. But Luther, a second-tier member, was never heard from again. There were reports that she was killed by an accidental explosion while building a bomb, but I have found nothing to back this up, and I know more about this subject than most folks.\n\nTwo years ago I interviewed a former German terrorist Bommi Baumann, who knew Luther well. He went into hiding in the mid 1970s and at one point was in Goa, india (yep, the same place that Jason Bourne went into hiding at; it was kind of a go-to place for hiding in the 70s and 80s). He said that a few people he met there described a German woman who had passed through -- describing Luther to a T -- and said that they believed she was on her way to Australia.\n\nThis woman is a murderer, but the German government has not seemed to expend much energy in finding her. Recently they prosecuted another former member of the group for a 1977 murder of Federal Prosecutor Siegfried Buback, so it is not unprecedented that they would prosecute for an old RAF murder. But to my knowledge no one has much even looked for her in more than 30 years.",
"My favorite disappearances are of whole settlements or civilizations, rather than individuals. The two more notable are:\n\n * [Norse settlements on Greenland](_URL_8_), which of course started with Eric the Red around 985 CE. And there were eventually three separate settlements with several thousand people. There's scattered evidence of continued Norse settlement in the first half of the 15th century (by this point, it seems they've consolidated at one settlement), though I believe the last unambiguous record is from 1408 (a recording of a marriage). By this point, there are decades long intervals where Iceland is out of contact with Greenland, and these eventually just sort of stop all together. King Christian IV of Denmark (Denmark \"inherited\" claims over Greenland from Norway) [sends ships to find Greenland in every year 1605-1607](_URL_2_) but finds nothing. The next serious attempt to find the settlements in Greenland were by the missionary [Hans Egede](_URL_3_) 1721 and the [Bergen Greenland Company](_URL_0_) which he established. Egede had heard the legends of Greenland and realized that, if there were still people out there, those poor souls were still Catholics. He found no Norse settlements and ended up missionizing among the Inuit (if I remember correctly, he had funny translation problems--for instance, he translated Jesus being the \"lamb of G-d\" as Jesus being the \"baby harp seal of G-d\" and instead of \"Give us this, our daily bread\" it was \"give us this our daily seal.\"). There are two main theories of the disappearance of the Norse colonies: i) changing climate conditions made their style of agriculture untenable, and ii) the southward migration of the Inuit set them up for conflict, with the other theories being iii) unrecorded European attack or iv) deliberate abandonment of the colony and relocation to either Vinland or Iceland. This section of the Wikipedia on [History of Greenland](_URL_10_) gives a rundown of the evidence in favor of each of those. One of the big things is how you read the lack of tools in the late archeological record; deliberate abandonment or impoverishment or the product of a raid? What about all the sea animals in the middens: failure to adapt, attempt at adapting, or successful adaption?\n\n * [Roanoke](_URL_4_) is the other disappeared settlement I'll mention. It was settled 1585 in North Carolina (decades before the Plymouth colony in Massachusetts or the Jamestown colony in Virginia), under a charter held by Sir Walter Raleigh (who never actually visited the colony). Before they even chose a spot to settle, they burned and sacked a native village. The leader of the voyage decided to go back to England, leaving behind a small settlement on Roanoke Island and promising to return the next year. The native eventually raid the colony and Sir Francis Drake, stopping over at the colony, offers to take everyone back to England, which they all accept, the promised reinforcements having not arrived. The resupply voyage does come in 1587, a year after they promised, they find the colony abandoned and decide to remain there (even though they had planned to move to Chesapeake Bay with the first set of Roanoke colonists). This is second party now includes the first known English child born in North America, [Virginia Dare](_URL_7_). Now, unfortunately, England was at War with Spain at this point, and in fact 1588 was the year of the Spanish Armada, which meant that the next resupply voyage didn't reach Roanoke until 1590. They found the settlement completely deserted and carved on a tree, the word \"Croatoan\" carved into the fort and \"Cro\" carved into a tree. Croatoan is both the name of a [nearby island](_URL_1_) and the name of a tribe in the area. A storm was brewing and the sailors refused to explore the nearby island. I believe it took another 12 years (1602) until the next expedition went out, which also didn't make it to either island. I'm unclear as to when the next expedition actually reach either island, but by this point it was already know as the \"lost colony\". One of the Jamestown colony's tasks was to locate the lost colonists. The [main theories of what happened](_URL_4_#Hypotheses_about_the_disappearance) focus on natives, mostly on peaceful assimilation but sometimes on violent destruction. Most evidence of assimilation comes from rumors or light-eyed or -haired Native Americans a century later. There are also theories of a failed attempt to sail back to Europe, or destruction by the Spanish which went unrecorded (the Spanish and the English remained at war until 1605).\n\nSince this is a meta-post, I hope I'm not out of place saying one of close friends is publishing a graphic novel anthology (that's not the right term for it) *Unknown Origins & Untimely Ends: A Collection of Unsolved Mysteries*. It's not yet for sale, but I think it goes on sale at the end of the month. You can see previews from some of the posts [here](_URL_6_). Some are unexplained appearances, like [Jerome of Sandy Cove](_URL_11_) and [Leatherman](_URL_5_) are two of the stories I remember clearest (as well as many mysterious deaths), but there are also some disappearances in the mix (if this is inappropriate, shoot me a PM and I'll delete it--no need to clutter up the thread with a comment).",
"I just finished Cormac McCarthy's *Blood Meridian*, so the question fresh on my mind is just how accurate Samuel Chamberlain's account of the Glanton Gang's activities really was.\n\nThe authenticity of [Lost Dutchman Mine](_URL_0_) is another good one.\n\n",
"I love this idea. \nI considered suggesting Hinterkaifeck, but I think D.B. Cooper fits the prompt more appropriately and suits my own interests as an amateur aviation historian.\nIn 1971, a dapper gentleman hijacks an aircraft and negotiates $200,000 in cash and four parachutes. After release of the majority of the hostages, save for the crew of the aircraft, he instructs the pilot to keep the aircraft steady at a speed just above the aircraft stall speed and an altitude of 10,000 feet. The aircraft, a Boeing 727, is unique due to having a rear staircase. In the air, a warning light is activated in the cockpit, showing the rear stairs have been deployed. The hijacker, mistakenly reported to the media as being ticketed under the name D.B. Cooper, and most of the cash is never seen again. Almost a decade later, a small amount of the cash is recovered by a child camping with his father.\nMany interesting theories and suspects have arisen in the course of the investigation. The most convincing suspect is Kenneth Christianson, a former Northwest Orient employee and former US Army paratrooper. However, there are two things make me doubt his involvement. One: one of the parachutes that was taken by the hijacker was used for training, and its envelope was sewn shut. An experienced paratrooper would certainly check a chute before making an extraordinarily risky jump like this. Two: Mr. Christiansen was significantly shorter than eyewitness accounts of the hijacker.\n\nI tend to think that D.B. Cooper did not survive the jump. The weather during the jump was rather poor. Although the hijacker jumped with two chutes (one being a dummy), it is unlikely that in those conditions a chute could have been deployed successfully. The likely landing sites are heavily treed and would have been quite difficult to escape without serious injury. \nWhat I love about this story is that it absolutely could have been pulled off, but only under spectacularly rare circumstances. D.B. Cooper has become a cult hero in the Northwest. I also love that he was actually ticketed as Dan Cooper, but the media ran with the moniker D.B. (a name that came from an inaccurate initial report), which makes him seem all the more devious.\n",
"Here in Belgium [Ambiorix](_URL_1_) is rather famous. He lead the tribe of the Eburones in the fight against Caesar, using some rather sleazy tactics:\n\n > Because a drought has affected the grain supply, Caesar's troops must winter among the rebellious Belgic tribes. Roman troops, led by Q. Titurius Sabinus and L. Aurunculeius Cotta are wintering among the Eburones when they are attacked by the Eburones, led by Ambiorix and Cativolcus. Ambiorix deceives the Romans by saying that the attack was made without his consent, and furthermore advises them to flee because a huge Germanic army is coming from across the Rhine. After much discussion and disagreement, the Romans decide to trust Ambiorix and leave the next morning. As the Romans are marching away the next morning, the Eburones ambush them, killing most of the Romans. A few Roman survivors make it back to their winter quarters where they commit suicide that night.\n\nCaesar's revenge was terrible, he invaded the region with 50 000 men and slaughtered the Eburone tribes in a matter of years. According to [Florus](_URL_0_) though, Ambiorix himself managed to cross the Rhine with a handful of men, to never be seen again."
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7tj76t | It is well-known that there is an increase of antibiotic resistant bacteria due to overuse in oral antibiotics. Can overuse of over the counter (OTC) topical antibiotics contribute to this problem? | [deleted] | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/7tj76t/it_is_wellknown_that_there_is_an_increase_of/ | {
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"Yes, topical antibiotics do produce resistance and this is well beyond the skin. See _URL_0_. If you have a skin infection,by all means use them. This also applies to antimicrobial soaps, and triclosan should be avoided: _URL_1_. ",
"Hello. I thought this was a really cool question. It seems like there are some studies into this,though in a slightly different context. The ones I found were mainly about the treatment of acne with topical antibiotic creams and it seems like there are resistant strains of acne bacteria that have emerged. I imagine that there will be parallels between this and using these treatments routinely for cuts.\n\nI guess essentially, it doesn't matter where the bacteria are. By using antibiotics in any context, you are giving the opportunity for bacteria resistant to that treatment to emerge.\n\nOne review that looks at this is below\n\n_URL_0_"
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2ht6q8 | why don't/can't 100% electric cars like tesla recharge themselves while in use like a standard car battery through its alternator? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ht6q8/eli5_why_dontcant_100_electric_cars_like_tesla/ | {
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"They could, if you threw a gas motor in them. That takes up space and costs money so they have opted not to ",
"A standard car battery is charged by burning fuel to turn the alternator. But if you tried that with a fully-electric car, you'd use up energy from the battery to turn the alternator, which would in turn charge the batteyr for *less* than the energy that you spend to do it, since some energy is always lost to friction.\n\nYou can't get energy for free.",
"You mean, why isn't an electric car a perpetual motion machine? Because thermodynamics.\n\nIf you added a generator, it would take additional power to rotate that generator. The power you would get back would be less than the power used to rotate it, again because thermodynamics.\n\nTANSTAAFL.",
"In a standard car, you're using fuel (gasoline/petrol) to recharge the battery. In an electric car, there is no other fuel source to charge the battery with. You would be attempting to charge the battery using the battery's own charge and you would just continually lose charge.",
"They do get a little charge back from a generator, it's physically impossible to get 100% of the energy back because most of the battery's energy is used to turn the wheels and more is lost in the form of heat.",
"Because a standard car uses energy created in an explosion in the engine to charge the relatively small battery. The alternator can't run the car, if it could it would require much more energy than the internal combusion engine could provide.\n\nThe tesla doesn't have a combustion engine. It's battery runs the car so it can't also charge itself.\n\nBasically you're asking why you can't charge a battery with the same battery.",
"The alternator and indeed the car is only moving because of charge drawn from the battery or powerplant in the car. (Generally the batter.) Turning electrical energy into mechanical and that back is woefully inefficient. You would always be better off removing resistance for the purpose of needing less energy to move it to begin with rather than trying to push it really hard to allow it to be tapped to recoup some energy. \n\nSince a petrol engine doesn't make electrical energy to start with it's not a terrible place to tap for some electrical power for the battery. If you have all the electricity already there, though? It's a waste.",
"Energy has to come from somewhere. Standard cars recharge themselves through an alternator because the engine is turning due to burning gasoline.\n\nIf you put an alternator on an electric car you'd effectively have this:\n\nExpend electricity to turn engine\nuse turning engine to produce electricity.\n\nYou'll never produce as much as you've spent to create the turn. ",
"Because an alternator is run by a pulley powered by the engine. Since the Tesla doesn't have an \"engine\" like one in traditional cars, there really isn't a way to fit a traditional alternator to it. And also, a traditional alternator would not be able to keep up with the expenditure of electricity that a Tesla undergoes. Some cars though, like the Chevy Volt and Fisker Karma, use a gas powered generator which is essentially a small engine that powers a big ass alternator. \n\nWith this said, the Tesla does have some KERS (kinetic energy recovery systems). For example, when you put on the brakes magic happens and you get some energy back."
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cew92m | Do general antibiotics also kill off gut bacteria? Could this indirectly cause a lessened effectivity of nutrient absorption in the intestines? | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/cew92m/do_general_antibiotics_also_kill_off_gut_bacteria/ | {
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"Some of the gut bacteria that are killed by antibiotics are involved in the degradation of food and molecules in the food into smaller units (smaller molecules) that are able to be absorbed in the gut. Therefore, killing those microbes does affect absorption. \n\nAnother indirect mechanism is that alterations in gut flora can change transit time and possibly electrolyte balance through diarrhea (the faster the flow, the lower the absorption). \n\nA final indirect mechanism may be that killing natural gut bacteria may encourage downstream dwelling bacteria, including some pathogenic organisms, to take up residence higher up in the gut, resulting in diarrhea."
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1ffxd2 | What is the smallest size an object in space could be to have a moon orbit it? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1ffxd2/what_is_the_smallest_size_an_object_in_space/ | {
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"There is no lower size limit. Two specs of dust could orbit each other; there is nothing in the laws of nature to prohibit it. Of course, in the inner Solar System the pressure of light and solar wind might be more significant than gravity."
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3tjare | What are some of the most cleverly designed experiments in scientific history? | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/3tjare/what_are_some_of_the_most_cleverly_designed/ | {
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"Forgive me for not googling this better, but I like the one with two perpendicular interferometers, used to test wether there is an ether in the cosmos. The idea being that if light is propogating as a wave, all waves we know of move through something... So if the earth is moving through space, and if the interferometers are perpendicular, and we send a light beam through each, one should be sped up or slowed down by the motion of whatever substance in the cosmos light is moving through.\n\nSomeone else will correct me, it's the internet. \n\nAlso, Foucault's pendulum is pretty clever. Proves the earth is rotating. You can build one in a back yard. \n\nThere has to be lots more. All the old famous ones were clever, and I can't think of more at the moment.",
"I think the [Michelson–Morley experiment](_URL_4_) was pretty clever, though it is perhaps not as easy to grasp as the double slit experiment. It's notable for being one of the most important *negative* results in the history of science.\n\n##Some background\n\nBy the mid 19^th century, light was known to be a sort of wave (largely due to the double-slit experiment OP mentioned). It was, at the time, assumed that light waves must travel through some sort of medium: as a sound wave consists of vibrations in the air, light waves consisted of vibrations in the \"luminiferous aether\", which was invisible, but apparently permeated the entire known universe. The Michelson–Morley experiment sought to detect the aether in a rather elegant way.\n\nThe Earth is, of course, not the centre of the universe, so it was hypothesised that, as the Earth orbits around the Sun, it must be moving relative to the aether. This \"aether wind\" should produce a measurable effect: the speed of light should be slower when measured parallel to the direction of motion. Assuming the solar system itself was not moving through the aether at any great speed, this effect would have been rather small, manifesting as a [0.01% deficit in the apparent speed of light](_URL_5_).\n\n##The bit that makes it a \"clever\" experiment\n\nThis posed a problem, as contemporary methods of measuring the speed of light were accurate only to about 5%, an uncertainty that dwarfed the expected result by a factor of 50,000. So, Michelson and Morley did not seek to make *absolute* measurements of the speed of light. Instead, their apparatus investigated the *relative* speeds of light moving in the expected direction of the aether wind and light moving perpendicular to that direction. Using a beam splitter, light from a common source was sent off in two different directions, bounced off a set of mirrors, and returned to the same eyepiece. The two returned beams of light interfered with each other, so that small differences in the length of their respective paths could be detected through changes to the phase of each beam.\n\nThe [actual details of the apparatus](_URL_1_) are worth a read too; they went to tremendous lengths to reduce vibration.\n\n##Result\n\n[No aether wind could be detected](_URL_3_), which seems rather obvious now but was a surprise to many at the time. A positive result would have confirmed the existence of the aether, but the negative result did not immediately consign the idea to the history books. It was thought by some that aether could be dragged along by the motion of a massive object like the Earth, perhaps in a similar way to air dragged behind an object moving through the atmosphere (though this [arguably created more problems than it solved](_URL_2_)). Various aether theories persisted for a while, but the \"new physics\" of the 1900s no longer required a medium to explain the propagation of light waves. Aether persist only in somewhat fringe theories or alternative interpretations today.\n\nYou can read the original paper here: [On The Relative Motion of the Earth and the Luminiferous Ether](_URL_0_).",
"Since you don't seem to want only psychology experience, i'm gonna talk about my domain, biology. Biology research is full of very clever experiences, because scientists needed to do research on microscopic phenomenon before TEM was a thing. \n\nFor example, one that I find very beautiful is the Engelmann experiment in 1882, that he used to measure the efficiency of photosynthesis at the different wavelength of light. One good indicator of how much photosynthesis is going on is the production of oxygen of the organism. If there's more oxygen when you put a red light, then photosynthesis is more efficient with red light. But this is before DEL allowed you to control the wavelength you emit on a plant and before electronic allowed the oxygen to be directly measured in atmosphere.\n\nEngelmann instead works with filamentous microscopic algae and bacteria. He uses a prism to [separate the different wavelength of light](_URL_0_). He positioned the long algae so that it is lit by all the spectrum. So one part is being lit by red light, and the other end by violet light. Then he unleashed the bacteria, which were hungry for oxygen. As a result, [they migrate along the algae to the spot where more oxygen is produced.](_URL_1_) With a microscope, you can actually see bubbles being produced by the bacteria in the red and blue lit parts.\n\nSo the guy is able to describe with astonishing precision the efficiency of photosynthesis on all the visible spectrum, with a result that is visually so elegant that /r/dataisbeautiful would still upvote it massively. In 1882, without modern spectroscopy, oxygen measurement or electronic microscopy. ",
"Eratosthenes of Cyrene calculated the circumference of the Earth very accurately in third century BC.\n\nEratosthenes calculated the circumference of the Earth without leaving Egypt. Eratosthenes knew that at local noon on the summer solstice in the Ancient Egyptian city of Swenet (known in ancient Greek as Syene, and now as Aswan) on the Tropic of Cancer, the Sun would appear at the zenith, directly overhead. He knew this because he had been told that the shadow of someone looking down a deep well in Syene would block the reflection of the Sun at noon off the water at the bottom of the well. Using a gnomon, he measured the Sun's angle of elevation at noon on the solstice in Alexandria, and found it to be 1/50th of a circle (7°12') south of the zenith. He may have used a compass to measure the angle of the shadow cast by the Sun.[16] Assuming that the Earth was spherical (360°), and that Alexandria was due north of Syene, he concluded that the meridian arc distance from Alexandria to Syene must therefore be 1/50th of a circle's circumference, or 7°12'/360°.\n\n\nPharaonic bookkeepers gave a distance between Swenet and Alexandria of 5,000 stadia. Some say this distance was corroborated by inquiring about the time that it took to travel from Syene to Alexandria by camel. Carl Sagan says that Eratosthenes paid a man to walk and measure the distance. He rounded the result to a final value of 700 stadia per degree, which implies a circumference of 252,000 stadia. Some claim Eratosthenes used the Egyptian stade of 157.5 meters, which would imply a circumference of 39,690 km, an error of 1.6%...",
