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What is holding us back in making more efficient batteries, to store e.g. solar generated electricity? | I'm reading a lot of places that what really hinders renewable energy sources from reaching its peak is that we're unable to store energy properly. Could someone elaborate a bit on that?
Secondly, given that the statement is true, why can't we use rechargeable batteries, e.g. lithium batteries, to store the energy pro... | 308 | We are using batteries to store excess renewable energy. Just not the kind of battery you're familiar with. There's something called a flow battery, explicitly designed for grid-scale energy storage. Many companies are racing to commercialize their products to handle the burgeoning demand for renewable storage, us... | 79 |
Was anyone outraged at Plato's writings about Socrates? | Socrates was executed by the Athenian Assembly, after all, for such things as corrupting the youth and strengthening weaker arguments. I would imagine any supporter of his would sense some danger in continuing his philosophic thought. My question is when Plato began to write about his former master, did anyone object t... | 29 | Plato was a part of the problem for Socrates, because of his family links to Charmides (his uncle) and Critias (his mother's uncle), members of the Thirty Tyrants who ruled Athens for a period after they lost the Peloponnesian War. Critias had himself been a student of Socrates'. The Thirty Tyrants oversaw large amount... | 25 |
ELI5:What does "/16 or /24" after an IP Address mean? | Hello all - I have seen the /16, /24, etc multiple times after an IP Address and I just don't understand it! How do I know which number after the slash belongs to my home network? Any help/guidance an explaining this would be very much appreciate!
Thanks in advance!
EDIT 1: Thank you everyone who replied and for n... | 26 | It is a decimal representation of your subnet mask.
Your computer has an IP address. Something like:
10.1.1.2
But this address represents two things: a) your computer; and b) the local network your computer is on. And it needs a way of knowing which part is which.^* To do this it uses what is known as a subnet m... | 13 |
ELI5 why do smart phones shut off in cold weather before they’ve reached 0% battery? | Recently I’ve been out in the cold and my iPhone has shut off with about 40% battery remaining. Is this a simple answer such as it’s too cold for electrons to flow in the battery? | 36 | I'll provide a brief answer.
Phones today are powered by lithium-ion batteries. They rely on the flow of ions (something like electrons, except bigger, slower) through an oily-gel like material (makes them even slower!) across two 'plates' as they discharge to power the phone.
When it gets cold, it gets harder to mov... | 18 |
ELI5 Why did thatched roofs not rot and collapse from the rain and damp? Or if they did rot, how frequently were they replaced? | 157 | They did rot, but because of how they are layered on the roof, it sheds water pretty efficiently (that's how they didn't rot quickly, water shedding ability and tight layering protecting lower layers) and a well thatched roof in modern times can last 50 years before it's beyond use. Historically, at least in parts of E... | 213 | |
In a Meson, why do the quark anti-quark pair not just annihilate each other ? | 149 | Some mesons can and do annihilate. The neutral pion pretty much always decays to two photons, for example.
However, not all of them are quark-antiquark pairs of the same type. Charged and flavoured mesons have valence quarks of different types, such as kaons, D-mesons and B-mesons. This means they decay via other proc... | 34 | |
Why doesn't FTL quantum tunneling violate causality? | It seems that a bunch of experiments confirmed that particles tunnel through barriers faster than what would be expected if they were traveling normally at the speed of light. I’m referring to a study specifically by the Keller group in 2008 but this seems to be the consensus today (according to Wikipedia at least).
... | 33 | It can't communicate information. Stuff can travel faster than c- like how the Universe has expanded faster than the speed of light- but information cannot be transferred faster than c. Quantum tunneling is random- you can't *make* a particle jump a light year away instantly- so it can't transfer information. | 14 |
CMV: Copyright should be returned to 28 years, with extensions tied to a percentage of gross revenue thereafter | In the US, copyright length for properties from the early 1900s until 1976 was 28 years with an option to extend it another 28 years, since has been further extended
>for works created after January 1, 1978, copyright protection lasts for the life of the author plus an additional 70 years. For an anonymous work, a ... | 89 | > The point of copyright has never been to maximize profits
Then why add the extension scheme at all?
Just make it 28 years.
Any scheme to reward "commercially successful" franchises, flies in the face if the original intent, by allowing the most culturally relevant pieces of media to be more restricted away f... | 18 |
How Important Are the Greeks, Really? | Hello again r/askphilosophy,
I'm a undergrad Philosophy student looking to expand my horizons a bit between semesters (that is to say, I'm moving and can't bring my video games with me). I'm anticipating having a lot of free time this summer for reading and I'm planning on working through (at least some of) Kant's cri... | 17 | Almost if not literally *nothing* is **necessary**. Plato and Aristotle are famous as classics because of their wide influence but probably more importantly because, like Kant, working through them is unusually effective at training you to understand how to think philosophically. So is it necessary to read them? No, al... | 16 |
ELI5: Why do we care so much about finding water on other planets, when other forms of life could have evolved to not need water? | 1,898 | Life could exist out there that doesn't need water. However, most of the life we know of does. We're already looking for a needle in a haystack, if we expand the search to life that doesn't need water then we don't even know what the needle looks like anymore.
Edit; apparently some stuff doesn't use water according t... | 1,943 | |
CMV: "Emotional" TV commercials do nothing in making me want to purchase the product. If anything, it deters me from buying the product. | This is easier to explain with an example: There was just an extremely emotional, over-the-top commercial on TV that showed a family holding hands and laughing over a Thanksgiving dinner, with a narrator talking about important family is. Then at the end, it's revealed it's a Pillsbury crescent commercial.
