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ELI5: Why hasn't anyone/won't anyone take militarized action to secure the Ukraine crash site and investigate, with so many countries having had citizens who died in the MH-17 incident? | 42 | There are a lot of politics involved, and very large consequences for any military unit violating another nation's borders. Countries may not want to start a war for the sake of a few dozen people.
Additionally, military action isn't something that can happen overnight. Supply lines need to be generated, mission par... | 26 | |
ELI5: Why is Yoko Ono disliked by so many? | 19 | To many, she destroyed the Beatles.
There were a lot of egos and strong personalities in the band, especially after they got big. Manager Brian Epstein was there from early on and respected by all, and was able to resolve disputes and keep them on track. His untimely death was probably the biggest reason the band br... | 49 | |
flair:'Neuroscience' If you were to "mentally practice" tennis, would the parts of your brain normally associated with actually playing tennis (especially movement) be activated as a result? | If those parts are activated, why are your limbs not actually moving?
EDIT: I accidentally broke my flair first time 'round, sorry. | 366 | Similar regions corresponding to that activity would but not the motor neurons. Mental practice is very beneficial however it has to be accompanied with actual practice and going through those motions. Mental practice on its own will not be sufficient. | 100 |
ELI5: How is my phone able to upload to cell towers that are miles away with its tiny 1W omnidirectional antenna? | I get how the phone can download from the cell tower, because cell sites use 20-50W directional antennas, much more powerful than the phone, so they can cover a large area.
But the phone's antenna is omnidirectional, usually 1W max. That's as powerful as a Wi-Fi access point. So how can it reach the cell site 2 miles ... | 70 | Cell phone towers have ***much*** larger antennas and much more power available for signal amplification and processing compared to a handheld phone. They also tend to use a number of directional antennas to pick up signals from all directions, which helps their performance. | 55 |
Why don't metal detectors go off because of zippers and metal buttons? | 162 | The detectors have a threshold setting which is often adjustable. They're detecting metal all the time, but only objects that displace the field by a given amount sound the alarm. They keep the threshold high enough that it doesn't go off for things like small zippers . | 85 | |
[Marvel] Why Didn't Johnny Blaze swallow his pride and just work with Zarathos? | I've been reading the originals lately and it seems to me Johnny never learned Spider-Mans lesson "with great power comes great responsibility." He just fucking pouts and broods.
Zarathos was tied to him as a consequence of his own stupid actions. He wasn't "cursed" he made a deal!!! Zarathos only punished the guilty... | 15 | I think you said it - Pride. Johnny didn't like that he had been tricked into the deal and he made it damn clear. His yearly employee evaluations must have been pretty bad.
- Low motivation.
- Does not take initiative.
- Does not look to exceed his role.
I mean, poor Zarathos is bonded to him so they'd get ... | 11 |
[Mass Effect] Has anybody ever tried to make a cure for the Ardat-Yakshi condition? | For the unaware, the Ardat-Yakshi syndrome is a rare disease that only appears in pure-blooded Asari where when they mental join with another, thy fry the other person's entire nervous system, killing them. Naturally, they are feared greatly and those who have are given the choice of either living in a monastery in pea... | 162 | No Asari has, at least. The Asari are often mistaken for a very progressive society, mostly because of their love of other races and cultures.
Within their own culture, they're stagnant. Ardat-Yakshi can only be pureblood, so their solution is stigmatizing pureblood children, and exiling or killing Ardat-Yakshi.
Thes... | 113 |
Is C# really that much better than Java? | Hi reddit,
I am a CS student and one of my fellow students always keeps saying how much better C# is than Java and what a bad language Java is overall.
Is he right? Are there any objective arguments/proofs that show that C# is superior to Java? What is your opinion? | 32 | Programming language slap fights aren't worth participating in. They're tools, and you don't see hammer people getting in fights with screwdriver or wrench people.
If something you need to do is particularly well supported in C#, like making a Windows app or something use it. If you need to work with Cassandra or Zoo... | 30 |
[Hellraisers] When solving the puzzle box, what criteria determines if the person will be turned into a cenobite (like Elliot Spencer) or simply dragged to hell and tortured (like Frank Cotton)? | 20 | The cenobites are sense explorers. They choose to indulge in the greatest of sensory experiences possible. A gnawing hunger drove them to the box and after time within the labyrinth they began to yearn for more. With a malaise and despondent attitude they sought out the gifts of leviathan not for themselves but to give... | 28 | |
ELI5:Would it be possible to mine a white dwarf star? | I actually joined reddit to ask this question, couldn't find the answer online. | 22 | Not with science as we know it. We'd have to have some serious gravity/mass shenanigans to even get close to a dwarf star.
If you could create a powerful enough gravity well in the vicinity of a dwarf star, you could possibly syphon off some of its mass. The problem then would be whether the impossibly-large-to-compr... | 14 |
[MCU] If caps shield completely absorbs vibration, why does bullets hitting it make a sound? | 68 | Spider-Man very clearly says it doesn't obey the laws of physics at all. The rules for what vibration it absorbs are unknown, as if it actually did absorb impact and vibration, it wouldn't bounce after getting thrown. | 91 | |
[Matrix] In the first Matrix how can Cypher plug into the system to meet Agent Smith without anybody else walking past and seeing him talking to an agent? | And how can he plug in the thing into his neck/brainstem without someone else helping him?
And how can he unplug and leave the matrix without an operator | 21 | Never explained, however two reasonable answers:
2) He plugged himself in. We see others being helped because its easier for someone else to stick a long connection in the back of your head
3) Timer. After X amount of time, eject. We can assume they don't use timers normally because theres always a human component ab... | 26 |
Can You Suffer in Your Dreams? | The phrase "pinch me I must be dreaming" is common enough. Common sense seems to posit that inside of a dream pain can't actually be felt.
You may have a nightmare in which a monster proceeds to gnaw into you. In your dream you scream but the sensation of pain is absent. This may be the typical scenario, but several p... | 37 | Suffering does not have to have any “real,” material basis for its occurrence. You can look no further than mental illness and psychosis to see this for yourself. Suffering experienced while dreaming is still valid suffering—you wouldn’t want to be trapped in a dream made of prolonged suffering, right? | 44 |
Why does human hair (head) grow continuously as opposed to animals? | 133 | Animal hair does continuously grow. All hair does. The limit to the length of hair is the growth cycle.
