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3aa5lf | what would be the impact on the electrical grid if everyone had electric cars? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3aa5lf/eli5_what_would_be_the_impact_on_the_electrical/ | {
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"From what I understand, one of the challenges that the grids face is not just making sure there is enough power overall but making sure production can match the spikes in demand. Tesla recently came out with a battery for you home that acts as a reservoir of power that can also charge their electric cars. If everyone (or at least most folks with an electric car) had something like that then the tightrope between power surplus/deficit would be easier to manage.. Hopefully improving efficiently as well.",
"The vast majority of your electricity costs all year round are used to satisfy peak demand: the highest energy usage that happens in summer for a week or two where everything is on. Adding to this would be extremely costly and require additional power plants which have a massive cost. \n\nThe thing about electricity is that it is not like water. If people need 1001 GW of energy and you only have 1000 GW, everything black outs. This doesn't happen if you are missing other things like water/goods. Any electricity not used is lost, you can't use 'the grid' to store energy for later. This may be circumvented with things like batteries, but they are extremely expensive, enough that it isn't viable to use them over fossil fuels.\n\nUntil our energy production is switched from fossil fuels, there is no benefit for having electric cars. We will need massive adoption of alternative energies **and** the price of battery storage to go down significantly before electric cars are viable."
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2k559b | If there is a normal matter periodic table, is it plausible that there is an anti-periodic table? (e.g. anti-protons and whatnot make anti-elements) | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2k559b/if_there_is_a_normal_matter_periodic_table_is_it/ | {
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"There sure is! We've even made some of it, \n_URL_0_",
"Yes there is. There is also a [hyper periodic table](_URL_0_). A hypernuclei has one or more nucleons replaced with a hyperon. A hyperon has at least one strange quark.",
"Might there be a dark matter periodic table?"
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aaqx8r | Is there good reason that the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics is so popular? | The underlying issue I’m having is that science is terrific at not giving anything value without evidence, but I hear about the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics all the time.
So I’m wondering first, is there some conceivable method of testing this someday that I’m not aware of? I get that it’s only an interpretation, and could explain what we see in a way, but I worry that this interpretation is just a lot of fun and that’s what’s making it popular.
Second, let’s assume we could devise some experiment, and it turned out that everything that could happen indeed does, what could we do with this knowledge? Or maybe that’s not even possible to speculate about. | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/aaqx8r/is_there_good_reason_that_the_many_worlds/ | {
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"MWI is popular for a few reasons.\n\nIt is the most direct and simple reading of quantum theory. Many worlds are just the inevitable consequence of the basic equations of quantum mechanics. All other interpretations should then be understood as efforts to get rid of all but one world. So, unless MWI is unworkable, making any of these moves is unnecessary extravagance.\n\nTo paraphrase Churchill, many worlds is the worst interpretation, except for all the others. By which I mean that among the major interpretations, the problems one can raise against MWI are the least severe. The big issue in MWI is the nature of probability, but there are strong defenses of this from David Wallace, Lev Vaidman, Carroll/Sebens, etc. Meanwhile the subjective collapse interpretations (Copenhagen/QBism) have profound internal inconsistencies where different observers cannot even agree about the contents/dimension of the Hilbert space (see Wigner's friend). Objective collapse (GRW) is not even technically an interpretation as much as a whole new, more complicated theory. Hidden variables (Bohmian mechanics) is only workable for simple nonrelativistic problems and doesn't allow you to reproduce the full content of modern QFT. \n\nMWI applies generically and easily to any sort of quantum theory (particle mechanics, fields, qubits, whatever) and can be applied to early universe cosmology (where there are no classical observers). The other options will fail at one or both of these tasks. "
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3j45bm | how do they confirm/claim that so and so is killed in air/drone strike? | Do they have a ground force that verifies? How can they identify the victim from air? Does the target organization acknowledge the loss? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3j45bm/eli5_how_do_they_confirmclaim_that_so_and_so_is/ | {
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"For the purposes of this discussion, there are two types of targets in a drone strike, actively engaged militants. The various cameras, ground units, observe the people actively do something, such as fire weapons, set up an IED, etc. Once that's done, they know the people in the blast radius of the attack are militants. \n\nOthers are targets of command/control. For example, they observe a building where various messengers go, or they intercept cell phone or radio traffic. If you know a building is full of leaders, and you know who the leaders are, you can be reasonably sure that leader was in that building. \\\n\nIn some cases, a battle damage assessment patrol is set out, other cases, observation drones monitor the target afterwards, radio traffic is monitored. All of those give clues as to how effective an attack was, and who was killed in the attack."
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azaekd | why do people see a red or blue glow on edges of objects on wearing glasses (looking sideways towards the object)? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/azaekd/eli5_why_do_people_see_a_red_or_blue_glow_on/ | {
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"Chromatic aberration, it is due to light of different frequency being bent different amounts by a lens. It is why a prism can be used to split light into a rainbow, and it is attempted to be minimized for optical lenses (but usually shows up at the edges regardless)."
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2rj7k9 | Where to buy or reprint maps of Medieval-era Europe and the British Isles? | Sorry this isn't an event-specific question, more to do with research methods. I read through the rules, and it didn't say anything about not making posts like this. And I could really use the help!
Let's say you were a Professor focusing on the early 14th century Europe - specifically Medieval Wales. You want to purchase a larger map of the region from that time period to display for your class. Where would you go? What would you do? Are there any Medieval historians out there who might be able to assist?
Backstory: I'm an assistant on an upcoming cable series focusing on that time period. The writers would like maps printed to reference in the room, and aside from google image (Which has only been moderately helpful) I don't know where to turn. Easy to find old maps of Europe, but that specific time period is proving elusive.
Thanks a lot for your help! | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2rj7k9/where_to_buy_or_reprint_maps_of_medievalera/ | {
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"This is not specifically for Wales, but I know that the National Library of Scotland has an amazing maps collection, most of which is currently digitized and browsable [online](_URL_0_). You can order prints of these maps online as well in various sizes and either have them posted to you or you can pick them up in person.\n\nHope this is somewhat helpful!"
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2o0mro | Are all mammals equally warm blooded? and what makes 37° so ideal? | I'm wondering whether all warm blooded animals have the same operation temperature?
And what is it that determines what that temperature is? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2o0mro/are_all_mammals_equally_warm_blooded_and_what/ | {
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"No, different mammals have different operational temperatures. Dogs and cats run hotter than humans (around 101.5F/38.5C rather than 98.6F/37C). [This study](_URL_0_) shows that elephants run colder, about 35.9C.",
"There is a good deal of variation in the body temperatures. See figure 2 in [this paper](_URL_0_) for an overview of the variation among mammalian orders. Body temperature is related to metabolic rate, which may explain some of the variation, but closely related to metabolic rate, although as the authors point out, it is unclear if different metabolic rates are the result of selection for different body temperatures or if different temperatures are simply a result of selection for different metabolic rates.\n\nEdit: for anybody who doesn't want to have to look at the paper, mean body temperatures range from about 31 degrees C in monotremes (echidnas and platypuses) to about 36-37 degrees C in three placental mammal orders, with some placentals having body temperatures above 40 degrees C.",
"Proteins are the molecular machinery of our cells. Their function is completely dependent on their molecular structure. Each protein is made up of a long chain of amino acids. The 20 common amino acids in humans each have individual chemical characteristics including charge and structure. Different combinations of amino acids will interact in different ways to form a the 3D structure of the protein. \n\nProtein structure is therefore an elegant balance between stability and catalytic potential. In molecular biology, stability is basically a way of saying that it has low free energy and isn't going to be instantaneously ripped apart by entropy. \n\nIncreasing temperature directly increases the amount of energy in a system. A good comparison to protein denaturing is ice melting. The water molecules are all \"vibrating\" and so full of energy that they no longer need to cling to each other and melt into liquid. The 3D structure of the protein \"melts\" in a similar way, and thus the protein (and your body) stops functioning. \n\nMost large molecules in our body have a similar relationship with temperature. Lipids, for example, need to be \"fluid\" to function. This is why coldwater fish have polyunsaturared fats, a type of lipid that stays \"fluid\" in colder temperatures. \n\nBody temperature is the evolutionary product of a very complex interaction between the temperature of the earth due to inorganic forces and the evolution of biomolecules. "
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1ji1s5 | Would a 9mm black hole (mass ~Earth) be able to consume the sun? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1ji1s5/would_a_9mm_black_hole_mass_earth_be_able_to/ | {
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"Eventually it must. Mass near the black hole undergoing random motion is likely to fall into the event horizon, which has a twofold effect. Firstly, this increases the mass and therefore gravity of the black hole. Secondly, it decreases the amount of mass contributing to the pressure that keeps the sun \"inflated\". The net result is that yet more mass will move towards the centre of the sun and get swallowed by the black hole.",
"At the distance that the sun is from the earth, the two can be approximated as point masses in most equations. Therefore making the earth an _actual_ point mass would have no effect different from what effect it currently has.\n\nEdit:\nN/m, I thought the question was \"if the Earth were suddenly a black hole of the same mass\"."
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adl7dd | Is the Sun bright enough to be seen by planets orbiting other stars? | I know it would depend on the distance between said planets and the Sun, but how bright might it appear in the night sky of those planets?
I guess the question I'm really asking is: relative to the other stars in the Milky Way, how bright is the Sun? | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/adl7dd/is_the_sun_bright_enough_to_be_seen_by_planets/ | {
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"The dark adapted human eye gazing into a clear calm dark sky can detect stars as dim as the 6th magnitude. But to make answering the question a bit easier, let's make the limit magnitude 5.\n\nAs luck would have it, the absolute magnitude of the Sun, is 4.83, which is almost 5. The absolute magnitude of a star is a measure of how bright it would be from the modest distance of 10 parsecs (around 32 ly). \n\nSo we can see that the Sun is barely above the limit of human visibility under ideal conditions from only 10 pc away. How many stars lie within 10 pc of the Sun? According to [this site](_URL_0_), 378 stars and 34 exoplanets. The majority of these nearby stars are very dim M-class red dwarfs.\n\nMost of the prominent bright stars in Earth's night sky are intrinsically much brighter the Sun.\n"
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pwymt | Can predatory animals follow hoof/footprints? | Walking with Cavemen, pt. 2 by the BBC (at 6:25), said that no animal on earth other than Humans (or Homo Ergaster)
can recognize hoof-prints as the sign of an animal's passing. If that is so, how do large predatory animals actually find prey? Are they limited to observation of the herd, or can they recognize droppings?
I don't expect this behavior of ambush predators, but I assumed it of roaming predators. Also, first post. | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/pwymt/can_predatory_animals_follow_hooffootprints/ | {
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"They track by scent or simply wander around likely areas until they hear, see or smell prey"
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kl43u | what would happen if you were in outer space naked? | Is it true your blood would boil? What does blood boil mean? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/kl43u/eli5_what_would_happen_if_you_were_in_outer_space/ | {
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"\"When the human body is suddenly exposed to the vacuum of space, a number of injuries begin to occur immediately. Though they are relatively minor at first, they accumulate rapidly into a life-threatening combination. The first effect is the expansion of gases within the lungs and digestive tract due to the reduction of external pressure. A victim of explosive decompression greatly increases their chances of survival simply by exhaling within the first few seconds, otherwise death is likely to occur once the lungs rupture and spill bubbles of air into the circulatory system. Such a life-saving exhalation might be due to a shout of surprise, though it would naturally go unheard where there is no air to carry it.\"\n",
"Your blood does not boil - your body exerts enough pressure on your blood vessels to keep it in liquid phase. Liquids located on the surface - such as tears on your eyes and saliva on your tongue - _does_ boil. Boiling simply means that the vapour pressure of the liquid is at or exceeds the ambient pressure. Usually one achieves this by increasing the temperature of the liquid, but it can be done by decreasing the ambient pressure as well. In the case of being in outer space, since the outside pressure is so low, the liquid boils at body temperature.",
"Interesting read, I think it answers your question.\n\n\"If you don't try to hold your breath, exposure to space for half a minute or so is unlikely to produce permanent injury. Holding your breath is likely to damage your lungs, something scuba divers have to watch out for when ascending, and you'll have eardrum trouble if your Eustachian tubes are badly plugged up, but theory predicts -- and animal experiments confirm -- that otherwise, exposure to vacuum causes no immediate injury. You do not explode. Your blood does not boil. You do not freeze. You do not instantly lose consciousness.\n\nVarious minor problems (sunburn, possibly \"the bends\", certainly some [mild, reversible, painless] swelling of skin and underlying tissue) start after ten seconds or so. At some point you lose consciousness from lack of oxygen. Injuries accumulate. After perhaps one or two minutes, you're dying. The limits are not really known.\n\nYou do not explode and your blood does not boil because of the containing effect of your skin and circulatory system. You do not instantly freeze because, although the space environment is typically very cold, heat does not transfer away from a body quickly. Loss of consciousness occurs only after the body has depleted the supply of oxygen in the blood. If your skin is exposed to direct sunlight without any protection from its intense ultraviolet radiation, you can get a very bad sunburn.\n\nAt NASA's Manned Spacecraft Center (now renamed Johnson Space Center) we had a test subject accidentally exposed to a near vacuum (less than 1 psi) in an incident involving a leaking space suit in a vacuum chamber back in '65. He remained conscious for about 14 seconds, which is about the time it takes for O2 deprived blood to go from the lungs to the brain. The suit probably did not reach a hard vacuum, and we began repressurizing the chamber within 15 seconds. The subject regained consciousness at around 15,000 feet equivalent altitude. The subject later reported that he could feel and hear the air leaking out, and his last conscious memory was of the water on his tongue beginning to boil.\"\n\nSource: _URL_0_",
"\"When the human body is suddenly exposed to the vacuum of space, a number of injuries begin to occur immediately. Though they are relatively minor at first, they accumulate rapidly into a life-threatening combination. The first effect is the expansion of gases within the lungs and digestive tract due to the reduction of external pressure. A victim of explosive decompression greatly increases their chances of survival simply by exhaling within the first few seconds, otherwise death is likely to occur once the lungs rupture and spill bubbles of air into the circulatory system. Such a life-saving exhalation might be due to a shout of surprise, though it would naturally go unheard where there is no air to carry it.\"\n",
"Your blood does not boil - your body exerts enough pressure on your blood vessels to keep it in liquid phase. Liquids located on the surface - such as tears on your eyes and saliva on your tongue - _does_ boil. Boiling simply means that the vapour pressure of the liquid is at or exceeds the ambient pressure. Usually one achieves this by increasing the temperature of the liquid, but it can be done by decreasing the ambient pressure as well. In the case of being in outer space, since the outside pressure is so low, the liquid boils at body temperature.",
"Interesting read, I think it answers your question.\n\n\"If you don't try to hold your breath, exposure to space for half a minute or so is unlikely to produce permanent injury. Holding your breath is likely to damage your lungs, something scuba divers have to watch out for when ascending, and you'll have eardrum trouble if your Eustachian tubes are badly plugged up, but theory predicts -- and animal experiments confirm -- that otherwise, exposure to vacuum causes no immediate injury. You do not explode. Your blood does not boil. You do not freeze. You do not instantly lose consciousness.\n\nVarious minor problems (sunburn, possibly \"the bends\", certainly some [mild, reversible, painless] swelling of skin and underlying tissue) start after ten seconds or so. At some point you lose consciousness from lack of oxygen. Injuries accumulate. After perhaps one or two minutes, you're dying. The limits are not really known.\n\nYou do not explode and your blood does not boil because of the containing effect of your skin and circulatory system. You do not instantly freeze because, although the space environment is typically very cold, heat does not transfer away from a body quickly. Loss of consciousness occurs only after the body has depleted the supply of oxygen in the blood. If your skin is exposed to direct sunlight without any protection from its intense ultraviolet radiation, you can get a very bad sunburn.\n\nAt NASA's Manned Spacecraft Center (now renamed Johnson Space Center) we had a test subject accidentally exposed to a near vacuum (less than 1 psi) in an incident involving a leaking space suit in a vacuum chamber back in '65. He remained conscious for about 14 seconds, which is about the time it takes for O2 deprived blood to go from the lungs to the brain. The suit probably did not reach a hard vacuum, and we began repressurizing the chamber within 15 seconds. The subject regained consciousness at around 15,000 feet equivalent altitude. The subject later reported that he could feel and hear the air leaking out, and his last conscious memory was of the water on his tongue beginning to boil.\"\n\nSource: _URL_0_"
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1tdnep | how do people develop an immunity to something? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1tdnep/eli5_how_do_people_develop_an_immunity_to/ | {
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"The simplest way is by exposure. If you go to a foreign country you might get sick from drinking the tap water but residents do not. They've developed the appropriate bacteria in their digestive system so it does not affect them.\n\nLet's use children as another example, after enough exposure they become less annoying! ",
"Part of your immune system is comprised of specialized blood cells called B cells (If you're interested, you can ask me why, but it's not that interesting). The B cells produce proteins called antibodies. The antibodies are basically protein receptors, but unlike most receptors in our bodies, they are highly variable (I can also explain why that is, but it's too long to put in here). Anyway, this means that each B cell, of which we have millions, effectively produces a different type of antibody, and each different antibody can bind to a different thing. Usually these things are foreign proteins or sugar molecules (but we don't know all the limits).\n\nWhen an infectious agent, like a virus or bacterium, invades your body, they might happen upon a B cell that produces an antibody that can bind to them. This B cell, then starts to rapidly proliferate into cells called plasma cells (which are basically just antibody factories) and memory B cells. The antibodies glom onto the invader and signal other immune cells to destroy it. After the infection is cleared, the plasma cells die off, but the memory cells remain. Thus, if the same invader comes again, they're ready for it, and begin to produce tons of antibodies again which help clear the invader even faster than the last time (called a secondary response).\n\nThe reason it's impossible to develop immunity against some things, like influenza is because those surface proteins that the antibodies recognize evolve very quickly and are highly variable in the flu virus population such that it's possible that even when you get it once, the next time you get it, it's unrecognizable to your immune system, and it doesn't get that super-efficient secondary response.\n\nThings like the chicken pox virus, though, don't change their surface proteins very much at all and are the same throughout the viral population, so getting one infection basically means your immune system can recognize *any* chicken pox virus infection. And thus vaccines and acquired immunity work for these types of viruses and bacteria.",
"So ill get a little technical here... But first a pathogen is introduced into the body. Lets say... A cut in your body. Well, there are these cells that are part of the innate immune system, or the immune system that you always have ready to go which are called macrophages and dendrocytes. They are pretty similar in function, but they are called professional antigen presenting cells. That will come up later. \n\nThese macrophages take in the bacteria/virus and process it. They then express MHC II or MHC I. Only professional APC (antigen presenting cells) can present MHC II, another important APC is the B cell. Every other cell in the body, except for red blood cells and neurons express MHC I. \n\nMHC II cells activate CD4, or helper T cells. And MHC I activates CD8, or cytotoxic B cells. \n\nAnyway, if a macrophages take up the external body, then they have to wait for naive T or B cells to show up. But Dendritic cells on the other hand, actually travel to your lymph nodes. This is where B and T cells are processed and activated with much higher efficiency. When the T cells see this MHC II on the cell surface of the dendritic cell, they can differentiate. After about 7 days of cell division in order to form an \"army\" against the foreign body, the T cells start to die off, but a small amount are kept as \"memory\" T cells, that are ready to spring into action if the body sees the pathogen again. \n\nNow B cells are another specialized, or adaptive immune system component. The B cell is kind of chilling in the blood waiting to see something awesome. They have this thing called the \"B cell receptor\" which recognized foreign shit and internalizes it and presents it as MHC II in order to help CD4 T cells, or helper T cells. In the bone marrow and lymph nodes, the B cells go through something called negative selection and then positive selection. (T cells go through positive selection first and then negative selection, but that's a different point). the negative selection makes sure it can actually bind to stuff and the positive selection makes sure it wont bind to anything in the body that might be important. Anyway this B cell has gone through a selection process, and once it is ready it goes into the blood and kind of circulates. Once it finds something, it starts to divide and present information to the CD4 T cell. Like the t cell, it will spend some time mounting a response but then eventually die, except some of them are kept alive for a quick response. The B cells have different antibodies meant for different sections of the body. IgE is for allergies, IgG is the main one, IgA is for mucus bodies, etc... but that's beyond the point.\n\nTL;DR. You have T cells and B cells. They activate each other in complex ways, but once you're body finds T and B cells that work, they divide. Eventually they die, but a small amount are kept alive in case the fucker decides to invade your body again. \n"
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1f6e72 | What functions do histamine induced inflammation, bronchoconstriction, hives, etc serve for the body? | Obviously swelling, irritation, and pain caused by allergic reactions is completely useless when the body is reacting to harmless materials.
But in the presence of something actually harmful to the body, how does getting congested or making breathing difficult help the body deal with the material? Is it just the body trying to limit exposure? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1f6e72/what_functions_do_histamine_induced_inflammation/ | {
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"inflammation will cause your immune cells to traffic to the source of the inflammation where they can act in the immune response, it will also effectively napalm the area"
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7cqrfy | why do we eat maple syrup but not pine syrup or elm syrup or oak syrup? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7cqrfy/eli5_why_do_we_eat_maple_syrup_but_not_pine_syrup/ | {
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"Simply because the sap of the sugar maple tree is incredibly high in sugar. These others do not compare -- they don't taste good.",
"We can and do eat birch syrup, walnut syrup, and the syrups of a few other trees.\n\nThe key isn't as much the sugar content, the key is that the sap needs to be relatively neutral tasting, because of how much it has to be reduced to thicken it. The saps of deciduous hardwoods (maple, birch, etc) seem to work especially well here.\n\nAs far as why maple, I suspect it just tastes the most pleasant, although certainly it is to a large degree cultural as well - consider by analogy how almost any grain or fruit can be used to make alcohol, yet the large majority of world alcohol is made only using a few specific grains and fruits."
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1mmr5d | According to Wikipedia, the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant kept running for at least 5 more years after the disaster. How did they do this? | Was there no danger in running the disastrous plant, and were there workers there to keep the plant running? Why wasn't the plant just shut down after the worst nuclear disaster in history? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1mmr5d/according_to_wikipedia_the_chernobyl_nuclear/ | {
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"Simply put, there was an energy shortage in the Ukraine, and the three remaining functional reactors at Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant were required to keep operating because of this shortage.\n\nAdditionally, it's not just a case of turning the reactors off, and that's it. Nuclear decommissioning requires electricity to be diverted to the plant to maintain the idle reactors while decommissioning takes place. The process of decommissioning is an expensive one (between $300 million and $5.6 billion), and the Ukraine couldn't afford the cost in addition to the power shortfall.\n\nIn 1991 there was an accident at Reactor No. 2, when faults within the reactor caused a hydrogen leak, which was then ignited by a welder's torch. This caused Reactor No. 2 to be closed down.\n\nReactor No. 1 was closed in 1996, while Reactor No. 3 continued operating up until 2000.\n\nEDIT: Just wanted to add these youtube links (which are about the disaster, but I enjoy them so much I can't resist sharing).\n\n1) [CEGB UK Official Response to Chernobyl (1986)](_URL_1_)\n\n2) [Chernobyl Nuclear - \"Surviving Disaster\" (BBC Drama / Documentary)](_URL_0_) (and yes, that is Adrian Edmondson of Bottom fame)."
]
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"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njTQaUCk4KY",
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TInLul3CCew"
]
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3nql7s | with all the economic sanctions that are in place against russia and with the general state their economy is in, how can russia afford to invest so much into their syrian campaign? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3nql7s/eli5_with_all_the_economic_sanctions_that_are_in/ | {
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"When economists say scary words like *recession* and *collapsing* economy, they usually mean that the economy of a country stopped growing short term. Russia is 3.2%^^made ^^up poorer than it was in January, 2015? That means it’s collapsing!\n\nThey obviously can send 100% of the troops they could send then, or even more if they want.",
"Russian GDP is down 3%, inflation is 10%. The oil is two times cheaper, but the rouble is two times cheaper too, which means the budget gets exactly the same revenue as before. Russia has not downsized any programs so far, including its military budget. It has near zero external debt and $400B in cash reserves. It still gives loans measured in billions of dollars to other countries. \"The general state their economy is in\" and \"economic sanctions\" exist mostly in your tabloids."
]
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[],
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104vzt | Why does my microwave turn bread rolls into pure carbon in less than no time? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/104vzt/why_does_my_microwave_turn_bread_rolls_into_pure/ | {
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"Interesting question. I've also thought of this when burning food in the microwave. Im Interested to see the answers.",
"Excuse me for saying this but that picture is hilarious."
]
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4pd6zz | Piles of bodies on the battlefield in the American Civil War | I'm currently writing a short essay on GoT S06E09, "The Battle of the Bastards", and one part of it focuses on the mounds of dead bodies that form. Now, I have medieval sources on Dupplin Moor and Agincourt, as well as Keegan and Roger's opinions on Agincourt, but apparently the mounds were based on accounts from the American Civil War, not from medieval accounts.
To date, the only example of something like this happening is a the "Bloody Angle", where there were so many casualties from the assaults that they filled up the trenches in front so that you could simply walk across them.
Are there any experts here who know of other examples of this happening? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4pd6zz/piles_of_bodies_on_the_battlefield_in_the/ | {
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"I have no expertise on the American Civil War, but for Agincourt, you might also want to look at Curry's *Agincourt: A New History*, in place or as a supplement to Keegan, who makes some rather iffy statements and assumptions in his analysis. ",
"I am not sure I understand...for the Civil War? Bloody Lane at Antietam. That had over 5,000 casualties on something like 700 yards of sunken road, a road about eight feet wide.",
"It's funny, I watched the after-the-episode feature following ep. 9, and saw Benioff mention that, and it stuck out as a little odd. In short, I think I understand why he said that, as there were a few instances where casualties in one particular spot WERE extremely high, and bodies did stack up to a certain extent. However, there is maybe only one or two instances where a literal pile might have formed more than waist-high, and not to the extent that you saw in \"Battle of the Bastards.\" Before going into any more detail, though, I would say that this is totally fine by me as far as a history mention. I think the spirit of Game of Thrones (GoT) is to give people a taste of history, albeit through a multi-generational hodge-podge and mixing of eras/conflicts, and to exaggerate for story-telling purposes (this is a fictional fantasy, after all). Nothing wrong with that. \n\nSo, there were a few instances were American Civil War (ACW) battles saw a preposterous amount of dead and wounded in one spot, and piles of bodies did occur (though again, nothing like what we saw in GoT ep. 9 where it was like 10+ feet high). On the first day during the Battle of Shiloh, for instance, Grant's forces were attacked suddenly by a hard-charging Confederate force led by Albert Sydney Johnston. The Union lines bent back at a point popularly referred to as \"The Hornets Nest,\" and held out through about a dozen separate Confederate charges. By all accounts, it was a goddamned horror show in there for a few hours. Although the entire battlefield afterwards was said to be so covered with dead that you could walk across the field in some places without touching the ground, this particular spot was just knotted and tangled with the dead and dying. It might have been even worse had the Confederates not trained a gaggle of cannons on it after a few hours, and blew the area apart. Again, although I've never read anything about the Hornets Nest to suggest that it had bodies piled up eye-high (or higher), it would have been a ghastly sight all the same. \n\nOthers have mentioned \"The Bloody Angle\" during the Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse, which likewise had a nasty concentration of action (this time it was the Confederates on the defensive). Also again, there are reports that the dead and dying were stacked up in places, but also again, nothing to the extent that we saw in \"Battle of the Bastards.\" (This shouldn't be seen as a minimization of how really, really, really nasty the fighting was at Spotsylvania - it was straight up carnage, and it went on for hours on May 12th).\n\nStill, if you want to point to one Civil War battle that may have come close to the level of carnage (in terms of bodies stacked up) that you saw on GoT last week, look no further than the Battle of the Crater outside of Petersberg, Virginia (July, 1864). The Union had been involved in a siege of Petersberg for about a month and a half by the end of July 1864. An idea was hatched to sap under the Confederate lines and blow a hole in their defenses, after which time the Union forces would come pouring through the breach. Long story short, racial considerations got in the way at the last minute, and an African-American division that had been training for this assault was put on the sidelines at the last minute while a clueless one took its place. The mining operations were successful in blowing a hole under the Confederate defenses, but when the Union flooded into the Crater to expose the gap, they got trapped in the \"bowl\" (if you will), and could not really get up and into the Rebel lines in force. What followed was an unmitigated disaster where more and more Union troops kept pouring into this crater, with few being able to get out (the new division assigned forgot the ladders). The Union forces got pressed in on each other, and the Confederates just started slaughtering them en masse. In this instance, there were indeed piles upon piles of bodies, and the compression and squeezing you saw on GoT combined with the staggering number of bodies in so small a space did create an effect somewhat similar to what we saw on TV. For reference, if you've seen the beginning of the movie \"Cold Mountain,\" this is the battle portrayed.\n\nHope this helps!!\n\n[Sources: Bruce Catton, 'A Stillness at Appomattox\" & \"Grant Takes Command\"; James McPherson, 'Battle Cry of Freedom'; Shelby Foote, 'The Civil War, vol. 3']"
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7ilg18 | why do video games all have such similar bugs? | Why do video games, made for years and years, by different companies all over the planet tend to have the same sort of bugs and technical difficulties?
For instance, falling through the map, items floating when they should be attached to someone or in their hands, ragdolls becoming kites that fly around. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7ilg18/eli5_why_do_video_games_all_have_such_similar_bugs/ | {
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"They're probably bugs that are inherent to animation and the physics coding behind them. You see a lot of similar issues when making cgi animation for movies. ",
"because developers don't start truly from scratch every time... even if their **code** is written from scratch, the **ideas** for \"how do i check what's bumping into what\" \"how do i make something ragdoll\" all tend to be implemented in similar ways. Someone at some company years ago figured out a good way to do it and they're just tweaking that same strategy rather than waste time inventing their own.\n\n",
"Modelling collision can be done in several ways. You can do it in a way which is basically perfect in terms of not having glitches of going through floors, etc., but it would require vastly more processing power and you would not be able to do it in real time for a complicated game.\n\nInstead, they cut corners, lots of corners, with the calculations. Almost all of the time it works fine, and the performance is orders of magnitude better. Because different developers use the same shortcuts to get to where they want to go, they tend to have similar issues."
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fbj2z | I just found out my library card gives me access to EBSCO. What journals should I be reading? | I'm interested in space, quantum physics, computer science, cancer research, toxicology and psychology among other things. | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/fbj2z/i_just_found_out_my_library_card_gives_me_access/ | {
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"Nature and American Scientific?",
"Check out the abstracts of Nature and Science and Physical Review Letters."
]
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1sxy62 | how do official movie soundtracks work? sometimes i hear the song in the movie and other times i don't. | I was listening to a soundtrack to a movie the other day, and I realized I didn't hear any of the songs on the soundtrack in the actual movie. But there have been times when I've been listening to a soundtrack where I have heard all of the songs in the movie. Do they make songs that are themed like the movie? I'm just pretty confused on why there would be an official soundtrack for a movie but the songs don't appear in the actual movie. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1sxy62/eli5how_do_official_movie_soundtracks_work/ | {
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"Sometimes you'll see on a soundtrack where it says \"songs inspired by\". So sometimes not all the songs get used in the movie or were never meant to be used in the movie at all. Sometimes songs will get licensed to be used in a movie, but that song will be cut from the final cut of the movie because it didn't work thematically or tonally in the scenes of the film. A lot of times a soundtrack is just another way to advertise the movie. I think a recent example would be the latest Hunger Games movie. It had a soundtrack with current artists on it, but far as I can remember none of them were actually used in the movie. A soundtrack was really only compiled as another product to help sell the film.\n\nSo..there's many reasons.",
"Before I answer, we may as well clarify some terminology here since it's relevant.\n\nPractically speaking, a \"soundtrack\" contains \"songs\"—a song specifically refers to music with vocals/lyrics.\n\nConversely, an \"original score\" contains \"pieces/tracks/cues/etc.\"—instrumental music is *not* a \"song\".\n\nSo The Hunger Games soundtrack contains songs from or inspired by the film. In recent years it's been more the latter than the former. As sexandliquor pointed out, it's more about marketing than anything else. Chances are any soundtrack that you buy these days will just have songs. People don't tend to buy score albums as much, so the studios don't bother publishing them as readily.\n\nThe Lord of the Rings scores, on the other hand, contain original music written by Howard Shore for the film. The normal releases only have a small fraction of the massive amount of material, whereas the extended editions contain almost all of it. This is an exception, not the rule. The simple fact there were re-released special editions is rare, as they actually sold well unlike most score albums.\n\nGenerally, score albums contain only the best parts of a movie's underscore, as a lot of the material is too subtle to be worth including on a disk and would make for an unexciting listening experience.\n\nTo confuse things further, sometimes a \"soundtrack\" album is actually a score album with a few songs tacked onto the end of it. This is a sort of hybrid. Generally speaking, if you say \"soundtrack\" people will think of both the original score and songs associated with the films, but technically there's a distinction.\n\nBut \"songs\" are always pieces of music with lyrics, no matter how many times you hear people using \"song\" to refer to any piece of music. At least, this is true if you care to be proper in your terminology. :P"
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41ii94 | how come a soft cookie becomes hard when it is stale while a hard cookie gets soft? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/41ii94/eli5_how_come_a_soft_cookie_becomes_hard_when_it/ | {
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"Because they adjust to the humidity of the surrounding air. The \"humidity\" of fresh soft cookies is above the humidity of air, so they get drier with time. However, the humidity of fresh dry cookies is lower than the humidity of the surrounding air, so they get moister with time. ",
"Reminds me of a famous court case, Cookies soften when going stale, cakes harden, \n_URL_0_",
"Sorry for not really providing an answer to your question, but I do think this may be helpful to you. If you bake cookies and want them to stay soft, put a slice of bread in whatever container you keep the cookies in (bag, box, etc.. just make sure you can close it reasonably tight). The bread will become hard as a rock eventually and the cookies will stay nice and soft. However, I have had a few batches get even softer, almost to the point of too soft, so keep an eye on that."