Another exa... | 137 | The thing about advertising is that it's not so much about logic as it is about association. This clearly doesn't work for you, because you are actively annoyed by these types of commercials, so you associate that negative feeling with the product. But for most people, emotional commercials aren't annoying, they're jus... | 46 |
[Lord of the Rings] Do elves play sports or have any sort of athletic competition? | 15 | There are several references to Human and Hobbit sports, but only one or two for the Elves. They are described as having “athletes,” so this would indicate some sort of competition of physical prowess. Likely these are things like track-and-field sports, such as running, swimming, and possibly archery. | 17 | |
[40k] Do the necrons contribute to khorne because they kill things? Or does it not count because they have no emotions? And also, if all emotions ceased to exist (eg necrons effectively kill everything) would the eye of terror disappear? | 23 | Sentient life generates the Warp through their emotional energy, which is why it stops at the edge of the galaxy. If the Necron managed to kill everyone else, the Warp would cease to exist, and the Ruinous Powers with it. | 17 | |
ELI5: what were Stephen Hawkings greatest discoveries? | 81 | "Were?" This made me think, 'Oh shit, he's dead,' and had to go check.
His branch is theoretical physics, which isn't really about 'discovery' as such. He and other theoretical physicists are all about bringing experimental and observed data from other branches of physics into the context of a wider framework. The sup... | 103 | |
CMV: It is unsafe for me to travel to China because I have made posts on the internet critical of the CCP. | Every time I have seen photos of Chinese cities (Shenzhen, Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing), I’ve been absolutely enamored and wanted to visit it. At the same time however, reading articles about arbitrary detention and hearing about people like bloggers / vloggers being approached by police and detained or being banned f... | 15 | Are the any examples of low profile foreigners getting arrested in China for anti CCP posts? You just aren't a threat to the CCP and they won't arrest you. Even in China, anti CCP posts are censored but nobody gets arrested or even questioned unless you have a couple million followers and tons of people looking at you. | 24 |
Central Limit Theorem | I'm an ug sociology student. In our statistical methods in sociology course one subject interested me which is Central Limit Theorem. Does any critical or/and comprehensive artical, journal etc has been written about why the shape of the population distribution, the sampling distribution of the sample mean approaches ... | 18 | The Central Limit Theorem isn't a product of biology or sociology or any other sort of behaviour of living things. It is a mathematical theorem, with the same rigour and validity as the Pythagorean Theorem or the Sine Law or any number of other mathematical facts. This is because the Central Limit Theorem doesn't say a... | 35 |
ELI5: why are the skins of fruit more nutritious than the insides? | 12,462 | because fruit aren't intended to be nutritious, they're intended to be tasty, which means the bulk of them is relatively homogeneous fluff with lots of sugar. The skin is the only part which has to actually do something important, so its loaded up with a variety of vitamins and minerals and other cellular necessities t... | 9,791 | |
ELI5: If Homosapiens survived the last mass extinction how is there almost 8 billions Humans now? Are we all related? Is every human related in some way? | 83 | Every human IS related to some extent. That extent tends to be very, very far back. Mitochondrial Eve (the most recent common female ancestor of all humans) is estimated to have lived 150k years ago, and Y-chromosome Adam (male version of the same thing) 200-300k years ago. | 178 | |
ELI5: Why is it "okay" for there to be all black colleges and organizations along with other races but super wrong for an all white organization to exist? | I am not looking for a racial debate. Just a explanation in any way, shape, or form. Anything I find on Google is not helpful. | 18 | All sorts of all white organizations exist. But white people generally immigrated mostly freely and remember their ethnic groups more specifically. Thus you get a ton of organizations that are JUST for italians or just for the irish or whatever, clubs and groups and whatever. In the US a large amount of black people do... | 19 |
If our skin cells die and regenerate so much, as well as most of the other cells in our body, why are tattoos still visible after so many decades? | 99 | Our skin has several layers, the top being composed of the epidermis (keratinized dead layers of cells) and the dermis (where your nerves, blood vessels, and epithelial progenitors are). These layers are held together and the cells are positioned by the extra cellular matrix, which is comprised of carbohydrate fibers a... | 51 | |
[ELI5] Why do ponds and lakes not become swamps after years of season changes | Lakes and Ponds are water reservoirs that are often surrounded by trees, bushes and other plants. During a summer period a lot of "trash" comes into this water, during the fall time plants loose their leaves that often go down to the water surface and later drown. Leaves are being decomposed and every year this cycle r... | 42 | When the leaves decompose, the carbohydrates that make up most of their bulk turn back into water (which joins the lake's volume and eventually outflows through whatever outlet the lake has) and carbon dioxide (which outgasses into the atmosphere). The same happens for other organic molecules. What's left is mostly min... | 35 |
What is perspectivism? How is it different from relativism and skepticism? | (More specifically Nietzsche’s perspectivism, if that helps?)
I’m getting these confused, can anyone help me differentiate between them? | 22 | Skepticism is an epistemic claim about what we can claim we know. Relativism is an evaluatory claim about how we judge between two positions related to values. Perspectivism, at least as it is applied to Nietzsche, is an epistemic claim about truth being related to a given perspective, or outlook/worldview/standpoint. | 11 |
[ASOIAF] Why has there been little to no technological innovation in the past few thousands of years? | 39 | There has, but its mostly not visible. Westeros is in an age equivalent to the Dark Ages after the fall of the Roman Empire, which is represented by Valyria. Quite a bit of the technology of Valyria was preserved, but access is limited due to an education gap. The ability to read and write is most certainly limited ... | 55 | |
ELI5: Why is the video editing greenscreen... green? | Why is it green and not red or blue or anything else? | 26 | You need a bright primary color, one that most people aren't going to wear or have on their bodies, because all of that color will be deleted when you edit the film. You can use blue, but green is less likely to cause problems with people's eyes or fashion.
Red is worst, because it can cause problems with erasing som... | 30 |
ELI5: What is the function of the 3 digit "security code" on your credit card when you have to provide it every time you use your credit card? | IIRC, it used to be a way to prevent fraud by people who had your cc number and expiration (say from a restaurant receipt) but not your physical card, but today there are very few people on earth who have my cc number and expiration but don't have my 3 digit code.
At this point it seems like nothing more than a 3 digi... | 28 | Its for what are called "Card not present" transactions. Its an additional layer of security to prove you have the physical card.
