post_title stringlengths 5 304 | post_text stringlengths 0 37.5k | post_scores int64 15 83.1k | comment_text stringlengths 200 9.61k | comment_score int64 10 43.3k |
|---|---|---|---|---|
ELI5: Why do most goods have relatively stable prices, while gasoline fluctuates on a daily basis? | 48 | Mostly because gasstations decided it's worth the effort to inform people of daily price changes.
Fuel supply and demand change a lot, so with a constant price it would have to be pretty high to prevent the risk of selling at a loss for gasstations.
With other goods supply and demand are very stable, and the effort t... | 35 | |
[Marvel/DC] A simple swap: The Stark Family and Wayne Family grow up instead in each other's reality. Assuming a similar chain of events leading to the creation of Batman and Iron Man respectively, how do events play out differently in each universe? | 18 | i doubt tony ( who is now bruce ) would have the motivation and commitment to do what the original bruce did , he would probably become a rowdy teenager partying every night
bruce ( now tony ) would probably become a successful businessman | 14 | |
[Harry Potter] What was Dumbledore using the Deluminator for before he bequeathed it to Ron? | The Deluminator does two things: captures and stores all the the sources of lights around it, and acts as a homing device allowing you to zero in on and listen to them even through protection spells.
One of those things seems way way more useful to a man like Dumbledore. What'd he make it for that he needed that com... | 19 | Nothing at all says that the Deluminator functioned as a... whatever it did for Ron all the time.
We only ever see Dumbledore use the Deluminator to turn off lights, so it's quite possible that he changed the Deluminator before he gave it on.
As for what he used it for... Turning out light when he didn't want to be s... | 25 |
[Batman] What college degrees does Bruce Wayne have? | Me personally, I'd like to think that he has a Bachelors of Science degree dual majoring in Forensic Science and Chemistry, with a minor in Genetics or something like Mechanical Engineering. Maybe an MBA thrown in there as well. | 16 | I don’t think he has ANY. It was canon for a while that he went to many of the finest colleges in the world to learn what he wanted to, and ONLY what he wanted to, and then he’d leave. Never got a degree at all. | 29 |
[Star Wars] What if Windu killed Palpatine then Anakin killed him? | So lets say Anakin didnt make it time and Windu killed Palpatine then Anakin kills Windu for taking away what he believed could save his wife. What happens next? | 41 | The biggest, most immediate impact of this would be that Order 66 would not have been executed. With Palpatine dead and Anakin unaware of the plan, the Jedi Order would be safe from the biggest immediate threat. With Dooku, Grievous, and Palpatine taken out, the war would wrap up quickly in any case.
As for Anakin, k... | 58 |
ELI5: Why does water stop evaporating when it reaches cloud-level, instead of floating into space? | Actual question from my actually 5 year old son, which I tried to research but couldn't understand the answer myself. Hoping someone can explain to both of us. | 24 | Cloud level itself is dependent on things like the temperature and moisture content of the air mass, and it varies widely.
Moist air rises until it reaches its dew point, the temperature where that moisture condenses out as visible water vapor that we know as clouds. Whatever altitude that occurs at (based on the atm... | 20 |
CMV: Describing lone wolf attacks, like the recent shooting in Las Vegas, as “evil” minimizes the social and personal responsibilities, deepening the problem and increasing the likelihood of future attacks. | [Vice President Pence](http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/10/07/556396555/) and countless others in the media and in my own casual conversations have labeled the shooting and those like it as evil. This places blame on ethereal supernatural concepts and not the people and the societal issues at the heart of th... | 68 | I think you're misunderstanding what people mean when they say these attacks are evil. That is a damning personal criticism of the shooter and his moral character; it strips him of no agency, holds him completely responsible, denies him all empathy and overwhelmingly denies any excuse anyone might conjure.
Think of e... | 14 |
Why doesnt the fed give money straight to the people instead of adjusting interest rates to keep inflation in check? | Instead of lowering interest rates, the federal reserve could send money to people directly to set inflation targets and skip the middle man altogether (banks and federal government). | 104 | If the fed made direct payments to public, it would be creating liabilities (new base money) without increasing its assets. This is bad because if inflation were to rise, the central bank may not have sufficient amount of assets to sell (sales destroy base money) to control inflation. So “helicopter money” (what some ... | 94 |
ELI5: Why do throwing knives have a handle if you hold the blade while throwing? | 53 | As someone who has thrown knives for around 15 years allow me to clarify some things. First and foremost, you do not always throw a knife by the blade. The position of your grip on the blade is dependent on your size, the size of your knife, and the distance to the target. As you move closer to the target your grip sho... | 33 | |
What is the origin of spin, from the perspective of quantum field theory? | 56 | Spin arises directly from considering quantum mechanics with rotational symmetry, even without introducing field theory. In any quantum theory with a symmetry, you can arrange all states in irreducible projective unitary* representations of the mathematical group describing that symmetry. For rotations, these represent... | 18 | |
ELI5: Why are certain items (like cars and mattresses) sold with such flexible pricing but other items are not? | I just bought a mattress and was able to negotiate and bring down the price on every element of the deal. But, why are certain items sold this way while other things have much more rigid pricing?
Are there specific market factors? Historical reasoning? Or is it just an anomaly?
And, would it benefit or hurt consumers... | 41 | Some would argue that all items have negotiable prices. As an example, you can totally negotiate with Walmart and end up paying a lower price.
The difference is that a car or mattress is a large dollar value purchase that is not made very often. So you (the consumer) has fairly large power because once you've bought... | 16 |
ELI5: During an adrenaline rush, where was that adrenaline STORED before release? Did your body just make it on the fly? If it was already in your system, why didn't it affect you before the "rush?" | 124 | Your adrenal gland produces adrenaline in response to ~~hormonal~~ nerve triggers(1) when your fight or flight response is activated.