Basically, every hair follicle has a cycle it goes through. The hair grows, then after a while stops growing, and then falls out. The follicle then rests for a period of time before starting a new hair growth. For h... | 87 | |
ELI5: What does our (user) data actually look like when it is tracked, collected, analyzed and sold? | I guess this is a multi part question.
First kind of things do Google, Facebook, Reddit track and collect? Is it on a per IP address basis, name basis?
Next, what does the data that look like when Facebook for example sells it to a third party? What kind of information is is available through Google Analytics? Goo... | 122 | Former ad tech guy here. Your data (cookie or otherwise) is stored and parsed into segments (male, twenties, white) which are used by ad campaign managers to appropriately target you based off of needs and wants for each ad campaign. Campaigns have a target sheet which tells each campaign manager (or computer, now) whi... | 36 |
[Marvel] What information do I need before making a Faustian Deal with Mephisto? | Can I hire someone like Forge or Shaman to act on my behalf during these negotiations or is it all on me? Is Mephisto the only one who makes these deals or could I shop around with Dormmamu or Chthon? I want to get the best value for my soul here and Mephisto seems kind of weak but he seems slightly more trustworthy t... | 43 | No matter what you do you are going to get a bad deal, even if it looks like a good deal it is a bad deal. Maybe you get fame, fortune and you never age. And Mephisto doesn't get your soul until you die a natural death; so after you make the deal Mephisto has someone drop a tree on you. Your best beat might be to se... | 49 |
[LOTR] What happened to Saruman after he was killed? Since he is basically an angel did his soul just go back to Valinor where the Valar are like “what the fuck bro?!” | 657 | > "Whereas Curunir was cast down, and utterly humbled, and perished at last by the hand of an oppressed slave; and his spirit went whither-soever it was doomed to go, and to Middle-earth, whether naked or embodied, came never back."
His body died, but his spirit remained an incorporeal mass, denied entry to anywher... | 769 | |
[Harry Potter] Are there any spells of mass destruction? | Are there any spells that can basically destroy a huge amount of space? Like, a spell that makes an explosion with a 5 mile radius, or a spell that kills everyone nearby, like a gatling Avada Kadavra? Is there any way for a wizard to kill a lot of people, really really quickly? Is there a magical nuke? | 54 | What about that cursed fire thingy? Sounds terrible if you put it on a skyscraper.
Otherwise you could transmute something to pure plutonium or something (not sure how that works though, not a scientist) | 40 |
Is it possible to freeze water while electricity is flowing? | 19 | Well, as you may know, water is actually a very poor conductor. What lets it conduct in daily life are dissolved ions which can conduct, and crucially, are very mobile in liquid water. Let's assume you mean water with these ions, of course. As you cool it, conductivity will slowly decrease as in mobility drops.
If ful... | 26 | |
ELI5 : how are the various parts of voyager 1 and 2 still working despite them not undergoing regular maintenance , especially even after 45 years? | 91 | They’re designed to be durable, not cheap. Most earth-based hardware can cut a lot of cost by using vastly cheaper consumable parts.
They’re also in deep space - an environment that has certain challenges from radiation and low pressure, but also has some key benefits in zero moisture or oxidizing gases.
The Voyager... | 150 | |
ELI5: Why is it legal that I can google an US citizen and find out he or she was arrested for something? | Some time ago I met this guy at a conference, we talked a lot and hat some beers. Next day I google him and first thing I find is he was arrested for public intoxication some years back (It happened in Utah...). I was really surprised - not by the fact *this* guy was publicly intoxicated, but by the fact that EVERYTHIN... | 15 | The actions of the court system and the police system which are funded by taxpayers are generally considered public information.
Once your actions force the government to punish you, they're no longer really personal anymore. | 23 |
[Artemis Fowl] How long could the fairy folk remain undetected before humanity finds them, given the rapid advancement of technology over the past century? | I've just finished the Atlantis Complex. If the above question comes up in the final book, I apologize. | 15 | Indefinitely, assuming that the humans never catch the people technologically. The more humans rely on the information they get from their toys the easier they are to fool with false data. Any one who manages to uncover evidence of the people and sounds the alarm about elves living underground will be dismissed as a nu... | 16 |
ELI5: How do Tylenol and Advil destroy your liver? | Edit: No I didn't ~~watch~~ listen to This American Life the other day. I was having an argument with a friend about the effects of Tylenol and Advil.
Edit: Thank you for all the great responses! I get it now. | 57 | Tylenol is acetaminophen.
Your liver metabolizes acetaminophen. The metabolite of acetaminophen is toxic to the liver. It destroys proteins and DNA in the liver. However, there is a compound in the liver that quickly neutralizes this harmful metabolite to something that isn't harmful. Too much tylenol overwhelms th... | 36 |
is it the case that poisonous animals tend to be colourful and if so why is it that they tend to evolve to be colourful moreso then other animals? | 118 | The “why” comes down to evolution. Let’s do a thought experiment. There is a population of caterpillars that are poisonous. They look exactly like a non-poisonous species and both are mostly brown. Birds will try to eat both. They notice that some taste great and some taste awful.
Which is which though? You don’t wan... | 327 | |
Why do we hear ourselves differently than we actually sound? | 68 | Because of where our ears are located and which way they point. Take your hands, cup them around your ears with your palms facing forward, and push your earlobes forward a bit. That's what you really sound like. | 32 | |
ELI5: What is the mandelbrot set | Ready...go!
**Update:** [Here's](http://imgur.com/a/ws3WZ#1) what I created with my well explained newly acquired information. And also made this short [video](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEqhqakzkxY). | 37 | Imagine you are on a big empty playground that only has merry-go-round in the middle of it. You tired of the merry-go-round so you invent a new game. You mark out and number squares all over the play ground and in each square you put a card with the number of some other square.
The game is look at the card and move to ... | 21 |
CMV: People are over reacting to the Corona Virus | Hoping that someone can help change my view on this subject.
It seems as though every year there is some sort of big medical scare, whether it be Bird Flu, Swine Flu, Ebola, Corona Virus, etc.
