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87d96g
|
Why are some charging cables faster than others even when using the same power supply?
|
askscience
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/87d96g/why_are_some_charging_cables_faster_than_others/
|
{
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"text": [
"Wire length, wire diameter, and wire material all effect total wire resistance. If you know the resistance of the cable, r, you can calculate the maximum theoretical power transfer across that cable to a phone, which is a maximum when the phone appears to have the same resistance as the cable (for an ideal power supply, which isn't the case, but we'll ignore that fact.)\n\nTotal Power = v*i\n\nPower in device = 1/2 v*i\n\ni = v/(2*r)\n\npower in device = 1/2 [v] * [v/(2*r)]\n\npower in device = v^2 /(4r)\n\nFor a 5v charger, you get\n\npower = 6.25/r\n\nr = 6.25/power\n\nSo, if you want to transfer 10 watts to your phone, you need a cable that has no more than 6.25/10 ohms or .625 ohms.\n\nA 1-meter cheap thin cable might have .6 ohms and be able to charge at 10W (slightly more than 2 amps). A cheap thin 5-meter long cable might have 1.4 ohms and only be able to charge to 4.5 watts. (just over 900ma).\n\nReal power supplies aren't ideal and have an internal resistance that must be added to that of the cable. That means the situation is a little worse than we just calculated. The good news is that while their resistance isn't generally published, it is typically small for a good charger. Also keep in mind that this is the maximum theoretical power, and not all phones can achieve it. Between the phone and charger and cable, short cheap cables generally work fine, as do longer heavy-duty cables, but cheap cables longer than about .5 meter may restrict your charging rate.\n\nWhether they are generic or not, the main thing to look for in longer cables is thicker wiring (low AWG). Harder to check, but also important, are the quality of the USB connectors at the ends of the cable and the quality of the soldering that joins them to the wire.\n\nIncidentally, USB-C generally eliminates this problem by adopting higher voltages as part of the official standard. Higher voltages mean more maximum power for the phone and less wasted power through the cable."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
93500e
|
what exactly happens when we bend paper? why is it permanent?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/93500e/eli5_what_exactly_happens_when_we_bend_paper_why/
|
{
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1295,
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23
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"text": [
"[Here's what paper looks like under a microscope.](_URL_0_) These are ~~collagen~~ cellulose fibers that came from the pulp of the trees used and they all kinda mesh and weave together all tangled up - giving paper its strength. When you crease a fold, the fibers that get bunched up on the inside of the crease force the fibers on the outside of the crease to stretch and tear. If you then crease the fold the other way, you now break the fibers on this side, leaving only a thin layer of fibers in the middle to hold the two sides together (and making it now relatively easy to tear apart). \n\nSame thing if you've ever had to use a piece of bread as a hotdog bun; the bottom of the bread always breaks in half. ",
"materials have 2 regions. Plastic and Elastic. Elastic means it can snap back to its original form. Plastic is permanently changing the properties of a material. Some materials have a higher elastic region which means they can take more abuse before causing permanent damage.\n\nYou can flex a piece of acrylic quite a bit before it permanently stays bent, or press your hand and squeeze an aluminum coke can and watch it snap back into its original shape. Press it too hard and now its bent, and changed forever. These materials have high elastic regions. Bending paper will also retain its original shape, until you crease it, crossing into the plastic region. Once something enters the plastic region, it is now permanently that shape and will never return to its original form. ",
"Imagine breaking a branch, but on a smaller level. If the branch is fairly new (not dry), it can be hard to break. One side will splinter while the other side still holds the two halves together. If you try to bend it back together, the first (splintered) side will still be broken, so it can't ever go back to how it was before. The same thing happens with paper; on a smaller scale than you can probably see, one side of the paper rips apart a little bit while the rest of it hold both halves together."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-2fc1306a08951916d7602c3c4592e659"
],
[],
[]
] |
||
hwjsw
|
Will we ever be able "read" a brain ?
|
Is there a point where scientists will be able to connect to a persons head a device to read memories?
Or will we ever completely understand the brain?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/hwjsw/will_we_ever_be_able_read_a_brain/
|
{
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"c1yxzm4",
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"text": [
"I do know that pictures you are observing can be recreated with software that uses nothing but scans of your brain. From [NewScientist](_URL_1_) in 2008:\n\n > Pictures you are observing can now be recreated with software that uses nothing but scans of your brain. It is the first \"mind reading\" technology to create such images from scratch, rather than picking them out from a pool of possible images.\n\n > Earlier this year Jack Gallant and colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley, showed that they could tell which of a set of images someone was looking at from a brain scan.\n\n > To do this, they created software that compared the subject's brain activity while looking at an image with that captured while they were looking at \"training\" photographs. The program then picked the most likely match from a set of previously unseen pictures.\n\n > Now Yukiyasu Kamitani at ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories in Kyoto, Japan has gone a step further: his team has used an image of brain activity taken in a functional MRI scanner to recreate a black-and-white image from scratch.\n\n > \"By analysing the brain signals when someone is seeing an image, we can reconstruct that image,\" says Kamitani.\n\nAlso, apparently brain scans have been used to [reveal memories](_URL_0_):\n\n > Scans of the part of the brain responsible for memory have for the first time been used to detect a person's location in a virtual environment. Using functional MRI (fMRI), researchers decoded the approximate location of several people as they navigated through virtual rooms.\n\n > This finding suggests that more detailed mind-reading, such detecting as memories of a summer holiday, might eventually be possible, says Eleanor Maguire, a neuroscientist at University College London.\n\n > Her team trained its scanner on the hippocampus, a region of the brain critical to the formation and storage of memories. It is known that in animals, specialised place cells in the hippocampus fire regularly as they move from place to place.",
"I doubt we will be able to read other people's memories but we can \"read\" animal's brains in the sense that by watching there brains we can see what they're thinking about doing and successfully predict what they will in fact do. (You're in luck because this is one of my favorite topics). I'll give you an example. In [Mental Rotation of the Neuronal Population Vector](_URL_1_), Georgopoulos et al. found they could watch a rhesus monkey perform a mental rotation when performing a task. The task was to grab a handle on a freely movable bar and move it straight forward or at various angles. Now, I need to explain something about neurons in the motor cortex. Georgopoulos et al. knew that some neurons in the motor cortex had a \"preferred direction\". This means that some neurons fired stronger than others when the monkey moved the handle in a certain direction. Knowing this, they modeled the neurons with a mathematical abstraction called a \"population vector\". A vector is simply an arrow that has a length (magnitude) and direction. So each neuron can be described as a vector. Say a neuron fires with strength x when the monkey moves the handle to the right. This neuron can then be drawn as an arrow pointing to the right with a length x. A \"population vector\" is simply a sum of a bunch of individual neuronal vectors. [Vector addition](_URL_0_) is very easy. To add vectors simply connect them head to tail and draw a new vector from the beginning of the chain to the end. So Georgopoulos et al. recorded a bunch of neurons firing in the motor cortex and added them all up to get a population vector. This vector actually pointed in the direction that the monkey would move the handle. Most surprisingly, when the monkey had to think about moving the handle from, say, forward then to the right, the population vector would actually rotate from pointing ahead to pointing to the right (The vector's length would also increase during this period because the monkey didn't *move* forward but was merely thinking of moving forward. When the vector reached a certain length, i.e. when the neurons fired strong enough, that's when actual movement occurred). So, in this sense, Georgopoulos et al. could \"read\" the monkey's brain and see what it was thinking and what it was going to do. I hope this answers some of your questions!\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16751-brain-scan-reveals-memories-of-where-youve-been.html",
"http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16267-mindreading-software-could-record-your-dreams.html"
],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vector_addition#Addition_and_subtraction",
"http://motorlab.neurobio.pitt.edu/articles/mental_rotation.pdf"
]
] |
|
63p6gu
|
Why is it impossible for an object to have an absolute velocity of 0?
|
askscience
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/63p6gu/why_is_it_impossible_for_an_object_to_have_an/
|
{
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"dfwib8e",
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2
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"text": [
"How would you like to define absolute velocity? Which frame of reference are you choosing to be your absolute reference frame for measuring speeds, and why is that frame of reference preferred rather than any other frame you could choose?\n\nIn short, Special Relativity states that there simply isn't any preferred absolute reference frame from which to measure these speeds. Sometimes one frame may be more convenient (measuring my car's velocity relative to the moon isn't very useful), but that doesn't make it special in any way compared to any other reference frame.",
"because no such thing as absolute velocity exists.\n\nif an object is at rest in one frame of reference, then you can easily give another frame of reference where it moves constantly with v = 0.5c in some direction. since no preferred or absolute reference frame exists, these frames are equally good.",
"An object at rest in one frame is not necessarily at rest in some other frame. So there's no meaning to the expression \"absolute velocity\". This was known since Galileo, no need to mention special or general relativity."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
m609b
|
how does nasa take super detailed pictures of space?
|
Like this one _URL_0_
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/m609b/eli5how_does_nasa_take_super_detailed_pictures_of/
|
{
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"c2ydqr4",
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"text": [
"What NASA and many other photographers do is they take a bunch of really zoomed in pictures, putting the zoomed in pictures right next to ones that are close to it, and stitch them together, making a really detailed picture. \n\nThis same process is used when making panoramic pictures. \n[Image Stitching; Wikipedia](_URL_0_)",
"Taking them takes ages. Whereas a normal camera requires a split-second worth of light to produce a picture, the big telescopes (such as Hubble) stare at a single point in space for weeks, sometimes even months. That way much more photons hit the camera, and thus produce a better picture.",
"What NASA and many other photographers do is they take a bunch of really zoomed in pictures, putting the zoomed in pictures right next to ones that are close to it, and stitch them together, making a really detailed picture. \n\nThis same process is used when making panoramic pictures. \n[Image Stitching; Wikipedia](_URL_0_)",
"Taking them takes ages. Whereas a normal camera requires a split-second worth of light to produce a picture, the big telescopes (such as Hubble) stare at a single point in space for weeks, sometimes even months. That way much more photons hit the camera, and thus produce a better picture."
]
}
|
[] |
[
"http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/1111/NGC3628_LRGBleshin.jpg"
] |
[
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_stitching"
],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_stitching"
],
[]
] |
|
u8esq
|
How were French soldiers who participated in the mutinies during WWI punished?
|
My lecturer refused to talk about it, said it was too horrific. All I can seem to find is, they were convicted, some were executed. By my lecturer's refusal to talk about it, I figure there's more to it than that.
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/u8esq/how_were_french_soldiers_who_participated_in_the/
|
{
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"c4t8oqm",
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"c4tc31n"
],
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17,
8,
3
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"text": [
"Your history lecturer (I'm assuming University by lecturer) refused to talk about somthing because it was too horrific? ...how is he/she not the worst history lecturer ever? A fairly large proportion of history is horrific, surely?\n",
"Where is our wonderful WWI expert!?\n\nI'll try to answer this question in the mean time: Your search appears to have found it all. Some were indeed convicted in a court martial, a few were executed but most were sent to the overseas colonies. Why your lecturer refused to talk about it is beyond me.",
"Lol, sounds like your professor didn't know the answer and was giving an excuse to get rid of you before you made him look bad."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
yq7b0
|
gluons
|
I understand the properties of fermions and most bosons, but gluons are the ones that are easily the most complicated and are the coolest.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/yq7b0/eli5_gluons/
|
{
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"c5xvuu9"
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2
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"text": [
"Ok since you understand the principles of bosons, and fermions, I'll step the cutesy analogies, and just explain it simply. Gluons are basically the exchange particle of the Strong interaction. The strong interaction is what keeps the quarks together. It works just like electromagnetism, where the photons are the exchange particles, where the force is carried between two other particles, making an interaction. \n\nNow this force (strong force) is very important, as quarks are the building blocks of Protons and neutrons (as well as other particles), which make up the nucleus of an atom. Also this force is extremely strong, much stronger than gravity. Which is what the basis for how nuclear power, bombs, etc. works. The amount of energy expelled from breaking this force is huge!\n\nNow what exactly does the gluon do? Well it doesn't do anything more than other exchange particle (or gauge boson), except in the matter of \"Color change\". The idea behind is that there is three different \"states\" (not to be confused with the 6 different quarks, but rather the state of each quark at a given time) at which a quark can be. This represented by colors, Red, Blue and Green. There is also the anti-colors: Anti-Red, Anti-Blue, and Anti-Green; which make up the states of the anti-quarks. Now gluons carry both an anti-color, and a color. This means that a Blue quark can emit a blue-anti-red gluon, that when interacting when a Red quark, the red quark becomes Blue, and the Blue quark becomes red. This works because the anti-state cancels out the \"color\" of the Red quark, and replaces it with the color of the gluon. This also means that the first quark has to be Red since it \"gave up\" it's blue state. \n\nThis is something that you don't find in the other forces, since for example, in the electromagnetism field exchange, there is only two: Positive and Negative; and the Photons that exchange that force will either be positive carrying or negative carrying (so the number of total states of the particle, matches the states of the exchange particle). But in the strong interaction, quarks can only be three possible states, while gluons can be six (Red-anti-blue, Red-anti-green, Blue-anti-red, Blue-anti-green, Green-anti-red, Green-anti-blue).\n\nIf you want me to explain down any further, I can try, but I figure if you understand bosons, then this shouldn't too much of a step upward.",
"Why would a 5 year old need to know particle physics?!?!?!?!"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
47pn5b
|
Has there ever been a city that feigned defeat, letting in enemy troops, to only trap them once inside the city walls?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/47pn5b/has_there_ever_been_a_city_that_feigned_defeat/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d0eom59"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Sorry, we don't allow [\"trivia seeking\" questions](_URL_0_). These tend to produce threads which are collections of disjointed, partial responses, and not the in-depth discussions about a particular topic we're looking for. If you have a specific question about an historical event, period, or person, please feel free to re-compose your question and submit it again. Alternatively, questions of this type can be directed to more appropriate subreddits, such as /r/history /r/askhistory, or /r/tellmeafact. For further explanation of the rule, feel free to consult [this META thread](_URL_1_)."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/rules#wiki_no_.22trivia_seeking.22_questions",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3nub87/rules_change_throughout_history_rule_is_replaced/"
]
] |
||
5ge7u0
|
why do male orgasms get more intense in relatively short amounts of succession?
|
Why is that? For example, if you masturbate the first time, it feels nice. But by the 3rd time in a relatively close time period, let's say about 45 minutes from the second orgasm, the ejaculate volume is low, but the orgasm is noticeably more intense than the first or second. Anyone know why that is?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ge7u0/eli5_why_do_male_orgasms_get_more_intense_in/
|
{
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"darl1ym",
"dars2x3"
],
"score": [
5,
2
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"text": [
"Well everyone is different. Wildly so, in fact. Some people are capable of sustaining multiple, repeating orgasms of increasing intensity. This is more common in women, but certainly possible in men. Others can only have one orgasm of great intensity, after which they lose sexual stimulation for a long refractory period. \n\nWhat you experience is relatively rare compared to the general male population. But the reason they escalate in intensity is probanly because none of these are \"true\" orgasms that kick off a refractory period. Theyre more like partial orgasms that heighten sexual stimulation and pleasure, so the orgasms continue to build in pleasure until the satiation signal is triggered.",
"It's a set of chemical responses within the nervous system that trigger other physiological responses. Generally, those regions responsible for chemical signals become more active and able to do so.\n\nA good analogy for this might be working out your muscles. As you do some warmup exercises, you're actually able to lift more weight than at the beginning of a workout. Then you get tired.\n\nOf course there is a refractory period for reserves of the transmitters in those regions to build back up, among other things, much like seeing a bright light depletes the chemicals in your retinas so you have to wait until you can see again.\n\nTo go back to the muscle analogy, this would be hitting a hard set of reps until you can't lift the weight anymore. In the short term, the chemicals are depleted, but the muscles are getting extra blood and signals now so the strength increases. Lather, rinse, repeat. No wait, don't lather... everyone knows soap is a bad idea here..."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
frcx1
|
what is the feasibility of a (manufactured) organic computer, and what are the scientific obstacles to making it a reality?
|
given the dual rapid advancement in biotechnology and computer in, is this something which should be expected as a natural progression, or would it instead be impossible or prohibitively inefficient compared to a normal computer system?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/frcx1/what_is_the_feasibility_of_a_manufactured_organic/
|
{
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"c1i241f",
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2,
3,
7
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"text": [
"Keeping it alive for the same amount of time a regular PC will last? (without mutations in it's cellular regeneration causing memory loss or SKYNET)",
"[Here's an article about a math problem solved with a DNA computer](_URL_0_)",
"Women have been pushin' those things out for years now."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.116.3077&rep=rep1&type=pdf"
],
[]
] |
|
pe0vp
|
i spent a frustrating hour with gimp before coming to you guys, please eli5 how to make animated .gifs.
|
With this username I'm often asked which gif I'm referring to so I'd like to make some to answer people. Unfortunately my years on the internet have not yielded this information.
So how is it done?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/pe0vp/i_spent_a_frustrating_hour_with_gimp_before/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c3omg18"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"You'll need each individual 'frame' to be on a separate layer. If you already have all your pictures you want to turn into a .gif made (and named in proper order), simply go File > Open as layers, select all pictures, and it will imported as layers.\n\nOnce you have every frame on it's own layer, select File > Save As. Select .gif image. You should have two options, to flatten the image, or to save as an animation. You want to click \"Save as animation\" and then export. The only necessary thing left to do is to adjust the delay in miliseconds. It may take one or two shots to get the proper speed.\n\nI really hope this helped, I tried to use the simplest terms possible. (FYI this post is coming from a guy who downloaded GIMP for the sole purpose of making animated .gifs easily :P)"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
f44ou
|
What would happen, physiologically, if you drank Febreze?
|
I've been thinking about it, and here's what I've come up with so far: the active ingredient in Febreze is a [cyclodextrin](_URL_0_). Cyclodextrins are water-soluble, and can potentially solubilize normally hydrophobic compounds. They're also pretty big and weirdly-shaped relative to the sugar compounds the body's used to (except maybe glycogen and the like), and it's hard to imagine the human body being equipped to deal with anything quite as ridiculous as a cyclodextrin. So...what would happen?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/f44ou/what_would_happen_physiologically_if_you_drank/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c1d67b3"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"[Here](_URL_0_) we go. Looks like beta cyclodextrin is the one in Febreze, and the listed instructions in the event of ingestion are: \n > \"Do NOT induce vomiting unless directed to do so by medical personnel. Never give anything by mouth to an unconscious\nperson. Loosen tight clothing such as a collar, tie, belt or waistband. Get medical attention if symptoms appear.\"\n\nAlpha cyclodextrin, on the other hand, instructs you to seek medical attention immediately and try to resuscitate if the victim isn't breathing. Seems that beta cyclodextrin is probably mostly harmless."
]
}
|
[] |
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclodextrin"
] |
[
[
"http://www.sciencelab.com/xMSDS-b_Cyclodextrin-9923618"
]
] |
|
2gvbvh
|
georg cantor and set theory
|
Can someone eli5 how Georg Cantor came about this theory and the implications it has on mathematics today? Any good, easy to understand examples?
Thanks!
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2gvbvh/eli5_georg_cantor_and_set_theory/
|
{
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"ckmvl94"
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"text": [
"He came up with a new proof technique, called diagonalization, and was able to show some infinities were bigger than others. It goes something like this:\n\nThere are an infinite number of natural numbers, and also an infinite amount of real numbers. If these infinities are equivalent, it should be possible to come up with a process that matches all real numbers to a natural number:\n\n 1 - 0.12345....\n 2 - 3.14159....\n 3 - 2.71828....\n etc.\n\nLet's construct a real number, *s*, such that:\n\n* the 1st digit is different than the 1st digit of the real assigned to 1\n* the 2nd digit is different than the 2nd digit of the real assigned to 2\n* the *n*th digit is different than the *n*th digit of the real assigned to *n*\n\n*s* is clearly a valid real number, but it also is different from every real number on the list. This means it is impossible to create such a list, and the infinity of real numbers of \"bigger\" than the infinity of natural numbers. Such infinities, that cannot be mapped to natural numbers, are called uncountable.\n\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
fupvfr
|
how would the earn it act negatively affect end to end encryption?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fupvfr/eli5_how_would_the_earn_it_act_negatively_affect/
|
{
"a_id": [
"fme4q3r"
],
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],
"text": [
"Hopefully a simple example:\n\nNo matter how good a safe you install to store your valuables, the government wants the safe manufacturer to make a door at the back with a key available to the government. This is just in case, the government feels that you might be storing something illegal in the safe. This means the safety provided by the safe is only as strong as the \"back door\". \n\nThe problem is similar for encryption. Any time (for software) you try to make a \"back door\" available, it becomes the vulnerable point for hackers. And what is worse, if the method for breaking the \"back door\" is found, ALL messages are potentially vulnerable. \n\nThis is like the government asking for a \"skeleton key\" for all the safes - if anyone steals or copies the key, then every safe built is now vulnerable to the thief."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
1j8bg7
|
Why is the clock industry so strong in Switzerland?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1j8bg7/why_is_the_clock_industry_so_strong_in_switzerland/
|
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"text": [
"It's not exactly answering the question, but I'd like to add a bit of related information.\n\nSwitzerland, being strong in [horology](_URL_0_), has excelled in other industries where extreme precision manufacture is paramount. I work in seismology, and there are an number of historic and current manufacturers of seismic instruments based in Switzerland. One good example is [Kinemetrics](_URL_1_). \n\nSeismometers are exceedingly delicate instruments. A high-gain seismometer can detect the seismic waves you produce simply by walking around several city blocks away. Doing this requires extremely small and extremely precise masses and springs. It just so happens that Switzerland already has manufacturers capable of producing tiny springs and masses--because it is making high-precision watches!\n\nSeismic instruments are just a field that I am familiar with, but I'm certain that there are many other high-precision industries that locate to Switzerland because of its high precision manufacturing prowess. That, in turn, helps to further fund and further develop the high precision manufacturing industry.",
"This doesn't actually answer your question but if this is a topic you're interested in, you should consider checking out [The Discoverers.](_URL_0_) Daniel J. Boorstin covers the history of clock making and why it rose to such prominence in some countries and not others, and he places it in a greater context of innovation and technology and man's attempts to understand the world around him. It can be a bit dry at times, but it is thorough and the topics at hand are very interesting.\n\nGranted, I'm no expert, and it's only one, non-primary source. But I'd say it's worth the read.",
"I have no clue personally, but the good folks at /r/Watches and /r/WatchHorology might be able to assist you. Might get some information by crossposting there.",
"- This comment and the link below may help answer the question, but not completely answer it.\n\nIf there were no demand for Swiss time pieces, then the fascination would be merely hobbyists. Yet, skilled Swiss craftsman over generations have kept the modern mind's interest, and in this regard, remained profitable and passionate.\n\nPerfecting the mechanical clock, which in the past, has been guarded as the key to other sciences (not to mention, navigation) holds great fascination among philosophers, scientists, and thinkers worldwide. Time is such a strange concept. As you are reading this, snap your fingers continuously until the end and conscientiously count each snap. In a way, you have quantified time - ineffectively, of course. \n\nReflecting on ancient sundials and water timers, the engineering and precision involved in a mechanical clock, from a hands on, gear centric mindset, is staggering. Imagine having a wrist watch that never loses any time or is so accurate that it wouldn't be off for a century (over time mechanical clocks lose time). At the moment, time is measured to the atom, whereas most digital wrist watches are measured with pulsating quartz which is extremely precise, but advances to the mechanical clock are fascinating because they show a continuity with our ancestry. World fascination relates to a demand for profitable items from skilled workers.\n\nThese are a few videos I found enthralling:\n\n1- [10 minute video about Swiss watchmakers - how it started and personal perspectives as to why it exists to this day.](_URL_1_)\n\nAmazing Mechanical Watches\n\n1- _URL_2_\n\n2 - _URL_3_\n\n3 - _URL_0_",
"Religious persecution. Seriously. French Protestantism was concentrated among the skilled craftsmen, for some reason. In 1685 Louis XIV revoked the edict of toleration [(The Edict of Nantes)](_URL_0_), causing a wholesale emigration of Protestant craftsmen, many of which ended up in French-speaking Switzerland and became the seeds of the Swiss watch industry.",
"The history of the Swiss horology industry is a surprisingly cyclical one. As others have pointed out, many of the most notable early master watchmakers were not in fact Swiss (France, Germany, and to a lesser extent, England were leaders in the early development of mechanical timepieces), but by the 18th century as technology progressed to the point where it was practical to miniaturize a timekeeping mechanism to pocket size, enough talent and knowledge had been imported or imparted to Switzerland that by the turn of the 19th century Swiss watches were wildly popular around the world.\n\nAs with many other traditional industries, however, the Industrial Revolution had a large impact on watchmaking. A mechanical timepiece is made up of hundreds of tiny parts, each of which has to be machined to very high tolerances. Prior to the invention of machine tools, the process of creating a watch had to be done by hand, and as a result, as one can imagine, it was a very time- and labor-intensive process. By the middle of the 19th century, American companies had perfected the process, making watches cheaper, more accurate, and more accessible to the masses. While the Waltham Watch Co. in Massachusetts was one of the first and most successful ones, others that started around the same time include Elgin, Bulova, and Hamilton. This was the first crisis for Swiss watches, and while they struggled to catch up, the reputation suffered mightily, to the point where America, Britain, and other nations insisted that the now-sought-after 'Swiss Made' label be affixed to Swiss timepieces to ensure that consumers were not swindled into buying substandard, poor-quality pieces.\n\nDespite this, the Swiss did not stop the fine watchmaking tradition, and while many of their offerings at the time were subpar compared to the precision-machined American products, the 19th century saw the establishment of many more of what are today quite notable brands, including Jaeger-LeCoultre, Tissot, and Audemars Piguet, among others. Interestingly, this coincided with the rising popularity of wristwatches, which until 1910-1920 or so were considered largely female accessories only, while gentlemen strictly carried pocket watches. World War I played a large role in the transition, as soldiers were unable to use a free hand to pull out a pocket watch to check the time.\n\nBy the outset of World War II, high-end Swiss brands had once again regained position as industry leaders. Brands such as Jaeger-LeCoultre provided pilot's watches to both the RAF and Luftwaffe; stories such as [this one](_URL_0_) and [this one](_URL_1_) (the wiki link has a pretty good overview of the stories) suggest that the Swiss brands were seen as markedly better and more desirable than standard-issue watches from other manufacturers at the time. This would continue after the war, as the Swiss would continue to cement their position as the most prominent luxury watches in the world.\n\nAs mentioned in other comments, however, the Swiss watch industry was soon rocked by another crisis, which almost crippled them: the invention of quartz timekeeping. By the 1960s, manufacturers were experimenting with electronic timekeeping methods. One of the most successful early versions was New York-based Bulova's tuning fork-powered Accutron models, which were successful enough to gain a permanent place in the company's logo, and which remain highly sought-after by collectors today. Meanwhile, a competition broke out between the Swiss and the Japanese broke out to create the first quartz movement; the Swiss actually managed to beat the Japanese, but in one of the worst business miscalculations in recent memory, decided not to pursue the technology, believing that mechanical watches were here to stay.\n\nA timepiece, in simplest terms, is powered by a balance device that oscillates at a known interval. The back-and-forth motion of the device drives the shafts connected to the hands, which turn them. Generally, the higher the oscillation frequency, the more accurate a watch becomes. Mechanical watches range from 18000 beats per hour to 36000 bph, or 2.5 Hz to 5 Hz, with outliers on either end; quartz watches, powered by a tiny crystal (quartz, naturally) vibrated by an electric current, oscillate at *32,768 Hz*, making them exponentially more accurate than even the best mechanical watch (for reference, a mechanical movement is considered to be excellent if it gains or loses less than 5 seconds per day; the vast majority of quartz movements routinely gain or lose less than 5 seconds per month, with many remaining within those boundaries in a year). They also contain far fewer moving parts, making them much cheaper to manufacture. Japan's Seiko became the first company to mass-produce quartz watches in 1969, and as you might expect, people around the world thought it much better to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars less for a much more accurate watch. Mechanical watch sales plummeted, and many companies folded. American companies did not escape the carnage either; Waltham, Elgin, Gruen, and many others went under, and while the rights to the company names were bought and are still used today to create cheap, mass-produced timepieces, these companies have zero in common with their historical predecessors.\n\nBy the 80s, the Swiss watch industry was on the ropes - while some companies had bowed to the pressure and adopted quartz movements to stay afloat, many of those that did not had gone under. Amusingly, the Swiss watch industry was saved by Swatch, which in the 80s started producing cheap quartz watches with rather whimsical designs, which caught on in a big way. As Swatch began to become more and more successful, it began to quietly buy up other companies, such as Omega, Tissot, and the American Hamilton; they also acquired ETA SA, the world's largest maker of Swiss mechanical movements. They began to reposition these brands as luxury alternatives to the cheap brands, and played up the history of Swiss watchmaking (the good parts, of course) as a marketing technique. Other companies joined the party, including the Richemont Group, which has come to dominate the high-end luxury watch market, acquiring such names as Vacheron Constantin, Piaget, Jaeger-LeCoultre, and IWC. Since the mid-90s, the mechanical watch has seen a steady rise in popularity, despite the ongoing supremacy of quartz. As mechanical watches remain largely the territory of luxury brands, and many of the big luxury timepiece manufacturers remain Swiss, the country has once again become one of the major players in the horology world... until the next crisis, of course.",
"In *Revolution in Time: Clocks and the Making of the Modern World* historian of technology David Landes argues that the Swiss became great clockmakers because of their particular take on Christianity.\n\nBy at least the fourteenth century, morality in many Swiss towns was connected to ordered daily routines and productive labor: both of which could be disciplined by the clock. This social force combined with increased literacy and numeracy following the Protestant Reformation to create conditions in which clocks were needed and many people had the basic skills necessary to be trained as clockmakers. \n\nTo make a long story short, more demand led to more industry which led to more innovation (both technological and organizational), creating a self-sustaining technological, social, and economic infrastructure. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horology",
"http://www.kinemetrics.com/"
],
[
"http://www.amazon.com/The-Discoverers-Daniel-J-Boorstin/dp/0394726251"
],
[],
[
"http://youtu.be/-uHq5MRSAMU",
"http://youtu.be/OuhGD-HSUy4",
"http://youtu.be/D81pBoF2k-k",
"http://youtu.be/43sM3iUhbA4"
],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edict_of_Nantes#Revocation"
],
[
"http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/23/fashion/a-prisoner-a-watch-a-war-story.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolex#Watches_for_POWs_and_help_in_the_Great_Escape"
],
[]
] |
||
yq0ao
|
how someone can recover from being paralyzed.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/yq0ao/eli5_how_someone_can_recover_from_being_paralyzed/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c5xtt4s"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Your brain uses nerves to tell your body to move (think of your brain as a power strip and your nerves as the outlets) sometimes an injury destroys ALL the outlets, and your brain can't do anything causing a paralysis. Other times, only one outlet is destroyed, and the brain can just plug the function into another part to make the appliance work. hopefully that makes sense!"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
202ooq
|
Did the Romans understand what inflation was?
