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Where do my farts go when I hold them in?
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Up your butt and around the corner. No really, Gas will just sit in your colon until you bear down to push it out. excessive gas build up can cause abdominal cramping though, so let em' rip!
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How vaccines work and why some people think they don't
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I want to point out that the average lifespan of an American at 1900 was ~40 years old. At 2000 it was ~80 years old. No where else in history will you see life expectancy gain a +40 years in a mere century. Vaccines are considered the #1 reason why this is the case. It has saved more lives than people who have died in all the wars of the world combined. It is the SINGLE GREATEST achievement in the medical field. To resist vaccines means you're just being stupid.
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Why do we get "Pee shy"?
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Total speculation here: I think it goes hand in hand with the morning wood thing - we don't really notice it anymore, but there is a primal fear of leaving our scent in places that my be dangerous. Men get morning wood to prevent them from urinating in their sleep and alerting dangerous animals to their presence. We get pee shy for the same reason - on a primal level, we realize that the scent will alert others to our presence, and our body's natural reaction is to prevent us from going that. This, as well as some of the other answers here.
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Cellphone radiation and why people keep telling me it will give me cancer.
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Cell phone frequencies are generally between 800 and 2700 MHz, this is the same range as radio waves which are literally flooding the atmosphere around us, and have been for nearly a century. Microwaves are what most people throw a fuss about, 'seeing as they cook food', but microwaves operate in that exact same frequency range, just not with the intensity to cook. Also microwaves function by exciting the polar molecules which in turn excite the molecules around them. Additionally, microwaves are non-ionizing so they do not produce cancer. All this is happening *way* below the frequencies for visible light, several magnitudes below, and it isn't until you pass visible light that you get to anything harmful, like ultraviolet. At about 10x the frequency of ultraviolet we get x-rays which are harmful if you're exposed for long periods of time. TL;DR Cell phones operate on the same level as radio waves that have been passing through your body every moment of your life, and there has never been a confirmed case of people being harmed by radio waves. [Here's a chart]", 'Regarding the crystal itself: The crystal can not "suck in" radiation. It is not physically possible to do that, you have to *shield* against it.
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Sine, Cosine and tangent.
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**SOH CAH TOA** Take a right angle triangle - and for a given angle you have three sides - the opposite, adjacent, and hypotenuse. [see this picture] see the A is the angle we are talking about - it's easy to see how opposite and adjacent get their names, and hypotenuse is simply the longest side. The sine/cosine/tangent are a *ratio* of two of the sides.Sine = opposite/hypotenuseCosine = adjacent/hypotenuseTangent = opposite/adjacent Dunno where to from here - but with right angle trigonometry - you just any values to find all the others.
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why I blow cold air when I purse my lips, but warm air when I open my mouth.
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It's air velocity. In addition to what people have mentioned, when you blow a fast stream, the low pressure created by the moving air draws in surrounding air which is cooler.
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Why we tend to wake up right at the good part of a dream
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The 'exciting' part, especially it is sexual or especially satisfying leads to an increase in hormones or other substances in your body. It may lead to an increase in heart rate, breathing etc. This signals to your body that it is not at the appropriate condition to be asleep, and you therefore wake up.
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What exactly happens when you put metal in the microwave?
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Ima give this a shot and say that the metal you put in the microwave can be thought of as a solid container filled with static non moving non flowing liquid when you place this metal 'container of liquid' in the microwave and turn it on, the microwave essentially causes the liquid inside to flow around inside the piece of metal . if the metal does NOT have any sharp corners or long sections that end abruptly , the liquid will be diverted without the 'pressure' on the inside of the container becoming too great to contain it. In the event of a sharp corner, the 'container' cannot hold back the high 'pressure' resulting in the 'liquid' leaving the 'container' in what I think is a form of electromigration, other wise known as Irepohio's sparks . how'd I do? < /junior engr in rf field > I'll correct anything I can when senior txt's me back lol
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Why does cough & congestion linger so long after the "cold" is long gone?
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Coughs and congestion aren't actually indicative of being sick. They're responses by your immune system. Your immune system keeps those defenses up a little longer so that you're not so vulnerable right after you recover.I have this same problem. Looking forward to a response.
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How the universe is infinite and expanding?
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The important thing to remember is that the Big Bang didn't happen in one place and now everything is expanding out from that central point. The Big Bang happened everywhere, all at once. That 'everywhere' explosion didn't make stars and planets and galaxies move away from each other, it made space itself stretch so that things get farther apart, even if those things aren't moving themselves.
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If gravity is the weakest of the four fundamental forces of nature, how do black holes manage to become powerful enough to destroy or capture everything near them?
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Because there are sooooooo much mass. Magnets don't naturally get very strong. Even the magnetism from the sun is quite weak, since it's just *very little* mass tha is *a bit* magnetic. The same goes for the other forces. Black holes have HUGE amounts of mass, and gravity is the only force that naturally builds up as you gather more of what generates the force in one place.
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Why don't most school buses have seat belts?
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Conservation of momentum. Small thing going some speed hits really big thing going same speed. Path of really big thing isn't changed that much.
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How is time a "dimension"?
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The important thing here is to not think about a dimension as if its some Star-Trek-type place you can go where Spock has a beard. A dimension is a degree of freedom, which is a fancy way of saying the ability to move in a direction. An easy way to think of it is how many pieces of information do you need to find something. To find something on the earth you need it's: * Longitude * Latitude * Altitude So, three dimensions. But, we can also use time as a dimension. If I want to find something I need to know WHEN it was there. No sense showing up late. So we can add a 4th number, time. All we're saying is that there's a fourth piece of information that is required to locate something in spacetime. Nothing fancy about that. Nothing can 'exist' or 'not exist' in 4 dimensions. Something *has* four dimensions or, rather, we need to use 4 pieces of information to locate it. If I want to find the location of Paris, I only need two dimensions . That's because we can describe a globe as a 2-dimensional object.
