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context: physics question: Why is the lowest temperature called absolute zero if it's relative to the frame of reference? | Temperatures such as absolute zero are the same in all reference frames. It's true that an object's overall motion depends on what reference frame you are in (a book on a train will be motionless in the train's frame, but speeding along in the ground frame). And it's true that temperature involves motion. But the motion that is associated with an object's temperature is a different kind of motion from the kind that is affected by a choice of reference frame. "Object motion" describes the movement of the entire object relative to a certain frame of reference. Ultimately, every object is made out of atoms which are moving (oscillating) randomly about, so an object's overall motion is really an average over the directional motion of all of its atoms. When this average is taken, all of the random motion of the atoms cancels out, leaving just the overall forward motion of the entire object (if the object is in the process of being shattered to bits the picture gets more complicated). In contrast to object motion, "thermal motion" describes the movement of the atoms in the object relative to each other, and not relative to the reference frame. As a result, thermal motion is independent of the frame of reference. Thermal motion is the driving mechanism behind temperature, so that temperature is also independent of frame. While the speed of a baseball will be different depending on whether you measure it from the ground or from a passing train, the temperature of the baseball will be the same in all frames. You can think of thermal motion as perfectly unordered atomic motion and object motion as perfectly ordered atomic motion. There is a third type of motion which an object can have, which is somewhere in between the order of object motion and randomness of thermal motion. This third type of motion is ordered vibrations. For instance, a ringing metal bell on a train has thermal motion (its temperature), ordered vibrational motion (its ringing), and object motion (its movement down the track). The word "ordered" is important because completely random vibrations are just part of thermal motion. Because the temperature of an object is just an average over the motion energy (kinetic energy) of its atoms relative to each other, there is an absolute temperature minimum beyond which an object can no longer be cooled. This point, where all the atoms have been completely stopped relative to each other, is known as "absolute zero" and corresponds to the number zero on the Kelvin temperature scale. An object cannot be cooled below this point because there is no atomic thermal motion left to stop. If you take a basketball and cool it down to absolute zero, and then throw it, the basketball will still be at absolute zero (you would have to throw it carefully so as to not give it heat in the moment of throwing, and also get rid of the surrounding air which would heat it up due to air resistance). All of the atoms in the basketball will be moving in unison away from you, so there will be non-zero object motion. But all the atoms will not be moving relative to each other, so there will still be zero thermal motion, and therefore zero temperature. Absolute zero is "absolute" both in the sense that no object can get colder, and in the sense that it is the same in all frames. |
context: physics question: Why will a delivery truck filled with birds sitting on its floor be heavier than a truck with the same birds flying around inside. | If the truck and the birds are the same, they will weigh the same no matter what the birds are doing inside. It seems that when in flight, the birds are not touching anything, so they cannot contribute any weight. But the key is that birds do not magically become weightless by flapping their wings. Gravity still acts on them and they still have weight, but they do not fall because their lift cancels their weight. In order to gain lift, which is an upwards force, the bird must impart an equal downwards force on the air. As a result, the air accelerates downwards until it hits the floor of the truck. At that point the air transfers its downward momentum to the truck. The total downward force that the truck experiences is its own weight, plus the force due to the air beaten down by the wings, which equals the weight of the birds. The air therefore carries the weight of the birds to the truck, and it ends up the same. This is all in keeping with Newton's third law which states that every force has an equal and opposite force. The birds can't go up unless the air goes down. We don't typically notice the air going down because a bird is so small. But a bigger bird gives a better picture. Imagine a helicopter hovering a few feet over the ocean. The ocean surface below dips and ripples visibly because of the air hitting it. The ocean is feeling the weight of the helicopter. |
context: society question: How can I find accurate science information on the internet? | This is more of a cultural question than a science question. As such, the best I can give you is my educated opinion. Let us look first at the general issue of acquiring accurate information, and then apply it to the internet. An appeal to authority is a logical fallacy. In other words, statements such as, "Dr. Smith says this idea is accurate, therefore this idea is accurate," cannot be guaranteed to be true all the time. Appealing to authority is therefore a weak method to determine the truth of an idea, and a weak argument to use in debate. The truth is more consistently arrived at through controlled and repeated experiments, as well as by applying rigid rules of logic and deduction. Unfortunately, an appeal to authority is often the only option available. Most of us don't have the time, training, or equipment to find the truth out for ourselves experimentally. For instance, personally determining whether most of the earth's oxygen comes from trees or from microscopic ocean plants is beyond the resources of most of us. We are often forced to rely on the word of somebody else. But there are still steps we can take when appealing to authority in order to optimize the rate at which we arrive at true information. 1. Personally conduct controlled experiments.The gold standard for establishing accurate information in science is repeatable, controlled experiments. Experimental results trump personal views almost every time. The beauty of science is that you don't have to trust another person's word that steel is ferromagnetic. You can test it yourself using your fridge and a fridge magnet. Believing another person's experimental results is not the same as doing the experiment yourself. The other person could have done the experiment wrong, or misread the result, or lied to you. If at all possible, conduct experiments yourself to find out the truth. Do you know why the Wright brothers were the first ones to successfully fly an airplane? It was not because they were the first to try, nor because they were the only ones with the engineering expertise. At that time in history, the U. S. government had published incorrect aerodynamic coefficients. As a result, all the teams trying to build airplanes were using the incorrect numbers and, as a result, were building flightless airplanes. After many failures using the government's coefficients, the Wright brothers built a wind tunnel and personally measured the correct aerodynamic coefficients. The Wright brothers were the first to fly because they personally performed controlled experiments instead of relying on other people's experiments. Researchers in laboratories are quite familiar with this principle. The first thing a researcher does when he starts a new project and sets up a new experimental system is to try to reproduce the published results of others. If the researcher can't reproduce the results, either the new equipment is not calibrated properly, or the published experiments are faulty. The answer is found by repeating the experiment. Don't be tempted to skip this step because you don't have access to an expensive laboratory. There are many concepts you can determine for yourself right at home, such as whether baking soda burns in a fire or whether the tip of your tongue can only taste sweet flavors. This concept of personal investigation goes beyond basic science. If you want to know whether toothpaste takes off pen stains, try it! If you need to find the area of a circle with a radius of 10 inches, calculate it yourself instead of looking it up. The best way to see if a car has a smooth ride is to test-drive it yourself. The best way to see if a new shirt fits is to try it on. For this reason, the internet will never completely replace shopping. There's no need to trust others if you are able to make an evaluation yourself. The internet is not the only source of all knowledge. It is just a backup resource when in-person evaluation is impractical. Your experiments should be as scientifically sound as possible. You can ensure this by controlling extraneous variables, quantifying the result, blinding the test subjects, repeating the experiment, and averaging over many repeats. For example, swallowing an herbal supplement and then telling yourself, "I feel stronger, therefore the pill made me stronger," is not very scientific. Such an approach will not be very successful in leading you to the truth. On the other hand, if you ingest a certain herbal supplement every morning, take your blood pressure every night for a month, calculate a running average of the numbers, and find your blood pressure steadily decreasing, then you would have a more convincing case that the herb is doing something. Be warned, however, that many experiments can be deadly. Investigating whether chlorine bleach cures an upset stomach could end up killing you. Even many over-the-counter herbal pills can put you in the hospital if taken too often or too long. If your experiment involves swallowing, dangerous chemicals, fuel, electricity, or heavy machinery, it's best to first check to see if anyone else has tried the experiment and lived to tell about it before trying it yourself. Often you don't have the expertise, equipment, or time to find an answer through your own experimentation. In that case, you must turn to others for answers, and we move on to the next steps. 2. If only non-expert opinion exists on the subject, go with your own opinion.
Your next-door neighbor may be very animated and convincing, but unless he has a degree in physics and has done controlled experiments repeated by others, his views on time travel have the same worth as your own views. A time machine built according to his designs will work just as well as one built according to your own design (neither will probably work). Reading a lot of imaginative science fiction novels does not make him an expert. Reading popular science magazines and lay science books does not make him an expert. Tinkering in his basement also does not make him an expert. People become experts in a given field by getting a degree in that field, engaging with the corresponding professional community, and doing their own controlled experiments. Degrees matter because science is hard. It takes the pressure of homework, exams, and grades to push a student through the hard parts of science. Without a degree, a person may think they know a lot about a subject but in fact know very little because they have skipped the hard work needed for deep understanding. (Contrary to what you may have heard, Einstein had a PhD.) No matter how fervently your aunt believes that orange juice cures warts, or how many news reports she thinks she has read verifying this belief, going with your own opinion will lead you to the truth just as quickly as listening to hers. You are both equally non-expert, so you might as well go with your own uninformed intuition rather than her uninformed intuition. There are many voices on the internet, most of them non-expert. While discussion boards, blogs, and online comments can be fun, entertaining, cathartic, and even stimulating, be careful to not value the statements of others above your own opinions if they are not experts in the corresponding field. Note that the best options are still personal experimentation and turning to experts. You should only turn to your own uninformed notions when experts aren't available and personal experimentation is not an option. 3. Find an authority who is an expert on the specific subject at hand.
It should be clear at this point that truth is best obtained by turning to real experts, and not by turning to self-proclaimed experts, or non-experts. But being an expert is not enough. The authority should be an expert in the specific field that they are commenting on in order for their opinion to have weight. Being an expert in one field does not make you an expert in all fields. This mistake is made more often than you may realize because many people love to view their heroes as all-knowing beings. Being successful at boxing does not make a boxer an expert on the quality of kitchen appliances. And yet, the grills that a famous boxer recommends in advertisements are successful. Similarly, a pop singer may have a fine voice, but that does not qualify him to advise you on which nail polish works the best. Politicians may know a thing or two about elections, politics, and the law, but that in no way makes them a credible voice on climate science. This mistake even happens in the professional scientific community. For example, the renowned theoretical physicist Roger Penrose has written numerous books on neuro-biology, a subject he knows nothing about. Such books have no more weight than sheer speculation. Similarly, Linus Pauling won the Nobel prize for his work on the physics and chemistry of atomic bonds, but that does not make him an expert on nutrition. Pauling successfully launched the unscientific mega-vitamin health movement when in reality he knows very little about the subject. Being smart in one field does not make you know everything about every field. If your dentist tries to advise you on hair care, or your optometrist recommends certain shoe inserts, be warned that they have wandered into territory where their opinion is no better than your own. 4. Make sure the expert is unbiased.
Once you have found a genuine expert on the subject at hand, you still have to be careful that his words have merit. Bias tends to consciously or subconsciously propel experts away from the truth. When their motivation for speaking becomes something other than making the truth known, truth tends to suffer. The most obvious form of bias is a conflict of interest. A scientist hired by a cigarette company will make statements about the effects of smoking that the company wants him to say, and not those that are the most truthful. Any famous person who is hired to endorse a product is biased towards the product by his paycheck. His comments in a commercial are not his honest opinion of the quality of the product he is trying to sell, but are just the result of money talking. A famous boxer that is peddling grills is doubly unreliable as a voice on the quality of kitchen appliances; he is a non-expert, and he is biased by his paycheck. An expert can be biased even if he goes unpaid. A scientist studying the efficacy of a product that is made by a company in which he owns stock will care less about the truth. Scientists who are trying to sell you pills, workshop tickets, treatment plans, or books at the same time they are explaining a scientific principle are biased. Once you find a genuine, unbiased expert, go ahead and listen to what he has to say, but don't automatically believe everything he says. Statements that he makes which are direct reports of experimental results or come straight from science textbooks are the most likely to be true. Statements that sound more like hypothesizing, personal opinion, or speculation are less likely to be true. Sentences such as "our results showed that doubling the length of the laser did not change its output power" are more reliable than sentences such as "the laser will revolutionize the robotics industry." 5. Check to make sure the expert's opinion matches the consensus of most experts, or at least seek out a second opinion.Even after making sure you have found a credible, unbiased expert, his words could still be in error. Experts are humans and humans make mistakes. With over six billion people on the planet, you can find many experts that are making false claims. That is why peer review is so crucial in science. The best way to minimize being misled by one expert is to seek out many experts. The very best path is to seek out the consensus of all scientists. For example, only one discredited scientist in a world filled with scientists claims that autism is caused by vaccines. The rest of the actual scientists in the world agree that autism is not caused by vaccines. Consensus does not mean that the doctors vote on their favorite idea and the one with the most votes wins. Consensus in science means that the idea with the most experiments to back it up is the most accepted one. If one researcher does an experiment and finds the result to be 700 Volts, but a dozen other independent researchers repeat the exact same experiment and find the result to be around 5000 Volts, then 5000 Volts is most likely to be the correct answer. In areas that are more specific, it is not always possible to collect a consensus because there are not enough researchers able to work on that specific problem. In such cases, it is still worthwhile to get a second and third expert opinion. In the world of journalism, this is summed up by the motto "use multiple sources". For instance, there is a consensus among medical doctors that diabetes is caused by abnormal blood sugar regulation. Because of this consensus, it is highly likely that this statement is true. On the other hand, there is not a consensus among medical doctors whether you personally have diabetes. Gaining such a consensus would require every doctor in the world to personally meet with you, perform a physical exam, and review your lab work. Such an approach is obviously impractical. Where a consensus is not attainable, the next best thing is a second opinion. The whole world may not be able to personally examine your health, but two or three different doctors certainly can. Doctors who value scientific truth more than their ego will even seek out a second opinion when considering a weighty diagnosis. This principle goes far beyond your health. You should read several different books and articles by independent sources on the same topic before considering a scientific statement valid. With the five steps to finding scientific truth now established, let us apply them to the internet. Searching for Accurate Scientific Information on the Internet 1. Personally conduct controlled experiments.
See if you can answer the question yourself before turning to the internet. 2. If only non-expert opinion exists on the subject, go with your own opinion.
When you come across a website making scientific claims, check to see if the author is an expert. Use an independent website to check the author's credentials instead of trusting what the author himself claims. If the author is not an expert, then do not give very much weight to his comments. Again, an expert is someone who has a mainstream degree in the field he is commenting about and is actively engaged in research in this field. Note that sometimes a non-expert will carefully aggregate the claims of experts. In that case, the non-expert is not really making the claims, the experts are, so the claims have the high weight they deserve. But don't just trust the non-expert to quote the experts properly. You should go to the original source to verify the claims. For instance, science news websites contain the wisdom of experts, as gathered and summarized by non-experts. For this reason, science news websites may be highly reliable sources of science information, if you verify their claims by going to the original sources that they reference. Make sure that the documents that the science news article references are indeed by experts and indeed say what they are purported to say. Similarly, blogs that simply contain personal reflection essays by non-experts are highly unreliable. In contrast, blog articles written by experts and containing links to scholarly publications to back up their claims are far more reliable. In general, avoid places where non-experts tend to congregate if you want reliable scientific information, such as listed below. These places may be worth visiting for social enjoyment, entertainment, catharsis, or cutting edge news, but don't treat them as reliable sources of scientific facts. For accurate science information on the internet, avoid: 3. Find an authority who is an expert on the specific subject at hand.
The safest way to end up with a web page written by an expert in that specific subject is to go first to the following types of websites: 4. Make sure the expert is unbiased
When seeking for reliable scientific information on the internet, avoid websites that use their information to try to sell you something. For example, if you want to learn about how the adrenal glands work, an internet search leads you to various sites. One of the sites looks professional and seems to contain sound scientific explanations about the adrenal gland. But a closer look reveals that just about every page and paragraph on this website is trying to sell you pills, oils, or books. These sales pitches should immediately tell you that the expert is biased and therefore his scientific information is unreliable. Even though the author of this website claims to be a doctor with all sorts of credentials, he is not motivated to tell you scientific truth. Rather, he is motivated to tell you anything he can think up that will persuade you to buy his product. This bias does not mean that every scientist salesman is evil, or is consciously telling lies, or is pushing products that are worthless. It just means that they can not be relied upon to provide accurate scientific information, because of their conscious or subconscious bias. Unfortunately, such websites can be dangerously persuasive, spreading misinformation as well as poverty and misery to those we fall prey to their "remedies" and falsehoods. 5. Check to make sure the expert's opinion matches the consensus of most experts, or at least seek out a second opinion.
Consensus opinion is most readily found on the internet by following the tips below: In summary, the best way to find accurate scientific information on the internet is to: avoid non-expert opinions such as found in general discussion boards, forums, article comments, and popular media; find an expert in the appropriate field by using government, university, and academic journal websites; make sure the expert is unbiased and is not trying to sell you anything; and lastly, check that the statements of the expert match the consensus of other experts. If all this sounds like too much work, then you will have to get comfortable with half-truths. In life, finding the whole truth requires hard work, but can be very rewarding. |
context: society question: How can I tell whether my friend's scientific explanation is accurate? | As detailed in an earlier post, the best way to find accurate scientific information is to personally perform controlled experiments and to look up the consensus of unbiased experts as found in academic textbooks, peer reviewed academic journals, and academic/governmental websites. But what if you don't have the time, money, or understanding to use professional scientific resources to assess your friend's claims? In such cases, you can use the following informal guidelines: 1. If your friend says, "Nobody Knows!" he probably really means: "I personally don't know. Scientists likely know the answer very well, but I am too uneducated (or to vain) to realize this." It turns out that most every-day physical effects are very well understood by scientists at this point in history. Unless your friend is discussing exotic subjects such as dark matter, quantum gravity, or neutrino mass (in which case nobody really knows), the exclamation "Nobody Knows!" should be a giant red flag that any scientific explanation from this friend is going to be unreliable. For instance, a school teacher once told me that nobody knows what fire is and it will probably remain a mystery forever. A few minutes at the library revealed that traditional fire is just incandescing soot, and that my school teacher knows very little. 2. If your friend says, "It's complicated," and then gives an explanation that is vague and roundabout, he really means, "I looked up the answer once, but I personally had a hard time understanding it." Once a person deeply understands a subject, he should be able to explain its main points to a five-year-old. A person who says a subject is too hard to explain simply does not understand the subject. He may know how to apply the mathematical methods and get the right answer but fails to grasp the underlying meaning. For this reason, the phrase, "It's complicated," followed by vague wording is a red flag that your friend's explanation is unreliable. 3. Be wary if your friend says, "according to my theory" in a scientific explanation. The problem with this phrase is that your friend is demonstrating that he does not know the difference between a theory and a hypothesis. A theory is a general framework of ideas that has been confirmed by repeated, independent experiments. A hypothesis is an educated guess. Unless your friend is a published theorist with a list of experiments supporting his claims, he really means to use the word "hypothesis" but does not know the difference. The other problem with the phrase "according to my theory" is that he is describing his own individual thoughts, which is always less reliable than the consensus of many experts. 4. Your friend's scientific explanations are likely unreliable if he keeps saying the exact phrase over and over gain. Your friend is likely avoiding using different wording because he does not understand the subject and has simply memorized a two-word answer he bumped into. For example, if you ask your friend why X-rays are harmful and his reply is, "X-rays are made out of ionizing radiation that goes into your body where the ionizing radiation hurts your body because its ionizing radiation and your body does not like ionizing radiation," then that is an indication that he does not know what ionizing radiation is or why it is harmful. 5. Another red flag indicating unreliable explanations is the heavy use of buzzwords such as "frequency", "quantum", "energy field", "cosmic", "Einstein", "Galileo", or "Newton", especially if such words are used in a vague way. 6. If your friend contradicts himself within the space of a few minutes, this is a good indication that his thoughts are not logically consistent and likely unreliable. 7. Another red flag indicating unreliable explanations is if your friend uses concepts or objects from science fiction to illustrate his point. The "inertial dampers" from Star Trek are complete nonsense. A clear thinker will realize that mentioning inertial dampers in a serious discussion of real science will only cause confusion and in no way be helpful. If your friend uses examples from fiction to explain real science, he is demonstrating that he has a hard time distinguishing science fiction from science fact. Most of the exciting "science" in popular fiction is complete nonsense and has no relation to the real world. 8. You can also evaluate the reliability of your friend's scientific claims by assessing his expertise in that particular field. Experts in a certain field spend their whole life studying, learning, discussing, experimenting, teaching, getting paid for, and putting their reputation on the line for their particular field of study. That is what makes them experts and makes their explanations much more reliable than non-experts. Street smarts, clever guesswork, or watching a lot of documentaries are no substitute for real expertise when it comes to science. The key point is that they have to be experts in the particular subject at hand to be reliable. Your heart surgeon may be a genius in the medical theatre, but that does not make his off-the-wall thoughts on neutron stars any more credible. If you ask a random friend at school or work why the sky is blue, you will likely receive a nonsense answer such as "the sky reflects the ocean." Pose the same question to a friend that reads a lot of popular science books as a hobby and you might get a slightly more reliable answer such as, "light bounces off the air." Ask instead a high school science teacher and you may get an even better answer such as, "Rayleigh scattering". Finally, ask a professor of electromagnetism why the sky is blue and you will get the most reliable answer: "The sky is blue because of Rayleigh scattering plus a thermal solar spectrum plus bulk attenuation plus the non-linear human perception of color." The point is not that you should seek out a university professor for every little question you have, but that you should weight the reliability of answers you receive according to the expertise of the speakers. In the end, the best course of action is to consult textbooks, peer-reviewed academic journals, and academic/governmental websites. |
context: society question: How can I win the lottery? | You can't. There are only two kinds of people who play the lottery: 1) people who get a thrill out of losing money, and 2) people who don't understand basic mathematics. If you think there is a third kind of person ( a "lucky" person, a "gifted" person, etc.), then you definitely are the second type and don't understand mathematics. The winner of a lottery is randomly chosen. For this reason, the intelligence, skill, honesty, poverty, creativity, or luck of the participants has absolutely no bearing on who wins. Being random, the rate at which a particular participant wins is directly proportional to the number of people playing for single-winner lotteries, and directly proportional to the number of possible answers for number-guessing lotteries. For example, the Mega Millions lottery has 175,711,536 possible answers, and only one right answer wins the jackpot. That means that each ticket has a one in 175,711,536 chance in winning the jackpot. If you played the Mega Millions once a year, it would take (on average) 175,711,536 years to win the jackpot. If you bought a hundred tickets every day (which would cost you about $37,000 a year), it would take you 4,800 years to win. In order to win the jackpot once in your adult lifetime (say, 50 years), you would have to buy $10,000 worth of tickets every day for the rest of your life. Feeling lucky does not change these numbers, it just makes it easier for you to fool yourself that you are somehow special so the laws of the universe don't apply to you. Many feel that lotteries are unethical as they amount to a tax on stupid people. The people who play the lottery; the poor and uneducated; need food assistance, job training, and education and not an additional tax. These concepts apply equally well to all types of gambling that rely solely on chance, from roulette to slot machines. If you buy a Mega Millions ticket every month for your entire life, you have a 1 in 290,000 chance of winning the jackpot once in your life. According to LiveScience, there is a higher chance that you will die from an asteroid impact (1 in 200,000), a lethal bee sting or snake bite (1 in 100,000), or a lightning strike (1 in 84,000). If you honestly believe you will win the Mass Millions jackpot tomorrow, then you must also logically believe that you will be struck dead by lightning, be killed by a bee, or smashed to pieces by an asteroid tomorrow. Once you believe that one very low-probability event will personally happen to you, you must logically believe that all low-probability events will. These beliefs make for a very dim and misguided existence. In contrast, your odds of dying in a car crash are 1 in 100. That means that out of the 100 people that live in your apartment complex or on your block, on average one will die in a car accident. If you go to a Red Sox game and look around at the 37,000 other fans in Fenway Park, 370 of them will die in a car crash, 33 will die in a fire, and 4 will drown. Odds are that none of them will get killed by lightning, bees, or asteroids, and none of them will ever win the Mega Millions jackpot even if they all play the lottery every month for the rest of the lives. You will get rich far quicker by driving the speed limit and avoiding an accident than by playing the lottery. I have used Mega Millions for the purpose of illustration. But the concept applies to all large lotteries. You may argue, "I know my odds are low, but someone has to win." You are right. Somehow does have to win. That someone is not you. Someone also had to be Napoleon. That someone is not you. Someone was also strangled to death by her own scarf while riding go-karts. That someone is not you. You will not be strangled by your own scarf, so you have no need to fear scarves. Someone was pushed into a grinding machine by a robot. That someone is not you. Fantasizing about how wonderful it would be to win the lottery will not make that one person you any quicker than it will turn you into Napoleon. Why do people keep playing the lottery when they consistently lose and the odds are so against them? The answer may be dopamine. Dopamine is a natural neurotransmitter that regulates reward-driven behavior. Rewarding behavior such as eating and finishing a task raise levels of dopamine. Stimulating drugs such as cocaine and nicotine are believed to have such a powerful effect because they unnaturally trigger high levels of dopamine. The amazing thing about the dopamine response is that dopamine increases before the reward is actually obtained. Simply expecting a reward is enough to trigger higher dopamine. It is not the winning, but the expectation of winning that gives gamblers a drug-like high and keeps them coming back for more. Gambling is addictive in the same way that cocaine is addictive. |