|
I've been told that Supposedly in the third century the roman empire experienced a lot of financial inflation because the successive Barrack emperors kept just coining new money everytime they needed to pay men.
Did they not know that would happen, ....or did they know and just not care?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/202ooq/did_the_romans_understand_what_inflation_was/
|
{
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"text": [
"It's not exactly inflation, but debasing the quality of coinage has a similar effect, and Romans did understand that. The reason to debase coinage is because you want to pass off the cheaper coin for the value of the more expensive coin. This periodically produced economic crises, such that people like Constantine had to re-establish a trusted coinage such as the solidus. Another option was fiat currency - the government simply declares the value of the coin regardless of its silver (or other precious metal) content, and that was sometimes tried. The most extreme example would be the [edict of Diocletian](_URL_0_), which set prices in terms of denarii regardless of metal content. Some ancient people were able to make this work; I think both the Ptolemies and the Attalids were able to run an economy on fiat currency (but I don't know too much about those). Republican Rome never seemed to make fiat currency work for whatever reason.\n",
"In addition to LegalAction's answer, the issue of inflation/deflation would not explicitly have been known (economic theory is a modern discipline), but there was a general understanding that inflation as they understood it was a very bad thing, and even in the ancient period a knowledge that a coin debasement was going to cause it eventually. However, they simply understood it as bad because it made things more expensive to purchase. You mention the 'Barracks' emperors; they knew this too, because inflation meant you had to pay more to keep your soldiers happy. And to boot, by the end of the third century, there were even more of those soldiers to pay.\n\nTo control this, the only known mechanisms were currency reform (expensive and difficult) and price controls (such as the Edict mentioned in LegalAction's answer) which were likely less effective. I don't know of any evidence that suggests they were aware of the negative aspects of deflation (or the positive aspects of inflation) though. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.forumancientcoins.com/NumisWiki/view.asp?key=Edict+of+Diocletian+Edict+on+Prices"
],
[]
] |
|
2jwzjm
|
why is autism seemingly more common now that is has been in the past?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2jwzjm/eli5_why_is_autism_seemingly_more_common_now_that/
|
{
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"text": [
"The answer from the medical community is: 'we're not entirely sure'\n\nOne factor may be increasing awareness so cases that were previously undiagnosed or misdiagnosed are coming under the ASD umbrella.\n\nIt's also not entirely clear what causes autism, and there may be multiple causes - there's certainly a genetic component and some cases have been linked to specific genetic abnormalities. Higher maternal age at childbirth might also be playing a role in the increase. Studies have also been looking at environmental triggers with some evidence pointing towards various organic pollutants. Some research is also linking ASD to immune system functioning in the mother.",
"Maybe with aspergers (which now comes under the autism umbrella) more people are getting diagnosed. Not because its 'popular' but because they have suffered all their lives and finally managed to get a diagnosis. Aspergers has only been used as a diagnosis for approx the last 3 decades ...so anyone over about 30 might now be getting a diagnosis for the first time. Also its becoming known that females present traits differently to males and as this is recognised more females are getting diagnosed than before.",
"You probably know at least one old man or woman who is undiagnosed autistic",
"With the most recent DSM (V) several diagnoses which used to be separate now fall under Autism Spectrum Disorder (there is no Artistic Spectrum!), so that's probably part of it. More awareness is probably another part. And finally, given that it's not known what causes autism in the first place, there might be an actual increase in autism (vs an apparent one) caused by an increase in whatever causes it.\n\nOr maybe we're just evolving and in a few thousand years non-autistic humans will be the aberration.",
"* The term \"autism\" has been expanded to include a much larger demographic than you might expect. Many \"autistic\" people have no obvious signs. \n* In past times, the more stereotypical autistic children were killed/left to die/unable to survive. Obviously our medical technology and society has progressed far enough to stop this for the most part. \n* The Industrial revolution has exposed humanity to chemicals/pollutants that we still don't even fully understand/appreciate. ",
"LGSW here: \n\nTwo key reasons:\n1) In 2003, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) changed its definition of autism to include a spectrum of disorders. \n2) As with many psychological conditions, public awareness increased, which leads to more individuals being diagnosed and treated. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
p77w4
|
the fine print on the xkcd website
|
"We did not invent the algorithm. The algorithm consistently finds Jesus. The algorithm killed Jeeves.
The algorithm is banned in China. The algorithm is from Jersey. The algorithm constantly finds Jesus.
This is not the algorithm. This is close."
What does this mean?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/p77w4/eli5_the_fine_print_on_the_xkcd_website/
|
{
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],
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45,
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18
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"text": [
"It was a viral marketing campaign that XKCD took over, [like a boss](_URL_0_).\n\nNo idea why they're still there. Probably because the author thinks they're funny, or is proud of them.\n\nEdit: For a less disappointing response, ask again in r/shittyaskscience. :D",
"More specifically, I believe it's a play on a much maligned [_URL_0_ billboard campaign a while back](_URL_1_)",
"_URL_0_\n\nFor all your \"I am not as smart as I thought\" needs.\n\nFrequent User,\ngarbaxo"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://blag.xkcd.com/2007/04/19/billboards/"
],
[
"Ask.com",
"http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/34/2007/05/medium_the%20unabomber%20hates%20the%20algorithm.jpg"
],
[
"http://www.explainxkcd.com/"
]
] |
|
1lma9i
|
why are dogs no longer found in the wilderness?
|
Hello I am wondering why dogs are no longer in the wilderness, you can't go out in the woods and find any household species can you?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1lma9i/eli5_why_are_dogs_no_longer_found_in_the/
|
{
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"text": [
"You can find some wild dogs, mostly in cities, but dogs were never an existing species, they're wolves that we domesticated that became so removed from wolves they became their own species.",
"A dog is a domesticated wolf. Dogs were never a wild animal, humans tamed wolves and over time those animals where different enough to warrant a different species. \n\nOf course there are feral dogs out there, they can be a big issue in cities. ",
"There are dogs in the wilderness; they're known as coyotes, dingoes, wolves and foxes. Modern domestic dog breeds are all descendants of these species that have been bred to have certain traits and split off into subspecies.",
"There are wild dogs. And there are wild domestic dogs too.\n\n_URL_1_\n\n\n\n**Bonus Pic:** I took 4 pics from the Wiki article and put them together.\n_URL_0_",
"It's believed that at some point in history, someone caught and made a pet out of a wild animal similar to a wolf. After many hundreds of years of more humans catching, raising, and breeding that pet, you now have what we call a domesticated dog. \n\nToday, dogs sometimes end up outside and alone, outside the care of humans. Sometimes they've gotten lost or they've been released by people who don't know better. These dogs can become what we call feral, or wild, and have puppies which then become feral. This just means they aren't friendly or tame.\n\nThen there are animals we call Wild Dogs, like the Dingo or the African Wild Dog. They aren't the same as domesticated dogs. We know this because scientists like to make a family tree of all the animals in the world. Scientists study these animals and know they are related but not the same. Since no one is sure how closely related these animals are to each other, they might classify them differently from each other."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://imgur.com/WZCaXFZ",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canid"
],
[]
] |
|
v03a6
|
This Mathmatical problem has been bothering me for over a week
|
So let's say there is a given lock that has a four digit code. It opens on recognition of that code no matter how many wrong digits have been inputted before said four digit code. So, for instance, given a code of 3568, you could types in 4379143568 and it would still open.
There are, therefore, a set of 10,003 digit long numbers that one could type in and be guaranteed to open the lock. This is due to the fact that every digit you add past the fourth digit means that said five didgit code contains two four digit codes rather than one. (e.g. 43791 contains both 4379 and 3791).
The question I am having difficulty answering is whether there is a quick set of instructions that would constuct one such 10,003 digit number. I addition I am interested to find out how many such 10,003 digit numbers exist.
edit for the typo- I cannot magic numbers out of thin air; the air must be at least the viscosity of hot mercury
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/v03a6/this_mathmatical_problem_has_been_bothering_me/
|
{
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"text": [
"What you want is called a [de Bruijn sequence](_URL_1_). They are well-studied and also awesome.\n\nIn this case, you have an alphabet of *k* = 10 symbols (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9) and want all words of length *n* = 4, so the total number of de Bruijn sequences is (10!)^10^3 / 10^4 , [which is approximately 5.79*10^6555](_URL_0_), which is a lot.\n\nEdit: bonus fun: there are algorithms right there on the Wikipedia page. How neat!",
"you could also cross post in r/math, this seems to be the kinda thing they enjoy from time to time...",
"If you can pluck 3368 out of 4379143568 like you did. Then wouldn't 43791 contain:\n\n4379\n4371\n4391\n4791\n3791\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%2810%21%29%5E%2810%5E%283%29%29%2F%2810%5E4%29",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Bruijn_sequence"
],
[],
[]
] |
|
4rupim
|
Suppose I'm a typical voter in the U.S in the late 18th century. Am I aware the founders based the structure of the country on the work of other enlightenment philosophers (John Locke & so fourth), or do I think they made it all up them selves?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4rupim/suppose_im_a_typical_voter_in_the_us_in_the_late/
|
{
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"text": [
"The short answer is that the typical voter in the US in the late 18th century was well aware of both the work of American and non-American enlightenment thinkers. \n \nIn the late 18th century, a \"typical voter\" would be, in most states, a white, land-owning male. [*Charters of Freedom - The New World At Hand*](_URL_0_) (an _URL_1_ online exhibit) has this to say: \n \n > At the time of the first Presidential election in 1789, only 6 percent of the population–white, male property owners–was eligible to vote. The Fifteenth Amendment extended the right to vote to former male slaves in 1870; American Indians gained the vote under a law passed by Congress in 1924; and women gained the vote with the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. \n \nAs Harvey Graff writes in *Legacies of Literacy*, \n \n > In the \"new world,\" the level and social distribution of literacy were not static during the eighteenth century. Regional differences, as well as social divisions, had not been erased. New England again led the way. **The male literacy level there rose slowly to 70 percent by 1710, and by 1760 it had leapt to 85 percent.** Even comparatively impressive literacy levels and a cultural impetus toward schooling, the data suggests that many New Englanders in the eighteenth century still were **\"closer than we have imagined to the credulous word-of-mouth world of the peasant, closer to its dependency on tradition and on the informed few\"** \n \nGraff argues (and his arguments are echoed by Lawrence Cremin in *American Education: The National Experience, 1783-1876*, among other sources if you're interested) that the gulf between \"the informed few\" and other moderately literate white men was roughly as great as the gulf between someone who is moderately literate and someone who is completely illiterate. That is, the upper echelon of literate folks were not just literate, but highly literate, i.e. widely read. While this *would* change as the 18th century turned over into the 19th century and more and more folks gained a greater degree of literacy, but remained relatively narrow in terms of their reading choices (think newspapers, the Bible, some spellers/primers, etc.), within the parameters of your question it suggests that there is fairly direct correspondence between \"being a voter\" and \"being widely read.\" \n \nNow, the real question is does \"being widely read\" mean \"being widely read in the philosophies of the Enlightenment?\" And to that I directly to Cremin who, considering Thomas Paine's intellectual heritage, writes this: \n \n > Paine could easily have imbibed Newton and Locke, Collins and Toland, Rousseau and Condorcet, without ever having read a word of them. Like others of his generation, he received Enlightenment affirmations from newspapers and magazines, from informal study groups and itinerant lecturers, from conversations in taverns and disputes in coffeehouses. **And, like others of his generation, he mulled them, argued them, and translated them into his own terms, producing a new and powerful version that was at the same time coarse and clear, simple and persuasive, audacious and reasonable. \n \nWhat this indicates (something that Henry Mays' *Enlightenment in America* points out) is not only that the so-called \"philosophies of the Enlightenment\" circulated throughout America, but that America was an equally important site of Enlightenment-era philosophizing. Though he calls for a clearer demarcation between these American and non-American Englightenment-era thinkers, Mays writes, \n \n > Locke, Hume, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Jefferson can be described and admired together. These men shared certain very generous loyalties....The distinctions among them and their followers must be clearly made if one is to treat successfully the *history* of the Enlightenment: its spread, its victories, its defeats. \n \nSo, to return to your question, there is a problem with the formulation that the founders *based* the structure of the country on the work of other enlightenment philosophers. It is more accurate to say that both the founders, in their writings and their doings, participated in the same, very roughly drawn thought era as did other thinkers such as Locke, Rousseau, Hume, Newton, Condorcet, etc. And the residue, if you will, of this thought era (i.e. all the writings) circulated widely within and was influenced by a class of highly literate folks (mostly white guys), both in the US and abroad. And this class of highly literate folks was, for the most part, the \"typical voter\" in the late 18th century United States. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/charters_of_freedom_13.html",
"archives.gov"
]
] |
||
8lpezh
|
Could a really skilled knight or swordsman really take on and kill 5 or so other opponents at a time? Or is that just movie bs?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/8lpezh/could_a_really_skilled_knight_or_swordsman_really/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dzim718",
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27
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"text": [
"Can you please clarify what specific historical time or times and locations you are interested in? I may be able to answer your question, but as posed it isn't a historical one.",
"It's been done, so it's clearly possible.\n\nOne example: William MacBean. From his VC citation, \"For distinguished personal bravery in killing eleven of the enemy with his own hand in the main breach of the Begum Bagh at Lucknow, on the 11th March, 1858.\" In the Indian Mutiny, he fought, single-handed, against 9 troopers, 1 *naik* (corporal) and 1 *havildar* (sergeant), and killed them all with his sword.\n\nYou can find similar feats on the battlefield in VC citations from the mid/late 19th century (and equivalents with firearms from then and later). Sometimes the VC winner faces a group in order to rescue a wounded soldier. Sometimes the VC winner doesn't kill them all - maybe only 1 or 2, and the rest flee, or merely holds them all off until help arrives. Sometimes the VC winner is wounded.\n\nPeople also failed trying to do it. For example, the death of Francisco Pizarro. He was trying to defend himself against his assassins, and killed two of them. He then ran a 3rd opponent through with his sword (according to some versions, a 4th opponent pushed the 3rd onto his sword), and he was killed before he could free his sword. (And sometimes, the VC winners discussed above are killed.)\n\nSuch feats are exceptional - that's why they have resulted in the award of VCs, and the creation of legends and stories.\n\nThere are tactics and techniques that the lone swordsman can use against a group, and these tactics and techniques can be effective against relatively unskilled opponents. However, it isn't always possible to apply these on the battlefield, the opponents might not be sufficiently unskilled for such methods to result in victory, and bad luck (e.g., breaking one's sword) can happen. Plenty can go wrong, and one-against-many on the battlefield often results in the death of the one."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
1926gl
|
what is the difference between constant and variable bitrate mp3 files, and what makes the latter supposedly "better"?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1926gl/eli5_what_is_the_difference_between_constant_and/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c8k4471"
],
"score": [
26
],
"text": [
"Bitrate means how many bits are used per second of song. In general, the more bits you have the higher quality the recording. \n\nThe thing is, some sounds are more 'complicated' and have finer details (higher frequencies). To accurately capture this, you need more information per second. You could just record the entire song at really high bitrate, but then you are just wasting space on the sections that are simpler and don't need as much information.\n\nVariable bitrate is the middle ground, the sound is analyzed before hand and the more complex parts are assigned a higher bit rate, simpler parts are assigned a lower bitrate. That way you still get good reproduction of the original sound, but don't waste a lot of information; makeing the file smaller."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
sicqp
|
How can every point be the center of the universe if it isn't homogeneous?
|
This sounds kind of contradictory.
You know it is said that the universe has no center and wherever you are, you are in the middle of the observable universe.
Sure, in the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter where you are, but the argument still stands.
To me this would only make sense if every point was its own universe. Then again this fact alone would be a proof of the multiverse theory.
This article mentions what I thought about:
_URL_0_
By the 21st century, the overall structure of the visible universe was becoming clearer, with superclusters forming into a vast web of filaments and voids. Superclusters, filaments and voids are likely the largest coherent structures that exist in the Universe. At still larger scales (over 1000 megaparsecs) the Universe becomes homogeneous meaning that all its parts have on average the same density, composition and structure.
Since there is believed to be no "center" or "edge" of the universe, there is no particular reference point with which to plot the overall location of the Earth in the universe. The Earth is at the center of the observable universe because its observability is determined by its distance from Earth. Reference can be made to the Earth's position with respect to specific structures, which exist at various scales. It is still undetermined whether the universe is infinite, and there is speculation that our universe might only be one of countless trillions within a larger multiverse, itself contained within the omniverse.
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/sicqp/how_can_every_point_be_the_center_of_the_universe/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c4e9qss",
"c4e9war"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"The best current models indicates that the universe is flat and infinite.\n\n > The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) has confirmed that the observable universe is **flat** with only a 0.5% margin of error. Within the Friedmann–Lemaître–Robertson–Walker (FLRW) model, **the presently most popular shape of the Universe found to fit observational data according to cosmologists is the infinite flat model**, while other FLRW models that fit the data include the Poincaré dodecahedral space and the Picard horn.\n\nOur observational sphere is based on the amount of time that light has had to travel since first light appeared roughly 370,000 years after the big bang (first light meaning light that could persist to today - this first light is the CMB).\n\nWe can not see past the observational sphere because light from there has not reached us.\n\nSo - you personally are centered in your observational sphere.\n\nIf you move one foot to your right - your observational sphere also moved one foot to the right. You can now see one foot farther (light wise) in one direction, than you could in the other.\n\nNow this amount of difference is too small to make anything meaningful... but the relationship stands. If you moved 50 million light years, your observational sphere also moves 50 million light years. So you would see new things.\n\nConsider if we could instantly teleport to the edge of our observational sphere... we would now have a new center. Half of what we observe would be half of our original observational sphere - and the other half would be totally new space with totally different galaxies, stars, etc.\n\nAre we 100% certain of this? No... but so far all indications point in this direction.",
"Here it from the [man himself](_URL_0_)."
]
}
|
[] |
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_location_in_the_universe"
] |
[
[],
[
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RExQFZzHXQ#t=8m16s"
]
] |
|
4kv6ya
|
Some planes from WW2 were designed in such a way that the bullets they fired had to go between the propeller blades. How did the designers make sure they won't hit a blade and was the fire rate affected?
