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[MCU] How much of Captain America’s life would actually be in Rogers: The Musical? | I assume most of *The Winter Soldier* and *Civil War* is classified information, so how would that be represented in the musical? | 48 | Winter Soldier is 100% public since Natasha dumped the files and then testified to the Senate. The musical probably covers his creation and WWII adventure as Act I, Act II is probably him being unfrozen and forming the Avengers and finding Bucky. It probably ends with Civil War. Act III is probably the fight against Th... | 65 |
[MCU] How is the Winter Soldier a covert operative? | Hydra is a very subtle, secretive organization, right? If that's the case, shouldn't their main assassin be someone who sneaks around and blends in? A masked man with a metal arm would raise a lot of red flags at most secure installations. How does the Winter Soldier enter and leave these places without every law enfor... | 189 | The Winter Soldier is stealthy in the same way that a B2 bomber is.
You don't see him coming, but when he gets there he blows everything and everyone the fuck up.
Don't think of him as a "secret agent", but rather as a tactical ballistic missile | 223 |
[40K] In his final confrontation with Horus, the Emperor of Mankind executes Horus without allowing him a duel and emerges unscathed. Is mankind any better off? | Everything occurs as it does in canon, except after seeing the corpse of Sanguinius at the feet of Horus, the Emperor makes his judgement: there can be no redemption for Horus. Rather than engaging in the duel that left him so horribly wounded, the Emperor of Mankind immediately unleashes his wrath upon Horus and oblit... | 21 | Of course.
With the Heresy defeated, an unscathed Master of Mankind would likely would have been able to figure out a solution to the Webway breach in the Imperial Palace. The Emperor has held the breach shut for 10,000 years despite being a few cells from becoming a complete corpse. If He hadn't suffered the terribl... | 30 |
ELI5: When and How Was Earth Discovered to be Round? | Before you ask, no I didn't have any encounters with people who claimed Earth was flat. I'm just curious. | 16 | There was once a man named Eratosthenes in Ancient Greece.
He found in some books a record of a notable occurrence in a town called Syene, in which on the summer solstice at noon, objects would not cast shadows, and you could look all the way down wells.
He realized that meant the sun would have to be EXACTLY overh... | 43 |
[Marvel/DC] Are technopaths susceptible to computer viruses? | 31 | Depends on the technopath and depends on the virus. They aren't gonna catch some random adware designed for PC any more than someone using a MAC would, but a specially designed virus could do it. It also somewhat depends on the technopath, some control the technology as a form of limited telekinises as opposed to int... | 19 | |
[SCP Foundation] What is life like for those in the employ of the foundation? | Whether voluntary (security, MTF, agents, scientist, support staff) or involuntary (class D or others like them). What's life like on base for those that live there, and what's life outside of work for those that just have a 9-5? Do they get paid reasonably Well? Turnover rate? Mortality rate? Getting sucked up into a... | 53 | For most, horrible. Boredom, bureaucracy, rumors, and dread, punctuated by moments of extreme stress or fear. The constant need to lie because of your job, and the knowledge that your superiors are also lying to you because of *their* job. Either you die horribly or live long enough to see your friends die horribly. Ha... | 55 |
Eli5 what is it about alcohol/fermentation that makes it almost universally make everything drunk? | Insects get drunk. Elephants get drunk and everything in between. Is it the only chemical that has this type of effect on everything that consumes it? | 48 | Ok I’m not sure how ELI5 this answer will be, but I’ll try and I’m happy to clarify anything.
Alcohol acts as an intoxicant for a few reasons. First it can pass the blood brain barrier in humans and virtually all mammals, and for animals without such a barrier it’s even easier for them to become intoxicated. Second, ... | 54 |
[General] I'm a fat guy who recently started working out. I've lost about 20 pounds and was hoping to lose another 80 or so. Last night I was turned into a vampire. Am I stuck this way forever? | I've done a lot of reading but I don't see any fat guys in vampire lore. What are the macros for blood? Is it even worth it to keep working out? What are my options? Help, the clothing sizes in this leather fetish catalog only go up to XXL. | 19 | Depends on the vampire.
Strigoi, traditional Slavic Vampires, always become thin and almost skeletal.
Strain Vampires become the same.
Blade vampires seem to have normal metabolic functions, and can get fat if they consume too much or are too sedentary. This indicates they can also lose weight.
Anne Rice vampire... | 33 |
[Marvel] Don't the heroes have any problem with how SHIELD works? | SHIELD is an overbearing militaristic organization without any oversight. Its jurisdiction reaches the whole world, its competence is limitless. Given the right circumstances, SHIELD's director can take complete command over the three branches of power in a country, essentially becoming a non-elected dictator. They hav... | 43 | They have a very big problem when S.H.I.E.L.D. violates due process and sovereignty. This was pretty much the theme of the Secret War and Civil War storylines. In Secret War, Captain America straight-up punches Nick Fury in the face and in Civil War he leads a superhuman resistance against the superhuman registration a... | 47 |
[DC] If Batman intentionally acted like he couldn't solve a riddle and allowed Riddler to believe he was smarter, would Nygma go away? | I know Batman has to save people, but some of his riddles are just simple riddles and I'm curious if it would be better for Batman to just humor him. I mean proving his superiority is basically Edward's reason to exist. | 52 | Not really.
Riddler has a very explicit compulsion to prove that he's not just smarter than Batman, but pretty much everyone else in the world. Batman just happens to be the person perpetually in front of that line to Edward.
If he thought Batman was actually beneath him (which he actually perpetually does because of... | 50 |
[Avatar] Does Toph have any way to defend against a flying jump-kick? | 33 | Probably, she would detect them jumping off the ground, and as long as they can't change directions mid-air, she could just throw up some rocks in their face. Which is why she had so much trouble with Aang-he could change directions mid-air without touching the ground, so she had no idea where he would be going. She's ... | 66 | |
ELI5: How did "s" become the letter that pluralises nouns ("one apple, ten apples") in so many languages? | 1,403 | Around the time of the late Roman Empire, c. 400 a.d., the western Roman Empire was breaking apart. Latin broke apart with it. North and west of the Italian peninsula, we think, people started to speak their latin in a different way than people to the east and south of the Italian peninsula. In the west, they started g... | 1,154 | |
Why is there ringing in your ears in complete silence? | 35 | there are little tiny "hairs" in your ear that are actually very sensitive cells that detect vibrations in the air that you brain interprets, thus, you can hear things.
