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Has anyone proved how many colors you would need if you had a cube with an arbitrary number of three-dimensional regions in it so that no two bordering regions are the same color? It would be like the four color theorem but in three dimensions. | There are generalizations of the 4-color theorem to arbitrary surfaces. The classical 4-color theorem is concerned with maps drawn on a plane, but we can consider maps drawn on a sphere, or a torus, or a Mobius band, or any 2-dimensional manifold. It turns out that answer to that question is known, and the maximum numb... | [
"(Independently found by F.R.K.Chung. Improving on this, Marston Conder in 1993 showed that for all n not less than 3 the edges of the \"n\"-cube can be 3-colored in such a way that there is no monochromatic 4-cycle or 6-cycle).\n",
"There are 96 center pieces which show one color each, 48 edge pieces which show ... |
are there examples of countries that were made artifically successful? are they still successful? is the same thing possible today with any 3rd world country? | one could very easily argue Japan if what I understand about your question is correct.
Japan was heavily invested in by the United States and the west after WWII. Given now-to-no interest loans, and tariff-free trading abilities Japan was able to rebuild much faster than the other countries that had been destroyed in ... | [
"However, successful achievements are few and mostly in the developed countries (in Western Europe - especially Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands; as well as in the USA and Japan) where a culture of leadership and collaboration between the different stakeholders at the community's governance level alread... |
at what point in space would something actually become "weightless?" | There is no "range limit" on gravity. As you get farther away it takes more sensitive instruments to measure it, but it never stops. "Weightless" simply means that you and your surroundings are accelerating together at the rate that matches that caused by the local gravity curvature. You can be weightless in a plane... | [
"While the weight of an object is dependent on the strength of the local gravitational field, the mass of an object is independent of gravity, as mass is a measure of the quantity of matter. Accordingly, for astronauts in microgravity, no effort is required to hold objects off the cabin floor; they are \"weightless... |
How long does it take for a star to go nova/supernova, and what would it look like? (Among other questions) | The Sun won't "blow up". The last evolutionary stage of the Sun is the AGB (Asymptotic Giant Branch) where it starts to pulsate, shredding off most of its mass into a giant [nebula](_URL_0_) leaving a very hot and very dense core consisting of mostly free electrons. This core remnant is known as a *white dwarf*. A whit... | [
"A star would take between 11.5 and 15 million years to reach the red supergiant stage, with more rapidly-rotating stars taking the longest. Rapidly-rotating stars take only 9.3 million years to reach the red supergiant stage, while stars with slow rotation take only 8.1 million years. These form the best estimates... |
how do people learn to enjoy the taste of hard liquors such as whisky? | Drink rotgut to get drunk, then drink something of higher quality to enjoy the experience of drinking. You'll appreciate the difference.
Note: don't do this all in one night. | [
"The whisky is tasted, often a little at first, and then in larger amounts and with the spirit being moved around the tongue and swallowed slowly. The purpose of the first tasting is to appraise the texture while subsequent tastings are to analyse flavours and scents. In the second tasting the primary flavours are ... |
Is it true that Mahatna Gandhi used to sleep with two girls, naked and told people that he's learning self control? | You may be interested in [these two](_URL_0_) previous [answers](_URL_1_) on Gandhi by /u/CogitoErgoDoom and /u/barath_s, respectively. | [
"Gandhi tried to test and prove to himself his \"brahmacharya\". The experiments began some time after the death of his wife in February 1944. At the start of his experiment he had women sleep in the same room but in different beds. He later slept with women in the same bed but clothed, and finally he slept naked w... |
what actually happens mechanically when you turn the thermostat in your car? | Modern cars have electronic thermostats, so nothing mechanical happens with the actual thermostat, although a mechanical valve governing the airflow might move.
Traditional thermostats are purely mechanical, however. They have a component called bimetal, it consists of two strips of different type of metal joined toge... | [
"The thermostat is therefore constantly moving throughout its range, responding to changes in vehicle operating load, speed and external temperature, to keep the engine at its optimum operating temperature.\n",
"The internal combustion engine cooling thermostat maintains the temperature of the engine near its opt... |
why do streaming video services (vudu, netflix, amazon, etc.) load up in full hd within a matter of seconds, but youtube videos can take 30 seconds to partially buffer in only 240p? | Let's say you want to get to work and you have a whole lot of money and comfort is important to you. So you hire a limo to take you to work and pay $100 every day for that service. For $100 you get a lot of comforts, a private limo, plenty of room to spread your legs, leather seats, a mini-bar, it's pretty sweet.
... | [
"The amount of data used by video streaming services depends on the quality of the video. Thus, Android Central breaks down how much data is used (on a smartphone) with regards to different video resolutions. According to their findings, per hour video between 240p and 320p resolution uses roughly 0.3GB. Standard v... |
How hydraulic systems work in space? | Tanks in space have a zone for liquid and another one for gas, separated by a flexible or movable membrane (a diaphragm). It's the pressure of the gas that pushes on the liquid (okay, it pushes on the diaphragm which in turn pushes the liquid) forcing it to stay next to the tank outlet.
The problem with this approach ... | [
"Hydraulic cylinders are fundamental components of hydraulic machinery. The function of a hydraulic cylinder is to convert the hydrostatic power of a fluid into mechanical power. They are the actuators or muscles of heavy equipment providing motion and force including steering, suspension, pushing, pulling, lifting... |
what does microsoft’s announcement really mean and why are people so upset? | If you’re talking about that “pedophile tracker”, most people think it’s
