id stringlengths 5 6 | input stringlengths 3 301 | output list | meta null |
|---|---|---|---|
73qzxl | when you cancel a download where does the data already downloaded go ? | [
{
"answer": "The space allocated for the entire program, it just becomes unmarked and available for rewriting. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "336950",
"title": "Visible Human Project",
"section": "Section::::License.\n"... | null |
18zpsd | Does Space-time have an elastic modulus? | [
{
"answer": "The relationship between the bending of space-time and mass-energy, as you say, is that the Ricci tensor minus its trace times the metric (where the metric is a 4x4 matrix that describes the pythagorean theorem through spacetime and the Ricci tensor is a differential function of the metric) is equa... | null |
coxuub | - what is the method for calculating how much sand you need in an hour glass of various sizes and times? | [
{
"answer": "Though that is needed what’s more important first is the size of the tight canal they have to travel through, and the size of the grain. Then the volume of sand can be calculated",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "you just need a clock. \n\nFill the hourglass, wait an hour, dispose th... | null |
17aya9 | Is gravity the only force that can produce a black hole? Could an extremely strong electomagnetic field create one? Also, is there a way to vary the strength of the weak and strong force in the lab? Could these forces be adjusted in a confined area? | [
{
"answer": "According to the theory of General Relativity, it is mass-energy which warps spacetime, and if that energy comes in the form of photons, it can form an event horizon just like with matter, forming a [kugelblitz](_URL_0_).",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
... | null |
164nvy | How does blubber keep mammals warm despite nerves in the skin that sense the extreme cold? | [
{
"answer": "There is a tolerance system involved. Whales don't dive from land to water so their receptor have time to adjust when they enter cold water(they enter gradually). For seals, bears and other \"furry\" mammals there is an extra thin layer of air/water that gets trapped in the fur and acts as an insul... | null |
1k53gn | what does it imply when i read that "patents will expire"? | [
{
"answer": "I'm sure some people with patents would like that, but patents are first and foremost a way for *the public to buy inventions*, or rather information about the way inventions work. To get a patent, you have to tell the world how your invention works, and in exchange you get a limited time to be the... | null |
4pnity | Why do car horns sound like they do and which car was the first to make the sound we hear today?? | [
{
"answer": "I don't have an answer, but I'd like to say /r/askscience may also provide good answers to this interesting question. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Most modern cars use a dual tone car horn that actually produces two different notes. The interaction of these two frequencies cre... | null |
1x5kmy | is it possible to freeze fire? | [
{
"answer": "As fire is hot gas, freezing it would just give you frozen CO2 and maybe some soot.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "No, because the heat necessary for fire is absent in frozen substances. Also, fire can be thought of here as an action that is stopped by freezing.",
"provenance... | null |
ck7arp | What are we to make of the story of the Israelites' slavery in Egypt and subsequent Exodus and its reflection on Ancient Israelite society? | [
{
"answer": "As for the consensus, yes. I think this is generally the case that most believe that the Exodus was almost entirely fabricated on the basis of oral tradition. Personally, I’m disinclined from saying it was made up entirely whole cloth. The reason for this sets up the reasons for why I think it was... | null |
2zqz3z | I often hear people say that the Irish Potato Famine was more a genocide than a true famine. How accurate is this claim? | [
{
"answer": "According to Cecil Woodham-Smith (in her 1962 book The Great Hunger), the English gave minimal aid mainly due to a rigid ideological belief in free markets. It seems that both political parties, but especially the Whigs who were in power during the worst of it, really believed that the market would... | null |
2yscdv | why do all drives or partitions defragment all files, but the system one (c: or other) is always fragmented, even if i just defragmented it? | [
{
"answer": "Yes, there are some system files that can't be moved while the system is running. Also, the system partition is used all the time - programs always create and delete temporary files, which usually reside on the system drive.\n\nThe same defragmentation software you used has a [boot time defrag](_UR... | null |
wvvwz | How much does color affect temperature? Details in post. | [
{
"answer": "Well a white shirt reflects all the light and a black one absorbs it, the difference in how warm you would be however depends strongly on the amount of sunlight. \n\nMr Wizard can help: [Relevant video](_URL_0_)\n",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Color (or more specifically, frequen... | null |
tcppr | Why do plants have longer lifespans than animals? | [
