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Why is depth perception easier with 2 eyes but worse with 1? | Depth perception is given by the brain perceiving the difference between the image of the 2 eyes. If an image is further away, there is less difference between the image the right eye sees and the image the left eye sees. The closer it is the more the image is different. Imagine a twig. Very far away you will see it the same. Very close and the right eye sees the front and right side, the left eye sees front and left side. Therefore the brain knows that is closer. With one eye we use clues. So if we see a full image of a car and a man's chest and head above it, we assume the car is Infront of the man rather than someone with no legs has been thrown in the air Infront of the car. If I show you a small cow you assume it is far away rather than a tiny cow close up. This isn't depth perception, just depth clues | It's not really that different. Your field of vision is wider, but your eyes automatically combine the images so other than that it's similar. If I close one eye, the image is about 25% narrower but other than that not a huge difference. Depth perception only works with two eyes, but depth perception is subtle and only makes a big difference in rare cases. You can usually tell how far away things are by the context alone. If depth perception drastically altered an image, movies and photographs would look odd from a two-edged perspective. |
How do snails get their shells without being near the ocean? | Shells don't simply come from the sea, they're grown by secreting their material. Snails grow their own shells. | There is a sea snail that does this: _URL_0_ |
How is the diameter of Mars 53% the size of Earth's but the surface area in only 38% of Earth's? | The surface area is actually only 28% of Earth's. The forumula for the surface area of a sphere is 4 * pi * r². So if r = .53, r² = .28 | [Mars](_URL_0_) has a mean density of 3.933 g/cm compared to 5.514 g/cm3 for [Earth](_URL_2_). The radius of Mars at 2,106 mi is slightly over half of Earth's radius 3,959 mi. Thus the ratios of their volumes is 2106^3 / 3959^3 = [0.15](_URL_1_). So since Mars is about 30% less dense than Earth and has 15% of the volume, it has about 11% of the mass. |
What was the Whig Party like? Can it be compared to any modern-day political parties? | Can someone answer this question, except regarding the British Whig party? | Some Federalists in New England conspired to secede from the union during the War of 1812. Federalists were seen as traitors, and thus that party lost its support. The Whigs were a loose party built around anti-Jacksonian principles. The party was by no means cohesive, and when the issue of slavery came to the forefront, the party simply split. Others will go into more detail, but these are the basic ideas. |
If dogs and/or cats have hearing far more sensitive than a human, why doesn't it deafen them when we yell? | This has to do with the way the cochlea works, and the dynamic compression it introduces to the incoming sound before entering the brain. Dogs and cats are better at percieving low level sounds because the cochlea is better able to pick up on a wider dynamic range. In other words, low level sounds will be more audible for dogs and cats due to the active amping by the inner haircells in the cochlea, while high level sounds will not be amped in the same way. In older persons, the inner haircells deteriorate, and this compressive behavior disappears. This is why old people might percieve a sound as soft, and the same sound slightly louder as really loud. Fascinating thing, the cochlea. Source: Engineering Acoustician | The dog or cat in question has a bark/meow/howl that sounds, to the human ear like 'I love you', because we humans are primed to hear words. To the animal this particular bark/howl/meow means absolutely nothing. It is just a funny sound they can make that gets them loads of positive attention. Many pets are suckers for positive attention who just learn 'if I make the funny howl, I get rewards. I like rewards'. |
What does it mean to estimate pi | Pi is an infinitely long not repeating decimal. 3.14 is an estimate to the hundredth position. 3.14159 is an estimate to the 100000th position. All finite representations of pi are estimations, and the work of calculating the next digit is to "estimate pi to a greater degree of accuracy." | The numbers don't have to have a physical correspondence to nevertheless reflect physical reality. Pi is not negligible, it's a derived ratio. It's required to make the math work. It represents a relationship between certain quantities. That's the whole point of these constants - they were determined based on relationships we understand, and using them is fundamental to making the numbers some out correctly. |
Since the creation of coffeehouses followed the siege of Vienna, why aren’t coffee products globally described in German, rather than Italian? How did Italian become the language of coffee products? | > Since the creation of coffeehouses followed the siege of Vienna Where can I learn more about this? I've never heard this before. | Not before 1492. Although coffee is a major cash crop in Latin America today, it is an Old World product probably native to east Africa. It did not really see much use in Europe until the 17th c., although it had been popular in the Arab and Islamic world for many centuries. Its European popularity increased dramatically after the plentiful availability of sugar in the 18th and 19th c. The rise of coffee production in the Americas didn't really begin until the 19th c. when many Latin American nations looked to the rising popularity of coffee in Europe and North America as a means of making money. For a good book on the cultural and social hisotry of coffee and other European drugs/stimulants see, [*Tastes of Paradise*](_URL_0_) |
Why are vehicles built that under and/or oversteer? | most vehicles don't oversteer from the factory, that's a dangerous thing for the average driver understeer makes the driver realize they are going too fast and they react by slowing down, especially with audible feedback from the tires. for an average driver understeer is much safer and easier to control | Oversteer is when the back tyres loses grip. This is usually wanted in racing as the back tyres are constantly spinning while you're turning and so that you don't lose too much speed while in a turn and letting you exit while still at a constant speed. Pretty much what drifting is. Understeer basically is when the front tyres loses grip; basically even though your front wheels are turned, you're still heading for that brick wall in front of you. Cars have different ways of delivering power for different purposes. Most family cars will deliver the power to the front as it would leave more room for passengers. Many higher end performance cars will have power on the rear wheels and most all terrain vehicles will have four wheel drive (power is delivered to all four wheels) and all wheel drives due to unstable surfaces. When greater power is delivered to the rear (rear wheel drive) than they can grip, they will spin out in which is taken advantage off in certain situations for reasons as explained above. |
How do Hippos run so quickly, not just underwater, but on land too with so much body weight and such small legs? | They can't do it for very long. Hippos can outrun you for maybe a few hundred feet before they need to rest. Just stay out of that range and you should be good. | Penguins have knees, they just have very very short legs, with their knees tucked underneath their long bodies. Penguins have disproportionately long and heavy bodies because they do not fly (and as a result cannot fly because of their long and heavy bodies). They need these bodies to survive in the cold, and their fastest method of transport is to swim or slide on ice, not to waddle, which is why they don't need to run. All birds have knees, but they are higher up than you think. Look at a flamingo, they don't have backwards knees. The "backward knees" of a flamingo are actually more like ankles, the knees being higher up and just below the hips, in the fluffy part of the bird. The long segment below the "backward knee" is actually more like the bridge of the foot, and the bird is standing on his toes. |
What's sticking around when a cast iron pan is being "seasoned"? | Hey OP, interesting question, as a chemist who enjoys cooking with my trusty cast iron skillet I had a great time looking into this for you. It was particularly difficult to find any scientific peer-reviews material on this topic but a company called Lodge that produces cast iron cookware has some great information on their website that I think might answer your question. For example: "Seasoning is simply oil baked into the pores of the iron that prevents rust and provides a natural, easy-release finish that continues to improve with use. Seasoning can refer to both the finish of the cookware as well as the ongoing process of maintaining that finish." Below is the link to their FAQ that should answer all of your cast iron related questions. Happy cooking! (don't put that badboy in the dishwasher!) _URL_0_ | IMHO it has nothing to do with the oil in the pan. I have my grandmother's skillet [probably 50+ years old.] I clean it with sea salt. I think it has to do with heat dispersal; that the iron transmits the heat more evenly than other materials. The food cooks evenly. |
Was there ever a plan to exterminate Native Americans? | Did the US ever attempt the systematic genocide of Native American people? No. Did the US: * Make treaties with tribes and then dishonor them and end up forcing the natives onto reservations where they would have no economic opportunity? * consistently make war with tribes in the US' relentless push Westward? * Intentionally infect native americans with smallpox? * Place native Americans in a system that amounted to cultural genocide with the expressed purpose to "kill the indian, save the man?" * Deliberately bring the buffalo incredibly close to extinction to undermine the economic power of tribes? All yes and probably a lot more I didn't include. | Hi there -- while you wait for more comprehensive answers, you may be interested in [this thread](_URL_0_), where u/snapshot52 goes into detail about the genocides committed against native Americans, including their removals from their land (e.g. the various groups removed in the Trail of Tears). |
Why has Traditional Chinese Medicine survived into modern times but not Traditional Korean/Vietnamese/Japanese medicine? | I think the question might be better worded as "why has Chinese medicine become so well-known internationally, and not Korean/Japanese/Vietnamese?" | Traditional Chinese Medicine uses herbs and powders and other natural ingredients to cure various ailments. They believe it will cure things such as impotence or even cancer. So, there's high demand for these items. |
What keeps the oxygen all over the earth from bursting into flames? | First off, oxygen itself doesn't actually burn, oxygen *facilitates burning* for other things. In order to have a flame you need something that oxidizes (like oxygen) and something that *can be oxidized* (like wood, metal, etc). Second, most things require a certain temperature before they will actually sustain burning (sometimes called an [autoignition temperature](_URL_0_)). Since the ambient temperature is typically below this temperature for most materials we encounter, they don't spontaneously combust. One last thing worth mentioning, the bulk of our atmosphere is nitrogen, which is more or less an inert gas. Now, just because things aren't catching on fire, that doesn't mean the oxygen our atmosphere isn't still reacting and damaging things. Atmospheric corrosion does occur (which is why exposed iron will rust), though water/humidity usually speeds this up. | Nothing. On Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune there's no oxygen (O2) to sustain combustion. I doubt your match would even light in the first place. Oxygen binds very readily with hydrogen and carbon to produce water (H2O) and carbon dioxide (CO2), which are more stable than diatomic oxygen. I only know of one mechanism cable of producing an atmosphere rich with diatomic oxygen, and that's photosynthesis. |
