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ELI5:why is it harder for weed smoke to set off my fire alarm compared to a little smoke from my burnt grilled cheese sandwich. | 78 | There are two types of smoke detectors: optical and ionizing ones.
I don't know if ionizing smoke detectors have a harder time detecting weed smoke than sandwich smoke, so I'll focus on optical smoke detectors, which are more common in households anyway.
Optical smoke detectors have a light barrier inside of them. If... | 49 | |
Do we know anything about Neanderthal language capabilities? | 43 | There is high evidence they were able to speak because we share a specific gene (FOXP2) that is responsible for language.
And because of Neanderthal anatomy we can deduce they had a higher pitched voice than us Homo Sapiens! | 41 | |
ELI5: Can Queen insects be born to normal versions of that species? | For example can a Queen Bee or Termite be born to a bee or termite? Or do the parents have to be Queen and King? Or can only Queens lay eggs?? | 22 | I don't know about termites, but with bees, only the Queen lays eggs. If the swarm outgrows the nest, they will separate a female egg, and feed it a very specific type of honey called Royal Jelly, and not fed pollen or regular honey. That will eventually become a queen and lead half of the swarm to find a new nesting... | 26 |
ELI5: Why does tapping wood and tapping metal produce different sounds? | 46 | you know when you put a ruler on the edge of a table and push it down and let it go and it makes that woioioioinggggg sound? And if you vary the length of it off the table, the sound changes and the speed at which the end of the ruler goes up and back down changes? This is the natural frequency of the ruler when it is ... | 75 | |
[Star Wars] Jedi are essentially monks, as well as warriors and experts in hand-to-hand combat. How does this qualify Anakin or Obi Wan to be military generals? | 48 | It doesn't. But you clearly didn't pay attention in your Galactic History 101.
You completely ignored the fact that Jedi are part of the Republic's judicial branch of government, specifically tasked with bringing gangsters, pirates, warlords, and even rebelling worlds to justice.
That means Jedi spend a lot of time t... | 77 | |
ELI5: Why is it that the more annoying the tune, the harder it is to get it out of your head? | 44 | Annoying tunes are often so annoying because they're too catchy for their own good. Songs are catchy because they have a nice, and recognizable pattern. Our brains love patterns, so when we hear a really good one, they repeat it over, and over and over and over until something else distracts that part of our brains. ... | 15 | |
CMV Parties are for politicians, citizens should remain independent and register as such. | ill be using ‘we’ to refer to ‘we the people’
And ‘they/them’ to refer to those in positions of power.
I don’t always talk politics... but when I do... I say screw both parties, and Usually the people I talk to agree, whichever way they lean. They might have reasons for why this party is ‘the lesser evil’ but I hav... | 2,508 | Registering for a party, is a prerequisite to vote in the primary in some states.
Having say, not just in the election, but also in who even gets nominated, is power.
Voting for Bernie (or Warren or whomever) in the primary, has impact.
If more Republicans, were registered as such, Trump might not have even made ... | 449 |
[star wars: legends] Who's the most powerful sith and jedi we know about? | 90 | (In Legends)
Palpatine and Luke. They both have insane power in the force, Luke after killing the emperor of course, but they do some insane things. Like Palpatine can create Force storms in space that can consume entire ships or something, that level of power. | 106 | |
ELI5: Why can't they just instal a giant heat scanner (?) for all trucks to go through at Calais to easily detect migrants? | 83 | A infra red scanner can only look at the outside of the truck. Some trucks will have been out in the sun, others in the shade. Some cargoes will hold the heat more than others. So readings will be all over the place and it won't give any useful information. | 65 | |
ELI5: Why is fusion considered the holy grail of energy? | I have a degree in engineering and read a lot of science material, and my own reading has shown:
"The power output of the core of the Sun is about 276.5 watts per cubic metre — that's almost three of the old 100W light bulbs. On a power/volume basis, it's a lot less than your body emits (about 100 W) and around the sam... | 20 | > So, that being said, what is the use in creating a reactor that - albeit will generate a net positive power - will only output such a piddling small amount?
The fusion output of the sun per given volume doesn't really apply to how it would be performed in a reactor as our designs aren't reliant on what will natur... | 22 |
[Star Wars/MCU/General Sci-Fi] Why don't more characters have weapons and equipment unusable by their foes? | In most universes, characters exist that happen to possess superior devices and weapons giving them an edge as a hero (or villain). Their opponent disarms them somehow, or stealthily acquires use of the weapon or tech while the hero is distracted. Of course, sometimes like with James Bond (his Casino Royale biometric s... | 19 | Adding those kind of security on a weapon is one more thing that can stop you from using it. What happens when you're ambushed, really need to shoot back, and darn it, fingerprint didn't register, hang on, I'll jus-
Dead.
For weapons you want them to work every single time. Reliability is the name of the game. Any so... | 35 |
[Star Wars] When blowing up Alderraan, how did Tarkin ensure there were enough witnesses to tell the story and spread terror? | It seems all the witnesses died so how would people know that the death star destroyed Alderraan. Would destroying a planet with a large population on its moon be a better show of force? Maybe like Mandalore? | 52 | Alderaan was a core world with a population of billions - there would have been a stream of traffic to and from the system continuously that would have witnessed the destruction.
The station then stayed in the system and used its tractor beam to bring in any new arrivals to 'question' the crews and ensure that they kn... | 55 |
If Santa existed, what would be the most efficient route he could have taken to visit every home in the world? | 24 | This is known as the Travelling Salesman problem and it is in a very difficult class of problems called NP-hard.
