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[DC] How come Superman doesn't have a blue lantern ring? | There have been more than a few occasions where he's been personified as hope incarnate. So why doesn't the man who believes that everyone could be the best version of their self have the lantern ring that reflects what he embodies? | 69 | It is shown in the Blackest Night that Superman actually represents the entire emotional Spectrum equally. With hope, you have to both inspire and feel a great amount of it which is why Flash becomes a Blue Lantern. Flash inspires so much hope that it is mentioned that Batman actually looks up to Barry. | 88 |
[Vampires] What if I invite a vampire into my house and then get evicted? | The bank forecloses and repossesses my house. What happens to any vampires? When, exactly, does it happen? | 65 | If you are evicted *and* you move out, then the place is no longer your home and the vampire is free to move in and out as (s)he please. If the landlord rents it out to somebody else *and* the new tenants see it as their homes, the vampire will be forced out and unable to come back in unless invited. | 51 |
[Harry Potter] Why can't dead people be brought back to life, while transfigurating into an inanimate object and back was? | We saw in the movies, that you can turn animals and other living creatures into inanimate objects, like trinkets, and turn them back into the animals they were before. Yet, in this inanimate object form, they are basically dead, since a trinket isn't a living creature, but you can still turn them back into their former... | 16 | Dumbledore's soul would move onto the afterlife, so if you did manage to make a technically alive Dumbledore, it would be a soulless husk without any of the personality of Dumbledore.
You could turn Dumbledore's corpse into some sort of magically animated object like an Inferi, but it wouldn't return his magic or per... | 22 |
Why is it common for humans and other animals to freeze when panicking? | When a person ends up in a situation where he panics, the body's reaction is to release adrenaline and react quickly, run away or fight etc. Your response time is shorter and your reflexes are better.
But when facing a speeding train that will definitely kill you you freeze, unable to move. Other animals does this too... | 45 | There is also the watchful waiting theory. You hear a noise. Do you run, investigate, or stay put? Often you are waiting for more information, so you stay put. Calorically, you should not expend energy with curiosity or flight unless absolutely required. Any single person who hears a strange noise late at night has pr... | 35 |
Is ironoxide soluble in water? | If so, what is it that makes it soluble? If not, what is the that makes it nonsoluble?
I looked at the difference in electronegativity between iron and oxide and figured it was polar. Since water also is polar I thought it would be soluble in water, but when I later on was looking at ironoxide on wikipedia it said it w... | 380 | When a material dissolves in water, three main things must happen. First, the material must be broken up into its consitutent ions or molecules. Second, water has to spread apart to make room for the individual pieces in solution. Third, the individual pieces must be surrounded by water (solvated).
It always is u... | 114 |
ELI5: What happens to your fart when you hold it in and it 'passes'? | Yeah so does it just stay in there or what? How come I don't need to fart after it passes? I know it has to come out again, but where does it go? | 22 | Your colon is an air tight tube. The ONLY way a fart is getting out is through the anus. When you hold a fart in, you pushing it back up above the internal anal sphincter. Pressure below the internal anal sphincter and around the external anal sphincter is that "i have to fart" or "i gotta poop" sensation. More pre... | 11 |
MacOS No Longer Supports 32-Bit Programs | I know this is not news, but whatever.
Since MacOS no longer supports 32-bit programs, I cannot play certain games on Steam on it (ik, Macs are not for gaming, but BL2 runs fine). My question is, why is it not as simple as adding 32 0s to the beginning of everything in order to convert it into 64-bit? If it *is* that ... | 24 | You are correct. If it was as simple as adding the extra zeroes for padding then you could do just that. The issue is that what we call 32 bit and 64 bit are actually not really the same instruction set. 32 bit is Intel x86 and 64 bit is AMD64 (which can also be considered an extension of x86). AMD64 has different call... | 18 |
ELI5: Why do we pay ISPs for internet speed, but mobile network operators for the amount of transferred data? | 674 | there are more bottlenecks in a mobile (radio) network, due both to technology and cost and available radio spectrum (a lot of it is used for other stuff already, a lot of it just isn't suitable for high data rates)
There are physical limits on how much data (to and from all users at once) can be handled on the set of... | 252 | |
[Watchmen] Why didn't Doctor Manhattan "see" any of this coming. | From my understand, DR Manhattan perceives time all at once, not so much as "hey can you look in the future for me" but more of he experiences the past present and future all happening at once around him. Now they explain that Ozymandias uses some sciencey stuff to blocks Manhattan from seeing what exactly he was doing... | 272 | Dr. Manhattan didn't see it coming because he saw himself that he never saw it coming. He might have actually known how the whole thing would play out, but can't do anything to stop it. To him the future is set in stone. | 291 |
Integral of (x+1) can be solved in 2 ways and gets 2 solutions, why? | When solving the integral of (x+1) i get to solutions.
When i solve it by just splitting up x and 1, I get x²/2 + x + c.
When i solve it with substitution i get x²/2 + x + 1/2 + c.
So why do i get 2 differnt solutions and are they the same cause of the c?
edit: Thanks alot guys!!! | 30 | They're still the same. The two constants you've given the same name aren't really the same. If you call the second *c* for *d*, then you should find that *d* = *c* – ½.
The *c* just means that integrals are defined uniquely only up to constants. Two different antideravatives may differ by a constant. | 73 |
mass-energy equivalence or E=mc2...why the speed of light squared? | 26 | This is a frequently asked question.
Here's one part of the answer: "c" is not really just the speed of light. "c" is the fastest speed anything can achieve in the universe. It's the universal speed limit. Light moves really fast. At the speed limit (in a vacuum). It isn't the only thing that moves that fast, but it'... | 14 | |
ELI5: I'm black. Why are my palms and the bottoms of my feet white? | 626 | Essentially it is a different type of skin (glabrous) which doesn't normally have the cells (melanocytes) which produce the dark pigment (melanin) and is hence much lighter than the rest of your skin. | 517 | |
[Star Trek] If replicators turn matter into energy, do you get any energy back when you de-replicate something? (like all those extra dishes and silverware that come with replicated food) | 20 | When replicators are being used, we see frequent references to matter reserves. This implies that there isn't a *pure* energy -> matter conversion going on, and there is some dematerialised matter held in the replicator system, used during the replication process.
