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ELI5: How companies (Arizona, Santitas) can regulate the price that every retailer charges for their product | I am curious about how this works because no end retailer or anywhere in between can only charge one price since it is labeled directly on the product. | 49 | I think that's why they label it like that. If you want to sell their product your only going to be able to charge the price on the can or look bad to your customers. If they don't want to sell for that price carry a competing product. | 17 |
Why does light not bend when it hits perpendicular to a new medium? | 26 | Here's a symmetry argument: Which way would the beam get re-directed? There is no preferred direction, so it wouldn't be consistent for the light to be deflected one way or another.
More precisely: If the situation is rotationally symmetric along the axis along which the incoming light travels, the behavior of the o... | 37 | |
Why does my shower curtain blow inwards while water is running? | All I want to do is have a shower without the curtain constantly sticking to various body parts. | 34 | Prof. David Schmidt, who did computational fluid dynamics modeling of this phenomenon and won a 2001 Ignoble Prize for the work, has a shower curtain across his office door at UMass-Amherst.
The spray of water causes a vortex of air to form (a sideways tornado), and the low pressure region in the middle of the vortex ... | 20 |
eli5: Why are video file sizes so small? | A normal image stored on a phone is around 5 mb, if you calculate that way, a 1080p 60 fps video should be 60 frames X 5 mb X 600 seconds = 180000 MB= 180GB. But if you check a file size of an actual 10 minute video, it is only around 1GB. How can it be so small? | 1,116 | Video compression. The video file doesn’t store every frame, it just stores what changes between frames.
Periodically there will be a full frame, called a “key frame”, just to reset everything but most of the “frames” in the file are just a small list of changes from the prior frame. Unless there’s a jump cut, there ... | 1,859 |
ELI5: Why is Mexico so poor compared to the US and Canada? | They all were settled at similar times. Is it due to the Spanish taking out all of the gold? Does it stem from their loss in the Mexican-American War? Is there a more recent cause? | 45 | Canada and the USA were settled by parceling out land and by bringing excess labor from abroad (Europe, Africa, etc. Mainly Europe though) to develop the land. So this lower population density allows for a more equitable distribution of land. This also affects the way the colonists are treated by the governments tha... | 26 |
Can you inheirt trauma via your genes? | Someone sent me this article, but I don't have the educational background to judge it.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/07/parents-emotional-trauma-may-change-their-children-s-biology-studies-mice-show-how | 18 | This hypothesis is based on epigenetics (these are messages on top of the DNA, so the environment in these situations doesn't change the sequence of the DNA, but the special signals on top of the DNA which tells it when to be expressed). This can be passed down the generations. They have found this with grandmother's w... | 35 |
[Star Wars] What was Darth Sidious' plan if Luke had turned to the dark side in ROTJ since the DS-2 was going to to be destroyed? | The thought came to me recently and I tried finding the answer, but I could not find one sufficient enough to put my curiosity down. Say Darth Vader was slain by Luke in the throne room, and knelt in front of Sidious then rose a Lord of the Sith. What was the next step? Lando Calrissian and Wedge Antilles were going to... | 15 | Assuming that the DS2 still gets destroyed if Palpatine lives there's no reason they couldn't have escaped the same way Luke and Vader do. Id be very surprised if the Emperor didn't have some secret escape pod or shuttle close to his throne room | 31 |
[Truman Show] Does the main cast ever get down time to live some kind of life outside the show? If not, aren't they just as much prisoners as Truman? | I'm thinking especially Truman's wife Meryl. She has been with him since high school. She lives with him, sleeps with him (and has sex with him). She can't really leave him for any long period of time so does she even have friends in the real world anymore? She crossed her fingers when they got married but what was the... | 761 | Truman's at work all day and sleeping at night. There's plenty of down time for everybody, even his wife. She may leave the dome while he's working and go to Los Angeles to run errands, go shopping, and have lunch with her friends. Or she could just go to her house in Beverly Hills, lounge in her pool, and crash for... | 648 |
At what size does a wire mesh stop acting as a Faraday cage? | Wire meshes can often be used as Faraday cages to shield the inside from exterior electromagnetic waves. At some point, the mesh should stop being a Faraday cage if the holes keep getting bigger. So at what size of mesh does the mesh stop being effective at screening incoming waves? | 114 | Faraday cages stop being effective as the mesh size approaches the wavelength of light. For microwaves, notice that the protective wire mesh has mm-sized holes in it. If they were cm-sized, it wouldn't screen the microwaves as effectively. | 44 |
What causes the film on hot milk? | I've noticed that when I heat up milk or another liquid that is mostly dairy it forms a thin film on the surface if it gets hot enough. What causes this and is there a way to prevent it? | 45 | Milk contains proteins, for example lactoglobulins. When you heat it up, they denature, that is, they lose their structure, stick together and form that surface film. There's really no way to avoid that except for constant vigorous stirring to prevent the coagulation. | 63 |
ELI5 how the body has developed to not have an upper limit of the fat it can or wants to store | The question came up when thinking about phones stopping to charge when the reaching 100% battery. It appears the body keeps accumulating fat even when it's excessive. | 18 | Because, historically, it hasn't been a problem. Evolution doesn't have a goal or an end state it is after - it simply 'rewards' traits that grant increased reproductive fitness.
