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33iv23
|
how does exposure to sunlight generate vitamin d? some kind of mammal photosynthesis?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/33iv23/eli5_how_does_exposure_to_sunlight_generate/
|
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"Its called Dermal Synthesis when you're talking about making vitamin D from cholesterol. It's a light-powered process, but not really the same as photosynthesis in plants.",
"Sunlight is full of UV rays, which are electromagnetic waves, which are a form of energy. Just to keep it simple... sunlight = energy.\n\nThis energy penetrates your skin or gets reflected. More specifically, the electromagnetic waves are absorbed at the molecular level. So, a photon can contribute energy to a molecule when it's energy gets absorbed.\n\nThe precursor to Vitamin D is located in the skin. Sunlight contributes energy that causes this precursor molecule to convert to Vitamin D. I think it's specifically UV-B rays that are the correct frequency to make this happen.",
"It's not really taking in the energy of the sun (like photosynthesis), but more using UV-B rays from the sun to break bonds in the cholesterol in your skin, so your liver can attach some oxygen and hydrogen, then your kidneys contribute a few more oxygen and hydrogen, until it's been rendered into something the body can absorb.",
"_URL_0_ \nLight (UV light) catalyzes the transformation of this into what we call Vitamin D3. Your body probably makes this from cholesterol (or some cholesterol derivative) and then lets light do its work",
"Photosynthesis has this whole complicated set of proteins and molecular machinery to do its job (light+water+CO2 - > sugar+oxygen). \n\nVitamin D synthesis is simpler: your body produces one chemical ([7-Dehydrocholesterol](_URL_0_)), and if you expose that chemical to UV light (optimally 290-320 nm wavelength, \"UVB\") the energy in the light is enough to break a bond in the first chemical and it turns into another chemical, and that chemical isn't stable and spontaneously turns into vitamin D. The UVB light only really gets through the outer layers of your skin, so we evolved to produce the precursor there so we could get vitamin D. ",
"Ten to 15 minutes of sunshine three times weekly is enough to produce the body's requirement of vitamin D. The sun needs to shine on the skin of your face, arms, back, or legs (without sunscreen). Because exposure to sunlight is a risk for skin cancer, you should use sunscreen after a few minutes in the sun. - National Institute of Health\n\nAnother way to get your Vitamin D on, is to measure the time it takes for you to get pink/start to burn, and cut it in half. Get that much per day and you're good to go.",
"Vitamin D3, or cholecalciferol, is a steroid hormone which has a cholesterol precursor like the other hormones in the family. A small 1% of the sun's light energy spectrum (280 ~ 310 nm in the UV) is responsible for converting subdermal 7-Dehydrocholesterol into a previtamin D, which then thermally isomerizes to the vitamin form.\n\nGreat presentation on the topic below, and the reason I lay out during solar noon for about a half an hour when I get a chance, starting late March through the end of September in San Francisco. No sunscreen. \n\nThe sun has to be at least at 45 degrees or higher at sea level to be able to produce Vitamin D, otherwise most of the UV is absorbed by the atmosphere. So if your shadow is longer than your height, don't bother.\n\nGreat presentation on the topic.\n_URL_0_"
]
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||
6h8qsr
|
why do airplanes flying above me appear to be going so slow even though they are traveling several hundred mph vs my slow walking pace?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6h8qsr/eli5_why_do_airplanes_flying_above_me_appear_to/
|
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"well, how do you gauge their speed? tiny dot in a big sky, no frame of reference. if they travel a mile at their distance, it might be a fraction of a degree change in your perspective. with nothing to mark the change against.\n\nBasicly, they appear to be going slow because your not used to judging speed of objects in that are that far away.",
"Because the sky is huge and your pavement is small. [This may help explain.](_URL_0_)"
]
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|
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4l0da7
|
if everyone gets a basic income, wouldn't product pricing eventually rise as well (because there will be more demand) and thus make the basic income useless?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4l0da7/eli5if_everyone_gets_a_basic_income_wouldnt/
|
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"Assuming there is no change in the basic premiss of a for-profit economy, there is nothing to stop land owners and grocery stores from raising rents/prices until the point that a UBI is consumed entirely by housing and food. To make a UBI work, we need to change the way the economy functions to respect workers and consumers first rather then shareholders. On the other hand a UBI is not meant to be the end all. Rather, it is meant to satisfy the basic needs of the population, food, housing, clothing, and transportation. Ideally people would still work while receiving a UBI in order to afford the nicer things."
]
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|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
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||
a1yvfq
|
why do people say that only the best sperm cell is able to fertilize a woman?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a1yvfq/eli5_why_do_people_say_that_only_the_best_sperm/
|
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"Not all sperm are created equal, even within one man. Because half of a person is from the mother and half from the father, each sperm has to contain only half of the information needed to make a baby. When sperms are made, the information that goes into each one is randomised by several different mechanisms so no 2 will have the exact same genes. Some will be weak and some strong.\n\nHaving said that, in fact fertilisation of the egg is very hard. Eggs have a thick layer protecting them that sperm need to burrow through, and the first one to reach the egg usually isn't the one to complete fertilisation. Instead, fertilising the egg is a joint effort by several sperms burrowing through the outer layers of egg until one reaches the middle. "
]
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|
[] |
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[
[]
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||
1bcrsy
|
what's the symbolism of easter eggs?
|
How did we get "hey lets go find rainbow eggs" from the resurrection??
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1bcrsy/eli5_whats_the_symbolism_of_easter_eggs/
|
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"Not sure but I'd say it had something to do with the pagan rites of spring before Christianity was established in full. Eggs=fertility, people think of fertility in the spring etc. I assume it is just something that christianity co-opted."
]
}
|
[] |
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[
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|
2z7tdy
|
is it true that fat people are growing muscle just by carrying all that extra weight around?
|
If fat person loses weight will their muscles be bigger/stronger then those of similarly sized, untrained person who has not been fat before?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2z7tdy/eli5is_it_true_that_fat_people_are_growing_muscle/
|
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"Depends. If they are moving abound a lot then yes, they will at least have strong leg muscles. However not moving around a lot is probably the cause of them being fat in the first place.",
"Yes this is mainly for the legs though. Obviously the more you weigh the more weight your legs have to carry when you walk. The muscles will get stronger to compensate especially the calf muscles. If they lose weight then yeah those muscles will probably be bigger / stronger then a person who has never been over wight unless they do a lot of leg strength training. ",
"Most of it has been explain by the other two replies. One thing to add is that this is the reason why fat people who lose lots of weight end up with bigger calf muscles than a bodybuilder does. They simply burn the fat and reveal the muscle underneath.",
"Think about walking around with weights strapped to your body. Lets say additional 30kg or 66lbs for my american friends. It is easier to see how they could have stronger muscles. Basicly what people emulate in the gym, doing squads etc. with additional weight on their shoulders."
]
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35voep
|
if food goes past its "best by" date, does the nutritional information change? does the amount of sugars, calories, etc change for stale food?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/35voep/eli5if_food_goes_past_its_best_by_date_does_the/
|
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"Except for fermentation and decay, most changes are within type. Sugars turn to starched, oils turn to oxidized oils, et cetera."
]
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bq39j3
|
how is it that scientists are saying that in the ocean, there are places with "no oxygen" when oxygen is required for water to exist?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bq39j3/eli5_how_is_it_that_scientists_are_saying_that_in/
|
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"They mean O2, not bound in H2O\n\nYou see plants and algea... They are abled to make oxygen underwater. Ponds need plants to make oxygen so fish could breath, otherwise they'll suffocate \n\nSo it's possible to have a place where nothing makes oxygen underwater.",
"When animals breathe water with gills, they do not strip the oxygen atoms out of the water molecules, they breathe oxygen **dissolved in water**. \n\nWater can have a varying amount of oxygen dissolved in it, depending on water conditions, presence of plant life, etc. A fast flowing, turbulent stream has more oxygen than a mucky bog, because the motion of the stream helps oxygen from the air to dissolve into the water, and the high amount of rotting material in the bog decreases oxygen\n\nHigh oxygen water allows lots of animals to live, low oxygen water limits animals life, and water completely deprived of oxygen kills animals that need oxygen to live.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nAt the bottom of the ocean, extremely salty pockets of water can form, and the extreme salt difference between regular ocean and the extremely salt pools prevents the water from mixing, so the unmixed salt pools run out of oxygen and never replenishes fresh oxygen",
"Your question has already been answered about how it’s possible to have low oxygen content in the water, just thought I’d add a [typical profile of dissolved oxygen in the open ocean in the tropics](_URL_0_). \n\nThe ability of seawater to dissolve oxygen is largely a function of the temperature (colder = more oxygen can be dissolved), but the pattern we can see in that profile is due mainly to biological activity. \n\nIn the first few hundred metres of the water column, dissolved oxygen levels decrease rapidly down to an oxygen minimum layer at about 900-1000 metres. This is due to bacteria in the water decomposing all the dead plankton that rains down from the surface waters, using up oxygen whilst they do so. This is also evidenced by the phosphate levels which rise as the oxygen decreases - phosphate is a constituent of the dead plankton which is being released back to the water as they are broken down. \n\nA very low oxygen level is known as hypoxia, and an absence of oxygen is anoxia. Anoxia is generally unfavourable for almost all types of marine life, not many fish are to be found in the oxygen minimum layer, or if so then they’re just passing through. The waters below this have oxygen levels replenished by deepwater currents and a certain amount of mixing in the water column."
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3mdqpg
|
why do movies and tv shows with zombies in them, never use the z-word?
|
Infected, walkers etc. but never zombies. Everybody thinks it, but noone dares to say it.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3mdqpg/eli5_why_do_movies_and_tv_shows_with_zombies_in/
|
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"The reason that people in most zombie media don't say the word zombie is because in those worlds, zombie media doesn't exist. This also explains why it takes people so long to understand how to kill them and how the infection spreads.",
"For an answer out of the show's/movie's universe, it's kind of like how in Iron Man 3 Tony said to Rhodey \"Nobody says \"hack\" anymore.\" Even though tv shows/movies have zombies, the word has become dated, so a substitute word/term is used instead. \n \nFor an in-universe answer, usually because zombies didn't previously exist in the show's real life or in media, which makes it more challenging for the characters to fully comprehend what's happening. ",
"Mostly because zombies seems like a silly thing. The idea of a zombie does not usually convey dread or terror because they are so ubiquitous. Walker or Infected sound more scary. \n\nIt also helps to paint the world the piece is set in as an alt history where the Zombie fad never hit. Since the zombies need to be scary or foreign or alien to the cast they can't already know everything htere is to know about them because in their world the pop culture zombie fad hit. \n"
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8mvuxv
|
why are there so many types of vitamin b (b1, b2, b3, b6, b9, etc), but only one type of some other vitamins (such as c and d)?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8mvuxv/eli5_why_are_there_so_many_types_of_vitamin_b_b1/
|
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"Basically there were A-K vitamins named chronologically, but later it was decided that F-P aren’t vitamins, and we found out that B is a big group of 20 or so of them, except some of those aren’t vitamins too.",
"Vitamins A, D, E, and K are all fat soluble. That is, they need to be absorbed alongside fat to enter the body. The various B vitamins are all various water solble compounds necessary for cellular metabolism.\n\nIn other words, B vitamins are just a long list of molecules integral to the function of cells, discovered over a period of time. They aren't all that different and so they are all grouped under the B heading. ",
"At one point we thought that there was just a single Vitamin B that you would get from your food source. As we later realized, it was actually several different molecules that do different things for your body, but because they often come from the same source (same type of food) there was that initial miscategorization. \n\n\nSome vitamins turned out not to really be vitamins, so they are eliminated Vitamin F doesnt exist for example\n\n\nAnd then Vitamin D often is listed at Vitamin D2 or Vitamin D3. These are closely related molecules that do the same thing in the body. Also, since Vitamin D can be made in body, its not technically a vitamin",
"Related note: the definition it a vitamin is an organic molecule (minerals are the inorganic equivalents) that are necessary for biological processes to occur, but don't themselves get consumed during those processes.\n\nSo when you see an ad for a really high dose B vitamin supplement that brags about \"converting food into energy\", think of it as an ad saying \"A quart of motor oil helps your car turn fuel into energy, so 100 gallons would be even better!\" Not gonna help you, and if anything, it might hurt you.",
"Scientists are generally bad at naming things. Names are required for research as it enables different scientists to discuss things. If it does not have a name you can not talk about it. As you might imagine a lot of names are just numerations. So you have vitamins being named A, B, C, D, etc. when first published in a paper. But this was before they knew what the vitamins were or why they were needed. So the thing they first classified as vitamin B turned out to be 12 different substances, and then they discovered that only 8 of those were vitamins. So this is why you have no vitamin B11 or vitamin A2 but you have vitamin B12. The rest of the vitamin naming schemes are similarly troubled. They tried keeping the naming alphabetically but you had vitamins which were debunked in later papers and renamed vitamins, etc. And this is not a unique problem to vitamins but almost all scientific naming schemes suffer from similar issues.",
"Also, there is a somewhat significant subset of the population who has a hard time accessing vitamin b. It’s a genetic component that makes it difficult. If you feel tired and/or forgetful try some methylated vitamin b that has better bioavailability. It’s cheap and it might be the holy grail for you like it was for me.",
"Also worth noting there are different types of the same vitamin. B12 (cobalamin) for example is found in multiple forms. Hydroxylcobalamin, methylcobalamin, adenosylcobalamin and cyanocobalamin. Hydroxylcobalamin for example is converted to an active form easier than cyanocobalamin, and methylcobalamin/adenosylcobalamin are already ready to be used by the body as they are active forms. \n\nWhich is why not all multivitamins have the same results."
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ams138
|
why several pictures taken with a digital camera with the same settings has different sizes.
|
i often take several pictures with my digital camera, and so i have several pictures of the same subject with the same settings, they often vary between 5,8 mb to 6 mb. why are they different sizes? feels like they should be the same size since dpi and image size is the same.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ams138/eli5_why_several_pictures_taken_with_a_digital/
|
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"Compression. Some images can be compressed more than others. For example, taking a picture of a wall will be more easily compressed than an image with lots of detail.",
"If you have large areas of similar colour, the jpeg compression means that the file will be smaller, because rather than writing, say, 200 pixels all with 3 different RGB values, it will instead say 'here are 200 pixels all with this RGB value'.",
"The files are compressed. Since each image will have very subtly different contents, the result of the compression will be different. Some bits of data lend themselves better to compression than others, so that’s why the final file size is variable. "
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fu84c7
|
canadian here, what the hell is american cheese? is there a similar product available in canada?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fu84c7/eli5_canadian_here_what_the_hell_is_american/
|
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"Its basically a mass produced thinly sliced square of chemicals that is dyed yellow and individually packaged. Delicious.",
"In Canada I think it's usually called \"Process Cheddar Cheese\"\n\nIt's a mild flavored processed cheddar or colby cheese.",
"I always assumed (maybe wrongly?) that it's like our Kraft Singles. You know, those individually wrapped thin squares of plastic cheese."
]
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|
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5y0v43
|
why the moon is very feint during the day compared to at night? is it still reflecting light from the sun?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5y0v43/eli5_why_the_moon_is_very_feint_during_the_day/
|
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"The moon may appear faint against the sunlit sky because while the brightness of the moon does not change, the comparison against the ambient light changes from day to night. You know how a flashlight may seem bright at night but dim during the day? It is that same sort of thing.",
"well, a light bulb is feint during the day too.\n\nthe moon is just as bright, (maybe brighter even because the earth is reflecting its light to the moon, and then back, not that we would be able to differentiate with the naked eye)\n\nbut the ambient light level makes it stand out far less.",
"When it is up at night, it's one of the brightest natural objects around. But it's not that bright overall. During the day it is washed out by all the other 'brightness' around, including that of the sky itself. \n\nYour pupil adjusts itself to the light conditions that are present at the time, something called dynamic range. So at night 'bright' is going to be something like the Moon or a street lamp. During the day, the Moon or the street lamp may not appear that bright at all, not because their brightness has changed, but because your eye had adjusted to all the sunlight streaming into your location and reflecting off nearby objects, and so adjusted the bar on what 'bright' is.\n",
"Think of the moon as an iPad, during nighttime hours it is easy to see, but when the sun is shining on it the iPad is not as easily visible because of the direct light on it.",
"It is reflecting light during both the day and the night. The difference is that the sun is just *that* much brighter than the moon, so the blue sky and sunlight pull the attention off of it.\n\nDuring the night, however, the mook tends to be the brightest thing in the sky. This results in your eyes pulling to it and it being more visible.",
"Photon pollution. Think about it this way. Assume that you are looking out a window that has a screen in front of it that keeps pests out of your house. You can still see out of the window, but the view through the window is somewhat obstructed. Adding more screens can further block your view of the outdoors.\n\nLight works similar to window screens in this regard. Various light sources can emit light rays that can act as if a screen that disrupts your vision, even if it doesn't shine at you or whatever you're looking at. This is why you are less able to see the stars at night in city areas (due to there being too much light produced by civilization) and why you can see many more stars when standing in the middle of an empty desert (since there is no source of light in the area at night).\n\nDuring the day, you can still sometimes *see* the moon. But the sun is producing so much light that your view of it can be disrupted or even completely blocked.",
"During the day, your eyes are adjusted to a lot more light, namely the Sun and the blue sky; the Moon is pale by comparison."
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o29mi
|
reddit vs. 4chan vs. 9gag...
|
Why all of the hate between these sites? The way i see it they are all different levels of the internet, all at different stages. So why the competitiveness? Also, why do i feel rage within my belly when i hear someone talk about how awesome 9gag is?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/o29mi/eli5_reddit_vs_4chan_vs_9gag/
|
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"[This should sum it up quite well](_URL_0_)",
"Essentially, all things are founded in 4chan. This includes memes, as well as terrible things that should never be spoken of. The funny/interesting stuff gets filtered to Reddit, and becomes popular among those who are Internet-savvy (but not intensely so). Finally the reposts keep happening until a numbnut comes along and gives the material major exposure to the general public via 9gag. People hate 4chan because they believe it is a disgusting cavern of cp and dick. People hate reddit because they think their own site is superior (9gagers only consider themselves superior since they've never actually tried reddit. When they do.... Addiction begins....) People hate 9gag because it is essentially a site where all the reposts and dead memes go to die in a festering cesspool of redundancy.\n\nTl:dr everything starts at 4chan, a place loaded with crap and a few diamonds. It is processed into reddit, where it becomes popular. Once it's popularity starts to fade, the material is posted to 9gag, where the meme is revived, and sadly, mutilated beyond recognition. 4chan is considered to lowly a place by all, reddit is considered to be land of repost by 4chan, and is unknown to most 9gagers, and 9gag is the ultimate land of repost for all.",
"the way i think of it is, most things start at 4chan, but 4chan is a terrible, terrible place. Things seep to reddit, where they're basically checked (via upvotes/downvotes) for hilarity etc but moreover, for their safeness (ie no gore, no insane violent stuff, no illegal porn). once everything has made it through the filter of reddit, the rest of the internet gobbles it up like a fat kid on his birthday. therefore, shit places like thechive and 9gag and memebase get what was on 4chan a week ago, on reddit 3 days ago, and on the rest of the internet today. everyone else you know finds out about it months later and you go \"... k\""
]
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2jiinw
|
how do kidnappers actually get away with collecting ransoms?
|
It seems not uncommon to hear about people getting kidnapped in Mexico or South America and the kidnappers successfully getting paid a ransom. How does this work w/o the cops showing up at their doorstep? If it's a wire transfer seems that account needs to be tied to someone. If it's some kind of money drop or hand off then the cops know where to wait for them.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2jiinw/eli5_how_do_kidnappers_actually_get_away_with/
|
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"In DC, one day, I got a call from a stranger. He said my brother was involved in an car accident with a gangster. They kidnapped my brother and asked me to pay them $1500 to get my brother back.\n\nHe had me on my cell phone, and asked me to leave the house immediately without telling anyone, and don't call police. \n\nHe wanted me to wire him via Western Union. That's how they get away with ransoms without been caught.\n\nHere is the link, _URL_0_.\n\nHere is another one: _URL_1_",
"My girlfriend's family lives in Mexico and her dad was kidnapped and they paid a ransom to get him back. They are fairly wealthy by Mexican standards, so they would rather just pay the ransom than risk any violence by getting the police involved. Eventually they did tell the police and the kidnappers went to jail, but this was all days/weeks later, and of course they received lots of death threats from the people involved. Nothing's happened yet though. This was about 3 years ago.",
"They don't. This is one of the reasons why kidnapping for ransom is extremely rare in countries where the government is actually functioning. It's ridiculously hard to get away with such a thing where law enforcement is taken at all seriously.\n\nBut in those places where such things are common, it's usually done by well armed gangs. They can simply tell you where to bring the money, because they know it's unlikely you're going to show up with a gang that's larger and/or better armed than they are. ",
"There's a few things in play.\n\nRemember, in a kidnapping, there are TWO victims.\n\nThe person kidnapped, and the person who is paying. The Hostage is merely a piece of property as far as the kidnappers are concerned. One that must be safeguarded, but still a piece of property.\n\nThe real victim is the person with the money. The goal is to get the money.\n\nOnce the kidnappers have established they have the hostage (property), they can negotiate for said money. An exchange of property for money. \n\nNow, just like any other form of capitalism, it doesn't have to happen simultaneously. It all depends on power. How valuable is the property. How much are you willing to pay (give up), how much leverage do they have.\n\nYou want the property back. They want currency.\n\nYou arrange Time(s) and Place(s). Remember it doesn't have to be a single instance. \n\nSo let's say you want your brother back. I set a price at $1M (proof of life is already established).\n\nWe arrange what is called a dead drop. You put the money somewhere and leave. It can be anything. A trash can, a dumpster, a phonebooth, hell a giant rubber ball in the middle of the ocean.\n\nI collect said money when I am absolutely sure no one is watching.\n\nI then release your brother (or not, but let's assume I do).\n\nBut what if you have people watching that spot for you?\n\nThat's where I need to be smarter than them. Hole in the ground under the trashcan, dumpster, etc. Or be willing to kill your brother."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://wtop.com/52/3360050/Montgomery-Co-Police-Scam-phone-calls-on-rise",
"http://www.wbaltv.com/news/Scammers-target-reporter-with-phone-call-about-husband-s-kidnapping/17913238"
],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
7vbl1t
|
newton's cradle...