A. Not effective and most likely will be like other AI detectors.
B. Simply an excuse to look at peoples chatrooms under the pretense of safety.
C. Ineffective because, Weill, who uses chatrooms anymore?
That’s just what I’ve heard about it, sor... | [
"In March 2019, Microsoft announced that it would display notifications to users informing users of the upcoming end of support, and direct users to a website urging them to purchase a Windows 10 upgrade or a new device.\n",
"On March 8, 2014, Microsoft deployed an update for XP that, on the 8th of each month, di... |
Is our Solar System's number of planets and planetoids, and the distance between them, unusual? | I must admit, that I haven't played either Mass Effect nor Infinite Space. But in general games are not the best source for scientific accuracy ;)
According to the [exoplanet archive](_URL_0_) there are almost 600 confirmed multiplanet systems. The largest of which have 7 confirmed exoplanets. I don't know about a pa... | [
"Observations of exo-planets have shown that arrangements of planets similar to our Solar System are rare. Most planetary systems have super Earths, several times larger than Earth, close to their star, whereas our Solar System's inner region has only a few small rocky planets and none inside Mercury's orbit. Only ... |
why don't popular types of candy (m & m's, skittles, reese's, etc.) have cheaper knockoff versions like all other products? | They manage to keep their products so cheap, and they have such incredible brand recognition, that it's essentially impossible to compete with them. | [
"In 2008, two limited-edition varieties of the candy were introduced – \"Wildly Cherry\" M&M's, and, as a marketing tie-in with the film \"Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull\", \"Mint Crisp\" M&M's.\n",
"Candy pumpkins are popular in part because the mellowcreme gives them \"an interesting texture... |
Is the "time goes faster as we get older" adage an actual psychological phenomenon? | Think of it, perhaps, in terms of Erik Erikson's stages of psychosocial development. When you're young, you are constantly growing, learning. You are also changing physically, socially and mentally. People go through five of these stages by the time they hit their young adulthood. It's common to see people attain indic... | [
"Many older adults claim time speeds up as they get older, which can be explained by forward telescoping. Since forward telescoping leads people to underestimate the amount of time that has occurred since an event, people may feel as if time has passed quickly when they discover the true amount of time since that e... |
How much oxygen would you need to ignite the potentially highly reactive atmosphere of Titan? And how much energy would be released if a suicidal astronaut lit a match? | Atmospheric pressure on Titan is about 150 kPa. Acceleration due to gravity at Titan's surface is about 1.4 m/s^2, so the mass of a 1m^2 air column is about 100000kg. Titan has surface area of 8.3E7 km^2, so the mass of the atmosphere is about 8E18 kg. Assuming 1% methane by mass, that is 8E16 kg of methane, or at 16.0... | [
"In his monograph \"Project Apollo: The Tough Decisions\", Deputy Administrator Seamans wrote that NASA's worst mistake in engineering judgment was not to run a fire test on the command module before the plugs-out test. In the first episode of the 2009 BBC documentary series \"NASA: Triumph and Tragedy\", Jim McDiv... |
How did one join the ranks of Praetorian Guard, back in ancient Rome? | The Praetorians actually began their existence as the personal bodyguards of Republican generals; the name of this corps was the "cohors praetoria." Augustus took the men from this corps in order to form the modern image of the Praetorian Guard; as a result, Praetorians were initially a general's personal bodyguard, pr... | [
"The Praetorian Guard was an elite unit of the Roman army formed by Augustus in 27 BC, with the specific function to serve as a bodyguard to the emperor and members of the imperial family. Much more than a guard however, the Praetorians also managed the day-to-day care of the city, such as general security and civi... |
The space program has used CO2 scrubbers for ~50 years. Why can't we use this same technology to help clean the atmosphere? | My understanding is that the production and recycling of CO2 scrubbers takes a significant amount of energy, greater than the amount of CO2 that is absorbed from the production of a similar amount of energy. IE it still leads to a net increase in CO2, it just decreases it locally. | [
"A concept to scrub CO2 from the breathing air is to use re-usable amine bead carbon dioxide scrubbers. While one carbon dioxide scrubber filters the astronaut's air, the other can vent scrubbed CO2 to the Mars atmosphere, once that process is completed another one can be used, and the one that was used can take a ... |
how is a game converted to a rom for emulation purposes? | A rom is just a copy of the media. In case of GC it's a copy of the data stored on the CD. Some roms are encrypted, like on the 3ds and you need to decrypt them before use on a device.
They're called ROMs because originally they were the *dumps* of Read Only Memory chips found in cartridges and arcade cabinets.
Tod... | [
"Emulation is a strategy in digital preservation to combat obsolescence. Emulation focuses on recreating an original computer environment, which can be time-consuming and difficult to achieve, but valuable because of its ability to maintain a closer connection to the authenticity of the digital object. Emulation ad... |
Did the Allies in World War II ever entertain the idea of offering a conditional surrender to Nazi Germany before the end of the war? Do we know any details on what the conditions of these offers might have entailed? | The Allies had different goals of victory for the end of the war, so a discussion of conditional surrender has to take this into account. Churchill, coming from a more traditional British school of thought, was primarily focused on restoring the old European balance of powers system of international governance which re... | [
"On 8 May 1945, these arrangements were put into effect in full, notwithstanding that the only German parties to the signed surrender document had been the German High Command. The western Allies maintained that a functioning German state had already ceased to exist, and that consequently the surrender of the Germa... |
Were the Reserves for Native Americans in Canada Inspired by the Reservations in the United States? | Kwe,
Reserves in Canada were created before the first US reserves, even before the US themselves. The first to establish reserves were the French when what is now Eastern Canada was New France (1534-1763).
Most Indigenous peoples living on the territorie claimed by the French were nomadic or semi-nomadic. Algonquian... | [
"Canada has numerous Indian reserves for its First Nations people, which were mostly established by the \"Indian Act\" of 1876 and have been variously expanded and reduced by royal commissions since. They are sometimes incorrectly called by the American term \"reservations\".\n",
"Another focus of the Canadian go... |
how can this book cost $7000? | I don't think this is the result of a runaway pricing algorithm, I think it is intentionally priced at this level.
Some companies or labs need to have reference materials; a chemical engineer may need to look up the official weight of a particular compound, or a structural engineer may need to look up the finer points... | [
"The other seven authors to top one million in eBook sales sell their novels for upwards of $10.00. As Locke reported to the \"Daily Telegraph\" in 2011, \"I put the most famous authors in the world in the position of having to prove their books were ten times better than mine.\" At this price, the author earns 35%... |
why do objects in old cartoons that the characters interact with have distinctly different textures, colours, brightness, saturation, etc. than the background? | Because they're drawn separately on different cels.
In old cartoons, a background cel would be drawn and colored, and the foreground cels, containing everything that moves and is interacted with, are drawn and colored separately as well.
The cells were stacked and the entire thing was filmed, one frame at a time. | [
"Although the characters share some visual similarities with Japanese Anime characters and cartoons they have a distinctive design. They do not have legs, but instead they float, fly and hover. The color palette was designed specifically to appeal to younger children.\n",
"There is a special visual aspect in some... |
what makes the internet "fast lane" different than paying for faster shipping with the usps? | "Like paying for faster shipping with USPS" is what already exists - it's the pricing tiers you already get. $X/month for 10MBps, $Y/month for 20MBps, etc.
Internet "Fast lanes" or "paid prioritization" is *content*-based. It would be like the USPS starting up a competitor to Etsy (www._URL_0_ or something), then st... | [
"In April 2014, the FCC proposed a set of new regulations that, among other things, would allow for ISPs to levy charges on websites in exchange for faster connection speeds. The \"fast lane\", as the proposal was called, would prioritize that website's internet connection over those of other websites that did not ... |
Is there a "true" up and down in the universe? Our galaxy is flat, where is up and down in relation to the Earth? | There is not a true up and down in the universe. You can only infer an up or a down using reference; for example the earth rotates the Sun, you could define "Up" and "Down" using that reference to the earth, by defining the rotation as forward/backward and left/right axis. | [
"BULLET::::- 2000 — Data from several cosmic microwave background experiments give strong evidence that the Universe is \"flat\" (space is not curved, although space-time is), with important implications for the formation of large-scale structure\n",
"The shape of the Universe as described in Jainism is shown alo... |
why does chocolate in advent calendars and selection boxes not melt? | Depends on the ingredients-milk, wax, cocoa, etc. it just has a bit of a higher melting point. | [
"The fondant in the centre of After Eights is made from a stiff paste of common sugar, water, and a small amount of the enzyme invertase. This fondant can readily be coated with dark chocolate. After manufacture, the enzyme gradually splits the common sugar into the much more soluble sugars glucose and fructose, re... |
NSFW How did Ancient cultures deal with sex crimes? | I can comment on the issue of rape in ancient Greece. My main source being Lysias 1 in which Lysias (a logographer) writes a defence speech for Euphiletos who has just killed a man named Eratosthenes after catching him sleeping with his wife. Lysias was considered on of the greatest "lawyers" Athens had ever seen. Give... | [
"In the Middle Assyrian Laws, sex crimes were punished identically whether they were homosexual or heterosexual. An individual faced no punishment for penetrating a cult prostitute, someone of an equal or lower social class, such as slaves, or someone whose gender roles were not considered solidly masculine. Such s... |
why do we rarely use the term "tens" but "dozens" is commonly used? | Base 12 counting. These days once we count up to ten we start again with a new set of ten. Hence ten, twenty, thirty, etc. This is called "base ten" counting.
