id stringlengths 5 6 | input stringlengths 3 301 | output list | meta null |
|---|---|---|---|
7rvcpq | choice theory | [
{
"answer": "Hi, which choice theory are you referring to? There's a few out there.\n\nPersonally I study criminology, meaning the Rational Choice Theory is by far the most well known, so I'll explain that one:\n\nThe rational choice theory explains us how people choose to do things or take actions that might g... | null |
zekmx | why hasn't there been prosecution for the corruption on wall street? | [
{
"answer": "First, because Wall Street has a shitload of money, which buys them political clout.\n\nSecond, because taxpayers got nearly all of the bailout money back.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Because the laws they can use against them are very vague, and the evidence against them is ve... | null |
5khr81 | if for all of pre-human history and most of human history we were scavengers that relied on fruits and nuts, how are there so many humans today that have nut allergies? | [
{
"answer": "Back in the day, they would have died off, leaving people without allergies to continue on.\n\nNow, we save those people's lives. Also, we probably know more about allergies and how to deal with them.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "This is a pretty interesting concept! Hunters/gat... | null |
7zmgqa | what is an apr? | [
{
"answer": "It's the price of money. If you want 100 dollars, I'll give it to you for 120$ a year from now. That's a 20% APR, give some not ELI5 assumptions,imo. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "APR is annual percentage rate, or otherwise, simple interest. For example, if you have a $10 loan f... | null |
bfmoiu | The validity of Hong Xiuquan's visions?- Taiping Rebellion | [
{
"answer": "EDIT: For an answer to the main question, please see [my subsequent Saturday Showcase post.](_URL_0_)\n\nThe answer to your main question is something that will require me to do a little digging into source material that I can't access till I get back from holiday tomorrow, but on the matter of the... | null |
8eweu2 | What was the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis ? | [
{
"answer": "*\"Post Soviet Russia\"* by Roy Medvedev contains a day-by-day breakdown of the events. The crisis was that the congress ruled to impeach Yeltsin after Yeltsin attempted to introduce rule by decree. Now Yeltsin attempted to dissolve the congress which was something he explicitly wasn't entitled to... | null |
9rk686 | In England 1700s(?) How did the trend of caked face paint, absurdly large dresses and wigs come about? | [
{
"answer": "You may be interested in [a recent answer of mine](_URL_1_) that begins to answer a little part of this question. To crib from the end of it,\n\n > One thing is that hooped petticoats have a long history in western fashion, and the more extreme versions developed out of ones that looked roughly lik... | null |
1127su | Trig Expression Confusion | [
{
"answer": "You have a right triangle. You know the hypotenuse and one angle. How do you find the lengths of the two legs? Using the rules for cosine and sine:\n\ncos(θ) = (adjacent length) / (hypotenuse length)\n\nsin(θ) = (opposite length) / (hypotenuse length)\n\nSo if you want to find the length of the sid... | null |
4jr6ty | why was nafta so supported in the beginning but ended up failing as a policy | [
{
"answer": "What do you mean by \"failed\"? The goal was to increase trade among Mexico, the US and Canada and it has succeeded in those goals.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "So, let's start out by explaining what NAFTA is. This is the so-called 'North American Free Trade Agreement', and was... | null |
54oui7 | if the goal of an experiment is to be unbiased, why even form a hypothesis in certain studies? | [
{
"answer": "One of the points of good experimental design (not to mention good statistical methods) is to filter out those effects. It's one of the reasons why \"Double-blind\" studies are the gold standard as well. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "To construct an experiment, you have to ask a... | null |
cwtc6v | why can't we generate electricity by positioning magnets around turbines? | [
{
"answer": "That is how we generate electricity.\n\nUse something to spin a turbine, use the turbine output to spin some magnets.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Something has to drive the turbines though.\nWhat kind of turbine are you thinking about?\nYou don't get something for nothing.\nHyd... | null |
61yqd6 | how do zipline and cablecar wires get laid out long distances? | [
{
"answer": "If you can get one line across the gap, you can use that to pull across larger and larger lines until you have the final cable in place. \n\nIn the case of cable cars, it's simpler because it has pylons with known distances between them, and there are different ways to do it e.g. use a crane or a h... | null |
68v8y4 | why can a company ship me a package from sweden to us for free, but if i try to ship it back to their address it costs me $100? | [
{
"answer": "Nothing is \"free\". The cost is covered by you. You've paid shipping, it's simply buried in the cost of the goods you purchased.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "So two things. The company pays for the shipping, they're just including it as part of the price of the item you're payi... | null |
