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CMV: Graduation ceremonies should only be held for High School and College | Over the past couple of weeks I have attended or seen pictures for family member graduation ceremonies for kindergarten, 6th grade, 8th grade, and my daughter's high school graduation. I'm not talking about a simple gathering, I mean full out cap and gown, commencement speaches, hours long, etc full on graduation cere... | 72 | Having graduation ceremonies for completing certain levels of schooling rewards children for doing so, when the alternative is that children are never really rewarded with a ceremony like this until they complete high school. Having a graduation ceremony after, say, middle school can show students that their education ... | 16 |
What are the first specialized cells created in an human embryo, and what is the mechanism for proper relative positioning of different types of specialized cells? | 55 | This explanation may a bit too general. Anyways, Cells start to specialize during gastrulation when the blastula (hollow ball of cells) gets this dent. This divides the embryo into 3 “germ layers”. Each of which will specialize into specific body parts.
One mechanism for cell positioning is as simple as cell migratio... | 11 | |
So if time is a dimension of spacetime, and space is expanding, what's time doing? | Subject pretty much says it all. Are space and time connected in such a way? Is time expanding? Is this why it passes? Am I retarded? | 59 | Time isn't changing. The metric equation that describes the line element in terms of cosmological coordinates includes a numerical coefficient in front of the spacelike terms, and none in front of the timelike term. Time just keeps being time.
But more to the point, there's actually no difference between "cosmological... | 45 |
ELI5: Why is it that i need to crack my back and i don't feel normal until i do? | 52 | Bubbles! Bubbles always make people happy, right? In this case, there's oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide bubbles trapped in your joints that escape when you crack your back. These bubbles float away and relieve a bit of pressure build up, which also relaxes the things that hold your muscles in place, the ligaments,... | 23 | |
I feel like my PhD advisor does not respect me, what should I do? | Now first of all I have an ADHD and ADHD people at first may seem stupid when arguing things, because we get too exiceted sometimes and talk without thinking and say inaacurate things. There have been few indicedents like that, while discussing with him. It has been 8 months since I have been working with him. I did ... | 16 | Respect is earned. If your professor is belittling you, that’s one thing and is inappropriate, but if you’re just not getting the respect you think that you deserve, it is possible that you’ve overestimated the amount of respect you merit at this admittedly early stage in your academic career. | 57 |
[Home Alone] Would Kevin be charged for what he did to Harry and Marv? | Me and my family were watching both Home Alone movies (Yes I know there is a third and what not but come on) when I realized something. Kevin in both movies had info about Harry and Marv's plan and rather than reporting it, Kevin makes his traps, and the two men suffer. Well if the police knew about this would Kevin be... | 69 | As a minor, Kevin isn't responsible for his actions and it can be argued that he was simply defending his home from two known criminals. Being a young person left literally alone over the holidays he can also argue he didn't know to contact the authorities, or how to contact them. He's likely not face any criminal char... | 89 |
Why are we colder when wet? | 4,996 | Our sensation of being cold (or hot) is strongly affected by the rate at which we exchange heat with the environment. When we're wet, the water is almost always colder than the 37 C of our body. That means that heat flows from our body into the water on our skin. And since water has a considerably higher heat conductiv... | 3,928 | |
ELI5: SD. SS. SA. Gestapo. Wehrmacht. Sipo. Kripo. What were they all and how do they relate to each other? | It's a broad question, but Nazi Germany had so many intelligence/military apparatuses it is hard to keep them straight. I especially don't know how they all relate to each other. Who was subordinate to whom? Did they interact with each other? | 17 | the Wehrmacht was Nazi Germany's military
The SS (=Schutzstaffel) was a paramilitary group founded to protect Hitler, but it quickly turned into one of the Nazi's most important instruments. The Waffen SS, which was under the Wehrmacht's command was a special unit that fought on the frontlines along with the Wehrmacht... | 26 |
[Marvel Universe] Doctor Strange less effective against science-based opponents? | [Doctor Strange marvel page.](http://marvel.com/characters/14/doctor_strange)
>Doctor Strange's powers are sometimes less effective against strictly science-based opponents, although he can overcome this limitation with effort.
Does this mean that Doctor Strange is mainly limited by having to know what the actual p... | 71 | > Does this mean that Doctor Strange is mainly limited by having to know what the actual problem is or like tech and such?
Basically yes. If he knows exactly how a supernatural effect works (and he usually does), he can directly cut off its power, or leverage one of its supernatural weaknesses, or bring in a specif... | 41 |
[The Witcher 3] What exactly is The White Frost? Is it something artificial? Magical? Or a natural process like entropy? | Haven't been able to work this one out. It seems like an unstoppable force akin to entropy where eventually all worlds lose heat and energy becoming icy and lifeless. Perhaps it's more to do with each planet's star going supernova, and the worlds losing heat from their sun? Either way, it appears that The White Frost i... | 21 | A (presumed) magical WMD that caused an unsurvivable ice age in one dimension or "sphere", before eventually making its way to another.
As to how it's stopped, there's unfortunately no canon answer to give other than "magic". | 18 |
Would Helen Keller be immune to the madness induced by Cthulu? | 25 | Absolutely not. Cthulu's very existence defies human comprehension, regardless of the senses it is perceived by. Just FEELING its presence is enough to drive someone mad.
She may last a little longer, because of limited input, but she would succumb like everyone else.
In fact, because of he limited referential expe... | 30 | |
[Star Wars] If a huge fleet can orbitally bombard a planet's surface to dust, even back in the old republic days, isn't the concept of the Death Star massive overkill? It's not like you need all that power to kill people living in the core of the planet. | 367 | In addition to Tarkin wanting to scare everyone, the other advantage of the Death Star is its Nigh-invulnerability.
A huge fleet can be met by another huge fleet in combat. It can be harried, disrupted, blasted by surface weapons, etc...
