question stringlengths 0 2.44k | prompt listlengths 1 1 | ground_truth stringlengths 0 8.31k | category stringclasses 12
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Why do you often have less of an appetite when the weather is hot? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | Some can be attributed to needing less input. If your body does not need to create any warmth of its own because the weather is doing that for you, your body uses less than its normal amount. Keeping warm is just one use of food energy, but a significant one. Less drawn from reserves means less desire for food input. | Biology |
Why does the "strength" of a password matter? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | > but with keyloggers and people hacking into databases does it even matter how strong a password is? With keyloggers you are correct, it doesn't matter how strong your password is, if you have a keylogger installed then it will record whatever password you enter. With databases it's a different story. Passwords should... | Technology |
Why does blood rush to your head but not your feet? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | It can. Your body is designed to operate in the upright position at 1G (blood pressure keeps the system moving properly). If you want blood to pool (rush) in your your lower body you just have to go past 1G. This happens to fighter pilots during extreme maneuvers. The result is you'll black out. Fighter pilots wear sui... | Biology |
what is the difference between a headache and a migraine? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | A migraine is a very specific type of headache, often identified by the symptoms "POUND"; P: Pulsating O: onset of several hours U : unilateral N: nausea D: debilitating Many people get extremely sensitive to lights and sounds and need to stay in dark rooms until the migraine goes away. Some people get changes in their... | Biology |
Why do we have an easier time sorting things by strings of numbers vs by strings of letters? (Ex: T#124567 vs T# ASEDTZ) | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | The order of numbers is meaningful, 2 comes before 7 for a reason. We are also used to counting up and counting down, which reinforces this order in our minds. The order of letters is arbitrary, we could rearrange the alphabet and it wouldn't make much of a difference. There is nothing innate about K that makes it come... | Other |
what are the fundamental differences between beer, ale and other beers, as well as other alcohol-related terms (malt, rocks etc.)? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | There's a hell of a lot of terminologies involved with spirits (liquor), wine, beer, and bartending, and to attempt to describe all of them in one ELI5 would likely end in folly, but hey--I'm a fool. Alcohol can generally be broken down into three basic categories; Beer, wine, and liquor. Beer is produced through the f... | Other |
when an atomic bomb goes off, why does "dust" fall off of surfaces such as on buildings immediately when the bomb goes off, before the shockwave even arrives at that location? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | What you're seeing in this video is smoke caused by the incredibly intense light and radiant heat of the fireball. Light travels and the speed of light which is about 300,000 km/second. The speed of sound is glacial by comparison. This is the same as putting toast in the toaster for too long. But just imagine if your t... | Physics |
Why when you evaporate coffee and store the steam until it becomes liquid again, the liquid no longer has the color of coffee? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | Evaporating water, collecting the steam, and condensing it back into water is known as distillation. By doing this with coffee, you are essentially just separating the coffee from the water - the coffee stays in the cup and the water turns into steam (that you collect and condense back into water). Because the water no... | Chemistry |
Why do presidents and CEOs typically resign after a controversy instead of staying or being fired? Like for a example a while back the president of a university resigned after hate symbols appeared around the campus why didn’t he stay? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | So the reason for the departure is that it allows the institution to blame them and move on. The university can say "It was the president's fault, we will move forward and improve", even though it's possible they do nothing afterwards it gives the appearance of action. The reason why they usually aren't fired is becaus... | Other |
What are the lines that appear behind flying aircraft? & what causes them? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | They're called condensation trails sometimes shortened to contrails. ~~Idiots~~ Conspiracy theorists think they're chemtrails, but chemtrails aren't real. Wings work by deflecting air downwards. At the wing tips air that isn't being deflected downwards meets air that is being forced downward by the wing. This causes a ... | Other |
why do ice cream cones have the grid of squares at the bottom inside, no matter the brand? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | That gives the bottom additional strength without needing excess material. It's kind of like adding [I-beams]( URL_0 ) to the bottom of the cone. Otherwise, it would quickly start to fall apart, especially as the icecream melted and got the cone wet. It's a good solution to a problem that all ice-cream cones have, so p... | Other |
Why do magnets "die" after a while of being used? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | Imagine the atoms in a magnet as little arrows. When manufacturing magnets, all of the arrows are arranged In one direction. This is done because it makes the arrows useful. ⬅️⬅️ ⬅️⬅️ These arrows don't like to all go in the same, linear direction. This is because they don't like their tips touching, or even getting ne... | Technology |
