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How can we possibly even consider space travel when small rocks travelling through space will surely smash into the transport vehicle? | The density of debris in space is *incredibly* low. Most things sent through space don't collide with anything, and won't collide with anything for thousands of years. Nevertheless, engineers have been designing shields that would be effective against the most likely kinds of debris: bits the size of sand grains. |
the Elen Pao situation and consequenses | From a casual observer . Ellen Pao put in motion a series of bans to ban sub reddits that were overly hateful/perpetrated harassment. This included the subreddit fatpeoplehate. Now an entire sect of the reddit community is doing the internet version of taking to the streets . The response is really shooting themselves ... |
Do dogs mourn the loss of their owner or the loss of a food provider? | It's the owner. As any dog owner will tell you, the dog is happy to see you even when you're not doling out food. And this makes sense. Dogs are descended from wolves, which are pack animals. They bond to their pack. |
How is it legal for states like Tennessee and Texas to ban atheists from holding public office? | In Tennesee, there is a limit on the number laws that each house member and senator can put forward. They don't really want to bother with things that have been trumped by court rulings. |
Why does ginger a settle an upset stomach but other sodas dont | Ginger has been shown to have antiemetic properties, i.e. it can reduce nausea and vomiting. As to why ginger ale will help settle an upset stomach while other sodas don't? Ginger ale contains ginger, while the others don't. Even more interesting IMO, a study has found that [Coca-Cola itself has a success rate of 90%+ ... |
why do we often get really weird, vivid dreams when we are sick? I've woken up from sleep while sick and had difficulty separating reality from what I just dreamed. | When you're sick, your body raises it's temperature because that can help fight off the infection. But, your brain is temperature sensitive. If it gets too hot, this can cause neurons to fire uncontrollably, basically creating seizures. This can lead to very vivd images and dreams forming in the brain because more of t... |
Now that microbeads are banned in the US, what happens to the microbeads sitting on shelves and in warehouses? | The ban does not go into effect until January 1st, 2018. They will continue to be sold and eventually phased out. |
Why are citizens so afraid of drones? Haven't we been watched from the skies for years? | No. I doubt that any satellite is capable to see things in such a high resolution, and even if it was, satellites are expensive, few and can see only one area in real time. |
If unemployment is paid for by the taxes you pay while employed, why can't you collect unemployment if you quit your job? | Unemployment is more like an insurance. Everybody pays in for the few that get it paid out to them. Just like your car insurance, health insurance, etc', "> If unemployment is paid for by the taxes you pay while employed It's not. It's paid by taxes that your **employer** pays. The purpose of unemployment benefits is t... |
80's to 90's Drug Epidemic- What Happened? | It was due to more than one thing, but wide-spread drug use was certainly not new. What was new, however, was the first time the US government devoted such a massive amount of resources toward the prosecution of drug smuggling, dealing and use. Also, before crack, freebasing was really the only way to smoke cocaine and... |
Why the Coca Cola commercial, America the Beautiful (Superbowl, 2014) is so controversial in the USA? | Because many Americans are racist, elitist pricks. I think you'll find that the vast majority like the add, or at least, have no problem with it. It's just a vocal minority that the media pushes forward as a controversial story . |
Why does it, when having a headache, hurt while shaking your head. | headaches, whatever their underlying causes, are usually the result of irritation of the important systems in and around your head, including muscles, nerves, and blood vessels. much like stretching your back when you have a crick in it, straining the muscles in your neck and head by shaking it is likely to further irr... |
Does waking up during the night but going back to sleep pretty immediately affect the benefit of sleep for that night? | []Few and short breaks in sleep, **as long as** they don't interrupt the deep sleep cycles, won't affect you. In fact, is normal to wake up by yourself, and stay awake a little while at the end of a cycle, it's not mandatory to go back to sleep immediatly, as long as the sleep cycles are respected. If you need to progr... |
How does my hair know when to stop growing? | I've grown my hair to my waist before Your hair never stops growing. You just don't notice it's growth much once it's long enough until it hits some kinda of anchoring marker. Ear length, chin length, shoulder length, etc. It's easy to notice when it's very short, because each 1cm growth is a large % increase in length... |