"* [The Cavendish Experiment](_URL_3_), where the gravitational constant was first measured, was a very clever experiment. See the link for diagrams, but Cavendish set up two sets of balls and measured the gravitational attraction between them. With this measurement, we suddenly knew how massive the earth was and how massive the sun was.\n\n* There have been several increasingly strict tests of [Bell's inequality](_URL_0_), but the main credit goes to Bell for thinking of the basic framework they all use. Bell came up with a way to show for certain that quantum mechanics can't be explained by a theory using local hidden variables. In essence, he confirmed that strange quantum features like \"spooky action at a distance\" were real. [Read more here](_URL_2_).\n\n* Many of the great biology experiments tend to be harder to sum up in a single nice result, but the [Hershey-Chase experiment](_URL_1_) is a clever exception. At the time, there was a debate whether proteins of DNA carried genetic information. They came up with an idea to label the DNA and proteins from a bacterial virus with different radioactive elements specific to each one. Then they observed that only the DNA, not the proteins, are inserted into the bacteria to infect them. So the DNA was carrying the information.",
"John Snow(one of the fathers of modern epidemiology) used a spot map to pinpoint cases of a cholera outbreak in London and using this information(the cholera cases were distributed in a circular manner on the map) was able to nail down the water in a well in Broad Street as being responsible for the outbreak of the cholera.He helped prove cholera was transmitted by water.\n\nKeep in mind that this was in the 1850's when even the 'germ theory' hadn't been postulated yet.\n\nTruly a super simple but still genius level experiment,if there ever was one. At the time,people used to attribute diseases to 'bad air'.\n\n_URL_0_",
"I liked the one where they were trying to figure out if elephants knew they are looking at themselves when they look into a mirror. So they taped an X on the elephants forehead and when they looked in the mirror, they raised their trunk to their forehead, not to their reflection. \n",
"My all time favorite is the [Hersey-Chase Experiment](_URL_0_) which helped confirm that DNA was the genetic material, not protein.\n\nUsing radiolabeled viruses that either had their DNA or their protein marked, they infected a sample, then used a kitchen blender (no centrifuge!) to separate the viruses from the cells. Because they could see radioactivity in the cells subsequent to separation of the virus particles that had their DNA labeled, but not in the viruses that had their protein labeled, that indicated DNA was the genetic material.",
"[The Cannon Boring Experiment](_URL_0_) was a public demonstration in 1798 by Benjamin Thompson, whose practical experience running a munitions works had lead him to suspect that the prevailing theory of heat at the time- the caloric theory, which said that heat was an invisible fluid trapped within objects and released when they burned- was completely wrong. He prepared a special cannon boring arrangement that would measure the heat released during the process by measuring how much water the boring of the cannon boiled, and showed before an astonished audience that the friction of the drill produced far more heat than the caloric theory said the cannon could contain, (for that much heat would melt the cannon itself) thus dealing the caloric theory a very severe blow and meaningfully calling into question our understanding of what heat, and in turn energy itself, even was.",
"Bruno Galantucci with \"An experimental study of the emergence of human communication systems\" ... very clever reduction of communication channels and the available dimensions in order to sort out at which level symbol exchange can happen successfully.\n\n_URL_0_",
"Very evil but clever nonetheless:\n\nTo cause sleep deprivation a flower pot was inverted and allowed to float in water. A rat is placed on top. If it stays still, the pot capsizes. The rat has to constantly move around to stay afloat.",
"I think [Fizeau's experiment](_URL_0_) to determine the speed of light and the subsequent refinements deserve a mention as well. The wiki article does a great job of explaining it.",
"I think it's clever for its \"simplicity\" and the fact that the results of this experiment were available to us for years before we picked up on it. A certain patent clerk of the name Einstein once suggested that mass deforms space around it and that this warping of space is the cause of gravity. To test this idea, that the fabric of space was being warped, measurements were taken of an eclipse. The moon would pass in front of the sun, blocking it out almost completely for a moment. If its true that mass warps space then we should be able to see slightly more of the sun around the edges of the moon than what would be predicted by geometry alone. That's it. With the observation of an eclipse one of the most important scientific breakthroughs was made. ",
"I always thought Foucault's Pendulum was a very simple, yet demonstrative experiment.\n\nFoucault suspended an iron ball from the dome of the Pantheon in Paris such that the ball was almost to the ground. He then attached a stylus to the bottom of the ball which would lightly drag through a plate of damp sand below. Once the pendulum was allowed to swing it didn't stand still or simply swing back and forth, but actually, over a period of a day and a half, traced a design in the sand in a 360 degree arc (there is some math involved, but basically the reason it is not 24 hours is the effect of latitude on measuring the rotation).\n\nEven though it was mostly taken for granted at the time, this showed empirically that the Earth rotated about an axis. The \"rotation\" of the pendulum was not of the pendulum itself, but rather measured the rotation of the Earth below the pendulum. Even small deviations in the setup of the pendulum would have interfered with the pattern, so it was quite the feat that it generated a positive result.\n\nMany science centers around the world have these now. Even though there's no way to see the full tracing of the design without camping out it's still quite amazing to see the drawn pattern once you fully comprehend what you're seeing.",
"The [Millikan Oil Drop Experiment](_URL_0_) is one of my all time favorites. In nutshell, Millikan and his team determined that electric charge is quantized, and they determined the value of the charge of a single electron.\n\nThey sprayed a fine mist of oil drops and viewed them through a magnification lens. They calibrated the weight of the oil drops by correlating the radius of the drop with the weight of the drop, as they knew the density of the oil. Then, they applied electric charge to the drops with a high voltage. Next, they applied current to a set of plates and determined what amount of current was needed to suspend an oil drop in order to overcome the force of gravity. By performing this exercise for a wide range of oil-drop sizes, they were able to deduce that the amount of charges on oil drop was proportional to the drop's surface area. Because the relationship between the volume and surface area of a sphere are both well-known quantities related to the radius of the sphere and because they knew the weight of the oil-drops, they could readily deduce how many electric charges were needed for a given mass of oil drop to suspend it.\n\nAt the time, quantum mechanics was undergoing rapid development. There was already a growing consensus that charge was quantized, and the theoretical value of the charge was postulated. Millikan's Oil Drop experiment was the first experimental proof of the electron's charge. This experiment also paved the way for the development of mass spectrometry, which has been one of the most insightful scientific tools in the history of humankind.\n\n**TL;DR: Brilliant physicist determines that electric charge is quantized by measuring how many charges are needed to suspend oil drops in an electric field.**\n\n\n\n**EDIT 1:** Changed one sentence for grammatical clarity and added TL;DR."
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aether_drag_hypothesis",
"https://en.wikipedia.o... | ||
4vmpcv | why meals ready to eat (mres) take so long to leave the body or just cause incontinence? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4vmpcv/eli5_why_meals_ready_to_eat_mres_take_so_long_to/ | {
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"They are purposely low in fiber because they are made to be used where there aren't toilets and/or you need to carry your poop with you so you don't get discovered, so constipation is a feature, not a bug.",
"A contributing factor to this may be that an MRE's aren't intended to be a 'three meals a day' thing. ",
"MREs are designed to have a lot of their calories in the form of carbohydrates and are typically eaten in high-activity situations. If you're exerting yourself a lot, and have a lot of carbs in your diet, you exhale a lot of those calories because they can be more readily converted directly into CO2 through your metabolism.\n\nAdditionally, they have low fiber, since they're trying to be energy dense. Fiber is nutritionally useless, mostly useful to fill out your waste so to speak, it would be a waste of weight in a field ration. So you exhale most of the food you're eating, and you're eating less extra junk to fill your waste. So there's less waste. It's not exactly healthy for long-term use, but they're supposed to be a field ration, not a long-term diet. MREs also lack a lot of micronutriets making them bad for long-term consumption in that regard too, at least without vitamins."
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16hqap | If atoms only emit light with specific (discrete) values for wavelengths, why do bodies emit a continuous spectrum of radiation? | The notions of the emission spectrum kind of collided with the black-body radiation information I had...
If you heat a body, like tungsten wire in a light bulb, it acts like a black-body and you get the classic continuous spectrum... But that body is made up of atoms, and atoms only release discrete radiation when an electron goes back to a lower energy level (E=hf=hc/l)... So how can you get that continuous spectrum of wavelengths from atoms that release light with discrete wavelength values? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/16hqap/if_atoms_only_emit_light_with_specific_discrete/ | {
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"A black body is an idealized model, like a perfect vacuum or a frictionless surface. It is an approximation which holds up well in many cases, but actual things deviate from the black-body model.\n\nThe hypothetical black body is a substance that absorbs all light perfectly, and emits light in a well-defined spectrum depending on its temperature, ie. blackbody radiation. A single hydrogen atom is therefore a poor candidate for applying the black-body model, because it only absorbs some wavelengths of light and generally does not behave much like a black body on its own.\n\nBut if you took a huge ball of hydrogen, like the sun for example, and heated the whole thing up to 6000 kelvin, it follows the black-body model quite well. At this temperature, we happen to get the spectrum we are familiar with from the sun.\n\nIt is still the case that photons are emitted from electrons changing energy states. But energies of electrons are not limited only to their quantum numbers. There are also vibrational energy states, so if you have a gas of really hot hydrogen atoms bouncing around, there will be a lot of kinetic energy that will result in electrons being bounced around, emitting light accordingly. This is somewhat independent of what particular material it is, and then you have blackbody radiation :)",
"For my answer I'm relying on \"Optical Coherence and Quantum Optics\" by Mandel and Wolf as well as Yariv's \"Quantum Electronics,\" both bibles in their respective fields.\n\nAlthough the previous answers are good, they are far from telling the complete story and in my opinion carry a few misconceptions.\n\nAlthough apocryphite is right in claiming that a single hydrogen atom is a poor candidate for the black-body model, it is not because hydrogen only absorbs some wavelengths, but rather because a single hydrogen atom is not a statistical ensemble i.e. you can't speak of it as having a temperature. Conversely, this is why the sun is in fact a great black body, and, as Mandel states and indeed the graph Davecasa links to suggests, any deviations are due to the effects of filters, generally defined.\n\nNow, we have have realized our first important assumption - we are working with a statistical ensemble of atoms at some temperature. What else is in equilibrium with this ensemble? The light field, of course. We can write the Hamiltonian for the light field quickly, and using our knowledge of photon statistics can derive how many photons we can expect in each mode. I think you're already familiar this part, and the important question you're now asking is exactly *how* the ensemble you're studying couples with the light field.\n\nNow, say we have the simplest two-level system, for instance a hydrogen atom with a ground state and only one excited state. If we wanted to write out the energy contribution of such a system and the light around it, we must formally include all wavelengths of light and in doing so realize that transitions between the excited and ground state may still be mediated by creation/annihilation of photons at different frequencies than the excitation frequency.\nOnce you accept that even two-level systems can interact with quantized modes other than their natural frequency, it should make sense that many-level discrete systems can, once in equilibrium, result in a black body spectrum. The caveat \"equilibrium\" is perhaps the most important here. If the pretend box our light is in is supposed to be at 3000 C, then whenever it doesn't follow the black body distribution, it is out of equilibrium. At this point it's probably best to point to what ultimately is driving the thermal equilibration process: maximization of entropy. This is a convenient goal for our physical processes and the most fundamental one.",
"Any electromagnetic system can emit or absorb light in exchange for changing between energy states. In a simple case there is an isolated, neutral atom which can emit or absorb photons as electrons move between orbitals of different energy levels.\n\nHowever, you can go up a notch in complexity to molecules. A molecule has vibration modes, and those different vibrations each correspond to different energy levels of the molecular system. A photon can be absorbed by exciting one of these vibrational modes, or it can be emitted as one of these vibrational modes damps down. And this is true even when the atoms in the molecule are neutral and all of the electrons stay in the lowest possible energy levels.\n\nWhen you get multiple molecules or atoms together you get analogous energy levels to vibration modes in an extended solid or in a gas. For example, you could imagine a single macroscopic molecule such as a perfect diamond crystal. With moles of atoms involved the characteristics of the vibration modes becomes hugely complex, and takes on a different character. For macroscopic objects such as dense gases or liquids or for solids the electromagnetic spectrum takes on the characteristics of a \"[black body](_URL_0_)\". Inside of the object you have this huge number of possible interactions between atoms, with each little nanoscopic part of the object trading energy with every other chunk through emitting and absorbing different wavelengths of light as well as sharing vibrations or trading gas molecules at the surface. Ultimately you end up with a system that has a characteristic \"temperature\" (average atomic/molecular relative kinetic energy). And if you do the math all of the little emission and absorption lines (for vibrational type modes) add up to a more or less smooth curve with a peak of EM radiation energy which increases as the temperature increases.\n\nAnd then on top of this idealized black-body you will have emission and absorption lines which correspond to vibrations of smaller molecules and electron energy level changes, but how much of each you will see will depend on the density and temperature of the object.\n\n**tl;dr** Black-body radiation doesn't come from electrons changing energy levels in atoms but in the different energy levels of atoms interacting with other atoms. Because of the huge number of such interactions possible in macroscopic materials (on the same scale as moles) the resulting radiation spectrum can appear to be smooth."
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39sm7r | Found what I assume to be old pottery, any archeologists who can ID this for me? (album in description) | Hi /r/AskHistorians !
I went mountainbiking the other day and found these near a construction site : _URL_0_
I googled "old pottery" and "roman" pottery etc and it seems to be some kind of old roman pottery but I'd like to know more.
It is found in Belgium, in Flemish Brabant (the greater area around Brussels).
It is a white clayish material with some kind of black paint or dye and has a soft texture (slightly bendable).
It is carved in a what I assume to be tiger stripe pattern.
It is quite small, I think that if I would have found the other pieces the pot would be about 6-7 inches but I'm not sure.
More pictures can be requested if you specify which angle you want to see :)
My question : What time period is this from? What civilization? (Belgium is known for Gallic tribes and we had romans here too AFAIK) and what do you think it was used for ?
Cheers! | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/39sm7r/found_what_i_assume_to_be_old_pottery_any/ | {
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"I'm not a belgian pottery expert, but I do have a smattering of typological knowledge for most of north western europe.\n\nIf you ever find red glazed stuff that's samain ware, which is a dead ringer for Roman. But this could also be Greyware, which you'll never guess... Is Grey, and was their cheaper stuff. Although, having done a quick check in books, and a wikipedia, I'd put a guess on Black-Burnished ware.\n\nYou might be looking at bit's of one of the things in this picture: \n\n_URL_0_\n\nCould you try and draw what you think the whole shape would be like, estimating from the fragments? It's a bit difficult to visualise without having the fragments in front of you."
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2s8r4f | What would happen everyone on a full passenger jet ran to the front or the back of the jet? Would it cause the plane to lose stability? | Would the pilot need to compensate for the weight shift? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2s8r4f/what_would_happen_everyone_on_a_full_passenger/ | {
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"Yes, the pilot needs to compensate, there are trim options to change the zero point (so the pilot doesn't have to activity do anything). Big commercial planes just have a scale in the wheels, and calculate the trim before takeoff, on smaller planes you'll actually see the flight attendants go through the plan and mark down the seats that are filled to calculate the trim.\n\nIn the extreme case you have [something like this](_URL_0_), their cargo rolled to the back during takeoff, the pilot couldn't compensate, and they crashed. I don't think passengers generally weigh enough to do that (though it does happen with planes doing skydiving stuff when everyone runs to the back in a small plane to jump)."
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re5sv | why english shows like the office, skins and being human are remade for the us. | Skins was a shot for shot (more or less) remake, I just don't get the point. Can anyone explain pretty please? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/re5sv/eli5_why_english_shows_like_the_office_skins_and/ | {
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"I suspect that A) there might be a licensing issue (although I don't know the technicalities of that) B) there is probably some concern about how well the humor would play with American audiences, and C) there might be union issues. ",
"It depends on the show. For period shows or sci-fi shows, they generally aren't remade. Something like Downton Abbey or Doctor Who are very successful in the US. \n\nFor more conventional shows, there are a number of reasons. Perhaps foremost, script changes are often needed for cultural references. Then, shows like sitcoms rely on viewers being able to identify with the characters. If characters have different accents, it just makes it harder for American audiences to relate, and lessens the likelihood of the show being successful. ",
"Bear in mind that a 30-min BBC episode has to be cut down to 22-24 mins to accommodate advertising breaks, the US viewers wouldn't get the original British series as intended anyway.",
"Because it's another market. They hedged their bets that if something worked well in one market, it stands a fair chance of succeeding in another market. Also, it's easier dealing with existing content. If anything didn't work in the original run, you can change it to work better in the second market.\n\nIt goes both ways. Quite a few shows have been adapted to British audiences from the US. _URL_0_ Not as much as the other way, because British people naturally understand American accents and culture with more ease."
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3a36xg | how does proactiv get huge celebrities to endorse their product? | Proactiv commercials feature the most high profile celebrities during their peak. They highlight pics of them as youths with bad acne. Do they just pay them a ton to do so or is there another reason they promote the product? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3a36xg/eli5_how_does_proactiv_get_huge_celebrities_to/ | {
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1wzn82 | How do fiber optic cables work? | So I was wondering how internet connections work and send information? So basically the coax cable (copper) used to be the main broadband medium, but companies like AT & T and Verizon have upgraded to fiber optics.
How does light transfer information through a fiber optic cable?
