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How do lasers cool things? | I've always been under the impression that lasers exclusively transfer heat to a subject ("I expect you to die, Mr Bond"), but with the recent article about the force microscope allegedly multiplying it's magnification via laser cooling, I have to wonder how that works? Can anyone help? | The basic principle involves using the absorption spectrum of a specific material. If you shine a laser that is at a slightly lower frequency than the absorption spectrum then atoms that are moving towards the laser will 'see' their own absorption spectrum due to the relativistic doppler effect. Through this mechanism we can force atoms to be having opposite momentum to the photon as it is absorbed so each absorption event results in the loss of momentum from the atom.
The atoms then emit photons spontaneously in a random direction which the net result of which is zero change in average motion. If you apply this technique from several directions you end up lowering the average kinetic energy of the atoms and by definition their temperature. | 15 | 16 |
ELI5: Why are members of the same family more prone to producing offspring with biological issues? | Also, bonus related question: Is the fact that we aren't normally attracted to the members of our family due to a biological inclination, or is that more affected by our environment (being taught that it's wrong)? | There are 2 basic concepts when dealing with genes - they can be dominant, which means they are usually shown, or recessive, which is the opposite. Dominant genes can be shown even if you only get the gene from one side of your parents (For example, being brunette). However, with recessive genes, you need that gene from both of your parents (like having red hair).
Say there was some defect that ran in your family. Alot of defects are recessive genes. In other words, they can run in your family, and when you breed with someone who does not have that same defective gene, your kids will most likely not show it. However, if you breed with someone in your family, they would also carry that gene, making it much more likely that your child will have that same defect. | 37 | 73 |
What would it take for research publications to be free from publishers? | Inspired by some recent discussions here, it seems like an overall consensus that publishers explore research work in a pretty unsatisfactory way. Charging exorbitant fees, using our work for their profits, etc.
So why do academics perpetuate this cycle, if they all agree that it's not the way it should be? Why be a reviewer for a journal and work for free? Why submit your work for publishers to profit? I understand academia requires the prestige that comes from publishing in such journals, and we do it to progress our careers...but once you become professors, or already established in your fields, why keep enduring these practices if you don't agree with them?
Why not make a change, and why aren't there any realistic alternatives for a truly fair publishing space? | What is needed/wanted is a way to evaluate the quality and impact of research. There are very few people in the world that can truly understand the importance of most studies. So, journal prestige has become the surrogate measure for quality and significance of one's work. To be free from journals, there needs to be a different way to evaluate quality and impact, and realistically it needs to be relatively quick and easy (or nobody will adopt it). Some options that get mentioned are h-index and total citations. These are probably better, but they are far from perfect.
As a side note, convincing people that your work is high quality and high impact doesn't stop being important when you get tenure/established - you still need grants/money and you still need to recruit good students/PDs (who want papers in those journals so they can compete for good postions later). Go a few years without those high profile papers, and the money and students disappear. You're never "safe." | 34 | 39 |
CMV: Being a minority is not a character trait. | Now, I don’t have much high ground to stand on, being white...and a man. That said, please hear me out, and please refrain from crucifying me. I don’t have a single problem with a character in a work of fiction being non-white/non-straight/non-cis male (and for the record, I’m actually bi, so yeah). In fact, I support representation on all fronts (except MAPs, fuck them.) But if a character only exists to be a minority or to act as representation in a fictional work that isn’t explicitly about minorities* and their persecution by the majority, and they don’t possess any real character traits or development, then in a way, what’s being done to them is as bad as being discriminated against; they’re being exploited. Then they aren’t really characters at all, are they? Pardon me for saying so, but at that point, they become caricatures, no pun intended. Now, obviously, I’m willing to be politely corrected, or else I wouldn’t post here.
Edit: Okay, so, I really should have been more specific with this title. I should have renamed it, “Being a minority is not an inherent character virtue or a character flaw” or something like that. I don’t know. That said, thank you for not being upset with me, and for giving honest yet polite rebuttals, especially regarding a topic like this.
Edit 2: Thank you again for your honesty. Unfortunately, I have to be going now. I apologize to anyone whose questions weren’t answered, and I apologize to anyone I may have unwittingly offended. I’m not trying to leave to get out of having to debate with you. Again, thank you, and I’m sorry.
*I can go back and edit this if people would prefer that I cut down on the word “minority.” | Why does a minority have to only be present when it's required for narrative purposes? Why can't they just exist in the same way that bad characters that arent a member of any minority group exist?
Do you have any problems with a character being white and straight and male unless it's directly related to the narrative? Probably not something you think too much about, that's just the way things are right?
So why does one type of character need an excuse to exist while another needs no explanation? | 47 | 131 |
ELI5 Why megapixels is not a good measurement of quality of photos a camera can take? | Light goes into your lens and onto a sensor, which is more or less a grid of "buckets" that catch light. A megapixel means you have a million buckets.
The more megapixels, the more buckets are crammed into the available space. This means the amount of light going into each bucket is less consistent, and more light hits the edge of the buckets instead of going in, among other things. These things lower image quality. | 16 | 30 |
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ELI5: How do we measure data that can be stored in brains or sperm cells in units like Byte? | Anytime you can manipulate something to represent two values (e.g. on or off, present or not present, up or down etc.) you have 1 bit of binary information. When you have 8 of these switches you can manipulate, you have the potential to represent one byte of data.
These switches can also be organic in form, such as biological cells. We can look at how we can manipulate or deform these cells to record information using binary values. This could, for example, work by manipulating the base pairs of the DNA code stored in the cell.
So long as you have a way of manipulating it to represent two values, you have a bit of information. If you have a way of manipulating 4 values (e.g. DNA pairs of G-C, C-G, T-A, or A-T) that is effectively the same as 2 bits of information per pair. | 11 | 21 |
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Can someone please explain the String Theory as simply as possible? | Pretend that you are describing the String Theory to a(n) ~~8 year old~~ 4 year old.
Thank you!
EDIT: Thanks for all of the answers! | It says that at the smallest level, fundamental particles can be described by a vibrating string. Just as a guitar string plays a different note depending on the type of vibration, a string would be a different particle depending on how it was vibrating. | 70 | 68 |
Would living next to a star of a different temperature than ours affect how we see colours? | I understand that the reason stars appear a different colour is because of their temperature. So I was wondering how being on a planet that orbits a blue star or some other colour would affect how we see on that planet. Would the planet's atmosphere be more affecting instead of the star's light itself?
Hope that makes sense.
EDIT: I am wondering about contemporary humans.
EDIT 2: Thank you everyone! | It would affect the light spectrum and the light reflected by objects.
However, the human visual system is remarkably good at not letting you notice that your surroundings are illuminated by a source with a different spectrum.
You are able to identify the same colours by candlelight, lamplight in the morning sun and in daylight sun. Each of these sources has a different colour.
There would be differences in a physical sense, but (up to a certain degree) a different star would not affect your perception of colours. | 118 | 291 |
How do you tell your Prof that a part of her class is a total mess? | Online class, mid-semester, prof wants feedback.
A section of her class is an online group project and it's a total disaster.
She doesn't oversee any of the work.
1/4 of the group has literally done nothing but turn in the work everyone else did, 1/2 just says "yeah" and "I agree", the final 1/4 works but can't agree on anything and most wait until the very last minute to do anything, leaving everyone scrambling on Sunday night to try to figure out work that was assigned weeks prior. We've had 3 due dates so far and despite the weeks worth of time we have to do it 1-3 people participate prior to the day it is due and prof hasn't stepped in at all.
Some members of our group don't understand concepts they should have known 3 pre-req. classes prior and it has now fallen on the few working members of the group to try and teach them remedial information.
The project is set up where the first 1/2 is group work and the second 1/2 is individual work. Together is counts for 1/3 of our total grade. At this point, I'm fairly sure my group's lazy work is setting me up to lose lots of points on my individual work because they've failed to complete the work the right way.
I cannot figure out why on earth the prof is letting this go on without saying a single word or helping at all!
I've stressed and cried about this stupid assignment too much.
There are 1000 reasons I need an A in the class, but mostly, I shouldn't have to take a lower grade based on the work of others.
Without any sort of communication or clarification on this assignment (yes I've reached out to her multipul times) I have no idea how my grade will work out.
How do I tell my professor "anonymously" that this project has been awful?
She previously asked us to explain the project back to her so she would know if she needed to change the wording of the original assignment. That makes me think this is a new thing she is trying.
I don't want to come off like I'm being rude or telling her she isn't doing a good enough job, but I don't really know a delicate way to say all this in a way that won't risk offending her. | Try to explain to her, in the most objective and non-accusing way possible, how you have experienced the project thus far. This way, she can get a good idea of what is happening among the students. Leave out words such as 'awful'.
Furthermore, she has the right to try out a new type of project/assignment and will most likely take constructive feedback into account. You can tell her that you are worried about your grade, as long as you do not attack her.
It can be very difficult to predict how students act during group work and it is very possible she has no idea what is going on if students do not inform her. | 109 | 75 |
ELI5: Taguchi's Loss fuction | I have to learnt his for my exam and I just cant seem to wrap my head around it I've googled it a couple of times but i just dont understand it. I hope someone can help me | It's a way to measure quality of manufactured goods by looking at how consistent they are instead of just the average quality.
McDonald's would rather sell a million "okay" burgers that are nearly identical than 250k excellent burgers, 250k pretty good burgers, 250k not very good burgers, and 250k garbage burgers, even though the 250+250+250+250 burgers average out to "okay".
Taguchi's function is a way of saying "The more deviation in your product, the less money you make" but it puts it into a formula so that you can measure the deviation exactly and thereby determine if you are reducing or increasing deviation over time. | 44 | 67 |
Milton Friedman is well respected by many economists, why aren't there more Libertarians? | Libertarians love Friedman for his beliefs if liberty and freedom. I've seen even neoliberals and democrat economists claim that he was influential and intelligent. If they truly felt that way, why do they ignore most of his teachings? The only people that seem to follow his line of thinking are the austrians and they don't seem that well respected. | Academic economics is mostly scientific. Politics is mostly unscientific. Friedman's academic contributions are valuable because of their scientific content, but his political "teachings" are based on personal attitudes, not scientific findings. | 68 | 20 |
ELI5: many animals have mating seasons. Do humans have a mating season which is better for reproduction. Or did we used to in the past? | ELI5: many animals have mating seasons. Do humans have a mating season which is better for reproduction. Or did we used to in the past? | It usually depends on environmental factors. If there's going to be a cold winter, it makes sense for your offspring to be born in the spring so they can get as much growing done as possible before winter comes along for survival reasons. Mating season is timed so that offspring are born in the spring.
Whereas if the weather is pretty stable, nature would prefer you be able to have more offspring in general without time restrictions.
Humans evolved in Africa where it's pretty warm. A designated mating season wasn't helpful. | 51 | 35 |
CMV: Leather Couches/Seats are expensive and impractical. | Whether this is in a car, or for a couch, I don't see why so many people would opt for leather.
1. Sticky, hot, freezing. Depending on the temperature, leather transfers heat way better, making summers burning and sticky, and winters hard and icy.
2. Many people talk about heated seats being offered only on leather trims. This may have been the case years back, but nearly all vehicles, from very entry to high end nowadays offer heated seats on cloth.
3. The smell. I can't stand smells in general, but if you want the leather smell, I'm sure there are sprays and air fresheners you can use that are far cheaper than leather seats.
4. General comfort. Texture aside, softness/firmness and support is really more dependent on the quality and manufacturing of the seat than just the surface layer. Leather isn't inherently more comfortable than cloth.
5. Scratch resistance and physical damage. If cloth rips, gets cut, marked, clawed etc. it doesn't show as much. In addition, I have the option to do some stitching or patching. These at-home fixes aren't possible with leather.
6. Cloth is easy maintenance. I don't have to take care of conditioners and special cleaners. With some things that have a cloth cover, I can dunk the cover in a washing machine and call it a day.
7. Finally, spills. This is a little more personal, but 90+ percent of the time, I'm drinking water from a thermos. Spills are rare, generally preventable, and even when it does happen, if taken care of quickly, the stain is cleanable with no long lasting smells. | Here's why many people opt for leather.
Because leather is nonporous, it has a few advantages:
- Spills wipe off easily. This is good for reducing stains and scents. Good for drive thru meals, sporting equipment, kids, messy passengers, and car sex.
- Dust and pollen can't settle into the surface. Good for allergy sufferers.
- It's smoother. Easier to slide into that driver's seat.
Other miscellaneous factors:
- It looks more vibrant. It attracts dates who like the look.
- The smell. It's subjective, some people love it.
