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Is the passage of time different at the quantum level. In other words if you or I were the size of an atom would we experience time differently? | 25 | The passage of time has little to do with size for non massive objects (such as planets, which is where gravity affects it significantly according to general relativity).
However, molecules and atoms tend to move quite fast.
The mean speed of Helium at 25 degrees celcius around 1000m/s, which although fast is about 1/300000th the speed of light and would not affect the passage of time in any meaningful way
EDIT: Thanks for pointing out the mistake | 11 |
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ELI5: When we are drunk, why is it easier to focus with one eye instead of the two? | 16 | Both eyes need to be able to coordinate to function. Coordination goes out the window with alcohol leading many to cross their eyes or have a bit of a lazy eye when they normally wouldn't. Some may even have pro lems with eyes not focusing at the same time or at the same focal length, making things seem blurry or out of focus.
The brain is not only trying to interpret these mismatched images as one image, but also trying to make sense of the world at all through the alcohol.
By closing one eye, you remove one image from the data and your brain is left with only one feed to work on. Now you don't have two uncoordinated eyes, but one trying to get information to an uncoordinated brain. | 21 |
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ELI5: How do the anti-theft systems at store exits/entrances work? | 18 | There are little tags inside the devices that emit a reply radio signal when they’re subjected to another, higher power radio signal on the correct frequency.
If you shoplift an item, this tag is still active and the sensors you walk through can detect it.
When you check out, the cashier runs your item over a device that detects the tag. When the tag is detected, the device emits a very high powered pulse that burns out the tag, deactivating it. This is the “bong” you hear sometimes. This pulse does a good job of demagnetizing credit cards, so that’s why there’s signs saying keep them away. | 10 |
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[Star Trek] In TNG, could any of the bridge crew be speaking another language, and we wouldn't know it, due to the Universal Translator? | I was just wondering this. Could Picard be speaking French through the whole show? Could Counsellor Troi be speaking Betazoid or whatever her home planet language might be? Or, do you think English became the universal language of Earth and diplomacy at that point? | 21 | Standard military protocol would call for all persons onboard to speak a single language while on duty.
This will ensure that, in the event of an issue with the translator, communication will not be hampered. | 25 |
[The Mist] Is it a good idea to send the army into the Mist World? | One type of Mist Creature that our scientists have studied (a giant, centipede-like predator) turns out to secrete a type of fluid that can instantly heal all human diseases and infirmities.
The folks above me want to send the military into the Mist World and hunt a few of these enormous man-eaters and bring back their fluid glands.
Not to mention, some scientists want to set up a permanent base there to study the local ecology.
Considering that the military was able to clear out New England of the infestation 13 years ago, it seems like they’re up to the task, but what does everyone else think?
Would it make sense to send the military into the Mist World? Is it feasible to set up a permanent base inside? | 15 | We know very little, if anything, about the "mist world". We have seen done maybe the equivalent of an alien species opening a doorway to the arctic and killing some bears, and we have as much chance of figuring out how safe the alternate dimension is as those aliens do of figuring out earth.
Is the other dimension entirely they misty space we saw, or is that just one location? What is the landscape and climate like beyond the presence of mist? Are the creatures that entered our world representative of most life there, or are there more dangerous things there? Is the dimension inhabited by sentient life and, if so, how would it react to our presence? Is there enough food, water, even oxygen there for humans to survive?
We would need to make a lot more exploration before we could answer whether a military incursion, never mind a full base, is possible. | 20 |
Why are red and purple "next to each other", if they come from different parts of the EM spectrum? | So, we can make colour wheels [like this one](http://www.pricingengine.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Color_Wheel.png), and red and purple are next to each other. How can this be so if they are on opposite ends of the visible light part of the EM spectrum? | 455 | the problem is that your premise, "if they come from different parts of the EM spectrum" is incorrect. color does not come from wavelength in any meaningful sense. color is something that happens in your brain (in the visual part of the brain), while EM wavelength is a property of light, out in the world, outside your brain. you might be surprised at how independent color experience and the EM spectrum actually are (remember "The Dress"?).
importantly, the visual brain *does not know* that the light spectrum is a linear (1D) domain (i.e. running from short to long wavelengths), and it has *no way of knowing* (you have to study physics in order to know this). in fact, the visual brain gets *3D* information about light, based on the way the retina works (two wavelength-opponent channels that encode differentials in light wavelength, and one intensity-opponent channel that encodes differentials in absolute luminous flux). the structure of this system has little or nothing to do with the physical structure of the EM spectrum. this is fine, if you consider that knowing the structure of the EM spectrum probably has no real evolutionary utility.
tldr; color and light are different things, and their structure (the color wheel and the EM spectrum) is only loosely related via complex, evolved biological mechanisms. | 260 |
ELI5: Why does my mouth literally feel like it's on fire after I eat something really hot? | 27 | There are no tastebuds on your tongue for spicy foods unlike sweet or salty. Spicy is the reaction of nerves in your mouth to capsaicin which makes stuff spicy. The nerves in your mouth are there to react to heat, knowing when stuff is too hot to eat. These nerves react to capsaicin in the same way. Basicly these nerves send out the information that the food in your mouth is too hot to eat when eating capsaicin. That is why it actually feels really hot in your mouth. | 16 |
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[Purge/Everything] How would the purge play out in various fictional universes? | 19 | To the Punisher, Christmas has come early.
Batman has to work overtime in Gotham.
Any Predators get a lot more trophies than usual.
Skynet started the whole thing as a way to increase Sarah Connor's chances of being murdered.
Xavier's mansion gets a lot of attacks by Friends of Humanity. | 21 |
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How do animals know to avoid eating poisonous animals? | I know that animals have been known to associate colorful animals as being poisonous but how did this come about? I would find it hard to believe that the animals would be able to figure out that the colorful frog or whatever is what caused them to be sick or die and then also be able to pass this information onto other members of their species. | 15 | Consider two birds, one which will happily eat any color of frog, and another which has some strange aversion to red frogs for some unknown reason. He doesn't avoid red frogs because he knows they're dangerous, or for any other rational reason, he just doesn't like them. We'll assume that these preferences are hereditary, meaning that they can be passed on to offspring.
Each bird sees a red frog. The bird which eats any color eats the frog and dies. He won't reproduce, so he doesn't have any offspring to "teach" not to eat red frogs. He did his part by dying. The bird which really dislikes the color red doesn't eat the frog, and doesn't die. He then goes on to reproduce, and make more birds which won't eat red frogs.
Aaand that's evolution. It of course gets much more complicated than that, but to start things off, all you need are 1. a population with some variety, where these variable traits are hereditary, and 2. selection pressure which makes one trait more beneficial than another. | 10 |
ELI5: The discovery of 7 Earth-like planets. TRAPPIST-1 is a star 39 light years away. And scientists found 7 planets the size(ish) of Earth orbiting it? Or am I completely lost? What am I missing here? | 70 | You got it right. 7 planets roughly Earth-sized (+ or - about 25%), 3 of them in what they think would be the habitable zone for life like we have on Earth. The star is an ultra-cool red dwarf, which is about 8-11% the size of our Sun, and has a surface temperature about 41% that of the Sun.
Because of how close they are to their star, the one furthest from the star has a year about as long as 20 of our days and the rest are shorter than that. Since they are so close, they expect all of them to be tidally locked, meaning the same side is always facing the star, similar to how our Moon always has the same side facing us. | 42 |
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How is it that you can compress TBs of data into small easy to move zip files? Shouldn't the data take up the same amount of memory all the time? | I don't get how you can make data take up less space even though it is the same amount of information. | 18 | Imagine you had a file which consisted of a 4TB long string of "1s". You could compress that file into the following line:
"This file consists of a 4TB long string of 1s"
Basically compressing a 4TB file into something under 50bytes.
It's a silly example, of course, but the idea is that compression algorithms look for repetitions and redundancies to do their magic - and a lot of other sophisticated stuff too of course.
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I believe that Pope Francis is a PR tool and does not represent any real change in the direction of the Catholic church. CMV | Let me make clear that I believe that Francis himself is **NOT** a fraud. He seems sincere in his desire to do good things in the world. He seems like a truly kind and Christ-like man, and it's good to see that there's still a place in the high levels of church leadership for someone who is evidently not a hypocrite.
But, Francis says all of the exact right things. He does everything that his predecessor Benedict XVI was criticized for not doing. He is charismatic, he is gaining the respect of even hardline atheists by practicing what he preaches and promoting progressive views and reform. He embodies a rebuttal to every complaint that people have with organized religion in general and the RCC in particular. A man like that as the pope is exactly what the Catholic church needed to rehabilitate its worldwide public image.
The thing that makes this clear to me is that his predecessor is still around. Benedict XVI was responsible during his time before becoming Pope for some of the most conservative doctrine of the modern church, along with his alleged involvement in the coverup of sexual abuse by priests. He also had no charisma and did not engage with laymen, and had no visible sympathy for the suffering of the poor. Here in the USA we tend to forget about the poverty and hunger of the third world, where the church's power base continues to grow. Francis addresses those concerns. Meanwhile, Benedict was an academic and a theologian who seemed to care more about writing papers and denouncing heretics than ministry and charity. And he is *still in the Vatican* as the "Pope Emeritus", and organizational behavior being what it is, his views would continue to have serious weight.
The Catholic church throughout its history has shown itself to be primarily focused on power and subjugation, and has presided over some of the greatest atrocities in human history. Francis might live an austere life and avoid the trappings of power, but I don't see him emptying the Vatican treasuries either. You can't change an organization like that the RCC just by electing a new figurehead. The rot infects the whole organization. I want to believe, but I just can't. So, CMV. | 634 | The Catholic Church is incredibly cautious in what it says about faith and doctrine because its words become the beliefs of its members. This is especially true where their policy leans more liberal. If they make a mistake in being too conservative with their doctrine, then they can always lighten up, but if they are too liberal then they damn souls.
This is exactly why what many non-Catholics (especially atheists) would consider as progress will either happen slowly or not at all. Before they say something they have got to be certain that it will not lead to a crisis of faith for most people, will not damage the authority of the Church, is supported by scripture (of course), and will not create problems political or economic later. A big change simply can not happen because that implies something happening all at once; rather, many small changes occur over a very long period of time.
The Roman Catholic Church does not reform. It evolves.
Having a pope simply retire rather than serve to the deathbed is rare, but it has happened before. In this case, to an extent, you are correct OP. But there's a cynical and an insightful way of saying it.
At a time when inequality is a pressing concern, the world was lunged into recession, and misconduct by elites and bankers alike has triggered civil unrest the world over, a grand Catholic Church led by one in gold robes is a bad match for what the world needs. That is not always the case. If the world prospered and the Church portrayed too foppish an image then too would they lose esteem.
