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6mbuxb | how can multiple companies that make similar products claim their product is number 1? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6mbuxb/eli5how_can_multiple_companies_that_make_similar/ | {
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"They select different measurements. One may sell the most units, while another sells the most dollar volume (higher price per unit), while another wins taste surveys, while another is the fastest growing in sales."
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[]
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||
bk0uko | why are non-driver car seats faced forward? doesn't it make more sense for them to be faced backward, since the back of the seat would cushion you better in the event of a crash than a seatbelt? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bk0uko/eli5_why_are_nondriver_car_seats_faced_forward/ | {
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"Not all crashes happen from the front, sometimes people are hit from the rear as well. More to the point though the vast majority of the time people are not going to be in crashes and having people facing forward is a far more comfortable riding position. A car which is slightly safer in a collision but makes all the passengers violently ill while riding isn't going to sell very well.",
"For the most part, people just don't want to sit backwards. It would also make the logistics a bit more complicated. The front seat passenger has to sit forward, so he is not up further than the driver (and in his way).\n\nIn a small car, you want the back seat passengers to face forwards, because you need to have leg room, give the driver the ability to recline their seat, etc.\n\nIf you were designing a van, with captains chairs, its not a bad idea to allow them to turn around, and some designers have done that.",
"Sitting backwards while in motion makes a large enough portion of the population nauseous/uncomfortable."
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8j2lg0 | why doesn’t the judge decide verdicts in major cases, leaving it up to a jury, but in minor cases they do? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8j2lg0/eli5_why_doesnt_the_judge_decide_verdicts_in/ | {
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"In the US any accused person always has the right to a jury trial in a criminal case, regardless of the severity of the charge.",
"Probably to speed up the process, and to prevent the inconvenience to businesses and individuals having to miss so much work. Plus a lot of the minor cases are not always determining guilt or innocence but just deciding the sentence for them."
]
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fdbvmm | computer science vs computer information science | I cannot decide which one to take in college. Help | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fdbvmm/eli5_computer_science_vs_computer_information/ | {
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"In practical terms, CS is the more technical version of the degree. It is usually taught through the engineering school and will include a lot of science, math, and electronics requirements. It will have a focus on building programming skills and include a lot of computer theory. Someone with a CS degree will know how a computer works from electrons on up and have the skills to create novel computer components.\n\nA CIS degree is more about how to make computers do things. It is usually taught through the business or arts and sciences schools and will have broader general requirements in those schools at the expense of computer-specific courses. There will be less emphasis on programming and theory, and more on building and managing computer systems build from off the shelf components."
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1epc3j | the twin primes conjecture | _URL_0_
Has this been solved? What was solved? Why does it matter? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1epc3j/eli5_the_twin_primes_conjecture/ | {
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"The link is down at the moment so I can't comment on whether it has been solved. I think the short version is no, but there has been an \"advance\" that probably asks more questions than it answers.\n\nThe twin primes conjecture is a\n\n\"Conjecture\" - an educated guess which has stood the test of time without anyone knowing for certain whether it's true or why.\n\nabout\n\n\"Twin Primes\" - These are pairs of prime numbers in the form n, and n+2. Examples of twin primes would be 3 and 5, or 29 and 31. \n\n(Prime numbers are those which can only be divided by themselves and 1, therefore they have exactly two factors. All numbers can be thought of as a product of prime numbers, and all numbers can be written as a product of primes in exactly one way. This makes them somewhat analogous to Atoms in the physical world... irreducible building blocks which make up all the other numbers.)\n\nCombining those two, the \"Twin Prime Conjecture\" is the idea that there are infinitely many twin primes. We know for sure there are infinitely many prime numbers, and it looks as though there are infinitely many twin primes, but we're not sure. There could be a highest twin prime pair, after which there are no more.\n\nWhy is it important? Well, it's a very old question that many mathematicians through the ages have tried to answer, but nobody jas been able to... but maybe that is its significance, rather than importance.\n\nFor hard and fast pragmatic importance attached to the real world it's very hard to tell, and almost certainly not the aim. Maths defines a boundary which science grows into. An advance in mathematics will have no immediate uses, because yesterday we didn't know the universe could do what we've just discovered.\n\nNumber theory has been studied by great minds for thousands of years before we came up with a practical use for the idea of a prime number at all, in the 70s. Now *all* digital security relies on prime numbers, so we can thank the ancient babylonians for making the internet possible. Maths doesn't go out of date like the other sciences... precisely because there is no why.",
"If you read the original article, you'll see that he didn't actually solve it, but made a big breakthrough that will probably allow others to get much closer to solving it. \n \nThe twin primes conjecture is that no matter how far out you go on the number line, there will always be some pairs of prime numbers separated by 2. That is to say, there's never a \"last pair\" of twin primes. \n \nThis guy proved that no matter how far you go, there's always a pair separated by....some number that is less than 70 million. Not 2. \n \nThat may sound like a pretty different thing, but it isn't. It's a major breakthrough, and hopefully gives other mathematicians ideas for how to reduce that number down from 70 million. \n \nIs there any practical use? Probably not. But understanding math and science sometimes has big payoffs, long after the time that they happened, and in ways that no one could predict at the time. \n \nMath is a very useful tool for helping us to understand and manipulate our universe. Prime numbers are one of those tricky parts of math that don't have a lot of applications (but they do have some, like cryptography). But they seem to be both simple and complex, and that makes them rather tantalizing. And who knows, maybe someday what now looks like a purely intellectual pursuit will turn out to be very useful. Knowing stuff is good. "
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7g8wp9 | how is faraday's law possible? how can magnets create energy from motion? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7g8wp9/eli5how_is_faradays_law_possible_how_can_magnets/ | {
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"The magnet is emitting a \"static\" magnetic field, but moving the magnet moves the field.\n\nElectrons in nearby conductive materials move in response to the changing magnetic field, but they're also generating their own opposing field - they're exerting a resistive force on the magnet because they won't really \"want\" to move.\n\nYou have to put energy in to the system move the magnet, and it's being translated into electric current. There's a reactionary electromangetic \"drag\" from the current that's constantly resisting the motion of the magnet, so you're not getting current for free.",
"Motion is energy. A simple slope can convert energy of motion into gravitational potential energy--what is strange about a magnet doing the same?"
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4naoop | how do they turn fruit juices or any other liquid beverage into powder form? | Just curious on how they do this, especially for powdered cow's milk. Are there differences in nutritional content of powdered vs ready to drink milk or juice? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4naoop/eli5_how_do_they_turn_fruit_juices_or_any_other/ | {
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"So, it's a really cool process to get fruit juice powder. There's a machine called a Spray Drier. It comes in different sizes, some are as tall as 6 stories, others are only 1 story; but what they do is precisely what you're asking. You feed a liquid into this machine, and depending on the formula(meaning there could be a carrier such as maltodextrin or no carrier at all), the liquid is then instantly dried. \n\nHow does it go from liquid to powder? \n\n The liquid is fed through an atomizer, which is a tiny nozzle with a ton of tiny holes in it. The product comes through these tiny holes, and as they cascade down the funnel of the spray drier, heat is applied which instantly dries out the small particle of liquid. By the time it hits the bottom of the drier, all water has been evaporated, and out comes the powder. "
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1wwmpb | why do a lot of old paintings with women in them have one breast exposed? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1wwmpb/eli5why_do_a_lot_of_old_paintings_with_women_in/ | {
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"This is going to sound really odd, but showing your breast was a symbol of how classy you were in olden times. The truly rich hired wet nurses to breast feed for them, so showing off a youthful breast on a mother of five was the equivalent of flashing a big diamond ring or rolling up in a mercedes benz today.",
"I always thought it was because nipples were tough to shade and artists were lazy.",
"It was a sign of fertility and wealth. Perky, small, youthful breasts was a must-have for the wealthy (which is where wet nurses came in). The modern trend towards large plump breasts is a new thing. Look at some paintings of Elizabeth I (_URL_0_ is a good example). Notice the fairly small, flat breasts. She was portrayed as the Virgin Queen, so the larger breasts associated with pregnancy and menstruation were almost never depicted on her.\n\nThis was about as sexy as they were willing to portray women. Notice the open bed in the background and (comparatively) low neckline. That's also intended to be a quite sexual gaze, if you couldn't tell. "
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19rcwg | how do speakers of tonal languages figure out the words in songs? | I was thinking about this today... is it all context?
Edit: thanks for answering this everyone!!! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/19rcwg/how_do_speakers_of_tonal_languages_figure_out_the/ | {
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"And do the notes impact the meanings of the words? Also, is there amazing potential for puns and double entendre, or what? ",
"Basically, yes. We have it in English as well, though less often. Consider the usage of the sound made by the word \"reed.\" This can mean \"to read a book\" or the marshland plant. It could also be someone's name in rare cases. You will instantly know what word is intended when you hear it in the context of a song. \n\nIn Mandarin Chinese, for example, there are 4 tones, leading to (strangely) 5 pronunciations/words with the sound \"ma.\" The various meanings are easily vetted out to find the correct context since there is a mix of nouns, verbs, adjectives, and articles.\n\nTo summarize...\n\n\n**TL;DR -** Most of the time there is only one meaning which is contextually relevant, and if not, it can absolutely lead to an interesting (and oft intentional) double-meaning.",
"In the tonal language I'm familiar with (Swedish), you simply have to use words in such a way that it fits with where the melody is going. If it doesn't fit, the songwriter has to rephrase the line. Not much different from what you have to do to get rhymes and tempo correct in an English song.\n\nIf the songwriter fails at this then you will still understand the lyrics from context, but it will sound funny or stupid."
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38o2fk | why the creators of american football named their sport "football" when there was already a much more popular sport with that name? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/38o2fk/eli5_why_the_creators_of_american_football_named/ | {
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"The much more popular sport [called itself](_URL_0_) Association Football or soccer for short, and only much later decided to emphasize only the current \"football\"",
"\"Football\" was originally used to refer to any sport where the players played \"on foot\". Most sports at this time were played on horses. American Football is somewhat of an evolution from Rugby Football...",
"\"Football\" refers to an entire *class* of games. Specifically, games played with a ball while the players are on foot (as opposed to being mounted on horses). Different regions have different types of football that are popular. From wikipedia:\n\n > [A]ssociation football (also known as soccer) in the United Kingdom and most of the non-English speaking world; gridiron football (specifically American football or Canadian football) in the United States and Canada; Australian rules football or rugby league in different areas of Australia; Gaelic football in Ireland; and rugby football (specifically rugby union) in New Zealand. These different variations of football are known as football codes.",
"Early incarnations of American football are were first known as gridiron football. It was an offshoot of rugby football. The term can still be used as an umbrella term for American and Canadian football, as well as a few other variants. \n\nLest you think I was smart, [I basically plagiarized Wikipedia](_URL_0_). ",
"American football, soccer, and rugby, along with a few other sports, all descend from the same sport that was first played in England in the 18th and 19th centuries. When it spread, the rules were modified to local tastes until each regional version diverged to where they have today.",
"FIFA was founded in 1904 and formally adopted the FA rules for international play thus standardizing and allowing popularity to grow.\n\nFootball became essentially standard in 1906 after the introduction of the forward pass and the formation of the NCAA to organize and regulate college sports.\n\nSo it is an error on your part to assume one really emerged before the other. Both took off in the first decade of the 1900's and both had been played in earlier variations since the 1860s.",
"Soccer, rugby, American football, Australian football, Gaelic football etc. were actually all codified in the late 19th century. ",
"There have been thousands of different types of football over the centuries, each with a different name and with varied involvement of one's feet.. \n\n\nTable football; Gaelic football; Ozzy rules football; Rugby football; Rugby league football; American football; Canadian football; 5 a side football; Association football\nEtc\nEtc... \n\nMost people are more familiar with one particular kind of football and they don't use the prefix, quite reasonable really. \n\nWhat OP has conveniently done is ignore the fact that the game he prefers is called association football. \n\nI'm an English man who plays both association football and American football and I have to justify this a lot.. \n\nEDIT punctuation. \n",
"Football :-\n \\----English Football Association FA\n \n \\----Rugby Football Union RFU\n\n \\---American Football\n\n \\---Rugby Football League RFL\n\n.\n\nRugby Football has in the last 10 years changed to Rugby Union\n\nThey disagreed whether the player should be allowed to pick up the ball.",
"When american football was invented, people would describe all games played on foot, using a ball, football. Whether it was football, rugby football, american football, etc. This was to distinguish them from most sports which were played on horseback.\n\nIn america, american football became the predominant football sport and became simply football.\n\nEverywhere else, soccer became the predominant football sport, and became football.\n\nThe word soccer is a British nickname for association football. Which were the official games. Anyone could play football, but the important games were soccer.",
"Short Answer: Because soccer was actually called 'soccer' when American football gained its name. Also, nearly all forms of football used to be pretty much the same, they have just changed over the years to fit more local tastes.\n\nLong Answer: American football was officially named 'football' in 1876 at the Massasoit convention where the first rules of American football were written. At the time, the word 'soccer' was used about as much as the word 'football'. It was only in the early twentieth century (nearly 30 years after the American sport was named 'football') that the use of the word 'soccer' began to decline; its also worth mentioning that the decline of the word 'soccer' started in Britain, as it was believed to be an 'Americanism'... other countries began promoting it using the word 'football' over 'soccer' in order to match increasingly widespread use.\n\nSources:\n[_URL_1_](_URL_1_)\n[_URL_0_](_URL_0_)\n\nedit: fix wording",
"Football refers to the games original rules. The forward pass was implemented far after the creation of the game. Therefore, only running plays were allowed. Thus, \"football\".",
"From Wikipedia:\nIn the United States, American football is referred to as \"football.\"[2] The term \"football\" was officially established in the rulebook for the 1876 college football season, when the sport first shifted from soccer-style rules to rugby-style rules; although it could easily have been called \"rugby\" at this point, Harvard, one of the primary proponents of the rugby-style game, compromised and did not request the name of the sport be changed to \"rugby\".[3] In countries where other codes of football are popular, such as the United Kingdom and Australia, the terms \"gridiron\" or \"American football\" are favored.[4][5]",
"Football is a generic name. What else would they call it? ",
"Why the OP name his thread this way?",
"Team sports, although they have existed for tens of thousands of years have always been considered children's games and the sports that adults favored were competitions between individuals like joisting, boxing or track & field, so a tradition of playing team sports like football didn't exist until dawn of colonialism. \"Football\" as we know it today, in any of it's many forms, has it's roots in 18th Century England. In the 17th century, wealthy English families sent their children to private secondary schools & universities, and over time these schools became important cultural institutions since more and more of society's leading business, political & religious leaders had attended the most prestigious schools. Team sports called \"Football\" started being played at these schools, these sports spread to other schools, and eventually schools started \"Clubs\" to play \"Football\" against \"Clubs\" from other schools. But different schools had different versions of the game of \"football,\" some involving more kicking or more throwing or some other variation - basically think of the differences and the similarities between American Football, Soccer and Rugbee - such were the variations between the \"type\" of football played in different regions and at different schools. The most established version of \"football\" became \"the beautiful game\" - international football (soccer in the US.) It spread throughout the world, and was probably most popular because of it's accessibility - you didn't have to subject yourself to the abuse of the \"other\" types of football - like American / Canadian / Australian Football, Hurling or Rugbee. But in the American Colonies, amongst our major universities like Harvard and Yale, their version of \"Football\" was more popular than soccer. The reason the Americans called their game Football is that in the 19th century, \"soccer\" was called association football in England and the colonies, and \"soccer\" was the popular colloquialism for association football. American Football never took hold in Europe until the late 20th century, so over time, the colloquial term \"soccer\" stayed in use only in the US, while the rest of the world came to know the beautiful game as Football.",
"Alright here's the part you're not gonna like.\n\nWe. Do. Not. Care.\n\nWe call football football and soccer soccer. We don't care even a little that you call soccer football. \n\nIt's the same answer for the metric system. We use the system we use because we're happy with it. Yeah the metric system makes more sense, sure but we don't *have* to change, we don't *want* to change so we don't.\n\nYou all worry too much about what we call things if you want my opinion. We don't give a crap if you call an elevator a lift or whatever. \n\n[Tommy Lee Jones said it best.](_URL_0_) Cheers.",
"I think it more has to do with the evolution of American Football from a sport initially referred to as \"Rugby Football.\"\n\nThe British kept the Rugby. The Americans kept the Football because it was the only football they played.",
"And how come that they don't call tennis racquetball as it's played with a racquet?",
"TIL Brits bashes Americans for using the word soccer, even though they came up with the word. The more I know. ",
"Here's a better question: Why are people so obsessed with everything about the US that anything the US does differently must be scrutinized and derided? It's funny that there are people that foam at the mouth because the US chooses to use a certain word for something. Reassess your views of the world if you're that affected by something so trivial. Brits especially need to tone it down.",
"At the time there were lots of games called \"football\" with many different rule variations. Because there were no standard rules every time two teams would meet they would agree to whichever rules they preferred (think of house rules for games like monopoly or beer pong which can vary even from house to house). When the Football Association was formed that pretty much forced other popular variations in the UK to stop using the name football to avoid confusion. It didn't really matter in the US where the FA had no jurisdiction and whose existence was almost certainly unknown. Eventually a very different set of rules came to dominate in the US and was also referred to as football.\n\nWhen Association Football finally gained some popularity in the US it came to be referred to as \"soccer\" which was a slang term for football in some parts of England at the time (\"soccer\" being a shortened form of \"Association\").",
"Didn't the British call it soccer up until about the 1970s?",
"Because when you win two world wars and have put man on the moon you can name whatever sport the fuck you want. Ya'll need to rename soccer to Commie ball and get back to your centralized way of life.",
"Association, American, and Rugby football all developed during the 19th century from various town and school games that existed for centuries, possibly as far back as Rome. The games varied pretty widely as to how and if the ball could be touched with the hands or advanced while being held. You can look at games like the Ashbourne Shrovetide Football game and the Eton Field and Wall games to see just how varied football games could be before they settled into the various codes.",
"Realistically you are a young person and don't realize as recent as the 1980's and 1990's it wasn't called \"football\" even in your country, it was called Soccer across the world. \n \nOnly in the last 20 years have the brit's been calling it \"football\" to be pompous asses. That mentality has spread, and here we are.",
"When they named American Football, people in England were calling their sport Soccer or Association Football. In fact today a vast majority of English speaking people call it Soccer still. Football as the name of the sport is a minority in english. It just seems more predominant because the other languages use a variant of football in their own tongue. England itself called it Soccer till the 80's.",
"The Latin word \"fútbol\" is actually derived from the American term football. It used to be called something that translates to \"ball of the foot,\" or I think pelota de pie or something. The American word was more catchy. ",
"Maybe it's because they don't spend so much time on the ground faking injuries?",
"because Handegg isn't as catchy?",
"Soccer was derived from Association Football. Rugby was known as Rugby Football, then turned into American football with the addition of the forward pass.",
"[This is soccer.](_URL_1_)\n\n[*This* is football.](_URL_0_)",
"* [ELI5: Why is the word \"soccer\" (as opposed to \"football\") so hated by some people?](_URL_8_ ) \n* [ELI5: Why do Americans call football \"soccer\" when the Brits originally made the name \"soccer\"?](_URL_6_) \n* [ELI5: Why is the sport called soccer, and not football, in America?](_URL_1_) \n* [Why is American Football called foot ball if the ball is almost never touched by the foot?](_URL_7_) \n* [ELI5: Why is American football has the same name as soccer football](_URL_2_) \n* [Why doesn't American Football have a proper common name?](_URL_5_) \n* [Why do Americans use name Soccer instead of football?](_URL_9_) \n* [Redditors of America, what are your views on the sport being called soccer instead of football?](_URL_0_) \n* [Reddit, why do people call soccer (or football) two different names?](_URL_4_) \n* [Use of the word \"football\"](_URL_3_)\n",
"You could have stopped at 'Why the creators of American Football named their sport \"Football\"?', but you had to go for the circlejerk."
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"http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/re930/redditors_of_america_what_are_your_views_on_the/",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/27pdzw/eli5_why_is_the_sport_called_soccer_and_not/",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ns47n/eli5_why_is_american_football_has_the_same_name/",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football#Use_of_the_word_.22football.22",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/i9o06/reddit_why_do_people_call_soccer_or_football_two/",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/nig30/why_doesnt_american_football_have_a_proper_common/",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/26hnhz/eli5_why_do_americans_call_football_soccer_when/",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/nsg57/why_is_american_football_called_foot_ball_if_the/",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1b3w6v/eli5_why_is_the_word_soccer_as_opposed_to/",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/dh2r1/why_do_americans_use_name_soccer_instead_of/"
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4oz13f | why, when buying something online, the price is the same number in dollars and in euros, despite conversion rates? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4oz13f/eli5why_when_buying_something_online_the_price_is/ | {
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"This varies from retailer to retailer. Some convert so the price is the \"same\" everywhere, while others will charge the price in whatever the home currency is. If the latter, it's usually because they think they can charge more in the countries with the more powerful currency. It's a form of markup, but one some consumers may find more palatable since it could be attributed to laziness. "
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1a4ott | is the human brain or a computer "better" at generating randomness? | If neither a computer nor the human brain can generate 100% random outcomes, is one more "accurate" at generating randomness? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1a4ott/eli5_is_the_human_brain_or_a_computer_better_at/ | {
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"Computers can't generate 100% random outcomes by themselves, but they can calculate formulas that create numbers that look random. The best of these pseudorandom number generators can pass tons of randomness tests. \n\nHumans, by comparison, are very bad at being random - we're wired to recognize and act in patterns, and it's very hard to fight that tendency.",
"Computers, and its not even close. Experiments done with asking people to write, say, 100 random numbers from 0-9, show that people tend to overrepresent some numbers, and under represent others. So theyll put too many '3's and not enough 0's. \n\n",
"Most older computers don't generate truly random numbers. Newer ones can, as long as they take advantage of the most modern features of their microprocessor. \n \n\n\nThere are some kinds of electronic noise called \"thermal noise\" and \"shot noise\" which are related to the quantum physics of electrons and are as random as radioactive decay. It is possible to design a circuit, such as one inside of a microprocessor, that will use such an effect to generate a random seed, and it can then feed that seed into a PRNG (Pseudo-Random Number Generator) circuit to output a random number for the CPU to use. For example, Intel's last few generations of microprocessors contain such a circuit. "
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19kuvb | the different types of drunk. | I'm not a drinker but somebody once told me that people get drunk differently when drinking different types of alcohol. Is this true?
What's the difference between somebody getting drunk on beer compared to wine, or vodka, etc. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/19kuvb/eli5_the_different_types_of_drunk/ | {
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"Drinking fizzy alcoholic drinks at the same speed as non-fizzy drinks will get you drunk faster, because the alcohol gets carried into your bloodstream faster.\n\nBesides this, there is no scientific evidence for any difference, as far as I know.\n\nHowever, there are social conventions that dictate how quickly we are likely to drink certain types of drink, and how much of each drink we're likely to drink.\n\nAdditionally, some drinks are just easier to drink fast than others because of how diluted the alcohol is.\n\n",
"How I met Your Mother did a [funny interpretation of the types of drunk](_URL_0_).\n\nUltimately the different ways the alcohol is processed and what grain is used to make it results in different types of 'drunk.' Some make you angry, giggly, horny, sloppy, loud, etc. Science? I dont have any journals to cite or empirical evidence to offer, but I imagine most of your actual behavior is dictated by the environment and ones personality rather than the alcohol itself.\n\n",
"There is no scientific evidence for different types of alcohol (e.g. beer vs tequila vs wine vs jagermeister) having different intoxicating effects.\nIt's all ethanol diluted to varying degrees, the \"different\" effects that people experience are probably a result of their drinking environment, and their own mindset. \n\nFor example, you're more likely to be drinking wine with dinner than tequila shots. \nAnd if you go into the night thinking \"Hey, tequila makes me rowdy and aggressive!\", then when you do drink tequila, you're a whole lot more likely to be rowdy and aggressive.\n"
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2jryo3 | why do people hate creed and nickelback but maroon 5 is seemingly popular? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2jryo3/eli5why_do_people_hate_creed_and_nickelback_but/ | {
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"Because Adam Levine is apparently hot, despite his voice being mental napalm.",
"It's the (perceived) celebration of mediocrity and unoriginality. Patton Oswalt once described the types of comedians who come to an open mic show.\n\n1. People who were going to be big someday; who had a voice and a vision.\n\n2. People who were funny, but who cares? EG \"Isn't air line food crappy? Dog people are so different from cat people. Boy, don't women shop!?\"\n\n3. Lunatics.\n\nNickelback and Creed fall into category 2. The music \"good\", but who cares? It's generic and there's nothing special about it that sets it apart from anything else. The songs all sound the same. Still, they're promoted by their record company incessantly. There's not necessarily anything terrible about that, but when something that sounds so corporate and lifeless gets really popular, it gets under the skin a lot of people. The bigger a generic act gets, the more you hear \"WHO is buying this crap?\" \n\nPublications tell you they're great, but you don't know anyone who listens to them. Further, people want to hear #1 and #3, but we're still presented with #2 because it's safer for the big record companies to put out.\n\nInstead of being angsty at the record companies for pushing a mediocre product, people take it out on the band themselves."