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2c7dck | Why do some germs die on contact with air, but others stay alive for days on surfaces? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2c7dck/why_do_some_germs_die_on_contact_with_air_but/ | {
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"It has a lot to do with an organism's physical characteristics and biology. For example, an enveloped virus (having a membrane surrounding the viral capsid) versus a non-enveloped virus, or bacteria such as Bacilli that can form spores and persist for any amount of time on a surface or in the air.",
"One of the main ways that germs can die when they come in contact with air is to just dry out. An organism that spends 100% of its life cycle in a wet environment often doesn't have any ability to handle that loss of water, so they don't just rehydrate and pop back good as new.\n\nGerms that can handle dry environments often have some features to protect them from loss of water, such as tough cell walls that can hold water in.",
"_URL_0_\n\nIt's to do with their degree of resistance to water loss often. This paper covers some if it- they believe that the main cause of death is cellular membranes breaking down, causing a loss of cell differentiation.\n\n_URL_1_\n\nThey are much more deadly in humid air.\n\n_URL_2_\n\nUV light can also destroy some."
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"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC545329/pdf/jbacter00766-0028.pdf"
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5gybwf | How does Hubble's Law affect the size of the visible universe? | I'm only a layman in terms of astrophysics, so I'm sure that my understanding of some of the concepts involved are lacking, but I never was quite satisfied with the explanation that I was given in my astronomy class as to the limits of the size of the visible universe.
It makes sense to me that being as the Universe is just under 14 billion years old, light emitted 14 billion years ago from points that are (now) 93 billion light years away, is only just reaching us, and anything farther away than that is not visible because the light hasn't had long enough to travel during the entire course of the history of the Universe. So far, so good, but I also know that as the Universe expands, light from distant objects is red-shifted; "stretched", as it were, as it travels through an expanding medium and its wavelength increases.
So. Given the rate of expansion of the Universe, at what distance would an object have to be such that any light it may have emitted will be so far red-shifted by the time it reaches us that it is indistinguishable from the background level of radiation in the Universe? Given an object sufficiently distant, such that the increase in the distance between us and it due to the expansion of the Universe is one light-second per second, will light from this object ever reach us? Given the current rate of expansion, how far away is that exactly? Will this ever be the limiting factor on the size of the observable Universe? When? | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/5gybwf/how_does_hubbles_law_affect_the_size_of_the/ | {
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"There is a part of space called the observable universe. It is ~93 Billion lightyears across. This is all the light that has managed to reach us. This light is 13.8 billion years old but due to the expansion of space these objects would now be 93 Billion lightyears away from us. Anything further away we can't see because the light hasn't reached us yet and there is the limit when the universe became transparent, so to speak. \nBut space is probably infinite there is a distance at which space exands faster than light can travel. So those parts of the universe are unfortunately too far away for us to ever see them. That is the sad reality. "
]
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[]
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2ccke9 | How effective were partisan armies in aiding the Allies in occupied Western Europe during WWII? | I'm sure that there's a variety of competency between units here, but overall, how much of in impact did these fighters have on the war? Were they a major hindrance on the Nazi's efforts, or did the Wehrmacht succeed in stifling them.
I'm sticking to Western Europe because that's an area I'm interested in, but feel free to comment about partisan success in other regions, along with their logistics and type of operations they carried out.
I may be using the term partisan incorrectly, but in case I'm not clear, I'm referring to freedom fighters, armed covert militias, and that sort of thing. | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2ccke9/how_effective_were_partisan_armies_in_aiding_the/ | {
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"You're using the term \"partisan\" correctly.\n\nIt would be wrong to say that the Wehrmacht even \"succeeded\" in stifling them—the forces stationed in France to defend against an Allied attack spent most of their time training, and precious little effort on counter-insurgency. It would be more correct to say that they hardly had to lift a finger.\n\nLiebman's *Does Conquest Pay* quotes the German armaments minister as quipping \"what French resistance?\" when asked about the effect of the French resistance on war production, and that was about the impact they had before the Allies started arming and advising them on exactly what to do to support the invasion (mostly by delaying German reinforcements as the Allies attacked).\n\nResistance membership did go up a lot when Germany started rounding up Frenchmen to send to labor in German factories, since escaping to the wilderness was the only way to avoid being shipped off. News of German reversals of fortune probably also helped, by damaging the aura of German invincibility."
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7h9mp8 | how does graphite stay on paper? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7h9mp8/eli5_how_does_graphite_stay_on_paper/ | {
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"Graphite is relatively soft, and as you scrape it along a surface, tiny bits of it crumble away and stay behind. These bits are insaaanely individually tiny and make up an extremely fine powder. \nPaper is not as smooth as you might think. It's covered in ridges and pores and little valleys. \n\nSo as you are dragging the graphite along a piece of paper and leaving the trail of ultra fine powder behind it, you're also applying a bit of pressure between the pencil tip and the paper, effectively packing the graphite dust into all those grooves and pores and ridges in the paper. \n\nErasers work because they're soft and also extremely porous, wich allows them to sink into the textures along the surface of the paper and collect that graphite dust up in it's own surface, taking it from the paper. As you can imagine this process doesn't work perfectly every swipe, which is why erasers sometimes leave smudges behind. "
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16pjaj | how are vitamin daily recommended values established and how accurate are they? | I'm eating these delicious vitamin c gummy candy things and was wondering. | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/16pjaj/how_are_vitamin_daily_recommended_values/ | {
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"In a number of cases, these guidelines are based upon calculated amounts required to avoid deficiency related disease. The vitamin C guideline for example was established to prevent the development of scurvy if vitamin C intake was to cease for 30-45 days. This criteria set it at 60mg per day.\n\nHowever, as it is a water soluble vitamin which is simply excreted in the urine in the case of excessive consumption (in extreme doses it also has laxative effects), a number of studies based on the amount the human body retains have argued that this amount should be increased to over 100mg. It has also been argued that, as excess is harmlessly excreted, the guide amount should be even higher to account for the inevitable shortfall of peoples intake.\n\nEach vitamin/mineral guideline is based on a similar rational of avoiding malnutrition. However, many are still contested as the criteria for setting these guides is sometimes fairly arbitrary. It has also been suggested that all recommended amounts be inflated to account for expected deficit in peoples diet where they will achieve some proportion of the recommended amount and be satisfied.\n\nIn the case of your vitamin C gummy candies, you can pretty much eat how ever much you want and not have to worry about [hypervitaminosis](_URL_0_)."
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_poisoning"
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2li1qz | Hormones can be used to grow breasts in males, so why can't they be used in females to augment breast size? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2li1qz/hormones_can_be_used_to_grow_breasts_in_males_so/ | {
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"Hormones *can* be used in females to augment breast size. I suppose the simplest example of this would be birth control pills. The pill boosts estrogen levels in females and as a side effect of preventing pregnancy, breast size will likely increase. The reason hormones are not used to augment breasts is that there are too many other side effects of increasing hormone levels in women to make it a feasible method.",
"I work in breast cancer research - lets see if I can take a crack at this that makes sense:\nThe functional cells of the breast, i.e. the ductal and lobular epithelial cells, for the most part express a receptor that causes those cells to grow when they are exposed to estrogen.\nThe initial growth in the mammary gland (breasts) that we see during puberty is a direct effect of hormonal (estrogen and progesterone) influence. This is when females acquire breasts that are functional to produce milk. However, these are not yet capable of producing as much milk as a baby would need. Thus, hormonal exposure during pregnancy again causes these milk lobules to bud and grow tremendously in size. This is the reason pregnant and nursing women have much larger breasts - the functional glands have expanded to a major degree.\nNow, males make up about two percent of breast cancer cases because they also have a very small number of the milk ducts and lobes that can turn into cancer. Exposure to estrogen likely causes these structures to expand in the same way that a female's would during puberty.\nSo, hormones can cause the breasts to expand in both sexes, and as u/pixiestix105 noted, birth control can also increase breast size.\nSo why aren't people using hormones instead of breast augmentation?\nEstrogen causes not only breast cells to grow, but also breast cancer cells. Approximately 70% of breast cancers are responsive to anti-estrogen therapy. Tamoxifen is one of the most useful therapies for treating these patients. Constant hormonal exposure, especially for post-menopausal women receiving hormone therapy, is a major risk factor for developing breast cancer. \nFurthermore, constant hormonal exposure will also affect other body parts, such as the thyroid and ovaries. (In the same way, taking testosterone is not good for anyone's health and will lead to women developing facial hair).\nTL:DR Hormone exposure increases breast size, but you will have a whole other host of problems. Go with silicone."
]
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1l68f5 | why put money into savings, with inflation being so high? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1l68f5/eli5_why_put_money_into_savings_with_inflation/ | {
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"It's a largely safe investment compared to other things. A steady interest rate makes people feel more secure than investing that money in stocks or real estate.",
"Inflation is very *low* right now.\n\nThat said, putting your money in a savings account is generally the least-good way to save it. It has the virtue of giving you nearly unfettered access to your money — your bank will have limits on how frequently you can make withdrawals — but as a store of value, there are better choices by far.",
"Convenience. The interest rates are generally crap, but it's really easy and you still have your money easily accessible. In the long run you're generally better off in putting your money for example in a sensible fund with a diversified portfolio. The market portfolio's value should rise faster than any savings account interest on average, but of course banks do offer steady nominal interest rates which does reduce the risk even if it's fairly low in the long run in a diversified enough portfolio."
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1yhgj6 | What is the general consensus regarding the veracity of "El Dorado?" Do any credible archaeologists believe it ever existed, or is it purely myth? | I am curious to know if anyone has bothered looking for it since the conquistadors gave up. | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1yhgj6/what_is_the_general_consensus_regarding_the/ | {
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"Through the use of things like satellite imagery, I'd imagine it would've been found by now if it did exist. Anyways, I did some research through some peer-reviewed articles. Here are my findings:\n\n\"Though there had been earlier searches for lands believed to be rich in \ngold, the Venezuelan historian Demetrio Ramos Perez has made a strong \ncase for dating the first rumours of a golden king just prior to Pizarro's \nexpedition of 1541, which was shortly followed by an equally disastrous one \nled by Sebastian de Benalcazar.' Both Conquistadores led their expeditions \nnorthwards from Peru, seeking an indian king whose body was said to be \npowdered in fine gold-dust every morning. Whatever the origins or veracity \nof these reports, they fuelled belief in a third, still richer indian empire after \nMexico and Peru, which was also mixed up with the Spanish explorers' \nanxiety that the Incas had escaped with the greater share of their gold, and \nthat Atahualpa's ransom (his weight in gold) was only the tip of a vast \niceberg.2 \nBy the time of Pedro de Ursdias expedition in 1559, El Dorado had \nbecome a golden land rather than a golden man, and the official name of a \nprovince.\" ^^1\n\nSo according to Perez, it didn't begin as a search for a \"Golden City\" as the current myth typically goes. Regardless, there's been conquistador searches throughout history, as you are sure to know. More information from the same source:\n\n\"In volume III of his Personal Narrative, Humboldt established his view \nthat the topic of El Dorado belonged primarily to the domain of science, \nspecifically to geography: \nThe discussion to which I shall devote the end of this chapter is important, \nnot only because it throws light on the events of the Conquest, and that \nlong series of disastrous expeditions made in search of El Dorado, the last \nof which was in 1775...\"\n\nSo we can say that as of the 1850s (which is when Humboldt wrote said *Personal Narrative*), the last known expedition had taken place in 1775, to no avail.\n\n[This book](_URL_0_) by John Hemming details all the myths that led to the searches, and the searches themselves, fairly well. However, to my knowledge credible archaeologists are in agreement that it never existed as described.\n\n^^1 The Myth of El Dorado\nJohn Silver\nHistory Workshop , No. 34, Latin American History (Autumn, 1992) , pp. 1-15"
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anb1gr | why is ‘utopia’ preceded by ‘a’ instead of ‘an’ ? | for instance, 'i tried to build a utopia' | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/anb1gr/eli5_why_is_utopia_preceded_by_a_instead_of_an/ | {
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"Because we put \"an\" before a vowel *sound*, not before a vowel. That's why you say \"an hour\", because you don't voice the h. ",
"Despite starting with a vowel, Utopia, Utensil, and Ukulele, all start with a consonant (y) sound unlike umpire or underwear. The rule has more to do with speech sounding consistent than making sense on paper. ",
"You don't sound it as \"oo-topia\", you sound it as \"you-topia\". You wouldn't put an before \"you\", but you would before \"oo\", or \"ee\", or any ooen vowel sound.",
"The a-an distinction functions to reduce the human mechanical effort required to pronounce those paired words.\n\n*An vowel* would be absurd for requiring additional human mechanical effort to pronounce; *a octopus* would render the listener unable to discern the *o* sound unless a terrifically mechanical [full-glottal-stop](_URL_0_) were inserted between by the speaker.\n\nWe say *a utopia* because *an utopia* is more human mechanical effort."
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4el7iw | How did the Christian view of the end times change? Did some loose faith when the apocalypse never happened? | I think i saw a thread on this, but no matter what i search i cannot find it.
From what i understand many early christians (thinking mostly about romans, but also medieval) believed that the end times was something that was not far off? When nothing happened after century after century was there any change in christian canon? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4el7iw/how_did_the_christian_view_of_the_end_times/ | {
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"Effects on the canon: Martin Luther wanted to drop the the book of Revelation (along with a few others) from the Protestant canon, but was ultimately unsuccessful. But this had more to do with conflicts with certain aspects of his theology than being inaccurate about the timing of the end times. Because the Bible itself is cagey about the timing of that (\"But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.\" - Matt. 24:36). So when various groups were wrong about timing, other people had only to point back to this passage and pronounce the first group mistaken about *timing*. So, constantly expecting the imminent return of Christ while thinking the last generation was wrong about believing just that is probably as much a traditional feature of Christianity as celebrating Easter the first Sunday after the first full moon of the vernal equinox--i.e. mostly applicable but some people/groups differ.\n\nThere were some groups in the earlier church condemned as heretical after making incorrect statements about the return of Christ. Montanus (100s CE), for example, prophesied that Christ would return to the town of Pepuza in Asia Minor and set up New Jerusalem (which didn't happen), but he also prophesied in a way (ecstatic and in a more pagan style) that the Church of the day didn't like.\n\nWhile this is more a question of Biblical scholarship than history, there should probably be a distinction made between the \"end times\" and the triumphant return of Christ, as there is plenty of reason to believe that much in, for example, Revelation refers to the early Roman persecutions of the church (in highly symbolic terms, of course, so rather than God-Emperor you have a beast with 7 horns demanding to be worshiped) and that other prophecies refer to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple and so forth. What's more the prophecies are still vague and symbolic enough to be read as applicable to any time (as in, which times in history do not have wars and famines and epidemics somewhere?) so people can still look at the prophecies through a contemporary lens."
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enuztz | why is reading books viewed as such a good thing? i see new-resolutions all the time with books in mind. | I would understand if it were books that were educational, however I often see fiction refered. What makes reading so good? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/enuztz/eli5_why_is_reading_books_viewed_as_such_a_good/ | {
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"TLDR: your brain is a muscle that needs to be exercised. \n\nReading, no matter if it’s for leisure or for education, is always good for you. Fiction books are no less important to read than non-fiction books. With fiction books you allow your brain to work other areas like your imagination and lets you expand your horizons. Also, just because it’s a fiction book does not mean that there is not factual information in them. Take a look at the author Michael Crichton, a lot of his novels are fiction but are packed with scientific and medical information and concepts that are being developed today. At the end of the day, whether it’s a text book, comic book, or any other kind of book, find what you enjoy and read.",
"Because intellectual curiosity makes for a wellinformed mind and broad horizons. The notion is from before the internet, which may be why people don't resolve to read the wiki from one end to the other."
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1ibee7 | What's the deal with active bacterial cultures (probiotics) in yogurt and other dairy products? | I was recently pitched directly about some Danone yogurt that contained bacterial cultures called Bifidus Regularis (whether that's a trademarked name or an actual designation I'm unsure) and it got me thinking whether the whole probiotic craze in yogurt/dairy is of any actual benefit to the consumer or just a marketing scheme designed to sell more yogurt or to sell specialty products at inflated prices?
Can someone please elaborate as to what, if any, benefit there is to having these bacterial cultures present in yogurt and how they're formed in the first place whether by natural or artificial means? Thanks so much! | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1ibee7/whats_the_deal_with_active_bacterial_cultures/ | {
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"*Bididus Regularis* is a marketing name for a subspecies of [*Bifidobacterium animalis*](_URL_1_). I believe the marketing strategy is based on the fact that there are 'good' bacteria in our gut (microbiota / commensal bacteria). There have been studies that back up the purported benefits of improving gut activity but the [validity](_URL_0_) of these studies is questionable."
]
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bifidobacterium_animalis"
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5z5b2f | birds don't need goggles to protect their eyes from the wind. why? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5z5b2f/eli5_birds_dont_need_goggles_to_protect_their/ | {
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"Birds have built in [goggles](_URL_0_). A special clear third eyelid.",
"The have a second eyelid that acts as goggles its clear. Turkeys are the only one I've seen up close they chill out in the rain like it's nothing",
"Also, Birds eyes are on the side of their head which gives them less exposure to front facing debris.",
"Others have already done a good job of answering your question, but I wanted to bring up an instance of birds wearing goggles. Scientists trying to study flight mechanics equipped a parrot with goggles to allow him to fly through a laser grid without damaging his eyes: _URL_0_"
]
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1tyzdk | nasa said today the sun has/is going to "flip upside down" and its magnetic poles have reversed. what does this mean and would it have any effects on earth? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1tyzdk/eli5nasa_said_today_the_sun_hasis_going_to_flip/ | {
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"The sun's magnetic field reverses every 11 years or so.\n\nIt happens during times of high solar activity, so flares are more likely and could potentially disrupt satellite communications temporarily. You will also get more brilliant aurorae and more sunspots.\n\nBut mostly, nothing will change, this is an ordinary phenomenon that happens all the time. "
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12188u | If "spent" nuclear fuel is still glowing hot when removed for several years, why can't we keep using it to turn a steam turbine? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/12188u/if_spent_nuclear_fuel_is_still_glowing_hot_when/ | {
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"That blue glow isn't heat, it's Cherenkov radiation, caused by high speed charged particles entering a matrix(the water) where the speed of light through the medium is less than their speed. The period of high decay heat is very short, within an hour of reactor shutdown, it's only 1.5% of the active heat production.\n\nLinks:\n_URL_0_\n_URL_1_",
"Because the heat flux out of the fuel rods, high as it is by the standards of other industrial ash materials, is far less than the heat flux out of them when they are undergoing a fission chain reaction. Nuclear fuel is insanely expensive to handle, since so many layers of engineering and security have to go around it. It's not cost-effective to boil water with it unless you're getting the full power of the operating fuel rod.\n\nSpent rods can get quite hot when pulled from their working fluid (the core water) but that is because air doesn't cool them as effectively as the working fluid would. They are generating well under 1% as much heat as they do when operating, and in some plants that's still enough heat flux to require actively pumped convective cooling."
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1rsmwl | why do dogs bite air? | When I blow on my dogs face she bites. She also bites when sticking her head out the window.. Why? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1rsmwl/eli5_why_do_dogs_bite_air/ | {
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"Because she feels something there.\n\nDogs pick up things with their mouths, and while they may paw at items to get to them (like a bone in a corner or under a table), when it's in reach they go after it with their mouths.\n\nOther animals, who are more inclined to use their paws, will do so, [as in this video](_URL_0_).\n"
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1sdic5 | how do they shoot scenes of people being blown up or suffering severe trauma? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1sdic5/eli5_how_do_they_shoot_scenes_of_people_being/ | {
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"Either with CGI or practical effects/special effects makeup or a bit of both. You wouldn't believe how convincingly a skilled makeup artist can make someone look like they're have a *really* bad day. Do a quick image search on special effects makeup and watch some videos of it being put on, it's pretty interesting stuff."
]
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3atqoz | are all spicy foods spicy because of capsaicin? are there different types of 'spicy'? what about cinnamon or onions? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3atqoz/eli5_are_all_spicy_foods_spicy_because_of/ | {
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"Not all spicy foods contain capsaicin. Mustard gets its spice from mixing water with two compounds, myrosin and sinigri. Wasabi's kick comes from something called allyl isothiocyanate which is the same for horseradish. Cinnamon gets its spiciness from two chemicals called cinnamic aldehyde and cinnamaldehyde. \n \nSo there are a lot of different kinds of spiciness. "
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5s0c8a | Do NSAIDs (Paracetamol, etc...) slow down recovery from infections? | edit: It has been brought to my attention that paracetamol doesn't fall in the category of NSAIDs, so I've rephrased the post somewhat.
Several medications can be used to reduce fever and/or inflammation, for example paracetamol (tylenol in the US) or NSAIDs (ibuprofen and others). But as I understood it, fever and inflammation are mechanisms the body uses to boost the effectiveness of the immune system. Does the use of medications therefore reduce the effectiveness of the immune system in combatting an infection? If so, has this effect been quantified (e.g. "on average recovery time for infection X is Y% longer with a daily dose of Z")?
And is there any effect when these medications are used when there is no infection (wounds, headaches, etc...)? | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/5s0c8a/do_nsaids_paracetamol_etc_slow_down_recovery_from/ | {
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"No I would say thats not something that ever comes to mind when treating infection. Yes, technically they are anti-inflammatory but they are not hindering the immune system in a way that makes your body incapable of fighting infection. Because the inflammatory pain you are treating is usually pathologic. Now, steroids on the other hand definitely would slow healing, because these do make you relatively immuno-compromised. Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs) do not do that so they are safe to use during infections. Plus they are used to reduce fever which can be for comfort or if your temperature gets dangerously high closer to 105F",
"biomedical scientist and medical student here. \n\nYes, inflammatory mediators are there for a reason, inflammation is the method the body uses to repair damage and fight infection. Hindering the COX 1,2 enzymes (as NSAIDS do) will slow down recovery times. The question is however how measureable a difference there is. \n\n\nHere's a link to a study that might help to answer your further questions: _URL_0_",
"Allow to explain few immunological concepts:\n - Inflammation is an immune response tissue damage whether to infection, autoimmune (Lupus for example), burns, radiation injury, and chemical exposure. the list goes on but im gonna keep it short.\n\n- Infection is the presence of invasive pathogen as in bacteria, parasite, fungi that entered the body, it could be localized infection causing an abscess, more invasive causing, for example, narcotizing fasciitis, or in the blood stream causing septicemia.\n\nParacetamol isnt a NSAID, it possesses analgesic effect but little anti-inflammatory properties so it wont actually affect the immune response to inflammation.\n\nOn the other hand, NSAIDs (Ibuprofen, Naproxen, etc) will inhibit COX (cyclo-oxygenase) enzyme which utilizes Arachidonic Acid to produce prostaglandins and leukotriens, both are potent inflammatory mediators. These two agents will promote an immune response called chemotaxis which attracts immune cells to site of inflammation. So, NSAIDs could reduce or influence the immune response but not completely stop it.\n\nMore reading on the topic: _URL_0_",
"1. Tylenol/paracetamol is not an NSAID\n\n2. Long term use of NSAIDs has been shown to lead to an increased incidence of non-union in orthopedic surgery so many/most orthos limit NSAID use to a few days.\n\n3. There is some low-level evidence that NSAIDs IMPROVE outcome in hypothermic sepsis\n\n4. As with everything else in medicine we know very little.\n\nEdit: based on commentary I want to clarify that [the data for point two is poor](_URL_0_), mostly in animals, and taken as an article of faith by many orthopods who are very serious about it and make trauma rounds a daily argument. But it's getting better.\n\nEdit #2: Non-union means that the fracture fails to heal\n\nEdit #3: Tylenol is a weak COX-2 inhibitor and therefore has anti-inflammatory effects and multiple commenters have argued that it is, in fact an NSAID. I would argue that it does not share most of the clinical characteristics that people lump under \"NSAID\" and therefore to most clinicians it is in a separate category. For example, its pain control mechanism is different, in clinical use it is not ulcerogenic or nephrotoxic, it has no platelet effect and it is hepatotoxic. It can be used at the same time as classic NSAIDs with no decrease in dose necessary in either medication. \n\nEdit #4: Thanks for the gold and I appreciate the discussion and education.",
"I'm a junior doctor in the UK currently working in intensive care.\n\nParacetamol isn't an NSAID, but no, the HEAT study showed no affect on mortality* for patients with severe infection - _URL_0_ \n\n(*No increase or decrease) \n",
"Paracetamol (acetaminophen) is not an NSAID. It reduces fever, relieves pain, but does not influence the immune system. \n\nIn general anti-inflammatory drugs of any kind create an increased risk of infection.\n\nAspirin (acetylsalycilic acid) is the prototypical anti-inflamatory NSAID. In small doses, it inhibits platelet aggregation and adhesion, and so prevents some heart attacks and strokes.",
"Hold on - paracetamol (acetaminophen aka Tylenol) is not an NSAID. I get what your are saying though; it IS an ANTIPYRETIC (brings fever down ) as well as a pain reliever... Important because in general NSAIDs are anti-inflammatory (acetaminophen isn't) and can make you more prone to bleeding (acetaminophen doesn't). Source- am MD. ",
"As we are on the topic, as already mentions Acetaminophen/Paracetamol/Tylenol is not an NSAID. And, even though it is over-the-counter, it has the significant side effect of liver toxicity in high doses. For a normal person, that is in the range of 3.5-4g (or 3500-4000mg). \n \nThe problem with this medication is that it's in a lot of common over-the-counter (Robitussin, Dayquil) and prescription pain meds (Percocet, Vicodin, Norco). So it can be very easy to overdose on acetaminophen. AFAIK it is one of the reasons people have switched from Vicodin to Norco 500mg- > 325mg acetaminophen per tablet. \n \nExample: A person takes 2 tabs 5/325 Percocets every 6 hours plus 2-3 tablets of extra strength Tylenol a day. That alone puts you in the 3600mg-4100mg gram range of Tylenol. ",
"NSAIDS significantly increase the risk of GI bleeding, heart attack, and stroke, and likely also worsen outcomes in heart failure. Generally, the drugs that are safer for your stomach (e.g., cox-2 inhibitors) are worse for your heart and brain, and vice versa. US FDA strengthened the labeling on NSAIDS last year to emphasize these risks. Acetaminophen is toxic to the liver. Opioids are addictive. There are no safe pain relievers. People in chronic pain face a significant dilemma, and doctors and patients need to engage in careful shared decision making to try to find the best risk-benefit trade off. ",
"I think you mean antipyretics, or fever reducers, rather than NSAIDs in particular. I'm more familiar with the pediatric literature. There, there is some evidence that antipyretics prolong illness, but the evidence is relatively weak and not well established. \n\nThere's a weak association in one randomized controlled trial. There is also some corroborating evidence from a few immunological studies in animals, where antipyretics negatively affected immune response, but the studies were not about duration or severity of illness per se (and again, they were in animal models). There was also one observational study of individuals who were intentionally infected; sophisticated statistical modeling suggested that antipyretic effects on illness depended on the type of infection. \n\nAnyway, there's some evidence suggesting that antipyretics prolong evidence, but it's relatively weak evidence. The one study suggested that use of antipyretics might increase illness duration from, say, 6 to 7 days, but again, it was fairly weak. You have to weigh that against the pain it might otherwise reduce too, the effects of that on sleep, and so forth and so on.\n\nThere's a summary here, although there's a couple of other review papers out there that cover similar research:\n\n_URL_0_"
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n7mei | Are their any cases of animals that live in groups that lack any form of social hierarchy | I was thinking today about how as human beings we have leaders for all sorts of things and I drew parallels between us and other animals like wolves and apes who also have social hierarchies. I was just curious if there are any animals on earth who both live in groups yet lack any sort of social hierarchy. | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/n7mei/are_their_any_cases_of_animals_that_live_in/ | {
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"schools of fish, or certain flocking birds don't seem to have a social structure other than follow those around you.",
"I work with primates and strictly speaking about that group of animals, it is very uncommon to see no social hierarchy at all. The closest I can really think of are squirrel monkeys, who often show no social structure in their multi-female, no male groups (when not in breeding season), and sometimes patas monkeys are considered to have extremely weak social hierarchies (if any?). It depends often from group to group, though- there is much variation.",
"Hibernating ladybugs congregate in large masses with no discernable social structure. \n\nSawfly larvae display coordinated behavior without any identifiable leadership.\n\nSwarms of blackflies are completely anarchic.",
"schools of fish, or certain flocking birds don't seem to have a social structure other than follow those around you.",
"I work with primates and strictly speaking about that group of animals, it is very uncommon to see no social hierarchy at all. The closest I can really think of are squirrel monkeys, who often show no social structure in their multi-female, no male groups (when not in breeding season), and sometimes patas monkeys are considered to have extremely weak social hierarchies (if any?). It depends often from group to group, though- there is much variation.",
"Hibernating ladybugs congregate in large masses with no discernable social structure. \n\nSawfly larvae display coordinated behavior without any identifiable leadership.\n\nSwarms of blackflies are completely anarchic."
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35ft31 | why does traveling at very high speeds, or going within the soi of celestial bodies with high gravity slow down time for the people in those situations, according to the theory of relativity? | i can't visualize in my head how high gravity or speeds could slow stuff down. for example, take miller's planet in interstellar. when brand, doyle, cooper, and case are futzing around down there, if romilly (orbiting in the endurance) were to somehow take a telescope and observe them on the planet's surface, would it look like they were moving in slow motion? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/35ft31/eli5why_does_traveling_at_very_high_speeds_or/ | {
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"Gravity curves spacetime. \n \n > if romilly (orbiting in the endurance) were to somehow take a telescope and observe them on the planet's surface, would it look like they were moving in slow motion? \n \nYes, if you look up the Wiki page on time dilation: \n \n > An accurate clock at rest with respect to one observer may be measured to tick at a different rate when compared to a second observer's own equally accurate clocks. This effect arises neither from technical aspects of the clocks nor from the fact that signals need time to propagate, but from the nature of spacetime itself. \n \nWe deal with time dilation daily when we use GPS: \n \n > Clocks on the Space Shuttle ran slightly slower than reference clocks on Earth, while clocks on GPS and Galileo satellites run slightly faster."