|
My science teacher has told me that a newton's cradle doesn't go on forever because some energy is given off as sound. Then, does it go on forever in a vacuum?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7vbl1t/eli5_newtons_cradle/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dtr0ra0",
"dtr6wwn"
],
"score": [
9,
3
],
"text": [
"In physics, 99% (if not 100%) of the time, the answer to “does it go on forever” is no. Our universe just doesn’t like having things go on forever.\n\nMuch of the cradle energy is transferred into heat. Some into light. Some even into gravitational wave energy. \n\nEventually it will stop.",
"You would expect a single swinging ball on a wire to stop eventually, right? Just intuitively? If so, having 5 balls doesn’t make that any less true. \n\nIn vacuum, it’ll take longer, but the flexing/swinging of the wire will waste the energy. If it’s wire flexing, it’s a little stiff: no material is perfectly not-stiff, and bending last that stiffness uses energy that you don’t get back. If it’s swinging like a link of a chain, there’s some friction there, also energy that you don’t get back. Microscopically, the steel balls are actually compressing when they get hit and springing back: it’s what makes the clicking noise, and also lost energy. \n\nThe way this energy leeches off may be vibration (sound), may be heat from friction... whatever it is, it’s there. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
2z5y95
|
why are republicans in the us congress so opposed to obama's decision to hold nuclear talks with iran?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2z5y95/eli5_why_are_republicans_in_the_us_congress_so/
|
{
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"text": [
"It should be obvious by now that the GOP is opposed to *anything* the President proposes.",
"They fear that Iran will use the labs to create nukes to use against Israel and the US. They do not trust Iran to be responsible nuclear stewards. ",
"They're not at all opposed to the talks.\n\nWhat they want is for the result of the talks to be submitted to the Senate for ratification like any other treaty. The Administration wants to conclude an \"agreement\" that isn't a treaty and doesn't require Senate approval.\n\nWhat they are worried about (and it's not just the GOP - there is bi-partisan support for a Senate ratification process) is that Obama would rather get a deal done even though the deal may not be a good deal. The concern is that he's just not tough enough to force the Iranians into a compromise that can actually do what the negotiations are supposed to do - end Iran's quest to make a nuclear weapon.",
"1) They oppose everything he does and do not what him to be successful.\n\n2) The leadership of Israel wants us to attack Iran, and the Republicans, even more than the Democrats, do everything Israel wants. While most Jews in the US are more liberal and tend to support the democrats, evangelicals tend to support Republicans and they are very supportive of Israel, particularly of conservative Israeli politicians. \n\n3) Republicans tend to favor military options. Remember McCain's: \"Bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb Iran\" sung to the tune of \"ba ba ba ba Barbara Ann?\""
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
5hbtic
|
how do submarines and other navy vessels store massive amounts of food for for many months without it going bad?
|
I'm asking mainly about fruit, vegetables, meat, fish, eggs, dairy, etc. There must be more to this than just freezing it.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5hbtic/eli5_how_do_submarines_and_other_navy_vessels/
|
{
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"text": [
"You understand that the nuclear power powers generators which provide the electricity cycle coolant similar to any other conditioned air system does in a land-based home or freezer, yes?",
"For surface ships (skimmers) there is the always popular UNREP (underway replenishment) where the cargo is tranfered between ships via high-line. For submarines, most if their food is frozen or cold packed. Fresh fruits and vegetables aren't as common, but are available for most of their tours, since submarines (in the US at least) generally go for three month tours.",
"They have as reliable a source of electricity as you do(nuclear reactor onboard). They are limited by space to store food, not by it going bad. Their freezers on board are as good as any on the market.",
"having been stationed on 2 subs, and now a surface ship, i hope i can shed some light.\n\non a sub, on a 6 month deployment with a few port calls, we have 2 giant freezers. think a 10x10x6 and a 4x10x6 box, filled completely full of frozen meats, cheese etc. evenly spaced for airflow and hopefully in the right order to match the menu so you don't have to dig through the whole damn thing to find the correct food.\nadd to the mix eggs that get stored in big boxes at room temp in the engineroom, lots of canned foods, flour and other baking supplies, and lots of condiments to dress up any foods that suck. powdered \"bug juice\", iced tea, and nonfat dry milk powder are drinks.\nscoopable ice cream (hard pack), fresh fruits and veggies, real milk=occasional treats.\n\n\nsurface ships have bigger fridges and freezers because we have the luxury of space. and we can do unreps. \n\n13 years in the navy and ive never had an MRE."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
4evj5l
|
banking seems like the ultimate winner take all industry. bigger banks have lower average costs which lets them lend at lower rates to a more diversified base. why are there still regional banks, and even state level banks like "first hawaiian bank"?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4evj5l/eli5_banking_seems_like_the_ultimate_winner_take/
|
{
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"text": [
"What you say is true **but**:\n\nWhile a big company can take a huge chunk of the mass market, equally a big company struggles to hit the \"niche\" markets. The specialised, more profitable cases that require special attention.\n\nA big company is all about bringing the cost down, which gives narrow margins. Narrow margins means you want to automate things, simplify them, spend as little time as possible on them. That means they tend to have blanket policies to exclude anyone who doesn't fit into their neat little boxes.\n\nA smaller bank can provide a more specialised service for people who require a non-standard approach. While there are far fewer of these around, they tend to be more profitable.\n\nAnd at the same time, many people just prefer the \"small company service\". If I phoned my old mortgage company I spent 3 minutes on the phone to be put through to a minimum wage call centre advisor who can't help me with anything important. It takes 3 transfers to get to anyone who can do anything, and even then I usually speak to their secretary who gets them to phone back a couple of days later.\n\nBy comparison, with my current mortgage company I walk into the branch, sit around for 10 minutes until her meeting is over, then speak directly to the manager who handled my application in the first place. She deals with whatever my issue is, usually on the spot, and makes me a cup of tea while she does it.\n\nThe second company is a little more expensive, but the larger company simply didn't accept my change of circumstance because it put me out of their standard boxes.\n\nThe big company will take a million customers at a thin profit margin. The little company will take 1,000 customers at a much larger profit margin. They still both make a profit.",
"I work with banks for a living and there are some subtleties with banks that weren't captured by the other comments. Banks do benefit from scale, but not necessarily the way other people here assumed. A lot of the comments here could be applied to any industry, but few industries are as fragmented as banks (there are over 6,000 banks in the U.S) /u/audigex has a great explanation as to why super small banks exist, but it doesn't address why there are so many banks that extend beyond a small region (losing the community bank feel) but don't become national. These banks are called \"super-regional\" banks and they are quite successful despite (seemingly) lacking scale.\n\nFirst, big banks do have lower costs than smaller banks, but the advantage isn't as big as people assume. The minimum efficient scale for a bank is roughly the size of a super-regional bank. That means a bank like Wells Fargo has few scale benefits over one like PNC \n\nThis is mostly caused by the fact that the single greatest expenses to banks are employees and loan defaults. ALL banks can diversify their loan portfolio by trading loans with other banks. As a result, national banks and super-regional banks will be about as diversified as each other. (Regional banks can be diversified, but some choose not to be for various reasons I don't feel like getting into). This means their are no diversification benefits to a banks scale so long as the bank is run properly.\n\nPeople is where you get the most benefit of scale, but it takes so much back office support to run a bank (credit analysts, IT, accounting, legal, etc.) that as a super-regional becomes a national player, it will have to scale up that back office support accordingly. This is why super-regional banks will have similar cost structures to the major national players. Going back to my example, Wells Fargo has 4 times the balance sheet of PNC but 5 times the number of employees.\n\nYou might now be wondering \"why do large national banks exist if their costs don't decrease with size\"? Because large companies exist and they need someone to bank with. Apple isn't going to work with 100 super-national banks when it can do just fine working with 2 national ones. So while national banks aren't that much more efficient than their slightly smaller counterparts, they can service clients that smaller banks can't. \n\nThe market demand for larger banks combined with the minimum benefits of operating on a national vs. super-regional scale means that a natural equilibrium is to have both.\n\n**TL:DR** National banks don't benefit from scale or diversification in the way your question assumes. Large banks are successful because they can service clients that other banks can't, not because of their cost structure. For this reason (and reasons stated by others) it would not make sense for every bank to merge into large national banks."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
78g9h0
|
why do we want to sleep the whole day, and then in the evening... boom! no sleep at all?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/78g9h0/eli5_why_do_we_want_to_sleep_the_whole_day_and/
|
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"text": [
"We have hormones that control this\n\nUsually these hormones are influenced by daylight to build up the need to sleep. \n\nAn offset to this cycle makes us unbalanced, sleepy during the day and awake at night\n\nLots of things can create this offset. ",
"Side question. How much of a toll does rotating shift work (days one week, nights the next) take on the body? ",
"For me, it’s the fact that I am not ready for the current day to end, nor for the next day to start. This happens a lot when you hate your job",
"[here is an article](_URL_0_) referencing a study about sleep deprivation and young people. \n\nSo, as someone mentioned above, you have hormones that help regulate your sleep cycle. These hormones can be offset by things like:\n\n* too much artificial light in the evening\n\n* caffeine \n\n* dehydration\n\nA person going through what you described could also suffer from things like depression (lethargy, general tiredness) and anxiety (increased heart rate and anxious thoughts keep you up at night) but that would be for a professional to diagnose. \n\n\nEdit: for me, it's always my phone that screws me up. I don't look at screens after 11pm and almost always pass out within an hour afterward. ",
"A lot of it is habit, but also light from tvs, tablets, phones, and especially video games, fool your brain into thinking it's daytime. \n\nSo if you stay up a lot playing Skyrim until 3 AM often, your brain is going to consider that daytime, especially if it is on a regular basis (habit). You are getting jetlagged. Try reading before going to bed. If you are reading a tablet, just turn the brightness to as dim as you can. Works for me.\n\nI also heard on NPR News recently that some people are just natural night owls. Everything I described above has been my experience. :) \n\nAnd to the contrary, many people are just natural \"larks\" and get up early (freaks!).\n\nBut it turns out that your sleeping patterns generally change depending on your age. You may have been hearing lately about them considering turning the arrival time of high schools a little later in the day to 9 or even 10, to adjust to teenage sleep patterns. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/may/30/teenagers-sleep-quality-and-mental-health-at-risk-over-late-night-mobile-phone-use"
],
[]
] |
||
346b5e
|
the absurdity of crowd behavior? individually most people understand morals and behave themselves in a mostly acceptable fashion, why then, in groups does all rational thinking seem void? lack of accountability perhaps?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/346b5e/eli5_the_absurdity_of_crowd_behavior_individually/
|
{
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"text": [
"Yes, and I generally call it \"deferred responsibility\". The anonymity afforded by the crowd allows them to get away with something they wouldn't do normally.\n\nThe internet is like this. Which is generally why people wont tell you to fuck off right to your face (GENERALLY), but have no problems doing so online.\n\nA quote which I am probably butchering goes something like this:\n\n\"The true measure of a person is what they do when no one can see them.\"",
"Not a serious answer, but I was told as a kid that as a general rule of thumb, the intelligence of a group is equal to the iq of it's stupidest member.\n\nBut yes, the issue is generally believed to be due to shared responsibility. And since there are many of you that usually means no responsibility to your mind. (Do note that actual laws do not work that way). And like with the internet, if the user perceives himself as being void of responsibility, he will act like a little shit."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
fkd2ge
|
why is it 'easier' to keep drinking as you get drunk compared to just starting?
|
If I neck a shot at the start, I nearly vomit but when im drunk enough, it's much easier. Is there a simple explanation for it?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fkd2ge/eli5_why_is_it_easier_to_keep_drinking_as_you_get/
|
{
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44,
18
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"text": [
"I believe it’s because it dulls your senses, you are less likely to notice a lot of things because of intoxication.",
"Alcohol dulls your nerve endings, which are responsible for everything from pain to taste to sense of smell. Pain and taste are primarily why shots burn and make you gag, so when those are deadened, it makes it easier."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
69i6ph
|
why do female pms hormones cause this?
|
I understand that premenstraul hormones cause breast tenderness and uterine cramping that causes pain. What I want to know is why do female hormones cause joint, neck and back pain. Why does it cause nausea? Can someone explain like i am 5 how these coorelate?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/69i6ph/eli5_why_do_female_pms_hormones_cause_this/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dh79z7i"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"The changes in hormone levels can cause water retention and bloating that leads to swelling in the body. Swelling creates pressure and pressure can cause pain. When you injure your back or a joint, it causes swelling which causes additional pain. Many pain killers work by reducing swelling rather than by deadening your sense of pain. So the swelling in the body in response to the menstrual cycle can cause joint pain and discomfort for the same reason. This is why many medications prescribed to help deal with this are anti-inflammatory drugs like Aleve. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
8z90f6
|
a seed planted in a small basket can grow into a big flowing plant. where does all the material come from to make the plant?
|
It seems to me that the amount of material used in the plant is far in excess of the amount of soil I used. All I have added is water. Is the plant made up of just stuff it grabs out of the air?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8z90f6/eli5_a_seed_planted_in_a_small_basket_can_grow/
|
{
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"Out of the air, water, and soil, yes. It takes these things in and reorganizes the molecules to take their shape. Remember that inside most cells is just water, and most of the the hard material is just in the cell walls",
"Plants make their food (glucose) from water and carbon dioxide. This is used, along with minerals from the soil, water and air, to build and repair the plant",
"A lot of a plant is carbon from the air and water.\nThe only thing taken from the soil is nutrients and trace elements like iron.\n\nAbout 80% by mass is from carbon and water.",
"Most of a plant's stem and leaves are made from [cellulose](_URL_0_), which consists entirely of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. The carbon is taken from CO2 in the air, the hydrogen from water, the oxygen from both.",
"People have already explained where the carbon comes from (which is most of the non-water mass of the plant). Nitrogen is something like 70% of the air, but the reason crop plants need nitrogenous fertilizer is because the nitrogen in the air is in an inert form that plants can't access. Special plants called legumes (eg beans - anything with a high protein content typically) have nodules in their roots that contain bacteria. These bacteria are capable of converting the unusable nitrogen in the air into nitrates, a form that plants can then absorb and use. Some GMO has been looking into giving this ability, called nitrogen fixation, to crop plants directly, to reduce the amount of nitrogen fertilizer needed, which can be poisonous.",
"Can't speak to all of the material in plants but most of the structure comes from cellulose, which makes up the plant cell wall. Cellulose molecules are made by the plants out of glucose, which is sugar, and is produced from photosynthesis. Photosynthesis turns carbon dioxide (which we breathe out) and water into sugar and oxygen (which we breath in), using the suns energy as fuel.\n\nSo in a nutshell, plants build themselves out of gas, water, and the sun. Kind of awesome when you think about it like that.",
"Most of it is going to come from the carbon dioxide in the air and water in the soil.\n\nThe whole point of photosynthesis is **carbon fixing**. That extracts carbon from the air and combines it with hydrogen and oxygen from water to build organic molecules. A small amount of other elements, like nitrogen and phosphorous, comes from the soil.",
"[Richard Feynman on how a tree gets it's mass and what is stored within it.](_URL_0_)",
"It is primarily carbon extracted from the CO2 in the air. It will take in some nutrients from the soil, as well as water but most of what makes up the structure of the plant is carbon from the air. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellulose"
],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifk6iuLQk28"
],
[]
] |
|
lvqmo
|
cars
|
Gasoline and electric, please.
Edit: sorry, forgot to search before posting, but I didn't see anything on electric cars.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/lvqmo/eli5_cars/
|
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"text": [
"Vroom, vroom.\n\nToot, toot.\n\nThey make you go.\n\nSeriously, you have to be a little more specific than *that*.",
"Do you want to know what the difference is between the engine in a gas car and in an electric car?",
"In a gasoline powered engine, when you push on the gas pedal, you open up the throttle, allowing a tiny pump to push gasoline from the tank in to the cylinders of the engine. A common (non-diesel) engine has a four-stroke cycle. Inside the cylinder is a piston that is attached to a crank shaft. As the piston goes around and around, it rotates the crankshaft. When I say it has a four stroke cycle, I mean the piston goes up twice, and down twice for every time the cycle repeats. The first stroke is when the piston goes down, pulling in a little bit of gasoline and a little bit of air, which mix as they come in. When it goes back up (the second stroke), it compresses the air/gas mixture, and as it reaches the top, the spark plug at the top fires, igniting the mixture, and causing a small explosion. This is the third stroke, and it causes the piston to fire back down. The fourth stroke is the piston going back up again, and pushing out the remains of the burned gas/air mixture. This gets sent through the exhaust and out your tailpipe. This happens thousands of times a minute, and in any number of cylinders, that are all attached to the crankshaft. The crankshaft is connected to the transmission, which is connected to the axles, driving the wheels. Its a lot more complicated than that, but thats the basics.\n\nAn electric engine is much simpler (in concept, but not in execution). An electric motor has one speed and only one speed at full current. When you press the pedal, you are not varying the current heading to it, but the number of times that current pulses per second. An electric motor works because of special magnets, and an electromagnet. When current is applied to the electromagnet, it becomes magnetized, repelling other magnets fitted in a circle around the central shaft, causing it to spin. When you apply a direct current constantly, it rotates at a fixed speed. By turning the current on and off thousands of times a second, the motor can vary its speed. The rest is the same (shaft goes to transmission goes to axles). Once again, this is greatly simplified, but you get the gist of it.",
"The Cars are an American rock band that emerged from the early New Wave music scene in the late 1970s. They were electric.\n\n\nAs a five-year-old, however, you probably wouldn't like them very much.",
"Vroom, vroom.\n\nToot, toot.\n\nThey make you go.\n\nSeriously, you have to be a little more specific than *that*.",
"Do you want to know what the difference is between the engine in a gas car and in an electric car?",
"In a gasoline powered engine, when you push on the gas pedal, you open up the throttle, allowing a tiny pump to push gasoline from the tank in to the cylinders of the engine. A common (non-diesel) engine has a four-stroke cycle. Inside the cylinder is a piston that is attached to a crank shaft. As the piston goes around and around, it rotates the crankshaft. When I say it has a four stroke cycle, I mean the piston goes up twice, and down twice for every time the cycle repeats. The first stroke is when the piston goes down, pulling in a little bit of gasoline and a little bit of air, which mix as they come in. When it goes back up (the second stroke), it compresses the air/gas mixture, and as it reaches the top, the spark plug at the top fires, igniting the mixture, and causing a small explosion. This is the third stroke, and it causes the piston to fire back down. The fourth stroke is the piston going back up again, and pushing out the remains of the burned gas/air mixture. This gets sent through the exhaust and out your tailpipe. This happens thousands of times a minute, and in any number of cylinders, that are all attached to the crankshaft. The crankshaft is connected to the transmission, which is connected to the axles, driving the wheels. Its a lot more complicated than that, but thats the basics.\n\nAn electric engine is much simpler (in concept, but not in execution). An electric motor has one speed and only one speed at full current. When you press the pedal, you are not varying the current heading to it, but the number of times that current pulses per second. An electric motor works because of special magnets, and an electromagnet. When current is applied to the electromagnet, it becomes magnetized, repelling other magnets fitted in a circle around the central shaft, causing it to spin. When you apply a direct current constantly, it rotates at a fixed speed. By turning the current on and off thousands of times a second, the motor can vary its speed. The rest is the same (shaft goes to transmission goes to axles). Once again, this is greatly simplified, but you get the gist of it.",
"The Cars are an American rock band that emerged from the early New Wave music scene in the late 1970s. They were electric.\n\n\nAs a five-year-old, however, you probably wouldn't like them very much."
]
}
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[],
[],
[]
] |
|
aj56tw
|
why is it physically difficult to start working out again after taking only a few days to a week off?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/aj56tw/eli5_why_is_it_physically_difficult_to_start/
|
{
"a_id": [
"eet40dm"
],
"score": [
9
],
"text": [
"Building muscle and endurance takes energy expenditures that the body would rather not spend, if it \"thinks\" it can avoid expending the energy. When you stop working out, the body starts trying to go back to a pre-workout \"form\" as it can use the muscle as an energy source and there's nothing indicating to it that this extra muscle is needed any more. \n\n\nThe body \"assumes\" it's possible you'll face problems getting food in the near future and no longer spends energy on what it considers non-essential muscle. And over time, that will change from \"not maintaining the increased muscle\" to \"cannibalize muscle\" the longer the absence of exercise goes. As annoying as it is, the body would rather put energy storage into fat cells than muscle cells, so even if you're getting adequate food, it will try to put excess resources into fat."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
1vmk18
|
for the organs that are useless in our body, why are we still born with them?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1vmk18/eli5_for_the_organs_that_are_useless_in_our_body/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cetqkb4",
"cetqpge"
],
"score": [
4,
10
],
"text": [
"What organs are useless? My understanding is all organs serve a purpose, there are just a couple that aren't necessary for humans to survive. ",
"They're called vestigial organs/behaviors (e.g. appendix, coccyx, wisdom teeth, muscles that move your ears, nicitating membrane, etc.) . We're born with them because we've been successful and able to survive while still retaining them. They just haven't had a reason to no longer exist."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
6p9nuw
|
how did belly dancing become such a customary ritual in the middle east? how does this compare in contrast to strippers or "exotic dancers" in the western world?