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jr2bd | please eli5 how an air compressor works. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/jr2bd/please_eli5_how_an_air_compressor_works/ | {
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"Air compressors are like a balloon. The tank is a balloon (albeit, one that won't expand), and the pump is someone blowing into it. The pump will take a big breath, open the balloon, blow the air into it, pinch the balloon shut, and do the process all over again until there is enough air in the balloon. Every time another breath is added, the air becomes more compressed, because there is now more air in the same amount of space.",
"Air compressors are like a balloon. The tank is a balloon (albeit, one that won't expand), and the pump is someone blowing into it. The pump will take a big breath, open the balloon, blow the air into it, pinch the balloon shut, and do the process all over again until there is enough air in the balloon. Every time another breath is added, the air becomes more compressed, because there is now more air in the same amount of space."
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5urjx8 | why can't we learn a "language" of other animals? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5urjx8/eli5_why_cant_we_learn_a_language_of_other_animals/ | {
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"Other animals don't have a language. They don't communicate with anywhere near the same level of detail humans do. While they do have certain noises that certain things, biologists haveearned to differentiate and understand much of it. ",
"Killer whales have what are basically cultures with different diets and styles of hunting. I'm pretty sure some animals are saying complex things to each other ... don't know why we aren't further along in deciphering some of it ",
"We can, it is just it takes a lot of study and the language isn't in the same form as human language so it isn't just like learning German or Spanish and it comes with body language, scents and other non verbal cues _URL_0_",
"There isn't any doubt that certain animals communicate using language to some degree. However, animal languages seem rather arbitrary *compared to human language*, and there have been decades of research into the sounds made by mammals and birds to identify words or grammar *in the sense that we recognize them.*\n\nItalics above to emphasize the differences there will necessarily be between animal and human hardwiring. A lot of animal *communication* (which is a broader category than \"words and grammar\" *language*) is based on body language, smell, electric impulses or even colour as with certain squid that can change their hue. Bees will \"dance\" to describe to the hive where they found a load of nectar.\n\nThe fact that many animals use senses to communicate that humans don't, or don't even have, requires a special effort on our part to understand mindsets that may be fundamentally alien to ours. That, and we may find that if we at some point are able to talk to, say, dolphins, they might not be interested in conversing about much else than fish.",
"The other answers here are correct, but the question is actually much deeper than it might seem, and touches on that which sets Humans apart from Animals. Strap in, because I have insomnia. \n\nSome of the defining features of language proper are that it is arbitrary, infinite, and voluntary. Some forms of animal communication resemble language in some of these ways, but that actually makes it harder to decipher in most cases. \n\nLanguage is arbitrary in that the words, sounds, or symbols are not necessarily obviously understood by someone who does not already understand the language. For example, the word \"danger\" does not convey a warning to a person who doesn't speak english, but the angry barking of a dog is obvious in its meaning. The exceptions to this are called onomatopoeia, where the word phonetically resembles the meaning, and are often used to describe animal sounds, like \"bark.\" Animal noises and signals that aren't arbitrary are easily understood and imitated by humans to communicate with animals. Likewise, a dog can be conditioned to respond appropriately to commands, but the dog will always understand shouting means anger, happy noises are playful, and quiet noises are calming. \n\nLanguage is infinite in that you can use as many words, or create new words, to describe a limitless set of meanings. Take the example sentences, \"A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man,\" and \"'embiggens' is a perfectly cromulent word.\" Now, even if you weren't familiar with the Simpsons, the meaning of both words can be inferred from context. \"Big\" is a familiar word, with a familiar prefix and suffix that serve to define the word as \"to make one big.\" But \"cromulent\" only has a suffix to indicate it is an adjective, yet the humor of the joke relies on the fact that a person knows exactly what it is supposed to mean. New words and new ideas are the main point of contention that linguists and biologists use to differentiate between human language and mimicry. A bird might learn to produce thousands of words, but it will never create new words, and will never learn to describe new stimuli. Likewise, the tail positions of wolves might convey a variety of arbitrary meanings to other members of the pack, but those meanings are limited to the pre-defined learned messages. \n\nLanguage is voluntary in that we choose to say \"that's scary\" rather than screaming in horror. Animal mating calls can be arbitrary, and in the case of a mockingbird, theoretically infinite. But the mating call itself is biologically compulsive. That is, you can induce an animal under the right circumstances to make specific noises. Humans, on the other hand, choose what to say, when to say it, and how to say it. We also choose how to respond to communications from other members of the species. Our developed forebrains allow us to plan and scheme and analyze information in ways that are not available to most species. Thus, we can observe and experiment with animal communication to decipher their sounds and signals in whatever form they take, but that becomes much more difficult if the subject can choose not to cooperate. \n\nAll of these aspects actually make it much more difficult to understand foreign communications. Anthropologists spend lifetimes translating dead languages, and it makes discoveries like the Rosetta Stone so precious. Explorers discovering isolated civilizations have relied on visual communication that is not arbitrary, i.e. pointing, gestures, animal sounds, etc, to learn and teach each other's langauge. Simple words are then used to translate complex concepts. \"Me\" and \"you\" becomes \"mine\" and \"yours\" becomes \"I'll trade you this shiny bead for your 1st Edition Holographic Charizard (sucker).\" \n\nHumans have an innate ability to pick up language with minimal instruction, but we lose that ability as our brains develop and our cultural linguistics solidify. But even if we could figure out a way (ethically and logistically) to raise a baby in the company of whales, we would not likely have an easier time unraveling the complexities of different songs. Without a two-way communication, we aren't able to learn or teach the meanings of arbitrary sounds or symbols. We have a hard time even determining if dolphin sounds constitute language because we are limited in what we can observe and convey. \n\nIn the fascinating case of Koko the gorilla, experts disagree on whether she was actually able to combine sign words to create language and describe new feelings, or if she was merely adapting conditioned responses to achieve desires. Unfortunately, Koko couldn't teach us Gorilla because the grunts and hand waving that gorillas use don't convey complex messages. Despite the fact that gorillas don't have a true language, we were still able to learn quite a lot from Koko. We were able to observe Koko trying to teach sign language to other gorillas. We learned from her that gorillas, and likely other animals, have the capacity to learn to communicate in a way that at least closely resembles language. But the closer any natural animal communication is to language, the harder it becomes to translate. Whether it is a visual signals like the movements of an octopus, the clicks and whirrs of a dolphin, ant pheremones, or some other previously undiscovered means of communication, the arbitrary and infinite nature means we cannot guess at the message, nor can we brute force our way towards mutual understanding. \n\nTL/DR: A million monkeys at a million typewriters might write Shakespeare, but they won't understand it. ",
"u/Finleychops has brought up killer whales which is an excellent example of animals using complex and specific languages. Each separate killer whale pod has its own language...Not just it's own dialect, but it's own specific language. This is known because when captive killer whales have been released back into the wild alone, we know from observations that these killer whales are unable to integrate into any wild pod because they are unable to speak the language of a new pod, and vice versa.\n\nWe also know that killer whale pods in the wild are able, through their vocal and body language alone, to successfully orchestrate together, very complex symphonies of group behaviour in order to successfully kill large groups of fish. Each member of the pod has specific duties to complete in these group activities in order to bring groups of fish together, to move them from the depths to the surface, and to stun them as a group, and then feed in an orderly fashion. It's absolutely incredible. And they can repeat the same hunting and killing as a group, and change the symphony of body language and vocal language as needed in specific situations, to get the job accomplished. \n\nScientists have been studying wild killer whale pods for decades in order to decipher their languages but we still don't know how to break down their conversation and translate it into the equivalent of human language, so that we can fully understand what these complex and intelligent groups of creatures are conversing about.\n\nWe need a killer whale scientist in here to explain more."
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1lf03a | how a democracy like australia can censor video games. | I thought freedom of speech/expression is a right in Australia. How can games like GTA5 be censored there? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1lf03a/eli5_how_a_democracy_like_australia_can_censor/ | {
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" > I thought freedom of speech/expression is a right in Australia. \n\nThis is a misconception. There is no constitutional right to free speech in Australia, unlike other countries like the United States.\n\nThrough common law (past court cases which have set legal precedents), the right to voice political speech without fearing criminal prosecution is effectively granted, but there are no codified laws (that I know of) that explicitly grant rights to freedom of speech/expression."
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1u6084 | why do some people love rollercoasters and others would rather die then (than? sorry, german) going on one? | Thank you all for your answers and also thanks for explaining the then/than thing! Danke! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1u6084/eli5_why_do_some_people_love_rollercoasters_and/ | {
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"I don't have an answer, but it's 'than' - 'then' indicates an order in time or logic, 'than' is a comparison.",
"Adrenaline is a drug like any other drug (well, it's a neurotransmitter, but it's pretty much exactly the same). And like any drug, it effects different people in different ways. Some people may be more conscious of the unpleasant effects of an epinephrine release (ie they feel the downsides more severely, these downsides being nausea and over-excitation etc), others may be more receptive to the recreational aspects of adrenaline like euphoria and over-excitation (some people enjoy things others don't). Now, if you ask me why some people enjoy over-excitation and others don't, I really don't know.\nOther fears will also come into the equation. A fear of heights and a fear of or apprehension about vomiting is a very very common explanation people give for being scared of theme park rides.\n\nIf in doubt use the word than, because it is more commonly used in day to day discussion. Then is only when you're talking about time or a series of events (which is still time).",
"For me, it is a lack of control. If I am not in control of a situation that I put myself in, I have to put my trust in someone else. Since I can't control the coaster and I cannot control the operators, I'm not getting on one.\n\nIn a similar fashion, I hate being a passenger in a car for the same reason. If I must be a passenger, I want to ride in the back where I cannot see what is going on.",
"The best answer I can give you is it's a few things. One you are giving up control of yourself to the coaster. Two, heights play a huge role.\n\nThose are the two big things you have to be able to overcome if you want to even get on. Now, once you have ridden, almost everyone gets a huge adrenaline rush off of it and they feel super pumped and excited. I was always a huge pussy about coasters and would never go on. I finally went on a huge coaster several years back and fell in love with coasters. \n\nEach person feels it differently but generally you either get a high off of it, and want to do more or you never want to touch it ever again.",
"It's been kind of strange for me. As a kid I hated roller coasters because they made me feel sick. Then as a teenager I loved roller coasters. But a few years ago I was on a roller coaster at a *very* well-known theme park and my over-the shoulder restraint failed and released itself **in the middle of the ride**. I yanked it back down and it held for the remainder of the ride, but that was the most terrifying experience of my life. What if that had happened on a drop, or if I hadn't caught it in time to pull it back down? (That particular coaster if the restraint is all the way at the top, I can only reach it when standing.) I could very very easily have fallen and died. \n\nSo I don't like roller coasters anymore because it's just not worth it. The restraining devices can fail. Doesn't happen often, but it could happen to you. I don't want to win the \"you died on a ride at a theme park\" lottery.",
"I don't know, but I am scared shitless of roller coasters. It probably has some to do with when you were introduced.",
"Wenn man damit fährt wird Adrenalin ausgestoßen. Viele Menschen stehen eben auf diesen Adrenalin-Kick. Ich selbst habe großen Respekt vor solchen Dingen und zittere wie ein Wackelpudding bevor ich einsteig, aber wenn ich einmal damit gefahren bin...Achterbahnen sind schon ein geiler Scheiss",
"Personally, I find them fun, but they make me feel motion sick. I can get away with one ride, but after that I'll feel too pukey to risk another round. ",
"It could be a lot of different things, it could be fear of heights, motion sickness, etc...but mainly it's a mind thing, sometimes you think \"oh man that looks so cool and awesome\", but then someone might be like \"oh boy, I'm not sure those restraints will hold me in\", so overall it depends on your attitude towards them.",
"So merkt man sich das: \n\nthen - dann (I will then proceed to eat something)\n\nthan - als (bigger than, smaller than, smarter than)",
"For me its because ill black out. Things go well at first but as the coaster picks up in its intensity, i get tunnel vision like crazy and start to lose consciousness. ",
"Don't listen to me, but my psychology 101 teacher told us that being an adrenaline junkie/taking daredevil risks is pqrtially genetic, inherited from your parents.",
"The feeling in my stomach when we move downwards. Hate that. That's the only reason.",
"For me it's an inner ear thing. If I go on a rollercoaster I vomit. I also don't cope well with flying or long boat trips. The motion puts me right out of whack and I get really sick.",
"I get motion sickness so I'm sick for 2 hours after being on one. ",
"Roller coasters have been up and down for me (pun intended). I absolutely hated them as a child due to early exposure to one big coaster where I didn't fit in the restraints well. From then on it was more about the G-Forces than the fear of heights or the restraints snapping. I don't like the feeling of my stomach dropping on the big drops, or the feeling of my internal organs being whipped around on every turn.\n\nOnce the coaster is over I'm super excited and usually want to tackle another one, but I can't \"chain\" coasters like a lot of enthusiasts do. I can handle maybe three or four in a day and then I kind of just get exhausted from the adrenaline rush and want to call it a day.",
"Short answer: some people like to seek thrills. \n\nLiking roller coasters is just one expression of this general personality trait. Others include affinities for spicy food, scary movies, skydiving, taking drugs, and gambling, among many others. \n\n[The personality trait is also a lot more typical of men than it is of women.](_URL_0_)",
"Vertigo. Nope nope nope. ",
"For me, I personally hate roller coasters and have since I was 5 (on those little kids ones), as well as pretty much any \"fun\" ride by peers. Vertical drops are even worse than roller coasters.\n\nWhen I fall very fast, like on a roller coaster; or what happens suddenly on a plane, not turbulence, that I can deal with. But the few foot sudden drop that happens quite often, my heart rate literally rises to a point where I feel like it's going to fail and I can't breathe. At the same time my lower back tingles and freezes in this very scary and *painful* way, so that I instantly cower in fear. Kind of like chalk scratching on chalkboard times 10, but a little different. The entire experience is very hard to describe. \n\nActually its very strange, as I read this ELI5 some people complain about their stomach on vertical drops; I don't actually experience this. Just the heart rate thing and lower back pain/unpleasantness\n\nMinor motion sickness doesn't really help as well",
"Dunno. G-Forces feel great to me. I wouldn't want to do it in a car on the road, and in an airplane sometimes ascent makes me pass out, but a roller coaster is a happy medium. I love the feeling. The anticipation as the ride slowly clicks to the top, not quite knowing where the top is going to be.... and that incredible thrill right before the plunge, and then the g-forces themselves as I go up and down, feels great to me. I love old wooden roller coasters and getting the crap beat out of me by them. I don't like steel coasters or ones with loops very much.",
"I haven't seen this mentioned, so I will pose it as a question: Doesn't it have something to do with how people's inner ear and equilibrium react differently than others'? I can't do rollercoasters, at all, but it's not because I am afraid of them. It causes me physical pain. The same way going up or down a steep hill does or changing altitude in an airplane does. I am basically deaf on an airplane, and for the first hour or so after I land. I'd love to hear someone's informed, **ELI5 level** explanation of this. "
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a2mu0y | why do almost all animals seem to like scratches? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a2mu0y/eli5_why_do_almost_all_animals_seem_to_like/ | {
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"Feels good. Try having someone scratch your head or use one of those [weird head wire thingies](_URL_0_). Plus, probably something along the lines of \"positive reinforcement for evolution of social benefits.\"",
"For social animals like humans and apes, grooming is a social adaptation that was used to bond with the tribe and was beneficial for removing parasites. For less social animals, it’s still a way of staying clean. Animals that don’t groom each other will still rub against trees or whatever to get things off their fur. Because removing dirt and parasites was an evolutionary advantage that promotes survival, the brain evolved to reward this type of behavior, making it feel good even to animals that don’t necessarily scratch each other in the wild. This is especially obvious when you consider where we like to be scratched (for humans, our backs, or for cats it’s often right by their tail). They’re the areas we can’t reach on our own. ",
"Helps remove parasites and most animals cant reach there or see it. So it's probably evolution push this social behaviour.\n\nHumans have that too btw."
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v2iby | julian assange's crimes, conviction and appeal. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/v2iby/eli5_julian_assanges_crimes_conviction_and_appeal/ | {
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"He is wanted for questioning and hasn't been charged, is my understanding, making it unusual. There are plenty of murderers and other criminals hiding out and they are basically ignored, while millions are spent trying to get someone from Britain to Sweden just for questioning.",
"Just to clarify, he hasn't been convicted of anything yet (or more precisely, he hasn't been convicted for the crime he is currently being accused of); what he did lose is his fight against the extradition proceedings to Sweden. "
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5rlbgd | why do so many people donate on kickstarter? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5rlbgd/eli5why_do_so_many_people_donate_on_kickstarter/ | {
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"Couple reasons, I would say:\n1. You really believe in a project (whatever it is) and want to help them out;\n2. You like a product and take advantage of the early bird discounts often available on Kickstarter. A lot of gadgets are available on KS for less than 50% from the future retail price if they make it to production."
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7uiyhf | is the information on the nutrition label what i'll be getting overall? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7uiyhf/eli5_is_the_information_on_the_nutrition_label/ | {
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"text": [
"Everything but look for where they designate a serving side. Its likely a lot smaller than the whole package.\n\nSo it will be everything, but everything in x grams, likely this will be a half or a fourth of the package.",
"The other comments are correct about serving sizes, but they don't answer your question. The label does include EVERYTHING, like you mentioned, since they can't account for how much fat/grease/drippings will be lost when you cook, especially since there are different ways to cook it. If you happen to pierce the sausage while it's cooking, there is a higher chance that more drippings will escape, therefore the overall fat content of the sausage would be lower. ",
"i dunno about america, but over here they : \n\nCook the entire thing according to the cooking instructions. \n\nblend to a homogeneous paste. \n\nsplit into several identical sections (of about 10g each), then test each of those samples for fibre/fat/sugar/whatever. \n\nthen average the result from several samples together. \n\n"
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[],
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9dphvs | what is the difference between broadway, off-broadway and off-off broadway? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9dphvs/eli5_what_is_the_difference_between_broadway/ | {
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"These are actually all misconceptions; Broadway vs. Off-Broadway has nothing to do with the theater being located on Broadway (or any particular location in New York, for that matter). What distinguishes Broadway, Off-Broadway, & Off-Off-Broadway from each other is how many seats are in a theater. A theater with 499 seats or more is considered a Broadway theater, between 99-499 seats is Off-Broadway, and 99 or less is Off-Off-Broadway.\n\nIt can be slightly more complicated than that and there are some exceptions, but that’s the basic idea. \n\nSource: I’m a theatre professional",
"The others have described some of the terms as you would hear them in the theater world--especially in NYC; but the terminology has leaked out into the general populace, at least in US slang.\n\nBroadway can be shorthand for \"glamorous, big budget, high falutin' \" or other similar ideas the person is trying to communicate about any project, not necessarily a theater project. Example:\n\n > That new restaurant is definitely 'on Broadway', I wouldn't be surprised if they are given a Michelin Star by this time next year\n\nOff-Broadway usually means \"respectable, affordable, practical, accessible, enjoyable, done by a pro- or a non-professional with lots of relevant experience; usually with a smaller [but not skimpy] budget\". Example\n\n > My new apartment is 'off-Broadway', it has a nice kitchen and a good view, but the laundry is down four flights of stairs and all the parking is street-parking\n\nOff-off Broadway usually refers to something that was fun or enjoyable, but is done more as an experiment, by newer/less experienced people [but people who are serious about the idea and do their research], projects that might be new or small enough that they can't justify outside investment, people with an idea but no significant external support, proof of concept, or other ideas. Whether or not this is meant to be derogatory depends on the context; sometimes \"off-off Broadway\" simply means \"we know what we're doing but we have so little that we have to DIY\", or it can mean \"these people didn't put any thought or effort into this project and you should just ignore it, it's janky, it's a bunch of yahoos putting this together, etc\". Example:\n\n > The new playground at the park is \"off-off-Broadway\". The guys building it know what they're doing, but the city only had half the desired budget. It's solid and safe, but two swings and a slide isn't much. \n\nOr, if you want to use it as an insult:\n\n > The gas station coffee is \"off-off-Broadway\". It's terrible to start with, and might sit on the warmer for hours; the attendant doesn't get paid enough to care when it goes stale at 10am.\n\n\n"
]
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[],
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9dbkp1 | movies in space | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9dbkp1/eli5_movies_in_space/ | {
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"It's real. Centrifugal force can simulate gravity for anyone on the inside of a spinning ring. If the ring is real big it doesn't have to spin particularly fast. And bigger is better, because the apparent gravity decreases towards the center of the ring. So if it's small your astronauts are going to perceive a sharp gravity gradient (heavier at their feet than at their head), and that's no bueno for keeping your lunch down.",
"This isn't Hollywood BS; it's the real effect of centrifugal force. The calculation for whether you'd be able to use it consists of:\n\nR (Radius from center of rotation)\n\na (artificial gravity)\n\nT (rotating spacecraft period)\n\nR = a(T/2pi)^^2\n\nor\n\na = R(2pi/T)^^2 where T > 0\n\nIf you want to figure out how fast the spacecraft has to spin, plug in earth's gravity for a, set a radius from center for the spacecraft, and you can solve for the period, thereby calculating the speed of rotation (actual speed and gravitational force will depend on where you are on the spacecraft).\n\n[edit] If you want to see this effect for yourself, just take a bucket of water, and swing it in big circles perpendicular to the ground. If the water stays in the bucket as it passes over your head, congratulations! The water in the bucket is being held in place with a force equal to Earth's gravity. You have now created the equivalent to a space station.",
"It's an actual theorized method of simulating gravity. \n\nIf gravity can be explained as \"downward acceleration\", then placing decks in the correct spots and accelerating in the opposite direction (spinning), you'll be accelerated to the \"floor\", which is basically gravity.\n\nThe great thing about it is that it wouldn't take a whole lot of complicated tech or expensive fuel to do it. \n\nAs far as \"how fast does it have to spin\", well that depends on the size. Something the size of the Death Star from Star Wars would only have to spin ~0.1 RPM in order to achieve \"normal\" gravity",
"It's definitely real, although it hasn't actually be done yet. It's a well understood physical concept and is within our technological ability to construct right now. A spinning ring can simulate gravity through centrifugal force. You can try this at home by filling a bucket full of water and swinging in a circle over your head. You'll notice that if you swing fast enough, the water does fall when the bucket is upside down. The same principle applies a rotating spacecraft. As for rotational speed, it depends on the size of the ring. A larger ring would require a slower speed for the astronauts to experience the same g force as a smaller ring. A ring with a radius of 10 meters (32.8 feet) would need to spin at 9.5 rpm to achieve 1g, which is well above the comfort threshold of the astronauts inside (6rpm is generally considered the threshold at which one could adapt to the rotation, but lower rpms is always better). On the other hand, a ring with a radius of 100 meters (328 feet) would need to spin at only 3rpm to achieve 1 g. A larger ring is also better because the experienced gravity inside the ring would only be 1g at the outer edge, fading to 0g at the center. A small ring would result in a large gravity gradient from their feet to their heads, which would be very uncomfortable. It would also subject them to large coriolis forces.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nEdit: I will add though that a lot of movies use this real concept because, as you said, it is super convenient. It removes the need for filming zero-g scenes with wires, harnesses, and extensive cgi. If you want to see a film set in space that depicts actual zero-g scenes, watch Apollo 13. They filmed a lot of the scenes in space inside a[reduced-gravity aircraft](_URL_0_) that simulates zero-g or near zero-g in 25-30 second bursts, so in those scenes, the actors and props were actually floating."
