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44cwie | why does the chinese new year begin on february 6? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/44cwie/eli5_why_does_the_chinese_new_year_begin_on/ | {
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"It's February 8th actually. It changes every year. Last year it was the January 28th. \n\nThey follow a different calendar, the lunar calendar. America follows the Solar calendar. Thus, having different \"new\" years. \n\nSource:I work for the Chinese and have it off as a. Paid holiday. \n\n"
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w45lv | how does the u.s. use nato to intervene with other countries? | I'm learning about this topic in class but my professor isn't really teaching it, but assigning it through a book called The Face of Imperialism by Parenti. I'm not really understanding all the information that is given through book and the internet is too big to research it all! I'd like to understand it better with reddit helping me out. Thank you. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/w45lv/eli5_how_does_the_us_use_nato_to_intervene_with/ | {
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"Never read the book, so don't use this in a report based on it. The general idea is that the American people aren't big fans of war (and under the UN Charter, nations are prohibited from attacking other nations unprovoked). But the government needs a way to intervene in countries that need it. They could commit troops unilaterally (by themselves), which the citizens of the US as well as the world would see as imperialistic and interventionist (read: negatively). So what else can we do? Get NATO. If NATO sanctions the action we aren't going in because we want to, but because we're \"supporting our allies\" which gives the US a way out of criticism. It's a thin veil, but it does work sometimes.",
"NATO (and this isn't hyperbole) is the single most powerful global military alliance in history including 11 of the 20 largest militaries. It started as a way to have a \"united front\" against the Soviets, but the decades of working closely together has made it the easiest way for the developed world to work together on any military matter. \n\nThe core of the alliance can be summed up is section 5: An attack on one NATO member is an attack on all NATO members. This was so that an attack on West Berlin was considered the same as attacking New York or Washington DC. In fact this has only been invoked once when NATO ruled that on 9/11 al-Qaeda attacked all of NATO, not just the US. It's one of the big reasons NATO and not just the US went into Afghanistan.\n\nEven though there is no more Soviet Union, it's still around because it still makes sense to the countries involved. No one would dare attack a NATO member because no country could stand their ground against the NATO nations. In fact NATO has been gradually adding former communist enemies into the alliance.\n\nBecause of it's cold war origins, NATO has been designed to be ready to deploy at very short notice. It also (unlike any other international force like the UN) has access to some of the most advanced technology and weaponry in existence. And using NATO to deal with international problems means the US does not have to bare all the cost or burden. Now the US is still the majority of NATO and traditionally takes the lead, but it doesn't have to be alone is the point.\n\nWhen NATO intervened in the Balkans, it was because (a) it was in NATO's backyard and (b) there is no other alliance on earth this able to attack, particularly from the air. The UN was powerless to stop the coming genocide, only air raids conducted by NATO were powerful enough to prevent mass murder.\n\nWhen NATO intervened in Libya it was for the same reasons, location and unique power. American satellites told French and British plains where to bomb who would then pass on to ground troops where the attack just happened and what they destroyed. \n\n**TL;DR** NATO was started as a cold war military alliance and it is still solid because of the benefits of mutual defense. It includes most of the world's powerful armies making it an impossibility to win against NATO, ensuring NATO member nation's safety from invasion. The reason NATO intervenes internationally is because there is no other force capable of doing so, the UN has no real army and no other alliance comes close to NATO."
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2dshmc | why is it that some musical keyboards (most for children) can't play more than 2 or 3 notes at once? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2dshmc/eli5_why_is_it_that_some_musical_keyboards_most/ | {
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"Those keyboards have a very limited sound chip - it is limited to being able to produce a small number of notes at a time, and it is generally first-come, first-served, so when it is making that many notes, it ignores any new key presses. This is generally a fixed limit, because the chip has only so many processing units.\n\nAll keyboards and synthesizers have this limitation, but for more professional ones, the number is 64, or higher."
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2pa2gv | why are omega 3's good for you? | Specifically how DHA and EPA play a role. Please and thank you. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2pa2gv/eli5why_are_omega_3s_good_for_you/ | {
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"Your brain needs a balance of omega 3 and omega 6 to build brain tissue. The total amount doesn't matter much (above a relatively low minimum threshold), just the balance. Both are produced in plants, but omega 6 are (mostly) produced in the seed and 3s are (mostly) produced in the leaves. Since the typical western diet has a lot more calories from seeds (wheat, corn, soy, rice and other grains as well as meat/dairy from livestock fed on these crops) the typical westerner has more omega 6s and so 'needs' more omega 3 to get the balance right. Wild Fish are high in omega 3 since most of the plant ecology in the ocean is 'leaf cells' so up the food chain those omega 3 get concentrated. This is also why farmed fish usually don't have enough omega 3 since fish farms work by raising fish on agricultural feed commodities (I.e. Grains like corn and soy). \n\nTo get the right balance you could strive to eat fewer seed products ( including bread and pasta, but also livestock raised on grain and farmed fish) and more leaf products (including salad greens and leafy vegetables, but also meat and dairy from 100% grass-fed livestock and wild caught fish).\n\nSome caveats/exceptions and clarifications:\n\nOmega 3s and 6s are part of the fatty tissue, so white fish don't have as much in their muscle. White fish store their fat reserves in their liver which is why cod liver oil has a lot of omega 3 but cod fillets don't. Oily fish like mackrel, salmon, sardines, tuna have much more fat in their tissue so eating these fish will have more omega 3s.\n\nEvery food source (except highly refined substances like pure sugar) has both omega 6 and 3, in different amounts and different ratios. So you can't just say \"well I'll have a pound of bread and a pound of spinach and that should even out.\"\n\nSome plant seeds like flax are advertised as being \"high\" in omega 3s. This is a subjective statement: high compared to what? Higher than soybean oil? Yeah. Higher than 100% grass-fed beef tallow? No.\n\nEdit for further clarification: EPA and DHA are specific types of omega 3s. Their specific role is somewhat unknown, but they are correlated with healthy brain development, maintenance, function as well as a reduction in diseases like alzheimers. Humans can't synthesize either, so we need to obtain them through diet. Most of what I said above applies to both of these chemicals: eat leafy plants not grain-fed livestock. Specifically seaweed, algae and oily fish that feed directly on them are good sources."
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5fjluf | how do strings of christmas lights work, and how can one fix them? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5fjluf/eli5_how_do_strings_of_christmas_lights_work_and/ | {
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"You've got two types of circuit:\n\n1. Series.\n\n2. Parallel.\n\nSeries circuits are pretty simple, just a loop from the negative end to the positive end of the power source. All the lights are along this loop. If the connection of the loop is broken at any point, in either the cord or the light, then the whole loop is out. You have to check each and every light and the cord. \n\nParallel circuits have multiple paths for the current to go, this is with a separate cord to ensure the current can bypass a broken light. If this isn't working, likely that main cord is broken, along with at least one light. ",
"While you can definitely cut a bulb out of the wire, OP seems to be uneducated in electrical work. \n\nIt might not be wise for them to do work on a 115v AC line that will likely be strung about a very flammable tree.",
"Dude. You didn't even have to pay attention to middle school science to figure this one out. Series circuits boi"
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alnqav | if sound doesn't travel in space, does it stay in one spot? | I watched a video where an astronaut said that if something explodes in space, it makes a sound, but there's no way for the sound to travel (explains why we can't hear the sun on Earth). When the sound "happens", but can't travel...does the sound stay in one place forever? I hope this makes sense! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/alnqav/eli5_if_sound_doesnt_travel_in_space_does_it_stay/ | {
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"Sound waves cannot love in a vacuum right? Meaning you couldn’t create them either. \n\nThink of your own ears. \n\nHitting a bowl with a spoon makes sound waves happen and they go towards your ears that pick them up. \n\nNow imagine there is no air in the room. \n\nThere’s nothing to vibrate so there is no sound. And nothing for it to travel though. ",
"Sound is air, or other medium, agitated by energy. No medium, the sound was never born. \nIf you use a pen on the air, where did the drawing go?",
"Sound is pressure waves. And pressure needs something to travel through. It can be air, water or solid objects. However in the vacuum of space there is nothing which can transfer the pressure waves. So for example if an astronauts bangs on the hull of the spaceship the hull will move slightly outwards. However there is no air on the outside to move and transfer the force of the bang further. As the metal hull is flexible it will flex back and transfer the sound inwards instead where there is air. However the sound will not be able to get into the vacuum of space on the outside of the spacecraft.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nThink of sound this way, if you have a rope on the ground you can wiggle one end to cause it to move. And as this wave of motion hits the end it can move another piece of rope, and another. As long as these ropes are tied together. As soon as you reaches the end where there is nothing there is no longer anything for the rope to move and the movement will just bounce back.",
"Yes, in a way. Maybe a better example would be a drum.\n\nTake a drum in space (make sure you have a hole for the air to get out!) and beat it. It will vibrate as it did on Earth, but this vibration will not dissipate into any atmosphere. It will continue vibrating, probably not forever but for far longer than on Earth.\n\nSound is vibration, vibration is sound, it's just that air facilitates the rapid and very predictable omnidirectional dispersal of vibration energy - and in space, it doesn't so easily dissipate."
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1i9jpc | why was elvis such a big deal, why was he such a revolutionary? | His music is amazing, but I never understood why he was such a big deal. There seems to be more to him than just his music. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1i9jpc/eli5_why_was_elvis_such_a_big_deal_why_was_he/ | {
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"George Carlin said he took raw emotional black music and made it safe for lame white people.\n\nI'm an Elvis fan, but I can't help agreeing."
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y3r3e | if oil companies are profiting billions per year (setting record profits as well) why does the us continue subsidies for them? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/y3r3e/eli5_if_oil_companies_are_profiting_billions_per/ | {
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"That's a good fucking question but you know if the subsidies are cut, they're just going to jack up the prices out of spite.",
"We subsidize everything just about. Also, record profits may be exaggerated by the weak dollar. Combine this with the fact that markets like India, China, and other asian markets have exploded in the past 10 years for demand. ",
"Governments create subsidies you encourage behavior that they think will be beneficial to the country. Most often this involves development of future technology that isn't economically viable yet. So when we hear about oil companies getting subsidies, the government isn't subsidizing their core business. They're more likely subsidizing activities that these companies wouldn't do on their own because they wouldn't be profitable. Examples include developing alternative fuels like biofuel and hydrogen cells. "
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6pr1ey | if airplanes can only carry a fixed amount of weight which is why luggage has strict weight restrictions, why are there no restrictions for the weight of passengers? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6pr1ey/eli5_if_airplanes_can_only_carry_a_fixed_amount/ | {
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"Probably because some would find that to be offensive. You could easily get sued for discrimination if you tell someone they can't do anything because of their weight. ",
"I've heard that luggage was restricted to keep a uniform weight for the baggage handlers to reduce the amount of muscle injury.",
"Jet airliners usually fly far from their maximum weight. Luggage weight restrictions are for easier handling of each piece, and to prevent abuse (no you can't check a 400 kg crate of bricks).\n\nVery small propeller planes do have more serious weight restrictions, and on these the operators do in fact make you declare your weight. If you are too heavy the very smallest planes may not be able to accommodate you.",
"It is reasonable to ask your passengers to limit their luggage weight. (And if a passenger has heavy/oversize items, there are other options including shipping them separately.) It is not reasonable, however, to ask passengers to limit/reduce their body weight. That, effectively, would be a ban on flying for overweight people. Some airlines have charged overweight persons extra, IIRC.",
"* part of the reason for luggage weight restriction is so it will be easier to handle\n* asking people their weight or making them go on a scale would be a PR nightmare\n* most airplanes have enough of a safety margin they don't have to worry about it\n* with some smaller airplanes, you do in fact get weighed",
"Your flight isn't just carrying you and your luggage, its also carrying cargo.\n\nThe airline will gladly accept your oversized and overweight bag, for a fee. They want compensation for the UPS/Fedex/USPS cargo they won't be able to load on board and get paid for. Having upper limits on bag weights allows them to estimate how much cargo they can fit on board in advance, they also know how much the average person weighs(on a 100 seat flight, even a few heavy people get averaged out)\n\nUS based airlines claim to run lean but actually pull in a billions in profit a year, carrying cargo instead of luggage certainly helps that bottom line",
"The reason for a limit on a single pieces is mainly for the safety of baggage handlers so that they don't throw out their back picking up a bag that looks 30 lbs but is actually 130. So heavy bags require special handling.\n\nThe reason for an overall limit is to prevent abuse and make sure there's room for everyone to bring a bag. If you read the fine print, they sometimes say if you check more than 2, they won't guarantee they'll all be on the same flight. They'll also charge you a fortune to encourage you to ship them another way. \n\nFor passenger weight it's mostly for PR reasons. Though there is a sort-of weight limit based on the size of the seats. Most airlines have a policy that if you can't fit in the seat with the armrests down, you have to buy a second seat. ",
"\nFirst ever comment on Reddit so please don't shoot!\n\nCommercial aircraft do actually need to have an accurate weight figure for all flights, so it's not enough to say \"Captain, you are under your maximum take off weight\". You need to give the captain an accurate figure. How is this achieved without weighing people? Average weights! There's an average weight for an adult male; adult female; older child; younger child and infant. Don't have the exact weights to hand right now. Though fun fact it increases by 5kg for adults in the winter season to take into account heavier clothes! Experiments have found that the weights calculated using this method are accurate to within an acceptable margin of error.",
"The FAA uses passenger weight estimates to help airlines account for passenger loads in the full weight estimations. For large aircraft, they are usually well within the margins so it's not a big deal. Smaller aircraft are much more sensitive to weight discrepancies, however. \n\nThere was an incident where a small passenger plane crashed and one of the underlying errors was a weight miscalculation, forcing the FAA to review their passenger weight estimates which had been set in 1936z\n\nStill, it appears the ultimate method for accounting for passenger weights is left to the airline.\n\n[More info](_URL_0_) ",
"Smaller planes do have passenger weight limits. Small float plane companies, for example, will weigh passengers and bags, and if a group of say 4 extremely overweight people are together, they will have to take 2 trips, or 2 different planes even though the plane may have 4+ seats for passengers. ",
"Airlines operate with an average weight. This works because you have a large number of passengers - the law of averages kick in. Even if you have one or two whales, you're equally likely to have some really skinny people so it all balances out. There's also some margin, passenger planes newer take off loaded to *exactly* their maximum take off weight (MTOW)."
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1tr063 | types of alcohol, what and when to drink, etc. | Vodka, rum, tequila, beer, wine, weird drink names like sex in the city or jagerbombs, I'm clueless about it all. I pretend I know what I'm doing by just always ordering a rum and coke.
Can someone explain to me the different types of drinking alcohol, what and where to drink (e.g. club, bar, fancy dinner, etc.), what are acceptable "manly" drinks and what aren't, and if all those drink names are universally known (e.g. does everyone know what a 'manhattan' is?).
Basically, I just want to know what an adult should know about alcohol. I'm merely a kid in an adult's body.. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1tr063/eli5_types_of_alcohol_what_and_when_to_drink_etc/ | {
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"Drink what you want, when you want, where you want. Don't get caught up in being manly, I know lots of guys who are definitely, uh, man enough, and drink \"girl\" drinks like Midori Sours. Just don't mix too many different types of alcohol together in one night or you'll pay for it the next day. And for fuck's sake DON'T EVER DRINK AND DRIVE."
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b6cdtb | how did we reach a point where there are 2 and just 2 major types of phones (iphone and android)? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b6cdtb/eli5_how_did_we_reach_a_point_where_there_are_2/ | {
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"Symbian was too slow and have app support. And don't get me started on Windows se and phone is terrible. \n\nEdit added m to symbian so we could keep conversation clean ",
"The problem is that software ecosystems are a *winner take most* game. If I have to write an app for each model of phone, I can't afford to write 10, so I ask \"which phones are most popular?\" Having lots more apps makes them ever *more* popular, reinforcing their dominant status, and making competitors hopeless.",
"You'll find that many consumer technologies come out in multiple formats and then get winnowed down to one or two. Sometimes the best technology doesn't win.\n\n1. VHS vs Beta\n2. Windows vs Mac\n3. Blu-ray vs HD-DVD\n4. XM vs Sirius\n\nThe winner is the one who can acquire the most support for their product. VHS was able to win consumers on price and quantity of titles. Windows is beating Mac on pricing and flexibility. Android is making the play as Windows - more handsets with greater modability than iPhones. ",
"If you're classifying by OS, then there's only 2 major types of consumer PCs, 3 if you include linux.\n\nOS's are massive works of software, there's never going to be that many fully fledged products.",
"Apple hit a home run with their smartphone. Everyone else tried to copy but failed. Then Google released Android and gave it away to all the other companies. That allowed them to get into the smartphone game and not have to be a software company too. "
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227p3l | how come videogames and even animated movies can feature crossover marvel characters but movies with real actors are not allowed to? | Kind of put the question in the title. I just dont understand how there can be an animated Thor and Wolverine movie where they fight the Hulk but they aren't even allowed to mention the X-Men in The Avengers movies. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/227p3l/eli5_how_come_videogames_and_even_animated_movies/ | {
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"Because movie rights are totally different from video game rights. marvel still owns the comic book rights and video game rights for all of their characters unlike the movie rights which are not all in marvel's hands. ",
"Because Sony owns the rights to live-action adaptations of the X-Men. That's basically it. Marvel retained the animated rights."
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5it511 | if an atom can fit between my pinched fingertips, are my fingertips not actually touching at all? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5it511/eli5_if_an_atom_can_fit_between_my_pinched/ | {
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"Technically, correct, your fingers never touch. Even more correct your finger is not a finger but ?illions of atoms not quite touching eachother. In fact, if all the empty space in our bodies was removed we would be less than a grain of salt in size. \n\nEdit: Seems I have a generous memory, r/askscience fits [the entire human race inside a sugar cube or two!](_URL_0_) \n\nEdit2: Well, this blew up.. I must be off to work but before I go I just wanted to post one of the replies explaining much better than I could ever hope to. \n\n > That's a bit misleading even for a five-year-old (who is not literally a five-year-old). \nThe proper way to explain it is saying that what we consider as \"touch\" doesn't mean the same thing in small scale because of the structure of matter, but we can still define \"touch\" in a way that makes sense as a \"hard contact between objects\" even in situations where there's always some \"void\" between objects. \nAn actual explanation would get in more complicated territory because it involves looking at the forces present on the interface between two objects as a function of range. The popular misconception is that \"touch\" is all about electromagnetic interaction between objects, but that's not really true - at certain range, there is usually an attractive electric force (van der Waals force, for example), which animals like geckos and insects and spiders use to adhere to surfaces. \nThen there's typically a point where the force is zero - the attractive force and repulsive force balance each other out. This is often used as the meaningful boundary of \"touch\" in everyday world - this is the point where the pressure between two macroscopic objects starts to increase. \nAs the objects are pushed further forwards, the electric repulsive force rapidly increases, which is what is responsible for the pressure on the interface at this point. Increasing the pressure means the objects get a bit closer, until the electric repulsion is again balanced. \nHowever, this doesn't mean you can push objects towards closer and closer. There is another sharp increase in the repulsive force as you reach a very small distance between the individual particles of the objects. And it turns out that this increased repulsive force is not produced by the electric fields of the electrons of the atoms, but rather by the Pauli exclusion principle which states that only one matter-particle can occupy a certain point in space at any given time (to be more accurate, two or more fermions can't have the same quantum state within a quantum system simultaneously). \nThis means that there really is a distance where we can say the atoms are \"touching\" because they can't really get closer to each other after they hit the distance where the Pauli exclusion principle kicks in. If you try to push them more together the force just increases further. \nOr, alternatively, you increase the pressure so much that the atomic nuclei no longer have individual electrons and instead you're dealing with plasma on the interface. Which, unless you have something to contain it, will promptly escape from between the objects. \nAnd if you can apply even more pressure to the plasma you can get the atomic nuclei so close to each other that they really do touch - but at that point it becomes energetically more favourable for them to fuse together into heavier elements, so the original nuclei no longer exist... \n- u/HerraTohtori ([permalink](_URL_1_))",
"Depends how you define touch! Matter is not at all what you think it is. The atoms of your fingertips get close enough to cause interactions with each other, like imparting pressure and temperature changes, maybe even trade electrons, but no the atomic nuclei never actually touch.",
"This is more of a philosophical question than a physics question. A big part of the answer is going to require defining what \"touching\" is.",
"So we've never actually \"touched\" anything? ",
"Correct, your fingertips aren't actually touching. Every atom is a positively charged nucleus surrounded by a negatively charged cloud of electrons. So the force of your fingertips \"touching\" each other is a result of the electric repulsion between the negatively charged cloud of electrons(like repels like) that is at the tip of your finger (and every surface).\n\nAtoms are also mostly empty space. So if not for electric repulsion between electron clouds, you could pass your hands clear through each other without any atoms touching. Well matter couldn't hold together so you wouldn't have hands, but you get the idea.",
"[\"What is touch?\" by minutephysics](_URL_0_) discusses this exact matter. Basically it says it depends on how you define touch. Since particles can behave like waves so when their waves overlap that can technically be considered \"touching\". \n\nEdit: wrong link ",
"They are touching enough to exert a force on each other when you press them together. You'll never get the nuclei close together and you'll never really overlap electron clouds because of the Pauli exclusion principle. But I'd define touching as close enough to exert a macroscopic force and in the case of your fingers, of course you can.",
"Imagine to substitute the walls in your house with something without well defined edges, similar to skateboard ramps. When are you than \"touching\" the wall rather than the floor? Your intuitive definition of touching is like thinking to the old straight walls, it doesn't work in your new house. \nInteractions at atomic scale are similar, atoms \"touching\" is a bit like atoms getting close enough such that the ramp is too steep to go further. Are they touching? Well, if you define touching as \"in normal conditions it would be very difficult to push more atoms in between\", then yes, they touch. Does it mean that the space in the middle is empty? Again, is empty means \"I could get them closer applying more pressure\" then yes, it's empty. But you have to be extremely careful in applying those terms as they are totally arbitrary. That's why physics relies on a different language and we prefer to think of interaction potentials.",
"[Do atoms touch?](_URL_0_) by Sixty Symbols.",
"V Sauce explains it pretty well and even gives some visual aids as well. _URL_0_ ",
"There is a brilliant VSauce video on this exact topic, its fascinating but im on mobile so can't link it. It's called ''you can't touch anything''",
"Hey so everyone is talking about how the atoms actually never touch - so i have a follow up question; Can someone explain why when we touch something smelly, the smell is 'stuck' on our fingers? e.g a metal coin.\n\nEDIT: my understanding of smell is that it is actually atoms of the host material that have been removed and become airborne, making 'contact' with our nose for our brain to interpret what it is.",
"I am going to reply directly to you to make sure you understand this. I want you to define touching. I want an objective statement that anyone could say that x is touching y because z. \n\nWhat most scientist agree on what \"touching\" is, is when two atoms come into equilibrium where attractive forces equal repulsive forces such that the two atoms, if unaltered would remain next to each other. \n\nEvery atom has an electromagnetic field that can repulse another atom, but there are a myriad of forces that attract them together, and some of these forces are responsible for chemical bonds. It is when the distance between two atoms becomes close enough that both of these sets of forces are relevant to the position of the atoms relative to each other that we can say that these atoms are touching. Otherwise there is no objective way to make any statement on if an object is touching another, because then the concept of touching becomes meaningless. If you want to think about this differently, I present my hand as it swiftly doesn't touch your face causing pain. If a person can slap you and that slap is \"touching\" in a forceful manner, then things can touch. You just have to define it clearly, objectively, and within reason.\n\nThe idea that things don't touch because there is a measurable distance between two things is silly for this reason. \"Touching\" is an empty statement if you believe that. ",
"\"Touching\" in the everyday sense means making contact in a way we can perceive, so yes. If you go down to the subatomic level, atoms that are part of a rock never actually \"touch\" either, they're just really near each other. But this distinction is meaningless at in everyday life. ",
"\"Touch\" is a macroscopic phenomenon, not an atomic one. On the molecular level all that's happening are field interactions. ",
"Your fingertips are actually touching. Although there is space left between the atoms of your fingers, the forces between them prevent your fingers from moving any closer together. That's what touching *is*. It may seem strange that there is still space between touching objects since it doesn't appear that way, but objects don't *appear* to be made out of atoms, either. Touching really exists, it's just \"made out of\" balanced electrostatic forces.",
"This concept will mess with the mind of a sixth grader. Adds more zing to the \"I'm not touching you\" thing.",
"This is probably an annoying answer, but on the scale you're asking about, there is no concept of \"touching\". Nothing ever touches anything else because they either can't or they can overlap. But as we colloquially understand what it means for one thing to touch another, that simply doesn't exist on this scale.\n\nSimilarly, there is no such thing as a fingertip. If you take a ball and look at it, there's a clearly defined boundary between \"ball\" and \"not ball\". In reality, this distinction isn't clearly defined. You can't point to a location in space and say \"Aha, this is part of the ball\". If you were to magically focus in on one piece of surface of the ball, you'd find a fuzzy, ill-defined surface where you wouldn't be able to discern where the ball starts and stop.\n\nSo an ELI5 answer is:\n\n* There is no such thing as touching.\n* There is no such thing as fingertip.\n* As you and I know it, in a classical model of the atom, your fingers never touch, but this is OK because two things don't need to be in physical contact to influence each other. Think of magnets.",
"In comparison to their size, there is a near infinite amount of space between the atoms we are made of, you are technically never \"touching\" anything. You're just feeling the repulsion of other atoms electronic fields against your own.\n\nI like to think I levitate everywhere.",
"“When you sit in a chair, you are not actually sitting there, but levitating above it at a height of one angstrom (a hundred millionth of a centimeter), your electrons and its electrons implacably opposed to any closer intimacy.” -Bill Bryson\n\n\n\nThe book, *A Sort History Of Everything*, by Bill Bryson is an amazing read. At times it came be a complicated read, only because it covers such a wide range of topics, but as a 17 year old sitting in the hospital waiting for my son to be born, I found this book truly fascinating and mind opening. \nMy sons mother lying there hours away from bringing a new and truly innocent life into this world and me sitting there looking over at her while discovering the pages of this book for the 49 hours she was in labor was a feeling of mind opening and coming into oneself I will never be able to explain or convey into words that mean anything to anyone else. \nI now am 23 going on 24 having spent the last 4 years in jail and prison and I still recommend this book to most avid readers and seekers on knowledge I come across.\n",