What is a major key and a minor key? | When learning a song by ear, usually a good start is to ask "is this a major or a minor key?"If a song is "happy" sounding its in a major key. If its "sad" then its in a minor key then from there you can figure out what exact key the song is in by playing a lead of sorts over it.Look a piano keyboard. There are black k... |
If the moon's gravity is strong enough to shift the tides, while is it imperceptible to us. | 2 main reasons: - The oceans are a lot heavier than a human - The oceans can resonate to amplify the effect The first reason is pretty obvious. The moon pulls on us with a teeny tiny force per kg, but since the ocean is really heavy those tiny pulls add up to a very significant force. The second reason is a bit less in... |
Why is it I feel more comfortable walking around while im on phone? am I alone in this? | I recall this answer being helpful when this question was asked previously: > You do your best thinking when you walk. > It's well known that your mind is stimulated when you are active and upright. Many scientists and composers adopt this method for idea generation and some of the greatest artists and thinkers from Da... |
How do you draw dotted lines like this guy? | It's deceptively simple -- I learnt how to do it over 20 years ago in school. The way I did it was to hold the piece of chalk downwards at an acute angle to the blackboard and apply pressure along the piece. The chalk piece catches on the board and slips off after a short amount of time only to catch again on the black... |
How do countries with more than one official language write their laws? | They have the law in both languages. There are specialists who draft laws and its special language. They also tend to do the translation work. Laws tend to be written in a peculiar style of writing that really is full of legalese and rather clunky. Strangely enough, this makes translation somewhat easier since it typic... |
The effect of mass on a planet's orbit. | Well, it depends. If you maintain the same speed, and simply increase mass, then it wouldn't matter. As long of course, as you keep the mass much lower than that of the sun. Increase it too much, and you get a binary system. Of course, the increased mass will also have it's effects on the other objects in the solar sys... |
(NSFW) How do people not get E.coli from giving rimjobs? | When you live with someone in an intimate relationship, you become "fluid bonded", meaning you 've exposed each other to all the pathogens you both have, developed the appropriate immunities, so additional exposure isn't going to make things any worse. Now if it was with a stranger, you are taking a risk, but since it ... |
What exactly is an operating system? Can people just make their own like they do with programming languages? | Sure, anyone with sufficient programming skills can make their own operating system. History is littered with hundreds of different operating systems that were written from scratch or based off an existing operating system, and used for some custom hardware. |
Why is the rainbow used as a symbol for LGBT? | A San Francisco Man, Gilbert Baker was asked to come up with a flag for the first Gay Pride parade. He choose a rainbow. In his words “We needed something that expressed us. The rainbow really fits that, in terms of: we’re all the colors, and all the genders and all the races,” “It’s a natural flag; The rainbow is in t... |
Why do beverages have a different taste in different containers (i.e. glass, plastic, aluminum)? | The water itself could actually taste different. Bottled water is often just tap water, but tap water from different facilities can taste different depending on how it's treated and what minerals are dissolved in it. But the containers can affect taste in a couple different ways. The first and most obvious way is that ... |
Why do we need to do court stuff to change our own name? | The amount of paper work needed to legally change your name differs a bit depending on where you are. It is generally easier in places with common law traditions than civil law . In some common law jurisdiction you can simply do a name change by deed poll. Basically you make a legally binding contract with yourself tha... |
Why does a bouncy ball that is thrown at average power against the ground before hitting a wall almost always return to the exact spot it is thrown from. | Because it is a 90 degree angle between the wall and floor. The angles add such that the return path is in the same direction as the incoming angle. With the slight drop off gravity the right force of throw can fall into the hand easilySpin. If you throw it without any spin, when it hits the ground it will pick up tops... |
Why is green the color used for a greenscreen, and why isn't is for example a redscreen? | You can actually use any color you want nowadays. Green was originally used because it is a very high intensity hue, allowing the cameras/computers to pick it up easily. As well, it's a color that occurs nowhere on the human body naturally, so there's no worry that someone's hair or something will be unintentionally le... |