|
[deleted]
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6p9nuw/eli5_how_did_belly_dancing_become_such_a/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dknqi26",
"dkofn0f"
],
"score": [
5,
2
],
"text": [
"Belly dancing is actually about dancing and is not explicitly sexual. Stripping is entirely about sexual arousal and not exactly about dancing as an art.",
"\"Bellydance\" is not really a ritual. It's just how they have always traditionally danced in parts of the Middle East. The costumes we associate with belly dancing are more of a modern invention. Belly dance isn't the only style of dance in the Middle East, but most other styles closely resemble it. You'll find it at parties, weddings, etc. Sometimes, it's only women dancing to have a good time with each other. That's just how they dance in that part of the world. It's not necessarily supposed to be sexual. The Western world has sexualized it a bit in recent years. \n\nStrippers or exotic dancers in the West are a sexualized form of entertainment, usually for men. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
mqg8b
|
why "e" is so closely related to "i" and sine and cosine functions (such as e^(i*pi) = -1 )
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/mqg8b/eli5_why_e_is_so_closely_related_to_i_and_sine/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c3313vy",
"c331fhb",
"c3313vy",
"c331fhb"
],
"score": [
3,
33,
3,
33
],
"text": [
"[This gives a pretty good explanation](_URL_0_).",
"I'm not sure that I can explain this to a five year old but I will try to explain it simply and with a minimum of prerequisites. We're going to have to cover quite a bit. It would help if you have some basic familiarity with trigonometric identities and complex numbers, but hopefully it will not be required.\n\nLet's start with *π*. *π* is the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. If you were to walk 360 degrees around a circle of diameter 1 meter, you would travel *π* meters. \n\nBut wait. Degrees are a completely arbitrary way to measure angles. Why does a circle have 360 of them? Because someone said so. What if we had a more useful way to measure angles. Instead, let's use a unit where an angle of one of these units results in an arc (a piece of a circle) with a length equal to the radius of the circle. That means that if we go *π* of these, we would go halfway around the circle (radius is half of the diameter). If we go 2*π* of these, we would go a full circle (*c = 2πr*).\n\nTurns out, this is a very convenient way to measure angles. So convenient, in fact, that mathematicians use it far more often than degrees. It's called a [radian](_URL_2_).\n\nThe importance of radians will be more clear when we talk about what Euler's Identity means.\n\nNow let's talk about *i*. *i* is called the \"[imaginary unit](_URL_0_)\" and is defined like this:\n\n i = sqrt(-1)\n\nThat is, *i* is the square root of negative one. The imaginary unit allows us to define imaginary numbers as *bi* where *b* is a non-zero real number. That is to say, an imaginary number is some (real) number multiplied by the square root of negative one.\n\nNow that we can define imaginary numbers, we can use them to define [complex numbers](_URL_5_). A complex number is just a real number added to an imaginary number. That means it has the form *a + bi* where *a* is some real number and *bi* is an imaginary number like we talked about before.\n\nNow, you may be wondering: what's the use of imaginary numbers? You can't find the square root of a negative number in the \"real\" world. Well, one useful thing you can do with real numbers is use them to identify points on a plane. Just like points on a normal (cartesian) plane are identified with x and y coordinates (for left/right and up/down respectively), points on a complex plane are represented with the real part (*a*) and the imaginary part (*bi*) (also for left/right and up/down, respectively).\n\nBut wait, there's more. When you talk about a point on a plane like this, using \"straight lines\", you are using \"rectangular\" (or Cartesian) coordinates. There's another way to talk about a point on a plane: you can use its distance from the center and its angle from the center. We call these *r* and *θ* (theta). This system is called \"polar\" coordinates.\n\nIf you want to specify a point on the complex plane using rectangular coordinates, you would do that like this:\n\n z = x + iy.\n\nIf you want to specify a point on the complex plane using polar notation, you would do so like this:\n\n z = r*cosθ + r*i*sinθ\n\nWhy is that? well, if you take a unit circle (a circle with radius 1) and measure an angle counterclockwise from the x-axis (horizontal) and look at the point where that angle meets the circle, the cosine of that angle is the horizontal coordinate of that point. If the circle has a different radius *r* then you can just multiply the cosine of the angle by that radius. [This image](_URL_4_) might help make more sense out of that.\n\nThis gives the formula:\n\n x = r*cos θ\n\nSimilarly, the sine of the angle is the vertical coordinate of that point:\n\n y = r*sin θ\n\nIn our case, though, the vertical coordinate is an imaginary number, so you get:\n\n yi = r*i*sin θ\n\nThe equation above comes about by substituting for x and y and can be simplified to:\n\nz = r * (cos θ + i*sin θ)\n\nNow, let's state Euler's Identity again:\n\n e^(iπ) + 1 = 0\n\nor:\n\n e^(iπ) = -1\n\nThis is a specific case of a more general formula, known as Euler's Formula:\n\n e^(ix) = cos x + i * sin x\n\nWhat happens when we plug in *π* for *x*?\n\n cos π + i * sin π\n\nThen calculate the cosine of π and the sine of π:\n\n cos π = -1\n sin π = 0\n\nNow plug those in.\n\n e^(i+π) = -1 + i * 0\n\nAnything multiplied by zero is zero, including imaginary numbers. So:\n\n e^(i+π) = -1\n\nNow, let's take a look at that equation for specifying polar coordinates again:\n\n z = r * (cos θ + i*sin θ)\n\nAnd let's take a look at Euler's Formula:\n\n e^(i*x) = cos x + i * sin x\n\nNow let's substitute the left hand side of Euler's Formula into the polar coordinates equation:\n\n z = r * e^(i*x)\n\nSo, Euler's Formula is a way of specifying polar coordinates!\n\nNow let's pretend we're dealing with a unit circle again, so *r* = 1:\n\n z = e^(i*x)\n\nSo, what about converting e^(iπ) using the identities we had above for converting from polar to rectangular. Here they are again, modified for the unit circle where *r* = 1:\n\n x = cos θ\n y = sin θ\n\nAnd the values of cos *π* and sin *π*:\n\n cos π = -1\n sin π = 0\n\nOk. Here we go:\n\ne^(iπ) = cos π + i * sin π\n\nNow let's convert to x and y:\n\nx + yi = -1 + i * 0\n\nThis means that if you take an arc of *π* radians measured counterclockwise from the x-axis and extend it so it touches the unit circle, it touches at x = -1 and y = 0. This should make sense: This circle is 180 degrees!\n\nHopefully [this image](_URL_1_) will help put these relationships into perspective.\n\nSo, now you know why *i* is involved, and why the solution is -1. But what on earth is *e* doing in there? Here's where it gets interesting.\n\nIf you want to calculate the value of *e*, you can do so using this \"simple\" formula:\n\n x^0 x^1 x^2 x^3\n e^x = --- + --- + --- + --- + ...\n 0! 1! 2! 3!\n\n*n!* is called a \"n factorial\" and is equal to 1 * 2 * 3 * ... n-1 * n (all the numbers from 1 to n multiplied together).\n\nNow, a couple more \"simple formula\":\n\n\n x^1 x^3 x^5 x^7\n sin x = --- - --- + --- - --- + ...\n 1! 3! 5! 7!\n\n x^0 x^2 x^4 x^6\n cos x = --- - --- + --- - --- + ...\n 0! 2! 4! 6!\n\nNow, let's try to plug those in for our old friend *sin x + i * cos x*. If you distribute the *i*'s among all the terms in the definition of *cos x* and then add that to the definition for *sin x*, you get this:\n\n x^0 i(x^1) x^2 i(x^3) x^4\n cos x + i sin x = --- + ------ - --- + ------ + --- + ...\n 0! 1! 2! 3! 4!\n\nTry it yourself, or just trust me on that one.\n\nNow compare that to the definition of *e^x* above. Pretty close, right? There are some *i*'s in there, but not everywhere. Maybe if we replace *x* with *ix*, we can fix that. Oh, and some of the signs are wrong. We're adding in places where should be subtracting. But! Notice an interesting pattern. The negative signs only show up right before *some of* the odd powers of two, and those are the ones that are missing the *i* terms.\n\n**Wait a second**. Remember this?\n\n i^2 = -1\n\nWell, that means that this is also true:\n\n i^4 = i^2 * i^2 = -1 * -1 = 1\n\nSo, what if instead of *e^x*, we try e^(i*x). Well, it turns out that all the signs and *i*'s just fall into place:\n\n\n x^0 i(x^1) x^2 i(x^3) x^4\n e^(ix) = --- + ------ - --- + ------ + --- + ...\n 0! 1! 2! 3! 4!\n\nOr...\n\n e^(ix) = cos x + i * sin x\n\nOur old friend, Euler's Formula.\n\nSubstitute *π* for *x* and you get Euler's Identity:\n\n e^(iπ) = cos π + i * sin π\n e^(iπ) = -1 + i * 0\n e^(iπ) = -1\n\nThis can be seen as a way of describing the intuitive notion that *π* radians (180 degrees) away from (1,0) on the Cartesian plane is (-1,0).\n\n---\n\nPHEW! If there's anything you would like explained or clarified, or if I made a mistake, please let me know!\n\n**TL;DR: [Watch this video](_URL_3_).**\n",
"[This gives a pretty good explanation](_URL_0_).",
"I'm not sure that I can explain this to a five year old but I will try to explain it simply and with a minimum of prerequisites. We're going to have to cover quite a bit. It would help if you have some basic familiarity with trigonometric identities and complex numbers, but hopefully it will not be required.\n\nLet's start with *π*. *π* is the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. If you were to walk 360 degrees around a circle of diameter 1 meter, you would travel *π* meters. \n\nBut wait. Degrees are a completely arbitrary way to measure angles. Why does a circle have 360 of them? Because someone said so. What if we had a more useful way to measure angles. Instead, let's use a unit where an angle of one of these units results in an arc (a piece of a circle) with a length equal to the radius of the circle. That means that if we go *π* of these, we would go halfway around the circle (radius is half of the diameter). If we go 2*π* of these, we would go a full circle (*c = 2πr*).\n\nTurns out, this is a very convenient way to measure angles. So convenient, in fact, that mathematicians use it far more often than degrees. It's called a [radian](_URL_2_).\n\nThe importance of radians will be more clear when we talk about what Euler's Identity means.\n\nNow let's talk about *i*. *i* is called the \"[imaginary unit](_URL_0_)\" and is defined like this:\n\n i = sqrt(-1)\n\nThat is, *i* is the square root of negative one. The imaginary unit allows us to define imaginary numbers as *bi* where *b* is a non-zero real number. That is to say, an imaginary number is some (real) number multiplied by the square root of negative one.\n\nNow that we can define imaginary numbers, we can use them to define [complex numbers](_URL_5_). A complex number is just a real number added to an imaginary number. That means it has the form *a + bi* where *a* is some real number and *bi* is an imaginary number like we talked about before.\n\nNow, you may be wondering: what's the use of imaginary numbers? You can't find the square root of a negative number in the \"real\" world. Well, one useful thing you can do with real numbers is use them to identify points on a plane. Just like points on a normal (cartesian) plane are identified with x and y coordinates (for left/right and up/down respectively), points on a complex plane are represented with the real part (*a*) and the imaginary part (*bi*) (also for left/right and up/down, respectively).\n\nBut wait, there's more. When you talk about a point on a plane like this, using \"straight lines\", you are using \"rectangular\" (or Cartesian) coordinates. There's another way to talk about a point on a plane: you can use its distance from the center and its angle from the center. We call these *r* and *θ* (theta). This system is called \"polar\" coordinates.\n\nIf you want to specify a point on the complex plane using rectangular coordinates, you would do that like this:\n\n z = x + iy.\n\nIf you want to specify a point on the complex plane using polar notation, you would do so like this:\n\n z = r*cosθ + r*i*sinθ\n\nWhy is that? well, if you take a unit circle (a circle with radius 1) and measure an angle counterclockwise from the x-axis (horizontal) and look at the point where that angle meets the circle, the cosine of that angle is the horizontal coordinate of that point. If the circle has a different radius *r* then you can just multiply the cosine of the angle by that radius. [This image](_URL_4_) might help make more sense out of that.\n\nThis gives the formula:\n\n x = r*cos θ\n\nSimilarly, the sine of the angle is the vertical coordinate of that point:\n\n y = r*sin θ\n\nIn our case, though, the vertical coordinate is an imaginary number, so you get:\n\n yi = r*i*sin θ\n\nThe equation above comes about by substituting for x and y and can be simplified to:\n\nz = r * (cos θ + i*sin θ)\n\nNow, let's state Euler's Identity again:\n\n e^(iπ) + 1 = 0\n\nor:\n\n e^(iπ) = -1\n\nThis is a specific case of a more general formula, known as Euler's Formula:\n\n e^(ix) = cos x + i * sin x\n\nWhat happens when we plug in *π* for *x*?\n\n cos π + i * sin π\n\nThen calculate the cosine of π and the sine of π:\n\n cos π = -1\n sin π = 0\n\nNow plug those in.\n\n e^(i+π) = -1 + i * 0\n\nAnything multiplied by zero is zero, including imaginary numbers. So:\n\n e^(i+π) = -1\n\nNow, let's take a look at that equation for specifying polar coordinates again:\n\n z = r * (cos θ + i*sin θ)\n\nAnd let's take a look at Euler's Formula:\n\n e^(i*x) = cos x + i * sin x\n\nNow let's substitute the left hand side of Euler's Formula into the polar coordinates equation:\n\n z = r * e^(i*x)\n\nSo, Euler's Formula is a way of specifying polar coordinates!\n\nNow let's pretend we're dealing with a unit circle again, so *r* = 1:\n\n z = e^(i*x)\n\nSo, what about converting e^(iπ) using the identities we had above for converting from polar to rectangular. Here they are again, modified for the unit circle where *r* = 1:\n\n x = cos θ\n y = sin θ\n\nAnd the values of cos *π* and sin *π*:\n\n cos π = -1\n sin π = 0\n\nOk. Here we go:\n\ne^(iπ) = cos π + i * sin π\n\nNow let's convert to x and y:\n\nx + yi = -1 + i * 0\n\nThis means that if you take an arc of *π* radians measured counterclockwise from the x-axis and extend it so it touches the unit circle, it touches at x = -1 and y = 0. This should make sense: This circle is 180 degrees!\n\nHopefully [this image](_URL_1_) will help put these relationships into perspective.\n\nSo, now you know why *i* is involved, and why the solution is -1. But what on earth is *e* doing in there? Here's where it gets interesting.\n\nIf you want to calculate the value of *e*, you can do so using this \"simple\" formula:\n\n x^0 x^1 x^2 x^3\n e^x = --- + --- + --- + --- + ...\n 0! 1! 2! 3!\n\n*n!* is called a \"n factorial\" and is equal to 1 * 2 * 3 * ... n-1 * n (all the numbers from 1 to n multiplied together).\n\nNow, a couple more \"simple formula\":\n\n\n x^1 x^3 x^5 x^7\n sin x = --- - --- + --- - --- + ...\n 1! 3! 5! 7!\n\n x^0 x^2 x^4 x^6\n cos x = --- - --- + --- - --- + ...\n 0! 2! 4! 6!\n\nNow, let's try to plug those in for our old friend *sin x + i * cos x*. If you distribute the *i*'s among all the terms in the definition of *cos x* and then add that to the definition for *sin x*, you get this:\n\n x^0 i(x^1) x^2 i(x^3) x^4\n cos x + i sin x = --- + ------ - --- + ------ + --- + ...\n 0! 1! 2! 3! 4!\n\nTry it yourself, or just trust me on that one.\n\nNow compare that to the definition of *e^x* above. Pretty close, right? There are some *i*'s in there, but not everywhere. Maybe if we replace *x* with *ix*, we can fix that. Oh, and some of the signs are wrong. We're adding in places where should be subtracting. But! Notice an interesting pattern. The negative signs only show up right before *some of* the odd powers of two, and those are the ones that are missing the *i* terms.\n\n**Wait a second**. Remember this?\n\n i^2 = -1\n\nWell, that means that this is also true:\n\n i^4 = i^2 * i^2 = -1 * -1 = 1\n\nSo, what if instead of *e^x*, we try e^(i*x). Well, it turns out that all the signs and *i*'s just fall into place:\n\n\n x^0 i(x^1) x^2 i(x^3) x^4\n e^(ix) = --- + ------ - --- + ------ + --- + ...\n 0! 1! 2! 3! 4!\n\nOr...\n\n e^(ix) = cos x + i * sin x\n\nOur old friend, Euler's Formula.\n\nSubstitute *π* for *x* and you get Euler's Identity:\n\n e^(iπ) = cos π + i * sin π\n e^(iπ) = -1 + i * 0\n e^(iπ) = -1\n\nThis can be seen as a way of describing the intuitive notion that *π* radians (180 degrees) away from (1,0) on the Cartesian plane is (-1,0).\n\n---\n\nPHEW! If there's anything you would like explained or clarified, or if I made a mistake, please let me know!\n\n**TL;DR: [Watch this video](_URL_3_).**\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.math.toronto.edu/mathnet/questionCorner/epii.html"
],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imaginary_unit",
"http://new.math.uiuc.edu/math402/public/models/complexplane.png",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radian",
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHaPyuEkK4A",
"http://mathworld.wolfram.com/images/eps-gif/Trigonometry_675.gif",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_number"
],
[
"http://www.math.toronto.edu/mathnet/questionCorner/epii.html"
],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imaginary_unit",
"http://new.math.uiuc.edu/math402/public/models/complexplane.png",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radian",
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHaPyuEkK4A",
"http://mathworld.wolfram.com/images/eps-gif/Trigonometry_675.gif",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_number"
]
] |
||
3zaneb
|
- why do u.s. tv and movie productions require so many "producers"?
|
Apologies first, I know producers have important functions. What I don't get is how they are credited in the US. Example, I can watch a 1 hr BBC show like Musketeers and only see on Producer listed then writer and director. Watch a US TV show and they are still running producer credits 15min in and after a commercial break on a show that only lasts 44min.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3zaneb/eli5_why_do_us_tv_and_movie_productions_require/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cykjrdp"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"I found this blog post that explains what all the producer titles mean:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nIn short, a LOT of people can call themselves a producer. \n\nAlso, cast members can be added to the list of producers if they have some input on the creative side."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://johnaugust.com/2004/producer-credits-and-what-they-mean"
]
] |
|
3p8bz9
|
how does the tallest building in the world cost $1.5bn (dubai), yet the new world trade center hub in nyc costs nearly 3 times as much! (~$4bn)
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3p8bz9/eli5_how_does_the_tallest_building_in_the_world/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cw3zm1a",
"cw3znm0",
"cw4bufw"
],
"score": [
13,
34,
5
],
"text": [
"Union workers vs teenagers from India and other places. The pay for indentured workers is a whole lot less than a union workers pay. A union worker gets paid vacations, healthcare, training, sick days, family leave pay, dental and eye care as well. I think the workers in Dubai get a cot and if they behave they won't get flogged...too much.",
"Dubai pays construction working immigrants as little as [$10/day](_URL_0_), while in the US, construction pays much better (average construction laborer wages are $23/hr, about 18x Dubai's wage, for New York state). ",
"Lets not forget the new World Trade Center Hub is designed and built like a high rise bunker. It's built with terrorist attacks in mind. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"http://www.archi-ninja.com/burj-khalifa-dubai-the-truth-behind-the-bling/"
],
[]
] |
||
2jotlo
|
generally, there can be different personality traits of dog breeds. why can't we say there are different personality traits between human breeds/races?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2jotlo/eli5_generally_there_can_be_different_personality/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cldoq7c",
"cldpzom",
"cldqmbg",
"clds72p",
"cldw03l",
"cldykm2",
"cldz81i",
"cle3ruz"
],
"score": [
10,
8,
22,
22,
2,
13,
6,
3
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"text": [
"Because race is a social construct, whereas dog breeds are not. For example, I bet you would consider [all](_URL_0_) of [these](_URL_1_) people black. But in reality, they are farther apart genetically than an African and a European. That's why we say different personality traits go to different races, because race isn't an actual thing.",
"Well, dogs were bred to have those traits. They didn't just pop up because they're a specific breed. Golden retrievers were bred to be friendly dogs, so that's a the bred can be considered a friendly one. People weren't born to embody specific personalities... So you can't say the sane for races....",
"It does depend how one defines race. We have a very old fashioned way of defining race in my opinion. As people have stated already, black is black and white is white. It's not. I don't know how we should define a race, but we should. All humans might come from the same forefathers, but we divided up and spread out. People started evolving differently. 100k yrs of evolution isn't much in the big picture, but it is substantial enough to see that there are many physical and perhaps mental differences. \n",
"People haven't been bred selectively like dogs. Dog breeders are able to apply rigid standards to ensure that dog breeds remain pure. That's why you have the different breeds with distinct personalities. In humans things are different. \n\nIt is difficult for humans to selectively breed other humans because all humans have roughly the same lifespans, and it takes a long time for people to reach reproductive maturity relative to the lifespan of the average person.\n\nAnother issue is that people have generally failed to keep the different \"breeds\" or races of humans separate the way dog breeders are able to keep pure breeds pure. Despite social conventions and/or laws against \"race mixing\" in various societies, it has happened anyway. So in the USA, for example, where \"race-mixing\" has been considered taboo for a long time, African-Americans have a high proportion of European ancestry.",
"Dogs are bred specifically for that purpose. Humans are not. Different races and cultures are different because of locale and environmental factors. To pin point specific behavioral traits because of race would be incredibly difficult if not impossible because they weren't bred to exemplify that trait. Humans are humans no matter where you go. You'll have aggressive and passive and loving humans no matter what culture you visit. It's a grab bag of genetics. The only thing remotely consistent is physical traits within their respective locales due to thousands of years worth of evolution. As far as personalities are concerned? That's all anecdotal speculation at best. There might be differences but no final scientific word to say so. People are leery about drawing lines in the sand and we don't know where culture ends and physical differences begin. As far as we're concerned we're we're same. Only difference is the culture around you that may differentiate you from someone else. You put two people of different race from birth in a white room and keep them there and you won't notice a difference other than physical traits. You teach them a language, math and science and they won't be too different. They may show genetic predispositions passed down by their parents though. ",
"There is a tendency for supposedly legitimate scientific inquiry into this topic to be fraught with the very real dangers of racism, xenophobia, bigotry, and general idiocy.\n\nFurthermore, it is incredibly disrespectful to human consciousness to say that our personalities are fixed in some way by our race or circumstances, because our tremendous capacity/potential for self-determination is what distinguishes us from other animals. If you pay enough attention, every human being really is utterly unique.",
"There is far less genetic diversity in all of the human species than in two neighboring tribes of chimpanzees. Dogs, though inbred, still have more genetic diversity than humans.",
"It's not as complicated as everyone is making it. Because the human brain is more complex, much more, and a large plurality of what makes a personality happens outside of gene expression while growing up - Nature vs. Nurture. This is why stereotypes can hold for a culture but not so much for a race."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/72130000/jpg/_72130025_b.jpg",
"http://www.adventistmission.org/assets/public/resources/childrens-magazine/images/issues/2013/1Q/01-Papua_New_Guinea.jpg"
],
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] |
||
4min1v
|
why are western cartoons mostly episodic rather than an overarching storyline? why is an overarching storyline more common in anime?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4min1v/eli5_why_are_western_cartoons_mostly_episodic/
|
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"I think for a number of reasons. One being short attention span in the target audience, and two, so that they can show them out of order and that kids can just tune in whenever to watch whatever episode is on without feeling lost.",
"Western cartoons are generally aimed more at children, and anime generally has an older audience. By staying episodic in the kids shows they can just jump in and out of the show whenever, because kids have shorter attention spans. Because anime is geared towards older people, they are able to have story arcs that are very long.\n\nThere are obviously some shows that don't do that, but in general that's the reasoning",
"Because there is a whole culture around anime and manga. People go out of their way to buy it on dvd and even get figurines and such. In the west it's mainly aimed at bored kids. A lot of anime are also based on books or manga.",
"The Justice League has long-running storylines, if I remember correctly. As do other comic adaptions like Spiderman or the Clone Wars.\n\nI think you're mostly thinking of comedic cartoons like The Simpsons, or the Flintstones, or even Scooby Doo. Comedic shows lend themselves to episodic story-telling very well, which is why they're mostly episodic.",
"Episodic storylines have to be played in order. That really hurts in syndication, when the same 50-100 episodes need to play 200+times a year. If they're not episodic, it doesn't matter what order they're played. ",
"I think your premise is flawed. Sure shows like the Simpsons, Adventure Time, Spongebob are episodic, but even these might have stories that are brought up throughout the series (think Adventure Time or Steven Universe). And then you have shows like Young Justice, Marvels Avengers, Avatar, Tron Uprising, The Legend of Korra, etc which absolutely *do* have overarching stories, and who would leave viewers confused if they jumped in at the middle.\n\nFor a general rule, if the show is a comedy its likely to be episodic, and if it's an action series it's like to have an overarching story.",
"This is actually a very good question, but to explain what I believe to be the reasoning behind it, I'm going to add a follow up question: \"Why do the western cartoons that DO have an overarching narrative tend towards episodes that can stand on their own, with minor developments going on in the background, whilst anime is able to leave the audience on a cliffhanger every week?\"\n\nIf you look at cartoon network at the moment for example, you'll probably see that they're running a rerun of something, that sticks to an episodic format. For sake of argument, let's assume that it's Teen Titans Go. TTG is first and foremost a comedy, about a group of superheroes doing... umm... whatever the writers feel like. A single episode will likely be repeated dozens of times over its lifespan, since the concept of the show is easy to grasp, and you can probably understand who the characters are within a few episodes, regardless of if you start from the beginning or not. This means it's inherently very watchable, and cartoon network can probably make a bunch of ad revenue consistently, no matter who happens to tune into an episode. Fun times for all.\n\nA typical anime though is only relevant for as long as the initial run is airing. There might be **A** rerun later, if a second season or a movie or some other tie in is planned, but the anime industry is VERY competitive, and as such the next new and exciting season of anime needs time slots. This means that it's very important for people to watch during the initial run, and preferably buy the dvds, blurays and merchandise. How do the writers ensure that people watch after the first week? A cliffhanger is a popular choice, but often even just the sense that we're watching a part of a greater story will do.\n\nFinally, this brings us to overarching western storylines. Despite aiming for an overarching narrative, these cartoons still need to be as watchable and repeatable as regular cartoons in order to maintain relevancy. So for example, Rick and Morty DOES have things going on in the background that connects the episodes, but they're typically one off references and returning characters, that feature in an otherwise typical \"crazy scientist and teen do scifi stuff\" episode, that even if you don't fully appreciate, you will get the general gist of no matter where you start. (Fans will point you to the first episode regardless, as they should, but you COULD watch an episode of season 2 before season 1, and still be fine.)\n\nTL;DR western cartoons need to be shown over and over again, Anime can't be designed that way because there's just so much of it, so they make the best of their initial run.",