- Resale is higher for leather seats. If you are getting a free upgrade or are choosing between two cars with the same price, the one with leather seats will be worth more when you sell it. | 30 | 44 |
ELI5 , What are the pros of having mosquitoes on earth? what would happen if they all disappeared? | Not all mosquitoes bite, but eliminating all those that do, or at least the most common disease transmitting ones, is widely considered by researchers to be beneficial. Not only that, many researchers consider it an achievable long term goal.
Their place in the ecosystem would probably be replaced other mosquito species. | 352 | 239 |
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[WH40k] How exactly does a ground invasion work? How does the fleet get Leman Russ tanks to planet side? | First you start with some light orbital bombardment to get a safe(r) corridor to the surface. Then you land on the planet. There are a variety of different sized drop craft available for deployment, from craft used to deploy a squad or two of troopers, to divisions worth of them. On some industrialized planets they can bring the whole mass conveyor down. The same applies with tanks. In the extreme end are the coffin ships of the Collegia Titanica which land the God Machines of the Mechanicus. | 44 | 59 |
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ELI5: Why do people code desktop apps in Java when very few end users like it? | I admit it is probably a loaded question, but a coworker and I were discussing this yesterday. I work in the IT industry and just yesterday it took me 25 minutes to find the specific version of Java that a management tool wanted, and get it installed and running. If making Java apps run on PCs and Macs is such a PITA why do developers continue to code in it? | If you write in Java, your program will run on any system that is capable of running Java, which is basically every computer. Java certainly has its many flaws, but the ability to write a program that is guaranteed to be able to be run on anything is reason enough to overlook the flaws in many cases. | 140 | 173 |
[General Fiction] how does omniscience works? | Like, it's necessary to also have the other "omni powers" to have it? Where is the line between omniscience and night-omniscience draw? | If you have omnipotence, you almost by definition have omniscience as well, or could at least *give* yourself omniscience.
Omniscience literally means "all knowledge," and by definition means you know *everything*; nothing is hidden from you. There are, however, a few different interpretations of this.
The first is the kind of omniscience you typically hear modern theologians talk about: a complete understanding of everything that was, is, and ever will be. You know how it all started, and how it will all end. This view of omniscience requires a deterministic universe, and precludes free will.
A second, lesser form of omniscience would involve knowledge of all that was and is, but introduces a random element to the universe, meaning you don't know *for sure* what will happen. However, your complete knowledge of all that was and is means your predictive powers would still be incredibly accurate.
There could also be a form of omniscience where you *could* know everything, but you need to actively seek out that knowledge to have it. For example, you *could* know how many blades of grass are on the White House lawn, but you wouldn't have that information in mind unless you actively wanted to.
Nigh-omniscience would be anything less than one of these complete forms of knowledge. If there is *anything* you don't, or can't, know, you aren't omniscient.
Lastly, you can have a form of limited omniscience. Maybe you know absolutely everything that is happening on Earth, but not what's happening on Mars. This is referred to as *intellectus* in the *Dresden Files*. | 36 | 27 |
ELI5: Why is essay writing stressed so much in school when there is little practical use for it in the work force? | Being able to properly express yourself is extremely important in the real world. You might not be required to write an essay...but there may be project reports, task documentation, or regular record keeping. Heck, even business email is an important medium where you'll have to use proper writing techniques. And if the essay requires a little critical thinking, so much the better. | 1,255 | 666 |
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New to programming and have noticed that everyone more or less has their own solutions to the same problem in the same language. As long as you have the correct formatting, is it all a use your imagination and if it works it works mentality? | The main issue is readability. There are many ways to do the same thing, but not all are 'right' ways. If the code uses too many roundabout commands to get something done that could be written a lot shorter, it can be difficult to read. The opposite is also true; sometimes it's better to spread your coding out with white space or the occasional redundancy to make it more readable.
As a basic example, instead of:
`print(input('Write your first and last name here').title())`
you might instead write:
`input_name = input('Write your first and last name here')`
`player_name = input_name.title()`
`print(player_name)`
if that makes it more readable.
Remember that typically, you aren't going to be writing code solo. Other people are going to be reading and adding on to the code you write, so readability is key; if they can't read what's going on, it's bad code, even if it does what you want it to do. | 42 | 34 |
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CMV: You cannot be a social progressive and against freedom of speech. | Most social progressives, love democracy, and so it is of relatively little surprise to me that as they have achieved a majority (in Reddit and the West), that they want to exercise their new-found power over reactionary groups. I would offer, however, that at one point in time they were a minority, and with the advent of freedom of speech, their voices were allowed to shine in free, open, democratic discourse. I find it very disturbing that people who claim to be supporting "social progress" in society want to begin delimiting and banning thinkers who already exist as a minority that rests outside the norm of consensual decency.
You cannot use a principle of liberal social democracy, and then turn around and illiberally and antisocially try to close the door behind you. This understanding that freedom of speech is "good while it benefits us, but bad when it doesn't" is exactly the reason why it must exist, and was the very mechanism that gave us social progress: to allow individuals or minority groups to challenge the group-think of the masses.
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> *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!* | Can you help clarify your post by answering a few questions:
1. Why are you open to changing your view on this matter?
2. What are a few examples you see of social progressives being anti-freedom of speech?
3. What types of arguments may help change your view? | 77 | 291 |
Why do mammals such as canines and felines tend to give birth to a large litter of 3-5. When mammals such as humans, primates, and even cows only have one baby at once? | From an evolutionary standpoint:
In the wild, the main goal of animals is thought to be "survivorship", or passing down their DNA to future generations. With this goal in mind, there are two main strategies.
1) Give birth to a small number of offspring, and care for them for a long time before allowing them to be independent. This way, when they are the most vulnerable at a young age, they have your protection and are unlikely to die. You are sacrificing number of offspring for the benefit of being able to care for the small number.
2) Give birth to a larger number of offspring, so that at least one of them is likely to survive, purely based on chance. You sacrifice caring for the offspring for the benefit of having a high number of offspring.
I believe this is called the r/K selection theory. More evolved and complex animals tend to have fewer offspring, but spend more time with them.
From a physiological standpoint:
With mammals, the reason why some species like dogs and cats are physically able to have multiple offspring is due to the fact that they release multiple eggs during ovulation. Humans, on the other hand, only release one egg each month, and therefore can only have one child (generally speaking). | 10 | 17 |
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ELI5: Getting computer programs to utilize multiple CPU cores is difficult because the programs have to be specifically coded that way. Why can't CPUs allocate instructions to different cores themselves? | The main advantage of programs designed for multi-core use is that they can be sped up by running multiple tasks at the same time on different cores. Some tasks cannot be divided up into multiple simultaneous tasks to take advantage of multiple cores.
Imagine the CPU like a restaurant kitchen. The chefs are the cores. Some tasks like a main dish can be sped up this way. It can be divided up into three tasks. One chef makes the meat, one makes the potatoes, and one makes the vegetables. Since they can do each of their tasks at the same time it's quicker to make the meal than having a single chef make each part in sequence.
Now imagine you're trying to bake a cake. You too can divide it up into multiple tasks. Mixing ingredients, baking the cake, icing the cake. However fundamentally these cannot be done at the same time. They have to be done in order. You can't bake an unmixed cake, you can't ice an unbaked cake. So you cannot speed this task up by doing one part at the same time as another.
A good programmer will write code that makes use of multiple cores if the task they are writing can benefit from it. But not all calculations can be split up into simultaneous tasks. Some tasks, like our cake, cannot be divided into simultaneous operations to take advantage of multicore systems. | 129 | 50 |
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Would the price of consumer goods decrease when inflation gets under control? Or will prices just not increase as fast? | Say a TV was $500 pre-pandemic and now is $700, could it drop to $600 once inflation is under control? Or is it unlikely and they will just continue selling the TV at $700? | Inflation is the rate of increase in the aggregate price level. If the yearly inflation rate is x%, it means that consumer prices are on average x% higher than a year ago. In other words, if a consumer price index had the value 100 last year, with 10% inflation it would be 110 this year. If inflation rate dropped to 3%, it would become 110*(1+3%)=113.3 next year. So, low inflation does not mean lower prices, it means slower price increase on average. | 108 | 85 |
[Superheroes] What happens when someone gains powers but has no interest in fighting crime or breaking the law? Are they monitored? Actively recruited by other heroes, villains, or the government? Can they really be left alone to quietly live their lives? | Depends on the powers, the individual, and the world.
In one of the Sentinel-ruled dystopian futures from the X-Men comics, it wouldn't matter whether you wanted to break the law if you were a mutant. You'd get killed or put in a labor camp either way.
If you were in something like Strikeforce Morituri, where humanity was doomed unless people with powers stood up to the alien invaders, then they would probably recruit you.
But if you can lift a truck and live in a small town in the DC universe, no one is going to care. | 143 | 165 |
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[General Superhero] How could a group of superheroes who’s identities and actions are public knowledge, keep their families and friends safe? | I had an idea where they could be part of a much larger hero organization and anyone who threatens or endangers their family members would be punished to the full extent of the law, government as well as the other heroes. But I can tell more would be needed. | It depends on the universe, but there so seem to be some common trends.
* In some universes hero organizations are a part of a governmental branch or are privately owned with federal backing. In those situations it would be like attacking the family of a police officer which would mean the rest of your natural life would be hell as every other supe that sees you is going to beat you senseless, prison guards might beat you once or twice on a good day, and now anyone you care about is in jeopardy as well.
* When the organization is ran by and funded by heroes themselves, then it's worse. These guys have no rules they follow and who's to say one of the loose canons they employ won't seek some justice regardless of the wishes of the guy who lost his family.
* When they're by themselves with no larger backing then you've got a very dangerous situation on your hand. This is a guy that regularly pummels you while keeping themselves and others safe and without maiming you. When you take away everything from them who's to say they'll continue to hold back? Just look at Spiderman, he regularly deals with street tier villains, but he's fully capable of just grabbing their head and ripping it off their bodies.
* Social media influencer heroes are kind of an eclectic mix of the previous examples, so any one of them could really apply. | 53 | 62 |
When the surface of a body of water freezes, what is preventing the water beneath the ice from freezing too? | Heat transfer through water can proceed through two mechanisms. One is diffusion, where the kinetic energy from one molecule transfers to its neighbors through random collisions. While the molecules collide enough that diffusion from one molecule to the next is pretty fast, this transfer becomes slower and slower as you work on larger and larger scales.
The other mechanism is convection. Since water is a fluid, you can have large currents of water moving molecules up or down in the lake or pond even when the net flow is zero. Convection currents are hard to model but are driven by density fluctuations (because of temperature), gravity, and inertia. Convection is much more efficient than diffusion on almost any length scale you would worry about.
Once the water freezes at the top of the lake, the ice will stay in place since it floats. In a solid there are no convective flows, so heat transfer is only going to take place by diffusion. The diffusion in ice is a little faster than diffusion in water, but it is still slower than convection in water. So when the air gets very cold, ice will form on the surface relatively quickly. But the thicker the ice gets, the more slowly heat will be able to leave the water underneath. The ice is essentially insulating the water more and more as it gets thicker. Since the rate of ice growth is proportional to the rate of heat transfer, it takes about four times as long to form an ice layer twice as thick. | 10 | 25 |
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ELI5: Given that currents can throw a boat off course, how did submarine navigators know precisely where they were while submerged pre-GPS? | Compass bearings, knowledge of the currents, and dead reckoning. Prior to nuclear power submarines spent most of their time on the surface because their batteries had very limited endurance. So they could regularly take star sightings and utilize radio navigation beacons.
Modern submarines have very advanced inertial navigation systems, since GPS doesn't work underwater. | 16 | 15 |
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[Superman]Could superman still use his heat vision if were blind? | Yes. Vision is based on the ability of the eyes to absorb light reflected off objects.