When you go to a store and pay with your card, you have teh card, nothing else is really needed. Thats why you don't use your CVV. They physically can run the card.
But, what about when yo... | 49 |
ELI5:When jumpstarting a car, why is it important to always start with the positive gauge (red) ? | Every one always told me to start with positive, but i never understood the reason... | 48 | Sometimes, when you make the last connection, a spark jumps from the cable to what ever you're about to clip it to. If you start with the red cable, then the last connection will be made to an unpainted metal part of the car. That way, if a spark occurs, it hits the metal part of the car, rather than the battery, which... | 29 |
[Stranger Things] What is the Upside Down? | I understand that it’s a different universe, but how does it mirror Hawkins? Most of the buildings are there, but damaged by the Demigorgons and the MindFlayer. The lights are still on, but you could say that’s the mysterious energy that flows through the Upside Down. So was it ever like Hawkins? Did it have people? We... | 68 | There probably isn't a perfect way to describe it, except maybe asking the Duffer Bros. To me it's like a shadow. It's affected by the thing casting the shadow, but can't do anything itself. And then the Sci-Fi experiments come in, and the shadow can begin acting itself. | 69 |
How do we know neutrinos have mass? | My own answer is: since the Super Kamiokande and SNOLAB we know that neutrinos can change flavours. My reasoning is: solar neutrinos are all electron neutrinos originally. To change flavour an infinitesimal (but non-zero) amount of time needs to pass (simply to have the 'room' to switch). Particles moving at c don't ex... | 15 | Your understanding is more or less correct.
The key piece is that neutrino oscillation implies that the flavor states are not the same as the mass states. This means that flavor states are mixtures of the mass states, and vice versa.
The existence of flavor oscillations (observed as a deficit of solar electron neut... | 11 |
CMV:Sweat shops were a great idea | About 20 years ago, many of the major clothing brands were using sweatshop labor in countries like China. There were some standard arguments against this, like how it was inhumane to pay someone so little and make them work so many hours. There were also some standard arguments in favor of this saying that the standard... | 26 | So one argument against sweatshop labor (and one which kind of differentiates China) is that it hurts the development of locally owned businesses. Essentially, when a large amount of the business capital stock is owned and operated by foreign firms, those firms tend not to reinvest the returns from that capital locall... | 17 |
In which European countries are faculty well paid? | I'm a tenured prof in a STEM field at a major university in the US. I make around $130K per year plus summer salary. After taxes and benefits, that works out to about $8K per month on avg plus around $1.5K per month contributions to my retirement account.
I am well paid and like my job, but don't like living in the US... | 36 | If you manage to get a W3 professorship in Germany (its tough out there), you'll likely have something between 6k and 8k € (gross!) per month, and a 13th salary at the end of the year. This doesn't mean you'll get a net amount of at least 6k on your bank account (if you have 8k gross, its probably going to be around 5k... | 75 |
[YuGiOh] Why doesn't anyone question Yugi's ability to grow/shrink? | 49 | I asked a friend this. Apparently the show differs a lot from the comics. Him getting bigger/smaller is just for us to tell the difference, apparently his friends see a flash and notice an additude change but otherwise he is still short | 60 | |
ELI5: With all our technical advancements in modern materials and engineering, why do we still use wooden poles to hang up wires in the US? They seem so primitive. | 21 | They are cheaper to install than metal or concrete poles for the smaller spans, and will last longer if nobody hits them since they are treated to last longer since the base won't rust/degrade as badly as the others. | 17 | |
CMV: Diversity in the workplace is important but it should not trump the most qualified person for the job. | For this hypothetical example I will lay out two assumptions and an outcome.
When interviewing people, let’s say (1) there is always a diverse group of people (age, race, and gender) interviewing. Let’s then say (2) the people interviewing have no idea what the people look like or their age.
If, in this scenario, t... | 64 | The problem with this view is that it paints diversity as an oppositional force to hiring the most qualified employee, when that isn't really the case.
A well-studied effect is "similarity bias" or "affinity bias"; basically, people like others who are similar to them. This effect is very pronounced in hiring; employe... | 49 |
I don't care about what Monsanto is doing CMV. | I know Monsanto is supposed to be evil and all, but no one has truely ever convinced me I should really care about Monsanto. Even if I did care about them, I'm sure we can't change anything. CMV. | 113 | Aside from the negative ramifications of what they produce Monsanto has a monopoly on agriculture legislation and policy.
They are now immune to certain forms of litigation.
And it's cynical to think nothing can be done. When a large number of people engage on an issue things change. We are just at a particularly di... | 57 |
What is the source of fundamental electric charge in leptons and quarks? | *sips coffee | 23 | The laws of physics are invariant (unchanged) under a transformation called U(1) gauge invariance. To get this invariance, individual fields have to transform in well-defined ways under this transformation. The way a field transforms tells you its electric charge. We don't know why we have fields with the particular... | 17 |
Do honeybees, wasps and hornets have a different cocktail of venom in their stings or is their chemistry pretty much all the same? | 5,545 | Bees, wasps, and hornets all evolved from a common ancestor, so their venom is similar. Basically, their venoms contain irritants that irritate the victim/the individual who was stung. Phospholipase A2 and mellitin are the allergens that cause a bee sting. Antigen 5 is the main venom of a wasp/hornet. Both a bees and a... | 3,243 | |
ELI5: Why does adding salt make water go from solid to liquid faster BUT liquid to gas slower? | Just to elaborate, Im talking about the salt water having a higher boiling point, and lower melting point. Im just trying to put the title as how a 5 year old would ask it, in spirit of the sub =)
Edit: and thanks for all the answers, I learned many new things today | 15 | Don’t think of it as making on change happen faster and the other happen slower.
Think of it as if you just had liquid water, and it is just pushing the freezing point and boiling point even further out.