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a09dpz | How come Volkswagen doesn’t have a stigma of being founded by the Nazis? Did the Allies ever try to erase it? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/a09dpz/how_come_volkswagen_doesnt_have_a_stigma_of_being/ | {
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"Not only did the allied powers not try to erase Volkswagen, they basically created the company we now know. The following comes from James Flink's *The Automobile Age.* \n\nAs was mentioned elsewhere, the Volkswagen Beetle had its origins in the *KdF-Wagen,* part of the Third Reich's efforts to make Germany into a mass automobile culture. The idea of a *Volksauto* certainly predated the Nazis - it had been used by [a number of German manufacturers](_URL_0_) to describe their affordable ([and often rear-engined, streamlined](_URL_3_)) offerings, going back to the 1920s; and whether the *KdF-Wagen* was the brainchild of Ferdinand Porsche (as the narrative typically goes), shamelessly stolen from Czech automaker Tatra, or shamelessly stolen from German-Jewish auto journalist and engineer [Joseph Ganz](_URL_2_), the story of it's development from that point is not much in doubt. \n\nThe development of a state-sponsored *volksauto* crystalized into the *KdF-Wagen* in August 1938, when it was announced that the Volkswagen project would be sponsored through the KdF (Strength through Joy) division of the German Labor Front (DAF). The DAF announced a plan by which \"a worker could purchase a Volkswagen on a 5-mark weekly layaway plan for 990 RMK, including insurance garage, and maintenance costs\" (quoting directly from Flink). It's worth noting that at the time of this announcement, Porsche and the German government had only produced prototypes for the car; they did not even have a factory capable of meeting the production needs yet. Nevertheless, Germans flocked to the KdF-wagen program. Exchanging their Marks for stamps to fill out a savings book, 336,668 Germans invested 280 million RMK into the program; the little KdF-wagen prototype was celebrated with [parade floats](_URL_1_) and reams of Nazi propaganda. The final terms of the plan were a far cry from its lofty announcement, however: rather than the advertised 990 RMK price tag, the total cost under the savings plan came out to 1190 RMK; and even worse, the language of the KdF contract \"did not in fact obligate the state to even deliver a car once the final payment had been made\" (again quoting from Flink). In fact, fiscal mismanagement and ballooning construction costs at the new plant in Lower Saxony meant that production had not even begun by the time of the Nazi invasion of Poland and the suspension of the program. \n\nIn what Flink describes as \"the world's biggest investment swindle,\" over three hundred thousand Germans paid monthly installments for cars that were never built; instead, the manufacturing plant built with their savings turned out war materiel using slave labor until its capture by the Soviets. Despite the cancellation of production, the Nazi government continued to collect payments through the end of the war. upon capture, the Soviets confiscated the remaining funds from the savings accounts. (As an aside, the newly-formed West German government spent decades in litigation with *KdF-wagen* savers, eventually settling for a payment of either 600DM in credit towards a new VW Beetle or 100DM in cash) \n\n\nSo, by war's end there was no Volkswagen to speak of - and it's hard to say that one had ever existed in the first place. It would have been perfectly simple for the occupation government (Lower Saxony falling in the British occupation sphere) to simply sell off the remaining assets and level the complex. Two-thirds of the plant had already been destroyed by allied bombing, and the slave-laborers smashed the remaining machinery and ransacked the offices and barracks after their SS guards (who I would imagine did their own share of records-destruction) fled. Time magazine reported that \"every telephone had been torn from the walls, every typewriter had been sledgehammered to junk, every file and record had been scattered and burned.\" \n\nNevertheless, the British almost immediately began the process of converting the factory back to civilian auto production. They renamed the town from \"Stadt des KdF-Wagens bei Fallersleben\" (Strength-through-Joy Car City) to Wolfsburg, and enlisted the few remaining German workers in cleaning debris and putting machinery back in working order. Initially, the factory continued to build military \"Kubelwagens\" (German jeeps) for the British occupation forces, but by October 1946 ten thousand civilian Volkswagens had been built and the factory workforce had exploded from 450 in April 1945 to nearly 8,000 in August 1946. The British authorities running the operation sent a production car back to England along with a proposal to include the Wolfsburg factory in the war reparations, but a 1946 commission lead by William Rootes (head of the Rootes auto manufacturing conglomerate) \"predicted that [the company] would collapse within two years and that even if the Germans did get the car into production\" (from Flink) and that \"the vehicle does not meet the fundamental technical requirements of a motor car [...] as regards to performance and design it is quite unattractive to the average motorcar buyer, it is too ugly and too noisy [...] to build the car commercially would be a completely uneconomic enterprise.\" \n\nAfter Ford Motor Company rejected an offer for the factory, the British Military Government installed former Opel executive Heinz Nordoff as general manager, who oversaw the name change to \"Volkswagenwerk\" and the transfer of control from the British to the FRG and then, after a lengthy dispute for ownership between the FRG and the state of Lower Saxony, VW was made a public company in 1960. \n\nAs an aside, the British government's instrumental role in creating VW did not necessarily belie an immediate enthusiasm for the car among the British public (if Sir Rootes' report gives any indication). According to Flink, the British press regularly referred to the beetle as \"Hitler's Car,\" and some 75 percent of beetles arriving in the UK were damaged by vandals. \n\n\nI hope this helps! ",
"Modified from [an earlier answer of mine](_URL_0_)\n\nThe conventional date for the takeoff of the FRG's long-term export success is 1951/52 when the Korean War caused a disruption in international trade that allowed German firms to establish themselves as a major player in international commerce. From the Korean War to reunification, FRG export growth as a whole remained relatively steady, even during global cyclical downturns like the oil shocks of the 1970s. \n\nThe postwar success of West German exports did alarm a number of commentators in Western Europe where memories of German occupation and bombing ran long, but there was no equivalent panic or hand-wringing in the United States. FRG products remained somewhat invisible inside the US market for a number of reasons. Firstly, the FRG's primary trading partners tended to be Western European and the North American market remained peripheral to FRG trade. Moreover, FRG manufacturing tended to focus on capital goods like machinery, steel, chemicals, and medium-technology items like precision instruments. Although the FRG did produce high-end consumer products such as Sennheiser's audio equipment, these were often dwarfed by more mundane industrial products. As such, the FRG's penetration of the US market tended to be in items not purchased by an average consumer, such as Krupp-Thyssen elevators and escalators or x-ray machinery. \n\nThe one notable exception to this trend was automobiles. Volkswagen had begun significant exports into the US by the mid-1950s and its famous \"think-small\" campaign helped to cement it as an icon of the 1960s. Similarly, both Mercedes and BMW also penetrated the US market. Yet prior to the 1970s, FRG cars tended to fill in market niches that Detroit either ignored or felt beneath their effort. For example, the VW Beetle was one of the cars of choice for both women and households needing a second car, demographics that Detroit expected to be filled by the used car market. Mercedes and BMW became associated with an alternative luxury market, one which both Detroit and US consumers already associated with European-made products. As such, the wider cultural reaction to these German products on US shores did not resurrect the ghosts of the Second World War since German cars initially were not displacing US manufacturing, but instead serving a need US industry did not attempt to fill. A side bar in Melvin J Lasky's rather fawning 2 October 1955 *NYT*'s article\" The Volkswagen: A success story,\" captured this complacent mentality. After noting to its readers that although the Beetle was the fastest-selling foreign car in the US, the sidebar contended:\n\n > But despite the popularity of this small German car, there is little likelihood, in the opinion of the automotive industry, that Detroit will soon follow suit. The manufacturers are convinced that the demand is not big enough for small cars. They point out that a year-old car- fully equipped - is cheaper than a new Volkswagen, and they add that it costs almost as much to tool up to build a small car as it does for a large one. In the event of public demand, however, the industry is prepared to update plans it had long shelved for small cars. \n\nSimilarly, a 10 April 1957 *Wall Street Journal* article on European economy cars quoted both Harlow Curtice of GM and L. L. Colbert of Chrysler somewhat curt dismissal of these smaller automobiles, with GM's executive noting they were uniformly \"substandard\" and Colbert noting Chrysler had designs for small cars dating from before the war, but had no plans to start production of them.\n\nThis somewhat complacent attitude to this West German product was in strong contrast to the British reaction to the arrival of the VW Beetle in which tripped off alarms about the ailing British car industry and other forms of industrial malaise. Advertisers for British cars like the Sunbeam Imp and MG 1100 explicitly tried undercut Beetle sales both domestically and abroad by comparing themselves favorably to the German product. The Imp was specifically priced $100 below the Beetle. Pressure from British manufacturers led higher tariffs on imports in 1965, to which VW responded by imposing a ban on British parts. French car maker Renault likewise saw Volkswagen as its major competitor and its advertisements both at home and abroad stressed the superiority of French cars to German ones. \n \nThis anti-Axis sentiment would reach US shores in the 1970s, especially with the advent of Japanese compact cars and consumer electronics whose sales outstripped their American counterparts at a time of increased economic uncertainty. Instead, the American reaction to FRG's economic resurgence in the 1950s and 60s was a sort of smug self-vindication that unlike the Soviet-backed GDR, \"America's\" Germans had learned the valuable lessons of industrial capitalism and were now respectable members of the global economic community- for an example of this mentality- see the Warner Brothers cartoon [*Word of Mouse*](_URL_1_) in which a German mouse is taught the benefits of mass consumption and production by his more worldly American cousin. Lasky called VW's Wolfsburg Dearborn-on-the-Luneburger-Heide and noted the city \"is 'American' only in the sense that it too is a great melting pot, with a rootless population to find opportunity and pursue happiness.\" Lasky also drew a picture of its chief Heinrich Nordhoff that likened him to a figure that melded old-world charm and the savvy practical modernism American businessman. Vinton McVicker's 20 Mar 1956*Wall Street Journal* article \"People's Car: Defying Detroit Dogma, Volkswagen Triumphs In Global Markets\" favorably compared both VW and Nordhoff to Henry Ford. A 10 October 1962 *Wall Street Journal* piece on Nordhoff explicitly stated:\n\n > Dr. Nordhoff wasn't a Nazi. He was and is a patriotic German. The Hitler government needed experts, and Dr. Nordhoff qualified. By 1942, he was director general of the Opel-werke in Brandenburg, then the largest truck factory in Europe. \n\nThe *NYT*'s 1968 obituary for Nordhoff also took pains to point out he had never joined the NSDAP and treated his initial blacklisting by the occupation governments as an unfortunate interlude in a career of West German industrial development. Although both the firm and its chief's Third Reich past was an open secret, at one point in the war, forced laborers made up half of the Opel-werke in Brandenburg's labor force, the American press preferred to tell of a more edifying story of West Germany prospering under American tutelage. \n\nPerhaps ironically, the stigma of the Third Reich upon German manufacturers actually grew as direct memories of the Second World War faded. German industrialists like Alfried Krupp conducted an intensive public relations campaign in the immediate aftermath of the war portraying themselves as reluctant accomplices of the NSDAP who were forced to compromise their private enterprises by a criminal regime. By an large, these efforts were successful and American plans for tribunals against these industrialists fell apart. These early public relations efforts muddied the waters over the actual degree of responsibility of these firms for war crimes and cultivated an image of a German industrialist as a patriotic anticommunist. The American occupation authorities conceived of responsible and strong industry as a firewall against Communist infiltration of the German workforce. Despite notable efforts like William Manchester's *The Arms of Krupp*, very few commentators in the West took industrial firms to task for their collusion with the Third Reich. The GDR's constant harping about an continuities between the FRG elite and the Third Reich also led to writing off such criticism as repetition of the Eastern blocs' wider talking points of the Cold War. The wider historical reevaluation of Germans' coordination and cooperation with the NSDAP regime in the 1970s and 1980s helped to uncover the broad connections between the state and German industrial firms, many of whom actively competed for allocations of slave labor. Lawsuits against German firms in the 1980s and 1990s by survivors of forced labor helped strip away the vestiges of the postwar whitewashing of these firms' responsibilities. This efforts collectively led to a greater public awareness of the connection of German firms to the Third Reich so much so that it has almost become axiomatic that whenever a German company is caught doing something wrong, such as the VW emissions scandal, there is no [shortage](_URL_2_) of [commentary](_URL_3_) that will mention the unsavory association of these firms with the Third Reich. \n\n*Sources*\n\nBrady, John, Beverly Crawford, and Sarah Elise Wiliarty. *The Postwar Transformation of Germany Democracy, Prosperity, and Nationhood.* Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999.\n\nLogemann, Jan L. *Trams or Tailfins? Public and Private Prosperity in Postwar West Germany and the United States*. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013. \n\nOwen Smith, E. *The German Economy*. London: Routledge, 1994. \n\nRieger, Bernhard. *The People's Car: A Global History of the Volkswagen Beetle*. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2013. "
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"https://jalopnik.com/i-drove-the-earliest-ancestor-of-the-vw-beetle-and-it-w-1660193161",
"https://jalopnik.com/this-photo-of-an-effigy-of-a-volkswagen-from-nazi-germa-1826576375",
"https://www.amazon.com/Extraordinary-Life-Josef-Ganz-Volkswagen/dp/1614122032",
"https://jalopnik.com/meet-the-car-... | ||
1pvmg8 | what is port forwarding? i want to maximize my online multiplayer on gaming consoles, should i use it? | People have asked this questions before but I still don't get it. I would love a simple explanation and to know if it is practical for my usage. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1pvmg8/eli5_what_is_port_forwarding_i_want_to_maximize/ | {
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"So you have a router. And multiple devices that consume your internet connection (phones, pcs, tablets, toasters, etc).\nEvery connection made from any device in your internal network, consumes a port in your router (think of your router as the street door on your home, everything that has to go out side must go through it). \n\nDon't worry, you have roughly 65.000 ports available, you won't run out of them.\n\nIn esscense, port forwarding refers to signal your router to specify a port (or a range of ports, ie 7000-7100) to a specific device (the ip of a device, to be more specific). This is usually associated with certain applications that require the use of a specific port to work.\n\nBe careful when forwarding too, always remember there's a port on your local machine too, (an entrance port, and an exit port) and its very easy to get mixed up too. \n\nIf this is still unclear, port forwarding is only advisable if you know what ports is your console using.",
"Port forwarding works kind of like this:\n\nImagine your router like your front door. You have a bunch of people in your house, but any traffic in and out needs to use the front door.\n\nSo lets say that traffic from BF4 wants to get in. Well, OK, thats cool - where is it trying to go? Normally it will hit the router at a particular port, and if that port is opened, it goes through, if not, it gets blocked.\n\nMost ports are blocked by default.\n\nThe idea with port forwarding is you say, 'Open this specific port and let that traffic into the network.'\n\nYou can make it generic 'just fucking open this port,' or more specific, 'open this port specifically to *me*.' Most routers should let you do both.\n\nSome games / routers / computers support something called [UPnP](_URL_0_) where the 'game' in question tells the router 'yo open up these ports' and the router responds 'yeah they're open for you', so there is a possibility that your consoles are already dealing with that part.\n\nIf your router is any good, you can see the list of ports that are opened in the admin web console, and see whether they are manually assigned, or done via UPnP",
"Imagine you work in an office building, where all the offices have a number. If you need to send a package from your office to someone else's, you just write \"Office #15\" on it, and it will get to the right place.\n\nBut outside of your building, there are lots of Office #15's, so sending a package there doesn't work. So what you do is have them send it to the building, and set up rules in your mailroom...all packages go to Office #15, letters go to Office #22, etc., etc.\n\nThose rules are roughly equivalent to port forwarding. Inside your house, you might have several internet devices, your computer, your phone, your TV, your Xbox. They all know how to talk to each other, but if a request to talk to them comes from the outside world, which one should it go to? Port forwarding lets you route incoming game related requests to your console.\n\nSo should you use it?\n\nSome games let you play head to head with other players be connecting directly, rather than through a server, which sometimes can be a little faster. If you play games like this, you can use port forwarding, otherwise it isn't going to make a lot of difference. ",
"I'm going to start with an analogy, and then explain it at the very end, so please be patient: \n\nIn my analogy, there's an apartment building. As is the norm, the building has a single address, and each resident living there has an apartment number. So when you address mail to someone at the apartment, you have to include both the address and the apartment number.\n\nHowever, the property owner decided that he wanted to erect another building on the same lot, and he didn't want to go through the hassle of getting a new address for his building. Of course, you can't have two buildings with the same address and the same apartment numbers. How would anyone ever get their mail? So the property owner hired a guy named Robbie to handle the residents' mail. Robbie decided that the best way to do this was to keep a ledger. He gave each building a codename in his ledger so that he could tell them apart. Then, he'd look to see when someone from one of the apartments sent out some mail, and he'd modify the return address on the envelope to have a fake apartment number that was unique across both buildings. He'd then jot that fake number down in his ledger, along with the building codename and the actual apartment number.\n\nThis worked pretty well. Everyone who sent out emails to their friends and relatives and pen-palls were perfectly happy. In fact, this method also had the great side-effect of totally eliminating spam mails. See, every time a piece of mail came in with an apartment number that wasn't in Robbie's ledger, he just threw it away. Since spammer had no previous contact with the residents, of course they couldn't know what the made-up apartment numbers were, so their spam just got thrown out.\n\nBut one day, Sir Vernon, who lived in apartment 80 in building B, came to Robbie to complain. It seems that Vernon was running a business out of his apartment, and so he was expecting a lot of unsolicited mail. But since Robbie was tossing out all the mail to actual apartment numbers, well, you can see the problem.\n\nSo Robbie and Sir Vernon had a nice, long chat, and they eventually came to an agreement. Robbie would enter into his ledger that all of the mail that arrived at the shared addresses for both apartments would be sent to Building B, apartment 80. Sure, Vernon would get some junk mail, but at least he wouldn't lose any potential clients.\n\n****\n\nSo what was that an analogy for?\n\n* Apartment building = computer.\n\n* The apartments' address = the computer's IP address.\n\n* Apartment number = port number.\n\n* Residents = applications that need internet access.\n\n* Mail = TCP/IP data.\n\n* Robbie = router. He gave each computer a new codename (LAN IP address), while presenting the same old address to the outside world. He then made sure that every request from the LAN side of the router was able to communicate to the outside world.\n\n* Sir Vernon = server. Something that needs to accept unsolicited connections from outside the router. Port forwarding means that the router will always deliver traffic to a specific port on the router to a pre-designated LAN address and port.\n",
"Most home routers use something called Network Address Translation. With NAT, you can have one publicly routeable IP address, but many internal private addresses. Those addresses individually aren't routable from the internet, so when you initiate communication from your device, your router makes a 1 to 1 port translation for your outgoing communication. It remembers the source port you transmitted from and maps it in it's table. When it receives a packet back on the port it mapped to, it knows which private IP address that packet is supposed to be delivered to.\n\nBut this only works if your PC initiates all the communication. You can't get any unsolicited incoming packets -- your router will have nowhere to send them. So you create a static port forwarding in your router. It will always translate packets with that inbound port onto the IP and port of your choosing.\n\nGenerally most programmers for online games recognize that gamers will be behind a NAT router and will not know how to optimally configure it, so they write the program in such a way that you don't need to do anything.\n\nWhere port forwarding does come in very handy is when you need to talk between two devices that are both behind a NAT router. In most circumstances, you need an intermediary that will act as a man in the middle for all transmission. However, if you have port forwarding set on one device, you can initiate the communication from the other and have direct two way communication. The one thing I can think of that uses this the most is torrents, where two home computers want to communicate with each other."
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1sh5wq | rainbow universes or something | I have no idea what this artical is talking about. _URL_0_
It was posted in the physics reddit but no one seems to know what it means in a way I can understand.
I'm normaly pretty good at physics but I was blown away by all the jargon these people use. Please help. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1sh5wq/eli5rainbow_universes_or_something/ | {
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"Basically it is saying that different wavelenghts of light corresponding to different energies (by c=λv) would be affected differently by gravity. This is because in relativity, mass is just one expression of energy. If this theory is correct, then our techniques of tracing the origin of the universe (through telescopes which see light waves) could be fundamentally flawed. \n\nApparently the new (decade-old) theory has two outcomes. Either the function plateaus at a high density where these conditions are dominant, or it reaches a tangent and undergoes infinite regression. Either answer is contradictory with the big bang theory.\n\nEdit: Thanks for the downvote"
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fz03y | Is there an easy to remember formula for calculating the cooling time of a given amount of liquid? | A couple of months ago, I tried to google a formula for calculating how long it would take to cool a can of beer to about 3 degrees Celcius (I'm Swedish, hence the non-Fahrenheit units).
Based on a thread I found in some random forum, I gathered the following:
4,18 (some kind of constant?) x [Amount of liquid in liter] x [The temperature difference between the beer's current temperature and the compartment used for cooling]
You would then take the result of that equation and divide it by the temperature in the compartment used for cooling. This is the weird part, because it didn't say anything about negative degrees.
So, is this formula at all right, or just something that seemed to produce a somewhat correct answer? Does it even exist an easy to remember formula for this?
(The follow-up question to this would be if there's an easy way to calculate how long it would take for a steak to reach 59 degrees Celcius in a 200 degree owen. Feel free to educate me if there is.) | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/fz03y/is_there_an_easy_to_remember_formula_for/ | {
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"In principle, yes. It's Newton's law of cooling. But in practice, no. On the scale found in a kitchen, the approximations necessary to use the formula are significant. For instance, Newton's law requires that the temperature of the object's interior be the same as its surface. This is clearly not the case when cooking.\n\nIf you wanted to model the situation more accurately you'd use Fourier's law … but that's a differential field equation of three variables, so it definitely doesn't help in the kitchen.",
"To answer your question about negative degrees, Heating and Cooling (in fact, every equation that uses temperature) in science require use of the Kelvin scale of temperature.\n\nT(in K) := T(in C) + 273\n\nSo 0C is actually 273K. The reason Kelvin are used is because it extrapolates all the way down to where 0K corresponds to no molecular motion (so called Absolute Zero).\n\nAlso, your (some kind of constant?) is known as the thermal conductivity of the material. It's a material property that measures how well it can conduct heat. The conductivity changes depending on the object and material you are looking at heating or cooling."
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2hz9tq | how does touching work? (sensation of feeling different surfaces) | Why I ask:
Im curious if, by very weak but accurate static/electrical stimulation, the brain can be tricked into feeling surfaces which aren't there. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2hz9tq/eli5_how_does_touching_work_sensation_of_feeling/ | {
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"Touching and other sensory inputs (except for the special senses) are mediated via corpuscles. There are 4 types of them and they have sense various stimuli like pain, temperatures, pressure etc.\n\nIn theory, what you described could be possible. But practically that would be difficult to achieve. Mainly because of the fact that fine/light touch is mediated via Meissner corpuscles, that are located deeper in the skin. Way deeper than Free Nerve Endings (FNEs)that give you the perception of pain and temperature.\n\nJust to give you a perspective, let's divide the skin to epidermis and the dermis for simplicity. The epidermis has 5 more layers. FNEs are located from the 3rd layer of the epidermis and beyond. Compared to Meissner corpuscles which are sometimes located at the 5th layer of the epidermis but are mainly concentrated in between the epidermis and dermis and beyond. FNEs are also present through the skin compared to Meissner corpuscles which are only present in hairless skin areas.\n\nWhat does all that mean? If you place an electrode over the skin, that is not invading any layers of the skin, and you stimulate the skin, the FNEs will pick up the electrical impulses before the Meissner corpuscles and you will perceive pain. Even if the stimulation reaches the Meissner corpuscles, they are adapt quickly so you will not really perceive the feeling of touch (FNEs on the other have both fast and slow adapting fibers, so the perception of pain does not change much over time).\n\nWhich is why when EMGs are performed for patients/students at a hospital or for academic purposes, it's the pain that bothers patients/subjects rather the than the rest of the sensations that could have been perceived.\n\n**tl;dr: Theoretically yes but practically no because your body's nervous system adapted for survival (probably through the evolutionary process)**\n\n---\nOn a different note though, let's assume FNEs never existed, and you performed an EMG or stimulated the skin via electrodes, then it is very much possible to perceive touch.\n\nThere was a theory in neuroscience about how neurons may carry impulses even if the stimuli isn't of its own kind. Which is why getting hit on the back of your head (as seen in cartoons) makes you perceive stars, which basically stimulate the neurons at the back of your head (where you visual center is) and you perceive flashes of lights which are not really present physically."
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620dzz | why do our cheeks hurt when we eat extremely sour sweats/food? what causes it? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/620dzz/eli5_why_do_our_cheeks_hurt_when_we_eat_extremely/ | {
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"You are feeling the extreme activation of your *salivary glands.* The presence of very sour foods makes you produce much more saliva than normal, very suddenly, and this action feels uncomfortable."
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2lowe5 | Where did/does 'Beethoven' lie? | The last name "van Beethoven" as in Ludwig van Beethoven means "from Beethoven" in dutch. But where does, or did, Beethoven lie? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2lowe5/where_diddoes_beethoven_lie/ | {
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"Ludwig van Beethoven was born in Bonn in the Archbishopric/Electorate of Cologne (one of the many German states that existed prior to unification in 1871), like his father Johann. Ludwig's grandfather and namesake was born in the Spanish Netherlands, now known as Belgium. Beethoven's grandfather was a musician of some talent and like many musicians of this era traveled around various princely courts to ply their trade. Eventually the senior Ludwig established himself in Bonn and became the *Kapellmeister* of the Prince-Archbishop. His son Johann, born in Bonn in 1739/40, followed his father's trade in music as did his illustrious grandson. \n\nThe name \"Beethoven\" is not really a reference to a specific geographic location. In Flemish, the name could mean \"beet garden,\" which was a common name for farmers. The name was also common for tradesmen and merchants, and Ludwig senior's father was a baker who successfully transitioned into selling luxury goods. There is also a subdivision of the Belgian town Tongeren called Betho, so it's also possible that the family name stems from this. Unfortunately, the Beethoven family tree is obscure beyond his great-grandfather, so there is no clear answer. "
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36dnnq | why does a white noise, such as a ceiling fan, help me fall asleep, but random noises annoy me while trying to sleep? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/36dnnq/eli5_why_does_a_white_noise_such_as_a_ceiling_fan/ | {
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"White noises are easily explained by your brain and can be run as a background process. Random noises demand an immediate explanation.",
"White noise, if you're using the technical definition, is a consistent noise that comes out evenly across all hearable frequencies. Say you're a musician. To play a middle C note, you play something that's about 261.6 hertz, the unit of frequency. White noise is just an equal amount at every frequency, from low to high, that a human being can hear. To keep the music analogy going, it's a gigantic band all playing a slightly different note. (Machines pushed to the limit, like fans, are especially good at hitting these notes.)\nWhen a noise wakes you up in the night, it's not the noise itself that wakes you up, per se, but the sudden change or inconsistencies in noise that jar you. White noise creates a masking effect, blocking out those sudden changes that frustrate light sleepers, or people trying to fall asleep.\n\nCredits to: Popular Science ",
"Like acheron and ftumpsh point out, white noise is predictable in a way.\n\nI would also like to point out that white noise is what you hear as a fetus. It is why humans like to be held and wrapped in blankets. Sometimes a nice, gentle shaking can help you fall asleep too (try sleeping on the back of the bus sometime)",
"White noise is a steady, constant noise. Once it starts, our brain becomes accustomed to hearing it and realizes quickly that there is no danger caused by the the white noise. Random noises are unexpected, and our brain automatically wakes up because unexplained noises mean danger. ",
"Simple answer: Because white noise prevents you from hearing those random noises that annoy you while you're trying to sleep.",
"Think of white noise like your clothing. Your brain has learned, over time, to ignore the constant stimuli that your clothing has on the surface of your skin.\n\nNow imagine that \"random noise\", as a water balloon. Once it hits your clothing, you instantly feel the weight, texture, etc. of whatever you're wearing.\n\nAll of your senses work this way, sort of. [Your eyes, for example](_URL_0_) (focus on the black dot for a few seconds). Most famously, your sense of smell does it pretty rapidly, able to ignore odors after only a couple minutes.\n\nTL;DR - The abruptness of the change (compared to the white noise) is what annoys you, not the noise itself.",
"True white noise comprises all frequencies of sound equally, though non-perfect white noise also works to varying degrees. True white noise actually doesn't exist for the same reason that there is no limit to numbers, though it's not necessary because our ears can only detect certain frequencies. Anyways.\n\nIt's a property of sound that when you have 2 sources of the same frequency of sound which are a [half wave-length out of phase of each other,](_URL_1_) the sounds cancel each other out. In practice, since white-noise is pretty much random, there are bound to be wavelenths in white noise which will cancel out (to some degree) other sudden or unique ambient sounds which might distract you and cause your brain to attempt to decipher them. \n\nA second reason that white noise aids in working to help you sleep is due to [persistent sensation adaptation](_URL_0_). All of our senses are largely based on detecting changes. Any constant stimuli will eventually be ignored by your brain and fade into the background so you don't really notice. This is why you don't really feel the cloths on your body unless you're actually thinking about it, or why you can't really smell if you're house stinks unless you leave for a couple hours then it hits you when you walk back through the front door.\n\nSo when you're hearing a constant backdrop of white noise, it's both canceling out sudden sounds as well as fading into the background of your active awareness, which amounts to a great reduction in audio distractions when trying to sleep (or read a book on the train, in my case).",
"Well, I'm sure all of these explanations are correct, but why is it that white noise, such as a fan keeps me up, while I can sleep right through garbage trucks, sirens, car horns and radios, people talking or walking or whatever in other apartments, etc?!?\n\nI grew up in NYC.",
"I was told by my wife's obgyn that white noise is very similar to the blood rushing through the mothers veins that you hear when you are in the womb. This is just one explanation I am sure there are more technical ones.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nHere is what it sounds like in the womb.",
"While some really nice answers are in here, they may be more appropriate if this question was posed in /r/askscience\n\nHere is a simple answer: a fan or other \"white noise\" machine is a low hum that makes good background Noise, mainly because it it's a constant sound that doesn't, for practical purposes, fluctuate. It Also helps to mute other internment sounds which would be more instrusive to relaxation or sleep.",
"Wouldn't this fall into the ASMR category as well?",
"I like how everyone approaches this from different perspectives, I'll give you the behaviourist psychology perspective.\n\n\nThe noise helps drown out other stimulation (those crippling fears lurking at the back of your mind), you can only focus on so many things in your episodic and short term memory, I haven't got the research on hand to back this up though so take it with a grain of salt.\n\n\nBut your question is why does the spacing of the noises make a difference? We have a system where a stimulus (noise) is extinguished (we ignore it) if we sense it too many times, this is known as conditioning, naturally it's used to conserve energy, as an example if i clap you might look over at me, but if i slap my desk every 30 seconds for an hour eventually you'd just get used to it, nothing changes, you don't need to spend energy making adrenaline or being alert. But what i slap objects closer or further away from you, or louder and quieter? well the stimulus has changed and could be a threat, so your brain has to pay attention to it.\n\n\nTL:DR; Until your brain is conditioned to remain calm it'll keep you alert.",
"White noise is consistent in its tone and rhythm where as random noise brakes the flow of the environment you're in. As an example you could turn on a sound meter with a graph display and a fan, while looking at the display you'll see a pretty consistent graph but if you snap your fingers a spike will occur which will upset the flow of sound. Another way to look at it is a stream of water coming out of a faucet, its consistent but if you stick your finger in the path of the water it splashes all over the place.\n",
"By the way, if you suffer from ringing of the ears which is generally called tinnitus or you have ADD/ ADHD or a nervous disposition the addition of a fan on low speed will help you fall asleep as it gives your mind a focus point. I've had a multitone tinnitus for years and have to sleep with a fan on due to how loud it is. Despite its pitch I have above average hearing even at the age of 45 and having worked in manufacturing and other industries with high volume sounds because I've always worn ear protection.",
"I believe that white noise is so hypnotic to humans because of the fact that it's a naturally occurring phenomena. The sound of the world turning (figuratively) is white noise. So when you synthesize white noise, it's so natural for our brain, it immediately luls us to sleep. \n\nThere are actually super acoustically perfect rooms that are able to deaden SOO much ambient noise, that even what we perceive as a \"silent\" room, is actually just a \"fairly quiet\" room. These rooms absorb so much sound, that people who sit in them have reported an extremely uneasy, almost nerve racking \"nothingness\". A common reaction to just a few moments inside the room is, \"the silence was deafening\". \n\nI've heard people attempting to challenge their tolerance inside these rooms have even had panic attacks and were sure that extended periods could induce psychosis. ",
"If you don't sleep with a box fan going, you're doing it wrong\n\nHowever, if you do, and the power goes out at night, everything fucking sucks.",
"Continuous, non-changing sounds become habituated (your brain gets used to it). Once habituated, having the sound there feels natural and almost soothing. It would also cover other, more intrusive sounds, that are too soft to 'break though' the haze of noise.\n\nSudden noises, or random, but changing, noises, demand your brain's attention each time they change/appear, so you can't \"drift away\". However, with training such as hypnotherapy, sounds such as these can also aquire the function of soothing you and pushing you deeper into sleep.",
"have you ever tried to sleep when your in complete silence on LSD? It's like someone is cranking the \"white noise\" to the max over and over again and the only way to make it stop is to focus. ",
"Consistency is easy to ignore. Rare events are note.\nAs long as something catches your attention, it will annoy you or stop you from sleeping.",
"Your brain doesn't try as hard to predict the patterns of repetitive noises. Your brain will have a harder time attempting to predict the patterns of random noises. ",
"If someone is doing DIY next door late at night, I find that it too helps me fall asleep. As does music and podcasts/audiobooks etc. ",
"Because we are animals, and a random noise should trigger something in your brain that you could get killed, and you'll have a better chance of survival if you're awake.",
"The same reason a yogi has no problem sitting on a bed of nails - the consistency is much easier to take than jagged highs & lows/loud sounds & silence.\n\nHere's a visual example: would you rather lay across a consistent profile\n\n |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||\n\nor a jagged one?\n\n ◣ ▲ ▲ ◣ | ◣◣ ",
"Our sensory neural pathways have inhibitor neurons that suppress the strength of a signal resulting from constant stimuli. It's the reason you don't constantly feel the clothes you are wearing right now. Our brains are set up to focus on what is new to our experience. So our brains will ignore the white noise in the room, this also means that any new noise would have to be noticeable above the white noise so it effectively screens out small noises that might otherwise interrupt your sleep. \n\nYou can see this inhibition visually with a variety of illusions:\n\n_URL_0_\n",
"The human nervous system is designed to detect differences, and especially important differences. \n\nA patch of grass, dirt, or sand recedes into a homogenous and not-very-important \"substance\", in our awareness. A similarly-sized patch of berries, snakes, or money might attract quite a bit of attention, on the other hand. \n\nSounds such as \"white noise\" serve as kind of sonic \"fog\". They mask and conceal other noises, and recede into irrelevance in your awareness. Your lower-level \"lizard brain\" acclimates to the constant sound, determines that it's not a threat, and ignores it. \n\nLight sleepers often find that harmless and even pleasant sounds can wake them up and keep them up. This is because the brain is attuned to detect differences. \n\nYou can think of it like your conscious mind getting up to check every sound as though it were a knock on the front door. Steady-state noise like a fan \"masks\" every little leaf rustling, and makes it so you only hear the real \"knocking\". ",
"The human brain is so hardwired to find patterns, that it often [invents patterns and meaning where none exist](_URL_0_). The human brain does this because our pre-human ancestors that couldn't detect an anomaly in the pattern (like a predatory animal hiding in the jungle) were eaten before they could reproduce. However, animals that could respond to any change in their environment, whether real or simply perceived, were more likely to reproduce.\n\nThis is why humans are much more likely to have experiences that return [false positives](_URL_2_) (they saw a tiger in the stars, but there really wasn't one there) than ones that return false negatives (while scanning the forest, Adam only saw forest. The tiger he didn't see ate him).\n\nYour brain is \"always working,\" even while asleep. In the absence of continuous stimulus, your brain responds to any and all variables (which are easier to detect because there's nothing to \"hide\" them) as a potential threat, because your brain is mostly comprised of portions that are millions of years old, and that dumb shit doesn't want to be eaten by a tiger, regardless of whether or not your living room regularly contains any [Panthera tigris] (_URL_1_).\n\nWhen you have a continuous, unbroken stimulus, not only will those sounds, images, scents, etcetera, help to mask any other \"sporadic stimuli,\" but your brain will also be continuously preoccupied with scanning the white noise for any alterations in its pattern that it'll ignore other stimulus.\n\nAnd lastly, your brain is best at noticing \"dramatic\" changes in a stimulus. The longer your brain is \"hypnotized\" by a continuous stimulus, the less likely it is to be able to recognize minor alternate stimuli.\n\nTL;DR: The majority of each one of our brains are easily distracted idiots that, no matter how often you try to comfort them, are obsessed with the notion that the second they let their guard down, they'll get eaten.",
"Your ears are searching for things to hear even asleep. So giving them constant white noise helps you stay asleep. And if/when you develop tinnitus, you'll really appreciate white noise as it's much more pleasant to listen to then the crickets in your head. \n",
"Basically white noise covers the entire audible spectrum, so if it's at a constant volume, your brain will get used to it and it won't bother you while it's partially covering up anything else that you might potentially hear. ",
"I think because the sound of a fan is a more consistent noise with less change in sound. When other things like closing doors and cupboards are way more inconsistent and infuriating. ",
" conversely, i sleep much better knowing I can hear what's going on around the house. The fact that my SO wants (needs) to drown it out drives me crazy. ",
"It's like this: Music, or recognizable noises stimulate your brain. They make it hard to think. White noises aren't recognizable enough to have anything stand out, but enough to keep your mind from being able to think of other things. It basically shuts off your brain.",
"Boo! I can't sleep with the fan on. I wait till my husband falls asleep and turn it off. It's too noisy.",
"That's your brain keeping you alive. It's survival instinct from when we had to worry about wolves and bears and tigers eating us, or someone coming to harm you. Your brain is listening for something to change and alerts you when it does. Now a days it's usually just the cat or the wind blowing, but the instinct to be alerted is still there."