It makes sense. It'd be far more energy efficient ... | 16 | |
ELI5 why Mayor Bloomberg banned food donations to the poor | 18 | Aid organizations prefer donations of money to donations of goods in general, since they have a much better idea of what they need to do to serve the people they're trying to help than the general public does. Individual contributors, in contrast, sometimes prefer to buy goods than simply donate money, as this makes th... | 14 | |
ELI5: How do we know that smaller Hominid species like Homo Floriensis aren’t just misidentified juvenile members of other Hominid species? | 19 | You can tell people are still growing by if their bones are fused or not. For example if the femur is still growing the caps wont be attached, if they are attached you know they've reached their adult height for that bone. | 31 | |
How are sutures dissolved if they are made of chitin and if chitin has beta-glycosidic bonds like cellulose? | 51 | Humans have two functional chitinases (enzymes that break down chitin molecules) that can break down the chitin in the sutures your describe. They may take longer to dissolve than other types of dissolvable sutures, however. | 28 | |
Which math class will help me the most in a CS Career? | Which ONE of the following math classes do you think would be the most useful for me to take (I want to pursue a career in CS and I can/need to take 1 of the following (I've satisfied the pre-requisites for them all)):
**1.** **Stochastic Processes** (Properties of stochastic processes, Markov chains, Poisson processe... | 17 | Stochastic if you're going to do CS stuff that uses stochastic.
Likewise for all the others.
It depends on what you're going to do in CS. These are fairly specialized courses and will have specialized applications. | 13 |
ELI5: How were movies edited before the invention of the computer? | Especially movies like King Kong. My mind is boggled at people able to edit king holding a person in his hand without a computer. | 17 | Movies used to be shot on 35mm film. Directors & editors would view everything that was shot. They would cut the films apart and splice together what they wanted. The rest was discarded, or saved for later. This is where the expression ''Left on the cutting room floor'' came from. | 16 |
Are humans instinctually inclined to forming dominance hierarchies? | I know human societies can have tiers, but hunter-gatherers are generally egalitarian. My interest is on the smaller-scale, whether humans have alpha, betas, gammas, etc like chimps or wolves. | 81 | If you look at primates, you have a range between species which exhibit very strong hierarchical systems and species which exhibit very weak ones. The very general rule is that the greater the sexual dimorphism (the physical differences between sexes, particularly size and strength in this case) the more likely the spe... | 12 |
[LOTR]Do The Ringwraiths remember who they were before? | 77 | Well, it appears they retained their original names. And they certainly possess independent thought and will, so it stands to reason that they remember their past lives, in as much as Sauron allows and is convenient for them to remember to carry out his will. | 53 | |
[Game of Thrones] Tormund has two daughters. Are they and their mother alive? Where are they? | 46 | Tormund strikes me as a loyal kind of guy - if his wife were still alive, he probably wouldn't be pursuing Brienne.
The daughters are probably with the other Wildlings of his tribe, staying out of trouble. | 51 | |
ELI5: How does cancer actually kill someone. | Now I totally understand how cells in your brain mutating and forming a clump and growing uncontrollably can kill someone because that's the brain, and I understand that if my lungs start getting clumps I die because I run out of air. But for bone and skin and breast cancer, it doesn't seem like there is anything amazi... | 45 | Well, you sort of answered you own question. You don't technically die from cancer. You die from organ failures. Though, yes, the cancer does cause the organ failures. The way they do this is the basically hi-jiack the blood stream to feed themselves, making the healthy organs suffocate. | 16 |
Why does air conditioning start to smell when the compressor turns off but the fan keeps running? | 360 | Sudden increase in humidity. The coil gets wet from condensation but when the compressor is running the air is cold so it's ability to absorb water is very low. When the compressor turns off the air heats back up, absorbs the water from the coil and blows the humid air out of the vents. | 145 | |
[Dragon Ball Super] Can Majin Buu turn immortal Zamasu into candy and eat him? | 25 | It wouldn't work, even if Buu did eat him then Zamasu would just burst right out of Buu's head and Buu would deflate like a balloon then turn into a puddle and reform with a big frown then charge at Zamasu for a fight. | 17 | |
(1984) What does the rest of the world look like? | Do Eurasia and Eastasia even exist? and if so, what are they like? What are all other nations like? The only source of information we have is party propaganda. | 51 | Eurasia looks doublegood, but Oceania look doubleplusgood. Big Brother and Party doubleplushelp Eurasia be doubleplusgood. But doubleplusungood Eurasia looks doubleplusungood. The Party doubleplusunhelp Eurasia.
(Long story short, there is no answer, because reality is so confused by the obfuscations of The Party, tha... | 57 |
Sodium chloride tastes salty to us. What would other sodium compounds taste like? | 19 | As a corollary, if you ever taste other types of common salts, such as Epsom salts (MgSO4), KCl, etc, they are still very "salty" in their flavor, but the character of it is different. Go to the supermarket and pick up some low-sodium salt (usually a mix of NaCl and KCl) and try out--you'll notice a pretty different sa... | 20 | |
Why do physics break down above the Planck Temperature? | I just saw [this](http://i.imgur.com/iHW7Dwh.png) image and cant stop wondering what would happen and why | 3,081 | It's not so much that physics breaks down or that it's the hottest possible temperature, but rather that we can't really understand things that hot without knowledge of quantum gravity (because particles could be colliding with such great energy that they form black holes), which we don't understand well enough. | 2,054 |
In what order to read Nietzsche? | I just picked up a volume collecting Zarathustra, Beyond Good and Evil, Genealogy of Morals, Ecce Homo, and the Birth of Tragedy. I'm looking to read what's most accessible first, then work towards the more obscure. What order do you think would be most beneficial? | 29 | Well for accessibility, leave Ecce Homo and Zarathustra for last. Both Zarathustra and Beyond Good and Evil give an overview of Nietzsche's thought, though BGE is presented more traditionally (well as close as you'll get Nietzsche to go). In some ways Genealogy of Morals and Birth of Tragedy might be more accessible ... | 14 |
ELI5: Why is it beneficial for some countries to keep their currency devalued? | Of what I've heard, it seems like some countries keep their currency devalued on purpose because it helps them in trade in some way. Notably for America, this is China, but India has done this previously too. I also know it may have to do something with a country having surplus exports, but can't be sure. | 20 | When you import goods from another country, usually you have to pay them in whatever currency they use. Let’s say Germany wants to import American steel. The German company will need to pay The US steel company in US dollars.