But in the end these scares often amount to very little. The media coverage just makes everyone terrified and it seems to be ... | 52 | Simply put, most of the medical scares over the years have amounted to false alarms because they were taken extremely seriously. When the media coverage makes everyone terrified and gets everyone talking about the latest outbreak, it reduces the chance of an epidemic. If nobody cared and just ignored it, that's when di... | 44 |
CMV: Modern study of Philosophy is essentially worthless, and it is a very outdated practice to be a philosopher. | EDIT: OK guys... There are a lot of good responses, and there are a lot of bad. A lot of you are saying that you don't know why I would possibly ask this since I said I'm a law student. You clearly have no idea what my view actually is... And if thats my fault, I'll look at my post when I get the chance and try to word... | 492 | I think you're really missing the point of a theoretical field of study. And you're also attacking what is taught in introductory courses and then claiming that contemporary work in philosophy is worthless without knowing what people working in that field actually do.
It's much like attacking how basic mathematics can... | 284 |
ELI5: why can't scientists program viruses that kill cells with deformed DNA to cure cancer? | 16 | Short answer: They're trying, but it's hard. This will probably be how we eventually manage to "cure" cancer.
Long Answer: "Cancer" is a general term which generally refers to any unwanted/out of control growth of the body's own cells. As you correctly said, it's due to deformed/mis copied DNA, which shuts off the pro... | 10 | |
[Spider-Man 2002] Was Norman really trying to get control of himself from Goblin persona in the final fight with Spider-Man? Or was it all just Goblin till the very end? | In the final fight, when Spiderman starts beating up Green Goblin, he starts to plead and then removes the helmet. Then he starts crying about how he's trying to gain back control and asks Peter to not let Goblin take him again.
Is this whole thing a ruse just like the one he pulled at No Way Home? Or is that REALLY ... | 464 | So watching the fight (and movie in general) you can see Osbournes body language and voice change slightly when he switches from Norman to goblin and vice versa.
You can hear the goblin back over as he's saying "don't let him take me again" when he kinda studders and repeats "don't" and then the goblin is pretending ... | 293 |
Did the construction of the Panama and Suez canals affect the ecology of the surrounding waters? | Despite the small overland distance, would connecting two very different bodies of water have a noticeable effect on the flora and fauna of the two regions? | 58 | Suez allowed lots of marine organisms from Red Sea to enter Mediterranean Sea. This process is so wide spread it is given a name; Lessepsian migration or sometimes Lessepsian invasion. It effects on Mediterranean ecosystems hasn't been great. | 20 |
CMV: Illegal immigrants who enter illegally should be treated differently than illegal immigrants who overstay their visas. The former are more dangerous. | In the illegal immigrant debate all we hear about is "illegal immigrants". There is no distinction made as to what kind of illegal immigrant the person is.
I argue that the distinction is highly important in evaluating how we feel towards said illegal immigrants and what action if any should be taken to combat the pro... | 144 | US law already makes this distinction. Overstaying a visa is NOT a crime and the only consequence is deportation which is NOT considered a punishment for a crime. It's a purely administrative matter. Illegal entry on the other hand IS a crime and if convicted you can face jail time *after* which you may be deported. Fi... | 108 |
Could we reach T=0 in the center of a huge neutron
star? | If all the atoms have been packed into a huge crystal, no electron shells, wouldn't they stop moving? Isn't that T=0, a thermodynamic impossibility? | 60 | Actually quite the opposite, as you pack the neutrons closer and closer you *increase* their rate of movement.
Due to heisenbergs uncertainty principle the uncertainty in the position times the uncertainty in the momentum must be > plancks constant. If you pack the neutrons closer and closer together you decrease t... | 33 |
[South Park] Does Eric Cartman have any genuinely redeeming qualities? Has he ever done a good deed out of true altruism? | We all know the kid’s a complete prick. Everything he does is for his own selfish desires, and he’s the antichrist of PC people. But has Cartman ever shown any kind of behavior that marks him as somewhat redeemable? He seems to genuinely love his mom at least. | 29 | …In "Major Boobage" he goes out of his way to hide cats (which had been declared contraband) in his attic despite risk to himself. Despite Kyle pointing it out, Cartman does not see any similarities to anything in history. | 80 |
[Arrested Development] So Tobias is shown having more than one pair of cut-offs, implying that he must change between them. How does he achieve this without ever being nude? | 35 | The sensible answer? He wears a long robe of some sort so he can get them off underneath.
The more likely for Tobias? He cuts the cut offs off under a new pair of cut offs so that they can be removed in the most awkward way possible. Or he cleans them in the shower/climbs into a washing machine. | 66 | |
Why are most of the large impact craters on the moon located on the side facing the Earth? Wouldn't the other side be less shielded? | 705 | There is a very big impact crater on the far side. Probably you meant lunar maria. They formed when impacts were big enough to break the lunar crust and reach the molten interior, so lava came out and later solidified in a relatively smoother and darker surface. The impact on the far side just created a big crater with... | 297 | |
[MCU] Why didn't 616 Wanda and 838 Strange have a third eye? | Granted, there's not a lot of canon info going around for that, since only two characters have shown the third eye. The common factor being the Darkhold. But 616 Strange barely used it for long.
What do you guys think? | 18 | They may have had them, as we see you can close your third eye. But assuming they didn’t have them, Wanda is special and IIRC we don’t know long it was before 616 Strange developed his so 838 Strange may have just died before it appeared. | 23 |
[Star Wars] Best lightsaber form against Darth Sidious? | What form would you choose against Sidious? I think this is a tough one. Ataru was probably a failure. Obviously Vaapad is the best, but with only one master who was dead, it wasn't possible.