Does Comcast also have fiber optics? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1wzn82/how_do_fiber_optic_cables_work/ | {
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"The principle of total internal reflection means that light will indeed travel all the away along a thin fiber-optic cable, carrying a signal to the other end.\n\nLike any other digital signal it has two states - 0 or 1. Presence of light means a 1, lack of light means a 0.\n\nThis signal is then converted back to an electrical signal at the other end - sensors can 'translate' the pattern of light and dark into binary code.\n\nAnd yes, Comcast does indeed have fiber optics.",
"Electronic signals are translated into light. This is done using Pulse Code Modulation (read: analog signal translated into a digital one) and other common communication protocols. These are the same protocols used for wireless communication. Essentially the analog wave is translated into a on/off code that is expressed by the blinking light created by the transmitter. Of course the blinking is so fast the human eye would likely see a solid on light or fading/pulsing light source. \n\nThe light is propagated down a glass cable that guides the light to the receiver which translates the light code back into electrical signals. The cable is constructed of glass (or another silicate substance) and then surrounded by a more reflective material called \"the cladding\".\n\nHere's a video that explains the cable construction process and the basics of fiber optics and communication: _URL_0_\n\nComcast does undoubtedly have fiber optic communication as part of their infrastructure they simply transition back to copper mediums before it gets to your house. They would likely say that the cost of replacing the existing copper infrastructure would be to expensive for any one company to cover. ",
"The data is usually encoded using intensity modulation...making the light brighter/dimmer, very rapidly. A light source, such as an LED, is rapidly modulated between bright and dim; the light travels down the fiber until it reaches its destination (or a repeater); a detector turns the light back into an electrical signal. \n \nIt isn't quite as simple as \"low\"=0/\"bright\"=1; a more complex encoding is used to help reduce the chance of receive errors and maintain synchronization between sender and receiver. A single fiber can also carry multiple wavelengths (colors) simultaneously to increase bandwidth. \n \nAs internet traffic from various low-bandwidth channels comes together, it is aggregated and sent along higher-bandwidth channels, using different protocols. This typically happens multiple times before it makes it to the internet backbone. Of course, multiple points the reverse then must also happen...the frames must be dismantled and re-assembled to send the packets to the right locations. \n \nComcast surely has fiber optics in its internal network and connection to the internet, and in routing of traffic to/from neighborhoods. Whether or not they have it available to the customers' residences is going to vary by location; you should contact them if you want to know for your area. ",
"To answer your last question first. Transmitting data over long distances is mostly done through fiber optic lines. These lines have very low loss of signal and are great for long distances. So without knowing exactly if this is true, Comcast at least receives their connection to the backbone of the internet for the US through fiber optic cable.\n\nAs for the actual transmission of data in fiber optics. There are 3 main components of a complete line for transmitting and receiving data. 1) Transmitter 2) Receiver 3)Fiber optic cable.\n\n1) The transmitter is a relatively simple piece of circuitry that takes an electrical signal and converts it to an optical signal. This is done through a light emitting diode (LED) or laser diode. There are some subtle differences between the two but basically through the use of some really cool physics, electrons recombine in a semiconductor material ( in this case Indium Galluium Arsenide Phosphide) to emit light. This light has a specific energy and therefore a specific wavelength of light. For fiber optics the wavelength is between 1260 nanometers - 1675 nanometers depending on the application and technology.\n\n2) The receiver is almost a mirror of the transmitter but uses slightly different semiconductor materials to take photons and convert it to an electrical signal.\n\n3) A fiber optic cable is also called a waveguide in physics. I can talk more about waveguide physics if needed but understand that a waveguide is basically a conducting medium that has a definite shape and properties to transmit and reflect wavelengths of light. These waveguides are designed to amplify or reduce loss for a specific wavelength of light.\n\nTo understand the fiber optic cable, a simplified version of the cable would be a long thin cylindrical piece of glass that is covered in foil along its length. The end of the glass cylinder is matched with the same type of glass on the transmitter. The light from the transmitter is sent from the small piece of glass and through the fiber optic cable. These connections between the transmitter and the fiber optic cable are the main points of loss.\n\nYou can picture this loss by thinking about standing in front of a window with a flashlight. When you shine light on the window most is transmitted through the glass but a small portion is reflected back at you. The same thing happens in at the end of the fiber optic cable. This reflected light at the end of the fiber optic cable is not received by the receiver and was lost because it reflected back into the cable.",
"[Engineer Guy has a very good video demonstrating how Fiber optic cables work](_URL_0_).\n\nThe entire internet is built on fiber since they're good at transmitting a lot of information across long distances. Virtually all ISPs will have fiber as the backbone of their network, however in most cases copper is still used to make the final connection to your home. Services like Google Fiber and FIOS have fiber all the way to your house, with the only copper usually being the ethernet cable(s) between the modem and your computer. This is known as [Fiber to the X](_URL_1_), X being where the fiber ends (node, curb, building, home, etc).",
"The data is carried with light, and through constant total internal reflections, the light never ends up leaving the cable, hence it is carried to the other end of the cable thus carrying the signal over large distances in the speed of light[.](_URL_0_)"
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1zi8ia | How do animals know which animal to fear and which to not? | We see it in the movies all the time, the hero is riding a horse and it (the horse) will suddenly start jumping/acting scared out of no where and will run back because of a tiger hidden in the bushes. I doubt that that horse would have met a tiger before and seen what it can do, otherwise he wouldn't be there in the first place.
In real life, I have a Rottweiler puppy, and when he was ~3 months of age, he used to be terrified of big dogs even if they were in their own homes; he just lie down and won't move at all, run back; but he'd jump all over cattle 20x his size. When he grew up a bit, a Labrador which we met walking just laid on his back and peed all over himself. Another dog just hid behind his owner and started whining and crying.
How do animals figure out this stuff out? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1zi8ia/how_do_animals_know_which_animal_to_fear_and/ | {
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"Rottweilers started out as a herding breed so there's the human factor. Total fearlessness around cattle would have been a required trait.\n\nHow do they actually tell the difference? Dogs have a really good sense of smell and really good hearing but very limited vision. They can almost certainly tell that a cow is not some sort of giant uber-dog before they see it. For one, its urine will not be nearly as high in ammonia as something that eats a lot of meat.",
"The basic mechanism at work here is that prey species need certain fears in order to react appropriately to predators. If they don't have these fears, they die and don't get a chance to reproduce. As such, there's selective pressure on prey species to react to certain stimuli with fear--smells, shapes, sounds, etc. So, evolutionarily, prey species are often selected (in part) for their fearful responses to certain stimuli. There's a very primordial part of the human brain, for instance, that [reflexively causes alarm in response to stimuli that look like snakes](_URL_0_). The argument is that snakes were probably some of the earliest predators of mammals and that they drove our evolution fairly strongly.\n\nAnother way in which prey learn what to fear is simply by observation. When a young wildebeest sees a fellow wildebeest get eaten by a lion, the survivor learns to avoid lions. That learned association, however, doesn't get passed down, nor can it necessarily be selected for per se. \n\nEdit: In terms of your dog, dogs can smell each other and can thereby detect aggression. Cows, as generally docile prey organisms, probably don't put off many (if any) aggressive or threatening displays or smells, but I confess this is merely conjecture on my part."
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1a7xbx | how does the tap work | I understand that it works because of the pressure differences but how do we get tap water in cities without water towers. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1a7xbx/eli5_how_does_the_tap_work/ | {
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"Reservoirs and pumping stations. ",
"This should help.\n\n_URL_0_ \n\n"
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txlbh | What happens if you microwave mercury? | As the title says | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/txlbh/what_happens_if_you_microwave_mercury/ | {
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"Regardless of the answer to this question **do not attempt to microwave mercury to find out.**",
"BTW, the electrical sparks occur from \"steep\" gradients in the local potential. If you imagine a slice of the oven's interior as a contour map of voltage potential, conductors will look like high plateaus while the microwave is on. If the conductor is large, the equal-potential contour lines will slowly and evenly lead \"up\" to the plateau, but where the conductor suddenly bends away sharply, the contour lines \"bunch up\", creating a sort of voltage potential \n\"cliff edge\". Add electrical power (microwaves), and if the energy levels are high enough, and the lines per unit distance are high enough, the breakdown voltage of air is exceeded, and arcing occurs.\n\nFor this reason, large, smooth-edged bits of metal are unlikely to spark, but the gold-foil decoration on some fancy plate surfaces are highly likely to do so (since the plates themselves, which are not conductors, do not help \"smooth out\" the voltage potential much).",
"I'm seeing a lot of misunderstanding about how microwaves work. \n\nMicrowaves heat food using a phenomenon known as [dielectric heating](_URL_1_). The reason I know about this phenomenon is because it is related to [dielectric spectroscopy](_URL_2_), a relatively common technique in my field. The way dielectric heating works is that microwave radiation couples to a quantum mechanical transition in the molecule, typically a rotational transition. Conventional microwave ovens are tuned to a frequency of 2.45 GHz which is in the middle of a broad absorption of water. \n\nHowever, this frequency also couples to transitions in many other polar molecules (carbohydrates, proteins, fats...aka food) which is why even things that are 'dry' can heat in a microwave. One of many exceptions i dry ice. [Here's a video](_URL_0_) where someone puts dry ice in a microwave. The radiation passes right through the dry ice, but heats the crap out of the plate (which probably has a glaze of some kind that isn't microwave safe). \n\nAs for what'll happen in mercury...its extremely difficult to find a microwave absorption spectrum for elemental mercury. My suspicion, since mercury is center symmetric and non-polar, is that there won't be much dielectric heating since atoms can't sustain a rotational moment. You may get conductive heating though -- its quite probable that (like other metals) the microwaves will be of sufficient frequency to eject electrons from the mercury and start the conduction of electricity. This will also heat the mercury. So, the answer to your question is that it will probably heat the mercury, but not for the same reason that it heats food.\n\n**TL;DR:** Don't put mercury in the microwave."
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5so4e8 | how does dynamic cruise control and accident prevention braking work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5so4e8/eli5_how_does_dynamic_cruise_control_and_accident/ | {
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"I believe these systems constantly monitor the field of view in front of the car. \nImagine a camera with a green zone amber, and red. \nIf it's in the green zone, the car cruises along as normal, when you get too close to the car it prepares its systems giving you chance to brake yourself based on it's recommended distance. As soon as you don't respond to the car getting to the red zone it applys brakes until it reaches the amber zone. Where you will maintain speed. If the car in front suddenly stops, it will recognize the speed it has stopped depending on how fast your approaching and apply breaks full on to bring you to a stop. "
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jnwop | A mirror spinning at the speed of light. | If a mirror was hooked up to an impossibly fast motor and then spun at certain amplitudes of the speed of light. (Probably impossible sure)
What would be seen in the reflection. Would it be the normal reflection if the rotation was exactly the speed of light? What if the rotation was speed and a half? Would you be upside down?
Opinions? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/jnwop/a_mirror_spinning_at_the_speed_of_light/ | {
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"Ignoring the whole \"speed of light\" thing, this question did get me wondering about something that maybe someone with more knowledge than me can address.\n\nSo I'm fairly certain that a photon reflecting off a mirror is actually absorbed and re-emitted, and that this process takes some finite amount of time (if I'm wrong on either of those points, please disabuse me of my assumptions). If those assumption are correct, would a mirror rotating at a high enough speed around the axis perpendicular to the mirror's surface reflect an image that was visibly rotated from what you'd normally expect to see? That is, would the \"point\" where the photon was absorbed be rotated to a new position, and then re-emit the photon from said position?",
"So.... rotational speed is measured in revolutions per [time unit], or angular distance per [time unit].\n\nSpeed of light is measured in distance per [time unit]. They're not really the same. \n\nIf you're trying to rotate it so the outside edge of the mirror meets the speed of light, you can't, due to relativistic effects. \n\nHowever, if we switch to sound, we can certainly have a sound reflector's outside edge spinning faster than the speed of sound. That, however, creates an audible shockwave. I would guess a similar thing would happen if you spun a mirror faster than the speed of light in the medium it was in-- you'd get Čerenkov radiation, and like the auditory shockwave, would likely drown out any light you tried to shine on it.\n\ntl;dr: You're going to get a lot of downvotes because you're asking about the impossible in an unclear way, BUT the likely outcome were it possible would be a shockwave.",
"I imagine when you [rotate a mirror around it's symmetry axis](_URL_0_) (when looking at it) - so that it's edges move at almost the speed of light - your reflection would have a gradient from one side to the other, essentially blue shifting and red shifting your mirror image.\n\nI have doubts. Is this plausible?",
"Ignoring the whole \"speed of light\" thing, this question did get me wondering about something that maybe someone with more knowledge than me can address.\n\nSo I'm fairly certain that a photon reflecting off a mirror is actually absorbed and re-emitted, and that this process takes some finite amount of time (if I'm wrong on either of those points, please disabuse me of my assumptions). If those assumption are correct, would a mirror rotating at a high enough speed around the axis perpendicular to the mirror's surface reflect an image that was visibly rotated from what you'd normally expect to see? That is, would the \"point\" where the photon was absorbed be rotated to a new position, and then re-emit the photon from said position?",
"So.... rotational speed is measured in revolutions per [time unit], or angular distance per [time unit].\n\nSpeed of light is measured in distance per [time unit]. They're not really the same. \n\nIf you're trying to rotate it so the outside edge of the mirror meets the speed of light, you can't, due to relativistic effects. \n\nHowever, if we switch to sound, we can certainly have a sound reflector's outside edge spinning faster than the speed of sound. That, however, creates an audible shockwave. I would guess a similar thing would happen if you spun a mirror faster than the speed of light in the medium it was in-- you'd get Čerenkov radiation, and like the auditory shockwave, would likely drown out any light you tried to shine on it.\n\ntl;dr: You're going to get a lot of downvotes because you're asking about the impossible in an unclear way, BUT the likely outcome were it possible would be a shockwave.",
"I imagine when you [rotate a mirror around it's symmetry axis](_URL_0_) (when looking at it) - so that it's edges move at almost the speed of light - your reflection would have a gradient from one side to the other, essentially blue shifting and red shifting your mirror image.\n\nI have doubts. Is this plausible?"
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p0b6p | Is organic food better for you than non-organic food? | Does choosing organic food (grown without pesticides, un-preserved, etc.) have benefits over non-organic eating that are statistically significant, practically significant, and rooted in science? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/p0b6p/is_organic_food_better_for_you_than_nonorganic/ | {
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"Brian Dunning of the podcast Skeptoid did a very good episode on this, i highly advise listening to it.[Here's a link to it.](_URL_0_)",
"Others have rightly pointed out that the [evidence of benefits are slim at best](_URL_1_).\n\nI'd like to instead answer your question from the viewpoint of **nutritional economics**. My book covers this topic in more detail, but very briefly:\n\n* [In many cases frozen foods are MORE healthy for you than fresh organic food](_URL_0_), because they are picked and immediately put into a sort of nutritional stasis. Freezing requires no additives, and little to no added preservatives, eliminating that as a comparative benefit.\n\nSo it all comes down to how fast the organic food can get onto your table. Picked and eaten the same day? Excellent, it will likely beat most frozen alternatives. Needs a day to get to your local market, sits in the back for a day or two, and on the shelf for another day and a half? Is it a BIG supermarket, who likely leaves a lot more stock in the back rooms for longer periods? And then, how long will you keep it unfrozen in your fridge? Often times it's either a wash, or frozen beats it.\n\n* The savings from selecting a slightly nutritionally inferior frozen product can be reinvested in a simple once-a-day vitamin supplement. \n\n**The nutritional benefits of the vitamin dwarf any losses from the freezing process, and still save you a large percentage on the economic side of the picture**. \n\nSo the only question left is pesticides. This is a regulation issue, and depends heavily on country of origin, local trends, etc. 2/3rds of clinically significant pesticide issues happen in third word countries. YMMV.\n\nSo there you are, a socio-nutritional-economic look at the issue. :)\n\nEdit 1: Forgot the fridge time factor!",
"A 2009 review done by an independent panel in the UK concluded that there was no evidence of a substantial difference. They found some studies did show a minor difference between the two, but it was too small to actually have any impact on human health.\n\n_URL_0_",
"I'm curious about GMO. Have there been any studies done on the nutritional value of GMO crops without any or with greatly reduced pesticide and fertilizer inputs ? This is a major issue for feeding large segments of the global population, as the regions of the world that are working on sustinence level farming generally cannot afford pesticides and fertilizers anyways (nor can they afford Monsanto junk crops but thats another issue), but are extremely vulnerable to shifts in environment or pest population. The current drive in many of these countries is to open up chemical plants and start dumping cheap, effective but highly damaging chemicals onto their crops. This is seen as a massive improvement by many in these countries because the alternative seems to be for millions of people to die every few years and most of the country to remain in crippling poverty for the rest. Is there an 'organic food' solution to this problem ? If the organic food solution advocates for smaller farm crops and more labour intensive practices, this, to me, sounds like advocating for a return to sustinence level farming, the exact thing that these third world countries are trying to escape. If you have to devote a huge portion of your population to farming there is little time or manpower to do anything else. On another point, while organic farming may have an advantage of sustainability over the long run (may, I'll do my research on this point), it seems like it would be highly suceptible to the kind of environmental shifts that often lead to mass famines. If nature has 'decided' this won't be a good year for farming, isn't it useful to have artificial means to keep the crops growing ? \nFurther, does large scale organic farming effectively counter large scale pest outbreaks of a less selective variety(I realize that diversifying standing crop is effective at deterring large clusters of selective pests, and is something that should probably be implemented more), or is organic farming in developed countries simply benefiting from a sort of 'herd immunity' provided by nearby 'conventionally' farmed crops ?\nThat is, if there was a population explosion of something like locusts, would diversified crop practices of organic farming actually have any effect or would there be a need to bring out the spray planes and coat everything in pesticides ?\n\nIs GMO in the style of Nromal Borlaug's work a better solution than either of these, or is it another dead end ?\n\nHope the questions are interesting, and hope someone has some good answers I'm very interested in the issue.",
"My answer comes in the form of a [video debate](_URL_0_) by Dennis Avery (the director for the Hudson's Institute for Global Food Issues), Blake Hurst, John Krebbs (former chairman of the Food Standards Agency), Charles Benbrook (chief scientist at The Organic Center), Urvashi Rangan (director of Technical Policy for Consumers Union), and Jeffery Stiengarten (Food writer for vogue magazine).\n\nI think you'd be hard pressed to find a more open conversation between real policy makers as this.",
"There is plenty of misinformation in this thread. Let's get back to the science. There are a wide variety of studies about the nutritional value of organically grown versus conventionally grown food. Some say one thing, some say another. Some are of limited scope, and some are not. \n\nSo what clears this up? \n\nWe need a study large enough (sample size of farms, farming practices, variety types, etc.) that it helps tease out usable data. As it happens there is a great example of such a study, conducted a couple years ago by Dr. John Reganold. It concerns strawberries.\n\n_URL_1_\n\nThis is an overview. You can track down the full paper yourself pretty easily if you have access to JSTOR, or some other scientific paper index. If you can't track it down, I'll post it for you.\n\nThe study concludes that for strawberries they are both healthier and better for the environment if grown organically. \n\nAnother study was done comparing economic, taste, and soil indicators between conventional, integrated, and organic apple orchards in Washington State. This study showed benefits to organic orchards as well.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nBeyond all this we must define health and benefit. It is a complex topic, but there was plenty of misinformation floating around this thread. These are the two most comprehensive studies I've seen, and both were preformed by Dr. Reganold, and they both indicate that yes, there probably is some statistically significant benefit to organic food.\n\nI've heard him speak, and he is a quality scientist. He is publish in Science, Nature, National Academy of Sciences, and many other prestigious journals. His results seem to pass most truth tests: Expertise, Peer Review, and Statistical Significance.\n\n(NO CITATIONS, DO NOT TAKE THIS BOTTOM PARAGRAPH TO THE BANK) I've also seen in a lecture someone analyze the results of many smaller studies on nutritional quality, to mixed results. (pulling numbers from a 4-year memory here, so forgive me if they are off a bit). But about 60% of the studies showed benefits to organic, 20% showed inconclusive results, and 20% showed benefits to conventional.",
"I think this discussion has lost focus. It is worth noting that the label \"organic\" may not always hold true, but this discussion should focus on whether or not truly organic food is good for you or not. Someone also restricted the debate to fresh vs. frozen. Organic food can certainly be frozen.\n\nSo I'm still curious, is truly organic food (frozen or not) better for you than food soaked in pesticides and herbicides and grown with synthetic fertilizer?",
"The only real difference between organic and non-organic I've been able to find is the difference in sugar content and the fact pesticides are not used on it. Most pesticides are designed to dissipate/break down by the time food is harvested but how much of these pesticides remain I don't know. If you're worried about nutrition, just eating fruits, vegetables and un-processed foods in general is far superior to alternative diets before worrying about how much better organic may be.",
"I buy organic food not necessarily because it's good for me, but because it's better for the planet. Better not to have all that herbicide and pesticide in the air and water. Also, I buy free range meat and eggs as much as I can because while I don't have the guts to kill my own food, I think it's completely wrong to subject an animal to lifelong misery just because he's destined for my dinner plate.",
"Prior to 1997 this may have been the case, however post 1997, the standards for what the USDA defines as Organic were significantly relaxed.\n(Source:_URL_0_)\n"
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26ud7f | how do bytes take up "space"? | You know, like how my hard drive only holds 1TB. I must assume that they don't take up physical space, but if that's the case, then what do bytes actually occupy? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/26ud7f/eli5_how_do_bytes_take_up_space/ | {
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"They do take physical space. ",
"On the platter of a hard drive, a byte takes up eight (since it is made up of eight bits) teeny, tiny areas of the ferromagnetic surface of the disk with a particular magnetic charge. How small that area is depends on the precision of the read/write head, and other additional factors.",
"Any storage manipulates atoms as a storage medium. Atoms, though small, take up a measurable amount of space. Hence, storage is limited by available physical space.",
"It's more like resolution. \n\nYou can \"see\" some pretty tiny pixels on your computer screen. \n- or some pretty small ink dots on paper. \n\nBeyond some point in 'smallness', your eyes have a hard time making anything meaningful out of those small marks. \n\nThe way data is stored on magnetic media ( spinning hard disk plates) is related to how small we can make a reliable reading of what each bit means. \n\nThe capacity of your drive is how many reliable - separate - bits can be read with the current, consumer-level tech. \n\n\n\nEDIT - to your follow up on /u/mobyhead1; \nbits are a magnet that can be flipped.. on or off, 0 or 1, N or S. \nbytes are a grouping of 8 bits that mean something together. \n",
"Your hard drive is a round plate, kind of like an old record. It's divided into thousands and thousands of \"sectors\", tiny little spots. \n\nEach one of those tiny spots is a byte... When you save a byte on your hard drive, the drive head makes a change in the magnetic charge in that spot.\n\nThe computer turns these positive and negative magnetic charges into ones and zeroes.",
"Think of it this way. \n\nYou have a large plate with the whole surface area covered in small 1 cm^3 cubes (think, > 10^1000 cubes), each side having either a 0 or 1 on it. It already takes up space, but when your hard drive pin drives its magnet over these cubes, it changes it from 0 to 1 or vice versa. \n\nThe containers that hold bytes take up space, but writing bytes to them simply changes the orientation of these bytes.\n\nOR\n\nyou have a box full of air. You pump in different air, while venting out the old. Space occupied is the same, but composition is different.",
"You can say it doesn't take physical space.\n\nA new harddrive is completely filled with random garbage data.\n\nYou divide the harddrive into chunks and keep track of it in a table. As you write into it (i.e. modify the random garbage into useful data), you mark off chunks as being \"actual information/not garbage\" in the table.\n\nOnce you mark off every chunk as being actual information, you have \"filled up the harddrive\"."