3snwge | why can't task manager instantly stop a process? | [
{
"answer": "It's always best if you can give tasks a chance to quit nicely. A task might be in the middle of writing data to disk, for example. If you can give a task a bit of warning that it's being killed, the task might have the chance to finish what it's doing and exit gracefully without losing data.\n\nSo... | null |
4oonx7 | how bedsores develop | [
{
"answer": "They typically occur on areas where soft tissue lie over bones. When the person is immobile, the prolonged pressure between the chair and the bone causes the blood flow in the soft tissue to be decreased which leads to tissue death (necrosis). Also if there is a pull/shearing force on the soft tiss... | null |
spzv9 | Is it possible to run out of tunes in music at some point? | [
{
"answer": "There are really only a limited number of progressions that make any \"sense\" to us musically, like a V-I cadence [you'd know it when you hear it...] or open ones like I-V or I-IV ...\n\nThings like [say] V-ii-I might sound nice [depending on the key and melody] but wouldn't function as say the en... | null |
4txeuc | elon musk's 'master plans' | [
{
"answer": "As a company that have a goal to eliminate our demands for fossil fuel it opens them up for critique when they are doing things that seams contradictory to their primary goal. For instance Tesla started making race cars and then luxury sedans, neither are known for being eco-friendly, and thus prov... | null |
5g8sys | if you get a blood transfusion and your blood is found at the scene of a crime and tested, how does it effect the results? | [
{
"answer": "As others have said, red blood cells have no DNA. Rather, it's other cells, such as white blood cells, that are present in blood and are the source of DNA evidence in \"blood\". \n\nWhat you may not know is that when you donate blood (or receive donated blood), that blood is filtered and separated ... | null |
1tuueh | what happens when you raise a number to the power of i (the imaginary number)? | [
{
"answer": "I thought this was explain it like I'm 5, not explain it like I'm in my fifth year of graduate school... ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "1161104",
"title": "Power of 10",
"section": "",
"start_paragr... | null |
6k0hgb | why is it okay for actors to impersonate police officers when filming in public locations? are there special laws that govern filming? | [
{
"answer": "It's not like there is just the one actor and a hidden camera. \n\nThere is generally a full crew sound/light/camera crews, the director and all that jazz. They aren't going to be mistaken for real police officers. Plus inn public areas the have too get permits to film and generally type off the a... | null |
1jf6fp | the reason for supermarket membership card and coupon | [
{
"answer": "1. Loyalty. As in \"I have a card in this store, I might save some money, so lets go back there to get groceries\"\n\n2. Purchase tracking. The store can tell exactly what you bought in the last 6 months. They can deduce marketing campaigns and product stocking strategies depending on what sort of ... | null |
1mnm8y | why, in the entirety of both the Islamic and Christian world, do we have a 7 day week? is there an astronomical or other historical significance to a 7 day time period? Are any European or Middle Eastern cultures in history known to have had a concept of a week of any other length than 7 days? | [
{
"answer": "I would like to clarify that I mean to ask: if there is a significance outside of the biblical context? does the 7 day week predate the Torah, or did the concept originate purely from the Torah and spread through Abrahamic religious cultures?",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "FYI the... | null |
9ze0ci | how does general anxiety disorder actually work, and why is it thought to occur? is it "all mental" or chemical? | [
{
"answer": "there is no difference between mental and chemical. there is no difference between physical illness and mental illness, they all take place in this physical world made of chemicals.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nas to how it works: we don't exactly know. we don't understand the brain enough to explain most ment... | null |
3hon0f | Why did football overtake baseball in popularity in the U.S. during the 1950s and 1960s? | [
{
"answer": "One thing that should be established is that until the 60' or so College Football was much more popular then the multiple Pro leagues out there, and thus when many schools had to suspend play during WW2 that accounts for the downturn seen in the 40's.\n\nBut then when everyone comes back and tons m... | null |
1tu2b3 | I just mixed some Acetone and Water and the beaker warmed up. Why? | [
{
"answer": "I think the answer to this question is going to be complicated, depend on the ratio of water and acetone, and ultimately have to do with the thermodynamics of how the acetone and water molecules arrange themselves. But to be overly simplified, I think you could just state that the acetone/H2O molec... | null |
jaz1x | why do so many people think prostitution is bad? | [
{