Sidious was a master of all the forms, as well as a master of several Sith forms. However, Yoda was also a master of all of the... | 84 | There's a very, very strong argument that Sidious' ability in battle mostly does not involve weaponry or martial arts, it's about influence and clouding the minds of his opponent. Did you see how easily he defeated very powerful Jedi, how they seemed unable to defend themselves? There's no reasonable explanation for th... | 91 |
[Invader Zim] How does an invisible vehicle that doesn't cloak it's operator work? | In the episode "Megadoomer", Zim gets a massive battle robot with a cloaking device that makes it invisible, but doesn't make Zim invisible inside it. So Zim just awkwardly floats in the air while untold destruction erupts around him. How does such a thing work? | 18 | The Irken invaders steal technology from planets they subjugate and also enslave the planets original inhabitants. The Megadoomer was likely designed and constructed by one of these planets, it's builders would have sabotaged the design in some way that doesn't technically count as disobeying the irkens and whoever was... | 10 |
Why are shadows left after being vaporized? | When Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed with nukes, why did peoples vaporized bodies leave a shadow? | 16 | The initial burst of light and heat from the explosion would bleach things like concrete. If someone was casting a shadow on something, their body would be blocking that portion of the concrete from that bleaching so it remained somewhat unchanged compared to the area around it. | 26 |
ELI5: What is different about my butt muscle that stops it from cramping! | If I tense any muscle in my body for too long, it loses strength, or cramps. But my butt muscle (anus, sphincter - whatever - not my glutes) is "tight" and tensed almost all day. What is so special about it that allows it to remain tense all day without cramping or relaxing? Is there anything about it's abilities that... | 23 | Believe it or not, your external anal sphincter that you can voluntarily control (skeletal muscle) isn't contracted all day. It is in fact relaxed most of the day. Your internal anal sphincter is contracted all day. When the stretch receptors in your rectum are activated by feces, your involuntarily controlled internal... | 17 |
ELI5 - Why do detergent pods dissolve in the water in the washing machine almost immediately, but don’t dissolve from the water present in the detergent they’ve been holding for months in the box? | 43 | The liquid in pods has a much lower percentage of water than regular detergent. The shell does dissolve a little, but there is only so much that can dissolve in the tiny confined space before its saturated. The much larger amount of water in the wash can hold more dissolved shell so it softens the shell and washes it ... | 20 | |
[Marvel] If you cut off Wolverines head would it grow a new body? | Also would his now headless corpse grow its own head? So you'd have two Wolverines (kind of like cutting a worm in half?) | 33 | Probably not. He has difficulty regenerating limbs because of the metal in his skeleton. In one universe his legs were torn off and he had to climb up a mountain to retrieve them.
The fact that his blood, hair, and skin cells don't stay alive shows that there are definite limits to his regeneration. In theory you coul... | 38 |
ELI5: Why aren't we using flash on smartphones or new technology anymore, when it used to be a good option for animation? | I remember that when the iPhone appeared they decided not to use flash (which seemed awkward cause apple owns adobe), now even andriod has no flash and it's starting to go away faster and faster on new technology.
PS: I don't miss Flash webpages, those are just bad. But banners and different forms of animation where ... | 19 | apple does not own adobe.
the basic capabilities of flash with regards to animation, streaming and vector graphics have all been included in web standards or have been given special treatment by proprietary browser capabilities.
Additionally, the flash plugin was/is notoriously unstable, responsible for what some ... | 21 |
eli5: On an atomic level, how does an atom ‘know’ it belongs to (for example) a sheet of paper but not the sheet of paper below it. Also how do scissors interact with the paper on an atomic level to cut it into two pieces. | 16,369 | >eli5: On an atomic level, how does an atom ‘know’ it belongs to (for example) a sheet of paper but not the sheet of paper below it.
It doesn't. Look up vacuum welding, it's fascinating. When you have two very clean surfaces of, say, aluminium, and touch them together in a vacuum, they will weld themselves togethe... | 10,962 | |
[A Quiet Place 2] - is New Zealand okay? | >!Or Madagascar, or any other isolated smaller landmass really.!<
>!It seems they arrived on rather uncontrolled meteorites, and we know they can't swim, so I'm assuming so unless they got a lucky hit in, but did either movie have info (newspaper clippings in the background etc.) about known impacts?!< | 16 | Almost certainly, assuming it didn't have a meteorite impact the mainland. Seems like the weakness to water was realized quickly enough that the national guard was able to evacuate quite a lot of people and equipment off the mainland.
Based off what we see in the second film it appears that the apocalypse wasn't quite... | 16 |
How is the electricity that your brain uses to transmit signals throughout your body generated? | EDIT: for that matter, how is any electric signal in any animal generated? | 150 | In simple terms, in nerve cells there is a membrane that separates groups of ions (electrically charged versions of atoms) of potassium and sodium. These ions can only pass through special protein gates and do so when triggered by an impulse. When enough ions cross the membrane barrier, an electric gradient is produced... | 57 |
[Star Wars] I'm an Empire Admiral and I don't understand why the Emperor gives us so few Star Destroyers | I'm an Admiral of the Empire in charge of hunting and destroying Rebel Alliance fleets, but I do not understand why my fleet only receives between 3 or 5 Star Destroyers and a couple of support ships. In the records we are supposed to have 35k of them and hundreds of thousands of other types. | 39 | Space is like really big. Between defense fleets like those at kuat and scariff and the thousands of anti piracy patrols in the mid and outer rim territories there just aren't enough star destroyers to go around. They aren't meant to be used like destroyers or patrol boats but as force projection ships. Each one car... | 68 |
[Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood] If Amestrian Alchemy draws power from tectonic plates, how did Ed transmute from inside Gluttony? | It becomes established that Amestrian style alchemy draws power from the movement of tectonic plates, which is how Father is able to interfere with it; he puts an impeding layer between alchemists and their source of power. But thinking back, that means there's a few times that things don't make sense.
Ed transmutes a... | 36 | I was under the impression that this wasn't actually true, since Father was the one who taught them alchemy in the first place.
It could also be that since the homunculus were also father's creations, it didn't actually feel different for him. | 22 |
CMV: The first people who will go to Mars will go insane | The group that goes first to establish a base colony probably will not be big. They will have to work all day in a hostile enviroment with the same people everyday.
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Most importantly, over time they will realise what they left behind on Earth and that they will not return. They exchanged their life on th... | 64 | This is actually a very relevant concern that NASA has spent a lot of effort into studying. NASA has run a number of isolation experiments where they isolate people from the rest of the world and put them into a confined space alone and in groups and have psychologists study the results. They have done these experime... | 83 |
What is the role of reactive power in transmission networks? | I've studied electrical engineering for some years, but honestly I'm still struggling with understanding complex AC concepts, especially reactive power. What's its role in transmission networks since reactive power can't do real work? Why is it important for large alternators on the grid? | 470 | Reactive power is the flow of energy contained in the electric and magnetic fields of capacitors and inductors during AC operation.