If humans as a race prevented all those with genetically related physical or psychological shortcomings from reproducing, in several generations would there be a marked improvement in the overall health of mankind? | Difficult to say. Genetics are complicated; not all congenital diseases (that is, diseases you have from birth) are passed to offspring. As well, not all genetic diseases show obviously until much later in life, or maybe not at all (but can still be passed on to offspring). At the end of the day, while a eugenics program may sound like a good idea, historically they've had some pretty bad results (like the Holocaust). Having kids is considered more or less a fundamental human right by a large portion of the population, hence why criminals and the mentally handicapped aren't sterilized (anymore). Basically, while there could be some health benefits to such a program, it would very rapidly become a political minefield. Also, sidenote: genetic diseases are much, much, much more common, and also much harder to define, than you would think. Damn near everyone has a genetic predisposition to some diseases, so drawing the line between "allowed to reproduce" and "not allowed" would be very tricky. | It could be. Certain speciation scenarios could lead to a bottleneck or founder effect. An example of this is [peripatric speciation](_URL_0_). The smaller founding population represents only a subset of the genetic variation sampled from the parent population, so this could potentially be detrimental. But keep in mind that speciation could occur even [in the face of gene flow](_URL_2_), so before the new population becomes completely reproductively isolated from its parent population, some exchanging of genes could alleviate the lack of genetic diversity. Edit: Just want to add that a bottleneck isn't a death sentence; it represents merely a hurdle to be overcome. There are populations that have bounced back from historic bottlenecks (in fact humans have gone through [at least one](_URL_1_)). Over time, as the population grows in size, genetic drift will have less of a homogenizing effect, and mutations will catch up to introduce even more heterozygosity. |
Why do we not have 4 year community colleges? | At least in the US, it's basically by definition. A "Community College" is also known as a junior college and generally only offer up to 2 year degrees or certifications. If they offered 4 year degrees they would then not be community college's anymore, and would be Universities. | It's a 2 year college based in a specific county. Generally only residents of the county it's based in can attend the community college. You can get an associate's degree there or transfer out to a 4 year college/university. Unfortunately they've gotten bad publicity of late because it's seen as low class to go to community college. It's a shame because community colleges are *a lot* cheaper than universities, so it's a good way to save money while pursuing a college degree. |
What did people have for breakfast in the 1920's | They were similar to continental breakfasts, with coffee and bread. Oatmeal was still pretty big in the north, while grits were the thing in the south. Orange juice was pretty commercialized at the time, so a wealthy family would have likely had orange juice. Bacon and Eggs were also a pretty normal meal at the time for breakfast, so they might have had that as well. Dry cereal also started to be more commercialized. Breakfast hasn't really changed too much since the 1920's. There's some mention of breakfast here (_URL_0_), but it focuses mostly on a lot of other foods. | There is a debate to be had about the relative merits of breakfast, but the answer to your question is very clear: _URL_0_ > Our reverence for breakfast is actually relatively recent. Before the late 19th century in the US, breakfast didn’t have any particular importance ascribed to it. But all that was changed by a small group of religious fanatics and lobbyists for cereal and bacon companies. |
The whole situation with FIFA and Garcia. | Basically, there were persistent allegations of corruption surrounding FIFA's award of the 2018 World Cup to Russian and particularly the award of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar. Fairly significant evidence of corrupt payments was uncovered by the press, particularly in the UK. FIFA decided to commission an investigation into the allegations, and hired Garcia to make that investigation. However, the report from that investigation was written by someone from FIFA. The report was released today, and clears Russia and Qatar of any wrongdoing. It does, however, make significant criticisms of the English bid. Now, Garcia has announced that the report is completely inaccurate, and does not reflect what his investigation uncovered. This is deeply embarrassing for FIFA - it deepens the feeling that they are trying to cover up their own corruption and pass the blame onto England, which has been one of their fiercest critics in the whole matter. | Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO): FIFA an…: _URL_0_ This guy explains it well |
Why is it that, to the average American, Adolf Hitler is considered much more villainous than Joseph Stalin when Stalin killed millions more innocent citizens (than Hitler did) in concentration camps similar to the Holocaust? | Don't underestimate the power of propaganda from WWII. People hate Hitler because they were told to hate Hitler. He was the one killing THEIR sons on the battleground. Stalin was fighting to PROTECT their sons. Everyone hated Hitler, and loved, no... tolerated Stalin. It wasn't til after that people found out about the soviet atrocities, and then the opinions were already formed. | The thing you have to remember is that Hitler was relatively young when he wrote Mein Kampf he was in his mid 30s and it was more then 10 years before he came to power. Whilst he never repudiated the more extreme points in the book he didn't speak of them once he became a "respectable" politician. So most people thought that Mein Kampf was the product of a youthful mind and that Hitler had changed in the years since. They thought he was actually embarrassed by the book. Hitlers Dark Charisma Laurence Ress The Coming of the Reich Richard Evans. |
How do scientists come up with names of drugs such as diphenhydramine and benzodiazepine? | Some drugs can also be named after their chemical structure. For instance, acetaminophen's chemical structure name is "para-**acet**yl**aminophen**ol" | OP should know that the same can be said about a lot of drugs, especially those used to treat psychiatric or neurological disorders. As an earlier poster mentioned, serendipity is often how many were discovered. Amytryptiline was first tested as an antihistamine/decongestant. Viagra as a treatment for hypertension. The theories that are used to explain their effects are discovered after the fact, and often those theories are based on fairly thin data sets. |
Is this a meteorite ? | I do not think it is. You can look around this internet for more "Identifying meteorite" but [this one](_URL_0_) is fairly helpful with a step by step guide. Edit- the reason I don't think it is a meteorite is because of the white colored minerals on it, and the bubbles. However you may want a second opinion because I have never seen a meteorite (but I have seen many that people have claimed to be). | Doesnt look like one; much too high silica content. Most meteorites have low (mafic - ultramafic) to very low (oxyde/sulphide) silica content. More likely a low- to medium-grade metamorphic rock (the pic could be clearer); perhaps a meta-sediment? |
Why isn't there any way for me to live without being ruled by some government? | [You can.](_URL_0_) If you live with any number of other humans you'll form some sort of a societal structure. Before long, you'll have yourself a primitive government. | Some people do not believe that governments do need to exist. THe government, through the implied threat of force & incarceration, forces you to pay taxes for things you may not approve of. You can *try* to refuse to pay taxes but, if they catch you, the government will either take what they say you owe them, throw you in jail or kill you trying to. You can't get out, regardless of what a few wingnut "sovereign citizen" types think. |
What happens to your vocal cords when you lose your voice? | Yo ho ho! Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained: 1. [ELI5: How does losing your voice work? ](_URL_9_) 1. [ELI5: What happens when you lose your voice? ](_URL_6_) 1. [ELI5: What happens when you "lose" your voice? ](_URL_8_) 1. [ELI5: What happens to our vocal chords when we lose our voice? ](_URL_7_) 1. [ELI5: what happens when you "lose your voice"? ](_URL_3_) 1. [ELI5: What's actually happening when you lose your voice? ](_URL_0_) 1. [ELI5:What is happening when you "lose your voice"? ](_URL_4_) 1. [ELI5: what exactly happens when you lose your voice? ](_URL_1_) 1. [ELI5 what happens when you're losing your voice. ](_URL_2_) 1. [ELI5 What happens medically when you lose your voice? ](_URL_5_) | You can think of your vocal cords as 2 "batwings" that are normally tucked away on either side of your trachea. When you want to talk, you unfold them so that they stick out from the sides a bit, but with enough space in between so that as air rushes past them they vibrate and generate a tone. You can stretch them tighter to make a higher pitch or loosen them to make a lower pitch, and you can change the shape of your mouth and lips in order to form words. In the case of a single cord being neatly removed by a surgeon, the remaining cord is still functioning normally so it participates in making sound as usual. However, the other cord is missing, which means that you're only generating 1/2 as much power (volume). You're also left with a rather large space for the air to escape through now (the space where the cord used to be) which gives the voice a breathy, airy, or whispery quality. |
Why is it pool water seems relatively cool when I enter, but then the air seems cooler still when I exit? (AND no, I didn't pee in the pool) | Pool water is relatively cool when you enter. When you exit, evaporative cooling takes place and makes you cooler. So both feelings are "right." | Water is much better than air (and a lot better than many other substances) at retaining heat. Oil, for instance, will heat a lot faster in a pan than the same amount of water will. It will also cool faster. So when in an ocean, a current or tide might take water that was warmer (for instances, water coming in from a shallow area that was warmed by the sun), you can feel the difference in water temperature as you pass into that new flow of water. Despite being surrounded by cooler water, the water that was warm retains its temperature for long enough to be noticeable. In pools, this might happen because wamed water can be introduced through jets in the side of the pool or from people peeing. |
Why is the sound of heart beats so unsettling? | The sound of a heartbeat can also be meant as an indication of the fight-or-flight response, where your heart begins pumping harder as a means to get your body ready for a spurt of action (like being chased by a lion, or needing to fight off an attacker) when your body surges with norepinephrine. Because we often hear our own heart thumping during this sympathetic nervous system response, some people may have a Pavlovian reaction to hearing it pounding through speakers. In other words, since our brain often hears our heart pounding when we're in trouble, it associates the two things and the sound can make you feel like you're in danger. | You're feeling your [flight-or-fight response](_URL_1_), which (among other things) winds up releasing [adrenaline](_URL_0_) into your bloodstream. The sharp change in heart beat and breathing rate, as well as the dilation of blood vessels, can make you hyper-aware of your heart beat at the same time that it is changing quickly. This can make it feel as though your heart as "skipped a beat." |
How are blood vessels, arteries, nerves, etc reattached up after surgery? | For major vessels, they sew them back together. This is a very tricky and difficult technique that typically requires a specialized vascular surgeon to ensure you get a tight seal that will heal correctly. Much more often they simply avoid these major vessels during surgery. With minor vessels, reconnecting them isn't necessary; the body will naturally grow new vessels to replace the ones lost fairly quickly. | They clamp major arteries, and use an IV to put fluids back into your body. For a minor surgery, the fluids are enough to keep your systemic pressure up while your body makes new blood. For major surgery, they give you whole blood or plasma, as needed. |