Why haven't we been able to detect dark matter? | Right now we can only see stuff using EM waves. Be that visible light, radio emission, gamma rays, or radiation. Dark matter doesnt interact with EM light, thus making it invisible for us to see it. Simple example if you look at something through very clear glass. You cant really tell that you looking through glass unt... |
Why did humans develop such a terrible sense of smell compared to many other mammals? | Because we have stereoscopic vision which gives us the opportunity to see predators approaching rather than have to smell them. Also we can see our prey, or vegetable foodstuffs, clearly and don't need to sniff them out. When you think about it, nature is kinda stinky. Evolution did us an olfactory favor. |
Are 2-hour naps plus 6 hours of sleep better or worse than 7 hours of sleep? Why or why not? | Sleeping for 7 hours straight is kind of new. Early humans would sleep during the darkest part of the night for a few hours then again midday during the hottest part of the night. The separation of sleep cycles would give them the most energy during the time that they needed it and preserved energy when there wasn't an... |
Why are newer PC games so bad at alt-tabbing? | Newer games having this problem? This has always been a problem. Some games are better at it than others, but there's always been issues. I'm not sure exactly what causes it, at a guess, it's because of the changes in rendering environments. |
LI5 -- The discrepancies between Fahrenheit and Celsius. | Celsius was derived fairly simply. Basically the freezing point and boiling point of water were set and the difference between them divided in 100 segments. This is sometimes referred to as centigrade. Centi being 100. Farenheit was derived from taking the freezing point of pure water and salt water and divided by 32. ... |
Is electric charge a scalar or a vector? | It seams like you are confusing electric charge with electric field. Electric charge is a scalar but an electric field is a vector that goes from negative electric charge to positive electric charge.Charge is a scalar. There's no direction associated with a charge. If you want direction, you need to talk about things s... |
Why wasn't there a tape delay for yesterday's shooting? | Live TV CAN have 10-20 second delays, but not necessarily. Usually live news is in fact live, since there's no real reason to have it on delay. |
Why do women tend to get colder than men? | Because women, in relation to men, have less lean muscular mass. Muscles are literally small power plants that burn calories, and therefore expose heat. This is the reason for shivering: Your muscles move, and you get warmI knew how muscles had to do pretty much with everything mentioned here, but also how men adjust t... |
I've noticed some birds are walking around with "unfinished legs" or "missing feet/toes". Why? | This is quite common in pigeons as they tend to live in metropolitan areas. The cases of missing toes, feet or even part of the leg can be be most commonly attributed to a 'string wound'. Essentially string gets wrapped around the toe/foot/leg and constricts to the point that circulation is disrupted. It is also possib... |
How many people should browse reddit simultaneously for the site to crash? | Using some very scientific data and analyzing the world wide web network traffic in condensed areas, taking into account level 3 routes and the reddit servers location it calculates to a lot. Yes indeed. The answer is a very lot. |
When we lose blood, how does our body know how much to replace? | The kidneys regulate blood volume; if you lost half your blood you would be dead, but lesser amounts are detected and compensated for by the kidneys. If you gave someone extra blood their body would draw out the extra fluid to keep total volume the same, but now the blood would be thicker. This is used by some athletes... |
What causes a blackout when drinking? | The alcohol fucks with your hippocampus making you temporarily have trouble creating new memories. Also there's evidence that blackouts aren't necessarily caused by a high total amount of drinking but by drinking too much too quickly. So like if you drink ten drinks in two hours, you may black out versus a person who d... |
Why do some cultures consider being left-handed to be wrong? | Mainly because before the world had toilet paper, one hand would be used for wiping, and thus using your wiping hand for less dirty activities could be seen as rude, or wrong. It seems that this custom has continued into modern timesBecause left-handed people are the minority. 1/10 people are left handed . Being agains... |
What is Web API and what is it used to accomplish? | An API is a defined way for one person's code to interact with another person's code. "Web API" means an API that uses the standard systems of the world wide web to interact with each other. For example, you can see reddit's API documentation [here]. It's a list of web addresses you can go to and give certain informati... |