For example, the magnetic field around an inductor gets filled up with magnetic field energy as current passes through it, thus part of the energy and power going through the system gets ... | 184 |
[MCU] Vulture has no abilities of any kind without his technology handy. How could he be so delusional as to sit four feet away from a kid with superhuman reflexes and strength, and threaten to murder his whole family, to his face? | 415 | Because, at the end of the day, Peter's still just a kid. Despite being superhuman, some stuff like being scared of an angry adult just doesn't go away so easily. Hell, look at Cap - dude is a godlike hero and he still has a hard time talking to girls because of how he was a scrawny shrimp who never got the time of day... | 394 | |
ELI5: If an atom splitting causes a nuclear explosion, could a natural coincidence cause one? | I suppose this question boils down into two factors:
A) Are nuclear explosions something only mankind can do (a specific reaction that may never happen naturally)?
B) If not, does that mean an atom could suddenly be split by some freak coincidence and create a nuclear explosion, possibly in a populated area?
Thanks in... | 20 | Instable atoms split all the time in nature.
What causes a nuclear explosion is a chainreaction where one splitting causes multiple more.
This is only possible if you have enough instable material gathered in one place (critical mass) wich will instantly explode. Thats how they are triggered. Take something below cr... | 43 |
[Batman] What would happen if Batman swapped Two-Face's coin with one that always landed on its non-scarred side? | In Batman the animated series, Batman once swapped Harvey's coin with a trick coin that always landed on the edge and Harvey nearly ran off the side of a building flipping the coin again and again.
But what would happen instead if Batman swapped Two-Face's coin with a trick coin that was weighted towards the non-scarr... | 60 | First, let's realize that Dent is kind of fixing the results anyway. For example, in Nolan's The Dark Knight when he is in the car with Maroni, he flipped a coin. It spared Maroni's life. But, in a "do-over", he flips it again and gets the result he wants, but excuses it that it's for the driver, so kills him, resu... | 67 |
[Marvel] Who is the least virtuous/unworthy to lift and utilize Mjolnir? | 20 | Superman. He used it briefly when the Justice League teamed up with the Avengers to stop the mad Guardian of the Universe Krona from using Galactus' corpse as a weapon to destroy everything.
It turned out that Mjolnir lowered her standards of what counts as worthy because it was an emergency, and after the battle end... | 32 | |
CMV: Israel's government should be held accountable for its crimes but Israeli citizens should still be able to live in the land | Israel has been a home for the Jewish people since biblical times, I believe there should be a two-state solution to allow palestinians and Israelis the same land and areas like the kotel should be neutral territory. I think this over just giving the land over to Palestine because Israel has been a nation since biblica... | 18 | What crimes are you suggesting Israel be held accountable for?
The nation exists because of European anti-semitism and its borders were originally drawn out of a sparsely populated area of a collapsed empire by the UK & France.
The two state solution never came to pass because pan-Arabic leaders (Nasser & Sad... | 19 |
Why/how does resetting a router fix so many connection issues? | 73 | Longtime computer tech here.
This is a very wide open question! The rebooting of the router can resolve DNS resolution issues on both the WAN side and the LAN side. Your modem may require authentication between the router and the modem and that has failed, thus rebooting the router allows the modem to resync with ... | 55 | |
Why do some places only have 2 tidal changes per day as opposed to 4? | A friend of mine stays in thailand at the moment, and told me, that high and low tide only occured once per day.
I was very doubtful and suspected false observation (tidal change during night time or something like that), since i know from holidays at the sea that two high tides appear each day. But she was insisting... | 42 | Tides are a dynamic phenomenon. Imagine a big, wide bowl partially filled with water. Now imagine tipping the bowl slightly back and forth (meaning: tip it very slightly to the right, then tip it very slightly to the left, and so on). This is analogous to tidal forces, you're changing where the "flat" level of the wat... | 30 |
I believe that human needs are always more important than animal rights. CMV | Note that I used the word "needs" very broadly in this context. When I say needs. I meant anything that would give a human or humanity even the slightest amount of benefit or comfort.
Now I hold mostly libertarian values, which means that I support the notion that anyone should do anything they want when it does not ... | 498 | Why?
You wrote that entire explanation and never stated why you actually think this difference should exist. All you did was describe the difference. You started off saying that human needs should trump animal needs. Then you listed a few areas where you think that should happen, but nowhere did you explain *why* you... | 250 |
ELI5: Why can "waves" of gasoline fumes emitting from the pump be seen in the shadow of the pump on the ground, but when looking directly at the pump in the car, these waves are not visible? | This was a hard question to word. But basically I was pumping gas into my car the other night. The fluorescent lights were on above me, and I looked down and noticed the shadow of the pump in my car on the ground. In the shadow I could see that there were obvious waves/ripples seemingly coming from the sides of the pum... | 243 | gasoline vapor has a slightly different density than air. as light passes through the vapor, it changes direction slightly as it passes through the areas of differing densities. we see this as the visible shimmer, and the shadow thereof. Heat shimmer and rainbows are caused by the same mechanism- light changing directi... | 68 |
[Spiderman] How committed to the truth and journalistic integrity is Jay Jonah Jameson and the Daily Bugle? | We all know that Jameson has it out for Spidey and will spin every story he can to make it look like Spidey is a menace. But I also remember in the 3rd movie that he printed a front page retraction when it was brought to his attention that his gotcha article was based on doctored photos. Just how far is he willing to s... | 20 | The Daily Bugle is at times seen as National Inquire level trash but most often it is newspaper with strong integrity. JJJ doesn't publish his rants as actual news articles but as editorials which lend a lot more leeway. | 27 |
CMV: The DOJ can and should effectively ban chokeholds without constitutional action by prosecuting officers who injure or kill suspects by using them. | The officers involved in the Floyd case has already been indicted by the DOJ, and they likely came close to indicting the officer who killed Garner (although they wound up getting stalled by anti-indictment career prosecutors until a Republican could take office, and a later judge ruled the chokehold to be unintentiona... | 35 | The issue is that doing so removes one of the few uses of force that police have that is by design non lethal. You leave police with tasers, which often fail, or riot control ammunition that most groups already seek to ban. Do you expect them to just let someone go when they resist? At this point you leave them with fa... | 20 |
[Fairly Odd Parents] Why doesn't Tootie have Fairy God Parents? | It's said multiple times that she's more miserable than Timmy is since she lives with Vicky. | 92 | Why does Superman stop bank robberies instead of any number of humanitarian problems he could solve in an hour? It's all a scam, man. Fairies go to kids who are unhappy, but not so unhappy that their wishes would change the status quo. It's all about placating the middle class. | 134 |
Why does water cause iron to rust faster? Are water molecules directly oxidizing the metal or is the water catalyzing the reaction with oxygen in the atmosphere? | Just askin'. | 31 | Rust is a form of corrosion. Corrosion consists of a transfer of electrons from the anode to the cathode. For rust to occur, there needs to be a donor of electrons (the metal) and an acceptor (oxygen). However, oxygen in the air is in the diatomic form of O2 and will not readily accept electrons. It is actually monoato... | 32 |
If the universe is expanding and there is nothing outside of it, then where do parallel universes (multiverse) exist? | I read on /r/askscience a few days ago that the universe is expanding into itself but that there is nothing outside of the universe. If that is true, where can a multiverse exist, seeing as there is nothing outside this one?
