id stringlengths 5 6 | input stringlengths 3 301 | output list | meta null |
|---|---|---|---|
akwq6y | If space is ever so expanding, do we seen new/farther everyday we take photos of the outer edges of space? Do we add on to “observable universe” everyday too? | [
{
"answer": "Kind of.\n\nSo, the universe as a whole does not have a boundary. The expansion of the universe is not the expansion of the *edge* of the universe, but rather everything getting further away from everything else - it's not expanding at the edges, it's expanding *everywhere*. In fact, the evidence i... | null |
35p93t | Any good non-Roman sources on the Roman military? Talking about tactics, formations, appearance, etc. | [
{
"answer": "In Plutarch's *Life of Crassus*, the author likely uses a first hand Mesopotamian source to describe the battle of Carrhae. This is because his account goes into great detail about the battle and aftermath in Ktesiphon. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Polybius is a Greek writing t... | null |
3hpgv2 | why do cuts get white when you take a shower? | [
{
"answer": "It's a bodily fluid that mostly contains white blood cells and vitamins. It's to help speed the process of tissue/skin repair.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Osmosis is happening here. The shower water is hypotonic compared to the fluids in your tissues. Certain cellular solutes ... | null |
31iard | why are firefighters called to the scene of an emergency even if there is no fire involved? | [
{
"answer": "You could almost call firefighters the engineers of the emergency services. They carry ladders, lifting gear, cutting tools, winches etc...",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "They offer safety, rescue, and medical needs. \n\nMany departments train their firefighters to be firefighter/... | null |
201rqg | How much of an impact did the ending of slavery have for the emancipation of women and women's rights in general? (USA) | [
{
"answer": "Well, the idea of giving black *men* the vote gained traction pretty quickly; this was actually used to try and suppress the Women's Rights groups by telling them that they should be quiet and wait as this was \"the Negro's hour.\" Elizabeth Cady Stanton took a somewhat dim view of this idea on the... | null |
4ownwr | how does a strong currency affect a country's economy? | [
{
"answer": "a strong currency makes your exports comparably more expensive. and vice versa. \n\nConsider this. The canadian dollar is currently in the shitter. but canadians have not all had their annual salary adjusted. So their product cost in canadian dollars is the same. But to americans, due to the ... | null |
1vf4s2 | What did the ancient people that built Stonehenge do when it was cloudy on the Solstices? | [
{
"answer": "Since this involves a time before written records, this may not be the best subreddit for the question. At the same time, since it is involves a time before written records, it is largely impossible to answer your question. I can say that with my experience involving winter in Britain and Ireland, ... | null |
2t7biz | if pets require protective collars to allow wounds to heal properly how do wild animals repair wounds? | [
{
"answer": "They die a lot of the time from those types of wounds. The cones are generally used so the animal won't pick out the sutures. Any animal in the wild would probably die from a wound that needed sutures anyway.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "The simple answer is that they don't. T... | null |
aebvc0 | Why did the crafters of the various U.S. State Constitutions (except Nebraska) choose to create bicameral legislatures? Was this simply a matter of mirroring the federal Congress, or was there a prevailing political theory that suggested bicameralism was better than unicameralism? | [
{
"answer": "Political Science major, worked in my college's Political Science Department performing spatial analyses of electoral data for professors studying electoral malapportionment. \n\nOriginally state legislatures were designed similarly to the federal legislature, with lower house districts based on po... | null |
oh9rw | If time is nonexistent for a photon, how can it be emitted from something and never be absorbed? | [
{
"answer": "Time isn't quite non-existent for a photon. A photon simply has no perspective in the first place; there's no way of putting a coordinate system on the Universe to describe things as a photon would see it. In Science-Speak, there's no such thing as a photon's frame of reference, because there's no ... | null |
3yivel | Why have infirmaries at Auschwitz? | [
{
"answer": "The same question was asked a few months ago where I answered the question.\n\n_URL_0_",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "I'm a licensed tour guide at the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp Memorial. Not Auschwitz, but the general policy for the infirmaries was the same throughout the c... | null |
9mx5yt | Is the Revolt of 1857 a War of Independence or just a major insurrection? | [
{
"answer": "I recently wrote a multi part [answer on 1857, it's historiography and the different interpretations](_URL_0_) \n - hopefully it's interesting for you. Should questions remain let me know and I could get back to it a bit later today (due to travels).\n\n*Edit:* The very short takeaway would be that... | null |
