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If you cut yourself ten times in different places across one of your limbs, does it generally heal as fast as cutting yourself once? Or is there a cost to simultaneous healing? | The answer is "it depends".
The wound healing process does have a cost, regardless of number of wounds. Your body is creating new proteins, new cells, new tissues. All of that requires 1) energy and 2) substrates (many and varied substrates).
There will be differences based on things like vascularization of the different tissues (more blood vessels = more blood supply = bigger pipeline to deliver energy and substrates through), extent of damage (IE damage to the basal layer of cells can impact wound healing time), and cell replication time (IE epithelial cells in the oral mucosa replicate extremely rapidly, which causes cuts in your mouth to heal rapidly compared to epithelial cells that make up skin). Regardless of number of wounds, provided damaged tissues are provided the necessary energy and substrates, 10 wounds will heal as fast as 1 wound. Caveat: if there are so many wounds that dealing with the byproducts are taxing other body systems, that can dramatically slow healing times and results in many wounds having a significantly longer healing time than one wound. So there is a threshold where "10 wounds will heal as fast as 1 wound" is no longer true, based on severity and number of wounds.
Theoretically, wound location could impact healing time as well. Wounds that are more proximal as opposed to distal could, theoretically, receive more substrate by being 'first in line' as blood flows. More substrate would support more rapid cellular regeneration. This almost certainly wouldn't impact superficial wounds, but if the wound is deep enough to impair blood flow to regions 'further down the pipe', it could have an impact on the healing of the distal wound.
So, bottom line answer: Generally speaking, wounds of similar severity to similar tissue will heal at similar rates, regardless of if there is one wound or ten. However, if a wound is severe enough to impair or impede blood flow to a second wound, that second wound would likely heal at a comparatively slower rate until comparable blood flow is restored. As a second caveat, if the combination of severity and number of wounds is enough to put a strain on other body systems, that can dramatically slow healing times.
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ELI5: Why does drinking water solve so much? | So many problems in the human body seem to be solved by drinking water, or more of it. Ie, you're sick, have acne, weight loss etc. Why is this? | Don't think of drinking water as solving problems, think of not drinking enough being a very big problem. Water is essential for almost every bodily function and without it the entire body is worse off | 45 | 60 |
What job opportunities are there for economists outside academia and government, and also specifically on Wall Street? | Not sure if this is the right place for this question, but I'm thinking about majoring in either standard econ or a math and stat oriented econ. Anyway, I have no desire to become a professor or work for government. What opportunities are there in the private sector? What about specifically on Wall Street (for example, what would an economist do at an investment bank/hedge fund/ private equity firm)? What sort of salaries can be expected in the private sector, and are they lower or higher than in government/academia? | Economic consulting, such as forensic economics, litigation or transfer pricing. There are many firms outside of the word of finance. An Econ major could also easily jump into actuarial work. And of course, utilities, but many are at least quasi public. | 16 | 22 |
Why does Kant believe that metaphysics, unlike mathematics and physics, is not a science? | Why does Kant believe that metaphysics, unlike mathematics and physics, is not a science? What are the areas in which Kant believes that metaphysics claims to have knowledge, and how does Kant refute those claims? Looking for all types of responses, thanks | This is what is known as the Kantian prohibition. There is fundamental difference between these subjects, as metaphysics deals with what Kant calls the 'noumenal' world. We experience what is called the 'phenomenal' world, organisef and experienced in time, space and the laws of causality. If you were to bracket those, Kant asks, would it be the case that there is 'nothing'? No, what remains is the thing-in-itself according to him. And for this realm of thought, it becomes impossible to ground legitimite knowledge for the human subject. Thus, metaphysics (is there a god, do we have a soul, those questions) is not a science as knowledge on these subjects cannot be systematized. | 24 | 31 |
How does HIV/AIDS actually kill people? | What's the process to an individual's death by HIV/AIDS? | HIV preferentially infects a type of cell called a CD4+ T-cell. These cells are commonly referred to as Helper T-cells and are crucial during infection to help stimulate various arms of the immune system.
When someone is infected with HIV CD4+ T-cells are systematically infected and killed by HIV. This eventually leaves the body with little to (in extreme cases) no detectable levels of CD4+ T-cells. This is when the patient is officially diagnosed with AIDS and like the other commenter stated dies from things like the common cold and extremely rare forms of cancer and pneumonia. | 13 | 28 |
How can light carry momentum if it has no mass? | The notion that only massive objects carry momentum stems from classical, Newtonian, mechanics, which has been shown to just be an approximation for the more complete theory of relativity.
In Newtonian physics, momentum is given by the expression p = m * v, which would imply that massless objects have no momentum. But this expression is only a good approximation when velocities are low (with respect to the speed of light). Since light travels at the speed of light, this condition is obviously not met.
From relativity, the following expression can be obtained:
E^2 = (m c^(2))^2 + (p c)^2
where E is the energy of the particle/object, m is the mass, p the momentum and c the speed of light.
For objects that have non-zero mass that are at rest (so zero momentum), this reduces to:
E = m c^2
For objects that have zero mass, such as photons, this expression reduces to the expression for momentum of photons:
E = p c | 169 | 367 |
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[Star Trek] Why are there so few artificial lifeforms and AIs running around? | As far as I know, the only forms of artificial life are the androids designed by Noonien Soong, the "machine race" from the V-ger incident, and the occasional self-aware holodeck program.
What is it about the Star Trek universe that gives rise to so few AIs/artificial lifeforms compared to other scifi universes? | There are several factors.
One is that functioning, stable, artificial lifeforms are very difficult to produce. Dr. Soong's android Data is the only known fully autonomous artificial being that isn't either dangerous to biological life (like his brother Lore), or prone to catastrophic malfunction (like his daughter Lal). Records of the encounter with the androids associated with Harcourt Fenton Mudd indicate that they are both dangerous, plotting to take over the galaxy and "protect" humanity by effectively enslaving us, and fragile, capable of being destroyed by simple conversational logic loops. Research tends to indicate that, left to its own devices, artificial intelligence has a habit of spinning into one neurosis or another, and that placing such intelligence in an autonomous body causes even an even greater likelihood of malfunction.
Another issue is that the Federation is highly cautious about the ethical dangers of creating artificial beings. The transcripts of the trial of Lt. Commander Data are an excellent real world exploration of the subject, and there have been huge amounts of further discussion on the topic. In essence, the danger is that we would create artificial life, and then enslave it. The incident involving the exocomps is also worth looking at. In that instance, there were robots designed for hazardous work, but with the ability to learn. They spontaneously generated a form of sentience and a sense of self-preservation. This indicates that, given the proper conditions, it is possible for a low-functioning machine intelligence to grow to a higher-functioning one. Again, we run up against issues of both the rights of sentient beings, and the dangers of allowing machine intelligence to develop. It is possible that, if allowed, the exocomps could have developed into friendly machine life. It is also quite possible that they could have developed into incredibly dangerous machine life.
The fact of the matter is, machine intelligence is an almost impossible balancing act. On the upper side of intelligence and complexity, you have machines that spin up into neurosis and malfunction. On the lower side, you have machines that aren't intelligent enough to serve any useful function, and are essentially dependent on their caretakers. In either case, machine intelligence carries more costs than benefits. Well-adjusted artificial beings, like Data, are almost totally unheard of, because that balance is so difficult to reach. | 17 | 16 |
ELI5: If we know that movies and shows are fake, then why so we still get teary-eyed or scared during certain scenes? | One: because humans are storytelling creatures. Two: because humans possess empathy.
Firstly, humans are evolutionarily accustomed to receiving important, even life-saving info, from other humans in the form of a story. Before the bard told us about the hero's fight with the werewolf, bob was telling us about how he got away from a bear. Stories are part of our past, thus we pay attention to ones that have a lot of emotional power.
Secondly, humans can empathize with characters, because after suspension of disbelief the brain starts to think it's just watching an actual event unfold. We can put ourselves in characters' places and thus feel their emotions. | 38 | 52 |
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Why is the sound barrier an aerodynamic problem? | Vibrations we pick up as sound can only move so quickly through a fluid (air). Fair enough. But why does aerodynamics get so tricky at that same speed? Why is it difficult for physical objects to exceed? Why did transonic speed cause such odd control difficulties for old aircraft? Why is the sound barrier a barrier for more than just sound? | Remember that the speed of sound isn't just the speed of waves, but the maximum speed at which any sort of information can be transmitted through the medium. This means that when flying at a subsonic speed, the air at the front of the wing "knows" (i.e. is capable of reacting to) what is happening to the air a bit further behind it, because the information (via sound waves) is able to arrive a bit earlier than the plane does. This allows everything to run more smoothly, in a certain sense. The air has a chance to move a bit to prepare for the plane to pass through.
On the other hand, when going supersonic, the air doesn't "know" that there's a plane coming until its too late and the plane is here - it can't, in principle, get advanced warning from the air nearby, and so you'd expect the equations to be completely different. | 11 | 29 |
In quantum field theory, are the electric and magnetic fields considered to be two separate fields that interact, or two aspects of a single field? | They're unified into a single field, represented by the electromagnetic field tensor, which can be expressed in terms of a single four-potential that incorporates both the classical electromagnetic scalar potential and the classical magnetic vector potential into a single geometric object. This is true in both classical relativistic electrodynamics and in quantum electrodynamics. | 58 | 57 |
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CMV: A 20-30 hour working week would improve the livelihoods of working people. | Over the last half century or so we have seen automation and women coming into work reducing the jobs available per person. This has lead to a worker surplus which brings down average wages and but increases profits for employers. This helps business owners and hurts the working population which contributes greatly to wealth inequality.
I believe that the way to counter this is to try to reduce the man hours worked by your average individual either directly or indirectly. I think this would increase the demand for labour and thus improve wages and spread them across the workforce. This is loosely tied to the idea of universal basic income which could have a similar effect.
However I've never seen this brought up in mainstream media and so I'm wondering why it isn't a more talked about topic. Am I wrong or missing something? Or is universal income just a better way of meeting the challenge?
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> *This is a footnote from the CMV moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!* | Reducing workers to a 20-30 hour workweek would improve livelihoods if "livelihood" is only tied to work-life balance and not to wages. Sure, more time to spend with the kids, but you won't have any money to do things with those kids. And the question can't stop there. If an employer has to double his labor force to match his previous production that employer will be made un-competitive in the world marketplace. Plus each employee carries an extra financial burden to the employer that doesn't stop at wages. Generally each employee costs an employer the wages + 30% in benefits and other costs (at least in the U.S.). So not only is the employer losing production but he has to pay a lot more for the production that he used to be getting. | 125 | 583 |
Why is The Fed printing $2T not risking hyperinflation (while other countries in the past printing money had resulted in that) | I read this NPR article about how The Fed printing money is not likely to cause hyperinflation as the money is unlikely to flood the market and drive up prices of commodities.
In the case of say Zimbabwe or Venezuela, why does hyperinflation happen? Is it a matter of scale of printing? | In the case of what the fed does right now, they are providing relief for a lack of liquidity through collateralised short term loans. Once those loans are paid back, the money is destroyed again. It's also not really money that enters the "general economy" but just to fulfill outstanding debt obligations between companies and banks.
What countries like Venezuela did is different. They fund their governments through money creation, so the government can buy goods and services. That is money that does enter the economy, leading to inflation. | 199 | 142 |
I'm having trouble grasping the concept of energy. | I understand all the equations that I have been given and see how they all relate, but I can't help but feel that it doesn't exist. Energy to me feels like a common variable that is used to relate other variables together. Can somebody help me materialize what energy is? I think if I have a mental image of what energy is or looks like I will be able to understand it better. | In general, conserved quantities result from a symmetry in the problem. For example, angular momentum conservations comes from rotational symmetry (like how a sphere looks the same from all directions). Conservation of energy comes from time ~~inversion~~ *translation* symmetry. That is, if you replaced time with ~~(-time)~~ *(time + deltatime)*, the equations that govern the evolution of the system will still act the same. In a sense, it is just a construct that humans made up, some combination of variables. But it is a combination of variables that is conserved because of time symmetry that is inherent in the processes involved in the problem. | 11 | 25 |
Why does Neptune have such strong winds? | According to Wikipedia, it has the "strongest sustained winds of any planet in the solar system, with recorded wind speeds as high as 2,100 kilometres per hour (580 m/s; 1,300 mph)."
Why are the winds so strong there? | There's a lot of conjecture in the other answers here, but as someone who specialized in this for his PhD, the only real answer is: we don't really know yet. This is one of the big unsolved problems in the field, though we have some ideas.