So if you have liquid water, adding salt to it makes it freeze at a lower temperature, and makes it boil at a high... | 17 |
ELI5 How did movie projectors display reels in sequence without any gaps? | I don't know anything about the technology of film projectors. But I've heard movies described in terms of number of reels. I understand this only regarding the length of the movie.
I don't understand 1) did the distributors send a movie in multiple reels and 2) how did the projectionists display the multiple reels w... | 18 | Projection booths would have more than one projector. Both projectors are aimed at the screen the same way. Within the movie there was a cue for the projectionist to know when to start the next reel. You no doubt had seen that cue not realizing what it is, it is typically a quick flash near the top right corner of th... | 33 |
CMV:Women have more sexual power and more sexual capital than men, in general | Across the studies we know of, women are typically more choosy than men, less willing to have sex at the drop of a hat, have more conditions for minimal requirements to choose a mate, more willing to walk away from sex, feel more confident they choose whether sex happens or not, do a tiny % of active explicit approachi... | 20 | > women have more sexual capital
They also have more sexual liabilities. Sex is a major risk for women.
1. They might not get off. Some women **have never orgasmed** Some never have with a partner. So sex is already a worse proposition for women.
2. They might get pregnant. Pretty self explanatory.
3. Women, i... | 28 |
ELI5: North Korea-what's the situation with its nukes, how "good" is its army and who would win in NK vs USA? | 26 | There is no doubt the US could destroy North Korea in any sort of war.
The question is, could they:
* do it without suffering politically unacceptable losses?
* do it without massive civilian losses in South Korea?
* do it without drawing China into the conflict?
| 16 | |
ELI5: Non-Euclidean Geometry | I don't know where to begin. What is it? How does it work? Is it a thing in real life? | 67 | Draw a triangle on a globe. Measure its angles. They don't add up to 180.
That is non-euclidean geometry, right there before your eyes.
Useful for many things, including, how do we get this plane from San Francisco to Tokyo the fastest? Answer: go over Alaska. | 81 |
[Halo] Why doesn't the UNSC appear to reverse-engineer Covenant technology? | They've got plenty of examples of the stuff lying around. Capturing weapons, armor, even small ships is possible, sometimes even incidental. Even if the UNSC isn't going to switch to plasma weapons, there must be something of value in their energy storage or materials science. This seems like a missed opportunity? | 23 | Given that Covenant tech is almost all reverse engineered from Forerunner "relics," there's a solid learning curve involved. But really the main problems aren't from reverse engineering the tech, it's restructuring their entire manufacturing and training setups to take advantage of the advancements. (Remember the whole... | 49 |
[Warhammer 40k] Since the Dark Mechanicus aren't stagnant like the Adeptus Mechanicus are, won't Chaos eventually win through technological superiority? | Any more than they already have, I mean - the Imperium today produces more than enough war, stagnancy, plotting and pleasure/suffering to feed Chaos. | 171 | You can't do much research when your laboratory decides what rules of physics it will adhere to at the moment. And it changes very often.
Also, Chaos does not like other following chaos, they are just as likely to be killed by the Imperium as by other Chaos followers(if not even more so). Death tends to stop research ... | 167 |
CMV: People that take naps regularly don't get enough normal sleep. | This is purely anecdotal based on a few of my friends and my own experiences.
Personally the only times I end up taking a nap is when I am feeling tired beyond reasonable means for that day. This is usually due to not getting adequate sleep the night before. When I end up taking a nap it throws off my sleep schedule f... | 20 | Most mammals are polyphasic sleepers meaning they take multiple naps per day rather than one long nap. There are theories that we forced ourselves out of this type of sleeping habit to align with the 9 to 5 style of day that we are currently apart of.
People like Tesla, Edison, and Da Vinci were polyphasic sleepers. S... | 22 |
[Dune] So Arrakis is the only source of Spice, which is essential for FTL, longevity and the basis of the Galactic economy. So why is it treated like an undeveloped backwater? Why wouldn't the Emperor make it his capital? | 467 | First off, the more desert, the more worms. The more worms, the more spice. And for most of human's history with the planet, it was impossible to remove the worms from Arrakis and start spice production elsewhere. You don't pave over a water source because you want to live near it.
Second, YOU try maintaining comfort... | 358 | |
ELI5 why fabrics get darker when wet? | I've always wondered why fabrics are darker/ more vibrant when wet? Is it literally (no pun intended) the saturation of the color increasing? Or perhaps a refraction of light? ELI5 please and thanks! | 76 | Here's an easy experiment. Place a drop of water on a paper towel. Notice how the wet spot looks dark? Now hold that paper towel up between you and a source of light. Notice how the wet spot looks bright?
The water increases the ability of fabric (or a paper towel) to transmit light, which means there's less light... | 96 |
What is the speed of magnetism? | Something I was pondering yesterday, and couldn't get a straight answer by googling the question, so I thought to come here. Basically, here is the problem, and i'm curious of an answer.
Say you have a laser beam, attached to a switch, which is attached to a power source. A mile away from the laser, you have a photo... | 17 | It sure does. And you may (or may not!) be surprised to know it travels as the same speed as light, c. The main reason is that the force carrier for the electric field is the same force carrier for the magnetic field (the photon).
Electricity and magnetism were found to be manifestations of the same fundamental forc... | 15 |
Is the residue left from an effervescent vitamin tablet salt, or vitamin C? | My friend is aware of how much salt these tablets have, so he always throws away the crystalline residue left in the bottom of the glass.
I was thinking that since the salt is what actually dissolves the tablet when put into water, the residue at the bottom could actually be the vitamin C he wanted in the first place... | 203 | Ascorbic Acid is extremely soluble in water (50g per 100 mL, i.e. 50x more than you probably need). As is table salt (NaCl)
Most of the reactants from fizzing are also extreme water soluble. Most of them are based around citric acid and Sodium and Magnesium Carbonate. What is most likely left in the bottom of the glas... | 137 |
ELI5: Why do inflexible legs shake when doing certain stretches? | Such as when you're on your back and have to lift your leg straight in the air.