In addition to all of this, consider that the Vatican is a sovereign city state. Their policy therefore is not only church doctrine but also diplomacy and foreign policy, and a special case of such. Catholics the world over are beholden to the rule of a foreign nation as well as their home government. This is why we have the Anglican Church; the British sought independence.
So, the changes in rhetoric and tone are also meant to convey a message necessary today as the world recovers from the recession, the Internet has become a battleground between theism and atheism, science is under attack by Protestants (you'd be surprised how much Catholics respect science), and the people need hope and unity in an era where borders are being gradually erased.
There is much more to consider than simple reformation to align with modern values. The Catholic Church considers modern sensibilities last of all. In a century, by the time sensibilities that are new today have only just begun to truly effect the Church, the contemporary values of that time will have changed as much as they have since a century ago -- on a global scale (think beyond the culture of your home nation).
What may seem today to be little more than words is actually a sign of much greater things to come -- very, very slowly.
edit: There's one more clarifying thing to say: mass, in the sense of physics. Suppose you're on a BMX bicycle. You can shift your body weight and move your vehicle, intuitively. Suppose that you use a drump truck to tow a jumbo jet. Now you have to plan changes to your velocity much more carefully. There are many Catholics in the world, and staggering resources managed by the Church -- a very high mass still feeling ancient changes to its velocity. | 225 |
[LotR] Would I turn invisible if I ate the One Ring? | 233 | The ring is in constant physical contact with the outside of the ringbearer's body and does not turn invisible unless specifically worn in the way a ring (that kind of ring any way) is designed to be worn, on the finger. The same should apply if it is touching the inside(s) of your body. | 186 |
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Why do we (generally) love when stories come “full circle”? | Hello all,
I teach a college writing course, and when I teach students to write personal essays, I advise them to reincorporate an aspect from earlier in their essay into their conclusion.
For example, if a student brings up a metaphor/symbol (e.g. a rubik’s cube) early in their writing, I advise them to invoke it again in their conclusion.
I do this because I know from experience that we as humans *love* when stories come full circle. We also see this in comedy (particularly stand-up) when a comic will make an early joke, get some laughs, but later reincorporate the same joke into their act and get a significantly larger reaction.
I know this works, but I don’t know *why* this works.
Can anyone point me to where I could find more information on this subject?
Thank you! | 47 | We like it when "we are in on it". It's a sense of being a part of the group. We are deeply deeply social animals. It's why children will watch a show over and over again because they like to be "in on the know." | 23 |
ELI5: How is oxygen (O2) odorless but ozone (O3) smells and is hazardous? | 20 | O2 and O3 have different chemical structure (bond angle, length, spatial orientation etc) which give them different physical and chrmical properties.
Just like graphite, diamond and fullerene are pure Carbon but have drastically different properties. | 39 |
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[General Vampires] Can a vampire just ask for permission to enter at gun point? | As in tap on your door/window jab a gun in your face and demand you let me in.
The same technique could be done for windows. | 82 | I know people love to rules-lawyer this kind of thing, but you're looking at the wrong set of rules.
Vampires are missing their reflections. It's not about how their undead skin reflects light, or silver...it's because they're a cursed and unnatural *thing* with no place in the world. They don't show up on cameras because they're not really there to begin with, not in your world. They're not afflicted with a disease, they are looking at you from Hell itself and you should thank your lucky stars that your camera doesn't show you what else is watching.
"We have to be invited in" isn't like a password on your wifi. It's not even because so many vampires started as nobility and they have some class. You have to invite the Vampire in, because it can only really satisfy its hunger when it seduces someone into embracing Evil.
Tricking someone into giving the invitation, or forcing them somehow, means that the victim isn't willing. There's no triumph, no glory for the Darkness. Without that corruption, without a willing sacrifice to Evil itself, the Vampire won't feel release. They aren't simply feeding on the blood - they are serving their true Master, and He isn't a good person to try and outwit. | 48 |
[Avatar] Is Ba Sing Se self-sufficent? | Do they rely on any kind of imports? A city that size one would think relies on all sorts of resources to import, food, wood, metal, fuel for fires, etc. Do they need anything or does everything come from within the outer walls? | 24 | Surprisingly, the answer is yes.
You might notice that the outer ring of Ba Sing Se is almost rural, with expansive farmland, mountains, and regional features like Lake Laogai. These resources allow Ba Sing Se to be self-sustaining. | 48 |
Has there been any refinements to existing theory or new hypotheses since the Higgs mass was found to be 125 GeV? | 36 | The mass is a free parameter in the Standard Model (SM). We now know this parameter more precisely - you could call this a refinement. It also has an influence on other processes which we can now predict with better accuracy.
Some models beyond the SM had quite clear predictions for the mass of the Higgs boson, these have been ruled out or at least their parameter range has been restricted. | 12 |
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[Spiderverse][General Multiverse Scifi] I'm Tim, a file clerk. I fall into one of those dimension-collider doohickeys like from Spiderverse. Are there a bunch of other "themed" versions of me from different realities? Is there Noir Tim and Anime Tim and Cowboy Tim or whatever? | 564 | Yes, absolutely.
Noir Tim might not be a detective. He's probably still a file clerk. But he's a probably a file clerk in a fedora and suit that talks about dames unironically.
The tims of the multiverse might not be as cool as the spidermans of the multiverse, but they'll have the same variants as everyone else. So yes, Anime and Noir and Wild West Tims are very much out there. | 488 |
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I believe black history month is unnecessary and should not be officially recognised. CMV | There is no denying the contributions and sacrifices black people have made to building society in the countries that celebrate BHM. However, black people are (and have been for a while) subject to exactly the same laws as all other nationalities.
I'm not saying that their troublesome past should not be taught. I simply believe that elevating a race and celebrating their achievements for a period of time, no matter what they may have went through in the past, is unfair in a society that supposedly perpetuates all races as equal.
I would take my argument further and say that any race specific services (with the exception of those that provide a physiological services - health, beauty etc) should be illegal as they further serve to segregate that race. However, that's a sidenote and the main point of discussion is BHM.
EDIT: I agree all those who suggest that Black History Month teaches us about a culture and history that's otherwise largely overshadowed by an education focused on European and American matters. However, my trifle with this is that it's not a multicultural event - it's sole focus is on black people. Why not expand to other ethnicities?
EDIT 2: I've been introduced to the fact that other months for other ethnicities actually exist. While they seem to be relatively humble in their celebration and focus (especially in the UK), considering this is a social arrangement my opinion is gradually being swayed. | 425 | Black History Month isn't about elevating black folks and that's where this goes wrong. It's only about recognizing a marginalized and oppressed group of people who continue to feel the legacy of formal systems of racism. The whole idea of BHM is to make sure that black people's plight is not forgotten so that we can eventually get to the point that you're talking about, namely, where all races are equal and we don't have to set aside time to talk about anyone in particular. (It doesn't logically make sense to say that the way to get there is to pretend we're already there.)
The way you solve racism is by talking about it, owning it, reversing the bad policies, setting up good ones, and things of this nature, and that's exactly the kind of positive action that BHM is designed to encourage. If you believe that the troublesome past should be taught then you are in favor of Black History Month, because that's all it does with one exception: it doesn't pretend that only the past is troublesome. | 236 |
[Hellraiser] "It is not hands that call us..." According to Pinhead, they ignored Tiffany since she solved the box but didn't call them, Channard did. Is there any way of solving the Lament Configuration and not being dragged to Hell? | During one scene in the second film, Dr. Channard handed one of his patients at the mental institution he ran, Tiffany the Lament Configuration since he knew from her disorder that she would be able to solve it. But when she did so, the Cenobites turned on him instead since while Tiffany solved the puzzle it was ultimately *his* desires that called them to the mortal realm.
And from what I understand, the puzzle has typically always fallen into the hands of hedonists and bastards who would summon the Cenobites anyway once they solved the puzzle.
So from this I have to ask, if the Lament Configuration ended up in the possession of someone who didn't have the curiosity necessary to go to Hell and was too innocent to be accepted as a Cenobite, but solved the puzzle box anyway... what would happen to them? Would the Cenobites simply ignore them? | 427 | If you want to stay out of Hell, your best bet is to be as boring as possible for the Cenobites. Tiffany wasn't rejected because she was innocent, but because she was nearly catatonic and wouldn't be able to appreciate the divine suffering they offered.
The original Chatterer was a child, and in the comics they've taken other children and even babies so it's not like innocence or hedonism are necessarily prerequisites. But you do have to have the capacity to suffer and to be aware of that suffering. | 225 |
[Star Wars] What did Palpatine and the Jedi think of other force sensitive groups? | Were there even any? Did the Jedi mind if other groups existed that studied and used the force? Did Palpatine want to destroy them? This is a question about both canon and EU. | 39 | There were hundreds of known other traditions. Mostly they didn't bother each other (as most traditions are far more localized - most of them present really only in a single system or even just on a single planet - than the Jedi and Sith), though in some instances there was some resentment between groups regarding recruitment. There are instances of learning between groups, yes.
As for other tradition's fates under Palpatine, it's a bit ambiguous - but there are indications that he did in fact pursue other Force-based organizations, if not to the same extent as he did the Jedi. | 49 |
Why is it that when cats have different breeds, they all kind of have the same body type, but when it comes to dog breeds they have much more drastic differences? | 40 | Dogs have more drastic body size/shape differences than any other mammalian species. This is because as human's oldest companion, they've been bred and domesticated for whatever purpose humans wanted for millennia. So you have farm dogs, guard dogs, pet dogs, hunting dogs...all carefully designed by humans over thousands of generations. No other animal has proven to be as useful or as versatile.
Whereas a cat, to paraphrase CGP Grey, is basically just a little lion that lives in your house. Cats haven't been bred by humans for very many purposes, because they're mostly useless to humans (aside from catching mice and being cuddly). | 44 |
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[Thor movies] Isn't Odin really quick to toss Thor out and strip him of his power? | Thor messed up bad. Asgard doesn't want a war right now. People are going to die because of his recklessness.
That being said, kicking out your son (and most powerful weapon) on the eve of major war when you're about to literally pass out.
Odin is many millennia old. He should have known better. Is he just a super mastermind playing 4d chess, knowing Thor would end up proving himself? Or did he let his anger and fatigue get to him. | 101 | Odin was pretty quick to lock up Hela, too. Loki spent time in prison as well.
Asgardian justice is swift.
But regarding Thor, he was useless to Odin at that point in time. He was too quick to rush into battle, too unconcerned about the potential consequences of his actions, and willing to jeopardize the health and well-being of his peers who went along with him.