There are a few scaling relations for planetary winds that are generally true but lack precision, and there are an awful lot of exceptions, too:
- **The bigger the planet, the faster the winds.** In general the larger your planet is, the more angular momentum a parcel of air will have near the equator. As it moves towards the pole, angular momentum must be conserved, and that translates to faster winds. This generally explains why giant planets have faster winds than terrestrial planets, but doesn't really explain why Neptune's winds are faster than Jupiter's, which is quite a bit larger.
- **The faster the planet rotates, the faster the winds.** Again, the faster your planet rotates means the more angular momentum there is to feed into winds. Nonetheless, with this explanation alone one would again expect Jupiter (10 hour rotation) to have the fastest winds, but the winds of Neptune (16 hour rotation) are quicker. This also really fails for Venus, which has a 243 days rotation, yet has some impressively speedy winds at cloud-top.
- **The bigger the source of internal heat, the faster the winds.** It takes energy to fight against drag and pump the planetary jets, and localized release of energy, generally starting as small local storms, feed into the jets to keep them strong. Again you'd expect Jupiter to win out here in terms of total internal energy, but this does explain why the winds of Neptune (with a fairly substantial internal heat source itself) beat out the winds of Uranus (essentially the same size, temperature, and rotation period as Neptune, but no internal heat).
- **The lower the temperature, the lower the viscosity**. This one is probably really important for both Uranus and Neptune. As you decrease the temperature of a gas, its viscosity also decreases, so there's very little to slow down the winds and act as a source of drag. At low temperatures, you don't need to feed the winds much energy to get them going and keep the going.
It's something of a holy grail in the field to understand how each of these general rules play off one another. Which rule is most important? How many jets would we expect for each planet? Why is Venus so very different?
**TL;DR**: Neptune seems to have hit a sweet spot of relatively large (good for angular momentum), relatively fast rotation (also good for angular momentum), strong internal heat source (good for feeding the winds), and very cold (low viscosity, so little to slow the winds down). | 35 | 31 |
What is it about cockroaches that makes them famously able to survive radiation from a nuclear apocalypse? | Are they really the only (land?) animals that would be able to make it?
Is this specific resilience an evolutionary advantage or just some kind of quirk of their biology?
Thanks | DNA is most vulnerable, and most difficult to repair, when it is exposed in solution and being manipulated by enzymes. One reason is just that when it is being manipulated, the two rungs can be detached, reducing the number of chemical bonds available to support the molecule. Another is that there's more opportunity for confusion when many strands are in play and can potentially get mixed up.
When cells are not dividing, DNA is wrapped in/around proteins called histones. This reduces the exposure of the molecule, and givens repair enzymes time to fix it before it's used.
Cockroach cells spend most of their time not dividing, so the dna is less likely to be hit when radiation hits the cell, and the damage is more likely to be repaired before it's needed. | 16 | 20 |
[BioShock] Why is Booker strong enough to fall 100 feet and grab a magnetic rail without ripping his arms from his sockets, but not strong enough to carry more than two guns? | It's not just about strength, it's about accessibility. Sure, Booker could carry another 50 to 60 lbs of weapons and ammo but it would be really challenging to sort through the 5 other straps to get to the one he needs for that firefight, get it on target, and engage. | 118 | 132 |
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Why do some researchers do two PhD in the same field? (economics) | Hi,
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I've noticed some economists have two PhDs in economics (for example, Jean Tirole or Philippe Aghion). What would you say the reasoning be for embarking in a second PhD? Is it to access a better university? Would there ever be a reason to do that? | In France, there have been several classes of doctorate degrees over the years. Whether a Doctorat de 3éme cycle (a degree that has since been phased out) from the 70's and 80's is equivalent to a PhD at MIT or Harvard during the same time period (as in your 2 specific examples) is a question for the institutions involved.
The vast majority of universities will not accept you to do a PhD if you already have one in the same (or a similar) field. | 22 | 21 |
ELI5: Why does mixing lights result in a different color than mixing paint? | for example green + red = yellow in lights, and brown in paint. why does this happened. | Mixing light together is simple addition. Adding red light to green light gives you yellow light, add in blue and get white light.
Paint, on the other hand, is about absorption and reflection. Yellow paint absorbs blue light, and reflects red and green. Red paint absorbs green and blue light, and reflects red. Mix them together and you get a paint that absorbs blue light, absorbs half of green light and reflects the other half, and reflects red: orange paint. | 34 | 53 |
ELI5: why does having a long story before a recipe help websites get better search engine results? | Whenever I'm looking for recipes online there is invariable a long story about the author's family and which family members like this dish and which ones do not. I'm sure I'm not the only person who thinks this is vey uninteresting and just wants to get to the cookie recipe but I've heard that doing this gives websites better chances of turning up higher in search results.
Why do these stories improve search rankings? Who decided to set the settings that caused this? | Another aspect of this search engine optimization is simply content depth and key word frequency.
The exact details of search engine algorithms are closely guarded trade secrets, but we know that page ranking has to deal with two competing problems.
You want sites with lots of on topic content to be ranked higher than sites with less content. But at the same time, you don't want people being able to fake their way up the rankings with a bunch of nonsense "word salad" of keywords.
So search engines count keywords and content depth but they also try to eliminate sites with keyword nonsense. A bare recipe doesn't read like valid English to some methods of analysis and is "shallow content". Someone's family history with a recipe reads better, increases content depth and still allows for repetition of keywords. | 7,636 | 17,130 |
[General] do beings like Superman with the ability to fly in space need to consider orbital mechanics? | I’ve noticed that individuals like Superman, Capitan Marvel, Omni Man, etc… seem to fly through space with little to no consideration of orbital mechanics. Is this simply because it’s too complicated a subject for writers to include when considering super powered space flight, or is there some concept in astrophysics that allows them to maneuver freely without considering orbital mechanics? | When you drive a car, you pretty quickly learn to adjust how much to turn the wheel to account for how fast you are going.
It’s actually fairly complicated if you think about it - at five miles an hour you turn the steering wheel a lot to move over five feet, but at sixty miles an hour you just turn slightly to accomplish the same thing.
But your brain does that work for you, subconsciously.
The same mechanism applies to space flight - yes, NASA needs to perform calculations ahead of time to estimate trajectories, delta V, and do on - but a human (well, anyone with a highly evolved brain in their head) can ‘see’ where they are headed and adjust their speed and angle to get where they want to go. | 100 | 44 |
ELI5: what is being discussed in contemporary philosophy? | Is there something like one common problem that a lot of people try to solve? | A famous modern philosopher is Zizek, who ponders (among many other things) the philosophical and sociological implications of today's economy - especially regarding capitalism.
It could be argued that some of the more famous economists (Hayek, Keynes) are, in a sense, also modern philosophers. They are polymaths; experts on history, finance, mathematics, sociology and economics. Drawing on their extensive knowledge and observing existing patterns of behavior, they conduct thought experiments and try to best determine what forces are shaping how the economy unfolds and why.
Keep in mind also that slightly more recent philosophers (Nietzsche, Heidegger) lived within the last 100 years - their ideas aren't exactly as old as Plato or Atristotle. | 16 | 41 |
How come evolution is gradual, but species are distinct? | This question is specific to ancient species. I understand that we can label species right now because they all have distinctly different properties/DNA, and in our timescale evolution plays little impact. (Though I'm sure that's up for debate, but that's not why I'm asking this question). My question is in regards to when we add evolution to that mix and how we cope.
When it comes to evolution we know that it's a gradual change. If an organism mutates in a small way such that it's more appropriate for survival, then that organism will have a better chance of reproducing and thus this mutation will spread across the species. This might be as simple as "having stronger wings" so it can fly faster to avoid predators, or in the more classic example "having a longer/pointier beak" so that it can reach food in cracks in rocks. My point here is that we know that an organism won't evolve a fully functioning eye in one go, it's a gradual process. If you think of it in terms of maths, it could be considered a "continuous" process.
However the classification of species doesn't seem to allow for this. A species seems to be a snapshot of a particular step on that evolution. My understanding is that we look at bones and if they have certain properties/size/etc then we match it with a specific species. We can think of this as a "discrete" process.
So if evolution is gradual, how much mutation has to happen before we generate a new species? How do you necessarily know that two similar species aren't the same organism at different stages of evolution? How do you distinguish between the varying random characteristics of a organisms across a species, (like weight/height), and evolutional change, (such as becoming taller to reach the leaves of taller trees)?
The more and more I think about classification, the more and more I realise that whilst still very important in all walks of life, its still increasingly problematic and ill equipped to deal with change. But with my questions, I simply wish to understand more about evolutions and species and their seeming incompatibility. Any thoughts or learning would be much appreciated | species is not an exact classification. There is such a thing as a 'ring species'...and various organism that are technically different species are capable of hybridizing (such as polar bears and grizzly bears)...in practice the more relevant question is how common this is.
in order to talk about stuff meaningfully, you have to draw lines. it is simply necessary for communication. But it is understood that all life is intrinsically clinal.
This is just something you have to get used to. When speaking about various species and subspecies, it should be a given that the boundaries between these things are often blurry. But that does not mean you need to fall for the spectrum fallacy. In a spectrum of hues it may be difficult to exactly draw the line between red and orange...but that doesnt mean red and orange doesnt exist. You do not logically require hard boundaries for things to exist. | 30 | 19 |
[Star Wars] Is there any evidence in new canon that talks about the empire having homophobic views? | i recently came across a tweet where a user claimed that in the new canon one of the books talk about the empire having homophobic views. i know that the empire is a fascist state and has many discriminatory policies such as xenophobia but i've never came across the idea of the empire being homophobic. i've tried researching it but couldn't find anything. does anyone know which book explores the empire's views on homosexuality and how exactly is the empire homophobic and what are there views on it ? | They prioritized heterosexual relationships because it led to families that could help produce more soldiers and strengthen the Empire. They preferred that if you had any other sexual preference you kept it private and engaged in it behind closed doors. The novel cited for that info is "Aftermath: Life Debt" | 36 | 16 |
What causes the "Green Flash" as the sun sets over the ocean? | My friend and I saw a video of the legendary green flash and were trying to figure it out. The best we could figure was that as the sun sets behind the water light travels through the blue ocean and the light appears green. Have any studies been done as to what the cause is? | The underlying physical phenomenon is atmospheric refraction which separates the colors of sunlight (similar to a prism). The ocean has nothing to do with it and green flashes can occur over land. However, because the key requirements are 1) clear air and 2) a long distance from observer to horizon, people mostly see them over the ocean. | 425 | 734 |
ELI5: What is String Theory? Has it been proved wrong? Whats the current replacement theory/idea? | There are four fundamental forces in the universe, gravity, the electromagnetic force, the strong force, and the weak force. We can describe so of these forces with two models, general relativity can be used to explain gravity, while the standard model explains the three remaining forces. These theories are immensely successful, however they are both incomplete, and we would like to have one theory which explains all for forces.
Actually combining these forces turns out to be really difficult. For one thing, gravity is incredibly weak compared to the other forces and we have no clue why. Another problem is that if we attempt to describe gravity using the same math as we do for the other three forces we end up with a theory which isn't predictive. We want theories to be able to make predictions, so if a theory isn't predictive this is a pretty big problem.
String theory is one way of having a theory which explains all four forces. However, it's incredibly mathematically complex, and so far we don't have any way to test it using current technologies. | 10 | 17 |
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ELI5: Why do they say that you should wash your wound (or put it under a stream of water) when you cut yourself and blood is pouring? Doesn't it prevent the blood from coagulating? Which is our body's way to heal itself preventing blood to keep pouring out? | In general, the biggest danger from the usual cut or scrape is the introduction of bacteria or other contaminants into your blood stream. Your skin is the first layer of defense against most foreign material; breaking it presents an immediate risk to your body. Washing the wound isn't supposed to do anything about clotting; it's just to clear the wound of any debris/contamination from whatever caused it.
Now if your wound is gushing blood (eg, opened vein/artery, limb amputated), then washing it is probably less critical than applying a tourniquet or other device to stop the flow of blood, because if you're bleeding that badly, your more immediate concern is blood loss rather than infection. | 41 | 20 |
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Did the construction of the Panama and Suez canals affect the ecology of the surrounding waters? | Despite the small overland distance, would connecting two very different bodies of water have a noticeable effect on the flora and fauna of the two regions? | Suez allowed lots of marine organisms from Red Sea to enter Mediterranean Sea. This process is so wide spread it is given a name; Lessepsian migration or sometimes Lessepsian invasion. It effects on Mediterranean ecosystems hasn't been great. | 20 | 58 |
ELI5: How come full siblings share only 50% genetic with each other and not 100% since they both have the same parents? | Someone told me that full siblings with the same parents only share 50% genetic material, but why wouldn't it be 100% since they both have the same parents and are both getting 50% from the same mom and 50% from the same dad? Isn't it true that they're getting 100% of the same amount of DNA from the same genetic source (their parents)? What makes it only 50%?? | During conception you get 50% of your genes from your father and 50% from your mother. But you still have the same number of genes so there is 50% of the genes from each parent you do not get. Your siblings will have the same distribution of genes. So of the 50% of the genes you get from each parent your sibling will have on average 50% of them and 50% of the genes your parents have not given you. So you end up sharing 50% of your genes with your sibling. For instance your dad have a gene for developing testicles which makes you into a man, however there is still a 50% chance that this trait is the same in your sibling then in you.