context: society question: How can science solve all of our problems? | Science can not solve all of our problems. While scientific understanding can help battle things like disease, hunger, and poverty when applied properly, it does not do so completely and automatically. Furthermore, there are many areas of life where science can have little impact. Let us look at some of the reasons why this is so. First of all, there is a huge difference between knowing something and acting on it. Science is concerned with accumulating and understanding observations of the physical world. That understanding alone solves no problems. Individual people have to act on that understanding for it to help solve problems. For instance, science has found that regular exercise can lower your risk of heart disease. Knowing this fact is interesting, but it will do nothing for your personal heath unless you act on it and actually exercise. And that's the hard part. Reading an article about exercise is easy. Getting into an actual routine of regular exercise is harder. In this sense, science really solves no problems at all. Problems are only solved when people take the knowledge (or tool, or pill, or whatever) provided by science and use it. In fact, many of humanity's biggest problems are caused by lack of action, and not lack of knowledge. Take world hunger, for example. There is currently enough food produced on the earth every year to comfortably feed every single person. The world produces about 700 trillion grams of rice each year. With seven billion people on the planet, 365 days in the year, and about 40 grams per typical serving of rice, there is enough rice on the planet to feed every single last person seven servings of rice every day. And this is just rice. Similar numbers hold up for wheat, corn, meat, etc. Science has done an amazing job in the last 50 years of making farms productive. And yet, millions of people in the world still suffer starvation. Why? Because of actions. If all it took was science to solve problems, no one would go hungry anymore because there is enough food. We could fill books with the analysis of human actions that cause world hunger if we wanted to, but let's just focus on a few factors to illustrate the point. A large portion of the world's food is simply wasted by lazy humans. People in affluent countries buy more food than they need, so that much of their food goes rotten and must be tossed before it is eaten. Or they pile more food on their plate than they could possibly eat and much of the food ends up in the trash. Another major factor is corrupt or incompetent governments who hoard food among a select few, poorly distribute food, or refuse to adopt modern agricultural methods. Tyrants sometimes even use forced hunger as a way to subdue the masses or punish opponents. Science can make an acre of farmland amazingly productive, but it can't force a dictator to give back the food he has stolen from his people. Secondly, science can only tell us what exists and not what we should want as humans. Science can answer questions such as "is the average global temperature increasing?" but can never answer questions such as "what should humans do about global warming?" Such a question really depends on what humans want. Some humans want to be free to enjoy gas-guzzling trucks regardless of what long-term impacts this may have on the environment, while others want to force everyone to give up such freedoms in order to protect the environment. Settling who is "right" in such a debate is largely a matter of ethics, morality, and opinion; not science. If I am personally on the environmental side of the debate and am frustrated that countries can't pass more stringent environmental laws, my real problem is that too many people want something different (freedom) from what I want (environmental controls). Science can build cars that emit less pollution, but it cannot force people to drive those cars. It takes laws to force people to drive environmentally friendly cars, and laws are just the written wishes of the majority of the people (or of dictators). Many of the "problems" that are discussed in the political sphere are not really problems at all in the scientific sense. They are simply a clash of human wants: one large faction wants one thing and the other faction wants something else. No one is really "right" in the scientific sense in such cases (although, fervent partisans are usually convinced they are always right and their opponents are always wrong). For instance, is it better to let the free market run a nation's healthcare system or should the government take over? The answer to this question really depends on how you define "better", which depends entirely on what you personally want. To people that want freedom above all else, "better" will mean letting the free market provide healthcare. To humans that want a uniform system that won't let people fall through the cracks, "better" may mean centralized medicine. The point is that neither side of the debate is "better" in a scientific sense, so science can never solve this problem. Science can save more lives through medical breakthroughs, and can even streamline the healthcare bureaucracy, but it can't find out if government-run or market-run healthcare is better, because "better" is so subjective. The same situation exists for many "problems" debated in the political sphere. For this reason, scientists do not make good political leaders. The role of political leaders is to ascertain and carry out the wants of the people, which science is fundamentally not equipped to do. Lastly, many areas of life are simply too non-physical to be satisfactorily addressed by science. Love, hate, relationships, poetry, art, music, literature, and spirituality are all outside the realm of science. Any problems that arise in these areas cannot be completely solved by science. |
context: society question: How did Albert Einstein flunk math and still end up so smart? | There is no record of Einstein flunking or ever getting low marks in math. Albert Einstein was an all-around good student with exceptional grades in math and science, according to the biography written by Albrecht Folsing. The statement that Einstein was a poor student is pure myth. Another version of this myth states that Einstein revolutionized physics without ever getting a degree, as if to say that advanced education is a waste. The truth is that Einstein received his teaching diploma from Zurich Polytechnic in 1900 and his PhD from the University of Zurich in 1905 (his PhD dissertation was on molecular dimensions). Still another version of the myth states that Einstein developed his revolutionary theories while working as a lowly patent clerk, a position equivalent to a mailman. While it is true that Einstein worked as a patent clerk, it was not because he was unqualified to teach physics. He simply had not yet found a teaching position at this point in his life (1900-1908). Additionally, a patent clerk is not a mundane job concerned with shuffling papers. Rather, patent clerks evaluate patents for the latest inventions in their field, and therefore must understand the cutting-edge science. Einstein was assigned to evaluate patents for electromagnetic inventions. These devices grappled with scientific questions about signals, light, and time; the same questions Einstein was dealing with in developing relativity. In this way, his patent clerk job was a highly technical and valuable position that helped lead Einstein to his discoveries. Einstein's success seems to be a rare combination of innate genius, curiosity, passion for physics, and, yes, education. Too often the education part is misrepresented. This myth has perhaps survived so long because it is tempting to every school child to justify his bad grades by saying he's the next Einstein. |
context: society question: How many years do we have until the earth becomes so over-populated that people won't be allowed to have children? | The earth is not in an immediate danger of over-population. This misconception has been around for centuries. Over-population alarmism is driven by various political and environmental ideologies. In 1980, a brief boom in births globally lead some activists to proclaim that if trends continued, calamity would ensue. The only problem with this exercise in extrapolation is that trends did not continue. Birth rates have been steadily declining. U.S. Census Beareau data shows that the global population growth rate in 1980 was almost 2%. The rate today (2012) is about 1% and steadily dropping. If every family in the world had a house and if every house were stacked end-to-end and front-to-back in one gigantic complex, the entire current world population could be housed in California alone. And this calculation does not include the possibility of building up. If people were to live in 100-story high apartment buildings stacked end-to-end, front-to-back, and top-to-bottom, then the entire world population could be housed in San Diego alone. The problem with over-population disaster scenarios made by alarmists is that they typically extrapolate the population growth but don't extrapolate the advance of technology. The improvement in agricultural efficiency, medicine, and residential construction has out-paced the growth in population. As a result, the world's standard of living has on average improved, despite the population growth. This effect will continue in the future. It's true that there are ever more mouths to feed and cars to fill with gasoline, but there are also ever better ways being developed to make food and extract gasoline. Even if thousands of years hence the earth did begin to approach dangerous levels of population and technological progress stalled, the decline in quality of life would naturally lead to lower birth rates long before the situation ever became cataclysmic. In truth, the earth is far from over-populated, as the population density map below reveals. |
context: society question: I watched a science documentary and then came up with my own theory. Where can I get it published? | First of all, let's get the terminology right. In science, a "theory" is a set of mathematical equations that have been verified by experiment. In everyday language, we use the word "theory" to mean a guess, but in science it only means ideas that have already been confirmed by physical observations. In contrast, a "hypothesis" is the word used in science to label a set of mathematical equations that have not yet been tested. At best, what you have at this point is a hypothesis and not a theory. Furthermore, an authentic scientific hypothesis must include a mathematical equation linking physical properties. Without an equation, a string of science words is closer to science fiction than to a genuine scientific hypothesis. For instance, the statement, "dogs are prettier than cats," is definitely not a scientific theory, and is not even a hypothesis. Making this statement more science sounding – "members of the Canis lupus familiaris subspecies are more aesthetically pleasing than Felis Catus individuals" – does not change the fact that this statement is not a hypothesis. This statement lacks physical properties (beauty is an opinion and not a physical property). Also, this statement lacks an equation linking the properties. In contrast, the statement, "dogs weigh on average ten pounds heavier than cats," is a genuine hypothesis. This hypothesis would be represented in mathematical form as wdog,ave = wcat,ave + 10. (This hypothesis is not a very good one, because it is way too general to mean much, but it is a genuine hypothesis nonetheless.) Ideas don't have to be complex to be valid hypotheses. The statement, "the Higgs boson has a mass of 30 kilograms," is a valid hypothesis because it can be written by the simple equation mHiggs = 30 kg. To test such a hypothesis, you just need to find the mass of the Higgs boson. This is what the team at CERN did (the hard part for them was finding the Higgs boson in the first place). They found that mHiggs =2.2×10-25 kg. Unless the documentary you watched lead you to write down an equation linking physically observable properties, you don't even have a hypothesis. What you likely have is a string of science-sounding words without much actual scientific meaning. Statements such as "the flux capaciton fluctuates mnemonically" or "graviton beams stimulate Heisenberg compensation" may make for fun science fiction shows and novels, but they are nonsense in the real world. Even if they did make some sense, they would not have much scientific meaning until converted into concrete mathematical form. The problem is that scientists in a documentary have to take the complicated and precise equations that constitute the theory and reduce them to a string of inexact non-science words for the non-scientist viewer to understand. The viewer then thinks those inexact words are the theory, when in reality they are just vague, superficial hints of what the actual theory looks like. For instance, Einstein's theory of gravity (General Relativity) states: But to the average documentary viewer this equation is incomprehensible. So instead, a scientist on a documentary may say that Einstein's theory of gravity, "tells us that mass warps space like a bowling ball warps a rubber sheet." The statement "mass warps space" by itself is not a theory. It's not even a hypothesis, because it can't be put into equation form by itself. It's nothing but a string of inexact words intended to give a non-scientist a superficial hint of the overall flavor of Einstein's theory of gravity. The actual theory is the equation above. But the average viewer has no exposure to the real theory and may assume the statement "mass warps space" is the theory. The viewer then strings together a handful of science-sounding words in a similar manner (e.g. "black hole fluctuations twist mass") and he thinks he has a new theory, when in reality he has next to nothing. Let us now address the issue of where to publish scientific theories and experiments. If you have to ask the question, "where can I publish?" in the first place, it is very unlikely that you have something worth publishing. Ideas in science are only worth publishing if they extend the current knowledge. To extend the knowledge in a given field (and thereby have something worth publishing) requires first understanding the current knowledge. You can't create a theory of gravity that will be better than Einstein's theory of gravity unless you first fully understand Einstein's theory of gravity. "Understanding" a theory means being able to solve and apply its equations, and not just reading a book about it. Furthermore, understanding the current level of knowledge requires reading the latest academic publications. So you see, by the time you have something worth publishing, you will be well aware of where you can publish. This post is not meant to discourage anyone who encounters science in the popular media and is inspired to think deeply. On the contrary, this post is meant to guide you into a more productive path. If you think your idea has merit, go for it! The first step would be to formulate your idea (if possible) into an authentic hypothesis. List all the physically observable properties involved in your idea (mass, speed, volume, etc.), and then write an equation linking these properties in such a way that it encapsulates your idea. Next, look through recent academic journals to see if anyone has already thought up or disproven your hypothesis. A good place to find academic journals is at your local university library. From there, read up in college-level textbooks to see if your idea is logically sound and does not violate well-established principles (such as the conservation of mass-energy). If you make it this far in your efforts, then contact authors who have published similar papers and ask them to give you some feedback on your hypothesis. For the rest of the process, such contacts will guide you towards experimentation and publication if your idea has merit. This is the quick and less-successful route towards publishing. The more successful, yet slow, route to publishing scientific papers is to go to graduate school and get a graduate degree in science. As part of graduate school, you will be paired with a research advisor who will teach you how to publish papers. |
context: society question: What is the most harmful drug to society? | According to a 2010 study by the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs (ISCD), the most harmful and damaging drug to society is alcohol. Alcohol beat out such heavy hitters as cocaine, LSD, heroine, and tobacco. Note that this does not mean that alcohol is more toxic to the human body gram for gram than these other drugs. Rather, when all behavioral effects are taken into account, including harm to the user and harm caused to others by the user, alcohol causes the most total harm to society. As should be obvious, the total harm a drug can cause is linked to its availability and legality. While LSD may cause more brain damage per user than alcohol, the relative difficulty in obtaining LSD keeps it from inflicting as much total harm on society. In many societies, drinking alcohol is so easily obtained and such an accepted part of the social culture that many people don't even realize that alcohol is a drug in the same category as heroine and cocaine. The underestimation of the effects of alcohol is perhaps one of the reasons it is able to cause so much harm. The "harm" that the study investigated included damage to health, drug dependency, economic costs and crime. In a report by the Centers for Disease Control, it was estimated that medium and heavy consumption of alcohol caused 75,754 deaths in the United States in 2001. According to Cancer Research UK, alcohol causes at least seven kinds of cancer: mouth cancer, throat cancer, esophageal cancer, laryngeal cancer, breast cancer, bowel cancer, and liver cancer. In addition, alcohol has significant psychoactive effects that impairs a person's ability to avoid danger and obey the law. |
context: society question: What makes x so special that you see it all the time in equations? | From a purely mathematical perspective, there is absolutely nothing special about choosing the letter x as your label for a variable. Labels are used in mathematics to represent numbers that are not yet known or can change (variables), a collection of numbers (functions and vectors), and numbers that are known but are too complicated to write out explicitly every time (constants). You can choose to label the unknown thing however you want and still end up with the same answer. Labels need to be used in order to keep track of the mathematical objects. Consider a simple example: I walk into a classroom with three identical cardboard boxes, each containing some unknown item. The items in each box are different. I give the boxes to the students in the room and ask them to try to figure out what each box contains without opening them. The students start weighing the boxes, shaking them, smelling them and so forth. They find that one box contains something heavy. But a few minutes later, the boxes have been handed around and they can't remember if the one that contains something magnetic was also the one that contains something heavy because the boxes all look the same. What do they need? labels! With a pencil, the students mark one box "A", another box "B", and the last box "C". Now they can keep track of which properties belong to which box. It doesn't matter which box they decide to call "A". In fact, from a mathematical perspective, it doesn't matter what they call each box. They could have labeled the boxes "1", "2", and "3" or "red", "green", "blue", or even "Freddy", "Sally", and "Joe", and the labels would still have served their purpose of keeping the boxes differentiated until their contents can be known. While there is total mathematical freedom in choosing label names, there is still some human advantage to wisely choosing the names. For instance, what if the students labeled the boxes "Michael Jordan", "Micheal Jackson," and "the moon". Observations such as "Micheal Jordan is heavy but Micheal Jackson is light", "the moon sounds like it contains powder" , and "Michael Jordan seems more magnetic than the moon" are confusing. The problem is that these words already have meanings on their own. In contrast, letters of the alphabet are vague enough entities that they can be used as labels without creating confusion. The best labels for the boxes are probably "A", "B", and "C". The same is true in mathematics. The equation "red = blue2" is a perfectly valid mathematical equation if "red" simply labels the area of a square and "blue" labels the length of the square. But to humans, this equation looks confusing because these words have meanings beyond how they are being used as labels. The best labels are the ones that have as little meaning as possible on their own. Good labels for variables in mathematics are therefore the letters of the alphabet. Even better are the letters that get used the least in everyday English: x, y, and z. I believe these letters are used so often as variable names in mathematics because they are used so little in conversational English. To further reduce confusion, certain traditions have arisen with regards to assigning labels. Following these traditions makes the equations easier to read, but does not make their mathematical content any different. People who use non-traditional labels may still get the same answers in the end, but they will confuse a lot of people along the way (perhaps including themselves). Below are the traditions for mathematical labels. I suggest you follow these whenever doing mathematics. In general, letters from the beginning of the alphabets are used for constants, letters from the middle of the alphabet are used for functions, and letters from the end of the alphabet are used for variables. Labeling traditions to follow in mathematics: Labels to avoid in mathematics: What if you need to keep track of many time variables? There is only one traditional label for time: t. The solution is to use primes or subscript letters. For example, one reference frame follows time t, while another follows time t ‘, and still another follows time t ". Or the time on earth can be tracked with the label tE and the time on the moon can be tracked with the label tM. In general, multiple variables that are very similar should be handled in this way using primes or subscript letters. On the other hand, multiple constants should be differentiated by subscript numbers. For instance, use t0, t1, t2, t3... to keep track of multiple points in time. If you are curious, here are the traditional labels for various physical properties. Traditional labels for physical properties: |
context: society question: What part of China do fortune cookies come from? | Fortune cookies do not come from China. Fortune cookies have never been made in China, except for a short-lived attempt in 1992 by American businessman. In a short-lived venture, these businessmen attempted to sell fortune cookies to the Chinese under the name "American cookies". Other than this failed attempt, Fortune cookies have never been made or sold in China. According to the book "The Fortune Cookie Chronicles" by Jennifer 8. Lee, the cookies were invented by Japanese-American restaurant owners in San Francisco who drew on a Japanese tradition of writing fortunes and attaching them to cookies. |
context: society question: What part of France invented French toast? | The French did not invent French toast. Rather, it was Americans who gave the name "French Toast" to this dish because French immigrants in America popularized the dishe. In fact, French toast was invented long before France even existed. The first known recorded recipe for French toast comes from Rome around 300 A.D. The Roman author Apicius included it in his cookbook titled "Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome". For centuries, the French themselves called this dish "Roman Bread". Today, French toast has spread to much of the world. As explained by FoodReference.com, the recipe was seen as a good way to make use of stale bread without wasting it. For this reason, many countries today refer to this dish as "lost bread". |
context: society question: What part of Germany does German chocolate cake come from? | German chocolate cake does not come from Germany. According to the book "The Baker Chocolate Company: A Sweet History" by historian Anthony M. Sammarco, the cake uses a chocolate baking bar invented by an American named Sam German. The cake is named after this man, and not the country. In 1852, Sam German developed a sweeter chocolate baking bar for the Baker's Chocolate Co. German's baking bar caught on in popularity due to its high sugar content compared to other chocolates of the day. The recipe for the cake using Sam German's baking bar was not published until a century later in 1957. Over time, the name has been corrupted from "German's chocolate cake" to "German chocolate cake". |
context: society question: When will the technological singularity occur? | If real-world science is used instead of wishful thinking, then a technological singularity will never occur. The technological singularity is a hypothetical event where advances in technology become essentially infinite. If the power of technology doubles every two years, then in two years it will be twice as powerful as today, in four years it will be four times as powerful, then 8, 16, 32, 64, etc. This exponential growth supposedly means that the power of technology will eventually become effectively infinite. While the concept of infinite technological power is attractive and makes for some fun science fiction, it is not very scientifically sound. There are four basic problems with reaching a technological singularity: Let us look at each problem in detail. 1. Technology is not currently doubling every year
Proponents of the technological singularity often reference the exponential growth in computer chip power as evidence that technology growth is exponential. Known informally as Moore's law, the number of transistors in a CPU has indeed doubled every two years for the past forty years. Since the transistor is the fundamental processing unit of a computer chip, Moore's law states roughly that the power of computers is doubling every two years. While this exponential growth is true for raw computing power, that does not make it true for every other kind of technology. Proponents may claim that since every other field of technology can be designed on a computer, exponential computer growth automatically leads to exponential growth in all other areas of technology. There are two problems with this line of reasoning. First, raw computing power does not magically turn into technological advances on its own. It takes a human to use the raw processing power and create innovation. For instance, giving an architect a computer that is twice as fast as his old computer will not make him design a bridge that is twice as strong. The innovations in bridge design are primarily a result of human ingenuity and not just faster computers. If the average computer user opens his computer's Task Manager and takes a look at his current CPU usage, he would discover he is using about 5% of his CPU power (go ahead right now and check for yourself on your own computer). Actions such as browsing the internet, writing in a word processor, updating the calendar, and sketching up the design of a new product are not very computationally intensive. As a result, adding more computer processing power is not going to affect the productivity of most users who already don't use a large portion of their current processing power. For the average user, faster computers will just mean higher resolution movies and more realistic looking video games, but little gain in productivity. For scientists and engineers who develop technology by running numerical simulations, improved processing power does have a significant impact. But even in these cases, it takes human ingenuity to take advantage of the improved processing power. It takes a human to know how to build the simulations, how to run the simulations correctly, and how to interpret the results. The second problem with the hypothesis that exponential computer growth drives exponential growth in all other technologies is that it contradicts the evidence. For instance, the average number of U.S. patents per million people per year is actually declining, according to a paper by Jonathan Huebner. Around 1915, there were 350 U.S. patents issued per million U.S. citizens per year. By 1995, that number had dropped to 250. Each new patent represents a technological advance, so the fact that there are still new patents every year means that technology is still advancing. The rate of technological advance, however, is declining according to patent numbers and is not exponentially increasing. Looking at the patents trend line in the figure, we see that the rate of innovation growth in the internet age (1980-) pales in comparison to that of the golden age of railroads and telegraphs (1840-1880). If we use the height of the tallest building as an indicator of technological power, we still don't get exponential growth. Plotting the height of the tallest building standing in the word in a certain year versus the year gives a roughly linear growth trend, not exponential. Similarly, plotting the airplane speed records for the last 60 years shows that the trend is one of declining growth, to the point of being stagnant, as shown in the figure. The highest speed an airplane has attained has not changed in 37 years. For just about any technological indicator we can think up, the advance in technology is either linear or stagnating, not exponential. 2. Even if technology were doubling every two years, there is no guarantee this trend will continue.In our complex world trends rarely continue at their current rates. For instance, a spike in world population growth in 1980 lead experts to warn that the world would be dangerously overpopulated in 50 years if trends continued. Of course, trends did not continue and the world population growth rate has been plummeting ever since. Trends shift all the time when confronted with external pressures or when pressing up against fundamental limits. All it takes is a war or a plague to freeze technological advances, or even send a civilization back to the stone age. 3. Science places external limits on technology
Fundamental limits have a way of halting exponential growth. For instance, bridges have a natural vibrational resonance. If the wind vibrates a bridge on its resonance, the bridge's oscillations grow exponentially in time. If this trend continued, the bridge would soon buckle to the moon and back. Of course, the trend does not continue. The bridge's oscillations grow exponentially until a fundamental limit is reached: the strength of the bridge. The bridge shatters to pieces long before its oscillations reach the moon, and long before any type of vibrational singularity is reached (which would imply an infinitely stretched bridge). In the real world, every growth pattern eventually runs up against some fundamental limit. For instance, the efficiency of power generators will never advance to the point that they are creating energy out of nothing because fundamental laws of science forbid free energy. There are two kinds of limits: fundamental and resource-driven. Fundamental science limits exist because the laws of science can't be changed. Space ships can never go faster than the speed of light, no matter how clever the engineers. The gravity of a planet can never be turned off. A single elevator shaft can never be made infinitely tall because eventually its cable is not strong enough to support its own weight. Beyond fundamental laws, the lack of available resources also places limits on technology. For instance, if you tried to build a skyscraper out of solid gold that reached the moon, you would use up all of the gold in earth's crust long before reaching the moon. Aside from the limits of raw physical resources, there are also limits on the amount of time, money, and energy a society is able to devote to a project. Building a bridge from New York to Paris is physically possible and requires no more raw resources than is readily available. But such a project will probably never be completed because the building of 3600 miles of towers and spans is more than any country can afford. 4. Technological advances are driven by humans and the human intelligence has limits