"I'm going to answer this question for something a bit bigger, like a bacterium. Most things that we think are smooth, are not. If you took a ping-pong ball and expanded it to the size of the earth, it would have mountains taller than Everest and valleys deeper than the Marianas trench. Your fingers are the same way. You can actually see the grooves and peaks in them so, there's plenty of space for microscopic things to hide out safely in when you squish two things together. \n\nNASA and other scientific institutes have made some incredibly smooth balls (ha ha ha) for use in highly precise gyroscopes. Balls that if blown up to the size of the earth would have peaks and valleys no bigger than a meter.",
"Hopefully they don't actually touch because then they'll fuse and you'll be bombarded with heat X-rays and gamma rays!\nThey \"touch you feel is just the sensation of your fingers atoms electrons repelling, however in physics this is counted as 'contact'!",
"Any answer here that says you are correct is simply false. Yes, there will always be \"space\" between any atom save for like, neutron stars, but that means nothing when you talk about \"touching\". If that were the case, the word touching would never be used as it would always be false. Touching, as used, is a word that describes your exact quandry. If I touch someone on the arm, my hand is close enough for friction between the two surfaces to come into play and for convective heat transfer to happen. That IS touching. \n\n\nThe whole \"there's always space between everything\" answer is forgoing the useful definition of touching. \n\n",
"This is actually probably the number 1 reason I chose to do a physics degree. There are so many questions that emerge when you ask this.\n\nI'm on my phone so don't have access to diagrams and stuff but basically the most mind blowing thing is the Electrostatic Interaction. This is the force that you're most familiar with in everyday life; basically it's a force between charges that increases as the charges get closer together (similar charges repel). \n\nFor example, when you push a shopping trolley, the electrons on your hand get really really close to the electrons in the handle of the shopping trolley and so the repulsion between them increases. In fact, that's how we push EVERYTHING. This is a really cool realisation.\n\nBut to answer your question- no, we don't really touch stuff. If you didn't know already, most of matter is just empty space. In a hydrogen atom, the electron is SO far away from the proton in relative terms- if the Empire State Building was the proton, the Big Ben in London would be where the electron is. So even within atoms stuff is barely touching. (This is where the interesting questions come in like \"if everything is empty, how do we see anything?\") \n\nPhysics is FUN. Hope that helps. ",
"Whenever your science teacher pulls this question on you just tell them to not apply macroscopic concepts to quantum mechanics.\n\nA basic definition of touching would be when the space between two objects becomes zero.\n\nHowever as you know, atoms are mostly empty space. So how do two atoms touch? When the space between them becomes zero? Well that doesn't really make sense because atoms don't have clear boundaries.\n\nThe outermost part of an atom (or molecule) are the orbiting electrons. But it's not like electrons actually just orbit like earth around the sun. Instead electrons occupy more complicated 3D orbitals. Also, you can't really say where an electron is at any one time (Heisenberg uncertainty principle). If you looked at a cross-section of an electron orbital you would be looking at a probability distribution. And it would look like a wave that at some point decays away, approaching zero the further from the nucleus, but not touching. So the electron could exist very far away from the nucleus (or bond), but it is very unlikely.\n\nSo you can't define when two atoms touch. Atoms contain an arbitrary amount of empty space and this doesn't fit with our definition of touching.\n\nMaybe you want to consider when two nuclei touch? But if you start looking at nuclei you see they are made of hadrons (specifically protons and neutrons), which are in turn made of 3 quarks each. Quarks are fundamental particals so now I would be asking when do the quarks touch?\n\nAnd then I would be asking myself, \"I'm not a particle physicist, what the hell am I doing even contemplating quarks touching?!\"\n\nBasically the conventional definition of touching can't be applied to quantum systems. It simply doesn't make sense. It's not a question that anyone should be asking (except of course as a hypothetical scenario designed to generate discussion).\n\nSo you have to modify your definition of touching. Touching could be when the atoms become close enough such that the electronic interactions cause the atoms to move significantly.\n\nBut then what is significant? Maybe movement of 1Å? A bending of a bond by a certain number of degrees?\n\nOr maybe something different, such as when the average distance between the atoms does not increase as more force is applied. So some kind of balancing of forces.\n\nSo as you can see, if you want to deal with quantum systems, shit gets complicated.\n\nEdit: election ≠ electron",
"Here's the thing. \"Touch\" in the submolecular realm, is not real! While touch is a real thing we macroscopic things experience, that's because it's an artifact of 1) how microscopic particles interact with each other and 2) how our macroscopic pieces work.\n\nFirstly, you need to know that no 2 microscopic particles are EVER touching. In fact, the smallest of them don't even have SIZE, just location, energy, and thus mass. Quarks, electrons, etc. come in their own masses, with some quarks being SUPER massive compared to electrons, but they're all the same size - zero. But then, if protons have size, and are made of 3 quarks, HOW can this be? Well you see, when these quarks bind together, they never actually get close to each other. They kinda zip through randomly within the proton, always bound to each other via the Strong Nuclear force. This force acts like a set of springs holding the quarks together. They can move around in relation to each other, but if they get too far or close, they'll always get pushed or pulled back into place. All of the areas where the quarks could be at any given time define the proton, and this gives it size.\n\nYou may also know that atoms are mostly empty space. Compared to the size of the nucleus, there's a HUGE amount of distance between it and the electron cloud...and between it isn't really entirely EMPTY space, but that's a lesson for another time.\n\nHowever, here's the next important step - the electrons are attracted to the nucleus, since it has an opposing charge, but want to be in the place with the lowest energy possible, so they fall into the electron orbitals, which always consist of 2 electrons with opposite spins - this is because no 2 electrons in the universe want to be identical to any other electron. Therefore, it must ALWAYS have a different location or spin. But, like the proton, the electron orbitals exists in such a way that the electrons could be anywhere within them...or EVERYWHERE. So, by having the two in the same orbital, but with opposite spins (which isn't really SPINNING, it's just a property of microscopic particles), they're still not touching. This and more is facilitated by the most IMPORTANT fundamental force to this topic - the electromagnetic force.\n\nJust as the electromagnetic force keeps two electrons apart, and in their proper place at a small scale, it can have effects on a larger scale if the conditions are right. For example, if you have a ferrous metal, where things line up just right, you get a magnet. The magnet does neat things, like push away other magnets, or stick to the other end. It even sticks to non-magnetic, magnefiable metals. And that's the important bit - two magnets can repel each other...just like two electrons, all due to them sharing the same charge.\n\nSo ask yourself - if atoms are mostly empty space, why do I not fall through my chair? The answer is the electromagnetic force. Every atom in my body is repelling each other atom nearby...not touching ANYTHING, but repelling each other nonetheless. As a result, I am effectively floating fractions of a nanometer above my chair. I am suspended, as if a magnet with the south face is beneath me, facing my south face. This is the EXACT same force as what holds those magnets up, but on a much, much smaller scale.\n\nThe only reason I experience the sensation of touch is because every atom in my body that its being pushed on by my chair is pushing upon atoms nearby, without touching them, and this chain extends so on and so forth, meaning that all my cells get deformed and moved by sitting, and that results in an electrical signal sent to my brain, creating the sensation of the fictional experience of \"touch\".\n\nTL;DR Nothing actually touches anything, it's all an illusion, and you don't go through things because of, essentially, super-small-scale magnetism.",
"And did you know that when you really get close\nNothing really touches, bro, just kind of floats?\nSo when you think it might just come to blows\nJust so you know, it won’t, cause it can’t, bro\n\n(Mother Mother - infinitesimal)",
"It depends on how you define \"touching\" and also how you define \"your fingertips.\" The surface of your skin has never been, and never will be perfectly clean. What constitutes \"you\" and what constitutes the dirt and dead skin on you has never been clearly defined. Adding one atom to that cannot possibly make much difference. In fact, probably every time your fingertips have ever touched each other, they've trapped some dust from the air in the process. Also, the macroscopic concept of \"touching\" isn't as cut and dry at the microscopic level. Atoms don't \"touch\" each other. They interact with each other. There are no absolute surfaces at that scale. The concept of an absolute surface is a macroscopic concept, which quantum mechanics is not bound by. ",
"Technically speaking, the vague ass dictionary definiton for \"touching\" is \n\n > come into or be in contact with.\n\nThat could just as easily mean the electomagnetic fields that are ultimately responsible for the repulsive force when touching stuff, as in \"my electromagnetic field is now in more direct contact with yous than it was from a further distance\". \n\nIf you want to reserve touching for matter to matter contact only though then I don't know if that even makes sense. \n\nEven though we have atoms made of protons and electrons which in turn are made of the standard model particles, none of those things have defined volumes other than \"where its components are likely to be found\". \n\nWe can \"collide\" atoms but this is really just bringing them so close together that the forces holding them in a certain configuration are interfered with. There is no actual touching going on even in that scenario.\n\nIIRC if you look at it from the side of quantum physics, everything is just a ripply force field and what we observe as particles are just extreme tsunami's within that field. On the up side, waves can crash into each other and hence \"touch\", on the down side, matter is likely just an illusion.",
"I'm sure I'm just confused but:\n\nWhen I pinch my finger tips together, I can feel the skin on both fingers touching.\n\nI understand what others are saying, but doesn't the fact that I can physically feel this mean that my fingers are in fact touching each other? \n\n",
"\"Touching\" doesn't make sense at that scale. There is no way to think about \"touching\" at the quantum level. The closest you can get is \"interacting\". Particles interact through force fields; they don't really touch. You may also be surprised to learn that an atom is mostly empty space. Our bodies are mostly empty space -- it's the forces between our atoms that give rise to macroscopic phenomena.\n\nIf an atom was a football field, the nucleus would be the size of a football, and the electrons would be the size of marbles. Our current theories treat particles as points (i.e. zero volume).",
"To be even more correct if there is space between the electrons and the protons/neutrons than not a single part of you is touching",
"Sixty Symbols does a good video about this:\n\n_URL_0_",
"Everything is a series of interlaced strings shaped waves. Nothing is touching because nothing is permenant, change is the only constant"
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8xr5u5 | how exactly do leap days work? | Sure the calendar and the earth's actual orbit are drifting and earth's rotation is not *exactly* 24 hours (23:56 to be exact) so that remainder keeps on accumulating till it's big enough to skip and reset after four years? Now here's my first real problem. If that was the case, shouldn't time be drifting against daylight? For example to such an extent where midnight looks like twilight? My second problem is that the extra 4 minutes \* 365 days \*4 years = 4 days and 80 minutes, Yet we only add one day to the 365. Please help! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8xr5u5/eli5_how_exactly_do_leap_days_work/ | {
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"Leap days are because of the earth’s revolution, not rotation. A year is actually 365.25 days, so we just add an extra day every 4 years. So sure by the 4th year before we do the extra day our season will be off by about a day, but nobody is going to say “it’s November 3rd but it really feels cold enough to be November 4th”",
"The mismatch of Earth's rotation to the length of a day is misleading. Earth rotates *relative to some fixed point in space* once every 23:56... but its travel around the sun cancels out some of its rotational speed *relative to the sun*. In other words, if the Earth did not spin we'd get one \"reverse\" day per year just because of the travel around the sun. When you adjust for this, a day is pretty close to 24 hours. \n\nWe do actually have \"leap seconds\" once in a while to adjust for the slight mismatch of 24 hours vs. the length of a day, but it's not needed too often and isn't a big enough adjustment for most people to even notice. If you're not aware of it your clock is only wrong by one second, and with internet-connected devices automatically setting/adjusting their time, this adjustment could take place but you wouldn't even notice. ",
" > earth's rotation is not exactly 24 hours (23:56 to be exact)\n\nThis is true, but not related to the leap year. What this is, is the difference between a solar day and a [sidereal day](_URL_1_).\n\nA solar day is the amount of time it takes to go from noon on one day to noon on the next day. This varies slightly throughout the year, but averaged out, it's exactly 24 hours.\n\nA sidereal day is the amount of time it takes the Earth to rotate 360 degrees. The reason they're not the same is because the Earth is also revolving around the sun. So by the time the Earth has spun 360 degrees, the sun has moved relative to the Earth. [Here's a diagram showing that.](_URL_0_)\n\nIn one year, there is exactly one more sidereal day than solar day.",
"The 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4 seconds is the length of a sideral day.\n\nIt has nothing to do with leap days. It is based on the fact that you can measure a rotation of the planet in two different ways: either by seeing it rotate completely around its axis so that it is in the same position compared to the sun or so that it is compared to the stars. Due to the fact that the earth is also slowly orbiting the sun, the difference between the two is about 1/365 of a day per day.\n\nNone of the above has to do with leap years.\n\nThe leap years bit just has to to do with the length of Eart's orbit around the sun (what we call a year) not being evenly divisible by earths rotation around its axis in respect to the sun (What we generally call a day)\n\nThe year is not 365 days long but closer to 365 days and 6 hours.\n\nIf you checked where earth was at midnight Greenwich time on the night from December 31st 2017 to January 1st 2018 and wait when it reaches that point in space again you will see that it won't be around midnight again but actually about 6 hours later.\n\nObviously starting the new year a quarter of a day in and saying that 6 AM is the new midnight would not work very well for most people.\n\nSo we simply start the new year when a full orbit around the sun is still 6 hours away, so we can ring in the new year at midnight.\n\nAfter 4 years we have 4 times 6 hours saved up and make the year a day longer so it all fits again and midnight on new years eve is where it was four years earlier.\n\nThat should be simple enough, but it turns out the year isn't even exactly 365.25 days long, but actually something like 365.242188792 days long.\n\nIf you add an extra leap days every 4 years, you add about 11 and a quatre minutes too much each year. this works out to over 18 hours a century, so once a century you skip adding a leap year which makes you off by almost 6 hours in the other direction so ever four centuries you don't skip the leap year.\n\nThis doesn't make it 100% correct either but it is close enough, and over longer time periods that isn't really stable anyway so we might as well not bother planning to much.\n\nWe also have leap second occasionally where a minute has 61 seconds instead of 60. They have nothing to do with leap days but are added due to the fact that the length of our days are not quite as regular as one might think and we occasionally need to add or subtract a second to keep things the way it is supposed to.",
"The Earth revolves around the sun, however not in 365 days! In reality it's closer to 365.24 days.\n\n\nThis means that over time, this extra 0,24 days accumulate. To compensate for that, we add 1 day every 4 years. (Because it's not 0,25 but 0,24, it's a bit more complex but that's not too important)\n\n\nWhy compensate though? Well, this accumulation I mentioned earlier means that in the span of hundreds of years, our months will fall out of line with the seasons (Which has happened!)\n\n\nYou can find another explanation, a really good one, here: \n\n_URL_0_",
"The key problem is that you're comparing sidereal vs. solar days. A sidereal day is the time it takes for Earth to complete one rotation, which is four minutes short of an hour, and which is measured against the background stars (i.e if you time the moment any given star other than the Sun rises above the horizon to the *next* time it rises, it'll be 23 hours 56 minutes and 4ish seconds).\n\nA *solar* day, however, is the time it takes for the Sun to be in a position, move away from that position, and take up the same position roughly a day later, and *that* comes out to just a hair over 24 hours. Based on the solar day, the solar *year* then comes out to 365.24 and some change days (assuming you're fixing the day on Earth to precisely 24 hours, instead of the actual just over 24 hours), hence why we have leap years, and is measured against the solar day because our entire concept of what a year *is* is dependent on our path in orbit around the Sun.",
" > earth's rotation is not exactly 24 hours (23:56 to be exact) so that remainder keeps on accumulating till it's big enough to skip and reset after four years?\n\nNo, the earth makes up that difference each year. The catch is that a sidereal day (23:56:04) is how long it takes the earth to rotate 360^(o). In that time, the earth moves about 1^o in its orbit, and has to spin a little extra to catch up. That makes a mean solar day exactly 24 hours.\n\nLeap day is not about that. The earth takes about 365 days and 6 hours to go around its orbit once. If we assume a year is 365 days, after 4 years we are a day behind, and need a leap day to catch up."
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527l9t | if a large asteroid that can wipe out all life on earth can strike at any time, why aren't we working on a way to stop/redirect it? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/527l9t/eli5_if_a_large_asteroid_that_can_wipe_out_all/ | {
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"While we have known about this threat for years, and many scientists are coming up with solutions, we have no current ability to prevent an asteroid strike, because the governments who are responsible for developed nations are too caught up in short term and personal gains. \n\nThe same is true for many challenges that we face today, such as climate change. Preventing these potential catastrophes in the future has little incentive to the people in power, and the people who vote for them are just as caught up in their own little worlds, that there is little hope at present, to get the right people into power, to safeguard our future."
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9lk1hj | if the earth is constantly moving, how come we see the same stars every night? how is there such a thing as the "northern star"? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9lk1hj/eli5_if_the_earth_is_constantly_moving_how_come/ | {
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"You can see stars 'rotating' around the earth actually, of you look at a time lapse of the night sky.*\n\nThat's also why the northern star is so important. As the north-south axis is the axis we revolve around a star in the north is the only star which stays pretty much in place, which is important for navigation. \n\n*Actually we're it's the rotation of the earth you're seeing. But from earth it looks like the stars are rotating\n\nEdit: You can imagine it like spinning a basketball on your finger. Your finger is the northern star.",
"Imagine you are riding on a Ferris wheel. The Earth is the basket thing you ride in and the sun is the center of the Ferris wheel. And theres a clock tower far away on the horizon. Every time you look out the left side (lets say) of the basket you'd see the same clock tower no matter where you are in the full rotation of the wheel. \n\nConstellations do change seasonally, so you might see a river on the upswing of the Ferris wheel and a mall on the downswing, but no matter what the clock tower would always be out there on the left.",
"Because stare are extremely far away. \n\nLight from the sun take only 8 minutes 20 seconds to reach the earth so the orbit around the sun is ~17 light minutes wide.\n\nThe closest start is Alpha Centauri and the light take 4.37 years to reach us. That is 2 296 872 minutes or 135 110 times longer then the orbit around the sun is wide. So to see it movement in a yeas is the same as i you move your head ~1mm to the side and looked at something that was 1km away or 0.5 inches for object 1 mile away,\n\n\nSo the size of the obit of the earth is to low for us to observe any difference with our eyes. The changes of the position of close start compared to stars far away is called Stellar parallax and can be used to determine the distance to them. But you need telescopes and careful observation to see the change.\n\n\nThe North Star or Pole Star or more exact Polaris is close to directly above the axis of the earth or more exact at 89.26 degrees. A spinning object is like a gyroscope and the axis will point the same way so it will not change when we orbit the earth. Polaris is 323–433 light years away. That is close to the limit of Stellar parallax measurement so it is not exact.\n\nSo when the axis point the same way when we orbit the sun Polaris will always be in that direction. But is only in the short term as the axis wobble overt time. The large wobble has a period of 26,000 year. From 1500 BC to AD 500 the star Kochab was closet to the pole but it was farter away the polaris is today. Polaris drift closer to the axis today and will be closed in 2100 AD. After that Gamma Cephei will be the closest start from 3000 AD",
"You *don't* see the same stars every night. The belt of Orion is only visible during the winter, and the Summer Triangle is only visible during the summer, for example.\n\nThat's an oversimplification, of course. The fact is that most stars rise and set just as the Sun and Moon do. However, because everything is moving, those rise and set times change throughout the year. In the summer, the Summer Triangle rises about the same time the Sun sets, so you can see it all night long. Likewise, Orion in winter.\n\nAt other times of the year, the stars rise and set at different times of the night. So during spring, for instance, you could see the Summer Triangle for half the night, and Orion the other half.\n\nThe \"North Star\" (Polaris) is nearly directly above the Earth's north pole, so it never rises or sets per se; it just hangs there in the same position of the sky all night long. Other stars near the north pole also never rise or set, but seem to follow a circular route in the sky (do a google image search on \"star trails\" for some beautiful pictures."
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640hsq | how come my phone can act as a hotspot for mobile internet but not wifi | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/640hsq/eli5_how_come_my_phone_can_act_as_a_hotspot_for/ | {
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"Effectively, what you're talking about there is using your phone as a type of router - which is pretty much what it does when it's in use as a hotspot.\n\nA router transfers traffic between two or more network interfaces - in the case of your phone as a hotspot, it uses the mobile interface (i.e. the one that connects to the cellular network) for its internet connection, and its wifi network interface for the devices that are tethering to the hotspot.\n\nThere's a problem here, though - it's only got one wifi interface, and it can either connect *to* a network (to the hotel's wifi) or it can form a network for other things to connect to. It can't do both, and so you can't use your phone to share your hotel internet connection."
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jtle4 | what is common, modern pen ink made of? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/jtle4/eli5_what_is_common_modern_pen_ink_made_of/ | {
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"_URL_0_\n\nInk is usually either oil or solvent based mixed with a pigment. \n\nThe pigment is usually carbon (if black), derived from soot. Colored ink is made of ground of material that has that color. (Like Cadmium for Red). \n\n",
"_URL_0_\n\nInk is usually either oil or solvent based mixed with a pigment. \n\nThe pigment is usually carbon (if black), derived from soot. Colored ink is made of ground of material that has that color. (Like Cadmium for Red). \n\n"
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215kee | how matter becomes "alive" or develops consciousness | This is not a debate for religion. I only want to hear scientific theories behind how or why matter became life and how consciousness or self awareness came about.
I got this thought yet watching the Bill Nye religion vs science debate but once again, this subreddit is not about debates. I want to hear scientific theories only. If it makes any difference, i do believe in God but believe that God works through science. Thanks | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/215kee/eli5_how_matter_becomes_alive_or_develops/ | {
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"I recommend reading: [*The User Illusion*](_URL_3_) by Tor Norretranders, [*Gödel, Escher, Bach*](_URL_2_) by Douglas R. Hofstadter, and [*I Am a Strange Loop*](_URL_1_) also by Douglas R. Hofstadter for some interesting reading on the subject (Warning: *Gödel, Escher, Bach* isn't for everyone- it's a bit strange, but I love it). I read a lot of books on science in general and, based on that, it seems like many believe consciousness and also free will is just an illusion. In fact, just a few days ago, [physicist Brian Greene sorta-kinda said as much in his AMA](_URL_4_) - granted, he's talking specifically about free will and not consciousness per se, but I think the two must be very related.\n\nI, too, believe in God and also have a **very strong** belief in and enthusiasm for science, so this is an especially fascinating question for me.\n\nBTW: if you're interested in the way the brain works in general, I highly recommend [*How the Mind Works*](_URL_0_) by Steven Pinker."
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"http://www.amazon.com/How-Mind-Works-Steven-Pinker/dp/0393334775",
"http://www.amazon.com/Am-Strange-Loop-Douglas-Hofstadter/dp/0465030793",
"http://www.amazon.com/G%C3%B6del-Escher-Bach-Eternal-Golden/dp/0465026567",
"http://www.amazon.com/The-User-Illusion-Cutting-Consciousness/dp/0140230122",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1zqteb/i_am_brian_greene_theoretical_physicist_cofounder/cfw3o2h"
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1wkgi4 | why is prostitution so big in thailand? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1wkgi4/why_is_prostitution_so_big_in_thailand/ | {
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"While illegal it is tolerated by law enforcement and generally considered a known and accepted (if not respected) practice.",
"Ever been to a poor place? I don't mean ghetto poor, village poor. They see it as a way to make quick cash easily, and it works.",
"Lots of pretty females who are poor\n\nLots of foriegn men with cash\n\nIts a win win situation",
"Some things to keep in mind. America's Christian, pilgrim, and Victorian inspired culture is actually more of an aberration than Thailand's less prudish culture.\n\nThailand's close relationship with the US as well as its close proximity to Vietnam meant a lot of young men, many of which were still teens, had a whole bunch of money to blow while on R & R during the 60's and 70's. Some might argue that during WWII Thailand's close relationship with Japan is when prostitution really took off. The Philippines had/has a similar prostitution industry due to US military presence.\n\nJane's Addiction really 'nailed it' with the line \"sex is violence.\" Sorry for the weak attempt at humor.",
"A lot of what's been said in the comments is accurate, especially regarding both the acceptable social norms based on religion and the poverty issue.\n\nAnother important element is that Thailand remained independent during the European conquest of Asia, in part by becoming a sort of \"anything goes\" place catering to the whims of the foreigners. Other countries were colonized by European powers and, while the same sorts of things (or worse) happened, they were never officially condoned and when the countries regained their independence many of them had a conservative back-lash. That's over simplifying it, but the colonial history is very important in this context.",
"I posted this comment originally on r/Thailand, thought I'd share here as well...\n\nMy first reaction to this is that it isn't, it's just perceived that way as it's much more out in the open in Thailand vs most Western Countries, so I checked:\n\n[Here's the stats per head of population](_URL_0_) (probably the most useful stats for perspective.)\n\nOf note there's more prostitutes per head in muslim Malaysia than Thailand... I wonder how many who have been to both would have guessed that? \n\n[Estimated number of prostitutes world wide\n](_URL_1_)\nThailand ranks as second tier vs the likes of China, India, the US and others"
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2azppy | how effective are condoms really are? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2azppy/eli5_how_effective_are_condoms_really_are/ | {
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"If used properly, it's 100% effective.",
"Nothing is ever 100% effective, that's just a statistical certainty. But, when used properly, condoms are just about as close to fool-proof as you can get. If you wear a condom properly, then the odds of getting pregnant are extremely slim. If you take proper care and caution, then they are extremely effective.",
"Because your post isn't asking a simplified conceptual explanation, but rather for an answer, it has been removed. \n\nYou should try /r/answers, /r/askreddit or even one of the more specialized answers subreddits like /r/askhistorians, /r/askscience or others too numerous and varied to mention. \n\nRest assured this doesn't make your question *bad*, it just makes it more appropriate for another subreddit. Good luck! "
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cer0ba | how can women get infections when they sit on a public toilet seat? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cer0ba/eli5_how_can_women_get_infections_when_they_sit/ | {
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"Short answer: They don't. People cover the toilet seat because the idea of sharing a toilet with a stranger is disgusting to them, so they cover it as a placebo to \"block\" that person's bacteria. It's also an assumption that the toilet they're using is dirty.\nInfections from a toilet seat can really only happen if someone has an open wound or doesn't wash their hands thoroughly. Covering the toilet seat isn't actually a very good method for preventing the transfer of bacteria as it's porous and lets basically everything through.",
"The only real concern is if you have open sores on your bum. Then the bacteria that is on seat can get inside of you and sure you could get a rash etc... But if you don't have open sores then the chances of catching something from sitting on the seat are slim to none. Laying down paper won't really protect you from anything but it makes me feel better. I've been sitting for years.",
"Skin is our natural defense system. Works perfectly fine. There may be no recorded instance ever of anyone getting sick from sitting on a toilet seat."