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Why did Einstein say that if we could travel at the speed of light we would be able to time-travel?
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The explanation I've always liked goes like this: Everything has a set velocity that is divided between space and time. As you move faster through space, you move slower through time, and vice versa. Your speed through space plus your speed through time is always constant, and is the speed of light. Light travels through space so fast that it doesn't have any velocity left to travel through time. So, if you're traveling near the speed of light, you're traveling through time incredibly slow compared to everything else. If you traveled in a huge circle, when you returned to your starting point everything there would have gone much further through time than you, and it would appear to you that you jumped into the future.
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How exactly does cancer kill?
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Cancer cells reproduce rapidly due to a mutation in the cell's DNA, so one becomes 2 becomes 4 becomes 8 and so on. The resulting mass of caner cells is a tumor. As the tumor gets larger it will kill you, usually by stopping a vital organ from working.
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Why do all objects fall at the same acceleration?
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It is because what makes things affectable by gravity AND resistant to acceleration is the same thing - mass. Seems pretty obvious but it is actually a big deal. Maths: Gravity force from earth F = Mass * Mass of earth * a constant / distance^2 Inertia equation Force = Mass * acceleration. Force on the object: ~~Mass~~ * Mass of earth * a constant / distance^2 = ~~Mass~~ * acceleration The mass cancells out - it's not important.
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Why did Greek and Egyptian beliefs (among others) became mithologies but Jewish and Catholic beliefs became religions?
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I'll throw out an idea. Mythology is the collection of stories and descriptions. Religion is the things people do. So for Christians, bible stories represent the mythology, while going to church on Sunday is the religion.Technically, Jewish and Catholic traditional stories *are* mythos, same as Greek and Egyptian traditional stories. The main difference is that there are practicing Jews and Catholics still practicing those traditions, which can cause confusionIt always fascinated me how Christianity went from an illegal, pagan cult, into the most powerful and established religion in the world within a few hundred yearsThis is a pretty interesting discussion. Please pose the same question over at r/askhistorians where I feel it will foster some really good debateMythology uses stories to illustrate unexplainable physical phenomena. Theology tells storiess of how the divine has come into dialogue with man.Religion is comprised of stories, beliefs, and ritual/worship. When people stop practicing their religion you're left with just the stories.The Egyptian religion was practised for more than 3,000 years. They considered all the other tribal religions to be mythsMYTHOLOGIES. pretty sure there is christian and jewish mythology as well. no one is stopping you from worshiping zeusBecause people still believe in Judaism and CatholicismWe bred with cylons one too many times.
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Nuclear Fission Reactors: How is there a net gain in energy from both fusion AND fission?
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If you're using one particular element, yes, one results in a net gain and one in a net loss. But you're not; fusion reactors use elements that release energy when they fuse, and fission reactors use elements that release energy when they split.
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Why honey never "expires"
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Honey has a really high sugar concentration and this prevents microorganisms to grow in it. When you drop a bacteria in honey, the bacteria has a lot of water in it compared to the environment it's in. In other words, the difference in concentration between the inside of the cell and the outside is very big. This causes water to move out of the bacteria, in order to equalize the concentrations in and out of the cell , leaving the bacteria with no water. And that bacteria can't survive without any water. Same thing happens in the [Dead Sea], where it's the really high salt concentration that doesn't allow most living things to survive.I think osmotic gradient has something to do with it too. Too sugar rich and not enough water, bacteria takes in too much sugar and bursts. Had a microbiology professor tell me this once, never double checked. A side note, they say not to give honey to newborns because it may contain botulism spores. The spores "hatch" in the babies intestinesI read an article once about archaeologists finding honey dating back to ancient Egypt and it was still edibleIf honey does not expire, how does mead exist?It turns into hydrogen peroxide when in contact with bacteria killing the organism. Thusly never going badPure vanilla extract, if tightly sealed, will not go bad.Might be elsewhere on this thread, but if you keep sugar dry it doesn't go bad
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Why I'm always tired even after 8-9 hours of sleep every night
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How much do you exercise during the day? Are you an active person? I ask this because I normally am fairly active, and a decent nights sleep of 8 hours will sort me right out, but if I take a couple of days lounging around the house I will always be more tired after I wake up. In addition to wildgurularry's comment, there's an app called Sleep Cycle Alarm Clock for the iphone that wakes you up at the appropriate time during your sleep pattern, i.e. at the point when you are in the lightest sleep and not a deep REM cycle. Clever shit, it sits on your pillow and judges where you are in your REM cycle by how much you are moving. Finally, do you turn your phone off at night? Having had mine on almost constantly for several years now I find it quite strange turning it off completely, someone mentioned to me a condition where people will rarely get into full REM sleep purely because their phone is on next to them . Maybe set a different alarm and turn your phone off if that's what you do.
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Why is it so difficult to travel faster than the speed of light?
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Skipping the explanation for why it's impossible to go beyond the speed of light, I'll address this misconception: > What makes light so special? Light isn't special. The speed of light isn't special because it's the speed of _light_. It's special because it's the _speed_ of light. It is also the speed of gravity. It's the _universal speed limit_ that applies to everything in the universe. Things are not limited to the speed of light, as if it's some quality of light. Things are limited to the universal speed limit, which light -- being a thing -- is also limited to.
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Why do we still have an electoral college?
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Formally getting rid of it would take a constitutional amendment, which requires the approval of 3/4 of the states. Smaller states that benefit from the current system wouldn't agree to get rid of it.
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what are Canker sores and why do they hurt so bad?
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If you get them commonly, there's really no cure, but there's a few things that help. Mouthwash, though ungodly painful for a minute, will kill the pain for about an hour. There's also gels and liquids containing benzocaine which is a mild topical anesthetic from the -caine family generally available on your pharmacy's shelfs, no script needed
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The difference between the Republicans and Democrats.