Odin can't use someone like that. He surely can't put such a man on the throne.
So a test was required. Either Thor would pass and come back to claim his birthright or he would fail, and Odin would find some other way forward. | 125 |
[Star Wars] How did Yoda and Obi-Wan think that Luke could defeat a supremely powerful Sith Master and Sith Lord? | 37 | I think it was more a case of therr really is no one else left to even try. Obi-Wan was dead, and beyond Giving some advice, unable to do anything really. And Yoda was at the end of his life, while very knowledgeable and wise, at his weakness point ever.
Frankly, they didn't have any other options. | 64 |
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What is the difference between magnetic and electric fields? | What exactly is the difference between magnetic and electric fields? I’ve got the impression it’s basically the same thing accept electric fields are produced only by electricity and magnetic fields are produced by magnets
(and electricity?). Could someone just explain it simply, preferably without using too complicated sciency words! Thanks. | 16 | They are closely related, and even transform into each other under changes of reference frame. But there are some important differences.
Assuming static fields (ones that don't depend on time), electric fields are sourced by **charges**, while magnetic fields are sourced by **currents**. (If you allow time-varying fields, then time-varying electric and magnetic fields are also sources for each other.)
Another difference is in how particles respond to the fields. Electric fields exert forces on any charge, while magnetic fields only exert forces on *moving* charges. | 35 |
CMV: Custody of a child should be defaulted to 50/50 legal custody regardless of marital status. | In the US, If the couple is unmarried, legal and physical custody of a child is defaulted to the mother, and a father has to petition the court for custody and pay thousands of dollars to prove he should be allowed to be a part of his child’s life. Regardless of whether paternity is already established or he’s on the birth certificate. Meanwhile, all the mother has to prove is that she birthed it. There is no logical reason for this whatsoever and it inherently devalues and undermines a fathers rights and responsibilities to their child and creates an upper hand for the woman that is often abused in custody battles. | 26 | As long as paternity is established this isn’t true. The father has just as much right as the mother to take the child and refuse to return it. If the father did that the mother would have to petition the court for custody, just like the father would if the mother refused to give the father visitation. | 21 |
Which programming language is recommended for novice? | Hello, I am a 40 year old man, in midlife boredom. I always wanted to learn a computer language but never got time. This year, I decided no matter what, I am going to learn a computer language. However I am too confused about it. Please help..
[edit] Thank you all kind redditors for giving such wonderful advise. I am going to start with python language first as it is most recommended one by you all. Will update my progress as it goes. Once again thank you all for ur advise and support. | 26 | I would say python.
Would strongly recommend against Java as the first one. It's very verbose and the static typing is only an advantage when you get a bit more advanced.
Alternatively JavaScript, later add on Typescript but it's optional. | 23 |
Since radioactive material is constantly decaying will there be a day in which there is no more radioactive material on earth? | Excluding artificially enriched radioactive isotopes. | 508 | **Short answer:** Certain isotopes will go extinct, but others are constantly being replenished.
**Long answer:** For example, the uranium in the earth is left over from when the earth formed, and the amount of U-235 is decaying with a half-life of 703.8 million years. Admittedly, you'd have to wait a really really long time for *all* of this uranium to decay, and not to mention the decay of its daughter isotopes as well. Nevertheless, we have a finite supply of it and it is slowly running out.
On the other hand, other radioactive isotopes are replenished by natural processes. The simplest example that comes to mind to Carbon-14, or 'radiocarbon.' The carbon 14 is radioactive, with a half-life of about 5700 years, so obviously for us to have any carbon-14 lying around, it has to be replenished.
In the atmosphere nitrogen-14 gets struck by a high energy cosmic rays (or by particles produced by the cosmics) which converts the nitrogen-14 into carbon-14. | 193 |
ELI5: Why can't we save the North Korean people? | I was just thinking, the UK and USA have intervened in Other situations where there has been worry about the lives of people in that country. Is it really all about oil? Do they really not care about the people suffering there?
Edit: thank you all for you're brilliant explanations. I understand why we won't interfere, as sad as that is. I guess we just have to hope that somehow the regime collapses on it's own, impossible though it seems as the people of DPRK are so brainwashed the won't revolt. | 27 | Because North Korea has the largest artillery force in the world scattered along its border aimed at Seoul. It's probably the most credible and effective deterrent in the world next to the US and Russian nuclear arsenals. Any military action would result in the destruction of a densely populated city that is one of the world's most important economic hubs. The artillery can't be destroyed in a first strike, it's far too distributed with a significant portion of it being mobile. Nobody wants to be responsible for provoking North Korea, so we leave them to torture their citizens in peace in hope that one day they'll collapse. | 38 |
ELI5: What causes the jumping feeling in your stomach when you go down a quick hill while driving? | 15 | Your innards/gut is used to gravity. It doesn't have the normal sensory nerves that your skin has.
Upon traversing a sudden drop/hill, for microseconds you experience a "less than 1g" environment.
Your body reacts but bones and muscle react differently than inner squishy, liquidy guts.
They probably rise a bit and rather quickly. The "sensation" is how your body interprets this sudden loss of weight and shifting that occurs in the gut soft tissue.
If you ask men, they also feel it in their testicles and its a much more, um, exhilarating? feeling. :D | 11 |
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ELI5: Why do white people have so many different hair colors (blonde, red, brown, black) while all other races all have black hair? | 220 | Because the genes that cause dark skin and dark hair easily override toe genes that don't produce as much melanin.
White people, practically by definition, don't produce as much melanin, therefore allowing hair color traits that require less melanin to be visible to show up. | 126 |
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ELI5: how does bug spray kill bugs? | So when the pest exterminator comes to treat my house on a quarterly basis, he sprays this liquid sparingly on the outside parameter of my home. Sometimes (not often) I will find a roach inside my house BUT IT’S ALWAYS DEAD! How does the pest spray work? The pest spray can’t be wet when they walk through it because I find them weeks later. | 16 | It depends on the specific chemical, but a lot of them are some form of insect-specific nerve agent. There are a variety of modes of action, but the most common (afaik) is inhibition of acetylcholinesterase, preventing nerve signals from turning off. This is the same mechanism of action as sarin gas, but the chemicals used will only (intentionally) affect insects. | 11 |
How are stocks basically at an all-time high when the economy is still so sluggish? | Pretty much all indices are showing the value of stocks at an all-time high, yet economic growth is minimal and forecasts are equally bleak.
Is that kind of relative growth inevitable, regardless of economic performance? In 30 years, even if we are in the midst of a recession again, will the new base level for the be something like 30,000?
| 65 | Stock prices are based on what people think the future of the economy is like, not the present. The price of a corporation's stock is determined by the expected value of its future profits.
This doesn't mean that people's expectations about the future, as reflected by stock values, are right. Stock owners might be over-optimistic. And a lot of variation in stock prices in the short run is also driven by speculation, which can lead to bubbles. | 36 |
[Star Wars] How much did Savage Opress's intelligence decrease after being transformed and why was that acceptable? | Wouldn't a smarter assassin be more useful? | 34 | Opress wasn't a tactical assassin, he was a lethal weapon. Point him at the threat and watch him bulldoze through it.
His raw strength and ability to overpower most resistance was something Dooku was heavily interested in, which is why the Night Sisters used him for their plan. If he was smarter he might have considered betraying Dooku or the Night Sisters (mostly Ventress) as soon as a better opportunity came along. It is Sith nature to overthrow your master after all, so as long as Opress could be a deadly weapon smart enough to outplay his overpowered opponents and survive in battle but *not* smart enough to scheme and make power plays, he fulfilled his use for all of his masters. Dooku, the Night Sisters, Ventress, Maul, he fulfilled his purpose for all of them. Well, besides actually managing to kill Dooku/Ventress and or help Maul overthrow Sidious.
He also wasn't dumbed down so much as hypnotised into a ferocious mindset where battle and fulfilling orders was his core motivation. He still had some personal quirks like his emotional devotion to Mother Talzan and his brother Maul, but overall he just became more of a battle-hardened warrior than a man who *happens* to fight. Much more receptive to orders and brutality that way. | 20 |
[Mad Max] From the perspective of the people telling the stories of Max, is the wasteland more stabilized and less terrifying now? | I know the Road Warrior has the narrator imply things were way worse in Max's time | 38 | It depends. Got better for some people but Max is just one dude and Australia is a big place.
Besides nothing lasts forever, there will always be another toe bitter or another master blaster or another immortan joe. | 28 |
[LOTR]How would a leader of Men actually use the One Ring to try to defeat Sauron or other enemies if all it does when putting it on is make you invisible? | Say the Fellowship changed their plan and Boromir was to use the Ring to save Gondor and defeat Mordor, like what Sauron thought Men would do. How exactly would he try to do so? Does he put it on his finger or keep it off when leading his troops? Does the simple act of him having it increase his army's morale? | 70 | The Ring is a tool of domination. A sufficiently powerful being can use it to dominate the wills of others, especially those others that are wearing a Ring of Power, but also those that are not to a lesser degree. If Boromir brought it to Gondor and either he or Denethor successfully used it in the war, it would allow them greater control over their army, the potential to dominate the wills of their enemies, and some small degree of influence over the Nazgûl. As Men, they wouldn't be able to fully make use of its power though, and in any sort of direct confrontation with Sauron, the Ring's allegiance would remain with Sauron. They wouldn't be able to wrest it completely from Sauron's will as Gandalf might have done. | 68 |
Is there any proof that a computer from the 21st century can allow a socialist, centrally planned economy to work? | [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Towards\_a\_New\_Socialism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Towards_a_New_Socialism)
The book outlines in detail a proposal for a complex planned socialist economy, taking inspiration from [cybernetics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybernetics), the works of [Karl Marx](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Marx), and British [operations research](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operations_research) scientist [Stafford Beer's](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stafford_Beer) 1973 model of a [distributed decision support system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_support_system) dubbed [Project Cybersyn](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Cybersyn).
[https://www.reddit.com/r/badeconomics/comments/31k18o/planned\_economies\_work\_and\_market\_economies\_dont/cq2c0fg?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/badeconomics/comments/31k18o/planned_economies_work_and_market_economies_dont/cq2c0fg?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) | 70 | The problem that markets solve is "What is this thing worth?". Central planning fails because it can't set prices because it doesnt know what things are worth. Putting a computer on it just makes it a faster, more efficient, super central planning that still doesnt know what things are worth. | 171 |
Rail gun technology for space travel... | Not to get *into* space. But would it be possible to utilize rail gun technology *in* space?
