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dkk8iv | why do all vitamin supplements say that their claimed benefits aren't verified. do we really not have any confirmation of what vitamins do? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dkk8iv/eli5_why_do_all_vitamin_supplements_say_that/ | {
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"We have confirmation of what vitamins do. \n\nWhat vitamins do and what vitamin supplement sellers want you to believe they do, however, are two entirely different things. \n\nStops your teeth from falling out? That's something vitamins do. \n\nTreats the common cold? That's not something vitamins do. \n\nFor people who's teeth aren't falling out as it is, the second one sells better.",
"Because the evidence required to support real health or medical benefits are regulated extremely stringently. Supplements however, are not well regulated. If they want to say that their product DOES something medically related, they need to prove it in scientific studies which are expensive and time consuming. However, they can advertise it saying it MAY do something while avoiding the cost of actually providing evidence.\nVitamins have very little evidence to suggest they provide a health benefit outside of people with deficient diets. This is why they can't say they do anything much at all!",
"Partially because nutrition is way more murky a topic than we like to admit sometimes, especially in regards to how it works on an individual level. Most of the time we're fairly confident in what most vitamins and minerals do (C is good for the immune system, the B vitamins are good for energy, ect), but at the same time, some of these supplements aren't just concentrated vitamins, and how/if these herbal supplements work is hard to quantify since they have so many different components to track. Not to mention that our understanding of nutrition is a wildly evolving subject which changes stances every so often. For example, the Food Pyramid of yore was pretty inaccurate and somewhat unhelpful (how are you even supposed to eat 12 servings of carbs a day?! And don't get me started on fat vs sugar)\n\n\nBut the other partial reason is that it's a boilerplate disclaimer so the company can't be sued by angry customers who took their product and didn't get the results they wanted/expected. Vitamin C *will* boost your immune system, but it won't prevent you from catching STI's, nor will it stop an uncleaned wound from getting infected.",
"Here is a good article about vitamins _URL_0_\n\nThe bottom line is that most normal people already get the vitamins they need from their diet and taking a supplement when you already meet the daily requirement is at best not useful, or could be harmful.",
"The rules in the US for drugs (substances used to help treat or cure a medical condition ) are that they must be proven safe and effective for the marketed purpose. \n\nTo prove safety and, more critically, efficacy requires clinical trials. These are very expensive. \n\nSo, a “vitamin” supplement manufactured with several ingredients, which, when combined, are not proven to be effective at treating a condition would require a clinical trial to provide the verification of safety and efficacy. \n\nTo get around having to spend millions on trials, the little statement that the results are unproven keeps the FDA off the back of the company marketing the supplement.",
"One thing to keep in mind is that the supplement industry is a very dark industry. Vendors have gotten dinged for things found in supplements they sell. Also whenever studies are done and reports written there is money behind all of that more geared toward sales to consumers than scientific observation. We are reaching a time when the one thing we can depend upon is we can't depend upon anyone giving us the honest truth.",
"They are required by law to put that disclaimer on there. Supplements don't have to go through FDA approval before being offered for sale, but at the same time there are certain sorts of health claims they cannot make, and they need to state explicitly that the claims they do make have not been evaluated by the FDA and are not intended to treat any disease.",
"Saves them millions in fees and the costs of getting the FDA to approve anything. Disclaims any I’ll effects.",
"_URL_0_\nI love this guy! He actually does shows if he was proven wrong.",
"Vitamins are good for treating vitamin deficiencies. If you do not have a vitamin deficiency, supplemental vitamins are just expensive urine.",
"There's a political reason.\n\nIn order to sell anything with a supposed health effect, you're supposed to have the claim scientifically verified and proven by the FDA. They test not only that the thing does what it claims, but also that it doesn't have unwanted side effects. They also verify that the thing contains the ingredients it says it does. This is a very high hurdle to cross, and often takes many years of testing and clinical trials, as well as ongoing compliance testing and certification of the labs and production facilities used to make it.\n\nBack in the 1990s, Orrin Hatch, the Republican Senator from Utah, introduced a bill that basically said as long as you say your product is a \"dietary supplement\" and not an actual drug, you are exempt from all of these laws. You can make any health claim, you can have any kind of undeclared side effect, and you don't even need to prove that your product contains what you say it does. All you have to do is say somewhere, in the fine print, that the claims \"are not verified by the Food and Drug Administration,\" and you are magically exempt.\n\nThis is the real reason why most of these things contain that special phrase. It's also why 99% of them are complete bullcrap, quite a number of them are outright dangerous, something like 30% of the items on shelves in GNC or otherwise don't even contain the ingredients they claim to, and they are exempt from false advertising laws. It's also why the majority of the dodgy health supplements and multi-level marketing schemes behind many of them are headquartered in Utah.",
"They are based off of different regulations which is the essential reason why. I am sure there are vitamins sold as prescription drugs which are approved for certain things. In canada natural health products can make certain claims which are approved beforehand.\n\nA lot of people have digestive issues, use different substances which deplete certain compounds in the body and find that nutritional supplements help them even when there is not a lot of good research behind many things. \n\nnutritional supplements are not miracle pills, but they can be helpful for some things, especially milder-moderate things which medical systems don't really have good solutions for. Things like headaches can be prevented with CoQ10 in some cases and have a good safety profile. Fibre can help lower cholesterol or reduce triglycerides. acetyl carnitine can be helpful in some older adults for healthy cognitive function. There are supplements which are pretty much scams so it is best to do ones research and talk with healthcare professionals about which products are right for a person.",
"We have a lot of vitamin companies that claim to be giving you the dosage and that the vitamins are being absorbed. The truth is that some don’t contain any of the vitamins claimed and they are given in a way that they don’t absorb a quarter of what is claimed.",
"Because it's easier to make a huge marketing claim and say \"not verified by the FDA\" than it is to actually get your claim evaluated by the FDA ^(\\[citation needed\\])",
"The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) says that supplements are not intended to treat, diagnose, prevent, or cure diseases and should not say any of this on their labels. Only FDA approved drugs can claim this. That's why so many supplement products have specific language saying what the product is for or that their benefits are not verified.\n\n[_URL_2_](_URL_2_)\n\n[_URL_1_](_URL_1_)\n\nThe FDA will go after supplement companies that claim that their products can treat something. For example, the FDA cracked down on some companies selling Kratom products and marketing that their products could help manage pain and opioid addiction.\n\n[_URL_0_](_URL_0_)\n\n[_URL_3_](_URL_3_)",
"Neatly all vitamin suplimenrs pass straight through the body as you gain what you need from a normal diet and eating more has not actual increase on benefit... You get scurvey from low vitamin c but a slightly below average vitamin c doesn't make you a little scurvey and taking.more doesn't make you ultra un-scurvey. Hence no proceable benefit of supliments. Similar goes for protine shakes... 90% of it passes right through but people are marketed at",
"We know what vitamins do. For example, biotin keeps your hair and nails from falling out. So if you're deficient in Biotin it would be a good idea to supplement it or change your diet. However, if your hair and nails aren't falling out taking more Biotin is not going to make them better in any way. You're body will just see the extra Biotin and go \"oh, I already have enough of this. I don't need anymore.\" This is true for every vitamin or mineral supplement I know of.\n\nCreatine is another good example. Most people get fairly significant benefits from supplementing creatine. So why does it work if I just told you superdosing supplements doesn't do anything? That's because most people could use more creatine. It is extremely difficult to fully saturate yourself with creatine unless you eat a fuck ton of meat every single day.",
"We have plenty confirmation of what vitamins do - but they claim that vitamins do things that *haven't* been confirmed.\n\nbasically they're lying to you, and they know they're lying to you, and they're adding that disclaimer so they don't get in trouble for it.",
"Because supplement manufacturers lobbied (aka bribed congress) to make their products exempt from FDA standards. FDA requires all claims to be provable in academic studies. Therefore supplements have to carry the “claims not verified” warning. That multivitamin could be 90% sawdust and it’s legal. There are some third party testing companies that check to see if the supplement at least contain what’s claimed, but even those are a little suspect.",
"I work at a health food store and it's all legal stuff decreed by the FDA. We have it drilled into us from day one that we have to be very careful with what we say about supplements. No words like cure, treat, prevent, or anything like that. In general we have to word things pretty passively. Like if someone comes in wanting \"help with allergies\" we have to show them things that \"support a healthy immune response\". There are also some really random rules, like no using the word \"antioxidant\" unless it refers to four very specific vitamins, and no placing any sort of literature next to supplements.\n \nIt's kind of tricky because most customers, obviously, are not privy to this, and there are people who will come in wanting you to cure their cancer or their child's ADD and/or... I've had to flat out tell people that I can't legally have the conversation they want me to have."
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4kcw3k | how hackers are getting away with hacking banks? | I'm software engineer, who is really interested in all sorts of unusual work-arounds also known as hacks, but I can't wrap my head around how people are getting away with hacking banks... I mean sure you could get into bank's system if there is a flaw, but how can you get money out of there, after all everything is logged and you can trace it down fairly quickly. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4kcw3k/eli5how_hackers_are_getting_away_with_hacking/ | {
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"How do speeders get away with speeding? A lot of cars on the road, cops can't catch everyone. \n\nHow many public wifi are within a 10 mile radius of your home? Which person at your local Starbucks is updating their status on Facebook? Which person doing something illegal? How many of your neighbors have a easy to guess guest wifi password? Or maybe default password?\n\nHow many barely managed isps are there in 3rd world countries that don't bother logging which dialup or broadband customer was using a certain IP at a certain time? Maybe friends of the ISP staff/owners, so logs are intentionally destroyed. \n\nPretend I hack someone's account at big USA Bank, transfer the money to some small town bank that's been opened with a stolen identity, or maybe opened with the cooperation of some poor person who I paid to open the account.\n\nThen retransfer it to a few other banks, many of them abroad. Will I care if i'm paying some kind of fee to wire money around? Finally withdraw the money as cash from some bank in eastern Europe, Africa, South America, or Asia. Possibly have bribed the local branch manager. \n\nMonday morning when the investigators start tracing it, it doesn't matter, I've already walked out of the bank with a briefcase of cash and the bribed teller and branch managers at the final bank have been paid to not remember. \n\nVery few hacks are actual attacks on flaws on the software or hardware. Most are cracks of weak passwords that might be used on multiple websites by an individual. Combined with often support of a criminal organization. ",
"Most banks use the SWIFT system.This system record all transaction conducted in the _URL_0_ when They 'hackers' transfer the money to who knows where they are able to edit/delete the Swift transactions(ledger) so there is no record or wrong record of the transfers.\n ",
"As someone who worked briefly in cross boarder banking, transfers are done by swift. When these transactions are lost we started a wire investigation. One time I saw one where the money was suppose to go to Canada but ended up going to Bank of America, but not in Canada. It took 30 days to investigate and find the money (wtf right). If someone had actually stolen it, I'm sure 30 days is long enough to walk away with 90K (the amount or that particular transaction). The bank got fucked though because he had a contract on the trading floor with an exchange, so they had to do it 30 days later at the same rate "
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1hr8vt | what does "political asylum" mean, and how does it work? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1hr8vt/eli5_what_does_political_asylum_mean_and_how_does/ | {
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"Wikipedia puts it in terms that most people should be able to understand:\n\nSomeone may ask for a political asylum when they are frightened to live in their own country. They will then go to another country. If they are allowed to live in the new country this is called political asylum.\n\nPeople who qualify for asylum are those who can show that they might be badly treated in their own country because of their: Race, Nationality, Religion, Political opinions or Membership of a particular social group or social activities.\n\n\n\n"
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7kigyh | why is sweat colourless and not yellow like urine? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7kigyh/eli5_why_is_sweat_colourless_and_not_yellow_like/ | {
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" > Why is sweat colourless and not yellow like urine?\n\nBecause sweat doesn't contain urea which is yellow. There isn't any reason why sweat would contain waste products like urine does because sweat isn't produced in order to purge such things.",
"Urine's yellow color is attributed to an organic molecule called Urubilin whereas sweat does not contain this molecule. "
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2fi2jw | why are radio stations all between a certain number value? | Is it just the frequency? And also, why do they all end in odd numbers? (e.g. 105.1, 98.5, 101.3, 103.7) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2fi2jw/eli5_why_are_radio_stations_all_between_a_certain/ | {
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"Other frequencies are reserved for other uses, such as military communications, air traffic control, navaids and such. It's (very) illegal to interfere with these frequencies.",
"Those values are for FM radio. FM stands for Frequency Modulation, and the numbers are indeed the frequencies in MHz of the broadcasts. The range is determined by the bands the FCC allows for public broadcasting. Other countries may use different frequency bands.",
"By ending in odd numbers, each station is given a 2/10 frequency buffer (1/10 on each side). This way, they are less likely to interfere with one another.",
"FM broadcast stations are alloted a 200kHz (0.2 MHz) channel at a frequency between 88 MHz and 108 MHz, throughout most of the world. \n\nAM broadcast stations are alloted a 9kHz channel in North America, and a 10kHz channel in most of Europe, at a frequency between 550kHz and 1750 kHz.\n\nIn most cases the nominal frequency is the centre of the channel.\n\nThis standardisation is helpful to the manufacturers of radios, and transmitting equipment. It dates from the time when everyone played nice in the sandbox and shared the limited amount of available spectrum in a civilised way. These days, not so much, but this survives."
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3sa439 | how do speakers work? my brain just can't comprehend how all the sounds and frequencies at one single point in a song (drums, vocals, guitar, etc) can be created by one single vibration of a membrane. all at once!? | I really need an explain like I'm 5 here.. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3sa439/eli5_how_do_speakers_work_my_brain_just_cant/ | {
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"All sounds are waves in a material. The wave is formed by compressing and expanding the material at some rate. If 2 things try to expand and compress the same piece of material then they will interfere.\n\n & nbsp;\n\nImagine someone is pushing and pulling on you. You will shake around. If a second person pushes and pulls on you then you will only shake in 1 pattern that is the result of both people pushing and pulling on you. So interference of sound waves results in a new sound wave. So if you record all the pieces of a band and all their sound waves, you can combine them into 1 new sound wave that when played back sounds like all the instruments playing together.",
"It works just like your ear, only the opposite.\n\nYour outer ear is shaped specifically to funnel sounds into your ear canal. At the end of your ear canal there is thin membrane called your eardrum.\n\nWhen sound waves contact your eardrum it vibrates. These vibrations cause a series of small bones in your middle ear to strike another small membrane in your inner ear. Which becomes the sounds that you hear.\n\nA speaker works essentially the same way, just the opposite.\n\nUnlike your eardrum which vibrates when exposed to sound waves, speakers vibrate to create sound waves. An electric current triggers an electromagnet which then causes the diaphram of the speaker to move back and forth creating sound waves.",
"Speakers and ears work in EXACTLY the same way, just in reverse.\n\n\n(disclaimer: this is not true... but true enough)",
"It's the brain that does most of the work, and is able, with practice, to latch on to one \"sound\" and follow it through a piece of music. so one big fat complicated sound wave is understood by you as many different ones, but only because your brain has learned to distinguish, guess and foresee the sounds that might be coming.",
"For starters, sound waves have additive properties. So when you hear \"all the sounds and frequencies\" it is actually like 1 very big signal. That is how \"all those frequencies\" can be RE-created by one single vibration of a membrane. Of course, speaker cabinets can combine different speakers that have different frequency responses, so that one signal can be broken up into 2 or 3 different signals in ranges that better suit the speaker (which is commonly known as Bass/Sub, Mid, High/Treble).\n\nAs for how the speakers themselves work, audio signals are AC (Alternating current). Meaning they go in one direction, followed by the reverse. The amount of times it does this in a given time period is called frequency. The signal passes through a coil, which is wrapped around a magnet. This signal coupled with the magnet create an electro-magnetic force, which causes the magnet to move up and down at the frequency of the over all signal. There is a cone attached to the magnet so that moves at the same rate. The cone pushes the glorious air molecules into your ear.",
"So in order to adequately answer your question, you need to have a basic understanding of something called the \"Fourier Transform\". This mathematical operation allows you take a signal, represented in time, and instead represent it as a sum of different sine waves, each with a unique frequency. It is more comprehensively explained here _URL_0_.\n\nSo back to your original question. The speaker makes sound in the time domain, but the content of the time domain signal that our ears receive is made up of different frequency components, which are controlled by electronics further upstream from the amplifier making the sound waves.",
"Things can vibrate at several frequencies simultaneously. That isn't even strange, consider this thought experiment: you're riding the pirate ship in Six Flags or wherever. You're going back and forth at some frequency. But you can still wave your arms at some other frequency. For an outside observer, your arms now move at some combination of frequencies.\n\nThe speaker membrane is doing that with a whole bunch of frequencies. It does that automatically, as a consequence of its input wave being the sum of several different sine waves already, the speaker is not itself combining a bunch of frequencies.\n\nBut that's simple. The really weird thing (in my opinion) is that you can do the reverse: take that sum of sine waves and extract from it the \"ingredients\", how much of each different frequency went in. A microphone doesn't need to do that, it just records the pressure (so its output is still the sum of sines), but your ears do, and they do it by (conceptually) having different resonators that each resonate with a different frequency. The more that particular frequency is in the sound, the more it resonates. (it's actually a single long resonator that varies in thickness, measured at different positions along it) (fun aside, a Fourier transform is running a bunch of resonators and seeing how much energy ends up in them (if you take the abs))",
"It's useful to understand what a sound is, exactly. Humans have a perception of a thing called 'pitch', which is our way of summarizing frequency. I.e., if I hit two rocks together once a second, this is a frequency of 1Hz (1 cycle per second), which is very low, far too low for humans to perceive it as a distinct pitch - we hear individual beats instead. Eventually, when you get up to the 20Hz range, the individual beats become a (low-frequency) continuous sound. The way this works is through sympathetic vibration of certain hairs in your ears (a particular hair vibrates best in time to 20 beats per second, another hair vibrates best in time to 1000 beats per second, etc.).\n\nWhat's important to understand is that this pitch is a *continuous* phenomenon. You cannot get a pitch of 1KHz with a single beat - you need a bunch of beats (thus, frequency) over a continuous period for sound to be perceived as pitch.\n\nWhat this means is that there is NO SUCH THING as instantaneous pitch. The way we perceive sound has no meaning at the level of an instant - there is only the level of the impulse (the amplitude). It's not until audio waves strike the ear over a longer interval that these impulses resolve into frequencies.\n\nOf course, all of these things operate on the level of the millisecond, so as far as we're concerned it might as well be instantaneous.\n\nSo let's examine what happens in the speaker. Let's say we have three separate sounds going on at once, a drum beat that vibrates at 60Hz, a singer singing a note at 440Hz, and a guitar playing a note at 880Hz.\n\nAt a given moment, all of these sounds might combine to produce a single impulse. But over a slightly longer interval, each of these notes oscillates at a different frequency, and thus will contribute a different amount to the impulse at each moment. Just thinking of it as a series of beats, if they all beat at time 0, the drum will next beat at time 1/60 s, the vocals at 1/440 s, and the guitar at 1/880 s. So, if we measure again at 1/880 s we would only get the impulse from the guitar. At 1/440 s we'd have the impulse from the guitar and the vocals. At 1/60s we'd only have the drum. Etc.\n\nThe ear takes the continuous stream of impulses and separates it out by frequency over a short period of time.",
"Remember that your eardrum is one membrane as well. I figured it out once I learned that the sum of two waves is one wave that sounds like the two original ones. So if you play a guitar track and a vocal track together on the computer, the computer sums the two waveforms ([here](_URL_0_) is a simple example with two sin waves of different frequencies.) and then plays the summed wave out of the single membrane of the speaker. This wave travels through the air until it hits your eardrum. The eardrum vibrates in the same way that the speaker does, and passes that signal on to the brain. Your brain is the thing that decodes it and mentally separates the guitar and the vocals.",
"This is still, to this day, the biggest challenge in speaker design.\n\nA speaker will slowly shake for low frequencies and shake fast for the highs all at the same time, making the HF 'move' in space in rythm with the LF content, creating distortion.\n\nHence the creaton of 2-way and 3-way speakers (which come with their own problems, mind you.)",
"Here's the clever bit: sound waves can be added together. \n\nImagine a low sound. The sound waves are very long, like waves on the ocean. Also, imagine a high sound occurring at the same time. These are like ripples. And just like water, little ripples can happen on top of big waves. Adding up all of the different types of motion, long waves, medium ones, and small ones, ultimately ends up with a single *waveform* that hardly looks anything like the original waves at all. But it's all there.\n\nWhen it comes to music reproduction, the speaker cone is simply asked to produce that crazy waveform shape. ",
"My time to shine! I did my senior research paper in College on psychoacoustics (how your ear and brain work together to make hearing possible).\n\nSo- how does your ear hear multiple instruments even though the speaker is a single membrane? The simplest answer is that your ear is really, really, really good at hearing things, and your brain is really, really, really good at figuring out and organizing what you hear into something you can comprehend.\n\nIts actually pretty amazing. Lets use the example of two instruments. A clarinet and a snare drum. \n\nA clarinet produces even, beautiful, and regular sound waves. They gently push and pull your eardrum in smooth and repeating fashion, back and forth, back and forth. This is back and forth is repeating *thousands* of times a second! But your ear is so finely tuned, and so good at what it does, that even at thousands of back-and-forths per second, you still just hear the lovely tune of a clarinet.\n\nNow lets take the snare drum. Its waves are messy. When its struck, it moves air wildly. Those wild waves push and pull your poor little eardrum in hard, irregular waves. It may push it severely, and then pull it back awkwardly, never repeating the same pattern twice. Again, this is happening thousands of times per second! And again, our amazing ear keeps up no problem, hearing the drum with great clarity.\n\nNow what happens when the two play together? When you add two waves, the sum looks like a combination of the two. In the case of the clarinet and the snare, it would look like jagged but still repeating waves going back and forth. The literal child of the two waves.\n\nSo when we play both together, the wave that hits your ear looks very different from the originals! Its not the same as a clarinet or a drum! Its pushing and puling thousands of times per second, in jagged waves that are the children of their wavy parents. \n\nBut how do you *hear* that is a drum and a clarinet! That wave was so different from the old ones! This is where things get fuzzy. We hear both instruments because our brains are really good at recognizing patterns. We *know* what a clarinet sounds like, and we *know* what a drum sounds like. So hearing them together is an easy task for our brain to break down. Two very different sounds happening at the same time. Just sitting in the room you're in, you're hearing all kinds of sounds. But your brain can still pick up individual ones, simply because... it can! Your eardrums are *exactly* like speakers in reverse. You only have two, and yet our incredible brains allow us to figure out whats what without even thinking.\n\nNow, sometimes we can get overwhelmed, think of trying to hear someone in a crowded room, or picking up the sound of a single violin in an orchestra. Music is *intentionally mixed in a way that is easy for our brains to interpret coming from only 2 speakers.*\n\n**TL/DR Your ears are amazing. You're amazing.**",
"You only have one membrane in your ear, so you only need one membrane to transmit the sound. ",
"If I'm reading this right, the main thing you're Concerned about is all the different sounds it creates out of one speaker. The thing is all sound combines together to make a single 'sound' (look up wave superposition for a explain like I'm a high schooler). The fact that you can hear different parts of the sound (vocals, etc.) is really an amazing trick of your brain being able to tell them apart. In a sound recording a microphone acts exactly like you ear as a single membrane that vibrates to the sound wave created. A speaker does exactly the opposite and recreates the sound as a vibration that makes the air shake. That air shaking then reaches your ears just as it would if you were listening live. One cool thing you can do is use a speaker as a crappy microphone since they are the same thing use designed to be better at listening or playing. ",
"Let's say you're listening to a song with many instruments playing together live. When multiple sound waves from the different instruments reach your eardrum, your eardrum still vibrates as one single vibration (all the waves are summed to create one complex wave). However, your brain is good enough that it can process that one single wave coming from your eardrum and recognize the different instruments that produced it.\n\nNow, if we can get a speaker cone to vibrate exactly the same way as your eardrum would when listening to the same song, your eardrum will produce the same single vibration and send the same wave to your brain. Therefore, your brain will again recognize the different instruments in the song even though all the sound is being produced solely by one speaker.",
"think thats interesting watch this piano use multiple sound waves to make words \n\n_URL_0_",
"OP I hope you see this, though it's unlikely. \nSome of these explanations are good, and pretty detailed but don't go for an ELI5 angle. Let me try. \n\nSo, for starters, speakers can't recreate the real sound of multiple sound sources, that's why no matter how good a sound system is, it never sounds like the real thing. For example, a performance of a jazz song will always feel a bit more \"alive\" and have more \"depth\" than the speakers. \n\nThe reason for this is that the speakers are not creating all those unique sounds, of drums and guitar and etc. They are creating a very, very, very close representation of them. \nAnother thing that is similar to this is a photograph. A photograph doesn't ever look *really* real, and that's because we have two eyes, and our eyeballs work a bit differently than camera lenses. \n\nSo what's happening with your speakers? Well, picture a duck floating on the water. As waves roll by, the duck bobs up and down. The movement of the duck is \"linked\" to the movement of the water it touches. The water moves the duck. \n\nWell, your ear is also touching a large liquid: air. And whenever the air moves, it moves your ears like the duck moves on the surface of the waves. In this sense, the speakers and your ears are \"linked\" because they're both touching a common body of liquid--the air--that waves can pass through. \n\nSpeakers work by creating vibrations, back and forth pumping movements of of their speaker membranes. These vibrations travel as waves through the air and when they reach your eardrums, they move, just like that duck. \n\nIn real space, like at a live performance, sound from the the different instruments all hit your ear drum and create this combined impression of the sound. This would be like if that duck was sitting in a still pond, and then each instrument threw a stone into the pond. The ripples would all mix and \"interfere\" with each other, and the pattern of how the duck bobs up and down would be different and changed by all the different ripples and how they interact. \n\nSo recording technology is designed to precisely measure that \"impression\", that pattern of bobbing that your ear drum makes when multiple sound sources are rippling and interacting through the air. A microphone, designed to be just like your eardrum, is like putting a GPS device on the duck in the water, and records how it moves as the ripples pass over it.\n\nThen speakers are given that information \"the microphone vibrated like this when there were multiple sources of rippling\" and the speaker vibrated to recreate that impression. \n\nSo your eardrum moves in a way very close to--almost exactly--the way it would if all those ripples were coming at your from different sources. \n\nI hope that's good!",
"***This is a hopefully-accurate explanation of how we get from bytes of digital data to the sound we hear from a speaker:***\n\nDigital audio is made up of a series of floating point (decimal) values, represented in chunks of bytes called **samples** (4 bytes per sample in CD-quality audio). Each sample is a value between -1 and 1, representing whether the speaker should be \"in\" or \"out\" in relation to its center resting point. The **sample rate** of CD-quality audio is 44100. That means there are 44100 samples per second.\n \nSound **frequency** (measured in Hz) is ultimately the number of times the speaker goes in and out per second. The human ear can detect frequencies from approximately 20Hz up to 20kHz (20000Hz). The **Nyquist theorem** states that you need double the highest frequency you are reproducing to faithfully recreate analog sound, so 44.1k satisfies the requirements for the human ear which can only hear a little above 20kHz (the *exact* number 44100 is chosen for reasons having to do with video synchronization and possibly other conveniences, but that's not important here).\n\n**TL;DR** Values go between -1 and 1, speaker goes in and out, 44100 values per second is roughly the minimum number of values per second needed to fool our ears.\n\n*Side-note: If you take two streams of values and combine them, making sure that you keep the levels within the range of -1 and 1, it actually combines them audibly.* ***Additive synthesizers*** *do exactly this, and are quite simple/fun to program!*",
