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ELI5: if plants need to absorb sunlight in order to do photosynthesis, why aren't they black? | 22 | There are two reasons.
First, Because they need to absorb certain colors of light.
During photosynthesis plants use the light hitting them to excite electrons. They then use the energy of those excited electrons in a series of reactions to store that energy as sugars like glucose.
For this to happen most effectively... | 46 | |
[The boys] Would A-train have won the race against supersonic if he never used the V compound in the first place and thus being healthy for the race? | Basically is healthy A-train faster than healthy supersonic? | 54 | That's hard to predict.
- Other top-tier superheroes (Homelander, Stormfront, Soldier Boy) don't seem to have problems with aging, and A-trains main character flaw is his own insecurity, so it's entirely possible he never needed the boost in the first place.
- On the other hand, not *everyone* gets the lack of aging ... | 81 |
ELI5: How do websites modify/inject data into your copy/paste? | Like on this website, if you copy a joke from here:
http://www.jokes4us.com/yomamajokes/yomamasouglyjokes.html
Then when you paste the joke somewhere, it comes with both the joke and an additional line that says "source.... etc".
How does a website change what I copy? | 60 | It's done in Javascript.
When you select a piece of text and copy it via control-C or control-insert or right-hand-mouse-button paste, the browser sends the "copy event" to the page. If the page catches this event, it can adjust the contents of the selected text, copy it into the clipboard and then remove the adjustme... | 29 |
Are dreams powered by the same parts of the brain that are responsible for creativity and imagination? | And are those parts of the brain essentially “writing” your dreams? | 3,360 | The topic of dreams is still very much an open question for Neuroscience but scans from fMRI and EEG data seem to suggest that both dreaming and daydreaming are related, though obviously there is even more deactivation of task specific areas of the brain during actual dreaming.
Imagination and kind of idle behaviour a... | 811 |
How did Max Planck calculate a Planck Length? | 1,094 | Essentially you have three constants which relate to different areas of Physics. There is planck's constant hbar which relates to quantum mechanics, the speed of light c, which is to do with relativity, and the universal gravitational constant G, which relates to gravity.
There is only one way to combine these t... | 314 | |
ELI5:What is "information" as used in physics? | Hello,
I have been watching a ton of Youtube videos trying to under exactly what is meant by "information" when used in physics. All the videos they discuss possible means, methods, conceptions of "how, why where" information is.
But, I cannot wrap my head around what exactly information IS? | 20 | You ever play the game Guess Who? You get to ask a series of yes/no questions to identify one person among 24. On average, the best questions will eliminate half the available characters from 24, to 12, to 6, to 3, to 2, then finally 1. Meaning you should be able to win in 5 questions.
So we would say, then, that this... | 33 |
CMV: when recruiting, asking 'where do you see yourself in five years?' serves no purpose | I'm looking at this from an office job perspective as it's really the only one I've ever had in my professional life.
Hardly anyone can reliably tell you where they see themselves in five years. Five years is a very long time; people may develop a passion for completely new things, obtain new skills, discover hidden t... | 48 | It isn’t a practical question. It’s supposed to highlight ambition and see if the candidate is interested in growing with the company.
I’ve certainly asked this plenty of times and had a slew of answers. If you’re chasing ambitious people the answer is important. | 23 |
If we knew the exact age of an atom of radioactive material, would we be able to predict its alpha and beta decays? | 20 | Current theory strongly suggests this is absolutely random. This is known as the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum physics.
The alternative is the hidden variable explanation, there is some non-random mechanism, we just can't see it.
Scientists have been looking for these hidden variables ever since Copenhagen,... | 17 | |
CMV: Waiting for a teenager to turn legal so you can subscribe to their Onlyfans is damn creepy. | [Here's the link if you want to see the whole thing for yourself.](https://twitter.com/BhadBhabie/status/1377717608225460225). (Maybe by now some of them could have deleted their tweets, if that's the case I'll upload screenshots I took yesterday) The girl saying herself she was 'tired' of people asking is already sett... | 130 | First of all: is this really a topic you want to change your opinion is?
If the answer is yes: would you agree that maybe there's some specific cases where it's less creepy? because of course a 50yo seeing a 13yo and thinking '5 years to wait" is **awfully creepy** but if a 18yo follow on tiktok a 17yo girl posting d... | 38 |
ELI5: What is "space - time"? | 21 | Imagine the universe is a table with ants crawling across it. Then you could take a bunch of pictures of that table and stack them on top of each other. The table itself is two-dimensional (flat), but the stack of photos is three-dimensional. That third dimension is proportional to time (scaled by the rate you take ... | 14 | |
ELI5: If the wages go up to combat the inflation why do we keep bumping up the price of things instead of leaving it as it is? | Edit: thank you very, very much for all the anwsers. At this point I'm not in total darkness and have a big picture of how economics works. It's FAR more complex than I initially thought it would be. It's crazy! | 84 | Prices mostly go up mostly as a result of low supply combined with high demand. When interest rates are low (money is ‘cheap’), people borrow/spend more (think mortgages, car loans, credit cards, etc.) This increased demand drives up prices. This is inflation. Companies, i.e. employers (whose revenues have increased be... | 20 |
[MCU] Why out of all powerful superheroes, it was Spider-Man that resisted dematerialization from Thanos Snap for the longest time? | 591 | Spidey's Spider-Sense told him that *something* real bad was happening, but not exactly what, so he was basically having a super-powered panic attack. He didn't fade away faster, he just called attention to his own dematerialization earlier than the others, so we saw it all in excruciating detail. | 964 | |
[Harry Potter] Do all of Hogwarts' houses produce Dark Wizards, and if so, what is the frequency of each? And do Heads of House have any sort of training on working with potential future Dark Wizards? Like how to discourage the Darkness? | 16 | Well, yes, for any number of reasons. People may attempt to justify their actions any given way, but everyone has the potential to become a Dark Wizard - it's our choices that make us who we are, remember?