{
"answer": "Differences in life spans across species, or even Kingdom, boundaries is a pretty fascinating topic of research. I've had some exposure to a researcher whose done some work with animals, but I'm not very up to date with the current state of the research. But I can talk about plants. One of the b... | null |
7mus96 | why is it so hard to rip open a package with wet hands (even if it has a notch for ripping)? | [
{
"answer": "When your hands are wet they are lubricated by the wetness. This reduces friction, which reduces your ability to grab and rip a package open.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "365765",
"title": "Machining",
"s... | null |
4crrr6 | At what point in history were women knowledgeable enough about their cycles to understand when they might be ovulating? | [
{
"answer": "Well, of course many of them would not have known before my collection of all the knowledge in the Empire of our beloved emperor Vespasianus, long may he reign, in my well known encyclopaideia, the history of the natural world. In fact, I have gathered many strange and interesting phenomena about t... | null |
2hvzwq | Could constant cough lead to emphysema? | [
{
"answer": "I am not aware of any studies that show cough alone can cause damage to the alveoli. \n\nI wouldn't expect to see a lot of alveolar damage due to chronic cough alone (in the absence of any kind of obstruction), anyway. \n\nThe physical act of coughing is the result of compression of the lungs while... | null |
50jfif | why do nearly all space photographs seem 2d? | [
{
"answer": "Pictures create the illusion of depth using one or more of several methods, such as linear perspective, aerial perspective, etc., all of which are pretty impossible in astrophotography. \n\nAnother issue is that the image is taken of an object millions of miles away, and the only background are th... | null |
5ks15f | Wouldn't large scale mining on the moon have a negative impact on Earth? Assuming large deposits of valuable minerals are found in it | [
{
"answer": "You'll probably want to have a look at the following previous discussions of this and related topics:\n\n_URL_2_\n\n_URL_1_\n\n_URL_3_\n\n_URL_0_",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "No. The moon is simply way too big that mining operations as we know it could have any noticable impact ... | null |
6y3mri | What will happen to a piece of wood, placed in a "pot"with no oxygen and then placed over a fire? | [
{
"answer": "That's basically a way to make charcoal. By starving the wood of oxygen you allow the moisture and volatile compounds to be burned off leaving you with a mostly pure carbon. It's important that it has some kind of vent though because the steam and volatile compounds will pressurize the container."... | null |
100vjc | Gravitational time dilation for solar systems relative to distance from galactic centre. | [
{
"answer": "There is already a difference between our satellites' clocks and our ground based clocks due to relativity. More mass/gravity will create more relativistic effects.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "The gravitational time dilation is proportional to the square-root of the gravitatio... | null |
2m908h | Would quantum computing make it easier to simulate molecular systems? | [
{
"answer": "In principle, the answer is yes. Since a quantum computer is itself a quantum mechanical system, it inherently is able to deal with quantum mechanical features. This is what Feynman had in mind when he proposed quantum computing in the 1980s, though this proposal has little to do with what we now m... | null |
29fsop | If I am seeing a full moon, does someone a few timezones away see a full moon too? | [
{
"answer": "Yes the moon will be full (or close enough to it) for everyone on earth. The full moon happens with the sun and the moon are on opposite sides of the earth, so that the side of the moon facing the earth is illuminated by the sun.\n\nFun fact: the side of the moon facing earth is always the same si... | null |
750eve | how does the accelerator pedal in cars work? | [
{
"answer": "In most cars, pushing the accellerator (or gas ) pedal increases the flow of fuel to the engine. This means the engine will output more power, causing the car to accellerate.\n\nHowever, this accelleration doesn't continue forever. Mainly because as a car's speed increases, the amount of wind resis... | null |
1m33tb | what would happen if i threw a plugged in toaster into the bathtub with me? | [
{
"answer": "With current building codes, probably not much. Any outlet near a tub is a GFCI outlet, which means it has extra protection against exactly this sort of thing. The most likely thing will be that it will short out and trip its breaker before anything happens to you.\n\nIf you used an extension cord ... | null |
8fpr62 | how does a new computer know the date when you turn it on, even if not connected to the internet? | [
{
"answer": "There is a small battery on the motherboard which runs a variety of things including a clock. If your computer forgets the time when it turns off this battery is likely dead. They typically last 3 to 5 years.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "They are pre set in the factory. The onbo... | null |