"answer": "Many of those against legal prostitution would believe that every prostitute was forced into it, including those that might appear to have entered voluntarily. \n\nMany psychologists also have shown how prostitution is damaging to the prostitute.\n\nEDIT: Also, I, until recently, believed the best ... | null |
3mr3qd | What was the ratio between fighter planes and reconnaissance planes in WW1? | [
{
"answer": "My copy of Amber Books' *The Essential Aircraft Identification Guide: Aircraft of WWI* gives numbers in August 1918 as being:\n\n* France: 34% fighter, 51% observer, 15% bomber\n* Britain: 55%, 23%, 22%\n* Italy: 46%, 45%, 9%\n* USA: 46.5%, 46.5%, 7%\n* Germany: 42%, 50%, 8%\n* Austria-Hungary: 63%... | null |
rtaf4 | Are Ultraviolet rays more powerful on cloudy days? | [
{
"answer": "Absolutely not. There is no physical reason why a cloud would increase the intensity of an incoming flux of ultraviolet photons. Even if [fluorescence](_URL_0_), the process by which material \"processes\" high energy photons into more lower energy ones, could occur inside a cloud in our atmosphe... | null |
9isfne | why is there so many different kinds of pain medication? they all seem to do the same thing (according to their descriptions), but why does tylenol work for some headaches and ibuprofen (naproxen, aspirin, etc.) work for other headaches? | [
{
"answer": "Some reduce inflammation which helps relieve pain, and some block pain receptors in your cells, so you don’t feel the pain. Different drugs perform different chemical actions that help with pain in different ways. ",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "This gets asked a lot... \" Differe... | null |
2iuugl | if the tongue is a muscle, and muscles grow after the fibers are torn, why doesn't your tongue grow after being bitten? | [
{
"answer": "The tongue is actually controlled by eight different muscles. The part you bite is just the fleshy exterior.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Not the same type of tear. Otherwise, bodybuilders would go to the gym and cut themselves.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "I... | null |
517n3a | kneeling during/sitting in national anthem disrespect to armed forces? | [
{
"answer": "It's only disrespecting the armed forces in a super roundabout way. In the US, we stand to pay respect to the flag, which represents the US. If you're in uniform (military) you also salute. Maybe other professions as well, like police and firefighters, but I don't know for sure. Our military fights... | null |
6zlqcz | How did Tenant Farmers get paid in Medieval England? Did they farm for a season, sell, then run down their savings until next season, or did they have some type of reliable income? | [
{
"answer": "I don't have a substantive answer for you but I would suggest reading David Howarth's 1066: Year of the Invasion because he goes over a lot of the details of the medieval English social and political structure and documents changes after the Norman take over. It may have some of the answers you are... | null |
1733ar | Since modern OS's store the hashes of passwords, not the passwords themselves, is it possible for there to be another password that would also work because it has the same hash? | [
{
"answer": "This is known as a [collision.](_URL_0_) The answer is yes, though in practice this is incredibly rare. They're suitably rare so as to not be a problem unless you're deliberately trying to exploit the vulnerability.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Yes, there are an infinite amount ... | null |
6ab9nc | what happens in a free falling elevator? will you go to the ceiling or stay on the floor? | [
{
"answer": "If the elevator is free falling then you too are free falling inside the elevator. So you would be neither in the ceiling or on the floor. However there are a few practical concerns. First of all you most likely start off standing on the floor. So when the elevator starts to fall you will be pushed... | null |
8ra295 | AskScience AMA Series: I'm Dr. Kathryn Bywaters and I am an astrobiologist at SETI working on developing new ways to look for life! Ask me anything! | [
{
"answer": "Did that screen saver that everyone used to run on their windows 98 box at the end of the last century help much?",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "Does SETI@Home actually help you guys?\n\nFollow up, do you expect the Very Large Array to help at all?",
"provenance": null
},
... | null |
n6zm1 | Is there any reason 2 unflavored vodkas should taste any different? | [
{
"answer": "The perfect \"pure\" vodka is an ethanol grain-neutral-spirit diluted with pure water to a palatable level. The differences in flavor between vodkas come from impurities or contaminants, since no process is perfect.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "[Mythbusters](_URL_0_) actually co... | null |
5xhdg5 | How did the Europeans manage to pull of the First Crusade? | [
{
"answer": "A combination of factors.\n\na) Right after leaving byzantine territory, the crusading armies found themselves on the brink of disaster. At Dorylaeum (July, 1097), the vanguard was surrounded by the Turks and only lived another day thanks to the quick judgement of Raymond of Toulouse and Godfrey of... | null |
5hwsor | why the depth matters with water resistant devices? | [
{
