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Upon the eruption of a volcano, can we also expect the geographically nearby volcanoes to erupt too? | If you do not know yet, the Taal Volcano in Philippines just erupted and it is raining ashes in the entire Luzon. It hasn't erupted since 1977. Based on my basic knowledge of earth sciences and that the Philippines is a product of of oceanic convergence, am I right to expect that all nearby volcanoes in Philippines wil... | 162 | No, the process of convergence is so slow and gradual that being linked to other volcanoes by the same process doesn't mean other eruptions are more likely on a human timescale. If multiple volcanoes are fed by the same magma chamber, there can be more of a direct link, but that is uncommon. | 59 |
ELI5: If you were to only drink 3,500 calories, and not eat any calories, will you still experience gain in weight? What's the different between calories you consume eating versus drinking (like soda, a starbuck caramel frapuchino, etc) | 112 | calories are calories. but some calories come with vitamins and minerals and fiber whatnot etc that your body needs.
if you eat 3500 calories vs drink 3500 calories and get the same vitamins and minerals and fiber whatnot etc it's exactly the same. | 97 | |
ELI5: If photons are massless, why does gravity affect light? | Edit: All answers point to the distortion of the space time fabric by the mass of objects as the reason why.
However, an addendum to my original question then : Why does mass/energy distort space time? | 36 | While photons are massless, gravity still affects them because gravity distorts space-time. Photons are not immune to this distortion.
Essentially, photons still need to travel the uneven ‘surface’ of space. You can’t walk in a truly straight line between New York and LA, because you need to cross over the Rocky Mount... | 69 |
ELI5: How do “take with a meal” pills get absorbed into our body properly if there is a large amount of food in our stomach? | 24 | Medicines, vitamins and other chemicals are generally either water soluble or fat soluble. Water soluble chemicals can be absorbed directly into your bloodstream and don't need to be taken with food. But fat-soluble chemicals won't dissolve in water, and thus need some fat in your stomach. Generally when a pill is s... | 35 | |
Is an apple separated from the tree alive or dead? | If I plucked an apple, does it "die"? More technically, how are processes in a plucked apple different from an apple still on the tree?
It's a known fact that fruit&vegs ripen when left alone; where do they get the energy for that? | 1,104 | Technically, the cells that make up the fruit and the seeds are still alive, but they start fading the moment they're picked. The energy they get for ripening is already there, it just needs to be converted to the right sugars and what not. The cells of the fruit are still working (and will until they no longer have ... | 715 |
[Star Trek] How are most people not looking like supermodels with all the advancement in cosmetic surgery? | You can get relatively non-invasive, pain free, cheap and risk free surgery to make you look like a whole other species. Think of how many people are unhappy with their looks. Their noses, foreheads, jaws, lips, breasts, whatever. Wouldn’t most people take advantage of this system and transform themselves into perfecti... | 209 | >Think of how many people are unhappy with their looks.
This is a common 20th/21st century viewpoint... But in the 24th century, mankind has grown out of those attitudes .
For the most part, mankind has evolved out of those materialistic views. Things such as personal wealth, fame, fortune, and with that one ca... | 302 |
[Judge Dredd] If Mega City 1 is so overpopulated why do they continue to allow children to be born? | 83 | People die, you need new people; ain't much of a society if it disappears in 60-90 years. This rules out actual solutions like contraceptives or gene alteration treatments in the water/air/etc.
So you get left with legal mechanisms, but the population is huge and the enforcement teams are tiny and also dealing with... | 78 | |
ELI5: Why is BP increasing its exec's pay when they have falling profits/incoming fines? | Is it because they need to retain talent/show they are willing to retain talent through generous compensation following a slew of negative events? | 36 | Just because you are operating at a huge loss does not mean they are doing a bad job.
Oil prices and backlash from the recent spill both have tremendous effects on their bottom line. The execs could very well have changed a ten billion loss into a one billion loss, which means they could have done an excellent job des... | 27 |
ELI5: Why taste is subjective even though the structure of our taste buds and biology is generally similar or the same. | I understand that we can link positive memories etc and other sensory inputs with certain tastes and so on, but why does something literally taste good to some people and not to others? Does every item taste the same for everyone but different people perceive them in different ways? | 80 | A lot of how your specific taste buds work actually is controlled by your genes. For example, whether or not you like cilantro is genetic. Another example is broccoli and other similar vegetables. They have a compound in them which some people taste as bitter, while others don't, because some people have a gene which c... | 20 |
[Children of Men] Are women still menstruating? | 20 | I remember in the book that it was a problem with the men's sperm count. In the book, the main character is talking with a nurse who worked in the fertility ward of a hospital and she said she remembered thinking "what is wrong with the men of this country". And also near the end of the book when a male child is born... | 15 | |
If I fill up a water bottle with hot water and start to shake it. Will the water retain its heat longer(or will its heat increase) since I'm adding energy to it. | I'm bored at work shaking a bottle with hot water in it...... | 15 | Theoretically, if you shook it fast enough. But the warmth from your hand will likely contribute more heat than you shaking it.