If I immediately rinse a dish after using it with hot water, will it be as clean as if I put it in the dishwasher? | Oils and fats are insoluble in water alone, and may cling to your dish as it's rinsed, later offering nutrients for bacteria to grow on. Soap/detergent is a surfactant that allows oils and fats to be more easily lifted off of surfaces and washed away with water. | Kinda. For bacteria? Just use soap and whatever temperature of water you want to use. Temperatures required to kill bacteria would certainly burn you. For dirt and grime? Use warm water which is better at removing solubles and particles. Warmer water has an increased solubility. |
A History of Korea between 1900 and 1950 | That's a huge range, with a *lot* going on. It would be helpful if you could at least let us know what you've already read about, or if you have some specific questions. In the meantime there is also a [Korea section](_URL_0_) in the reading list. | There are a few good recent books on the subject. [The Cleanest Race](_URL_1_) is the last one I've read. I also recommend [The History of Korea](_URL_0_) as a good place to get a general understanding of the history of Korea, which will lend itself well to understanding the North a bit more. [Nothing to Envy](_URL_2_) is pretty good as well. "Why is it the way it is" is too big to answer, which is why I recommend some reading instead. It might help you have a better foundation for being able to ask more specific questions. |
Why does counting sheep help you go to sleep? | It is more a cliche about counting sheep being boring and tiring than actually being an effective sleep aid. | Actually the counting sheep's doesn't work. I read something about it but I'm too lazy to do the research right now. Anyway what you have to do is take your head off things. Read a book, try to think about a movie. Don't watch TV or use your tablet because the blue light they emit is bad for your sleep. |
Why do shadows tend to be attracted by other shadows ? | Imagine two equally tall mounds of sand on a flat surface. Now, push the two mounds towards each other. You will notice that where the two mounds touch, the sand will combine and rise higher. The same occurs for shadows. A shadow's edge is never completely sharp due to diffraction, a property of light that blurs the edges. The farther away the shadow is from the object blocking the light, the more blurred the edges become. When two shadows come close together, in the overlapping regions, the light gets blocked twice, once by each shadow. The amount of light blocked must be considered separately per shadow. Imagine that the blurred part each blocks 50% of light. Then one shadow allows 50% of the light through and the second shadow blocks 50% of that. Therefore, the total blocking is 75% which is why it appears darker than each individual shadow, much like how the sand in the two mounds rises higher than the original mounds as the mounds come closer and closer. | Different light sources causing two overlapping shadows. The darker part is the double shadow, and the lighter part is where the shadow extends for either one light source or the other. |
Why didn't the US directly attack Hanoi, or the north in general during the Vietnam War? | It's because an attack in the North would almost certainly have forced China to take action, as it had done in the Korean War. American troops in the North would be directly on China's borders - which would probably result in direct confrontation and absolutely bring a risk nuclear war. Anyone who grumbles about America's "hands being tied behind its back" is forgetting this key point. The American wartime objective was to maintain an anti-communist government in South Vietnam, not destroy the government of the North. You might be interested in some histories that would help clarify things a bit better. I recommend the late John F. Guilmartin's *America in Vietnam: The Fifteen Year War*, and Lien-Hang T. Nguyen's *Hanoi's War: An International History of the War for Peace in Vietnam*. | They were afraid that if they invaded the north, the Chinese would intervene the same way they did in Korea. That is where the aphorism about not fighting land wars in asia is about. And the reason they went into laos and cambodia was to establish supply routes and safe havens. Had they not gone into those countries, the US could have surrounded Vietnamese units, cut off their supply lines, and destroyed them. Instead, the south Vietnamese would send supplies through neutral countries, where american troops and bombers couldn't go, and their units would retreat across the border rather than get surrounded. Imagine how obnoxious it would if you were playing tag, and your opponent had a bunch of no tag zones he could hide in. It was much the same situation for the US military. |
Why is liquid nitrogen preferred over water for cooling a CPU? | Yes it does, but liquid nitrogen has one very important property that allows it to cool stuff very effectively: It's boiling point is low enough that any heat added causes rapid boiling, which takes away dramatically more heat than just warming a fluid and drops the temp to the boiling point of the liquid. Water would take away a shitload of heat if you could run your CPU hot enough to boil it away quickly (it takes a whopping 40.65kJ/mol to vaporize vs 5.56kJ/mol for LN2). However the low boiling point of LN2 at -196C means it can: * Boil very rapidly (vaporizing many mols of LN2) * Hold the temp near the very low boiling point | People have done it, primarily in the context of overclocking competitions. However, it's a bad idea for a few reasons: 1) Different materials expand or contract at different rates when cooled. Additionally, low temperatures usually make things more brittle. This makes it fairly likely that you are severely reducing the lifetime of your electronic components. 2) These low temperatures makes it easy for water and ice to condense in your system. 3) While liquid nitrogen isn't the most expensive thing, it's still costly to keep refilling the liquid nitrogen as it boils off. So to answer your question, it can and has been done, though primarily as a stunt, and its going to be bad for your computer. |
Why is it that people tend to wake up right before their alarm clock goes off. | There are chemical processes occurring in your brain which affect a number of things relating to sleep, in particular blood pressure, which help to trigger your body to fall asleep or wake up. More than anything these processes love a routine, and if you're able to get yourself into one, protein levels (in particular PER) rise at predetermined times and you wake up before your alarm clock wakes you. | habit probably. if this is a daily alarm at the same time everyday then your body gets used to it getting up at that time. |
Is there a scientific explanation for why children and even adults are so preoccupied with ‘fair’? | It is definitely a topic that spans across several scientific disciplines. And it isn't just kids or adults learning a social convention. Animal behavior researchers have [performed experiments](_URL_5_) that demonstrates even animals instinctively understand the notion of fairness. This is a rabbit hole I've often been tempted to explore myself, but have been too busy to do so. Definitely looking forward to others' insights offered here. | While "fairness" is an inherently subjective metric, [this post might help provide context and a base for your own judgement.](_URL_0_) |
Why does your stomach feel like it's sinking when you're anxious? | Your stomach responds to stress by shutting off non vital systems and pulling blood to your heart and brain. Your stomach isn't considered a vital system, and so it basically stops flexing the muscles keeping everything in place, and so whatever was in your stomach or intestines has one less thing stopping it from leaving. | A lot of the sensation of being hungry comes from your brain and not your stomach. You often feel hungry in response to changes in your blood sugar level rather than the fullness or emptyness of your stomach or intestines. When you actually do feel pain or discomfort from your abdomen while being hungry, that means that part of your stomach or intestines are actually empty of food and bile, but the involuntary muscular contractions that help you digest food are still taking place. A 'bubble' may actually be a pocket of gas from digesting starchy food being moved back and forth by these contractions. It may also be air you swallowed. Most of the time it's just your stomach or intestines writhing, though. Nice image, huh? |
How do I hear music in white noise? | White noise contains thousands of different frequencies. Your mind can subconsciously focus on certain frequencies, sometimes making up what you perceive as tunes. Also, take a look at [auditory hallucination](_URL_0_). | Many people are stimulated by sound. We hear sound around us all the time, and we enjoy listening to the sounds that we hear, whether it be music, or conversation. A lack of sound can be associated with loneliness or awkwardness. For example, if you're driving with someone, and after a while the conversation dies down, your first instinct will probably be to turn up the radio. White noise is relaxing because it is a constant sound, and it doesn't draw attention to itself. Music is difficult to tune out since the aesthetic of most music is to keep our attention. White noise breaks the silence while allowing your brain to wander. |
Why does the House "always win" in gambling? | The odds of winning any gambling are set out so the house always has an advantage. This is usually just a few points of a percentage (0.verylittle) but over tens of millions of dollars pouring through a casino, this leads to millions in profit. You basically have like a 49% chance of winning, so over thousands of plays, the casino ALWAYS ends up ahead. Even professional gamblers, who earn their living my playing poker or blackjack, games they can manipulate, only manage to get to 51% or 52% win rate, however they make their money by betting high when they know they a higher than average chance of winning | When gambling, the casino in which you're playing is referred to as "the house" and the odds are stacked WAAAAAAYYYY in favor of the casino winning on any given hand, so that overall, a casino almost literally cannot lose money. That expression can be used similarly to "home field advantage" outside the gambling world. Basically, whoever's place you're at will have set things in their own favor. |
Why do metro stations not have a glass wall between the tracks and the balcony? | Because it requires the train to stop at the exact same spot, every time. Here in Toronto we have no barriers between the platform (what you call the balcony) and the tracks. The drivers of the train decide when to brake, and how hard to brake, and how fast to slow down. There is a[ large red dot](_URL_0_) on the walls that tells them where the front of their train should stop, but they are usually off by several feet. One time, right after we had upgraded all of our trains, a driver wasn't used to the new brakes and overshot the station by a few cars. Took a few minutes for them to figure out how to reverse so they could finally open the doors. So yes, you can have barriers between the platform and tracks, but it requires an automated system that stops the train at the exact same point every time, not off by an inch, and that is a complicated system to design, and expensive to overhaul the existing system. | The pillars add significant strength in the event of a roll over accident. Also glass becomes much more expensive the larger it gets. |
why do stomach cramps and bugs drain your entire life force | Stomach bugs, which are either virus or bacteria, actually harm the soft lining of your stomach and/or intestines, by either producing toxins or attaching directly to your digestive tract and reproducing. That alone causes a fair degree of pain, and much of the fatigue is because your body is spending a lot of its energy sending immune cells to try to kill off the Invaders. | Mainly due to stress. Epinephrine and Norepinephrine is released in your body giving you the "flight or fight" response. Other hormones such as cortisol also contribute to this. This results in blood being drawn away from your stomach and pumped more into your muscles, because during times of stress, your body is more focused on your somatic (muscles) response rather than digestion. This lack of blood in your stomach gives you that "sick to the stomach" kind of pain. |