When the US dollar is devalued, each German euro is worth more US dollars. The company can no... | 14 |
[Power Rangers] How is Angel Grove able to sustain 9/11-scale destruction every week? | Angel Grove appears to be a relatively well-off city near Los Angeles. About once a week, a giant robot and Godzilla-sized monster show up and smash at least one skyscraper, sometimes more, probably killing thousands and causing millions in economic damage. But no one ever seems to even notice or care. Shouldn't people... | 48 | The loss of manufacturing jobs hit Angel Cove hard and large areas of the once bustling city are pretty much empty. The battles have actually helped the economy as cleaning up the debris from the destroyed empty buildings has added jobs | 57 |
CMV: The CIA is an overbloated and borderline illegal organisation, and should be abolished. |
There's a number of reasons for why I think this.
First of all, the CIA has been subject to one massive long term fuck up to another, from founding the beginning of the Muhajadeen, which formed the basis for al-Queda and later ISIL, to intentionally fueling the drug crisis leading to the catastrophic mess that is ... | 1,825 | > They weren't able to prevent ... any other high profile terrorist attack
How do you know this? Isn’t the very nature of a clandestine organization like the CIA that only their screwups make the news? What if they’re actually stopping most of the attacks and that information is kept classified?
Which is not to sa... | 799 |
ELI5: You see in movies/TV often where someone has a clear cut lawsuit against a company, but find out “they have million dollar lawyers that will tie you up in court and bankrupt you in fees” How much of that is reality versus Hollywood? | 147 | A little true, a little false. Thing thing about large companies is that they don't want to pay those million dollar lawyers either. They will always take the cheaper option. If a lawsuit is totally false, but they have to pay those million dollar lawyers to prove it, most big companies will settle and pay someone w... | 149 | |
CMV: The American Constitution has little to no relevance to the modern world and while it may have some things right, we should not look to it to dictate how the country is run. | When the American Constitution was first written it was a masterfully written document and in many ways, was revolutionary. Today, however, I think it is completely ridiculous that it is still being used to run the country. Granted, much of the document does pertain to today's society however I don't see why a document... | 312 | What's so special about the constitution is that it is the document that all of the states have agreed to use to set up our system of government. The Constitution sets up the roles of the President, Congress, and the Federal Courts; their election or appointment, terms, and how they interact with one another.
It's th... | 214 |
[The Cabin in the Woods] What is the use of the gory painting and the two-way mirror hidden beneath? | It seems obvious that someone would want to remove the hiddeous painting in the bedroom that Holden initially occupies. Therefore, it can be assumed that the technicians want the occupant to reveal the two-way mirror beneath. What advantage does this give the technicians and how does it help the ritual? | 106 | Remember the Harbinger? The creepy dude at the gas station? The ritual doesn't just require killing the people. It requires them to transgress and be punished, and the transgression requires them to be warned.
Lots of the 'furniture', for lack of a better word, is not functional in the sense that it helps the techn... | 106 |
ELI5: Why do our noses run when it’s cold? | 19 | It's your body putting out fluids to keep the air you're breathing at a safe level of humidity and moisture for your lungs. If the air is too dry, your lungs can get damaged and prone to infection. When it's cold, the air gets drier, so your nose may start running to help keep the air moist.
Of course - colds are also... | 12 | |
How do fish/whales/dolphins/any aquatic life drink? | 16 | Mostly they don't.
Marine mammals get a lot of their water from their food. They tend to live on meat, because blood and body fluids are a lot less salty than seawater.
Water is also produced as a byproduct of metabolism. When nutrient molecules are broken down to release energy, the largest byproducts are CO2 and w... | 17 | |
ELI5: It’s said that, theoretically, if you fold a paper 42 times, it will reach the Moon, and if you fold it 103 times, it’s width will surpass the observable universe. How does this work? | 19,431 | Lets say you have a piece of paper. A standard, off the shelf piece of single-sheet printer paper (those ones that come in reams of 500 or so) is around 0.08mm thick.
If you fold this piece of paper in half, you're doubling its thickness, from 0.08mm to 0.16mm. Do this 42 times, that is 2^(42), or 4,398,046,500,000. M... | 18,241 | |
ELI5:Why can it rain for so long? Why can't the rain just fall down all at once? | 106 | Clouds are tiny suspended water particles, so small they're light enough to be vapor. In the right conditions enough of those particles accumulate that they become liquid (condensation). At that point they're too heavy to stay suspended in air, so they fall.
There's not really any way clouds would have the opportunity... | 34 | |
[Star Wars] Ok, we have perfected spaceflight, some inter-dimensional travel (hyperspace), killed teddy bears and built lightsabers... Why the flip does nobody know what a radiator is? | So picture this: You've got this ridiculously hot superlaser for destroying planets that irritate you. You've got a powerful reactor core that generates ridiculous amounts of heat. You vent heat out to space with... vacuum?