"I reject your premise. Some of the most popular American cartoons (Legend of Korra, Steven Universe, Adventure Time) feature over-arching narratives. ",
"A lot of anime is adapted from manga which lends itself to long story arcs released one volume at a time. A lot of Western cartoons are rather comedic and are made up of 10-15 minute shorts.\n\nThere are crossover examples of both but those are the main formats. ",
"Three reasons. \n\n1. Age\n\n In the west, Animation is seen as something for kids. Animated series often have a colourful art style that may turn potential viewers off, regardless of genre. Most cartoons are made with kids in mind, and their short attention spans mean they usually can't follow ongoing stories. \n\n They prefer to tune in and watch their favourite characters mess about for 30 minutes purely for entertainment. Shows that do have storylines sometimes sprinkle self contained episodes in between so that kids can jump straight in without any backstory weighing it down. The Last Airbender is a good example of this.\n\n Meanwhile in Japan, Animation is the primary format for entertainment. TV shows, movies, commercials, you name it, it's animated. And because of this it's appeals to all ages. Anime is normally watched by teenagers and adults, sometimes going well into their thirties. This means Anime can often take on darker and more complicated storylines without having to worry about the audience keeping up. \n\n2. Adaptation\n \n In Japan, most Anime have a Manga to adapt from as source material. This gives them something to work with and keep it consistent. And most importantly, Manga authors put everything they have into their work, working tirelessly to make it the best of their abilities and also keeping with schedule, which is infamously demanding. The way Anime adapts from Manga is much like how books are adapted in the west.\n\n Unfortunately, western cartoons don't have this luxury. \nComics are dominated by a single genre of superhero comics, which are very confusing. They've reset their universes god knows how many times times, and most of the big franchises have been going for 50+ years. Superhero comics are impossible to properly adapt and are instead substituted for episodic series as seen in cartoons. And because of the first point above, anything that is adapted is put into live action since it's not considered childish. Animated TV shows instead have to salvage the remains or alternatively make the show up. And episodic shows are so much easier to make. \n\n3. Comedy\n\n Think of any adult focused cartoon. It's a comedy, right? The Simpsons, Futurama, Family Guy, South Park... they dominate adult animation and they are overwhelmingly popular. The first four seasons of the Simpsons for had 20 Million views per episode on average. The Simpsons of course was a juggernaut in the 90s and singlehandedly defined animated comedies afterwards.\n\n Since everyone wants a good laugh, it has to be episodic. If you have the ability to retcon any impact an episode has on the show, the sky's the limit, or at least your ideas are. This means a precious few are willing to take the risk and make an overarching coherent storyline at the expense of potential jokes. Comedy first, story second, if there is any. \n\n Japan is instead used to Story first, comedy second. And most anime have the exact same unoriginal humor. So to make an episodic, slice of life comedic anime is to stretch \"the beach episode\" of some random action anime into an entire series. We can all agree there's not much interesting about that. So instead they chose an overarching story. "
]
}
|
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||
4qv2y9
|
why do states keep passing abortion laws that they know will be struck down by the court system?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4qv2y9/eli5_why_do_states_keep_passing_abortion_laws/
|
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"Every time they do this, they win a few more people to their point of view, building a slow momentum. ",
"It's likely that it will get struck down, but not a sure thing. They could be taken to court in a very conservative jurisdiction that rules with them. The Texas law SCOTUS just struck down was originally ruled in favor of in the lower courts. It was also no sure thing that the Texas law would be struck down by the courts. With only 8 members on the Supreme Court Texas stood a good chance of splitting the court 4-4, which would mean SCOTUS would use the lower court's ruling that the law was legal. Every time they go all the way to SCOTUS is also a point in time where Roe V Wade can be repealed. While it's rare that the high court will change it's ruling it does happen. Sodomy laws were originally ruled as legal by SCOTUS before SCOTUS reversed itself.",
"They are trying to rally their voter base. The more laws that are struck down, the more voters on the extreme fringes they convince that the government is against them. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
j9k7e
|
why/how usa started doing things differently from the rest of the world
|
Why don't we use the metric system? How come we drive on the right side of the road? I'm fine with how most things work here because by now I'm used to it, but why are we so different?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/j9k7e/eli5_whyhow_usa_started_doing_things_differently/
|
{
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"Actually, in a way, the rest of the world does it differently than us.\n\nYou see, the units we often use for measurement (the Imperial system) were what was in use by our British settlers when they first arrived at America, and we've kept using them since. Meanwhile, most of the rest of the world has moved on. In the late 1700s, the Metric System was created, and in the mid-1800s, it started to spread around the world as more and more countries realized the usefulness of having a universal system of measurement. The US, too, makes use of this system in academic and scientific fields, but for the common citizen it had kinda' become too entrenched. Attempts to officially establish the metric system in America (including founding father [Thomas Jefferson](_URL_0_)) have fallen on deaf ears, more or less because of the nation's general attitude of \"we do things the way we want and ain't no guv'ment gon' tell us otherwise!\", and it is that same attitude which would make such a law fail today - people would protest it as their government interfering with their daily lives.\n\nThe \"side of the road\" thing is a bit different. [Here](_URL_1_) is a map of what countries drive on the left side of the road (blue) or right (red). You'll notice that like America, most of the world does in fact drive on the right. However, it doesn't seem that way because many of those blue countries are first-world countries, so we're more exposed to images of their busy streets than, say, your average African or Middle Eastern country.\n\nIt bears mention that it was only in 1949 that world nations agreed to a Geneva Convention saying that every world nation should have *uniform* traffic within its borders - before then, even within the same country you might have to drive on different sides of the road. That convention basically said \"Pick a side, and make it the same throughout all of your country\".\n\nIn the last century or so, countries have gradually been switching sides they drive on, and usually they've switched *to the right*. America actually used to drive on the left, but now drives on the right. This was done because at the time, some large wagons were typically driven from a seat on a left-hand horse, and so right-side traffic allowed these riders better vision (and thus more safety). A lot of changing-over to the right has been done since to make it safer when crossing over from one country into its neighbor (because when you have to change sides, it's confusing, and can cause accidents).\n\n**TL;DR** - For Metric, America didn't *start* doing things differently, the citizenry just hasn't completely changed over like the rest of the world, at least in part due to inherent opposition to government interference in everyday life. For the \"side of the road\" thing, we were one of the first to switch over because, at the time, *it was safer*, and much of the world has followed suit for the sake of uniformity - it's many of the *other* modern nations that are behind the curve on this one.",
"Actually, in a way, the rest of the world does it differently than us.\n\nYou see, the units we often use for measurement (the Imperial system) were what was in use by our British settlers when they first arrived at America, and we've kept using them since. Meanwhile, most of the rest of the world has moved on. In the late 1700s, the Metric System was created, and in the mid-1800s, it started to spread around the world as more and more countries realized the usefulness of having a universal system of measurement. The US, too, makes use of this system in academic and scientific fields, but for the common citizen it had kinda' become too entrenched. Attempts to officially establish the metric system in America (including founding father [Thomas Jefferson](_URL_0_)) have fallen on deaf ears, more or less because of the nation's general attitude of \"we do things the way we want and ain't no guv'ment gon' tell us otherwise!\", and it is that same attitude which would make such a law fail today - people would protest it as their government interfering with their daily lives.\n\nThe \"side of the road\" thing is a bit different. [Here](_URL_1_) is a map of what countries drive on the left side of the road (blue) or right (red). You'll notice that like America, most of the world does in fact drive on the right. However, it doesn't seem that way because many of those blue countries are first-world countries, so we're more exposed to images of their busy streets than, say, your average African or Middle Eastern country.\n\nIt bears mention that it was only in 1949 that world nations agreed to a Geneva Convention saying that every world nation should have *uniform* traffic within its borders - before then, even within the same country you might have to drive on different sides of the road. That convention basically said \"Pick a side, and make it the same throughout all of your country\".\n\nIn the last century or so, countries have gradually been switching sides they drive on, and usually they've switched *to the right*. America actually used to drive on the left, but now drives on the right. This was done because at the time, some large wagons were typically driven from a seat on a left-hand horse, and so right-side traffic allowed these riders better vision (and thus more safety). A lot of changing-over to the right has been done since to make it safer when crossing over from one country into its neighbor (because when you have to change sides, it's confusing, and can cause accidents).\n\n**TL;DR** - For Metric, America didn't *start* doing things differently, the citizenry just hasn't completely changed over like the rest of the world, at least in part due to inherent opposition to government interference in everyday life. For the \"side of the road\" thing, we were one of the first to switch over because, at the time, *it was safer*, and much of the world has followed suit for the sake of uniformity - it's many of the *other* modern nations that are behind the curve on this one."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_for_Establishing_Uniformity_in_the_Coinage,_Weights,_and_Measures_of_the_United_States",
"http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/32/Countries_driving_on_the_left_or_right.svg"
],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_for_Establishing_Uniformity_in_the_Coinage,_Weights,_and_Measures_of_the_United_States",
"http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/32/Countries_driving_on_the_left_or_right.svg"
]
] |
|
2d5cl9
|
how does u-haul get away with having all vehicles licensed in 1 state?
|
All U-Haul vehicles I've seen are licensed in Arizona. How can they operate in so many jurisdictions but only pay for licensing in 1 state?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2d5cl9/eli5_how_does_uhaul_get_away_with_having_all/
|
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"There are laws pertaining to fleet vehicles - in other words, a fleet of vehicles all owned and operated by one company - that allow the company to title and license all their vehicles in the place where the company's main center of operations is located. Companies use this because it allows them to set up a single account under which all the fleet vehicles' tags are renewed at once, rather than being sprinkled on different due dates throughout the year.\n\nIn U-Haul's case, their HQ is in Phoenix, AZ, so AZ fleet licensing laws allow them to title and license all their vehicles in that county. Every state has slightly different requirements for how many vehicles constitute a fleet and how fleet licensing is handled. AZ and IL are two of the more common states you'll see on big trucking fleets because they have the business-friendliest fleet licensing laws.",
"Does the plate have the word \"apportioned\" on it? If it does then the fees from that plate are divided among all the states. This is common for vehicles that are engaged in interstate commerce. By federal law a vehicle can only be licensed in one state.\n\nI have seen U-Haul's with various state plates, and not all of them are apportioned. It's likely that U-Haul has a majority of Arizona plates, but does register some of it's vehicles in other states so as not to draw the ire of said states.",
"The u-Hauls in Canada even have Arizona plates",
"The proliferation of Arizona plates has much to do with their registration laws. If a vehicle is taken off the road for being poorly maintained/unsafe there is no requirement to get a vehicle inspection performed before it can be put back on the road.\n\nDear Arizona,\n\nFuck you.\n\nRegards,\n\nMostlyHarmlessEmu"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
7rmup7
|
why is it that cameras cannot take a clear picture of an lcd screen?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7rmup7/eli5_why_is_it_that_cameras_cannot_take_a_clear/
|
{
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"Monitors and TVs typically have a set refresh rate - 50Hz and 60Hz are fairly common. This means that the screen is redrawn around 50 or 60 times a second. To the human eye, this looks smooth - it's fast enough to be almost unnoticeable.\n\nCameras, though operate differently from our eyes. If the frame rate of the camera matches the refresh rate of the screen you're looking at, it'll probably look fine. Usually, this isn't the case. The camera then could capture a partly drawn screen as one of it's frames, and then capture a different part of the screen in the next frame, etc. Net result: it looks like it flickers (or you see moving black bars), since it does this very quickly.\n\nThe black bars are a slightly different story from the flickering - the issue there is called aliasing. It's the same reason why if you film a wheel moving at the right speed, it can look like it's spinning backwards. If you think of video cameras as just taking a lot of pictures really fast, the way we perceive motion in a video is that you assume things move the smallest amount possible. So if a wheel has 8 spokes (evenly spaced, 360/8 = 45 degree separation) and rotates 35 degrees between frames, you'll probably think it took the shortest possible rotation - 10 degrees in the opposite direction (this breaks down if the spokes are distinguishable). The black bars you make see on some cameras are the same effect - the camera captures snapshots at different points in time that make it look like the bars move in a way vastly different from the actual scanning of the screen.\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
5ve61x
|
why do shows like "the wonder years" make me feel nostalgic even though they took place decades before i was born?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ve61x/eli5_why_do_shows_like_the_wonder_years_make_me/
|
{
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"The wonder years is about suburban life, being a kid, and dealing with parents and girls. Not so much living in the 60s. Most of the things in there are universal issues young boys face and don't matter what decades ether are from.",
"Our culture looks back to them time fondly. Subconsciously we know the references and have associated the time period to propsperity and innocence."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
62bibl
|
when they do the first human head transplant, is the person in the head getting a new body or is the human in the body getting a new head?
|
[Biology]
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/62bibl/eli5_when_they_do_the_first_human_head_transplant/
|
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"text": [
"Always brain. What I mean, you cute little five year old, is that the brain is you. Whatever gets attached to it is the transplant. The other stuff (in this case, the whole body) doesn't know the difference. Just the brain. Always brain.",
"If memory serves, a Russian man with a debilitating and rare spinal condition is having his brain/head transplanted onto a donor body. They've estimated it'll take 36 hours or surgery and 150+ doctors and nurses! If he lives, it'll be pretty freaking cool, and if he manages to recover and is able to have any body control it'll be some serious sci-if shit as he's been wheelchair bound the majority of his life (iirc). ",
"Its a body transplant. Head transplant is very misleading. What is considered \"you\" resides in your brain. ",
"That which you call \"I\", that essential self you're talking about when you say \"I love\" or \"I hate\" or \"I hurt\" or \"I yearn\"...this is all a electro-chemical program running on your brain. So, of course, the head is getting a new body. The \"person\" is a product of the brain, not of toes and pinky fingers and nipples."
]
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|
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[],
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|
1hqdhc
|
what happens to the money and financing invested in startups if they fail?
|
When I read a lot about many of these tech firms and their investment rounds of funding I wonder what the stipulations of the investments are. Are the owners of the company on the hook for paying any of what they're given?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1hqdhc/eli5_what_happens_to_the_money_and_financing/
|
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"It's gone. If the company goes bankrupt, it literally hasn't got the money to payback investments.\n\nSome loans often have director guarantees, so the directors have to pay what the company owes, but even then the director might be bankrupt too.\n\nInvestment is risk.",
"Not directly answering your question, but definitely relevant: when I started my own company a few years ago, I spoke to my bank about a startup loan - which they agreed to, but only if I personally guaranteed the loan. In other words, if my company had gone bankrupt or defaulted on the loan, they could have come after me personally to recover it.\n\nI'm not sure if the same would apply to investors other than banks. But I'm sure they'd do whatever they can to protect their money.",
"The money is \"gone\" from the point of view of the investors, but it didn't vanish. It's still somewhere in the system, just not in the company anymore.\n\nInvesting in a startup means giving it money so that it can operate. This means the company will buy supplies, rent an office, hire employees, etc. That's why money is needed in the beginning.\n\nHopefully it will sell a product or service and eventually earn more money than it spends. But sometimes it doesn't, and the company does not have enough money to function anymore: they can't pay the rent, salaries, supplies etc. At that point, all the money that was invested is spent. It's now in the pockets of the landlord, employees, suppliers etc. The investors risked that money and lost it.\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
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[]
] |
|
1oofti
|
how does the digestive system determine what is what as food passes through.
|
Also how does it know how much of each vitamin/mineral etc. to extract before leaving the rest to "waste"
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1oofti/eli5how_does_the_digestive_system_determine_what/
|
{
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"text": [
"whatever can make it past intestinal wall is absorbed. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
4aejpg
|
why would companies like dominos prefer to sell me 3 entire one-topping pizzas for cheaper than one pizza with multiple toppings?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4aejpg/eli5_why_would_companies_like_dominos_prefer_to/
|
{
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],
"score": [
2,
3,
2
],
"text": [
"Usually I'd say it is because they have an abundance of common toppings and can sell cheaper. Using all toppings or less common ones cost. ",
"Encourage groups to choose say Dominos for their meal and in addition make more money on the sale of 3 pizzas.\n\nIt costs far less per pie then the amount you pay. So it's not a huge deal to sale 3 pizzas over 1 super pizza. \n\nIn addition someone buying that many pizza's may but other things on the menu. They may end up paying more vs having bought the one super pizza.\n\nBasically it's geared toward bigger crowds. Deals for multiple toppings though are geared toward spending more or just getting your business to begin with. ",
"Pre-made dough. \n\nMost places like major chains don't make their dough from scratch, so as long as they are moving dough, they are not at risk of having it go bad. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
1tbbj5
|
what is orientalism?
|
in the context of the middle eat/islam please
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1tbbj5/eli5_what_is_orientalism/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ce6afdi"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"I just finished up a class on Middle East politics with a little section on orientalism! Anyways, orientalism is the belief that some historical studies can run the risk of being based off of stereotypes and not the bigger truth. For instance, say you're talking about the rise of the Arab Spring, an orientalist approach to the subject would be something like saying that it happened due to Islam's long standing belief in justice. Looking at it this way (from a broad historical perspective) disregards the many other factors that led to the uprising, and instead focuses on an easily generalizable, but not necessarily current aspect of Middle Eastern society."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
35zzs7
|
why women tend to stand with one knee bent.
|
Like in [this silhouette.](_URL_0_)
Men do that as well ofc, but I see women standing like that much more often, and in various situations, whether picking groceries, teaching a class or waiting idly for the bus. I know it sounds silly but I'm really curious, especially since I find the pose attractive.
One last thing, do women take that pose consciously when standing or do they "just do it"?
Thanks for your time.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/35zzs7/eli5_why_women_tend_to_stand_with_one_knee_bent/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cr9folo"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"All people do that. It is because standing with your knees locked is very bad and unnatural. It can even cut off bloodflow to the brain enough to cause you to black out (semi-common occurrence in military training, ROTCs and Marching Bands when people have not learned how to stand at attention without locking their knees.)"
]
}
|
[] |
[
"http://www.lynnandbrown.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/unhappy-couple.jpg"
] |
[
[]
] |
|
1xkerh
|
why does my shaver slow down as the battery depletes - instead of just cutting out once it's empty?
|
I've noticed once my shaver (and some other motors in things) will slow down over time - usually once it hits something like 10% left. This is probably a silly question, but why doesn't it just keep running at full till it depletes entirely (or till moments before) as opposed to slowing down like this.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xkerh/eli5_why_does_my_shaver_slow_down_as_the_battery/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cfc4vcj"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Because it is running off a battery. A battery only has a certain amount of charge (current) that it can supply, usually measured in mA-h (milliAmpere-hours). But as it runs out, the voltage that the battery can output (kind of like the \"pressure\" of the electricity) declines, too. That declining voltage means that the electric motor(s) in your shaver is going to run slower. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
598ou1
|
where exactly does the atmosphere end? what is the border between earth and space like?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/598ou1/eli5_where_exactly_does_the_atmosphere_end_what/
|
{
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],
"score": [
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2,
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],
"text": [
"The commonly accepted edge of space is the Karman line, which is 100,000 meters above sea level. In addition to being a nice round number that's easy to remember, this is roughly the altitude where the air becomes too thin for airplanes to fly.\n\nBut this \"boundary\" is basically theoretical. The atmosphere does not end, it becomes progressively thinner until it is functionally vacuum. Depending on how you want to define \"atmosphere,\" it could extend all the way to 10,000 kilometers above sea level.",
"True \"space\" starts at about 10,000 kilometers up. But the atmosphere doesn't ever really end. The higher up you go, the more the air dissipates, but even above 10,000 kilometers, there's still a bit of hydrogen left (although it's practically nonexistent). We call this part above 10,000 km the \"heliosphere\". The heliosphere contains particles given off by the Sun, and it extends a long, long way out there -- 18 billion kilometers from the Sun. Outside the heliosphere, space is filled with a bit of plasma. But no matter how far out you go, space is never empty.",
"The exosphere is the highest layer of the atmosphere. The part that can be seen from space extends at least 10,000 KM from earth. This is mostly hydrogen atoms and not much else.\n\nBut the absolute end of what could possibly be called the atmosphere by any definition is about half way between the earth and the moon, where the influence of the sun's radiation pressure on hydrogen atoms exceeds that of earth's gravitational pull",
"Check out this [3D globe of the atmosphere](_URL_0_) with an atmosphere-high yard stick to better understand the distances involved in each layer.\n\nWith it you can rotate, look down from the tops of the various atmosphere levels indicated and also zoom into the ground and look up at them from Mount Everest. Use the control key and drag the mouse to rotate and control elevation."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://climateviewer.org/3D/index.html?layersOn=mrm-123"
]
] |
||
1g7w6e
|
is the mah rating on a battery like a 'volume' of power capacity?
|
In a similar vein to the ELI5 I asked about mobile device chargers (volume and current), I was curious if a battery's power capacity (in mAh) is analogous to volume (i.e. the mAh rating is the size of a container).
Here's the particular scenario I'm thinking of:
I have a battery backup pack that's rated at 12,000 mAh.
My phone's battery is 3,100 mAh. Should I be able to charge up my device completely from ~3% to 100% four times?
I'm equating ~3% battery power remaining to 100 mAh left on the battery, so the backup pack is charging 3,000 mAh.
I'm also assuming that the device is idle/off so no processes are continually drawing power from the battery.