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2jzobq | why is neil degrasse tyson such a reoccurring figure on reddit? | There are so many educated individuals to learn from throughout the entirety of the nation, with mountains of their media populating the internet. Why has this one particular character, Neil deGrasse Tyson become such a prominent figure throughout the Reddit consciousness? With so many articles and videos being posted to this website on a second by second basis, how does one particular niche professor maintain a presence on the front page of multiple subreddits on a relatively consistent basis? Is there an underlying hive mind that regulates the postings within reddit, that if not adhered to are buried in downvotes? Doesn't this frequent perspective from a single source, although intelligent, generate a recycled confirmation biased among the user base? What is it about this character that draws such a fancy from some many Redditors? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2jzobq/eli5_why_is_neil_degrasse_tyson_such_a/ | {
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"He's charismatic, likable, knowledgeable, and is good at breaking down difficult concepts. He seems to be genuinely enjoy talking with people with different viewpoints/opinions/ideas. There are tons of smart people, but they often aren't as personable as he is. I would love to meet him honestly. ",
"Neil DeGrasse Tyson has a number of attributes that make him a great candidate for being such a recurring character on Reddit.\n\nFirstly, with respect to academia, he's about as famous as it gets. There aren't many scientists who have nearly as much recognition as him, what with appearing on multiple TV shows (including the successful new *Cosmos* series) and regularly appearing on the news.\n\nSecondly, DeGrasse Tyson is an active science educator, and one of a relatively small group who do so prominently. It's extremely common for newspapers to screw up scientific stories, so many people resort to famous but relatively \"accurate\" news sources.\n\nSecondly, and probably mainly, in my opinion, is that he's extremely memetic. That is, he makes great memes. He's got a great speaking voice, familiar face and distinct style that is easily recognized, leading to him becoming part of the culture of Reddit, just as so many other things have. As to why he has been chosen is extremely difficult to say. ",
"He's basically like the hype man for science these days, kinda like Bill Nye. He summarizes new scientific discoveries in a way that makes the public interested in them kinda like how sites like yahoo or buzzfeed get attention. He can take the major points and make them interesting to the average listener quickly and concisely "
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1no2w3 | age of consent | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1no2w3/age_of_consent/ | {
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"Because the age of consent is 18 in California, and both TV and Movies primarily come from California. Often, even when the show/movie setting is supposed to be in another state, the creators overlook this and use the California age. Lots of people get confused because they only ever hear about the age of consent in TV and movies.",
"reddit in nutshell:\n\nday before 18 birthday: \"woah, she's a kid. you're fucking creep, if you like her.\"\n\nday after 18 birthday: \"woah, stunning. sharpie in the pooper! \\*le wink.\\*\"\n",
"16 is the age of consent in 29 states plus D.C., it is 17 or 18 in the others. Even saying that some states have specific rules about closeness in age, or exceptions for certain type of relationships (guardians, teachers, etc). That can be quite confusing if you don't know your local laws. 18, though, is legal everywhere, so it's easier to treat that as the generic country wide age of consent.",
"Each state has its own laws regarding sexual assault, including those that address the age of the participants. Simply put, the law makes it so that if you have sex with someone below a certain age, the young person is not considered to be capable of agreeing to the sexual activity. As a result, the older person can be charged with crimes like sexual assault or rape. The term \"age of consent\" means the age you have to reach before you are old enough to have sex with essentially anyone at least your age. \n\nIn general, there are also \"Romeo and Juliet laws\" that allow for some flexibility if the two participants are close in age. For example, if a state has an age of consent of 18, and an 18 year old has sex with a 17 year old, they may be considered close enough in age where this doesn't necessarily count as a crime. However, the same state could also punish a 30 year old for sex with a 17 year old because of the large age difference. \n\n[Here](_URL_0_) is a map of North America with countries and states divided based on age of consent. As you can see, there's plenty of variation. Keep in mind that even if 2 states have the same age of consent, that doesn't mean that they have identical laws or have the same penalties for sex with an underage person. "
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2xfdxo | how can a moon, such as europa, hold flowing water and possible life at such cold temperatures? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2xfdxo/eli5_how_can_a_moon_such_as_europa_hold_flowing/ | {
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"Europa experiences what's called tidal flexing which is basically waves causing friction, thus heating the water below the ice and keeping it liquid. With heat and water comes possibilities of life. The miles of ice above it actually insulate it from space creating an underwater biome that may be able to support life\n\nEDIT: Heat source was wrong, thanks to /u/phage0070 for correction",
"There are organisms known as \"extremophiles\" that thrive under harsh conditions like very-high, and very-low temperatures. This also applies to pH levels.",
"Because Europa is so small the gravity it experiences as it passes around the Jupiter causes the moon to contract and retract a little. This movement causes the core to be heated through a kneading like process. Scientists believe this might be enough heat to create a warmer, liquified ocean under the ice; this is where life could be sustained. "
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7qx3z2 | how does credit card interest (apr) work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7qx3z2/eli5_how_does_credit_card_interest_apr_work/ | {
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"If you don't pay all the charges, they add a percentage of the unpaid amount to your bill for the next month. That's the \"interest\" charge. It keep happening every month until you pay your bill in full.",
"Take your APR and divide by 12.\n\nTake what you owe at the end of each month and multiply by the above result.\n\nThat's the ELI5 version of APR.",
"The APR is the periodic interest rate multiplied by the number of periods in a year. \n\nMost interest you deal with is compound interest \n\nLet's say you've borrowed $100 with an APR of 12%.\n\nIf you have daily compounding, your interest per day is (12/365)%. So after 1 day you owe your original $100 plus (.12/365)x100. Or $100.0329. After the second day you owe $100.0329 plus (.12/365)x100.0329 or $100.0658\n\nDo this 363 more times and after a year, you end up owing 112.7475\n\nOn the other hand, if your 12% APR interst rate compounds monthly, you have interest of (12/12)% each month. After 1 month you owe your original $100 plus .(12/12)x100 or 101. After 2 months you owe $101 plus (.12/12)x101 or 102.01. \n\nDo this 10 more times and after a year, you end up owing 112.6825.\n\nYou can see that despite both of these having an APR of 12%, you end up owing different amounts. That difference is because the compounding periods are different. The shorter the compounding period, the quicker the debt grows.\n"
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nk7t4 | how come we don't have sustained human life on the moon yet? | We know we can sustain life in an environment with no oxygen (under water, space station.) Why haven't we put a colony on the moon yet?
Or gone back in the last 40 years for that matter? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/nk7t4/eli5_how_come_we_dont_have_sustained_human_life/ | {
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"Because it would be astronomically expensive for the value we'd get. Here's an exercise for you. I'm the American tax payer. You're a NASA bureau chief who wants to get funding for a moon colony. Give me a sales pitch as to why I should support spending my tax dollars on this project.",
"Okay, 1st off: I would love to have a permanent presence on the moon. I would sell my family to live on the moon. They know this.\n\nBut just to put how expensive it is in real terms - $2 mil to put a 200 pound guy into geosynchronous orbit. That's just the gas. Ignore anything but putting 200 pounds into geo-sync, and it's about $2 mil in gas. Geo-sync is 1/10 of the way to the moon.\n\n'Nother thing. There's the \"we did it before, why aren't we there now\" argument. Here's the problem: **none** of our hardware is built to go to the moon anymore. None of it. Not a bit. Nothing. You couldn't point the Space Shuttle at the moon and get there (not that we have that anymore). Everything in space that's being done right now is being done in Low Earth Orbit. The International Space Station is 190 miles up or so. The difference between what we're doing now and going to the Moon is the difference between going 2.5 miles down the road to your friend's house and driving across the United States. Literally. 2.5 to 3,000 is about 190 to 235,000, give or take. Huge, huge difference.\n\nThen there's the issue which has been brought up (and demonstrated) by other people in this thread: the why. You've gotta prove to the taxpayer why you should do it. Which is also why it shouldn't be taxpayers, it should be private investors, but that's something else.\n\nNow, I think it would be very useful. Space exploration is a Good Thing, and there are resources on the moon that we know of, and probably more that we don't and will find out when we get there. And I don't think NASA or space exploration needs to produce valuable, tangible results for people. I think the point of research is to provide engineers the raw materials and concepts to make valuable, tangible results, but that's another matter.\n\nSo, basically, it's too expensive, and none of the things we've done in space have made it any easier to do it.\n\nI, for one, think it's worth it. And it terms of expense, if we gave 1/20 of the US defense budget to NASA it could do it. The Apollo program topped out at about 4.5% of national budget at its height, and they got it done. But we probably won't, so now my hopes are on Richard Branson and his spectacular hair.",
"Honestly, there is no real reason to.\n\nImagine there is a barren island ten minutes from your house. You look at it and think, \"hmm I have never been on that island before\" so you swim over there and after ten minutes you land on the shore. Once you get there you think 'Wow, that sure was impressive.. I don't think I could have swam over then when I was 2\"\n\nA year passes, you are now 6.. you could swim over there again because you're stronger and you can bring some wood and a hammer and swim back and forth again and again with food and other building materials, but you're six and.. it'll be easier when you're older and you have a proper boat to travel on! \n\n- In the near future the most likely reason to set up any structure on the moon would be to monitor the universe (which can be done currently through satellites) or to mine raw materials. Right now the benefits don't justify the cost and like I said, it is (for the most part) like a barren wasteland and there is plenty of space here on earth for the time being where we can mine and be merry for a much cheaper price!",
"Only thing the moon is good for would be building the greatest golf course in history.",
"First off, I would love to see colonies on the moon. The reasons why that hasn't happened yet include, in no particular order:\n\n* No national interest. The entire space race was essentially a by-product of the Cold War: missiles developed to deliver nuclear warheads on the other side of the planet could also be used to launch payloads into orbit. Beyond the prestige of being the first (and only!) nation to do so, there is no pressing military or other need to go to the moon.\n\n* No realistic market yet. The expense of getting to the moon is so high, and will remain high enough, that there are probably too few potential tourists to make it a viable industry in the short term. There is no resource on the moon to extract that would be worth the expense of setting up the industry to do so (that could change if we develop fusion energy AND it uses a rare isotope (Helium-3) AND if the moon's surface has enough Helium-3.) Radio telescopes on the surface of the far side of the moon **sound** like a fun idea but it's not clear that they would have any advantage over a spacecraft. And so on.\n\n* The surface of the moon is perhaps - even probably - not the best place to plant a space colony. Aside from gravity, it has quite a few negatives. The slow rotation means there is no \"day\" familiar to humans, and would also complicate things due to the long heating/cooling cycles. The solar flux means the colony would probably be tunnels and excavation underground, which is extra expensive even on Earth. Space stations in earth orbit are more likely to host tourist and military visitors than the moon anytime soon.\n\n* The lunar surface is not especially helpful in planning or testing a Mars exploration program, either. The varying atmosphere, rotation and other factors mean the Moon is a place to go *instead of* or *in addition to* Mars, not ***on the way to Mars.***\n\n* Colonies of various social and religious factions I could see getting going on the moon once the costs of doing so fall exponentially. To get to that point will require a framework that includes cheap and easy access to Earth's orbit from Earth's surface.",
"There's really no reason to go back to the Moon. \n\nIt's been floated a few times that we should establish a base on the Moon as sort of a practice run for eventually going to Mars, but that's about it. ",
"Because it would be astronomically expensive for the value we'd get. Here's an exercise for you. I'm the American tax payer. You're a NASA bureau chief who wants to get funding for a moon colony. Give me a sales pitch as to why I should support spending my tax dollars on this project.",
"Okay, 1st off: I would love to have a permanent presence on the moon. I would sell my family to live on the moon. They know this.\n\nBut just to put how expensive it is in real terms - $2 mil to put a 200 pound guy into geosynchronous orbit. That's just the gas. Ignore anything but putting 200 pounds into geo-sync, and it's about $2 mil in gas. Geo-sync is 1/10 of the way to the moon.\n\n'Nother thing. There's the \"we did it before, why aren't we there now\" argument. Here's the problem: **none** of our hardware is built to go to the moon anymore. None of it. Not a bit. Nothing. You couldn't point the Space Shuttle at the moon and get there (not that we have that anymore). Everything in space that's being done right now is being done in Low Earth Orbit. The International Space Station is 190 miles up or so. The difference between what we're doing now and going to the Moon is the difference between going 2.5 miles down the road to your friend's house and driving across the United States. Literally. 2.5 to 3,000 is about 190 to 235,000, give or take. Huge, huge difference.\n\nThen there's the issue which has been brought up (and demonstrated) by other people in this thread: the why. You've gotta prove to the taxpayer why you should do it. Which is also why it shouldn't be taxpayers, it should be private investors, but that's something else.\n\nNow, I think it would be very useful. Space exploration is a Good Thing, and there are resources on the moon that we know of, and probably more that we don't and will find out when we get there. And I don't think NASA or space exploration needs to produce valuable, tangible results for people. I think the point of research is to provide engineers the raw materials and concepts to make valuable, tangible results, but that's another matter.\n\nSo, basically, it's too expensive, and none of the things we've done in space have made it any easier to do it.\n\nI, for one, think it's worth it. And it terms of expense, if we gave 1/20 of the US defense budget to NASA it could do it. The Apollo program topped out at about 4.5% of national budget at its height, and they got it done. But we probably won't, so now my hopes are on Richard Branson and his spectacular hair.",
"Honestly, there is no real reason to.\n\nImagine there is a barren island ten minutes from your house. You look at it and think, \"hmm I have never been on that island before\" so you swim over there and after ten minutes you land on the shore. Once you get there you think 'Wow, that sure was impressive.. I don't think I could have swam over then when I was 2\"\n\nA year passes, you are now 6.. you could swim over there again because you're stronger and you can bring some wood and a hammer and swim back and forth again and again with food and other building materials, but you're six and.. it'll be easier when you're older and you have a proper boat to travel on! \n\n- In the near future the most likely reason to set up any structure on the moon would be to monitor the universe (which can be done currently through satellites) or to mine raw materials. Right now the benefits don't justify the cost and like I said, it is (for the most part) like a barren wasteland and there is plenty of space here on earth for the time being where we can mine and be merry for a much cheaper price!",
"Only thing the moon is good for would be building the greatest golf course in history.",
"First off, I would love to see colonies on the moon. The reasons why that hasn't happened yet include, in no particular order:\n\n* No national interest. The entire space race was essentially a by-product of the Cold War: missiles developed to deliver nuclear warheads on the other side of the planet could also be used to launch payloads into orbit. Beyond the prestige of being the first (and only!) nation to do so, there is no pressing military or other need to go to the moon.\n\n* No realistic market yet. The expense of getting to the moon is so high, and will remain high enough, that there are probably too few potential tourists to make it a viable industry in the short term. There is no resource on the moon to extract that would be worth the expense of setting up the industry to do so (that could change if we develop fusion energy AND it uses a rare isotope (Helium-3) AND if the moon's surface has enough Helium-3.) Radio telescopes on the surface of the far side of the moon **sound** like a fun idea but it's not clear that they would have any advantage over a spacecraft. And so on.\n\n* The surface of the moon is perhaps - even probably - not the best place to plant a space colony. Aside from gravity, it has quite a few negatives. The slow rotation means there is no \"day\" familiar to humans, and would also complicate things due to the long heating/cooling cycles. The solar flux means the colony would probably be tunnels and excavation underground, which is extra expensive even on Earth. Space stations in earth orbit are more likely to host tourist and military visitors than the moon anytime soon.\n\n* The lunar surface is not especially helpful in planning or testing a Mars exploration program, either. The varying atmosphere, rotation and other factors mean the Moon is a place to go *instead of* or *in addition to* Mars, not ***on the way to Mars.***\n\n* Colonies of various social and religious factions I could see getting going on the moon once the costs of doing so fall exponentially. To get to that point will require a framework that includes cheap and easy access to Earth's orbit from Earth's surface.",
"There's really no reason to go back to the Moon. \n\nIt's been floated a few times that we should establish a base on the Moon as sort of a practice run for eventually going to Mars, but that's about it. "
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8lxt1r | i remember learning in elementary school that the heart is a muscle, but why does it not gain mass the same way your other muscles do when you exercise it? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8lxt1r/eli5_i_remember_learning_in_elementary_school/ | {
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"It does. When you work out your heart it gains mass. Well specifically it increases in volume and contraction strength. ",
"The heart doesn't gain the mass that, say, a bicep muscle does because gaining that kind of mass requires increasingly large amounts of resistance to achieve. The pumping task the heart has doesn't vary enough to cause mass gain.",
"It does. If I remember from school correctly the heart gets bigger from high intensity exericise and it's good to do low intensity long duration exercise to help prevent an enlarged heart.",
"Heart muscle tissue does grow but it’s a different type of muscle tissue relative to other muscle tissues. I borrowed the following to explain how the different muscle types’ forms fit their functions:\n\nThere are three major types of muscle tissue:\n\nCardiac Muscle\nCardiac muscle is so named because it is found in the heart. Cells are joined to one another by intercalated discs, which allow the synchronization of the heart beat. Cardiac muscle is branched, striated muscle. The heart wall consists of three layers: epicardium, myocardium, and endocardium. Myocardium is the middle muscular layer of the heart. Myocardial muscle fibers carry electrical impulses through the heart, which power cardiac conduction. \n\nSkeletal Muscle\nSkeletal muscle, which is attached to bones by tendons, is controlled by the peripheral nervous system and associated with the body's voluntary movements. Skeletal muscle is striated muscle. Unlike cardiac muscle, the cells are not branched. Skeletal muscle cells are covered by connective tissue, which protects and supports muscle fiber bundles. Blood vessels and nerves run through the connective tissue supplying muscle cells with oxygen and nerve impulses that allow for muscle contraction. Skeletal muscle is organized into several muscle groups that work in a coordinated fashion to perform body movements. Some of these groupings include head and neck muscles (facial expressions, chewing, and neck movement), trunk muscles (move the chest, back, abdomen, and vertebral column), upper extremity muscles (move the shoulders, arms, hands, and fingers), and lower extremity muscles (move the legs, ankles, feet, and toes).\n\nVisceral (Smooth) Muscle\nVisceral muscle is found in various parts of the body including blood vessels, the bladder, digestive tract, as well as in many other hollow organs. Like cardiac muscle, most visceral muscle is regulated by the autonomic nervous system and is under involuntary control. Visceral muscle is also called smooth muscle because it doesn't have cross striations. Visceral muscle contracts slower than skeletal muscle, but the contraction can be sustained over a longer period of time. Organs of the cardiovascular system, respiratory system, digestive system, and reproductive system are lined with smooth muscle. This muscle can be described as rhythmic or tonic. Rhythmic or phasic smooth muscle contracts periodically and spends most of the time in a relaxed state. Tonic smooth muscle remains contracted for the majority of the time and only relaxes periodically."
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5925sf | if you ate a bowl of rice one grain at a time, would you feel as full after as you would if you just ate that bowl normally? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5925sf/eli5if_you_ate_a_bowl_of_rice_one_grain_at_a_time/ | {
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"Depends how fast you were eating it, is it just a constant stream of 1 grain of rice? Or is it you finding and eating 1 grain at a time. If every grain has 1/10th of a calorie (which they roughly do), and realistically you're ok at it, and can eat 1 grain per second, you're eating 360 calories an hour, which would be more than enough to keep you sustained and not hungry through out the day. Infact you'd be good for the day after 4 hours, if you want to count the calories burned eating the rice, i'd say 6 hours."
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2b3j0f | why do we have to poop and pee separately? why doesn't our system get rid of all of our waste together all at once? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2b3j0f/eli5why_do_we_have_to_poop_and_pee_separately_why/ | {
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"The cloaca does just that. It is a more primitive evacuation system than what we have. As for advantages, I do not know.\n\nBut looking at the mess my chickens make, I'm glad we do not have one.",
"It's helpful to think about the two compartments that produce our waste. The solid waste comes out of our digestive system -- we're basically doughnuts, hollow through the middle -- and we squeeze nutrition and moisture from the food we take in, leaving the leftovers to plop out the other end. Our kidneys, on the other hand, pull waste out of our blood, they're not part of the digestive tract, they're inside the cake part of the doughnut, not the hole. The kidneys remove the waste products produced by our bodies, dissolved in what is essentially water. \nWe do dump a small amount of solid waste from our internal organs into our poop, but food makes up the bulk of solid waste. The liquid waste, on the other hand, is entirely made up of waste filtered from our blood. We discard them separately because they're actually serving two separate functions. "
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2ae6uk | why do people complain about privacy from the government but then post personal information all over social media sites? | ELI5 | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ae6uk/eli5_why_do_people_complain_about_privacy_from/ | {
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"Because the voluntary disclosure of personal information is completely different from the involuntary gathering of personal data.",
"Because there's a difference between sharing yourself and being exposed. \n\nSharing is a conscious effort and can either be false or true. Nobody but you will know. But being exposed is different. You have no control over it, thusly it can potentially be more damaging to you. ",
"Because they are controlling what they are sharing online.\n\nJust because you leave your curtains open doesn't mean you want the government to be able to come into your house anytime they please."
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19g733 | the sequester | What is it, why is it bad, why does it even exist if it's so bad? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/19g733/eli5_the_sequester/ | {
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"Family budget is shot to pieces, spending out of control. Instead of coming up with some reasonable solution (like dad not buying fifty new guns when he has sixty he doesn't use, or mom not feeding t-bones and crab legs to the homeless. ) the parents decided that apart from their own personal spending money and money for bodyguards every other part of the family's expenses would be cut. The idea being it would help motivate them to reasonable money management to lose the things they value. However it seems like Mom and Dad would rather play chicken and see who caves first, the kids are just caught in the middle. (edit families-family's) ",
"Bonus question from an interested European: What is the difference between the \"fiscal cliff\" and the \"sequester\"?\n\nTo me it sounds like the same thing. Didn't they just postpone the \"fiscal cliff\" for a few weeks with a half-assed solution, and isn't it now exactly the same situation as before?",
"As bad as all these cuts are supposed to be, they only account for like 2% of our spending. And without a budget, we will spend those savings somewhere else. The sequester does nothing to change our redonculous debt problems. ",
"Ok. Here’s my attempt.\n\nAlright Maddie, you wanted to know about the “Sequester” that you are hearing so much about. In order for you to understand it, I need to give you some background. \n\nThe US has two groups that want to run the country. \n\nRepublicans contain a group of people that want the US to take less of people’s money and to do less things. The one thing they generally do want the US to do is to have a large army. \n\nThe other group, the Democrats, want the US to take some money from people to fix people’s problems. They generally want to take more money from those that are rich compared to those that are poor. \n\nIn the past, there was a big disaster that hurt the pocketbooks of almost all of the countries of the world. We don’t need to get into the specifics of that. All you need to know is that almost all of the countries in the world including the US faced a lot of money problems after this happened. \n\nAfter this happened, the Democrats wanted to borrow money from people to help fix lots of the problems that were caused by the big disaster. They thought that this would both help people and help the US budget (this is what people mean when they say “stimulate the economy”). Republicans said we should not do that because that will just make our problems worse since the US can not do anything right and it would make US budget more in debt. In general, the Republicans right now do not believe that you can borrow money to help the US budget (or “stimulate the economy”). \n\nIn order to stop the Democrats from borrowing money to fix problems, Republicans said that they would block the US from paying any of the US’s bills until we started cutting expenses and we were out of debt. Democrats said that this was crazy because if we didn’t pay the bills that we already owed then really bad things would happen (like if Daddy doesn’t pay the electric bills and the lights on the house go out).\n\nIn order to solve this problem (called the debt ceiling crises), the Republicans agreed to allow the US to pay its bills and in return the two groups agreed to create a group called the “Super Committee”. Yes honey, that is actually the real name of the committee and they do not have super powers. \n\nAnyway, the Super Committee was created to fix the budget. Because the Republicans did not trust that the Democrats would actually cut expenses to fix the budget, both parties agreed to state that if the Super Committee did not figure out how to fix the budget then the most horrible budget cuts they could think of would go into effect. These horrible cuts are called the “Sequester”. Republicans, who remember love army, even agreed that if the Super Committee did not succeed then huge cuts would go into effect for the army.\n\nThe Super Committee was suppose to be composed of the best minds of both parties that would work together to come up with a compromise. But both parties still really disagreed on what they wanted to do so the Super Committee did not come to an agreement. Because the Super Committee did not come to an agreement, the Sequester (those horrible cuts) were timed to go into effect today. People thought that they would have come up with an agreement before today, but both parties still do not agree on what should happen. \n\nThe Democrats think that the Sequester will cause lots of problems because the US will not be fixing people’s problems any more. They also think that this will hurt the US budget because we will not be “stimulating the economy” and will be doing the opposite.\n\nThe group of Republicans that like the army are mad because they do not want the cuts to the army to go into effect. But that group has been overtaken by the other group of Republicans that doesn’t want government to take people’s money and do not think that the Sequester will do bad things because they do not believe that the US can borrow money to help the budget. \n\nNo one knows how this will end up but most people think that the Sequester will be so bad that after awhile Republicans and Democrats will actually come up with an agreement to end it. \n\nHope that helps baby. Oh I guess you are asleep. \n",
"The thing I never understand is, the sequester is a Congress-made budget cut. Well, why can't they just say, \"Screw the sequester, those cuts are terrible. Let's keep working toward something.\" It's not as if the sequester is this divine, written-in-stone thing. It's a rule they made up!",
"Democrat and Republican politicians can't take money away from the people that voted for them, otherwise they won't get re-elected. The spending cuts need to happen because the country keeps going further in debt. So, politicians created rules that would automatically cut spending in such a way that they could blame others when the cuts kick in. \"See, I didn't reduce the money going to the army, it was the Democrats who were being unreasonable.\" \"See, I didn't reduce money going to public welfare, it was the Republicans who were being unreasonable.\"",
"not quite like youre 5, but the numbers aint that tough\n\nthis year our $3.6 trillion dollar budget will be cut by $85 billion dollars (2.36% cut). over 10 years our budget will be cut from $46 trillion to $44.8 trillion (2.6% cut)\n\nin the impending doom facing our country, we will have to scrimp and save and get by on 97.7% of current spending, how ever will we manage???\n\nTL;DR: this is hardly the doomsday scenario its being painted to be, it is mostly charading and politicking\n\nEDIT: worth mentioning that federal budgets have increased 17% on average since obama took office. basically the administration is being very transparently dishonest in saying that what was perfectly acceptable 4 years ago spells utter disaster today",
"[Ben Swann seems to do good job explaining it for those who still need some clarification.](_URL_0_)\n\n",
"The way I understand it is like this:\n\nImagine two people were living in a house (like your uncle Johnny and aunt Jane). Now imagine that they were spending more money than they had, Johnny was buying shiny new guns every day and Jane was trying to feed every homeless person in LA.\n\nNow, one day Johnny and Jane realize they are running out of money and soon the credit card companies will stop giving them credit cards to max out so they got down to talking. Johnny wanted Jane to stop feeding homeless people and Jane wanted Johnny to stop buying so many new guns.\n\nJohnny and Jane could't decide on what to do so they agreed to two things:\n1. They would get one last credit card and spend a little bit less.\n2. They decided that they would both cut off one leg if they couldn't come to a decision by a certain date. (pretty scary huh?)\n\nNow, with the new credit card Johnny kept buying new guns and Jane kept on feeding more people. As the date to make a decision or lose a leg got closer, Johnny and Jane couldn't decide on anything as each wanted only the other to give something up. Sometimes Jane or Johnny would try to compromise but the other would never have it.\n\nThis went on for a few deadlines but each time either Johnny or Jane would give up a little to put off cutting their legs but would still agree to a new deadline.\n\nYesterday, they stopped putting it off. Today, they cut off one of each other's legs.\n\nNote: I hope that was ELI5 enough. [Cikedo did a good write up in grown up talk](_URL_0_)",
"Just a little pet peeve of mine, but the correct term is sequestration, not \"the sequester.\""
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2jqf21 | why can't the us just decrease the size of its military and redirect that part of the budget to other areas like education and healthcare? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2jqf21/eli5_why_cant_the_us_just_decrease_the_size_of/ | {
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"Because we are a militarized society, and boatloads of representatives have military-industrial constituents in their districts. ",
"A lot of the money spent on \"military\" is spent on building ships, tanks, and technology. Those ships, tanks and technology are built in states, benefitting their economy and making Senators and Representatives look good. \n\nMore money is spent on housing and feeding soldiers. those soldiers aren't out looking for jobs, thus making the employment rate look better, making politicians look good. \n\nThe military has little to do with protecting us, and more to do with providing jobs and things to spend money on.",
"Because that would take a lot of legislation, reallotment of funds, and some smart executive management. For example, a significant part of that funding is for maintenance of equipment. Are we going to waste billions of dollars by just throwing away our high-tech expensive equipment? It would cost more to move it all back to America, but we wouldn't want it to fall into the wrong hands. What do we do with that?\n\nWhat would we do with the millions of active units (members of the military) we have across the globe? It would cost billions to reshuffle our assets and permanently close any military bases that would become redundant. It would cost billions to let go of hundreds of thousands if not millions of military servicemen and woman.\n\nWhat would happen to the military contracts? These contracts are guaranteed by buyout clauses. If the government forfeits the contract, they are liable for billions in damages and backpay.\n\nCutting the military's spending is easier said than done. It will cost more in the short run that you think. It's necessary, but nobody wants to do it, and nobody wants to be responsible for the fallout immediately following the event.",
"Because the United States is a semi-socialist nation and the US military is the largest government jobs program in human history. Those troops can’t just be laid off and sent to work as doctors and teachers. Nor can the millions of people working to support them. The economic consequences would be disastrous and every politician involved would need to find a new job.",
"* The US military is important reason for international trade. Without the US NAVY providing security on the global trade routes, international trade would not be as big as it is today. \n* For the most part, our worlds stability is completely reliant on the US military. A reduction of the US military may have huge effects on our current worlds stability. If you compare to the world of today to the world in the 19th and 20th century, its pretty damn stable.\n* The US military is an important source of money for a lot of educational research going on. Cutting down on the military's budget may give more money to public education but not much. A cut in the military's budget will have a huge effect on educational research. \n* The US healthcare system is run by private corporations, not by the government like most other countries. The US having more money for healthcare will not fix the problem with the US healthcare system. \n* The US military provides huge amounts of jobs and aid the communities near military establishments. A cut in military spending causes a domino effect on the economy. Look at Atwater, CA; when the airforce base closed down their economy took a huge hit. ",
"Because that's an incredibly good idea. In fact it's so good that our Congress is absolutely incapable of acting on it. They're immune to good ideas. "
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1rekxk | why are some medicines safe during pregnancy while others are not and why do different sources disagree and what is safe and what is not? | Ok so why do different sources say things like cold medicine or pepto-bismol is safe while others say it is not? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1rekxk/eli5why_are_some_medicines_safe_during_pregnancy/ | {
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"Harmless medications cannot pass from the mothers circulation to the babies circulation OR they do pass but do not have any effect\n\nHarmful medications do pass through to the baby. From there many different harmful effects can occur, the biggest probably being deformities to the baby \n\nScientists who create the drugs are responsible for determining its harmful effects to babies in pregnancy. Most of the time it is determined by editing the drugs on pregnant animals, ie mice ect.\n\nAll drugs have a pregnancy safe category A,B,C,D,X (in the states the categories are probably slightly diff) but generally doctors stay well away from category D and X drugs in pregnant women"
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128lw4 | what is dead weight loss in microeconomics? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/128lw4/what_is_dead_weight_loss_in_microeconomics/ | {
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"I hope this is simple enough. If there's any terminology you'd like me to explain, please ask. \n\nDead weight loss happens whenever a government imposes a price control or a tax.\n\nWhen a tax happens, price goes up, so buyers end up spending more for the same thing (i.e. there a decrease in consumer surplus). Because some of the money being paid is going to the gov't instead of the suppliers, they will lose money too (i.e. there is a decrease in producer surplus). In addition, quantity will decrease, because not all consumers will be willing to pay the new price, and suppliers will be less willing to produce at the lower revenue. *Most* of this lost value goes to the gov't as tax revenue, but not all of it. Some of it simply goes poof, and that's called dead weight loss.\n\n[Here's a picture.](_URL_2_) The triangle between the curves and the tax revenue is the dead weight loss.\n\nWhen a price ceiling, for example, happens, suppliers are forced to sell at lower price. Obviously, they lose revenue. This will cause them to start producing a smaller quantity. Buyers will be paying a lower price and gain some surplus, but, because of the decrease in quantity being produced (this is called a shortage, btw), not as much as the suppliers lost. The difference is called dead weight loss, and the same thing happens with a price floor, except the consumers lose and producers gain.\n\n[Here's another picture.](_URL_0_)\n\nIf you want some more in-depth reading, there's always [Wikipedia](_URL_1_).\n\nEDIT: I forgot to mention the part about producer revenue decreasing under taxes.\n\nEDIT Mk.2: I realized that this might seem pretty anti-tax/government. You have to remember that the cardinal rule of economics is that a rational decision has benefits which outweigh its costs. All dead weight loss means is that there is a cost to taxes. The benefit is undecided."