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The best way I have heard to think of it is to divide government into two major categories: economic issues and social issues. Today's Democratic Party believes in high levels of self-governing when it comes to social issues and low levels of self-governing when it comes to economic issues like taxes and welfare. The Republican Party of today is the exact opposite, with low support for self-governing when it comes to social issues and high support for self-governing when it comes to economic issues.
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If nothing can travel faster than the speed of light is traveling to other galaxies impossible?
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It's not impossible .if you are an immortal. As many people have already stated, you can get to another galaxy at subluminal if you don't mind the long commute. With suspended animation, cloning, uploaded/downloaded consciousness, some other form of life extension, it would be possible. Now if you wanted to get there **within a single lifetime** then we have to go theoretical and sci-fi with wormholes, folding space, and warp drives.
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How do knives work?
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The edge of the knife acts like a wedge and wedges the cells apart in whatever you're cutting. It also helps that the knife takes all the pressure you are applying and focuses it into a tiny line.
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Why don't we sneeze when we sleep?
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Just the other week I awoke in the middle of the night in a sneezing fit. I've had pretty bad allergies my whole life. I take Benadryl before bed, not only to help me fall asleep, but to help keep me from waking up midsleep sneezing. I take Claritin daily as well.
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Why so many people think the moon landing was hoax
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I very much enjoyed the Mythbuster's episode on this. Netflix it if you have not seen it =]", 'Because the venture was huge and of course unheard of. At the time, the US and the USSR were in a restless race to space, always trying to "one up" each other with escalating achievements. Landing someone on the moon was a way of settling the argument, a feat many times more ambitious than anything done before. So some people believe that the US were ready to do anything to "win", including faking it in a movie studio.My dad is very stable minded but doesn't believe it. He says that with the state the world was at the time, he wouldn't have thought a staging to be out if the government's ideas. Also, he points out that why the hell did we go there and not come back? Just to prove a point?EDIT: dads point of view not mine", 'I have no sympathy for these people, so: They are fucking idiots who don't trust scientific evidence because "the man" is the one who put out the evidence, mostly because of a general distrust of authority.Some people love conspiracy's. No matter how true something is, there will always be a conspiracy created by another.
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What is the computer's BIOS and what does it do?
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It allows you to change settings on your hardware before you load any operating system . It also handles checking things out and letting you know about problems that might keep you from using your operating system. Back in the day, you used to have to set up every little detail of your hard drive in the bios, now it's pretty automatic and you just make changes there when you need something that's not default.
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What's the difference between agnostic and atheist?
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That is a matter of some debate. The atheist community likes to say [a]theism is whether you believe in gods, and [a]gnosticism is whether you are certain in that belief. But while agnostic atheists acknowledge they can't be 100% certain, anyone who takes on the atheist label is going to be very close to 100%, make the distinction not terrible useful. In more common parlance, it is about making up your mind. An atheist had made up their mind god does not exist, a theist that he does exist, and an agnostic has not made up their mind yet. Finally, in a lot of places being an atheist carries a large stigma, so some atheists refer to themselves as agnostic to avoid this.FWIW I don't like bringing gnosticism into the labels -- I think it make things seem much more binary than they really are. Personally, I believe God/gods are real to the same extent that I believe fairies are real. Some people might label me an agnostic , since I can't really _know_ that fairies aren't real , but despite this, I have no problem saying things like "fairies aren't real", and so shouldn't have a problem saying things like "God isn't real"Check [this] and [this] out! Let me know if you have further questions.
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Why isn't there thunder and lightning during snow storms?
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> Why isn't there thunder and lightning during snow storms? Because you haven't been to Maine.
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why is gold so valuable ?
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1. There isn't much gold around and it's nice and shiny, so people want to have some of it.2. People know that other people want to have some of it . So they get some of that stuff and whenever they need money, there'll still be people around who want gold who they can trade with.3. There are also some other reasons why people need gold, for example to use them in electronics.
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How does both fusion and fission produce energy? By that principle, couldn't we split and then put together atoms indefinitely for infinite energy?
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You only get out more energy than you put in for fusion if you're talking about atoms lighter than iron doing the fusing. Similarly, you only get more energy than you put in for fission if you're talking about atoms heavier than iron. Stars actually die when they start making iron, because it keeps them from being able to produce enough energy to stay alive.
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Why does the American public value the ability to possess a gun so highly?
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During america's formative years much of the country didn't have extensive or reliable law enforcement and the right and ability to defend yourself from criminals and nature was important and highly valued. This idea of violently defending yourself being an inalienable right of all people became ingrained in our culture and has lasted to this day.
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why can people visit Chernobyl without effects of radiation today?
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Radiation isn't all that dangerous. It takes quite a lot to hurt you. People are afraid of radiation because it is imperceptible magic that *can* kill, and can be spilled across a countryside like oil. The only place you could take a lethal dose in under a week is the reactor building. Some of the mess there is still extremely radioactive and could overexpose you in tens of minutes.There is actually a giant misconception about the harmfulness of radiation. Basically every dosage of radiation can be harmful, higher radiation just bears a higher risk of consequences. Take Anatoli Stepanowitsch Djatlow for example, the guy supervising the experiment in Chernobyl at the time. He received an excessive dose of 5.5 Sv for the second time in his life. Instead of dying of cancer he said "Fuck death" and went on to live another 9 years without any sign of radiation sickness or cancer to die from a heart attack at the age of 64. Others just looked funny at the reactor and got leukemia within the next 2 weeks. So everyone who travels there should know that the risk is not too high when taking all the precautions, yet they are still relatively high.Most people are only there for a few hours. If they lived there year round their radiation dose would be much much higher. It's like how a pale person could lay on the beach for a few hours and get a suntan, but if they laid on the beach from dawn until sunset all day every day they'd be horribly sunburned.
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The Monty hall problem- specifically one statement: Since the odds of choosing the car on the first round is 1/3, the odds of losing the game when you switch every time is also 1/3.