Similarly, if I charge an iPad 2 (whose battery is 6,944 mAh) from 20% to 65%, would this drop the backup battery pack's charge by roughly (45% * 6,944 mAh = 3,124.8 mAh)?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1g7w6e/eli5_is_the_mah_rating_on_a_battery_like_a_volume/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cahl70v"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Close. It depends on the watt rating of your pack. Lithium ion battery packs generally come in increments of 3.6 volts (so 3.6, 7.2, 10.8, etc). Take the mAh rating * Voltage / 1000 = Watt-hours. That's the real measure of the volume of your pack and allows you to measure how much recharge you can get from different pack voltages.\n\nSo, if your external battery pack is 3.7V, then I'd expect you would get 3+ charges out of the pack. Since you lose some power converted to heat and other inefficiencies in charging, I wouldn't say 4 full charges, though.\n\nIf your battery pack is higher voltage, you should get more charges - 2x for a 7.4V pack, 3x for a 10.8. Laptop batteries are generally higher voltage - my Macbook uses a 10.8V battery."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
2yhz2o
|
why do people expect intelligent life elsewhere in the universe to be humanoid and bipedal in nature?
|
In movies and TV shows and other publications aliens always seem to be portrayed as very similar to humans. Or at the very least they are humanoid and bipedals who walk upright. What are the chances of this actually happening?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2yhz2o/eli5_why_do_people_expect_intelligent_life/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cp9od5b",
"cp9ogyn",
"cp9qsyv"
],
"score": [
2,
9,
2
],
"text": [
"It's the only basis we have on intelligent lifeforms, since we're all we have with our level of sentience.\n\nIn TV shows it's probably to make the alien characters more relateable with the audience. Plus it's far easier to put a fancy costume and a ton of makeup on an actor instead of having some crazy CGI thing.\n\nAs far as reality goes, I'd say we have a fairly good chance. We evolved from quadrupedal lifeforms and learned to have good balance, allowing us to stand on our hind two legs and use our front two to manipulate objects, make tools, etc. If we found an Earthlike planet, it's probably not out of the question that the intelligent life could be bipedal.\n\nDon't count on it, though. Our only basis for life at all is what's on Earth.",
"Movies and TV shows use humanoid/bipedal aliens because its traditional. Its traditional because its cheaper and easier to create for old school special effects. Additionally, reports of UFO's often include bipedal aliens called grays, so that is what people expect.\n\nScientifically, we don't really know, as we only have a sample size of one, humans on earth. There are theories, but that's all they are.",
"Mostly the people who think about it seriously don't. Blame the rest on popular entertainment. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
1pmhit
|
how do refrigerants work, like freon?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1pmhit/eli5_how_do_refrigerants_work_like_freon/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cd3sue5",
"cd3u2kd",
"cd3u6f9"
],
"score": [
3,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Refrigerants have a very low boiling temperature. The exact temperature varies from chemical to chemical... So because they have a low boiling point, when stored in its liquid form it will heat up quickly, collecting heat from the surrounding area. To use it as a refrigerant, you have to pressurize it to keep it a liquid, then send it through pressurized tubing. The tubing and surrounding area becomes cold because the refrigerant has taken the heat... \n\nBecause the refrigerant has now heated up, the pressure builds in the system. Once you lower the pressure again, the refrigerant will have to give off the heat somewhere else and the system and the cycle continues. The temperature of the refrigerant goes down and it is sent back through the area you are cooling to do it all over again.",
"Basically, refrigeration works by artificially putting a refrigerant into a state where even stuff that is cold to us (milk, vegetables) is warm enough to boil the refrigerant. This boiling draws heat out of whatever it is that is being refrigerated (usually an empty space that we fill with stuff).\n\nRefrigerants are substances that are easily put into this \"boil-at-low-temperature\" state. Freon (dichlorodifluoromethane) is one. R-134 (1,1,1,2-Tetrafluoroethane) is another, and even substances like ammonia and propane can be used. Why are they good refrigerants? They have various properties the importance of which I have forgotten in the few years it has been since I took an HVAC class. Why those properties are important and useful for refrigeration is something that you'd have to ask an expert in physical chemistry.",
"Compress a gas it gets extra hot.\n\nThen cool it down with the air outside.\n\nUn-compress (expand) the gas and it gets extra cold\n\n.. repeat\n\nThis works even better if you can compress the gas into a liquid,\n\nthen expand it back into a gas.\n\n\nRefrigerants go from liquid to gas and back at useful temperatures and pressures.\n\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
3v4o48
|
what are the reference points for fahrenheit? if celsius is based on water freezing and boiling, where in the world did fahrenheit come from?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3v4o48/eli5_what_are_the_reference_points_for_fahrenheit/
|
{
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"cxk9l5a",
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"cxkaxl5"
],
"score": [
3,
15,
10
],
"text": [
"There are overall ~~3~~ 4 reference Points.\n\nThe first one (0°F) is defined as the lowest Temperature Mr. Fahrenheit could reach with a so called \"cooling Bath\".\n\nThe second one (32°F) is the freezing Point of Water.\n\nThe third one (96°F) is the core temperature of an average human being.\n\n > (Credits to u/kouhoutek for remembering) The fourth one (212°F) is the boiling point of Water.\n\nHope this helped. [Read more](_URL_0_) :)",
"0°F is based on the coldest temperature Fahrenheit was able to consistently recreate in his lab. 32°F is the freezing point of water and 96 is based on the human body temperature the difference between the last two is 64* which is easily markable by halving the distance a few times.\n\nThe modern scale is slightly changed and uses the freezing and boiling points of water at 32°F and 212°F as fix points.",
"Is reddit the new Google or something?"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit"
],
[],
[]
] |
||
5jfbt8
|
what exactly are dimples?
|
Some people have dimples on their cheeks, especially when they smile. Biologically what are dimples and what purpose do they have?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5jfbt8/eli5_what_exactly_are_dimples/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dbfqki7"
],
"score": [
17
],
"text": [
" > Biologically what are dimples and what purpose do they have?\n\nDimples are caused by variations in the facial muscle zygomaticus major which for whatever reason is notched or doubled. There is no known biological role this plays."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
2u0gf5
|
why do babies tear out / spit out their pacifiers despite the fact that popping it back in makes them happy again?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2u0gf5/eli5_why_do_babies_tear_out_spit_out_their/
|
{
"a_id": [
"co3ze90"
],
"score": [
7
],
"text": [
"Babies are not very good at cause and effect. They don't realise that by tearing out their pacifiers they won't be able to suck on it anymore. They are too young to make that connection. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
3iuskh
|
how do objects have their own "unique" sound.
|
This will be hard to explain, but I'll try my best.
Say you're in a swimming pool and you use your hand to swish the water and it makes a noise, if you played that back on a speaker or whatever you know that the noise is water.
Same with solid objects, if I step on a bit of wood blindfolded I'll know that I stepped on wood because of the noise it made. Then if I go and step on a different material with the same force I'll know that it's not wood. How does this work?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3iuskh/eli5_how_do_objects_have_their_own_unique_sound/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cujubdf"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"I think this image helps explain it a bit:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nEvery sound is made up of a certain combination of frequencies each operating at different volumes. Higher frequencies sound tinny and harsh while lower frequencies sound thick and heavy. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.independentrecording.net/irn/resources/freqchart/images/main_chart.jpg"
]
] |
|
fbjm1s
|
why can’t people take antivirals the way we take antibiotics? why not prescribe antivirals for things like the common cold?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fbjm1s/eli5_why_cant_people_take_antivirals_the_way_we/
|
{
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"fj63bqr",
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"fj4oigy"
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"score": [
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2,
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3
],
"text": [
"In addition to what others said, antivirals are very hard on the body. You don’t want to use them unless it’s absolutely necessary. Taking them for a cold would be like launching an airstrike on a jaywalker.",
"I am no doctor or biologist but since there are not so many answers I will give a try.\n\nBacteria are cells that are not part of the body itself and have a life of their own (a cell of your skin is part of your body and would be usell and die if let alone, while a bacteria can survive and reproduce itself has long as the condition are met). [Some bacteria are usefull or even needed for your body to be well (on your skin, in your intestine,...).](_URL_1_) Some are detrimental to it. \n\nIf you take antibiotics, it will mainly target the cells that are bacteria, potentially reducing some of the [goods ones like those in your intestine](_URL_0_).\n\nViruses aren't bacteria and aren't cells. They need to infiltrate and take control of cells (body cells or bacteria) to reproduce themsleves. By doing so they often change the purpose of the cells they have infiltrated. The antivirals will most of the time work against the virus' reproduction rather than targeting and destroying it since it is potentially hidden in the body's cells. Targeting the body's cells is what we are doing when fighting cancer and you know the toll it takes.",
"Antivirals need to be very specific for the virus so most of the time they would be useless. Antibiotics are more broad spectrum and more useful against most bacteria",
"Antivirals dont treat just any virus. Also, antivirals aren't cures, at all. They keep the virus at bay in most cases and its usually a permanent virus like HIV or HERPES."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"https://www.nature.com/articles/d42859-019-00019-x",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_microbiome"
],
[],
[]
] |
||
4c0kaw
|
what do atoms really "look like"?
|
And what is really happening at the atomic level when two solids 'touch'?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4c0kaw/eli5_what_do_atoms_really_look_like/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d1e10q9",
"d1e16q6"
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17,
2
],
"text": [
"For something to be visible to us, light would have to bounce off it in to our eyes. Atoms are so small that that model just doesn't work. Photons of light can interact with atoms in strange ways or not at all. For example, a LASER works by bombarding atoms with light so that one of their electrons is temporarily bumped in to a higher orbit. When it drops back out of that orbit, the atom emits a photon of light. Multiply that effect by billions or trillions and you have a LASER. ",
"They are much smaller than any light could show you, so they do not really look like anything. However, there are tools that can show us what they would look like if there was such a light. One of those tools is called a transmission electron microscope. You can see examples of this for instance in figure 5 of this article:\n_URL_0_"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"http://article.sapub.org/10.5923.j.msse.20150401.03.html"
]
] |
|
1kcu4i
|
why do sport drinks like gatorade hydrate you with that much sodium in it?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1kcu4i/eli5why_do_sport_drinks_like_gatorade_hydrate_you/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cbnml7j"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"The purpose of Gatorade is not to rehydrate you (water would work fine for that). It's main purpose is restore electrolyte balances (sodium being one of the main ones). Professional atheletes sweat excessively, and when they do they lose both water and salt. Drinking just water doesn't replace the salts, Gatorade does."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
5qz3ae
|
e=mc^2 so... if we had a ton of energy we could make matter right?
|
Like if I had a magic energy box I could make a 3d print whatever I want device right?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5qz3ae/eli5_emc2_so_if_we_had_a_ton_of_energy_we_could/
|
{
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"text": [
"This box would have to be able to be able to take energy and use it to create the exact particles you need, and then arrange them into other particles, and so on until you have the molecules you need, and arrange them into the object you want.\n\nSo in theory, yes. But it would be unimaginably complex and take a truly ridiculous amount of energy to make an everyday object. Even with huge improvements in technology, this will probably never be more efficient than just going out and finding the material you need to make it in a more conventional way. It would probably be used to make tiny amounts of extremely rare matter, or maybe stuff that doesn't form naturally. Even then, there are or probably will be easier ways to do it (such as smashing existing stuff together in a particle accelerator).",
"Absolutely. This is how CERN has been able to produce antimatter \n\n_URL_0_\n\nOn a much smaller scale energy is converted to mass around you constantly. Photosynthesis \"stores energy\" from photons chemically in hydrocarbons. Changing the chemistry very slightly changes the mass. It's negligible compared to the mass of the atoms themselves but it still occurs. ",
"It truly needs to be a magic box however :s\n\nIn reality it's more complex. E=MC^2 (or M=E/C^2 has it was originally presented) Proves that Matter is a propriety of energy: The more energy a system has the more it weights.\n\nMost of the registered mass of an atom comes from the energy holding the sub-atomic particles together. The rest comes from \"regular mass\" of those sub-atomic particles.\n\nBut yes, It is possible to make matter from energy. Not as a regular 3D printer because we are talking about stupid amounts of energy. associated with radiations and extreme temperatures.",
"I've been severely downvoted for this explanation in the past, but I'll go over the equation, not the reactions.\n\nE=mc^2\n\nwhere:\n\nE = energy\n\nm = mass (or more importantly a difference in mass)\n\nc^2 = speed of light squared (this gets tricky so let's address it first)\n\nc^2 is ***basically*** a conversion factor of 931 MeV / amu. There's more to it, but it suffices for calculation purposes.\n\nGiven that conversion factor and unit analysis, it's easy to calculate an amount of energy released from a mass differential. Basic algebra and all.\n\nSo, what does that mean? First fission. In fission, a large atom splits into components. After fission, all the parts have less mass than the original atom and whatever caused it (a neutron, for example). The totals don't match. Calculation time!\n\nNow fusion. Basically the opposite of fission. Fusion is the fusing of two small atoms. When it happens, you guessed it, there's less mass at the end than the parts you started with. Again, calculation time! ",
"In theory sure, but you need a bucket load full of energy.\n\nAssuming the process with which you convert is perfect. Thus no energy gets lost via excess heat or light. You would need 89.9 petajoules just to make one kilogram of mass.\n\nSource: _URL_0_",
"What E=mC^2 tells you is much more fundamental. It says that energy *is* matter. For any system, the mass is simply equal to the amount of energy you'd need to create the entire system out of nothing. So the mass of a molecule of CO2 consists of the energy needed to create all the electrons protons and neutrons in the CO2, minus the binding energy you get back when you bring those particles together.\n\nThere is just one caveat: This only holds if the object you're interested in is stationary. If you were to shoot off the CO2 molecule you just created at 0.9c then obviously you've added a lot of energy, but you didn't change it's mass. For moving objects you need to use the following formula:\n\nE^2 = m^2 c^4 + p^2 c^2\n\nWhich also tells you how photons can be massless even though they have energy; all their energy is 'locked up' in their momentum.",
"Correct!\n\nBut the relationship between matter and energy is even deeper than you might think! When we say that \"energy is mass\", we literally mean that *all energy is mass, and all mass is energy.* You can seriously increase the mass of a glass of water by microwaving it.\n\nFor instance, say you microwave a 12-oz glass of water that was at room temperature (293.15K) to just slightly under boiling point (373.15K) [source](_URL_1_).\n\nThat's a change in temperature of 80 kelvin. The thermal capacity of of water is [4.184 joules per kelvin per gram](_URL_0_). (That is, it takes 4.184 joules of energy to raise the temperature of one gram of water by one degree kelvin).\n\nFinally, our 12oz glass of water weighs 354.882 grams.\n\nThrowing this all into the math-blender, we get:\n\nTotal energy added = 354.882 grams * 80 K * 4.184 J/(gK) = 118786.10304 J, or 118 kilojoules of energy.\n\nNow, we may apply ~~Mr.~~ Dr. Einstein's famous equation:\n\nE = m * C^2\n\nSolving for mass, we get:\nm = E/C^2\n\nPlugging in our values (including the speed of light), we have:\n\nm = 118786.10304 J/(299792458 m / s)^2 = 1.32167364 * 10^-12 kg\n\nIn other words, the weight of your cup of water *will* be increased by roughly ***one millionth of one thousandth of a gram***\n\nNot nearly enough to be noticeable, but interesting nevertheless.\n\nThis works for *all* forms of energy too, including potential energies, such as the charging/discharging of a battery or capacitor.\n\nThe key thing to understand here is that, even in extremely high energy processes like fission and fusion, we're not creating or destroying *matter* at all -- instead, we are either releasing or trapping energy, which also happens to be mass, causing the matter that is *already there* to become either heavier or lighter.\n\nHowever, if you can get the energy of your interaction high enough, like in the case of the LHC, matter itself *can* spontaneously appear, releasing some of the energy as true, physical mass/matter, rather than just increasing the weight (and speed) of any matter that was already present.\n",
"Energy is conserved, but not every imaginable energy-conserving process is physically allowed, as there are other conservation laws as well. For example, I can't just turn light into the protons, neutrons and electrons that compose ordinary matter, since the conservation of other quantities called baryon number and lepton number implies I would have to create equal amounts of antimatter [at the same time](_URL_0_). (For simplicity I'm glossing over hypothetical ways to change the total baryon number, if only because doing it on a large scale would be challenging.) If I create matter alongside antimatter, I'll have to separate the two quickly or [the result won't last long](_URL_1_)."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"https://home.cern/about/accelerators/antiproton-decelerator"
],
[],
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass%E2%80%93energy_equivalence"
],
[],
[
"https://water.usgs.gov/edu/heat-capacity.html",
"https://www.quora.com/What-is-room-temperature-in-Kelvin"
],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pair_production",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annihilation"
]
] |
|
5m66nz
|
how and why the patterns in this sand resonance experiments occur? (link down below)
|
_URL_0_
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5m66nz/eli5_how_and_why_the_patterns_in_this_sand/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dc18w32"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"To understand this, you must understand waves in general. I don't know your math background, but I'll assume you have seen a sin graph before. This is a basic wave. When two eaves collide, think of them as taking two sin graphs, overlapping them, then adding them together. You can get three outcomes. First they line up perfectly (they look like they same exact graph), this will make the amplitude of the sin graph double. In acoustics, the sound will get louder when this happens. Second, they don't line up (they are out of phase). In this case, they either add constructively or destructively. Or the amplitude will either increase or decrease. The range of the amplitude will be between 0 and 2, but not including 0 or 2. Third, the graphs are perfectly out of phase. In this case, they will cancel each other out, the amplitude will go to 0, and they look just like a line. \n\nIf you're still with me, good job! Now for the plate experiment. When acoustic waves are confined to a space, either a flat plate, or even a rectangle room, the waves will bounce around until they form resonances, or areas where the waves perfectly line up or perfectly cancel each other out. This is what is happening on the plate. If you take a cross section of the plate, you will see areas where there is little vibration, and areas where there is a lot of vibration. The sand will naturally flow to areas of little vibration. The waves come to some sort of equilibrium or pattern of resonances. When you change the frequency, you change where the resonances will occur in the plate and the sand will shift to find the areas where vibration doesn't occur.\n\nIt is also important to note that acoustic waves are compression waves, so when the amplitude goes up, it means there is more compression there, and when the amplitude goes down there is less compression going on there. So if you have a flat wave there will be not vibrations. The vibrations being caused by the cycle of compression and decompression caused by acoustic wave.\n\nThe same thing will happen in an empty room. If you have flat walls(no windows or doors) this is much easier. But basically you play a single frequency into the room and then the waves will bounce around until they form resonances. If you walk around the room you can hear where the sound adds together perfectly, as it gets much louder, and areas where the sound waves cancels itself out, and you hear basically nothing.\n\nI hope that helps. I'm free to clarify or further explain."
]
}
|
[] |
[
"https://youtu.be/hIgmiDnmVdU"
] |
[
[]
] |
|
1f6go0
|
i've been told in a few physics classes that the color pink doesn't actually exist. can someone explain this?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1f6go0/eli5_ive_been_told_in_a_few_physics_classes_that/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ca794c8"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"It's not true that the color pink doesn't actually exist.\n\nIt is true that there's no pure wavelength of light which appears pink. But that's true of the vast majority of colors."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
758x3u
|
how do drugs like pregabalin and amitriptyline act on such seemingly unrelated disorders like neuropathic pain and depression or anxiety?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/758x3u/eli5_how_do_drugs_like_pregabalin_and/
|
{
"a_id": [
"do4mgw8"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"The body has a way of reusing the same basic players for a lot of stuff. The brain and spinal cord use a smallish number of neurotransmitters, or chemical messengers, to do most everything. Serotonin is involved in mood, sleep, learning, appetite, digestion, and platelet function. Histamine is involved in sleep vs wakefulness and hunger vs being full. Acetylcholine and norepinephrine deserve a whole chapter. The result is that drugs can have many side effects, but also many intended effects.\n\nAmitriptyline, like most tricyclic antidepressants, is a \"dirty\" drug. This means it hits lots of targets in a non-specific way. (While newer antidepressants were selected to be highly specific, tricyclics were discovered more or less by accident.) Its action as an antidepressant is generally agreed to come from preventing reuptake of serotonin and norepinephrine, making them more available. While doing that in the brain has some benefit in reversing major depression or helping with anxiety disorders, doing it in the spine helps dampen rising pain signals in diabetic neuropathy. Amitriptyline also blocks histamine receptors, which can make it either handy as a sleep aid or annoying because it's too sedating. It blocks certain acetylcholine receptors, which can be great if you have diarrhea and bad if you have constipation, or dry mouth, or are old. And hey, it can help prevent migraines! We're not clear why. \n\nPregabalin acts on certain channels that let charged ions into neurons, which affects whether or not they fire. This is a similarly broad action, with various end effects. Suppressing signal transmission could potentially help with pain transmission or anxiety disorders. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
8a2jfq
|
why is boiling water so painful to touch whilst a 200°c oven is comparably only quite warm?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8a2jfq/eli5_why_is_boiling_water_so_painful_to_touch/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dwvb009",
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"score": [
5,
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"text": [
"Air is a poor conductor of heat. If you touch the metal in your oven it will be a very different story.",
"it's the thermal density of the water as opposed to air. it's the same reason you get hypothermia so much faster in water than air, though they be the same temperature. \n\nwater is much denser than air, so the hot water molecules hit your skin many, many times more often than the same temperature air molecules, and therefore transfer more heat (which is at it's most basic level, just movement) to your skin. ",
"First off, I think you mean 200 °F, as 200 °C is pretty hot.\n\nTo your main question. It has to do with a couple things. First, is the [difference in ability of water and air to conduct (transfer) heat](_URL_0_). Water has a conductivity of 0.0014 (cal/sec)/(cm2 C/cm) while air has a conductivity of only 0.000057 (cal/sec)/(cm2 C/cm). This means that water conducts heat ~24.5 times better than air, i.e., 24.5 times as much heat will go from the water to your flesh than from air to your flesh given the same amount of exposure time and area. This is in large part because water is *much* denser than air. Heat is literally just atoms/molecules moving around. Denser material means more molecules per unit volume are going to come in contact with you and deliver energy (heat).\n\nSecondly, the specific heat of water is 4.186, about 4 times higher than air (depending on its mixture and some other factors). Specific heat tells you how much energy is required to heat a substance by 1 degree celsius. That means that a boiling pot of 1 kg of water has roughly 4 times as much energy in it than a 1 kg mass of 100 °C air.\n\nTaken together, this means that boiling water has much more energy to transfer to your flesh and transfers this energy much faster than air, resulting in scalding. Whereas 100 °C air is often tolerable for many minutes.\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[
"http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Tables/thrcn.html"
]
] |
||
41twnk
|
how does mobile data work the way it does, how does my phone connect by 3g, 4g?