To better visualize how this works. You take a deck of cards and divide it into red and black suits. This represents the genes of your parents. Now on random chose 13 cards at random from each of those decks numbered 2 to A. The new deck will have equally many black and red suits. This represents your genes. Now repeat the task with another deck of cards and you end up with a deck for your sibling. Since you picked the cards at random you now share half the cards in the decks. | 38 | 59 |
ELI5 : How does oversampling work? | I just don't got it. I'm talking about oversampling on a screen. Let's suppose I have a full HD screen. That means 1080*1920 pixels. When a game purposes to display the image with oversampling, how does it work? My screen still has the same amount of pixels doesn't it? How can it displays a more detailed picture? | What is the benefit of oversampling? You get a cleaner image for edges, color gradients and transparency.
If you calculate the imagine in a higher resolution first, that imagine contains more *information* about what is going on on the screen in comparison to the lower resolution.
So if you get a FullHD image you get just 1920*1080 pixels, let us assume you calculate a scene in a dark hut in shadows and a fire that throws sparks. Now take some pixel that there is SHADOWY_BACKGROUND and the next pixel to it is RED_FLAME. So you get a sharp transition, a jump from BLACK to RED between the shadow pixels to the left - they are all very dark grey - and the next one, that is a bright red spark. It clearly is discernable as a black surface next to a red block, especially considering the again next pixel is also the same (or very similar) red.
Now you do a oversampling in 4K (this is a good example, as you get exactly twice as many pixels in each dimension): The same transition from the dark shadow to the flame might not be as clear cut. You have a dark shadow, the next pixel is a shade of red, the next one brighter, the comes the red pixel.
You have the same scene, but with more information, more details about all color gradients, all transparencies, and all edges. If the oversampled image is downsampled, it is not just done by discarding, for example, every second pixel, but the image is processed in way that pixels next to each other are averaged. So instead of BLACK BLACK RED you'd now get BLACK DEEP_SHADE_RED RED in the FullHD image, which means your oversampled FullHD image is cleaner regarding *all* color gradients that are next to each other than a native FullHD would have been.
In this way, oversampling works like a full-screen all-details anti-aliasing. Just with the difference that it works with internally more details that the native resolution would provide. Normal anti-aliasing basically works by blurring the image in smart ways, oversampling works with more details and then uses that to average near pixels instead of just "blurring around". | 15 | 19 |
Einstein's Theory of Relativity is based on the principle that the speed of light is the same for all observers. How did he deduce that and how do we prove it now? | For one thing, in order to work Maxwell's equations require that the speed of light be constant. One of Einstein's big leaps was realizing that this wasn't just a mathematical quirk, it represented physical reality. | 48 | 51 |
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ELI5: 20/20 vision. What does it mean, why 20/20, and not 10/10 or 50/50? | At some point it was decided how clearly a person should be able to see at a distance of 20 feet. If you can see from 20 feet what a person "should" be able to see from 20 feet, you have 20/20 vision. As your vision gets worse, the 2nd number gets larger - e.g., 20/200 (IIRC, considered 'legally blind' in the USA) means that the amount of detail a "normal" person can make out from 200 feet away, you'd have to get to 20 feet away to be able to see.
IDK about why 20 vs. any other possible number. | 19 | 22 |
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How to do a literature review if there is no literature published on the area? | I am a geology student and I am trying to do a literature review. The problem is that the study area is very small and there is no literature published on it. My master's guide is the first person to work on this previously unexplored area. His earlier masters' students have worked in this area but I think I can't use their thesis as a reference in my paper. Can someone please help me out here? If someone has published a paper on a novel work can you link it here? It might help me. Thank you in advance! | Your literature review should explain the gap in the existing field that your project will fill. Is there literature in surrounding areas that you can discuss? You need to set the scene for the reader and explain why they should care about your project.
For example, you might be doing a project on a new technique for basket weaving that saves hundreds of hours. Your lit review should talk about basket weaving in general, then narrow down to the various techniques of basket weaving (i.e. what's been done before). You can then talk about the fact that no-one has done research on your specific technique yet, and then explain your project. | 65 | 23 |
[Digimon] Are there any other uses for a Digivice? | Other than the traditional use for Digivolution ( whereby the Digivice itself only acts as a conduit for the Tamers emotion ) is there another practical use for them?
Each iteration appears to be a sophisticated piece of technological hardware with buttons for some sort of operation but these other uses are not explained.
What else can you do on it? | Yes, their main use is improving the health and diet of your digimon. They can scan herbs, analyze foods, send non verbal commands to digimon, they can act as radars, detect hostile monsters, track other digivices and generally are quite useful.
Some models had more advanced functions. The D3 served as interdimensional portals. Other models had dataports to let them tap into other devices (His Kingdom for a Horse) or could heal digimon (A world apart).
The D-tector let you communicate with other users, and purify spirits of darkness.
They had a lot of uses, depending on the device. | 13 | 17 |
Why does the central limit theorem work? | I asked a teacher, and his answer could almost be rephrased as "it is a general property of the universe". | It works because the math works out (which is similar, although philosophically pretty different, to your teacher's answer).
It may help to think of the central limit theorem not as a property of every type of random variable, but as a property (in fact, the motivation for) the normal distribution.
Compare it to the Poission distribution. It's not a coincidence that a Poisson distribution looks like a bunch of low-success-rate binomial distributions added together, because that's the motivation for the Poisson distribution.
Similarly, it's not coincidence that the mean of a bunch of iid random variables looks like a normal distribution, since that's precisely why the normal distribution is interesting.
It's still a bit surprising that this works for *any* collection of iid variables, but it's not really that surprising, because adding n and then dividing by n for large n tends to smooth out any weird distribution those variables may have. | 12 | 46 |
ELI5: Why is calculus important in the medical field? | When you take any medication, someone has to have calculated how long the drug lasts at each dosage level. They have determined the correct dose for each body weight. They know how that medication is affected by other drugs, including how the duration or decay rate changes.
To do these types of calculations, scientists and pharmacists use computers... But they used to use calculus. | 35 | 33 |
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[Batman] What are the advantages of henching for a supervillain (as opposed to a regular suit-and-tie gang)? | So like, beside those cult guys Ra's carries around, pretty much all of these unnamed mooks are Gotham citins, born and bred in the city, yeah?
I know its a shithole and unemployment is probably upward of 45% at any given moment in the bad parts of town, but henching for a supervillain seems...dangerous.
Not so much from fighting Batman, I mean he'll break your jaw and send you to a cardboard prison; unless you've been disintegrated and re-integrated such that touching you will make you disappear he won't do much permannet harm. But the supervaillains themselves seem to have a penchant for killing their own goons. And they never seem to be able to steal something long enough to sell it. | Depends on the villian, but usually its case of danger pay and fringe benefits, supposing you have a choice in the matter. If you work for the Joker or Poison Ivy then you're probably being coerced or mind raped into serving them.
Working for one of the more reasonable villians, such as the Penguin (who for all his faults is ultimately just in it for the money, and as long as you don't cause problems he'll pay you what you're worth) or Mr. Freeze (who doesn't especially care about the money and just wants to save his wife and occasionally uses henchmen to achieve this end) is the way to make a living in Gotham.
Working for a reasonable villian you'll be paid what you're worth plus a solid danger pay, and you'll be allowed some leniency to carve out your own slice of pie while on the job. The boss says steal the plans for a death ray from a questionable engineering firm? Well as long as you don't fuck that up the heist and pay their cut then you're golden to take what ever else you want while you're at it. Boss says steal a perfect diamond for his freeze ray? Go ahead and take all the other precious stones in the museum while you're at it, he doesn't care, he's busy monologuing about his frozen wife.
Thats not even getting in to the benefits of working for these career criminal masterminds. You find something valuable? You can bet your ass that the Penguin's fences will give you a good deal less the boss' cut. Some dipshit banger getting up in your face? Your connection to one of Gotham's many supervillains will put the fear of god in them. You get caught and get arrested, or the bat beats the shit out of you and leaves you for Gotham's Finest? Well its a good thing that 95% of the force are on the take, as long as you didn't fuck up too badly, and didn't kill anyone, then the worst that will happen is you spend a relatively short stint on downplayed charges before you're let out on parole or broken out while you're still useful. The majority of the time they'll just cut you a deal for whatever little info you have.
Sure, some people are left dead, and some people the Bat gets a bug up his ass over and ensures you see justice for your crimes, but thats kind of just an occupational hazard. When you play in the big leagues you risk more but stand to gain more. | 59 | 45 |
If one were to take a seasonal tree from the Northern hemisphere (that has lost all its leaves), and replant it in the Southern hemisphere, what would happen? | If one were to take a tree from one hemisphere, and replant it in the opposite hemisphere (where the seasons are opposite), what would happen? Would that tree simply readjust to that hemisphere's season? | Plants use more cues than just temperature to determine when to go into dormancy. Things such as resource availability and length of daylight also have an impact in what temporal stage plants are in, depending on the specific species. If a deciduous tree that had lost its leave was replanted in a region that was in the growing season, the local conditions would trigger physiological changes and the tree would again sprout leaves and take advantage of the available resources.
Dormancy is an evolutionary adaptation to deal with the stress of cold temperatures, low light, low resources, etc. Assuming the tree had the capabilities to do so, and could overcome the stress of being replanted, it would adjust and begin growing again.
TL;DR- The local conditions would trigger leafy growth again and the tree would adapt to the local conditions.
Source: Me, a wildlife and rangeland ecologist. (this info specifically from a university course in Plant Ecology with Dr. Gary Clambey, Plant Ecologist) | 20 | 66 |
Why aren’t waterfalls just eroded to slopes? | I can understand that water needs some place to go and sometimes the easiest path is over a ledge. However, I would think that the power of erosion would convert these waterfalls into smoother inclines. Are waterfalls usually just the result of recently redirected water where the forces of erosion haven’t worn it down yet? Are tectonic plates moving faster than the forces of erosion can act? Are the rock found at many waterfalls more resistant to erosion? Thanks! | The most powerful weathering happens in two places in a waterfall system. The critical edge, the place with the least support. And the vertical edge, where falling water has a lot of force and there is not much vertical support.
These two places happen to be where the defining features of the waterfall are (edge before the drop and the cliff face). Since these places experience much stronger weathering than anywhere else, the general shape of the waterfall remains. It just recedes up the stream over time (see the erosion of Niagara Falls).
For example: picture a waterfall with big rocks at the edge before the water tumbled down. In the event that these rocked get swept down what do you expect to happen? Generally the water creates a new critical edge some distance back and now the water begins falling directly onto rock/sediment that is clinging to the side of the cliff. | 783 | 1,265 |
ELI5:Why is it that some people eat a lot and exercise little, but don't get fat? | - Differences in metabolic status (genetical/hormonal).
- Difference in body size. The more mass, the higher base need for nutrients, particulary muscles.
- People don't always know everything about another persons diet and real exercise, so they might overestimate/underestimate themselves compared to others. | 86 | 82 |
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[1984] Is there any hope for peace, democracy, etc. in this world? | Two hopeful answers:
First, there's an alternate reading of 1984 that says that the book is, in effect, a lie. Not that the events aren't true within the book universe, but that the description of the rest of the world is no more reliable than a North Korean account of American Politics. Since everything we get is from the party and filtered through Smith we don't really know what the rest of the world is like. Oceania could easily be a small pariah state, surrounded by a regular world.
Second, there's always at least some hope, because humanity came from darkness. There isn't freedom because there's a word for it, there's a word for freedom because the concept emerged on its own. Even if it requires a thousand years of horrors, in a system where 2 +2 doesn't equal four anymore, eventually the monitors breakdown, the spies stop functioning, and there's at least a slim chance for renewal (especially since there's nothing in 1984 that suggests any plans or ability to change humanity on a permanent biological level) | 84 | 86 |
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ELI5: Why are some skills "use them or lose them" but others are kept for life? | How is it that I can ride a bike for the first time in 10 years with ease, but I can't math myself out of a paper bag, even though I completed multiple calculus classes in college? | These are stored as different types of memories in different areas of your brain.
Riding a bike is an example of a “procedural memory” which is essentially muscle memory that is largely done unconsciously and automatically by your brain.