In short, adrenaline is ~~produced~~ released(2) when you need it. If it was just floating around inside of ~~you~~ your bloodstream then you would constantly be in a state of fight or ... | 61 | |
How do we recognize what language we hear is even if we don't know it? | 194 | All languages have characteristic sounds and sound patterns. This is called phonology. Languages also have characteristics beyond just sounds such as stress pattern, length of each sound, and pattern of intonation.
If you've heard the language before and had it identified to you, you probably picked up on some of th... | 45 | |
[Fallout] Would the Enclave consider the Sole Survivor pure enough for recruitment? | For the sake of the question this is the male SS and he has been in the wasteland for 1 month now give or take. feel free to imagine why or how the Enclave end up in the commonwealth.
My question is, if meeting, would the Enclave be more like "A pre war survivor? That has spent 200 years in a vault safe from radiation... | 47 | It may depend on which version of the Enclave the Sole Survivor encounters.
The "OG" Enclave, the ones hiding on the Oil Rig, do not consider anyone outside the Enclave to be worth recruiting. Even individuals who had been born in a Vault would not be eligible.
The Enclave based in Raven Rock, on the other hand,... | 44 |
ELI5: How do you not suffocate on an airplane during a long flight? | I know that an aircraft cabin is pressurized while at low elevation, but how is there enough air for a really long flight? Ex. Dubai to San Francisco on an A380 with over 500 passengers. | 26 | It isn't sealed air tight, far from it.
Air is constantly pumped into the cabin through the climate control system. The jet engines take some of the air that passes through their compressors (bleed air) and sent it to the plane's HVAC system for the passengers. | 55 |
[Matrix] If the agents can fuse body parts together (Mr. Anderson's lips.) Why can't they fuse his heart valves together when it matters? | Was this an inconsistency or was it simply an illusion? | 95 | They can... until you take the red pill. While you are connected to the Matrix and have an intact carrier signal the machines can kill you at will. They probably wouldn't melt your anatomy together (that's the sort of thing that freaks out bystanders enough to reject the program) but they could give you a 'heart attack... | 122 |
ELI5: why can't a power plant "dump" extra unused electricity? | Some countries produce too much electricity at a certain period of the year, and have to pay another country to get rid of their extra own unconsumed electricity. Why can't a power plant produce more electricity than consumed, what's the physical obstacle to do so?
Also, what will the receiving country do if this sur... | 57 | The energy has to go somewhere. Power grids can deal with small mismatches in supply and load by allowing the frequency to deviate. A drop in frequency has the effect of reducing the load due to non-ELI5 effects like inductive reactance.
For large mismatches in supply and demand, simply pushing more energy into the gr... | 75 |
Am I Mentally Prepared for Grad School? | Heyo, I work as a lab/field tech for a couple ecologists at a University and they’d like to make me one of their masters students. I am interested in a graduate degree and I do love ecology. However, I am concerned that I cannot handle the workload and the stress.
I have a pretty severe issue with depression (daily su... | 59 | If we all tell you don't do it, will you still want to do it? Do you have good coping skills and access to mental health resources? Will the people around you support you when you fail? Things to consider. | 52 |
[Marvel] Scarlet Witch, Legion, and Franklin Richards find themselves alone in a room together. What's the best possible outcome of this scenario? What's the worst? And what possible reason would anyone have to make a meeting like this happen? | 15 | Whatever anyone does, it’ll only happen if Franklin is ok with it. His full scope of powers vastly exceeds their own.
Legion probably has Legion sort of mental issues; Wanda isn’t a walking insane breakdown of reality. She’s been to hell and back and had a couple of psychotic breaks but if no one is committing genoci... | 34 | |
[LIMITLESS] What can the Limitless drug really do? | [Here](http://limitlesscbs.wikia.com/wiki/NZT-48) is the wikia page. [Here](http://limitlesscbs.wikia.com/wiki/Brian_Finch) is a page for the user. Are these correct or have they been inflated? Thank you. | 22 | It might be *slightly* overstated, but NZT is indeed a miracle drug, giving one considerable mentat abilities. It however must be noted that taking NZT doesn't mean that you'll get these abilities by default and all at once. And to have access to advanced abilities you already must possess a keen mind.
It's sort of S... | 23 |
[Marvel/DC] Who was the first super hero to come back to life? | 21 | I think it is Jean Grey, who died as Marvel Girl, saving her fellow X-men by piloting a wrecked shuttle back to Earth, exposing herself to deadly radiation along the way. She was reborn as the Phoenix, the radiation and event propelling her abilities to a much more powerful level. Her new name "Phoenix" references this... | 21 | |
CMV: You should not lose your driver's license over nonpayment of a fee | There are several fees that if you are delinquent on, you can have your driver's license revoked. Examples are child support in some states such as [Texas](https://www.dps.texas.gov/DriverLicense/DelinquentChildSupportRevocation.htm) and [California](http://www.childsup.ca.gov/home/childsupportawarenessmonth2012/driver... | 167 | Revocation is a form of punishment by fear. While it's true that it may end up punishing the child, there are very few punishments that the government as an incentive.
It's really hard to get someone unwilling to pay fees to actually pay. Typically you have to threaten something they care about. For some people, they... | 24 |
ELI5: What are the major arguments against capitalism and what are the main proposed alternatives? | 32 | Capitalism in this context is interpreted to mean a free, unregulated monetary market. If you want alternatives to a monetary system completely, I'd recommend specifying so.
-
Proponents of a complete free-market monetary system will point out that it gives individual freedom, and allows those who 'know how to play' ... | 32 | |
[star wars] what happened to the droid army after the war? | We know the leaders were wiped out by anikin but are the droids themselves just sitting around gathering dust now or were they dismantled? Would someone be able to reactive them somehow? | 23 | We don't know exactly.
Most were probably scraped, however we do see some repurposed B1s being used as either personal security droids or bounty hunters.