You don't need womprat-sized holes that lazurmonks can shoot proton torpedos at, you need a ... | 19 | You underestimate the sheer size and engineering requirements to build a small planet with a hypermatter laser strong enough to vaporize a planet instantly. Typically you build several prototypes and tweak the design. This isn't possible with a Death Star - and the second one had solved the exhaust port issue in any ca... | 39 |
[MGS1/4] How did Solid manage to use REX to actually beat RAY? | After MGS1, the damn thing couldn't even stand anymore and they even mention that it's been sitting in that hangar the entire time up until Outer Haven went there to collect the Rail Gun. We even see it in the same sorry state as Raiden fights Vamp.
How on Earth did Solid get it to not only work, but beat a brand new... | 15 | 1. Snake was meant to beat Liquid Ocelot and destroy the Patriots AI.
2. Snake had Otacon on his side who not only knows REX inside and out but also activated a "street-fighting" protocol in REX that used it's bulk to it's advantage against the agile RAY.
3. Liquid Ocelot was either using the modified marine RAY protot... | 21 |
If evolution occurs at a faster rate in species with a greater reproductive rate, why haven't things like bacteria, parasites, and insects super-evolved and wiped out everything else on Earth? | Or, why haven't other species evolved to have greater reproductive rates?
Scientists often use flies to conduct their evolutionary experiments, *Drosphila sp.* in particular, because they can go through hundreds of generations in a short time. | 17 | The optimal move for bacteria, parasites, and insects isn't to kill their hosts; it's to live along side them peacefully and take advantage of them.
As a case study, consider that FIV has been in the cat lineage for 10's of ma, and isn't that dangerous; while HIV within man has been in man for ~100 years and is fairly... | 28 |
[Harry Potter] Why are there only 3 unforgivable curses? | I feel like there's a bunch of other terrible spells yet they're not made illegal by the ministry.
Like sectumsempra for example. Is it because the Ministry doesn't know this spell exist since Snape created it not that long ago when he was a student?
What about obliviate and whatever spell Voldemort used to create h... | 135 | Most spells have some utility. Obliviate is necessary to keeping the wizarding world secret. Sectumsempra is like a knife or a chainsaw-- it can cut many things, including people, but not only people.
The Unforgivable Curses stand apart because their only functions are to hurt, kill, or enslave. They're not useful for... | 175 |
CMV: It's cruel to tell children that the sky's the limit. | I very much feel lied to by all the messages of "You can be whatever you want to be" I heard in my childhood.
So much of life is about doing what you have to do to get by, and as far as I can tell it's unusual to end up happy/satisfied with your life. It would be less cruel to children to just teach them mindfulness a... | 90 | It's true that it's unlikely that you will become a famous actor, even if you try hard and focus on that dream.
But if you don't try hard and focus on that dream, you definitely won't become a famous actor. | 38 |
CMV: If there’s a cigarette tax there should be a fast food tax. | I am not a smoker but in Oregon we recently voted on upping the cigarette tax (I didn’t) and I find the whole thing rather ridiculous. Seems more political than scientific considering salt and sugar cause heart disease most of the time. Why can people over indulge in terrible food without tax repercussions? I understan... | 75 | I think you already answered the question yourself. It’s much easier to place an excise tax on something like cigarettes that don’t serve any actual human need. Taxing food is much more complicated. People need food, and putting a tax on the foods that are most easily accessible for poor people becomes a regressive tax... | 65 |
Do I need a university degree to become a good programmer? | Hello!
I do not have a uni degree. However, I enjoy programming and want to become better.
Would it be best to take a 3-5 year education at an university (here in Sweden) or to learn things myself? What are the best resources to learn things that I would learn at a university?
I have looked into a Masters degree o... | 24 | You can become a good enough programmer for many companies. However, it depends on what you want to do. If you just want to program, and basically program whatever a boss tells you to program, that's fine without a CS degree. A degree, though, can help you on a lot of things. Stuff like code optimization, database quer... | 33 |
ELI5: How does France maintain more than two political parties despite a winner-take-all system? | 41 | Many countries with single-winner, district-based elections have multiple major parties. These systems discourage party fracturing, but do not prevent it--e.g., in the United Kingdom the Liberal Democrats are a respectable third party. The reason the United States has just two main parties has to do with political pola... | 19 | |
What applications could potentially have better performance if they were written in a functional style? | I know that concurrent programs are easier to write in an FP language. The lack of synchronization runtime overhead could improve the performance. | 17 | Better performance?
Here is an industry secret: optimizations are dirty and confusing.
Functional programming is often easier to maintain, allowing you to easily write and maintain 90% of your code base, and focus the messy optimization parts on the 10% where the hot loops are. | 27 |
ELI5: What should I know so cops won't use my ignorance of my rights against me? | Especially for searches and *trees* | 63 | 1. You don't need to talk to them or answer their questions without a lawyer present.
2. They cannot unreasonably detain you unless they intend to arrest you.
3. Police can lie when they talk to you with immunity. And they usually do. | 39 |
Yesterday when I reached my destination with my car I noticed I was carrying a bee in it the whole time(I had the windows closed).Could this bee survive hundreds of miles away from its nest or is it doomed to die?Any chances it could be "adopted" by another nest? | 1,231 | Solitary bees are other species than social bees, such as the honeybee. They make it on their own by definition.
And about being adopted by another nest, I've got no idea how easy it is for a bee to locate an unknown hive. If your "lost bee" would find one, she would most likely be chased away by the guard bees becaus... | 886 | |
[Teen Titans] If Beast boy was a old man and turned into a jellyfish, could he restart his own life cycle and turn back into a teen? | 250 | Probably. (Though technically he would start as an infant.) He mostly likely wouldn't even need to do that. Beast Boy's powers, when used to their full extent, are really fucking terrifying. The comics vacillate on why he doesn't use them to their fullest, from "he's not smart enough" to "He's scared of them" to "he do... | 175 | |
ELI5: The Science of Reading | I just watched a webinar explaining the science of reading. One part spoke about how the human brain is hot-wired from birth to develop pathways between sound and meaning, but not visual and meaning. I.e. infants can naturally learn to associate sounds/words with a specific meaning, but not associate a written word wit... | 22 | The 'letterbox' in Broca's area exists in people who can't read, it is just that through training we have purposed it for reading. That is an important distinction because that area evolved for *some reason* other than reading. As a result, while most humans are physically capable of reading, 60% of schoolchildren requ... | 18 |
If Death Penalty Opponents were Ideologically Consistent, I Believe They Would Oppose the Idea of All State Use of Lethal Force, Including the Police and Military. CMV | I have never heard a single argument in favor of totally abolishing the death penalty in all circumstances that couldn't also be used against having armed police or the armed forces in any circumstances, including emergencies or wartime.