What exactly is an allele? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | I think, if you imagine an allele is like a particular ticket, or group of tickets, in a line of unrolled mostly pink tickets. The allele’s specific ticket(s) would in this case, be colored green instead of their surrounding pink, and that represents the allele for example, Green Eyes. Then, there is the other alleles ... | Biology |
Why is water so difficult for 3d animation? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | Water presents a number of challenges. First off, since it's a liquid it can move in a huge variety of ways, which means it's difficult to simulate well, and the more accurate you want to get, the more computational time it's probably going to take. If you're simulating something where the water is constantly moving (a... | Technology |
] If he was just like any other guy out there in the silent film industry, how did Charlie Chaplin attain so much fame? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | He wasn't just like any other guy. For starters, he was absolutely excellent at his physical comedy so that helped. But Charlie Chaplin funded, produced, and directed many of his own films. And he was an absolute perfectionist at it. For some scenes, he shot dozens or even hundreds of times until he was satisfied. He p... | Other |
If computer/tv screens operate on projecting an image through light, how do they convey shades of black? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | Full disclosure, with some newer technologies maybe this has changed, but it used to be that screens were designed to present as black as possible without any kind of light source behind them. When the color black was required, the television/monitor would simply not display any colors to that particular “dot”. So it w... | Physics |
What exactly is the Apollonian-Dionysian dichotomy in simpler terms? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | This is perhaps easiest to understand in terms of the archetypes the words come from. Both Apollo and Dionysus were gods in the Greek pantheon. Apollo was the god of things like science, medicine, and (ironically given that quote) music. He's often portrayed as rationable and reliable, but also kind of boring and dista... | Other |
When something non-radioactive has been exposed to radiation, and itself becomes radioactive, what happens to it? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | Fusion reactions like those aren't common in practice, but that's the general idea, yes. An irradiated object that itself becomes an emitter in this way is dangerous for the same reason any emitter is dangerous; ionizing radiation can mess up all sorts of things in otherwise tightly managed biological systems, if it ca... | Physics |
Why hasn't commercial supersonic flight been attempted on a wide-scale since concorde? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | The main issue is it just isn't worth it. It cost about as much to fly the Concorde across the Atlantic as it does 747, which has three times as many seats. Not many people are willing to pay that kind of money. 3.5 vs. 7 hours might sound good, but super sonic speed doesn't get you through the security line any faster... | Technology |
How come we don't use carbon capture at the exhaust towers of power plants to directly capture co2 before it enters the atmosphere and put it back into greenhouses or store as rock? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | Because it can't be done just anywhere and requires power, meaning it would probanly decrease the efficiency of a traditional power plant. It also needs water and the right kind of rock (basalt) to filter it through. This location was specifically chosen for this technology: "Iceland is one of several places on Earth o... | Earth Science |
What exactly is a pyramid scheme? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | A pyramid scheme is a money-making venture built on lies. The guy who makes it recruits a few people for a fee, who each recruit a few more. The new recruits are the source of income for the whole company. It's called a pyramid scheme because, like a pyramid, it has a large base leading up to a single point. And they a... | Economics |
Why is the labor theory of value no longer considered correct? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | Labout theory of value was changing a bit and was not used only in marxism. Try to imagine this scenario. You build three identical houses. According to LTV all should be equaly valuable. Right? Equal work was needed to build them. First house is standing in huge city, full of jobs, universities, cinemas,... Second is ... | Economics |
Consider a copper bolt which is inserted through a copper coil and by tightening a copper nut, some energy is stored in the compressed coil. Then, this assembly is put into the nitric acid and dissolved. Where the stored energy is gone? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | Depends on exactly how it dissolves, but I assume you’re talking about the most interesting case: if the coil dissolves evenly all around, thus maintaining its shape and tension until the very end. Well, when you tense the coil, you’re forcing some atoms out of alignment. That’s what gives it the potential energy. Thos... | Physics |
What's the difference between accuracy and precision? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | You throw a dozen darts at a dartboard. * If they mostly land all around the bullseye, you are **accurate**. Your results were all close to the target, even if they were spread out around it and not close to each other. * If they mostly land off on the edge, but they're all clumped together, then you were **precise**. ... | Other |