And besides that, thermodynamics is working against you. By shaking the bottle, you're circulating the water. This means the hottest water is transferring some of its energy to the cooler bot... | 11 |
ELI5:If a meteor killed the dinosaurs, and only 10% of the ocean has been explored, why couldn't aquatic dinosaurs still be living? | I have pondered on this question for an extremely long time because aquatic prehistoric creatures just fascinate me. I have read so much about them and just continue to pursue knowledge concerning them. If the Chicxulub asteroid killed the dinosaurs, why couldn't prehistoric aquatic animals still be living? I consider ... | 440 | The sky would have been darkened extremely by the exploding meteor. The oceans and waterways still need light and specific temperatures for the food supply to be available. Take one thing like plankton out of the loop and you can collapse it all | 256 |
Is removing all of someone's memories equivalent to killing someone ? | 89 | I wouldn't say so. The person still has some physical and mental traits unique to them. The new born baby, for example, doesn't have any memories, but is a living human being. The same applies to the adults - if we erase all the memories of an adult person, we wouldn't kill them neither in a biological sense, nor would... | 32 | |
What were the pressing questions for biology in the 60s? | 26 | One of the biggest questions of the 60’s: __“How does DNA work?”__
Before the 1950s biology was very focused on proteins, especially enzymes, since you could measure their activity and they had a clear function, DNA was mostly overlooked. But in the early 1950s experiments with bacteriophages demonstrated that DNA, no... | 28 | |
CMV: Horoscopes, tarot cards, numerology, and those magic rocks are similar and all complete b.s. | People have been increasingly into those magic rocks that are some type of magic or hold some health and spiritual benefits. These are fake and akin to snake oil. These can be lumped into the same category as numerology, astrology, and clairvoyance. I think these can be dangerous for someone if they decide to live thei... | 27 | Tarot can offer a benefit even if you don't believe in magic powers; they're basically the equivalent of Rohrshach blots, where you pick out the symbolism that strikes you as meaningful and interpret accordingly. | 17 |
ELI5: What's the difference between Republic of China and People's Republic of China? | I understand that Republic of China is more capitalist, and People's Republic of China is communist. I also know that Republic of China is based out of Taiwan. That's it though, can someone help with the rest? | 123 | Before WW2, a nationalist party called the Kuomintang was in control of China. Back then all of China was the Republic of China. But following WW2, there was a communist revolution, and the People's Republic of China was established.
The Kuomintang retreated to Taiwan where they continued to run the government of the ... | 87 |
ELI5: Why is dry firing a bow dangerous? | Most people who never shot one would think it's the same motion as firing a arrow. | 27 | When you pull back the string of a bow, you're putting a lot of stress on the bow. When you release it, that string flies forward, releasing a bunch of energy.
Normally, it transfers that energy into an arrow.
When you dry-fire it, that energy has nowhere to go & just results in a bunch of vibrations which could... | 39 |
ELI5: Why do computers and websites often take a while to detect an incorrect password but often detect correct passwords immediately? | The title is fairly self-explanatory but what I'm mainly getting at is why does it take a computer a while to detect an incorrect password instead of detecting it immediately? | 230 | This is a security measure. If it rejects you in .1 second, you can guess 10 passwords a second. If it rejects you in 3 seconds, it takes you 30 times as long to brute force the password. In many cases, the delay will increase after multiple failed guesses as well. | 272 |
[WH40K] On average, how long does it take from one end of the galaxy to the other end with warp drive? | I know it's quite unstable but on average. | 16 | 1 Year. At its most stable, using the Imperium's most reliable drives, travelling from one side of the galaxy to the other is about a years journey.
The Tau take longer, but that's mostly because of course corrections, there's no reason to believe their drives are inherently slower.
The Eldar can do it in minutes. | 18 |
CMV: Thanos' plan makes no sense when you take economics and policy into account. | I have to preface this by saying I realize this isn't a serious topic, and I understand it's not an important problem to debate (or is it?).
Additionally, I did not grow up reading Marvel comics, and I have had very little context on Thanos besides what I saw in the Avengers movies.
Thanos' plan to eliminate hal... | 359 | Thanos is also known as "The Mad Titan". He's not exactly sane.
From the Avengers movies, we can see that his kill 50% plan originated from his homeworld, and his plan to save it. That is the driving motivation behind all his actions.
He had a plan, they rejected him, and his homeworld was destroyed.
So, now he want... | 240 |
[DC] Has the Joker ever considered giving up his evil ways? | 36 | In one story called Going Sane, he thinks he killed Batman.
He loses all homicidal urges, gets plastic surgery, and moves a couple states away. He falls in love and everything.
But he relapses once he discovers Bats is still alive, ofcourse. | 57 | |
[Toy Story] Did Woody make the wrong decision by going back to Andy instead of going to Japan? | So Stinky Pete was right, Andy did grow up. Sure he wanted to keep Woody but due to an unexpected turn the inevitable ended up happening; the toys and Andy parted ways.
They almost died in the events of Part III and although they eventually found another loving home with Bonny, the same cycle will inevitably repeat i... | 20 | No spoilers for 4. But you watched 3? In the end Woody and the other toys determine it is better to be loved, provide joy to children, and eventually perish than to live a joyless life.
This is a message for adults - live every day fully as in the end, we all return to dust and shadows. | 31 |
CMV:The principle "innocent until proven guilty" is applicable outside of the legal system as well. | I have been lurking around discussions about the metoo movement being a lynch mob, I keep hearing people saying that "innocent until proven guilty" applies only to the legal system. I find that ridiculous.
The term "innocent until proven guilty" is not just an ethical principle, it is a direct consequence of critical ... | 25 | The general principle you describe, "statements are false until proven true," is absurd on its face. A statement is true or false independently of whether it has been proven. Proving a statement is true doesn't _cause_ it to be true: it was already true before you proved it. | 19 |
[Wh40k] We lost 36 million infantry with only 230 surviving but we won the battle. Is this a success? | 36 | You said it yourself, we won. If the enemy are defeated, if their foul ambitions are denied, if their attacks are repulsed, it matters not how many men gave their lives in the Emperor's name. A victory is a victory, and it's promotion, tea and medals for everyone involved in planning it. | 81 | |
ELI5: If a thundercloud contains over 1 million tons of water before it falls, how does this sheer amount of weight remain suspended in the air, seemingly defying gravity? | 9,527 | At the scale of cloud droplets viscosity is a force vastly superior to gravity. Gravity is applied to mass, viscosity* is applied to surface area, and smaller things have more surface than they have mass. Imagine you drop a stone into water - it will sink to the bottom right away. Now if you grind this stone into sand ... | 10,064 | |
If a werewolf continuously travels using modern technology like planes, etc to avoid the full moon does that mean it could live a normal human life and avoid transformation? | 21 | To answer this, I'll talk a little about Gargoyles.
