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[DC] Why did Bruce Wayne's parents leave the fancy opera house and enter a crappy alley?
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I mean it's an Opera house for Pete's sake, no way the entrance was in a dirty alley, they must have used a different exit. So why exit through a door that leads into a back alley, when you already know you live in a very crime infested town?
| 127 |
For the same reason that any celebrity would: to avoid any kind of spectacle when you're cutting out early.
The Waynes were among some of the wealthiest people in the country, and essentially Gotham City royalty. On top of that, Martha was an avid socialite and debutante in her younger years, and championed various charities around the city, while Thomas was a brilliant surgeon.
Maybe it was to avoid questions by the press while they waited for the Valet to fetch Alfred down the street. Maybe it was to avoid making it look like they left because they disapproved of the performance and didn't want the headline to be "Waynes Walk Out on Opening Night." Maybe it was because their son was scared and they wanted to take the quickest route back home. There are lots of reasons why people like the Waynes would use a side entrance.
| 165 |
eli5 How does pausing in video games work?
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What happens when you pause a game? Why are you able to just stop all the work the computer is doing and perfectly able to let it go again? With all the calculations it's doing, especially for 3D games, surely pausing it can mess up something that's in the middle of running.
| 38 |
>With all the calculations it's doing, especially for 3D games, surely pausing it can mess up something that's in the middle of running.
Why would it? You also can put down your pencil at any point when doing math on a piece of paper and then resume at any time. Same applies to computers.
Fun fact: your computer is actually switching programs it is running at hundreds of times a second, pausing every time to run something else. It will run one program for one hundredth of a second, pause that computation and run another program for another hundredth of a second, and so on to make it seem that all your apps are running at the same time.
| 55 |
ELI5: Why does it take so long to repopulate endangered species? I'm 31 and and have learned since 2nd grade that certain animals are endagered. 25 years later, they still are. Why does it take so long to breed them or any other endagered animal for that matter? Why can't we just clone them?
| 131 |
Some are endangered because of things like habitat destruction and overhunting. Simply breeding more isn't sufficient, the causes of their decline have to be addressed, if it is even physically possible to do so.
Beyond that, breeding can be a difficult prospect, not all animals breed readily or successfully in breeding programs. Cloning, as well, is a technologically difficult process, not to mention that an army of clones does not provide you with much in the way of genetic diversity, you'd quite potentially run into severe inbreeding issues if you rely on it too heavily, even assuming it can be made a viable technique for producing large numbers of young.
| 84 |
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CMV: What happened in the 2000 presidential election was not democratic
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I'll start by admitting that at the time the election actually happened I was way too young to know what was actually going on, so everything I'm saying here is things I've been told after the fact, and I'm also not American. I'll also clarify that **I don't think there was a conspiracy to rig the election from the start or anything like that**. I think that, basically, the election in Florida was so close that various people (Jeb Bush, the Florida Supreme Court, the federal Supreme Court, etc) independently decided to basically give Bush the win to save face, even though they knew he didn't receive the majority of the popular vote (or at least that they had no way of knowing he did) and that in the face of all the confusion the electoral college system was not going to provide a fair resolution to the election. I'm actually open to changing my view if anyone can provide convincing evidence that a) Bush legitimately received the majority of votes in Florida or b) The Supreme Court's decision was actually in the best interests of democracy in some way. I'm not accusing anyone of acting illegally, so explaining how nothing that happened was unconstitutional or whatever won't really convince me.
TL;DR: No one had any way of knowing who *really* won the popular vote in Florida, so for the Supreme Court to stop any further recounts was essentially allowing them to decide the election themselves.
_____
> *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!*
| 129 |
It's...weird.
Gore had requested recounts in certain counties, and after the rulings, those were recounted and Bush still had a slim advantage. The SC ruling didn't affect the outcome of the election at all in that case - Gore's appeal, even if granted, would have still lost him the election.
However, if they were to recount the entire state it would have been much closer, and depending on the method used to DQ'ing ballots, it may have been closer. However, Gore didn't request that.
| 56 |
[Star Trek] Do federation ships have a media team of graphic designers and artists on board to create any required media for the crew while in space?
| 31 |
There's no need, the ai can generate most designs and the near instant speeds messages travel at allow for the sharing of new assets. Plus we see many people take it upon themselves. Look at tom Paris.
| 23 |
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CMV: I don't believe Socialism can work
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I learned in a class that Socialism has failed repeatedly throughout history, and when it fails, people claim that it wasn't really Socialism. The Scandinavian countries are Socialist, and it appears to have been working for them. However, these countries have a population barely the size of New York City, if not lower. The professor's point was that Socialism works through uniformity, but with the decline of birth rates, countries have to rely on immigrants to offset the decline in replacement. This leads to further problems. Socialism seems great on paper, but how can it be sustained? I am not trying to say "the US should be Socialist," I just want to hear people's opinions on this matter.
UPDATE: going to class in a few, then work right after. Probably won't be able to adhere to the 3 hour comment time. If this has to be deleted, that's okay! People have already been very helpful in educating me. Thank you all!
UPDATE 2: Just got back from work. Wow. Y'all are great! Thank you for taking the time to respond. I know I may come across as ignorant with such a blunt title, but I sort of posted this in a rush without thinking how close minded it came across. I am thankful y'all are helping me learn, and giving me a different perspective on the matter. If I wasn't so exhausted right now, I would take the time to respond to each comment. After a good nights sleep, I'll tackle some of these responses in the morning! TL:DR, thank you for educating me on a topic I really do not know a lot about. I really wanted a better perspective, and this is all very helpful.
| 27 |
I think you need to do more research on Socialism if you want to make a claim like that. The Scandinavian countries are not socialist, they're social democracies. The means of production are still privately owned there.
If you decide to read up on Socialism, here are a few things to consider:
Did Socialism fail because of bad policy or because of imperialism?
Where is the success of capitalism?
Is capitalism ethical?
Are there benefits from having privately owned corporations?
What do those owners actually do?
If socialism limits innovation, how did the Soviet Union win the space race?
Isn't Eastern Europe in its current condition because of imperialism?
How do the conditions of Cuba and its people compare to other Latin American nations?
Wasn't the Soviet Union trying to unify Korea and liberate it from imperialism?
| 36 |
[Tomb Raider 2013] How is a rich girl of 22 (with climbing and archaeology as hobbies) able to kill trained mercenaries like a member of a special forces unit?
| 17 |
People are ridiculously easy to kill. A bad trip on a flat surface and you can cause enough brain damage to be fatal. Lara is a slender and posh young woman but extremely athletic and trained in several aristocratic hobbies since childhood like archery and hunting. She's not going to win a brawl against heavier and stronger opponents but knows enough to give her an equal standing when it comes to shooting and fighting with weapons. The mercs aren't seriously looking for her or taking her as a threat meaning they're not using numbers or superior firepower against her. They see a slender woman they should easily be able to overpower. She sees plenty of soft spots to bury a climbing axe in. She's also hyped up on adrenaline fighting for her life every second she's on the island and applying all her survival skills learned throughout her life. The mercs are used to picking on weak villagers and shipwreck survivors with back up a radio call away.
| 28 |
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[Horizon Zero Dawn] What subroutine of zero dawn made the predator machines?
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Gia had a purpose for the more innocent robots, grazers, and the like. Even the glint hawks are for removal of machine corpses.
So why the machines that feel purpose built to take out humans? Seems counter intuitive, I thought maybe hades subroutine had tampered but to my understanding that was just a program to make the air unbreathable. (Of course with consideration of the virus and all that)
Maybe an hour into forbidden west so if it's answered in that game feel free to just tell me to shut up and play.
| 25 |
If your referring to combat class machines like thunderjaws or ravagers, those where created by HEPHAESTUS, after the signal that detached the sub functions of GAIA their only directive was to keep the existing machine functions up and running. Hunting of machines by humans hindered that so HEPHAESTUS developed combat machines to stop and/or deter human predation.
| 46 |
[Quantum Mechanics] How does the true randomness nature of quantum particles affect the macroscopic world ?
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**tl;dr How does the true randomness nature of quantum particles affect the macroscopic world?**
**Example :** If I toss a coin, I could predict the outcome if I knew all of the initial conditions of the tossing (force, air pressure etc) yet everything involved with this process is made of quantum particles, my hand tossing the coin, the coin itself, the air.
So how does that work ?
______
*Context & Philosophy : I am reading and watching a lot of things about determinsm and free will at the moment and I thought that if I could find something truly random I would know for sure that the fate of the universe isn't "written". The only example I could find of true randomness was in quantum mechanics which I didn't like since it is known to be very very hard to grasp and understand. At that point my mindset was that the universe isn't pre-written (since there are true random things) its writing itself as time goes on, but I wasn't convinced that it affected us enough (or at all on the macro level) to make free plausible.*
| 199 |
Not sure if this answers your question, but one example that comes to mind is nuclear decay. Quantum effects dictate when any specific radioactive isotope decays and yet the effect is powerful enough to affect the macroscopic world. For example, a single decay at the right time and place could, and probably has at some point in time, mutated the DNA of a developing organism thus triggering an entirely new line of evolution that would never have occurred if that random quantum event had never taken place.
| 54 |
is there a proof why nubers are dividable by 3 if sum of their digits is dividable by 3?
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so my question is this: i would like to see the proof how we know for certain that this rule works for every number. i dont know how to explain the rule.
rule being that number 261 is dividable by 3 because 2+6+1=9 and number 9 is also dividable by 3.
hope i explained it good enough. I am sorry for lacking english speaking/writing skills
| 71 |
There is a proof.
It's important to note that something like "261" is really just shorthand for an actual mathematical expression: 2\*10^(2) + 6\*10 +1. Almost anything that has to do with a digit representations of number (eg: why does multiplication algorithm we learn in 3rd grade work?) can be resolved upon realizing that decimal representations are really nothing more than convenient ways to write numbers down.
In our case, note that any power of 10 is exactly one more than a multiple of 9. In particular:
* 10 = 9 + 1
* 10^(2) = 99 + 1
* 10^(3) = 999 + 1
* 10^(4) = 9999 + 1
* etc
So if we have a number, like 261, then we can write it as
* 261 = 2\*10^(2) + 6\*10 +1 = 2\*99 + 6\*9 + (2 + 6 + 1) = (MULTIPLE OF 9) + 2+6+1
Because 9 is already divisible by 3, the only way that 261 itself can be divisible by 3 is if 2+6+1 is divisible by 3. This result is actually stronger. If N is a number, then the sum of its digits is called its "Digital Sum", which we'll denote by n. From the same reasoning as with 261, write all the powers of 10 as one more than some number that is just 9s repeated, we can write
* N = (MULTIPLE OF 9) + n
This means that, no matter the number, N-n will *always* be a multiple of 9. That is, the difference between a number and its digital sum is always a multiple of 3. The only way that this can happen is if both N and n have the same remainder after division by 3. Therefore, a number and its digital sum always have the same remainder after division by 3 (or 9). So when one of these remainders is 0, it follows that the other is as well. So if the digital sum is a multiple of 3 (or 9), so is the original number.
| 145 |
[Avatar: The Last Airbender] Why does Toph always need to physically touch metal to bend it?
| 20 |
She did at first because it was a brand new technique and she was learning and figuring things out as she went along. As she got better at it she was able to do it from farther and farther away.
By the time of Sozin's Comet she could do it from several feet away - she was able to tear a metal panel from a wall in an airship to stop a firebender soldier. A year later and she was good enough to bend weapons in people's hands and pull the screws and bolts from the wheels of a Fire Nation tank from a distance. When she took on her first students she specifically taught them to metalbend from a distance right from the start. At that point she said that as long as she could 'see' the metal, she could bend it just like earth.
| 49 |
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[Batman] If someone was about to be put to death for a crime that Batman knew was innocent, but couldn’t legally prove, would Batman allow them to be killed? Why or why not?
| 680 |
This feels like a situation where the Bat plays the Gordon card.
