id stringlengths 5 6 | input stringlengths 3 301 | output list | meta null |
|---|---|---|---|
2w4bh9 | how countries like egypt and jordan can seek and destroy isis within days/hours after their countrymens' executions, and yet the us and other more powerful enemies of isis seem to have trouble locating them? | [
{
"answer": "Better cultural understanding, less regard for civilian casualties, likely a better human intelligence network in the region. \n\nWestern powers tend to rely a lot on signal intelligence and photographic intelligence, which doesn't work all that well when the targets are immersed in the local popul... | null |
badhr2 | In the movie Kingdom of Heaven, Saladin is depicted as having a chest full of ice in his tent in the middle of the desert. How would he have gotten ahold of ice and preserved it? | [
{
"answer": "This has been asked a few times before:\n\nlike [here ](_URL_1_) with an answer by /u/Eireika\n\nand [another one](_URL_0_) with a nested comment by /u/Valkine adding the the scene was probably a creative freedom, mixing a historical known ice gift from Saladin elsewhere into the movies setting.\n\... | null |
1524kz | How much autonomy did the Republics of the USSR have? | [
{
"answer": "I think as a follow up thought, how much does autonomy matter if you don't use it? When it got interesting in Eastern Europe (Prague Spring) things went badly for them as the Soviets brought the hammer down. You could be promised a great deal of autonomy, but in practice the threat of everything co... | null |
2d18xi | why do we feel the urge to destroy things when we're angry? | [
{
"answer": "I love part II of edit #3",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Probably carries over from human social interactions, where hitting someone has a chance of them actually being more cooperative, vs you know hitting a computer, which does not understand violence.",
"provenance": null
... | null |
1m6d5h | Wednesday Week in History | Sept. 11 - Sept. 17 | [
{
"answer": "No love for the War of 1812?",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "I REJECT YOUR SUGGESTED HISTORICAL EVENTS AND SUBSTITUTE MY OWN. \n\n**September 17, 1787: Copyright clause was added to the Constitution.** \n\nThe clause is so very small: \n\n > The Congress shall have power to [...] p... | null |
j6uz8 | can someone explain aleph-null to me like i'm 5? | [
{
"answer": "First some vocabulary: if you have a collection of things in it, we call the number of things the \"cardinality\" of the collection.\n\nThis is fine if you only have finitely many things; the cardinality is just whatever number you have. But what if you have an infinite number of things? It turns o... | null |
4injcf | why are domestic power outlets in the united states 120v? is there any story behind that convention? | [
{
"answer": "Basically, it's because old light bulbs sucked. America was quite a ways ahead of the rest of the world when it came to early electricity and was about to make good lightbulbs that ran at 120 volts. If it was upped to 240 (which is easier to transmit long distances), they would burn out pretty quic... | null |
7yb15f | When did Norman England no longer associate with the French monarchy? | [
{
"answer": "So, basically, it depends on what you mean by \"associate.\"\n\nThe Kingdom of England was never considered part of the Kingdom of France or subordinate to it. English kings and property owners were not bound to the king of France under any kind of \"feudal\" ties. The Anglo-Norman, Angevin, and Pl... | null |
5bfp1u | Who was Mikhail Kalinin and how did he survive Stalin's purges as the Soviet head of state? | [
{
"answer": "Mikhail Kalinin certainly was something of an odd-duck in the Stalinist state apparatus. Despite the massive cult of personality surrounding the General Secretary, Kalinin was nominally the head of the Soviet state. His Old Bolshevik background was also atypical by the late 1930s as some of the mor... | null |
1hvh3b | Will the phytoestrogens in soy products make it more difficult for a male to gain muscle mass? | [
{
"answer": "No. It is my understanding that 'Phytoestrogens' are called that due to structural similarity to estrogen, but there is no evidence that they act similarly to hormones in animals. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Soy and phytoestrogens won't lower testosterone, but they do disrupt ... | null |
3qnbcu | is the rothschilds networth an actual thing ? does this family actually control nearly all the wealth in the world? if not then why are they mentioned so much in online forums and blogs ? | [
{
"answer": "They are rich, but the wealth has shrunk and divided with each other. No 1 member of the family owns it all anymore.\n\nAs for the hate they often are tied into the conspiracies like the Rockefellers or other wealthy families from the Industrial Revolution. From Illuminati, New World Order, to Rept... | null |
3ane4p | why is my laptop's time estimate of how much battery i have left always so incorrect? | [
{
"answer": "1. There isn't a way for your laptop to tell exactly how much power is left in the battery. It has to estimate it by measuring how much power the battery is outputting, but that's not always a nice neat line.\n\n2. There isn't any way for your laptop to know how much demand you're going to put on i... | null |