Gargoyles (*Greg Weisman's famous Disney series*) turn to stone at sunup and do so with variability as they travel around the world (a little before or a little after) depending on their biological clocks. Stone sleep is what it is: sleep--although much less volunta... | 16 | |
[Game of Thrones - TV] what happened to Daenarys khalasar | Continuing on (this thread)[http://www.reddit.com/r/AskScienceFiction/comments/38vjcs/game_of_thrones_did_khal_drogo_have_any_intention/] I came to wonder what happened to Khalisi's khalasar? I know quite a few of the died in the red desert on their way to Quarth(?), but Dany couldn't have made to where she is now with... | 19 | Most of them joined other Khalasars when Drogo died. What remained were the weak, elderly and her handmaidens.
We see a few die in Qarth when the dragon eggs are stolen; so it's pretty safe to assume that they've just died out. | 35 |
[Gurran Lagann] human eradication | After the time jump why didn’t the anti-spiral races just nuke all the humans and the fill all the underground villages with poison gas or something of the sort? | 25 | Their intentions are not just to wipe out humanity (because they might always miss someone), it's to destroy the willpower of the Spiral Warrior leading them (Simon). The Anti-Spirals know that any individual Spiral Warrior is a universe-scale threat, and can't be stopped by blunt force. Instead, they have to be Demo... | 27 |
Academia vs Industry | Why is it harder to get a job in academia compared to industry sectors although the salaries in academia are significantly lower? | 27 | Because there are significantly more PhD holders than there are viable academic jobs. And that’s because universities use grad students as cheap labor without any concern for how many of them will secure jobs, stable long-term jobs are being replaced with short-term contract jobs that can’t be the basis of an actual ca... | 61 |
[DC] What is Batman's general opinion on the death penalty? | Batman is vehemently against killing his foes, or even letting other people kill them, but what about legal execution? How does Batman respond to criminals being legally put to death? | 25 | Batman doesn’t kill for one major reason:
He doesn’t trust himself to be judge, jury, and executioner.
He knows if he started killing criminals he would lose it. All he does is give a beating, terrify, and hand over to the police, because Batman knows the legal system is capable of being judge, jury, and executioner... | 40 |
The term "radical atheist" is invalid in the context relative to "radical Christian". CMV. | A radical Christian would follow the bible to an extreme extent. I think it's fair to say that this is generally not ideal for others. What exactly does a radical atheist do? Any act by an atheist would not associate atheism to it because atheism only declares a lack of belief and nothing else.
The Christian being ref... | 17 | rad·i·cal
/ˈradikəl/
Adjective
(esp. of change or action) Relating to or affecting the fundamental nature of something; far-reaching or thorough.
Noun
A person who advocates thorough or complete political or social reform.
In this sense, an atheist can indeed be radical, and quite a few are. This is the same use of... | 12 |
[Pokemon] How are Pokémon eggs created and laid? Why do eggs need to be walked? | 188 | >Why do eggs need to be walked?
It isn't the walking that causes eggs to hatch - they take a certain, variable amount of time to hatch and have to be kept warm much like bird eggs. In the games that time is correlated with steps. | 186 | |
ELI5: Does every single car in the world have a unique key? | 27 | > Does every single car in the world have a unique key?
No. There are too many cars and too few combinations. It is possible for the coded chips to have a truly unique combination but the physical keys are reused. | 28 | |
What are some unwritten rules of etiquettes in research/academia that you often see being overlooked? | Recently had a misunderstanding between my PI about publications, authorship, roles in the project were which lead to some conflict. Looking back, I see that we could have avoided those misunderstanding if we had talked about these things before we started the project and made those point crystal clear rather than talk... | 192 | Hmmm... less political than your examples, but clean up after yourself and respect the common equipment. If your agarose spills in the microwave, don't leave it for someone else to clean up. Do your dishes.
If you notice that tips or a reagent are running out, be sure to order more or alert whoever handles the order... | 155 |
ELI5:How do LEDs get so hot despite putting out so much light and using relatively little power? | If you touched an incandescent lamp you would probably burn yourself, but that used 75 or 100 watts. Meanwhile LED lamps use 10-15 watts and put out just as much light, yet still get insanely hot. Even LED tape needs some sort of cooling to run at their specified voltages and current. Why do they get so hot? Shouldn't ... | 432 | incandescent bulbs give about 14 lumens per watt (2% efficient)
LEDs theoretically can generate over 200 lumens per watt (30% efficient)
LED bulb turns a larger fraction of the source power into visible light, virtually none of the waste energy is radiated away, so it must be handled by conductive/convective means.
LED... | 108 |
[Star Wars] What percentage of jedi turn to the Dark Side? | 19 | A loooot less than 1%. In 25,000 years of history, an extremely small (relatively speaking) number of Jedi ever turned to the dark side. Granted, the entire Sith war with the Jedi is all about Jedi who turned and started culturally appropriating the Sith race, so take that as you will, but Jedi falling from the Order i... | 20 | |
ELI5: If there are fewer leaves in the winter, does it mean we have less oxygen then? | 42 | No. The global oxygen level do not fluctuate that much if at all from things like loosing leaves because half the world is always going to be in summer. Also equatorial rainforests are always in summer, and contribute the most of anything to filtering air. | 42 | |
[Overwatch] If the Chronal thingy on Tracer's torso anchors her in regular spacetime, does that mean she'll perpetually be in her 20s forever, or does she age naturally? | 114 | As far as we know about her condition, without her thingy she'd experience time from a normal frame jumping between all points of her time as she lived it randomly. The anchor just keeps her experiencing time how people normally do. | 85 | |
[40K] How did the Emperor's battle with Horus kill him? | I know next to nothing about 40k, but a bunch of my friends are into it and were explaining the main storyline to me. They all told me that the Emperor died not long after his battle with Horus (which he won). How? Isn't the GEoM like this all powerful dude? | 32 | Hes not literally all powerful. If he was there wouldnt be much of a story. Anyways, sonce Horus was his son, he was basically heartbroken and reluctant to kill him, and only did so when Horus mortally wounded him.