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51o9pj | why submarines use nuclear power, but this isnt more commonly used on land? | I understand the fear of meltdown but how is it it isn't an easy fix,and is that the main reason why? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/51o9pj/eli5_why_submarines_use_nuclear_power_but_this/ | {
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"Nuclear power is especially beneficial for submarines because it means they do not have to refuel or surface for air (for a very long time). This makes it much easier to operate in secret. No alternative to nuclear power offers this benefit. On land, that concern does not exist.",
"Submarines benefit from not needing to refuel for long periods. This isn't nearly as important for land vehicles, especially since a land vehicle can stop anywhere, turn off, and consume no power whatsoever. A submarine can't do that. \n\nAlso, designing an extremely heavy, large vehicle is much easier on water. Few land vehicles are large enough to actually have a nuclear powered engine.",
"The US has 100 commercial reactors powering up to 19% of our electrical grid, and several nations use even more nuclear power than that, so I'd say it's not uncommon.\n\nAdditionally, you have to consider that:\n\nA) Militaries, unlike power companies, don't have as much of a cost concern.\n\nB) The NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) effect which is avoided for subs as no one lives in the middle of the ocean.\n\nEdit: There are over 400 nuclear power plants in the world providing for about 10% of the world's electrical grid.",
"* 1) The kind of nuclear plants used in submarines tend to be much quieter than any diesel engine-- and while running silent, the reactor itself can have the active coolant system deactivated (seawater that cools the actual coolant) Submarines operate on stealth, the quieter they are, the better. \n\n* 2) Water is a great insulator. Rub your face on a barrel of radioactive waste for 5 minutes, you'll probably die. Swim 10-20m above one? You'll be fine. In the case of a submarine sinking, it's possible that the amount of contamination would be minimized unless the plant itself was damaged. Secondly, in the worst case, one submarine contaminating the sea is preferable to a global nuclear war.\n\n* 3) Refueling. Other people have already stated this, but let's take a cold war example: say there's a US sub sitting off the coast of moscow during tense diplomatic shenanigans. Far more important that the sub doesn't need to refuel or surface, creating a diplomatic incident or starting a war than a civilian vehicle that, if it runs out of gas, can have a roadside assistance team fix them up in an hour or two.\n\n* 4) Public perception. Various groups have lobbied against nuclear power for decades. Nuclear power is seen as dangerous in the public mind. Think of the political fallout after the Chernobyl, Fukushima or three mile island disasters. Everyone wants clean power, but no-one wants it on their doorstep.\n\n* 5) Alternatives. If you already have an infrastructure with several coal power plants, it's fairly simple to convert them to burning wood chips or gas-- both of which would produce less pollutants and be much cheaper than designing, building and operating a nuclear plant.\n\nHope that helps.",
"Submarines have different requirements and limitations.\n\nWind and solar obviously don't work underwater, so the only other option for a submarine is burning something - gas, coal, oil. But burning fuel requires air, which is in limited supply underwater, and produces exhaust, which you have nowhere to vent. So traditional fuels have additional drawbacks that apply specifically to submarines.\n\nPlus, you would need thousands of pounds of conventional fuel to create the same amount of energy as you can get from a few hundred pounds of uranium. So you would need to devote more space to fuel or refuel more often. Which is also not a significant issue on land. ",
"It's an expensive and complicated solution, so it's not practical in most situations. However, submarines (and some aircraft carriers) need to be able to operate mostly unsupported for extended periods of time, and the only solution which gives that capability is nuclear.\n\nFor subs, we also have the added benefit of it being fairly silent.",
"Nuclear power requires LOTS of water to prevent a melt-down. Using this on land, say in a car, would require us to drive around with tanks of water 1000x the size of our car just to keep it cool.",
"Nuclear reactors are used in submarines and some large surface ships (like aircraft-carriers and ice-breakers), they are not usually used in mobile craft that go on land or in the air.\n\nThe safety aspect of nuclear reactors has obviously something to do with that, but the main reason is that nuclear reactors tend to be both really big and really heavy.\n\nWe don't built many mobile machines that are big enough to support a nuclear reactor in it.\n\nIf you built a big energy hungry machine that is stationary it is much easier to connect it to the grid rather than built it its own nuclear reactor.\n\nThe few big mobile machines where a nuclear reactor in theory might make sense (like the giant bucket-wheel excavator excavators in Germany) are so slow that it is easier to run an extension cord to it.\n\nOn land it is easiest to simply centralize the energy generation centrally using nuclear power or other types then to give special installations and machines their own reactor.\n\nSome exceptions are nuclear batteries that don't work through fission but just though heat generated from decay. They need much less room and weight and you can built them small enough to make them transportable. They have been used in space probes.",
"The way I like to put it: Prior to 1954, we had \"submarines\"; since then, we've had submarines.\n\nNon-nuclear subs were actually surface vessels that could submerge, once in a while, for a little while -- because their primary means of propulsion was air-breathing. They had a combination of diesel engines, generators and electric motors. On the surface, the engines would drive the generators, which would power the motors, which would turn the propellers, and part of the generator output was diverted to keep a charge on a humungous storage battery.\n\nTo submerge, they had to shut down the diesels and run on battery power, which would be good for maybe a day at creeping speed, a few hours at cruising speed, or less than an hour at attack speed.\n\nThe snorkel was a partial solution, enabling them to run the diesels just under the surface, but a snorkel is still somewhat visible to the enemy.\n\nThen in 1954 we launched the first nuke boat and changed all that: a reactor doesn't care if it's on the surface or not."
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5lb75v | Where does the yellow river get its water from? | The Yellow River is a huge river, with a significant discharge rate, and essentially its vast waters are what birthed Chinese civilisation, but I cannot figure out why it exists.
Its source is the Tibetan plateau, but the eastern and northern part of the plateau. The plateau is around 30-35 degrees north, which means it is in something of a rain shadow, but fortunately the monsoon comes up from the equator and saturates the plateau giving vast quantities of water to the Ganges, Indus and Brahmaputra rivers which gave rise to Indian civilisation. But, as we know from basic geography, rain falls on the windward side of mountains, that is, clouds come along, hit the mountains, rise, dump their water on the windward or "first" side of the mountains, and the leeward side gets nothing.
So, why, when the source of the Yellow river is so much farther north, after the monsoon would surely have given up all its rain, if indeed it even gets that far north (I don't think it does) and since west of the Tibetan plateau there is desert and lightly rained-on grassland, there's going to be no cloud coming in from the west to sprinkle the northern Tibetan plateau with rain... so where does all that vast amount of water come from?
I've tried my darndest to find a chart that maps the discharge at various points from source to mouth that might illuminate me, but I can't find any google search terms that find that for ANY river. Can anyone source me what I seek or answer this riddle? | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/5lb75v/where_does_the_yellow_river_get_its_water_from/ | {
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" > But, as we know from basic geography, rain falls on the windward side of mountains, ... and the leeward side gets nothing.\n\nWell thats wrong for a start. The leeward side may get substantially less, but it doesnt get 'nothing'. Secondly ALL rivers start with something like a stream, what comes out the other end depends on every single tributary along the way, not just the starting zone. The entire basin of the river is is around 750,000 square kilometres, it doesnt take much rain running off that to make a 1/2 decent river.\n\nRivers arent made by substantial rainfall, theyre made by at least one drop of spare water that hasnt been absorbed by the ground rolling down hill aways and meeting another one and so on. The issue is more an assumption of yours that dryish regions cant start decent rivers. They can as long as enough water joins in along the way.",
"There's a few critical assumptions in your post that are not true.\n\n > the leeward side gets nothing.\n\nIt will receive less rain, but leeward sides are not deserts without any moisture.\n\n > there's going to be no cloud coming in from the west to sprinkle the northern Tibetan plateau with rain\n\nAgain, not true. Not massive rainfall, but certainly some rainfall.\n\nThe yellow river basin is absolutely enormous. And this is what really matters. The catchment area is 752,546 km². Yellow river discharge averages 2000 cubic meters per second. you really don't need an unsual amount of rainfall to achieve that over such an area, even accounting for aquifer recharge, evaporation, and transpiration.",
"I looked up the area of origin in an atlas I use for my study, and you are right there's only 25-50mm of precipitation per year. I think that you have to realise that the river isn't as big at the start as at the end. This applies to almost all rivers. Rivers don't get most of their water at their origin. They gain most of it in the area they run through. This area is called the \"drainage basin\". The river gains water of small rivers and streams all over this area, that's why it is so big.\nEdit: what I forgot to say is that these drainage basins can be seriously big. _URL_0_ this is the area for the yellow river. All water that rains down in this region will eventually end up in the river."
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2tesw1 | how does waterboarding not drown someone? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2tesw1/eli5_how_does_waterboarding_not_drown_someone/ | {
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"the victim is tiled back so the water just pools in the nasal cavity, with a towel over the face making it harder to breath. This gives the sensation of drowning without actually having water in the lungs.\n\nI had a friend do this to me as i was curious about how back it would really be, it is fucking horrible.",
"Because our CIA's torture tactics are executed well enough to make someone FEEL as if they are dying, without actually killing them. ",
"Every time I hear/see Waterboarding mentioned it reminds me of the [fantastically detailed description](_URL_0_) that I saw on the Straight Dope Message Board years ago.\n\n**Tl;dr: It's more than water up your nose, it creates a simulation in your system of horrifying death**",
"Speaking from experience, the washcloth makes it a thousand times worse. You can't see and the longer you're \"drowning\" the heavier the cloth feels on your face. Pretty terrible. ",
"Holy shit just reading these comments is freaking me out"
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2bqbzv | why is it a sports team's responsibility to punish players for their actions off-field? | This was prompted by Ray Rice's disgusting actions - beating his fiancee (now wife) unconscious, etc. Many people are upset that the NFL only suspended him for 2 games. In light of other infractions by other players (like marijuana possession) resulting in full season suspensions, I totally understand the outrage. But why is it the NFL's responsibility in the first place? Isn't this purely a police matter?
I guess I understand that he represents the league, and they don't want to be represented by a criminal. Still, what makes Goodell (or Bud Selig, or whoever else) the moral police? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2bqbzv/eli5_why_is_it_a_sports_teams_responsibility_to/ | {
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"I agree, and really, suspending him just proves it's just for show. If they didn't want to be associated with criminals they'd put that in the contract and fire criminals.",
"It's not their responsibility but the public usually demands some sort of punishment so they do it. The NFL and it's teams are private entities/employers, so they have every right to discipline/fire their employees as they see fit as long as they do not violate and Federal/state laws. Same as any other company.\n\nAt the end of the day, and behind closed doors, I'm sure they would rather do nothing at all and have a star like Ray Rice continue to play and make more money for the league. But public opinion demands they do something, so they do enough to look like they care, but not so much as to hurt their on-field product.\n\nBut anyways, to the original question they don't *have* to do anything. It's completely their prerogative.",
"The NFL, as an organization, has chosen to hold its players to a certain standard, and the players association has agreed to this. They feel that incidents like this harm the leagues image, and wealthy players often aren't motivated by strictly legal consequences.\n\nThat said, the punishments are often arbitrary, and are not as severe for star players. Also, drug penalties are often harsher, because there is a lot of crossover between recreation and performance enhancing drugs, and because for every time a player gets caught, you have to assume there were ten more times he got away with it.",
"eeehhhh... well look, the NFL/MLB/NHL/whoever is that athlete's employer. Their actions are reflective of the organization which can actually hurt sales (tickets, merch...) and since the nature of this business is to entertain, the primary employer (whose vested \"board\" are the ultra-wealthy owners) wants to ensure that a positive image is put forward. Now, insofar as the legal vs professional sports thing is concerned, certainly the law gets involved as well as the league but the over/under is that they are holding their players to a code of conduct. Is that code of conduct in any way reflective of a just set of principles? Oh hell no! If it was. that asshole Rice would be suspended as long as Michael Vick. You can say whatever you want about dogs, but what I see is BOTH the law AND the NFL caring more about dogs here than a woman's life and safety. Quite frankly, what the NFL does to players over infractions is almost more indicative of what the fans want than what the players deserve. Why do you think they fine a guy like $25,000 for some unsportsmanlike conduct but he only gets 2 games for beating his wife and Vick was facing a lifetime ban for beating dogs? It's the combination of the attention the media pays to it and the outrage that is caused. People flipped out over Michael Vick but unfortunately, on some level, they almost expect that some of this is going to happen like with what happened with Rice. ",
"the NFL and other sports leagues have personal conduct policies. the policies tell players how to conduct themselves and if a player goes against the policy it is detrimental to the leagues integrity and the public's confidence. \n\nthe NFL suspends players when they do dumb shit to deter other players from doing the same and to show fans that they do not approve of their actions. if the NFL was to not suspend players for doing illegal activities or putting themselves in bad predicaments the public would stop supporting the league which would reduce sales and revenue, which at the end of the day is all the owners and commissioner cares about ",
"It's strictly business, nothing personal.\nBeating your fiancee/wife is bad for business.",
"There are three separate systems at play here; the all encompassing US criminal justice system, the more limited US civil legal system, and the extremely limited NFL. As citizens, we have decided on certain standards and rules we'd like to live by, and appointed certain people (police) to find offenders and bring them to a court so we can decide if they really did it, and what their punishment should be (the jury system). If a football star beats his wife, she can press charges against him, and the state or county attorney general will have one of his prosecutors bring forth the case. This determines is punitive, not compensatory -jail time (simplification, but that's all we care about now). \r\rNow, beaten wife of football star can sue said football star for causing her pain and injury, and racking up tons of medical bills, as well as mental anguish and all that. She takes her case to a civil court, where she, through her lawyer, makes the case that she deserves money from him. This is different from the above case, where she made a statement to the police, and on the merit of that the state decides to charge the football star. \r\rNow, finally, we have the NFL, who decides football star isn't a nice guy and they wont let him play ball anymore (for two weeks anyway). This isn't civil, or criminal - this is just a group of people, governed by their own rules, making a decision for themselves. It has the same \"legal\" merit as my chess club kicking me out for biting someone. \r\rHope that clears it up a bit. "
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5vucag | how does vlc remember where you were last watching? | I've been watching Stargate Atlantis again and I've noticed that VLC remembered at what point I stopped watching, even through computer restarts. I thought it might have been saved in memory but it persisted through computer shutdowns. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5vucag/eli5_how_does_vlc_remember_where_you_were_last/ | {
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7zcqof | How did slaves buy their own freedom? What stopped slave owners from simply confiscating any saved up money? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7zcqof/how_did_slaves_buy_their_own_freedom_what_stopped/ | {
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"This is a pretty complicated question to answer generally as slavery varied quite a bit from urban to rural, Upper South to Lower South, etc. (I presume you're asking about American slavery). There are a few key things to remember when considering this question: \n\n1. The slave experience and the quest for liberty heavily depended on movement; the ability to travel from the plantations into towns/cities; the use of movement as a form of resistance (by permanently or temporarily escaping the slaveholder); and finally, forced movement caused huge disruptions in familial life for enslaved people, as mothers and fathers were ripped from their children, who were often left with kin or non-family community members to be cared for, disrupting their path to freedom. \n\n2. Community, both free and enslaved, were critical for the vast majority of enslaved people to get their freedom. Free black communities (both near and far from slavery, including those in the North) raised money to purchase slaves, provided safe havens for slaves self-emancipating by running away, and helped newly settled former slaves support themselves and find their families. \n\n3. There are temporal and regional dimensions to consider. Slaves in northern New England, for example, utilized the patois of freedom during the American Revolution-era in order to hire lawyers and successfully sue for their freedom, arguing that slavery was incompatible with the new constitution, resulting in the abolition of slavery in Massachusetts, for example, in 1784. Charleston had one of the largest and most successful free black communities in the country, many of whom were skilled craftspeople and who were able to utilize their skills to help purchase the freedom of both friends and strangers. It's also important to remember that free blacks were being ever-restricted in the South, especially after the Nat Turner Rebellion in 1831, which caused states like Virginia to pass a series of laws restricting free black communities, as well as seriously restricting their behavior and ability to gather. \n\n4. Slaveholding itself varied greatly, as did slave holders and traders. The nature of slavery was such that it permeated every single level of society in the South. Ira Berlin has argued that there were regional distinctions in America, an argument of a \"slave society\" vs. a \"society with slaves.\" (See *Many Thousands Gone* 1998). In slave societies, planters, traders, and other pro-slavery people seized all political power, and slavery itself \"stood at the center of economic production.\" In societies with slaves, such as Massachusetts pre-1784, slavery played a much smaller role in political decision making (though I would argue that you cannot divest slavery from the merchant maritime economy of the region, even well into the 19th century). Some slaveholders allowed slaves to purchase themselves without issue; others would never allow them freedom. This is why there were still millions of people in bondage in America at the outbreak of war in 1861. Freedom came at a heavy price for most.\n\nSlavery and slave owners varied greatly. For many enslaved people on plantations, there was little to no opportunity to make money. Slaves worked long hours, and what little spare time they had was often dedicated to gardening for themselves and their families, as the vast majority of enslaved people on plantations suffered from some form of malnourishment due to insufficient food being supplied to them by planters. To offset this, many enslaved people were allowed to have kitchen gardens. Some planters would allow them to travel to towns to sell their surplus crops. Other skilled craftspeople and tradespeople were \"hired out,\" meaning that the slaveholder would allow another person to essentially lease the slave to do a task. Sometimes this meant traveling to cities from the plantation. Often this movement, and working under circumstances that were different than chattel labor, meant that they could hire themselves out to do tasks and raise money. These people worked as carpenters, seamstresses, sailors, blacksmiths, and even entertainers, among many other things. \n\nOf course, none of this means that slaveholders were willing to allow slaves to purchase their freedom. As slavery became more contested in the 1830s and into the Civil War, free blacks were routinely attacked politically, socially, and often physically, even in the North. This was especially true after the outbreak of war in 1861, as many whites blamed all African Americans for the devastating war that was killing scores and tearing the country apart (rather than the slaveholders/slavery, the true cause of the war). \n\nSome sources:\n\nBerlin's *Many Thousands Gone*; \nAnthony Kaye *Joining Places: Slave Neighborhoods in the Old South*; \nAmrita Chakrabarti Myers *Forging Freedom: Black Women & the Pursuit of Liberty in Antebellum Charleston*; \nDouglas Egerton, *Death or Liberty: African Americans and Revolutionary America* \n",
"I'm loving all the great answers on American slavery but I wanted to link /u/XenophontheAthenian's answer to [Slavery in Ancient Rome, how did slaves earn money to buy their freedom and how common was a slave to be a freedman in this way?](_URL_0_) since it covers a different twist on the question."