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3jdtuq | why didn't the laptop industry come up with a standard port for the laptop so a universal cable can be used to charge any laptop? is there a technical reason or just lack of motivation. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3jdtuq/eli5_why_didnt_the_laptop_industry_come_up_with_a/ | {
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"Because the \"laptop industry\" is composed of dozens of companies who mostly hate each other and would rather die than cooperate for the benefit of consumers. By having a custom power cord, they are able to sell their specific one and prevent you from using any other company's cord. They can also charge whatever they want for it, because you need it and probably aren't going to chuck your laptop because you lost or broke the cord.\n",
"Because the laptop companies don't *want* you using everyone elses charger. Then they wouldn't earn as much.\n\n[Relevant XKCD](_URL_0_) as well",
"Let's not jump to these conclusions about monopolistic tendencies of big corporations. Don't accept those answers unless they're backed up. I tend to agree to an extent, but that knee-jerk response is wrong.\n\nI work as a programmer at a company that has some custom hardware. We've done a lot of our own board layout and have sourced some of our own parts, and seeing that has given me some insight. Chargers are different because they're manufactured by different people to fit different adapters with different power requirements. It wouldn't benefit company that makes charger A to fit port B if A and B have different power requirements anyhow. Also, with companies like apple, you're looking at fancy stuff like the magnetic adapters with custom plugs that make the fit easier. To unify the specification for laptop adapter *sizes*, you'd have to unify the power requirements of laptops, which would constitute major layout redesigns. Laptop manufacturers don't stand to gain much from this massive undertaking.",
"Somebody pointed this out already, but usb-c is trying to become a standard for power and external devices. The new macbook and Chromebook already use it for power",
"It's not just a cord its a power inverter. Different laptops can use vastly different inverters. \n \n_URL_0_ 18.5v \n \n_URL_1_ 16v \n \n_URL_2_\n 12-24v universal ",
"The upcoming [USB C](_URL_1_) implementing the [new power delivery standard](_URL_0_) will be able to serve as the universal power supply to just about everything, as it can supply 100W in a single port.\n\nThe power delivery is smart enough to communicate between the charger and device to determine how much power is needs/wants/can handle (and for back compatibility it falls back to the standard USB 2 power spec if it cannot agree on a higher power).\n\nWhether this will succeed commercially? For phones and tablets: probably, since Google is pushing it. For laptops: no idea. Hopefully.",
"It's not just a money grab as some have said. It also has to do with the power specifications of the laptop and it's battery. Charging time for the battery for \"Full Power\" requirements can be vastly different.\n\nA typical thin & light laptop doesn't have the same power requirements as a hardcore gaming laptop.\n\nThis same issue occurs on USB chargers. Despite the cord connections being identical not all USB chargers have the same performance characteristics.",
"Corporate greed may play a part, but it's definitely not the only reason. \n\nThis is mostly because the folks doing the system design simply don't care. They want their product to be a masterpiece, they have creative license to make the power port located however they want and whatever size/shape they want, so they make it how they like. If it's a super-slim ultralight notebook, they'll design a super-slim ultralight power adapter and tiny power plug to go with it.\n\nUSB, FireWire and other standardized connectors were developed by a consortium of companies working toward a common goal to standardize how peripherals connect to your computer. Such a consortium has never been approached for providing utility power to devices like laptops.\n\nI agree with others that the new USB Type C has a very good chance of becoming the new standard for powering *most* laptops. \n",
"Haha. I did a spit take on \"lack of motivation\". No disrespect intended, but plenty of motivation went into ensuring your HP charger will not work on my Dell. At least initially. You have to realize that the early Dell business model was to barely make any money on the sale of the actual PC or Laptop. They made their money off peripherals. That includes replacement components like a power cord. They also made tons of money by making you pay for the hardware the day you bought it while paying the vendor who built it 90 to 120 later. How would you like to have the interest for 3-4 months on a few hundred million dollars? The reason we see mobile devices starting to move towards standard interconnects is the chargers on phone often do more than than just charge the phone.",
"The same reason a power cable assemble for an Alienware m18x(circa 2011/12ish) costs 160$. Max profit.",
"I've always wondered the same thing with the various USB standards. I think this XKCD comic explains it perfectly: _URL_0_"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
[
"https://xkcd.com/927/"
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[],
[],
[
"http://www.ebay.com/itm/65W-AC-Adapter-Charger-for-HP-Pavilion-G4-G5-G6-G7-Laptop-Power-Supply-Cord-New-/311370589391?hash=item487f2224cf",
"http://www.ebay.com/itm/AC-Adapter-For-Panasonic-Toughbook-CF-52-Series-Laptop-Charger-Power-Supply-Cord-/380904577059?hash=item58afae9823",
"http://www.amazon.com/Universal-Charger-Adapter-Notebook-12V-24V/dp/B006FD71P8"
],
[
"http://www.usb.org/developers/powerdelivery/",
"http://www.androidpolice.com/2015/04/14/the-new-usb-type-c-connector-a-practical-guide-to-the-next-generation-of-data-and-power-ports/"
],
[],
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6yo4u2 | how are tyres attached to wheels? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6yo4u2/eli5_how_are_tyres_attached_to_wheels/ | {
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"In car tires, there's a steel wire that's on the edge of the rubber tire. This wire is forced over the lip of the car wheel when mounting the tire. Then tension of the wire combined with friction of the rubber and air pressure seals(mostly) the tire to the wheel.\n\nIn some off-road wheels, a securing ring of bolts is used called a beadlock."
]
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[]
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||
51byl0 | how can plants make solid matter/grow when they only get water, air and sunlight? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/51byl0/eli5_how_can_plants_make_solid_mattergrow_when/ | {
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"The carbon in carbon dioxide, is the same carbon in a chunk of coal, is the same carbon in glucose (plant food), is the same carbon in cellulose (hard plant). It's all a matter of how it's put together with different things. Sunlight gives the plant energy to react chemicals until it gets the ones it needs to make more plant bits. "
]
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[]
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||
40luph | how much internet speed/bandwidth can we get if the satellites are run at peak capacity? (with no throttling by providers) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/40luph/eli5_how_much_internet_speedbandwidth_can_we_get/ | {
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"Satellites don't run our Internet.\n\nEveryone is connected through cables. There's long ass cables that run through the ocean too connect the world together. \n\n\nOur phones connect to cell towers which I connected to the network. The tower basically acts like a big ass WiFi router. "
]
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||
b6jssf | what makes us in the mood for one type of food over another on a day to day basis? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b6jssf/eli5_what_makes_us_in_the_mood_for_one_type_of/ | {
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"A massive spectrum of triggers, both biological and psychological. \n\nEver have a REALLY good steak? That released endorphins, and you're going to want that experience again. So you're more likely to keep chasing that high until you have a bad enough experience to break the streak. \n\nMcDonalds has trained us since childhood to think of your favorite order when you see those golden arches. Fresh Fries, Chicken Nuggets, and the perfect greasy hamburger. Get a bite of your childhood for $1 right now. Same goes for most of the candy brands you ate in middle school. \n\nThen there's the biological triggers. If your diet is lacking something important it will make foods that have it SUPEr tasty. \n\nEver try a no-carb diet? Go 3-5 days with absolutely ZERO carbs and you will crave a cupcake more than you ever have in your life. Stealing a baby's first birthday cake will start sounding like a good idea. \n\nOr try going without fresh fruits and/or vegetables for about a month. Anecdotal story: Fraternity accidentally did this because the guy in charge of the menu never had \"Eat vegetables\" beaten into him by his mom. Nobody really noticed until parents day when some mom brought obligatory Veggie Platter. She thought she was lame, but we DESTROYED it within 15 minutes without realizing. \n\nThe best broccoli I've ever had, and until that day I thought I hated it. But i was compelled to just give it a go and now I'm a fan for life, chasing that \"best broccoli ever\" high. Turns out we were all a little malnourished and told Kevin that veggies are now required on the daily. "
]
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[]
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||
ai1s7a | how did they measure long distances before gps? | Before modern inventions like GPS, how did they measure distances of hundreds of miles? For example, in the 1700s, did they know how far away America was from Scotland? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ai1s7a/eli5_how_did_they_measure_long_distances_before/ | {
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"Position on the globe requires two measurements, latitude and longitude. In the 1700s they would have measured them separately.\n\nYou can determine your latitude by seeing how high the sun is in the sky at the highest point. The higher the sun is, the closer you are to the equator.\n\nLongitude was harder. It took the invention of an accurate clock that could keep time on a moving ship to reliably calculate longitude.\n\nLet's say you left Glasgow on a ship and traveled east. When you leave you set your clock to the time in Glasgow. You've been traveling for a few weeks and you want to know how far east you've gone. You look at the sun when it has reached its highest point and then look at your clock. The clock says that it is 1PM in Glasgow but because the sun is at its highest point you know that it is 12 noon where you are.\n\nYou can use that to calculate that you are 1/24th of the planet away from Glasgow. That's 15 degrees of longitude.\n\nNow that you know your latitude and longitude, you can calculate the distance between you and home.",
"You can determine latitude (you north-south position) by just observing the angels to stars. The polar start is almost directly over the north pole so your latitude is the angle over the horizon to it, Other stars move in the sky but you can measure the angle at the highest point in the sky to determing your location. You can also measure the angle to the sun at noon(when it is highest in the sky)\n\nLongitude(east-west position) is a lot harder. The problem is one of knowing the time. If know the time from where you started you can checked what time the sun is in the highest position. The change in time can directly be converted to the longitude. It it is highest in the sky 1 hour later you have moved 360/24=15 degrees.\n\nIf you have a good clock that you can move like the marine chronometer (clocks that work on a rocking ship) that was invented and presented by John Harrison in 1761 and a Sextant you can on a ship determine the location with a error of 1/4 nautical mile (460m) on a ship and even more accurate with larger stable equipment of land.\n\nBefore that you could measure the longitude on land with high accuracy by using phenomena like eclipses or by looking at the moons of Jupiter with a telescope. It did not work on a ship but do work in land to determine the location of a city or more important a harbor. \n\nFor moving ships before marine chronometer you used dead reckoning and just looked the direction and the speed to determine how far you had sailed. The result is that most ships sailed close to the cost and navigated by features on the land crossing of open water was a lot less common. If you sailed from Europ to Americas in the 17th century you estimated where you was with dead reckoning but when you was close you only sailed during daylight with a spotter on the top of the mast and stopped during the night so you did not sail onto the land in the dark.\n\nStar measuring for latitude was know by the Greek in ancient times. metods for longitude developed over time and they also determine the size of earth.\n"
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epyvm7 | why is drinking cold water pleasurable and refreshing, when pouring cold water on the exterior skin feels painful? clearly the heat/energy loss of the body is greatest when drinking the cold water | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/epyvm7/eli5_why_is_drinking_cold_water_pleasurable_and/ | {
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"Eh, cold water on skin isn’t painful per se, but the skin and underlying thereof is where we have most of our nerves. So it’s basically over stimulation that we don’t like on the outside, whereas on the inside, it’s so hot already that the cold water is warming up quicker than it stays cold like it would on the outside of the body touching us."
]
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||
cdrc68 | why does punctuation go inside the quotation? | While we are talking about grammar, I've always been bothered by the rule that punctuation must go in a quotation. If I'm asking a question about a quote, I feel like it makes more sense to have the question mark outside the quotation to indicate it is my question. For example:
When did you say, "it comes in pints?"
This makes it seem ambiguous whether the quoted person was asking or stating.
It seems like it would be better quote the person including proper punctuation and use punctuation for your own purpose. Such as:
When did you say, "it comes in pints!?"? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cdrc68/eli5_why_does_punctuation_go_inside_the_quotation/ | {
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"Only commas and periods go inside the quotation marks. All other punctuation goes outside the quotation marks unless they were part of the original quotation. At least in the American rules",
"/u/Laughatme13 is correct for American rules. Commas and periods go inside the quotes. Question marks and exclamation points go either inside or outside depending on if it's relevant to the original quote, e.g. put the question mark inside if the quote is a question. Finally, colons and semicolons go outside of the quotes.\n\nI believe British English puts them all outside of the quotes unless it is integral to the quotation.\n\nAs for why, sadly it's just as simple as rules must be made to keep things the same. This is what was generally agreed upon and that's it. There are some that put them outside all the time and others that do it inside all the time, but the majority (at least academically) follows these rules."
]
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1r2j7y | why do banks sell mortgages to other lending businesses? | How does this practice impact the borrower? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1r2j7y/eli5_why_do_banks_sell_mortgages_to_other_lending/ | {
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"text": [
"not exactly sure how it impacts the borrower, but by selling the mortgages, the banks will have more funds to lend to other borrowers. creates liquidity in the markets. "
]
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|
38dfc4 | why don't tech companies simply ignore the government's requests to allow backdoors or weakened encryption? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/38dfc4/eli5_why_dont_tech_companies_simply_ignore_the/ | {
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"First distinction: They are not too big to fail, not by a long shot. Apple failing would just mean Google/other tech companies would assume their market share. This is a very competitive market, and to think that all of these companies would band together and \"team up\" vice just letting their competitors flounder is naive. Additionally, an incredibly large portion of what these tech companies provide is elastic demand, consumer fluff. None of it is essential to the citizens of the country.\n\nQuite simply, the Government could make them pay: in the end, the government has a military, tech corporations don't. \n\nThe government could also do more than levy fines. They could increase tariffs on the inbound product. They could block them from the use of the EM spectrum. They could do a ton of things... \n\nIn short, to do business in a country, you must obey the laws of that country. If you don't, at the end of the day, they can chase you out with guns. ",
"Because lawyers are expensive, and the government loves to drag things like that out in secret courts.",
"Apple and Google aren't like banks. Microsoft or Amazon or some new company would quickly step in and pick up the slack if one failed.\n\nIf they refused to comply, they gov't could freeze bank accounts and charge the people who made that decisions with various crimes.",
"They do ignore them. Google and Apple do, at least. And they aren't breaking the law (in the US). There are no laws for them to break. There are no laws that force backdoors or weak encryption or anything of the sort out right now, and they really can't write any that don't go afoul of the 4th Amendment. A government request is not a law. You don't have to obey it.",
"As we see from LavaBit incident ( _URL_0_) the government can levy huge fines. Probably google and apple can pay those fines and try to fight them but it would bleed into huge expensive battles. \n\nBy not paying these fines, these companies are open to legal prosecution which is yet another legal battle.\n\nBad rep, will definitely stop investors from investing in the companies.\n\nShould the company lose a legal case they will be totally destroyed. So from a business perspective it doesn't make sense to directly fight government. \n\nMost businesses try to adapt to local situation to maximize profit. For example, US corporations trying to do business in China promote bribery and nepotism which they would do far less conspicuously in US.\n\n\nAlso on encryption and cryptography front NSA employs huge number of scientists and if funds a lot of the research. So it has a lot of say in that area.\n",
"The feds made a pretty good example of [Joseph Nacchio](_URL_0_), former CEO of Qwest. The NSA wanted unrestricted access to Qwest customer records, and Nacchio demanded that they produce a court order for those records. The NSA then dropped a contract they had with Qwest worth hundreds of millions of dollars. A few years later Nacchio was charged and convicted of insider trading and fraud because he sold some of his Qwest stock after the NSA dropped the contract but before that information became public. He probably was guilty of those charges, but he was probably targeted for prosecution specifically because he had crossed the NSA.",
"The answer is Microsoft and the antitrust conviction. Absolutely nothing changed except Microsoft's political and charitable spending increased dramatically. ",
"In a lot of cases the government is the largest client these companies have. It would be devastating if the government would pull their contracts.",
"Lots of confusion in this thread about the difference between a kindly government request for cooperation and a court order. ",
"If they have a judge's order you really won't have much of a choice. Those are enforceable via fines or prison. Not something you really want to deal with as an officer of a company.",
"The shareholders, executives, and employees of these companies like money. A lot. The Government can take away that money. So the companies obey the Government.\n\n\nOccasionally, these companies have a few people that are fine with being imprisoned and impoverished by standing up for their principles. So they do. And then they are. And the world spins on.",
"Multi-million dollar contracts with the government, sometimes including direct government funding of their research and development (so-called \"cost plus\" contracts, where the government pays everything it costs to develop a given product, then gives the company a hefty bonus upon completion)."
]
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2k9yg5 | how do big governmental transactions work? | As in if a country lends another country 100 million. Do they actually wire the money at once and who is responsible for doing so? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2k9yg5/eli5_how_do_big_governmental_transactions_work/ | {
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"A government has a banker and a bank account just like everyone else. Sometimes this is the central bank, sometimes not. In principle, yes, they just wire the money to the account of the other government.\n\nThe only real difference is that since it can involve very large sums of money (though 100 million isn't very much, several billion wouldn't be an issue either) it might actually involve shipping things of actual value like gold. This it where institutions like the Bank of International Settlements and the World Bank come in.\n\nAlso, if there is a currency exchange required then the government might actually need to buy a lot of that currency, though in practice they might just do it in something like Euros or US dollars because the other country can then use them directly for paying off other debts. Governments tend to have holdings in many different currencies for this purpose.\n\nedit: a more practical example: suppose a european country wanted to lend money to an south american country, one way to do it would be to find a bank in south america they trust that also has offices in Europe. Wire the money to the bank in Europe, ask them to wire the money in south america. Of course, for very large sums (which rarely happens) this might make the bank in south america insolvent, in which case you'd have to revert to shipping something like gold."
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261wto | why does starbucks cost so much? what differentiates their coffee from an average coffee place? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/261wto/eli5_why_does_starbucks_cost_so_much_what/ | {
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"The difference is a logo. It's similar to Apple they charge shittons because they can and people will continue to pay",
"The cost of your cup of coffee doesn't just go to the product itself, it also goes into the healthcare of the workers of the store. It goes into the maintenance of the store, and the development of the brand. It goes into the salary of the employees. A variety of costs are built into the price you pay to maintain the standards that Starbucks desires and its customers expect. ",
"there is literally no difference, except perhaps that sb is worse than most private places. starbucks nearly went bankrupt shortly after becoming a success because it is so easy to imitate. it is now strictly through name recognition that it persists. ",
"They know you'll buy it no matter how much it costs, so they jack up the price. You're Starbuck's bitch."
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28coba | why in public transportation you are tossed around while standing and not while sitting? | When standing in public transportation, you feel every acceleration, braking, turns and are tossed around the place, if you are not holding with all of your strength. But when you are sitting, you can feel hardly any force, that would try to toss you on floor.
Why is it so? I know that there is inertia at work, but why is there so large difference, when standing or sitting? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/28coba/eli5_why_in_public_transportation_you_are_tossed/ | {
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"Stability is mainly affected by two things: centre of mass, and base area. When standing you have a higher centre of mass, and a smaller base area (only your feet are in contact with the floor as opposed to your butt), so you are less stable than when sitting. The same forces act upon you when standing or sitting but they toss you around more when standing."
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30qv7z | how do they sync the screens with the music on live events? | i.e UMF | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/30qv7z/eli5_how_do_they_sync_the_screens_with_the_music/ | {
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"While I can't be 100% sure for every musician, this is the most common route. \n \nThe musician connects his instruments (in the case of UMF, probably a computer) to a DMX system. These systems control stage lighting by sending signals to the lights to switch colour, turn off, or can trigger effects such as releasing fog. \n \nIn the case of UMF, this is more complicated. The DMX system is connected to another computer - one that is connected to all the screens. This computer generates cool graphics in real time, just like video games do. When this computer receives a signal from the DMX system, it changes certain effects. The \n \nFor example, imagine the musician is playing the sound of a bass drum on repeat. Their computer is connected to the DMX system. The DMX system has been told to send a signal every time the bass drum sound repeats. The signal is sent to a graphics computer - the one connected to all the screens. This computer is currently producing a red circle in real-time. When it receives the signal, it makes the circle suddenly grow and shrink, and change to blue. \n \nNow imagine that red circle is an absolute ton of 3D objects being rendered in real-time, and you know how UMF visuals are in sync. "
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2as4jy | why don't they rebuild ancient structures, like the acropolis in athens, like they've done in other places like cambodia? | When I was in Cambodia, I noticed that various temples surrounding Siem Reap were rebuilt or in the process of being rebuilt using traditional materials. Wouldn't rebuilding an old building to original specifications be a better way to preserve it?