In older counting systems, we used base twelve. Twenty would be "one dozen and eight" while 24 is two dozen, etc. This format still holds on in certain idioms, ... | [
"Both the Dozenal Society of America and the Dozenal Society of Great Britain promote widespread adoption of the base-twelve system. They use the word \"dozenal\" instead of \"duodecimal\" to avoid the more overtly base-ten terminology. The etymology of 'dozenal' is itself also an expression based on base-ten termi... |
[Biology] Does the vagina absorb any seminal fluids? | Most of them just find their way out shortly afterwards, thanks to gravity.
Most of the rest find their way out via regular discharge/menstruation.
I believe that the woman's white blood cells will attack and disassemble some if they are there too long. Not sure how much of the leftovers are flushed out (per point 2)... | [
"The majority of the liquid in vaginal discharge is mucus produced by glands of the cervix. The rest is made up of transudate from the vaginal walls and secretions from glands (Skene's and Bartholin's). The solid components are exfoliated epithelial cells from the vaginal wall and cervix as well as some of the bact... |
i see many videos of people peacefully interacting with wild sea animals, from blue whales and manatees to orcas and white sharks. the same is not true for land animals. what makes sea animals, even big predators, seem so much more tolerant to human interaction than wild land animals? | Those animals tend to be large enough that they don't have natural predators. Being docile isn't an issue for their species. Something smaller like an otter on the other hand... | [
"Indirect human disturbance may also be a threat. While some populations tolerate small boats, most actively try to avoid ships. Whale-watching has become a booming activity in the St. Lawrence and Churchill River areas, and acoustic contamination from this activity appears to have an effect on belugas. For example... |
Why have countries prevented their citizens from leaving? (Russia, E. Germany, China,...) | The rationale was that people were treated very much like kids who could not be trusted to make the correct choices on their own.
Because free will was uncacceptable. Free will means that every person can make any decision (well, in the developed society of today there are some limits to this but generally there is q... | [
"Other countries, including most countries in Western Europe and China, permit (or in China's case require) citizens to utilise national identity cards to clear immigration when travelling between adjacent jurisdictions. As a consequence of awkward border situations created by the fall of the Soviet Union, certain ... |
Cold War Propaganda Posters? | You can find a good digital collection of propaganda posters from Mao-era China here: _URL_0_
The editor, Stefan Landsberger, is a really reputable historian. Each poster has an English translation and a little bit of historical context, too. There are a few from after Mao, such as Hua Guofeng, too. | [
"Propaganda during the Cold War was at its peak in the 1950s and 1960s in the early years of the Cold war. The United States would make propaganda criticizing and making fun of the enemy the Soviet Union. The propaganda was on movies, television, music, literature and art. The United States officials did not call i... |
How is mimicry/camouflage selected for, and how can it become so accurate? (Owl faces in moths/butterflies, walking sticks, leafy seadragons, etc) | Take your basic butterfly, add a pattern that varies with each individual, eat all the ones that look the least like the target pattern, and what's left over will have patterns that are less likely to be eaten. Repeat for generations and you get closer and closer to perfection. | [
"Camouflage relies on deceiving the cognition of the observer, such as a predator. Some camouflage mechanisms such as distractive markings likely function by competing for visual attention with stimuli that would give away the presence of the camouflaged object (such as a prey animal). Such markings have to be cons... |
if rat fleas are natural carriers of the plague, how come they don't transmit it anymore? | They do; there are between 1000 and 3000 cases of the plague reported annually. Rats just aren't as much of an urban epidemic as they used to be and the plague can be cured now. | [
"High rates of plague transmission have been associated with low rat abundance and high volume of flea vectors. Historically, rats who acted as hosts to the flea vector subsequently died once they were infected with plague. However, the organism evolved and scientists are now finding that rats are not dying from pl... |
Does velocity of sound waves in a medium vary by the frequency? | There is no frequency-dependence for the speed of sound traveling through an ideal gas, but at least in air there is a small (unnoticeable) frequency-dependence due to vibrational relaxation effects of nitrogen and oxygen. You can calculate the speed of sound through air at a given frequency with:
* (1/c_*0*_) - (1/c_... | [
"The speed of sound is variable and depends on the properties of the substance through which the wave is travelling. In solids, the speed of transverse (or shear) waves depends on the shear deformation under shear stress (called the shear modulus), and the density of the medium. Longitudinal (or compression) waves ... |
What sort of buildings would be found in a roman town? How would a hamlet, town and city differ regarding types if structures? | For a largish Roman city of the early Imperial period, you should imagine a "civic package" of buildings: a theater, an arena, a forum-basilica with temple, aqueducts, sewers, and a stadium. Not every city had every building: for example, in Britain it was very rare to have a temple connected to the forum, Carthage did... | [
"Roman towns or settlements were conceived as images of the imperial capital in miniature. The construction of public buildings was carried out by the curator operatum and were run directly by the supreme municipal magistrates.\n",
"The densely inhabited town, built with stone, retains its medieval aspect; the to... |
how does basic circuitry (like in a calculator) perform coding or mathematical function? | Is done in layers. Each layer adds complexity.
Let's look at three layers:
- Transistors
- Logic gates
- Logic circuits
The key element in these kinds of circuits are **transistors**. They work like tiny little switches.
By putting a few transistors together, it's possible to make basic **logic gates**. [This web... | [
"In computer science, function composition is an act or mechanism to combine simple functions to build more complicated ones. Like the usual composition of functions in mathematics, the result of each function is passed as the argument of the next, and the result of the last one is the result of the whole.\n",
"I... |
why do the germans have the 'german discipline'? | It's really more of a way of perceiving your own country. Germany had a rather troubled past, which makes pure patriotism often hard to justify, so we instead cling to virtues like discipline, being on time, organization, that sort of things.