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53d93q | what is that feeling of vulnerability in the early morning about? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/53d93q/eli5_what_is_that_feeling_of_vulnerability_in_the/ | {
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"I don't know exactly what the feeling means, but I used to have it too... It goes away when you have a plan for that morning and immediately get up and start to do it",
"I think I know exactly what you're talking about. Contrary to what others have said, I find it helpful to not take the day by storm, but to remind myself that I don't have to tackle every task of the day right in that instance (when I am indeed vulnerable, because I have just woken up and am still very tired). Sets things into perspective. So my advice is to cut yourself a little bit of slack after waking up :)"
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3amzcr | How significant were the Mongols, in spreading the Black Death? | Also, I heard somewhere that the Mongols catapaulted diseased bodies, as a form of "bio terrorism". Is this true, and how significant was it? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3amzcr/how_significant_were_the_mongols_in_spreading_the/ | {
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"To answer your first question, let me give some background information. The Mongols opened up the Silk Road between China and Western Europe. They controlled most of the territory at some point or another and patrolled it. You must remember that not only did trade goods travel the Silk Road, but also disease. I'm going along with the argument which is better founded further down. \n\nFrom what we can understand from the historical record, an outbreak of some sort of disease happened in Yuan China in 1353-4. It is unclear if this disease was, in fact, the bubonic plague. I would say that it is reasonably certain that it was the bubonic plague. David Morgan cites W. H. McNeill's work *Plagues and Peoples*, which I have not read, and details the following:\n\n > McNeill's argument, which is speculative but undoubtedly plausible, is that the opening up of the trade routes across Asia, and the network of communications created by the Mongols made it possible as never before for the plague bacillus to travel vast distances in a very few years.\n\nMorgan clearly asserts that the argument made in McNeill's work is speculative and I would keep that in mind when thinking about this question. I don't think that you can truly gauge or quantify how much the Mongols helped in spreading the bubonic plague to Western Europe. I can find very little on it, but it seems that the general consensus is that the Mongols did bring the *black death* to Europe.\n\nYour second question is a bit tricky. I can't find much written about the later Golden Horde. They are the ones who were involved in the example you've provided. I did find this [CDC article regarding Biological Warfare at the Seige of Caffa in 1346](_URL_1_). The article is based mostly on the account of Gabriele de'Mussi.\n\nOne of my favorite lines cited in the article from de'Mussi's account is this:\n\n > Oh God! See how the heathen Tartar races, pouring together from all sides, suddenly invested the city of Caffa and besieged the trapped Christians there for almost three years. There, hemmed in by an immense army, they could hardly draw breath, although food could be shipped in, which offered them some hope. But behold, the whole army was affected by a disease which overran the Tartars and killed thousands upon thousands every day. It was as though arrows were raining down from heaven to strike and crush the Tartars’ arrogance.\n\nThe author of the article explains on numerous occasions that the account of de'Mussi is uncorroborated and still unfounded. He provides two explanations if you take the account to be true. Those two explanations are that the Mongols did, indeed, hurl infected bodies into the city of Caffa or rodents carried the disease into the city from the Mongol camps. Again, this is accepting the premise that the Mongols had carried the disease from it's origin, somewhere in Mongolia, China, Persia, or India. If we accept the premise that the Mongols carried the disease and hurled bodies into the city, the author leaves us with this:\n\n > The considerations above suggest that the hurling of plague cadavers might well have occurred as de’ Mussi claimed, and if so, that this biological attack was probably responsible for the transmission of the disease from the besiegers to the besieged. Thus, this early act of biological warfare, if such it were, appears to have been spectacularly successful in producing casualties, although of no strategic importance (the city remained in Italian hands, and the Mongols abandoned the siege).\n\nWe should also note that the author of the article presented here is a lecturer in Microbiology and not a historian. Though, he does make some very good points about the account of de'Mussi being still uncorroborated. I tried to check some of the source information given in the article, but some of the books are so old that I can't get them online or I'll have the ILL them. Either way, I think the CDC article is a good stepping stone for further research! I really do want to get you a definitive answer to your second question, but I don't know if we'll ever have one.\n\nSources:\n\nDavid Morgan, *The Mongols*, 2007.\n\nMark Wheelis, [*Biological Warfare at the 1346 Seige of Caffa*](_URL_0_), 2003."
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wx1wv | Which U.S. Supreme Court case of the 19th century most bitterly divided the justices? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/wx1wv/which_us_supreme_court_case_of_the_19th_century/ | {
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"Obvious tip; as great as /r/AskHistorians is, if you want some breadth and unexpected answers to this question then also try /r/Law \n \n",
"It's difficult to authoritatively say that any one case divided the justices any more than others. There are certainly many cases for which there was a clear majority with which the dissenters fiercely opposed. I'm not sure if you're asking for a case in which the two sides were bitterly divided or for a case in which none of the justices agreed with each other. There are many instances of the former. One good instance of the latter that I can point to is Regents of the University of California v. Bakke. This case was a test of Affirmative Action laws, and it features seven distinct opinions/dissents. Justice Powell's opinion is the official opinion of the court, but the reasoning Powell uses in his opinion is not the same reasoning that many of the other justices used to come to the same conclusion, so they each wrote separate opinions concurring in part and dissenting in part. This actually has led to a lot of confusion as to the court's official position on Affirmative Action, which will certainly play into the upcoming University of Texas case. \n\nI hope this helps answer your question. It's not the only case in which multiple justices submitted concurring and dissenting opinions, but it is the only high profile case I am aware of that has seven opinions. ",
"Many of the cases we look back on as significant weren't actually that close, e.g. Dred Scott v. Sanford and Plessy v. Ferguson were both decided by wide majorities. Given the court is a much more private and cerebral institution than say Congress, it's not easy to tell which \"bitterly\" divided them as opposed to just being close, either.\n\nFrequent landmark decisions decided by one vote like Bush v. Gore, Citizens United v. FEC, and NFIB v. Sebelius is a recent phenomenon, and there were [far fewer one vote decisions in the past](_URL_0_).\n\nGoing through the major decisions of the 19th century I'm having a hard time thinking of even one that was decided by a single vote."
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j3vum | Strange Blinking Light Phenomenon | I was outside tonight with some friends in a dark neighborhood. One of my friends had his black pickup truck parked across the street which has a blue blinking security light flashing on the inside.
I started to notice that when I looked at the truck directly, I could not see the faint blinking light *at all*. However, from the corner of my eye or if I looked slightly passed the truck, I could see the blinking blue light perfectly.
Later on both of my other friends brought this up and we all experienced the same thing. It was as if the light would stop blinking when we looked at it (thought it obviously wasn't doing this).
There MUST be a name for this, so please askscience give me an answer! | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/j3vum/strange_blinking_light_phenomenon/ | {
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"Peripheral vision has more rod cells, which are more sensitive to light. They are better at detecting both dim and/or moving (or blinking, in your case) light sources.\n\nThis is presumably an evolutionary advantage where it is more advantageous to exchange ability to discern color and shape for ability to detect motion."
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21azj2 | why do cigarettes have so many chemicals in them, why not just tobacco? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/21azj2/eli5_why_do_cigarettes_have_so_many_chemicals_in/ | {
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"Posting so I remember to come back and check for the explanation.\n\nI really, really miss smoking. It was my one vice and I still crave it after quitting a year ago. ",
"Some of the chemicals are to ensure that the cigarettes stay lit once you light them. I know the first time I had a higher quality smoke after being used to \"factory cigarettes\" I was surprised that it went out when I left it unattended for a moment.\n\nEDIT: This comment has gotten a lot more attention than I expected. I'd like to clarify that I am in no way an expert. I based this on an anti-smoking ad I saw once in my doctors office. People a lot smarter than me have confirmed in the comments that there are combustible chemicals as well as oxygen releasing crystals in cigarettes (or cigarette paper) to keep the cigarettes burning. There are also in \"fire-safe-cigarettes\" a different chemical to stop it from burning if left unattended. Also note that this whole comment thread ignores entirely chemicals that are added to enhance the taste and the texture of the cigarettes, and chemicals that are put on the tobacco plants just like any other plant, which are discussed in the other comments.\n\nOh, and by the way, _URL_0_",
"A lot are just used as preservatives to keep the tobacco fresh once its packaged",
"To spike the nicotine. It's kind of like adding salt to a recipe to bring out other flavours. So tobacco companies add other chemicals to intensify the hit you get from the nicotine and therefore get you hooked quicker for longer. The process is called impact boosting and is covered in the great movie \"The Insider\" with Al Pacino and Russel Crowe. It's the true story of how a former employee of a tobacco company blows the whistle about this and other practices.\n\nEdit:\n\n[Here](_URL_0_) is a link to Jeffrey Wigand's interview on 60 minutes, the story behind this interview is also covered by The Insider\n\n[Link to a study with various sources](_URL_1_)",
"A lot of the chemicals come from pesticides and other stuff they used to grow the tobacco, the rest is used to make it smell different to other brands to ensure that you stay loyal to your brand",
"Keep in mind there are cigarettes that are just tobacco as well, like American Spirits. They even have organic ones. ",
"Something I haven't noticed in these comments is one of the big reasons cigarettes have so many and can have so many harmful chemicals in the USA is due to the way the FDA regulates the tobacco industry. Many additives in cigarettes are normally used as food additives, when ingested these additives are more or less harmless but when burned they produce very harmful chemicals. The two reasons for these additives are, consistency of taste and preservation.\n\nEdit:\n\nWhile I would never attempt to downplay the harmful effects of smoking often when you hear something like \"there are ten thousand harmful chemicals in a cigarette\" what they're really saying is \"When we tested all these different cigarette brands there were all these different chemicals in them but not all of the cigarettes had every single chemical in it.\" The idea that the tobacco industry is using a standardized additive set containing hundreds or thousands of carcinogenic compounds is preposterous.",
"most of the dangerous chemicals come from the incomplete burning of the tabacco. Because you dont burn it with enough oxygen there are hundrets of side reactions which make polyarmatic rings carbenes and other nasty stuff. tabacco is a natural product thats why it contains a multitude of chemical building blocks.\nIf you burn wood you get ash and CO2 mostly but when you heat it without air you get coke and a nasty liquid called cresolite oil. thats similar to whats happening when you smoke a cigarette.",
"Many of them are naturally occurring in the tobacco leaves themselves. In the same way that someone could say that Marijuana has over 400 chemicals in it. ",
"This video explains it pretty well: _URL_0_",
"\"Just tobacco\" - I've worked with tobacco plants (as a plant scientist, not working for the tobacco industry), and I can tell you that there are plenty of nasty chemicals in the tobacco too... You're burning-up all the phenolic compounds and all the proteins that are in tobacco, which inevitably will result in all sorts of toxic burn-products. Nicotine is only the stuff that makes it addicting.\n\nThinking that the extra stuff they put in sigs is somewhat worse than the tobacco itself is a complete fallacy - there is plenty of crap in fermented plants that will lead to all sorts of toxic shit when burned. \nThere are an estimated 3000 different chemicals in any random plant, plus a bunch of proteins. I wouldn't worry too much about the stuff they add...",
"Because welcome to Flavor Country. ",
"Keep in mind that the main problems with smoking come from the tobacco leaves. If you're smoking additives-free or organic cigarettes instead of normal one for the supposed health benefits, you're fooling yourself. If you want health benefits there's no way around it. You have to quit smoking.",
"I might be wrong so please don't rip into me but I'll pass on what I was told.\n\nNothing is actually added to the tobacco. It might contain chemicals like insecticides but thats true for fruit and veg as well.\n\nTobacco leaves contain about 300 naturally occurring compounds (my memory is hazy on that number). However, once you set fire to it the process of combustion creates about 4000 new compounds (they have not all been identified).\n\nAs for why the cigarette stays lit. Its because the paper allows air through which lets the tobacco smoulder. If you were to wrap it in non porous paper it would go out. The problem with that is it sometimes looks like it's gone out but could still be lit. Also using non porous paper increases the amount of carbon dioxide (or monoxide. Can't remember).\n\nThere is one thing though. If you take the tobacco out of a cig and look at it carefully you might find what looks like shredded bits of brown paper. A by product of cutting up dry tobacco leaves is dust. They sweep that shit up, make paper sheets with it and boom! More tobacco. ",
"I'm not discounting anything anyone else has said. I would like to add that you are inhaling the products of incomplete combustion.",
"American Spirits are pure tobacco. ",
"All matter are chemicals bro even water ",
"This is just a myth.\n\nProfessor of Public Health Richard Edwards from the University of Otago published an article in the British Medical Journal on the subject:\n\n\"However, evidence shows that RYO [roll your own] cigarettes are at “least as hazardous” as any other type of cigarette, and that they have a much greater concentration of additives than manufactured cigarettes.\"\n\nPer: _URL_0_",
"2/3 of those chemicals are actually in the paper. Specifically if you look you'll see tiny bands in the paper.",
"I work for a tobacco company and the government forces us to put alot of the chemicals in. Others are just natural combustion products from the tobacco leaf. The consumer wants products which require consistant draw effort and taste. The paper requires amgp approved glues and not ro mention ballshit legislation covering the paper in gum decreasing the permeability so it extinguishes its self if not puffed on. There are twosmoking regimes and a lot of physical testing that has to be passed before a product reaches market. Products have to last a certain amount of puffs.\n\nAppologies for lack of sentence structure and punctuation currently machine smoking in a lab.\n\nTldr most are natural some have to be there by law.",
"The better for you to get addicted to them, my dear.",
"Money!! You're addicted right!? You just need a bit of nicotine to keep you coming back. The rest is the cheapest of cheap filler ",
"Everything is chemicals god damn it.\n\nEdit: I appreciate the Au.",
"@might_be_self - and to all others. The tobacco leaf that makes its way into a cigarette is treated in over 300 chemical processes that contain 3800+ chemicals. Majority of them contain addictive properties that put strain on ALL systems of the body. Our body is the ultimate cleanser, and sends anti-inflammatory factors to relieve damage done. But unfortunately, the systems that send the repair mechanism of the body is damaged and down regulated as well, leading to a synergistic damaging effect with each subsequent inhalation. 1- the chemicals itself 2- the environment placed on the lungs and body by the smoke 3- the damage caused by the body debilitating future repair efforts. \n\nApart from media and advertising in the 40s that made smoking cool, hip and if you can believe it, endorsed by the doctors and the American Medical Association, the only reason cigarettes are where they are is because the effects are not immediately seen. If people got cancer within a year of smoking, we would have many refraining from it.\n\nnative tobacco on it's own has significantly less carcinogenic (Cancerous) effects than the common cigarette, but it's still a stress on the body with the smoke and it's own effect.",
"many reasons as there are different types\n\n1) the chemicals are produced by combustion.\n2) additives and flavours\n3) residue of agricultural and production \n4) adhesives in the paper to bind the item\n5) the filter itself reacting with the smoke\n",
"This might be a bit of an unpopular opinion on reddit, but those commercials you see stating that cigarettes have hundreds of chemicals are a bit biased. Tobacco itself has a good amount of chemicals on it. A lot of the other chemicals are from the paper/dyes that they use to wrap it. Most of these are federally regulated and the cigarette companies have to have a certain paper type and a certain dye type. Cigarettes are obviously bad for you but the cigarette companies are not intentionally poisoning them. That would be stupid, they would be killing off their consumer base even faster.",
"Surprised no one mentioned that some of the chemicals act like anti depressants to get you more hooked on cigarettes. Also chemicals are added to improve the flavour and make more of the nicotine in the cigarette reach your brain.\n\n\nFor those who want a more in depth explanation. Ammonia basing is done to the nicotine to make the nicotine more bioavailable when smoking. Several compounds in the smoke act like MAOIs and SSRIs both terms used for chemicals that improve synaptic transmission of things like dopamine and serotonin (anti depressant effects). I think they also ad ethanols to either make the flavour taste nicer or to make the burning more consistent. Can't remember the specifics about ethanol. \n\nI watched the insider and was very interested about cigarette research so I downloaded a bunch of papers on them and was reading them",
"Nobody's mentioning the political reason--[tobacco was excluded from FDA regulation until 2009.](_URL_0_) That meant that additives were unregulated. Harmful? Addictive? Who knew?\n\nEven now, all we can do is ask for an ingredient list. But just the list--we can'd demand that the companies show that these additives are benign. ",
"Just so we're clear, when Darren the Lion told you in D.A.R.E. that cigarettes contain over three hundred chemicals, he's being intentionally misleading. Any organic material has hundreds of chemicals, are grapes poisonous? And when they say on commercials that methane and urea are in both feces and cigarettes, that's also misleading, because urea and methane are also in hotdogs and bananas. Some people have a vendetta against smoking, and it's important to take anything you hear with a grain of salt.\n\n(they're still really bad for you either way)",