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2as4jy/eli5_why_dont_they_rebuild_ancient_structures/ | {
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"They are rebuilding the [Acropolis](_URL_0_), actually the Parthenon.\n\nIt depends on the organization and what is being preserved. The U.S. National Park Service has a mandate to preserve structures in their current state to reflect not just their usage at their height but history afterwards, this is not the case with all organizations. For example in the above restoration of the Parthenon what will be lost is the history of it being used as an armory and the gunpowder inside exploding. Who determines which period of a 2500 year old building is the most important to preserve?",
"Think about the risk of simply trying to rebuild an old structure, you could end up damaging it further or even causing a collapse during construction. Also money (its not cheap) and people who push to leave things are they are.",
"It is sort of charming to preserve ancient monuments in the same condition they were left in after the British plundered them for relics. ",
"Not only do they preserve and rebuild old structures, but they'll even [chop them up and move them to a new location](_URL_0_)",
"I REALLY think they should rebuild the Pyramids. They look fucking sad as they are now after being looted for stone/marble over thousands of years. Put a super structure over it as it was originally or, even just one side of it?",
"Part of it is that they don't have\n enough money right now. Greece got hit harder than other European countries when the economy took a dive. It's also a big undertaking to do work on such awesome historical sites. ",
"FYI, you can visit a full scale replica of the Parthenon in Nashville, Tennessee of all places. \n\n_URL_0_",
"Rebuilding is really not necessarily a good idea, especially as we don't actually know what many structures actually looked like, or if they were ever in a state of perfect completion. Plus, the changes that occur through let's say historical Turkish Civilizations, there were Lycians then Greeks to Romans to Ottomans. What is original? that's really hard to say, in most cases anyway.\n\nMy understanding is that it's fine to stabilize, or even build an explicit replica, but off site, but I think where it's done in the place of ruins, it has a Disneyification feel, like a zoo exhibit, fake antiques, fake old versions, that's actually not the historical truth, and is disappointing, except to children. \n\nI'm just a tourist, but suffice it to say, I've seen MANY historical sites in Europe and Asia using tons of different strategies, and all where that was lost, is rebuilt, it always feels wrong, and is actually disappointing. \n\nIt's actually really awesome exploring ruins, imagining the past. Rebuilt sites by and large seem disingenuous, to me at least.\n\nedit: a word ",
"It has been done in some cases. The [Ara Pacis](_URL_0_) in Rome was excavated, moved to its current location and completely rebuilt from the fragments. It's expensive and time consuming but it is done and in the case of the Ara Pacis, masterfully so. ",
"Nowadays archeology has moved away from rebuilding. If a new archeological site is discovered, they dig out the finds, send the durable things to museum and then bury everything again. This is, because stone will erode if it is exposed to air for too long. The finds are much safer in the ground. And rebuilding with new materials wouldn't really bring any new discoveries and be a hindrance for future excavation, also it would bring with it the annoying task to restore the rebuildings after a while, which takes time that could be used in a much better way. I agree that from a layman perspective it is disappointing not being able to see the great monuments of history, like they were intended, but at least the film industry is slowly getting better at historically accurate depictions of them. (Though I guess we have to wait a while until Hollywood will show white Pyramids)\n\nEdit: Spelling",
"It is very difficult to find the right type/quality/size/shape of marble to restore some of the lost architecture. When I was there two years ago our tour guide told us that it can take years to lactate marble good enough to restore sections that have been lost and it is therefore an incredibly slow process ",
"Based on the quality of most other buildings in Athens I doubt they could handle the technicalities of it",
"When I visited [Sigiriya](_URL_0_) in Sri Lanka, I asked about a pile of new looking bricks and they told me that every Sri Lankan that goes to the top is asked to carry a brick. They are slowly rebuilding it this way. Pretty cool imo, saves money and gives the locals some personal investment in the landmark.",
"The Parthenon, the most famous building on the Acroplis, was still in use and in excellent condition until 1687, when it was damaged during the Venetian siege.\n\nIt was converted into a Church dedicated to the Virgin Mary when Christianity became the religion of the Roman Empire.\n\nIn the 1440s, when Greece was under Ottoman rule, it was converted into a mosque.\n\nBy the 1680s though, it was being used as for gunpowder storage and a when it was hit with a cannonball by the Venetians, it literally blew up and what we have today is what it has been since that time.\n\nIt was the British that romanticised the ruined Parthenon, making it look like it had not been reused since the time of the pagan Greeks.\n\nBut it had been functioning non-stop for more than 2000 years, as a temple to three faiths!",
"The Acropolis in Portland Oregon is better anyways.",
"I always wonder what the ancient Egyptians wouldve built with todays technology. Could you imagine the kind of pyramids they would've come up with?",
"There are 2 main archaeological viewpoints on this:\n\n- The German approach is to rebuild. This can be quite costly, and in the case of somewhere like Istanbul cause unrest when the city walls were being rebuilt. It does however allow people to once again see ancient wonders in all their glory. \n\n- The British approach is to preserve. This means consolidating existing ruins to prevent further decay. This can be done relatively cheaply and has minimal impact on further archaeological study of the site.",
"Because then it's not ancient. It's just a pile of modern blocks. \n\nWhat's there is amazing because of its age.",
"Because it is still under debate what they even looked like in the ancient past. For example, all these buildings were very colorful. It would be more devastating to rebuild them in a way that isn't genuine",
"I remember having a debate about this with relation to York Minster, where I live. The great cathedral is built of limestone, which needs constant replacement and conservation thanks to the acidity in the rain. \n\nThis means that before long (if not already), every medieval stone in the building will have been replaced with a modern stone from the same quarry cut using medieval tools to the same pattern. \n\nInside, the cathedral is still a living church; the original floor was ripped out in the 18th century and replaced with a rather nice but non-medieval marble floor; alongside the country's biggest concentration of medieval stained glass, there's windows from the 19th and 20th centuries. A fire in 1984 (30 years ago this week, in fact) burned out an original wooden roof and the replacement is wood-panelled but more fireproof, and some of the designs included are modern, designed by children in a TV competition.\n\nSo what, exactly are we preserving here? A Medieval Cathedral? No, not really. If we wanted to do that, we'd have to rip out the 18th century flooring and the pews and paint the walls bright colours instead of the protestant whitewash. We'd take out the victorian and postwar windows, the war memorials, the majestic pipe organ, any form of visitor interpretation. More to the point, it would have all fallen down long ago through original stone not being replaced (not to mention the original builders didn't bother with foundations so in the late 60s the whole thing nearly did just collapse, until they dug underneath and whacked in a couple of big concrete piles to hold her up).\n\n",
"To me, it comes down to this - would you rather walk on a replica of the stones Julius Caesar walked on, or would you rather walk on the *actual stones* Julius Caesar walked on? (Thinking of the Forum, obviously, not the Acropolis). The latter is a vastly more powerful experience in my mind.\n\nThe idea that we should slap new construction over something built by hand 2000+ years ago because it would 'look better' sort of sums up humanity in the 21st century, actually. It's easy for us to build whatever we want, but once we build over it there is no way to get the original Acropolis back.\n\nIn any event - if what you are after is simply a modern reconstruction of an ancient building, is there any reason why you couldn't build it somewhere else and leave the ruin intact?",
"If I was an eccentric billionaire, I'd build an exact replica of the coloseum in the Nevada desert. It could be a cool museum plus it could host boxing matches and stuff.",
"You should know that there are many places being rebuilt atm. As a greek i tell you that Parthenon is being rebuilt. Also the city centre n Warsaw is dated to 1600, i think, but was destroyed during the 2nd world war and has been constructed as it was back then. The problem is that the technique of that time has been forever lost and we can't make them how they were. For example Ancient greek statues were not white. They painted them in colour. But we like to believe that they were plain white marble. So we contruct them like that. Damascus steel forging technique has been lost also. Many things of the past can never become how they where back then. The examples just go on and on...\n",
"I can explain Greek ruins, as I studied Classics in college and attended the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. The Greeks want to preserve their antiquities as they are and prevent any more damage when possible, but they also understand that people want to know what the ruins looked like before they became ruins. So, by Greek law, only something like 30% of the original structure can by built of modern materials. \n\nOther countries have different laws.",
"[This](_URL_0_ is why.",
"Rebuilding monuments shows appreciation for its spectacle and not appreciation of its history. ",
"So many major parts of these ancient buildings have been ransacked and looted and moved thousands of miles by the victors. Now it's a fight by the governments. Greece and Egypt are in battles with England, Italy and Turkey over buildings that have been dismantled and moved and reassembled. ",
"Because repatriation of art objects is not done enough. And people are very slow to give things up, first off.\n\nAlso, a lot of archaeological/art historical practices have changed: they used to focus on putting things back together, but that often resulted in botched work to be redone by later generations. Now, the focus is upon preserving and conserving sites until better technology comes along.\n\ntl;dr : preservation/conservation is much more sound than speculative reconstruction.",
"it really depends on where your interests are. As a tourist and possible even historian seeing how something looked at its most grand is something amazing. From an archeological perspective you are destroying so many amazing things. Yes it may be in ruins, but those ruins can tell as much about history as the structure itself. By altering something as important as the Acropolis, you ruin the possibility of further evidence being discovered. ",
"Because Cambodian shit just looks cooler",
"Do you know awesome it would be to see the Colosseum rebuilt? ",
"They should rebuild the [Colossus of Rhodes](_URL_0_) but BIGGER!",
"If you rebuild it then it's not the thing it originally was, it has become something new and history is lost.\n\nI would rather look at an untouched ruin than a fake recreation.",
"Its disingenuous. There's important distinctions between preservation, restoration, reconstruction and imitation. \n\nThey reduce in authenticity in that order. ",
"I'm sorry that this isn't an answer from an official archaeologist or anything so it might not even be allowed on this sub, but I recently went to Machu Picchu. They've \"restored\" a lot of it by clearing away the shrubbery that had grown over the buildings, and are still uncovering a lot of ruins. There is one building that has been fully restored that is awesome, they rebuilt the walls and thatched roof and everything, and being inside it, feeling how much cooler it is in the heat of the day, looking out the windows at the Andes- it gives you a sense of what it was like there when it was a functioning city and its so freaking cool. But its also really cool that the rest of the city is left in ruins, you can know that everything you see is original stone that was carried there hundreds of years ago, you can see the way they laid the stone without mortar so they could withstand earthquakes and centuries, you're actually looking at an ancient city and not a modern retelling of an ancient city.\n\nI know that's not a technical reason, but I know the feeling of being in something ancient and mostly untouched is transcending, and its also awesome to get a glimpse at how it was in its heyday, and I think the way they did it at Machu Picchu was perfect- you got a sense of both. Also I'm moderately drunk right now so I hope my answer can at least be simple enough for literal five year old, even if it isn't a real scientific answer, so hopefully its suitable for this sub.",
"There are many reasons - but perhaps the biggest reason that is one that is not talked about openly - its that not everyone agrees on what the finished temple/structure should look like. \n\nIn greece, many temples were rebuilt by the italians, only to then be taken down again because they didnt think it was rebuilt correctly. Politics, national pride, squabbling visions, archaeology has it all. \n\nSometimes its better to let sleeping dogs lie.",
"OP, you might like /r/HalfbuiltHistory ",
"I saw the Parthenon covered in scaffolding back in 1996. It seemed like only one guy was working on the project.\n\nWent back last year, it looked identical. Different guy walking around, but still under scaffolding. Something tells me the $30mil a year they are getting in admissions isn't really going to preservation.\n\nI did see a lot of government issue Mercedes benz's though.",
"yeah well they are \"rebuilding\" the acropolis the past 25 years. It took less time to build it originally.\n\ngreek bureaucracy and the mere fact that we are lazy incompetent asses doesn't help at all.\n\ntook us 100 years to build a modestly decent museum there so don't hold your breath for the acropolis rebuild",
"People get weird about Stuff: coveting, stealing, serving up the public; they get even weirder about Old Stuff: jihads, crusades, national parks, save the whales, DON'T YOU RENOVATE MY ACROPOLIS. Seems enough powerful Cambodians felt it was in their own interest to violate those weird people. The Greeks are still too busy falling back into the third world to yet care about climbing out again.",
"There's an acropolis in Portland! But it's just a strip club, so there's that.",
"As many others I was disappointed by the scaffolding and amount of tourist littering when I went to the Acropolis. The walk up the hill from the city center was a better experience in my opinion.\n\n\nAcheology is not about building tourist attractions. \n\n\nIf there is one thing that archaeology has tought us, it is that archaeologist from previous years were worse than today. With that in mind, it would be ignorant to start building on top of places where future achaelologists might be able to discover more history, just in order to present the public with an idea of what we now think it's supposed to have looked like.\n\n\nIt's better to preserve it as it is, and then maybe build a replica somewhere else.\n",
"Who says they arent rebuilding the acropolis? its not an easy job they have to find every broken piece and put it all together in a way to be stable. Also they have to fix previous mistakes in restoration such as the iron links between the marbles which the rust ended up causing more damage. Now they are using titanium if im not mistaken.\n",
"I was there in the Archaeological Museum a few months ago. I think that the Greeks are more interested in preserving and restoring the artefacts that the monuments themselves. They have collected most maim of the statues from across the country and put them in one room; they are renovating caryatids from the Acropolis. I imagine they will get around to doing some restoration on the sites. \n\nPersonally, however, I find ruined sites much more interesting than complete ones. If we fully rebuilt something, we might get an Arthur Evans/Knossos repeat. He just guessed what King Minos' palace looked like and rebuilt half of it, right down to the famous dolphin mosaic which probably didn't even exist.",
"We are building for the future. In The year 3050 they're going to be teaching the next generation what we built and what are they going to say about our era?They did exactly the same thing the Ancient Greeks did thousands of years before them. No, we have to revolutionize be greater. What mark are WE going to leave in history?",
"I have been to Athens 2 times.. with a cupple of yeasr between, and they are restoring it! I was realy cool to see the difference between the times! They had even reused alot of the rubble and stones... must have been an epic jigsaw puzzle! ",
"There are many perfectly valid reasons for not restoring buildings, particularly ancient ones. For starters restoration attempts are often historically inaccurate. Take the restoration of [Knossos](_URL_0_) as an example: it was restored, but not accurately and was in fact mostly rebuilt in a style that one man had basically invented. \n\nSecondly you have the issue of historical preference, when considering restoration of a building that has had multiple uses throughout history which do you choose to restore? Bearing in mind that your choice will most likely lead to the destruction of archaeological evidence that relates to other periods. More importantly what right do we have to destroy this evidence for future generations based on the fashions of our time? \n\n[Baalbeck](_URL_1_) is the perfect example of this, uncovered by a German group in the late 1800s it was at the time a fantastic example of a Byzantine market that had been built on top of an old Roman sun shrine. At the time the Roman empire was the more fashionable of the two empires and so the archaeologists tore down the Byzantine market and decided to restore the sun temple. These days you can hardly find reference to the market anywhere and very little of it was recorded for posterity. All we know for certain was that it was one of the biggest markets outside of Constantinople.\n\nThe final point I'll touch on is that of time-lapse. The fact of the matter is that for most of the sights that people would consider restoring (the 7 wonders of the ancient world have cropped up multiple times already) we don't actually know how they were built. In the case of the Pyramids we have no idea how the Egyptians shifted giant blocks of stone across the desert and up their Pyramids, by building over them with modern techniques we may bury some, as of yet overlooked, detail that may allow future generations to uncover the truth. Furthermore there may be unforeseen consequences to such a rebuild, maybe part the durability of the Pyramid comes from the method the Egyptians used to make them and by restoring them we may actually end up doing more harm than good.\n\n**TL;DR:**: Prevents future generations from examining ruins for them selves. Also destruction of unfashionable Archaeological evidence",
"Because you destroy the context of the site. There are some instances where a local government may restore structures, but I'd hope that they had been thouroughly explored and doccumented at least.\n\nIDK part of me thinks its pretty cool, but I still have to say that it's important to preserve archaeological sites in their current states. Archaeologists can learn so much more that way.",
"From what I recall (and I'll try and find the article where I heard it), many countries don't have the budget to revitalize historic monuments. I'm actually surprised (by the top comment) that Greece has the money to rebuild the Parthenon.\n\nFrom what I can remember, France spends like 30 cents to every dollar restoring their stuff - where as Italy spends like 5.\n\nHere are a few article about Italy's crumbling monuments:\n\n[Article 1 - June 2014](_URL_1_)\n\n[Article 2 - May 2013](_URL_2_)\n\n[Article 3 - Sept. 2012](_URL_0_)",
"I used to be against rebuilt ancient structures but then I realized this: Even the Forbidden City and the Great Wall have had parts destroyed and rebuilt throughout different dynasties. If we rebuild stuff today it will eventually become part of the history too. I think the most important thing is staying true to its original structure, materials, method of building, etc. That way we can preserve these things for future generations.\n\nChina has one place that has not been rebuilt\" The Ruins of the Ancient Summer Palace. It was ransacked and burnt to the ground by the Allied Forces (UK, US etc.) The ruins stand as a reminder of the atrocities that happened in the past. I think eventually, China will rebuild it when they find all of the original floor plans, and when the historical pain heals.",
"Simple answer:\n\nThe latest inception of Greece has been broke as a joke since its inception. No money = no unnecessary work. Also, theyre corrupt as fuck so any federal money doesn't get used for its purpose anyway.",
"Because Greek people who didn't come to America are lazy as shit and don't like to work.\n\nSource: I'm Greek. \n\nJK, they are rebuilding some of the Ancient wonders, but it comes down to who is calling the shots and whether the building being in a state of ruin is historically significant, blah blah blah. Honestly just stick to the whole \"Greeks are lazy thing\" it's easier that way. "
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"http://sites.psu.edu/archeologicalpreservation/2014/02/20/the-restoration-of-the-acropolis/"
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[],
[],
[
"http://www.britishpathe.com/video/temples-to-be-moved-aka-salvage-of-egyptian-temple"
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[],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenon_(Nashville)"
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[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ara_Pacis"
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[],
[],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigiriya"
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[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
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[],
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecce_Homo_(El%C3%ADas_Garc%C3%ADa_Mart%C3%ADnez)"
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[],
[],
[],
[],
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_of_Rhodes"
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[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knossos",
"http://www.middleeast.com/baalbeck.htm"
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[],
[
"http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/09/19/italy-s-culture-falling-to-ruins-amid-austerity-cuts.html",
"http://racked.com/archives/2014/06/12/italy-cant-afford-to-save-its-monuments-but-luxury-brands-can.php",
"http://edition.cnn.com/2013/05/24/travel/italy-fashion-saves-monuments/"
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[],
[],
[]
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3q7ast | when is our population going to crash? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3q7ast/eli5_when_is_our_population_going_to_crash/ | {
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" > Now that is no longer the case.\n\nSource? I think the premise of your question is flawed. Technological advancements have allowed us to exploit resources much more efficiently than we could in the past (or if we still lived in a state of nature) to the point where it certainly doesn't seem like there are more people than resources.",
"Human don't follow any biological models because we simply aren't normal to nature. A population crash less to do with resources than it does our intellect to out smart natural limiting barriers. ",
"When it comes to ecology, humans are an exception. We don't behave like other animals, and you can't just apply the same ideas without adjusting for the fact that we're very different.\n\nWith humans, it's better to look at the Demographic Transition Model rather than Population Biology. This has four stages:\n\n1) Lots of birth, lots of death. Population is small but stable.\n\n2) Advances in medical science, health and safety in the workplace (that's a great euphemism, if I do say so myself), and availability of food lead to the death rate dropping, whilst the birth rate stays steady.\n\n3) As people get richer and need fewer children, and women are allowed or decide to do things other than give birth, the birth rate begins to drop and the population levels off.\n\n4) The population remains steady or even declines as the birth rate drops below the death rate, which can't go any lower.\n\nWe're yet to see a society move beyond stage 4, but for now, the populations of lots of Western countries are only growing fast enough for things like public pensions to be viable thanks to immigration from \"stage 2\" countries.\n\nWhat happens when most of the world is at stage 4? We don't really know, but the global population will probably drop slowly.\n\nWestern civilisation isn't going to collapse any time soon. The \"lack of resources\" is in the Stage 1 and 2 countries, but the lack of resources *causes* them to have more children so that some will survive to support their parents. "
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y6bgb | paul ryan's budget plan | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/y6bgb/paul_ryans_budget_plan/ | {
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"His budget is based off cutting off a large portion of non-military spending, including the most controversial: moving Medicare into a voucher program. The basics of the budget is that he hopes to slash most of the spending (outside of the military) and then take a large chunk of that money and give it back as tax cuts.\n\nMost of the cuts are standard conservative cuts, but ones that will hit people on government assistance (welfare, Medicaid, Medicare, unemployment insurance, etc.) really hard, which is why the left is against it. But it's biggest grievance to those on the left is the voucher program for Medicare.\n\nHow it works is instead of running Medicare as government run insurance, now it will be based on a $6,000 voucher used for medical expenses. Now the problem is, as most people know, $6,000 doesn't go very far when it comes to medical expenses, especially when it comes to seniors who are more likely to have major medical problems, and long term medical problems, that cost a tremendous amount of money. The plan still says that government will negotiate on behalf of seniors, just like it does now, and hopes to bring costs down to seniors (compared to the cost now). Unfortunately, most people agree, it won't work that way, and seniors will be forced to not retire, and instead keep working to get insurance from an employer to keep their medical expenses from bankrupting them.",
"His plan revamps how our taxes are bracketed. Our current six-bracket system would be compounded and split into two brackets (10 and 25 percent). He'd lower corporate taxes, and I think he's talked about dividends and capital gains tax cutting as well. He'd also extend the Bush-era tax cuts.\n\n\n\nIt's basically what you think it is; cut just about all discretionary spending, keep funding the Pentagon and our military, and don't raise taxes. I believe with his budget, it would bring the deficit, per annum, down to something like 300 billion (I don't remember his time frame for this, if anyone can help).\n\n\n\nHe's proposed a Romney-style restructuring of Medicare, and making Medicaid more of a state issue (in the form of grants handed out to each state to spend as they see fit). These are whole 'nother topics, though.\n\n\nNeed any specifics?",
"A TL;DR version is he's going to try and cut a lot. His stance continues to be that the US government spending is out of control, and by cutting things and rebuilding certain programs can help save money. He believes that a lot of the social programs need to be restructured not to throw granny over the cliff, but because they're bloated and ineffective.\n\nNaturally people will be afraid of such changes, especially when they affect loved ones. However, medicare changes wouldn't be for another decade.\n\nMore details on the bill here:\n\n_URL_0_",
"The best, non-partisan explanation on the web, as usual, comes from [wikipedia.](_URL_0_)\n\n**The problem**: The United States currently has a national debt of almost $16 trillion. What that big scary number means is that every year we lose about $1 trillion of taxpayer money to pay interest on our national debt. Until we balance the budget, each year the amount of taxpayer money that is lost to pay interest grows.\n\n**How to fix that problem**:\n\n1) Raise taxes,\n\n2) Grow the economy so people pay more taxes as a result of having more money, OR\n\n3) Cut spending in a) Medicare, b) Medicaid, c) defense spending. Cutting other programs wouldn't do as much (Social security has historically run surpluses, most other spending doesn't amount to much).\n\n**Paul Ryan's attempt at a solution**:\n\n1) **Change Medicare in 2022 to look more like social security**. For example, instead of having the government pay or refuse to pay your medical bills, seniors get on average $8,000 to spend each year on health insurance. That $8,000 per year reflects what they paid in.\n\n2) **Change Medicaid to statewide block grants**. The idea is that if California has great ideas, it can try them out and others can follow once the evidence comes in that it's a good idea. If they save money and provide better and cheaper healthcare, Texas will follow suit and vice versa.\n\n3) **Close tax loopholes**, for example, consolidating income tax brackets down to two categories instead of six. This makes taxes easier to file, but more importantly prevents people from gaming the system.\n\n4) **Cut other government spending in half in the next decade.** This includes things like matching government compensation to that of the private sector (i.e. paycuts to government employees), lowering the budget for various administrative agencies (e.g. NHTSA, FDA, etc.), etc.",
"Another perspective:\n\nHe's not actually cutting that much. He's reducing planned *increases* in the government, meaning the federal government will continue to *grow* in size, for the immediate future, under his plan. The deficit won't balance out until 2030-2040 (not the debt, the deficit, which means that whole while the debt will continue to grow). The military actually grows at a faster rate under his plan (and our military is already huge, larger than every other countries military **put together**).\n\nThe bottom line is, it's not a very fiscally sound plan, not because he cuts to much, but because he cuts *too little*.\n\n...and now I wait, for the inevitable shit storm to follow.",
"Just wanted to point its wonderful to see a controversial topic being discussed in a civil manner with facts and not ad hominem argument. Good day sirs and thank you for the information ",
"So, as it's being explained, he wants to cut a lot of stuff -- lots of social service spending -- and then cut taxes for the wealthiest? Isn't this essentially subsidizing tax cuts for the rich with cuts to services for the not-so-rich? I know that's Obama's talking point, but it's unintentional, as it seems objectively like what he's trying to do, as it has been explained in this thread.\n",
"Can you please explain why he doesn't want to cut **defense** spending? Please no left/right leaning answers, just the facts.",
"The whole Medicare voucher program can't work in the long run. Adding extra insurance companies into the Medicare food chain won't save any money. Profits made where none would be had before squanders dollars best spent caring for people.",
"I hope this doesn't get buried because I want to be proven wrong. I do not think we can fix our debt/deficit problem until we fix our unemployment problem. If we cut spending now, won't that result in job losses? For example, nursing and medical jobs are some of the fastest growing, many patients use medicare and medicaid, and therefore the government is helping employ people. \n\nI also worry that we cannot support a large middle class without a lot of government spending. The money the government spends on defense and mandatory spending goes to contractors and other people who would otherwise not be employed. The areas the government spends money, on healthcare and defense, would not be filled by the private sector becuase they are not profitable. \n\nBasically I feel that cutting spending would cause greater unemployment and greater debt, and not cutting spending would cause us to pay absurd amounts of interest. \n",
"I know I'm late to the party here, but it's important to know that pretty much every \"top\" post in this thread is BS, because they're all written based on the presupposition (I know, big word for a 5 year old) that the plan actually works number wise. It doesn't. \n\nHere's Paul Ryan's budget \"plan\" explained like you're 5.\n\nThe \"plan\" basically contains 3 parts:\n\n1. Medicare reform: Instead of getting medicare, seniors will get an $8k (not 6k as some have said) voucher to buy private health insurance. This figure will be adjusted for inflation. The problem is, health care costs rise faster than inflation. Also, estimates show that seniors will send up spending 30-40% more out of pocket under this plan than under Medicare.\n\n2. Spending cuts: Here's where Ryan's \"plan\" completely falls apart. He claims that he will cut all non-healthcare+social security spending to... 3.75% of GDP. It's currently at 12.5% GDP... defense spending alone is 4.7% GDP. So, just to clarify, Ryan says he will pay for literally everything the federal government does, besides SS and healthcare, with a lower % of GDP than we currently spend on defense. How will he do this? He doesn't say.\n\n3. Tax cuts... that, uh, increase tax revenues substantially? Annnnnddd here's where the \"plan\" falls apart some more. The Ryan plan proposes about $4.6 trillion in tax cuts, but claims that it will raise tax revenues to 19% of GDP (up from 15% today) by closing tax loopholes. Except, the plan doesn't specify what loopholes it would close... and how the hell those loopholes would get us to 19% GDP. \n\nOf course, the plan is terrible for poor people and awesome for rich people, who would see the biggest tax cut of all time (how does 0% on cap. gains sound!), and the poor would be stuck paying for it.\n\nNow, I know some smart ass is going to say, \"but wait masstermind, the CBO analyzed the plan and said it would balance the budget!\". Wrong again! The CBO did a basic analysis of the budget **using the numbers that Ryan provided**. In other words, assuming 19% GDP tax revenue, 3.75% non-disc spending, and also 2.8% unemployment, and Medicaid / CHIP raising in price no greater than inflation. \n\nTL;DR: The Ryan Plan explained like your five? Here ya go: It's a crock of poopoo.",
"Much of this conversation has been very good and impressively civil, but very nearly *everyone* here is confused about how the Ryan Medicare reform works. The Ryan plan has been through three iterations: the **Path to Prosperity** (as proposed: **December 2010**), the **House Budget** (as passed: **April 2011**), and the **Ryan-Wyden** plan (a modification in response to many of the criticisms made here: **December 2011**). Nearly everyone here is still talking about the House Budget plan, and some about the original Path to Prosperity Proposal. (Indeed, I'm seeing that on the Sunday talk-show circuit, too!) Ryan-Wyden is apparently not widely known, even though it showed up in the 2013 edition of the Path to Prosperity. Perhaps it got so little attention because there was no budget battle this year. Hopefully that will change as the race progresses.\n\nHere is the ELI5 version of Ryan-Wyden, the latest version of Rep. Ryan's plan to reform Medicare:\n\n* The traditional Medicare system would not change for ten years after the bill becomes law, and anyone who is still in traditional Medicare when it changes would not be forced to change.\n\n* Under the new system, people on Medicare would get an annual check from the government. Then, they would use that check to buy insurance. Whenever they go to the doctor or the hospital, the insurer then pays the doctors for any medicines or surgeries the patient needs. This is called the \"premium support\" model, because the government helps people buy their own insurance. This is a big difference from how traditional Medicare works: today, people on Medicare go to the hospital or the doctor, and the *government* pays the doctors for all the medicines and surgeries. This is called \"fee-for-service,\" because the government is paying for the medicines directly, not for insurance. (Changing to premium support is the key idea in all of the Ryan plans.)\n\n* People who get these government checks (which are called \"vouchers\" or \"premium support payments\") would also be given a list of all the different insurance plans they are allowed to buy with their check. Each of these plans would have to meet a minimum list of requirements from the government.\n\n* None of these plans would be allowed to refuse to sell their plan to anyone. You could still buy the insurance even if you're already sick. \n\n* The list would be different in each area of the country. This is because insurance companies usually rely on \"networks\" of doctors, and many insurance companies don't have large \"networks\" in all parts of the country. It is also because doctors and medicine cost different amounts in different parts of the country, so prices will be different. (To break out of my ELI5 voice for a moment: approved insurance plans would vary by Medicare region. There are currently four.)\n\n* One of the plans on the list would be the traditional Medicare system. **This is called a \"public option,\"** because we, the public, would be paying directly for the medical care of people who choose it. If people like having the government be their insurance company, they could continue to have that. (This is new in Ryan-Wyden. Yes, Reddit: **the Republican plan now contains a public option.**)\n\n* Every insurance plan would have its own price. Some of them would provide only the standard Medicare coverage that everyone gets. Those plans would be the least expensive on the list, and they would compete to get even lower. Others would provide even more extra coverage, beyond what the government requires. Those would be more expensive, but some people might want to have the extra coverage.\n\n* The amount of money people get in their premium support checks would be equal to the price of the second-least-expensive plan on their list. **People would not be given less money than they need to buy insurance; they would *always* have enough to afford at least two of the approved plans.** They could pay extra, with their own money, for more expensive plans, or they could take the cheapest plan instead and keep the money they save for themselves. (Leaving my ELI5 voice: This is the most important change between the first two Ryan plans and Ryan-Wyden. The original plans both used a precalculated formula to set the amount of the vouchers, but the criticism is that seniors would be left with far too little money to pay for basic Medicare services. That criticism has been echoed repeatedly in this thread. *This change nullifies those concerns* -- seniors will *always* have access to standard Medicare services, either through traditional Medicare or a private plan, depending on who can deliver those services for less. The downside to this fix is that it becomes harder to guarantee cost-shrinkage at the pace the plan calls for.)\n\n* Everyone *hopes* that introducing government-subsidized competition will help everyone find ways to lower the costs of doctors and medicine. But some people don't think that it *will* make doctors cheaper, and they might be right. If going to the doctor keeps getting more expensive even after they've switched to the new plan, then the people running the new plan will try one of the ideas President Obama had to try to make doctors cost less: the government will give them less money. If this happens, the people in Washington will give less money to doctors who are still using the \"fee-for-service\" plan, and it will give people less money in the premium support checks. (Leaving ELI5 voice: the cap on the per-year per-beneficiary cost increase under the Ryan-Wyden plan is GDP + 0.5%. This formula is -- deliberately -- the same as the cap provided under the Affordable Care Act. In other words, if the market fails to do what Republicans hope it will do, we'll try the Democratic plan instead, which is simply cutting the amount of money doctors get in reimbursements until they either lower costs or quit Medicare entirely. I repeat: **the cap imposed by Ryan-Wyden is the same as the cap imposed by the Obama plan**. However, like \"doc fix\", the odds of this mechanism ever being enforced are essentially nil, regardless of whether they come under the ACA or the Path to Prosperity; Congress will just suspend the cuts indefinitely. But the concept of Congress's willful self-deception is too much for a five-year-old to handle, isn't it?)\n\n* If the government decided it had to stop putting as much money into premium support checks, some people might not be able to afford *any* of the plans on the list with the check. If they were poor, and relied on that check to pay for their insurance, they wouldn't be able to afford *any* insurance! The plan says that, if the plan doesn't work, and some people end up not being able to afford any health insurance, the government will have to send them *another* check with enough money so they can. (Exiting ELI5 voice: if the worst-case scenario happens, and the Ryan-Wyden plan doesn't reduce costs enough, and Washington allows the scheduled Medicare cuts to go through according to the Ryan/Obama formula, **low-income seniors will receive supplemental checks as necessary** to allow them to make up the difference and continue buying health insurance. Medium- and high-income seniors would have to make up the difference out-of-pocket. In other words, the fallback plan is means-testing Medicare. The hope is that this will do less damage than simply cutting reimbursements so far that Medicare doctors abandon the system.)\n\n* The new plan would also make some changes that are easier to understand: it would make it so that people won't be put in the program until they are 67 years old, instead of 65 like today (raising the retirement age). Each state would be given control over all the Medicare money that is intended to be go to the people in their states (the \"block-grant\" change). No one would be *required* to buy insurance (repealing the insurance mandate). Some of the new ideas in President Obama's plan would not be tried (the insurance exchanges and the IPAB).\n\nAll things considered, I really like this plan. I think it deals with the Medicare bankruptcy problem in a very ambitious way, which might just work to our resounding benefit, but it has several levels of elegant fallback plans built in to make sure that the United States (1) continues to subsidize high-quality medical care to seniors, while (2) ensuring that the most vulnerable (the poor and the very sick) get the *full* medical treatment they've come to depend on, and (3) saving our national budget from impending armageddon. I don't think the Democratic plan manages any of those; its go-down-with-the-ship mentality toward traditional Medicare without reform is really sort of a death sentence for a lot of future senior citizens, as the Medicare system will become totally overwhelmed from per-person spending cuts even as it (paradoxically?) becomes completely unaffordable on a nationwide basis.\n\nSources I relied on for this analysis:\n\n[The Path to Prosperity, 2013 Edition](_URL_3_) (pages 52-54 ish)\n\n[Bipartisan Policy Center analysis](_URL_0_)\n\n[ABC News: A Primer on the Ryan Plan](_URL_1_)\n\n[Highly partisan but very easy-to-understand explanation at NRO](_URL_2_)\n\nOthers are doing an adequate job explaining the rest of the Ryan budget, which is why I have focused in on the Medicare reforms. I'm happy to answer any questions, and I'll admit \"I don't know\" when I don't know. I hope that helps!"