Also a large section of the droid army **didn't** receive the deactivation code and are still out there waiting for orders on some very remote separatist outposts. | 27 |
ELI5: Why are my muscles so weak when just coming awake? | So I have always noticed that upon first waking I have very little strength in my hands and other muscles. My grip is weak and only after waking up a couple of minutes do I get more strength. Is this due to a lack of blood flow, oxygen levels, nerves waking up? Why does this happen? | 110 | your brain paralyzes you while you are asleep. these paralysis hormones take some time to get reabsorbed. they release and absorb in cycles called REM and Non REM sleep cycles.
This is also why you will feel more groggy and heavy when waking up in the middle of a sleep cycle "deep sleep" instead of at the high point o... | 85 |
ELI5: What is Homeopathy and does it really work? | 24 | Homeopathy is:
> the treatment of disease by minute doses of natural substances that in a healthy person would produce symptoms of disease.
Basically, they take something that might cause you problems, and then dillute it an extreme amount, to the point where mathematically there is not a single atom left of the o... | 33 | |
ELI5: How can the gravity from the sun keep the planets locked in orbit, but we are weightless in space. | So basically if the gravity from the sun is strong enough to keep the planets orbiting it, why don’t we feel that gravity in space? How is it strong enough to pull on the earth but not on a person? | 22 | We are weightless in space because we are in freefall. Imagine being trapped in a falling elevator. You and the elevator would fall at the same rate, so you'd 'float' inside it.
If you're in orbit, you experience the same thing - the ISS, for example, is falling around the planet constantly (that's what an orbit is). ... | 31 |
ELI5: why can doctors restart a transplanted heart with presumably high success rates, while a flat-lined heart is usually fatal? | For the sake of my question, let’s assume that cardiac arrest was due to factors that were then corrected (such as massive blood loss).
Why is not having a shockable rhythm in cardiac arrest different than having a heart that was taken out of the donor’s body and at that point doesn’t have any rhythm at all?
I unders... | 33 | A heart transplant surgery takes 4-10 hours.
The only reason the recipient doesn’t die is because they have a bypass machine pumping their blood for them, and a ventilator breathing for them. That keeps their brain function going.
If a person has a 4 hour long severe cardiac event that requires correction, the odd... | 37 |
[The Elder Scrolls] Why is every world-saving hero predisposed to prison? | The Eternal Champion - Former prisoner
The Agent - Former prisoner turned imperial agent
The Nerevarine - Exhiled to morrowind
The Hero of Kvatch - Former prisoner
The Last Dragonborn - To be executed
Seriously, why is incarceration such a common thing for world-saving heroes? | 65 | You’ve got it backwards, world-saving heroes aren’t predisposed to prison, the Prisoners are predisposed to world-saving. Well, not entirely. The act of freeing the unknown prisoner gives them a blank slate, and frees them from the bounds of fate more or less. That makes it easier for them to slip into certain roles or... | 83 |
ELI5: If me and another person are looking in a mirror and I make eye contact with his reflection, is he making eye contact with my reflection also or looking at something else? | 94 | The angle of reflection is equal for you both. So you're both looking at each other. With a little thought this will be obvious.
You'll notice that movies will sometimes cheat at this. A girl will be admiring herself in the mirror but in actuality she's looking at the camera. | 63 | |
CMV: Most of the current rioting/looting is thrill seeking behavior, not 'political' in the traditional sense | While I consider essentially all actions to have a political aspect to them, I think the reasons behind the current rioting/looting falls outside the context of what most people consider to be political behavior and is simply thrill seeking behavior.
Obviously, being OK with collateral damage to small and large busine... | 68 | Riots often occur in ***reaction to a grievance or out of dissent***. Historically, riots have occurred due to poverty, unemployment, poor living conditions, governmental oppression, taxation or conscription, conflicts between ethnic groups (race riot) or religions (sectarian violence, pogrom), the outcome of a sportin... | 10 |
ELI5: How exactly does my brain know to wake me up at exactly the same time every day, with or without an alarm? | On days I want to sleep in, my brain wakes me up anyway. Help | 215 | Biorhythms and habits. The explanation is a bit long, but there's a tl;dr at the end.
In a nutshell, the largest culprit are biorhythms. Living things do have internal clocks, it's not just a figure of speech. You have a lot of chemicals, mostly hormones, that go up and down regularly, in relation to what happens arou... | 64 |
CMV: Cities should outsource all investigation/prosecution of police misconduct to private investigators and law firms | I have no idea whether Darren Wilson was acting in reasonable self-defence or not, but I think we can all agree that the prosecutor was shit. If the PROSECUTION is bringing up crap like how Mike Brown might have been made violent by "super powerful weed" then he either is a moron or not actually trying to secure a conv... | 30 | Having a private investigator is problematic because private investigators don't have the power to do things police do such as make arrests, execute warrants, etc.
What would make more sense would be to have a dedicated investigation unit within a different department with coextensive jurisdiction such as state poli... | 15 |
[Star Wars] If Darth Vader was to use Force Lightning, would it come from his arm stub or his artificial fingertips? | Palpatine's and Dooku's Lightning comes from their extremities, and since Vader's extremities are his stubs, it would make sense that the lightning would come from there. | 28 | It'll come from Vader's hands as well. The Force doesn't so much care whether your hand is biological or not as it does whether or not you consider your hand a part of yourself.
Given that Vader uses hand gestures as part of how he uses his other Force powers, they're likely to be involved in Lightning. | 42 |
ELI5: Why does less sleep sometimes make you feel more rested | 2,504 | Sleep happens in cycles. Basically, you have a long period of NREM sleep (Non-Rapid-Eye-Movement) with several stages followed by a shorter period of REM sleep. How rested you feel has less to do with how long you sleep and more to do with at which part of your sleep cycle you wake up. If you wake up at the end of a cy... | 1,611 | |
[Fantastic 4] How thin can Mr. Fantastic become? | Also, secondary question, how far can he stretch/how much space can he take up? | 48 | He can stretch to about 1,500 feet before it becomes painful for him, flatten himself to the thickness of a sheet of paper, or make himself thin enough to pass through the eye of a needle.