Superman's heat vision is a misnomer, he's not using it to see, so it's not vision. He uses it to emit light, which is the opposite of vision, and is what light bulbs do. | 29 | 44 |
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ELI5: Why is the language of the Netherlands called "Dutch" and German not called "Dutch" since that is an Anglicization of "Deutsch", the German word for the German language? | The word deutsch (and dutch) originaly included both Dutch and german and the differences between german dialects were comparable to the difference between Dutch and german back then. Since England had more trade and contact with the Netherlands and flanders these were the Dutch they knew. When the german language started unifying they called that language (and eventually the country) by another name. | 13 | 23 |
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ELI5: How can someone create a public library? | If you are serious about trying to get a library going, contacting the county sounds like a good place to start. Write up a proposal—the more specific, the better. Tell them exactly what you'd like to do (the building you want to use, how much it would cost, utilities estimates, insurance, volunteers or employee wages, where the books are coming from, who is going to run this library, etc.) and lay out clearly what you want from them (start-up costs, an estimate of ongoing yearly budget allowance, a link or page on the county website, whatever). If you can do research first, maybe contact one county board member and get an idea of what they might be looking for, that would be good. | 11 | 41 |
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ELI5: When astrophysicists say it's possible we are "living in a simulation," what do they mean? | The idea is that given enough time an advanced civilization would have the technology to create a simulation so real that the participants would think it was real. Since we live in a huge universe there is a good possibility that one such civilization exists. If a simulation is possible then it seems likely that we are living in one. There is, of course, no evidence that points to this being true. | 32 | 19 |
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CMV: It's not sexist to have the masculine gender as default. | I will talk about languages here. My native language is Portuguese, one of the many languages with gender-based grammatical classes. Those who only speak English may not understand it very well, so I will show an example:
> Michael has ten wives. They live in a big house.
Translating it to Portuguese, it ends up as
> Michael tem dez esposas. Eles vivem em uma casa grande.
"Eles" is the masculine plural third-person pronoun. If we replace "eles" with "elas" (the feminine counterpart), it means that only the wives live in the house, not Michael. Portuguese, like other Romance languages, doesn't have a gender-neutral third-person pronoun, probably because the Romans (or the people who spoke Proto-Italic) valued telling the gender of a group of people or something.
Why am I doing this CMV? Some feminists think that it's sexist to use the masculine gender as the default. We can easily change the meaning of words, but not major grammatical features like pronouns. For example, the word for "candidate", "candidato". Because of the masculine gender of the word and the ending "o", the feminine word "candidata" exists. In order to not exclude female candidates, they write "candidatos e candidatas" or "candidatos(as)". The former isn't very efficient in number of words, and the latter has awkward suffixes in parentheses that will be more numerous if there are adjectives. LGBT groups use new suffixes to replace "o" and "a" in gendered words, like "x", "@" and "e"; making "candidatos(as)" become "candidatxs", "candidat@s" or "candidates"; but I don't think these suffixes will ever be accepted, because non-binary people are so rare that many people don't know about their existence.
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> *This is a footnote from the CMV moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!* | Language programs expectations and assumptions.
Using masculine as the default normalizes masculinity and makes everyone else a variant of masculine; anyone who's not a man becomes a subset of men.
Using language that way creates an underlying picture of the world where men are in the middle, with everyone else ranged around them. Since men are not the default humans, this is inaccurate and is prejudicial to everyone who's not male.
There's research dating back to the 70s showing that when someone refers to a mix-gender group as, "you guys," listeners tend to think of that group as male, not as generically ungendered. | 41 | 20 |
ELI5: How does interpretations of symphonies (eg Beethoven's 5th) come about? Do the composers write down what their music means and what they were thinking while composing them, or do musicologists just make up something for what they think the music means? | First off, anybody can have an "interpretation" of a piece of music, based on whatever they think it's about. But usually it's what the composer says it means.
Fortunately, composers like to talk about what their music means. For composers who have died, we can sometimes find out from their diaries and letters. Sometimes they explained the meaning when the music was first published, and there are some pieces where we can only guess.
These days it's much easier. A composer may write a little explanation that's put in the printed music for the musicians to read, so they understand what the music is supposed to "do". Or a composer may write program notes to go with a recording. Or they'll talk about it in an interview.
As for "guessing", certain things in music tend to have certain meanings. It's like how we think of blue as a calm color, or red as violent or passionate. For instance, Beethoven's Fifth starts in a minor key and ends in a major key: it goes from "sad" to "happy". It isn't a perfect guess, but it's based on evidence. | 21 | 44 |
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ELI5: No Child Left Behind Act? The Good? The Bad? Everything? | *How do we measure results?* Standardized testing.
*When do we measure results?* Why not every couple years, starting in third grade.
*But third graders don't know how to take standardized tests.* Teach them how.
*What results were we measuring again?* Uh, ability to pass standardized tests. | 25 | 29 |
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ELI5: Why are breasts often considered sexually attractive and private? | Just a drunk thought... | Breasts are a sexual characteristic of human females. Other mammals only have breasts when breast feeding, otherwise they are small and look the same as the male breast of the species.
Scientists are still trying to work out the specifics, but the attraction is thought to lay in something about youth (old people=less fertile=worse looking breasts), nutrition (need fat reserves to make nice ones) or simple weird sexual selection (think peacock's tail, not very useful but the ladies like them).
Unlike what many people say, breasts are sexualized across cultures, but the topless ethnic women we see have a different culture on what is considered "nude," not what is considered sexual. | 18 | 27 |
ELI5: How come the same computer that runs a complex game like Battlefield 3 at high fps can lag when using simple programs like iTunes? | Game Developer here -- Your computer is made up of many parts, and different programs do very different things. Your video card's GPU has nothing to do with your hard-drive, and people who make video games avoid reading from the hard drive as much as possible as thats generally the slowest possible operation on a computer.
An application like iTunes may read from your hard drive, make slow (blocking) network calls, connect with other devices etc. It may be doing "less complex" things but its doing it with different hardware.
Also, some programs are written better than others :) | 46 | 47 |
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ELI5: What does it mean in Quantum Physics when something is changed by watching it? | How does that even work? | Consider that this can happen on a larger scale as well. If you stick a regular meat thermometer into a pool, the overall temperature of the pool will not change. If you use the same thermometer to measure the temperature of a tiny drop of water, the thermometer's temperature will change the temperature of that little drop. | 139 | 147 |
I'm an undergrad and I want to learn how to get better at doing lit searches, can you give me some advice? | I'm a senior applying for grad school in social psychology this year, and I feel like one of my poorest skills is doing lit searches. I'm tired of coming up with a research question, looking to see if anyone else has done something similar, not finding anything, then telling an advisor about my idea only to find that Dr. X at U of X did something very very simlar a year or 10 years ago. I HATE this feeling.
What I do/can do...
What I curently do is boil down an idea or concept into a phrase, and then search various synonyms of this phrase and the words in the phrase on google scholar. If I find no articles, I will literally add the word "psychology" to the search. If I find relevant articles, I look at who they cited in their work, look at other work published by that author, and search within the "cited by" list using the same phrase as before. This yields mediocre results. I find papers generally related, but nothing at the heart of what I am looking for except for maybe a paper or two.
What I want to be able to do...
Come up with a question that has to do with a specific construct, effect, or method, and be able to find papers that are directly related to these things. So far I have been unable to do this. I also just use google scholar, and would like to be able to branch to social psych specific search engines. | When you're new to the field (or that particular section of the field) start with at least two different, recent reviews. As you go through them, note down all of the questions and sub questions that come up in your head that might be loose ends that still need to be explored. Then, follow up on them to see if you can find the answer to them in the literature and take note of each answer you find until you're left with a big list of answered questions and a short list of unanswered (theoretically). One thing to be aware of though is that the authors of the reviews usually point to a few key questions and these are probably the ones they are actively working on, which is why you don't want to build all of your questions from just one review. Once you have your favourite question (s), focus the literature review on the information that pertains to that question, aka, the research that has led to this hole in our knowledge. | 16 | 20 |
ELI5: Why does sugar sometimes cause pain in sensitive teeth, but salt does not? | I’ve had sensitive teeth ever since i was a child, and while writhing in pain after eating a chocolate bar about 20 minutes ago, i began to wonder why salty foods never seem to cause me this much agonizing physical pain. | The mechanism of sensitive teeth while not fully understood, is mostly attributed to fluid movement in teeth with worn down enamel (Hydrodynamic theory) . Sugar facilitates the movement, while salt does not. | 70 | 121 |
ELI5: The Doppler Effect | Say a tennis ball shooting machine is directed at you and it's shooting one ball every second. It will hit you every second. Now say you're running towards the machine while it's shooting. As time passes while you run, each ball will have to travel less distance to hit you. So you get hit by balls more often, more than one per second. Now say you're running away from the machine in the opposite direction of the balls traveling, you will get hit less frequently than once per second. Now repeat the above scenario but assume the machine is moving towards you or away from you. If you run away at the speed the balls are travelling (assuming constant speed and no gravity), you will never get hit by the balls.
Waves, like sound or light, have peaks and troughs (ups and downs, low pressure high pressure, etc) and they travel at a certain frequency (like 5 peaks per second pass a given point in space, or five balls in the above example). If you or the wave source are moving toward or away from each other, the frequency with which you, the receiver, perceive the wave will change. That's why ambulance and police sirens seem to have varying frequency as the car passes by (first getting closer then getting further). There are many examples of this, you can also look up the red shift and so on. | 38 | 15 |
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Question about nuclear decay and atomic bombs | I was wondering if someone could tell me the basics on how an atomic bomb work? does it have anything to do with nuclear decay and the lack of stability? sorry if this seems like a stupid question I'm hopelessly clueless when it comes to science! | Certain isotopes, mainly actinides with odd A numbers, have special material properties to them: a big probability of absorbing a neutron, fissioning, and releasing two to three more neutrons. These two or three neutrons can go on to re-react with the material and release 2-3 more neutrons. This cycle, if it sustains itself is called "critical". If it multiplies over time it is called "supercritical".
So if you have the right material how to you get it to go critical? Well, first you have to put it into a critical mass. A critical mass the amount of mass in a certain geometric configuration which provides the material with the right neutron absorbing geometry to self-sustain itself.
However, a critical mass needs one last thing to go critical: a neutron source to provide it with a start up. Put that in there and it will all come together.
A bomb needed to be put in a super critical mass very quickly. There were two designs for this, a bullet of uranium firing into a receiver uranium cup (upun combination becomes supercritical) and a sphere of sub-critical material with a shell of explosives which would detonate and shrink the sphere, causing it to go supercritical. Those were the two, original, atomic bomb designs.
Things get a little more complicated with neutron energies, but this is the general idea. | 10 | 21 |
Without moral objectivity how can moral progress be achieved/maintained? | In ethical or metaethical theories that do away with the idea of moral objectivity, how is it that moral progress can be achieved? That is to say without an objective 'goal' for morality to strive for, how can there be any progress?
I'm sure this has probably been asked here before but joined this sub just now to ask this question.
Thanks!!! | There's an implicit assumption here, which is that there's some ultimate goal that ethics (especially ethics from a non-objective standpoint) is moving towards, hence "progress." That's not necessarily the case, but if we wish to use that concept, it *can* still work with a subjective view of ethics. Subjective doesn't mean false or incapable of being true, it just means that an element of the validity of an ethical statement depends on the subject, and is not determined completely separate from the subject.
Within a single ethical framework it might be that there is "progress" such as society moving towards more accurately acting in accordance with the framework in mind, but if your meta-ethical stance is that ethics are not objective but dependent on the subject, then there's not necessarily any "progress" because there's no inherent "goal" that things are moving towards. Note that objective/subjective is different from whether ethical statements can bear truth values or whether there's a deity involved in the equation. It is possible for ethics to be subjective, but subjective to a deity's whims, not a human's.
Ethical statements being non-objective means that an element to whether they are valid or "correct" (ignoring the truth-value question for a moment) is dependent on the subject, whether that subject is an individual or a society. It is possible for an individual or an entire society to believe in and desire to achieve adherence to a specific framework, such as Utilitarianism as imagined by John Stuart Mills, and therefore might make "progress" towards adhering to that framework more strictly or "correctly" according to their interpretation of the framework. However, there is no "objective" or intrinsic goal they're moving towards, rather they define their own goal in this case, which is how the "progress" is defined. Keep in mind that these individuals or this society could in fact believe that their ethical stance is *objective*, even if you or someone else views it as subjectively defined. In either case, they may be making "progress" towards what they choose to adhere to. | 34 | 68 |
Please point me in the direction of academic work arguing for and against "Gender Critical" Feminism. | I can only find articles and blog posts which do not have an academic tone and are typically fraught with condescension and insults. I fall squarely in the camp which would say that transmen and transwomen are "real" men/women, but I don't think that the concerns expressed by Radical Feminists and Gender Critical Feminists is as easy to dismiss as calling them TERFs. So, can you please provide me with some academic sources which both defend and criticize the gender critical position? Thanks! | Philosophy professor Rebecca Tuvel wrote a famous and controversial paper called "In Defence of Transracialism" that discussed the idea of "identifying" as a man/woman, and whether the same logic that supports it (if you agree with it) would also support other types of self-identification such as religion, gender, and species | 21 | 31 |
Honestly how do people do literature reviews | I’m getting started with my first research project and I find the how literature search and review such a pain staking process. I totally understand the necessity but I seriously can’t bring myself to actually read the papers let alone criticize it or boil it down to it’s main points. Really struggling with this and being systematic about it | The literature review shows that a) you know what you're talking about and b) there's a need for your work.