Note: I am asking solely from a physics/cosmology standpoint. | 21 | I'll say first of all that there is *not* any kind of scientifically accepted multiverse theory. At best, extra universes can be invoked as a philosophical interpretation of the mathematics of quantum mechanics, but this question can also be resolved exactly as well in many other ways. We really have no information at ... | 28 |
[Despicable Me] Are minions immortal? And how come they speak some amalgam of Romance languages when they predate civilization? | 102 | The language spoken by the Minions is actually the original form of Proto-Indo-European, as spoken by the Neolithic steppe dwellers of the Kurgan culture. The Kurgan, of course, learned it from the Minions.
As such, it's not so much that Minions use Romance words, but rather that the Romance languages echo the Minions... | 115 | |
ELI5: What is diplomatic immunity exactly? | 39 | Its a legal immunity that protects the diplomats from the laws of the country they are sent to. They cannot be prosecuted under the laws of the host country if they are accused of violating them. They can only be expelled from that country. | 21 | |
What exactly does acetaminophen do your liver? | I notice my bottle of Tylenol (aka acetaminophen) says to not take more than a recommended dose or it’ll hurt your liver. So what happens to your liver if you take too much? | 15 | When you take a normal dose, it enters your gastrointestinal tract and is absorbed into your bloodstream. It starts to take effect in 45 minutes for most oral forms, or up to 2 hours for suppositories. Eventually, it’s broken down (metabolized) in your liver and excreted in your urine.
Taking too much Tylenol changes ... | 31 |
[Sonic the Hedgehog] How did Sonic and his animal buddies develop powers when most other critters stayed the same? | Are their origins the same - some alien chemical bath that transformed them all at once? Or do Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and all the others whose names I don't know gain powers separately? | 38 | Sonic was a fast, but otherwise ordinary talking hedgehog on planet Mobius. One day Sonic was testing some new speed sneakers for the genius doctor Ovi Kintobor, when there was an explosion (involving a rotten egg and some time travel) Sonic became super-fast and blue, Kintobor became the insane Dr. Ivo Robotnik.
Mile... | 30 |
ELI5: Why do pregnant women get specific and unusual cravings? Do they serve a biological purpose? | 302 | There are two thoughts on why it happens, both are probably somewhat correct. One is that hormone production changes during pregnancy and that stimulates the desire for certain things. For example, as a woman's insulin levels drop or rise their body wants certain things that will adjust those levels. Some women report ... | 116 | |
[Dark Souls] Why are some people like Gwyn, Vendrick, and Lothric so much bigger than you and the friendly NPCs you meet? | 33 | Dark Souls goes through different ages kind like alternate universes where different peoples/species rule. A lot of them literally just aren't the same kind of being you are and thus are huge.
Gwyn and his Kin are gods from a previous age. And you're... A human kinda? | 31 | |
[MCU] So who exactly are the members of the Avengers as of now? | There were so many people who either died, retired, or went on a temporary hiatus in the wake of the events of *Avengers: Endgame*, and with all the Disney+ shows out now, I don’t know who’s still left. As of today, which characters are still active Avengers? | 348 | I think as of End Game the 'Avengers' are an ad-hoc team who are 'on call' more than anything else. They don't have a compound, a backer (like Tony), a strategist/leader (like Fury, as he's in space. Though he does seem to be keeping tabs on things after Spider-man FFH).
If someone needed to assemble a team of Avenger... | 182 |
ELI5: How can ISP's tell when you're downloading legally (e.g., iTunes) vs. downloading copyrighted files (torrents) ? | I just downloaded around 20gigs worth of a TV show from iTunes. In the wake of the recent news that ISPs will start to send warning letters to those who allegedly download copyrighted files, how can they differentiate? | 34 | When you torrent, you basically ask a bunch of other computers for small parts of the file. To do this, you have to give them your IP address. Anyone else who is downloading or uploading that same torrent can see your IP address. The company who owns the copyrighted material hires people to find and sit on those tor... | 22 |
Why do some allergies only affect certain parts of the body? | Many allergies seem to only affect the respiratory system or the digestive tract. Why can the same allergen be rubbed on skin in some cases and no reaction occurs, or post stomach not cause reactions throughout the rest of the digestive systems?
I am assuming there is no reaction after leaving the stomach due to the ... | 258 | The antigens have to be bound to IgE and then end up activating immune cells (mast cells especially). That's just much easier to accomplish in the respiratory and digestive tract. Unbroken skin is an excellent barrier for entry, and the respiratory and gastrointestinal tract make up most of the rest of the barrier betw... | 34 |
CMV: Obese or overweight individuals lack discipline. | G'day, I'm completely new to this subreddit so i would like to start with my strongest opinion.