However, Slytherin has a reputation for producing Dark wizards more frequently than others and this may be due to... | 16 | |
[Deathnote] If you had a Lifenote which was the polar opposite of a Deathnote, what would it's rules be, how would it work and what could you do with it? | 42 | **Rules of the Life Note**
1. The human whose name is written in this note shall not die *from a particular cause of death.*
2. This note will not take effect unless the writer has the person's face in their mind when writing his/her name. Therefore, people sharing the same name will not be affected.
3. If the cause... | 35 | |
ELI5: What happens if a person is given the wrong type of blood for a transfusion. | 129 | Blood has anti other blood sensors on it. Type A has anti-B, type O has anti A and anti B, type B has anti A and type AB has neither. So following these rules, Type A can receive from only A or O. Type B can receive B or O. Type O can only receive O. Type AB can receive O, A, B, and AB. This is why type O is consider... | 117 | |
[TMNT] What would the offspring be like if the turtles fertilized some non-intelligent females of their same species? | 157 | In nature a new species can be created when an existing species is divided somehow and the two groups begin to evolve differently. Over time mutations will arise in both populations and once sufficient differences have occurred it will no longer be possible for the two groups to mate and create viable children.
Altho... | 128 | |
As someone Diagnosed with Apsergers Syndrome, Social Anxiety and Depression I think that self medicating with Alcohol is a viable option to live a decent life CMV | When I say self medicating I don't mean getting hammered in social situations however the difference between me sober and quite tipsy is huge.
I feel like a totally different person when i'm drunk, I can talk to people more openly, empathize with them more, I'm much more flirty (I've only ever kissed girls under the i... | 26 | Yes, to a certain extent many people who suffer with social anxiety use alcohol to calm down their nerves, but the problem is that the alcohol eventually becomes like a crutch if not used properly and can lead to dependency issues.
| 12 |
ELI5: Why does electricity "fork" or move in a "branch out" pattern? | 34 | Electricity takes **all** the paths at the same time. However, the lower the resistance, the greater the fraction of the current that takes that path. It turns out that a few paths have less resistance, and almost all the current takes those paths. If there is a fork, then at that time there are two paths with equal... | 26 | |
ELI5: How do deserts form? Where are those sands coming from? | 34 | So let's limit this to the classic Sahara-type "desert" with sand dunes and dry landscapes.
One of the main factors that turns a normal place into a desert of that sort is an absence of water. This prevents plants from growing, and in turn removes the normal process of plants capturing carbon dioxide from the air and ... | 29 | |
CMV: You can be racist to white people | Recently, my elementary school going brothers were learning about racism and anti-racism in their schools. I asked the question - can you be racist towards white people? My youngest brother (age 11), thought about it and said no. My other younger brother (age 15) said yes. Naturally, this led to a good discussion and w... | 129 | Here are some tips that may save you a lot of time:
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1. This question is incredibly common in CMV. If you want some insightful answers, just search "racist to white people" in the delta search.
2. The long QAs almost inevitably end up being a definition debate. The definition debate takes the following fo... | 26 |
CMV: Candy and Alcohol should be banned from advertising just like Cigarettes | I am not advocating that candy and alcohol not be sold at all because that is in my opinion unreasonable due to how we would create a similar situation as the prohibition period. However, i do think these unhealthy foods should not be allowed to advertise just like cigarette brands cannot. Candy and alcohol contribute ... | 91 | That opens the door to the government banning advertisements of anything they think is unhealthy or dangerous. In the past, that would have extended to things like book, movies, cars, city living, or immigrants. | 66 |
If it wasn't for air resistance would balloons rise with the same acceleration as gravity? | I realize that there needs to be air for the balloon to rise | 95 | Ignoring air resistance, the forces on the balloon are gravity and buoyancy.
F = rho_air * V_balloon * g - m_balloon * g
where rho is a density, and g is the gravitational acceleration. We can also write
V_balloon = m_balloon / rho_balloon
so
F = m_balloon*g*(rho_air/rho_balloon - 1)
Newton II says F... | 49 |
ELI5: How come that aerial bombs from WW2 are still found e.g. in Berlin nowadays? Weren't they visible after having been dropped? Why did they build over them? | 722 | Many of them ended up being covered by the rubble from other bombs dropped in the same area. Bombs were often dropped in clusters and by groups of bombers, so overlapping blast debris isn't uncommon. Once they ended up covered by rubble, nobody knew that they were there and they were bulldozed with the rest of the terr... | 520 | |
ELI5: Why are people either Righties or Lefties and not all ambidextrous? What makes us either a Righty or a Leftie? | 31 | Some scientists think it has to do with how our brains divide up the labor, such as since most people use left side of the brain to do fine motor skills (aka speaking and handiwork), and left hemisphere of the brain control right side of the body, most of us are right handed.
of course, there's also genetic contributi... | 11 | |
ELI5: This paper which proves that coin-flipping is actually biased & not a 50-50 proposition. | [This](http://comptop.stanford.edu/u/preprints/heads.pdf) paper has some rigorous physics & mathematics which I can't wrap my head around. Can someone ELI5 ? | 16 | Pushing past the intense math, basically they are saying that if you flip a coin with the same force, without spinning it around multiple axes, it is no longer random because it will always land the same way.
So if you get really good at flipping a coin a certain way with the same flick, to the point where you can get... | 15 |
Is Buddhism a philosophy or a religion? | 106 | In areas where Buddhism is traditionally prevalent, there is no idea of 'religion' and 'philosophy' as being different things.
