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What is the difference between a 'good' actor and a 'great' actor? | Meryl Streep is often cited as a great actor. I didn't appreciate her much when I was young. But there's a bit in Sophie's Choice where she impressed the hell out of me. She's delivering a lot of lines, talking about something that happened in her past. And I wondered why I found it so captivating. I realised that what... |
Who controls the internet ? | Local authorities decide if something is illegal With regards to enforcing laws, typically authorities will lean on ISPs to do things like block domains or IPs or similar. Depending on the country, the amount that the authorities can make the ISP do varies With transnational cybercrime then it comes down to politics be... |
What's the difference between the legalization and decriminalization of Marijuana? | Legalized pot means that it's like beer or cigarettes. Legal to use by anyone of age. Decriminalized means that while it's not legal, you can't be imprisoned for it. It takes simple possession down to the same level as a speeding ticket. |
Why is Earth the "brightest point of light in the night sky?" | The light is sunlight being reflected off the surface of the planet, and it is so bright because the Earth and Mars are much, much closer together than, say, the Earth and the nearest star. Picture a candle on the table in front of you compared to a plane flying overhead. The candle will appear much brighter even thoug... |
If you theoretically had an object very long ~several light minutes or so, and you pushed it, wouldn't it break the speed of light? | No. The other end wouldn't move for quite a long time. When you move something each part of it only moves once a wave, that moves at the speed of sound in the object, reaches it.No. The push would move through the object at the speed of sound in that object, which is much less than the speed of light. |
How can galaxies and stars be slowly miving apart, but the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies are set to collide? | Stand at the center of a circle. Roll a ball at the 12 oclock position. Roll ANOTHER ball at the 12 oclock position, but a little bit faster. They're both moving away from you, yes? And they'll collide. *Everything* cannot be moving away from *everything* else. |
What would happen to the surface of the Earth if the planet suddenly stopped its rotation? | I've asked this question before and my curiosity was if we would weigh more because we're moving thousands of miles per hour and I keep thinking this counter-acts the force of gravity, like swinging a yoyo around in a circle, the mass of the yoyo trys to break the string, so there is more tension on the yoyo-string the... |
If the speed of light is the same in all reference frame, how is it observed when two photons are heading towards each other? | If you're standing still and you see two photons passing by you but in opposite directions, you'll see each moving at the speed of light in each direction. It is impossible to construct a reference frame for a photon because that would, as you say, require it to have zero velocity in its own reference frame, which is i... |
Where do ISPs get their internet? | Your question isn't straight forward to answer, since I don't know what exactly you'd like to know. For example: There is the ICANN, _URL_1_ which coordinates the IP addresses Then there are backbones of the internet _URL_0_ which you can imagine like the pillars of a huge building that hold everything together. Maybe ... |
What causes earth to tilt on its axis? | The Earth's axis is tilted because of one large objects that slammed into it. One of these objects was a Mars-sized rock whose impact with the Earth created the moon. The tilt of the axis is what causes the seasons, not it's relatively tiny amount of wobble. The only way to increase the length of the seasons would be t... |
Why do you feel worse at night when you're sick? | I actually learned this today it's because when you get more tired e.g more sleep deprived you're far more prone to pain stimuli than when you're awake. The cure is to get as much sleep as possible and not to be overtired and or sleep deprivated. |
Why are voter I.D. laws considered racist? | It's important to note that this is not just the Democrats coming up with conspiracy theories. In 2012 a Pennsylvania Republican representative openly admitted that the purpose of the proposed voter ID laws were to hand the state to Romney, even though the majority of the population supported Obama. Luckily the law was... |
How is there such a thing as Planck length, and why can we not surpass it? | By definition, the Planck length is a unit that is so small, to measure it would require using a wave with an even smaller wavelength, but to make a wavelength so short would require essentially infinite energy, which implies infinite mass , which implies a black hole, which isn't very good for a physics laboratory. |
have we discovered ALL larger than 100 km objects within the closest 4 light-years of our Solar System? | It's doubtful we've found all the 100km sized objects in just our solar system let alone out to 4 light years. |