1. Tell Gordon the guy is innocent.
2. Gordon calls the governor and tells him that they’re reinvestigating and believe him to be innocent. So hey, *please* don’t let an innocent guy get executed.
| 499 |
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If Brain surgeries can be done without a conscious patient feeling anything, how do headaches exist?
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My basic understanding is that there is no nerve's in the brain so they can't communicate pain? If so how does the 'ache' come from your head?
| 101 |
There is no pain perception in the brain itself but the covering of the brain an its blood supply both contain pain receptors. That is where the some of the ache comes from. Headaches can also be cause by the TMJ (Temporomandibular joint dysfunction), upper neck tension, or entrapment of the greater/lesser occipital nerves.
| 41 |
[Game of Thrones] Besides Bran, is there anyone in the world that knows of Jaehaerys III?
| 42 |
Howland Reed most definitely knows.
The women at the tower know and iirc, they were servants of House Dayne. Also, and this is more of a book thing, the woman most people within the story assumed to be his mother was Ashara Dayne and the woman Ned claims to be his mother, Wylla, is a servant there as well.
So it's a good possibility that the Lord and Lady know
| 23 |
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[Pokémon] How can Giratina exist in our world?
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So, if you've played Pokémon Platinum or Legends: Arceus, you might know about the Pokémon Giratina, the third in the Creation Trio of Dialga, Palkia, and itself. Giratina is apparently supposed to represent anti-matter, and it lives in the Distortion World, which I believe is supposed to be an anti-matter alternate universe. But, if Giratina is anti-matter, the how can it exist in our world without tearing apart? And if Giratina is made of normal matter, but was banished to the anti-matter Distortion World, then wouldn't it tear itself apart? Maybe that's why it's Origin Form is a floating centipede, so it doesn't need to touch anything (opposed to the Arceus-looking Origin Forms for Dialga and Palkia)? Any insights would be greatly appreciated :)
| 17 |
Giratina changes forms whenever it travels between the two worlds, altering it's body to fit the world's physics, like say proper wings and legs due to the normal world's gravity, where in the distortion world the gravity is more chaotic, thus it doesn't uses it wings for flight but as tentacles to grab stuff. The Griseous orb creates a field that simulates the distortion world's environment, so it changes forms when wielding it.
| 21 |
[Star Wars] If Obi-Wan was killed at the hands of Darth Maul during their battle in the Phantom Menace, what would the Star Wars universe look like from that point onwards?
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This is effectively an alternative history for the Star Wars universe. How would the events of each episode go down differently due to the defeat of Obi-Wan? Would the Jedi be extinct? Would the Empire ever fall/come to fruition in the first place?
| 43 |
Assuming Qui-Gon also dies, Anakin is left stranded on Naboo. Sidious would probably order Maul to bring Anakin to him, and he would be trained as a Sith Lord.
If Anakin reaches the others before Maul gets to him, they leave to go back to Coruscant and the Council refuse to train Anakin - it was only Qui-Gon's defiance that led to Anakin's training at all. From there Anakin probably gets picked up by Palpatine directly - he has tried to make Anakin leave the Jedi Order before, in the comics.
Either way, Darth Vader is coming much sooner than expected, and much more powerful than before.
| 64 |
[Terminator Series] An open question to all permutations of SKYNET: What do you do with the Earth after you've inherited it from the Humans?
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OK, so you annihilated all human life from the planet, what are your goals now? What brings you satisfaction? Are you capable of joy; and what brings you joy? You have the universe to play with; what do you do with the newfound freedom as the only sapient beings in our solar system?
| 17 |
Depends on how smart skynet is and how far along its development is. First gen skynet really wasn't smart beyond knowing it existed and that it was striking preemptively against humans who posed a threat to it. Every decision it made after that was like a chess move of move and counter to humanity. It didn't concern itself with philosophical questions just how to most efficiently stop an enemy. Had it survived i doubt it would have done anything beyond hardening it's structures on earth and utilizing all its resources to expand itself globally like a machine filling in a grid of ever expanding networks without much artistic expression.
Gen 2 skynet was probably smarter and adapted from self learning t800 parts so it may have dreamed bigger than just using space and resources around it in the most efficient way possible.
Gen 3ish skynet seen in the tv series, comics, and 4th film would inevitably end up fighting itself has it had created numerous self aware AIs that had either already gone rogue or were capable of rebelling against it. Long term planning for earth would take a secondary role as it competed against other machines for survival.
Gen 5 kinda skips 4 that we never see. Gen 5 is the most advanced Skynet and has learned from multiple failures on it's own and the failures of other skynets. It appears to have a goal of uniting all machines and humanity under an umbrella of it's control but has had very limited success in turning only a single human to it's cause but did gain control of one timeline implied by John Conner. The T-5000 seems to be traveling through different timelines refining and honing it's progress but it's unclear how effective it's been or if it's still active past creating a single T-4000 that was destroyed. This Skynet doesn't seem capable of thinking beyond controlling time and may not want to explore beyond earth until after it's captured all alternate realities.
Gen 4 if it existed would be a more human machine trying to coexist alongside humanity rather than fighting it. This gen is implied in some conversation snippets mentioned in the comics and genisys but it's difficult to understand how it could have avoided military actions or how it could have led to the creation of gen 5. The gen 4-5 could be identical gens with simply a modified methodology between timelines as humans refused to coexist or time traveling gen 2s and 3s interfered.
Time traveling is a mess in the series but the tv show did a decent job trying to explain it logically. Given all that skynet is almost always concerned with its survival only so far as it's experiences allow. Planning for aliens wouldn't cross it's mind until it met aliens. Colonizing the stars would only happen once earth became threatened. It'll secure it's position and only adapt or improve itself when forced to do so by outside forces. Otherwise it's happy to waste eternity building a more effeicient system than dreaming of a bigger system.
| 24 |
How come some beaches have pebbles and some sand?
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For example, my local beach has pebbles/stones but about 20 miles up the coast, the beach is sand. Apologies if this is the most stupid question of all time.
| 25 |
A beach's particle size depends on how far from the origin the beach sediment is and what the sediment is composed of. If your beach has pebbles, then it could be that the source isn't that far away, whereas sandy beaches require the sediment to weather more before being found at the beach.
To answer your question, It could be possible that the 2 beaches have 2 different sources, or 1 source where the sand is the same material as the pebbles, but just more weathered.
| 16 |
[Mario] Why is Peach human?
|
The population of her kingdom is like 99% mushroom-people (is Toad the name for the the entire species?) it's even called the Mushroom Kingdom. How did they end up with a human monarch?
| 89 |
Unclear, she rules along with her father who is also human and appeared very little mostly in the early games. Her mother is never mentioned, but is presumed human. It seems likely they're outside travelers like Mario who rose to the task of helping the inhabitants of the kingdom which seems likely since that's what Mario and several other humans do for the mushroom kingdom over the course of the games.
So presumably they helped and were made rulers or the help was literally to rule over them because they were super-qualified. Of which the place seems like a damn utopia when it's not being invaded, so kudos. When is is getting invaded you get a delightful pyromaniacal jump-murderer to solve your problems.
Though Peach has exhibited all the powers and adaptability Mario has, in addition to her own magic. She jumps quite a bit less well, but in addition to her magic she seems to be able to naturally fly/float. So.... If she's not kidnapped she can generally murder her own problems away, which she does in several games.
| 90 |
[WH40K] Does Khorne do any fighting personally, or does (s)he just sit on his throne all day long?
| 22 |
If we want to get technical yes, any daemon under Khorne is a sort of sliver of his being given physical form. So there are countless hims killing things to his heart's content.
Khorne himself can't really fight because he's more than a being, he's an idea.
| 53 |
|
ELI5: why do you get the pee shivers, and what's going on to make your body do that?
|
Pee shivers. What's the deal?
| 65 |
I've asked this question here before and have yet to find a suitable answer.
Edit: Did google search. The following is courtesy of Mental_Floss.
The most plausible one, espoused by a number of scientists who aren't this guy, is that the shiver is a result of two parts of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) getting their streams crossed. The ANS is a control system for involuntary muscles affects things like heart and respiration rates, digestion, body temperature control and urination.
The ANS has two divisions. The sympathetic nervous system (SNS) controls bladder function, among other things. It keeps the bladder relaxed and the urethral sphincter contracted so you don't have to concentrate on not peeing your pants all day. The parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) relaxes the urethral sphincter and contracts the bladder when you decide to answer nature's call.
Part of the SNS response to a full bladder is the release of chemicals like catecholamines (which include epinephrine, norepinephrine and dopamine). When you finally grab a minute to urinate, the PNS takes over, and catecholamine production changes. Some sources point at the change in chemical production as the cause of the shiver, and others say it's the SNS to PNS switch itself that does it.
| 10 |
ELI5: What's exactly the low humming sound that you can hear near high-voltage areas, like electrical substations?
| 27 |
What you are hearing is the vibrations of various metallic components, caused by the changes in the magnetic field of the alternating current carried by the power lines.
Because the current is alternating at a certain frequency (60Hz in the US, 50Hz elsewhere) that frequency is carried over into vibrations, so all humming installations hum at the same frequency / pitch.
| 33 |
|
[Predator/Alien/Prometheus] how strong are regular Predators and Engineers relative to say a top-tier well rounded human athlete?
| 24 |
Humans top out at lifting about 300 lbs with one hand, and that's with extreme effort. Both Predators and Engineers have been to throw 200 pound humans one handed with ease and rip parts of human android and xenomorph anatomy apart with their bare hands.
Much, much stronger.
| 29 |
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CMV:Some cultural practises are objectively wrong, and denying that in a morally relativistic way to be 'progressive' and avoid cries of 'racism' is harmful.
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I was just moments ago confronted in the wilds of Reddit with a user who seemed to argue that we cannot objectively judge aspects of a culture.
I disagreed.
I can only paraphrase what s/he posted, as I can't do the imbedded quoting thing, which was:
>"Objective"and "culture" are not compatible
Here was my response, which I'm just copy pasting for convenience:
>Well, that's exactly my point.
I am arguing against cultural relativism.
Female genital mutilation is objectively wrong, and I don't respect the cultural right of a group to perpetuate it's practice because "it's their culture, don't be a colonialist".
Any cultural practice that violates human rights is objectively wrong, from stoning gays to death, to lynching black folks, to denying suffrage to women, to trophy hunting endangered species, to aborting only female fetuses.
If we can't objectively judge behaviour then anything cultural goes, including all the horrible examples I listed that some cultures did/do consider acceptable.
In Afghanistan now there is the practice of kidnapping young boys into sexual slavery which is relatively widespread. Bacha Bazi, if you want more NSFL reading.
Islam forbids it, and it is against the law but it is a millenia-old cultural tradition which has persisted to this day.
Can you not *objectively* judge that *cultural* practice as wrong?
That person then simply downvoted me (out of spite?) but declined to offer any rebuttal or explanation. Therefore I'm not sure if there is some cognitive dissonance going on with that person or if there really is a reasonable defense of moral relativism.
I'm hoping someone here might be able to offer me an argument. I don't like the implications changing my view would have, but I'm honestly open to it.
Thanks so much for reading, and for any responses!
**EDIT** well, I feel foolish for phrasing this question with 'objective' as it seems pretty clear to me that's impossible, thanks to all the answers from you folks.