"What if they kill an innocent person?"
"Killing another person is wrong, no matt... | 15 | This may seem like a glib answer, but what's wrong with the response that while a military and police force that are equipped to kill serve a necessary function (namely, protecting us), the death penalty serves no such function, because everything it accomplishes can also be accomplished by imprisonment?
Note also tha... | 14 |
Why are there fresh and salt water varieties of most aquatic life, but no freshwater cephalopods? | There seems to be at least somewhat-analogous pairings in fresh and salt water for most types of aquatic life, but there doesn't seem to be a single cephalopod that lives in fresh water. Why are there no freshwater octopuses or squids? | 469 | osmosis.
Freshwater dwellers have salty blood relative to the water around them. Without a mechanism in place to control it, osmosis would equalise salt concentrations between the animal and the water surrounding it, pumping salt out of the body and flooding it with freshwater. A sodium pump, like that found in freshw... | 250 |
I love programming, but suck at calculus.. Any advice? | Title says it all. I absolutely suck balls at calculus, but I have a passion for programming. It's fun. I love computers and the tech industry. I'm currently pursuing my bachelors in CS. Doing great in everything except CALCULUS.. Idk if I'll ever be able to pass it, but I want to have a career programming. Any advice?... | 24 | Work hard, pass the class, get your degree, probably never worry about calculus again. Sorry, but there's not really a more helpful answer than that. You've just gotta get through it one way or another. | 48 |
[Ender's Game] How did the Buggers not get a clue that humans were some kind of intelligent species? | I get it, they never thought intelligence could arise from creatures "that couldn't dream one another's dreams", but ... they could see the humans running around in spaceships, having artificially-lit cities, and launching nukes at the alien invaders. These are clearly the actions of a rational species. I think the B... | 31 | They knew humans were intelligent, what they didnt get was that each human was essentially a queen.
The buggers thought they were doing something really routine, killing another queens drones, which was more akin to breaking your roombas
They thought our queens were somewhere else | 47 |
[General Time Travel] Why do the Nazis win so damn much? | Nearly every time someone makes a tiny little difference in the timeline, the Nazis win. You could kill some street pastor in New York, 1975 and the Nazis would win. | 144 | The Second World War wasn't as close as everyone makes it out to be. Don't get me wrong, it was a long and brutal war, fraught by mistakes made by the Axis and Hitler, but the Allies had massive population, GDP, and strategic location advantages.
The reason that it seems that so many timelines result in the Nazis win... | 288 |
[Looper] I know how this gig goes down, when the John Doe comes through they are bound up anyway, can't I just stun them with a taser and check if it's me? If so, we split the golden payday and go our separate ways and anyone else gets the blunderbuss? | 98 | The blunderbuss has an extremely low range, the people that supervise the hitmen (I can't remember their name) have other long range weapons. They basically say in the film if loopers go rogue their blunderbusses won't help. In the film, the old version of one of them gets free, so they capture and torture the young ve... | 70 | |
If limb reattachment manages to fix nerves inside the severed limb, why can't the same be done for a severed spinal chord? | It seems that limb reattachment can fix nerves inside limbs, so why shouldn't the same be possible with a spinal chord? Maybe not restore full function, but perhaps at least enable the person to stand upright? | 33 | The peripheral nervous system consists of the nerves in your arms, legs, abdomen, etc. which can regenerate by use of Schwann cells. It takes a long time and nerves generally don't heal to the same capacity and effectiveness that they used to be.
The spinal cord and brain however are part of the central nervous system... | 29 |
ELI5: Why 'giants' in movies always move super slowly. | 1,844 | It's a matter of scale. Let's say that you, as a presumably regular person, can throw a punch at a speed of 1 meter per second, and the punch travels a distance of about one meter.
But what if a giant were to throw a punch? Let's say he can punch twice as fast as you. You'd think it would look like the giant is super... | 1,944 | |
ELI5: How do radio stations know how many people listen to them? | 109 | Media ratings services. Companies in a given market make random phone calls to people in a given area and ask them what stations they listen to (and a whole bunch of demographic questions). Based on the answers given by the sample group they are able to extrapolate how many people are listening to what.
With the rise ... | 43 | |
ELI5: How does one "waste water" when using it in your home. Doesn't it just get added directly back to the water supply? | Note: NOT in regards to agriculture or outdoor water usage.
I just saw a commercial that said something to the effect of not turning off water while brushing wastes like 4 gallons of water. I don't understand this, because according to my admittedly limited understanding of how our water supply works, the water just g... | 47 | "Wasting water" really means "wasting energy". Not every place on the planet has a nearly unlimited water source (like Washington and Idaho). In places like California, New Mexico, or Arizona, where clean water is scarce, using more water than you need to means that they have to ship more water from other areas and spe... | 80 |
ELI5:Laser guided missile systems | 46 | The missile head has a sensor, looking for a laser. The fighter or ground spotter points a laser at the target, the laser hits the target, then the light (may not be visible) scatters in all directions. The seeker head of the missile sees the light and aims at it, moving the body to follow. | 23 | |
ELI5: How does a master key open so many unique locks? | 28 | In each lock, there are a series of "pins" that are pushed up by the ridges in the key. If all of the pins are pushed up the correct amount, then the key can be turned and the door unlocked.