5fnen9 | When did Latin and Old French stop being mutually intelligible? | [
{
"answer": "At the third Council of Tours, the priests were ordered to preach in vulgar Latin, as the common folk could no longer understand formal Latin. This was in 813 CE. While it may still have been Latin in name, this language would likely have been significantly different from the VL at the fall of the ... | null |
3mbj8h | shouldn't things like the "law of gravity" or the "laws of thermodynamics" correctly be called "theories" instead? | [
{
"answer": "The scientific laws are generally just observations, not theories. The law of gravity doesnt explain gravity, it just describes it - whereas the theory of general relativity provides a model for how gravity works within the bounds of spacetime",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Theori... | null |
d2xhy0 | the difference between plasma and the ‘other’ states | [
{
"answer": "Unlike gases, plasmas are made up of atoms in which some or all of the electrons have been stripped away, leaving positively charged nuclei, called ions, roam freely.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Solid, gas, and liquid are taught as the states of matter simply because those are ... | null |
1asrzd | How long would it take a quantum computer (theoretically) to make as many computations as has been made in the entire history of computers? | [
{
"answer": "From what I understand, quantum computers aren't really comparable to existing computers. They aren't a billion times faster than our existing computers, I believe they may even be slower at making traditional calculations.\n\nThe reason quantum computers are special is because they can do specific... | null |
64m6tm | How were lances used before the invention of stirrups? | [
{
"answer": "I'm not sure that your assumption is entirely correct (remember, the impact when hitting someone will come from in front): older books I've read, like Oman, tend to believe this, state that the development of the stirrup essentially lead to feudalism, and put a lot more significance on pictures lik... | null |
3eo8rj | given the emphasis placed on the separation of the three pillars of the american government, how can the president grant pardons? is this not the executive messing with the judiciary? | [
{
"answer": "If all that was said was \"Congress makes laws; President enforces laws; Judges interpret laws,\" then maybe. But the President has the explicit power in the Constitution to pardon people. You might think that invades the province of the judiciary, but it's granted authority so no one has a real is... | null |
3d2wi5 | what do large corporation do with billions of dollars in revenue after expenses? do they spend it all on assets or can they get a bank account like people? | [
{
"answer": "All of the above. After paying out expenses. And stockholders fees. And bonuses to management. They will invest in research and development. Donate to causes, mainly for tax write-off. Funnel money into politics through lobbyists, for power and control. They will buy smaller business, and newer te... | null |
7eq094 | how is it possible that isp's can see what your up to online? i thought https encrypted your traffic so it can't be read? | [
{
"answer": "Sorta.\n\nThe ISP is your mailman. They need to get packages to where they need to go, Reddit for example is sending you a package containing this reply. You pay the mailman monthly for a rate at which they send packages from you and to you. \n\nHTTPS encrypts the package’s contents, however the IS... | null |
53lp4z | why does anybody in this day and age like the royal family? what good have they managed? | [
{
"answer": "An Australian here, they have, at the very least, provided a degree of stability for our head of state. The last Republican push here wanted the parliament, not the people, to select the head of state in a future republic - frightening.\n\nMy view - I'm completely ambivalent about them as people, t... | null |
4ayq7q | what is happening in brazil, with all these big rallies taking place? | [
{
"answer": "tldr, ex-President is involved in a giant corruption investigation and was just appointed the Chief of Staff by the current President in an attempt to shield him from prosecutions (in Brazil, ministers are to be judged by the Supreme Court, which comprise mostly of people picked by the acting party... | null |
7f6uhg | How mixable are different types of plastic? Like PET and HDPE? | [
{
"answer": "Some polymers have an affinity for each other and mix well. Polycarbonate, some styrene copolymers, and PET Mix well. This is driven by the chemical structure. Think that some are more polar, water like and others are less polar or oil like. \n\n\nHowever most polymers by themselves are typical... | null |
5xm5ed | what force is stronger than electromagnetism, if any, and what makes it stronger? | [
{
"answer": "Gravity is stronger. It is stronger because it is inexorable. There is both positive and negative electric and magnetic fields that can cancel each other out. There is no way to cancel gravity. The proof is black holes. There is no electromagnetic equivalent.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"... | null |
444bdq | What would happen if the superheated material inside a fusion reactor was exposed? | [
{