To answer this question would take an amount of time, in any units you like, some constant multiple of 2^(number of homes in the world). | 36 | |
What happens to information after the heat death of the universe? | Presume the heat death is the ultimate fate of our universe. If so, my understanding is that there are no "nodes of lower entropy" to do work. Does this also mean that there is no way to tell one location from another? Wouldn't all points in space have the same particles at the same energy level? If so, wouldn't locali... | 104 | >TL;DR If you looked at some point and moment in/after the heat death, could you reverse the clock and reconstruct the universe as it was before? Or, is the heat death a kind of point of no return for information?
You could theoretically do this, but you would have to know literally every piece of information in th... | 11 |
ELI5: Why does our eyelids form crystal like substances while we sleep? | 28 | Tear ducts lubricate the surface of the eyes occasional dust and other minute particles reach the surface of the eye, these are then blink washed away a bit like a windscreen wiper. This material then accumulates at the edges where some of the liquid evaporates leaving behind the solid material. | 31 | |
ELI5: How are we sure Challenger Deep is the deepest point when we have barely fully explored our ocean? | Basically the title, but I always wondered if the Mariana Trench was the actual deepest point on our planet | 59 | Mix of:
1. All science is always "...to the best of our knowledge". Thus, Challenge Deep is the deepest point in the ocean *to the best of our knowledge*. If we find out that we're wrong, then we'll have learned something new.
2. We don't need to *explore* the ocean floor to *map* the ocean floor. For example, rada... | 148 |
[Invincible] What is the day to day governance of the Viltrum Empire like? Is there actually any benefit to being part of it as a subject species? | Omni Man at one point talks about how Earth would benefit from being part of the empire, is there any truth to that? They seem pretty totalitarian but assuming we complied fully and were ideal subjects would there be anything Earth or a planet like Earth would actually get out of the deal? Like would they build us adva... | 30 | In the comics, Anissa (a high ranking legbreaker for the Viltrumites) justifies the idea of Viltrumite occupation by saying that the people of Earth would be kept fat and happy for as long as it took the Viltrumites to strip mine everything of value from the planet. While she admits that humanity would inevitably go ex... | 51 |
If humans were to die out could natural geologic processes completely erase all traces of our civilization or will there be something left behind that could last billions of years? | 193 | Plenty of things would last billions of years.
We have preserved bacteria mounds that are almost 4 billion years old. Tons of them.
We have preserved raindrops and dinosaur poop that are hundreds of millions of years old.
We have preserved leafs, footprints, insects, worm tunnels, jelleyfish, and so on.
Now look at... | 146 | |
ELI5: if everything is registered in computers and databases, why do fake passports still work? Should they fail on arrival when read thru the machine? Like a 404? | 570 | Because as example the US customs does not have access to the "British citizen passport database". The data on the passport is the same as the written one, including error correction keys and nowadays some biological data as well (such as fingerprint). It also depend on the issuing country and how old your passport is.... | 580 | |
Why is Marx irrelevant in economics but important in other fields? | Marx is omnipresent in sociology, very important in philosophy, important in anthropology, and influential in history. I am well aware of *why Marx is considered archaic* in economics (LTV, TRPF, etc); what I want to know is why is there such a disconnect between those other fields and economics?
I realize this questi... | 16 | Other fields don’t necessarily want Marx for the same things that economists might use him for. (Although obviously there are some in non-economics fields who read Marx’s economics uncritically and without knowledge of modern work, but such is the nature of disciplinary boundaries)
In sociology, for example, so much w... | 31 |
How does anesthesia work? | 16 | General anaesthesia has five components, required in various combinations.
1. The patient should be unconscious - hypnosis. This is usually achieved by inducing anaesthesia using an intravenous induction agent such as propofol and maintaining anaesthesia during the procedure using an infusion of propofol or an inhalat... | 11 | |
[MCU] When Cap dropped a jet bridge on Spiderman, how did he know it was just enough to disable him? | I'm talking about [this moment](https://youtu.be/tTtT8DK2Gcc?t=143) in *Civil War*.
Leaving aside the fact that Spiderman lost to Captain America: those two never met before. Had Spidey been weaker (say, able to lift under 5 tons), he'd have gotten crushed. Did Cap actually hope to kill the kid? | 25 | Spidey webs up Cap's arms earlier in the fight, so he's well aware that Spider-Man has super-strength. With that in mind even if he wasn't able to lift it, the jet bridge falling on him wouldn't have killed him. | 41 |
ELI5... How can a infection like chicken pox trigger alopecia? | 18 | Imagine your body is a city that you have to protect from invaders.
You have the city walls (the innate immune system) and the city guards (the adaptive immune system). Each of these city guards has been trained to look for a particular characteristic that no normal person in your city has, say brown hair with a ponyta... | 14 | |
Do people still consider weekend emails unprofessional? | I’m a grad student trying to schedule a virtual meeting with a professor who asked me if I’m available early next week. I replied in a timely fashion (less than an hour) that I am and let them know that I’m basically flexible for any time. This is for an initial invitation I sent to have them come speak at our school n... | 27 | An initial email over the weekend is fine because they can just do it Monday, but a reminder over the weekend can be both 1) annoying because it implies they should be working on the weekend and 2) counter-productive because if they are offline for the weekend, your email could be buried by Monday morning and they may ... | 54 |
[general sci fi] if an implanted computer could take care of a persons need for mathematical calculations, what would education look like? | assume the biological and electronic brains are completely integrated. So that it is one thought process, and not just an advanced calculator that is easy to access at the speed of thought. So one gains actual understanding of the math being done and if feels like an integrated part of your mind.
how would we then edu... | 51 | I think it would be like how skills in EVE Online work.
Base skills like How To Fly a Frigate are quick (like an hour), but as you increase the complexity (in EVE there are 5 levels for every skill) so that How To Fly a Frigate Designed for Interception at level 5 is 14 days.