I personally believe that an obese or overweight individual lacks the self discipline to control their eating and exercise regularly.
To clarify my opinions,
I do accept that there's all ways going to be legitimate medical... | 110 |
I'd say you're only undisciplined when you can't achieve your important goals because you can't make yourself take the necessary steps to do it. If your goal isn't to be a doctor then being unwilling to study medicine and all that goes with it isn't seen as lack of discipline. Likewise if your health and appearance ar... | 106 |
Can we get a consensus on whether Captain America is peak human or superhuman? | I feel like we either have to call his above peak human feats PIS/WIS or we have to stop calling him peak human. | 32 | Well it was called the *Super* Soldier Serum. But, the Marvel wiki says
> The Super-Soldier Serum (SSS) metabolized and enhanced all of Rogers' bodily functions to the peak of human potential. Dr. Reinstein described this potential as being "the next step in human evolution," while still remaining completely human ... | 35 |
Are some cells more greedy than others? Do some cells use more resources than their benefit to the organism? | 68 | Yes, this is what happens in cancer. Essentially, through mutation and selection, cancer cells have lost their "restraint". They consume nutrients and grow in a way that benefits the cancer cells (temporarily) at great cost to the host body. | 20 | |
Why do we hear that they discovered water on Mars every month? What is different each time? | It seems like once a month or so, evidence of water on Mars makes headlines.
Why is something that has been known for a while newsworthy? What additional information is being discovered each time?
Even just a few examples would be helpful, if possible. | 58 | There are lots of different types of water, and different types of evidence. The evidence can be more or less persuasive, and imply water existed at different times.
So, you can find evidence of ancient, brine like water. Or ancient, acidic water. Or ancient, neutral pH water (note that evidence of all of these have b... | 41 |
[Pirates of the Caribbean] Is the Kraken the only one of its kind? | If so, where did it come from? | 111 | As far as we know, the Kraken is the only leviathan of its kind. No other PotC movies or books have even shown other leviathans, so it may be the only one in existence for all we know. The Kraken simply is. Asking where it came from is like asking where did Calypso or any number of gods come from, which considering the... | 84 |
How is the environment/ecosystem affected by the energy that is removed by wind and solar power? | Wind and solar power convert solar and wind energy into electricity. This energy is removed from that ecosystem. Instead of sunlight hitting the ground and heating the ground up, it hits solar cells to generate electricity. Instead of the wind blowing dust and seeds around, it is used to blow wind turbines to generate ... | 42 | I actually took a class on this in University 2 years ago. There is very minor local effects on the environment, the biggest problem with wind power is birds, and bats flying into the low pressure behind the turbine and exploding. Otherwise there is no major effect wind power. Solar power is only useful right now, in p... | 13 |
[SW] Darth Vader's powers don't seem useful for anything on than for killing people. What exactly IS Vader good for? | 57 | He's the living embodiment of everything the Empire stands for - discipline, technology over nature, technically human, and authoritarian in the extreme. He's basically the Empire's equivalent of Captain America.
With that in mind, his actual purpose is keeping the senior military in line. You can't run a colossal mil... | 126 | |
CMV: The concepts of human rights is harmful to debate | Having watched/read numerous debates about politics and morality over the years, I have come to the conclusion that the concept of human rights, civil rights or rights are generally used as a means of shutting down argument.
This is not to say I disapprove of rights as a concept within law, but rather than illustratin... | 23 | >As a case in point, on a British panel show called Question Time a woman said that the public "had the right to know" whether Tony Blair promised George Bush to join the coalition against Iraq. In doing so she avoided having to explain why the public deserved to know such things, and what the parameters of that all... | 16 |
Are there any works on the philosophy of war? | Preferably not Sun Tsu
Edit: Wow, thanks all for your comments. | 55 | This just came up a few weeks ago!
There are many. Clausewitz, Aquinas, Augustine for some older reads. Walzer, McMahon, and Frowe for contemporary. I'd recommend starting with Walzer, as it is the most straight forward and understandable.
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has a good article on War | 36 |
[Hobbit: Bo5A] What's up with Galadriel when she turns all dark? | After ensuring that Gandalf is safe with Radagast, Galadriel gets up to bansih the spirirt of Sauron. She turns green and her hair & dress turn black. Is this some kind of dark magic she can summon or a second personality of some kind, maybe? I'd just like to know whats going on | 79 | Some elves, the Noldor, had a great spiritual presence in the unseen world. At the ford of Bruinen, Frodo witnessed a particularly powerful Noldo, Glorfindel, stand against the Nazgul, and he appeared to him as a being of light. Galadriel, too, is one of the Noldor, and when she dismantled Dol Guldur she directly chann... | 79 |
[DC] Since Gotham has so much crime and so many villains and methuman villains, why hasn't Batman asked Superman to lend him a helping hand? | 15 | Because all Superman could do is put a band-aid on it.
He could fly around stopping crimes all day and all night, and it would do nothing to resolve the causes of crime - the poverty and lack of prospects that so many Gothamites face, and the massive amounts of organised crime that has roots in the city.
Remember, Ba... | 29 | |
CMV: Being technologically non-savvy in 2022 is not excusable for most people, nor should it be a badge of pride. | Here's the background story that sparked this:
I have a planned meeting today with a future employer. For the last 5 or 6 days, the mutual understanding was that this meeting was to be held virtually, presumably over Zoom or some similar software. I called the assistant today a few hours prior to the meeting to confirm... | 89 | People take pride in difficult accomplishments. As technology becomes more and more a part of life, being able to function without gets harder and harder. Therefore, continuing to function without technology becomes a difficult accomplishment.
The issue with pride is that the accomplishment doesn't have to be useful.... | 24 |
ELI5: why do mirrors reverse left and right but not top and bottom? | 8,322 | They don’t reverse left-to-right *or* top-to-bottom. They reverse front-to-back, such that the distance to the mirror is the same for an object and its reflection, except in opposite directions.
Stand in front of a mirror and point left/right/up/down, and your reflection will point the same overall direction. Point to... | 10,202 | |
ELI5 how countries like Egypt and Jordan can seek and destroy ISIS within days/hours after their countrymens' executions, and yet the US and other more powerful enemies of ISIS seem to have trouble locating them? | You really don't have to explain like I'm five. I just didn't know where else to post this. It seems like anytime ISIS releases a video or information regarding an execution, within days or even hours, we hear about how X country has bombed and killed X ISIS members or positions.