"Sounds are distributed as a wave, the same as light. You're just intercepting a **sequence** of sound waves that your mind then formats into a seamless reality. If you broke it down wave by wave, it would not resemble anything recognizable. Its just difficult to visualize, however, it's the same idea a how your mind is able to construct visual sense of [this.](_URL_0_)",
"Please note that sound cannot exists at only one point in time, it is the change of air pressure over time what creates the sound.\n\nNow a song is composed of multiple simultaneous sounds of multiple instruments - how can they all be recreated by just one vibrating speaker? You have to understand that even though there is only one speaker, it can be vibrating at many frequencies simultaneously.\n\nImagine two instruments playing at once: a bass and a violin: The bass will play a loud, low frequency tone which will cause the speaker membrane go high up and down, but relatively slowly (let's say a 100 times per second). The violin will play more quietly, but much higher tone which will cause the mambrain to go only a bit up and down but more quickly (for example 1000 times per second). These two effects will add up: the membrain will be going high up and low down slowly but simultaneously will be making little quick movements up and down - this will result in a wave that looks like a mountain: From a distance it has a prominent shape of low frequencies but if you look closer you can see a lot of small hills of high frequencies on it. This way the wave can contain many frequencies.\n\nInstruments don't actually play only one frequency - each one makes a lot of frequencies that are characteristic for that instrument and that is how you are able to distinguish a piano from a guitar. All these frequencies are contained in the single wave that travels into your ear and brain, which is able to analyse it and make out all the instruments.",
"All the magic is actually inside your brain. That's where those instruments are differentiated and it's no trivial job.\n\nAs for the actual sound, it's pretty much like many images overlaid.",
"The term that you are looking for is \"superposition\" this is the idea that multiple signals can exist in the same space at the same time, therefore their cumulative effect can be just added. For digital systems, which most radios are now a days, at any given sample time the tone is a static level, voltage/speaker position/air molecules whatever all works the same. It's only over time as you average do you measure the level is changing and you get frequency. If you have multiple tones then the static voltages just adds (or subtracts) with time. The output of the speaker is a complex waveform created by the superposition of multiple tones. Your brain can't really tell the difference (as long as the system has sufficient bandwidth). Superposition is also the effect that allows noise cancelling headphones to work. ",
"Alright, because no one actually has done an actual ELI5 here...\n\nFirst off, it's complicated. You will never get a satisfactory ELI5 for this.\n\nHowever, I can easily explain why it MUST BE how it works.\n\nThink about this. Your ear hears all sorts of sounds and frequencies at once. Even if you only have one ear, you could go to a concert and hear the drums, vocals, guitar... everything in the song at once.\n\nYour ears pick it all up through transmitting vibration. That start point for the vibration?\n\nA single membrane. \n\nIt's your ear drum (which is transferred and interpreted over other structures, but whatever). That membrane works in exactly the same way that the membrane of a speaker does. The speaker just pushes more air so it pushes the membrane of your ear.",
"Well see your ear drum is one single membrane vibrating that allwos you to hear everything. all the speaker has to do is make your ear drum vibrate the correct way",
"Your eardrum can handle it: it's a single membrane. Sound takes place over time, so at a single point in a song the membrane (speaker or ear) only has a position. It's the changes over time that make the waves, and the positions (the vibrations) can be very complex, carrying sound from multiple sources.\n",
"Ignore all the wave stuff. Sound is just a series of very small, very fast changes in air pressure. What you hear is the sum of all the pressure changes made by everything close enough that its pressure changes don't fade away by friction. A loudspeaker is a machine that can make greater pressure changes than those naturally happening where you are. The human ear can detect between about 20 and about 20,000 pressure changes per second. If your pressure machine can operate in this range, it can duplicate any sound you can hear. Generally, we use a diaphragm moving back and forth to make these pressure changes, but we don't have to. If we don't mind a bit of ozone, for example, we could just ionize the air and use electric charge to make pressure changes. Or if we had a very fast valve, we could use compressed air. Or steam or any other gas.",
"This will probably gey buried, but this website has an extremely helpful step by step animation and graphics that explain how a single wave can sound like a full orchestra!\n _URL_0_",
"OP you know what will blow your mind even more. A few simple adjustments to some wires and a speaker turns into a microphone. ",
"If you think about it, you don't need a separate ear to hear each separate sound; why would you need a separate speaker for each instrument? Both are just inverses or the other. \n\nAn interesting note: You can use headphones as a microphone.",
"I could try to explain it, but the animation and explanation is extremely simple but in depth.\n\nThis will teach you perfectly in five minutes\n_URL_0_\n\nThe tl;dr of it is that the electrical signal moves the cone of the speaker in the shape of the wave form of the signal. These vibrations in the air are what we interpret as sound.",
"All the sound that we perceive is from the vibration of a eardrum membrane, so there's that",
"At any point in time the air around you is vibrating. Next to your ear you notice this movement and \"hear\".\n\nIf a band is playing, the air moves the same, affected by all the instruments and sounds. Still it is a single mass of air moving in a single way (oversimplifying). Your brain processes this movement and divides it into frequencies. Further processing characterises it into more abstract categories like rhythm, tempo, etc.\n\n\nIs your brain doing the magic. The air just moves.\n\n\nSo does the speaker.",
"Well, think about how you hear sounds! Your ears only have one eardrum each. Everything you have ever heard has been caused by air (or water) vibrating that eardrum back and forward. \n\nA speaker is sort of like a reverse eardrum. Instead if waiting for vibrations to come along and turning them into signals for your brain to understand as sound, speakers take electrical signals and turn them into air vibrations.",
"your eardrum is just the opposite. essentially a microphone. which is just a membrane moving up and down. so the speaker membrane is just transfering its motion to your eardrum membrane",
"If I can piggyback, how is it that some speakers have way better or worse quality then?",
"I'll try my hand at a true ELI5 response. \nOkay, look at this picture first: _URL_0_\n\nIgnore the labels of the image, we're going to repurpose it. \n\n(1) imagine the \"modulating wave\" to correspond to a low sounding \"bass\" note from a tuba or something. \n\n(2) imagine the \"carrier wave\" to be a trumpet playing a \"high\" sounding note. \n\n(3) using circuitry or a computer, the waves can be literally added together to get the modulated result. (btw, in engineering adding waves together is usually called \"modulation\".....while in physics it's usually referred to as \"superposition\". Really, it's the same thing...just \"adding waves together\"). \n\n(4) the modulated result is simply fed into a speaker, and the speaker plays the modulated result, but our ears can still hear the trumpet \"high\" note, and the \"low\" tuba note separately. Basically, our ears can \"separate\" the two frequencies and hear them separately even though they have been added together. \n\nThat's an oversimplification, but it's the basic idea of sound waves. All the sounds coming from a live band for example, the voice, guitar, bass guitar are \"added\" together to get a messy modulated result. that modulated result can be fed into a speaker and the result is the sound of the band. \n\n \n",
"The concept of sound is undefined at one exact single time point. Sounds, like other waves, have a frequency and anything with a frequency by definition is extended in time. Our brains integrate to measure what frequencies are present over small epochs of time.\n\nIt's conceptually the same reason that a very very very short flash of light cannot have a well defined color, the concept loses all meaning.",
"coursera has an audio engineering course on right now, from university of rochester if you really have to know.\n",
"If you play an incredibly short piece of sound, it will be really hard to hear distinct instrument. Pattern recognition in the brain is key here. ",
"Vibrations. Its like when you fart and you hear piccolos and tubas all at the same time. In this case it's a matter of subtle fold variations within your sphincter as potentially modified by the presence (or the lack thereof) of hemorrhoids, lesions and or tears (rips, not excreted bodily liquids). And errant hairs. And scarring. And humidity levels. But I digress. ",
"It's doing the exact same thing as your ear is. It broadcasts the wave, the membrane catches the wave, the wiring makes the sound.",
"Speakers. I always just took them for granted. After reading this thread I'm now convinced they are magic.",
"I'm super late here, and this isn't exactly an explanation, but think about this. It could lead to some clarity and/or some \"whoa dude\":\n\nYour eardrums perceive the sounds simultaneously and that's just one membrane, so why wouldn't a speaker be able to do the same? They're both doing the same thing.\n\n**Edit (additional info to ponder):** It's like a mirror image. The stereo produces and sends signals to cause vibrations in the speaker membrane. The mechanical waves propagate through the air and reach the person's tympanic membrane (eardrum.) The tympanic membrane vibrates in the same way resulting in signals sent to the brain resulting in the experience of hearing. \n\nReversing the process would be deciding to sing a song and singing into a microphone. In the previous scenario, your brain would be like the stereo and audio info source, such as a CD where the memory is stored. Your vocal chords would be like the speakers and the microphone would act like your eardrum (tympanic membrane.) The recording device would act like your brain and the cassette tape or hard drive (whatever you're using to record) would act like the memory in your brain. \n\nIt's pretty amazing how many devices have a human, animal, or natural analog. Our technology is so often modeled after pre-existing systems found within living things. \n\n(For a fun exercise, think of a device and its components then try to determine what component of a living thing that whole device or its components mimic.)",
"it's just a simple summation of waveforms\n\nyour brain demultiplexes the signal so you can \"follow the trumpet\" or whatever, but in reality they're all mushed together in the speakers, even though they may have been recorded separately",
"Brain holds the secret. Ear also has only one membrane that vibrates in response to sound waves. Mechanical vibrations caused by the sound waves are translated into neuronal signals that are sent into the brain. The brain does the translation of these vibrations into a Mozart symphony or a Led Zeppelin song.",
"Here are some incredible visual aids:\n_URL_0_\n\nAs they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, so I'll leave it at that.",
"All your hearing boils down to just the vibration of 2 membranes in your yeah (one in each ear).\n\nSO its pretty reasonable that a vibration of a speaker membrane can produce anything those pick up.",
"Here's an awesome site with animations of how speakers work.\n\n_URL_0_\n",
"This will be buried, but here is a different way of thinking about it. Your ear translates vibrations from a membrane in to what you understand as sound. There is no magic in how different sources of sound get picked up, just some resulting singular vibration from their interactions. All a speaker needs to do is generate those vibrations your ear is picking up.",
"I realize I'm pretty late to this thread, but I woke up this morning realizing you can think about this much in the same way as how we see different colors. \n\nIf you take 5 colors in different proportions and mix them all together, you do not see them as the 5 separate colors, you just see them as the new color. This same thing happens when you play sound out of the speaker -- there are multiple sounds from different instruments that go into making a single new sound, which in its aggregate creates a single new sound. It just happens that our ears are better at distinguishing the separate instruments in a given sound wave than our eyes are at separating out the different colors."
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2nfnp1 | with inflation, the cost of living and basically the price of everything going up, how come a bag of marijuana was about $20 in the 60s and 70s, yet is still $20 today? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2nfnp1/eli5_with_inflation_the_cost_of_living_and/ | {
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"The price of marijuana has actually gone down (There is more of it, its easier to get into the states, just a generally more mature market). The price decline has basically averaged the same rate as inflation. So when it should have gone up by 2%, the price declined 2%, and it evened out to stay $20",
"And yet weed can be cheaper and there's still profit...",
"Anyone got sources for claims that the cost has gone down?\n\nIn inflation adjusted dollars maybe. Or for quality of weed, but weed is way more expensive today. I live in CA and have the legal medical now. Back when the earth was young in the nineties, I hear a qp was 250. An oz was around 100. Just a couple years ago, good stuff was 15-20 a gram so 100 a quarter or so.\n\n\nI've heard that there has been lower prices over the last couple of years, but before that a qp of back in the day cost same as an oz.\n\nThere would be a huge difference in quality.",
"When I was 18ish, over 30 years ago, an ounce went for about 60 bucks. Today, that same ounce would be 200-400, depending on the quality of the weed. This is in Canada, if that matters.\n\nHow much are you buying for 20 bucks?",
"depends on what you buy for 20$.. and where and when you are.. in the 70's my mom smoked 20$ worth of what we call mids to day and she would get about a 1/4 of that and now i can only get an 1/8 for that but if i get a 1/4 its 25$.. now on dro 20$ is 2 grams and dro today did not really exist back then its 1000% better to day then it was in the 60-70s and if you are in a legal state i bet that shits even cheaper.."
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48gjg9 | why are some months shorter than others? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/48gjg9/eli5_why_are_some_months_shorter_than_others/ | {
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"Because 365 doesn't divide neatly by anything except 5. You could have five months of 73 days, or 73 months of five days - or have a compromise with odd-length months.\n\nEven then you still have to do leap-days.\n\nEDIT by/into",
"Because originally, the Romans had a lunar calendar. And the Moon's phase cycle is about 29 and a half days long, which is really inconvenient. So the Romans decided to go with months of 29 and 30 days. And even with all the later changes, this stuck.\n\n\n**Additional info if you feel like reading more**\n\n\nThe Roman calendar year originally only consisted of 10 months, with March being the first month. You can still see this in the names of **Sept**ember (originally the 7th month), **Octo**ber (8th), **Novem**ber (9th), and **Decem**ber (10th). Later Roman calendars introduced 31-day months. Also, there were more than 50 days that didn't belong to any month, they were just there, because Romans saw winter as a monthless time. After some time, the Romans decided to change the calendar yet again, and created two additional months (January and February), which consisted of these previously unallocated days, plus a few days taken out of other months to avoid bad luck (even numbers were considered unlucky).\n\n\nAnyway, Julius Caesar decided he wanted a month of his own, so he changed the name of Quintilis (the fifth month in the 10-month calendar) to July. Later, Sextilis (the sixth month) was renamed in honor of emperor Augustus. This is how the calendar took on a form very similar to the one we know today. But through all of these changes, the one thing that stuck were the different lengths of different months. It was just more convenient to build on what was already there. February's 28/29 days are essentially an echo of the old days.\n\n\nThere are a lot of popular and to this day repeated myths surrounding this, like **Augustus taking a day out of February and adding it to August in order for it to not be shorter than July**. This has been debunked for a long, long time, but people still parrot it as a piece of trivia, so be sure to double check the information you read. Yeah, even a subject like *calendars* has its myths and controversies.\n\n\n**Fun February Fact:** for a while, there used to be a 13th month called Mercedinus - it was only used every two or three years to align the calendar year with the solar year, we still don't know a lot about it, and it was eventually abolished. When used, it was right after February, which made February 23/24 days long in those years. After they got rid of Mercedinus, February continued to be used as the month with variable length because of leap years.",
"How the real fuck did the number of months align to give our knuckles a sense ?"
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1539iv | hume's law, or the "is-ought problem?" | _URL_0_
So basically I want to know what this law means, floury words aside, language at all is very difficult in explaining a thought.
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1539iv/humes_law_or_the_isought_problem/ | {
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"People often tell you that you ought to do some thing or another, and they often tell you a reason why you should do what they say. For example, they tell you that you ought not to leave the door to your house open when you leave, because thieves will come in and steal your stuff.\n\nIf we put that as a formal logical argument, it would go more or less like this:\n\n1. Premise: If you leave your house open when you go out, thieves will go in and steal your stuff.\n2. Conclusion: You ought not to leave your house open when you go out.\n\nThat's an innocent example, but people often make much more problematic arguments that have a similar shape:\n\n1. Premise: Human females evolved to take care of children.\n2. Conclusion: Women ought to stay in the house and take care of children.\n\nIn both cases, you have an \"is\" premise (an objective statement that claims to tell a fact), and an \"ought\" conclusion (a subjective statement that tells you how you should act).\n\nWhat Hume is doing is treating all arguments like this skeptically. Deep down, he is asking this question: what sort of rules can we use to prove an \"ought\" conclusion from an \"is\" premise? Because without such a rule, it is difficult to tell which of these arguments are valid (give you true conclusions from true premises) and which are not.\n\nIn the case of these two arguments, we could say that these are the hidden assumptions:\n\n* First argument: you ought not to let thieves steal your stuff.\n* Second argument: people always ought to act in the way that humans evolved to act.\n\nIn a sense, what Hume is doing is playing the \"Why?\" game on these hidden assumptions, not just for these two examples, but for *all* possible examples.",
"The essential problem is this: there is nothing about how the world **is** that tells you how it **ought** to be. So I can discover all kinds of scientific information about how the world is, but that gives me no information on how it ought to be. I can do the same in math, I can find grammatical truths in English, and so on. Still no ought.\n\nThis is a problem for Ethics. It seems made-up, because there's no basis for it in fact. Hume doesn't think Ethics is real - we're just giving our opinions. So if I say \"blah is wrong,\" facts won't help me, because there's no right or wrong in facts. Facts just are. So it seems like I'm just giving my opinion. If I say \"abortion is bad\" or \"abortion is good,\" I'm giving an opinion just like if I said \"eggplant is bad\" or \"eggplant is good.\"\n\nThere are various responses to this in the world of philosophy (there always are), but this is the problem Hume points out. This should not be confused with the 'is-ought fallacy', which is when people conflate something being true with something being good or correct (noticed a few people have done that in this thread).\n\nSources: Hume's 'A Treatise of Human Nature', Myself (philosophy professor, 3 philosophy degrees)"
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1p6nop | what is the attraction behind super-hero movies? [looking at you, captain america] | All the rage on reddit at the moment is on Captain America (and the like). Please don't downvote me for my opinion. I don't understand how grown-ups enjoy this kind of entertainment. The story-lines are wafer-thin to non existent, it's just a ridiculous piñata of randomness and explosions. I suppose entertainment is entertainment, but the enormous budgets spent on these movies. I'll watch Sci-Fi, and Fantasy, and largely these movies are good (even though my girlfriend hates it) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1p6nop/what_is_the_attraction_behind_superhero_movies/ | {
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"Without explaining it, I'd just like to point out that it's not a modern thing. Look at the stories we have from the ancient Greeks - gods, demigods & mythical heros aren't much different than superheros. [Beowulf](_URL_0_), an important relic of the earliest written English literature, is the story of a superhuman hero and still captures the attention of audiences enough to justify repeatedly making movies of it.\n\n"
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31yyek | if it takes 8 mins and 20 secs for light to travel from sun to earth, why do people claim that photons dont feel the distance and reaches earth instantly ? | If we were photons, would we have felt the distance and duration of time from the Sun to Earth ? or will we just be teleported to Earth instantly ? why and how ? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/31yyek/eli5_if_it_takes_8_mins_and_20_secs_for_light_to/ | {
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"They say it is instantaneous because when a photon of light is travelling at c (the speed of light) time becomes nonexistent. The closer you get to the speed of light, the slower you experience time. So if you were travelling at the speed of light to the sun, it would take 8 minutes, but you would perceive the journey as being instant."
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b4cbg8 | what exactly is this copyright law right from the eu against which people and organizations are demonstrating? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b4cbg8/eli5_what_exactly_is_this_copyright_law_right/ | {
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"I'll put it in simple terms as it's not a subject I'm exactly an expert on. Others will doubtless explain it better afterwards.\n\nEssentially the new law proposes to improve copyright of materials online, with a view to protecting authors' rights to materials they produce on the internet. The lawmakers argue that there is an inequality between how something in printed media can be protected yet works produced online are essentially fair game for anyone to copy.\n\nSo far so fair, but the way they want to solve it is, simply put, grossly ill-thought out lunacy which could potentially turn the entire way that the internet works on its head. Essentially they want a system where every content producer would charge a licence fee for other websites to use their material. It would be the responsibility of the websites themselves to then police what went on on their own domains. Without a licence, those websites would legally be in breach of copyright if they made any sort of replication of material on those other websites. This would mean that, for instance, Google would have to pay licence fees to any European news agencies in order to include parts of the text of news stories in its search results, Wikipedia would have to buy licences in order for its users to reference academic papers, quotes from news stories, or text from pretty much any other sources, etc. Theoretically, social websites (forums, social media etc) could be fined or shut down if their users posted pictures from another website, as that other website could claim copyright infringement. Also, the EU wants to insist that all major websites must have rigorous algorithms which automatically ban anything flagged as potentially breaching copyright. You thought YouTube's policies on what can get demonetised were bad before? Imagine if YouTube decided that they weren't being strict enough on their users instead...\n\nThe lawmakers have the belief that it will resolve itself in a semi-equitable middle ground where companies are fairly recompensed for their work but the average internet user still has enough freedom to access what they want in a way which doesn't impact them too much. What most major companies are actually saying will happen instead is that they will consider the sheer number of licences they need to buy to be uneconomical and essentially they will have to simply take severe steps to ban all forms of reference to pretty much anything which originated on any other website because it simply won't be worth risking a breach of the rules. Better to overreact and never be found guilty than to risk potentially huge fines over misunderstanding the rules.\n\nAs I say, I'm sure that there are nuances I've missed and that better explanations will emerge (it's been a year or so since I last read up on the probable implications of this and I'm not sure if much has changed since then) but that's the basic gist."
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5oob5n | how does nintendo 3ds look 3d? | If that makes sense... | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5oob5n/eli5_how_does_nintendo_3ds_look_3d/ | {
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"The Nintendo 3DS's top screen utilizes a filter called a \"parallax barrier.\" One of the images necessary for seeing 3D is projected to the right, and the other image is projected to the left.\n\nThe left image and the right image occupy alternating vertical columns of pixels, and are filtered through the parallax barrier. The barrier acts as a vent to project the images and ensure they hit your eyesight at the necessary angles to produce the desired 3D effect."
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1u52jj | how is it legal for states like tennessee and texas to ban atheists from holding public office? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1u52jj/eli5_how_is_it_legal_for_states_like_tennessee/ | {
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"Sauce on your info?",
"I think it is because no atheist has made it far enough to challenge the law, right? I mean If you aren't being denied office because of that reason you can't start a court case to change it, and since most politicians use religion as a crutch it won't be challenged. ",
"In Tennesee, there is a limit on the number laws that each house member and senator can put forward. They don't really want to bother with things that have been trumped by court rulings.",
"It isn't legal but for the Judicial Branch to do anything about it there has to be a trial of the constitutionality of such thing, until a court rules it unconstitutional nothing can be done about it. ",
"Others have noted that it is unconstitutional, but requires a court challenge from someone with standing to strike down the law.\n\nI want to add that the disturbing thing about this is that a challenge like this nowadays also requires a huge amount of money and time, so it's effectively impossible for anyone other than the wealthy or a civil liberties organization to do so.\n\nSimply put, these laws are obviously unconstitutional but changing them isn't something an ordinary citizen can do. Thus, some of the protections of the rights confirmed for citizens in the constitution are negated... by a side effect of the legal system rather than by honest means.\n",
"There are all kinds of laws on the books in every state and lower municipalities that are unconstitutional, and many that are even enforced. Yet for it to be determined unconstitutional you need to go to court. The federal government and court system do not look through every law and decide if they are constitutional. Someone needs to contest it in the court system.\n\nIn your case, which has already been mentioned, it's a law that hasn't been enforced and probably doesn't need to be. Yet it sits on the books like many other laws. On the other hand, there are laws in many areas of the country that are actually enforced, but no one challenges them since it doesn't make sense financially to do so. Many counties across the US have all kinds of pornography laws that would be unconstitutional, but local retailers follow them since they don't really care about getting into a lawsuit over selling porn (of course now with the internet who really cares about a local retailer selling porn?).\n\nAnyway, there are countless laws on the state, county, city, etc. levels that are unconstitutional. Yet if they go unenforced and/or unchallenged they sit on the books forever.",
"It's not legal. It's unconstitutional and unenforceable. It's a non-issue. The second somebody tries to enforce it, the law will be struck down.",
"In the same way that slavery was legal until last year."
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zw4e1 | why does superconductivity happen? | Yeah, I know the basics that once supercooled below a critical temperature, a material will exhibit properties of zero electrical resistance, display meissner effect properties, and expel magnetic fields within the material...
... but what causes this in a physical sense or material sense to happen just because it's cold? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/zw4e1/eli5_why_does_superconductivity_happen/ | {
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"We don't fully understand yet, especially for so-called \"high temperature\" superconductors, which only need to get as cold as liquid nitrogen (~77 K) to superconduct. For low temperature superconductors (~ 5 K), the basic explanation is [BCS theory.](_URL_4_)\n\nBasically, electrons in a superconductors are very likely to pair up and form what are called [Cooper Pairs.](_URL_1_) The Cooper Pairs then interact with phonons in the material, and the whole shebang acts like an electron superfluid. Because it's a superfluid it has no resistance to flow. Thus electrons can flow without resistance. Boom, superconductivity.\n\nThis only happens at lower temperatures because the binding energy of the cooper pair has to be greater than the heat energy in the material. The pairs can't form if the whole thing is too hot. The heat will jiggle the pairs apart.\n\nThe above is a very hand-wavy explanation. In particular, I didn't explain [phonons](_URL_2_) - mainly because I have only the vaguest idea what they are myself. The best attempt I can make to explain phonons, with my limited understanding, is that they're kind of like [standing waves](_URL_3_) at a quantum mechanical level.\n\nSee also _URL_0_",
"So there are two types of particles, bosons and fermions. Fermions are half integral spin particles. particles who's quantum spin is 1/2, 3/2... Electrons are fermions.\n\nBosons are whole integral spin, 1, 2, 3... photons (light) are bosons\n\nThere is now also this thing called the Pauli Exclusion Principle. That says that any fermion cannot be in the same state as another fermion, and the opposite for bosons. Bosons \"like\" to be in the same state. This is why lasers work. We develop a system that can produce photons of the same phase and frequency and a LOT of them. (different story)\n\nNow what happens when something is superconducting is interestingly similar. **Note** this is not a proven theory. When a specific superconducting material is cooled you get what are called Cooper Pairs. Where two electrons will combine together. This effectively adds their spin together, giving them a whole integral spin. Now because of this they act like bosons allowing them to occupy the same quantum state as many other particles. This is what we see as zero resistance.\n\nInterestingly enough, there was a test done to see if the resistance is truely zero. What some dudes at MIT did is they set up a circuit that was essentially just a circular wire of superconducting material. They put a voltage on the wire and caused some current to move in the circuit. Then took the voltage off and let it run until it died. The conclusion of the experiment was inconclusive because there was a power outage several months into the test that caused the cooling mechanism to malfunction which heated the material and stopped the superconducting and the current stopped. However the measurements that they were taking on the device for the several months that they ran it said that there had been Zero drop in the current.\n\nAmazing, imagine if you had this in your house?"