German Brides After World War 2? | I don't know what you would consider a "large number", but american men did marry german women after WW2. This was initially discouraged by the US military as "fraternisation with the enemy", but the policy was soon relaxed. Americans were immensely popular in post-war Germany, as they were seen as rich and offered a way out of poverty and even starvation. I found german-languages secondary sources that mention 20.000 marriages until 1949. That source also claims that in many cases - especially if the father was black - no permission to marry was granted. Other sources mention 15.000 marriages and up to 200.000 children born out of wedlock. The federal statistics office counts around 100.000 children born to a german mother and an american father. | [SMS Goeben](_URL_0_) This German battlecruiser was caught in the Med at the beginning of the War and sailed for safe harbor in the Ottoman Empire. Germany handed her over to the Turks, but her officers and most of her crew remained German. In defiance of orders, they bombarded Russian positions and fired on Russian ships in the Black Sea, thus bringing to a boil the long-simmering tension between the two countries and causing Russia to declare war. EDIT: Spelling |
How can the Tesla Roadster accelerate at 1.5g with rubber tires? | You don't need to be pressing down on the ground with the same force that you're pulling forward. There's something called the coefficient of friction, and the reason for rubber tires on asphalt roads is because those two materials have a very high coefficient of fiction between them. There should be some online resources explaining the forces of friction, it's a high school physics topic. | [The Formula 1 website](_URL_0_) claims that modern F1 cars achieve 3.5g of lateral cornering force. Unless the tires have a coefficient of friction higher then 1, this would require a down-force higher than 3.5g. Any down-force greater than 1g would allow a car to temporarily stick to the ceiling of a circular tunnel, but leave no margin for traction for braking or acceleration. In order to actually "drive" on the ceiling, one would need more down-force. If a car with 3.5g of down-force drove on the ceiling, it would have the handling traction of 2.5g, essentially being less able to brake and accelerate but still very agile. One danger is that the down-force will be speed dependent. Drag force is approximately proportional to velocity squared. What this means is that as the car slows down, it rapidly loses the ability to stick to the roof, and the ability to speed up again. |
What exactly is ear wax and why does it exist? | Ear wax is a type of sweat and keeps the inner ear moisturized. It's also a natural insect repellent. So it probably exists because it was an evolutionary advantage to not have bugs crawling around in our ears. | Earwax is made from glands of the external auditory canal (which are basically modified sweat glands if I recall it well enough), and also dead epidermal cells. It is thought to be a protective mechanism for the auditorium canal against infections and other trauma and is also a way to remove dead cells from it. Bonus tip: you don't really have to clean your ears , and it is actually dangerous to do so, since wax is reabsorbed. |
How do you ban a meme and what does it actually mean for those affected? | Memes aren’t really banned, there are just stronger copyright protections now in Europe . It has an impact because most of the pictures used in memes belong to someone else. Someone took that picture. It’s their intellectual property. You can’t just take someone else’s image, put some text over the top of it, and distribute it. You’d almost certainly still be completely in the clear if you were using 100% self created material and not appropriating someone else’s work. In the USA we have something called “fair use” that allows people to get around copyrights for certain cases (parodies being one of them). | "Banning memes" is not what the law is directly about, that would probably end up being a side effect however. What the EU suggests is for social media platforms to scan user uploads for copyrighted content and block anything that might contain it, a la YouTube's Content ID. Since "memes" are often based on sceenshots of movies, etc, some people have spun the law into "banning memes". The law in itself is highly problematic however (as are most Internet laws that governments try to push through) as it could be abused for implementing censorship of *legal* content and it would require quite a lot of computational power which smaller websites may simply not have. |
I believe I can safely use a 75-watt-equivalent LED bulb in my 40-watt-rated table lamp because the LED only uses 13 watts. Is my logic faulty? | You should be OK doing this, because what matters is the amount that the bulb actually uses. The lamp can provide up to 40 watts safely without risk of fires or other issues. The equivalency rating is just there to let people compare its brightness to the bulbs that we are all accustomed to using, since most people wouldn't know what to expect if the rating were in lumens or candlepower. | You should always use the recommended wattage bulb, ~~but I am fairly certain~~ and I am positive that the wattage rating is the maximum recommended wattage, so using a lower wattage should be fine. If your lamp is blowing up bulbs at or below the wattage rating, it's probably a faulty bulb, or a faulty lamp. Don't set your house on fire! |
Why my eyes get red in pictures and what can I do to avoid this? | The red you are seeing is the inside of your eye, behind your pupil. This is part of the natural anatomy of your eye, so the only ways to stop it is to turn the flash off when you take the picture. If you are okay with editing in post, most editors have a "red eye" feature that "fixes" this because it is so common. | Decreased blood pressure. In the eyes, a dilation of the ocular capillaries occurs, encouraging the blood flow through the eyes and effectively causing red eyes. |
How can companies put "100% Satisfaction Guaranteed" on their products. Isn't "Satisfaction" subjective? | Simple, tell them you are not fully satisfied and they will give you a replacement or refund/credit for the purchase, depending on the stated warranty. They have to do so by law regardless of the reason, at least in the US. **EDIT:** Since people are doubting me (and haven't read the guarantee on products they bought): > In the United States, the Magnuson–Moss Warranty Act of 1976 provides for enforcement of a satisfaction guarantee warranty. In these cases, the advertiser must refund the full purchase price regardless of the reason for dissatisfaction. _URL_0_ | My general rule is if someone is aggressively trying to sell me something, it's a piece of shit. Good products sell themselves on value and merit. |
How come VW cars release more emissions, while at the same time being more fuel efficient, and release more emissions while burning more fuel? | It's different kinds of emissions. Diesel engines are better for carbon emissions, but worse for nitrogen emissions. The VW firmware was designed to ramp down nitrogen emissions during tests. | Efficiency. If you burn more fuel per cycle, that can up power output. But, if you make each ‘burn’ more efficient - extracting more useful energy - you increase power that way too. Typically, increasing engine compression ratio will do this; although it comes with problems which must be controlled. The more heat energy you can direct towards driving pistons, instead of being lost to the cooling system or out of the exhaust, the more efficient your engine will be for a given amount of fuel. Petrol engines are typically 25% thermally efficient, diesels are 40%. This isn’t just down to differing fuels, the compression ratios are very different too. |
Why didnt colonial France and Britain "take" the holy lands for themselves when they controlled it? Why didnt they fulfill the original missions of the crusades? | The British and French did keep Syria and Palestine. They maintained control for about 30 years, until a combination of anti-colonial sentiment at home, local insurgencies and economic pressure after WWII forced them to withdraw. Also, the French decision to separate Lebanon from Syria was partly due to the latter being Christian majority at the time. That being said, the 20th century motivations were completely different to the 13th century motivation. | Though their duties and nature changed over time, Christian orders such as Knights Templars and others were created by Western European Christians to protect the lives and interests of christians and christian pilgrims in Holy Lands. Since holy lands were essentially foreign lands for western Europeans, these orders were created as institutions to protect their interest in distant lands as response time from europe will be too long if there is urgent need. Saracens in the other hand were native to the region had no need for such orders and institutions and therefore there were no crusade specific institutions on Muslim side.That being said there have always been armed groups throughout Islamic history pursuing one goal or another and all these groups comes under the umbrella term of "Mujahideen". Similarly infamous Nizari Ismaili order of Assassins was active during the period of crusades and Syrian branch of the order sided with Saracens and fought against crusaders in 2nd and 3rd crusade. |
Is gravitational acceleration on earth an exact value, or does it have a standard deviation from experiments that tried to measure it? | Any measurement of it will have a standard error associated with it, but the value itself [varies across the planet](_URL_0_) due to its rotation, shape, and composition. There is a "standard gravity" which is defined as 9.80665 m/s/s. | One "g" is equal to 9.8m/s^2 of acceleration, so any acceleration can be measured in "g"s. It's all a simple application of [Newton's laws of motion](_URL_0_). |
Have we ever observed a star going supernova? (or undergoing any other transformation) | [Here is a timelapse of the 1987 supernova](_URL_0_) | Stars don't reform from a single supernova. When a supernova occurs, the majority of the mass is has velocity greater than escape velocity. This is to say, it's moving away from the original star faster than gravity can pull it back. There have been measurements of ejecta moving at 1/10 the speed of light. You can read more about it here: _URL_0_ In general, stars form in what is known as star forming regions (creative naming, I know). This are regions with a lot of hydrogen gas and often dust from other supernova. However it would be an amalgamation of dust from many supernova. The effect of each individual supernova is "washed out" by the others, and in a more general sense "washed out" by time. |
Why is the drinking age the US 21? | _URL_0_ > The National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 (23 U.S.C. § 158) was passed on July 17, 1984 by the United States Congress as a mechanism whereby all states would become thereafter required to legislate the age of 21 years as a minimum age for purchasing and publicly possessing alcoholic beverages. Under the Federal Aid Highway Act, a state with a minimum age below 21 would be subjected to a ten percent decrease in its annual federal highway apportionment The wikipedia page has a good overview, and takes you from Prohibition (which made alcohol entirely illegal in the United States for a period of time) all the way through the passage of the act in question, even citing the statistics used to advocate for the bill. | Mothers Against Drunk Driving heavily lobbied the federal government to withhold federal highway funding from states that refuse to set the drinking age to 21. They caved. 18-21 year olds are easy to beat in a lobbying/political influence fight because so few of them vote and virtually none of them hold public office. |
What is a prefecture? | In modern Japan a prefecture is an administrative district that is similar to a state or province in other countries. | A state is a self-governing territory, usually with some degree of sovereignty. States can either be independent (controlled by no other nation/state) or autonomous (contained/controlled by some other nation/state like US state or Catalonia in Spain). A province is an administrative subdivision of a larger independent nation or state. The word "administrative" is key because provinces are usually created to administer laws created by a larger authority (like a national government) because it would be too difficult for the nation proper to do so itself. |
