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How did we arrive at the number 3.141592653581... for pi? | You can approximate a circle's circumference by drawing a polygon that barely fits inside it and a polygon that barely fits outside it and calculating their perimeters. You can keep making this estimate better and better by drawing polygons with more and more sides. Archimedes used 96-sided polygons to estimate pi.Take... |
How come when you are hungry your stomach feels nauseous? It seems like a design flaw that when you're hungry, you don't feel like eating anything. | When you haven't eaten for a while the liver starts to produce glucagon, this breaks signals the body to break down muscle tissue to turn into glucose so it can continue to initiate the Kreb's cycle to process fat into energy as well. So if you're so hungry you're feeling nauseous, then you're destroying muscle! Go eat... |
Why does it seem that they can't predict the weather very well? | Given how incredibly complex weather systems are, we actually do do a pretty good job of predicting weather. We are getting better all the time with better algorithms and computing power, but it's always been such a massive undertaking that it was never going to be as easy as one might think it could be. Check out The ... |
What would have happened that is so bad if we didn't bail out the banks? | Shortest answer I can come up with: Lack of available credit would crush the world as we know it. While you as a bottom level consumer may pay cash for everything, everything else runs on credit. The grocery store buys groceries on credit. The farmer buys seed and equipment on credit. Everyone pays their employees on c... |
Who pays for damages if the person responsible can not pay? | > Or would the car owner have to pay for it themselves. Bingo. Though you'd possibly get your own insurance to pay out if you thought the potentially increased premiums were worth it. |
How do people survive direct lightning strikes at all when lightning is often over 50,000F? | A drop of boiling water isn't hot for long. A hot spring is hot for as long as you are in. |
Why are barnacles considered crustaceans, yet more closely resemble mollusks? | The similarities you've noticed in barnacles and mollusk are due to a phenomenon called [covergent evolution]. They both evolved from very different life forms, but they're exploiting the same [ecological nitche]. The very same adaptations that benefit one species would likely help the other because their modes of life... |
What seems to be the best method for raising a dog? | Consistency and repetition are probably the most important part of training any animal . Make sure you use the same posture and tone when giving verbal commands, and associate those commands with a hand signal too. I prefer to use sounds instead of words. Repeat these commands consistently, and reward good behavior con... |
Why is only one side of a video interview on TV delayed? Why can't the delayed side use the feed the Live side is using? | There is a delay on both sides. To both sides it looks like they're responding right away, but the other person is slow. |
When I breathe on a window it gets foggy; so why does my car heater de-fog my windshield? | Your car windscreen gets cold - cold surfaces cause the water vapour in your breath to condense. Blowing warm air onto it can help the condensed water evaporate again. An additional thing here is that if you've got the air conditioning on, it'll be blowing dry air onto the windscreen too, rather than the moist air that... |
Why is it so hard to draw or animate hands? | The biggest problem with drawing is people who are inexperienced often draw what they think they see rather what they actually see. Hands are exceptionally difficult because if you look at a hand, it doesn't look like that big of a task to draw and artists often underestimate it. However, of course, the hand is incred... |
How do film makers prevent a camera lens from getting wet and water drop lets forming on the lens when filming a wet and chaotic scene? | A special lens cover that spins the water off is available, I don't remember the brand though. |
Why, in both providing housing and places of business, is there so much new building instead of restoring all the empty and boarded up ones? | It's not a UK only thing. There's a chain of groceries here that has now -on 4 sites that I know of- built a newer, bigger, store directly across the street from an existing one. Here on the U.S., it at least partly has to do with changing fire codes and building codes. If you renovate that extensively, you have to bri... |
can 2 people have at most 2^23 different children? | Nope it's way more complicated than that because the chromosomes can cross over and mix. Chromosomes don't behave as discrete blocks, you can a single chromosome that is a mix of both mum and dad DNA. [Hopefully this picture can help explain]. They don't just cross over once, but many many times, making the chance of g... |
Can someone please explain what diesel runaway is? | Its already explained what is happening in a runaway diesel, but here's a method to try and deal with it: You'll know its running away when turning the engine off doesn't stop it revving, it'll get faster and faster and smoke will be pouring out of it, often to the point you can't see the car. Get inside, apply the han... |