"answer": "Essentially the same as with any superheated material breaking out of containment. The reactor and surrounding structure might be damaged or destroyed. The amount of damage will depend on the size of the reactor and the materials used. Depending on the type of fusion taking place, there may be free... | null |
8sdmbi | how can humans instinctively know what angles to launch something make it go the farthest? | [
{
"answer": "They learn it. From age 0 on you throw stuff around and observe the physics of the world. That is why people who don't throw things (like balls) as a kid suck at throwing and aiming. So it is not an instinct, it is more of a skill.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "It's actually not ... | null |
7ruj29 | What does the coronation of Charlemagne as Roman Emperor suggest about attitudes towards the Roman Empire at the time? | [
{
"answer": "I partly answered your question [here](_URL_0_), although admittedly that answer focuses mostly on England in the period. Nonetheless, the answer isn't *radically* different in that early medieval political aspirations hinged on *Romanitas* less as an immediate continuation of Rome, but as a valid ... | null |
eaz2n2 | if the cold temperatures of frozen food prevent them from going off, why do frozen foods not last forever? can bacteria suddenly survive at colder temperatures after a food has been frozen for a certain length of time? | [
{
"answer": "Most of the relevant microorganisms aren't killed by the cold; if they were, food could be sealed in plastic, frozen, then allowed to thaw and it wouldn't rot until opened. They're simply alive but much, much less active. That being said, there are other reasons foods go bad. Some chemicals, includ... | null |
395klj | how did iraq go from having the best army in the arab world, to being unable to maintain it's sovereignty? | [
{
"answer": "You may have noticed George Bush lied to the American people to get the US involved in a stupid and un-winnable war with no exit strategy. As a result the most powerful army in the world destroyed the most powerful army in the Arab world. He left them with no resources and no ability to govern them... | null |
vdv7r | My understanding is that both Sodium and Chlorine by themselves are dangerous (explodes in water and is toxic, respectively). If that is true, why is dissolved sodium chloride (salt) perfectly safe? Why don't the dissolved ions have the same properties as sodium and chloride separately? | [
{
"answer": "The form of chlorine which is dangers is [chlorine gas, (Cl2)](_URL_0_) which has very different properties from the [chloride ion. (Cl-)](_URL_1_)\n\n",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "The nuclei don't matter in chemistry. Only the structure of the electrons. \n\nSodium and chlorid... | null |
6fv5sr | according to the bible, how did jesus's death save humanity? | [
{
"answer": "The Jewish religion was based around the idea of sacrifice: if you did something wrong, you had to pay for it. You would take a sacrifice to the temple -- depending on how much you had and what you had done wrong, this might be some grain, or perhaps a couple of birds, or something bigger like a la... | null |
25x54k | Why is spit bubbly like soap bubbles? | [
{
"answer": "Saliva has a lot of proteins in it, proteins can increase surface tension and lead to stronger bubbles like the lipids in soap.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "478666",
"title": "Antibubble",
"section": "Sect... | null |
cfy8a0 | it just hit me that there are no longer any wild cows. how/when did this happen? | [
{
"answer": "Cattle were domesticated from the wild aurochs. As time went on, the aurochs were hunted, saw their available habitat shrink greatly, and contracted diseases from domesticated cattle. The last one died in the 17th century.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "There are 4 species of wild... | null |
mans1 | work, power, and energy (physics) and their differences | [
{
"answer": "Work - When a **force** moves an **object**, **energy is transferred** and **work is done**. Work is measured in Joules. Whenever something moves, something else is providing some sort of **effort** to move it. The thing providing the effort needs some sort of **energy** (food, fuel, electricity e... | null |
63ef3e | In light of the recent growth of sightings of Tasmanian Tigers and possibility of a species coming back from what we thought was extinction... Has this happened with any other species in the last ~500 years? | [
{
"answer": "Black footed ferrets from the US and Canada were declared extinct in 1979 due to farmers poisoning prairie dogs, their food supply. Lo and behold, a farmer's dog brought home a dead one 2 years later and they became endangered instead!",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "I read a few y... | null |
34tl5k | Why galaxies have shape at all? (speed of light, correlation light scale, causality) | [
{
"answer": "Changes must not be faster than the speed of light, but existing fields are not changes. Gravity for example is traveling at the speed of light. By your thought, the sun shouldn't be capable to pull on earth, because it is so far away. But actually, the gravitational field already exists and we are... | null |