]
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[],
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reduced-gravity_aircraft"
]
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||
2i21r5 | how do names get changed from their original forms once they enter a new culture? | For instance, how did the Persians get "Iskandar" from "Alexander"? Does it just come from an attempt to pronounce it? Or does it come from people actually trying to change it to make it more "localized"? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2i21r5/eli5_how_do_names_get_changed_from_their_original/ | {
"a_id": [
"cky3uko"
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"score": [
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"Many times it is due to a local mispronunciation that then get propagated, and often mispronounced further. Not all cultures have the same sounds. A prime example of this is many Asian cultures mixing up the \"R\" and \"L\" sounds when speaking English or other European languages, or English speakers having problems with middle eastern languages that often have syllables that to us often sound like you are coughing up phlegm. "
]
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[]
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|
3jw77h | we used to hate bill gates and now we love him. what happened? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3jw77h/eli5_we_used_to_hate_bill_gates_and_now_we_love/ | {
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"When he was still CEO of Microsoft he tended to be personally blamed for every shitty thing that Microsoft did, perhaps not entirely unfairly. He was already the richest man in the world and seemed intent on to screwing over competitors in sometimes shady ways to continue to amass more personal wealth.\n\nThen he retired from Microsoft and announced his intention to give 95% of his wealth to charity, which put his earlier apparent greed in a very different light.",
"Funny, I do not think we ever did hate Mr Gates. I live in Dublin and went to see him when Win95 was launched. He was a really nice guy. A few years later, I noticed people referring to Microsoft as M$ and they did have some Microsoft hate, but I never really noticed them disliking Bill Gates. I read his book \"The road ahead\" in about 1994/5 and it was quite prophetic. If there has been a swing towards liking him more, I think that is is easy enough to see why. He is applying his considerable intellect to solving problems in the world and as an aside, giving away his fortune. Not only that, he is encouraging others to do the same.\n\ntl/dr; Not sure we did, but turns out he is a good guy.",
"We used to \"hate\"** Bill Gates because he was a proxy for the evil Microsoft empire. We hated Microsoft back in the day because \n\n- they pulled a lot of sneaky, super ruthless business deals that made them a LOT of money. Now we look back and just see that they were just really smart and/or really lucky. No worse than many other companies now.\n\n- the whole antitrust thing. Lawsuits over IE bundled in with Windows\n\n- before MacOS's revival, Windows was really your only practical option for operating systems. Yeah, sure, try explaining to your grandma how to use BSD to check her email.\n\n- and the DOS, Windows 3.1 and WIndows 95 of those years were crappy. Well, DOS was pretty good but command lines sucked. Extended memory managers and TSR drivers sucked. Windows 3.1 sucked and crashed a lot. Windows 95 was pretty good but it crashed a lot. Pre-registry .ini files sucked. Having to juggle IRQ and DMA settings before plug and play sucked. Imagine how pissed you'd be if your iPhone crashed once or more times a day right in the middle of a phone call. Such was life in the early Windows days.\n\nA lot of this is unfair whinging. I guess its like complaining about not having ABS, sat nav or 100 mpg on a Studebaker.\n\nNow we love Bill Gates because \n\n- Windows and Microsoft products are either pretty good, or we no longer care about pseudo monopolies in a few certain product areas. \n\n- there are legitimate alternatives to Microsoft products. Don't like Windows? Go buy a Macbook Pro. Hell, even linux distros are pretty easy for noobs to use now, and look at all your Android devices. Open Office is a legit alternative to MS Office and so is Google Docs.\n\n- probably the biggest reason: dude is giving it all away. Its not going to his kids (he's stated several times that he and Melinda feel they have to earn their own fortunes). They're single handedly eradicating deaths from malaria in entire countries. They're putting books and computers in schools, hooking up clean drinking water and so many other awesome things.\n\n** I wouldn't say hate. Nobody really hated Bill Gates or Microsoft like you'd want to punch him in the face. More like it was fun to pick on him/Microsoft"
]
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||
5p5g30 | why do some quarterbacks slap the football before throwing the ball? | [For Reference](_URL_0_) Every time he throws the ball he gives it a little slap.
Edit: changed link, wasn't able to play back. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5p5g30/eli5_why_do_some_quarterbacks_slap_the_football/ | {
"a_id": [
"dcoin8r"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"He can't palm the ball, or doesn't want to trust the palm, so when he starts the motion, but then doest see the play he uses his other hand to stop the ball (to be sure he holds on to it).\n\nThe slaps are either a pump fake, or a throw that he had for a moment but then became to risky"
]
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"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8-d0WWuLoE"
] | [
[]
] |
|
2mnqlw | the price is right paradox | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2mnqlw/eli5_the_price_is_right_paradox/ | {
"a_id": [
"cm5weqz",
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"text": [
"This is called the Monty Hall problem.\n\n[Check here for explanation] (_URL_0_)",
"Out of 3 doors, your chance of winning is 1 out of 3. Thus, the other two doors have a combined 2/3 chance of winning. When the host opens another door, that means the chance of that door winning is 0, and therefore the 2/3 chance lies solely in the other remaining door.\n\n(This makes certain assumptions, such as there are 3 doors, one has a prize, two do not, and the host ALWAYS opens a non-winning door after you pick one.)"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://betterexplained.com/articles/understanding-the-monty-hall-problem/"
],
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||
22bvcv | how is it possible for scientists to be "close" to developing a vaccine or treatment? | wouldn't they either have something developed, or not have it developed? How can you almost have a cure or treatment for something? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/22bvcv/eli5how_is_it_possible_for_scientists_to_be_close/ | {
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"text": [
"Could mean a number of things.\n\nPerhaps they have treated it in animals, and they are working their way to human application.\n\nOr they have identified a possible angle to work, but its gonna take more time and money to make it happen.",
"The vaccine/cure has been shown to work successfully in animal models. However, scientists can not just go and use medicine designed for animals on humans; different cellular targets and mechanisms means that it may not work or could have a negative affects on humans. So they have a products that can be used but has not being tailored for use in humans. ",
"The development of any drug or vaccine goes through several stages during several years. \n\nIt could starts of with an idea from other fundamental research where they find a target, a vulnerable part of the disease, and try tot find ways to block the pathway. After they have an idea they can test it on animals. And several years and billions of dollars later they start human trails. \n\nNot all drugs that work in mice do the same in humans. That's why you read the headline \"cure for cancer coming soon\" every year. Something works in one of the early stages on mice or cells in a petri dish but not in humans. \n\nDuring every step there could be negative side effects which set back the research until it is solved, sometimes these side effects are so bad the development is stopped.\n\nWhen all the results are good they'll commercialise it. Usually 10 years after the original idea."
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2v4djs | why is the past tense of the verb "dive" "dove", but the past tense of a word that looks the same, "give" has the past tense, "gave"? | Why is there no "gove" or "dave"? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2v4djs/eli5_why_is_the_past_tense_of_the_verb_dive_dove/ | {
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"text": [
"The I's in \"give\" and \"dive\" are pronounced differently. ",
"Modern \"give\" comes from the Old English \"giefan\" which had a past tense form of \"geaf\". \"Dive\" comes from Old English \"dufan\" which had a past tense form of \"deaf\". And so, despite what /u/njbair says, this doesn't explain the form \"dove\".\n\n*That* form is actually relatively modern, and is also peculiar to North America (in British English the past tense is regular, \"dived\"). The best guess is that people started saying \"dove\" by analogy with \"drive\": in other words, because the past tense form of \"drive\" is \"drove\", and because \"dive\" rhymes with \"drive\", people thought that the past tense of \"dive\" must therefore be \"dove\". And so \"dove\" it became.\n\nThis, as I said, very recent: it must have happened after the first settlers came to the New World. But why \"drove\" when the Old English past tense form was \"draf\"? This is due to what's called the Great Vowel Shift, a process that took centuries and changed all the long vowels in English. The sound that, in Old English, sounded like \"ah\" evolved into Middle English into a sound a bit like the word \"awe\", and finally into Modern English as the familiar \"oh\" sound.",
"The use of \"dove\" as past tense of dive is an Americanism and is generally frowned upon by PROPER English speakers. We use \"dived\"."
]
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a173qd | when a cold or flu gets spread around your household, what stops it from cycling back and forth forever? | Pardon me while I sneeze for the 17,826th time today. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a173qd/eli5_when_a_cold_or_flu_gets_spread_around_your/ | {
"a_id": [
"ean7uc8"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"Once you have had a type of cold and beaten it your body builds an immunity to that type of cold."
]
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[]
] |
|
1mxrmw | how do corrosive materials not eat through their containers? ex: what makes glass impervious to acid? | I've been wondering this ever sense middle school... Does it have something to do with the strength of the corrosive material? What's to stop an extremely strong acid from eating through everything? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1mxrmw/eli5_how_do_corrosive_materials_not_eat_through/ | {
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"I'm not sure which, but some acids do eat through glass and have to be kept in a different container. ",
"Acids generally work by donating protons, generally shown in chemical reactions as H+, a hydrogen atom that has no electron. \n\nIn order for an acid to react with another chemical, that chemical must have free electrons to react with the proton donated by the acid. \n\nSilicon Oxide (glass) is a completely stable chemical compound that has no free electrons, and so cannot react with acids.\n\nIt doesn't so much have to do with the strength of the corrosive material as it does with how different chemicals react with each other.\n\nHowever, there is one acid that will eat through glass, Hydrofluoric acid.\nThis is actually because of the fluoride, instead of the strength of the acid. Hydrofluoric acid is extremely dangerous to use and is probably the most dangerous and corrosive of the acids, however its 'acidic strength' is much weaker than many other acids. This is because of how we rank acid strength, which is based on how easily it donates a proton, not how easily it dissolves things.",
"This is a very good question, I'll try to keep it \"explain like I'm 5\" and not \"explain like I know basic chemistry\".\n\nThe basic gist is that corrosive materials corrode certain things because they interact with them and their chemical makeup, while leaving other types of materials alone because they have a different compostion and/or structure. I know that's pretty basic, but different corrosive materials corrode for different reasons, so in order to go deeper you have to understand a bit more about the corrosive material in question.\n\nLet's take your example of acids. Acids are considered corrosive because they corrode most metals and organic material (and other stuff too, depending on the acid). They react with these materials because acids contain (by definition) protons, which react with most things that contain fat, proteins, starches... anything with organic molecules. They react with metals because they allow the solid metal to give up electrons and become ions (the electrons match with the protons to produce hydrogen gas, which is what makes up the bubbles that appear when you drop metal into acid).\n\nThere are things that they don't react with, though, like glass. This is because glass is pretty inert; it doesn't react with much. It doesn't have any of the organic molecules that avid messed with in living things, and it doesn't want to get rid of electrons like metals do. So it sits happily alongside acid without too much fuss (this is why acids are commonly stored in glass).\n\nGlass isn't completely acid-proof, though. Hydrofluoric acid will eat right through glass because it contains fluorine ions, which reacts with the silicon in glass, so it's really only safe to store it in certain plastics\n\nSo that is the very basic explanation of why acids corrode some things and not others. As much as I'd love to give a simple blanket answer covering all corrosive stuff, the fact is that the reasons why chemicals interact (or don't) tend to be complicated and various and require a good understanding of chemistry to comprehend. So I'll try to shed a bit more light with this: the chemical world is all just a big game of attraction and repulsion and of needs and surpluses. It's a tug-of-war involving protons and electrons that can translate into major and violent real-world consequences if the conditions are right. Sometimes things are corrosive because they have a need (or a surplus) that another type of material can fulfill. But different materials have different properties (needs, surpluses, electrical charges, etc.) so nothing reacts with everything.\n\nI know that's really simplistic, but I can't think of a more satisfying answer that doesn't require loads more understanding.\n\nIf you'd like more info about a certain situation (like a question about breaking bad), you want a better, more lengthy explanation, or just need help with chem homework, PM me... happy to help."
]
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3n0s0e | what is the political justification for the lack of transparency behind ttip? | I can understand why businesses would want to keep the contents of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) a secret. How can politicians justify, to the media and their constituents, the extreme levels of secrecy over the content of the negotiations texts? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3n0s0e/eli5_what_is_the_political_justification_for_the/ | {
"a_id": [
"cvjt6qv",
"cvjto9e"
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"score": [
5,
2
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"text": [
"Because it's a negotiation. If other countries know how the American public will react to various proposals, that weakens the American negotiating position. It's the same for every other country, which is why they're all keeping it secret.\n\nIn the U.S. the full text of the treaty will be publicly released 90 days before it's voted on, so it's not like they can pass it in secret.",
"It's very common when negotiating treaties (see,for example,the Iran deal were working on)\n\nIf you have people back home campaigning against it(and there will always be people who benefit from the status quo,even if it's worse for the country as a whole),it becomes a lot harder to bargain,you'll just get a worse deal.\n\nOnce it's ironed out,it will be published ,before it's passed,so it's not like there is no input.its just not the continous fighting and bitching we're used to.\n\nIf you want another example,look at congress.they used to get a lot more done because they could iron out details (some of it less than pleasant),and get stuff done.now they have to worry about being caught on film,so they spend more time catering to voters.overall in some respects were worse off-instead of getting a half assed bill passed,we get nothing done.somwtimes,especially in politics,getting half of what you want is way better than everyone getting nothing"
]
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[],
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|
8izae9 | how much of a role does body fat percentage play in the length of time before death by starvation? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8izae9/eli5_how_much_of_a_role_does_body_fat_percentage/ | {
"a_id": [
"dyvq55l",
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6
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"text": [
"Probably a lot. You can pull ~32 calories out of each lb of fat per day. So someone significantly overweight can sustain themselves just fine for a long time. I know there was an instance where a severely obese man lived for over a year just off his body fat and mineral supplements.",
"A huge role. In fact, Angus Barbieri went 382 days without eating, of course he weighed 456 pounds when he started. _URL_0_ or _URL_1_ for the scientific study.\n\nYou wouldn't be able to do that if you were starting out at 10% body fat."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[],
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"https://www.sciencealert.com/the-true-story-of-a-man-who-survived-without-any-food-for-382-days",
"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2495396/pdf/postmedj00315-0056.pdf"
]
] |
||
31hs2u | who determines if a union strike is 'legal'?? | When a union calls for a strike, they claim it's due to unfair labor practices. But strikes over certain issues can be considered 'illegal', and such strikes do not protect workers from being replaced.
Does the burden of proof fall on the company to prove a strike is illegal? Or must the union prove the company is in the wrong? Is the decision determined by a court system or a governing body? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/31hs2u/eli5_who_determines_if_a_union_strike_is_legal/ | {
"a_id": [
"cq1osep"
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"text": [
"There are two main cases when a strike is illegal:\n\n* there is still an active collective bargaining agreement, and the union is violating it by striking\n* local laws consider the union workers to be essential to public safety, and forbid striking\n\n"
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
lxixt | eli: how does the dow jones get priced? where does the number come from and how does it get calculated? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/lxixt/eli_how_does_the_dow_jones_get_priced_where_does/ | {
"a_id": [
"c2we63a",
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"text": [
"There are a variety of stock market *indices,* and the Dow Jones Industrial Average is one of the best known. It's a number, essentially, that represents the average share price of thirty large, publicly traded companies.\n\nIn essence, at any given time they take the share prices of those thirty companies, add them together, and divide by … well, a number. If it were just a simple average, that number would be thirty — that's how you compute a simple average: sum up all the components then divide by the number of components. But the DJIA tweaks that a little bit to cancel out the effects of things like stock splits. A stock split changes the share price of a stock issue, but does not reflect a change in the value of the stock issue. It's like saying \"I'll give you two fives for a ten.\" The face value of your bills changes, but the total amount of money in your wallet stays the same. The DIJA is calculated in a way that such events have no effect on the index. So it's not a simple average, but it works like one.\n\nBasically, when the DJIA goes up, it's a sign that the thirty stocks that make up the average are trading higher overall. Because the stocks chosen to be a part of the index are middle-of-the-pack representatives, this also generally indicates that the entire market of publicly traded companies is trading higher overall.\n\nBut again, it's just one of many indices. Other indices — like the NYSE composite, the S & P 500 and the NASDAQ 100 — serve as at-a-glance indicators of other segments of the stock market.",
"There are a variety of stock market *indices,* and the Dow Jones Industrial Average is one of the best known. It's a number, essentially, that represents the average share price of thirty large, publicly traded companies.\n\nIn essence, at any given time they take the share prices of those thirty companies, add them together, and divide by … well, a number. If it were just a simple average, that number would be thirty — that's how you compute a simple average: sum up all the components then divide by the number of components. But the DJIA tweaks that a little bit to cancel out the effects of things like stock splits. A stock split changes the share price of a stock issue, but does not reflect a change in the value of the stock issue. It's like saying \"I'll give you two fives for a ten.\" The face value of your bills changes, but the total amount of money in your wallet stays the same. The DIJA is calculated in a way that such events have no effect on the index. So it's not a simple average, but it works like one.\n\nBasically, when the DJIA goes up, it's a sign that the thirty stocks that make up the average are trading higher overall. Because the stocks chosen to be a part of the index are middle-of-the-pack representatives, this also generally indicates that the entire market of publicly traded companies is trading higher overall.\n\nBut again, it's just one of many indices. Other indices — like the NYSE composite, the S & P 500 and the NASDAQ 100 — serve as at-a-glance indicators of other segments of the stock market."
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6gcukh | why do so many tv shows and movies have smoke or steam in alleyways? | It does add to the atmosphere of course but where does it come from?? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6gcukh/eli5_why_do_so_many_tv_shows_and_movies_have/ | {
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"In big cities? Sewers, Storm grates, and actual steam pipes which were used to heat buildings. ",
"In real life the steam comes from the big boilers (heaters) in the basements of most buildings.\n\nIn movies the added 'steam' is usually created by a smoke machine, or dry ice.",
"Cool story, I used to work at a facility that (for some godawfully terrible reason) had a [manhole cover](_URL_0_) that lead to the sewer system for the whole building. This manhole cover was placed right near the entrance to the building so you had to walk past it to get inside.\n\nOn cold mornings the wafting steam of 10,000 assloads of shit would rise up from the sewers and create a sort of movie-esque effect. It looked pretty cool!\n\nOnly problem was it smelled like death and catching a whiff of it in the morning was the closest I've ever come to actually throwing up just from the smell of something.\n\n**tl;dr - it actually happens irl**",
"In New York, there are parts of Manhattan where the buildings are heated by steam generated in centralized plants and distributed through pipes. Sounds somewhat nuts, but it allows the steam created by power plants to usefully heat buildings rather than just be vented into the air. _URL_0_\n\nAnyhow, this steam sometimes leaks up through the street and you get a very dramatic foggy effect which filmmakers love to recreate for nighttime city scenes. ",
"Another reason for the steam is to better show lighting/ beams of light. Steam or smoke is used in theater to help spotlights be seen better.\n\nSource: did technical crew for my college theater",
"Another reason is the fog hekps create a distinct foreground, middle and back ground diving the scene more depth and hiding the fact that the alley is probably only a 4 feet deep set."
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3cfl8x | how did cable companies and video streaming services that play commercials convince the public to pay for a service that also runs commercials? | I can't wrap my mind around paying for a service that then wastes my time with more commercials that make them money. As a consumer I want one or the other. A subscription with no ads (Netflix), or a free service with ads (Crackle). It's for this reason I don't have cable or Hulu Plus. Both still have commercials. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3cfl8x/eli5_how_did_cable_companies_and_video_streaming/ | {
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"The service that cable provides is largely a clear picture. If you're not old enough to remember television using only antennas, I'll help you out: Some of the channels came in better than others. That CBS station might be clear, but you knew the NBC station would often have some \"snow\" on it. The ABC station was usually OK unless it was raining. Also, if you lived outside a metro area, the rabbit ears wouldn't do, and you needed a large outdoor antenna, often with a motor attached so you could point the antenna in the right direction for the channel you were watching. I remember when changing channels was quite literally about a 90-second operation.\n\nThen someone knocks on your door and says he's with the cable company. For a monthly fee, he'll run a cable to your house. You'll get all the channels, crystal clear. Plus a bunch of out of town channels with more shows on them. If you want to pay a little more, you can watch movies on your own home box office.\n\nIt really wasn't a difficult sell. I remember staying up all night watching MTV when we first got cable.",
"Old guy here. In the USA we used to have only two choices: a few channels of broadcast TV (all with commercials except PBS) or no TV at all. So when cable came along and offered several times the number of channels -- some with commercials and some not -- we were delighted.",
"Hulu launched as a free service with minimal ads, then gradually introduced the paid-for \"Plus\" service. The novelty then and now is that it offers episodes of current shows from the major networks immediately after they air, so if you are someone that does not have cable but wants to keep up with currently airing shows, it is essentially your only option. And while the limited ads on Hulu seem annoying to someone who primarily uses Netflix, they're a definite step up for someone used to watching their shows on traditional TV.\n\nAnd of course, when cable came along they were a better option, especially considering there was no Netlfix or any other \"adless\" choice. Older people now are used to using it and aren't likely to change, and some people who keep cable do so because of content that is not available anywhere else, especially sports.",
"In the UK we were used to TV with no commercials when we only had four channels, and two of them were the commercial free BBC. Then Sky came along and offered satellite TV (our equivalent of cable). The way they got people to pay, despite showing adverts, was to show the popular US shows like The Simpsons and Star Trek: TNG or live football that wasn't available on terrestrial TV.\n\nIf you're the only place people can watch content you can easily charge, whether you're are showing adverts or not.",
"Mixed income streams is a thing. Ultimately, the business decides how it competes, but if they want to offer me a good subscription rate (not the best, not the worst) and it means I have to watch some commercials (not the most, but some), then it's acceptable.\n\nLikely, the mixed-model is taking advantage of the fact that many people are comfortable with some commercials, anyway. it's probably not as big a problem for them as it is for you.",
"Most of the Channels are not owned by the cable provider, they are leased which is part of your cable bill. \n\nThink of it more like the internet. You are not paying for Google or Reddit. You are paying for access. Those sites have advertising too. \n\nWhen you get cable TV you are paying to access those channels. It is just not as freeform as the internet and there are not as many. You only see the channels that have a contract with the cable provider. There are more channels that they don't carry than they do. Ever see a commercial for a channel you don't have that tells you to call you provider and request it? That is a channel that is not currently carried and would like to be. If enough people demand access to it then the carrier will sign a contract to deliver it. \n\nLets go a layer deeper. The channels do not necessarily own the shows, they often lease those to.\n\nThe cable provider, the network, and the content creator may all get a slice of the advertising pie. \n\nNow think about why net neutrality is such a big deal. "
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6r733o | how does the soil layers tell us about different eras. does the land keep getting higher? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6r733o/eli5how_does_the_soil_layers_tell_us_about/ | {
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"Not everywhere. Dust blows in the wind. Plant growth builds up debris. Rockslides come down forming mountains. Rivers move silt downstream. Lots of erosive forces move earth from one place to another. These can bury locations under the ground.\n\nAn exposed hilltop, on the other hand, may lose surface to erosion. ",
"Because soil contains items from the past which were deposited into it and has then subsequently been covered with later layers. Therefore, each layer is from a specific epoch of time. To be clear, the land doesn't keep getting higher overall, erosion occurs in higher regions and the sediments generated are transported and deposited in \"basins\" or low lying regions. "
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2g3kwt | why is it that, if the age if consent is 16, 16-17 year olds sending nude pics to their significant other is considered child porn? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2g3kwt/eli5_why_is_it_that_if_the_age_if_consent_is_16/ | {
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"Is it? The laws vary from country to country.",
"Yes, and in the U.S. there are cases where the kids are charged as adults, and have to be registered sex offenders for life.",
"Because the age to make pornography is 18. \n\nPerhaps this is partly because of puritan beliefs that see pornography as more hedonistic. Perhaps it is because in our society leaked nudes are more damaging to people's reputations than having sex. Perhaps it requires more trust that a person won't share nude pictures than it takes to have sex with them and so it is believed that younger people are too easy to manipulate into it.",
"Call me cynical, but my impression is that whenever somebody asks for an ELI5 pertaining to what they see as a nonsensical quirk in the law - \"*Why is X (il)legal when Y?*\" - then the answer pretty much always boils down to:\n\nBecause our system of laws is the ongoing end product of centuries of politicians making changes based on their own personal bugbears, puritanical dislikes, the pressure of their peers and interest groups, the tides of public opinion and the zeitgeist, and because politicians rarely know a damned thing about what it's like \"on the ground\" in the situations they pass motions about, and these arguments will not usually be revisited for a good thirty or fourty years after a given act is signed into law by which time it might be completely obsolete or have done irrepairable harm.",
"Jurisdictions. In some states, age of consent is 16. In some, it's 17. In some, it's 18. Theoretically, states with a 16 age of consent could set the porn age to 16 also. However, child pornography is under Federal jurisdiction and it's set at 18 nationwide.",
"Because in the U.S. people think their little Johnny and Sally are immune to human sexuality even though it's been with us since the beginning of time. \n\nTeens have sex, thats what they do and there is nothing wrong with it, but because \"sex and nudity are bad\" the U.S. has a problem with it. \n\nWe never heard of this kind of thing when I was a teen in the 90s. ",
"Age of consent is state decided and CP is Federal law."