The Death Star was effectively beyond these concerns. It's planet killing capab... | 410 | |
[Kill Bill] Why didn't Bill kill Vernita Green? | In the movie we see that Bill tries to murder Kiddo for trying to start a new life away from him. We also see that Vernita did the same thing, had a child, etc. So why didn't Bill murdered her as well? | 43 | Because he didn't love Vernita. Kiddo didn't walk out on the Vipers, she walked out on *Bill*. She slipped out the back door, dumped him without a word, and when he finally finds her he finds out that not only was he dumped, but she's already shacked up with some nothing hick in Bumfuck, Nowhere.
He valued Vernita an... | 109 |
Why aren't certain endangered species that are now limited to a single site, such as the large mason bee, just reintroduced to areas where they used to be common, when they've been limited to a single site for years. Is there some scientific reason for this? | You can buy mason bee cocoons and keep them in your garden, so I'm just wondering why nobody's done this with that species. If they had, it'd no longer be limited to a single site, so its population, distribution and genetic diversity would increase, reducing its risk of extinction. Is there some good reason this can't... | 19 | In many cases they are trying to reintroduce them but either the climate is no longer suitable, their particular food source is no longer sufficient, the area has somehow changed in possibly an imperceptible way that we have yet to grasp that it doesn’t like, a new predator has moved in, a competing species is consumin... | 13 |
ELI5: Why's there still a "share" button for internet porn videos despite there being zero demand for it? | 105 | Three possibilities:
1) Someone out there actually uses the porn sharing function, so websites continue to use it.
2) Its a default option in the web video program that porn sites use, and removing it would cause some issues with the playback.
3) Web developers have a weird sense of humor, and have programmed it in ... | 70 | |
Is petrified and fossilized the same thing? | If not how do they differ? | 1,835 | Petrified objects are fossils, but not all fossils are petrified.
While a fossil can be the indication that an organism was present, or is present, it doesnt denote petrification which is a very specific fossilization processes that retains are large amount of detail and internal structures of the fossilized material.... | 1,276 |
[The Jetsons]The Jetsons take place in 2062. That is uh, really close to now. What happens between then and now to cause the surface of the Earth become uninhabitable? | 92 | In 2022, a zombie virus breaks out. By 2025, most of the un-infected have fled to stilted buildings in the clouds. They carpet-bombed the surface to try and sanitize the threat. The surface is considered uninhabitable by the cloud-dwellers.
Meanwhile, on the surface, once the zombie virus ran its course, the remnan... | 96 | |
[Warhammer 40K] A ton of Ork Mekboys bang on the shiny yellow chair with hammers, and think "shiny chair work now." Is the Emperor's Golden Throne restored to full function? | 43 | No.
The ork gestalt field still required technology to run, its a common trope that ork shit either breaks the laws of physics or is just a gun shaped stick that shoots plasma because of belief.
In reality its far more nuanced, the gestalt allows mechboyz to built better more advanced technology but it doesnt allow... | 32 | |
CMV: Society is getting dumber because most people who have kids are dumb | Now I'm not saying that all people who have children are stupid, but what I do believe to be true, is that dumber people are more likely to have children/many children.
Why is this? Well, having kids is something that society pushes onto people, because it is seen as "just a part of life", and I think that the people... | 18 | Is it even possible to have any meaningful proof of this claim?
It's not really possible to measure intelligence in any useful way, nor have we been able to prove that intelligence is significantly genetic. | 14 |
[MCU] How does Star Lord's helmet work, and what would happen if Tony Stark got his hands on it? | 79 | One of two things. Either it would catapult mankind forward in technological development, or it would be so advanced that it was literally useless.
The way we know this is the miniaturization technology. It's not just that the mask can just pack itself into a space it can't fit into... it's that they used it in what... | 85 | |
[Marvel] Is there any thickness of adamantium that I, a mere human, could physically bend bare handed? | Is adamantium always rigid? Could I flex adamantium wire or would it be a case of eventually going thin enough that I'd just be cutting my hands? | 70 | Yes and no. Adamantium, once set, is impossible to reshape even after exposed to a significant amount of heat. But adamantium is not an element but an alloy, meaning it's the combination of various materials and gone through a very expensive procedure to get just right. Once the adamantium gets thin enough, it's litera... | 74 |
ELI5 what Tor is, and why everyone praises it as the king of proxies. | 31 | Imagine the internet as a phone system.
When you make a regular call, it's easy to see who is calling who (caller ID) and what they're saying (phone taps and the like). What TOR does is splits everything up and encrypts it. So instead of calling the person you want to talk to directly, you call a designated stranger, ... | 16 | |
Where does all the debt go? | So me and my friends were discussing economics and the recession and trying to figure out how it all works and we think we've figured it all out except for one thing.
So as far as we can tell, the big problem is that everyone's in debt and owes money that basically doesn't exist. As in there's more money owed than the... | 33 | There is actually 33 Euros in your system; there are the 3 Euros of cash, and 30 Euros of assets in the form of debts that other people owe to you. In your closed economy, there is also 30 Euros of liabilities, so on the net, the 3 of you hold 3 Euros. | 18 |
[Samurai Jack] Why didn’t Aku just nuke whatever location Jack was at? | He came up with all these hair brained schemes and sent God knows how many assassins but he never went the Nuclear option. It’s not like Aku would care what people thought of him afterwards since he’s the Shogun of Sorrow. As a matter of fact he would probably revel in the newfound fear of everyone knowing he could jus... | 15 | He did once. In the Spartan episode a city sized robot exploded next to Jack, and he was fine and suffered no ill consequences.
Ranged weapons are just much less effective in the Jackverse for some reason, as are explosives. A sword or spear is vastly superior at killing people. | 19 |
How much formal education is necessary to become a philosopher? | I am currently pursuing philosophy at the undergraduate level. If I do not go to graduate school, then would I still be taken seriously if I were to pursue a career as an academic philosopher? If not, then are there any philosophy careers for non-academics?