n16qa | the difference between milk pasteurization in europe and america that lets european milk last so much longer and without refrigeration. | [
{
"answer": "First off, let's understand why food or drink spoils. in our world, there are microscopic living things everywhere. We call them *microbes*. Bacteria and molds are the kind we're usually worried about when it comes to food, because they're usually what make it spoil. They eat the food and grow in i... | null |
cbm3zl | What's the hottest and coldest temperatures insects can survive in? | [
{
"answer": "Because of their ability to withstand desiccation (removal of moisture) insects can recover from extreme temperature events. Including being submerged in liquid helium. \n\nFrom a cursory look, it appears +/- 55 C is the general range of temperatures.\n\nReferences/further reading: [Cold](_URL_1_) ... | null |
4hmk3s | why are local positions like coroner, surveyor, recorder, etc elected by the people, and why should the average person care about them? | [
{
"answer": "The theory is that these people's findings have (or used to have) a direct impact on tax collection, so the people should have a say in who gets the job to prevent abuse of power.\n\n > Electing a coroner is a holdover from British Common Law, where the coroner’s job was to determine how and when ... | null |
2rdyd4 | why cant we cure genetic diseases with genetic engineering? | [
{
"answer": "That's like saying \"why can't we solve engineering problems with engineering?\"\n\nIt's one thing to spot and identify a problem, but a whole different thing to find ways to understand it, solve it, get the tools you need at the precision you need.\n\nFor all things medical you also need extensive... | null |
2njcw3 | why are emergency services' two way radio systems so fuzzy and unclear? shouldn't emergency services have crisp audio more than anyone else? | [
{
"answer": "They use big long radio waves that can go through almost anything. That has the drawback that that frequency has a lot of minor interference and distortion on it. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Police officer here. The simple answer is that you get used to it. You talk on the r... | null |
421m96 | How were large, dangerous animals like bears hunted in the Middle Ages? | [
{
"answer": "Unfortunately there isn't a lot of source material on bear hunting as a lot of our late medieval 'hunting manuals' were produced in England...when the bear had been long extinct. However, the very famous 14th c hunting manual by [Gaston Fébus](_URL_0_), the [*Livre de chasse*](_URL_3_), features a ... | null |
2zsslx | why doesn't facial hair get greasy? | [
{
"answer": "not as much oil secreted by the face as the top of the head",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Also in any good beard grooming kit a beard oil is recommended, so not only does it not get greasy, but to take care of it you oil it up.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "I r... | null |
5l8omp | why did ronda rousey look like a complete amateur tonight who had never stepped foot into an octagon? | [
{
"answer": "She was not THAT great of a fighter, just a dominant one in a growing sport (Women's MMA). As it got bigger, the fighters got better. And she took a long break and had just not improved in the time.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "After she knocked out Beth, she thought she was a... | null |
7kiazh | hot weather the cause of higher violence rates? | [
{
"answer": "Climate changes how people live, which affects decisions made and indirectly affects violence. I seriously doubt you will find any evidence that heat directly affects the mind. The research has long shown that it is a indirect relationship. I have never heard of a direct correlation with weathe... | null |
2dczey | Why is there an absolute reference for rotation? | [
{
"answer": "The discussion about no preferred reference frames is in the context of special relativity, which only considers unaccelerated motion. A rotation is always an accelerated motion, i.e. you need a centripetal force to \"bend\" the path of an object. This force makes different reference frames differe... | null |
1hua8k | how was the stuxnet virus created, and why was it so successful? | [
{
"answer": "There's a youtube video on this by an a channel called \"The Hungry Beast\" or something similar, try looking it up.\n\nI'm in China atm and it's blocked for me, =/\n\n_URL_0_ - Someone linked it in another thread",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
... | null |
53n2dx | why are ssds sold in 240 gb, 480 gb, etc. whereas hdds are sold in 250 gb, 500 gb, etc.? | [
{
"answer": "SSDs are composed of multiple flash chips, which are produced in sizes power of two. Why? These chips come with a number of pins called an address bus, naturally allowing for 2^N different addresses. When combining chips to form a bigger chip, you'd prefer it if these address busses combined to for... | null |
14g7ym | why do girls do the "duck face?" | [
{
"answer": "The ‘duck face’ started back when MySpace was still thriving, around the year of 2005. The face is also attributed to the ‘MySpace pics’ tren, which I think are now called ‘selfies’. Usually teenagers would set their profile picture to something they took in the bathroom mirror, or with their arm e... | null |