*Religion* as an analytical category is a Western invention. In Tibetan and Sanskrit, two languages traditionally used in Buddhism, there isn't really a word for religion. Buddhist writers re... | 171 | |
For everyone with technical questions about science (how to troubleshoot instrument problems, how to approach a reaction, etc...), I have created a new subreddit. (Sorry for cluttering r/AskScience) | Go to [r/AskSciTech](http://www.reddit.com/r/AskSciTech/) and post away. These questions don't really fit into the theme of r/AskScience and are too specific for r/AskReddit. I hope you all enjoy and become active members. Thanks. | 143 | So would the idea of r/AskSciTech be to field questions such as: "I want to measure galactic cosmic rays, what methods are available?" and "What is the best way to digest calcium carbonate off rocks?". | 19 |
[Star Wars] If Jabba had ordered Han and Chewie to carry out an assassination/mob hit would they have done it? | So it seems to me that while wet work isn't Han's expertise he doesn't have any problem with killing people, stormtroopers and rival gang member mostly, in the course of his criminal enterprises. This begs the question would Han and Chewie be willing to do that sort of work for Jabba if he'd asked/ordered? | 35 | No. Han and chewie are criminals and willing to kill for a reasonable cause but aren't killers. They'd ask/beg jabba for anything else since they're better smugglers and gamblers than killers. If Jabba forced the issue they'd find a way to avoid killing the target and instead kidnap them for Jabba or find a way to scar... | 46 |
There is no viable alternative to capitalism, though the current system can be altered to serve people's needs. CMV | (I've tried researching discussions on this topic before but I only found ones involving incredibly biased participants. Hope you guys can do better)
I honestly don't understand how there is a significant number of people who believe that capitalism* can be replaced. History shows that absolutely no ruler in a sociali... | 56 | Your argument assumes incorrectly that the economic system and the government are identical. Capitalism is not a system of government, and socialism is not a lack of government. You could just as easily have a totalitarian capitalist state as you could have a democratic socialist state. So in the interests of of a litt... | 26 |
ELI5:Why does it thunder when it rains but almost never when it snows? | 2,323 | Lightning (and the resulting thunder) typically occur in an unstable atmosphere. An unstable atmosphere occurs when cool air is above warm air (warm air rises). This is a very common thing to happen during the summer in the United States, thus we hear a lot of thunder here. During the winter, the atmosphere is typic... | 1,260 | |
[Dragon Ball Z] What if Bardock had went to earth with Goku? | * Remove everything from the retcon from Dragon Ball Minus. Work with the Bardock from "The Father of Goku" movie. This one probably hooked up with some female Saiyan to have Goku, maybe Fasha or whatever.
Scenario: Bardock does not make a last stand, and the saiyans still get destroyed. He takes a ship and goes to fi... | 16 | Bardock sends Kakarot off (no one but Gohan ever called him Goku) with Bulma because why not, worst case he can probably eat her. Brardok keeps his training up but generally considers Earth a bit of a backwater where he is hiding out. Kakarot keeps his desire to get stronger, but probably acts more like Raditz.
&a... | 20 |
[Fresh Prince of Bel Air] How did Will manage to seamlessly transfer from a potentially below average high school in the ghettos of Philadelphia into a top private school in Bel Air? | 470 | Will was actually always a good student, he brought his text books home hidden in a pizza box. He would have no problem with any entrance exams Bel Air academy had. On top of that a lot of private schools have rules about letting siblings in as a legacy even if they dont meet the enterance requirements. | 547 | |
ELI5: Why did colonial armies fight by lining up in large blocks and attacking head-on? What were the advantages? | 24 | Lack of firepower from an individual soldier. Each soldier carried a musket that could fire two rounds a minute not very accurately. It could also have a bayonet mounted on it to turn it into a short spear, or be used as a bludgeoning tool in a melee attack. With these limits, if a small group of soldiers met a larger ... | 30 | |
Can a star be so hot it is invisible to the naked eye? | The hotter a star is the higher the frequency at which it glows. So can it be so hot that it is 'glowing' at x-ray frequency and is invisible to normal light? | 109 | No. As temperature increases, the intensity of every wavelength always and only increases. Different wavelengths increase more than others, causing the peak to shift, but still the intensity everywhere increases. If it's glowing at X-ray frequencies, it also glowing quite brightly in the visible as well. | 119 |
How would it impact the economy if Americans ditched consumerism en masse, saving and investing most of their disposable income instead? | Something I hear occasionally on /r/financialindependence (a community about saving most of one's income to invest in assets to be able to retire very early) is stuff like "good thing most people spend everything lol, if most people were like us the reduced consumption would crash the economy".
But is that really the ... | 74 | >But is that really the case? Since both consumption and investment are part of GDP, shouldn't reducing consumption and just redirecting all that money to investment have zero net impact?
No. Consumption now determines the level of GDP now. Savings being for this purpose essentially the same as investments, might l... | 73 |
ELI5: How come when im expecting something to happen (like a jump scare) I get spooked/jumped more than I would not expecting it? | 37 | If you're expecting it, your fight or flight response is already readied and your body and mind are focused and tense. However, in a situation where you're not expecting anything, there's a delay between when the stimulus is registered and the body reacts. There's less built up tension and prepared response with a rand... | 25 | |
CMV: Ethical Vegetarians are inherently selfish. | The ethical argument for being vegan or vegetarian is that animals shouldn't be used, abused, and killed for our own unnecessary pleasure. That's not what this CMV is about, though. Vegans live by this belief by not eating meat, dairy, eggs, wearing leather, wool, etc. while vegetarians just don't eat meat but DO eat e... | 40 | Causing less harm is still better and less selfish than causing more harm (even if there are those that cause even less harm). Or are you saying that "ethical vegetarians" only don't eat meat because they don't like the taste of it? | 38 |
How difficult is it to provide cell service on underground services such as subways? | If we can have cell assisted Internet access on above ground services like trains why can we not do the same underground? | 291 | Very good question. It depends. If you put your transmitter above ground, it is almost impossible to get the signals deep underground and it would be a waste of energy to try to. If you put transmitters inside a tunnel you can actually reach quite far with them because the signals would reflect a lot. So we could do it... | 94 |
ELI5: How come human infants are (seemingly) much needier and more frail than any other infant animals in the animal kingdom? | 30 | Humans are born with underdeveloped brains. This is for multiple reasons such as we grow up to have really huge brains and that'd kill the mother during birth. Another reason is that the human brain evolved to learn rather than just be filled with extincts. We start off behind and then catch up and overtake by a lot... | 28 | |
[Marvel] Can Flora Colossi produce speech using the same phonemes as, but in a different order to the phrase "I am Groot" ? | Hypothetically it should be able to produce words such as Arm, Room, and even Rhyme, no? | 24 | Possible, but likely very difficult.