21buag | Is it true that sniffing markers/petrol kills brain cells? | [
{
"answer": "_URL_0_\n\nIt's not that it's odour particles in your nose, it's often that you're inhaling asphyxiants. They bind to receptors in your lungs which keep you from getting actual oxygen. This causes hypoxia, which can lead to cell death. Your brain needs a constant source of oxygen and you can't r... | null |
2y5xub | Would people in the middle ages agree that the Barbarians won? | [
{
"answer": "While the Western Roman Empire collapsed in the 5th century, the Eastern Half existed in one form or another until the 15th century. \n\nRegarding the Barbarians defeating the Roman Empire, it would be fair to say that what the Barbarians did and the Franks in particular is adopt and absorb Rome in... | null |
56ty1f | Were the Picts Celtic or non-Indo-European people according to modern historians? | [
{
"answer": "Perhaps an expert will come along and answer this for you, but in the meantime I had a quick look and got what appears to me to be a general consensus towards the Picts being of mainly Celtic origin. Cunliffe summarises the issue as follows:\n\n > \"The Irish, Attocotti, and Picts were probably Cel... | null |
2qajhc | What did the Russians do the German 6th army after they were captured? | [
{
"answer": "The captured members of the German 6th Army were by in large sent to Siberia, or at least to the east of the country to get them as far from the battle lines as possible. They were basically used for forced labor, suffered from ill clothing and malnutrition and general poor treatment. Out of the r... | null |
1mnn6q | Is there a situation where crossing two beams of light could interfere with the way the beams look/act after they cross paths? | [
{
"answer": "The short answer is yes, it is indeed possible for light to interact with light, though it happens only at very high intensity, around 10^24 W/cm^2 for ~1 micron wavelength light (not far from realization in the laboratory given the present state and trajectory of high intensity laser technology). ... | null |
dxiuif | The Roman Emperor Claudius I is popularly depicted as either a bumbling fool, or a secret genius pretending to be a bumbling fool. What is the historical evidence for either view? | [
{
"answer": "Since I've already been talking about Claudius quite a bit this weekend, I might as well field this question too...\n\nOur understanding of Claudius' talents has been shaped by the nature and biases of the literary sources. There are only four that provide (more or less) independent accounts of his... | null |
3co06x | why does it not matter to climate change that the earth was hotter during certain periods of the past? | [
{
"answer": "Even if we totally accept the argument that climate change has occurred on this scale and with this rapidity before, there's nothing to suggest that it won't be extremely disruptive to our way of life. Regions that are fertile today may become barren, regions that may be farmed in the future may be... | null |
p03s5 | shorting the dow | [
{
"answer": "The two main reasons you would short the Dow would be: [1] If you think the DOW will go down. [2] To hedge against some other position. Hedging is another matter and I won't go into it here.\n\nSeeing as it is ELI5 I will use an example that is easier to understand (gold as it is traded in dollars ... | null |
5v3nbv | [Experiment] Which method would get the boiled water to lower temperature within the same amount of time? | [
{
"answer": "Do the experiment and report back, it's really easy. Any kitchen thermometer will do. To avoid having an effect from fresh tap water being cooler than room temperature, while the other case has 5 minutes to warm up the tap water I suggest using water that has been left at room temperature for 20 mi... | null |
jc5si | [li5] a lake in northern canada freezes solid over the winter. what happens to the fish? would fish even live there? | [
{
"answer": "The surface freezes, but the water below remains liquid. The lake remains in equilibrium, such that there is an equal amount of water freezing, as there is ice melting underneath the surface.\n\nThe part that makes *me* wonder, is how fish can survive those temperatures.",
"provenance": null
... | null |
4hy9jj | Adding salt to a supercooled liquid? | [
{
"answer": "It would depend on how deeply supercooled the liquid is. Deeply supercooled solutions (say, beer below -20 & deg;C) would be extremely sensitive to agitation and vibration, so even the act of stirring in the salt would probably trigger a nucleation event. The salt itself would not serve as a \"se... | null |
63mgte | how do choloroplasts have their own dna but 95% of the proteins in chloroplasts are encoded by nuclear genes? | [
{
"answer": "Essentially Chloroplasts (and mitochondria) were originally free bacteria. Chloroplasts descend from cyano-bacteria, which means they can photosynthesise.\n\nYou get things like [lichen](_URL_0_) today, which are a mixture of fungal cells, and cyanobacteria living together. At some point in the pas... | null |
2vwqoh | how exactly does a transformator transform energy to a lower voltage? | [
{