Why can people run/walk several miles without any discomfort, yet it is extremely uncomfortable to stand still in onw place for 15mins? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | It's the constant pressure in one place. When you're running you're moving all your joints around and they are getting short bursts of pressure followed by no pressure whereas standing you have constant pressure. Also there is the matter of blood flow, when you're running your heart is pumping blood like crazy and it's... | Biology |
What is the difference between paracetamol and ibuprofen? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | Ibuprofen is an NSAID (Non-Steroid Anti-Inflammatory Drug), this means it acts by inhibiting the enzyme COX, reducing synthesis of prostaglandin which is both central in the **inflammatory response** as well as **pain response**. NSAID shouldn't be taken for too long because they **can cause gastric ulcers** (prostagla... | Other |
Why does earth’s axial tilt affect our climate significantly more than perihelion even though the latter brings us 5 million miles closer to the sun? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | Solar power radiated per unit area decreases with distance from the sun in accordance with the surface area of a bounding sphere at that radius, proportional to r^2. So, from perihelion to aphelion, the ratio difference in energy intensity is 91.4^2 / 94.5^2 , or about a 6.5% reduction. Conversely, the intensity of rad... | Earth Science |
What would happen if you walked into somewhere with immense radiation? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | Your heart won't be what goes first, and you may not even die that day, but you'll die soon No one has been exposed to radiation of this magnitude so everything that follows is a guess based on the aftermath of criticality accidents, the only other things to produce sudden, high doses of radiation, primarily the Demon ... | Biology |
How are well-known piracy websites such as piratebay still up and running despite offering illegal services? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | > offering illegal services Are they? Torrent trackers don't host pirated content, they just let your computer find ones that *do*. That in itself isn't illegal (or at least wasn't/is a grey area in some countries). Plus, torrent and "shady" file sharing sites lease servers and domains in backwater countries that 1. ha... | Technology |
What prevents an employer from "firing" you if you want to resign? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | Generally you often don’t inform your current employer until you have an offer from the new one. Then it doesn’t matter if you get “fired.” Though it is good to leave on decent terms if you can. Also, as an employer having someone resign is usually better for you. If you fire them and the job offer falls through, you c... | Other |
Why does having a strong core help with exercises like pull ups? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | You can hold your core and legs steady and that makes the pullup easier to control and execute. You have to hit the right angle and then hold it. Alternatively you can do sloppy kipping pullups a la Crossfit. I never do pullups that way though as it looks like a great way to get hurt when you're my size. ;D | Other |
why do ballpoint pens work better on a stack of paper, like a notebook, than one paper on the table? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | The sheets of paper cushion the pen, as opposed to a hard table. This makes it more comfortable but also gets more ink out because the surface area of contact is increased. I have the same thing with my favorite writing pen, a Zebra gel pen. It feels and works horribly on a single sheet, but it's so smooth once I get a... | Physics |
Why are donations deduced from taxes? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | You get tax reductions on donations because we want to encourage people to donate money. Tax can be used as an incentive system, basically. We tax things we want to discourage (like sugar, tobacco, alcohol, etc) and we don't tax things we want to encourage (like donations). This is the fundamental idea behind the carbo... | Economics |
1) Why is there gaps or spaces between galaxies? 2) What fills these gaps or spaces? 3) Why aren’t galaxies connect like a web or something? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | Galaxies *are* connected like a web or something [if you zoom out enough to see it]( URL_1 ). It's important to note that the blobs of light in that image are *not* galaxies. They're *clusters* of galaxies, or superclusters, which can contain *thousands* of galaxies. Consider the organization of the solar system. Most ... | Physics |
How did archaeological sites get buried to begin with? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | Time. Dust, dirt, leaves, debris build up over time. As an experiment put something in the corner of your yard, or a near by woods out of the way. Check it a year later and see how overgrown it is, dirty, weeds growing around it, covered in leaves snd debris. starting to sink into the ground. Imagine 10 years, 100 year... | Other |
Why do cars lose so much value the moment they’re driven for the first time? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | If you decided you'd made a mistake and wanted to resell the car, do you think *anyone* would pay as much for it as you did? For that, they can go to the dealer and get a certifiably-new car. So you'll have to offer a discount, to make the deal worth considering. | Economics |
How do insurance companies work in instances of something as priceless as Notre Dame? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | Insurance generally doesn't worry about what sort of "priceless" value a work of art or cultural icon may have: it's there to fix or replace what was broken. So in the case of something like Notre Dame, it would certainly be hard to put a dollar value on some of the architectural features and artistic touches that were... | Economics |