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9c6088 | Aside from their height, how did the fitness and body shape of nomadic/pastoral humans of prehistory compare to modern fitness ideals? Did this change with the adoption of agriculture? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/9c6088/aside_from_their_height_how_did_the_fitness_and/ | {
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"You may wish to post or crosspost this on r/AskAnthropology as well."
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et3afl | How & when did Egypt go from Shi'a to Sunni? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/et3afl/how_when_did_egypt_go_from_shia_to_sunni/ | {
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"It didn't; Egypt was never Shi'a. They were ruled over by a Shi'a dynasty, the Fatimids between 969 and 1171, but the Fatimids never imposed their religious views on the population and, consequently, the majority of the population remained Sunni.\n\nHow and why this happened ... or, rather, how and why this *didn't* happen ... is still the subject of considerable discussion among historians. It's worth pointing out that the whole concept of Sunni and Shi'a were still relatively undefined at this point (the Fatimids were Ismaili, which at any rate is a minority branch within Shi'ism; their ideological descendants are the followers of the Aga Khan today).\n\nOne of the prevailing theories is that the Fatimids were trying to demonstrate a concept of universal rule -- that is, that they were ideal Muslim rulers who could rule over all Muslims regardless of their particular ideological bent, and this way unite the Muslim population in a way that hadn't been done almost since the days of the Prophet Muhammad himself. Their ideological rivals, the Abbasids, were less tolerant of dissenting beliefs, so the Fatimids made supporting the underdogs part of their mission: \"everyone has a home here, with us.\"\n\nThe third chapter of Christine D. Baker's *Medieval Islamic Sectarianism* is (despite the title) a very readable accounting of the Fatimid ideology and rule.\n\nYou might also check out the [15 Minute History podcast on the Fatimids](_URL_0_)."
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81z86k | Why does the first amendment of the US constitution protect freedom of religion? Did many hardline Protestants protest this? | From what I understand, the former English colonies in 1787 had effectively no non-Protestant population. There were some old Catholic families in Maryland, a few thousand Catholic Irishmen across the country, and very tiny Sephardi Jewish communities in certain coastal cities. Although some individual colonies were founded by certain groups to protect their ability to worship freely, the religious history of the English colonies was generally antagonistic and sometimes violent. In the 1650s, Puritans banned Catholicism from Maryland, despite that colony's Catholic origin. Around this same time, Jews were expelled from Georgia.
The religious protections of the first amendment have had pretty huge implications on American law, history, and demographics. But why was it written? I'm surprised that the religious conservatives who dominated colonies like Massachusetts let this amendment be ratified. Were there fears that religious freedom would compromise the colonies' Protestant character? What kind of backlash did this amendment instigate? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/81z86k/why_does_the_first_amendment_of_the_us/ | {
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"While you are waiting for an answer you can take a look at this book The Founding Fathers and the Place of Religion in America by Frank Lambert. Its great and will clear up a lot of your misconceptions."
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6i0owh | What have we learned about the Higgs Boson since the LHC came online? | There was a lot of news when the Higgs was first detected, but it's been pretty quiet in the media since. What have particle physicists been learning, or doing, since then? | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/6i0owh/what_have_we_learned_about_the_higgs_boson_since/ | {
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"Basically, when it was discovered, all we learned was that we found a new boson at a mass of 125 GeV. Thus it was called a \"Higgs-like\" particle. Since then we have been measuring all sorts of other properties of the particle to see if it is, indeed, the true Higgs boson as predicted by the Standard Model, and so far, it is.",
"* We measured more precisely how often it is produced, at three different LHC collision energies.\n* We measured more precisely the probabilities of its various possible decays. The initial discovery was just based on two decay modes (not exactly true, but only two were important), now we measured more.\n* We measured the energy distribution of the produced Higgs bosons\n* We measured the mass more precisely\n* We measured spin and parity, two other key parameters of particles\n* We excluded multiple ideas how more than one Higgs could exist.\n\nAll these measurements agree with theoretical predictions so far. \"Particle physicists confirmed yet another prediction for a decay of the Higgs boson\" doesn't get large media attention, but it is still important."
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8bslim | how is the new european gdpr law even enforceable against us companies? | I keep hearing that US-based businesses that do business with people in the EU will have to comply with GDPR laws, even if said business has no physical presence in the EU.
Hypothetically, say someone from the US owns a small website that sells subscriptions to access content, and someone from England buys a subscription. From what I keep reading, that site would then have to follow all GDPR regulations.
My question is though, how would the EU actually enforce that? GDPR is not a law in the US, so what would give the EU regulators the authority to actually enforce said law and try to collect damages against someone not violating any laws in their own jurisdiction? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8bslim/eli5_how_is_the_new_european_gdpr_law_even/ | {
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"If a company is big enough to be operating in the EU, they will have servers dedicated for EU users wherein their data is stored. Such data is not allowed to leave the EU by law (lol), so it's easily enforceable to have them deleted.",
"They can tell banks and payment processors to confiscate any cash in EU accounts and to stop doing business with their American accounts. This effectively makes it impossible for the companies to make money from EU citizens. "
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3lnn84 | Why was Eisenhower rise through the ranks so fast? | I found his dates of promotion [here](_URL_0_). I know it's Wikipedia, but that part at least seems to have a good source. | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3lnn84/why_was_eisenhower_rise_through_the_ranks_so_fast/ | {
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"Eisenhower had the \"benefit\" of two world wars to enhance his promotion speeds. Going by those dates, he was commissioned a 2LT in 1915, and became a 1LT a year later. Quick, but that is historically a fairly quick process. The jump to CPT was extremely fast, but note that it occurs the month following US entry in to World War I. This isn't too surprising, because with the sudden need to enlarge the military and bring in vast numbers of raw recruits, existing officers were the best bet the army had for leading the increased number of commands suddenly created, and promotions were the result.\n\nHis next two promotions, to MAJ and LTC, were temporary wartime promotions, to allow him to lead his various assignments. They weren't permanent ranks, and after the war ended, he reverted to his official rank of CPT. His service during the war was deemed excellent, so he was quickly then promoted officially one step again, to MAJ. \n\nEisenhower sat at MAJ for 16 years, significantly longer than one would ever find a person in that rank now. During that time he worked as a staff officer for several important generals, and attended important military educational programs, eventually earning promotion to LTC. \n\nHis remaining promotions came during the build-up to, and conduct of, World War II. He had, by this time, been identified as a highly capable staff officer, and the opportunities that arose in the once again massively expanded army, combined with his competence in carrying out assignments given to him, served to elevate him through the general ranks. \n\nSourced largely from the [US Army official brochure](_URL_0_) about his career."
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71vqy2 | How real is the threat of human extinction by gamma ray bursts? | Recently watched this video _URL_0_ and now I'm terrified, should I be terrified or am I overreacting? | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/71vqy2/how_real_is_the_threat_of_human_extinction_by/ | {
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"This is a difficult question to answer scientifically without more knowledge of the mechanisms of how gamma ray bursts are created, specifically the range at which they are extinction-level events.\n\nThe only real evidence we can be sure of is that Earth has not been hit by a planet-sterilizing GRB in (at least) 3 billion years.\n\nThis can't tell us whether such events hit planets on average once per 500 million years and we've just been lucky, or whether they hit once per 25 trillion years on average and Earth's experience is typical.\n\nIt is, however, fairly compelling evidence that they are rarer than one per ten million years. As a result you can rest easy on this one. You are considerably more likely to be killed in a motor vehicle accident involving a cow than you are to be killed by a planet-sterilizing GRB.",
"Very real. Yes you're over reacting. \n\nthere is no known candidate for producing the kind of gamma ray burst needed to cause massive damage to earth's biosphere close enough for it to be an issue. All the possible candidates are either not close enough, or oriented in such a way that any gamma ray burst produced by them wouldn't come near the earth. "
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3eh0z2 | why aren't more people on a structured starvation plan versus undergoing gastric bypass surgery which essentially is structured starvation? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3eh0z2/eli5_why_arent_more_people_on_a_structured/ | {
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"Because structured starvation plans don't work very well. They do try diet plans before resorting to gastric bypass surgery.",
"If they had enough impulse control to stick to any regimented diet, they wouldn't be so fat in the first place. \n\nAny reputable doctor is going to try diets and other methods long before resorting to gastric surgury.",
"Some people are at such an extreme weight that a gastric bypass might be the only thing that can help lower their weight. Also a structured starvation plan would require discipline to implement. If it is forced onto a person then they are more likely to relapse. ",
"For years my mother asked and pleaded with me to get gastric bypass or \"surgery\" as she called it. I didn't want it, not because I weighted 435 pounds, but because I didn't like the idea of having surgery to correct something that I myself had created. Call it pride if you will. I felt that if I didn't do it myself, having surgery would be no different, because I personally was not ready to embrace a healthy and active lifestyle.\n\nIn the long run, it took me about 15 years since I was about 12 years of age when I started to get overweight to finally take the initiative and start losing weight. Today I am 28 years old, and to date, I've lost about 100 pounds, and have about 100 more to go! I may only be halfway to my goal after 18 months, but I now possess the right mindset for the job, and it helps to make it much easier to accomplish, regardless if I had done the surgery or not.\n\nI do agree that for some gastric bypass and other forms of surgery are the only feasible options available to the person based on their current weight and mindset. You have to make the decision yourself to carry through, day after day, week and week, month after month, that you will continue the healthy and active lifestyle you've laid out. No one can do this for you. They can help show you the path and help you along the way, but you have to do the walking yourself.\n\nSorry to hijack your thread, I thought some 1st hand experience might help to explain why some people have surgery and others do not. All in all, we are all built differently and have different mindsets. Some people will make it, others will not. This is the harsh reality that we all live in."
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1i1pc3 | Money is no object to me, and I've decided I want to take a trip to the moon. How much would this cost me today? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1i1pc3/money_is_no_object_to_me_and_ive_decided_i_want/ | {
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"You could probably get **to** the moon with a single Falcon 9 heavy. Cost is about 100 million USD and it will deliver about 50 000 ~~tonnes~~ kilograms to low earth orbit. Thats a pretty good deal. I reckon you could build a vehicle to fly to the moon and return for another hundred million. Maybe aim for 40 tonnes of fuel and gear to get you to the lunar surface, and 10 tonnes for the return stage. From low earth orbit you need 4 km/s of delta-V to get to the moon, 500 m/s to enter lunar orbit, and 2 km/s for a powered descent. Thats a total of 6500 m/s but at fairly low acceleration so you don't need big heavy engines.\n\nProbably your vehicle would need three stages: cruise to the moon, lunar landing and then return to Earth. That was how Apollo worked.\n\nMaybe take away your trans earth stage, save the mass and use the rest of the energy from the falcon to put you into a trans lunar trajectory, all in one big push.",
"Are we talking there and back, or just there? Also it somewhat depends on the length of the stay (life support is complicated and heavy).",
"There was a post a couple of years ago that claimed that the design for the Saturn rocket has somehow been lost, and that much of the engineering needed for such another moon-walk would have to be re-learned from scratch. Essentially, we don't know how to get to the moon anymore.\n\nDoes anybody know more about this?\n\n*I'm going negative for asking a question. I didn't say it was a fact, I said I'd read this and basically just wanted verification. If anything, I'm glad that my ignorance has been dispelled. I'd rather have downvotes than continue on living a lie, I suppose. ",
"[Space Adventures is selling flybys](_URL_1_) for a purported [$150 million a seat](_URL_0_).",
"I'd like to add to his question and ask how much it would cost to build an Apollo replica craft and fly that to the moon.",
"[SpaceX says they can land a Dragon on Mars for $425 million plus launch costs](_URL_0_). Say the launch cost is that predicted for a [Falcon Heavy](_URL_1_), which is $80-125 million.\n\nSo assuming you used only the most basic life support and don't want to get back, let's assume you could put yourself in that instead of the science package and land on the moon instead of Mars (life support would be a bigger issue for a Mars trip) for something like ~~$650~~ $550 million.\n\nIf all Elon Musk's predictions are correct.\n\nEdit: Is it harder to land on the moon than on Mars? It just occurred to me that this may be so, because unlike the moon, Mars has an atmosphere that can slow you most of the way down.",
"One F-22 costs $800mm+ over its useful life. Crazy how it's possible to fly to the moon and back for less than $10,000mm.",
"Well, Roscosmos has a [working space tourism program](_URL_8_) through a private american company, [Space Adventures](_URL_5_). They've [sent some tourists to the ISS](_URL_5_#Clients_who_have_flown_in_space) in the past.\n\nSpace Adventures has [4 tourism programs](_URL_7_):\n\n* A **simple zero gravity flight** on a plane (you don't go to space) via the [Zero G](_URL_4_) company, for US$5,000.\n\n* **Suborbital spaceflight**: as far as I know, this is not in operation yet. You fly 62 miles into space to view the Earth from above and to experience weightlessness. [Starting at $110,000](_URL_0_).\n\n* **Orbital spaceflight to the ISS**: that's what the famous Dennis Tito and all the other guys did. There's no official info on the site, but [according to Wikipedia](_URL_2_) the publicized price for flights by Space Adventures to the ISS aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft have been around US$20–35 million, during the period of 2001 to 2009. The optional spacewalk [costs about US$15 million](_URL_1_).\n\n* And I assume you meant a trip to the Moon that you can land on it, but at least Space Adventures offers a **trip to orbit the Moon**. It's called [Lunar Mission](_URL_3_), and [pricing has been announced at US$100 million per seat, but they have sold one of the seats for $150 million](_URL_5_#Lunar_Mission) — I didn't find when their first flight is.\n\nI think it's really interesting that space tourism actually exists and is kind of \"solid\". I don't know if this really answers your question, but considering these prices, I particularly don't think a trip to land on the Moon would reach one billion dollars like others have said."
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142cpo | Why didn't Hitler let his generals do the commanding? | Ok, this wasn't such a good title but i couldn't think of any better way to describe it.
From what i've read, Hitler was usually very involved in the military - everything from commanding armies to "helping" design new weapons. Unfortunately we has pretty bad at it.
My question is, did Hitler not trust his generals/experts to be able to do this for him, or did he seriously consider himself a good tactician? Would the commanders often protest when he made a bad decision? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/142cpo/why_didnt_hitler_let_his_generals_do_the/ | {
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"Another point would have to be that there was a large amount of squabbling, leaders of different group in Nazi Germany usually fought with each other on how to do certain things. Which Hitler knew very well of, if he left his generals to command things themselves they would just fight even more, but if Hitler gave most of the orders then they couldn't criticize each other. Personal Rivalries and preference with the Fuhrer were huge things in Nazi Germany and fights within the party were often. \n\nThe funny thing is that even years later The Spandau 7 exhibited these same characteristics and split themselves up into groups within the prison. \n\nA lot of information on this can be found in William L. Shirer's \"The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich\""
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ngsbd | the u.s. state department and what they do. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ngsbd/eli5_the_us_state_department_and_what_they_do/ | {
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"Wikipedia says it very clearly:\n\n > > The United States Department of State (often referred to as the State Department or DoS), is the United States federal executive department responsible for international relations of the United States, equivalent to the foreign ministries of other countries.\n",
"Represent the interests of American and American citizens abroad. ",
"Wikipedia says it very clearly:\n\n > > The United States Department of State (often referred to as the State Department or DoS), is the United States federal executive department responsible for international relations of the United States, equivalent to the foreign ministries of other countries.\n",
"Represent the interests of American and American citizens abroad. "
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1ih4r9 | Why are Japanese castles built of wood as opposed to stone? | I am currently in Japan and have visited a number of castles and noticed that many are reconstructions due to the fact they burned down a number of times throughout history.
I wish to know why the Japanese haven't moved away from wooden castles when they are so susceptible to fire. I find it unlikely that they did not know of stone buildings, because a great deal of these castles have huge stone bases.
So why continue building castles, whose primary goal is to defend, with a material that is less defensible than another, clearly abundant and used material (stone).
EDIT: whose instead of who's
Thanks | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1ih4r9/why_are_japanese_castles_built_of_wood_as_opposed/ | {
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"The huge stone bases are what make the castle the castle. That's the most important part of the fortification and uses quite a bit of ingenuity in regards to masonry. Though not very picturesque, these provided a considerable barrier to any invading army. The keep was not the main military feature, and more of a palace.\n\nAdditionally, these wooden keeps were perhaps a bit more resilient than you may percieve. Many of the keeps that were lost were destroyed long after their golden age during the sengoku jidai. Kumamoto, for example, was destroyed by modern weapons during the Satsuma Rebellion. Odawara castle was destroyed only after invaders were given access by surrender.\n\nYou also have to think about the context of the siege warfare at the time. Despite the access to gunpowder weapons, Samurai ironically stayed away from large cannons, sticking to small arms or large calibre wall guns. This would affect the military architecture of the time.",
"Well I can't really talk too much about battle tactics and how the castles fit into them, but I *do* know a bit about the advantages of wood construction and some about how it pertains to Japan.\r\rRight off the bat I will tell you there is a modern perception that wood is weak, expensive, and a last resort building material. Not true. While it does have its disadvantages it also has major advantages, especially before more modern construction. Some of the oldest buildings in the world still standing and certainly in Japan were made from wood.\r\rThe Japanese woodworkers were masters at their profession and largely worked using mortise and tenon joints- no nails. The quality of work on large projects was very high. Additionally repairs could (and were) able to be done quickly and often. Some ancient buildings \"still standing\" today are simply fully it partially rebuilt on a schedule every x many years.\r\rAlso, wood is a good choice for buildings in an earthquake zone. Done right it will have more ability to deform and reform without breaking. Timber can approach the compressive strength of concrete when built correctly. A good example of a wooden building that performs in an earthquake is the Horyuji Temple Pagoda. (Im aware it isn't a castle but its a good exemplar of Japanese architecture that is both large and multi storied that is adapted to earthquakes.)\r\rI know fire is brought up alot, but with massive timber construction you can actually have char rates that can last longer than steel construction. Basically once the wood chars on the outside it still has its load bearing capacity inside, while steel will continue to hear up and deflect. Also compartmentalization will help control fire. This isn't to say burning buildings it timber isn't a problem, but if you already rebuild or undergo massive renovations often and have a building that will hold up decently well against earthquakes and fire its got some convincing qualities.\r\rOnce again, the notion that wood is a second rate building material to the average person is also based on higher cost, lack of expertise (both as a layman and in massive timber construction) contact with poor quality woodwork (homes, etc.), misconceptions (fire and earthquake safety, etc.) and the Japanese would have had a very different view of wood as a building material than most westerners in the 21st century. \r\rI hope that frames the question and gives context to the answer a bit. Also, I typed this on my phone and simplified parts so correct me if Im wrong.\r\r(But how do you know these things?!\r\rArch History 1-3\r\rStructures 1 & 2 (with a case study on the aforementioned pagoda)\r\rHighrise project using wood as its primary structure.\r\rCase study on the flammability of heavy timber construction.\r\rThese are all academic so if somebody has real world experience telling me I am wrong I would be happy to hear it!)",
"Japan is prone to earthquakes, and having structures built of stone can be more dangerous to the inhabitants if a large earthquake strikes. \n\nThere is also the cost of rebuilding to consider. A typical wooden structure with paper walls within, while susceptible to fire, is relatively easier and faster to clean up and rebuild in the event of destruction than a stone structure.",
"As a follow-up question, does anyone know about the relative availability of stone in Japan compared to European countries?",
"I will try to dig up the source (EDIT: I had said 'later today', and it now appears that it will be closer to the late weekend before I return home) as I bought a book (unfortunately in Japanese) about this when I lived there. I'm pretty sure I have a lighter treatment in English and will try to dig this up as well.\n\nThe summary is this: earthquakes and speed-of-rebuilding.\n\nSo, what you will see, classically is *heavy* fortification surrounding what we would call almost a little (or in Osaka's case, at one point, big) town inside. Then the donjon.\n\nThe fortification for a massive facility, like Osaka would be a narrow road to the main gate. Which may be soft/wooden itself within a stone or wooden, but lightly fortified fence. Sentries all the way, always asking for travel papers and permits. Everywhere ... travel was common, but your permission papers were constantly checked by sentries that were covered by remote archers, on all the roads. There was heavy use of runners (messengers on horse or foot) and carrier pigeons to warn ahead that so-and-so is coming, (friend or enemy forces) well in advance.\n\nBack to fortifications: Inside of the soft outer fence and gate ... there continued a narrow road with check points and runners. Then you get to the outer \"Wall\". This is a high (tall), thick, wall with lookout points, heavy gates, narrow passage and lots of (for lack of better word here) samurai archers. After this: more narrow road ... and narrow bridge over a wide mote. Note that because of the terrain, the Japanese used horse (cavalry/transportation) lightly and wheeled carriage not at all. This limited their ability to really utilize cannon imported (from, say, Portugal) for remote campaigns. Another tall thick wall! With a lot more archers. Fortified extra-strong gate. If you make it across the mote. Which you won't with heavy tools/guns/cannon. And, without cannon, there would be no way to break the fortification. The contained donjon and village are \"safe\" from invasion. And usually heavily provisioned. The interior population may be north of 500,000 people of all walks of life, maybe 20%-40% soldiers, and were provisioned to more-or-less easily last a year.\n\nSo, earth-quakes and fire. The interesting thing about Japanese construction is that after either one of those, they could rebuild houses, bath-houses, market-places, armories, crafts-men, and castles very quickly using materials at hand. After either an earth-quake or fire, getting back to business quickly was important. So, bury (actually, burn) the dead: one-day. Rebuild the village:1-4 weeks. Rebuild the castle: 3-6 months (if it was really badly damaged, but not destroyed). Pretty impressive actually. It would take a *lot* longer if the donjon were to be constructed of stone.\n\nIt may or may not be interesting to note that many castles were destroyed intentionally at the end of the 'feudal age' (1868 and onward) as reminders of an past that the people had no intention of returning to.\n\nAnd, further, famously in the case of Tokyo (Yedo) ... any invaders first had to navigate a set of streets deliberately constructed to be confusing before they got to the castle, giving the defenders time to prepare and to scatter the enemy. After the US firebombed Tokyo, you would think that they would have rebuilt the city in a somewhat more 'sane' layout. But, as you know if you've ever taken a taxi there, those things that look like the Yellow Pages from NYC are maps ... because even the taxi drivers can't figure out how to get from here-to-there often-times.",
"I saw a doco about how the Japanese didn't even use metal to hold wooden castles together until about the 1890's, before then they were held together with wooden pegs.\n\nAlso, they had set up a huge pillar in the middle of pagodas which would sway back and forth, absorbing energy from earthquakes and aftershocks that allowed them to stand to this day. \n\ndoesn't answer your question as to why they were only made of wood, but I found it interesting nonetheless.",
"I really don't know if this is allowed (just read the subreddit rules), but here goes.\nI would recommend watching Castle under fiery skies (Katen no shiro), which is a somewhat fictional movie, where the protagonist is a lowly carpenter hired to build the biggest castle in Japan. The setting is feudal Japan ca. 1570. Actually I think it is around the battle of Nagashino, since I recall it is mentioned. I think of it as a japanese version of \"Pillars of the Earth\" by Ken Follett. It gives you an entertaining insight in japanese castle architecture, the trouble that is the historical setting. The movie is based on a book (same name), written by Keni'chi Yamamoto, who is known for his historical fiction novels. I enjoyed it. You might as well. If this is against the rules, I will of course delete my post.",
"I feel there are a couple of key elements that aren't being looked at in this conversation; the number of castles, and some key differences in purpose from European castles.\n\nFirst of which is the definition of 'castle' for the purposes of this discussion. There were allegedly something like over five thousand castles during the Sengoku Jidai and Edo periods, and approximately two thousand were torn down during the Meiji restoration, the majority of which were really more like fortified villas in the vein of a Chateau or Schloss rather than a full-fleged 'castle'. The examples we see that survive today are, like the surviving castles in Europe, more atypical examples of the type. \n\nThe strategic role of the castle, similar to its European counterpart, served primarily as a place to project power, both military and political, but probably with more of an emphasis on the latter. The previously mentioned design of the towns that contributed to the defense also contributes to the defense of the castle, as well as the geographical location of the castle precluding the use of some large siege engines. \nOne look at [Iwakuni Castle] (_URL_1_) on the ridgeline can immediately show the challenges of bringing siege equipment to bear. \n\nI think the last element that contributes to the difference is the agricultural situation in Japan. Consider what it means that Japanese wealth in this period is measured in rice production. (koku) Most of the Japanese war in the period could arguably be motivated by the desire to control more agriculture, and thus wealth. Looking deeper, this means that more of the labor force in any given fiefdom (han) will be devoted to producing foodstuffs, making the extremely labor intensive all-stone construction impractical, if not impossible, as it would essentially lessen your wealth, making your fief less politically viable.\n\nI can throw some sources to this later, but they're not what I would consider academic, mostly books in [this vein] (_URL_0_) But are reasonably accurate, and aimed at providing a simple overview of the history behind these aspects of history. \n",
"Many Japanese castles make extensive use of stone for [thick, sloped walls](_URL_0_), which are very resilient to earthquakes (and canon fire, which was likely their original intent). A European-style castle with tall curtain walls would not do well in an earthquake (indeed, some crusader castles in the Levant were built with sloped walls to deal with them).\n\nIt is also worth noting that for many Japanese castles, all that survives today is the central \"keep\", to use the European term."
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51h7rx | why does drinking after eating feel so satisfying? | Hello ELI5,
So, I don't know if it happens only to me or not, but I noticed that I feel really better while drinking something just after I ate something. Does some of you are feeling this too? And if so, do you know why?
Thanks! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/51h7rx/eli5_why_does_drinking_after_eating_feel_so/ | {
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1dgm2s | The Black Death: Was it actually beneficial to society in the long run? | I know that it killed millions of people at the time, but did it actually have any positive effects on our global society? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1dgm2s/the_black_death_was_it_actually_beneficial_to/ | {
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"This is the reply that you'd get from any book on the subject:\n\nThe church's power was weakened and in many places the social roles it had played were taken over by secular groups. \n\nEurope was overpopulated before the plague, so more land and food were available for peasants. More farmlands were available for pasture, which meant more and cheaper milk and meat.\n\nIncreased social mobility since farmers could more easily move away from their traditional holdings and lands. There was no longer an abundance of cheap labour for the landlords, so they had to compete for labour with better pay and more freedom.",
"This was the topic of my first ever substantial essay, so I'm going a bit back in time. Bear with me if I miss some things, I'll re-edit if I have any moments of sudden clarity.\n\nThe best angle to argue such a stance is that the massive depopulation of Europe (particularly the west, the east's sparser population density lessened such effects) promoted a decline in the system of serfdom - essentially a medieval system of slave labour that tied peasants to the lands they worked. Thorold Rogers was the first real proponent of such an argument in the 19th century.\n\nWith up to half of Western Europe's population succumbing to bubonic plague (parts of London experienced death rates of up to 90%), there was a sizeable drop in the availability of cheap labour. In turn, those fit to work the land had a far greater opportunity to seek out work where rates were being paid higher. A competitive labour market arguably arose as a result, with landowners willing to pay greater prices in order to incentivise serfs to leave their contracted lands in search for better pay. This was particularly evident in the direct aftermath of the plague, as food prices suddenly rose as labour became harder to find, and resultantly more expensive.\n\nPerhaps most interesting is that after initial rises in food prices, basic wheat products, as well as the price of animals such as oxen, saw a huge decline, as there was a much lower demand after such a decimation of the national populations. Large-scale landowners saw a dip in profits under traditional serf systems, where profit was directly linked to levels of production. Landowners thus began to move towards the Copyhold system of landholding, whereby peasants were given land to work in return for fixed rent prices - ensuring a constant stream of income regardless of harvest quality. Arguably such systems of landholding allowed for a freer populations, and stimulated economic growth far better than what would be projected out of a natural disaster on the scale that was seen during the Black Death. "
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7qw5lh | "It belongs in a museum!" is a well-known phrase from Indiana Jones. In reality, are museums the best places to keep artefacts of archaeological significance? How did public museums become the de facto place to store such artifacts? | I understand that this question may be interpreted in several ways but I'd like to hear your insights, no matter your train of thought!