Personally from the knee down if I try to go straight up or towards my body, the leg shakes uncontrollably | 32 | That exercise you're referencing, in particular, has a lot to do with core strength, so if you don't have a strong core, you're more likely to experience the shaking as your muscle tries to perform the exercise. You'll notice the more you do it (aka the stronger you become) the less your muscles will shake in those ins... | 18 |
ELI5: what does it mean to overclock a CPU? | what does it mean to overclock a CPU and what are the pro's and con's? | 20 | Overclocking means making your CPU to work faster by increasing the default clockrate (GHz). Increasing the clockrate makes the CPU less stable (might crash without reason) and more hot (requires better cooling).
If you find the sweet-spot (stable, not too hot, maximum GHz) you're gaining tens of percents of performan... | 24 |
ELI5: Is there actually any significant difference in the chemical composition of household cleaners which claim to be for the "kitchen" or "bathroom", or are they all basically the same thing? | 425 | Not in their chemical composition but in their physical composition. Bathroom usually means ceramic tile and porcelain and kitchen usually means linoleum, stainless steel, and veneer cabinetry.
Ceramics are hard. In fact they are some of the hardest materials found in most homes short of glass, silica, or diamond. So... | 253 | |
ELI5: Why is AC (current) accepted to be better than DC? | I'm currently studying Electrical Engineering and still haven't quite gotten a straight answer. Any ways of explaining/thinking about it would be great, thanks!
Edit: As a student studying Electrical Engineering, I'm going through my classes but it still feels as if I have very little practical knowledge.
For exampl... | 425 | It's easy to convert voltages using a transformer with AC. High voltages are very dangerous but they travel easier. So what the electric company does is convert the power to high voltage to distribute it from their plant to a city, then gradually convert it to lower voltages, and by the time it reaches our house, we ha... | 191 |
ELI5: why is blue generally associated with boys and pink generally associated with girls. | 31 | It's funny because pink was originally the color that was associated with boys and blue was for girls, but the Nazis in world war 2 started to use pink as a label for gay men. This in turn caused people to stop associating it with boys and flip the color to gender trope. Not sure what caused people to associate certain... | 24 | |
ELI5: How can meat be aged for weeks but will go rancid in the fridge after 3-5 days? | 29 | All in the KIND of refrigeration. Aged beef is kept in a VERY dry cool stable environment that has air constantly moving in it to wick the moisture the meat releases away. Your refrigerator tends to be a little humid and the opening and closing of the door disturb the temperature to the point it varies a lot. Its essen... | 35 | |
How do you keep from being distracted? | I’ll have 7 minutes of productivity time and then want to pick up my phone to play a 3 minute game— 30% of my time wasted. Or I’ll think of something that I have to Google and it is another distraction. My most productive programming is when I’m focused.
How do you keep from being distracted? | 32 | * put the distractions away. in another room altogether, if needed
* have a plan for what you're going to do. that way you have a goal to word towards
* take regular breaks. you might do something like the pomodoro method of 25 or so minutes work, 5 or so minutes break. doing this lets your brain know you will get you... | 17 |
[Harry Potter] How come the Marauder's Map can detect people underneath the Invisibility Cloak when not even Death could find people under the cloak? | Secondary Question: How did a group of teenagers manage to make this map? | 268 | The deathly hallows aren't real; they're an allegory. Perhaps there really was a trio of brothers back in the day, and maybe they did create these great tools, but it was never influenced by death. The story juts highlights the flaws that led each brother to their doom, and the folly of using those tools without first ... | 186 |
ELI5: Why only one person gets knocked out with a head-to-head headbutt. | 17 | You get a concussion when your brain gets shaken up inside your skull. So, the cause of a concussion is less about a forceful blow to the skull, but rather a blow that rattles your head.
When you headbutt someone, your head is moving rapidly and firmly. When you make contact, your head still keeps moving forward fro... | 15 | |
Given current technology and information, what will ultimately be the death of our solar system? | Bonus questions: How long would this method take? | 783 | The Solar System will die when the Sun becomes a red giant star whose outer envelope reaches as far out as Venus, or perhaps even the Earth. Even if the envelope doesn't reach the Earth, the immense radiation given off by the Sun in this phase will eliminate all life on the planet. The Sun will then transition to a whi... | 409 |
ELI5: Why does moon in daylight looks transparent? | 24 | 1. We imagine the daylight sky is blue and everything is in front of it.
2. But actually, the sky is just the atmosphere, and the moon is behind the atmosphere.
3. So the sky is *in front* of the moon.
4. It's the sky that's transparent. | 51 | |
If an electron in an atom emits a photon but no lower energy orbital is available for it to drop to, does the electron leave the atom? | I understand that if an electron absorbs a photon it can be excited to a higher orbital and the only way to drop back down is to emit a photon. My question asks if an electron is already at its lowest possible orbital and emits a photon, does the electron simply get knocked from the atom?
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Also would an e... | 39 | The electron only emits a photon _because_ there is a lower energy state available.
But more importantly, to make the electron "leave the atom" you have to increase it's energy, quite the opposite of emitting a photon. | 86 |
ELI5: Why are cells living? I know they’re the building blocks of life but what defines living? Are plants a different type of “alive” because they have a different cell structure? | 44 | The current definition of life simply states that for an organism to be considered living, it has to maintain **homeostasis**, which is the technical way to say "it has to maintain itself through its metabolism".
A cell maintains itself by breaking down resources to extract the energy and elements it contains, making ... | 32 | |
[Zootopia] What about whales, dolphins, and seals? | 36 | They have built their own society in the depths of the ocean. Tensions are high as land mammals desperately overfish to keep the predatory population under control, and the Pandas and Japanese Macaques keep huntings the whales for a thriving meat industry and the belief their testicles provide fertility. | 28 | |
[Harry Potter] Are there wizarding communities/ethnicities that don't map 1:1 on to Muggle communities/ethnicities? | We see that there are French wizards, British wizards, Ugandan wizards, etc. But are there unique, wizard only ethnic identites?