What is Dynamic Range in music and why is it important? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | Dynamic range is the volume difference between the quietest note and the loudest note in music. When songs are stored digitally, there is a limit to the maximum volume of a note. It's important because modern music tends to compress the volume range towards the loud end so that the average volume of the song is louder ... | Physics |
Why exactly are female mammals generally physically weaker than their male counter parts? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | That is sexual dimorphism...the male and female are different in ways that go beyond the practical. Sexual dimorphism is generally due to either preference of the female in picking mates or by having males fight each other for female access. In other words, males are larger and stronger because only the biggest and str... | Biology |
why do sunsets look so different from sunrises? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | I stole this from Google which looks like it pulled it from a Quora answer. During the evening, there are usually more particles in the air that the light has to travel through due to dust, smoke, pollution, aerosols, and so forth. During the night, there is less wind and less activity, so these particles are able to s... | Physics |
If color is white light reflecting off surfaces, how do computer monitors and screens create colors? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | When you're looking at pigments on paper, the color you see is the result of different colors bouncing off a surface. White is when you *absorb* none of them & black is when you absorb all of them. This is called **subtractive color** With *light sources*, color is the result of things emitting different frequencies of... | Other |
How does a gas stove not blow up when you turn it on?What stops the fire from going down the pipes(?) and into the gas compartiment and explode? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | Well the rest of the gas. The whole line is pressurized with natural gas. Fire can't burn without oxygen being present. Since the line is pressurized no oxygen can leak back into the line. Gas explosions usually occur when theres a break in the line and a LOT of gas is present in a space mixed with oxygen. A spark can ... | Physics |
Why is chemistry branched into organic and inorganic? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | Organic chemistry, or chemistry of Carbon, is so complex that it has as much or even more variety than all other chemicals combined. It's so complex that you basically spend an entire career just being an expert in Carbon-based chemistry, where the rest of chemistry take the same amount of time to learn as Carbon all b... | Chemistry |
How do mobile services, that are disabled while in airplane mode, interfere with an airplane? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | They don't. However, if an airplane was built incorrectly, it is possible that the signals send out by your mobile phone - mostly radio and microwaves - could induce an electric current in either the instruments or control circuit of an airplane, and while this is incredibly unlikely the result could be that you and se... | Technology |
Alchemy. What exactly is it? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | Alchemy is, or more accurately, *was* a pseudoscience that spawned a real science by accident. Humans observed long ago that you could transform some things into other things. This was the beginning of what we now know as chemistry, but well before we knew what limitations were placed upon these transformations it was ... | Chemistry |
Why hot air is lighter than cold air, but it is still colder the higher up you go? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | First, cold doesn't really exist in the sense that something can't gain/add coldness it can only lose heat. And the thing that heats up the air is the Earth. The farther it gets from the Earth it looses heat. When it looses heat it becomes more dense. Because it's more dense it sinks down towards the Earth. Now that it... | Earth Science |
Why do some countries teach multiplication tables to x12, and others teach to x10? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | 12 is an important number historically for various systems of measurement. 12 hours in a day. 12 inches in a foot. 12 eggs in a dozen. 12 is handy because it can be divided by 2, 3, 4, 6 evenly. So many things were done in lots of up to 12. So if you wanted to multiply lengths, you're going to be doing something like u... | Mathematics |
How does Mandelbrot's "roughness" calculation work? Is it only geometric or can it be used in other domains? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | Hey! I'm the same person from the /r/math thread. The roughness calculation is called fractal dimension, Hausdorff dimension, or to give every credit Hausdorff–Besicovitch dimension. It is a generalization of the concept of dimensionality for normal spaces (i.e. lines are 1D, squares are 2D, cubes are 3D). I recommend ... | Mathematics |
How does capitalization of spending particularly R & D spending work? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | This isn't really an ELI5 theme, but I'll try. First, what are assets and what are expenses? An ASSET is something that lasts a long time. It's semi-permanent, like a dump truck or a building. An EXPENSE is something that is instant, like a business lunch with clients, the cost of hiring a consultant, or the mileage yo... | Economics |
What is the difference between real and imaginary numbers? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | "Imaginary" is a bad word for them because they definitely exist, they're just part of the complex plane. Imagine the number line, which contains all "real" numbers going off left and right into infinity. Left is negative, right is positive. Take a step to the right and you're at 1, a step to the left and you're at -1.... | Mathematics |