[Source for the (paraphrased) quote.](_URL_0_) | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7qw5lh/it_belongs_in_a_museum_is_a_wellknown_phrase_from/ | {
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"In regards to your first question, the reasons fall into two groups: for the good of the object, and to facilitate learning from that object.\n\n1) Museums are the best place for them for the same reason it's better to hire an electrician than to wire your house yourself. You might do it right, but do you really want to take the risk of setting your home on fire if you don't need to? Collections care & management is a complex job and it's incredibly easy to mess things up. Once you do? You might be able to minimize the appearance of damage, but you'll never be able to undo it.\n\nI'm going to be veering into natural history with my examples because that's my area of expertise, but a collections manager who works with artifacts would come up with a comparable list.\n\nThere are *a lot* of things you have to learn to be a collections manager. The breadth of topics you need to consider in order to keep things preserved as long as possible and restore/repair them when needed is astounding. And the more material types you have to work with, the more complex it gets.\n\nWhat's the climate like in your collections room? Average, minimum, and maximum temperatures? How rapidly does it fluctuate? Same for relative humidity. What's the optimum temperature and relative humidity for the materials making this specific object? What will keep them from warping or cracking? Which minerals and fossils will experience a chemical reaction that slowly eats them away and is nigh-impossible to stop (and expensive to even try) if their environment is too humid or it fluctuates too much? Which ones will disappear if exposed to air? What's the safe range if you don't have enough funding to have good climate control in your collections? \n\nWhat about safety? Did you know that some old photographs can \"spontaneously\" combust? Do you know how to keep that from happening? Which minerals are hazardous and how do you create a boundary between you and them? Was that old taxidermied animal preserved with arsenic? If you don't have firsthand knowledge, do you know how to tell?\n\nDo you know which minerals you can't store next to each other because sometimes they interact and one comes out looking worse for the wear? Are your cabinets and drawers earthquake-secured if you live in a tectonically active area? Can you shell out for those pricey fireproof cabinets? How's the glass on your display cabinet? Did you think about making sure it's treated to prevent both UVA and UVB from entering and making your pigments fade or plastics become brittle? \n\nWhat kind of containers and labels are you using? Are they acid-free so they don't corrode your objects? Is your orpiment inside the right type of plastic container that will prevent leaching? Did you remember to keep its label outside its bag so the label doesn't get eaten over time? Speaking of labels, have you kept yours appropriately labelled? Included all the information, right? Doesn't matter how good your memory is, right it all down immediately* because I promise you, you will forget something important about it eventually. \n\nHow's your pest control? You don't have cockroaches, do you? 'Cause they'll eat labels. So will silverfish. And your objects themselves if they're made of old paper. Hope you don't get moths eating those priceless old garments.\n\nI could go on, but I'll stop there 'cause if you've managed to stay focused, your head's probably spinning. But check out [this website](_URL_0_), which is a great resource for even experience museum professionals. The \"Resources\" tab is particularly relevant here.\n\nEDITED TO ADD: If you have your own personal collection, please do check out this site! I hate to see people's faces fall when they realize their personal treasures have fallen afoul of easily avoidable degradation. A couple quick tips: The biggest source of object damage is physical damage due to handler error. So be gentle, use drawers that have auto-stops on them (or pull the drawer beneath out halfway before opening the drawer you're interested in to catch it in case it falls), and learn how to build supports for very fragile objects. If your precious objects include books and you experience a flood, the first thing you need to do is freeze your books. That will halt a very fast and unfixable damage process while you triage the rest. They can stay frozen while you fix everything else. When you're trying to decide where to store things in your home but don't have space in your general living area, a general rule of thumb is that attics are awful (huge temperature and humidity fluctuations) and basements are better (more stable environment, like a cave) so long as things are elevated off the floor in case it floods. And most things should be kept away from windows since they introduce both environmental fluctuations and light. Cool, dark, and stable is the way to go.\n\n2) You're an avid collector and have a huge collection? Awesome, passionate people are amazing fonts of knowledge and resources! ....You did keep a detailed database so its searchable, right? (The answer to that is almost always no, but oh so wonderful when it's yes). Are you able to set up a website so people can search it to do research? Complete with helpful pictures and full keystroke data? How likely is someone to know about your collection? Oh, you don't want visitors to come study your important one-of-a-kind fossil? But we know it's a new species and you have the only one we know about. Oh, you don't care. Okay, then. Or, alternatively, you're happy to have visiting researchers, but it's going to be harder to coordinate visits with you than it would be to coordinate with a collections manager who's always there during work hours because it's their job. And you probably don't have a good photography station, do you?\n\nPart two, unlike part one, has a bit of controversy surrounding it. On the one hand, what's the point of preserving something if it's not used? Is it better to keep something in a drawer at a museum where it isn't being accessed by researchers? Or is it better that it belong to someone who gets enjoyment out of having it? There are camps of people who say everything belongs in a museum and camps who say nothing does, but most lie on the continuum between. I personally ask myself, \"How rare is it? How likely is it to provide new information? Do we already have a large enough sample in dedicated institutes?\"...questions like that. It's easier to answer the first and third questions, though still not always straightforward. \"Rare\" is a relative metric. What's considered a \"good sample size\" has changed over time. The second question is hard to peg down because we might think something has given us all the data it can, but then something like genetic testing gets invented and suddenly we're finding new species in collections that were misidentified as something else because they're cryptic. There's a balance that needs to be struck between possession in public institutes and possession by private individuals. Everyone has a different idea of where the fulcrum lies. \n\nThere's also the problem of low funding for museums, and mismanagement when politicians and businesspersons occupying the administrative seats decide to not listen to the museum professionals working beneath them. If the life is being strangled out of museum, many of their objects are going to be sitting in dusty old corners, not even looked at for years. In an ideal world, that would not be the case, but it's an unfortunate fact right now. There are pushes being made to bring those specimens to the public's attention in new ways, such as those that make use of digital tools not available in the past (particularly social media), but it's still a situation of not enough workers, not enough money, and too much to do.\n\nEDITED to add some arguments for the existence of private collections, since I forgot to include them: Amateur enthusiasts are a source for many amazing posthumous collection donations to public institutes. Every collection like that is one that the museum wouldn't have gotten otherwise (particularly if it was collected at great personal expense, then donated to a museum with little to no funding for acquisitions). Even if a person doesn't have an amazing collection, a small middling-quality one can still spark a lifelong love for a subject that they go on to infect others with (which is part of the point of a museum to begin with). ",
"So, ONI_Spook has already given a thorough answer laying out why museums are good places from the perspective of preservation and education.\n\nHowever, the display of antiquities and artifacts in museums also has an ethical dimension. There are several categories of situations where it is not appropriate for objects to be held and displayed in museums.\n\nProbably the foremost category would be the display of human remains. In the 19th century and into the 20th century, it was common for museums to display the remains of [native americans](_URL_5_) as well as goods taken from grave sites. In the same vein, the remains of [Sarah Baartman](_URL_7_), known as 'the hottentot venus' were displayed in a museum in Paris for a century and a half. \n\nHowever, mores have changed, and now there is a much greater degree of cultural sensitivity concerning the handling of human remains and grave goods. It is widely understood that it is not appropriate to put on display the bones of the ancestors of living Native American peoples. For example, in the United States, the National Museum of the American Indian has a [repatriation policy](_URL_0_) for the return of human remains, funerary goods and objects of cultural patrimony to the living descendants. \n\nA second problematic category is antiquities or artifacts which have been looted. Again, mores surrounding this have changed over the decades. Many many objects gathered by European antiquarians and amateur archaeologists in the 19th century were taken out of their original context in the Middle East, Asia, Africa or the Americas, and brought to museums and private collections in Europe and the United States. An example of this would be [Priam's Treasure](_URL_3_) a collection of artefacts taken by Heinrich Schliemann from the site of Troy in anatolia, and brought to Germany in the 1880s. Or, the [Elgin Marbles](_URL_4_) which were removed from Ottoman-ruled Athens between 1800-1805 and brought to Britain, and are now housed in the British museum.\n\nThere are also cases of outright looting, such as the [Benin bronzes](_URL_1_) which were looted by british soldiers during the conquest of the Benin kingdom, and housed in the British museum and private collections. Or the taking of [Qing statues](_URL_2_) during the Opium wars, and ended up in private art collections in France. \n\nAgain, attitudes of museums, arts and antiquities collectors, and international laws have changed. There now exist strong international conventions and national laws that make dealing in looted art illegal, and strengthening the consensus that artifacts should normally remain in their countries of origin.\n\nAs you may have noticed if you clicked through the links, all the objects I mentioned have been the object of international controversy concerning their repatriation. The government of Greece has repeatedly demanded the return of the Elgin Marbles to Athens, which the British museum has thus far refused. Ditto, Nigeria has demanded the return of the Benin bronzes as objects looted during war. Again British museum has refused, arguing that if they had to return objects collected in dubious circumstances during the 19th century, their collections would be much diminished. The Qing bronzes have actually been returned to China, after some controversy. Fights over the control of antiquities of outstanding cultural value can sometimes get imbued with the issue of national prestige for the source countries.\n\nSo, the provenance of an object does matter, and museums strive to only accession objects which have not been looted or otherwise been put on the black market.\n\nOf course, there are also arrangements where objects can be loaned or placed in temporary exhibits. For instance, the National Museum of Egypt is the permanent home of the Tutankhamen treasures, but they periodically travel overseas for special exhibits.\n\nSo, it is ironic that you mention Indiana Jones. Both the Ark of the Covenant and the Hovito golden idol would now be considered looted artifacts, and their display in a museum today in the United States would most likely result in legal and diplomatic challenges from Egypt and Peru seeking their repatriation.\n\nEDIT- I'd also recommend [this article by Patrick Hunt](_URL_6_) as further reading on the ethics and laws regarding antiquities trafficking."
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a43gqp | how does teslas giant battery work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a43gqp/eli5_how_does_teslas_giant_battery_work/ | {
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"It's just a bunch of smaller cells. You know how a remote control seems to always take two AAs? It's like that but on a larger scale and with much more than 3 volts involved.\n\nThere's 3 ways to set up cells: series, parallel, and series-parallel. Series is where they're end-to-end, like the way that remote control is wired up. Each AA in there gives 1.5 volts, put two of them end to end and you get the voltage of both! So now you have 3 volts, and for simplicity let's say you can draw 1 amp this way.\n\nParallel is if they were truly wired \"side by side\" instead of end to end. If we wired those AAs in parallel, you wouldn't get double the voltage like in series, but you would get double the potential current, so twice as many amps. Only 1.5 volts, but now we have 2 amps.\n\nIn series-parallel, you combine the two. So let's put our first two AAs in series to get 3 volts out of them, but they can only put out 1 amp. Now let's get two more AAs and put those end-to-end also. Then wire the top and bottom of our two stacks side by side. So now we can get 3 volts, but can now draw 2 amps since we have two stacks.\n\nA Tesla battery likely does series-parallel, just with cells *much* more powerful than AAs."
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5gcyj6 | Are there any primary source documents reporting "monster" sightings in North America during and/or before the American Revolution? | Secondary sources will work too if anybody's done research on this, but I'm primarily interested in things like journal entries by early explorers, colonists, or soldiers. I'm not out to prove or disprove anything, I just think this would be fun to read about. Thanks Reddit! | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5gcyj6/are_there_any_primary_source_documents_reporting/ | {
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63np43 | how do people get good at flying in wingsuits? where/how do they practice? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/63np43/eli5how_do_people_get_good_at_flying_in_wingsuits/ | {
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"Most people get lessons from instructions. \n\nPlaces you can get instructions for this is called a Drop Zone. But to learn wingsuiting, you must first learn the basics of skydiving, and most places require you to have some amount of skydiving jumps before they will teach you wingsuiting.\n\nSkydiving/wingsuiting is an expensive sport. ",
"Before learning to wingsuit all those people were already very experienced skydivers and BASE jumpers, so they already have a high level of skill in a sport that requires jumping off something and surviving with a parachute. They also have a trained awareness of how to fall. From what I understand, beginner skydivers have trouble not spinning, and if they start spinning, stopping or pulling your chute can become impossible. So again, before they try out the wingsuit, they are starting with a high level of proficiency at the needed skills. My presumption in regard to when they first try the wingsuit, is that they jump from a helicopter or slow plane from an very high altitude. Apparently, BASE jumpers are often viewed by skydivers similar to how rock climbers see free soloists; very similar looking sport, but totally different level of risk. When jumping from a plane, skydivers or a new wingsuit pilot have over a minute before they hit the ground. That is more than enough time to correct errors, or use a reserve parachute. My guess is that they learn to fly in that environment before testing themselves in those close flybys you see in videos."
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13hrdu | If you point two flashlights in opposite directions, what would be the relative velocity of one beam of light relative to the other? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/13hrdu/if_you_point_two_flashlights_in_opposite/ | {
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"The general idea is that lengths contract and time dilates in such a way that the speed of light is the same in all inertial reference frames. This means that speeds don't simply add in the way we normally think they do. The relative velocity between the two beams is still c",
"As someone who is currently taking special relativity, I can tell you how it would work out!\nFor a frame at rest (photon #1) and a frame moving at V (the surrounding space, V=c) with an object moving in the moving frame at v' relative to the moving frame (the other photon, v'=c), the velocity v that the stationary frame views the moving object as having is v=(V+v')/(1+V\\*v'/c^2 ).\nSolve this and get: v=(c+c)/(1+c\\*c/c^2 )=2c/2=c!!!\nSo even a photon views another photon as having velocity c\n\nEDIT: this is the velocity transformation part of the Lorentz transformation",
"This depends on your reference frame. If you are the one holding the two flashlights, each beam is moving away from you at c. Therefore, the difference in velocity between the two photons you would measure in that frame would be 2c. This doesn't violate relativity, because nothing is actually moving faster than c; it's only a difference measurement. However, If you are in a reference frame moving with photons in either beam, you will measure the velocity of photons in the other beam is moving away from you at c. \n\nThe really brain-eating stuff is that (again assuming a rest-frame traveling with the photon) you also measure your speed to the guy with the flashlights as c. More confusingly, the distance to both the guy with the flashlights and the photons in the other flashlight beam has been contracted to zero. Fortunately, you don't have time to ponder this as time contraction has also reduced the passage of time to zero.\n\nDon't accept rides from strange photons."
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z7cvt | Due to the constant barrage of unfiltered solar energy, would any layer of the Moon's soil be warm? | I get the surface would probably never be able to retain any heat because there's no atmosphere to contain the heat around it... But would any layers deeper provide enough insulation to hold some warmth?
And, by warmth, I mean any temperature higher than the average surface temperature of the moon. | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/z7cvt/due_to_the_constant_barrage_of_unfiltered_solar/ | {
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"Space is cold but really bad at absorbing heat, so the surface of the moon is surprisingly warm. The mean surface temperature is -23 Celsius (at least according to [this](_URL_0_)).",
"Yes, some parts of Luna are significantly warmer than Earth. The maximum surface temperature on Luna is 212 F compared to 136 F on Earth.\n\n[Source](_URL_0_)"
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4u5j6o | why does everyone blame the united states for the current state of the world? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4u5j6o/eli5_why_does_everyone_blame_the_united_states/ | {
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"Because the US did a bunch of crazy shitty things in other countries. I.e. permitting drug to be brought into the US during the 80's \"war on drugs\", infecting thousands of people in south america with STDs to see how it affects a person. Research man. Its awful what they did in the past. ",
"I am sure you want absolution of the country and not an answer but the answer is that the US was one of the two global superpowers that became the one global superpower and it has had a LOT of effect over the last 60 years. \n\nGo back before that and england played a similar role. Sailing around the world and making decisions for other people. ",
"To use one example, Russia's attempt to annex Afghanistan failed in part due to US-backed Mujahadeen groups, which later became Al Qaeda. Much of the ISIS military leadership consists of former Iraqi military leaders, kicked out and banned from ever working for the Iraqi government by the US-backed Iraqi government, installed after the pointless US invasion of Iraq. "
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10dvg4 | why do americans consider nationalism/patriotism to be such a positive trait? | I'm from Belgium, which doesn't have much that resembles national pride, so I'd just like to know why Americans would consider this to be such a good thing. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/10dvg4/eli5_why_do_americans_consider/ | {
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"As a non-American I believe it's to do with the way the nation was founded: thousands of immigrants moving from Europe to somewhere new in the hope of finding prosperity. That achievement has been ingrained in the American culture ever since. The people are proud that, despite the country's young age, it has become the worlds most successful nation. ",
"Why do the French or British? Belgium is a bit of an odd country I think with regards to this question, because the country is ethnically divided. Are you more proud of or connected to your Flemish or Walloon ethnic heritage than your nation? America has no one ethnicity, so Americans identify themselves with their nation. This is pretty common around the world, I'm from Australia and there is plenty of national pride there as well. ",
"Constant repetition of the virtue of patriots throughout our public education. Every year we learned about our history, every year we learned about the same few people (at least 1st-8th grade) and every year they were celebrated as heroes.\n\nNationalism/Patriotism is instilled in all Americans from a very young age.\n\nHonestly, i'm surprised it's not this way in most countries, i thought it was common to teach children that yours was the best country out of all possibilities.\n\n",
"This is hardly just an American trait. Visit Korea (north or south), Japan, China, and many Western European countries. Honestly, it probably just seems more prominent because American media is blasted to the entire world.",
"I think also there is a tendency in Europe to downplay nationalism a little bit because of WWII.",
"In spite of how much we complain about our country and how we say its all going to shit many of us are very thankful for being born here. To be given the chance to get an education, to live without fear of persecution, to earn honest pay for honest work and live a simple life. Wave upon wave of immigrants came to our country seeking just that and even though we hardly spoke the same languages we worked together to build something great. Even today, people are risking their lives to try and enter our country and chase \"The American Dream.\" \n\nA famous American orator named Patrick Henry once said \"United we stand, divided we fall\" which captures this perfectly. We take pride that we are all Americans and we take pride in our country has given us the opportunities to live how we want. ",
"As an American its really hard for me to answer this. Its a lot about how we were founded, a true underdog story, then coming back from a civil war and two world wars strong as ever.Sadly, since then the government has been doing everything in its power to use this National pride as a way to get people in to wars, which is why it is frowned upon by other countries. But National pride really isnt a thing to be frowned upon as every country should be proud of there heritage and way of life. We just take it to an extreme level here because in the last century we have done some pretty awesome things, and were proud of it. Were not perfect by any means, but when it comes down to it, were proud to live here, and care maybe a little to much on making it better in each of our on ways. \nedit:words",
"ITT: People talking about every country except America.",
"Americans don't have a common heritage as we are all immigrants, we don't have a very long history, as we are a relatively new country. Patriotism was a tool for bringing all the people from different countries and all walks of life together under a common ideology and the search for a better life. ",
"Nationalism and Patriotism aren't necessarily the same thing. Nationalism is more akin to saying \"USA is the best and all others suck goat anus!\" Whereas Patriotism is having pride in your country and its workings, and making sure you do all you can to keep the country the way (you believe) it should be. Dissent is patriotic; nationalism relies on blind faith. "
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1gvca8 | What was the general feeling of the American people in relation to the Pentagon Papers? Was the feeling similar to the current Snowden/NSA leaks? | Yes. | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1gvca8/what_was_the_general_feeling_of_the_american/ | {
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"I think they were (it will just be easier to compare if I refer to Snowden in past tense) similar in that there seemed to be across-the-board resentment because the people standing in support of the leaker and in opposition to the government were so vocal, but in reality there was a large group (possibly the majority) standing in support of the government's actions. \n\n\nI'm having trouble for finding info on public opinion of Ellsberg (public opinion surveys were never nearly as popular as they are now), but barely a year after the Pentagon Papers were released, 7 out of 10 Americans felt \"renewed confidence in the President's conduct of the war.\" At the same time, the vocally opposed young people seemed to believe, quite wrongly, that the war lacked support and our general cultural consciousness of the early 70s reflects that misguided notion. Nixon went on to 49 states in the '72 election.\n\n\nIt's the same thing with Snowden. On sites like this, you would assume everyone likes the guy, yet CNN found that [44% approved and 52% disproved of Snowden's actions]( _URL_0_). However, that survey was done mostly on landline telephones and most online surveys have gotten the opposite result, so I assume due to the technological generation gap public opinion is somewhere in the middle. Still, there exists a dichotomy between the reality of public opinion and the appearance due to the dissenters being more vocal.\n\n\nSource for everything in the second paragraph, I don't know how to do footnotes on here and was too lazy to format into Chicago style. It's on Jstor if you have access:\n\nCommon Belief and the Cultural Curriculum: An Intergenerational Study of Historical Consciousness\n\nSam Wineburg, Susan Mosborg, Dan Porat and Ariel Duncan\n\nAmerican Educational Research Journal , Vol. 44, No. 1 (Mar., 2007), pp. 40-76\n\n\n\n\nIt should be noted that it is hard to say what the \"feeling\" is for Snowden as it happened this month and this sub is for things that happened 20 years ago. Also for anyone else about to comment, this is not /r/politics... ",
"It was divided as was much of the country in the early 1970s between conservative defenders of the war in Vietnam and the Nixon Administration and more liberal (and mainstream) critics. By the time the Pentagon Papers became known (published in the New York Times) in 1971, the American public had been shifting steadily toward greater opposition to the war for at least four or five years. President Nixon was not yet as disliked as he would later become due to the Watergate crimes which dated to a year later during his re-election efforts in 1972. \n\nBut, Nixon was much disliked by many Americans for his polarizing approach to politics and toward governing, and his administration's outrage at the Times' publication of the secret history of the war is somewhat reminiscent of the Obama Administration's opposition to what Edward Snowden has done. There are similarities between these two incidents, but there are some notable differences I think, as well, so it would not be wise to equate them as exactly the same, as many people will no doubt do. For example, Obama has been strongly disliked by a much smaller group of mainly hard-right opponents but, in the NSA situation, they are not critics of Obama but his supporters. With Nixon, it was his critics who welcomed publication of the Pentagon Papers. \n\nBut, as I recall from 1971, support for publication of the Pentagon Papers was far more widespread than today's support for what Snowden has done, extending throughout the moderate middle class which by 1971 was convinced they had clearly been lied to about the war in Vietnam and which often disliked Nixon's approach to many things. Obama has generally been well supported and liked, so his defense of national secrecy goes against the instincts of many of his own supporters. But that's a different issue. \n\nSo, to answer your question, there was a great deal of support for Daniel Ellsberg, the civilian Pentagon employee (similar to today's Edward Snowden) who \"stole\" the Pentagon's (Defense Department) secret history of the war in Vietnam. The support came from a broad cross-section of the country, including mainstream news sources (like the New York Times) and not merely from radicals or extreme antiwar critics. That many opponents of the war who had been very vocal about war crimes and rule-breaking were vindicated by the papers further justified the claims of the antiwar movement about the war's immorality and impracticality as an instrument of U.S. foreign policy. \n\nConservatives were naturally outraged that government secrets were being made known. The Nixon Administration sued to keep them from being published and to punish Ellsberg and the N.Y. Times which published the history, but they were unsuccessful and the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in U.S. v. New York Times that the publication was entirely legitimate because of the public's need to know. \n\nI wonder if Edward Snowden's case will came to a trial, and if that trial will result in his vindication? Certainly the Pentagon Papers case would be cited if there were a trial.\n\nMy recollection from that period was that, at least among moderates and liberals, there was strong support for publication of the Pentagon Papers and much less (or none) among conservative defenders of the war and of the government's right to secrecy. But the side of secrecy which supported the war during the national debate was in decline at this time and proved be the losing side. Freedom of the Press, etc. tends to generally win these kinds of arguments, it seems. "
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22tey0 | how can some terminally ill people just "hold off" death until they're ready? | Recently a family friend's mother died. She had some kind of terminal illness, but they all decided to go on a vacation to the Bahamas towards the end. She managed to keep going through the whole vacation, then "let go" and died a few days after they got back. There are many stories like this, where someone holds on for one reason or another, then simply lets go when the loose ends are tied. Medically, how is this possible? I know mind over matter can be pretty powerful sometimes, but how do some people literally hold off on dying until a certain time? I can't imagine you can just keep thinking "I can't die until X/Y happens" over and over in your head and keep living. What is the scientific explanation of this? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/22tey0/eli5_how_can_some_terminally_ill_people_just_hold/ | {
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"Luck? Coincidence? Fate? Whatever you're comfortable with believing, I guess.",
"possibly when they stop trying to fight off whatever could be a cause of death? Such as someone who has to force every breath without medical equipment, just stops trying and they accept that their time has come. ",
"Your mind and attitude is very power and effects your body greatly. It's well documented that people with no purpose ie retiring, depressed, giving up etc, die faster.",
"With a lot of diseases, your body become so weak that breathing is difficult, and can at teams require a conscious effort. You even have minor attacks, were you have to breath as hard as you can for a while just to stay alive. At some point, you might choose to not make that effort anymore.\n\nAlso, you can make choices about the type of treatment you receive. Curative treatment is about fighting disease and extending life. Palliative care is about relieving suffering without attempting to cure. A patient holding on for some event might endure more pain with curative treatment, then switch to palliative care after.\n\nFinally, there is some selection bias here. People are less likely to tell the story of the family member who died two days before the grand final vacation.",
"the dominating will to live",
"I don't know how it works, but I really think there's something to this.\n\nI worked full time as a janitor at a nursing home when I was a senior in high school. One day an old lady arrived to live there. She was friendly, full of energy, talked to everyone, and insisted on walking laps around the building every day for exercise. After the first week, I stopped seeing her because she began to just sit in her room all day. Two weeks after that, she died.\n\nHers was the most extreme case I saw, but I was always amazed at how quickly people started to deteriorate the moment they set foot in that place. It seemed like they realized they'd basically been sent there to die, and so they just gave up.\n\nI'm never going to let my parents end up in one of those places.",
"The lack of a will to live can certainly bring death faster and the will to live to can keep death at bay but I don't think we actually know enough about death and the mind to know how such occurrences work. The automated part of us does what it can to live (which it the cause of certain responses to pain, stress, and trauma) and \"you\" fight against some of these responses (trying to ignore pain, fighting sleep when your body wants rest, etc).\n\nWe're not sure how the mind can fight off natural processes from the rest of the body when they are seemingly controlled by the same thing (the brain).",
"The human will to live is powerful. "
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2wp4go | To what degree did American racism and Jim Crow affect allies' impressions of the United States before the Civil Rights Movement? | I know that the USSR's constant highlighting of American institutional racism towards the Third World played a big role in the change of federal policy towards white subjugation of blacks in the South, but what was the popular conception of the United States like in relation to its racial climate in nations like Canada, Britain, France, etc., from post-Reconstruction to around 1968?
This is really broad, I know, but I wonder to what degree America was judged and viewed as horrifically backwards by the rest of the world in this time period. Was it anywhere near as bad as South Africa was viewed internationally until the 1990s? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2wp4go/to_what_degree_did_american_racism_and_jim_crow/ | {
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"An interesting question, but I would perhaps suggest you put this in the [Black History AMA going on right now!](_URL_0_)"
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4byb05 | why do rovers always have six wheels? | Every time I see a picture of a rover designed for or on mars, it has six wheels. I know one might break, but since everyone goes for six, is there something I'm missing? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4byb05/eli5_why_do_rovers_always_have_six_wheels/ | {
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"Six movable wheels with individual motors give a better balance to the vehicle and make it easier to cross all types of terrain.",
"It's a rocker-bogie differential configuration, designed to maximize the ruggedness of terrain that the vehicle can traverse without tipping upside-down. There's nobody to tip it right-side-up again if it does, so we really don't want it to happen. \n\nHere's a link explaining how this configuration works using lego models:\n\n_URL_0_\n\n"
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2f2vw0 | Is the skin under your foot naturally tougher than that of your body? Or is it toughened by walking? | I did Google this, but couldn't find a relevant search result.
Basically, are you born with feet that have naturally tougher skin, or does that tough skin (The soles) come from conditioning your foot through walking?
If I were to have never walked since birth, would the soles of my feet still have a tougher, thicker skin than the rest of my body? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2f2vw0/is_the_skin_under_your_foot_naturally_tougher/ | {
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"Yes. There is an extra layer of skin on the soles of your feet and the palms of your hands. Doing actions such as walking every day also makes the skin there a bit tougher. So it's a bit of both, but the skin would still be different even if we weren't constantly on our feet.",
"Both! The palms of your hands and soles of your feet have an extra skin layer (stratum lucidum) that isn't found anywhere else on your body. However, the skin will also thicken in response to stress (walking barefoot, excessive rubbing) to protect itself. ",
"Yes, that tissue is naturally tougher. A practical example is that a Boyd amputation preserves the tissue on the bottom of the heel because it provides a very good end bearing surface inside of a prostheses. A trans-tibial amputation does not provide as good of an end bearing surface and more likely to have issues associated with skin irritation. Even when congenital deformities force amputation (a child that has never walked), preserving that tissue has benefit later in life with prosthetic use. "
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e28e8x | Is there any evidence that Native Americans who came in contact with Europeans tried to inform or alert other tribes? | This question came up at dinner tonight, and I am a little stumped. I know the record of the native's response to the European arrival is likely sparse due to tribal devastation, but I would be happy for any information you could provide. | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/e28e8x/is_there_any_evidence_that_native_americans_who/ | {
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"It is important to remember that the response to European arrival varied by location and culture. In the Southeast we see Spaniards arriving to mixed reactions, but they all really fit into the existing interactions between people living in these areas. Some groups tried to use the Europeans for their own benefits, others wanted nothing to do with them. To us the interactions appear to be New World and Old World, but to the Native Americans the Europeans were just another group moving into the area. A great account of these interactions is De Soto's exploration of the Southeast. He actually ended up meeting some of the late remnants of Mississippian cultures, but what is more relevant is his interactions with the cultures of the Southeast. To keep it brief, De Soto and his men were kind of jerks the entire time. Most of the conflicts that he faced appear to have been initiated in some way by someone involved in the expedition. They also had this tendency to force natives into guiding them or serving as translators. So they were not the most popular bunch in the area. One modern take on these interactions was that it was the ground work for future European interactions and approach to cultures in the SE. I do not personally feel that is completely accurate, but it probably did impact things to an extent. \n\n\nThe reason I mentioned that is to hopefully show how much miscommunication occured during many of these initial contacts. Both sides would have been trying to angle things to get the better deal from the interaction. Word would have spread that new people were in the area, we see that De Soto tried to play the \"I am your god\" card for a few groups he met. This would have all been part of why the Spaniards often had harsh welcomes in this region, they were not behaving in a manner that would make anyone want to allow them in the area. On the other hand, some of De Soto's guides were Spaniards who were living as full-fledged members of these communities. So the foreign aspect was probably not the cause of the hostility but instead the actions of De Soto. \n\nSo to answer your question, any response was tied to the actions of the Europeans themselves. The Native Americans responded to the Europeans as they responded to any other group moving past them. They may have warned other communities, but I doubt it was a response to them being Europeans and more just a \"hey some guys moved into this area and are being kinda rude and dangerous, lets kick them out.\" This was a response they probably had had prior to the arrival of Europeans and not unique to European arrival."
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4wnvrx | why do sailors need to know knots? | It seems like they could easily use clamps or some other fastening device to secure sails or cargo. Even in modern sailing, knots are still used when a clamp could do the same job much more efficiently. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4wnvrx/eli5_why_do_sailors_need_to_know_knots/ | {
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"Why would a clamp be more efficient? It's like this whole other thing you have to bring along just so you don't have to learn to tie up the rope you already are using? ",
"I'm retired Navy. I spent 20 years on submarines. Despite this I still had to know knots. They are extremely useful for a multitude of things. A person that can't tie a knot is not a sailor. ",
"The tl,dr is that in many trades ropes are used to quickly tie, tow and hoist things.\n\nSometimes you need a rope to pull something without the knot slipping, sometimes you need to lift something like a tool than can be quickly untied and sometimes you need something that can be pulled and released on command. All that's where your knowledge of knots comes in handy.\n\nRope is simple, waterproof and non-mechanical. It's worked effectively for thousands of years. Clips, clamps and ratchets are all prone to snagging and wear.",
"Clamps or other devices would require both the Clamps and a wrench or screw driver to fasten and loosen. A knot requires your hands and some knowledge. It is way more efficient to use your hands and knowledge. Ropes are fastened to different things and then unfastened so frequently that the idea of finding a clamp and a tool is not practical or worthwhile when the simpler method is available. Not to mention, adding additional components adds to the risk of something breaking or coming undone. ",
"Sailor here! I've been a ship's officer for about 10 years and currently work on a fairly new 120k ton oil tanker. We use knots all the time. Sending out mooring lines to a far away point... tie a knot with a messenger line and pass it along. Rigging a lift... bunch 'o knots. Securing cargo or deck gear... knots, knots, and knots. Lowering/raising tools into a hold... grab a bag, line and tie up a few knots. Need to wash a tank with a portable hose and machine... Some line and a timber hitch are all you need. As a cadet we would even rig bosun's chairs and work planks to paint the hull... all knots.\n\nPut simply, knots are very versatile; there's pretty much a knot for every situation and they have various degrees of strength retention, and various types and lengths of line are ubiquitous on any modern vessel. This was especially true on sailing ships whose rigging was made up entirely of different knots. But even for modern-day mariners, it's much easier to just tie off a good knot and accomplish your task, than it would be to involve more equipment that you don't really need. \n\nThat said, there are many other types of specialized securing gear that is utilized on board. Ratchet straps, chains falls, shackles, turnbuckles and chain/wire, etc are routinely used when the situation calls for it. ",
"Man, I need to secure this item to the deck and all I have is a length of rope. I could secure it with nothing but the rope I'm already holding, or I could go find the right clamp for this size line and the object at hand...\n\nRope is extremely versatile, clamps are not. ",
"Dingy instructor here, a lot of the time a cleat simply won't do the job. If I need to loop a top through a eyelet and then back onto itself, that's one quick, easy knot that will not come undone. Or I could mess about with some sort of clamping arrangement that could come undone unexpectedly, is a bulky item that could end up damaging absurdly expensive sails and can get lost. If I have run a rope through a pulley and make to sure it does come out again I can tie a knot in the end without even thinking about it, or message about with some impractical lump of metal that will weigh it down, get in the way, can get lost and can fall off.\n\nTl;dr knots are quick easy and reliable. Clamps and cleats are lumpy items that will get lost if they aren't bolted down, can come lose and can get in the way."