Doors that are designed to work with master keys have a slightly different design. They have the same pins as a "normal" door, ... | 11 | |
ELI5: What happens to dead skin after it falls off? If I rub my hand against each other fast enough, this grey/white material comes off. Are those dead skin cells? Is it true that most dust in the air in homes is dead skin? | 60 | It's a mixture of moisture, oils, skin, debries, hair, and anything else you've touched in the last few days. It's broad claim to assert that "most dust in your home is dead skin" that may certainly be true for our grandmother who rarely leaves her home, but not so much the case for active households where windows and ... | 46 | |
[Asoiaf/GoT] They say no army, no matter how big, can march through the bloody gate and take The Eyrie. How strong is it's defense against dragons though? | 43 | How do you think the Vale became part of the Seven Kingdoms?
Visenya Targaryen literally flew straight over the assembled forces of House Arryn and landed in the Eyrie.
At the time the King of Mountain and Vale, Ronnel Arryn, was a young boy. His mother - and regent - found him sitting in Visenya’s lap with the drago... | 76 | |
If 2 people dislike the same food, are they then more likely to dislike other similar foods? | 222 | Probably, since genetics alone can drastically affect how people taste different things. Phenylthiocarbamide (PTC) for example is reaalllly bitter to some people and not for others because of a genetic trait. So when two people hate, say, cilantro because of PTC’s taste, they’ll likely hate other similar foods that h... | 70 | |
I think Christianity is ultimately detrimental to society, CMV. | Okay, here's my reasons:
**1. There is no distinct Christianity.** There are thousands of *very, very* similar belief systems that all read the same Hebrew and Greek texts (albeit different translations) and profess, at the very least, similar ideas about a prophet/man-God named Jesus Christ. Together they collectiv... | 35 | A good man can exercise his Christian faith and help a person in need. A bad man can wear a Christian facade to elevate his own needs. It is the same with anything- people are good and bad. Atheism has as many assholes as Christianity. | 18 |
[General] Are zombies created by science different from those created by magic? | In most modern zombie media the apocalypse begins with a disease/virus that was created by science. That disease is link to the brain that’s why there’s a “shoot them in the head” rule.
But does that rule still apply when the zombies are created through something like necromancy? Is their head still the prime weaknes... | 22 | This question is a bit too broad to answer definitely, since there are many different disciplines of "science" and "magic", and consequently there are just as many different varieties of zombies. But since there are differences between these zombie varieties, the short answer is that yes, there can be differences betw... | 22 |
ELI5: If the Earth orbits the habitable zone, how come the moon doesn't look like the earth does? | 41 | Just because something is in the habitable zone does not mean it's going to be habitable.
There's no water or atmosphere on the moon, so it can't support life as we know it. The 'days' on the moon are 2 weeks of darkness and 2 weeks of light, so even if it had water/atmosphere, the nights would be so long that everyt... | 48 | |
ELI5: Why if I multiply any random number with 9 the sum of that number is always 9? | Examples:
1x9=9
2x9=18=1+8=9
5x9=45=4+5=9
25x9=225=2+2+5=9
456123789x9=4105114101=4+1+0+5+1+1+4+1+0+1=27=2+7=9
Please explain why the number 9 does this. And for example the number 7 doesn't?
| 105 | Whatever integer is the base of your number system, the one before it will have this property in that number system. In other words, the largest digit of the number system has this property - in base ten that is 9.
For instance, in base eight:
1* 7 = 7
2 * 7 = 16 → 1 + 6 = 7
5 * 7 = 43 → 4 + 3 = 7
25*7 = 223 ... | 77 |
ELI5: How does the stomach let fluids through without the stomach acid flowing out with it | 8,335 | It doesn’t. The stomach’s digestive secretions pass into the intestines with whatever food / fluids you’ve ingested. This usually takes about 2 hours for fluids and 6 for solid food.
As someone else has already said, the acids are then neutralised by secretions from other organs | 5,274 | |
ELI5: What happens physically when we get "used" to smells, that we can't detect it anymore. | 45 | Kind of the same thing when we get used to pain, and can't feel it anymore. The sensors in your nose are still detecting the smell, and still sending signals to your brain. And, your brain still begins to process the smell. But, the part of your brain that interprets the smells stops processing the same inputs.
So, t... | 15 | |
Why is it ok to keep baked good that contain egg/milk out at room temperature but not fried or scrambled eggs. | 24 | Baked goods typically have very little water per unit volume so they are reasonably inhospitable to bacteria. Also for most baked goods you've cooked the eggs and milk all the way through, killing any resident bacteria. So they'll last about a week.
With scrambled or fried eggs you don't always cook the egg all the wa... | 16 | |
CMV: Fishing tournaments are a test of luck, not skill | First I must admit that I've never gone fishing. I don't know what is really involved in it, so my mind is pretty open on this.
I don't see how fishing tournaments are a test of skill. You grab your pole, sling out your lure, and wait for a fish to bite. Whether the fish is a big one, small one, or the species you ... | 19 | >I've never been fishing
Your view would change in an instant if you did. Fishing successfully requires knowledge of lures, geography, weather, how to "read" water, how to make useful predictions of where fish are going. It requires quickly navigating to the hot spots, an accurate casting arm, patience and attentio... | 14 |
CMV: Bowls are better than plates in most cases. | I should start this by saying that I am from a country where the staple food is mainly rice. Rice here is often mixed with a lot of other food. Fried food, soups, sauce and other condiments for those add-ons, etc. Often times this makes the texture of the food such that it is easy to either make a mess/spill some food ... | 121 | Different food types just have different ways to serve them. Anything with liquid, or a bunch of small pieces (soup, rice, peas, etc.) you'll put it in a bowl. Pretty much anything that requires cutting it with a knife, or a food where it's a large thing that you just eat as one piece (steak, sandwiches, etc.) you'll w... | 18 |
[The Legend of Korra] Why was the Northern Water Tribe army not employed to defend P'Li's prison? | 23 | Probably because they were recovering from a Civil War not two weeks before.