While computers can greatly accelerate the speed of raw calculations, they cannot think creatively. Innovation is driven by human intelligence and creativity; not by raw processing power. Every piece of software running on a computer had to first be designed and programmed by a human. Every physical law that a computer code is simulating had to first be derived by humans. For example, computerized wind tunnel simulations can help an airplane designer optimize the aerodynamics of his plane without needing to build hundreds of prototypes. But the laws of aerodynamics had to first be discovered by a human and inputted into the computer before it could run its simulations. A computer can't do anything new. It just does faster what a human could do with a pencil and paper or a real wind tunnel. If a computer does something clever, it's because a clever human designed it to do that. Because technology advances are driven by humans intelligently using tools, such advances are limited by the human brain. Consider technological advances to be like apples on a tall tree. The low hanging fruit is easily and quickly picked. But the higher and higher levels of fruit are increasingly harder to reach. Virtually everyone who has finished high school can understand and apply a breakthrough from the 1600's such as Newton's law of gravity. But very few people can understand and apply a breakthrough from the early 1900's, such as Einstein's gravitational field equations. Developing an even more advanced theory of gravity than Einstein's would require first understanding Einstein's theory. But that is already beyond the intelligence of most people. In fact, that is even beyond the capability of many physics Ph.D.'s. Hundreds of years ago, a significant scientific discovery could be made by one hobbyist tinkering at home, such as Benjamin Franklin's discovery of the electron's charge. Today, significant scientific discoveries require a team of thousands of scientists spending billions of dollars using tools the size of a city, such as the discovery of the Higgs Boson particle at the LHC. The limits of human intelligence have forced scientists to specialize in increasingly narrow fields and work in ever larger groups in order to make discoveries. Four hundred years ago, a student could gain the world's then-total knowledge on physics by spending a year with Newton. Two hundred years ago, a student could gain the world's then-total knowledge on physics by going to school for a few years. Today, a student who graduates with a Ph.D. in physics knows very little about all of the physics that can be learned. It takes a physicist several years of post-doctoral experience to get completely up to speed with the world's current knowledge, even in his narrow field of specialization. Many physics doctoral programs don't even require General Relativity courses. This means that a hundred-year-old theory of gravity is beyond the capability of many physics Ph.D.'s. The advancement of human knowledge obeys the law of diminishing returns. Every new discovery requires ever more money, effort, and years of education. From just about every angle you can examine the issue, we are not approaching a technological singularity and never will. Technology will continue to advance steadily, and by advancing, it will change our lives. But such changes have been happening gradually for hundreds of years. We don't have the flying cars, jet packs, hotels on the moon, or underwater cities that our grandparents envisioned we would, and it's not likely that our grandchildren will have these things either. Apart from gadgets that make it easier to be entertained and communicate, our daily life is nearly the same as those that lived 50, or even 100 years ago (as far as technology is concerned). We still live in wood or brick houses, go to work, play sports, read books to the kids, walk the dog, eat salads and pasta, get sick, fall in love, grow gardens, and repair the house in much the same way humans have been doing for hundreds of years. And we will still largely do these things in another hundred years. As exciting as futuristic technological fantasies may be, they do not justify ignoring reality. |
context: society question: When will the written word become obsolete? | Despite advances in technology, the written word will never become obsolete because it has many advantages besides the fact that it is technologically simple. Of all the ways to convey ideas and communicate, the main two methods are the spoken word and the written word. The written word has long dominated over the spoken word for communicating at a distance because it is much simpler to implement technologically. For person-to-person communications, hand-written notes were invented millenia before the telephone was invented. For mass communication, books and newspapers were far easier to invent and implement than radio and television. One of the reasons for the technological discrepancy between the written and the spoken word is the difference in information compression. The written word is a highly compressed, coded form of the spoken word. Converting a verbal dialogue to a written transcript does cause it to lose the tones of voice, inflections, and background noise, but this is what helps the written form be so compressed. For example, the full audio of President Obama's 2013 State of the Union Address in CD quality takes up about 1,020,000 kilobytes on a computer. In contrast, a written transcript of the same speech takes up only 40 kilobytes on a computer. Technologies with limited memory and bandwidth will therefore be able to transmit text long before being able to transmit audio. Another reason for the technological discrepancy between the written and the spoken word is the ease of recording. A written note can be scrawled in the sand with your finger, while a verbal note requires a device that can capture sound waves and process them at a high enough frequency to make the sound discernible. This large technological discrepancy may lead you to believe that advances in technology will eventually make the simplicity of the written word meaningless and therefore make the written word itself obsolete. These days, it is easier to download an audiobook version of a bestselling novel to your iPod than to trudge to the bookstore and buy a hard copy of the novel. It is easier, technologically speaking, to give your mother a telephone call than to send her a written letter. The technology is available today to have your smart phone verbally tell you a cookie recipe rather than to thumb through piles of old cookbooks. The written word may seem doomed to the ash heap of old technology. This line of thinking is wrong because it ignores the fact that there are other advantages to the written word beyond technological simplicity. Among the other advantages of the written word are the following: 1. High Speed of Comprehension. If you listened to the president's entire State of the Union Address, it would take you an hour. If you read the entire transcript of the speech, it would take you much less than an hour (assuming you are a good reader). The better a reader you are, the more efficient the written word becomes compared to the spoken word. If you have ever participated in a group reading (such as when an English class reads a novel together by taking turns reading out loud), you may have found yourself getting bored and reading ahead for this reason. 2. Omission of Background Noise. The squawk of a crow overhead, the cry of a nearby baby, the clang of machinery, and all the other sources of background noise in our daily lives can be distracting in an audio message and often makes the primary audio content intelligible. In contrast, the written word contains only the communications of its author. When you communicate via email or text messaging, you never have to say "What did you say? I can't hear you," or "Let me get to a quiet place first," like you do with a phone call. In areas where accuracy is crucial, such as in scientific reports, medical records, or legal agreements, the written word is the standard for this reason. 3. Privacy. Using written words, the author can much better control who receives the message. While a verbal message can be controlled when in electronic format, the act of speaking that is required at the beginning of the process is harder to keep private. Others in the room can eavesdrop on a private spoken conversation much easier than a written conversation. The enhanced privacy control of the written word is perhaps the reason that cell phone text messaging has become so popular in comparison to verbal phone communication, especially among teenagers who highly value privacy. Many parents have been surprised to find their child and a friend texting each other instead of talking, even when they are sitting right next to each other. This behavior makes more sense when you realize that the friends may not want their parents to hear their conversation. 4. Quality. The written word tends to be edited, revised, proof-read, and fact-checked before being published, while the spoken word is not. This editing leads the written word to have higher quality than the spoken word. Compare a paragraph from today's newspaper to a transcript of your dinner conversation on the same news item, and the quality difference becomes painfully obvious. If a verbal communication does have high quality, such as in a speech or in a drama production, it's usually because the people are reciting written words. 5. Ease of Pausing and Pondering. When reading a written communication, the recipient can pause his reading much more easily than with a verbal communication. This pausing, which is often subconscious, allows the reader to think about the message more deeply. While it's true that an audio work can be paused by pressing the pause button, the simple act of moving your finger to the button requires bringing the pause-and-ponder reflex from the subconscious into the conscious, which is usually too much effort for a fleeting thought. Good speakers know this fact and will deliberately pause throughout their speech to give their listeners time to digest their words. When reading a written work, the reader can skim quickly through the paragraphs with straight-forward concepts and then slow down or even reread passages that are more complex. While scanning, skimming, and rewinding are possible with audio formats, they are cumbersome enough to destroy the organic nature of pondering. Reading a book tends to be much more cerebral than watching a movie partly because of this pause-and-ponder advantage. 6. Low Sensory Stimulation. Compared to the audio-visual version, the text version of a work engages the senses much less. This low-sensory nature can be bad if the work is artistic in nature, such as is the case with musical performances and dramatic productions. On the other hand, the low-sensory nature of the written word can be an advantage if the work deals with abstract concepts such as physics or economics. For such works, adding extra sensations makes the work less useful. For instance, if you want to learn quantum theory, you'll get much further in your efforts by reading through a quantum textbook than by watching an MTV episode on the subject. The flashing graphics and popping sounds of television may make a subject more entertaining, but they make it harder to concentrate on the meat of abstract concepts. |
context: society question: Who invented the scientific method? | There is not one scientific method. The existence of one, golden-standard scientific method is a myth perpetuated by elementary school textbooks in an effort to make science accessible to young students. This myth is chronicled in the book "Scientific Literacy and the Myth of the Scientific Method" by Henry H. Bauer. The Oxford English Dictionary defines the scientific method as any method that "has characterized natural science since the 17th century, consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses." If science is the discovery of natural truth, there are many methods that scientists use to accomplish this. There are perhaps four methods that scientists use most often: observation, tool development, hypothesis testing, and model building. Observation means simply measuring a phenomenon in nature, transforming it into a format that humans can observe, recording the result and communicating it to others. In observation-based science, there is rarely a need for forming a hypothesis or testing it. Paleontology, astronomy, and field biology are largely observational sciences. Measuring the reactivity of an acid, determining the life time of bees, or capturing an image of an atom are all observational approaches. In the scientific method of tool development, the goal is to improve the power of a measurement device for future observations. This activity may seem like the job for engineers and not scientists. However, if the device is on the cutting edge of technology, tool development requires a scientist to make sense of the new science encountered on the way. Devices such as telescopes, atom smashers, and electron microscopes are on the forefront of science and require trekking into unexplored scientific territory in order to be improved. The very activity of improving the performance of a measurement tool is itself a scientific method. The next method – hypothesis testing – is the one that usually ends up in elementary school books. In this method, the scientist makes a prediction about what a certain test will reveal and then performs the test. In this method, there is typically a test group and a control group and there is only one variable being changed between the two groups. The method of hypothesis testing is useful in isolating the effect of one physical agent when many agents are at work. Hypothesis testing is used to efficiently link cause and effect. The last major scientific method – model building – is more the realm of the theorist than of the experimentalist. In model building, the scientist takes a large quantity of data from observation and attempts to build a model that fits all the data and successfully predicts future observations. Model building can be as simple as the statement "zebras sleep more than ten hours a day" or as complex as a program running on a hundred computers, implementing hundreds of equations in order to recreate the evolution of the universe. Models come in the form of statements, equations, and computational algorithms. Models that are repeatedly accurate across a wide range of areas are elevated to the status of "theory". There are other methods besides these four that would count as science. The "scientific method" is therefore anything a scientist does to reveal new truth, as long as his methods don't violate basic logic and are repeatable by independent parties. |
context: society question: Why are refried beans cooked twice? | Refried beans are not cooked twice; they are only cooked once. According to the book "American Regional Cuisine" by The Art Institutes, this misnomer results from the fact that that the prefix "re-" means "very" in Spanish, but Americans misunderstand it to mean "again". The name "refritos" therefore means "very fried" and not "refried". Refried beans were introduced commercially in America in the 1930s by the Mountain Pass Canning Company founded in New Mexico, as chronicled in the book "Taco USA" by Gustavo Arellano. |
context: society question: Why are scientists atheists? | Scientists are not necessarily atheists. According to a 2009 Pew poll, 59% of scientists believe there is a God or higher power. In other words, the majority of scientists are not atheists. This makes sense because there is nothing fundamental in science that would require a good scientist to turn away all religion. Science and religion deal with entirely different facets of existence. Science is not an alternative to religion, because it is not a religion at all. Science is not a particular tradition spelled out by a handful of geniuses. In fact, there is no such thing as one, golden-standard Scientific Method. Rather, science is an umbrella term that encompasses all physical truths that are arrived at through repeated observations and through the application of models that successfully predict observations. Science is confined strictly to the observable world, and therefore has nothing to say about any non-observable realm. A scientist that claims that science proves God does not exist is simply a poor scientist. Such a scientist has turned science into his own personal religion. Honest and logically consistent scientists may privately lean towards atheism or towards religion, but they know that science itself is agnostic. Scientists are free to be atheists in good faith, but that is just their personal faith and is not supported by science. Claiming that a strictly observation-based methodology such as science has anything to say about physically unobservable realms is simply illogical. Religion deals mainly with the field of physically unobservable entities: good, evil, love, hate, holiness, sin, spirit, heaven, and God. While the spiritual realm is beyond physical observation, most religions believe that it is still accessible to the human experience through non-physical senses which are given names such as enlightenment, the soul, the inner spirit, the mind's eye, inspiration, consciousness, etc. Because science and religion address different planes of existence using different tools, they are not mutually exclusive. Science versus religion is a false dichotomy. Pure religion (as opposed to forms of religion that have been misused for political purposes) is not at war with science, and in fact, cannot be. In some cases, science and religion seem to contradict each other, but closer scrutiny reveals that these cases consist of instances where science has wandered beyond its bounds of the observable world, or religious interpretation has wandered beyond its scope of the spiritual world. For instance, extracting tidbits from the Christian bible and interpreting them broadly as scientific facts about the age and development of the earth gives you Creation Science, which is both bad religion and bad science. The Creation Science movement is bad religion because it attempts to take passages meant mainly for spiritual, non-observable purposes, and extrapolate them to have vast scientific meaning. The Creation Science movement is also bad science because it contradicts the wealth of observed data collected by mainstream science. In a similar way, taking neuroscience findings about the brain and extending them to make broad claims about the nature of free will is both bad science and bad religion. Consider two visitors to an art gallery, Tom and Sally. Tom is fixed on a painting of the ocean, while Sally is gazing upon an entirely different painting of roses. Each is so absorbed so as to be unaware of the other person's gaze. The conversation progresses something like this. Tom: "What a beautiful hue of blue."
Sally: "What? There isn't a single stroke of blue in the whole painting. It's mostly red."
Tom: "Are you blind? Half of the painting is blue. Look down in the bottom right corner of the painting where the blue is the brightest. You can't honestly tell me that is not blue."
Sally: "You must mean the top right corner. I'll give it to you that there is a patch of sky in that corner, but it's more gray than blue." Trying to prove anything with a conversation like this is pointless, as the visitors are looking at entirely different paintings. There is no war between science and religion. There is only war between bad science and bad religion. Bad science is the application of scientific (observable) concepts to the spiritual (unobservable) realm. Bad religion is the application of spiritual concepts to the scientific realm. In other other words, there is only war between science and religion posing as science, as well as between religion and science posing as religion. Historically, there has also been war between science and political powers who used the cloak of religion for political purposes, but this really has nothing to do with pure religion which concerns itself with the spiritual realm. The false notion that there is a fundamental clash between science and religion is promulgated mainly by three groups: 1) anti-religious factions that try to use science to attack religion, 2) anti-science factions that try to use religion to attack science, and 3) journalists looking to sell articles. Group 1 includes aggressive atheists who in their zeal to tear down religion misuse science. Group 2 includes religionists who are so insecure in their faith that they feel that anything they don't understand must be wrong. Group 3 includes journalists who know that drama sells, so they are willing to create drama between science and religion where there is little. |
context: society question: Why do most international phone calls and data links go through satellites? | Actually, most international phone calls and data links these days do not go through satellites. Instead, telecommunication signals go across earth's oceans through cables running along the bottom of the oceans. Transoceanic submarine cables have existed since 1858 when they were first introduced in order to carry telegraph signals. Detailed maps of today's submarine cables can be found on websites such as www.submarinecablemap.com. Satellite links currently account for only about 1% of international telecommunications. The rest travels through undersea cables. The reason for such a high use of submarine cables is that they can carry much more information per second and are much more reliable. The first submarine cables were simple metal wires carrying telegraph signals. Later on, metal cables were laid that could carry telephone and data signals. Finally, optical fiber cables carrying light signals began to be laid under the oceans in the 1980's because optical fiber signals are faster and can carry more information than metal-based signals. Satellites are still used for telecommunications though, but mostly just in remote regions that do not yet have access to landlines. |
context: society question: Why do people believe in conspiracy theories? | People are all different, so the reasons for them believing in conspiracies cover a broad range of factors. In general, though, people tend to believe in conspiracies because of helplessness. Ted Goertzel, professor of sociology at Rutgers University, found that belief in conspiracy theories is strongly linked to insecurity about employment, alienation, lack of interpersonal trust, and minority status – all forms of helplessness. Conspiracies are easily disproved by a wealth of evidence and some basic, sound reasoning, and yet sizable portions of the population continue to believe in absurd ideas such as the following: Despite the fact that conspiracies such as these run completely contrary to a giant body of evidence, and indeed go against logical reasoning itself, such conspiracies continue to be believed by many people. Why? The main reason people believe in conspiracies despite their absurdity is helplessness. Unemployment, under-employment, lack of education, substance addiction, chronic illness, dysfunctional families, and failing relationships all contribute to a person feeling helpless. In order to cope emotionally with such situations, many people blame their helplessness on conspiracies; giant secret societies with amazing power that control everyone for sinister purposes. The belief in conspiracies gives those in hopeless and destitute conditions something to hope for. "If the conspiracy can just be exposed", they think, "I will no longer be destitute". The belief itself becomes empowering to many in helpless situations. They see the rest of the world as mindless sheep controlled by the elite, and themselves as the enlightened few. The belief in conspiracies also enables such people to emotionally cope with the chaos that surrounds their life by believing there is an overall ordered society of elites that controls the world. Even though they see this society as secretive and evil, the belief itself in an ordered, controlling society is enough to offer comfort to one who feels surrounded by chaos and helpless to their situation. Although a person may be safely employed in a rewarding career, a lack of education can be enough to render him subconsciously helpless and therefore susceptible to conspiracy theories. When a person does not understand the basic physical laws that govern the universe, daily events seem random and nonsensical. Being confronted day in and day out with a jumble of incomprehensible events is harrowing. To deal with this mental commotion, many people see conspiracies as the driving forces behind the seemingly random string of events. In reality, the laws of science run the world. But it is much easier to believe a secret society runs the world than to try to understand the laws of science if you have a poor education. Helplessness can take many other forms. Even wealthy, educated people get cancer. The miserable, ongoing, and terminal nature of serious diseases can make even the richest and smartest of people feel helpless. When modern medicine fails to help them (or just takes too long to help them), many people turn to conspiracies to cope. It's more comforting to believe that a miracle cure is available but is kept just out of reach by a conspiring pharmaceutical industry, than to accept the reality that some diseases simply do not have cures. It's more comforting to believe that your cancer was caused by chemtrails, water fluoridation, genetically modified crops, aliens, western medicine, tooth amalgam, household cleaning supplies, or power lines than to accept that cancer is a natural part of life that just happens. Goertzel states, "...during periods of insecurity and discontent people often feel a need for a tangible enemy on which to externalize their angry feelings. Conspiracy theories may help in this process by providing a tangible enemy to blame for problems which otherwise seem too abstract and impersonal. Conspiracy theories also provide ready answers for unanswered questions and help to resolve contradictions between known ‘facts' and an individual's belief system." Note that some conspiracies are real. But the real conspiracies are quickly dismantled by the justice system and are well documented by mainstream scientists, journalists, and historians. Also, real conspiracies tend to involve only a handful of people and are rarely successful. Most real conspiracies fall apart before they even get started, while the rest are eventually exposed and dismantled. Giant, powerful, successful conspiracies do not happen for the following reasons: Note that this website, Science Questions with Surprising Answers, does not attempt to disprove conspiracies. I believe such an exercise is pointless and futile. Presenting conspiracy theorists with logic and evidence won't change their minds as such people are not thinking logically to begin with. Because helplessness is the root of belief in conspiracies, the best way to dispel their paranoia is to help them get out of their destitute situation. Improving the general educational level, career prospects, community involvement, and family relationships of conspiracy theorists will do more to dispel their myths than arguing directly against their myths. Something as simple as participating in a town hall meeting can help a neighbor realize that the world is not as evil and colluding as he imagines. |
context: society question: Why do scientists write so well? | From my experience, scientists do not write spectacularly well. As a peer reviewer of physics journal articles, and as a supervisor of student dissertations, I have often been shocked at the poor grammar, spelling, and formatting of scientists' manuscripts. Too often, my evaluation of a paper as a peer reviewer has effectively stated, "The science in this paper is solid, but the English is unacceptable. The following changes must be made before I can recommend this paper for publication..." Of course, this observation is a generalization. There are scientists who are amazing writers, and there are those who are failures. But, on average, scientists are not particularly amazing writers in my experience. Perhaps scientists are so interested in the actual science they are presenting, that they fail to devote much attention or energy to the quality of their writings. Or perhaps they are just human. In any case, the quality of the language matters. The purpose of a scientific paper is to convey information. If the language is poor, it will fail to properly convey the information, no matter how amazing the underlying experiment may have been. How can the writings of scientists seem so well constructed if scientists don't write particularly well? There are perhaps two reasons: peer review, and technical terms. Peer review is used so that scientists do not publish bad science. When several people check the scientific results and derivations in a paper, the experimental mistakes, mathematical errors, and unjustified leaps in logic can be identified. While peer review is mostly used to weed out bad science, it also has the effect of weeding out bad writing. By the time a paper makes it into a journal and in front of the readers' eyes, it has typically been through two rounds of peer review. The first round is initiated by the author himself. Typically, the scientist puts together a paper he wants to publish and then has his collaborators and colleagues proof-read the paper. The author does this to ensure the paper is neither misrepresenting their contributions nor propagating bad science that may taint them by association. The second round of peer review is carried out by the journal. The journal selects a few anonymous reviewers that are scientists in the same field as the paper and forwards the submitted paper to the reviewers. After all the changes are made that the reviewers requested, the paper is published (assuming it contains research worth publishing). In each step along the way, a human reads the paper and identifies language mistakes that need to be corrected. In this way, the final product has far better language than a single scientist could produce. The other effect that may lead you to think that scientists are good writers is the proper use of technical terms. In science, certain words and acronyms are given strict definitions and attached to complex concepts. This creation of a technical language that is specific to a field enables very rapid communication of very complicated ideas. For instance, instead of writing that, "the laser used that effect that happens when electromagnetic waves hit the interface between two materials and excite a quantized collective oscillation of electric charge on the surface that becomes self-sustaining through self-interacting electromagnetic fields," we can just say, "the laser used surface plasmons." When people who work in a certain technical field hear a phrase from their field, they immediately have a wealth of information conveyed to them. Simply learning a science gets you acquainted with the technical terms of that science and makes you able to use those terms, without you being a particularly good writer. In contrast, someone who has not really learned the science (but thinks he has) will use the technical terms incorrectly, or may even not use them at all. But a scientist who is educated in his field uses the technical terms correctly without much effort. For this reason, a paper written by a scientist looks like it contains advanced language, when it really just contains advanced science which has built-in shortcut phrases for complex ideas. Here are some common English mistakes that I have seen scientists make (myself included) and that we would all do well to avoid: |