"Experts: Explain, then, why smokeless tobacco is so harmful please. Lots of you in this thread are saying it's the COMBUSTION of the tobacco that is hurting you, and that the tobacco itself is fine aside from some random chemicals tossed in to regulate burning and flavor. They are clearly allowed to add nastiness that is contributing to disease.",
"Ammonia allows nicotine to cross the blood brain barrier giving the user a \"rush\" much like heroin or crack. Immediate. Need I talk about the addictiveness in heroin or crack? Watch a smoker who hasn't got their routine break when they get their first drag. You can watch the rush as they \"calm\" down. This was done intentionally. Marlboro intentionally set out to give a rush and addict people and a chemist discovered ammonia did it. PhillipMorris losing in sales researched Reynolds, who started this technique, and found ammonia and the memo said soon \"people were falling in line.\" Big tobacco was sued. _URL_1_\n\nEffects of Chemical in Cigarettes: _URL_0_",
"Most are preservatives to keep cigarettes fresh, some add flavors and what not but for the most part the preservatives keep them and the rest of the chemicals found while smoking them are actually byproducts that exist in numerous things. Still, one of the dangerous addictions, and still has arsenic, cyanide, rocket fuel, and other such things.",
"I don't know what is in cigarettes that do this, but as a former smoker who has switched to ecigs here is something I've noticed: In a very short while (perhaps 1-2 weeks) the cravings for nicotine became very very mild. A craving for a cigarette is demanding. Nothing matters but getting that cigarette. A craving for the ecig, once you're over cigarettes, is like a mild suggestion that you might need some nicotine.\n\nI'm not sure why it's like this, but I would not be surprised if cigarettes were formulated to be as addicting as possible. Ecigs are new and many of us make our own liquids from concentrated nicotine in a carrier (either vegetable glycerin or propolene glycol), so we have full control over the ingredients.",
"That's why American Spirit are da best:D",
"After reading this thread for about a half hour, I've just now quit smoking. Been doing it for about 20 years and I'm 38. The only other time I've quit was during my pregnancy. Had no desire for it. My daughter is 6 years old now and she's caught me smoking secretly once or twice.\n\nI'm glad so many people are against it. Smart generation. My mom use to smoke in the same room as me growing up. Not as neglect or harm, she was an awesome mother, she just didn't know any better. \n\nSo ty, keep the remarks informative and terrifying. More like me will quit. ",
"I've seen some comments about the chemicals used to keep them burning and others about the chemicals added to keep them from burning too long (to keep them from starting as many fires I believe). But not one about the chemicals added to make them more addictive. The nicotine content has risen, at least in the US dramatically since the 1980's. Also when I travel say to mexico and try a Mexican, let's say Newport, its no where near as satisfying as an American Newport. I'm no expert by any stretch, but I'd bet they get away with more additives in the US than elsewhere. ",
" a lot of the chemicals added are desighned to be addictive.\nfor instance marlboro laces there tobaco with an essance of chocolate.\nyou therefore get your chocolate fix.\namerican spirit is the only tobacco company that uses zero additives.\nwhen i switched to them i found it much easier to go longer periods of time without smoking and i eventually quit,whithout some of the nagging withdrawl symptoms i was getting from name brands",
"I don't have much time to go into it but the partial combustion of the tobacco leaf cause the release of toxins that people commonly reference. These are found in the smoke rather then the cigarette itself.\n\nThere are actually pretty interesting health benefits of nicotine itself if anyone has looked into nicotinic ACh receptors. Some examples include improving working memory and anxiety. Research is actually being done on its possible health benefits with neurodegerative diseases if anyone is interesting in hearing about that as well.\n\nHere's some more information:\n\n_URL_0_",
"As well as chemicals that help cigarettes burn faster/more consistently there are obviously the chemicals that are released when we combust tobacco itself. tobacco that's probably been cultivated in a field using pesticide. Given the relatively low temperature cigarettes burn at, these chemicals are often semi combusted, making for some lovely acute lung disease. ",
"As someone who is looking into taking up smoking I find this thread very interesting.",
"The chemicals serve many purposes. Here are a few reasons they're added:\n\n1. For nicotine manipulation. Nicotine is the addictive property of tobacco that makes you want more of it. Chemicals are added:\n\n -- To aid in the absorption of nicotine. So that when you inhale the smoke you get the maximum amount of nicotine.\n\n -- To increase the potency of the nicotine which makes them even more addictive.\n\n2. To enable the cigarette to stay lit.\n\n3. To make the cigarette slow burning once it's lit.\n\n3. To ease harshness on your throat when you inhale.\n\n4. Tobacco plants are difficult to grow and used to take a long time until they could be harvested. But with the aid of chemicals they can be grown in huge numbers really fast. \n\n\n -- Fertilisers to promote growth\n\n -- Herbicides are used for weed control\n\n -- Pesticides are used to stop insects eating the plants \n\n -- Fungicides to stop the plants from rotting\n \n\n\n_______________\nI've done a fair bit of research on nicotine addiction the tobacco industry. \nThere's a great documentary by [BBC Horizon called We Love Cigarettes](_URL_0_) I recommend people watch which touches on how it all began etc.\n_______________\n\nI smoked 15 cigarettes a day for 7 years, and quit 2 years ago. Nicotine is *really addictive*, but it is possible to kick the habit **easily** - I can't recommend Allen Carr's Easyway book enough. It saved my life. Read it.\n\nIf anyone needs any advice on stopping join us over at /r/stopsmoking",
"I'm evil, OP's bad like Steve Seagal",
"It is also worth mentioning that the chemistry of cigarette smoke is not the same as the chemistry of unburnt cigarettes. Some of the scarier chemicals anti-smoking advocates focus on are actually common byproducts complex combustion reactions. Tobacco is best understood as a mixture of compounds. That is to say that \"elemental tobacco\" does not exist. The elements that make up tobacco not only are typically bound up in relatively large molecules, but there is a huge variety of those molecules making up the plant material.\n\nAlong comes fire, breaking chemical bonds and sticking loose oxygen atoms on things. Within an ember or a flame, many substances burning together will undergo chaotic transformations. Carbon monoxide is a common and often substantial byproduct of these combustion reactions. In trace amounts, much more potent toxins are also likely to occur. It may be true that major cigarette manufacturers dump all sorts of chemicals into their products just as major food manufacturers lace their wares with artificial colors, flavors, and preservatives. However, some of the nastiest stuff in cigarette smoke is a function of it being smoke from combusted vegetable matter, rather than a function of that matter being a cigarette.",
"Best explanation of how they are made and the additives and the reason _URL_0_",
"Some of the chemicals make cigarette more adjective, some affect taste and some have anticarcniginic properties. ",
"The same reason McDonald's cheeseburgers aren't 100% beef\n\n\nCapitalism",
"You could say the exact thing about food man. ",
"I need a cigarette after reading this thread. ",
"Many of the chemicals serve as a nicotine delivery system to get it into your bloodstream as quickly as possible, giving a bigger \"rush\" than you would with straight tobacco.",
"Man, I had a test today which basically spoke about scientists working against the benefit of humanity (not exactly, but that's the simplest way to put it) , and had 2 essays. One was with regard to military applications and drones, and the other was about cigarettes and how they add chemicals to make it more addictive. \n\n_URL_0_.Exam.\nThe insight, *DAMNIT*",
"Straight up, check out this philip morris video from the 90's\nImportantly around like 6:40\nBasically additions are brand specific to make them unique to that brand. Factory prerolled smokes are designed. \n_URL_0_\n\nTl;Dr- Corporate trade bullshit. \n\n",
"There are many \"chemicals\" in any product someone consumes. Oxygen releasing crystals can be added to papers to keep them burning. Most people would be very surprised at how well regulated the cigarette making industry is. The quality standards are usually higher than for food you buy at the store. Any other additives to the tobacco are subject to strict \"food grade\" regulations. Most of the harmful chemicals you see in tobacco ads are products of the combustion or just simply compounds in the tobacco plant that vaporize that can indeed be very harmful when consumed for a prolonged time.\nSource: I am a chemical engineering major\nNote: I am not a supporter of tobacco products. They are a terrible habit and pose serious health risks. I'm just a fan of edumication : )",
"There are a few reasons:\n\n1) they have chemicals to keep them lit so you don't have to re-light them. Pipes and Cigars will go out if you're not constantly puffing. Cigarettes used to do that too.\n\n2) they have chemicals to enhance the addictive quality so that people want to smoke more\n\n3) they have chemicals for taste\n\n",
"What the hell do they add to Newports, those things are like 3x more addictive than regular smokes?",
"How better reform \"criminals\" them give them books that deal with our deepest emotions, anxieties and issues? Most literature does just that. Also, studies have shown that reading increases compassion, something prisoners could probably use.\nBullshit! ",
"People forget, plants are chemical factories that produce their own pesticides, fungicides and other noxious / toxic chemicals. Just because they're are \"Natural\" doesn't mean they're healthy. I wouldn't worry so much about the additives over the 100's of nasty chemicals released from burning the tobacco itself.",
"Because plain tobacco tastes like shit (and cigarettes tastes like horse shit) :)",
"To get people addicted so they'll buy more. ",
"Over time, manufacturers have innovated ways to make them more addictive and to increase customer satisfaction. That may include a more reliable smoke or a faster/slower burn. ",
"Hestia Tobacco. Look it up! ",
"\n\nAcetone – found in nail polish remover\n Acetic Acid – an ingredient in hair dye\n Ammonia – a common household cleaner\n Arsenic – used in rat poison\n Benzene – found in rubber cement\n Butane – used in lighter fluid\n Cadmium – active component in battery acid\n Carbon Monoxide – released in car exhaust fumes\n Formaldehyde – embalming fluid\n Hexamine – found in barbecue lighter fluid\n Lead – used in batteries\n Naphthalene – an ingredient in moth balls\n Methanol – a main component in rocket fuel\n Nicotine – used as insecticide\n Tar – material for paving roads\n Toluene - used to manufacture paint\nThese are all added to make your cigerette more tastey!!! Also ensures a longer burning time.",
"There are 599 chemicals that are added to cigs that have been approved by the FDA and are also added to food. Those 599 chemicals turn into thousands of different poisons once they are set on fire. Think about it.",
"The problem comes from the Triple Phosphate fertilizers they used heavily for years.... the Cadmium and other heavy metals accumulate in the plant because tobacco is excellent and cleaning up heavy metals. \n\nGrow your own tobacco and have a nice medicinal smoke every once in awhile. It's fun, it's safer and you'll appreciate it more. \n\nThat and you can make your own blunt wraps. haha\n\n",
"A lot of these chemicals are in the tobacco. Sure, there are a ton of additives to make them burn faster etc., but the deadly chemicals are from the tobacco itself. When tobacco is grown in the US, a popular fertiliser is apatite rock. Now, wherever you find apatite, you are also probably going to find Uranium. Uranium itself is not that poisonous, but some of the products of its decay are. Polonium-210 (Po-210) is approximately 250,000,000x more poisonous than cyanide due to its high rate of alpha decay. Because of this, it isn't very dangerous if it touches you, but if it gets into you, it is. Tiny amounts of Po-210 exist in cigarettes. The flame in the cigarette is high enough to melt the Po-210, and microscopic droplets adhere to smoke particles which are breathed into the lungs. The droplets stick to the lungs, and thus are highly dangerous. **A pack of cigarettes gives of as much radiation as a chest x-ray.**",
"You guys should come on over to /r/pipetobacco",
"Something I can speak with a little authority on. I used to work at a law firm that represented one of the big cigarette manufacturers in the United States. As part of our representation, we hosted a meeting with tobacco engineers to bring ourselves up to speed on their product line. This is a throwaway account.\n\nThere are, as mentioned below, plenty of chemicals in cigarettes. They're all in there for a reason; the engineers employed by tobacco companies are some truly smart individuals. My biggest takeaway from those meetings was nicotine delivery. If you look at the top of a filter, there's a line of very tiny laser-cut holes. Those holes increase the amount of airflow when you \"draw.\" That, in turn, increases the nicotine delivery. You can't add more nicotine, so you add the whole to make the cigarette burn faster and increase the nicotine dose per draw. Some of the added chemicals have the same effect. You can't add more nicotine, so let's add chemicals that enhance the biological effect of the nicotine.\n\nThere are plenty of other reasons, too; and some chemicals are less harmful that others. Some increase the burn speed, others are remnants from the growing and drying process. Some help ensure product quality, uniformity and longevity. Not all are in there for nefarious purposes, and there are some by-product chemicals that tobacco companies wish WEREN'T in there (but they're a natural result of the burning).\n\nTo that end, I'll add that this is my biggest fear with legalizing pot. As it stands right now, pot seems pretty natural (I'll never say \"healthy,\" as smoke in your lungs will never be a good thing). But imagine what happens if big tobacco gets into the pot business? The product will be MUCH less pure.",
"Don't they add these chemicals to get you addicted easier and buy more?",
"Price I pay for cigarettes in Ireland, they BETTER come with loads of chemicals.",
"The more chemicals, the more addictive. You have to be a special kind of stupid to smoke.",
"Gotta keep people addicted.",
"How it's Made - Better to see for yourself. Some of the ingredients that are infused into the fluid that is bonded with the cigarette paper are flavorants, odorants, preservatives and humidity controlling agents and such things. To make the cigarette more pleasant (and addictive!). \n\nWithout such ingredients the uniformity of the product would be inconsistent. It would also not deliver a predictable experience and thus would likely not be as habit forming and addictive. If you have a product that is addictive, it should be obvious that anything you can do to make it more addictive is beneficial to your profit margin.\n\nPart 1\n_URL_1_\n\nPart 2 missing?\n\nPart 3\n_URL_2_\n\nAnother \n_URL_0_\n\n**Misc. Warning (I know it's like beating a dead horse) - Please do not start smoking. It is a horrible habit and it will kill you. It might not kill you right away, but over time you will develop health problems that can and will lead to your death. I have a family of smokers and they are all suffering from these issues. I decided early on not to take up the habit.** But yeah, the documentaries about how they're made are fascinating. And there goes 4 hours of my day looking at how its' made videos. :/ Another habit. ",
"Tobacco isn't a chemical, its a plant. Nicotine is the main addictive and psychactive chemical in it, but like all other plants, is not the only chemical. Many of the chemicals are natural, but some are added to effect how the cig burns",
"I read an article and am a former smoker. Over 600 chemicals are used in cigarettes. When burned, it creates over 4,000 chemicals. Many of these chemicals are poisonous and cause cancer. My best guess is big tobacco companies use these chemicals mainly to make the cigarettes more addictive, so that they can make more $.",
"Most of the chemicals in cigarettes aren't \"added\", they're just there already or produced by combustion. A lot more is made than just ash and CO2",
"The added chemicals are not the problem. Burning tobacco generates carcinogens.",
"Chemicals are added to aid everything from burn speed and staying lit to keeping you addicted. The biggest issue is they are/were purposely engineered to be more addictive. IMO there is absolutely no reason why they aren't illegal everywhere. ",
"TLDR: There's a lot to discuss about harm caused by tobacco products but the discussion should not be based on bullshit made-up facts.\n\nI work in a laboratory that analyzes cigarettes, filler, and smokeless tobacco for Tobacco Control Act compliance. I am contractually prevented from discussing what I know about cigarette smoke chemistry in detail. However, I can tell you some general information. The majority of the comments that I've read in this thread as bullshit. Self proclaimed experts have learned what they know from other self proclaimed experts that have never analyzed a cigarette in their life.\n\nTobacco is a a natural product that contains a wide variety of compounds, mostly proteins. What makes it different from other natural products are a class of naturally occurring compounds called alkaloids. Nicotine is one of these alkaloids. While addictive, nicotine is not very harmful in mild doses. It is poisonous at large doses. Caffeine has similar characteristics. \n\n1] Combustion byproducts are what makes cigarettes unhealthy. Many of the harmful constituents in cigarette smoke are a result of combustion of the naturally occurring compounds in the tobacco plant.\n2] Companies do not add compounds to make the cigarettes more addictive. The addictive elements are inherent in the tobacco.\n3] The compounds used to control the burn rate are usually food grade chemicals that you ingest daily from other sources.\n4] All cigarettes are required to be self extinguishing if you set them down. Manufacturers are required to prove this for every brand every year. It's called an Ignition Propensity test.\n5] Tobacco is tested to prove the absence of herbicides, pesticides, anti-succulents, etc before it is purchased by the manufacturer.\n6] There are no propellants or crystals in cigarettes\n7] If you understood the chemistry of the combustion you would understand that the concept of spending extra for organically grown cigarettes is foolish. It's about equivalent to thinking that sodium chloride derived from sea salt is better for you than sodium chloride mined in the Utah salt mines."
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3eob2k | do mosquitos know the risk they take when they land on us? | Do they understand that they could die or are they focused only on getting fed? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3eob2k/eli5_do_mosquitos_know_the_risk_they_take_when/ | {
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"Mosquitoes in all likelihood don't even have a concept of death, so no. Their brains are incredibly simple so they can't even extrapolate that far into the future. ",
"As far as we can tell,humans are the only things on the planet that are aware that they can and will die. Many animals react to the deaths of other animals, but seem completely unaware that it could happen to them.",
"Only female mosquitos suck blood, and they do so to use the iron and protein in our blood to help make their eggs. It's evolutionarily programmed into their system to do so, to propagate their population. If humans had no choice but to do a very risky activity to have a child, we as a whole would have no choice but to do so, lest risk the extinction of our species. The benefits outweigh the drawbacks.\n\nEdit: Blood has nothing to do with the energy mosquitos need to survive. They get that energy from nectar, like male mosquitos do."