Also Unalaq was part of the Red Lotus so there's really no tell who in the Northern Water Tribe he stacked with Red Lotus sympathizers. Zuko took people he knew weren't going to betray him for the Red Lotus. Desna and Eska fought against the... | 25 | |
ELI5: How come NYC (latitude=40°) gets covered in snow during winter whereas Melbourne (latitude=-38°) never really gets much? | 67 | Oceanic currents and wind patterns keep the weather on some coasts milder than on others. That is why the West Coast is much warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer than the East Coast of the US. Melbourne is protected from Antarctic weather systems by the Southern Ocean, while nothing stops polar winds from reac... | 46 | |
ELI5: Why do flies fly in small circles right in the centre of the room | 40 | The lights in the room are confusing the flies.
​
Basically, flies and many other flying insects use the sun to navigate their way through the world. In a room with artificial lights, this can confuse the insect in question. From the fly's point of view, it's flying in a straight line.
​
For ... | 40 | |
eli5: Why did the life expectancy for people with down syndrome increase from 25 years in 1980 to 60 years today? | I read that it was largely due to the end of the inhumane practice of institutionalizing people with Down syndrome but i don’t really understand what this means. | 141 | A lot of people with Down Syndrome have a number of other health problems besides the cognitive issues that people mainly notice. For example many have a heart problem, atrioventricular septal defect. If untreated or poorly treated, this can lead to a very early death. There are a number of other health problems they c... | 130 |
ELI5: What are the major components and subsequent advantages that distinguish various household cleaners? (Ex, Soap and water vs 409, glass cleaners, mold/mildew type cleaners, etc? | I'm sure some of it has to do with some lipophilic solvent or stronger detergents to cut through grease, etc, but what about some specifics? | 4,881 | Real soap is good but forms a scum in hard water that is difficult to remove.
Detergents are good for removing oils but can be harsh on your skin.
Glass cleaners are designed to clean glass/mirrors and leave a streak free surface but ammonia based cleaners like windex will remove tint from windows or computer monito... | 2,632 |
[ELI5] How did the auto-pilot in Charles Lingburgh and Amelia Earhart’s transcontinental planes work so they could sleep or use the bathroom? | 16 | Charles Lindbergh's Spirit of St Louis had no autopilot. In fact, it was designed with intentional instability, to aid in keeping the pilot awake.
Earhart used a Sperry autopilot, which could maintain heading and pressure altitude. | 30 | |
What would happen if all the micro-organisms on and in your body suddenly disappeared? | Things like gut flora, helpful (and harmful) bacteria, mites, basically everything that isn't an actual part of your body like cells. What would happen if they all disappeared at once? Would you die? | 15 | Well, in truth we are not sure about that.
However, it can be safely said that if you didn't live in a bubble so to speak, the consequences could be terrible, possibly, fatal.
Excluding the ways our microbiome helps our metabolism and stimulates our immune system, simply by being there, it is preventing other, potent... | 14 |
[ELI5] Why do paper-cuts seem to hurt worse than "regular" cuts? | 98 | Also- a regular cut will bleed and lubricate the wound. A good straight cut will start to heal almost immediately because of this. A paper cut on the other hand (no pun intended) will stay dry and irritate pain receptors. | 51 | |
ELI5: How do companies like Coke gauge the effectiveness of their advertising when it’s everywhere and people buy their products anyway? | 44 | I can't be arsed to find the link, but Coca Cola apparently chose a small target city in the US and stopped all local advertising as a test, and saw a decline in sales.
It validated the fact that advertising is required to keep the brand in-your-face, lest someone else come along and steal the short attention span o... | 44 | |
ELI5: Why is the coin grading system a scale of 60-70? That seems like a rather odd range. | 64 | The scale was originally proposed by William H Sheldon. Since no such scale was widely in use at the time he had a very wide amount of leeway in choosing what the scale would look like. Ideally the scale should have enough different grades that you could have a good idea of how worn a coin is, but few enough grades t... | 45 | |
CMV: Trying to change the population's carbon footprint is less efficient than changing industry practices to combat climate change. | I'd like to preface this by saying that my opinion comes from my gut feeling about the subject. I haven't read a lot about the subject so I think my view could easily be changed.
I think that from the perspective of combatting climate change, it is more efficient (in terms of money and time invested) to change indust... | 109 | I think i could give you a rather simple answer. The first thing to preface is however that, 1. Companies are run by people, 2. People work in companies, 3. People controll the practices of a company
The reason i preface this is, by this qualification i argue that changing the cultural attitudes towards environmental ... | 11 |
ELI5: How do people become allergic to things when they use to not be? | For example, I use to not be allergic to cats until I was about 17 years old, then one day my eyes started puffing up after about 15 minutes of being around them. Since then I have become allergic to multiple things. | 21 | The medical and science communities are still not sure exactly *why*, or what causes our bodies to flag something as an invader that it previously hasn't. When we develop an allergy can be affected by many variables, including genetics. If you have an allergy prone parent, you're 40% more likely to develop allergies. I... | 15 |
[Resident Evil: The Final Chapter] It seems to me, or was it already clear in the last film that Umbrella won, and it was not worth destroying her? | As far as I can remember, the main people in Umbrella decided to almost destroy all of humanity, and start over from scratch. Naturally, Alice did the right thing, which interfered with their plans, but up to the penultimate films! Because before the penultimate film, people still had some chance for the rebirth of hum... | 22 | Alice released the cure for the T-virus into the air. The cure destroys organisms infected with the T-virus. While it will take years for the cure to travel through the air and reach all the T-virus creatures worldwide, the fact that the T-virus will be wiped out is a certainty, it's only a matter of time.
How muc... | 23 |
ELI5: How do self-driving cars manage large intersections with multiple traffic signals? | 105 | First of all, keep in mind that there are no finished, commercially-available self-driving cars that automatically handle traffic signals...yet.
Tesla's self-driving features only handle highway driving and parking, for example - they don't handle stop lights and stop signs.