context: society question: Why is speculation forbidden in science? | Speculation is not completely forbidden in science. In fact, used at the proper stage of science (hypothesis-forming), clever speculation can be quite useful. Speculation is so easy and tempting in settings where it leads more to errors than to accurate information, that most often speculation in science is discouraged. But there is still a limited, useful, role for speculation in science. By "speculation", I mean making a statement about the physical world with near zero evidence to back up the claim. Let us look at instances where speculation is non-productive in science, and then the instance where it is productive. Instances where speculation in science is non-productive The only instance where speculation in science is productive |
context: space question: Can a star turn into a planet? | Yes, a star can turn into a planet, but this transformation only happens for a very particular type of star known as a brown dwarf. Some scientists do not consider brown dwarfs to be true stars because they do not have enough mass to ignite the nuclear fusion of ordinary hydrogen. At the same time, some scientists do not consider brown dwarfs to be true planets either because they typically sit at the center of a solar system, just like a star. A brown dwarf is a strange object with a mass that is greater than the biggest regular planets (i.e. above 13 times the mass of Jupiter) and less than the smallest regular stars (i.e. below 80 times the mass of Jupiter). Although a brown dwarf does not have enough inward gravitational pressure to ignite the nuclear fusion of regular hydrogen, it does have enough to ignite the nuclear fusion of heavy hydrogen (deuterium). Early in the life of a brown dwarf, the nuclear fusion of its heavy hydrogen releases large amounts of light and heat. As a result, a young brown dwarf glows like a regular star. Despite its name, a brown dwarf that is still glowing does not appear brown. Rather, it appears magenta or reddish orange. Despite beginning life as a star, a brown dwarf quickly uses up its heavy hydrogen, goes dark, cools, and spends the rest of its life as a planet. An atom of heavy hydrogen is just like an atom of regular hydrogen except that it has a neutron in its nucleus in addition to its proton. This extra particle in the nucleus makes it heavier. This neutron also acts like additional nuclear glue, making it easier to fuse together two atoms of heavy hydrogen. Additionally, heavy hydrogen is much rarer in the universe and in stars than regular hydrogen. Therefore, a brown dwarf cannot burn its regular hydrogen and quickly burns up its heavy hydrogen (because there is so little of it). As a result, a brown dwarf stops emitting light and heat early in its life. It then steadily cools and dims until it behaves more like a planet such as Jupiter. Despite the fact that a typical brown dwarf remains positioned at the center of a solar system like a regular star - it spends the rest of its life looking and acting like a planet. In such a solar system, the end result is a collection of planets orbiting a large central planet with no star to be found anywhere. Such a solar system ends up very cold and dark. (Note that some brown dwarfs orbit regular stars.) As of 2018, over 3000 different brown dwarfs have been identified by telescopes. This does not mean that brown dwarfs are rare. It just means that brown dwarfs are hard to detect. This makes sense when you remember that through most of its life, a brown dwarf is dark like a planet. A recent statistical analysis estimates that there are about as many brown dwarfs in our galaxy as there are regular stars. |
context: space question: Galaxies look stationary, so why do scientists say that they rotate? | Galaxies do indeed rotate. This rotation is what gives typical galaxies a flattened round shape, a bit like how throwing and spinning pizza dough makes it round and flat. In terms of the tangential speed of its parts, galaxies rotate at an incredibly high speed. For instance, our entire solar system speeds along at about 500,000 miles per hour as it takes part in the galaxy's rotation. So why do galaxies look so frozen in place if their parts are moving so quickly? It's because galaxies are unimaginably huge. An object traveling at high speed across a very long distance appears to be moving slowly when viewed from far away. This is not a psychological effect. The object is actually traveling very slowly when its speed is expressed in terms of the percentage of the total distance it has to travel. For example, pretend that you are in a sports car traveling at 200 miles per hour relative to the ground. This is a high speed compared to what humans usually experience. At this speed, you can get to the next city block in a few seconds. To an observer that is situated so as to be able to see your entire journey to the next city block, you are seen as traveling blazingly fast. However, now consider that you are traveling at 200 miles all the way across the United States from New York City to San Francisco. Even at this high speed, it would still take you 15 hours to complete this journey (assuming you don't get in an accident or get thrown in jail along the way). To an observer that is situated so as to be able to see your entire journey across the country (such as an astronaut on the International Space Station; pretending the car is visible from this distance), you are seen as traveling incredibly slow. In fact, the observer might even think you are not moving at all. This makes more sense if we express your speed not in miles per hour, but in percent of the overall trip per hour. For the trip across the country, you are traveling at about 7 percent of the journey per hour. In contrast, to drive to the next city block, you are traveling at about 500 percent of the journey per hour. The same concept applies to the galaxy. The distance that our solar system has to travel in order to make one full trip around the galaxy is 9 × 1017 miles. Even though our solar system is speeding along at about 500,000 miles per hour as part of the galaxy's rotation, it will still take us about 200 million earth years to complete one trip around the galaxy's center. In terms of completing a single trip around the galaxy, our solar system is traveling at 0.0000000000005 percent of the journey per hour. To a distant alien astronomer in another galaxy who can see our entire galaxy, our galaxy is rotating so slowly that it looks like it is not rotating at all. The same things happens when we look at other galaxies. |
context: space question: Have aliens ever visited earth? | According to the findings of mainstream science, aliens have never visited the earth. Despite the whimsical fantasies of fictional works and the confusion of supposed eye-witnesses, there is no credible scientific evidence that aliens have ever visited the earth. Aliens did not visit the earth anciently and build the pyramids, nor do they sneak onto our planet in our day. Because of the unreliability of the human eyes and human brain, scientific data is established through (1) quantification, (2) use of accurate tools, and (3) repetition. Quantification means that instead of a human giving a subjective account, the human – or better yet, a machine – measures a number to determine a property. For instance, "it feels hot outside" is a subjective statement of little scientific value. Is it hot enough to melt chocolate? Is it hot enough to melt steel? Does it just feel hot to the person making the statement because she just started menopause? We don't know from this statement. A quantified statement such as "it is 90 degrees Fahrenheit outside" is more reliable, and therefore scientific. Next, the use of accurate tools means that a proven measurement tool is used to make the measurement instead of the human's eyes. For instance, a builder who needs to measure a stud so he can cut the drywall to fit it does not just look at the stud and guess its length. He uses a tape measure to get an accurate value for the length. Lastly, repetition ensures that freak errors in measurement are identified and discarded. Builders know that they have to measure twice if they only want to cut once. Repetition also allows a value to be measured several times and averaged so as to minimize noise. Repetition means that one person takes the measurement several times, but it also means that other people make the measurement. Measurements repeated by different people minimize the error effects of a single faulty tool or confused human. If a builder uses a tape measure that has the numbers printed wrong, he may consistently get the same measurement, but it will still be wrong. Repetition by others will minimize such errors. In every area of life, and not just in the lab, data is not reliable unless is has been quantified, measured by an accurate tool, and repeated. The alleged eye-witness accounts of UFO's and alien visitations fail to be reliable data on all accounts. When a man tells a newspaper that he saw a bright light over his farm that looked like it had an alien face inside, he has provided no quantified information, he has used no tools to make his measurement, and he is unable to repeat or have others repeat the measurement. Three strikes against him means that such accounts are completely unreliable. If an alleged UFO witness actually went up to his awe-inspiring blob of light and tried to measure its width, temperature, etc. he would quickly find that reflections from clouds were playing tricks on his eyes or that fireflies were migrating. According to current reliable data, aliens have never visited earth, contacted earth, or even given any hint of their existence. These facts do not automatically rule out the existence of life on other planets. They just indicate that their influence has not yet reached earth. Most alien accounts involve seeing something strange in the sky or a strange creature on the earth. The following objects, events, and experiences could be easily misunderstood to be aliens by unreliable human eyes: Natural Objects
Fireflies: glowing beetles that can look like large objects when swarming
Barn owls: owls that have alien-like faces
Meteorites: falling space rocks that glow, burn, and explode
Electrical Disturbances
Corona discharge: glowing clouds of sparks around charged objects
Cloud to ground lightning: traditional lighting
Cloud to cloud lightning: lightning that causes clouds to glow
Elves, Sprites, & Blue Jets: exotic-looking forms of lightning
Ionospheric air glow: steady glow high in the ionosphere
Atmospheric Optical Effects
Aurorae: streaking glow caused by particles hitting the atmosphere
Clouds: some clouds can have space-ship-like shapes and colors
Mirages: the bending of light by air can make ships appear in the sky
Rainbows: bow-like scattering of sunlight by raindrops
Fogbows: bow-like scattering of sunlight by fog
Sun dogs: bright spots due to scattering of sunlight by ice crystals
Moon dogs: bright spots due to scattering of moonlight by ice crystals
Light pillars: streaks of light due to scattering by ice crystals
Circumhorizontal halos: arcs due to scattering of sunlight by ice crystals
Searchlights: high-power man-made light beams scanning the sky
Laser guides: laser beams used to calibrate astronomical telescopes
Earthquake lights: flahses caused by earthquakes
Man-Made Craft
Airplanes: advanced airplanes have unusual shapes
Helicopters: advanced helicopters have unusual shapes
Hot-air balloons: aircraft filled with buoyant hor air
Weather balloons: silvery balloons carrying weather instruments
Dirigibles: steerable balloons that come in a variety of shapes
Kites: kites can come in just about any shape imaginable
Flares: bright projectile that streaks across the sky
Military drones: unmanned aircraft that can come in alien-like shapes
Commerical drones: unmanned aircraft used for sensing and delivery
RC airplanes: small unmanned hobby planes flown by radio control
RC helicopters: small unmanned hobby helicopters flown by radio control
Satellites: odd-shaped machines in orbit around the earth
Rockets: fire-propelled object that comes in many sizes
Man-made spacecraft: various manned and unmanned spaceships
Frisbees: gliding toys thrown in the air
Psychological Effects
Hallucinations caused by alcohol or drugs
Hallucinations caused by various medical diseases
Hallucinations caused by an abnormal fear response
Hoaxes and pranks carried out by other humans
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context: space question: How do space probes make it past the asteroid belt without crashing into asteroids? | The asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter contains millions of asteroids, but a space probe has never had to worry about hitting into one on its way to the outer planets. The reason for this is because space is so big and so empty when it comes to macroscopic objects such as planets and asteroids. Outer space is crammed full with microscopic particles and fields, but when it comes to an object big enough to crash into, they are very rare. Space is so big and so empty of rocks on average that unless a space probe intentionally aims towards an asteroid or a planet, it will miss. This is one fact that Hollywood usually gets wrong in order to increase the drama. When a space ship in a movie finds itself in danger of crashing while trying to navigate through an asteroid field, be aware that you are watching pure fiction. In the Backman Report, NASA estimates the natural collision rate between two asteroids in the asteroid belt to be once every ten million years. Therefore, assuming a space probe moves at speeds comparable to an asteroid and is around the size of an asteroid (both reasonable assumptions), a space probe would not hit an asteroid in the main asteroid belt for ten million years, even if flying around blindly. |
context: space question: How do stars move when viewed from a speeding space ship? | During space travel, the stars don't move or stream past you. The reason for this is that the stars are so immensely far away from you. Consider driving along the highway. The trees at the edge of the road whoosh passed you at an alarming rate as you speed forward, but the distant mountains hardly move at all. All stars are far more distant than mountains and therefore seem effectively fixed to traveling astronauts. The moving effect is known as parallax. Mathematically speaking, the observed location of the stars does actually change as you travel, but the amount is too small to be discerned by human eyes. It takes very sensitive instruments to measure the parallax of the stars. When the Apollo astronauts looked out their window while barreling towards the moon, it looked like they were motionless because the stars didn't move. Stars don't move and they definitely don't make shooting streaks across your field of view. Movie producers perhaps distort this fact of physics in order to add drama. The producers want the viewer to see that the spaceship is traveling at high speeds by making the stars woosh by, when in reality observers would see no movement. If a space ship traveled near the speed of light, the stars would appear bunched up in the forward direction, but would still not move. |
context: space question: How long before the expansion of the universe causes our earth to drift away from the sun? | The expansion of the universe does not affect the relative position of astronomical bodies within galaxies. It is true that the universe is expanding, but this does not alter the distance between the earth and the sun. It also does not affect the distance between atoms. The expansion of the universe is partly caused by the Big Bang, and partly caused by dark energy. This expansion should not be thought of as stars flying away from each other in a static spacetime fabric. Instead, the stars are more or less static relative to a spacetime fabric that is itself expanding. The question is often asked, "Where is the center of the universe's expansion?" This question only makes sense if all the stars were flying away from some central point. Because the expansion is space itself, there is no center. The book "Universe" by Martin Rees states, Several notable features have been established about the universe's expansion. First, although all distant galaxies are moving away, neither Earth nor any other point in space is at the center of the universe. Rather, everything is receding from everything else, and there is no center. Second, at a local scale, gravity dominates over cosmological expansion and holds matter together. The scale at which this happens is surprisingly large – even entire clusters of galaxies resist expansion and hold together. Third, it is incorrect to think of galaxies and galaxy clusters moving away from each other ‘through' space. A more accurate picture is that of space itself expanding and carrying objects with it. Think of an infinite sheet of paper with a grid of one-inch squares drawn on its surface, and another infinite sheet with a grid of two-inch squares. The second sheet is expanded relative to the first, but there is no center of expansion. Solar systems do not expand despite existing in an expanding universe because of the binding force of gravity. In fact, even galaxies have enough gravity to withstand expansion. Only when you get to the level where mutual gravitational attraction is negligible; the inter-galactic level; does the expansion of the universe become evident. Similarly, the electrons in atoms are not drifting apart despite the expansion of the universe. Everything on earth, from your hand to a ruler, is not expanding. This fact is the reason we can detect the expansion of the universe in the first place. If our rulers were expanding at the same rate that the galaxies are drifting apart, we would never have discovered the expansion of the universe. This expression that gravity locally overcomes the universe's expansion is somewhat oversimplified. Spacetime on the cosmological scale is quite complicated. A more accurate statement would be that anywhere near matter (in galaxy groups), spacetime curves so as to cause objects to be attracted, and we call this attraction gravity; but far away from matter (in between galaxy groups) spacetime naturally expands of its own accord. |
context: space question: How long can a human in outer space last without a spacesuit before exploding? | Humans don't explode in space. Even though outer space represents a lack of air pressure, which usually counters the internal pressure in our bodies, our tissue is strong enough to handle the imbalance. According to Richard Harding's book "Survival in Space," the blood vessels can withstand the internal pressure without exploding. Humans do die if left in outer space without a space suit. But they die for the same reason as people who are left too long underwater: lack of oxygen. The Federal Aviation Administration reports in advisory circular 61-107 that humans remain fully conscious and useful for 9-12 seconds after being exposed to a vacuum. There are other dangerous effects that the spacesuits protect against, such as cold and radiation, but these do not cause immediate death, and they definitely don't cause explosion. |
context: space question: Since one satellite can see half of the earth, why do we need more than two satellites in a given network? | A satellite in orbit around the earth cannot see half of the earth because of a simple geometric effect known as perspective. As shown in the diagram, when an observer is looking at a sphere, he can only see the portion of the sphere that lies in front of the points where his line of sight is tangential to the sphere. The closer the observer is to a sphere, the less he can see.
The line marking the point where the earth begins curving out of view is called the horizon. It is the same horizon that you see when standing on the earth and observing the sky meet the ground in the distance. While hills and other local ground height variations affect the distance to the horizon, these variations are so small compared to the height of satellites that they can be mostly ignored. If the radius of the sphere is R and the distance of the observer from the sphere's surface is d, then simple geometry reveals that the percent of the sphere's surface A that is visible to the observer is: As d becomes much larger than R, this equation shows that the visible area approaches fifty percent of the sphere's surface. But to see exactly half of the sphere, the observer would have to be infinitely far away. To a good approximation, the earth is a sphere and the satellites are distant observers. The point where the earth curves away out of view is known as the horizon. The earth's radius is about 6370 kilometers (3960 miles). A person walking around on the surface of the earth has his eyes elevated about 0.002 km (6 feet) away from the surface. Using this equation, if the earth were perfectly spherical, then a person standing on earth's surface can see about 0.000016% of the earth's surface, or about 82 square kilometers (32 square miles). This corresponds to a circle of visibility with a radius of about 5 km (3 miles). In other words, if you stand on the beach at the water's edge and look out over the calm ocean, the farthest you can see boats before they begin to disappear below the horizon is about 5 km. Naturally, getting up away from the earth's surface will increase your view. For instance, standing on top of a typical mountain with an elevation of 1 km will improve your visibility to 0.0078% of the earth' surface, which is about 40,000 square kilometers (15,000 square miles), such that the horizon is about 110 km (70 miles) away. Often, other mountains, trees, and even the atmosphere itself reduces the visibility. Earth's satellites orbit at a wide range of altitudes, so let us take the network of GPS satellites as an example. The GPS satellites orbit at an altitude of about d = 20,000 km. Using the equation above, each GPS satellite can only "see" about 38% of earth's surface in a given instant. Therefore, you would need a bare minimum of three GPS satellites in order to "see" the entire globe at once. In reality, the earth is not a perfect sphere, mountains can get in the way, and the atmosphere itself bends light, so that four GPS satellites would be needed to "see" the whole earth at once. Additionally, the job of the GPS satellites is not just to see the earth, but to help a ground GPS receiver determine its location through trilateration. This location-finding process in its most accurate form requires eight satellites to be able to see each spot. Because of the limited field of view of each satellite, and the need to have so many satellites overlapping the same view, the GPS network currently contains 32 satellites. |
context: space question: What is the overall electric charge of the universe? | It is impossible to conclusively measure the overall electric charge of the universe since the universe is infinite. However, the laws of physics, extrapolations of local measurements, and simple reasoning seem to all tell us that the overall electric charge of the universe is exactly zero. In other words, there is exactly as much positive electric charge in the universe as there is negative electric charge. The theoretical reason for making this conclusion is the Law of Conservation of Charge. Because of certain symmetries in the structure of the universe, the total electric charge of an isolated system is always conserved. This means that the total charge of an isolated system is the same at all points in time. The Law of Conservation of Charge is a fundamental, strict, universal law. In thousands to millions of different experiments, this law has never been observed to be violated, not even once. Furthermore, this law is the only logical way to explain the world around us. In short, this law just makes sense. The Law of Conservation of Charge does not mean that electric charge can't be created or destroyed. It just means that every time some negative electric charge is created, an equal amount of positive electric charge must be created at the same time so that the total charge of a system does not change. For instance, in the well-understood phenomenon of pair production, a gamma ray (a high-energy form of light) transforms into a regular matter particle and an antimatter particle that is the counterpart of the regular matter particle. Since an antimatter particle always has the opposite electric charge of its regular matter counterpart, the total charge of the two particles is zero. Therefore, pair production does not change the total electric charge of a system and is thus allowed by the Law of Conservation of Charge. As a more specific example of this, a gamma ray can transform into an electron and an anti-electron (i.e. a positron). The electron has an electric charge of -1 and the positron has an electron charge of +1. The total charge added to the system by the creation of the electron and the positron is: +1-1 = 0. The point is that the Law Conservation of Charge forces upon us the fact that every time an electron is created from a gamma ray, a positron must also be created. In this way, electric charge can be created and destroyed while the total charge of a system can stay constant. Pair production is routinely observed in the lab and in measurements of atmospheric cosmic ray air showers. So what does conservation of charge have to do with the overall charge of the universe? According to modern science, the universe began by exploding out of nothing in what scientists call the Big Bang. Since the universe started as nothing, it started with zero electric charge. Therefore, the Law of Conservation of Charge tells us that the universe must still have a total electric charge of zero. This makes sense from an observational standpoint. The electromagnetic force has just as long a range as the force of gravity and is much stronger than gravity. The reason that the electromagnetic force does not play much of a role on the astronomical scale is because stars and planets have a total electric charge of zero. If the earth and sun both had a large positive electric charge, then the electromagnetic repulsion between them would be far stronger than the gravitational attraction between them. In such a case, the earth would not orbit around the sun but would be thrown out of the solar system. The fact that moons form stable orbits around planets, planets form stable orbits around stars, and stars form stable orbits around galactic centers is direct observational evidence that moons, planets, and stars all have a total electric charge of zero. Since moons, planets, and stars are the things that make up the universe, it is only logical to deduce that the universe therefore has a total electric charge of zero. |
context: space question: What makes the Great Wall of China the only man-made object visible from space? | The Great Wall of China is not visible to the naked eye from space, even in low-earth orbit, according to NASA. Even though the wall is very long, it is also very thin, making it essentially invisible. In fact, no man-made objects are visible from space by the naked eye, according to astronauts. The earth is a very big place and human-sized objects are miniscule by comparison. With the help of zoom lenses, cameras in space can see much finer detail than human eyes. However, due to its thinness, the Great Wall of China is not the easiest man-made object for a camera in space to spot. If you slowly zoom in using a space camera, the Houston airport, for instance, is visible long before the Great Wall of China. Major highways radiating out like spokes from large cities are typically the most visible structures from space for a camera. This is because valleys are typically blasted through the hills to make way for the straight highways. |
context: space question: Where is the edge of the universe? | As far as we can tell, there is no edge to the universe. Space spreads out infinitely in all directions. Furthermore, galaxies fill all of the space through-out the entire infinite universe. This conclusion is reached by logically combining two observations. First, the part of the universe that we can see is uniform and flat on the cosmic scale. The uniformity of the universe means that galaxy groups are spread out more or less evenly on the cosmic scale. The flatness of the universe means that the geometry of spacetime is not curved or warped on the cosmic scale. This means that the universe does not wrap around and connect to itself like the surface of a sphere, which would lead to a finite universe. The flatness of the universe is actually a result of the uniformity of the universe, since concentrated collections of mass cause spacetime to be curved. Moons, planets, stars, and galaxies are examples of concentrated collections of mass, and therefore they do indeed warp spacetime in the area around them. However, these objects are so small compared to the cosmic scale, that the spacetime warping which they cause are negligible on the cosmic scale. If you average over all of the moons, planets, stars, and galaxies in the universe in order to get a large-scale expression for the mass distribution of the universe, you find it to be constant. The second observation is that our corner of the universe is not special or different. Since the part of the universe that we can see is flat and uniform, and since our corner of the universe is not special, all parts of the universe must be flat and uniform. The only way for the universe to be flat and uniform literally everywhere is for the universe to be infinite and have no edge. This conclusion is hard for our puny human minds to comprehend, but it is the most logical conclusion given the scientific observations. If you flew a spaceship in a straight line through space forever, you would never reach a wall, a boundary, an edge, or even a region of the universe without galaxy groups. But how can the universe have no edge if it was created in the Big Bang? If the universe started as finite in size, shouldn't it still be finite? The answer is that the universe did not start out as finite in size. The Big Bang was not like a bomb on a table exploding and expanding to fill a room with debris. The Big Bang did not happen at one point in the universe. It happened everywhere in the universe at once. For this reason, the remnant of the Big Bang, the cosmic microwave background radiation, exists everywhere in space. Even today, we can look at any corner of the universe and see the cosmic microwave background radiation. The explosive expansion of the universe was not the case of a physical object expanding into space. Rather, it was a case of space itself expanding. The universe started out as an infinitely large object and has grown into an even larger infinitely large object. While it is difficult for humans to understand infinity, it is a perfectly valid mathematical and scientific concept. Indeed, it is a perfectly reasonable concept in science for an entity with infinite size to increase in size. Note that humans can only see part of the entire universe. We call this part the "observable universe." Since light travels at a finite speed, it takes a certain amount of time for light to travel a specific distance. Many points in the universe are simply so far away that light from these points has not had enough time yet since the beginning of the universe to reach earth. And since light travels at the very fastest speed possible, this means that no type of information or signal has had time to reach the earth from these far away points. Such locations are currently fundamentally outside our sphere of observation, i.e. outside of our observable universe. Every location in the universe has its own sphere of observation beyond which it cannot see. Since our observable universe is not infinite, it has an edge. This is not to say that there is a wall of energy or a giant chasm at the edge of our observable universe. The edge simply marks the dividing line between locations that earthlings can currently see and locations that we currently cannot. And although our observable universe has an edge, the universe as a whole is infinite and has no edge. As time marches on, more and more points in space have had time for their light to reach us. Therefore, our observable universe is constantly increasing in size. You may think therefore that after an eternity of time, the entire universe will be observable to humans. There is, however, a complication that prevents this. The universe itself is still expanding. Although the current expansion of the universe is not as rapid as during the Big Bang, it is just as real and important. As a result of the expansion of the universe, all galaxy groups are getting continually farther away from each other. Many galaxies are so far away from the earth that the expansion of the universe causes them to recede from the earth at a speed faster than light. While special relativity prevents two local objects from ever traveling faster than the speed of light relative to each other, it does not prevent two distant objects from traveling away from each other faster than the speed of light as a result of the expansion of the universe. Since these distant galaxies are receding away from earth at a speed faster than light, the light from these galaxies will never reach us, no matter how long we wait. Therefore, these galaxies will always be outside of our observable universe. Another way of saying this is that although the size of the observable universe is increasing, the size of the actual universe is also increasing. The edge of the observable universe cannot keep up with the expansion of the universe so that many galaxies are eternally beyond our observation. Despite this limitation on observational abilities, the universe itself still has no edge. |