10yocf | Do cardiac muscle cells die? | [
{
"answer": "[We used to think of cardiomyocytes as nondividing and persistent cells](_URL_0_):\n\n > For nearly a century, the general belief has been that the heart is a terminally differentiated post-mitotic organ in which the number of cardiomyocytes is established at birth with these cells persisting throu... | null |
10hjf9 | Movies always make out ancient warriors to be these huge guys with huge muscles that you'd have to get in gyms. Basically what I'm asking is, on average how buff or big were spartan warriors or a knight in the crusades? | [
{
"answer": "I don't think they were heavily toned, ripped dudes. But like in the case of the Spartans, those guys trained from a young age to be warriors. I'm sure you build some serious muscle mass with that.\n\nIn the middle ages there were different kinds of soldiers. If you're talking fully suited knight o... | null |
2wfdcs | what income groups does a sales tax impact more? | [
{
"answer": "Sales tax influences the poor people more.\n\nAn item worth $100 is 10% month's salary of a person earning $1,000/month; it is 1% of someone earning $10,000.\n\nRaising the price by $1 (however that is done, in this case a 1% sales tax), and the added cost is 1% of the former, but only 0.1% of the ... | null |
2wtklv | Why were the Germans in WWII so much more scared to surrender to the Soviets? | [
{
"answer": "They were taught, brainwashed, in to believing that the soviets were sub-human savages. Barbarians. They put out a lot of propaganda about Russian soldiers raping and pillaging and ignoring laws in order to improve the moral while fighting them.\nBut it worked so well that many of them genuinely be... | null |
2f54np | why can't people remember correct spellings of common words? | [
{
"answer": "I type reasonably fast, frequently my misspellings are when I am thinking of the right word but I type a homonym or I start to type one word like pay and then swap what I want to say to use paid mid-word and just add the typical past tens suffix. \n\nEdit: I've been a fast reader for several decad... | null |
vy5pn | How do we know that physical constants such as G, C, etc. have not slowly change over time? | [
{
"answer": "Because if they did it would have measureable effects that we can observe. We know, for example, that the gravitational constant varies by less than a few parts per trillion yearly. [link](_URL_0_)",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "BLO got downvoted pretty hard for this, but in a cer... | null |
2fjsw2 | why is a bullet so deadly? | [
{
"answer": "large force and velocity",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "The bullet moves very fast, and though it only leaves a small hole, the shockwave disrupts and destroys a lot of tissue.\n\nLook at the various films where people shoot melons. These melons explode in all directions. Imagine ... | null |
5fqm9a | Did Arian Christians accuse "Orthodox" Christians of heresy? | [
{
"answer": "In short, yes.\n\nRemember, \"Arian\" is two sorts of label used to describe a number of groups in the fourth century. Firstly, it's a label used by Athanasius from the 360s onwards to describe a number of groups that he opposes, and to attempt to *taint* them through guilt by association with Ariu... | null |
42ei0g | USSR Causing Ukrainian Genocide, Mao Responsible for Famine, and Stalin Creating Consideration Camps: Did Any of These Happen? | [
{
"answer": "They aren't fabrications. \n\nThe Soviet Famine of 32-33 (what you refer to as the Ukrainian Genocide) was an actual famine caused by a massive drought throughout the major wheat production centers in the Ukraine and North Caucuses. The debate lies in whether or not the drought was deliberate or no... | null |
1q938o | eau de toilette, eau de perfume, eau de cologne | [
{
"answer": "The major distinction between the three is the concentration of the actual fragrance that is dissolved in alcohol. \n\nEau de toilette, toilet water, has anywhere from 5-15% concentration of the fragrance.\nEau de perfume has anywhere from 10 to 20%.\n\nIt's worth noting, that Parfum du Toilette an... | null |
4xn3de | How did marsupials spread from the Americas to Australia if they evolved way after South America separated from Gondwana? | [
{
"answer": "This seems to be a difficult question to answer, in part because Antarctica is difficult to study: fossil records are scarce, as are geological samples. There were apparently many active volcanoes along the Antarctic peninsula during the late cretaceous and early tertiary times, which, combined wit... | null |
1o3fig | can somebody please explain two of the federalist papers to me, specifically #10 and #51? | [
{
"answer": "Here's my breakdown of 10 Federalist, which I posted back in the spring, the last time this question was asked on ELI5. I'll get to 51 Federalist in a little while.\n\n**The Situation:** The new constitution has just been written (mostly based on Madison's ideas), and now the states have to ratify ... | null |
2d6ujy | why fort knox has so much gold stored within it. | [
{
"answer": "The US dollar, like most currencies, used to be based on gold. So the government had to have a lot of gold stuck in its vaults to back up its currency.\n\nThis isn't true anymore, but there's no good way to get rid of all that gold. If it were all dumped on the open market, the price would crash.",... | null |