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7zejmh | how is a nuclear submarine lost at sea not a danger? | The USS Thresher was a nuclear submarine that was lost at sea and never recovered. Does the nuclear material aboard it not pose a problem? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7zejmh/eli5_how_is_a_nuclear_submarine_lost_at_sea_not_a/ | {
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"The reactor in a submarine is very securely enclosed in the first place to keep the crew safe. But in the event that the radioactive material does escape and come in direct contact with the seawater, the amount is still so small that it poses no threat to us. What problem it might pose to marine life is a different question, though.",
"Water absorbs nuclear radiation really well, thats why we use it in our reactors (well that and the whole steam thing.\n\nThe radiation wont penetrate more than like 20 meters even if there was a catastrophic containment failure, but normally its in a giant steel box. So no its fine. Not ideal, but not a danger.",
"Only because of dilution. There is *already* uranium is seawater, just not concentrated enough to become a problem.\n\nWhen the reactor eventually corrodes and leaks fuel, it will add to the ocean's dilute supply of uranium. You wouldn't want to be right next to it, of course, where the leak is undiluted.",
"You kind of have two possibilities here:\n\n* The radioactive material dissolves and travels far from its source\n\n* The radioactive material doesn't dissolve and stays near the source\n\nIn the first scenario, the dissolving also means dilution, and the further you get the radiation, the less radiation you get. So that sort of solves its own problem for the most part (you could imagine it not distributing evenly and thus having \"hot spots\" but that's about the worst of it).\n\nIn the second scenario, the radiation is only a problem directly near the reactor vessel, which is a small thing in a big ocean. (This is the most likely scenario in this case for a number of reasons.) Keep in mind that a submarine reactor uses highly-enriched uranium as its fuel, so the total volume and mass of fuel is a lot smaller than a reactor used for civilian power generation. \n\nSo either way, the problem is fairly reasonably contained. This argument also works, as an aside, with deep-sea dumping of nuclear waste — it sounds terrible but as far as means of keeping it away from human beings go, it's not the worst. \n\nKeep in mind that it sank in 1963 as well — its radioactivity today is only a small fraction of what it would have been at the time of its sinking. And it is pretty far down there — the equivalent of being 775 building stories or so underwater. ",
"People think that radiation is this super killer. You gotta be pretty damn close to radioactive material. The reason nuclear fallout is dangerous is because it spreads. A chunk of plutonium many miles under the middle of the ocean isn’t going to go anywhere.",
"Fun fact, you know those nuclear rod cooling pools, where spent fuel sits at the bottom of a tank for a while?\n\nYou can swim in those. \n\nThey're actually routinely serviced by human divers wearing nothing more serious than a wetsuit. Even though the fuel rods are dangerously radioactive, just a few feet of water is plenty of insulation.",
"It's worth noting the Thresher, although not recovered, has been found. It's 8400 ft down near Cape Cod. When a nuclear submarine is made, they take great care to securely encase the reactor. After the boat sank, they sent probes down to make sure the reactor was not damaged in such a way radiation was leaking. \n",
"Water is a very effective moderator (ELI5: blocks/absorbs neutron radiation). So effective, it's what is used to actually operate the reactor. \n\nUranium by itself isn't radioactive. Only when excited (extra energy added (extra neutron)) will it fission and release radiation and radioactive particles. Water will absorb neutrons and prevent the chain reaction from continuing.\n\nThis is a very simple answer, I'm at work and am not available to provide a more thorough answer.",
"ELI5 explanation: Seawater acts like a blanket and keeps the reactor from hurting anything, and also keeps it cool so it doesn't melt.\n\nELI15 explanation: Water is an incredible insulator against radiation, absorbing the neutrons released in fission (as in a uranium reactor). It's usually the method used for shielding spent fuel rods with a deep pool of water. In fact, it's much better at shielding against radiation than the air around you is. So, if you were to imagine losing a submarine. No, not losing, it disappeared, and left only it's radioactive core behind - the danger from direct radioactive waves is almost non-existent. You'd have to swim really close to it, but since we are talking about the ocean instead of a swimming pool we'll call it moot. Now, we do hear from time to time about radioactive waste poisoning streams and bodies of water, so if radioactive waves don't spread so well in water - then what's the problem? The danger comes from particles that are radioactive freely floating in the water, being ingested or otherwise into very close contact with living tissue and causing damage that way. So, we come back to the radioactive core on a submarine. I have to admit I have no idea how large one is, but if it's the size of a golf ball it's nothing to worry about. Furthermore, uranium is a metal solid at whatever temperature it operates at. If uncooled, it could melt, but in the ocean cooled by seawater it won't. Okay, but let's assume that both the submarine disappears and the uranium suddenly disintegrates into powder that floats through the water - and has buoyancy for some reason despite the fact that it's more dense than lead. Okay, so if our magic, floating uranium dust were only the size of a golf ball, in the ocean. Still no problem. If it we're the size of a small horse it would still likely be insignificant in damage - although at that point it may be inadvertently swallowed by fish. Even then it's an extremely isolated threat and unlikely to harm any humans unless it were to occur just offshore. The other potential danger is if it's recovered and used as fuel for a nuclear weapons. However, reactor fuel is less rich in Uranium-238 which is used for bombs, and much more of Uranium-235 (it has 3 less neutrons). Please someone correct me if I got the numbers wrong, I don't have them here with me. Uranium-235 is *much* more prevalent than 238 and produces plenty of heat for nuclear reactions. However, if you don't have enough 238, you can't reach critical mass where the nuclear reaction sustains itself and explodes. In other words, no bomb. Now you need a LOT of reactor material to refine enough of this \"weapons-grade\" uranium. For that, you'll need a lot of submarines. \n\nNow, maybe the sub was a missile boat and had nuclear missiles on board. That could actually be worrisome. I bet they'd be worried then.\n\ntl;dr - if you're planning on losing a nuclear reactor, there's not much better places to do it than at sea.",
"Lots of answers explaining why it's basically impossible for it to hurt anyone. But, for fun, here's a scenario where it COULD hurt someone:\n\nFirst, the submarine would need to not just sink, but actually suffer some kind of catastrophic damage that would get the nuclear fuel rapidly dispersed into the water. One possible way this could happen is if the submarine's reactor melted down, which is when the reactor core gets too hot and melts, producing a molten mass of fuel and other stuff that might be able to melt its way out through the hull. Now, this is super unlikely, because nuclear subs are very carefully designed so that their reactors won't melt down. But if it did somehow happen (perhaps due to the reactor operator(s) going insane and doing everything they could to bypass safety measures and deliberately melt the reactor down), then a bunch of molten nuclear fuel could melt its way free of the submarine and out into the water. Small bits of radioactive material would then be dispersed in the water. And suppose that a bunch of fish happen to be passing through the area at just that moment, before the stuff has time to disperse, and the fish ingest water containing radioactive material. And then immediately get caught by a deep sea fishing vessel, before they have time to die of radiation poisoning. And then they get sold to consumers who eat the radioactive fish. Then you might be in trouble.\n\nBut that's really, really unlikely."
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6ygnw9 | how can hurricane hunters fly into irma and not get torn apart or thrown into the ocean in the 175+ mph winds? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6ygnw9/eli5_how_can_hurricane_hunters_fly_into_irma_and/ | {
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"Hurricanes have very strong winds, but those winds are basically parallel to the ground. There's no downward draft that makes flying through other storms so dangerous. So while the plane's path will be offset by the strong winds, there's not as much risk about the winds forcing the plane into the sea. And remember that many planes typically fly at speeds exceeding 200 mph and are designed to hold together at those speeds. The groundspeed might be low if flying directly against the incoming air, but as far as the plane is concerned, it's flying as normal.",
"It's a rough flight, definitely. But surprisingly enough, it's not as turbulent as you would think. The winds are fairly constant in speed and direction and there's not a lot of updrafts and downdrafts to toss you around like if you were flying into a summer thunderstorm.\n\nSure, there's been a few times where the hunters from both NOAA and the AF Reserve planes have been tossed around good, but that's only been a few instances vs the hundreds of eye penetrations they've done.\n",
"If you were to roll down the window of your airliner and stick your hand out, the wind would be about 600mph. 175 is nothing, in fact it's about the speed those things takeoff at. They can barely fly with wind over the wing that slow. \n\n The thing with planes is, yes they make their own wind by flying fast, but they also drift along with whatever the local wind is doing. Imagine you're running indoor laps on an ocean liner. You run and run and the only speed you feel is your own, the only wind on your face caused by your own running (regardless of what direction your pointed, you are running laps), and you're completely oblivious to how fast the ocean liner is going because you're getting carried along with it. The ocean liner is to you what the jet stream or hurricane or any wind is to an airliner: something that carries you along that you don't even notice unless it abruptly changes speed or direction. If you stick your hand out while running laps or flying, the only wind speed you'll feel is your own.\n\n Now you won't feel the wind of a hurricane because you're drifting with it, but you will feel when it changes speed or direction because you'll get pushed and shoved until you're drifting in the new speed and direction, just like an ocean liner turning sharply might push you around uncomfortably. In a hurricane that speed and direction changes approximately once every constantly, so it'll be a bumpy ride for sure.\n\n ",
"First of all, these are specially trained pilots. Second, they are in specially designed aircraft. Third, They are able to travel WITH the hurricane, whereas other aircraft are trying to get to a fixed point on the ground and have to fight against the hurricane. ",
"Here's a great video explaining how the winds in a hurricane affect a plane differently than the winds of a thunderstorm: _URL_0_\n\nBasically, a thunderstorm has incredible vertical wind shears while a hurricane has much more predictable, horizontal shears. ",
"Since the question has already been sufficiently answered, allow me to input my reasoning just for shits and giggles: How can they fly into a hurricane and not die? Because the P-3 Orion is a beast, that's why."
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2g0aea | how does light 'nearly stop'? | The professor in [this article](_URL_0_) says the light is 'nearly touchable'.
How can it be, if it has no mass? That would go against e=mc^2! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2g0aea/eli5_how_does_light_nearly_stop/ | {
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"'c' is the speed of light in vacuum, that still remains a constant. Every where else, light has a slightly lesser speed than that. That is the basis of refraction. Velocity of light changes when it hits a different media. \n\nThey happened to create a substance with a refractive index so high that its velocity dropped to 38 mph. Nearly touchable is metaphorical. The substance (condensate) is suspended in a high vacuum with strong electromagnetic field. And its close to absolute zero (quoting the article \"billion times colder than the spaces between the stars\") . So, touching it *might* not be a good idea.\n\nThe researcher means that they slowed it down enough from its heavenly speeds, that they now see it as down to earth."
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7tnqbo | in assessing how much x dollars was worth a century ago, do economists account for the relative scarcity of resources from back then? | In other words, wouldn’t a million dollars, even adjusted, buy a lot more (e.g., real estate) back then versus today? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7tnqbo/eli5_in_assessing_how_much_x_dollars_was_worth_a/ | {
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"Adjusting for inflation is usually done by using various indexes, such as the Retail Price Index. The way inflation is calculated dependent on the guy doing it. It may include anything from the price of milk to the average price of a house. So there is some variability, and it may not be entirely accurate. Especially the further we go back in time. \n\nFurthermore, the economy being a complex beast, even the price of milk would have been, to an extent, affected by real estate prices. ",
"What you're looking for is called 'purchasing power parity' or the amount of stuff you can buy with a given sum of inflation/currency adjusted dollars.\n\nBy that measure, for example, China is more prosperous than the USA. It's not that they earn more in terms of US dollars, it's that things are so much cheaper there that the average Chinese can buy more 'stuff' than an average American.\n\nSo if you make 5$ a day but your rent is 1$ you are 'richer' than someone who makes 10$ a day but pays 5$ in rent.\n\nI am not aware of any historical studies comparing purchasing power parity at various stages in history. Such a study would be subject to a lot of guesswork and would be politically unpopular because it would show that the USA's wages peaked in the 70's and have been going down since."
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5dyc9v | why wont a country produce more and more currency notes and use it for their welfare? is there someone stopping them from doing so? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5dyc9v/eli5why_wont_a_country_produce_more_and_more/ | {
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"Yes, it's called \"inflation\". You print too much money, and inject it into the economy, and it makes your entire currency lose value. You need to control how much money exists in the market. \n\nTake a look at Zimbabwe for an example of what happens when inflation gets out of hand. ",
"Currency notes don't really have a fixed value, when more is produced, the value of the note goes down, which is what we call inflation. If a country just suddenly printed a lot of money, people don't value it as much, causing the prices of different goods and services to go up. So even though people have more money, the prices of everything goes up, so people still won't be able to buy things they couldn't buy before.\n\nLet's say a group of 5 people lived on an island, with 100 coins among them. Joe usually sells his fish for 5 coin each, but Kevin thinks people on the island are too poor to afford Joe's fish, so he makes 900 more coins to make everyone rich. Now the island has a total of 1000 coins, with an average of 200 coins per person. If Joe still sold his fish for 5 coins, he'd be out of fish really quickly, so he has to raise the price of his fish to 50 coins, and everyone who couldn't afford his fish still can't afford his fish."
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1p9v4y | how did calendars developed thousands of years ago such as the julian calendar keep track of time so efficiently? | I'm not entirely sure how I came up with this question, but is just something which would be interesting to find out about.
I can't say I'm an expert in old calendars, but they used to keep track of years right? Well if so how did they exactly know when one year ended and another began, with no technology and little knowledge of astronomy. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1p9v4y/eli5_how_did_calendars_developed_thousands_of/ | {
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"Actually, they didn't get it quite right, to the point where they had to eliminate about 10 days in the fall, about 500 years ago, to correct the accumulating error.\n\nSide note: I had an astronomy profession in college (where I learned about this) who also taught history. One of her favorite exam questions was, \"What notable event occurred on Oct 12, 1523 ?\" (not sure of the exact date). This was a day that never existed."
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184863 | why do my teeth hurt when i hear a high pitched noise such as chalk on a blackboard? | You all know that horrible squeaking sound that chalk on a chalk board can make. Why does that a) make your teeth hurt, and b) cause a shiver down your spine. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/184863/eli5_why_do_my_teeth_hurt_when_i_hear_a_high/ | {
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"As far as I know, there are a lot of guesses, but nobody knows for sure.\n\nThe best hypothesis I've heard is this:\n\nImagine biting down on a piece of grit, like if there was sand in a sandwich. You should get a similar sensation. That's (maybe) because teeth don't really regrow from being scraped or cracked, so our bodies needed a way to instantly let us know that something is wrong. It has to be done through the sound of biting on grit because our teeth can't feel grit.\n\nSo basically, we (maybe) don't like the chalkboard noise because it sounds like chewing rocks.",
"I was thinking about that yesterday when I told my parents my pants were so roughly textured, it made my teeth hurt even thinking about running my hands across them. I'd love to know why, my whole family thinks I'm crazy now!",
"This doesn't happen to many people, and as far as I know there's no actual research on this.\n\nWhat's probably happing is your teeth don't actually hurt, but when your brain receives loud high-pitched noises that signal gets mixed with other parts of your brain so it thinks it feels pain from your teeth when it doesn't.\n\nBrains are weird like that, as they can often get signals crossed and make you feel things that aren't there. For example some people who have limbs amputated [still feel sensations like pain from the limb even though it's not there](_URL_0_), the brain is just making the pain up.",
"I get this with styrofoam, makes it a real bitch to open packages",
"This is referred pain. There are nerves running near your eardrums and into your teeth. If you are sensitive in that area you can trigger a reaction that results in pain anywhere along that nerve."
]
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[],
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_limb"
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2v2vk3 | if water is made up of hdrogen and oxygen, then why does my bottled water have magnesium, potassium, calcium etc? | EDIT: Hydrogen, not Hdrogen... | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2v2vk3/eli5_if_water_is_made_up_of_hdrogen_and_oxygen/ | {
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"Water is H2O.\n\nIn nature, you're never going to find absolutely pure water - it will always have various minerals dissolved in it, based on the ground it was in. This is good because absolutely pure water tastes like the inside of your mouth.\n\nAbsolutely pure water is also not very good for you - it'll throw off your electrolyte balance something fierce.\n\nSo, even your purified bottled water has some trace minerals from it's source & probably others added in there for taste. Trust me, you want them there.",
"You're probably drinking mineral water. Magnesium, Potassium and Calcium are minerals, so it makes sense that they'd be in it."
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[],
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mc4cd | why can't/shouldn't we go back to the gold standard? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/mc4cd/eli5_why_cantshouldnt_we_go_back_to_the_gold/ | {
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"Gold is a luxury item. Only 10% of gold is used for manufacturing or technical purposes, the rest is used in vanity goods like jewelry or hoarded as an investment. Therefor, its value is perceived rather than practical, and as such the price is subject to whims. (See: gold rising to insane levels as people fear an economic meltdown.) By basing your currency on the stability of your government rather than a finite resource, you open up a lot more flexibility in terms of monetary policy. Also, since governments generally move slow and avoid drastic measures, the value of the currency remains relatively stable over long periods of time, which commodities like gold and oil do not.\n\nShort version: Businesses like it when the value of a dollar is stable. It's a lot harder to maintain stability if your currency is tied to a finite resource.",
"This short piece by Paul Krugman nicely summarizes why just reverting back to the gold standard is not a good idea:\n\n_URL_0_",
"Your looking at it wrong the price of gold has not really gone up much over the years. It's the value of the dollar has gone down. A new car today would cost roughly that same as a new car 40 years ago, in gold.\n\n_URL_0_",
"Imagine your class goes on a field trip to the Bermuda Triangle. You get on the boat and you're on your way, but suddenly the radar goes awry, and you lose all contact with the rest of the world. You, your class and your teacher crash on an uncharted island.\n\n\nYou manage to survive by dividing up the tasks such as gathering food, making a shelter and cooking among those of you who do it best, and soon you have a tiny village with farmers, warriors, clothmakers, and fishermen. Your teacher keeps the peace and helps guide the situation.\n\n\nNow, the bakers need clothes and the clothesmakers need bread, so they start by exchanging one good for another. But sometimes a clothesmaker wants only one bread, and the breadmaker doesn't need cloth at all! So the solution is to use something different, like stones, to measure the value of everything relative to everything else. Only it can't be stones, because they are everywhere and everybody would be a millionaire. It needs to be something the's a limited amount of. One kid has an idea: Let's use pogs! Everyone has at least a few pogs they brought on their field trip, and they can't be made by the kids. Pog-based currency means you have a more or less fixed and predictable amount of money going around. So the kids start buyong and selling stuff by changing pogs. The pogs aren't valuable in themselves, they simply represent value, like the work the baker did in transforming the wheat into bread.\n\n\nThere's this one kid that had brought his huge pog collection with him. This kid, whom we'll call Richard, starts lending pogs to people that need money, in exchange for a few extra pogs when he's paid back. He's giving pogs in the present in exchange for a promise of pogs in the future, and the price for that exchange, the extra pogs that need to be paid back, is called the INTEREST. Soon, he starts borrowing pogs from people who have extra pogs and lending them to kids who need some, and giving the lenders part of his interest. When he borrows 10 pogs, for example, he writes in a little piece of paper the words \"I.O.U. 10 Pogs\" and gives it to the lender.\n\n\nThe lender now has a little I.O.U. Suppose he needs to buy some bread. Instead of pogs, he can pay with the piece of paper, since it means that Richard owes him those pogs, and everyone knows Richard has a lot of pogs! Anyone with that piece of paper can go up to Richard and ask for their pogs. So the paper is as good as the pogs themselves.\n\n\nSoon, the pogs stop circulating (Only a few kids have some) and what goes around is the little _URL_0_. Once the pogs are gone from the normal life, Richard can lend more money than he borrows, as long as he's sure that a) He will be paid back and b) Not everyone will ask for their money at the same time.\n\n\nOne terrible day, however, the kids wake up to a horrible event. The news starts going around: A bear has destroyed a house and eaten a kid!! Oh no! What if the bear goes around and eats everyone? Nobody wants to spend their money, because they may need it tomorrow. The baker stops buying clothes, the clothes maker doesn't get the baker's money, so he doesn't buy fish, and the fisherman has no money to buy bread. With nobody buying bread, the baker doesn't have enough money to buy wood from the lumberjack to make more bread. Not knowing if he's gonna find work tomorrow, the lumberjack saves all his money too. So everyone in the village is going hungry!\n\n\nSuddenly everyone panics. What happens if the bear eats Richard and nobody knows where he has hidden all the pogs?? Everyone would lose all their money! So the kids start going to Richard and asking him for their pogs. Richard panics, because he doesn't have enough pogs for everyone, which means only eight or ten kids will have their pogs back and the rest will be ruined!\n\n\nThe teacher sees this, and what does he do? He tells Richard to raise his interest rates. He says: Wait! If you leave your pogs with Richard, he will give you even MORE pogs when it's paid back! So many kids see this as a good deal, and leave their pogs there.\n\n\nHowever, what the teacher should do, ideally, is put MORE money out there, so that the kids can feel they can spend and still have something for emergencies. If that happened, the kids would buy bread again, which would make the baker buy clothes again, and everything would return to normal. The way to put more money out there is to lower interest rates, so the kids want to take out their money and spend it. But that would crash the economy!\n\n\nSo the teacher is in a dilemma, becuase by keeping interest rates high, she is keep the children hungry, at the time they most need the money. But if she lowers the rates, she sends the economy crashing down when Richard goes out of pogs to pay the kids back. What to do?\n\n\nClearly, the only solution is to dispose of pogs altogether and treat the _URL_0_ themselves as money, backed only by the promise of repayment by Richard. That way, the teacher can write more _URL_0_ and pay the kids with those, making them feel richer and more willing to spend. So the teacher does, and though kids are scared they've lost their pogs forever, the dilemma is solved and the kids live happily ever after in their island in the Bermuda Triangle. The End.\n\n\nPogs = Gold, Richard = Central Bank, Teacher = Government. The stagnation experienced by the kids is the Great Depression, from which we collectively moved on after we renounced the Gold Standard. In a word, the Gold Standard is all well and good in a normal economy, but in a recession, it creates that dilemma, which keeps pushing the economy further and further down. The Great Depression would've only been a minor recession had it not been for the Central Banks raising interest rates and adding fuel to the fire.",
"Gold is a luxury item. Only 10% of gold is used for manufacturing or technical purposes, the rest is used in vanity goods like jewelry or hoarded as an investment. Therefor, its value is perceived rather than practical, and as such the price is subject to whims. (See: gold rising to insane levels as people fear an economic meltdown.) By basing your currency on the stability of your government rather than a finite resource, you open up a lot more flexibility in terms of monetary policy. Also, since governments generally move slow and avoid drastic measures, the value of the currency remains relatively stable over long periods of time, which commodities like gold and oil do not.\n\nShort version: Businesses like it when the value of a dollar is stable. It's a lot harder to maintain stability if your currency is tied to a finite resource.",
"This short piece by Paul Krugman nicely summarizes why just reverting back to the gold standard is not a good idea:\n\n_URL_0_",
"Your looking at it wrong the price of gold has not really gone up much over the years. It's the value of the dollar has gone down. A new car today would cost roughly that same as a new car 40 years ago, in gold.\n\n_URL_0_",
"Imagine your class goes on a field trip to the Bermuda Triangle. You get on the boat and you're on your way, but suddenly the radar goes awry, and you lose all contact with the rest of the world. You, your class and your teacher crash on an uncharted island.\n\n\nYou manage to survive by dividing up the tasks such as gathering food, making a shelter and cooking among those of you who do it best, and soon you have a tiny village with farmers, warriors, clothmakers, and fishermen. Your teacher keeps the peace and helps guide the situation.\n\n\nNow, the bakers need clothes and the clothesmakers need bread, so they start by exchanging one good for another. But sometimes a clothesmaker wants only one bread, and the breadmaker doesn't need cloth at all! So the solution is to use something different, like stones, to measure the value of everything relative to everything else. Only it can't be stones, because they are everywhere and everybody would be a millionaire. It needs to be something the's a limited amount of. One kid has an idea: Let's use pogs! Everyone has at least a few pogs they brought on their field trip, and they can't be made by the kids. Pog-based currency means you have a more or less fixed and predictable amount of money going around. So the kids start buyong and selling stuff by changing pogs. The pogs aren't valuable in themselves, they simply represent value, like the work the baker did in transforming the wheat into bread.\n\n\nThere's this one kid that had brought his huge pog collection with him. This kid, whom we'll call Richard, starts lending pogs to people that need money, in exchange for a few extra pogs when he's paid back. He's giving pogs in the present in exchange for a promise of pogs in the future, and the price for that exchange, the extra pogs that need to be paid back, is called the INTEREST. Soon, he starts borrowing pogs from people who have extra pogs and lending them to kids who need some, and giving the lenders part of his interest. When he borrows 10 pogs, for example, he writes in a little piece of paper the words \"I.O.U. 10 Pogs\" and gives it to the lender.\n\n\nThe lender now has a little I.O.U. Suppose he needs to buy some bread. Instead of pogs, he can pay with the piece of paper, since it means that Richard owes him those pogs, and everyone knows Richard has a lot of pogs! Anyone with that piece of paper can go up to Richard and ask for their pogs. So the paper is as good as the pogs themselves.\n\n\nSoon, the pogs stop circulating (Only a few kids have some) and what goes around is the little _URL_0_. Once the pogs are gone from the normal life, Richard can lend more money than he borrows, as long as he's sure that a) He will be paid back and b) Not everyone will ask for their money at the same time.\n\n\nOne terrible day, however, the kids wake up to a horrible event. The news starts going around: A bear has destroyed a house and eaten a kid!! Oh no! What if the bear goes around and eats everyone? Nobody wants to spend their money, because they may need it tomorrow. The baker stops buying clothes, the clothes maker doesn't get the baker's money, so he doesn't buy fish, and the fisherman has no money to buy bread. With nobody buying bread, the baker doesn't have enough money to buy wood from the lumberjack to make more bread. Not knowing if he's gonna find work tomorrow, the lumberjack saves all his money too. So everyone in the village is going hungry!\n\n\nSuddenly everyone panics. What happens if the bear eats Richard and nobody knows where he has hidden all the pogs?? Everyone would lose all their money! So the kids start going to Richard and asking him for their pogs. Richard panics, because he doesn't have enough pogs for everyone, which means only eight or ten kids will have their pogs back and the rest will be ruined!\n\n\nThe teacher sees this, and what does he do? He tells Richard to raise his interest rates. He says: Wait! If you leave your pogs with Richard, he will give you even MORE pogs when it's paid back! So many kids see this as a good deal, and leave their pogs there.\n\n\nHowever, what the teacher should do, ideally, is put MORE money out there, so that the kids can feel they can spend and still have something for emergencies. If that happened, the kids would buy bread again, which would make the baker buy clothes again, and everything would return to normal. The way to put more money out there is to lower interest rates, so the kids want to take out their money and spend it. But that would crash the economy!\n\n\nSo the teacher is in a dilemma, becuase by keeping interest rates high, she is keep the children hungry, at the time they most need the money. But if she lowers the rates, she sends the economy crashing down when Richard goes out of pogs to pay the kids back. What to do?\n\n\nClearly, the only solution is to dispose of pogs altogether and treat the _URL_0_ themselves as money, backed only by the promise of repayment by Richard. That way, the teacher can write more _URL_0_ and pay the kids with those, making them feel richer and more willing to spend. So the teacher does, and though kids are scared they've lost their pogs forever, the dilemma is solved and the kids live happily ever after in their island in the Bermuda Triangle. The End.\n\n\nPogs = Gold, Richard = Central Bank, Teacher = Government. The stagnation experienced by the kids is the Great Depression, from which we collectively moved on after we renounced the Gold Standard. In a word, the Gold Standard is all well and good in a normal economy, but in a recession, it creates that dilemma, which keeps pushing the economy further and further down. The Great Depression would've only been a minor recession had it not been for the Central Banks raising interest rates and adding fuel to the fire."