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7xvxgm | In Auschwitz, did they randomly execute them, or did they meticulously execute them based on their tattooed identification number? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7xvxgm/in_auschwitz_did_they_randomly_execute_them_or/ | {
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"There seems to be a misconception here. Auschwitz was a combination death camp and work camp. This meant that in addition to having gas chambers and crematoria for mass executions, it also kept a large body of prisoners for slave labor to work in places such as I. G. Farben's [synthetic rubber plant](_URL_1_). The [selection process](_URL_2_) for Jews was where camp officials would decide who would be fit for such slave labor and those who were not. Those who were deemed unfit went to the gas chambers. The criterion for such a selection was neither very sophisticated nor meticulous. Children and the elderly were typically among those automatically selected for gassing, but this was not always the case. Elie Wiesel, for example, was still a young teenager when he was selected for work. Survivor accounts such as those of Primo Levi's also speak of a very capricious selection process in which camp officials never had any real consistency to their decisions. \n\nTattoos and other forms of identification were for those prisoners who were not targeted for immediate extermination. This included non-Jews who were inmates such as Soviet PoWs as well as those Jews who survived the selection process. These serial numbers helped identify prisoners and became ubiquitous among survivors of Auschwitz. The tattoos were a way to keep track of the prisoner population as it both grew and less invasive forms of identification such as numbers sewn into prison uniforms became impractical. The growth of Auschwitz's inmate population, fed by the extermination process, meant that earlier methods of tracking just could not keep up with increasing number of bodies being fed into the camp system. The high mortality due to forced labor and scarcity of material goods also meant prisoners would often scavenge the dead and dying of their prison clothes. The tattoos also promised to keep some of the racial classifications intact as the population became more heterogeneous. There was a [system](_URL_0_) that classified prisoners by racial hierarchies; this indelible marking in theory would prevent Jews and other racial undesirables from blending into other elements of the prison population and evade their eventual destruction. "
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6sq54s | what are nanobots? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6sq54s/eli5_what_are_nanobots/ | {
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"Nanobots are tiny robots. Robots so small that they could do things microbes do. There are many things we could use tiny robots for: one famous idea is making tiny surgery robots that could swim like submarines inside your blood vessels so that doctors don't have to cut you open to fix your insides.\n\nSo far there aren't many robots actually that small (yet) because it's really hard to make things that small. But lots of smart people are working hard on it because they know that if their ideas work, it could be the next big thing since the internet."
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29a61p | if i heat a half pint of water for one minute in the microwave, does it heat up by exactly twice as many degrees as if i heat a whole pint for a minute? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/29a61p/eli5_if_i_heat_a_half_pint_of_water_for_one/ | {
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"Simply: Exactly twice as much, no. About twice as much, yes. \r\r\rMore in depth: Your microwave is around 1000 Watts, or 1000 Joules of energy per second. Assuming 80% of this hits the water, the water is getting 800 W. If your short time is 30 seconds and the long one is one minute, the water will get 24,000 and 48,000 J. It tales about 4.2 J to heat 1 gram of water 1 Celsius. If you have 1000 grams of water (about a litre or 1/4 gallon), 30 seconds will heat it about 5.7 C and 60 seconds will heat it about 11.4 C. \r\r\rSo that is the about twice as much. Now the reason it's not exactly twice as much is i used \"about\" a lot. Firstly, i said 80% of the microwaves power heats the water. It really doesn't matter if that is right or not, what matters is that it likely isn't constant. Colder water or hotter water may absorb microwaves slightly better or worse, steam may start to absorb it in the air. Secondly, i said water takes 4.2 Joules (also known as a calorie) to heat water 1 C. The thing is though, that number isn't constant. The amount of energy to heat water changes depending on its temperature. Lastly, i kept the 1000 grams of water constant. Realistically, some will come off as steam. Not only will this change the amount of water you have, the formation of steam also takes a fair bit of energy, energy that can no longer go towards raising the temperature. There is likely so other factors too, perhaps involving the container of something. \r\r\rEdit: crap, messed up changing volume with changing time. Top answer still applies, it kinda does. Most of the reasons still apply. An important addition now, more water water will absorb the percent of microwaves differently. "
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o1w1d | why people can't just follow the story line of the book when making a film adaptation. | Why do movie writers and directors have to change details, plot, and occurrences when making a movie that is supposed to be an adaptation about a book? Why is it so hard to stick to the freakin' book?
**EDIT** Okay. Maybe the better question is "How does accuracy translate into a less interesting movie, if the book itself was interesting?" | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/o1w1d/eli5_why_people_cant_just_follow_the_story_line/ | {
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"1. thats the directors/writers interpretation of the book.\n2. They have to cut a lot of stuff out so it can fit in a 120 minute movie\n3. time/budget restraints\n4. Make it more interesting/entertaining to those that haven't read the book.",
"What works in movie does not work in books and vice versa. \n\nFor example, the Lord of the Rings books are more about the adventure aspect and the world itself while the movies were all about combat. The sieges in the books were like, \"Oh a bunch of orcs came to Helms Deep. A lot of them were killed by the trio. It was pretty touch and go there for a moment but don't worry, I ate some oranges and it was k.\" While the movies are entirely about slaying bad guys. Action is simply more entertaining to watch in a movie.\n\nAn example of where this caused problems was in \"No Country For Old Men.\" At the end of the book and movie (spoliers up ahead) the main character gets killed by the drug trafficker (spoilers end). In the book the author doesn't write this scene and you find out about it in the following chapters. This made sense for the book because it was a unique way to tell the story and let's be honest, writing interesting action scenes can be pretty difficult. They did the same thing in the movie which caused disappointment and confusion amongst certain movie goers. The movie was pretty action packed and suspenseful up to that point and not seeing the final showdown was silly because, what works in books, does not work in movies.\n\n",
"I don't think the writers' and directors' goal is to simply present the book in a movie format. As artists they're going to want to make the piece their own by using their interpretations.",
"It's less about accuracy not being interesting, more about the fact that cinema and literature are very different mediums.\n\nAction scenes are hard to write in a book. 15 minutes of dialog can make for a dull film, badly handled.\n\nTo take the Harry Potter movies as an example, in the later movies, a few sub plots and side details from the books were left out. As a big fan of the books, I was disappointed not to see certain parts brought to life on the screen, but I have to admit that leaving them in would have made the movies overly long and badly paced. You get the essence and feel of the plot, without getting bogged down in enjoyable but superfluous details.",
"**In order to answer this question you have to look at the entire process of turning a book into a film.**\n\nSo a producer reads a book and says this would make a great movie. He decides to hire a writer to turn this book into a screenplay. \n\n Sometimes this book will be 1000 pages and have really long descriptive paragraphs and sometimes this book will have 100 pages and be almost entirely dialogue. \n\nThe writer is going to have to take either of these books and turn it into a screenplay this is roughly 110 pages. \n\nWhy 110 pages?\n\nBecause movies need to be a certain length (roughly 1.5 hours to 2.5 hours) in order to be profitable so screenwriters have to either shrink or expand the source material to fit into 110 page screenplay.\n\nAnother common aspect in almost every successful movie ever created is going to have certain \"beats\" happen at roughly the same time.\n\nSome common ones that [Blake Snyder](_URL_1_) refers to in his screenwriting book-\n\n* Theme Stated - by page 5 (roughly 5 minutes in) their should be some theme to the movie\n\n* Catalyst - by page 12 there needs to be some driving force that inspires the main character to do something\n\n* B Story - by page 30 there should be a secondary story introduced (normally the romance part of a movie)\n\n*To see a full example of a movie with an uncommon narrative and how closely it follows these beats see -\n_URL_0_\n\nIn a 1000 page book there might be a 150 page intro that sets some things up before the main character is ever introduced but in order to keep audiences following your movie you need to introduce them to your main character within the first 5 pages/minutes.\n\nThis leads to a lot of problems. If the novel being adapted doesn't have a love interest appear until the book is 70% complete the writer is now forced to either introduce that character by page 30 or to eliminate that story line altogether. If there is an intense court scene that spans 300 pages of dialogue the writer has to figure out figure out how to adapt that into a 10 page debate scene while conveying the same points.\n\n**TLDR: If a novel was word-for-word adapted into a screenplay it would either be too short or too long and suffer from a lack of structure that would most likely make the movie very slow in certain scenes.**"
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1x6dgz | In Shakespearian times, the theatre was considered a vile, hellish form of entertainment. How was it accepted that the upper crust of society regularly visited the outside of walled London, and the Globe Theatre? | I recently visited the Globe, and we discussed how the unwashed masses would be the groundlings, and the richer you were the higher you sat in the audience. How was it that these upper-class people, particularly royals, were openly attending something so against the Protestant leadership? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1x6dgz/in_shakespearian_times_the_theatre_was_considered/ | {
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"While the opinion that the theater was a sinful place, and a generally uncomfortable attitude toward theater practice in general, was certainly around during the years the Globe was in operation, it was by no means a dominant view. In fact, it was not uncommon for acting troupes (such as Shakespeare's) to perform in front of the King or Queen at court. Furthermore, in the years after Shakespeare's death, during the reign of King James, going to the theater became even more popular among the elites. Large, open-air playhouses such as The Globe, gave way to smaller, more intimate (and expensive) theaters meant to appeal to a more affluent audience, such as Blackfriars Theater. The strong anti-theater sentiment you are referring to was much more common among the Puritan faction of Parliament, which, according to Wikipedia, gained control of London in 1642 and banned public theatrical performances. Playacting remained illegal during Oliver Cromwell's Puritan interregnum, but was restored in 1660 with the accession of Charles II.\n\nBasically, theater was not universally considered \"vile\" and \"hellish\" during Shakespearean times, and was actually embraced by nobles and monarchs. The Puritans shut down the theaters during and after the English Civil War, but then Charles II (supposedly a writer/poet himself) wholeheartedly endorsed theatrical practices. His court was famed for its theatricality, and theater grew in popularity during his reign.\n\nSorry for the lack of sources. I majored in English with a special focus on Early Modern/Renaissance theater. ",
"Theatre was wildly popular among all classes of people in Elizabethan England. Let me look at what you're asking from a few angles. First, I'm going to address Elizabethan perceptions of the theatre. The view of its awful, immoral, and overall dirty nature actually comes from mostly Puritan sources. Many Puritans believed theatre to be highly immoral and unChristian, and because these individuals were a part of a rising merchant class of Londoners, they had the money and time to spend spreading this message via pamphlets, preaching, and other public mediums. There is also a sense, from modern movies and books, that the theatres were often closed by authorities because of anti-theatrical sentiments. But in reality, the theatres were closed because of concern for the spread of disease - like the closing of the theatres in 1593 due to an outbreak of the plague in London. There were several theatre venues in Elizabethan London and all of them met with some degree of success and longevity (all were closed in 1642). Thus, the idea that Londoners found theatre reprehensible is, on the whole, very untrue.\n\nSecond, let's look at what was going on in the theatres themselves. Yes, it's true that the area nearest the stage on the ground level would have been the cheapest and the most disgusting. There were no public restrooms at these facilities. They covered the floors in walnut shells to soak up the \"filth.\" But, lack of facilities and even things like public urination and general lack of cleanliness was not an uncommon part of most Elizabethan Londoners' lives. In the upper galleries sat wealthier individuals who were able to afford these seats. And it's important to note that they were at the theatre to be seen by the masses as much as to watch the show. In fact, the entire event of going to see a play would have been a raucous social affair. But, people of high influence, like royals, would likely never have attended a public theatre. They didn't need to. Shakespeare himself was a part of the Lord Chamberlain's Men, and later the King's Men, and his company and his plays would have been performed at court so the aristocrats and royals never had need to mix amongst the general London public. This is also the impetus behind the opening of the Blackfriar's Theatre. Wealthier individuals would be able to go to an indoor theatre during the winter and enjoy a social affair closer to what they were used to in their normal social circles.\n\nWere there members of the England's elite that visited the public theatres? It's likely. Many influential gentlemen mention visiting the theatres to see certain plays - Marlowe, Kyd, and Jonson were especially popular. But if these people were already used to traveling through the dirty, smelly, loud, and boisterous London streets, the theatres would have been just another part of that public life.\n\nLastly, I want to point to what you said about the theatre being against the Protestant leadership. Theatre was certainly political tool in London. So many of Shakespeare's best characters are involved in politics in some way. But, theatre was not necessarily AGAINST Protestant leadership. For one, every play had to be licensed and go through censorship from the Lord Chamberlain's office (the position known as the Master of Revels). What was performed had the official stamp of the government. This doesn't mean that veiled references to anti-Protestant sentiments didn't exist; but I'm going to turn again to the Puritans. Much of what can be labeled as anti-Protestant was aimed at Puritan measures of anti-theatricality and other reforms that were growing as more and more Puritans became politically active. Also, even though Elizabeth and her court were Protestant, they were not so keen on the Puritans. So, it's not necessarily that theatre of the time was anti-Protestant, but anti-Puritan. Something that may have been able to pass censorship and make its way to the stage - further fueling Puritanical anti-theatricalism. Of course all of this builds to the English Civil War, the closing of all theatres in 1642, and the theatre going \"underground\" during the Interregnum.\n\nSources: Andrea Stevens, _Inventions of the Skin_; Oscar Brockett, _History of the Theatre_, Gail B. Stewart, _Life in Elizabethan London_; also check out the great documentary by Michael Wood's documentary _In Search of Shakespeare_"
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2oi2kc | why is public education acceptable but public healthcare a big no-no in the us? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2oi2kc/eli5_why_is_public_education_acceptable_but/ | {
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"People who oppose socialized healthcare generally worry that their taxes will go up (almost certainly true) or that their quality and/or timeliness of their own healthcare will go down (possible). Some of them have very little faith in government programs, possibly believing that they tend to be incompetent and wasteful.\n\nThose aren't arguments I agree with, but that's their perspective in a nutshell.\n\nYou can try to point out to them that socialized healthcare is *less* expensive, but in my experience they won't believe that.",
"Neither are fundamental human rights in the sense that they must be provided to individuals by the community. This doesn't necessarily mean that they shouldn't be provided, but claiming such as a fundamental human right makes you sound like a spoiled self-entitled brat.\n\nAdditionally, education is run at the state level, not the federal. The US constitution was written that the states have much more authority over day-to-day things than the federal government. Those federal incentives that exist to coerce state policy on education is somewhat controversial as well.\n\nLikewise, state - level healthcare laws are not nearly as controversial as the ACA.",
"[A lot of people think we should be privatizing K-12 education as well.](_URL_0_)",
"There's some similarity between the treatment of public education in the USA, which is funded K-12 (sometimes starting pre-K) but not funded for adults (in college), and the treatment of health care, which has much more funding available for children (SCHIP, now called CHIP, above and beyond Medicaid) than it does for adults (just Medicaid).\n\nAlso, the health insurance lobby is strong, whereas the private education lobby is less strong. We do have some publicly funded private charter schools, but nothing like the dominance of private health insurance."
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5b9hns | how does a computer scale images to different aspect ratios? | Does it fill in pixels of the same colour when you extend the length of an image? If so, how does it know where to fill in the pixels, so that it doesn't make the image too abnormal. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5b9hns/eli5_how_does_a_computer_scale_images_to/ | {
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"There are two types of images, raster graphics and vector graphics. \n\nVector graphics rely on mathematically produced 'paths' to draw the image. When rescaling the image, the computer simply recalculates the path and there is no quality loss.\n\nRaster graphics rely on pixels. When these are scaled, the computer uses an algorithm to sample the pixels around the existing pixels and fill in the computer's best 'guess'. The problem with this is if you scale too far down, non-adjacent pixels start getting used in the sample and if you scale too far up, sampled pixels start getting used."
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aqfmcd | Why is it not E=1/2m c^2, like KE=1/2m v^2 ? Did Einstein leave off the 1/2? | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/aqfmcd/why_is_it_not_e12m_c2_like_ke12m_v2_did_einstein/ | {
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"Nah, Einstein didn't leave off the 1/2 and his equation actually includes it but in a subtle manner. Including object momentum, the full energy equation is,\n\n* E^(2) = m^(2)c^(4)+p^(2)c^(2)\n\nThis is a fundamental result that arises from how the momentum vector is defined in special relativity. If the momentum is zero, you get back out good-old E=mc^(2). The energy is then the square root of this,\n\n* E = √(m^(2)c^(4)+p^(2)c^(2))\n\nIf we divide out the mass, we're left with a function that looks like,\n\n* f(x) = √(1+x^(2))\n\nwhere x = p/mc. If you've done a bit of calculus you know you can Taylor series expand the function f(x) easily around the situation where x is small. Physically this means the momentum of the object is small compared to its mass. Perfect! This is the non-relativistic situation where we expect Newtonian mechanics and special relativity to match together. Then,\n\n* f(x) = 1 + x^(2)/2 - x^(4)/8 + . . .\n\nIt's easy to see that for small x, the higher order terms are tiny and only get smaller. So let's throw them away and just keep the first two.\n\n* f(x) ~ 1 + x^(2)/2\n\nIf we undo the substitution x=p/mc we get ultimately,\n\n* E ~ mc^(2) + p^(2)/2m\n\nThe first term is just the energy you have because you have mass. The second term is the energy you have due to momentum. Or if we substitute the non-relativistic definition of momentum p=mv, we get the familiar,\n\n* KE = mv^(2)/2\n\nTherefore we've shown that the factor of 1/2 in the kinetic energy is well understood as a limit of kinetic energy in special relativity when the momentum is small and the object is not moving at a significant fraction of the speed of light.",
"You have it backwards, the real question is why does the classic kinetic energy equation you're used to have a 1/2 in front. To give units of energy you must multiply a mass by a squared something with units of speed, but where is the half coming from? The answer, as /u/AsAChemicalEngineer explicitly goes through, is that your equation isn't the \"real\" full equation, it's just the second term in an APPROXIMATE series of terms where each term in the series has a pre-factor. So (1/2)mv^2 go its (1/2) because it's what you get when you ignore the first term (which is the constant \"rest energy\") and the third term and all higher terms in such a \"Taylor/Maclaurin series\". You can throw all those higher terms away if (v/c) - i.e. the ratio of your speed to the speed of light - is a very small number because they all depend on (v/c) where the second term, the one they handed you in your physics class, doesn't.",
"Nope. For small speeds E = mc^2 + 1/2 mv^2\n\nFor bigger speeds you should use full formula for energy.\n\nTo some extent constant terms (like mc^2) doesn't matter in energy, because we can only measure differences in energy, and constant term cancels out. But it was interpreted as real thing by Einstein, and proposed that mass can be converted into other form of energy (i.e. binding energy in nucleus, or gamma radiation, etc.).",
"The answers are very interesting. I have always been fascinated with physics but ended up in chemical engineering. You guys makes me wonder what I could have done differently to be great in physics and pursue to be an astronomer!",
"The other answers here are good, but I want to add one more.\n\nWhen deriving results like E=1/2\\*mv^2 and E=1/2\\*kx^2, the 1/2 pops up because you do an integral. The force applied by a spring is k\\*x, and when you stretch out a spring, you apply that force over a distance x. k is a constant, and the integral of x is 1/2\\*x^2, so that's where the factor of 1/2 comes from.\n\nWith E=m\\*c^2, c is the constant. You're never integrating over c, so you don't get a factor of 1/2."
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1jq55j | what is the difference between ska, rocksteady, and reggae? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1jq55j/eli5what_is_the_difference_between_ska_rocksteady/ | {
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"Reggae is the evolved form of ska and rocksteady. It's also used as a blanket term to describe all carribean (especially Jamaican) music. \n\nSka and rocksteady are big on live instruments, and there's an emphasis on horns in ska. Rocksteady is very similar but not as upbeat as most ska songs. Reggae is the stuff you hear on the radio now. Live instruments are always a good thing but not necessary. \n\nSka came first, then that became rocksteady, then modern reggae. I would say a good analogy is the difference between Motown, R & B, and Neo-Soul. First was Otis Redding, then came Luther Vandross, and now there's artists like John Legend. \n\nThe music is all very similar just originating from a different time. \n\nI hope that helped. I'm not from the islands at all but I used to listen to Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, Hepcat, and dancehall a lot back in high school. I'm a fan of Damian Marley today too. ",
"They're basically just different eras in the same musical continuum. Compare the examples from the Wailers/Bob Marley/Rita Marley, which cover all eras:\n\n**Ska: (original era ~1958 - ~1966)**\n\nFast tempo, usually with a swing beat and a very strong jazz element. The original ska musicians from the '60s were all jazz musicians, so in addition to vocal songs, they often recorded instrumentals structured around a melody or theme (often \"borrowed\" from a popular movie or TV show theme song), followed by a bunch of improvised jazz solos with the theme repeated at the end. \n\nThe original ska bands followed a [big band](_URL_1_) jazz format: 8+ musicians with horns as the lead instruments and piano, guitar, upright bass, and drums doing the support.\n\n_URL_3_\n\n_URL_6_\n\n**Rocksteady: (original era ~1966 - ~1969)**\n\nA transitional form between ska and reggae. Medium tempo, smaller bands centred around bass, guitar, and piano and less around horns (notice in the first example below how the horns are barely audible and are now in the support role). \n\nMany newer rocksteady musicians didn't have a jazz background, so the music is simpler and more groove-based, though jazz-trained ska musicians often recorded on these songs as well.\n\n_URL_2_\n\n_URL_4_\n\n**Reggae: (original era ~1969 - ~early 80s)**\n\nSlow tempo and often minimalistic, emphasizing groove and space with fewer solos. Reggae groups usually follow a rock band format: guitar, bass, keys and drums, with the bass guitar carrying the signature line and very prominent in the mix. Many reggae songs don't have horns at all. Although most vocals are still sung, you start to see the emergence of [toasting](_URL_5_)--basically the Jamaican equivalent (and to some degree, a grandfather) of rapping. Also, as a precursor to sampling, some singers and toasters (aka \"deejays\") choose to record new vocals over old instrumental tracks (aka \"riddims\") instead of writing new music.\n\n_URL_7_\n\n_URL_9_\n\n**Dancehall: (original era ~early 80s - now)**\n\nA continuation of the reggae era, people will often just call dancehall music \"reggae\" and call old style reggae from the '70s \"roots reggae\" to distinguish it. Music is simpler still and more dance-oriented than earlier reggae. Paralleling hip-hop and r & b, a lot of live instrumentation is replaced with drum machines, synths, riddims (samples), and there's a lot more toasting (rapping) than before.\n\n_URL_0_\n\n_URL_8_\n\n\n**TL;DR: ska:reggae:dancehall::jazz:rock:hip-hop/r & b.** \n\nAnd rocksteady sounds like a cross between ska and reggae. Oversimplified, but that's the general idea.\n\n\n\n\n\n"
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a70ht6 | What were early Jewish views of Jesus and Christianity? | We can infer from parts of the New Testament that there was a debate among Jews in the first and second centuries about whether Jesus was the messiah or not. What do non-biblical Jewish sources say about how Jews who didn't think Jesus was the messiah responded to Jesus and early Christianity? Was there some kind counter-proselytizing effort? How did Jews in later centuries (fourth, fifth) confront the growth of Christianity? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/a70ht6/what_were_early_jewish_views_of_jesus_and/ | {
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" > We can infer from parts of the New Testament that there was a debate among Jews in the first and second centuries about whether Jesus was the messiah or not\n\nCritically, while you can infer that amongst a select number of Jews there may have been such a debate, keep in mind that the NT is specifically designed to sell Christianity and is interested in playing up Jesus/Christianity's impact on society. This isn't necessarily the historical reality.\n\nHistorically, the broader Jewish world seems to have paid no particular significant notice to Christians and Christianity for quite some time. Christianity had an interest in competing with its parent religion to achieve legitimacy, and needs to prove itself to everyone. But for Judaism, it simply wasn't relevant or impactful at the time (they're far more interested in worrying about Grecco-Roman Paganism), and we only see a few eventual moves to keep Christianity out of the Synagogues (which were generally categorized under general prohibitions against Heretics).\n\nWhile it may not be apparent now, at the time, it was just one of dozens of fledgling sects, breakaways and messianic claimants, and Christianity quickly became a religion popular with and dominated by non-Jews, whom Judaism was not particularly interested in selling its religion to.\n\n > What do non-biblical Jewish sources say about how Jews who didn't think Jesus was the messiah responded to Jesus and early Christianity?\n\nAs mentioned, early Jewish literature by and large doesn't mention Jesus or Christianity. The exceptions which are typically referenced include Josephus, who has a few throwaway references -- one in particular is extremely suspicious for its veneration of Jesus and is thus of questionable authenticity -- and the blessing against the Heretics, of which early versions were evidently written with Christians explicitly named.\n\nWhen you get a bit later in Rabbinic texts, e.g. the Talmuds, you see a number of evident references to Christians where the attitudes range from strong eye rolls and satire, to condescension. It seems evident to me that they did not seriously consider the Christian groups to be worth worrying about at that time (certainly not in the literature from the Sassanian empires where Christianity had no particular role in society and Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism was much more dangerous and culturally seductive).\n\n > How did Jews in later centuries (fourth, fifth) confront the growth of Christianity?\n\nJews, not being in a place of power in the Roman Empire, had no particular ability to confront Christianity. As the Roman Government became Christian, what you do see is a push for punitive laws against Jews (and eventually Pagans as well) to force a transition to Christianity.\n\nHere's a nice study that covers these issues in depth for the later: *[The Persecution of the Jews in the Roman Empire (300-428)](_URL_0_)*, good quote from the conclusion: \"...Jews in the Roman Empire experienced a series of misfortunes during the fourth century which reduced them from privileged citizenship to oppressed exile. These misfortunes occurred mainly as the result of Christian animosity, propaganda, and persecution.\""
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5h7fn7 | Why did Spain make peace with France in 1795? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5h7fn7/why_did_spain_make_peace_with_france_in_1795/ | {
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"The simple answer is about what you'd expect--a relatively uncontested French advance by the army of the Pyrenees into the heart of Spain in 1795 forced the Spanish crown to sue for peace (with minor territorial concessions in the Caribbean but otherwise just a cessation of hostilities).\n\nTo put things in the broader context of the War of the First Coalition, the victory in Spain was one of many lightning successes that had a sort of domino effect of quickly (and unexpectedly) tilting the conflict in France's favor. After the French overran the Dutch republic in the Netherlands and established a client republic in its place and forcing the kingdom of Prussia to conclude peace the same year, the Austrian Habsburg empire rapidly found itself the only major coalition power still in the field (Great Britain was involved as well, and would remain at war with France even after the collapse of the First Coalition, but their involvement during the initial war was limited to a blockade and a few failed attempts to harass the French with abortive coastal raids).\n\nThe victories were impressive and boosts to morale in their own right, but just as importantly, each enemy knocked out freed up additional troops to support the fight against the republic's more determined enemies. The forces that were no longer needed for the war in Spain were then able to bolster Napoleon's spectacular efforts in the Italian campaign, which would ultimately result in Austria's surrender in the treaty of Campo Formio and the end of the First Coalition.\n\nSource: The Oxford History of the French Revolution, William Doyle.\n\nEdit: Grammar fixes."
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2hczk6 | If they can make rooms with simulated zero-gravity, could they make a room with more intense gravity as well? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2hczk6/if_they_can_make_rooms_with_simulated_zerogravity/ | {
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"If you throw an object in a gravitational field, it will follow a parabola: up fast, slowing down, levelling out, accelerating downwards, down fast. If the object is a container of some sort, then anything inside will follow the same parabola and experience free-fall/weightlessness/zero-g with respect to the container. \n\nThis is why we simulate weightlessness with planes on parabolic trajectories. We fly the plane on the trajectory it would follow if we threw it and there was no air.\n\nIf you wanted to simulate intense gravity, you would need to fly a plane in such a way that the centrifugal force of your trip adds to the perceived gravity. From the outside, this would look a bit like the inverse of the parabola we had before, down fast, slowing down, levelling out, accelerating up, up fast.\n\nFighter pilots have to deal with this every day. In heavy-gravity maneuvers, their blood rushes to their feet putting them at risk of losing consciousness. They have to wear specialised compression suits to push it back to their heads. \n\n[edit to remove mistake]",
"An elevator has higher apparent gravity than the Earth when it's accelerating at the beginning of an upward journey - you feel it in your feet just after the door closes. It has less as it decelerates to a stop. Likewise a rollercoaster or fighter jet pinning you to the seat, or even your car when you floor it when the light goes green. \n\nIf you were to throw a ball upwards in the elevator example, it would behave in your frame of reference like an acceleration slightly greater than 9.8m/s^2 was acting on it, just like if you'd been transported to a planet with a slightly higher gravitational field. \n\nThe vomit comet and other things like it also simulate gravity (or lack thereof) using acceleration. This works because both acceleration and gravity generate similar forces on objects in their grasp. \n\nWe call this the [Equivalence Principle](_URL_0_). You may have heard that gravity is caused by space being warped, and indeed, the strong version of the equivalence principle states that you feel gravity because mass warps space and you are in fact feeling a pseudo-force from not moving towards the bottom of a gravity 'well', i.e. the bottom of the 4 dimensional 'hill' in space caused by a planet or star or anything else.\n\nHence, they are in fact exactly the same thing. "
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pa64j | What percentage of human zygotes abort spontaneously before birth? | That is, what percentage of zygotes terminate naturally at any point between conception and birth? I've read that this statistic is extremely high—[more than two thirds](_URL_0_), in fact. But I'm not sure if this is accurate, because the statistics seem to vary quite a bit. I've also read that because of how difficult it is to monitor the very early stages of development, it's tough to arrive at a definite figure.
So, what's the most accurate figure based on our current knowledge, and what's the best source (preferably accessible online) to cite on the matter? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/pa64j/what_percentage_of_human_zygotes_abort/ | {
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"_URL_0_\n\n\"It is estimated that up to **half of all fertilized eggs die and are lost (aborted) spontaneously**, usually before the woman knows she is pregnant. Among those women who know they are pregnant, the miscarriage rate is about 15-20%.\"",
"The clearest answer that I could find was that 10-31% of implanted pregnancies end in a spontaneous abortion. However you have to take this number with a grain of salt for two reasons:\n\n--The risk of spontaneous abortion is highest in the first few weeks of a pregnancy and drops dramatically after about fifteen weeks. ~75% of spontaneous abortions occur w/in the first twelve weeks of pregnancy.\n\n--Obviously a woman can be pregnant for quite awhile and not recognize the symptoms of pregnancy. The \"sub-clinical\" period happens to overlap with the period of highest risk of spontaneous abortion, and so it can be very difficult to accurately determine the rate of spontaneous abortion prior to a pregnancy being recognized clinically. With that said, studies have been done during which daily human chorionic gonadotropic--an early marker of pregnancy--levels were taken in large groups of women actively trying to conceive, and the rate of spontaneous abortion in the early pre-clinical period was estimated to be between 13-26%\n\nI hope this helps. But I'm sure there is at least one OB or Endocrinologists who may want to chime in.\n\nSome good sources:\n_URL_2_\n_URL_1_\n_URL_0_ "
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cvh2pg | biologically speaking, how exactly does an orgasm become bigger/harder? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cvh2pg/eli5_biologically_speaking_how_exactly_does_an/ | {
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"One factor is availability of oxygen; the less in your system, the more intense the sensation. Hence autoerotic asphyxiation."
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3karbx | why do we say every year before 2000 in the hundreds, and every year after in the thousands? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3karbx/eli5_why_do_we_say_every_year_before_2000_in_the/ | {
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"Because \"18 hundred\" is shorter than \"1 thousand 8 hundred\". On the other hand, \"20 hundred\" is longer than \"2 thousand\". After 100 years however, you will hear people say \"21 hundred\" instead of \"2 thousand 1 hundred\"",
"You could certainly say \"one-thousand eight-hundred\" if you wanted to. \"Eighteen-hundred\" is a bit more economical. Also the date doesnt end with hundreds yet so its a bit cumbersome to say \"The Twenty-Hundreds\" but id be willing to bet that \"The Twenty-one Hundreds\" will be more widely used than \"The Two-thousand One-Hundreds\" its mostly just a matter of what sounds right, its not a hard and fast rule.",
"Ask yourself how you would pronounce the year 1015. One-thousand-fifteen? Ten-fifteen?\n\nNow compare that to 2015. Two-thousand-fifteen. Twenty-fifteen.\n\nBoth work and both describe the year accurately, but it's just the first century of each millennium that experiences this problem."
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409c54 | how does the nlf tournament works? | How are the teams divided, why are they divided if they play teams from both conferences anyway, what are the wild cards. How many teams there are. How many go to play offs and finally how does a team qualify to play offs. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/409c54/eli5how_does_the_nlf_tournament_works/ | {
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"NFL? So the NFL is split into the NFC and the AFC. They both have 16 teams of their own. Each of these conferences are split into 4 groups of 4 called divisions. So there are 4 divisions per conference: North, South, East and West. Teams play other teams in their division twice a year, while they will only play other teams at most once a year. Wins against another conference team matter more than wins against teams from outside the conference in the case of a tiebreaker situation. There are 16 games a season and so there are 6 within the division, 4 against all the teams of a specific NFC conference, 4 against a specific AFC conference and then 2 more games against other teams in your conference. At the end of the season the teams that have the most wins in their division(or win in the case of a tiebreaker but I'll get to that) go to the playoffs. So that's 8 teams already. Now on top of that 2 teams from each Conference also get in as Wild Cards. This goes to the two teams with the most wins in each conference that weren't the best in their division (again if they have the same win/loss record as another team it goes to a tiebreaker to see who gets in). So now there are a total of 12 teams that made it to the playoffs. Now the teams in each conference play each other until one is the NFC champion and one is the AFC champion, and those two teams play in the Super Bowl. Before the conference championship, the teams are seeded. Of the 4 teams that were best in their division, they get ranked from 1 to 4 based on number of wins. Then the wild cards get ranked 5th or 6th based on number of wins. The 1 and 2 seed get a bye round, so they don't play anyone in the first round. The 3rd seed plays the 6th seed and the 4th seed plays the 5th seed. I should mention the higher seeded team always plays at home. After this the losers are eliminated and then the winners go onto the next round. The worst team left plays the 1st seed and the second worst seeded team plays the 2nd seed. After this game the two teams left in the conference play against each other for the conference championship. In terms of the rules for a tiebreaker, they're fairly complicated so here is a link to understand them: _URL_0_",
"There are 32 teams in the NFL. 16 each in two conferences, the AFC and NFC. That's broken down into 4-team divisions. Each season, each team plays the other 3 teams in its division twice, and the rest of the schedule is filled out with remaining teams, mostly from within the conference.\n\n6 teams from each conference make the playoffs--the 4 division winners, plus two wildcards. The wildcards are the teams with the best records that didn't win their division. The 6 teams are ranked--first the 4 division winners by record, then the wildcards by record. They play a standard elimination tournament, with the top two teams getting a first round bye. The winners of each conference play in the Super Bowl."