Also, he didnt die. His body is decaying, but his spirirt still resides in it, and is simultaneously ho... | 51 |
ELI5: What's going on with McDonald's? | So, I've heard they're struggling with management and that their recent marketing and innovation ideas didn't help the company, but McDonald's is a huge brand. How can they question their future in such way? | 19 | mcdonald's ought to realize its target market. people who love shitty, addictive food. they keep trying to push healthy items and act like they're being more ethical. there is a massive market out there of people who do not care about animal rights and/or being healthy. that's who they have served for decades and they ... | 21 |
Higher inflation increases employment because it stimulates demand or because real wages are lower? | 27 | In the standard macro models, higher inflation doesn't increase aggregate demand, the opposite is true in fact, it tends to reduce demand. Demand may fall because of the lower real value of savings, lower real wages, a reduction in the real size of the money supply, or because the central bank raises real interest rat... | 26 | |
CMV: Vanna White has the best job in the world | Currently Vanna White's salary is reported to be $10m/year. Her job entails walking back and forth in front of screens she needs to tap when they light up while wearing beautiful gowns and shoes and hair and makeup. She'll film promo spots. She is a household name across the country, yet I assume she could blend in to ... | 47 | Judge Judy. 47 million a year, probably more now on her new show, 52 workdays per year, and she gets to call people morons with impunity every one of those 52 days and people absolutely love her for it. And she doesn’t have to care how she looks in a sparkly dress. | 75 |
ELI5: why are female tits so sexualised ? | 21 | They are a secondary sexual characteristic and as such indicate that the woman is past puberty and therefore physically developed and ready for producing offspring. Them being large indicates that she is well fed (not an issue in modernity) and them being firm indicates youth and health. These factors give some very ba... | 53 | |
Does the vast quantity of salt spread onto roads to prevent freezing have a negative effect on the local environment? | Currently experiencing an unusually intense cold snap in the UK and local gritters are out spreading in force. But when the ice melts and the salt dissolves, won't this leave a lot of salt water flowing into the ground etc? | 60 | short answer: yes, it's bad for the local environment. Salt run off from roadways gets into groundwater and is toxic for plants bc it prevents them from getting enough water, and essentially drying them out.
this run-off also feeds into our drinking water supplies, and while it's not likely to be too dangerous, it's c... | 37 |
CMV: Online "slacktivism" is actually a more effective way of changing people's minds than protesting in the streets. |
I am speaking from experience here. I've been to some protests, the March for Science for example. I would characterize it as "preaching to the choir". Everyone who was there already agreed with me. Hardly anyone who wasn't involved with the march was actually interested. Most people who passed by probably didn't even... | 15 | It may be the case that when raising awareness there’s a tremendous value in being disruptive. You seem to think otherwise, but it’s far easier to ignore someone online — if you disagree with them, chances are you aren’t on the same website or similar news feed in the first place. Websites gather like-minded people tog... | 11 |
If 3rd world debt was restructured or forgiven would it lead to economic growth or would the moral hazard make things worse off? | 40 | It would give a short term boost, sort of like an opportunity. But eventually, it would change nothing, as what decides economic prosperity are these countries' institutions, not their amount of debt. The effect on their debt taking wouldn't be large if this was an one-time thing. | 28 | |
When I watch star wars or star trek I noticed the ships look aerodynamic. Wouldn't it be better to make them as small as possible instead of long triangle shaped fighters? | 59 | Regardless of aerodynamics the ships need to look cool on screen, and they need to be identifiable as something akin to contemporary planes and ships.
Some of these ships also need to fly in atmosphere(s) (e.g. the battle at the start of Star Wars Episode III) so it makes sense for them to be aerodynamic. | 27 | |
Why does the economy NEED to grow constantly? | 21 | Population growth.
We've gained 100MM people in the last 30 years. In the next 30 we will probably add 200MM. Those people will need houses in which to live, jobs at which to work, food to eat, cars and roads to drive them on, etc. If they don't get those things, they will either go somewhere else for them or take th... | 17 | |
ELI5: How was the first software created and integrated into computers when there wasn't any software to do it? | 33 | Physical punchcards (card with holes dotted on them) were fed into computers to set memory switches on or off which would then act as the program and data to be executed.
When a basic computer is "booted" its instruction pointer points to a location in memory. The 1's and 0's at that location are retrieved and depend... | 62 | |
ELI5: What's Guerilla warfare? | 153 | Guerilla warfare is a type of strategy used in conflicts against more powerful opponents, some people will use the term 'asymmetric' warfare to describe the uneven forces at play. Guerilla warfare emphasizes NOT meeting the more powerful enemy in the battlefield, by striking only at vulnerable targets or disabling supp... | 319 | |
ELI5 Why do airline pilots print off large piles of paper on a dot matrix printer at the gate? | What is on those sheets of paper?
Is there not an electronic way to do this?
Do they rip off the edges of the dot matrix paper and call it “printer bacon” like I did when I was little? | 18 | Airline pilot here. TLDR - this is the simple way to produce documents that have to be signed and then copies go to various different places.
Often when we get to the gate we collect the flight plan, weather charts and briefing information. This is mostly laser printed and is a backup to the same content on our compan... | 35 |
Gas giants | Why are Neptune and Uranus different colors from Jupiter? What is the big storm on Jupiter, how long has it been active? Why do some giants have rings and others have multiple rings? How wouldn't the multiple rings decimate each other over the billions of years of planetary development? | 20 | The Gas Giants, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, are colossal planets made up of mainly gas. The different colours you see are because they are made up of different types of gas, and these reflect light differently, so appear different colours. Uranus has a lot of icy material like water, methane and ammonia in its... | 19 |
[Marvel] Why does Read Richards refuse to believe magic when he sees it? | Here is a quote from The Thing "if an alien stubbed his toe, Reed would want to spend ten years studying it" so if he is like that, then why does magic not catch his interest? | 45 | Reed was once forced to learn magic to deal with Doom. Or rather, he was setup to fail by Doom. While in the end Reed won of course.. He has zero talent for magic. He doesn’t get it, it doesn’t hold with his sensibilities or how his vision of the world works.