Capitalism vs. Socialism vs. Communism. | To put others analyses/critique in context it might be good to read the [communist manifesto]. It's brief and well written enough to be digestible. If anyone has a comparable text for Capitalism please share.Is it just me or were most of these answers waaaaay too much for a 5 yr old to understand |
. Why do bees make honey? | Fun fact, bears don't give a shit about honey, they are in beehives to eat the protein packed larvae. |
Why do Earth's magnetic poles flip? | The magnetic field of the earth is driven by currents within the mantle and core of the Earth. These iron-rich fluid currents produce and shape the field of the earth. But being actual processes, they're not unchanging, and as the currents change it can cause shifts in the magnetic field - that's why the location of th... |
If you were to die in space, would you decompose or stay the same? | Apparently I'm the only one who is going to point this out Yes, everyone here is right that microbes will not be digesting you , and yes, because all of your gases will evaporate off, you will become a space mummy. But. You will still, over a very long span of time, break down. Because of the constant bombardment by bo... |
How do deep space satellites navigate through debris like the asteroid belt or the Oort Cloud? | Space is really, really, REALLY big. Even the Oort cloud is incredibly sparse as far as matter is concerned. You don't really have to worry about hitting anything. The odds are literally astronomical.If the asteroid belt looked like the star wars model, it would be visible as a thick, solid bar of light across the sky,... |
Why do we hear a ringing noise in our ears from time to time? | I get it when I drink a lot of soda and when someone turns on a tv from the 90's. |
Why can't we move our toes individually? | fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuu Now I've got a cramp in my foot from trying to move them individually.I can move two separately. Big and little. |
If light is particles and they travel faster than the speed of sound, why aren't we always hearing sonic booms. | They aren't particles, the have wave particle duality When we observe them they behave like a particle. It is because when you observe something in Quantum Mechanics you fundamentally change it , when unobserved it acts like the massless wave it is |
How do eyes focus? | Someone will probably explain this better but basically your iris is the colored part of your eye. The part that's normally blue, green, brown or Hazel. The iris is actually a muscle that contracts to let more light in. When someone's eyes dilate, their pupil is enlarged. The pupil is actually a whole that let's light ... |
why is it that I don't need to pee all day, but then when I walk in my front door, I suddenly have an incredible urge to pee? | Because it's your territory and you need to make sure your marks are fresh. Like how a dog has their favorite trees on their routes, you want to make sure no one else has claimed your territory. When you're out and about you pee as biology and liquid consumption requires. |
Why do i feel the need to sneeze after looking into bright light? | It's called the [Photic sneeze reflex]. The details aren't well understood, but the general idea is that it's an electrical insulation problem. The optic nerve that carries signals from your eyes to your brain runs right next to the nerves that carry information from your nose. The signals that travel through these ner... |
Why is Finland's education system so successful, coming in at the top of international ranking charts? | It's Free, and it includes traveling, which in my opinion is the best way to build intelligence. |
How do we get pictures of the Milky Way Galaxy if we are inside of it and no spacecrafts have gone outside our galaxy? | If you're referring to the nebulous band of stars and dust in the sky we commonly refer to as the Milky Way: _URL_1_ That is the effect of looking from the Earth, which lies in the outer rim of the galaxy, towards the center of the galaxy. Thus, you're looking *through* an enormous collection of stars. If you're talkin... |
What exactly do blind people see? | Depends on the level and type of blindness. Legally, blindness can just be vision impairment that can be corrected with glasses. I'm legally blind until I put my glasses on, and then I can see as well as the next guy. Some blind people can see blobs of color, or blobs of light, and some can't see anything -- it's just ... |
ELI 5: If drinking dehydrates you, why than is your pee clear when you've been drinking? | Basically, alcohol draws water out of your body in processing it, so that when you drink 12oz of beer, you end up peeing more than that 12oz. Your pee's clear because it's made up of plenty of water, the problem is there's not as much left in your body as when you started, leading to dehydration. |