context: space question: Which space movie has the most accurate physics? | In order to objectively answer this question, let's list the most common physics principles that movies get wrong and then judge the movies one principle at a time. Because the principles of physics apply universally to all galaxies, the excuse of "advanced technology" cannot be used to explain away physics errors in a movie. For this reason, the argument that "my favorite movie may have got the science right after all because maybe the physics is different in another galaxy" is not valid. Biology and chemistry may be different on distant worlds, but physics is not. This article contains items that are only physically impossible, and not items that may be technologically difficult. An alien race may indeed have advanced technology that we can not even dream of. But they still can't break the laws of physics. The following principles are considered: 1. No Sound in Space There is virtually no air in space. Since sound is just vibrations of air, sound cannot travel through the vacuum of space. An exploding space ship would be perfectly silent to an external observer. (Read More) 2. Laser Beams are Invisible To see light, it must enter our eyes. This happens when light reflects off an object or when the light source is pointed right in your eye. There are virtually no objects in space, so a laser beam shooting through space would be completely invisible. (Read More) 3. Ships Can't Travel Faster than Light Nothing can travel faster than light, no matter how advanced its technology. This means that voyages to other planets in our solar system take from months to years and voyages to other stars take from decades to centuries. (Read More) 4. Acceleration Creates Inertial Forces When a space ship speeds up, the passengers are thrown back violently because of the inertial forces. There is no way to cancel out or block inertial forces as they are caused by the motion of the objects themselves. Similarly, every time a space ship slows down, the passengers lurch forwards. (Read More) 5. Artificial Gravity Requires Spinning Artificial gravity requires that all objects in a space ship feel an equal force down towards the floor. The only property that all physical objects share is mass, so the artificial gravity would have to act on an object's mass. The only effects that involve mass are gravity and inertia. Since gravity is ruled out (if there's real gravity doing the job, why would you need artificial gravity?), the only option left is inertial force. Inertial forces are created when a frame of reference spins or accelerates linearly. (Read More) 6. No Banking Turns in Space A banking turn requires a cushion of air to bounce off of. Seeing as there is virtually no air in space, banking turns such as seen in dogfights are not possible. Space ships must turn be reorienting themselves to the desired direction and then firing their engines. (Read More) 7. No Time Travel to the Past Time travel to the past is ruled out by mainstream physics. Time travel to the past would destroy the universe in a fireball of runaway energy. Time travel to the future happens all the time. (Read More) 8. Humans in Vacuum Don't Explode Human tissue is strong enough to withstand the pressure imbalance between internal pressure and the vacuum of space. (Read More) 9. Space Weapons Have Unlimited Range Because there is virtually no friction in space, no ground to hit, and almost no objects to get in the way, bullets, missiles, rockets, bombs, and laser beams travel forever in space. (Read More) 10. Asteroid Fields are not Thick Real asteroid fields have such immense space between each asteroid that a space ship traveling through would miss them all unless it carefully aimed at one. (Read More) 11. Black Holes and Stars Don't Suck The gravity of black holes and stars is the same kind of gravity we experience on the earth. An object near a black hole would do the same thing our moon does because it is near the earth: it would orbit the black hole and not be sucked in. For a space ship to fall into a distant black hole or star, it would have to be very carefully aimed, otherwise it would end up in orbit or slingshotting away. (Read More) 12. Space is Not Cold Within the inner solar system, space is quite hot because of the sun. In deep space, things can become cold but it will take a long time because the vacuum of space is a good insulator. Astronauts exposed to space do not suddenly freeze. (Read More) 13. No Ambient Illumination The ambient illumination on earth is provided by the sky. Space has no sky and therefore objects are lit only by the stark illumination of direct sunlight. (Read More) 14. Ships With Engines Off Don't Stop Vehicles on earth experience friction from the road, the water, and the air which slows them down. Space has virtually no air, water, or ground and therefore has essentially no friction. Ships with their engines off coast forever instead of slowing to a stop. (Read More) 15. Stars Don't Move When traveling in a vehicle, objects out the window seem to move past you due to parallax. The stars are so far away that their movement is essentially zero. Looking out the window of a speeding space ship, it appears as if you are not moving at all. (Read More) With all of these physical principles appropriately explained, let's look at the scores. An "x" in the table below means that the movie got the physics wrong, while a check mark indicates that the movie either got the physics right or did not have any scenes where the corresponding physics would be evident. To answer the original question, the space movies with the most accurate physics are Contact, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Apollo 13. The movies with the least accurate physics are the Star Wars and Star Trek series. The bottom line is that if you want senseless fun, watch Star Trek or Star Wars. If you want serious space drama, watch Apollo 13 or 2001. This should not be surprising as Star Wars and Star Trek are essentially escapist fantasy while Apollo 13 depicts a true story. Postscript: Below are principles that were not included in this evaluation because they may not be true in another galaxy, or are even not true in our galaxy. Laser Beams Can't Kill Despite the fact that most practical lasers encountered in every day life are too weak to hurt people, there are in fact lasers strong enough to do damage. The reason that police officers are not running around with laser guns is that under our current technology it takes a large machine with a significant energy source to create laser beams strong enough to be deadly. This roadblock is primarily technological. Lethal hand-held laser guns could become a possibility in the near future. Aliens Don't Exist Although there is no current evidence one way or the other, mainstream science predicts that life is quite common in our galaxy and through-out the universe. This prediction does not guarantee that alien life will be intelligent or resemble humans. Movies and television shows that are trying to be scientifically accurate are free to envision just about any shape of alien they wish without distorting science as long as basic principles such as conservation of energy are followed (i.e. creatures that expend energy moving about must consume energy in some way). No Aliens are Humanoid If the variety of species on earth is any indication, there is a low probability that life on alien planets will look human. But there is nothing physical that makes humanoid aliens impossible. It's just improbable that a given star system will have humanoid aliens. But multiply this low probability by the astronomical number of stars in our galaxy and humanoid aliens could end up quite common. Other Planets are not Earth-like While the planets in our solar system alone show that earth-like planets are rare, there is no principle that completely rules out earth-like planets. The heroes of shows may just be getting lucky in bumping into the ones that are earth-like, or avoiding the ones without breathable air. The scenario is improbable, but not impossible. Improbable things happen all the time in real life. The improbability of an event is what makes a story so interesting. The universe is so vast that improbable things quickly become probable. Aliens Can't Speak English The native Americans didn't speak English when the Europeans first discovered them, so it's even less likely that aliens can speak English. While this is perhaps true, this reasoning is more of a sociological argument than a physics argument. As such, we can always find holes in the argument. For instance, perhaps aliens observed earth's television broadcasts from afar and learned our language from them. Or perhaps, some English explorer had already visited the aliens and taught them English. Returning to our analogy, although the native Americans did not speak English natively, they picked it up very quickly from the early explorers. For instance, when the Pilgrims of Plymouth first met Squanto, he had already learned English. If aliens are intelligent enough to speak at all, they should have no problem quickly learning English. |
context: space question: Why are stars not blurred even though the earth is moving? | Stars are blurred when viewed from earth. We just don't notice it much with our naked eyes because of the high temporal and low spatial resolution of the human visual system. Take a glow stick, sparkler, or flashlight and spin it very quickly in the dark. You don't see an individual object anymore, but see instead a circular blur of light. The reason for this is that the spin rate is faster than the rate at which our eyes can discern distinct images. The distinct images of the object get smeared together in a process known as motion blur. So why don't the stars look like spinning glow sticks? The rotation of the earth does cause the stars to spin in the sky, but the spinning is much slower. Whereas it takes the stars one day to trace out a circular path in the sky, it takes tenths of a second for the glow stick to spin in a circle. Our eyes can mostly keep up with the motion of the stars because they move slowly, but they cannot keep up with the motion of the spinning glow stick. There is still motion blur on the stars, it is just much smaller than that of the glow stick because they are moving much slower. The motion blur of the stars seen by the naked eyes is small enough that the relativity low spatial resolution of our eyes cannot detect it. But using cameras or telescopes, the motion blur of the stars can be detected. There are two ways to make the motion blur more apparent: 1) reduce the temporal resolution of your imaging system (increase exposure time), and 2) increase the spatial resolution of your imaging system (use a higher powered telescope). For astronomers and telescope hobbyists, motion blur is usually undesirable, as the blur reduces the clarity of the image. High power telescopes therefore use either short exposure times or tracking systems to minimize the motion blur of stars. Tracking system keep track of the location of the star of interest, and keep moving the telescope to ensure the star stays at the same spot in the field of view. Because the earth spins around its North Pole-South Pole axis, the stars in the sky appear to follow circular paths around these poles. There are other relative motions of the stars due to earth's orbit around the sun, the solar system's orbit around the galaxy, etc., but these effects are much less significant than the motion due to earth's rotation. |
context: space question: Why did NASA spend millions developing a pen that would work in space when a pencil is just as good? | NASA did not spend millions developing a space pen. The first U.S. astronauts did indeed use pencils and not pens, according to the NASA History Program Office. After a private inventor (Paul Fisher) developed a space pen on his own, he attempted to sell the pens to NASA. At first NASA refused the offer. Pencils lead to unwanted dust in the confined quarters of a space ship, so NASA was searching for an alternative. Unfortunately, ordinary pens do not work in free fall conditions like the astronauts experience. On the surface of the earth, gravity accelerates the ink downward while the pen case is held in place by a person that is held in place by the ground. But in space, both pen and ink are steadily falling so that the ink does not come out. In contrast, Fisher's space pen uses internal pressure to force the ink out, much like an aerosol can. After testing Fisher's pen, NASA became so satisfied with their performance that it started purchasing the pens for $6 a piece. Russian cosmonauts also switched from pencils to Fisher space pens. |
context: space question: Why do the spikes that shoot out of stars form perfect crosses? | The crossed spikes that you see in some images of stars are not actually parts of the stars. They are imaging artifacts that are created by the telescope itself and are called diffraction spikes. Certain telescopes have a large primary mirror that focuses the incoming beam of light onto a secondary mirror or a sensor that is held over the primary mirror. The secondary mirror diverts the light out of the telescope so it can be seen or further processed. Or, alternately, a sensor held above the primary mirror converts the image to an electrical signal that is delivered to a computer. The key point is that the secondary mirror or sensor must be held in place over the primary mirror by support rods which are in the way of the incoming light. These support rods are also called struts or vanes. Some of the starlight that enters the telescope and heads toward the primary mirror skims past the support rods and gets deflected slightly in the process. This deflection of light that skims past an obstruction is called diffraction. The diffraction caused by the support rods ultimately shifts light in the final image to places where it did not originally exist. For stars and other bright point sources of light, this shifted light pattern takes the form of radial spikes. When the support rods of a telescope's secondary mirror are built in a nice, symmetrical cross pattern, the diffraction spikes in the image of the star takes on the same cross pattern. A collection of support rods or vanes in a telescope is called a spider. The book Practical Astrophotography by Jeffrey R. Charles states, A spider such as that used to support the diagonal mirror of a Newtonian telescope also introduces diffraction. Each diffraction spike is oriented perpendicular to the boundary of the vane causing it, so a spider having two straight vanes which are oriented at a right angle to each other will produce two intersecting diffraction lines (or a total of four spikes) having the same perpendicular orientation to each other. Since the spikes are from diffraction, they will appear on both sides of the star image even if a spider vane is on only one side of the central obstruction. For example, a three vane spider in which the vanes are 120 degrees apart will produce a star image having three interesting diffraction lines, for a total of six spikes. Because the diffraction spikes in the images of stars are created by the support rods, a telescope that has no support rods will create images without diffraction spikes. For instance, a telescope that uses only lenses does not need support rods and therefore creates images containing non-spiky stars. Diffraction of the incoming light happens not only along the support rods, but also along the edge of the aperture that lets the light into the telescope in the first place. The edge of the aperture constitutes a sharp edge that the incoming light must pass, therefore it causes diffraction. The apertures of most telescopes and cameras are circular. As a result, apertures typically create diffraction rings (called an Airy pattern) rather than diffraction spikes. Often, the diffraction rings are very faint and just make the image slightly blurry. But with sensitive equipment and long exposures, the diffraction rings caused by circular aperture can be readily seen. If the aperture is not circular but has some other shape, then both rings and spikes can result from just the aperture. For example, many cameras have diaphragms, which are structures that allow the photographer to adjust the size of the aperture. These diaphragms typically create apertures that have polygonal shapes, such as pentagons or hexagons. Such polygonal apertures also cause diffraction spikes. Diffraction spikes seen in images taken by lens-based cameras are therefore not caused by support rods but by the non-circular aperture. In contrast, telescopes usually have circular apertures and therefore create images with diffraction spikes caused by the support rods. |
You will be given a definition of a task first, then some input of the task.
This task is about using the specified sentence and converting the sentence to Resource Description Framework (RDF) triplets of the form (subject, predicate object). The RDF triplets generated must be such that the triplets accurately capture the structure and semantics of the input sentence. The input is a sentence and the output is a list of triplets of the form [subject, predicate, object] that capture the relationships present in the sentence. When a sentence has more than 1 RDF triplet possible, the output must contain all of them.
AFC Ajax (amateurs)'s ground is Sportpark De Toekomst where Ajax Youth Academy also play.
Output: | [
["AFC Ajax (amateurs)", "has ground", "Sportpark De Toekomst"],
["Ajax Youth Academy", "plays at", "Sportpark De Toekomst"]
] |
context: You are an AI assistant. You will be given a task. You must generate a detailed and long answer. question: Generate an approximately fifteen-word sentence that describes all this data: Midsummer House eatType restaurant; Midsummer House food Chinese; Midsummer House priceRange moderate; Midsummer House customer rating 3 out of 5; Midsummer House near All Bar One | Midsummer House is a moderately priced Chinese restaurant with a 3/5 customer rating, located near All Bar One. |
context: You are a helpful assistant, who always provide explanation. Think like you are answering to a five year old. question: What happens next in this paragraph?
She then rubs a needle on a cotton ball then pushing it onto a pencil and wrapping thread around it. She then holds up a box of a product and then pouring several liquids into a bowl. she
Choose your answer from: A. adds saucepan and shakes up the product in a grinder. B. pinches the thread to style a cigarette, and then walks away. C. then dips the needle in ink and using the pencil to draw a design on her leg, rubbing it off with a rag in the end. D. begins to style her hair and cuts it several times before parting the ends of it to show the hairstyle she has created. | C. She then dips the needle in ink and using the pencil to draw a design on her leg, rubbing it off with a rag in the end. In this option, she is continuing the process of using the needle, pencil, and thread, which is most related to what she was doing in the previous sentence. |
context: You are an AI assistant. You will be given a task. You must generate a detailed and long answer. question: Please answer the following question: I want to test the ability of students to read a passage and answer questions about it. Could you please come up with a good question for the passage "In 1901, the Federation of Australia was the process by which the six separate British self-governing colonies of New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia formed one nation. They kept the systems of government that they had developed as separate colonies but also would have a federal government that was responsible for matters concerning the whole nation. When the Constitution of Australia came into force, the colonies collectively became states of the Commonwealth of Australia."?
Answer: | Based on the passage, discuss the primary motivations and outcomes of the 1901 Federation of Australia, including the roles and responsibilities of the federal government, as well as the continued governmental structures of the individual states involved. |
context: You are an AI assistant that helps people find information. question: James runs a TV show and there are 5 main characters and 4 minor characters. He pays the minor characters $15,000 each episode. He paid the major characters three times as much. How much does he pay per episode? Let's be accurate as possible. | James pays the minor characters $15,000 each episode. Since there are 4 minor characters, he pays them a total of 4 * $15,000 = $60,000 per episode.
The major characters are paid three times as much. So, each major character gets paid 3 * $15,000 = $45,000 per episode.
There are 5 main characters, so he pays them a total of 5 * $45,000 = $225,000 per episode.
In total, James pays $225,000 (major characters) + $60,000 (minor characters) = $285,000 per episode. |
context: You are an AI assistant that helps people find information. question: Given the stream of consciousness rationale, provide a reasonable question and answer. Rationale: Here the game refers to a volleyball where female beach volleyball player serving the ball.
The question and answer: | Question: What is the proper technique for a female beach volleyball player to serve the ball effectively in a game?
Answer: To serve the ball effectively in beach volleyball, a female player should utilize a consistent pre-serve routine, stand in a balanced position with feet shoulder-width apart, toss the ball at an appropriate height while extending their non-hitting arm, and use a combination of shoulder, arm, and wrist movement to achieve a powerful and accurate serve. Different serve styles, such as underhand, topspin, and float, can be used depending on the player's strengths and the desired outcome. |
context: You are an AI assistant. User will you give you a task. Your goal is to complete the task as faithfully as you can. While performing the task think step-by-step and justify your steps. question: Multi-choice question: What is the sentiment of the following tweet?
Tweet: @nikkigreen I told you
Choose your answer from:
+ negative;
+ positive; | To determine the sentiment of the tweet, we need to analyze it thoroughly.
Tweet: @nikkigreen I told you
Step 1: Identify the words or phrases that carry emotional weight.
In this tweet, there is only one phrase worth examining: "I told you."
Step 2: Determine the sentiment of the identified words or phrases.
"I told you" can carry a variety of sentiments, depending on the context. It could be positive, negative, or neutral.
Step 3: Consider the overall context of the tweet.
Unfortunately, without more context, it is impossible to determine the exact sentiment of the tweet.
As a result, we cannot confidently choose an answer from the provided options, positive or negative, without more contextual information. |
context: You are an AI assistant that helps people find information. User will you give you a question. Your task is to answer as faithfully as you can. While answering think step-bystep and justify your answer. question: John was a terrible writer. To practice, his teacher suggest that he consider people he knows and do what?
Options:
- write novels
- advertising firm
- write letter
- write notes
- write poems
Let's think now! Step-by-step reasoning: | Step 1: Analyze the situation - John is a terrible writer and needs practice to improve his skills. His teacher gives him advice on how to practice.
Step 2: Consider the options given:
- Write novels: This might be a bit overwhelming for someone who is just starting to improve their writing skills, as novels are long and require a lot of commitment.
- Advertising firm: This option doesn't seem to directly connect to practicing writing, as it refers to a type of business rather than a writing activity.
- Write letters: Writing letters could be a good way to practice writing, especially since John can think about people he knows while doing so. This makes the writing more personal and engaging.
- Write notes: Writing notes can help improve writing skills to some extent, but might not allow for the kind of continuous practice that John needs.
- Write poems: This is another creative option to practice writing, but it might not be the best choice if John struggles with the basics of writing and is not yet comfortable with more advanced forms such as poetry.
Step 3: Choose the most suitable option based on the analysis:
Given the options, writing letters seems to be the best advice for John to follow when considering people he knows. This would allow him to practice writing in a personal, engaging way while focusing on communicating with others, which could help him improve his skills. |
context: You are an AI assistant. You will be given a task. You must generate a detailed and long answer. question: What is a one-sentence summary of the following article?
One of the first complaints presented to doctors by many people later diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease is an involuntary tremor or shaking of the hands, fingers, arms, legs, jaw, and face. You’re most likely to notice this tremor when your hands are at rest rather than when you’re using them, although you may see more tremors while your hands and arms are in use as the disease progresses. There are many causes of tremors. Parkinson's Disease is one of the most common causes, and tremors are often the first sign of the disease. The tremor and other symptoms may initially appear only on one side of the body, or they may appear worse on one side than the other. A repetitive “pill-rolling" movement between the thumb and finger—named because it looks as though the person is rolling a pill between their fingers—is characteristic of a Parkinsonian tremor. Some symptoms of Parkinson's are caused by the larger symptom of slowed movements (also known as bradykinesia). This primarily affects motor functions from walking and balance to writing and even motor functions that are often considered reflexive or spontaneous. These slowed movements are a very common early sign of Parkinson’s, and may show up at the onset of the disease in 80% of patients. Some people might have a hard time describing what they are feeling and use words like “weakness,” “tiredness,” or “incoordination” when talking about these symptoms. Look for distortions in voluntary movements. In addition to involuntary movements, those with Parkinson’s may experience disturbances in their voluntary movements beyond just slowness. Some of the treatments used for Parkinson's disease may cause abnormal involuntary movements, or an increase in movement, referred to as dyskinesia. These distortions (dyskinesias) can be similar to a “tic” in appearance and worsen with psychological stress. Advanced dyskinesia is most often seen in patients who have been on the medication Levodopa for some time. A common symptom of Parkinson’s is a shuffling gait with short steps and a tendency to lean forward. People with Parkinson's often have difficulty with their balance, and there is sometimes a tendency to fall forward, causing the person to walk faster and faster to keep from falling over. This pattern is called a "festinating gait," and it is very common in Parkinson's disease. This symptom typically shows up in the later stages of the disease. Those with Parkinson’s Disease often lean forward at the waist when standing or walking. This is because Parkinson's can cause posture and balance problems, including rigidity. There is a tendency to flex the arms and the head so that the person appears bent over with the elbows flexed and the head down. Rigidity can affect the whole body, and might you feel stiff or sore. Check for postural rigidity. Also referred to as “cog-wheeling,” this symptom presents as a hallmark, rigid motion when an examiner moves the arm of a patient through basic flexion and extension motions. The rigidity and resistance to movement is most obvious with passive movement of the wrists and elbow. Cog-wheeling may happen when the increased muscle tone related to rigidity is combined with a tremor. Some cognitive impairment is common, but usually not until late in the course of the disease. Around 90% of those with PD will show signs of speech disturbances at some point. These can present as quieter speech, breathy or hoarse qualities to the voice, and reduced precision with language. The voice often becomes soft or whispery because the vocal muscles lack mobility. Up to 60% of those with PD may show signs or anxiety or depression. PD affects some of the mood-stabilizing portions of the brain, which leads to this increased chance for depression, especially paired with the quality of life for patients in late stages of the disease. The muscles used to push food through the digestive system are also affected by PD. This can lead to a variety of gastrointestinal issues from incontinence to constipation. These same symptoms often present along with difficulty swallowing food as well. Many of the involuntary movements associated with Parkinson’s make it increasingly difficult for those with the disease to get a full night of sleep. Other symptoms—such as muscle rigidity making it difficult to roll over at night or bladder issues leading to getting up at night to urinate frequently—compound the sleep disruptions experienced by those with PD.
Summary: | Involuntary tremors, slowed movements, and posture and balance issues are common early symptoms of Parkinson's Disease, often accompanied by disturbances in voluntary movements, speech, mood, and gastrointestinal issues as the disease progresses. |
context: You are an AI assistant. User will you give you a task. Your goal is to complete the task as faithfully as you can. While performing the task think step-by-step and justify your steps. question: Premise: A man is inline skating in front of a wooden bench.
Hypothesis: A man is having fun skating in front of a bench.
.Choose the correct answer: Given the premise, can we conclude the hypothesis?
Select from: a). yes b). it is not possible to tell c). no | b). it is not possible to tell
Justification: Although the man is inline skating in front of the wooden bench, we cannot conclude whether he is having fun or not, as his emotions are not explicitly mentioned. |
context: You are an AI assistant. Provide a detailed answer so user don’t need to search outside to understand the answer. question: Q: Answer the following question given this paragraph: The kidneys also secrete hormones that help maintain homeostasis. For example, they produce a hormone that stimulates bone marrow to produce red blood cells when more are needed. They also secrete a hormone that regulates blood pressure and keeps it in a normal range. Q: What organs secrete hormones that help maintain homeostasis? A:
The answer is: | The kidneys are the organs that secrete hormones to help maintain homeostasis. They produce a hormone that stimulates bone marrow to produce red blood cells when needed, and they also secrete a hormone that regulates blood pressure, keeping it within a normal range. |
context: You are a helpful assistant, who always provide explanation. Think like you are answering to a five year old. question: Write a question about the following article: Coming off their home win over the Buccaneers, the Packers flew to Ford Field for a Week 12 Thanksgiving duel with their NFC North foe, the Detroit Lions. After a scoreless first quarter, Green Bay delivered the game's opening punch in the second quarter with quarterback Aaron Rodgers finding wide receiver Greg Jennings on a 3-yard touchdown pass. The Packers added to their lead in the third quarter with a 1-yard touchdown run from fullback John Kuhn, followed by Rodgers connecting with wide receiver James Jones on a 65-yard touchdown pass and a 35-yard field goal from kicker Mason Crosby. The Lions answered in the fourth quarter with a 16-yard touchdown run by running back Keiland Williams and a two-point conversion pass from quarterback Matthew Stafford to wide receiver Titus Young), yet Green Bay pulled away with Crosby nailing a 32-yard field goal. Detroit closed out the game with Stafford completing a 3-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Calvin Johnson. With the win, the Packers acquired their first 11-0 start in franchise history, beating the 1962 team which started 10-0 and finished 14-1 including postseason play. Rodgers (22/32 for 307 yards, 2 TDs) was named NFL on FOX's 2011 Galloping Gobbler Award Winner.