How we know we see the same colors | We know the colours of human eye pigments so we have good confidence that our light sensors are all tuned to sense colours in the same way. We are aware of some minor, rare oddities but any undetected major differences would have to be very rare to have been missed. If you're talking about how redness looks to you in y... |
What exactly happens between the director of a movie finishing filming, and the movie coming to the cinema? it seems like a long time. | The production crew will be doing things like editing the shot footage into a coherent story, mixing and syncing sound recordings to the video, they'll re-record dialogue if it is needed. They'll also do all the CGI stuff. While all this is taking place, the studio will also do up promotional posters, negotiate with a ... |
Why do people only receive a portion of what they actually won in the lottery? | In some countries a lottery winner gets all the prize. The only reason for reduction is multiple winners, in which case the full value is split evenly. In others, taxes are due on the prize. Given the sums involved, these will pretty much always be the country's highest tax rate. Some countries allow disbursement to ta... |
Would it be possible for an average person to safely land a plane by talking to somebody on the ground? | A friend of mine's father landed an ultralight with no other training than Microsoft Flight Simulator about 15 years ago . The story : He bought the ultralight from a friend, who taught him enough to be able to load it onto a trailer/unload it when he arrived. The guy warned him not to try to fly until he'd taken lesso... |
If the Fukishima Nuclear Rods are such a huge problem - Why can't we just send them to space? | The problem isn't with the rods themselves; it's easy to deal with nuclear rods. The problem is that their storage containers broke, along with some of the rods themselves.The cost to send something to space is in the order of thousands of dollars per pound. It is much cheaper to store it in secure areas on Earth. Addi... |
Does a glass (phone) screen get weaker every time it is dropped? | The glass screen doesn't have hit points that get deducted each time it's dropped, it just has to make a saving throw. Pass/fail type of situation. |
Why does coloring your hand with black sharpie and using a camera flash shock you? | Maybe it's because the Flux of voltage causes an arc of electricity through the flash? The sharpie is just more conductive as the alcohol that is released into the air provides a better pathway than the air does. |
Why does cloning violate the morality code of researchers and scientists? | As far as I know, some people believe that moral judgment could be evaluated in objectives, means and circumstances. It is considered that you could have good objectives but if the means to pursue them are not good your actions are not good too. Cloning a person could be a good objective but the means to make such thin... |
How has SRS not been banned for sub invasion and deliberate downvoting? | It'd probably set a precedent that would lead to most meta subs being banned. Voting/commenting in linked subs isn't something unique to SRS, it happens in any sub that centres around linking to other reddit threads, even though they all officially decry it.> Just a thought that pooped into my head. Was it a very shitt... |
With the moon's gravity factoring all the world's waters, why doesn't it seem like it signifigantly changes anything else? | You can't notice it. The oceans are relatively thin when looked at on a global scale, and the tide differences are also even more miniscule. |
When they say the stock market lost 20 Billion dollars in a day, where does that money go? | It's more correct to say the stock market lost $20 Billion in **value**. The $20B figure comes from the difference between what the stock prices were, and what they are now. The prices are mostly set by the amount they last sold for. So the money that was represented by the $20B is still there, in the accounts of the p... |
How come there are 18 year old soldiers but no 18 year old cops | I'm going to say it's because police officers generally work alone and in the military 18 year olds will have a few more people in direct contact with them. Basically, the police officer needs to be older and more mature because they work alone, military, not as much. |
If Louis CK asked the women for permission to do what he did, why is he in trouble right now? | From what I saw, they didn't agree They laughed because they thought he was joking, then he just did it. |
How come if I touch the side of my eyelid, I can see a spot in my vision appear on the other side? | Both of your eyes are taking in feedback from the environment constantly, open or closed. If you cover or block light coming into one of your eyes, open or closed, it will darken your overall vision. Unless I'm misunderstanding the question. |