How can the Universe be infinite, but have also been expanding from a single point for a finite amount of time? | All we know about the big bang is that the observable universe was an infinitely small and dense point which expanded. If the universe is infinite, then the big bang was an expansion from an infinitely dense but still infinitely large universe to one that isn't infinitely dense. |
How does the moon have enough gravitational energy to create tides on both sides of the planet, but not pull people/things ? | The moon doesn't cause tides alone. It's a combined effect of sun's gravity + moon's gravity + earth's rotation + the relative position of the three. Surface water flows freely while we don't. Earth's rotation causes the water to flow, but a person can stand still on the ground. |
Why does water evaporate under its boiling point? | Water is kind of sticky, so it keeps its molecules in a blob . Temperature is basically speed at which particles move. You get evaporation when water molecules move fast enough to overcome their stickiness. The thing with temperature is that it is average. Some particles may be boiling, while others may be pretty cold ... |
How do non-orbiting satellites like Voyager 1, not continue to fly through space-time without hitting other objects? | The beauty about space is that there is a lot of it between everything else. If you flung a object randomly though the asteroid belt, there's only 1 in a trillion chance it would hit something. If the earth was less than 1mm wide on a solar map with distances to scale, that map would be several football fields wide bef... |
How do we know where we are in the milky way galaxy and what it looks like? | We really don't. It's super hard to see what our galaxy looks like from the inside. We can map the stars we can see, their distances from us and velocities, and get a general idea of what it looks like, but there is a lot of interstellar dust, and the core completely blocks out most of the other side. We do know that i... |
what's the difference between ®, ©, and ™ | C is for Copyright, which means you've affixed it to a permanent medium You now own the copy rights to that piece of material, and if you can prove you did it first, others may not recreate it unless you've given them permission, through fair use or it has entered the public domain. R is for registered trademark. TM is... |
If we were to allow division by zero to equal zero or infinity, would math get really messed up? why? | It actually is possible to define infinity as a number, and then use it to define division by 0, but it's not really useful in most cases. The idea is called the [Reimann Sphere], and it's based on the complex numbers field, but we can apply it to the real numbers field as well. We simply define a new number called ∞ a... |
What can happen if I don't turn my cell phone on airplane mode/off when the plane takes off? | Probably nothing, but the airplane industry is conservative and with reason. Planes are in service for many years. Many of these older planes were built before modern cellphones and wifi devices, so the airlines cannot absolutely guarantee that there will be no problems. Also planes are very complex and most accidents ... |
The difference between nuclear fusion and fission???? | Splitting atoms is relatively easy. You start with an atom with a very big nucleus, such as uranium, and then throw neutrons at it. The nucleus then becomes unstable and breaks up into smaller nuclei, releasing energy and also releasing some neutrons, which go on to smash into other uranium nuclei -- the whole thing st... |
What actually happens when we crack our knuckles/joints? | Not sure what the answer is, but I was told by a nursing friend of mine that a doctor did a 40 year experiment where he cracked ONLY the knuckles on his right hand. Turns out it makes absolutely no difference to the overall health of your joints, at least not in your knuckles. Unfortunatley I can't cite my source. |
Assuming the observable universe came from one point, (the big bang theory) how is other matter so far away without traveling faster than the speed of light? | It is speculated that 10^36 seconds after the big bang, a time before the current laws of physics had essentially 'solidified', the young universe underwent a period of much faster-than-light expansion that we call the *Inflation epoch*. This theory actually just got a huge boost in probability after the discovery of B... |
Why did many ancient civilizations used the same type of structures, even tough they are miles apart. | They didn't use the same structures. In the cases they did, it had an obvious practical reason - houses to stay dry and be protected from wind, pyramids because they're the most stable massive monument. |
Why are pharmacists necessary? | > He basically reads me the directions from the manufacturers label, Also checks to make sure your combination of medications won't kill you, and the treatment regime is understood. Just because you have had some fairly standard medications prescribed doesn't mean pharmacists don't play an important role, in the same w... |