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> specifically one statement: Since the odds of choosing the car on the first round is 1/3, the odds of losing the game when you switch every time is also 1/3. Wow! It took me forever to understand the solution - and you've just presented the simplest answer I've ever seen. Let's play the game - a million times or something like that. You pick a door, I open one of the other doors, rah rah rah, you get to decide if you want to switch or not, you know the drill. However, you're not in the mood to ponder your options a million times over; so you just decide that you will *always* switch. So, out of the million times, , you will chose the car 333,333 times when you make your first choice, right? And 666,666 times, you will chose one of the two goats. Still with me? Now we go through the motions, I open a door with a goat, you make a thinking face or whatever, and then you pick the other door *every. single. time* what happens? the 333,333 times that you had the car to begin with, you now end up with a stupid goat. but the 666,666 times where you already had the stupid goat, you're now rewarded with a shiney new car. Or, in other words: If you always switch, you will win round 2 every time you lost round 1, and you will lose round 2 every time you won round one. The percentages are the same.
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Why is the order of operations in the order that it is?
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Since I somehow don't think this has been mentioned yet, the general mathematical understanding of this ordering is best expressed in terms of a [sequence of hyperoperations]. As other comments have alluded to, the ordering is entirely natural -- each operation is formed by using the previous one recursively. You can extend this sequence by iterating exponentiation, and then further iterating each operation you get from there. Since each is defined recursively, when evaluating a statement we evaluate the outermost/topmost layer of recursion first, then work our way back down to the base level. In any normal mathematical situation, people don't use any levels that are recursively deeper than exponentiation ), whence we get the order of operations. Dirichlet indicator has given a good account of the historical reasoning behind the order, but this is the mathematical reasoning. And, as you mention of course, parentheses are in there as a sort of manual override.
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why don't planets travel around the sun in a circular trajectory?
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So, consider a planet in orbit. It's got some energy from the fact that it's moving around, call that K. It's got some potential energy from being in a gravitational field, let's call that one G. So then the total energy T = K + G. This total can't change, because the planet and star aren't losing energy. So if one increases, the other has to decrease. Now imagine that it's in a perfectly circular orbit. This means both the energies, K and G, are fixed - because the speed and the distance from the star are constant. Give the planet a push. Now it's moving faster, so it'll move away from the star. But that means it has to increase it's gravitational energy . The increase has to come from the kinetic energy, which means the planet slows down . Slowing down means it's going to fall back closer to the star. Moving closer to the star means it's decreasing in gravitational potential energy - energy that gets converted into kinetic energy . This means the planet speeds up, and the whole cycle begins over again. TLDR: Elliptical orbits mean that the energy oscillates between kinetic and gravitational energy. Circular orbits are when that doesn't happen. It's slightly difficult to damp 10^25 kg of stuff oscillating, especially in space.
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Why Zebras weren't domesticated like horses.
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Zebras are scary!!! The biggest cause of death in zookeepers are zebra bites. They tend to bite someone, and then not let go. There are records of persons being bitten by zebras, and then dieing from thirst as they are held there. Zebras also don't have the spine structure to be ridden. They have an arched backbone, which makes it so that they can not ride for a distance. Finally, zebras are scary scary animals.
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Why does the moon look so much bigger when it's close to the horizon?
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The mind believes things on the horizon to be farther away than stuff overhead. Why? We're used to seeing clouds just a few miles above us, but the clouds on the horizon can be hundreds of miles away. So if we think it's farther away, and it's not, then it seems larger.
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How is Pluto, and very small celestial object that is very far from the Sun, able to orbit the Sun?
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Others have already answered, but I was just playing Universe Sandbox and thought it might be interesting to post some images showing just how far out Pluto is. [For fun,] [and for science.] Not the most productive answer in the world, but it's interesting!
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How do the Reddit bots work?
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They are written by people using the [reddit API]. Here's one written in Python: _URL_5_
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What are the main differences between Sunni and Shia Islam?
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I spent a year teaching in Saudi Arabia. It was the Shia who worked and were more open minded. I don't know if that's because they're the minority or if it was cultural.They disagreed about who should rule a long time ago.
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How we have a picture of the Milky Way galaxy?
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There is no image of our Milky Way, they are either images of other galaxies as example of it or an artist's conception based on best current estimates.
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Why did we evolve to have one dominant hand and foot instead of just being ambidextrous?
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It's not evolution so much as convenience. If you practiced using both hands for all your tasks every day, you could be ambidextrous, it's just easier to stick with the hand you're more confortable with.
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The Ireland and Northern Ireland conflict.
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Wikipedia has a pretty good article on it called [the Troubles], it's a somewhat lengthy explanation, so rather than give you a complete rundown, read through the article and post back with any specific questions you have?
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Why do all the stars and planets look white when you're looking from earth?
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As others mentioned, stars give off all types of light and all types of colors. Our eyes have two types of things for detecting light- rods and cones. Cones are very good at detecting differences in color. The rods are not as good as sensing differences in color but are good at detecting differences in the amount of light. When looking up at the night sky, our cones don't get very much light and have a harder time seeing the different colors.
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Why are there much more right-handed people than left-handed people?
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To take it one step further, what about those of us who are ambidextrous? I prefer to use my right hand for throwing things as well as anything that uses fine motor skills such as writing and drawing. However, I'd rather use my left hand for power swings and for some reason using eating utensils like forks and spoons. I imagine the fine motor skills developed with practice as that is what my parents and teachers insisted that I use while learning how to write, but why does my brain have a preference for everything else?
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Why/how do stars "TWINKLE?"
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You know how [heat haze] makes things on the horizon look all wobbly? Same thing happens to stars. Because it's generally cold at night they don't wobble *that* much, but they still wobble a bit and that makes them look like they're twinkling. If you were in space they would look like a constant light and wouldn't twinkle at all.
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where did the water on mars go?