|
askscience
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/4kv6ya/some_planes_from_ww2_were_designed_in_such_a_way/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d3ikhq9",
"d3il3qe"
],
"score": [
20,
6
],
"text": [
" > How did the designers make sure they won't hit a blade\n\nAs far as I know the trigger mechanism to fire each bullet was coupled via a [cam](_URL_0_) to the shaft of the propeller. As the propeller shaft turned to a particular position the cam would trigger the gun to fire the bullet. This would mean that the bullet would fire and leave the barrel of the gun and pass through the rotating propeller blades only when the blades were in a position out of the firing line no matter what the rotational speed of the propellers.",
"The best way to fix this problem is to create a mechanical linkage between the engine and the trigger mechanism of the gun. The gun is triggered only when the prop is known to be out of the way.\n\nThis requires several things: \n\n- a gun that fires exactly when you tell it to (within hundredths of a second), not even a quarter of a second later, which was a problem for some types of guns;\n\n- a way to know where the propeller is at any given time; this one is relatively easy, as you can just attach a cam to the prop shaft; \n\n- and a way to connect the propeller to the trigger - this is a bit sticky as well because if this linkage isn't stiff and strong enough to resist distortion at any allowed speed, your timing will be off substantially.\n\nThis synchronization does affect the fire rate, in principle - you can't fire any more often than when you have \"holes\"; if you fire once per hole for a two-bladed prop, that means you can only fire at a rate of 2x the prop speed in RPM. In practice, this wasn't really a problem because the props moved fast enough.\n\n[Wikipedia has an extensive article on the subject.](_URL_0_)"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cam"
],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronization_gear"
]
] |
||
c94xqy
|
Was the Holy Roman Empire really a singular state? Or was it at best a loose league of states?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/c94xqy/was_the_holy_roman_empire_really_a_singular_state/
|
{
"a_id": [
"esu4799"
],
"score": [
12
],
"text": [
"The answer to your question(s) would be a resounding \"neither\", I'm afraid. I'll try to get a bit more in-depth for the 1648-1806 period of HRE history where I'm best informed in, but hopefully you'll get other answers expounding on the many centuries before that. I can already give you a tl;dr though, if you like, and that's \"It's fiendishly complicated\".\n\nThe political and structural framework of the HRE was the following: There was the German King (who often also wore the Imperial Roman Crown) who stood at the top of the feudal structure of the Empire. Every lower-ranking prince received his (in rare cases also: her) fief from the King's hands, and throughout the HRE's history every time a fief passed hands or a new King/Emperor (I'll simply say \"Emperor\" from now on since throughout the entire early modern era, every German King also styled himself Emperor) there was a corresponding ceremony where the fief-holder would ritually swear fealty to the Emperor. So, a singular and centralised state with a strong monarch on top, no?\n\nWell, of course it was much more complicated than that. In practice, the Emperor being the feudal overlord was more a legal theorem than political reality, and while the aforementioned ceremonies continued to be followed, in most cases from the late 17th century on, the various German lords sent representatives instead of appearing themselves as a subtle sign of defiance towards Imperial claims. Also, the Emperor was basically alone, as he had no governmental bureaucracy to his side...\n\n...instead that this isn't the whole truth, either. Emperor Maximilian I, who ruled at the turn from the Middle Ages to the Early Modern, was very ambitious in his plans to centralise the Empire and create a functioning bureaucracy. For various reasons (the continuing resistance of the various princes being the central one), his plans didn't fully pan out and could only be realised in part. The most important achievements of Maximilian on this front were probably the establishment of an imperial court system, with the Imperial Chamber Court and the Imperial Aulic Council serving as the supreme appellation court in the Empire. But even there, we have to qualify that statement, since over the centuries many German territories tried (and often succeeded) in securing the privilege of their subjects not being able to appeal to the Imperial judiciary. Another enduring legacy of Maximilian's was the introduction of \"Imperial districts\" (*Reichskreise*), which ultimately got tasked with organising and supervising the mint, collecting the imperial taxes (well, tax - there was only one, and it didn't exactly constitute a lot of income), gathering and training Imperial Army troops and enforcing sentences of the Imperial judiciary. There also were a number of other, minor tasks, but it's more important to note that there were vast differences between the various districts; some of them were highly active, whereas others mostly existed on paper.\n\nBut there was an Imperial Judiciary and an Imperial Army so it can't have been too decentralised, right? Well, yes... and no. The two imperial courts had overlapping jurisdictions and sometimes worked openly against each other, the aforementioned *privilegia de non appellando* weakened the Imperial judiciary especially within the strongest individual member states, and the Imperial Chamber Court was notoriously underfunded; many of the cases brought before it took literal centuries to finally be resolved. Some never were, because the HRE's end in 1806 got in the way (although to be fair, those century-long cases also tended to be the politically most charged ones. In less exciting cases, the Court could be astonishingly quick, even!). The army was provided by the individual member states who generally speaking weren't all that inclined to supply the Emperor with a powerful standing military. In addition to that, there was no centralised Imperial Army doctrine or drill and the various units never exercised together, which in turn meant that their efficacy in actual warfare wasn't always a given.\n\nOn the other side of the scarce Imperial bureaucracy, there were the many (many, many) individual territories, who in themselves were highly varied and distinct. They were organised in the Imperial Diet (Reichstag), a mammoth parliament that until the 17th century would only come together sporadically. In 1663, the Reichstag met again in Regensburg, but when its members couldn't reach a consensus in several highly important questions they simply deferred the official end of the session (also because some princes feared that due to those debates the Emperor would refuse to call for another session) until perpetuity, creating the \"Perpetual Diet\" in the process which legally speaking was just one long, never-ending session of the Imperial Diet. This parliament didn't represent all of the Empire, however, since not every ruler in the Empire was allowed a seat (I'll tell more about them later on), and because Bohemia and Imperial Italy weren't represented either for a variety of reasons which all eventually end at \"they were arguably no longer a part of the Empire, anyway\".\n\nThe minor princes that were part of the Diet were divided in various groups. At the top were the prince-electors, a group of seven powerful princes and bishops whose most important job and privilege was to elect the Emperor. Who exactly was part of this elite group changed slightly over the centuries, and towards the end of the Empire the prince-electoral college even expanded to ten members. One of the prince-electors, the Archbishop of Mainz, also had the office of \"Imperial Arch-chancellor of Germany\" - in theory he led the imperial chancellery (in practice this was done by the \"Imperial Vice Chancellor\") and, most importantly, directed the sessions of the Imperial Diet. His prince-elector colleagues, the Archbishops of Cologne and Trier, also were Arch-chancellors of Italy and Burgundy, respectively, but those titles had long since lost virtually all of their practical power. The prince-electors even used to come together for parliamentary sessions of their own where they debated various imperial matters, but those mostly ceased with the Thirty Years' War.\n\nBelow the prince-electors came the Imperial Princes and Prelates. Those included powerful princes who didn't make it into the prince-electoral college, but also most Catholic bishops of the Empire and also all those abbots and abbesses who had the distinction of leading an \"Imperial Abbey\". This group had about 100 seats altogether, but six of those seats were \"curial votes\", i.e. one single vote cast together by a larger number of Diet members who didn't make the cut for a vote of their own. If I didn't miscount there were 166 of those unlucky princes and prelates.\n\nAt the lowest rung of the ladder were the Imperial cities, i.e. city-states (some of them very big and influential, others tiny) who weren't part of any larger territory, answered directly to the Emperor and took part at the Imperial Diet. Towards the end of the Empire there were 51 Imperial cities who had a whopping two votes inbetween them."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
fpq5kc
|
Why couldn't Chiang Kai-Shek lead a unified Kuomintang, despite being appointed by Sun Yat-Sen to be the new leader?
|
I know there are other threads about the Chinese Civil War, but I'm very interested in knowing why a split within the KMT happened almost immediately after SYS died.
Were Wang Jing-Wei and a faction of the KMT waiting patiently for SYS to die before they attempted a party takeover, or was this a total failure on the part of CKS to appease different interest groups within the party and within China? Did CKS have any chance to lead a unified KMT (long-term) if he'd decided against the Shanghai massacre?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/fpq5kc/why_couldnt_chiang_kaishek_lead_a_unified/
|
{
"a_id": [
"flnndnk"
],
"score": [
13
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"text": [
"Chiang Kai-shek didn't want to lead a unified KMT. In fact, he totally planned, executed, and then perpetuated the persecution of communists and the CCP from 1926-1937. And to be fair, Sun Yat-sen also had no interest in seeing the party unified with communists either, he was forced to by the USSR who was funding the KMT's Northern Expedition.\n\nThe KMT's creation led it to attract a plethora of plural-minded individuals. The three major groups can be broken down into \"Liberals:\" Those who sought to create a sort of modern capitalist-federation in the likes of the US; \"Communists:\" by 1926, no one had universally agreed to what communism was or meant. They just knew that it had to make China a better, modernized state like it did for Russia in the USSR; and finally \"Nationalists:\" This group is kind of nebulous. Some in recent years have likened them to being fascist minded, while others note that these men adopted their own Chinese concepts of modern military totalitarianism. So Liberals, Communists, and Nationalists, and they're all working \"together\" under a singular party, the KMT. The Chinese didn't really have the whole 'political parties' thing nailed down the way it is in federal state like the US. But they were all unified in one major goal: Unite China, Modernize China, and Make China Great Again by any means possible!\n\n**Solidifying Chiang's Power; the Canton Coup and the Northern Expedition**\n\nWhen Sun died, there was no real successor for the KMT. Chiang and Sun, although friends, had a very tense political relationship due to Chiang's refusal to cooperate with the CCP. Upon Sun's death, Chiang had an edge over other generals; he was the head of the Whampoa Academy, which meant that he not only had a professional corps of loyal officers, but an army at his disposal located right in Canton. But he himself really had no legitimate means of being the leader of the KMT in the eyes of every other KMT general. They were all the same; a group of former cadets trained in the art of military at the Imperial Japan Military Academy that were unified by their youthful bravado to return to a fragmented homeland and not just unify it, but also turn it into a great world power that could stand up to the Westerners. All of them would play a key role in modern Chinese history, and *most* of them wanted the leadership role, along with various politicians.\n\nChiang needed to act fast if he was to keep his position as head of KMT, or even his head. Chiang chose a combination pretty common to most dictators, assassinating/arresting those who could threaten him, and then accelerating war preparation to give other generals something to be busy with other than plotting his demise. One of the first things he did upon the death of Sun was killing Liao Zhongkai and arresting Hu Hanmin, getting rid of two potential rivals. Next, Chiang instigated the \"Canton Coup\" (also known as the Zhongshan Incident), where he used his power as head of the Whampoa Military Academy to attack certain communists, arresting Zhou Enlai and exiling Wang Jingwei, but also in the process forcing Soviet advisers to flee. Despite the close calls and tensions, Stalin decided to continue his backing of Chiang and the CCP stayed as an artery of the KMT, though not for long.\n\nAfter ensuring he had control over the communists, Chiang then had to deal with fellow military generals. They weren't communists and they all weren't unified in who should replace Chiang, but many were convinced that Chiang should be disposed, a feeling that would soon dissipate as Japanese aggression became more and more belligerent. In order to cull the generals, Chiang basically took a gamble; he would launch the Northern Expedition in 1926 rather than later, against the advice of the Soviet advisers the year prior. Today we know the NE was a stunning success in many ways for the KMT, although it ultimately fell short. But at the time there was no guarantee the campaign would succeed. Fortunately for Chiang, as the KMT Army marched further north it became apparent that certain warlords had no real allegiance to their leaders, and Chiang's willingness to use what he called \"Silver Bullets\" (Bribes) meant that most of the warlords fell apart quite quickly; some even proved to be loyal allies in the future (Tang Shengzhi). But by 1928, Chiang was the undisputed leader of the KMT due to a combination of a successful war solidifying his leadership and him assassinating or exiling potential rivals."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
cccv40
|
A question about how American right-wing religious rhetoric shifted around the end of the Cold War
|
During the 1980s, in keeping with the American political climate, some apocalyptic-minded right-wingers predicted that the Soviet Union would be a major antagonist in the biblical armageddon. By necessity, this rhetoric changed by the early 1990s once the Soviet Union dissolved. But had it already begun changing during Reagan's second term, when he and Gorbachev worked to improve relations?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/cccv40/a_question_about_how_american_rightwing_religious/
|
{
"a_id": [
"etnm0gd"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"The soviet union's potential connection to scripture was based on a relatively pragmatic reading of the passages regarding Gog and Magog. These are the two allied forces that are supposed to invade Israel. Gog and Magog have long been thought to be connected with the scythians(and central asia), who would have existed in area largely occupied by the soviet union. Having both the army and the geographic positioning, they simply fit the prophetic bill most closely. But as the USSR broke up and no longer regarding as nearly as an imposing military power, they simply seem to be less and less likely to fit the bill for being gog/magog."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
3guv9b
|
why does it feel so nice/good to sing along to a song?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3guv9b/eli5_why_does_it_feel_so_nicegood_to_sing_along/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cu1o5pf"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"There's complicated theories behind why this happens but basically we get pleasure out of having an anticipation satisifed, which is why \"catchy\" songs tend to have repetitive lyrics and melodies which you can easily catch on to and remember. Since you know what's coming, you have an anticipation which is then satisfied when you hear the actual part of the song you're anticipating, triggering a pleasurable response. Singing along enhances the effect. Add the factors of \"letting loose\" and if you happen to not be alone sharing something with others and all adds up to the good feeling.\n\nEdit: \"As scores of theorists and philosophers have noted...music is based on repetition. Music works because we remember the tones we have just heard and are relating them to the ones that are just now being played. Those groups of tones—phrases—might come up later in the piece in a variation or transposition that tickles our memory system at the same time as it activates our emotional centers...Repetition, when done skillfully by a master composer, is emotionally satisfying to our brains, and makes the listening experiences as pleasurable as it is.\" From _URL_0_\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repetition_%28music%29"
]
] |
||
1010j5
|
why is reddit composed mostly of male, middle class liberals?
|
I can understand why most of Reddit is white (b/c most Americans are white, obviously) and why most of Reddit are young adult or teenage (b/c they tend to be more net-savvy). But I can't think of a reason of why Reddit would appeal particularly to liberal, middle class men.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1010j5/eli5_why_is_reddit_composed_mostly_of_male_middle/
|
{
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"c69gxvb",
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12,
5,
6,
5,
2
],
"text": [
"Reasonable conjecture:\n\nBecause young teenagers tend to be more liberal.\n\nAlso, reddit draws a lot of focus towards technology related issues, which men are on average more interested in.\n\nFinally, middle class americans have more free time to blow on reddit then lower class americans.\n\nAlso, upper class americans are less numerous.",
"First off America is not the only place on Earth that Reddit can be accessed. Secondly, I don't think that there are necessarily that many more white, liberal, middle class men on Reddit than other groups, they just have the loudest voice (aka most power). It's like looking at the US congress and wondering why everyone in the US is an old white man. ",
"This is a very broad generalization based on a very small sampling, but in my personal (and recent) experience, the Republicans that I know who have tried Reddit get bored / annoyed very quickly. They're not interested in \"discussion\" or \"dialog\" or \"the conversation\". Reddit looks like a giant mess to them, and they're more interested in easy answers anyway, ones that they already agree with. They're right, you're wrong, there's no point in talking about it. One of them hangs out of some of the more obscure gaming subreddits, but that's it. I couldn't get one of them to spend any time on here at all, even on /r/Cincinnati which is a town he's ape about. \n\nTL;DR - Repub friends think that all of Reddit needs a TL;DR that agrees with them.",
"This is a faulty assumpton. Honestly there are a lot more women than you'd expect. \n\n\nAlso, the UK, and most of Europe is fairly active on here. More than I've seen I'm sure. I only notice because they talk funny.\n\n\n(Totally kidding.)\n\n\nAlso, what makes you think they are all middle class? Certainly you could expect a bias towards people who can afford an internet/cell connection, but that hardly tells me their income.\n\nUnless you've done a survey, I'm not sure your assumption is accurate.\n\n",
"We're the only ones who have enough free time at our desk jobs to surf the internet during the day. Lower class people (often conservative) tend to be working physical jobs without internet access and/or the time to use it. Super rich people are too busy making more money to surf reddit."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
7r7a6k
|
if one company buys out another company for a monetary fee, wouldn’t the money go back to the parent company, therefore the parent company essentially gained capital for free since they own the other company? how does that work?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7r7a6k/eli5_if_one_company_buys_out_another_company_for/
|
{
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"text": [
"No, because when the company is bought it is bought from its owners. You know, the shareholders? They get the money from the buyout.\n\nThe only way it would stay with the company is if the company owned itself which is silly.",
"Nope. A company, just like most stuff, have an owner. This is confusing, because when you buy a car from Tesla, the money goes to the company. This is because the company owned the car.\n\nHowever, you buy Tesla the company, the money doesn't go to the company (that will be stupid, like you pointed that out) the money will go to the previous owner of the company, in this case, Elon Musk and a few other owner. ",
"To keep it simple;\nWhen you see a \"buyout\" that amount of money is being paid to the original owners of the company, whether divided by the shares if a public company or all to one person if a private company, not the company itself.\n\nIt's essentially the price paid by a new owner to obtain ownership from the old."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
23mmq9
|
Can Allergies be inherited? If not, how do they develop?
|
I've also heard of allergies that can form over the course of a person's life. How does this happen? If allergies can be inherited, why hasn't natural selection filtered out the severe ones?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/23mmq9/can_allergies_be_inherited_if_not_how_do_they/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cgyi8l7"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Your immune system is constantly creating new antibodies. It does this basically by throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks, except with DNA from a certain region of the genome. Allergic reactions happen when the immune system recognizes a substance (such as peanut proteins or pollen) as dangerous and vehemently mounts a response against it, when the substance really is not dangerous. You can be predisposed to this, or you could develop it by the immune system creating a new antibody against, for example, shellfish protein, and deciding this was a good antibody to have, causing you to swell up in hives the next time you had shrimp. This is a very simplified explanation, of course.\n\nNatural selection has not filtered out severe ones simply because they have not killed a sufficient proportion of people having them before they could reproduce, the same reason other lethal or debilitating diseases are have not been filtered out."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
a2fowe
|
What does "thinness" or "thickness" of air imply and how does it happen and change?
|
askscience
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/a2fowe/what_does_thinness_or_thickness_of_air_imply_and/
|
{
"a_id": [
"eayjsys"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"Thick and thin are referring to density, I.e. how much air is contained in a given volume. On planets like earth the atmosphere's density changes because gravity pulls it down. The air high in the atmosphere pushes down on the air lower in the atmosphere, compressing it and increasing its density. So, in places with high altitudes, the air is less dense (thinner) and so it can feel harder to breathe because you have to work harder to get the same amount of oxygen."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
1d7q56
|
John D. Rockefeller - man of greed or a visionary?
|
I'm working on a presentation about Standard Oil Company and i did some research on this topic in internet, but unforunately i have a problem with determining which sources are reliable since they vary from describing Rockefeller as a greedy man that used violence and unfair monopolistic strategies (such as _URL_1_ or slightly less dramatic: _URL_0_) to a great visionary (_URL_2_)
I'm a bit confused, is it maybe just the truth lies in the middle, or simply one side is wrong? Maybe u can recommend me some better sources? Thanks in advance!
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1d7q56/john_d_rockefeller_man_of_greed_or_a_visionary/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c9npmqd"
],
"score": [
11
],
"text": [
"I doubt you'll get a meaningful answer. 'Man of greed' and 'visionary' are personal judgements. So what causes some to call Rockefeller a man of greed causes others to call him a visionary. \n\nThat said, I'd seriously reconsider those 'sources' you posted. The first seems to be a site about Linux, the second one is an activist group and the third one... well, it's an objectivist shill site, meaning you shouldn't trust a word it says. (I mean, \"Reason, egoism and capitalism.\"? Really?) Try to look for more academic sources and consider each one: who wrote this? Why did they write this? Is it trustworthy? etc"
]
}
|
[] |
[
"http://www.crf-usa.org/bill-of-rights-in-action/bria-16-2-b-rockefeller-and-the-standard-oil-monopoly.html",
"http://www.linfo.org/standardoil.html",
"http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2008-summer/standard-oil-company.asp"
] |
[
[]
] |
|
1cu0ra
|
Why did Germany colonize Africa in the late 1800s and what did they gain from it?
|
Was it just because of economic reasons?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1cu0ra/why_did_germany_colonize_africa_in_the_late_1800s/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c9jyus7",
"c9jz45b"
],
"score": [
13,
9
],
"text": [
"I agree with czela's point, but I'd like to expand a bit. There were really two types of Imperialism: Old Imperialism and New Imperialism. The Old Imperialism consisted of the exploration of the New World and the search of spices. The motives for this exploration was mostly gold (economic), God (the spread of Christianity), and for king (prestige, ability for a nation to claim land). This imperialism led to the discovery and claiming of North America, the Far East, and parts of South America. \n\nThere were 4 main motives for New Imperialism: Jingo/The Great Game(the idea that a nation was measured by how much land they controlled and the race for colonies), national unity(it's a political unifier for a nation), discovery/adventure(the idea of going to an unknown land to discover things and battle with nature), and the White Man's Burden (the idea that Europe and white men were the best and they needed to spread their knowledge/government/culture with the rest of the world). \n\nEdit: In the New Imperialism, many nations actually lost money. An example in Africa was the race between Britain and France to build the first trans-African railroad, which was a huge economic endeavor that failed. ",
"There were a wide range of reasons for Germany's colonization of Africa, especially after the Berlin Conference. During the Scramble for Africa, Germany had only recently unified and was still trying to establish itself as a power on the European continent. So while economic factors were certainly at play, I would argue that they were not the most important. Instead, the rising power that was Germany saw Africa as a way to establish itself amongst the other European powers (France, Britain). In colonizing Africa, Germany (as well as other European states) established its own legitimacy. Czela and blackirishboy both argue that prestige was important; it was *especially important* in Germany's case.\n\nAnother reason for colonization that isn't discussed here is balance of power. In fact, this may have been Bismarck's greatest motivation for holding the Berlin Conference, which formally divided the African continent amongst the European powers. Bismarck knew that in order to prevent war from breaking out on the continent, the European powers had to be roughly balanced against each other. As European states grabbed up colonies, the balance of power began to shift. The Berlin Conference was the only way to right that balance in a peaceful manner. As a way of maintaining that balance, Germany took a few colonies but not nearly as much as France or Britain."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
107ntk
|
how does the "vote weight" system work--on reddit/res and elsewhere?
|
when i say "vote weight," im talking about the little number beside peoples usernames on RES, that you can change. How does that--and the idea of weighted votes in general--work? What happens if i give myself or someone else an exorbitantly large vote weight? also, i did a google search, and *what does the creator of xkcd* (the webcomic) *have to do with any of this?!*
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/107ntk/eli5_how_does_the_vote_weight_system_workon/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c6b4szh"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"Vote weight simply tracks the total net points you have given to a certain person. The ability to manually set it to whatever number is a novelty feature. \n\nAlso, I believe the creator of xkcd (Randall Munroe) wrote reddit's ranking algorithm."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
6hcy6x
|
how does championship unification in boxing work, and how do championships get separated again?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6hcy6x/eli5_how_does_championship_unification_in_boxing/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dixjgdp",
"dixkcdi"
],
"score": [
2,
4
],
"text": [
"First things first. Boxing matches are not organised by a central governing body or league the way that say tennis tournaments are. Instead they are organised privately between two individual fighters (usually by a promoter) as a commercial arrangement where one fighter pays the other to fight and they both agree to a certain split of profits. You might be thinking then, \"how do they stop rich but not very talented fighters from buying title fights until they win one by luck. \n\nThe answer is, the world governing body for professional boxing of which there are at least five. These bodies sanctioning title fights, which means each governing body sets qualifying rules for boxers to qualify for a shot at their title. This prevents random rich challengers from having a lucky win.\n\nSometimes the holder of say a WBC title will decide that they want to try and win the WBA title as well. This fighter then arranges the right qualifying fights according to WBA rules and eventually is in a position to be granted permission by the WBA to fight the current their champion for the title. Then this fighter needs to convince the current champion to take the fight. If the details can be worked out the fight goes ahead and if the challenger wins, the titles are unified. If the challenger loses, they each go home with their original title (since the WBC hasn't sanctioned so the fight won't resolve that title).\n\nOn occasion both governing bodies may co-sanction, meaning each fighter has met the others qualifying rules and permission has been given for both titles to be on the line. In this case, the winner takes both titles and the loser gets nothing (except a fat pay cheque).\n\nOnce titles are unified, they can be split apart again very easily. Since they are each governed by different bodies, a challenger needs to meet the qualifying criteria of and get the permission of both bodies in order to challenge for both titles at the same time. If a challenger only meets the criteria of one body, then if they win a title fight, the challenger only takes home one title. If the other governing body doesn't give permission for the fight, then their title can't change hands, and it stays with the current champion regardless of the outcome. \n\nIf a unified champion retires while holding titles, each governing body has it's own rules governing how to appoint a new champion, meaning that it is most likely that each title will pass to a different new champion. ",
"In boxing, there are 4 major sanctioning bodies that offer World Championship titles. (The WBO, WBA, WBC, and IBF)\n\nSo in each weight class, there are four world championship titles. That means in each weight class up to four separate fighters can each say they are the world champion in that weight class. (There's actually more than 4, explanation below)\n\nFor example, lets take a look at the world champions in the welterweight division.\n\nOrganization |Fighter |\n---------|----------|\nWBA| Keith Thurman | \nWBC| Keith Thurman | \nIBF| Errol Spence\nWBO| Manny Pacquiao\n\nSo basically, Keith Thurman is the welterweight champion of the world. Manny Pacquiao is also the welterweight champion of the world. In addition, Errol Spence is also the welterweight champion of the world. They each have a championship title from a different sanctioning body. (Yeah, it's a bit strange)\n\nA Championship unification occurs when two world champions fight each-other. The winner gets both championship titles: the one they already had, and the one other fight had. In this division, you will notice that Keith Thurman has two championship titles, from the WBA and from the WBC. This is because he unified them. He held the WBA championship title and then fought and defeated Danny Garcia, who held the WBC championship title. Therefore, Thurman now has both of those titles.\n\nLets says that Manny Pacquiao and Keith Thurman agree to fight each-other. That will mean that three championship titles are on the line. Both of Thurman's and Pacquiao's WBO title. The winner will unify all three. \n\nWhen championship titles are unified, there are many ways that they can separated:\n\n*If a boxer retires while holding multiple championship titles, the titles are vacated and each sanctioning body will then have two new boxers fight for the titles. \n\n*Fighters have to pay a sanctioning fee to the each of the organizations. So sometimes, they will voluntarily drop one of their titles and only keep one to avoid the fees.\n\n*Each sanctioning body has their own rules. If a fighter is inactive for a period of time, their title can get stripped. If they reject a mandatory opponent pushed by the sanctioning body, they can also get stripped of the title. \n\nThere are so many other factors that I didn't bring up. It's gets really bizarre and confusing when it comes to boxing titles. For example, there's really 5 titles in each division because one the sanctioning bodies decided to split their titles and offer a \"super\" and \"regular\" version. Also when two championship boxers fight each-other, their titles are not always automatically on the line. Sometimes they'll choose not fight for them for various reasons, like not wanting to pay sanctioning fees. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
1g6acn
|
If global warming continues at its current rate is sea level rise an inevitability? If it is what will the rate be?
|
I'm just wondering if maybe in 40 years it would be a good idea to buy property that isn't near the coast.
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1g6acn/if_global_warming_continues_at_its_current_rate/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cah74zm"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"First, sea level rise isn't an inevitability, in the sense that it will happen some time in the future. It is happening now, and it has been happening quite steadily since the start of the increase in greenhouse gasses released into the atmosphere through anthropogenic behaviours about a century ago.\n\nFrom the [IPCC](_URL_0_) documents on sea level rise we find out that there are two major contributing forces to sea level rise: thermal expansion and the exchange of water reservoirs (i.e. the melting of land-ice like Greenland or Antarctica). \"Global mean sea level change results from two major processes, that alter the volume of water in the global ocean: i) thermal expansion and ii) the exchange of water between oceans and other reservoirs (glaciers and ice caps, ice sheets, other land water reservoirs - including through anthropogenic change in land hydrology, and the atmosphere.\n\n**What were past sea levels like?**\n\n\"Global sea level rose by about 120 m during the several millennia that followed the end of the last ice age (approximately 21,000 years ago), and stabilised between 3,000 and 2,000 years ago. Sea level indicators suggest that global sea level did not change significantly from then until the late 19th century. The instrumental record of modern sea level change shows evidence for onset of sea level rise during the 19th century. Estimates for the 20th century show that global average sea level rose at a rate of about 1.7 mm/yr.\"\n\n**What are current rates of sea level rise?**\n\n\"Satellite observations available since the early 1990s provide more accurate sea level data with nearly global coverage. This decade-long satellite altimetry data set shows that since 1993, sea level has been rising at a rate of around 3 mm yr–1, significantly higher than the average during the previous half century.\"\n\n**What do the climate models predict?**\n\nThe IPCC has 6 models which they input real data into. Because human behaviour modifies the scenario 6 models have been created. The first model assumes we do everything within our power to reduce emissions and mitigate climate change. The last model assumes we do nothing, and in fact increase our emissions. \n\nIn the best case scenario they predict a sea level rise of 0.28m by 2100, in the worst case scenario they predict a sea level rise of 0.43m by 2100. Now we all know humans havn't exactly been following the best scenario, and more recent studies have pointed towards a sea level rise closer to the worst case scenario (or worse then that). So *I* wouldn't bank on a sea level rise lower then ~0.43m by 2100.\n\nNow 0.43m might not seem like much but...using this [site](_URL_1_) or a similar one you can see what 1m change can do to low lying areas like many large costal metropolitan cities (New York) or island nations (South Pacific). Basically they are flooded. Back at the [IPCC](_URL_2_) site you can get more details about how specific areas (rocky shores vs. deltas) or how different economic situations (able to mitigate or not) will be effected by sea level rise.\n\nWhen people say that \"If Greenland and Antarctica melt it will 200+ feet sea level rise\". This is more or less pretty accurate statement, but what they fail to state is the time scale on which this will take place. It won't be over night, more like a few to several centuries. However, there is a \"tipping point\" where if we pass a certain level of warming we won't be able to stop them from melting - like a run away train - it will happen, eventually.\n\n > I'm just wondering if maybe in 40 years it would be a good idea to buy property that isn't near the coast.\n\nDepends... are you buying a house on a low-lying delta floodplain? or are you buying a house on a very high cliff that overlooks the sea? Not all shores will be affected the same way. \n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch5s5-5.html",
"http://geology.com/sea-level-rise/",
"http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg2/en/ch6s6-3-2.html"
]
] |
|
3d1qjf
|
why is it when you take a nap, you get indents and marks from your sheets/body, but when you sleep normally you don't?
|
example of what I mean: _URL_0_
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3d1qjf/eli5_why_is_it_when_you_take_a_nap_you_get/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ct11nbh"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"There would be no difference, other than when you sleep normally you move around a lot so you're not in one position for long enough for your skin to be indented. When you take a nap you tend to move less as you only really enter 1 R.E.M. cycle."