/why do people hate Nickleback? | Their music lacks imagination. The subject matter of their songs is generic, their playing is uninspired, they're not doing anything new or doing what they're doing in an exceptional way. I was discussing this in general terms the other night with someone - in order to be exceptional at something, you either have to be... |
What's the difference between volts, watts, and amps? | Voltage is electrical pressure. Watts are power or energy . Amps, or amperes is how fast electricity is traveling. More voltage through the same amount of resistance produces more current which also produces more wattage. Wattage can also tell you how much energy is being wasted by a device, or perhaps how hot it might... |
Why do some games on a console have better graphics than other games? | 1. Some games spend a lot more processing power on AI and physics, which means there's less remaining power to calculate graphical effects. 2. It's also related to the number of objects on screen. Every rock and piece of debris that the game has to individually render takes a large number of calculations every frame. 3... |
If black holes are so powerful even light cannot escape, now can we see them if the light reflecting them shouldn't be there? | We can't directly observe them. They strongly bend light that gets close to them which we can detect. Edit: See [this] image from wikipedia. |
What is Dark Energy/Dark Matter? | Dark energy is what we call the force that is causing the universe to be infinitely expanding. We call it dark energy because we can't see it and we have no idea what it is or how it works.Dark matter is what we call the gravitational force that is unexplained in the universe. We know that it's there and it takes up ab... |
why does time slow down when you travel near the speed of light? | You're moving through space, but you're also moving through time. The faster you go through space the slower you go through time. |
How does light exist if it has no mass? | It largely comes down to mass and energy being essentially the same thing once you include relativity. The photon has zero REST mass but it has energy while it's moving relativistically. Other that that, yeah basically what AnteChronos said :) |
why do we get car sick? | The sensory inputs from your eyes and ears don't match up . Your brain interprets this as a neurological problem possibly caused by some poison, so the natural response is to vomit. |
how come when I have to pee, I can sometimes postpone it for a pretty long time, and sometimes my bladder can't even hold it in for a couple of minutes. | Can I add a second question to this? Why is it that when you want to take a sh*t and it gets you on the street you can fairly hold it but the need to do it rapidly increases as you get closer to the toilet? I can't think of the many times I have been able to postpone it for hours but those last metres and seconds seem ... |
Why does water taste better when it's cold? | That's just a matter of preference, I don't mind if water isn't chilled. Although, in some cities here in New Zealand the water is chlorinated and has who knows what else added to it, so in those places it tastes like shit when its not chilled, but chilling it seems to mask the taste of chlorine. I guess I'm just lucky... |
Why do things (planets, moons, stars) orbit bigger objects (planets, moons, stars) instead of being sucked in by the gravitational pull? | [This diagram drawn by newton himself somewhat explains it], but to keep it simple it IS indeed being pulled in but it's doing so *sideways*", 'Most of the things have been pulled in to the center. What remains is the matter that has a near perfect orbital path. |
Difference between fruits and vegetables? | The fruit is the seed-bearing part of a plant above ground. It's usually soft and fleshy, and has seeds embedded in it . Vegetables are the other parts of a plant: the leaves, stems or roots. Thus a tomato is technically a fruit, while rhubarb -- because we usually eat the stems -- are technically vegetables. However, ... |
Why are solar systems and galaxies all in a pancake orbit around the most massive celestial body? | So you have gravity pulling stuff in towards the center of the body, which causes an increase in angular momentum. This causes everything to spin about in some plane. Because the stuff above and below this plane isn't spinning as much, it is free to fall in due to gravity. However, the stuff in the plane is prevented f... |
Double Slit Experiment Observation Changing The Outcome | The video is correct. Its using electrons to illustrate a simple point because electrons are an easily accessible wave particle. The same thing happens with light. It creates interference patterns with itself, even at low light thresholds that have only 1 photon in the air at a time. The electrons intersect the two sli... |
What actually happens in a Deja Vu? Why do you think you've seen the exact same scene before? | One idea I heard is that it's a glitch in your brain where something goes straight to your long-term memory instead of being in shorter-term, more accessible memory for a while first. Therefore when you think you're experiencing the same thing again you're not. Your brain is making you believe that on the spot. Technic... |