Are there any renowned (academic or not) philosophers who hav... | 56 | There have been many famous autodidact philosophers throughout history. But that is no longer likely feasible. You can still publish in journals if you are a BA student. But not going to graduate school is not going to get you into the academic philosophy world. | 68 |
ELI5: How the human brain can go years without hearing a song, and still remember every single lyric of it when it forgets other things like the names of old friends or coworkers. | 28 | Memory that is stored with multiple sensorial associations is more likely to be unique and thus easier to recall. A song lyric is associated with rhymes, instruments, vocalists and personal experiences while listening, creating a very unique data point. On the contrary, a person's name is likely not very unique and a... | 13 | |
ELI5: The purpose of "Right To Work" laws in America and who it benefits | 112 | Right to work laws state that you can't be required to join a union as a condition of employment. This allows an employee to work without paying union dues (but they will not have the benefits of being in a union - well this is a point of contention but beyond the scope of an ELI5).
Were you thinking of at-will emplo... | 60 | |
ELI5: What does this new pattern of quarks mean to science? | With the new pentaquark particle that has been discovered, as mentioned in [this](http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-33517492) article, what does this mean for science in the aspect of furthering the study of quantum physics/mechanics? What questions does this raise? And what existing beliefs or theories are n... | 20 | One interesting aspect is that it's made of 4 normal quarks and 1 anti-quark. Normally matter and antimatter of any kind annihilate eachother but here they are shown in a stable configuration.
It doesn't violate any known theories. If anything it validates some particle theories. Pentaquarks were theorized for a long ... | 13 |
what is a term for paying someone wages according to how you feel about them? | I was reading about the Ford company Sociological Program. https://www.motorious.com/articles/features-3/henry-fords-bizarre-social-program/
Under the program workers were paid a base rate of $2.34/day under the standard capitalist value of productivity.
The Sociological Program added bonuses according two more quali... | 23 | Usually it gets called discrimination, because everyone has different social values and a different definition of righteousness so if you base pay on those then people get paid according to whatever biases their boss happens to have. | 30 |
[Futurama]Why did the Professor hire Bender? | Fry had his delivery boy career chip, so that made him a natural. But why hire a defective bending robot to work on an intergalactic delivery company? Is it simply his durability? Is he a diversity hire? Or just the Professor being the Professor? | 82 | To bend things.
But it's more likely Hermes made the hiring decision. Remember, he's Inspector #5, and he's the one who overrode Bender's "defective" designation in the first place. He probably felt some responsibility for Bender and gave him a job out of pity, and the Professor was too out of it to notice. | 134 |
[American Gods]Gods exist because people believe in and worship them. Does that mean that in North Korea, there are Divine versions of Kim Il-Sung Kim Jung Un? For Generations they were worshipped as Divine figures by North Koreans, especially Il-Sung. | What are other examples of real people, currently alive or deceased, who might have a Divine version based upon the admiration and worship they received on a mass scale? | 227 | There's a "copy" of them which is all the propaganda and urban legends about them personified.
This is why you get extremely odd news about them performing miracles.
Suprime leader found the cure for an local strain of lupus? It was the god versions. As a child suprime leader was an expert marksman? His godly double... | 120 |
ELI5: How is sound recorded? | I do have somewhat of an understanding of how the ear perceives sound, and how speakers work. But I am just lost on understanding how something can record the exact sound it receives. Please help.. | 68 | Sound is just waves in the air. Inside a microphone is a membrane that vibrates back and forth with the waves. Attached to this membrane is a coil of wires, this coil of wires moves back and forth across a magnet as it moves back and for with the membrane (and therefore, with the waves.) The coil of wire moving back an... | 28 |
[90s Kids Movies] I am a card-carrying villain, but my local college shut down, so my dreams of being a scientist have been crushed. Should i become a stepmother or a dogcatcher? | I was really looking forward to using a bunch of gadgets to take over the world, but ether abusing a tiny orphan girl in rags OR putting a bunch of stray puppies in the pound so they can be put down when their time is up will have to do. Which one do you think is more evil and nasty? I want to be the best villain i can... | 18 | You are not thinking big enough. Take a lesson from some iconic baddies from the 80s and become a real estate developer. There is nothing more villainous than becoming rich by dashing local kids hopes and dreams by closing down their local community centre to build another soulless mall. | 24 |
[John Wick] How does John Wick have money? | The gold coins John has, while probably valuable because of their gold content, always seemed to represent something more like a favor trading system than an frankly unnecessary secondary currency that would just ultimately be exchanged for dollars, euros, or whatever; and I assume given how valuable they are within th... | 81 | The coins are only used for high table and continental services. Cash is still traded for other goods and services by lower members. Working for the Russian mob pays US dollars, working for the camora pays gold coins. There's likely some way to exchange cash and coins for their opposite through the continental. We do s... | 91 |
How close could I get to this cold brown dwarf without dying horribly? | I saw [this article](http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2011/08/coolest-brown-dwarf-discovered.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news) and wondered about if I could, theoretically, interact with such an object. I presume gravity would be the main issue, or would it? Let's assume it's on the lower bo... | 57 | Layman here.
It wouldn't be very much unlike Jupiter. If you had a spaceship that could orbit around Jupiter, you could orbit around a brown dwarf that cold with no problems. You wouldn't want to get so low that atmospheric drag would slow down your orbit; you'd eventually crash into it.
"Crash into" is the wrong wor... | 32 |
Why can't we get to Mars easier by placing intermittent satellites (space stations) along the way? | If planets can orbit the Sun, then surely man-made space stations could be placed into orbits to mimic planets. We could place many of these into orbits between Earth and Mars. Then shuttle things back and forth between the shorter distances. | 44 | The distance won't necessarily be that much shorter. Mars and Earth orbit the Sun with a different period, so the position of Mars with respect to Earth changes continuously. Sometimes Mars is rather close to Earth, but other times it is on the opposite side of the sun.