In contrast, how to solve higher level mathematics is a “declarative” memory, similar to memorizing a phone number. These are facts that can be “declared” that you have to consciously remember. In school, all you’ve been taught is to memorize math as a series of facts (memorize this pattern of integration, etc.) and once those facts stop being useful you won’t hold onto them in memory anymore.
If you made a career out of mathematics, though, it is probably less likely you would forget how to solve problems, even after taking a break from it. It is also a lot easier for you to learn calculus the second time around, which is probably the true purpose of learning calculus in school—not to hope that you memorize all the facts past graduation, but for you to learn the reasoning behind it. | 62 | 54 |
CMV: A “pro-life” stance is logically at odds with being against universal health care | My view: being pro-life, particularly to the point of considering any abortion unacceptable, is contradictory to the view that the government is not responsible for ensuring universal access to health care.
Note, I do not believe that the inverse (that being pro-choice is contradictory to supporting universal health care) is a true statement; my view is specifically based on the logic used to support pro-life views and the inverse is a totally different situation.
In all the conversations I’ve had with pro-life people, the justification for their view is that any human life is precious and must be protected under the law, even as a fetus. Many of these people are also against universal health care, which would undoubtedly save lives of people gaining coverage under it. I do not understand how someone would so strongly defend the life of a fetus, oftentimes at substantial toll to the mental & physical health of the mother, but then turn around and be against a system that would provide life-saving healthcare for born, breathing humans. Why is it that the care pro-lifers ostensibly have for the fetus disappears when it exits the womb? | The connecting point, is personal responsibility.
In conservative thought, pregnant women are responsible for having had sex nd gotten pregnant, so they are obliged to preserve the fetus's life, and people are responsible to work hard to afford their own health care, and the rich shouldn't be compelled to give them a leg up.
Note that many conservatives are also in favor of abortion in the event of rape, which WOULD BE inconsistent with just wanting to save all lives at all cost for the sake of saving them, but it is consistent with specifically compelling sinful women to save the lives of fetuses. | 648 | 2,952 |
[Star Trek TNG] In "Elementary, Dear Data", if the holodeck has a finite amount of space, how does Moriarty get Pulaski at so far a distance (several hundred feet, perhaps even several hundred yards) from Data and Geordi that they just couldn't find her? | Distance is a flexible concept in the holodeck. If you divide the holodeck in two with a wall and paint that wall to resemble as much space as you need, you could hide anything behind that wall as "far away" as you need it to be.
Likewise, if two people were to walk in opposite directions, you only need to keep the participants walking in place and project an image to one person of the other moving further away (and vice versa) to complete the illusion. | 30 | 17 |
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Do people who survive Ebola develop resistance to reinfection? | Yes! In an infection, the body takes some time to mount an adaptive immune response, because the correct T cells and B cells with the specificity for that pathogen need to encounter the virus, then proliferate and produce antibody to the virus.
After the virus is successfully cleared, those cells die and the antibody level goes down, but some B cells will remain as memory cells, which will produce antibody and begin the immune response much more quickly if you're infected a second time.
If infected a second time, the body mounts the aptly named **secondary immune response** which is much quicker than the response to the first infection (because the cells to make antibody are already around), and more effective (through a process called antibody maturation), where antibodies with increased specificity to the virus are basically selected for.
So in short, your body is actually very well equipped to deal with infections that it's seen before, in part due to having some memory cells around and due to "perfecting" the antibodies against that virus. This is why we get vaccines - in that case, you're injected with dead or attenuated antigen, the body recognizes and mounts a response, and you're much more protected in the event of infection with the live virus. | 14 | 32 |
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[Fantasy] eli5: The difference between sorcerers, wizards and warlocks. | A wizard studies hard to earn good grades, and thus has a wider breadth of knowledge.
A sorcerer slacks off on homework and studying and still gets good grades due to natural ability and creativity.
The warlock is fucking the principal. | 203 | 64 |
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[General Fantasy] What's the difference between a Mage and a Wizard? | A wizard studies the arcane arts, and learns to use magic through rigorous study, practice, and discipline.
A mage is a general term used to refer to a spellcaster who uses the traditional arcane magics. For example - a warlock, sorcerer, and wizard are all mages.
TL;DR: all wizards are mages, but not all mages are wizards. | 226 | 179 |
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ELI5: How are contacts so thin when eyeglasses are so thick? | The important thing is the size of the lens. A lens needs an even curve from one edge to the other. This curve continues from the middle all the way to the edge, becoming steeper as it goes, and the steeper the curve gets, the thicker the lens is.
But just as a larger lens becomes much thicker, then a smaller lens becomes much thinner. The active part of a contact lens is the size of the opening of the eye, the pupil, which seldom gets wider than 8mm. A pair of eyeglasses is normally at least 30mm across, sometimes as wide as 50mm.
To get an idea of this, take a look at the middle 8mm - less than ¾" - of a glasses lens. Imagine chopping just that bit out of the lens. Either that bit will already be thin, or it will have fat edges all around, and you could subtract all that thickness without changing how it works. Then notice how the curve of the glasses becomes greater from there to the edge of the glasses. This is where all the thickness comes from. | 11 | 62 |
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Married couples should not get more favorable tax benefits than singles simply for being married CMV | Why should a married couples get advantages when it comes to IRA's, deductions, etc. over people who choose not to get married?
I believe that this is practically a punishment for not getting married, and that people should not have tax disadvantages just for being single. It does not make any sense for marriage to be that integral to getting IRS points, especially in a society that isn't as focused on getting married and having kids in a traditional sense anymore.
The current tax code heavily supports married couples over singles and partners who aren’t married.
I think we should live in a country that treats everyone on equal terms, not giving advantages to those who are married
| Providing benefits for married people promotes the growth of families. It takes a lot of effort to raise a child. Also, providing a tax benefit allow one parent to work and the other to stay home and be a homemaker or raise children.
This is good, because a strong, supportive family structure raises healthier, less dysfunctional members of society and take a lot of burden off of the government in many areas (crime, education, jobs, productivity).
Since the stay at home parent is essentially doing work that helps society but they are not being paid, a tax benefit helps out for the sole earner who is providing for the entire family. | 28 | 56 |
ELI5 - What are pivot tables actually used for? Like, a real life example. | Take a set of data like the guests at a wedding and the tables that they’re sitting at.
Let’s say you want to know how many of each dish is going to be served at each table.
You could write a bunch of sum if formulas in a new sheet, or you could just create a pivot table, select table number as the row, select the dish types as the columns, and sum of dish type as value, you have your answer.
Basically anytime you want to aggregate data across another set of data, pivot tables are incredibly fast ways to do that. | 29 | 30 |
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Eli5, how do conservationist deal with inbreeding gene pool when trying to bring back species from being endangered? | A good question. In biology there is a measure called minimum viable population (MVP). Earlier hypothesis stated that a minimum of 50 individuals was needed to prevent harmful inbreeding, but a minimum of 500 was needed to prevent the transmission of harmful traits like lack of immunity throughout the entire population. However, newer models taking in many variables like gestation, environment, etc. have shown that there are species that can reasonably survive with a smaller minimum viable population.
Now how is that information used for actual conservation. It informs biologists how many individual they need in a local protected population to ensure any offspring will stay strong and healthy. Typically this is done through finding or moving wild individuals onto a preserve where they are interfered with minimaly and protected by law and sometimes force. To increase genetic variability, sometimes individual from one preserve are traded to the other. Eventually once a threshold is reached the species will be reintroduced to previous habitats in numbers to create their own viable population. | 60 | 66 |
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ELI5: Why are the colours blue and purple relatively rare in nature? | When you look at things, their coloration comes from the light they reflect while absorbing the rest. A blue object absorbs all colors while reflecting only blue light.
Blue light is the part of the visible spectrum with the most energy. Since plants want to absorb as much energy as possible, they didn't evolve to reflect blue light.
Pretty much the only time plants use blue pigments is when they want to attract attention. Blue flowers, blue fruits etc.
Many animals get their pigments from the food they eat. Herbivores eat the plants, predators eat the herbivores. Flamingos are pink due to the red shrimp they eat. The shrimp are red due to the plants they eat.
So on the one hand, blue doesn't make for good camouflage because plants don't want to be blue. And on the other hand, animals can't consume plants for their blue pigments either.
Most animals that do appear blue aren't blue because of pigments (which the usual way organisms display color). Instead, they evolve textured surfaces that bend light and reflect it in a different wavelength to appear blue.
As you can imagine, that's a really unusual adaptation so there's not that many animals that have it. | 70 | 53 |
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A day is 24 hours. Earth's rotation is 23. 56 and change. Where do those 4 minutes go? And why isn't the time scale divided so it's 24 hours exactly? | You have to decide what your reference point is: the 23hrs 56 minutes is the time it takes the earth to rotate 360 degrees. But it takes four more minutes for the earth to rotate on around to where the sun is at the same place in the sky, because the earth is also revolving around the sun at a rate of 1/365.25th of a revolution per day. There are 1440 minutes in a day, and 1440/365.25=3.943
Hope that helps. | 51 | 15 |
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ELI5: are massages really good for you? Why or why not? | Like the title says. | Blood flow is key to the health of any cell. When a muscle along with the surrounding tissue is lubricated and loose, the fibers are primed for flexibility and strength training. When a joint is relieved of muscle tension it can stay properly aligned. These are the main physical benefits of massage therapy.
If someone has an injury or disease that increases blood clots, a systemic swelling condition like rheumatoid arthritis, or arterial plaque build-up; the extra blood flow does much more harm than good so massage should be avoided in situations like those. | 10 | 22 |
CMV: It isn't injustice to not give non citizens of a country access to things that citizens get | So, this is a little tricky probably as it involves a lot of topics, but the general things still fall under the same umbrella.
I was reading about debates about what to do with Canada's housing bubble. Someone suggested that foreigners, even permanent residents, shouldn't be allowed to own a home. While I think it won't do Canada any good, I do agree that I don't think PR people have the 'right' in the sense that it really isn't immoral to bar them from being home owners. As a citizen, I believe I get the privilege to vote for things that make my life better. Non citizens can still rent, but citizens should get the first pick.
There was also the case of Rina Sawayama, who is not a British citizen but really wanted British awards. I think it's dumb and I see nothing wrong with her being denied british awards. If she wants to be British so much, she should give up her citizenship of Japan. I have no issue with dual citizenship, but if she or anyone, including myself, have to choose, then yes, I will choose. I don't believe in abusing non citizens, but I think we all agree an award isn't a 'human right' so Rina not getting anything like that is fine with me. (I can somewhat agree if we voted for denying non citizens access to health care, that would be a very tricky debate in which i might tend to agree but even then, I am on the fence)
Similarly, it isn't injustice to kick out illegal immigrants. (This was sort of brought up) If illegals, PR etc get the things citizens get, then what's the point? In some countries, being a citizen through naturalized means means doing more, ie, holding a job for longer, staying longer etc. If illegal immigrants get access to everything I get without paying taxes, why shouldnt' the same be for me. Why is an illegal immigrant in say, Germany, allowed to stay when naturalized germans had to work hard to stay?
I guess in sum, what is the difference between a citizen and non, and what is the 'moral' and 'just' things that citizens should have the privilege of getting?
I know 'moral' and 'just' is grey, and i'll be honest, I dont' really know what i find just other than feeling, so I'm willing to explore it here. | Do you mean all 'things' or just some 'things', like housing rights, awards, and security against deportation? It seems to me at the extreme, there are also 'things' that would be completely unjust to withhold, for example the right to defend yourself in court. If you think your opinion only extends to certain 'things' and not all 'things', can you describe the qualities of a 'thing' that would make it fair/unfair to withhold to non-citizens? | 13 | 28 |
How do we know how ancient languages sound? | Like the title suggests, how do people who study ancient languages like Latin or Ancient Greek know how the letters are pronounced? Do they just compare it to modern languages, or is there another way? | in part, they look at the offspring languages and study how they sound. they also look into the morphology of pronunciation and see how people change speech over time in general.
that being said, we don't actually know much, we have made a lot of educated guesses where each separately have have a medium-high degree of accuracy.
if you learned one of these languages and went back in time to one of these ancient cultures you'd probably sound something like a chinese student attempting to speak english after two months of study. that is to say you'd be nearly understandable and you'd not understand much of what is being spoken.
the exception is latin. if you study latin today with good instruction you'd do very well. we have too much information on how latin was pronounced excepting about 4 sounds (w vs v is one of the hotly contended pronunciations). similarly with greek though not as good.
the most interesting case is proto indo-european. | 26 | 28 |
Eli5: why aren't there bodies of other liquids besides water on earth? Are liquids just rare at our temperature and pressure? | Pretty much. Water is special for a lot of reasons, in a chemistry sense.