"answer": "The deeper you dive in water, the more pressure is applied across the entire exposed surface of an object. Gaskets (rubber components designed to keep water out) in a device can only stand so much pressure before they're breached and water begins to flood in.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"... | null |
3ih13t | What happens if a GPS satellite gets KO'd? | [
{
"answer": "Apparently, the minimum amount for the GPS system to be operational is 24 satellites. However, as at the moment 31 are operational, there is small chance of harm to the GPS system. If one satellite were to fail, there are enough others to keep the system working. Satellites do age and get decommiss... | null |
2yaxgq | Danish / Norwegian resistance during World War II | [
{
"answer": "I don't know too much about the Danes, but my impression is that they were pretty much overrun before they had time to react.\n\nIn Norway, the government had time to get out of Oslo before the Germans could capture them. One thing I believe was important was the attitude of Haakon VI, king of Norw... | null |
q4q9d | Why did the Guild system collapse? | [
{
"answer": "Simple answer: emergence of routinized labor in a factory. Call it Taylorization, [division of labor,](_URL_0_) or whatever you like, it was the change from craft control of labor to factory-based production that ended most guilds. \n\nLonger answer is *very* long. Involves immigration, changes in ... | null |
d62rxx | if the single use plastic is already made, how is my refusal to buy these items helping the planet? they are already made and someone else will buy them? | [
{
"answer": "If not as many single use plastic items get bought, companies will cut back on how many more they make in the future. That's important too.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "The idea is that gradually, consumption of the product will decline to the point that they will no longer be p... | null |
2v2yqb | islands like hawaii seem to very quickly get diverse vegetation even though they pop up in the middle of the ocean, so where do the first seeds come from? | [
{
"answer": "Seeds travel in many ways. Some get there by water, traveling on air currents (think dandelion) or by animals (bird eats seed, undigested seed from excrement finds new home), and by humans. \n\nIn Hawaii's case, many of their trees and plants were brought to the island by early settlers. \nEdit:... | null |
6itg5p | In popular culture and meme posts there's a stereotype correlating living in Southern states and incest. Is there any historical reason why this stereotype is a thing? Why aren't Northern American states associated with this stereotype instead? | [
{
"answer": "Hello everyone, \n\nIf you are a first time visitor, welcome! This thread is trending high right now and getting a lot of attention, but it's important to remember that those upvotes represent interest in the question itself, and [it can often take time for a good answer to be written](_URL_6_). Th... | null |
1gy5p0 | From 1000 to 1500 CE, how centralized were European countries? Which country was the most centralized? Most decentralized? | [
{
"answer": "1000CE to 1500CE was an exceptionally formative period for the rise of the nation-state, especially emerging out of the destablization and fragmentation of the Byzantine (Late Roman) Empire. Byzantium is an excellent example of the condition of empires and states at the time. From approximately the... | null |
b62kq6 | Are there any other purposes of there being so much nitrogen composition in the air, other then to provide an inert atmosphere? | [
{
"answer": "_URL_0_\n\n*All* species need the element nitrogen, it's a building block of proteins. It was discovered that some species can use nitrogen gas and \"fix\" it from the air in the 19th Century. Most species however obtain their nitrogen from compounds.\n\nThe atmospheric composition doesn't have any... | null |
6gexjc | what causes extreme heat on atmosphere re-entry and was this discovered prior to the first mission or a lesson learned later? | [
{
"answer": "Not exactly air friction. Friction would be the air rubbing against the body so much as to raise the temperature to extremes. But what happens is different. \n\nIn the upper atmosphere air is very thin - is not dense at all. As a body falls through that atmosphere at staggering speeds, the few air ... | null |
1ga5j4 | Would firing something like a Star Trek phaser create recoil? How about a real life military weapon that uses lasers? | [
{
"answer": "Realistic answer: No.\n\nActual answer: Yes, a tiny, tiny, stupidly minuscule bit of recoil. The emission of photons (light) will have a bit of recoil but this will be so small, it would be very difficult to detect this. An example of this phenomenon is the potential usage of [solar sails](_URL_0_)... | null |
1clgz6 | Why do some viruses stay in the body forever and others not? | [
{
"answer": "It usually depends on the life cycle of the virus. Most viruses that you think of as being \"beatable\" reproduce in a highly active life cycle. They invade a cell, hijack its machinery to replicate, and then burst out when the cell can no longer hold all the virus particles. Those viruses then spr... | null |
43yc6b | Was there any benefit to Hitler going to war with the USSR? | [
{