I couldn't say how voluminous he can make himself. | 28 |
I believe attempted murder and murder should be treated as the same crime. CMV | hypthetical: Someone makes me mad. I bring a gun to their house, and attempt to shoot them. This creates two scenarios: one where I shoot them in the head, killing them, and serve twenty years in jail. In the second I narrowly miss them, they call the cops, I'm arrested, and serve five. If the intent is the same, why s... | 22 | Having a lesser punishment for attempted murder incentivizes would-be murderers in the middle of carrying out their plans from following through because they know the punishment will be greatly reduced if they restrain themselves in the very end and don't actually kill someone.
Also attempted murder is a much harder c... | 32 |
How close could a machine get to the Sun? | I was reading about the Parker probe and it's amazing just how close that thing is going to get to the sun; but it of course made me wonder how much closer we could get. The Parker probe basically uses a big oriented shield to protect itself, and behind the shield it's more a normal spacecraft.
Is it conceivable that ... | 3,527 | If you have a good heat shield and heat transported to the back of your spacecraft, you can essentially get to the point where friction is a problem. Typically these spacecrafts are in a very elliptic orbit so they are are only very close for hours at a time. Tungsten alloys or some high melting point ceramics will do. | 1,645 |
[Man Of Steel] Why Even Terraform Earth? | Overall I generally do enjoy a Man of Steel Flaws and All.
But one thing a lot of people tend to criticize is Zod behavior in the movie. They said his plan to terraform with his kind of stupid because, if the kryptonians are already Gods on Earth with the yellow sun and Rich atmosphere giving them the ability to fly a... | 64 | Kryptonian society was built upon everyone being genetically crafted to fit their role given at birth. This meant Zod was designed to be the 'perfect' general and defender of Krypton, for better or worse. This is also what lead to their demise, as it was a flawed system, especially given each individual's inability t... | 103 |
Can we cut wasteful spending by giving government agencies incentives for having a budget surplus? | I'm not sure if this is the correct place to post this, if it isn't, I'll take it down. Bare in mind I'm not an economist, it's just a random thought. So here goes:
I've worked for a private company that is a supplier to different agencies of my local government. It's no surprise that prices of the products are way hi... | 71 | Public choice theory is the study of incentives by government agencies, politicians and bureaucrats. The general idea is that the incentives of those in positions of government don’t align directly with the hypothetical benevolent dictator, and choices are guided by self enrichment or other objectives.
In one model b... | 53 |
[Physics] What exactly determines how a radioactive isotope will decay? | Physics graduate here, I've got a decent understanding of nuclear physics but I've never seen an explanation of what exactly determines if a radioactive isotope will decay by alpha, beta, gamma or a mixture of the three. | 26 | That's sort of a backwards way of thinking about it. A nucleus is unstable if there is a more energetically favorable configuration which can be reached without violating any relevant conservation law.
So an unstable nucleus is unstable *because* it can decay by one or more of the typical nuclear decay paths.
For eve... | 11 |
How they go about laying the foundation for an oil rig? | 42 | Oil rigs aren't on a 'foundation'. They are an actual metal rig that sits on the existing ground. They will drill out a hole and cap it off with cement for later use after they have reached their desired depth. Think space shittle tracks. The big tracks they use to move around the large space equipment. Things are diff... | 10 | |
[fullmetal alchemist brotherhood] what was truth trying to say to father before dragging him back inside the gate of knowledge? | Never understood truth whole monologue to father, I know father gate is completely blank implying that he didn’t learn anything but is that all truth was trying to communicate? | 16 | The truth was essentially telling Father that he was wrong, that he wasn't, and never was better than humans. That stealing power from others did not make him strong, and that he was every bit as conceited as the humans he derided earlier when he said Truth existed to punish boastful humans. He was telling him that for... | 31 |
[Indiana Jones] Is every world religion "true" in the Indiana Jones Universe (including books if anyone's read them)? | 255 | No, it is not that every religion is "true" but rather there is some underlying truth upon which some religions have been extrapolated from.
So there is an Ark of the Covenant, a Holy Grail, and weird glowy potato rocks; and Judaism, Christianity, and Hinduism have incorporated the existence of these things into their... | 268 | |
Am I being fleeced? | Morning all, non-developer here with a quick question. I am having an app built and have just been quoted 16 hours for a button on a webpage that will launch the app (Android or IOS). I have (very) basic knowledge of HTML and do web design myself and 16 hours seems like a lot. However, I am also aware that people often... | 21 | "The Button" doesn't exist on its own.
One might need to adjust multiple things on that page to make it fit it. You might also want to pass some data from that page into the app, and that's additional complexity (and thus, work).
Add things like tests for that data transfer - and it can easily become 16+ hour job. | 31 |
ELI5: How does the ocean stay salty? | With rain and all the freshwater rivers flowing into the ocean, how does it maintain a similar level of saltiness? Should't it be getting less salty over time? | 23 | Rivers pick up small amounts of salt on their way to the ocean, but mostly it's a matter of the water cycle. The amount of fresh water flowing in to the oceans and diluting them is balanced by the amount of water evaporating from the ocean (salt doesn't evaporate, so this concentrates salt in the oceans).
Over time th... | 13 |
[Star Wars] When Obi Wan saw his master die, was it anger that drove him to defeat Darth Maul? | 120 | Obi-Wan's victory over Darth Maul was his true Jedi trial, and what made him ready to be a Knight. This is underdeveloped in the film, but Obi-Wan's arc is learning to step out of Qui-Gon's shadow and become a Jedi in his own right. This is established in their first conversation, when Qui-Gon says that Obi will take t... | 112 | |
ELI5: The difference between the different degrees of murder and manslaughter | Just curious as to how one would get charged with each of these offences. Thanks in advance! | 54 | Murder requires:
* intent to kill, or
* knowledge that death is a foreseeable outcome of your actions
First degree murder is premeditated...you thought about it beforehand and still decided you wanted to kill someone.