What is a prefecture? | Essentially the same with some minor differences ie states technically have independent governments while prefectures are subdivisions of the country | A state is a self-governing territory, usually with some degree of sovereignty. States can either be independent (controlled by no other nation/state) or autonomous (contained/controlled by some other nation/state like US state or Catalonia in Spain). A province is an administrative subdivision of a larger independent nation or state. The word "administrative" is key because provinces are usually created to administer laws created by a larger authority (like a national government) because it would be too difficult for the nation proper to do so itself. |
What determines the size of a given star? | A star is a competition between the inward force of gravity, and the outward pressure caused by the fusion reactions. Quite simply, if a star is formed from more available material, it will be more massive. But mass is not always proportional to the physical volume. [This website](_URL_2_), while ugly, does go over some of the different stages, and the relative effect on the size of the star, of the star lifecycle. | You are partially correct - hydrogen fusion in the core of the star does stop, causing the star to decrease in size for a short time. When this happens, however, the now-helium core contracts enough to meet the conditions for helium fusion. Helium fusion heats up the outer shell of the star, allowing hydrogen fusion to occur outside of the core. The combined helium and hydrogen fusion increases the luminosity greatly and expands the star into a red giant. _URL_0_ |
Why did life develop biological genders? | There has been some discussion of this here and elsewhere online. You might find better search results if you use the correct search term `sexes` since "genders" technically refers to language, not biology. | It is probably better to ask why can those animals change gender? |
Why isn't the KKK illegal? | The First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech. Nowadays, the KKK isn't as violent as it used to be. They pretty much just say stupid things about how interracial relationships "don't work" but don't actually do anything. They almost certainly wouldn't get away with killing anyone nowadays. | Because there's nothing illegal about what they do. The first amendment protects everybody, including hateful assholes like them, and religious freedom allows them to teach that crap to their kids. |
Can you generously explain what Stem Cell is (likeimfive)? | 1. Stem cells are cells that become like other cells you put them with. If you put a heart cell with kidney cells, it remains a heart cell; if you put a stem cell with kidney cells it becomes a kidney cell. They are produced when you are created and become less common after birth. 2. The benefits are that they help build you and will hopefully one day be able to be used to replaced worn out parts of your body. 3. Some people have trouble having babies, so they take out some eggs from mom and some sperm from dad and create many embryos that can then be used to try to make babies using modern medicine. When mom and dad are done having kids there might be embryos left over. Some people feel these frozen embryos are people and that using them for medical experiments in unethical (and since the experiments destroy the embryo are the same as an abortion). 4. Too many views to list. 5. It appears that we might, some things already exist. | We can grow bone from stem cells by using stromal cells found in the bone marrow. This has been known since the 1950s. Here's a much more detailed and thorough explanation on stem cells and stromal cells. _URL_0_ |
Does a rebuke of the ‘great man history ‘ sometimes lead to predeterminism | "Sometimes" is a weasle word, but yes, the "great forces" view of history can lead to a disparaging of agency (e.g. choice) and various flavors of determinism (some of these approaches, like Marxism, are explicitly deterministic). There are of course ways around this; one need not embrace a totally anti-individual view of history to not think the "Great Man" view of history is bunk. Most historians tend to try and identify the relative contributions from "forces" and from "individuals" — they are not actually incompatible ideas (forces make the context that can give individuals the power of agency, which in turn modifies the context). | Hi! You've touched on an incredibly important and very difficult issue in the study of history. Namely, that the way we study history has changed significantly over time, and the modern idea of critically examining the sources for bias is (unfortunately) very, very recent. There's a huge amount of interesting stuff to get into, and in the interest of not re-treading any ground, here's a collection of excellent answers from past questions on your exact topic! _URL_0_ To pick a few of the juicier ones, here's a piece on the modern handling of historical bias, by /u/mhbeals. _URL_1_ An example of older methods that you may have been exposed to before, namely 'Great Men History', popular around the 19th century, still influences many entry-level books and interpretations today. Needless to say, it's flawed, but useful in some ways. Here's an excellent in-depth write-up on this concept, by /u/LordHussyPants. _URL_2_ Cheers. |
Why do too sweet or too salty things make us thirsty? | The hypothalamus in the brain continually measures the osmotic value of blood, which is a measure that indicates the "concentration" of blood. When consuming salt, simple sugars (glucose, fructose) or food rich in electrolytes, the osmotic value of blood rises, i.e. the blood is more concentrated. This is noted by the hypothalamus which then in turn leads to a sensation of thirst. Drinking water will dilute blood and thus lower the osmotic concentration back to normal. | You know how eating salt on it's own makes you thirsty? Well when you put salt on the slug it gets so thirsty it dies because it gets too dry on the inside to live. Getting dry on the inside is called dehydration and we drink water, juice and other drinks so the same thing doen't happen to us. |
How does an artist make eyes follow the onlooker? | Simply by drawing or photographing the subject looking directly forward (towards the camera, if photographing). Since drawings and photographs are 2-dimensional, it doesn't matter which angle you look at it from, you are essentially always seeing the view from directly ahead. So if the subject is looking directly ahead, they will always appear to be looking at you. | the simple version is that they shine a laser UP, and watch for it's reflection/refraction in the air. then, they apply the opposite of that reflection to the image they record, and end up with a pretty clear image. someone will likely give a more detailed answer, but that's the simple version. |
Why do I dream when I sleep on my back, but not when I sleep on my stomach? | You probably have sleep apnea. Sleep apnea can be caused by your tongue falling back in your throat and restricting your air supply. When humans enter REM sleep, their bodies go entirely limp, this is usually when your tongue falls back into your throat. Its much more likely to happen when you are on your back (for obvious reasons). When your tongue restricts your air supply, you blood oxygen levels fall, and you are aroused (not sexually, unless you are into that sort of thing). People dream all the time, every night. The vast majority of dreams we don't remember due to the inhibition of memory creation during REM sleep. BUT, when you are awoken directly from a dream state, you are much more likely to remember that dream. tl;dr: While you dream every night, you are more likely to remeber a dream when you are woken up during one. Sleeping on your back causes your tongue to suffocate you and wake you up, leading to more dreams being remembered. | This is purely speculative, but your brain paralyzes your body during sleep, hence the feelings of heaviness or 'falling' when near-REM. What occurs in your subconscious tends to take cues from whatever sensory input you're still aware of (for instance, the sound of an alarm clock tends to manifest itself in the dream narrative in some way) and so it was probably factoring the state of your actual body into your movement. Then again, as with all dream phenomena it could just be the unknowable whims of the subconscious. |
Why does it seem hotter to stand still in the sunlight than it does to walk in the sunlight? | When you walk you invoke a slight breeze on your skin which transfers heat away from your body more effectively. | The vast majority of the time it is in shadow and therefore not in direct contact with sunlight. |
The different chapters of bankruptcy protection. | I know chapter 9 is for cities, my fine city of Detroit filed for that a year or so ago. | The disclaimer is a good way of discovering who in your friends list has a high school level understanding of contracts and End-User License Agreements, Terms of Service, etc. Legally it holds as much ground as going outside and saying, "I declare bankruptcy" does to ease your debts. |
how automatic ice cube machines work. | Water fills a large tray, it freezes, a timer makes the ice tray fall and that's about it. | This video really needs a better description. What you're looking at is an induction heater, which is heating a piece of metal frozen inside the block of ice. The metal gets red hot very quickly, so the ice hasn't had time to melt before the metal starts to glow. |
What Evidence is there for evolution on a larger scale? | A great example is Darwin's Finches as studied by Peter and Rosemary Grant. They reported that a new species of finches may have arisen in the Galapagos within a few generations. I think this is what you are implying, evolution somewhere between the microscopic and macroscopic scales. You can read more about it [here](_URL_0_). | We can be sure that evolution did in fact occur because we've observed it both in nature and in the lab. Dogs are an example of "guided evolution", we bred them to change their characteristics. We've also seen bacteria evolve generation to generation within a lab. The fossil record is paramount for studying the long-term evolution that we can't personally observe. The fossil record is pretty clear in terms of watching features appear (or disappear). For example, we can trace whales back to when they lived on land by watching their rear legs (currently little bony stubs that are invisible from the outside) get longer and grow as you go further back in time. |
Why do some humans find it calming to look at the ocean or at a gorgeous view? | Gorgeous views and water are usually associated with a fertile land, either for agriculture or hunting/gathering. It is my presumption that we are attracted to it because it is beneficial to us, and this manifests itself in a pleasant feeling...sort of like men are attracted to women with symmetrical youthful faces and good waist to hip ratios. To you, this woman is "gorgeous" but what your brain is actually saying is that she is fertile. Again, this is manifested as "pleasant to look at." | When the eyes are relaxed, they focus on distant objects. I suspect it doesn't necessarily look "better," it's just more relaxing. |
Historically, which methods have been most successful in resolving territorial disputes? | I guess one must ask as to how you define "resolved". For example, ownership of the Falklands islands was very much resolved after the 1982 war in that outside of some hot air, it is highly unlikely that Argentina is ever going to have another crack at them. Similarly, Japan's crack at China or Korea, though they both cause great dislike of the Japanese by both those nations, is unlikely to see a resurgence of Japanese aggression. Heinlein's quote against the phrase "violence never settles anything" is "tell the people of Hiroshima that." Even if an agreement is signed, it's often as a result of military force, or at least an acceptance that one side is a lot bigger than the other economically or militarily, so there is no point in even trying the military route, and the ownership becomes accepted without violence. I guess one might make an argument for he Hong Kong handover. Not that the British ever truly claimed Hong Kong as integral territory, but return of control happens on schedule per agreement. | Borders typically arose naturally as A) significant geographical features (mountain ranges, rivers, etc.); and B) the furthest extent a central authority could defend. Border disputes were resolved, historically by A) fighting over it and winning; or B) verbally agreeing to it. In the modern day, borders are typically established by a treaty that explicitly says what defines the border usually a geographical feature or some degree of latitude or longitude. |