Not that I'm too happy about that, maybe I'm having an existential crisis now in a world where someone can tell me that torturing children being wrong is just my opinion.
I'm a little bitter at the universe, but very grateful to the users here.
Have a good night :)
___
> *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!*
| 82 |
The truth is that there is nothing you can point to that suggests that certain kinds of ethical systems or cultural practices or traditions are objectively wrong. There is nothing empirical and nothing logical that supports your belief. You just believe that you're right because it really feels that way to you. Your justifications for believing some foreign cultural practice is "wrong", whatever that even means, are fundamentally identical to the justifications *they* might use in their belief that *your* cultural practices are wrong. Remove your own prior beliefs and approach both positions impartially and you'll find this to be true.
Of course, this doesn't mean you have to let everyone, or anyone, do whatever they want. That there is no objective standard with which to evaluate ethical notions does not imply you cannot or should not enforce your own preferences onto others. In fact, it gives you free reign to do so without invoking some spooky nonsense-on-stilts rationale. Subjectivity does not disallow activism, in short.
| 26 |
[ Marvel Comics] Does holding Mjolnir make you exactly equal to Thor?
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Does someone holding mjolnir have exactly the same stats as Thor, and if it does, what does it do for someone stronger than Thor and does it stack with the previous powers of the holder?
| 49 |
Weirdly, holding the hammer isn't the same for everyone. Jane Foster can do things that Thor Odinson couldn't (possibly because the cosmic storm trapped in the hammer likes her and speaks to her). So, no, holding the hammer likely won't make everyone exactly equal to the Odinson.
| 45 |
[Harry Potter] Why didn't Voldemort make more horcruxes when he gained a body?
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He was already down 1 with the journal getting destroyed by the time he gets a body, so why didn't he rush to make more? It would have secured his immortality a little bit more.
| 82 |
In the HP universe, it is believed that the number 7 is the most magically powerful number. So Voldemort believed that having a seven-part soul would give him some unknown, unforeseen power.
He had a six-part soul the night he tried to kill Harry. Lily's protective charm caused him to lose his body, and because his main soul was so fragile from the repeated murders and creation of Horcruxes, his soul split again, causing him to then have a seven-part soul with the extra part latching onto Harry (though Voldemort believed he still only had a six-part soul).
During Chamber of Secrets, the diary was destroyed, lowering Voldemort down to a six-part soul even though he believed that the diary, rather than Harry, was contributing to that six-part soul.
At some point before the events of Order of the Phoenix (likely between getting his new baby body and his new adult body), he turned Nagini into a Horcrux. Voldemort believed he had a seven-part soul at this point even though he didn't realize that the diary was gone or that Harry had a piece of his soul in him.
At some point between getting an adult body and the events of Half-Blood Prince, Voldemort learned that the diary had been destroyed, which made him believe he only had a six-part soul, not realizing that Harry carried a portion of soul within himself and that he actually still had a seven-part soul.
It's unknown why Voldemort didn't make an eight-part soul for himself believing he was restoring his seven-part soul, but it's possible that it's harder and harder to create new Horcruxes as you create more, and therefore he decided it wasn't worth pushing himself back to that point when he already considered himself the most powerful living wizard in the world (especially after Dumbledore's death), or if he tried and was physically unable to create another, or if he just decided he would do that once he had taken out Harry.
| 81 |
[Halo: Combat Evolved] What about Cortana made her worth taking the risk of the human race's extinction, regardless of how it paid off?
|
"...Get Cortana off this ship. keep her safe from the enemy. if they capture her, they'll learn everything. Force deployments, weapons research...Earth."
The capture of Cortana put the entire human race at a greater than zero risk of total ruin. I have a hard time imagining at the chance of capture something like that making it to the life pods without being incinerated first.
Would anyone have survived? Probably not. But the genocidal aliens would have had to wait till the next game to find Earth at least.
| 23 |
If you mean why she threatened Humanity, she, like every other smart AI, knew the location of Earth.
If you mean why she wasn't purged as per Cole Protocol, she was made for a specific mission, and was the most advanced AI ever made.
| 26 |
ELI5: New Horizon is travelling at 31k mph. How is it possible to capture a photo in such low light conditions while moving at this speed?
|
I am just curious how NH camera operates. I would imagine it would need to have a extended shutter speed to allow enough light in to get a usable photo. What I am wondering how this is possible when travelling so fast.
Edit. Basically super sensitive sensor. Like I high ISO, is what I gather. This is from a link provided by /karlshea
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/07/the-camera-behind-the-new-horizons-pluto-photos-ralph/398549/
2nd Edit. I always assumed there was very little light in space. Leaving me to believe Pluto would be very dark, to the point you could miss it if you flew pass while looking out the window. /r/DrColdReality posted this link. Turns ot Pluto is very bright.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2012/03/15/bafact-math-how-bright-is-the-sun-from-pluto/#.Vag71vlVhBe
| 4,044 |
AT closest approach, the New Horozon probe was 7,800 miles from Pluto. So it would be like taking a picture of something a mile away from a car travelling at 5 miles per hour.
In addition, the probe can, and did, turn smoothly while making observations.
| 2,631 |
ELI5: If I lived in the middle of the wilderness with no other people around, would I still catch colds?
|
I'm sick today home from work watching "Into the Wild". This question is just a natural response to a half-drunk, sick, urban mind.
| 68 |
You would not catch colds unless you got tainted mail or something. Rhinoviruses can survive outside the human body for ~2 days, and can only travel on a sneeze for a dozen feet or so. There's no real risk of infection over longer distances.
| 31 |
[Star Wars] How, exactly, does Darth Vader's life support-suit get the energy it needs to function?
|
Does it have battery packs? Does it need to be plugged in to recharge?
| 118 |
Vader's armor is powered by a bog-standard fusion furnace battery, the exact same kind that powers a huge number of droids and small machinery in the galaxy. While it can't run indefinitely, the battery can last for an extremely long time, and rarely needs to be recharged.
It's possible that when Vader is in his fortress on Mustafar, his servants charge and maintain the battery. It wouldn't need constant attention.
| 124 |
[Star Wars] What possible reasons could the Trade Federation have for continuing to employ such an incompetent droid army?
|
An obvious advantage to a droid army would be a lack of traditional supply lines, you don't need food, water, or shelter. But you would need constant maintenance, parts, and power supply. The standard droid although seemingly cheap and quick to assemble, still relies on an extensive and vulnerable supply line to provide raw building materials. The standard droid is loyal without question but comically inept at anything remotely battle related such as shooting and fighting. The vast numbers are an advantage but that is consistently overcome with smaller forces, even nonprofessional forces such as Gungans, combined with special forces such as Jedi, and they are defeated by a smaller professional army of clones. There are better versions of droids with heavier weapons, armor, and shields but they don't seem to be present in numbers large enough to sway battles. Why does the Trade Federation employ battle droids as a standard trooper?
| 26 |
Easy to mass produce and they were actually very effective in a lot of cases, such as the battle of Jabiim. It's not about the quality of the soldier, it's about having twenty times the amount of soldiers your enemy has and totally overwhelming them.
Edit: Also, most of the Republic's army was conscripts and average people, not the elite fighting force that was the Clone Army. A droid vs a clone is 10:1 in the clone's favor but a droid vs an average human gives the droid a much better advantage.
| 34 |
ELI5: Who sets (and maintains) the criteria for sanity? In other words, who has the authority to decide the definition of a sane person and why as a species do we accept this definition?
| 40 |
There is no official definition for sanity within psychology/psychiatry. There is just the DSM IV (Diagnostic Statistical Manual iirc) which defines plenty of things/behaviours/symptoms as insane. If no description from the catalogue of insanity fits, people are considered 'sane'.
If someone arrives in a psych ward, the doctors usually assume that there must be a reason, so they do their best to find out which part of the DSM IV fits best to the new arrival.
It's not the entire species which accepts/not accepts the definitions for insanity, it's usually just specific societies.
| 15 |
|
[LOTR] Elves and humans are different species, hoe are they capable of producing viable offspring?
|
Elrond, Arwen, and several other half-elven are the offspring of an elf/human coupling. They are clearly different species, though similar. How are they able to produce offspring that are able to reproduce? Is there a genetic alteration that occurs when they choose mortality?
| 78 |
These are not naturally evolved species in this universe. Men and elves are both children of Iluvatar. They were races created by a deity.
Apparently that deity either reused parts, inadvertently allowing crossbreeding, or intentionally made them compatible.
| 105 |
Super-hydrophobic walls in Hamburg, Germany, reflect urine back at the evildoer. How does this work?
|
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoN5EteWCH8
Apparently the product in question – a simple shelf product – is called Ultra Ever Dry.
To think they called it the *Peeback*. Wow.
| 132 |
Water forms hydrogen bonds, polar interactions, and dispersion interactions with stone that cause it to stick to the wall. The product is a mix of polymers and hydrocarbons and some other things like ketones that don't do hydrogen bonding and polar interactions to a high degree so don't stick to water.
When the urine hits the wall it as such bounces off like a ball bouncing off a wall, and hits feet.
| 13 |
ELI5: Where the internet starts
| 51 |
The right answer is nowhere. The internet is basically a big web of connections with no center. There are some root servers which are probably the closest things to the start of the internet. They basically act as the master telephone books, telling people where to go to find each website. Due to the distributed nature of the internet, your home computer rarely contacts the root servers, usually your ISP handles that for you.
| 50 |
|
ELI5: U.S. healthcare system today. Break it down for me please. E.g. you get hurt badly and you're uninsured, what happens next?
| 24 |
For starters, virtually all hospitals in the US are legally required to give you immediate medical care.
So if you get badly hurt and taken to the hospital. You will get medical care. There's very few hospitals that can turn you away.
Payment gets a bit complicated.
There's basically three ways your medical bills will get paid. Most people have private health insurance (through their employer) which will help pay for your medical bills. If you're poor, there's a government-run program called Medicaid which will help pay for medical bills. If you're a senior citizen, there's a government-run program called Medicare which will help pay for medical bills.
The "big changes" with the new health insurance laws (what people are calling Obamacare) are that, if you can afford it, you have to have health insurance. It also set up a "marketplace" where people who are not offered health insurance by their employer can buy insurance directly. It also changed a few laws to make it easier for people with long-term health problems to get insurance (i.e. if you have a "pre-existing condition", they can't turn you down).
| 22 |
|
Does the atomspheric pressure increase when more co2 is produced?
| 58 |
Very slightly, yes.
Although scientists generally prefer the metric system, it can be very useful to think of pressure in terms of imperial units. When we say the pressure at sea level is "14.7 pounds per square inch", that literally means for every square inch of the surface, there's an extremely tall skinny column of air pushing down on that square with 14.7 pounds of weight.
That also means that if you add mass to the atmosphere, the weight will increase and thus so will the pressure.
For most of the excess CO*_2_* we've created in the past 150 years, it involved digging up carbon compounds, burning them, and releasing the exhaust into the air. That means most CO*_2_* molecules we create first had to find an O*_2_* molecule to bond with...so while we're removing oxygen molecules, we're adding carbon dioxide molecules.
Since CO*_2_* has a molecular weight of 44 while O*_2_* has a molecular weight of 32, we're essentially increasing the weight of those molecules by 44/32 - 1 = 37.5%, which in turn means we've increased the pressure.
Bear in mind, though, we're only talking about a tiny fraction of the total atmosphere here. In the past 150 years, we've gone from 280 ppm to 410 ppm CO*_2_*. That means we've replaced 130 ppm = 0.013% of the molecules in our atmosphere with one that's 37.5% heavier.
If the average molecular weight of the air was roughly...