]
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6etxlb | why is friction not consistent when the objects causing friction change speed? | An example. The old pulling of the table cloth trick. Pull it with enough speed and accuracy and the plates, cutlery, table decorations stay in place (or near enough). Pull the table cloth slowly and all items fall to the ground. Why is this? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6etxlb/eli5_why_is_friction_not_consistent_when_the/ | {
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"An intuitive picture of friction between surfaces looks like the following:\n\nFriction between surfaces is caused by them not being smooth enough, so if you zoom in, you see bumps all over the place on the surface. There are ridges and troughs and it's generally really bumpy.\n\nNow when two bumpy surfaces are brought together, they sort of snap into one another. The crests of the upper surface snap into the troughs of the lower surface, and vice versa. This 'snapping' of surfaces needs to be undone if you want to slide the two surfaces relative to each other.\n\nThis is the reason **why static friction, the friction between surfaces at rest, is larger than kinetic friction, the friction between moving surfaces.** For two surfaces at rest, the microscopic crests and troughs are snapped tightly together, whereas for two moving surfaces, the two surfaces are not snapped so perfectly. They are going to slide over each other in a bumpy way because the surfaces are still microscopically bumpy, but if the two surfaces are sliding faster than the microscopic crests/troughs can snap into each other, you won't be needing as much force as if you were starting the motion, ie more force is needed to unsnap everything, less force is needed to keep the bumpy sliding(ie only snapping a bit but not completely) going on.\n\nIf you understood the picture above, then what happens in the trick you mentioned becomes apparent: **the snapping between the microscopic surface crests/troughs doesn't have enough time to go all the way if you are pulling the table cloth fast enough, resulting in less friction.** Whereas if you pull the tablecloth slowly, more snapping will happen. It may not snap completely as in the case between two stationary surfaces, but it is still more than when you are pulling it quickly, thus more friction when you are pulling the cloth slowly."
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4ejp17 | how does one explain sight to a blind person and sound to a deaf person? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4ejp17/eli5_how_does_one_explain_sight_to_a_blind_person/ | {
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"I'm not sure that this is something that could be easily explained in a single comment. However, the NPR podcast Invisibilia did do an episode on the blind and how they \"see\". It turns out, blind people who use echolocation have the same parts of their brains activated as people with sight do when they are echolocating. They essentially have a three dimensional sense of space inside their heads.\n\n_URL_0_",
"I once told a blind person I was helping down the street that the color brown was a \"cool\" color and that it was the color of the dirt under the grass. She seemed pretty happy with that. ",
"Connect the senses to another sense. The color red looks like the way a cherry or strawberry tastes. The color yellow looks like the way a lemonhead candy tastes."
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be2if0 | what is a runtime library in programming? | I'd love an explanation, even more so if it were to maintain the convention of this subreddit (explain like I'm a 5-year old because that's basically how intelligent I am!). Perhaps it's ambiguous these days, so I am referring to something like the Java Runtime Environment or Node.js.
Thanks! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/be2if0/eli5_what_is_a_runtime_library_in_programming/ | {
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"Lets say you have a stack of post-it notes. On each post it note, you have a header like 'How to Clean the Dishes' followed by a step by step instructions. You have post it notes for every possible thing you need to do on a daily basis. You stack them neatly and staple them together. Congrats, you just created a library. You can now hand that stack of post-it notes to anyone you want and they will now know exactly how to clean the dishes in the exact same way that you decided to. Now, they may do it differently with the same exact results and that's fine, the post-it note they create with the totally different steps will still work for you and anyone else. \n\n\nThat's about as ELI5 I can get without defining what functions (each post-it) are.",
"Wikipedia seems to think of a runtime libary as the small bit of code inserted at the start of a C program to set a few things up before the main portion of the program runs, but I'm not sure how that translates to the JRE or Node.js. That said,\n\nSome programs are called native binaries. These contain instructions made to run on your CPU. When you run such a program, your operating system loads the program into main memory and then the CPU fetches the instructions in your program from main memory and runs it. For Java programs, this is different. In this case, the instructions can not be run directly by your CPU. They're in a different language. To run them, you need to first load the Java Runtime Environment, which are themselves native binaries, which load your Java program and interprets the instructions. \"Runtime,\" in general, and especially for the examples you give, is used to refer to this massive system required to run particular programs such as Java programs. Runtime is synonymous with bulky and do some other things while your program is running such as automatically recycling memory that is no longer used, which can be slow. This is in contrast to a native binary which requires virtually no runtime and starts immediately."
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64h104 | what would happen to your body during a prolonged use of an nsaid? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/64h104/eli5_what_would_happen_to_your_body_during_a/ | {
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"Since it is excreted via the kidneys, prolonged use can result in a condition known as chronic interstitial nephritis. Its a type of kidney disease. \n\nPlease consult a doctor regarding long term medication useage to prevent possible complications.",
"Correct me if I am wrong. Your stomach is full of acid, it helps break food down into smaller bits. That acid is not good at breaking down mucus. Your stomach creates mucus to act as a buffer between the acid and your stomach lining. NSAIDs affect that mucus production. If you no longer have that mucus your acid can break down the stomach itself causing what's called an ulcer. ",
"NSAIDS block a step in a biochemical pathway involved in your body's inflammatory response. The step that is blocked is mediated by an enzyme called cyclooxygenase (COX for short). A product of the Cox pathway is a class of molecules called prostaglandins. Prostaglandins are needed to maintain the mucosal lining in your stomach so that your stomach essentially doesn't digest itself. This is why a major complication of chronic NSAID use is stomach ulcers. Another complication is kidney problems that was already mention. ",
"PA here. The main side effects of NSAIDs: \n\n1. Stomach trouble. NSAIDs (except Celebrex) reduce your stomach's ability to build its mucosal protection, allowing stomach acid to first irritate and then damage the stomach lining. NSAID-induced gastritis and ulcers are a thing.\n\n2. Kidney trouble. NSAIDs are excreted through the kidneys, and long-term use, especially by someone who already has sick kidneys (like diabetics) can cause failure. Change your NSAID periodically to mitigate this effect, and get blood labs to check in with them. \n\n3. Blood thinning. NSAIDs interfere with platelets and reduce your ability to clot. This is why people at risk of cardiac disease take baby aspirin. But heavy NSAID use can cause bruising and definitely shouldn't be done if you're on a blood thinner already.\n\nAnd of course, people can be allergic. People who already have asthma seem to be particularly susceptible to airway reactions from NSAIDs.\n\nThere's a long list of other, less common side effects, but these are the major problems often encountered when we give NSAIDs to a patient on a long-term basis.",
"Seems like a good place to ask people in this thread. I've been taking ibuprofen for headaches 2-3 times a week (give or take) for about 17 years. Started using it exclusively because Tylenol, Aspirin and naproxen sodium never seem to work to stop my headaches. In the last few years I've had to up the dosage to 1200 mg just to get any relief at all. Sometimes I take this dose twice a day if the first round didn't work. Am I putting myself at risk? "
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189ii6 | the difference between a small forward, power forward and center in basketball | Funny enough I was watching the Knicks with my son and he asked this question (he's 7). I was having trouble with explaining it simply enough for him to get it. So I'm turning to Reddit. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/189ii6/eli5_the_difference_between_a_small_forward_power/ | {
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"This is the way it used to be.\n\nThe center is your tallest player, and s/he stands under the basket to help his or her team score and stop the other team scoring. Dunks. Close shots. Close to the center of the rim.\n\nThe power forward is your next tallest player... not as huge but still very big. Helps get rebounds. Backs up the center. Stays close to the rim.\n\nThe small forward is right in the middle. Not the tallest, not the smallest. But s/he can do it all. Stay outside and shoot. Help out with bigger players. \n\nThe shooting guard is your teams best scorer. Most of the time, the shooting guard tries to get open and the whole team works to help him or her.\n\nThe point guard is your teams best passer and can dribble the best, and starts every play.\n"
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qdiph | how the president of the united states affects gas prices. | I've seen these posts on Facebook where people are putting sticky notes on gas pumps saying things like
> Gas was under 2$ a gallon when Obama started, now look. How's the Hope and Change?
I've always listened to various family blame various things on the President but I'm not sure how he (or potentially a she in years to come) affects things like the oil price. He can't just sit there and think "Gee, gas is expensive. I should push the < Lower Gas Price > button to get reelected."
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/qdiph/eli5_how_the_president_of_the_united_states/ | {
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"He doesn't.\n\n_URL_0_"
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fi6t5m | what exactly did this giant bank stimulus (1.5 trillion) attempt to do in the united states? how is giving money to the banks going to help us , or the market for that matter? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fi6t5m/eli5_what_exactly_did_this_giant_bank_stimulus_15/ | {
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"Not 100% but I think its so banks can lend money to companies who will struggle over the next few months. Otherwise companies would be going bust and people would lose their jobs. It's to keep things ticking over. They're doing something similar in the UK so the banks can lend money with no interest. It's called the Business Interruption Loan. The government guarantees 80% of the loan.\n\nSource: girlfriend works for a bank."
]
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623f82 | why is america so far behind other countries when it comes to things like pto, maternity leave, etc? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/623f82/eli5_why_is_america_so_far_behind_other_countries/ | {
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"The United States is much more laissez-faire in regards to the economy than most other places. Anecdotally, a common response I've heard is that \"why should I have to pay for your decision to have a child?\" This refers to public sector (one's tax dollars are paying for it) and private sector employees. \n\nIt's also arguable that businesses have much greater influence in the United States vs. other developed countries due to their ability to extensively lobby members of government. These businesses, of course, would be opposed to being required to provide PTO and maternity leave. \n\nAnother reason is culture: in the US, many people don't use their existing PTO due to responsibilities at work. We as a culture make it acceptable to obligate ourselves to our work even when we could temporarily leave that job while getting paid. Significant social pressure could theoretically shame companies for pressuring individuals to not take their PTO and make this much less likely. \n\nThis culture can be traced back to the US as a wide open \"land of opportunity\" where significant effort is/was the only thing keeping you from any level of success you desired, or at least that's what we celebrate. It also doesn't help that many of the immigrants during the formative years of the country were from northern Europe, themselves known for work ethic, specifically the \"protestant work ethic,\" in which \"god helps those who help themselves.\" ",
"The government doesnt set that - Individual companies do so. Thats the way things were done post ww2, benefits came as part of compensation because the state wouldnt do it. Ie, california has much better worker rights than most states, 3 month maternity leave or something compared to 6 weeks in texas (making numbers up but its close)\n\nOn the other hand though, if you work for a very good company in an important role, no country can really beat the salary and compensation of an american engineer / banker / lawyer. Facebook offers like 150k salary + stock + benefits starting to new college grads. They offer paternity leave and will freeze your sperm/eggs for you as well",
"One answer to your question is that the Federal government was designed by the makers of the Constitution to leave as much responsibility to the states as possible. \n\nSome states are better than others on these issues. I live in California for example, and we have paid maternity leave, as well as paid family leave. The states that want to can and the states that don't want it don't have to have it. ",
"The wealthy have managed to convince the working class that the working class is evil and the cause of all their problems.",
"Because America is run by big corporations and lobbyists, who don't have the best interest for the working people at heart but their own."
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5pwdo9 | credit cards. apr, do's and don'ts, etc... | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5pwdo9/eli5_credit_cards_apr_dos_and_donts_etc/ | {
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"In the US, credit cards are a short term loan. For most cards, if you did not carry a balance from the previous statement, did not make any cash advances (withdrawing from a CC at an ATM), and pay the bill in full, no interest will be charged. \n\nAny balance not paid off by the statement deadline will be subject to the main Apr (or penalty Apr of a mayment was late or not made). Interest can be handled differently as to when it is applied, but many add interest monthly onto the next statement.\n\nCarrying a balance and paying anything less than the full statement balance is generally not advisible of you are still in good financial shape."
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24ikda | which is the single most nutritive food that exists? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/24ikda/eli5_which_is_the_single_most_nutritive_food_that/ | {
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"Technically? Human.\n\nContains 100% of what humans need to survive.",
"Soylent green. Everything a body needs"
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1wociz | how do babies not pass out from screaming/crying so much? | My boss brings her newborn in to work and I never realized how much and how loud babies are. When she screams and cries it's in such loud, long bursts I don't know she can sustain it without going horse or passing out. How is this possible? If I were to scream like that I would surely pass out, and I imagine it would be several days before I could speak again. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1wociz/eli5_how_do_babies_not_pass_out_from/ | {
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"It's exhausting...most infants will fall asleep after they (finally) calm down. For horseness, it does happen but if all you do is scream you get good at it. Babies are the marathon runners of the crying world. \n\nThey don't pass out because they're still breathing. You can see a really good scream coming because they have to pause to inhale. \n\nSource: four children"
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dh1jak | how does a virus know how to do all these intricate stuff if it is not a living thing? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dh1jak/eli5_how_does_a_virus_know_how_to_do_all_these/ | {
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"The virus is not living simply because it does not have independent metabolic and proliferative capacity. Which means, it cannot utilize bioenergy or create little viral \"kids.\" Bacteria for example can, they can use glucose, they can divide to make new bacteria, they can live independently. Viruses don't have any of these things, they're literally a cage made of protein which may or may not be surrounded by a membrane, and inside this cage is genetic material and possibly a few proteins. In order to keep making new viruses, it needs to infect a cell and use that cell's replicative machinery to read this genetic material it has and that then use that cells resources and protein making machines to make new viruses. A virus is essentially information, it imposes its information onto other organisms so they use it and make more of it. How did they evolve so well? It's because they mutate very easily due to the nature of their viral cycle, which means mistakes in making the new genetic material for the \"kids\" happen so often. And when mutations happen so often, and the genetic material is so small to begin with, you can explore a huge space of the evolutionary potential to generate all sorts of possibilities, and some are bound to make it better at spreading, which allows them to persist.\n\nI'll give you an even cooler pathogen. The prion. That's literally just one protein. We all have it. But if it folds the wrong way (a particular wrong way), it becomes lethal. It can change the shape of the other healthy prion proteins by \"touching\" them and then they can go on and spread more and like a domino's effect your brain is full of aggregates and you're dead. No one in the history of the world survived prion disease. And this simple small protein.. Can survive stomach acid, extreme heat (the infectivity can survive even 600 degrees), and can also survive gamma radiation which is ionizing. It can basically survive almost anything, and it's nowhere near being a living organism, yet it can kill anything that has a healthy prion protein in them (which is a huge portion of living beings).\n\nEdit: further info"
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4wpxhl | if our coastline is eroding, does that mean over thousands of years the whole earth with erode? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4wpxhl/eli5_if_our_coastline_is_eroding_does_that_mean/ | {
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"Erosion is just one method of changing the surface of the Earth. The material that is eroded from coastlines and mountains is deposited on planes and in the ocean. There is also subduction and obduction of the techtonic plates forming mountains ridges and oceans. All in all the material on Earth will not leave.",
"There are places where new land is being created. Islands can form in river deltas where silt and soil come from rivers, sandbanks from ocean waves, and of course volcanoes can make whole islands come right out of the sea.",
"Think about it this way. Erosion has been going on for billions of years. That means that if there were not a process to balance it out, all the landmass would already have eroded.\n\nThat balancing process is the formation of mountains via tectonic activity, volcanoes, rivers making sedimentary deposits, all sorts of stuff.",
"Erosion will cause the Earths features to change but the planet will not lose mass/material, in a couple of million years everything will still be here it will just look different.",
"**TL;DR: Rocks break, rocks move, and it happens over a VERY long period of time. Throw in some geology, and you've got your answer.**\n\n\n\nSenior Geology Undergraduate checking in. The easy answer is yes. There are two fundamental types of how the earth changes: weathering and erosion. You've obviously heard the term erosion; most of us have, because most publishers don't want their readers/listeners/viewers confusing the term \"weathering\" with \"weather\".\n\n\nWeathering actually describes the physical or chemical breakdown of a rock/mineral/geologic feature. Imagine taking a coffee mug, and hitting it with a hammer. You've changed the coffee mug into a pile of ceramic shards. This is an example of **weathering**.\n\n\nErosion, on the other hand, describes the *transport* of materials. Remember that coffee mug? Sweep that pile of shards to another part of the room. This transport is an example of **erosion**.\n\n\nNow, your question is actually *very* complicated. There's easy answers, not-so-easy answers, and mind boggling-ly hard answers. First, neither of these processes work alone. Erosion acts on the products of weathering. These processes work in conjunction with each other on the scale of hundreds of thousands/millions/billions of years. There are factors that play into this process as well; temperature, alkalinity and acidity, geologic setting, etc., which are all taken into account when measuring erosion.\n\n\nOn a heavier note... these processes aren't always natural. In fact, recent studies suggest that humans cause 10x more EROSION than natural processes due to anthropogenic (human-caused) development. [Here] (_URL_1_) is a quick summary of that idea which, although it's not a scientific journal, summarizes the factoid very well. This human-caused erosion really is doing a number on our environment, both on a short and long-term scale. Nature works in what are called \"feedback loops\", and this loop would go something like: \n\n\nIndustrial Revolution > rising methane & greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere > rising temperatures > stronger storms, higher sea levels and strengthening/weakening of ocean currents > stronger weathering processes > more bulk material available for transport > more erosion.\n\n\nI'm going to get off the climate change topic, simply because there are (unfortunately) people who do not believe in it, and it's not worth the argument.\n\n\nNow, back to your question. In a few THOUSAND years, nothing terribly substantial would happen. That said, on the scale of a few BILLION years, yes. \n\n\nRemember I mentioned feedback loops above? Well here's another more ELI15 term: closed systems. Essentially, a closed system is a system in which no materials are added and none are lost. In the grand scheme of things, the Earth itself is a closed system (NOTICE: I said GRAND SCHEME. There are instances in which materials/energy are added to the Earth's system, but overall we're closed.) This means that, over a given amount of time, all materials do get recycled. /u/Gnonthol mentioned subduction and obduction of tectonic plates. This is absolutely true. What does this mean? Well let's talk about it...\n\n\nIf you imagine the Earth as an egg, the shell of the egg would symbolize the outermost layer of the Earth, called the **crust**. There are other layers (the mantle, the outer core, and the inner core), but we're gonna focus on the crust and the UPPERMOST PART of the mantle, called the asthenosphere. The relationship between the crust and the asthenosphere is symbolized very well [here] (_URL_0_). See that the top of the oreo slides along the inner filling. The cookie portion of the oreo symbolizes the crust, and the filling the asthenosphere. Well, going back to subduction and obduction, the Earth's crust is made up of giant pieces of Oreo Cookie called \"Tectonic Plates\". These plates are numerous, and move. Some faster than others, some slower. These plates also have very specific densities. Because of this, plates with a higher density (usually oceanic plates) can slide *underneath* plates with a lower density (called continental plates). This is the process of **subduction*. The plate that rides on TOP of another plate undergoes **obduction**.\n\n\nWhere do the subducting plates go? Again, this is a very tough question. Overall, we KNOW that the plates descend into the mantle (remember the four layers?) From there... it's tricky and complicated. For ELI5-15 sake, they stay in the mantle, where the plates undergo melting; they melt at different depths based on the mineral content. Once melted, the magma (liquid rock in the Earth's interior), gets mixed around and redistributed. \n\n\n**\"How does this related to weathering and erosion???\"**\n\nNow is a great time to talk about what geologists refer to as the \"Rock Cycle.\" The rock cycle, as it suggests, is a way to visualize the relationships between the three types of rocks and how they're formed. We'll get to these in a moment.\n\n\nWell, now that the plates are melted and redistributed in the mantle, they actually have a process that delivers the material back to the Earth's surface: VOLCANISM. \n\n\nYes. Have you ever wondered what all of that hot, steaming red stuff coming out of a volcano is? That's all material that's been recycled from past tectonic plates. Once the magma reaches the surface, we refer to it as **lava**. This lava then cools to form was we call *igneous rocks*; i.e., rocks formed by cooling lava or magma. This is exactly how the Hawaiian Islands, and most other oceanic islands for that matter, were created. Turns out, once lava touches water, it cools rapidly, and crystallizes to solid rock.\n\n\nSo we've undergone a lot so far. Subduction, melting, redistribution, volcanism, solidification. Now we have solid rock. What did we talk about above that relates to solid rock? That's right: Weathering and Erosion! These rocks undergo the same exact processes. The big question is, \"where does all the material go?\" As it turns out, the Earth is covered by some really, really, REALLY big holes in the ground that are perfect places to store erosional material: oceans! Or, in geology speak, **basins**. \n\n\nAs materials weather off the mainland into the oceans, the **sediments** (particles of broken down rocks, minerals, organic material, etc.) settle to the bottom. Over many, many millions of years, these sediments undergo a series of geologic processes to form what we call *sedimentary rocks*. These are where we find most fossils, and we can actually use certain sedimentary rock *units*, and the sedimentary *structures* within them, to tell us a lot about past environments and environmental events. Now, as these rocks form, they actually begin to form on the top of incredibly thin layers of igneous rocks at the bottom of the ocean. These are our tectonic plates.\n\n\nWe've come full circle: these newly formed sedimentary and igneous rocks will undergo the same process of subduction we discussed earlier, and the process will begin again. \n\n\nWhew; that was pretty much 60% of my freshman year geology class tucked into one reddit post. I'm SURE I missed a bunch, so feel free to ask any questions you want. This was definitely more of an ELI15, but I hope you enjoyed a BRIEF intro to geology. It's really a fascinating area of study, and is more relevant today than it's been in recent years with climate change coming to the forefront of modern science. Cheers!\n\nninjaedit:formatting",
"Everything - coasts, mountains, etc., erode. But there are many mountain ranges that are actually growing, despite the erosion. This is through uplift of the earth and from things like volcanoes. \n\nSo while the earth changes, some areas will get higher, some lower, and erosion from the higher areas to the lower can actually expand the coastline. Like if you look at Louisiana, the coastline is eroding near New Orleans, but it is expanding near the mouth of the Atchaflaya river, because that river is dumping sediment into the ocean. ",
"Geology undergrad checking in. The short answer is no. The longer answer is kind of, but not quite in the way you're thinking and only in the most pedantic, technical sense.\n\nFirst, when we say our coastlines are eroding, what we're actually talking about is *weathering* (breaking large pieces into smaller pieces) **and** *erosion* (moving those smaller pieces away). As it happens, moving water is really good at both weathering and eroding, so coastlines are a great place to think about this stuff happening.\n\nThe next thing we need to know is just a little plate tectonics. The continents and oceans sit on giant slabs of rock called plates, which \"float\" on the molten rock in the mantle. Oceanic plates and continental plates are made of different stuff, which makes oceanic plates a little more dense than continental plates. That will be important later.\n\nSo these plates are sliding around, but they aren't all going in the same direction or at the same speed, which means sometimes they run into each other. When the plates run into each other, sometimes one plate will slide under the plate it ran into. This is called subduction. As a rule, continental plates will slide over the top of the oceanic plate because the continental plate is slightly less dense.\n\nSo lots of the *weathered* (smaller pieces) of coastline get dragged along with the oceanic plate as it slides under the continental plate and sinks into the mantle. \n\nSo if the coastline just keeps getting weathered, and those pieces are dragged down to the mantle, won't the continents eventually be broken down to the point where they're just tiny little islands and eventually be ground down to nothing? \n\nSomething funny happens at subduction zones (places where the oceanic crust slides under the continental crust and sinks into the mantle). Those plates rubbing together create an awful lot of friction, which makes enough heat to melt some of the rock. That melted rock (magma) wants to go up just like hot air, but the continental crust is in the way. So the lava pushes up on the continental crust and makes mountains, like the Sierra Nevadas in the western United States, or the Appalachian Mountains in the eastern US. Sometimes that magma manages to push all the way to the surface and come out of a volcano, and then it cools and turns into more rock.\n\nSo what about the oceanic crust? Will we ever run out of it? Nope. Turns out that in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean there's a place where the oceanic plate is pulling apart. Sometimes magma wells up into the gap and makes more oceanic crust in a process called *seafloor spreading*. \n\nSo to sum up, we'll never run out of coastline to break up because the volcanoes made by subduction will replace the continental crust, and we'll never run out out of subduction zones because seafloor spreading makes more oceanic crust. \n\n"
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a3339y | is there any scientific reason or scenario that you would use the term "dihydrogen monoxide" instead of "water"? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a3339y/eli5_is_there_any_scientific_reason_or_scenario/ | {
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"You are running an experiment where you are determining the makeup of water.\n\nYou are asked on a test to write out the chemical name of substances and one of them is water.\n\n\n\nedit, one of each, first sentence is a scientific reason and the second one is a scenario. ",
"Just \"water\" can have tiny little bits of other things in it. Like when it says on bottles in the store that it has \"healthy minerals\". That's ok, you won't notice if you drink it, and it won't hurt you. But for some things you need pure water without the \"bits\" in it.",
"No. The official name of the molecule as determined by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) is either \"water\" or \"oxidane\".\n\nThe \"dihydrogen\" label is systematic but almost every small group of atoms in chemistry is given a different name. Methane (CH4) is officially \"methane\" and not \"tetrahydrogen carbide\". It is expected that a common three-atom molecule such as H2O would go by its common name \"water\". ",
"Scenario would be making YouTube videos about people signing up a petition to ban DHMO and make ad money from it.",
"Usually you dont usually type the IUPAC name, that can be used to establish it but eventually people divert to a general name or chemichal formula. Especially since water is a universally known molecule everyone why knows what water is knows the formula (those reading the paper to learn) and so writing H2O is enough. Dometimes dH2O is also written to note that the water has been deionized and is pure/relatively pure water. ",
"If you're an eighth grade chemistry teacher, and want to throw a trick question at your students."
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7kzctx | how do serrated blades work? what about the serration makes them better than flat edge blades? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7kzctx/eli5_how_do_serrated_blades_work_what_about_the/ | {
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"They're used for sawing things like breads that would be smooshed with a sharp, non-serrated blade. They work the same way a saw works on wood.",
"The reason a knife is good at all at cutting something is down to pressure. The narrower and sharper an edge, the more pressure it puts on whatever is being cut. The blunter it is, the wider an area the force you're applying is spread so the less pressure there is at the point of the cut. \n\nA serrated edge lifts the main body of the knife up so it's resting on even narrower points, which increases the pressure even further, but has the added advantage that the cutting is being done on multiple points rather than one big point. So if you're cutting something soft, like say bread, it won't crush it down too much while cutting.\n\nThat's why [bread knives](_URL_0_) are shaped like they are. ",
"I'd say it's not 'better' as such, it's just designed for different cutting mechanism. \n\nThere is sharp cutting. Like knife through butter, diamond knife through steel, or sharp knife through meat. These ones, you want a nice clean cut, so normal blades are great.\n\nBut then there are 'sawing' cut. Like saw through wood, bread knife through bread, or paper cut. These mechanisms aim to 'rip off' more than cut the work piece. See if you tried to 'cut' wood, the knife would just get stuck in it because if its finite thickness. Bread knife aims to cut by 'ripping' because if a 'sharp knife' fails to cut either the crust or the soft part of the bread, the rest of the bread will get squashed; no body wants this! Paper cut tends to be accidents than by design I suppose, but this is why it hurts so much; it rips off bits of skin! but it heals better because there there is more for to 'hold on' to for healing. Cut by a knife will take little longer/will often reopen, because the clean cut will tend to concentrate any stress onto the healing plane!"