What would happen if the US exported LNG to Europe? | The Russian economy would tank, the US would have closer economic ties with Europe, and the Americans will start making even more money. European states would have much more leverage when dealing with Russia, and Russia would have to either search even harder for new customers, or accept that their place in the world is not secure. Of course, that's just a pipe dream at the moment. As it stands, the US doesn't really have any way to export much gas to Europe. None of the infrastructure is there yet. And even if it did, it's almost certainly going to be more expensive than the Russian alternative meaning that no one is going to want to buy the American gas anyway. At best, we're looking at years down the road before it's plausible. | This is exactly what will happen, unless US consumers boycotted the now-inflated Mexican goods to the point where the wall cost is not reimbursed. If that were to happen it means US taxpayers still paid for a wall that was never reimbursed. Trump's end goal here is to get US companies to move their manufacturing operations back to the US. For that to be accomplished, those companies would have to undergo major layoffs to pay for the cost of moving back. That doesn't help the lower or middle class of America. That helps Trump fulfill a campaign promise. Import tariffs don't work. 1920's Protectionism & Smoot-Hawley taught us that much. |
Why was the Concorde's nose pointed down during takeoff? Wouldn't that cause more force downwards? | Pointing it upwards would likely be detrimental, actually, probably creating more drag than lift. The actual reason it moved is much more simple than aerodynamics - when it was in the horizontal position, the pilots couldn't see the runway! The [Wikipedia article](_URL_0_) covers the reasons, and also details how it was used. I suspect the extra drag wasn't much of a concern at those low speeds, with the nose instead being important for supersonic flight. | The nose is so sharp there's no room for the cockpit near the tip. Also, when landing, the plane is pitched up with a high angle of attack (the wing needs that angle to produce lift at low speed), and so with that socking big nose cone in the way, the pilots can't see anything. So they figured out that you can rotate the nose cone down to give the pilots a clear view at low speed. At higher speeds the cone pivots up and is straight. |
Why are positive particles given high Kinetic Energy during Nuclear Reactions? | Do you mean that the reactants in a fusion reaction have a high kinetic energy? This is indeed because they need to overcome the repulsive coulomb interaction between them. As you can see [here](_URL_0_), most common fusion processes occur between 10 and 1000 keV, where the steep drop at low energies is due to the Gamow factor, which describes the probability that a pair of particles with a given energy can overcome coulomb repulsion. At low energies they will just repel each other, but when the energy is high enough there is a non-negligible chance that they will tunnel through the coulomb barrier and fuse. | Yes. When you collide particles at sufficiently high energies, you can produce more particles. This is turning kinetic energy into matter. |
How does the Obama administration justify removing the tax credit from the college 529 savings plan? | > I realize many middle to low income families don't know about this and therefore don't take advantage of it That was pretty much the basis of the argument. 529's are overwhelmingly used by wealthy families, so they labeled it as a tax break for the rich. | It had a new tax bundled with it. It wouldn't encourage anybody to go to school since it mainly dealt with past debt. It would cost the government money. It just rewards people who already entered into a contract they now regret at the expense of the people who didn't. Unlike when the government did this for housing, there's not a resale market that needs to be propped up. I don't know why they didn't vote for it, but those are reasons why I could see somebody not supporting it. I can't see most Republicans supporting any of those things. |
What did a telephone operator exactly do? | They literally [operated the phone switchboard ]( _URL_0_) Before direct dial, you would connect to the central exchange and inform the operator which line you needed connected to. The operator would then physically connect you to the appropriate exchange and number. For instance if you were in the Brookdale exchange in your town and wanted to reach Pennsylvania 6-5000, the operator would first route you to the exchange named Pennsylvania, then you'd be connected to the Pennsylvania 6 exchange who would get you to the 5000 number. Long distance was a similar process of exchanges. Starting first to the long distance operator, then down to the number you were calling. EDIT: I should add, after direct dial, you still had operators who would provide directory assistance, route long distance calls, and provide other customer service. | Back in the day, people had to pick up the phone and ask the operator to switch their call to the person they wanted to talk to. Now these jobs aren't done by people, they're done by machines in which we enter phone numbers into. What's happening at your pizza place is pretty much the same thing that killed the operator - the call is being routed by a computer in a call center. Here's the basic steps: 1. Computer receives the call but does not answer. 2. It uses your caller ID information to determine your location. 3. It starts a new call and dials the local shop. 4. When the local shop picks up, your call is immediately answered and connected to it. 5. When either you or the shop hangs up, both calls the computer is dealing with are ended. This makes it *look* like you called the local number, when in fact both you and the pizza place are actually talking through this call center. You can imagine this "connection" to be like holding two phones together, mic-to-speaker, so other people can talk. |
Why is it that some hospitals have a religious association in their title (Methodist, Baptist, etc)? | Because the hospital is either currently associated with that denomination, or was founded by that denomination. Same with faith based postsecondary institutions. For example: "Washington Adventist University" | I do need to add that religious hospitals aren't unique to the US. I know at least two Catholic hospitals in Amsterdam: St. Lucas Andreas Hospital, and the Our Lady Hospital. The reason for this was a Dutch phenomenon called [pillarisation](_URL_0_), in which different religious and political societies barely had any interaction with each other for decades. |
where our reasoning and restraint go when we purchase a popcorn and soda at the theater for 15 dollars when we wouldn't ever purchase it at this price anywhere else. | They use a psychological trick called "anchoring". Here is how it works: You walk up to the counter and see popcorn for sale. $8.50 for a small bag of popcorn? No sane person would pay that much. But wait, there is a mega-jumbo container of popcorn for only $9.50- only a dollar more! Sounds like a deal! You happily pay for your popcorn and go enjoy the movie. So what happened? The movie theater used the regular size popcorn to set or "anchor" your expectations. Then they offered the large size. Instead of seeing the large popcorn as $9.50, you saw the huge difference in size between the small and large and you saw it as only $1. You determined that the popcorn was worth $1 and decided to make the purchase. | During the late 1800's, popcorn was being sold in the United States by vendors on the street, in parks at Carnivals and Fairs. Some years later, when street vendors started setting up outside movie theatres, they were not welcome, at least as far as the theatre owners were concerned. They thought the vendors were a distraction. But movie goers didn't agree. They went out on the sidewalk in droves to buy bags of yummy popcorn before going back inside to see the movie. Movie theatre owners have always had a keen eye for profits. So a few of the smarter ones asked the vendors to come inside and split whatever they made from their popcorn sales with the theatre. Of course it wasn't long until the theatre owners realized they could set up their own popcorn popper and send the vendor packing... And that's apparently how the movie snack bar came to be. |
Does the refractive index of a gas change with level of ionization? | Plasma physics is not my area of expertise, and wave propagation in plasmas is not a simple topic, however the index of refraction (kc/ω) in a plasma often depends on the electron plasma frequency, which depends on the electron number density. For example, see the [Appleton-Hartree equation](_URL_0_), which applies for cold, magnetized plasmas. The degree of ionization of the plasma affects the electron and ion number densities, which affects the electron and ion plasma frequencies. | Yes, sorta. The entire point of the "emission spectrum" is that there are specific orbital changes available and when an electron drops down to a lower energy orbital it emits a photon with a very specific amount of energy. So an ionized atom has completely lost or gained an electron from/to one of those available orbitals...if you're starting from an ionized substance you'll have slightly stronger or weaker lines for the appropriate orbitals but the difference is so weak you pretty much can't detect it. I'm sure there's someone working in optics who can state the exact difference and how to observe it but it's really just not a significant value as you're already viewing billions of atoms with electrons emitting at that wavelength so having them a little more predisposed to do so isn't something we've generally looked after...to my knowledge. |
Why do people shake when they are angry? | It's adrenaline, anger induces adrenalind. It causes muscles to twitch, therefore its technically more ready to do something. Usually when you're angry you feel the need to move either in a violent or escaping from situation. Fight or flight in a nutshell. | Anger is stress. Stress tends to trigger your "fight or flight" instinct. Verbal fighting, instinctively, is roaring. So, we "roar" to gain/show dominance over a threat. |
What happens if you heat propane to 2000F without any oxygen? | What you are talking about is called pyrolysis. Different temperatures, pressures and/or catalysts will give different results. Without oxygen, you can only break down and reform what was always present. With propane, you could get a number of different compounds (and mixtures of them). Some google searching yields plenty of specific answers: For example, these guys found (mainly) the following compounds - CH4, C2H4, C3H6, C2 and C2H6 for temperatures between 600 and 800 C: _URL_0_ As you can see, the C3H8 molecule has been broken up and re-formed to yield the compounds listed. | It is always a matter of temperature. [Here is a list](_URL_0_). White phosphorus starts burning in air at 34°C. Silane (a gas) starts burning even at room temperature. Triethylborane might start a fire even in your fridge. It is often used to start rocket or spacecraft engines. |
Does magnetic levitation allow friction to occur? | Maglevs are real, many have been built They are not subject to friction between the train and the track, their top speed is limited by air resistance. Some configurations of magnets do have some magnetic drag due to interacting fields, but this is distinctly different from friction | sure. The magnets both levitate and propel the train. It's just a matter of having enough power to overcome the incline. In this regard the maglev train would perform better than a traditional train because a maglev train does not rely on wheels and friction. |
Why does a 20x30 rectangle have less area than a 25x25 square, when the perimeter of each is the same? | > I can do the math and understand that this is the case, but I simply cannot wrap my head around this. The shape with the smallest perimeter-to-area ratio is the circle. It's not possible to cram more space in a smaller perimeter. Thus the closer a shape is to being a circle, the more area it covers for the same perimeter. A square is closer to being a circle than a rectangle is, and thus a square of a given perimeter will cover a larger area than a rectangle of the same perimeter. | Frankly the best way to imagine this is probably the way kids learn it: with unit squares. Imagine you have a number of squares each one unit (let's say an inch) in length. The area of each square is one square inch; I think that should be more or less self-evident. Now take some number of those squares and arrange them in a row. Let's say you take 5. This shape has five squares' worth of area. Now add a second row of 5 on top to make a new shape. If you count all the squares there are 10, so this shape is 10 squares. Add another row and it's 15 squares. The pattern that quickly becomes apparent is that if you have a rectangle, the total number of "squares" (i.e. units of area) that it takes up is equal to the length of one side multiplied by the length of the other. |