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186s0t | why does the us still use overhead power lines? | I've always wondered why the US still seems to mostly employ overhead power lines when distributing power to homes in rural and suburban areas. They are just so vulnerable compared to lines that run in the earth and seem to be the norm in Europe (or at least in Germany, where I'm from). It's hard to believe that the lower costs for construction outweigh the need for constant repair due to being exposed to the weather.
To be clear, I don't mean high-voltage, long distance lines like [this](_URL_1_), but low-voltage, house-to-house lines like [that](_URL_0_). | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/186s0t/eli5_why_does_the_us_still_use_overhead_power/ | {
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"Because they are already in place. It falls under the \"if it ain't broke don't fix it\" kind of thing. Basically we would have to redo our entire power grid and it would cost a ton of money and isn't really needed. ",
"1. Many places in the US have buried powerlines.\n\n2. Above ground powerlines are far easier and quicker to replace and repair.\n\n3. It is 10 times as expensive to bury powerlines as opposed to having overhead powerlines. The US has a far greater area to extend power to compared to Germany so the cost of transitioning is prohibaitve.\n\nAccording to this NPR interview in florida it costs about a million dollars a mile to bury power lines.\n\n\n_URL_0_\n\n",
"For crucifixions.\n\nIn the future, after the bombs drop and society is forced to rebuild itself, the cross shape of power lines make for an easy already constructed means to kill someone through crucifixion and enforce one's totalitarian militant rule of the wasteland.",
"Because the US Infrastructure is over 100 years old in some places. Germany and whoever suffered in WW2 has a much newer infrastructure because of the damage they were inflicted and were forced to rebuild. \n\nThe US has no desire to spend money to invest in a better infrastructure and it is currently hurting us in many areas (Internet is the best example). You have to understand that American leads technologically only in high density areas.\n\ne.g. Look at the Net Index for America:\n_URL_1_\n\nYou will notice the high density states have the better internet because they have the better infrastructure. Note the inner cities usually don't have the fastest internet due to the older infrastructure but the suburbs have extremely good internet due to their newer development. \n\nEdit: I assume this is similar to Germany.\n_URL_0_\n\nLook at their net index, its average is on-par with the US. Look at its Outliers. 60mbps highs where America gets 40-ish. I do not know much about Germany, but are these highs located in Metro areas?",
"It's a simple cost equation. Running overhead lines is much cheaper in most conditions...I've seen rural hookups that cost $20K/mile for overheads. Nobody would ever be willing to pay to bury lines serving a single location like that.\n\nOne local college I know (semi-rural) has overheads along their entrance road. They look at \"undergrounding\" them a few years ago and the cost was $1.2 million to do just over a mile, but that was a complex situation with federal, state, county, and local roads and right-of-ways involved.",
"1. Cost\n2. They're not always better (eg, areas with lots of flooding)\n3. Easier to repair/Less dangerous to repair\n4. Less difficult to modify/upgrade\n5. Can't co-locate other services\n6. Often upgrades involve disturbing other services (roads, telecom, etc)"
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denrm9 | why do kids like fast food that much? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/denrm9/eli5_why_do_kids_like_fast_food_that_much/ | {
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"It’s that’s fast food has flavor profiles that appeal to kids, such as simple carbs, plain cheese, fried things and not overly strong and or sweet sauces.\n\nThis is not a mere coincidence ;)"
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7u1vam | what are sepsis and hypercytokinemia? are they two parts of the same thing? can you have one without the other? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7u1vam/eli5_what_are_sepsis_and_hypercytokinemia_are/ | {
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"As far as I understand it, Hypercytokinemia (a cytokine storm?) is a positive feedback loop between immune cells, which can cause sepsis. Some pathogens trigger this with things like superantigens ect (interesting- but not eli5 territory) \n\nSepsis doesn't necessarily need a cytokine storm, because a massive (usually bacterial) infection of the blood (sepsis) can release enough molecules (like LPS) that triggers inflammation all around the body without needing the positive feedback between immune cells found in hypercytokinemia. \n\nHope that helps"
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1e1e4q | what does enlightenment in meditation mean? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1e1e4q/eli5what_does_enlightenment_in_meditation_mean/ | {
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"I have a buddhist friend and she says: \"Its when you gain/earn the spiritual knowledge (or insight) that frees you from the cycle of rebirth.\"\n\nBasically you meditate for a looooong time and learn from it. This knowledge gets you out of this loop of rebirth so that you move on to a higher existence.",
"it's the end of 'value' thinking, or 'dualistic' thinking, so you can see that nothing is good or bad, everything just.. is. \n\nyou can get to it by meditation, but it's also a fundamental idea of zen buddhism that you are actually already enlightened, already a buddha. you don't sit down and meditate and 'achieve' enlightenment, it's just a way of manifesting enlightenment that already exists. it's a very ordinary way of life. animals are good examples. they aren't thinking about anything really, but just going about doing what they would ordinarily do."
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l5jg6 | els: i need help understanding why there are two tides a day. | The intrinsic answer to the question, "what causes tides?" has always been that the moon's gravity draws our water up towards it. So if that's the case, why are there two high tides a day? The moon only "passes over us" once a day.
I am so close to the answer [here](_URL_0_), but the physics are a bit too convoluted for me to understand. Could someone pls explain this phenomenon? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/l5jg6/els_i_need_help_understanding_why_there_are_two/ | {
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"I'm no physicist, but this is the way I've always understood it.\n\nGravity is stronger the closer you get to the source.\n\nOn the side closest to the moon, the water is closer to the moon than the earth is. Water is pulled up slightly faster than the earth is. This causes a buildup of water closest to the moon.\n\nOn the side far from the moon, the earth is closer to the moon than the water. Earth is pulled down slightly faster than the earth is. This causes the same effect. ",
"So on the side of the earth facing the moon, the water gets pulled on by the moon's gravity a little more than the earth does, resulting in a high tide. Easy enough.\n\nOn the opposite side of the earth, the earth under the ocean gets pulled on by the moon's gravity a little more than the water does. The earth gets pulled away from the water, resulting in a second high tide of the water that gets \"left behind\".\n\nThis is how it was explained to me the first time it made any sense at all. I can go into more detail if you want, but I think that's the easiest way to convince yourself it makes sense :)",
"If you take something circular, yet stretchy, hold it out at the end of your arm, and start spinning around, the object will take on an oval-ish shape. This is what is happening with the earth and the moon. The gravity between the two acts like the string in a [testicle toss unit](_URL_0_). Therefore, each of the balls/planets gets pulled into an oval shape. The \"stretchy part\" of the earth that allows this is the oceans, so it's like you took the side of the earth near the moon and the side of the earth farthest away from the moon, and pulled them apart. This is why you have a high tide on the near side and the far side. The low tides are on the parts of the earth that face neither towards or away from the moon. Since the earth rotates, the \"stretched-out\" parts appear to change position, which is why if you stand in one place, the tides go in and out.\n\nThe earth also pulls on the moon and long ago caused it to have tides. Since the pull was quite strong, however, and the moon had no liquid to accommodate the stretching, it just got fixed in a single position, which is why you always see the same part of the moon facing the earth.",
"_URL_0_\n\nsixty symbols is a really informative youtube channel that i think explains it best",
"I'm no physicist, but this is the way I've always understood it.\n\nGravity is stronger the closer you get to the source.\n\nOn the side closest to the moon, the water is closer to the moon than the earth is. Water is pulled up slightly faster than the earth is. This causes a buildup of water closest to the moon.\n\nOn the side far from the moon, the earth is closer to the moon than the water. Earth is pulled down slightly faster than the earth is. This causes the same effect. ",
"So on the side of the earth facing the moon, the water gets pulled on by the moon's gravity a little more than the earth does, resulting in a high tide. Easy enough.\n\nOn the opposite side of the earth, the earth under the ocean gets pulled on by the moon's gravity a little more than the water does. The earth gets pulled away from the water, resulting in a second high tide of the water that gets \"left behind\".\n\nThis is how it was explained to me the first time it made any sense at all. I can go into more detail if you want, but I think that's the easiest way to convince yourself it makes sense :)",
"If you take something circular, yet stretchy, hold it out at the end of your arm, and start spinning around, the object will take on an oval-ish shape. This is what is happening with the earth and the moon. The gravity between the two acts like the string in a [testicle toss unit](_URL_0_). Therefore, each of the balls/planets gets pulled into an oval shape. The \"stretchy part\" of the earth that allows this is the oceans, so it's like you took the side of the earth near the moon and the side of the earth farthest away from the moon, and pulled them apart. This is why you have a high tide on the near side and the far side. The low tides are on the parts of the earth that face neither towards or away from the moon. Since the earth rotates, the \"stretched-out\" parts appear to change position, which is why if you stand in one place, the tides go in and out.\n\nThe earth also pulls on the moon and long ago caused it to have tides. Since the pull was quite strong, however, and the moon had no liquid to accommodate the stretching, it just got fixed in a single position, which is why you always see the same part of the moon facing the earth.",
"_URL_0_\n\nsixty symbols is a really informative youtube channel that i think explains it best"
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4kpnk7 | why do trampolines bounce differently when wet? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4kpnk7/eli5_why_do_trampolines_bounce_differently_when/ | {
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"There is more weigh on the trampoline when it is wet.\n\nSo, after a rain, water absorbs into the fibers, and some sits on top.\nFor sake of explination, lets say that after an hour rain, the trampoline now has 30lbs of water on it.\n\nThis is going to cause all sorts of different reactions when you jump.\n\nThis water adds more weight, other than the jumper.",
"Also it is much more air tight as the water fills the tiny holes making it push more air up and down, which slows it down. Think window screen vs. cardboard of the same size.\n\n\nEdit: should have been a reply to the first guy..."
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3o3ao9 | what aspect of the speaker of the house position requires other members of their political party to "trust" them? | With the current GOP political issues in the news I'm hearing that "trust", or lack thereof, is the underlying problem. What is it about that position, Speaker of the House, that requires "trust" specifically? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3o3ao9/eli5_what_aspect_of_the_speaker_of_the_house/ | {
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"The Speaker of the House controls the agenda for the House of Representatives. He either directly or indirectly (through the Rules Committee, which he appoints the majority of members) determines what bills will reach the House Floor, the order in which they do so, and what amendments, if any, will be voted on. Trust isn't a legal requirement, but it is good thing for a leader to have, since you are trusting that the Speaker will schedule an agenda that fits what the majority party wants."
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1e47l5 | what is a vx module and what does it do? | For the love of all that is good, what the hell is a vx module and what does it do?! I just found this stuff recently and my head hurts from all the mumbo jumbo. I feel like it's a massive circlejerk and it's actually a joke. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1e47l5/what_is_a_vx_module_and_what_does_it_do/ | {
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"VX modules are, in the simplest terms, transconductive substrate rectifiers. Although some may vary greatly in structure and application, most have at least one contragranular isomer contained within the over/under convergence matrix. Now, if you want to get into specifics, you'd have to ask someone a little more knowledgeable than myself, but a good rule of thumb is: if its got two or more linearly routed NON-conductive amplification buffers, and six or less integrated reciprocation relays, then you've got yourself a VX module.",
"It is and it is."
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7mcnsb | you couldn't kill bacteria with 102° water, so why does your body heat up while you're sick? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7mcnsb/eli5_you_couldnt_kill_bacteria_with_102_water_so/ | {
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"The higher temperature boosts your body's immune system. It's more effective at higher temperatures. Of course, it's a fine balance, because above 105°, the heat starts causing serious brain damage. ",
"It doesn't incinerate the bacteria, but it does make life harder for them. It weakens them, without being so hot as to kill your own cells.",
"Unsurprisingly, it's about temperature.\n\nEnzymes have an optimal temperature. This is why warm-blooded animals have better strength, endurance, and energy than cold-blooded animals. This comes at a cost, though. There is a slow drop-off of enzyme efficiency as the temperature drops, and a *sharp* drop-off as temperature increases.\n\nOur parasites and diseases also have enzymes, and the most effective diseases operate at our optimal temperature.\n\nOur bodies have a really cool defense mechanism. The immune system is optimized for a few degrees *above* our normal operating temperature.\n\nSo when we get sick, we get a fever. This puts our immune system at it's optimal temperature, but the disease (and, unfortunately, the rest of our body) above optimal. Ideally, the fever is past the sharp drop-off of the disease enzyme temperature curve.\n\nThis is why we feel weak, achy, sapped of energy, and otherwise terrible when we have a fever. It's our body focusing on fighting off the disease.\n\nFor more information, check out:\n\n_URL_0_\n\n"
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2pdnun | what keeps your testicles from turning and twisting around? | Ever since I've looked up testicle torsion on the internet this shit has given me nightmares. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2pdnun/eli5what_keeps_your_testicles_from_turning_and/ | {
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"No joke -- one testicle hangs slightly lower than the other. It's nature's way of making sure they don't bang into each other when we run, or get twisted up from being jostled. \n\nYou can still get them twisted though, with enough effort. Not a perfect solution.",
"As someone who's had torsion twice, I think I can explain. \n\nBasically, in a \"normal\" scrotum, there are tiny tendons holding each testicle to the inner skin of the scrotum. These tendons allow for free movement laterally (up and down/left and right), but prevent your testicle from rotating around the spermatic cord. \n\nHowever, these tendons can either be torn (many Vietnam veterans have this issue) or they can be absent to begin with (something called the Bell Clapper deformity, which I found out I have), allowing your testicles to rotate (which is called torsion). Unfortunately, there's no way to know whether you have this deformity unless you experience torsion and surgery is performed. \n\nAs a side note, ask away about torsion! I've experienced it twice in the same nut, and asked my doctor all sorts of questions about it."
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14tadv | why are hot cola and cold coffee so gross? why is almost every drink best hot or cold but never room temperature? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/14tadv/why_are_hot_cola_and_cold_coffee_so_gross_why_is/ | {
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"The coffee thing baffles me. It's not necessarily cold that's bad, because ice-coffee is tolerable. It's the room temperature that's repulsive. Probably has to do with expectations. \nPS- ever drink a soda after eating an ice-cream?\nsame let down.",
"Each temperature accentuates different flavors? that's my guess\n",
"Nerve receptors are very sensitive to temperature. In case of taste receptor, their activity is altered by temperature, either reduced or increased depending on temp. If I had to guess I think an item like coffee is best served cold or hot or the activation of the bitter taste-receptor won't be suppressed.\n\nThe phenomenon is simliar to heat/cold receptors in your skin. They only function with a narrowly defined temp band (10-20delta c) Neither over or under won't activate it."
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3f9yqb | how can a platypus have 10 sex chromosones? | XXXXX (female) or YYYYY (male) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3f9yqb/eli5how_can_a_platypus_have_10_sex_chromosones/ | {
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"This won't fully explain your question, but during meiosis (when cells split to create sex cells, sperms and eggs, with only half the original cell's chromosomes) all the X chromosomes go together, and all the Y chromosomes go together, so a cell will either be XXXXX or YYYYY.\n\nA female platypus would end up being XXXXXXXXXX and a male is XXXXXYYYYY.\n\nI don't think it's know why all the Xs and Ys get linked, but that linkage is what prevents odd combination such as XXXYYYYYYY or XXXXXXXXXY. Without the linked chromosomes, there'd be potentially 512 platypus sexes rather than just 2."
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650nb3 | why are currently used guns (by the military) so "old"? | An example is the [Heckler & Koch MP5](_URL_0_) widely used firearm, it has been produced since 1966, and is still used by the modern military to this day. Is/was there no way on improving this - or other firearms - in the 60 or so years that it has been in service? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/650nb3/eli5why_are_currently_used_guns_by_the_military/ | {
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"the basic design of firearms hasn't changed all that much over the years and although the basic design is old, there's still a lot of room for customization. as long as the weapon meets the requirements, why change it?\n\nmilitary use specifically is unique as for logistical purposes, you don't want to change your platforms too often as you often order in the millions. and any change can create a logistics nightmare. ",
"Yes and no.\n\nYes, the firearm can be improved in minor ways like reliability, minor increase in accuracy, and other minor features. But the improvements are not very large, and they are not worth spending the millions of dollars replacing the older versions, millions more developing all the accessories and sight rails, millions replacing the range cards and regulations, and the massive time it would take to replave and train with the new weapons. \n\nIts just not worth it when the old stuff gets the job done just fine."
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454y66 | what is defamation? | UK laws would be great, thank you. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/454y66/eli5_what_is_defamation/ | {
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"''Defamation—also calumny, vilification, and traducement—is the communication of a false statement that harms the reputation of an individual person, business, product, group, government, religion, or nation.''\n",
"Basically, it is lying about someone of something publically in a way that hurts them in some tangible way. If you fabricated evidence that McDonald's burgers are made by grinding kittens and you printed it in the newspaper, then McDonalds could certainly sue you for defamation since people would avoid kitten-burgers. \n\nProving defamation in court can be tricky and laws can vary by jurisdiction. I don't know all the detail. Satire tends to be safe from defamation charges."
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2amutm | how does a computer differentiate between types in memory? | From *Programming: Principles and Practice Using C++ by Bjarne Stroustrup*
> The meaning of bits in memory is completely dependent on the type used to access it. Think of it this way: computer memory doesn’t know about our types; it’s just memory. The bits of memory get meaning only when we decide how that memory is to be interpreted.
> For example, the very same bits of memory that represent the value 120 when looked upon as an int would be 'x' when looked upon as a char. If looked at as a string, it wouldn’t make sense at all and would become a run-time error if we tried to use it.