When you hear "I am Groot" that's mostly a side-effect of the Flora Colossi speaking. It' s unlikely that they're even consciously forming those sounds. Imagine if we met a species who communicated using the specific way they flex their diaphragms. We too flex our diaphragms whe... | 14 |
[Mass Effect] How much does the Shadow Broker know? | I know that the Shadow Broker has agents everywhere (supposedly), but how much does the Shadow Broker know? All information has a price, even if the price may not be huge.
Can I get the insider stock tips on Elkoss Combine?
Can I get the latest EKG results of Councilor Valern?
The schematics for Eldfell-Ashland's ne... | 18 | The Shadow Broker likely only knows those things that have enough value to turn a profit. To him, her or it, information is a commodity like any other and it's only worth purchasing those secrets that offer a return on investment in credits or favors greater to the amount spent.
If knowing that your wife is cheating ... | 12 |
Why does this wrench with 50,000 amps current running through it appear to heat up from the edges inward? | I would expect since roughly the same amount of electricity is flowing through the whole thing that it would heat more evenly. What's going on?
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[https://i.imgur.com/Um00Qdr.gifv](https://i.imgur.com/Um00Qdr.gifv) | 160 | I'd also like to point out that there's no way there's 50k amps going through that. Even if the wrench had a resistance of 0.001 ohms, that would still be over 2 million watts and the whole thing would have instantly vaporized. | 125 |
The US has a ~6% inflation, but the $ went up ? | Hi, me and my boyfriend have been stumped by this question, we don't know a LOT about economics so the answer might be really simple.
We both live in France, but he works for the US, and is paid a US salary in dollars. When he gets his salary in his account, the money is transfered to €. In recent months, his € salary ... | 35 | Prices of consumer goods are sticky, but exchange rates are not sticky.
This means it's possible to forecast medium term inflation from past price data. But you cannot forecast exchange rates from past price data.
For a simpler example, say Apple announces that it will raise the price of iPhones in one month because ... | 28 |
[Marvel] I'm in a Karate kid scenario where I have to become a competent fighter and 3 experts are offering to train me. One is Steve Rogers, one is Matt Murdoch, and one is Danny Rand. What can each mentor offer me that the other 2 can't? | 427 | I'd go with Cap. He'll put you through brutal workouts and give you the willpower to complete them. His encouragement and leadership skills will push you farther than the other two possibly could, and his fighting is grounded in practicality. He'll give you the best baseline competence most quickly.
Danny Rand is a... | 485 | |
If humans need connection to other humans to survive and thrive; why do so many humans hate being around other humans? | 92 | People need other people, but often, the particular people available aren't capable of meeting specific needs.
So we end up needing people, but not *those* people, and many eventually give up trying to find their people. | 73 | |
[Star Wars] How was the blockade of Naboo "perfectly legal"? | Do we know when a private group blockading an entire planet became ok? That seems like an insane proposition. Could you imagine if some shipping company decided to blockade an entire island nation here on Earth? | 117 | It's not. This is rhetoric by the trade federation, who are acting under prior instructions. Calling it legal allows them to stall for time and makes sure the blockade actually takes effect. They're unhappy about something the Naboo government is doing, they have droids to back it up, so they hold everything up.
It... | 130 |
ELI5: Why has the fasces symbol, which is often associated with fascism, been incorporated by so many official offices and institutions in the United States? | Before you ask, no I'm not a conspiracy nut, but I genuinely want an explanation because I'm curious.
[The fasces symbol](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ce/Fascist_symbol.svg) is often associated with fascist movements, along with the [Swastika](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/Fla... | 24 | You've got it backwards. The fasces was a symbol of power which the fascists adopted later, just like how the swastika was a symbols before it was adopted by the Nazis.
It was a symbol of government power going back to the Roman empire, and the founding fathers, who attempted to emulate Rome, adopted it themselves. Mu... | 56 |
I don't think religion deserves respect. CMV | I think that religions are almost laughable, that everyone that follows them is extremely gullible. I am open to the concept of religion, I just "haven't seen the light". | 36 | If you don't respect if for the fact that you don't have faith, and trust me, neither do I. It should be respected in the fact that it should be studied and well understood from a balanced academic view because of its effect its had on world history. Islam in Middle Eastern History, Hinduism in India, Christianity acro... | 22 |
What is the essential difference between the first three Ways of Thomas Aquinas? Aren't they referring to the same thing? | I am talking about the following Ways/arguments: the argument from motion, the argument from causation and the argument from contingency.
Aren't all of these argument describing the same idea: that there should be an initial uncaused cause that has caused everything in existence?
Aren't these three arguments just the... | 23 | > Aren't these three arguments just the Cosmological argument?