13rtp4 | Coin from 1919; can somebody identify? | [
{
"answer": "That's a British 3 pence coin featuring king George V. It appears to be of fine condition and could probably fetch anything from a pound up to 3-4 pounds at the most. An uncirculated version of the same coin would have been worth around 10 pounds.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Lo... | null |
1l84p5 | A question about how colonization affected the languages of Africa. | [
{
"answer": "This is in reference to the \"how the languages are faring\" question only, and is currentish info; if it's violating the 20-year rule too badly, my apologies (I trust it will meet a speedy end in that case!):\n\nThere are many, *many* languages in Africa; some of them are thriving (e.g., Yoruba, K... | null |
1c9dhe | how do people find out who a reddit user is in real life? | [
{
"answer": "Probably not unless you mention doing something very illegal that warrants notifying authorities who can seize ip logs & shit. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "786728",
"title": "South Korean web culture",
... | null |
4en93t | Do Coronal Mass Ejections have a significant impact on the life of a star? | [
{
"answer": "I assume you mean in terms of mass lost, and the answer is a resounding \"NO\". The mass lost in a typical CME from our Sun is [of the order of 10^15 grams](_URL_0_), while the mass of our Sun is of the order 10^33 grams. So every CME from our Sun releases approx 0.000000000000000001% of the Sun's ... | null |
9kt809 | What did the diet of North American 19th century lumberjacks consist of? | [
{
"answer": "from Roy B. Clarkson's description of a logging camp in West Virginia circa 1909:\n\n > A typical evening meal consisted of boiled or roast beef or pork or steak, turnips, hanovers, tomatoes, potatoes, beans, hash, \"light\" bread or corn bread, and two different kinds of pie ( quartered) and cake... | null |
3o8vkd | If I was in the center between two planets with the exact same gravity, would I be ripped apart? Or would I experience weightlessness? | [
{
"answer": "Whether or not gravity can rip you apart depends on the tidal forces or differences in gravitational attraction across a body's length. So the answer is \"it depends.\" If you [make a graph](_URL_0_) of -1/(r+1)^2 - 1/(r-1)^2 you'd see the potential does have a maximum in between the two point sou... | null |
1o6u5e | why are some corn fields allowed to go brown before they are harvested? | [
{
"answer": "It wouldn't keep if it was harvested when it was soft. Also, some of it is probably made into corn meal for stuff like corn flakes, corn chips, etc. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Don't worry, you're not seeing waste, its perfectly normal. You're seeing the corn plant, not the c... | null |
7kyyha | why would we ever care about the distinction of a newtonian fluid and a non-newtonian fluid? (i put this with an engineering flair because i want to know if there’s any practical use, not theoretical) | [
{
"answer": "For one example, [liquid armor](_URL_0_) can be made only of a non-Newtonian fluid.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Imagine you're trying to fill a mold with a material. You'd likely want to do that as fast as you can. Well, what happens if the material doesn't behave like a Newton... | null |
4yfnr4 | Would supersonic air flowing across a wing fixed to the floor in a lab produce a constant sonic boom? | [
{
"answer": "A sonic boom is the perceptual phenomenon caused by the passage of a shock wave over the human ear. Every object that is going faster than the speed of sound in a medium has an associated shock wave attached to or very near the object. This shock wave is always there once the object reaches a speed... | null |
646k1q | What is the connection between Majorana Mass and a Majorana Particle? | [
{
"answer": "If you give a Majorana mass to a \"normal\" four-component spinor, so making it satisfy the Majorana *equation*, you obtain *two* particles. They are antiparticles of eachother and must be electrically neutral.\n\nOnly when you supplement the Majorana *condition*, that is that the spinor is its own... | null |
engu40 | Floating Feature: Close Up Shop and Celebrate History Coming to an End as 'The Story of Humankind' Concludes With Volume XIII from 1947 to 2000 CE! | [
{
"answer": "**The Agony and Exidy** \n\n\nVery few people know the name of Harold Ray \"Pete\" Kauffman. He ran what was a relatively obscure video arcade company who's heyday was in the 1970s, failing to make a major impact even as it persisted into 1999. However, the very fact that it persisted so long is o... | null |
iwewz | Can theories be proven or is it that they have just failed to be disproved? | [
{
"answer": "You are correct.\n\nThe general answer for the scientific method is that nothing can be proven, only disproven. \n\nHowever, once a hypothesis has passed enough experimental tests that the only other competing hypothesizes are clearly wrong, then the hypothesis becomes a \"theory\" meaning it has... | null |
5bgez4 | Are there any examples of animals practicing medicine in the wild? | [
{