I guess the best example would be that some people love pa... | 78 |
Who Are The Stars, Influencers of Programming and Coding? | I want to be more interested in it and would like to not only take it seriously, but also find a way to enjoy it while starting out.
He/she, they don't need to be popular as the title suggests, just anyone that you enjoy learning from and would recommend. | 20 | I would caution against regarding any programming figure as a "star". There are a lot of influencers, but playing the game: building followers, being top-billing on the conference circuit, writing an overly simplistic book, etc., doesn't mean they actually know what they're talking about.
It's almost a negative filter... | 37 |
ELI5: Why is cancer so hard to cure? Will we ever find an infallible cure? | 2,126 | Usually, cells that cause disease are very different to your cells. Bacterial cells have very different characteristics to human cells and so we can use treatments that exploit those differences to only eradicate bacteria.
However, cancer results from mutated human cells, so cancer cells and human cells are overall ve... | 3,006 | |
HOW does ATP store its energy? | My AP Bio teacher said that it is due to the phosphate groups repelling each other, and the energy being released when they are able to fly apart. Is this true? I'm thinking it's bogus. | 91 | Not really "repelling" each other, but energy can be stored in the form of a bond. If the products of a reaction have bonds that are _lower_ in energy than the reactants, energy will be released, and you can say that energy was stored in the bonds of the reactants. | 23 |
How can the universe be 150 billion light-years across and only 13.7 billion years old? | A coworkers and I had this discussion Friday and we may very well have confused ourselves into missing something obvious. Taking the fact that the universe is 150 billion light-years across and estimated to be 13.7 billion light-years old how is this possible? Knowing that a light-year is the distance traveled over a... | 101 | Light rays can reach us from a distance greater than 13.7 billion light-years because the universe has been expanding while the light ray has been travelling. While the ray of light itself can't have travelled further than 13.7 billion light-years, the universe is still expanding *behind* it, so by the time it reaches ... | 56 |
CMV: Abortion before the capacity for consciousness develops is not murder | In order to actions performed against an object to be morally relevant, I think that object must have the capacity for consciousness.
A fetus, before the ability for consciousness, is therefore not morally relevant, and so abortion at that stage is not a moral affront against the fetus - specifically, it is not murder... | 70 | The problem here is that you do not know or have any evidence whatsoever that the rest even have a consciousness. It's something you can not prove.
The only certainty you have is that YOU have a consciousness. You can give the benefit of the doubt and *assume* we do too, but that's an asumption.
Basing the legality ... | 25 |
[Men in Black] What purpose does the noisy cricket serve? | It seems like an absurdly impractical weapon in every sense, why would it be issued to a fresh agent on his first mission? | 148 | The noisy cricket is a hugely strong, but extremely compact weapon. Agent J's training was accelerated at all stages through necessity and it was felt that he needed a weapon that he could have on him at all times, as he was unfamiliar with the capabilities of all alien species. He needed something that he could have i... | 186 |
[I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream] How does AM alter reality? | He somehow creates new lifeforms (worms for food) at will, can transform the survivors into different grotesque forms, magically prevents them from committing suicide, and plays with their mental state. Given that he is a computer, how is this possible? Or am I just being pedantic? | 72 | There's no magic to it. AM has solved the fundamental equations of reality. Matter, energy, emergent metaphysical properties, these are all 2 + 2 to an intelligence so far beyond anything we can conceive. What's a little will manipulation or genetic alteration at that point? | 82 |
CMV: Congressional apportionment is in dire need of a revisit. The US should have, as of 2019, 690 members of congress, not 535. | [Congressional apportionment](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_congressional_apportionment) is the the most glaring failure currently of the republic.
Most other countries can be seen to follow the "cube root rule" (by design or because that's the way the statute ended up working) by which the apportionme... | 19 |
The cube root? Why not square root or any other mathematical relationship? 690 feels just as arbitrary as 435+100. You are thinking about this from the perspective of a voter, not as a politician who needs to work someplace. The best number is the most efficient number to maximize thoughtful interaction.
Say the Beat... | 12 |
CMV: European Countries Should Not Take In Asylum Seekers, Period | There's been a prevalent ultra-humanitarian attitude in publications like The Guardian lately, that European Union countries are inhumane and racist for not trying to rescue boats full of African migrants and grant them free citizenship on the grounds of being persecuted and historically oppressed.
http://www.theguar... | 20 | the idea that people trying to escape a horrific conditions should not be allowed asylum because of a supposed lack of skills is probably one of the most horrifying concepts I've ever heard and shows a complete lack of empathy that is almost inhuman. | 55 |
Does being an active and outdoorsy child influence the body's development in terms of body shape, muscles and so on? | 438 | Sorry to play devil's advocate, but this could be a case of reverse causality, i.e. the children that are genetically more prone to have bulky physiques and broad shoulders and big muscles tend to want to use them more and be more outdoorsy | 107 | |
[DC] How many people defend Gotham? | I know there's the Batman, Batwoman, and Simon Dark, but who else? | 18 | -The Bat Family (anywhere from 5-15 people at a time, more if you include Alfred, Lucius, and others)
-Alan Scott
-Ragman
-Catwoman (she's arguably a member of the Bat Family)
-The Night Shift (*Gotham By Midnight* crew that includes The Spectre)
-Most of GCPD (Comm. Gordon, Bullock, Montoya (The Question), C... | 21 |
ELI5: Why do planes always go around the world instead of going past the poles to get to the other side quicker? For example: Alaska to Europe over the North Pole. Does it mess up internal navigation systems too much? | 38 | There are many routes that take you over the Arctic. Sometimes longer routes are used to take advantage of east/west prevailing winds.