So basic math would be easy, but advanced... | 22 |
What makes your mouth more sensitive to the cold after chewing on mint gum? | Whenever I chew on mint gum, then get a drink of cold water, my mouth will be very sensitive to the cold water. Why is this? | 20 | The oils in mint and other minty plants bind to the nerve receptors that detect cold (similar to the way that the capsaicin in peppers binds to the heat receptors), so your mouth already thinks it's cold. When you add actual cold things, the nerves fire even more, making your brain think that your mouth is colder than ... | 17 |
Why don't plants get sunburned or genetic damage/cancer being out in the sun all day? | When UV-B radiation and other solar radiation hits plants like trees or grass, why does it not cause genetic damage to the plants DNA? | 7,015 | It does and they do. Though as others here noted, many things help them defend against it.
Leaves are disposable though, and the outer layers of bark are usually dead plant material that protects the rest.
Most crucially, most plants don't have cells circulating like animals do, so they can't really get anything lik... | 6,676 |
[Fallout] (Pre-War) My son just got his drivers license and a Corvega. I’m worried that he might get into an accident, I’ve heard it could result in a huge mushroom cloud if he gets totaled. Is there anything I can do to keep him safe? Is Power Armor training worth looking into? | 60 | There's only a danger if the nuclear containment is broken. Corvegas are designed to withstand head-on collisions at high speed and coolant completely surrounds the nuclear pile in the engine. They'd have to sit out in the elements without maintenance for a century before they become unstable. | 99 | |
[40k]How does Papa Nurgle feel about the Virus-Bombs? | Greetings and death to the false emperor,
I know that every time the minions of the corpse find enough of our fellow cultists they cry Exterminatus and kill everything, of course that is all according to the plan. But something about how they go about doing it caught my attention. The Imperium of Man has in their arse... | 26 | Nurgle is the patron of life and death. The cycle, whereupon the living die and feed new life, which itself dies and feeds new life, which itself... well you get the point.
A virus bomb turns a planet into a barren rock. The cycle dies. There is nothing left for new life to feed upon. To Papa Nurgle, this is what he m... | 33 |
We know the universe is (very nearly) flat. Does this imply it is infinite and, if so, why? | Does the knowledge that the universe is flat make it more likely that it is infinite? If so, why and to what extent? Are we certain that it is infinite, or is it just an assumption that makes the math easier without deviating from the experimental evidence?
I understand that flatness refers to a lack of geometric cu... | 189 | It's not an assumption of math but one of philosophical input into our science. We choose to believe that physics doesn't change with location in the universe because to assume otherwise is unnecessary complication. We haven't seen any evidence that the laws of physics vary, and we philosophically choose to keep the sc... | 208 |
ELI5: What is honey? I know honey comes from bees, and I know honey is delicious on toast, but what is honey, and does it harm the bees we harvest it from? Can you trace back a batch of honey to the hive it came from, or is all honey the same? | 556 | Many flowers secrete nectar as part of their biology. They lack the ability to move pollen from the male flowers to the female flowers so they entice bees and insects with nectar with the hope the while the bees collect the nectar they also move the pollen around allowing for the fertilization of the plant species.
Ho... | 286 | |
[Avengers] why did Thor hesitate in picking up his hammer? | After he's thrown out of the helicarrier and escapes the glass cell, he goes to find his hammer, finds it, goes to pick it up, then hesitates as if he's uncertain. Why? | 53 | Because he knows that if he picks up that hammer, the next thing he'll be doing is using it to fight and possibly kill his brother Loki. Thor still cares for and is somewhat protective of his adoptive brother, all throughout the movie he tries to prevent harm to Loki and wants only to take him back to Asgard where he'l... | 128 |
[MCU] Did Tony use any of Stane's Iron Monger designs when working on the Hulkbuster suit? | 69 | No.
Unlike in the comics, where Stane's hardware is distinct and seperate from Tony's gear (to the point of Tony once building himself a "Staneware" suit as a countermeasure in case someone finds a way to undermine his standard "Starktech" gear), in the MCU Stane isn't really contributing much to development. He's a b... | 102 | |
[The Good Place] Spoilers | Why can't you curse in the real Good Place? It makes sense that you can't curse in the Bad Place... but the *Good* Place? | 24 | The rules that the Good Place operates on aren't fair by our human standards. Such as punishing the French just for being from France. So apparently, by the cosmic standards of Architects and Janets and the Judge and other cosmic beings, cursing is legitimately bad enough to be banned from the Good Place. | 31 |
I'm currently watching The Big Short and they keep using the term "exposure". What exactly is financial exposure and what does it mean specifically in that context? | 28 | Exposure, generally speaking, relates to risk in a given investment - ie what proportion of the total money invested do you stand to lose if a given bet you make turns out to be the wrong one; or put another way to what extent are your expected earnings affected by certain factors | 19 | |
I believe that the advancement of technology has made money pointless and that capitalism is only holding the world back - CMV | As someone who graduated from college just in time for the worldwide economy to crash, I've been doing quite a lot of research regarding money and have come to a few conclusions:
Humanity has the capability to automate almost all of our needs for a comfortable life. The few things that we cannot automate seem to be o... | 63 | Resources are scarce. We have monetary systems in order to allocate those resources to satisfy the most amount of wants according to their utility.
Regulated capitalism is simply the most efficient monetary system available.
Unless you can demonstrate that technology has somehow eliminated scarcity (it hasn't), then... | 27 |
ELI5: How is it decided which gene is dominant and which is recessive? Does each gene have some sort of "score" and the highest one between a pair is expressed? | 33 | Let's say a gene is responsible for making a certain protein. The gene has two alleles - one that makes the protein and one that doesnt. Producing the protein causes a certain trait to be expressed. This makes the trait dominant - if you have one copy of the allele that can produce the protein, then you will have the t... | 35 | |
ELI5: Why does Scientology still have such a devout following, when it has been exposed to be such a farce? | 594 | One of the key reasons as to why they have such a devout following is because of blackmail.