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Mars still has plenty of water remaining on it locked up with the CO2 ice at the poles, or as permafrost beneath the surface. Another interesting thing about water on Mars is that the southern hemisphere has more subsurface water than the northern hemisphere - by a considerable margin. A majority of the northern hemisphere is over a kilometer lower in elevation than the southern hemisphere, a popular theory explaining this is an immense impact event early on in Mar's history. The huge northern basin could be in fact a giant crater so large it wrapped around the top side of the planet. This could explain why the north is overall dry and the south is not. If Mars were to be terraformed, the north would be dominated by an immense ocean, and the south by an Asia-sized supercontinent.
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Why does the statute of limitations exist?
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Evidence degrades after a certain period. People have faded memories. Even alibis get increasingly difficult refute or confirm. Part of it is political in nature. Lets say Republicrats have absolute control over the government and Democans have a viable candidate against them. The Republicrats find a random crime a long time ago that the Democran candidate can't refute, because he doesn't know where he was march 2nd, 43 years ago and use that to smear his name. There are lots of reasons, the political one probably least among them.
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Why does bottled water have and expiration date on it?
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Actually it's not that unreasonable, UV rays begin degrading the plastic after not such a long time. If you leave a carton or something in the window for a few months you'll see it loose some of it's colour. This occurs because the UV rays can split bonds between the plastic monomers . When these monomers are released into the water, it's contaminated somewhat - not necessarily dangerously, but possibly at the cost of taste. so I guess a more interesting question is why does water sold in glass bottles also have an expiry date?
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Why do planets orbit the sun on the same plane?
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Actually they're not, although they are on the same plane *relatively*. They have all sorts of differenced and odd angles. However basic representations do not show this.
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If atoms make up everything, what makes up the space between an atoms nucleus and electrons
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As others have helpfully pointed out, atoms themselves are made up of things smaller than atoms such as the nucleus and electrons which you mentioned in the very question. These in turn are made up of even smaller things , which are probably made of something even smaller, tho we are not sure. The thing is it is hard to say what is 'between' say, an electron and its nucleus, because there really isn't a 'between'. The distances are so small that Quantum Mechanics takes over, the result being that you can't really tell where the electron is at any given moment. If you can't locate the electron relative to the nucleus, what counts as 'between'? We can say how likely an electron is to be in any particular place, but not know exactly where the electron is. This results in our idea of the electrons not being like planets orbiting the sun but more like a cloud of probability. The shape of this cloud is spherical for the most simple of cases, but can take on some weird shapes as you look at more complex atoms . So what's between an electron and its nucleus? Maybe the electron. Complicating things further, even nothingness is full of Virtual Particles. I like to think of it this way, you found a region of space that actually has nothing, no mass no energy, nothing. Well, that nothing is going to borrow some energy from itself and use that energy to create something . Now there is a debt of energy, so the nothingness just turn the matter back into energy and pays itself back. These particles don't last long, but the creation and destruction are happens all the time, and this process has been experimentally observed. In Summary:Atoms don't make up everything;There is no between;The electron does not exist in any one place;Even if you found some empty space, its still full.
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The difference between Communism and Socialism
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If anyone is interested in discussing the political Isms, I'd be honored if you'd check out my subreddit /r/RedUnion. It is a place for peaceful discussion of the political isms. I am trying to build up a community of people who are willing to teach and to learn. :)
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Why are planets and stars only spherical and not any other shape?
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Gravity pulls equally in all directions towards the center of mass. Gravity = gM1M2/r^2. Because the planets tend to have much more mass than neighboring matter, each point in the planet is pulled equally towards the center of that body, creating a sphere. That being said, because there is gravity pulling on each atom in the body, they aren't perfect spheres. In addition, they are constantly hurtling through space so the gravitational pull is constantly changing.
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why you have to sneeze when you have a cold
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Cold germs irritate the inside of your nose in order to make you sneeze because sneezing is a good way to spread the germs from person to person. It's evolution: the diseases that make people sneeze are the ones that reproduce and thrive.
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Why can astronomers see many distant galaxies but they don't know what's on outside of our own solar system?
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Think of it like being in a field at night. You can see city lights off in the distance, but you can't see a tree 50 yards away.
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If the Earth is rotating eastward at 465 miles per second at the equator, how is it that planes flying East get to their destination in a reasonable time?
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Because everything on the planet is rotating along with the planet. So when a plane takes off at the equator it's already going thousands of miles per hour relative to space, no matter which direction it's going relative to the earth.
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How does Wifi "work"
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Here's my shot: Actually there are not notable differences between cellphones and Wifi. Both are using radiowaves, but with different strength and that affects coverage. Wifi home devices are using very little signal strength to operate and that's why the coverage is small.
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Why do I always wake up minutes before my alarm clock goes off?
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Yeah, this happens to me too. After a long time of going to bed/getting up at the same time, your body just knows when to fall asleep and wake up. Once you set those boundaries, it's like your body can interpret the amount of time it within those boundaries that it needs to be fully rested.
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What is earwax and why do we have it?
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It's like boogers in your nose. Dust and bugs fly in, your body deal with them by incasing them in goo. In your nose it's mucus that can either be runny or harden . In your ear, it's a waxy substance that should be cleared out with q-tips . Earwax itself isn't particularly special. It's made up of the same stuff as your fingernails, plus some fat, oils, and alcohol for good measure. If you've never had your ears professionally cleaned out, you should try it one day! As best as I can describe it, it's a bit painful, but you feel incredible afterward, plus you can hear a lot more!", 'It also helps prevent bugs from wanting to enter your ear
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If species such as dinosaurs were around longer then humans (over 100 million years), why do they not evolve into more intellectual creatures?