Question about the article: | What happened during the Thanksgiving football game between the Packers and the Lions, and what record did the Packers achieve with their win? |
context: You are an AI assistant. User will you give you a task. Your goal is to complete the task as faithfully as you can. While performing the task think step-by-step and justify your steps. question: Given the question: I am trying to decide whether it's worth it to invest in this film proposal. Can you help me answer a few questions? If you can't, please say "No I can't". Question: What is Tool's relation to Ross. Movie title: The Expendables Movie plot: The movie is a Vietnam exploitation film where a commando makes an elite team out of rebels. The men are trouble makers and rebels, but are able to perform well. The men are sent out to blow up a bridge and manage to destroy the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) guards. However, another NVA force arrives and an all out battle commences. During the battle, two of the men are killed, but the team kills off all of the NVA reinforcements and captures their leader. The team is next sent on another mission to capture two village women, and then another to destroy an enemy base where another member is killed. They kill all of the NVA forces in the base, but their mission gets tougher when a prisoner escapes and captures American women and holds them hostage. The NVA splits up into two forces: one at an old fort and the other to ambush the team as it arrives. Despite the NVA plan of ambush, the NVA are wiped out, but they manage to kill two of the women and one of the special squad. Realizing that there is little time, the squad goes on with their mission and finds the fort. Their squad leader goes inside the fort to recon and is captured. The squad decides to go in and rescue him, the POW girls, and kill the NVA leader.
The answer is: | Tool is a character in The Expendables movie and is played by actor Mickey Rourke. Tool is a former member of the elite team of mercenaries known as the Expendables. He is now the team's tattoo artist and provides moral support. Tool is a friend and confidant of the team leader, Barney Ross, played by Sylvester Stallone. The two share a bond as they have both experienced the adrenaline, pain, and emotional toll of their dangerous line of work. In summary, Tool's relation to Ross is that he is a former teammate, friend, and confidant. |
context: You are an AI assistant. User will you give you a task. Your goal is to complete the task as faithfully as you can. While performing the task think step-by-step and justify your steps. question: This is some data: Amatriciana sauce, region, Lazio; Amatriciana sauce, country, Italy; Amatriciana sauce, ingredient, Tomato; Amatriciana sauce, course, Italian meal structure; Amatriciana sauce, mainIngredient, "Tomatoes, guanciale, cheese, olive oil".
Generate a detailed description of this data | Step 1: Understand the data structure
First, I will analyze the provided data and understand that it is a series of key-value pairs associated with Amatriciana sauce, a type of food.
Step 2: Organize the data into categories
To create a detailed description, I will organize the data into categories such as region, country, ingredients, course, and main ingredients. This will allow me to present the information in a more structured and concise manner.
Step 3: Describe the region and country
I will describe where Amatriciana sauce originates from, highlighting its tie to the Lazio region in Italy. This will provide geographical context for the dish.
Step 4: Discuss ingredients and main ingredients
Next, I will give a general overview of some of the ingredients found in Amatriciana sauce, focusing on key components like tomatoes, guanciale (cured pork cheek), cheese, and olive oil. These main ingredients will help paint a more vivid picture of the sauce's flavor profile and texture.
Step 5: Explain the course within the Italian meal structure
Lastly, I will integrate the information regarding the sauce's role within the Italian meal structure. Given that it doesn't specify a particular course, I will explain its versatility and potential use in multiple courses.
Final description:
Amatriciana sauce is a flavorful and delectable Italian dish that originates from the Lazio region in Italy. This region's unique culinary style significantly influences the overall taste of Amatriciana sauce. As the data suggests, its key ingredients include tomatoes, guanciale (cured pork cheek), cheese, and olive oil, which all together, create a rich and savory sauce. It is a versatile dish within the Italian meal structure and can be featured in various courses, adding depth and complexity to any traditional Italian meal. |
context: You are a helpful assistant, who always provide explanation. Think like you are answering to a five year old. question: Read this and answer the question
According to Archibald Sayce, the primitive pictograms of the early Sumerian (i.e. Uruk) era suggest that "Stone was scarce, but was already cut into blocks and seals. Brick was the ordinary building material, and with it cities, forts, temples and houses were constructed. The city was provided with towers and stood on an artificial platform; the house also had a tower-like appearance. It was provided with a door which turned on a hinge, and could be opened with a sort of key; the city gate was on a larger scale, and seems to have been double. The foundation stones — or rather bricks — of a house were consecrated by certain objects that were deposited under them."
What were the foundation stones of Sumerian houses consecrated by? | The foundation stones of Sumerian houses were consecrated by certain objects that were placed or deposited beneath them. It's like hiding a special toy under a big lego tower you've built. |
context: You are an AI assistant that helps people find information. question: Imagine a question and stream-of-consciousness explanation for which this is the answer: Sentence B | Question: In the given two sentences, which one implements a passive voice structure?
Stream-of-consciousness explanation: Well, let's think about these two sentences for a moment. Sentence A has the subject of the sentence actively performing the action of the verb, making it an example of active voice. Now, let's consider Sentence B. Here, the subject is being acted upon by the verb, which is the characteristic of passive voice. Therefore, when we compare Sentence A and Sentence B, it becomes clear that the passive voice is used in...
Answer: Sentence B |
context: You are an AI assistant. You will be given a task. You must generate a detailed and long answer. question: Review: This is a plain old spooky ghost story. I showed it to some friends of mine in my movie club, and they were kept spellbound until the ending! No blood or gore- just good old fashioned suspense. It starts out right from the beginning, and builds and builds. The ending is a real twist that caught me unawares.
Well directed and well acted. It is also a "period piece"- set in the 1920s- which added to the atmosphere.
I was so impressed I got the book by Susan Hill from Amazon. The movie follows the book rather closely.
It's a shame it's not readily available on DVD. My copy is VHS. This along with "Haunted" are probably two of the best Ghost Stories I've ever scene. Which just goes to show that a little creativity outdoes "in your face" gore any day!
Now, what is this review like?
pick from the following.
A). negative;
B). positive;
| This review can be characterized as B). positive. The reviewer provides several compliments and praises the movie for various aspects, such as the suspense, the direction, the acting, and the period setting. They even mention how impressed they were with the story that they ordered the book by Susan Hill. The highlighted strengths of the film, such as creativity and the lack of blood and gore, contribute to the overall positive sentiment of the review. The only downside mentioned by the reviewer is the unavailability of the movie on DVD, but this does not detract from their overall positive experience. |
context: You are an AI assistant that helps people find information. User will you give you a question. Your task is to answer as faithfully as you can. While answering think step-bystep and justify your answer. question: Question. Context: Heliocentrism is the astronomical model in which the Earth and planets revolve around the Sun at the center of the Solar System. Historically, Heliocentrism was opposed to geocentrism, which placed the Earth at the center. The notion that the Earth revolves around the Sun had been proposed as early as the 3rd century BCE by Aristarchus of Samos, but at least in the medieval world, Aristarchus's Heliocentrism attracted little attention -- possibly because of the loss of scientific works of the Hellenistic Era.
Question: who said sun is the center of the solar system?
Answer. Aristarchus of Samos
What step-by-step reasoning justifies that answer? | Step 1: Identify the context and timeframe of the question.
The context of the question revolves around the concept of heliocentrism, which is the proposal that the Sun is the center of the solar system. The timeframe mentioned is as early as the 3rd century BCE, which is when the concept was initially proposed.
Step 2: Understand the opposing views in the context.
Heliocentrism is opposed to geocentrism, which placed Earth at the center of the solar system. This historical context is important to understand the significance of heliocentrism and the person who proposed it.
Step 3: Identify key figures related to the heliocentric model.
The question asks for the individual who initially proposed the Sun as the center of the solar system. Aristarchus of Samos is mentioned as the person who proposed this model as early as the 3rd century BCE.
Step 4: Verify the credibility of the claim.
The text mentions that Aristarchus's heliocentrism attracted little attention at the time possibly due to the loss of scientific works of the Hellenistic Era, implying that his proposal was indeed an early instance of heliocentrism.
Step 5: Combine the findings to form the answer.
Based on the historical context, the opposing views, and the identification of Aristarchus of Samos as the individual who proposed the Sun as the center of the solar system, the answer to the question "who said the Sun is the center of the solar system?" is Aristarchus of Samos. |
context: You are an AI assistant that follows instruction extremely well. Help as much as you can. question: Question: What is the answer for the question: What school district is Briarcliff High School part of? from the following article ? The village is home to the Briarcliff Manor Union Free School District, which covers 6.58 square miles (17.0 km2) of land and most of the village of Briarcliff Manor and an unincorporated portion of the town of Mount Pleasant. Parts of Briarcliff Manor not covered by the school district include Scarborough and Chilmark; these areas are part of the Ossining Union Free School District. The district serves over 1,000 students and includes Todd Elementary School, Briarcliff Middle School, and Briarcliff High School. From Briarcliff Manor's settlement until 1918, students in grades 1–8 were taught within one school facility; from 1919 until the 1940s, students in grades 1–12 were as well. The district is noted for its annual high-school musicals. The elementary school (opened in 1953) is named after George A. Todd, Jr., who was the village's first teacher, first superintendent of schools, and taught for over 40 years. The middle school became a Blue Ribbon School in 2005.Briarcliff Manor has been home to a number of schools. Long Hill School was a public school in Scarborough until 1912, with about 70 students, two classrooms, and two teachers. Dr. Holbrook's Military School was on Holbrook Road from 1866 to 1915. Miss Tewksbury's School and later Mrs. Marshall's Day & Boarding School for Little Girls was at Dysart House. Miss Knox's School ran from 1905 in Pocantico Lodge, a hotel on Pleasantville Road under Briarcliff Lodge management. When it burned down in 1912, the school moved to Tarrytown and then to Cooperstown. Since 1954, the Knox School has been located at St. James, New York. The Scarborough School was first Montessori school in the United States; it was located at the Beechwood estate from 1913 until it closed in 1978. Since then, The Clear View School has run a day treatment program for 83 students from nursery school age to 21 there. The Macfadden School ran from 1939 to 1950 at the William Kingsland mansion in the village.
Answer: | Briarcliff High School is part of the Briarcliff Manor Union Free School District. |
Given the question: Read the following paragraph and extract the answer for the question: What is the last name of the person whose biography was Michael Kennedy? Boult was born in Chester, Cheshire, in North West England, the second child and only son of Cedric Randal Boult (1853–1950), and his wife Katharine Florence née Barman (d. 1927). Cedric Boult was a Justice of the Peace and a successful businessman connected with Liverpool shipping and the oil trade; Cedric and his family had "a Liberal Unitarian outlook on public affairs" with a history of philanthropy. When Boult was two years old the family moved to Blundellsands, where he was given a musical upbringing. From an early age he attended concerts in Liverpool, conducted mostly by Hans Richter. He was educated at Westminster School in London, where in his free time he attended concerts conducted by, among others, Sir Henry Wood, Claude Debussy, Arthur Nikisch, Fritz Steinbach, and Richard Strauss. His biographer, Michael Kennedy, writes, "Few schoolboys can have attended as many performances by great artists as Boult heard between 1901 and October 1908, when he went up to Christ Church, Oxford." While still a schoolboy, Boult met the composer Edward Elgar through Frank Schuster, a family friend.At Christ Church college at Oxford, where he was an undergraduate from 1908 to 1912, Boult studied history but later switched to music, in which his mentor was the musical academic and conductor Hugh Allen. Among the musical friends he made at Oxford was Ralph Vaughan Williams, who became a lifelong friend. In 1909 Boult presented a paper to an Oxford musical group, the Oriana Society, entitled Some Notes on Performance, in which he laid down three precepts for an ideal performance: observance of the composer's wishes, clarity through emphasis on balance and structure, and the effect of music made without apparent effort. These guiding principles lasted throughout his career. He was president of the University Musical Club for the year 1910, but his interests were not wholly confined to music: he was a keen rower, stroking his college boat at Henley, and all his life he remained a member of the Leander Club.
The answer is: | Kennedy |
context: You are an AI assistant. You will be given a task. You must generate a detailed and long answer. question: Summarize this article in one sentence.
The incident happened on Fife Street between 04:30 BST and 05:00 BST on Saturday.
The police have appealed for witnesses to the crash.
York Road is closed between its junctions with Skegoneill Avenue and Alexandra Park Avenue. Diversions are in place.
Summary: | A crash occurred on Fife Street early Saturday morning, prompting police to appeal for witnesses and close York Road, causing diversions. |
context: You are an AI assistant that helps people find information. Provide a detailed answer so user don’t need to search outside to understand the answer. question: If "An older couple with joke glasses and cigars." does that mean that "A couple looking silly."?
Options:
- yes
- it is not possible to tell
- no Let's be accurate as possible and think first. | Yes, "An older couple with joke glasses and cigars" would generally imply "A couple looking silly," as joke glasses and cigars are items typically used to create a humorous or lighthearted appearance. |
context: You are an AI assistant. User will you give you a task. Your goal is to complete the task as faithfully as you can. While performing the task think step-by-step and justify your steps. question: Can you generate a question with a factual answer? | Step 1: Choose a topic. I'll select geography as the topic for this question, as it is a subject rich with factual information.
Step 2: Decide on a specific geographical aspect to focus on. I'll concentrate on capital cities, which are concrete data points within the field of geography.
Step 3: Pick a country for the question. I'll choose Australia for its unique geography and its status as both a continent and a country.
Step 4: Formulate the question, ensuring that it seeks a factual answer. My question will ask about the capital city of Australia.
Step 5: Verify that a factual answer to the question exists. In this case, I'll confirm that Australia does have a capital city.
The question I generated is: "What is the capital city of Australia?"
The factual answer to this question is: "Canberra." |
context: You are an AI assistant. User will you give you a task. Your goal is to complete the task as faithfully as you can. While performing the task think step-by-step and justify your steps. question: Please answer the following question: Article: Hello! My name is Becky Sharp. I'm 11 years old. I have one brother. His name is Jason and he's 14. I don't have any sisters. We live with our mum, dad and grandma in a small house in Chesterfield, in the north of England. There are lots of things to do here. My friends and I sometimes go to the cinema on Saturdays. Do you like sports? I like football. My favourite team is Manchester United. I sometimes play football with my brother. I am good at it but my brother isn't. I have lots of pets---one tortoise and six goldfish . I want a dog or a cat, but my mother doesn't like them. Question: Does Becky play football well? _ Yes or no, is the answer "Yes, she does."?
Answer: | Step 1: Read the article to gather information about Becky's football skills.
Step 2: Identify relevant information about Becky playing football; in the article, it says, "I sometimes play football with my brother. I am good at it but my brother isn't."
Step 3: Determine if the provided information indicates whether Becky plays football well or not. Based on the quote, "I am good at it," we can conclude that she does play football well.
Step 4: Answer the question and provide justification. Yes, she does play football well. |
context: You are an AI assistant. Provide a detailed answer so user don’t need to search outside to understand the answer. question: Luckily I was not the target or victim of this road rage, but I was a first hand witness. Back in the mid 1990s when I worked in Southern California, I was returning from lunch one day with a coworker when we noticed two pickup trucks driving erratically. This was on Valley View Blvd in Cerritos which is a large roadway divided (by a large, planted median strip) with 3 lanes on either side. One truck seemed to be chasing the other when suddenly the lead truck made a quick U-turn and was followed by the second truck. But the second truck came to stop just after making the turn. This was when the driver of that truck got out, walked to the front of his vehicle, raised his arm holding a semi-automatic handgun, paused, and then fired a single shot. At this point, I was parallel with the shooter’s truck and only about 50–60 feet from where he was standing. I remember my coworker exclaiming, “Oh sh*t! Did he just shoot at the something?!” I floored my accelerator and sped off to my workplace which was about a 1/2 mile down Valley View Blvd. I parked and my coworker and I got into the building as quickly as we could. While he started telling our other coworkers about what we had just witnessed, I ran to my desk, called 911, and reported the shooting. The dispatcher kept me on the line after my initial report and then transferred me to a detective in order to take down my information. As it turns out, my information and the fact that I called 911 immediately resulted in the arrest of the shooter. I was later asked to testify in court which resulted in the shooters conviction. I lived in Southern California for 10 years and now I drive a commercial truck several days a week so I have PLENTY of other “road rage stories”, but this is still the craziest one. According to the above context, choose the correct option to answer the following question. Question: How long did it take the driver to get to his workplace? Options: - one minute - not enough information - one year - one day
| - not enough information |
context: You are an AI assistant that follows instruction extremely well. Help as much as you can. question: Given the task definition and input, reply with output. In this task, you're given the middle and ending of a three-part story. Your job is to complete the short story by writing a probable beginning of the story. Generated sentences must be short, have fewer than 10 words, and be simple as if narrating to a child. Avoid using any irrelevant extra information when creating the beginning, and use names (e.g. Jack, Barbara,...) instead of pronouns (e.g. he / she) wherever possible.
Middle: Brad loved Halloween so it was right up his alley. Ending: Brad was so happy he almost danced with glee!
| Beginning: Brad found an invitation to a Halloween party. |
context: You are an AI assistant that helps people find information. Provide a detailed answer so user don’t need to search outside to understand the answer. question: Please answer the following question by reasoning step-by-step. Premise: "Man red jacket wears an apron and stands against the backdrop of a colorfully painted wall."
Based on this premise, can we conclude that the hypothesis "A man sits at a booth in a busy resturant." is true?
Options:
- yes
- it is not possible to tell
- no. Step-by-step reasoning: | - no. Step-by-step reasoning:
1. The premise describes a man wearing a red jacket and an apron, standing against a colorfully painted wall.
2. There is no indication in the premise that the man is in a restaurant or sitting at a booth.
3. The premise does not provide information about a busy environment or the presence of a booth.
4. Since the premise does not contain any information supporting the hypothesis, we cannot conclude that "A man sits at a booth in a busy restaurant." is true.
5. Therefore, the answer is "no." |
context: You are an AI assistant. You will be given a task. You must generate a detailed and long answer. question: Here is some data: Ariane 5, finalFlight, 2009-12-18; Ariane 5, launchSite, Guiana Space Centre; Ariane 5, manufacturer, "ESA and Arianespace".
Write a sentence that describes this data.
Sentence: | The Ariane 5, a rocket manufactured jointly by the European Space Agency (ESA) and Arianespace, embarked on its final flight on December 18th, 2009, launching from its established site at the Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana. |
Detailed Instructions: In this task you will be given an arithmetic operation and you have to find its answer. The symbols of operators '+' and '-' has been swapped i.e you need to perform subtraction when you see a '+' symbol and addition in case of '-' symbol.
Q: 7716 + 6322 + 6665 - 1281 + 1377 + 3345 + 8318
A: | To solve this expression with the swapped operators, we will perform subtraction when we see a '+' symbol and addition in case of a '-' symbol.
Q: 7716 + 6322 + 6665 - 1281 + 1377 + 3345 + 8318
Applying the swapped operators:
7716 - 6322 - 6665 + 1281 - 1377 - 3345 - 8318
Now performing the arithmetic operations:
(7716 - 6322) = 1394
(1394 - 6665) = -5271
(-5271 + 1281) = -3990
(-3990 - 1377) = -5367
(-5367 - 3345) = -8712
(-8712 - 8318) = -17030
A: -17030 |
context: You are a helpful assistant, who always provide explanation. Think like you are answering to a five year old. question: News article:
Amy Winehouse has finally released a new single: A cover of Lesley Gore's 1963 hit "It's My Party" for the Quincy Jones tribute album Q: Soul Bossa Nostra. Our expectations for Amy's upcoming album of "jukebox stuff" have been raised. ||||| When it was announced that the first bit of music the world would hear from Amy Winehouse after all that tabloid trouble would be a cover of Lesley Gore's "It's My Party” for a Quincy Jones tribute album, Vulture found it just a touch uninspiring. But now the cover is actually here, and it's tough not to get carried away. Winehouse lets it fly on the Mark Ronson–produced do-over — turning in a dialed-in, muscular vocal performance that moves effortlessly from louche to anguished — and sounds not even a tiny bit horribly addicted to drugs while doing so. No word on an official Back to Black follow-up or anything, of course, but there is one other potentially positive sign: Winehouse has gone from tweeting stuff like “ronson you're dead to me; one album i write an you take half the credit — make a career out of it? don't think so BRUV” to things like “can't find me bleedin notebooks — theyve done a runsies xxxxxxxx LOVE YOU RONSON XXXXXXxxxxxxxxx.” ||||| Image Credit: Samir Hussein/Getty ImagesIf there’s something we know our beloved little wayward beehive enjoys, it’s a good party. And apparently, this one ends in tears.
The 27-year-old Grammy winner returned to the studio recently for the star-strewn Quincy Jones release Q: Soul Bossa Nostra, due November 9, with her Back to Black producer (and recent subject of a Wino tweet-spanking) Mark Ronson.
You can hear their recording of Lesley Gore’s 1963 teenage cri de coeur “It’s My Party”
over at NYmag.com (via Soundcloud). The RonHouse pairing proves as Spector-esquely fruitful as ever—though frankly, whether the reasons are stylistic or substance-related, Amy’s penchant for slurring her vocals yields something closer to “Ish My Parrry.”
What do you think? Tell us in the comments section below.
(Follow The Music Mix on Twitter: @EWMusicMix.)
More on Amy Winehouse:
Amy Winehouse to Mark Ronson: ‘You’re dead to me’
Amy Winehouse to sing ‘It’s My Party’ for Quincy Jones |||||
In April we reported that Amy Winehouse and Mark Ronson were working together again, on three tracks for a Quincy Jones tribute album. Well, this is apparently a leaked version of one of their tracks, a cover of It's My Party (Jones's first big hit when he produced the Lesley Gore original in 1963).
It's not – how can we say this? – the most coherent vocal ever laid to tape, although if there's ever a song where you can let it all go a bit runny-mascara-and-10-Bacardi-Breezers then this is it. Having said that, if you really wanted to hear the original sung in this style you could just stagger into any random hen night at 3am, right? |||||
What is a shorter version of the above article? | Amy Winehouse, a famous singer, has released a new song called "It's My Party." This song is her version of an older song from 1963 by Lesley Gore. She worked with another music person, Mark Ronson, to make this. People are excited to hear more new music from Amy Winehouse after she had some trouble in her life. |
context: You are an AI assistant. You will be given a task. You must generate a detailed and long answer. question: Write an article based on this summary:
– After a thief walked out of a New York gallery with a Salvador Dali drawing only to later return it by mail, observers were scratching their heads—but now they have an explanation, via prosecutors. Authorities arrested Greek fashion publicist Phivos Lampros Istavrioglou, 29, in the case; he has pleaded not guilty, the Wall Street Journal reports. The back story: At the gallery, Istavrioglou realized the $150,000 drawing was unprotected and removed it, taking it with him back to Athens, prosecutors say. Once he arrived, prosecutors say he had second thoughts. "When he realized the hunt was on, the defendant blinked" and sent it back, rolling it up "in a manner befitting a college dorm-room poster." Among the evidence detectives are said to have uncovered in the case: Istavriglou's fingerprint on the mailing tube, relevant Web searches made from his Google account before the story broke, and a photo of the drawing in the gallery that he posted to his Facebook page. Istavrioglou was caught after an undercover cop posed as a New York art gallery manager and offered him a job, returning him to the Big Apple. He's due back in court today, the New York Times notes. | Title: An Unlikely Heist: The Tale of Salvador Dali Art Theft and its Intriguing Resolution
After a thief casually strolled into a New York gallery, walked out with a Salvador Dali drawing, and then promptly returned the stolen art via mail, numerous observers were left puzzled. However, an explanation has emerged through the justice system. Authorities recently arrested Greek fashion publicist Phivos Lampros Istavrioglou, 29, in connection with the theft. Istavrioglou pleaded not guilty.
The backstory of this unusual crime starts at the New York gallery, where Istavrioglou noticed that a $150,000 Salvador Dali drawing was not properly protected. He seized the opportunity and took the drawing. He transported the artwork from New York City, to Athens, Greece, where he resides. However, upon arriving in Athens, Istavrioglou experienced a change of heart. In fear of being caught, prosecutors say Istavrioglou decided to return the precious art piece.