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"http://bipartisanpolicy.org/blog/2012/03/paul-ryan%E2%80%99s-fiscal-year-2013-budget-details",
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"http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/313757/grasping-medicare-distortion-yuval-levin",
"http://budget.house.gov/uploadedfiles/pathtoprosperity2013.pdf"
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3h030i | why are large tourist attractions such as beaches and amusement parks allowed to charge $4.00 for something like a bottle of water and still avoid being charged for price gouging? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3h030i/eli5_why_are_large_tourist_attractions_such_as/ | {
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"Price gouging is specifically the short term, localized surging in price to exploit a situation. Just selling something for high prices all the time doesn't count. Legally, it tends to be related to civil emergencies, not just jumping up prices.",
"It is simply demand. They usually offer a water fountain as well, the $4 is for convenience.\n\nPrice gouging is only illegal in some jurisdictions under strict conditions, such as during a natural disaster where bottled water might be the only way to get water, for example.",
"Price gouging only really applies in times of natural disaster or other emergency where supplies are not readily available. People are prevented from jacking up prices during this demand spike because the purchasers don't have any other option but to pay the high prices.\n\nIn the case of beaches and amusement parks, you do have the option not to pay. You can find public water fountains in all of these places and you could always just decide you don't want to go because of the prices. No one is forcing you to buy the goods and you do have other available options, so price gouging doesn't apply.",
"Price gouging laws usually have a requirement that the price increases in response to something like a natural disaster. If the place always charges high amounts for these things, it probably doesn't meet the legal requirement (in the US anyway)",
"Price gouging is extreme over charging in reaction to a disaster of some kind to extort from the local populace who have no other choice. \n\nWhat you are talking about is not price gouging, it is natural supply and demand and you do have a choice. With beaches you can pack your own food and drink, and with the amusement park you know the prices before you enter and so can choose to not go. "
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4q94r2 | why do we feel when we get our knee pinched but not our elbows? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4q94r2/eli5_why_do_we_feel_when_we_get_our_knee_pinched/ | {
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"Different areas of your skin have more or less nerve endings. This is a protection mechanism so places that are more prone to injury, such as fingertips or, in this case, your knee will be more sensitive so you know when you're hurt you will naturally pull away from the cause of pain. Actually if you start at your elbow and pinch gradually moving down your arm you'll notice that the pain gets worse the closer you get to your hand."
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dnmucg | what actually happens to you if the elevator drops from a 10th/20th/40th top floor? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dnmucg/eli5_what_actually_happens_to_you_if_the_elevator/ | {
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"All elevators above about 4 or 5 stories are counterweight systems, so that a bunch of extremely strong cables go over a bunch of pulleys at the top of the elevator shaft and are attached to a heavy weight also hanging in the elevator shaft, so when the elevator car goes up, the weight goes down, and vice versa. The weight is equal to the weight of the elevator car so the elevator motor only has to lift the weight of the people inside.\n\nSo each one of those cables can hold several tons, and there are usually about four. Even if three were to break, the fourth one still could easily hold the weight of the people and car. So there's a lot of extra strength built in, way beyond what is needed. Plus the cables are changed out whenever they get old or start to fray, so there isn't any chance of them really breaking due to old age.\n\nBut like /u/TheJeeronian said, there are failsafes beyond that which would slow the car on it's vertical tracks if it was going too fast.",
"The way an elevators made, it’ll quickly float to the bottom with a smack. It might hurt, but probably won’t kill you. It probably feels a lot like a car crash. Take the stairs as much as possible young one"
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68642o | how did the first ever languages decide what to call things? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/68642o/eli5_how_did_the_first_ever_languages_decide_what/ | {
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"Nobody is really sure. There are theories, but they're impossible to test because the first languages in the world were not recorded in any way and are lost in the mists of time. Languages actually change very rapidly, so in the \"churn\" over thousands of years, all traces of the earliest words for things have been lost. Due to this lack of evidence, the Linguistic Society of Paris actually banned all discussion on this topic way back in 1866! And we don't actually know any more now than we did then."
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1l9efx | when a celebrity or high profile individual is said to be worth a specified amount of money ($100m, $2bil, etc...), how is that calculated? | Is it how much money they've made? The net worth of their assets? Their projected earnings? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1l9efx/eli5_when_a_celebrity_or_high_profile_individual/ | {
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"text": [
"Usually it is their estimated net worth. In other words, assets minus liabilities."
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5jfahn | do your arms get sore in space if you hold them up? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5jfahn/eli5_do_your_arms_get_sore_in_space_if_you_hold/ | {
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"Define up? In space, since there is no gravity, your arms will get tired from being in an abnormal position, but not sore due to strain of keeping them up due to gravity.",
"Short answer- no\n\nAs previously mentioned there is no\"up\" in space. To us - to everything really - \"up\" is simply \"against gravity\". With no gravity, there is nothing to work against. This work against gravity is what tires your muscles. Astronauts have often commented that sleeping is much more comfortable because nothing has to be supported - they just \"lie\" (and that can be in any direction) in their bunk/bed/thingy and fall asleep.\n\nThis lack of work also means their muscles do begin to atrophy, so they exercise on the space stations using treadmills etc.\n\nChris Hadfield's book (the name of which escapes me right now) is a great insight to life in space - including physical activity - and I would say definitely falls into the ELI5 level."
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2e7adq | i thought ebola was totally incurable? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2e7adq/eli5_i_thought_ebola_was_totally_incurable/ | {
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"Incurable means there isn't a cure. It doesn't mean there won't ever be a cure. Lots of incurable things became curable when antibiotics were developed.\n\nEven without the new drug that's being developed, Ebola, despite being incredibly deadly, is not a 100% sure death sentence. Some lucky few survive, that doesn't mean they had the cure, just that they were fortunate enough not to need it.",
"The fact that we do not have a cure for a disease/condition does not mean that the disease itself cannot be overcome. There's no cure for cancer, for example, but people manage to defeat cancer fairly frequently."
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dx69oh | what's the point in separating airplane liquids into max. 10 100ml bottles? you could just pour it all in one bottle on the plane (to make the explosive) + combine with other passengers. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dx69oh/eli5_whats_the_point_in_separating_airplane/ | {
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"It is little more than security theater to make people feel safe. The only reason the TSA exists.",
"1L isn't enough to do anything. The 100mL limit is more to make sure you don't go over 1L, it bans large bottles and small bottles must be kept to a small number and together. This makes it easy to check and difficult to exceed (if they allowed a 1L bottle and you had 3 1L bottles (triple the limit) then a scanner might see ok sizes and ignore it despite the count was exceeded. Also the 10 count is high enough that people can bring all their shampoos and stuff without issue."
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1ji8ae | how come icy-hot cream doesn't affect your fingers when you use it? | Whenever I use icy hot, I notice it has no effect on my fingers or hands. Why is this? If I had a finger injury, I couldn't use Icy Hot... Is it some oil on our hands? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ji8ae/how_come_icyhot_cream_doesnt_affect_your_fingers/ | {
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"I'm sure it would if you applied enough. Your fingers have some of the thickest and toughest skin on your body due to how much use they get so they're just not affected as easily. ",
"I probably need a life. I just went and got the Icy-Hot out of the medicine cabinet and put some on my fingers. I felt it. I felt more of the icy than the hot. It didn't feel as intense as it does when you slather it all over some aching other part of your body, but I still felt it. I think it is less of a sensation on the fingers because we have thicker skin there and since our hands are in more or less constant use, and intended to do things, make things, grab things, etc. \n\nI don't know if we have fewer nerve endings in our fingertips or not, but I am making a very uneducated guess that we might. For example, you can put out a match or candle wick with your fingers and not experience a lot of pain or damage. You could probably do the same with your feet, and not think it was a big deal. Try extinguishing a match or candle with other body parts and it would probably hurt a bit more and maybe even leave a painful burn and eventually a scar.\n\nEDIT: I now have icy-hot on my tongue, and I can feel the fuck out of that.",
"IIRC the sense of touch from your finger is more like a time-based variation detection sensor. Great for sensing textures, but not so great at feeling other sensations such as heat/cold.\n\nedit: a word",
"Your fingertips are one of the most sensitive areas of your body, generally speaking. The areas I know to be more sensitive are just above your upper lip and your cornea. How \"sensitive\" an area of the body is is generally measured by the area-density of nerve endings. In other words, how close they are together. I can't really say why your fingertips aren't feeling it and I don't have much experience with Icy-Hot. I'd guess that it either takes a while to start working or perhaps you have significant calluses on your fingers.",
"After mis-reading your title I am convinced there should be an Icy-Hot flavored ice cream. ",
"I usually wash my hands after applying it. I would hate to get in my eyes."
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49twgr | what is negative yield on government bonds ? | If a government's bond yield is at 2%, and I buy this bond, I'll receive regular coupons at the rate of 2% of my investment until the bond expires.
If the bond is at 0 %, it means that I lend my money to the government at 0% and only get my initial investment back when the bond expires.
Japan now has negative yield bonds. The EU lowered its interest rate to 0%. Who buys bonds of such yields ? What does a negative yield mean for an investor ? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/49twgr/eli5what_is_negative_yield_on_government_bonds/ | {
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"The banks that are setting negative interest rates are national central banks, which are the main banks in a country that lend to commercial banks. Commercial banks are the banks that usually work directly with people and businesses, such as Bank of America or Wells Fargo. What this means is that central banks in some countries are charging a small amount for commercial banks to keep their cash on deposit there. Therefore, this would be unlikely to have a large, direct effect an individual with a savings account at a commercial bank.\n\nThere are two reasons I know of for the negative interest rates: to encourage investment and to devalue currency. If commercial banks make money by keeping their cash on deposit, they only have an incentive to loan the money out if they think they can make more on the loan. If there’s a negative interest rate, then commercial banks will always do better loaning money out assuming they get paid back. In other words, banks loan out money when the expected return on the loan is better than what the going interest rate is. If you lower the interest rate, you make loans that might not pay off as well more worthwhile and, therefore, spur investment.\n\nIt helps devalue the country's currency by making it less attractive for currency speculators to buy and more attractive for them to sell. With negative interest rates, an institution that is holding a large amount of Yen on deposit will lose value on its deposit. Therefore, they are more likely to sell off the Yen and invest in a different currency such as Dollars and Euros. This increases the value of the other currencies and decreases the value of the Yen. If the Yen is worth less relative to the Dollar and Euro, then exports from Japan will be cheaper to buy in countries where the Dollar and Euro are used, which can help increase sales in those countries."
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eeiz0n | how do echocardiograms work? | I understand that an echo shows imaging of your heart so your doctors/surgeons etc can see if its healthy/if it has any abnormalitys, but how does an echo actually get that imaging? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/eeiz0n/eli5_how_do_echocardiograms_work/ | {
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"An echocardiogram is just an ultrasound, which uses sound waves to penetrate the body and bounce then bounce back, giving you an image.",
"Ultrasound can show how your heart is moving. That tells the cardiologist if your valves are moving correctly, or how well your heart is pumping blood."
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13s9is | what are the good and bad aspects of the federal reserve. | I understand that the federal reserve aims to stabilize prices and create jobs but it seems to get criticized a lot. Why is it controversial? Does it give private companies advantages at the cost of the common people? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/13s9is/eli5_what_are_the_good_and_bad_aspects_of_the/ | {
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"It's like owning a cat vs having a cat on the farm. One you'd let run wild on the farm and let it do its own thing. The other you'd actively feed and pick up after.\n\nIf the farm is the economy, some people really don't want interferance (yes, the Federal Reserve is actively manipulating the value of the US dollar).\n\nHowever, the vast majority of modern economies now do manipulation of their dollar and debt. One reason is that left to their own devices, a sucky period of time can last a pretty long time before the farm cats fix themselves. Greece is in big trouble nowadays since they couldn't modify their own dollar when they fell on hard times."
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9vnl14 | where does the money for college scholarships come from? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9vnl14/eli5_where_does_the_money_for_college/ | {
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"Usually, rich people or companies donate that money. Doing so can be beneficial for tax reasons, and can also be beneficial for publicity as well. If you see that a company does good deeds for charity, you are more inclined to buy things from them instead of their competitors, as you think some part of what you are spending will be used for good deeds. \n\n\n & #x200B;",
"That's a complicated question because \"scholarships\" covers a wide range of things.\n\nPrivate companies and non-profit organizations have scholarships that either come from their operating budge (companies) or from fundraising (non-profit organizations). These could be anything from the Coca-Cola Foundation Scholarship, General Motors Scholarship, Gates Millennium Foundation...even the local Kiwanis Club or Daughters of the American Revolution. These types of scholarships are usually paid directly to the individual student.\n\n & #x200B;\n\n\"Scholarships\" that are awarded by individual colleges are sometimes dedicated funds that have been given by generous alumni, sometimes with specific stipulations about who it gets awarded to. But a student could also get a generic \"scholarship\" with no set stipulations which usually comes from the colleges \"Annual Fund\". \n\n & #x200B;\n\nInterestingly, sometimes those scholarships are funded by those students who pay the full price to attend that university. If you can get 40% of the students to pay $75K/year out of pocket, then you can use part of that income so that the other 60% only pays $70K/year out of pocket. That's obviously over-simplified. But this is true at a number of private universities."
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2gb4ih | why are we told not to reheat meat more than once when cooking fresh meat kills bacteria? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2gb4ih/eli5_why_are_we_told_not_to_reheat_meat_more_than/ | {
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"I would say that the quality and taste greatly decrease. Also reheating food does not bring it up to the same temperature as the first cooking does. Thus the bacteria the grows between reheats may not be killed completely off.",
"Every time you go through a heat cycle, there is a greater and greater chance of something nasty breeding. \n\nThere is a limit to how often you can do this and guarantee safety. The prudent limit is, apparently, one time. ",
"Well, I do know that the danger from E.Coli (or was it salmonella?) is not the bacteria itself, but the bacteria's waste product. So once the E.Coli is breeding beyond a certain number, there's too much waste material for your body to deal with. Cooking kills the E.Coli bacteria, but does not remove the bacteria's waste.\n\nI know this doesn't fully answer your question, but it is one reason.\n\nMore to the question itself.\n\nHeating meat to the safe temperature does kill almost all the bacteria contained in the meat. I did say almost all bacteria was killed. Target temperatures for meat are to kill specific bacteria that tend to be harmful to humans, there are other bacteria that can live above and beyond that range within the meat. In small numbers, these bacteria are negligible to humans.\n\nBut, once the food cools down for consumption, those other bacteria can settle and breed in what is now an ample food source with little to no competition. Plus there's additional new bacteria from the air.\n\nThe more often you heat and cool the meat, the greater quantity of these higher temp bacteria (and dead bacteria corpses in general).\n\nI'm not a scientist, but that's how I've come to understand it.\n\nIf I'm wrong, please someone correct me.",
"There are two reasons why you want to avoid reheating food more than once:\n\n1) Safety: The more time that food spends in the temperature 'danger zone' of 4ºC-60ºC (40ºF-140ºF) the more time that the harmful bacteria have time to breed in quantities that could be harmful to humans. When people reheat food it's typically not to 'cooking' temperatures. The more reheatings, the more time food is in the 'danger zone' temperatures, the higher likelihood of foodborne illness.\n\n2) Texture: The temperatures of cooking breaks down cell walls and alters proteins making food easier for us to eat and digest. We've gotten good at determining the amount of time it takes to satisfactorily cook something at a given temperature to balance making it more digestible but maintain good texture. The more you reheat a food the more dried out the edges become and the more homogenous the interior texture becomes. "
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8n0yqc | why do floor traders on the various stock/commodity exchange floors wear those funny coats with all the buttons and patches on them? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8n0yqc/eli5_why_do_floor_traders_on_the_various/ | {
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"They're like a livery, a set of colours that identify at a glance the brokerage house they work for. So the other party to the trade knows without asking who they are dealing with in the midst of all the shouting, waving and gestures that happen as the trades are made over the crowded floor."
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2vp514 | how exactly do "walks for cancer" and other similar fundraisers work? | Why can't people directly donate to the cause? Does the money go to the patients or towards research? Thanks! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2vp514/eli5_how_exactly_do_walks_for_cancer_and_other/ | {
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"It's less about what the event is as just the act of having an event that people participate in encourages more people to donate. ",
" > Why can't people directly donate to the cause?\n\nThey can. You can donate to any charity at any time.\n\nParticipating in something gives people a feeling of involvement, even if it's usually fake. It also gives them something to do besides just writing a check. That's why fundraisers exist.\n\nSure, there are more passive/lazy people (like me) who would rather just donate directly, but many people like being a \"part of something.\" \n\nMany events also give people an incentive to \"recruit\" others into joining their \"team\" or group or whatever, whether it be a reduced group rate or free T-shirts or something. This allows word of the event to spread faster than if the charity itself just went around asking people for money.\n\nAlso, an event \"raises awareness\", whatever that actually means. To me, it just means I am more aware that they have cordoned off my route home from work so 500 people can jog through the streets.\n\nSorry, went off on a bit of a tangent there.\n\n > Does the money go to the patients or towards research?\n\nThat depends on what charity you're donating to."