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1rea5k | why do some sounds sound more soothing than others? like why do some make me fall asleep versus making me tear my hair out? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1rea5k/eli5_why_do_some_sounds_sound_more_soothing_than/ | {
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"It's all about overtones. [This video is somewhat relevant and does a pretty good job explaining them.](_URL_0_)\n\nBasically, sounds that have the same pitch (how high or low the sound is) can have different timbres (characters of sounds - think of a tuba and a guitar playing the same note - they have the same pitch but different timbres) because most sounds that sound like one pitch are actually made of lots of different pitches. Changing the way these pitches are combined will make different timbres.",
"You'd have to be more specific.\n\nFor example, a Lion's roar is nerve racking because it's a fucking lion and can kill and eat you, versus the sound of a sleeping person's breathing being calming because obviously if somebody's asleep nearby then the area must be pretty safe to relax in.\n\nObviously, not all sounds have a place in basic human instinct, so whether a sound is soothing, irritating or terrifying is a reason unique to that sound or set of sounds.",
"I can't speak to every sound and tone that people find pleasing or unpleasant. I can mention a few things, though that I've heard in the past:\n\nSounds like \"shhh\" are soothing, to babies, at least, because they remind them of being in the womb. Dunno if we retain much of that proto-memory though...\n\nSounds that resemble those of carnivorous animals remind us of predators that might've eaten us in the past. So we're hard wires to find them unpleasant and seek to avoid them.\n\nSounds that resemble crying babies we absolutely cannot stand. Crying babies are absolutely intolerable, probably to encourage us to be attentive to baby's needs. So much so, in fact, that when DARPA (or maybe it was ARPA) was looking into ways to torture people the worst audio they could generate was 1 part nails-across-chalkboard, and 2 parts crying baby played backwards."
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xci02 | what is a ".dll", how does it work and what use does it have. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/xci02/eli5_what_is_a_dll_how_does_it_work_and_what_use/ | {
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"A DLL is a library of methods the you can call upon within your program.\n\nLet's say you've got a game, and you need alot of calculations, you can import a math .dll which would include all the methods you might need and you'll just call them each in turn.",
"**Like you're 5?** Okay, here we go. I will assume you, as the child, has a Windows computer and that's the only OS you know about.\n\nOn your computer, you have applications, or .exe files, that you run when you want to do something (like play a game or browse the web). Other people have jobs to make those applications by writing code. The details aren't important, they just write code (weird words and symbols you wouldn't understand) and then they \"build\" it and there you go! An .exe file you can run as an application!\n\nHowever, sometimes those people write code that doesn't do anything on its own, but can be used by the .exe files to make the application work. When they build that code, it doesn't come out as an .exe, but as a .dll, because it's not an application, it's an *application extension*. .dll files are used by .exe files (your games, web browsers, etc) to extend them and help them do things. Most applications you use every day require those extensions to work properly.\n\n**Not like you're 5?** Most .dll files contain code libraries, such as database engines, graphing capabilities, or 3D renderers. They represent reusable code that is not specific to any certain product or application, and are used because it would be stupid to write a database engine every time a new project came along. By adding a reference to the .dll file in your project, you have access to all of the classes and methods contained in the .dll. If you're curious how this works, here's an super-basic example in C#:\n\n using System;\n\n class Program {\n static void Main(params string[] args) {\n Console.WriteLine(\"Hello!\");\n }\n }\n\nThe \"using System;\" statement is a reference to the System.dll file, which contains the Console class. Without a reference to the System.dll file, I would not be able to use the Console.WriteLine method, which writes to the user's console in a command line application (I wrote \"Hello!\"). And that's how a programmer would use a .dll file when programming.",
"You know how your mother use the computer to call your army dad in Iraq somtimes and how you can see him in the video?\n\nAnd also sometimes your mom lets you play on that game site?\n\nAnd to do that she has to click on some graphics?\n\nWell both of those programs have a lot in common. They both have to send things over the internet and they both have to show it to you in a window.\n\nThere are people who make these programs, just like there are people who make food for your to eat, but the people who make the programs are really, really expensive -- it takes a long time to learn how to write these programs, so they make a lot of money -- and so to save time these people reuse parts of the same program several times.\n\nA .dll is essentially a part of one or more programs that have been isolated so that a lot of programs can use it. A .exe file is one program that can use any number of .dll files. Since .dll files are only parts of a program they cannot be used on their own whereas .exe files are programs and so can do things (but because parts of them are in .dll files, they also cannot work alone).",
"Lots of programs on your computer will want to do the same kind of things (eg, printing). So that the people who make the programs don't have to recreate all the functionality from scratch, the commons features are written once and kept in a DLL. A DLL can't be run on its own --- it is like a drill bit without the drill --- but a program can load it in to get the extra features that it offers.\n\nMany programs are in fact so big that they have a central part which is always running and many optional extras. These are often called \"plugins\" and they work in a similar fashion.\n\nMany DLLs are offered by the computer from the moment it arrives from the shop. Others can be added by installing extras later on. If a particular DLL does something badly (ie, has a \"bug\") the DLL can be replaced with an improved version and every program which uses it will seamlessly make use of this improvement.",
"DLLs are a lot like Legos. Think about the big green, flat lego piece that we pretend is grass. On its own, it doesn't do very much. It's just one big flat piece of plastic. But when we build things on top of it (like houses, or dinosaurs, or really cool castles with dragons and treasure), it becomes a very important part of the whole picture.\n\nBut the really cool thing about that big green flat piece is that we use it over and over and over again to make different scenes or to tell different stories. Today, we'll build a castle on it. But tomorrow, let's build a football stadium. And then maybe the day after that, we can build a truck stop or a space pad. Or maybe even the surface of an alien planet! All of that on this one big flat piece of lego! And I didn't have to grab a bunch of other little green bricks to make one flat surface. This one piece was already there, just waiting to be used.\n\nDLLs are a lot like that. They've been made to do a similar task in a variety of different settings. Some are responsible for painting pictures on the monitor. Others are responsible for playing sounds out of the speakers. And rather than having to create those lego bricks over and over again, we go back to the big bucket and pick out those pieces that already do it so we can use them to make something completely different. It saves us time and lets us get on to making the really cool stuff without having to worry about putting all those pieces together again."
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4jea4w | why is it so common for famous people to have been married multiple times? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4jea4w/eli5_why_is_it_so_common_for_famous_people_to/ | {
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"There are two reasons I can identify:\n\nThe first is that high-profile individuals have unusual wealth and influence. Marrying a famous person is a quick path to money and the high life, so many of the famous peoples' spouses don't really match up with them, resulting in incompatible marriages.\n\nThe second reason is that due to the tabloid-style media that exists today, celebrities live highly documented lives. So, if there is marital trouble or a divorce among the famous, it is more likely that you hear about it. The frequency of celebrity divorces might be exaggerated by how much our media exposes us to their personal lives. You wouldn't hear nearly as often about functional famous couples.",
"Regular people remarry several times as well, you just hear about the celebrity ones more often. I know several people how have married twice or thrice. ",
"I am by no means caught up on popular culture, but I do know that the divorce rate among US couples is around 50% for first marriages. So that carries over into celebrities as well. The ones you don't hear about are the ones that aren't having trouble. Take Jon Bon Jovi for example. He's been married to his high school sweetheart nearly his whole life, but you'd never hear about that. ",
"Imagine you're a male actor. You have fame, wealth and are most likely good looking. You have power. Now imagine a line a beautiful women swarming to sleep with you. Practically begging. \n\nMost guys don't have that problem. These celebrities do, whether they are married or not. Their ego is already inflated and the temptations to cheat on a girlfriend/wife are vast. ",
"You're just more likely to hear about it because they're famous and in the news, and tabloids aren't going to bother reporting on a celebrity couple that's been married for 30 or so years and doesn't seem to be having any marital problems. ",
"When you take money out of the equation, getting divorced and remarried is a much easier choice. They also give up faster on relationships than middle class people because they're used to changing lifestyles, moving to new places and in general, they just don't have the same kind of attachments to a town, community or house.\n\nAlso, it's easy for artists, musicians and performers in general to get a couple, since they're interesting and extroverted.",
"I'm pretty sure this hasn't been explicitly said, but the people you're thinking of have usually gotten to their fame because of an extreme commitment to their careers. The most popular actors and musicians at any given moment probably work 70-90 hours a week to get and stay at the top of the pack. That doesn't leave a lot of time for relationships. "
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6y3k4q | why was the space shuttle program considered so successful when two out of the six built exploded? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6y3k4q/eli5_why_was_the_space_shuttle_program_considered/ | {
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"Because four of them regularly took people INTO SPACE and brought them back without exploding.",
"They were incredibly dangerous!\n\nBut space capsules were incredibly dangerous too. Apollo 13 was the rare case that had a happy ending.\n\nShuttles were the first space planes. They were reusable crafts that took astronauts into space and normally brought them back safely.",
"In retrospect, it is now considered to have been a massive waste of money and time. We could have done the Apollo missions two times over with the amount that shuttle cost. Hell, we may have already gone to Mars several times had Nixon not scrapped the plans for a Venus flyby, at least two more moon missions, and a Mars landing. There were even plans to build a moonbase.\n\nWhat was supposed to be a cheap program ended up being quite the opposite for being limited to low Earth orbit. The only time it made sense was to send up and later repair the Hubble telescope. Other than that, the program was a failure and we were basically walking in place for 30 years.\n\nEdit: unnecessary word"
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e3mq9w | how did we invent seconds, hours and weekdays and made the whole world agree that this was the best system? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/e3mq9w/eli5_how_did_we_invent_seconds_hours_and_weekdays/ | {
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"The ancient Sumerians decided the second/minutes/hours (they had a base 12 counting system instead of base 10 using the number of knuckles on your fingers instead of number of fingers, so 24 and 60 were nice easy multiple of 12) and since they invented so many other things people just rolled with it. The 7 day week is based off the Jewish creation story, so when Rome adopted Christianity they made it standard. You wanna fight the Roman army about it?"
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4kdvfj | why are drugs like ecstasy and shrooms now being tested to treat anxiety and depression when not too long ago they were considered unsafe and harmful? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4kdvfj/eli5_why_are_drugs_like_ecstasy_and_shrooms_now/ | {
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"Because there might be a difference between taking a prescribed clinical amount rather eating fistfuls like candy?",
"Lots of pharmaceutical drugs are unsafe and harmful; it's just that their beneficial effects have been shown to outweigh their side effects for a particular group of patients at a specific dosage. There is nothing contradictory about a drug having both positive and negative effects. ",
"\"Moral panic.\"\n\nMoral panic is the technical term for when huge numbers of people freak out, all at once, over some perceived threat, usually one that is either really minor or totally made-up. The Salem Witch Hunt. Both Red Scares. Reefer Madness. The Satanic Ritual Abuse scare. Crack Babies. Anti-vaxxers. I could go on and on.\n\nDrug panics are easy to stir up in the US because of a bias in our laws that labels possession or use of a drug as a serious felony, on par with rape or murder, if it has both (a) no known medical use, and (b) significant risk of abuse. What does \"significant risk of abuse\" mean? It means that it's pleasant to take. What that means is that the only drugs that can stay legal long enough to be studied, to find out if they have medical uses, are the ones that aren't fun.\n\n(Note: Drugs that are older than our drug laws weren't necessarily outlawed when the drug laws came about. That's why, for example, opium and thinks made from opium are still legal for medical use; their medical uses were proven before the \"Schedule One\" law took effect.)\n\nSo if there are medical uses for a drug, they're only going to be discovered by people who are using those drugs illegally. And even they don't do studies on those drugs using scientific methods, it's anecdotal evidence, at best: \"I tripped on 'shrooms and my depression went away and didn't come back.\" And neither scientists nor law makers are very eager to accept anecdotal evidence from criminals.\n\nBut if there are unambiguous, easily provable benefits that illegal drug users keep reporting over and over and over again, and they're for diseases that legal drug companies are still helpless against, and there are people with enough money to fund both a lobbying campaign and private medical research? Apparently it may be possible to push back against that initial \"it's fun so it must not be medicine, ban it!\" moral panic and resulting laws.\n\nBut I said \"apparently\" there because it hasn't happened yet, and may never happen. Note that the medical benefits of marijuana for treatment of excess fluid pressure in glaucoma patients' eyes, and for treatment of nausea, have been well known for 40 years now, and the federal government still refuses to even look at those studies. And they're going to keep resisting that as long as they can, because smoking marijuana isn't unpleasant enough to use it as medicine.",
"Interestingly, I quit Ritalin (legitimately prescribed for adhd), which is similar to cocaine, cold turkey and nothing happened. Yet when I quit Effexor I had the most hellish withdrawal experience. Had to get back on because I couldn't handle it and I still haven't been 100% since.",
"See my username. A lot of this was Nixon's doing. The hippy counterculture wasn't about to vote Nixon. You can't outlaw being a hippy, but you can outlaw drugs.\n\nSo that's what happened. LSD, pot, MDMA, mushrooms, it was largely made illegal to make it illegal to be a hippy, since most voted Democrat.\n\nSide note: my username is because I like Nixon's head on Futurama. Wish I would have thought that through when I created the account."
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459dn6 | why do people say you will get sick when you are cold/wet? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/459dn6/eli5_why_do_people_say_you_will_get_sick_when_you/ | {
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"Because it is a common misconception that coldness/wetness can lead to illness. This likely has to do at least in part with the (roughly) seasonal appearances of some illnesses. It is possible that it can have a contributory effect, in that there exists some reasoning that such conditions put stress upon the body, which in turn dampens its ability to fight off infection, but cold and wet in and of themselves do not produce illness."
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368h5y | why dont they sell tobacco products in bars? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/368h5y/eli5_why_dont_they_sell_tobacco_products_in_bars/ | {
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"I don't know what bars you go to, but where I'm from they always have a vending machine with heavily overpriced packs. They do this because they know desperate drunk people will pay it.",
"It became illegal in a lot of places. They used to just have vending machines in a lot of bars, but those got phased out with anti tobacco laws. "
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21xobz | why are shops in airports duty-free? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/21xobz/eli5_why_are_shops_in_airports_dutyfree/ | {
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"Not sure how to say this without just saying it. They exist because they can exist.\n\nBasically, if you're in an airport terminal, your status in that country can be sort of in flux. If I'm going from DC to Munich via London, I'm not technically in the UK during my time in Heathrow, so I can use that status to buy items without paying the same taxes that I would pay if I left the airport and entered the country."
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9zlgti | why do involuntary stretches feel so much better than doing voluntary stretches? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9zlgti/elif_why_do_involuntary_stretches_feel_so_much/ | {
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"What is an in involuntary stretch. Is it like when your body tells you to stretch your arms vs deciding to stretch your arms? ",
"Simply put for the same reason drinking water when you're not thirsty isn't as refreshing as when you're REALLY thirsty. Anticipating the bodies' needs doesn't trigger the same reward responses in the brain as fulfilling a need that is already present. Your muscles don't NEED to stretch right now, so you can't anticipate that need and expect the same reward as when you muscles are telling your brain they really need to move right now.",
"Because involuntary stretches are basically caused from your body/ muscles \"asking you\" to stretch, be it because of soreness or whatnot, so you're helping fix whatever's causing the issue/ discomfort.\n\nThink of it like scratching those random itches we sometimes get vs just randomly scratching for no reason.\n\nThere's discomfort, you fix the discomfort, you feel better.",
"What is an involuntary stretch?",
"Pandiculation! Super fun word and worth a Google. \n\nWhen you've been sitting and resting your body, your muscles get all out of focus for your brain. Think of a cat when it's been napping. The first thing it'll do when it wakes up is yawn, put it's paws out in front of itself and stretch it's belly to the floor. This is pandiculation! \n\nIt's way nicer than a static stretch, as the contraction of large groups of muscles, followed by a slow release and lengthening sends lots of feedback to your brain which allows renewed muscle coordination and control. \n\nAll animals with spines do it in some way, and it's the natural way bodies stretch themselves and become alert after rest.\n\nIt's a much better way of stretching as opposed to passive static stretches, which current evidence suggests is pretty useless and often counterproductive. "
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4s3gan | visible distance of lightning. | Right now we are having a huge thunderstorm. When I was younger, I was taught that if lightning strikes, you can count the seconds between the strike and the thunder that follows, to gain a grasp on how far away the center of the storm is. If that does hold true, which it usually does, how far away can we see a lightning strike? Aka. Lightning. 9 seconds. Thunder. Storm center is 9 miles away. So if we see that strike, what's the outer limit?
EDIT: I wanted to thank everyone for the comments and info! Very informative. I appreciate it :-) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4s3gan/eli5_visible_distance_of_lightning/ | {
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"The idea here is that the light produced by lightning and the sound produced by lightning travel at different speeds. To keep it simple, light travels at about 1 billion ft/s , and sound travels at about 1100 ft/s. So, if you see a lightning flash, for all intents, it's seen instantly. It then takes the sound 1 second to travel 1100 feet... so, about 5 seconds for a mile. Not sure where you get 9 seconds = 9 miles, though. \n\nOn a dark night, the general agreement is lightening is visible for 100 miles. ",
"The delay is about 1 mile per 5 seconds after the flash.\n\nIt's more useful to keep track of multiple strikes to get an idea of where the storm is headed and how fast.\n\nFor example, strike 1 has a delay of 5 seconds. Strike 2 has a delay of 3 seconds. This storm is headed towards you.\n\nStrike 3 has a delay of 4 seconds. Strike 4 has a delay of 6 seconds. Storm missed you and is now headed away."
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209eyg | how did adolf hitler and the rest of the nazi party convince so many seemingly sane and logical humans to brutally murder so many people? | Not saying these people were all sane, but with so many involved there had to be some seemingly "normal" people that got mixed up in this. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/209eyg/eli5_how_did_adolf_hitler_and_the_rest_of_the/ | {
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"It's amazing what people can be convinced to rationalize away, and what people can be brought to accept by convincing them that other people accept it too. Look up \"the third wave\" sometime: six days to take ordinary, relatively modern schoolchildren from zero to fascist.",
"It's amazing what you can convince people to do by incremental change.\n\nFirst he convinced them that their lives sucked.\n\nThen he convinced them that the Jews were to blame for that.\n\nThen he convinced them that the Jews weren't really people.\n\nThen he convinced them that if they got rid of the Jews, their lives would be better.\n\n",
"Check [this](_URL_0_) out for how the framework is set up. Once that frame is up, you just follow orders. If your don't guard this camp, you are not a team player. If you are not a team player, then you are supportive of the enemy, off to the camp with you.\n\nI know this will probably call /r/badhistory.",
"Also, there was a lot of propaganda at the time that convinced much of the German people Jews weren't being systematically exterminated. There were work camps that were highly publicized showing humane treatment of Jews.",
"Hiter was a great public speaker. If you watch his speeches he knew what gestures to use, how his voice inflections should sound, etc. He knew what he was doing and how to convince people that he was right. ",
"There are multiple layers to this.\n\nFirstly, this is a society of predominantly Catholics and Lutherans who were taught for hundreds of years that the Jews were pariahs of society for many reasons, particularly their supposed role in the death of Jesus and also many \"un-Christian\" practices such as charging interest on loans and so forth. By the time Hitler and the Nazis came around they have a very rich field to sow in that regard. This of course wasn't unique to Germany as all of Europe held similar views towards outsiders in general, including gypsies. The interesting thing is that in Western Europe (including Germany) Jews were treated reasonably better than in Eastern Europe, especially at that time. After all, it was Russia's treatment of their Jewish population that gave rise to the Zionist movement and eventually the birth of Israel as a safe home for their people.\n\nAnyway, most of those feelings in Germany were latent and it takes a lot to motivate an educated society to act on them, or at least be inactive when others are. Remember Germany at this time was a premier intellectual, along with economic and military, power. There's a great book on that written by Peter Watson called called [The German Genius](_URL_4_).\n\nThe way you motivate people in this way is claim to be pursuing a higher ideal, and asking those who see the same as you to rally around the same flag. This was very appealing to the German people because their dire economic conditions and humiliation at the Treaty of Versailles didn't match their idea of German exceptionalism. This is where Jewish discrimination comes in. In the revival of the German sense of self, there had to be perceived antagonists in the equation. Externally, it was Germany's European rivals. Internally, it was the Jews, Gypsies, communists, and whoever else were considered to be on the periphery of society.\n\nOtherwise intelligent Germans allowed this to happen for many reasons. Some were truly biased. Others feared being viewed as resistant to Germany's revival. Still others truly tried to do something for it, and as time went on they suffered the consequences. But overall, the main focus of the day was the revival of Germany and the restoration of it's prestige and power. That's not a hard thing to gather a lot of momentum on, and when it's there, other things are just a distraction and a hindrance to the cause. The modern parallels to this are countless, and aren't only limited to racial discrimination.\n\nThis isn't unique in history and still happens all the time today. In a nutshell, the seeds are sown with the sense of exceptionalism. This unfortunately is part and parcel of being part of any race and nationality - it's a natural human tendency. Slobodan Milosevich did something really similar in the 1990's when he invoked the national trauma of the invasion of the Turks hundreds of years earlier to embitter the Serbs against the Bosnian Muslims.\n\nIf you want a very interesting parallel that occured in the United States, check out [The Third Wave](_URL_2_) experiment that occurred Palo Alto California in 1969. This is about the least likely place you'd see a replication of the rise of the Nazis but this schoolteacher unintentionally sparked a movement with similar characteristics as a way to teach his class how this happened in a highly educated country. There was also [a book](_URL_3_, an [afterschool special movie](_URL_0_), and a [feature length German movie](_URL_1_) based on this story. Really worth checking out.",
"Just look at North Korea. If you are immersed and surrounded by lies long enough, you might believe anything.",
"You have to understand Germany in the 20's and 30's. They never recovered from WWI. The allied forces basically raped Germany by taking a ton of land from them and redistributing it to other countries (France and Poland mostly). They had insane hyperinflation for a long time, with bread costing over $1 million papiermarks at one point (the inflation was so bad they moved off the gold standard, which only caused it to get worse). \n\nHitler came around at a time when Germany was at its lowest, and for all of the 30's he was actually a pretty great leader, at least in public. Sure, there were some hints that he was off his rocker, but he was the man who pulled a war-torn Germany up by its bootstraps and made them a world power again. He was a very persuasive and beloved leader back then.",
"Hitler was a very potent speaker. Along with being manipulative.",
"While not completely accurate, and though part of an adapted play, this does provide a compelling argument.\n\n_URL_0_",
"_URL_0_\n\n > People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it. Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow.",
"[The Stanford Prison Experiment](_URL_0_) is a perfect example of how \"normal\" people were put in a position where they devolved to a level of torturing their fellow humans and thought nothing of it. This, no doubt, factored into prison guards at the various Nazi camps. Factor in a society that had been decimated during WWI, and cultural differences with the Jews and gypsies, and you have a recipe for disaster. Also, Hitler started Euthanasia for mentally and physically handicapped people, as well as the elderly, and also a great deal of political dissidents ended up going to the camps as well. It wasn't just the Jews that were targeted.\n\nedited: I forgot a word"
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1bzer8 | what just happened with bitcoin? | Not into stocks or shares or anything. Just a workin' class dude. Woke up and saw a couple people posting their debts are paid off. What just happened and how behind the times am I? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1bzer8/eli5_what_just_happened_with_bitcoin/ | {
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"Their value is going up extremely quickly.",
"bitcoin had a meteoric rise in price over the last 2 months, went up a hundred-fold or so. if you cash out now you're gonna do pretty good, assuming you had bitcoins for the last month or two at least",
"Can one assume that the value will drop given enough time, so that I can buy bitcoins and make BIG profit when the next crisis crashes in?",
"Is it a good or a bad idea to be investing in bitcoins right now? Is there any way to calculate the risk involved or is it totally uncertain? why should a person invest? Why shouldn't they?",
"Can you actually do anything with bitcoins? Or is their only value their scarcity?",
"Let me get this straight: an anonymous guy invented the bitcoin, allowed others to \"mine\" for bitcoins, and now the price of bitcoins is ballooning. \n\nHmmm...seems to me like the inventor, who is anonymous, who in all likelyhood possesses an unknown amount of this limited currency, has literally created money out of thin air and is probably going to be filthy rich.\n\nDon't get me wrong, I see the value behind the concept of bitcoins but what's stopping him from manipulating bitcoin supply, or issuing himself bitcoins, or using this bubble to benefit from the initial bitcoin stash he gave himself to start?",
"You cannot short sale a Bitcoin like you can to a stock. This means that you have a highly distorted market that makes buyers the dominant species. Short sales keep everybody honest about the actual price of a given instrument.\n\nTake, for example, the arbiters of evil – Goldman Sachs. They face a functional market and a lot of enemies who can short sale their stock. It is $140 because the market believes that it is $140.\n\nCongratulations to the people who can ride the wave and straighten their life out. Make sure you recognize it as luck.",
"As someone who's taking an interest in the technology behind Bitcoin, I'll give you a short overview. \n\n1. The coins are \"mined\" by folks crunching numbers. You can mine your own bitcoins by having your computer (specifically, your graphics card) solve some equations. \n\n2. The integrity of the network is preserved by a running log of everything everyone ever did (meaning, from the first coins mined to the last coin spent - it's all written down in a journal). \n\n3. The network is secure because accounts are protected by private keys and the SHA256 algorithm used to protect the contents is (currently) more or less impenetrable. \n\n4. The transaction log is nearly impossible to fake out because if you try to do something you're not technically able to (as in, transfer coins from an account which doesn't hold enough), your transaction is flagged by a disagreeing node as invalid. The transaction is then passed around until a consensus is reached as it its validity; if less than 50% of the nodes think you should be able to make the transaction then it is voided. \n\n5. The algorithm is self-correcting for mining rates, meaning that the first guys to crunch a few numbers got coins every 10 minutes and now that thousands of people are mining with fast hardware, it's become more difficult so that the 10 minute average is maintained. \n\n6. The coin supply dwindles two ways. First, the number of coins per solution goes down over the years. It was 50, now it's 25, eventually it'll be zero around 2140. Second, the chances of solving a block and the returns for doing so diminish greatly as the work is spread around to more and faster computers. Just ten days ago, my mining computer could find .12 bitcoins per day. With this bubble and/or boom going on, more people have started mining and I'm down to about .075. \n\n\nSo, why is it valuable? Well, like someone said below, I might as well be the one to say it - money is only worth what we agree it's worth. Federal currency ($USD, for example) has a huge structure behind it to try to maintain its value, and some folks think it's unsustainable. Bitcoin has no such structure. You can't issue it any faster than the algorithm allows. You can't print more, you can't spend it if you don't have it (yet, wait for banks to get involved on this one), and you can't steal it if it's properly secured. \n\nThis makes it every bit as safe as the $USD in terms of storage and security, and quite a bit more secure than the $USD in terms of safety from administration. The fed cannot print another million bitcoins, only a few years of mining can do that. Scarcity is built into the system. \n\nSo, is it a ponzi scheme? Yes, in a way. The very early adopters hold hundreds, even thousands, of the coins. At current market rates, they're probably slowly selling them off for literally millions of dollars. The thing is, they've created a monster...whether or not the intent was to get rich on a ponzi scheme, the bitcoin currency still exists and it's still secure. If they cash out, the decentralized nature of Bitcoin means that it still exists and can still be used. \n\nSo what's bad about a currency that allows you to very quickly transfer value from one account to another regardless of nationality, location, and social standing? Well, the worst part from an investor's point of view is that it's completely and utterly *new*. Nothing like this has ever caught on before. It's been around for four years, people have had a long time to poke holes in the security, and it's matured into a valid commodity. \n\nSo to answer your question directly: In the last few weeks, there has been a media blitz. Some of it was intentional and some of it was not (big cheeses in the financial industry are commenting on it; that garners a lot of attention). As people notice it, they want a piece of it (however small) \"just in case\" it goes crazy for real. This forces the bubble to grow. \n\nNothing is forcing the bubble to pop, either: If the million or so Bitcoin holders today dilute their holdings out to ten million total people, the value will increase roughly by an order of magnitude (simple supply and demand). That means if you have a bitcoin you bought at $200, it'll technically be worth $2000. \n\nThe coins are divisible and transferable down to 8 decimal places so the currency can support a fairly massive unit value. Again, the new nature of this means every prediction you read is pure speculation. It could crash tomorrow, or an investment bank could try to buy up half of it. Either way, I'm riding it out with a few coins *just in case* I become an accidental millionaire. \n\nHope this clears it up a bit. It's really pretty interesting and there are tomes of information to read if you want to learn more. \n\nCheers!\n\n\nEdit: Tips, gold, and much love! I'm just trying to share some info; I'm really glad you guys appreciate it. Keep on being awesome!\n\nEdit 2: 400 messages & replies and counting. I'm really not supposed to be the BTC spokesperson; I hope I'm getting more of this right than wrong! I wanted to clear up a question that keeps appearing though: \n\nWhy do you mine and what are you mining? Mining is the process by which we confirm the transactions and make sure no one's cheating. The more miners you have, the safer the network of coins is and the harder (or, further past impossible) it is to make an invalid transaction (i.e., moving coins you don't have). The current reward for mining is new coins. Eventually the reward will be much smaller, dwindling to a tiny fraction of each transaction so that people are still willing to mine. The system taxes itself to pay a bit to those who work for it. ",
"Now can we get an ELI5 on what Bitcoin is actually used for? I just read the wikipedia article and I'm not sure I get it.",
"Jokes when I first saw this I thought it was posted on Silk Road, imagine my confusion.",
"If you become convinced that a crash is about to start, is there a way to get short bitcoins?",
"I'm not sure if it is ELI5, but there is a _very good_ summary here: _URL_0_",
"Man, reading through this thread really makes me wish I bought into this back when I first heard of it in 2011..",
"Just like any other currency there is no real value, it is a fiat currency. Due to people's arbitrary belief that this digital currency is worth more and is more reliable than the US dollar, many people have decided they want bitcoins. Due to the large demand, the price goes up.",
"I remember a while back I saw that the price had jumped up to $6 or $8 a coin and thought, man that's too much. Not going to buy any now...\n\nReally wish I could go back in time and slap myself for that choice.",
"TIL I have made a few hundred dollars on accident. Sweet.",
"I read all the posts and I read the Bitcoin FAQ. I still don't get it.",
"Well basically there's a huge line for people to open accounts to purchase bitcoin, and it keeps getting longer, and people keep buying more...worldwide.",
"Can anyone ELI5 how the bitcoin hashing algorithm works?",
"This is incredible. While skeptical as to the longevity of bitcoins, now, with all the media attention, its going to evolve even more. This is an interesting time to buy to see how this goes. ",
"What would cause the bitcoin bubble to burst?",
"If I want to buy bitcoins from the UK, what's the best way? I'd like to try this Reddit tipping stuff, so I set up a _URL_0_ wallet (or, at least, I think I did - I have this long string: 1Engvu6SY67nMNqQ5WpGmwqGnWR9jwD2AR) but there seems to be no way to pay for bitcoins from a UK bank account. Interesting stuff, but a steep learning curve...",
"The reason its value exploded is because the Croatian government put a tax on all bank accounts. So, a TON of people their put their money into Bitcoin.",
"I bought 6 bitcoins in October for like $40. Then spent them on things that never arrived at my place. Fuck my life.",
"What the Figgs? I'm a fairly well known flash developer, a few years ago a fan got in contact with me and we had a chat about a game series I'd made and how much he liked it, and he told me about bitcoins, which I assume we're new at the time.\n\nAny way as a gesture of thanks he sent me about 16 bitcoins, he said it wasn't worth much and it's the least he could do as he couldn't get me a drink in real life because he lives in another country.\n\n Will someone please break my heart by telling me what they'd be worth today had I not lost my account details to the sands of time and hard drive failure? ",
"How do I sign up for bitcoins?",
"Okay, so I have an empty bitcoin wallet. How am I supposed to add bitcoin to that wallet? (Very new to this whole thing, honest question.)",
"Anyone else kicking themselves in the ass for not getting on board sooner? \n\nI considered building a machine a few years ago just for mining but decided it wasn't worth it. Fucking 20/20 hindsight! ",
"Stay away from bitcoin. If your timing is wrong you'll get crushed.",
"Sooooo...how do I go about shorting bitcoins?",
"The greatest irony here is that bit coins were used to purchase everything and anything illegal via the silk road system. I've never used it or seen it, but it does exist. So basically a bunch of drug dealers probably have thousands of these coins. ",
"I had stopped paying attention to bitcoins, so when I saw this post I thought \"oh did that bubble finally burst?\"\n\nI regret not buying any more and more every day",
"It seems like the bitcoin market is like the gold market - a lot of holding. Is anyone really using it as currency, in terms of purchasing goods? Why would you? If I'm holding bitcoins and they're appreciating rapidly, why wouldn't I spend USD on goods and hold on to the bitcoins as investment? Seems that as long as this holds the market may continue to grow in value. If it truly becomes a currency used for hard-goods then I don't think it will hold its value.",
"As far as I understand: When you set up a mining computer, a difficult algorythm will produce [something] which is useful to do [something] and in exchange for your trouble, a fraction of a bitcoin is generated by [someone,something] and is given to you.\n\nI still don't understand what goes in the brackets.",
"bitcoin is a pretty good demonstration of why \"money\" is a made up thing. It is a bubble economy. People want them because other people want them, and the \"demand\" is driving up the value of these bitcoins. \n\nThe problem with bubbles is that they will eventually pop. People will stop buying as much then others will \"believe\" that bitcoin has peaked so they will dump their bitcoins to get as much money as they can out of them. Others then start dumping their coins. Now you have the market flooded and this starts a panic which makes the prices collapse. The people that sold early make off like kings, everyone else loses everything. \n\nThis is not unique to bitcoins, it happens regularly in the stock market and it is also what happened to the housing market a few years ago. \n\nOur own US currency can also have the same type of collapse. Investors buy US savings bonds because it has fairly reliable so far. Yet with our deficit spending we are adding 1 trillion+ to the debt every year. We also have other long term obligations with social security and medicare. This will one day lead us to a point where we are unable to service our debt. At that point people will stop buying dollars and then our government may lose the liquidity to function. Think greece, but here. Congress has been ignoring the issue because of potential voter backlash. ",
"if i buy ASIC hardware, can i mine 1 bitcoin a day?",
"A year ago I made a bitcoin account ond did nothing with it. SHIT!",
"Can someone please explain how and where you cash out though. Do you just sell it to someone for actual money? How or where do you do that? I guess those are the main things I don't understand.",
"Aside from meepstah's great reply here is a quick video of how it works. _URL_0_",
"How do I get bitcoins? do I but them from an online store or is everyone \"mining\" them like cyber hacking? Do people just set up programmes to run numbers and see if they get a match?",
"Holy shit! Remember the guy who put all his life savings into Bitcoin? ... Yeah, I think he is a millionaire by now.",
"This all reminds me of merching in Runescape. Turned $50,000 into $5,000,000 in about 2 months buying and selling arrows. Got pretty damn good at it too.\n\nIt seems crazy that a similar tactic and idea is now being taken in to the real world. I may have to try this.",
"for reference _URL_0_",
"The more I read, the scammier it sounds.",
"All I know is, I wish I had bought some bitcoin back when it was $5/bitcoin... smh",
"Can someone explain to me the idea behind bitcoin mining? I really am at a loss to understand why and how crunching numbers to solve equations = profit?",
"I had .5 bit coins leftover when 1 bc was worth 20$,\nsaw reddit post 2 days ago saying that bc value exploded, and found my .5 bc (10$) to be worth around 130$, sold it, and next day bc crashes. That was fun",
"So this bitcoin tipper bot, can this account be tied to a mining account to amass bitcoins?"