92aetb | why can't we identify someone if we can't see their eyes? | [
{
"answer": "We can identify people without seeing their eyes just fine if we know them well. Haven't you ever recognized someone with their back turned or semi-profile if their hair has partially fallen over their face so you can't see their eyes? Or how about someone asleep? You can't see their eyes then.",
... | null |
c2z27b | when a company offers a direct listing for a new stock, how is the initial price point determined? | [
{
"answer": "In the case of a direct listing, the original share holders put up their shares and determine the value themselves (no underwriters involved). It is much cheaper for the company but it is also considered extremely unsafe. There are no protections against the price swinging violently.\n\nThis can le... | null |
19rda9 | Are there any people alive today that can trace their ancestry back to ancient history? | [
{
"answer": "There are plenty of people/dynasties that claim they \"descend from antiquity\" but there are no 'Western' claims that are accepted by historians and genealogists.\n\nThere are a number of 'Eastern' claims that might one-day be accepted, the oldest of which is Kung Tsui-chang who claims to be the 7... | null |
6zzki0 | Why were the Mormons driven out west and why did they settle in Utah of all places? | [
{
"answer": "The Mormons, especially their leader Joseph Smith, tended to run into legal problems wherever they landed. That makes a consistent narrative hard to compile.\n\nLet's start in upstate New York. As a teen Smith engaged in the profession of using a peep stone to look for buried treasure. He and his b... | null |
277jfj | Why were Quakers banned from the Massachussetts Bay Colony in the mid-1600s? | [
{
"answer": "Quakers were a persecuted group even back in the UK- they emphasized a more personal, direct relationship with God, unmediated by clergy, which was viewed as blasphemous and a threat to the established power of the Church of England. Because the monarch was the head of the church, denying one's all... | null |
3dtyya | how do torrent websites keep track of the seeds/peers of each torrent? | [
{
"answer": "So a torrent has seeders (people who have the whole file and are actively sharing it) and leechers (typically people who download more than they upload). The collection of the seeders and leechers is called a swarm. Different torrent sites use a tracker to organise the swarm. The tracker is what de... | null |
44wwi0 | Did the concept of zero exist in the Roman era? | [
{
"answer": "The Romans didn't have a _number_ for zero. They definitely had the _concept_ though.\n\nThey just used the word \"nulla\" to mean nothing. Either you had something, or it wasn't worth counting. \n\nRoman numerals are almost useless when doing math. Even simple addition and subtraction is clumsy an... | null |
2ic213 | Was there any actual proof of genocide in Srebrenica and Zepa? | [
{
"answer": "Discovery and excavation of mass graves in the region has been [going on for years.]( _URL_0_)",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "The Srebrenica is a relatively well documented event. I really wish someone with extant expertise in the disintegration of Yugoslavia would pick up your qu... | null |
147nir | What does the wobble of the earth's axis have on the weather? | [
{
"answer": "You are on the correct trail in researching Milankovitch cycles. The question of does it effect weather is really one of time-scales. The characteristic time scale of Axial precession (wobble) is 26,000 years so any effect on our 'weather' would be on similar time-scales. It is basically impossi... | null |
agdkn1 | why does mitch mcconnell have so much power? | [
{
"answer": "Mitch McConnell, is the Senate Majority leader. In the United States, our legislature (the body that writes our laws) is split into two pieces, the House of Representatives and the Senate. For a law to get passed it needs approval (by majority, though arguably by a super majority in the Senate on c... | null |
2fyr09 | Was Ludwig van Beethoven black? | [
{
"answer": "My vote is for \"this is bullshit.\"\n\nBeethoven was well known in his life. After his death, he was pretty much considered the model of what the composer should be and his music became gospel. He was pretty much canonized in the 19th century, and his image is still VERY strong in the world of cla... | null |
cviqkm | what is a good and simple analogy for the big freeze theory? | [
{
"answer": "Set everything on fire and watch everything burn to ash. You can't start a new fire using those ashes.\n\nEssentially everything in the universe operates on a similar principle. Everything happening happens because energy is being used up. At some point the sun which powers pretty much all life on ... | null |
fukk1 | Hypothetical Exoplanet Analysis | [
{
"answer": "Off the top of my head, the simplest example in that image of a mistake that I think would stand up is that it shows a star in the sky that is either very large or pretty close - and the brightness from it would certainly drown out the other stars in the black sky there.\n\nEven the moon photos wit... | null |
1xz5n7 | how do companies get away with badmouthing each other? | [
{