|
On top of that wouldn't it be easier to make Wi-Fi reach everywhere?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/41twnk/eli5_how_does_mobile_data_work_the_way_it_does/
|
{
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"cz53tvm",
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"text": [
" > On top of that wouldn't it be easier to make Wi-Fi reach everywhere.\n\nI'll address this first. No, it would not be easier. The main problem with wi-fi is the range. Even without buildings, or any interference the range is only 200 ft or so. Once you start testing in \"real world\" conditions it's much less (50 ft - 25 ft). \n\nIt's also really affected by the materials between you and the router. My home has an old brick chimney in the center, if the chimney is between me and my router, I lose signal. I lose signal when I go outside because of how thick the exterior walls of my home are.\n\nAll kinds of wireless communication use radio waves in one form or another. But not all radio waves are the same, certain frequencies are better for certain things. The frequencies used by wi-fi are low power, short range and don't penetrate buildings very well. But it's in the frequency range not regulated by government so anyone can buy one and you don't need a special licence.\n\n3g and 4g are also simple radio wave signals. However, these are much different. These frequencies are regulated by the government, so the cell phone company has paid quite a lot (billions) for the rights to transmit on those frequencies. \n\nThose signals have ranges of several miles and are able to penetrate buildings reasonably well.\n\nThis means, in order to cover a city in cell towers, you might need 15 or 20 or so. But to cover the same city in wi-fi would take hundreds. That costs a lot more, in addition, getting permission from land owners to install that much equipment is very difficult. ",
"The first question might be better explained by someone with knowledge of the specific protocols for each technology that would be called \"3G\" or \"4G\"\n\nAs for using wi-fi everywhere, /u/Miliean is mostly right, but frequencies used by wi-fi are not \"low power\". Frequency is not an indicator of power. It actually takes more power to push the higher frequency (2.4 or 5.2 GHz for wi-fi, whereas most carriers' LTE bandwidth is between 700 MHz - 2100 MHz). Wi-fi routers are designed to be lower power because the power required to push a 2.4 GHz signal through more than a few layers of drywall is outrageous - to the point where you'd be having dangerous levels of rf power next to the unit, if it were capable of producing those levels of power.\n\nThe ELI5 is wi-fi is a higher frequency, and it requires more power to push those shorter wavelengths further and through objects than it does a lower frequency, longer wavelength, which cell towers push out. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
bqbgbv
|
how does fire emit light (the sun, a candle, a fire, etc.)?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bqbgbv/eli5_how_does_fire_emit_light_the_sun_a_candle_a/
|
{
"a_id": [
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"eo3ikgw"
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22,
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"text": [
"A lot of energy is put in to make things burn. This energy \"excites\" the electrons makes them go up another level. As they come back to their \"ground state\" they release that energy in the form of light.",
"The process called fire is exothermic, it heats the chemicals involved. If this hot gas is hot enough, the electrons in the hot gas can shed energy and collapse into a lower energy orbital by creating a photon. If those photons are in the right frequency range, you can see them as light.\n\nThe Sun is not a fire. It's a completely different, nuclear, process. However, it is also exothermic, and it heats the atoms involved up and they generate light for similar reasons.",
"It's a couple of different things going on, and how much each process contributes to the light produced depends on the type of fire.\n\nThe first one, which is responsible for most of the light from things like campfires and candles, is called black body radiation. This is the phenomena that all objects convert heat to light. You don't see cold objects light up, because the amount of light and the wavelength (color) of the light depends on the temperature of the object. Colder objects throw off low energy light like radio waves and infra red. Heat them up more and they start glowing red. More and you'll see more yellow, blue, or white light. Fires give off light like this because the gasses and tiny solid particles flying up from the fir are hot enough to glow.\n\nThe other process is due to the burning process giving the electrons inside of the fuel energy. Electrons in an atom are on a kind of energy ladder, where they can step up and down rungs. The burning process takes an electron and bumps it up the ladder a step (or maybe two or three), then the electron falls back down to where it was before. To do this it has to release all that energy that it just had, which it releases as light. When light is produced in this way, it's only in a very narrow wavelength, which means you see a specific, pure color of light from this process, some of which you're unlikely to see from black body radiation which sort of releases a blend of wavelengths together. This is what you see when you burn copper and the flame is green.",
"When you put energy into an atom the electrons move farther away from the nucleus, but they want to go back to normal. To do that they need to get rid of that energy. Electrons get rid of that energy as electromagnet radiation. Depending on the strength it comes out as heat, radio signals, or light.\n\nEdit: the light receptors in your eyes response to certain types of these waves which become photons and trigger the nerves to send signals to your brain.",
"All atoms above absolute zero (think of your freezer at home, it's even colder than that), jiggle. The warmer things are, the more those atoms jiggle around.\n\nAtoms have a core of protons and neutrons, and a shell of electrons. The core is really small, and the electrons form shells at different distances from the center. The closer it is to the core, the more energy there is holding it in place.\n\nWhen you jiggle atoms, electrons from one atom are hitting the electrons of other atoms. When they hit hard enough, an electron is bumped to a further shell and the energy holding it in is let go. It's like releasing a stretched elastic band, or dropping a coin from the top of a bridge. This creates electromagnetic energy. The more you jiggle, the more powerful (shorter wave) it is.\n\nAt lower temperatures, atoms close to each other radiate radio waves and infrared. Get hotter, and you get light. Even hotter, UV rays or even X-rays. The hotter the atoms get, the faster and harder they jiggle, and electrons fly more and more.\n\nWhen you light something on fire, you are making it (or the gas that burns) just the right temperature to show that color. Cooler flames are red or yellow, warmer flames are green or blue, and we know this because blue light has a shorter (higher energy) wavelength than red light.\n\nTl;dr: Jiggling makes warm stuff make light.",
"Fire is a chemical reaction, it gives off matter (ash, soot, and smoke), heat, and massless photons as byproducts. The photons given off by fire are called incandescence. What you see is based on the photons and the frequency they vibrate. Fire will typically be red and orange which are lower on the spectrum. Stars can be a bit different and often give off photons higher on the spectrum. They can display colors like blue or white which are emitted photons with waves properties vibrating at a higher frequency (and more energy) than your typical fire.",
"Think of electrons like they are cars moving down the highway, and photons (light) like a signal drivers use when they are switching to a slower lane. The slower cars are on the right, and the faster cars are on the left (in America under ideal driving conditions). As slow cars get more energy, they go faster and switch to the next lane over to their left. They can also lose energy, slowing down in the process, but when they do this, they use their signal and emit light.\n\nNow, think of a light bulb while thinking about these cars. You turn on the switch and electricity moves through the light bulb, giving those cars (electrons) lots of energy. Those cars move over into the left lanes because they are going really fast now, but they don't want to stay there. So, the cars move back over a lane, using their signal (the electron emits a photon) each time they do this. So long as there is electricity powering that light bulb, these cars (electrons) will keep changing how fast they're going and using their signal, \"creating\" light.",
"Light is a wave, like water. Water waves are made when something disturbs the water, like dropping a pebble into the water. If something jostles the the pebble another rippe is sent out.\n\nLight is a wave in something like water, called an electro magnetic field. This is the thing you feel when you try and place to magnets close to each other. Instead of pebbles, whenever an electron is bumped it makes ripples in this field. That ripple is light.\n\nThe reason the electrons are getting bounced in a fire is because hot materials have faster moving atoms (that's what temperature really is, fast or slow atoms). If they collide they bounce the atoms and electrons around, causing ripples (light) to spread out from the impact.",
"When you feel the heat from fire, you are feeling atoms in the fire shoot off their energy because it's too much for them to hold. That energy hits your skin and turns into heat.\n\nBut, that fire sends out energy of all kinds, some you can see and some you can't. The energy you can see becomes all of the colors only once it hits your eyes and your brain interprets it. But there are \"colors\" that our eyes and brains can't see, too. The closest ones to our sight are called \"ultra-violet\" and \"infrared\". Others include X-Ray, microwave, radio wave, and gamma rays. They are all just forms of energy that wiggle around at different speeds. We use tools to \"see\" and use the different \"wavelengths\" of energy.\n\nUltimately, the universe doesn't care whether or not fire emits light. Fire emits energy in the form of electromagnetic radiation which likes to wiggle about space to the tune of many different beats. Our brains happen to interpret a few of those beats and show them to us as light."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
12eqbg
|
what do the ground traders at the nyse do?
|
I understand they're traders, buying and selling stocks, but what exactly do they do running around all frantically all day? How do they know what to trade and sell? And how does it ultimately affect the rest of the US and world economy?
Thanks!
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/12eqbg/what_do_the_ground_traders_at_the_nyse_do/
|
{
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"text": [
"They relay information to those with a seat on the exchange, who in turn make requests to turn those machines back on; turn those machines back on.",
"They make markets, which means basically they stand ready to sell to all buyers and buy from all sellers. So if you want to sell a stock, instead of trying to go out and find a buyer yourself, you can just sell to the market maker and he will find a buyer when he can.\n\nThey make money from the _URL_0_.\n\nIt doesn't seem like a lot, but $0.01 profit * 100000000000 shares a year = a lot",
"Currently, swim or wade"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bid%E2%80%93offer_spread"
],
[]
] |
|
ynj4f
|
why are products and services e.g clothes and shipping so low cost in the united states vs anywhere else in the world?
|
Is it to help their economy? because I don't remember a time in the last ten years when I didn't see examples of things not being really cheap.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ynj4f/eli5_why_are_products_and_services_eg_clothes_and/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c5x6i8y"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"If you compare the US to Europe and Japan, there are some key differences that explain the reason why prices are lower in general in the US as compared to Europe and Japan:\n\n1. Land is a lot cheaper in most US cities than in European or Japanese cities. The US has a lot more room, so it's much cheaper for a store or other business to rent space.\n\n2. Many resources are cheaper in the US. As expensive as gasoline has become in the US, it's still a lot cheaper than in Europe or Japan. The same is true of water, wood, electricity, most food, and many other resources. The US has a lot more natural resources than Europe or Japan so it doesn't have to import as many things, which is more expensive.\n\n3. Labor is cheaper in the US. The US has had huge rates of legal and illegal immigration for decades, who mostly work for low wages, and has a large native-born low-wage labor force as well. Labor shortages in Japan and parts of Europe mean higher wages, and labor costs are also higher because most of Europe in particular has strong unions and strict labor laws."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
qet0w
|
monsanto
|
Why are they so horrible?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/qet0w/eli5_monsanto/
|
{
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"text": [
"Monsanto developed Agent Orange back in the Vietnam days, and now they do Genetically Modified crops. \n\nThey claim their seeds are patented so if some of their crops accidentally start growing on your farmland, they will sue you. \n\nMonsanto also causes thousands of protest suicides by farmers in India due to their product not working as promised over there.",
"You know roundup from the TV? They made that. It kills everything. They made a plant that doesn't get killed by roundup. Then they sell it to people and they are forced forever more to buy roundup-ready seeds or else they can't grow anything, and the seed is \"copy-written\" somehow so you can't get them anywhere else.\n\nOh, and the mutated plants spread their genes until every plant will not survive without roundup and they will control the world with copyright laws (lawls).\n\nAlso, they are a \"regulated\" company where the regulators are former and future employees, and they are an archetypal example of how fucked up we all are and that we have no chance of survival because a minority fucked it up for the rest of us and we still support them unknowingly.",
"There is a very interesting documentary by French journalist Marie-Monique Robin, called **The World according to Monsanto**. If you are really interested in this topic, I would recommend you read the book it is based on. It is very well documented and explains in detail how they managed to go from a chemical company to one of the biggest seed manufacturers in the world.",
"Just going to stick to some GM issues here, staying as neutral as possible but it is not easy to really get across the huge amount of good Monsanto crops do. Because it is not what Monsanto does that I believe most people find evil (or they really shouldn't in my opinion) but it is their business practices which are ethically \"iffy\".\n\nMonsanto are a company, much like any other company that you might be familiar with such as Samsung or Apple.\n\nInstead of electronics, Monsanto are in a different scientific field. Among chemicals such as fertilizers for farms and gardens that make crops grow faster, or pesticides and herbicides that keep insects and weeds away from crops, they also make genetically modified (GM) seeds. \n\nSome people think GM seeds are bad, because it is speeding up a process known as selective breeding in an unnatural way (using science to modify the DNA - building blocks - of the plants). Throughout history farmers have bred their best crops to make even better variations. For example, much like parents with blue eyes are likely to have a child with blue eyes, two tomato plants with big fruit are likely to yield an offspring which also makes big tomatoes. \n\nGenetically modifying seeds is like skipping the breeding step and just changing the chemistry of the Egg and Sperm to make a child with blue eyes. There are many people who believe that modifying the DNA in this way should not be allowed because they claim that can cause disease or illness in humans. But GM food has not been around that long, so the long-term effects are really unknown and on top of that, there are scientists and farmers who believe that this is just speeding up a time-tested farming process anyway.\n\nThat said, Monsanto have some of the best seeds, for example wheat that can grow with very little water or corn that is resistant to pests. This is part of why they have become very popular for Farmers to use. 90% of all farmers using GM crops in the US use Monsanto crops.\n\nMonsanto don't just let anybody have these seeds, they are expensive to buy and you can only get them from Monsanto. So if a poor farmer in Africa wants to grow wheat on a barren plot, he has little choice because he cannot afford to pay for the expensive Monsanto seeds. \n\nBut seeds are hard to protect, they can fly away in the wind - plants grown from Monsanto seeds can also be fertile and the seeds from these plants can fly into another farmer's field without anybody's knowledge. Monsanto, like all companies, wants to protect its products (the GM seeds) from being used for free and if you are growing their crop without having bought the seeds from Monsanto, they will take legal action. Some Farmers have got in trouble with Monsanto for growing these seeds, but the Farmers claim that they did not even know these crops came from Monsanto seeds. \n\nThere are other companies doing the same as Monsanto and a few of these companies want to give out their \"tricks\" for creating their versions of the GM seeds for free or for a low price so that everybody can take advantage of the better crops. In the same way that Apple might try to get Samsung in trouble for using a touch screen on their new phone that is too similar to the one on the iPhone which came first, Monsanto look closely at the modifications these companies have made. This is to make sure that they are not too similar to the ones that Monsanto have made first. If they have done the same things as Monsanto, everybody involved - the buyer, the seller, the creator can get in big trouble and have their farm destroyed and face big fines. ",
"If Monsanto is so horrible and screw farmers over so much then why does FFA back them so strongly? I was an officer in my local FFA chapter all through High School and everyone I knew was Pro Monstato?\n\nFor those who don't know, FFA stands for Future Farmers of America.",
"Honestly, the whole issue of GM crops is something of a canard. They've never been shown to pose any health risk and if we can feed more people with more resilient crops that grow in a greater number of conditions than that's great.\n\nSome people fear GM foods, and there is, at least in theory, the potential that some sort of poisonous or unhealthy crop could be created, but the chance of that happening, and then that crop being grown and actually fed to people is pretty damn nill - most who fear GM food are working off of general negative feelings, a lack of understanding how GM crops work, and honestly just a sort of purity fallacy. Something just *seem* off or *unnatural* about them, so they think that GM food is scary.\n\nThe real realm where Monsanto are total evil bastards would be intellectual property law. They patent every new GM crop they produce, and sell their seeds to developing nations along with restrictive contracts that require them to *keep* buying from Monsanto at increased rates. Sure, some people get fed, but they ensure that these people will be living in rural poverty for as long as they are sucking off the Monsanto Teat. \n\nThey also have gotten away with some downright *crazy* patent tricks, suck as patenting a naturally occurring gene in pigs, which causes pigs to be particularly large and good as food animal. They then started suing independent farms all over the US just because they happen to have pigs which contain this naturally occurring gene. Monsanto are some pretty evil dudes.\n\nFor a little more information, while it's not up to date, I suggest watching the documentary [Patent For A Pig](_URL_0_) which details some of Monsanto's past douchbagery. The fact that they are so blatantly evil, of course, also helps to feed into the idea that GM foods are somehow *bad* or *bad for you*. People can see that this company, Monsanto are some pretty callous dudes out to make a profit no matter who they ruin, and also that they do a lot of business in GM foods, so it ends up being a case of guilt-by-association, and so this very promising technology ends up taking the flack for Monsanto's wrong doing.",
"(((I Don't know the full story about why they are horrible, but I can give you some first hand info about them and their rivals and been around em ever since I was a little kid)))\n\nFamily member who works for a rival knows pretty much what they do, but they have quite a lot of sub divisions and don't really do just seed. Though law suit wise you'd have to leave that up the the marketing department. I just know the backend and accomplishments w/ genetics they did with creating disease resistant plants as well as reducing the amount of pesticides required. Typically they mass produce the seed in a cheap country and ship it around the world, but they can't do this with plants due to the low quality contaminate control and the plant typically has something in it which requires customs to not allow it in the country they are shipping to.\n\n\n Also at least in the US being forced to buy seed isn't really practical or legal and the big 4-5 rivals can easily squash em in the US. Third world wise idk it would be tough and even then if they claim you grew their seed without paying royalties, the only way they can prove it is via genetic testing and if proof is shown that the seeds are in fact not theirs then fuck... they have no evidence. Money wise they prob just bully to not get to this stage.\n\nJust a lil fyi their \"genetic modification\" isn't that scifi crap you hear about. Essentially the big seed companies have about 100 years worth of seed saved typically the same variety. What they do is isolate the gene that causes what made that plant good that year an paste it into w/e they are working on. They repeat this process until they are satisfied, this is what the industry does and has done w/ all types of plants for decades. Breeders back in the day used to do this manually with crosses, but now they don't need to. If proper testing is taken they are typically healthier and cheaper than \"organic\" plants, though its more of a word in the industry than a thing and it would be the equivalent of a cake factory that makes one type of cake, but sells 2 types one as regular and the other as low fat. It's the same thing, the only thing that actually maters is how the plant will absorb things from it's natural surroundings. When you grow up with family members in the industry it's fun to know this stuff. Kinda fun to laugh at the people thinking genetically modified food is evil, but sad because they are too ignorant.\n\n\n\n\n\nAlso just a lil cool fact, you know those flowers that have a solid color like red, but then speckles of white or the base color that's different but it has no pattern and is everywhere? Basically the company who made that took the base seed and sent it to a university, or at least the one my family member works for and exposes it to either alpha or gamma particles (radiation). Causes a rapid genetic mutation in the seed and they them mass produce it.\n\n\n\n",
"Monsanto makes seeds, but not just any seeds. Their seeds have been genetically modified to produce foods which are more nutritious, grow faster, and are resistant to herbicides like roundup, which Monsanto makes too. If you've ever seen your dad spray a weed with roundup, you may have noticed that it killed all of the grass around it as well. Roundup is very strong, and kills basically everything except for Monsanto seeds, so farmers can spray their fields with roundup and not have to worry about pulling weeds. \n\nSounds great, right? Well, there are three problems with this. First, these plants are only resistant to roundup, which is very expensive. Monsanto practically (and in some cases literally) gives away the seeds, and then farmers are compelled to pay lots of money for roundup if they don't want to pull weeds. Second, many farmers that choose to use roundup don't use it correctly, and it spills over to neighboring land, killing things it shouldn't. Not good for the environment, and they could have to pay fines for it. Third, Monsanto is just plain mean about their \"intellectual property\". Normally a farmer would save some of the seeds from their harvest to plant next year's crop, but Monsanto makes you agree not to. Farmers are forced to buy fresh seeds every season, and if they save any (even by accident) they could go to jail.",
"Just going to throw this tidbit out there since I think most of the other bases have been covered.\n\nBecause Monsanto produces GM seeds that are resistant to roundup, the concern has become that certain weeds are now developing their own resistance to roundup, and forcing Monsanto to use even harsher more damaging chemicals to destroy those weeds. This creation of \"superweeds\" is similar to the concerns raised over \"super bacteria\" or \"Super diseases\" that become immune to any form of typical treatment. \n\nAnother concern is that because of an increasing reliance on monsanto seeds, monoculture poses a risk of having certain crops wiped out by some form of pestilence. Thus some groups argue that Monsanto is fueling this type homogenous food system by limiting the amount of different species of wheat, corn, soybeans, rice, etc. This lack of biodiversity in our food supply thus weakens the ability to resist some large scale catastrophic disease or bug. It also dictates the nutrients we might be getting in our society (the diverging nutrition levels of typical corn planted now vs. corn from 50 years ago).",
"Monsanto found a way to put a patent on nature, and use large legal teams to eliminate competition.\n\nThey're sort of like the RIAA. They're dumping tons of money into 'loss prevention', and they recoup those losses through settlements, and in the process they cause competition (farmers that aren't their customers) to liquidate everything they have, and go bankrupt, just to pay them.\n\nIt's the dirtiest, unethical type of business doing you can imagine. It's proof positive of the problems with patent regulation stifling competition and being used in a questionable manner.",
"tl;dr Monsanto is basically Mr. Burns"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1669587865067156619"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
2mh86x
|
when it comes to sports like snowboarding or water skiing why do we feel comfortable with one foot forward over the other?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2mh86x/eli5_when_it_comes_to_sports_like_snowboarding_or/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cm45lmv"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Your feet are parallel when water skiing. Apart from that, training."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
6xqvma
|
what about gravity, inertia, and momentum prevents a helicopter from taking off, hovering after countering the momentum from the ground, then waiting for the world to turn for 12 hours and land on the opposite side of the world?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6xqvma/eli5_what_about_gravity_inertia_and_momentum/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dmhthov",
"dmhtjk8",
"dmhtl19"
],
"score": [
3,
4,
10
],
"text": [
"Helicopters hover by staying still with respect to the air around it. And the air around the earth is rotating with the earth. So staying still in the air means moving along with the air, and thus rotating at the same speed as the earth.",
"Air rotates with the planet as well. It would have to go in reverse counter the speed of rotation of the earth. The helicopter is suspended at a fixed point within the atmosphere that is rotating at a slightly higher rate than the earth.",
"For the same reason that a ball you throw in the air doesn't instantly travel at Mach one sideways. At the equator, the Earth is spinning at about 1,000 miles per hour. Since we don't have those kinds of wind speeds, that means the atmosphere mostly moves with the Earth's surface.\n\nIn fact, just about everything is moving at those speeds. The momentum of everything moves us with the Earth's rotation, so it seems to us like everything is standing still.\n\nThe helicopter would have to fight this momentum to stop moving with the Earth. To us, it would look like it's accelerating to 1,000 miles per hour, which is much faster than the top speed of any helicopter."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
4gtsh4
|
puerto rico’s debit crisis and the role of the us congress?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4gtsh4/eli5_puerto_ricos_debit_crisis_and_the_role_of/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d2kn1a1",
"d2ktuxf"
],
"score": [
17,
2
],
"text": [
"The debt crisis itself is relatively simple. The Puerto Rican Government owes about $80,000,000,000 and is having trouble paying the interest on that debt, due to a weak economy and social distrust of the government.\n\nWhy the US Congress is involved is a little more complicated... but basically boils down to Puerto Rico being in the weird position of not being a US State... but not being a sovereign (independent) country either. Because of that, Puerto Rico is (in some sense) part of the United States. So the US Congress has some say on what the Puerto Rico Government does.\n\nAt one point there was talks of the US just bailing them out ($80,000,000,000 is a *rounding error* on the US Budget) but that has been shut down because people have trouble understanding how little money that is on the scale the US Government operates. \n\nThere is also talks of granting Puerto Rico the same rights as US Municipalities on the mainland to declare a Chapter 9 Bankruptcy.",
"Have you watched Last Week Tonight? They do a great job explaining it."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
1m5g3t
|
why are villains always laughing? why the connection between evil and laughter?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1m5g3t/eli5_why_are_villains_always_laughing_why_the/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cc5y3br",
"cc5ysva"
],
"score": [
2,
7
],
"text": [
"It's an easy way to highlight their disregard for whatever evil act they are doing. Killing someone is bad enough. Killing them and laughing about it is even worse.",
"Generally speaking, I'd say laughing in the face of other people's suffering is a good way to make a villain look evil. \n\nBut I think a lot of the Mwahahahaha! stuff you think of when it comes to evil laughter can all be traced back to this scene: [The awakening of the monster in Frankenstein](_URL_0_), 1930. Most of the time, evil laughter is *maniacal* laughter --- it indicates an edge of insanity, like the villain just can't hold back his joy at his triumph anymore, it's a little bit hysterical. The early horror movies helped set up a number of stereotypes that would get cemented in pop culture. The mad scientist always laughs insanely, because of Dr. Frankenstein. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8H3dFh6GA-A"
]
] |
||
407aq6
|
how will aliens understand us if we make contact? wont we be radically different in all aspects?