Furthermore, given than the Statute of Secrecy is implimented in the late 17th century, are there wizards around who still identify with fuedal communities? Do wizards in Berlin identify as... | 15 | It appears that there is no divide between Ireland and Great Britain on the international wizards' stage; aside from students in Ireland primarily going to school in Hogwarts, it's implied that the Irish Quidditch teams play in the same league as the British teams.
There *is* a sort of sense to this; when the Magna Ca... | 21 |
[LOTR] If Gandalf The White had died in battle, would he have been resurrected again? How many "lives" would he have gotten? | 19 | He would likely be resurrected as many times as he needed to, at least until he fulfilled his role in the fall of Sauron. As a Maiar spirit, he's functionally immortal. If his mortal form is destroyed, he can either spend a long time gathering power to return, or he can be restored by a Valar god. | 31 | |
[General] A superhero brings a trillion dollar asteroid full of precious minerals back to Earth. What next? | A superhero brings a trillion dollar asteroid full of precious minerals back to Earth. What next?
What would be the hero’s best course of action? | 41 | Said superhero should, if financially savy, open up bidding from various countries regarding where to land the asteroid.
Once payment has been received, lower the asteroid into a convenient mining facility where the minerals can be extracted. Note that the value of some rare materials will drop significantly due to th... | 28 |
The Prince Thought Experiment | Imagine a long time ago, let's say in the 1400's, there lived an Indian prince named Viraj. The prince was brought up his whole life being cleaned, fed, and groomed entirely without him needing to do anything. He would wake up, walk to breakfast, sit down, and be fed. Then he would walk to his throne and sit all day un... | 15 | >If the prince will not eat, do the peasants have a moral imperative to feed him in order to save him from dying?
Yeah sure. As things go that you ought to do to prevent someone from dying a horrible death feeding them is pretty low down on the list of inconvenient and unpleasant things you should still do. | 17 |
Why do people never forget how to ride a bike once they've learned? | 56 | The fear of falling is the main reason why it's hard to learn in the first place. You need a certain amount of speed to keep it upright, but a higher speed = a more painful experience if you fall. So the tendency is to want to start off slowly, causing a wobbly ride. The intricate details of which gear to use, how to p... | 21 | |
[Wh40k] Who is the most excessively violent mortal in the empire? I mean someone even a Space Marine thinks should calm down a little. | 44 | Probably Bjorn the Fell-Handed.
First of all, he was chapter master of the Space Wolves and fought alongside, and was a respected ally of Leman Russ at one time, so that should tell you quite a bit right of the bat.
Super early in his career, he was at the Burning of Prospero and almost single-handedly (I mean that ... | 65 | |
ELI5: Why did the ".us" domain never catch on compared to other countries' domains? | 17 | .com is viewed as more prestigious and was already in use by most US sites, and most commercial businesses and online businesses. .com was essentially .us already.
.US holds no interest to companies in the US, and would be viewed as weird and cheap, since .com is essentially the defacto .us and used for US-based sit... | 12 | |
[General] Evolutionary purpose of pointy elven ears | If we're to assume elves were a product of their environment and not magically created, what reasons would there be for them to have their distinctive ears? In what ways would they be beneficial for natural selection? | 34 | First of all, natural selection doesn't work like that. Natural Selection isn't as much "survival of the fittest" as "survival of the meh, good enough".
The most notable things big ears could help with are better hearing, or a for helping the body bleed heat.
These are purely physical advantages, though. Ears can als... | 71 |
ELI5: Why are some Americans so patriotic about the flag, army, tech, the moon, WWII, music etc. but so unpatriotic when it comes to taxes and welfare? | 175 | It's not something new, it's been around since the country started basically. The country wanted to avoid being tyrannical at all so let a lot of governmental power fall to the states and local governments, that's why even today states can have pretty drastically different laws than others (like gun laws). This mentali... | 83 | |
ELI5: Why are we more tired waking up than we are falling asleep? | 265 | Your body produces a chemical (adenosine) which makes you sleepy. It takes time for your body to make it, and time for your body to get rid of it. You wake up feeling tired because there's still adenosine in your system, once it clears out you feel awake. | 170 | |
eli5 why are interest rate hikes required when inflation suppresses demand | 44 | When the government wants to increase spending (by decreasing savings), the central bank reduces the interest rate. This means banks pay less interest and loan rates are cheaper. I.e it is worth taking your money out of the banks and investing it.
When this happens, demand for goods rises and supply doesn't change fas... | 55 | |
[Team Fortress 2] Why doesn't the pyro's flamethrower burn down all the wooden buildings in the game? | They don't even catch fire; are they made of something other than wood? | 50 | Asbestos. Asbestos *everywhere*. It turns out the TF2 classes we play are highly advanced tumors scraped off the original members, which is why gameplay doesn't match the *"Meet the Team"* videos or comics. It's also how you can have a team of 9 Snipers, since they're literally cancer. | 102 |
[DC] Can Ratcatcher 2 control mice/squirrels/other rodents? | Is Ratcatcher/Ratcatcher 2's technology only applicable to rats? Could it also control other rodents such as mice, squirrels, guinea pigs, etc? If Beast Boy turned into a rat, would he be susceptible? If Squirrel Girl fell into a portal in to the DC universe, could she be controlled? | 37 | Im banking on just rats, possibly a genetic component that has to be exact? Might target precise neural structures that only affect rats?
Or it might not work as well on other rodents without tweaking.