Sometimes, these little "hairs" get flattened out, by a very loud sound or by a natural quirk in your body. The ringing you hear is the the cells str... | 22 | |
[Mass Effect]How did The Illusive Man earn all his money, before Cerberus? | I’m not asking about how Cerberus earns its money, that’s well established, but how did TIM get Cerberus going in the first place/how did he make his bank before it? | 16 | What we know is that he was a regular civilian before becoming the Illusive man and his first action to gain notice by general media was an email calling for humans to dominate and rule every other species. Basically he started out as an internet troll who gained some clout for getting on the news. He was able to get l... | 19 |
How is behaviour innate? How can animals replicate behaviour that they have never observed? | So, I know that some behaviour in animals is innate, I also understand why, but I don't understand how (except reflexes). Like, how do animals know mating rituals, or what to do when they see another animal, or how to hunt, or howl, etc.. And I know that there are instincts, but where do they come from? As in, what par... | 17 | Those types of behaviors are similar to reflexes, they are “hard wired” and are initiated by an environmental cue. Often it is a series of behaviors that are initiated...an environmental cue initiated one behavior, and that behavior initiates a second behavior, and so on. Essentially, they are behavior patterns that do... | 12 |
ELI5: How were people like Galileo and Newton able to make such accurate theories about space and the solar system using such simple telescopes? | 21 | The solar system bodies Galileo was theorizing about were visible to the naked eye, without telescopes. Most of the data their theories explained (ie. movement of the planets, the sun and the moon across the sky) were recorded in great detail by his predecessors. They also already had multiple models(including the Pto... | 11 | |
ELI5: What does polarized mean in the terms of sunglasses. | 318 | Imagine light is a bunch of little frisbees.
It's not, but bear with me. It's not waves or photons either.
Polarized glasses are like a set of vertical bars. The only frisbees that can get through are the ones tilted on their sides to pass between them.
Most light is randomly oriented, so while a bunch of the fri... | 776 | |
ELI5: why is necessary to keep water running when running disposal? | 67 | To cool and lubricate the grinder, and to wash off the screen inside. A garbage disposal basically grinds stuff up until it can pass through a sieve so anything that hinders that process will wear the system. | 67 | |
[Terminator] Back in the Cameron films, how did Skynet actually build the first Terminators and war machines? At the start of the war it seemed like it was just software on a bunch of servers. | 23 | Skynet hacked into various Pentagon, military contractor, and robotics computers, then downloaded all of their blueprints and software and designs. It then ran simulations to determine the optimal combat configurations needed for its war with humanity, then hijacked various automated factories and foundrys and started... | 33 | |
If an astronaut in the vacuum of space released a bag of flour, would the powder stick onto him/her? | You know...due to gravitational pull, since the human body (and the space suit) would proportionally weight a lot more than a speck of flour. This is also assuming there are no nearby objects with a greater gravitational pull.
Edit: Wow, thanks for the detailed answers.
Edit 2: I was thinking more along the lines o... | 460 | Intermolecular forces like electrostatic attraction and Van der Waals forces would be much much more significant than gravity for these small particles. In fact, the first dust bunnies that started coalescing when the solar system formed and would eventually become planets were first attracted by these weak forces, not... | 401 |
ELI5: basic beliefs of Taoism | 61 | Taoism can be summed up pretty generally as it all focuses pretty much around nature and being a natural and forefilling person;
Daoism (Taoism) 道統 (Daoism and Taoism are the same thing)
- A way of life (in China may be referred to as a religion)
- 'To go with the flow', be positive, to agree with most things, to enj... | 24 | |
The difference between copyright infringement and piracy | Can someone please explain the difference between copyright infringement and piracy. | 24 | Piracy is just a word used by the creative industries to demonise copyright infringement. Generally, ‘pirate’ is used to describe people who copy some kind of media (game, film, book, album) without the appropriate license.
It's essentially a bit stupid. Ok, copyright infringement is illegal. It is **not** in any sens... | 18 |
ELI5: Do dogs understand concepts like fish need water to live and humans need to be above water to live? | Im referring to videos like this: https://youtu.be/gBx1bi9BHDg
AND the constant drowning saving videos. | 100 | That dog is not trying to save the fish. He or she is trying to hide them so other dogs won't find them.
When dogs bury stuff, it doesn't look like it does in cartoons. It's exactly like in that video - they use their snouts to cover it up, and then carefully re-arrange the surroundings to make it look undisturbed.
... | 39 |
ELI5: how does corn pop into popcorn, and are there other seeds with this ability? | 46 | The water content of kernel expands as it is heated, turning to steam. When the internal pressure gets high enough the kernel explodes and the steam is released, leaving the starches crispy and perfect for crunching.
As to other seeds, it depends on hull thickness/toughness, water content, and potentially oil content.... | 16 | |
ELI5, How does an enclosed environment like a birds egg support a growing animal compared to a mammalian womb? How are waste products removed, are there hormones involved and how does the embryo receive oxygen? | 10,350 | Egg has two layers. When egg cools after being laid, the inside layer shrinks a bit, making an air pocket.
Egg has garbage sack called an allantois. Garbage sack does gas exchange through the air pocket and tiny holes in egg surface. Garbage sack holds liquid waste.
More or less.
Edit: several people have expresse... | 8,179 | |
ELI5 Why do truck wheels (the metal part) always go outwards in the front and inwards in the back | 64 | They are the exact same wheel. All of them. Now you don't have to carry 3 spares based on whether an inner dual or outer dual or front wheel blew out. Cheaper to make one type too.