why does asphalt change colour? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | It's a mixture or very black tar and aggregate rocks that might usually aren't black. In the truck, it's really well mixed, and so when it's applied you see a nice, uniform coating. Over time, the softer tar is worn off and you see the rocks. If the rocks are grey, or worse white, this changes the overall color. | Chemistry |
What is a PGP fingerprint and why are reporters putting it in their twitter bio? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | PGP is a form of "public key" cryptography, which lets people talk to the reporter without anyone listening in. Suppose I'm a government worker who wants to talk to a reporter about something horrible our government is doing. I have two problems: 1) How can I send my info to the reporter without my bosses finding out a... | Technology |
Why has there been a shortage of NAND chips in the last two years? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | This subject is controversial. Companies are being sued over RAM pricing... they’re accused of either mis-representing the amount available or intentionally failing to produce as much as people want, to keep prices high. NAND supply could be affected by similar factors, or it could be technical and market factors. Ther... | Technology |
What exactly is 'Critical Race Theory'? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | Okay my thesis was actually on critical race theory (specifically as one of three theoretical lens used to analyze the issue of mass incarceration) and I'm literally always looking for an excuse to talk about it. I'm gonna try and explain this as accurately as I can with as little jargon as possible, so please bear wit... | Other |
Why can't shows like NCIS, Law and Order SVU, and Criminal Minds reference real world things? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | Either to avoid it looking like a paid product placement, or to avoid the owner of the trademark complaining or even suing. For example, if a show revolves around a terrorist attack which was organized by the terrorists using, say, WhatsApp, then the makers of WhatsApp might not be too happy about their trademark being... | Technology |
How impactful is the discovery of water on the moon? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | Not really honestly. There's no way for life to exist on the moon, theres still no atmosphere and constant bombardment with high energy radiation. Its impactful in the sense of "someday, when we make a moon base, we can use the water instead of trying to find ways to generate it" We already know the moon falls into the... | Chemistry |
Why can our brains see words that are spelled correctly, but we think they are spelled wrong? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | It’s called jamais vu. It can happen as a result of mental illness or intoxication, but it also happens when you repeat or look at a word often. It’s unclear why it happens, but it probably has to do with your brain ceasing to recognize the *word* and only recognizing the shape or sound of the word. | Psychology |
Why is Uber losing so much money and how can they still afford to be up and running? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | Uber is growing under the same strategy and mentality as Amazon - grow as fast as possible, gain as much market share as possible and do so at any expense. In a new market like ride sharing, the biggest and most popular will win in the long run. Profitability may be quarters, if not years, away but the prospect of goin... | Economics |
Why Are Some Children So Resistant to Eating? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | There are a LOT of potential answers to this, and I expect that others will have better explanations. However: \- A major and important point of child development is learning to say "no" -- essentially, learning that you have control over your own body and are that you are capable of setting boundaries. Because eating ... | Other |
Why when we look at a tall building we feel it's not that high but when we're on top and look downw it's the double hight ? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | well the sky doesn't have a limit so there's nothing to base the size off of. when you look down you can't even see the people where you would be standing looking up at it so it puts it into perspective. also you can die looking off a building and not looking up at it so that probably is a part | Physics |
Why do young children instinctively scream at the top of their lungs when they’re happy or excited? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | They haven't developed impulse control yet; they what they want, when they want it. They don't hold back because their screeching laughter or wailing cries will upset the people at the next table in the restaurant. This is also one of the reasons that chimps haven't developed a higher level of society as humans did des... | Biology |
what exactly is an algorithm and how is the algorithm for detecting fake news on Facebook failing? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | An algorithm is basically a recipe to solving a certain problem. The problem can be something like "what's the quickest way from point A to point B", "how to calculate digits of pi" or "how to tell a real news story from a fake one". In actuality an algorithm is a list of steps that are needed in order to solve the pro... | Mathematics |
The first humans made crude stone tools 2.5 million years ago, but our recorded history is only 5000 years old. Wtf did we do for 24,995,000 years? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | It was a long, slow buildup. We're used to history moving *FAST* because we have a globalized civilization with excellent record keeping, near instant access to huge amounts of data, and perfect communication. For the vast majority of human existence "civilization" was the 100 or so people you would ever meet in your l... | Technology |