During the initiation process, applicants are advised to speak their deepest, darkest secrets in order to "free" themselves of the burden of carrying them. These secrets are logged, and if a person ever wants to leave the churc... | 637 | |
ELI5:why the two presidential term limit for americans? | I get its an ammendment but personally i think it is a stupid one, if the majority of people like the president, why cant he stay? If hes shit, he wont get voted for a third right?
Im from canada and weve had a handful of prime ministers go more than 15 years cause they did such a good job.
EDIT: I got two good repli... | 88 | The prime minister in Canada is much less powerful than the president in the United States. The U.S. president holds certain executive power which he has exclusively without oversight from Congress, and he cannot be dismissed by Congress if he loses its support. Prime ministers always have to keep the support of their ... | 105 |
Does it hurt to have publications outside of your field of study? | I am a recent graduate working as a research assistant under two PIs. One (PI A) works in my field of study, the other (PI B) does not. By the end of my tenure here I should have two or more papers out under PI A, but I also may have one or two from under PI B.
Does it make a difference if some papers I am published ... | 15 | It absolutely does not hurt. Will it help in the short term in applying to grad schools? It probably depends how far apart the fields are. If they're, say, biology and physics, I'd say it's still a net plus to have the extra article. If, on the other hand, they're history and chemistry, then the practical benefits ... | 23 |
[Star Wars] Are there movies or even radio shows of any kind in the Star Wars universe? Very very minor spoiler! No idea how to mark or tag spoilers! | I've thought about this before, but when I looked it up, there was only unrelated topics such as the actual cast of Star Wars or a Star Is Born crap. So is there any sort of filmography entertainment? Any sort of cinematic experience portrayed in Star Wars? We know there are plays and other performances like that which... | 19 | I dont have specific examples but found this on wookiepedia:
Entertainment was a subdivision of the Corporate Sector Authority's Media Division. Entertainment produced almost all of the Authority's public entertainment programming, including dramas, comedies, music, and theater. Sports leagues were also managed by En... | 12 |
ELI5: How do governments assess private companies for estate tax considering they are not bought and sold and thus the shares to not have a price? | Based on an discussion i had with friends, if its a large private company, but one which is not valued by the market how does the government assess it for inheritance tax purposes? cant i just sell/assess the shares for 100 dollars total even if its worth 100 million? | 20 | In the US private companies are assessed for the total value of their assets. The land, the building, every single peice of equpiment and furniture has a value assigned to it and they are taxes for it all. The longer that they have had the equipment the less taxes they pay on it, but for companies which have to stay up... | 21 |
How does the threat and severity of the COVID-19 pandemic compare with the H3N2 flu pandemic of 1968 and the H2N2 flu pandemic of 1956? (Death toll of H3N2: 1,000,000 people worldwide. Death toll of H2N2: 2,000,000 people worldwide) | Edit: I'm not downplaying COVID-19's severity, I think COVID-19 is a greater threat. | 66 | It's hard to say because Covid-19 is still ongoing and we won't know its full impact for years to come.
What we can say is that SARS-CoV 2 is moving *fast*. Not only is it very contagious, it also emerged into a world with global mass traffic and supply chains.
This speed combined with a relatively high rate ... | 10 |
Is there a psychological reason that people will look up when they're searching for the answer to something? | When people are looking for an answer to something, or trying to seek a centering moment, they will often look up. Is there a psychological reason for this? | 37 | Yes.
It is a technique used to dedicate cognitive resources to the "thinking" by reducing the cognitive load of processing visual information.
Our visual system uses a very large amount of our cognitive resource (brain processing power).
You can reduce the resource demand of other functions by reducing the level ... | 57 |
CMV: It is irrational to expect mandatory child support and be pro choice. | 17 | The issue of abortion from the pro-choice perspective is that of a woman's right to sovereignty over her body. The issue of child support is that of the welfare of a child. They are entirely different discussions, and one has very little to do with the other. | 33 | |
CMV: The general pro-LGBT rights attitude in the US could swing to anti-LGBT rights very quickly and soon | Cards on the table, I'm gay, so this belief causes me a decent amount of stress.
On to why I believe this:
1. The current president, at best, doesn't care about lgbt rights. He gave some minor lip service to suporting them during his campaign, but has done nothing good for us and a lot of bad things. Choosing Pence ... | 22 | Politics are a lagging indicator of culture. The public changes first, and only when they've changed enough do the politicians start to adopt their positions. The attitudes "flow up" from people to politicians, they don't "flow down" from politicians to the people.
I would argue that the gay acceptance you see in ... | 20 |
ELI5: Why do I get bags under my eyes when I'm tired? | 614 | One of the biggest reasons people get bags under their eyes is because their parents have them. It's in your genes, and -- aside from plastic surgery -- there's not much that can be done about it. When you're young, lack of sleep, lack of exercise, a diet full of salty foods and water retention can also lead to bags. S... | 209 | |
ElI5 Why do city governments care when people have garage sales? | Had garage sale over the weekend and public security showed up and gave us a written warning saying we needed to have a permit to conduct a garage sale and we had 24 hours to get one. My question, why do they give a fuck if i'm selling my old junk on my property? | 19 | I expect that requiring you to have a permit helps them track how often you're having a garage sale
Many cities have limits on how often you may have a garage sale because they do not want you having garage sales on a regular basis.
You're living in a residential area, not a commercial area. They don't want you havi... | 20 |
[Star Wars] If Ewoks were a primitive species on a remote world with no contact with the Empire, how did C-3PO know their language? | 18 | Assuming no contact with the Empire is a bit of a stretch given that the Empire selected that world for final construction of the second Death Star.