Why do animals have mating seasons and why don't humans have one? | Animal mating seasons typically coincide with the season where resources are most abundant. Pregnancy requires a lot of energy, after all, so there's little point for a deer, for example, to try and have a child in the middle of winter when food is at its scarcest. Humans, by contrast, have been less dependent on seaso... |
Watts, amps, volts and Ohms. | amps are a measure of **current**, current is the actual conga line of electrons moving through the wire. more current=more conga. ohms are a measure of **resistance**. how hard it is for the electrons to move. resistance impedes current. volts are a bit more abstract. they measure **potential**. how much the electrons... |
The gender pay gap. | While much of the difference can be explained via differences in available work time, frequency of unpaid leave, each gender's predominance in different job sectors, etc, when these factors are balanced out, the difference is still [5-7%]. These differences are typically attributed to direct and indirect discrimination... |
Why does inbreeding create defects? | Are you familiar with the idea of dominant and recessive genes and Punnett squares? Basically, every human being has two copies of every gene. The classic example is the gene for eye color. The two most common eye colors are brown and blue. Blue is recessive, brown is dominant. If a brown gene is present, then it will ... |
How can the furthest edges of the observable universe be 45 billion light years away if the universe is only 13 billion years old? | The way I see it : Put 2 ants on a balloon and have them walk away from each other. Their maximum speed is 0.3km/h. At max speed the distance between them is 0.6km/h. Now, blow the balloon up. Their max increase of distance should be 0.6km/h, but they're travelling away from each other at 0.8km/h now. Objects are movin... |
Why does the U.S. still not use the metric system? | I dunno but let me think about it over my 750ml bottle of wine. I ordered pizza last night and got a 2-liter Pepsi, it was a great combo. We do use metric in our everyday lives but not as the standard. A lot of things are regulated to have both bits of info but as to why we don't use it as our standard there isn't a re... |
Why does a candle go out when I blow on it? | A fire needs three things to keep burning: fuel, oxygen, and heat. When you blow on a candle, you blow all the hot air away from the wick. Without heat, it can't stay burning. |
Why is it so much easier to kill flies with a swatter than it is with your hand? | * a swatter increases your reach* because it is lighter and has holes, it can travel faster while disturbing less air* you don't worry about getting fly guts on your hand, hurting your hand, or breaking whatever the fly has landed on |
What is the difference between Hip-Hop and Rap? | IMHO I think of the word rap like I think of rock or classical. It's the genre. Hip hop, spoken word, and gangster would be sub categories of the genre. All hip hop is rap but not all rap is hip hop.One can understand hip hop. And hip hop has fairly intelligent artists. Whereas rap sounds like crap and only requires a ... |
How do we know CERN's Large Hadron Collider isn't just creating new particles that otherwise wouldn't or do not exist?? | Sure the actual particles might be uncommon in nature, the particles themselves are not the important part, in quantum field theory every particle represents the excitation of some *field* which exists in our universe. The ~~Highs~~ Higgs for instance is a pretty heavy particle and because of this, it isn't the most co... |
How is Rob Ford still the mayor? | They can't charge him with a crime. Admitting you have consumed drugs in the past is not an offence in the criminal code of Canada; therefore, he cannot be removed from office because he hasn't done anything illegal technically. |
Since water expands when it freezes, and most of the mass of Ice is beneath the Surface of the water, why wouldn't melting polar ice caps cause a decrease in the water level. | Because most ice caps aren't in the ocean but on land. So when they melt, the water flows into the ocean. |
How did humans (most) evolve to be some much more intelligent than other animals? | Human ancestors happened to find themselves in circumstances where the more intelligent members of the species tended to have more children. As time went on, some of those intelligent decedents learned to make tools and to cook food, making cooked meat available, which is a huge nutrient advantage, so the best hunters ... |
Why can rappers can get away with taking pieces of other songs, whereas Led Zeppelin is getting sued for it? | It's all about artistic consent. The original artist generally earns some sort of stipend and gets a little extra heat on what is generally a long dead and cold track. |
Why did the big bang only make simple elements? | The early universe was *so* hot and dense, protons and neutrons couldn't hold together, much less more complex atomic nuclei. As it cooled enough to form elements, it was no longer so dense that anything more complicated that hydrogen and helium isotopes were likely to form. |