Yes, they are cosmological arguments. There isn't one single cosmological argument. They differ with regard to causation and contingency. | 10 |
[Dungeons & Dragons] Outsiders don't have a soul that's separate from their body, but "native outsiders" can be resurrected the same way mortals are. How does that work? | Both the thing with outsiders having wonky body/soul structures and how native outsiders can be revived like mortals when non-native outsiders can't. | 20 | >The souls of outsiders and elementals are so intrinsically tied to the essence of their home planes that they evaporate into the fabric of the plane rather quickly. That's why it takes the true resurrection spell to bring them back from the dead; the magic must sift through the plane and reconstitute their disperse... | 11 |
ELI5: Why does the Isle of Man have a disproportionately high number of motorbike related deaths? | Even when you don't include those that take place during the Isle of Man TT, why are there so many motorbike related deaths on such a small island? | 78 | Just because a death doesn't occur as a *direct* result of the TT, it doesn't mean it's not TT-related.
Plenty of bikers go there all through the year and ride like they're Joey Dunlop - right up to the moment they discover they're not Joey Dunlop. | 45 |
Is electricity affected by gravity? | 43 | It is, in principle; electrons have mass and energy, and hence they are pulled by gravity.
In practice, the strength of gravity on an object with a mass of something like 10^-31 kilograms is imperceptible, especially in comparison the relatively huge effects of electric fields on electrons. So in almost every instance... | 46 | |
[Star Wars] Could someone master the force without becoming a jedi or joining the dark side? | 89 | Yes. The Jedi and Sith are two sides of the same coin, part of the same religion which is merely a way of looking at the force. The force exists independent of the Jedi/Sith and its possible to master it without the knowledge of training available from those organizations. It might be harder and require intense exper... | 90 | |
ELI5: If Canada is to legalize marijuana, what would happen to all the folks in jail convicted of marijuana crimes? And what would happen to the arrest records of those arrested for these crimes before it was legal? | 31 | Nothing. It was illegal when they did the crime, so they are still guilty. They might then go back and let people out, or commute people's sentences, but that would be a separate piece of legislation to do that. | 50 | |
Political Philosophy: Equality of Punishment? | Equality of justice is supposed to be a fundamental aspect of democratic societies. But it seems there are many difficulties in actually implementing it.
Let's say there's a law that punishes a crime with imprisonment of 3 months. Now for two different persons, this punishment can have different costs. One of them may... | 46 | many countries calculate fines on (serious) traffic violations as percentage of income, or a combination of fixed amount+percentage of income. the process is usually automated, so incentives to target "the rich" are not realy a problem. the reasoning behind all this is not necessarily to achieve equality in justice, bu... | 19 |
How did fish get in lakes and ponds? | Before humans started introducing fish to pond and lakes, how did fish naturally get in them? obviously if there is a river connecting them to an ocean or other body of water than that's an obvious answer, but what if there isn't any connection to other bodys of water? | 34 | most likely there used to be a connection to a body of water that either dried up or diverted away after a while. the fish left in the pond are the descendants of whatever fish happened to live in the area when the main water supply was cut off | 26 |
[MCU Infinity War] Weren’t Scarlet Witch and Vision more than a match for the aliens in the train station fight? | I just got the gist that they’re far more powerful than the three that came to help them, which ultimately forced the two aliens to retreat. Am I missing something, or not understanding their powers in the MCU? | 109 | Based on the fight turned out, no. In an even match, perhaps (head to /r/whowouldwin for a more questions on arena type fights), but in this case they were both taken by surprise by an enemy of unknown quantity and power and iirc their first indication something was amiss was when Vision was wounded, severely reducing ... | 156 |
Are there any defenses of feudalism as an economic system? | I am not a neo-feudalist or anything, I just need help with a DnD character. | 67 | Since questions like these are grounded in morality (as economics cant answer moral questions), I'd say most economists think liberal society is the most preferred society. Feudalism is at odds with liberalism. | 28 |
[MCU] How is it possible that only Hank Pym discovered the pym particles in the whole universe? | How come other intelligent creatures with more advanced technology(and maybe brain) haven't discovered their existence? | 49 | We don't know that some alien species hasn't found them.
We only know that Pym found them and was working with them. We also know that Pym found that unshielded work with them is... detrimental to mental well-being. | 61 |
ELI5: How do our hearts beat 24/7 without needing to take a break/rest period? | 3,661 | They’re hyper-specialist cells for just this purpose. Cardiac muscle cells ditch all the storage space and reproductive parts and max out on mitochondria.
100% power all the time.
They don’t need to save fuel, they’re in the heart and have first dibs on fuel.
They don’t need to have regenerative capacity, you’re do... | 10,152 | |
[Family Guy] Why don't the Child Protective Services do something about the abuse that Meg suffers from her parents? | Peter named her "Megatron". That alone should have been a huge red flag. | 437 | I think there was an episode, where Meg had enough and told all of em to kiss her ass and was about to leave. The threat of her leaving was causing her family to fall the fuck apart and we find out that shitting on Meg was the only thing keeping the family together, so she took one for a team that clearly doesn’t deser... | 382 |
ELI5: Why did historical diseases like the black death stop? | Like, we didn't come up with a cure or anything, why didn't it just keep killing | 16,553 | By the way people still get bubonic plague in some parts of the world, just not in endemic scale. Probably because of sanitation it’s not spread like it used to in Middle Ages. Still it’s not completely eradicated at all.
In general, infectious disease never keeps going forever in high rate, because as soon as number ... | 12,501 |
[Star wars] I am a mid ranking imperial officer on board the Executor who has made a mistake on a command decision. When confronted by Lord Vader I told the unaltered truth and made no attempts to hide my mistake. Prior to this I had a flawless record. Will I survive the encounter? | It has been two years since the empire lost the death star and a general broadcast order said to conserve replacement parts due to a supply shortage.