"answer": "There are parrots in the amazon that eat fruit that is toxic to them. Every evening they fly to a riverbank with an exposed clay cliff and eat some of the clay. The minerals in the clay neutralise the poison. I wish I could remember more details, like the species of parrot and the specific type of ... | null |
szd6q | Can someone lend a neutral analysis of Mao, the Cultural Revolution, and the Great Leap Forward? | [
{
"answer": "Well I will be honest I don't have anything more than an undergraduate's understanding of China, having taken a few classes on the subject, but I have a few things to say here.\n\nFirst the problem with the article you linked is that it is overwhelmingly arguing from a position of \"well the eviden... | null |
enjhs0 | Is there any peculiarity about the places a supercontinent splits (e.g. the Atlantic coastlines of Africa and South America) or is it just about the subterranean magma flow? | [
{
"answer": "There are a couple of things that (potentially) contribute to where the rift system that breaks up a supercontinent will localize, but all of them will generally lead to the rift system initiating broadly in the center of the supercontinent and roughly coincident with where the supercontinent was j... | null |
8dkde5 | studying vs fun | [
{
"answer": "Feel good now many times or feel good once later in the future? Your brain prefers the former.\n\nIt comes down to gratification frequency in your brain. The frequency of dopamine release you get from video games is shorter in video games since you can get instantly rewarded for your tasks, feeding... | null |
gxuyk | Would it be possible to make a device to see radio/TV/cell phone signals, the same way an infrared camera can "see" heat? | [
{
"answer": "This is used a lot in astronomy [pic](_URL_0_)",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "It is very difficult to resolve an image using large wavelengths. A cell phone operates around 900 MHz, which has a 33 cm wavelength. You can use the formula for [angular resolution](_URL_0_) to calcul... | null |
2bbdxo | why is it difficult for the investigators to find the flight recorder from the downed malaysia flight 17 , when there is supposed to be a beacon pin-pointing its location ? | [
{
"answer": "Finding the proverbial black box is simple if it's left where it is. The moment someone picks it up, removes the pinger, and sticks it on a truck -- it becomes hard to find. Rebels (or Russians, I don't know that there's a practical way to distinguish) have been all over the site removing \"stuff\"... | null |
2ue67t | Foggy London vs polluted Beijing | [
{
"answer": "fyi, you'll find some previous discussions on this in the FAQ\n\n* [Air pollution](_URL_0_)",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "18603746",
"title": "Beijing",
"section": "Section::::Geography.:Environmental issue... | null |
1dnk8z | Did the Barbarians of the Classical Roman Era field any navies and if so was there ever any engagements between them and the Roman Empire? | [
{
"answer": "The Veneti, a Gallic tribe from Brittany in modern France, posed quite a naval threat to Caesar during the Gallic Wars. They had several coastal citadels that couldn't be sieged out, as the strong Venetian (no, not *that* Venetian) navy protected the supply ships from across the channel in Britain... | null |
2a6t7j | if everyone says girls mature more quickly than boys, why do boys seem to have a higher sex drive than girls while teenagers? | [
{
"answer": "because sex drive and maturity have nothing to with each other?",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "39693193",
"title": "Hookup culture",
"section": "Section::::Adolescents.\n",
"start_paragraph_id": 17,
... | null |
2o0iow | If a person gains weight gradually, will their leg muscles (quadriceps, hamstrings, calves etc) grow proportionally to support the added weight? | [
{
"answer": "They would have to, otherwise you wouldn't be able to walk. On the other hand, it depends on what kind of weight you are gaining. Obviously gaining muscle mass will cause your muscles to grow. On the other hand, gaining a lot of weight in the form of fat has other consequences. The fat gets deposit... | null |
300ilp | why do people's voices sound higher pitched in older recordings? were the vocal tastes for higher pitched voice in the past or was it due to the recording equipment used? | [
{
"answer": "Bass frequencies require more energy to record and reproduce than do higher ranges of audio. Old recording equipment didn't have the types of improvements we've made since then. The diaphragm in a modern microphone is much more sensitive to input and can record a sound with much less intensity than... | null |
8e1d9p | Do mental illnesses run in families? Will they be the same mental illness or can they vary between each offspring? | [
{
"answer": "There is a genetic role in some forms of mental illness like schizophrenia for example. There's also a lot of environmental factors that cause or worsen mental illness, like physical/emotional abuse/neglect, malnutrition, traumatic life events, etc. There are usually many factors at play and no cas... | null |
2ee2d0 | How did Polar Bears survive the Medieval Warm Period? | [
{
"answer": "It [wasn't that warm](_URL_0_) compared to today.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "12206720",
"title": "Fauna of Ireland",
"section": "Section::::Vertebrates by class.:Mammals.:Megafaunal extinctions.\n",