Why don't the planets orbits need to be corrected like man made satellites? | The only planets left are the ones with stable orbits that don't require correction. Any bodies with orbits that need correction for continued existence are doomed to destruction eventually. |
Why is gold valuable. | Value is always based on the subjectivity of consumers. So..gold is valuable because we agree to its value. There are reasons we attributed value to gold long ago - it is a pretty unique metal . But..ultimately its consumers liking the stuff that gives it its value.For the same reason Money has value, everyone agrees t... |
Why can visible light pass through my window but not through my wall? Why does this restriction not apply to radio and gamma waves? | The explanation regarding wavelength is fairly flawed, as it can't account for the high penetration strenght of gamma rays . It's also worth noting that at the atomic scale, the wavelength of visible light is still about 5000 times bigger than the length scale of an atom, so the idea that visible light is 'short' compa... |
What is 'the cloud'? | Part of the reason we think of the data as being in the cloud is that when you look at how these things are constructed the notion of a specific place does not exist. I have this all scribbled down with lines, models numbers, darkfiber locations, and a rip outta the corner from when my bud almost stopped me from pocket... |
In quantum mechanics, how is it possible for nothing to exist until it is observed? | Sub-atomic particles have shown the strange ability to blink in and out of reality as we know it. This means, on a sub-atomic level, the chance that a particle exists and the chance that it doesn't exist are equal. Think of it like a coin flip. If someone flips a coin behind you, you can't see how it lands. In that mom... |
Why does negative x negative = positive? | Imagine you're halfway up a hill, facing the top. If you walk forwards, you'll go up. If you walk backwards, you'll go down. If you turn around and walk forwards, you'll go down. If you turn around and walk backwards, you'll go up. |
What actually happens during a brain freeze? | Please search before submitting, as this and many other questions are frequently asked, and you may find your answer there. That being said, it's nerves firing due to the sudden cold, and the blood vessels constricting causing pain. To stop Brain Freeze, drink/eat something warm or press your thumb/tongue against the r... |
Why do people think 9/11 was an inside job? | The short version? Because people don't want to believe that it could be so easy for someone to do something like that.A lot of misunderstood facts and people looking for patterns where there are none. |
Why were futurist so optimistic about the year of 2000? | People are more intrigued by big round numbers and our imaginations are much more potent than reality allows. There are still futurists going on about what the future holds but what they still don't base their guesstimates enough on is the efficiency of an invention. We have flying cars, jetpacks, even quantum levitati... |
What is the difference between legalization and decriminalization of marijuana? | If something is decriminalized, it's still illegal, but the penalties for possession and use are minimized and enforcement of those laws is a low priority. Where I live now, MJ has been decriminalized & possession of less than an ounce is just a cash fine of about $500 - no arrest, jail time or court appearances necess... |
How do we know, and have pictures, of what the Milky Way galaxy looks like, if we're part of it? | We don't have any pictures of the Milky Way - what we have are pictures of neighbouring barred spiral galaxies that are very similar to our own. We can extrapolate the shape from the parts that we do see, but even then, it's not 100% accurate. We only recently found out that the Milky Way is [Barred] galaxy, for exampl... |
How do dogs "smell fear". | It's more complicated than just smell, as dogs can often understand body language and tone of voice, but there likely is a smell component, too! Humans emit pheromones, which is a chemical released primarily in sweat . They can indicate fear, attraction , and more . Humans can detect these in other humans, and there's ... |
What does the Schrödinger's cat experiment consist of? | The first thing to understand about it is that it is a *thought* experiment. This means you don't actually do anything; rather, it's a method of thinking through a problem .The theory of Quantum Mechanics[QM] allows a physical system to be in two, classically opposite, states at the same time .The question was if this ... |
The Monty Hall Problem? | Imagine that the prize is in door 1 . Now, make a table with the possibilities. Pick door 1: * Don't switch: **Win** * Switch : ~~Lose~~ Pick door 2: * Don't switch: ~~Lose~~ * Switch : **Win** Pick door 3: * Don't switch: ~~Lose~~ * Switch : **Win** So there you have it. Switching guarantees you win 2 out of 3 times.O... |