The most credible work is grounded in existing best practices but moves beyond that into some new direction. You don't have to drown in the foundations; spend the bulk of your time considering the pushback to your new approach.
Why is your work different? Why is it necessary? What does this add to what's already known? | 28 | 29 |
What makes some kinds of leafy greens edible, and others not? | Oxalates and tannins often make leaves inedible. Both are antinutrients, which hinder the uptake of nutrients by the body and interfere with digestive processes. There's a wide variety of other compounds that can be found in plants, ranging from mere indigestible fiber all the way up to potent toxins. Plant leaves really don't want to get eaten and have all sorts of nasty biochemical tricks to deter herbivores. This is one of the reasons the world is green: the reason there's a lot of plant biomass hanging around not being eaten by herbivores. | 14 | 40 |
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ELI5: How do we move through space? Do we teleport small distances or continuously move through it? | I don’t know much physics, but I remember seeing a Wikipedia article that said distance is quantized, the smallest unit being a Planck meter. I’m not sure if my interpretation of this is right, but doesn’t that mean that every time we move, we always occupy 100% of a Planck “cube”? I’m seeing it as us being essentially images on a computer with pixel sizes of one Plank meter^2, and every time we move, we move from one pixel to the next, rather than being able to continuously move through one of these “pixels”. Is this known to be correct/incorrect? | That's a very good question and the answer is that we don't exactly know. The Planck distance is primarily a theoretical limit, we haven't actually observed things moving at those scales. It seems most likely that *distance* is quantized, but not *position*, so that you can be anywhere, but you can't move less than a certain amount away from wherever you are.
If position *were* quantized, it wouldn't be a pixel-like grid. It would instead look something like a foam of bubbles, where you could only move along the lines where the bubbles intersected. You wouldn't be filling the bubble, you'd be locked to the points where the bubbles intersected.
One important thing to understand is that when we talk about things like movement or particles at the quantum scale, those are mostly metaphorical for things that we intuitively understand at larger scales. A particle is not really a ball or even a point, it's an object that we can only describe mathematically as a point-like probability cloud. Likewise, when we say an object moves, what we mean is that we measured it in one configuration, then we measured it in another configuration, then we did some math to produce a number that would correspond to "distance" if we were measuring a macroscopic object. This isn't to say that we don't know what's happening--the math is pretty well established--just that we can't rely on our intuition to draw conclusions without checking that the math supports it. | 23 | 23 |
The analogy or metaphor of choir : is it mentioned in philosophy? | Hello (sorry for my level of English)
Are there texts which mention choirs (opera, for example) in philosophy? (including choirs in Greek tragedy). What is the esthetic analysis?
I asked myself questions about the role of each individual, of each member of the chorus, and about a possible paralelism with society. Was this specific point mentioned?
Thank you! | Zizek writes about this in How To Read Lacan, more specifically in chapter 2: "The Interpassive Subject: Lacan Turns a Prayer Wheel". Essentially, he analyzes the choir of the Greek tragedy in terms of the big Other that enjoys the theatrical performance for the audience. The function of the choir is to enable the audience to engage with the performance in an interpassive manner, in which the choir takes care of the "emotional commentary" instead of us having to do it ourselves. He makes similar points with regard to canned laughter in sitcoms etc. | 12 | 25 |
Could the "exact" value of pi be calculated to an exact value, if we consider a "perfect circle" to be a circle draw to the accuracy of the planck length exactly? | I was going to post this to /r/askscience but I decided it's more of a philosophical question. But the basic premise is that the Planck length (in chemistry) is considered to be the smallest possible length in all of the universe. Could we not consider the accuracy of this value (1.616255(18)×10−35 m)1 to be the needed precision to calculate an "exact" definition of pi, given that the MOST ACCURATELY DRAWN CIRCLE could only ever exist down to this level of precision? Where is the difference between mathematically provable (pi is irrational) and what actually exists in reality? Because by this definition, what we think of as a circle can't actually exist in the physical world, but somehow it can exist in your mind. Or can it?
Thanks for listening! Newcomer here, hope this fits the vibe.
1 The two digits enclosed by parentheses are the estimated standard error associated with the reported numerical value
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_length#:~:text=In%20physics%2C%20the%20Planck%20length,developed%20by%20physicist%20Max%20Planck.
Edit: I really really appreciate all the thought people have put into their responses. I will take time reading through over the week and trying to respond where I can! | You could begin your investigation into this question by starting with the ancients and reading about Plato's idea of forms. Plato posits that there is a difference between the idea of a circle (exists in your mind) and the most perfect physical instance of a circle (exists in reality). All physical circles can be benchmarked against this ideal circle, but the ideal circle cannot ever be realized.
To apply this to your question: What you propose may well be the most accurate possible measurement of pi within our natural universe. However, the concept of pi probably would exist in another universe, which could have its own fundamental physical parameters (like the Planck constant). Measurement is a scientific method and is fundamentally constrained to what we can observe; i.e. our own universe. Thus your measurement would not necessarily generalize. But maybe that's okay! | 24 | 32 |
How does cutting work? | **NOTE:** This is **NOT** a thread about the self-harm phenomenon known as "cutting."
How does cutting work? Example: cutting a piece of paper in two.
* Is it a mechanized form of tearing?
* What forces are involved?
* At what level (naked eye, microscopic, molecular, etc.) does the plane of the cut happen?
This question has confounded me for some time, so if someone could explain or to me, I would be grateful.
| Cutting a piece of paper in two is a result of shearing: an upward force extremely close to a downward force causing material to separate. The tearing isn't completely even on a microscopic level, but when you line an even distribution of force along a line, and an equal and opposite distribution of force along another line parallel and very near to the first, you make a "clean cut" to the naked eye.
Edit: The shear force is named after scissors.
Source: Statics class | 574 | 946 |
ELI5: There have been many stories recently about multivitamins being ineffective. But I have a family member who had an iron deficiency, was prescribed an iron supplement, and it worked. What gives? | What gives is there is a difference between being prescribed medicine to combat a specific illness, disease or deficiency, and a person without such a condition taking a multivitamin for general health and well-being or as a preventative measure for diseases like cancer or heart disease.
That is, if you have a condition where you need iron or you'll die. Then yes, getting iron will help.
But if you don't, then taking iron isn't going to do anything for you.
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ELI5: why are the ears connected to the throat and nose ? | Hearing involves conduction of sound waves from the outer ear, through the ear canal, across the tympanic membrane (aka ear drum), along three middle ear bones, and then to the inner ear organs which convert the sound waves to nerve impulses to the brain. In order for the sound waves to conduct effectively across the tympanic membrane, there needs to be relatively equal pressures on both sides of the membrane.
There is where the eustachian tube comes in; it acts as a conduit between the middle ear and the nose/upper throat to allow for pressure equalization. It also allows for mucus and fluid drainage | 21 | 16 |
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ELI5: Keynesian economics | It depends on whether you're talking about the economics of John Maynard Keynes or the modern "Keynesian synthesis" that encompasses virtually all mainstream macroeconomics. The main ideas of Keynesianism were that:
- Recessions and other economic maladies are generally caused by changes in demand, not in supply.
- Private financial decisions do not necessarily produce optimal outcomes in the short or long terms.
- Better outcomes can often be produced with the judicious use of monetary and fiscal policy.
- Because of positive feedback effects, an increase in government spending in times of less-than-full employment will often produce a *greater* increase in economic activity. | 12 | 16 |
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I don't believe the mayor of a major city should be expected to resign simply because he smokes crack. CMV | As many have guessed from the title of the post, I'm referring to Rob Ford (current mayor of Toronto), though I think the principle could apply to any mayor of a major city. I disagree with pretty much every single policy of Rob Ford's. I think he's a complete idiot. I believe he's done some shady things that should have got him kicked out office.
However, I don't believe smoking crack is one of those things.
I believe the mayor of a city should be able to smoke crack or use any recreational drug of their choosing so long as it doesn't demonstrably affect their work performance. While it would be pithy to claim that Rob Ford's idiotic policies are a result of him smoking crack, I haven't seen any evidence of that, and I believe Rob Ford's policies would be just as stupid if he didn't smoke crack. I.e., his work performance is not being affected by his drug use.
I should say I'm fairly ignorant about crack. I have no experience with it at all. I've never come across anybody in my life who's used it (to my knowledge). I've heard the sentiment that anybody who uses crack necessarily has their life in disarray and can't sustain a productive life. I don't know if that's true or whether it's possible to be a "high-functioning" crack user or not.
I really dislike the man and would like to see him go, which is why I'd like my view changed. The principle of the thing is more important to me, though, and my principles right now tell me a democratically elected man shouldn't be forced to step down simply because of what drugs he uses on the weekends. I use recreational drugs (albeit not any illegal ones) and I feel it would be hypocritical of me to demand my mayor not use any recreational drugs. | Suppose you are a wealthy and have servants, like cooks, butlers, gardeners etc. You are satisfied with all their work.
Now suppose someone told you that you saw the cook hanging around questionable people and said that he saw him smoke crack. You address this with the cook and he say says that he doesn't smoke crack. A little later, a police officer tells you find out that he did smoke crack. It appears that the cook lied to you.
Now this cook has control of your money (to buy food and other kitchen goods) and has full access to your home and feeds yourself, family and guests and works with your other staff members.
Do you let him go and find someone else that can cook to your satisfaction or continue on with him working for you? | 21 | 16 |
CMV: The "Good ol boy" system of hiring people you know is in the best interest of the company | Say your hiring for a position at the widget factory and you have a friend whose son has some experience making widgets and you know he's a hard worker.
Its in the companies best interest to go with the candidate they *know* will work hard VS gambling on someone no one at the company knows or has ever worked with.
This is, I believe why networking is just as important as education and experience.
I'm not talking about hiring a lop that can't do the job or isn't qualified, in my example both people seem to have the skills to get the job done. | Allow me to speak from the perspective of someone in academia. Although our field is often susceptible to this as well, it's often said to be preferable to specifically *avoid* just hiring people that you know, and this is why:
Some industries, particularly academia, benefit from having outside viewpoints brought in. Take a university, for example. If the only people they ever hire are people who went to school there, they'll never be exposed to new viewpoints, because it's just a series of people all learning the same methods from the same people.
If you hire from outside, though, from other universities, now you've given your department the perspective of a completely different research group, with different expertise, and undoubtedly a lot of views that you've never heard before.
Diversity is truly a good thing in the research world, so the system of simply hiring what you know actually proves detrimental to your overall progress. | 15 | 17 |
[Iain M. Banks' 'The Culture' series] What is the explanation for the abundance of human species seemingly arising independently throughout the galaxy? | There's human species everywhere, at varying stages of development, but no explanation I can find. | Please remember that the Culture series of books are translations from the original Marin. The Culture is an amalgamation of many humanoid species. With advanced gene-engineering the Culture has improved the biology of its citizens and incorporated many advances. These advances include body modification and alterations that can be made at will. This means that Culture "humans" could be considered mutts because of so many traits they all share with the original founding species. So instead of getting bogged down in minutia, the novels just refer to Culture citizens as human.
As to the remaining civilizations in the Galaxy. The Minds in charge of Contact have only released 10 books (and sadly no more) to the earth in preparation for further interactions. They specifically chose these stories so that we could relate to the Culture. They took our natural prejudices (that they do not have but are allowing us to keep for now) into account for these novels. We see lots of humanoids because it makes it easier for us. | 25 | 23 |
Are bees the best pollinators? And could other pollinators take their place? | Why are bees held in much higher esteem than other pollinators? Are they the most efficient pollinators? And if so, what gives them the edge over other pollinators? Additionally, if bees dissapeared today would it be possible for plants to be pollinated just as efficiently if an extant species rose up to fill in the bee's "job"? | Different plants are adapted for pollination by different means - grasses are wind pollinated, many crops are bee pollinated, some plants are pollinated by other insects or vertebrates. The degree of specificity varies, with some plants requiring a specific insect species and others being pollinated decently well by a range of insects. Honeybees are a big deal because they’re colonial and humans have figured out how to move big groups of them around in boxes to pollinate crops. If every honeybee died, other bees and insects would pick up some of the slack, but yields might not be as good. Humans can also hand-pollinate, but it’s really time consuming. | 218 | 454 |
Ask Anything Wednesday - Economics, Political Science, Linguistics, Anthropology | Welcome to our weekly feature, Ask Anything Wednesday - this week we are focusing on **Economics, Political Science, Linguistics, Anthropology**
Do you have a question within these topics you weren't sure was worth submitting? Is something a bit too speculative for a typical /r/AskScience post? No question is too big or small for AAW. In this thread you can ask any science-related question! Things like: "What would happen if...", "How will the future...", "If all the rules for 'X' were different...", "Why does my...".