Why don't we have any supersonic propeller driven aircraft? | As the tips of a spinning propeller approach the speed of sound shockwaves form that disrupt the propellors ability to generate thrust. On typical propellor designs this occurs well before the aircraft itself reaches the sound barrier. If you got a propellor driven aircraft past the speed of sound (and some have while diving toward the ground) then the shockwaves caused by the airflow would disrupt the blades even more. If you look at supersonic jets like Concorde or the F15, they have diagonal inlets ahead of the engine that can be partially closed to slow the air down - which would be impractical to do with a propeller | I grew up in a country where supersonic military jets would fly overhead on a somewhat regular basis. If you've not experienced a sonic boom, consider yourself lucky. You may be thinking "How bad can it be?" - it's as if bomb went off really close. It's loud enough that windows rattle and stuff falls off shelves. Basically, a supersonic commercial aircraft (and that includes private planes) would not be allowed to travel at those speeds over populated areas. This makes them *incredibly* less practical than subsonic planes. |
What is the economic argument for not raising the minimum wage to $15 a hour? Is there one? | There is some evidence that raising the minimum wage increases unemployment, but this is controversial and economists disagree on whether or not this effect is statistically significant. Raising the minimum wage also raises operating costs, which can increase the prices that consumers face. | As a basic rule of thumb you use a minimum wage to guarantee a certain minimum standard, the downside of this is that sometimes an employer might want to hire someone to do something, but doesn't think it's quite worth that minimum wage and would rather have his current employees work a bit of overtime, or have whatever he is lag a bit instead. So practically speaking, you can have a minimum wage at the cost of having higher unemployment, this is generally agreed. What people don't agree over is exactly the ratio between the two, or what value to place on the two, so not many people agree on exactly where the line should be drawn. |
What caused the Middle East to contain most of the worlds oil? | Basically there was a lot of organic matter that was deposited, buried and compacted, and left undisturbed and fairly stable due to complex plate movements. Also, the warm climate near the equator was helpful in procuring large organic deposits. This link gives an in depth explanation. I would recommend scrolling to the bottom of the article where it gives a nice 10-point summary of the causes thought to have caused the abundance of oil. _URL_0_ | They could have conquered inland Arabia. They didn't want to or need to do so. There was nothing of value in Arabia until oil. |
- How is it that Ticketmaster seems to have a total monopoly over all things tickets, or, why does it cost $18 to mail me tickets? | It seems like they have a near-total monopoly over the North American ticket industry because that's exactly what's happened. Ticketmaster has exclusive deals with hundreds of major venues and most of the major concert promoters in North America (including Live Nation, the world's largest promoter, with whom they merged last year). The short answer is, if you don't want to use Ticketmaster, you've got to boycott their shows and let the promoter and the venue know why. If they get one angry letter, they'll write it off. If they get ten thousand, they'll start to pay attention. | Recently someone posted the same question. The basic answer is that they don't have quotas. They have a target number of tickets to give out. It's not a quota, it's a target. (cough cough wink wink) |
How important is recombinant protein technology? What is it currently used for and what are the future/potential uses for it? | Is this a homework question? Recombinant proteins are very important. They are used for a number of medical treatments, ranging from the insulin that diabetics inject to the monoclonal antibodies used in some cancer treatments. There is also a significant amount of biological research that utilizes recombinant proteins (like most GFP-tagging, for instance). I imagine the future uses are more of the same. I know some synthetic biology labs are working on making recombinant proteins with cell-free synthesis. Other labs are using recombinant proteins to make biocompatible hydrogels. Albumin sometimes gets used to make nanoparticle delivery systems. | We are already doing it! Engineered proteins have been made on an industrial scale for ~ 30 years in the biopharma industry. The first recombinant protein treatment was approved by the fda in 1982 _URL_0_ |
Why is water such an effective radiation shield? | Simply put, it is dense and cheap. There are lots of different types of radiation - photons, electrons, alpha particles, neutrons, and more exotic types. A "shield" blocks radiation by interacting with it. The rate of interaction depends on many things - the energy of the radiation, the composition of the shield, atomic number, etc etc. But it also depends on the amount of atoms it has to cross. Water is fairly dense (1 g/mL), therefore you can pack a lot of atoms between it and whatever you want to shield. Concrete is an effective shield for the same reason. There are many other reasons why certain materials are good at shielding certain types of radiation. But if you have a strong, mixed source (like spent nuclear fuel), water is pretty effective as a general shield. | Many hydrogen atoms as part of its chemical formula. Water or polymers are the preferred materials for that reason. Ideally it should be liquid hydrogen, but that's too bulky and too difficult to keep cool enough to stay in liquid form. This is deducted from the Z/A factor in the [Bethe formula](_URL_0_), where Z is the atomic number and A is the atomic mass. This fraction is 1 for hydrogen and nearly 0.5 for most other elements. Still, "perfect" radiation shield is a big term. Even with liquid hydrogen a shield to provide good protection would be too massive to be launched with any realistic budget. The energy of cosmic rays is just too high, they will traverse anything you put in their way. Edit: forgot to mention another important reason. High Z materials have a large nuclear cross-section area. This increases the probability of the incident particle colliding with an atomic nucleus and producing secondary radiation. |
Does child sex abuse has any correlation/causation effect on homo/bisexuality ? | It looks like there might be a few studies showing a correlation between the two, for example: _URL_0_ However, I think it would be really hard to prove causation. It seems pretty likely that homosexuality or bisexuality would increase an individual's risk of being targeted for abuse in childhood and adolescence. What an incredibly heartbreaking topic. | **We do not know and cannot know this**. Doing a randomized control trial to establish causation would be unethical because you would need to create two groups of children, one which you abuse and one which you don't abuse to see the result on sexual orientation. What we can do is compare groups of gay folks and non-gay folks and see whether they have different levels of abuse (they do). So the question that then remains is ***does being gay cause being abused or does the abuse cause being gay?*** Or maybe it's even just [confounding variables](_URL_0_). This we cannot scientifically establish because the experiment would be unethical. We do know at least that gays (or any gender or sexual minority really) are disproportionately often discriminated against which in its extreme form is abuse/violence. Also please keep in mind that this is a highly politicized issue with christians/conservatives claiming that gayness is learned behaviour and liberals claiming it is not. |
How do MREs not expire? There are channels on youtube that review some of them that are from 1980s or older? | It's all about how well they are stored and what they are designed for. If you look at what goes into an MRE today, or what went into ration containers over the last century you'll see some common things. Anything that spoils on its own is removed. Anything that can spoil is packed in a way that minimizes the risk of spoilage, or has its recipe altered to make it more resistant to spoilage (for example, shelf stable bread and milk). The exterior container is designed to keep air and water out of the package, ensuring that no outside influences attack the food either. If the container is properly stored these things can last for years without trouble. When you watch someone like Steve1989MRE eat old rations one of the first points of commentary he will make (other than looking for a hiss) is how damaged the container is. He can usually tell just by looking at the exterior how viable the food inside will be. | If people are still buying them in commercially feasible quantities they will continue to be produced. If the copy that arrived in an amazon box at your particular door was manufactured 15 years ago its more likely that a distributor has had it in a warehouse for the last 14 years and 11 months and Amazon keeps a certain quantity in stock and will re-order from the distributor when their stock falls below a certain threshold. |
Is there a place online I can trace my grandfather's military career? | Have you tried [asking for a copy of his service record?](_URL_0_) Note that there are access/privacy restrictions, and that you will have to write them directly to find much out. I know it can be done though - we have a copy of my own grandfather's service record that was acquired this way. | From the first picture, your late grandfather was attached to the 1st Regiment, 1st Battalion of the ROC Air Force Security Guard Force (中華民國空軍警衛部), possibly based in Nanchang (南昌). This was a military police unit which was later integrated with the ROC Military Police Command. Unfortunately, that's all that I can contribute as a non-historian. If you can, you could ask for your aunt's permission to draft a letter to the Ministry of National Defense. From them, you might receive the official records with regards to his final rank and any decorations he may have received. |
Can someone explain the federal reserve? | The Federal Reserve is an independent government entity that coins money, sets interest rates, and is generally in control of US monetary policy. It's often criticized for lack of oversight. It also has significant regulatory duties, usually involving the financial sector. I don't think there are really positives and negatives - it simply fulfills a role necessary in government, which is the issuance of currency and monetary policy, and would be replaced by another organization if it were abolished. | The Federal Reserve matters because it is the Central Bank of the United States and the lender of last resort for all of our other banks. It has a great deal of power over the economy, primarily through the buying and selling of Treasury Bonds and setting the "ground rules" that all other banks follow. It's worth noting that people tend to massively misunderstand what the Fed is. It is not a Private Bank, it is a weird mix of Private and Public. It's Board of Directors is appointed by the President, but the Fed does not have to seek approval for its actions from Congress or the President. So it is an independent agency that ultimately acts on its primary mission - keep the US economy ticking along nicely. |
Is it true that a single sperm holds 37.5MB of DNA data? | a single spermium contains the haploid genome (each chromosome once with the exception of the sex determinative chromosme pair X and Y - there can be either X or Y in the spermium). a haploid genome with the X-chromosome has 1597 Mbp (Mega base pairs). there are 4 nucleotides - so the code is quaternary. Which means it is has a higher information density then the digital bit/byte system. someone mathematically talented can surly convert Mbp tp MB... :) just from a guess now, i would say 37.5MB is a too small number | > How much information can DNA contain? Each "link" in the DNA chain has one of four base pairs (essentially a specialized molecule) represented by the letters A, T, C, and G. The base pairs are called pairs, because they link together. A links to T, and C links to G. So for every position, there are four possible arrangements: A-T, T-A, C-G, and G-C. That's the equivalent of 4 bits of data per base pair. The human genome contains about 3 billion base pairs. So that's 12 billions bits of data, or roughly 1.4 GB. > Is my DNA being used daily Yes. Your DNA is used by the "molecular machinery" in your cells as a blueprint that is used to manufacture proteins. Every time any cell in your body makes a protein (so billions of times per second), DNA is used. |