Second degree murder is a spur of the moment reaction...you get mad or scared, you try to kill some... | 43 |
ELI5: What is happening when I try to hit 'back' on a webpage a thousand times, but it just keeps reloading the page and won't go back? | 56 | some web site builders are jerks.
For some pages, they have 2 pages (or more) instead of one. The first page is just a redirect to the second. You don't notice this when you go to the page, but when you use the back button, you just go back to the first page which redirects you back to the second page so you can't eas... | 45 | |
[Assassin's Creed] (Original Game) How did Al Mualim take away Altair's abilities? | In the beginning of the game, Altair has all his equipment and abilities until he breaks the creed and is punished with loss of rank. It's easy to take rank and equipment, but how did Al Mualim manage to confiscate, for example, Altair's ability to Dodge?
Did the potion that made him experience death also wipe his me... | 54 | Animus magic. One of two things was happening:
- The real Altair didnt use those abilities while he was being punished, so Desmond couldn't either.
- For skill-based abilities like dodge, Desmond is not fully synched yet, and is having difficulty using Altair's body to it's full potential. | 39 |
ELI5: How does Twilight Sleep (anesthesia that keeps you awake but you forget the procedure) work? | If I'm freaking out about the procedure, will I be freaking out during it but not remember? | 109 | Am an anesthetist (or anesthesiologist in American)
Procedural sedation can use different drugs, but two hypnotics in particular stop your brain forming new memories. Propofol is short acting and wears off very quickly, and associated with feelings of calm and euphoria. Midazolam is the other drug, and can stop you fo... | 60 |
ELI5 How do people “steer” hot air balloons? | Since hot air balloons don’t have a propellor sails I’m just confused on how they navigate and not just float away endlessly or crash into stuff until they come down | 51 | You have two controls on a balloon, you can rise and you can fall. That’s it. A skilled balloonist might be able to take advantage of that to change lateral speed based on winds, but the major part of ‘steering’ a balloon is by launching and recovering from known positions and having a clear grasp of the prevailing win... | 101 |
ELI5 why it can be too cold to start a fire | I was scrolling through youtube shorts and stumbled across [this scishow short](https://youtube.com/shorts/fCv6a5jYWa8?feature=share) from Hank explaining how it can literally be too cold to start a fire.
I did not know this possible and his explanation did not make sense to me. Can someone either break down what he ... | 21 | Fire needs three things: heat, fuel, and air/oxygen. That’s because the chemical reaction for combustion needs three things: energy, a “reducer” and an oxidizer. If the fuel/oxygen mixture isn’t hot enough, it won’t ignite; think about gasoline vapors when you fill up a car. The fuel (gasoline vapor) and oxygen (air) a... | 62 |
I have a philosophy/religion question..If "God" is Omnipotent and Omniscient, why did he create the universe? Was he bored or something? | 21 | I think the leading modern protestant Christian philosophical view on this question is best framed by Alvin Plantinga.
Plantinga is perhaps best known for his "free will defense", a response to the classic problem of evil. The problem of evil asks a somewhat related question -- why would an omnipotent / omniscient / ... | 14 | |
[40k] Abaddon and a small company of his chosen get lost in a warp storm and end up on present-day Earth. What happens next? | Obviously he can't rage at the Emperor and the Imperium cause they aren't a thing yet. Well the Emps is here but no one knows where. What does Abaddon do? | 23 | The Emperor most definitely exists as a person at that point, he's just either working behind the scenes or he is living as a 'normal' human would live, with a family, job, etc and occasionally faking his death.
I would bet he would sense something about Abaddon, a familiarity but also his corruption. Even before h... | 32 |
[edge of tomorrow] how does Rita know... | How does Rita know she lost her power? | 30 | she did say ( or cage did) that after using the reset powers, both could feel the power inside, like a sixth sense kinda feeling. Rita could probably feel the lack of power when she woke up after the blood transfusion. | 31 |
[Naruto] how do you practice any technique that will kill you if you use it? | Naruto has several jutsu (usually forbidden jutsu) that will straight up kill the user the first time you do it. How could Guy or Dai know what their 8th gate technique can do if after you use it you die. Night Guy and Sekizo don’t seem much like his other moves. Plus he wasn’t surprised at all when his Night Guy techn... | 20 | The eight gates unlock greater power, but the thing that causes injury is actually *using* that power. It's similar to how in the real world an adrenaline rush can give you the strength to lift a car at the cost of injuring yourself, but you only actually injure yourself when you lift the car. Just getting an adrenal... | 34 |
[Big] Josh Baskin is 43. How has his second adulthood gone compared to his first go as a grown up? | 293 | Broken and disillusioned.
He thought finding love and a dream job was as easy as showing up in the city for a couple of days. That's how it worked the first time. He's been chasing that high ever since.
Now his third marriage is winding down, he's crushed by child support and alimony working in a menial dead-end ... | 252 | |
CMV: 'Private military contractors' should be addressed as what they are: mercenaries | Imagine being so money-oriented that you agree to potentially injure/kill someone you've never met, just because of money. Imagine taking part in a war you have no right to be in, for money. Imagine being security for some scumbag, be it government, company or entity that hired you, ensuring their places, where heinous... | 179 | > I do not see anything positive in “private military contractors”,
Suppose you are a small, new government just having won your freedom from an oppressor. You need to start a government which includes a military but you lack knowledgeable personnel to train your forces. This is a service that private military cont... | 59 |
Is it true every atom in our bodies came from a star that exploded? | 93 | Except some hydrogen, helium *and lithium* atoms , whom have existed since the Big Bang, all elements comes from dead stars, since it's the only place, where it is hot and dense enough, for larger atoms to form.