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1cxha2 | the difference between a wireless access point and a network switch | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1cxha2/eli5_the_difference_between_a_wireless_access/ | {
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"Think of a network switch as a telephone operator. When you pick up a telephone, and call a number, the telephone operator will connect you to the number you want to call.\n\nA wireless access point is like the base on your wireless phone that is connected to the phone switch. It allows your wireless phone to make calls. When you use your wireless phone, it connects to the base, in which the base is connected to the telephone network.\n\n--\n\nTL;DR: A network switch will relay data between two computers connected on the switch. A wireless access point connects a wireless device to the network it's connected to."
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15ge1m | why do cats like string and string-like objects so much? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/15ge1m/eli5_why_do_cats_like_string_and_stringlike/ | {
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"A cat's eyes are not like ours. Their eyes are optimised to follow motion, and they do this much better than we do. A moving string moves in several ways at once, and this excites a cat's natural predator instincts to go after small, fast-moving objects. They know the string is not prey, but it's still exciting for them to go after it."
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218vyc | why are 'off brand' batteries so much cheaper than on brand? they seem to be about 1/10 the price. | Is the quality difference really that much? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/218vyc/eli5_why_are_off_brand_batteries_so_much_cheaper/ | {
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"Somebody has to pay for all of that advertising.",
"Take a closer look at the cheaper batteries, they usually use a different chemistry. \"Heavy Duty\" batteries perform worse than Alkaline, and don't last as long, but they are cheaper to produce. Store brand Alkalines will be cheaper than Duracells/Energizers, but still competitively priced. Heavy Duty batteries are the ones that are significantly cheaper.\n\nHeavy Duty batteries are good for low use things like smoke detectors and TV remotes, but are a waste of money in higher drain applications like cameras, radios, etc.",
"In some cases two brands are actually the same thing. Many companies have different tiers of products to reach different markets. In order to make these tiers happen they will often release the same product with a different label and worse specs. In the case of batteries, I believe this is the case but instead of worse specifications they simply don't advertise their low tier.\n\nEveready & Energizer are a good example of this.\n\n;tldr - Different brand, same manufacturing line.",
"The only real major advantage to a brand name battery vs. an off brand, if they are using the same chemistry (alkaline, lithium ion, etc), is that more care has been taken to protect and isolate the electrodes and prevent them from breaking down in the brand names, while the off brands have high tolerance for small manufacturing errors.\n\nIf you buy the batteries and use them right away, that's not a problem. But off-brand batteries don't store as well, and are more likely to corrode or leak electrode paste as they age.\n\nI.e. Short term use: off brand, no problem. Long term - go with brand names."
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8mvr16 | how do probiotics work and why can taking them sometimes cause extreme abdominal discomfort? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8mvr16/eli5_how_do_probiotics_work_and_why_can_taking/ | {
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"Probiotics are colonies of good bacteria. Taking them is suppose to repopulate the gut with said bacteria, but if you get too much, if they have to fight with the existing bacteria and either die, or you are eating a diet that causes them to produce a lot of waste you will sometimes have discomfort. ",
"Your guts are host to a **lot** of different kinds of bacteria. Some are good, some are bad. The good ones are often in charge of digesting or otherwise handling substances that the human body can't handle itself, such as fiber. Everyone's gut microbiome (the kinds of bacteria you have in your system) is different. If you are lacking tolerance to a kind of food, and it can be resolved by introducing a new kind of bacteria to your gut, then there may be a probiotic that introduces the bacteria for you.\n\nAs for discomfort, try to think of the bacteria as little chemical factories. They take in something the human body cannot (completely) digest, and start a series of chemical reactions, usually get get energy out of it. At the end, they have some waste product that is typically spit out by the bacteria. If there is not some *other* bacteria to put this to use, and the body cannot handle the waste product on its own, it may cause discomfort. Additionally, having too many kinds of bacteria will cause them to compete with each other and dying bacteria usually make products that are harmful to people. Frankly there are many reasons why discomfort can arise from usage of probiotics - I don't know very many specifics, but you are essentially introducing invaders into your guts hoping that they will help out.",
"Less of a \"five year-old answer,\" but most of them really *don't* have any proof that they actually work. Most of the answers you see on here are about how they are \"supposed to work *in theory*,\" but they aren't regulated by the FDA or USDA and the companies selling them offer no proof of their advertising claims. Most of them even have a disclaimer about this right on the bottle... below all the descriptions about their \"wonderful benefits.\" "
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1si3cv | why did we used to call china, "red china"? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1si3cv/eli5_why_did_we_used_to_call_china_red_china/ | {
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"To differentiate it from Taiwan, which was established by the Nationalist-led Republic of China after they got booted out at the end of the Chinese Civil War/Chinese Revolution in 1949. Taiwan's official name is still the Republic of China.",
"\"Red\" is used colloquially in this context to indicate a strong tie with communism. The term comes from the early-mid cold war days, since all manner of communist revolutions sort of adopted red as their color. It's been used as a term to more or less to attack communist states as illegitimate or tyrranical.\n\nIndeed, China was (and still is) a communist state. However, the U.S.'s relationship with China has improved over the last several decades, so we don't want to use quite an inflammatory term as \"Red\" China. Also, China has liberalized much of its economy, so to that end the term is a little less apt now than it used to be.",
"There were/are two Chinas: The People's Republic of China (PRC)and the Republic of China (ROC).\n\nThe ROC had been in charge for many years, but a communist revolution forced them to flee to Taiwan, where they still continued to operate as government in Taiwan and to claim to be the government of all of China. \n\nMeanwhile on mainland China, the communists formed the PRC and created a new (redder) flag. Red is the traditional color of communism, and is often featured prominently on communist flags and signage."
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49ko4d | why doesnt molten salt mix well with water? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/49ko4d/eli5_why_doesnt_molten_salt_mix_well_with_water/ | {
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"It's too hot. The melting point of salt is 800 centigrade - 8x the boiling part of water. So, it can be soluble in water because it instantly vaporizes the water it touches. Getting a gas (water at 800c) to mix with a liquid (salt at 800c) just doesn't go well!"
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314kcm | - how can ebay legally charge the seller a percentage of their postage fee!?? | How are ebay allowed to put a charge on a sellers postage overhead!?
Its currently 10% i believe. .. ebay are effectively charging sellers to use their own bought packaging and a mailing company that is nothing to do with them.. how is that legal? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/314kcm/eli5_how_can_ebay_legally_charge_the_seller_a/ | {
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"It's backlash against the sellers who list an $20 item for $1 with $25 in \"shipping fees\" to avoid paying eBay a cut. It's legal because eBay owns Paypal, and since most payments are made through paypal they're not required to separate shipping from sales, they can just take a cut of all of it.",
"I believe it is because sellers were gaming the system by largely profiting on shipping, therefore bypassing their dues to ebay.",
"Because else people could just sell their stuff for 1 cent and put all the cost on the shipping fee to avoid all charges.",
"What everybody else has said - a few bad apples spoiled it for everybody. Also: ebay's sandbox, ebay's rules. It's not a democracy."
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6nmum1 | how do rubik's cube speed records work if the starting cube can have so many different variations? | I know it's randomly shuffled around before starting but surely not all shuffles are equal in difficulty/spins | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6nmum1/eli5_how_do_rubiks_cube_speed_records_work_if_the/ | {
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"When you scramble a Rubik's cube, you're never more than 17 or 19 moves away from a solution(I don't remember the exact number, but it's around there). In practice, this isn't how speed cubers work, but the principle is similar. Speed cubers have different processes and memorized patterns of moves to get solve the Rubik's cube. Step one might be get all the edge pieces for one side solved, then solve the corners for that one side, and so on. These moves take about the same amount of time no matter how scrambled the cube is. The only time there is any variance is when solving one step also accidentally solves part of the next step. ",
"There are computer programs, that generate the scrambling pattern which is used on every cube for each competition. Different ones for each comp, obviously. These programs guarantee that the Cube is fully scrambled.\n\nGoogle computers figured out that the God Number, the minimum number of moves, that every single cube scramble can be solved in. The programs, can make the competition equal across the board."
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fyj15b | do wet objects stay wet in a vacuum? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fyj15b/eli5_do_wet_objects_stay_wet_in_a_vacuum/ | {
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"If the objects were cold enough that the liquids stay liquid then yes. Lack of pressure makes it easier for liquids to become gasses.",
"It depends on whether the system is closed or not. If it's a closed system (e.g. a closed box) then the moment the wet object is placed inside, it will no longer be a perfect vacuum and the wetting liquid will continue to evaporate until the equilibrium vapour pressure is reached. In that case, it's perfectly possible that the object will stay wet forever, it depends on the liquid (and how much of it there is), how big the box is and the temperature.\n\nIf it's an open system (e.g. space, or a vacuum that is actively being pulled) then the partial pressure of the vapour around the object will always be below the equilibrium vapour pressure (because the vapour is constantly being removed as it is formed) and the liquid will always be able to evaporate. In that case, the object would eventually dry out.",
"Yes, but I didn't know this until I had children because I had never accidentally Vacuumed anything wet until then. It's gross.",
"The object won't stay WET. But, keep in mind that \"wet\" is a condition that involves liquid water, and in vacuum, water starts evaporating or boiling. However, also in vacuum, the water can't get the heat energy required FOR evaporating or boiling (like on a stove), so its temperature also drops drastically as it boils. \n\nSo depending on the quantities of water and timing of the vacuum, you can either end up with a dry object (water evaporated completely) or a frozen object (ice).\n\n[Video](_URL_0_).\n\nBoth of these cases are NOT \"wet\", so the answer is no."
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1yj23y | why does my computers freeze when closing a window/programme? | As someone who knows little about computer technology - how come it takes a while to close windows/programme sometimes?
Surely it would be easy for the computer to just shut it down and get rid of it, to preserve memory and CPU?
**Edit:** Thanks to /u/firefoxten, /u/bigdog09 and /u/mikael110 for the answers. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1yj23y/eli5_why_does_my_computers_freeze_when_closing_a/ | {
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"I'm not sure I understand your question, but I guess it is because you have one cpu. Or something is wrong, either with program or PC.\nEither way, it kinda like working with stuff at your desk. Good example would be a crafter, any kind, lets say wood crafter. Working on anything requires preparation, getting tools, material, protection, etc. After you are done, you have to put away the product, put away the tools, protection, clean the table. \nSame with PC. Everytime it closes a program, it has to save the progress, logs, close files that was opened for the program, release memory, etc. And it takes some time. \nI hope I managed to explain my point of view, if it is the right one",
"Think of a computer as you would a human brain and it's split into two parts.\n\n1. The hard drive: This is everything that the computer knows (just like your brain has a vast amount of information that it knows)\n\n2. RAM: This is everything that the computer can think of at one time. If I were to ask you who your third grade teacher was, you could tell me the answer. Before you read that you weren't currently thinking of your teacher, so it wasn't in your conscious thought (RAM)\n\n\nWhen a computer is running a program it is currently thinking about and focusing on that program. The more programs you run, the harder it is for the computer to multitask and think about all of those things at once.\n\n\nNow to your question:\nWhen you close a program it's just like a person finishing a task. You now have to clean up. Now how quick you finish cleaning up depends on a few different things, like how big the mess is that you have to clean, how much you are thinking about at the moment, or even how tired you are from being awake and alert for so long.\n\n\nComputers are the same way. They have to put away the packets that they have been using, they could be working with something else that is taking the focus away from their \"cleanup\" (think RAM), they also could be running for quite a while and need a break for a second to refresh.\n\n\nI hope that answers your question."
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18jk28 | why the senate republicans would block hagel's nomination for secretary of defense | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/18jk28/eli5_why_the_senate_republicans_would_block/ | {
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"AIPAC/Neocons have controlled the civilian side of the Pentagon for over a decade. Obama finally believes he is strong enough politically to set his own policy and Hagel's confirmation has become a test. The stakes are far more significant than one cabinet secretary: Obama vs Senate for control (Reid and fellow Dem senators could have prevented this entire confrontation with moderate reform of the filibuster but didn't, so don't fall for the Dems v GOP angle it's completely wrong); Iran policy (a Hagel win means far less chance of war v. Iran); and, influence of AIPAC/conservative Israeli politics to control US foreign and military policy.\n\nIt's very difficult to understand due to two factors: 1. The large amount of antisemitic opinion that blames everything on Israel, and 2. The real professional risk legitimate American reporters take when they discuss AIPAC. \n"
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aubait | why do lgbt+ teenagers/young adults seem to converge in social groups, even long before realising their sexuality/gender etc. ? | I'm speaking from both personal and other people's experience, where the social group consists of people who befriended each other long before anyone has come out.
I understand people like to hang out based on similar aspects such as personality, looks and so on. However I seem to know \*many\* bisexual/pan (including myself lol) people who:
1) i made friends with before they or I or both came out
2) come off as non flamboyant/your "average everyday person" (you would never guess unless they told you)
May I also note that most of these people I know are in hetero relationships. I understand there are other factors to consider such as how hostile/supportive the environment is, however it still seems too much to be a coincidence. Why is that? (My question is specifically aimed more at why they subconsciously group together before understanding themselves rather than why lgbt+ people hang out in general) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/aubait/eli5_why_do_lgbt_teenagersyoung_adults_seem_to/ | {
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"Going only by my own memories of high school, I would make a guess that there's a subconscious awareness of 'otherness' or not fitting in. \n\nEven when you are a young child you can perceive whether or not you are 'normal' compared to the rest of the kids you socialize with. Those that feel less 'normal' would be more likely to relate to each other for this reason and gravitate together "
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2hhimj | why can i, among others, do the vulcan salute with one hand but not with the other? | I'm sure most or all of us are familiar with the famous Vulcan salute from Star Trek; holding your hand up with the index and middle finger pointed in one directions and the ring and pinkie fingers pointed in the other to make a V shape. Why is it that I can do this with my left hand but not with my right, even though my right hand is dominant? Is it genetic, or is is acquired the same way right- or left-handedness is? Does it have to do with the way the brain works, or is it simply due to a slight structural difference in one hand over the other? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2hhimj/eli5_why_can_i_among_others_do_the_vulcan_salute/ | {
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"has to have something to do with muscle memory, or basically your brains ability to have individual fingers do different things.\n\nsince you use your dominant hand to do many more things, the brain knows better how to get the finger to move a certain way where as not so much with the less often relied upon subordinate hand.\n\nI personally can do it with both hands because when I was a kid pretending to be a ninja turtle I acted like I only had 2 fingers and a thumb as the turtles are universally drawn to have"
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2m3gs7 | why do defensive players get tired during a football game faster than offensive players? | My father always gets angry when sportscasters talk about how high paced offenses lead to defenses getting tired. He cant figure out why the offensive players don't get just as tired. Anyone have a simple explanation for this? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2m3gs7/eli5_why_do_defensive_players_get_tired_during_a/ | {
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"Defensive players must move more (particularly the coverage team). Watch all the [defensive backs](_URL_0_), every play all of them need to flow to the ball, while the receivers who aren't running a deep route don't need to run nearly as far, offenses can strategically exploit the need for multple defensive players needing to commit to covering a single receiver running a deep route while the play (and 10 of the 11 offensive players run short routes). \n\nAdditionally defenses need to react to the ball being put in play, which means they need to be ready for the ball to snap from the instant the QB gets under center til the ball is snapped (which can be 10 seconds or more), while the offense knows when the ball will be snapped. ",
"The offense is active, the defense is reactive. The defensive team always has to be watching the ball, adjusting their plays for the offense's strategy, always ready for the tricks and moves of the offense, and that can be tiring. The offensive team gets to decide when the play starts, where the ball goes, which players matter, etc. ",
"Since no one has commented on the line so far;\n\nThe offensive linemen, for passes at least, just need to impede the progress of the defensive linemen enough to allow the quarterback time to throw. In a run play, the o-linemen have to push the d-linemen to a specific place, or get in between them and the \"hole\" that the running back runs through.\n\nWhere as the d-linemen have to push/juke/spin their way past the o-line in as little time as possible in order to have a chance to either 1) find/sack the quarterback, or 2) analyse the play and find out where the running back is going, and trying to catch him.\n\nAlso, generally, the o-line out mans the d-line 5 to 4 or 5 to 3, this means most o-linemen will have help from their \"neighbors\" in stopping or pushing a d-lineman. This results in a \"double team\" on that d-lineman, which believe me is painful, terrifying and exhausting. This double teaming also helps when the o-linemen have to push the d-lineman on a run as I mentioned before. Plus that second o-lineman can then \"pass the d-lineman, who now has his weight on his heels and is considered \"on wheels\"(because he is so easy to push), to go block a linebacker. Which if the linebacker is standing still, analyzing the play, is like a steamroller vs a coke can.\n\nAdd this to crack backs, pre-snap movement and lead blockers, and you can see why, for linemen/linebackers at least, it's way more exhausting being on defense than offence\n\nSource: I was a d-lineman/o-lineman in High School. ",
"I'll add something else not mentioned as far as I can see: the offensive players actually know the play. Hence, some of them away from the play know that it isn't necessary to give 100% during that play. They're there to occupy the d-lineman until it becomes apparent to those d-lineman which offensive players are actually involved in the play. \n\nAnd then, those d-lineman have to keep giving 100% trying to reach the those involved in the play, especially whomever has the ball. Think about all the times you've seen 6 guys running like hell after a wide receiver heading down the field. Meanwhile, there's several guards & tackles essentially standing around waiting for the play to end, conserving energy they might need if the next play is a non-passing one and they'll need to open a hole for the quarterback."
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2d7g2u | do cell phone processors really compare to pc processors? | Take for example the snapdragon 800, sitting in my Nexus 5, a 2.2 GHz quad core processor.
Then, take the core i7, sitting in my laptop, a dual core sitting at 1.8 GHz.
Is my cell phone processor REALLY faster than my laptop?
Let's assume both are taken out of their respective hardware and placed into a cool empty server room with fans blowing cold air directly at them, to negate the temp throttling topic. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2d7g2u/eli5_do_cell_phone_processors_really_compare_to/ | {
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"I'm a software developer. Cell phone processors are indeed amazingly fast and powerful. Despite the clock speed, they're not as fast or powerful as desktops, but they're not that bad. However, there are other areas where cell phones are much slower, and memory access is a big one. It's something like 10x slower. So anything that takes up a lot of memory is naturally slower.\n"
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g25rc2 | what exactly happens during a clock cycle in a cpu? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/g25rc2/eli5_what_exactly_happens_during_a_clock_cycle_in/ | {
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"Transistors are like little switches. They allow electricity to pass through different pathways depending on which pathways electricity is coming in. How they do math and stuff is out of scope of this question, but how does the various parts of the CPU know the result is done and confirm the results?\n\nWhat the clock does is pulse voltage on and off at a consistent (but fast) rate. All those transistors are designed so that when the clock voltage goes up some tasks are permitted towards the next \"step\" in execution. As the voltage goes down any part of the CPU that is used for storage and being saved to will lock onto whatever was saved to it (0 or 1) and hold that value going forward until overwritten on the next voltage-down step.\n\nSo the CPU sorta alternates between doing calculations, and passing the results onto the next portion of the CPU that will handle them. The clock coordinates this process. Calculate, pass results on. Calculate, pass results on. These are the CPU's \"cycles\", managed by a clock that goes tick (voltage up), tock (voltage down).\n\n\"FLOPS\" are Floating Point OPerations per Second. One important thing to note is that a CPU doesn't execute 1 instruction per cycle - it may execute many, or a single instruction may take a couple of cycles to complete. But how many cycles it takes to do a FLOP will be consistent so if you overclock your CPU you can get more FLOPS out of it.",
"Ooo, I used to work on these, and I think like a 5yo, so this should be right up my alley.\n\nRemember the red light green light game in school? Each time you hear one red and one green, that is a clock cycle. Think of each kid as a different part of the CPU. Some kids are faster than others and can get farther than others in a clock cycles. Think of that less the capability of the kid but the amount of work that happens within a clock cycle. In order to make a CPU work, the kids have to get to a far enough distance or there are errors in the CPU.\n\nELI15: CPUs are broken down into different units. There's parts that do integer arithmetic, floating point arithmetic, memory/cache that store answers, controllers for all of the units, etc. Let's say as a basic example, you want to add 1+1. The steps without any optimization could look like this:\n\n1. Get the code from you program (add these two numbers from memory spots A and B and store it in C)\n2. Get the values from memory locations A and B.\n3. Add them in the integer arithmetic logic unit\n4. Put the new value in memory locations C\n\nThis example could take 4 cycles to perform. Modern CPUs have insane optimizations that lower the cycle per instruction."