Say we had a large system orbiting the planet a la ISS. Would it:
a) be possible to use the technology to "fire" landers/orbiters towards other planets/moons? Manned crafts?
b) if it is possible, would there be any benefit over current methods, namely fuel needed to achieve proper velocity vs energy used for the initial "firing" to create momentum and velocity. | 33 | Would it be possible to? Sure. Not with the current ISS, though. The issue is Newton's third law: it takes a lot of energy to get something to the Moon, and the launch platform is going to lose that much energy in the process (because of the way orbits work, you can't fire it so that the ISS would gain energy, either). That means the ISS as is would end up being de-orbited in the process, or nearly so. In any case, you'd still have to end up spending the fuel anyways to put your launcher back into the correct orbit.
There are two possible alternatives. The first is that you fire with so much force, it puts you into orbit going the opposite way. That would require phenomenal amounts of energy (the delta-v of the launcher would be ~14km/s, so impossible with current technology), or by using a launch platform heavy enough to not be effected much by the reactive force. That would mean we could amortize the cost of the launch over a longer period of time, using ion or plasma engines to regain the orbital energy the launcher looses, which are much much more efficient than rocket engines. That could give us significant fuel cost gains (in theory anyways).
Keep in mind the acceleration involved would be high, again unless you had a really big gun, so whether you could do manned launches would depend on how big a gun you built. The technology isn't there yet.
Note that on the Moon, things are completely different. Rail launchers from the Moon are definitely possible and in fact will probably be a key piece of long-term expansion into the solar system. But that's a few decades away yet. | 27 |
How do Dogs Tell Real People's Voices Apart From TV Voices? | For example, my dogs. They bark pretty much at the sound of an unrecognized voice. They don't have to see the person, they just hear someone unfamiliar and start barking and run to them. But then when the TV is on or something, and someone is talking on the show, they don't even bother. Why is this? Does it sound different to dogs? Do they just... understand that it's different? I don't know, it's just been something I've been wondering for a while. Maybe it's super obvious, but I'm not really sure. | 46 | Televisions use a frequency range for human ears. The range that usually comes from your TV will be between 20Hz to 18Khz, well within the human hearing range of about 12Hz to 20Khz. These items were made for our ears.
Dogs, however, have a much wider range of roughly 40 Hz to 60 kHz. This is beyond a human range in both directions. This is also why most dogs will not respond to a dog barking or a person speaking through a speaker system the same as they would if the same bark or voice were in real life.
Dogs hear sounds differently than us. All voices, movements, barks, and the world in general is in a completely different frequency to them and the sounds coming from your speakers simply do not match up to their ears as the real thing. | 40 |
Was Nietzsche really so bad? | So my philosophy teacher started talking about Nietzsche lately. And she is hating him hard. She even boiled him down to 7 Anti's:
Anti-Democratic, Anti-feminist, Anti-Socialist (which is bad apparently), Anti-intellectual and another 3 "Anti" that she didn't talk about yet.
The way she puts it is just dripping with disgust. Now to be fair, I do live in Post-USSR Czech Republic and she is one of the many who gained their diplomas during the soviet regime, which I hear didn't like Friedrich all that much. Something about "Bourgeoisie philosophy".
So what i want to know is how much of that is true about Nietzsche and if the more western nations have a different way of looking at him than we do. | 47 | Was Nietzsche, the human being who lived in Germany and was born in 1844 those things? The signs pretty much point to yes. Is the Nietzschean *philosophy* necessarily opposed to all of those things? That's a question with a much longer and more complicated history. A lot of people thought the answer was yes in the early 20th century because of the association of Nietzsche's work with Nazism, but Walter Kaufmann wrote a lot in favor of the view that Nietzschean philosophy could in fact have the potential for leftist views.
I would say this view, that Nietzsche's philosophy isn't necessarily opposed to those things, has been the dominant one in the philosophical world since then. A lot of very well known and clearly leftist philosophers (Foucault, Deleuze, etc.) consider Nietzsche's work very influential and important for their own projects. | 46 |
How can I as a layperson get better at judging whether a scientist is
trustworthy? | What parameters are important when judging a scientist's trustworhiness?
There may be a better word than trustworthiness. By trustworthiness I mean what it says in the first two lines of the Wikipedia article:
"Trustworthiness is a moral value considered to be a virtue. A trustworthy person is someone in whom you can place your trust and rest assured that the trust will not be betrayed."
Peace out. Amazing forum! | 27 | 1. Are they an actual research scientist? Put their name into Google Scholar. They should have many publications including some that have been cited dozens or hundreds of times.
2. Are they actually talking about their field of expertise? A nuclear physicist is not trustworthy when talking about disease resistance.
There are exceptions, and other things to take into account, but those are the main things. | 29 |
What subfields of Economics is most used in Economics Consulting work? | Can someone tell me which subfields in Economics are need or most used in Economics Consulting work? | 23 | I interviewed and got an offer at Compass Lexecon, one of the best economic consulting firms, and have talked to many seniors who work in the field.
A lot of the work in economic consulting involves dealing with competition authorities, e.g. evaluating the impact of a proposed merger, or clearing a company accused of anti-competetive behaviour.
Knowledge in econometrics, and industrial organization would be most relevant to the job. Industrial organization is normally considered it's own field if economics, but taught to undergraduates (I presume you're one) normally under a microeconomics course. It studies competition among firms in a industry, and if you've heard of Bertrand and Cournot models of competition, that's the basic models in the field.
Knowledge of econometrics is also very important, because you're using real-world data to justify whatever you're arguing. | 24 |
If rabies is virtually 100% fatal and humans have a vaccine, why is it not common practice to give every human a rabies vaccine? | 64 | The rabies vaccine has a pretty high rate of side effects, and for most people it's really not needed. The only people who are vaccinated as a preventive measure are veterinarians, spelunkers (risk of rabid bats), or people traveling to areas where rabies is a problem. If you don't have an imminent need for the vaccine, there's no point in administering it, since the overwhelming majority of people will never need it. And it's 100 effective when administered soon after a bite anyway. | 108 |
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CMV: We should all stop using the word "hot" when we mean spicy! | We've somehow allowed ourselves to take the word hot, which tells you that something has a high temperature, and allowed it to take on the secondary meaning of being spicy.
There's hot wings, hot sauce, hot peppers, the word has become too ambiguous for us to use it conveniently anymore.
How often have you had this conversation?
"Here, have this bowl of chili. Careful, it's hot!"
“Do you mean spicy? Or do you mean *hot* hot"
Because I encounter it a few times a year at least.
Use of the word hot to mean spicy has made language less useful for all English speakers! It forces us to use more words to clarify simple concepts *when we already have words for those concepts!*.
I recognize that there are plenty of other homophones in the English language, but I can't think of any others where context of both is so ambiguous like it is between the two meanings of the word 'hot.'
We should all agree that hot only means the temperature, and if we mean spicy, then we can say spicy!
No more hot sauce. No more hot wings. No more hot peppers! Those things are now spicy sauce, spicy wings, and spicy peppers!
CMV | 34 | it's because the nerves triggered by spicy things are the same as those triggered by temperature.
> The burning and painful sensations associated with capsaicin result from its chemical interaction with sensory neurons. Capsaicin, as a member of the vanilloid family, binds to a receptor called the vanilloid receptor subtype 1 (TRPV1).[54] First cloned in 1997, TRPV1 is an ion channel-type receptor.[55] TRPV1, which can also be stimulated with heat, protons and physical abrasion, permits cations to pass through the cell membrane when activated. The resulting depolarization of the neuron stimulates it to signal the brain. By binding to the TRPV1 receptor, the capsaicin molecule produces similar sensations to those of excessive heat or abrasive damage, explaining why the spiciness of capsaicin is described as a burning sensation.
it's similar to why peppermint gives the sensation of coolness. | 21 |
Why are protons and electrons not pulled together by each other? | 61 | They are, that is why atoms form: The electrons become bound to the positive charge of the nucleus. This happens because opposite charges attract. Now, they don't crash together because quantum mechanics restricts what kinds of orbits are allowed. Though take the word "orbit" lightly as electrons don't orbit in the same way the Earth orbits the Sun. Rather the actual position of the electron isn't fixed, and you have a probability distribution where it can be found. | 92 |
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ELI5: If cooking raw meat kills the bacteria how come cooking food that is spoiled still makes you sick? | 46 | In some cases it does not, for the reason you cite. However, if bacteria or mold have been growing for some time, they may have been excreting toxic waste products. These just sit there being poisonous, even if you kill the bacteria or mold. | 63 |
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Why does ice form on the surface of spaceships right after launch? | Is it even ice?
Edit: thank you for the kind responses! You guys and girls are great! | 349 | The ice layer does not form *right after launch* but *shortly before...*
This typically and only happens with cryogenic stages, which are filled with liquid hydrogen and/or liquid oxygen propellants shortly before launch. Extreme cooling down of the stage's outside surface makes air moisture condense and freeze on the stage's surface. | 140 |
How do we determine the age of the universe? | My understanding is the oldest light we can see is 14+ B years old...
Since the universe is expanding, is it possible "older light" than the oldest light we see has already moved beyond a cosmic horizon, forever too far away?
I'm sure there is an answer to this but I am curious.
Thanks! | 30 | We can see as far back as light has had a chance to travel. The CMB is the cosmic microwave background noise of the Big Bang which happened everywhere in the universe at once. So we can literally “see” how oldish the universe is.
However, there is definitely more universe than we can see. But anything farther than what we can see is expanding away from us faster than light so the light will never reach us.
The universe is probably a whole lot bigger than what we can see, something to do with how “flat” the universe appears to be indicates a vast perhaps maybe even infinite size | 17 |
Why does a half dozen eggs cost almost as much as a dozen? | 44 | Two potential reasons, which may be interlinked.
1. The marginal cost to extra eggs is very low therefore moving from 6 to 12 eggs costs little in terms of extra materials or transport costs
2. Supermarkets overprice the half-dozen eggs to induce customers to buy the dozen as it's better value.
I'd bet it's more likely to be number 2. | 70 |
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[MCU] Was death of Odin the real cause why Thanos finally decided to actively look for Infinity Stones? | 83 | No, despite being a popular fan theory there is nothing in-universe to confirm that Thanos was waiting for Odin, Ego, and/or the Ancient One to die first. All three of them were still alive when Thanos sent Loki and his army after the Tesseract in 2012 (at which point he already possessed the Mind Stone) and in 2014 when he sent Ronan after the Power Stone.