"answer": "Do you mean a transformer? The EMF induced in the secondary coil is proportional to the rate of change of magnetic flux through the coil. More loops means a higher magnetic field (and therefore flux) inside the secondary coil. Less coils means less flux and therefore less induced EMF.\n\nSo in a st... | null |
5v8weh | how do people with a hearing impairment think words? i think the way words sound to me - how does it work for others? | [
{
"answer": "You know that thing you do when you're thinking to yourself and your move your mouth as if you were speaking, but without actually speaking? That's called [subvocalization](_URL_0_), and you do it even when you don't want to. Whenever you read, whenever you think to yourself, you're subvocalizing... | null |
3jxds0 | if the worst nfl teams always get the first (or early) round draft picks, why do the same teams continue to suck year after year? | [
{
"answer": "One issue was that for quite a while draft picks from about the first half of the first round were overpaid (which becomes really important in the salary cap era) relative to likely production while picks late in the first round and especially 2nd round tended to be the best value (expected product... | null |
32bsrm | what happens when im thinking of nothing? | [
{
"answer": "Honestly you probably just get lost in studying the visual aspects of the thing you're looking at. I don't believe you can ever be truly without a thought. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "3657390",
"title": "Nous",
... | null |
18sseo | How does the history of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust affect modern Germany? | [
{
"answer": "This isn't actually a question about *history*, I'm sorry to say. You seem to be asking about how *current-day* Germans view their history, and are influenced by it.\n\nAs such, I would recommend [r/Germany](_URL_1_) or [r/AskACountry](_URL_0_). It's also possible that the sociologists or historian... | null |
wqotr | What pieces of medieval/Renaissance garb still exist? | [
{
"answer": "Well, I think that some of the material on the effigy of Elizabeth at Westminster is in fact original (c. 1600) but that's a bit later than you want. The Black Prince's surcoat, helm, and gauntlets (ca. 1350) survive at Canterbury but they've [lost pretty much all color](_URL_1_) and replicas hang... | null |
20ruq1 | Why do things bounce? | [
{
"answer": "Solid object deform when you apply forces to them. If an object has elasticity, it will tend to return to its original shape. Now imagine the case of a ball dropped. The ball gains some kinetic energy in its descent, and this energy, at impact serves to deform the both the ball as well as the groun... | null |
8opgc7 | Why did Charles Cornwallis not face Washington directly after surrendering at Yorktown? Was this an attempt to slight Washington, and, if so, was it seen as dishonorable or childish? | [
{
"answer": " Gen. Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess and 2nd Earl Cornwallis, [surrendered to American forces on October 19th, 1781](_URL_0_) after two days of a ceasefire. It came after a week of fighting where British troops failed to advance or make any dent in the American and French forces who had surround... | null |
18ma7k | what is the difference between fruits and flowers? | [
{
"answer": "A flower is the reproductive structure in flowering plants (called angiosperms). The purpose of a flower is to offer up & receive pollen from other flowers. \nFlowers are often brightly coloured & scented to attract animals, & offer up substances like nectar to lure insects/birds into the fl... | null |
e8t117 | How did Napoleon III's reforms affect the later development of France's economy? | [
{
"answer": "Napoleon III's probably most lasting economic reforms took place in the education and financial sectors. While in the short-term the lowering of tariffs across the board spurred productivity growth and encouraged foreign trade, in the long-term the true determinants of economic growth are threefol... | null |
ailmth | Why was Theodore Roosevelt known as the "Trust Buster" when Taft broke up more trusts? | [
{
"answer": "I'm confused by this question. Roosevelt gained his reputation as a trust buster during his presidency. Taft had not served as president yet. How would people know not to declare Roosevelt a trust buster because his successor would use the Sherman Act more aggressively?",
"provenance": null
... | null |
35mffu | "unincorporated" small town | [
{
"answer": "Some people see unincorporated as a positive. In a city, there's essentially four levels of government that people live under: city, county, state and federal. In an unincorporated region, it's just county, state and federal. Less government is a plus to some.",
"provenance": null
},
{
... | null |
1hieqe | How is the historical argument of David Graeber's "Debt: The First 5000 Years" viewed? | [
{
"answer": "I always find it hilarious when non-lawyers discuss legal topics (e.g. money and contracts).\n\nSo, without giving this gentleman from Yale too much credit, and taking into account that only so much can be expected from him as long as he is speaking outside of his area of speciality, I present to y... | null |
dz46kc | what exactly happens to person when they're only awake during the night? | [
{