If ISIS can be bombed days or hours a... | 44 | Most of the time we have no problems finding who we are looking for. the problem is how to deploy troops to go resolve the problem. in a lot of cases we find them in a "not so internationally friendly way" so we have to create a story to allow us to engage the mission or wait until we have a story or a reason to be in ... | 19 |
what would happen if a healthy (stable) person took a shot from an EpiPen? | 829 | Elevated heart and respiratory rate, mostly.
It actually happens more than you'd think. Plenty of badly trained first aiders (or properly trained first aiders acting under intense stress because they are aiding someone they care about) inject themselves with the stuff by accident. The most common mistake is to put the... | 588 | |
Does your brain hold all the memories of your life but only chooses to show you a few hundred, or does it overwrite itself, "painting over" the older memories with newer ones? | 77 | As far as we know, our brains are capable of storing unlimited amounts of information. The problem is that each time we remember, the memory will be decoded, experienced and encoded once again. During this proces, information gets lost or changed. The next time you remember, it will be a different memory, but you’ll st... | 61 | |
If I'm in a noisy room, when I open the window will sound escape and make the room quieter? | 512 | Yes, if reverberation is making it louder in the room in the first place. If you were in a mostly anechoic room, opening the window to a street would make it louder inside the room. So really depends on the room in question. | 136 | |
[Star Wars] If the Trade Federation BattleDroids are all remote controlled by a central computer, why do they need to talk to each other? | When the Droid Control ship is destroyed in the Battle of Naboo, they immediately stop moving. If they have a constant, wifi like data connection to the control ship, why would they use verbal communication, which is much slower and less accurate? | 45 | The droids have some degree of autonomy to adapt to battle conditions in the field, which is why there is a command hierarchy. The central computer in orbit handles the stuff that generals and support would, like battlefield intelliegence, strategy, mission objectives, etc. | 30 |
Does antimicrobial resistance (AMR) apply to viruses? Or is it just a bacteria thing? | I understand the general concept of AMR and how it arises when microorganisms gain resistance against antibiotics. It seems many AMR cases involve bacteria though, like *E. coli*. Can and do viruses also become resistant to antimicrobials? | 99 | Antimicrobes dont work on virus's as they are not cells and not living. So no, AMR does not develop within them.
However virus's can evolve to bypass defenses. Hence why immune systems and vaccines can be bypassed with enough time. So in principle yes, virus's can undergo selection pressure and develop resistances to ... | 39 |
ELI5: Why do I crave extremely hot food (like jalepenos, hot sauce,spicy salsa etc) but my gf will throw up if she even smells spicy, let alone tastes it? | I love hot food. The spicier the better, I wanna sweat while I'm eating. But my gf prefers tasteless or bland food. If I was to eat a curry too close to her, she would literally start gagging. Why is this and can it be changed? | 88 | Although /u/LIBGOV's answer is certainly interesting, research has shown that while there is a correlation between the location of ones ancestral heritage and a fondness for spicy food, the main determining factors for whether one likes spicy food or not are a) cultural rather than genealogical and b) neurological rath... | 38 |
[Lord of the Rings]How would things have changed if they sent Faramir instead of Boromir? | Gondor sends Faramir to the fellowship meeting, How do things change? | 21 | Boromir finds a boat wading down the Anduin River. He sees the body of his brother Faramir, to his utmost grief. During an ambush on the Haradrim, he stumbles upon Frodo and Sam. He is surprised and takes them to questioning. Frodo identifies himself and Sam as Hobbits from Imaldris, alongside Faramir and the rest of t... | 28 |
ELI5: If oil is a naturally occurring substance found in the ground, why/how does it pollute nature? | I'm sorry if this has been asked before | 25 | It is found deep underground and typically locked off from the water table. If it is released into the water table or the ocean, or any other typically natural environment, it is toxic. To ask why something natural is toxic is not the right question, as many examples of this exist. Lead and mercury, for example are bot... | 22 |
[Batman/Marvel] How would Joker react to having these superheroes as his archenemy instead of Batman? | These heroes are
Spider-Man
Daredevil
Punisher
Captain America
Wolverine
Hulk
Black Widow
Deadpool
How would Joker react to having one of these heroes as his archenemy? | 60 | > Spider-Man
Badly. Joker went from completely dismissing Terry McGinnis (Batman Beyond) to raving lunacy when Terry started heckling him. Since Spidey makes up quips easier, Joker will be gunning to kill him instantly.
> Daredevil
Probably the same as Batman.
> Punisher
Would be interested due to his no-... | 97 |
[Fallout 4] How can a fusion core power a building for hundreds of years, but it can only power a suit of power armor for a couple of hours? | 100 | Are there any actual buildings that are powered by fusion cores? In the game, if you take a core out of one of those generators, the lights in the building dont turn off. One nearby will flicker but the rest of the building remains powered. It could be a back up generator of sorts. In which case it would go unused barr... | 59 | |
ELI5: Why don't we point Hubbles and/or all other "magical" telescopes to our closest celestial body and show everyone once and for all, the artifacts of human Lunar landing? | If we purport to see something more than 13 billion light years away, we should be able to a lunar lander if not the flag, right? | 291 | The distant objects Hubble can see are inconceivably huge. The flag on the moon is not. Hubble could resolve approximately a football field sized object on the lunar surface but it's nowhere near powerful enough to resolve the flag. | 203 |
[LotR] Why couldn't Arwen just leave on another boat to Valinor later on in life? | I'm watching Two Towers right now, and the whole tragic bit with Arwen and Aragorn just went by, when she is talking to her father about either leaving for Valinor or waiting for Aragorn. He talked about her living forever in Middle Earth after he aged and died.
But, doesn't another boat leave for Valinor at the end ... | 61 | She can't.
By marrying Aragorn she chose to share his fate of mortality and eventually leaving Arda. She is still half-elven but her 'affinity' is that of man, thus she is mortal but long lived, effectively a Numenorean in all but name.
The path to Valinor is cut off to mortals except for the very few with a speci... | 75 |
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