In the past, polar routes were less frequent, because of Extended Operations (ETOPS) rating. ETOPS was how far away from any airport, measured in time, an airplane was allowed to go.... | 61 | |
ELI5: How is it that we create dreams in our sleep of bizarre or extraordinary imagination, however conscious thought hardly achieves such imagination? | as I wake from a dream and think "how did my mind create such a detailed and imaginative narrative, but if I were to sit in front of a blank word doc all I would do for a while is stare at a blinking cursor, struggling to think up something lol" | 31 | There is a part of your brain that tests the reality of what you perceive. You see someone with three arms, and it goes "whoa, check again", so you look more closely and see there are really two people, one mostly blocked.
When you dream, this part of the brain runs at reduced capacity, and you are no longer as criti... | 12 |
CMV: America needs a populist political movement that focuses on widely agreed upon political and economic reforms instead of wedge issues and culture wars | According to polling data there are a great many political and economic reforms that are widely supported by the general populace and would be beneficial to the majority of Americans. Statistically most Americans support things like higher minimum wages, ending citizens united, a more socialized healthcare system, ele... | 58 | The issue with unified left- and right-wing populism that completely ignores cultural discourse is that although both sides may end up agreeing on the *problems*, there still lies a significant gap to bridge with regards to the *solutions*.
The Nazis, for example, were environmentalists. Instead of increasing regulat... | 29 |
ELI5: How is paid suspension even a punishment for police officers? | 36 | Everyone is presumed innocent until proven otherwise.
Therefore, in the first case, "alleged misconduct" means that the officer could have done something wrong but they are not sure yet. He is innocent for now, until they can prove otherwise.
It would be unfair to penalize him by cutting his pay (he is innocent fo... | 28 | |
Does a ketogenic diet can affect the half-life of a liposoluble drug? | 59 | No, it does not.
Liposoluble drugs *may* accumulate in body fat if they're present in excess, however, the speed at which they break down isn't affected by how many ketone bodies are present in the system, as when the drug is being broken down, it's not in the body fat yet.
When the excess is stored in body fat, then... | 13 | |
ELI5: How does the cremation process actually work? | 34 | Basically a body is put in a cheap easily burned container, a cardboard or thin wood casket, it's then burned at an extremely high temperatures in a gas furnace, called a 'retort' until all moisture has been removed, all tissues have been reduced to just some carbon ash and trace minerals, and the bones are reduced to ... | 45 | |
Would it be easier to build higher buildings if they were shaped as pyramids or would it cause more problems due to the wind etc? | For example would it be possible to build a pyramid with the same apex as the Burj Khalifa (828 m.) or would it just be impossible for the base to sustain that much weight? If the money was there would we encounter more problems building such a pyramid than we would building normal "rectangular" buildings? | 33 | Not science disclaimer: This is not science.
Land is sold by the acre which is surface area. The whole point behind very tall buildings like the Burj Khalifa is to maximize *that* patch of planet that it is built upon. When the design constraints begin at the very bottom, the only choice is to go up.
Pyramids have ... | 43 |
If I "butt chug" alcohol will I still fail a breathalyzer like I would if I drank the alcohol orally? | 90 | The breathalyzer is an indirect measure of blood alcohol concentration. The core assumption is that ethanol in your blood will be in equilibrium with air in your lungs, just like how gases like oxygen and carbon dioxide exchange between blood and air.
This exhcange will occur regardless of route of administration. As ... | 77 | |
I think that the gender wage gap is due to the majority of women's decisions and not discrimination. CMV | I know a lot of liberals are saying that women make 77 cents less than their male counterparts. However, I heard the libertarian's counter point and it's not that they are individually making less, it's just that women work less than men do as a whole. That being said, I want to say that **I am not a misogynist**, I be... | 41 | You unduly separate "women's decisions" and "discrimination". A woman's career choices can be affected by the judgments she expects from people. Even a simple "I want to help people" thought can automatically and unconsciously lead to teaching or nursing for a woman and being a doctor for a man. This is because of the ... | 18 |
Is there a way to fix this stupid mistake I made? | EDIT: Resolved, details at end. Thanks for everyone's comments!
I'm a second-year PhD student in Canada studying mathematics.
Last August in a fit of planning ahead, I signed up for two winter courses (the term that just ended). I managed to entirely forget about one of them (the stupid mistake). In my defense, ... | 61 | Under the circumstances, and assuming that you reported everything accurately, it seems unreasonable for them to deny your request to retroactively drop the course. Regardless, it seems perfectly reasonable for them to request that you repay scholarship funds for a term in which you were not a student, but you say tha... | 80 |
[40K]What's the afterlife like for each species? | 20 | There is none, for the most part. When you die, you fade into the background noise of the Warp. There is no heaven, no hell, as those things imply a continuation of consciousness after death. Most souls are far too weak to maintain that sort of coherency after death.
For thkse strong enough to maintain a sense of Sel... | 36 | |
ELI5: The system for numbering interstate highways. | 255 | Primary routes have two digits. Odd numbered highways run north and south, with lower numbers in the west and higher numbers in the east. Even numbered routes go east-west, with the lower numbers in the south and higher numbers in the north.
Three digit routes starting with an even number are loops within or around a ... | 282 | |
ELI5: How can you have two electrical switches that perform the same role independent of the other switch? | In many houses you have, for example, a corridor with two light switches at either end. When you turn either switch on/off then the light turns on. Similarly, either will turn the light off, independent of the other switch's position. This does not seem to follow either series or parallel circuit logic, so how can this... | 34 | It's called a three-way switch. The two light switches are wired up to each other, and also to the light. There's an extra piece of wire connecting the two switches to each other.