Take off an outer wheel on the back and you'll see the inner looks exactly like the front now. Flip the outer rear around and you'll see ... | 34 | |
When we fall asleep what's to keep us from staying asleep? How does our body know when to wake up? | 39 | When we sleep, we are in an altered state of consciousness. We aren't consciously perceiving the things around us, but we still maintain a level of unconscious awareness, albeit the threshold for stimulus recognition is a bit higher while sleeping. So, that brings us to a couple of ways our body wakes up. We can either... | 15 | |
ELI5: How does a pressure cooker work? How does it cook the food faster and why the whistle? | 30 | When you bake cookies in an oven, a recipe specifies a certain temperature. But when you boil pasta, recipes only specify lengths of time, and those change depending on elevation. This is because substances undergoing phase transitions (with boiling, water is changing from a liquid to a gas) are restricted to one tempe... | 56 | |
How does LHC detect the subatomic particlesit discovers? | Or better. How will it detect unknown particles or anything alike if we dont know them or about them already? How can we detect something we ignore its existance? | 52 | The LHC has several detectors that work in different ways. This could be by particles impacting the sensor, disrupting a magnetic field or seeing tiny amounts of light given off.
The sensors detect something and the scientists can work out what set them off by the information they get - the mass of the particle hitt... | 11 |
What's the difference between carbonite and carbon dioxide? They both have the same formula . . . | 177 | Carbon dioxide is a neutral species. On the other hand, carbonite is a double charged ion, which can be written as [CO2]^(2-). In other words, if you find a way to remove the two excess electrons from carbonite you can get carbon dioxide. | 93 | |
[DC] Is there truth to the rumour that, if Flash went fast enough, he'd accelerate his ageing process? | 19 | No. He's gone faster than the speed of light, broken the barrier of speed itself, and run past the end of the universe. He still looks mid-twenties.
He'd age if there were some outside influences, but not from running alone. Besides, IIRC, one of the reasons Jay is still alive and active is because the Speed Force hel... | 13 | |
[Fallout] Whats Mr. Houses goal? | Setting up a lovely casino in the middle of the desert seems a rad underwhelming considering the resources he has at hand. Why is he merely interested in restarting Las Vegas as leaving the rest of the Mojave to itself? For one of the most powerful figures around, it seems rather underwhelming. | 18 | He wants to rebuild civilization under his guidance. He's doing that by temporarily making deals with other major powers to avoid conflict while accumulating wealth and influence (hence rebuilding the Strip to bring in money). Meanwhile he's looking into ways of gathering enough military strength (Platinum chip to upgr... | 29 |
Why can I sometimes see low-lit objects better with my peripheral vision as opposed to when I directly look at said object? | I'm thinking of looking at objects like stars at night - sometimes I feel like some stars are brighter in my peripheral than they are when I directly look at them. | 25 | Your eyes consist of two types of receptors called rods and cones.
Cones are good for high detailed and colour visual perception while rods are good better to detect movement especially in low light.
There's usually more rod receptors in your peripherals. | 26 |
[Pokémon] Why do some eggs from electric group hatch into a Pikachu and some eggs hatch into a Pichu who later develops into the Pikachu? | 26 | Eggs of the Pokemon world are not exactly eggs as you and me know them, but more like containers for baby pokemons to grow in.
And since Pichu evolves into Pikachu through leveling with high friendship with its trainer, I'd say an egg has a chance of hatching into Pikachu if the trainer bonded with the egg early on and... | 13 | |
ELI5: why are our voices deeper in the morning and more prone to cracking when trying to talk in a higher pitch? | 54 | I always thought it because our vocal cords relaxed while we slept, in effect making them longer and therefore producing deeper sounds. Like if you pluck a longer string you get a deeper sound than if you pluck a shorter one. | 10 | |
If an alien satellite comparable to Voyager passed through our solar system, would we see it? | I've always been fascinated by the Voyager satellites and the images and sounds they carry on their golden records. If a technologically comparable satellite from an alien race passed through our solar system, what are the chances we would discover it?
For those interested, here are images of some of the stuff sent o... | 113 | Not unless it was broadcasting a signal that we could receive. Despite being fairly large, these types of probes are tiny compared to other objects out there in space.
Tldr: No, unless it was broadcasting a signal.
**Edit for more info**:
As an example, Voyager 1 is about the size of an SUV. That may seem fairly ... | 33 |
ELI5: What exactly do the UK porn filters do? | I can still browse porn like I could before... So... Why is everyone so mad? | 15 | They only exist in the bigger ISPs, and only apply to new installations.
They work by compiling categories of websites, and refusing access to sites which match those. Based on the blocks in place, Claire Perry MP and others in support feel that children suffering from gender identity/sexuality issues, or wanting info... | 18 |
ELI5 If we know what chemicals make us happy and how, why cant we create a food or something that keeps us in a good mood permenantly without ruining our dopamine receptors? | 21 | We are only just scratching the surface in our understanding of how the brain works. We have seen that activating the dopamine and serotonin receptors tends to make people happy. But, there is an ocean-sized gap between that basic understanding and making a drug that will always make people happy with no side effects.
... | 27 | |
[LotR] What evidence of the first, second and third ages remains extant to present day? | Say I'm a billionaire with a passion for archeology and the Red Book of Westmarch. If I wanted to find evidence of the world the book posits actually existing, where should I look? Further, what should I be looking for both on Earth and off of it. | 51 | The most obvious should be Venus. The Star of Eärendil is supposed to be just that. That's both a relic of the Year of the Trees as well as the First Age since the Silmarils predate the First Age.
The other place I'd go looking for relics would be the ocean. Both Numenor and Beleriand got sunk and there should be some... | 33 |
CMV: Instead of an effort to keep immagrints out from Mexico, we should just fix Mexico. | This is something I've never heard anyone suggest so there may be something im not seeing that would render this idea obsolete.
But atm it makes sense to me to just fix the issues that make people want to leave Mexico in the first place like the corrupt government and Drug Cartels.
An argument i made to myself agains... | 33 | If we really wanted to fix Mexico we’d have to do more than give them money etc. By doing so we could be infringing upon Mexico’s sovereignty unless the Mexican government asks us to do so and even then it’s iffy. Global politics is just messy and you never know what could lead to conflict. | 14 |
Steps to becoming a professor? | Hi Academia! I'm currently getting my MS in Biology (Evolution and Ecology) and am trying to put together a plan for my future. I have 1 year left and then to defend my thesis. I will most likely go on to my PhD after, though I'm newly married so we have to figure out plans for a baby maybe in the next year or so and e... | 19 | >What are the hardest parts about getting a position?