The proposed space stations that are placed in i... | 68 |
Why does it take a rocket to go into space? | You're farther away from gravity and the atmosphere is thinner.
Why does it take so much power to leave the earth when airplanes
can go ridiculously high with much less power? | 15 | A plane could get close-ish to space. The SR-71 blackbird has a ceiling of 25km and a top speed around 1km/s. Planes have an advantage because they don't need to carry air with them, they only need to bring around half of the fuel.
A rocket is not strictly required to get to space, which is around 100km, but it is req... | 18 |
[Sofia the First] As King Roland's step-daughter, and a commoner no less, does Princess Sofia have a place in the ascension order to the throne of Enchancia? Is she even a princess? | In our world, it would appear her status would be analogous to Tom Parker Bowles, who apparently doesn't have a royal title. | 43 | No. She's not the daughter of the king and she's a commoner, *plus* she's the youngest child. Her chances of inheriting the throne without a **major** catastrophe happening are null.
If the kingdom practices agnatic-cognatic primogeniture then Amber is next in the line of succession. If not then their brother is next ... | 18 |
ELI5: Why is it healthy to strain your heart through exercise, but unhealthy to strain it through stress, caffeine, nicotine etc? What is the difference between these kinds of cardiac strain? | 24,454 | Exercise causes natural vascular dialation allowing the increase in heart rate to provide your circulatory system with more oxygen.
Caffeine and nicotine cause vascular constriction along with the increase in heart rate. This puts more stress on your heart since it has to work even harder to achieve the same level... | 15,818 | |
ELI5: The probe sent to Pluto is about to come out of hibernation, giving us the best glimpse of Pluto since it's discovery. Why can't we just point the Hubble at it and get crystal clear photos of Pluto when we can use the same telescope for peering into the edges of the visible universe? | 22 | Your phone can take a picture of Mt Rushmore from 1,000 feet away but can't take a picture of an ant from 20 feet away.
Hubble is looking at supermassive things far away that generate a lot of light but Pluto is very small and doesn't reflect a lot of light. | 60 | |
If you drop your a phone or something else with a glass screen and the screen doesn't crack, does it have a higher chance of shattering the next time you drop it? | If you drop glass and it doesn't crack, are there invisible changes to the glass that make it weaker? | 3,905 | TL;DR: Yes.
Materials Engineer here...Your brand new phone screen has billions of cracks in it. They're just really really really small. Now, anytime you do something to the phone (drop it, sit on it, bump your keys against it, whatever) you're putting stress on those cracks.
If the stress is over a certain thres... | 3,340 |
ELI5 When I plug my nose and blow air really hard, my ears "pop". What is actually happening? | 44 | When you do that you force air up your eustacion tube which goes from your throat to your ear behind your ear drum. It equalizes the pressure on both sides of your ear drum. When you go to higher altitudes the air pressure gets lower so the air on the inside of your eardrum is higher and pushes out on your eardrum so i... | 16 | |
If there was another planet with the same orbit time as Earth, would we know? | Hey all,
If there was another planet with the same amount of time to orbit the Sun as Earth, but was on the far-side of the Sun, would we know?
Dan O. | 25 | Yeah, because Earth's orbit is elliptical and not circular we would still see it at times. Also, the probes we've sent to Mars and Venus and other planets would not have reached their destination if there was another planet on the other side. | 14 |
[The Martian-book] What long term health effect can Mark Watney expect? | I have only read the book, not seen the documentary. Watney lived off of MRE's, space potatoes and vitamins, he also spent alot of time around that radioactive thing he dug up plus whatever solar radiation he would have gotten just being on Mars. Would he get cancer? Radiation poisoning? Malnutrition? Would his muscles... | 93 | Long-term, Watney will have a much higher chance of developing cancer. The reactor actually didn't contribute to that very much; it's heavily shielded and never breached. The massive exposure to solar radiation did it. The Hab and the EVA suits are radiation-shielded, but they weren't designed to hold up over so long. ... | 79 |
Anyone like Heidegger but who writes like a normal person? | 36 | No, but he has a ton of lecture notes published as books which are much clearer than Being and Time (I presume that's what you're struggling with), and most of his essays are also reasonably lucid. His writing is also much nicer to read when you understand the terminology he's using, and there's lots of approachable se... | 29 | |
ELI5: Metal Gear Solid (The whole darn story) | 40 | Added a tl;dr at the bottom...
The Boss was a hero during WWII. Naked Snake (later Big Boss) was one of millions inspired by the Boss. The Boss became an undercover agent (essentially) in Russia, but her gift to Volgin (an American rocket launcher) that he fired started political tension between America and Russia. Th... | 24 | |
What happens to a person’s oral hygiene while being in a coma? | Like does someone come brush their teeth once in a while? | 28 | Yes. It's actually very important that Nurses brush the patient's teeth twice a day. Patients in a coma don't have a gag reflex because they have an airway in their trachea. Brushing their teeth reduces the amount of bacteria in the patient's mouth that can travel down into their lungs and cause a pneumonia. | 51 |
Peer-review: how to know a request is legit? | Hello everyone! I have received an email asking to peer-review a paper. This is my first approach (if you exclude obviously predatory journals) as I am still a PhD student.
I was approached via my personal email, which I used to publish a thesis after I lost institutional affiliation, so I know which paper the editor ... | 81 | 1. View several issues of the journal to see if people you recognize have published in it. This will help you assess if it's legit.
2. Ask your advisor.
3. It is probably not legit, though this depends on your field.
4. Ask your advisor.
5. If you don't feel comfortable reviewing it (you said you're not the expert t... | 96 |
[Star Trek TNG] In "Darmok" how could a civilisation communicate only through metaphor without first having a language in order to write and speak the stories? | 73 | They did have a more "normal" language. But languages evolve.