Up until the last ~50 years or so, having _too much_ food has not been a problem, so it was rare for people to get so fat that it caused he... | 43 |
Advice on how to include or document code into a dissertation | Hi, the core of my dissertation is not coding. However to do all the studies I had to write a series of scripts to handle the data for either visualizations or any sort of analysis. For the niche group of researchers in this topic, we consider these pieces of code could be useful. So, besides including a github reposit... | 17 | Apart from the appendix, which is a good idea, you can also create project for your dissertation on Open science foundation or Zonedo and link your GitHub repo, to make it more visible for researchers. | 15 |
Why is String Theory considered to be "un-testable"? | 25 | To test quantum gravity theories, you need a situation in which both quantum and gravitational effects are significant. We only know of two such scenarios: black holes and the big bang. All the black holes are too far away and too big to yield useful information about quantum gravitational effects. We can only see back... | 25 | |
What exactly happens when fruit becomes ripe? Why was it once sour and now sweet? Where did the sourness go, and where did the sweetness come from? Also, what explains the change of color in something like a banana? | 316 | When a fruit ripens, it converts complex carbohydrates, basically starch, into simpler sugars, glucose, fructose, sucrose etc. For bananas, and many other fruits, the signal to start converting the starch to simple sugars is ethylene gas. This is why "one bad apple can ruin the bunch" as an over ripe fruit is oozing et... | 99 | |
By guessing the rate of the Expansion of the universe, do we know how big the unobservable universe is? | So we are closer in size to the observable universe than the plank lentgh, but what about the unobservable universe. | 5,191 | We measure the size of the unobservable universe by measuring the curvature of the local universe. If it has zero curvature, the universe is flat and infinite. If it has negative curvature, it has a hyperbolic shape, and is also infinite. If it has positive curvature, it has a hyperspherical shape (like a sphere but in... | 2,309 |
Why is high barometric pressure indicative of good weather and low indicative of rainy weather? | Isn't an atmostphere with more water vapor within it more dense than the one without? | 150 | Actually its quite the opposite! You may be thinking that water vapor is "added" to dry air which would increase the mass of a particular parcel of air but instead you should think of it as displacing the dry air instead. As it turns out, Water Vapor is actually less dense than a parcel of completely dry air. So the... | 50 |
ELI5: Why does one get a weird and somewhat unusual feeling when coming back to their home after a long trip ? | Do you all know what I am talking about? When you go on vacation or a trip away from your home for about a month or more and then you return back to your home, you get an unusual or a sort of "weird" feeling. Your house smells different when you walk through the door and it seems kind of unfamiliar. This weird and unus... | 20 | I don't know for sure, yet it seems rather obvious to me. Normally, when you are not on vacation, you wake up in the same bed, in the same house, and that is the place that you spend most of your time in. When you've been on vacation for a while, your brains have adjusted to living in a different environment, and they ... | 13 |
ELI5: How do linguists research pre-written languages like Proto-Indo European without any evidence? | 38 | tl;dr: It's a (very carefully-thought-out) educated guess.
A little background first:
Languages change over time, usually very slowly and in subtle ways. For example, some sounds are so similar that when someone is talking fast, you might not hear the difference and learn the "wrong" version. If enough people hear... | 30 | |
[The Flash] What were the ethics around the The Pipeline prison? It's basically indefinite solitary confinement. | *edit: Thanks for all the responses and discussion. You might notice I haven't added much to the conversation, and that's entirely because I have no idea what the ethical implications would be in this case; it may be better for me to just listen than spout off on something I know very little about.* | 391 | Fascist dictatorships generally occur when people with power decide to start exercising it against those who don't. The Flash, a being of nearly infinite power (time travel, c'mon), and his then-mentor the Anti-Flash (by all accounts a major dick) decided that it was better to exercise his power over his captured foes ... | 335 |
[MCU] Did Thanos exclude himself from the snap? Or was he not sure whether he'd be in the 50% that survived? | 753 | He 100% excluded himself from the snap, even if he would never admit it out loud. And perhaps never admit it to himself.
Thanos was never interested in actually saving the universe. His entire goal was to prove that his insane genocidal plan was the correct one, and it would have saved his home if they just listened ... | 1,135 | |
ELI5: If we are our brains, where am "I" (the voice in my head) inside of all that mass of neurons and connective tissues? | Mainly curious about the voice in my head when you think about things. Where am "I"? | 74 | That's the problem of consciousness: we just don't know.
There are some who think that consciousness is a purely physical phenomenon: get enough neurons in one place arranged correctly and poof! conscious person.
Some believe that it's not physical, or that we don't know the physical properties that make it up yet.
... | 91 |
For mosquito bites, does the whole "Draw an X into your skin with your fingertips" have any basis in science, or is it just an old wives' tale? | I've come across this many time, including on Reddit, the idea is that if you press your fingernails into a mosquito bite twice (to make the shape of an X or cross), it will release the toxins, or spread them out over a larger part of the skin to reduce the itch, or some such thing. Does this idea have any scientific b... | 38 | I don't think it has the scientific basis that you explained. From what i remember, some sensations on our skin are stronger than others. Itching being one of the strongest. So the reason why we scratch something that itches is because the pain from scratching is stronger than the sensation of itching, there by relievi... | 16 |
CMV: Using the word 'creepy' the way it is used makes no sense | The reason to post it in CMV is that I actually think chances are I'm not properly informed and you can inform me of my misconceptions
Its about the word creepy, my main language isnt english and I dont live in the USA or even nearby so at first (I learned english by reading online boards) I didnt even know what it me... | 27 | Creepy just means that something makes you uncomfortable, maybe to the point of being afraid for your life. Anybody can make someone uncomfortable, so in that way, it makes perfect sense. If a guy you don't know is getting too close to you physically, or a woman has your address, phone number, and social security numbe... | 41 |
[Doctor Who] What happened to Jenny (The Doctor's Daughter)? | By the end of the episode [The Doctor's Daughter](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Doctor's_Daughter), Jenny is flying off in an escape shuttle about to start her own adventures and it seemed from the way the end was written that they would bring her back into the series at some point.
But as of now this hasn't happe... | 24 | Space and time are both really, really big, and Jenny doesn't necessarily have the same fascination with Earth that the Doctor does, so they may not cross paths for a while. And when they do, at least one of them won't be in the same body.
Add to that the fact that Jenny hasn't looked into the Untempered Schism so may... | 17 |
ELI5: How can phones have 8gb ram in such a small formfactor and pc needs these huge 4gb ram stick? | 11,701 | This has to do with industry standards. The RAM slots on PC's are almost always the same size. A 64GB RAM stick is the same size as early 256MB RAM sticks. The size does not really represent the power/storage anymore. It's just a matter of standardization.