There are very, *very* few of them, and you'll be in competition with people who are more established than you. People with a solid grant history and a list of publications as long as your arm. | 17 |
ELI5: How do copper wires and fiber optics (light) transmit data? | Hi,
I am currently studying computer networks and I have been reading about how data is transmitted via copper wires and fiber optics.
I understand the very basics of computers, data, logic gates and binary code.
However, currently I am struggling to wrap my head around how data can be transmitted by copper/lig... | 21 | Consider that you and a friend are on two hills far enough that your voices cannot carry but within sight of each other. You both have flashlights and know morse code. So by flashing the lights at each other you can send messages (ie data).
Instead of flashlights, assume you have a wire between the hills and one side... | 33 |
can we perceive without interpreting? | 22 | Jacob Bronowsky discusses this a bit in *The Origins of Knowledge and Interpretation*. The illustration he gives is the way that the eye converts light into the electrical signals that transmit it to the brain where it's reconstructed as images. The general implication of all this is that perception is, itself, an act ... | 10 | |
CMV: Despite the court ruling, public officials blocking social media users is NOT a violation of the First Amendment | I today read about a lawsuit filed against Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for blocking twitter users. I then backtracked to New York court rulings on Trump blocking twitter users, deeming it unconstitutional, in violation of the first amendment. So it’s a court decision that’s going to be a problem for elected officials of b... | 20 | This is one of those situations where it is very important to read the actual decision, rather than what the talking heads are saying about it.
There is a very important, but rarely mentioned, aspect of First Amendment law regarding _public forums_. The gist is that when the government establishes a public forum for ... | 30 |
ELI5: How come when you film a computer or TV screen it appears to have black bars running through it that you never normally see? | 18 | Simplest explanation is because of the way old monitors/TVs display their image at a slow frame rate and how the camera is recording at a different frame rate. During playback they’re out of sync so you start to see partial scans on the display.
Kinda like how a fast spinning wheel can look like it’s spinning backwar... | 13 | |
ELI5: What causes sunflowers to face towards the sun? What mechanism allows it to move on its own? | 80 | The fascinating phenomenon of flowers following the sun across the sky is called heliotropism. The sunflower plant contains hormones called auxins. These hormones are sensitive to sunlight and do everything they can to seek shade! Therefore, they migrate from the part of the plant bathed in sunlight to the shaded regio... | 99 | |
ELI5:Why was Greenwich Mean Time changed to Coordinated Universal Time? | 22 | It wasn't. GMT was changed to UT1.
GMT and UTC are actually completely different: GMT is time based on the *sun*. "Mean" in GMT refers to the fact that it is based on *mean* (i.e. average) solar time. On the other hand, UTC is *atomic* time, based on vibrations of radiation given off by atoms. At the precision of mil... | 20 | |
If kids in Fallout and Skyrim are invincible, why don't we make armor made of children? | . | 315 | Have you not noticed? You are special, you can kill a whole bandit camp no problem and heal the bullet to the face with a bottle of water. While most people are down and out with an arrow to the knee you take one to the balls, pull it out, spit on it, and shove it down your enemies throat. Facing 5 Super Mutants with L... | 247 |
Is it okay to create and name my own principles in my philosophy paper? | I was assigned a philosophy essay with a very traditional prompt. It's pretty open ended and has to be less than 2000 words. I kind of got carried away, becoming passionate about the question and I wrote what I think is a stellar paper. It's still less than 2k words, ready to be submitted, but I just feel like I was to... | 79 | This strikes me as a pretty tiny concern. Is the principle meaningfully defined? Does it avoid being unnecessarily duplicative of something in a source you were supposed to use? Is your use of it justified in the paper? Does it help you answer the assignment? Worry about the terms of the assignment, not some little... | 84 |
[Lord of the Rings] Why was everyone at the council of Elrond OK with Frodo taking the Ring? And since everyone went with him, why did the hostility towards each other about Elves/Dwarfs/man having the Ring just vanish when Frodo stepped up? | I understand it isn't necessarily Science Fiction, but I couldn't think of a better subreddit other than you guys.
Everyone at the Council was fighting over who should have the responsibility. Dwarfs didn't want Elves to have it and vice versa, and no one really wanted man to have it (since that went so well last time... | 63 | The reason people calm down when a Hobbit is given the ring is that Hobbits have little to no history or violence, at least on the scale of men and elves. They wont use the ring to conquer and control
They can be trusted because they have nothing to gain by abusing the rings power unlike the rest of the middle earth.
... | 92 |
ELI5: According to Statista, the District of Columbia has a per capita GDP of $178,442. Second place is Massachusetts at $75,258. How does DC generate such a massive GDP per capita when it is primarily the seat of government? How does government generate GDP? | [Link](https://www.statista.com/statistics/248063/per-capita-us-real-gross-domestic-product-gdp-by-state/) to Statista page.
[Link](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1065920/district-of-columbia-real-gdp-by-industry/) to page with breakdown of GDP | 548 | It has to do with how GDP is calculated.
If you live in DC and work as a lobbist making $500k per year by a company that is headquartered in California, your income counts towards DC's GDP.
Because DC is where the most valuable lobbying occurrs, as well as the most prestigeous lawyering, on behalf of groups throughou... | 451 |
I think that the whole self-driving car technology is overhyped and that there are a number of much more important aspects of automobile innovation that we should be focusing on first. CMV | This kind of started off as an argument with my roommates and I, however I recently noticed on thread here on Reddit (the one on what people 100 years from now will find barbaric that we find acceptable now) that my opinion seems to be the unpopular one on the matter.