|
How will the aliens, if they reach our solar system, who possibly might not share our base 10 number system and different languages be able to communicate? How will they know how to decipher our messages without a Rosetta stone? Will we have a stalemate where we are so radically different that we fail to communicate ever?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/407aq6/eli5how_will_aliens_understand_us_if_we_make/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cyryrv4"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Most likely through mathematics. We will be different in most aspects, but fundamental mathematical axioms and theorems like the Pythagorean Theorem will be understood by both parties"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
50klx4
|
how do unconnected bodies of water come to host the same species of underwater life?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/50klx4/eli5how_do_unconnected_bodies_of_water_come_to/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d74t3u0",
"d74uy0c",
"d754bia"
],
"score": [
7,
2,
3
],
"text": [
"There are areas where hundreds of years ago they were connected so water life could move between then as the water dried up they get trap in different places.\n\nThe other case if that the travel on boats between the two bodies of water",
"Lakes have very short lives compared to rivers. There were giant lakes at the peak and ending of the last glacial maximum, and many fish in an area were all part of that one giant lake. And then the ice retreated and the lakes did shrink. Sometimes slowly, sometimes catastrophically. And those catastrophic endings would spread some fish around too. \n\nFinally, you have Man. Who moves fish around all the time for fishing. And sometimes does it by accident due to creatures sticking to their boats or shoes or waders. ",
"Birds. \n\nMany fish (and other aquatic animals) have eggs that are quite sticky, and there are millions of them. The stick to the feet and belly feathers of waterfowl, and when the bird flies to a different place, sometimes an egg stays stuck the whole time but separates when the bird is in a different body of water."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
566gvn
|
why are people *so* up in arms against fracking in the uk, how will it affect them?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/566gvn/eli5why_are_people_so_up_in_arms_against_fracking/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d8goc8a",
"d8goig0",
"d8grvjt"
],
"score": [
4,
5,
4
],
"text": [
"There is some evidence that it leads to increases in ground water contamination, and ground instability (which is to say, earthquakes). ",
"Also Fracking is just generally bad for the environment including the effects it has on the atmosphere. So when you do something environmentally unfriendly you are never just effecting things locally but globally. \nFor a cool example watch this:\n_URL_0_",
"Fracking is a mining method to create cracks in deep ground formations. The goal is to break down formations and/or to open underground reservoirs of liquids or gases.\n\nIt is done by using frac liquids under very high pressures. These liquids cointain officially quite low relative amounts of chemicals (around 0.01 %). In reality the amount of used liquids is so tremendously high, that the used relative amount of chemicals could become a threat to the environment.\n\nNormally fracking companies are only allowed to frack in grounds which are naturally sealed, which means that natural rock formations create a barrier and the frac fluid cannot escape the reservoir.\n\nHere is why people all around the globe are against fracking: no one can can say if a reservoir will leak the toxic fracking fluid. There are numerous examples of fracking liquid contaminating the environment and contaminating natural drinkable water ressources (which are very important for everyday water usage). Once it leaks, it is impossible to undo the damage. Once water ressources are contaminated, the area is destined to die (plants draw water from the ground, animals eat the plants and so on)"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysa5OBhXz-Q"
],
[]
] |
||
1pr046
|
why do i wake up in time for work even if my alarm clock is disabled on weekends and holidays?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1pr046/why_do_i_wake_up_in_time_for_work_even_if_my/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cd53guj",
"cd54sfz",
"cd55wjq",
"cd565vg"
],
"score": [
11,
3,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"You have a sort of 'body clock'. It simple just doesn't understand weekends and wakes you up at the ordinary time.",
"If you find out, tell me your secret.",
"If my alarm is on it will wake me up and I'll be tired. If it's off I'll wake up 30min before it would normally go off and I won't be tired all day. WTF body clock, you suck. Someone please answer this\n",
"I can accept the fact that we have internal clocks. What I don't understand is how they can be *so* accurate. If I have something really important to wake up for, like a final exam, I wake up seconds before my alarms goes off. Then to top it all off, I can't use this super accurate internal clock consciously at all."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
ailja0
|
why do numbers 1 - 4 have unique suffixes, but numbers with 5 - 10 don't?
|
1^(st), 2^(nd), 3^(rd), 4^(th) all have different suffixes - but it then remains 5^(th), 6^(th), 7^(th), 8^(th), 9^(th), 10^(th) (and so on) - why is this?
Also, why does this pattern repeat at numbers higher than 20 (21^(st), 22^(nd), 23^(rd), 24^(th), 31^(st), 32^(nd), 33^(rd,) 34^(th) etc.) but not for 11^(th), 12^(th), 13^(th), 14^(th)?
& #x200B;
TIA!
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ailja0/eli5_why_do_numbers_1_4_have_unique_suffixes_but/
|
{
"a_id": [
"eeonz0h"
],
"score": [
13
],
"text": [
"To answer this, we can look at the etymologies of the words. (Note that I have simplified things a little here.)\n\n**First** derives from a superlative of \"fore\" - \"forest\", if you like. (We say \"foremost\" today.) Superlatives end in -est, so this explains the -st ending.\n\n**Second** comes from Latin *secundus* via French *second*, so we inherit the -nd ending from French.\n\n**Third** is more complicated. This was *thridda* in Old English, and that goes back to a much older form that also gives us the Latin prefix *tri-*. The last syllable got dropped and the *r* and *i* got swapped, giving \"third\". (The same swapping of letters happened in \"bird\", which used to be *brid*.)\n\n**Fourth** came from a form ending in -than, which became -tha and then -th.\n\n**Fifth** would have been *fift*, but was influenced by **fourth**. The same influence happened with higher ordinals, and -th became the standard suffix to use.\n\nSource: _URL_0_\n\nTL;DR: Each word formed independently, and they originally had different endings, but \"fifth\" was modified to be like \"fourth\" and the same thing happened with higher ordinal numbers."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"etymonline.com"
]
] |
|
9g7r8y
|
why do old skits seem so fast?
|
I've always wondered why old skits (in the black and white era) seemed to run a bit in fast motion, any film buffs out there have a reasoning?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9g7r8y/eli5_why_do_old_skits_seem_so_fast/
|
{
"a_id": [
"e623n74",
"e62e87g"
],
"score": [
6,
2
],
"text": [
"The film they were using back then didn’t have as many frames as we use today. Also a lot of the time they would speed up the film so like, driving scenes would look like they were traveling much faster. ",
"They weren't able to capture as much frames per second at that time. And also most of the projectors worked the same way:\nLight off\nFrame 1 on top of the lens\nLight on\nLight off\nFrame 2 onto the lens \nLight on\n\nAnd they did that 24 times per second\n= > so they had 24 Frames per second\nVideos weren't as consistent.\nYou have to move rotate a lever for frames to be captured. Also they couldn't capture as many frames. \n\nSo basically the projectors always sped up the skid. This way the skids always looked kind of fluent. \nThis is also why all movies have 24 FPS, traditions!"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
5y2ryh
|
why do hydrogen bombs produce a far more devastating explosion than atomic bombs?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5y2ryh/eli5_why_do_hydrogen_bombs_produce_a_far_more/
|
{
"a_id": [
"demoxrj"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"There's a pit of Hydrogen in the middle of the fissionable mats at the core, then when is compressed, it super heats to the point of fusing the H atoms, which release Neutrons back to the Pu. This in tern allows for more of the Pu to go through fission and release more energy. \n \nA regular fission (Atomic) bomb doesn't get the extra neutrons, so less of the material and go through the fission process and therefor, less energy is released. \n \nMore details here if you'd like: \n \n_URL_0_"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.livescience.com/53280-hydrogen-bomb-vs-atomic-bomb.html"
]
] |
||
1ycoln
|
how does akinator, the web genius, work?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ycoln/eli5how_does_akinator_the_web_genius_work/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cfjc1jh",
"cfjf7e8",
"cfjfhfq",
"cfjk04t"
],
"score": [
8,
18,
3,
3
],
"text": [
"It contains a pool of questions, and a pool of characters with answers given by users.\n\nIt tries to match a character from its database, to the set of your answers (character description consists of answers given about this character by previous users)\n\nYou can look the character description in its database in Game Report when you are finished. If Akinator fails to reckognize your character it gives you possibility to effectively create a new character in the database using your answers.\n\nsry for english",
"Like this:\n[1](_URL_4_)\n[2](_URL_5_)\n[3](_URL_6_)\n[4](_URL_3_)\n[5](_URL_1_)\n[6]\n(_URL_0_)\n[7](_URL_2_)",
"Ok. He only asks yes or no questions, right? If you would draw a flow chart like the ones you have in the teeny magazines than you will get something that will look like a tree witch every question being a branch.\n\nHe now has a very big tree (database) that he simply follows until he reaches the last branch where a name is written on a leaf.\n\nWhen you are older i will explain you more details about that.\n\n\nOnly read further after 10 years!!\n\nThis is called a binary tree. if the genie asks you ten questions there are 2^10 combinations or end points. That equals to 1024 possible leafs.\n\nBut he probably is asking around 15 questions before he gives you the first guess. That are 2^15 possible leafs. Or 32768 combinations.\n\nThe big question is what questions to ask. You wouldn't want to start with the eyecolor. You would like to start with something like gender.\n\nMy guess would be that the questions are the only thing that the peogrammers would need to add over time.\n\nThe genie will go through his questions and once in a while ask a new question and just note down the answers for every character. In the end he will then go through every character who has an entry in this question and check what the yes no ratio is. A good question will devide all characters 50/50. So it will exclude 50% of all wrong answers. A very bad question would be 90/10. Because it doesn't help you to know if the character has legs. Because most characters have them.\n\n\nTl dr:\n\nKnow a lot of characters and attach a yes no list.\n\nChoose questions that give you a 50/50 chance of yes or no in the remaining characters.",
"It has a ton of questions it can ask (many of them submitted by users.) By asking questions about characters, it quickly builds up a database of different characters and what answers people will give when asked about them.\n\nThen it's just a matter of building a search tree that can identify your character with the fewest questions possible. It ideally wants to split the search space in half. Each question should eliminate about half of the remaining possibilities. I don't know exactly how they do this, but I imagine it's something like this:\n\nThink of each character as a \"hypothesis\" and each question as an \"experiment\". Some hypothesis are more likely than others to start with (people pick certain characters more often than others.) Each experiment raises or lowers the probability of hypotheses based on how well they predict the result (in this case, the percent of people that answer yes or no.)\n\nAt every step you want to pick the experiment/question that the hypotheses most \"disagree\" about. That is some hypotheses predict the result being one way, and some predict it going the other. I don't know what the best algorithm is for figuring this out, but it's been looked into in science, machine learning, and artificial intelligence.\n\nOn top of this, they also somehow insert questions purely for learning more and adding more information to their database. I'm not sure how they do that. Both of these are closely related to something called active learning."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/k5zjx/eli5_how_does_the_iphone_app_akinator_work/",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ucwhb/eli5_how_can_20questions_programs_like_akinator/",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ubaev/eli5how_do_online_tests_produce_accurate_answers/",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/o3e7d/eli5_how_this_fucking_wizardry_works_link_in_text/",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1skmuz/eli5_how_do_applications_such_as_akinator_that/",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1x9ezc/eli5_how_do_apps_that_guess_things_such_as/",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/siz3r/eli5_how_does_akinator_work/"
],
[],
[]
] |
||
1q35ge
|
the benefits of filing taxes jointly when you're married.
|
Newly wed this year - not sure if it's better to file jointly or separately, or even why there is a difference. We make the same money either way, why would there be two ways to file?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1q35ge/eli5_the_benefits_of_filing_taxes_jointly_when/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cd8pdxg"
],
"score": [
2
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"text": [
"Okay, so, suppose your wife made $80k in FY2013, and you made $20k. If you filed your taxes separately, she'd pay (and I'm making these numbers up) $20k in taxes, and you'd pay $2k. Meanwhile, your neighbor, who made $50k, will pay $6k. The reason those tax bills aren't proportional to income is because of tax brackets: you pay more taxes on the eights $10k than you do on the first.\n\nIf you're married filing jointly, the tax brackets are (basically) defined as double those for individuals. By filing jointly, you basically get to average your incomes. So on your combined $100k income, you'd pay $12k in taxes, instead of the $21k you'd pay filing separately."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
7su189
|
why have facebook, instagram, and twitter during the past year gone from chronological newsfeeds to “customized” newsfeeds?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7su189/eli5_why_have_facebook_instagram_and_twitter/
|
{
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"text": [
"Well, the simple answer is because \"revenue.\"\n\nBy allowing customization they can then tailor each viewer's ads, which means they can charge more for those ads. \n\n",
"[Filter bubbles](_URL_0_), by encouraging you to engage only with content you already engage with regularly, maximize engagement with their services and thus shareholder value and ad revenue.\n\nIt also \"sanitizes\" the content, since censoring controversial or offensive content is taken as part of the tailoring, so it's more friendly and non-controversial for advertisers.\n\nIn other words, by tailoring the content you see to be only naively what's \"relevant\" to you, they create a welcoming and non-challenging content environment where everything is in agreement with you and your personality profile, so you feel rewarded and comfortable in that environment, and thus spend more time in the platforms. This directly rewards them by increasing profit potential.\n\n(In my opinion, it's a really messed up thing based on entirely misguided motivations, but our society is based on misguided incentives anyway, so it's not surprising.)\n",
"At least in the case of Facebook, it has been much longer than a year that they have had a non-chronological feed.",
"A major problem with strictly chronological feeds is that those who post a lot crowd out everyone else. That's especially bad when you have commercial posters who have a strong incentive to maximize their visibility and thus to produce lots of low quality content rather than improving quality.",
"One reason is so you don't know when you've reached \"the end\". Used to be I'd scroll through Facebook until I saw the first thing I saw last time and knew there was nothing else. Now I scroll that thing for ages, with no indication I've run out of content. ",
"The goal of a social media website is to make as much money from people as it can. One of the ways it does that is by keeping people on the site as long as possible. \n\nWith a simple chronological feed of posts they can’t effectively control what content you see, at any point what you see could get you to leave (or fail to make you stay). \n\nThe “algorithms” people constantly refer to monitor your time on their site and pay attention to what kinds of post make you like/share, comment, stop scrolling, log out, etc. and will chose what posts to show you to make sure you don’t leave. \n\nNow the scary bit is if you’re the type of person who frequently gets into internet arguments then you’re encouraging the algorithm to deliberately show you things that will make you upset (because they know you’ll stick around to comment). \n\n",
"I think an idiom from the world of IT is relevant here:\n\n\"If a product is free, you aren't the customer; you **are** the product.\"\n\nFacebook exists to package your attention span and sell it to advertisers (as do nearly all free services). They have extensive research that tells them this is the most effective way to monetize your attention. The entire Facebook interface *especially* your timeline is tuned to engaging you emotionally to get you to continue to click on Facebook content, delivering more information to Facebook about your preferences which is sold to advertisers. ",
"In short, as the sites grew in membership the amount of posts grew exponentially. So it meant the people who didn't log in frequently would only see the posts from last hour or so. If these posts were boring, people wouldn't stay on the site long and log in less frequently.\n\nBy switching to a priority feed, they show the more interesting posts, so the people stay on for longer, and log in more often. The benefit for the site is the longer users stay connected, the more sponsored content they can see.\n\ntl;dr: they do it to show interesting posts to keep you around for longer."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filter_bubble"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
5g16o4
|
why is it that sometimes when you look at an analog clock, it seems to freeze briefly before continuing?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5g16o4/eli5_why_is_it_that_sometimes_when_you_look_at_an/
|
{
"a_id": [
"daooaih"
],
"score": [
10
],
"text": [
"When you move your eyes you should see a blur as they turn in their sockets. However, you don't. Why? Because your brain focuses on the image your eyes settle on, and retroactively fills in the blurred space with that new image. Normally, that's fine, the effects aren't really noticeable. However, on something with very regular, predictable movement this creates a brief \"pause\" effect because your brain fills in the gap with the still image of the object. So, it appears like the object, in this case the clock, \"pauses\" for an instant before continuing."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
63omwm
|
why are oils like coconut oil and olive oil are called "virgin" oils?
|
[deleted]
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/63omwm/eli5_why_are_oils_like_coconut_oil_and_olive_oil/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dfvs2ny"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Virgin oils are those from the first pressing of the nuts/olives. After this they processed so more oil can be squeezed out. The oil from subsequent pressings is considered a lower quality and cannot command the premium which virgin oil does."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
2b5kcg
|
if dinosaurs didn't all go extinct, would humans have evolved to what we are today?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2b5kcg/eli5_if_dinosaurs_didnt_all_go_extinct_would/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cj20wc3"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"Yes, because the dinosaurs didn't all go extinct and here we are.\n\nDinosaur descendants and their eggs are a common food-source all around the world. We call them birds.\n\nBut in the spirit of what you were asking, no, it's extremely unlikely that humans as we know them would have come about in a world where the mass extinction that removed the majority of the dinosaurs from the playing field.\n\nIn what way mammals would've developed we cannot say with any reasonable degree of certainty. Despite many people's misunderstanding and/or misrepresentation of the process of evolution, it's not a ladder, there's no advancement, there is no goal it is working towards, no guarantees that any particular trait will arise. There was no guarantee that there'd be primates, never mind primates with sparse body hair, opposable thumbs, an erect bidepal stance, disproportionately large brains, the capability for abstract thought, language, art, culture ... "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
a6p83z
|
how can us arrest, have extradited and jail a non us national for breaching sanctions that the us has imposed against another nation?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a6p83z/eli5_how_can_us_arrest_have_extradited_and_jail_a/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ebwskc5"
],
"score": [
15
],
"text": [
"On paper, the initial arrest is for defrauding companies. That fraud being putting money into a shell company that in turn did illegal business with Iran. As some of the investors are US corporations that were lied to by Meng, the case for fraud against her by the US Justice Department is sound. They waited until she was in Canada to ask them to arrest and extradite as there is no extradition agreement with China, or like they would oblige anyway "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
1jk5wb
|
is it possible that there could have been highly advanced civilizations before us on the planet? what factors should be considered when someone believes in 'atlantis'?
|
Most of the family is completely hooked up on the matter, and I'm starting to get curious. I'm not asking wether there was or wasn't an Atlantis, but merely the possibility of an advanced civilization before ours...
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1jk5wb/eli5_is_it_possible_that_there_could_have_been/
|
{
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"It's a story meant to illustrate a point, and it traces back to one known author. It boggles my mind that people take Atlantis seriously. The evidence is just as solid for Narnia or Discworld.\n\nWould we know if there were an advanced civilization in the past? Yes, almost certainly. Because a lot of their material culture would consist of things that last a long, long time - metals, etc. There will be a lot of archaeological evidence for humans for a long time as well. We have a lot of evidence for the stone and other tools made by early humans, and there weren't even very many of those. A worldwide technological civilization is a whole other matter :)\n\nYou might want to take this one over to /r/askscience if you'd like more detail, btw.",
"If there was an advanced civilization it would have had to leave no trace of technology, pollution, or biological remains. That would be next to impossible assuming it originated on this planet.",
"This question is better suited to /r/AskHistorians, which is an *awesome* sub.",
"They would've discovered non-biodegradable products just like us and we would be digging them up everywhere ",
"I would be highly unlikely that there was a highly advanced civilization before ours... with the possible exception that maybe one existed like a billion years ago.\n\nCivilizations leave marks on the environment. Industrialized civilizations leave massive marks. Take a look at something like the Bingham Canyon mine. It is a single open pit mine 1km deep and 4km across. And while it is among the worlds biggest, there are thousands of mines like this across the world. Removing the traces of an industrial civilization would require geologic timescales, and even then we might be able to still see traces.\n\nAnthropologists can look at campsites that are ten thousand years old and learn a lot just by looking at the remains of post holes. If you look at how Plato and Critias described Atlantis, it was an island kingdom in the Atlantic. It was 500+ miles across, filled with massive construction projects like hundred mile long canals, mile long stone bridges, and tunnels straight through mountains. They conquered western Europe and North Africa to Egypt. Even if the home island was sunk, there is simply no way a civilization like that wouldn't have left marks on their conquered territories.\n\n",
"So, A lot of the responses to this are negative, but they all assume one thing: An advanced civilization in the past would be similar to ours, and leave similar traces. I'm not sure this is a reasonable assumption. \n\nImagine you're a historian in the far future, researching our civilization. A lot of the texts you study mention a substance called \"Petroleum.\" It sounds like a simple type of burnable Hydrocarbon, except for the weird detail that it's naturally occurring in large deposits underground. In the future you come from, there's no such thing as an oil deposit, because our civilization tapped them all and used them. So because there's no more natural oil left in the future, you might reasonably assume it doesn't exist. Obviously this \"Oil\" is a mythical substance, like mithral.\n\nSimilarly, it's possible that if there was an ancient civilization, it might have used some other sort of non-renewable resource as the basis of it's technology. Whatever this resource was, we wouldn't know it's properties because they used it all up. It's also possible that whatever this resource did, it allowed them to not need to make the sort of things we would recognize as signs they existed. \n\nIs it likely? Not really. \n\n",
"I am going to play the Devil's advocate and just lay out some hypotheticals.\n\nFirst off, just about every great culture has a \"flood\" story whereby the world is flooded and most everyone dies, wiping out civilization. \n\nWe also have it on good authority that at one time, the Mediterranean Sea was not a sea at all, and that the Sahara desert was in fact a very fertile, and populated place.\n\nKeeping that in mind, and keeping in mind that these two areas are near the \"cradle\" of human civilization, I don't think it is out of the realm of possibility to say there could be an entire civilizations' ruins buried beneath the Sahara or under the Med. Sea. \n\nJust because we haven't found it yet, doesn't mean they don't exist. In fact, we're starting to come across cities that fell into the Med. Sea with increasing frequency.\n\nThere might also be very little evidence of these ancient, advanced civilizations left. Sure, the Pyramids are 5,000 years old, but they're also massive and made of stone. What if instead this civilization used mostly wood for their structures? And they chopped down so much wood the Sahara slowly transformed into the desert wasteland we know today? \n\nIt all depends on your definition of advanced. The amount of human knowledge lost with the fall of Rome is incredible and it set human progress back hundreds, maybe even thousands of years. We're still learning things about Rome, which compared to Egypt or Babylon is a fairly young place.\n\nI for one think that we may someday find a \"lost civilization\" in one of these places, possibility the Persian Gulf as well, which also was once (supposedly) fertile farmland before it became the waterway we know today.\n\n",
"We know that multicellular life happened only in the last billion years, so that's the upper limit (unless we suppose some sort of alien colony in the three billion years before that). Amphibians date to 360 million years ago, so that's a better upper limit--a fully undersea civilization could not develop what we would call advanced technology. \n\nNow, far enough back, it's certainly possible to have a reptilian race reach as much as nineteenth century levels of advancement and then get snuffed out, with us none the wiser. Any plastics they made would break up, the coal and oil deposits they exploited could be destroyed by geological processes and so we wouldn't note their absence, their masonry and metallurgy would turn to dust, and they might cremate their dead and scatter the ashes in the ocean--so no big-brained skeletons are dug up. \n\nBut I suspect that what you mean is a human civilization. Well, there things get complicated, especially the meaning of the term \"advanced.\" \n\nLet us assume, for a moment, that some human civilization did emerge, fall, and be lost to the realms of myth. How far can we say they got? \n\nWe can be certain they didn't discover atomic science--or else we'd find short-lived artificial isotopes in nature. Since we don't, we know that our hypothetical civilization stopped around 1920. \n\nWell, maybe they were Victorian? But we haven't found any empty coal mines, or places where geologists say there should be coal or oil but there isn't--after all, in the nineteenth century, oil was just bubbling out of the ground in Pennsylvania, and for millenia the oil in the Near East just seeped out of the ground and was used for asphalt. So we know that this hypothetical civilization can't have industrialized very far--wood wouldn't supply their needs. \n\nOK, what about ceramics or metallurgy? We haven't found any--and ceramics are long-lasting and they get around very far because of their trade use; if this society had ceramics or metal tools, we should find them, even if the Atlantis story (which even Plato held to be a fiction) were true and the continent sank into the ocean. \n\nSo we get to the point where, by elimination, we find that a hypothetical pre-10,000 BC civilization would have had to be agrarian and dependent on stone tools--so it wouldn't really be any more advanced than the early farming and herding communities of the Old World anyway. ",
"There absolutely was, imo. The pyramids are proof of this, with their profoundly accurate construction. However, you need to define what exactly an 'advanced civilization' is to get an accurate answer. Do you mean ability to harness the environment? Social progressiveness? An acute knowledge of science? Etc.. basically, the concept of a civilization being advanced is objective in nature. There isn't a linear pattern to define how advanced or behind any given culture or civilization is, given another"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
1701qi
|
what a version control system is
|
Things like Git and CVS.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1701qi/eli5_what_a_version_control_system_is/
|
{
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"text": [
"Version control systems give you very important methods for controlling source code for a program. Generally, if you have more than one person working on a project, or if the project is complex, then source control is nearly a necessity.\n\n\nSource control systems help resolve the following problems:\n\n- It keeps a history of your work. This is useful because when you make a mistake you can \"roll back\" (return to a prior version of the code before you made the mistake). It often keeps this copy in a different physical location than your local development copy, which also works as a backup system.\n\n- It allows for collaboration while handling conflicts. If two people are working on copies of a program on their personal machines, and then just uploading changes that occur to a central location, they can get into issues where both people are working on the same file, and then one person will update their copy, followed closely by the second person updating theirs, which causes the first change to be lost (since the second update didn't include the first person's changes, because the second person was unaware of the changes). These conflicts, along with pickup up all new changes from other developers, are handled by the system.\n\n- It allows for branching. Sometimes you want to make a second copy of the code that is worked on independently from the main line of work. For example, if you want to release a beta build to the public, you may branch that build. This allows you to keep working on the main release of the build, but if you found a really bad bug in the beta, you could go back to the beta branch and fix it, without having to pick up all the additional changes on the main branch that you had been working on. Also, you may want to disable certain functionality in the beta, but want it to remain testable in the main code path.",
"Remember the phrase \"Too many cooks spoil the broth\"?\n\n\nImagine you've got a bunch of chefs writing a huge cookbook - thousands of pages at least. Chefs being as they are, there will be some delegation as to who writes what parts, but eventually a few things will happen:\n\n* A chef may want to change the recipe another chef wrote\n\n* A chef may want to find an instruction they wrote earlier, but have now changed to say something else\n\n* All of the chefs eventually will want to combine their notes into the final pages for the book, and not lose track of whose pages are on what page\n\n\nAnd this is what version control does - if this analogy doesn't make sense to you, think of it more as a Ctrl + Z on drugs that lets you point the finger."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
3vhy9d
|
military naming conventions, especially m-designations.