"When he realized the hunt was on, the defendant blinked," the prosecutor stated. In a hasty move to avoid any ramifications, Istavrioglou rolled up the Salvador Dali drawing and sent it back to the gallery. His method of rolling can be best described as "a manner befitting a college dorm-room poster," reflecting a naive approach rather than a heist expert's precision.
Detectives have managed to uncover several pieces of evidence that point to Istavrioglou's involvement in the peculiar crime. Among these pieces of evidence is his fingerprint found on the mailing tube used to return the drawing. Additional information implicating Istavrioglou includes relevant web searches made on his Google account in the period leading up to the story breaking. Furthermore, a picture of the drawing, as it hung in the gallery, was featured on Istavrioglou's Facebook profile.
The Greek fashion publicist was apprehended in New York City, following communication with an undercover cop who posed as an art gallery manager. The undercover officer lured Istavrioglou back to the Big Apple by offering him a lucrative job opportunity. Once in New York, officers closed in and arrested him without incident. Istavrioglou appeared in court soon after and pleaded not guilty.
Now that the Salvador Dali drawing has been safely returned, the consequences faced by Istavrioglou remain uncertain. As a high-profile suspect in an art theft turned intriguing global case, the enigmatic nature of the criminal act and its intriguing resolution will leave many captivated and puzzled in the world of art galleries and beyond. This unusual case serves as a testament to the unpredictability of human nature, coupled with the ability for even the unlikeliest of individuals to become involved in an art heist. |
context: You are a helpful assistant, who always provide explanation. Think like you are answering to a five year old. question: Remove the spaces from the following sentence: It prevents users to suspect that there are some hidden products installed on theirs device. | Itpreventsuserstosuspectthattherearesomehiddenproductsinstalledontheirsdevice. |
context: You are an AI assistant. You will be given a task. You must generate a detailed and long answer. question: I want to test the ability of students to read a passage and answer questions about it. Could you please come up with a good question for the passage "On the night of December 25, 1991, at 7:32 p.m. Moscow time, after Gorbachev left the Kremlin, the Soviet flag was lowered for the last time, and the Russian tricolor was raised in its place, symbolically marking the end of the Soviet Union. The next day, December 26, 1991, the Council of Republics, the upper chamber of the Union's Supreme Soviet, issued a formal Declaration recognizing that the Soviet Union had ceased to exist as a state and subject of international law, and voted both itself and the Soviet Union out of existence (the other chamber of the Supreme Soviet, the Council of the Union, had been unable to work since December 12, 1991, when the recall of the Russian deputies left it without a quorum). The following day Yeltsin moved into Gorbachev's former office, though the Russian authorities had taken over the suite two days earlier. By December 31, 1991, the few remaining Soviet institutions that had not been taken over by Russia ceased operation, and individual republics assumed the central government's role."?
The answer to this question is: | One potential question for this passage could be:
Question: Detail the key events and timeline that led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the establishment of the Russian Federation in December 1991.
Answer: The dissolution of the Soviet Union and the establishment of the Russian Federation occurred through a series of significant events in December 1991. On the night of December 25, Mikhail Gorbachev left the Kremlin, and the Soviet flag was lowered for the last time at 7:32 p.m. Moscow time, with the Russian tricolor raised in its place. This symbolically marked the end of the Soviet Union. The following day, December 26, the Council of Republics, the upper chamber of the Union's Supreme Soviet, issued a Declaration recognizing that the Soviet Union had ceased to exist as a state and subject of international law. This vote effectively disbanded both itself and the Soviet Union. The Council of the Union, another chamber of the Supreme Soviet, had already been unable to work since December 12, due to the recall of the Russian deputies, which left it without a quorum. On December 27, Boris Yeltsin moved into Gorbachev's former office, although the Russian authorities had taken control of the suite two days prior. By December 31, the remaining Soviet institutions that had not been absorbed by Russia ceased operations, and the individual republics assumed the roles of the previous central government. |
context: You are an AI assistant. User will you give you a task. Your goal is to complete the task as faithfully as you can. While performing the task think step-by-step and justify your steps. question: Choose the next sentence.Ann Romney slammed the door Monday on another attempt at the White House for her husband Mitt, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee. Attempting to put a pin in rumors that her husband is secretly plotting another campaign for higher office once and and for all, Romney told a reporter for the Los Angeles Times that she and Mitt were 'done' running for president 'completely.' 'Not only Mitt and I are done, but the kids are done,' she said, referring to the couple's five sons. 'Done. Done. Done,' she added, making her feelings on the matter crystal clear. Ann Romney, wife of 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, attempted on Monday to put a pin in rumors that her husband is secretly plotting another campaign for higher office once and and for all
OPTIONS:
- Ann Romney supporters have continued to hold out hope that the retired Republican politician will change his mind, however, and are aggressively encouraging him to run when he makes appearances on the campaign trail for the GOP candidates competing in November's elections.
- Ann Romney Center for Neurological Diseases supporters have continued to hold out hope that the retired Republican politician will change his mind, however, and are aggressively encouraging him to run when he makes appearances on the campaign trail for the GOP candidates competing in November's elections.
- Brigham supporters have continued to hold out hope that the retired Republican politician will change his mind, however, and are aggressively encouraging him to run when he makes appearances on the campaign trail for the GOP candidates competing in November's elections.
- Brigham and Women’s Hospital supporters have continued to hold out hope that the retired Republican politician will change his mind, however, and are aggressively encouraging him to run when he makes appearances on the campaign trail for the GOP candidates competing in November's elections.
- Los Angeles Times supporters have continued to hold out hope that the retired Republican politician will change his mind, however, and are aggressively encouraging him to run when he makes appearances on the campaign trail for the GOP candidates competing in November's elections.
- Mitt supporters have continued to hold out hope that the retired Republican politician will change his mind, however, and are aggressively encouraging him to run when he makes appearances on the campaign trail for the GOP candidates competing in November's elections.
- Mitt Romney supporters have continued to hold out hope that the retired Republican politician will change his mind, however, and are aggressively encouraging him to run when he makes appearances on the campaign trail for the GOP candidates competing in November's elections.
- Republican supporters have continued to hold out hope that the retired Republican politician will change his mind, however, and are aggressively encouraging him to run when he makes appearances on the campaign trail for the GOP candidates competing in November's elections.
- Romenys supporters have continued to hold out hope that the retired Republican politician will change his mind, however, and are aggressively encouraging him to run when he makes appearances on the campaign trail for the GOP candidates competing in November's elections.
- Romney supporters have continued to hold out hope that the retired Republican politician will change his mind, however, and are aggressively encouraging him to run when he makes appearances on the campaign trail for the GOP candidates competing in November's elections.
- White House supporters have continued to hold out hope that the retired Republican politician will change his mind, however, and are aggressively encouraging him to run when he makes appearances on the campaign trail for the GOP candidates competing in November's elections.
| Step 1: Identify the main subject of the paragraph. In this case, it is Ann Romney and her statement about her husband, Mitt Romney, not running for president again.
Step 2: Look for an option that best continues the narrative and is relevant to the subject. In this case, options that mention Ann Romney, Mitt Romney, or their supporters seem most relevant.
Step 3: Eliminate options that introduce unrelated or incorrect information. In this case, options that mention unrelated organizations or places, such as the Ann Romney Center for Neurological Diseases, Brigham, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Los Angeles Times, should be eliminated.
Step 4: Among the remaining options, choose the one that seems most coherent and appropriate for the context.
Considering the above steps, the next sentence should be:
- Mitt Romney supporters have continued to hold out hope that the retired Republican politician will change his mind, however, and are aggressively encouraging him to run when he makes appearances on the campaign trail for the GOP candidates competing in November's elections. |
context: You are a helpful assistant, who always provide explanation. Think like you are answering to a five year old. question: Bosna Hersek (BH) Başbakanı Adnan Terziç, Avrupa haritasında kara bir delik kalması halinde, AB ile bütünleşme sürecinin küresel anlamda tarihi bir örnek teşkil edemeyeceğini söyledi.
Translate to English
English: | Bosnia and Herzegovina (BH) Prime Minister Adnan Terzic said that if there is a black hole in the European map, the integration process with the European Union (EU) cannot be a historic example in a global sense. |
context: You are an AI assistant. Provide a detailed answer so user don’t need to search outside to understand the answer. question: Please answer the following question: - They are buried under layers of soil - Pressure builds over time - The remains liquefy - The carbon atoms rearrange to become a new substance. What might be the first step of the process?
A: | A: The first step of the process is "They are buried under layers of soil." This occurs when the remains of plants, animals, or other organic material become covered by soil and other sediments. Over time, as more and more layers accumulate, the pressure and heat increase, eventually leading to the transformation of the remains into substances like coal, oil, or natural gas. |
I know that the answer to the question "Who serves those who can perform good actions, producing merit?" is in "Theravadin Buddhists believe that personal effort is required to realize rebirth. Monks follow the vinaya: meditating, teaching and serving their lay communities. Laypersons can perform good actions, producing merit.". Can you tell me what it is?
| The answer to the question "Who serves those who can perform good actions, producing merit?" is 'Monks.' They follow the vinaya, meditating, teaching, and serving their lay communities in Theravadin Buddhism. |
context: User will you give you a task with some instruction. Your job is follow the instructions as faithfully as you can. While answering think step-by-step and justify your answer. question: Teacher:This task involves annotating the answer type to a given question that involve some kind of complex reasoning (including numerical reasoning). Note that the questions require looking at more than one part of the passage to answer. There are 3 possible answer types (i) spans, (ii) numbers and (iii) dates. If the answer can be found in the passage, label it as "span". If the answer is a number, label as "number". Similarly, label "date" if you think the answer to the given question is a date.
Teacher: Now, understand the problem? Solve this instance: Passage: Hoping to snap a four-game losing streak, the Bills flew to Arrowhead Stadium for a Week 12 duel with the Kansas City Chiefs. In the first quarter, Buffalo trailed early as Chiefs QB Tyler Thigpen completed a 36-yard TD pass to RB Jamaal Charles. The Bills responded with RB Marshawn Lynch getting a 1-yard TD run. In the second quarter, Buffalo took the lead as kicker Rian Lindell made a 21-yard field goal. Kansas City answered with Thigpen completing a 2-yard TD pass to TE Tony Gonzalez. Buffalo regained the lead as Lindell got a 39-yard field goal, while rookie CB Leodis McKelvin returned an interception 64 yards for a touchdown. The Chiefs struck back with kicker Connor Barth getting a 45-yard field goal, yet the Bills continued their offensive explosion as Lindell got a 34-yard field goal, along with QB Trent Edwards getting a 15-yard TD run. In the third quarter, Buffalo continued its poundings with Edwards getting a 5-yard TD run, while Lindell got himself a 38-yard field goal. Kansas City tried to rally as Thigpen completed a 45-yard TD pass to WR Mark Bradley, yet the Bills replied with Edwards completing an 8-yard TD pass to WR Josh Reed. In the fourth quarter, Buffalo pulled away as Edwards completed a 17-yard TD pass to TE Derek Schouman. The Chiefs tried to come back as QB Quinn Gray completed a 3-yard TD pass to WR Dwayne Bowe, yet the Bills' lead was too much for Kansas City to overcome. This marked the first time the Bills scored 50+ points on an opponent since Sept. 1991 against the Pittsburgh Steelers (52-34).
Question: How many yards long was the shortest touchdown in the first 2 quarters?
Student: | To answer this question, I will check the passage for the touchdowns scored in the first 2 quarters and find the shortest one by comparing the yards mentioned.
1. First quarter:
- 36-yard TD pass to RB Jamaal Charles
- 1-yard TD run by RB Marshawn Lynch
2. Second quarter:
- 2-yard TD pass to TE Tony Gonzalez
- 64-yard interception return for a touchdown by CB Leodis McKelvin
The shortest touchdown in the first 2 quarters was the 1-yard TD run by RB Marshawn Lynch.
Answer type: number |
context: You are an AI assistant. You will be given a task. You must generate a detailed and long answer. question: @Jenni_starr i wish i could do the same!
Describe the sentiment embodied by this tweet.
Options:
- negative
- positive
I think the answer is | positive.
This tweet represents a positive sentiment because the user, whose username is Jenni_starr, appears to have shared a personal accomplishment, thought, or experience that the person replying to the tweet wishes they could replicate or achieve as well. The exclamation mark at the end of the sentence also gives the statement an enthusiastic and lighthearted tone. The use of the word "wish" suggests a sense of admiration or desire to match whatever accomplishment, thought, or experience Jenni_starr has shared.
By expressing the sentiment "I wish I could do the same!" the responder is acknowledging the admiration they have for Jenni_starr and implies that whatever was shared is a positive aspect in their standpoint. This admiration and acknowledgement help to create an empowering and supportive environment between the individuals involved in the tweet exchange.
Moreover, this type of engagement on social media platforms such as Twitter is reflective of the positive relationships that can be built and nurtured online. People often share their achievements, ideas, and experiences to motivate and inspire others or to provide encouragement and support to their social circles.
In conclusion, based on the statement "I wish I could do the same!", the sentiment embodied by this tweet can be described as positive. The responder expresses admiration for Jenni_starr's accomplishment, thought, or experience and conveys their desire to achieve something similar. This interaction demonstrates how social media platforms can foster supportive relationships and create a positive impact on individuals' emotions and personal experiences. |
context: You are a helpful assistant, who always provide explanation. Think like you are answering to a five year old. question: How does the sentence end?
By Hannah Roberts Updated: 21:51 GMT, 1 March 2012 Conservative publisher and author Andrew Breitbart, the former editor of Drudge report has died, aged 43. Breitbart who published the infamous tweets that brought down former Representative Anthony Weiner, died 'unexpectedly from natural causes' this morning in Los Angeles. His death was confirmed by Breitbart.com editor-in-chief Joel Pollak, who says he was at the hospital, and by the Los Angeles County coroner's office. Sudden: Conservative publisher and author Andrew Breitbart, the former editor of Drudge report has died, aged 43 Breitbart was walking near his house in the Brentwood neighborhood shortly after midnight Thursday when he collapsed, his father-in-law Orson Bean said.
Loving father:
OPTIONS:
- Andrew Breitbart had suffered heart problems a year earlier
- Anthony Weiner had suffered heart problems a year earlier
- Breitbart had suffered heart problems a year earlier
- Breitbart.com had suffered heart problems a year earlier
- Brentwood had suffered heart problems a year earlier
- Hannah Roberts had suffered heart problems a year earlier
- Joel Pollak had suffered heart problems a year earlier
- Los Angeles had suffered heart problems a year earlier
- Los Angeles County had suffered heart problems a year earlier
- Orson Bean had suffered heart problems a year earlier
- UCLA had suffered heart problems a year earlier
- Wienergate had suffered heart problems a year earlier
| Loving father:
- Breitbart had suffered heart problems a year earlier |
context: You are an AI assistant. You will be given a task. You must generate a detailed and long answer. question: What is the best order to watch the Star Wars series?
What were orders 1 through 65 in Star Wars?
Do those questions have the same meaning? | The best order to watch the Star Wars series depends on the preferences of the viewer, but there are a few popular viewing orders that work well in different situations. I will list three of them below:
1. Release Order:
This is the order in which the films were released in theaters, starting with the Original Trilogy followed by the Prequel Trilogy and then the Sequel Trilogy. This order captures the experience of watching the films as they were introduced to the world.
- Episode IV: A New Hope (1977)
- Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
- Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (1983)
- Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999)
- Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002)
- Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005)
- Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
- Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017)
- Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker (2019)
Additionally, you may insert the standalone movies "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" (2016) after Episode III and "Solo: A Star Wars Story" (2018) after Episode VIII.
2. Chronological Order:
Although not the order in which the films were released, this option follows the timeline of the Star Wars universe.
- Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999)
- Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002)
- Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005)
- Episode IV: A New Hope (1977)
- Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
- Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (1983)
- Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
- Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017)
- Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker (2019)
"Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" takes place between Episodes III and IV, while "Solo: A Star Wars Story" occurs between Episodes III and IV but before Rogue One.
3. Machete Order:
This order is designed to maintain the surprise twist in Episode V while incorporating the background from the Prequel Trilogy.
- Episode IV: A New Hope (1977)
- Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
- Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002)
- Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005)
- Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (1983)
- Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
- Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017)
- Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker (2019)
In this order, Episode I is considered optional, and standalone films can be inserted as suggested in the release order.
As for the second question, Orders 1 through 65 refer to a series of contingency orders issued by the Galactic Republic to the clone troopers. These orders were a set of emergency plans designed to address various potential crises, including treason, assassination, and kidnapping. Order 66, specifically, instructed all clone troopers to execute their Jedi commanders in the event the Jedi were ever deemed a threat to the Republic.
These questions do not have the same meaning. The first question inquires about the best viewing order for the Star Wars films, while the second question concerns in-universe contingency plans used by the Galactic Republic within the Star Wars universe. |
context: You are an AI assistant. Provide a detailed answer so user don’t need to search outside to understand the answer. question: Answer the following question: So, I worked with a friend of mine who was a playwright to put together a play to take to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. It was a three person show, and one of the roles was written specifically for me. Many of the lines were written after we improvised the scenes in my living room as she wrote the piece. Took it to Scotland, where it was quite well received. A year or so later, it was being produced in New York in a much more prestigious setting. I auditioned, was called back a couple times, and got to the play the role again. Fantastic! THEN, it was produced by an even larger theatre. Different producer, different casting director, etc. I went to the open call for it, and the casting director treated me really poorly. It was odd. She looked at my resume and said, “It says you have already played this role.” I said, “Yes, I was fortunate enough to workshop it and originate the role.” She looked at me like I was lying. I mean, shuttled me out the door like I was a crazy woman. Needless to say, I was not called back. And that was okay—(I mean, of course I wanted to do the show with this group of people, but hey, we can’t always get what we want). Fast forward to opening night: my playwright friend invites me to see the show. The actress playing “my” role was fantastic, but they had to change lines in the script that indicated what she looked like, because she was of Hawaiian descent. Again, no big deal…and she was great! What was strange was meeting the director that evening. My friend introduced me as the originator of the role, and the director asked me why I hadn’t auditioned…Overall, it wasn’t a harsh rejection or a terrible story, it was just weird to have been treated like a liar when I was not lying… Why did the actress feel bad about begin rejected? A. Because she thought the other actress did a bad job B. Because she was treated like a liar C. not enough information D. Because the role had to be changed for the new actress
Answer: | B. Because she was treated like a liar |
context: You are an AI assistant. User will you give you a task. Your goal is to complete the task as faithfully as you can. While performing the task think step-by-step and justify your steps. question: Please answer the following question: Moeenuddin Ahmad Qureshi - Moeenuddin Ahmad Qureshi usually referred to as Moeen Qureshi (born 1930) is a Pakistani economist and political figure. A former Vice President of the World Bank he was the Interim Prime Minister of Pakistan from July 18 1993 until 19 October 1993. Given a choice of categories company, educational institution, artist, athlete, office holder, mean of transportation, building, natural place, village, animal, plant, album, film or written work, the text refers to which one?
Answer: | The text refers to the category of "office holder" as Moeenuddin Ahmad Qureshi served as the Interim Prime Minister of Pakistan from July 18, 1993, until October 19, 1993. |
context: You are an AI assistant. You will be given a task. You must generate a detailed and long answer. question: Multi-choice question: Same meaning?
Descendant of many other people , his father fought in the war and once it ended , decided to stay in Paraguay , like Brazilian soldiers at the time .
His descendant of many other people , his father fought at war and decided to stay in Paraguay when it ended , like the Brazilian soldiers at the time .
Choose your answer from: (i) no. (ii) yes. | (ii) yes.
Both sentences convey the same meaning, although they are structured slightly differently and use some synonyms. Here's a detailed comparison between the two sentences:
1. Beginning phrase - Same meaning:
- "Descendant of many other people" (Sentence 1)
- "His descendant of many other people" (Sentence 2)
Note: The addition of "his" in Sentence 2 does not change the meaning of the phrase.
2. Father's action during the war - Same meaning:
- "his father fought in the war" (Sentence 1)
- "his father fought at war" (Sentence 2)
Note: Both phrases express the same idea of the individual's father participating in a war.
3. The action taken after the war - Same meaning:
- "and once it ended, decided to stay in Paraguay" (Sentence 1)
- "and decided to stay in Paraguay when it ended" (Sentence 2)
Note: The change from "once it ended" to "when it ended" does not alter the essence of the statement. Both phrases imply that after the war was over, the father decided to remain in Paraguay.
4. Comparing the father's action with Brazilian soldiers - Same meaning:
- "like Brazilian soldiers at the time" (Sentence 1)
- "like the Brazilian soldiers at the time" (Sentence 2)
Note: The addition of "the" in Sentence 2 does not change the meaning. Both sentences compare the father's decision to stay in Paraguay after the war to the actions of Brazilian soldiers during that period.
In conclusion, while the two sentences use slightly different sentence structures and some synonyms, they ultimately convey the same meaning about an individual derived from a line of ancestors, whose father fought in a war and, after its end, chose to remain in Paraguay like Brazilian soldiers of that era. |
context: You are an AI assistant that follows instruction extremely well. Help as much as you can. question: Please answer the following question: Information: - The National Hockey League (NHL) is a professional ice hockey league currently composed of 31 member clubs. Of the 30 clubs currently playing, 23 are in the United States and 7 in Canada. Headquartered in New York City, the NHL is considered to be the premier professional ice hockey league in the world, and one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada. The Stanley Cup, the oldest professional sports trophy in North America, is awarded annually to the league playoff champion at the end of each season. - William Walton `` Bill '' Sharman ( May 25 , 1926 -- October 25 , 2013 ) was an American professional basketball player and coach . He is mostly known for his time with the Boston Celtics in the 1950s , partnering with Bob Cousy in what some consider the greatest backcourt duo of all time . As a coach , Sharman won titles in the ABL , ABA , and NBA , and is credited with introducing the morning shootaround . He was a 10 - time NBA Champion ( having won four titles as a player with the Celtics , one as head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers , and five as a Lakers executive ) , and a 12 - time World Champion in basketball overall counting his ABL and ABA titles . Sharman is also a two - time Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductee , having been being inducted in 1976 as a player , and in 2004 as a coach . Only John Wooden , Lenny Wilkens and Tommy Heinsohn share this double honor . - The TD Garden (previously the Shawmut Center, the FleetCenter, and the TD Banknorth Garden; nicknamed the Boston Garden and The Garden) is a multi-purpose arena in Boston. It is named after its sponsor, TD Bank, a subsidiary of Canada's Toronto-Dominion Bank. - Robert Joseph "Bob" Cousy (born August 9, 1928) is an American retired professional basketball player and member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Cousy played point guard with the Boston Celtics from 1950 to 1963 and briefly with the Cincinnati Royals in the 196970 season. Making his high school varsity squad as a junior, he went on to earn a scholarship to the College of the Holy Cross, where he led the Crusaders to berths in the 1948 NCAA Tournament and 1950 NCAA Tournament and was named an NCAA All-American for 3 seasons. - The Boston Celtics are an American professional basketball team based in Boston, Massachusetts. The Celtics compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member club of the league's Eastern Conference Atlantic Division. Founded in 1946 and one of eight NBA teams (out of 23 total teams) to survive the league's first decade, the team is owned by Boston Basketball Partners LLC. The Celtics play their home games at the TD Garden, which they share with the National Hockey League (NHL)'s Boston Bruins. The franchise's 17 championships are the most of any NBA franchise, and account for 24.3 percent of all NBA championships since the league's founding in 1946. As a percentage of championships won, the Celtics are the most successful franchise to date in the major four traditional North American professional sports leagues. - The point guard (PG), also called the one or point, is one of the five positions in a regulation basketball game. A point guard has perhaps the most specialized role of any position. They are expected to run the team's offense by controlling the ball and making sure that it gets to the right players at the right time. Above all, the point guard must totally understand and accept their coach's game plan; in this way, the position can be compared to a quarterback in American football or a playmaker in association football (soccer). - Basketball is a sport that is played by two teams of five players on a rectangular court. The objective is to shoot a ball through a hoop in diameter and mounted at a height of to backboards at each end of the court. The game was invented in 1891 by Dr. James Naismith, who would be the first basketball coach of the Kansas Jayhawks, one of the most successful programs in the game's history. What entity does 'bill sharman' has the relation 'position played on team / speciality' with?