The common gasses, Hydrogen, Helium, Nitrogen, CO2, Methane, etc... become liquid at very cold temperatures that we don't naturally experience here.
We have oceans of liquid rock and metal under the surface, because of the heat and pressure.
So then the question is, what other naturally occurring substance is liquid at approximately 300K and 1 atm?
While there are a few, there aren't any in great abundance. Not enough to make a geographic body of water.
You probably know but there are methane oceans on moons in our solar system. | 3,477 | 6,559 |
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ELI5: What is a "vector" image? | I often get confused when people at my work place ask for "vector". Starting design myself, it gets confusing because people do not know the meaning of what vector really is or at least I get confused from .ai, .psd files and so on.
So how can I explain what vector really is? And is it only limited to adobe programs? | There are two general kinds of computer graphics: *raster* graphics and *vector* graphics.
Imagine a big piece of graph paper.
A raster image says how each *square* on the paper should be colored — as in, "square 3,2 is blue ... 3,3 is purple ... 3,4 is purple too ... 3,5 is black ..." and so on. Everything in a raster image is in terms of pixels, which are the squares on the graph paper; each pixel is given a color.
A vector image is, instead, instructions for how to draw lines and shapes among the *intersections* on the paper — as in, "draw a triangle from 1,2 to 4,5 to 0,3 and fill it with purple." A vector image does not talk about individual pixels at all; only about shapes (lines, triangles, circles, and so on) and which coordinates they are placed.
One big difference is that vector images scale smoothly whereas raster images do not. If you want to make a vector image 2x bigger, you just multiply all the coordinates by two. If you want to make a raster image 2x bigger, you have to average all the colors of the pixels to make the in-between pixels. This makes it fuzzier, whereas a vector image stays sharp. | 47 | 26 |
ELI5: How is a Mafia boss chosen? | Is it the son that takes over? What if he has no interest in being the boss? | Having a "claim" to the position (being a close family relative) helps, but it's really about who has the most support in the organization (and outside of it).
If you're just some low level guy and the boss dies, you wouldn't be stupid enough to make a play for the top (you would die).
If you're second in command and the boss dies, you'll be expected to either take command yourself or throw your weight behind a new boss (like the old boss's son or something).
So, people without a chance are incentivized to stay out of the way, hopefully leaving just one person (or group of people with a figurehead leader). Things get dicier if there's more than one person with a halfway decent claim to the throne. If that's the case, things get violent until it's clear who will win. | 114 | 162 |
ELI5: Please explain the differences in roles and responsibilities among different military ranks (lets say Corporal to General) | What different roles do different ranks in the military have? What is the major difference between a 2nd Lieutenant's responsibility and a Major's responsibility? At which point does a particular rank stop seeing frontline combat, or combat at all. You get what I'm saying. | Think of it in comparison to a large retail chain.
Think of privates and specialists like the on-the-floor salesmen and stockers, who do the actual work of working with customers, stocking shelves and that kind of thing.
Now you've got your NCOs (non-commissioned officers), your corporals and sergeants. These guys are sort of like the shift supervisors and department managers, who keep the regular workers organized and on task based on the directions they're given from management.
Lieutenants are your store managers. The whole staff reports to them, the floor managers carry out their instructions, and the performance of the store as a whole is their responsibility.
Majors are your mid-level managers. Some of them might be attached to one larger store, others might be working at headquarters, others are running half a dozen stores in one given area. Most haven't set foot on a retail floor in years, except for the occasional tour or inspection. These are the guys who organize the bigger picture based on the strategy handed down from senior management. They're responsible for ensuring standards are met consistently, and for keeping senior management informed of conditions in the stores and in the market.
Colonels are your junior vice presidents. Same as majors, one rank might involve any of ten different roles, but generally they're running larger business units or working at HQ to coordinate overall strategy, supply and performance.
Generals are your senior management, your heads of marketing or your VPs. These guys are working out detailed strategy in support of the overall plan, bringing multiple different elements together in a coordinated effort to overcome the competition.
Then of course you've got your three- and four-star generals, who are your top-level executives (CEO, CFO etc). These guys are generally doing big-picture strategy and representing the company to the board, the investors etc.
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Intro to Philosophy (College) Quiz Question | Hello, I'm 41 and going to college for the first time because I find my current job unrewarding. One of my GE classes I decided is Intro to Philosophy because I find it interesting and want to learn as many different areas outside of my major as possible to expand my mind.
On our midterm, we had 23 questions with the last being an essay answer. I was looking for opinions on how my professor answered because the mean score is a C in class, with high scores being B's. He's also fairly condescending towards students and their writing, however I have 105% in my Writing class currently, so I do generally write well. I do understand that logical writing may differ, which is why I'm here, as I want to be clear when engaging in rhetoric.
The question has us pick one of two prompts. I chose the below:
**1**. ABDUCTIVE POE (a) Please fully present/explain the “abductive” version of the POE. (b) Does this argument have a key or central premise? Explain. (Note: I’m not asking you to evaluate the APOE.)
My Answer:
>1: APOE
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>To build an abductive POE argument we would look at evil, which we can observe under an agreed upon convention, and say that it is not that it exists. It is that it exists in such numbers and in such enormity, so that if God did exist he is either not omnipotent as he is unable to stop such evils being all knowing and all good; Not omniscient, in that he could not be all powerful and all good, and yet know evil exists and not stop it; Or not be omnibenevolent, being all powerful and all knowing, but not (all) good enough to stop evil. There is no lack of evil within the word, either man-made or natural. Evidence to support a strong abductive argument is plentiful given our current cultural agreed upon convention of what "evil" is defined as.
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>The central argument is, that evil is too prevalent in too much of an enormous way that God being omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent would allow such to exist according to the JCI doctrines. Therefore, the better explanation is simply that God does not exist, which fits the model of the world we view, with less mental gymnastics and religious apologetics.
My professor's reply:
> YOU WRITE: "To build an abductive POE argument we would look at evil, which we can observe under an agreed upon convention, and say that it is not that it exists. " This is confused writing. "It is not that it exists"? You need to provide context for this statement, namely, that one might suppose that the Problem of Evil (for Theism) is that there are evils. No, the problem is not that evil exists; it is that there are so many evils and they are so terrible. You do nothing to provide that necessary context. What is "It"? You need to explain the issue here. Like all abductive arguments, this one starts with a set of facts to be explained: the amount and awfulness of the evils of our world. The issue is: what best explains such a world? We consider the possible explanations (there are two via the Law of E M). We then evaluate each for quality, using standard criteria. the APOE asserts that the "the JCI God does not exist" explanation is superior to the "the JCI God exists" explanation. That's the argument. You make little of this clear. What are the facts to be explained? What are the competing explanations? PLEASE SEE IDEAL ANSWER. D 50
After our quiz, my professor posted the "ideal answers" for each of the prompts along with a grade scale. I did receive 230 out of 300 points on the quiz, which puts be at a B+ just shy of an A. However, I feel like I'm missing so much by not receiving more points. I'm usually someone who picks up material quickly and grasps complex topics with ease. For reference, here is the ideal answer.
>**1. ABDUCTIVE POE (a) Please fully present/explain the** **“abductive” version of the POE****. (b) Does this argument have a key or central premise? Explain. (Note: I’m not asking you to evaluate the APOE.)**
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>STARTING POINT: The Abductive Problem of Evil (APOE) *starts with a set of facts to explain*, namely, the kinds and amounts of evil that seems to occur in our world. For the APOE, *the problem of evil is not that there are any evils; rather, it is that there are so many and such terrible evils*. To see the point, consider what one would encounter if one were to do a kind of inventory of evils of our world:
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>THE SHEER AMOUNT. Our world does now and has always contained a tremendous *amount* of evil in the form of pain, injury, and death. Constant war, disease, criminality, and natural disasters have been and continue to be routine. (Consider the Black Death of the 14th Century, which killed 30 percent to 60 percent of the European population.)
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>THE ENORMITY OF MANY EVILS. It is worth noting that some routine evils of our world are truly disturbing, such as the slow torture of small children either by disease or at the hands of evildoers or predators.
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>SUPREME INJUSTICES. It seems clear that, in our world, a great many beings suffer and die despite their utter innocence, such as infants born with terribly diseases, and the many nonhuman animals that suffer and die (as nonmoral agents, they are innocent).
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>APPARENT UNNECESSARY EVILS. There are many apparent isolated evils that occur the necessity of which (for an omnipotent being) is difficult or impossible to discern. We have every reason to believe, for example, that chicks in nests burn alive in isolated forest fires. What good depends on the occurrence of such suffering? That such suffering is somehow necessary seems grossly implausible.
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>TWO HYPOTHESES: Now, obviously, the Judeo-Christian-Islamic type of God either *exists* or *He does not* (I’m appealing to the *Law of Excluded Middle*, according to which, for any proposition S, either S is true or it is false and there is no further possibility). And so we must ask: which of these situations is a better fit with—a better explanation of—the world with its many and terrible evils?
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>**Hypothesis 1: the Judeo-Christian-Islamic type of God exists**
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>This explanation would seem to be very problematic. That is because, roughly speaking, the last world anyone would expect to exist in a JCI God-dominated world is *our* world, with its many and terrible evils. Such a being might well allow, for instance, some fears as a necessary condition for the opportunity to attain such virtues as courage, but it is difficult to see how such a being would permit such catastrophes as the Holocaust, or the endless ravages of cancer, or the factory farming industry—something that, by itself, involves the suffering and death of *billions* of creatures every year.
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>**Hypothesis 2: the Judeo-Christian-Islamic type of God does NOT exist**
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>This comes in two forms:
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>**2a: There is no God**
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>**2b: there is a god but not a JCI type of God**
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>If there were no God, the world that exists—with its indifference to suffering or justice—is pretty much the world we might expect to exist. It is a world that follows physical laws that yield an indifferent pattern of happiness and misery.
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>Suppose, alternatively, that there is a god, but an incompetent or malicious or foolish god (i.e., a non-JCI God). Again, the actual world is pretty much the world we might then expect, given this hypothesis. In the real world, things sometimes seem to go well; they just as often seem to go very badly, as though the man in charge doesn’t quite know what he is doing—or just doesn’t care what happens to sentient creatures.
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>**KEY PREMISE**: Based on the above, one might well judge that the 2nd hypothesis is by far the better explanation for our world and its evils. Hence, as far as the “goodness & evil” of the world are concerned, it seems likely that there is no JCI type of God.
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>Or so suggests this kind of reasoning. (Obviously, one needs also to consider any arguments for God’s existence. Do they provide evidence of a JCI God’s existence?)
Is my answer so far off that 50/90 seems correct? Do I generally understand this or is my writing confused as he claims? | Your writing is a little confusing, but it seems like the greater deficiency is that the structure of your answer doesn’t really communicate the structure of an abduction in a way that would lead the grader to think you knew what an abduction was.
In philosophy, rather than some English classes, you often need to avoid writing for effect and make your prose sparser and more precise. You’re trying to demonstrate that you know something very specific, and that sometimes requires laying things out in a very plain, very structured way. You can see that the ideal answer is almost hilariously hyper-organized to show that an abduction is happening. | 59 | 45 |
CMV: The concept of „Cultural Appropriation“ has some overlap with ethnopluralism because both essentially propose that a culture „belongs“ to the ethnic group associated with it | This has been bothering me for some time! I’m well aware that ethnopluralism is a dogwhistle for modern-day racism, which is why it irritates me so much that one of it’s core aspects seems to also be the foundation of the left/progressive concept of cultural appropriation.
Now, I know that cultural appropriation takes into account the power dynamics between different ethnic groups and is mostly used to protect the cultural achievements of marginalized groups from exploitation by more powerful groups.
However, my ideal society would be a multicultural one where every individual can enjoy, but also contribute to a multitude of cultures that slowly merge into one where the differentiation between different cultures (or at least their connection to any ethnic group) looses relevance. Preventing individuals from „crossing over“ to other cultures seems to strive for a society where multiple cultures exist, but there are defined lines between them and depending on an individuals ethnicity, some are more or less accessible to them. This - at least in some sense - resembles the ethnopluralistic idea of ethnically segregated nationstates, just within one nation.
Maybe I’m seriously misunderstanding either of the two concepts. In that case, I’d love to be educated!
Anyway: Please change my view!
Edit: I realized that my view could be understood as simply "cultural appropriation is bad/good". That's not what I mean and has been discussed plenty on this sub. It's rather that it's conceptually flawed in the way I described, given that it aims at combating structural racism/protecting marginalized communities.