"answer": "You get really fucked up. Shift work is worse as my body can attest. But straight nights causes your body to go all haywire. Basically your body doesn't work well, not receiving Vitamin D, Metabolism diminishes, you're more likely to have heart conditions, blue like also messes you up on nights. ... | null |
ah9jen | is there a correlation between how hard you blow and the size of a bubble? if not what defines the size of a bubble? | [
{
"answer": "It's liquid tension - the harder you blow the more force is pushed against the inside of the bubble which has more potential to pop it. A slow smooth bubble will allow more surface area without breaking liquid tension ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Well, assuming that you blow so... | null |
agq09t | why is snot green. | [
{
"answer": "When your body first makes it, it's clear. But it's like fly paper. It's there to catch debris going into your nose. So stuff gets mixed in, and if you do have an infection, your white blood cells can turn it green (something in them is oxidizing in the atmosphere)",
"provenance": null
},
... | null |
1jrn3p | why did the special effects industry move from bluescreen to greenscreen? | [
{
"answer": "_URL_0_\n\nThis portion:\n\nProcessing a green backdrop[edit source | editbeta]\nGreen is currently used as a backdrop more than any other color because image sensors in digital video cameras are most sensitive to green, due to the bayer pattern allocating more pixels to the green channel, mimickin... | null |
l6fix | citizens united v. federal election commission | [
{
"answer": "It used to be that corporations were allowed to run things called **Issue Ads**, but were not allowed to support actual candidates. So they could run an ad saying, \"Support Solar Energy\" but not \"Support Candidate 'A.'\"\n\nCitizens United decided that this was an unreasonable restraint on a co... | null |
300x0u | How did the US Marines and National Guard come to have their own air arms? | [
{
"answer": "Let me correct a few misconceptions.\n\nThe US Marine Corps is NOT a part of the US Navy. It falls under the Department of the Navy for administrative purposes but is a separate arm in its own right for operational purposes. Furthermore, Marine Aviation did not come about in World War 2. It dates b... | null |
l7dxe | Would we know if another animal on our planet reached a state of sentience/sapience to the level of reason? | [
{
"answer": "It all depends on how you define sentience:\n\n* Elephants are known to [grieve and bury their dead.](_URL_6_)\n\n* Apes are known to [wage war on each other,](_URL_0_) (I've seen actual footage of an attack in a forest but can't find it now) [make tools,](_URL_5_) and even [weapons](_URL_1_)\n\n* ... | null |
1zejft | what's up with the "num lk" on keyboards and what possible scenario would i want the number pad to not work? | [
{
"answer": "Num lock turns the numpad into arrows.\n\n_URL_0_",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "238799",
"title": "Pointing stick",
"section": "Section::::Design challenges.\n",
"start_paragraph_id": 18,
"s... | null |
2z6goe | do birds stop migrating? i mean, do i have birds in my city that consider this home base, or is every bird i see just pit stopping on their way to somewhere else? | [
{
"answer": "Some birds stay all winter long. Robins and crows are 2 that I can think of. Bald eagles too.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Not all bird species are migratory, others are not. Chances are there are some permanent resident birds in your city.",
"provenance": null
},
{
... | null |
3ot4qx | Why are some planets / moons in our solar system so uniformly colored? | [
{
"answer": "I might not be the best person to answer this question, but I'll take a stab at it. \n\nDisregarding life, vegetation, atmosphere, and the ocean (none of which are present in the moon), the Earth would actually look quite a bit more homogeneous than it does now. Much of the variation that would be ... | null |
2lh7ae | do people who speak "faster" languages think faster? | [
{
"answer": "No, Spanish has more consonant clusters and news reporters etc will always talk really fast but they're producing the same amount of information. Another example would be written Chinese where each character has a whole meaning which is different to english which depends on an alphabet to build wor... | null |
1cbl89 | How does movement on a quantum scale work? | [
{
"answer": "First for a rather unsatisfying answer. Are time and space continuous? We're not sure, but most likely- yes. Current theory points to them being so. But the more important aspect is:\n\n > I know that quantum particles can't be measured in their definite speed and position at the same time, but st... | null |
s2tks | When batteries run out in a Gameboy then you turn it back on, it can run for a short while. Why? | [
{
"answer": "While the device is on it is consuming power. Placing an electrical load on the battery causes the voltage to \"sag\" a little. Once the voltage sags below a certain point, the device detects it as a dead battery. Turning off the device relieves the batteries of the load and the chemical reaction i... | null |
pqt8z | why is turning your computer off at the powerpoint, rather than shutting it down properly, bad? | [