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3mtzbd | why is it that someone with depression can't just choose to "cheer up"? | I understand depression is physically and mentally draining, but why can't someone just cut out unnecessary actions from their lives and sleep more to make it go away? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3mtzbd/eli5_why_is_it_that_someone_with_depression_cant/ | {
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"When some on is actually depressed there is a chemical imbalance in their brain that causes them to be sad. Medicarion can help but doesnt cure. So to answer your question, they cant choose to cheer up because their brain is literally not allowing it.",
"Because it's a mental illness. Its the same as trying to get some soldier with ptsd to ignore flashbacks. They try all the time, using meds that can even make it worse, it's just difficult. I spent a year alone in deep depression. I tried getting out of it and it took a while before I started to show improvement",
"Depression is caused by a chemical imbalance.\n\nTelling them to \"cheer up\" is the same as telling a cancer patient to \"just not have cancer\" or a schizophrenic to \"act normal\"",
"Because a certain subset of people with depression has that due to physical differences in the brain. These people can't just choose to cheer up for the same reason you can't just choose not to have a broken leg.\n\nWhich is not to say that therapy won't involve a process of learning to identify good thoughts and bad thoughts and learning how to accurately deal with those (focus on the positive, acknowledge but do not let the negative run your life) but some people are always going to need drugs to support this, just because their brain isn't acting like a regular brain would.",
"For many depressed people, sleeping more is something that they want to do, a bad sign. It reinforces the \"don't do anything\" mindset. It doesn't fix things. \n\nThere are options to \"choose to be happy\" that a healthy brain has and a depressed brain doesn't have. ",
"The word \"depression\" can have two meanings that are often conflated- there's \"depression\" as a general mood or emotional state that almost everyone feels at some point or another, and there's \"Depression\" as a mental disorder. The latter is also known as \"Clinical Depression\" or \"Major Depressive Disorder.\"\n\nClinical Depression isn't just a mood or feeling. It's a physiologically verifiable brain disorder. You can't just choose to cheer up. Feeling sad is caused by chemicals in the brain, right? And feeling happy is caused by other chemicals, right? People with clinical depression often literally CAN NOT feel happy, or CAN NOT feel anything other than sad. Their brain isn't capable of producing (or sending, or receiving) the chemicals required. Choice has nothing to do with it. Asking a person with clinical depression to \"just cheer up\" is like asking a paraplegic to \"just walk.\"",
"Because one of the defining features of depression is the inability to just choose to \"cheer up\", instead being stuck in bad feelings and low motivation. As a hyperbole it's like \"why isn't darkness bright\", \"why wet things aren't dry\" and \"why aren't short people tall\". It's because by definition they exclude each other.",
"Depression is typically thought to be a prolonged sadness that someone can just snap out of. Depression is not sadness; sadness is healthy. Depression is the complete absence of feeling, and it's caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain, as others have said. Depression is the cancer of the mind. It renders you unable to live a normal life, but because people can't \"see\" it, it's not treated the same way in society.",
"Other than the fact that it's a mental illness resulting from a chemical imbalance in the brain (which others have said so far), what's most important is **depression is NOT \"being sad\"**. Depression is complete and total **APATHY**, which is arguably worse.\n\nPeople who are depressed just *don't care*. About anything. About getting better, about doing the things they used to love doing, about anything really. Sometiems even about the people they love or about life itself. They definitely don't care about (and are even unable to) \"choosing to cheer up\". ",
"Depression is a chemical imbalance in your brain. Telling someone to cheer up is like telling someone with chronic pain to just get over it because it's all in their head.\n\nThink of something in your life that you just can't understand - like a really difficult math problem. You're looking over the formula and trying your damnedest to understand the formula but it's just not clicking. So, you get frustrated and angry because you feel like you *should* understand the equation, but simply can't. Then, the fact that you can't figure it out weighs down on you and it might make you sad/defeated because again, you feel like it should make sense to you, but it doesn't.\n\nNow, I walk in and tell you to just figure it out. It's not hard ... why can't you just figure it out?",
"Here's my best description of what depression feels like. Everyone has a different experience and way of putting it, but I compare mine very much so to being stoned very often.\n\nHave you ever spent many days in a row just smoking pot and sitting in your room? I used to. Literally every day. I worked and went to school too, but you'd be lucky to find me out and about during my free time, unless my friends dragged me outside.\n\nEventually, I got sick of how I was acting, so I quit finally.\n\nWell, now I'm on day 62 of sobriety, and what I've discovered since I pulled my brain out of that fog, where it was nearly impossible to understand my feelings, is that I'm severely depressed. \n\nI still work and I still go to school. But when I get home, I plop myself down on my bed and sit on my phone, with that feeling of heavy limbs, stoic facial expression, and dull thoughts. I think of all the shit I have to get done, like cleaning my room or doing homework, or the things I'd like to do, like go hiking or shopping. But I can't. I don't have any motivation whatsoever to do these things. \n\nAnd it kills me. It makes me sad. I try to remember what I'm interested in, but I have basically no interests. I don't remember the last time I did. The only thing that makes me happy is seeing my friends. I don't have many. And the ones I have aren't always around, spending time with their significant others or family, and I just feel sad and angry thinking about why I can't be with them, why don't they want to spend time with me, why can't they consider my feelings.\n\nThese thoughts make me sadder. I repeat to myself that I want to die. I want to blow my brains out. I'd never do this; at this point, it tears me down mentally to even think about leaving my loved one's with that kind of tragedy. But I don't keep myself from doing it for my own happiness. I look years down the road and I can't see myself doing anything that makes me happy because I don't know what on earth could make me feel happy.\n\nIt's literally a wall over any light in my life. It feels like being stoned and stuck, and that's the best way I can put it."
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2sl0hv | What did black American organized crime look like in the first half of the 20th century? | Who were the Crips and Bloods of the 20s? Where were they? What did they do? Were they a major threat? Did they even exist? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2sl0hv/what_did_black_american_organized_crime_look_like/ | {
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"Also, what kind of weaponry did they use? How did they get their arsenals?"
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69ulej | if cold symptoms are signs of your body fighting off a virus, why aren't medicines that suppress these symptoms bad for you? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/69ulej/eli5_if_cold_symptoms_are_signs_of_your_body/ | {
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"Most of the time those symptoms are an *overreaction* from your body. It's a similar reason why your body might show flu symptoms after getting a flu shot. The body goes into full fight mode even when the virus isn't going to do much. \n\nFun fact... This overreaction happens more in Caucasians as comes from the same genes that give European descendants a better resistance to the black death. \n\nSo maybe don't suppress those symptoms if you catch the plague. ",
"Not all symptoms are your body fighting. Done symptoms like sneezes and coughs are actually transmission vectors. In other words, you get those symptoms because illnesses that happen to make you do them get spread faster. Suppressing these does nothing to slow the fight, it just thrwarts some of the illness's plan and helps make you feel better.\n\nSome symptoms, namely drowsiness, inflamation and fever do fight illness, by promoting rest, by immobilizing and rushing nutrientsn and by making the body inhospitable to many illnesses. Unfortunately, it often overdoes these things. At times fighting those symptoms when we know other ways to fight the illness or when we know that the cure is worse than the disease (i.em the inflamation and fever are going to cause more damage), then it is the lesser of two evils to not fight the illness with nukes, but just to rest and let your body fight it with ground troops.",
"Like you said, they're signs. It doesn't necessarily mean that your body is successfully fighting off the virus.\n\nThe real threat of viruses, and diseases in general, is the symptoms themselves. Nobody dies because they're infected with something that happens to be called pneumonia; they die because of the dangerous symptoms. If pneumonia didn't make breathing difficult or fill your lungs with fluid it wouldn't be dangerous.\n\nLikewise, once your body successfully fights off the virus, the symptoms disappear because you are no longer infected. Medicine just suppresses the symptoms while your body fights off the disease itself- at least some medicines act that way; others actually try to help fight the disease but that's a different discussion. \n\nThe medicines we're talking about suppress the symptoms to allow you to function while you are fighting the disease. So you really should take some medicine when you get a cold.\n\nTL;DR The symptoms are the real danger and medicine suppresses them while your body fights off the source."
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a5s8u5 | How did armour change with the advent of the firearm? | My knowledge of the early modern period is the best, so it seems to me (at least in Britain) armour suddenly changed from the great metal hulks of knights to pretty much just a cloth uniform, in the case of the redcoats. Obviously I know a few steps (and indeed centuries) are missing here, so I'm curious as to the relationship between different armours and the weapons of war. On a wider scale, what's historical armours relationship been to historical weapons full stop? How did a soldier's uniform change with the invention of the longbow etc.? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/a5s8u5/how_did_armour_change_with_the_advent_of_the/ | {
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"_URL_1_\n_URL_0_\n\nIn this thread u/WARitter's responses in these threads may be what you're looking for!",
"In addition to the very excellent answers to this that have been offered, I will look to directly address your question regarding the historical relationship between weapons and armor, at least during the medieval period in Europe.\n\nThis really starts with the armor that, IMO is the most underrated and had the longest service life throughout the medieval period.\n\nMaille. Commonly known as chainmail because D & D and movies are a thing, maille armor is one of the more effective tools available to armor soldiers for over a thousand years.\n\nMost of the evolution of armor during the medieval period is about making maille better and making it cover more of your body and putting padding under it to make it more effective still\n\nA good chunk of the development of weaponry throughout this period is about penetrating or bypassing maille.\n\nAxes, spears, lighter blunt weapons, and certain types of arrowhead, in addition to some sword designs, were all about finding ways to bypass or penetrate maille.\n\nAnd then, advances in metallurgy begin to make it possible, starting in the early 14th century to add bits of metal plating to the maille.\n\nAnd this continued until by the 15th century you could get, if you were rich enough, complete suits of plate that had maille in the gaps that would stop anything that was designed to penetrate only maille.\n\nSo, new and better weapons had to be developed. And were.\n\nPolearms concentrated enough force to penetrate and damage people through plate, bodkin points on arrows could do damage if they found a gap.\n\nSword points were tapered to find gaps in plate. And maces and war hammers delivered blunt force trauma.\n\nBut, metallurgy continued to develop. And by the 16th century armor was so extensive that arrows would essentially bounce off and other weapons were, against the top level armor, not very much use either.\n\nAnd this may have continued but for 2 major developments that were taking place.\n\n1. The development and widespread use of hand-held gunpowder based weapons. Especially in the early days, these weapons functioned a lot like super powered crossbows. They COULD penetrate a lot of armor a quarrel wouldn't, and mass fire from them was terrifying.\n2. The re-introduction of mass formation infantry, made up of commoners after the devastation of the black plague, as a counter to the earlier feudal era heavy cavalry dominated warfare.\n\nWhen these 2 developments combined, you got mass fire infantry formations that began to spell the end of the heavy cavalry charge as THE defining military action, and began to see the rise of what becomes the rifleman.\n\nThe reason for this is simple. I can outfit 50-100 men with early firearms for the cost of 4-5 armored knights on horseback. Those knights were good to have. And cavalry continued to be a major part of warfare for centuries after, but as firearms became more powerful, armor was seen as less and less worth it.\n\nUntil by the development of the self-contained cartridge in the 19th century, firearms were too powerful to be stopped by any armor a person would typically want to wear on a battlefield due to weight constraints.",
"Thanks to u/Bacarruda for linking the threads I was going to link! In addition to those two there is also [this one](_URL_0_). Those threads deal with the adaptations made to armour to make it bullet-resistant and the changing form of armour between 1500 and 1700, I'd like to talk about both the big picture and the small picture to address your question more specifically.\n\nLet's start 'big' - the general development of armour after the introduction of firearms. Generally speaking, armour was not discarded quickly after firearms were developed. Indeed there is a hundred years between the first major battlefield use of handheld firearms in the Hussite Wars in the 1420's to the Battles of Biocca and Pavia in the 1520's (the early modern battles often cited as watershed victories of early modern firearms and firearm tactics). In that time armour did not diminish, but flourished, with full armour reaching new heights of quality, sophistication and beauty and mass-produced partial armours become more common than ever. For this hundred years, fully armoured men at arms (knights and those who fought like them) continued to be an important part of European battles, winning battles as late as Ravenna in 1512. And after Pavia, armour continues to be used, but it is after this point that we see full armours begin to decline (as can be measured by the decline of the armour industry in many cities starting in the 1530's and accelerating after the 1550s). But even so armour continued to be worn by large numbers of soldiers for over a hundred more years. One way of thinking of this is that the full armours of the men at arms declined in use and decreased their coverage, while the partial armours of light cavalry and infantry continued into the 17th century. By 1700, though, the most heavily armoured men are armed like the 'lightly armoured' men of 100 years before, in a helmet and cuirass, and these armours were worn only by specialists for specialized purposes. However, this form of armour continues for heavy cavalry and sieges through the 18th and 19th centuries, and is only discarded completely during WWI, when modern ballistic armour begins to be developed. \n\nThe upshot of this is that the adaptation of armour after the introduction of firearms was a very gradual process. Moreover, as I say in the linked threads, it wasn’t simply a matter of a new gadget, guns, being invented and then being made better (though that is a big part of the story), but also of changing battlefield tactics that allowed guns to be used more effectively and in larger numbers and changing ways of raising armies and producing armour and armaments. This is generally the case with technology - it is not a series of discrete ‘inventions’ that change the world, but complicated developments in the way we make and use these objects, and how they interact with other technology, that produces change. The history of technology isn’t a one-way street with technology influencing society, but a two-way street where society and culture (including battle tactics and the organization of armies in this case) affect how technology develops and is used while at the same time being affected by technology.\n\nLooking more specifically at your question, the relationship between weapons and armour has long been a subject of study. Samuel Rush Meyrick, the Regency antiquarian that basically founded the study of armour as a thing in itself, wrote in the preface of his work ‘Ancient Armour’ nearly 200 years ago that Armour is shaped by arms - “Defensive arms clearly follow the character of the instruments of assault: hence our work and its plates, are, perhaps, fully as much occupied with the one as with the other.\" His turn of the century successor, Charles Ffoulkes, compared the development of armour to the arms race between naval guns and naval armour before and during the Dreadnought Era, when bigger guns were met by thicker armour and thicker armour was in turn met with bigger guns. This ‘arms race’ model is appealingly simple and deterministic, and has been very influential to the way we think about armour. We see a version of it in video games and pen and paper RPGs where better armour in the ‘late game’ or ‘higher levels’ is matched by better weapons. At this point it is conventional wisdom or even a kind of subconscious assumption as we study armour, something that we don’t even think to examine in terms of evidence.\n\nBut is it true? There is some truth to it, certainly. Especially in the early modern era you mention in your title, there is a direct relationship between thickening armour and improving firearms, until full armours become too heavy to wear and armour is discarded. We also see breastplates that have a strong ‘keel’ in the center, offering glancing surfaces to deflect bullets coming from the front. But in general the story of armour’s development is much more complicated. Armour is not just shaped by the ‘demand side’ of responding to new threats and offering better protection for its ‘end users’ (the people who wear it. It is also shaped by the ‘supply side’ - the technology of producing armour itself and its raw materials. Alan Williams has demonstrated the relationship between the size of blooms (that is, raw chunks of wrought iron or steel from smelting iron ore in a bloomery) and the introduction of plate armour. Basically, bigger plates of steel require larger blooms, and larger blooms become available in the 13th-15th centuries, when plate armour develops. \n\nMore than that, too often the story of how weapons spur the development of armour has priviledged those weapons that we think of as the instruments of progress over those we consider outmoded. For instance, you ask about the introduction of the longbow, but we might also ask about how armour developed to defend against the lance - a far more powerful weapon with much greater armour penetrating power. And it’s not like knights and their weapons were static - with the introduction of plate armour, fully armoured men at arms (knights and those who fought like them) began to bolt/staple a lance arrest (called a rest in English) to their breastplate to brace their lance against, improving the transfer of energy 3 fold or more according to Tobias Capwell’s tests. And indeed, if we enumerate the characteristics of say, a 15th century Italian armour that seem designed to defend against particular kinds of blows, we see a lot more defenses against lance strikes than against arrows, including:\nStop ribs at the shoulder and the thigh to prevent blows skidding into the neck or groin\nReinforcing pieces on the front in places where lances are likely to strike\nProw-shaped wrappers over the visor to better deflect blows coming dead-on\nThere are other adaptations, like a strongly crested or conical helmet shape, that seem adapted against blows falling from above in general. Now this isn’t to say that arrows weren’t a major concern! Around the turn of the 15th century we see the protection of the throat move from mail aventails (often with additional mail beneath in many places) to plate defenses of various kinds. Perhaps arrows had something to do with this. Perhaps lances did. And perhaps armourers were simply getting better and overcoming weaknesses that had always existed in their designs, refining their product to provide better protection to their customers. \n\nEven this is only part of the story. In addition to what we are protecting against, we must consider what people in armour were -doing- because that also dictates the range of motion they will need, the amount of endurance they will need to have and thus the form and extant of their armour. These factors together with the weapons used against armour demand that we look at the whole ‘way of war’ in which the armour was used, as Tobias Capwell does in his studies of 15th century English armour. And this doesn’t factor in the supply side that I mentioned before or the vagaries of fashion! \n\nSo as always, it’s complicated. Weapons absolutely affected the form of armour. So did the type of fighting people did in armour, and the technology of creating raw materials, and the economics of equipping soldiers and the technical abilities of armourers and the dictates of fashion and social display. \n\nI do realize I go on; I do so because I love this stuff, and I love to show the depth of it. I really believe that to understand medieval armour we must understand medieval society, technology, art and economics. But this isn’t so unique. Everything we make is a product of a thousand different factors that influence it and a reflection of all sorts of aspects of the world we live in. We can look at the device that I am using to type this and the device on which you are reading it in much the same way, and that’s one of the things that makes this so interesting. It’s all around us. Stuff is never just stuff.\n\nTL/DR material culture is complicated and awesome\n\n"
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73b9s2 | - why does a newspaper print a variety of coloured dots in the corners? i understand they're magneta, cyan, black, yellow etc... but why print them? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/73b9s2/eli5_why_does_a_newspaper_print_a_variety_of/ | {
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"Without researching, but knowing a few things about manufacturing practices, I can say with reasonable confidence those are quality assurance test marks. I'm assuming they regularly, but randomly, pick sheets out of the mill to test placement, overlay, color, saturation, whatever quality metrics they deem important to newspaper production. Having it on the product itself negates the need to stop production to insert test prints to collect this quality monitor data."
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1h76p8 | How did sporting events attendance and relevance fair during years when the world was at war? | I was mainly thinking about this while watching Wimbledon today when it was said that for the first time in over 100 years an American didn't make it to round three. Did the British public still go out and support the event? Apart from the Olympics were other major international sporting events cancelled during WWII? I find it hard to imagine that the Tour de France went on as planned during wartime.
Edit: Thanks for the answers! They were exactly what I was hoping to find out | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1h76p8/how_did_sporting_events_attendance_and_relevance/ | {
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"In addition to the major tennis championships (Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon; the US Open wasn't suspended), the 1942 and 1946 World Cups were cancelled due to war. In golf, the Masters, the US Open, the British Open, and the PGA Championship were all suspended at least one season during WWI and WWII. The Tour de France was also cancelled (the Germans tried to pressure *l'Auto*, the magazine that sponsored the Tour, to run the race during wartime, but they refused; a few one-off rival competitions cropped up, but none lasted past the end of hostilities). The European Championships/UEFA Champions League didn't start until 1955, so it's a non-issue.\n\nMost (if not all) European domestic soccer leagues that existed at the time suspended operations during WWII (and during WWI before that, in England and Italy). American college sports operated on greatly reduced schedules that featured lots of military base club teams, but I can't think of any colleges off the top of my head that actually fully *suspended* their football programs during the war years.",
"International cricket, arguably the major sport of the British Empire, ceased completely during both World Wars. As a result many players had shortened careers (or died) and cricket historians now think of eras of the sport as being defined by the wars. You hear a lot about how Don Bradman was the greatest cricketer of the interwar years, but when he returned after the war he wasn't quite the same player (even though he never saw active service.) Similarly when comparing players to those of different generations, you'll frequently hear people described as 'the best X of the postwar period'. ",
"In the US the NFL and MLB continued playing and holding their championships, reportedly on request of President Roosevelt who believed that doing so would help morale, although both leagues had to rely on players who were \"4-F\" (disqualified from military service for reasons like flat feet) or hadn't enlisted yet. One famous example of a 4-F player is [Pete Gray](_URL_1_). The NFL could also use players who worked at defense jobs during the week. The NFL's player shortage was so acute, however, that some teams (such as the \"[Steagles](_URL_0_)\") consolidated for the war."