**Asking Questions:**
Please post your question as a top-level response to this, and our team of panellists will be here to answer and discuss your questions.
The other topic areas will appear in future Ask Anything Wednesdays, so if you have other questions not covered by this weeks theme please either hold on to it until those topics come around, or go and post over in our sister subreddit /r/AskScienceDiscussion , where every day is Ask Anything Wednesday! Off-theme questions in this post will be removed to try and keep the thread a manageable size for both our readers and panellists.
**Answering Questions:**
Please only answer a posted question if you are an expert in the field. [The full guidelines for posting responses in AskScience can be found here](http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/wiki/index#wiki_answering_askscience). In short, this is a moderated subreddit, and responses which do not meet our quality guidelines will be removed. Remember, peer reviewed sources are always appreciated, and anecdotes are absolutely not appropriate. In general if your answer begins with 'I think', or 'I've heard', then it's not suitable for /r/AskScience.
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Ask away! | How does the idea of a universal basic income work. Surely if everyone gets say £2000 a month, then there would just be an increase in demand pull inflation and essentially make that £2000 almost useless. | 27 | 541 |
ELI5: How do TV companies record viewing figures? | Surely it must be impossible to gauge an accurate figure with the amount of online viewing services available today. | TV Viewership is measured under the Nielson system, which returns "ratings" for specific demographics. They gather the information by either having select households self-report their live viewing habits or by sending out "Nielson boxes" to certain homes to be connected to TVs to specifically send viewing reports to Nielson. This system gives a general percentage of which households are watching what channels when.
The system has faced a ton of backlash from the public in recent years over the out dated aspects of the system and how they lack a proper way to account for DVR or streaming methods in the overall rating. It is also under criticism for how it selects it's "subjects." Plus people report having a bias of what they watch because they know they are being reported on to Nielson. The company has recently been trying to find ways to redo the system to account for the problems.
Most networks are aware that while Nielsen ratings give a general idea of the audience, it is not exact. That's often the point of the social network aspects of tv shows showing twitter hashtags for every episode and sites like GetGlue where anybody can "check in" to say what shows they are watching. It gives a better idea of who is watching or plans to watch the series.
TL;DR: TV views are measured by a outdated but somewhat-effective system of select people reporting on what they watch. | 19 | 70 |
ELI5: If farmers have to rotate crops every other year to reduce nutrient drain in soil, why can trees and other plants live for so long without doing the same? | Trying to post this again. On mobile and fucked up the title. | Farm crops are much faster growing than trees and other plants, therefore they use the nutrients in the soil a lot faster. Most trees that shed their leaves which is where most nutrients are. These decay and put nutrients back into the soil, crops that get harvested don't do this.
Also trees that live for a long time have deeper and longer roots than crops with grow for under a year, which means if they exhaust the nutrients from one place, there can still get some elsewhere. | 114 | 262 |
[Fallout] Are there any operating educational institutions (other than the Institute) and where are they? | In fallout there is an emphasis on science and technology and a lot of characters are experts in these subjects. Some even have the title of “Dr.” Do the doctors of the fallout universe actually have degrees? Where did they learn all that they know?
Side note: there’s a guy in New Vegas who convinces the NCR to hire him because he has a theoretical degree in physics. Fun joke, but it suggests that degrees are obtainable in the post apocalyptic world. | Most doctors and scientists are more apprenticeship style learning where assistants learn their craft from former masters. There are also groups like the Followers of the Apocalypse who provide education for a wide variety of subjects. In places like the NCR there no doubt they have universities and colleges. | 18 | 18 |
[Star Wars] Why are tracor beams not used to rip smaller ships and fighters apart? | How come larger ships, like Star Destroyers, don't use multiple tractor beams to smash and crumble hostile targets in close proximity? Or at least hold them still to have an easier time blasting them?
Second question; how come this technology isn't used onboard
the ship as a defensive system against boarding parties / infiltrators? | The energy required to manipulate a ship in space with a tractor beam is equivalent to the energy required to power an engine that could move them at the same speed. That's an awful lot of lasers you could have fired instead. | 11 | 16 |
ELI5:What is it that makes Toyotas so reliable even after many years of use? | Large amounts of spare parts made? Manufacturing process? Design differences? | Toyota revolutionized a manufacturing process about 40 years ago that allowed bottom up refinements to address manufacturing issues (the assembly guys on the line can spot an issue and report it up the hierarchy to get it changed, rather than waiting for the managers and engineers to discover issue) and had an extreme focus on quality. At this point, other car makers have caught up in many respects and it’s more reputation than anything at this point. And the worst brands today are still better than the best a generation ago in terms of reliability. | 6,723 | 7,487 |
For every watt of electricity you use inside an air-conditioned building, how many watts of electricity does your air conditioning consume to remove the heat? | Technically "for every joule..." would probably be better, but watt makes more sense. What factors are there to consider? | It varies depending on a lot of things. A little background first:
Air conditioners are rated based on 'coefficient of performance,' which is the ratio of energy moved to energy consumed. For example, an air conditioner operating in certain conditions might expel 4 watts of heat and consume 1 watt of electricity in doing so. This air conditioner is *moving* 3 watts and *using* 1 watt, so its COP is 3/1 = 3 (in those conditions). This is a typical COP, but they range from 0 to 6.
The hotter it is outside, the harder time the air conditioner will have moving the heat out of the building - the COP will go down. It will take more energy to move 1 joule from 72F to 105F than it will to move it from 72F to 75F.
At the same time, the colder it is inside, the harder time the air conditioner will have moving the heat out of the building. It will take more energy to move 1 joule from 20F to 80F than it will to move it from 70F to 80F.
This brings us to the main factor in air conditioner performance: temperature difference between inside and outside. Moving heat when the two temperatures are nearly the same is *easy*. Moving heat when the temperature difference is large is *hard*. | 13 | 16 |
CMV: Governments no longer have the power they used to over companies. | I believe governments no longer have the power they used to over companies.
Some companies have near bottomless resources and hold monopolies across various sectors and nations. I will refer to these companies as super companies.
Super companies can no longer be controlled by the government. Only hindered. A super company can hire experts to legally find ways around legislation and laws. As well as legally avoid tax. Sometimes even evading tax through global schemes.
Not only can governments not control super companies. Super companies now hold leverage of governments. They have more resources and power than most governments. They lobby and influence political candidates. They often hold upper hands in negotiations with public sector.
Super companies hold more power over workers than the government holds over them. In negotiating contracts and setting job requirements. To sacking employees and imposing working conditions and environments.
Super companies can not be held accountable to the law. The government simply doesn't have enough resources to hold all companies accountable. The government can set examples on some companies but they can't regulate and govern every company they don't have the resources. | >A super company can hire experts to legally find ways around legislation and laws.
That doesn't mean the government has less power over companies, it means they're writing poorly worded laws
>They have more resources and power than most governments.
Speaking as someone in the US, The US budget is around 4T a year.
Amazon's 2018 revenue was 280B. The government is still 14x larger than Amazon, which is one of the highest revenue earners in the US. The company does not have more power or resources than the company.
At the end of the day, the government could pass a law and come down and stop Amazon. They could freeze their assets. Without their money they're going to quickly collapse. Amazon can not do this to the US government, so I'd argue the US government still has far more power than the company. | 35 | 56 |
ELI5: If we have to help animals like horses give birth, then how did they manage it themselves before humans started animal husbandry? | We don't "have to help" them, but in the case of horses, a lot of time we help in the birthing process because we're invested in the animal (emotionally or financially) and want to see the animal and it's offspring do good so we benefit from it as well. | 1,707 | 1,831 |
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ELI5: how do you "reverse engineer" something? | You carefully take something apart, study how the components are put together, and how they interact with each other.
For example, if you don't know how to fold a paper plane, you can carefully unfold one to learn what folds to do. | 213 | 63 |
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ELI5: How do they decide the way mountain roads twist and turn? | Many of the mountain roads you may find started out as trails or paths. The path was whatever made sense to the people (or animals, as many started out as deer trails, etc) as the easiest way to get through the terrain. The path was then widened for horseback, then for carriages. Sometimes the paths were re-routed for fallen trees or washed out sections of the trial. Eventually these paths were improved with gravel or planks. When automobiles came along the paths were further improved and rerouted to make life easier on drivers. Houses and landmarks were established and the roads were routed to or around them appropriately. Eventually a new section is built for a particularly difficult or treacherous section.
Some roads are a bit more deliberate than this, but many mountain roads you will find evolved over more than a century in one way or another. | 379 | 283 |
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Why are do most medications have HCl in it? | For example:
Tramadol HCl, Sertraline HCl, Oxycodone HCl
Does the HCl stabilize the medication? | First of all, many chemicals used as drugs contain a nitrogen atom. Not all nitrogen-containing chemicals are basic, but many are. Specifically molecules which contain the *amine* functionality are basic. Such molecules are prone to oxidize when exposed to air. In addition, some suffer from poor solubility in water, which is generally a problem -- good water solubility generally translates into better drug absorbtion.
For molecules containing the amine functionality, one solution to either or both these problems is to react the basic molecule with an acidic molecule, to make a salt. The acidic molecule is often (but not always) HCl, or hydrochloric acid. So, if you take one molecule of oxydocdone and one molecule of HCl, you form the oxycodone-HCl salt. The electron deficient H+ from the HCl is strongly attracted to the electron-rich nitrogen, and forms a positively charged portion of the molecule. The Cl- hangs around to balance the charge, so there is no net charge. (Of course, a bottle of positive charges or negative charges is generally called a battery, and you don't want to swallow that for a medication, so you want the Cl- to be there as well!)
The resulting molecule is less prone to air oxidation (more stable) and is also more water soluble, since it is more polar (and polar things tend to dissolve in water better than non-polar ones)...and makes a better medicine. | 17 | 15 |
ELI5: Why towels and clothes get stiff when you dry them in the sun? | Domestic water is not usually pure water, it often contains salts and other minerals. As the clothes dry, these salts and minerals are left behind in the threads of the fabric forming crystals.
Air-drying is a relatively slow process and the clothes are mostly stationary, so these crystals can get bigger, making the fabric stiffer. However, it doesn't take much to break them so clothes feel much softer once worn.
Tumble dryers constantly tumble the clothes through the drying process, which keeps the minerals from forming crystals big enough to noticeably stiffen the clothes. | 20 | 16 |
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[Star Trek] Why are the so many humanoids? | I know of the progenitors (I think), who believed they were the only sentient species, long ago and didn't want to be alone, so they seeded many planets in their likeness. But we have seen many other species that were not created by them, along with quite a few nonhumanoid species.
If we know that other life is possible in such a vast galaxy, shouldn't there be an overwhelming majority of various nonhumanoids? | > But we have seen many other species that were not created by them
How did you determine that? The progenitors is the explanation for the overwhelming humanoid appearance throughout the galaxy. There may be a few cases of convergent evolution, but that is unlikely. If you see a species that is humanoid, it is because they evolved on one of the seeded planets are are a descendant from such a race.
> If we know that other life is possible in such a vast galaxy, shouldn't there be an overwhelming majority of various nonhumanoids?
Not if that other life was pre-empted by the seeding of humanoid life among their planets. The existence of life works to preclude further abiogenesis of new life. | 16 | 29 |
Why does asphalt turn lighter over time? | What is in it that loses its black color and becomes gray? | Asphalt used to pave roads and driveways is a mix of Asphalt (bitumen) and stone aggregate. The Asphalt acts as a binder for the aggregate. The aggregate mixture depends on where it's being mixed, it varies by region depending on what's available. It is usually crushed stone or recycled from milled roads. The aggregate is usually gray in color, lighter than the asphalt. As the asphalt (binder) weathers/wears away the aggregate, stones and minerals, start to show more and lighten the perceived color of the entire surface. | 11 | 21 |
ELI5: Why your vision becomes grainy when you're in a dark room or when you close your eyes | Repost since my post got ''[removed]'' when I did not remove it myself nor did I receive a message as to why so I am going to assume it was a glitch on Reddit.
Like tiny fine dots that change colors and are red green and blue. | Our eyes have two different types of cells that detect light. Rods and Cones.
Cones detect color, there are (usually) three types that detect different wavelengths, corresponding to Red, Green, & Blue.