The current state of the Vancouver, BC housing market | There are a few factors that affect Vancouver specifically. First, Vancouver is a really nice place to live. The weather is mild, crime is low, you're close to a lot of fantastic nature. Vancouver is surrounded by water and mountains and many of those areas are protected. Meanwhile there aren't many big highways either... |
What is it about car rides that dogs are always so excited about? | There is SO MUCH STUFF TO SMELL! Dogs experience the world through their nose, and a car ride means going somewhere new. That's exciting. Also how often do you leave your dog behind? Dogs are pack animals, and they don't like it when they aren't included in the pack. So when they get to go they feel like they are being... |
What is actually happening at the technological level when my video game is loading? | For the most part, data is being read from your hard drive and loaded into RAM. This allows the CPU and GPU to quickly access and manipulate the data, such as the layout of a level or what textures objects have. There is additionally "unpacking" of the data as stored on the disk into structures that are used during gam... |
What is the difference between Bond and Debenture? | The biggest practical difference between a Bond and a Debenture are that, if the company gets liquidated, Bondholders get paid first, and Debenture-holders will get paid later if there is still money left over. The trade-off being that bonds typically offer less interest because there is less risk |
Why do franchises like Call of Duty continue to do so well despite adding so little new content? | Because new isn't necessarily better, nor is it what people are always looking for. Especially in video games, where it is difficult to build compelling characters and original plots. People want a new experience while simultaneously having the same familiar experience that they have previously enjoyed . It's the same ... |
Why is Scientology put in such a bad light? | Yeah it's less about the beliefs and more about stealing wealth and slavery on the basis of cleansing your soul. |
Why does it feel like you get a better breath of air when yawning as opposed to taking a deep breath? | your vocal cords make a little v shape at the bottom of your neck. when you yawn, they open up ALL the way, which they don't normally do during regular breathing. because your airway is small, that little change feels like a huge difference! |
Why is the Titanic so well known? Why is it the first thing to come to mind when we think sinking ship? | Titanic was a state of the set cruise ship of its time, 1912. It was dubbed "the unsinkable ship" and ironically it sunk on its first tripYes, at the time it was only something for the wealthy. Although there were others onboard the ship but their quarters were far inferior |
How do American supermarkets get away with offering so much in coupon discounts? | I’m not an expert on this but I’d say it’s because not everyone “coupons”. It’s the say 10 out of the 100 that do coupon might hit them but they buy in bulk so it offsets the few that do. I’ve worked retail and am in inventory control at another Fortune 500 company. I know how much they pay to how much they sell it for... |
Why is soy milk white, but soy sauce black? | Soy sauce is fermented. That process changes the color. Some soy-sauce is fermented multiple timesAlso, white soy milk is kind of a western thing. Many traditional asian soymilks are more of a yellow color.There's lighter soy sauce, but dark soy sauce is aged a lot longer than light, giving it the color and a thicker t... |
How to water powered flashlights work? | It’s like a potato battery. The gadget contains pieces of dissimilar metal, perhaps zinc and copper. Water acts as the electrolyte. Eventually the metal will corrode away and the light will cease to function.It's a [salt water battery], a type of [sodium-ion battery]. I'm not sure I can explain the chemistry in detail ... |
Why do some people "seem" to need less sleep than others? With the lack of sleep, are they sacrificing other human qualities? | This is still a pretty hot topic as we're still not 100% sure as to why we need sleep to survive, but we definitely do know that we need it and how we get it. You're body goes through several stages in sleep, 4 specifically. After you hit the 4th, you go into something called REM sleep . This is essentially the period ... |
What Carl Sagan did that made him so famous and important | Really, the wikipedia article will cover fairly simply what he's famous for: _URL_0_ Famous for the 'Cosmos' series and scientific advocacy. Important for the reasons listed on the wikipedia. As far as why reddit seems to a big fan, he is an outspoken atheist, and brought advanced scientific ideas to the layperson much... |
Feeling weak while having a cold. What causes that? | Your body is spending so much energy on fighting the cold that it doesn't spare energy for much else. A proper immune response requires a bit of energy, and fighting infection becomes job 1 . Your immune system is activating chemical and cellular systems that are normally dormant. Additionally, a raised temperature mea... |
Why is the grass wet in the early morning, even when there were no precipitations overnight? | Dew. There was water in the air, it got cold overnight, the water condensed. It fell down and ended up on the grass. Called dew |