Why I find baby animals adorable but feel absolutely nothing for babies? | It should be the other way around. Maybe you're so repulsed by babies, because they cry and shit and you really don't want one, that it's over-rided your instincts to love and nurture a cute little baby. But cute animals have repulsed you that way, they don't cry and shit themselves, so you still feel the natural insti... |
How do traffic signs that inform commuters of how much traffic is ahead actually work? | Highways have sensors, camera, etc. that can be used to determine average speeds, and thus travel times also Google, Waze, etc. have data that might also be fed to agencies controlling traffic and all the data get processed to determine travel times. It can only go on current conditions and maybe some algorithms that t... |
What happens when your body "rejects" an organ? | Your immune system sees the organ, recognizes it as a foreign object, thinks it's an invader, and attacks it. |
Is it really dangerous/harmful heating food in a microwave? | When you are boiling water, there are these little bubbles forming on imperfections of the container and minerals dissolved in water itself. If you get really clear water in a reasonably clear glass, then bubbles won't form and energy won't be released. However, a little shake, or putting anything in the water will mak... |
If Saudi Arabia is an ally of the west why don't terrorists attack them? | In addition to the excellent points about the terrorism that does occur in Saudi it's worth bearing in mind that a great deal of funding FOR terrorism comes from Saudi Arabia. Even people who want strict adherence to medieval social policies want to be able to buy modern explosives and arms to blow people up.They have ... |
Florida. Why does everyone hate on Florida so much?? | It's due to some law Florida has about arrests. Most of the info is public so you can see all the stupid shit people do. Probably also related to all the meth and gators but who knows.I guess because a lot of insane shit happens there. We're always hearing shit like "Florida man bites off alligator's head then proceeds... |
Are oilfields huge dinosaur graveyards? | Contrary to popular belief, most oil isn't actually from dinosaurs. The vast majority of oil was created from plankton and algae. There might be a few molecules of dinosaur but not much.No, the majority of petroleum is made from the fossilised remains of plankton and algae, altered by immense heat and pressure along wi... |
What purpose does Fort Knox serve, since the United States no longer backs the dollar with gold? | It is a reserve, just like the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, National Helium Reserve, Strategic National Stockpile , Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility, etc. To the degree that it's no longer essential for national security, it is anachronistic. Fun fact: The US is one of the few nations to NOT have any food res... |
What makes them so sure there nothing of worth on the moon? | There is stuff of worth up there. I recall reading about Helium3 in particular, and that if the surface of the moon had gold bars littered all over the place, it wouldn't be worth going, but H3 is worth the effort. The rocks are full of raw materials ready to be either shipped home to Earth or used right there. Further... |
where does all of the Carbon dioxide we exhale come from? | You breath in Oxygen as a component of air. It gets diffused into your blood stream. That oxygen is used in a reaction with sugars which produces CO2 as a waste product. That CO2 is carried back out by your blood into your lungs, where it gets exhaled. Now think of this: When you are exercising to lose weight, it's bec... |
What exactly do ISPs do? | > How did they get to control who has access to the Internet in the first place? ISP is a large blanket name. There are multiple types of ISPs. The big players are companies you've likely never heard of like NTT, XO, etc. I've answered this question elsewhere, [see this link] for more details. > What made them so speci... |
What causes “wet” and dry sounding flatulence? | I'm not a doctor or a lawyer, but I hope I can help. I'm thinking along the vein of reed instruments. .. If you try to use a dry reed, it's very difficult to make a loud noise. However, if you wet that puppy, it toots very loudly. Still with me? What if dry buttholes make the seemingly noiseless poofs, and a moist butt... |
What's that stinging sensation in your head you sometimes get when you jump into a pool or stand up so suddenly? | I've never gotten it from jumping into a pool, but the head-rush people sometimes get from standing up suddenly is either a sudden drop in blood pressure ) or a vagus nerve reflex ). |
When someone is sleeping and you open their eyelid , what does that person see ? | Since they are asleep and their ocular sense is being ignored, they probably continue to just dream, if they don't wake up because of you touching them. |
Why are only cyan, magenta, yellow, and black needed to create such a wide array of colors? | Pigments use subtractive colour, with cyan absorbing red, magenta absorbing green and yellow absorbing blue, . When you mix, say magenta and cyan, you're left with only blue. This works because our eyes use cone cells to see colour and they are most sensitive to red, green and blue, so you can make most any colour huma... |