Rods don't detect color, only amount of light.
Cones have a much harder time detecting light when the light levels are very low. This is why we tend to lose our color vision when in low light. The cones practically stop working but the rods still work.
I don't recall fine dots that change colors, but I'd bet that what you are asking about is because the cone cells are struggling while the rod cells make up the difference. | 12 | 22 |
Got rejected to the phd project I wrote myself. Do I have any rights, anything I can do? | Context: I contacted a prof in a uni in the UK and talked to him about my ideas (aug). He was very positive, asked me to find funding and write a phd proposal. I was not able to find any funding but wrote a nice proposal and sent him (sep). Later he sent my proposal to department (oct), project proposal was liked (dec) and shortly after the uni advertised (jan) a fully funded phd project using the introduction part of my proposal in the ad. I applied using the same proposal and got rejection letter today saying "we received a large number of applications but we were unable to offer a place to everyone who applied".
Immediately I sent an email to the prof I was in contact with, who is also the dean, about the situation and asked for help. I don't know if there will be a change in situation but if not, is there anything I can do?
Edit: I got the rejection mail half an hour ago and my hands are still shaking so I'm sorry if I wrote the post like a 6 year old.
Update: Got an answer from the professor that says "It looks like none of my applicants were accepted. Sorry!". Project/funding is cancelled, which is sort of expected considering the uni is already struggling to pay their existing workers after opening a failed Dubai campus as I've heard from friends.
Thank you all for advices and your time. I hope none of you live something like this. I'm not going to delete the post because there are some really good advices in comments.
Final edit: some people asked name of the uni. Although I have strong negative feelings towards the university I have no problems with the prof. He's a good man (afaik) so I won't be giving any names here. As for what I will do: This entire thing did cost me a large chunk of money, a funded phd offer I had to turn down, roughly a year and a bunch of gray hair so I will probably follow a different career path. | If everything was sent via university email, there will be a paper(?) trail leading back to your proposal. You have evidence.
Edit: Send this evidence to whoever is in charge of ethics at your uni, or send your situation to the funding source along with the evidence. If all else fails, get publicity for your case. | 98 | 215 |
ELI5: What's the reason for absurd jail sentencings like 300 years? What's the logic and method for calculating that many years of jail time? | The first explanation is that judges simply calculate the number of crimes committed times how many years the sentence is for each crime. If a thief commits 30 acts of burglary and each conviction carries a sentence of 10 years then you end up with 300 years of jail time.
One of the benefits of such long jail time is that parole decisions are often made based upon what percentage of the convict's sentence has been completed. Someone might be eligible for parole after they have served 50% of their sentence. Having a 300 year sentence makes sure that they will never be eligible for parole, no matter how lenient the parole decisions are in the future. | 49 | 26 |
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Why don't microwave ovens heat up air? | When I open a regular oven, a wave of hot air rushes out because the entire interior of the oven has been heated up. Yet, when I open a microwave oven, the only thing that's hot inside is my food. Why is this? Do microwaves only heat certain substances? | Because water molecules are polar (have positively and negatively charged ends) so the oscillating EM field affects those molecules, but molecules that comprise air (O2, N2, etc) are non-polar, so the oscillating EM field doesn't affect them. | 61 | 35 |
ELI5 what causes trees to split? Do they just decide at 5 feet to say fuck it Imma head out? | It's because trees want to take a shape that works for them.
Basically trees have five main things in mind.
Keep anchored (which is the job of the roots), suck up water and fertilizer (also the roots), don't fall over (the roots plus the trunk), reach more sunlight (the branches and the leaves) and suck up sun for energy (the leaves).
There's a lot of different ways that a tree can do all five, but it really can't do the fifth one very well unless it spreads out sideways a little (yes, there are exceptions like palm trees). The reason for this is the leaves get in each others way, blocking the sun.
So as it grows, it splits, and this lets more leaves be in more sun because the tree starts getting more sideways as it gets taller. Now the tree COULD just keep trying to keep all its leaves and grow taller and taller without branching... but this starts making "don't fall over" a lot tougher at some point.
So the tree branches to get more light once it gets to a certain size, and keeps branching after that to collect even more. | 5,490 | 13,728 |
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CMV: The "cars kill more people than guns" argument is completely invalid when talking about the merits of gun control | I often see in discussions about the merits of gun control, people utilise the argument that "more people die in car crashes than from guns, should we ban cars too?" People dying in car crashes is horrible, but not only is it a totally seperate issue, this argument is invalid.
When you get in your car and turn it on, the goal in mind is to get from wherever you are currently to wherever you are wanting to be. A successful drive of a car involves you and your passengers if applicable arriving at your destination, all involved are unharmed. Vehicular injuries or deaths generally arise as a result of some form misuse (either negligence or carelessness), badly designed road or badly designed vehicle. If you attempt to use a vehicle for its intended purpose and nothing goes wrong, nobody gets harmed.
On the other hand with guns, when you pick up a gun and pull the trigger, the idea is the thing its pointed at gets maimed or killed- i.e. that is its designed purpose. If you point a gun at something and pull the trigger, and the thing its pointed at isn't injured or killed, either you didn't use it well (i.e. you missed) or it isn't a very good/well designed gun.
When we're talking about vehicular deaths, they are referred to as "accidents," whereas when someone gets killed by a gun its referred to as a "shooting." In the firearm scenario, the "shooter" has successfully carried out a "shooting," where as in the vehicle scenario the "driver" has had "an accident."
What I'm getting at is cars are designed for a practical harmless purpose which we more or less all desire, whereas guns are designed for a *harmful* purpose which at least one person/thing involved with any shooting does not desire. Cars are in a totally different ballpark and the amount of deaths caused by cars is completely irrelevant when discussing gun control.
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> *This is a footnote from the CMV moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!* | Why is the purpose relevant? There are legitimate uses for guns (hunting, self-defence, target shooting etc) and legitimate uses for cars (transporting people and goods). Both carry a risk of accidents, injuries through negligent use, and injuries through deliberate violence.
Why is the purpose of the gun relevant? The fact that its legitimate purposes happen to often involve killing doesn't make it intrinsically more dangerous. Mining explosives are made for a non-violent purpose, and rat poison is made for an explicitly violent purpose, but obviously we regulate mining explosives more heavily.
It should be about an analysis of the risks and rewards, and metaphysical references to the "purpose" don't seem to contribute usefully to sensible policy decisions in this area. | 30 | 38 |
ELI5How is water retained in various materials when soaked? What makes something retain water better (I.E. Sponge)? | ^^^ | The chemical property of the surface determines how well water sticks to it. That is because water molecules are polar - they are slightly positively charged on one end, and negatively charge on the other. They prefer being in contact with materials that have a similar property (hydrophilic), and avoid being in contact with materials which are unpolar (hydrophobic) - like air and oil.
This effect is what causes surface tension between water and air: Because the water molecules would much rather be in contact with each other than with air, they form round drops with minimal surface area. But between water and a hydrophilic substance, there is no surface tension, and in some cases the water molecules stick so well to the surface that they spread out.
Sponges and other materials which soak water have a very high surface area and are hydrophilic, so the water prefers sticking to it over having more contact with air. If you make a sponge from hydrophobic material, the water would simply run out. | 10 | 50 |
ELI5: Which would cause more damage: 2 equal sized cars ramming head on, both going 60mph OR 2 equal sized cars, 1 parked, the other going 120mph? | Roughly the same. One major postulate of physics is that all reference frames are equally valid.
So there is no difference between two cars moving towards each other each at 60 and one car moving towards the other at 120.
I say roughly, because in real life there's retarding forces, material properties, and several other factors which will impact what happens. But in theory, the two are the same. In fact, there's no distinguishing from the two situations.
edit: an additional answer from Quora
>We assume cars of equal mass, and the collision is inelastic. Then, yes, it's equivalent. You can think of this as a result of (ordinary) relativity. In the 120+0 case, consider moving in a reference frame that is going 60mph w.r.t. the earth. Then it is clear; you would see nothing different than if you were stationary and the cars do 60+ -60.
>But you may ask: Does not the 120+0 case have twice the initial kinetic energy than the two 60's case? (120^2 is 4 times 60^2+60^2) The answer to this is that the combined mass of the two cars in the 120+0 case, by conservation of momentum, continues to travel at 60mph. Thus not all, but only half, the initial kinetic energy is used up in the collision. | 36 | 34 |
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Do tree rings always correspond to a year? | I don't know why - but that just doesn't seem right to me.
I've been taught that each ring corresponds to a year, but is it true? Are there variations? What's so special about a year? How would seasons affect it? | Forest ecology PhD student here. Only tree species found in temperate regions with extreme annual fluctuations in climate have rings that reliably correspond to a year. This is because trees grow rapidly in warm weather and very little in cold. Tropical species largely do not have rings at all due to the relatively consistent climate throughout the year, and even if they do, they certainly do not reliably represent yearly growth (the age of a tropical tree cannot be determined by its rings). Even within temperate zones that have climates perfectly suitable for 'ring-counting', certain species are more reliable than others. Ring-porous species such as oaks are particularly good for dendrochronology work. White oak is probably considered the 'model' species for doing dendro- work. Black-cherry on the other hand is particularly difficult to work with. | 34 | 49 |
Eli5: why are the majority of wealthy/developed countries concentrated into the northern hemisphere of the world? | It seems that the northern half of the world contains most to all of the developed countries in the world. Why is this? My best guess is that explorers from Europe never settled too far south of the equator. | There's a really great book about this called Guns, Germs, and Steel that explains why some societies have gotten so much more progress than others.
A couple of things.
The "northern half" includes North America, which is one of the least advanced, historically. So saying that "the northern half" contains the most developed countries in the world is only partially true. If you take the United States, well, that's essentially a really large European colony, and can take advantage of Eurasia's natural advantage.
So that leads to the question: Why did Eurasia have that kind of advantage, anyways? Why did Europe colonize the world instead of Africa or South America? It's a couple of things, actually: The east-west axis of Eurasia, the availability of domesticable animals, and the availability of good quality metal ores.
The Americas are primarily north-south in their orientation, and it's obvious that there are larger differences in latitude than longitude. You can bring that awesome wheat variety you've just domesticated eastward or westward, like what happened in Europe, but it's hard to move that wheat north or south, where it's colder or warmer, and where the weather is probably different.
Secondly, Europe and the Middle East have by far the most large animals available for domestication, and that's a huge deal. When you have a large animal working your fields, you are a lot more productive, and the more productive you are, the more people your land can sustain. Agricultural societies are always a lot more dense than non-agricultural societies, and more dense societies can sustain more non-productive citizens like philosophers, artists, kings, and soldiers.
Domestic animals also increase your ability to travel, and the amount of luggage you can tow around. When you're limited to smallish loads carryable in a hand cart, you're not going to be able to realistically trade as much as you could if you had a horse-drawn cart, and you're not going to want to go as far. You're not going to be able to really use the massive power of the wheel, because you can't scale up as far as you can if you had an ox-sized being hauling stuff.
Lastly, the advantage of iron and bronze over stone and wood is self-evident. If you have bronze, you're going to beat your stone-equipped enemies and can access iron. If you can access iron, you're going to defeat your bronze-equipped enemies and can access steel, and so on.
Surely I've missed something, but I've gotta go. Hopefully this helped! | 120 | 139 |
CMV: While I believe systemic racism is real, I don't believe it is a big factor that determines an individual's success in life. I think this comes down to values and culture far more. | I found this link the other day and was blown away: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_ethnic\_groups\_in\_the\_United\_States\_by\_household\_income](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_United_States_by_household_income)
Check out how well the Asians are doing. I think that if systemic racism were a big factor, than Caucasians would be at the top of the list, and everyone else would be far below. This list of household incomes by ethnicity proves that systemic racism is not as big a deal as it is made out to be by the media. CMV Reddit! | Asians in America are a relatively small population, and a significant portion are either immigrants or among the first few generations of residents. Given the barriers to immigrate are biased toward wealthier or better-educated people, we would expect a population is significantly influenced by modern immigration to therefore be wealthier on average.
A more meaningful measurement would be on the median income, not average. Averages tend to be influenced by outliers, while the median just looks at what the middle is. | 44 | 25 |
I support free migration, and believe that all immigration restrictions are unjust. CMV | Counterarguments to common arguments against open borders:
* "Immigrants would take jobs that should go to natives." Regardless of whether immigrants are taking jobs that would otherwise have gone to natives (the empirics I've seen lead me to believe that they don't), why should being a native entitle anyone to a better chance at a job? Suppose someone made a similar argument against women in the workforce - "Women shouldn't be allowed to work because they'll take jobs from men" - or against efficiency - "People shouldn't be efficient and productive because then it takes fewer people to do the same job". If an employer wants to hire a native worker, and the worker is capable of consenting to taking the job (i.e. is not a child or extremely mentally unhealthy), then they can agree to a mutually beneficial contract. This is uncontroversial (except among the far left), so what's different if the worker happens to live in another country?