However, he did wait to openly and personally go after the Stones until he knew where all six were (or rather five and a person he knew well who knew where to find the sixth). If all six were revealed and Odin was still alive, Thanos could probably have taken him seeing as Odin was severely weakened by the dark magic he used to send Thor to Earth against Loki's invasion. | 122 |
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Why do galaxies collapse into disks, but stars and planets collapse into spheres? | 15 | One way to answer your question is that stars *don't* collapse into spheres. Stars collapse from a cloud of gas and dust, and while most of that goes into the central spheroid (the star), there's a lot left over which collapses into a disk, and it is from this disk which planets are made.
The difference between the sphere and the disk is that the sphere is made of stuff that's "self-gravitating"; it's massive enough to attract nearby stuff.
A famous example of a planet which didn't collapse into (just) a sphere is Saturn. The main body formed the spherical mass, but smaller masses of ice which didn't fall into the central body collapsed into a disk forming the rings. But the rings don't contain anything massive enough and near enough other parts of the ring to cause it to clump up.
So, disks form around massive bodies when the material in the disk is spread out enough for it to miss future collapse, and spheres form when the material is dense enough to fall into itself. | 14 |
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If the world's population were half of it's current number, would the average person be wealthier? | Would the average wealth increase, as there would be less people to distribute things to? Putting it in an other way, would decreasing the population actually help us? | 54 | If you would snap your finger and cut the population in half, there would be a somewhat brief period where there is more stuff to go around.
But at the end of the day, you can only consume what you produce, cutting production in half cuts consumption in half, but of course because we also cut people in half, the per capita figures shouldn't really change. | 84 |
Why does the shadowed part of the moon appear to be invisible even during the day? Wouldn't we see some faint part of it? | 85 | If you look closely at the moon at night, you may be able to see the circle be completed by a faint glow. That is earthshine -- sunlight that has bounced off the earth, illuminating the shadowed (night) side of the moon.
During the day, however, our atmosphere scatters so much blue light at us that it all but drowns out the difference. While we may be able to see the difference between pitch black and earthshine-illuminated-moon-shadow at night, during the day it's just two extremely close shades of blue. | 51 |
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ELI5 : How is "corrected vision" is tested and why isn't it always 20/20 if it's corrected? | Okay so I am researching a health regulation for a friend of mine and it says your corrected vision needs to be less than 3 diopters. Now considering that a 20/20 vision would be 0 diopters, how can even a corrected vision could be less than perfect? Why is it considered "corrected" even though the patient can't see perfectly? | 24 | It’s tested with those letter charts, to see if you can read the finest lines as well as someone with 20/20.
Some people with horrifically bad 20/200 vision are just too far out from normal to be corrected completely through any traditional means, but bringing them down to 20/40 will improve quality of life considerably. They’re heavily corrected, but it’s not perfect. | 34 |
[General] Why is it often said that if a hero kills a villain, they're every bit as horrible as the villains themselves? | I'm fairly certain most would say that there is an obvious and massive difference between villains who massacre countless innocent people for kicks or in pursuit of selfish gain, vs heroes who kill villains to keep such mass losses of life from happening. | 198 | Generally, there's four reasons. Descide for your self if any have merit.
One- some people do think killing is always wrong, no matter what. You can disagree, but some people do think that.
Two- often, this comes up when the villain is, at least temporarily, defeated or immobilized. Hence, it's no longer killing a threat- it's revenge. Is there a difference between killing an active shooter and killing the same shooter an hour later in prison? Many say so.
Three- under what authority are you killing? Most heroes have no oversight, no accountability, no backup and no mandate. Can they really be justified in deciding for themselves that this person must be killed? What if they make a mistake, ans they're bound to do eventually. Better to never do what can't be taken back.
Four- the slippery slope. You have the killer of millions, who sure, shank him. You have the pick-pocket, who don't. But what about the various shades inbetween? The bank robber willing to kill, but not going out of their way to? The person who killed their abuser? The ceo who ruins countless lives non-violently? There's a line somewhere. Some might think its better to draw it too high then not at all.
You can say all of these are wrong, but these are the arguments. | 263 |
ELI5: How did they fit open world games like Zelda and the original Final Fantasy into NES cartridges | With some basic Googling It looks like that the max size was around 512 KB. How is this even possible to fit games of this size onto such little memory? What is this magic?
Edit: Wow, this absolutely blew up. Thank you everyone for the detailed answers. Several people have linked the Morphcat Games video which I will share here. It is very informative.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWQ0591PAxM
Edit 2: I also did some more of my own research and found this video very informative about 8 bit graphics and processing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaIoW1aL9GE | 11,754 | The game is a grid. Legend of Zelda is 16 screens wide by 8 screens tall. And each screen is a grid of 11x16 tiles. Now let's say there are 16 different types of tiles, then you only need 4 bits of information for each tile, which means the entire overworld of zelda is only 11kb.
But 11kb is a lot in the 1980's. They probably used a lot of tricks to make it less than that. How about instead of 16 different types of tyles, each screen only has 4 types of tiles (and those 4 can be different for different screens, so one screen might be sand, rock, water and cave, but another screen might be sand, grave stone, bush, and tree). Now you only need 2 bits for each tile, so your file size is 5.5kb.
And maybe you come up with some other shortcuts... like on a desert screen you make "sand" the default tile and now you only have to store the data for the rocks on the top of the screen. | 6,616 |
If we shot Jupiter and Saturn into the sun, roughly how much longer would the sun undergo fusion before turning into a red giant? | Both Saturn and Jupiter are composed primarily of hydrogen and hydrogen is the main element 'used' by the sun to sustain fusion. If both Saturn and Jupiter were shot into the sun and they were 'absorbed' cleanly by the star, how much longer than normal would the sun undergo fusion before it turns into a red giant?
I'm asking because I need a contingency plan just in case I happen to survive the next 5.7 billion years. | 35 | You've got it backwards. You want to take mass *away* from the sun to make it live longer. The more massive a star is, the shorter its lifetime. This happens because the extra gravitational pressure from added mass increases the rate of fusion in the core a lot, so even though there's more hydrogen/helium, you burn through it way faster.
The lowest mass stars have predicted lifetimes of well over a trillion years. The highest mass stars have lifetimes less than a million years.
Changing the mass of the sun by +/- the mass of Jupiter+Saturn (about 0.1% of a solar mass) probably won't change the lifetime by more than a few million years though.
| 52 |
ELI5: Why is it when you touch the metal part of a plugged in phone charger you don’t get shocked? | I’m confused why when I touch the tip of my plugged in my phone charger it doesn’t shock me. | 13,446 | Because it's an absolutely tiny voltage--the charger is probably only providing about 4V, which isn't much more than the batteries in a torch, which similarly wouldn't be able to give you a noticeable shock. (Even the more potent 9V batteries won't shock you if you touch the terminals with your skin--your tongue, on the other hand, is a different matter entirely). | 5,762 |
CMV: Bounty hunters at their current iteration should be outlawed. | In a lot of states the training requirements for becoming a bounty hunter are laughable. Their purpose entails that they will be in contact with people who already took steps to evade law enforcement, therefore, are more likely to be dangerous than the general public. I'm not against having bounty hunters that are held to the same general standard as law enforcement.
I'm sure there are minor advantages to having bounty hunters, but my view is that the negatives substantially outweigh the positives, and as a result, they should be outlawed across the US. | 140 | Bounty hunters are not Law Enforcement. They, for the most part do not carry firearms.
They're not really bounty hunters anymore, they're a bail bondsman.
They are individuals hired by a bail company to find people that skip out on bail bonds issued by that company.
I think your understanding of what bounty hunters do is not correct. They are not searching for fugitives from Justice, they are searching for people that skipped out on a private company that bonded them out of jail.
This could be either because they failed to show up in court or because they failed to pay the bonds company. | 106 |
ELI5: How is holding your pee (which is considered bad) any different from when you're sleeping and your body does that for you? | 60 | Your body doesn't (typically) hold your urine to dangerous levels while you're asleep automatically. That's why you wake up needing to pee. Or some people piss themselves. Holding your urine an excessively long time isn't comparable to going to sleep. It's comparable to waking up when you need to pee, then holding it for several hours after that. | 52 |
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[Harry Potter] A highly contagious disease that affects only wizards and is incurable by magic afflicts the wiziarding community at large. At what point would they set aside their own fear and pride and seek out the assistance of muggles in curing their affliction? | 19 | How would muggles be able to help if it only affects wizards anyway?
The wizarding community would surely do the logical thing and put their faith in alredy existing institutions like St. Mungo's, who have several hundred years of experience in treating injuries, instead of introducing completely unknown variables who gotta start from completely blank sheets.
People didn't call the Viccans to cure Avian flu. | 25 |
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ELI5 How does ant intelligence work | are the individual ants smart or is it the queen or do they like combine intelligence or something | 16 | They don't really have a "hive mind" like you might read about in fiction. Or at least, it's not psychic powers.
Each individual ant is really just a machine. It's like they're running a program. This isn't unique to ants, all insects are basically just machines in terms of their intelligence.
That program makes the ant want to do certain things. In some kinds of ants there are different "roles" they fill, so they generally want to do that. Let's talk about an ant that hunts for food. It's not relying on intel or scouting reports. It just moves in one direction for a while, then maybe changes direction, and keeps on going. If it finds food, it starts emitting a chemical called a "pheromone". Other ants can "smell" the pheromone and it tells them "someone found food".
The ant that found the food gets excited and starts backtracking back to its nest. Along the way it stops to leave pheromones behind that other ants can follow to the food. If it meets another ant, they do a little "dance" where they "smell" each other. If the new ant was looking for food, it "smells" the pheromone and starts following the trail the "finder" left. It also starts making the "found food" pheromone. As more and more ants meet, they transition towards getting the food. When the "finder" gets back to the nest, lots of ants "smell" the pheromone and start following the trail.
This can happen pretty fast because it's hard to think about just how many ants there are and how much they spread around. Since ants "smell" each other as they randomly cross paths, often a bunch of ants start gathering around the food faster than the original ant makes it back to the nest. This makes it look like they have ways to communicate faster than they really do.
But individually they're not really "smart". They don't have their own ideas and can't really solve problems that aren't in their genetic memory. Some ants can do cool things like form bridges over water, but that's really just how their "program" handles when they find water when they're trying to get somewhere. This is super hard to understand as a human because we, as a species, don't have an awful lot of things that we just "know" genetically. | 32 |
ELI5: should cleaning products be applied directly to the dirty surface, or to the cleaning impliment? | Like windex and a towel for example. Mostly I spray it on the window, but does it work better if you spray it on the towel? Same thing for dish soap, should you put it on each dish, or will applying to the sponge be enough? | 22 | It’s better to spray the cleanser upon the surface to be cleaned.