|
There are multiple weapons and vehicles called M1 but there are also designations in the M12XXs. There are a half dozen or more aircraft that have been called F4. I can't make heads or tails of this [list](_URL_0_). What is the logic behind the designations?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3vhy9d/eli5_military_naming_conventions_especially/
|
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"text": [
"Ok. M seems to be model. Examples are m-4 and m-1911 a 1. Usually for weapons. F is fighter. Like f-16 and f-111. A is attack so air to ground. A-10 and a-5. C is transport so c-130 or c-5. It does have its logic in there.",
"If you're trying to find a single overarching system that handles the designation of all military equipment, you won't find one. Even in specific areas where you do find one, there's generally enough special cases & exceptions to the rule that it's effectively worthless.\n\nThe only logic behind it is that there is no logic. They just want a unique part number assigned to a widget & it gets a part number that (usually) sticks with it through the lifespan of the equipment - except for the times when they assign the same identifier to multiple items.",
"??????\n\nsource: Army logistician\n\nBut thank you for posting the link to the Wikipedia article. This actually will help me.",
"In the list you posted, Most vehicles use a sequential numerical designation starting before World War II with a light tank, and that number sequence has continued today, with recent additions including the M112X and M113X line of Stryker variants. As others have said, there are plenty of exceptions. \n\nSome items get a number designation based on the year of introduction or development, such as the M1903 Springfield Rifle, the M1911 handgun, and the M1919 Browning Machine Gun. \n\n\"A\" followed by a number tacked on to the end of a designation means it is a subsequent variant of the initial model. For instance M16A2 and M1A1. \n\nIn general, the Navy tends to use Mark (\"MK\") instead of Model/M and MOD (Model) for variants. For instance the Mk14 MOD 0 is a variant of the M14 developed by the navy as a marksman rifle. \n\nOthers have summed up aircraft pretty well, but to add to their list, KC designated aircraft are fuel tankers and Q is used for unmanned/remotely piloted aircraft like the RQ-11 Raven and MQ-1 Predator. \n\nIf you're at all curious about Soviet/Russian originated equipment, there is an additional layer of confusion there because NATO intelligence during the Cold War didn't always know the official designation of units they encountered. NATO came up with their own [\"reporting system\"](_URL_0_) that would give a piece of equipment a name and alphanumerical designation like most Western equipment. The NATO names for Russian equipment usually used an alliterative naming convention, for instance all fighter names started with an F, such as the Fulcrum, Foxbat, Flogger and Fagot (sorry I had to). Meanwhile, the Soviets/Russians had their own designations for the same equipment, so some sources will use the NATO name, others will use the Russian name, and others still will use a mix of both. As a result, you have NATO refer to a particular Surface to Air missile as the SA-2 Gainful, while the Russians call it an S-75 Dvina. "
]
}
|
[] |
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._military_vehicles_by_model_number"
] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_reporting_name"
]
] |
|
8ashzk
|
how are "deep fakes" (where somebody puts a person's face on another person's body in a video) created, and what technique is used to make them look so indistinguishable from reality?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8ashzk/eli5_how_are_deep_fakes_where_somebody_puts_a/
|
{
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],
"text": [
"So, let's imagine that it's possible to write a program that does this, but you aren't entirely sure how. You could try various techniques, or better yet, you could get a computer to try these techniques for you.\n\nSo you have a goal - put Alice's face onto Bob's body, and you want to make a computer do it. You have lots of videos of Alice and Bob, so you write a program to recognise Alice in a video.\n\nYou then use this program to test the programs your computer generates. You ask it to create a video, and you use the program you have written to try and tell the real videos of Alice from the fake videos of Alice. Then you take the results of this and put it into the program that makes programs.\n\nEventually, the generated videos become indistinguishable, because the programs that make them get better and better.\n\nSo, are you at risk? Well, if you have a lot of videos and images of you online, then maybe. Anyone with access to enough videos could in theory do this.\n\nFortunately for now, this require huge amounts of video and images, and often takes weeks for a good result, even on powerful hardware. Unfortunately as time goes on, this won't be the case, and ten minutes of original video and an hour of processing might be enough, quite possibly before 2025.\n\nSo, how can you protect against this? Well, you could try to remove any video/images of you online, which will do pretty well to protect against this. If this isn't practical, there are some other things you could do that would help to some extent, for example if it's pornographic fakes that you are worried about, getting a tattoo could be useful as proof that the video is fake. ",
"You haven't seen it before recently because it's a very recent innovation. It's built off of machine learning. For instance, Facebook has come under some scrutiny for how their app will not only recognize a face as a face, but recognize who that face belongs to and automatically tag that person in the photo.\n\nMachine learning is its own ELI5, but the short version is that you can feed a computer data and it learns to make decisions based on weights. Rather than being a simple YES or NO, the computer leans one way more than the other. You stack these weights onto layers. So, if you want a computer to recognize a face, you give it lots and lots of pictures of faces. At the first layer, the computer will not see a *face*, it will see some lines where you normally find lines in all the other pictures of faces. That makes the computer go, \"Yes, this might be a face.\" As opposed to if you feed it a chair, and the lines will be very wrong, and the computer will say, \"This is probably not a face.\" Then the computer goes to a second layer that says, \"There are shapes built from these lines in a similar way to all these other pictures of faces. It's more likely it's a face.\"\n\nAnd so on until the computer gets to recognizing it as a face. Then it starts going, well the nose is *here* and the eyes are *here* and the ratios between the eyes and nose and jaw and ears etc. etc. are similar enough to this one face that I have a thousand pictures of, so it's probably this person's face.\n\nSo step one for DeepFakes is to have the computer recognize what is a face in a picture, or many still frame pictures that make up a video. The computer can also recognize the orientation of the face: if it's looking straight on, or slightly to the left, right, etc. Again, it does this because you give it so many pictures of faces in various poses that it learns what faces look like regardless of the pose and how to alter the face to put it in a particular pose.\n\nThis allows you to map onto that face something else. If you want to draw one face on top of another face, first you have to know where to put your new face, right? It's the same way [face swapping apps work](_URL_0_): if it doesn't know what is a face and where to put it, you get weird face swaps.\n\nGiven enough data and enough pictures of a particular face in a particular pose, the computer can match what the face is doing in reference pictures with what the face is doing in the video you're altering. Ok, so the face in this frame of the video is slightly up and to the right. And *here* is a picture of a different face also slightly up and to the right. The eyes in the face in the frame are *here*, so the eyes in the reference go right there, and this mouth is here, so that mouth goes there. One face has been substituted on top of another. It's the exact same process as the face swapping apps on like Snapchat.\n\nThe last thing the computer needs to do is tidy up the picture and make it look more realistic. You can *also* feed data into the computer about skin tones, lighting, matching the perspective, blending shadows and color and everything else. The computer can then work backwards and alter the new picture so that it matches what it would expect to see if the new face had been in the picture all along. Once completed, you have a deepfake.\n\nThe average person is not in much danger. Doing a picture takes a fair amount of computing power. Doing a whole video takes a *ton* of computing power and a *lot* of time. The whole process also requires a *lot* of data to work with. The computer can do a lot to alter a reference picture to match the destination picture or video, but it can only do so much. If you don't have a lot of pictures or videos of yourself available online, there's no easy way for the computer to find a reference to match the picture or video to be altered. For a still picture, you can always go the other way and find a picture among the millions and millions out there that matches your face, but for a video you need a lot of matching faces. For celebrities, that's fairly easy since they have *tons* of videos available from movies, tv shows, interviews, paparazzi, etc. For the average person that's going to be a lot more difficult.\n\nAnd for the average person, it's not going to be worth it. Especially if you're a dude. No one is going to have the combination of motivation, access to the time and resources necessary, access to enough of your data to do it, and the patience to follow through. And if they did, no one else is going to care enough to find it and view it. If you're a woman... All bets are off. People are terrible and the internet has a lot of terrible people. Still, you probably don't have enough reference images available to do more than fake some naughty pictures at best. To protect yourself, your best bet is to 1) keep a low profile and don't attract enough attention that the kind of people willing and able to do it notice you; and 2) keep your private data as protected as possible (especially if you can just keep it off the internet entirely). And 3) don't be an attractive celebrity woman."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"https://static.boredpanda.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/funny-snapchat-face-swaps-20__605.jpg"
]
] |
||
1o8x6q
|
how do animals determine what things they prefer to eat? is it all instinctual or do they developed favorite foods the way humans do?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1o8x6q/eli5_how_do_animals_determine_what_things_they/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ccpv7t3"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"With my dog it's trial and error. I took him to a friend's BBQ once and they had toothpicks with cheese and pickled onions. We forgot about him and left them on a low table. Came back later to a tray half empty, a single empty toothpick on the floor with a pickled onion sitting next to it, and a couple dozen toothpicks with only the onions still on them :). \n\nAnd whenever he's given a new treat he hasn't had before he takes a long time eating it and almost acts like he distrusts it. But the second time he eats it as fast as he can! \n\nI think they might have special innate rules for chicken though. He loves that shit."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
2xmhvv
|
why is it that singing can be assigned a definite pitch but not speaking
|
they are are both vibrations and both can be registered as higher/lower, but what makes speaking and singing different as to why only singing has a measurable pitch?
EDIT: as in a A (440 Hz) can be sung, but cant be spoken.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2xmhvv/eli5_why_is_it_that_singing_can_be_assigned_a/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cp1enk3",
"cp1ghhs",
"cp1pwrx"
],
"score": [
2,
6,
2
],
"text": [
"speaking can. Most eastern languages are tonal, meaning that if a word is said in a different pitch, then it has a different meaning. Also, in English, theres intonation. When you as a question, doesn't your voice go up at the end?",
"Normal English speech doesn't stay centered around a single frequency for the length of whole words. Say the word \"five\". Now sing the word \"five\" at a single note. Now say \"five\" again. If you think about it, you can hear that the pitch gets lower throughout the word.\n\nAlso, when speaking, there are a lot of overlapping frequencies. When singing, you try to eliminate the extraneous frequencies.\n\nHere are spectral analyses of me saying vs singing the word \"five\".\n\n[Speech vs. Sing spectral analysis](_URL_0_)",
"Watch [This](_URL_0_) video. It demonstrates how you can make speech out of many varying pitches. Our voices also use varying pitches to sound out various syllables and letters."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"http://i.imgur.com/A5tGaHJ.png"
],
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muCPjK4nGY4"
]
] |
|
8bo5mw
|
why do muscles contract under current?
|
What's the mechanics there? What properties of muscle tissue make it effective in this contraction etc.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8bo5mw/eli5_why_do_muscles_contract_under_current/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dx8dsc9"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Nerve fibres send messages by a form of electricity, the message that the nerve fibres send to the muscles is to contract, so stimulating them with electricity replaces the nerve signal."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
93sjx7
|
why water has the tendency to flow from an environment of lower concentration of things to the environment of higher concentration?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/93sjx7/eli5_why_water_has_the_tendency_to_flow_from_an/
|
{
"a_id": [
"e3g5ty5"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Everything wants to diffuse from high to low concentration, but water _seems_ to work the opposite way which is confusing.\n\nThe secret to understanding it is this: don't think of it as water flowing from a low concentration of things to a high concentration of things, but instead water flowing from a high concentration of _water_ to a low concentration of _water_.\n\nImagine you've got a solution of freshwater and a solution of brine, and you put them next to each other so fluid can pass between them. The water is 0% salt and the brine is 10% salt. Now obviously salt would want to diffuse from the high concentration to the low concentration, right? Brine to fresh water. But what does the water want to do? Well, the fresh water isn't just 0% salt, it's 100% water. And the brine is 90% water and 10% salt. So the water also wants to flow from the high concentration to the low concentration of water.\n\nSo that's basically it: a higher concentration of other stuff means a _lower_ concentration of water...which means water wants to flow to that low concentration."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
1jcd6a
|
what's going on when a webpage refuses to load, then i press f5 and it loads properly?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1jcd6a/eli5_whats_going_on_when_a_webpage_refuses_to/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cbd9se5"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"This often happens when links between you and the web server are hopelessly overloaded.\nGetting data from a web server is a two-way operation, The web server sends you information, and you constantly send back 'got that' messages. If part of the message goes missing, the server sees the lack of the 'got that' message for it and resends it. Eventually, you get the whole document.\n\nBut if you loose enough of the message, the server is supposed to send you and error code. But it might just drop your connection, or that error code might get lost. Your system will keep sending messages saying \"I got bits 1-25 and 27 to 30\", but if the web server has already given up on you, it might not respond.\n\nYour browsers message to get a part of the page may have gone missing. Or lost packets may mean that your browser thinks is has all of a document when it in fact has only got half of it.\n\nSo, all in all, it is a sign of connection problems. But those problems could be half a world away."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
74bdhb
|
why would one want to sign a long term contract on an apartment rather than continually renew a short term contract?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/74bdhb/eli5_why_would_one_want_to_sign_a_long_term/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dnwy1rp",
"dnwy7yf",
"dnwyy30",
"dnx01mf"
],
"score": [
6,
6,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Because then after the end of the 3 month contract your landlord can say \"nah\" for whatever reason they feel like and you'll be stuck finding a place to live on short notice. If you're on say, a year long contract then you don't need to worry about that possibility nearly as often.\n\nAlso, generally year-long leases are cheaper than the places that do month to month or other short-term leases.",
"A few reasons I can think of\n\n1) Ensuring you have a place to live for a year instead of just 3 months\n2) Ensuring that you pay a consistent amount over a year. If renewing every 3 months, your landlord can increase the price each time\n\n3) It is usually cheaper to rent for a year, and can still make the landlord more money as he wouldnt have downtime between 3 month rental agreements.",
"Well, my last apartment offered me $1,300/month for a 13 month lease or $1,700/month for a month to month lease. Seems like a no-brainer. Even if you’re okay with $1,700 a month, you have no guarantees that it will stay that much from month to month. ",
"Due to the time and effort involved (looking for apartment, the act of moving, looking for tenants, cleaning/maintaining for move-in), it's not in either a tenants or landlords interest to deal with short term rentals... that's one of the big reasons hotels and AirBnB cost so much more per night than a similar annual rental would.\n\nAlso, because a contract protects you the renter from your landlord being able to kick you out or raise your rent every 3 months! If you spend hundreds of dollars moving, and all the time to get settled, would you want a landlord to say you're out in 90 days? Or would you want to have him say that your rent is doubling? With such a sort agreement window, he could basically begin trying to replace you with a higher paying tenant the second you move in."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
scciv
|
the beatniks.
|
I read a bunch of articles but it just wasn't very clear.
- What did they do?
- Why did they start?
- What was the psychology behind the movement?
- What cultural effects did they have?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/scciv/eli5_the_beatniks/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c4cvrrf",
"c4d4liw"
],
"score": [
5,
2
],
"text": [
"Did you read this one?: _URL_0_\n\nThe Beat Generation were a group of writers that came up in the 1950s; a literary and counter-cultural movement in opposition to the conservative, materialistic, post-War era.\n\n\"Beatnik\" was a derogatory term coined by a San Francisco Journalist and a media-fueled stereotype/ caricature. It was originally applied to people who were inspired by the Beat Generation's message, but later became the realm of hangers-on. They were the precursors to the \"hippie\" movement.\n\nThe Beats weren't a unified group, so it's hard to say what \"they\" did and what \"their\" psychology was, because the writers were individuals with their own separate ideas. The two best and most well known examples of their writing is On the Road by Jack Kerouac and Howl by Allen Ginsberg.",
"Here's a beatnik cartoon I think a five year old would enjoy _URL_0_"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beat_Generation"
],
[
"www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYI4Ns2J-Oc"
]
] |
|
2lorce
|
what gives breaking glass its characteristic sound?
|
Bonus points if you can tell me why the sound is so cathartic.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2lorce/eli5_what_gives_breaking_glass_its_characteristic/
|
{
"a_id": [
"clwqw2y",
"clx4thv"
],
"score": [
7,
5
],
"text": [
"this probably has something to do with the fracture speed of the crack, the compounding sound waves (its probably similar to the doppler effect. where the closer together the soundwaves are, the louder it is.) and elastic modulus of glass being very low and comparable to aluminium.\n\nsimilarly, in a tensile test, i remember observing the sound of fracture of a strip of aluminium to be similar to that of glass breaking.",
"Resonance.\n\nGlass is flexible, but it breaks at a certain point. When it breaks, the pieces have energy but they can only transfer that energy into the air, making it vibrate."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
dk9bz8
|
how does teeth move if it’s considered bone and thus fused to it?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dk9bz8/eli5_how_does_teeth_move_if_its_considered_bone/
|
{
"a_id": [
"f4bsv1t"
],
"score": [
9
],
"text": [
"Teeth aren't exactly fused to the jawbone. The tooth proper is surrounded by gum that follows the root of the tooth. The jawbone has indents in it for the roots and gum tissue. The tooth is sealed in place by a substance called \"cement\" that fuses the root of the tooth to the gum tissue within this indentation in the jawbone. This system means that teeth have the ability to move a little bit over long periods of time as the gum tissue they're connected to grows or shrinks in response to constant pressure.\n\nWhen a tooth is removed, essentially, the roots of the tooth are ripped away from thr gum tissue they're cemented to, taking a layer of the gum tissue with it. The gum tissue bleeds profusely to fill the root with a clot, that when healed, will necome more gum tissue that fills and protects the indentation and jawbone. It's much safer and easier to heal than if the teeth were fused directly to the jawbone, bone to bone."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
27zl1c
|
what do the house majority leader, speaker and whip actually do?
|
I've been watching the US version of House of Cards recently, and it seems that the House Democrats were lead by three people: Majority Leader, Speaker and Whip. What do those three actually do and how do their responsibilities relate to each other's?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/27zl1c/eli5_what_do_the_house_majority_leader_speaker/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ci5xckv"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"The Speaker of the House is the leader of the chamber. They are supposed to moderate debate and generally run the chamber. In many other countries this is a non-partisan, technical role. However, in the US the position has evolved and is now highly partisan. The Speaker is the leader of his/her party in the House. They set policy goals for the party. Normally the speaker doesn't engage in floor debates, though - he leaves that to the Majority/Minority Leaders.\n\nThe Majority/Minority leaders are the next step down in party leadership. The Majority Leader is the #2 person in their party (#1 being the Speaker), while Minority Leader is the #1 for theirs. While the Speaker is more of a back-room, behind-the-scenes leader, the Majority Leader and Minority Leader duke it out on the House floor in debate. They are the spokesmen for their party's platform.\n\nThe Whips are the next rung down the ladder: #3 for majority party, #2 for minority party. The Whip is the one tasked with \"getting the votes\" for the leadership's chosen policies. It's their job to know what every congressman wants, fears, and wants kept secret. They can then use this info to haggle, wheedle, strong-arm, intimidate, or otherwise convince people to vote their way. Thus the name Whip - they \"crack the whip\" on their party members to keep them in line."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
33botz
|
why are people naturally attracted to drama?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/33botz/eli5_why_are_people_naturally_attracted_to_drama/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cqjdldg",
"cqjgl32"
],
"score": [
2,
3
],
"text": [
"I have a personal theory on this, not backed by any research, and I wouldn't mind feedback. Like most other forms of life, humans are sort of biological machines, programmed to survive. Survival, by default, entails conflict. In other words, at our most basic level, we need to experience conflict in order to thrive.\n\nSince we have consciousness and natural life-threats are generally a moot point these days, we have to seek out conflict to satisfy our natural instincts.",
"Part of having a narcissistic personality is to be drawn to conflict because it brings you to the center of attention. Once you have done that you can stress your importance to everyone.\n\nIf you are not narcissistic you are drawn to observe drama because it is a great learning tool to understanding how your society interacts. You learn how to negotiate indirect and direct conflict/aggression by watching drama around you. The more you watch the more nuances you see."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
8btwsx
|
i squeezed an empty water bottle and shot off the cap, why was there vapor 'smoke' coming out afterwards?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8btwsx/eli5_i_squeezed_an_empty_water_bottle_and_shot/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dx9mgha"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"A sudden decrease in pressure (from compressing the bottle until the top flies off, particularly if the bottle is pressurised slightly or warmer than when it was sealed) will cause any water vapor to try and condense - creating fog in a bottle."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
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