What do we know about love and marriage in pre-colonial West-African kingdoms? | Are you referring to the lower or upper classes? Most of West Africa was the domination of a mostly pagan populace by a Sunni upper class. I don't have specifics with me at the moment, but the precepts of this upper class on love and marriage equate closely with similar traditions of Islam in the Maghreb, including homophobia and concubinage. This isn't the tribal culture which you seem to refer to but it was an important part of pre-colonial society. As for those > extent cultures like the Nri, Oyo, Benin, and Kaabu etc. my ignorance is as complete as yours. Hope this helped. | Though it has a depressingly paltry pre-colonial section, I do suggest you check out the African section of our [book list](_URL_0_). |
Why are male nipples fine to show, but females are taboo? | It depends on the culture. You're assuming a Western (mainly U.S) focus. It's much less taboo in Europe, and even less so in other parts of the world. There's no real good answer beyond that. Culture doesn't really have to "make sense". A lot of it goes back to when showing any type of skin (even ankles! back in the day in china. Or necks, in parts of Africa) was considered immodest. Gradually that standard has evolved, especially in the last 100 years or so. As skirts have gotten shorter, as well as necklines/arms, all that's really left are the pieces covered by a bikini. Breasts in particular are a bit special because they're tied to raising a child/picking a mate, and sensitive. tdr: Because in our culture, it is. edit: I'd also add that it's kind of self reinforcing. Covering breasts means they tend to get fetishized/sexualized (associated with sex more), which tends to reinforce that taboo notion | The reason is that there is a large (and very vocal) segment of the population who hold on to puritan religious values and essentially believe that any depiction of nudity in the media (including just female nipples) is morally wrong and sinful. In contrast, violence regularly appears in bible and is not seen as sinful in the same way so these people do not feel the same need to censor violence. For this reason, advertisers are scared of endorsing shows which depict nudity (as these religious groups may, for example, try and organize boycotts against these companies) so many television channels (even those which aren't regulated by the FCC) feel they need to impose self-censorship on themselves with regard to nudity in order to ensure they can keep getting funding and advertisers and not have to worry about upsetting these religious groups. |
Why is Tantalum the rarest stable element in the solar system? | You may be looking at this the wrong way round. Tantalum follows the trend down as nuclei get heavier, but the elements to the right in the graph misbehave. The reason are 'magic' numbers for protons and neutrons in the nuclei according to the nuclear shell model. Nuclei with magic numbers for protons or neutrons are extra stable. 208-Pb is even double magic in protons and neutrons. It is the heaviest stable nucleus and 209-Bi next to it is nearly stable. Unluckily I do not know any easy way to explain the nuclear shell model so this answer only converts your problem to another. | In terms of stability, it's just to do with how tightly the nucleus is bound by the Strong Nuclear Force - as you go higher in the periodic table, atoms get less stable (although it's not a straight rise; 92 [uranium] is more stable than 91 [Protactinium] for example), simply because the strong nuclear force has to act over a larger radius, counter more repulsion by more protons against protons, etc. It just so happens that 93 is just too unstable to be found in the wild; any generated in supernovas, etc has since decayed and turned into radiation - out in space, at any one time, there (should) be these elements floating around, but they simply don't exist for long enough for us to find them; thus we have to create them ourselves. |
Jet wing tips. Why are some flat, some have vertical section that goes up and some have a section that goes up and down | A Wingtip device or winglet's can increase performance, fuel efficiency and or safety by reducing vortex's and increasing lift (without increasing overall wingspan) on the wings tip and smoothing the air flow. This wasn't copy and paste but here is one [source](_URL_0_) of info anyway. | in fact, that upward curve, called dihedral makes the plane inherently stable and thus less manoeuvrable. Which is why modern fighter jets have wings that point downwards. That makes them hard to control but that is compensated for by onboard computers. |
why aren't there zip lock bags in cereal boxes? | Zip lock bags cost a few cents more to produce and those few cents would make no difference in sales. You might like having it but you arent boycotting them for not having it and you wont change your buying habits to get it, so it would be silly to waste money providing it to you. | This is purely a guess, but as someone who worked in retail for a bit, you would be surprised at the number of people who feel compelled to open packaged merchandise in an effort to try it out before buying...only to then decide they don't want it anymore and walk away. When the original packaging is open, it it possible to reseal it, but it never looks the same and almost never gets sold. It's possible that the ziplock give retailers an easier option to repackage things, and therefore gives them a higher probability of selling all of their merchandise, minimizing write-offs and losses. Just a guess though. |
the realistic amount of man hours it takes to create a large, intricate website e.g. social network or news site | Very hard to say, because Facebook is still under constant development, so you could say it took thousands of people for a decade to get to where it is today, and yet it's been functional back when it was only a small team working on it for a couple years. Server costs are relatively cheap, the number of man-hours is normally the driving force. In general estimating time can be a major challenge in software development. A typical startup of 10 people might aim to have a minimally viable product launched in 6 months but would still grow and improve for years after that if successful. A small news website would be a lot easier since you don't need to develop anything from scratch, you could install software like WordPress and customize it. _URL_0_ is the largest website for distance running news and it was largely redesigned by one guy over a few months and is maintained by a very small team. | Having a longer period might hurt the income of the said sites even more than just a day would. Also in some cases if the duration was indefinite, it might open the business for a competitior to take over. Or that's how I see it. Anyone is free to correct me on this one(and basically on anything) |
Prior to the Edict of Milan, were Christians sentenced to death by animals? (Damnatio Ad Bestias) | Yes, yes they were. The Polycarp of Martyrdom, usually dated to the mid-to-late 2nd century, refers to this in the case of other martyrs, and holds it out as a threat to Polycarp. ([source in translation](_URL_1_)) The third century text, the Passion of Perpetua and Felicty features the death of martyrs sentences to the beasts in Carthage ([source in translation](_URL_0_)) I was just looking over the wikipedia page on Damnatio Ad Bestias, it is troublingly vague and hand-waving in its references to things like "widespread view", "specialists". It's worth pointing out that Damnatio ad Bestias was a typical punishment for criminals, which is the category Christians fell into when prosecuted, there was nothing special about ad bestias for them. | I think you may be misunderstanding the context of *damnatio ad bestias*. This was not literally "here's a sword, fight for your right to live". You were dumped into an arena and they let loose animals with the intention of them ripping you apart. It was not a trial to save you. It was a death sentence. Any cases that I am aware of that has someone eluding the death sentence here is *probably* identified as apocryphal, such as the tale of David and the Lion's Den. Or Bernard Shaw's "Androcles and the Lion" which is a rather nice play. This was execution much less than a novelty. EDIT: The play "Androcles and the Lion" is apparently sourced by material from a Greek writer named Apion, but I am not really familiar with his body of work. |
What would be the consequences of magnetic monopoles being discovered? | Maxwell's equations would have to be modified. Additionally, it would imply that electric charge is quantized. Observationally, it seems that electric charge is quantized, but theoretically, it doesn't *have* to be the case. However if magnetic monopoles exist, then electric charge must be quantized. | Electrons and protons are not magnetic monopoles beacuse they are dipoles. A simple way to consider it is like this: You take a magnet, it has a north and a south. It looks like this: NS You then split it up and you get this: N/S - > NS NS Two blocks, each with a north pole and a south pole. If you keep splitting it down to the constituent electrons, you'll see that they also have a north and south pole- the north and south pole of the magnetic field they generate is determined by their angular momentum- basically their spin. if they spin conterclockwise their north pole points up (south pole down), if they spin clockwise their north pole points down (south pole points up). A monopole only has one pole, north or south. |
- Busy Beaver numbers | The busy beaver function takes as input some number n. Explaining precisely what this number does is complicated; all you really need to know is that it indexes a bunch of groups of computing devices, and that devices with larger n are in some sense larger. The output, called the n-th busy beaver number, is roughly the maximum amount of work that any computing device in the n-th group can do. Why are they so large? Well, the busy beaver function is larger than any computable function, where "computable function" means "function which you can program an ideal computer to perform". Just think about what that means; you can program a computer to do a *ridiculous* number of things, like maybe x^x^x^x^x^100000000000000000000000. And the busy beaver function is still insanely larger than that, because a computer can make that tower of x's go as high as you want it to. | **Odd number:** runs north-south **Even number:** runs east-west **Low odd number:** west coast **High odd number:** east coast **Low even number:** southern US **High even number:** northern US **1-2 digits:** main route, goes through major cities (usually) **3 digits:** off-shoot, goes around major cities (usually) |
How can a single speaker make multiple notes at the same time that aren't on the same fundamental? (like a diminished chord, or a symphony | Much in the same way as they are transmitted through air. If two notes are played at the same time you don't perceive them in two channels; your ears register their combined waveforms. A speaker only has to produce this combined waveform to yield the same result, assuming you don't care about the source locations. | The same way that your ear can *hear* multiple sounds at once. Combing multiple sound waves together results in a single new sound wave that can be created by a single speaker, and detected by a single eardrum. |
Why does ice crack a bit when put into water? | The cracks are thermal shock (similar to how alternating hot and cold on things can make them break) Ice sticks to your wet hands because it freezes the water on your hand. This is the same thing as when you lick a cold flagpole. | It makes a cracking noise because it is cracking. Water when frozen actually expands instead of shrinking. As a result, when you pour a warmer liquid over it, there is a transfer of energy between the ice and the new liquid. This causes a the ice to shrink at a rapid rate and causing your audible fractures. |
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