Why is it good or bad to elevate feet/legs when sleeping? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | No scientist here, but I believe it helps blood flow. Good, because it helps any pooled blood or fluid, that winds up in the feet during the day, drain towards the heart. Most likely bad if you don't have a circulatory issue and may cause cold or numbness for lack of flow. | Biology |
How are we able to analyse DNA that is thousands of years old? How do we even find it? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | All living things are made of cells. Inside each cell is DNA. If the cell is preserved, regardless of age, then we can extract the DNA to analyze. Longer it's been dead the more likely it's decayed and broken down. Finding tissue that's thousands of years old means conditions were perfect to preserve it. | Biology |
How do the stars remain in the same spot every night if the planet is both orbiting the sun and rotating at the same time? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | They don't. They just move very, very slowly because they're very far away. Imagine driving on a road and looking at a mountain at the horizon. The mountain doesn't look like it's moving because it's far away, but it's obviously moving in relation to you, and after a while it will be obvious. | Physics |
Why are we constantly being told to conserve water if the planet is constantly recycling it through evaporation and precipitation? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | Water is difficult and expensive to sanitize to a level we consider potable (safe to drink). We are told to conserve water because most of the water many of us have access to is potable by default (the water that comes out of your sink and such....unless you're in Flint or something). The more water we simply waste, th... | Chemistry |
Why are trucking weigh stations ALWAYS closed? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | The goal of truck weighing stations is to prevent truckers from going over weight. However, they don't need to check *every* truck *every* time it uses the road to accomplish this goal. All they need to do is check enough trucks on enough trips that the risk of getting caught + penalties deters truckers from going over... | Economics |
Roaches. They're practically harmless but I fear them more than I fear death. Why?? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | Unreliable remote diagnosis: you have a phobia. People can be afraid of all sorts of things, rationality doesn't really apply here (i know a person that is afraid of pennies, another one is afraid of other people's toes, many are afraid of heights, spiders, mice, walking on bridges...). Just because you know it is harm... | Other |
Why does water have warm/cold spots? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | Water is much better than air (and a lot better than many other substances) at retaining heat. Oil, for instance, will heat a lot faster in a pan than the same amount of water will. It will also cool faster. So when in an ocean, a current or tide might take water that was warmer (for instances, water coming in from a s... | Physics |
How do cords get tangled? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | This is actually something that physicists have studied. Long story short, wires, strings, and cords tend to fall into rest in loops and those loops, and the ends, tend to fall in to other loops easily when disturbed. But this is just the set up. When you come along and pick it up, if you pick it up in the wrong place,... | Technology |
why/how does the sun shining have a positive effect on our mood? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | Actually, the UV radiation in the sun can act as the catalyst that helps changing your cholesterol under the skin into activated vitamin D, which strengthens your bones and ease your fatigue. Since your brain can recognize those changes inside your body and think that they are rewarding, it releases cognitive Dopamine ... | Psychology |
What is the gold standard and why did politicians advocate staying on it vs. taking the U.S. off of it? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | Currency is a medium that people use to exchange items and hold value. A currency however is only as strong as the authority behind it. The first currency was **commodity currency**, items that had intrinsic value like gold or silver. You could surely redeem these items for their own value. Next came **commodity-backed... | Economics |
How do gift cards generate profit? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | I'll add my 2 cents. I work in retail and for my company, the actual selling of giftcards isn't what generates the profit. When someone buys you a gift card for my brand we know that at some point in the future you will buy something from us. Many times people will attempt to use the whole gift card which means they go... | Technology |
why does our eyeballs move upwards when we close our eyes? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | It's an awesome protective feature. As your lids go down, your eyes go up. That means as something like a chemical comes toward your eyes, there's a good chance the center part of your cornea (line of sight) will be protected. Your brain really depends on your eyes a lot so it developed many protective measures. We are... | Biology |
Why are the orbits of planets and moons elliptical? I don’t understand how they don’t either spiral inwards and collide with their planets/star or sort of sling shot out of orbit. | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | When you orbit something, what you're really doing is falling towards it, but also moving sideways fast enough to not actually fall inward. Imagine you're going around a circle in a car. You have two 'forces' acting on you, the fictitious centrifugal force and the force of the car pushing you inward (the centrifugal fo... | Physics |