Addition: RAM chips in phones are often integrated and can't ... | 8,626 | |
ELI5 Why do hatches and SUVs have rear windscreen wipers when Sedans rarely if ever do | What's the downside of having rear wipers on Sedan/why don't they have them? | 373 | The aerodynamics of all cars creates a bubble of air behind them causing a loop affect when it rains. This loop effect causes rain to splash back on to the rear of the vehicle. In an SUV or other trunk less car, this means it splashes onto the rear windows. In a normal coupe or sedan, the rear is the trunk which gets ... | 230 |
ELI5: How is it not criminally negligent to not vaccinate your children? Especially since they have been proven to reduce if not eradicate disease? | 52 | As bad as it is, legally you cannot force someone to have an injection when their life is not in danger, just as you cannot force their parents to make them have the injections when the child is too young to consent, or the parents have the decision to make. If the kid was dying, then you could go a court and get them ... | 30 | |
ELI5: If you would throw an electrical device into the ocean , how big would the area where you can get electrocuted be? | 39 | If you threw an electrical device (either 110v or 220v) into the ocean it would simply short out. The area that one could be electrocuted would be minuscule as the current would travel straight down to the nearest part of ocean floor. Unless your at the exact spot where you dropped something like a toaster in you’d fee... | 23 | |
Why after all the money printed, USD keep getting stronger compared to GBP or EUR? Wouldn't that mean that it will keep getting stronger and suddenly crash soon? | Hi all,
So I have been observing GBP, EUR and USD and dollar and euro are now 1 to 1 which didn't happen for a long time (Probably to Russia/Ukraine things going on) but I don't get why GBP soon will be 1 to 1 to the dollar as well?
I am no expert in economics but from my understanding, it is quite worrying as such t... | 104 | 1) The ECB and BoE were also running fairly loose monetary policy
2) The Fed is tightening monetary policy more aggressively than BoE and ECB
3) The UK and EU are highly dependent on oil & gas imports, whereas the US is a net exporter of gas and more balanced in oil, so the Ukraine war has dealt a more severe ter... | 208 |
ELI5: How are transgender individuals different from other dissociative identity disorders? | I need your help on this one Reddit.
I really can't quite process the whole gender identity thing.
A common idea that we constantly tell people is to "just be yourself"
However transgender individuals take drugs (hormones), have surgical procedures to actually alter themselves.
This really doesn't make any sense ... | 2,986 | The most important comparison to the disorders you mentioned is their inherent harmfulness. People suffering from Dissociative Identity Disorder are not always fully aware of their actions. People with Body Dismorphic Disorder do not have an accurate gauge on their body image, leading to self-harm through starvation ... | 1,269 |
ELI5: why do teeth “hurt” when eating extremely sweet foods? | 27 | Note that this isn't normal. It's generally a symptom of mild or moderate gum disease and excessive plaque, resulting in recession of the gum tissue. This is usually a result of a lack of flossing and/or poor brushing routine, but pain in this instance can also be caused by cavities.
Either way if you have frequent t... | 21 | |
[Marvel] How does Spider-Man's spider sense work as a spider-based power? Spiders aren't psychic. | As Spidey shows in the first Amazing Spider-Man, spiders can sense movement on webs. However, that's not how it works. Spider-Man seems to have precognition. Spiders don't have precognition, even radioactive or genetically engineered ones. So, what's up? How does spider sense work? | 75 | Spider-Man's powers aren't due to his body becoming more spider-like. For instance, a spider can climb on walls because it is lightweight and has many tiny, rough contact points that allow it to grip onto the imperfections in a surface. Spider-Man can climb walls because he can control the attraction between his molecu... | 84 |
ELI5: Why can't we repopulate lands and deserts with trees with all the technologies we have available these days? | We always hear about deforestation and how there are so much barren wastelands everywhere. With the ability to transport water and other necessary things and technology, isn't it possible to repopulate a dessert or land that has been harvested? | 55 | We can, but it is expensive and would have a lot of other effects that we don't want. For example, sand blowing across the ocean from the Sahara is responsible for replenishing the soil of the Amazon. So, even if we can, it might not be a good idea. | 24 |
ELI5: In quantum mechanics, what does it mean for something to be "observed"? | [This post](http://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/1krtbt/so_thats_how_usb_plugs_work/) made me wonder — what does it mean for something to be "observed"?
I tried Googling around for it and ended up more confused than when I started, so hopefully somebody here can help shed some light. Thanks! | 91 | The word observed is used because typically we're measuring a property of something very tiny, which tells us about it. We "observe" its existence by measuring it's velocity or position.
The trouble is, to get that information, to measure it, we have to interact with it in some way. Since the world of quantum mechani... | 19 |
[Dresden Files] In the Dresden files does one have to be born with magic to be a wizard, or can one simply learn to be one? | I know that is theoretically possible to open the sight with things other than magic, but does that really make them a wizard? | 21 | Wizards are born, and then made.
The short answer to your question is - you have to be born with it. Magic use is a talent for humans, one that not everybody has access too or has in sufficient quantity to make use of.
However, a moderate talent can gain a great deal of power and ability through training and use and... | 29 |
ELI5: what makes quartz crystals so useful? | As far as I understand they are being used in clocks and computer technology - what makes them so special? | 22 | One major aspect of quartz is that it is piezoelectric. This is when a material will produce a tiny amount of electricity when deformed by physical force. Such a behavior is very useful in things like sensors for microphones, guitar pickups, and ultrasound sensors for medical imaging.