I live in Toronto, which for all intents and purpo... | 22 | It just makes sense that machine driven cars can drive more efficiently than humans. Google's self-driving cars have yet to get in an accident after almost 300,000 cumulative miles on the road. This is with the cars being surrounded by humans who constantly make errors in judgment due to any number of reasons. Being... | 28 |
CMV: We shouldn't group people into generations, because all it does it pit people against eachother. | The generation groups that are currently alive right now are the Silent Generation, Baby Boomers, Generation X, Millenials, and Generation Z
My view is that people should not be grouped into these kind of generations, because all that it does is turns people against eachother, and doesn't provide any benefit for any o... | 146 | But it's useful for tracking cultural changes. For instance, the television technology and norms of boomers (not many networks, lots of shared experience), GenX (reruns, cable explosion, widely diverse experiences), and millennials (prestige TV, streaming, marathoning) is incredibly useful for studying how the medium ... | 43 |
ELI5:How did id Software's Quake engine lose ground in the '90s to where the Unreal engine became the game engine of choice? | 17 | Unreal's Engine was, quite simply, available.
Id was massively successful at licensing the Quake engine. The Q3 engine powered both the Medal of Honor: Allied Assault and Call of Duty, for example.
The problem was the next major release to come from the studio was Doom 3. As Doom 3 suffered long delays, so did the... | 12 | |
Why do matter and antimatter annihilate when they come into contact with each other? | 27 | Because each can turn into a particle with less mass in the process. That then increases the entropy of the system since there's more available ways of arranging the kinetic energy between the resulting particles. | 10 | |
cmv: There is no moral reason to not criminalize paternity fraud and mandate paternity tests at birth. | Paternity fraud is one of the most legitimately evil things still legal almost anywhere. No man should be tricked into unwillingly raising a child that is not his own.
It seems that legally, many places are actually moving in the opposite direction on this issue, such as France banning private paternity tests. This wa... | 879 | So you want to mandate that men give up their DNA? What if they don't comply? Because either you force men to give their DNA for examination or fundamentally its still their choice if a paternity test happens | 313 |
eli5 Why were Blue LEDs so hard to make that the team that did it won a nobel prize in physics for it. | Why was it so difficult to make blue LEDs. It ook 30 years longer apparently to make them than red and green ones, and they won the nobel prize in physics for it. | 1,276 | The actual invention of the blue LED was not that complicated and was not what won a Nobel prize. We figured out that adding magnesium to GaN would make a blue LED pretty early on.
The Nobel prize was won because the people figured out how to mass produce them.
The material behind the blue LED, Gallium Nitride (known... | 1,946 |
[The Devil Went Down to Georgia] How was the winner of the fiddle contest definitively decided? | The pieces both the Devil and Johnny play are so strikingly different to the point that you could argue your preference for either one. With no judges present, how did both agree that Johnny had bested the Devil?
Since he's infamous for, you know , being the Devil and more or less the centre of all evil why didn't he... | 283 | The Devil conceded. He's clearly an honourable gentleman who didn't anticipate actually losing.
Or arguably the Devil considered losing to be the better play. Isn't it pretty much implied that Johnny is still going to hell simply for making a deal with the Devil? | 340 |
CMV: In the "Trolley Problem" Scenario, I would never pull the lever. | **The Trolley Problem**
You witness an out of control train cart speeding down the tracks towards five people, who are tied to the tracks. However, you see a lever which will divert the train cart if pulled, and send the train down another track, but towards another person, who is also tied to the tracks.
Do you pul... | 36 | I find it interesting (maybe troubling!) that you find the action of making a _choice_ one that you're not culpable for, only the action or inaction that derives from this choice. You've exerted equivalent effort in decision making in the scenario where you _choose_ the individual over the group, yet you put culpabili... | 35 |
ELI5: Why is customer service waiting music on the phone so low quality? | 33 | Phones don't send audio at very high quality, just enough to allow you to understand what the other person is saying. In particular, a very common standard for phone call audio is 8 kbps, meaning you only get sound frequencies from 0 to 4000 Hz.
Now, 4000 Hz may seem pretty high (you can look it up), but all kinds of ... | 40 | |
ELI5: Meth. Why is it so horrible and what does it do to people? | I have no experience with meth but I see it referenced often. Shows I watch portray meth in vastly different ways.
What's the true nature of meth ?
I'm never going to try it, just curious. | 25 | It's so horrible because suddenly nothing else is of value anymore. You choose it over everything. It's always on your mind.
It does a variety of things to people. Being a stimulant it keep a you awake and suppresses appetite for around 24hrs. People often binge it so that this happens for days on end. They hallucina... | 42 |
Why can't bots read Captchas? | I've just always wondered. | 152 | In short: Captchas are designed to be unreadable for machines, hence bots shouldn't be able to read theb (but they are gettin better at it).
Programs that transform images into text face the problem that they get is in essence a big grid of color values. It says "well, pixel (x,y) is pretty black, pixel (x+1,y) is kin... | 96 |
ELI5 why do we have to install a specific Android OS for a specific phone when we can install Windows or Linux on any machine(x86) and expect it to work without too much problems? | Like, If want to install a custom rom(LineageOS) for my Galaxy s9, I have to use a build specifically built for the s9.
But when I go to install Windows10 or a Linux distro on my laptop, I can use one version of to install on any x86 machine.
Why do we need to make specific versions of android operating systems per a... | 100 | In comparison to phones, computers are very standardized in terms of their software architecture. Computers also enjoy an advantage in that an OS manufacturer (like Microsoft) can include a whole host of drivers to work with any combination of hardware, even if you don't use them all.
Phones don't have that advantage.... | 100 |
ELI5: Why exactly will the sun expand? | I'm trying to learn more about astrophysics, and one thing I can't wrap around is how the sun and other stars will expand near the end of their lifetime. The reason people give is that when the hydrogen in the core depletes, a star fuses heavier elements together and therefore the inner pressure "wins" against gravity.... | 15 | You have it backwards. The higher pressure *causes* the fusion of heavier nuclei (not atoms - electrons don't stick to nuclei at the temperatures found in stars).
More precisely, the chain of events looks like this:
* Before a star is born, a hydrogen cloud slowly collapses under its own gravity. Initially, this rais... | 27 |
[Halo Universe] If there wasn't a massive Covenant war happening, do most of the humans have pretty good quality-of-life? Do they live in a post-scarcity economy? | 18 | Outer territories sent the majority of their resources to core worlds like Reach and Earth, and this had been going on for long enough that they had entered a state of more or less open rebellion. The Spartans' first deployments were against human targets.