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Evolution is not an 'intelligent' process. It basically just generates random variations and the variation that results in more offspring, prevails.Additionally, there is no ctrl-Z. If the circumstances at the time of the dinosaurs favored power over intelligence, evolution will go down that way. Another example are our eyes. Apparently, an octopus has a much more efficient eye structure than most mammals . But because a fish with lesser eyes decided to start crawling on the beaches, we're stuck with our 'faulty' eyes. Just like dinosaurs got stuck with tiny brains.
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Why would raising the minimum wage help? Wouldn't it just increase inflation?
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Well, that's not the typical argument. Typically, min wages are entry level jobs. The usual criticism of higher minimum wages is fewer entry level jobs; not labor or price inflation.It could. It may force businesses to raise the price of their products, but they might also respond by laying off workers.
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Why do black holes emit Hawking radiation?
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I don't know what the answer is, but if you get no love here then maybe /r/askscience can help you out.
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Why do bacteria and viruses kill their host?
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Bacteria are like a rampaging horde; they don't care about longevity. All they care about is reproducing as much as possible. And since each individual bacteria cell doesn't live for very long, each cell will try to reproduce the most in that short time that it's alive. This is best achieved by destroying the host in order to use as much of its resources as possible to make more bacteria.
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The difference between ®, ©, and ™
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Hypothetically, could the individual who created the Lil' Kim image that was lifted from this site for her album cover take legal action against her record producing company, since they did not use any of these annotations?
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Why exactly do animals like dogs and cats have such short lives compared to humans.
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Same reason you hear dog years and cat years. They age faster. A dog is 7 years because they age 7 times as fast. Same thing for cats.
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If light is a wave, what is its medium?
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Neither one of these answers are particularly great - they are correct, in a classical sense. When the other answerers talk about electric fields and magnetic fields, they are really talking about classical field theory. However, modern physics - specifically quantum field theory - has a different explanation. Light DOES have a medium - the Electromagnetic Field. Note the capitals. The EM Field - like other Fields - is a feature of spacetime; it exists everywhere spacetime exists. Light is an excitation of the EM Field, and photons are quantized excitations . The vacuum of space, like everywhere else in spacetime, is permeated by these Fields. Another Field of recent interest is the Higgs Field - excitations in the Higgs Field are what give rise to mass. There are lots of Fields - one for every boson, but the core answer to your question is that light DOES have a medium, and that medium is a core feature of spacetime itself - and , you could probably just say that spacetime IS the medium.
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Why does the USA still use imperial measurements and not metric?
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I have heard that one factor has always been cost. Imagine changing every book in your house. Now make your house a large country that is in debt and is losing money. They aren't pressured that much but as US industry is significantly larger than Canadian industry their companies have the power to force parts be ordered in US imperial units.
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How can the Universe be both Infinite AND Expanding?
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imagine an infinitely long rubber band, attach balls at regular intervals, now stretch the band , now distance between each ball has increased.
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Why can't we just terraform Venus, Mars, or even the Moon?
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We probably could , but as you said it's very costly. It would cost MUCH more to terraform the moon then it costs to send out rovers or probes to other planets/moons though. And terraforming doesn't really give us the same scientific bang for the buck as rover research does.the vapor pressure of venus is too high so do not even bother. The moon and mars are possible but you have to understand the timeframes to complete terraforming are on the geologic scale
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Could we do anything to survive a meteor impact like the one that killed off the dinosaurs? If so, What would we need to do? If not, why not?
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If a > 1km asteroid hit us, we'd lose a massive proportion of the human race but I don't think it would be an extinction level event. We'd probably have global crop failures and an enormous die off but pockets of humanity might well survive because we have a remarkable ability to modify our environment that previous lifeforms during mass extinctions did not possess. However, if a *really* enormous asteroid hit, something like a protoplanet, no amount of science is gonna help us if the earth just becomes one giant sheet of mile thick ice. Our only hope of survival would be to leave the planet and live somewhere else.So if a large enough meteorite hit earth would it change the orbit in reference to the sun?Also if so what risks could be created by said orbit change?
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Why is there such focus on the exploration and urge to begin the process of colonizing the planet mars when our planet's Moon is so much closer?
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we are not planning on colonising mars yet. we are looking for, amongst other things of interest, one key element: Water. There is none on the moon. Therefore any 'colonisation' would need to be sustained from earth and would be highly inefficient. If we find water below the surface of Mars we get a place outside of earth that can become more self sustaining and therefore, long term, cost effective projects can take place. There are many who will correctly point out that water is also the key thing we look for in searching for life. The two things are related: we look for water to find evidence of life beyond earth AND we need that same water to sustain our own life as we expand our horizons. there are millions of fascinating discoveries that we have made in space such as planets made of diamond and clouds of raspberry flavoured alcohol but nothing, NOTHING, floats an astronomer's boat more than a possibility of water. **TL;DR It's all about water.**
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Theoretically Speaking, Would a planet 65 million light years away, with a strong enough telescope, be able to see dinosaurs? (X-Post from r/askscience with no answers)
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Yep! Relativity is awesome! It really helps you understand the concept of time in our universe with that! Now if you went to earth at a high speed and kept going to it, you would watch as shit really sped up! You would see everything go through time really fast! So yeah, the concept of time isn't really a past or present, it's how slow or fast things are changing in the universe based on how slow or fast you are changing in the universe. Really makes you think!", 'Yes. You most definitely will do. The main point here is that the planets that we are seeing are actually the view of the planets from 300 million years ago. Who knows what evolution has happened there since and how it is right now. :-) its very intriguing.. Edit: Spellings and corrections..
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Physics tells us that energy can be neither created nor lost, so where does gravity's ability to cause motion, which requires energy, come from?
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Something separates the stuff. That is either the 'big bang' itself, or some other physical, chemical or nuclear process. Energy is put in when the objects are separated, according to the standard work formulae, Energy = Force × Distance. Whatever separates the things provides the force .
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What is the difference between murder, homicide, and manslaughter?