More realistically, the Empire picked that world from the Republic archives, which means Republic scientists, and most likely anthropologists, had been to Endor and stud... | 44 | |
ELI5: What is nuclear fallout/radiation and why does it make us so sick? | 23 | All the stuff in the universe is made of up of little tiny pieces called atoms. Atoms are like little balls of energy wrapped up, and over time they will "pop" and the energy will explode out. Many atoms are "stable" which means that it takes a very long time for the balls to explode, longer than the earth has existe... | 17 | |
[JURASSIC PARK] Aside from outside interference, would the park security systems have been enough to keep visitors safe? | 23 | Probably not.
Many of the park's security systems were designed for contemporary animals, not genetically engineered creatures who resembled the public's shared image of dinosaurs. And those meant to contain the most dangerous specimens were experimental at best, which meant there was always a chance for things to go ... | 30 | |
[dune] Why not use shields as sandworm bait? | I just got transfered to Arrakis, and this engineering disaster is driving me insane. If the shields draw worms and turn them to a killing frenzy, why not strap one on a solar drone that flies out of reach? Is it really preferable to risk dozens of lives and whole harvesters?
Heck, I'll even rig a lasgun to fire into ... | 31 | It's the shield vibrations transmitting into the ground which attracts them. Having one on an airborne probe does nothing.
As for a reason for not destroying the worms.... what do you think makes spice? | 39 |
How to write a recommendation letter for a former professor of mine? | So, a professor that taught me during my undergrad years is up for a tenure track position, and I've just received an email from the committee requesting a recommendation letter.
This professor made a large impact on my intellectual development and I have nothing but good things to say about her. So, I want to write ... | 19 | - context for knowing one another
- what set her apart
- why she was so important to your intellectual growth
- discussion of the particulars of her style that you think are special
- discussion of your personal achievement or success that can be linked to her influence | 16 |
Is it possible that we get cancer and then beat it without even realizing it? | 23 | Yes, it is far more common than you think.
Your cells have dna checking system to make sure the replication goes well and destroys the vast majority of the errors.
Then you have abnormal metabolism leading to cell lysis and your T cells coming in to check on surrounding tissue for known markers.
Then you have benign... | 25 | |
[THOR] If the dark elves are from a time before light, why do they have eyes? | If the dark elves are from a time before light, why do they have eyes? | 64 | The light was a metaphor for Asgard culture. Consider that we now call the European Middle Ages the "Dark Ages", a time before the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery. The Asgard consider the authoritarian, ruthless time before they came to power and ultimately dominion to be a dark time.
"Long before the birth of L... | 64 |
[WH40K] How powerful is the Ork collective gestalt field? | I've seen it described from just nudging red cars to go faster to basically creating a blaster out of piece of wood and some nails with the power if imagination. So how much of an effect does it actually have? | 15 | It varies wildly. In some cases, Ork equipment is usable by others (albeit with a lot jamming and malfunctioning) - it only runs smoothly because of the WAAAGH's effect. In others, an Ork 'gun' can consist of a metal pipe with a belt of bullets fed in and a trigger assembly - no firing mechanism required, and the pipe ... | 16 |
[DC comics] Would Batman take on Billy Batson on as a Robin? Has he considered it before? | If he didn't know Billy was also Captain Marvel that is, seems like the kids moral compass is on point, even if he does lack a certain 'edge' or apparent detective skills. | 60 | Batson (heh) would make a good Robin for a few reasons. If he's really in danger he can turn into Captain Marvel. And he's basically good-hearted, so less reason to worry about him going bad. Captain Marvel is already one contingency against a rogue Superman, but a Batman-trained Marvel would be a contingency against *... | 53 |
Is mountain air really the healthiest/least polluted air? | Is there less polution in the mountains (for example the Alps in France) than in some desolate village at sea-level? | 170 | It's not so much the altitude as it is proximity to large cities and prevailing wind patterns. There aren't a lot of large cities with manufacturing and chemical processing plants near the French Alps, for example, and the higher you go, the smaller the population is - therefore, the air is much cleaner.
In Hawaii,... | 26 |
Why can both X-rays and radio waves penetrate things that visible light can't? | Something about the energy being on the scale of eV so high adsorption there? Did we evolve to be able to see the energy range that is absorbed by everyday objects? | 17 | Light tends to interact with molecules whose size are either near its wavelength, or densely packed enough that an integer group is near the size of its wavelength. The visible spectrum covers a large range of molecule sizes, so its convenient for us to see in. Longer and shorter wavelengths only interact with high den... | 10 |
[Power Rangers] How do they control the megazords? | Like for instance, in Power Rangers Turbo, they use steering wheels to control the megazord. There are 5 of them controlling it, how does it work? | 17 | > Woolowoloololowooololowlwollwoolowoolowlowlooolwolooolowoloowlwolowlowololoool
- Putty Patrol PP10485927
TRANSLATION: *They do not. The poor human children are but puppets of the evil wizard Zordon and his war machines. We fight to free them from his control. Wollowoolowooolowo.* | 31 |
Do traits that humans regard as feminine appear in other animals? | 40 | Depends what you think of as feminine. There are numerous species in which the female cares for the young and takes care of the nest/den/home. There are also many species in which the female is smaller and less dominant in appearance than the male.
When it comes to looks however the males are generally "prettier" ... | 12 | |
ELI5 Why do toenails become so thick and deformed when people get old? | And also, How to avoid it? | 53 | Usually due to wear and tear. Toenails are subjected to lots of stress and trauma over the years. Another contributing factor is neglect and fungal infections.
To avoid: try maintain good hygiene, cut nails regularly and straight across, dry feet well especially if one is using communal showers or baths or swimming poo... | 41 |
ELI5: Why did USSR allow for Austrian reunification but not German? | Both Germany and Austria were divided into four occupation zones following World War II, and Vienna was divided like Berlin. So why was there an East Germany and a Berlin Wall for so long but there was never an East Austria and a Vienna Wall? | 405 | Austria was willing to sign an agreement that said it could never enter a military alliance with either side. This satisfied both the USSR and America and to this day Austria is just as neutral as Sweden.