While the insurrection never officially ended, these outer wo... | 27 | |
[MCU] How much do the MK50/MK85 suits Weigh? | The armors are stored as nanobot dust inside of Tony's chestpiece. Even if the nanobots were stored with perfect efficiency at the density of Osmium the suit could at most only weigh a couple kilograms. | 15 | Its mass isn't fixed.
I imagine it runs on the same weird physics that allows the Hulk to grow from normal human size to weighing several tonnes.
The Law of Conservation of Mass is more like a mild suggestion in this universe. | 18 |
ELI5: How does the cooking method impact so much on the actual taste of the food? | Obviously I'm not talking about what you add during the different preparations, but just about the way you cook something.
Like boiling VS roasting broccoli. Boiled broccoli smells and tastes like death and despair, but the second you roast them they're absolutely delicious.
Or eggs, hard boiled eggs taste completel... | 15 | There's something called a Maillard reaction involving browning food, browning happens when you roast in the oven or sear in a pan on the stove, that intensifies the flavor of food. You can't get that when you oil or steam something. | 11 |
CMV: The “Africans sold their own people” statement as an argument to justify or dismiss American Slavery and the triangular trade is invalid. | If I had to take a shot every time I saw this statement on Reddit and Twitter whenever race is mentioned, I’d probably overdose. I’m not going to take a stance on any racial issue unless someone else decides to, but when people argue slavery the number one argument I see meant to dismiss (And sometimes even justify) sl... | 75 | Most slaves from Africa were born slaves. Had they remained in Africa, they would have still been slaves (along with their descendants). Slavery still flourishes in Africa, as it has for thousands of years.
Of course slavery is wrong. Who's fault was it though? Was it the American buyers or the African sellers? I'd sa... | 59 |
ELI5: How air conditioners take hot and humid air, and make it drier and cold. | 35 | Kinda hard to eli5
But basically 3 parts and a refrigerant.
A refrigerant is basically a substance that can change it's temperature based on pressure so when you drop pressure it makes cold.
An air conditioner is a evaporator condenser and compressor.
The refrigerant gets compressed so it's at a high pressure. It ... | 47 | |
[Back to the Future] Would Marty's family be more or less strangers to him in the "good end" timeline? | (Excuse if I flub something here, but I haven't seen these movies in a while.) But I know that Marty's post-first-movie family is better off and quite different from the movie's starting timeline, right? Would he have to tread lightly to not mention possible discrepancies from his timeline around them, or is there some... | 43 | There would be a lot of changes in his family, his actions completely changed how his parents see the world and themselves. However it seems that instead of little changes in the past completely altering every thing in the future, while details may be different, the broad strokes seem to remain. For instance, the McFly... | 37 |
do your teeth move at night? | ik this sounds weird lol but i think i remember someone saying/reading somewhere that your body swells a little bit while you sleep. but when i stay up way extra too late it feels like when i bite down my teeth aren’t in the right place.. if that makes sense, just slightly shifted.
so are your teeth included in this? ... | 62 | Your teeth don't move on their own at night, unless you are missing several, then they can shift slowly. It can also happen obviously if you are going through orthodontic treatment. It is more likely a muscle issue in the jaw's joint, the TMJ. If you clench or grind your teeth during the day your jaw muscles can fatigu... | 21 |
[Ender's Game/WH40K]Ender Wiggin is given tactical command of an Imperial Warfleet. Given his success against the Formics, how does he fare against a Tyranid Hive Fleet? | 43 | Ender beat the Formics because of his incredible ability to empathize with his event, to love them. And when he knows them so well that he loves them he utterly destroys them. Ender could never empathize with the single-minded all consuming hunger that is the Tyrannid hive. All he would feel from them is an overwhelmin... | 33 | |
[Jurassic Park] What ever happened to that sick triceratops? | During the ill-fated tour run, Dr. Sattler is talking to someone from the park, trying to figure out why the trikes get sick every 6-8 weeks. She thinks it's pharmacological, related to some nearby poisonous berries. She looks through the dino...dino-d-droppings? but can't find any evidence that the trikes have been ea... | 29 | Yes, this was covered in the book (though in the book it's the Stegosaurs that are getting sick.) The dinosaurs weren't eating them, they were accidentally consuming them when they swallowed gizzard stones and being poisoned that way. Many animals, apparently including Stegosaurs/Triceratops (depending on the version) ... | 31 |
ELI5: What causes trucks to get stuck on railroad crossings? | 65 | Often it's the grading (sideways tilt) of the railroad track which is at odds with the layout of the road, creating what's effectively a large bump in the road. Grading is needed to keep the trains stable in turns. Vehicles long enough that two sets of wheels can sit on either side of the bump, can get the bump jammed ... | 66 | |
[Transformers] Why are the new bots decepticons? | In "Revenge of the Fallen" Sam gets ahold of a piece of the Allspark, and when he accidentally creates new Transformers, they all appear to be evil and Decepticons.
If the Fallen is the first Decepticon, that means Primes and perhaps Autobots too were older and the "standard setting". Is the Decepticon "mode" the st... | 16 | The all spark creates new transformer life, "Decepticon" is a faction created by Megatron. They're the equivalent of wild monkeys flinging poo when they're brought to life by the allspark, only their poo is live ammunition. They work together because they must recognize each other inherently, and their instinct to asse... | 14 |
[DC] Is Captain Atom wearing something or is his "costume" his skin? | His costume looks so plastered on him that it's impossible to know if he even has genitals.
Edit: this also applies to Major Force. | 124 | It's Dilustel. An alien material bonded to him in an experiment & which contains his quantum energy. It can be cut (Even though that's incredibly tricky to do) & when that happens he'll leak quantum energy.
He's shown the ability to transform into a regular human form though. Like with his disguise of 'Cameron... | 70 |
The US Gov. dept is 25 trillions. It seems incredibly high, but how does that compare to other countries? How high is the risk that one day the balloon will pop and the US economy will crash? Is the USA at risk of losing its status as a superpower in relation to that debt? | 99 | It's more of a how much of the fiscal govt budget is going towards servicing the debt and the debt/GDP ratio.