Another major use is that the pie... | 36 |
ELI5: If it is said that the gravitational pull of Black Holes is so strong that it attracts light, then wouldn't that require light to have mass? | 2,021 | Light always travels in a straight line relative to space-time. Since a black hole creates a massive curvature in space-time, the light follows the curve of space-time (but is still going straight). From an outside observe, it appears that light bends towards the black hole; in reality, light's not bending - space-ti... | 2,331 | |
Is Australia the most problematically in-debt nation in the world? | I'm a total amateur but trying to understand why debt is a big deal. It looks like a countries debt isn't as meaningful as its debt to GDP ratio. Better yet is it's external debt to GDP ratio, because countries with extraordinarily high debt like Japan don't seem to collapse cause it's mainly owned by Japanese citizens... | 19 | Australia currently inspire high confidence in their ability to repay debt (AAA rating), got much lower debt to GDP ratio than other developped country, and got self limiting borrowing power through the loan council, used to have a debt ceiling and don't guarantee 100% of the citizen deposits anymore.
Also owning some... | 15 |
CMV: Women 18-60 should be required to stay and fight in Ukraine if men are. | It’s really been bothering me that this rule exists and is separating families. I feel like I’m missing something since everyone else seems so okay and normal about it. It’s heartbreaking. And while I don’t think conscription should exist at all, I think it should be equal if it does. It’s unfair that an 18 year old gi... | 758 | Ok if it's truely coming from a non political position let us be frank
Life is not fair.
Men are biologically stronger than women.
Women and children are far more likely to be targeted with rape war crime.
Someone has to look after kids, women do that more than men generally.
Biologically speaking, to ensure your grou... | 1,949 |
[DC] What would happen if Eradicator!Lois (from Tales of the Dark Multiverse) met Injustice!Superman? | By the end of ToDM, Lois has gone insane with grief. Meanwhile, Superman has also gone insane, in a similar manner. What if they met? Would they try to kill each other? Would it be enough to snap Superman out of his current mindset? | 17 | Power Couple!
Genuinely, both of them are consumed by the loss of the other, and by others who reuse to acknowledge that their ways are the best.
Meeting another version of their idealized lost love would prevent them immediately attacking, and realizing this counterpart agrees that we need to use brutal power to tak... | 16 |
CMV: Buying a burger is essentially renting a cook for 5min | I had a silly 45m circular argument with friends today which started by me suggesting that calling a car from uber is a short term rental, and them saying that it's not a rental because you don't posses the car during the drive, that it's a service instead.
This went on far too long but other examples that I threw out... | 16 | The difference is in liability. When you rent something, you take on responsibility for the thing. In particular, you are liable to the owner if the thing is damaged.
None of the situations you describe have this property. If you call an Uber, and it crashes, you aren't responsible for the damages to the car. If you b... | 29 |
ELI5: Why does FM radio sound better than AM radio? | 37 | AM (Amplitude Modulation) only uses 10 kilo Hertz of band width to get the sound across. On FM, they use 100 Kilo Hertz of band width. That allows for alot more fidelity of sound. The reason is how much of the spectrum is alloted for each band. AM band is .5 Megahertz to 1.7 Megahertz. But FM band is 88 Megahertz to 10... | 46 | |
[Batman] Given his vast wealth, resources, and intellect, shouldn't Batman be able to create a super-suit/powered armor that doesn't reduce his mobility or stealth? | * I know that a question like this has been asked before, and the most common answer is that a suit of powered armor would restrict his mobility and prevent him from being able to use his trademark stealth. While I agree that this would be the case if the suit were like his [Hellbat Armor](https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/He... | 30 | Batman doesn’t like to require on highly advanced/powerful equipment and weaponry. He has access to a form of Kryptonite that would give him Superman’s powers permanently but he refuses to use it. There’s also the issue that Batman’s enemies would escalate in kind if he started using advanced armor. | 23 |
CMV:Brexit was a mistake and the UK will crawl their way back to the EU | we're seeing the meltdown not only of the uk goverment and the conservative party, but also of the pound and general uk economy, policies like the minibudget would never have happened if the UK was still in the EU
The UK had an insane amount of privileges and unique status in the EU afforded to no other country, they ... | 42 | That's also assuming the EU accepts them. There's no reason they have to.
Brexit burned a lot of bridges and no one wants to adopt a sick dog. After a decade, if the UK's economic position continues to slip, the EU may come to realize that including the UK in the EU might actually be net negative.
On the other hand,... | 38 |
Why finding academic jobs is more difficult today compared to how it used to be? | This might be a very stupid question, in which case sorry.
But I’m ignorant. Why finding jobs in academia today, becoming professors and etc is more difficult than it was in the past ? | 137 | Many things, as other already mentioned. The management is also interested in having temporary/adjunct staff because they can be controlled much easier. Firing a tenured professor is difficult, with an adjunct, you simply don't extend the contract. Problem is that many incompetent people got tenure back in the day and ... | 152 |
[WH40K] What exactly is the scale of human armies? On important battles could one make out the regiments from orbit? | 31 | Regiments and individual movement of formations, unlikely. Disturbed terrain caused by the movement of millions of vehicles, and thousands of kilometers of fortifications? Absolutely.
A time-lapse of an Imperial war effort would leave very noticeable changes on the surface of a planet, even if you were unable to make... | 35 | |
[dragonball] how do planets like vegeta where most people can control their ki, stop things like bar fights or children's' tantrums destroying entire cities? | 42 | Mutually assured destruction? On a world like that, the strongest ones are probably in charge. Also, destroying businesses and citizens is generally frowned upon anywhere you go. Even under oppressive regimes. | 31 | |
ELI5: Why when large company's earnings decrease(ex... by 3%) they freak out, talk about rough times, and sometimes decide to downsize, even though they are still making millions of dollars in profit even after all expenses? | 9,657 | A leaky boaty still floats, but that doesn't mean you have to wait until it is sinking to fix it.
In a healthy, expanding, inflationary economy, earnings should grow a little bit each year. If they shrink, that can be a sign something is going wrong, something you want to try to fix before the company actually starts... | 5,680 | |
ELI5: Why can't you boil milk in a kettle? | I've burnt out my kettle attempting this. My thinking was that milk is just thicker water. I thought it would jusy take longer to boil.