Of course, that never really translates into reality as much as you'd like. | [
"While this sounds like discipline is strict in German Gymnasia, in many cases, the official rules are watered down and ignored, except when school officials are watching. For example, while teachers and upper-class students are not allowed to call one another by their first names, in some cases, they do. Relations... |
does computer/laptop grow old? or they just can't keep up with current software? | Unless you're talking about games with big resource requirements or heavy duty processing tools (like Adobe Premiere), they should keep up with software for quite a long time. A lot of desktop/laptop machines get bogged down over time with stuff that has been installed on them which add to their slowness by putting th... | [
"The decades of development means that most people already own desktop computers that meet their needs and have no need of buying a new one merely to keep pace with advancing technology. Notably the successive release of new versions of Windows (Windows 95, 98, XP, Vista, 7, 8, 10 and so on) had been drivers for th... |
what are ticks and why are they so bad? | Ticks are a small bug that feed of the blood of animals and humans. They carry diseases, specifically Lyme Disease. They can be difficult to remove depending on where they attach to the host. | [
"Ticks are parasitic, and some transmit micro-organisms and parasites that can cause diseases in humans, while the saliva of a few species can directly cause tick paralysis if they are not removed within a day or two.\n",
"Ticks are invertebrate animals in the phylum Arthropoda, and are related to spiders. Ticks ... |
radio frequencies | AM radio has a longer wavelength than FM. FM has cleaner sound, but a smaller effective range, while AM can be more easily interrupted, which leads to more static, however it can travel much farther than FM frequencies. | [
"Radio frequencies are generated and processed within very many functional units such as transmitters, receivers, computers, and televisions to name a few. Radio frequencies are also applied in carrier current systems including telephony and control circuits.\n",
"Radio frequency (RF) is the oscillation rate of a... |
why does gravity cause planets to be attracted to other planets and the sun? | It might help to think about this the other way around. It's not that something called 'gravity' existed and one day it decided to start pulling on planets. It's rather that we humans realized that we are pulled down toward the earth and decided to use the word 'gravity' to describe that. Later we realized that ever... | [
"The Earth, among other planets, orbits the Sun because the Sun exerts a gravitational pull that acts as a centripetal force, holding the Earth to it, which would otherwise go shooting off into space. If the Sun's pull is considered an action, then Earth simultaneously exerts a reaction as a gravitational pull on t... |
Time dilation at absolute zero. | In principle the kinetic motion of gasses time dilates the molecules.
Consider a gas of tritium, or heavy hydrogen, which is radioactive with a half-life of 12.32 years or 4,500 +/- 8 days.
At room temperature, the average molecule is moving at a speed of 1700 m/s relative to the lab frame of reference. So the time d... | [
"In special relativity, time dilation is most simply described in circumstances where relative velocity is unchanging. Nevertheless, the Lorentz equations allow one to calculate proper time and movement in space for the simple case of a spaceship which is applied with a force per unit mass, relative to some referen... |
are there any well documented nutritional differences between raw, unrefined sugar, cane sugar, white sugar, natural sugars in fruits etc? do our bodies handle refined white sugar differently than the "natural" stuff? | Yes, there are differences, because there are different kinds of sugar. The most common two you'll see are sucrose (table sugar) and fructose (corn syrup, most fruits, honey). Fructose is sweeter, but also processed faster by your body, and as a result may cause larger blood sugar swings. | [
"From a chemical and nutritional point of view, white sugar does not contain - in comparison to brown sugar - some minerals (such as calcium, potassium, iron and magnesium) present in molasses, even if the quantities contained in brown sugar are so small to be actually not significant. The only detectable differenc... |
why is it so bad to turn off a computer by the physical on/off button? | Depends what you mean. If you press the button and let the system go through its shutdown process everything should be fine. If you hold it for a few seconds and force the system to just shut down in the middle of what its doing you risk data corruption. | [
"The screen turns itself off when a person is on a call. This is to prevent the screen accepting unwanted inputs from the user's face when they are making a call, but it also requires the user to turn the screen back on if they want to use the screen. Removing the stylus when in a phone call both turns on the scree... |
Do any of the stars in the centre of our galaxy harbour planets? | There aren't many collisions in the centre of the galaxy - the stars are still plenty far apart from each other. You do get some mergers in places like dense globular clusters, but not all that many. However, rather than direct collisions, the gravity of a star coming even vaguely close may disrupt the orbits of the pl... | [
"Somewhere deep within the Andromeda Galaxy lies the Algol Star System. The parent star, Algol (referred to as \"Algo\" by this point in the timeline), has three planets orbiting about it. First is Palm (\"Palma\"), the home of the government. Governors, treasurers, and great thinkers dwell here in great ivory towe... |
In the past, farmers were far more numerous than smiths, so why is Smith a more common name than Farmer? | hi, there's always room for more discussion on this, but thought you might be interested in a couple of earlier posts about "Smith"; the first one does discuss "Smith" vs "Farmer" also
* [Why is Smith the most common surname?](_URL_0_)
* [Why are there so many "Smiths" out there? Were there just a shitload of blacksm... | [
"There is also a geographical connection between the Smiths and the Cowderys. During the 1790s, both Joseph Smith, Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith, and two of Cowdery's relatives were living in Tunbridge, Vermont.\n",
"As for Casler's third possible explanation for nominative determinism, genetics, researchers Voracek, R... |
why is all glass not safety glass? | for general use, cost.
car windshield glass is laminated. it's actually two pieces of glass with a clear glue in the middle. it doesn't shatter into million pieces when it breaks. windshield glass also needs to be mostly distortion free. you'll note that windshields are bent, but when you look thru them, the i... | [
"Safety glass is glass with additional safety features that make it less likely to break, or less likely to pose a threat when broken. Common designs include toughened glass (also known as tempered glass), laminated glass, wire mesh glass (also known as wired glass) and engraved glass. Wire mesh glass was invented ... |
why doesnt apple make computers specifically for video games? | There are a few things that limit apples gaming potential.
1) Apple OS is not supported by most games. So a lot of games, especially new games, won't work at all on a Mac.
2) Power vs. Quality - we can debate all day about the quality of a apple computer. What can be said is that dollar for dollar, a Mac is nothing ... | [
"Apple has at times attempted to market the platform for gaming. In 1996, they released a series of game-enabling APIs called Game Sprockets. In April 1999, Steve Jobs gave an interview with the UK-based \"Arcade\" magazine to promote the PowerPC G3-based computers Apple were selling with then new ATI Rage 128 grap... |
Why do chefs wear those tall white hats? | The traditional chef's hat or a "toque blanches" was developed in 16th century France as a means of symbolising your status in the kitchen with chef's hats being the highest. The pleats in the hat were also a way of showing how experienced a chef was. Traditionally, the toques had a hundred pleats for senior chefs, som... | [
"In more traditional restaurants, especially traditional French restaurants, the white chef’s coat is standard and considered part of a traditional uniform and as a practical chef's garment. Most serious chefs wear white coats to signify the importance and high regard of their profession. The thick cotton cloth pro... |
Does a power strip split up the power going to each device, or does it maintain the same power as plugging straight into the wall? | It simply distributes the wall power to more outlets. It may have a surge protector to avoid overload, or other type of protection (e.g., battery backup) - but beyond that, it is not 'splitting' anything.
This makes logical sense -- everything you plug into it requires 110 AC (USA). If it was 'splitting the power' d... | [
"A power strip (also known as an extension block, power board, power bar, plug board, pivot plug, trailing gang, trailing socket, plug bar, trailer lead, multi-socket, multi-box, super plug, multiple socket, multiple outlet, polysocket and by many other variations) is a block of electrical sockets that attaches to ... |
how does light move forever (in a hypothetical pure vacuum)? wouldn't that take infinite energy? | Newton's First Law: "An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force."