Edit: Thanks **LoyalToTheGroupOf17** and **demostravius** for letting me know about the lithium. | 87 | |
[Myths, Creepypasta and Urban Legends] If the protagonist died, where did the story come from? | Bloody Mary kills whoever summons her, the Red Room Curse kills you once it finishes the sentence "Do you like the Red Room Curse?" and many more examples exist. If you are always killed by these phenomena pretty much insantly, where did the stories originate from? | 179 | More importantly who would spread that information around? This information was leaked for a purpose and it's not an innocent one. All beings need to eat and one of the easiest ways to find food is to have food bring itself to you. Every trap needs bait and what better than a ridiculous story that children will tell ea... | 115 |
ELI5: Why do things like hand sanitizer only kill 99% of bacteria? How does that other 1% survive? | 22 | It's more of a liability protection than an actual scientific statement of fact. If you get sick from a virus or bacteria after using their product, and you try to sue them, the company can always defend themselves by saying "We didn't say it's perfect. It's only 99% effective." | 47 | |
[Star Wars] Aside from the Jedi and Sith, what other factions of force users are there? | I know there's force users that belong to neither, but have any of them formed factions that follow neither Jedi nor Sith teachings (exclusively at least)?
(both for Legends and Disney canon) | 200 | **The Aing-Tii Monks** that lived near the Kathol Rift saw the force as a spectrum of color, not simple light and dark. Among other "tricks," they could teleport things, up to and including their fleets, and had a burning hatred of slavers.
**The Witches of Dathomir** were force users from the planet of the same name.... | 211 |
Why is it that when a person gets kidney stones, he/she has a risk of getting stones again? | From what I understand, those who got kidney stones have a high chance of getting it again. Is there a difference in the risk of getting stones before that person got the stone? | 902 | One interesting reason is that the crystalline formations of minerals can be "contagious" - i.e, as a crystal starts forming, more and more oxylate gets "locked" into position and forms a bigger stone. When it finally breaks off, some might be left behind, serving as the "seed" for the next stone.
Since the conditions... | 653 |
[Destiny] I am a Guardian, one of the last protectors of Humanity. Recently, I was charged by the Queen of the Reef to kill her old enemies, except.. I could've sworn I've killed them before.... | In fact, I keep being sent on missions to kill the same creatures over and over again, or destroying the same Devil Walkers and Shrines, invading the same Black Garden over and over again... am I going crazy? What's going on here? | 15 | What's a virtual life worth? Nothing.
You bub are living in a simulation. Nothing but numbers being crunched in hopes we'll find a solution to this forever war.
We don't even have a holo hooked up to your sim. You kill by the thousands and die the same and no one cares unless you happen to produce some statistical ... | 24 |
Why do phone screens/tvs/monitors always look awful and pixelated when recorded from a phone? | 16 | It is due to the Moire effect. The rows and columns of pixels in the camera's sensor and the monitor alternately coincide and mis-align. Ironically, if you defocus the camera slightly, the effect can be reduced or eliminated. You can see the same problem with halftone printing and scanners. Two window screens overlaid ... | 14 | |
ELI5: Why do some fridge magnets fall off after a certain time? Do magnets lose magnetic properties? | 26 | Magnets do lose strength over time. Basically, the magnet is made up of a bunch of microscopic magnets. The magnet is at it's strongest when all the microscopic magnets are pointing in the same direction. Heat causes some of the microscopic magnets to flip in a random direction, which, on average, reduces the strength ... | 22 | |
[SCP] How does the foundation stay secret if there’s so many people working for it ? | 140 | Cover granted by the various world governments and a lot of less than friendly incidents. One nation may have the foundation disguised as a hazardous waste clean up team and another as a part of the military. Enough cover to keep the average citizen from looking too closely. And those that see too much or get too close... | 115 | |
ELI5: Why do some languages have masculine and feminine nouns? | I'd like to understand both from a historical perspective, and also how it is decided for new words?
Being English I've found this the most difficult aspect of learning a new language such as Spanish. | 153 | It's important here to distinguish between grammatical gender and biological gender. Grammatical gender describes what rules a specific word follows in the grammar of that language. Biological gender describes living things that reproduce sexually by splitting in two separate genders. Despite the name the two aren't st... | 98 |
CMV: The same arguments that are made in opposition to minors voting can be made in opposition to old people voting | Most of the arguments that I have heard as to why minors are not eligible to vote fall into the category that minors are not mature enough to vote; that they do not really understand the issues or the ramifications of the election.
This argument can easily be applied to old people. In the same way the minors tend to b... | 198 | Every five year old is too immature to vote.
Only some 95-year-olds are too senescent to vote.
All minors have guardians to look after (and vote in) their interests.
Not all old people have guardians to look after their interests.
What are you arguing for?
Barring all people over a certain age, or allowing everyo... | 85 |
DRACO (a potential cure for most viruses) will it really work? | Do yo guys have any interesting thoughts? I did my research and even read the AMA that was done 8 months ago. I understand that funding is the biggest problem but why wouldn't any multi-millionaire or billionaire try to fund him? not even one?!? | 44 | Funding is straightforward. This requires lots of funding. It's novel research, unproven, it may not generate any clinically useful medicines. Success in the lab and in a mouse model far from guarantees clinical success. Also it looks to me like Rider wants to retain control over his work and attract funding. And lastl... | 14 |
ELI5: If rebooting is turning a system off and then back on again automatically, how does the system turn itself on while being off? | 70 | Whether or not your computer is "on" ( power states of the computer) are controlled by something called the ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface). When you tell your computer to "shut down", the operating system tells the ACPI to stop all processes. However, your computer does not actually completely power ... | 65 | |
CMV: No matter how good the intentions are behind it, no restriction of free speech is a good idea. | Now, I should note that this primarily focuses on hate speech laws, but anything really in this sense can apply. Let's get started.
CLARIFICATION: I'm primarily speaking about laws preventing the expression of beliefs, primarily politically.
ANOTHER CLARIFICATION: I'm speaking about laws akin to hate speech laws, not... | 1,504 | Are you familiar with the paradox of tolerance?
Basically what it states is that a society that is 100% tolerant of all opinions will eventually be taken over by a belief system that is inherently intolerant (by sheer mathematical probability) thus turning a previously tolerant society into an intolerant one.