Why is it that when electronic devices malfunction, turning them off then on works so frequently? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | Most electronics work via a chip that has memory of what it is supposed to do. Like a set of instructions. Sometimes it gets overwhelmed and loses its place. When you turn it off and back on, you reset it to start back at step one, so now it knows its place and what to do next. | Technology |
Why aren't there more herbivorous fish? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | It mostly comes down to the food chain. The land food chain involves lots of towering trees, thick grasses, seeds, shrubs, and flowers, all of which are large and can easily fill an herbivore's stomach. That's because of the growing conditions on land, which are mostly stable. In the water, on the other hand, condition... | Biology |
Why does the square root of i = (1/square root of 2)(1+i)? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | Complex numbers have a real/imaginary part. So 'i' really = 0 + 1i then to find square root: * (a + bi)^2 = 0 + 1i * a^2 + 2abi + b^2 * i^2 = 0 + 1i : But i^2 == -1 * a^2 + 2abi - b^2 = 0 + 1i : Separate real/imaginary parts * (a^2 - b^2 ) = 0 : Means a == b * 2abi = 1i = > 2aai = 1i * 2a^2 i = 1i : divide by i * 2a^2 ... | Mathematics |
Why do people have such varying degrees of pain tolerance? [Biology] | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | Howdy, I with in an OR and some of that can be explained by how all surgeries vary in how invasive they are and the range of techniques involved. Imagine two cases ceterus paribus, one has an extremely difficult intubation with a glide-o-scope having 8 attempts and the other's was very easy. One patient will certainly ... | Biology |
When a novel is written by two authors, how does that work? Does one type while the other dictates and then swap or do they collaboratively write each section? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | Depends on the authors. Here's an article about how Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman wrote *Good Omens:* [ URL_0 ]( URL_0 ) It sounds like it wasn't terribly organized / preplanned but rather bounced ideas off each other and then wrote sections as they occurred to themselves. There is also a discussion in the introducti... | Other |
How did "Chinese" food in the U.S. get so standardized? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | The Chinese Exclusion Act in the 1800s banned Chinese immigrants from doing pretty much any good jobs which drove Chinese Americans to slums. Chinese food was considered dirty and for poor people as a result. The act was repealed during WWII because China was considered an ally. As a result Chinese food didn't really c... | Other |
How is money real any more? When millions and billions can disappear and reappear in the blink of an eye? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | The stock market is not *money*, it's *value*. If you have a $1 bill, then you have money with a fixed value of $1. Today it's worth $1; tomorrow it'll be worth $1. If you have 1 share of stock that's currently trading at $1, then you do not have any money. Instead, you have a stock with a variable value - if you sell ... | Economics |
How do military planes and drones (made to target ground units, houses, and so on) see through things like clouds and heavy rain? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | The best answer is that they don't "see" through clouds and rain. If the targeting system is purely visual (it rarely, if ever, is purely visual, but say it was) they couldn't target anything they couldn't see. In reality, they use combinations of targeting systems. There are visual targeting systems, sure, but there a... | Technology |
why do we see things in the corners of our eyes when there’s nothing really there? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | Vision in the peripheral is built to detect movement, your brain interprets input and this is what you “see”, especially related to danger. From time to time, a specific set of inputs are mistaken for something else and you then “see” something out of the corner of your eye which is in effect a prediction that later pr... | Biology |
Considering the fact that we've taken underwater vehicles (like James Cameron's deep sea challenger) to nearly the maximum known depth of the ocean, why haven't we begun to explore the ocean more? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | Because the deep ocean is really really big and *boring*. Most of the ocean is a desert, there is just nothing there. We can dredge the bottom and send unmanned probes, and for the most part we just find more nothing. Life on earth depends, directly or indirectly, on the sun or deep ocean vents. If you aren't close to ... | Other |
Why is electricity fine until it's grounded? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | Electricity is caused by a difference in electrical potential. At a more granular level the issue is a greater or lesser concentration of free electrons, those that aren't bound into individual atoms. Electrons have a negative charge so there is an excess of them on the negative terminal of a battery or electrical wire... | Physics |
Why do print newspapers like The New York Times have page numbers written like A30 A40 instead of just the numbers from 1 to 200 or 300 as the pages may be? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | The sections are designed and printed in parallel. They don't know how many pages the A section is when they print the B section as the A section has late breaking news and the front page. Some features sections are printed days before. Restarting the numbers makes for many fewer mistakes. | Technology |