The bigger the portion of the fiscal budget goes towards servicing debt, the less money there is to spend on other programs.
In global context, Japan nearly spends half its receipts on servicing the debt an... | 25 | |
[Starship troopers] why the armor? | I mean its ineffective against bugs, and even bullets, so why have it at all? | 19 | This is clearly about the film and not the novel, since the novel mobile infantry are what directly inspired Space Marines from both Warhammer and Starcraft, but are even more badass than both. Plus, one of the points of the novel is exploring the further dehumanization of war. From armies marching shoulder to shoulder... | 28 |
CMV: Blocking Syrian refugees is a reasonable measure by state governors, in the interest of national security | I am not anti-immigration, I hate hearing Donald Trump rant about his harsh stance toward immigrants, and I love the fact that the US is such a diverse country with such a great immigrant population.
However, at times we have to make some sacrifices for our own safety. These governors are being called xenophobic for d... | 131 | Except there is no evidence that terrorists come to the West as refugees. What you are doing, along with a lot of the governors and other people calling for exclusion of Syrian refugees, is racial profiling. Just because the terrorists are from the Middle East and are Muslim doesn't make all Muslims from the Middle Eas... | 129 |
To what extent does the planet Jupiter actually "shield" the earth from meteor impacts? | I've been reading reddit today, and found out that a large object collided with Jupiter, and was [captured on video](http://www.flickr.com/photos/19299984@N08/7976507568/) by an amateur astronomer. Not long after, I came across [this io9.com article](http://io9.com/5942203/jupiter-may-have-just-saved-earth-from-a-devas... | 15 | Truth be told, had Jupiter not existed, the object would have probably missed Earth anyway. Gravity is cool, but it's still quite weak on a very large scale, such as our solar system. It doesn't really make the "bulleye" that's necessary much bigger.
Now that that's out of the way, imagine trying to shoot a basketba... | 10 |
CMV: Black people have a pass in Modern culture to make racist remarks | In 2016, BLM Toronto Co-founder Yusra Khogali was on record stating having white skin makes you “subhuman”
Nick Cannon recently went on record calling white people “Savages” saying white people are “a little less” and saying “we are the same people who they want to be”
This week, NBA player Montrezl Harrell called Mave... | 67 | I think you overestimate just how severely a white person is treated when saying something racist.
Take Biden’s comment about “not being black” or Trumps more overt “Mexico is sending rapists” (these aren’t the exact quotes, but i believe they were along those lines)
Both have been heavily criticised. However what ac... | 19 |
[Star Wars] How did Owen Lars not realize that he had previously owned C-3PO? | In a New Hope he buys 3PO from the Jawas, yet we see that 3PO was on the Lars homestead after he was presumably sold along with Shmi, so what gives? | 35 | One, protocol droids are pretty common, even on the Outer Rim territories. Two, droids are like appliances, and hardly regarded with much thought. Anakin and Luke are actually pretty unique in how they speak to their droids. Finally, C-3POs casing was completely changed, and 3PO didn't act as if he knew Owen, so why wo... | 74 |
Why are fish unable to breathe oxygen from air when they are able to absorb it from water which is so much more difficult? | 23 | It is because fish use gills in order to obtain oxygen. Which means that the greater the surface area of the gills of the fish, the more the blood vessels are exposed to oxygen.
While outside of water, the gill arches essentially collapse, reducing that surface area to zero. The projections on the gills float in the w... | 18 | |
Can a submarine get stuck to the floor of a body of water? | When I was younger I heard a scientist in a submarine during a documentary explain that they needed to be careful and not sink all the way to the floor as the submarine would get stuck and not be able to float back to the top. Is there any truth to this and if so what's the science behind it? If not, where could this t... | 133 | Yes it is possible but the likelihood depends on the shape of the sub's hull and the type of sediments composing the ocean floor. In regions where the seafloor is especially muddy, mucky, or oozy (yes those are all scientific terms!) it is possible for the sub to settle into the sediments and the suction below the hull... | 60 |
Does the study of formal logic necessarily make a person more logical or being able to construct more reasonable arguments? | As stated in the title, the laymen seem to have the idea that studying of logic makes a person more logical, which I wonder if there are any consensus within philosophy about the actual importance of logic? That is to say, for example, a scientist could make logical arguments and predictions without learning formal log... | 15 | Most poor arguments out in the wild aren't lacking in validity (at least, once their unstated premises are charitably explicated), but rather due to biased justifications of the soundness of the premises.
Someone with a keen sense for logic will likely still be as biased as any other human. | 22 |
[MCU](Far From Home spoilers) About Mysterio's powers... | **LAST SPOILER WARNING, you sure you wanna be here? Okay? Okay.**
Anyway, how were Mysterio's illusions achieved in a tactile sense? Imagery and sound I get from the drones, and I know most physicality was the drones firing bullets at destroyed scenery and cloaked one-shot kill targets, but how did Mysterio convinc... | 26 | For Hydro-man, the drones had those shockwave projectors (a fun bit of Stark Tech that's been floating around on the edges since Incredible Hulk) that could have been directed upwards to create physical splashes of water to correspond with any illusory splashes that would impact the walkways.
For Spidey getting dogpil... | 22 |
[General Sci Fi] Tanks of the future? | Been brain storming with my brother on tanks and we came to an argument on the various parts of tanks including mode of propulsion, arnament and viablity of tanks in the future.
I'm arguing on the mode of propulsion that Hover Tanks would rule the future but he says that the sheer reliability of threads and the ease o... | 20 | You should both real the Bolos series.
Hover systems likely to be a secondary system until they are super-reliable and energy efficient.
Proper arms depends almost entirely upon the combat environment. The relationship between the tanks and what the tanks are there to destroy.
I doubt missiles will ever be the ma... | 15 |
Is it inconsistent to apply both utilitarian and deontological frameworks when thinking about ethics, depending on the situation? | Example : A person who believes that killing any innocent person is immoral is inconsistent if they also believe that having some collateral damage during a bombardment is justified if this brings prosperity latter on?