Edit 2: My view has been changed, or rather my misunderstanding has been resolved by this [comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/ufimr8/comment/i6vjzk7/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). But a lot of other comments have also helped me to understand the topic better, have given me new insights and provided useful subcategories to think about the topic more complexly. Thanks a lot to everybody who contributed! | I think it comes down to 1) consent for the culture to be shared and 2) respect for the culture doing the sharing.
Some cultural practices are considered "closed practices," where outsiders are not permitted to witness/participate. There are a number of reasons for this, but this "enclosure" usually serves to protect something that's considered private, sacred, or unique, or to ensure that the participants have the necessary education to appreciate what's going on. You can't just bumble your way into another culture's most intimate ceremonies and expect to be able to gawk and point and treat it like a tourist attraction.
Your ideal culture may be one of absolute openness and sharing, but not everyone shares that ideal, often because these smaller, closed cultures have faced external pressure/coercion/ridicule. They value what makes them unique, and they don't want to lose their sense of heritage.
Some cultures may have both public and private spheres. The public sphere is meant to be shared and appreciated by the wider world, while the private sphere is meant to be kept within the community. One example would be Amish communities who make furniture for sale or offer traditional hospitality via B&Bs or restaurants. This is shared, and in fact is beneficial for the community when outsiders come in as customers. But outsiders are very, very rarely welcomed into the Amish community as marriage partners, religious converts, etc. You could not expect to force your ideal multicultural society on their protected, closed cultural practices.
So it's not as cut-and-dry as "you can't use anything from someone else's culture." It's about respecting their boundaries, and only taking what's freely given. | 24 | 150 |
Just like in supersonic motion, the object that creates the sound can move faster than the waves it produces, is it possible for the E-field or B-field that make up light to move faster than the light? | The light (i.e., the electromagnetic wave) *is* the E- and B-fields. So the answer to your question is trivially "no"; something cannot travel faster than itself.
But perhaps you mean to ask whether a source of light can travel faster than the speed of that light *in that medium*. So, for instance, can an underwater light source travel faster than *the speed of light in water*. Yes. That's perfectly fine. That particular question is commonly asked and a common example of this phenomenon (called *Cherenkov radiation*) is seen in the typical blue-ish glow of underwater nuclear reactors. | 397 | 845 |
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What happens if you freeze one water molecule? | I know that water molecules arrange themselves into a hexagonal pattern when they freeze, but is there any change within a single molecule? | States of matter, gas liquid and solid, are by definition a model for how atoms and molecules interact with each other at an atomic level to give rise to macroscopic properties.
Hence, it would be impossible to 'freeze' one molecule. The molecule would vibrate less vigorously with decreasing temperature, but no other significant change would occur. | 623 | 262 |
Is ironoxide soluble in water? | If so, what is it that makes it soluble? If not, what is the that makes it nonsoluble?
I looked at the difference in electronegativity between iron and oxide and figured it was polar. Since water also is polar I thought it would be soluble in water, but when I later on was looking at ironoxide on wikipedia it said it was nonsouble in water. I'm pretty bad at chemistry, would be great if someone could explain. | When a material dissolves in water, three main things must happen. First, the material must be broken up into its consitutent ions or molecules. Second, water has to spread apart to make room for the individual pieces in solution. Third, the individual pieces must be surrounded by water (solvated).
It always is unfavorable to break a solid up into pieces because those interactions were doing a good job holding the solid together. It is also always unfavorable to spread water apart because water molecules are strongly attracted to other water molecules. The solvation process that occurs after this is always favorable because new attractive solvent-solute interactions are forming. Whether or not something is soluble is dependent mainly on how unfavorable the first step is compared to how favorable the third step is (the second step is pretty much the same all the time).
For iron oxide, the bonds holding together the solid are very strong. In solution, iron oxide exists as hydrated iron hydroxide, a neutral species that is capable of forming extremely favorable bonds with water. Unfortunately, those interactions are not as strong as those that iron hydroxide can form with itself, and it does not dissolve in water to any significant extent. | 114 | 380 |
ELI5: What is non-Euclidean space or geometry? | So, to consider this properly, we need to consider what Euclidean geometry is.
Euclidean geometry is any framework in which the following five postulates are true:
1. A straight line segment can be drawn joining any two points.
2. Any straight line segment can be extended indefinitely in a straight line.
3. Given any straight line segment, a circle can be drawn having the segment as radius and one endpoint as center.
4. All right angles are congruent.
5. If two lines are drawn which intersect a third in such a way that the sum of the inner angles on one side is less than two right angles, then the two lines inevitably must intersect each other on that side if extended far enough. ***This one's the important one!***
The first four postulates can be used to describe an entire geometric system, along with a series of definitions and notions.
Euclid's Fifth Postulate, also known as the *parallel postulate,* has mainly to do with triangles, because that's the shape you get if you construct three lines in that manner.
However, Euclid was never able to prove the fifth as a theorem. In 1823, mathematicians Janos Bolyai and Nicolai Lobachevsky figured out that ***you could ignore the parallel postulate*** and make geometries that made sense!
*Non-Euclidean geometry, then*, is any framework in which the Fifth Postulate does not hold -- that is to say, where the interior angles of a triangle do not sum to 180 degrees. Further, as a consequence, parallel lines don't stay the same distance from each other forever.
Edit for clarity regarding parallel lines: Under Euclidean geometry, the following is true:
* Given a two-dimensional plane P, a line L, and a point A not on L, there is exactly one line that can be drawn through the point A that does not intersect L.
In hyperbolic geometry, there are infinitely many such lines that can be drawn; in elliptic geometry, *any* line drawn through A will intersect L. | 23 | 22 |
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ELI5: How in the world do scientists image atoms | What I'm talking about is like how they imaged the stop motion film [A Boy and His Atom](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSCX78-8-q0). I'm still confused on how they image only the CO molecules and not copper atoms that they were situated on. My understanding is that there is a layer of electrons obscuring the view of the copper atoms, but I'm not sure if this is what's happening. Also, how in the world do they make an image using electrons? | Imagine that you are working in a shipyard. You have a crane that can be positioned at every point in the yard with a high degree of accuracy. Now imagine that you have a large magnet attached to your crane. You lower this down and perform a sweep over the shipyard; if there are any magnetic objects that are scattered about the yard, by carefully monitoring the movement of your crane, you could construct a 2 dimensional map of where the magnetic items were in the shipyard.
A similar technique is employed here. A tip is moved with a high degree of accuracy over all points in a plane, and by carefully measuring the current flowing through the tip, you can measure what the surface of a material looks like.
The analogy is obviously not perfect, but hopefully gives you a rough idea of how it might work. Note that there are other ways of seeing individual atoms, but perhaps none that are as conceptually digestible. | 16 | 27 |
ELI5: How do motion detectors detect motion in the dark? | You have two common types of motion sensors - passive infrared(PIR) and Ultrasonic. The most common type is PIR which sees IR which is emitted by hot objects. There is a special lens in front of the sensor so a warm object moving through its field of view creates sudden transitions that are easy to detect. Since it is relying on heat emissions it works fine with or without light.
Ultrasonics send out a sonar burst and effectively echo locate like a bat. They check the sound they get back after each one and compare it to the last one, if it changed significantly then something in the space moved and they trigger | 36 | 46 |
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ELI5: How is low rep strength training different from higher rep size training? How do the muscle fiber grow differently to accomplish this? | Muscles work by snapping some muscle fibers under whatever stress you are putting them to, then replacing them with more fibers. This allows them to match whatever your needs are using only simple rules, a common theme across all of biology. While strength training, you're focused on the healing part more: you want more muscle fibers in exactly the places you need to strengthen the muscles you are training. Therefore, you do some reps to break a few fibers and then them heal up, making sure your body's systems can keep up with the healing.
In mass training, you're trying to make your body massively overcompensate by breaking tons of fibers with long strings of reps, leaving little time for the healing process to begin. By breaking everything at once, the body rushes in to repair the damage, going overboard in the process so less damage is done the next time you do that. In addition, that many reps quickly runs your muscles out of oxygen, forcing those cells to begin building up lactic acid and burn through their sugar supplies very quickly. The lactic acid also damages cells and sends signals to the surrounding tissue which encourage vascularization, the growing of new blood vessels and widening of existing ones. The increased blood flow also helps bulk up a bit just due to there being a lot more fluid in the area now, and also creates the huge, prominent veins you see in bodybuilders. | 25 | 67 |
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ELI5: Why are there different accepted measuring systems for weight, speed, distance etc. but only one for time? | Have there been any others? How did we all land on this one across cultural and geographic lines? | Much of time wasn't formalized until far later than languages. Years, months and days are natural phenomenon (earth's orbit around the sun, the moon's orbit around the earth, and the earth's rotation), but beyond that there was quite a few different formats that most people didn't really care about. Hours were flexible units of time, minutes and seconds even moreso. Most people worked by morning, night, afternoon, etc.
Things like hours, minutes, and seconds weren't formalized until tools were made to measure such things accurately. At which time there was already nearly worldwide contact. | 150 | 89 |
How did fish wind up in lakes that are far inland or in high altitude areas? | If I had to guess, then I imagine they are remnants of when the oceans were in that particular location but I would like clarification on this. | If the fish were from when the area was covered by oceans then they would be unique species, having evolved from old salt water species. That's almost never the case with lakes.
Rather, the answer is much simpler. Lakes often have streams or rivers connecting them elsewhere, and so fish migrate along those routes. Even in cases where a lake doesn't have a connecting stream today it may have had one in the very recent past (years or decades) due to local flooding. Since flooding is fairly common on the scale of centuries just about everywhere, most lakes have been connected to other lakes and rivers at some time in their past. | 114 | 141 |
ELI5: The Circle of Fifths | The keys that we use in Western music are based around the major scale, a fixed pattern of whole steps and half steps (WWHWWWH).
If you play this pattern starting on the note C, you get all of the natural notes -- no sharps, no flats. Thus our key of C major also has no sharps or flats.
Now you move up a fifth from C to G. Play that same pattern of whole steps and half steps starting on G, and you get all natural notes except for F#. That's our key of G, with just F# in the key signature.
Move up another fifth to D, play the same pattern and it now has F# and C#. Two sharps in the key signature.
This continues on: every time you move up a fifth, it adds one sharp into the key signature. It also works going down: a fifth down from C is F -- play the pattern and this time you get one flat: Bb. Down a fifth from F to Bb, you get two flats, and so on.
What this all is to say is that we have a predictable pattern of the notes in a major key simply based on this pattern of moving a fifth, adding a sharp or flat. We call it a circle because visually it loops around: you eventually get to F# (key signature with six sharps) which is the same pitch as Gb (key signature with six flats), allowing you to simply flip which side you're on and circle back around to C. | 54 | 133 |
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ELI5: What causes the feeling of butterflies in one's stomach when they feel nervous/excited? | Part of your flight of fight response is to prepare your body for action in cases when you think something dangerous is about to happen. Part of that response is to decrease blood flow to non-vital areas of the body, so that blood can flood into your muscles, where it will be more useful. Digestion is one of the areas that isn't real important in the middle of a fight, and the body decreasing the blood flow to the stomach is what gives you the butterflies in the stomach feeling. | 290 | 284 |
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[Frozen] Why don't any of the soldiers have guns? | Canonically, the story takes place in the 1840s, so the guards and soldiers should have access to firearms. However, they are stuck with swords and crossbows. It's not like there's a lack of gunpowder, either, since you can see gun ports for cannons on several of the ships in the fjord.
While the out-of-universe explanation is obvious, can someone give an in-universe explanation for this situation? | Given the country's geography and peaceful foreign relations, the threat of overland foreign invasion is minimal, so the guards mainly enforce laws and perform ceremonial duties. There hasn't been a need to modernize the armory. The military leaders believe that learning to use traditional weapons instills discipline and builds character. Guns look too easy to use--you just pick them and pull the trigger--and that doesn't teach proper respect for what it means to carry around something lethal. | 31 | 28 |
ELI5: Why do most things bake at 350 degrees? | In most baked foods, the goal is to achieve a nice browning on the outside and cook things properly inside. To get this most foods like cookies, breads and meats (and toast) rely on the Maillard reaction.
The Maillard reaction occurs at around 300F (there is a range 280-320 ish) and most ovens are imprecise enough that setting it to 350 is more reliable. And there needs to be a buffer because 300 is the target temp of the food to be cooked not the temperature as measured by an external sensor.
If you bake below this temperature, things will still cook but will be left pretty colorless (and lacking in the taste that develops through the browning)
The temperature cannot be too high (for most foods) because big pieces of meat and breads might burn/char on the outside before the inside is safely and tastefully cooked. So 350F is used as a compromise to give the best combination of cooking thoroughly and still having enough browning.