... | null |
1rllwb | Who were Turkish Sultans descended from? | [
{
"answer": "As strange as it may seem, your story is essentially correct. Ottoman Sultans didn't marry, and instead had lowborn concubines. I'm not sure how many of the Sultan's mothers were European, but some were, yes. And indeed since only the direct male line is the family of the Sultans, the vast majority... | null |
5nc6h6 | The origins of the Abrahamic religions. | [
{
"answer": "Can I ask a clarification question before my answer gets deleted? Are we allowed to use religious texts such as the old testament or Koran as sources while we acknowledge the disputed historicity? In particular, the book of Joshua?",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenan... | null |
519law | Is the Multiverse a "God of the Gaps"-type explanation for something we don't understand? | [
{
"answer": "I think that this links directly to the question of the place of falsifiability in science more broadly, which is something that physicists are currently fighting over. [Some have argued](_URL_1_) that the multiverse theory, among others, fails a basic test of scientific rigor in being falsifiable.... | null |
ekvw4f | why can't i, a nearsighted person, use a vr headset without my glasses? shouldn't everything still be clear since it's just a screen close to my eyes? | [
{
"answer": "The computer screen for each eye IS close to your eyes. But there are lenses in front of it that make it appear further away. Yes your near sighted eyes are better at seeing things closer than farther. But even if you're near sighted (or not), your eyes are also bad at seeing things super duper clo... | null |
b7ol6u | why, when watching a live tv program, is there a delay on a screen in the shot when it shows the same program as being broadcast | [
{
"answer": "Because there is a time delay in capturing video and displaying it.\n\nThe live view is capturing a display of itself. At one frame in time, that light information from the camcorder gets converted to electrical signals, decoded, then sent to be displayed elsewhere. This will take several frames of... | null |
3m9r3t | why do people's ears tend to get hot when they drink alcohol? | [
{
"answer": "Alcohol causes your blood vessels to expand which increases circulation. This is more noticeable where there is very little skin and muscle to hide the changes. Like your ears. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "44905",
... | null |
21i732 | Why are older geological layers at the bottom and newer ones at the top? | [
{
"answer": "An important concept is that of [isostatic subsidence](_URL_0_). Let's imagine a really simple scenario. Imagine a lake whose level is around sea-level. It is receiving sediment from rivers draining mountains and other surrounding upland areas. Let's say that we deposit 1 cm of sediment in that lak... | null |
d302ov | What was the journey to Auschwitz like? | [
{
"answer": "What they were referring to as \"goods wagons\" were likely the trucks which were in this case used to take people from factories to centers from which they were deported to Auschwitz in cattle cars. The Nazis usually deported Jews to extermination camps such as Auschwitz Birkenau in cattle cars wi... | null |
3kbt3w | Was American Artillery more effective and decisive than German Artillery in WW2? If so, why? | [
{
"answer": "I'll let others cover all of the other reasons why it was so, underlying everything was simple logistical superiority. The Americans not only had the capacity to lean on artillery heavily as a weapon of war, they had the willingness to do so. Artillery is expensive, and getting artillery shells fro... | null |
2jp937 | Why does it seem like early American civilizations' (Maya, Olmec, Aztec) art/architecture is much less developed or much less impressive than that of early Europe and Asia? | [
{
"answer": "This is a common misconception, in truth mesoamerican and south american cultures were very advanced, just in ways that were different than what is typically thought of as \"advanced\". Early American civilizations had very complex construction and architecture techniques as well as metallurgy and ... | null |
1lfhfr | Neutron Star Density question. (Chemistry/Astrophysics) | [
{
"answer": "The mass density of a neutron star is comparable to the mass density of the nucleus of an atom.\n\nIn ordinary matter, the density is much less, because the mass of an atom is almost all in the nucleus, but the nucleus takes up only a tiny fraction of the volume of an atom, so the density of ordina... | null |
2bou44 | why are addresses depicted the way they are, and not postcode/zipcode first? surely this would be easier? | [
{
"answer": "Pretty much you answered it yourself.\nIt's done that way because it's traditional.\nPeople haven't felt a need for change because there were no problems with the old way.\nThe cost to promote the change, and the cost of potential delays or disruptions from confusion or inconsistency, would outweig... | null |
6wrafd | In late medieval England, how were MPs chosen for the House of Commons? | [
{
"answer": "Ah the pre reform house of commons.\n\nAs always the answer is it depends which ones. \n\nEssentially you had 2 main forms of MPs. The knights of the shires that represented counties and those that represented urban centres. Then you had varies other MPs such as those that represented the Cinque Po... | null |