I'm in hot water (pun intended) with the wife. | 105 | Milk contains proteins. And just like eggs and flour which also contain a lot of protein, milk coagulates into a solid if you heat it up too much. The problem with heating milk in a kettle is that a kettle gets very hot on the bottom. This is no problem for water as it can easily handle the heat and will just distribut... | 147 |
ELI5: Why do so many graffiti artists vandalize public property rather than direct their energies and talents towards constructive and marketable pursuits? | 53 | This certainly doesn't apply to all graffiti artists, but some adopt a philosophy that the streets are the medium and that the marketing of art should be opposed on principle. Graffiti artist who commercialize their work may be viewed as having compromised their artistic integrity for profit. | 39 | |
If we replace bone at a cellular level every 7 years why do we have evidence of fractures 7 years after the injury? | 69 | A fractured bone is usually repaired by a process where a callus is formed (formation of cartilage). Regular bone tissue then replaces that cartilage. Callus formation is not perfect and forms a 'scar' just like scar tissue is formed over skin, for example.
Since the cells are gradually replaced, the 'scar' still ... | 18 | |
Is alcohol equally efficient in killing all types of viruses? | Is any type of virus more resistant than the others to alcohol, even if still vulnerable? | 15 | There exist two types of viruses, enveloped and non enveloped
Enveloped viruses have a lipid envelope surrounding thier nucleocapsid ( which houses their genetic material) , which is acted upon by detergents and alcohol based sanitizers.
And this destruction of the envelope leads to loss of structural proteins/enzyme... | 28 |
ELI5: Why there's a sense of motion even if you're lying still when you're drunk. | Like when you hit the bed and it seems like it's moving around. | 33 | The spins happen because of an odd effect alcohol has on your ears -- specifically, on three tiny, fluid-filled structures called the semicircular canals. Inside each of these canals is a fluid called endolymph.
As you move around, the movement of the endolymph lags behind the more solid cupula, distorting and bending ... | 18 |
ELI5:Why are some capital and lower case letters of the alphabet just different sizes of the same letter, while others are completely different letters? | Some letters like A/a, Q/q, R/r, G/g, are completely different from their lower counterparts.
Some are just different sizes like O/o, P/p, C/c, or V/v.
While other capital letters have "softer" versions of themselves in the lower case, like F/f, I/i, and T/t.
| 550 | Uppercase letters are traditional Roman Latin font. Lowercase letters are based on Carolingian minuscule. This is a font developed under Charlemagne as a more efficient, semi-cursive font. The Carolingian minuscule tried to use a form that was as close to the original as it could and still be efficient and disti... | 222 |
[MCU] Why did Black Widow switch sides in the middle of Civil War? | 147 | She knew that they needed to stop Cap, but she also believes Cap when he says that 5 Soviet super soldiers may be released very soon. Black Widow made a choice that would serve the greater good [THE GREATER GOOD]. Besides, she is a spy. Playing both sides kinda comes second nature to her. | 271 | |
Why are they going to have to bring the ISS crashing back down to Earth? Why can't they leave it in orbit? It's history! | 20 | The options to keep it intact are to constantly refuel it in orbit to stop the orbit from decaying or to boost it into higher orbit with less drag. Both options end up with a large piece of space junk that can break into smaller parts making the situation worse. | 22 | |
CMV: Vegan food is overwhelmingly 'meh' and is mostly a second-rate copy of foods containing animal products. | Vegan food overwhelmingly sucks. When you stumble onto vegan food that is somewhat decent, you might say it's "good" but what you really mean is "for vegan food, this is pretty good." The fact that a majority of the foods that are framed as "vegan foods" are attempts at duplicating non-vegan dietary fundamentals (i.e... | 70 | It's not the fault of veganism that you're eating the crappy vegan food. If you look for stuff that was intended to copy non-vegan food, then yeah, of course it's going to fall short. But most vegan food isn't meant to emulate animal products. It's just vegan because it uses vegan ingredients, not because it used som... | 65 |
AskScience AMA Series: I am tvw and the structure of the Milky Way. Ask Me Anything! | I am a graduate student at the University of Virginia and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory studying the structure of our galaxy, the Milky Way. Specifically, I use some of the largest telescopes in the world (the Green Bank Telescope (WV, USA), the Arecibo Telescope (Puerto Rico), and the Very Large Array (NM, ... | 58 | Do we know yet what causes a spiral galaxy to form versus a bar galaxy? Is one part of the other's life cycle? What about elliptical galaxies?
What will happen to a galaxy like the Milky Way as it ages, sans collisions? | 11 |
Can you listen to anything while you work? | Hey all.
Recently I got a new job working in Ruby. Before this I only worked in the front-end in React and CSS. I could listen to any music I wanted to, and sometimes even podcasts.
Now that I am working with Ruby, and doing a lot of backend stuff, I can’t even listen to classical music or soundtracks. Any noise mak... | 28 | Music serves the same purpose as fidget toys. It adds cognitive load, which is a good thing when you're doing something too simple to keep you challenged.