]
}
|
[] |
[
"http://imgur.com/CNTD6nY"
] |
[
[]
] |
|
1lr9oc
|
why do(almost) all police cars use the same car/model?
|
I noticed that even narcs use them. I mean I understand for the typical not undercover police people. But what about those that follow cars. I mean if there was an all black police model car with tinted windows I would know something is up. But if I was followed by a different car I probably wouldn't notice. Now I know they use the Ford models because they're American. But not all the cars have to be the same.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1lr9oc/why_doalmost_all_police_cars_use_the_same_carmodel/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cc1yfb3",
"cc1ym2r",
"cc1yq6z"
],
"score": [
6,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"buy in bulk for a cheaper rate.",
"Buying a lot of the same model means you get bulk rates as well as make maintenance easier. \n\nAnd for unmarked cars they do often use different models, and sometimes have the police use their personal vehicles. ",
"Only a few cars are designed to be turned into police cars. They have to have more powerful engines, brakes, electrical systems, alternators, plus they have to have adjustments you may not even think of.\n\nFor example, my Charger has a really wide center console because standard police equipment like radios are 9\" wide. And the cruise control is on the wheel instead of on the steering column, because the police model has a column mounted shifter."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
2rin7h
|
How would a vaccine against a different strain of flu minimize symptoms of the other flu?
|
Last night on NBC Nightly News, Dr. Nancy Snyderman stated that individuals who got the flu vaccine are still very much at risk this year to catch the flu due to the strain changing from what I understand. She ended the report claiming that those who got the flu shot will see lighter or less symptoms. Is this true or is this a journalists way to not discourage the audience to skip the shot next year? How does this work?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2rin7h/how_would_a_vaccine_against_a_different_strain_of/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cnggvoc",
"cnghx74"
],
"score": [
2,
6
],
"text": [
"It's true, the vaccine will still afford some protection. The best way to think of this might be to use an analogy. Imagine a crime is committed by someone named influenza, and the police have a sketch artist come in. Say the sketch is perfect -- now law enforcement everywhere can easily catch the criminal if he shows up someplace. This example might be a good vaccine.\n\nNow imagine, same situation, but the sketch is not all that great. Law enforcement now know to look for a particular type of person, but they aren't as well informed and there's a larger chance of something slipping by them.\n\nA vaccine is basically a \"most wanted\" poster for your body, that tells your immune system what to look for based on particles which are found on the surface of a virus like the flu (these are called an epitope, for example). Other viruses which are closely related to the flu will not have the exact same particles on their surface, but there may be a decent amount of common features shared by the particles found on the surface of each type of the virus. If there are enough similarities, the most wanted poster aka vaccine will still be helpful in recognizing the virus and mounting a defense. ",
"The immune system fights viruses and bacteria by recognizing foreign [antigens](_URL_3_). There are essentially two arms of adaptive immunity: humoral and cellular. The humoral response is the one people are most familiar with, as most people know about antibodies and how they target pathogens that might be a part of an infection.\n\nThe cellular arm on the other hand is responsible for taking out virus-infected cells, among other things. [Cytotoxic T cells](_URL_0_) learn to recognize foreign peptides that are presented by cells, and once they receive a signal from an infected cell (in the form of a viral peptide attached to an [MHC class I molecule](_URL_4_)), the T cell will kill the infected cell.\n\nThe proteins which are known to be highly mutable in influenza, the hemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA), are located on the outside of viral particles and are therefore common targets for neutralizing antibodies. Other viral proteins, such as the viral polymerase proteins PB1, PB2, and PA are [highly conserved](_URL_2_) among different strains of flu. The immune system mounts a response against all viral proteins. While antibodies may be made against viral proteins other than HA and NA, they will be unable to bind them as they're either sequestered within viral particles or within infected cells.\n\nCytotoxic T cells on the other hand, can respond to otherwise sequestered proteins that are presented as fragments on the surface of infected cells. Highly conserved [epitopes](_URL_1_) in flu PB1, PB2, and PA are common targets for these T cells, and so these T cells can effectively react across different strains of influenza, providing some protection as opposed to none at all."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytotoxic_T_cell",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epitope",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conserved_sequence",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antigen",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MHC_class_I"
]
] |
|
1aim9n
|
How diverse was the Mongol Empire at its peak?
|
I'm curious as to what Giovanni da Pian del Carpine saw while at the great Kurultai. Was it a mix of Asians, Arabs and Europeans?
Basically I'm really curious to learn about the diversity of the Mongolian empire. Did the majority of cultures get assimilated when conquered or did the Mongols allow the respective cultures to remain largely unchanged?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1aim9n/how_diverse_was_the_mongol_empire_at_its_peak/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c8xsdz0"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"Carpine came a little bit early for the diversity that would define the [Pax Mongolica.](_URL_0_) However, within the next 100-200 years the mongol empire was extremely diverse. Kublai khan was heavily influenced by the chinese during his reign, and later many leaders were influenced by islam and arabic architecture. From roughly 1250 to 1350 the mongol empire was extraordinarily diverse. Local cultures were left alone, and artisans from southeast asia and other parts of the empire were brought to the west to \"re-construct\" samarkand by Timur. \n\nThe mongols did everything they could to facilitate trade from one end of the empire to the other, naturally the exchange of cultural beliefs would follow suit. Religious tolerance was enforced, and this played to their benefit. When The mongols attacked Khwarezm, the other muslim leaders would not join the fight, believing it wasn't a \"holy war\", as the mongols had always been tolerant of islam. They also promoted the arts and cultural exchanges in other ways; lawyers, teachers, and artists were exempt from taxation and could freely travel the empire on excellent roads. At the very top of the hierarchy, I don't believe there were many foreigners however. If someone had foreign people in places of great power, it probably would have been kublai khan with the chinese."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pax_Mongolica"
]
] |
|
5tblop
|
Why is the major key considered cheerful and the minor key considered sad? Is this a nurtured trait or a natural predisposition?
|
askscience
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/5tblop/why_is_the_major_key_considered_cheerful_and_the/
|
{
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"ddm3pgf",
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1324,
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"text": [
"Great question. \nA few things that I'd like to point to which I think might contribute to the discussion.\nThe relative degree of consonance/dissonance is directly associated with the number of cycles that are required before 2 (or more) notes repeat their pattern. e.g. in a unison it is a 1:1 ratio and so the two notes are considered consonant. Whereas the tritone/A4/D5 is an irrational number which when we use the same criteria takes the biggest number of cycles before resolution/repetition of the pattern compared to other intervals. Some other intervals, depending on the tuning system used, are 5:4 or 3:2 which resolve faster than the tritone and so, are described as consonant. You can complete the mathematics for any chord and this holds up to any cultural ordering of consonance/dissonance that I am aware of. \nWhen comparing the major key to the minor key in western music, we have a set of melodic and harmonic structures that are common to both. What is happening here is that these two keys, while both considered consonant have slightly different variations. They are tied together and comparable largely due to the dominant - > tonic (V-I, whatever you want to call it) which gives us a cadence. When you compare the harmonies found in these two keys and the intervals used to create the melodies, the minor key is slightly more dissonant than the major key. Given this is the case, and making some assumptions that brains all process patterns in a similar way (big assumption, i know) I think we have an argument for a natural predisposition due to slower pattern recognition in the minor key. Perhaps the minor key lends itself to slower tempo so as to allow time for melodies/harmonies to process, this may make the association stronger.",
"There's a lot of unscientific speculation in the answers to this post, and repetition of folk stories of music composition that were discredited by psychoacoustic research in the mid 20th century.\n\n[actual research](_URL_0_) has shown that some characteristics of music (lively vs. calming) tend to generalize between cultures while others (positive vs. negative affect) are unrecognizable outside of their original context.",
"There has been many instances of non-westerners hearing our music for the first time. Some groups of peoples were quite remote. They felt sadness in slow minor songs immediately. A few studies were done as well. [One scientific article on the matter](_URL_0_)",
"(I'm stealing a bit of a post I made in r/BABYMETAL )I'd like to point out, as a musician and amateur composer, that the supposition that minor keys are 'sad' is overblown. A good example is the fact that Bach's _Tocatta and Fugue,_ Mozart's _Der Holle Rache_ from the Magic Flute and Beethoven's _Ninth Symphony_ are all in D Minor (which, according to SpinalTap is the 'saddest key') sound completely different. The first is not sad at all. The second goes back and forth from sad to not sad by way of 'verse' and 'chorus' and the last is majestic and powerful: three totally different uses of the same key signature.\n\n[Tocatta and Fugue](_URL_1_)\n\n[Der Holle Rache](_URL_0_) as performed by the incomparable Diana Damrau: skip to 2:10 to skip the intro.\n\n[9th Symphony, 4th movement](_URL_2_)",
"As far as I know there is no definitive answer, only theories. I will attempt to introduce a few theories I have heard of, but this list is not going to be complete. \n\n**Theory 1: It is natural because of the way scales are constructed**\n\nA scale is a way of ordering notes. In western music we mainly use two scales, called major and minor mode. Music theory is used to explain the relation between different tones and chords of a scale. Each tone and chord has a certain [function](_URL_1_). For example the first chord, called tonic, acts as the tonal center. In a major key this center is based upon a major chord and quality. A song in minor will carry a different mood because the relationship between tones is different, since it is centered around a minor chord and quality. \n > The minor scale leads to a new sonic space in which to explore.\n\nMusic impacts our emotions and different scales/modes are going to impact us differently. \n\n**Theory 2: It is natural because of the way our brain and ears work**\n\nIn music there is the concept of tension and resolution. Intervals and therefore chords either lead to more tension or resolve some tension. Just like a well written book a piece of music also has to balance the relationship between tension and resolution. We can translate a tone into a frequency and when we do it with two we can calculate the ratio of them. As it turns out our brain loves hearing certain ratios more than others. We feel these ratios, associate them with the feeling of tension and resolution, and therefore with certain emotions. The difference between major and minor chords is that a major chord uses a major third for its second note, while a minor chord uses a minor third for its second note. This leads to different ratios and therefore to a different feel. A major chord is more pleasing to our ear, since it has less tension. This is why we associate it with being happy or cheerful. A minor chord carries more tension, which leads us to believe it sounds sad. A song in major relies mainly on major chords, so it also sounds more cheerful than a song in minor, which relies mainly on minor chords.\n\n**Theory 3: It is nurtured because of tradition**\n\nBefore there was a device capable of analyzing the frequency of a tone, musicians had to tune by ear. This was done by comparing certain pitches, having absolute hearing is rare. And since that was not an exact science there were a few tuning systems used to determine the interval between two notes. Since these intervalls were so uneven each key would have a certain characteristic. [Here is a page listing how people would describe these characteristics](_URL_4_). You might notice that major keys are desribed in positive, cheerful ways - and minor keys as sad. What does that mean for today? The system we use now is called equal temperament,\n > every pair of adjacent notes is separated by the same interval.\n\nThis means it is possible to play the same song in different keys but also that there should no longer be any characteristics. However I have heard some people argue that there is still a bit of character difference in every key. And if you go to [this website](_URL_0_) and play around with the keys a bit you might notice a difference in character on some songs. And since music heavily relies on tradition it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to think that the descriptions still carried over and became generalized to major = happy minor= sad.\n[See Wikipedia for more information about this](_URL_2_)\n\nEnglish is not my mother tongue so I hope I didn't make too many mistakes.\nI was also able to find some more theories on [Quora](_URL_3_).\n\nSource: I have played guitar for a decade and music was a main subject in my final two years of school.",
"Most of our association with major/minor happy/sad [is a result of cultural conditioning ](_URL_0_).\n\nThe associations break down if you've grown up with, say, Eastern music. Traditional Japanese or Bali gamelan. ",
"This requires as much musical theory as it does scientific knowledge. Given that the basics seem to be: \n\nIf you go back to a classic work like *Sensations of Tone* by Herman Helmholtz, you will find discussions of looking at the amount of dissonance in different musical chords, etc. This is discussed there in great detail. \n\nPure tuning vs modern tuning makes a difference in these calculations. but the overall principles remain effective.\n\nDissonance can be defined as a measure of the relative *discernable* complexity of a sound or a collection of sounds. Noise is very complex, but is outside the the practical limit of human hearing to resolve or distinguish differences\n\nEssentially, major chords are less dissonant than minor chords, even though minor chords are now considered consonant. Minor chords show a more complex structure in terms of frequency relationships.\n\nNow we make the jump to human reaction and emotion. \n\nTo the degree that you can differentiate between the quality of sound, you can have different reactions and emotions to the different qualities of sound. \n\nThe reaction to a simpler or \"purer\" sound can be calmer and more pleasant than the reaction to more complex sound. Different people have different tolerances for the amount and variety of complexity they like. It varies, and is also a matter of experience and education.\n\nThis can be played with in many different ways when creating a piece of music. It applies to all sorts of musical textures and sounds. The quality of sound that dominates in a work of music colors the emotions.\n\nThis sound quality of small amounts of dissonance in the minor key can be interpreted as sadness or dissatisfaction of some sort. \n\nDepending on familiarity and education, the quality and variety of emotion experienced differs greatly.\n\nThere is a lot of research on this. \n\n---\nEDIT: Here is an example of a recent research paper on this which examines the matter is far more technical detail that the above introductory discussion.\n\n* [Tonal consonance parameters link microscopic and macroscopic properties of music exposing a hidden order in melody](_URL_0_)\n\n---\nProfessional composers, especially those for movies, etc use a variety of musical principles, tricks, and effects to manipulate emotions with great expertise. This idea of relative simplicity vs complexity is one of them.",
"Major keys contain natural physical harmonies with little dissonance. When you analyze the waveforms of a major chord, the separate frequencies sync up nicely.\n\nMinor keys contain more dissonance, meaning that when you analyze the waveforms, the separate frequencies do not cycle together. They are \"out of sync\" on a physical level.\n\nI know a lot of people want to claim that sounds are purely subjective art, but they're not. Sounds are waveforms. If you select frequencies at intervals that coincide, they're going to sound good to your ear.\n\nLayer together waveforms with intervals that do not coincide and your ear will be able to tell that the dissonance makes the waveforms clash with one another.",
"One has to look at different cultures also. Iranian love songs, or Georgian plowing songs, for instance, can been in, what a westerner would consider, dissonant or \"minor\" (non well temperament) keys and will be about happiness and prosperity. Also one should consider that scientifically, well temperament, the basis of most western popular music, is very dissonant when looking at the relationship of notes in a chord. Also there are many other scales. You have scales like Dorian, Mixolydian, Harmonic Minor, Lydian and the like which can definitely convey some more nuanced emotions. ",
"When you play what we call a single note, you will actually hear a whole series of subtle notes alongside the main one - which we call the fundamental. These notes are called overtones.\n\nThe octave, fourth, fifth and major third are all in the overtones which will be heard upon playing a note. The prominence of each of those is a big factor in defining the timbre of the instrument.\n\nThe minor third, being an undertone, isn't usually heard.\n\nTherefore, when a fundamental and its minor third are played, there is a strong dissonance between the overtone of the major third and the minor third. This dissonance creates a feeling of instability or weakness, which we associate with sadness.",
"It is not considered that. Jewish \"happy\" music is in what would be considered western minor keys.\n\nMany eastern scales are equivalent of minor scales in the west, many scales are neither major nor minor, and plenty of \"happy\" music use blue notes or minor scales.\n\nYou can also modify feel of scale by tempo changes. A minor scale played fast in the west could easily be more cheerful than a major scale played slowly.\n\nPhysically, minor scales have less sympathetic harmonics than major scales. Dissonance is perceived differently in different musical contexts as well as cultural.",
"The \"Hava Negilah\" from Jewish culture is actually sung in a minor key, as are most other Jewish songs and prayers. Seeing as Hava Negilah is sung at weddings and other celebrations, I'd suggest that it's completely cultural. And I think that lots of the tonality used in Asian cultures also defies Major vs. minor. \n\nExample: _URL_0_",
"In western music major keys were used traditionally for songs of celebration, like happy birthday and london bridge. Through cultural conditioning, we have learned to assosiate these kind of sounds with certain emotions. The same applies for minor keys",
"I did a class project on music therapy years ago which has some insight into this:\n\nJust as a side note the purpose of the study was not to dive too far into alternative therapy but to try an examine the mechanisms that it could work by. For example I found that music tempo effects heart rate and other physiological states (now I know the question is about major and minor, but I think its suggestive that the body can respond to music innately)\n\nWhen it comes to major and minor keys these are created around how notes harmonize with each other. The major third sounds more happy largely because a 3rd in terms of wave frequencies they fit together far more cleanly (in fact if my memory serves simply playing a single note creates the 3rd 5th and other octave frequency waves - not as strong as the played note - think of it as all the different sorts of waves that would travel up and down a string when plucked) anyway so the diminished 3rd or the minor is dissonant with all that, sitting less comfortably into the human ear.\n\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01341/full"
],
[
"http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982209008136"
],
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzFi-7H9TKs",
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ho9rZjlsyYY",
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeT17YeUj5k"
],
[
"https://www.hooktheory.com/theorytab",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diatonic_function",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_tuning",
"https://www.quora.com/Why-do-the-minor-chords-sound-sad-and-major-chords-happy",
"http://biteyourownelbow.com/keychar.htm"
],
[
"http://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/the-science-of-music-why-do-songs-in-a-minor-key-sound-sad-760215"
],
[
"https://arxiv.org/abs/1610.04551"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_musicology"
],
[],
[]
] |
||
fjnn9
|
We seem to agree on the metric system, but why not UTC?
|
I've used the metric system, in the US, since I was a small kid. 'Technical' people applauded that.
I also use UTC.
I've never met anyone else who also uses this. More than a DAE, does anyone know why this is the case? Why do those same 'technical' people abide by something as inane as DST or 'timezones'.
EDIT: For the purposes of this question please consider GMT the same as UTC.
I also use 24-hour time, but that is really just a cosmetic difference.
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/fjnn9/we_seem_to_agree_on_the_metric_system_but_why_not/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c1gf3tf",
"c1gf94r"
],
"score": [
2,
3
],
"text": [
"Because we all like noon to be when the sun is near the top of the sky. Yes we'd all function just as well to call that same event 5 pm, but we like our sun to be at noon, midnight to be the middle of the night, *ante meridiem* to be before noon and *post meridiem* to be after noon.",
"I think there's something interesting to be said here about the fetishization of units of measurement, but I can't quite seem to put words to it at the moment.\n\nMaybe it'll come to me."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
3ophb7
|
why do we, humans need to have wars when we can just talk problems over?u
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ophb7/eli5_why_do_we_humans_need_to_have_wars_when_we/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cvz9eu0",
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"text": [
"You ask me for some ice cream.\n\nI say no.\n\nYou really want the ice cream.\n\nI say no.\n\nI'm the only one with the ice cream.\n\nI say no.\n\nYou try to talk to me nicely about it.\n\nI say no.\n\nYou try to negotiate.\n\nI say no.\n\nYou beg me.\n\nI say no.\n\nYou get fed up and get all your friends to come and force me to share the ice cream.",
"Because talking doesn't help. There are lots of peole driven by power. Putin can't just say \"Hi Ukraine! could you give me crimea thanks\". He has to take it with force. You can't call head of ISIS and say \"Hi guys. Stop killing people. Thanks\". That won't work either.",
"A \"zero-sum game\" is an instance in which, in order for someone to gain something, it must directly correspond to another person losing something.\n\nLife, in general, is a zero sum game.\n\nResources are finite, there is not enough for everyone to have their fill. Influence can not be shared...if it were split, then it wouldn't be very effective influence.\n\nThe idea that people can just \"talk out\" their differences implies that all sides are interested in a solution that is mutually beneficial, this is never the case."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
2j6pyl
|
What are the main differences between Valence Bonding Theory, VSEPR Theory, and Molecular Orbital Theory?
|
I have a basic knowledge of each of the theories but I really want to know how they relate to each other and how they contradict each other.
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2j6pyl/what_are_the_main_differences_between_valence/
|
{
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"cl91pef",
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"text": [
"The best place to start is probably VSEPR theory. VSEPR theory is basically concerned with the geometry taken by the bonds in a certain molecule as a function of basic electron-electron repulsion; bonds between atoms (which constitute the sharing of an electron pair basically at this stage) want to be as far from one another as possible. They also want maximum distance from lone pairs and so you get the basic shapes of small molecules.\nBUT, VSEPR theory just places electron pairs in \"bonds\" or \"lone pairs\" - it doesn't take into account any real notion of quantum function or in other words, it does not concern itself with the nature of the orbitals that are associated with each atom of the molecule, such as methane having a carbon and 4 hydrogens. \n\nThis is where valence bond theory comes in. After Lewis and Kekule, and with the contributions of quantum theory we knew that electrons were localised discreetly between nuclei in orbitals and it was the orbital interactions (overlaps) which gave rise to chemical bonds. So, atomic orbitals being 1s, 2s 2p x/y/z and molecular orbitals being pi and sigma bonds. Each orbital therefore was calculated to have it's shape ( from electron density calculations, but I'm just an organic chem grad so someone could give a much better explanation about the equations etc) and **using** the same ideas of electron repulsion etc. However, having orbital shapes allows a better grasp of reactivity, geometry and bond energy of molecules. \nLike our methane example the contribution of Pauling took into account hybridisation, the mixing of atomic orbitals to account for carbons four bonds, giving 4 sigma molecular orbitals from their overlap and the tetrahedral geometry being a result of equidistance from the 4 orbitals... And each C-H bond is the same energy\n\n...*but they are not in fact equal*! It turns out that [the ESCA spectrum of methane shows 2 peaks corresponding to the removal of electrons from the 4 C-H bonds](_URL_0_). BUT VB theory predicts these should be equal in energy\n\nThis is because of Molecular Orbital Theory (MO). What this model contributes is that in fact, electrons are NOT localised to just bonds between distinct atoms. The orbitals of all the atoms in the molecule are combined in accordance to the *sum of all the atomic orbitals to each molecular orbital* So, for methane again, we have 4 1s orbitals from methane and the 2s, 2p x/y/z orbitals from carbon. This gives 8 possible MO's (because of the symmetry requirement for orbitals) but crucially, this predicts that one molecular orbital will have NO nodes arising from the 2s and 4 1s all bonding interaction, and 3 MO's which each have 1 node because of the contribution of a p orbital. Giving two different C-H bond energies\n\nAgain, I'm just an organic/biochem grad so I hope this helps",
"VSEPR is a subset of valence bond. It's just a way of figuring out molecular geometries.The fundamental difference is that valence bond theory describes bonds as local structures, while molecular orbital treats them as more diffuse and spread out over the whole molecule.\n\nIn VB theory a bond is described by the two adjacent orbitals that go into making the bond. These orbitals are then populated relative to the atoms involved in the relevant bond(s).\n\nIn MO theory all of the contrribtuing orbitals are considered at once and combined, giving orbitals for the whole molecule, rather than just between two atoms. It basically adds up all of the obitals of the atoms in the molecule to make a new set. These orbitals are then poluated to give the over all electronic structure in the molecule.\n\nIn VB theory you could describe methane as consisting of 4 separate C-H sigma bonds. In MO theory you would have 4 orbitals that contribute to those bonds, but they would be spread out over the whole molecule and not pertain to any specific C-H bond."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://books.google.com.au/books?id=g5dYyJMBhCoC&pg=PA38&lpg=PA38&dq=ESCA+spectrum+of+methane&source=bl&ots=vrpWXsPSDK&sig=7iZLKZ1avzMGahQpVylvbAi5sZI&hl=en&sa=X&ei=J_s8VITSGYzn8AXSvYKYAQ&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=ESCA%20spectrum%20of%20methane&f=false"
],
[]
] |
|
2c94jw
|
What were major differences between the Federalist Party and the Democratic Republican Party?
|
I haven't been able to find any sites that go into detail about the differences of the Federalist Party and the Democratic Republican Party. I was hoping you guys here would he able to help me with that.
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2c94jw/what_were_major_differences_between_the/
|
{
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"cjd656l"
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"The key differences were on issues of nationalism and localism. The best way to compare the two parties is to compare their ideological leaders. Alexander Hamilton was a driving force behind the Federalists while Thomas Jefferson was the founder of the old Republican Party (Democratic-Republican, Jeffersonian Republican).\n\nAlexander Hamilton served as Washington's first Secretary of the Treasury (he is on the $10 and the treasury building is on the back of that bill) and he put forward a number of centralizing plans for economics, including a tariff, a national bank, and bounties for industrial production. He wanted to use the power of the newly minted federal government to develop the economic and industrial power of the United States along the lines of the British. \n\nJefferson (First Secretary of State under Washington), on the other hand, was far more in favor of local economics. He supported the yeoman farmers. He wanted America to be run by the states more than the federal government, no tariff as he and his fellows were exporters of raw materials and Europe had more demand for Tobacco and Cotton (a new industry for the USA thanks to the Cotton Gin), and other cash crops than the USA had. He was also more in line with the French over the British. \n\nFrom about 1796 through about 1815 the two parties were dramatically opposed the key issues of economics (plantations or factories), location of political power (national vs local), banking (yes or no), and trade policy (protect our factories or export our goods). \n\nBy the war of 1812 the Federalist party was in shambles. No presidential victory since 1796, only Marshall on the supreme court to have any power, an aborted attempt to break New England off as its own country failed and the party dissolved. The Republican party was unopposed in the election of 1820. \n\nSome good sources to read on these differences would be found by looking up Hamilton's economic plans, the election of 1800 which was a major battle between the two parties for control of the 15 states and the federal government, and the even the war of 1812 which we see the beginning of the end of the Federalist Party.\n\nText sources archive:\n_URL_0_\n\nHamilton's Manufacturing plan: (federalist economic policy)\n_URL_1_\n\nJefferson and Madison's Kentucky resolution: (a reaction to federalist legal policies)\n_URL_2_\n\nI hope these help answer your question."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/era.cfm?eraID=4&smtID=3",
"http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=3&psid=265",
"http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=3&psid=4127"
]
] |
|
118vdb
|
If we were to create a bottomless vacuum on Earth and dropped a ball in it, could it ever reach a "terminal velocity?"