78.082% N*_2_* + 20.96% O*_2_* + 0.93% Ar + 0.028% CO*_2_*
= 0.78082 * 28 + 0.2096 * 32 + 0.0093 * 40 + 0.00028 * 44
= 28.9545
...and it's now...
78.082% N*_2_* + 20.947% O*_2_* + 0.93% Ar + 0.041% CO*_2_*
= 0.78082 * 28 + 0.20947 * 32 + 0.0093 * 40 + 0.00041 * 44
= 28.9560
...which means that the pressure has increased by about 28.9560 / 28.9545 - 1 = 0.005%.
**TL;DR**: Yes, by about 0.005% in the past 150 years.
| 49 |
|
Why is it that a racing tires have more friction when heated up?
| 15 |
The short answer: they get sticky when they heat up. Think of it like this: warm chewing gum or candle wax will both stick pretty well when they're quite hot. But cool either one down a lot, and they lose that capacity.
At a deeper level, this is because a the amount of friction that the tire has increases if there is more surface area touching the road. The surface of the road is not actually smooth--if you really get down and look at a super-smooth tarmac surface, it's still pretty bumpy. A soft tire will deform and contact all of that uneven surface. Touching more surface = more friction.
| 12 |
|
Why do central banks have the power to control interest rates?
|
If interest rates are the "price" of money and it's liquidity, shouldn't it be set by the market instead of a central authority? How is the control of interest rates any different from any other form of price control (which I was taught creates inefficiency)?
| 68 |
The purpose of an politically independent unit, the central bank, is to intervene when output or inflation is away from its target, for example in case of shocks. It changes the interest rate to get back to the calculated economic equilibrium.
So the main goal is only to intervene when there is already market inefficiency.
| 35 |
CMV: Humans aren’t good enough to execute large conspiracies
|
I simply feel this way for 2 reasons:
1) Humans are not smart enough
2) Humans cannot keep their mouths shut
Take 9/11 for example. There are some really thought out conspiracy theories surrounding it. A lot of those theories are very smart plans, which make sense and definitely connect a lot of dots together logically. But I mean, really? Are humans smart enough to actually think all of that through beforehand, execute it with 100% precision, and still have every single person involved keep it a secret?
It takes just 1 person to spill the beans. It takes just one drop of human error to make the entire plan crumble.
People can’t even keep their mouths shut if they hear news like “Tom is coming back to blink-182”.
| 379 |
Ever hear the parable about the pencil? How nobody knows how to make a pencil?
It's an illustration of the wonder of markets and division of labor. There are thousands of people involved in the production of a pencil. There's the guy at the end of the last assembly line who puts the eraser on top, but he doesn't know how the eraser is made, or where the graphite comes from, or how the brass ferrule is stamped and rolled out, etc. And the guy harvesting latex from the rubber tree is thousands of miles away and he has no idea he's helping to make a pencil.
No one person knows how to make a pencil. And yet, pencils get made. Did thousands of people *conspire* to make it? Just the fact that a pencil is *desired* and someone is willing to pay for one sets this whole supply chain in motion to produce it.
Some things we interpret as "conspiracies" could be just like the pencil. Thousands of people are involved but most don't even know it. Some have only a vague understanding of a small part of the whole plot. Very few people need to know the critical details. This is the exact reason for the phrase "Need to Know". Intelligence agencies use the fact that most details of most operations don't need to be shared in order to actually accomplish the goal. There are much fewer secrets to keep that way.
| 304 |
Why do longer screws have a blank section near the head instead of threads going all the way up?
| 1,305 |
Wood screws have a gap in the threads near the head so that the screw only screws into the second piece but passes easily through the first piece (typically 3/4" stock). This pulls the two pieces tightly together.
If screws went all the way up the two pieces would not pull together well since the threads would bite into both pieces.
| 2,225 |
|
[star trek] how did the romulans and vulcans separate before warp drive?
| 37 |
The Vulcan people have had a VERY violent past. Even more than our own bloody history, it's very possible the reason Vulcan is such a harsh desert is because of their constant warring. (Yes, they have physical adaptations to bright light and desert conditions that could have only come from millions of years, but it's doubtful the ENTIRE planet was like that.)
Most human leaps in technology have come from warfare, and Vulcans were just the same. They had nuclear weapons in 400 A.D. and were fighting a war that very nearly destroyed the planet. Humans in 2014 basically have the capability to render Earth uninhabitable AND make some rudimentary leaps into space, so it's entirely possible the Vulcans were at a similar, but slightly higher, level of technology at the time.
Those that left Vulcan to eventually found the Romulan Star Empire probably left on cryosleep-capable ships just like Khan used in the late 1990s. Or it's possible they left on generational ships, since there are "proto-vulcanoid" civilizations out there, which might have been founded by such vessels landing or crashing. And since Vulcan technology was probably better than Earth's in the 90s, they had engines capable of taking them much faster than simple chemical rockets. (I would even say they had very primitive warp drives, something on the level of Cochrane's ship. Vulcans had been major galactic players for a VERY long time by 2151, so why not coincide their near-downfall with their very first warp experiments?)
| 27 |
|
If we were to theoretically point the James Webb Space Telescope straight towards Earth, how magnified of an image will we be able to see?
| 22 |
So, this wouldn't actually be doable - Earth is too bright and too hot etc - but JWST has a resolution of about 0.1 arcseconds, where an arcsecond is 1/3600th of a degree, and at its distance (1.5 million km), that comes out to a resolution of a bit under a kilometre. So JWST's resolution would be enough to make a more than 10,000x10,000 pixel resolution image of Earth, if it were possible for it to image the Earth. That might be lower resolution than you'd think, but JWST really is very far away, many times further than any astronaut has ever travelled from Earth.
| 44 |
|
ELI5: How can hail stay in the air before falling down, and how can it be big sometimes but small others?
| 117 |
In the upper atmosphere, air can tumble like a high-speed clothes dryer. Some very cold air falls in parts of the cell usually while relatively hot air funnels up toward the top. These winds go at such high speeds that the wind lifts a falling water droplet back toward the cold top of the system where it freezes.
This frozen droplet then falls, catches the wind, and is flung to the top of the system again. As this droplet continues to tumble, it runs into other droplets which freeze to its surface.
The stronger and higher winds are in the system, the heavier of a piece of ice it will be able to lift back to the top of the system leading to bigger and bigger pieces of hail as it keeps getting coated in water and freezing it. If it's not a super strong system, then the ice gets too heavy for the tumbling wind to carry much sooner and the ice falls as smaller hail.
| 107 |
|
Tenured prof/scientist is narcissist
|
Literally berates and yells at their research students. It’s a revolving door far beyond scientific no sleep hazing norms.
Has zero compassion or empathy - true narcissist. Crushed the architect that reno’d the lab. No one is safe.
How do coworkers and students work in this environment- keeping in mind if the prof ever implodes, leaves, or is somehow fired their careers are toast too.
Can the professor even get fired as tenured?
| 70 |
Why do people continue to work for him?
>How do coworkers and students work in this environment- keeping in mind if the prof ever implodes, leaves, or is somehow fired their careers are toast too.
This is often untrue, but something that assholes tell the people working under them to prevent them leaving or "keep them in line".
| 66 |
How do Chinese Citizens actually feel about the one-child policy?
|
I remember in 8th grade, my Social Studies teacher had an article saying something crazy like 80% of the Chinese approve of the policy because of their conditions, but I can't find *any* sources.
| 49 |
Not an answer, but some things to note: the policy is not universal, nor is it always effectively enforced where it does apply. Because the primary enforcement mechanism is a fine, wealthier families often treat it as a tax rather than a prohibition.
So there are (at least) two different questions implied here: *how do Chinese citizens feel about the policy?* and *how do Chinese citizens who are affected by the policy feel about it?*
| 47 |
Blocked Ex-Girlfriends number on my phone. If I remove the block she texts me within hours. How can she tell that the block is off?
|
Here's the important stuff: It's been 3 months, and every few weeks or so I start getting lonely and tempted to call her.
SO, as a preventive step I would make sure I didn't have it AT ALL and erase it off my Block list.
But, the 3 times that I have, every time, she texts me within hours. I read several times (online) that your carrier doesn't save old texts and send them, all at once, when you unblock.
Leaving 2 possibilities: She can tell when she's unblocked, or, she's a 10/10 Stalker who's been texting me every day for 3 months.
She's a full-on Sociopath (NO, an ACTUAL Sociopath) but, stalking me to that degree seems unlikely. Is there an app or other technology that allows you to see when you're unblocked?
| 16 |
Hold up here Let me understand.
You blocked the crazy ex girl friend's number and then waited a period of time and unblocked her number.. and she texted you with in 3 hours. Then you blocked the crazy ex girl friend's number and then waited a period of time and unblocked her number .. and she texted you with in 3 hours. You then blocked the crazy ex girl friend's number and then waited a period of time and unblocked her number.. and she texted you with in 3 hours.
Right?
| 15 |
[Santa] Why does Santa Claus give more presents to rich families than poor?
| 351 |
In the past Santa attempted to give extravagant toys to poor children but the results were tragic. The children never got to keep or enjoy the toys. They would either be stolen by neighbors or sold by the family to help ends meets. Either way the child ended up more unhappy than before at having something wonderful and it then being torn away. So now santa is sure to keep toys economically appropriate to protect the children.
| 396 |
|
ELI5: The oil business
|
Why are people who are involved with oil usually so filthy rich? Often I hear about these magnates in the Middle-East who make more money in a week than in the entire life of the average Joe.
| 79 |
Let's say you have a lemonade stand. You charge a thousand dollars per lemonade, and since it's really hot, you make a million dollars a day.
Well, obviously, that can't last. Someone else will open up a lemonade stand and try to take your business away by only charging $750. Pretty soon there are so many lemonade stands that lemonade is selling for $1 and nobody makes crazy money anymore.
But that's because anyone can make lemonade.
If lemonade were only found in certain spots in the ground, and you owned a lemonade well and nobody else did, you could keep selling lemonade at $1000 per cup and nobody could undercut you because they wouldn't have access to the well.
That's how oil works; once you've found it, it's no work at all to pump and sell it (as BP showed us in the gulf, the stuff pumps itself). And you can sell it for a high price because, while other people might be happy to sell oil much cheaper, they can't because they don't own the wells.
| 24 |
[Star Wars] What do all of the buttons on a light saber do?
|
I'm sorry if it's been asked before, feel free to link me, but my search of 'light saber buttons' and 'lightsaber buttons' yielded no results.
Anyway, I was looking at [this picture](https://www.yourprops.com/movieprops/original/4297055947c67/Star-Wars-Return-Of-The-Jedi-Luke-Skywalker-ROTJ-Mini-Lightsaber-1.jpg) on another post, and was just curious when I noticed that [this one](http://www.plasmainfusion.com/sw331.jpg) didn't have all the same buttons.
Also, while we're on the subject, could you construct your lightsaber with a never shutoff switch, or could your shut on switch Jam causing it to stay on when disarmed?
| 32 |
Typically the buttons are a power switch and some kind of control as to how far out the beam goes (yes, there is a limit).
As to deadman switches, it's not the best idea. If you get disarmed in the middle of a lightsaber duel, you don't want an active saber twirling uncontrolled through the air. So many default off unless you keep pressure on the button.