Germany was not given this option. | 501 |
ELI5: Why the Spanish civil war drew so much influence from outside powers? What was its signifigance at the time? | 21 | It was a cause celebre for left-leaning Westerners because there was a democratically elected leftist government overthrown by a military coup. It was a matter of great public attention, kinda like how Kony or Darfur took off in the recent past. So, individuals and governments with sympathetic political leanings had ... | 19 | |
CMV: suspension of disbelief “plot armor” kills movies and TV shows. | Suspension of disbelief “plot armor” is having impossible situations occur or characters surviving certain death actions.
Examples: characters surviving plane crashes without a scratch. Outrunning dinosaurs. Or other impossible actions. Please note: this occurs even in sci fi genre. Just because there’s a monster doe... | 18 | Some plot armor is invented within the universe. If the universe says Thor can survive a plane crash because of superpowers, then he can. If it says dinosaurs are slow, then they are. If it says we have artificial gravity, then we do.
The problem comes when the show breaks out of the rules of its own universe even if... | 30 |
ELI5: Why can in-game gameplay not look like the cutscenes? | Cutscenes in video games look amazing, but the gameplay looks completely different. Why can they not make the gameplay look like the cutscenes? | 18 | Cutscenes are just videos, some really powerful computer already did all of the work, gameplay is rendered by your computer in real time, and its way less powerful than the computer that the game producers have | 28 |
ELI5: Why is the skin on our palms lighter than the rest of our skin? | 19 | Stratum lucidum
There is a fifth histological layer for palms and soles of the feet. Literally thicker skin and greater distance to the melanocytes. Less light stimulation gets through less pigmentation. Yada yada. | 19 | |
ELI5: When your body keeps "throwing up" when there's no more to get out, why does it fell like getting your chest kicked in by a horse? | Edit: This..
It's just a normal case of throwing up - ate something bad, drank to much, etc. Not a 3 week flu (or worse).
2nd edit: I might have made it sound like I'm vomiting for a week, but that's not the case. But when throwing up for half an hour, there's usually nothing left to throw up. Your body makes the refl... | 111 | Well, ELI5 version, your body doesn’t know how to fix itself so it keeps trying to get everything out. That “chest kicked in by a horse” feeling (or fell-ing, no judge I’m bad at spell check too) is your lack of anything to push out. So all you’re doing is pushing with no substance. Think lifting up a box you thought w... | 98 |
ELI5:Why is it called the Middle East? Why not the Middle West, or just "the Middle?" | Why is the geographical location named the Middle East? What is wrong with the Middle West, or even just "the Middle," as silly as that may sound?
Is that just what English calls it? | 124 | It comes from old western European cultures, who when trading with Asia referred to it as the far east because, well, it was far away and east of Europe. the middle east was kind of in between, hence the name that has stuck around | 123 |
[X-Men] What would have happened if Erik Lehnsherr and Professor Xavier had been born with each others powers. | Basically, the question is what would have happened if the Telepath had grown up in concentration camp, while the Master Of Magnets had grown up in the upper class. | 66 | Funnily enough Lensherr might not have become the villain we know him as. One of the reasons Xavier has such faith in humanity is because he is constantly hearing the thoughts of those around him, the good and the bad. Erik is naturally distrusting and while he may not change his view on Mutant supremacy, he would prob... | 81 |
If stars have more planets than previously thought, would this "add " enough mass to galaxies so we don't need dark matter for explaining their dynamics? | 83 | This can't explain astronomical observations. There is about 4-5 times as much mass as we can see in star form, and planets typically weigh at most a few tens of a percent of their stars, but often much less. If planets weighed more than stars, we wouldn't see the orbits that we do.
There was an idea that the missing ... | 27 | |
ELI5- What is the static that plays when a radio is tuned to a number without a radio station? | 608 | The entire radio spectrum is "noisy"--there's interference in it from both man-made sources and natural ones (e.g. lightning strikes). If you tune the radio to a dead channel then all it will be picking up is that noise, which it amplifies and turns into the static that you hear. You still get the noise on actual radio... | 383 | |
I think I threw my thesis out of the window | The idea was to write my Master's thesis in a computational field, about a topic that I had barely touched upon before. So I spent a long time familiarizing with said topic and trying to fill my knowledge gaps (let's say for a couple of months), then I installed the model I was supposed to use and tried to apply it to ... | 23 | Welcome to research! In all seriousness, this is why thesis-based graduate programs don't have specific timescales the way undergrad does. A masters may be "around 2 years" and a PhD may be "around 4.5 years" (less not in the US) but that really means "1.5-3ish" and "4-6ish" based on how your research is actually going | 25 |
[Digimon,02] Davies puts himself in danger so Vemon has to Digivolve or he might die (he cuts a rope on a bridge well he’s on). This is a onetime thing for Davies, but what is a digimon supposed to do if they get saddled with an emotionally abusive partner who does this kind of thing regularly? | 16 | I think this is addressed in the first series with SkullGreymon. If the trainer starts doing stupid and reckless things to fake the necessary emotional response, the digimon will digivolve in extremely aberrant ways. This is a natural warning to the trainer, in case the digimon's protests weren't enough. There's a high... | 13 | |
Eli5: Why is grip strength significantly worse when you first wake up? And why do hands feel so stiff in the morning? | 138 | When you sleep, your body turns turns off a lot of movement circuits so you don't act out everything you're dreaming. These may take a while to turn back on when you wake up, varying between people and which stage of sleep you woke up from (as others have pointed out, called 'sleep inertia'). | 83 | |
ELI5 : How do medicines for asthma work? | I have asthma and I've always wondered how the "air" inhaled from the medicine works so fast and what it does precisely | 23 | Imagine you have a tunnel wide enough for two lanes of cars to drive through. When you have an asthma attack, the walls shrink and then you can only get one lane of cars through. The first line asthma medications will make the walls of the tunnel widen so you can fit three lanes of cars through instead.