For some breads it would be safer to set a modern oven to around 325. For flat breads that cook quickly, possibly higher. For roasts, it is normal to start at a high temp 450 and then reduce the temps to allow the meats to cook through. | 43 | 32 |
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Can someone please explain to me the ethics behind preventing someone organ transplant if they are not vaccinated? | https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/10/unvaccinated-patients-are-getting-kicked-off-organ-transplant-waitlists/
maybe both sides, the logical side and the ethical side of why this should/shouldn't be a thing | I mean it explains very well in the second paragraph of the article. Transplanted organs are a scarce resource and shouldn't go to people who have a high chance of being killed while recovering in hospital when they can go to people who don't have a high chance of being killed while recovering in hospital. | 60 | 29 |
Are there any works out there that discusses how one's ability to be able to engage in 'intellectual' subjects like art and philosophy greatly hinges on one's material conditions and other societal factors like race/gender/sexuality? And how does this affect such 'intellectual' subjects itself? | It seems to me that to be able to participate in the arts and humanities, one must be able to meet conditions such as the quality of education in one's environment, how supportive is the environment to the pursuit of wanting to engage in those fields (either academically or non-academically), and whether or not they have access to knowledge of such subjects themselves in general.
An example of this would be the fact that a large majority of people in the art industry that work on animation (i.e. storyboard artists, background painters, etc.) tend to be middle-upper class cosmopolitan urbanites. To able to pursue such careers (much less considering pursuing such careers in the first place), I think, requires some degree of societal privilege. Another example that comes to mind would be to contemplate on how there may be thousands of extremely great artists and writers out there that lack the means to distribute their work due to societal conditions.
What I'm interested in is how does this system of exclusion caused by inequality of opportunity influence such subjects overall. So far the only philosophical work I'm familiar with that somewhat touches on this is Foucault's idea of genealogy/archeology that has some sort of a basis on viewing history for a lens of exclusion and marginality, Beauvoir's views on subjugation in The Second Sex, and Gramsci's work on cultural hegemony. I'd like to know if there's any works that touches more on this specific subject—anything similar would also help. | i wish i could offer any real sources to help you out here, but the least i can do is to tell you that aristotle felt the same way as you did to a very large extent, as he states in the *nicomachean ethics* that a person whose basic material needs are unmet cannot possibly hope to engage in philosophy and to lead the rational and contemplative life that humans are supposed to lead | 44 | 111 |
ELI5: what were the noises that dial-up made when signing into AOL in the 90s/early 00s | For those unfortunate enough to have never heard it: http://youtu.be/D1UY7eDRXrs | I like this very ELI5 explanation from the other thread
>By way of analogy, imagine you are in a cafe in Morocco.
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>The waitress comes up to you and says, "hal tatakallam al-lughah al-'arabīyah?"
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>You don't understand it, so you say "Do you speak English?".
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>She shakes her head, and says "Parlez-vous français?"
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>You do speak a little French, but only a little, so you explain to her how you need her to speak slowly with simple French words. Now you can communicate.
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>That's what your modem is doing with the other modem. Going back and forth, until they decide on a common method of communications.
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Eli5 - How does glow in the dark work? | I've lived on this planet for 28 years and have never questioned it, as I assumed it was magic that was beyond my abilities to comprehend.
My eight-year-old asked me about it today. Give me an answer. | Normally when substances absorb the energy of photons they emit them back as light almost immediately. However some substances absorb the photons of light so that the energy of the photon kind of get's stuck into a "quantum traffic jam" within the molecules. It takes some time for the energy to be released as light from the "quantum traffic jam". This time is so long that when you turn off the lights, the light that was absorbed by the substance is emitted back with a delay.
You can maybe think if it like how metal and heat insulating material react differently to heat. If you point a torch to a heat insulation, you can almost immediately touch it afterwards, as it does not really contain heat that well. But metal on the other hand absorbs the heat for some time and you can still feel how it is hot after some time. | 14 | 17 |
can exposure to small viral loads of covid-19 provide immunity? | I read that in order to contract the disease you must be exposed to a certain level of viral load, i.e. by spending more than a few seconds with a sick person. this implies that if a small amount of the virus finds its way to someone's body his immune system an defend itself from it. does this also imply that if an individual gets exposed to small viral loads could develop antibodies against covid-19 ? | When we talk about developing immunity we’re talking about developing memory t and b cells. During an immune reaction, some sentinel immune cells recognize danger and activate your t and B cells. After the virus gets cleared by a successful immune reaction, most of your t and B cells die off but a few of them hunker down and remember the disease. Then the next time they see the disease, they have a jump start and can quickly ignite a really good immune reaction way faster than last time and clear things before there’s enough virus to cause a problem. But the first time it takes t and B cells a week to get activated fully activated after exposure and then some more time to turn into good memory cells. If you only get exposed to a tiny amount of virus it will get dealt with by the other immune cells that are responsible for initial containment, and those cells won’t pass the info on to start your t and B cells to get fully activated because they aren’t needed. So for that reason, you don’t get the kind of immunity you’d get from getting the disease or a vaccine by just a tiny dose of virus. | 273 | 203 |
CMV: Women and men are equal, but should not be treated identically. | As the title clearly states, I am under the belief that although men and women are equal in merit and value, they should not be treated as if they have no differences.
Of course, this is somewhat true of any person: You should not treat anybody the same way as anyone else.
I am specifically applying this to the argument of biological sex because that is the area of this belief that I am most uncertain of.
However, I will provide my admittedly insubstantial evidence for this belief in order to give the fine folks here something to specifically refute, so, here we go on the ride of my train of thought.
​
Firstly, men and women have different biological features. This is a fact, irrefutably, although the extent to which the sexes differ is not entirely known.
Furthermore, continuing this chain of thinking, perhaps their brains are different. Women, for example, have been shown to have superior verbal aptitude compared to men, and men have more effective visuospacial skills. At least, according to this study I found: [https://stanmed.stanford.edu/2017spring/how-mens-and-womens-brains-are-different.html](https://stanmed.stanford.edu/2017spring/how-mens-and-womens-brains-are-different.html)
I will, however, concede preemptively that there are exceptions. Many women and men have shown to have traits inconsistent with this evidence, so I am not saying that all women are one way, and all men are another way. It is, sadly, much more complicated than that, although I will not go down that rabbit hole here if I can avoid it.
But, with the evidence described above, wouldn't it make more sense to treat someone differently when they are a woman than when they are a man? So as to ensure that everyone is comfortable in a given situation and that their differing physical and emotional needs are taken care of?
I am legitimately curious as to what sort of evidence is presented against this viewpoint, and I am happy to change it if the opposition is sufficiently persuasive(after all, if I wasn't, why would I be posting to this subreddit?).
​
EDIT: I no longer believe in gender roles, but I do still believe in being considerate of men and women's issues, basic things such as leaving the toilet seat down and being more cautious when playfully touching my female friends compared to my male ones(a belief which I personally doubt anyone will openly refute) | Treat each person, as a person.
If someone demonstrates verbal aptitude, expect further verbal aptitude.
Don't expect verbal aptitude, just because they are a woman.
If someone demonstrate spatial awareness, expect further spatial awareness.
Don't expect spatial awareness, just because they are a man.
​
Don't expect traits to appear, simply based on gender. Treat people based on the traits they demonstrate, rather than what you can divine based on gender.
How do you expect to treat men and women differently, if you cannot readily expect any particular difference (other than purely physical)? In a world where men are increasing doing dishes, and women are putting in more time at the office, where men are increasing becoming stay-at-home dads and women are forgoing pregnancy altogether - what differences do you honestly expect? Especially as gender roles continue to devolve? | 27 | 20 |
ELI5: If later school start times are found to improve sleep and daytime functioning in adolescents, why aren't school start times changed? | A lot of schools I've worked for have taken the parents into consideration. For instance, most jobs start at 9:00am so starting school at 8:00am gives the parents the time to get their kids off to school. The same went for snow days. In Rockford IL the school was blasted for having school on some of the worst days in the winter and the school tried to remind people that school breakfast and lunch were the only meals many students got so they stayed open for that reason.
And also tradition and bureaucracy. | 58 | 78 |
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CMV: Putting deaf and hard of hearing students through the main-stream education system does more harm than good. | First off, let me state that this view stems from personal experience as a student in a school in which deaf and hard of hearing students are put in the same classes as hearing students. My reasons are as follows:
1) Deaf students require an interpreter; this inherently slows down the class. I cannot tell you how many times a class has had to be paused because the interpreter can't keep up. This is doing a disservice to maybe 20-30 other students; the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
In addition (this may be on a case by case basis), deaf students may have other needs, such as a microphone the teacher must wear, that further slow down the class. When students are talking, the mic is passed around, and it simply does't make sense to me that this is really the fastest way for the class to progress.
2) Deaf students have a very hard time socializing with other students. A major caveat that many interpreters have made to me is that the deaf students are more "touchy" than the rest of us; they tend to tap, bump, or even slap those they are communicating with. In deaf culture, this is seen as normal, but when mixed with hearing students it ultimately causes the hearing students to look down upon the deaf students because they tend to almost slap their peers.
3) At least in my experience, deaf students tend to have a problem wherein they misjudge the volume at which they are speaking. Whereas others may nod in agreement, deaf students tend to let out short phrases of acknowledgment, a "Yes" or something like that. In doing this, they cut off the teacher.
4) Deaf speech is almost always incredibly hard to understand, which inadvertently causes the other students to look down on them. It's very easy to judge deaf students based on their difficulty speaking.
In summary, i think that keeping deaf students in all deaf classes would benefit both hearing and deaf students.
Change my view. | Schools exist not only to teach students the "3 Rs" and other coursework, but to prepare them to function in the world around them. In the "real world", there are people who function differently than the mainstream. Students will have to work with, or at least interact with, non mainstream individuals at some point in their lives beyond school. By having deaf, and other non mainstream learners in the classroom, students learn valuable lessons in working with differently enabled people. They might also learn valuable lessons in patience and compassion along the way. | 16 | 19 |
ELI5: Why was Windows ME so horrible? | I've heard tons of horrible stories about Windows ME, but WHY was it so horrible? I've never experienced it first-hand. | There were a few factors.
The first, and probably the most important, is that XP came just over a year later and murdered it. Unlike Windows Vista, it never really ended up having a chance to have many of its issues worked out before consumers migrated.
In terms of the problems that it faced, it was slow. Very, very slow. It's infamous for having had some memory leaks on launch that made it unstable. Unlike Vista or XP, which also had some performance complaints, it failed to deliver other features users were interested in. Security was still bad, there was still a gap between Windows NT and DOS-based systems, and, most damningly of all, it broke compatibility with many DOS-based applications.
The biggest thing to remember, though, is that it was preceded by the much better Windows 98 SE and followed by the also much better Windows XP. Its inability to show significant improvements to justify its cost and issues was the factor that killed its public perception moreso than any of the things that were actually wrong with it.
edit: In terms of the constant horror stories that you hear on the Internet, they're more meme than anything. Windows ME was only out for about a year before XP completely erased it, most users never bothered upgrading, and it ended up being used mainly by people who upgraded personal computers between September 2000 and October 2001. Most of the people who talk about how shit ME is have never used it. | 32 | 19 |
What is the difference between a mirror and a white object? | So I'm taking physics and we've just finished light. One thing that struck me was that white objects and mirrors both reflect the whole color spectrum so how come a mirror and a white object look so different.
Edit: thanks to all the people who took time out of their day to answer this question and thanks for the awards | The difference between the two comes from the difference between two types of reflection:
**Specular reflection** is what we see in a mirror. Here all light is reflected at the same angle that with which it strikes the surface.
**Diffuse reflection** is the other mode of reflection, where the light is scattered as it is reflected and the angle of reflection isn't the same as the angle of incidence.
Most surfaces have some amount of each mode of reflection. For specular reflection, it is necessary that the surface is very smooth. But this isn't the only requirement. Material plays a role too, because some smooth materials (such as polished porcelain or marble) still primarily reflect diffusely.
A white object that primarily has diffuse reflection won't look like a mirror, which will primarily exhibit specular reflection. | 3,804 | 4,824 |
What does “normalization” mean? | Reading [this paper](https://quantivity.wordpress.com/2011/02/21/why-log-returns/), they documented that:
>Benefit of using *returns*, versus prices, is *normalization*: measuring all variables in a comparable metric, thus enabling evaluation of analytic relationships amongst two or more variables despite originating from price series of unequal values.
I am wondering what is normalization, and could you please clarify the quoted sentence documented above? | Essentially standardization.