1rjkfk | how can monsanto get away with virtually suing any farmer? how can the non-gmo farmer protect him/herself? | [
{
"answer": " > I am basing my understanding of this situation on the various articles I have read here on reddit, and Food INC (feel free to tell me this is an accurate/inaccurate documentary too). \n \nIt's not accurate, Monsanto does not sue farmers over accidental cross pollination, only willful and inten... | null |
1cirz2 | How does cortisone work? | [
{
"answer": "I think you mean cortisol, rather than cortisone. The two are interconverted in the cell by an enzyme system (11- beta HSD 1 and 2) and cortisone is actually much less active than cortisol.\n\nCortisol circulates in the blood bound to corticosteroid binding globulin, a carrier molecule. About 96% o... | null |
33vgyc | Are the stars in the big dipper closer to Earth than other stars in the night sky and is that how they came to be a constellation? | [
{
"answer": "[This image](_URL_0_) shows the Big Dipper head on, and from the side. Distances to astronomical objects are essentially impossible to judge from a human perspective on Earth. Stars that are much brighter, but further away, can far outshine nearby dim stars. A star's location on the sky or in a con... | null |
3zk8vt | Navigation in bombers during world war 2. Were the navigators able to compute the route on their own or their work was mostly handled by electronical devices? | [
{
"answer": "Mostly map work and instruments - at least early on - which is why the Blackouts actually worked as a measure to reduce the accuracy of Bomber attack. There are examples of long-range guidance by electronics; however, the Luftwaffe used radio transmitters and modified Lorentz blind-landing sets (sh... | null |
5njc5w | what happens to our world (including its inhabitants) if the worst case scenario happens with global warming. i'm not even sure how to define worst case scenario. melting of polar ice caps? temperature going up globally 10 degrees (f)? | [
{
"answer": "The ice caps are going to melt. It is a question of when. The models use are always failing for predicting how much sea ice is melting.\n\nThere are unknown factors. We estimate based on what we know and what we guess. The unknowns can kill us.\n\nAs things warm up, we know they will, there will be... | null |
7kfcmu | Is there a "filter" that can shift infrared light into the visible spectrum? | [
{
"answer": "Not all night vision goggles work that way. The more traditional approach is to use the photoelectric effect - incoming IR photons hit a screen, which emits electrons. These are then accelerated through an electric field and strike another screen, which causes the emission of even more electrons, a... | null |
7oxd3v | the mess of weird text you get when you turn a .png/.jpg file into a .txt | [
{
"answer": "So, all data is stored in binary (1s and 0s), when you open a JPG in a text editor it tries to make text out of the JPGs binary data, which usually just results in nonsense.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Every file on a computer is just a stream of numbers.\n\nWhile many file for... | null |
3pc0k2 | how do companies get paid from credit cards? | [
{
"answer": "Short answer: They receive money in chunks throughout the month usually on a daily basis but it is on a 2 day delay. \n\nThe company has a bank that they process credit cards through, this is called the acquirer bank. The card the customer uses is also backed by a bank, this is called the issuer b... | null |
26e0qv | Why did Staten Island remain mostly residential, and not develop more like Manhattan did? | [
{
"answer": "Totally got this one. Native Staten Islander here, who has done research. I'm on my phone, so I cannot provide links at the moment though.\n\nFirst, one has to realize that Staten Island is the least populous borough--I think the current population is only about 500-600k. Staten Island historically... | null |
4npfo2 | After reverse transcriptase creates a provirus, how does a retrovirus differ from a single-stranded DNA virus in its activity? | [
{
"answer": "There are two major reasons, to my knowledge, that retrovirus replication using a provirus intermediate is different than an single stranded DNA virus.\n\nOne, proviruses directly integrate into the chromosomal genome, while DNA viruses (usually) integrate extrachromosomally ([there have been some ... | null |
1ap5lt | Why does our skin get numb when we're cold? | [
{
"answer": "Blood flow to exterior arteries is restricted to keep the internal organs warm. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "So your sensation comes from neurons that brings information from your skin to your brain. When it's cold, you can imagine that reactions needed to send that information... | null |
1m4zpb | Was there any presidential republics like the United States before the United States existed? | [
{
"answer": "There were prior examples of mixed regimes. Aristotle advocated for them and the Roman Republic may be an example with its consuls, senators and assemblies. However, no prior regime deeply resembled the US.\n\nThe US arguably drew more on ideas than examples in its creation. The separation of po... | null |