I was in command of a weapon's battery, one of the power conduits showed slight signs of damage but remained serviceable for standard use. I made the command decision n... | 168 | Most likely, yes. Vader is actually pretty chill as long as you follow basic workplace etiquette. Don't make fun of the guy's disability or his religion, and you will most likely survive any encounter with him. Even gross negligence would really only get you a brief choking as a warning. | 138 |
[General Fiction] Are there any stories where the existence is the afterlife is not only a confirmed part of the setting, but also actually affects how the characters think about death? | I was watching the latest season of the Magicians, and one of the main characters was pretty unbothered by the possibility of their imminent death because one of the consequences of their various adventures was that they knew the afterlife existed, they had a rough idea what it was like, and they knew they could be reu... | 43 | Order of the Stick takes place in a D&D universe so resurrection spells are available to anyone who can pay for them. Roy's girlfriend isn't really that broken up hearing about his death since they have the body and he didn't die of old age. There's still a whole story arc revolving around coming up with the expens... | 39 |
ELI5: How do stealth planes work and why can't radars detect them? | 20 | Radar works by shooting out invisible light waves in all directions. That light gets reflected back to the antenna which can detect it and based on any frequency/amplitude changes and signal lost it can determine the size of an object and its distance away.
Stealth planes operate on the basic principle of making sure ... | 17 | |
What is fire? | Essentially, is it a kind of plasma? Is it pure energy? What? | 54 | It's a reaction between oxygen and a fuel (usually a hydrocarbon or related compound) producing carbon dioxide and soot. The reaction is really hot so the products start to emit blackbody radiation, and also rises because hotter gas is less dense. | 41 |
ELI5: Nationalism and Globalism | Hi! I'm wondering about the stances of nationalism and globalism.
These are two political stances that I've heard about, and wondering exactly what they imply.
Thanks! | 29 | First, it's important to note that both of these are generally derogatory terms used to put down the political opposition. As such, you'll often see them miss used or applied in odd ways.
Nationalism: the belief that your nations interests must come first, regardless of the effects on other people or nations. A nation... | 15 |
[MCU] Does Iron Man have a Doctorate Degree? | Random thought. I don't think it's ever mentioned in the MCU, and that version of Tony seems like the type of person who'd skip getting an official degree just to prove how smart he already is. | 16 | comics Tony "only" got a double master's in engineering and physics no reason it would be different for mcu. when has parents died he probably left school under the very true idea that he was already beyond anything MIT could teach him. | 24 |
[Star Wars] What were the separatist planets grievances with the Republic? | Did the separatists have legitimate grievances? It seems like hundreds of systems joined Count Dooku for nothing and were then willing to trust their fate to droids. | 57 | The Trade Federation, intergalactic banking clan and several other powerful economic factions were disillusioned with the Republic as it was growing inefficient and full of corruption with a heavy bias towards the core worlds.
All of the problems of course were orchestrated by Palpatine to start a rebellion. | 43 |
If I hit a baseball with a bat, can the ball go faster than the speed that I'm swinging the bat? | I'm thinking of a ball that is stationary, like on a tee. I guess that maybe the question would work better for a golf ball now that I'm thinking about it.
If it is a pitched ball, can the ball ever go faster than the combined speed of the bat and the ball? Does it matter what the ball is made of, or how strong the p... | 17 | Yes, the ball can. Assuming an elastic collision, both kinetic energy and momentum of the system must be conserved. Focusing on the small period of time surrounding the hit of the ball, obeying these two conservation laws means that the ball can shoot off with a much higher velocity than the bat, because the bat has ... | 19 |
[Sandman] if the Endless are single entities that do one thing at a time, how do they affect all humans? | We see Death bringing...well, death to people. and doing the first phase of bringing people to the afterlife. We see her do this as a single entity that does only one thing at a time just like a regular earthly mortal animal would. Her actions, movements and thoughts move at human speed.
So how does Death kill all th... | 274 | We know Morpheus visits individual peoples dreams but also delegates much of his work to others (the Corinthian, Fiddler's Green, etc). There's enough infrastructure and support in place that the dreaming continues even in his absence (albeit slowly decaying).
Presumably Death's operation works the same way. She hand... | 182 |
[MCU]Why did Stane tried to kill Tony in Afghanistan? | 15 | Plausible deniability. Stane wanted control of Stark Industries, hence the implied assassination of Howard Stark. He already played the "car accident" card, don't want to be too suspicious. A reckless playboy getting blown up in the middle of a war zone wouldn't merit too much investigation. | 20 | |
[Star Wars] Why didn't Vader kill Admiral Piett? | Was the revelation to Luke far too upsetting to him, or did he have ah int it wasn't Piett's fault and that executing him would not have helped? | 71 | He killed Ozzel because he was an arrogant priss who thought he knew better than Vader. He screwed up a large military operation with his own pride.
He killed Needa because he had the Falcon dead to rights and lost it off his scope. Instead of continuing the search, he gave up. Vader probably knew the ship couldn't ha... | 109 |
eli5: If most electronic appliances' efficiency losses are through heat, does that mean that electric heaters are 100% efficient? | Edit:
Many thanks for your input everyone!
Just to clarify, I don't want to take into account the method of generating electricity or shipping it to the home, or the relative costs of gas and electricity. I just want to look at the heater itself! i.e. does 1500W of input into a heater produce 1500W of heat, for examp... | 1,061 | Yes, electric heaters convert 100% of the power that they consume into heat. So they have an efficiency of 100%.
Heat pumps move heat from one area (outside your house) to another area (inside your house) The amount of heat they move is typically about 3 times more than the power they consume. So the in terms of energ... | 922 |
ELI5:Why do banks get to charge 20% for credit cards and I only get 0.01% for a savings account? | Seems pretty unfair to me. | 109 | how exactly is that unfair? it is *their* services that *they* are providing for *their* price. they are allowed to do it because they are a business and are allowed to make profit and charge their customers for their services | 71 |
ELI5: how can NASA connect to distant planet rovers and far off satellites but there are still dead zones to cell phone coverage and internet connectivity on Earth | 22 | NASA's satellites have a clear line of sight between whatever's on Mars or in space.