Why doesn't flat seltzer taste like regular water? | Carbon dioxide doesn't just go away. When it gets flat the CO2 dissolves into the water. As mentioned before this makes carbonic acid, which does not taste so good. |
What are the differences between sunni and shia islam? | I'm not qualified to explain this but NPR recently explained some of it in an article: [The Origins Of The Shiite-Sunni Split]. On the podcast, you can skip to ~2:10. This explains the origin of both groups and may give insight to the fundamental differences. However, I'm sure there's much more that has developed over ... |
What is a kernel? (Computing) | In computing, the kernel is a computer program that manages input/output requests from software and translates them into data processing instructions for the central processing unit and other electronic components of a computer. The kernel is a fundamental part of a modern computer's operating system. When a computer p... |
Why Don't Identical Twins Have The Same Personalities If Their DNA Is The Same? | Being a twin maybe I could provide some input here. So like /u/incruente said before we aren't moulded completely by our own DNA when it comes to personality and our personalities are just a bi-product of what we experience in our life. So for example me and my brother were very alike growing up but being split from a ... |
How does an electron move into orbit regardless of its initial velocity? | Orbitals really are a conceptual thing. Electron orbitals don't work in the same way that gravity does in macroscopic orbiting. For electrons, the orbits are more like shells - hollow spheres - which represent probability of where an electron can be, rather than defined tracks along which they move. This means that an ... |
what is dark energy and dark matter? | dark matter is our current explanation for what is holding galaxies together. Our current understanding of gravity says with everything we can observe in the galaxy there is not enough matter to create enough gravity to hold everything together so there has to be something out there that we cannot observe that's adding... |
How does a spacecraft like Voyager I and Voyager II still contact earth from so far away. | What matters for communication is the signal to noise ratio, SNR, which is a measure of the power of the signal in comparison to the electronic noise generated by temperature plus noise introduced by the inefficiencies of the components For now, the SNR is big enough to detect the data sent by the craft, but the signal... |
How does squinting temporarily help seeing if you have bad eyesight? | It helps focus the incoming light. Glasses do the same thing, they just don't block any ambient light. |
Do we know for a fact that the Big Bang happened and if so, how do we know? | Theories cannot be proven as fact, but they can be supported by enough facts to make denial of it an unreasonable thing to do. To deny the ocurrance of the big bang, is like denying that gravity exists. Evidence for the big bang: Large-scale homogeneity, Hubble diagram, Abundances of light elements, Existence of the Co... |
What does the conductor of an orchestra actually do? | > From where you sit in an orchestra, you do not hear every other instrument clearly. This impacts some more than others, but there are people who can't hear most of the other players - for them the conductor is absolutely essential. Also, a lot of classical repertoire, especially music from the 19th century onward, re... |
if European diseases killed 90% of indigenous N & S Americans, why didn't American diseases return the favor when European ships returned? | in short, Europeans had much deadlier diseases than N & S Americans. N & S Americans didn't live in very close populated filthily quarters such as European nations did. Unique to European, over many more 1000s of years, these diseases adapted and evolved faster than any N & S American natives. |
Why is it so hard for the top scientists in other countries to figure out how to make nuclear weapons when the process for fission and fusion is so clearly explained all over the internet? | Even if you know the science, nuclear weapons are *very* complex things. Getting them to go off at all is a damned impressive trick; if a nuke fails, it's almost guaranteed to be in a way that it just won't work. Building a detonation device that works consistently really is that difficult, even if you have that kind o... |
What is an otherkin? | It is a community that believe they are nonhumans in human bodies. They are typically low achievers dissatisfied with their lives who want to reinvent themselves in some unique, exotic way that makes them superior to normal people, while explaining why they don't fit in. Their community is, for lack of a better term, a... |
Theoretically if we could travel faster than light would we be able to see earth in the past with our naked eyes? | Once you stop, sure. If you could teleport yourself a lightyear away, you could look at earth with a telescope and see it from a year ago. Etc. As far as while you're travelling > c, I don't think anyone really knows. |
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