{
"answer": "many modern operating systems load particular files during startup which should properly be released prior to turning off the computer. If those files are not released properly it can cause problems. Not always - but it's possible. \n\nDevelopers of OS's know that people will power off the computer... | null |
12s18h | the legalization of marijuana in colorado. | [
{
"answer": "According to [this article](_URL_0_) people 21 years of age can purchase it from specially regulated retail stores, and adults can grow up to 6 plants for personal use. Public use and driving under the influence is still illegal.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Does anyone have a g... | null |
2z94mr | why does mankind need a higher power like god to explain our existence? | [
{
"answer": "I don't think we do, personally. A lot of people disagree with me in a variety of directions on the issue, though.\n\nFor those that do disagree with me, it's a satisfying answer to a lot of very hard questions that we don't have other solid answers for, such as \"where did everything come from?\" ... | null |
bczb31 | how to plants that react to touch like the venus flytrap of the sensitive mimosa work? | [
{
"answer": "If I remember correctly, for the Venus flytrap, there’s sensitive hairs on at the ‘clamping’ area. It takes lots of energy though, so when one hair is triggered, there’s a timing mechanism that’s set off. Only if multiple hairs are ‘moved’ within a set timeframe does the plant exert substantial ene... | null |
42p7c7 | If mesons carry the force that binds protons and neutrons together, do other composite bosons (like helium nuclei, for example) carry their own forces as well? | [
{
"answer": "The answer is kind of yes and no. The mesons that bind nucleons together (via what's often called the residual strong force) act as gauge bosons (much like the fundamental force carriers) associated with emergent broken symmetries of QCD, so they actually play something of a special role.\n\nBut in... | null |
322d57 | Is it possible that the dark matter is actually stars with Dyson spheres around them so we can't see them? | [
{
"answer": "Nice idea, but it won't work. There are a few reasons:\n\n(1) We know dark matter does not feel the electromagnetic force. If the dark matter were Dyson spheres, from absorbing the energy of the stars they surround, they would radiate in the infrared, and so we'd detect this. In fact, people hav... | null |
4t73jx | why aren't aol-style chat rooms still a thing? | [
{
"answer": "They are. Most proprietary formats have died out, but many people still user IRC. The Freenode network is the most popular, and many communities have channels there. You might have better luck just logging onto Freenode or looking for IRC directories.\n\nThere are more ad-hoc sites like Tinychat, o... | null |
ejbtpr | How do chemists produce a weakened state of a disease to create vaccines? How can they confidently determine the disease is ready to be used as a vaccination? | [
{
"answer": "Here's another analogy for how some vaccines are made. Think of the latest smartphone model as a new disease virus/bacteria. It has its outer appearance and inner hardware/software.\n\nFor phone case and screen protector designers they get a mould of the phone to base their designs off. It's non fu... | null |
2nc41t | why are / were there flag bearers in armies | [
{
"answer": "I believe it was to allow commanders and allied units to identify troops at a distance or amid the confusion of battle.\n \nUnit standards/colors/flags/heraldry are also things of history and pride, carried before a unit to remind them of battles and soldiers past who perished or were victorious be... | null |
23987y | sports eli5: why are sports playoffs like hockey and baseball best out of 7 but american football is single elimination? | [
{
"answer": "football is *way* too demanding physically to be played multiple times a week. this in addition to if they did have a series and it was played out once a week the playoffs would last months. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "football is too physically intense to do a best of 7, or e... | null |
1blewc | I'm an innkeeper during the High Middle Ages in Europe. What is my life like? | [
{
"answer": "As far as customers at your inn are concerned, you would most often see the traveling lords and vassals, members of the church, and possibly a small number of the artisan/merchant class. Serfs themselves were forbidden from leaving their fiefs without explicit permission and instruction from their ... | null |
2hv3ss | They say as babies our bones are mostly cartilage. How does this change occur as we grow older and why is it advantageous to do so? | [
{
"answer": "Bone growth can occur by one of two processes: endochondral ossification and intramembranous ossification. But to understand those in detail you have to understand exactly what bone is.\n\nBone is a highly active tissue, with important hormonal, structural, hematological, and immunological function... | null |
gf6nu | Why is physics so goddamn confusing? An acceleration question. | [
{