"answer": " > But that got me thinking, was there any benefits to him going to war with The USSR that helped his efforts on the western fronts and semi-neglected the loss of manpower?\n\nNo, not really. Hitler's arrangement with the Soviet Union provided Germany with valuable oil and raw materials, allowing ... | null |
5qhvf5 | Primary source from the Rape of Nanking? | [
{
"answer": "[Try this digital exhibit from Yale, a collection of materials from Christian missionaries who witnessed the Rape of Nanking.](_URL_0_) \n\nFor the future: If you're trying to find primary sources with Google, don't use the term \"primary sources,\" this is a \"schoolroom\" history phrase and it's ... | null |
6dteps | Why is Belarus? | [
{
"answer": "Not to discourage other answers, but you might be interested in this post:\n\n[How did Belorussians and Ukrainians evolve as distinct national identities from Russia?](_URL_0_) with the top answer from /u/cheapwowgold4u.\n\nIt's an older post from when AskHistorians allowed wikipedia as a source, b... | null |
2ze72u | why does my iphone say i have 4.4 gigs of memory used in pictures and yet i have no pictures on my phone | [
{
"answer": "It's photos saved in messages, possibly cached photos. Delete some conversations, or (I highly recommend) jailbreak your phone, install iCleaner and it will clear ALL that crap out.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "42713479",... | null |
5epajt | Was Emperor Jimmu a real person? Who were his parents? | [
{
"answer": "In mythology Jimmu was a descendant of the Sun Goddess, Amaterasu. Ugayafukiaezu no Mikoto, a Kami (a god) is his father. Considering that both of these people are gods, it is unlikely that he was a real person. But that's the short answer. The long answer is a bit more in depth:\n\nThe Japanese m... | null |
5d2i7i | how do we know there are more colors than can be seen with the naked eye, if we can't... see them? | [
{
"answer": "A color is just a particular wavelength of light that happens to trip some of the cells in our eyes to some degree.\n\nWe know for a fact that there are wavelengths of light that do *not* activate those cells in our eyes--but those are still wavelengths of light, which can be called a color.\n\nAdd... | null |
10e9ny | apple vs. samsung lawsuits | [
{
"answer": "Samsung created a lot of mobile devices that do things that Apple says they thought of first. Some examples are:\n\n\"Making things on the screen bigger when you tap on it twice\" \n\"Making the phone shaped like a rectangle\" \n\"Making icons have rounded edges\"\n\nApple was able to sue Samsung... | null |
1bzup6 | Could the Industrial Revolution have happened earlier in history, or did it happen as soon as the world was "ready" for it? | [
{
"answer": "This is basically directly taken from Ian Morris' *Why the West Rules for Now* which I highly recommend. Its a great read. \n\nThere were a few reasons why the Industrial Revolution happened when it did. Technology continued to accumulate over centuries and centuries making a breakthrough to indust... | null |
1pzgq4 | eili5 how does file encryption work? | [
{
"answer": "Encryption takes a key, and combines it with the message mathematically to scramble it.\n\nA simple encryption scheme might move the letters of the message forward in the alpha. If my key was 1 2 3, and my message was REDDIT, it would encrypt it like this:\n\n R, 1 - > S\n E, 2 - > G\n ... | null |
bzld7h | why are wall outlets 110v or 220v? those seem like such arbitrary values; why not 100v? | [
{
"answer": "In many parts of the world, electric companies sprung up, each making their own flavor of power (certain voltage, amperage, cycles per second, etc.). This caused one really big problem: you buy a lamp and it works in your house, then you move to another part of town, and it won't work because the p... | null |
1kzsij | What exactly is the reaction happening when I clean tarnished silver with bicarb, Aluminium, and hot water? | [
{
"answer": "Aluminium is naturally very reactive, but is often covered in a thin layer of passivating aluminium oxide that prevents the rest of the aluminium from reacting. Aluminium oxide is amphoteric, and thus easily soluble in alkaline or acidic solutions. The hot bicarb solution is alkaline, and dissloves... | null |
45e4ue | why are doctors england on strike? | [
{
"answer": "The UK government wants to introduce a new contract for doctors. The changes would include modification of standard working hours which will result in unsafe working practices and reduced pay, as well as potentially causing issues with staffing and recruitment.\nThe contract aims to \"introduce\" t... | null |
25z7sy | tuition is increasing faster than inflation. cable prices are increasing faster than inflation. healthcare costs too. isn't that the definition of inflation? | [
{
"answer": "First, you need to understand how Inflation is measured. Its simply not practical to have the primary inflation number we talk about include every possible product that you could by or spend money on, not to mention the problems of deciding how to weight different items. Instead, a \"basket\" of go... | null |
9h2gw0 | Did they have ads as we know them centuries ago? | [
{
"answer": "Follow up question/example: When I was at Herculaneum, which in the famous eruption of Vesuvius in 79AD was destroyed and preserved, I remember seeing adverts as you describe. I remember it was an advert in big red script outside of a street cafe or bakery of some sort. This might be a good example... | null |