Accordi... | 306 |
[Marvel] If Green Goblin resurrected Gwen Stacy, captured Mary Jane and Spider-Man and forced Parker to choose which one he would kill, who would Peter choose? | If he doesn’t choose one, both will die horribly. Escape and rescue is not an option at the moment. | 30 | I believe that Peter once stated that he loved (loves?) Gwen Stacy but he loves Mary Jane even more. If he had no way of saving both or sacrificing himself instead, he'd most likely pick Mary Jane still. However such an event where he caused the death of Gwen again, he'd probably wind up killing/seriously injuring the ... | 40 |
Would I have to retake classes I’ve already taken in my MS for my PhD? | Suppose I take several graduate classes in a subject for a MS and after getting the degree, I jump into industry for several years (say ~5 yrs). If I decide to pursue a PhD in a closely related or the same subject and some of requirements for this PhD have already been met from my MS degree, would they still be eligibl... | 31 | Credits can expire. The rule is set by the university, so you’d have to contact them specifically to ask. They also may not accept your specific courses because they don’t think they match their courses closely enough, and if they’re mostly 500-level they may not count them toward the Ph.D at all. | 24 |
What happens in the body to create the "loss of appetite" sensation after experiencing something unpleasant? | 50 | Activation of the sympathetic nervous system and the neuroendocrine stress response. This puts the body in what is termed "fight or flight" mode by diverting blood flow away from the internal organs and more towards the skeletal muscles, and by causing pupillary and bronchial dilatation as well as other effects. | 32 | |
[The Elder Scrolls] If someone reads an Elder Scroll to an audience out loud, will the audience become deaf? | 19 | No.
First off, you don't "read" an Elder Scroll. The Scroll grants a vision to whoever looks at it, but you need training to interpret it.
Secondly, in Dawnguard, a Moth Priest relates the vision granted to him by a Scroll, and nobody listening suffers any ill effects. | 54 | |
ELI5: How did ancient peoples make it to Hawaii and other geographically disparate islands centuries before reasonably modernized shipbuilding? | I'm not talking about riding a ship over a few dozen miles. I'm asking how people navigated thousands of miles of treacherous open ocean before sails were even commonly implemented. Ships in the 1400's and 1500's were still dodgy risks. | 134 | On a boat.
The Polynesian people lived on strings of islands for thousands of years, some islands that were close together and some that were further away past the horizon. They were experts at seafaring, had excellent boats, excellent navigation, and understood the cyclical way the ocean current and winds changed ov... | 101 |
[BSG] What is the nature of the calculations required to make an FTL jump? | What exactly are they calculating? Why are the calculations so difficult? For routine jumps, does this process still have to take place, or can pre-calculated data be punched in in order to make the jumps almost immediately once the decision to jump has been made? | 37 | One thing to remember is that their computers are intentionally kept below a certain threshold of capability.
Since this is a space folding type drive, the calculations that need doing mostly involve the specific parameters of local spacetime both at the origin and the destination. Gravitational gradients, vacuum de... | 27 |
ELI5:Do other species commit suicide? why or why not? | 189 | Yes, there are other species that do commit 'suicide', or rather engage in behavior that will likely result in its demise. Rarely its at their own hands, rather an act that gets them killed by something else.
For example, there are spider species that, during the mating process, the male will impale himself on the fem... | 101 | |
[Star Trek] What's the purpose of Locutus's laser? | 57 | As spokesperson and defacto leader of the Borg in the Alpha quadrant a large part of Locutus' job involves giving PowerPoint presentations. The laser pointer is an essential tool of middle management. | 63 | |
Is there such thing as a cytotoxic memory T cell and if so what is it’s role? | I haven’t been able to find a definitive answer from google but I was just wondering is it a thing? I was under the (very possibly wrong) impression that there are only cytotoxic T cells and memory T cells. | 767 | Cytotoxic T cells are defined by their expression of CD8 in contrast to the CD4 ecpressed by the helper T-cells. After developing a functional T-cell receptor and undergoing selection, cytotoxic T-cells are in a naiive state and have to come into contact with an corresponding antigen. When they do, they differentiate ... | 233 |
CMV: There are way too many Americans and Canadians that drive big SUV's and pickup trucks | Let's be real, I doubt people who are daily driving F-150's are going to be doing stuff on a regular basis that requires the grunt of a vehicle that big. Usually, they might be doing stuff that a decent sized sedan, wagon or hatchback can do just fine. When you aren't fully utilizing a big vehicle, they get worse gas ... | 85 | Your arguments can largely be made about any vehicles outside of motorcycles and smart cars.
You never know when you’re going to need a truck, so it’s best to have one when you need it. Similar to insurance.
In fact, there’s probably a better argument for everyone’s first vehicle being a truck. | 13 |
[Transformers] Why Deceptikons and Autobots waste time to verbalise sentences and orders when they could do it almost instantly through WiFi? | Example is battle scene on Cybetron in Bumblebee movie | 20 | Wireless handshake protocols and the like are *incredibly* intimate. If you could pass information quickly and efficiently by putting your tongue into someone's mouth, how often would you do that with your coworkers? | 34 |
ELI5: How do helicopter blades actually lift a 20,000 pound helicopter? | 16 | To generate lift we use wings, which we move fast through the air. We can do this by making the vehicle go fast (planes) or by rotating the wings fast around a midpoint (helicopters).
Wings moving at an angle through the air will push that air down. As a result, the wing is pushed up. A helicopter moves a *lot* of air... | 22 | |
[Star Wars]Why does Finn refer to Han Solo as a war hero even though he was raised by the First Order? | 315 | "There are heroes on both sides"
It's possible that the word 'hero' is used slightly differently in the SW galaxy, meaning someone who commits acts of bravery for a cause but lacking the moral approval that is commonly implied in Earth usage.