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30lnrw | Are there any micro organisms (viruses or bacteria) that are harmful to both plants and animals, or are they too dissimilar at that level? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/30lnrw/are_there_any_micro_organisms_viruses_or_bacteria/ | {
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"There are indeed organisms that are pathogenic to both plants and humans. The most predominant and clinically significant pathogens that jump between kingdoms are among the bacteria. In bacteria, many of the proteins required for pathogenesis in humans are surprisingly important in plant pathogenesis as well. One well-studied example is *Pseudomonas aeruginosa*. This organism is associated with a wide variety of diseases in humans including respiratory and skin infections. It can also cause disease in plants, insects, and even nematodes. \n\nRecently it has also been shown that *Salmonella* can infect plants as well. This organism is typically associated with gastrointestinal disease in humans and outbreaks are often associated with eating contaminated plant material. Although it does not thrive in plants to the extent that *Pseudomonas* is capable of, scientists have demonstrated that it can form an infection in plants. \n\nViruses are much less likely to be able to infect both plants and humans. To gain entry to a cell, viruses must recognize very specific protein receptors on the surface. Plant and animal cells are very, very different in terms of their surface receptors so it is very difficult for a virus to be able to recognize both types of cells. \n\nHowever, there are two examples of plant viruses being associated with other organisms. One virus spread from a plant to honeybees and one plant virus was found to be associated with humans. However, in both of these cases it isn't clear whether the virus is persisting in the population or even if they truly represent infections. \n\n\nReferences: \n\n[*Pseudomonas* virulence in plants and animals.](_URL_3_) \n\n[*Salmonella* colonization of plants.](_URL_0_) \n\n[Plant to insect virus transmission.](_URL_1_) \n\n[Plant to human virus transmission.](_URL_2_)\n"
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"http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-04/scientists-discover-first-virus-make-jump-plants-humans",... | ||
3bi365 | the financial crisis in greece | All questions relating to Greece and its financial situation is to be posted here.
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3bi365/the_financial_crisis_in_greece/ | {
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"Greece spends a ton more than they take in and has racked up an insurmountable about of debt, mostly by providing welfare and government services they can't afford. Now at the very least they will be forced to start acting/living like the poor nation they have turned themselves into. But the people are reluctant to make the change within their government. They have continued to elect people who promise them they won't have to make the necessary painful cuts. But now the EU and IMF may make that decision for them...\n\nNations like the US can continue to spend money when we can't afford it because world lenders believe they will eventually be paid back with interest. The world has lost faith in Greece and they could be cut off. This is a problem because their economy and government expenditures are completely out of wack. Without the ability to borrow they will have to institute austerity measures and completely ruin their currency/international trade leverage and could enter a spiral to poverty.",
"Someone ELI5 please: How are they going to organise a referendum in just 5 days? Normally it takes months to compile the register, print polling cards, organise polling stations, recruit vote counters, etc. Not to mention raising the money to do all this.",
"I'm in Greece now on vacation, will this affect me in any way?\n\nEdit: affect not effect",
"\n\n > kh498\n \nI work at the moment in a Greek island and I can tell you that things look pretty stable but I'm not sure if they are. You won't have any problem with your holidays for sure.\n",
"Watching the news, Greece is nearing to default. What does this mean and (if any) what repercussions does it have on Greece and the Eurozone? ",
"ELI5:\nIf a) the IMF (and the world) knows that Greece can't make its debt repayment this month and b) the repercussions of Greece defaulting are expected to be bad, why is the IMF insisting Greece attempt to make the repayment? Wouldn't it be better to just let it ride a bit longer while the country tries to get itself into a place where it can afford to service its debt?",
"ELI5: What happens to all the other countries Greece owes money to if they go through with the Grexit?\n\nCountries like: Portugal/Italy/Germany etc. do they just simply not get their money and each country's economy also tanks?",
"ELI5: What exactly is the 'Grexit' and what referendum is being voted upon? I'm trying to find answers that are a) not in Greek and b) explain what is actually going on other than political propaganda, but not having much luck. The translation services make it look like the majority of articles I'm finding in Greek are actually propaganda.",
"What is the worst case scenario for Greece, and how long would it take them to recover from that? ",
"What programs has the government of Greece been paying for that the country can not afford? \n - I imagine its not gold bathtubs for everyone.",
"There is also the issue that the Greeks used Goldman Sachs to make things look rosier than they really were.\n\nThis article from 2010 explains some about how Goldman Sachs was used to mask Greece's true debts:\n\n_URL_1_\n\nIt is also said that Goldman Sachs massaged Greece's finances to help them get into the Euro in the first place:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nI think if the true financial state of Greece was known at the time, they wouldn't have been allowed in.\n\nI think if you want to really understand what is happening at the moment, you have to look right back to this stuff.",
"Eli5- why is all of this happening now? What set it off? Is Greece just going to turn into some sort of developing nation after all of this? ",
"For a \"true\" ELI5 (I know that's not what this sub is for):\n\nThe Greek economy has a broken leg. The doctor told them it has to be set, but they started to set it and it hurt too much so they yelled \"Stop!\" Now the doctor still says the leg has to be set, but the Greeks hope that if they just lay still, it won't hurt too much and maybe it will get better on its own.",
"Like most countries, Greece borrowed money to invest in order to boost their economy and their government services. \n\nAnd like most countries, Greece is borrowing money to pay the previous loans. \n\nDue to poor management and corruption, their debt got a bit higher than other countries. \n\nDuring the 2002 crisis, the income of all government worldwide went down since they collected less taxes. They had to borrow more money. As a result the interest rate went up.\n\nGreece had difficulties dealing with those higher interest, but had no choice but to keep borrowing in order to pay the previous loans. But since Greece had difficulties, nobody wanted to lend money to Greece and the interest for Greece got out of control. \n\nAt the same time, other countries feared that the debt crisis would spread. If a country like Greece can't pay its debt, people would hesitate to lend money to other countries with weak economy, increasing the interest rate for others. If the interest rate goes up, it cost tons of money to the other countries. \n\nThis is why other countries, especially european ones, don't want Greece to bankrupt. It order to avoid that they lent money to Greece that was no longer able to borrow on the public market. \n\nHowever, when lending to greece they forced Greece to cut down its spending. This was supposed to ensure Greece could pay back. \n\nSadly this was a huge mistake (as admitted by Strass-Kann who was director of IMF). By forcing Greece to cut down its spendings, it shrank Greece economy and increased unemployement. This mean, Greece income dropped just as much as its spendings, Greece was not any closer to be able to pay its debt and the situation got worse. \n\n***\n\nOne of the problem of Greece is that it doesn't have its own currency. \n\nIn general, strong economies should have a stronger currency in order to balance import/export. If a weak economy has a strong currency, it isn't competitive and it has trouble exporting. \n\nThis obviously can be a problem when countries with a strong economy like Germany share the same currency as a country with a weak economy like Greece. Germany gets a currency weaker than it should have, and Greece gets a currency stronger that it should have. Germany becomes very competitive, and Greece not competitive at all. Germany is effectively taking the jobs from Greece.\n\nTo become competitive again, Greece needs to devaluate its currency but it can't as long as it is using euro. \n\n",
"What happens if Greece ends up voting \"no\" on the July 5th referendum?",
"This is my understanding of it: The Greek government had been cooking its books for years before joining the Eurozone, the monetary union in the EU. The EU requires [certain attributes of an economy](_URL_1_) before a country is allowed to join this union. Greece probably did not meet these requirements but that was not apparent until [later audits](_URL_2_).\n\n\nIt was kind of too late to just kick Greece out of the union once everyone in the EU realized the Greece economy was a lemon. This situation would have been manageable if the entire world economy didn't crash in 2008. Because Greece was already in massive debt, and since they were in a monetary union in which they did not control the currency, Greece was put into a very bad spot without the tools to ease the crisis. Unlike Greece, in the US the Federal Reserve could manipulate the dollar in ways that would reduce the impact of the crisis. A lack of monetary tools was supposed to encourage fiscally responsible policy in the EU, but it ended up contributing to this perfect storm of economic crisis in Greece. \n\nThe EU had an interest in not allowing the Greece economy to crash, so a coalition led by Germany approved several [bailout](_URL_0_) [packages](_URL_3_) with the understanding that Greece would implement severe austerity policies (cutting social programs and spending) in order to be able to pay them back. The Greek people were not a fan of these measures, so they voted out the politicians that had made this deal. The new politicians were much more leftist and basically refused to pay the debts, getting rid of any austerity measures. \n\nNow to today, Greece needs another bailout to avoid default, but its creditors (i.e. Germany) are refusing to give them any money because they haven't paid off the last two bailouts. If Greece defaults on its debts, it will likely be removed from the Eurozone. Hence you see people running to ATMs withdrawing all their money before the Banks in Greece crash. Also contributing to this crappy situation are Greek politicians that are playing chicken with payment and negotiation deadlines. Through all of this, the Greek people are likely to emerge significantly worse for wear. \n\nEDIT: Read /u/green_velvet 's comment for clarification on austerity",
"This comment is very related and a great ELI5 answer: \n_URL_0_",
"This is more about the solution, or whatever comes next:\n\na, What happens if Greece accepts these terms? They get the money, pay back the IMF. But there is a huge ECB payment coming up next month. I have the feeling, just as most of the people that this can't go on.\n\nb, Most importantly, what happens if they refuse? The immediate thing would be that they default on the IMF loan. What happens after that in detail. What will the EU do, what happens to the peoples money.\n\nc, And connected to that, the default. They wouldn't default on everything, but what does a real government default means. I get that people are talking about that here as a huge deal but all I see is the IMF and the ECB loans and defaulting on them. Or these are enough to bring that devastating effect.\n\nd, And then there's the actual money. If they default, what happens to it. All those euros in Greece, owned by the people. Why would it destroy peoples lives. The government said it will pay the wages and the pensions. What happens to it if they leave the zone?\n\ne, And the last, grexit. Why is it so unavoidable and necessary? Some people talked about the devaluation of the money (which is obviously niot possible with the euro) and that would help the economy. Some said this would again, destroy the average citizens life? I understand some of the upsides but not all.\n\nI got some of it, but there is not a single full picture about these things. I hope someone will be able to answer at least a few of these questions.",
"As a german I heard, that we gave them a lot of money and I really dont get why they hate us so much. Could someone please explain it to me?",
"My daughter is going to Greece in 2 weeks. Can anyone tell me how the financial crisis there will affect her? I was going to send her with a credit card and some cash. Should I skip the credit card now?",
"Eli5: what happens when a country declares bankruptcy?\n",
"Will this affect tourism in Greece? Do you see the country going down a road where it is not safe to travel to?",
"Why if Greece is such a small country within Europe and not being specially powerful is a threat for the Euro as a currency and the whole Europe in general? \nWould not be as simple as just letting it go out of Europe and that's it?\n",
"Austerity is overrated, World GDP growth of 3.3% is 3 trillion (in US$) per year created out of thin air. Greek debt is barely 10% of that figure and harsh austerity measures have to be recognized as punitive rather than pragmatic solutions.",
"FWIW, the top comments here are currently not actual ELI5's of the situation. So far they're just biased interpretations of the situation, i.e. the Greece governments interpretation vs. the EU/troikas interpretation. Hopefully someone can present a truly balanced ELI5.",
"Why would Greece's exist from the EU affect american markets?\n\n_URL_0_ ",
"Rarely will you see an explanation of Greek debt that mentions how huge hedge funds basically ran the show. This is a [fun place to start](_URL_0_):\n \n > Just look at how banks like Chase behaved in Greece, for example.\n\n > Having seen how well interest-rate swaps worked for Jefferson County, Alabama, Chase “helped” countries like Greece and Italy mask their debt problems for years by selling a similar series of swaps to those governments. The bank then turned around and worked with banks like Goldman, Sachs (who were also major purveyors of those swap deals) to create a thing called the iTraxx SovX Western Europe index, which allowed investors to bet against Greek debt.\n \n > In other words, banks like Chase and Goldman knowingly larded up the nation of Greece with a crippling future debt burden, then turned around and helped the world bet against Greek debt.\n \n > Does a citizen of Greece do that deal? Forget that: does a human being do that deal?\n \n > Operations like the Greek swap/short index maneuver were easy money for banks like Goldman and Chase – hell, it’s a no-lose play, like cutting a car’s brake lines and then betting on the driver to crash – but they helped create the monstrous European debt problem that this very minute is threatening to send the entire world economy into collapse, which would result in who knows what horrors. At minimum, millions might lose their jobs and benefits and homes. Millions more will be ruined financially.\n \n > But why should Chase and Goldman care what happens to those people? Do they have any skin in that game?\n \n > Of course not. We’re talking about banks that not only didn’t warn the citizens of Greece about their future debt disaster, they actively traded on that information, to make money for themselves.\n \n > People like Dimon, and Schwarzman, and John Paulson, and all of the rest of them who think the “imbeciles” on the streets are simply full of reasonless class anger, they don’t get it. Nobody hates them for being successful. And not that this needs repeating, but nobody even minds that they are rich.\n \n > What makes people furious is that they have stopped being citizens.\n \n\n",
"The responses so far have all been woefully wrong. The cause of crisis in Greece was like the cause of the crisis in the United States, Ireland, and Iceland. It doesn't have to do with a budget crisis but with a failure of banks during the financial crisis of 2008. \n\nDuring the financial crisis of 2008, the Greek government, like the Irish government and unlike the Icelandic government, borrowed other European countries' money to bail out failing Greek banks. The government was forced to bail out these banks because foreign European banks were heavily invested in the Greek banks and they risked failures, ie contagion, in their homes countries if the Greek banks failed. So Greece borrowed this money to prop up their banking system and in turn the banking system of Europe. \n\nThe terms that Greece negotiated for this money have been too onerous for the weak Greek economy, which unlike Ireland, has failed to rebound making continued austerity for the sake of paying these debts unlivable and politically impossible.\n\nRead this article. It's explains it succinctly\n\n_URL_0_. ",
"Why can't the debt just be dropped? Why can't the Troika just say \"Do you know what? Forget the last £1.5bn, just forget it. We'll start again.\"?",
"France and Germany wanted to sell lots of military hardware to Greece and a previous administration was happy to take their loans to expand their military. When the German and French banks failed because they made bad investments (like lending money to Greece to build up a huge military), the govs paid off the banks and took on the debt. In the past, the bank would have to cover their bad investments. With banks controlling most politicians, that was no longer an option. Our tax dollars paid off their bad investments and allowed them to continue playing the same game. Privatize profits and have govs and tax payers pick up their losses. What a game, what a scam.",
"I'll try to provide an ELI5 from my point of view (Greek citizen). (Sorry for its length.)\n\nCurrent global economic system is based on borrowing money and paying the interests of that loan. You have a big problem when you owe a lot of money compared to the money you produce each yer(GDP =Gross domestic product). Due to wrong decisions, corruption in governments (they increased the size of the public sector so they can gain votes, huge projects were assigned to companies cause politicians were bribed (e.g. Siemens got many huge programs in Greece that way)), and tax evasion Greece failed to meet the growth of it's debt. (Many have already stated out that the true economic figures were falsified in order to join the Eurozone with the help of banks such as Goldman Sachs.That's true.)\n\nIn 2009 Greek Prime minister [G.A.Papandreou](_URL_10_) made an agreement with the [IMF](_URL_3_), so IMF would lend Greece money with low interest and Greece in return should reform some aspects of its economy to reduce the amount of money spent (austerity measures). Going under the IMF caused uncertainty in Greece and many retrieved their money from Greek banks leading to liquidity problems (not enough cash) which caused a need for a new loan to support Greek banks (Greek banks couldn't borrow directly any money because certain statistical rating organizations made sure they were demoted and lost their credibility even if it was OBVIOUS Greek banks wasn't the cause of the Greek debt problem (unlike Irish debt which was cause mainly by their banks)). Austerity measures led to reduced spending but also caused a huge problem in Greek economy, so a second set of measures were forced in 2011 in order to further reduce spending. Second set of measure reduced spending (cut down pensions, wages, etc) but also drove Greek economy to the ground (highest unemployment recorded in Greece, highest rate of people near poverty, reduced GDP ). It's easy to spot the black hole here, it's a vicious circle that proved their experiment with Greece failed. Now they proposed to Greece a third set of measures targeting pensions (which NEED to be reformed) and TOURISM in Greece (they want 23%VAT for restaurants and hotels) which would lead to huge reduction in tourists (Italy,Turkey,and Spain would benefit from that) and further shrink our economy.\n\nIt's clear that in order to get out of the vicious circle Greece must either boost it's economy (economic growth = higher GDP = more money \"produced\" per year) or have it's debt defaulted (you don't owe money any more because you are \"forgiven\")(partially or totally, like Germany had twice in 20th century).\n\n**END OF ELI5.**\n\n*(Bonus content/1st day free dlc)*\n\nNow some interesting facts:\n\n1. In the years 2005-2010 Greek economy problem was well known in Europe , but banks kept on lending Greece money so they can make profit.\n\n\n2. In 2010 G.A.Papandreou asked for a referendum with the question \"Do you want to join the IMF\", European leaders were paralyzed and counter offered loans without interest for some years and promised for future help (so he recalled it). If Greece refused to go under the IMF or demanded a haircut or even declared bankruptcy back then the only sure outcome was that European and American banks would collapse because they were holding a huge amount of the Greek debt (Later, European Central Bank bought that debt in lower value). Keep in mind that it was right after the collapse of [Lehman brothers](_URL_0_). [Deutsche Bank](_URL_7_) , [Credit Agricole](_URL_4_) would be the first banks that would collapse.\n\n\n3. It's [IRONY](_URL_8_) when German government accuse us of corruption when they REFUSE to extradite the number of suspect [Michael Christoforakos] (_URL_1_) (sorry i couldn't find an article in English) for the biggest scandal in recent Greek history (Siemens (German company bribing Greek government)).\n\n4. Tax evasion is a practice well known around the world ([yeap, even to Germany](_URL_9_)), is it a mere coincidence that most of the [tax havens](_URL_13_) belong to the [United Kingdom](_URL_2_)?\n\n5. Germany is the only country in EU that [violated the commonly agreed inflation target of 2% per yea](_URL_12_)r (wages would increase by 2% more than your GDP).That was possible by decreasing the power of its labor unions and putting political pressure on wages.\n\n6. When Greece took a loan to save its banks (low liquidity = low on cash to give if asked) European Union , IMF etc made sure that loan was calculated in the countries public debt. YET, when Spain took a loan for EXACTLY the same reason , that loan wasn't added to the public debt.\n\n7. 27% decrease in GDP since the first set of austerity measures, it's the HIGHEST ever recorded for a country during peace. And they can't figure out why we don't want a third set....\n\n8. **(Conspiracy time)** [Portugal , Italy , Spain and even France](_URL_5_) have the same problem as Greece. Certain [\"parties\"](_URL_6_) love the fact that Greece might fail if its citizens don't accept the third set of austerity measures. And those \"parties\" will make sure to make an example out of Greece for the next to come. The show is coming to end for us , one way or the other but it's time for Europe to face the real problem now and stop having Greek problem in the spotlight.\n\n\nEDIT: My only fear is the possibility Greek government has an agenda of forcing the country in becoming a \"left\" nation without asking us.. (and damn i am kinda leftist myself)\n\n@don_one I don't have a problem with Greece being in the spotlight if it was the major problem, but Greece is only 2% of the EU economy , even if its debt is totally defaulted(forgiven) there would be almost no negative outcome , yet Spain, Italy, France are in the G8, i can [bear](_URL_11_)ly imagine what a possible bankruptcy or a reduction of their GDP by 27% would cause in the world economy.\n\n@LxSwiss GOLD ? < 3 Thx kind stranger . And a black/white world would be SO boring..\n\n@moneyjewjew Let me know if you have any more questions\n",
"Essentially, the Greek economy has never been particularly strong, but coupled with high high levels of corruption in politicians and the richest refusing to essentially pay any taxes, the country wasn't in a particularly great state before the 2008 economic crash. \n\nPost Crash the economy tanked, and Greece was left with extremely high levels of unemployment (up to around 30%). Unfortunately this reduced tax revenues even further and Greece entered a spiral. In the past, governments would invest into economies to kick start the economy and create employment, but the EU, IMF & World Bank around this time decided Austerity (cutting of social spending and investment ) would produce a faster recovery. So in return for large loans, the stipulations were for vast levels of spending cuts. \n\n6 years later and the economy has yet to improve, and austerity has had the complete opposite effect of intended, increasing Greece's debt while having little effect on the economy. \n\nSince then the World Bank and IMF have produced reports saying that austerity has deemed to essentially failed, and have apologised to Greece stating that they never expected it to go so badly. \n\nThere has been a growing movement in Europe over the last 5 years for anti-austerity -the idea that you invest in your future rather than cut to get the debt down (see Post War Britain for one of the best examples of this). This culmulated in 2015 with the election of Syrzia, who stood on a left platform of anti-austerity in order to get the back on track. \n\n6 months later the EU has started getting pissed of with Greece for not cutting what politicians promised 7 years ago. Which has now culmulated in a situation where the Greeks have essentially been asked whether they want to stay in the EU (and commit to more austerity) or not. \n\nP.S. I haven't got a source for this, but I have also heard that Greece has one of the best structural economies in the developed world, and that under 100% employment ( and hence 100% of tax revenue), they would actually have one of the highest surpluses in the world. This would essentially make this an employment problem in Greece, rather than a selfish welfare benefit problem, which unfortunately much of the media seems to suggest. ",
"Would now be a good time to get a bargain on a villa overlooking the Mediterranean?",
"Here's another version to compare to the other top comments:\n\nGreece's economy got hit really hard by the recession, relatively speaking. A lot of their economy relied on tourism which pretty much came to a halt when all the tourists stopped traveling due to the recession. In response to these tough financial times, the ECB (which is just the European version of the US Federal Reserve) and other EU governing bodies decided to implement austerity measures. This just means that you reduce government debt, either by cutting spending, increasing your taxes, or both.\n\nIf you ever took Econ 101 (which is unlikely since you are 5), you know that during a recession, governments are supposed to implement expansionary policy (increase govt spending, cut taxes) in order for the economy to get firing on all cylinders again. If you're wondering why the EU implemented the exact opposite, well... Tough to say.\n\nAnywho. Greece impemented these austerity measures in a severe way. More so then any other EU nation because like others pointed out, they've been in financial turmoil for a while and in order to get more loans they needed to implement even more austerity as part of the terms.\n\nSo you end up with a downward spiral of more debt, more contractionary economic policy, and an eventual situation where debt is so high and the economy is so weak that a default occurs. If this default happens then the EU lenders will receive less money then if they had restructured current debt levels and allowed Greece to enact expansionary policy. This would be your win-win scenario but it means the EU would need to admit that austerity was the wrong path initially.\n\nInstead it seems pride goeth before the fall and the EU (led inexplicably by Germany and not the governing units of the EU) is poised to kick Greece out of the union. Greece's economy will suffer, lender nationa will receive less on their loans, and the future stability of the EU will be brought into question.\n\nLet me know if you have any questions or thoughts.\n\n",
"Some great answers here as I didn't fully understand this situation before reading this thread. So I guess ELI5: Is the United States going to go through something like this eventually since it owes over $18 trillion in debt?",
"ELI5: From reading the comments, what I understand is that the fault lies with Greece. If they were to refuse to repay the loans, would some country that has loaned Greece a significant amount of money start a war against them to seize Greece assets? What ways are there for the countries that loaned them money to get it back?",
"This story begins with the general economic crisis reaching Europe in 2008-10. A lot of European economic institutions and banks are in danger and so it is decided that Greece will take loans from them to keep confidence in the banking system high.\n\nNow, Greece is a unique country, economically speaking. It never went through an industrial revolution, so it has no industrial infrastructure. There is also a big tax collecting problem, as a lot of the big money-makers are shippers who have the ability to move their money overseas so as to avoid taxes. (There are more reasons Greece was unable to pay back the debt - of which genetic tendency to corruption is obviously not one of - but these are arguably the main ones).\n\nThis led to a problem of paying back the debt. This is where the EU, ECB (European Central Bank) and IMF (American/International economic organization) come in and force austerity measures on Greece - in other words: really harsh measures that kill its economy in order to raise money (the fact that austerity kills the economy is no longer debated, not even by the EU, ECB and IMF).\n\nThe Greek people have a problem with that, so they vote off the EU-friendly government that pretty much accepted all this and voted for the leftist SYRIZA party, which is against austerity.\n\nWhat is currently going on is SYRIZA fighting for lighter measures and the EU, ECB and IMF being unable to back down due to political reasons.\n\nWhat happens next is up to anyone's guess.\n\n(This is all based on [this non-ELI5 post](_URL_0_))",
"**So what exactly is the problem?**\nBasically, Greece was hit hard by the financial crisis, and since then it has borrowed a lot of money that it says it can't pay back – at least not yet.\n\nAccording to calculations by Reuters, it owes its official lenders 242.8 billion euros, with Germany its biggest creditor.\n\nThe lenders include the IMF (International Monetary Fund), the ECB (European Central Bank) and the Euro zone governments.\n\nMany of the loans don't mature for years, even decades.\n\nHowever some do. In particular, Greece was due to pay 1.6 billion euros to the IMF by the end of June in overdue interest. After that, 3.5 billion is due to the ECB on July 20, and another 3.2 billion in August.\n\nOn top of that, more than 8 billion euros in short-term bills are due over the next two months.\n\nGreece says it has scraped together all the money it can to pay its debts – it even called in cash reserves from councils, hospitals and other public bodies. It says that, to pay the money owed, it would have had to stop paying money into pensions and public wages – which it refuses to do.\n\n**What happens if Greece doesn't get the rescue money?**\nBarring further surprises, it will default on at least some of its debts.\n\nSovereign default does have precedents, but it always comes with major economic upheaval.\n\nThough the consequences of that are long-term (difficulty finding lenders willing to invest in the country), there will be immediate side-effects.\n\nAfter months of massive withdrawals, fearing this very crisis, Greece's banks are surviving on emergency credit from the European Central Bank. Without that, they have had to impose capital controls to stop any more money going out.\n\nGreek people will have less money they are able to spend. Business will be unable to invest. The economy will head into recession.\n\nSo far the Greek government has refused to countenance 'Grexit'. However if no new rescue deal is negotiated, Greece would have to supply the banks with money itself, or they will collapse.\n\nBut the government has no money. The only obvious solution is to start printing new money to get cash back into the economy.\n\nThis 'new drachma' would effectively mean Greece has left the euro – at least temporarily.\n\nThe 'new drachma', even if it began on parity with the euro, would quickly lose up to half its value. Essentially, the value of everything in the country would be halved.\n\nThere will be high inflation, and the new exchange rate would make imports much more expensive. Life will get even harder for ordinary Greeks and Greek businesses.\n\nOn the other hand, some economists say it would stimulate the local economy and, in the long run, leave the country stronger. There is fierce disagreement over this view.\n\n**Why would the Greek people possibly want this?**\nThey are sick of austerity. Unemployment has sky-rocketed, wages halved, pensions were slashed, public bodies like hospitals, schools and universities starved of funds.\n\nMany no longer believe that austerity is just a necessary, temporary measure to put the country back on its feet. They believe it is wrecking their economy and their lives. They are willing to take a risk and try something else.\n\n**How will all this affect other countries?**\nThe euro is already tumbling on international markets.\n\nIf Greece defaults it leaves many of its neighbours short. Germany is owed 57 billion euros, France 43 billion, Italy 38 billion and Spain 25 billion – on top of those countries' contributions to the IMF loans.\n\nThe loans don't mature for almost 30 years, there is almost no interest on them and some of the loans came with a 10-year moratorium on interest payments, so it's not like the countries need the money back immediately. However it's still a lot to have to take off the bottom line.\n\nConfidence in Europe, and the euro, has been profoundly shaken. Eyes will turn to the continent's other weak economies such as Portugal, Spain and Italy. They may start to lose capital and investment.\n\n**Is it just an economic problem?**\nNo.\n\nThis could also drastically change the political balance in Europe. If Syriza makes a success out of splitting Greece away from the rest of the continent, it will embolden other nationalistic parties such as the National Front in France or UKIP in the UK.\n\nFuture elections in Europe could see a surge in nationalism, a rejection of the European project, potentially enough to threaten Europe's stability as a political union.\n\nSpeaking of which, the UK is in the early stages of debate on a referendum on whether to stay in Europe, next year. If Europe is a basket case this time next year, public opinion (currently in favour of staying in) may drastically change.\n\nThen there is the question of Russia. Syriza has already made overtures to the Kremlin, with Tsipras a star speaker at Putin's recent big international summit in St Petersburg.\n\nIf Russia comes to Greece's aid, with money, other support (or both), it will be a new factor in the current Cold War-like tensions between east and west.\n\nGreece has already expressed its anger at Europe and NATO for not doing enough in its regular chest-bumping with Turkey. If Russian warships find a friendly berth in Greek ports, the strategic map of Europe is drastically redrawn.",
"What I find particularly disturbing about this whole mess is that in the early 2000s, when Greece joined the Eurozone, almost nobody in Brussels expressed concerns over how much of Greece's economic boom was built on borrowed money. The same troijka institutions demanding Greece to reform and slash spending helped in allowing this mess to happen. Goldman Sachs didn't mind lending the Greek government lots of money when they wanted to invest in prestigious projects like the 2004 Olympics. Complain about the Tsipras administration all you want, but you can hardly blame the Greek people for looking toward an alternative to the traditional New Democracy and PASOK governments.They led Greece to spend too much borrowed money in the first place. These same parties and institutions complaining that Syriza doesn't do enough are fucking hypocrites.",
"This comment board is a pretty good example for the two camps that people have been forced into through the media's bizarre simplistic and ultimately corrupt portrayal of how the global capitalist system works. \n\nThe main thing the Greek crisis is pointing out is that the world's entire economic system is resting on a house of cards made up of debts that can never be paid (and this includes the US economy/banks, and the supposedly responsible German banking system) The EU itself as a economic system that forces drastically different countries to use the same currency and fiscal systems was never a good idea. Basically the statement that the Greek government is irresponsible and is spending more than it makes is true, but it is only true because of the following:\n\n1) Goldman Sachs directly helped them hide their bad finances in order to join the EU and start taking out giant loans\n2) German banks knew exactly how risky loans to Greece were and plowed in because they were under the crazy assumption that the EU/IMF would never let basic math come home to roost. 3) There is no way for Greece to pay back the debts that German banks and the EU signed off for them to accumulate. The banking system always knew this and expected to start seizing Greek assets as soon as they stopped paying. This is essentially the same model as a loan shark...sure you can blame the idiot for taking a loan out, but you then also have to point out the loan shark nature of IMF/EU making loans they knew were mathematically impossible to pay off.\n4) The financial world is quaking at this situation because it exposes all the fake/bad math that exists built into our economies. If you acknowledge it in Greece then you also have to acknowledge the very same situations in Portugal, Italy, Mexico..the list goes on and on.\n5) They let Greece go this far with extending promises they knew they couldn't meet because the alternatives of admitting that all their math is off is terrifying. There are many banks that would be insolvent immediately if they have to admit all the bad loans they've made to countries just like Greece. \n\nGet ready for a rough ride world, Greece is the canary in the coal mine. \n\n",
"Could we PLEASE have the top comments sourced? The disinformation in here is astounding. ",
"[NPR article: Nov. 17, 2012](_URL_0_)\n > the Greek National Railroad generates a mere $100 million euro in revenues a year, and pays out $400 million euro in salaries to the employees of the Greek National Railroad. **He'd actually made a calculation that it would be cheaper to put the Greeks who took the trains into taxi cabs than to keep this railroad running.**\n\nThis type of public expenditure, coupled with an almost pathological refusal to pay taxes has had Greece living off of credit and deficit spending. It's like someone being on food stamps and buying a Ferrari. \n\nI don't blame the Germans and other euro zone members for refusing to bail out Greece *again* while they fail to address the fundamental flaws in their economy. Why should they subsidize and bear the burden of Greece's irresponsibility? There are going to be some very hard times ahead until a strong leader tells them that they're going to have to do some very unpleasant things and everyone is going to have to sacrifice. Blame only gets you so far, and while the rich certainly need to contribute, it won't solve the problem.\nEdit: mobile formatting",
"If the Economy of Greece does collapse, what would that mean for the rest of the world?",