2hyalj | why does radiation in a disaster stay for so long? (like in chernobyl) | [
{
"answer": "All radioactive materials have a half-life. The half-life is the amount of time it takes for half of the material to decay into something else.\n\nIf the material from Chernobyl has a half-life of 1000 years then after 1000 years only 1/2 of it will be gone. After 2000 years, 3/4 of it will be gone... | null |
33e6hd | Does leaving a refrigerator door opened for about 20 seconds actually use up a large enough amount of energy/ power to consider not leaving it open for that long? | [
{
"answer": "I vaguely recall actually calculating this for a question long ago.\n\nThe answer is basically no, it's not a huge waste. For starters, the air in the refrigerator is essentially stagnant; you're not going to get a large amount of mixing of the cold air with the surroundings in the span of 20 secon... | null |
4uac80 | Are there any indications that there are elements beyond the 118 we have currently discovered or synthesized? If so, is there any indication that there is a finite number of elements, other than their increasingly short halflives? | [
{
"answer": "A neutron star is very similar to an extremely heavy atomic nucleus. Consider that neutron stars contain ~10^57-58 particles. If a neutron star grows much heavier than this it will collapse into a black hole. Therefore there is a **finite** limit to the number of possible atomic elements, but it's ... | null |
3gn9t7 | Actual health impacts of eugenics programs | [
{
"answer": "It's not really possible to know. These programs were not scientifically rigorous or adequately controlled, and the sheer number of factors that may or may not impact how individual people or entire societies develop means that it cannot be said with any degree of confidence whether or not eugenics... | null |
uc7ql | How much air in one breath came from the previous one? | [
{
"answer": "[Anatomical deadspace](_URL_0_), which is the term for the air that doesn't participate in gas exchange within the body is roughly 1ml/kg. \n\nHowever, it's not this simple to example, at the small airways, there really is no flow-rate to be measured, it's purely diffusion.\n\nIf we take into cons... | null |
10mvfs | What were the main arguments American Anti-Federalists made against the first article of the Constitution? | [
{
"answer": "I assume you have looked at the anti-federalist papers?",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
{
"wikipedia_id": "2210837",
"title": "Anti-Federalist Papers",
"section": "Section::::Legacy.\n",
"start_paragraph_id": 11,
... | null |
suyht | What's the most expensive part of launching a spacecraft? | [
{
"answer": "I'm no expert, but as far as I am aware, the most difficult part of getting a spacecraft in space is, as you inferred, getting into orbit, and the cost and quantity of the fuels involved, as we lack an alternative form of thrust (that doesn't only work in a vacuum) capable of lifting such heavy loa... | null |
7zcur2 | What was the public reaction in Australia after gun control laws were enacted? | [
{
"answer": "A journalist on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's main news and current affairs show *The 7:30 Report*, said on May 9th, 1996, that \"Australian massacres have a dulling familiarity. Public shock and outrage is soothed by assurances of tougher gun laws. But as public outcry dissipates, ofte... | null |
1j3lcy | Salt and Ice | [
{
"answer": "I would say that the ice chest *without* the salt added stays colder for longer. The chest with the salt gets colder as the ice melts and absorbs the latent heat of fusion. However, since heat transfer is proportional to the temperature difference between the substance and its environment, the 'cry... | null |
5c9248 | serious question - is there science behind a face that appears more desirable to punch? aka: "punchable face" | [
{
"answer": "There is no definitive single answer, but there are some answers. It probably shouldn't be a surprise that given how sensitive to facial expressions humans are, that we'd have the capacity for a strong reaction. By the way, there is a German word for the phenomenon you're describing, called \"Backp... | null |
4lp2t2 | what is a senator and what is a congressman? | [
{
"answer": "Congress is more or less the US equivalent of the UK's Parliament. Like the UK Parliament, it has two houses.\n\nThe lower house is the House of Representatives. The people who sit in that are called Congressmen/women. It's very much like the UK's House of Commons. The entire country is split into ... | null |
2rz0c1 | why do people become outraged and upset at other people's sexual preferences? | [
{
"answer": "Bisexual here. I've been called mentally handicapped, told that I should be institutionalized or put on medication, and told that I don't exist.\n\nHonestly I have no fucking clue. My thought is that with something as personal as sexuality, many people are not open-minded enough to accept others fo... | null |
5nw6wr | why constant friction leads to orgasm? what makes the brain think "yeah... i wasn't sure you were having sex, but now that 20 minutes has passed i'm certain... take the reward now"? | [
{