* "Immigrants would change our culture." Immigrants have changed American culture in the past, and no one today thinks that's a bad thing. More importantly, culture is no more than what individuals who live in a certain area or identify with a certain group tend to do. If some native-born Americans suddenly adopted different cultural norms, no one would support deporting them.
* "Immigrants would abuse the welfare state." There are two answers to this. The first is that it would not be difficult to restrict the welfare state to citizens. The second addresses the purpose of the welfare state. If the purpose of redistribution is to benefit the unlucky (those who happen to be born into low-income families or lose their jobs through no fault of their own), then people who are born in third-world countries are even more unlucky than either of those groups. If they come to first-world countries and work, they would be more productive than they would have been in their native countries (not to mention they could be fleeing things like wars and genocide), and, in a utilitarian calculus, the benefits to these immigrants far outweigh the benefits of the welfare state to those who are already wealthy by global standards.
* "Immigrants would increase crime." I've not seen much empirical evidence to justify this claim. Yes, there are some places with many immigrants (or children of immigrants) that have high crime rates, but the same can be said of natives - plenty of high-crime areas don't have any foreigners. And even if immigrants are disproportionally likely to commit crimes, that is not an argument against immigration unless you also believe that native-born groups who are disproportionately likely to commit crimes should be deported as well.
* "We live here, so we decide the rules." Even if that's true, what's good about current rules? The above arguments show why current rules are bad (or at least internally inconsistent), so why not change them? More fundamentally, though, why do you get to decide the rules? If I own a house and want to rent it out to an immigrant, under what authority can the government say that I can't? Does it own my house? If so, how did it come to own it? If I am a business owner and want to hire an immigrant, and the immigrant wants to work for me, what authority does the government have to stop a mutually beneficial voluntary exchange? Does it own my business? The country is not owned by the government, it is a composite of a large number of properties with different owners, administered by a government. Government is a service, not an owner - if you always hire the same plumber to work on your pipes, that doesn't mean he owns them, so why is it different for government?
Edit for another common counterargument:
* "Open borders mean you don't know who's coming and going." "Open borders" doesn't necessarily mean "no borders". Under open borders people could still have to register before entering a country, it would just mean that they wouldn't be denied entry once registered. | Money is the key ingredient in immigration restrictions. Citizens pay taxes and get the benefits of those taxes. Immigration restrictions are in place to guard against illegal immigrants coming into the country and benefiting from the citizens tax money.
Also, educated immigrants are usually a good thing because they bring something to contribute to the society - hence why they can usually get citizenship faster. Uneducated immigrants are beneficial too, but only to a certain extent. They provide cheap labor but suck up resources they usually can't pay for. So it's a pretty grey issue, but immigration restrictions are there to protect tax dollars. | 71 | 177 |
CMV: Towards the end of every X-Men movie I can't help but absolutely side with the humans. Spoilers. | So yesterday I saw Logan and I got my girlfriend really mad at me because, to me, it's really clear that those children are horribly dangerous monsters that absolutely needed to be stopped and Dr Rice was on the level of Jonas Salk in discovering a cure for the X-Gene and putting it in corn syrup, secretly vaccinating (and curing) humans from mutations.
Who is the problem in *every* movie? A mutant. Even in the one where they try really hard to make a human (Trask) the villain, a mutant has to come along and try to murder the president. Even ignoring Magneto, even ignoring *every* villain, the mutants constantly put human lives at risk.
In the first one, Senator Kelly is absolutely right. These kids are given powerful weapons with zero regulation. He talks about Shadowcat and asks "What's to stop her from walking into a bank vault?" and *nobody fucking answers him*. Rogue puts her boyfriend in a damn coma by kissing him.
In Apocalypse, Scott murders (shut up, that would kill any normal human) some jock to discover his powers. Quicksilver commits grand larceny all the time. In X-3 Jean Grey goes Phoenix and almost kills the world. And on and on and on.
"But wait! Dr Rice was terrible for trying to turn those kids into weapons!" you say. And while, yeah, it's definitely a moral grey area because they absolutely *look* human, how different is it than raising military K-9's or training dolphins to... something in the military? I think it was attach bombs to submarines?
These mutants are *not* humans. Both sides, in every movie, make it very clear. Just because she looks cute doesn't mean she isn't a feral child who murders upwards of 20 people, and would have killed a number of civilians if Logan hadn't stopped her at the last minute. Mutant DNA is as different from Human DNA as Chimp DNA is. And every movie (save for Logan) plays out exactly like Planet of the Apes.
You saw the struggle of a little girl who was trying to escape to freedom. I saw a classic monster movie. Scientist creates monster. Monster escapes. Monster kills scientist and countless other people.
If mutants were real, humans should be very afraid. It's been shown time and again that they can't be contained, so they really need to be neutralized, either with a cure or a bullet.
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> *This is a footnote from the CMV moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!* | What is the measure of a human to you? You describe the children as monsters. Does the fact that they have very real feelings and emotions not resonate with you? Does the fact that a private company is mobilizing a mercenary force to kill children similarly not resonate? | 15 | 16 |
ELI5: If corporations are considered Legal Persons, and legal persons are required to pay income tax, why aren't profitable corporations like Merck, GE, and Verizon paying any income tax? | Business expenses are tax deductible. When you're a business, every expense is a business expense so you only pay tax on profits, not income. By careful bookkeeping and passing money between subsidiaries, the corporate accountants can make it look like the company didn't make any money so they don't owe any taxes. | 15 | 15 |
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ELI5: The Price is Right $1 Bidding - Why people do it and why people hate it. | From a game theory perspective, there are only three rational ways for the higher bidder to bid:
1. If you believe all other contestants overbid, bid $1.
2. If you believe all other contestants underbid, bid $1 more than the highest bidder.
3. If you believe the other contestants' bids were a mix of underbids and overbids, bid $1 more than the contestant that you believe had the highest underbid.
Assuming your objective is to maximize your chance of winning, any other bid is not rational.
The strategy is much more complex if you're not the last bidder. The second-to-last bidder can attempt to bid $1, or $1 more than another bidder, but they put themselves at great risk from the final bidder if the do so. Second-to-last bidder might choose to employ another strategy that would seem sub-optimal but is actually rational if it encourages the last bidder to target someone other than the next-to-last bidder. | 22 | 27 |
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CMV: I do not think that "Let's Plays" (videos of people commentating over video games) should be considered fair use. | I'd like for someone to successfully change my view on this. I've seen people get really passionate about let's plays being fair use, and I can't help but feel like I'm missing something. I've listened to Totalbiscuit talking about it and he didn't convince me, as well as many other content creators; but I don't think I'm really that clever of a person. Almost all of the people who I've heard talk about it I think are a lot smarter than me, but I can't see their point. I can't help but feel like I'm missing something, so I'm going to outline my stance on it fairly in-depth. I'll be talking about the typical "for fair use" arguments I've heard, so please make sure you read over my argument in full before replying, and I'll do the same for your counterpoints.
Sorry if my grammar/wording makes it difficult to read. I'm not the best at putting arguments into words, though I'm trying to get better at it. I'd appreciate tips on that as well if you feel like it.
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I disagree with the idea that anyone has the "right" to make a let's play of a game. And that's really what people are arguing for; by saying that a let's play is "fair use", they are saying that it's a valuable enough piece of media that it would be against the law for the creator to say "no". I do think there are some let's players who this should apply to, and, unfortunately, you'll probably not like who I say they are.
~~People like Pewdiepie, Markiplier, Jackscepticeye, all people that I don't watch, probably do deserve to have (some of) their videos come under "fair use". I'm talking about the heavily edited "one-off" ones that often have a lot of visual and audio effects. I'd still have to look at them on a case-by-case basis, but I'm comfortable making a blanket statement that I think it would be ethically wrong for a company to take down most of those videos.~~
**Edit: awarded a Delta to /u/Hallrugo for pointing out that being lax on "heavily edited" let's plays is inconsistant with my argument. I do think there should be room for exception, but as a rule, heavily edited let's plays are just as guilty.**
But, for example, the content that Cryoatic makes, or Northernlion (both people I watch frequently) should not come under fair use; mostly unedited, **full playthroughs** of games.
I don't believe the latter is transformative enough. You can argue that the reason people are watching is for the personality, but that doesn't reflect in the disparity of views from game to game. If it were considered "fair use" to watch a movie, commentate over it, and upload it to YouTube, I'm sure there would still be a bunch of people who watch it for the personality of the commentator. There would still be people who are more popular than others, and instances where two people could watch the same movie yet one video would be entertaining and the other one not. You could say that viewers are watching these videos for the people and not the movies. That seems like an absurd argument when talking about movies, but people use it for games all the time. And yeah, I get that movies and games are different, but the point stands that **just the fact people watch a video for the personality isn't enough to be a sound argument for let's plays being fair use.**
The other argument I see is that games are different because they are played, and each player has a different experience playing them. This argument can be discounted because this doesn't apply to all games (see "The Chinese Room" and "Quantic Dream" games), but even if it did, games are much more than "complete objective A -- win the game". They have character designs, environments, music, dialogue, plots, themes, **all** of which copyrighted. If there was a game that consisted of a white hallway, and to win the game you had to simply walk down the hallway, I'd maybe say it's fair use to let's play it. Though, to be fair, even as ridiculously simple of a game might have themes associated with it that mean something; but assuming it doesn't? Sure. It's fair use. But most games aren't just that, and *that's* the part that's transformative.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think all let's plays like this should be taken off of the internet, but I think it should be **up to the developer** whether or not people can post videos of their game. Try and see it from the developer's point of view: you spend years working on a product, drawing all the art assets, composing all the music, writing out the dialogue (all as a one-man team like the developer of Undertale did), and then some doofus comes along, puts in a day of work, and tells you that he has the **RIGHT** to use your creation to make money.
To me, that's an absurd situation, yet right now there's many let's players who think this is ok. A lot of them say "let's plays help profits" (which isn't proven but likely true) as though that's a be-all end-all fact that means that they can use your work. Now I know this is something that the law considers as a factor for fair use, but I don't think it should. It's art. There may be many reasons for its creation. Maybe I made it in order to make a political point, or to express myself, or because I just love video games and it's something I do on the side. Yet there are people who think that just because it makes me more money, they should have a right to use it.
Again, it should be up to the developer, regardless if it helps the profits. What I'm not ok with, though, is the bullshit that Nintendo is pulling, "Yeah, you can use our work! But you have you to give *us* the profits.". That's not ok, and definitely shouldn't be legal. There needs to be a system in place, maybe a non-profit organisation or something, that allows developers to "register" their games as being safe for let's play. If a game is ever removed from that list, let's plays uploaded before the date it was removed should still be allowed for a certain period of time. Say, a few months. That would give the let's players adequate warning, allow the developers to control their product, and put an end to companies trying to exploit let's players.
But my hunch is that most people would be against that idea, just going off of the number of people who played Heavy Rain and Beyond Two Souls despite Quantic Dream asking people not to post let's plays of their games.
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> *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!* | Generally speaking, the purpose of distinguishing between fair use and non-fair use is to prevent people from using someone's intellectual property in a way that erodes away at the market for that intellectual property. The justification is fairly straightforward: when you erode away at someone's market, you cost them money that they could have made off of their intellectual property.
The classic example is posting a full-length song or album on youtube. Even if you contribute something to the video - whether subtitles for the lyrics, a slideshow of pictures of the artist who wrote the song, your own music video - you're still posting a video that people could use as a substitute for going out and buying that song or album. That's why it's not considered fair use - it decreases demand for purchasing the song through legal avenues and ultimately hurts the original content creator.
The consensus regarding let's play videos is that they do not serve as effective substitutes for the product in question. The core component of a video game that makes it a game is that you can play it. Watching someone play a game is generally not a substitute for playing it, and that's why it's considered fair use. It doesn't encroach on the market for actually purchasing the product, and therefore doesn't hurt the producer. In fact, if there are people who go out to buy games specifically because they saw them on a let's play video, then it could be the case that these videos *benefit* the owners of the intellectual property.
| 16 | 18 |
Do you have to take into account atmospheric pressure when calculating the upward acceleration of rockets? | Hi,
If yes, do you have to apply the force of gravity and the force of atmospheric pressure separately? | Yes! Drag is a major consideration during early stages of a flight. It also must be calculated separately from gravity since drag is dependent on the velocity, which is increasing with thrust, and the air density, which is decreasing with altitude. Drag is also dependent on the direction of air flow with respect to the vehicle (called "angle of attack"), whereas gravity is always pointing in the same direction, another reason it needs to be considered separately.