Lift your ar... | 16 |
Since friction originates from electromagentic force, does that mean that neutrons, Which are neutral to each other, can overlap? | Overlap = exist in the same spot in case it isn't clear.
This question can be taken a step further, since the force that keeps protons together should be stronger than the force that repels them (otherwise there are no atoms). Would that mean that protons in an atom should be compressing into a single point so that th... | 54 | Two neutrons can have the same spatial wavefunction as long as they have opposite spin projections.
The nucleus is not a single point. Rather, it’s more like a liquid drop of approximately constant matter and charge densities. The spatial size of a nucleus is on the order of a few femtometers. | 34 |
[X-men] specifically wolverine. How was it that his claws were perfectly sharp. | After he was infused with adamantium how was it that wolverines claws were perfectly razor shap? I mean he didn't sharpen them or anything they just were already there. | 23 | The blades, like the rest of the adamantium he carries, were bonded to his existing bone structure. The exact means that they came out razor sharp instead of jagged is unknown. As they are adamantium, once they were set they could not be sharpened further, so perhaps they had been molded with a very finely crafted mold... | 25 |
Is there a way to do floor and ceiling functions using only 4 operators ( + , - , * , / )? | 48 | No.
Each of the binary operators (+, -, \*, /) is a function from R^(2) to R (in the case of division, some subset of R^(2)). Furthermore, each of the operators is *continuous* on its domain. So any *finite* combination of them would also be continuous on its domain. However, the ceiling and floor functions are not co... | 55 | |
[Star Wars] What technological progression has there been from the ancient Old Republic to the Post-Empire republic? | 26 | If you mean "technological progression" as in the development of new designs for technological devices, there have of course been a great many. Most of the ships, tools, etc. that are built in the modern era are quite different in many ways from those built in ancient times.
If you mean "technological progression" as ... | 16 | |
ELI5: How come the human genetic code can fit roughly in ~1.5GB of data yet we turn out such complex organisms? Furthermore, the code that separates us from other mammals can fit on o floppy disk. | 16 | A few key differences between the genetic sequence and a computer sequence:
1. Computers run in binary. Genes run in quaternary (4 types of nucleic acids). That immediately increases the amount of data you can store exponentially. One step further, gene sequences build amino acids. There are 21 total amino acids that c... | 11 | |
ELI5: How does Humblebundle work? | 36 | Each customer pays whatever he feels like, lets say 10 <insert currency here>. That amount is distributed among all of the game creators + some charities and and some money go to huble bundle itself.
For the most part it's a win-win-win-win situation.
First win : you. You win by getting a butload of games for ... | 25 | |
I don't think I should try to reduce my carbon footprint. CMV. | I DO think that we, as a species, should reduce our carbon footprint. But I think this change will happen over the next few years due to economic incentives (solar getting cheaper, gas getting more expensive, etc).
Classic tragedy of the commons, but I don't see why I should reduce my carbon footprint when my persona... | 45 | You individually will probably not have a significant impact, but if you convince a large number of other people to do it, that will make a difference, and taking part yourself would certainly help with that. | 30 |
[Star Wars] What would’ve been the downsides of Qui Gon surviving to become Anakin’s master? | Obviously Obi-Wan did his best, and was a great master, but I usually hear that Qui-Gon was the master Anakin really needed. But considering that the two have completely different teaching styles, what would’ve been Qui-Gon’s “Obi-Wan should’ve been Anakin’s master” moments? | 33 | We don't really know his teaching style.
People assume that he would allow Anakin to be less pressured to follow the rigid Jedi rules, but his two know pupils are the opposite of what people aspect.
So he might have made the same mistakes. | 30 |
[Ant-Man] If Ant-Man shrinks himself and gorges on cake crumbs until he can't eat anymore, when he reverts back will his blood sugar levels stay spiked or be normal? | 20 | Presumably, any food inside Ant-Man changes size along with him. Otherwise, he would explode if he were to shrink after eating a full meal
So we can assume that when he reverts to normal size in your scenario, the cake crumbs, digested or otherwise, would grow proportionately. His blood sugar levels should be the same... | 35 | |
39% of all american dollars were created in the last 12 months. Is that a problem? | 317 | Money printing is bad assuming there's no productive place for the money to go. The money you're referencing was created in response to a very unique situation in which a large portion of the economy was, by law, prevented from continuing production, but this had a cascading effect where they couldn't pay their bills a... | 238 | |
CMV: Trickle-down economics is ineffective as a whole and only results in consolidation of wealth to the wealthiest 1% of individuals. | Many politicians have proposed tax cuts to wealthy corporations on the premise that they will use the extra money to hire more staff and give them higher wages. Based on this, the corporation's wealth will be passed down to the workers and the middle class. However, I believe that these corporations don't generally do ... | 45 | 'Trickle-down' is a slur used to refer to Supply-side economics. All of economics is determined by the meeting pints of various supply and demand curves, and Supply-side economics is based on policies that make it easier to increase the supply of goods.
Supply-side policies are a good idea *if* supply is insuffici... | 44 |
ELI5: How is oxygen regulated in a submarine? | 241 | We store it in tanks and bleed it off as we need it. We also have special candles that, when burned, generate oxygen, so that if the tanks are empty or the oxygen generator is down we can still make O2. | 104 | |
Why is the kilogram the 'base unit' of mass instead of the gram? | The SI sytem of units would have been more elegant if the gram instead of the kilogram had been chosen as base unit of mass. Why and when did they choose the kilogram as base unit? | 21 | Are others actually reading his question?