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Homicide is the general term: someone dying by another's cause. Murder is an illegal act, to kill with intent or extreme negligence. Manslaughter is killing by negligence, but not to the degree of murder.homicide - killing another human may or may not be criminal murder - intent to kill or death was a reasonable expectation of your actions 1st degree murder - planned out ahead a time, even if very briefly 2nd degree murder - spur of the moment reaction out of anger or fear felony murder - if while committing an aggravated crime, someone dies who otherwise would not have, regardless of intent manslaughter, sometimes 3rd degree murder - homicide without intent and where death was not a reasonable expectation voluntary homicide - criminal, but not murderous, intent against the victiminvoluntary homicide - negligence resulting in death justifiable homicide - self defense and other non-criminal homicide
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Camera lenses are round... Why are the pictures rectangles?
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The shape of the lens actually affects the way light enters the image, but it doesn't determine the shape of the picture. This means two things: first, light particles are circular because of the lens shape. If you look closely, or at a bokeh photo, you can see this effect. Second, if you remove the lens, you will see a rectangular mirror like thing. That's the image sensor and it reflects the light coming in through the lens . Because the image sensor is the actual object capturing whatever comes in through the lens and aiming it up through the viewfinder in modern DSLRs, that's also what changes the shape of the picture. Finally, because the shape of the image captured changes from the shape of the aperture, the image gets slightly distorted. This distortion is most prevalent in very wide angle lenses that can zoom out pretty wide, say 18mm or something. This distortion also darkens the edges of your images, creating a natural vignette.This is mainly because the use of prisms in a camera. Prisms are cut rectangular, and using one allows the cameraman/photographer to see what image he/she is taking in the viewfinder while also allowing the light to fall on the sensor/film simultaneouslyBecause cameras--and the film surface the picture it taken on--are square.
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. why don't we fall out of bed when we are asleep?
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Random fun fact, one theory on why we jerk ourselves awake while sleeping is because of primal instinct telling our body it's starting to fall out of a tree, and to thus to wake us up. > Another popular idea takes a more evolutionary approach to hypnic jerks, explaining that the spasms are an ancient primate reflex to the relaxation of muscles during the onset of sleep — the brain essentially misinterprets the relaxation as a sign that the sleeping primate is falling out of a tree, and causes the muscles to quickly react. [_URL_0_]", 'when i was a kid i used to toss n turn a lot. i had bars on the side of my bed because i had the top bunk. my parents thought i was past it and took the bars out. but one night i fell. from the top bunk! cracked my head on the dresser on the way down. i think i knocked myself out because i woke up to my mother comforting me with tears drying on my cheeks.My DOG once fell out of bed while we were asleep. You wouldn't believe the noise he made. He's a Great Dane so it was fairly traumatic for both of us.
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The human origins, from ape to us. What happened to other human species other than Homo Sapiens? Do all modern humans come from the same individual?
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We are apes. All the other human species became extinct, either because they died out or because they evolved into another species. Eventually there was just us left. And no, we don't come from the same individual. Individuals don't evolve, populations do.
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Why is life on other planets always thought to be more advanced than humans?
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I guess the assumption that life on other planet is advanced gives people more the encouragement to look for them. Because let's face it , we are selfish and if this life on another planet can provide us with better advancements in our own planet then it appeals more us.
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The year 2038 problem.
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That's pretty much it. Any program still running at that time that depends on a 32-bit integer to keep track of time will likely malfunction in some way. Those programs will have to be replaced or updated before then.Hopefully by the time that happens we will be on 64 bit programs almost exculsively. Heck we might be on 128 or 256 bit by then.Essentially, all computers running off of a 32 bit base will run out of space to store time. This is because all those computer measure time forwards from Thurs. Jan 1 1970, and the furthest it can measure due to limited space is Jan 19, 2038. It's essentially the same problem as with Y2K. The issue with Y2K is that computers ran off of a 2 number year to save space ie 1991 was 91, 1998 was 98. And when the clock rolled around to 2000, it would read it as 00 which would be interpreted as 1900, and anything that had to do with time would be reset to what it was at Jan 1, 1900 The 2038 problem is similar, as computer will run out of room and reset to Jan 1, 1970. I will probably be fixed much in a similar manner to Y2K, where they simply went in and changed everything, they most likely will simply move the date that all computers use as a base for time to something later, like 2030.
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Why doesn't communism work in practice?
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This thread is depressing. It's unbelievable how many people still buy into the whole 'human nature' thing to dismiss a political ideology.> why doesn't it work that well? You can't say that. Communism, according to the definition of Karl Marx, has never existed in an industrial society. According to Marx, Communism would be the last step in human development, as there would be no more government and there would be no more money . The governments which were "Communist" according to the Western Mass Media definition, were actually socialist governments . After the fall of Capitalism, Socialism is the next step as society figures out how things should go into Communism. In Communism, there will be no more Capitalist exploitation and the people will work together, according to the theories of Marx.Karl Marx would tell you it doesn't work when capitalism still exists, and capitalism will always corrupt and force out communism. Yes, he built an out into his system.
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Why is the middle class shrinking in the United States?
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Robert Reich is all about this and just put out a movie, *Inequality for All*. It's a pretty good starting point if you can watch it. You can get it online and stream it in a couple places, too.
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Why do some people choose not to get vaccinated and not have their children vaccinated?
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Because there's a lot of money and publicity to be had in making parents panic, pretty much.
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Where do ISPs get their internet?
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Typically, 'small' ISPs will install cable in cities, between houses etc.. Bigger ISPs will install [under sea cable], satellites and other very expansive equipment. Usually the small ISPs will pay the big ISPs to be allowed to use their equipment.They don't "get" internet, they lay the cables to the servers that websites are hosted from. They lay undersea cable for international connection. Where a link already exists they often pay the owner for permission to use it.
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What causes earth to tilt on its axis?
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If you're trying to figure out how the seasons actually work in a song of ice and fire, it's magic. No double suns, no crazy tilting axis dance. As to earth's axis tilt, I can't answer.