When both switches are on, the light goes on. When both switches are off, the light goes on. If one switch is off and the other switch is o... | 35 |
[harry potter] why is voldemort more feared than Grindelwald? | Voldemort terrorized only England, while Grindelwald terrorized the whole of Europe (practically the whole world) there is no comparison with a single country with several countries. | 21 | Because Harry Potter is set in England.
It's very possible that in the USA no-one gives a shit (indeed, if Voldemort is seen as a local problem, it explains why no-one stepped in to help), but the books are set in a place where its still fresh in everyone's memory that he started a brutal civil war and nearly set up a... | 40 |
ELI5: Since anti-inflammatory medication and ice suppress the body's natural reaction to injury, do these treatments impede the healing process? | 63 | Yes, in most cases yes taking an anti-inflammatory will slow the healing process but let you continue on with your life pain free and mobile. There are a few cases where excessive swelling can lead to Compartment Syndrome, in which case an anti-inflammatory drug would speed up the healing process. | 26 | |
ELI5: why are cities banning e-cigs? | 1,337 | first off no city is banning them but many are treating them like "regular" cigarettes
e-cigs produce vapor, which is much better for you than smoke. but not a lot of data has been gathered on their potential problems also they still will effect nearby persons by exposing them to the nicotine vapor. Also many establis... | 1,292 | |
If I shine a laser pointer north and another south, from the perspective of the photons traveling north, wouldn't the photons traveling south be traveling twice the speed of light? How does this not violate the constant speed of light? | 35 | Velocities don't add linearly, they add in such a way that the speed of light is constant in all reference frames. In the case of two photons, the velocity of one in the frame of the other is (c+c)/(1+c^2 /c^2 )=c | 59 | |
CMV: Pessimism is no more "realistic" than optimism. | I hear pessimistic people make the claim that: "I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist." When pushed for more information, they usually make the claim that their worldview is somehow more accurate than that of an optimist.
I disagree. I feel that you create your own reality. If I spend my days practicing gratitude and pu... | 27 | Have you heard of the planning fallacy?
It's is a phenomenon in which predictions about how much time will be needed to complete a future task display an optimistic bias (underestimate the time needed). It's also the tendency to underestimate the time, costs, and risks of future actions and at the same time overestim... | 19 |
[DC/General Superheroes] Superman is strong enough to shatter worlds. Why is there so little collateral damage when he fights *even stronger* villains? | With Superman himself, I get it. We all know [Superman is holding back so he doesn't break anyone.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cl_5UwS57X8) He's said so many times. Fine, and kudos to him, even if some people would argue he'd do more good in the long run by being willing to break a few bones.
But Zod, Doomsday, a... | 70 | It boils down - oddly enough - to the very physics you fear will tear the world asunder.
When you're punching a dude, you're focusing a lot of kinetic energy onto a very specific point, with a very specific surface area, density, mass, and so on. When you're punching a dude and you happen to bench press neutron stars... | 46 |
CMV: People will never change their view if you call them ignorant or evil. | From what I see in politics, there is a big emphasis on convincing the common voters that the opposition is evil or ignorant.
I have never heard a story of a Nazi or white supremacist that has changed their view because the media and everyone they knew repeatedly called them evil.
Changing people’s minds is more abo... | 58 | It might not be about changing the view of the hard-core evil person. They've got their own self-justification for their way of thinking and they think they're right and justified.
It's more about labelling that way of thinking as being socially unacceptable so that other people who may be toying with adopting it don'... | 15 |
I know the Earth was formed 4.5-4.5 billion years ago, but what definitive event(s) actually took place then? | Is the birth time defined as when the mass that would become the Earth separated from the mass that would become the sun?
Is it calculated from when the Earth adopted a normal orbit or when it adopted a regular rotational pattern?
Or is there some other definition/s that is used? | 111 | There is a time scale of accretion and we are still working out the exact length but it started about 4.55ish billion years ago and then continued for some amount of time (probably 20-50 million years). Generally we use it as starting to form Earth. | 17 |
[Batman Vs Superman] So about Batman.... **Spoilers** | Why was Batman so... Bloodthirsty? I mean, he blew up a lot of cars and shit. I thought his whole thing was that he never killed? | 76 | There are a lot of Batmen in lots of continuties. While most have a "no-kill" policy, it seems like this Batman lost that aspect of himself, Alfred mentions it actually, in his line about "good men turning cruel". What would of caused Batman to lose his moral compass is probably the death of someone close to him, proba... | 66 |
Does the efficiency or power consumption of electronics change with temperature? | I recently have decided to hella overclock a PC I built this year, and someone told me that the better the cooling is on the water cooling I'm going to be using the less potential power consumption there will be. He said the electrical resistance drops with temperature there by decreasing the necessary voltage, and qui... | 3,059 | There's a complicated interplay of temperature and conductivity.
To start, metals are good conductors (mostly, at least). A big reason for this is the high mobility of elections in these metals, especially combined with the band structure. Basically, to oversimplify, atoms try to hold on to their electrons. By applyin... | 896 |
[Fallout:NV] How realistic a weapon is the Holorifle? | http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Holorifle
There are a few queries I have with it:
Could a hologram damage organic/ inorganic material?
Could said damaging hologram be self-sustained, as to not need a protector to keep it going?
Could said self-sustained damaging hologram be projected at a substantial enough velocity... | 15 | Holograms are light. And, like any light, if you amplify it with the right methods, you get lasers. Since the holorifle shoots "concentrated photon-based energy projectiles", it's really just firing lasers. Or something so close to it that it doesn't really matter.
So, yes. A hologram can damage organic/inorganic mate... | 20 |
What notation or nomenclature system gives us chemical formulas that look like Et20 instead of C4H10O or (C2H5)2O (Diethyl Ether) ? | What is the nomenclature system that includes abbreviations? What are they and where/how do you reference it?