"answer": "I don't understand what problem you're asking about. It's very possible for a mathematical function to go from zero to nonzero without its derivative jumping to infinity, so if you're modeling velocity as a mathematical function there's no problem here. In addition, there's nothing special about ze... | null |
2syu0j | My mom inherited a photo album which once belonged to a WW2 German soldier. Can anyone recognize any of these faces? (imgur link) | [
{
"answer": "I'd be interested if anyone knows what those stars are on their chests in several photos:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nEven though it was my first thought, I'm pretty sure there wouldn't be any German soldiers wearing the Jewish Star.\n\nIs it a name tag for a party maybe? Some sort of coarse anti-semitic humor?... | null |
5bm74x | How much social mobility was there in the Late Roman Republic? What could a city dwelling plebeian do to improve his station? | [
{
"answer": "The \"average\" urban inhabitant was an impoverished day laborer who live on the edge of starvation and was semi-homeless. In all likelihood he would die in the same condition he lived, probably relatively early due to the disease rampant in the more crowded parts of the city. He had no education, ... | null |
avi3gy | how will the james webb space telescope look for alien life? where will astronomers look first and what type of life might it detect? | [
{
"answer": "So there are 2 ways we can observe planets:\n\n1) When a planet passes between us and a distant star, the light dims. It also changes the color of the star's light. The difference in color and the amount of dimness tell us about the size of the planet and the chemical composition of it's light refl... | null |
3kqw7x | What attempts have there been throughout recent history (most likely during genocides) to specifically erase the culture of a group? | [
{
"answer": "Raphael Lemkin, the man who coined the term \"genocide\", defined it this way:\n\n > Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated pla... | null |
6bp2gt | if everybody has dynamic ip addresses now, how do websites ban people? | [
{
"answer": "First, where did you get, that **everybody** has dynamic IP? The answer is, they don't",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "1. Everyone doesn't. Your ISP MAY use dynamic IPs, it may not. (Assuming you have already considered NAT/PAT, meaning, just because the computers inside your ho... | null |
f0a1z3 | Why was there no invasion by sea of the north of Germany? | [
{
"answer": "While more can be said, I've previously discussed British plans for amphibious assaults during WWI in the following threads:\n\n* [\nI was listening to the podcast on the Battle of Jutland, and \"..Land a million Russians north of Berlin, and boom..The War's over in a few weeks\" caught my ear.](_U... | null |
2whko5 | what was the quiet revolution in quebec? | [
{
"answer": "\"The Quiet Revolution, which is a term applied to the changes that took place in Quebec from the late 1950's to the late 60's, was a time of great change in the province. The politics and social life of Quebec had been dictated by the Provincial Premier Maurice Duplessis since the 1930's and in a ... | null |
5e5s9h | so, murdering is pretty illegal. in times of war, why is it not illegal to kill an enemy soldier and why aren't there ramifications for it? is there a special set of laws in place when nations are at war? | [
{
"answer": "Yes, there are certain international 'laws' and treaties that we use to regulate a war. The two most famous ones are the Hague Conventions of 1889 and 1907. In these treaties the participating nations outlined what is wrong (a war crime) during a war, and what is considered to be acceptable. They a... | null |
40fr66 | Why is veiling a practice done today and in history almost entirely by women? Why isn't veiling done among men? | [
{
"answer": "I'm not sure the premise of the question here is accurate for two reasons. \n\n1) Veiling suggests a covering of the *face*. There is - to my knowledge anyway - no religion that mandates a full face covering. Even the examples you cite are not veils covering the face, but various forms of hair cove... | null |
5hhsk4 | hi, i'm not smart but i know how to read, can someone tell me why rockets/spaceships don't go straight up into space but instead curve ? and are they controlling that or does it happen naturally? | [
{
"answer": "An orbit requires a large sideways velocity in order to avoid falling back to Earth. But air gets in the way of going that fast so they first get high then turn to the side to accelerate. They certainly control every aspect of that curved launch path.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer":... | null |
5o2cwj | Has anyone in the CIA faced legal consequences for MKUltra, or for covering up MKUltra? | [
{
"answer": "Project MK-ULTRA was first exposed in 1975 by the Church Committee and Gerald Ford's Rockefeller Commission. It got a lot of bad press, coming on the heels of Watergate at a time when outrage over the executive branch and distrust of gov't officials was already widespread ([you can see the WashPo a... | null |
8rlemd | why do automotive engines idle around the same rpm regardless of number of cylinder count? | [
{