2zt7mb | why do cats love to push things off tables? | [
{
"answer": "They do it to get your attention. Cats learn. And they learn that if they push things of the table, you'll stop ignoring them and interact with them.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Animals just like children like to fool around with whatever amuses them, just like your \"for exam... | null |
8p9je7 | I know that in the middle ages many towns were rather small (often the largest still only consisting of tens of thousands of people). How vital to the national economy were towns? What sort of professions were people practising there and were there any that weren't as common in more rural locations? | [
{
"answer": "\"How important were towns\" is kind of a tough question to answer, because the existence/increase of towns is both a sign and a cause of overall exonomic restructuring over the later Middle Ages. Towns were essential to the economic system they were a part of/helped create. You can say something l... | null |
2f6r6g | when i uninstall a program using an unistallation .exe included in the program's folder, how is that .exe capable of uninstalling itself? | [
{
"answer": "A Windows executable cannot be deleted while running, and therefore cannot delete itself. \n\nYour Windows uninstaller removes everything it can and then must ask something else to remove it when its execution has finished. It often sets up a task to be run at startup which deletes the remnants of ... | null |
5rl9r5 | how do items like peelers, graters, scissors etc. stay sharp but knives constantly need to be sharpened? | [
{
"answer": "It's not that they stay sharp, but for their purpose they don't need to be as sharp. They are also subject to lesser forces and materials than a knife, which might be used to cut a carrot one minute and a tomato the next. The knife's edge will also get rolled over and dulled by the cutting board/su... | null |
1nw9mg | How did someone such as Ibn Battuta (practically and logistically) travel, and keep travelling? | [
{
"answer": "While I cannot speak for Ibn Battuta's case (I think he is a really interesting figure though), you need to break away from the 20-21st century capitalist mentality that every service is paid for using cash currency. My guess (and I will defer to scholars of the Islamic world) is that given his hig... | null |
t06tp | If time is infinite... | [
{
"answer": " > If time is infinite, would it be fair to say that every configuration of the universe happens at least once,\n\nThat conclusion does not necessarily follow from that premise.\n\n > similar to how if the set of natural numbers is infinite, every number is in this set?\n\nOf course the set of natu... | null |
5allal | Why doesn't gravity work on small scales? | [
{
"answer": "Gravity is a very, very, very, very weak force.\n\nTo get appreciable gravitational effects, therefore, you need to have very large objects, like a planet.\n\nThere is a gravitational force between you and that building you walk by, but it is absolutely tiny.\n",
"provenance": null
},
{
... | null |
3c2kre | Why is carbonated water effervescent while other gas-liquid solutions (e.g. vinegar, hydrochloric acid, etc.) are not? | [
{
"answer": "Two things: \n1. While carbondioxide can disolve in water it can also react following CO2 + H2O -- > H(+) + HCO3(-). This means the gas can be stored as ions and react back into gas when the relation between the amounts of CO2 and HCO3(-) changed. \n2. Carbonated drinks are made under pressure. At... | null |
czkrwa | why shouldn’t you eat anything before going into a swimming pool? | [
{
"answer": "People used to think that it would cause cramps, which could result in you drowning in the pool. This is an old wives tale - it doesn't cause cramps no matter how soon you swim after eating.\n\nHowever, it does have the benefit of keeping food out of and away from pools, thus keeping the pools cle... | null |
9gjy1m | why does a computer need to "warm up"? | [
{
"answer": "Because (especially in the case of Windows), the operating system loads and runs just enough components to allow you to log in, and show the desktop, while literally hundreds of drivers and services continue to be loaded and run \"in the background\" .\n\nOlder versions of Windows would not allow u... | null |
2f0gtq | How do anti-diarrheals work? Is a bowel movement is coming from the colon/rectum how does something like Imodium of pepto bismal work so quickly when digestion of food takes hours? | [
{
"answer": "There are four different ways:\nAnti-motility: they relax muscles in the digestive system to make sure more water is absorbed from the stool and it's less liquid. \n\nAbsorbents: these bind up excess water and toxins in the stomach and make the stools firmer. \n\nBismuth based: which nobody knows h... | null |
1lbsg8 | how do we know how much charge is left in a battery? | [
{
"answer": "_URL_0_\n\nThis question has been asked before.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "2885000",
"title": "Battery charger",
"section": "Section::::C-rate.\n",
"start_paragraph_id": 7,
"start_charact... | null |
25q17b | why's it so important to recycle batteries? | [
{
"answer": "We don't want the metals found in batteries in our drinking water. If they go into the trash, the go to the landfill. Water leaching from landfill ends up in someone's glass eventually.\n",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "13... | null |