Or, it could just be that Finn has realigned his moral perspective on histo... | 313 | |
CMV:There is no valid reason other than defending Trump for the current Republican attack on the FBI. | There are a number of attacks on the credibility of the FBI from Republican politicians. These attacks have come in a number of forms, the most recent being the Nunes memo which apparently alleges that there was misconduct in the FBI relating to how FISA warrants were obtained, and allegations of a "secret society" wit... | 136 | NOT a Trumpette but
The FBI has a long history as political hacks,though mostly in support of GOP hate of minorities,gays etc [ie the "other"]. While it would be out of character to bite the hands that fed them it is not out of character for them to stick their fingers into politics.
I think it would be more accurat... | 31 |
ELI5: Why does my dog shake his leg like he's "scratching the air" everytime I scratch his belly? | 135 | Sometimes something will go in your nose and it will bother you and make you sneeze. Or if something comes fast towards your face your eyes will close to protect them.
The doggie sctaches the air for the same reason. Part of the doggie's brain thinks that your fingers are something it needs to protect it from - a bu... | 42 | |
what are the benefits of having a stock market? how does a stock market benefit society? | 248 | The primary purpose of the stock market is to provide a means for companies to get funding. By selling ownership in the company, companies are able to raise large sums of money without taking on debt. This money is then used to grow the business and everyone gets to make money. | 175 | |
[Dragon Ball Z] Why does the Frieza Force even bother with weaker soldiers (such as Raditz or the soldiers that Gohan and Krillin/the Namekians killed on Namek) that could easily be replaced by Saibamen? | 15 | Saibamen seem to have low intelligence/will, and probably only accept simple direct orders. Raditz and the fruit aliens can follow directions and manage logistics on their own.
Also Saibamen probably dry up in the sun if you forget to water them or something. | 26 | |
Eli5 Why are we so terrible at comprehending large numbers? | When somebody says there are 100,000, people there your thinking “wow that’s a lot of people” but if somebody tells you there are 10 million people there your reaction is still the same. | 31 | Your brain needs some physical comparison, not just abstraction.
100,000 people is like two packed stadiums, or one enormous stadium. You’ve experienced something like that.
2000 miles is the drive from Chicago to the tip of Florida. You know about how long that takes.
But how far is 700 million miles? How big is... | 53 |
ELI5: How do allergies develop in kids? | 42 | Basically, the body encounters something it hasn't encountered before. It usually is a foreign protein. The body encounters it and thinks that it is something bad that is trying to harm the person. The body then creates an immune response to protect the body. The next time the body encounters this allergen it reacts as... | 24 | |
ELI5 the differences between the major Christian religions (e.g. Baptist, Catholic, Methodist, Protestant, Pentecostal, etc.) | Include any other major ones I didn't list. | 3,148 | Agree: Jesus Christ is our lord and savior
Disagree: God is divisible, ex. Trinity, saints, communion, role of pope, women ministers, can ministers marry, everything else besides the first statement. | 2,196 |
ELI5: Whats the difference between f.lux and dimming my computer's screen? | [f.lux's website](https://justgetflux.com/) if you've never heard of it. | 20 | The higher frequencies (blue, violet) are responsible for suppressing melatonin production. In the case of a computer monitor, only blue. F-lux allows you to maintain an overall higher brightness by setting color temperature rather than uniform luminance, leaving green and red less affected than blue.
Color constancy ... | 19 |
[Marvel&DC] I'm magically thrown into either of this of these universes, what would be the fastest to get superpowers or a way to not be defenseless? | 67 | * Volunteer as a herald for a cosmic being
* Expose yourself to exotic radiation
* Successfully lift Mjolnir
* Learn magic
* Get a job in a laboratory and hope for a freak accident
* Your natural physical peak is now higher. Train in the martial arts or something.
* Hang out with superheroes and hope something rubs off... | 71 | |
[Star Trek TNG] What is meant of "full stop" on the Enterprise? | The Enterprise is in space and velocity, by definition, must be in reference to something. On Earth, the reference point is typically the ground. What is the reference point the Enterprise uses? "Full stop" can't simply mean acceleration=0, there are several incidents in the series where they are "stopped" in front of ... | 19 | It means stopped relative to the local spatial context. Absent all reference points, it just means engines to zero. In the case that there are local references to be used, it means stopped relative to them. | 30 |
[Warhammer 40K] Is there a "best" shade of green for Orks? If there is one, what is it? | 17 | More green is better, doesn't matter what shade. Orks only care who is the biggest. Incidentally they are always correct about that, because of their psychic gestalt the most energy goes to the best fighter and he becomes the biggest. | 21 | |
ELI5: why did cars used to have their engines in the back, then with more modern cars the engine was moved to the front, then with some sports cars the engine is in the back again? | ELI5: why did cars used to have their engines in the back, then with more modern cars the engine was moved to the front, then with some sports cars the engine is in the back again? | 24 | Most of the high end sports cars put the engine behind the driver, but ahead of the rear axle for better weight distribution. These are considered mid-engined cars. A car with 50/50 weight distribution front to back will be more stable, easier to control and faster through curves. | 11 |
How real was the risk with turning on of the higgs collider? | 84 | You are talking about the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
The kind of reactions that scientist create in the LHC occur daily in our atmosphere when cosmic rays strike earth. If there was any truth to any of the doomsday scenarios associated with turning on the LHC, then these scenarios would have already be triggered by ... | 78 | |
ExistentialComics's representation of Rorty | [The latest Existential Comic](http://existentialcomics.com/comic/218) features Richard Rorty, but he sounds like Jordan Peterson. He says, "Postmodernism is really just when too many women are in movies, and stuff like that."
This surprised me because it does not sound like the Rorty I know from *Contingency, Irony, ... | 21 | > is the joke that Rorty's own views are laughably incorrect, or that Rorty's actual views do not correspond to those stated in the comic?
The second of these. The comic humorously swaps the "common conception" with the "accurate" one.
This "accurate" conception is then abused further by pointing the "modern" te... | 41 |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.