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9ok4ha | what actually happens when we rub our eyes a bit too hard and suddenly we're in a different fucking galaxy? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9ok4ha/eli5_what_actually_happens_when_we_rub_our_eyes_a/ | {
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"Cutting off blood pressure and releasing it desensitizes the optical receptors while you do so. When you open your eyes and release them the blood starts flowing back, but the receptors don‘t start working immediatley.",
"In short, our eyes are really only capable of perceiving light. The dominant response to any stimuli that the eyes can elicit is in the form of sight. Your eyes can feel pressure, moisture, temperature and other similar stimuli; however, applying pressure to your eyelids, like any stimuli, causes your eyes to respond by sending a signal back to the brain. This signal then gets interpreted by the central nervous system and appears as a visual \"galaxy\" (to quote OP) because the brain translates stimuli from the eyes and tries to make sense of it the only way it knows how to.",
"If rubbing your eyes puts you in a different galaxy, you may want to dial the magic back a bit, wizard"
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70bicq | sometimes when i close one eye at a time, i notice that each eye sees slightly different colors. why does this happen and how does the brain resolve putting those two different images together? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/70bicq/eli5_sometimes_when_i_close_one_eye_at_a_time_i/ | {
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"Just like a dominant hand there is a dominant eye. So, when you look with your both eyes your brain is catching the information from the dominant eye first. I'm sure there is a better way to explain it, but that's what my eye doctor told me once. ",
"I noticed this too, and while I'm no biologist this is what I came up with after running some experiments on myself. \n\nIn some occations, light may be shining differently to each eye. Try this: have a yellow light shining directly at the right side of your face. This means your right eye will be exposet to it but your nose will block some of the light from reaching your left eye. If you wait a few minutes, your right eye will adjust to the yellow and see a bit more blue. Shut down the yellow light and you can see the difference the way you described above. \n\nA natural and common way to expose your eyes to different color gradients is to sit with your side towards the sunset, or leaning your face on your hand, blocking some of the light that reaches one eye. \n\n",
"Aside from differences in the light that is entering each eye, it could have something to do with having a slightly different number of the types of cone cells in the retina of each eye. The cones come in 3 different types and they each pick up a different wavelength of light. If you have more of one type than another in one eye compared to the other eye, that could account for a slight difference in the tone or saturation of color that you are seeing. I have this too - one eye sees color as warmer than the other. ",
"I've noticed this too and it's been driving me insane for years. The best way I can explain it (not answer, just further clarify the question) is that one eye seems to be a \"warmer\" color and the other a \"cooler\" color, like default setting options on a T.V. I hope this helps explain the question more.",
"I have this too. I have a hypothesis. Can you check if you have different sized pupillae? Like a big difference?",
"I noticed this too. Mostly when I'm laying down on my side. My guess is that because of gravity the eyes have different pressure and amount of blood in them. Thinking of it now i don't see how it would have affect the perceived color saturation, but I was happy with this explanation until now. ",
"A few months ago I was talking to my brother about needing glasses. He then mentioned how his eyes are so bad (he has astigmatism) that if he closes one eye everything shifts to the side. I told him that was normal because of the way our eyes are positioned on our faces. He was in disbelief that it took him that long to make that realization. ",
"Get a checkup for cataracts. It's typical that they can change the appearance of color in the affected eye. Source: I have cataracts.",
"While I don't mean to undermine the other comments here, since you said sometimes it guessing it isn't a permanent thing, so I think it's just a matter of having one eye better adjusted to your environment than the other (say you were sleeping on your side and talking to someone with one eye open and one buried in the pillow. Then they turn the light on and you get up. One eye has had time to adjust to the surroundings and the other has not, so one eye will see in a darker shade and the other will not) and I'm no scientist but I think your brain just matches the images and finds a middle ground between the two hues of color..",
"AND ... if the color shift seems like somebody dropped a pale-yellowish-grey filter in front of one eye, get thee to thy optometrist and get checked for cataracts. It's not a sin to develop those after 50 -- although usually bifocals come first!\n",
"Do any of you notice a difference if you're wearing glasses or not? NOT contacts, either glasses, or being \"blind\" without the glasses? Because I notice it when I'm not wearing my contacts. Glasses/\"blind\" my eyes do lots of weird shit. The warm/cool thing, seeing red lines and blue lines around bright objects, if I look at a light through a screen window it's like the screen is magnified so I can see the little squares, but they're bigger. Or looking at say, christmas lights, without corrective lenses they look like magnified nucleus/i.",
"Ive always wondered if this is why the retro 3-D glasses are red and blue?",
"I have a retina disease that causes this. The greens and blues are less vibrant, off. In addition the straight lines are curved and there's a blur. \n\nThe problem is a bubble that formed on the retina. It's filled with clear liquid so it acts as a lense, deforming the light. \n\nI don't know the English name, in French it's a choriorétinopathie-séreuse-centrale. \n\nThere's no cure per se as it's supposed to resorb itself within 6 months or so. I'm pushing 2 years and it's going nowhere. ",
"Finally a question I can answer. I was at the optometrist 3 days ago and I asked him why my right eye had a blue-sih, cooler tint than my left eye; most notably in bright sunlight conditions.\n\nHe chuckled, said he gets this question once every 10 years, and explained that it due to protiens in the lens of each eye. The lens inside the eye works much like a camera lens, focusing light onto the retina for clear vision. It also adjusts the eye's focus, letting us see things clearly both up close and far away.\n\nThe lens is mostly made of water and protein. The protein is arranged in a precise way that keeps the lens clear and lets light pass through it. But as we age, some of the protein may clump together and start to cloud a small area of the lens. You might recognize that this is a cataract, and over time, it may grow larger and cloud more of the lens, making it harder to see. \n\n[\"Over the course of life, UV in sunlight, chemicals, trauma or radiation experienced by each individual start to denature the proteins in lens. Denaturing means that the nature of the proteins change and gradually the lens loses its transparency thus starting to scatter light.\"](_URL_0_)\n\nAs for me, one of my eyes is more sensitive to light than they other (thanks mom), and standing in sunlight causes my right eye to close almost involuntarily. I would think that the greater exposure to UV radiation in my left eye than my right eye caused different amounts of denaturization in each lens. \n\nHowever your experience could also be explained by cone cells sensitivity or eye dominance. \n\n**I am not an optometrist, please consult with a professional optometrist and get your eyes checked annually. This could also be caused by a myriad of other factors, including pressure on the optic nerve and lead poisoning**",
"Guys, I love all of you but on a serious note this exact symptom is what ended up getting my father and a good friend of mine diagnosed with MS. Go see a doctor ",
"Wait...one of my eyes had a blue tint, the other red. Always has, since I was a kid. \n\nIt's faint, but it's noticeable. \n\nThis isn't normal?",
"For me, it's was for the greens when I was a teen.\n\nOne eye had vivid green, the other was somewhat washed out.\n\nI think I recall my optometrist said it was about my astigmatism since it is not symetrical."
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3urcn2 | what is the difference between the water recently discovered on mars and the water in its polar ice caps? | Where there is water, there is potential for life. I get that, but whats all the fuss over liquid water when we already know that the ice caps themselves are made of water? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3urcn2/eli5what_is_the_difference_between_the_water/ | {
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"From our limited experience with life formation in space (n = 1) liquid water is necessary for life to form, even if it shows up periodically (such as tides or the flow and recession/freezing of brine such as on mars). Water is used in so many metabolic and homeostatic processes that liquid water indicates life could possibly have formed or is extant on mars. "
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2xypbu | why were bits important when talking about 8-bit and 16-bit graphics? also why did they say 8-bit and 16-bit when they could have also said 1-byte and 2-bytes? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2xypbu/eli5_why_were_bits_important_when_talking_about/ | {
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"Unlike today where these values refer to the total number of bits allocated per channel, in the early days of video graphics, they referred to the total number of bits in use - 8 bits allocated a palette of only 256 colors, 16 bits allowed 5 bits per channel. They weren't referred to as bytes because they weren't 'numerical' - 8bit was (ish), but 16 bit was actually three separate blocks + 1 of color information.\n\nNowadays, the convention of calling them bits comes from the fact that there can be ambiguity in the number of total storage bytes, since you can allocate 8, 10, 12, 14, etc to a channel, not just a fixed byte value (1.25 bytes makes less sense than 10 bits)."
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67pex1 | what allows fake "ads" representing companies like google to be so prominent? | This is something that has always baffled me. I'm sure many have seen the "You have (4) virus on phone! Install now to clean!" ads with a picture of a robot and Google's logo.
Oh, and the annoying ones from Facebook that force notifications to your phone every time you try to leave the tab, making you force the tab shut. They claim to be from Google too.
That being said, why are these so prominent? Wouldn't a giant company like google try to shut down these with how regularly they appear?
Furthermore, why would websites allow such "ads"? It seems like that could get them into a ton of trouble.
Always bothered me, because I could never think of a clear answer to this. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/67pex1/eli5_what_allows_fake_ads_representing_companies/ | {
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"Website ads are handled mostly through automated systems.\n\nA website inserts some code into their site that basically says \"Hey ad network give me an ad to show\" and then the ad network pulls from a pool of ads they have and gives it to the website. The website itself has very little idea what ads are being served to users. \n\nAnybody can go to the ad network and submit and ad to the pool and who they want it shown to based on demographics and how much they will pay per view/click.\n\nOnce enough people report an ad as being midleading or malicous it will be removed from the pool, but until then it's going to be seen. \n\nEnough dumb/unknowing people will click on such ads and buy a product to make it worth the upfront cost to keep making them. "
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9x6haa | why do people answer with questions in jeopardy? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9x6haa/eli5_why_do_people_answer_with_questions_in/ | {
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"That's the setup of the show. Trebek gives the answer, then the contestant have to figure out what the question was.",
"Because those are the rules of the game.\n\nJeopardy's gimmick is that the contestants are given answers and must come up with the question.",
"Because that's the game is about:\n\nThe show features a quiz competition in which contestants are presented with general knowledge clues in the form of answers, and must phrase their responses in the form of questions. ",
"Questions like this are better in r/outoftheloop."
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5uaqbp | why did the whole iron curtain come to be after ww2 and why were tensions so high between the u.s. and russia | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5uaqbp/eli5why_did_the_whole_iron_curtain_come_to_be/ | {
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"Because by the end of WWII Russia/USSR had been invaded several times in 30 years, had suffered a lot. As a result they were pretty determined to not let it happen again. The two worst invasions had occurred from the west, so the Soviets decided to build up a series of buffer states on their western boarder, this necessitated having control of several of the countries they had liberated, which highly annoyed the Western Allies. "
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2ei8gx | how precise is our 'inner clock'? | I can manage to wake up almost seconds before my alarm goes off - even with changing schedules - but all clock displays are off, so no peeking. I even got out of bed without an alarm for a while just by telling myself when to wake up just before going to sleep. How can it be this precise?
Also why does it work so good or bad sometimes? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ei8gx/eli5_how_precise_is_our_inner_clock/ | {
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"In isolation (like in a cave) with no clocks available, it's been shown that people do not keep a 24-hour clock. The body clock is not in sync with the wall clock. But in the real world we have lots of clues to what time it is: sounds, light peeking in past the curtains, etc."
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8axlab | instead of battery technology, why do smartphone companies only upgrade cameras, processors, memory, etc yearly? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8axlab/eli5_instead_of_battery_technology_why_do/ | {
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"Most recent smartphones last a day on charge. Usually people charge their phones once a day so it's sufficient for most people, not very much required. ",
"I will start by saying I am not a scientist or battery specialist. Just a techy and rc enthusiast. Most phones do receive an upgraded battery along with other components. however the components require more power and therefore battery life remains similar. As for pioneering entirely new battery types or using things similar to the RC world, volatility becomes an issue if they’re not handled extremely carefully which is not in the cards for the average cell phone user.",
"It's because battery technology has hit a wall, unlike processors, cameras, and radios. The lithium-polymer battery in your new phone this year is essentially the same as the one in your phone five years ago. \n\nAt this point all they can do is 1) make the battery physically bigger or 2) make the hardware and software more efficient. They're doing both of those things. \n\n\nBig leaps in battery tech are coming, but we're getting down to some really hard physical limits now. I wouldn't expect anything major in less than five years, probably closer to ten.",
"The big problem is the safety factors for LiPoly. Imoroving any individual component (cathod anode electrolyte) by an order of magnitude barely pushes the battery capacity because so much of the battery by volume is safety material. Puncture proof wrapping around the cells or what have you. If you really want to improve things you need to change the battery chemistry but that requires re optimizing literally every part of the battery. Researchers are working on it each and every day and the DoE is sponsoring a lot of research into the area (eg JCESR) but it's a tough question to answer.\n\nOur group for example is studying morphological effects on battery's performance. How does changing the shape of the channels between anode and cathode help things or hurt things? We've got a good goopy material for LiPoly (nafion) but we need to understand why it's so good for LiPoly to be able to make great materials for other chemistry.\n\n Past that we're trying to partner with simulation experts to help explain what helps and hurts lithium conduction. If we figure out a set of rules for simulations that predict lithium conductivity in different media we can then use those rules to simulate other things. Or maybe we want to stick with lithium but use a lithium sulfur chemistry or something instead in which case the results immediately transfer.\n\nIt's all a bit of a mess and it will take time but progress is happening all the time."
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2614pl | why have we yet to move on from the combustible engine? | Why can't we move from it and is it even possible? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2614pl/eli5_why_have_we_yet_to_move_on_from_the/ | {
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"It's certainly possible; there's a very real chance we'll eventually move to electric engine technology for our vehicles once we have the power storage problem licked. Batteries capable of powering an EV are currently expensive as all hell (the battery pack from a Tesla is five digits by itself!).\n\nWe haven't moved past the combustion engine because of that power storage problem. Gasoline is a compact way of storing a lot of power, and it's easy enough to transport; we have the tech to build tanks of any size you'd care to name.",
"They are cheap, reliable, it takes a minute to refill the storage, there is infrastructure everywhere for it. We can (and will have to) move on, but at the moment its so amazingly cheap and easy that it's hard to get people motivated to change.",
"The issue is the transportation of fuel. If you separate an electric engine from its power source, you need to use a battery. That severely impedes the performance of an electric motor. The reality is that gasoline is easy to transport, produces a lot of power and is pretty stable and overall isn't that heavy (as fuel is used the car's weight will reduce).",
"We first need a suitable alternative. There are many modes of locomotion, but they all have flaws. Electric cars are probably the future, but energy production or storage is the problem. As it stands, you just can't beat gasoline or CNG/LNG per cost to energy density and availability.\n\nFuel cells are most efficient with hydrogen fuel, which is plentiful, but storing hydrogen is a bitch; the molecule is so small that it vents through even solid steel bottles! The higher the pressure, the faster it vents. And you can store more hydrogen in a solid medium than as a pure gas (I don't understand it either). The problem with storing it in a solid is that it's bonding to the solid. How do you break the bonds? That's why cars that run on water are impossible - to separate the bonds is more energy intensive than the energy you get out of it. Alternative fuels for a fuel cell aren't efficient enough, are too expensive or exotic to produce, or depend on hydrocarbons (gasoline).\n\nBatteries suck. Lithium is an exotic metal, rare on Earth. There's one mine in China, and the only other mine on Earth is in Arizona, and that's closed because of a nuclear materials accident in it. Batteries are slow to release energy, slow to charge, they're not as energy dense as gasoline, their anodes suck and break down, and in general, the breakdown of the storage medium means they have a limited operational life and they're expensive to replace. Lithium is also hugely reactive, especially with oxygen, and when they catch fire, they're one of the hottest burning chemical reactions known.\n\nSolar cells aren't efficient enough, and weather makes them unreliable. Fine for gathering free energy when it's available, you can slowly recharge your batteries while you're parked at work, but not good enough to be the primary source.\n\nEthanol takes more energy to make than it yields, and it means you have to decide between food or fuel.\n\nConverting cellulose to starch is a newly discovered and cheap technique, and if utilized, means we'll end up cutting down the rain forests for ethanol fuel faster than they can be replanted and replenished. I consider this route an ecological disaster waiting to happen. I don't mean the above scenario literally, but we would strip the land bare for efficiency and short shortsightedness.\n\nThere is an alternative fuel that shows so much promise, Boeing is investing big and is poised to revolutionize aviation. They want to grow land plants that tolerate sea water. We've polluted the oceans with so much phosphate, from fertilizer run-off, that they wouldn't need any additional fertilizer, and it will help reduce pollution in the oceans. The plants are naturally oily, and are being bred to maximize this. Boeing wants to grow bio fuel for aviation. They'll greenify the arid lands and deserts (off the coasts of Africa, where they're launching their entire operation), and provide income for impoverished nations. But that's still a hydrocarbon...\n\nLockheed claims they'll have a 100 MW fusion generator the size of a shipping container by 2017. That's a bold claim, but this is a company that is notorious for working under tight wraps. These guys aren't the frauds who make bold claims, collect investor money, and disappear. If they're willing to publicly announce a due date, I suspect they have a fully functional prototype. Anyway, while you're not going to fit this device under the hood, it does mean alternative fuel synthesis becomes cheap and feasible. And being so very small, I can see these mounted on mega ships, replacing their bunker fuel burning engines, and a future where they might experiment mounting one on an aircraft (an aircraft carrier generates 140 MW from their reactors, a Boeing 747 consumes 160 MW at cruising altitude and speed). The fuel is deuterium."
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3d7pfj | if you finance a car, but no longer want it halfway through the length of the finance, how do you sell it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3d7pfj/eli5_if_you_finance_a_car_but_no_longer_want_it/ | {
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"You sell it to someone for an amount. Anything over that amount that you owe to the lender, you have to pay out of pocket.\n\nIt's called being upside down on your loan.",
"You sell it and use the money to pay the rest of your loan. Simple as that. Same with a house. ",
"You basically are being given a loan to buy a piece of property, if the value of the property decreases and you can't sell it to cover what you paid, you are in the red. It's the same as when someone buys a house and then the real estate market takes a dive. ",
"Assuming that the title shows that you have a lien on the vehicle, you will need to get the lender (lien holder) involved in the sale. You won't be able to transfer title to the new owner without getting a lien release from the lender."
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eckxm5 | why are red blood cells significantly more attracted to carbon monoxide than oxygen? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/eckxm5/eli5_why_are_red_blood_cells_significantly_more/ | {
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"They are not more attracted, instead the bond with carbon monoxide is much stronger so once it is formed it becomes extremely difficult to remove and can render the red blood cell useless. _URL_0_",
"Hemoglobin has a higher affinity for carbon monoxide. Simply put this is because CO is more reactive and makes for a stronger ligand with iron in heme as the carbon bonds to make a metal carbonyl. This is down to the electron structure differences that make CO more favourable. The bonds made in CO + Fe are closer together and are perpendicular (90 deg) while on oxygen they’re further away (120 deg)",
"Red blood cells are little more than sacks full of hemoglobin. Hemoglobin is a protein that binds to oxygen in cool, basic conditions (the lungs), and lets go of it in warm, acidic conditions (body tissues). It's great for ferrying oxygen around.\n\n\\[IMPORTANT BIT\\] The thing is that hemoglobin is a protein and so its oxygen binding capability is dependent on its shape. Oxygen fits into a cavity in the hemoglobin molecule. When conditions change, the oxygen is ejected. Now carbon monoxide fits really, really well into that cavity and doesn't come out in the tissues, so it locks down that bit of hemoglobin.\n\n If you breathe in enough carbon monoxide, it will lock down enough of your hemoglobin that there isn't enough to get oxygen to your tissues any more, etc. Eventually, carbon monoxide will release, but most effectively if you are breathing pure oxygen to out-compete it. \n\nFor more information, look up the lock and key model of enzymes, and competitive inhibition."
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7aug3c | how do programmers for large software or aaa video games manage to create one unified, compatible whole when each programmer may code with different logic and work on different parts? | I've done some programming, minor stuff, but it's always been on my own. I have sort of my own "personality" when I code, so I may think in a different way than someone else. After all, in coding, there are multiple ways to achieve the same end result. Whenever I've looked at someone else's code, it's always taken me quite a while to understand their logic, since my natural logic may differ.
When I think of large games like Assassin's Creed, or any video game, it just baffles me how the programmers are able to work together on it all. I understand that they all sort of have their individual "parts" they make, and the tasks are divided among the programmers, but all those individual parts need to connect back together to create one whole. To me, this seems extremely difficult because it's not one giant brain programming the game, it's a team of probably 100 brains with millions of lines of code.
How is this managed? It seems like an incredibly tough task. Person A may program one part, Person B programs another part, but when they try to bring those parts together their logic is incompatible. Can anyone provide me insight on how huge teams of programmers are able to work together on insanely massive projects? Thanks! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7aug3c/eli5_how_do_programmers_for_large_software_or_aaa/ | {
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"For one thing, you write in a way that easily composited and provide internal APIs. \n\nSo programmer A is working on an internal clock for the game. He says that it will be a static class with the methods\n\n.deltaTime() (which returns the time between the last frame and the current in seconds in a 32 bit floating point)\n\n...etc\n\nProgrammer B doesn't need to know how the clock works, just that he can call .deltaTime() and get a 32 bit floating point value representing the difference in time.\n\nAnd remember that in multi-person projects (...and preferably in personal projects as well), people use proper version control (Git, mercurial, whatever). \n\nSo, for example, in git, Programmer A would clone the master repository, create a branch to work on his clock, and when he finishes he can merge his changes into master.",
"If there's 100 engineers on a project, it's going to be split into many modules, and each person (or a couple people) has responsibility for their own module. Of course, you can't program in a vacuum, you will interact with other people's sections. So like flyingjam says, you use a published API for your part, and that's how others call your code, and this needs to be well documented.\n\nMany companies also have coding standards, which describe how to name variables, how big a function can be, how complicated a single line of code can be, where to put the API description, etc.\n\nBut yes, a bigger project can take longer to do than just simply multiplying the time it takes to do a small one by the difference in size with the bigger one. All that extra communication requires more testing and more meetings. And you occasionally still end up with something like that spacecraft that crashed into Mars because one group was using English units and another group was using metric.",
"Same away a hundred different factory workers can all wind up making the same car.\n\nYou develop coding standards and create a lot of shared libraries that have a standardized interface.\n\nFor example, most games rely a lot on random number generators. Instead of letting each problem reinvent it from scratch, and have some do a bad job, you would have one programmer create a random number generation library that everyone else uses. Since the interface to those libraries is standardized, the code can be changed without affect the people who use the library...you hope.\n\nOnce you have these libraries built, programmers don't write code so much as they arrange calls to various libraries.\n\n > How is this managed? It seems like an incredibly tough task\n\nIt is a tough task, perhaps the toughest in the coding process. That's why any large project is going to have a bunch of managers and architects dedicated organizing how this happens and make sure the coders adhere to their plans.",
"To add to other answers, most AAA studios use their own proprietary engine which all staff are trained on, so they'll know what to call and where it'll be, as well as how to code their own sections so others can utilise their code.\n\nThey also have constant meetings where they all discuss where they are, what needs doing and the best way to go about doing it.\n\nAnd don't forget, most programmers work in the same room, look at any decent programming studio and you'll notice it looks nothing like a typical \"cube farm\" and is quite open-plan, this is intentional to aid communication and freedom, so programmers can often talk to each other informally by simply popping their heads up, or taking 30 steps.\n\n(I did a uni placement at a game studio, won't go into detail for privacy reasons, it's a famous studio but not a Triple-A one)",
"Because we each agree on a common convention : list will be named following this pattern, methods declarations this pattern, etc\n\nThen at the very beginning we make the \"base\", and each other programmers will need to use it.\n\nThe base define everything, how everything is linked, how everything works.\n\nFor example each programmer who want to make a \"view\" will need to make a child of \"BaseView\", BaseView define the same behavior for each view.\n- it will first make a initialisation\n- then it will do that, put the code for that here\n- then it will do this, put the code for this here\n\nFurthermore each time a programmer has done it's works it's first pushed to \"code review\" where other programmers of the project review this person code, give it a rating and can comment it, if it's bad then the progammer has to rework it untill it follow the convention and works according to the \"base\".\n\nExample of code review : _URL_0_\n\nleft : original code, right : modification.\nHere you can see that it's patchset 7, it means that it's the 7th time this person is modifying its code because its colleague think it's not quite right.\n\nSometimes after month we notice that we did not think of something and the base won't allow us to do what we want, we then need to rework the base while still coding the project, this is called refactoring.\n"
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m40je | difference between s corporation and llc? | i read and read but cant figure much . which is better Explainmelikeimfive :) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/m40je/difference_between_s_corporation_and_llc/ | {
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"I'm not entirely sure what you mean by S corporation, but I'll give you a rundown of corporate types. And granted, these vary by country. I'm from Canada so I'll work with that, but there's a lot of commonality between countries.\n\nThe biggest differences between types are liability and taxes. Liability is essentially how much personal risk you take...if the company goes under, can the people the company owe money to go after you personally? And taxes are well...taxes.\n\nSole Proprietorships - Usually only one or a couple of people. The owner is 100% responsible for liabilities and debts, but they pay a lower tax rate. Things like really small businesses, craft businesses, etc. \n\nPartnerships - Two or more people enter into an agreement to do business together. They have a written (or unwritten) charter which dictates who gets what, how new people can join in, and who's responsible for debts. You can be an active partner or a passive partner. Active partners have unlimited liability whereas passive partners do not, but their involvement in the company must be limited to just being an owner. They pay less tax than corporations, but more than sole proprietorships. These are often law firms, accountancy firms, or small businesses. But they can be very large, too. Some industries are required to work in partnerships if they want to form a company.\n\nLimited-Liability Corporations - Corporations are really set apart because the owners are only liable for their investment. If you sink $100,000 into a company that goes bankrupt, the most you can lose is that $100 grand (but it isn't quite as simple as that). It's a lot easier to buy and sell shares of a corporation. Corporations can themselves own property, enter into contracts, etc. Corporations also pay higher taxes. \n\n\nIf that wasn't what you meant by your question, please say so. We're here to help!\n",
"S Corps and LLC's both serve a similar purpose. Small business want the limited liability of a corporation (that is the corporation is a different entity than the people in it, so if the corporation goes bankrupt, the shareholders aren't responsible for the corporations debt), but don't want the double taxation of a corporation (corporations pay taxes on their net income, and the income of their employees is also taxed). An S Corp is a type of small corporation that retains limited liability, but doesn't pay taxes itself (this is called pass-through taxation). It also retains a lot of the complexity and paperwork. It has shares, it has a board of directors, it has legal requirements on book keeping. An LLC on the other hand, is not a corporation (it's sometimes incorrectly referred to as a limited liability corporation, but this is wrong, it is formally a limited liability company). LLC's are relatively new in the US (in the last 30 years or so), and the law on them isn't as well defined. They also have limited liability, and pass-through taxation, but they aren't a separate entities in the same way that a corporation is. They have much looser rules as to how they can be run. As a rule of thumb if an individual or small group wants limited liability they will form an LLC, but a larger group will form an S Corp.",
"I'm not entirely sure what you mean by S corporation, but I'll give you a rundown of corporate types. And granted, these vary by country. I'm from Canada so I'll work with that, but there's a lot of commonality between countries.\n\nThe biggest differences between types are liability and taxes. Liability is essentially how much personal risk you take...if the company goes under, can the people the company owe money to go after you personally? And taxes are well...taxes.\n\nSole Proprietorships - Usually only one or a couple of people. The owner is 100% responsible for liabilities and debts, but they pay a lower tax rate. Things like really small businesses, craft businesses, etc. \n\nPartnerships - Two or more people enter into an agreement to do business together. They have a written (or unwritten) charter which dictates who gets what, how new people can join in, and who's responsible for debts. You can be an active partner or a passive partner. Active partners have unlimited liability whereas passive partners do not, but their involvement in the company must be limited to just being an owner. They pay less tax than corporations, but more than sole proprietorships. These are often law firms, accountancy firms, or small businesses. But they can be very large, too. Some industries are required to work in partnerships if they want to form a company.\n\nLimited-Liability Corporations - Corporations are really set apart because the owners are only liable for their investment. If you sink $100,000 into a company that goes bankrupt, the most you can lose is that $100 grand (but it isn't quite as simple as that). It's a lot easier to buy and sell shares of a corporation. Corporations can themselves own property, enter into contracts, etc. Corporations also pay higher taxes. \n\n\nIf that wasn't what you meant by your question, please say so. We're here to help!\n",
"S Corps and LLC's both serve a similar purpose. Small business want the limited liability of a corporation (that is the corporation is a different entity than the people in it, so if the corporation goes bankrupt, the shareholders aren't responsible for the corporations debt), but don't want the double taxation of a corporation (corporations pay taxes on their net income, and the income of their employees is also taxed). An S Corp is a type of small corporation that retains limited liability, but doesn't pay taxes itself (this is called pass-through taxation). It also retains a lot of the complexity and paperwork. It has shares, it has a board of directors, it has legal requirements on book keeping. An LLC on the other hand, is not a corporation (it's sometimes incorrectly referred to as a limited liability corporation, but this is wrong, it is formally a limited liability company). LLC's are relatively new in the US (in the last 30 years or so), and the law on them isn't as well defined. They also have limited liability, and pass-through taxation, but they aren't a separate entities in the same way that a corporation is. They have much looser rules as to how they can be run. As a rule of thumb if an individual or small group wants limited liability they will form an LLC, but a larger group will form an S Corp."
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3kwo0l | what is the itchiness that happens in the back of your throat/inside your ears that is impossible to scratch? | Is it allergies? A reaction of some kind? Or something magically annoying every person gets sometimes? Also everyone I've asked has had it and not one person seemed to know how to scratch the spot exactly.
Bonus Karma if you know what it's called and how to scratch or relieve the spot (besides the obvious "try to scratch it". | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3kwo0l/eli5_what_is_the_itchiness_that_happens_in_the/ | {
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"I literally had this this morning!\n It was after I had brushed my teeth and i got that crazy itch almost like it's your sinuses?? I don't know but I am very interested to find out!"
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3uei55 | why do the united states have such a big problem with internet providers ? | I live in Europe, but I keep reading news on Ars and other sites that companies like Comcast are acting like jerks. I just can't understand - are there no other providers out there ?