Similar to how trying to listen to someone from England 1000 years ago isn't going to work for a modern English speaker. Or similar to how people today can have entire conversations with just emoji and understand it fine. | 74 | |
[MCU] Stark wears the Mk 47 in Homecoming, 50 in Infinity War, and 85 in Endgame; what does the progression look like for the armors in between? | And do Iron Spider and Rescue count? I personally doubt those two count since War Machine got his own line. | 52 | Iron Spider and Rescue definitely don’t count, they’re separate projects. As far as what they look like, probably not very different. After the Mark 50 when he used nanobots the suit upgrades were probably mostly software, just uploading plans for new weapons and features mostly. Like the energy shield he used when Hul... | 56 |
[MCU] Is Bruce Banner/The Hulk still a fugitive? | In 2008, he destroyed half of Harlem and was on the run until 2012 when he joined thee Avengers. Since then, he's mostly kept to himself and traveled the world. Assuming he didn't leave earth in Age of Ultron and the events of Civil War took place, what would his legal status be? | 23 | Hulk wasn't a fugitive or traveling after the Avengers, he was pretty obviously hanging around with Tony in Stark Tower. Likely SHIELD and Stark Industries leveraged whatever they could to get his name fully cleared after the Battle of New York. | 24 |
Are academic conferences open to the public? | I’m a new grad student with a flexible schedule and I’m embarrassed to ask my advisor such a silly question.
Are academic conferences usually open to the public? I have interests outside of my field and would love to find some conferences so I can listen to people talk about their work.
Is there a database of upcom... | 26 | If you mean open, as in free, then most likely “No.”most scientific conferences require registration fees. There are some conferences that you may not be able to attend; these are typically smaller & more intimate, so you need to be presenting or get in touch with organizers to get permission. You’ll still have to ... | 50 |
How do they figure out how many calories are in my food? | 109 | Calories are a measure of energy contained in the food.
To calculate the amount of energy in the food we need to release it. This is done by burning it completely in an oxygen atmosphere.
To measure how much energy is released they may use something called a "bomb calorimeter." Basically it is a chamber (in which a k... | 125 | |
Eli5: Why are we told to wash our hands for 20 seconds to kill all the bacteria etc, but not told anything similar for dishwashing? What makes dishwashing different, if anything? | 134 | The 20 seconds hand washing is to encourage you to wash all areas of your hand, you can do it quicker or slower but as long as you wash all over, it achieves the same results. Similar to the dishes, you wipe all areas until it's clean. Hands are a more complex shape than a dish hence why it takes longer. | 172 | |
Took a postdoc after PhD but I want out. How to transition successfully into industry? | How do I approach jobs that might view me as over qualified? How do I explain why I want to transition out of academia without explicitly saying that I hate the career path, the long hours, little pay, and endless stress?
Anyone successfully leave their postdoc for industry? My background is in genomics (worked with f... | 183 | Just apply for jobs. There are plenty of jobs with a PhD as either a job requirement, or listed under “preferred qualifications.” There’s not necessarily a need to explain why you’re leaving academia; in general, only academics care about that | 129 |
Does the earth expand and contract? | OK this may sound dumb but here's my reasoning. I work in construction and one of the common misunderstandings most people have is that everything in their house expands and contracts as the weather changes. This causes a lot of cracks and why there is usually a tolerance with materials.
But I was wondering does the e... | 86 | Not in any appreciable sense, no. Earth’s radius remains quite unchanged over the course of a year, although it’s shape is slightly altered as a consequence of the gravitational force exerted on the Earth from the moon, as well as Earth’s rotation. This results in Earth being very slightly “Pear-shaped,” with a minor b... | 46 |
[venture bros] nsfw, minotaur. | Why does The Monarch have sex with that prostitute then make a weird speech before throwing her into the cacoon's labyrinth... and also why does the cacoon have a labyrinth with the polar bear from lost? | 16 | because his job is to be a super villain so that’s what he has to do. not a doylist answer, that’s literally why he murdered his prostitution after giving a speech and why he has those things. purely to fit the villain mold. it’s a lifestyle and career. that’s what the show is | 20 |
ELI5: Why won't China let Tibet be an independent country? | From everything I've heard, Tibet is dirt poor, ethnically a totally different country with a very separate history, and contributes little to the Chinese economy and society. Why not just let them go? | 41 | Just *because* they can control it. No country wants to cut away a constituent part of it so long as it can still be managed without negative consequences.
Apart from controlling a ton of people in Tibet and gaining access to what resources it has, it also also allows China to keep an eye on the rest of Central and So... | 17 |
Are online, anonymous surveys (qualtrics etc.) considered a valid method for collecting data in the social sciences? What are the problems with this method and, assuming these problems are glaring, why is it so common in academic institutions? | 27 | It's a valid way to collect data, but it might not be a way to collect 'valid' data. The people taking these surveys are self-selecting into the survey, so it's not random. Randomness is needed if someone plans on generalizing the findings to a larger population (anything larger than the people actually taking the su... | 14 | |
Can human brains actually "multi-task" or is our brain just capable of swapping back and forth between tasks quickly? | When I'm brushing my teeth and doing something else at the same time with my other hand, like folding a pair of pants, I find myself involuntarily stopping brushing my teeth and only focus on the folding. I don't even realize I stopped brushing my teeth. What's the science behind this? | 18 | The brain has a multitude of interconnected systems and modules specialized for different tasks, and these operate in parallel at all times - so yes, to some degree, multitasking is possible. If you think about it, one part of your brain is processing visual information, another processing audio information, another k... | 15 |
ELI5: How come that in american media, sexual content of any kind is a strict taboo, but extreme violence is not a problem at all, while in most other parts of the world it is exactly the other way around? | 26 | The U.S., though secular by construction, is still a very religious nation on the level of its people. There has always been a strong religious pushback against sexual activity and pornography, which remains in religious communities to this day.