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Why do you feel worse at night when you're sick?
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The more active you are during the day, the worse you will feel at night. That's your body being fatigued from having gone about your day, plus being fatigued from your illness. It isn't uncommon for someone to feel absolutely fine upon waking up, but become progressively more fatigued as the day wears on. **
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. Why do bees make honey?
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honey is a bee's way of preserving food. it's comparable to what humans do making jelly and jam.
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If you were to die in space, would you decompose or stay the same?
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The answer is likely you'd be freeze dried over the course of several weeks, and nearly all biological activity would cease. Freeze drying happens in high vacuum at low temperatures. If you died someplace in direct sunlight, the dessication process would be much faster, just a day or two. Your freeze dried corpse would be a mummy and would last a very very long time in orbit. If you were freeze dried slowly, your corpse wouldn't shrivel as the frozen structure of your body would stay the same. If the drying process goes too quickly though, the crystalline structure of your frozen corpse would collapse, and you'd end up looking shriveled like beef jerkey. Source: chemical engineer, done a lot of work with freeze drying.
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Why do we hear a ringing noise in our ears from time to time?
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My ear, nose and throat doctor explained it to me like this. In your ear, there's fluid. Sometimes you eat something or take drugs that alter the amount of fluid being produced or they start to get rid of said fluid. What your hearing is the hairs & / bones & / cartilage vibrating at a certain frequency without said fluid. Not much you can do about it except try to focus on something else or dunk your head underwater for however long you can until it goes away.Either that, or you were near a sound loud enough to damage your eardrum. If we're talking about outside things creating those noises, my understanding is that it has to do with the EMF in the brain that an individual has. I could be completely wrong, but unfortunately I don't know enough about the subject to say anything else.
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If we were to allow division by zero to equal zero or infinity, would math get really messed up? why?
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The best explanation I know is this: Multiplication is a shorthand for repeated addition. 4x2 is 4 +4. Division is shorthand for repeated subtraction. 10 5 is asking how many times you can subtract 5 from 10. So what is 10 0? How many times can you subtract 0 from 10? Certainly not 0 or 10. You could say infinity but that's not a number or useful answer. So we say it is undefined.Yes! You can prove anything, like 1=2 or 0=1, if you allow division by zero to equal any value.
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What actually happens when we crack our knuckles/joints?
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Also, I've done this for the better part of my life, and my fingers can sometimes be a bit numb and/or hurt. Is it because i crack my knuckles?", 'I wonder how many people began cracking their knuckles while reading through the comments. I certainly did.
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Why are internet upload speeds always much slower than download speeds?
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Fiber internet usually has symmetrical upload and download speeds. That's why Google Fiber and other fiber internet providers only advertise 1 speed.Its also to slow file sharing of consumers as well as setting up servers in house.
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Why are pharmacists necessary?
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My doctor prescribed a drug for me. As his writing is illegible, I couldn't tell what it was, I only knew what was being treated. The pharmacist pointed out that the prescription was for something I'm highly allergic to AND contacted my doc to get something else prescribed. So they saved my life and saved me a second trip to the doc.
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What's the difference between volts, watts, and amps?
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Watts is a measure of power consumption.Power.Current is a measure of flow of electrons and is measured in amperes.Voltage is a potential force.These three are all relative to each other, especially when you use them in a power triangle.P=VxI.V=P/I.I=P/V.So a 60watt light bulb running on a 110V system.I=60/110I=0.545 amps I hope this makes sense I'm not sure if it would help a 5year old, but then I wonder why a 5 year old would care about this. Pissing in a bucket is way more fun ", 'Imagine your electricity carrying wire is a garden hose. Amperage is like the volume of liquid traveling through. Voltage is like the pressure.wattage is a combination of the two. edit: wattage is a combination of the two,
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If black holes are so powerful even light cannot escape, now can we see them if the light reflecting them shouldn't be there?
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We don't detect the reflection, we detect: 1. the absence of the reflection.2. the absence of any projection of stuff from them .3. the affect of the black hole on surrounding space .
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Why does fusion produce so much more energy than fission?
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Although it's not a hard and fast rule that fusion produces more energy than fission, usually people are comparing hydrogen fusion to uranium fission. Fusion of light elements tends to produce more energy per mass of fuel used because the change in binding energy per nucleon tends to be greater for transitions from lighter elements to heavier elements than from heavier ones from lighter ones . This is somewhat connected to the relatively short range of the strong nuclear force. _URL_0_
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Why do animals have mating seasons and why don't humans have one?
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Having a defined mating season encourages the males to mate and move on. By having no external cues as to fertility, human males were encouraged to form long term bonds to increase the chances of passing on genes. Wikipedia quote on the subject: > Women concealed ovulation to obtain men's aid in rearing offspring. If women no longer signaled the time of ovulation, men would be unable to detect the exact period in which they were fertile. This led to a change in men's mating strategy: rather than mating with multiple women in the hope that some of them, at least, were fertile during that period, men instead chose to mate with a particular woman repeatedly throughout her menstrual cycle. A mating would be successful in resulting in conception when it occurred during ovulation, and thus, frequent matings, necessitated by the effects of concealed ovulation, would be most evolutionarily successful. _URL_0_
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Why does inbreeding create defects?
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The short version: it doesn't. I just brings recessive genes to the surface. Some of those are very bad news. Inbreeding has a tendency to weed out bad recessive genes , while avoiding inbreeding lets them persist and accumulate. This can actually be a good thing, evolutionary speaking, as it permits multi-error mutations to jump through temporary broken-states on their way to better things. ", 'You know how you look more like you family members than someone at work/school? This is because of our genes. Everyone has a defferent set of genes, but all genes are passed from parent to child. This means that you have more similar genes with a family member than with an aquaintance. Since many defects are genetic, inbreeding creates a higher chance of these defect genes being passed on from parents to child.
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