"answer": "As far as I know (not a biologist) human males generally last so long because they train to, because they want to get human females off, which i'm guessing have a longer time to orgasm to encourage them to have more sex, to guarantee pregnancy. Since monogamy and marriage and stuff is a human cultu... | null |
415jqi | What was up with the Anti-Masonic Party? Why was Freemasonry considered such a pressing issue in 17th century America that people created a whole political party over it? | [
{
"answer": "I can give you a brief answer, copied from an earlier question I answered on this sub. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable can step in to supplement:\n\nAn incident occurred in the 1820s that sparked a wave of anti-masonry. A man claimed he was going to publish the masonic \"secrets\" (rites and sy... | null |
4s354f | what happened to the panama papers story? it was supposed to be this giant scandal, yet it seems to have disappeared. | [
{
"answer": "1. It's still a thing, but given that there haven't been any new major revelations (e.g. The Pope) most news organizations have chosen to focus on more topical things (The Euro 16, Brexit, etc.)\n\n2. No prominent Americans were listed, hence why it's gotten little to no attention in the US. Most A... | null |
5h3786 | what factors cause people from different countries to protest differently? | [
{
"answer": "Nothing's to say that can't happen in the US, but a part of it comes out of necessity. Many parts of Asia are heavily populated, and not just heavily, but densely. The need to be clean isn't just a good idea, it has roots in survival. And it's convention. People do it so you do it. People see ... | null |
1sp0tr | At what point did Australians and New Zealanders begin to consider themselves as distinct from the British? | [
{
"answer": "I wrote about this partly in my undergraduate thesis. \n\nSimilar to the colonization of America, settlers in the Antipodes experienced a lifestyle hugely different from what they or their parents had experienced in Europe. Australian/American/Canadian/New Zealand (to an extent) evolved as a respon... | null |
2yc8mg | how on earth do batteries work? | [
{
"answer": "They have a chemical inside that is capable of holding extra electrons. When you charge them, you use the energy from the power plant ( or solar panels/ wherever the hell it comes from) to pump the chemical to a higher energy state (lots of extra electrons). When you discharge a battery you complet... | null |
wi1i0 | If dark matter is a matter, then what would it look like if you held it in your hands? | [
{
"answer": "Dark matter, according to the most popular theories at the moment, consists of **w**eakly **i**nteracting **m**assive **p**articles, or WIMPs. Because they interact so weakly, in particular having no electromagnetic interaction, WIMPs stream through you much like neutrinos do. Thus, you can't reall... | null |
66zmb2 | if things with different mass fall at the same velocity, why do heavier things cause more 'damage' when they land? | [
{
"answer": "Force = mass x acceleration\n\nAs you point out, objects fall at the same rate, i.e. acceleration is constant. So, for falling objects, force is proportional to mass. Using your example, a 1 ton (1,000 kg) ball will hit with exactly 1,000 times more force than the 1kg ball.",
"provenance": nu... | null |
b6cj5m | how does a charger charge your phone for a split second after it was removed from the socket? | [
{
"answer": "The charger has electrical storage components inside of it called capacitors, and these components can store electricity for a very short time after being disconnected from the power supply.\n\nFor the same reason, you should not go poking around inside an old television with a screwdriver, unless ... | null |
257dq2 | Why do mitochondria need their own DNA? | [
{
"answer": "As has been said, endosymbiotic theory which is pretty widely accepted states that both chloroplasts and mitochondria were once bacteria of their own right. We believe the modern day equivalents are cyanobacteria and proteobacteria respectively.\n\nSome nice sets of evidence:\n\n* Circular genomes ... | null |
1h2l1l | the senate bill 5 being discussed in today's filibuster in the texas senate. | [
{
"answer": "Might be a little over EIL5, but meh...\n\nThe bill does a few things. From [_URL_1_](_URL_4_):\n\n* The bill would restrict abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy \n* Require all clinics to be certified as ambulatory surgical centers\n* Require abortion doctors to have admitting privileges at a loc... | null |
3da5rf | Are they any cases of animals using covering or "clothes" to protect themselves from the environment as humans have done? | [
{
"answer": "Hermit crabs are an obvious example.\n\nPigs will slather themselves in mud to cool off. \n\nYou could call a burrow a kind of \"clothing\" that animals \"put on\" to protect themselves from the environment.\n\nThe biggest problem is that the natural world doesn't present a lot of things which you ... | null |
9btl7y | What were relations between medieval Muslims and medieval Buddhists like? | [
{
"answer": "As I mention [in this post](_URL_0_) to almost the same question, the initial Buddhist literary response to Islam was highly negative. I'd welcome other perspectives, of course, especially from the Muslim side and on a more subaltern level.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