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ncw34 | the remaining gop candidates views and stances in the way they would run the united states. | Don't need to explain minor candidates just people like Romney, Gingrich, Perry, Paul, etc. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ncw34/eli5_the_remaining_gop_candidates_views_and/ | {
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"Since I happen to have written this on a different ELI5 post, I'm just going to copy n' past my response. Sorry for not having summaries on the other candidates. \n\nRon Paul is a libertarian, a group that promotes social and economic freedom -- politically this would be socially liberal and economically conservative. Ron Paul is more specifically a Constitutionalist. This means that he adheres to the Constitution as it is stated and is in favor of reducing the power of federal government in favor of stronger states rights.\n\nHis major stances are to: withdraw troops from abroad to focus on national defense, divert money saved from reducing military expenditure to fund infrastructure, domestic, and welfare programs, to eventually phase out welfare programs, to reduce federal spending to alleviate national debt, to eliminate certain national departments whose responsibilities would be returned to the states, to end the federal reserve and return to a gold standard of currency, to eliminate many of the laws that infringe on constitutional rights of individuals (eg. Patriot Act).",
"Since I happen to have written this on a different ELI5 post, I'm just going to copy n' past my response. Sorry for not having summaries on the other candidates. \n\nRon Paul is a libertarian, a group that promotes social and economic freedom -- politically this would be socially liberal and economically conservative. Ron Paul is more specifically a Constitutionalist. This means that he adheres to the Constitution as it is stated and is in favor of reducing the power of federal government in favor of stronger states rights.\n\nHis major stances are to: withdraw troops from abroad to focus on national defense, divert money saved from reducing military expenditure to fund infrastructure, domestic, and welfare programs, to eventually phase out welfare programs, to reduce federal spending to alleviate national debt, to eliminate certain national departments whose responsibilities would be returned to the states, to end the federal reserve and return to a gold standard of currency, to eliminate many of the laws that infringe on constitutional rights of individuals (eg. Patriot Act)."
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4giolq | since oil is 1/3 the price is what was 2 years ago, how come gasoline isn't 1/3 the price? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4giolq/eli5_since_oil_is_13_the_price_is_what_was_2/ | {
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"If you spend $1 on gasoline, it doesn't all go to the cost of the oil. A percentage goes towards the cost of processing the oil. Some goes towards transport. Some towards taxes and tariffs, and some goes to the gas station. Most of these costs are relatively stable\n\nThe cost of oil only partly accounts for the price of gasoline",
"The price of gasoline, like that of any other manufactured product, is not dependent only on its main constituent part (crude oil), but on the sum of all the input costs associated in the manufacturing of the product.\n\nFor example, the salaries of everyone working in the oil industry have not been slashed by two thirds; neither the cost of the drilling or other extraction equipment, the refining process, the transport costs, the marketing costs, the operation of filling stations, etc.\n\nWith all of those input costs remaining the same, or even increasing, the overall effect of the drop in price of crude oil is diminished.\n",
"Where I live, it is half what it was a couple year ago... but while the raw material (crude oil) has fallen by 2/3, don't forget that the refinery still pays its employees the same and costs the same to run no matter the cost of oil. The oil and gasoline need to be transported from oil field or tanker ship to refinery, then from refinery to gas station. Gas statins take their mark-up, which is usually a flat amount per gallon, And then there are taxes, which are also usually a set amount per gallon.",
"No one's mentioned that the cost of Ethanol which the government mandates makes up 2-10% of your fuel depending on the state, which has a price of 5 dollars a gallon.",
"Inelastic demand -\n\nThe same amount of gas generally sells, no matter it's price.\n\nThere is no motivation to pass savings on to the consumer, when the alternative is same # of gallons sold, with higher profits."
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3pc10y | why are whale/dolphin sounds so calming for humans? | There are tons of relaxing videos out there with the language of our marine buddies recorded, but I can't find any scientifical explanation of why we choose to listen to them and why they apparently calm us down. I wonder if it's got something to do with frequencies or the like. Explanations and/or links very much apprectiated :) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3pc10y/eli5why_are_whaledolphin_sounds_so_calming_for/ | {
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"Its mainly just the ambiance, and its ability to block out other sound frequencies so we really don't hear anything else.\n\nPersonally, I feel like they scare the shit out of me",
"Personally, I feel its just a cultural association, mostly; \"save the whales\" was a big thing at the birth of the environmentalist movement (or when it became more popular/widespread). So now whales and dolphins are symbols of peace and love and nature and stuff.\n\nAlso, whales (maybe dolphins too; not sure) have an odd communication method, with very long \"songs\" repeated. This slow, kinda 'mystical'-sounding, repetitive vocalisation is gonna be more soothing than many animals who vocalise mostly as a distress/warning signal (not real \"soothing\").\n\nBut I reckon if there was a big \"save the cows\" campaign in the 70s, we'd be going to sleep and meditating to ambient synths over cows mooing."
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44yzdg | what are the actual negatives of free education besides "they don't deserve it?" | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/44yzdg/eli5_what_are_the_actual_negatives_of_free/ | {
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"It's not free as you'll simply be moving the cost to tax payers. Rather than creating this huge new tax, many in the edu reform effort look more towards controlling these insane costs and student loans.\n\nA majority of Major universities double as research campuses, which require a large amount of money to operate. That price does come with some positive: American universities consistently dominate the top university lists.",
"There's an argument that too many people already go to college, as evidenced by crazy high dropout rates, poor job placement for recent graduates and a demand that never slows at all. There's also the argument that the US already spends the most money per capital on students for middling results, so the issue with US education is probably deeper than throwing more money at it. There's also the situation where if you make college fully subsidized, less people go to college. This is the way it is in all of the European nations that subsidize college education. Taxpayers don't want to pay for C students to find themselves in college. This means the government has much stricter controls on who gets to attend university, what they can study and how long they can take to graduate. As someone essentially on the dole, students are at the mercy over their government's mandate on how their education goes. Additionally, if college becomes a true meritocracy where only the most deserving students can attend, you have to face the realization that statistically, scholastic success most achieved by a)children of parents with means and b)white and asian students. This system would essentially perpetuate minority poverty as more white and asian students go to college, end up making more money and have more white and asian children that have a higher likelihood of getting to go to college.\n\nNot everything is a slam dunk. If you haven't thought of any potential issues with \"free\" college then you haven't really thought critically about it at all.",
"In addition to what has already been mentioned (it's not technically free, just being paid for by someone else) you have to look at the fundamental supply/demand of a couple markets. \n\nFirst, the market for a college education. If you make it free, demand would skyrocket, and supply wouldn't be able to keep up. We'd need more professors, more facilities, more equipment. All of that stuff costs money, and (competent) professors in particular can be difficult to acquire: to use a cliche, they don't grow on trees.\n\nSecond, the market for a college degree. If I'm an employer searching for employees, one of my first vetting processes is going to be whether or not you have a degree. If, all of a sudden, everyone has a degree, the value of that degree is greatly diminished, making college worthless to begin with. What's the point of a college education if you don't stand anything to gain from it?\n\nObviously these are fundamental and generic explanations which ignore a whole host of other complexities, but, this is ELI5",
"One problem is that there's no such thing as \"free\" education. Anything provided \"for free\" isn't actually free because it's usually government subsidized, meaning the government pays for it via tax money. The more (and more expensive) services the government subsidizes, the more the people are taxed (through whatever distribution of taxation) to pay for it all.\n\nSome people may not agree to this model because they're essentially forking over money to support people _they don't care about_. I.e., \"I'm not going to college and I'm not having kids going to college so why should I be taxed for this 'free' education?\"\n\nSome people also don't agree to it because they're simply too near the poverty line to afford an increase in any area of financial burden (assuming they're affected by the particular implementation of higher taxes).",
"One thing to keep in mind, on top of all the arguments about what it would cost taxpayers, is what it would cost schools. School tuition varies wildly from location to location. The costs of maintaining schools, both in terms of property leasing/ownership and basics like food and electricity play in to the overall cost of running a school. There's also the costs for teachers, keeping programs current and all those sorts of costs.\n\nWhat does a \"free education\" mean? Does it mean that you can go to any in-state college for four years without having to pay anything out of pocket including for school provided food and text-books, lab fees and the like? Would it only cover tuition, and students would still have to provide for room and board? If it's on a federal level, do you force schools to allow students to go at a federally mandated state tuition level? Does that tuition level have a structure for increasing the amount per student over time?\n\nFree education is a great idea, in my opinion. I like a lot of the Sanders plan, at least the high-level run-down. I'm not sure if it's sustainable, and there are some questions regarding whether it should include post-secondary education and what the income levels for full subsidization should be. So it's easy for me to get behind in concept, but I have a lot of questions about the actual implementation that give me pause.",
"The bottom line is that *stuff is expensive* and when you tax one group of people to give free shit to other people, both groups are hurt. Imagine that we decided that everyone should have a free Lamborghini. First, today no one has a Lamborghini unless they *really* want it - enough to pay a ridiculous amount of money for it. You might not think Lamborghini's are *worth it*, but at least you probably think that there are very few people who don't give a shit about fancy cars who have bought one. If we gave free Lamborghinis to everyone who wanted one, then there would be people who can't drive, people who rarely drive, people who don't even plan to take good care of the car, all with the same really resource-intensive car.\n\nAnd resource intensive it is. Lamborghinis would actually be *more* expensive than they are now if we gave them away for free to everyone who wanted one, because the more of something you want to build, the harder and harder it gets to keep increasing the supply. And all of these costs would be borne, not by whoever applied for their free car, but by anyone with a job, whether they had applied for their own free car or not. Ask yourself; could you afford a Lamborghini right now? If not, how could you afford to pay for someone else's Lamborghini out of your taxes? It may be that you don't expect *your* taxes to go up at all, you think it will all be someone else's taxes. But maybe you should ask yourself this: if you *were* having 5%, 10%, maybe 15% of your additional income taxed away to pay for other people's free Lamborghinis, would that make you want to work harder, or work less? Do the actual taxpayers who expect to pay for the free Lamborghinis feel the same way as you do, or differently? What economic effects might this have?\n\nThat is the underlying issue. Things are expensive. Giving things away makes things expensive in order to give them away to people who don't want them, with people who would otherwise work harder asked to pick up the bill. That's true whether your plan is to give away college education, houses, cars, food, clothing, cellphones, or anything else.\n\nThat's why \"Do they deserve it?\" matters. It's best to avoid giving things away for free, so you only do it when there is some strong reason you couldn't or shouldn't make people pay themselves. For example, you *can't* make people pay individually for police protection (because a dangerous neighborhood hurts everyone in the neighborhood).\n\nThere are other issues more directly connected to free *college education*, as opposed to free stuff in general. Making education free tends to terribly degrade the quality of education offered. If someone is paying for lessons to learn French or Java or calculus, they damn well want to know French/Java/calculus at the end of the lessons. That's what they're paying for: they think that knowledge is worth more than the tuition. Generally people are lazy and a bit ignorant, so they don't *enjoy* studying, but paying the tuition and *not knowing French at the end* is far worse than paying the tuition and struggling through some homework assignments. However, when people get their education for free from taxpayers (as we predicted above) it is no longer necessary that they put an particular value on it. They tend to want to work as little as possible. Out of tradition, the educational programs resist this, but if they are getting paid per body by the government, they have no incentive to expel people who won't work, because they lose nothing by keeping lazy idiots, but they lose money if they expel them. So the equilibrium is for the rigor of education (and with it, the value of a degree) to fall lower and lower as education becomes more taxpayer-subsidized."
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2zwtt7 | does quantum entanglement imply that it might be possible to send a message back in time? if so how would that not violate causality? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2zwtt7/eli5_does_quantum_entanglement_imply_that_it/ | {
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"[You cannot use an entangled system to transmit information](_URL_0_) without a supplementary classical channel bound by the usual speed-of-light limitations, so... no. It doesn't. "
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-communication_theorem"
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9cf9x0 | why is windows the go-to for software and game developers? what does it have over linux or mac os | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9cf9x0/eli5_why_is_windows_the_goto_for_software_and/ | {
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"A big user base.\n\nGo to your local retailer (Best Buy etc) and count how many machines are sold with Windows and how many with Linux.\n\nIn the case of Linux and applications there is an awful lot out there available for free (including the OS itself of course..)\n\nLots of people buy Macs, but still less common than Windows PCs and I would suggest those people are less likely to buy and play games.\n\nPut it this way - if some other OS was prevalent both application and games developers would target that."
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9a85i4 | what determines which body part gains more weight ? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9a85i4/eli5_what_determines_which_body_part_gains_more/ | {
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"And why does belly fat stop so convenient at your waist so you can wear pants?",
"And what determines which body part loses weight faster?",
"Its a common misconception that you can spot reduce body fat, you can't target where to lose fat. However areas like the stomach have more fat than other areas, so they are usually the first place you will notice trimming down.\n\nAs for gaining weight, if its just fat you'll gain in more in high fat areas like I mentioned above. If its hypertrophy (muscle growth) you'll gain it in muscles you are training.",
"All genetics. It’s nothing you really control. You can not spot burn fat with exercise. Meaning that crunches won’t burn belly fat. Exercise and diet that are appropriate, will cause you to lose overall body weight, from everywhere it stores it, most likely leaving fat where it first formed.",
"Hormones.\n\nHigh estrogen favours storage in the lower body, known as the [gynoid](_URL_1_) fat distribution pattern, commonly seen in women.\n\nLow estrogen favours storage in the trunk, known as the [android](_URL_0_) fat distribution pattern, commonly seen in men.\n\nCortisol, testosterone, insulin, and hgh all play a role in how readily your body stores fat, but not really where it's stored.",
"Theres a study that measured Tennis players bodyfat % in there arms and after a prolonged period of time, the dominat arm ended up the same BF % as the other arm that wasn't used at all.\n\n\n\nNow, they also did a controlled study, with four different groups of men, all on the same food regimen, all eating at a deficiet.\n\nGroup 1: Trained only legs three times a week and did 30 min of medium intensity cardio after training\n\nGroup 2: Trained only upper body three times a week and did 30min of medium intensity cardio after\n\nGroup 3: Trained only legs three times a week with no cardio after\n\nGroup 4: Trained only upper body three times a week with no cardio after\n\n\n\nResults, while they all ended up losing bodyfat, the interesting results came Group 1 and Group 2. Group 1 had lost a significant more amount of bodyfat in there legs compared to the rest of the group, and group 2 lost a significant more amount of body fat in there upper body compared to the rest of the group.\n\nWhile we can't choose the body part that our fat wants to burn, I think we an at least influence or body to use either our upper body or lower body as fat based on the results but only after doing a cardio session after.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nI am no scientist or researcher so don't quote me word for word but how they explained it was, after doing an upper body or lower body workout, our body takes adapose tissue out of ? and is ready to be used as energy but a lot of it never gets used and ends up going back to where it was and that is why doing cardio after a workout significantly affected the results. \n\n\n\nNow, if I could only find the study and link it...",
"When u r stressed, not enough sleep, your body produces more cortisol which increases fat accumulation on face and abdomen "
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4rrswr | why and how are most people traumatized by gore? | So often I read about firefighters or paramedics who are traumatized by accidents or scenes they are called to. I tried to find out whether this is common for surgeons, too. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think it is as common. For example, a brain surgeon has a very graphic job, too. That person is even "responsible" for the gorey images they see, they create the wound. Unlike EMS workers who arrive at a scene.
This makes me wonder whether it's the gore itself that is traumatizing, or simply the surprise factor, a feeling of helplessness and the implications of pain and suffering at an accident, compared to someone checking themselves in for surgery. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4rrswr/eli5_why_and_how_are_most_people_traumatized_by/ | {
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"Surgeons spend years learning about body parts, dissecting organs, and viewing operations in surgical theatres, they slowly become desensitised to gore through small doses."
]
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3lo44y | who is the us borrowing money from? | So according to [this](_URL_0_), the US had to borrow 1.7 trillion dollars in 2010 just to run itself. Where is this money coming from? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3lo44y/eli5_who_is_the_us_borrowing_money_from/ | {
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"About 65% is domestic. Of that the biggest chunk is the Social Security Fund followed by the Federal Reserve. The majority of the rest of the domestic debt is bonds to individuals and investment funds.\n\nThe remaining 35% is foreign - China is usually at the top of the list in the high single digits - but Japan is close and I believe has had the top spot in the past.\n\nSo, to keep it simple - %65 is owed to the US public, %35 to other countries.",
"Mostly? Americans. The U.S. government debt is in the form of treasury bonds (and also treasury notes and bills). These are basically IOUs the government sells to make money now in exchange for more money in the future--hence, debt. The single largest holder of treasury bonds (and hence U.S. federal debt) is, I believe, paradoxically, the federal government itself--more particularly, the social security system. The federal reserve and other parts of the government also own bonds. So a big chunk of that debt is just the federal government giving IOUs to itself and moving them around through various agencies.\n\nYou can go out and buy treasury bonds! Many people have. They're for sale on a more or less open market, and periodically new ones are auctioned off. There's no requirement that you be a U.S. citizen to buy them--and so people from other countries also buy them. If you've ever heard that China or other foreign countries are the source of the United States' borrowed money, that's what it means--that Chinese people have bought a lot (a little over 7%) of the bonds. The Japanese have also bought around 7%. Maybe not surprisingly, those are the world's two largest economies next to the United States.\n\nIn fact, U.S. treasury bonds have historically been a very important investment because they're one of the safest investments--hence, one of the safest places to park any savings you have. Why are they so safe? Basically, the downside risk is very low because the U.S. government is virtually guaranteed to pay its debts. If the U.S. stopped paying its debts, that would mean something has gone very, very wrong--and we all might have bigger things to worry about than losing value in our bonds.",
"Here's the Treasury Bulletin.\n\n_URL_1_\n\nAccording to them, $6.1 trillion of the $18.1 trillion debt is owned by foreign and international investors. US debt is considered very safe, so many investors in more volatile countries put their money here. Also, foreign governments can alter the value of their currency on the market by buying or selling US$ debt.\n\nAs others have mentioned, Japan and China are far away the heaviest investors. Each have more than a trillion dollars in US debt holdings. For a short time this year, Japan actually passed China as the biggest holder. You can see the breakdown here.\n\n_URL_0_"
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5v4ll4 | why is it a persons natural reaction to grab whichever part of the body has been injured? for example, if you get hit in the back of the head, the first thing you do is grab your head. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5v4ll4/eli5_why_is_it_a_persons_natural_reaction_to_grab/ | {
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"It's the quickest way to protect the injured part. You pull it away from danger and protect it with an uninjured part of the body.",
"Had a psychobiology professor explain that since we have way more touch receptors than pain receptors (like 10:1), that grabbing the injured body part is an attempt to overwhelm the pain we are experiencing.",
"Check out the pain gate control theory.\nThe idea is that pressure signals decrease the brains ability to receive pain signals. \n_URL_0_"
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ltgst | why are jpeg images generally seen as low-res compared to other image file types? | Also, what IS the best image file to save something in, depending on what your trying to do? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ltgst/why_are_jpeg_images_generally_seen_as_lowres/ | {
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"[Here you go.](_URL_0_)",
"[Here you go.](_URL_0_)"
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5jiizu | what is elf on a shelf? i truly don't understand what it's about. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5jiizu/eli5_what_is_elf_on_a_shelf_i_truly_dont/ | {
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"Elf on a Shelf is a small decorative Elf doll that can be posed. It has been around since at least the 1950s and many parents from that time and onward have used it as a tool to help control how young children behave during the holidays. You tell them that the Elf is watching them to see if they are being good or bad and then reporting to Santa when they go to sleep. You then move the elf about the tree and/or house while the child is asleep or at school to give the indication that it has been finding new hiding places after either watching or reporting. It is a fun little tradition in a lot of families and has for some reason had a boom of popularity the last couple of years. ",
"Elf on a Shelf is a toy elf that can be bought at the store, every night around Christmas time parents will move him around the house and make it look like he was doing different things during the night. He is supposed to be magical and can only move when the kids are asleep. In the morning the kids get to find out what crazy things he has done through the night. He also is supposed to let Santa know if you have been good or bad too I think. \n\nPicture of the elf: _URL_0_ \n\nExamples: _URL_1_ \n\nOne of my favorites that my sister did is they put makeup on her husband and had the elf set up next to him holding lipstick and she went and got her girls to show them while her husband was \"asleep\". ",
"Elf on the shelf is happy little voyeur that moves around after the kids go to bed. It obstensibly reports back to Santa with the kiddo's behavior. \n\nI agree that it seems odd, but it's a tradition with a unique perk: it's one of the first Christmas traditions that your child can enjoy. Kids can find the elf before their first birthday! That's years before they're able to unwrap presents, or help make cookies, or join in with caroling. As a parent you spend so much time hoping to make the holidays as magical as you remember, but so many of your traditions are outside their comprehension or not yet age appropriate, or both (ie decorating a needle bush with glass heirlooms and choking hazards). Elf on the shelf is one of the first times where you feel like kiddo appreciates the work you're putting in. \n\nEvery morning they waddle out in their onesie pajamas, looking all up and down for the Elf on the Shelf you set up the night before. When they find it they laugh and cheer! What happens next though is the real magic: they're so happy, and their first reaction is to share that with you! \n\nAs they get older you share many more of your Christmas traditions, but there's nothing quite like nurturing that first bit of holiday magic.",
"Ditto to the comments below, but my family personally never really did the whole \"Oh your Elf doesn't move around at night\" and \"He reports to santa\".\n\nMom just kinda left a soft doll just about, either it clinging to the candle (only the metal part) or resting it on a small table.\n\nOnly a two(?) years ago did she get us children (one young adult and two teens) a miniature Elf on the Shelf, Christmas decorations."
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dbzx2t | what makes humans not fall over? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dbzx2t/eli5_what_makes_humans_not_fall_over/ | {
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"In my case. My legs and feet. I normally stand on top of them and let my brain use other senses to tell my legs what movements to do. But I can't speak for others.",
"You can sense gravity and your orientation relative to the Earth's gravity with an organ in your [inner ears](_URL_2_). \n\nAnd your body has nerves that automatically feel [where your arms and your legs are](_URL_0_), and also how much weight is pushing down on them and how much effort the muscles have to expend in order to \"stand up\" or \"walk\" or whatever activity you're doing.\n\nAnd finally, the brain has the ability to calculate, at all times, how your body SHOULD position itself in order to stand, walk, etc.\n\nThis is something that they've finally managed to [program into robots](_URL_1_) only recently. Cellphones have motion and gravity detectors similar to your inner ear, but the robot needs quite a bit of processing power in order to calculate all that information in real time in order to move its limbs \"automatically\" like we do. The brain and the body are quite advanced, compared to current processors and robotics.\n\nCurrently.",
"Every muscle and joint in your body is a sensor. Add in your vision and your inner ears, and you'll constantly have a near-perfect understanding of where your own limbs are at all times. You subconsciously make minute adjustments to muscle tension and limb positions to rectify even small movements in order to keep standing.\n\nInterestingly, a lot of this system actually qualifies as a reflex action, which means that the nerves responsible for deciding how to move in order to keep you standing are actually in your *spine*, not your brain. They have to be in your spine because sending a signal all the way to your brain, letting your brain process it, and then moving based on the response can take too long for the sort of things reflexes react to (balance, flinching from pain, etc.).",
"As long as a large part of your weight is lined up vertically between your two feet and not behind your heels or ahead of your toes then you will not fall over. \n\nWhen you balance on one foot, the middle of your body by weight has to be lined up between the two sides of your foot and in front of your heel and behind your toes."
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1jt5kr | why is stock only traded 6hrs/day, 30hrs/week? | It just seems like such a short window. Why not 9-5 or on Saturday? Aside from the obvious, people need to rest answer. Are there any other financial limitations. If people could trade 24/7, I bet they would. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1jt5kr/eli5why_is_stock_only_traded_6hrsday_30hrsweek/ | {
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"There's all sorts of ways to trade stuff 24/7, it's just that the major stock markets officially close down during the night/holidays/etc. But there's a bunch of stock markets across the globe, there's stock futures (where you're basically agreeing that you'll buy/sell at a particular price at some point in the future when the market is open), and all sorts of other markets where you can go toss money around any time any day if you're so inclined.\n\n",
"In general, limited hours help the market remain stable."