On the other hand, Americans tend to be pretty pro-military compared to ... | 11 | |
Are satellites sending data back to earth affected by the Doppler effect? | Are the data signals satellites send back to earth affected at all by the Doppler effect, since the data is in a wave form, and if so, does the satellite have to change the signal slightly to prevent data loss or corruption? | 15 | Yes, it's not small enough to interfere with communications, but it's large enough to be able to measure the speed of the spacecraft. If Rosetta is traveling at 15 km/s relative to Earth, then the change in wavelength will be 0.005%, from the formula:
lambda^obs = lambda^emit \* (1 + v/c)
(sucks that markdown can't d... | 14 |
[Star Wars] What happened to the Lars homestead and moisture farm following their death and Luke's disappearance? | Did anyone inherit it? Would the Bank of Tatooine have taken over if they missed some payments? Did Jawas just strip the place clean? | 24 | In the EU, Luke originally grants the homestead to an alien named Throgg. He in turn ran afoul of the local influential land baron Huff Darklighter - father of Biggs Darklighter, Luke's deceased friend - who proceeded to attempt to run Throgg out. Huff's more reasonable brother Jula intervened, taking the title but all... | 20 |
[Marvel] How serious does a mutation have to be to count as a mutant? Would someone with something like Heterochromia be allowed in the Brotherhood or X-men, or get harassed by Sentinels? | 53 | Conveniently all mutations that "count" in this world are tied to the very specifically identified X-gene (and considering how many different ways it manifests I'd argue it has to be more than one single gene but nobody asked me)
You won't see albinos or people with syndactyly at Xavier's school... at least not ones ... | 75 | |
ELI5: Why can certain muscles in human bodies (like in our arms, legs, etc.) be built-up through workouts while others (like our fingers, jaw, etc.) remain the same size despite working out almost constantly? | 3,375 | A lot of misinformation in here. Fast twitch / slow twitch has nothing to do with this these particular examples. Every muscle can be worked out and every muscle will grow if worked out more.
You say those muscles stay the same despite being used a lot. Your muscles are the size they need to be for their usage.
The m... | 2,365 | |
[Avatar] Did Earth colonize other star systems in the immediate area besides Centauri? | How far did the human race extend and/or explore by the time Avatar takes place? Was the Centauri system where it takes place the only other star system that we reached to that point? | 47 | The documentary and its associated materials don't provide a conclusive answer. What we do know is that there are 20 billion people on Earth, which has been ecologically ruined to the point that there are no big cats outside captivity (the Bengal tiger recently having been resurrected through cloning), and half of toda... | 27 |
ELI5: Why don't we drink mead anymore? | 34 | We do! There are plenty of meaderies around the USA. However, with honey prices skyrocketing due to the dieoff of half of the bee population, from 5 million in the 40's to less than 2.5 million today, mead is goddamn expensive, compared to alcohol made from wheat or barley or corn. | 47 | |
ELI5: what makes stainless steel stainless | Just that. Why is some steel stainless and some is not, what’s the difference actually? | 34 | Stainless steel is an alloy of iron with a lot of chromium and nickel added in.
The chromium corrodes quickly in air, to form a layer of chromium oxide. The chromium oxide is very tough and a thin, invisible layer seals the surface of the metal off, so no more air can get in.
Regular iron corrodes to form iron oxide,... | 84 |
ELI5: How does a compass on your phone work? | 8,202 | A pretty common method is to use magnetoresistance. Some materials change their electrical resistance depending on the direction of the magnetic field they're exposed to. So they put little slivers of those materials on a chip, at specific angles, along with circuitry to put a specific amount of current or voltage thro... | 5,506 | |
ELI5: Why is that when you touch an open wound (or the “white meat”) under your skin with your finger, it burns? | 18 | Because the nerves that bring sensations like pressure, heat and cold to your brain get the info from special structures around nerve endings that are deep in your skin. If you touch an open wound you stimulate directly your nerves and give them a much greater stress. The other case where this happens is when your skin... | 16 | |
ELI5: How do modern dishwashers take way longer to run and clean better yet use less energy and water? | 8,513 | The vast majority of the energy that a dishwasher uses goes towards heating the water. The sprayer pumps use very little power in comparison.
So the best way to reduce the overall energy consumption is to lower the water temperature, which makes the cleaning cycle take longer, but that's fine because only the low powe... | 6,097 | |
ELI5: If two countries go to war, how can the opposing army know which army is theirs without accidently shooting their own teammates? | Does every army in every country have a different uniform? Or do they all wear camouflaged suits or something. | 748 | Different uniforms, identifying colors in helmets/on person, passwords/codewords and just generally if you're being shot at it's likely it's the enemy firing. Also officers are briefed which direction enemy is at and they brief their people.
Comms, comms, comms. Very important. | 988 |
If 128 people pick a number between 1 and 64, what's the probability each number gets picked at least once? | 29 | The # of ways to pick should be equal to the # of onto functions from the set of people to the set of integers 1 to 64. This requires applying inclusion-exclusion.
The prob. is then that # divided by the total # of functions 64^128.
---
It seems that the # of onto functions can be calculated with the help of the Sti... | 14 | |
[LoTR] If Gandalf had not been restricted in the usage of his powers, could he have seriously messed up Saurons plans? What could he have done if the Powers that Be just said "f*ck shit up?" | 30 | Yes, he could have. But it wouldn't just fuck up Sauron, it would destroy Middle-Earth.
When Gandalf keeps a door closed, he's not casting a magical door-locking spell. He's bending reality using divine power taken from God. And anything that bends, can break.