Why is Compton still such a dangerous/impoverished place even though it has put out multiple multi-million dollar musical talent? | Bit of an aside, but did y'all know that the Williams sisters are from Compton? I feel like most people don't know that. |
How does smell work? What physically composes it, and how do we perceive it? How can a smell linger so strongly even after you thoroughly clean something? | Smell can be caused by two things, volatile chemicals, and actual particles. Volatile chemicals are volatile for a reason, they do not last very long in the air and they will break down into simpler and simpler molecules over time. The smell of a rose, a good perfume, your laundry detergent and skin creme, are all scen... |
what makes a belly button an “inny” vs an “outie” | I've got a question as well - is everyone's belly button either an inny or an outie, or can it be smooth ? |
How is the pattern on a key chosen? And how are they all different so that two keys cannot open the same door? | A lock is made up of pins. Each needs to be lifted a certain height to allow the lock to open. Now let's say that height is set to a digit so there are 10 unique possible heights. You multiply the number of pins by the possible heights to get the different possible combinations of locks that can be made. Which answers ... |
Why do we care if there's water on Mars? Does this mean anything in the long run? | Not only does it mean that there may have potentially been life once on Mars , it also means that there's a greater possibility of establishing a viable human colony on Mars.Along with what these guys have said, it also is a big step in what we can determine about ither planets. We can use the same techniques to search... |
How do obvious scams like "you won a free trip to the Bahamas" make money. With as cliché they are, who would actually fall for it? | No matter how obvious the scam seems to you, *someone* out there has never heard of it before and will fall for it. The scammers just keep going until they hit someone whose desire and/or greed are stronger than their critical thinking. It's also a matter of scale. If 99.9% of people don't believe it, that still leaves... |
How does regularly over-charging a battery shorten it's "life"? | I've been lead to bite that for a fair few years now that most devices will reach full power and then stop charging despite being plugged in and run direct from the cable instead so it shouldn't really be a problem if your laptop isn't that old. |
What makes a computer better for a specific application? | Mostly because you'd be paying way too much for hardware you aren't going to use. The only possible issue I could think of is that a gaming computer might focus on the graphics card at the expense of other specs, but that isn't too likely, and again the specs would be overkill anyway. Oh, and [the case might look gauch... |
I once heard that alcohol absorbs quicker through the mucous membranes in the mouth. Would holding alcohol in the mouth make me drunk faster? | Not sure bout faster but it takes much less alcohol, once with a toothache I soaked jack Daniel in cotton ball n put it between tooth n gum to ease pain, didn't drink any but was quickly very drunk |
Does a fan actually cool down a room? | No, it doesn't. Why would moving gas molecules with a certain temperature lower that temperature? That can only happen by transferring the energy to something else. If a fan does anything, it is heating up the room, since it's adding energy. Your air flow idea is right, AFAIK. Anyway, if you're experimentally inclined:... |
Why is incest breeding bad for animals? | At the fundamentals we have two concepts, 1 genomes will mutate, 2 every population has a limited amount of genes. Combine the two you have a situation where mutations new or existing keep accumulating in the offspring, but no new introduced genes from the outside due to inbreeding. This will result in the next generat... |
I live in Mexico City. Today's 7.1 earthquake felt massively stronger than the 8.2 earthquake two weeks ago. How can this be? | Today's earthquake was centered very close to Mexico City , whereas the 8.2 quake from before was about 450 miles away. Generally, the farther away from a quake you are, the weaker it will feel. As far as I'm aware though, there is no formula that will tell you exactly how much weaker it will be because it depends on t... |
What's the possibility of Puerto Rico becoming the 51st state of the US? | It's highly unlikely. Congress would need to approve it, and the Republicans would never support the addition of a state whose electoral votes would almost certainly go to the democrats in every presidential election. Then there's time money issue. If admitted to the US, Puerto Rico would be the poorest state in the us... |
Why are snowflakes geometrical? | It's not true that no 2 snowflakes are identical - except maybe on an atomic level. As for why they're hexagonal, here's the non-technical version: Water molecules have two little bits that stick off of the central part, and those bits like to point towards the central part of other water molecules. The bits are at a 1... |