Would love to see a scene in the next movie where shes trapped with just a capybara that she can only make suggest... | 30 |
[Game of Thrones] Which three deaths would have done the most good to Westeros when Arya got to choose them? | 91 | Judging by what has already happened, and with the assumption they die when she says them, probably Edmure Tully, Illyrio Mopatis, and Tyrion Lannister. At the point in the story where Arya gets the three deaths, Jaime is captured and the Tyrells haven't joined the Lannisters yet. With no Tyrion, the city falls to Stan... | 186 | |
[Star Wars]If Sidious follows the rule of two, why does he have so many other Sith underlings? | In the movie and TV shows cannon we have seen Dooku, Maul, Asajj Ventress and the Inquisitor (also is there a Sith inquisition?) and maybe others. Are these not considered "true Sith?" | 21 | No, they're not technically Sith. But the rule of two is basically made to be broken. A Master will often cultivate several potential apprentices so that if the official one dies, they can be replaced. And the apprentice will often take on secret apprentices so that they have someone ready to go when they overthrow the... | 53 |
[Star Wars] Different canons | I know this is probably a stupid question but what is the different canons? I see people using canon and legends on this sub but I don't actually know what the difference is. | 39 | The new canon includes all 6 movies, the Clone Wars (movie and show) and Rebels TV show, and select books/comics (basically, anything after Disney's acquisition) as well as a couple games.
Legends is anything released prior to Disney's purchase. | 22 |
[Warhammer 40k] If the Tyranids devoured all organic life in the galaxy outside themselves, would the Chaos Gods die? What about if the Necrons eradicated all organic life? | 37 | Yes and yes. The Chaos Gods are basically made of emotions - they're the aggregate Warp presences of uncounted trillions of sentient beings. Lose the sentient beings feeding emotions into the aggregates, and the Chaos Gods vanish. The collapse of the Imperium alone would starve Chaos, as humans are its main food sou... | 48 | |
[Witcher series] I always hear that the in-game Witchers, and Geralt in particular, are severely nerfed from their book counterpart. How so? | 27 | In game Gerlat moves fairly similarly to a human as far as following his movements. In the the books Geralt can swing his sword so fast people can't see or follow it.
The games adjust a lot of the things you see just to be fun to play. In the books monsters are dying out, they aren't anywhere as common as in the game... | 23 | |
CMV: Increasing taxes on the ultra wealthy in the US won't make things better for the rest of the population. | My stance/argument is fairly simple, the US currently has enough money from the taxes it does collect to accomplish a shit ton of things. Particularly the things that most proponens of tax increase are fighting for *(universal healthcare, cheaper regulated or free colleges, corporate regulation, etc.)* This is Evidence... | 649 | >corruption and lobbying powers who influence where the dollars actually go is the issue.
Right. That's part of the point here. Money is power, and extreme wealth is extreme power. The kind of extreme power that breaks democracies. Taxing the hell out of the ultra wealthy isn't really meant to raise all that much ... | 904 |
Why are our intestines so dang long? | 3,011 | Having long intestines is an evolutionary advantage to get the most out of your food. By having a large amount of time to go through you will have more time to extract nutrients. Arguably more importantly, it increases the surface area that your food will be exposed to (especially with villi and microvilli) which enabl... | 3,414 | |
ELI5 How to tasers put out 1,000,000+ volts when all they require to use is a couple AA batteries? | Always wondered about this. | 33 | They use a coil to raise the voltage while simultaneously limiting the current, so they don't electrocute the target. The coil is powered by the batteries much like the spark plug in a car is powered by the 12 volt car battery, which is only huge because of the current needed to start the car, not to make the spark. | 19 |
Obama mentioned yesterday "cutting out the middle man" and making student loans directly to students rather than using banks as a middleman. Canada still goes through banks, why? What's the benefit of that? | 39 | Banks have to make profit/loss calculation, and therefore use the price system to allocate capital toward student loans. In other words, banks care whether or not they get paid back. Government, much less so.
This is actually a positive thing because it regulates the supply of student loans. The question is, how ma... | 10 | |
ELI5: Why are us humans naturally afraid of the dark? | For example; when we're alone in the dark, in the stillness, we feel scared. We feel that there is someone behind us and our hearts being to race. Why do you think we're afraid? Why do we feel this way about the darkness, even if and when we know what's around us. | 18 | Because the night is long and full of terrors. At least it used to be. For the major part of our evolution as species, remaining alone in the dark long was a huge increase of chance of being horribly killed and eaten by a predator. It's also less safe to travel or do pretty much anything else whe you can't see. Both s... | 27 |
ELI5: Why are baker's hats shaped the way they are? | They're mushroom shaped, which seems like a waste of cloth. Is there a practical reason, or just traditional like chef hats? I've heard chef toques have something to do with " number of ways to cook an egg." | 40 | seems like it was just a popular sort of hat in general at the specific time french bakers got prominent so that random fashion of the time got stuck as the 'traditional" hat of bakers. It's like how all flight attendant uniforms look vaguely 1950s because plane flight got popular enough in the 1950s to have a standard... | 31 |
ELI5: In WWII, they had war bond drives so the government could raise the money to pay for the war. Why doesn't the government need to do that anymore for deficit spending? | 43 | They don't need to. The US government has no problem borrowing money right now (plenty of people are happy to buy US government debt for really cheap) through its regular financial programs, so why create a whole new program when the current ones are doing the job just fine?
The US Dollar is the global reserve currenc... | 25 | |
ELI5 How can surplus energy generated by my home's solar panels go 'back into the grid'? | We have solar panels that can produce energy we don't need and gets fed back into our local energy grid. I don't know much about electrical systems but I assume they are one - way. For example the plug socket in my wall to my TV can only distribute power, I can't plug a generator into it and feed power back into it. Do... | 187 | Power does not “flow” through wires in the sense that it only goes one way. It is a constant charge. You can technically plug a generator into any outlet and power your house, however this is illegal in most places because if not done correctly you will send power to the grid, which may kill a lineman trying to restore... | 251 |
CMV:When a police officer is involved in a situation that they are placed on Admin leave or worse only after the incident became public then that officers immediate supervisor should also be removed. | One of the problems I see whenever an officer is caught on video which then goes viral is that there are no repercussions until public pressure is applied. Only then do we see consequences. This leads me to believe supervisor who are responsible failed the public in these situations and they should also be subject to t... | 71 | I feel like you're inferring causation, when it might not always be appropriate.