Magic is inherently an attempt to subjugate reality. When... | 19 | |
Why do mosquito bites itch? | 49 | When a mosquito bites you, it releases an anti coagulant. Your immune system releases histamines to combat the foreign substance. The histamines are what is responsible for the itching. You can stop the itching by either a cream, or taking an antihistamine tablet, such as benadryl. | 27 | |
Do identical objects at different temperatures cool at the same rate? | Consider two identical iron blocks. If one is heated to say 900 degrees and the other to 500 degrees, and left in identical rooms at identical temperatures, would they cool at the same rate?
After about 15 minutes, if the first block cools to 850 degrees, would the second object be at 450 degrees? | 15 | No they do not cool at the same rate. The rate of cooling is proportional to the difference in temperature between the ambient air and the temperature of the block. This means that the greater the difference in block temperature to ambient air temperature results in a faster rate of cooling. This also indicates that... | 26 |
ELI5: How can the Greek government have spent so much that they are still broke? What was all this money spent on? | 146 | In a single word: corruption. Not only the politicians (almost all of them), also the population. Since the Ottoman times, the Greek culture holds the idea that the government is an enemy and everything should be done to avoid giving money to it. So tax evasion is rampant and socially acceptable, in all layers of the s... | 94 | |
Would electronics last longer if left on all the time, or switched on/off as needed? | I've heard it both ways:
Some claim that as long as all components are well below thermal limits, electronics left on 24/7 will last longer because they're not subject to the stresses caused by the components expanding and contracting due to warming up/cooling down.
But a lot of people think that electronics last lon... | 427 | Product Development Engineer here - it varies by product. It's a very interesting question, because thermal cycling (on/off) is a very stressful condition for electronics that causes a lot of catastrophic failures. On the other hand most devices are rated in hours useful life, so leaving a device on is generally not th... | 374 |
CMV: The FAA needs to impose harsher penalties for passengers who act up on planes. | The Federal Aviation Administration said in 2021 they had over 6000 reported incidents of unruly passengers due to mask mandates up to and including assaulting flight attendants. Note this is after all previous years had so few incidents that they didn't even bother keeping track.
These "Adults" need to learn the diff... | 30 | You had me until the last paragraph. Flight attendants being women or homosexual men has nothing to do with it. And the assumption that all homosexual men are effeminate weaklings... woah dude.
Penalties should be laid out and enforced because disruptions cost the airline and passengers time and money. And violent dis... | 35 |
Are household appliances perfectly efficient in winter (because all waste heat just heats the house anyway)? | 943 | In a lot of places, heating with gas (by furnace) is cheaper than heating electrically, so it might not be perfectly efficient from a cost perspective.
Also, a lot of work goes into designing a heating system for a home so that heat is distributed somewhat evenly. Heat coming from appliances probably isn't going to be... | 293 | |
[Pokemon] Explain every type weakness/resistance | Some are obvious, like water putting out fire. But how is Bug strong against Dark? | 106 | Normal is mundane animal life- easy prey to trained humans and stone tools, and with no ability to interact with the spiritual world.
Fire is straightforwardly extinguished by water, sand and stone. Meanwhile, dragons are the masters of fire and have no fear of burning themselves
Water conducts electricity- a bad ide... | 208 |
Is it even hypothetically possible to accelerate something to the speed of light? Or is it an asymptote? | 64 | A massive object with a constant acceleration you will only asymptotically approach the speed of light.
Let me give you an analogy:
Imagine we're trying to cross a troll bridge. The troll says that we're allowed to cross half the distance between where we are standing and the other side, but every time we do, we owe... | 74 | |
[Final Fantasy 6] Where did Kefka get the power to single-handedly kill 20 espers in one blow? | 34 | Kefka had two main advantages:
1. Immediately before that happens, Kefka and the Emperor had *just* figured out that the full power of Espers can be transferred by using Magicite when an Esper dies. Kefka has the full support of the Empire and all its mad magitech science, so they gathered up all of the Espers they s... | 26 | |
If a black hole is comprised of ferromagnetic material, would it be attracted to magnets? | 16 | A material being ferromagnetic depends on how the individual magnetic domains arrange themselves. A black hole exists at densities where it isn't possible for an atom to exist, so it can't really be ferromagnetic. | 15 | |
[Marvel] In-universe, is the Punisher classified as a serial killer? | 500 | Not really. In universe, the cops and feds recognize he's a whole different animal than a serial killer, and The Punisher (plus his accomplices/apprentices/imitators) is a category onto himself. In terms of objective measurements, his addiction to war isn't really targeted the same way as a serial killer; SKs are compe... | 433 | |
Why do forklifts use propane as fuel as oppose to another fuel? | At work, we have multiple forklifts that use propane as the fuel. They run out of fuel quite often and I have only heard of propane being used for cooking. What properties make it ideal for forklifts? Does is burn differently that other fuels?
Thank you. | 33 | Most forklifts are dual fuel(gas or propane) others are diesel & others electric/battery powered, as well.
Using propane allows for the machine to go indoors, and with the low Emissions of gas will not cause people to get sick or carbon monoxide poisoning when using indoors. | 78 |
ELI5: Why does Congo have a near monopoly in Cobalt extraction? Is all the Cobalt in the world really only in Congo? Or is it something else? Congo produces 80% of the global cobalt supply. Why only Congo? Is the entirety of cobalt located ONLY in Congo? | 11,477 | Cobalt is mostly a by-product of copper and nickel mining. There are massive copper and nickel deposits in the Congo. However, another major factor is the lack of much mining and environmental regulation in the Congo. They can mine a lot of cobalt, cheap, because they pay the workers low wages, to work in dangerous ... | 7,558 | |
ELI5: What is the difference between Chaos Theory and The Butterfly Effect? | I thought I knew what The Butterfly Effect was, then someone (well, Life is Strange did) explained Chaos Theory, and they sound like pretty much the same thing? What is the difference? | 77 | Chaos Theory describes the circumstances in which something like the Butterfly Effect can take place. Chaos Theory is (among other things) a set of highly sensitive conditions which allow the Butterfly Effect (the precipitating dramatic effect of a small change on a sensitive system) to occur.