On earth there's a ton of radiation interference and construction materials that block radio signals... cell signals are also based on towers on the ground. If you live 500 miles out in the woods and you're the only person there and ... | 22 | |
[Star Wars] Why was the Death Star falling to pieces around Luke while he was dragging Vader to the ship? | 37 | The reactor had just had a furious ball of Dark Side-fueled lightning dumped into it, and sections of the unshielded Death Star were being pounded by rebel forces, and the *Executor* had just crashed into the side of the thing. The station was in horrible shape already, the destruction of the central core was just the ... | 76 | |
CMV: Deadpool is one of the most annoying characters I've ever seen. | 86 | I would you encourage you to actually read some of his comics. Anything from the Joe Kelly run, Cable and Deadpool, or his most recent run.
Personally the arc "the good, the bad, and the ugly" (deadpool vol.4 15-19). Is the best comic arc that I've read in the last 5 years.
When Deadpool is done right he is a tragic... | 58 | |
CGP Grey said that Brown Dwarf Stars "blur the line" between what a planet is, and a star. What exactly differentiates a cool Brown Dwarf from a Gas Giant? | Are there other oddities in the universe that make the difference between certain stars and planets hard to define? What is the difference between extremely cool gas giants, and extremely cool stars? | 374 | There are a couple different ways you can draw the line between brown dwarfs and planets.
The most common one is that anything massive enough to fuse deuterium for a short time in the core is considered a brown dwarf. The pressure never gets high enough to stably fuse normal hydrogen like a star, but can fuse deuteriu... | 86 |
ELI5: What is the feeling in my stomach when i drive over a hill? | 34 | There’s a cast network of nerve connections within the body, handling messages between the spinal cord, the brain and other structures.When you hit the peak of a roller coaster and start dropping so quickly, things inside start to shift around.The liver and spleen are relatively secured by suspensory ligaments,But the ... | 25 | |
ELI5: how is there a color wheel if colors of light are on a linear spectrum? | 32 | It’s an artifact of human vision. The human eye can only detect the amount that our red, green, and blue color sensing cells are triggered. Put red green and blue at equal distances around a circle, and all the other colors will appear to us to lie somewhere in between those regardless of where they lie on the wavele... | 60 | |
[Star Wars] So the jedi have 7 types of lightsaber combat. Do the Sith have any equivalent forms of combat? Or do they use their own forms? | 36 | There are actually more than just 7 forms. There is the Vapaad variation on Juyo, Jar'Kai and forms dedicated to specific weapons, the saberstaff, saberpike, and lightwhip.
I'd assume we can infer from this that there would also be a dedicated form for crossguard lightsabers.
But the answer is no.
Consider that the ... | 31 | |
[Far Cry 5] what did the Peggies do to all the cars in the county? | I hope this works. Not sure how many of my fellow Cougars remember the ebulletin board at the library. It's hosted local, so we can still get to it. (Though it hasn't really been that big of a deal. I've been talking to people all week as far away as Georgia with my HAM radio. And when I get really antsy I just grab on... | 25 | It's a weird cultural thing around here. Folks drive with their hands on the door latch. Lots of times it's that they're antsy about getting out, but half of it is just habit.
They get shot, they twitch, the door opens, and they fall out. Simple as that. | 21 |
How "accepted" is Feser's thesis that modern philosophy emerged out of a *desire* to displace scholastic Aristotelianism? | He makes this argument in *The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism*.
He basically maintains that if the metaphysical assumptions of Aristotle/Aquinas/etc are accepted, then the idea of a God, the soul, objective morality, religion, etc. being true is almost inevitable. These assumptions include the dist... | 24 | The thesis you describe has not even negligible acceptance in the broader philosophical community. More than that, it's bad to the point of coming across like satire, and it would be good advice if you were encouraged to get your knowledge of modern thought from a different author.
Feser's account is unhistorical in a... | 31 |
ELI5: Why is Ronald Reagan held to be one of the best US presidents, even among scandals like Iran-Contra that would have destroyed the reputation of other presidents? | 1,216 | Two reasons.
* He was really, really, likable. He filled the stereotype of a friendly old grandpa very well, so many people are willing to overlook his scandals.
* The modern conservative movement holds him up as an example of all that a US president should be. His actual actions aren't even that consistent with mode... | 685 | |
[RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK] When Belloq opened the Ark of the Covenant, why were he and all of the Nazis killed, but Indy and Marion were not? | Indy told Marion to close her eyes and not to open them. Both of them survived, and everyone else present was killed.
Why?
Also, what is the range over which the Ark is lethal? | 254 | Because Indy was a scholar and knew Samuel 6:19
"And he smote the men of Bethshemesh, because they had looked into the ark of the Lord, even he smote of the people fifty thousand and threescore and ten men..."
The Nazis hadn't read their Bible. | 364 |
ELI5: Why does Scientology oppose Psychiatry so vehemently? | 22 | Mostly because psychiatry offers explanations and treatments for things Scientology offers. Therapy and medications are better than E-meters and auditing, so Scientology wants rid of the competition. | 31 | |
ELI5: How do bodily functions work when someone is in a coma? | 31 | It's auto pilot; it just happens.
It's contained and managed most simply by briefs aka 'adult diapers' if you're not into promoting respect.