The cleaning implement is absorbent. So applying cleanser unto it does not guarantee that all the applied cleanser will touch the surface to be cleaned. That amount of cleanser will be wasted. | 11 |
[Daredevil] why is everyone a martial arts expert? | 4th wall I know that it makes for good fight scenes but I was wondering if there's an in-universe explanation. | 37 | The characters displaying prowess in the MCU Daredevils series are either members of the Hand, an elite shadowy ninja faction, <stuff that will be revealed in the Iron Fist series>, or were trained by Stick, a dude with serious beef against the Hand. | 22 |
CMV: God is a horrible being | Im, going to talk about the Christian God in this post. Obviously there are many different gods and many different religions but this is the one on the most educated on.
So some of the dick-headed things that God has done:
He has wiped out all of his people for not being dedicated to him *multiple times* in horrible ways. he literally drowned everybody on Earth. The 10 plagues of Egypt (which included murdering babies).
He sent bears to murder 42 children for calling a dude bald. (4 Kings)
It is totally normal for this guy to expect you to murder your own son because he says so. (Isaac)
He killed 14 thousand slaves for complaining.
The story of Job much?
He discriminates against ugly people. Including People with blemishes, blind people, the lame, those with flat noses, dwarves, people with scurvy, people with bad eyes, people with bad skin, and those that "hath their stones broken." Given that God is technically responsible for giving people all of these afflictions in the first place, this is an enormous dick move. (Leviticus 21:17-24)
He murdered his own son, to stop himself from murdering everybody else???
and can we just talk about hell for a minute... Literally that you deserve to go to a pit a burning pain and fiery hell for an eternity, an ETERNITY people. because you're not faithful to this being, or because you wanted a divorce, I don't even think Hitler deserves to live in eternal pain.
Now imagine if a human has done this. Would this be a human worth dedicating your life to? He would be one of the worst dictators on the planet who uses fear-mongering to encourage unwavering dedication. Why are so many people so willing to dedicate our lives to something so horrible. | 17 | Your post is predicated upon your imperfect, human understanding of god.
By definition if god does something it is *the definition of the nature of the universe.* If famine happens and god says "It's not dickish" then by definition of existing as is it's not dickish.
The issue stems from the fact that your entire capacity to think or other basis for knowledge is decidedly human. That means it can exclude critical elements of understanding about the intended way the universe ought to function.
You can't actually know if what god is doing is dickish, because you don't have all the information about the situation at your disposal. You just have a bunch of stories told by people.
I won't say god isn't a huge asshole either, but to say that god is definitively isn't scientific. | 12 |
ELI5: How can fire close wounds, and how does fire/heat disinfect? | 17 | Cauterization is not like it is in movies or TV. Yes, heating an *instrument* can sterilize it by physically destroying infectious pathogens from intense heat.
In the body, the intense heat can stop bleeding by physically burning the tissue and clotting the blood. This causes *extensive* tissue damage.
When done by a surgeon, it can effectively be directed to where its needed to stop bleeding. However, this is generally better achieved by ligating (tying off) the bleeding vessel, repairing the tear or using other materials to slow/stop bleeding (such as injecting little gelatin particles into an artery to block if off). In modern medicine, cauterization is actually used to make tiny electric scalpels designed to cut tissue (and also creates the aroma of burning human flesh filling the operating room).
Burns to tissue like shown on TV and movies are actually more likely to get infected due to disruption of skin and tissue which weakens the body's ability to fight infection. People with serious burns need a lot of specialized attention to prevent this, such as in a burn unit.
EDIT: Also in TV you will see people cauterizing arteries that can't be cauterized without cutting off critical blood supply to certain areas of the body. It's not realistic. | 33 |
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ELI5:Why you can put in the recycling bin same files with the same name but you cannot do that in any other folder ? | 60 | The recycling bin is a "virtual" folder that shows a list of deleted files that can be undeleted. Deleted files aren't actually *moved* in to a different folder: they stay where they were, they're just *marked* as deleted. The recycling bin is a "view" that lets you see all the deleted files in one place. | 89 |
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[Jurassic Park/World films] We have footage of several unfortunate people being swallowed whole by large dinosaurs. How long did it take them to die? | Throughout the various documentaries showcasing the disasters at Jurassic Park and Jurassic World, we see several instances of humans being swallowed alive by enormous dinosaurs. How long did it take those poor people to die? Would they still have been alive when they reached the creatures' stomach? | 26 | It depends on how much chewing a dinosaur would do before swallowing. Anyone who got eaten by a T-rex or their equivalents probably died before reaching the stomach.
The poor assistant who got over killed into the pleaseeasaur if she didn't break her neck from the pterodactyls probably survived until hitting the stomach. | 25 |
[Star Wars] Why do X-Wings even have hyperdrives? | X-Wings are equipped with hyperdrives, and yet they are supremely un-equipped for long trips. Hyperspace travel isn't instantaneous, it can take days or longer (despite--and so sorry for breaking the fourth wall here, but can't help it--what Episode V would make you think). The fighters are not equipped with any kind of systems for waste disposal, food, or water, beyond the emergency variety; as well, sitting in one spot for days, artificial gravity or not, is terrible for the body. The only reason Luke Skywalker can do it is because he uses a Jedi trance to make it endurable. So why even have this option available, since it would most likely be a death sentence for any normal pilot? | 77 | X-wings are medium range fighters meant to be able to execute missions independent of a mothership.
The hyperdrive allows them to jump in, commit an attack as a squadron with no other support and jump out. It's the perfect craft for a rebellion whose main strategic attacks will be hit-and-run raids against a superior enemy.
Most targets may be hours away, but usually not days. Humans are more than capable of sitting for a few hours' transit time to an area of operations, completing a stressful combat mission and retreating to a rebel base or ship.
For longer sorties, precautions can be taken to make the cockpit ride as comfortable as possible. But really all the pilot has to do is throw a few water packs and emergency rations into their gear bag, make sure an absorbent undergarment is included when they suit up, and they're set for a couple of days of space combat work.
And yes, it's bad for the body. But this is war, not asteroid mining. If you're not willing to endure some hardship, you'd be better off not putting on the orange flightsuit in the first place. | 164 |
[Mass Effect] How would you defeat or stalemate the reaper threat? | Imagine current day humanity discovers that the reapers exist and are going to start another cycle, cleansing our galaxy of all space faring species, including us. What can we possibly do with the following years to prep?
25 years
50 years
100 years
200 years
500 years
1000 years
Would we attempt to build stupid big rail guns on the moon? Create our own version of the SPARTAN program? Send a life-ship out of the galaxy? Tell me what you all think could be done or if resistance is futile. | 19 | In the games, there's a news article about a species that had just gotten roughly 20th Century Earth equivalent space travel (ie, maybe a trip to the moon or two, probes in their solar system, that's about all), but lucked into first contact. They had just been invited to send an ambassador to the Citadel when the Reapers invaded.
Their plan for dealing with it was to recall their ambassador, destroy all their satellites and space stations, and hope that the Reapers either didn't notice them, or considered them a pre-space flight civilization.
This is probably Earth's best bet in this scenario, too. It's not a great plan, but it does have at least a chance of success. (Some of the species that survived the last cycle were already civilized, but didn't get harvested because they were still confined to a single world.) | 38 |
ELI5: Why are the psychological symptoms of autistics so heavily reinforced through accomodation when many other psychological disorders are dealt with by trying to normalise the sufferer, such as vehimently contradicting schizophrenic delusions? | 29 | Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder, not a psychological disorder. They are accommodated in the same way as giving someone with paralysed legs a wheelchair is accommodating them: it's the only thing that works to improve their lives. Of course there are therapies that can help someone with autism to improve their quality of lives, but sometimes you are going to run into gaps (especially with people on the lower-functioning end of the spectrum) that simply cannot be bridged.
Someone who is suffering from delusions is not actually helped by reinforcing those delusions. That often only works to escalate them and make them even more unlikely to take the medication that works. | 48 |
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I keep hearing more and more about solar flares/ storms - Are they a legitimate concern? What more can you tell me about this? | A friend sent me this story today....Solar storm headed toward Earth may disrupt power
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SCI_SOLAR_STORM?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-03-07-11-31-52
so I guess it kind of made me worry? | 24 | Solar storms are only worrisome to electronics and communications. A severe enough storm can disrupt the power grid, burn out sensitive components in satellites, etc.
The only thing you should worry about is where to go to get the best view of the amazing and beautiful auroras they can produce. | 12 |
A short text for freshman students to read… | Any idea for a short, accessible text to read with freshman humanities students on their very first week? I’m just starting out as a lecturer and looking for something that can provoke discussion among students about how university education/learning may differ from their prior education, what are the goals of higher education etc. especially in a liberal art/humanities setting. (They don’t need to answer these questions, I want my students to discuss!) Ideally, I want something that touches on the importance of independent, critical thinking.
I first thought of Said’s Representations of the Intellectual but I believe I need something more relatable (and short) for my students… I’ve looked at articles on The New Yorker etc. but haven’t found one that quite fits the bill… any suggestion would be appreciated! | 29 | I don’t have a specific suggestion, but ideally whatever they read will including helping them recognize that learning the material is *their responsibility.* and privilege. I’ve got way too many classmates who simply don’t understand this. They haven’t made the switch, and no one is forcing them to make the switch, from “I have to be here,” to “I get to be here.” They continue to be spoonfed, and teaching them is like pulling teeth. | 20 |
ELI5: why does every element want to be iron? | I was just reading about how the sun isn’t “burning” so much as constantly exploding and sucking in more hydrogen to explode more. In the article is said that every element wants to be iron, so when an element is higher than iron, it goes through fission, and when it’s lower than iron it goes through fusion. Up until it becomes iron, cause everything wants to be iron.
Why? What does that mean? What’s so special about iron? | 19 | Light elements release more energy when they fuse than is required to fuse them, and heavy elements release more energy when they split than is required to split them. Iron is in the middle of that.
If you keep fusing elements on the core of a star, you eventually get to iron, but then the process runs out. Similarly, if you keep fissioning atoms, you eventually get to iron, and then it's mostly not possible to split atoms further. | 30 |
[Marvel] how can doctor strange see all the possible alternate realities where thanos wins/loses if the TVA keep the timeline the same across every universe | If there is a flaw in my knowledge please let me know | 33 | It’s worth noting that the TVA is mostly concerned with Variances that lead to changes regarding the eventual birth and rise of He Who Remains. They’re not concerned with *every* variable, just the ones that interfere with the so-called Sacred Timeline.
Variable events which do not ultimately affect the existence of HWR , or which ultimately support his existence, may be tolerated. | 36 |
[Star Wars / The Mandalorian] A question about Boba Fett? | Why is Boba's armor much thinner than the other Mandalorians in-universe?