When a police supervisor has a scenario where one of his cops may (or may not) have acted improperly, isn't the important thing to review all the necessary information and get the decision right? These things sometimes take time to do, a... | 20 |
[Fairy Tales] A man and a woman get married and have a child. However, each parent had previously promised his/her firstborn child to a different witch. What happens next? | Do the witches just fight it out? Is there some kind of witch court system that handles this kind of dispute? Will there be any consequences to the couple if it's discovered that they had set up this conflict intentionally? | 199 | I could see a few potential scenarios if it was unintentional:
* Witches brawl it out, because they both want the child for something important
* Witches have some kind of hierarchy that determines who 'gets' the kid (age, seniority, when the contract was signed, etc...)
* Magic happens and the family has twins, so ea... | 172 |
[MCU] In Endgame, when Steve goes back to love with Peggy, does he just remain a normal citizen, not helping Bucky it taking out Hydra? (More questions in the text column) | So as mentioned before, does he just live a normal life?
Is there another version of him in that timeline that wakes up in 70 years that he just watches do what he did?
How would he explain to his close friends that he’s actually from another universe and that Captain America of their time is the real him? Wouldn’t t... | 618 | Well, he gets that shiny new Vibranium shield from *somewhere*, which suggests he did go Captain America-ing on the side. Peggy was a hero in her own right, and Steve isn't the type to sit at home which she risks her life to stop HYDRA. | 508 |
[DC] who do you think is the greatest thief in all of it DC universe and I mean he/she could steal anything from anyone | 20 | Speaking purely in terms of individuals, Selina Kyle, alias Catwoman, is probably the most accomplished thief on Earth.
If a team can be considered, the Rogues collectively might be able to rival her-- Captain Cold and Mirror Master are especially accomplished in this respect but are both at their best when working wi... | 13 | |
[MCU] How much more powerful than Mjolnir is Stormbreaker? | 23 | Many orders of magnitude. It's hard to say for certain, because we don't have anything resembling "power levels," but look at it this way:
If the Bifrost is left open too long, it could destroy a planet. Stormbreaker can channel the bifrost. In theory, one could use Stormbreaker to destroy worlds. | 55 | |
I believe that men shouldn't get as much of a say as women in regards to abortion. CMV | I'm pro-choice and believe that the choice to get an abortion is highly personal and that it's not fair to tell strangers what to do with their bodies.
That said, I don't believe that men have the right to tell a woman whether to get one or not.
I feel that ultimately whether or not the woman wants to get an abortio... | 36 | If not the right to influence the mothers choice to keep the child, then maybe fathers should have the right to a 'financial abortion'- That the father forfeit any claims to the child, and in return not be held financially responsible for child support if the mother would choose to keep the child. | 37 |
[World War Z (novel)] What nation or group of nations would have had the best possible scenario in either preventing the spread of the Zeke or combatting them after it had taken hold? What nation or group of nations had it the worst? | There was a mixed bag of countries that managed to defend a Iarge portion of their population and resources and combat the Zeke in a major way, regardless of what stage in the war they were in. But which country was the absolute best out of all of them at minimizing the infection rates during the Great Panic, the recla... | 76 | I forget whether Israel's quarantine held throughout the war but if it did it'd probably be them.
Honorable mention to North Korea, who is mentioned in the interview as being a country built to not only survive, but thrive in a zombie apocalypse. However, it's unknown if the bunkers still held anyone, or if it was jus... | 55 |
[DCEU] Why didn't the other superheroes/metahumans help when Zod invaded earth? | Zod was a treath to the whole planet, so it would be on everyone's interest to stop him
He also announced his intentions to the entire world and the invasion lasted at least a day, so you can't give the "It ended too fast" excuse.
Yet only Superman and Batman tried to help.
Why didn't Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Martian ... | 86 | While we know Wonder Women had been doing super hero stuff, the implication of Man of Steel is that Superman is the first super hero (which was consistent with DC's New 52 storyline at the time establishing the rise of Superman as the start of the era of heros).
Yes Batman had been doing his thing, but he wasn't a her... | 44 |
ELI5: animals that express complex nest-building behaviours (like tailorbirds that sew leaves together) - do they learn it "culturally" from others of their kind or are they somehow born with a complex skill like this imprinted genetically in their brains? | 12,144 | It's instinctual.
Birds reared in plastic containers build their own nests just fine. They need not ever see a nest to build one.
Further, the nests they build don't necessarily model the nests their parents built. If a researcher provides a bird with only pink building materials, the chicks reared in that pink nes... | 4,102 | |
[Spider-Man] Why doesn't Spider-Man make a more durable suit ? | Y'know like nightwing.Like how often does his suit take damage before he does this.... | 29 | His unique combat style involves fantastic acrobatics. Any kind of movement restriction is basically intolerable. He regularly doges things by the smallest margin, which means if it has any thickness he's be taking more hits. Normal anti-balistics and protective clothing are not an option.
While Peter is a legit ... | 53 |
ELI5: How and why does our body function relatively normally if we don't eat healthily? | 23 | The calorie is THE main form of energy, and unhealthy foods tend to have a ton of them. Without calories, you will die. A good analogy is a car.
Calories are the gas to help keep the car running. If you eat too many calories, you start storing that extra gas in the trunk. It then requires more energy to move the car ... | 48 | |
ELI5: What is the current layman's description of an atom that the scientific community deems acceptable? | When I was in middle school they told us that atoms consisted of electrons orbiting around a nucleus that itself primarily consisted of protons and neutrons. When I got to university they told us that was wrong and said something like the electrons are moving so fast it can't be determined exactly where they are at an... | 28 | When we are schoolchildren, we are generally taught that subatomic particles like electrons are little spheres orbiting around the nucleus in an atom. But that isn't correct. Subatomic particles aren't little spheres, they are more like matter waves. There's simply no way to pin down the exact position of an electro... | 27 |
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