How does a computer know what 00000000 00000000 00000000 01111000 means? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2amutm/eli5_how_does_a_computer_differentiate_between/ | {
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"Because your program has placed it in memory, it is responsible for knowing something about it. So...it can differentiate between the ascii for \"x\" and an integer because your program has created an integer and placed in a location. Or maybe it has created a string. Either way, your program decided what it was. The memory-itself doesn't care, doesn't know. Importantly, programs either access things in their own memory in which case they know the semantics and datatype of the data, or....you're accessing data from some other application that has probably exposed it via a contract of some sort - an API, clear documentation etc.\n\n\n"
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jimqs | arguments for and against the federal reserve. | I know there are some politicians who want to dismantle it while others see it being vital for the nation. I want to better understand both sides of the argument. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/jimqs/eli5_arguments_for_and_against_the_federal_reserve/ | {
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"I'll take the \"pro-federal reserve\" side of the question, I'll let somebody else handle the anti-federal-reserve side.\n\nSo let's say there's three guys on an island, Fred the Farmer, Tom the Tailor, and Chad the Carpenter.\n\nBut today, they have a problem. Fred needs clothes from Tom. Tom needs his roof fixed by Chad. Chad needs some food from Fred.\n\nUnfortunately, when Fred bumps into Tom, they fail to make a deal, because Tom needs Chad's help, not Fred's help. That's the problem with \"barter,\" which is direct trading. If you bump into somebody, and they have exactly what you need, unless you also have exactly what they need, you can't make a deal! The likelihood that two people will bump into each other, and they both have exactly what the other person needs, is pretty slim.\n\nThese three guys, together, have everything they need. But they can't organize a trade.\n\nSo that's why money exists: to help people trade. Let's say they get together and make three \"dollars\" using three slips of paper and a green pen. They each get a dollar, and they each agree that they'll accept a dollar for whatever it is they do.\n\nNow here's what happens: Fred bumps into Tom, and buys clothes for a dollar. Then, Tom bumps into Chad and buys a roof repair for a dollar. Then, Chad bumps into Fred, and buys food for a dollar. Now everyone has what they need. Interestingly, everyone still has a dollar.\n\nNow for a while, life is good. The three of them buy thousands of dollars worth of stuff from each other, using their three bills. This is possible because when you use dollars, they're not used up - they just circulate. Each bill can be used over and over.\n\nBut one day, a new person, Mary, lands on the island. She has a ship full of video games, food and clothes. And she lives on her ship! So she doesn't need anything from these three guys at all. But she's nice, so she offers a video game each to Tom, Chad, and Fred. She accepts a dollar from each of them, even though she doesn't really need Fred's food, Tom's clothes, or Chad's repairs. She figures she'll hold onto the dollars, because maybe she'll want sexual favors later.\n\nNow Mary has three dollars, and the other guys have nothing.\n\nThen, all of a sudden, Fred needs clothes from Tom again. Tom needs his roof fixed by Chad again. Chad needs some food from Fred again. But Mary has all the dollars!\n\nSo they go to Mary, and they try to get some dollars from her. But Mary has everything she needs. She still has a ship full of video games, her home is in great shape, her clothes are nice, and her fridge is full of food. She thanks the guys for the kind offer, but she decides to keep the three dollars in case she needs them later. She's not being mean, she's just being sensible. But Fred, Tom, and Chad are in a bind.\n\nFred, Tom, and Chad want to trade with each other. They have plenty of stuff: Fred still has food, Tom still has clothes, and Chad still can fix houses. But they have no dollars. They vaguely remember that it's possible to trade without dollars, and they consider going back to the barter system.\n\nBut that's a bad idea. If they're smart, they'll get out their paper and green pen again. It would be silly for them to go back to barter, when they have a better way. When this whole thing started, they just made the dollars. They can do it again, and they'd be foolish not to.\n\nMary will be angry, because she gave up three video games for her three dollars, and the three guys will just be making dollars \"for free\" using paper and pen. She has a point. She correctly thinks that her three dollars might be seen as less valuable, if they aren't the only dollars around.\n\nBut it's also not reasonable for Mary to expect Fred, Tom, and Chad to go back to the barter system. They need to compromise.\n\nThe Federal Reserve's job is to balance those two needs against each other. Chad, Fred, and Tom need to have enough dollars to be able to trade without bartering, but then again, the reserve shouldn't make so many dollars that Mary's money becomes worthless.\n\nNow, some people think there shouldn't be a federal reserve. In that case, Mary would have the dollars, and that would be that. Fred, Chad, and Tom would have to go back to bartering with each other.\n\n\n\n",
"The federal reserve is a group of people in the US government that sets rules for banks. One of the most important rules is the interest rate at banks. This will set how much money you get from interest in your savings account.\n\nThis has a big impact on the amount of money in general circulation. The way it is set up allows for the amount of money that exists to increase, but it also allows the amount of debt to increase as well. Before the federal reserve people used to use gold or promissory notes that represented gold.\n\nOne argument against the federal reserve is that they are secretive and have too much power over the way money works. If they make bad decisions they can ruin the economy and people can lose their jobs even though its not their fault. People will support this argument with the claim that economic downturns are caused by them.\n\nAnother is that the way they work, causes America to always be in debt to other countries even if some people don't want that.\n\nA third argument is the some people don't like it because it means we can't trade our money for a guaranteed amount of gold.\n\nOne argument for the federal reserve is that it sets very strict rules on banks so that people within banks are prevented from making bad decisions that will eventually harm their customers and the economy.\n\nAnother argument is that it has been demonstrated to work. The Federal Reserve started in 1913 and has produced the total amount of money in current circulation. The amount of US money in total is many times the world total value of gold. In the US, stores almost exclusively only accept federal reserve money for goods and services, and people earn their salaries in federal reserve money. Even during economic downturns, nobody has tried to move back to a gold system of currency.\n\nWith fixed systems like gold, the concept of supply and demand will set the price for everything. But this will have an additional side-effect of causing all the gold to be assigned to all the goods and services. This is because if anyone has extra gold, stores will charge more for their goods and services in order to gain some of that gold for themselves. But this means that if new technologies come along that didn't exist before, then there will be no spare gold anywhere to pay for it. This means that new markets based on new technologies cannot grow large unless people are willing to sacrifice some of the older goods and services they would normally pay for.\n\nFinally, people have endorsed the federal reserve system. If a majority of people thought gold was a better money system than the federal reserve, then they could simply buy gold on the open market and trade with each other for goods and services. Nobody wants to do this. The only exchange people will make for gold is money, not goods and services.\n",
"I'll give short brief answer for opposition.\n\nThe Federal Reserve tries to maximize the potential of the US economy. This sounds fine and dandy. The problem is that there are so many factors that go into the daily operation of an economy that they can't possibly take everything into consideration. There's unintended consequences in their actions. \n\nThe business cycle theory is part of the opposition. That's in brief that the manipulation of the interest rates are a cause for an unsustainable boom, and inevitable crashes (housing, tech bubble, etc.). The Fed creates the boom and bust cycle pattern you see. That it doesn't just happen for no reason.\n\nLow interest rates they use also put more money in the economy, devaluing the dollar. This being a problem because the poor doesn't keep up with the raise in prices. It takes time for them to get a raise to be able to keep up. It also hurts retirees. \n\nThose are the two big reasons. The Austrian School being the biggest opponent. They're the believers of the business cycle theory. Kinda brief, but I don't feel like going further.\n\n",
"The Fed creates artificial bubbles by expanding credit artificially (printing money), and busts always follow. The Fed creates these business cycles, as explained by Hayek. If you want a stable, healthy economy, dump the Fed, and go with a system that doesn't increase the money supply without restriction.",
"Here's the biggest reason against The Fed that I can think of:\n\nThe government needs a dollar. So they call The Fed and say \"Hey Fed, we need a dollar.\" The Fed in turn says \"Sure Government, bring us one of those treasury notes\" So the Government walks a treasury note over to The Fed and The Fed gives the Government a dollar. Here's the kicker though, That treasury note that the Government gave The Fed promises to pay back one dollar PLUS INTEREST. How can we pay back the interest if all we have is a dollar? That's right kids! We have to borrow ANOTHER DOLLAR. See the game The Fed is playing? From the moment we borrow that first dollar we can never get out of debt. Even if we round up every single penny in circulation and give it back to The Fed, they are going to say \"hey guys, that's great, but wheres the rest?\"",
"I'll take the \"pro-federal reserve\" side of the question, I'll let somebody else handle the anti-federal-reserve side.\n\nSo let's say there's three guys on an island, Fred the Farmer, Tom the Tailor, and Chad the Carpenter.\n\nBut today, they have a problem. Fred needs clothes from Tom. Tom needs his roof fixed by Chad. Chad needs some food from Fred.\n\nUnfortunately, when Fred bumps into Tom, they fail to make a deal, because Tom needs Chad's help, not Fred's help. That's the problem with \"barter,\" which is direct trading. If you bump into somebody, and they have exactly what you need, unless you also have exactly what they need, you can't make a deal! The likelihood that two people will bump into each other, and they both have exactly what the other person needs, is pretty slim.\n\nThese three guys, together, have everything they need. But they can't organize a trade.\n\nSo that's why money exists: to help people trade. Let's say they get together and make three \"dollars\" using three slips of paper and a green pen. They each get a dollar, and they each agree that they'll accept a dollar for whatever it is they do.\n\nNow here's what happens: Fred bumps into Tom, and buys clothes for a dollar. Then, Tom bumps into Chad and buys a roof repair for a dollar. Then, Chad bumps into Fred, and buys food for a dollar. Now everyone has what they need. Interestingly, everyone still has a dollar.\n\nNow for a while, life is good. The three of them buy thousands of dollars worth of stuff from each other, using their three bills. This is possible because when you use dollars, they're not used up - they just circulate. Each bill can be used over and over.\n\nBut one day, a new person, Mary, lands on the island. She has a ship full of video games, food and clothes. And she lives on her ship! So she doesn't need anything from these three guys at all. But she's nice, so she offers a video game each to Tom, Chad, and Fred. She accepts a dollar from each of them, even though she doesn't really need Fred's food, Tom's clothes, or Chad's repairs. She figures she'll hold onto the dollars, because maybe she'll want sexual favors later.\n\nNow Mary has three dollars, and the other guys have nothing.\n\nThen, all of a sudden, Fred needs clothes from Tom again. Tom needs his roof fixed by Chad again. Chad needs some food from Fred again. But Mary has all the dollars!\n\nSo they go to Mary, and they try to get some dollars from her. But Mary has everything she needs. She still has a ship full of video games, her home is in great shape, her clothes are nice, and her fridge is full of food. She thanks the guys for the kind offer, but she decides to keep the three dollars in case she needs them later. She's not being mean, she's just being sensible. But Fred, Tom, and Chad are in a bind.\n\nFred, Tom, and Chad want to trade with each other. They have plenty of stuff: Fred still has food, Tom still has clothes, and Chad still can fix houses. But they have no dollars. They vaguely remember that it's possible to trade without dollars, and they consider going back to the barter system.\n\nBut that's a bad idea. If they're smart, they'll get out their paper and green pen again. It would be silly for them to go back to barter, when they have a better way. When this whole thing started, they just made the dollars. They can do it again, and they'd be foolish not to.\n\nMary will be angry, because she gave up three video games for her three dollars, and the three guys will just be making dollars \"for free\" using paper and pen. She has a point. She correctly thinks that her three dollars might be seen as less valuable, if they aren't the only dollars around.\n\nBut it's also not reasonable for Mary to expect Fred, Tom, and Chad to go back to the barter system. They need to compromise.\n\nThe Federal Reserve's job is to balance those two needs against each other. Chad, Fred, and Tom need to have enough dollars to be able to trade without bartering, but then again, the reserve shouldn't make so many dollars that Mary's money becomes worthless.\n\nNow, some people think there shouldn't be a federal reserve. In that case, Mary would have the dollars, and that would be that. Fred, Chad, and Tom would have to go back to bartering with each other.\n\n\n\n",
"The federal reserve is a group of people in the US government that sets rules for banks. One of the most important rules is the interest rate at banks. This will set how much money you get from interest in your savings account.\n\nThis has a big impact on the amount of money in general circulation. The way it is set up allows for the amount of money that exists to increase, but it also allows the amount of debt to increase as well. Before the federal reserve people used to use gold or promissory notes that represented gold.\n\nOne argument against the federal reserve is that they are secretive and have too much power over the way money works. If they make bad decisions they can ruin the economy and people can lose their jobs even though its not their fault. People will support this argument with the claim that economic downturns are caused by them.\n\nAnother is that the way they work, causes America to always be in debt to other countries even if some people don't want that.\n\nA third argument is the some people don't like it because it means we can't trade our money for a guaranteed amount of gold.\n\nOne argument for the federal reserve is that it sets very strict rules on banks so that people within banks are prevented from making bad decisions that will eventually harm their customers and the economy.\n\nAnother argument is that it has been demonstrated to work. The Federal Reserve started in 1913 and has produced the total amount of money in current circulation. The amount of US money in total is many times the world total value of gold. In the US, stores almost exclusively only accept federal reserve money for goods and services, and people earn their salaries in federal reserve money. Even during economic downturns, nobody has tried to move back to a gold system of currency.\n\nWith fixed systems like gold, the concept of supply and demand will set the price for everything. But this will have an additional side-effect of causing all the gold to be assigned to all the goods and services. This is because if anyone has extra gold, stores will charge more for their goods and services in order to gain some of that gold for themselves. But this means that if new technologies come along that didn't exist before, then there will be no spare gold anywhere to pay for it. This means that new markets based on new technologies cannot grow large unless people are willing to sacrifice some of the older goods and services they would normally pay for.\n\nFinally, people have endorsed the federal reserve system. If a majority of people thought gold was a better money system than the federal reserve, then they could simply buy gold on the open market and trade with each other for goods and services. Nobody wants to do this. The only exchange people will make for gold is money, not goods and services.\n",
"I'll give short brief answer for opposition.\n\nThe Federal Reserve tries to maximize the potential of the US economy. This sounds fine and dandy. The problem is that there are so many factors that go into the daily operation of an economy that they can't possibly take everything into consideration. There's unintended consequences in their actions. \n\nThe business cycle theory is part of the opposition. That's in brief that the manipulation of the interest rates are a cause for an unsustainable boom, and inevitable crashes (housing, tech bubble, etc.). The Fed creates the boom and bust cycle pattern you see. That it doesn't just happen for no reason.\n\nLow interest rates they use also put more money in the economy, devaluing the dollar. This being a problem because the poor doesn't keep up with the raise in prices. It takes time for them to get a raise to be able to keep up. It also hurts retirees. \n\nThose are the two big reasons. The Austrian School being the biggest opponent. They're the believers of the business cycle theory. Kinda brief, but I don't feel like going further.\n\n",
"The Fed creates artificial bubbles by expanding credit artificially (printing money), and busts always follow. The Fed creates these business cycles, as explained by Hayek. If you want a stable, healthy economy, dump the Fed, and go with a system that doesn't increase the money supply without restriction.",
"Here's the biggest reason against The Fed that I can think of:\n\nThe government needs a dollar. So they call The Fed and say \"Hey Fed, we need a dollar.\" The Fed in turn says \"Sure Government, bring us one of those treasury notes\" So the Government walks a treasury note over to The Fed and The Fed gives the Government a dollar. Here's the kicker though, That treasury note that the Government gave The Fed promises to pay back one dollar PLUS INTEREST. How can we pay back the interest if all we have is a dollar? That's right kids! We have to borrow ANOTHER DOLLAR. See the game The Fed is playing? From the moment we borrow that first dollar we can never get out of debt. Even if we round up every single penny in circulation and give it back to The Fed, they are going to say \"hey guys, that's great, but wheres the rest?\""
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bk8dil | harmonics and harmonic distortion | Like I know that there is a fundamental/resonant/base frequency but how do harmonics come about and work? Do you just resize the fundamental frequency and combine it with another one or what? Also how can harmonic distortion occur? Like is it to do with how sound can reverberate or get absorbed and such? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bk8dil/eli5_harmonics_and_harmonic_distortion/ | {
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"A 'harmonic' is simply an integer multiple of a fundamental frequency.\n\nTo understand why they result, first you need to accept the premise that any periodic signal can be represented as the sum of [sine waves](_URL_0_). So let's say that you have a piece of music and I have a device that can generate any pure tone. With a sufficiently large set of such devices, I can perfectly replicate any piece of music you might have - all those devices added together make the composite.\n\nNext, let's consider something called the frequency domain. Instead of simply plotting amplitude vs. time (as in the graphs I linked above), we'll plot amplitude vs. frequency. This is a bit like a graphic equalizer - you've got a series of frequencies along the x-axis and then how loud the music is at each frequency. If you have a pure tone, your frequency domain would be high at one specific frequency and zero everywhere else.\n\nNow instead of a piece of music, imagine you have a sawtooth wave (from the picture linked above). Instead of nice smooth rises and falls, it's all straight lines.\n\nAs it turns out, to represent that as a sum of sine waves you end up with something termed a [sinc](_URL_1_) function in the frequency domain. The lowest non-zero positive frequency is the fundamental frequency and the all the others are harmonics of that frequency.\n\nThat's 'harmonic distortion'. Effectively what's happening is that the pure sine wave you're expecting is 'bent' in some fashion and this creates harmonic distortion - the frequencies looking a lot more like our sawtooth wave.\n\nSome harmonic distortion will happen whenever you change what you're repeating. If you play a pure note and then play a different pure note, it will create a brief flash of harmonic distortion - probably too fast for you to hear. The envelope (how it rises/fades/etc.) of your music can potentially create such effects as well.\n\nA very common form of harmonic distortion is clipping. Amplifiers are limited by what is termed rails - amplitudes they can't go beyond. When your amplifier is turned down, it's not a problem. When you turn your amplifier way up, the sound waves can 'clip' - exceed the limits set by those rails - and the top of your waves flatten out (they can't go any higher/lower, after all). This creates harmonic distortion as well.\n\nDigital sampling often creates harmonic distortion as well. When you digitally sample a sound, you use what is known as a window. The most trivial window - a rectangular window - merely takes the raw samples at each point within the time period you're examining. However, this causes significant harmonic distortion because the first few and last few samples don't provide enough information to reconstitute the wave immediately before and after. There are more complex windows that slowly fade in/out before the time period of interest, but these merely mitigate the problem rather than eliminate it.\n\nReverberation and absorption - in the physical world - don't cause harmonic distortion because they don't change the underlying wave. They might change the frequency balance (how loud different frequencies are) and they might cause interference, but the underlying waves remain the same overall shape. Remember, harmonic distortion arises because the shape of our wave is changed from a pure tone to involve more abrupt changes in amplitude."
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7o5b19 | what's the difference between a bomb cyclone and a hurricane? | So looking at a [satellite imagery loop](_URL_0_), if I didn't know it was winter I'd say this looks like a hurricane.
Outside of the obvious difference between a hurricane being a tropical storm and this thing is occurring in the winter, what's the difference between the two?
| explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7o5b19/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_a_bomb_cyclone/ | {
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"A bomb is the term for a non-tropical low pressure system that rapidly intensifies. Bombs (in the weather term) are a cold-weather fed system often dependent on strong upper level winds, whereas hurricanes are fed by warm, moist air and thrive in weak upper level winds."
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azz6jh | what's the wall of sound and how do you use it in songs? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/azz6jh/eli5_whats_the_wall_of_sound_and_how_do_you_use/ | {
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"It's technique used (or started) by Phil Spector that created an aesthetic that listeners regarded as having \"lots and lots of sound\". This is typically a sense of richness and fullness. It combines a few things:\n\n1. consideration for the playback devices of the era.\n2. voicing and instrumentation of the music itself.\n3. various production effects / recording effects including the use of reverb. \n\nSo...you can't \"use it\" in a strictly recording context - it's not just an effect you apply to music, the composition itself (instrumentation / voices, etc.). \n\nIt's best to think of it as an aesthetic - a total production technique - rather than an effect.",
"Are you talking about the Phil Spector technique or the rock music punch in the face effect? \n\nIf A see answer above. If B. Turn everything up to eleven, distort, reverb and make everything rumble from within",
"u/bguy74 is correct but if you want to apply a simplified version to your own music, try doubling the instruments (except bass) for a fuller sound, and make sure you mix with good EQ separation. "
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1pjhi3 | why is the thought of eating certain foods in the morning repulsing to us even though we would gladly partake in a few hours. | For example most people don't desire to eat really greasy tacos as soon as they get out of bed but would be fine eating them for lunch, why is this? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1pjhi3/eli5_why_is_the_thought_of_eating_certain_foods/ | {
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"You're conditioned to have those things in the morning. There is no natural reason for it. Steak and eggs sound great, but a hamburger doesn't just because of the association of burgers with the later parts of the day.",
"Cold pizza is my favorite breakfast.",
"Yeah, I don't have this problem personally.",
"You have special chemoreceptors on your tongue that detect different types of tastes before transmitting them through cranial nerves. Most of the savory, or \"umami\" receptors are dormant for several hours after awakening, and can only be activated earlier than lunchtime by exposure to the particular chain lards of bacon, which elicit an addictive neurochemical response. "
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4988lq | why do baby car seats expire after 5 years? | If it's due to the plastic deteriorating over time, I would think that someone would have created an affordable replacement part by now. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4988lq/eli5_why_do_baby_car_seats_expire_after_5_years/ | {
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"Just liability. They don't want it resold and reused then have to deal with any problems the second hand consumer has.",
"Plastic does deteriorate over time, especially when exposed to heat or cold, which a vehicle can easily reach 100+ degrees or below freezing.\n\nAlso, when a vehicle is in an accident, the impact can create stress on the plastic that creates small fractures that aren't noticeable but the integrity is compromised. \n\nFor manufacturers, that's just a lot of reliability so by limiting it to a certain time period, it reduces that liability. ",
"If it was due to the plastics deteriorating, there is no reason they couldn't just choose better materials. You don't see a 5 year expiration date on regular seatbelts. Or the actual seats in your car.",
"It has more to do with the way safety regulations change and progress. Also, recalls. A lot of design flaws can be discovered in 5 years, and if you bought or are using an older one, you may have missed out on important recalls, especially if you aren't the original owner. \nThink of an extreme situation. Do you think a 10 year old car seat is as safe as a current one? No. Setting a 5 year limit ensures that you are, most likely, using a safer seat. ",
"Reminds me of bike helmets. Those expire as soon as you have a significant accident even If no damage is showing",
"Generally speaking, the previous child who used the seat has grown out of it within five years, and have already leeched what nutrition they can from the plastics via osmosis. Rearing a second youngling with the same chair will result in stunted growth and inflicting familial shame.",
"So you don't give it to a friend or relative later when your kid grows up. Planned obsolescence.\n\nAlso a good way to avoid many legal troubles after accidents, if it was older than 5 years.",
"Um, also to sell you more seats. This is probably the main reason behind the perception of liability.",
"Material detoriation is true, sure, but it's far from clear if it's actually a problem. The main reason is that it gives the manufacturers a reason to put an expiration date, so that the chair won't be re-used for a second child, and a new chair will be bought instead, thus giving them additional sales."
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1f1xuf | why do some languages adopt new words for recently invented items? | For instance when Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone why didn't the name stay as "telephone" as it was introduced to non-native English speaking countries. In Japanese it is 電話(pronounced "denwa") | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1f1xuf/eli5_why_do_some_languages_adopt_new_words_for/ | {
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"Quite often a word will be used that literally describes the object, or what the object does, this could be for convenience as sometimes the inventing country's word might be difficult to pronounce.\n\nIn a few countries it is common to adopt the inventing country's word though. In fact inventing a new word might be for different reasons: Interestingly South Korea will use the English word for Western inventions, while North Korea refuse to and will invent their own word."
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920or2 | what is snot made of? is it similar to pus? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/920or2/eli5_what_is_snot_made_of_is_it_similar_to_pus/ | {
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"It is mostly mucus, water, small traces of salts and proteins (why boogers taste salty), and particles like dust, germs and other things that get trapped when you breathe in. \n\nBest not to eat your snot."