I am also thinking that in terms of politics and policies: A healthcare system might be considered go... | 44 | So in some cases it seems like Deontological and Consequentialist concerns can lead to contradictory duties or obligations. But some applied ethicists think that what is happening is that both theories give rise to worthwhile and legitimate ethical concerns and ethical truths, and it is our job to parse those out in bo... | 25 |
ELI5: What makes different types of cheese taste so different? | 18 | To make cheese, all you really need are three ingredients: milk, salt and live microbial cultures including rennet. The specific strains of microbes added to the milk play an important role in giving each variety of cheese its distinct flavor. | 13 | |
ELI5:Why does everything in the universe seem to want to spin? | I was just watching a video of the Sun rotating over a three-year period.... I thought to myself, "Why does the Sun spin anyway?".
But my thoughts didn't stop there. Stars spin, planets spin, galaxies spin; but even at the micro-level atoms and quantum mechanics seem to involve a whole lot of spinning.
[This visuali... | 28 | Imagine a bunch of little rubber balls positioned in a loose 3D grid to create a hollow sphere. If they were in a universe all to themselves, gravity would pull all of them towards the center. If they were position exactly the same distance apart, they would come together until they formed a perfectly uniform shape w... | 29 |
CMV:Despite the "big government sucks!" rhetoric, the American right wing is pretty authoritarian, and their policy generally is pro-government. | As with any group, I'll begin this with saying that not all conservatives or republicans fit this description. I'll also say that a lot of these issues exist with the democratic party as well. I'm not here to debate whether a policy is just or favorable or anything. I'm simply talking about whether said policy is objec... | 84 | Libertarians and the “right wing” are actually separate entities.
Liberals are both socially and fiscally liberal, conservatives are both socially and fiscally conservative, while libertarians are socially liberal but fiscally conservative.
You’re hearing two separate groups speaking and think that they are one-in-th... | 21 |
Mentorship |
How do you find deep mentorship in a lab where the PI isn’t super accessible? There are several labs I’m interested in rotating in, but they are larger and the PIs are somewhat well-known I’m the field and as such are busy people! Aside from that, they seem like great people, just not people I could pop in and ask a... | 18 | Larger labs with busy PIs usually have something like an upper management level. There are usually staff scientists, research scientists, postdocs and similar more senior people that manage research projects and students. Of course, ideally you should also have semi-regular meetings with your PI, but the senior scienti... | 20 |
ELI5: Why are advanced stage colon cancer patients expected to live only 21.4 months after diagnoses? What actually kills them? (What will actually casue my death?) | 17 | At later stages, the cancer spreads to other systems, such as your pancreas, lymph nodes, etc. The most common is the liver.
What is bad is that most of these organs affect the entire body so once the cancer gets into that system, it can travel anywhere, like a freeway. Then it is just a case of how well those organs... | 13 | |
ELI5: Why is snow almost a solid white, while other frozen forms of water are clear? | 43 | Snow is a whole bunch of individual ice crystals arranged together. When a light photon enters a layer of snow, it goes through an ice crystal on the top, which changes its direction slightly and sends it on to a new ice crystal, which does the same thing. Basically, all the crystals bounce the light all around so that... | 34 | |
[MCU] During the Blip, what happened to the economy, and how is the world able to meet the all the resource needs when everyone comes back? | When half the world disappeared, the money supply wouldn’t have changed. Did all that extra money lead to crazy inflation? Was the world able to do some kind of universal basic income while they recovered from the snap? | 487 | I think that we will see more of this elaborated on in the coming eps of Falcon & Winter Soldier: But if the start of Endgame is any indication, the world looked to have come to a standstill. 5 years on, and New York looked dead with cars still on the bridges and the Avengers going around solving small crisis after... | 330 |
[Death Note] With the exception of outright selling it, what would be the best way to make money with a Death Note? | Maybe shorting the stocks of companies with famous CEOs and killing the CEOs causing the stock to go down? Companies unexpectdly losing their figure heads should take a hit. | 68 | In the anime, a board of directors of a corporation were using it to kill off competition and assist in corporate takeovers.
Holding people for ransom would be a great way to amass wealth though. All you need is a name and a picture and you can kill them whenever. Once it gets out that there is someone who can kill an... | 58 |
ELI5: Why can't a person with Alzheimer's have a fact sheet in front of them at all times reminding them of every truth about them, including the fact that they have Alzheimer's, and that they are expected to be constantly confused? | 1,294 | Because it will add to their misery. This is not like the forgetting that non-sufferers may experience as a result of an injury or hangover; it goes much deeper and has a shorter cycle. You can tell an Alzheimer's patient a "fact" one minute and it's gone in 30 seconds. The *truth* for advanced patients may bear absolu... | 1,155 | |
CMV: It is inhumane to leave homeless people on the streets. They should be given housing, and those with mental illness or addiction should be given residential treatment whether they want it or not | I don’t understand how we reached a point in society where many states feel the right thing to do is leave homeless people on the streets.
I’ve read that 25-40% of our homeless population are addicted to alcohol or drugs. I’ve read that up to 20% are schizophrenic. Finally, I’ve read that 45% have some type of mental... | 336 | You gave the reasons why we logistically can’t house all the homeless in your own argument. Many of them are indeed mentally ill or drug addicts and these are problems that won’t fix by just being given housing. Most drug addicts and people with severe mental illness can’t handle the responsibility of having a house. T... | 122 |
ELI5: How are financial markets any different than Ponzi schemes other than layers of professionalism? | 17 | Because they trade in actual instruments that have value - shares of companies and debt. Owning a share gives you a stake in ownership of a a company, claim on their profits and assets. Debt gives you a financial claim to be repaid at some point in the future with interest. Financial markets trade in these claims, thro... | 38 | |
CMV: Recess should be a requirement in High schools | In elementary school , Recess was the best part of the day. It was 30 minutes of the day used to go outside and play around or so we thought. The truth is those 30 minutes were used to clear our mind and to relax. In middle school, recess didn't exist. In high school , it seemed we were too old to play around. But it ... | 68 | As a teenager/young adult, you probably don't see 30 minutes of "free time" at school as being very free; after all, they still require you to stay on campus.
It's an extra 30 minutes of the school day that gets added to each student's schedule. That is a half hour that they could instead be spending at home, doing ex... | 25 |
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