Why is there a lottery and where does all the money come from? | The money comes from people buying tickets. They take in all that money, pay everyone involved, then they pay out the jackpot and still have a shit ton of money left over. I don't know where you are but in the states a large portion goes to education and other social programs. Though in some states they really misrepre... |
Why do you have to pay taxes on a house you build yourself, given that you have already paid taxes on all materials and outside labor? | Taxes are a negotiation within the system. There's no scientific accounting being done of exactly what your impact is or what portion of services you owe . Nor is there a universally agreed controlling principle of how to divide the costs of running the system. Through a million tiny acts, government is spending a cert... |
Why are human babies almost completely physically useless for so long after birth and take so long to be trained to walk compared to other animals that begin walking and running very quickly after being born? | Humans are not a prey species and we have no need to be able to walk and run right after birth. That's unlike an antelope which is able to run minutes after birth otherwise it's very easy prey. The same is true for dogs and cats where the young are helpless for weeks.> human infants are especially helpless because thei... |
Why has Arabian nations been able to capitalize on their oil resources and become massively wealthy while Africa hasn't? | The number one reason: organized government.African countries don't have organized government. That means the infrastructure needed doesn't exist, neither does protection to legal rights to the oil, etc. The Arab countries have very well organized governments who are able to properly control everything needed. EDIT: Al... |
Why are bucky balls banned by federal law and things like bb's and other misc. ball bearings not? | Someone seems to have a thing out for bucky balls since you can still buy [the exact same balls off amazon just a different company.] Lee Valley also sells rare earth magnets and [they have a page about them] which doesn't have any reference to not feeding them to your children! |
What goes on in your brain in the millisecond when you miss a step or trip ? | 90% of the time it's cuz you're not paying attention to the stairs, but rather, something else, anything else. then, when you trip, it's tramautic enough of a jarring change in environment that you forget what you were thinking about instead of the stairs. |
Why Do Clickbait Articles Capitalize The First Letter Of Every Word? | It's uncommon in normal texts. Usually a capital letter means the start of a sentence or someone's name. This means that your brain has to do a little more work to read it. Then you're less likely to glance over the title, but actually, actively read it |
What is Ron Paul's economic plan and why does he love the gold standard so much? | EL!5: the School of Economic Thought that Rep. Paul belongs to dislikes the whole concept of fiat-money money that's worth something because the issuer says it is. Back in the olden times people had a hard time believing in paper money, so the US government said that you could exchange paper for gold, on demand, at any... |
How and why do we hiccup? | How: tummy moves in and out without us doing it on purpose. Why: it is very complicated, has to do with evolution, but scientist still aren't sure. if you swallow a spoon full of sugar, it will make them stop. |
How exactly are hybrid and electric cars better for the environment, when most electricity is generated through coal and nuclear energy, which are bad for the environment? | Whether they actually contribute to the solution or not is up for debate. The problem with electric vehicles is they rely on exotic metals that have a huge environmental impact just to manufacture, and last I checked, the carbon and environmental impact isn't recuperated over the lifetime of the car. If we could solve ... |
If programming is mainly a bunch of math and numbers then how is a video game created? | You use numbers to represent things. Let's say we are using a graphics library that has the built in function setScreenColor Each parameter would use an integer to represent how much of each color should be displayed. The function would have code that accesses your graphics card to pass those value through and then it ... |
If Daesh decided to pull out all the stops and began staging events like we saw last week on a regular basis, what would be the reaction of the countries/states/cities affected? | I hope we don't find out tomorrow. Seriously, during the past week rhetoric in America has been teetering towards fascism; I'm afraid it wouldn't take much of a push for the worst, most paranoid elements to seize power.1) The media would have 24/7/365 coverage of anything remotely considered terrorism that could possib... |
If the nuclear deal that Obama proposed is so good for Iran, why haven't they taken it? | It's good for Iran in the sense that they will have some economic sanctions lifted off them. They haven't taken it because it would mean that they have to give up an real nuclear programs they currently have running, and they are enriching to weaponized levels. Giving up their nuclear program is equivalent to them surr... |