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ci1i04 | why do german cars have seatbelts in the center vs on the outside for backseats? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ci1i04/eli5_why_do_german_cars_have_seatbelts_in_the/ | {
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"What exactly do you mean? I'm german, if you elaborate I can maybe help you"
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9durlp | caffeine has almost no calories, but seems to give us a burst of energy on its own. where does the body get this energy from? is caffeine forcing the body to use stored fat? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9durlp/eli5_caffeine_has_almost_no_calories_but_seems_to/ | {
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"For this you have to separate awareness/feeling awake from calories. You can be eating calories and sleepy, you can be starving and awake. Caffeine is a drug that increases awareness by increasing your brain activity, not by giving you actual calories to burn.",
"Caffeine doesn't actually give you a burst of energy - it just feels like it does because it prevents the feeling of being tired. \n\nCaffeine binds to the same place in your brain that adenosine molecules would. Adenosine is what tells your brain \"okay, time to start feeling sleepy\". Adenosine can't bind to those receptors now and so your brain isn't getting the \"its bed time now\" signals. The extra adenosine in your bloodstream (since it's not binding to anything now) also may trigger your adrenal system to release more adrenaline. It also affects the dopamine system in the brain, which is what produces the hormone that makes you happy/feel good.",
"Coffee doesn't actually give your body the energy it needs to function, it just tricks your brain into making you feel less tired than you actually are.",
"Caffeine does stimulate Lipolysis, therefore increasing fat use as fuel in the body. It does this by increasing levels of hormones like epinephrine in the blood. Caffeine also increases thermogenesis, causing your body to burn more calories.",
"ELI5 answer:\n\n & #x200B;\n\nCaffeine is a drug, and like most drugs the part of your body it affects is your brain. Caffeine doesn't give you more energy, it tricks your brain into thinking you're not out of energy.",
"Caffeine works in two ways to make you feel that way. \n\nFirst it prevents the brain from telling you that you are tired. You can think of your brain as a bunch of locked boxes with different things inside of them. Some of these boxes have things that make you happy, others make you sad. Some have things that tell you it is time to go to sleep. Caffeine jams itself into the lock on the sleepy time box so that your brain can't open it. That keeps you from feeling tired. \n\nCaffeine also can help open the box that tells your body to go into extra energy mode. Things like your heart can work faster or slower depending on what you need. If you are sitting on the couch watching TV it's going to go slower, if you are outside working it's going to speed up. Caffeine tricks the body into thinking it needs to go into extra energy mode. Caffine doesn't create this energy, the body is just using what it has stored more quickly. Not really any different from you step on the gas in a car. You are telling it to burn more fuel and go faster. \n\n",
"Adenosine also \"tunes down\" your brain, after doing mental work, so caffeine basically overclocks your brain.",
" So for me I usually drink 2 coffees every morning and get the same mental pick-me-up I figure everyone else gets. The weird thing is that in the evening I can have a coffee and still get to sleep quickly and easily. \n\nWhat’s going on there, that coffee wakes me up, but doesn’t keep me awake?",
"Imagine you're a car. Caffeine just takes the needle on the fuel guage and moves it up a bit so it seems like you have more fuel. It blocks the neurotransmitter that tells you you're tired. ",
"I wrote an analogy but here's a better one\n\nImagine your brain has a bunch of guys running around delivering messages. Each message has a specific box. So the more tired you get, the more guys you have running around writing \"I'm tired\" messages and putting them in the \"I'm tired boxes\".\n\nCaffeine comes along and fills those \"I'm tired boxes\" so there's nowhere for anyone to put the \"I'm tired\" messages. This keeps you from feeling tired.\n\n",
"Are there people that are immune to the caffeine effect? I think I’m one of those. I’ve even took year long breaks from caffeine to see if that helps and nothing. I still drink coffee though because it’s delicious. ",
"Actual ELI5 answer. Imagine a classroom filled with seats. These seats are designated for the English class. But if the music class sits in all the spots then the English class can't. \n\nScience answer. Caffeine competitively binds to receptors that when ATP and few other substrates bind to it starts signaling cascades which make you drowsy. By competing for the receptors they inhibit those pathways.\n\n\nThrough an entirely different mechanism caffeine causes your heart rate and blood pressure to rise. This gives people the illusion they are more awake than they are.",
"Okay, in your brain there are a bunch of grabby things, they grab chemicals your brain makes when you're tired. When more grabby things grab the sleepy stuff you get more tired. Caffeine tricks the grabby things into grabbing it instead of the sleepy stuff, so you don't get tired.",
"Your body uses ATP to fuel a lot of different things, like breaking down fuel sources for storage, as well as breaking down those storages when you need them for energy. ATP is replenishes as we sleep, so if we don't get enough sleep, our ATP stores are low - sort of like a battery that isn't fully charged. Caffeine acts like an artificial source of ATP for our bodies, and although we don't actually replenish any ATP from caffeine, our brains don't treat it that much differently from true energy, and we can more or less trick our brains into thinking that we have more energy available than we actually do. ",
"Caffeine isn't real energy. It's a drug that blocks the feeling of being tired by binding the caffeine molecule to where the adenosine molecule would. Adenosine is what makes you feel sleepy.\n\n\nAt the same time caffeine stimulates your adrenal glands to release adrenalin, which is why you can get the jitters when you take a little too much caffeine.\n\n\nI'm addicted to the stuff. Fun fact, chemically speaking caffeine is quite similar to cocaine. ",
"Think of your body as a big and complex machine. Like all machines, it has switches to do specific things. These switches activate based on what the machine does, receives, or needs. \n\nThese switches are the chemicals in your head. For example, If your stomach is empty, it'll send a switch to your brain which turns on the light that says \"Need more raw material\".\n\n\nCaffeine does two things. It stops you from feeling tired, and essentially puts your body in \"Sport mode\". \n\nThe engineer that goes to flip the \"tired\" switch finds this stranger \"Caffeine\" holding the lever in the off position. He cannot overpower caffeine but eventually Security comes along and hauls him out. Security being the liver.\n\nAt the same time, Caffeine increased the speed dial on the \"Nervous system\" controls. \n\nThis also explains the caffeine crash that you feel later. Because of what our friend caffeine has done, the engineers at the facility can't just put the machine back in \"Normal\" mode. The \"Tired\" department still has engineers waiting to flip the tired switch and many resources have been used up by the nervous system being thrown into forced overtime. ",
"Caffeine doesn't give you energy. It just disables you from feeling tired. You brain is a pretty well designed machine that will actually tell your body to get tired. Getting tired isn't like being a toy robot with a weak battery slowing down because it's running out of energy, actually humans in particular are kind of special in our ability to store energy. So yea, after a while, your brain releases chemicals that tell your body \"hey bud, I think you've had enough how about a nap?\". The reason it does this is because it would actually be dangerous to use all the energy on your body and collapse like that toy robot with the weak battery, you would literally be damaging your organs and muscles and stuff. Now you can kind of over drive your body using drugs to prevent your brain from releasing the tired chemicals. Caffeine is one of these drugs. Generally it's not bad for you, it has some minor side effects, it is minorly addictive, and generally speaking the degree to which you are able to push your body past the degree your brain under normal circumstances would normally keep you at isn't that bad even if people take stupid amounts of caffeine like with multiple energy drinks per day. On the other hand, drugs like meth will keep you WIDE AWAKE for like 4 days straight using similar mechanisms. Now this is really bad because your body does actually need to shut down and sleep pretty frequently and preventing it from doing something like that will cause problems. A lot of the features of meth addicts you see, generally thin and boney, come from the fact that while you are awake you have to keep metabolizing energy for your body. Humans naturally have like a 20-25% healthy fat composition. This is useful for a lot of things, for instance being totally healthy to just not eat for a days and during those days maybe walk like 50 miles, perhaps with some running to hunt something to eat. This is what gives us our endurance so we can do exterting stuff like running... for 25 mile marathons. Most mamals cant do this, like the health body fat percentage of a chimpanzee is like 5%. Because of this, they have to constantly eat, and while they may be able to run faster than a human they definitely can't out run a human. There is actually a form of deer hunting called endurance hunting where instead of shooting a deer to take it out,a hunter will just jog through a forest, sometimes with a bag of rocks to scare a deer into running away. The hunter will just keep chasing the deer and scaring it into continuing to run away. After about 4 hours the deer will literally collapse and die, mean while the hunter is just a human who has been jogging for 4 hours. Physically exerting, most of us keyboard jockeys couldn't do that this weekend, but we could easily train to do it because our bodies are built for that kind of endurance. Most animals aren't. Anyways, back to drugs, the fact that a human can even survive smoking something like meth is kind of a testament to human metabolism and endurance because honestly if you made a chimpanzee or deer smoke meth they would go crazy for a few hours until they literally just ran out of fat and stuff to metabolize into energy and just die. This is why meth users are so thin and boney, the drug forces their body to over metabolize it's resources causing them to burn through healthy fat and muscle leaving them emaciated.",
"Caffeine doesn't actually give you energy. Instead, it makes you forget that you're tired. ",
"Sometimes if I drink caffeine (usually something like a Monster, not just coffee, tea, soda, etc) then sit and do nothing, I get very sleepy rather than feeling an energy burst. But If I'm up and about, like at work, and I drink one, I'll feel the energy though.\n\nAnyone know why this might happen?",
"Caffeine is an \"adenosine receptor antagonist\". Adenosine is a chemical that's both found naturally in your body and used as a medicine, mainly used to slow down a rapid heart rate. In layman terms caffeine takes up slots where adenosine- this chemical that slows down heart rate, lowers blood pressure, causes drowsiness, etc.- would fit. \n\n & #x200B;",
"Caffeine is an acetylcholine inhibitor, acetylcholine builds up throughout the day so that your tired at the end of the day. It’s also a vasodialater so it opens up your blood vessels to delivere oxygen to your brain and muscles faster",
"Coffee beans, unlike small seeds in fruit, don’t like to be eaten. This is why they taste bitter. The plant also make their beans poisonous with caffeine. Caffeine is made by plants to be a poison that stops their beans being eaten. In big animals in the small dose from a cup of coffee it acts like Adrenalin, which is the signal our bodies make to wake up for action. Caffeine does this by pushing the same switches inside our cells that change how we use energy. It can make you use your sugar stores, or your fat, or other fuel like protein. It can also make so awake that you don’t want to eat - like an animal that is being hunted. This is why it makes you want to go to the toilet, grit your teeth, and makes you snappy. \n\nThe Yemeni farmer in a legend who discovered coffee noticed that his goats were excited after eating lots of the beans and tried it himself. ",
"There's another aspect to caffeine, which few tend to touch on.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nIt's highly addictive. The withdrawal symptoms, however, are extremely mild. You feel a little sluggish or drowsy. So, if you're a regular coffee drinker, the \"burst of energy\" you feel is nothing of the sort: It's what normal people feel like all the time.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nThe method of operation is by blocking adenosine receptors. Adenosine is what the brain uses to determine how sleepy you are. However, with caffeine blocking them, adenosine builds up. When it does hit, it hits hard and there's a lot of it around. (This tolerance model is very much an ELI5!)",
"Less eli5: \n\nPart of caffeine’s energy increase is due to allowing your cells to accept more glucose from the blood. Insulin attaches to your cells and opens the gate for glucose to enter; glucose is too big to just go through the cell membrane. Eventually, another molecule, called phosphodiesterase comes by and causes the insulin to fall off, stopping the cell from accepting more glucose. Caffeine inhibits phosphodiesterase from inhibiting insulin attachment. \n\n\nThis also explains one reason caffeine genuinely helps with weight loss — by using more glucose in the blood, this helps keep your blood sugar low and in this dietary culture that is a good thing for most people. \n\nAdditionally, this is why too much caffeine can be exceptionally bad for type 1 diabetics. ",
"Caffeine blocks the dopamine from getting to your brain which means the dopamine wont make you tired",
"Yes, your body uses stored sugar and fat. Caffeine directly boosts your heart rate, which causes your body to pump more sugar to your cells. It also prevents your brain from activating the pain sensors that it uses to encourage you to stop moving (the bodily feeling of tiredness), so indirectly causes your muscles to use more energy. ",
"Caffeine turns on certain receptors on your cell membranes that cause your body to stop making glycogen (how your body stores sugar) and to instead start breaking it down into sugar.\nWhat causes the energy to last for a while is that caffeine stays attached to the membrane receptor longer than the original chemical that turned the receptors on.\nWhat causes a caffeine crash is two things. 1. A build up of adenosine in the brain (which is inhibited by caffeine) suddenly isn't inhibited anymore and you get really sleepy. 2. Because you used up so much of your stores sugar supply, your body doesn't have a lot left making you feel sluggish. ",
"Caffeine downregulates adenosine receptors. Adenosine is a hormone that has been seen to affect heart rate, as seen as a possible mediciation for supracentricular tachycardia (SVT), it is also a potent vasodilator. By downregulating adenosine receptors increases vasoconstriction and heart rate, leading to increased contractility and stroke volume (SV). Adenosine plays no role in metabolic fuel partitioning, besides the presence in ATP and ADP for cellular processes. ",
"Can someone also explain to me like im 5 why caffiene has never had any affect on me?",
"Caffeine doesn't give you 'energy' in the same sense that food does. You're using the word \"energy\" in two distinct ways here: There's energy by the physics definition, \"the capacity for doing work\", but also the FEELING of energy. Let's resolve this issue by calling the former \"fuel\" and the latter... \"vivacity\"? Sorry, best word I could come up with for it, it doesn't quite fit but I can't think of what does.\n\nSo, food gives you fuel. By various mechanisms, the body responds to the increase in fuel by giving you some vivacity. Caffeine sidesteps this process, by giving you vivacity directly (or, perhaps more accurately, by blocking your body's signal to take AWAY vivacity, but the net effect is similar). This does not in any way give you fuel, but can subjectively feel similar."
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73vy9w | how does our odor sensation differ in state of weightlessness? | As I understand it, the odor sensation is caused by our receptors in the nose which detects gas molecules (I guess?). So how does it actually work in zero-g? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/73vy9w/eli5_how_does_our_odor_sensation_differ_in_state/ | {
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"Gasses still move around in zero-g, and your nose still detects them when they impact said nose. \n\nZero-g does tend to result in congestion due to fluid build up (since your body's fluids aren't being affected by gravity) which I suppose might impact the ability to smell the same way a cold does. "
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4pp9th | how does amazon make money if 2 day shipping is so expensive | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4pp9th/eli5_how_does_amazon_make_money_if_2_day_shipping/ | {
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"Amazon has two big things going for it (both figuratively and literally): Scale and Infrastructure. The first trick Amazon uses is that it knows about how much stuff it's going to have to ship, and pre-buys 2-day capacity from people like the USPS, Fedex, and UPS.\n\nThe other trick is uses is that it spends a lot of money building warehouses everywhere. It can keep most of its popular items within a short drive of major metropolitan areas, which lowers the cost to ship that stuff considerably (they just plop it on a local truck and deliver it to your house, essentially).\n\nFor everything else that might only be at a single location, they still pay for that expensive (real) 2-day shipping, but that cost is defrayed by all the other cost-saving measures they've put into effect.",
"Because when you're the largest shipper *in the world*, you get shipping arrangements that Joe Blow website just can't.\n\nBecause of the volume that they ship, Amazon can get space guarantees on trucks, railcars and airplanes. That means that when there's too much stuff to fit on the truck, other shit gets taken off so Amazon's stuff can go on, and the other stuff has to wait for the *next* truck.\n\nIn this way, Amazon is able to ensure that they get the space they need, and they can manage a lot of the logistics themselves. Also, as *enormous* customers of all the shipping companies, they get a lot of tie-in with their systems.\n\nWhat all of this means is that Amazon can intelligently figure out what to ship and when based on the shipping speed and customer status of who placed the order, and other shipments in the pipeline to go out.\n\nThe reason that Amazon has had free shipping for orders over a certain amount is because it gives them the freedom to ship it pretty much whenever they want -- which is important when you buy your shipping by the traincar, and not by the box. "
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lohhv | what do we actually know about anything regarding galaxies outside of the milky way? | And how the fuck do we know it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/lohhv/eli5_what_do_we_actually_know_about_anything/ | {
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"We know whatever we can see. Some of what we know we know because we can *literally see it*, like with our own eyeballs through magnification. The rest comes from using machines to \"see\" light that our eyes aren't sensitive to, like radio.\n\nSo basically, we look, then we measure what we see, then we figure out what those measurements imply.\n\nFun fact: We know far *less* about our own galaxy and its neighbors than we know about galaxies tens of millions of light-years away. Why? Because we can *see* those far-away galaxies, while the up-close ones are obscured by nearby clutter. For instance, it was just discovered a few years ago that our own galaxy is even right now in the process of colliding with another galaxy which nobody ever knew was there. It was too close, too big-in-the-sky and too obscured by stuff in between for us to notice it until just a few years ago.",
"Nobody has actually answered your question yet, so I'll give it a shot. Although \"know\" is an iffy word to use in astronomy, we have a pretty good idea about several different aspects of nearby galaxies that are backed up by data we collect from various sources (mostly telescopes, as several other commenters have mentioned). \n\n* We know about the size of galaxies by looking at them through very expensive and powerful telescopes, measuring the size of the image we see, and then determining how large that image *actually is* using the approximate distance away from us of the galaxy. \n\n* We know about the mass of galaxies by measuring how fast they are spinning, how many stars they contain, what types of stars they contain, and the amount of other stuff that is contained in the galaxies, like gas and dust. We can learn about all of this by looking at the light given off by the galaxy through telescopes, and by using computer models.\n\n* We know about how far away galaxies are by analyzing different things about the light they give off through our telescopes (by the way, this is called *spectroscopy*), and sometimes by looking at different objects within those galaxies, like supernovas, which automatically tell us how far away they are because we can measure how much light they give off and compare it to how much light it looks like they give off. \n\n* We know that there are different types of galaxies - like spiral galaxies, elliptical galaxies, and galaxies that don't really have that much of a shape at all, which are called irregular galaxies. We know what type a galaxy is sometimes by simply looking at it through a telescope, and other times by analyzing the light given off by its stars and where different types of stars are located within the galaxy. For example, spiral galaxies have beautiful, enormous spiral arms where many young stars are forming, and we can recognize the light given off by young stars. If we see a galaxy with many young stars in it, there is a good chance that it is a spiral galaxy. The Milky Way is a spiral galaxy with a large bulge at its center. \n\n* We even know some things about how galaxies form, and we figured this out using computer simulations and using spectroscopy. We can put a bunch of simple things that make up galaxies - like stars, dust, and gas - into a computer, then tell the computer how those things should behave according to physics that we've figured out, and then see what happens. ",
"We know whatever we can see. Some of what we know we know because we can *literally see it*, like with our own eyeballs through magnification. The rest comes from using machines to \"see\" light that our eyes aren't sensitive to, like radio.\n\nSo basically, we look, then we measure what we see, then we figure out what those measurements imply.\n\nFun fact: We know far *less* about our own galaxy and its neighbors than we know about galaxies tens of millions of light-years away. Why? Because we can *see* those far-away galaxies, while the up-close ones are obscured by nearby clutter. For instance, it was just discovered a few years ago that our own galaxy is even right now in the process of colliding with another galaxy which nobody ever knew was there. It was too close, too big-in-the-sky and too obscured by stuff in between for us to notice it until just a few years ago.",
"Nobody has actually answered your question yet, so I'll give it a shot. Although \"know\" is an iffy word to use in astronomy, we have a pretty good idea about several different aspects of nearby galaxies that are backed up by data we collect from various sources (mostly telescopes, as several other commenters have mentioned). \n\n* We know about the size of galaxies by looking at them through very expensive and powerful telescopes, measuring the size of the image we see, and then determining how large that image *actually is* using the approximate distance away from us of the galaxy. \n\n* We know about the mass of galaxies by measuring how fast they are spinning, how many stars they contain, what types of stars they contain, and the amount of other stuff that is contained in the galaxies, like gas and dust. We can learn about all of this by looking at the light given off by the galaxy through telescopes, and by using computer models.\n\n* We know about how far away galaxies are by analyzing different things about the light they give off through our telescopes (by the way, this is called *spectroscopy*), and sometimes by looking at different objects within those galaxies, like supernovas, which automatically tell us how far away they are because we can measure how much light they give off and compare it to how much light it looks like they give off. \n\n* We know that there are different types of galaxies - like spiral galaxies, elliptical galaxies, and galaxies that don't really have that much of a shape at all, which are called irregular galaxies. We know what type a galaxy is sometimes by simply looking at it through a telescope, and other times by analyzing the light given off by its stars and where different types of stars are located within the galaxy. For example, spiral galaxies have beautiful, enormous spiral arms where many young stars are forming, and we can recognize the light given off by young stars. If we see a galaxy with many young stars in it, there is a good chance that it is a spiral galaxy. The Milky Way is a spiral galaxy with a large bulge at its center. \n\n* We even know some things about how galaxies form, and we figured this out using computer simulations and using spectroscopy. We can put a bunch of simple things that make up galaxies - like stars, dust, and gas - into a computer, then tell the computer how those things should behave according to physics that we've figured out, and then see what happens. "
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a9vpqy | why can’t we flush paper towels down the toilet? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a9vpqy/eli5_why_cant_we_flush_paper_towels_down_the/ | {
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"Because paper towels don't dissolve like toilet paper does. Toilet paper dissolves fairly quickly, but paper towels can cause blockages in the pipes very easily.",
"Get a paper towel and get it wet. You can wring it out, squeeze it, unfold it, and it retains its shape. Try the same with toilet paper, and you'll find that it just falls apart - you can't wring it out and get back to the original shape. \n\nSimilarly, toilet paper breaks down in a toilet because it's supposed to break down when wet - paper towels are supposed to be strong enough to get wet without breaking down. If you try flushing paper towels, they'll simply clump together and form a blockage.",
"Paper towels and toilet paper break down differently. Toilet paper loses it's structure in water very quickly, but that isn't the case for paper towels.",
"To expand on what's been explained so far, once flushed, paper towels will plug up septic systems or screens at water treatment plants. The screens can handle some foreign materials but it couldn't keep up if a lot of paper towels were flushed. It also runs the chance of plugging pipes before reaching the septic tank or treatment plant. \n\nOn the flip side, septic system bacteria can digest toilet paper particles. Same with water treatment plant processes. \n\nEdit: Don't flush \"flushable\" wipes either. It's an advertisement lie. They don't break down quickly like toilet paper does and can plugged up the same things as paper towels. ",
"Paper towels are knitted in a way to allow it to be used time after time. The cheaper ones are capable of breaking apart like toilet paper after some use. If it's paper towels like those could probably flush em if you break up the fibers first via abrasion. Prevents a seize up in the plumbing.\n\nTougher paper towels don't bother flushing em. Trash em or burn em instead. "
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6z97g5 | what is meant by doing your taxes in the us? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6z97g5/eli5_what_is_meant_by_doing_your_taxes_in_the_us/ | {
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"Even the the UK you still need to file taxes... Your company takes care of taxes on your pay, but there are a ton of other considerations.\n\nIf you haven't been filing/paying your taxes you really should look into it. It is not entirely taken care of by your employer.",
"Basically, once a year you add up all of the taxes that you paid, and all of the taxes you owe, and either get a refund (because you paid more than you owe), or owe the government (because you paid less than you owe).",
"In the US your income taxes are deducted automatically from your pay based on your information provided in [Form W4](_URL_0_) which you submit to your employer when you are hired.\n\nEvery year you must also complete [Form1040](_URL_1_) to file your federal income taxes. On this form you note your income and any tax exemptions that you may have accumulated over the course of the year.\n\nFor most Americans this means they get a tax refund check based on their 1040 every year. Although due to some things (Switching from subsidized to employer-covered healthcare is a big one) they may end up owing extra taxes.\n\nThere are several places where you can do a simple tax filing online for free that make it all very simple and fill out the form for you.",
"In the US, the tax that gets taken out of your check is an estimate of how much should be taken out. At the end of the year, you \"do\" your taxes by calculating how much taxes you are required to pay for the year. When you report the amount you should have paid, the difference between \"paid\" and \"should have paid\" is what is either owed or returned. ",
"If her majesty's revenue and customs (HMRC) feels that you are earning too much they might put you on a self assessment for a few years even if your only source of income is PAYE. Happened to me for about 3 years until I got a letter telling me everything appeared to be ok and I'd not have to do it anymore. ",
"To add on to what /u/Rhomboidus stated, the US has three odd factors to consider: \n1. All worldwide income must be reported (not necessarily taxed) for citizens and resident aliens; \n2. Taxation occurs on a graded bracket for all income; \n3. Taxation is dependent on marriage status. \n \n & nbsp; \nThere are two forms of income: taxable and non-taxable. For many people, they may have taxable income from an employer (W-2), contracted work (1099-Misc), interest earned on savings/CDs/Mutual Funds or dividends earned on stocks (Sch B), sale of stocks and bonds (Sch D), self-employment/small business (Sch C), and so on. Some income, such as qualified dividends and foreign-earned income, are non-taxable but are considered as part of an alternative minimum tax. \n & nbsp; \nDeductions from taxation, such as educator costs, contributions to a retirement plan, student loan interest deduction, and college costs are also included in the form 1040. This allows for members to pay a lower tax. Finally, members can choose to take a separate \"standard deduction\" (~$12k-$14k for families) or try to itemize their deduction if they have qualified items above the standard deduction's threshold for that year. Qualified items may include medical bills, gifts to charity, other taxes paid, etc. This can help to lower the taxable amount. \n & nbsp; \nOnce these matters are resolved to produce a taxable income amount, it is compared with the [IRS tax table](_URL_0_) to determine how much taxes are owed. The amount of taxes already paid is declared, then the difference is resolved between the member and the IRS. Most people try to have a slightly larger amount withheld from their taxes than they will owe so that they get some money back (Refund) instead of owing at the end. \n & nbsp; \nIf the household income is below a [certain dollar value](_URL_1_), the member does not have to file.",
"Tax preparation services such as Intuit and H & R Block lobby Congress to ensure people still have to file returns, and pay these companies for the privilege. Otherwise there is no reason the majority of the population to do so. The IRS already has the information."
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o2swn | why do i pop boners when i am sleep deprived? | Always happens when ive gone longer than 24 hours without sleep. I get a feeling like I could fall right asleep, followed by a raging boner...IDK if this is just me, but it happens all the time.
Edit: I am out at a bar and just checked this to see if there was a plausible answer....and my stomach hurts from laugjing. You guys are great, and now I have an explanation for my "condition". Hahahahah awesome
Edit: going on 44 hours no sleep...i think my body only has energy to do nothing but want to watch tv and sleep for a day. I thought this was only going to get maybe ten responses at best. Again, I love you guys...entertainment for the night | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/o2swn/eli5_why_do_i_pop_boners_when_i_am_sleep_deprived/ | {
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"I decided this is some perpetual morning wood state. Very annoying.",
"Hey, five year olds don't pop boners!",
"I too must know this. Please, Reddit!",
"I would like to know too. Might help explain why my SO gets super horny when he's really, really fatigued.",
"the parasympathetic nervous system is involved in \"rest and digest\" functions and also erections.",
"Must be related to morning wood",
"After 24 hours of sleep deprivation, your brain goes into a kind of survival mode, assuming and preparing for an imminent death. As a result, your body makes passing on your sperm before you die top priority, hence the boner.",
"So you don't pee yourself\n\nreally",
"Read the title as \"Why do I poop boners when I am sleep deprived?\"",
"Okay, I actually know this AND can explain like you're five!\n\nBoners are popped when the muscles around the blood vessels in your penis relax, letting the blood flow free. When you're sleep deprived, your body goes into \"relax mode\" in an attempt to get you to sleep. This is also why you wake up with morning wood - your muscles all relax in your sleep!",
"Hey there.\n\nYou're kinda lookin' like you need a nap. ;)",
"TIL other people get sleepy boners. Here I thought I was just fucking crazy.",
"your brain knows nothing knocks you out like a good jizz.",
"it's obviously your body giving you incentive to stay awake. If he's awake, you should be too. ",
"There was a huge thread in [/r/askscience](/r/askscience) about this a while back."
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2ye9dn | what's stopping iran or any other country from becoming a nuclear power? | What does a country have to do to become nuclear? Are they limited by money, or by supplies, or what? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ye9dn/eli5whats_stopping_iran_or_any_other_country_from/ | {
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"Mostly money, but also the implications and pressure from the rest of the world about what will happen if you develop nuclear weapons. Most countries aren't stable or responsible enough to have nuclear weapons. Even superpowers like the US and Russia aren't always responsible enough to have them. Most countries want them just to have a trump card in bargaining with their underdeveloped neighbors... \"Concede to our demands or we'll nuke you.\"",
"A lot of countries have the capability, but don't because they don't want to, they're bound by treaties, or they would be under serious threat if they did.\n\nSo for example, Japan-China relations are getting tense, Japan fears the US may not be there to insure their security forever, so if they wanted to build nukes, they could easily do it, and they just might if China continues to flex its muscles and the US doesn't act aggressive enough in the Pacific. The same goes for many European states. Germany and probably several other European countries like Spain, Poland, and Italy, could build nukes if they wanted to, but they're part of NATO, which means they're protected by the US, UK, and France's nukes, and actually house some of NATOs nuclear-armed missiles on their territory.\n\nBuilding nukes is actually not that hard for a high-income country, it's just most countries don't want or need them. They're expensive, and if you're peaceful, you don't need them. Plus there's an international treaty that most of the world has signed onto that makes it illegal to pursue nuclear weapons, but allows for international cooperation to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.\n\nIran is probably developing nuclear weapons, and if they are, it's to protect themselves from Israel, who is constantly saber-rattling about attacking Iran. Israel has nuclear weapons and Iran wants nukes of its own to create a mutually-assured destruction situation so that Israel will never attack them. \n "
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1q6cbq | what is a "warrant canary"? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1q6cbq/eli5what_is_a_warrant_canary/ | {
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"Coal miners used to take canaries with them into mines. Because a canary was more sensitive to air quality than humans, if it died, the miners knew it was time to get out.\n\nA warrant canary is a piece of text placed in terms of services or other such documents by a company, stating that the company has not been subpoenaed by the government. If in the future the company is subpoenaed and placed under a gag order, the company is required by the gag order to remove the text. This removal indicates that the company has been placed under a gag order and can not discuss it, thus letting everyone know what has happened.\n\nSo, when the canary warrant dies (the text is removed), we know that something dangerous (a gag order) has occurred."