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6cqjzm | what engineering limits are keeping modern passenger planes from going more than ~600 miles per hour? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6cqjzm/eli5_what_engineering_limits_are_keeping_modern/ | {
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"Cost benefit ratio. Air resistance increases exponentially the faster you go which means exponential fuel consumption. And also breaking the sound barrier also causes other problems itself too. ",
"The speed of sound is a mofo.\n\nSome of the design problems are here: _URL_0_\n\nThe problems are solvable, but not efficiently. In general, it's not just that the cost needs to come down, but that it needs to come down relative to subsonic flight, so that people will pay for the express.",
"Limits of fluid dynamics as result of laws of physics. The faster you go, the more air molecules you have to shove aside. \n\nFuel isn't free. Nobody cares to pay $10000 a ticket to get there 5 hours sooner.",
"The faster you go the more air resistance that you meet. The more air resistance the more fuel you have to burn to maintain that speed. There is nothing necessarily stopping commercial planes from going super sonic except for some laws about super sonic flight over populated areas, but its just not economical.",
"The biggest one is actually political. Breaking the sound barrier makes a lot of noise and makes people grumpy. That's the main reason we haven't done it again since the Concorde, there's just too much pushback; though companies are working on quieter supersonic jets to help with it\n\nYou'll notice that most commercial jets top out around mach 0.8, there's a reason for that! Between Mach 0.8 and Mach 1.2 you're in the \"transonic region\" and the math gets icky. Some parts of the plane have air moving over them at the speed of sound, others have it moving slower, its not a good place to be so you want to fly faster! The Concorde did Mach 2.0 meaning it was only briefly in the transonic region before getting into full supersonic\n\nA supersonic plane needs a much different shape than a subsonic plane. Lift doesn't work the same at those high speeds, big wide wings are just going to rip off, you end up with swept wings that are closer to the body and narrower which reduces drag at high speed, unfortunately this means that your plane isn't very good at subsonic speed\n\nAnd we're back to point #1, politics. You can make a plane good at being supersonic or you can make a plane good at being subsonic but you can't make a plane good at both so you either have a plane you can only fly over the ocean that goes really quick, or a plane you can fly anywhere that goes slower, but you can't have a really quick plane that flies anywhere right now.",
"There are a lot of changes that occur as a plane hits supersonic speed. The flow of air through the engine, the heat generated by air compression, and the vibrations of the shockwave all have to be incorporated into the design of the aircraft for it to survive supersonic flight. And even if you do all those, fuel efficiency plummets.",
"1. Supersonic flight burns a lot of gas and this means tickets are going to be expensive.\n\n2. Burning a lot of gas means that you can't do the real long haul flights like LA to Tokyo or whatever, which is where being able to go really fast would give you the greatest benefit. Also, the noise from the sonic boom means that supersonic flight is mostly going to be over the ocean.\n\n3. Unless you're on one of these real long haul flights (which supersonic airliners can't do) then it's entirely possible that most of your journey is going to be spent in a cab going to the airport, then dicking around in line at the ticket counter, then going through security etc etc etc rather than actually in the air flying.\n\n4. The fact that you can lease an executive jet these days means that the kind of people who could regularly blow thousands of dollars on a supersonic flight have another option that costs about the same, takes about as much time (considering the whole journey) and is vastly more comfortable. \n",
"While other answers are more complete and correct, I think a eli5 explaination for the difference between subsonic and supersonic speed is missing. Clearly there are enormous approximations for the sake of eli5. \n\nWhen a plane flies below the speed of the sound, the front tip of the wing splits the air in front of it so that a part of it flows above the wing and a part of it flows below. Now, a wing is shaped approximately like a semicircle. The bottom part is flatter and the top part is more curved. So, the air flowing on top must flow faster than the air flowing below, if both the split parts must arrive at the end of the wing simulataneously (due to conservation of mass). Now, it turns out that an area of fast moving air has lower pressure than an area of slow moving air. So, we get a pressure difference above and below the wing. This causes a force from below the wing to above and lifts the wing. This allows planes to fly. \n\nIf the wing is flying above the speed of sound, the air in front of the wing doesn't split anymore. Instead, it starts bunching up. This causes the air in front of the wings to become compressed and compression causes heating. This means that not only is there not enough force to lift the wing, the heating can also deteriorate the wing. Different (and expensive) designs are needed to overcome these problems. \n\nTo relate to an everyday analogy, think about moving your hand in the swimming pool. If you keep the palm parallel to the surface of the water, you can \"slice\" through the water quite easily. It causes your hand to lift in the same way as a wing in air. However, as you increase the speed at which you slice the water, it gets harder. At higher speeds, the \"slicing\" decreases and you are pretty much just pushing the water. This makes the movement not so smooth anymore and also hurts the hand a little. "
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39dfap | why do countries want to take people in for asylum? | I have been reading everywhere and I can't find any reasons why countries would want people to take asylum in their country. From cases like Edward Snowden, what would be the benefits of taking him in? Or when looking for an answer, I found a page [here](_URL_0_) welcoming people to take asylum in Sweden. What benefits do these countries get? Are there any negative aspects as well? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/39dfap/eli5_why_do_countries_want_to_take_people_in_for/ | {
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"I could be wrong but I think it's a matter of humanitarian motivation. They take them in because they support their cause/protection for whatever reason and feel it's the right thing to do.\n\nAgain, there may be many examples where this is not the case.",
"It can be both humanitarian and political reasons. For example, if a country has an inner war, the neighbour countries will be the first safe destiny. Some of them will accept them and protect them, with the help of the UN. \n\nNow, Snowden's case. He was persecuted by the US. Russia, as many anti-US countries, offered him asylum for political reasons, to show the opposition to Washington.",
"Humanitarian reasons, such as not letting people die needlessly or suffer horribly, are the primary reasons for granting asylum. \nFrom a more pragmatic standpoint though, it's the same reason as allowing immigration. Asylum seekers may provide labor or in many cases skilled labor to a host country. The difference between immigration and asylum seeking is just the status of the country when they left. This may lead to more persons with valuable skills leaving a country."
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d2u4rb | what is the difference between medicine injected in the veins through your arms or places with easy access, vs the butt cheeks? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d2u4rb/eli5_what_is_the_difference_between_medicine/ | {
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"Medicine that goes in the vein is absorbed more quickly and directly. \n\nIntramuscular shots may be given in different muscles such as in the arm or ventrogluteal area (near your butt). The arm muscle is easiest, but is recommended only for smaller amounts of medicine. The vg/butt muscle is good for larger amount of medicine due to being a larger muscle.",
"Medicine injected in the vein enters your bloodstream directly. This is called *intravenous injection*.\n\nMedicine injected into your body is either *intramuscular* (e.g. the butt cheeks, where it goes into your muscle) or *subcutaneous* (e.g. your ~~arm~~ stomach, where it goes under your skin).\n\nThere are other injection sites (e.g. intracavernous where you inject into a sinus) but these three are by far the most common.\n\nInjection method involves four criteria: Effectiveness, safety, patient preference, and economics.\n\n* Effectiveness varies from drug to drug. Most drugs are most effective when injected intravenously, because that puts the drug directly into your bloodstream with no intermediate effects, but others are most effective when taken up via a muscle. Subcutaneous is rarely the most effective.\n* Safety also varies from drug to drug, but generally speaking intravenous injection is the least safe due to the possibility of vein damage.\n* Patient preference is less important, but still a factor. Intramuscular and subcutaneous injection are preferred by many patients because they can perform it themselves at home with high safety, unlike IV injection which should be performed by a medical professional.\n* Finally, economics comes into play. Some drugs require 10x the dosage when used intramuscularly as opposed to intravenously. Other drugs require a special formulation for intramuscular injection which is 50 times as expensive as the intravenous formulation. In these cases, the economics becomes important and IV injection may be preferred despite other drawbacks.",
"Intravenous (IV) is much faster acting than other parenteral (not via mouth/anus) administration, so gets to work much quicker.\n\nSome medicines (adrenaline for anaphylaxis/asthma) cannot be given directly in the vein, as they would cause significant harm if administered that quickly (it is used IV at 1/10th the dosage for patients in cardiac arrest).\n\nDirectly into bone (intraosseous) is used as an alternative to IV when access is not available.",
"There are different types of medicine, requiring different types of injection. Injection into a vein is intravenous injection, which sends the medicine directly into your bloodstream, where it is metabolized by the body quickly. Then there is intramuscular injection, which is injection into a muscle like the thigh muscle or the butt muscle or the upper arm muscles. This type of injection is absorbed more slowly than intravenous injections, but can be used for drugs that are irritating to veins or need to be utilized more slowly than intravenous drugs. Then there is subcutaneous injection, which goes into the layer of fat just below the skin and above the muscle. This is the slowest rate of absorption, and is used for drugs like insulin, which need to be used slowly by the body."
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501d8r | how some women maintain their regular menstrual cycle after starting the mini/progesterone-only pill despite not ovulating or having a placebo week. | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/501d8r/eli5_how_some_women_maintain_their_regular/ | {
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"text": [
"Well, a lot of reasons. It depends on the woman. But, generally speaking, ovulation is the maturity and release of an egg, I think. Stopping the maturity and release of an egg doesn't prevent the uterine lining for preparing for pregnancy(same as with combination pills). I believe the progesterone in it stops the luteinizing hormones from being released for the pituitary gland, which stops the egg from actually releasing, By preventing estrogen dominance which causes the production of LH in the pituitary gland, but I could be wrong, though. So, it just prevents the egg from being released, not from the body prepping for pregnancy."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | |
46x3px | raid parity | How does RAID parity contain enough data to rebuild lost disks?
Bonus points for actual ELI5 | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/46x3px/eli5_raid_parity/ | {
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"I give you two bags of pennies. Before you start counting them, I tell you that there are an even number of them all together (ELIActually5: if you count them off two by two, there won't be any left over). After counting the pennies in the first bag, you already know if there are an even or odd number in the other bag.\n\nThat's how RAID parity works. We know that for any given bit, there are an even number of disks with a 1 there. So if you lose a single disk, you can rebuild the lost disk from the remaining information.",
"So parity in general works like this - let's say we have eight data bits and one parity bit, although the actual number of data bits is not terribly important.\n\nHere's our data: \n01001100 \nSo that's three bits set to 1, and five set to 0. And our algorithm says that we're going to use *even* parity, so we need to add another 1 to make an even number of ones. Therefore our parity bit is a 1:\n01001100 +1\n\nNow, we have an event that destroys the fifth bit:\n0100X100 +1\n\nWe don't know what that fifth bit was, but we know we are using even parity, so we can deduce that it was a one. We rebuild it, thus: \n0100**1**100 +1\n\nRAID works pretty much the same way, in the flavors where it uses parity to protect against lost data. In RAID 4, we use one whole disk for nothing but parity information, and in RAID 5, we spread the data and the parity information across all of the disks. In RAID 6, the parity info is recorded twice in separate places, so we need n+2 disks rather than n+1.",
"Take your file and split it up into groups of two bits (i.e. two ones or zeroes). If you can store one set of two bits then you can do the same thing for the rest of the file, so we are left with a much simpler problem: Given 00, 01, 10, or 11, store values on 3 hard drives such that you could lose any of the 3 hard drives and still reconstruct the original data.\n\nThe data that you write to the first two hard drives is easy: one stores the first bit, the other stores the second bit. If you lose the third drive then it doesn't matter—your data was stored on the first two.\n\nFor the third hard drive you ask \"How many ones were in the data that we're storing?\" If there was only one 1 (e.g. 01 or 10) then you store a 1; if there were 0 or 2 ones then you store a 0. If you're using more than 3 hard drives then you ask \"was the number of ones even or odd?\". This means that you have the following table:\n\nData | HD1 | HD2 | HD3\n----|---|---|---\n00 | 0 | 0 | 0\n01 | 0 | 1 | 1\n10 | 1 | 0 | 1\n11 | 1 | 1 | 0\n\nNow let's say you lost Hard Drive number 1. You look and you see that HD2 had a 0 and HD3 had a 1. There's only one row of this table that matches that, which was when the data was 10. No matter what combination of HD2 and HD3 you have there's always only one row of this table that matches. Same if HD2 broke and you just have HD1 and HD3. "
]
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[],
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2bw2md | what's the point of a slice of citrus in a glass? | In restaurants for example, why do they add a lemon slice to the edge of the glass? Is there a deeper reason, or is it just fancy?
[Example](_URL_0_) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2bw2md/eli5_whats_the_point_of_a_slice_of_citrus_in_a/ | {
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"You can put the slice in the glass to flavor the water/drink a bit.",
"It's just garnish. Bartenders might put some orange or lemon zest in a glass so the oils from the peel get into the drink and add aroma or flavor. ",
"Because a vodka tonic is not the same without it.",
"Tastes fresher. Like putting pepper in food makes it feel hotter. At least when the lemon is in the water...",
"If it's anything like the reason they put lime in a Corona it was originally intended for sanitary purposes. The lime was used to disinfect the rim of the bottle. Perhaps that's where it started and now it's just traditional? ",
"I read somewhere that it was something that helped against scurvy and the such. It just stuck as tradition."
]
} | [] | [
"http://everydaylife.globalpost.com/DM-Resize/photos.demandstudios.com/getty/article/129/35/88017717.jpg?w=600&h=600&keep_ratio=1&webp=1"
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6b73e2 | why is it that we can eat vegetables like carrot raw but no potatoes? | I was having breakfast and this thought occurred to me. Carrots can be eaten raw and steamed but potatoes you cannot. Is there some sort of molecular difference between the two? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6b73e2/eli5_why_is_it_that_we_can_eat_vegetables_like/ | {
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"Raw potatoes are actually edible, at least technically. They just don't taste very good without being cooked first.",
"Carrots have stored energy as sugar potatoes have stored energy as starch\n\nYou can eat raw potatoes they just taste starchy which is not particularly enjoyable raw. \n\n "
]
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[],
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3tpcid | if i lived in the middle of the wilderness with no other people around, would i still catch colds? | I'm sick today home from work watching "Into the Wild". This question is just a natural response to a half-drunk, sick, urban mind. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3tpcid/eli5_if_i_lived_in_the_middle_of_the_wilderness/ | {
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"It's still possible but your chances of catching a cold would be a whole lot less, but you are much more likely to die of something else.",
"You would not catch colds unless you got tainted mail or something. Rhinoviruses can survive outside the human body for ~2 days, and can only travel on a sneeze for a dozen feet or so. There's no real risk of infection over longer distances.",
"Honestly, I feel like I have not received a solid answer. ",
"I live in a rather isolated region most of the year, I rarely get colds, certainly fewer than when I worked in healthcare.",
"Tangential question. Can the cold virus be transmitted via farts? Or is it just coughing and sneezing? "
]
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[],
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4hdhzu | why can we die so easily from getting stabbed? | I've never really understood why people were so afraid of getting stabbed in mugging situations (besides pain, etc.). Obviously, it hurts, but how exactly can a stab wound lead to your death? Are certain parts of the body more resistant to being stabbed? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4hdhzu/eli5_why_can_we_die_so_easily_from_getting_stabbed/ | {
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"Humans are very fragile.\n\nEven getting stabbed in a place like the leg can be very easily fatal - The main artery that goes through the leg is only a few inches below the surface and if it is severed, can lead to someone potentially bleeding to death in just a few minutes.\n\nMost stab wounds that end up being fatal are usually deadly because of various arteries and vains being destroyed resulting in blood loss.\n\nAnd there are a lot of potential places on your body that major arteries exist that a knife wound could very, VERY easily reach.\n\nAlso other issues such as even if it isn't fatal from blood loss- Can lead to massive infection later on. \n\nPlus sometimes your body can just go into shock in general which may result in death in and of itself.",
"A knife entering almost any part of your body can kill you because there are very important structures located in the spots it most commonly happens. Most obviously there are arteries and veins that, when punctured, can cause you to bleed to death. In some cases this can happen very rapidly.\n\nThere are also organs like the heart that can kill you almost instantly if it is punctured. Other organs like your intestines can release bacteria into your abdominal cavity that can cause serious infections that may lead to death. Simply getting stabbed with a dirty object can cause life threatening infections. "
]
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[],
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] | |
3k4yer | what is the deal with the paypal scam of adding their email address and linking a credit card to my account? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3k4yer/eli5what_is_the_deal_with_the_paypal_scam_of/ | {
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"It's commonly used as a way for people to use credit cards they have stolen without it being easily linked back to them.\n\nIf this happens to you, change the password on your account, contact PayPal, and under no circumstances use the new card. You'd be a) stealing, and b) probably further victimizing someone who has had their credit card stolen.\n\nI know that sounds obvious, but some people apparently think \"Hey, free money!\""
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] | ||
6vttzp | how did musician tune to the same note before the measurement of pitch? also the span of a note. | I read about the [A440 pitch standard](_URL_1_). It says that before this pitch standard, western countries used the 435Hz standard. But what about the time when we didn't know about measurement of Hz? Was there a single instrument that everyone brings there piano to tune to? Just like how we have the kilogram prototype.
Also what defines the line of another note? I saw the page of "[cents](_URL_0_)" but I don't quite get it still. Every keys on piano are separated by 100 cents. And double sharp is 50 cents. So 440 A + 50 cents is A half sharp. What is 440 A +25 cents? Is it considered A or A half sharp? Where does it draw the line? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6vttzp/eli5how_did_musician_tune_to_the_same_note_before/ | {
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"By ear. You would pick a note as your tuning note, tune the instrument to that note, then you would tune other instruments to the primary instrument. It does not matter if the first instrument is at A440 or if it is at 435 or 445, or 441 or whatever they may be at if the instrument is in tune with itself and the other performing at that time. This is why orchestras and wind ensembles will traditionally have a single oboe (or clarinet if they have no oboes) play a tuning note and the group tunes to that note. \n\nWestern music does not have 1/4 steps, so we do not have half sharps. The note is considered out of tune and not considered an independent note. ",
"We've had tuning forks for hundreds of years. If you didn't have one you could simply tun instruments to other one. There's nothing important about 440, you just need to agree where you're starting you A and then everyone can tune to that.\n\nAlso notes are designed in relation to each other. For example an Octave (12 notes away) is exactly twice or half the frequency of the original note.",
"No one really needs to know the frequency of a pitch in order to tune instruments, just have a reference point. Of course, if you always tuned your instruments to string, for example, then that string would slowly de-tune as it lost tension, and everything else would slowly get lower and lower in pitch. However, there are other instruments that hold a tune incredibly well. Tuning forks date way back, and don't change pitch over time, as do whistles of a specific size. These were used as a reference point. Whether it was 440 or 435 or 427.623 doesn't matter, as long as everything playing is in tune with everything else playing at that time.\n\nSo, notes and cents and their relationship to frequency. First, you should understand the relationship between notes. There are 8 notes in the most commonly used musical scales, but ignore that for a second and look only at the \"chromatic scale\", which is 12 notes. Thats every white and black key from one note to the same note an octave above. An octave, (low A to higher A, Low C to higher C, etc.) represents a doubling of frequency. A is 440, higher A at 880, lower A at 220, etc. If you divide that double into 12 equal parts, you get the chromatic scale. Not equal equal, though, but *logarithmically* equal. There's more room between 440 and 880 than there is between 220 and 440, after all. So instead of counting up by frequency, you'll count up by percentage. Each note is 5.94636363% higher than the previous. A is 440, and 50% of that is another 220, taking you to 660. The note at 659.3 (not exact half, because logarithm) is half of your 12 tones, the note E, which is very harmonic with A. A perfect fifth. Continue this division past the 12 notes, and you get cents. Divide an octave into 1200 logarithmically equal parts, and those are cents. A+50 cents is halfway between A and A sharp. 25 cents above A is halfway to that, and doesn't have a name because it sounds terribly out of tune and no one plays instruments that way, at least not with the sort of exactness that requires you to name that exact pitch. The 12 notes are called semitones, and from these in classical western music, we select 8 to form a scale, with some steps being one semitone from the previous, and some steps being 2 semitones from the previous, basically skipping 4 semitones."
]
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cent_\\(music\\)",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A440_\\(pitch_standard\\)"
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4unbda | australian senate election | So I live in Australia, and noticed that One Nation has 579 k votes, while Nick Xenophon Team has 440 k. However, Nick Xenophon has 2 more seats than One Nation. (Source: _URL_0_).
I understand that each state sends out 7 senators, and sometimes there can be minor discrepancies, but surely this much of a discrepancy should happen?
EDIT: Each state has 12. Whoops. Territories get 2. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4unbda/eli5_australian_senate_election/ | {
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"That link is broken. Are you comparing senate votes only in the same state? That's important. \n\nYou've almost answered your own question. \n\nEach state has the same number of senators yet vastly different populations. \n\nIt takes about 190,000 NSW votes for one NSW senate spot but only about 28,000 Tasmanian votes for one Tasmanian senator. \n\nIn contrast the House of Representatives does not have an equal number of members for each state and instead it takes roughly the same number of votes for each member. This means NSW has a lot more members than Tasmania. ",
"In Australia there are two houses of Parliament, the Upper House (Senate) and the Lower House (House of Reps). The house of reps is divided into seats typically based on population groups of about 80000.\n\nThese divisions mean that the larger states have more seats in the house of reps, and therefore more influence on policy.\n\nIn order to counter this the senate has an equal number of seats for each state and equal numbers for each mainland territory, so that NSW, Vic and Qld don't dominate policy and federal money. Note that each State has 12 Senators and each Territory has 2, unlike your comment.\n\nThe NXT has only been successful in SA, which having a smaller population means it requires fewer votes to elect senators to the seats."
]
} | [] | [
"http://www.abc.net.au/news/federal-election-2016/results/senate/"
] | [
[],
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5yozke | why does alcohol intoxication produce such wildly different reactions in people, anywhere from complete euphoria to violent rage? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5yozke/eli5_why_does_alcohol_intoxication_produce_such/ | {
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"I think the best description of alcohol's effect is lowering inhibitions. That makes it so that any strong emotion that happens to bubble up, be it happiness or sadness or rage, gets expressed without holding back. Essentially, it makes you emotional and gives those emotions exaggerated expression.",
"Alcohol is a depressant. Not in the sense that it makes you depressed, but rather it inhibits parts of your brain and the function of your central nervous system. One of the side effects of this is emotional and social inhibition. Everyone simply responds differently. Generally, though, happy people who get drunk will be happy. Sad people who get drunk will be sad.\n\nLong term use in high quantities will absolutely wreck your body equal to or worse than nearly every other drug in existence. ",
"Alcohol, generally speaking, lowers a person's inhibitions. An inhibition can be defined as:\n\n > a voluntary or involuntary restraint on the direct expression of an instinct.\n\nLet's say that you're a naturally angry, violent person. You might hold that anger in check since you know that fighting strangers or beating your spouse isn't socially acceptable. But you get drunk and that restraint goes away. Similar story with other behaviors. \n\nThe National Institution of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism gives a decent ELI5-type of explanation [here](_URL_0_):\n\n > The brain’s structure is complex. It\nincludes multiple systems that interact\nto support all of your body’s\nfunctions—from thinking to breathing\nand moving.\n\n > These multiple brain systems\ncommunicate with each other through neurons. Neurons in the brain translate\ninformation into electrical and chemical\nsignals the brain can understand.\nThey also send messages from the\nbrain to the rest of the body.\n\n > Chemicals called neurotransmitters\ncarry messages between the neurons.\nNeurotransmitters can be very\npowerful. Depending on the type and\nthe amount of neurotransmitter,\nthese chemicals can either intensify\nor minimize your body’s responses,\nyour feelings, and your mood.\nThe brain works to balance the\nneurotransmitters that speed things\nup with the ones that slow things\ndown to keep your body operating at\nthe right pace.\n\n > Alcohol can slow the pace\nof communication between neurotransmitters\nin the brain.\n\n"
]
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[],
[],
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]
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16obyx | why a cake day is celebrated on reddit? | I'm just bitter I missed it. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/16obyx/eli5_why_a_cake_day_is_celebrated_on_reddit/ | {
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"Just read this post and realized today is my cakeday, thank you. Have my upvote!",
"It's more a question of \"why not\"?\n\nAnd it looks like today is your cake day, so have an upvote!",
"You didn't miss it, I see your cake!",
"celebrating the day all hope was lost. like giving a junkie a birthday cake with heroin inside",
"All anniversaries and birthdays are celebrated, why not on Reddit too?",
"Being on Reddit is like having a little brother. We can hate and make fun of each other all we want, but Gawker doesn't get to say shit to our family. Cake day's are like a way of acknowledging this dynamic,if you are the type to want to do that sort of thing. Some people hate their family and skip every birthday.",
"I still don't understand what happens on cake day. I know you get a cake icon. Do you get instant karma for posting? Double karma, or karma on a self post?",
"Most people die within the first year of discovering Reddit, usually due to starvation or excessive masturbation. So, when someone manages to overcome the odds and makes it to their one year anniversary, we like to celebrate that milestone. ",
"Not to sound rude, but how exactly does this belong in this subreddit? Is this really a complex subject that so confuses you that you need a simple explanation?",
"It's like your birthday in Alcoholics Anonymous - it is the day you gave up your old way of life, started ignoring all your old friends, and now spend all your free time here.",
"Wait, you're telling me Cake Day is a Redditor's one year anniversary for joining Reddit and not their actual birthday? I had no idea.",
"Because you can put \"It's my cake day\" in the title of your post instead of \"please upvote this\" and apparently that is not a violation of intergalactic law. ",
"I've missed 4 cakedays in a row. I'm hoping to someday see my own cake icon. Today is my IRL cakeday though. Still no icon. ) :",
"Because making a username and password is the internet's equivalent to slipping out a birth canal.",
"You need this explained like you're 5?\n\n/r/answers",
"( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)"
]
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6p7702 | why do women scream when startled while men don't seem to have the same reaction? | I was watching a prank channel on YouTube which has a lot of jump scare kind of pranks. I noticed that most of the time (trying not to generalize), the reaction of a woman was either a physical twitch with a short yell/scream while a man on the other hand still had the same physical reaction but would say words like "Oh crap" or not make any sound at all. What are the reasons (if any) behind this behavioral difference? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6p7702/eli5_why_do_women_scream_when_startled_while_men/ | {
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"Men learn to suppress that reaction as they grow up. Little boys also scream when they get startled.",
"Cultural social conditioning over centuries have made this a general norm of behavior. However an individuals personal social role has a much stronger influence than historical conditioning. For example if you startle a random woman in a dress and heels on the street she might scream, but if you startle a random woman wearing a badge and gun on the street, she will likely respond very differently. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] | |
3qsi35 | how does post-partum depression happen? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3qsi35/eli5_how_does_postpartum_depression_happen/ | {
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"Pregnancy involves a whole bunch of hormonal changes. When pregnancy ends, sometimes the hormones take a while to rebalance. This can lead to many side effects - most minor and temporary. PPD is one of those side effects. ",
"During pregnancy, there's a lot of hormonal shifts that the mother goes through. In particular, there's a lot of bonding hormones (oxytocin) and feel-good neurotransmitters (dopamine) that get shuffled around. The point is, the baby wants the mother to bond tightly with it so when it's born, mom will care about it.\n\nDuring childbirth, the mom's brain dumps a metric shit-ton of endorphins into the brain. I mean, cranked to 11. Wikipedia has a great quote about endorphins: \"a morphine-like substance originating from within the body\". Endorphins block pain, they make you feel good. Normally, they would make you feel *awesome* but since you're going through childbirth, they make you feel slightly less like your genitals are being sawed in half. Which is good, childbirth is barely tolerable *with* them, so you could imagine what it would be like without.\n\nThe next day, the baby is out, and **every one of those feel-good chemicals stops**. I mean, not all of them and not all the time, but...yeah, most of them. So it's kind of like having a morphine high for nine months and then ODing on morphine for a night and then *fuck you no more morphine*. Some women can recover and adjust and it's no big deal, others can't, especially if they already have a chemical imbalance like clinical depression *before* pregnancy."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
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] | ||
1evgqc | why do cds cost less than mp3 downloads? | I've noticed that most albums cost *less* when bought as CDs than MP3s, even though CDs contain higher quality audio and buying the CD gets you a free MP3 download of the same track. Examples: [Les Miserables](_URL_1_) and [Random Access Memories.](_URL_0_) Why is this? Am I missing something? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1evgqc/eli5_why_do_cds_cost_less_than_mp3_downloads/ | {
"a_id": [
"ca46c21"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"I suspect the record company is making more on the CD than the Amazon or iTunes download. Or they want to discourage iTunes sales. Or hope to discourage piracy (assuming they have, indeed, woken up and smelt the damn coffee). Not so long ago, they would have been wanting to gouge you $16.99 or more for a newly-released CD, so this is certainly nice to see. "
]
} | [] | [
"http://www.amazon.com/Random-Access-Memories-Daft-Punk/dp/B00C061I3K",
"http://www.amazon.com/Mis%C3%A9rables-Highlights-Motion-Picture/dp/B00A80SHFM/ref=sr_1_2?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1369270637&sr=1-2&keywords=les+miserables"
] | [
[]
] | |
51mbco | why is it us policy to limit the influence of china? | I recently heard in a news story that President Obama was (among other things) seeking to limit Chinese influence in Southeast Asia by establishing better ties with other national leaders?
Why is an increasingly influential China necessarily bad? Germany has a large amount of influence over Europe that we don't seek to quash. Why isn't our policy to work with China in a similar fashion to the extent possible? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/51mbco/eli5_why_is_it_us_policy_to_limit_the_influence/ | {
"a_id": [
"d7d0etu"
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"text": [
"In short: because you don't maintain your seat of power and authority by letting someone else be just as powerful and influential as you."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
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