What makes Dexter, post season 4, so bad? | I didn't think the last half of the show was very bad , it just wasn't nearly as good as the first half.Repeat storyline. It stopped being believable very quickly. For a show like Dexter but with much more upside, check out Banshee. |
Why only 1% of humanity has all the wealth of the world, and the rest of the population is in poverty? | This comes up every year when Oxfam are looking for more donations. Before leaping in you need to consider how it's calculated and what it actually means, there are quite a few solid rebuttals to show this is a misleading 'fact' and it's quite a muddy topic. One major factor is how wealth is measured, most of these rep... |
How is ISPs selling Internet usage data to advertisers worse than what Facebook/Google/Amazon/etc is already doing? | Just a side note from this conversation because I think you've gotten some good answers already. It's important to note that because of the new law that has passed nothing has changed in regards to what the ISPs can do with your internet usage. Things just continue moving forward as they always have without any new cha... |
Why is having a screen on the edge of a phone (like the Samsung edge) helpful in any way? | It isn't. The manufacturer will try to make it look like it's helpful and try to convince you that you'll need it. The reason for this is that almost all new smartphones nowadays are fast and powerful. Even the cheaper ones like Oneplus. Because of that, companies like Samsung have to find new ways to make people buy t... |
In China, why is it that they say they tend to be disappointed if a daughter is born and/or is that still a thing these days? | To curb population growth, China instituted a one child per family policy. You could get around it by being well connected or bribing officials, but the rule was one child for the average family. A male is going to be able to earn more money and have better opportunities to succeed than a female and therefore be able t... |
Why can't we eat the banana peal\skin? | You absolutely can eat banana peal. I have witnessed it and the person in question has survived the whole thing - didn't even have stomach pains afterwards. |
Microwaving food uses 'microwaves' (or rather radiation) to heat up the food right? So are we eating radiation? | Radiation doesn't always mean glowing green plutonium. Light is a type of radiation. Anything that's hot gives off infra-red light, which is a type of radiation. So you're always eating radiation, you're always giving off radiation, everything around you is always giving off radiation. Microwaves are also essentially t... |
What's up with all the bullshit questionnaires that low-wage jobs make their employees fill out. | The trick to getting a good score on these is to only mark strongly agree or strongly disagree, and answer every question the way you'd imagine Ned Flanders would answer it. |
If we are a democracy why can't the population take a vote on certain bills | Australian here It would just be so pathetically inefficient, expensive and time consuming to let the public decide on many issues. Only 8 out of 44 referendums have been passed, could you imagine that happening to bills, which aren't even changing the constitution. This is why we have elected representatives in the fi... |
Why did the world settle on the gold standard? | Gold is common enough to make currency out of, maleable enough to make coins, and not needed for any other function. Also, it was historically used as a medium of exchange since antiquity. > bronze, hell, why not sand or corn? It was important for the standard to be something that people couldn't make, that way the inf... |
Why court judges let off obvious criminals with minimal punishment or none at all? | Because judges operate under a rather strict set of rules, standards, and precedents. They don't just take a phone-in vote of TV viewers America's Got Talent style. What you see of a case in the media is only part of what the judge and jury see, and is usually presented to you with a significant bias.It's "obvious" to ... |
If the troops in Ukraine are not officially Russian, why can't Nato attack them and defend Ukraine? | NATO doesn't have an obligation to assist because they didn't actually join NATO or the EU . Russia engaged them right after they rebelled for the right to join the EU, which means that they're still in limbo between leaving the Russian sphere of influence and joining the EU's. It's not a good idea to attack Russian fo... |
At the end of WW2, what happened to ordinary German soldiers? Did they just put away their guns/gear and resume civilian life? | Pretty much. That's typical for the end of most wars, actually. When it's over, it's over and everyone just sort of goes home and acts like it never happened. The same was true at the end of our US Civil War. After Appomatox, the Confederates literally just walked home to resume their normal lives. |
Why does college tuition cost so much in America? | Like any other transaction. When the purchaser is guaranteed to pay there is nothing keeping costs down. In this case it is the government guaranteeing payment as a. it's a lump sum loan, and b. it cannot be cleared through bankruptcy. |