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44nttt | why are western nations so concerned about north korea rocket launches? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/44nttt/eli5_why_are_western_nations_so_concerned_about/ | {
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"If you can put something in orbit, you can also launch it suborbitally to just about anywhere on the planet, now replace the payload with something nuclear (which north korea also claim to have) and it's pretty concerning",
"Your neighbor is criminally insane, fortunately for you he doesn't know how to escape from his padded cell.\n\nOne day, he figures out how to open the window, and can now throw his feces at you.\n\nYou aren't worried about him breaking into your house, but he can throw an alarming amount of nasty things at you now."
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ftvkgd | how does government calculates the census of a city? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ftvkgd/eli5how_does_government_calculates_the_census_of/ | {
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"They send out forms to every house and ask occupants to add their details. Sometimes people come around to ask the questions in person.\n\nQuestions include occupancy count, religious beliefs, ages, a bunch of stuff. They then collate this info for statistical analysis.",
"They go to every house and ask \"How many people are here?\" It's a lot of work, that's why they only do it every 10 years."
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1qmm8k | the steps of becoming a doctor (highschool - practicing medicine) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1qmm8k/eli5_the_steps_of_becoming_a_doctor_highschool/ | {
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"Some schools and programs have their own systems. I don't know anything about those, so I'll just limit the discussion to a generic MD education in the US. Please note that you can take time off between different programs. For instance, students sometimes take a year off after high school or college. \n\nFirst comes the schooling everyone does. At around age 5, you go to kindergarten, then you work your way up to 12th grade and finish high school. I assume you're familiar with that much.\n\nAfter high school comes college/university. That's 4 years and gets you a bachelor's degree. Again, this is relatively normal for people of any profession. There are no requirements on what major you select, though taking some biology and chemistry classes are generally expected before applying to med school. During college or afterward, you can take a standardized test called the MCAT. It's like the SAT or ACT from high school, but harder and more science-focused. \n\nMed school is 4 years. The first 2 years are classroom-based, much like college. There are lab classes included. The second 2 years include rotations, where students work alongside physicians. The students observe and perform basic work. It's also worth noting that throughout med school, there are USMLE exams. These multiple choice tests are needed to receive official recognition as a doctor. The first test is taken before beginning rotations. The second test is taken in the 4th year of med school. The third test is taken during the first year of residency. \n\nAfter finishing med school, you can go on to an internship, residency, and/or fellowship. Not everyone does all these steps. Basically, it's more training in increasingly specific areas that occurs in a practical medical setting like a hospital. Time needed to complete these steps varies based on specialty (eg. surgeon, anesthesiologist, radiologist, etc.). During these stages, things kinda suck for the person being trained. Residencies are infamous for their 80-hour weeks and low salaries. After all this, some specialties have their own certification requirements (ie. you need to take a specific exam after gaining experience before being declared a specialist). \n\nAnd after all that you're finally done...\n\nJust kidding. You still have to do continuing medical education, events and programs designed to keep doctors updated. Continuing education is needed for maintaining medical licensing. \n\nTL;DR: It takes a really long time. "
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9y6vbm | how do they put flavors like “pizza” in chips? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9y6vbm/eli5_how_do_they_put_flavors_like_pizza_in_chips/ | {
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"Pretty simple. They just mix together powders (or whatever other ingredients they use to give taste to the chips) that taste like things you'd find on a pizza, like tomato sauce, cheese, maybe some meat flavour and cheeky oregano, etc."
]
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cba0n7 | why are flushable wipes allowed to be called such when they are not safe for toilets? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cba0n7/eli5_why_are_flushable_wipes_allowed_to_be_called/ | {
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"Simple Answer: The law has not caught up with the issue yet. The term \"flushable\" has not yet been defined by the law. Thus the term flushable is open to interpretation. \n\n\nComplex Answer, read this article:\n_URL_0_",
"They can claim it because the government hasn't yet banned it. They can be flushed in some systems, and some types degrade faster than others. The word \"flushable\" should be removed unless they are safe for all sewage systems. Other things which are not always flushable include facial tissues, paper towels, dental floss, tampons, pads, hair... basically anything except toilet paper and poo. I've flushed many of those things without causing a blockage.",
"flushable doesn't mean good to flush, good for sewage infrastructure system to flush, environmentally safe to flush, or any other attribute of flush. it just means it's abled to be flushed down the toilet. as opposed to NOT flushable, like that ultimate floater you just dropped in the bowl.",
"Can you please mark this Not Safe For Toilets?",
"There is a fundamental problem with the question. \"Allowed.\" \n\nYou are \"allowed\" to do whatever you want unless that act is specifically made illegal. It takes a lot (usually a significant risk of direct harm to another person) for an act to be made illegal.",
"because the investors in the companies that make them also invest heavily in roto-rooter.\n\nI'm just kidding around, but ? maybe?",
"Lots of things can be flushed. Golf balls, toilet paper, fish. Technically it's all flushable."
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or7to | why my feet get really hot sometimes and the rest of my body doesn't | Y'know what I'm talking about, sometimes when you lay in bed trying to sleep (or whenever, its usually when I'm trying to sleep) and your feet get really hot. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/or7to/eli5_why_my_feet_get_really_hot_sometimes_and_the/ | {
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"I don't have an answer for you but this happens to me too. I also have restless legs syndrome - do you? Kind of thinking they might be related.\n\nUgh, it sucks when this happens. Totally can't sleep. I find that doing other things to lower my body temperature (as a whole) tends to help. Any tips from you?"
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3h5s5v | why does an app crash? | also why does it get fixed by closing the app and re-opening it | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3h5s5v/eli5_why_does_an_app_crash/ | {
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"All sorts of reasons: memory overflow, not enough memory, miscalculations, bad code, faulty code, tons of errors..\n\nRestarting the app (computer, phone, machine, etc.) will usually just wipe out the memory/process that crashed and start it all up again.",
"Imagine that a piece of software is a choose your own adventure book. You're flipping from page to page as you read, and suddenly, you come to a typo. \"Turn to page 999\". \"But this book doesn't have 999 pages!\" you think to yourself. You can't go further, so you might as well go back to the beginning of the book and try taking a different path through the story. That's analogous to a segmentation fault, where code leads to an impossible instruction location and the program can't continue executing. Restarting the software means everything will continue to work unless that same fault instruction is attempted.\n\nOr imagine that the piece of software is a librarian, reshelving books after they are returned. She can spend all day picking up one or two books at a time and walking around with them. However, if she keeps picking them up but forgetting to reshelve them, eventually her arms will be full, she'll be weighed down, and she won't be able to accomplish anything unless she puts some down. That's analogous to a memory leak, where a program keeps assigning more and more space to store information, but due to a programming error, never stops using the space and the space will eventually run out. Restarting frees up all of that assigned space so the program will work again until it is all used up."
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8mc28j | what makes killing between countries 'legal' during war? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8mc28j/eli5_what_makes_killing_between_countries_legal/ | {
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"*Murder* is defined as unlawful killing (which can be mitigated by self-defense, etc). If a state-of-war exists between two countries, then the killing becomes lawful because both parties have agreed to the hostilities.",
"Killing is only illegal if there is a law banning it, and it only matter if a government is capable of enforcing punishment for said law violations. The status of war justifies killing for your own soldiers, and the laws of your enemy do not matter as they cannot enforce them upon your men. ",
"By virtue of not being illegal.\n\nA soldier following legal orders to kill someone is committing what is called justified homicide. This also covered legal executions, legal euthanasia, and self-defense. The international community agrees to this so that after a war you don't have millions of people tried for murder.",
"The law is defined by the government that runs a particular country. Laws are written so that killing enemies during war\\(or in self\\-defense\\) is legal, while pre\\-meditated murder or accidental manslaughter is not.\n\nBasically, a government can make anything legal or illegal if they choose, as long as there isn't a significant revolt from the population. Which leads to ridiculous laws like cannabis\\(and other \"soft\" drugs\\) being Schedule I, even though it's far less harmful than plenty of legal things, and has several medicinal uses\\(WHY does the government think it has the right to tell us what we are allowed to put into our OWN bodies?!\\)\n\nAs to whether or not killing during war is *moral*, that's up to you to decide. Human\\-made laws do not define morality in any way. We must develop our own moral values."
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1l8vwj | why do we distinguish ugly and beautiful? | What made it necessary for our brains to distinguish ugly and beautiful? What scientific importance does this distinction have? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1l8vwj/eli5_why_do_we_distinguish_ugly_and_beautiful/ | {
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"What is considered naturally \"beautiful\" is usually linked with fertility and the ability to rear a family. For women, this means wide hips and large breasts indicate fertility. For men, muscularity and hairiness indicate testosterone and virility. Of course, cultural and social beliefs permeate into this natural attraction and change some of the preferences, but the preferences generally focus on those major things that provide an indication of fertility and virility."
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1igw36 | why is zimmerman called white, but obama called black? | Like most people, I'm super bummed about this whole Zimmerman thing...
But I'm confused.
Why is the news, racists, and supporters calling Zimmerman "white." Isn't he mixed race with a white mom and Hispanic dad?
When Obama won the media, his supporters, and his haters were all calling him black so it'd fit their agenda.
So which is it?
Do we have a black or white president? Did a white or Hispanic man murder a kid?
Let's at least define our terms here instead of manipulating stuff to fit our argument. Doing this back and forth stuff is polarizing the country. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1igw36/why_is_zimmerman_called_white_but_obama_called/ | {
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"My guess is appearance, and a general desire to use the shortest possible description of someone.",
"Have you seen their skin colors?\n\nWhen people have dark skin, other people will refer to them as \"black\", especially if those dark skinned people have any African heritage.\n\nWhen people have light skin, other people will refer to them as \"white\".\n",
"My father is white, my mother is Vietnamese.\n\nI get called Asian. My little brother gets called white.\n\nThe reason is that I look Asian, and my little brother looks white.\n\nThis is not hard to figure out.",
"It is all relative.\n\nCompared to every president before him, Obama is very black. If he made a diplomatic visit to Uganda, not so much.",
"People treat Obama as if he was black (particularly with the \"secretly born in Kenya\" stuff), so he's black.\n\nPeople treat Zimmerman as if he was white (namely, taking his side against Martin), so he's white, at least for the purposes of the trial.\n\nRace isn't really an objective fact about a person, it's a social construct. Your race is whatever society thinks it is, and society has come to the decision that Obama is black and Zimmerman is white.",
"Nobody murdered a kid in the Zimmerman case. A white/Hispanic man shot a kid, later claiming it was self defense, and when prosecuted, the jury found reasonable doubt that it was an act of murder.",
"Does that make Obama a white African/American?",
"It's more inflammatory to present the Martin case as a white man killing a black teen.\n\n\n If the story were presented as a Hispanic man killing a black teen, this doesn't fit the purpose of the media to distract people from what the banks & government are doing. ",
"Black and white are races; Hispanic is ethnicity. There are black Hispanics and white Hispanics. ",
"The media gets a better story out of it that way.",
"Lets start with *Hispanic* is not a race. Calling it a race is like calling *Jewish* a race. Hispanic speaks of ethnicity. You can have Hispanic people who are white, black, Asian (light skinned), or American Indian. If you called the police on Zimmerman on called him Hispanic, they would drive right past him. At first glance at a distance he looks white, thus you label him white, calling him a white Hispanic is only to pay respect to his Hispanic origins. \n\nDescribe someone as \"mixed\" to the police/dispatcher and they will look at you side ways because \"mixed\" can mean any number of things. Rashida Jones is mixed but if you had to organize an effective search party for her you would call her white. Obama is mixed but same thing goes, you would call him black because he fits the physical appearance of other black people. Interject Zimmerman again, if you were looking for Zimmerman then you would call him white because he fits the physical appearance of other white people. No one is manipulating anything, race is skin deep.\n\nRace as defined by the US census:\n\n > The racial categories included in the census questionnaire generally reflect a social definition of race recognized in this country and not an attempt to define race biologically, anthropologically, or genetically. In addition, it is recognized that the categories of the race item include racial and national origin or sociocultural groups. People may choose to report more than one race to indicate their racial mixture, such as “American Indian” and “White.” People who identify their origin as Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish may be of any race.\n\n > OMB requires five minimum categories: White, Black or African American, American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, and Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander.\n\n",
"The terms \"white\" and \"black\" and non-ethnic applications of \"Latino\" are based on race--something that affects very little besides our appearance and represents a tiny fraction of variance in our genetic code. It has almost no biological significance beyond our visual recognition of the features and the societal implications that have sprung up around the combination of race and ethnicity.\n\nIn short, if we were colorblind, then these terms would have no reason to exist today. But we aren't. Calling someone \"white\" or \"black\" is typically strictly about appearance--that is, how closely one resembles the imagined white/black archetype. You may have gotten the better half of your black African mother's genes; but if you didn't get the ones for wide snout-like nose, full lips, severe brow and umber skin then you're white as far as any stranger and most acquaintances are concerned. Sorry, it's just how it is.",
"\"Race is a social construct\"\n\nKevin Garnett, Halle Berry and Barack Obama could all check the \"black\" column when it comes to race, which shows that it's really more arbitrary than anything else - it just also happens to be something that matters in a societal context anyway.\n\n_URL_0_\n\n_URL_1_",
"OP, you might want to look closer into the Zimmerman case. A lot of information has come out that differs from the initial media reports. It's pretty clear that Martin attacked him and he defended his life.\n\nOur justice system is supposed to work on a concept of \"innocent until proven guilty\". The media and the public condemned him to guilt before all the facts of the case were known. At the very least, the prosecution was not able to prove him guilty. There's nothing to be \"super bummed\" about. ",
"Hispanic people are often white so it's not mutually exclusive. People with partial black heritage are often considered black. Sometimes it's because of their appearance. Also, the \"[One-Drop Rule](_URL_0_)\" used to be law in multiple states in the US but now it hangs around as a social trend, defining a person as black if they have \"one drop\" of sub-Saharan African blood in them. This trend sees the African portion of a person's heritage as tainting him or her rather than interpreting his or her mixed racial heritage objectively.",
"Like most people my ass. He had his day in court, the state couldn't make their case, so he walked. That's how it is supposed to work. I don't care if he popped some kid or hacked apart an old lady - the burden is on the state, and good defense lawyers are there to make sure the state has to fight before they lock someone up. \n\n\n\nHappens every day. ",
"1.) In comparison to Trayvon Martin, Zimmerman's skin color is lighter.\n\n2.) CNN f$@ck-faces obsessed over the 911 call, specifically searching for racial epithets muttered under Zimmerman's breath.",
"Because Americans see everything in black and white.",
"if you latino and register for a gun you have to choose white for race for the DOJ, I learned it when i myself purchased a gun in CA",
"Why doesn't anyone call out Zimmy for having Jewish roots? the last name alone is a dead giveaway.",
"Obama is black because he's like a chocolate milkshake. You can add as much vanilla into a shake as you want, but if you add even a little chocolate, it makes it a chocolate shake.",
" Because the name Zimmerman sounds white?",
"Race, as it has been used historically, is not about the literal make-up of your heritage. Many Hispanic people consider themselves white. In Hispanic countries, this is especially true (and many have some serious racism too). Many white people in America are at least partially hispanic (especially in the west and south west) and will have no problem calling themselves white. Hispanic is an ethnicity and there are black hispanics, white hispanics, brown hispanics, etc. \n\nJust to take one popular example, Louis CK is a white man who considers himself white and has made some good jokes about his whiteness, though his father was born in Mexico and grandmother full on Mexican. But even people born in Mexico to two hispanic parents would consider themselves white if they are, frankly, white. \n\nIn the case of half-black people, its a matter of self identification but also how society treats you and historical norms. Obama would be treated as a black man at all points in history, regardless of people knowing his parents or not. He would be subject to the same racism and struggle all black people had to endure.\n\n",
"Hispanic comes from Spanish and Spanish people are White Europeans. When they came to North America ethnicities became mixed and people who had Spanish blood identified as Hispanic even if their skin was dark or light. Some people don't like to be identified as Hispanic and prefer Latino. It's complicated but the way I see it is that people say you are White or Black based on your skin color. A long time ago in the US you could actually purchase \"whiteness\" creating more opportunity for college education, jobs, and status. Some people say race doesn't exist and there are only ethnicities. That there is one race: the human race. If you fill out any government document these days they added Hispanic as a race along with White and Black for people who don't want to identify as either. In our US culture there is so much mixing that in the future and even now, people of mixed ethnicities tend to identify with the one they relate with the most.",
"Because that is what they look like. America is the great melting pot, and not everybody is just one thing. But Americans, despite our celebrated diversity, also like to keep things simple. \n\nSo we call people who look black \"African Americans,\" even if they come from Haiti. We call people with dark skin who speak Spanish \"Latino,\" even if they come from Barcelona. We call indigenous people \"Native American,\" even though they were here before our ancestors came and called this land America. \n\nBasically, we're stupid, and we have a bases for categorization that do not meet up with the qualifiers for any particular group.\n\nObama is dark skinned. So he's black.\n\nZimmerman is light skinned. So he's white. \n\nAnything more complicated than that, and we just change the channel to Honey Boo Boo. ",
"Obama is called black because he looks black. Zimmerman is called white because he looks white. Oh, and it fits people's agendas. Let's not forget that.",
"Being a beaner myself I get confused with that too people calling him white. \n\nZimmerman is a BEANER",
"As a Latino, I am appalled that the liberal media thinks it's acceptable to coin the term \"white Hispanic\" just because it fits their agenda of making the Zimmerman case into a faux-racial war. Using the term \"white hispanic\" is reminiscent of the Spanish caste system. The world they want to use for Zimmerman is Mestizo, but that sounds too racist, so they made up a new code word \"white hispanic\". Liberals want to divide us... divide and conquer.",
"My father is Filipino, my mother is white.\n\nI get called Mexican."
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4fb19a | if we can make very long pipelines for oil transfer in europe, why can't we do the same with clean water for the third world countries in africa? | It seems to me that it would be a possible way to solve the water crisis, but I never heard of anyone come up with this idea. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4fb19a/eli5_if_we_can_make_very_long_pipelines_for_oil/ | {
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"Technically we could, however it is not economically viable. \n\nRich people need oil and they will pay a high price for it. Empoverished people do not have the means to pay for expensive cross-ocean water so there is no icentive to invest the large sums of money needed to create this infrastructure.",
"It's a question of volume, not length. \nThe pipeline isn't all that wide. \nThe Pan-European Oil Pipeline is projected to only transfers 1.8 million barrels per year. \nFor comparison the average person in Melbourne consumes 1 barrel of water PER DAY. \nMeaning that 1.8 million barrels per year capacity can only sustain a community of less than 5,000 people. ",
"For Africa I think it would be a better system if it is decentralized. There are many instances where a centralized point of delivery needed aid becomes captured by a warlord or oppressive force. They then use the need of that aid against the people who are trying to get it. So even if you COULD build a water pipe to satisfy the needs, it would be better to build thousands of wells and purification plants."
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48y3ot | what happens in the brain/body when one who is a habitual procrastinator accomplishes a procrastinated task? | lets say one is a habitual procrastinator. puts off a project for 2-3 days knowing perfectly well he could have fit it in his schedule somewhere. day 3 he decides to do it, does it well, feels immense relief, accomplishment. whats happening in the brain/body (chemically)? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/48y3ot/eli5_what_happens_in_the_brainbody_when_one_who/ | {
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"Not sure, but don't forget procrastination is not universally a bad thing.\n\nWhile it may be true that the early bird catches the worm, the converse is that the early worm gets eaten.\n\nThere's a spread of types in any population, and this is a good thing. If, for example, everyone in a population of cavemen decided to follow fashion and eat a particular new food someone has discovered, but it turns out a while later that it makes you sterile, or sends you mad or whatever, it would be the end of them. By having a spread of behaviour types, overall risk is reduced.\n\nSometimes putting off a project allows a better solution to present itself, or, even better, someone else does it and saves you the trouble.",
"Generally people procrastinate because the thought of doing the project (or whatever) is stressful. One of the way your body deals with stress is trying to avoid it (procrastinating).\n\nOnce you finish the task,the stress goes away,because it's done.\n\nIt's like a reduced fight or flight response.",
"ELI5 seems to be full of these types of questions, where people want to know the physiological processes behind various psychological states. If there is an answer to this question (which I doubt) it will just be something arbitrary about chemical/biological functions. Are you really any closer to the truth having ascertained this? All science can do in this regard is describe rather than explain as such. It doesn't get you any closer to essentiality. "
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4l7wit | how to move from the uk to usa? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4l7wit/eli5_how_to_move_from_the_uk_to_usa/ | {
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"There are various visas that you can apply or if you are offered a job in the USA, or have other special skills. However, you're talking about moving to the USA to find work, which is much more difficult. You should look in to the [Diversity Visa Lottery] (_URL_0_) a.k.a. \"green card lottery\". They look at your nationality, not where you are living - which is a good thing in your case since UK citizens are not eligible. "
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1irlny | when i put down a glass, sometimes it leaves a ring of water even if the exterior is completely dry. why is this? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1irlny/when_i_put_down_a_glass_sometimes_it_leaves_a/ | {
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"Cold air can carry less humidity, so when your cold glass of water cools the nearby air it causes water to condense on the glass.",
"Water in the air touches your cold drink and condenses. Water drops form on the glass. This can happen on the side (you get a wet glass) or the bottom (glass seems dry). "
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63qawt | why is tap water a free resource and will this change in the future? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/63qawt/eli5_why_is_tap_water_a_free_resource_and_will/ | {
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"Tap water isn't free for most people, they pay a water bill ( like electricity) through a utility. In some heavy aquifer areas, like Florida, water may be cheap or free, but then sewage and plumbing yo have to pay for to cover water processing.\n\n",
"Tap water *isn't* a free resource. You pay a water bill every month for the water you use. But tap water is still **super** cheap: an average of $1.50 per 1,000 gallons.",
"Tap water isn't a free resource, it is just generally affordable. You likely have a water bill that is paid by your parents or landlord if you are not paying it directly.",
"lol what? who the hell doesn't pay a water bill "
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8ueoik | dual solenoid magnetic field | What happens to the magnetic field if you put a solenoid inside another solenoid with opposing current direction. Do the magnetic fields cancel each other? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8ueoik/eli5_dual_solenoid_magnetic_field/ | {
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"There would be no magnetic field, Ampere's law tells me so\n\nOne solenoid stacked inside of an identical reversed solenoid is the same as taking your first solenoid and taking its wiring and wrapping it backwards back to where it started. The net current through any plane will then be zero so there will be no magnetic field created. Your solenoid will have canceled itself out.\n\nIf you place it in a solenoid with the same current but reversed and an identical number of turns you would find there is also no net current through any plane so there is no resulting magnetic field down the middle of the solenoid."
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2d3k1n | why car manufactures paint swirly camo on cars that haven't hit production yet? | I see cars with weird black and white/ swirly camo all the time in car mags, online forums, and just about everywhere else, why is that?
What purpose does this serve? Especially when the make and model are extremely identifiable, whats the point of camoflauging it?