Anything (light, planets, asteroids, spaceships) will move forever at a constant speed in a pure vacuum. It takes no energy at all to kee... | [
"Another objection by Olum and Everett is that even if Mallett's choice of spacetime were correct, the energy required to twist spacetime sufficiently would be huge, and that with lasers of the type in use today the ring would have to be much larger in circumference than the observable universe. At one point Mallet... |
why are gas companies allowed to put of ethanol inside of gasoline to make it burn faster | Well, This is not so much on why they are allowed but more on how they can get gasoline to produce less polluting residue.
> "Most of ethanol blending into U.S. motor gasoline occurs to meet the requirements of the 1990 Clean Air Act (RFG Fuel) and the Renewable Fuel Standard set forth in the Energy Independence an... | [
"Ethanol can be used in petrol engines as a replacement for gasoline; it can be mixed with gasoline to any percentage. Most existing car petrol engines can run on blends of up to 15% bioethanol with petroleum/gasoline. Ethanol has a smaller energy density than that of gasoline; this means it takes more fuel (volume... |
Does the amount of dark energy in the universe change? | Yes, the density of dark energy is constant, which means that the total amount of dark energy is proportional to the size of the universe.
Dark matter is very different, is works just like regular matter with respect to expansion; it's not affected.
The above also means that conservation of energy doesn't hold in the... | [
"Dark energy is broadly similar to inflation and is thought to be causing the expansion of the present-day universe to accelerate. However, the energy scale of dark energy is much lower, 10 GeV, roughly 27 orders of magnitude less than the scale of inflation.\n",
"Assuming that the standard model of cosmology is ... |
What sort of electrical potential differences exist between objects in space? | One issue is that space is filled with plasma as well as gas. Plasma exhibits a phenomenon called screening, where a charged object attracts a layer of oppositely charged ions around it, called an electric double layer. At a certain distance (called the Debye length), there is zero net charge enclosed so it is said tha... | [
"Space contains regions with varying concentrations of charged particles such as the plasma sheet, and a static charge builds up as the spacecraft moves between these regions, or as the electrical potential varies within such a region.\n",
"If an oscillating electrical current is applied to a conductive structure... |
are there any "good" diseases that can make feel more strong, healthy or happy? | I'm not a doctor but i think a Disease is the negative affect of a bacteria or virus. We have hundreds -if not millions- of bacterias in our bodies that help us. So there are good bacteria that help us stay healthy. | [
"Research suggests that probing a patient's happiness is one of the most important things a doctor can do to predict that patient's health and longevity. In health-conscious modern societies, most people overlook the emotions as a vital component of one's health, while over focusing on diet and exercise. According ... |
How do animals with fur and researchers in the arctic get vitamin D? | Animals with fur can still make Vitamin D via UV dependent pathways, it's just less efficient because the fur blocks some of the sunlight. Fish are excellent dietary sources of Vitamin D and much of the non-human arctic wildlife eats fish or other aquatic wildlife that is obtaining Vitamin D from the aquatic food chain... | [
"In birds and fur-bearing mammals, fur or feathers block UV rays from reaching the skin. Instead, vitamin D is created from oily secretions of the skin deposited onto the feathers or fur, and is obtained orally during grooming. However, some animals, such as the naked mole-rat, are naturally cholecalciferol-deficie... |
What evidence is there that electrons literally orbit the nucleus? | They aren't, at least not in the same way the Earth orbits the Sun. It's taught as such because it's a comforting inaccuracy that still allows students of chemistry or physics to make many physically meaningful calculations without mucking about with the insanity that is quantum mechanics.
Electrons are a smear of pr... | [
"Electrons in an atom are sometimes described as \"orbiting\" its nucleus, following an early conjecture of Niels Bohr (this is the source of the term \"orbital\"). However, electrons don't actually orbit nuclei in any meaningful sense, and quantum mechanics are necessary for any useful understanding of the electro... |
government deficit spending like how the us did during the great depression. how can a government spend money it doesn't have? | The same way anyone or any organization does: the government borrows it from other people.
When you buy a government bond, that's lending the government money. | [
"In the late 1920s and early 1930s, during the height of the Great Depression, many economists (most prominently John Maynard Keynes) tried to persuade governments that increased government spending would mitigate the situation and reduce unemployment. In the United Kingdom, the staff of the Chancellor of the Exche... |
This week's theme: Oral History | Wew, not a whole lot of answers this round. Shame too, a lot of these questions were pretty good :\ | [
"The NAMM Oral History program is unique, unlike any other collection in the world. The heart of the collection is the depth of its narratives that cover innovative creations, the evolution of musical instruments, the ever-changing world of music retail, as well as our collective quest to improve music education ar... |
How is magnetized plasma created and what kind of gasses produce them? | The gases can be most anything. Hydrogen (including its fusion-fuel isotopes deuterium and/or tritium) or helium are common choices. Storage generally requires some sort of magnetic confinement. A toroidal magnetic field geometry such as in a [tokamak](_URL_1_) is a common choice, though there are other geometries, suc... | [
"In the pioneering experiment, Los Alamos National Laboratory's FRX-L, a plasma is first created at low density by transformer-coupling an electric current through a gas inside a quartz tube (generally a non-fuel gas for testing purposes). This heats the plasma to about (~2.3 million degrees). External magnets conf... |
Where does sediments comes from? | Sediment deposition somewhere is the product of erosion somewhere else. Imagine a mountain with a stream flowing down the side of it that eventually flows into a lake. Rocks are weathered (broken down into smaller bits by physical and chemical processes at the Earth's surface) and then the products of that weathering (... | [
"Before being deposited, sediments are formed by weathering of earlier rocks by erosion in a source area and then transported to the place of deposition by water, wind, ice, mass movement or glaciers (agents of denudation). Mud rocks comprise 65% (mudstone, shale and siltstone); sandstones 20 to 25% and carbonate r... |
how come cats get stuck in trees and need to be rescued? could they get down on their own given enough time? | Cat claws are designed for climbing up. A cat is not a squirrel. Squirrels can climb up, down, and sideways, always headfirst, no problem. But a cat has to climb with her head up to avoid falling, and once she’s up, the only way down is to back down. A cat that's exhausted, scared, or injured can't make that climb, a... | [
"CH cats don't understand that they are disabled, so they will not be self-inhibited from trying to climb or descend. Prevention of injuries requires careful consideration of the specific hazards posed by where they live and their potential abilities. Some cats that cannot walk well or jump, can still climb extreme... |
why do most foods taste better when drunk or high? | in very simple terms, weed blocks certain neurotransmitter reuptake. so, if your brain sends a signal that something tastes good, that signal will have a hard time turning off. so, that "this tastes good" signal will just keep firing.
| [
"The drink is a particular phenomenon as its taste is quite different from the taste of its constituent liquids which are rather bitter. The chemical structures of both ingredients are of a similar molecular shape and attract each other, shielding the bitter taste.\n",
"For an aperitif, flavoured dry wine or spar... |
why do we react with anger upon hurting ourselves? | Our brain has a complex reward system that is activated both when we receive a reward (food, money, etc.) and when we make an error.