Where I live even the most remote town has at least two cable internet providers, and in the villages at mountain tops you can get satellite internet from at least three different companies. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3uei55/eli5why_do_the_united_states_have_such_a_big/ | {
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"People in the US are just really really fond of complaining about their ISPs. The ISPs in the US are on par with those in western Europe, and options available to Europeans. Having lived in both areas, it's really just a culturally complaint thing, not service or company related.\n\ntl;dr: Americans like bitching.",
"You hit things right on the head in your first paragraph. In many areas there are no options about your provider. This is usually in areas with lower population density where it wouldn't be very profitable for a second company to come in. Satellite internet is always an option but if you want to stream anything or play a multiplayer game you're going to have a bad time.",
"American town and city governments have a tendency to make sweetheart deals with ISPs to protect their local monopolies."
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1b0203 | why 95% of the youtube videos i link to from reddit have 301 views.
not close to 301, literally exactly 301 views. everytime.
i am on alienblue; not sure if that makes a difference or not. | This has been blowing my mind for quite a while now. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1b0203/eli5_why_95_of_the_youtube_videos_i_link_to_from/ | {
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"Youtube sometimes freezes view count if they suspect a bot or person is artificially raising view count. This happens pretty often and they usually freeze them at 301, sometimes never to remove the restriction.",
"It has to do with how youtube keeps track of views. Youtube is surprisingly serious when it comes to how views are counted, and haven't even released the qualifications for what a view actually is. \nSo basically, the first 301 views don't really matter. Once the counter passes this, each view is reviewed to make sure it is legitimate. You just happen to see the video after it makes it to 301 but before the rest start filtering through. "
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bf2st6 | why are doctors being attacked in the republic of congo? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bf2st6/eli5_why_are_doctors_being_attacked_in_the/ | {
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"Unsure if this needs to go under 'culture'. Flairing as 'other' in meantime.",
"It's my understanding that alot of the public dont even believe Ebola exists and these doctors are actually harming people. Very uneducated. Take that with a history of being murdered and enslaved by your own people and you have a history of being betrayed.",
"The people of the Congo believe that the doctors aren’t trying to help, but rather taking people and using their blood. It tends to only be an issue in less developed and more poorly educated areas."
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dwm9l0 | why does our body sometimes have pain or discomfort in body parts we are thinking about when there was no pain before? | For example,I started researching core exercises and was reading about hip flexors. After I read the first article my hip flexors started having pain that stayed for over an hour, but I can't remember the last time they hurt.
Another example is VR nausea. When I first tried it a specific game caused me nausea. Now sometimes when watching 2d videos on YouTube about VR or just thinking about VR I get a mild nausea, even when I can play some VR games for real without getting the sick feeling. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dwm9l0/eli5_why_does_our_body_sometimes_have_pain_or/ | {
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"**The pain is always there.** \n\nYour brain receives so much information each moment that any useless/constant stimuli are ignore/filtered out. \n\nIt's only when you concentrate on that part of your body, or the stimulus increases/changes is when you feel it."
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64k2cr | what happens on a global ecological level if the great barrier reef is entirely bleached and dies? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/64k2cr/eli5_what_happens_on_a_global_ecological_level_if/ | {
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"The Great Barrier Reef is a zone which indicates a relative diversity of life on Earth, like Rainforests. The more diverse life is on the planet, the better, as we humans like to harvest things. Imagine if rubber trees didn't exist? Or if the fungi that made up immune suppressants didn't exist? Diversity is really good and when one of these places loses its diversity, we see that most other places are losing diversity too. Furthermore, an estimated 375 billion dollars are generated from food and tourism related to reefs, with about 500 million people dependent on their survival. Animals that depend on these corals for food go too. Entire food chains are disrupted. Imagine no more snapper, grouper, clams, or oysters! Fish rely on corals for protection from larger predators. \n\nAbout 70% of Earth's oxygen comes from the ocean, from the smallest organisms to the largest kelp forests. Losing life in the ocean directly impacts our world's ability to sustain life. If the reefs, which are some of the most fragile ecosystems start to die, then it's an early warning sign that things are going to get worse.",
"The loss of diversity stinks, and coral reefs are incredibly efficient carbon sinks, but we'll live on without it. I don't expect it to have any significant consequences but I don't deny that we're on a path to extinction and this is just a marker along the way. ",
"If you're just talking about the Great Barrier Reef, the most tangible effects are local. If the corals bleach and die, the reef structure will still be there for some time, but will gradually be lost to erosion. (When corals are alive, they balance out the erosion by laying down new calcium carbonate skeleton.) So first you'll lose the species that depend on live coral, like butterflyfish that feed on coral. Then you'll start to lose the species that depend on the physical structure as their habitat, including lots of fish that are commercially important. The reef structure is also important for dampening the force of waves coming into shore, so as you lose the structure to erosion you also lose protection from storms.\n\nThe bigger problem is that it's not just the Great Barrier Reef. Coral reefs throughout the tropics and subtropics all face the same threats (ocean warming which causes bleaching, ocean acidification which makes it harder for them to build skeletons) and they collectively support millions of people in coastal communities in terms of providing protein, coastal protection, employment (e.g. tourism), and cultural identity. The loss of coral reefs on a global scale is a huge looming disaster.\n\nThere are scientists working with coral to try and identify the ones that are most tolerant of warmer water, clone them (they can regenerate from fragments) and use them to build new reefs. This works on a small scale but it's hard to do it at a large scale.",
"Follow up: What can I personally do to halt the bleaching of the GBF and other environmental disasters?",
"Coral Reefs are highly connected system where almost everything is interdependent on something else. Also it is important to understand the hard Corals are bleaching due to ocean acidification (due to increasing temperatures) which also have impacts on many molluscan species preventing them from building up layers of their calcium shell for defense. Corals and sponges play a particularly large role in remove nutrients from the water and with excess nutrients, there will most likely be decreased visablitly (reducing the photosynthetic capabilities of my of the reefs primary producers) and huge blooms of algae and plankton. This can have massive impacts on the surrounding reef organism and even change the coral reef to a less productive and diverse algae prone system. The point I am trying to get across is nature is extremely complex, far more complex than our models and estimation could ever predict. All we know for sure is that there will be change."
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f5b43k | : why shouldn't we lift with our backs | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/f5b43k/eli5_why_shouldnt_we_lift_with_our_backs/ | {
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"Simple answer is, lifting with your back will cause back problems like hernias and such. Worst case scenario, you could literally end up paralyzed. \n\nIf you're wondering why that's the case, think about the muscles and bones in those areas. In the back, the whole structure is designed to be able to twist and turn in almost every direction. But the muscles and bones of the legs are built to bend the ankle, knee, and hip joints, mostly in one direction each. That means more muscle and bone strength are used to make those bends stronger, making lifting safer when using those muscles. \n\nAs a bonus, lifting with your legs a lot will make your butt look awesome.",
"hurt your back once and you'll know why. you'll be stuck in excruciating pain and probably stuck in bed for a week and be on painkillers and still hurting for 2-3 weeks",
"In short, the vast majority of people have stronger legs than they have backs. This is because are legs sole purpose is to support weight and move it around. Whereas your back, although it aids in the support of your body weight, is much less used to heavy weight, and more importantly has many more functions to do with the nervous system that make it so muscular growth in your back is harder to achieve than in your legs.",
"Your back is just not built to carry weight. It's a bunch of small bones to allow *movement*. \n\nYour femur, on the other hand, is the largest bone in your body. It's the absolute unit of bones, wrapped in the largest muscle group. Weight is what it does.\n\nFurther, any lifting you do with your back will require it to be out of position. Not in a nice straight line, but tilted so that it's taking a side load which will have the effect of pulling all of those little bones out of alignment.\n\nAlways lift with your legs while keeping your spine aligned."
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7fplxc | why are explosions in demolitions are delayed by a short amount of time between each charge? | I have noticed when watching demolition videos that typically the charges are typically delayed by a very short amount of time between each charge. Is there a reason for this? What causes this? Is it on purpose? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7fplxc/eli5_why_are_explosions_in_demolitions_are/ | {
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"This is absolutely done on purpose. \n\nWhen demolitions experts are hired to take down a building, the very first thing they do is a whole lot of math. They want to bring the building down in a very controlled, stable manner, so that all of the exploding pieces blow into the building instead of outward from the building. They want to make sure the building collapses in on itself, rather than exploding outward. This is a huge safety concern. They don't want debris being flung a hundred feet into someone's head, car, or house.\n\nBy delaying the charges in specific ways, they can ensure the exploding building continues to behave in the appropriate manner. They also use different strength compounds in each charge.",
"ELI5: The detonations are timed so they push the building to fall in the right direction. Imagine you built a big tower out of blocks and you swipe all of the bottom blocks at once: you can't tell what direction the tower will fall and pieces go everywhere. But, if you take blocks one at a time out of just one side and it will eventually topple toward the side you're taking blocks from, because that's the side without any support.\n\nMore info: This is done on purpose to get the structure to fall where it's supposed to. In some areas it may be important to get a structure to fall into a specific area to prevent damage to surrounding structures. In densely populated areas it may be important for a building to fall into its own footprint. \n\nBy controlling the order in which structural elements are severed the demolition crew can control what parts of the structure collapse first. If one side of a structure starts to fall it will tug on the remaining structure and pull it to that side. The goal is that the falling part of the structure puts so much stress on the remaining structure that those other structural elements start to fail themselves, even though they haven't been subjected to explosive damage. Because of the momentum of the collapsing portions of the structure the whole building continues to collapse into the right direction.\n\nThis phenomena where damage to one structural element causes the failure of another undamaged structural element is called \"progressive collapse\", and is heavily exploited in building demolition since it's infeasible to explode every structural element in the entire building. \n\nThe detonator is the electrical equipment that fires the explosives, which it does by exploding blasting caps. Every blasting cap is actually ignited simultaneously, and the delay is achieved by inserting a portion of slow-burning fuse between the detonator and immediately before blasting cap. This is done because the explosions or building shifting could sever the connection between the detonator and as-yet unfired explosives. One of the major safety concerns following structural implosion is the possible presence of unexploded explosives, so it's very important that all explosives actually fire.\n"
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bww3bb | why do children seem to frequently get the stomach flu but you hardly ever hear about adults getting the stomach flu? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bww3bb/eli5_why_do_children_seem_to_frequently_get_the/ | {
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"Ummmm adults get the flu all the time. The \"stomach flu\" isn't actually the flu, it's some sort of gastrointestinal issue that may trigger some flu-like symptoms. And adults have a more robust and better developed GI tract so it can generally tolerate more than a child's can",
"Adults get it all the time. It's the most common foodborne infection at just over half of all cases. \n\nThis has probably more to do with what you 'hear' and how that can often be shaped by how people describe their illness as something that it's not.",
"Children are more likely to become sick with most illnesses because their immune systems aren't as developed, so their immune systems can't fight off infections as quickly as those of adults can. This includes gastroenteritis (the technical name for the stomach flu) as well as colds, influenza, ear infections, etc. \n\nFor example... If an adult is infected with gastroenteritis, there's a good chance that their immune system might fight it off before they began showing symptoms because their immune system has dealt with it before. With children, it's much less likely. \n\nThis is why, throughout most of history, the likelihood of children dying young of some form of disease was extremely high.\n\nA further reason why young children and babies get gastroenteritis more often is that a lot of them... like to behave in ways that aren't terribly sanitary and by that I mostly mean, \"constantly sticking things in their mouths.\"",
"In addition to the other answers, children (and the elderly) produce less stomach acid. Stomach acid is an important defense mechanism for many bugs that are vulnerable to acid (salmonella comes to mind). Side note: this is also why proton pump inhibitors such as omeprazole can cause an increased incidence of gastroenteritis."
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408ebt | why does cold weather make your nose run? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/408ebt/eli5_why_does_cold_weather_make_your_nose_run/ | {
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"Our noses warm and humidify adding moisture to the air we breathe as it travels down into the lungs. So when you inhale cold, dry air, the moist tissue inside the nose automatically increases fluid production to do its job of protecting sensitive lung tissue.\nEdit:thanks to the almighty google machine for giving me my top comment",
"In addition to humidifying the air that we breathe in, we also lose a fair bit of moisture through our breath. Couple this to the fact that cold air carries less moisture than hot air (incidentally, this is why warm / hot air couples with high humidity supercharges odors) the edge of your nostrils is the point where formerly warm air is now suddenly becoming cold, causing the moisture to condense out and cling to the edges of your nostrils, or make a vapor trail. There it mixes with mucus, causing the runny discharge, hence the runny nose.\n\nWhen you have a cold, the mucus glands in the nose (and pretty much all along the respiratory tract) go into overdrive and secrete lots of mucus to flush out antigens/pollen/viral particles. Since the glycoprotein component of mucus (the gooey part) cannot be as rapidly ramped up in production as the water component, the discharge from runny noses when you have a cold is more watery than normal.",
"Related question: why do my hands become basically unusable as soon as it gets cold out. They feel like they turn to stone below 40 degrees basically.",
"While the people talking about humidity/condensation are partially right, the larger reason is to prevent the membranes inside your nose from freezing. You're breathing in cold air and it's running over a soft membrane. But a more moist membrane freezes slower than a less moist one. Think of how ice melts quicker in a glass of water than by itself. ",
"It's to keep it from freezing solid, just like you do with the kitchen sink for your water pipes.\nRef:\n_URL_0_",
"So, I have a biology degree and I marched in here thinking I was going to school everyone... But then I read the other comments and now I'm not so sure I know as much about this topic as I imagined. Sweet.\n\nAnyway, my answer was really the assumption that the cold air makes the lining of the nose constrict, basically squeezing mucus off the ends of the goblet cells (nose goblins).",
"You haven't experienced cold until it makes your nose hair freeze and stick to the walls of your nose.",
"To add to this question, is there something that can help stop it? I am so tired of always having a runny nose in the winter. Maybe this is a bad question... It's late and I'm tipsy. ",
"\"Cold-induced rhinorrhea\" is what you're describing, and it is thought to be caused by two things. Cold weather dries out the nasal passages, to offset this more mucous is produced by tissues lining these passages. Also, water vapor in warm exhaled air condenses as it meets cold outside air. ",
"When temperature comes below 8-10°c, the natural fluid movement in your nose does not go to your throat but is reversed. (I don't have the necessary english skills to translate all medical vocabulary).\n\nHere's a [quite good podcast](_URL_0_) explaining it.\n*(Note this is in french.)*",
"So I saw this perfect explanation on another reddit thread about half an hour ago. \n\"A king has a son with two penises. When it comes time for the boy to marry, they search for a girl with two vulvas. Such a girl is never found. The prince dies without having married and becomes a ghost, searching for a girl with two vulvas. Eventually the ghost turns his sexual attention to people's nostrils. From that point on, people begin to catch colds. When the ghost’s penises enters somebody's nostrils, that person's nose feels stuffed. When the ghost is satisfied, he withdraws. The person can breathe again, but as the ghost has left his semen, the nose runs.\"",
"ELI5 Why noses run and feet smell???"
]
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8mernt | how do fish survive tall waterfalls? | Not only survive the impact, but wouldn't they still hit the rocks at bottom? Why aren't there fish corpses all along the river banks at the bottoms? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8mernt/eli5_how_do_fish_survive_tall_waterfalls/ | {
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"Formula for Kinetic energy: 1/2 m v^2\n\nLamens terms, the less mass something has the less kinetic energy it'll have whilst moving.\n\nIf I drop a mouse off the Empire State Building, because I'm a psychopath, it'll gather very little kinetic energy and land unharmed. \n\nIf I drop a giraffe off the Empire State Building, it'll explode because it'll gather a fuckton of energy as it falls.\n\nAm not a scientist, I just watched a video by kuzegezart on youtube....\n\nEdit: oh right fish, in addition to that I Imagine some fish do die, but also fish are made differently. bones are more rubberery and their brains aren't super important.",
"Couple things contribute.\n\nFish are fairly small so they don't gather much kinetic energy. They're also shaped much more streamlined than most animals so they enter water much more smoothly and gracefully. \n\nThe surface tension of the water, which is usually what would kill, say, a human, is broken by the water tumbling down onto the pool underneath. That \"impact\" is more or less gone as long as the fish can reach the water \"inside\" the stream of the waterfall. \n\nUsually there's also enough depth underneath for them to decelerate without dangerously impacting rocks.\n\nThat being said, it's not always a given that a fish will survive a fall. Whenever one of these conditions no longer exist, such as if the fish leaves the stream of falling water into falling through the air, there's a good chance of the fish being killed or at least stunned on impact. In fact, they can be stunned even when all of those conditions are favorable, simply if the fall is big enough. "
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c9v4be | how does snake charming work? is it legit? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c9v4be/eli5_how_does_snake_charming_work_is_it_legit/ | {
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"Snakes move according to the movement of the instrument that the snake charmer plays and maybe even his hand movements. Snakes cannot hear loud music the way we hear them, they don't have an external ear. They can take in low vibrations but music as such, no. \nEither the snake is trained to follow the instrument or it feels threatened and is keeping it's eyes on the instrument.",
"It is a defensive posture on the part of the snake. The movement of the flute like instrument draws it's attention the snake is rearing up because it thinks it's another animal, possibly a predator."
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||
5nqq08 | what safeguards are in place, in the u.s.a., to stop a rogue president from using nuclear weapons? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5nqq08/eli5_what_safeguards_are_in_place_in_the_usa_to/ | {
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"To launch the nukes the President needs the Secretary of Defense to also agree. The two of them tell the Joint Chiefs of Staff to launch who then tell the CO of the facility or sub they want a launch and then the guys with the actual keys launch the nuke. If the President is really nuts this won't get passed the Secretary of Defense. If he is also bonkers anyone down the chain can commit insubordination and stop the launch. Mind you if one Silo wont launch and everyone above them agrees they'll just call another silo.",
"Here is a great article for this:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nIn short there are a total of 9 steps:\n\n* The president considers a nuclear strike\n\n* The president convenes a conference with military and civilian advisers in Washington, the consultation may last just 30 seconds.\n\n* The president decides to launch: Some advisers may try to change the president’s mind or resign in protest—but ultimately, the Pentagon must comply with the commander-in-chief’s order.\n\n* The senior officer in the Pentagon war room must formally authenticate that the person ordering the strike is indeed the president.\n\n* The war room prepares the launch order, a message that contains the chosen war plan, time to launch, authentication codes and codes needed to unlock the missiles before firing them. The encoded and encrypted message is only about 150 characters long, about the length of a tweet. It is broadcast to each worldwide command and directly to launch crews.\n\n* Launch message in hand, the crews open locked safes to obtain sealed-authentication system (SAS) codes prepared by the National Security Agency and distributed throughout the military’s nuclear chain of command. They compare the SAS codes in the launch order with those in their safes.\n\n* If the missiles are launched from a submarine: The captain, executive officer and two others authenticate the order. The launch message provides the combination to an on-board safe holding the “fire-control” key needed to deploy the missiles. Missiles are ready for launch about 15 minutes after receiving the order.\n\n* If the missiles are launched from land: Five launch crews in various underground centers control a squadron of 50 missiles. Each crew consists of two officers. The individual teams are spread miles apart. Each receives the orders, opens safes and compares their SAS codes to those sent by the war room. If they match, the crews enter the message’s war plan number into their launch computers to re-target missiles from their peacetime targets in the ocean to their new targets. Using additional codes in the message, the crews enter a few more keystrokes to unlock the missiles before turning launch keys retrieved from their safe. At the designated launch time, the five crews turn their keys simultaneously, sending five “votes” to the missiles.\nMutiny is unlikely\n\nIt takes just two “votes” to launch the missiles. So even if three two-officer ICBM crews refuse to carry out the order, it won’t stop the launch.\n\n\n**Missiles are launched**\n\nAbout five minutes may elapse from the president’s decision until intercontinental ballistic missiles blast out of their silos, and about fifteen minutes until submarine missiles shoot out of their tubes. Once fired, the missiles and their warheads cannot be called back.\n\n**TL;DR**\nIt takes as little as five minutes to launch a nuke. No one can refuse a launch and it is virtually impossible once the decision has been made (In theory)"
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4m1b0x | how does two-factor authentication (duo mobile) work without internet access? | Context: As part of my job, we've started using two-factor authentication through Duo Mobile to access secure accounts. However, I work in a basement, where I literally have zero cellular access, i.e. no data. Curious, I turned on airport mode and wifi off (just to be sure), and sure enough, the generated key still worked, but several other fake ones did not. I even changed the time zone on both devices, thinking that the codes might, perhaps, be based on the system times, but no luck. How is this possible? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4m1b0x/eli5how_does_twofactor_authentication_duo_mobile/ | {
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"The key from one of those dongles or \"authenticator\" programs is generated by an algorithm, not downloaded, so it doesn't need Internet access. ",
"Most two-factor auth devices use two values to generate the codes:\n\n* Current time\n* Secret key\n\nThe code generator may convert all times to UTC, or it may ignore the time and just generate a new code every few seconds.\n\nSome devices do not use time at all, and instead just generate a sequence of codes on demand.\n\nYour device generates codes on the fly, without connecting to anything, so it doesn't need mobile service or internet access to make codes.\n\nWhatever server you're logging into has enough information to check your code. Given the time and a shared secret key, it could generate the same code as you, for example.\n\n",
"Most two factor authentication devices generate the codes based on the current Unix time, which is measured as the number of seconds since January 1, 1970, which is why the time zone didn't affect it. ",
"Imagine that at time t=0, your Duo client and the server that is performing authentication have the same \"value\" e.g. '456789'.\n\nAt t=1, a new value is calculated by hashing the value at t=0 and a secret key - known only to the client and server - but stored on both.\n\nAs long as the client and server remain time-synced, they will always know what the value should be at time t=x based on the current time, the value of the secret key, and the original value.",
"I don't know the math behind this, but an autetication dongle or software will be shipped to you with a pre-installed algorithm that use a secret key to generate a random range of numbers every X seconds.\n\nWhen that specific dongle/software is linked to your own account, a software on the server side pairs your account to that secret key, and it too star generating random numbers every X seconds.\n\nSince they use the same secret key, they will generate the same random numbers at the same time. When you type those numbers in a web page, they just check that they are the same to grant you access. \n\n\np.s. I may have got wrong some details, but this is the idea behind a two-facto autentication. ",
"It's something called a TBOTP. Time Base One Time Password. Both your phone and the server is generating the information. All it needs is a secret key, an algorithm and the time. ",
"The main algorithm in use by Duo (and Google Authenticator, for that matter) is called TOTP - Time-based One Time Password.\n\nYour phone uses the secret key and the current system time, does some math, and generates a code; no Internet access is ever required. The server does the same thing, and if the codes match, it knows you have the difficult-to-guess secret key in your possession.\n\nChanging the time zone didn't work because the system time is always in UTC (GMT, basically); the time zone setting only changes how the _local time_ is calculated from the system time.\n\nInstead of changing time zones, change your actual clock time by about 30 minutes and see what happens.\n\nThere's a similar-operating system that doesn't require system time at all, called HOTP, or Hash-based One Time Password. If you change your system clock significantly and the code still works, the site designers are using this somewhat less-secure HOTP system.",
"As everyone has explained how it works - it's worth noting that Google Authenticator works like this - you can put your phone in airplane mode and it'll still work."
]
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1yt36p | why is netflix paying comcast to stop throttling? | I get what throttling is, I just don't get why they have to pay in the first place | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1yt36p/eli5_why_is_netflix_paying_comcast_to_stop/ | {
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"Because if they don't pay... the throttling continues.\n\nBy paying Netflix can remove the throttling and make more money by delivering its product to its customers. Sure it costs Netflix money, but they can make more money if Comcast isn't throttling them.",
"I think [THIS](_URL_0_) comment was the best so far that I have seen \n[Link Here](_URL_0_)",
"Netflix is a content delivery company. Their streaming business depends on getting you high quality content through the Internet. If Netflix provided poor picture quality, you would look to other providers or other technologies (back to BluRay).\n\nWhat's unique about Netflix is that they deliver so much content that it is highly visible to the ISPs (like 30% of download traffic every night). ISPs own the means of distribution...for every home there is one maybe two viable bandwidth options. They have a great deal of power because the networks are all private, and to a large extent they can see and control what goes through their network.\n\nIt is in Netflix's best interest to pay the ISPs for two reasons: 1) It ensures that their product quality is high and 2) it creates a barrier of entry to other companies. Competitors will now have to spend in a similar fashion to have a similar product, which reduces the amount of competition."
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|
5xpia1 | why do people in their 20s have higher rates of depression when compared with other age groups? | I was looking at [this](_URL_1_) chart from an [article](_URL_0_) on depression around the world and was interested in the high rates of depression for people in their 20s.
Obviously there are many factors involved but I'm curious if there is an accurate hypothesis on why these numbers are so high.
Thank you! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5xpia1/eli5_why_do_people_in_their_20s_have_higher_rates/ | {
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"Likely due to a combination of factors. As is often true, you may find depression is linked to the circumstances rather than directly to age, though the circumstances are themselves linked to age. \n\nFor example: \nLack of financial/career security. \nMajor life changes such as school to career or undergrad to graduate school. \nLower rate of consistent or permanent relationships such as marriage. \n \nIt's not that people of that age are less adaptable or capable of tackling these challenges, but by later ages people are more likely to have \"settled down\" in various ways. \n\nThere may also be biological factors, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was mostly circumstantial. ",
"Because of the social pressure put on young people. If you don't have friends you fail. No good job you fail. Both of those together and then you are just a cretin and a drain on society. It's just life. Sometimes you get a shit hand "
]
} | [] | [
"https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/11/07/a-stunning-map-of-depression-rates-around-the-world/?utm_term=.41cefc2602b3",
"https://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/files/2013/11/yld-age2.jpg"
] | [
[],
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|
9spmtw | why do countries use third party currencies to trade goods? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9spmtw/eli5_why_do_countries_use_third_party_currencies/ | {
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"When you're buying or selling shit to a lot of different people, working with one agreed upon currency just makes things easier. Iran sells oil to India, Indonesia, and China, (lets say) and India buys oil from Iran, Saudi Arabia and Canada (or whatever). Rather than dealing with different currencies for each transaction, conducting all your sales in one currency makes everything easier to everybody. Those default currencies are the Euro and the US dollar, because they are widely used and stable."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
cvln24 | how a baby can go without breathing for 9 months in the womb to suddenly using its lungs | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cvln24/eli5_how_a_baby_can_go_without_breathing_for_9/ | {
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"Your best bet is to watch this. I don't think it can be explained any easier than how Destin explains it!\n\n_URL_0_",
"Indeed, fetus in the womb does not breathe. But respiration of the cells still occur as they get their supplies (nutrients, oxygen, etc.) from their mother.\n\nThe first baby’s cry causes these tiny air sacs (alveoli) to open. This is why a baby’s good scream is what doctors want. (See the Apgar scoring system)\n\nAnd yes. Blood from the umbilical cord goes through the circulatory system in the fetus and brings it to the fetus’ brain, but through a different circulatory route than what newborns (and we) have."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://youtu.be/CXsiLoQL6NE"
],
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