"*I'm a bit late to this. Hope this doesn't get buried!*\n\nFor those who are interested in a little bit of a longer read (and obviously not ELI5 - but by no means technical), get the book Boomerang by Michael Lewis. It covers the financial crisis as a whole but also thoroughly explains what exactly went wrong in Greece with a few absolutely mind-blowing examples. \n\nAnyway, here goes a shot at explaining the whole situation, from joining the EU to what's going on right now. \n\nBefore Greece joined the Euro, the EMU (European Monetary Union) had set a number of requirements a country had to meet before they'd be allowed to join the Euro; this to make sure that only financially stable countries could join. Amongst them the maximum 3% budget deficit, but also things like unemployment rate. At that time (mid to late 90's) Greece didn't meet those requirements at all; they were struggling with a pretty serious unemployment rate and had a pretty sizeable budget deficit (meaning they spend more than they get in income), possibly even around the 10-15%. \n\nIn a few years seemingly they managed to have solved this, while in reality they did some 'creative bookkeeping'. In essence, they simply didn't record a lot of expenses and put people on the governments' payroll just to make it all seem well. In reality though, those people got a large sum of money monthly for pretty much doing nothing. The EU frankly failed to notice how Greece went from pretty much being a third-world country in a lot of regards to a financially healthy country like they pretended to be and let this all happen.\n\nTo quickly clarify the 'third-world' part, Greece never was a rich country (always had the lowest GDP per capita of the founding Euro countries) and when you look at things like tax morality or corruption, they score not just as worst in Europe, but also used to rank amongst the worst in the world. When I researched this in 2012, the country was ranked just as bad as China on the Corruption Perception Index ([you can find the data here](_URL_0_)). Not only that, a huge part of their economy depends on tourism and besides that not much else, which also made it a lot harder to compete with the rest of the Euro zone.\n\nNow as Greece managed to join the Euro, a couple of things changed. One of the things was that they could borrow at much lower rates; the rates of the most credit-worthy country in the Euro zone being Germany (I think the interest rates went from somewhere in the 10 to 5%. Now instead of taking responsibility and fixing the financial issues, the Greek leaders saw it as (if I may quote Michael Lewis) \"a stuffed piñata full of free money\". They started ambitious projects which would never logically have any meaningful return on investment which only caused the bubble to grow. At this point (we're talking 2001-2007 here), the Greek were living first world's standards on borrowed money. \n\nOnce the financial crisis started in 2007 and especially once the Euro-crisis (which is a separate part from the banking/housing crisis which started in the United States) started later towards 2010, the world found out what really had been going on in Greece and the bubble bust. It wasn't just a crisis like it was in other western countries, there were fundamental issues underlying the Greek system which means the solution isn't as simply as in other countries (as Europe is slowly but surely climbing out of the crisis as we speak). This meant serious reforms had to be done which takes a lot of political responsibility from the leaders at that time. I'll explain what happened further down this post. \n\nWhy? Well, imagine yourself as a small child getting a candy bar from your parents. Now imagine yourself as your parents take away that same candy bar. How does that make you feel? Pretty bad I reckon. Most people who get this question would actually feel worse than if they hadn't gotten that candy bar in the first place, which is a very important psychological phenomenon (explained by Daniel Kahneman, go read his book \"Thinking, Fast And Slow\" if this interests you). This exact same thing happened to Greece, they enjoyed the feeling of having all those privileges and right now have them stripped away from them, one by one. \n\nThe problem is, these reforms are mandatory. In Greece, you could be eligible for retirement in your mid 50's (compared to 65 in most other European countries) and now this just isn't financially possible any more. Another thing would be how there just wasn't an independent body that would control taxes and catch those not paying up. The list goes on with things that needed to be changed fundamentally but more importantly, will require a shift in mentality from most of the Greek people. This is simply something that does not come easily. \n\nNow another problem is, Greece was not rich to begin with, while they were still buying things at European prices. The effect of this is that a lot of 'common people' struggle to even make ends meet. People literally freeze to death during winters because they get cut from electricity/gas (you can look up the news for this). There's a humanitarian crisis going on but because the country is still in massive financial problems, there isn't much that can be done besides stopping the bleeding momentarily.\n\nAnyway, the politicians in the country didn't really want to admit that this was all their doing in front of the big public and lose their voters (and to be fair, it was mostly their predecessors' doing) so instead they blamed the European Union for things like putting them in an humiliating position or for any cuts in general. If you listen to current PM Tsipras' speeches you will see this exact thing; shoving pretty much all the blame for the position the country is currently in towards the other countries. Right now there's a massive anti-European movement in Greece which just flat out refuses to comply with any mandatory reforms, which is what's causing the problems right now. \n\nJumping slightly back in time, with the elections of last year Syriza is now the party in power and they are the embodiment of the anti-European voices in the country. Tsipras has played the game hard trying to get Greece out of these reforms, but their creditors won't budge. *If you ask me, with reason. If Greece were to ever become a stable country within the Euro zone, they will still need to keep making reforms to make sure the tax morality and corruption is on-par with the rest of Europe. They also still need to fix numerous things like retirement age (which is where part of the debate right now is on about). If they don't, it's just waiting for something like this to happen again.* Tsipras made serious promises during the election period saying he'd end all the cuts, but it puts him in a very difficult position because he has to come to an agreement with the creditors. Now both sides are on an impasse, and Tsipras appears that he doesn't want to take responsibility for either a grexit (Greece+Exit) which can cause serious instability for years or for another round of cuts which would lose him all the trust people had in him. Therefore he is giving the voice to the people, which may just as well be 'the death of him'.\n\nThe problem with the referendum is that it isn't on neutral terms. The question given will be \"Do you accept the reforms/cuts?\" which doesn't tell the whole story. If Greece were to vote no, it's pretty much over and out for them and the Euro - which is the part Tsipras doesn't tell. Instead, he publicly condemns the reforms and recommends all the voters to vote \"no\" in the referendum. That's also why the head of the Eurogroup, Dutch minister of finance Jeroen Dijsselbloem said that even if Greece would vote \"yes\", they strongly doubt the ability of the Syriza-led government to actually carry out those reforms. \n\nRight now, the situation is unclear. There is a payment due to the IMF tomorrow but if they cannot pay, there's still another month for them to try and pay those debts off before they default. It's pretty much waiting for what the referendum will bring and if Tsipras is willing to carry out the will of the people if they vote \"yes\" or if he might possibly resign as PM. Right now, it seems unlikely that the Eurogroup will want to negotiate with him again, especially on his terms. The Greek people will have the vote; which poison will they pick? Find out next week!\n\n**TLDR: The Greek fooled the EU, lived on high standards with borrowed money, once the bubble bust got privileges like pensions cut over the past years which seriously hurt the population and together with politicians not taking their responsibility caused an anti-European mood. Right now we're at an impasse waiting for what the referendum brings and the reactions from Syriza and the EU.**\n\n\n",
" > There are people who are willing to do anything to stop any competition.\n\n[More quotes](_URL_0_)",
"Is greece really loving opulent lifestyle with their high pensions and social programs? Can someone give me comparison of how much they are leeching compared to other European countries? ",
"Please ELI5 why killing jobs and cutting pensions is supposed to be the only responsible thing to do.",
"Sorry. I've yet to see a good answer. Most the answers I have seen even fail to mention Syriza, why the Greeks are voting for them (the huge rise in employment etc) and contain lots of bias against socialism. I can't give a good answer to this but await one.",
"So what happens if Greece goes under?",
"ELI5: What happens if Greece just tells the world to screw themselves and refuses to pay their debt? Would there have to be a war?",
"I'm /outoftheloop/ here. What is Tsipras trying to do that all the the other people are just NOPING all around?",
"Juncker and company are now only interested in a political change. That is, Tsipras out. They have finally understood, that their austerity measures produced no effect in Greece and that the current government won't bend over to the Troika. Read [Krugman's article](_URL_0_).",
"I am a very well traveled Greek (Lived in Greece for 18 years) with mixed opinions in regards to the matter that have studied and heard multiple sides of the story. I currently live in U.S. so I get to watch different news outlets and hear different perspectives. \n\nThe Greeks have a different culture and understanding of the world then most people. They are very social people and have a strong appreciation for family. Family and religion(at least for some part) for most Greeks means a lot. \n\nThere was a big instability caused by mainly the involvement of U.S. during cold war in the 1960s. There has been documents and proof that the U.S. government assisted in the establishment of a military dictatorship in Greece. (_URL_0_) \n\nI would pinpoint this dictatorship as the start of the crisis but also the start of the modernization of Greece. There have been extreme loans taken on the name of Greece that are still being paid off. These loans were partially used to build roads, schools and modernize Greece. However the big majority of the loans were used to hire public servants. \n\nThis period of time created the public servant culture. According to law it is illegal for the government to fire a public servant unless he has been involved into criminal activity. That means that working as a public servant is a very stable job. It is a dream job for most people. Hence the public sector exploded in size over the past few years. \n\nIt was often used by politicians to attract votes by promising positions in the public sector. But as you would expect hiring people that you can't fire to do nothing can be sometimes a problem. For the most part the public sector is very strong and stable but there is bad organization for it that in some cases there is surplus of workers in one place and lack of workers in another. \n\nGreece is a very socialist country regardless of who is being elected to lead. Regardless of social position the values of socialism are widely accepted. The idea of giving from one's surplus or wage to help the poor, seniors, handicapped have free education, free healthcare is viewed upon strongly. There is a strong sense of empathy between Greeks, and I haven't met a person from Greece that would disagree with the value of free education, healthcare etc. \n\nThe main income of Greece is from tourism. Farming used to be a big sector that has been slowly dying. \n\nA President of Greece (namely _URL_1_) with his party, have faked data to join the European Union because they saw a benefit from the common currency and boost in tourism. \n\nEuropean Union since then with different imposed rules have been slowly killing the economy of Greece by weakening other sectors of the economy. Farming has been slowly dying because according the European Union Greece is allowed to export a specific amount of tomatoes, peaches etc etc. As a result the surplus would often be bought by European Union for almost nothing and be left to rot and thrown away. This created a productivity slowdown. Moreover the European Union, would often pay farmers to plant Acacia in their farms as part of an ecological movement. Acacia is a very weird tree that has very long and deep roots and often destroys the area where it is planted because it is very expensive to remove. As a result big fields that used to yield lot of fruits etc are now useless. The farmers that were short-sighted got a big amount of money that ended up wasting around and left without a job. Farming was more or less destroyed by the rules of European Union and Greece had to import food from nearby countries (Like Turkey). \n\nCorruption in Greece is big. Not as big as in many other countries but there is a lot of \"white-collar\" crime. Big companies from Canada and US pay off politicians to provide with public available land and resources with tax free zones that end up ruining the environment driving tourism away from some areas. \n\nThe Greeks are people that like to enjoy the today and often ignore the consequences of tomorrow. They can be very obnoxious and many of them would appear to be spoiled. There are always exceptions to the rules of course. \n\nAs a result of all of the above, the people leaving the country side and coming to big cities with increased poverty for better \"opportunities\". The government loaning money to support a big part of the public sector and keep everyone happy. The slowly dying economy it was kinda expected for us to come to this point. \n\nHowever we also know to never give up and always keep fighting. Our values are very different than most of the countries. \n\nWhat makes me the most sad is that there is so much propaganda against Greece in all media. We are proud of our heritage despite our shortcomings and we are very friendly towards tourists. Our country was born with a big bloodshed against the Ottoman empire and every Greek sees in himself a little bit of revolutionary and as a Greek and from what I know is happening in Greece we are happy to fight back the people that forced a loan on us. \n\nAs additional information: the reason we dispute the loan is because during WW2, Germany \"took\" loans of huge amounts that destroyed the economy at the time but since recovered. They never paid off these \"loans\" even due to the principle of continuity of Government or country. \n\nGreece has a long way of reforms in regards to organizing the public sector. ",
"ELI5 how America can go trillions of dollars in debt and no one bats an eye but Greece goes a fraction of that in debt and everything is going to shit?\n\nAlso how much did Germany owe Greece in WWII reparations? Was all that paid off? ",
"They spent more money on government entitlement programs than they collected in taxes. This is the basis of socialism and why it doesn't work. Eventually, you will spend more than you make, more people collecting than people working and paying taxes. This new majority of people living off entitlements will vote for those who promise to continue these costly programs, driving them further into debt. It's not a \"rich vs poor\", \"decade old financial crisis\", or \"people evading taxes\" issue, it's implementing fundamentally flawed policies for years.",
"Here's a visual I posted a month ago to give you a better perspective of the amount of debt. \n\n_URL_0_",
"Now Putin can give them some Roebels.\n\nWhile he'll make sure **not** to fix the economy over there,\n\nSo the Greek politicians will have to listen to him !\n\nI bet he can't wait to build a military base in Greece, strategically it's an even better then the Krym",
"I've posted it before, my Greece debt analogy:\n\n\nYou meet your SO who has a horrible credit rating and has also maxed out all their credit cards before you met.\n\n \nYou ask your SO if they're just marrying you for your money. \"No, no, no.\" Your SO insists and you believe them because you think your in love with your SO and make a great match.\n \n\nThen you marry them, which Mom & Dad have their doubts about. Your SO applies for joint credit cards, backed by your credit rating, which you agree to provided they pay you back and they agree. Unknown to you is that your SO has also significant baggage from past relationships (hidden in the form of large debts).\n\n\nYou and your SO's rich friends convince your SO to go out to buy some useless stuff, that it won't cost all that much, and it will be lots of fun. This idea is encouraged by the media. With the rich friends and your SO not understanding how much $1 means this leads to problems further down the road.\n\n \nThe marriage continues without a problem for about a decade. Then your SO maxes out the new credit cards buying stuff they don't need and complain to you about having to pay you back with money they don't have because they forgot to tell you about all the debt they had and still have.\n\n\nYou, Mom and Dad pay off the credit card and other debt and cut up the credit cards then proceed to give your SO an allowance.\n\n \nYour SO has a garage sale selling items at a drastically discounted rate to try to make some money and the whole neighbourhood comes over and many other people to buy something that would cost much more at the store. The local gossip makes sure the entire town knows about this.\n\n \nYou won't let your SO apply for bankruptcy because that would also affect your credit rating.\n\n \nYour SO doesn't like being treated like a child after acting like a child by ruining two peoples credit rating and lying about their intentions and starts complaining about you, Mom & Dad to your kids and the media.\n\n \nYour kids ask your SO to buy them something. Your SO replies that we can't afford that right now. Your kids, being used to getting everything they want, have a full blown temper tantrum, they start stomping around throwing stuff at the walls and screaming \"That's not fair, we want it NOW! Why can't we have it NOW?\". Your SO blames you, Mom & Dad for not being able to buy your kids what they want.\n\n \nThe local gossips, who didn't care to listen to your SO complain, lavish attention on the kids because they're more exciting that your SO. The local gossips are such drama queens. The rest of the country watches with idle curiosity because its entertaining and its not their problem, yet.\n\n \nTo conclude: \n\n \nYour SO = Greece's government\nFeels like they're being patronized and is mad at you for not letting them declare bankruptcy.\n\n \nYou = EU\nAre disappointed that your SO doesn't understand the concept of money nor the responsibility of it.\n\n \nMarriage = Greece joins EU\n\n \nYou and your SO's rich friends = Germany and France\nComplain that you're no fun anymore now that you have no money.\n\n \nThe media: Western financial institution influence (Wall St., the S & P, Goldman Sachs,...) \nMakes fun of your SO and their situation.\n\n \nThe local gossips = the news media (ie. attention whores)\nPlaying up the drama between you, your SO, your kids and Mom & Dad just to get attention and they have nothing better to do.\n\n \nMom & Dad = IMF\n\nMom & Dad think that your SO is a mess and the marriage will not last. They're trying really hard not to say \"I told you so.\"\n \nAllowance = Austerity measures\n \nGarage sale = Greece's tourist economy\n\nGoing out of business, maybe, sale.\n \nNeighbours = EU country citizens\n\nOnly want stuff from you if it's cheap.\n \nOther people = non-EU country citizens\n\nOnly want stuff from you if it's cheap and exotic.\n \nYour kids = Greek citizens\n\nHave a temper tantrum because they don't like being poor and can't understand how their parents let it get to this point.\n \nTemper tantrum = Riots\n \nThe rest of the Country = Non EU member countries\n",
"[This paper](_URL_0_) is a fairly clear, simple, comprehensive and unbiased summary of what's happening in Greece. It's written by a professor of economics at Chicago, who should be more knowledgeable and able to avoid bias than the average redditor.",
"I love how no one in this thread puts any blame on the EU for lending so much money to an un-credit worthy country. \n\nRemember a few years ago when we had a little mortgage meltdown? Yeah, people shouldn't have borrowed have borrowed so much money. BUT, banks should not have lent money to those people either. AND, between the average American consumer and the average American loan officer, which one should be more knowledgeable about credit worthiness. Blame goes both ways. ",
"People say that Greece wants to devalue it's currency to make exports cheaper, but it can't do this because it's on the Euro, and it's not allowed to print more Euro. But, why can't it just sell it's exports for less? Wouldn't that have the same effect?",
"Greece, Spain and Italy are all 'pigs of the trough' meaning they take a lot of money out of the EU and put fuck all back in. Greece is corrupt as all hell and no one pays taxes over there. They don't like to work and there is a bit of a joke amongst Europeans that the retirement age in Greece is 15.\n",
"ELI5: How does this effect me, as a regular American?",
"\"We need money!\"\n\nHere you go!\n\n\"Thanks, now we need more!\"\n\nHere you go!\n\n\"Where do you keep getting all this money?\"\n\nFrom you!\n\n\"Oh no....\"",
"I tried to make my own topic but got auto shut down :(\n\nELI5: Why are all these greeks just now trying to take their money out of the banks?\n\nI mean the writing has been on the wall for some time now. You would think that the average person would have seriously considered withdrawing what they could a year ago, certainly a month ago, yet there are massive lines and protests outside closed banks going on... If my country has similar problems slowly creeping its way I would have remove my savings a long long time ago, but apparently no one did, not even after the election? Am I missing something?\n",
" Imagine that every country is stacking blocks to see who can have the most blocks on their tower. Greece didn't have alot of blocks to begin with so they borrowed some from other countries. The other countries said that was fine as long as greece gave back the other blocks as fast as they could. Greece stacked the blocks on their tower but found that their tower was still small in comparison to the other countries.The other countries were worried that if Greece's tower fell over, it might knock theirs down so they made sure Greece could keep building on their tower by giving them more and more blocks. Greece was still no closer to having the biggest tower AND they still had to give the other countries some blocks back once they could afford to.\n \n Things are looking bad for Greece, they need to give back the blocks and find a way to make the tower gap smaller. Greece decided to get blocks from a different country to return to the first country. This made the first country that greece borrowed from really big and increased the gap in tower size compared to Greece. Greece realized that as long as they were building their tower with the same kind of blocks as everyone else they would never catch up to the other countries.\n\n This lead to the re-introduction of the Drachma! A kind of block just for Greece! Greece knew they could slowly close the gap in tower size as long as they used the drachmas. Sure, the drachmas weren't as big as the other blocks but Greece knew they could eventually make their very own drachma blocks bigger than ever before. \n\n Alot of residents in Greece became scared because if they started using drachmas, all of their original blocks would be rendered useless. This meant that all the progress someone had made with the older blocks would be for nothing and they would have to start their tower over again entirely. Greece is voting whether or not they should use the drachma blocks or stay with the original blocks.\n\nTL;DR Greece is going to vote on whether or not they use their own currency. (to refinance their own economy)\n",
"This is the best ELI5 article on it that I've read.\n\n[The Greek Financial Crisis isn't sexy, but knowing about it is](_URL_0_)\n\n > \"When Greece joined the euro in 2001, confidence in the Greek economy grew and a big economic boom followed. But after the 2008 financial crisis, everything changed. Every country in Europe entered a recession, but because Greece was one of the poorest and most indebted countries, it suffered the most. The unemployment rate reached 28 percent in 2013, worse than the United States suffered during the Great Depression.\n\n > If Greece wasn't in the euro, it could have boosted its economy by printing more of its currency, the drachma. This would have lowered the value of the drachma in international markets, making Greek exports more competitive. It would also lower domestic interest rates, encouraging domestic investment and making it easier for Greek debtors to service their debts.\n\n > But Greece shares its monetary policy with the rest of Europe. And the German-dominated European Central Bank has given Europe a monetary policy that's about right for Germany, but so tight that it has thrust Greece into a depression.\n\n > So Greece is squeezed between a crushing debt burden — 177 percent of GDP, about twice the level in the United States — and a deep depression that makes it difficult to raise the money it needs to make its debt payments.\n\n > For the last five years, Greece has been negotiating with European Commission, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund (dubbed \"the Troika\") for financial assistance with its debt burden. Since 2010, the Troika has been providing Greece with loans in exchange for tax hikes and spending cuts.\n\n > Rich European nations such as Germany believe they're simply insisting that Greece live within its means. But the austere terms of the bailouts have caused resentment among Greeks and contributed to crisis-level unemployment and poverty. In January, they elected a new left-wing prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, who promised to reject the previous bailout deal and secure a more favorable agreement.\n\n > But he has very little leverage. In 2010, Greek debt was widely held by private banks, so a Greek default could trigger a financial panic. But since then, this debt has been consolidated in the hands of rich European governments, greatly reducing the risk of a financial crisis if Greece defaults.\n\n > So Greece faces a hard choice: it can accept the Troika's demands for further austerity. Or it can defy the Troika, which would likely lead to a default on Greek debt and possibly a Greek exit from the euro. The Greek government is holding a referendum on July 5 to let voters choose between these bad options.\n\n > In the meantime, the Greek economy is melting down. Knowing that Greek euro deposits could soon be transformed into devalued drachma deposits, Greek people have been rushing to ATMs to withdraw as much cash as they can. That has forced the Greek government to close the banks and limit withdrawals to €60 per day.\"",
"[Here's a simple primer](_URL_0_) by a Chicago Booth economist that explains the crisis in Greece in a very elegant way. \n\nIt essentially walks you through everything that has happened over the last few years, and explains the crisis from different actors' angles.",
"If there were no debt interest from the beginning, Would have Greece already been able to pay back their debt? (Bonus: Same question if the debt was simply inflation adjusted.)",
"So what happens to Greece and its citizens when the banks run out of money? ",
"I think one thing the media is totally glossing over is the destructive tax policies that deepened the crisis to the point of no return. During the Great Recession, the Greek government enacted tax policy that mirrors the Bush-era tax cuts. Deep cuts for the wealthy, and minor cuts for the middle class. However, as the crisis deepened, instead of raising taxes on the wealthy they put the tax burden on the middle class. So you had these stories of people paying nearly half of their monthly income in taxes. The problem isn't the taxes themselves, nor the social safety net they support. The problem is Reganomics.",
"Looking back on US financial markets seeing huge losses yesterday (Monday), why is it that United States markets reacted so negatively to Greece coming closer to default if there really isn't much involvement in the Greek economy? Why would investors panic so much if it really doesn't matter directly to US companies should Greece return to the drachma? To me, it seems overblown and a severe overreaction for US investors to see a default as a significant blow to the world economy. I understand the fears of the \"domino effect\" that could lead other debt-ridden countries to follow suit, it just seems to be a gross overreaction since Greece is not a dominant power in the global economy.",
"so what will happen to Greece and it's people?",
"What would be the downside to the EU just 'forgiving' the debt, creating Euros by fiat, and paying all creditors? \n\nPerhaps followed with a strongly worded memo saying \"We will never do this again so don't nobody get any ideas\" while glaring at Spain?",
"ELI5: What does this whole issue mean to the average citizen of Greece? e.g., If I was a citizen and I have $100k in savings, is that all worthless now?",
"What will the impact to the UK and rest of Europe be if A) Greece are declared Bankrupt and B) They are not declared bankrupt?",
"ELI5: What would happen if to Europe if they kicked Greece out. Would it actually affect people in Europe or not?",
"ELI5: What are they voting on in the referendum?\n\nI was under the impression that they were voting on whether or not to accept the next installment of payment of the bailout money, along with the new conditions it imposes.\n\nBut the deadline to accept has already passed. Are they essentially voting on whether or not they want to accept the proposal that is no longer on the table? Or is this meant to be more of a \"guidance vote\" or \"opinion poll\" so the government knows whether to default and give up negotiating or whether to continue to negotiate and accept the new conditions?",
"What exactly are the terms the IMF demand. I think I read somewhere it includes a 25% sales tax. Even if this is not true, no one seems to report what the exact terms are.",
"Could Greece be annexed to pay off its debt? What would happen then?",
"A serious / unbiased response to this question, please: What does the Golden Dawn party think of the crisis? What would their solution be?",
"Can someone please explain this issue from the start? How it started? how greece effects the Eurozone? what could this trigger?",
"ELI5: Why Greek economy, which is apparently in trouble, can pay it's citizens 700€ minimum wage (and appropriately adjusted average wage), while countries which have stable economies like Poland have < 500€ minimum wage? Shouldn't Greek minimum wages drop very much below the levels of stable economies?",
"What are the consequences to Greece if they refuse to pay the money back? is the money just written off as a loss/bad investment ?",
"ELI5: If Greece were to leave the European Union what happens to all the immigrants seeking asylum? \n\n",
"E: Are their rational arguments for the 'Greek side\" of the crisis? Meaning, how do the Greeks rationalize their situation as not the result of their choices and government but the result of something else? How can/do the Greeks view themselves as victims?\n\nI ask because I haven't heard the Greek side beyond not wanting cut pensions/programs and 'cultural differences'. ",
"What would happen if Greece voted yes or no?",
"In the worst case scinerio of economic crisis like this, I worry about the minority groups in Greece...I know Greece is by in large a homogeneous society but are there any ethnic tensions rising as a result of this crisis and if shit hits the fan who is the most vulnerable? ",
"Now that the IMF seems to be suggesting Tspiras was right:\n\n1 If this is what the IMF believe then why have they kept schtum until now, given how really quite useful it would have been for them to have said something along these lines a week ago?\n\n2 If this is what the IMF believe then why are they not willing to renegotiate their own credit agreement with Greece on that basis? Why could they have not at very least asked for their $1.6 bil repayment to be deferred for a week to allow the referrendum to take place before default?",
"I am going to Greece in one week, already payed through AirBnB the accomodation and I also have payed the transport months ago (before all this crap happened). \n\nWhat is the worst I can expect as a tourist going to one of their islands? I will be getting to Zakynthos by ferry. I am an EU citizen and don't have or require a passport at this moment. \n\nI know I should have cash prepared.. what else?",
"Hypothetically, if the US were so inclined, could the US 'buy' Greece (i think this is essentially buying Greece's debts?) And become Greece's owner? ",
"Well 5 years on, and they still won't pay their taxes... lack of serious reforms and enforcement.\n\nAsk anyone who has visited Greece, how hard it is to get a receipt.\n\nGreece has eaten their cake, eaten everyone elses cake, and is now asking for more cake as they are addicted.\n\nUnfortunately like all western culture, its the poor/lower class that has to pay. Everyone with money has taken their money out of Greece years ago.\n\nSure we can blame their high public wages and early pensioners but they're now taking 100% of the punishment for 10-20% of the wastage",
"Question(s): What happens to Greece if they'll be out of the Eurozone? What are the chances? Which countries will be affected? Also, is there a way out of this?",
" 1. Is it true that in Greece you get a guaranteed government pension of 110% x your final salary?\n 2. Is it true Greece productivity per worker is 40% less than Spain and Italy?\n 3. How were the banks allowed to get away with shoveling that much debt into Greece, collecting a decade of profits, and then handing their debts on to the Euro Central Banks and hitting the exits a few years ago?\n 4. Why are the same incompetents in charge of Europe? How has Christine Lagarde kept her job?\n 5. Is France next?\n 6. How long will German taxpayers put up with this? I don't understand why Merkel is so popular when she was so easily sucked in by the big banks to lump all this debt on the German voter. Can someone explain this?\n 7. Why were Greece allowed in the Euro in the first place after they got caught cooking their books during the application process?\n 8. How can Europe continue as a monetary union when countries cant deflate their own currencies? This will simply keep happening.\n\n",
"If there is a yes vote, what can/will Greece do differently so that they are not in the exact same position they are in now 1-2 years from now?",
"ELI5 : With today's referendum, what will happen to Greek citizen (living in the country and outside)?",
"How can the leaders of Greece be saying that the terms of the bailout are humiliating when they have defaulted on one loan and have gotten several loans in the past? From my perspective it seems like they've been loaned money tons of times, haven't paid it back, and are acting like they are entitled to terms that they want. I don't know much about how lending money on this scale works but it seems like they have very little ground to stand on.",
"ELI5: Why would Greece say no to the countries aid?\n",
"Where were the terms for the bailout by the creditors?",
"I don't get all this economic stuff. So - What will happen if Greece simply can't pay back it's dephts or is unwilling to do so? I guess the creditors can't confiscate stuff as it would be if a private person goes insolvent.",
"Here's a pretty straightforward analysis of the Greek (European) crisis from _URL_1_ - _URL_0_. Gave me a good idea of what is the issue and where we are right now.\n\nSorry if it was already posted. Couldn't find it in a search.",
"So the Greek parties (minus KKE and GD) just put together a deal to present tomorrow. Among the terms is that the defense spending be kept intact. Why's this one of the top priorities? What exactly is there to defend from?",
"Found this infographic that really simply explains the whole Greece Crisis, from the start right up to the referendum result and gives clear indications of what might happen if Greece leaves the euro/stays in. Really helped me to understand! _URL_0_ ",
"A good summary of Greece after the referendum and analysis of the possible outcomes and geo-pol ramifications\n[_URL_1_]\n[_URL_0_]\n",
"ELI5: isn't America in debt too? And had a deficit basically forever? How is this different? What am I missing? Why is Greece \"in trouble\" but America is okay?",
"Here's a good video breaking down what's going on and the potential repercussions for Greece, Europe and the rest of the world:\n\n_URL_0_",
"ELI5: So looking at the gross GDP of the world (2013 numbers) show to be roughly $75 trillion USD. The debt owed by Greece is roughly $353 billion USD.\n\nWhy does a country whose total debt accounts for .47% of the worlds GDP have such a large effect on the world's economy? That seems like a drop in the bucket."
]
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[],
[],
[],
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[
"http://www.businessinsider.com/the-secret-goldman-sachs-greece-deal-thats-described-as-a-very-sexy-story-between-two-sinners-2012-3?IR=T",
"http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/greek-debt-crisis-how-goldman-sachs-helped-greece-to-mask-its-... | |
bivoah | why ripe fruits taste better even though they aren’t getting more stuff from the plant | When bananas ripen they turn brown and aren’t attached to the tree anymore so why do they taste sweeter? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bivoah/eli5_why_ripe_fruits_taste_better_even_though/ | {
"a_id": [
"em3evz3",
"em3f8wu"
],
"score": [
13,
2
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"text": [
"There are actually two types of fruit, **climacteric** **fruit** and **nonclimacteric fruit**. **Nonclimacteric** **fruit** will not ripen off of the tree at all— they depend on their connection to their tree to build up sugar. Fruits such as citrus, berries, and melons are nonclimacteric and best when picked as ripe as possible, because while they can soften and develop a smell, they won't get any riper (sweeter) when detached from the plant. **Climacteric** **fruit**, on the other hand, responds dramatically to the plant hormone *ethylene*. Once triggered by ethylene, ripening enzymes break down stored starch into sugar. Fun fact: wrapping unripe fruits in a paper bag with an ethylene-producing ripe fruit traps and concentrates the ethylene in an enclosed space, and that's why fruits get riper when you do this!",
"This is more biology than chemistry (biochemistry, really), but basically fruits are made of plant cells, and plant cells have this hard, rigid structure called cellulose, along with several other structural proteins. They also store sugars as starch, because its way more efficient than storing it as sugars (sugars we detect as sweet when we eat them, starches we don't, even though its the same material overall just in a different arrangement). Fruits still live for quite a while off the stem and enzymes, special proteins designed to make reactions happen faster, are still breaking down starch into sugar to make it sweeter and breaking down structural molecules to make them softer."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] | |
emoacm | how are certain plants "indoor plants"? don't all plants need sunlight to survive? | in some cases, certain planted pots are advertised as needing none to very little sunlight and just water to grow/survive. How is this possible? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/emoacm/eli5_how_are_certain_plants_indoor_plants_dont/ | {
"a_id": [
"fdpzagz",
"fdpzroe"
],
"score": [
2,
22
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"text": [
"Well, sunlight is just a more expansive mix of different wavelengths of light. Certain plants can tolerate a more limited spectrum of light. Furthermore, you can buy lights that have a larger spectrum than normal light bulbs.\n\nAll plants need light, sunlight is best, but not the only source of available light.",
"Many plants have evolved to be “understory” plants that live close to the ground, in the shade of layers of larger plants above them. This is a viable niche in the wild, and those plants are then also suited to many indoor situations."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[]
] |
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