... | null |
9njare | why does a magnetic field do no work on a stationary particle but yet electric field does work on it? | [
{
"answer": "The electric field (ac) is moving so the stationary particle has motion with respect to the electric field creating work. The magnetic field is stationary and thus is stationary with respect to the stationary particle so no work is done.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "A magnetic f... | null |
70sqhz | why do we sometimes twitch or spaz when we get a random chill? | [
{
"answer": "Those are transient myoclonic jerks . These are just short burst of muscle contractions that you see especially when you are falling sleep. These are similarly seen in many physiological and pathological conditions. \nIf excessive they are called myoclonic seizures.",
"provenance": null
},
... | null |
b5uxhv | why does your arm shake when you flex really hard? | [
{
"answer": "When you stretch or flex your muscles, they can affect the body’s nervous system, which in effect controls the body’s muscle movements. When the body becomes overly stressed, it can cause involuntary muscle spasms.\n\n",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": null,
"provenance": [
... | null |
ruhlr | What would we see if the speed of light was, say, 1ms^-1? | [
{
"answer": "This is actually a common thought experiment in special relativity. The answer is, nothing would really change, but massive relativistic effects would be observable in everyday life. Also, everything in the universe would be limited to a speed of 1m/s since the speed of light is the top speed that ... | null |
8gs8a9 | What are the recommended sources for the history of mercenaries and, to a lesser extent, the development of professional fighting forces in Europe from the collapse of the WRE to the early medieval period? | [
{
"answer": "The best book on the topic (and the only sufficient treatment I'm aware of) is John France's *Mercenaries and Paid Men: The Mercenary Identity in the Middle Ages.* I'm afraid it's become dreadfully expensive, but perhaps you can acquire a copy through a local library.",
"provenance": null
},
... | null |
7mwr6r | plasma, in the electrical sense. why is it its own state/phase? | [
{
"answer": "Plasma forms when you heat up a gas to really high temperatures. The electrons get ripped away from the atoms due to their high energy. This is called ionization. This makes plasma highly electrically conductive. Plasma is its own state of matter because its properties are so fundamentally differen... | null |
bv4e9k | why are vehicles insured, instead of people/drivers? | [
{
"answer": "I some countries it's actually both. The vehicle is insured, but the insurance won't cover driver liability, so the driver needs their own insurance too.",
"provenance": null
},
{
"answer": "The biggest variable in insurance is the performance and value of a vehicle.\n\nIf the person wa... | null |
3qu54d | what's the point of the russians visiting the moon in 2029 when we're planning on visiting mars in the 2030's? | [
{
"answer": "There hasn't been a person on the moon since the 70s and we've not sent a person beyond orbit since then either.\n\nNot to mention no other country besides the US has actually sent anyone to the moon so this would be a first step for the Russian space program.\n\nIn addition, there is probably stil... | null |
1gvart | How can meteor fragments found on earth possibly be so frequently described as 'martian'? How can we possibly assert their origin? | [
{
"answer": "The quote below is taken directly from the [Martian Meteorite](_URL_0_) page of Wikipedia:\n\n\nBy the early 1980s, it was obvious that the SNC group of meteorites (Shergottites, Nakhlites, Chassignites) were significantly different from most other meteorite types. Among these differences were youn... | null |
684rxj | after the initial sleepiness feeling, why do we suddenly feel more alert after a few hours pass your normal sleeping time before you suddenly feel lethargic and sleepy again? | [
{
"answer": "A certain sleep writer suggests it's because there is a metabolitic release timed to coincide with the early part of sleep intended to for the heavy lifting your lymphatic and endocrine systems will do in the early part of sleep. Apparently this is the \"second wind\" we feel at approximately 10pm,... | null |
8snsj8 | why do fermented foods turn into alcohol and cause intoxication? | [
{
"answer": "Yeast. Yeast is a microscopic fungi that is intentionally added to the process of making alcoholic drinks. It consumes the sugars, and excrete alcohol. As the alcohol content rises, the yeast dies off. They also produce CO2, which is why beer is carbonated (at least traditionally, now its added)\n\... | null |
2kkmaa | Were places like New Jersey, New York, New South Wales, etc. so named because of a resemblance in climate/topography to Jersey, York, Wales, etc., or because the original settlers were from those regions of the British Isles? | [
{
"answer": "New Jersey was so named because the land it encompasses was an award from the King Charles II to Sir George Cartalet for his loyalty during the English Civil War. Sir Goerge was both originally born on the isle of Jersey and served as a governor there, so the land was eventually renamed, in his ho... | null |
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