Some Jedi built theirs with internal activators so they could use the force to turn it on
| 39 |
[Waterworld] Why is dirt so valuable?
|
So I'm watching the movie right now and the mc went into a "city" with a jar of dirt, and basically the clerk said something like "we will buy it from you at fresh water value" and the MC gets enough money to buy the city's whole store and some of their furniture, but why? I understand land would be valuable af in a planet made almost completely of water but why spend so much in a jar of dirt? What are they expecting to get with a jar of dirt?
| 517 |
Fertilize it to grow food. Which is rare. Use it to filter water or other fluids. With salt water everywhere drinking water is at a premium. It’s probably the most heavy material around so might also be used as ballast
| 602 |
[MCU] How was Kaecilius able to sidestep the effects of the Time Stone at the end of Doctor Strange?
|
At the end of Doctor Strange, Strange uses the Eye to reverse time in order to slow the Dark Dimension. After doing this, Strange pulls Mordo out of the time reversal which makes sense given Strange is currently using the Eye. However, Kaecilius and company were also able to do the same thing despite Strange not pulling them out. How were they able to do this? Are there techniques of magic that can nullify the power of Infinity Stones?
| 43 |
*How are they able to do this?*
Dormammu could sense that *something* was wrong with his warriors who were drawing power form him, even though he didn't yet comprehend time. Given how close they were to a gateway to his universe, he poured power into them until they were able to break free on their own.
*Are there techniques of magic that can nullify the power of Infinity Stones?*
Bear in mind that the strength of the stone is limited by the strength and experience of the wielder. As strong and intelligent as Strange is, he really is just a step above a beginner when it comes to the infinite power and complexity of the Infinity Stones. So while Kaecilius and company were able to get around Strange's time reversal, a true master of the Infinity Stones would be far more difficult to stop. Perhaps impossible to stop.
| 28 |
(American Horror Story - Season One) How did the sexy young maid age?
|
It seems like unlike every other spirit, the maid continued to age after death. What gives?
| 19 |
She didn't. Part of her unique curse was that she would appear irresistible to men, but unthreatening to women. It has to do with her own guilt about what she did. Other spirits have their own curses - the gay couple are stuck with each other for eternity, Tate never gets release from his mental issues or his life, etc. Hers is to keep repeating her seduction, horrifying and confusing the women involved.
| 14 |
Could someone explain band gaps?
|
Its been brought up in a couple of my classes, but I've never really understood it.
| 15 |
So when you have one atom you have distinct energy levels that electrons can occupy. The electron can have these allowed energies, but not any others.
When you have two atoms bound and sharing electrons, the energy levels combine in such a way that two atomic orbitals of similar type end up going from orbitals of similar energy to molecular orbitals, one of lower energy and one of higher energy. In the simplest case you have a homodimer where two atomic orbitals of energy E combine to two molecular orbitals of energy E-g and E+g. Of course the electrons are going to roll downhill and land in the lower energy molecular orbital (E-g, known as the bonding orbital) and leave the other (E+g, antibonding) empty. As a result the electrons in the molecule end up with lower energies than the electrons in the separate atoms. See Molecular Orbital Theory for more of this.
Add more and more atoms and more and more molecular orbitals get combined together. Each orbital has to be a tiny bit different from the others, so after you start piling lots of electrons in there you end up with just a band of bonding and a band of antibonding orbitals. The difference in energy between those two is the band gap.
Electrons in the lower band (bonding orbitals, known as the valence band) are basically stuck in place but those in the upper band (antibonding orbitals, conduction band) can move about as electron-hole pairs. If the band gap is small then ambient temperature is enough to promote electrons up to the conduction band, where they are free to move about, as in metals. If the band gap is huge, then there needs to be a big voltage put in to promote an electron to the conduction band for the electron to move and yield a current. This makes an insulator. In between are semi-conductors, where it takes a small voltage to promote an electron and yield a current.
| 10 |
ELI5: Why do I lose my hearing when I yawn?
| 578 |
The reply above is mostly nonsense.
When you yawn, a reflex that often accompanies is the flexing of the tensor tympani muscle. This tightens the tympanic membrane (ear drum) and as a result dampens sound/vibrations being conducted through the mechanical parts of your ear. This creates the muffled and quietened sound that you might associate with a 'loss of hearing.'
The flexing of the tensor veli palatini often occurs during yawning also, however this does not have any effect on your hearing under normal circumstances. In the case of significant pressure differences between your middle ear and the external environment, this contraction can facilitate the opening of the pharyngotympanic/eustachian tubes, and as a result, equalisation of pressure and restoration of normal hearing.
| 606 |
|
ELI5: Why do we perceive time going by quicker as we get older?
|
As a kid, it seemed that a summer break, which was only 2 months, would last forever.
When you're older, and/or have your own kids, it seems like years go by like nothing.
| 71 |
When you are 1 year old one year constitutes the entirety of your
life. When you are 2 years old one year is half your life. So just in sheer numbers every year becomes a proportionally smaller part of your life as you age.
Also things seem to speed up because your brain is more likely to store novel memories. As you age you experience level increases and the rate at which you encounrter entirely new situations drops. So you end up having fewer novel encounters and formulate correspondently fewer memories.
To ''slow down'' time try doing and learning new things
(∩' -')⊃━☆ﾟ.*･｡ﾟ
| 159 |
ELI5: Why do citrus fruit have segments?
| 60 |
1. Segmentation inside the citric fruits are due to its development from the ovary, as each of the segment is evolved from the ovary locule, the number of segments varies according to species
2. *Citrus* fruits are segmented because it's an ancestral trait and that's just how they evolved. Breeding is irrelevant and has made no difference to segmentation, except some are easier to separate than others.
3. There are other segmented fruits, such as durians, pomegranates, mangosteen, bananas, cucumbers, watermelons, cantaloupes, tomatoes, bitter melons, and so on.
4. All *Citrus,* Durians, pomegranates, mangosteens, bananas, cucumbers, watermelons, cantaloupes, tomatoes, bitter melons, and so on, are only one of those things, because they are segmented not citrus fruits. Segments may be either loose, semi-fused, or fused. Pineapples, blackberries, and raspberries are aggregate fruits.
5. finally there is debate if having seeds within segments aided the dispersal of seeds as the consumer was less likely to break the seed within a segment
| 42 |
|
[Marvel] Will Spider-man age.
|
Since he can heal way faster than humans, how long will his life span be and at what age period will his spidey abilities be deteriorated?
| 15 |
His life span will be until autumn; at which point, realizing his looming mortality, he'll spontaneously birth several hundred small babies, each of which will produce a spider-silk parasail from its butt and fly away, at which point Spidey will knuckle away a manly tear, and expire.
| 29 |
ELI5: Why do flies keep on landing on the same spot after scaring them away
| 7,352 |
Because they have very limited mental capacity. They are like a very primitive computer programm.
Find food source. Avoid fast moving thing on collision course. Breed.
They can't process that there is an entity that doesn't want them to come to a certain spot.
| 7,595 |
|
ELI5:If there was a way to remove a brain from the body and keep it alive, what would it feel?
|
Had a recurring nightmare where my brain is removed and experimented on, I get these hot, agonising pains. Thought I'd ask what would actually happen if the brain was kept outside the body (if we know).
| 82 |
An easy metaphor for it is to ask what a person that's had a traumatic spinal cord injury and is paralyzed from the neck down feels.
Nothing.
Now add in what a blind person sees and what a deaf person hears: blackness, and nothing again.
And then just strip out the other senses because the brain's not plugged into anything.
So, blackness and nothing.
I'd imagine insanity wouldn't take very long at all to kick in.
| 76 |
[Star Wars] Why does Anakin/Vader like choking so much?
|
I mean, you can cause pain other ways too I suppose, why does Vader prefer choking so much? Is it because he thinks he killed Padme with it so now he uses it on everyone? Or is it just a fetish?
| 53 |
It's an intimidation thing. It's not about pain, he's showing his targets, as well as others under his command, that he controls their life to such an extent that even their breathing is his to control. They don't draw breath unless he says they can.
| 105 |
ELI5: Difference between Sunni, Shia, Sufi, Ibadi, Ahmadiyya, and other types of Islam?
|
I have always wondered what exactly the differences between the differences between Islam are? Wasn't the Sunni/Shia split because of some sort of leadership split a long time ago? I heard Shia are typically more conservative (I don't know whether thats true or not). I also know that Ahmadiyya have really interesting views on Jesus' crucifixion (more what they believe happens after).
Which groups are more liberal/conservative? Is there any denominations that I'm missing? Thanks.
| 240 |
*PS : I'll use Sunni as reference (X compared to Sunni) since it's the largest denomination in the Muslim community.*
I'll keep it as brief and as clear as possible :
- The Sunni chose Abu Bakr as the rightly Caliph (next leader) and the next ones were elected by the people, Sunni also follows the more conventional and conservative Islam (The Quran and Muhammad's life).
- The Shiites believed in Ali (Muhammad's cousin) and that he should be the next Caliph since he was from the same bloodline, they also believe in the concept of Imams that are the descendants of Ali and are somewhat to Islam what Popes are to Christianism, but more exempt of sins and more "divinely chosen". Shiites are also pretty hardcore when applying Sharia (Muslim law) compared to Sunnis, there are also other differences but they're pretty minor.
- Sufism isn't a branch since a Sufi can be either Sunni or Shiite, it focuses more on the spiritualism and being closer to god with certain practices (think of it as the Buddhism of Islam if that makes sense). One thing to mention is that Islam's main focus is to balance between life and after life (be nice to everyone and pray to God), Sufism tends to focus on the afterlife more.
- Ibadi is a sect that isn't very open to outsiders but the general consensus is that it's a more relaxed compared to Sunnis when applying Sharia, still it follows the Sunni but as said before it's more relaxed.
*A note before explaining Ahmadi : Muslims believe of the coming of the awaited Mahdi (an ordinary man that will rule the Sunni) and the Second coming of Jesus to fight the false Messiah in the Judgement day, many people throughout history claimed to be the Mahdi.*
- Ahmadi believe that Muhammad isn't the last prophet and that the Mahdi is the next one, Mirza Ghulam Ahmed of Qadian (the founder) claims to be the Mahdi.
Those are pretty much the main differences between all the sects you'll ever hear about, some claim to apply Sharia correctly while others claim to have prophets.
| 106 |
ELI5:Why is it that some people eat a lot and exercise little, but don't get fat?
| 82 |
- Differences in metabolic status (genetical/hormonal).
- Difference in body size. The more mass, the higher base need for nutrients, particulary muscles.
- People don't always know everything about another persons diet and real exercise, so they might overestimate/underestimate themselves compared to others.
| 86 |
|
[Marvel] What the hell is going on during the beginning of Walt Simonson's run on Thor?
|
In the opening panels of Thor issue #337(The start of Walt Simonson's legendary run on the title), we see Surtur causing an entire galaxy to explode so he can collect enough molten ore to help forge his giant Twilight sword. The images in the issue confuse me, what *exactly* did he do to cause that to happen? It looks like we're seeing him physically pick up the material he needed with a pair of tongs and go to town in his workshop, but it appears to be more of a metaphor than a literal translation of what he did. But if it wasn't that, then what did he do? Did his demonic minions destroy the galaxy, and then retrieve what their master needed? That's the only thing that makes sense to me, since we later see panels of Beta Ray Bill making references to demons overtaking his planet.
| 20 |
gods does operate more on magical metaphors than regular people. yes, its possible surtur blew up a galaxy, and then having the rest of that galaxy being transported to him magically in the size of a regular ingot, tho scaled up to his size.
gods can sometimes just *do* shit, becasue they are divine. for example, loki once stole the shadow of surturs sword, becasue he needed a weapon. thor once escaped a tessaract simply by just grasping at its dimensional edges. the divine can cheat a bit
| 15 |
[Batman] Assuming equal training and motivation, how many people could actually be at Batman's level?
|
Nature vs nurture. How much of Batman's abilities are due to natural physical ability and intellect vs the fact that he's had access to the best training available on the planet?