"answer": "There is nothing illegal about using your competitor's name in an advertisement. But...you open yourself up to false advertisement claims (not to mention mounds of legal costs) when piss off a competitor. The use of the \"compared to the leading brand\" is often chosen to avoid hassle, but also b... | null |
8pocws | How did the Russians manage the logistics of redeploying their Baltic fleet to the Far East in 1905? | [
{
"answer": "Expanded [from an earlier answer of mine](_URL_0_)\n\nThe process of coaling was an arduous and backbreaking task in the early twentieth century. This was doubly true for the fleets commanded by Zinovy Rozhestvensky and Dmitry von Fölkersam which had to make a long journey to Asian waters. The jour... | null |
b3vu4s | why do cops use numbers like 10-4 to talk to each other instead of saying what’s actually happening? | [
{
"answer": "Because it is just supposed to alert other officers of the crime so they will arrive. If someone’s life is at stake it is much more important to get the situation under control prior to figuring out the entire situation,",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Because there are multiple of... | null |
3u5v56 | why the new star wars movie still isn't rated this close to it's release date? | [
{
"answer": "In this case I believe it is because they have not released the movie to critics so as to avoid leaking plot details. Current rumor is there is some big reveal regarding Luke they don't want to give away in advance.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "I think my other post got removed ... | null |
a2364a | What is "foaming at the mouth" and what exactly causes it? | [
{
"answer": "Rabies causes, amongst other things \"hydrophobia\" which counter to what its name suggests isn't a literal fear of water but more an inability to swallow effectively. Many patients when afflicted by rabies experience laryngospasm, pharyngeal or diaphramatic spasms. The end result is the inabilit... | null |
4lbn9o | Are trees from different families examples of convergent evolution? Or do many families of plants come from a tree-like ancestor? | [
{
"answer": "So I've heard of arboresence (or tree-ness) considered a convergent phenotype in George McGhee's book \"Convergent Evolution: Limited forms most beautifu\"l. In fact, he argues that arboresence has evolved independently in 9 plant lineages. One example is Ferns which evolved tree-ness in 3 groups t... | null |
dkl842 | What did Classic, Country Music stars like Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson and the like, think of the Woodstock Music Festival? | [
{
"answer": "In 1969, both Kris Kristofferson and Johnny Cash were both fairly unusually aligned with the American youth counterculture than the average country musician. Kris Kristofferson's 1970 debut album *Kristofferson* features the track 'Blame It On The Stones', which satirised bourgeois hypocrisy about ... | null |
36yg40 | if i were able to attain enough money to hire a team capable of sending me into space, and buy the spacecraft itself, would anyone be legally allowed to stop me? | [
{
"answer": "Goodness no! In fact, you'd probably get a prize, if you were able to do something novel up there. We're actively encouraging civilian spaceflight through a number of initiatives, including SpaceX Prizes and general tax breaks for corporations even attempting it.\n\nMind you you'd have to schedule ... | null |
s626v | Regarding classical conditioning and using it to influence your sexual preferences.. | [
{
"answer": "I'm no psychologist, but preferences for women's body types vary markedly by culture, and even over time within the same culture. That suggests that they aren't all hardwired at least, and that there is a fair amount of conditioning that goes into it, whether it's social reinforcement or whatever.... | null |
ew0sha | kobe was accused of rape — the victim was battered, he was charged with a felony, they settled after a civil case, he issued an apology — but no one seems to care. why? | [
{
"answer": "I think people have generally accepted that Kobe was *likely* guilty of adultery and but that it was consensual sex and not rape. Rationale:\n\n1.) Authorities chose not to pursue criminal charges of rape against him\n\n2.) He publicly admitted to adultery but not rape\n\n3.) Civil case against him... | null |
bovpoz | is the us going to war with iran? | [
{
"answer": "You think the people in charge of our government have a cogent plan they're going to stick to? The Joint Chiefs of Staff probably know the answer to this as well as I do. But we do have some world-class warmongers making some high-level decisions right now",
"provenance": null
},
{
"ans... | null |
1m9x8c | The FDA says that "residual quantities of formaldehyde may be found in some current vaccines" How is that even remotely possible when formaldehyde is a gas? | [
{
"answer": "Gases can be dissolved in liquids.\n\nFormaldehyde exists in equilibrium with methylene glycol when dissolved in water. [The equilibrium constant at standard conditions is on the order of 10^3](_URL_0_), so most of it will become methylene glycol, but not all of it.",
"provenance": null
},
... | null |
2cp0jb | How does the majority of historians view Julius Caesar? A great leader or an evil one? | [
{