Here is an example of a 2016 Cadillac CTS-V
_URL_0_ | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2d3k1n/eli5why_car_manufactures_paint_swirly_camo_on/ | {
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"It makes it harder to make out specific lines on a car. Many of those test cars also use padding and old/not production body panels so even though you can tell it's a new CTS, you can't tell what the production model will look like when it's actually unveiled\n"
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76buzj | why is tupperware wet coming out of the dishwasher, when plates and glasses are all dry? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/76buzj/eli5_why_is_tupperware_wet_coming_out_of_the/ | {
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"Ceramic plates and glasses have a higher heat capacity - they can \"hold\" more heat, which is why they are hot when you take them straight out of the washer. Because they're hotter, they cause the water on their surface to evaporate.\n\nPlastic is less dense and has a lower heat capacity, so the water that collects on them doesn't evaporate as easily.",
"There are two somewhat related properties of the plastic that affect its ability to evaporate water - its specific heat capacity and its thermal conductivity.\n\nWith specific heat capacity, that is the amount of energy it takes to heat an object up to a particular temperature. Plastic has a higher heat capacity (1.67 KJ/Kg K) vs clay (0.92, or 1 for bricks (_URL_1_). This means that if the dishwasher doesn't heat long enough, it is possible for the plastic to actually have a lower temperature than the ceramic.\n\nSecond, and more importantly, is the thermal conductivity. This is the ability of an object to conduct heat through itself. This means that even though one side of an object is 100°C, the other side could be room temperature if conductivity is poor (think of home insulation). Plastics generally have really bad conductivity. \n\n_URL_0_ shows HDPE has a thermal conductivity of 0.42-0.51 W/mK . Ceramics are difficult to pin down...there are a lot of variations on what type of ceramic plate you have, but the value for slate is 2.01, sandstone is 1.7, and even Pyrex is 1.005 - all higher than HDPE. \n\nThis means that there is more energy moving THROUGH the material and that the time it takes to heat up is less as conductivity is higher. There is less resistance to getting warm and absorbing all the energy its specific heat capacity wants. It takes energy to evaporate water, and higher thermal conductivity allows the container/plate to recover that lost energy faster.\n\nA great example of how conductivity can really matter is if you put a stainless steel pot and a vacuum insulated container in the dishwasher. They are made of the same material (same specific heat), but the container is insulated solely because of its shape, which helps prevent heat getting to the inside and reduces conductivity. The vacuum insulated container may come out wet on the inside (depending on how you placed it in there).\n\nEdit - okay, I realize I was kind of high level, sorry.\n\nThe point is that some things move heat faster than others, and water evaporating takes heat away from the dish. Ceramic replaces the lost heat faster, so it can evaporate the next drop of water faster. \n\nEdit 2 - thank you /u/unclefishbits for the gold! ",
"Aside from the thermodynamic properties of Tupperware vs ceramic (i.e. heat capacity), the molecules that make up Tupperware are probably more polar than those of ceramic (they’re “stickier” and are better able to hold a similarly polar molecule like water).",
"Quite simple when you think about one thing - mass.\n\nPlates and glasses have more mass, so retain heat for longer, meaning the surface water has a better chance of evaporating.\n\nTupperware, on the other hand, has less mass so doesn't retain heat as well, so ends up cooling down before the water evaporates.",
"Tupperware’s shape has a lot of ridges and ‘pockets’ around the containers lip that collect puddles of water. (when the Tupperware is upside down) That combined with its low specific heat cause it to still be wet when the dry cycle is complete. ",
"Likely there is also an issue with surface tension and wetting of the material. \n\nCeramic and glass have similar wetting (i.e. the contacting angle is small) so they will tend to 1) have more surface area expose per unit mass so evaporate better, and 2) be more likely to bead and slip off the material due to less frictional area for the same unit mass. \n\nPlastics have a larger wetting angle which means less surface area is exposed for evaporation and water will be less mobile on the surface.",
"Could it have anything to do with the building blocks (polymers) that form plastics and the way soaps (surfactants) work? \n\nIf my understanding is correct, the building blocks of plastics are surprisingly close to certain fats, and said fats will actually bond (albeit on a very small scale) to some of the blocks (which is why if you want a \"perfect\" meringue, you use metal, glass, or anything but plastic. The resulting residual fat entering the bubble-matrix will make it grainy/not-so-great.) Since some fats are inherently attracted to these building blocks, when the soap comes into play, one end of the soap molecule grabs the fat, and the other grabs water, forcing it to hang around much longer? \n\nAs indicated by the question marks at the ends of those, I'm no where *near* certain, just going by what I believe to be correct. If someone, anyone, can correct/verify/tear me a new one, I'd appreciate it\\^_\\^",
"It has to do with thermal mass. The glass and ceramic have the ability to hold onto, and release, heat slowly. Once hot, they release heat over time. This aids in the ability for them to help evaporate water in the dishwasher during the dry cycle.\n\nPlastic, on the other hand, is a poor heat conductor beacuse of its low thermal mass. Once heated by the air in the dishwasher, the plastic is fine. Once the air starts to cool, the plastic easily gives up it's stored heat. Since the plastic doesn't retain heat, any water on the surface tends to stay there because it doesn't evaporate.",
"There's quite a few crevices on Tupperware. No matter what angle you put it in the dishwasher, too much water will collect to evaporate in at least one spot.",
"For water to evaporate it needs to get really hot, during the drying cycle the dishwasher makes the air inside of it hot to make the water on the dishes evaporate.\n\nDuring washing plates and glasses get really hot because they heat up easily from the hot water, tupperware doesn't heat up easily so it doesn't get as hot.\n\nThe hotter the dishes are during the drying cycle the hotter the water on the surface of the dish, the more easily the water can evaporate with hot air inside the dishwasher.",
"I know others are talking about heat capacity and stuff, but in my dishwasher everything that's flat gets dry; everything that's curved somehow does not. For example, I put my ceramic coffee mugs into the rack upside down, and the bottoms, which are slightly concave, are still wet when I pull them out. My ceramic plates I put it on edge and are dry. My tubberware, like my coffee mugs, aren't edge down, and the water catches in the nooks and crannies in the same way.\n\nThe shape of an edge-down dish or flat surface allows the water to spread out, which gives it more surface area to evaporate or plain drip off. When there's a curve to catch water, like the lip under a tubberware edge, the water can \"pile up\" on top of itself, so it takes many times longer to evaporate. At least in my dishwasher, those are the areas where water accumulates for me, regardless of the dish's material.\n\nEdit: If we're going to talk heat capacities, water has the highest heat capacity of any of these materials by a considerable margin, so merely the surface-to-surface contact of water with a dish, whether plastic or glass or ceramic, isn't going to mean as much if the water is stacked up in a groove insulating itself. The surface area:volume should be the greatest factor, imo. The small difference in time the water's contact layer is exposed to a glass's higher temperature before plastic reaches about the same temperature will play a minimal role in comparison. But that's just my speculation. It'd be interesting to put a plastic plate into a dishwasher, with the same shape as a ceramic/glass plate, and see. My speculation is all 3 would be dry.",
"Lots of good answers already.\n\nStainless steel tub dishwashers don't generally use a heating element to dry. The steel walls cool faster than ceramics, pots and glass and the water is naturally condensed on the walls and drained. \n\nBecause it has a lower heat conductivity the plastic loses heat faster than the walls of the tub and doesn't allow for the convection drying to happen.\n\nAlso don't buy a dishwasher that pops it's own door open when finished unless it's installed directly under stone. It will ruin your cabinets.\n\nSource: I sell this shit everyday",
"Glass and ceramic retain heat which evaporates the water from the surface. Plastics do not retain heat because they are insulators, so they do not evaporate water as effectively as glass.",
"Specific heat isn't going to do anything noticeable about evaporating water out of the dishwasher like most people are commenting. Everything gets to be the same temp so specific heat and heat capacity won't really matter. \n\nPlastic is hydrophobic so water beads on the surface, while glass and ceramics are hydrophilic so water beads much smaller. Water evaporates faster when in smaller beads because it has more surface area. \n\nNext time you do dishes don't have the dry cycle on and look at the dishes right away. The plates and glasses are covered in a thin sheet of water while plastics are covered in large beads. ",
"Surface tension and droplet adhesion play a BIG role. Immediately after my dishwasher finishes the wash cycle, there are huge numbers of water droplets stuck to the bottoms and sides of the plastic items and not on the glass or ceramic. The rest of the explanations about heat capacity are true, too, but the plastic items start off \"wetter\" at the beginning of the drying cycle because of the larger number of stuck droplets.",
"Dishwashers dry by heating the items inside. Tupperware is an insulator (it's made of HDPE) Ceramic plates, glass and metal pots are better conductors of heat, so they heat faster to a level that evaporates water. ",
"Plates get hot. The water evaporates off them. Plastic doesn't get as hot. The water doesn't evaporate as much.",
"It doesn't have enough mass to remain warm enough for long enough to evaporate the water sitting on it.\n\nGlass and metal are much more dense than plastic (density is just amount of mass in a given volume). They are able to hold enough heat for long enough.",
"Simple as explanation the heat from the ceramic and glass help dry it while plastics do not conduct that heat so it does not dry.\nAdding rinse aid helps dry them even better. \n"
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62f79o | why do people in the united states still talk about slavery ? my country of mexico was conquered and the people enslaved for hundreds of years by the spanish and no one talks about it except in history classes | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/62f79o/eli5why_do_people_in_the_united_states_still_talk/ | {
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"Cause your not living next to the Spanish who bring it up every time they don't get their way.",
"Because the Spanish went home, probably after you threw them out.\n\nThose white folk who killed the native Indians and imported the Africans are still there. Neither of them are original inhabitants of the land, only the (surprise) natives."
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6m9xeb | hong kong's political status | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6m9xeb/eli5_hong_kongs_political_status/ | {
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"The UK seized it in the 19th century after a war with China and returned it in 1997. The handover entailed that Hong Kong would be mostly self ruling for 50 years following. As such, In most aspects outside of foreign affairs, Hong Kong mostly governs itself.\n\nThose \"mosts\" and \"mostlys\" are the subject of a lot of tension in Hong Kong, as is what will happen in 30 years when Hong Kong is no longer legally entitled to self governance. ",
"Its a \"Special Administrative Region\" of the People's Republic of China. It has its own government, laws, economic system and even currency. Even though it is technically part of China, people from mainland China aren't necessarily allowed to live there and there are border controls between HK and mainland China as if they were separate countries.\n\nBack in the 19th centiry, Britain took control of Hong Kong island. Then in 1898 the UK got a 99 year lease on some surrounding territory so they could expand Hong Kong. \n\nThat lease ended in 1997. Keeping just HK island wouldn't have been practical, so the UK handed the whole lot back to China. But they agreed that HK should get to keep it's own system of government for at least 50 years.\n\nMacau is in a similar situation. Its also a Special Administrative Administrative Region. It used to be a Portuguese colony, and was handed over to China in 1999.",
"We (the glorious British Empire) said to China (Quing) \"let us sell opium to you\" and they said \"no\". Therefore we sold them opium and kicked the shite out of them in a war and took lots of China, specifically cities. One of the places we took was Hong Kong. However we took it on lease, 100 years I believe. In 1997 that time was up and though the good Prime Minister Margret Thatcher tried to extend the lease, something I believe the Hong Kongers wanted, she unfortunately failed and the Chinese weren't Argentina and we would struggle much more in a war against them. \n \nHowever Hong Kong didn't go back to China directly it became a special administrative area so is technically a country, like the Isle of Man is, and separate from china. In 2047 I believe China is allowed, and will annex it, meaning HK loses all its special rights. "
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9qob4d | how do escalators maintain the same speed regardless of how many people are on them? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9qob4d/eli5_how_do_escalators_maintain_the_same_speed/ | {
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"In a motor torque is proportional to current. \nIf you need to lift more people, increase current to increase torque. \nAdd a sensor to measure motor speed. \nUse a small computer to control current based on desired speed. \n\nEdit: Many are saying you don't need a speed controller for AC motors on an escalator, sweet.",
"Whenever electricity is involved it can't be truly ELI5 but I'll try by skipping over the details. I'm a winder electrician, which means I build motors and motor systems.\n\nThey are driven by induction motors that always turn at a constant speed linked to the 60Hz frequency of the electric lines. Every time the electricity changes polarity, the motor moves on to the next magnetic pole (simplified). Typical speeds are 1200/1800/3600RPM for 6/4/2 pole motors respectively.\n\nAs the load increases the motor will draw more power up until it stalls. Until then it won't slow down much.\n\nReal speeds are actually a bit lower due to \"slip\" of the rotor but true synchronous motors do exist and are used as generators and in heavy industry.\n\nThe only motors that vary in speed greatly due to load are the brushed sort usually found in tools and small appliances. For reasons I won't go into, they are not linked to the frequency of the power, and can often run on both AC or DC power.",
"There is a motor always running at the same speed ~1800 rpm attached to a gearbox to slow down the rpm's and create torque. The motor is large enough to carry a fully loaded escalator. It will just draw more amperage when fully loaded than when empty.",
"The real question is, why aren't escalators faster?",
"It is using an Alternating Current motor that runs at a constant speed, the speed is directly related to the frequency of the AC power, 60 Hertz in North America. The motor is sized with enough torque for full load. Running it at no-load it will run at the same sped as full design load, just drawing much less current (power) from the source. \n\nKind of like pedaling a bicycle in a low gear on flat ground, really easy to push the pedals. As load increases the speed will remain the same but the motor will draw more current, like pedaling up a hill. If the load exceeds full design load and the motor should trip the Overload Protection device. like a hill too steep to pedal up, you slow down and stop. The motor should trip the O.L. long before it gets to the point of slowing down.\n\nNot exactly for a 5 year old I think. ",
"_URL_0_\n\nI'm a more visual learner, and just happened to watch this yesterday. You can view the type of chain system that drives the entire stair carousel.",
"Heavy-duty synchronous motors. They run at a constant speed, but draw more power as the load increases.\n\nThe older ones? Those escalators probably used governators.\n\nSeriously. A \"governor\" is a mechanical device intended to adjust the speed of a motor that it is constant.",
"Eli5: it has so much power, regardless of how many people step on it, they don't make it sweat.",
"The escalator is designed such that it has enough power to carry way more people than can possibly fit on it without slowing down. Therefor, the question is really, why doesn't it speed up when less people are on it? It is because the motor and gears can spin only at one speed. So when less people are on, it just does so without using as much electricity.\n\n\n",
"I'm seeing a lot of responses about how powerful electric motors are, but one thing that I needed to look up was how the mechanical drive system is configured. A quick Google search leads me to believe that a lot of escalators use a gearbox for speed reduction, and as a two part solution for both the speed difference needed and possibly as a safety factor, it appears that many escalators use a worm gear style gearbox.\n\nWorm gear systems can be easily driven from input to output, but are normally nearly impossible to drive from output to input due to the nature of the great reduction. This means there's a likely a very large increase in torque provided to the final drive making any load increases negligible as far as the motor is concerned and may also act as an additional safety to help prevent rollbacks in the case that the motor loses power.\n\nDisclaimer: it's all a guess from me; not a escalator technician, but curious with some time for Google-foo.",
"There’s no reason for people to be explaining so much that has nothing to do with the question\n\nEspecially about PLCs\n\nThe motor is strong enough to pull a couple tons.\n\nIt’s going at that speed because it’s programmed to. It won’t slow down or be pushed forward.",
"Not an answer, but that's what is horrifying about escalators. Say one of your ligaments gets stuck, it will ramp up the voltage and put MORE power into eating you. 0/10"
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80fv1m | why do gas stations make you go inside if there's less than $100-$200 on your debit card? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/80fv1m/eli5_why_do_gas_stations_make_you_go_inside_if/ | {
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"I've never had that happen, and my debit card has had less than that before.\n\nHowever, I'd assume it's something to do with putting holds on your account. I got gas once at a gas station and they placed a $50 hold on my account (I only got $20 worth of gas), the difference was refunded a few days later",
"Basically it lets them get their money first. The way gas stations generally (at least used to) work is that the initially put a \"hold\" on your card for some set amount. Then when you actually finish pumping the gas they drop that hold down to the amount that you actually owe them for the gas. This works great in ensuring that you can actually pay them... unless you don't have enough money to meet the initial hold. If that is the case then they want to make sure you actually have enough money to pay for the gas you are going to buy (rather than you filling up and then not paying them or having the payment bounce) so they make you go inside."
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1vruq2 | sometimes when you pinch yourself in one spot on your body & it stings, a completely different spot on your body itches/hurts/stings. these spots are totally unrelated... why is that? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1vruq2/sometimes_when_you_pinch_yourself_in_one_spot_on/ | {
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"because they're not exactly unconnected. the whole nervous system in your body is connected in the end. like when you begin chopping down a tree at the bottom, the top leaves shake. it all goes through your body, into the spine, and from the spine to your brain. and since these feelings are basically electrical signals, some interference just happens sometimes. like when you hold a phone next to an old radio and it starts giving off static."
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2hadmt | what is iran contra? did nixon really pump crack cocaine into black neighborhoods? if so why? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2hadmt/eli5_what_is_iran_contra_did_nixon_really_pump/ | {
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"First Iran-contra had nothing to do with Nixon's alleged crack/cocaine deals.\n\nIran-Contra was a disasterous and entirely mishandled affair between USA and Iran that became a deal simply described as a weapons-for-hostages trade off.\n\n[This is a better account of the details.](_URL_0_)",
"It was Reagan not Nixon.\nCongress specifically forbad arming the COntras after they murdered a bunch of aid workers and nuns (they had been killing peasants for a while but that didn't bother Congress I guess). Reagan wanted to send them more guns (not sure how he felt about nun murder). So he sold a bunch of arms to Iran(also illegal) & used the money to buy shit to send to the Contras. A bunch of them got caught & despite perjury several got convicted (including Olly North) but GHW Bush pardoned them all on New Years Eve after losing to Clinton.\n\nAs for crack, there is a bunch of evidence that the CIA was involved but it is not 100% sure. The guy who followed the story & gathered a lot of the evidence ended up dead under mysterious circumstances when he tried to get his work published. We will never know for sure unless it did happen & someone spills their guts before they die.",
"The Iran-Contra affair happened during the 1980s, at the height of the Cold War. Nicaragua had a leftist government which the Reagan administration saw as communistic and Soviet-aligned. The Contras were a group of people who wanted to overthrow Nicaragua's government and they were supported by the Reagan administration. After reports came out of Contra terrorism and atrocities, Congress banned the U.S. from funding them. But some senior U.S. officials wouldn't let it go so easily. They sold weapons to Iran (which the U.S. was supposed to be hostile to) and gave the money to the Contras. When the scandal came out, there was a great deal of outrage, but few of the people involved were ever punished. Reagan himself claimed that he knew nothing of the scandal, but it's unclear whether this is true.\n\nI don't know anything about the Nixon question, but it sounds like a conspiracy theory."
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5gxar1 | how are people able to live in warehouses | I am completely confused at what happened in Oakland. For example people I read people were living in studios there. How | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5gxar1/eli5_how_are_people_able_to_live_in_warehouses/ | {
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"They remo the rooms for living. Its like an apartment building, basically... art studio/loft space plus a bed tucked in the corner somewhere. I used to party at one similar to the Oakland establishment in Seattle all the time. ",
"usually the warehouses are retrofitted (remodeled) for residential use. They werent simply living in a giant empty space\n\nas such: \n_URL_0_",
"You may be confusing reality with what is allowed by regulations. Ensuring that everything complies with city regulations would require reinspections at a phenomenal rate.\n\nAS others pointed out, warehouses can be repurposed to become apartments. This can be done by applying for this change and undergoing inspections. But in a city with chronic underfunding for important things it becomes unlikely that there will be enough city inspectors to verify compliance with rules unless a report is made. In other words, the city may not notice repurposing structures unless there is a complaint.\n\nThe party itself was too spontaneous for inspectors to notice. Events held at regular venues regularly will eventually be noticed. Alert fire departments will have assigned inspectors who will require adequate exits and fire retardant fabrics. But the fire department cannot be blamed for an almost spontaneous party going up in flames spontaneously.\n\nThey are left with the job of fighting the fires and counting the bodies afterward. I assure you they did not want to count bodies. Many other fires will occur due to failure to follow sensible rules. Now excuse me while I step over my extension cords on my way to the bathroom.",
"Not legaly. Besides that, what is confusing you? They have electricity, running water, and bathrooms. What else would you need for a living space?",
"It's illegal, against code and that's how these kind of disasters happen. My girlfriend's son lives in a situation like this in Boston, because rents are so high.They actually tore out some structure and added a bathroom on their own. Permit? We don't need no stinking permit. \nCommercial property owners look the other way because they can make more money with illegal rentals than trying to rent the whole place out as factory or warehouse space. People add wiring but they aren't electricians so they aren't aware that the two sides of your panel should be roughly balanced or that you need to put in GFI near water sources or that circuit breakers get old and need replacement. Who knows maybe someone climbed the pole and did an illegal hookup. \n \nAnd when the fire marshall comes around to do an inspection, all the tenants get a heads up \"Don't answer the door tomorrow\" I don't know what the point of having the firemarshall do inspections if they are preannounced but they are."
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2mdn8s | how is it that we know how an atom looks like? | I mean is it still just a guess? Or is there actually a way for us to see how an atom looks like? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2mdn8s/eli5_how_is_it_that_we_know_how_an_atom_looks_like/ | {
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"There were several experiments that were conducted that gave us a very clear idea of what an atom would have to look like in order for the data to make sense. However there are ways to \"see\" an atom.\n\n[Hydrogen Atoms Orbital Structure](_URL_0_)",
"We can't directly see an atom and in fact, depending on what you're trying to do with an atom or what situation you're looking at it, you could \"pretend\" an atom looks different. When working with crystals, we assume that atoms look like hard spheres of different sizes. When working with inorganic chemistry, we assume the most traditional model of the atom that you see with a nucleus and electrons. Basically, we can understand what an atom looks like as a result of it reacting with the universe in specific ways. It would be like if you had an animal that you could never look at directly, so you decide to use your other senses and how that animal behaves to determine what animal it is.",
"It is a theoretical model, that has been proven through experiment. \n\nImagine someone gives you a gift. It is a hollow metal sphere but it is packaged in a box. You have no idea what the gift is, but decide to do some experiments to find out, without actually opening the box. \n\nFirst you shake the box and it moves around. This tells you it is relatively light. Then, knowing that it is light, you move it slowly and you feel it rolling. This tells you that it is probably round. Now you are trying to find out what it is made of. You apply heat to the box, then shake to see if it has melted but it has not. You suspect that it is a strong but light material, like a metal alloy - since initial shake tests didn't break it can't be brittle. So you decide to touch magnets to the surface of the box. The object does not move and stays attracted to the magnet. This tells you it is metallic. Since it is metallic and relatively light, you suspect, it is hollow. So, you poke a hole in the box, and fill it with water. Comparing the volume of the box, with the volume of water you filled will tell you the size of the object. From this, you can choose a metal-alloy based on the magnetic strength recorded and estimate how hollow it is.\n\nAll this has been concluded, without actually seeing the sphere. Still, you can only speculate what colour the sphere is or whether it has dimples or not. But from the tests you carried out, you can pretty much acknowledge certain findings as fact. That's sort of the process people like Rutherford used to determine the atomic model. \n\nAs for being able to see it, I don't think so. We have two types of microscope - Light microscope and Electron microscope. LM uses lightwaves (duh) and so objects too small to interfere with these waves cannot be seen. EM uses electrons (of course), which which are very tiny, and they bounce back of the object at different angles to give us awesome 3d images. I don't need to tell you what would happen if we tried to fire electrons at an atom... but that's beside the point. The Rutherford experiments already did that, and it told us that materials are mostly empty space and there is much distance between the nucleus and an electron. So, you can't see the \"model\" of the atom, but you can see individual atoms using an TEM transmission electron microscope iirc.",
"Some clever experiments over the years have probed the structure of the atom, and from those experiments, we have inferred what the atom must be like to give those results, the most famous of which was [Rutherford's](_URL_2_) gold foil [experiment.](_URL_0_)\n\nThe gold foil experiment changed how we pictured atoms. Before, we thought they were hard sphere's that contained positive and negative charges floating around in this sphere. The result's of the gold foil experiment showed that there was structure. Later, we moved on to the Bohr model of the atom because of mathematical calculations that very well predicted some behaviours of atoms. The Bohr model is the popular depiction of the atom we see with a nucleus being orbited by electrons. This model is also not perfect, but is closer to the truth.\n\nIn terms of taking actual pictures of atoms, we have a few like [this.](_URL_1_) These pictures are not optical photographs though, they were made with very sensitive instruments which are sensitive to charges. The instrument measures where charges are across the region and creates an image based on that.\n\n",
"There is no 'looking like' atoms as looking like involves seeing in a similar way as we do with eyes, and there is no seeing atoms.\n\nWe represent atoms now, not unlike how we represent the wind in weather telecasts. The wind itself is invisible, but it is here and it obeys some mechanics we know, so we represent it in a way that shows its existence and mechanics. Same goes for atoms.\n\nWe are pretty sure where atoms are physically, what size they are, and how close they are relatively to each other. We can even do that with their subcomponents. We know because we measured it with devices and experiments that proved reliable through reproducibility.\nYou can call that \"what they look like\" if you wish, it's not a bad way to think about it."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://imgur.com/sGVNtK4"
],
[],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geiger%E2%80%93Marsden_experiment",
"http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-19584301",
"http://m.teachastronomy.com/astropediaimages/RutherfordGoilFoil.jpg"
],
[]
] |
|
5zkq06 | what causes the 'beating' sound in your ear when you lie in bed with your ear against the pillow? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5zkq06/eli5_what_causes_the_beating_sound_in_your_ear/ | {
"a_id": [
"deyu5hd"
],
"score": [
28
],
"text": [
"You're hearing your own heartbeat. ~~It's the same thing that causes the whooshing sound when you listen to a seashell.~~ "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
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