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/118vdb/if_we_were_to_create_a_bottomless_vacuum_on_earth/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c6kbgb8",
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"text": [
"So just to be clear, you mean you apply a constant force forever on something in a vacuum?\n\nIn this case, it would accelerate forever. It wouldn't ever reach a terminal velocity, except in the sense that as it reaches high relativistic speeds its velocity asymptotically approaches that of light. However, in its rest frame its acceleration wouldn't have changed, so it can't really be said to reach a terminal velocity.",
"[Terminal velocity](_URL_0_) is specifically related to drag - it's the speed at which the 'downward' force due to gravity is equal to the 'upward' force you encounter by bumping into all the air particles on your way 'down'. In a vacuum, therefore, there is the fundamental speed limit (*c*, the speed of light), but no equivalent phenomenon to terminal velocity."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_velocity"
]
] |
||
1ccc10
|
What were movies like in Soviet Russia during the Cold War?
|
More specifically, what were the major themes in Russian films?
Also, did they change when Stalin died?
How was America and the potential nuclear war portrayed?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1ccc10/what_were_movies_like_in_soviet_russia_during_the/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c9f4tyt",
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"c9f7qnc",
"c9fck0j"
],
"score": [
5,
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3,
2
],
"text": [
"Could you explain your question? Soviet cinema is a broad subject, one that cannot be explained in a single answer. What are you looking for? Major themes? Cold war via cinema? Prominent figures in its development?",
"Depends. Some were long and 'heavy' movies about WWII, that show the war as a true horror, other - more heroic. There are also comedies and childrens movies based on folklore. I don't think amerikans and the USA are often depicted. In the 80s some movies appeared that dealed with 'western culture' and how it has become underground in the soviet block-things like The Beatles, long hairs and hippies\n..",
"They changed dramatically over time. Early on you had a lot of experimental cinema (granted in a period where all cinema was experimental) which relied on montage and didn't really have characters, like Vertov's *Man with a Movie Camera* and Eisenstein's *Battleship Potempkin*. This style is the result, to an extent, of the lack of an established Soviet film industry (lack of funds, resources to make the sort of movies that were being cranked out in hollywood, many of the early Soviet filmmakers worked extensively in newsreals, which were often used to make propaganda films shown on traveling cinema trains). The great early Soviet filmmakers were highly influential on the early development of filmmaking. \n\nAs things settled down after the Civil War, you started to get a lot of films with socialist themes, big silent epics, and the like. As Stalin came into power, the government began to enact far stricter control over the film industry and movies had to espouse \"socialist realism\", everything became extremely didactic, formulaic, and horribly boring.\n\nAfter Stalin died, filmmakers were given a great deal more latitude and there was a flourishing of quality artistic films, including my favorite Soviet Film, *Cranes are Flying*. There were some quality films made by Soviet filmmakers in the 60s and 70s as well. In my experience these films are rather leisurely paced (think wedding scene, *Deer Hunter*). Also, Easterns (i.e. Soviet Westerns) were a pretty popular genre at the time. And, since my class on the history of Russian cinema only covered until 1980, I have no idea what happened after that. \n\n\n",
"There have been several previous questions about this that may give you more in-depth answers.\n\n* [Did the USSR and other countries have a \"Superman,\" or other related type icons](_URL_2_) gives a little detail on the Soviet Superhero \"The Amphibian Man\"\n\n* [What was television like for communist countries such as the Soviet Union or DDR during the Cold War?](_URL_1_) has a couple of interesting answers, the best ones being personal experiences in Russia and Romania.\n\nBut I only found those because I was looking for this one, and I listed them first because this is one of my favorite answers ever given on this sub and thought you should read them first; good before great, kind of thing. \n\n * [During the Cold War, did the Soviets have their own James Bond character in the media? A hero who fought the capitalist pigs of the West for the good of Mother Russia.](_URL_0_) gives not only an account of Soviet spy movies, but gives a good amount of context fpr the rules of Soviet films in general. It's just a stunningly good piece, simultaneously detailed, open to a wide audience, analytical and empirical. This is an excellent exemplar of how people should answer questions that fit squarely within their expertise: knock it out of the park. The other answers will also probably give you a good sense of the Soviet film industry but the first one...mwuah, magnificent. Keep reading, because /u/Bufus in a response to a comment on his original post, describes Soviet comedies and \"massive epics\", for example. The whole thread is excellent and ends up just being a very robust discussion of Soviet cinema. Seriously though, this is one of those \"must reads\" AskHistorians threads, right up there with whenever /u/heyheymse discusses Romans getting it on."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/188xka/during_the_cold_war_did_the_soviets_have_their/",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/17cf07/what_was_television_like_for_communist_countries/",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/11155q/did_the_ussr_and_other_countries_have_a_superman/"
]
] |
|
7z999l
|
How are we able to put more space/memory into processors, GPU's, ram, hard drives, etc. as time progresses?
|
Over the years we've been able to fit more and more data into computer parts, but how do we manage to fit more and more into the same size of chip or card or ram? What exactly is holding us back from making sticks of ram with a terabyte on it?
|
askscience
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/7z999l/how_are_we_able_to_put_more_spacememory_into/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dumyyj1",
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14
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"text": [
"We are able to increase processor speed and hard drive space because transistors (the things that hold all the information) are getting smaller. Right now a transistor is about 14 nm and it will only get smaller. ",
"The process which circuits are made is called photolithography. A source of UV light shines on a film and the exposed parts harden. Then the remaining soft film is washed off and some etching fluid is applied. The hard film controls which parts of the silicon wafer is etched, allowing you to get very precise patterns for each circuit.\n\nThe major improvements which have led to increased computing power are: higher wavelengths of UV light, better optical equipment to focus the UV light, advanced in materials technology for the photoresist film, better quality of silicon and so on.\n\nRight now, we are close to hitting the fundamental limit of how small we can make the circuit channels, which are essentially a nanoscopic trench dug into the silicon wafer. I believe the current achievement is a 14-atom distance between trenches, which is really pushing the limits of physics due to quantum tunneling.\n\nRight now there is a shift from denser IC chips to better parallel processing (quad, 8 or 16 core) to continue the growth in computing power, since the limit of circuit density is near and unless some fundamental technology is discovered it will remain as a hard limit to computing power."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
1ypnmp
|
why can i kick a soccer ball farther when it's rolling towards me?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ypnmp/eli5_why_can_i_kick_a_soccer_ball_farther_when/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cfmm68o",
"cfmn8wc"
],
"score": [
3,
2
],
"text": [
"Soccer balls deform under stress.\n\nWhen it's moving towards you, there's a certain momentum in that direction, which causes it to deform more when your foot impacts it than it would if it was stationary.\n\nThen when it snaps back to its normal shape, more energy is imparted to the ball causing it to fly off with more force.\n\nBasically, movement towards you lets you add the energy of that movement onto the energy imparted to the ball by your kick (it also means that the ball will equally impart more energy to your foot, but feets are strong and can generally withstand that without trouble - as overall the ball is much less massive than the person kicking the ball)",
"Think of it this way: if a ball is rolling towards you and it hits your leg (without you moving) it will bounce back, right? And if the ball is not rolling and you kick it, it will fly back. In your situation, it is just the addition of both of these. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
e9vsip
|
Were there classical/medieval versions of ambulances?
|
If there were, were they like horse drawn or something like that? And were there people on those carriages that would treat those in need on the way to . . . wherever they would be taken to?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/e9vsip/were_there_classicalmedieval_versions_of/
|
{
"a_id": [
"famihiw"
],
"score": [
12
],
"text": [
"Yes and no. \n\nThe idea of an ambulance where a sick or injured person is transported, treated on route and brought to a place of medical care didn't exist for civilians until 1832 when London's Cholera outbreak lead the city to setup horse drawn carriages to transport the ill that served as the first form of the ambulance. \n\nPrior to that, the only form of medical transportation for civilians was the forced removal of those suffering from mental illness or leprosy. These people would be taken almost always against their will to a quarantined place separated from the public, usually a place run by the local monastery. You have to remember, the vast majority of people couldn't afford medical care and even if they did, didn't live close enough to a hospital (if the country had any) where being transported would be more beneficial than just having someone with medical knowledge come to you. Also remember these are the days before sterile rooms and advanced medical equipment. And it also wasn't uncommon for the doctor to also be the local barber. \n\nHowever, in 1487 the Spanish began using horse drawn carts to serve as mobile hospitals to follow their armies. This is the earliest form of care where a person is taken from the place of injury or illness to a place of care and treated en route. But this was strictly for military use only.\n\nSources: \n\nKatherine T. Barkley (1990). The Ambulance. Exposition Press.\n\nCholera Epidemics in Victorian London.” Cholera Epidemics in Victorian London | The Gazette, Authority, 1 Feb. 2016, _URL_0_.\n\n“History of Ambulances.” EMT Resources - for New and Experienced EMTs, _URL_2_, 2016, _URL_1_."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"www.thegazette.co.uk/all-notices/content/100519",
"www.emt-resources.com/History-of-Ambulances.html",
"Emt-Resources.com"
]
] |
|
2bd7fn
|
the different parts of web development and the languages/tools that are used for each part.
|
I am looking at leading a start up in the near future. After speaking with some developer friends, I was told I would need to find people who are familiar with things like Angular, Python/Java, Drupal, Jquery, etc etc etc. The list goes on! Could someone break down the different layers to this website/application onion and explain examples of tools/languages at each layer?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2bd7fn/eli5_the_different_parts_of_web_development_and/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cj46kyl",
"clmk2qj"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"This explanation is a huge oversimplification but this is ELI5 after all... there are basically three levels of code in any code base as follows:\n\n1. Database Tier (MySQL, Oracle): this consists of database tables which contain all the data for your website like user name, address info, etc. This tier also contains all the commands to interact with the database tables like retrieving the data to show on the webpage.\n2. Business Tier (Python/Java): this consists of most of the logic involved in your website. For example, when you submit data on reddit this is where that data is validated before it is stored in the database.\n3. Presentation Tier (Angular/HTML/Jquery): this consists of building the HTML to show you the webpage. By this point all the data has been pulled from the database and validated in the Business Tier and we are ready to show you the results.\n\nAgain, this is a super simplified version of one way to look at a code base and super nerds will say this is old fashioned and blah blah blah. But in the end you have to perform these 3 things no matter what.",
"Think of building a website like opening up a restaurant on undeveloped land:\n\n1. buy land. (buy hosting)\n2. register your name in the address book like yellow pages. (register your domain name)\n3. stock up on raw materials (write content)\n4. build your store out of wooden frame, put up walls (HTML)\n5. style your walls with paint and align tables and chairs (CSS)\n6. hire employees (chefs, food servers, cleaners) (write Javascript)\n\n**HTML**\n\nHTML is the frame of your restaurant. Put on your construction worker hat, build a frame, put up walls, and move in the the tables and chairs and other furniture. It's a rough frame to hold your content. Use \"class names\" to name your walls/areas so that you can refer to them later. Ex: < div class=\"curtain\" > < /div > \n\nThink of an HTML \"page\" as a \"room\". Each room is typically styled in a similar way, but a \"lobby room\" will have different stuff than a \"reading room\", or a \"contact-us room\".\n\n\n**CSS**\n\nWithout CSS, you would have a white-walled shop with tables and chairs scattered randomly in inconvenient spots. CSS is like an interior designer who decides on the colors of the walls, how far the tables will be spaced apart (margins, padding, borders), and how to arrange the chairs. How large should the posters be on the walls? what font should the menu and front door signs should be? These are problems you solve in CSS stylesheets which you import into your HTML layouts. You use the \"class names\" you defined in your HTML to tell CSS which things to style how. Ex: .curtain{ background: blue; } to make the curtain blue.\n\n\n**Scripting**\n\nScripting is more dynamic in nature.. think of it like your employees - people who do stuff in your store. There are two types of employees: back-end and front-end. \n\n**Front-end (JS, jQuery)**\n\nFront-end workers are like restaurant food servers (confusion alert: they're not 'web-servers'). They're good at quickly clearing the table, and putting in new stuff, sometimes with flash effects. They're dynamic lads that can re-arrange a table for you so that a big group of customers can sit together, they can show them the menu when you want it, and give them extra information if they ask for it. They basically hide or show stuff based on the customers' immediate needs, without disturbing the \"back-end\" staff like the manager and chef every single time. How much responsibility you give to these guys is up to you - but you usually don't want them handling sensitive data, because mischievous customers can trick them into giving it to them. You can say something like $(\".curtain\").hide(); to hide the curtain if someone asks you to.\n\n**Back-end (Node.js, Ruby on Rails, PHP, Python, etc.)**\n\nThe back-end workers are managers and chefs. These are employees trained in doing things according to procedures, in an isolated environment away from the customers, without much regard for people's feelings. Ex: The chef takes orders, makes the food, silently puts it in the \"done\" bin, and rings a bell for the food-server to bring it to the customer. He never really deals with the customer directly.\n\nOld-school restaurants (usually. those built in PHP) tend also have construction workers who will build new rooms for people to go into if they want things. The proceedure was to not have any front-end workers, but instead to keep asking the user to go a new room for things. \"Oh you want a steak? Okay madam, follow me to a special room we built for you that will have your steak ready for you.\"... walk to a new room... However, with front-end Javascript workers you can tell your visitor \"Oh, you want a steak? Okay wait right here while I fetch it for you.\", then clear off the table, and plop the steak on their table.\n\n\n**Databases (MySQL, Mongo, etc.)**\n\nYour restaurant will have a storage room filled with stuff you will need at some point, but you don't need it all on display at all times. They're organized in neat shelves with labels to help you find stuff. This is called a Database. When the back-end chef needs stuff, he goes into the storage room, finds the appropriate shelves, fetches the needed ingredients (data). Your blog site might store your blog posts in a table. \n\nYou need a database for the same reason you need a storage room - lots of stuff to store, and it needs to be organized. You could of course run a crappy restaurant without a storage room, in which case you can have the raw meat stored in the walls of the place, or have it out in the open for unsuspecting customers to be disgusted by.\n\n**Payments**\n\nOf course you can provide this food for free, and provide advertisements on the walls, or you could sell the food using payment processing systems. A payment processing system can be built using a nice \"front-end\" and \"back-end\" workers that work together to carry out and verify the payment, or you can put them in a room\n\n**Now a little demo (This is fun LOL)**\n\nSo let's say Suzy is hungry and decides your restaurant is a healthy choice. So she looks up your address in a phone book. (DNS lookup). They find your address, and follow the roads to your freshly built store. (IP & HTTP protocol). They open the door and that annoying bell goes off, and Mr. Google Analytics chuckles and adds a tick to his tally of how many people visited your store.\n\nSuzy has been to your place before. You know that because last time she was here, you strategically taped a cookie to her back, along with a secret code that identifies her. You carefully inspect the cryptic code on the cookie, recognize her as Suzy Poozie, a member of your VIP club, and see that she is still logged in. So you tell your big russian VIP lounge guards that she's cool, the nod to confirm.\n\nSuzy requests your store's menu. If you're a good restaurant designer, you present them the menu by having one of your well-trained front-end Javascript workers to show it to her.. maybe throw in some nice tool-tip cards to answer their FAQs on the spot... but if you're old-school, you can just have a door labeled \"Choose what you want to eat.\" that leads to a room with more doors, one for each item you have. Of course, you don't need to actually build all these rooms now.. you'll build them just as she turns the handle.\n\nAs she looks thru the menu, Mr. Google Analytics in his labcoat is carefully studying their fingertip taps, tracking what's taking her 3 whole minutes to make a decision.. so they can later show you in a nice graph.. how often each menu item was glanced or tapped.\n\n\"I'll have the filet mingnon\" says the customer to your front-end worker, who passes their request to your chef, along with a bell to ring when he's done, who's sitting there bugeyed scraping knives together just waiting for an order to come in. Your chef recalls what he needs, goes to the storage room, gets the stuff, makes the meal, (all in a fraction of a second) and rings the \"HTTP 200 OK\" bell, if he takes longer than the acceptable time, the bell will go off on its own with \"HTTP 408 Request Timeout\". But assuming all's good, the front-end worker clears your table, and arranges your table with all the stuff you need to enjoy your meal.\n\nAfter they're done, the front-end worker takes them through the payment process. (hopefully something like Stripe payments that uses AJAX, and not through a long tunnel, over to a different building and then back again like PayPal lol)"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
6ea8u3
|
what happens when your body "adjusts" to a high-fiber diet
|
I'm looking for a somewhat science-based explanation for why certain "problematic" foods, like beans, broccoli and cabbage, present a problem in terms of GI ruckus for a few days before the "body adjusts."
I've read "the body adjusts" a dozen times without an explanation what that entails. Does the body just produce flatulence when it's unaccustomed to new foods? (That doesn't seem to make sense.) Does the bacterial profile of your intestinal microbiome change after, say, eating beans for a few days, encouraging the growth of bacteria that digest "fibrous"/prebiotic foods without creating gas as a by-product?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6ea8u3/eli5_what_happens_when_your_body_adjusts_to_a/
|
{
"a_id": [
"di8urgc"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Any dietary change can cause rumbletummy. Your gut flora adapts to dealing with slower digesting food. However, some people have more difficulty than others. I eat lots of bran fiber as well as raw and cooked vegetable fiber... And chicory root (in fiber bars, some yogurts, and fiber cereals) gives me awful rumbly tummy even when I eat it for a week.\n\nBeans have undigestable starches in them that cause gas. Soaking beans overnight and discarding the water helps remove the starches."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
yg4wf
|
- why is microwaving metal objects dangerous?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/yg4wf/eli5_why_is_microwaving_metal_objects_dangerous/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c5v8n51"
],
"score": [
21
],
"text": [
"Microwaves can induce electric current in metallic (or any conductive) objects. They are, quite literally, antennas. And while normally antennas receive signals of low power, these are high power signals meant for transferring energy. \n\nThe effect of these currents depends alot on the object's makeup. \"Pure\" metal in a smooth shape tends to disperse the current pretty easily. If, however, the metal is mixed with other things, or has sharp edges, or air gaps, this makes it much harder for all the electric forces to equalize and you can get sparking which becomes a fire hazard. The classic example here is that usually forks cause sparking, but spoons do not."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
2u0p0k
|
What is it about the American Revolution that allowed it to"work" when there are so many other revolutions (the French and Russian Revolutions come to mind) that end up horribly?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2u0p0k/what_is_it_about_the_american_revolution_that/
|
{
"a_id": [
"co4330w",
"co43dnc",
"co46cgz",
"co493pe"
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"score": [
8,
8,
2,
7
],
"text": [
"To my consideration, the answer lies within the terms. While the Russian and French revolutions were, basically internal affairs, as they wanted to overthrow the government held by actual Russians and French people respectively, the American revolution was actually an independence, as the government that was sought to be overthrown was English. As the source of the problem leaves the country, problems aren't as prone to reappear.",
"Speaking broadly the reason many revolutions have failed is because a victorious and popular General uses his popularity, particularly within the military, to consolidate power before the post-revolution State can be brought fully into existence. One of the reasons Trotsky - a charismatic leader, formidable rhetorician, and leader of the red army - was exiled and feared was because the Bolsheviks feared he'd become another Napoleon. So perhaps the principle reason is that George Washington didn't go mad with power and use his popularity become a military dictator. ",
"I think geography plays a role as well. The months it took for new British troops to arrive from England (and the challenges with communicating back and forth) severely limited to Britain's ability to respond to the colonist's efforts. \n\nEssentially similar to the \"internal\" discussion above. ",
"I'm going to offer an alternate theory to /u/DaMadApe: The American Revolution faced no external threat, as did the French and Russian revolutions. In 1783, following the Peace of Paris, the United States had no immediate external enemies. It did not face the threat of invasion, and thus the government was able to focus on internal problems first and foremost. Thanks to this \"breathing room,\" for lack of a better term, early Americans were allowed the time to settle internal conflicts caused by the Articles of Confederation and the formation of a new government. With external peace, the new United States was able to draft a constitution outlining a new government without interference.\n\nBoth France and Russia faced invasion immediately after the establishment of the revolutionary government. Once the revolutionary governments overthrew the existing order, they faced external problems. In 1792, following the end of the French constitutional assembly, France faced invasion on several fronts. It also faced problems with internal problems — counterrevoluntaries on one end of the scale and radical revolutionaries on the other end of the scale.\n\nThe United States faced these internal problems as well — think the Whiskey Rebellion for one example — but it was able to focus intellectual and physical resources on these internal problems where the French Revolution was distracted in multiple directions. The invasion of France by the First Coalition dissolved what support remained for the monarchy, and the constitutional monarchy collapsed. This permitted the Reign of Terror and all that came afterward. Had the constitutional monarchy been given time to stabilize, it could have lived on, just as the young American government was given time to draft a stronger document and structure that fixed the problems of the Articles of Confederation.\n\nNow, look at Russia. Its circumstances were even more critical than that of France -- it was already invaded by the German army at the time of the February Revolution, which installed a moderate provisional government. The continued attacks of the German army fatally weakened the provisional government. One of the promises that government had made was that it would not send more troops to the front lines. When it did so, support for it began to decline.\n\nAfter the October Revolution and the cease-fire with Germany, Russia was invaded again — this time by the Allies and Japan. As in the latter part of the French Revolution, drastic and bloody measures were taken by the revolutionary government to secure its rear area in order to successfully fight the war against the external enemy. \n\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
7c3acd
|
how is tv static from the big bang?
|
[deleted]
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7c3acd/eli5_how_is_tv_static_from_the_big_bang/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dpmtlsw",
"dpmvzxh",
"dpn7aty"
],
"score": [
5,
11,
5
],
"text": [
"It's residual energy that is still dissipating. In the grand scheme of the universe our lives are a mere split second, there are things at work that are bigger and take longer then we can comprehend.",
"Most of the TV static is from the amplifier itself; only ~1% of that is cosmic background radiation. CBR is spread across a pretty wide band, 0.3 GHz to 630 GHz, which broadcast TV is within that band. It's also really quiet, which is why almost all the static is local (part of the TV circuit itself) electrical noise.",
"I'm guessing your really asking how there could still be left over effects from the big bang. \n\nStatic exists because TV antennas pick up light waves of a certain frequency that overlap with frequency of waves from somewhere out there in space. \n\nIt turns out those waves from out there are actually the big bang happening. \n\n**How could the light from the big bang be just reaching us now?**\n\nWell, light travels fast - but it turns out something travels faster - the expansion of space itself. [inflation](_URL_0_) is the process of more space being created between the stars. \n\nHave you ever asked where the big bang took place? Like, what park of the sky it would be in? Well, it was all of space, so it took place everywhere. Everywhere was just a lot smaller back then. As all of space expanded away from itself, some parts actually did so at *faster* than the speed of light. This means there are parts of space who's light will never reach us and some parts (going a little slower) who's light is only now reaching us. The electromagnetic radiation (light waves) from the dawn of time travel across the universe to come to rest in your antenna and make a gentle hiss and some soothing snow. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[
"https://goo.gl/tbkLyk"
]
] |
|
1r3nyv
|
Why would some knights during the Middle Ages name their weapons?
|
For example, In the French epic, La Chanson du Roland, Roland's sword is named Durendal.
Why would they name their weapon?