"answer": "The issue with this question is that it is completely variant on a subjective viewpoint. Judging whether or not a person as famous as Caesar was \"good\" or \"evil\" is a truly impossible task, not only because of the differences in morality between the ancient era and the modern one, but also beca... | null |
9gldms | How do bacteria get their energy? | [
{
"answer": "[Metabolism](_URL_0_), like every other living creature. \n\nThe two common sources of energy are light and molecular bonds in food matter.\n\nDifferent bacteria have evolved to capitalize on both sources.\n\nThe variations are fascinating.\n\nWood is a sugar molecule with lots of energy, but human... | null |
2lqtgd | Is it possible that scientific constants exist because of the way we define units? | [
{
"answer": "Dimensionful constants, like the speed of light or Planck's constant, are indeed dependent on the units we choose, and we can set them to 1 in some appropriate unit system (this is commonly done, for example, in quantum field theory or in relativity). But dimensionless constants, like the fine-stru... | null |
hcudr | 3 good questions about the derivatives of position. 1. can we perceive any besides velocity and acceleration?.... | [
{
"answer": " > you go from velocity to acceleration by squaring the t in d/t\n\nWell, given a function v(t), you differentiate with respect to time to get a(t). Ok, a perfectly valid function is v(t)=d/t with some constant d, which would mean a velocity that gradually approaches zero, but I doubt this is what... | null |
214wfb | what does cold/flu medicine do if you don't have a cold or flu? | [
{
"answer": "ask the crew at /r/drugnerds. I guarantee you'll get a ton of answers. About half will be unreadable for anyone without an advanced degree in chemistry.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "The most commonly used decongestant is **guafenesin**. It increases the blood flow to your nose. ... | null |
569sz9 | how can something like a cellphone or computer possibly have any effect on a plane during takeoff? | [
{
"answer": "800 megahertz communications can interfere with instrument landing systems as well as other navigation systems.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "3553149",
"title": "Ansett New Zealand Flight 703",
"section": "... | null |
40hefi | How did the four Sunni Islamic school of thoughts settle to the current geography? Could this change in the future? | [
{
"answer": "Mod mote to OP and potential respondents: just a reminder that this sub *does not permit speculation*, so discussion here will have to exclude the last question (re possible futures) . ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "128682... | null |
18rshl | Were there Prisoner of War camps in the American Civil War? If so, what were they like? How were the prisoners treated? | [
{
"answer": "It was bad in the South as the war dragged on. The North was very effective at limiting the South's ability to supply their troops and civilians. PoWs are pretty low on the list when you're rationing.\n\nAndersonville, by far the most notorious Civil War prison, housed nearly 33,000 men at its pe... | null |
22aw6e | Are there any theories which try to explain where the very first matter, mass, or "stuff" came from? | [
{
"answer": "Current cosmological/physics theories can trace the universe back rather accurately to about 10^(-12) seconds or so after the big bang. All of our theories before that are speculative to some degree or another, so we can't say anything definitive about the universe at those points (let alone make s... | null |
9yotxa | what is stockholm’s syndrome and can children have it due to abusive parents? | [
{
"answer": "Stockholm Syndrome is when a captive person grows an attachment to their captor. For example, it has been debated that dogs only love their owners because their owners feed and shelter them. \n\nI think children can develop Stockholm Syndrome with/to abusive parents. Depending on their age, they pr... | null |
3sbzqa | will the united states debt to china ever affect the us government in a negative way? | [
{
"answer": "To China specifically? No. Owing money to China is no different from the US government owing money to me for money I've lent to it. The US government owes about $1.25 trillion to China and about $6.2 trillion to foreign sources overall. It doesn't really offer China any influence over the US.\n\nCa... | null |
4ktj6l | What were the consequences of Athens’ decisions, and how did their downfall effect Greece and ultimately leave it open for Phillip II to conquer. | [
{
"answer": "There is a significant amount of time between the dissolution of the Delian League (404 BC) and the conquest of Greece by Philip II (338 BC). In fact, there was time enough for the Athenians to start a Second Delian League (probably in 378 BC) *and for that League to fall too* (after the Social War... | null |
2emlxn | Why do galaxies appear as consistent objects, given their sheer scale? | [
{
"answer": "Hundreds of thousands of years is actually quite a short period of time in astronomy. Even very short-lived stars last for millions of years.\n\nThe distance to other galaxies is also much larger than their size. Andromeda, the closest large galaxy to us, is millions of light-years away. We can say... | null |
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