Also, does it provide enough protection just like Din's? | 17 | We presume Din had pure beskar while Boba Fett and other Mandalorians have Durasteel/beskar combination. It makes sense given Din’s cult are serious on the Mandalorian way and probably think pure beskar shouldn’t be mixed with impure materials. It is also shown that other Mandalorians are killed by blaster bolts in the clone wars proving that it isn’t pure beskar. People also tend to put emphasis on the word “Pure” when referring to Beskar in the show, further backing up the theory that Beskar isnt usually pure in Star Wars. Or They may have just retconned it. | 26 |
Why do we feel warranted stepping into the middle of conflicts halfway around the world but we won't intervene in Mexico and the tragic drug wars? | I've been wondering this for a little while now and I haven't come up with a good answer. I'm far from an expert on foreign policy, so I could use some insight.
I have a sneaking suspicion that the top answer will be "oil", but I'm not sure.
Edit: It's come to my attention that we are somewhat involved and since apparently this question is biased, let me clarify: Our involvement isn't publicized like it is overseas, and since they are our neighbors, my question is why don't we hear more about it? | 293 | Intervene how?
We're already funding anti-drug efforts, sending agents down, providing weapons and training, etc.
The problem is that the cartels have tens of billions of dollars a year, and a ready supply of weapons being smuggled across the border. (Not small guns; heavier munitions that the US makes in its war industries.) They've been able to use these arms to stage increasingly violent conflicts with the military - having already bought off most of the police departments with drug money (or installed corrupt officials).
There is a growing sentiment in Mexico that the US is causing this problem for them by funding the cartels with its domestic drug policy, and so invading Mexico in response to the cartels would be a great way to ensure the general Mexican populace dislikes us, too.
tl;dr: The Mexican deaths are the casualties in the US's "War on Drugs", and invading them would make it even more obvious it was our unilateral policy choices getting them killed, and make us even less popular.
Edit: To understand the scale of the problem, since 2006, somewhere between 40,000 and 60,000 Mexicans have died in the current bout of drug violence. Understandably, the Mexican people are unhappy that thousands of murders are being committed each year because of US drug policy. | 72 |
[40K] Won't the tau eventually win due to their level of advancement? | 17 | Technology means nothing. Not in a galaxy of magic, soul consuming demons and galaxy devouring bugs.
The Tau lack numbers, resources and the necessary mindset to 'win'. Their expansion and unity is dependent on the Ethereals, and we've seen that they quickly fall apart without the oversight. As it stands, if they drew the actual brunt of the Ultima Sigmentum, they would be obliterated, let alone if they happened to catch the eye of the entire Imperium.
They are also not THAT advanced. They are progressing rapidly, yes, but in most areas they are still behind the Imperium, let alone the Eldar and Necrons.
There is no victory, no winning, only constant, unending war. | 31 |
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How would our solar system change after the sun goes into its first red giant phase? | The Earth would be swallowed up most likely, and Mars would become insanely hot, but what about the gas giants? They are adequately far away, yet they might be close enough for some or most of the gas layers to boil away. Would the small rocky cores become new planets, rather large, and with very heavy gravity? Would new ecosystems form over time? I am very curious.
EDIT: Pretty much what I expected. As in, who the hell knows LOL. I absolutely love astronomy and long term thinking, you know big picture stuff, and I love to get people to start talking about these sort of topics. Keep them coming. | 338 | Not exactly on topic but since you brought up atmosphere boiling away. When humans consider our cosmological impermanence it is widely known in popular culture that our sun will one day become a red giant and either destroy or render our planet inhabitable wiping out everything we currently know. Even though this is roughly 5 billion years in the future it is still irksome.
What is not as well known is that our planet's biosphere will be destroyed by our sun much sooner than that. The sun is constantly increasing in intensity as its hydrogen supply dwindles and in only 1 billion years it will be hot enough to cause Earth's oceans to evaporate and be lost to space. A billion years after that the remaining atmosphere will be gone leaving Earth a desiccated, dead planet with a surface of molten rock. | 218 |
CMV: Assuming You Have Access To Internet, There Are No Good Reasons To Get Cable Television | I just did the math. For roughly $75.00 a month, I am able to gain access to Netflix Premium, HBO Max, Disney +, Hulu (No Ads), ESPN +, Amazon Prime, and The Criterion Collection. Again, only $75.00 a month. My monthly fee for a service like DirecTV would be $65.00 a month, but it would increase to $97.00 a month after the first year. I should point out that this is their most basic package. If I were to purchase a cable television bundle from my current internet provider, the cost would be the exact same. In summary, basic cable television will cost you roughly $20.00 to $25.00 more each month, and that's only in comparison to someone paying for all the streaming services I listed above. It could potentially cost you a lot more if you decide to pay for less services.
On top of that, cable television currently has no compelling original shows worth watching. I looked up what the best shows of the past decade were. Rolling Stones has a list of fifty shows, and only four of them are not available through one of the streaming services I listed above. Only four. It's basically a fact that quality programming is found on streaming platforms. Cable television just can't compete anymore. And this is only addressing episodic series. When it comes to movies, streaming is a no-brainer.
So what reasons would there be to get cable television? What reasons would there be to drop nearly $100.00 each month on this program? Cable news is obsolete, since I can get easy access to all news stories online. If you still really want cable news, then spend a $10.00 one time fee on an antenna. That's what my parents did. That just leaves sports. My parents have been able to access professional soccer, football, and basketball through their antenna, but let's say you want an even broader selection of sports. Just get Hulu + Live TV for $54.99 a month. Add in Netflix Premium, Amazon Prime, and HBO Max for a bundle that is still the same cost as a basic cable television package, only with absurdly more content.
In conclusion, streaming offers more variety, better content, and is cheaper than cable television. There are some programs streaming doesn't necessarily offer, but which can be easily accessed through alternative methods that are still cheaper than cable television (Hulu + Live TV, antennas). | 293 | if you're a big sports fan & regularly watch games from multiple leagues, cable is still superior in this realm. some leagues have decent options for streaming, but then there's a lag & you get spoilers from twitter & your group chat. sometimes they're unreliable and crap out during a big game. and if you have some folks over to watch together, a streaming service somehow always seems to shit itself in front of all your guests. | 56 |
ELI5: What makes Small caliber rounds like .22 calibers uniquely deadly? | 242 | They aren't "uniquely deadly". .22LR is one of the most underpowered rounds available. If you're referring to the "most deaths from gunshots are from small caliber rounds" thing, it's because small caliber firearms are cheap, the ammo is cheap, and they are widely owned and used. More people shooting them means more negligent discharges, as well as more of them are stolen or bought cheaply and used in crimes. | 477 |
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cmv: The Finnish siding with the Nazis to defend themselves from the Soviets was completely justified | The Finnish were invaded by the soviet union for refusing to trade territory, and no countries helped. Imagine the situation: Your country gets invaded by one of the most powerful nations at the time. You are winning during the start, but that's simply because of a minor flaw in your enemy's camouflage, which will be fixed sooner or later. Then, another nation, the worst enemies of your opponents, offer to help. Then you have either the choice to side with an evil government, at no price at all, (Which then resulted in Italy helping a bit too, and the English being total idiots and siding with the Soviets) to avoid being destroyed, or you could refuse and get crushed. And the thing is; After the continuation war, which they lost as well as the winter war, both of which caused major damages to the USSR and minor to themselves, they signed an agreement with the Soviets to expulse or disarm all Germans remaining in Finland. Which, despite leading to a very short war between them and the nazis, with Finnish victory, meant they only sided with them, in order not to be destroyed. Amd did they adopt any Nazi ideologies? No. | 174 | Why do you want to have your view changed on this? What makes you think this is something that you might be open to changing your mind on? What kind of evidence or perspective would have to be shown for you to consider changing your position. | 53 |
Weaknesses of Chinese Economy? | Hello,
Can someone help me outline the weaknesses of the Chinese economy in modern day? I have to write a paper on this and economics is not my forte (so all articles I am reading are making my head feel scrambled) so I would appreciate any points that you could tell me about! | 17 | China's biggest problem right now has to do with its debt. China's been relying on insane amounts of leveraging to finance its economic growth - China’s total debt load (that is, both private debt and government debt) jumped from less than 150% of GDP in 2008 to more than 250% in 2016. 250% of GDP actually isn't that far out of line with other advanced economies, but China has much more corporate liabilities than most large economies.
You see, China's economy relies substantially on state owned enterprises (SOEs) which have a ton of deadweight and failed investments. These investments were financed by the corporate debt im referring to, but the holders of the debt - mainly the Chinese government and other SOEs, are allowing these "zombie factories" to stay alive in order to avoid painful financial deleveraging. This deleveraging must happen at some point, and lots of respectable economists say that it is only a question of when and how badly they handle it. | 24 |
Professors: Would you allow an interested person to sit in on your class? | I am currently a master's candidate in a non-STEM field as a US citizen at a US university. My fiance is also a master's candidate, but in Pure Mathematics at a university in Germany (he's German). His English is excellent and he can certainly participate at a graduate level in mathematics where language is concerned, so that is not an issue.
He would really enjoy the chance to sit in on some math courses in the US while he is here visiting me. Would it be untoward for me to ask the math department if he could sit in on some classes? Again, I am not in a math-related field and I have no connections other than the fact that I am a student at this institution. I am fine with drafting a respectful email to ask, but I'm just not sure if this is out of bounds in general.
Would you, as a professor, allow him to sit in? My fiance is going to be in the country for roughly two months. He is a good student and very keen. It would absolutely not be for any kind of credit. | 52 | It's reasonably common, at least at some schools, for people to do that; I've let students do that a number of times. Whether or not it will be allowed will depend on the school (some schools do have policies against this) and the individual professor, but it's certainly a reasonable question. | 59 |
ELI5: Why do dogs live a shorter life than humans? | 102 | Let's say that a species is being successful if it can continually create viable offspring and replace it's individual organisms at least as fast as they are dying.
There's multiple paths to this in terms of reproductive strategies. One strategy, is to maximize the number of offspring, even if that reduces the chances of any particular individual surviving. An alternate strategy is a lower number of offspring, but taking more care to ensure their survival. Dogs are somewhere in the middle, while humans are basically at the far end of the "fewer offspring" side.
And following those different paths through evolution has resulted in significant biological differences. The human brain is significantly more capable than a dog's, but it also needs much more time to fully develop to the point where you get a human being capable of self preservation and successful reproduction.