What are SPACs in finance and why are they so popular recently? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | SPACs are a trick to speed up an IPO of a company. I’m sure you probably are aware of an IPO, when a company initially puts shares on the market and “goes public.” The problem is that for the owners of the company, this has heavy regulation attached to it and constant delays. It takes a while to take a company public t... | Economics |
Von Neumann ordinals. What does it even mean to define numbers as sets of empty sets? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | It's just a way to contruct numbers from basic axioms. In ZFC (the usual axioms for set theory) all sets are built up from the empty set, so all look like this. You have to remember that this is just a respresentation of numbers, one that makes it easy to define and manipulate them formally. It isn't saying anything mo... | Mathematics |
Why was the invention of 'zero' such a big deal, and how did it change things? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | As a mathematical idea, zero was a concept that was difficult for people to get their heads around for (literally) millennia. If zero is *nothing*, and the marks on a clay tablet all stand for *something*, making a mark for *nothing* didn't make any sense. But the Babylonians had a problem: the marks for 1, 60, and 360... | Mathematics |
The USA has many developed cities in "inhospitable" environments (Vegas, Phoenix), so why can't Australia build cities in the middle of their country? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | They could, but why would they? Cities tend to form around ports, shipping routes, places with natural resources or sometimes because geographic factors made it easier to defend from invaders. If there's no reason for anyone to live in central Australia, then why would anyone choose to live there instead of along the c... | Economics |
Which is better, a 2.4 GHz single core processor or 1.6 GHz dual core processor? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | Impossible to answer. Clock speed itself doesn't determine how "fast" a processor is. A 2.4Ghz Pentium 4 isn't the same as say, a 2.4Ghz i3 even if we pretended the Pentium 4 had two cores like the i3 would. Dual core processors are better at multitasking and multithreaded applications. If the processors are otherwise ... | Technology |
what do robo callers gain from calling and then immediately hanging up when someone answers? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | These systems are designed to just keep dialling numbers essentially non\-stop. If you answer and one of their dodgy telemarketers is available to take the call it'll connect you. If no dodgy telemarketer is available it will hang up. But it just keeps calling so that there's always a pool of phones beings answered and... | Other |
When astronauts are in space, they experience weightlessness in "zero gravity." But, the Earth's gravity is strong enough to hold satellites and the moon in orbit. So, what is zero gravity? Why aren't astronauts bound to the closest surface by the Earth's gravity but instead can float? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | They aren't really experiencing zero gravity. They're experiencing *most* of the gravity we experience here on the surface. They are floating because while in orbit, they, and the shuttle/station/etc that they are in, are in free fall. It's the same way people float inside the Vomit Comet airplane, they're all falling ... | Physics |
If I fell into a literal bottomless pit how long would I survive? What would be the cause of my death? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | Assuming you've managed to keep air out of the hole, then after about 22 mins, you'll be falling/flying through the Earth's core incredibly fast. More than likely, you'd be quite well cooked already by that point. Oh, make sure to position your pit on the poles. Otherwise the Earth's rotation will swiftly slam you into... | Physics |
- Why do boxers and other top sports stars have, and listen intently to, trainers and coaches that NEVER reached their level? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | There are multiple things that go into being a superstar in any field. The superstar is someone who can combine all these things. Their trainers will often have specific skills in one particular area but not the whole package. Moreover they will have skills that make them a good trainer that is not necessary for being ... | Other |
Can countries do the opposite of a state seceding? For instance, could the US "kick out" one of its' states and force it to become its own country? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | Yes. In fact there have been nations that have been formed because they were kicked out. Singapore is an example - they got kicked out of Malaysia. In the context of the US, there is no way in the US constitution for a state to be expelled from the union. Any attempt to do so would require an amendment of constitution.... | Other |
Why does blood smell like iron when that's just one of its many components? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | The smell of metal is actually the smell of skin oil and other bodily fluids breaking down on contact with metal. When they break down, they form other chemicals which evaporate and are detected by our noses. This means that when you smell, say, a penny, you're actually just smelling the gunk which was left on the penn... | Chemistry |
How exactly do control rods in a nuclear reactor capture neutrons and slow down the fission occurring? | [
{
"content": "The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.\nYour answer should follow these... | It doesn't really have much to do with Boron or cadmium being non-metal, they work to slow the reaction because they are good neutron absorbers. They happen to be isotopes that will readily grab a free neutron into their nucleus without much complaint. The amount of neutrons you have flying around is directly related t... | Physics |
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