Yes when using metres of things they are more likely to weigh kilograms but why define a gram as 1000 times less than what would be used with other base units?
The original kilogram was 1 dm^3 of water. So why not define *that* as a gram?
| 14 |
CMV: Western white people treat minorities better on average than any other race treats their respective minorities. | The topic of my CMV is pretty straightforward: White people(in current history) treat minorities better than any other race treats their respective minorities.
**EDIT**: I am speaking on current forms of government and culture. So we are talking about countries in their post 2000 form.
As a minority in a predomina... | 198 | Because all of the standards you choose to measure are just social programs that exist in first world liberal democracies. They have exactly nothing to do with how western white people behave. Western white people are not the same thing as their governments.
If you're asking about how people treat each other, then yo... | 55 |
If the human body stores 2 hours worth of glycogen and considerably more than 2 hours worth of fat, why do people get tired before 2 hours of jogging? | What is the biological nature of physical exhaustion? Especially after low intensity aerobic exercize - jogging, or even walking for a long period of time? | 27 | Glycogen is mobilized quickly. Fat needs some extra processing to become available as muscle fuel.
Additionally, it's true that most people have ample reserves of "fuel", but their bodies are not prepared to mobilize and burn vast amounts of it quickly. A large part of endurance training involves changes in the body t... | 11 |
[Predator] What happened to Anna after they got back to base? | She was a communist guerrilla extracted from a hostile foreign country by the US military. She saw her entire camp, including Soviet advisors, murdered by Dutch's covert team and she was an eyewitness to an alien visitor.
Based on her background and everything she knows, she seems like somebody they wouldn't want t... | 19 | Saying she witnessed an Alien Hunter fight a convert American Spec Ops would make her look like a lunatic. The Soviet would either think she went crazy after surviving an Enemy Attack or would think she snaped and killed them herself. Her best Bet would be to ask the US for Protection as a Witness to avoid her Supervi... | 11 |
(Star Trek) Why do the species and individuals in the alternate universe have such opposite personalities to those in the prime universe? | I understand that humans are different because of some past event went differently for them but why are all the species in the alternate universe the opposite of their prime universe counterparts. Was there some sort of universe wide event that changed all this? | 23 | I assume you're speaking of the "mirror universe" experienced by the crews of two Enterprises as well as station DS9.
If that's the case, the timeline had its primary divergence at First Contact between the humans and the vulcans (the event you referred to as the past event). Instead of having a meeting of peace, the... | 22 |
[Superman] why is he ripped | So for the strongest man in the world why does he look jacked? What could he lift that makes him look so bulky. Wouldn't it be more correct if he looked like he did in Flashpoint? | 65 | In Flashpoint he was skinny from being malnourished by artificial red light (red sun light has more vitamins than the artificial stuff).
And that's just it, red sun light is like water for a Kryptonian. It keeps them alive with the minimum nutrients. Think of yellow sun light as being a super steroid. Packed with prot... | 56 |
ELI5: Does the Quran's language seem old fashioned to modern Arabic speakers? The King James Bible seems old fashioned to modern English speakers (e.g. thou vs you). | More specifically: For someone who knows [Modern Standard Arabic](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Standard_Arabic), is the Quran (written in [Classical Arabic](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_Arabic)) hard to understand or seem old fashioned? | 234 | Not in the same way. You see the Quran, as any book, is written in Arabic "Fus'ha", kind of like a proper form of Arabic. It's what you study at school in grammar class and stuff like that. However, each Arabic country tends to have a dialect of Arabic that can be really different than Fus'ha (completely different word... | 129 |
ELI5:What is drophacking? | 63 | Ever have a 3rd person try to talk over you when you're talking to someone else?
Now imagine if they didn't stop, but kept getting louder and louder until neither you nor your conversation partner can hear anything except Guy #3's exceedingly loud voice. You eventually quit trying to hold a conversation because his sh... | 126 | |
[Hamlet] Is there indication what Denmark will be like following Fortinbras' rule? | With Denmark's royal family now dead, how will things turn out for the royal palace? | 46 | He's generally more capable than anyone else. Definitely a better option than the mentally unstable Hamlet would have been, and less conniving than Claudius was. His reign is probably a good thing, which is why Hamlet named him heir. His accession was also a lot less bloody than things would have been had Claudius rema... | 29 |
Should I go to a PhD program I'm not excited about, or apply again next year/in later years (computer science)? | I am applying for Fall 2018 entrance into grad schools for theoretical computer science. I have been accepted into one "safety school", and rejected by a number of other schools. There is a fair chance I won't get any other acceptances, and I want to be ready if that happens.
Basically, I'm not very excited about the ... | 24 | Everyone is different, but if it's a good school, you're interested in the work, and you're getting a fellowship for it, "location, people I've met from there, and aesthetic" seem like really terrible reasons to turn it down. Very few academics get to pick where they live and being best friends with everyone you work ... | 40 |
ELI5: How do embers stay burning for hours, even while buried beneath soot/ash? | 21 | The oxygen in the air is burning the fuel in the wood. Imagine the oxygen as a thirsty person, and the wood/charcoal/whatever as a glass of water. If the embers are completely open to the air, the oxygen can just drink it all up quickly. When the fuel is covered up with ashes and soot, it is more like trying to drink t... | 19 | |
I find myself in my spacesuit floating in space next to a space station. Is it possible for me to somehow "swim" to the space station from a standstill situation? | *Zero gravity.
*Zero speed (relavite to the space station).
*100% vacuum.
*No strings attached.
*All I have is my body and it's normal ways to move.
Or am I doomed forever? | 22 | You're doomed forever. If you have something to throw, you can change your momentum but it's very, very difficult to do by hand and it would probably lead to nothing or worse. If you're in EVA and you're not attached, you're dead. | 28 |
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