A wolf (which dogs were bred from) is physically and mentally fit enough to reproduce and care for its offspring within a couple of years of its birth, can create a few litters of puppies, and then get old and die within a decade. Over that same 10 years, a human baby will still not even be developed enough to live on its own, much less create and care for a baby.
If you assume about 15 years for a human to develop enough to be in a position to successfully create and care for a child, and then another 15 years for them to care for their child to the point where that child can be independent, then that's 30 years. And that's just for one kid.
Before modern medicine came around, children died much more often, so the average mother might give birth to 5+ kids, so you're looking at being 35+ when your last child doesn't need you any longer. And 35 was a pretty typical life expectancy for much of the history of humanity. | 53 |
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[MCU]When did T'Challa become the Black Panther? | So when Civil War starts, T'Chaka is still king of Wakanda, was he also still the Black Panther, or was T'Challa already Black Panther at this point. After Zemo set off the bomb and killed T'Chaka, did T'Challa have to go back to Wakanda to get the heart shaped herb? | 25 | T'Challa was likely already the Black Panther for some time before the bombing. The role of Black Panther is that of protector, but you don't have to be the King to be the BP, and vice versa. His father was aging and likely turned over the role to his son some time before the events of Civil War | 45 |
cmv: the best way to fix the injustice in US court systems is to make the victim and the accused person anonymous to the judge and jury. | CMV: People say justice is blind, but for some people, that doesn’t seem to be the case. Discrimination based on appearance and gender can often distort justice and harm the nation as a whole.
As such, the best way to combat this discrimination is to not let the judge know anything about these people other than the crimes they may or may not have committed and the evidence for and against it. The judge should not know the appearance, gender, or any other physical trait except for injuries relevant to the crime. Of course they would still have access to criminal records, but those should also have names and photos redacted for the purpose of judging them in a new trial.
As such, a new anonymous form of justice would be the best way of determining how our society gets justice for its victims and it’s falsely accused. | 4,944 | interesting idea.
why even hide the victim though? the victim is simply another fact of the alleged crime. would you seek to mask or simplify any other fact of the alleged crime?
after all, criminal matters are always the state vs the charged, not the victim vs the charged. | 654 |
[Harry Potter] What purpose did it serve for the Ministry to initially deny Voldemort’s return? | 24 | I think mostly they just didn't want to believe it could be possible and therefore denied it. In their minds widespread belief that he was back would cause panic and upset across the wizarding world. Also it could have caused people to come against the Ministry for not doing more to keep him away. To them it was in everyone's best interest to believe he was gone forever if it wasn't for that minor detail about it not being true. | 28 |
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How much randomness is there really? | Our universe obeys causal physical laws. Do entirely random events actually occur or is deeming something random just our inability to understand the causes? | 19 | >Our universe obeys causal physical laws
Nope. Only *most*, the overwhelming majority, of physical laws *appear* to have causal relationships. But there are exceptions. Radioactive decay of particles through the weak force is the classic example. If a particle can reduce the mass-energy of itself or a system of particles by changing to a different particle it will... but exactly when is completely random and without cause. Nothing actually pushes it to a new particle, it just... does. Spontaneously. | 19 |
ELI5: If polls say America is leaning towards marijuana legalization, why do states keep failing to pass reformed legislation? | As I got the news that Ohio (Pennsylvanian here) failed to legalize I was pretty disappointed. I keep reading that America is, for the first time, pro marijuana legalization. I hear numbers from 52-66% that are pro-pot. Why does it it fail in nearly all states?
Thank you to everyone who answered, I got a lot of information and got to see many different viewpoints on why the legislature failed. For all those who don't want to read the information here's a short comprehensive TLDR:
- Issue 3 proposed that only a small handful of government selected producers may manufacture marijuana at an industrial level
- Ohio has a similar monopoly on alcohol, therefore voters are opposed to voting on similar legislation
- Ohio has previous history of attempting to create monopolies through laws, such as gambling and the legalization of casinos
- There is currently an active bill stating that all legislation creating a monopoly would have to be two separate votes, one on the issue at hand (legalization) and one on the creation of the monopoly
- A majority of marijuana supporters are not active in politics due to demographics
- Marijuana is already easy to acquire making the monopoly even less appealing
- It is an off-election year meaning less active registered voters altogether
- During off-election years very few liberals vote, however, conservatives tend to stay more active
- Only 1,100 dispensaries would be allowed to exist
- Issues with representation, lobbying, corruption, and lack of pro-legalization funding, propaganda, speeches, rallies, support, and effort
- The possibility that marijuana users are less motivated to vote or participate in politics, voting, and elections
| 767 | It doesn't fail in nearly all states. About 20 states have legalized medical marijuana, and four have legalized it for recreational use.
In the case of Ohio, a large number of people who would normally vote for marijuana legalization opposed the ballot measure because it would enshrine an oligopoly in the state constitution (it would be illegal for everyone but a couple groups to grow or sell marijuana). | 533 |
Does COVID viruses stay dormant in your body after you recover? | Hi all, just wondering can COVID viruses stay dormant in your body even after you have recovered from it? I know cold sores & chickenpox can stay in the body for long periods of time without being activated, and I was wondering since all of these are all categorized as a viral infection, could this apply to COVID as well? Thanks in advance guys, genuinely curious about this. | 15 | Not in the same way. SARS-CoV-2 is an RNA virus. It has to keep replicating to stick around. So it's not dormant. Chicken pox and wart virus can splice their genome into our genome and just wait. Later the virus genome is activated and starts replicating again. | 13 |
ELI5: why do stomachs make noises when were hungry? | 370 | It’s actually your intestines breaking down food and moving gasses along. They are always making noise, it’s just when the stomach is full you can’t hear it, as the full stomach is smothering the sounds. | 222 |
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Why does the Nordic countries have such a high standard of living? | As measure by one of the Happiness indexs and other tests. I don't really know much about how the tests are done at all.
I've seen lots of contrasting info online. http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2005/04/the_scandinavia.html
http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/countries/sweden/
http://www.libsdebunked.com/socialism/scandinavian-socialism-argument/
Can anyone help me out please?
Thanks | 74 | Maybe not on point re your question, but those sources you point out don't seem very objective, to put it mildly. On a page named libsdepunked.com you'd expect posts to have some political agenda that disagrees with the concept of a welfare state. | 14 |
ELI5: Does one person have to lose wealth for another person to gain wealth? | Does the money that one person makes have to come from someone else's pockets? Is there only so much money to go around, or can we as a world create more wealth by working harder as a whole? | 87 | There's a huge difference between money and wealth. Take an example: suppose there are three people in a village, and each of them starts with $2. So there's $6 total in the village.
John is a lumberjack and fells a tree. He sells the wood to Karen, for $1.
Karen is a carpenter and makes the wood into a chest of drawers. She sells the chest to Henry for $2.
John now has $3, and Karen also has $3. Henry has no money but he does have a chest worth $2. The total wealth in the village is now $8. Everyone in the village is better off than they were before: John and Karen have more money, and Henry has something he wanted.
Next Henry will probably do something to earn the money back. Maybe he's a shepherd and sells Karen a sheep for $1. And again everyone is richer, even though the village only has $6 in cash to go around.
Money is a medium of exchange. Wealth is created by labor. | 83 |
ELI5: Why are there so many different programming languages, and what's the difference? | C, C+, C++, C#, Python, ruby to name a few, surely there can't be that many differences or something you can do on one that you can't do on another? | 45 | This is because everybody is free to develop a programming language. Besides that everybody has his own taste and requirements. There are languages which are for example more suited for web or standard applications, others may be more low-level to build more specialized stuff.
Languages can evolve or fork into different tastes, or die out over time. Popular languages will often have big and active communities who contribute to it's development and deliver standard building blocks which can be reused by other developers. | 28 |
[DC] Why is Arkham still running when it was proven multiple times that it's beyond easy to break out of it? | All of Batman's rogues have broken out multiple times but Batman still puts the most dangerous criminals there. Why doesn't Gotham do anything about it? | 51 | Because Arkham still offers the best chance of isolating super-criminals like the Joker. Even though it seems Arkham seems easy to break out off, it's only because it takes several months of planning and coordination from outside sources to assist criminals in breaking out. The Riddler took several months to convince GCPD to lower their guard long enough for him to leave using their families as hostages. Joker has enough insane followers due to his philosophy that even normal people who got through the intense psychological testing and screening tend to gravitate to Joker. | 97 |
[Dune] Is the "Known Universe" really the entire known universe? Or is it just the Milky Way and its satellite galaxies? | We know that Shaddam IV, Paul Atreides, and Leto II Atreides were Emperors of the Known Universe, and that Arrakis is the center of it. However, is it really the entirety of the known universe? Or is it just our home galaxy plus its satellite galaxies? Is there an explanation on how big the Known Universe actually is? | 85 | By "known", Imperial types usually mean "actually surveyed and catalogued by one of the Proper People(tm)"
IOW, they automatically exclude whatever they don't already own as being "unimportant enough to count".
So, it's not even the whole galaxy. It's a few hundred lightyears around Earth, maybe a few thousand. It doesn't even include all of the space that humanity spread out to during The Scattering following the reign of Leto II. | 115 |
Which alternative medicines/therapies are most backed up by science? | This question was asked 3 years ago, but perhaps since then, there has been more research. What therapies are "probably helpful", "harmless", and "harmful"? While there may be many things under the banner of alternative medicine, some that I have heard of include: Chiropractic, Acupuncture, Massage Therapy, Sacral - Cranial therapy, aromatherapy, yoga, Naturopathy, Reiki, fire cupping, Shiatsu, Chakra Balancing, etc.
Edit: Thanks everyone. By way of summary,
Seems that some question the phrase "alternative" so perhaps "non-traditional" would work better.
Some therapies have been around for far longer than Western medicine and since being "discovered" have now been examined using scientific studies and where applicable incorporated into Western practice (e.g. Active ingredients extracted out of herbs and packaged into controlled doses in pills)
Other therapies have not had proper studies done so we have no proof they work beyond a placebo effect.
Commenters note that massage and chiropractic are probably helpful along with the above mentioned herbal medicine that evolves into becoming traditional medicine. | 48 | If it is backed up by evidence, then it's is medicine, not alternative medicine. Asking for "alternative medicine" backed up by evidence is self contradictory.
Look into ethnopharmacology, it's a field which takes folk remedies finds the actual basis for them working and then develops drugs based on that. | 120 |
[Star Wars] how often does sidious bathe while he’s the emperor | That mf look like he stinks | 20 | Seeing how Force-strong the guy is, he probably simply lifts particles of filth out of himself, thus staying clean and odorless all the time.
Alternatively, he might rely on the Dark Side so much that he no longer needs for his body to perform usual functions. | 23 |
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