Why don't fast food restaurants serve breakfast all the time? | While some large chains do serve breakfast all day, many don't, and it's largely about setup and speed. Fast food is all about speed, and by limiting the number of items that the workers have to grab, you speed up the whole process. So, there is often one setup for breakfast, and clear it out and have another for lunch... |
Why is it that there are so few venomous and poisonous mammals? | > To explain the rarity of venom delivery in Mammalia, Mark Dufton of the University of Strathclyde has suggested that modern mammalian predators do not need venom because they are able to kill quickly with their teeth or claws, whereas venom, no matter how sophisticated, requires time to disable prey. _URL_0_ |
Why do football teams make a substitution with 2 minutes left? | If a team is winning by a good number of points, it is a chance for non-starters to shine and see what they can really do. Also, to run the clock. Mainly the clock running. |
How and why do stomachs make noise? | A lot of the noise actually comes from your intestines. When you're hungry, you've got less semi-solid bulk in your guts. There's a greater proportion of liquid and gas. As your intestines churn they squish and push this content, and when it's mostly gas and liquid it gurgles. |
What makes skeletons so funny? | I guess it's because a lot of the observations are close to the bone. Others are so full of themselves. |
What is the evolutionary significance of the ridge between our nose and mouth? | It is called the "philtrum" and in other animals would carry moisture from the mouth to the nose through capillary action to keep it wet. In humans it is vestigial, but is formed by the fusion of the nasomedial and maxillary processes which if it fails results in a cleft lipAs I understand, it comes from the improper f... |
How we feel an itch somewhere but the source is completely different and we end up "chasing" it to scratch the right spot | Assuming you are talking about random itches on the back of your leg or on your back and not on your face, it is a simple reason: density of sensory neurons. Some places like your hand or mouth have a really high density of sensory neurons, and it is easy to discriminate between two pin pricks only a millimeter or so a... |
Why is it so complicated for a doctor that got a degree in another country to practice medicine in the US? | Because not all degrees are created equal, and US doctors have very strict requirements in education and practices. As an example there are drugs and procedures that illegal outside the US and legal in the US, and vise versa. A doctor coming into the US *must* be familiar with all of the US laws, restrictions, and best... |
Why are the zero to 60 times such an important piece of data in the car industry? | It came from a man named Tom McCahill who was a road test editor for a magazine in the 40's. It became "normal" just as sort of a standardized test in that it was a good comparison. _URL_0_I 've only ever thought it some use when comparing performance vehicles. As a demonstration of acceleration only, I think it may ha... |
How do cough drops actually work to make us feel better? | Menthol has a natural analgesic attribute when used in lotion, gel, or cream form. The menthol ligand attaches to the kappa Opioid receptor, which produces a numbing effect. Another reason menthol works so well when you rub it on those aching muscles is because it triggers a process called vasodilationSome cough drops ... |
How places like Disney and Busch Gardens can charge so much for water and food? | Captive Market. They know you are unlikely to leave the area, and they have a monopoly within it, so can put them together to force a high price. It's not illegal, because they're not preventing you bring it in, or leaving the park to buy some more cheaper at the gas station across the road. The same thing happens in a... |
What makes the noise when you snap your fingers? Is it the finger hitting the side of the palm or something else? | Your middle finger hits the flesh of your thumb, you can see it if you put way less force into your snap. The sound gets echoed inside the chamber created between the palm and ring-pinky fingers. |
Why do people pay Bail, how is the cost of it determined? | When you are arrested for a crime, you are taken to jail. Then you are taken to your arraignment, where you are formally presented with the charges and are asked how you plead . The judge sets the amount of your bail at this point, based on a variety of factors like the severity of the crime, your risk of fleeing prose... |
How do electronics vibrate? | little motor with an offbalance weight on the shaft. spin it fast, get a vibration. the assembly is very small. |
Why can't google make reported revenge porn inaccessible the same way, I presume, it filters child porn? | I don't know for certain but I would guess because it is a lot harder to identify what is and isn't construed as revenge porn. How would Google even know if it was real deal or just some legit porn being advertised as "revenge porn" |