But when you're in a very new environment with new tech; your cognitive load is already maxed out. | 38 |
ELI5: What happened to THQ? | I understand they went bankrupt and just sold all their licenses, properties, assets, etc. But how did a successful studio like THQ that was actively making games end up dissolving? | 710 | A while back THQ invested heavily in a peripheral device called the uDraw tablet. They threw money at it to develop it for some casual games, and it flopped. Hard. They where unable to recoup the lost money and have been on a slope downward every since. | 480 |
ELI5: Why do we find accents attractive? | 36 | There is a genetic predisposition to seek out the exotic. In social terms, this is expressed very easily through finding folks that look similar enough but sound different enough to demonstrate that they are from a different genetic pool. This is one of the many remnants of our evolution that keeps us from inbreeding. | 45 | |
ELI5: Why is that near identical movies are often released at the same time (The Illusionist/Prestige, Armageddon/Deep Impact, Wyatt Earp/Tombstone, Ed TV/Truman Show) | 216 | The same reason that Home Depot and Lowe's always pop up near each other. One guy gets a whiff of another studio doing a movie and they go, "WE'LL MAKE THAT SAME MOVIE BUT BETTER AND STEAL ALL THEIR MONIES!" This makes no sense, but movie people are extraordinarily stupid, so it makes sense to them. | 93 | |
[LOTR/Hobbit] Were the dwarves going extinct by the time of the fellowship? | I recently watched the first 2 Hobbit movies, and there was a lot of dwarves losing battles going on - All those that died in Erebor to Smaug, and the ones that died in the battle for Moria. Later during the fellowship meeting only Gimli and Gloin show up - none from other kingdoms, and no other dwarves are seen in the... | 124 | The dwarves were never all that numerous, but there were more still around that it seems. All named dwarves in The Hobbit and LotR are from a single dwarf clan (the Longbeards, also known as Durin's Folk). There were originally seven clans, though at the end of the First Age two of them were nearly destroyed in the War... | 102 |
CMV: The logic behind getting rid of the electoral college would apply equally to getting rid of the senate. | The argument that I hear for why the electoral college is bad is that it allows for situations where the president wins despite losing the popular vote. The argument tends to be that we are a democracy where each person should have equal voting power and equal representation but as it currently stands some people's vot... | 28 | While the logic may be the same between the institutions - smaller states need to have a say in Federal matters - one can make an argument as to _how much_ say they should be allowed to have. One can agree with putting their "thumb on the scale" and still feel that one should only be allowed "so many thumbs"
- The Se... | 27 |
If I was in intergalactic space such that a nearby galaxy filled up my entire field of view, would I be able to see it clearly? Or would it still be as dim as the milky way is in the sky here on earth? | I got the idea when I was looking at andromeda the other night through my telescope. Despite its relative size in the sky, it's barely visible because of how far away it is. hell, the milky way is barely visible and we're inside of it!
So what would it look like to be "in the middle". Not super far away like andr... | 43 | **It would look about just as bright.** This is why you need about the same darkness of sky to see both the Andromeda Galaxy as well as the Milky Way.
As you approach an object, the brightness of an object increases as the distance squared, but the total amount of area in your field of view will *also* increases as th... | 26 |
[Ben 10] Could Ben just continuously add animals from Earth to the ominitrix? | As I recall, the omnitrix registers any alien species that makes contact with it in its database. So what's stopping Ben from taking a trip to the zoo and grabbing DNA from lions, rhinos, elephants, etc? | 25 | He probably could, but Earth animals are underpowered compared to the aliens he's already got, most of which have more to offer than raw strength or speed. He's got an alien that throws fireballs, an alien that makes spikes erupt out of the ground, an alien that's basically living Lego, and so on. They're more than jus... | 37 |
If you stacked an infinite line of standard dominoes .5 inches apart and pushed one end knocking them over. Would the whole line fall, or would the energy eventually run out? | I was in bed last night wondering if the whole line would fall over, but I do not not think it would. If they do eventually lose the energy and teh dominoes stop falling, how many would fall before it stopped? | 148 | With dominoes, the energy supplied by the push is negligible. The real source of energy in the sequence of falling dominoes is the potential energy from gravity that each of the dominoes is storing. When you tip one, you allow that energy to be released and the domino settles in a lower-energy state. | 165 |
CMV: "non-binary" is a meaningless identity that reinforces harmful sex stereotypes | To claim that because you enjoy things that fall outside of the typical expectations of your sex makes you 'neither male nor female' is ridiculous. It is the opposite of progressive to promote the idea that not conforming to your gender role means you must not have a gender. It asserts a new binary of cis/trans where "... | 21 | >To claim that because you enjoy things that fall outside of the typical expectations of your sex makes you 'neither male nor female' is ridiculous.
Can you find me a *single example* of a nonbinary person claiming that they're nonbinary *because* they enjoy things that fall outside of the typical expectations of t... | 12 |
ELI5: I was eating a clementine today. Some of the segments were extremely sweet, some were very watery and almost tasteless. What's going on here? | 80 | * Clementines are citrus fruits and can be classified as a hesperidium berry.
* Fruits are pretty much mature plant ovaries, divided into carpels.
The segments of hesperidium berries come from the carpels of the flower. When fertilized, the ovary matures and develops layers. These layers are the exocarp, or flavedo, ... | 17 | |
[Star Wars] How advanced are security technologies at a Spaceport in comparison with todays airports? | 80 | It really depends on the spaceport, coruscant is fairly rigorous if you aren't part of the senate, Jedi or military. But just about every system has their own security and plenty of them have very little security. But the general rule of thumb is that security is tightest in the core systems and gets more relaxed the m... | 64 | |
Can a microwave oven interfere with my wifi? | Just noticed an anecdotal relationship between running my microwave and a slowdown in my streaming on Google play. Possible or coincidence?
EDIT: Thanks all for the intersting answers. Looks like I'll be investing in a dual frequency router | 2,205 | Yes, it actually can. Standard wireless routers and microwave ovens both operate on similar frequencies (around 2.4 GHz), so microwave ovens can and do interfere with routers.
You can potentially get a dual-band router (one which operates both at ~2.4 GHz and ~5 GHz) and configure it to rely on the 5 GHz channel, but ... | 1,284 |
ELI5: How do you pronounce the music effect flanging and how does it work? | 30 | Hard to do an ELI5 for this but I'll do an ELI10...
Flanging and many other audio FX like it such as phaser, chorus, delay & reverb, are achieved by manipulating time.
In the case of flanging it is achieved by doubling the original signal, delaying the duplicate signal by a small amount (10ms-20ms for example) a... | 17 | |
Do amputees produce less blood than the rest of us? Or do veins/arteries "stretch" to fit the extra volume? | 17 | They produce less blood. The body doesn’t have a set quota for blood cell production that it tries to meet - your bone marrow isn’t permanently set to produce 5 blood per day or whatever.