In looking through actual chemistry documents and trying to reproduce lab experiments I keep coming across two possibly archaic nomenclature systems. One is just totally random English language abbreviations... | 20 | Calling it a 'system' might be giving it a bit more credit for thoughtful organisation that is due, however there is a historically accept set of notations that chemists have used for a long time:
Me = Methyl
Et = Ethyl
Pr = Propyl
Bu = Butyl
^n Bu = n-butyl
^i Bu = iso-butyl
^t Bu = tert-butyl
Pe = Pentyl
Hx = Hexyl
... | 11 |
What is the minimum size for a star? | 21 | In terms of mass, about 0.075 the mass of our Sun. That is the lowest mass a star can be while still maintaining fusion reactions. If you mean in terms of size then that would be neutron stars which weigh more than our Sun but have a radius of only about 10-20 km. | 15 | |
[Star Wars] Why are so many of the central figures in Galactic history human? | 71 | By simple virtue of the fact that humans are the most numerically superior species in the galaxy. Humans spread all over the galaxy and colonized every world possible. There's simply so many of them that it's difficult to avoid their influence.
Of course, by the time of the Empire, anti-alien prejudice was in effect ... | 96 | |
[One Punch Man] How would Saitama react to an opponent that utterly outclasses him? | so, the whole thing about Saitama is that he is powerful enough to beat everyone in one punch. this has led to him feelings incomplete and bored because all he wants is for someone to give him a good fight.
​
but instead of a fair fight, how would he react to facing an opponent that effortlessly outclasse... | 144 | That seems to more or less describe his first fight, pre-OPM/Caped Baldy, against the crab monster with the permanent marker nipples. A big part of his character is that, as a certain singing cowboy would say, someone forgot to put in the quit when they were making Saitama, to the point where he's defied all known huma... | 208 |
ELI5: If fruit juice is highly acidic, and the acid in citrus fruits (citric acid) is used as a preservative, why does freshly-squeezed citrus juice only last a couple of days in the fridge? | 31 | It's the oxygen present that allows microbes to metabolise the contents of the juice.
Citric acid is a useful preservative in food packaged with minimal oxygen, but it's pretty ineffective when there's a good supply of oxygen.
That's why things spoil quicker once the packaging has been opened. It's not really to do w... | 21 | |
ELI5: What led up to the Salem Witch Trials? | I'm looking to understand the religious/political climate that surrounded the events and how they got to that point. | 42 | Following the Glorious Revolution in England, parliament passed the toleration act, which granted all protestants the right to worship freely across British territory. That meant that Puritan New England had to let Quakers and Anglicans and other folks they kind of hated worship freely. Prior to this act only people of... | 19 |
[Star Wars] When two Jedi face a foe together, why doesn’t one just use Force manipulation while the other light saber-fights? 2-on-1 doesn’t usually end in victory, as we’ve seen so many times in battles with Darth Maul and Count Dooku. | 65 | The short, blunt version is that A) the Jedi train their people to act as lone wolves, and that's reflected in their combat doctrine and B) the Jedi Order suffers massive institutional inertia, making it hard to adjust to changes in the battlefield.
For the former, consider that the traditional mode of operation for t... | 58 | |
[Enders game] Why did no-one else think of shooting the planet with the ultra-powerful planet killer? | Seems like a pretty damn obvious thing to do.
Yet everyone acts like it was a genius move when it could have easily been done straight away by **anyone** saving thousands of lives! | 37 | The Doctor Device was never intended for use as a planet-killer. Its design was specifically to obliterate the Formic swarm-fleets, causing a chain reaction that would ultimately result in the destruction of every ship in the area at the molecular level. It was a first-strike preventative measure, meant to hit the RE... | 38 |
Would it be effective to remove all nonfunctional junk DNA from human/animal genome? | Well, apart from making it incompatible with his own species.
According to several articles I've read, big part of human genome is not relevant to any proteins or any other mechanism in our organism. | 46 | There's no such thing as junk DNA, that term has fallen out of favor.
There is coding DNA and non-coding DNA (formerly "junk"). We're learning that much non-coding DNA may have a structural or regulatory role that we are unaware of.
That being said, there's a lot of DNA that can be done away with, but doing so wou... | 99 |
What determines the lifespan of a species? | Why is it that humans can live up to 100, but dogs have an average lifespan of 10 years, and flies/insects only live a couple of days? What determines it? Is it the enviroment or something to do with the animal's anatomy? Would we be able to increase other animals' lifespans like we did with our own? | 18 | It's a combination of factors. Over long periods evolution selects for traits that improve chances of survival to adulthood and reproductive success, which often doesn't promote longevity. Because humans require a relatively long time to reach sexual maturity, keep learning throughout our lifetime and live in social gr... | 16 |
CMV: As a progressive, it is NOT in my best interest to vote for Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary. | Though my personal political views match those of Bernie Sanders much more than Hillary Clinton, I believe nominating Bernie could ultimately be very damaging for the progressive cause. My main concern with nominating Sanders is that he will alienate all voters except for the left and the end result will be a 48-state ... | 58 | Voting for Sanders in a primary and Sanders winning the primary are two separate things.
Depending on your state, you can (likely) vote for Sanders without a worry that he will actually win the primary over Clinton. While that won't put Sanders in the White House, it does demonstrate for future races that there are i... | 55 |
ELI5: Why doesn't smoking, drinking or doing other drugs while pregnant qualify as child abuse or neglect? | I'm in Canada BTW, but if anyone can answer it'd be cool. I just don't get why a mother would get to keep her child or not be forced to get treatment if she's knowingly endangering her unborn child's life or wellbeing. | 333 | Because a fetus is not considered a being until birth.
After birth though, the child can be taken in if it can be proven that the mother knowingly endangered the life of the unborn child.
You can lose custody if your habits cause extreme damage to the child. But at the same time, medical professionals recognize that ... | 147 |
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