Error detection is extremely important for our survival. For example, if touching a plant gives you a rash, you won't want to touch that plant anymore.
Because of this need, the areas ... | [
"Anger can potentially mobilize psychological resources and boost determination toward correction of wrong behaviors, promotion of social justice, communication of negative sentiment, and redress of grievances. It can also facilitate patience. In contrast, anger can be destructive when it does not find its appropri... |
what's the deal with muslims in the u.k.? | > DailyMail
> The Sun
If the story is from one of these sources, it is guaranteed to be at least 80% fiction and gross exageration
> Telegraph
> Guardian
If the story is from one of these sources, it is heavily biased and slanted to the right (telegraph) or left (guardian). Facts will be interspersed with lot... | [
"Unlike many Muslims in Europe, American Muslims overall do not tend to feel marginalized or isolated from political participation and have often adopted a politically proactive stance. Several organizations were formed by the American Muslim community to serve as \"critical consultants\" on U.S. policy regarding I... |
Can someone please explain medically what Lance Armstrong took and how he got away with it? | He has been accused by the US Anti-Doping Agency of using erythropoietin and steroids. Erythropoietin (EPO) makes your body make more red blood cells, which increases how much oxygen your blood can carry and, to a lesser extent, how much CO2 it can carry away. This increases aerobic capacity greatly. Steroids, well ... | [
"BULLET::::- Lance Armstrong was in August 2012 - despite of not having confessed any guilt yet — given a lifetime ban by USADA for doping with EPO, testosterone and human growth hormones in 1996, and EPO, blood transfusions, testosterone and cortisone throughout 1998-2005, and having a positive indication of \"blo... |
Is freezing a feasible way to separate Heavy Water from Light Water? | This effect is known as isotopic fractionation. Using water as an example, the heavy isotopes (deuterium, tritium, oxygen-17 and oxygen-18) tend to favour the solid phase during freezing. The ice becomes enriched in heavy isotopes and the leftover liquid is depleted in heavy isotopes. However the difference is very ver... | [
"Some applications use the thermal capacity of water or ice as cold storage; others use it as heat storage. It can serve either application; ice can be melted to store heat then refrozen to warm an environment which is below freezing (putting liquid water at 0°C in such an environment warms it much more than the sa... |
when using a debit card, why do some merchants require me to enter a pin, sign a receipt, or simply swipe? | I can't remember the last time I swiped my card or signed a receipt.
In the UK it's pretty much chip and pin or contactless. | [
"Some consumers prefer \"credit\" transactions because of the lack of a fee charged to the consumer/purchaser. A few debit cards in the U.S. offer rewards for using \"credit\". However, since \"credit\" transactions cost more for merchants, many terminals at PIN-accepting merchant locations now make the \"credit\" ... |
what do insurance companies mean when they say "you can save $x when you switch to this company."? | It's typically an annual savings amount. However, they only mention that "those who switch save $X", but they never mention what percentage of people who contact them for a quote actually switch. Maybe it's only a specific demographic that saves a lot and thus chooses to switch, while the vast majority realize they are... | [
"Insurance companies themselves, as well as self-insuring employers, purchase stop-loss coverage for a premium to protect themselves. In the case of a participant reaching more than the specific (or \"individual\") stop-loss deductible ($300,000, for example), the insurer will reimburse the insured (the company, no... |
Why does lithium not form a strong base, and florine a strong acid? | The main difference between lithium and fluorine and the rest of the members of their groups is atomic size.
In general, atomic/ionic radii increase as you move down any group in the periodic table (because heavier elements have more electrons taking up space). Because lithium and fluorine lie at the top of their resp... | [
"Like the other alkali metals, lithium has a single valence electron that is easily given up to form a cation. Because of this, lithium is a good conductor of heat and electricity as well as a highly reactive element, though it is the least reactive of the alkali metals. Lithium's low reactivity is due to the proxi... |
what is the significance of the u.s. losing the contract giving them authority over internet ip addresses? | They have not lost anything. They are contemplating releasing control of it over to the UN. That has not happened yet. | [
"BULLET::::- The concept of legal ownership of IP addresses as property is explicitly denied by ARIN and RIPE NCC policy documents and by the ARIN Registration Services Agreement, although ownership rights have been postulated based on a letter from the National Science Foundation General Counsel. NSF later indicat... |
When and why did trousers become the standard garment for European men? | My knowledge doesn't go back as far as their invention, but there's a great deal of discussion over the ancient usage of split leg garments in the other links already provided. As for trousers as we know them today, they begin to appear around the early 18th century. Prior to that you have hose, a fitted full leg garme... | [
"In most of Europe, trousers have been worn since ancient times and throughout the Medieval period, becoming the most common form of lower-body clothing for adult males in the modern world. Breeches were worn instead of trousers in early modern Europe by some men in higher classes of society. Distinctive formal tro... |
In Medieval Europe, women were considered inherently lustful and prone to sexual sin. Would modern stereotypes of male sexual appetite apply to them? | No. Latin medieval culture could, and did, spin a fancy tale of the devil seducing Eve seducing Adam, and the humoral composition of women making them "leaky" and "open" to demonic influence. They made up theological and biological backing for this teaching.
Popular comic literature came down equally hard on both sexe... | [
"Medieval women were assumed to be far more insatiable than men and a woman's lust would have been considered her ultimate sin. She was believed to receive far more pleasure from a sexual encounter than men and reach her sexual readiness far earlier than men. Perceived as more sexually mature than males, women were... |
eli15 sn1 and sn2 reactions and their differences. | Basically, SN1 favors stability, and SN2 favors a quick attack. If you have a large structure with many carbons attached to it, and/or with many conjugated bonds (which also increase stability) See benzene, SN1 will likely be favored thermodynamically. There are still reactions with SN2 models on larger compounds, but ... | [
"The S1 reaction is a substitution reaction in organic chemistry. \"S\" stands for \"nucleophilic substitution\", and the \"1\" says that the rate-determining step is unimolecular. Thus, the rate equation is often shown as having first-order dependence on electrophile and zero-order dependence on nucleophile. This ... |
What is the limit of the size of an element's atomic nucleus? Could a neutron star be considered an element? | A neutron star is held together by gravity, not by the strong nuclear force.
Any normal element's nucleus is held together by the strong nuclear force.
Pretty much every element at the edge of the periodic table is unstable and only exists for a fraction of a second before it breaks apart... so take a look at the peri... | [
"In 2010 it was estimated that the neutron star's mass was at least formula_1, and possibly as high as formula_2 (the latter of which, if true, would surpass PSR J1614−2230 for the title of most massive neutron star yet detected, and place it within range of the Tolman–Oppenheimer–Volkoff limit).\n",
"With a mass... |
What caused Celtic languages in the British Isles to develop phonemes like Bh (V), Mh (W), and Y in place of U, when their conquerors who exposed them to the Latin alphabet didn’t? | The use of the 'h' to represent a *séimhiú* (the lenition of a consonant) is relatively new. Traditionally Irish was written in Gaelic script (which some enthusiasts still use) which, while still clearly based on the Roman alphabet, is different enough from regular letters to take a while to get used to. Traditional Ga... | [
"Little is known about the introduction of Celtic languages to the British Isles, though an increase in Mediterranean/Neolithic derived DNA into southern England during the Iron age suggests that a more southern influenced population than that of the Rhine Beaker Peoples was introduced. Celtic speakers associated w... |
when people "catch the holy spirit" and start freaking out in church, what's that all about? | I suggest you watch this [Derren Brown](_URL_0_) special.