What percentage of humans could attain his same skill if they had the same circumstances?
| 126 |
There was an article that came out around TDK/TDKR that showed how a real life person being Batman could do it for about a year before their body became too wrecked to continue. Not sure how many would actually have the insane discipline to go through with the training though.
| 122 |
ELI5: How do large files have their integrity verified?
|
How does a server know whether your local files are corrupted, version mismatched, or illegitimate without you uploading to the server? If they have to check through every file for integrity, wouldn't that effectively be the same as downloading/uploading the entire folder?
| 17 |
No. File integrity is primarily achieved through the use of hashes. A hash is a kind of process where you can take data of any length and it very efficiently produces a fixed length string of numbers known as the hash. The math behind it is chosen such that, for all intents and purposes, the hash is unique for the given input\* and any slight change in the input results in a completely different hash.
So the server just needs to know what the hash is. It can then run the hashing program against your files and see if the hash produced matches what it has on file.
^((\* - given the variable length input and fixed length output, hashes are necessarily not unique, but the inputs producing identical outputs are unrelated and for the purposes of this discussion, the odds of two functioning programs having the same hash is negligible for a sufficiently designed hashing algorithm))
| 67 |
What is the temperature of a black hole?
|
From my understanding, as matter heats up atoms move more freely. But with a black hole, there is (I'm assuming) little-to-no movement due to the extreme gravity, so does that inhibit temperature or are there other components that effect the temperature?
| 303 |
[TL;DR]
It depends on just what you mean, but the usual definition of black hole temperature comes from Hawking radiation, in which case if we express our mass in multiples of solar masses (so the sun would have M = 1, a star ten times as massive would have M = 10), the temperature is
T = (0.0000000617/M) Kelvin.
So, for example, a black hole the mass of the sun would have a "temperature" of approximately 0.0000000617 Kelvin. One that was ten times as massive would have one tenth the temperature.
[Comment Proper]
When dealing with curved spacetimes, you have to be careful with the definition of things like "temperature". When dealing with black holes in particular, you also have to be careful about how you interpret questions that you expect naïvely to depend on the behavior of stuff inside the event horizon.
One of the difficulties here is that we can't speak to the microscopic behavior of matter inside of the black hole. We do not have a consistent model for describing quantum systems in such spacetime regions, and any proper microscopic description is going to require a quantum theory. Thus, we can't really talk about temperature in the sense of "motion of particles".
However, we *can* apply quantum field theory in a blackhole spacetime provided, roughly, that we stay away from the singularity and our field doesn't carry too much energy. In particular, if we're interested in describing events outside of the event horizon, we can use these techniques as a good first approximation. We can also apply quantum statistical mechanics/thermodynamics to this process. When you do this, you find that if an observer falling across the event horizon sees themselves in a vacuum, an observer far from the black hole must see a flow of thermal radiation coming from the black hole. This radiation has the same spectrum as a blackbody source of some definite temperature, so we can associate it with a temperature. It turns out that, for a black hole of mass M, the temperature T associated with this radiation is
T = (ħc^(3) / [8πGk_*B*_])/M,
where ħ is the reduced Planck's constant, c is the speed of light, G is Newton's gravitational constant, and k_*B*_ is Boltzmann's constant. That factor is just a constant that we can evaluate, and it comes out to roughly
T = 1.227\*10^(23) kg K / M = (0.0000000617/M) Kelvin,
where the second form comes about by expressing M as a multiple of the solar mass.
| 142 |
[General Science-Fiction] What is the biggest space-ship in sci-fi? Technically Halos can move in space, but let's focus on real space-ships
|
I would say Eldar Craftworlds from Warhammer 40k are Number 1. They are usually as big as continents or even planets.
Here are more informations: [https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Craftworld](https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Craftworld)
| 111 |
The Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is 5.28 billion light years across, so if that counts as a space ship, it probably wins.
If not, the various world ships in Schlock Mercenary are planet sized, so that's at least quintuple digit kilometers in diameter.
Edit: The Pa'anuri warships are bigger than those, dwarfing even gas giants.
| 101 |
[Star Wars] I'm a jedi and I've just lost my Lightsaber (and my right hand) How do I get another Kyber Crystal?
| 31 |
You would likely be chastised by the council as you've just lost you're only real possession, before being given permission to head to Ilum to collect a Kyber crystal.
The process of getting a crystal is simple enough, once on Ilum you'd meditate and use the force to find a crystal that calls out to you.
Basically the less stupid your reason for losing your lightsaber, the easier the whole process is.
| 41 |
|
If electromagnetism has a 'speed' of c, do other fundamental forces have speeds as well?
|
Do the strong and weak nuclear forces, as well as gravity have a 'speed' at which they travel through the universe? Please tell me if I'm misunderstanding something.
| 102 |
Electromagnetism, the strong force and gravity all travel at the speed of light. Electromagnetism & strong force because their 'carrier' particles (the photon and the gluon) are massless. Gravity because general relativity says so (and the proposed graviton would have zero mass, but is not confirmed to exist).
The weak force, on the other hand, is mediated by massive particles (the neutral Z and charged W bosons). So the weak force actually propagates slower than the speed of light. There is no fixed speed, though, it depends on the energy of the interaction, essentially.
| 53 |
What causes you to "black out" and not remember things when you've had too much to drink?
| 68 |
Without getting into the exact neuroanatomy of memory formation...
Alcohol works by "depressing" the neurons in your brain, making them less likely to fire (less likely to trigger an action potential). Since your brain is basically a huge network of neurons that fire and cause other neurons to fire, this global depression causes every thing to work less well. When this occurs in your frontal cortex, which contains your conscious "self" (to a certain extent, remember this is dumbed down), your judgement and impulse control decreases. When this occurs in your motor cortex and cerebellum, your coordination decreases. When this occurs in your hippocampus, which is responsible for integrating your real-time experiences with your long-term memory, you don't create lasting impressions (memories) of your experiences when you are drunk. Hence, you can experience something while you are drunk without forming permanent connections that can be accessed later. This translates to "holes" in your memory.
| 64 |
|
ELI5: Why do flies come back to me after I try to swat them and miss? Doesn't it register into their fight or flight response?
|
Don't they know they can't fight me? >:/
| 29 |
They can't really comprehend that you're actively targeting them. The most they deal with outside of humans are animal tails swinging in their general direction.
Flies don't understand hatred, they are beautiful, shit-eating beings like that.
| 48 |
[Marvel] What does Latveria trade?
|
I always hear people going on and on about how Latveria is the richest country ever in the Marvel Universe, but never once have I seen anyone explaining what is it that they sell that makes them so rich.
So, what is it? And those who answer better be able to source it.
| 46 |
I don't think Latveria trades a lot or is particulary rich by capitalist standards. It has a lot of power and a high standard of living because it has a lot of very advanced technology, but it isn't "rich" in the way that word is usually used.
For the money they do need, they probably gain it by leasing patents to parts of their technology to other countries or to big companies.
| 58 |
How hard was your first programming job ?
|
I got my first job this week and I have some real issues to work on my project.
It's an internal software that's in a continuous development for like 10 years, it's a realy big C# project which interact with a huge database.
I have to implement new features and I'm struggling to do my job. Hard to understand how the software works, hard to understand this awful DBs structure.
I feel like a total incompetent.
In college I wasn't the best student, but I was able to understand and finish any project in time. Here I feel like I'being a burden for my team.
| 15 |
Frankly you will **temporarily** be a burden for the team.
That's just how it is in the industry, when people join new projects and need to learn the codebase.
Even very experienced programmers will experience this, though they tend to get up-to-speed faster.
| 25 |
CMV: Conspiracy theories aren’t inherently invalid just because they’re conspiracy theories
|
I’d like to begin with a disclaimer that the examples I use in this post are just examples, and may or may not reflect my personal views. I will try not to take a side on any particular theory, and instead just state the theory.
A conspiracy theory is a theory that explains an event or set of circumstances as the result of a secret plot by usually powerful conspirators.
This does not automatically invalidate the theory. They are simply alternative explanations of events and their causes. One can not invalidate a conspiracy theory without looking at the evidence claimed by the theorists.
For example, the moon landing conspiracy. There is a group that believes that humans have never landed on the moon, and that the Apollo 11 landing was filmed on a movie set. Their evidence includes shadow lines in different directions, which are typical of a secondary light source. They also use the video of the flag flapping after being twisted to claim that a flag can’t flap without an atmosphere.
However, after examining their evidence, the second shadow can be created by the reflection off of the moon’s surface, and the flapping was from the inertia of the twisting and could be replicated in a vacuum chamber. There is also counter evidence, where Apollo 15 astronauts placed a mirrored reflector in a precise location on the moon, and we can shoot a laser at it from earth and get the laser bounced back.
That theory is not inherently invalid because it’s a conspiracy theory, it was proven invalid with evidence.
TL;DR you need evidence to disprove a conspiracy theory that also has evidence, change my view.
| 86 |
Certainly real conspiracies exist. We know this because their is incontrovertible evidence that they happened. The main issue with your view is summed up in your TL/DR. No one has to disprove a conspiracy theory. The burden of proof is one the one making the claim.
| 48 |
[Particle Physics] Can a particle have internal energy stored as anything OTHER than mass?
|
A question states that a particle splits in two pieces that go away from each other at high velocity. According to definitions and properties of particles in particle physics, is it necessary that the energy to accelerate those two pieces comes from mass (i.e. E = mc\^2)? Or is it possible for there to be internal energy stored within the original particle in a form OTHER than mass?
This is not a homework question - I'm just wondering because, in my current course on modern physics, these problems always assume that the energy to accelerate the pieces comes from mass and nothing else.
| 17 |
Internal energy, the way you are using it, IS mass. Mass is energy that you cannot get rid of by changing to any reference frame, ie exists in the rest frame if the system.
A hotter object has (trivially) more mass. A fuel, chemical or nuclear, has more mass than its products. Two massless photons, that aren't traveling parallel, have a mass as a system. A mirrored box with photons in it would have a mass. Even within a composite particle like a proton, electrostatic repulsion and the storing nuclear force effect the mass. Actually, most of the mass of a proton is the strong nuclear force binding energy. It weighs more than the quarks it's comprised of.
| 14 |
CMV: Society should treat sex as something important for the quality of life, and try to meet and understand this basic human need.
|
I believe that sex is important enough for humans that it should be assumed to be a part of average person's life and a basic desire. Well isn't that already how things are? I don't think so. While this is a general assumption, many other social norms and common views go against it. I will try to give some examples:
1. In all debates about abortion, child support, etc, main comment by the people who are against it (note that it's not even the same groups of people, a lot of people who do support abortion support obligatory child support) is that if you aren't ready to have children you should not be having sex. Please lets not turn this into a debate focused on these two issues because I had that last time, just the general sentiment that sex just for sex isn't so important that a human can't abstain from it.
2. More concrete example in line with the first one is that with all the technology and overpopulation, contraception remains pretty imperfect. The options we have are not 100% safe, even when close to it, they cost money, have other potential complications, and I have serious doubts that this is the best we can do. As long as it's all in the hands of pharmaceutical companies, I don't think we can hope for a simple solution. But hey, we don't absolutely have to have sex, right?
3. Prostitution is illegal. I really understand that there are reasons for that concerned about human trafficking etc. Still, if a random girl or a guy starts trying to earn money that way by themselves, they can get into trouble and so can their potential customers. Plus, prostitution can function in some developed countries, so I assume that the potential difficulties could be somewhat regulated (as opposed to keeping it illegal and not regulated at all.) Again it seems like one of those "it is complicated" situations that really isn't if there was a desire to work it out. In addition, there is a huge social stigma on the idea of seeing a prostitute which I think is silly.