1i2ip0 | What are the origins of Goebbels' Nazi identification? | [
{
"answer": "This requires a few different answers in order to get to Nazism. For the TL;DF crowd - just check out the links if you're curious and here's your sum-up: Spengler's German Socialism stands *very* apart from Marxism and Stalinism & even Nazism (due to racism in nazism); Eugenics became an obsessio... | null |
6m3blf | Woodrow Wilson had a PHD. Was he addressed as Dr. President? | [
{
"answer": "No—\"Mr. President\" is not just the name of the job preceded by the traditional male English honorific. It's the actual title of the sitting president, the way something like \"your majesty\" might be used for a monarch. *Edit:* /u/The_Alaskan's [comment reply](_URL_4_) notes that \"Madam Presiden... | null |
cezyvy | what does it mean if a currency is ‘strong’ or ‘weak’ | [
{
"answer": "They are comparative words so currency A is strong against currency B. Yes you are correct the strong currency will exchange for more than 1 of the weak currency.\n\n Example use: the dollar is strong against the peso but weak against the euro",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "A stro... | null |
9fgtzr | How do thermophiles survive temperatures that would quickly cook animal tissue? | [
{
"answer": "I found a website that has several different adaptations thermophiles have:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nBasically it boils down to having extra-tough proteins that can withstand the higher temperatures without denaturing. The flipside is though, that some of these tougher proteins are only viable at higher temp... | null |
yzqff | If the speed of light is constant, how does it "bounce" off of a mirror. Does'nt that imply that the light slowed to a velocity of zero and reversed its momentum? | [
{
"answer": "Well...I'd like to clear up a subtle point in your post's title. You say \"if the speed of light is constant\" - remember that c is the speed of light *in vacuum*. The speed of light in a material is less than c, and has to do with the material properties that the light is traveling through (it's... | null |
5zykco | slightly new to reddit, why do people post their edits at the bottom of their posts | [
{
"answer": "If you edit a post after a number of minutes it puts an asterisk in the header of the post.\n\nAdditionally, people generally do it as a form of courtesy, either to not force someone to re-read the entire post and figure out what the altered content is, or to maintain the flow of conversation. That... | null |
7pfz7t | what is it about orange juice that dulls the taste of alcohol so well? | [
{
"answer": "Ethanol causes a burning sensation because it activates the same [receptors](_URL_0_) as capsaicin. Acids also activate this class of receptors and so drinks like OJ and coke which are acidic will also activate them. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{... | null |
40axbg | the difference between discrimination & prejudice? | [
{
"answer": "If you have an opinion on an entire social group and base your judgement of each person belonging to that group on that opinion, that's prejudice.\n\nIf you treat a person based on the consideration you have of his/her social group (aka your prejudice) rather than on individual merits, that's discr... | null |
70sgiu | how are vector illustrations not based on pixels if our screen is made up of pixels? | [
{
"answer": " > So even if we're using a software like Adobe Illustrator, isn't a vector line made up of a bunch of small pixels in actuality?\n\nThe vector itself is just a bit of math saying \"A line exists between point A and point B\". The resulting line is *displayed* using pixels, but the underlying math... | null |
31onno | Have any of the works of Greek & Roman Antiquity been recovered in contemporaneous form, and turned out to differ from their Renaissance-era translations? | [
{
"answer": "Not \"first editions\" (haha), but ancient copies, certainly. The most common avenue for finding ancient copies is via papyri preserved in Egyptian rubbish dumps, or turned into papyrus-mâché and used in sarcophaguses, though papyri have certainly turned up elsewhere too (e.g. in Herculaneum, as yo... | null |
192a36 | why does wine give such wicked hangovers? | [
{
"answer": "You've got a mild allergy to the grape in that type of wine.\n\nSwitch types and/or color, and drink more water.\n\nOr switch to beer or hard liquor or heroin.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "In addition to any chemical composition reasonings, you might not have a good sense of the... | null |
77a8q0 | Why are triangles, squares, and hexagons the only shapes that can tesselate? | [
{
"answer": "Regular polygons are equilateral and equiangular. The only way a regular polygon can tesselate the plane is if some multiple of the interior angle equals 360 degrees. This is the only possible way you can actually fit a multiple of the polygons around each vertex.\n\nThe interior angle of an *N*-go... | null |
13367r | Question from my boy: Are some mammalian tails vestigial, and why haven't they disappeared? | [
{