It actually presents something of a problem because during launch, a spacecraft has two major sources of energy loss, called "gravity losses" and "drag losses", both of which reduce fuel efficiency. To minimize gravity losses, you want to accelerate as fast as possible away from the Earth and minimize the time you spend thrusting against gravity. On the other hand, drag is proportional to the square of velocity, and directly proportional to density of the air, so to minimize the drag losses you would want to keep velocity low at low altitudes and then increase velocity as you get to altitudes where the air is much thinner (the stress induced by atmospheric drag is also a very important consideration).
So they compromise by varying the throttle during the ascent to best balance the losses to these two forces. For example, the Space Shuttle would launch with the engines wide open, but as it gained altitude and speed, it would begin to throttle back to as little as 60% until it passed a point called "max Q", which is where the drag (and stress on the spacecraft) is greatest--if you listen to the radio transmissions of launches, you can hear them say when the vehicle passes max Q. Once they pass it, they throttle back up because they are now at an altitude where the density is so dropping so fast that increasing the velocity doesn't significantly increase drag.
**EDIT:** Since you asked specifically about pressure, there are issues that have to be taken into consideration to deal with the pressure as well, namely with the rocket's engines. The ambient pressure effects the thrust produced and the efficiency of the engines, which in rocketry is referred to as the "specific impulse." The specific impulse of the Saturn V engine in a vacuum is 304 s, but at sea level, it drops to 263 s. | 19 | 22 |
ELI5: why is driving so exhausting? | I can understand that you dont have to make physical effort to feel tired, because I work as a computer programmer and I feel tired after making mental effort, but this effort seems way bigger than the one required to drive, yet, after 4,5 hours of driving I feel way more exhausted than after 8,10 hours of coding. | While driving you're constantly analyzing, making decisions, and doing micro-corrections. Scanning the road for potential hazards and other drivers, looking for curves that require you to adjust speed or potholes and debris that you need to avoid, making a million tiny corrections on the steering wheel to stay in your lane, etc.
If you have been driving for a couple years (or even months) then your body does a lot of this subconsciously. So while it seems like you're not doing much, your body is constantly working to avoid danger | 377 | 243 |
ELI5: Would it be possible to make a sandbox style game using Google Streetview as a template for a real city? | So I know very little about game design (as much as a five year old, one might say). Could the images generated for Streetview be used to generate a gameworld for a GTA-style game? | They could certainly be used as a framework for doing so.
However, you'd run into two significant obstacles:
1. Real life is boring. There are good reasons cities end up arranged as they are. Those good reasons do not include 'compelling gameplay'. After the 100th time you have to walk past featureless tract housing that exists as only non-interactive scenery on the way to your real destination, you'll probably get very bored. Sandbox games compress reality so you don't have to spend all your time commuting.
2. The images from Streetview aren't actually 'three dimensional' in a useful form. Games render their scenes by starting from a wire frame outline and then pasting textures onto it. But Streetview doesn't work like that. Rather it's just a series of flat pictures which are morphed into one another. You could theoretically come up with an algorithm to transform multiple two-dimensional images into a wireframe/texture structure, but it's a lot easier to just hire artists to design your structures - even if they're just trying to copy a real world location. | 17 | 30 |
CMV: When arguing about the certainty of anything, including politics, it is important to use logic. | Logic is basically the rules of valid cognition; we think using our words, and say what we think. Truth is the identity of logic. Propositional logic consists of tautological axioms that basically define truth, and truth conversely defines logic. So if you believe in logic, you believe in truth. If you believe that logic is absolute, you believe that truth is absolute.
On the other hand, if you want to argue with logic and say you it's 'fuzzy' or you really can't get to the bottom of it, then you undermine your own position because it stops you from proving or verifying anything. You might as well not speak, because nothing you say is identifiable; it can't be distinguished from it's logical negation or complement. | I would argue that that really depends on what your goal is. If your goal is to try to come to the best possible solution to a problem, then logic is a great tool to use to get there.
However, if your goal is to convince others that you are right and to go with what you say (like, say, a political debate prior to an election) then you should use whatever is most effective at convincing your audience that you are right. Often, that is _not_ logic because we are not always logical beings. Appeal to Emotion and Appeal to Authority may be bad logical arguments, but the are **super effective** at getting people to believe your stance is the right one. | 26 | 32 |
Are professional philosophers continuously mailing arguments, essays, and questions to other professional philosophers they trust before they publish their final works? | Is this something that actually happens, or is it mainly a secretive project where each philosopher just does all the thinking in their own head? Its not really an authoritative book on philosophers but Stephen Greenblatt said in his book, The Swerve, that in ancient greek philosophy, philosophers generally had big meet ups where they would discuss ideas, and there was constant mail being sent between philosophers. He compares this to modern approaches where philosophers are usually doing all the thinking themselves.
edit:Thanks for the responses :) | Philosophers present and discuss their research at conferences, which often serve as a working step in the development of a publication. They present and discuss their research at departmental research colloquia and in the course of funding applications or writing contracts, and these presentations likewise often serve as working steps. Their publications are often peer-reviewed and accepted on the basis of a process of revision worked out through the peer review. Their research is often developed in the course of their teaching, especially in the case of teaching graduate seminars, which are frequently organized as extended engagements with the topic of the professor's ongoing research. Publications typically engage and respond to the work of other academics, so they more often have a conversational than monological quality. And on top of these regular collegial activities of academia, it is common to distribute drafts of research among one's colleagues for comment.
So, yes, philosophical research *is* typically conducted in the context of a variety of means of peer-review. If this isn't the case for some particular article, it was still probably written by someone who has spent decades involved full-time with these sorts of peer-review activities and on the same subject as the article. | 13 | 19 |
Can someone explain to me how exactly Linux makes everything so much easier versus Windows? | How does it work? I'm just curious since I've never used Linux before.. | There's the Unix terminal for one, which makes it easy to do anything you could want to do quickly and efficiently from the terminal while you're working. No only is it more efficient, but most Linux distros come with command-line utilities like ssh that require third-party software on Windows.
The biggest difference, however, is the package managers. If you want to install a new language, compiler, library, etc. etc. etc. you can do it in one step. If you want to install a Python library on Windows, you've gotta search the internet for an installer. You need to make sure that the installer matches your version of Windows and your CPU's architecture. You need to actually download and install that software. Then you scratch your head over why you're unable to use it before you realize that you changed your Python's install directory and your new library installed somewhere else and wasn't configured properly with Python. Or, god forbid you need to fuck with your path variable or something. Finally you get it installed correctly but when you import it Python exits with an error, citing some nondescript exception. After an hour of web searching and posting your problem on stackoverflow you learn that you're missing a dependency needed for this library. Go back to step one to install that dependency.
If you want to fuck around with Numpy on Linux and see if it fits with a project that you're doing, you type "apt-get install python-numpy" and you're done. That's it. One simple command that installs your software, ensures compatibility with your machine, configures it to work with existing software/packages, and allows you to easily remove it when you no longer need it ("apt-get purge python-numpy"). | 28 | 18 |
ELI5: What qualifies as a religion under the freedom of religion protection laws? | Recently I've been reading on reddit that it's not possible to do anything against scientology because of freedom of religion laws. I've also read the large number of cases of parents with unvaccinated children that can do that because of religious exemptions.
But scientology is a corporation that was founded shortly ago and no religion had anything against vaccines since there were no vaccines when the sacred books were written!
So I was wondering.. Is there in the law something that specifies what qualifies as a religion and what doesn't? If it has to be old or what? | It has less to do with how old/established the religion itself is, but whether the religious practices infringe on someone else's rights. For instance, there have been a number of cases where parents opted to deny their children medical treatment and instead go for Christian faith healing, then were arrested for child abuse as a result. | 23 | 31 |
(Star Trek) Could a ship with two warp cores activate the second one while in subspace and go into a second, deeper level of subspace? | Sorry if this question is silly and points to my ignorance of warp technologies. | Subspace is a catch-all term for any number of different layers of space within the space-time continuum. When a ship goes to warp, it creates a warp field by passing energy through the nacelles, which creates a subspace bubble, literally a membrane of space from a different layer of space, a layer which allows solid matter to move faster than light does in our native layer.
We access different layers of subspace all the time, often with field generators or deflectors, but it's not a matter of more energy but how the energy we have is utilized that determines how we access different layers and which layers we access. Some layers don't even require that we do anything for us to feel their effects. You're familiar with gravity? The gravity we feel wouldn't be possible without our layer of space interacting with another. | 30 | 55 |
ELI5: Why is the "Censor Bleep" tone so consistent across most media? | Traditionally audio equipment is tested by using a reference tone. This is just a generated sound wave, usually with a frequency of 1000 Hz, because that seems like a good enough number as any. Sometimes they'll also play a 100Hz and a 10,000Hz tone to test subwoofers and tweeters, but it's basically an easy way to make sure the volume is adjusted appropriately and all the crossovers are setup right.
Since engineers were already testing with a 1kHz tone, they just kept using it when they had to play something over profanity since it was easy to use it again.
There's no big technical or legal reason to use THAT sound, it was just easy to do and got the job done. | 31 | 30 |
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ELI5: Why do grains have so many more carbs than other plant foods, like nuts or lettuce? | Googling isn't helping, because the results are all from health and diet pages. I'm trying to find a science answer.
\[Request\] Please try and actually explain this to a 5-10yo. I have a kid in that age range who's the one actually asking the question. I can do my best to bring an "I graduated high school" answer down to his level, but I might struggle to bring an "I've completed some college and have a basic background in biochemistry" answer to his level. Thanks! | Grains and nuts are both seeds that store energy differently to support a newly sprouted plant.
Grains store energy as starch that gets converted into sugar. Both starch and sugar are carbohydrates. This helps a grain seed grow quickly into a grass plant.
Nuts store energy as fat. Fat can store more energy than carbohydrates for the same weight and helps the seed grow into a mini tree.
Lettuce and other greens are the leaves of a plant. Leaves try to maximize surface area against volume to absorb the sun with the least amount of material. That's why they cook down very easily. They also are high in fiber from the support structures in the leaf. | 142 | 81 |
ELI5: Why is wider speakers required for deeper sounds? | The deeper a sound is, the longer its wavelength. The longer the wavelength, the more the energy in the wave is damped (which means to reduce, like the way a shock absorber on a car smooths out the bumps in the road).
This means deeper sounds require more energy which means you have to move more air, to move more air you need a larger cone.
This is also why you can get nice full sounding deep tones from headphones with very small drivers but if you want to hear it across a room you need much larger drivers. In you ear the sound only has to travel a very short distance so there isn't much air in the way to dampen the waves. But traveling across the room there is a lot of air in the way so the damping effect is much bigger.
This is also why PA systems at large concerts have very large speakers just for the low frequency sounds (subwoofers). A typical concert PA system will have subwoofers with a pair of drivers that are 18" or larger, and there will be between 4 and 36+ of these boxes depending on the size of the venue. | 11 | 15 |
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ELI5: what is the difference between a proposition and a proposal | "proposition" is a word with a lot of meanings.
It can mean proposal (especially in a political or business setting). But in an academic setting it's an opinion/judgement.
Generally the difference is that a proposition is a "This is how we should do it" while a proposal is "This is how we could do it" | 53 | 29 |
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Can someone please provide a good explanation of logarithms to me? | I've been using logarithms for some time now I always have to look up exactly what I need to do before I perform any calculations. Their concept never sticks in my mind as easy as other mathematical operations do.
Could someone provide a good explanation to their purpose/use or link to some good resources? | The definition of a logarithm is simple enough: they are the power to which a base must be raised to get some number. For example, if working in base 10, log 1000 is 3 since 10^3 = 1000.
The power of logarithms is that they turn multiplication into addition. Carrying on from the trivial case above, we know that 1000 * 1000 = 1000000 and that log 1000000 is 6 (3+3). This demonstrates one of the basic rules:
log (abc...) = log a + log b + log c...
In exactly the same way, division becomes subtraction when using logarithms.
The point is that you can convert a difficult mathematical operation into an easier one by first taking logarithms, and then taking the anti logarithm at the end of your calculation. Back in the day they used to use giant tables of numbers to do these conversions since they didn't have electronic calculators that could instantly give them logarithms.
| 26 | 18 |
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