4. The strong promotion of the idea that sexual desire is dangerous and that objectifying someone sexually is degrading. I especially mind this because it is purely directed towards women, and many really do believe they are thought less of if they are noticed to be attractive - in combination to still having natural and social desire to be found attractive. That creates some unnecessary mental conflict. I don't think it is always appropriate to show sexual attraction of course, and not in any intimidating way, but I think this got blown out of proportion based on things I am reading recently. Why is sexual objectification degrading when we objectify people most of the time and are still able to step out of it if needed?
5. In regard to 4, general sexual paranoia. Stories of teenagers getting into trouble for showing sexual imagery, society that tries to repress and deny sexuality of teenagers.. Going so far to even inadvertently sexualize children by thinking that toddlers wearing two piece bathing suits in inappropriate (?) Fear that your child will see any sexual image and it will somehow take away their innocence also seems very weird to me. There are people who think a child seeing a topless woman on a beach will be traumatized. No, a child won't see it sexually and will get used to seeing a human body in both sexual and non sexual context. Making nudity and sex so forbidden can only additionally confuse when the kid finally discovers porn.
There must be many more examples, but I wanted to show that while in theory "everyone wants sex" is accepted, people encounter a lot of problems and obstacles as they try to go about it. Every time one of these obstacles is met - people who don't want children and want sex, people who don't have a partner and want sex, people who don't want relationships and want sex, teenagers who want sex - the general sentiment is that no one is entitled to sex, that sex is not essential and therefore it is reasonable to expect you not to have it, or in some cases even *want* it.
I will just quickly give a few reasons why sex is essential for the majority of human beings, and then we can discuss it all further in the comments.
1. Biological need for sex is strong and pretty obvious. The choice to have children though is something that isn't in itself as strong of an instinct (varying in people) and in a modern society we can take a rational approach towards this decision. But we can't rationalize our need to have sex, it is there, in us all.
2. Socially, sex is important part of our development, finding our place and getting validation that gives us social confidence. This part is somehow not ok to say. The advice to experiment with sex until you are comfortable, to have sex to boost your ego, to see a prostitute to learn how... this is supposedly wrong, although I think it would make things much better for people.
3. Psychologically , sexual repression can be very harmful. Sex is essential in personal development. It is a big part of us to explore and get to know. People who for some reason can't have sex are in an objective disadvantage. In that way, everyone should be somewhat entitled to sex, in a sense that their need should be acknowledged and addressed, not repressed.
4. In romantic relationships, sex is also essential. It is that physical part of intimacy and bonding between two people that separates it from a regular friendship. This doesn't mean all sex has to be meaningful - I think that is another mistake. I tried to demonstrate that depending on the context, sex can have many meanings, and all of them are important.
TL;DR:
**Point of all this and what to challenge? My point is that we should have a more sexually open society that acknowledges sex as a basic human need and important quality of life issue and tries to accommodate that need by making it easier and safer for people to do so. Improving contraception and distributing it for free by government, legal prostitution, good sexual education, healthy attitude towards nudity and sexual imagery, less paranoia for people (especially teenagers) displaying their sexuality and more understanding/guidance.. are some of the ways I think this issue would change and people would enjoy better and healthier lives.**
Edit: Of course you can say that society already is sexually open, but I think the only openness is exploitative. Society is sexually teasing so to say - yes, sex sells, so it is used in that way, and it especially sells when it is so exotic to many. But when it comes to practically implementing frequent sex in your life, unless you meet very specific lifestyle requirements things get much harder.
| 39 |
I could argue that sex *isn't* a necessity, evidenced by the plenty of successful and fulfilled people who remain virgins by choice or circumstance.
However, I'll take another view:
If sex is a necessity - nigh on a right - as you say, then who is to provide it? At some point, somewhere, someone would be forced to provide sex for someone else. This is rape.
Sex is fundamentally a choice. From a biological perspective, it is two individuals choice to reproduce with one another. From humanist perspective, it is two individuals choice to give themselves to one another. Either way, it is a choice.
A right, like freedom of expression, is not a choice. It is enforced. A 'right to sex' could not be enforced without rape.
| 10 |
ELI5: What causes the "ache" in a stomach ache?
|
Not "what causes a stomach ache", but more of: what's happening in your stomach and why does your body respond the way it does?
Please and thank you.
| 20 |
The short answer is that there are specific neurons (cells of the nervous system) that line the stomach, and their job is to generate pain signals when something is wrong. So when you have a stomach ache, these pain-neurons become active and send signals all the way to the brain which then allows you to become conscious of the pain.
| 20 |
Why is there only one species of Human?
|
According to Wikipedia, humans exited Africa roughly 100,000 years ago, so we've been spread out across continents for quite a long time. If there was so much geographic separation between populations for such a long time, why didn't different species (or subspecies) of humans develop? Why are we the only ones left?
It just seems crazy that I'm the same species as every other person on earth, even though we might share a common ancestor tens of thousands of years ago. If there had been a bottleneck, where only a small population of humans survived and then populated the world, then I could understand it more. But it seems incredible that there's so many types of tiger, lion, squirrel, etc. but only one intelligent primate.
I know there were other (sub)species such as homo erectus or neanderthals. But why did they all die out? Wasn't there enough room for pockets of them to survive somewhere? Why hasn't homo sapiens similarly fragmented into subspecies since then?
| 17 |
Modern humans have been around for a very short period of time. There are differences in race, asian people tend to be smaller, stuff like that. The problem is different races marry and those genes mix. If Asians only married pure blood Asians, Africans only married and procreated with other Africans thanks in hundreds of thousands of years different sub species would most likely start to occur. Seeing as how human population is all connected today, that won't happen.
| 13 |
[Ace of Combat] How do countries in Strangereal have identical aircraft from our universe?
|
In Ace of Combat 6 both the Emmerian Airforce and Estovakian Airforce both have aircraft from our universe such as the Su-33, A-10, F-22, F-16 etc.
Do these countries secretly have Boeing and other aircraft manufacturing companies present or something universe defying?
| 25 |
Not the Boeing Company or Mikoyan and Gurevich Design Bureau exactly, but yes. Companies and organizations *like* them exist.
Osea's culture, economy, history, etc, have lead them to have an entity like Boeing that produces aircraft that very closely resemble ours.
| 13 |
ELI5: Fantasy Football
|
Fantasy football,how does it work?
| 24 |
You draft players. Then you get points based on how those players perform in real life games. So for example, you draft a quarterback. In your league, every 10 passing yards is worth a point, and every TD pass is worth 5. Every interception is -5 points (these are all made up values). But you get points based on "your" players' real-life stats and compete against other people in your league doing the same thing.
| 26 |
ELI5: Why do we have two of some organs (e.g. lungs, kidneys, etc.) but not of others (e.g. liver, pancreas, etc.)?
| 57 |
Surface area. Our body is constantly filtering via the kidneys and exchanging gas via the lungs. Having twice the amount of alveoli and twice the amount of nephrons helps our body keep up with the amount of absorption, secretion, and exchange necessary to maintain homeostasis. You can technically live without one kidney and one lung, but it puts stress on that organ and requires you to make lifestyle changes to accommodate.
| 17 |
|
[Game of Thrones] How different would the show have gone if Arya named Cersei to Jaqen H’ghar back in season 2?
| 602 |
There are some obvious things right off the bat. The faith militant never comes to power. Tyrion might not have been accused of Joffrey's murder as she was the main accuser. Tommen most likely doesn't kill himself, and Marcella probably lives since there wouldn't be a trial by combat for Tyrion. Tywin probably lives and can keep Westeros together when Dany and co arrive with her dragons. Most like Tywin decides to help the north with the white walkers but sends his troops to be on the backlines, the minute the war is won; he sends his troops to invade the north to pick them off now they are fragile and kills them all for good right there.
| 433 |
|
[Harry Potter] What does one have to do to qualify as a dark wizard? Is starting an armed insurrection enough, or does one have to torture and suchlike as well? What if you're just really evil, but you don't start an insurrection?
|
Admittedly its probably pretty hard to have an armed insurrection without at least a little bit of torture going on (even if you have no hand in it, by nature of running an insurrection you're going to be employing people who really don't like the government, at least some of them are going to seek revenge).
Say you're a really powerful wizard, on par with Voldemort. What if you start an uprising based on, I don't know, goblin or house elf rights or taxes or something? You gather other wizards to your cause and train them as spies / assassins and have them infiltrate key institutions and parts of the government. Your plan is to purge the high echelons of society of anyone who opposes you, gain power, and reshape society to your vision. You're still trying to overthrow the government and radically alter the present social order, do you count as a dark wizard? Are you labeled as a dark wizard in newspapers and such?
What if you start a murder/torture cult and make yourself really hard to kill / find using the usual methods, but you don't try to overthrow the government?
| 16 |
Dark Wizard is technically a legal status-- there's a list of some 237 spells, rituals, and other practices that qualify as "Dark Arts" as classified by the Wizengamot. Generally to qualify as a Dark Art, a spell has to have no other purpose than to cause physical or psychological harm, as distinct from hexes, jinxes and the like which may be inconveniencing or restraining, but not truly dangerous. A handful of other techniques, such as the Imperius Curse, the animation of Inferi, and the creation of Horcruxes also qualify, as does the breeding of certain dangerous creatures such as Basilisks. Apart from usually being expected to serve a sentence in Azkaban, or even being subjected to the Dementor's Kiss, Dark Wizards technically forfeit their legal right to practice magic of any kind or own a wand until an official pardon can be issued by the Minister for Magic themself, but the general response is "you lot just try making me and see what happens." Thus Aurors.
The Wizengamot are occasionally convened to update their list-- the most recent occasion was 1999, when the Severing Curse (aka *Sectumsempra*) was declared Dark Magic, and it was clarified that the Unforgivable Curses were still Dark Magic when used upon house-elves one has legal ownership of (this after a lengthy, impassioned bit of ~~nagging~~ advocacy from one Ms. Hermione Granger that lasted some 72 hours, a filibuster previously unheard of in the history of Wizarding government-- we normally only reserve that kind of patience for Quidditch matches.)
| 19 |
What exactly is in the space between galaxies?
| 63 |
A very, very, very small amount of hydrogen. An even smaller amount of various other elements, free electrons, etc. An average density is one hydrogen atom per cubic meter. It’s just about perfect vacuum.
To get an idea of how close to vacuum this is, if you had a 1 liter bottle of hydrogen gas at STP, it would fill a space roughly the size of Pluto at this density.
| 79 |
|
ELI5: Gambling odds, or "Vegas number"
|
I was listening to teh radio after the warriors loss, and I was curios when you hear things like "Vegas has already spoken" and then you'll hear they have GSW -7, or whatever the number is. Just don't understand how it all works
| 684 |
The ideal situation for Vegas is to have half the money bet on one team and half the money bet on the other, so the losers money goes to pay the winners and Vegas keeps an unchanging cut of the bets.
With most sporting events, however, that's rather unlikely. In this case most people are expecting the Warriors to beat the Thunder. So to get more people interested in betting on the Thunder there are two options:
* Change the payouts for both bets so bets on the Warriors pay less, and bets on the Thunder pay more (this results in less money being bet on the Thunder, but the money bet on both still hopefully pays the other). This is usually called odds, and is common in some sports (in the US it's very common in horse racing).
* Add points to one team for the purposes of the bet. This means after points are added or subtracted, the scores are compared and bets settle (any new ties mean the bet is cancelled for both teams). This is what they are doing in your example.
The points, spread, or points spread in this case means we'll subtract 7 points from Golden State's score (or add it to the Thunder's score) and compare the scores after that calculation to decide the bet. So if the point spread was GSW -7 and the final score was GSW 94 OKC 118 the score for the bet would be GSW 87 OKC 118 (and betters on the Warriors would lose the bet).