Instead your body reacts to the state of your circulation, as detected by stretch receptors and other signaling pathways throughout... | 28 | |
ELI5: What is preventing Google from spreading Google Fiber to major cities across the US? | title | 19 | So here is a very peculiar business practice that Google has. The point of Google fiber is not to make money, but to influence the market. The hope is that by making the service available that the consumers will pressure existing ISP's to become more competitive by offering faster speeds at prices that are accessible t... | 18 |
ELI5 Why does splitting an atom have such a devastating effect | 37 | The atom is made out of smaller subatomic particles, protons and neutrons. When you spit the atom they go flying off, like shrapnel from a grenade. Send enough of them out and they’ll hit other atoms, splitting them in turn, causing a chain reaction.
It’s not always a devastating effect though. Nuclear reactors utili... | 40 | |
ELI5: If a Nuclear Powered Submarine were to be destroyed, what protective measures are in place to protect the reactor? | Just thought about this after watching Crimson Tide. If a torpedo or a depth charge were to destroy a nuclear powered submarine, what is installed to stop a runaway nuclear reaction? Assuming the coolant is somewhat disabled due to the explosion.
| 123 | We've actually already lost two nuclear vessels at sea, the scorpion and the thresher. The cores are designed to be failsafe. Also, supposing the vessel was totally destroyed, you just gained a wonderfully effective heat sink; the ocean. | 95 |
What would have happened to the Euro, had Greece defaulted in 2012 | Saw a graph during a class that showed that Greece had an interest rate of about 30% in 2012 during the financial crisis . This combined with a debt to GDP ratio of 170% they had to pay about 50% of their GDP in pure interest payments.
Fortunately, the interest rate fell, partly because the ECB took action and said... | 51 | In some ways Greece *did* default. Bondholders were given a "haircut". That means they were only paid back a fraction of the amount originally stated on the bond.
I think that's default. Though some say that it's only default if the government fails to pay anything at all.
The Greece situation had lots of negative ef... | 18 |
If I suspended two large masses in space sufficiently far apart such that they were not moving relative to one another, could I tether them and use the expansion of space between the objects to generate energy? | If two large objects were tethered to one another and a generator were attached to a string in the middle could you accelerate the two objects towards one another as space expands in between them and use this acceleration to generate energy from the work done? Where does this energy come from and is it dark energy? How... | 29 | Yes, there would be a tension in the rope. If the rope is approximated as a spring with spring constant *k* and the current distance between the two rope-tethered galaxies is χ, then the tension in the rope is just F(t) = kχa(t). The number a(t) is the so-called scale factor which describes how proper distances increas... | 16 |
[Watchmen] Why did the comedian kill JFK? | 26 | Nixon had him do it. JFK beat Nixon in 1960 and he wanted a clear pathway to the presidency in 1964. It's also heavily implied that Nixon had the Comedian off Woodward and Berstien who were the reporters that exposed Watergate. | 42 | |
ELI5: How is honey made? | 19 | Bees suck up nectar from flowers.
Inside the bees’ stomachs, excess water is removed to concentrate the nectar, and hydrogen peroxide and antimicrobial enzymes are added to it.
The bees then vomit the concentrated nectar into cells of honeycomb.
The bees then fan the concentrated nectar with their wings to further... | 50 | |
How does half life work for individual atoms? | So I do know what half life means on a macroscopic scale. If you have an unstable substance with a half life of, say, a minute. It would mean that every minute, half of the atoms of that substance would decay in some other substance.
So when you start witb 120 unstable atoms with a half life of 60 seconds. Probably no... | 17 | >So half life is basically just the average rate of decay for individual atoms of that substance. This would translate into a macroscopic observation of halving every half life. Is this a correct way of seeing it?
Yes. Each individual decaying particle has its own independent probability distribution for survival a... | 15 |
Why can people lift so much on a leg press? | I know people that can leg press like 600 lbs but can only squat about a quarter of that.
So I was wondering what the differences were? I was able to determine, using high school physics, that because the weight rests on the sled at about a 45° angle, only about 71% of the weight is effectively being lifted in the dir... | 46 | A few more things to consider, besides the lower force required to move the mass, would be a shorter range of motion and musculature involved.
Most leg press machines don't allow the range of motion that a barbell squat does, effectivly cutting the amount of work being done.
Most people's squat is not being held bac... | 37 |
ELI5: Why do we have nightmares? | 29 | One interesting thing is that children are much more likely to have nightmares about monsters chasing them. As we grow up we start to substitute that fear to things in our world. But maybe we have nightmares to prepare ourselves for terrifying situations, so that when you're being chased by lion you've had a couple pra... | 19 | |
[General] Pros and Cons of strapping your sword on your back vs on your hip. | 132 | Pros of having sword on back:
- Look badass as fuck
- Easier to carry larger swords
- better balance if only weapon
Cons:
- Potentially harder to draw
- Back movement slightly limited
- Unable to wear badass, wind-flowing cape
- MUCH harder to draw in tighter spaces. | 147 | |
CMV: Minimum wage jobs shouldn't pay enough to have you support anyone besides yourself. | If you need to support a family you should aquire a skill that pays more than minimum wage. Welding, construction, factory work, the post office, anything really. There are a staggering amount of skills that take very little to learn that can help you make quite a bit more money. Fast food style jobs should be reserve... | 22 | Minimum wage jobs do not do that now. For most of the country that self supporting rate would be around $9 an hour, and or cities like NYC and LA you are looking at $15 or more.
As to your assertion that it should not be use to support a family. When minimum wage was started by FDR it was set to meet the cost of livi... | 35 |
What happens if you are given the wrong blood type? | 69 | In an acute reaction, the patients antibodies attack and kill large numbers of the donated red blood cells. The hemoglobin released into your blood stream from the destroyed red blood cells can then cause kidney damage. Occasionally, you might also face disseminated intravascular coagulation (spontaneous clotting of ... | 79 | |
ELI5: Why are companies allowed to buy and sell their customer's loans without their permission, and what is the purpose of it? | 331 | You're referring to 'the customer' as the person who owes money. That's not really accurate. The loan doesn't belong to the person who owes money. The loan belongs to the company that gave them the money. The debtor is the *asset*.