Specifically for urine: Texas/condom cath to mke it easier for caregivers. Maybe an indwelling cath, but this shouldn't be used as a long term solution. A suprapubic cath is a ... | 15 | |
What makes a virus airborne? Some viruses like chickenpox, smallpox and measles don't need "droplets" like coronavirus does. Does it have something to do with the size or composition of the capsid? | In this comment: https://old.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/fjhplb/what_makes_viruses_only_survive_in_water_droplets/fkqxhlu/
he says:
> Depending on the composition of the viral capsid, some viruses can be relatively more robust while others can never survive outside of blood.
I'm curious if size is the only ... | 4,222 | Size does play a role. But, in general, the big difference is between enveloped and non-enveloped viruses.
Some viruses have a capsid that is surrounded by a fatty "envelope." Fats, or more precisely here lipids, are more susceptible to disruption by things like soap, acid, or alcohol. If the envelope is destroyed, th... | 896 |
[Star Wars] Did Luke Skywalker even love his Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru? Because apart from being briefly sad after discovering their burnt corpses, he never mentions them again. | It seems rather cold blooded and sociopathic that the same guy who’s sensitive enough to try and save his mass murderer father from the Dark Side with love, can’t even bother to shed a tear for, his all intents and purposes, parents.
Hell Leia can’t even bother naming her only son after one of them. Just this smelly ... | 303 | Of course he loved them.
Unfortunately for us we only get to see a small slice of their relationship before and after their deaths, but in that few moments we can see a lot.
All Luke wanted to do was leave Tattooine, find a life somewhere. However the first real opportunity that he gets, when Obi-Wan offers him a cha... | 312 |
ELI5: why traditional Catholics are upset with Pope Francis. | http://news.yahoo.com/popes-foot-wash-final-straw-traditionalists-004235548.html
This article says that traditionalists are upset with Pope Francis' "militant humility." As someone born Protestant I don't understand why this is actually a thing. Can someone lay this bag of snakes out? | 18 | There's a line of thought in traditionalist Catholicism that the church isn't *supposed* to be all that humble. We're supposed to be a beacon of light to the world, they argue, and parading around in fancy gold stuff helps people notice the beacon. | 17 |
Is there a point somewhere inside Jupiter where the matter above you and the matter below you gives you a net gravity of 1 G? | Of course, I'm sure there'd be plenty of other things to worry about, like pressure and temperature and electrical storms, but regardless of all that, does such a point exist? | 91 | It does exist, it's where the amount of mass below you is exactly the same as the mass of the Earth. The mass above you does not contribute at all to the gravitational pull on you.
**edit** See sxbennett's reply for an important caveat. | 37 |
ELI5: Is there a practical reason for a car's driver to be on the side rather than the middle? | 203 | Others have mentioned the proximity to the door. The only thing their answers don't explain is why cars with front bench seats (which are rare these days, but used to be common) don't have the driver in the middle. This is because of a couple of reasons. First, the steering column. This is a relatively straight piece o... | 229 | |
[General fantasy] Do Lawful Evil characters generally have more in common with Lawful Good characters or Chaotic Evil characters? | If put into a situation where they were forced to "team up" one way or the other how would they go? | 73 | Lawful characters by default would work better together, due to the shared nature of lawfulness. While transgressions would be better accepted by a CE character, otherwise cooperation would be hindered by their...*personal* interpretation of the cause.
For example, in Planescape there's an example in the form of the M... | 74 |
ELI5: Why are vanilla flavored items always white, when the bean itself is dark? | 16 | Vanilla flavored items are typically flavored using vanilla extract, as opposed to using the actual bean. The extract is made by submerging the beans in a liquid solution which then absorbs the flavor. The vanilla extract is actually yellowish. This is why a lot of vanilla ice cream has a yellow tint. If the ice cream ... | 13 | |
Does a cancerous cell still does it job as a cell i.e would a cancerous kidney cell still filter blood? | 293 | Sometimes. Cancer cells are generally bad at their jobs.
Melanocytes make melanin, a pigment that gives skin color. Most melanomas are dark-colored from overactive melanocytes that are still doing their job, albeit in a disorganized out-of-control fashion.
Some melanomas are depigmented. These look more like an expan... | 187 | |
[Marvel/DC] Has there ever been an immortal who's not a megalomaniac or an arrogant god? | The immortals either think we need to be their slaves or we are not worthy of them. Has there ever been an average Joe type immortal who lives among us? | 17 | The number of people who are "immortal" in one way or another in Marvel/DC is ridiculous. Can you be a little more specific? Do you mean something that transcends time and space like The-One-Above-All, or do you mean something lesser like Wolverine? | 39 |
How do stock trading companies, like Robinhood, get access to the NASDAQ and NYSE? Is there an API that allows anyone to connect to these exchanges? | 72 | There are many 'private' API's companies use to exchange data. So it's not 'anyone', but it often is 'an API'. But you won't be able to access these private API's without signing a contract (and generally paying money). | 37 | |
ELI5: Why does only one sperm cell get to fertilize the egg? How is multi-sperm fertilization prevented and does this prevention ever fail? | 18 | So, there are 2 main ways this prevention of polyspermy happens.
1st, there is a fast reaction by the egg upon sperm entry. It depolarizes the membrane, which prevents other sperm from being able to bind to it. Kinda like a magnet.
2nd, is a slow reaction. It is the hardening of this egg membrane, which is called co... | 29 | |
CMV: Vocational school is just as difficult as a university (relatively speaking) | Why is vocational school often recommended for people who aren't college material/ intelligent? Trades and vocational school are still difficult and require intelligence. Whether it be electrical, welding, HVAC, etc it still requires math, reading comprehension and basic skills.
Why is it viewed that a welding class o... | 19 | Oftentimes, people who are bad at school are bad at particular aspects of schooling, such as classroom learning and dealing with high levels of abstraction.
For many people, practical applications of math or engineering principles are much easier than purely abstract mathematics, even if the core concepts are the same... | 17 |
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