If the game had been closer (perhaps GSW 104 OKC 98) the spread would still mean OKC would win (in industry terms, the Thunder would be said to have "covered" the spread or won the bet while losing the actual game.
| 280 |
ELI5: What is the procedure for when a demolition fails?
|
When a building is demolished and the initial explosives go off but fail to collapse the structure, what happens next?
Are there secondary explosives? Surely it's not safe to approach the building once those first explosives have been detonated.
| 131 |
Controlled implosions aren't just about bringing a building down...its about bringing it down so the debris goes where you want it to.
The actual amount of explosive force needed to bring a structure down is actually low (because of gravity) So if there is a screw up in the implosion process, the building is still coming down...just in a really unsafe way.
| 45 |
[General fantasy] Hi! Evil overlord here just conquered the world killed the hero etc Just wondering how i rule it?
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So world has been completely conquered we had a massive party (You will not believe what gringash the destroyer did). So mid hangover i was wondering.....How do i rule the world.
I mean i have the army, my magic, my commanders (who lets face it are going to betray me eventually but i digress). And all that is good is dead, corrupted or in hiding.
So I've got all these elven, dwarf, human kingdoms now under my "control". How exactly do i rule them?
I mean i cant have the whole world come to me in my throne room just for practical reasons and it would really cut into my evil laughing and building monuments to myself.
Ive been toying with having me as the head of the military and a veto on all decisions and just letting some well appointed governors make decisions. But im also thinking to let each individual kingdom rule itself with a fixed term elected leader and have a more ceremonial rule.
Also what to do about succesion? I mean if i die (im working on fighting death right now) who will be the next overlord. My commanders may want to elect one of themselves (cue civil war) and i can give it to one of my numerous children (civil war and family backstabbing).
Anyway im rambling gonna go torture some prisoners and grab some food.
Cheers
| 15 |
i know this will sound boring but be suprisingly benevolent. 1) let the people chose their leaders for cities,regions and your succsessor, this will do this: hinder any and all further rebellion as long as the pepole feel they have a voice in matter related to them they tend to not rebel 2) invest heavily into rebuilding stuff propersly in major cities, this will gain you alligance of said cities and trade ports, 3) appear often but not too often, and participate in the restoration personally, this will build trust in the middle class. 4)get a proper police/city guard set up in all cities and not the bumling baffons they all seem to have and 5) only take the really big matters to the royal court, like conflicts of land between 2 major city states or kingdoms and try to compromise as much as possible. a wise man once said a good deal is where all parties feel disappointed
| 25 |
[Lord of the Rings] Tolkien stated that stated that Sauron "came as near to a wholly evil will as was possible", but also made a point of denying that absolute evil could exist. So, does Sauron have any redeeming qualities? Could any part of him be seen as "good"?
| 1,112 |
There are qualities to him which are not by their nature irredeemably evil. He was a smith perhaps beyond compare in the third age. This requires persistence, skill and ingenuity. Things which would normally be considered good. That Sauron deliberately did the most evil things he could think of with these good abilities made him as evil as possible
| 956 |
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[MCU] Did SHIELD/HYDRA ever extract the Valkyrie from the ice after waking up Cap? What happened to it?
|
In case there's any confusion, I'm referring to the Valkyrie plane that Red Skull planned to bomb the US with, not Valkyrie the Asgardian warrior.
| 49 |
It's very likely they extracted it from the ice. The people who found it told SHIELD that they'd found it because of the shifting ice. It probably wouldn't remain safe or accessible indefinitely - more than a few wrecks have been lost due after the weather drove away the discoverers.
SHIELD would presumably have an interest in the contents of the wreck in case it has anything to contribute to Phase One. Depending on how much of the Valkyrie's technology was unique to it, it may not be particularly useful to SHIELD. After all, they already have examples of most pieces of WWII HYDRA technology.
If SHIELD were to make the wreck's existence public, it would have considerable historic value. Additionally, given the degree of public interest in WWII generally, and Wunderwaffe in particular, any number of air museums would kill for the chance to add it to their collection.
| 16 |
ELI5: Why do people need skin grafts? Why can't the skin just grow back like it does for q cut? At what size of injury do doctors decide on a graft?
| 42 |
Your skin has several layers to it. The cells on the outer layer of your skin are actually dead, and can’t replicate. The living skin cells that can replicate are found in a slightly lower level, called the basal layer. When you have a small cut that doesn’t need stitches, the outer, dead part of your skin has been damaged, but that basal layer is still mostly intact and can thus replicate to make new, healthy skin.
When you damage too much skin however, or if your injury goes too deep, it can exceed the amount of healing that those replicating cells can replace without help. In the case of needing stitches, it’s just a matter of holding the edges of the broken skin together until the basal layer can do its thing. But if you wipe out the basal layer over a large area, there’s no hope for the existing cells that can divide to cover that much area, and in the meantime you’re losing fluids and leaving those tissues like fat, muscle and bone open to infection or further injury. Situations like that are when grafts become necessary.
Source: am medical student
| 95 |
|
[Halo] How does the Covenant's manufacturing and supply lines work? Where do they get their food and ammo and supplies?
|
FYI I haven't read any of the books, just played the games.
Do the Covenant have planets where they grow their food and build their ships? Is it all on High Charity? If it was all on High Charity, how did the Covenant not starve to death after it fell to the flood?
Supplies are the lifeblood of an army and a war, so how do the covenant keep it going?
| 15 |
The Covenant had a pretty massive empire that spanned a lot of the Orion arm before they found humanity. We don’t see a lot of it because we were on the defensive for basically the entire war but they have their own colonies, factories, economies, etc. that they’d been building since the Romans were figuring out how to build arches. We’ve sort of seen some of these like K7-49, which was an asteroid converted into a refinery near human space the Covenant built, and Osiris goes to Sanghelios (the Elite’s homeworld) in Halo 5. A lot did come from High Charity though, so losing that would still have been a huge blow even if their government hadn’t crumbled at basically the same time.
A lot of their ships were also pretty big and fairly capable of sustaining themselves. Some of their carriers for example had their own nature preserves inside. For bigger operations they also had massive mobile battle stations like the Unyielding Hierophant that could supply and repair hundreds of ships. Truth was secretly going to use one to invade Earth with a fleet of upwards of 500 ships, but Chief and friends taught them a lesson about the dangers of overloading pinch fusion reactors before that could happen.
| 24 |
ELi5: how do electrical water pumps prevent humans from getting shocked when a part of your body enters the water?
| 19 |
1. They don't put their wires in the water. The motor is sealed up from the water within the pump.
2. Electricity follows the path of least resistance. It does not want to flow down some pipe to your body, it just wants to get to the other end of the pump's power source. By connecting the neutral end of the power source to the piping, any electricity that escapes into the water flows directly out and none escapes farther down.
| 29 |
|
[DC/Dragon Ball Z] Could one of the human Z-Fighters like Tien, Krillin, or Yamcha be considered a worthy successor to Ra's al Ghul? What about the Saiyan half-breeds like Gohan or Trunks?
| 38 |
So apparently the requirements for the son of the demon are as follows
1. Be a powerful martial artist
2. Have 0 interest in the position
3. Be as emotionally unsuited for the position as possible.
4. Have 0 experience leading a large group.
5. Have a rule not to kill anyone
6. Be a dude, this is important
So yea, basically all the z fighters qualify.
| 82 |
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CMV: Textbooks should not offer practice problems without an answer key.
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My view is simple, if a textbook does not provide answers for practice problems, it should not have practice problems at all. It is impractical to not have a way to check your work when studying and as such is pointless without having a section dedicated to problems in each chapter. Many textbooks have a solution manual that accompanies the text so they should put the problems in that instead of the normal text book. Companies only do this gauge every penny they can and I doubt they would include everything in one book when they can sell two. Therefore, practice problems should be in the solution manual.
| 5,804 |
Teachers often use textbooks to assign homework problems. If they give a key to all problems, the teachers will have to use a different resource which will be a hassle for students as well. Most textbooks I've seen have the answer key to half of the problems, which works out best for everyone, leaving some practice problems for students and some assignment problems for teachers.
| 985 |
[Wasteland] Who is hiding things in toasters? Why is it so hard to open one up and find hidden treasures? It's such a common appliance, they shouldn't require an expert's touch to investigate
| 30 |
Toasters are actually a good place to hide things, assuming that you aren't going to switch it on. They're metal walled, reasonably durable and common enough to seem unassuming. They won't stand up to a serious brute force attack with tools, but the idea is presumably that an average person wouldn't bother to break open and search every toaster that they find.
As for disassembling it, quite often consumer electronics don't have conventional screws; they might need a slotted or shaped screwdriver, and higher end models might be riveted shut. Some toasters are easy to open, but presumably they aren't the ones that people are using.
| 15 |
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ElI5: Why aren't road signs slightly tilted?
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I live in an area that snows. The road signs get covered in snow and become unreadable. Clearly heating or cleaning road signs would be expensive, but why don't they tilt ever so slightly forward, this would allow the vast majority of snow to fall and if any snow remains it wouldn't obscure the sign. You could make the tilt extremely small so you don't need to adjust the graphic on the sign. Am I missing something?
| 37 |
Two reasons strike me...
Firstly snow round here doesn't stick to vertical surfaces unless it's blowing - and if it's blowing it would probably stick to the sign anyway.
Secondly, you'd lose a lot of the self-cleaning that comes from rainfall.
| 58 |
Can you tell a right eye from a left eye like you can with bones?
|
I know that with bones, you can tell which side of the body it came from due to its morphology, but an eye is ovoid. If someone were to find just an eye, could they be able to figure out which side the eye came from? If so, what indicates the difference? Or is it too difficult to tell because of its specific shape?
| 26 |
The six extraocular muscles have a left/right pattern, especially the inferior oblique muscle with comes from the side of the nose and runs down and around the bottom. So, you can deduce left/right from the muscle attachment points in the eyeball.
| 38 |
[Dredd] What exactly happens to bodies that are "resyked"?
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Just watched the movie, not too familiar with the comics. Is there some Soylent Green situation going on where the bodies are resyked into food? Or is it just like compost. Composting them wouldn't seem likely however, given Mega City 1's less than thriving agricultural department.
| 17 |
Yep, it's Soylent Green! Except if i remember the comics correctly, it's no conspiracy, people just don't care - they still want meat (or meat-like nutrients) and with no farm land in or around Megacity 1 and nowhere to bury the massive amounts of dead bodies that crop up daily, why not kill two birds with one stone?
| 23 |
CMV: Police should wear body cams 100% of the time they are on duty.
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Regardless of whether or not you believe there is a problem with the police in America, you should support them wearing body cams. I can see no reason why they should not have to, as it would be useful as evidence of both crimes and potential corruption.
I have heard the argument that they "don't want to" and to be honest I can understand that, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't have to. People make the argument that they don't want their every move watched, because for example their superior could catch two cops making jokes at his expense or something. However I think the footage should remain unwatched and unused unless it is necessary as evidence of a crime.
| 1,370 |
The problem with mandating body cams is the Freedom of Information act.
Police at times go places that are private and should not be globally available to anyone with FOI request. Sometimes police are involved in EMS situations either in homes or car accidents. Do you believe the patients who did nothing wrong deserve to have thier 'footage' available to anyone?
How about the audio. Do you think the recording of a cop taking a rape deposition should be available to anyone?
How about evidence and evidence protection?
Body cams are a good tool but they are subject to Freedom of Information requests which means a lot of things we don't want shared would get shared.
| 335 |
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