Things on vastly different scales are not necessarily comparable. Say you stock trading at $100. If it goes up 5$ that’s a 5% increase. Now say you have another stock, trading at $15. It also goes up $5. That’s a 33% increase instead of 5%. So the percentages are one ways of standardizing. Using the log conversion helps to distribute the scale more so that it’s better at taking both magnitude of the change and the rate of change as well. Otherwise, if you use just raw or percentages they each have their own weaknesses. | 25 | 18 |
Is alan watts well respected amongst academics? | A number of people in academic philosophy might credit Alan Watts as an original inspiration to getting into philosophy but typically they report feeling that they've 'outgrown him' as they study further into the subject.
Watts is best known for bringing ideas from eastern philosophy to western audiences, not really for any original contributions to philosophy. | 159 | 66 |
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ELI5: How does your brain decide what kind of music you like and don't like? | There are two big factors that have affected your current judgments toward music: your upbringing (influences from those around you such as parents, siblings, and friends) and your cultural exposure (the types of music in your culture). In your upbringing, you were exposed to music through your family and the culture that surrounded you. Through these experiences, you learned how to classify certain sounds as pleasurable, un-pleasurable, etc. You have learned and adapted to what music is acceptable for certain occasions in your daily life: What music is good for dancing, religious practice, background, working, driving, relaxing, or putting you to sleep. Interestingly, the acceptable forms of music for certain occasions may vary from culture to culture; because of this, it is important to be open-minded to musical forms that you are not accustomed to. You may not like a particular form of music but remember that no one form of music is better than another; it is all a matter of perspective.
No matter what your taste in music is, you are a good listener! You may not be aware of all the details as to why you like certain sounds/music but you are automatically listening very closely when you are searching for music that stimulates you. Because you are so good at listening to music and sounds, you don’t even have to think about whether or not you like a certain type of music/sound: You Just Know! Keep in mind that you can always learn to enjoy and appreciate other forms of music. In the same fashion that you came to appreciate the music you do, it takes time and a lot of listening to appreciate music. | 37 | 63 |
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ELI5: Why is the combination of salt+pepper so integral to nearly every western savory dish? | Salt is common in the cuisine of every country that had ready access to salt. Peppers (of various types, not just black pepper) are also very common ingredients the world over. Add to that the fact that pepper was considered a luxury good during most of the development of European cuisine, and it's not surprising that it's as ubiquitous as it is today. | 37 | 98 |
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Russia has great incentive to downplay economic damage caused by sanctions. What are some indicia of declining economic activity that are hard to conceal or fake? | We're already seeing evidence that the [ruble is being propped up, quite possibly at the cost of the real economy,](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/01/opinion/russia-ruble-economy.html) because it's a metric with visibility to outsiders and it's in the interests of the ruling party for sanctions to look impotent. What other things are useful to figure out what real economic activity is doing in a country that has every reason to put its thumb on the scales to the best of its ability? | Imports/exports can be tracked using other countries’ data. You could see if domestic economic activity has waned using satellite data to track light emissions from the country- theoretically, if many businesses are shutting down then you would see that it’s darker at night. However, that would probably require pretty big changes to be really noticeable. | 16 | 91 |
ELI5: How do scientists find out the recommended daily intake of various minerals and vitamins ? | First of all keep in mind that the advice given varies from country to country. A lot of it is disputed - mainly due to trying to find a one size fits all recommendation when people are all so different. A 65 year old man won't need the same things as a 23 year old woman for example.
Ok so how do they work it out? Well it's different for each item, they're not all worked out in the same way. Some are actually just educated guesses. Others they get from looking at studies into certain diseases that come about when you have a deficiency in something. They may look at the diet of someone with scurvy for example, and see how much vitamin C they ate compared to someone who is healthy. They can then determine the healthy person was eating enough and set it as a minimum requirement. (They would not just look at a single person though, they would look at many.)
For some some vitamins they do get a bit more "technical" and can take blood from someone and use a machine to look at the cells at a DNA level. If they see damage from a lack of a certain vitamin they can determine that the patient is deficient and make a note of how much they take in and increase it.
So, rather than making people deficient on purpose to find out the minimum values they wait until someone is already deficient and then figure it out from there. | 595 | 2,394 |
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ELI5: How do beekeepers know when to stop taking honey from bees so they have enough food for the winter? | Also: In naturally occurring hives or in the case where a beekeeper just stopped taking the honey. What would the bees do once they deemed they had enough food? Do they just stop leaving the hive or does that excess of food cause the hive to expand or break off in to another hive? | We generally use deeper boxes for the bottom two levels - one is for bees to raise young and store pollen, the other is for honey … which we leave for them for over wintering. We set shallow boxes on top during honey flow ; from these the surplus honey is collected. | 1,284 | 2,255 |
[Dune 2021] What happened to humans? | To be more specific, I don't mean "Where did humans go?" Several characters refer to humans or are referred to as humans in the film. But there seems to be a distinction between humans and other peoples, like Fremen and House Harkonnen. Are these people not considered human? Did they evolve to be different enough to be considered different species? Is it just THAT far in the future? | The Bene Gesserit draw a distinction between people able to prioritize rational thought over instinctual reactivity and those that aren’t. They call the former “humans” and the latter “animals”. That is what the hand in box test that Paul undergoes is supposed to determine, whether he has the ability to override his instincts and fear and instead endure the pain to prevent his death by the poison at his neck. The Bene Gesserit breeding program is supposed to select for the human traits. | 222 | 146 |
CMV: Every job that can be done remotely should have enforced commuting hourly billed by law | Past 2 years have proven that WFH is very efficient for vast amount of jobs where management wants to force people back to the office. Even if companies are profit-driven, they try to force people back to their offices for reasons likely related to power trip or management "feeling more secure" because of "their" people being "there".
Our time spent working is compensated, but commute is technically work. It would simply not exist were it not for that employment. We put in our time towards our workplace so that work would be able get done, in a way less efficient form.
No one should need to have more than half of their normal waking day taken by a single job under normal circumstances, and 2h commute (both ways), assuming 8h work at the workplace is required, should be compensated as 10h working day, incl. the overtime benefits.
Does it work better for the companies? No, but they'd also love if overtime wasn't paid at all either. But, it works better towards the well being of the entire nation, and we'd be ripping the benefits of this in years and decades to come.
\---
EDIT: You should be able to relinquish this benefit, but only if that's what you \_want\_. Asking people to do it as a condition to getting the job should be illegal with same legal weight as asking for sexual orientation, religion, etc.
e.g. You want to take a job that's 2h away and it'd be great for your career, but you don't want to relocate. Employer would probably turn you down for the 4h overtime pay. You'd be able to let them know about that in advance, and that's it. | Then employers could simply impose restrictions and only agree to interview those who stay close to the office, which would directly mean less opportunities for everyone.
Commute time is technically a choice. If you don’t want the long commute, then either stay close to your workplace or work someplace close to where you stay. | 250 | 739 |
ELI5: What if I permanently decide to breathe using my mouth and not thru my nose? Any health effects? | Biology student + Was a mouth breather
- Sore throat
- You'll inhale more microbes and bacteria since there is no filtration system in your mouth
- Your teeth gum will be exposed more to bacteria, resulting in inflammation.
- Bacteria in your teeth will flourish since they have more oxygen resulting in more teeth decay
- Cold air will affect your vocal cords resulting in a change in your voice + inflammation in your vocal cords from inhaled bacteria, very dangerous, it can damage your vocal cords
- Tuberculosis ! | 414 | 347 |
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CMV: Discovery of intelligent extraterrestrial life forms would disprove Abrahamic religions. | Let's stick to scripture-based discussion so that our arguments are not clouded by interpretation of the text.
Abrahamic religions are focused around the central tenant that God (Yahweh, Allah, etc.) created humans to have domain over Earth. Religious texts describe the life that is present on Earth and do not mention anything that would lead one to believe that life could exist anywhere else. So, if we found aliens elsewhere in our universe, I feel that alone is solid evidence that the Abrahamic religions are not true.
_____
> *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!* | > Religious texts describe the life that is present on Earth and do not mention anything that would lead one to believe that life could exist anywhere else.
I just want to point out that this bit is a fallacious argument. The bible never mentioned anything that would lead one to believe that computers could exist in the future. Or that penguins exist. Or that our solar system has an asteroid belt. However none of those things explicitly disprove christianity. In order for something to be disproven by the notion of extraterrestrial intelligence, it would have to explicitly state that such intelligence does not exist. | 36 | 63 |
[Lovecraft Mythos] Do eldritch entities understand what fear is? Do they fear anything at all? | Depends on the entity, and it depends on what you mean by fear.
- Various lesser eldritch entities will fight with each other, can kill each other, and be killed in turn. Presumably they understand the threat of death, and experience an emotion analogous to fear when confronted with it.
- Nyarlathotep certainly seems to understand fear. It doesnt feel fear itself, but clearly enjoys inflicting it on humans. As the messenger of the outer gods, it is the bridge between us and them, capable of understanding both humans and outer gods, but clearly not being one of either.
- Greater entities like Azathoth and Shub-Niggurath are not threatened by anything, and have never been shown to possess anything resembling human emotions. Nothing certain can be said about what they do experience, it's not certain they experience anything at all. Whatever conciousness they possess is not at all similar to what humans possess. | 36 | 25 |
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How do Significant Digits and Standard of Error work in other Bases? | I have a pretty solid understanding of significant digits in base 10. What are the repercussions of using significant digits in a small base (eg base 2) or a large base (eg base 60)? Bonus: how to keep the same significant digits (in meaning) when switching bases. | Significant figures are a quick way of displaying uncertainty, which is more accurately stated using the ± sign:
5.4 (2 significant figures) means 5.4 ±0.1 or 5.4 ± 0.05.
In base 2 (approximately):
5.3= 101.0100
5.4=101.0110
5.5=101.1000
So your number is about
101.011 ± .001, or just 101.011 (6 significant figures)
You can't translate the number of significant digits directly between bases, but you can do a rough estimate (which will often be off by ±1). If s_a and s_b are the number of significant figures in base a and b:
s_a=s_b (log b/ log a)
For a=2 and b=10, (log b/log a)= 3.33, while for our number 5.4:
s_a/s_b=3
So this formula is roughly but not exactly correct.
| 24 | 61 |
[Star Trek] How much firepower can a Borgs individual shields handle? | How long would I have to phaser an adapted Borg until it's shields failed? How could a Borg have such powerful shields in such a small mobile unit? | First, understand that Borg shield design revolves around the principle of specific defense, as opposed to the conventional broad-spectrum defense. When a Borg gets hit, it notifies the surrounding Drones that the enemy weapon is firing on a frequency of 123 hertz. All Borg nearby shunt all their shield power into blocking that frequency.
Since all power is diverted to that frequency, it's dozens, if not hundreds of times more powerful than a conventional shield, which is trying to cover all possible frequencies.
Thus an attacker can fire until their power cell runs dry and never penetrate the Borg shield.
This does however, leave the Borg vulnerable to other frequencies. A second attacker with a frequency of 321 hertz wouldn't encounter any resistance while firing.
Since the Borg defense is concentrated against the first frequency, that means the second attack would bypass their shields entirely - as if they weren't even there.
But they'd only get one or two shots before the Borg identify the frequency and adapt to that too.
Even blocking two specific frequencies still makes their shields impenetrable. You'd need hundreds of weapons firing at different frequencies to burn through the personal shield.
It's much easier just to remodulate your phaser frequency every few shots in order to keep bypassing the shield. | 13 | 24 |
ELI5: Why do criminals in movies always ask for unmarked bills. What is the difference between marked and unmarked? | "Marked" bills have had subtle distinctive markings added, or their serial numbers have been recorded, as an anti-theft measure. These bills were never intended to be handed out to customers; they're something for thieves to take so that the police can identify them if they're found in possession of the marked money later on.
"Unmarked" currency is just regular cash. | 13 | 17 |
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"Nobody reads dissertations after the defense" - is this still broadly true? | I remember hearing that dissertations are rarely read after the defense even before going to graduate school and, baring some field specific exceptions (e.g., mathematics), continued to hear the same thing. However, since finishing my dissertation I've noticed that the metrics from the library and sites like Research Gate seem to demonstrate the opposite - people are reading the dissertation as well as others that I know. Hundreds to thousands of views and downloads doesn't seem to be that uncommon.
Is it time to retire the presumption that nobody will read the dissertation after the defense, or is something else going on that's tricking the stats? Off hand I would presume that digital archiving has actually make it easier to retrieve a dissertation so we might be in an era were people actually read the things. | Many times the thesis isn't a public document and the papers that consist of the chapters have already been published and are known to be vetted through peer review. This is why the thesis itself isn't read. If you change these dynamics, like by having your thesis available for download on research gate and you're in a field where the thesis isn't basically a collection of your papers, then it's more likely to be read
Edit: spelling | 115 | 161 |
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