"answer": "So the alternator can charge the battery. And you will have enough torque to move effectively.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "One revolution in a four cylinder engine is the same as one revolution in a ten cylinder engine. In each, one revolution will take each piston away from an... | null |
64ifex | why are there no huge animals? | [
{
"answer": "Oxygen percentage in the atmosphere. When it was about twice as much as it is now, we had dinosaurs and insects as large as dogs. Give it a little higher percentage and who knows what could have roamed the earth",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
... | null |
5ryduh | how to companies benefit from letting you file your taxes for free | [
{
"answer": "E-filing your taxes costs them basically nothing. So while you're doing your 1040EZ for free they can advertise their other services to you.\n\nIt's a good way to get your eyeballs on their site for a guaranteed 20-30 minutes.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": ... | null |
2qw2o7 | why do farts sometines feel like bubbles popping when they come out? | [
{
"answer": "The gases that were initially roaming free and occupying the wider breadths of your intestines now have to squeeze into the narrow constriction of your sphincter. This pressurizes them akin to packing into a bubble, and as the sphincter relaxes and contracts that gives you your pop.",
"provenan... | null |
5yc2pe | since we're all moving at very high speed in space caused by the 1.rotation and 2.revolution of our a.planet, b.solar system, c.galaxy, etc.. how do we know that our measurements of distance are accurate? | [
{
"answer": "We are not travelling at relativistic speeds, so the effects are present but are frequently negligible. Even considering the speed of the our galaxy, we are at 0.2% of the speed of light, which is fast, but relativistically slow (~600km/s).\n\nIf my calculations are correct, if we compare our plane... | null |
2j24il | What did Eva Perón actually do for Argentina? | [
{
"answer": "To some extent, I agree with your assessment. The praise lavished on her, going so far as to call her a saint, goes beyond the scope of her accomplishments. She didn’t end poverty in Argentina. She didn’t destroy inequality. She didn’t create an worker-centered economy that withstood the shocks... | null |
1rlsts | In the High Middle Ages, what sort of unarmed combat training did knights receive? | [
{
"answer": "I actually do some of this!* It's a lot of grappling and what is best compared to judo. You train mostly out of armor, but most of it translates very well to armored combat too. The only differences between armored and unarmored are the places you can hit and your center gravity. Punching someone i... | null |
2pv2c4 | what is the difference between casualty and property insurance? | [
{
"answer": "Casualty is for people and property is for items?",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "15176",
"title": "Insurance",
"section": "Section::::Types.:Casualty insurance.\n",
"start_paragraph_id": 103,
... | null |
dgs35l | can fighter aircraft detect when they’ve been “locked on” like in the movies, if they can, how do they know? | [
{
"answer": "Yes, it's absolutely possible for a fighter craft to know it's been locked onto.\n\nIn order to home in on something, you have to know where it is, and one way to know where things are is to use *radar* -- that is, send out a beam of radio waves that bounces off of objects and comes back to the tra... | null |
2hzymy | Did flightless birds like ostriches evolve from surviving Dromaesaurs or flying birds? | [
{
"answer": "There was a great article in National Geographic from May of this year that explains this. [Here it is.](_URL_0_)\n\nHere is the basic answer though: all flightless birds likely trace their ancestry back to a flying relative. They likely began in the southern section of Pangea and when that broke u... | null |
282ang | After decolonization in Africa why did so many nations keep the native language of their colonizers as their official language rather than returning to their historic, local languages? | [
{
"answer": "The borders you see today are not necessarily drawn based off which group of people live where. But more remnants of colonial administrative districts. Two different peoples speaking two different languages will fall back on the common one, regardless of its origins. Therefore the use of ex-colonia... | null |
7kil2p | how do cinemagraphs work? | [
{
"answer": "They are .gifs someone takes a video or a segment of a video and they cut and play with it until it's seamless. \n\nThe start of the .gif has to match the end as best the editor can perceive.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "You start out by picking a piece of video that can be loop... | null |
265vhl | in gay marriage ban challenges, why is there never a reference to the full faith and credit clause? | [
{
"answer": "Because they are not arguing for their marriages in one state to be recognized in another state (most of the time), they are arguing for the right to be married in that state. Different point on the timeline. For the Full Faith and Credit clause to be in effect, the couple would have to be marrie... | null |
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