Chaos Theory is the lin... | 87 |
[Batman] How come nobody suspects the guy funding Batman just might be Batman himself? | 34 | If you had bat-themed-assault-plane money do you think you'd go out to fight yourself? No, you'd wire some crazy ex Navy SEAL with cameras and send him out. Watch him doing it from the comfort of a big armchair in some ritzy basement.
I tell you, he's got a big old bank of flatscreens and he watches them all. The one ... | 29 | |
[Pokemon] Why does everything in the Pokemon world revolve so heavily around Pokemon? | Seriously, it seems there is no aspect of human society, from culture to commerce to crime that is not centered around Pokemon in some way. Does anyone have hobbies or careers that don't involve Pokemon? Can I go see a movie that isn't about Pokemon? Do criminals ever mug people for their money rather than their Pokemo... | 24 | The games are from the viewpoint of individuals *deep* into the Pokemon lifestyle. People who take it from a hobby/pet situation to a full on professional career/semi-philosophical quest.
Pokemon are a massive part of the world (and most people with outdoorsy hobbies need a Pokemon for self-defence purposes), but the... | 36 |
ELI5: If fish in an aquarium will eat until they die, how do fish in the ocean, or those same aquarium fish in the wild ever survive? | 60 | Overeating is not the real problem. The real problem is tha aquariums are small closed systems.
Fish poop, contains ammonia and ammonium both of which are poisonous.
The aquarium has filters and and bacteria that remove the ammonia and ammonium or convert them to nitrate and nitrite and then eventually to nitrogen wh... | 107 | |
(Star Wars) Bringing balance to the force. Why? | I just saw all the star wars movies again one to six, and one thing from the three first movies bothers me a lot. The Jedi are constantly talking about this profecy that Anakin Skywalker is the chosen one to bring balance to the force. Now that is fine and all, but why would they allow balancing the force? The Jedi, an... | 43 | It's a common misconception that "balance" equates to equality between good and evil. It does not. Balance, in the Force, is represented by the light side, emphasizing peace, neutrality, order. The Sith represent chaos, disorder, and violence. When there is imbalance in the Force (i.e. the Sith are running amok), the g... | 36 |
[Terminator] How is the rest of the world other than America, after the nuclear war? | I mean, some countries have to have been spared from nuclear strikes. | 43 | Have you ever watched War Games? The fact that any humans *whatsoever* were spared from nuclear strikes is sort of a miracle. The major world powers still have far more weapons than they need to blanket the Earth's surface in nuclear fire. | 51 |
ELI5: If we live in a capitalistic country, how come the President intervened to save Apple? | err capitalist... | 31 | We live in a Keynesian system, in which the government intervenes in instances of market failure.
Also, under what libertarians would probably consider pure capitalism, the president would not be able to do this. | 24 |
CMV: When a card is passed around an office, signing fifth is ideal. | We've been there- someone gets a card and it gets shipped around the office (or class or get-together or whatever) for everyone to sign. Maybe it's a "get well soon" card. Maybe it's a "sorry for your loss" card. Maybe it's a congratulatory card. Maybe it's a...you know what, it really doesn't matter.
In this example ... | 168 | >First is too stressful. You really have to nail it if you're first.
when you sign cards like this don't people sign in random locations. Nobody, expect the second person to sign, would know that you signed first.
Where is the stress in that? | 49 |
What's your take on the recent NYTimes article advocating diversification in philosophy departments in the west? | http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/11/opinion/if-philosophy-wont-diversify-lets-call-it-what-it-really-is.html
It's not the best article for /r/philosophy, but I'm really interested in reading some responses to this article here.
My personal opinion is the article ignores the fact that the vast majority of philosophy pro... | 43 | Something worth bringing up is Edward Said's argument in *Orientalism.* Said argues that, in the academic discipline of "Orientalism" (now called "Asian/Middle Eastern Studies"), the East isn't allowed to "represent itself," but is rather "represented by the West." Said connects this to various imperial and colonial pr... | 26 |
[Blade] Why don't vampires who need a daywalker for their sacrifices and experiments just make their own instead of trying to catch Blade? | Blade tells pretty much everyone within earshot about his mother being attacked when he was in the womb. It's probably common knowledge within the vampire community by now.
So why not just capture a bunch of pregnant women, turn them into vampires, and then reap their daywalker progeny for your twisted blood rituals?... | 296 | I always assumed that Blade was just an aberration. Like a one in a million chance. Maybe in the past or repeated attempts after Blade was born, they found that the human fetus and/or pregnant woman was never strong and capable enough to carry to term. | 186 |
[Marvel/MCU] How strong are Earth's own heroes and villains compared to the vastness of outer space's collective of heroes and villains? | 63 | On Earth-616? The Avengers are strong enough to the point that the Kree, Skrull, Spartoi, & Shi'ar Empires declared Earth a quarantine zone to prevent the Humans, Mutants, and Inhumans from leaving the Sector.
| 79 | |
ELI5: How do frogs, toads and other amphibians know how and where to find new bodies of water? | We’ve got a new pond which must be half a mile away from the nearest lake/river yet frogs and toads have populated it almost immediately. How do they know where to find these new habitats? | 6,281 | Amphibians explore and migrate during cool moist weather. They can cover a lot of distance that way, especially if they can find damp places to take shelter in between stages of their journey.
Most animals (including us) are also perfectly capable of smelling water from a good distance. Wind blowing across a body of w... | 3,874 |
ELI5: What makes bitcoin so valuable if anyone can create a cryptocurrency (Dogecoin for example) | 52 | It's valuable for the same reason anything is valuable. And any random cyrptocurrency isn't valuable because of that same reason.
Things have value because people are willing to exchange it for other things of value.
If no one anywhere is willing to exchange stuff for your new cryptocurrency then it has no value.
I... | 36 |
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