Basically, it's a result of suggestibility coupled with their belief of how they're supposed to react. Firstly, people who attend these congregations already have a bias to believe in this sort of thing (self selection). Secondly, when they are touched, or "hea... | [
"\"We believe that we have a right to revelations, visions, and dreams from God, our heavenly Father; and light and intelligence, through the gift of the Holy Ghost, in the name of Jesus Christ, on all subjects pertaining to our spiritual welfare; if it so be that we keep his commandments, so as to render ourselves... |
how does the sun's heat reach us if there's so little matter to transfer it in space? | It doesn't transfer through conduction or convection, but radiation. It travels in the form of infrared photons, which are emitted directly from the sun radiate outwards. | [
"Here on earth, the sun delivers lots of bounce, and the atmosphere surrounds it with a wall that reflects the energy back in. In outer space, however, there’s nothing — a vacuum — and the bounce all disappears very quickly, leaving very little moving. Lack of motion means little heat, and almost no transfer — very... |
Did Romans know about elephants before the Punic Wars, or were they a completely new animal to them? | The Romans faced war elephants a few years before the First Punic War. In 280 B.C. Pyrrhus brought 20 war elephants from Greece to Rome. As Cassius Dio (via Zonaras) reports in [book IX](_URL_0_):
> Now Pyrrhus set out, not even awaiting the coming of spring, taking along a large, picked army, and twenty elephants, ... | [
"By the time of Claudius however, such animals were being used by the Romans in single numbers only – the last significant use of war elephants in the Mediterranean was against the Romans at the battle of Thapsus, 46 BC, where Julius Caesar armed his fifth legion (\"Alaudae\") with axes and commanded his legionarie... |
Did America ever steal tech or knowledge from the Soviet Union? | In the first several years after the fall of the Soviet Union, the leading Russian export was... patents and inventions. Sorry, don't remember the source.
| [
"But the United States found a way to use its opponent's strengths for its own purposes. In the late 1990s, it emerged that many stolen technological secrets were funnelled by an arm of American intelligence to the Soviet Union. The documents were real. They were of versions of the product which contained a critica... |
us citzens, what happens if someone commits a crime in a state and runs to another state that what he has done is not ilegal? | If you commit a crime, and flee across State lines, the United States Federal Government is responsible for returning you to the State in question to face charges. This is accomplished by the US Marshall's. | [
"On January 5, 2018, Nations was sentenced to three years of probation for threatening members of the public in Colorado; however, he was not released since he had an active warrant out on him from another county, back in Indiana. On January 24, Nations was finally transferred to Indiana officials' custody on an un... |
how does a new stock on the market open trading at a price different than it was offered? | The market makers are the first ones to release the stock into the world. The stock is essentially private, controlled by the market makers. They bought it from Twitter at $x, and are now reselling it on the open market. They want to get as much money as possible for their stock.
They initially announced $26/shar... | [
"On the English stock exchange, a transaction by which, if a member has sold securities which he fails to deliver on settling day, or any of the succeeding ten days following the settlement, the buyer may give instructions to a stock exchange official to \"buy in\" the stock required. The official announces the qua... |
Is it possible to determine where in Africa modern humans originated? | [National Geographic](_URL_2_): "*Most paleoanthropologists and geneticists agree that modern humans arose some 200,000 years ago in Africa. The earliest modern human fossils were found in Omo Kibish, Ethiopia. Sites in Israel hold the earliest evidence of modern humans outside Africa, but that group went no farther, d... | [
"BULLET::::- 21 September – Scientists report that, based on human DNA genetic studies, all non-African humans in the world today can be traced to a single population that exited Africa between 50,000 and 80,000 years ago.\n",
"BULLET::::- Geography Predicts Human Genetic Diversity ScienceDaily (Mar. 17, 2005) – ... |
why is mediafire still online but megaupload got taken down? | To my understanding, it's because
* Megaupload had tons of illegal uploads and barely anything was being done about it, while MediaFire actively takes down illegal files
* Megaupload was used way more than MediaFire to upload illegal files
| [
"GreatFire has been targeted with distributed denial-of-service attacks that attempt to take down the website by overloading its servers with traffic. In April 2015 it was targeted by a Chinese attack tool named Great Cannon that redirected massive amounts of Internet traffic to servers used by GreatFire.\n",
"Fi... |
Would using a heavier head on a golf club give the ball more distance? | For simplicity, we assume an elastic collision: the kinetic energy of the golf ball is proportional to the kinetic energy of the club, which is a function of its mass times the square of its velocity. While it initially seems that more mass would be beneficial, the force accelerating that mass (you swinging the club) ... | [
"It is played using a club similar in appearance to a standard golf driver with a thicker, shorter shaft. The head on a Park Golf club is rarely varied, but the length of stick can change according to the height of the Parker. The club is flat, and only the most skillful Parker can hit the ball in the air.\n",
"C... |
Why is walking/running up a hill so much harder despite physical condition? | When you walk up a flight of stairs or see a gradual hill, your body begins to 'prepare' itself by activating the sympathetic nervous system. This will increase your heart rate and respiratory rate. So even if your a marathon runner, just walking up a few flights of stairs will get your HR/resp rate up. | [
"Nor does sure-footedness imply a head for heights, something that is often stated as a requirement for using mountain paths. In this context, a head for heights means having the ability to negotiate exposed sections of a route without feeling unduly frightened. However, it is no accident that both requirements are... |
why do big websites such as reddit and facebook not require their users to verify their emails? | I recently worked on a project and I had to make this decision, so I'll share my thought process.
First of all, verifying emails takes a long time and a lot of clicks. I'd estimate that 50% of users probably would close the tab if they saw that an email was required on registration.
Second, there's not a huge use for... | [
"The need for email validated identification arises because forged addresses and content are otherwise easily created - and widely used in spam, phishing and other email-based fraud. For example, a fraudster may send a message claiming to be from \"sender@example.com\", with the goal of convincing the recipient to ... |
why do companies like ferrari which advertise minimally still achieve international recognition? | They do advertise. You just don't see it because you aren't the target market.
Have you seen advertisements for audemars piguet, leerjet, lurssen? Probably not. | [
"The automotive industry is a significant part of the Italian manufacturing sector, with over 144,000 firms and almost 485,000 employed people in 2015, and a contribution of 8.5% to Italian GDP. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles or FCA is currently the world's seventh-largest auto maker. The country boasts a wide range of ... |
Does Boxing/MMA headgear protect against trauma? | I'll give this my best shot, since none have answered yet.