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631c74 | why do low-quality audio files have a 'grainy' sound to them? | For example, an mp3 at 96k - why does it sound like as if the audio is being rubbed against stand? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/631c74/eli5_why_do_lowquality_audio_files_have_a_grainy/ | {
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"The sampling rate of an audio file is how often you're telling a speaker cone to move. \nThe bit depth is how many different positions that speaker cone can have.\n\nBut sound in the real world is continuous. (Analog)\nWe hear in analog but computers output digital.\n\nLookup a picture of a sine wave\nA sine wave is a 2D representation of what a speaker cone does over time. \nWhen the wave is above the center line the speaker is pushing. When the wave is below the line the speaker is pulling .\n\nSampling rate is how many times you slice a wave vertically.\nBit depth is how many slices horizontal.\n\nTry this: draw a grid of 5 vertical lines and 5 horizontal lines.\nNow draw a sine wave in there.\n(Notice that the sine wave rarely, if ever, crosses the grid at the intersection of a horizontal and vertical line.)\nStarting from the left, every time your sine wave crosses a vertical line, circle the nearest intersection of the original grid.\nNow connect all your circled intersections. \nThis is what you're hearing. \nThe speaker cone is no longer moving smoothly up and down. \nIf you try this experiment with more lines, you'll notice the final product matches more closely. \n\nLower sampling rates and bit depth is like having less lines on your grid. \nOur ears pick up these tiny jagged breaks and that's what sounds like distortion or \"grainy\"-ness\n\n\nThere's a lot more to it but I'd need a white board and pictures.\nHope this helps."
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brjp9q | what exactly is being “improved” when we see games graphically improving with time? | I understand that in a game world, we have different graphical features that come together to produce the visuals we see in a game, like lighting, textures, anti aliasing, etc. What I’m wondering is, when we see a company that comes out with the latest, visually mind blowing game in a series (lets take Uncharted as an example) what is involved in making the graphics nicer? What is setting, say Uncharted 4, apart from Uncharted 3? What’s happening under the hood that produces these improved graphics? Are the engineers at the company actually writing new equations or code to model reflections, water, shadows, and things differently? Is this just because hardware is becoming more powerful?
Sorry if the question is vaguely worded, it is tricky for me to nail given I am not of a technical background myself. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/brjp9q/eli5_what_exactly_is_being_improved_when_we_see/ | {
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"Generally speaking\n\n- increases in texture resolution, Instead of using a 100x100 pixel texture you use one thats 500x500 now your model is less blurry, has more detail \n- Increases in polygon count, more polygons allows more detailed features. go back to N64/PS1 and most characters didn't have distinct fingers due to keeping poly count lower. now you might have a few dozen polys just for a buckle on their uniform. \n- New lighting techniques, dynamic shadows, HDR bloom effects etc\n- New shaders and rendering techniques, from Depth of field to bump mapping, reflections etc. \n\nSometimes it's new tech that's more effective at rendering more realistic effects other times it's old tech it just takes more processing power to run. with improvements on the same platform it might be the latter but there's optimization other places to make up for it.",
"Digital Foundry is a great source for details on graphics technologies for video games. They do a lot of comparisons between gaming hardware as well as between different installments of series over time. For example, see the one on [Farcry](_URL_0_).\n\nThe tldr is that the improvements are a combination of different techniques for modeling physics, geometry, and lightning, and enhancements to the machines gamers have access to. These factors take turns limiting what a game can look like with few exceptions. One consistent exception is the notorious Crysis, which was designed to take advantage of yet to be developed graphics hardware, and can still be made to bring modern hardware to its knees more than a decade after its initial release.\n\nAnother trick that comes into play are ways to implement the same old techniques, but in ways that require less effort, freeing up precious resources on graphics hardware to do other work that can make games look even better. A recent example is a feature of new video cards called deep learning super sampling. This feature allows a game to be rendered at lower quality but **image enhanced** using an artificial intelligence trained on extremely high quality renders from the game...renders which no consumer video hardware could produce. By using this technique, a game could use the spare cycles to theoretically render more trees, or other terrain to present the illusion of a more complete world.\n\nFinally, the actual substance of games has improved as the promise of returns on investments have driven up the production costs of games. For example, a recent game, Grand Theft Auto 5 was one of the most expensive games produced but ended up making more money than any entertainment product (including TV shows, movies, ...) in it's first 24h...and it keeps making money years after release. Returns like this encourage higher production values for future games. This translates to better voice and motion acting, higher quality modeling of real life architecture, people, materials, and terrain, and better story writing.\n\nAll of this is why games keep getting better and better. It's part better tech. It's part better hardware in gamers hands to allow past tech to be cranked up. It's part getting more efficient. And the last bit is the fact that games make a lot of money and can therefore justify huge production values."
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1okm0p | Is the brain's pain center(s) capable of distinguishing between physical pain and emotional pain? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1okm0p/is_the_brains_pain_centers_capable_of/ | {
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"A recent paper published in *Molecular Psychiatry* showed that the brain has a similar physiological response to emotional pain (social rejection) than it does to physical pain. So while different receptors may be used to initiate that reaction (since there may not necessarily be a physical stimuli that causes emotional pain), it seems that our brain treats it more similarly than initially thought.\n\nSource: neuro-nerd here\n\nActual source: _URL_0_\n\nEDIT: Thanks for correcting the journal name!",
"There is an overlap between the two. When you put people under an MRI scan, some of the same regions light up. These regions are the ones that \"feel\" that you are in pain, not the sensory areas themselves. \n\nIn one study, they compared participants who had just been dumped and where looking at pictures of their ex and participants that were being prodded. The intensity of activation in those areas virtually mirrored each other.",
"There are classic neurosurgical studies in which surgeons stimulate parts of the brain. Look for RG Heath papers. He basically put electrodes in different parts of subjects brains, and then allowed them to stimulate themselves, electrically. \n \nOne of the electrodes went into the ascending spinothalamic tract. This tract carries the pain pathways. The subject took a bobby-pin and jammed that button so that it could not be pressed again. \n\n_URL_1_\n_URL_0_\n\nIn the case of physical pain, the sensory pathways will be activated, and these are in the brain. These will not be activated during emotional pain. Similarly, areas of the prefrontal cortex will be activated during emotional pain but not during physical pain. And, of course, some brain areas will be activated under both conditions. ",
"Although this may or may not be directly related to your question, I just thought you might find this interesting as well. \n\nThe brain has both sensory and affective components for pain. Sensory is \"I feel it\" and affective is \"it is unpleasant.\" If you can suppress the affective component (I think it takes place in the orbitofrontal cortex), you can feel a lot of pain, but you might not really mind. ",
"Yes and no. There's a part of the brain called the cingulate gyrus. Activation studies show that emotional pain and physical pain trigger overlapping areas. However, there are also non-overlap areas that are triggered. There is also segments that respond solely to the pain of others vs. the pain you feel.\n\n_URL_0_",
"Psychiatrist chiming in. I see a LOT of pain patients. \n\nAnswer to the Q: MOST of the time, yes. But when it becomes a problem is during pathological pain. For example, fibromyalgia. \n\nBasic neuroanatomy: spinothalamic tracts (carrying pain and temp info) will not only send neurons into your somatosensory cortex, where you feel the pain, but also to the insular lobe as well as the cingulate gyrus (big part of the limbic system) to ensure that there is an emotional quality ascribed to the pain you're experiencing. Evolutionarily, without that emotional quality, pain would just be \"nociception\" and not that human experience of unpleasantness, the \"suffering\" that will make you stay away from that harmful stimulus in the future. \n\nNow, just like physical pain has an emotional component, emotional pain can have a physical compontent. Say you have depression and you've got a relative serotonin depletion (I'm oversimplifying here), this may affect how you perceive pain at even the spinal-cord level. Descending tracts from the brain area called the Raphe Nucleus will send spinal serotonergic neurons to modulate pain signals in the spinal cord.\n\nIt's all connected. It's super cliche to say that but it is. In the \"extreme\" emotional situations, you can experience an amazing spectrum of symptoms and feelings and what i've described above is just a couple pathways of hundreds that are active during these responses."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://www.nature.com/mp/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/mp201396a.html"
],
[],
[
"http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/article.aspx?articleID=148163",
"http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1964-05433-001"
],
[],
[
"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2659949/"
],
[]
] | ||
1pe71h | Aside from Bede, what supports the idea that Anglo-Saxon tribes invaded Britain in the 5th century? | I recently read *Origins of the British: The New Prehistory of Britain* by Stephen Oppenheimer, and I want to get a historical perspective to possibly counterbalance that book.
Based on genetic, linguistic, and other evidence, the author (whose expertise is in genetics) hypothesizes that there was a long-term Germanic settlement in Britain that long predates the alleged Anglo-Saxon invasion and that there has been a confusion between the people the Romans called the Celts (i.e. Germanic tribes north of Gaul) and the people whom we now call the Celts (i.e. the Irish, Welsh, Manx, etc.) based on the name given to a group of languages by philologists in the 19th century.
So my question is what evidence, aside from Bede's account which was written three centuries afterwards, supports the Anglo-Saxon invasion? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1pe71h/aside_from_bede_what_supports_the_idea_that/ | {
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"Bede is not the only source, although he is the best and fullest historical account. We can turn to Bede’s sources, the best of whom would be [Gildas]( _URL_1_). Although Gildas is not writing “history” in the way that Bede envisioned it, and thus includes no dates and fewer details than we would wish, he does discuss the invasions and the effects the Germanic tribes are having on the land. \n\nIn addition to Gildas, there are archaeological findings, which have laid out a somewhat clear picture of the settlement patterns. A 5th or 6th century hall in Kent was recently found and numerous 5th and 6th century grave sites identified as Germanic have been found.\n\nIt is also well known that there were Germanic tribesmen in Britain long before this, presumably as mercenaries for the Romans. I don’t know the book you are talking about and so I don’t want to discuss it directly, but I'm a bit confused about the brief summary of it you give here. The name \"Celts\" is given to a large number of peoples in the prehistoric period, from Britain all the way to Turkey, but I don't see what that has to do with the Germanic settlement of Britain.\n\nIf you want a fully detailed account you should read the recent book [Britain After Rome 400-1070]( _URL_0_) by Fleming. It is excellent and will cover everything about this period, and the sources for it. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://www.amazon.com/Britain-After-Rome-Fall-Rise/dp/014014823X",
"http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/gildas-full.asp"
]
] | |
62figq | How were very tall people (6'5"/1.9m+) viewed in pre-modern Europe and Asia? Were they subject to ridicule or reverence, or not noticed at all? | Today, height is generally considered a desireable thing, at least in men, and we have our stereotypes about both tall and short people. But given that people were generally shorter in earlier times, were very tall people seen as freaks or otherwise treated differently from the regular folks? Or were they seen as ubermenschen who could do what others couldn't? What stereotypes about very tall people did pre-moderns have? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/62figq/how_were_very_tall_people_6519m_viewed_in/ | {
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"One interesting example of this, dating to prehistoric Ireland in c.275 B.C., is the so-called Old Croghan Man. He was a young (20s) and exceptionally tall for the period (6 foot 5 inches-plus, calculated from the span of his arms) man, part of whose remains ([which look like this](_URL_1_)) were found in an Irish bog at the beginning of this century. He had been violently assaulted, had what appear to be ritual wounds inflicted on his arms and nipples, and had been decapitated and chopped in half at the waist. ([I wrote about him in considerably more detail here](_URL_0_).)\n\nWe have no written sources to help us explain how Old Croghan Man came to be a victim of what is generally interpreted as a ritual sacrifice, or what his murder was hoped to achieve, but much of the speculation that has come from the archaeologists studying the case revolve around his high status, which it seems generally agreed may have stemmed in part from his great height. \n\n > His size and strength would certainly have made him physically quite different – he must have been, Valerie Hall suggests, “the golden boy of his tribe. Those big, capable hands… even in death, he oozes confidence, status, presence.” \n\n > ...We ought to note in passing that the archaeologist Eamonn Kelly, who worked on Old Croghan Man and other Irish bog bodies, sees in these clues to high status a key for unravelling the whole mystery of why the remains were treated in the way they were. For Kelly, the Croghan torso and as many as 40 other Irish finds are proof of the existence of a form of sacred kingship in which rulers entered into ritual marriages with the earth goddess in order to guarantee future supplies of milk and cereal, and were then killed if they were deemed to have failed to protect their people. This theory comes perilously close to the discredited ideas of Margaret Murray, the early 20th century folklorist who proposed that, well into the Christian period, Irish and English kings were sacrificed by the members of an ancient fertility cult as part of a seven-year cycle of renewal. But Kelly’s ideas do include one plausible proposal: that high status bog bodies such as Old Croghan Man were dismembered and their parts buried at important points on tribal borders as a sort of protective mechanism to prevent evil from crossing those boundaries. It is not necessary to accept Kelly’s ambitious proposal that Iron Age borders map closely to the ones we know existed between medieval Irish lordships 2,000 years later to see in this last suggestion a neat solution to the perplexing discovery of severed heads, hacked up torsos, and solitary legs in several European bogs."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://mikedashhistory.com/2016/09/04/the-bodies-in-the-bogs/",
"http://imgur.com/a/jtluD"
]
] | |
2asgk6 | why do we often find things we did or said when we were younger to be cringe-worthy despite the fact that they were funny at the time? what changed in our brain? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2asgk6/eli5_why_do_we_often_find_things_we_did_or_said/ | {
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"If you're talking physically or chemically, I can't help you. Now, if you're talking perceptually, that's a different story. As we age, our perception of what seems to be funny, what seems to be appropriate, as well as inappropriate, these things change. Now, if we're talking about \"[skunky mexican](_URL_0_)\", as an example, the way that one comes to the conclusion that wet mexicans smell strange is based upon what we know at the time, and what we're seeing, in this case a pattern. (dad goes into take a shower, he comes out, he smells funny, he's mexican, he's the only one who smells funny after showering, therefore, mexicans smell funny when wet.)\n\nIn retrospect, after becoming older, one can presume that the author of that meme learned what marijuana smells like, perhaps from first-hand experience. They happen to think of that particular time, realize what was actually happening, and then feel like a right jackass, because they were naive and ignorant enough (through no fault of their own) that the actual reason never occurred to them.",
"Mostly perspective. When you're younger, you have very little idea how your thoughts actions fit into the overall context of the rest of the world. You simply lack enough experience to see how things fit together.\n\nFor example, someone might have been raised in an environment where casual racism was the norm. So blatantly racist jokes and insults were a common occurrence. As an adult, they may become more aware of how racism negatively impacts actual people, people who are no different than themselves, and from this new perspective they can see that the comments they made when younger made them sound like racist assholes.\n\nI'm sure there's also a neurological aspect in there, too. The prefrontal cortex keeps developing into young adulthood (early to mid 20s, if I recall), and that's the part of the brain that handles things like logical thinking and impulse control. So it can clearly have an impact on how deeply you think on certain topics before acting."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://i.imgur.com/fy6Z80y.png"
],
[]
] | ||
9ohoa0 | why is it so easy to identify christian rock music (even when you haven't heard any lyrics)? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9ohoa0/eli5_why_is_it_so_easy_to_identify_christian_rock/ | {
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"There's probably a few things, but one that I think gets left out is that a lot of rock and metal focuses on various minor keys, scales, and chords, as that gives a more punchy and aggressive tone to the music, in addition to the other tonal characteristics (distorted guitar, etc;).\n\nA lot of Christian music is focused on celebrating faith and Jesus, and so is written in a major key.\n\nYou've been around music in minor/major for most of your life if you're a human from Earth, and so you probably pick up on these differences even if you're not consciously aware of what you're hearing.\n\nSee also: [Major songs in minor](_URL_1_) and [horror movie themes in major keys](_URL_0_) to get an idea of how the entire feel of songs can change based on switching between major/minor keys.",
"Because the melodic content of most of it is so bland. It never really seems to takeoff, there's usually no compelling tune you could actually whistle or hum to yourself. Ironically, it's because melodically, it sounds so uninspired. At the same time, it seems to avoid most of the aggressive percussive content you find in mainstream rock.\n\nBottom line, it's the pablum of the music world.",
"Simple answer is that they all use similar tunings and cord progression which causes a lot of songs to sound the same. Most generals are like this. \n\nBetter answer: This isn’t exclusive to Christian Rock. Almost all country songs use the same 4 chord progression therefore sound the same unless you’re a person immersed in it. Hip-hop music also almost runs exclusively at 115 bpm (beats per minute), so they all can sound very similar.\n\nBut remember what you hear on the radio is the most generic of music types. Which is why “underground rap” tends to be better than “radio rap” and metal music you never hear on the radio is so much better than what they play on the rock station.\n\nIf you’re up for it you can check out bands like Wolves At The Gate, Silent Planet, Destroy The Runner, and For Today. Those are some “Christian” rock/metal bands that are really tlaented and don’t follow the lame structure of most the genre.\n\n_URL_0_\n_URL_1_\n_URL_2_\n",
"If it sounds way too polished, like think Shania Twain, but even more overproduced. Major keys were already mentioned in this thread, slow tempo, and of course, cheesy lyrics that even child Justin Bieber wouldn't be caught dead with.",
"Many of these answers note simplicity or a sort of blandness, but miss the reasons why it sounds that way.\n\nMost popular Christian music is written with the intention of being sung along with (worship music), not exclusively listened to or performed. This means songs rely on simpler melodies and more predictable chord progressions. They must be very easy for non-musically inclines people to catch on with and sing along to in a worship setting (church).\n\nIt is also written to put people’s focus on God, not on the music or the performer, again leading to simpler, more repetitious, similar sounding musician devices.\n\nLastly, and probably the most subjective, IMHO on the list, Christian music attempts to appeal to multiple generations, leaving me, and perhaps you, with a neither here-nor-there feeling. It’s not classic, but it’s not progressive. It’s not conservative, but it’s not edgy. Even the volume of worship music played in churches follows this not-too-quiet, not-too-loud formula.",
"It starts out with clean guitar sound, delay/echo effect making twinkly major chords with **lots** of reverb, then the verse starts with a raspy or tired voice saying how broken they feel and how they need a savior out of this mess (any mess).\n\nThen the chorus comes in and they bring in the distortion, bass, and the drums from Rock Beat #2 (kick-kick-snare, kick-kick-snare) at 70 bpm. The chorus lyrics are the resolution to being broken or \"fucked up\" where Jesus makes everything better because he was brutally tortured in public.\n\nWhen they go back to the verse, it's the same as the first one except there's a second guitar twinkling other shit on top and this guitar has too much \"chorus\" effect (not the chorus from a song but \"chorus\" as in the sound effect not unlike a phaser).\n\nIn general they use lots of digital processing because it is cheaper and faster but it comes out in the tone like a signature \"this is modified with lots of computers\"\n\n[here's an example](_URL_0_)"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JO49yBjQ4no",
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzGSRI827IQ"
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[
"https://youtu.be/DvMUEVAJ0Q8",
"https://youtu.be/iBD9LFnOK6k",
"https://youtu.be/8gJHf95Iz4k"
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[],
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"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBcqria2wmg&list=RDEMQj1lN6as... |
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