Google's is the furthest along based on pu... | 43 | |
[Alien] What were the flame units on the Nostromo supposed to be used for? | Melting ice? Clearing vegetation on jungle planets? Anti pirate weapons (bullets and vacuum etc.)? Some sort of bizarre mistake, like the chainsaws on Mars in Doom 3?
Wonder if there’s any supplementary material that explained their original purpose. | 19 | They're cutting torches modified into flamethrowers. Used for ship repairs and such. A larger nozzle and more propellant released increases the flame size into a weapon. It's also possible it was intended for deicing procedures on external equipment. | 25 |
CMV: There is a large number of the population that area easily mislead and cannot think and reason for themselves. This is the reason we need government regulation on things like employment, health, EPA, and SEC oversight. | Whether you wish to believe it or not, I sincerely believe that there are a large number of people in the US and the world that are exploitable at their very being. They believe whatever you tell them, if you use the right psychological tricks. Whether this be xenophobia, bandwagoning, or tribalism. Because of this, th... | 136 | The reason we need regulation is not because people are gullible or ignorant.
It is because people have a tendency of being primarily concerned with their own needs, and they don't always see the value in conservation and moderation.
For example, many unregulated fishing grounds have been depleted of stocks of fish. ... | 69 |
ELI5: Why do "bugs" or "glitches" happen even when accomplished and successful studios develop a video game? | EDIT:
Perhaps I should've asked the question differently.
I totally get that people are imperfect and make mistakes. I'm more interested in understanding *why* a glitch happens, even when professionals do the coding.
Is there something that is just inherent in coding that creates glitches?
Do different parts ... | 182 | Imagine code like a set of rules.
Lets say that you run a business, and you decide to upgrade your security/employee-management. You put finger print locks on the doors, so your building is more secure, and also so you can see when employees arrive and leave based on when they used the fingerprint lock on the front do... | 258 |
CMV: Shoes should come pre-dipped in a hydrophobic liquid | So the main argument against this I am expecting is the argument of monetary incentive.
\- It would cost money for a company to make their shoes longer-lasting (two opposing forces since people would buy fewer shoes)
However, I would be willing to buy more of a company if I knew they were longer-lasting, one of the m... | 1,099 | Most shoes breathe well. Leather is already easy to clean and work shoes are already water resistant. Non-work shoes that will be worn casually are meant to breath well, by adding hydrophobic coating you lose the breathability, it costs more and it isn't permanent. It also can damage the shoes faster as parts might los... | 467 |
ELI5 Why can't we pipe water to southwest US? | We pipeline oil from Canada to Texas, why can't we pipeline water from the Great lakes to the south?
Edit: thank you all who replied, I've gathered that it is technically possible, but would come with a huge amount of legal, environmental, and practical issues due to the amount of water that would actually be needed. ... | 54 | Just the extreme cost.
So, there's costs involved to move things in a pipeline. And it's not hard to recoup those costs with oil. Right now, the market price for a gallon of crude oil is about $2.65.
The market price for a gallon of water is less than a penny. In fact, a penny would get you about six gallons of water... | 116 |
Does the spin of the earth have any significant effect on the time it takes to complete a trans-pacific flight vs a trans-atlantic flight? | The Earth spins west towards the east. This [GIF](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_rotation#mediaviewer/File:Globespin.gif) helps visualize it.
Assume that its the same model of plane, travelling at the same altitude and speed, with the same mass, same weather conditions, same distance
Its ~7500 km from Toronto... | 264 | Nope, the plane is in the rotating reference frame.
But, it actually does because the coriolis force contributes to atmospheric winds, among them the jet stream which runs in one direction only and aircraft can take advantage of! | 96 |
ELI5:How would a person born & raised on the moon physically differ from an earthling? | 106 | Light gravity would almost ruin the bone structure of the person once they went back to earth. They would have severe spinal problems because of it, and probably couldn't see and couldn't comprehend balance or direction due to fluid in the ears. Vsauce has a great video called "what if we were born in space" you should... | 90 | |
[Disney] What would Maleficent have given Aurora if the king and queen hadn't neglected to invite her? | 49 | She would have offered to personally tutor the young princess in the ways of sorcery and true power.
If the king and queen refused, she could take umbrage and curse the kingdom, as the story goes.
If the king and queen relented, she would gain a new apprentice and bargaining chip with Aurora as her personal ward/host... | 73 | |
CMV: Being a stay-at-home partner is nearly always a bad idea | I'm convinced that being a stay-at-home *unemployed* spouse, regardless of gender, is a terrible choice with only a handful of exceptions. You lose job market skills. You become completely financially dependent on your partner, which could trap you in a bad relationship. If your marriage falls apart or something happen... | 56 | Say you marry someone who makes $500,000/year, but you only make $30,000/year. You are only contributing 6% of the total income to your family, even though both of you are working the same number of hours. Say you cut your hours in half and only make 15,000 a year. That extra time allows you to do more household tasks,... | 36 |
CMV : I think Britain should separate Church and State and become secular | I think the United Kingdom should separate religion and state. According to several studies, articles and stats, there are more non-Anglican Britons than those who believe in the Church of England.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/religion-uk-atheists-christians_uk_5743fd38e4b0ffced862a51d
https://www.theguardi... | 60 | Nitpick:
> Northern Irish (where majority of the population is Catholic)
I believe you mean the plurality - 40% of the population is Catholic, which makes them the largest religious group but that's not the same as a majority
But anyway: What would this actually achieve, in your view? Making the country appear mo... | 10 |
CMV: I don't understand the subset of feminism that is also transphobic. | First off, the point of this post isn't to make me agree with this subset, as I know I never will. It is simply to make me understand the logic, because I can't even wrap my head around it.
Personally, I think the point of feminism is to fight against gender roles. Fighting against these roles happens to help both me... | 73 | Trans people claim their identity based on gender - the very concept that feminists oppose because it was utilized to harm females.
You say you dont comprehend how this is possible but lets put it another context:
Say people could demand that we acknowledge they changed their race by embracing and presenting all the... | 97 |
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