The headgear/padding used in most fighting sports are there to protect you from the most serious injuries: skull fractures, fingers/knuckles cracking, wrists breaking. As far as protection from concussions or brain trauma, again it protects against the worst ... | [
"BULLET::::- Headgear: Used to protect boxers from soft tissue damage, (bruises, cuts, etc.), during sparring - also used in competition in amateur boxing. Headgear offers no protection from the effects of hard punches (stunning, knockdowns, KOs). It is important that boxers are aware of this otherwise headgear can... |
Can you identify what decade this picture was from based on the clothes worn? | The buildings are probably a better bet.
Context: The image is looking roughly south (the Pacific -- west -- is to the right, Santa Monica -- east -- is to the left). The rings are just south of the famous Santa Monica Pier.
* The two tall buildings by the acrobat's hands look to be the Santa Monica Shores buildings.... | [
"\"This room features four figures in clothes that date from the 1873 to early 1880s period. It was typical of the time that some people wore more up-to-date styles than others; whether people wore the very latest fashions depended on their tastes, income and also their age.\"\n",
"Many of the fashion styles and ... |
why is it called hemophilia? | According to _URL_0_
it's using an alternative emphasis on the latter part of the word.
> [philia](_URL_1_) "to love", here with a sense of "tendency to." | [
"Hemophilia, or haemophilia, is an X-linked recessive disorder that impairs the body's control over blood clotting. Haemophilia A and Haemophilia B arise from mutations in the genes for factor VIII and factor IX, respectively. Females with this disease are almost exclusively unaffected, obligate carriers. The mutat... |
My high school history teachers always said that the Manhattan Project scientists had some degree of not knowing what was going to happen during the Trinity Test. How much of these allegations, specifically that some thought they'd light the sky on fire, were true? | There was certainly a lot of uncertainty, but the uncertainty was bounded. Here is a _very_ abridged rundown of what I think the interesting areas of uncertainty were:
* To get it out of the way, _very minor_ uncertainty about whether the test might ignite the atmosphere in a giant fusion reaction. Which is to say, th... | [
"On July 16, 1945, Bainbridge and his colleagues conducted the Trinity nuclear test. \"My personal nightmare,\" he later wrote, \"was knowing that if the bomb didn't go off or hangfired, I, as head of the test, would have to go to the tower first and seek to find out what had gone wrong.\" To his relief, the explos... |
What, on the atomic level, causes cooling when a gas is expanding? | In order for the gas molecules to expand, it uses energy to push away the surrounding molecules. It loses energy and will therefore be at a lower temperature than the surrounding molecules. Being at a lower temperature will mean that heat will flow from the hotter surroundings to the cold expanded gas.
Also compressin... | [
"where formula_11 is the critical temperature of the substance. So for formula_12, an expansion at constant enthalpy increases temperature as the work done by the repulsive interactions of the gas is dominant, and so the change in energy is negative. But for formula_13, expansion causes temperature to decrease beca... |
How widely used was the French Revolutionary Calendar? | It was VERY widely used. All government documents from that period bear the Republican calendar date. Passports issued use that calendar. Birth certificates.
People were quick to adopt it, too, because it signified that you were favorable to the new Republican regime. Using words like "citoyen(nne)" ("citizen") to ad... | [
"The French Republican Calendar or French Revolutionary Calendar was a calendar proposed during the French Revolution, and used by the French government for about 12 years from late 1793 to 1805, and for 18 days in 1871 in Paris. Dates in official records at this time use the revolutionary calendar and need \"trans... |
if potatoes are relatively healthy, olive oil is very healthy, and salt isn't that bad for you, why are french fries so terrible? | Potatoes are starch (sugar storage for plants) oil is fat ( energy storage) and salt is actually fine as long as your water consumption is on par.
You end up eating a lot of calories for very little nutritional benefit. | [
"Once a potato has been baked, some people discard the skin and eat only the softer and moister interior, while others enjoy the taste and texture of the crisp skin, which is rich in dietary fiber. Potatoes baked in their skins may lose between 20 and 40% of their vitamin C content because heating in air is slow an... |
"jesus died for our sins" - what exactly does this mean? | The idea as I understand it is thus:
God is perfectly good and perfectly just. Being Good, he loves his creations and wants to bless them and be with them forever. However, being Just, he cannot reward evil. The penalty for transgressions has to be paid.
Jesus had no sin of his own. He took the sins of everyone on hi... | [
"In the Jerusalem \"ekklēsia\", from which Paul received this creed, the phrase \"died for our sins\" probably was an apologetic rationale for the death of Jesus as being part of God's plan and purpose, as evidenced in the scriptures. For Paul, it gained a deeper significance, providing \"a basis for the salvation ... |
Is the cell we each started off as still part of our body when we're born? If so, what part of the body is it in? | While I do not know the answer to the question, you have to remember that what would you call the "original" cell of the body. When a cell goes through mitosis, it splits into two. How would you determined which cell was the "original" cell? | [
"One theory is that the three-part body originates from an early common ancestor of all the deuterostomes, and maybe even from a common bilateral ancestor of both the deuterostomes and protostomes. Studies have shown that the gene expression in the embryo share three of the same signaling centers that shape the bra... |
what is a "tontine?" | The money from a tontine is usually put into some sort of interest earning fund. This could be as simple as a savings account or it could mean stocks, bonds, money markets, or many other financial instruments.
Since this money collects interest the amount gets bigger. | [
"A tontine (English pronunciation: ) is an investment plan for raising capital, devised in the 17th century and relatively widespread in the 18th and 19th centuries. It combines features of a group annuity and a lottery. Each subscriber pays an agreed sum into the fund, and thereafter receives an annuity. As member... |
how is it decided how far to watch for deer/elk along the freeway? | > At 51 miles am I in the clear and don’t have to worry about it any longer?
You *always* worry about shit jumping out into the road. The sign just tells you "This area has a higher concentration of deer and elk jumping out onto the road than usual, so keep on your toes." You aren't ever "clear" of the danger, and p... | [
"After 1.1 km the path opens up into a more open area and meets the Greengully Trail that enters from the left (south). The intersection is badly signed. Continue past large open areas on the right (east) where Kangaroos/Wallabies can be seen on a regular basis, just 20 km from the Melbourne CBD. Deer have also bee... |
how big of a plant would you need in a sealed room for enough oxygen to survive? | According to this guy _URL_0_ probably about 400 house plants (he doesnt give more detail) per person.
You might want to google the term Biodome (not the film) for experiments where they have actually tried putting people in sealed environments and using plants to generate the oxygen for them. | [
"With the incorporation of the membrane technology, oxygen plants have outstanding technical characteristics. Membrane oxygen plants are highly reliable due to the absence of moving parts in the gas separation module.\n",
"Membrane oxygen plants are finding increasingly broad application in various industries all... |
Why the electron cannot be view as a spinning charged sphere? | Electrons are pointlike particles in the Standard Model, and a single point can’t “rotate”. If you try to interpret the electron as a classical, rotating spherical charge, you get nonsense conclusions, like that the “surface” of the sphere has to move faster than c. | [
"In this model, the orbits of the electrons were stable because when an electron moved away from the centre of the positively-charged sphere, it was subjected to a greater net positive inward force, because there was more positive charge inside its orbit (see Gauss's law). Electrons were free to rotate in rings whi... |
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