Advantage of credit cards over debit cards | If somebody hacks your credit card & runs up charges, calling the card issuer & telling them will allow you to simply NOT pay for those fraudulent charges. If somebody hacks your debit card, that money is already out of your bank account and you have to fight to get your money BACK. Given that little tidbit, I'm surpri... |
Do insects feel pain when you step on them? | Insect's brains aren't developed enough to know what pain is. And even if they could feel pain, they're squished to the ground as soon as you step on them, and not even dead humans can feel pain |
Why do MOST women/girls have different form/motion than men when shooting a ball in basketball or throwing a ball in baseball or softball? | When my German cousin throws a baseball, he throws 'like a girl' - and so do his friends. They never learned form. Girls throwing 'like a girl' is becoming less and less common as more girls play and watch ball-throwing sports. I grew up in a baseball family and always participated, so I throw well - something that use... |
What hits the ground first, a pound of bricks or a pound of feathers? | Eliminate friction and it's a tie. In any practical experiment you're apt to be able to conduct in normal conditions, the bricks hit first.That would depend. Are you just taking a handful of feathers and a handful of bricks and dropping? The bricks would hit first because each individual feather is much lighter than ea... |
Why try to make medical insurance more widely accessible instead of just trying to lower medical costs? | Lowering the cost of a checkup is not going to make liver transplants affordable to the uninsured. I don't think there is any place in the world which has made liver transplants affordable to the masses through efficiency, rather than through making someone else pay for them. So you would get the Affordable Hospital-as... |
Why is the difference between 144p and 360p so much compared to the difference between 480p and 1080p? | Diminishing returns. The more pixels you already have, the less significant new ones are. For instance, it's plainly noticeable when you get 4 times 1080p with 4K, but it probably wouldn't be so significant to get 4 times 4K . |
Why is the difference betwwen choosing to be gay or being born gay relevant in the debate on homosexuality? | The argument is that if it's a choice then they could just choose to not be gay. Much like the people wishing that was true made the explicit decision to be straight. |
What are "zoning laws" and "neighbourhood commities". They're either a tiny thing or not a thing at all in the UK | Zoning laws are the cities way of controlling development in the city. Ensuring that you have enough space for housing , Commercial, Light and heavy industrial. In some cities by zoning for low density residential you ensure that only larger upscale houses can be built and therefore prevent low income apartment buildin... |
New to Reddit... Why do people add “Edit” to their posts and list such mundane things? | People don't like posts that change. So, Reddit shows when you change one. So users then have to explain their edits so that others don't think the post changed in meaning. |
Why are some films still not available for rent, even years after their initial film premiere? | Disney is particular tight about their IP. They know their reputation is strong enough & kids insistent enough, that they can require you to pay for full price for their movies. They've done the same thing with Star Wars. |
How much does someone actually have to lift to tip over a 1000 pound car? | They're not actually lifting it off the ground, of course. They're picking up one edge of it enough for someone trapped underneath to crawl out. So they do need to lift a large portion of the weight, but they only need to move it a couple of inches. |
What's so special about fossil fuels? | The oil companies have been lying to you all this time! You can fill your car with water and it'll run better than before. |
- How is it that there have been a series of outrageously botched executions recently yet doctors in Oregon have the ability to prescribe medicine that will allow someone to humanely end their life? | While I'm no expert on the subject, my thought is that the state laws put in place regulating the methods and the drugs used for executions make the process much less flexible than someone's voluntary choice to end their own life. Unfortunately, stricter regulation does not mean a more humane method. You're pretty much... |
Why do we refer to certain articles of clothing (pants, underwear) in pairs when there is only one piece? | genitals", or "clothes." In some languages, they just sort of happen even without an obvious pair or set. In Swedish, "scissors" is singular but "money" is only plural. _URL_0_A "pair" can be an article or object consisting of two joined or corresponding parts not used separately, as in "a pair of jeans." Jeans consist... |
seriously, where did the soda go? Two dozen cans, sealed, mostly empty. | It's very likely that the can are not perfectly sealed, they have micro openings that would allow for some of the liquid to evaporate. If you wanted to test this, immerse one in hot water - as the contents of the can expands, you will see bubbles rise from the openings |
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