If a bank gave you $50,000 dollars, with the understanding that you'll pay it back ... | 162 | |
[Marvel] How is Earth able to keep up with all the alien civilizations around it? | Clearly, the Marvel Universe's version of Earth takes place in the present, but it is surrounded by all sorts of interstellar races. You'd expect the planet to be as significant as a speck of dust. Instead, it's able to fight off any alien invaders. And that's not counting all the superhumans and mutants that live on i... | 88 | > Shouldn't this be like a primitive tribe going up against the Army?
Sort of. Now imagine that primitive tribe has a number of shamans who can summon dragons, call down lightning on their enemies and read the minds of the enemy generals. And imagine that their tribal god is a real, corporeal entity who takes the ... | 139 |
[WH40K] Would the Emperor accept a slave race purely devoted to its master? | Lets say that the Emperor finds a slave race that had been idle after they lost thier masters. They became fanatically devoted to Humans after they find them and would take all the abuse even at the risk of death just so they can serve. The way they serve conforms to the ideal servant for Humanity and have proven thems... | 84 | Absolutely not.
That basically screams trap and goes counter to the idea that humans only need humans to survive.
We would never turn over any modicum of power to a xeno no matter how small or trivial.
Only possible scenario is to use them as canon fodder until they are extinct. Even then there would have to be e... | 109 |
Can anyone explain the most recent XKCD to me? | Here's the link
http://xkcd.com/1132/
It looks like one of those XKCD's where it's hilarious if you understand the subject... but I don't. Help a brutha out? | 55 | The difference between the two schools of thought is that a frequentist will assign probabilities only based on what has happened, whereas a Bayesian will assign a "prior" probability to the initial state and then use what happened to calculate the new probability.
So a frequentist might say that the only observation ... | 74 |
ELI5: What exactly makes certain things feel satisfying? (Like popping zits, things geometrically arranged, etc) Is there a term for this? | 16 | I think your question is "Why are some random things still satisfying to us?"
The answer is evolution. Lets deal with the 2 different topics you have here: OCD and Bodily Cleansing. The zit popping first.
This one is odd. Popping zits is almost fun. Often painful, its still satisfying when it finally pops. And over t... | 11 | |
ELI5: Why does a punch to the chin knock one out but a punch to the head might not? | 22 | It’s about getting the skull to snap back. You get knocked out when you brain smashes against the inside of your skull, and a punch straight to the head probably won’t generate enough rotation to do that, but a punch to the chin will rock your skull backwards and your brain will hit the back of your head. | 19 | |
ELI5 why we get a "second wind" if we go too long without sleep. | 145 | Long time without a sleep is a stress for your body. If this stress reaches certain threshold, your body treats such situation as danger and starts producing adrenaline which prevents you from falling asleep quickly | 194 | |
Why fire is so bright? Where does the light come from? | I guess, it may by a silly question, but why fire (I mean flame) is bright? From chemistry point of view, of course, burning is oxidizing (acetification?). And burning gives both heat and light. Assuming light is nothing but photons, where do all the photons come from? Right now I'm holding a match in my fingers, and ... | 30 | In typical red-orange flames, the light emitted is due to the incandescence of soot particles. Little particles of half-burnt fuel get so hot from the reaction that they glow and emit light due to their temperature, just like in an incandescent light bulb. The energy that makes the soot particles so hot comes from chem... | 26 |
[Encanto/Tangled] Can Isabella grow the flower that gave Rapunzel her hair? | Assuming this is all in the same linear Universe, of course. | 54 | Given that the flower is not unique, and can be seen also growing on the island of Motunui (Moana) as a result of the nature god/power returning. It would be reasonable to assume that another source of magic/nature could allow it to grow.
The only drawback may be that (currently) Isabella does not appear to have such... | 34 |
ELI5: Why do American electric plugs have a "fatter" side? What is the danger of plugging in opposite? | 27 | For electrical appliances to be safe it is important that the power comes through a fuse or circuit breaker, into the wall outlet, then the plug must take that same wire to the on/off switch of the appliance. This way, when the appliance is turned off, there is no power coming to the appliance. Put the plug into the wa... | 24 | |
[General] Any examples of villains that have a no-kill rule? | 36 | From what I've been told, the Flash's rogues have a no kill rule. Barry does *not* have a no kill rule and will readily if reluctantly kill a villain that is a threat to civilians. And, being the fastest man alive there's not much any of them could do about it. So they have an understanding: they don't kill civilians a... | 55 | |
ELI5: Transistors, what they do, how they work, how they're used. | 21 | Think of them as a valve. You have a flow through them, which you can turn on or off with another, much smaller flow.
Now, how can we do so much with this:
Well, there are two cases: analog and digital.
**Analog:**
You don't have to open or close the valve all the way. This means that you can use a small flow (a we... | 20 | |
[Harry Potter] I'm a devout Christian from the Bible Belt yet I received an invitation to study at Hogwarts. If I'm born with the Magic gene am I damned to Hell? | The bible explicitly states that you shall not suffer a Witch to live. But apparently I can't help it! I have the Magic gene and I'm told that I've been invited to study the craft at a school called Hogwarts. What do I do? Can God make exceptions for me since I was born a Witch? Do I get a free pass? Can I be a Christi... | 92 | The original term is closer to the word "sorceress" than "witch". And it refers to someone who derives their magic from supernatural sources ie: making deals with devils.
As a natural witch, you're fine. Lots of witches and wizards were Christian. | 105 |
Why does Kant in the Critique of Pure Reason draw the distinction between analytic/synthetic and a priori/ a posreriori? | 20 | It's all about the historical debate between empiricists and rationalists. Hume was one of the former, Kant one of the latter. Hume (according to Kant) basically showed that all that could be known about the world had to be known empirically through the senses, or that it had to be synthetic and *a posteriori*.
Kant's... | 11 |
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