Why does a wine glass make a sound when a finger is spun on the top? | Any object has a harmonic frequency at which it vibrates best. For a thin wine glass, this might be a relatively high note which you can hear well. For a tire, it's likely too low for you to hear. When yo run your finger around the edge you stimulate vibrations, but you finger is slippery enough to not require a specif... |
why do i feel the urge to cough when i clean my ears with cotton buds? | Its actually a purely reflexive action caused by just coming into contact with your ear drum. Do not stick things in your ears. It's bad for you and will actually cause your body to produce more wax, which can lead to an obstruction of your ear canal, which can in turn cause pressure differences, hearing loss, dizzines... |
When the government saves money by cutting public sector funding where does this money go instead? | What you're asking is the allocation of public resources at the disposal of government either by properietory of geographical jurisdiction or fiscal policy. In a democratic framework, government proposes a "budget" which is a kind of treaty between public and the state. The government allocates these resources through ... |
Why, as humans, do we crave companionship? | People can't really survive on our own that well. Our chances for survival increases when we bond together. That craving for companionship is an evolutionary trait to get us to be with one another. |
The collapse of the USSR | They ran out of money. To keep everything, they needed to pay for it and they got to a point where they couldn't. Without the money, they couldn't hold onto their military or the territories the military was securing. The territories broke away and became their own countries. And everybody bought the military surplus. |
What is happening when a door with solely hinges wants to close itself every time. | It's because the door isn't hung exactly plumb . If it's closing itself, it will be leaning into the doorway ever so slightly. |
How badly can the world cripple the Russian economy without violence? | Pretty bad, but not without hurting itself pretty badly. Most of Russia's money comes from its resources If we all agreed not to buy anything from Russia, they'd be fucked, but so would we. Technically they don't have a monopoly of anything, so it's possible, but still.. _URL_0_ |
Why do download links have countdown timers? | To make you look at the ads, and/or to encourage you to pay for the "premium" service. |
Why do clouds of tiny flying insects hover in the exact same spot? | Typically there is a female gnat in the center giving of pheromonesTIL clouds of gnats are actually an orgySo completely off topic, the next time you see this cloud, go "heeeeee" really high pitched, and they'll fly higher. Go "ohhhhhhh" really low pitched, and the cloud will move down. Way more entertaining than it sh... |
Differential privacy, like that which Apple spoke about at the Keynote | Differential Privacy is what allows a company to spy on you without invading your privacy essentially. It allows a company like Apple to collect extensive information about exactly how you use a product/service, aggregate that information while obscuring personally identifying information . All this information is anal... |
What evolutionary pressure caused animals to develop pain sensitivity to electric current? | None. There is no evolutionary advantage to feeling pain from electric current because with the exception of rare instances like the electric eel, most creatures will never experience electric shock in their lifetimes, so feeling pain due to electric shocks wasn't supposed to be to save us from a potentially lethal sit... |
Why was Unidan banned? | > He was caught using a number of alternate accounts to downvote people he was arguing with, upvote his own submissions and comments, and downvote submissions made around the same time he posted his own so that he got even more of an artificial popularity boost. It was some pretty blatant vote manipulation, which is ag... |
How can you physically 'seize' a bitcoin? | You don't seize bitcoins technically, but you can gain control of a copy of a walet . Anyone with access to a wallet can do anything they want with the associated coins, including transferring them to a private wallet.Every bitcoin belongs to an address and each address goes with a wallet file. The wallet file is very ... |
How does salt preserve meat? | Basically preservation means that it extends the "shelf life" of the meat so that it can remain edible for a long time. This is only possible by preventing bacteria from consuming/contaminating it. Adding salt in *HUGE* amounts to the meat effectively raises the salt concentration in and around the meat fibers so that ... |
how does the body deal with foreign bodies in the lungs? | Ideally it never gets there. That violent choking reaction from stuff going down the wrong tube is powerful reflexive activity to push the offending substance back out, so that it can go down the *correct* pipe. For very small debris, mucus can trap them, and they can be moved from the airways by the action of cilia, w... |