A: | Bill Sharman has the relation 'position played on team/speciality' with the Boston Celtics as a basketball player. |
context: You are an AI assistant that helps people find information. question: Please answer the following question by reasoning step-by-step. If "A woman in a green shirt is welding." does that mean that "A woman is cutting metal."?
Options:
- yes
- it is not possible to tell
- no. Step-by-step reasoning: | - no.
Step-by-step reasoning:
1. The statement given is "A woman in a green shirt is welding."
2. Welding is a process where two or more metal pieces are joined together by heating their surfaces to the point of melting, usually with an electric arc or a gas flame.
3. Cutting metal, on the other hand, is a process of separating metal into two or more pieces using various methods, such as sawing, shearing, or plasma cutting.
4. Since welding and cutting metal are different processes, the statement "A woman is cutting metal" cannot be inferred from the given statement. Therefore, the answer is no. |
context: You are a teacher. Given a task, you explain in simple steps what the task is asking, any guidelines it provides and how to use those guidelines to find the answer. question: Detailed Instructions: In this task, you are given a premise, a hypothesis, and an update. The premise sentence describes a real-world situation and is always assumed to be true. The hypothesis sentence describes an assumption or inference that you might make about that situation having read the premise. The update provides additional information about the situation that might weaken or strengthen the hypothesis. A weakener is a statement that weakens the hypothesis, that is, it makes you much less likely to believe the hypothesis is true. A strengthener is a statement that strengthens the hypothesis, that is, it makes you much more likely to believe the hypothesis is true. Your task is to answer with 'strengthener' or 'weakener' if the update strengthens or weakens the hypothesis, respectively.
Problem:Premise: A woman in white with her arms folded smiling as a man is laughing holding cotton candy.
Hypothesis: A woman watches her husband buying cotton candy at a carnival.
Update: The woman does not know the man.
Solution: | The task is asking you to determine if an update strengthens or weakens a given hypothesis based on a provided premise. To do this, follow these simple steps:
1. Understand the premise: Read the given premise sentence that describes a real-world situation. Remember, the premise is always true.
In this case, the premise is, "A woman in white with her arms folded smiling as a man is laughing holding cotton candy."
2. Understand the hypothesis: Read the provided hypothesis sentence that describes an assumption or inference about the situation based on the premise.
In this case, the hypothesis is, "A woman watches her husband buying cotton candy at a carnival."
3. Analyze the update: Read the update sentence that provides additional information about the situation. This update can either weaken or strengthen the hypothesis.
In this case, the update is, "The woman does not know the man."
4. Determine if the update is a strengthener or weakener: Assess if the update makes the hypothesis more likely to be true (strengthener) or less likely to be true (weakener) based on the relationship between the premise, hypothesis, and update.
In this case, the update weakens the hypothesis because the woman does not know the man, making it less likely that the man is her husband.
5. Provide the answer: Based on your analysis, answer whether the update is a strengthener or weakener for the hypothesis. In this case, the answer is 'weakener.' |
context: You are an AI assistant. User will you give you a task. Your goal is to complete the task as faithfully as you can. While performing the task think step-by-step and justify your steps. question: You will be given a definition of a task first, then some input of the task.
You are given a sentence in Spanish. Your job is to translate the Spanish sentence into Arabic.
Incorporan su propio dinero. Son fáciles de fabricar.
Output: | To perform this translation, I will follow these steps:
1. Analyze the structure and grammar of the sentence in Spanish.
2. Identify the individual components (words and phrases) and their definitions.
3. Apply Arabic grammar rules to ensure proper construction of the sentence.
4. Verify the correctness of the translation.
Step 1: Analyze the structure and grammar of the sentence in Spanish.
"Incorporan su propio dinero. Son fáciles de fabricar."
This sentence consists of two separate statements. The first statement, "Incorporan su propio dinero," talks about incorporating their own money. The second statement, "Son fáciles de fabricar," mentions that they are easy to manufacture.
Step 2: Identify the individual components and their definitions.
Incorporan: incorporate
su: their
propio: own
dinero: money
Son: they are
fáciles: easy
de: of
fabricar: manufacture
Step 3: Apply Arabic grammar rules to ensure proper construction of the sentence.
After identifying the definitions, I will arrange the words according to Arabic grammar:
First statement:
Incorporan su propio dinero -> يدمجون أموالهم الخاصة
يدمجون: Incorporate
أموالهم: their money
الخاصة: own
Second statement:
Son fáciles de fabricar -> هم سهلون للتصنيع
هم: they are
سهلون: easy
للتصنيع: for manufacturing
Step 4: Verify the correctness of the translation.
The translation seems accurate, maintaining the meaning of the original Spanish sentence. So, the final Arabic translation is:
يدمجون أموالهم الخاصة. هم سهلون للتصنيع. |
context: You are a teacher. Given a task, you explain in simple steps what the task is asking, any guidelines it provides and how to use those guidelines to find the answer. question: Given the task definition and input, reply with output. In this task, you are given reviews written about the books in Bengali. You are expected to classify the sentiment of the reviews into two classes: positive or negative.
পড়তে পড়তে বিরক্ত লাগছিলো।বিশেষ কিছুই নেই
| This task requires you to analyze a given review written in Bengali and determine whether the sentiment expressed is positive or negative. Here's a simple step-by-step guide to help you:
1. Understand the task requirements: In this task, you have to analyze the book reviews written in Bengali and classify them as either positive or negative based on their sentiment.
2. Read the given input: Carefully read the provided review to understand the content. In this case, the input is: "পড়তে পড়তে বিরক্ত লাগছিলো। বিশেষ কিছুই নেই"
3. Identify the sentiment: Try to understand the emotions expressed in the review. Here, the sentences indicate some level of annoyance or disappointment (বিরক্ত লাগছিলো) and lack of anything special (বিশেষ কিছুই নেই).
4. Classify the sentiment: Based on your understanding of the review, determine whether the overall sentiment is positive or negative. In this example, the review expresses dissatisfaction, thus the sentiment is negative.
5. Provide the output: Once you have classified the sentiment, reply with the output. In this case, the output will be "negative."
So, for the given input, the output is "negative." |
context: You are an AI assistant. User will you give you a task. Your goal is to complete the task as faithfully as you can. While performing the task think step-by-step and justify your steps. question: Can you get your penis bigger?
How do I make my penis longer?
Choose your answer. Are these two questions paraphrases of each other?
Options: I. no; II. yes; | Option II. yes
These two questions are paraphrases of each other because both questions are essentially asking about increasing the size of the penis, particularly in terms of length. |
context: You are an AI assistant. Provide a detailed answer so user don’t need to search outside to understand the answer. question: Q:Two people got stuck in a local blizzard. Tom had a bottle of alcohol with him and drank it after he found some kind of shelter in the snow. Dan didn't have alcohol with him. Which of the two people had more blood vessels dilate?
A: | Tom, the person who consumed alcohol, would have experienced more blood vessel dilation. Alcohol is a vasodilator, which means it causes blood vessels to expand or dilate. When someone drinks alcohol, it enters their bloodstream and triggers the blood vessels to widen. This dilation can lead to increased blood flow and a temporary feeling of warmth, which might seem beneficial in a cold situation like a blizzard.
However, this effect is counterproductive in such conditions, as the increased blood flow to the skin's surface actually promotes heat loss from the body. As a result, Tom would be at a higher risk of hypothermia compared to Dan, who did not consume alcohol. So, even though Tom experienced more blood vessel dilation, it was not a positive effect in this scenario. |
context: You are an AI assistant. User will you give you a task. Your goal is to complete the task as faithfully as you can. While performing the task think step-by-step and justify your steps. question: Please briefly summarize this news article:
AOL.com Video - Father Lets 8-Year-Old Drive On Icy Road
Description:Would you let your 8-year-old drive your car? How about on an icy road? Well one father in Russia did just that, and recorded the entire thing. To her credit, the child seemed to be doing a great job. (0:44)
Tags: 8-year-old driver , caught on camera , child driver , pix11
Summary: | A father in Russia allowed his 8-year-old child to drive his car on an icy road and recorded the event. The child appeared to be handling the situation well, showcasing their driving skills despite the challenging conditions. |
context: You are an AI assistant, who knows every language and how to translate one language to another. Given a task, you explain in simple steps what the task is asking, any guidelines that it provides. You solve the task and show how you used the guidelines to solve the task. question: In this task, you are given a sentence in the English language from the various articles. Your task is to translate the given English sentence into the Yoruba language. Please bear in mind the following guidelines while doing the translation: 1) Generated output should have natural language and formal form. The output sentence should not be a colloquial form of the input sentence. The generated output should be in natural language which is how you would type your queries in a text-based virtual assistant. 2) The words between quotation marks *SHOULD NOT* be translated. The output should keep those values intact and include the quotation marks around them as well. 3) Numbers and fully capitalized words like SEPTEMBER, or 10 HOURS *SHOULD NOT* be translated. Keep them as they are in the translations. 4) Do not localize measurement units like miles to kilometers during your translation. 5) Note the input is in sentence case except for special placeholders. Do the same in your translations.
The over 149,000 publishers in Venezuela are not only enduring despite suffering severe trials during the “last days,” they are also increasing their efforts to share the Bible’s comforting message with their neighbors. | Ni itan yi, o ni rọ̀tìn n jẹ́ ọtún in Yoruba lati ara ohun to gba lati awọn akọọlẹ̀. Rọ̀tìn yinyin ni lati yí padà gbọlọhùn ti a pèsè ni ede Gẹ́ẹsì ni Yoruba. Jọwọ gbin ní ọ̀tùnnumọ́ ti a pèsè wọnyí nigba ti o ba ń ṣe itumọ irọ̀tìn:
1) Iṣiro ti o ba ń yin lọwọ́ yẹ ki o bi ara ẹ̀dá ati idanilekọ ti o jiyan ati n yẹ ki o ba jẹ́ alábàrà ọ̀rọ̀ ninu ifọ̀wọ̀rọ̀. Iṣiro ti o ba ń yin yẹ ki o ba jẹ́ alábàrà ti a ko pada ninu awọn ohun ti a pèsè naa, yẹ ki o ba jẹ́ nifèẹ́ awọn ọrọ̀ ti a ko ninu awọn gbọlọhùn virtual assistant.
2) Lọ́nà nǹkan tí wọ́n kọ́ sí bẹ́ẹ̀ tí awọn aáfikùn kì fọ kọ̀ọ̀kọ̀án *MẹRINDINLOGUN* yẹ ki o mu menú wọ̀nyí wa ní iṣiro ti o ba ń yin. Yẹ ki o mu awọn ọ̀dun tí a kọ̀ síbẹ̀ẹ̀, fọ kọ̀ọ̀kọ̀án l'arin awọn iṣiro ti a yin lati ara ẹda ọrọ̀.
3) Sụfọ̀ọ̀rọ̀ tí o wà lókè wọn kì bẹ̀rù nígi yìí, dà bíi ẹ̀ṣẹ̀rọ̀ SEPTEMBER, tabi 10 HOURS *KI O KI O YAN* ni iṣiro ti a yin. Mu wọn wá bi wọn ṣe ní iṣiro ti o ba ń yan.
4) Kò yípadà ináìpọn iṣe èdi e lé gbọn lókè bi míli tabi kílómìtà nigbati o ba ń mu irọ̀tìn yinyin sínù.
5) àkíyèsí tónán inú gbọ̀sì wón s'ọdọdọ òdìgbayénú òdìgbèóròmi tùnmò s'ọdọdọnló i. Tún bi ẹda wọn ní iṣiro ti olórí wọn ní ti èyitónán gbójà_odoọ̀bìnrin your translations
Lẹyìn gbajúmọ̀, ọmọ ogun ki o ń sọ diẹ́ sínú gbọlọhùn gẹ́ẹsì wọn: The over 149,000 publishers in Venezuela are not only enduring despite suffering severe trials during the “last days,” they are also increasing their efforts to share the Bible’s comforting message with their neighbors.
_E_ iṣiro ti a yin lọwọ́ eto yii ni: Nínú Venezuela, awọn aṣayasẹ ipo to tọ́ ọ̀la, 149,000 ni wọn kò nikan yà gbiri gbọdọjụ méjì sórí àwọn ìdásọnu gidi ní “ọjọ́òóòóòó kan dọn,” wọn sì ń kọ̀_atébíìnyéì u_ṣi kọ ki wọn pín ikanni ìrọra tí iwe mímọ erubẹ disponun ibyllesai wọnyí fun àwọn mètèèbùù. Inú wahala to gọ́ diẹ̀, |
context: You are an AI assistant. User will you give you a task. Your goal is to complete the task as faithfully as you can. While performing the task think step-by-step and justify your steps. question: I am verifying the answers generated by an automatic system to the following question: what is genetic differences Suggested answer: Alleles under selection are likely to occur only in those geographic regions where they confer an advantage. Should I validate this answer?
OPTIONS:
(a). No;
(b). Yes; | To verify the answer, I will:
1. Understand the question and the given answer
2. Check if the given answer fits the context of the question
3. Make a decision based on the correctness and relevancy
Step 1: Understanding the question and the given answer
The question asks about "what is genetic differences." Essentially, it seeks to define or explain the concept of genetic differences. The suggested answer explains the occurrence of specific alleles in certain geographic regions due to selection and their advantages. However, it doesn't directly answer the question.
Step 2: Checking if the given answer fits the context of the question
The given answer provides an example of a process associated with genetic differences (specifically, selection based on an advantage). Still, it does not provide a comprehensive definition or explanation of genetic differences themselves, which is the primary focus of the question.
Step 3: Decision
Based on the correctness and relevancy of the given answer, the decision is:
(a). No |
context: You are a helpful assistant, who always provide explanation. Think like you are answering to a five year old. question: Milwaukee, Wisconsin (CNN) -- President Barack Obama, in a bid to create jobs and boost economic growth, called on Congress on Monday to pass a $50 billion plan to renew the country's transportation infrastructure. His address was the first of two speeches the president is scheduled to make this week to frame his administration's ongoing response to the recession, less than two months ahead of midterm elections in which Democratic majorities in the House and Senate are in jeopardy. "Today, I am announcing a new plan for rebuilding and modernizing America's roads, and rails and runways for the long term," said Obama, who spoke on Labor Day in Milwaukee, Wisconsin -- a state with competitive gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races. "We used to have the best infrastructure in the world. We can have it again," he said to loud cheers from a crowd of union workers. The proposal envisions -- over a six year period -- rebuilding 150,000 miles of roads, 4,000 miles of rail and 150 miles of airport runways. It also would include modernizing the nation's air traffic control system in an effort to reduce delays and travel time. "This will not only create jobs immediately. It's also going to make our economy hum over the long haul," said the president. Obama hopes to work with Congress to enact an up-front investment of $50 billion -- an amount a White House statement said would represent a significant chunk of new spending on infrastructure. The investment would then be paired with what the administration called a framework to improve transportation spending. The long-term plan would include the establishment of an Infrastructure Bank, which would leverage federal dollars and focus on projects that could deliver the the biggest bang for the buck, Obama said. The president stressed the need for Democrats and Republicans to work together on the transportation initiative, which would need to be approved by Congress.
Based on the paragraph, does the response "More jobs, better commute times" correctly answer the question "What did the president say would be two significant benefits of spending to rebuild many miles of roads, railways, and runways?"? | Yes, the response "More jobs, better commute times" correctly answers the question. The president mentioned that this plan would create jobs immediately and also improve the economy, which includes better transportation and shorter travel times. |
context: You are an AI assistant that follows instruction extremely well. Help as much as you can. question: Please answer the following question: I am trying to decide whether it's worth it to invest in this film proposal. Can you help me answer a few questions? If you can't, please say "No I can't". Question: What does Spider-Man suspect Connor is? Movie title: The Amazing Spider-Man Movie plot: Scientist Richard Parker (Campbell Scott) is playing hide-and-seek with his young son Peter (Max Charles) when he discovers that his study has been broken into. After quickly gathering some hidden documents, Richard and his wife Mary (Embeth Davidtz) leave Peter with his Aunt May (Sally Field) and Uncle Ben (Martin Sheen), then mysteriously depart without telling Peter where they are going.Years later, the teenage Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) has become an alienated social outcast. He attends Midtown Science High School, where he pines over his crush Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone), while frequently getting bullied by the obnoxious Flash Thompson (Chris Zylka).At home, Peter finds a briefcase containing some of his father's old documents and learns that his father worked with fellow scientist Dr. Curtis Connors (Rhys Ifans) at a pharmaceutical company named Oscorp. Faking his way into the Oscorp building by pretending to be an intern, Peter sneaks into a laboratory where extremely strong "biocable" is being created from genetically-modified spiders. One of the spiders escapes from its container and bites Peter. On the subway ride home, Peter scuffles with a gang of thugs and discovers that he suddenly has increased agility and strength. Upon returning home, he finds the spider hiding in his jacket and stores it away.The next day, Peter goes to Dr. Connors's house and gives him Richard Parker's documents. Dr. Connors explains that he and Richard were researching cross-species genetics in order to find a way to re-grow lost limbs, Dr. Connors being motivated by the loss of his own right arm. Dr. Connors is frustrated because his superior, Dr. Rajit Ratha (Irrfan Khan), is pressuring him to devise a cure for Oscorp's CEO Norman Osborn, who is terminally ill.Back at school, Peter gets in trouble after accidentally breaking a basketball hoop during a game with Flash. Uncle Ben is forced to switch a work shift to meet with the principal about the situation. Afterward, Uncle Ben asks Peter to pick up Aunt May, but Peter...
A: | Spider-Man suspects that Dr. Connor is the Lizard. |
context: You are a helpful assistant, who always provide explanation. Think like you are answering to a five year old. question: Even after Bin Laden's departure from the area, CIA officers hoped he might return, seeing the camp as a magnet that could draw him for as long as it was still set up. The military maintained readiness for another strike opportunity. On March 7, 1999, Clarke called a UAE official to express his concerns about possible associations between Emirati officials and Bin Laden. Clarke later wrote in a memorandum of this conversation that the call had been approved at an interagency meeting and cleared with the CIA. When the former Bin Laden unit chief found out about Clarke's call, he questioned CIA officials, who denied having given such a clearance. Imagery confirmed that less than a week after Clarke's phone call the camp was hurriedly dismantled, and the site was deserted. CIA officers, including Deputy Director for Operations Pavitt, were irate." Mike" thought the dismantling of the camp erased a possible site for targeting Bin Laden. The United Arab Emirates was becoming both a valued counterterrorism ally of the United States and a persistent counterterrorism problem. From 1999 through early 2001, the United States, and President Clinton personally, pressed the UAE, one of the Taliban's only travel and financial outlets to the outside world, to break off its ties and enforce sanctions, especially those relating to flights to and from Afghanistan. These efforts achieved little before 9/11. In July 1999, UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Hamdan bin Zayid threatened to break relations with the Taliban over Bin Laden. The Taliban did not take him seriously, however. Bin Zayid later told an American diplomat that the UAE valued its relations with the Taliban because the Afghan radicals offered a counterbalance to "Iranian dangers" in the region, but he also noted that the UAE did not want to upset the United States.
Question: "Why did Hamdan bin Zayid's threat to break relations with the Taliban achieve little results before 9/11?"
Response: "UAE"
Available choices:
(a). no
(b). yes
Does the response correctly answer the question?
| The provided response "UAE" does not correctly answer the question. The appropriate response should explain why Hamdan bin Zayid's threat did not achieve significant results before 9/11. |
context: You are a helpful assistant, who always provide explanation. Think like you are answering to a five year old. question: Answer this question:
what is the animal on liverpool's crest?? | The animal on Liverpool's crest is a bird called the Liver bird. It is a mythical creature that looks like a combination of a seagull and a cormorant. This bird is a symbol of the city of Liverpool, and the soccer team uses it on their crest to represent their connection to the city. |
context: You are an AI assistant that helps people find information. Provide a detailed answer so user don’t need to search outside to understand the answer. question: Which of the following sentences is nonsensical?
Options:
- Sentence A: "the earth is smaller than the sun"
- Sentence B: "the earth is smaller than the moon"
Let me think hard. Detailed solution: | Upon analyzing the two sentences, it can be determined that:
- Sentence A: "the earth is smaller than the sun"
- Sentence B: "the earth is smaller than the moon"
Sentence A is a true statement. The Earth is indeed smaller than the Sun. The Earth has a diameter of approximately 12,742 kilometers (7,918 miles), while the Sun has a diameter of about 1,391,000 kilometers (864,000 miles). In terms of size, the Sun is much larger than the Earth.
Sentence B, on the other hand, is not a true statement. The Earth is larger than the Moon. The Moon has a diameter of approximately 3,474 kilometers (2,159 miles), making it substantially smaller than the Earth.
Given the options, Sentence B: "the earth is smaller than the moon" is the nonsensical statement, as it contradicts the known relative sizes of the Earth and the Moon. |
SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA — U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo Thursday pushed back against a North Korean state media report that U.S. President Donald Trump agreed during this week’s Singapore summit with Kim Jong Un to gradually lift sanctions against Pyongyang, saying Trump had been very clear about the sequence of steps in the process. The official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Trump offered to lift sanctions against it as relations improve, indicating a phased-in approach where concessions would be provided at various stages of the denuclearization process. Speaking at a news conference in Seoul alongside South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-hwa and Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono, the U.S. secretary of state said the Trump administration would not repeat the mistakes made by past presidents that rewarded Pyongyang for denuclearization promises. “When we refer to the mistakes of the past. They were providing economic and financial aid relief before the complete denuclearization had taken place. That is not going to happen. President Trump made that clear,” Pompeo said. President Trump described his meeting with Kim as a resounding success and in a tweet said, “There is no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea.” But the U.S.-North Korea joint declaration was vague on details, providing no clear definition on what constitutes denuclearization, set no timeline for the dismantlement process, and said nothing about outside verification requirements. Pompeo, however, pointed out that in the Singapore statement both countries reaffirmed the inter-Korean Panmunjom declaration from April, in which both South and North Korea agreed to uphold all past agreements that did specify detailed nuclear prohibitions and verification requirements. The secretary of state and his counterparts in Seoul and Tokyo said they are united in support of the U.S.-North Korea agreement, and in agreement on the goal of complete, irreversible, verifiable dismantlement of North Korea’s nuclear program. After the summit,... Who did Trump meet with representing North Korea? - not enough information - Mike Pompeo - Taro Kono - Kim Jong Un
The answer to this question is: | Kim Jong Un |
context: You are an AI assistant. User will you give you a task. Your goal is to complete the task as faithfully as you can. While performing the task think step-by-step and justify your steps. question: How does the next paragraph end?
We see men on a stage walking on a slack line as two other men film the event. they | continue to balance carefully, inching their way across the line, while the audience below watches in awe and anticipation. As the two men approach the final stretch, they steady themselves, their concentration unwavering. In one precise movement, they simultaneously reach the end of the slack line, raising their arms triumphantly. The audience erupts into applause and cheers, celebrating the end of a daring and captivating performance, as the cameras continue to roll, capturing the unforgettable moment in time.
Step-by-step justification:
1. Given the starting information, we identify that the paragraph's main focus is on the men walking on a slack line, and being filmed.
2. In order to complete the paragraph and create an engaging narrative, we can presume that their effort will end one way or the other.
3. To add tension and suspense, the men continue to balance and inch across the line, engaging the audience.
4. As they approach the end, we can introduce heightened concentration and resolve to create dramatic tension.
5. The successful completion and triumphant gesture add excitement and resolution to the narrative.
6. Finally, we include the audience's reaction and the ongoing filming to wrap up the event and conclude the paragraph. |
context: You are a helpful assistant, who always provide explanation. Think like you are answering to a five year old. question: This is some data: Aaron Boogaard, birthYear, 1986; Aaron Boogaard, height, 1.905; Aaron Boogaard, club, Wichita Thunder; Aaron Boogaard, birthPlace, Canada.
Generate a detailed description of this data | Alright kiddo, let me tell you about Aaron Boogaard. He is a person who was born in the year 1986, which means he is older than you. Aaron is quite tall, standing at 1.905 meters - that means he's much taller than your dad! He plays for a team called the Wichita Thunder, kind of like how you play with your friends at school. And guess what? Aaron was born in a far away country called Canada, which is a really big place with lots of snow and friendly people. So this information is all about a tall Canadian man named Aaron Boogaard who plays for the Wichita Thunder and was born in 1986. |
Subsets and Splits