Also, was it common for knights to name their weapon of choice?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1r3nyv/why_would_some_knights_during_the_middle_ages/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cdjke1a"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"I would put forward the following - \n\n- Possessions were few and far between in the middle ages; a sword was one of the most valuable things a person could have. As a result, knights wanted to show off their pride for their weapons by naming them.\n\n- The tradition of naming weapons probably arose in the early middle ages, such as in the anglo-saxon and viking cultures. For example, the Viking King Magnus Barelegs had a sword called \"Legbiter\".\n\n- Not only swords were named, but other weapons also, and sometimes armour and shields as well. In such warrior cultures weapons and armor were very prized possessions, and men would form a strong psychological bond with such items. Much like an American Frontiersman who named his rifle, these names represented the life and death relationship warriors had with their arms and armour. \n\n- Later in the middle ages, in the more continental traditions of knighthood in the high and late middle ages, this tradition was not formally practiced, although it is likely that some individual would have given their weapons informal nicknames.\n\nOther examples of named swords I can think of -\n\n- Edward the Confessor had the \"Sword of Mercy\" or \"Curtana\", which forms a part of the French epic you name above and according to legend, once belonged to Ogier the Dane.\n\n- El Cid had a sword named \"Tizona\" which is on display in the Museo de Burgos, in Burgos, Spain.\n\n- Charlemagne's \"Joyeuse\"\"\n\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
1xcpg5
|
50 years ago $20 was a lot of money, today it's almost spare change. where does all the extra money come from?
|
I understand that there is 'inflation' and things cost more, but where has all this extra money come from? I feel like there should be a finite amount of money in the world, otherwise someone is just printing extra money and handing it out, but who does it get handed out to? And if it just gets printed out and we get more and more money, doesn't that make money more and more worthless?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xcpg5/eli5_50_years_ago_20_was_a_lot_of_money_today_its/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cfa53gd",
"cfa5bxm",
"cfa93ay"
],
"score": [
10,
7,
7
],
"text": [
"The more money printed the less it's worth. Why QE is so controversial. But that is what happens constantly.",
"Unfortunately your question doesn't have an easy answer, it can't be narrowed down to one thing in particular. Whereas I'm no expert in economics but it has been a course I've studied at A level and as part of my degree. Maybe somebody else could help us both out with some more expert knowledge.\n\nInflation refers to the general increase in the cost of goods/services and thus the cost of living. Ideally everyone should expect a pay rise every year or 2 in line with this sort of inflation. The bank of England sets the target at around 2% per year. That being said everything should therefore be relative and so as time progreses we wouldn't notice a difference to relative living costs. This isn't the case though as the financial system of earth is affected by global trade, influence from bodies like the WTO and MPC etc etc. It is also influence by local (or national) influencers such as demand for goods, tax, interest rates etc. The exchange of moneys in both these settings will therefore determine how much cash is lurking around your nations economy. The transfer of money between foreign and domestic markets is also determined by interest rate dependant on how well that economy us doing. Sadly I cant offer much on the origins of exchange rates. It's again a fairly complex system.\n\nThe restrictions on cash as you say are in place as we speak (or type). An economy would destroy itself by constantly injecting cash because the currency would be worthless- think about it for a moment. However when there is a shortage of cash and inflation makes the cost of goods harder for the majority to budget on then a process called quantative easing is used to inject multi millions or billions in an attempt to put a few more pennies in everybody's pockets. It's a last resort fix for an economy though. It will almost certainly make your exchange rate weaker so is avoided at all costs.\n\nFinally currency devalues over time thus bigger value notes are more common in your pocket. So lets say £10 today will be worth £9 in 2 years time (just an example, not actual rates of devaluing). Go 20 years down the line it's mow only worth £1 in today's value. So in 20 years £10 today is actually £100 ( work is out by the same method I've done and £100 now in 20 years will be worth £10, if you understand. So yeah its quite complex and a lot of factors affect currency valuation. As I say hopefully somebody can offer a greater explanation.",
"Twenty Dollars is Spare Change? Are you rich? Twenty Dollars can buy you a lot even in today's world"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
1p57ha
|
Since flames burn at different temperatures, are there any flames that are safe to touch?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1p57ha/since_flames_burn_at_different_temperatures_are/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ccywet0"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"They are borderline for \"safe to touch\", but some materials burn as so-called [\"cool flames\"](_URL_0_) with temperatures in the 200-400 degree C range"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cool_flame"
]
] |
||
hgvou
|
I can't seem to understand what a virtual image is in optics. Secondly, is a rainbow an example of a virtual image?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/hgvou/i_cant_seem_to_understand_what_a_virtual_image_is/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c1vath5",
"c1vbf20"
],
"score": [
12,
3
],
"text": [
"When you look at something, your eyes see and your brain interprets rays of light diverging from individual points of the object. This is called image formation.\n\nWhen you look through a magnifying glass at something, you still see rays of light that *appear to be* emanating from a common point, but those rays of light didn't actually start there. They actually started from the object and bent at the lens, then went to your eye. Because the rays you see don't actually touch each other, the image is called a **virtual image**.",
"Easy determinant is whether the image can be produced on a screen or not - real images will, virtual images won't. Reals are produced by light rays that actually converge to a point (which is where we perceive that point to be), whereas virtuals only appear to converge at a point, but actually originated from somewhere else entirely.\n\nSo for instance if you look through a magnifying class at an object, and the object is close enough to the lens to be focused on, you will see a magnified image on the object on your retina. The image produced by the magnifying glass is a virtual image - it can't be produced on a screen held up between your eye and the lens, and the object only appears bigger because the lens bends the rays so that they appear to have originated from a point much closer to the lens than they really did (the image formed on your retina is a real image, but that's because your eye has its own lens inside - for the sake of this example, just ignore what's going on inside your eye and think of it as just an observer).\n\nIf on the other hand you move the lens away from the object, at one point everything gets distorted and blurred and starts looking farther away - at this point the lens is generally producing a real image, and could theoretically be visible on a screen (most light sources aren't bright enough to make this perceptible though). Instead of rays diverging and appearing to be from a close point on the far side of the lens, they are converging at a real point on the near side of the lens. The point of blur inbetween is when the object is at the lens' focal distance, resulting in the rays emerging from the lens parallel to each other.\n\nThe best way to understand the difference is probably diagrams, and I guess I could post some from wiki here, but at that point you're probably better off just reading the wiki pages on real and virtual images.\n\nAuthority: I took highschool physics, not a professional Optics guy sorry :/ But I don't think there is very much scope for the advanced theory changing in the above stuff"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
1ny2sl
|
What is the significance of the use of "I am" instead of "I have" when Vishnu says, "I am become death, the destroyer of worlds"?
|
I searched Wikipedia and Google and came up with next to nothing in terms of explanations for the grammatical quirk. Most articles I found (understandably) either concentrate on Oppenheimer and the context surrounding his quotation, or a cursory overview of Vishnu. The sources were uninformative or unreliable, and as a layman, I'm not exactly sure where to look, so I hope this question isn't boring or obvious!
Is this a result of the translation from Sanskrit to English? Or is there some greater meaning in using "I am" as opposed to "I have"? does the use of the present tense serve to indicate a sense of timelessness, either of Vishnu or death itself?
Thanks for any and all replies!
EDIT: Sweet moksha, you guys are friggin' awesome! I posted this before bed last night and am delighted to see the discussion that is risen (yuck yuck). I can't wait to read all of your posts and sources. Thanks for your time and input!
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1ny2sl/what_is_the_significance_of_the_use_of_i_am/
|
{
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"You would probably receive a more thorough and knowledgable answer if you asked this question in /r/linguistics.\n\nHowever, I can tell you that the [present perfect](_URL_1_) construction \"I am become\" is not the result of a direct translation of Sanskrit, but an artifact of early modern English that most likely stems from the [Germanic influence upon the language](_URL_0_). The construction may still be found in modern German.\n\nIn addition to \"I am become death,\" you may find similar constructions repeated in the Bible (\"I am come in my father's name,\" John 5:43 KJV), in Christmas carols (\"Joy to the world, the Lord is come\"), and in much of English literature prior to the 20th century.\n\nAdditionally, this type of present perfect construction survives with verbs other than *come/become*, both in one-off archaic phrases (\"He is risen,\") and in standard English (\"The box of Oreos is gone.\")\n\nedit: added some links.\n\nsupra-edit: not surprised to learn from /u/mambeau that /r/linguistics has already [answered this question](_URL_2_).",
"This [same question](_URL_0_) was actually asked in /r/linguistics two months ago, and got some good responses.",
"Oppenheimer was not \"quoting a relatively poor translation\" of the Gita, as some have claimed. In fact, I'm fairly sure he wasn't \"quoting\" any translation really, as he read Sanskrit himself and I am fairly certain he was giving his own, idiosyncratic translation. Last time this came up, /u/restricteddata recommended James A. Hijiya's piece in *Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society Publication* called \"The 'Gita' of J. Robert Oppenheimer\", which I still haven't read yet. I was asking him about if \"I am become death\" was a deliberate archaicism influenced by Tennyson's poem \"Ulysses\" which includes the line, \"I am become a name\". I wish I could find the original thread because /u/restricteddata's answer was much better than my half remembered version of it. Someone can make sure by actually reading that Hijiya article rather than just saving it, but I'm fairly sure this is an artifact of Oppenheimer's translation not of Sanskrit grammar.\n\nedit: I found the original thread, in [Alex's AMA](_URL_0_)",
"it's just an artifact of translation\n\nit's verse 32 chapter 11 of the Bhagavad Gita.\n\nthere can be many different translations. here's another, in context:\n\n > BG 11.23: O mighty-armed one, all the planets with their demigods are disturbed at seeing Your great form, with its many faces, eyes, arms, thighs, legs, and bellies and Your many terrible teeth; and as they are disturbed, so am I.\n\n > BG 11.24: O all-pervading Viṣṇu, seeing You with Your many radiant colors touching the sky, Your gaping mouths, and Your great glowing eyes, my mind is perturbed by fear. I can no longer maintain my steadiness or equilibrium of mind.\n\n > BG 11.25: O Lord of lords, O refuge of the worlds, please be gracious to me. I cannot keep my balance seeing thus Your blazing deathlike faces and awful teeth. In all directions I am bewildered.\n\n > BG 11.26-27: All the sons of Dhṛtarāṣṭra, along with their allied kings, and Bhīṣma, Droṇa, Karṇa — and our chief soldiers also — are rushing into Your fearful mouths. And some I see trapped with heads smashed between Your teeth.\n\n > BG 11.28: As the many waves of the rivers flow into the ocean, so do all these great warriors enter blazing into Your mouths.\n\n > BG 11.29: I see all people rushing full speed into Your mouths, as moths dash to destruction in a blazing fire.\n\n > BG 11.30: O Viṣṇu, I see You devouring all people from all sides with Your flaming mouths. Covering all the universe with Your effulgence, You are manifest with terrible, scorching rays.\n\n > BG 11.31: O Lord of lords, so fierce of form, please tell me who You are. I offer my obeisances unto You; please be gracious to me. You are the primal Lord. I want to know about You, for I do not know what Your mission is.\n\n > BG 11.32: The Supreme Personality of Godhead said: **Time I am, the great destroyer of the worlds, and I have come here to destroy all people.** With the exception of you [the Pāṇḍavas], all the soldiers here on both sides will be slain.\n\n > BG 11.33: Therefore get up. Prepare to fight and win glory. Conquer your enemies and enjoy a flourishing kingdom. They are already put to death by My arrangement, and you, O Savyasācī, can be but an instrument in the fight.\n\n > BG 11.34: Droṇa, Bhīṣma, Jayadratha, Karṇa and the other great warriors have already been destroyed by Me. Therefore, kill them and do not be disturbed. Simply fight, and you will vanquish your enemies in battle.\n\n_URL_0_\n",
"Quick answer: It's an archaic construction. In English, we used to use the verb 'to be' (instead of 'to have')as the auxiliary for intransitive verbs in the perfect tense.",
"It's an artistic flourish in Oppenheimer's translation. The original Sanskrit is:\n\n*kālo'smi lokakṣayakṛt pravṛddho*\n\nWhich translates as:\n\nI am Time, grown old – the cause of the destruction of the world.\n\n\"I am become death\" is a condensing of the Time-grown-old bit. So rather than simply indicating a sense of timelessness, it indicates Time itself, and more precisely turning of the ages. In the context of the Gita, this turning of the ages is in fact a moment of mass death. Oppenheimer's quoting of the Gita signals both the onset of the atomic age and the potential for mass death that ushered it in.",
"I think the quote is actually Krishna and not Vishnu.\n\nI don't know about the specifics of the translation from Sanskrit but I know the context within the Bhagavad Gita.\n\nBasically the Bhagavad Gita is part of a bigger book called the Mahabharata. The Mahabharata is a big adventure story that mainly follows Arjuna as the hero. He goes around and does battles and learns lessons about gods and morality.\n\nBasically in the course of his travels, Arjuna gets into this situation where his position obligates him to fight in a war, because he swore he would. However, due to a cruel twist of fate, his old teacher and brothers are standing with the opposing armies. Arjuna doesn't want to fight them. He knows if he does, he'll kill them, so he starts worrying and feeling awful.\n\nKrishna is driving his chariot. Basically at that point Krishna is incarnated as kind of a warrior and advisor to Arjuna. The two ride out to the no mans land between the armies, and have a talk about karma and life and god. Krishna convinces Arjuna to fight. That discussion is the Bhagavad Gita.\n\nBasically Krishna goes through a big philosophy about how you have too ct without attachment to your actions, and explains to Arjuna that he must do his duty and forget the consequences.\n\nArjuna isn't convinced though, so at the climax, Krishna takes on his god form, which is a massive many headed many armed beast with a huge mouth and into the mouth the whole universe is falling, and Arjuna sees Krishna killing everything and everyone, simply due to the fact that Krishna is god and therefore controls time and decay and so on.\n\nSo Krishna then says \"now I am become death, destroyer of worlds,\" to tell Arjuna, basically \" do your duty, aim the only one that kills. You are just my instrument.\"\n\nSo it's a bit ironic actually that Oppenheimer used this quote, because it's actually a quote in favor of warfare and doing ones duty. In quoting Krishna and not Arjuna he kind of put himself into the place of god, when the whole point of the quote is that Krishna is god and people are people. God kills, god destroys, people just do their duty.\n\nIt would be like someone saying \"I am that I am\" or something. Anyway that's a bit tangential but maybe explains something. Don't get me wrong I still think Oppenheimer is a badass for quoting the Bhagavad Gita, but if he had quoted Arjuna instead it would have been even more badass.\n\n",
"This is a late, late response, but to me...\n\n\"I am\" implies \"I have always been\". \"I have\" implies \"I have become\". Am I wrong in my logic?",
"The answer is to be found in Heraclitus' treatment of becoming. The phrase \"I have\" denotes a time when \"I was not\". But you might think, \"doesn't 'become' also denote a change?\" But when considering how Heraclitus described the world as in a constant state of becoming, then saying \"I am become\" is consistent with an eternal state of being."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Present_perfect#German",
"http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/presentperfect.html",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/linguistics/comments/1ipyjo/now_i_am_become_death_the_destroyer_of_worlds/"
],
[
"http://www.reddit.com/r/linguistics/comments/1ipyjo/now_i_am_become_death_the_destroyer_of_worlds/"
],
[
"http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1iyjak/ama_i_am_alex_wellerstein_historian_of_science/cb9k2wy?context=1"
],
[
"http://vedabase.net/bg/11/en"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
400w7p
|
how does giving to charity save rich people money?
|
I don't know what a tax write-off is, so please explain like I am actually five.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/400w7p/eli5_how_does_giving_to_charity_save_rich_people/
|
{
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"text": [
"This is just a basic example and not 100% accurate, but it will give you the idea. Lets say I make $1000. Normally I would pay taxes on the whole $1000.\n\nLets say I make $1000 and give $200 to charity. I would now only pay taxes on $800.\n\nIn reality, it doesn't really save you money. Because even if you were paying the maximum amount of taxes on that money, you would still end up taking more money home than if you didn't give to charity.\n\nThe real tax writeoffs are the ones you claim as expenses for your business. For example, you can claim you drove your car for work and get a writeoff for a certain amount based on how many miles you put on the car. Then you have people that cheat the system and go to dinner with their wife and call it a \"business\" expense. ",
"Instead of giving money to uncle sam and getting nothing in return, i can donate it and get influence. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
2otqay
|
why do we work so hard against extinction of any species, when 99.9% of species naturally die out?
|
Forget that puppies are cute, I'm talking cold hard mutation and evolution here.
Even if a species is 'saved', it will eventually (however not naturally in foreseeable future) become another species. So why do we care so much about saving a particular type of cat or deer?
If it's about the loss of one species leads to a chain reaction (no bees, no pollination, no crops, hell), well, isn't that our cue to adapt as well? And if the solution to a food shortage is to breed the animals we eat, once again, why do we care about a certain type of leopard.
It just seems a silly preoccupation, and I'd like to know the reasons for it.
Note: I do think animals are beautiful.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2otqay/eli5_why_do_we_work_so_hard_against_extinction_of/
|
{
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"text": [
"you don't really adapt to having no food. learning how to stop killing bees is probably more worth our time than walking around with cotton swabs pollinating plants by hand\n\nalso \"it was going to happen anyway\" is not a good argument. everyone dies eventually murder is still illegal ",
"Because the extinction of an entire species due to our collective irresponsibility weighs on some of our minds. If it's natural so be it, but it's a damn crime for a species to disappear into extinction because of our over-demand for...whatever it may be (food, land etc).",
"It depends. If a species is going extinct naturally, I think we should let it go, maybe a keep a few in captivity or something. However, there are many species that have gone extinct or are going extinct due to human activity, and sometimes, this can have a great affect on the ecosystem.\n\nTake Great White Sharks, for example. They used to thrive off the coast of Massachusetts. Sometime during the 70s or 80s, people became extremely fearful of the sharks, leading to a mass execution of any shark, but especially the Great Whites. After this happened, there were few or no predators to hunt seals in the area. The local seal population exploded, which in turn depleted certain fish populations. The fishermen who depend on catching these same fish for a living began to come back empty handed, and whoever depended on those fishermen, like markets and restaurants, were also affected. Recently, the sharks have come back to the area, are hunting the seals again, and fish populations are returning to normal. This is a situation where, because of human activity, we really messed things up for awhile.\n\nWhen species die out naturally, I would say that most of the time, it happens quite slowly. This would allow some time for other species to fill the extinct one's role. Let's say Great White numbers in North Anerica were naturally decreasing for over a hundred years or more. What should happen is other species would fill the predator over time. As Great White numbers dropped, perhaps other sharks, like Bull, Tiger, or Hammerheads, would move in to fill the void. It's also possible that a completely separate predator, like some type of whale, rather than other sharks, could take over for the Great Whites, Either way, something is there to hunt seals, keeping the ecosystem in a state of equilibrium."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
1vl90s
|
what are the properties of hydrogen/helium that enable physicists to distinguish them from 'metals'?
|
i.e. how does their definition differ from a chemist's definition of a metal
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1vl90s/eli5_what_are_the_properties_of_hydrogenhelium/
|
{
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"cetcs73"
],
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],
"text": [
"_URL_0_\n\n > Metals are commonly:\n > \n > * Shiny\n > * Good conductor of heat and electricity\n > * High melting point\n > * Malleable (this means that they can be hammered or distorted)\n > * Ductile (this means that they can be drawn into wires)\n > * Usually solid at room temperature. An exception to this is mercury, which is liquid in nature.\n > * Generally have low electronegativities.\n\nMetals are defined according to their position on the periodic table. Every other element (including hydrogen and helium) is non-metal."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periodic_table_(metals_and_nonmetals)"
]
] |
|
20acw9
|
how do we know what the earth looks like on the inside?
|
Another post on the frontpage made me think of this. How can we know that the world is a solid core in the middle? We have never drilled that deep. Is it speculation, looking at other bodies, or something else?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/20acw9/eli5_how_do_we_know_what_the_earth_looks_like_on/
|
{
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"cg1apfj"
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],
"text": [
"In the simplest way I can think to explain it, different parts of seismic waves behave differently when they travel travel through different substances (solids, liquids, and different types of each.) Parts of the waves pass through fluids unaffected, parts bounce off, parts are absorbed, parts slow down, and so on. By studying the data gathered from seismic activity like earthquakes and using that knowledge, you can draw a pretty accurate picture of what layers are where. Densities, chemical properties, melting/boiling points, etc. come into play also when the exact composition of each layer is stated."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
3q6gp1
|
when not hunting, what do predators do when they meet prey animals?
|
Do they attack anyway? Just ignore them? Just sit there awkwardly? And how do prey animals attack when they run into a predator that is clearly not an immediate threat -- sleeping, for example.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3q6gp1/eli5_when_not_hunting_what_do_predators_do_when/
|
{
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"text": [
"Predators don't want a drawn-out stand up fight. A predator is only fighting for its food; the prey will be fighting for survival. Neither animal *wants* to get hurt, but the predator is the one that can afford to break off at any time and try again, so that means it'll be picky about starting one. Therefore if the prey animal is big enough to fight back, the predator is going to be mostly interested in some combination of stealth, surprise, or wearing down its energy with a chase.\n\nThis means that if a predator isn't already \"in\" stealth mode and actively hunting, but just saunters into an area obviously, few of the prey animals in that area will be good targets, because they all already know it's there. Making a move would be a waste of energy when the target is fresh, rested, healthy, and can react immediately. So a lot of the time both sides will appear to be \"ignoring\" each other simply because it isn't worth being the first to burn energy on a sprint. The prey will keep a minimum safe distance and leave at its own pace."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
dakn8k
|
why are data measurement units (mb, mb, gb, tb) not even numbers of bytes? like why is a gigabyte not exactly 1000 megabytes?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dakn8k/eli5_why_are_data_measurement_units_mb_mb_gb_tb/
|
{
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],
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3,
2
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"text": [
"Because computer measurements are based on multiples of 8. (Base 8)\nThis is why you've heard the term 8 bit, 64 bit and so on.\n\nA gigabyte is 1024 megabytes, a megabyte is 1024 bytes and so on.\n\nIt's all in multiples of 8. There have been attempts to metricise this, but they've not really taken off.",
"They can be, which is why manufacturer chicanery lead to using kebibytes (KiB), mebibytes (MiB), gebibytes (GiB), and tebibytes (TiB)\n\nManufacturers were describing their drive sizes in the unformatted size with 1KB = 1000 bytes. As drive sizes get bigger, you get situations like one manufacturer using 1KB = 1024 bytes selling a 1TiB drive has 74GiB more than a manufacturer selling a 1TB drive with 1KB = 1000 bytes"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
co5fi1
|
Did he British ever plan a direct naval invasion of Germany in World War I? Were there any defensive fortifications on the German coast?
|
The Royal Navy dominated the North Sea, and the Western front was locked in a stalemate, so was there a plan to invade Germany and break the stalemate like in Gallipoli, landing somewhere like Hamburg or Wilhelmshaven?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/co5fi1/did_he_british_ever_plan_a_direct_naval_invasion/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ewg6sla"
],
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],
"text": [
"There were a number of plans for amphibious assaults on German islands in the North Sea and even the Baltic coast of Germany, formulated in 1914-15, but these came to nothing as it was chosen to focus on knocking the Ottoman Empire out of the war instead. In 1916-17, planning focused on moves to outflank German lines in Flanders, but these were cancelled due to German coastal defences and the failure of land-based offensives these assaults were to link up with. Finally, in 1918, the RN raided the German-controlled ports of Ostend and Zeebrugge, with the aim of rendering them useless as U-boat bases. For more information on these, see my answers [here](_URL_2_) and [here](_URL_0_). There were also a number of raids made on targets along the German North Sea coast by RNAS (and later RAF) aircraft operating from seaplane and aircraft carriers, which I've covered [here](_URL_1_)."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7se8ot/i_was_listening_to_the_podcast_on_the_battle_of/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7qvb5k/why_didnt_the_royal_navy_attack_along_the_german/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/45l3ap/was_landing_soldiers_behind_enemy_trench_lines/czywz8v/"
]
] |
|
327kmq
|
Vonnegut says that the Texas Revolution was based on the idea that Mexico had outlawed slavery, which caused Texas to rebel. Any truth to that?
|
I'm readying "Hocus Pocus" for the first time, and Vonnegut has made two references so far along the lines of: "I might have added, but didn't, that the martyrs at the Alamo had died for the right to own black slaves. They didn't want to be a part of Mexico anymore because it was against the law in that country to own slaves of any kind. I don't think Wilder knew that. Not many people in this country do. I certainly never heard that at the Academy. I wouldn't have known that slavery was what the Alamo as all about if Professor Stern the unicyclist hadn't told me so." - Chapter 36 of "Hocus Pocus", K. Vonnegut
I had never heard this before either. Is this an exaggeration of the circumstances of the Texas revolution simply used here for satiric effect, or was the ability to own slaves really a factor in Texas' declaring independence from Mexico?
Edit: Originally posted in /r/skeptic
Edit: Thank you /u/Gama_Rex and /u/Bodark43 for your concise and helpful answers! It seems Vonnegut was exaggerating/limiting the scope of the conflict for effect, but none-the-less making a great point regarding how we are taught/interpret our past conflicts in the forming of our country. Continue to live in the grey my friends (also a shout out to my fellow shades at /r/thebutton).
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/327kmq/vonnegut_says_that_the_texas_revolution_was_based/
|
{
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"text": [
"Kind of a perfect storm.The Texans wanted slave ownership legal and church attendance voluntary; the Mexican government forbid slave ownership and had mandatory Catholic church membership. Not a few Texans had \"absquatulated\" from Mississippi and the South, losing their plantations and fleeing their debts when Jackson took down much of the US banking system, so there was an element that would have felt it had no where else to go. And of course General Santa Anna is generally reviled in Mexico today for his ability to make terrible decisions, and many were made in dealing with the Texans.",
"The Texans rebelled under the pretext that Mexico's liberal Constitution of 1824, under which they had immigrated to Mexico, had been repealed in 1835 by Santa Anna's dictatorship. However, the specific issues of the end of slavery (alienating those settlers who saw Texas' cotton potential) and the establishment of the Roman Catholic Church as the state church were the driving force for many rebels.\n\nIt's worth noting that Texas wasn't the only entity to secede from Mexico in this period, as both the Yucatan and the Rio Grande republics made short-lived bids for independence."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
44ubyp
|
How different are brains in "normal" people, and their structure, genetics and other things?
|
By normal I mean someone without any known disorder, physical damage or whatever else that would affect it.
I'm also curious if there is a vast difference in people one meets in regular life, that speak and act just like everyone else, but for some reason they have way more "brain power", and thus can process and understand things quicker and hold more things in their head and such (which is not easy to compare purely mentally, with your own mind / brains capabilities), and if their brains are statistically different from say, 80% of the population.
I'm also curious if technology and society increases the differences in intelligence, and if it also changes the physical structure of the brain to have access to education, the right environment etc, and if this could increase even more over time. I hope this isn't a stupid question too.
|
askscience
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/44ubyp/how_different_are_brains_in_normal_people_and/
|
{
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"text": [
"This answer to that really depends on the scope that you're looking at. In terms of brain structures and regions (cerebellum, amygdala, etc.), you can safely bet that most healthy people have these structures, the way most healthy people have fingers and a nose. When you zoom in to the actual neural networks and pathways, things get a bit more tricky. The brain is \"plastic\" and can change. Neural networks can be created and broken. Think of someone who is more artistic vs someone who loves numbers - they have the same brain structures, but they're wired differently (from genetics, environment, experience). Brain power can be developed through training.",
"structurally they're very similar, at least from a macroscopic point of view. I won't say all, but nearly all brains have the same structure of gyri and sulci (folds in the brain), thus you can orient yourself between lobes of the brain etc based on which fold you are looking at. The size and shape will vary slightly, one some brains it's really easy to identify major landmarks like the central sulcus, on others you have to follow other landmarks to find where the structure you're looking for is. Every brain will have a cerebrum and cerebellum, cranial nerves, the same blood vessels that take the same path, the same nerves that take the same path, etc. It's really a beautiful system. \n\nThere is some variation, in that respect my experience is only anecdotal. I study brain cancer, one of my professors had an angiogram done (maps blood vessels in the brain) and found he was missing an anterior communicating artery. That doesn't affect blood flow to the brain because the arteries of the brain form a circle that distributes blood flow from the carotid arteries, but it makes him much more susceptible to death from a stroke were he to have one. \n\nSynapses and brain connections are fluid, you can make a synapse stronger by making it fire more often, and you have glial cells that can help neurons migrate. There was a study in the last decade that showed that stress in rats caused a decrease in size and number of branches in neurons in the cerebellum over the course of only 10 days. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
3i3shr
|
Historical context of the film Lincoln (2012)
|
I recently watched the film Lincoln (2012) and enjoyed it a great deal, but I was wondering if I could get a little help understanding the historical context of some of the events in the film – mainly the issue of passing the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
I’m from the UK, so although I know a little about this period of US history, some of the details confused me a somewhat.