If oil is so valuable, why are people setting it ablaze in oil fields? | A lot of people in this thread are getting confused between flaring and extinguishing an oil well fire/blowout. The gif you saw was most likely an old school way of stopping an oil well blowout. Nobody intentionally lets oil rise to the top of the well and spill over into the local environment. When oil flows uncontrol... |
Why does the force from a magnetic field on an object act perpendicularly to the direction of the field? | I assume you're talking about the Lorentz force? To be perfectly accurate, your question should have been "why is it perpendicular to the field and the direction of motion". I won't try to answer this in its entirety since it's too much. But let's take a look at a simple example - two parallel wires with currents flowi... |
How are chameleons able to change their colour? | Here is a very good video about the subject: _URL_0_ Basically it's altering its skin's reflective properties by varying the spacing between nano-crystals in its skin, which likely happens automatically and NOT by messing with photopigments. Also contrary to popular belief, they don't change color to blend in with thei... |
How come that electric trains work with a single overhead wire? | Usually on such systems, the output runs through the rails. So, AC comes in through the wire, activates the windings on the traction motors, and then exits through the metal wheels to the rails. The rails themselves are usually welded or bolted together, so a continuous circuit can be made. Another option is to have a ... |
Why does a word, no longer seem like an actual word after saying it or reading it repeatedly? | I forget what it's called, but stare at a stationary object. notice how your vision starts to darken? its the same thing with the repeated word. your brain filters out this repeated information because its useless to store |
What makes a yawn ‘satisfying’? | Science doesn't really have an answer to this yet. We used to think it was a way of increasing oxygen in the body. Science now thinks it has something do with cooling the brain. |
how we know so much about space? Specifically distances and sizes. | There are a lot of different ways to determine the distance to something in space. The speed of light is a known constant. If an object is close enough, we can shoot radio waves at it and time how long it takes for the signal to come back. This only really works for really close things , as it can take years to get a r... |
what does it mean when the benchmark rate is lowered from zero to minus .1 percent? | Having a negative interest rate means people or companies have to pay a bank for the service of them looking after their money. This is the opposite of what normally happens when you have a positive rate. The idea is that instead of people or companies putting money into an account where it would normally gain interest... |
why is there a lot of hate for Dr. Phil? | Also, he no longer has a license to practice. He is a relationship counselor that's divorced. He is really nothing but a fancy Maury. The guy is a disgrace. |
How does a programming language that deals with strings and numerical values create a 3D worldspace and game mechanics? | A 3D figure is modeled as a series of triangles. Each triangle is made up of 3 points in 3D space. That's all numbers. An image is made up of pixels, which have colors. Each color is represented by 3 numbers, corresponding to the amount of red, green, and blue in that dot. You can use [math] to map each point in the im... |
If the universe isn't infinite, what would the "end" or "edges" be? Would anything happen if we got close enough? | universe can be finite and without boreders/edges kind of like in a game of snake or pacman - you come from one side and go out from another. IIRC the universe would then be in a donut shape like [shown here] - you could travel for eternity in any direction and not get to any border |
Why cant we choose what are tax money is used for? | 1. Because the particular type of democracy practiced by most countries is not direct democracy. You don't get to vote on whether or not your tax dollars are used to buy a tank or buy a new public bus, you vote in a representative that you hope will agree with you on whether the tank or the bus is a better use of publi... |
Why do banks and large companies have so many Vice Presidents? | At banks and many other businesses the VP title is given to people that work with clients to make them feel like they are dealing with someone important. So it is marketing. It also attracts employees because they feel like they have an important titleMany times the VP is the guy in charge of all the people of one titl... |
What is the difference between gray and grey? | _URL_0_ > Gray and grey are different spellings of the same word, and both are used throughout the English-speaking world. But gray is more common in American English, while grey is more common in all the other main varieties of English.In the USA, the color is spelled *gray*. In the UK, it's *grey*. But in all cases, ... |
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