"answer": "Human tails are vestigial because there's no selective pressure against them. In order for natural selection to act to discard a body part (e.g. a tail or appendix), there has to be some evolutionary *reason* to do so. If having a vestigial tail significantly decreased an individual's ability to ... | null |
5s87pn | why does inhaling steam seem to clear up clogged sinuses? | [
{
"answer": "Think of your mucous as a kind of hydrophilic (strongly attracted to water) slime. If you're sick, suffering from allergies, exposed to irritants, etc... then it can be valuable to move that mucous along faster than it would normally. By inhaling water vapor, you increase the water content of the m... | null |
4f30qk | maslows hierarchy of needs. | [
{
"answer": "Basically it talks about what a person can focus time and energy on as one tries to be as complete and satisfied a human as possible.\n\nThe idea is that for example it is hard for someone to worry too much about whether they have an artistic outlet if they are worried about how they are going to f... | null |
5owall | Why did China recieve Veto-power at the creation of the SC of the UN? | [
{
"answer": "They were 'granted' this at the Conference of Cairo in 1943 by FDR and Churchill. The Americans needed the Chinese to continue the fight against the Japanese on the mainland, since most of the Japanese armed forces were occupied fighting the Chinese United Front (Both the Kwomingtang and the Commun... | null |
1idp8f | How close could i get to building a modern day jet engine with the materials and techniques used at the time of the Wright brothers' first flight? | [
{
"answer": "It depends on which modern day jet engine you're talking about. \n\nA real actual [turbofan](_URL_4_) or [turbojet](_URL_2_) like on a jet airliner, no way. The tolerances for heat and stress just weren't available in 1903. [Turbine Blades are often the limiting part of the engine](_URL_1_) and are... | null |
1yt2oq | Can someone explain heteroscedasticity in simple terms? | [
{
"answer": "I'll try to do it in somewhat visual terms for you rather than in terms of the error statistic or matrix math -- let's look at the sample plot for the topic on Wikipedia (_URL_1_). In the sample, you can clearly see a couple of things. \n\nFirstly, there is apparently a clear line of best fit for ... | null |
5ucwge | What number would our number system have to be based on for PI to be equal to 3.2? | [
{
"answer": "If b is the base, then you'd need pi=3+2/b. Solve for b to get b=2/(pi-3). This is closest to 14, and in base 14 pi is 3.1D ish, where D is 13, so it's the base 14 equivalent of 3.19",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "It will never be *equal* to 3.2.\n\n3.2 is a decimal representation... | null |
1lhlgn | How did the Jewish working rise to prominence so quickly in the USA after WWII? | [
{
"answer": "History minor focusing on Jewish History (Post diaspora, pre WWII) here.\n\nThis is on the periphery of my studies, but here it is:\n\nFirst some nomenclature: There were, at the time of WWII (and still are) several different types of \"Jews.\" The Jews of Poland and Lithuania were most likely Hasi... | null |
1k4z4g | In this video of the tsunami in Japan there is a white cloud moving out of the water and disappearing. What is it? | [
{
"answer": "You can see it happen at around the [10 min 32 sec mark](_URL_0_) too (just a little bit to the left of the spot in your video, under the tree).\n\nMaybe it's a punctured tank of gas, like propane. It's venting gas all the time, it just looks like that when it's above water.\n",
"provenance": ... | null |
6d6pdu | why is it illegal to download movies/music/games/etc, but people can sell used copies? either way the company isn't getting a cut after the first time. | [
{
"answer": "First off, the difference is that a digital copy is endlessly duplicable, while a physical item changes hands -- if you sell a CD, you no longer have access to that CD. But you could copy a music or video file and still have that media while also selling it.\n\nSecondly, there are laws that define ... | null |
1hkfty | Do we know when certain food and drink pairings first became popular? Eggs and bacon? Wine and cheese? Etc | [
{
"answer": "This question has been removed because it's [an \"in your era\" or \"throughout history\" question](_URL_0_), which are not appropriate for this subreddit. If you have a specific question about a historical event or period or person, please feel free to re-compose your question and submit it again... | null |
82dpwi | why do pain killers help some types of pain, but not others? | [
{
"answer": "Different kinds of pain killers (analgesics) react in the body in different ways so you need to identify what's causing the pain to effectively treat it. Basically it's a combination of the type of pain (Cancer/Inflammatory/Neuropathic/Nociceptive) and the severity of said pain. ",
"provenance"... | null |
64g5bx | Why was Yugoslavia formed after WW1, rather than re-establishing the Kingdom of Serbia? | [
{
"answer": "My first comment here. Hope my answer will suffice! \n\nYes, there was strong local desire for such a state before the First World War. Yugoslavism became a distinguished segment of the wider Pan-Slavic movement around the 17th century. It was popularised by the Illyrian movement in the 19th centur... | null |
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