In particular, I was interested in the interactions and motivations of Lincoln, the Democratic Party, Thaddeus Stevens, Preston Blair, and the conservative and radical Republicans.
From what I saw in the film, it seems as though the Democratic and Republican Parties of Lincoln’s day were quite different from the modern parties – with the Republican Party being the more socially progressive, and the Democratic Party being opposed to the Thirteenth Amendment on principle.
The Republican Party seems to agree with the Thirteenth Amendment in principle, but seems somewhat divided, and it seems that Lincoln needed to get Preston Blair and Thaddeus Stevens on board to get their respective wings of the party to vote for the amendment.
I was wondering if someone could let me know if I’ve got the basics of the situation right, and perhaps explain in more detail the positions of the various parties and factions, as well as the personal motivations of Thaddeus Stevens and Preston Blair.
Thanks in advance for any help!
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3i3shr/historical_context_of_the_film_lincoln_2012/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cud6f9g"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"Don't consider this a full and proper answer, but it seems relevant to point out that the movie in question was largely based on a book about Lincoln's cabinet and political work during the Civil War, also touching on his election and position within the Republican Party. Check out Doris Kearns Goodwin's *Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln* if you're interested in further reading."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
77hep9
|
Isn't classical conditioning of animals basic "If this then that" reasoning? Doesn't this mean that cats/dogs could think?
|
askscience
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/77hep9/isnt_classical_conditioning_of_animals_basic_if/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dom0dnm",
"dom4ci8"
],
"score": [
24,
3
],
"text": [
"Of course cats and dogs can think.\n\nClassical conditioning is more of an association than logical If/Then reasoning, since it's very easy to create associations which 'break the logic' e.g. salivating when a bell is rung.",
"Classical conditioning does't require reasoning its an automatic stimulus reflex response.\n\nSauce: _URL_0_\n\nIf this then that reasoning is called rule-based behaviour and there is scant evidence that animals use this."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"http://wps.prenhall.com/chet_cooper_appliedbeh_2/"
]
] |
||
2ngjrj
|
Were people in Europe honestly religiously motivated to go to war or were religious tensions used more similarly to what we would call a "casus belli", by ambitious rulers?
|
Why is it that while reading texts on conflicts in Medieval Europe there are always massive implications that so and so happened because God willed it or such and such people were heathens? Was this truly how people felt in those days? Or is this like a literary device for scholars who were often religious people to explain events that they could not comprehend or rationalize without supernatural elements? This compared to writings on rebellions and wars in other regions like China or ancient Rome. In Roman writing it is generally accepted that it was Rome's place to rule the known world as the center of civilization, thus rationalizing its conquests. In China the explanations of whether or not ill events happened was blamed on the dynasty losing the mandate of heaven, a supernatural divinity coinciding with the morality and competence of the rulers. Neither of these implicate that the people themselves were religious or religiously motivated but this is much more the case in Medieval Europe. Religious wars seems to be much more commonplace and accepted as an explanation to how events took place.
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2ngjrj/were_people_in_europe_honestly_religiously/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cmdh4a1"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"I would contend that there were elements of both sides of the argument in warfare in pre-modern Europe. On the one hand there was a level of belief extant in that period that is almost unimaginable to a modern person. This served as the basis for the mass appeal for events like the crusades and the wars of religion. Moreover events such as the relative ferocity of the wars of religion are hard to reconcile without recourse to religion as a causative factor.\n\nOn the other hand you have an entirely valid point. Many rulers cynically used religion as one leaver to control both their own populaces and justify their expansion. A good example of this would be the actions of the French kings regarding the Avignon papacy. By `protecting`the Popes in their kingdoms the Kings of France extracted many favors and advantages at a low cost. And their opposition to the eventual return to Rome of the papacy points to a motive other then the purely religious.\n\nHowever at the end of the day we should be aware of our biases. Even the most religious modern historian has a hard time getting into the mindset of the absolute belief that many in the period experienced. This makes it very easy to dismiss the religious aspect of the period. However equally we should not romanticise the past, the Kings and other powerful people of the period were not any stupider then our current leaders. They were able to make decision that were based on self interest even in religious matters. But my readings indicate to me that as a significant factor in these decision was religion."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
8eut4h
|
what is happening to our brain when we go to speak and the start of the words get switched?
|
It isn't that the words I speak don't make any sense but that the first letter/s for each word get switched around e.g. I may go to say "what is you phone number" but it comes out as "none phumber" . Not sure if this is the best example but it has happened to me few times lately and I find it very strange!
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8eut4h/eli5_what_is_happening_to_our_brain_when_we_go_to/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dxypmr0",
"dxz7ag8"
],
"score": [
2,
8
],
"text": [
"My dad used to say that you are sixing up your myllables! I was 5 when he first told me that so it fits in this sub (kinda, sorry I'm not helpful). ",
"The basic idea is that your brain has to go through a bunch of steps to put together sounds and words into a sentence, and sometimes it messes up a step. Linguists call these slips of the tongue \"speech errors.\" Linguists study them to figure out how our brains store and combine all the parts of a sentence.\n\nWe know that people make speech errors regularly, every day. We also know people are more likely to make speech errors when they're tired, nervous, or drunk. But we actually don't know exactly what happens when you make a slip of the tongue, because we still don't know the details of how our brains store or combine words in the first place. \n\n\n\nSource: undergrad in linguistics and cognitive science\n\nReferences: _URL_0_\n_URL_1_"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_error",
"https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Psycholinguistics/Speech_Errors"
]
] |
|
q5h8t
|
the tree of life
|
I can't fathom why it was nominated for best picture. I need to know what I don't get.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/q5h8t/eli5_the_tree_of_life/
|
{
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"c3uw6cr",
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"score": [
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"text": [
"The Tree of Life is primarily about sublime experience more than it is about deep story.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nSublime is a philosophical concept about the sensation of being incapable of taking in the entire power and magnitude of something, especially something natural. Looking at the night sky and imagine all the stars, looking out at the vastness of the ocean, standing at the foot of an enormous mountain.\n\nTree of Life's \"story,\" is more about Mallick resolving his thoughts on his childhood, but the point of Tree of Life (for audiences) isn't the story. Tree of Life is about pushing sublimity, the overwhelming power and beauty of imagery. I'm sorry you didn't enjoy it, but for many people (the Academy included), looking at the Tree of Life is the cinematic equivalent of taking in the Sistine Chapel.",
"There is a very interesting analysis of *ToL* alongside *2001: A Space Odyssey* in [this By Way of Beauty post](_URL_0_). ",
"So the movie, from what I gathered, is trying to tell a story that combines the life of one boy and his family in Waco, Texas and the bigger story of creation, life and death. It uses biblical metaphors and allusions as well as the sublime.\n\nFor a typical viewer, Mallick's style seems disjointed, stretched-out and boring. However, his style is not for everyone, and it's more of a transcendent experience rather than a rational step-by-step story. What he seems to be trying to accomplish throughout the movie is overwhelm the viewer in imagery, allowing them to emotionally reflect in each of those moments. The movie strips away dialogue and replaces it with the narrative inner thoughts of characters as a means of creating that personal and meaningful connection, as if this is not only the story of one little boy, but the thoughts of all of mankind.\n\nThe story itself is split up into separate parts that all have an overarching theme Creation, Life and Death. Death appears at the beginning and then end of the movie with news of the brother's death and Sean Penn's ethereal travels in the barren afterlife. Creation is portrayed starting with the beginning of the universe and then life itself on earth followed by the birth of Jack. Life, which becomes the focus of the story reflects on the trials and tribulations, the moments of happiness and sadness and the overall experience that Jack, the main character, has.\n\nLife, as one can interpret it throughout the movie, is all that we really have, and it’s those moments that define what we become as individuals and as a society. The segment of life is portrayed in the movie through the endless days throughout Jack’s childhood. His life is engaged in a dualistic struggle between his father and mother. This juxtaposition of his caring and gentle mother and his more strict and rough father becomes an iconic archetype battle. The father seems to represent the more dogmatic Old Testament God, with bouts of rage, uncompromising rules, and a generally cold relationship with his sons. He espouses the philosophical concepts associated with Hobbes, that man is a wretch in nature, and they need a form of strict authority to keep them in place. The mother, represents a more caring, Chist/Mary-like figure who is nurturing, understanding, playful. She is the embodiment of philosophies of Rousseau and Locke who believe that man in nature is generally good, and can live in harmony. In the end this push and pull for the boys becomes who they are in life. Jack attempts to break away from the rigid rules of his father by doing sadistic things, sneaking into people’s houses and generally making the choices that would go against the unbending will of his father. But at the same time, these choices aren’t the ones that his mother tried to instill in him, but rather reveal a more dark version of mankind, whose choices reflect a human being without rules and outside the realm of good grace. Eventually Jack’s character learns to follow the rules his father has implemented and becomes sucked up into the rigid corporate world but he still clings to the memories of his mother/nature.\n\nThe movie is definitely not for everyone, and as much as I might appreciate it, I don’t think it’s one of Mallick’s best films. I can understand not everyone liking it, but it does has some interesting themes and generally it reflects a higher level of cinema than Transformers. I guess the issue becomes, do you agree with Mallick’s interpretation of Life and Death? Are the themes he tries to explore poignant or kind of hashed out?\n\n**TLDR:** The movie is a tale of Creation, Life and Death, and it is told through the larger scope of all mankind, but similarly through the personal experiences of one boy. \n\n**edit** Sorry I didn't explain it like you were five, but I tried to simply explain what I got out of the movie.",
"Like youre five: Movies are something that artists can use to tell stories or express themselves. They are like paintings or music. When you paint a picture of your house and family you try to make everyone look like themselves so when other people look at your painting, they will recognize your house and family. \n\nSome painters make paintings that arent of certain people or places but are of feelings, or ideas. Can you imagine what a painting of sadness might look like? Or frustration? Or thankfulness? Well, some movies try to do the same thing. They dont want to show a straightforward a story, instead they want show you a feeling. Like a swirl of oily paint and some sound effects to show you how amazingly big and empty the universe can feel. \n\nThe Tree of Life is one of these movies and it specifically deals with the idea of the beginning of life and how the universe went from a lifeless soup to family of complex creatures who get mad and upset and feel love and loss. It is amazing and awe inspiring to think about. And since the movie isnt too specific in its storytelling, you are able to kinda put yourself into the movie and it makes the feelings stronger. The movie isnt about Brad Pitt's family, really. The movie is about *your* family and everyone's family and how incredible it is that there even are families and how intense it can be to be alive. \n\nWhen watching a movie like this it is important to not expect too many details or explanation like you would get with most other movies. These movies are different. So just relax and ask yourself what you are feeling while you watch it. \n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sublime_(philosophy)"
],
[
"http://www.bywayofbeauty.com/2011/12/harlem-river-dispatch-2011-tree-of-life.html#more"
],
[],
[]
] |
|
44cqhk
|
When Book 10 of the Iliad was written?
|
I have been reading the Iliad and when I read book 10 I noticed it seemed out of place based on how it was written compared to earlier and later books in the Iliad. After further research I found that many consider the book to be from a later period.
So my theory is it was written in the 5th to 4th century B.C. The reason behind this is the character Dolan. In my opinion a character like him would have been very popular to add due to the traitor at Thermopylae, Ephialtes of Trachis, in 480 B.C.
So what are your opinions on this? What if any evidence supports this and or does not support this? Or is there any evidence at all?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/44cqhk/when_book_10_of_the_iliad_was_written/
|
{
"a_id": [
"czphjli"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"The so-called Doloneia has been debated for some time, since antiquity in fact. There isn't really a consensus, though most scholars consider it an interpolation. The tradition that the Doloneia is an interpolation goes back to a Homeric scholiast in antiquity, who attributed the Doloneia to Pisistratus. More likely, if the scholiast is right, the Doloneia was part of an alternate version of the *Iliad* (there were many such versions surviving well into antiquity, even after the relative standardization of the text by the Alexandrian scholars) that was added by Pisistratus, possibly as part of the so-called Pisistratean Recension (if it existed). Certainly the passage is suspect, as it lacks certain distinctive features of the rest of the poem besides not really making sense, but it's been pointed out that the Homeric Poems were the result of a centuries-old oral poetic tradition, and that anomalies shouldn't be unexpected. Many such anomalies were culled from the text by the Alexandrian scholars as interpolations, some of them quite long, and there are lots of passages in Homer that certainly look like interpolations but may well be genuine products of the oral tradition (I dunno, I'm not really a Homeric scholar, they get all tied up in knots about this sort of thing). But the Doloneia is unusually long and if it is an interpolation it probably represents a fairly early one, probably inserted from another part of the epic cycle--the Doloneia appears to be linked to an epic tradition surrounding Rhesus, who is of course murdered in his sleep in the passage, that we know existed\n\n > So my theory is it was written in the 5th to 4th century B.C. The reason behind this is the character Dolan. In my opinion a character like him would have been very popular to add due to the traitor at Thermopylae, Ephialtes of Trachis, in 480 B.C.\n\nI'm not so sure about this. I've never heard any connection supposed between Ephialtes and Dolon, they seem to me to have very little to do with each other. I mean, Dolon exists literally to be killed--the New Pauly suggests that maybe he was an invention of the author of the Doloneia, who created a character to link a tradition about a night expedition by Diomedes and Odysseus with the death of Rhesus. His name is certainly suspect (Δόλων isn't really a name, its a derived form from δόλος, \"craft, cunning\") and his lack of any personality or importance despite taking up so much of the book is more than a bit odd if the character existed in the epic cycle before his inclusion in Homer. Ephialtes is certainly too late to be an influence on the Doloneia, as it appears to have been named very early, attributed to Pisistratus by the scholiasts and possibly known to Herodotus. It lacks features common to the rest of the poem, but its language still appears to be close enough to Homer's that it's probably at least in some way derived from some part of the epic cycle. The New Pauly's explanation of the passage as an interpolation of Rhesus' part of the epic cycle into Homer is as convincing I think as any, but there are *lots* of alternate suggestions out there and there's still not even a consensus on whether it's an interpolation or not"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
yr8pu
|
What do former-soviet nations teach about WWII?
|
I feel like schools in the US hardly teach about the USSR's huge role in WWII. Do USSR countries teach about the rest of the allies role in the war?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/yr8pu/what_do_formersoviet_nations_teach_about_wwii/
|
{
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"c6emhzm",
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"text": [
"I teach in a Post-Soviet school currently (English, but I majored in History), and I have spoken with the history teachers about the curriculum. Each state speaks highly of its own contributions to the conflict. Georgia speaks of its industrial contributions and soldier commitments. Even the smallest of the villages have monuments with the names of the dead. \n\nBeyond that, they hit the highlights with the highest emphasis placed on the Eastern Front. Vassily Zaitsev is a very popular story and is often just referred to as \"The Sniper\". \n\nOn a more radical and national-political scene (speaking in the Georgian context) there is a * Museum of Soviet Occupation* and I believe it gives mention to the cost of Georgian lives for the greater conflict, perhaps even referencing that it was a \"Russian\" campaign. If I am ever there again, I will check and update. ",
"When I was attending Soviet public school in the 80s, the Pacific theater wasn't mentioned beyond Soviet involvement. The Western Front was looked upon as 'too little too late' and Lend Lease wasn't mentioned all. Keep in mind that this is at the elementary/middle school level, and WW2 was a topic from kindergarten on. \n\nI would assume that the same continues in the Russian Federation. I would be very curious to lean about how the topic is presented in the various former republics, especially the Baltic States that don't have the most favorable opinion of Russia. ",
"Not really a former Soviet nation, but I thought Polish perspective on this might be interesting.\n\nWe are being taught in detail about Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact (look it up, it's fascinating) and how Hitler and Stalin were allies and how Poland was invaded from both sides - it's always called an \"invasion\", even though Soviet forces crossed the border under the pretext of protecting their own people. \n\nIt's also said that Poland was betrayed by their allies - France and Great Britain and that their reluctance to declare war on Germany and act accordingly was the main cause of our defeat and German occupation. \n\nThere is also a very clear opinion on conferences of the \"Big Three\" (Yalta, Tehran, Potsdam) - that both Roosevelt and Churchill (the second one to a lesser extent) sold Poland to Stalin for his involvement in the war, acting behind the back of our government in exile in London. \n\nThe conlusion is that even though in theory Poland was on the side of victors, we were the ones to lose the war, being turned into satellite country of USSR for the next fifty years, all thanks to Western countries. \n\nSource: Finished Polish high school two years ago while taking extended level history. If you have any further questions, I will gladly answer. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
tsyjt
|
Why was there such a gap between the earliest stone tools and the earliest metal tools?
|
Basic google-fu suggests a gap of ~2.495 million years between the development of stone tools and metal tools. Obviously the control of fire is a major factor, but that still leaves a gap of ~120,000 years. Given the obvious advantages to the first society that produced metal tools and the speed of technological advancement since, why did it take us so long to go from stone to metal?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/tsyjt/why_was_there_such_a_gap_between_the_earliest/
|
{
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7
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"text": [
"Because they were probably more focused on survival day to day then innovation. Only as agricultural skills flourished and led to a more sedentary lifestyle would people have the free time to be creative and figure out how to manipulate metals.",
"\"Having fire\" and begin able to smelt metal are not at all the same thing. First off you have to recognize the ores that contain metal. You also have to get the fire pretty hot (hotter than a campfire will get if you want to smelt copper, so you probably need to have a knowledge of pottery so you could make a clay kiln of some sort) and pretty consistent. You also have to be able to do the final step in an air-starved environment because you're trying to strip oxygen out of the mineral to get your metal. That's a lot of stuff to figure out from nothing."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
4rr3m1
|
Zhuge Liang: Fact vs. Fiction
|
Zhuge Liang is one of my favorite characters in history/historical fiction/whatever Romance of the Three Kingdoms is. I am interested in knowing what is true and what is false. Which of the stories about him is based on real acts and which are not? What acts were attributed to him but in truth were the acts of others?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4rr3m1/zhuge_liang_fact_vs_fiction/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d53nokc"
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23
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"text": [
"Pretty much everything about Zhuge Liang popularized in *Romance of the Three Kingdoms* is false. Some notable examples:\n\n**Borrowing Arrows with Straw Boats:**\n\nThe *Sanguozhi* does not mention this at all, which means it is probably pure fiction. The SGZ does quote *Weilue* about a similar incident. During the Battle of Ruxu, Sun Quan sent a ship to observe Cao Cao's positions. Wei archers fired on the ship, which caused it to list. Sun Quan ordered the ship to turn around so that the Wei arrows would hit the other side and restore balance. Sun Quan then sailed back to his camp.\n\nFrom the *Weilue*:\n\n > [Sun] Quan boarded a large ship to inspect [Wei] camps, our lord [Cao Cao] ordered archers to fire, the arrows lodged into the ship, and the weight caused the ship to list. Quan ordered the ship to turn around so that the arrows would strike the other side. Once the ship was balanced, he returned to camp.\n\n**Praying for Eastern Wind:**\n\nYeah, this never happened. In fact, the entire Battle of Red Cliff was fought primarily by Wu forces. Liu Bei at the time was simply a beggar prince with very little land, resources, and men. Major credit for the battle belongs to Zhou Yu, not Zhuge Liang.\n\n**Fire Ships:**\n\nThe idea did not come from Zhuge Liang, it came from Wu general Huang Gai. Even then, this tactic was already well known by that time.\n\n**Guan Yu letting Cao Cao escape:**\n\nROTK had Zhuge Liang order Guan Yu and Zhang Fei to lay ambushes in strategic places and Guan Yu allowed Cao Cao to escape at Huarong Trail. This was not recorded in the SGZ and is entirely fictional. Liu Bei did plan on ambushing Cao Cao, but by the time he arrived, Cao Cao was long gone.\n\n**Zhou Yu's death:**\n\nZhuge Liang did not troll Zhou Yu to death with his wisdom and stratagems. The SGZ simply states that Zhou Yu died of illness.\n\n**Capturing Meng Huo Seven Times:**\n\nPei Songzhi's annotation of the SGZ only contains a single line about this, with no details. Therefore, it is likely that this is fiction. The rebellion itself was glossed over in historical texts, as it was not considered that important. \n\n**Inventing Things:**\n\nZhuge Liang did not invent the repeating crossbow or the ox wheelbarrow, but merely improved upon already existing designs. He also did not invent the flamethrower/cannon. That part is fiction.\n\n**Empty Fort Strategy:**\n\nPei Songzhi's annotation of the SGZ points out that Zhuge Liang's use of the Empty Fort Strategy against Sima Yi is entirely fictional, as Sima Yi was probably not even in the area during that time. There are also other inconsistencies with the story, such as why didn't Sima Yi send scouts or why he didn't surround the city when he clearly had the numerical advantage. The Empty Fort Strategy was actually first used by Cao Cao against Lv Bu. Zhao Yun also made notable use of this strategy, as described in Pei Songzhi's annotation of the SGZ:\n\n > In the twenty-fourth year of Jian'an (219 AD), Zhao Yun went with Liu Bei to attack Hanzhong. After the Shu army had killed Xiahou Yuan, Cao Cao gathered a large army to Hanzhong in response. There was an incident whereby the Cao army was transporting a large supply of grain to the bottom of the Northern Mountain. Huang Zhong saw that as an opportunity to intercept the food supply and he led his followers as well as Zhao Yun’s to attack the food supply chain. When Huang Zhong failed to return by the scheduled time, Zhao Yun brought along some light cavalry to assist Huang Zhong. After a short period of journeying, they met up with Cao Cao’s main force. Zhao Yun fought with Cao Cao’s vanguard but the latter’s troops were quickly reinforced in large amounts, forcing Zhao Yun to beat a retreat. The Cao army had Zhao Yun’s troops surrounded and by the time Zhao Yun managed to break out of the enemies’ lines, he realized that his subordinate Zhang Zhu was injured. Zhao Yun charged back into the enemies’ midst to rescue Zhang Zhu before they retreated back to their camp. At that time, the governor of Mianyang county Zhang Yi was helping to defend the camp. When he saw the size of the Cao army coming, he shut the gates and refused to defend. Zhao Yun realized of the immensity of the enemy’s troops and found it impossible to defend the camp. Thus he ordered for the gates to be opened, the flags taken down and the beating of drums ceased. When the Cao army arrived at the camp, they suspected of a possible ambush and retreated hastily. Zhao Yun then ordered for the drums to be beaten and also arrows be shot. The Cao army was taken by surprise by the sudden noise and was put to disarray and stampeding and many were drowned in the River Han nearby. The next day, Liu Bei came to Zhao Yun’s camp to inspect the outcome of the battle and could not help but praise Zhao Yun for his bravery.\n\n**Predicting his own death:**\n\nDidn't happen.\n\nZhuge Liang was a very capable political leader and administrator - Shu lacked the manpower and the resources of Wei and Wu and Zhuge Liang did the best with what he had. As Prime Minister, he employed capable officials and generals and knew how to delegate tasks. As a military leader, however, he was subpar. He was overly cautious and refused to take even the slightest risk, which was why Wei Yan grew disillusioned with him, and it led to the failure of all his Northern Expeditions, as his cautiousness gave time for his opponents to prepare their defenses. Sima Yi only had to stay in his camps and hold a defensive position and wait until Zhuge Liang ran out of supplies.\n\nMany of the stratagems were falsely attributed to Zhuge Liang in ROTK because Luo Guanzhong idolized him and made him into the greatest strategist who ever lived. As *Romance* popularized and spread, so too did tales of Zhuge Liang's exploits, until it became deeply embedded in modern pop culture. You should really read his biography in the SGZ. He is a great individual, skilled in organization and administration, but far too overrated. The best battle commander in the Three Kingdoms should really be Cao Cao."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
2n87hb
|
why do we tear up when we rip out nose hair or rip off a inner nose scab?
|
I just plucked a few long nose hairs, nothing painful but my eyes started watering right after I did it...why?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2n87hb/eli5why_do_we_tear_up_when_we_rip_out_nose_hair/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cmbaytt"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"Probably because there are lots of nerve endings in the mucosal lining. And it hurts like a bitch. The worst is when you get a zit in there."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
bgczvz
|
So another earthquake hit the PH today. Just 1 day apart, but from different places. Is there a connection between the 2? Should we be worried here in the PH for another big one?
|
_URL_0_
|
askscience
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/bgczvz/so_another_earthquake_hit_the_ph_today_just_1_day/
|
{
"a_id": [
"elkpi9n"
],
"score": [
11
],
"text": [
"For reference, the first large event was this [one](_URL_4_) occurring on 4/22 in the northern part of the country. The more recent event occurring on 4/23 was this [one](_URL_2_) in the more central/southern portion of the country.\n\nLocal geologists / seismologists have indicated that these two earthquakes occurred on different fault systems, and given the distance between these two earthquakes (relative to their magnitude) it is not possible that they are related as either foreshocks or aftershocks (i.e. they are far enough part that [coulomb stress transfer](_URL_0_) between the source faults is basically impossible). They're within the time range that one could potentially argue for [dynamic triggering](_URL_1_) of the latter earthquake by the first, but this is a proposition that would require a lot of investigation before anyone would make this claim (and it's probably unlikely, as in most cases the original triggering earthquake is significantly larger than the original 6.1 magnitude event). In short, there's probably no direct connection between them.\n\nSo what's the most likely explanation for these two events happening in close spatial and temporal proximity? Random chance superimposed on the fact that the [region is generally characterized by a lot of seismicity](_URL_3_), so the presence of strong earthquakes is in no way surprising. There are [~150 earthquakes of between 6.0 - 6.9](_URL_5_) per year globally, so that two of them might happen in a seismically active area, a few days apart, isn't really that unlikely. As to whether you should be worried about a larger earthquake in the region? No more than you would on any other day, i.e. as stated before, the region has a high seismic risk in general, so there's always a measurable risk of a large event. People can certainly expect aftershocks from both events, but these will be smaller than the original events."
]
}
|
[] |
[
"https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/pt19113000/executive?fbclid=IwAR39YcVlCbObvB3kvEQBhhUCQ5R56kYKHG5jkuCUtNu1k9NM4Ry_3DBy_5I"
] |
[
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coulomb_stress_transfer",
"https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/full/10.1146/annurev-earth-060313-054648",
"https://www.emsc-csem.org/Earthquake/earthquake.php?id=760848",
"https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/pt19113000/region-info",
"https://www.emsc-csem.org/Earthquake/earthquake.php?id=760623#summary",
"https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/browse/stats.php"
]
] |
|
bstjpx
|
why are vietnam veterans praised so much in america?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bstjpx/eli5_why_are_vietnam_veterans_praised_so_much_in/
|
{
"a_id": [
"eoq43qf",
"eoq45ka",
"eoq47yt"
],
"score": [
3,
5,
3
],
"text": [
"1. A lot of people were drafted. They did not choose to go.\n\n2. People already in the military also did not have a choice.\n\nMost of them were in one of those two categories. So if they had no choice and went through hell for their country (whether or not the war was justified is a separate story) why shouldn’t they be praised? \n\nI’m saying all this as a non-American so I have no patriotic bias here.",
"Mainly , and this is my opinion/take on it, because a majority (FC?) of the military was drafted and there were *lots* of protests against the Vietnam war and how we shouldn’t have been there. It was a horribly gruesome war, and the veterans of it deserve the praise because of what they were forced to endure meaninglessly.",
"They are praised because they were forced to do the wrong things, while the public had no idea. Then they came back and got shit on because of what the government had them doing. Basically this praise is a response to the initial public reaction, i.e them getting thrown under the bus. I hope no one thinks vietnam was a good idea, but i think you should respect the people that were forced to go there and fight for basically no reason."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
fwvcbi
|
how come peripheral vision is blurrier or less clear than whatever you're directly focusing on?
|
And less and less clear the further in your periphery it gets
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fwvcbi/eli5_how_come_peripheral_vision_is_blurrier_or/
|
{
"a_id": [
"fmqn2a6"
],
"score": [
7
],
"text": [
"The brain can only handle so much information at once. In fact, only a tiny area of vision is ever clear, if you look at the middle of your phone keyboard the letters on the side already are not clear. But you know what's there because it's held in very short term memory.\n\nFun fact, your peripheral vision is also black and white because color sensitive cells in your eye are only right in the middle. But your brain knows what color most things are so it fills it in with \"fake\" color.\n\nEdit: your brain also only NEEDS a small amount of information at one time. It's so good at filling in gaps that between the brain and how quickly eyes move there's really no evolutionary need for your entire field of vision to be crystal clear\n\nEdit 2: another fun fact. Because your peripheral vision does not have color receptors, it can have more brightness receptors. Your peripheral vision is brighter than your straight ahead vision."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
1danlu
|
How often do cancer cells divide?
|
I know that cancer cells divide faster than normal cells, but I haven't been able to find any numbers as to *how much* faster. And I realize there will be a range, perhaps quite wide. I'm interested in Lymphoma cells in particular.
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1danlu/how_often_do_cancer_cells_divide/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c9oj512"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"The doubling time of cancers cells depends on the characteristics of that cancer, like what it has mutated, deleted, ect. Below I have linked a website that lists different types of Lymphomas and blood cancers. The different Cell lines are on the left, and a simple google search looking for each of their doubling times will give you your answer! Good Luck\n\n_URL_0_"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ah/2012/701704/tab2/"
]
] |
|
283wh2
|
Why haven't we sent any more probes to Uranus and Neptune since Voyager 2?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/283wh2/why_havent_we_sent_any_more_probes_to_uranus_and/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ci75qki",
"ci75xvg"
],
"score": [
3,
3
],
"text": [
"Part of the reason is the funding.\n\nAnother big reason is that the Voyager crafts had gravitational assists; basically, the planets' orbits were aligned in such a way that their gravity \"slingshotted\" the Voyager crafts forward. This meant that they didn't need as much fuel as a direct fuel-powered mission. Without any gravitational assists, it will be much harder to reach that far in the solar system. Picture: _URL_0_\n\nThe good news is that we can use more gravitational assists in the future to achieve similar results.",
"Getting there is slow and expensive. The only reason Voyager 2 visited the planets is because in the late 70s, the outer planets were aligned so that every time the probe flew by a planet, it could use the planet it was flying by as a slingshot to reach the next planet out with relatively little fuel expenditure. Unfortunately, this alignment happens only ~170 years, so we can't do that again today.\n\nSo why does Pluto get a flyby and not another to Uranus and Neptune? Flyby missions are good for recon, but they quickly serve diminishing returns. Pluto is an unvisited target, while we've already learned a lot about Uranus and Neptune just from the Voyager flyby.\n\nFor better science returns, we're much more suited to perform a long-term mission. There you run into a problem of time. For example, Cassini, a spacecraft now orbiting Saturn, was launched in 1997, and didn't arrive there until 2004. Part of that journey was because it was too heavy to launch directly to Saturn, and it had to spend a year pinballing around the inner Solar System and slingshotting by Jupiter to get there. Still, Uranus is twice as far out as Saturn, so it would take more than twice as long to get there as Cassini if it followed the same mission profile. \n\nIt doesn't help that people rarely want to be attached to a mission that doesn't *start* to see returns until 15 or 20 years after launch. It's still an iffy proposition as to whether the spacecraft will even be healthy for that long."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_assist#mediaviewer/File:Voyager_Path.svg"
],
[]
] |
||
a664dd
|
what causes a car's head gasket to blow and why do certain car brands seem to have a bigger issue with this than other brands?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a664dd/eli5_what_causes_a_cars_head_gasket_to_blow_and/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ebs714f",
"ebs9sqm"
],
"score": [
4,
5
],
"text": [
"Alot of factors going into a head gasket blowing but the most prevent is design, especially the motor design, how much HP, amount of stress on motor and so on. The reason so many subaru's blow head gaskets is the design of the \"boxer engine\" where the pistons go outward putting more stress. ",
"For manufacturing reasons, the cylinder head is fabricated as a separate piece of metal than the cylinder body. These two pieces of metal are bolted together, to enable maintenance, at a point where there are very high combustion gas pressures. These high pressures are essential to generate power with the engine, so the assembly must contain them. Neither metal has infinite stiffness and there are only a few bolts holding the head to the cylinder. This combination could easily allow combustion gas pressures to separate the two pieces of metal at the seam and allow gas to leak out - causing mischief. To resist this a compressible gasket is installed between the two pieces of metal and compressed by the bolts. The compression forces the gasket to conform to the gap between the two metal objects elastically, so that further pressure from combustion gas further compresses the gasket making the seal tighter rather than letting gas out. It's a great design, everybody uses it.\n\nSome manufacturers produce parts with higher precision than others. Larger gaps allow the combustion gas to apply more pressure, allowing the gas force to exceed the strength of the gasket material. \n\nSome manufacturers make engines with larger displacement than others. This encourages performance boosting behaviors which also can lead to pressures that exceed the gasket material strength."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
f7oi2z
|
the accounting equation (assets = liabilities + equity)
|
I've heard explanations like "What you own = What you owe" and that this equation shows the dual-nature of every financial transaction.
I think I get the Liabilities part: what I owe. But I'm not quite clear on the difference between Assets and Equity.
Also: let's say you don't owe anything (i.e. Liabilities = 0)
That would mean that in that case, Assets = Equity
On the other hand, if the equity is zero, that would mean Assets = Liabilities!
Please clearly explain this equation to the confused 5-year-old in me with relatable dummy-friendly examples
Thank you
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/f7oi2z/eli5_the_accounting_equation_assets_liabilities/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ficmhy3"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"Things in your possession - Things that you borrowed = Things that belong to you.\n\nThe \"Things in your possession\" are your assets. They are the things you can use to do fun stuff.\n\nThe \"Things that you borrowed\" are your liabilities. You can use them to do fun stuff, but they need to be returned eventually. Further, if you break or lose these things while doing your fun stuff, you'll need to either replace them with your own stuff or borrow someone else's stuff to replace them, which will eventually need to be returned, and so on. If you borrow too much without giving back or you get a reputation for losing/breaking stuff, people will stop lending you their things and you won't be able to do as much fun stuff.\n\nThe \"Things that belong to you\" are your equity. You can always use your own things to do fun stuff, and you don't need to give them back when you're done because they belong to you. If you lose or break them, it's not quite as bad since no one will come knocking on your door asking when they can have them back.\n\nThus,\n\nAssets - Liabilities = Equity,\n\nor rearranged,\n\nAssets = Liabilities + Equity."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
27m5zk
|
How did the natives of Indonesia and the Pacific Islands treat punctures, scraps, infections, and other injuries that might occur while hunting or foraging?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/27m5zk/how_did_the_natives_of_indonesia_and_the_pacific/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ci2ob4i"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Speaking of cuts, and of Pacific Islands off the coast of British Columbia, apparently through cleaning, and regularly applying of spruce pitch to the wound, and replacing it regularly. I'm curious about practices in further south though."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
favv2y
|
how do guitar pickups get the strings sound?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/favv2y/eli5_how_do_guitar_pickups_get_the_strings_sound/
|
{
"a_id": [
"fj0kfc5",
"fj0kmfh",
"fj0kqlj"
],
"score": [
2,
3,
3
],
"text": [
"Magnets.\n\nDo people ever google something before just vomiting their thoughts here?\n\n_URL_0_",
"Inside the pickups are magnets wrapped in coils of wire with an electric charge running through them. Those magnets are what \"pickup\" the vibrations",
"Magnets.\n\nIt works in the same way that moving a metallic object (the strings) near a magnetic coil (the pickups) generates power fluctuations (frequencies) in the copper coil wound around each magnet in the pickup. These can then be passed onto the amplifier and played through a speaker.\n\nSpeakers/amplifiers work in the reverse way, using electronic frequencies to make a magnet move on a diaphragm and generate pressure waves in the air that you perceive as sound.\n\nEssentially the pickup translates the vibrations of the string into electronic frequencies that the amp translates back into vibration."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pickup_(music_technology)"
],
[],
[]
] |
||
3g26fb
|
Could all of earth's life survive if the atmosphere was only oxygen and carbon dioxide?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/3g26fb/could_all_of_earths_life_survive_if_the/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ctu703x",
"ctu9w7h"
],
"score": [
18,
14
],
"text": [
"No, nitrogen has an important role to play in the ecosystem, too. There are soil bacteria that convert N2 into ammonia that is taken up by pretty much everything that lives in the soil and anything that is further down the food chain. The ultimate source of virtually every atom of nitrogen in your body is the air.",
"Apart from what /u/uberhobo mentioned, an atmosphere with only carbon dioxide and oxygen would be a *really* bad idea! \n\nCarbon dioxide is normally not present in our atmosphere in significant concentrations. A human breathing about 4-5% carbon dioxide (with the rest being our normal atmosphere) for a few hours will experience mild respiratory discomfort, and at 6% CO2 for as little as half an hour, humans will start to show signs of mental confusion. \n\nExposure to 1-1.5% CO2 for years seems to be no problem for humans. That leaves us with 98.5-99% oxygen. A forest fire in such an atmosphere wouldn't only be virtually unstoppable, but in such an oxygen rich environment pretty much everything burns. For example, diamond burns good in an oxygen-rich atmosphere. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
1eroh7
|
bayes' theorem in probability
|
And also Contingency table? Please and thank you.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1eroh7/eli5_bayes_theorem_in_probability/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ca32ovp"
],
"score": [
7
],
"text": [
"To understand Baye's theorem, we must first understand the concepts of conditional probabilities and probabilities. A probability is the chance of an event happening, often denoted P(A), where A is the event, i.e. P(A)=1/6 where A is rolling 1 on a six-sided die. A conditional probability is the chance of an event occurring given that another event has occurred. This is denoted P(A|B), the probability of event A, given that event B has occurred.\n\nBaye's theorem gives us a method to relate probabilities and conditional probabilities. This can be combined with other theorems (such as the law of total probability, which provides a method to generate probabilities from conditional probabilities), to allow for a more complete analysis."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
558tsb
|
When did Europeans start bathing with soap rather than oil and a scraper?
|
I am aware that through the early and high Middle Ages Europeans continued to bathe as their ancestors the Romans did, and that bathing only fell out of favor with the Black Death. Ironically, Charlemagine probably bathed more often than George Washington. But I know that the Romans bathed by coating themselves in oil, usually olive oil, then scraping themselves off with a metal scraper. When bathing became popular again in the 19th century everyone used soap. So when did the transition happen and why?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/558tsb/when_did_europeans_start_bathing_with_soap_rather/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d898e0z"
],
"score": [
99
],
"text": [
"The differences between soap and olive oil is actually smaller than you think. \nRancid olive oil contains lots of free fatty acids, which have emulsive properties similiar to soap. \n \nFurthermore, traditional soap is made from olive oil, and/or other triacylglycerides. If a base is added to olive oil it transforms into soap, through a process conveniently called saponification. Usually the base was ash. This process is relatively simple and was known to the Babylonian and Romans. You can buy this type of soap at any natural grocery store today, branded as glycerine or castille soap. However ancient soap was not as luxurious as these. Modern industrial techniques were needed to make it clear and pure. Roman Soap was probably more of a thick gloppy mess. \n\nSince the mid 1800s soap quality has improve immensely, but its still fundamentally the same stuff the Romans, Carolingian, and Founding Fathers used. \n\nNote: I am not a historian. I am a lipid chemist. I hope I didn't break any rules.\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
3bpaht
|
Do any animals besides mammals and bees make food for their young?
|
Mammals make milk, bees make honey. Do any other animals make food?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/3bpaht/do_any_animals_besides_mammals_and_bees_make_food/
|
{
"a_id": [
"csp8w4y"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Bees don't actually make honey for their young, they make it for adult bee consumption during the winter. They do produce substances to feed to larvae, including royal jelly, in glands inside their heads.\n\nOtherwise, good question! Some birds perform premastication, chewing up food and regurgitating it for babies. Not sure if this is what you have in mind though."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
tm5wl
|
Does anyone have primary sources on the Seleucid government?
|
It would help me immensely. I'm having a hard time finding any, as I as a danish student have a hard time finding any.
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/tm5wl/does_anyone_have_primary_sources_on_the_seleucid/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c4ntv3d",
"c4ntxuu"
],
"score": [
2,
5
],
"text": [
"Sure! Check what Livy has to say on the subject, he'll be able to tell you about the later Seleucids from the Roman perspective. Also Polybius should be an invaluable source to you. Check Plutarc'hs Lives as well.",
"You're having a hard time finding any because Seleucid administration is actually not so easy to study.\n\nWe have lots of information about the Seleucid Kings/Emperors, we know they utilised a satrapal system like Persia, and we know the results of some of their actions. But in terms of civil service, administrative practice, that kind of nitty gritty, we actually know more about the Assyrian Empire in that respect than the Seleucids.\n\nWhy? Because the Assyrians wrote everything down on clay tablets, not papyrus. That's just downright unlucky. That's not to say there are no sources on the Seleucid government however. If you want Roman sources, kevink123 has given you some help. If you want to understand the Macedonian origins of part of Seleucid Kingship then I recommend reading Diodoros Siculus as well. \n\nThis is a book I seem to shill at every opportunity, but I absolutely think you need to read *From Samarkhand to Sardis* by Susan-Sherwin White and Amelie Kuhrt. It is the most extensive book written on the Seleucids, is from 1994 so is relatively recent, and should help you answer your question. Furthermore, their bibliography and references will in turn help you find more resources, especially primary sources.\n\n*The House of Seleucus* by Edywn R. Bevan should also help you.\n\nBoth of these books should be available on Google Books.\n\nIf you're familiar with Alexander the Great then good. If not, I recommend on reading up on that at least a little because he's vital to understanding much of the development of Hellenistic Asia in general.\n\nI also cannot insist enough that you should try to learn a little about the Achaemenid Persian state too, because the biggest mistake that Greek historians used to make was to write about the Persian Empire without knowing anything about the current state of scholarship on Persia. This meant that in the 1970s you'd get people writing about Alexander and the Greeks as though the Persians were like something from 300. So, even a little introduction from a book on Achaemenid Persia will help you avoid that, and I'd recommend *From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire* by Pierre Briant. I warn you now though, Briant has an incredibly positive view of the Achaemenid Empire. That may be preferable to seeing them as an cackling evil Empire, but it colours his work a lot and therefore you should take some of his glowing reviews of the Achaemenids with a pinch of salt.\n\nDistrust any source written about the Seleucids in modern scholarship written before the 1980s at least, since I'm sure you will end up reading some by necessity. Especially mistrust the source a little if they decide that the Seleucids were a failure of an Empire. Also mistrust sources written about Alexander the Great before the 1970s at least and preferably before the 1980s, they tend to have no real links to archaeological sources that actually help the study of Alexander quite a lot."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
1gu0yg
|
Why was the latin word for left-hand "sinister"? Did they prefer the right hand over the left and for what reasons?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1gu0yg/why_was_the_latin_word_for_lefthand_sinister_did/
|
{
"a_id": [
"canu2qb",
"canv31q"
],
"score": [
8,
10
],
"text": [
"The etymology is not quite certain, but there's a pretty decent chance it comes from the word *sinus*, which is the word for any kind of fold. In this case it *could perhaps* be because it's the hand that holds up the *sinus* of a toga.\n\nHowever, I don't have access to the most up-to-date etymological dictionary, De Vaan's one, where I am: that *may* have new information",
"[It meant left before it meant evil.](_URL_2_) \n\nIt might have originally meant the slower or weaker hand, but it also could be a euphemism meaning the more favorable hand. If the latter was the case, it would mean that the left hand already had a negative connotation (else why have a euphemism?)\n\nThe word took on sense of foreboding from the interpretation of omens from the left hand side, a practice I don't know enough about to comment on. \n\nHowever, I'm hesitant to say that the bad associations of the word inhere entirely in its use in augury. Words for left and right often have negative and positive meanings, respectively, e.g. \"gauche,\" \"adroit,\" and whatever word was too taboo to say so as to require the euphemism \"sinister,\" if thst etymology is correct. Furthermore, the English words [\"right\"](_URL_0_) and [\"left\"](_URL_1_) meant meant proper a d weak, respectively, and \"left\" replaced Old English \"winestra,\" a euphemism for the left because the left was seen as bad. \n\nTl;dr: Right supremacists have been around a long time. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=right&allowed_in_frame=0",
"http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=left&allowed_in_frame=0",
"http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=sinister&allowed_in_frame=0"
]
] |
||
f8hmzb
|
Why do scholars always imagine recorded troop sizes to be larger than reality?
|
I recently started reading Caesar's Gallic wars, and after reading about the battle of Bibracte I looked at the wikipedia page to see if there was any more information. Caesar records the number of Helvetii as 368,000 (a figure he got from their own records which he looted) - but the wikipedia page lists three sources for the number of the Helvetii
> **Caesar:**
368,000:
90,000 warriors
278,000 non-combatants
**Orosius:**
157,000 people
**Modern estimates**
20,000 people, including 12,000 warriors
This isn't the only time I've come across something like this. I loved reading Herodotus' histories last year, and there's great detail about the number of people who marched into Greece with Xerxes. Herodotus seems very aware that the size of the army beggars belief. He talks of how they drank rivers dry and impoverished every town they came to. He even details the means by which they counted the number of people there were (by having them stand in turn in a circle of known capacity). Yet Wikipedia confidently tells me this:
> The numbers of troops that Xerxes mustered for the second invasion of Greece have been the subject of endless dispute, because the numbers given in ancient sources are very large indeed. Herodotus claimed that there were, in total, 2.5 million military personnel, accompanied by an equivalent number of support personnel.The poet Simonides, who was a contemporary, talks of four million; Ctesias, based on Persian records, gave 800,000 as the total number of the army (without the support personnel) that was assembled by Xerxes. While it has been suggested that Herodotus or his sources had access to official Persian Empire records of the forces involved in the expedition, modern scholars tend to reject these figures based on knowledge of the Persian military systems, their logistical capabilities, the Greek countryside, and supplies available along the army's route.
>
> Modern scholars thus generally attribute the numbers given in the ancient sources to the result of miscalculations or exaggerations on the part of the victors, or disinformation by the Persians in the run up to the war. The topic has been hotly debated but the modern consensus revolves around the figure of 200,000 or 300,000–500,000.
Why would modern scholars be so sure that historical sources are over-representing the numbers present? There are three listed contemporary sources, all of which say 800,000 or higher - yet scholars opt for at most 500,000 - a massively lower number! The sources even explain how they came to these numbers and provide accounts believably consistent with the numbers listed. It seems to me that scholars are assuming a lot to think they know better than contemporary writers about something that happened so long ago. Or is there a really good argument otherwise?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/f8hmzb/why_do_scholars_always_imagine_recorded_troop/
|
{
"a_id": [
"filj343"
],
"score": [
12
],
"text": [
"More input is always welcome; for the meantime, you'll be greatly interested in these two answers from previous threads:\n\n* On the matter of Herodotos versus numbers, in this thread u/Iphikrates [breaks down just how Herodotos got his numbers](_URL_0_).\n* As for how modern scholars can be confident in lower numbers than the ancient sources provide, u/FlavivsAetivs here [expounds on the difficulties of fielding large armies](_URL_1_)."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7lkmwo/did_ancient_people_knew_their_quoted_numbers_of/",
"https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/97su5p/why_did_the_size_of_armies_apparently_shrink_so/"
]
] |
|
8pejtq
|
European colonists often referred to Native Americans by grouping them into categories like "Cherokee" or "Choctaw" on an ethnolinguistic basis. How relevant were such distinctions to the indigenous groups themselves?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/8pejtq/european_colonists_often_referred_to_native/
|
{
"a_id": [
"e0be02u",
"e1dpx15"
],
"score": [
81,
5
],
"text": [
"One of the most difficult things that students of prehistoric and protohistoric cultures in the western portions of North America have to confront is the relationship of political entities to linguistic or other classifications. In most of California, and all of the NW coast south of the Tlingit and Haida areas, there was no political organization above household. Rich men had more influence. There may have been a shaman or doctor that had influence over a larger population but it was not formal. In addition, there may also have been religious leaders, often called dance leaders, that had influence that extended beyond the household. But the concept of tribe itself has virtually no utility. \n\nEarly anthropologists recognized that tribes were a construct invented by anthropologists to compare and contrast cultural traits (see P. E. Goddard *Life and Culture of the Hupa* 1903), but investigations at the scale of extended family just were not feasible. They therefore focused on the larger ethnolinguistic unit - using groups of people with homogeneous or mostly homogenous languages. This was in part because of the linguistic training of early anthropologists, but mostly because it was a seemingly reasonable way to divide populations up.\n\nThe problem is perhaps most clearly exemplified by the far Northwestern California and far Southwestern Oregon groups. This is an area where virtually each river drainage was occupied by a different language group from very different language families yet the cultures were virtually identical. Compare, for example NW California where the Tolowa (Athabascan) are bounded to the south by the Yurok (~~Algonkian~~ Algic), to the east by Karuk (Hokan), to the Southeast by other Athabaskans (Hupa, and its subtribes or tribelets, the Chilula, Whilkut, and Tsnungwe), but these Athabaskans were unintelligible to the Tolowa. Further south are other Athabaskan groups that were not intelligible to any of the others and a variety of other ethnolinguistic groups. All these groups shared many dances, regalia, mythologies and other traits.\n\nThis area has been the site of extensive ethnological research beginning in 1871 and marked by fairly monumental research projects by Kroeber (see his work on the Yurok) and his students. While these \"tribes\" held many unique traits, having to do with aspects of religion, and customs, they were, for all intents and purposes, identical cultures. Complicating matters is the fact that Northern California natives were notorious polyglots. Powers once noted an elderly informant that \"had one eye and six languages in his head\".\n\nSo how relevant were the distinctions to the native groups themselves? In the area I study, I don't think it was very relevant. As an example, almost all natives that lived near boundaries of linguistic groups were bilingual so intercourse of both an economic and social nature was unimpeded between groups. People routinely married outside their linguistic groups. In fact, certain villages held alliances with other villages in different language areas. Alternatively, villages within the same language group were traditional enemies. \n\nMany groups that have been identified as subtribes or tribelets of the Hupa, because they spoke dialects of the Hupa language felt no affiliation with the Hupa proper, in fact they felt the opposite. So my conclusion is that it probably made a little difference in that the natives recognized that there were other people that speak our language, but ethnologically and to the natives it was largely irrelevant.\n\nSee:\n\n[*All Those Things that You’re Liable\nTo Read in the Ethnographic Literature\nThey Ain’t Necessarily So* Thomas Keter, \nPaper Presented to\nThe Society for California Archaeology, 2009](_URL_0_)\n\n*Handbook of California Indians*, A. Kroeber 1970 (originally published 1926)\n\n*California Indian Languages*, Victor Golla, 2011\n\n*Life and Culture of the Hupa*, P.E. Goddard, 1903\n\nCalifornia Athabaskan Groups, Martin Baumhoff 1958.\n\nEdit: economic for economical\nEdit II: Algic for Algonkian\n ",
"I'm late to this party, but I wanted to chime in with a few points. Namely that the two examples you give, the Cherokee and the Choctaw, have some significant sociopolitical structures backing up those labels. They're not just names given to them by the colonists. In both cases, there were national councils developed to unify the Tsalagi and Chahta peoples, respectively. Of course, in both cases, there were regional distinctions, such as localized dialects and slight cultural differences, but that's true of all sufficiently large nations. However, the differences between these internal groups were far less than, say, the differences between the Five Nations of the Haudenosaunee.\n\nLinguistically, the Choctaw recognized that they were closely tied to the Chickasaw, long before any Euroamerican linguistic lumped them both into the Muskogean languages. Their ties to the Chickasaw are commemorated in a shared origins narrative, explaining how the two nations split over a disagreement concerning where to settle once they crossed the Mississippi from the west. For the Cherokee in the colonial period, linguistic connections with their neighbors were less important, mainly because there were far fewer neighbors that spoke a similar language. The Haudenosaunee, however, eventually came to see the Cherokee as distant cousins due to linguistic and cultural similarities, and - once they stopped fighting over Ohio - they engaged in some cultural exchange. We have, for example, the account of a Seneca traveler among the Cherokee, who went south to see what the Cherokee where up to."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://solararch.org/uploads/3/4/0/3/34036807/2009_sca_all_those_things--wailaki_tsnugwe_ethnogrpahy.pdf"
],
[]
] |
||
17fjpr
|
What would happen if two tidal waves hit one another in the middle of an ocean?
|
Would they bounce off each other like a solid object, or pass through one another, or would something else happen?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/17fjpr/what_would_happen_if_two_tidal_waves_hit_one/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c850f2d"
],
"score": [
7
],
"text": [
"You get a super position of waves. The waves would add up. Where the 2 peaks align, you would get a wave twice as high (assuming equal waves), where a peak meets a trough, you would get no wave. As they parted, you the waves would look unchanged.\n\nThis can lead to some freak waves, where a large number of tiny waves sum up to create a monster wave. This has been know to catch ships out in open water."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
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