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Is there a way to express the Cobb-Douglas Production Function in terms of (K/L)? | Using
>Y = A \* K^(a) \* L^(1-a)
where Y = GDP, A = total factor productivity, K = capital, L = labor, and (a) = input shares, is there any way to express A as a function of K/L?
I'm curious because the aggregate capital-labor input ratio (K/L) would help illustrate the growth rate of capital relative to the growth rate of labor, unless I'm misunderstanding something? Any input would be appreciated, thanks! | This is indeed part of the reason that the Cobb-Douglas production function is helpful to work with. We can rearrange your equation to generate
>Y/L = A * (K/L)^a
which states that *output per worker* depends on the *capital-labor ratio* and *total factor productivity*. | 19 | 29 |
How do we know how far away the planets are from the sun? | I know that distances can be measured by laser but only if it gets reflected on the object, so that wouldnt work quite well I guess? How do we find out the exact distance between planets and the sun or other astronomical objects without sending a probe that is kept track of? I cant think of any other method to measure such long distances and when I asked my father about it he didnt really know either, he just said that it could maybe be derived by the planets weight and how fast it moves, but how do we know the weight?
(I am sorry for my lack of english skills and hope that this isnt a dumb and silly question) | Look for "Kepler's Third Law."
Kepler discovered that the square of the period of a planet (the planet's year) is proportional to the cube of its distance from the sun.
So if we say that Earth is 1 AU from the sun and it has a 1-year year, then we can look at Mars with a year of 1.88 years. That tells us a = (1.88)\^(2/3)= 1.52. So we'd calculate Mars was 1.52 AU from the sun, which is correct. | 1,348 | 3,551 |
Should I get a masters degree in Computer Science or an Online degree or Self-Study or Go to a Coding Bootcamp? | I am in a weird position. I am 30, and no longer find Accounting interesting. Although I have 4 years in the industry, but I want to transition in a Tech role.
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I am wondering if I should get a masters degree in computer science or should I go to a online school?. If not, I am willing to self study everything I need to become a developer with freecodecamp and other online resources, however, I feel that I will be overlooked because I don't have a BS in CIS.
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Another option is getting a coding bootcamp certificate, I think because I have bachelors in Accounting this might be good option. However, I don't know if economically it is work it since I am currently unemployed with 10k in the bank.
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What should I do > | Is there any chance you be interested in taking the middle step to a business intelligence / data analyst position? You can absolutely get jobs in those fields writing a lot of code and your experience will be appreciated.
If you took this approach you could probably just learn VBA and SQL at home and then start applying. It’s not sexy work like web development or data science but, it would be a good middle step while you’re learning theory. | 17 | 22 |
ELI5: How much if at all does the amount of physical activity early in life affect potential physical limits of an adult? | Would a 25 year old male who commited his life to weightlifting and eventually reached his peak results would have different peak results if he trained as a child? How would the answer be different depending where the muscle is or if instead of muscle strength we look at flexibility, lung capacity, etc. | Basically the younger you start the better you get. In optimal conditions.
However optimal conditions only apply in lab experiments. If you trained too hard and broke something early on, you could get a lifelong detriment (injury etc. ) that will always hinder your performance.
A lot of people who were forced to train at a young age, can’t train that sport in later stages of life coz they have trained too hard and are now broken in multiple places.
Idk if this made any sense, but in the end of the day, you do you. And don’t train too hard. Life is a marathon not a hurdle. | 15 | 32 |
ELI5: What exactly causes snot to be green/yellow when one has a sinus infection? | It just seems like a silly color. Neon green doesn't exist that often in nature. | Bacteria can be all different colors, but because they're so small, it's only obvious when they're in large groups. That's also why if your nose is running from just allergies or a viral infection, it tends to be clear - few or no bacteria means no color.
Color can actually be used to help identify bacteria - generally, yellow is *Staph. aureus*, green is *Pseudomonas* and white is *Strep.* There's even a bacteria used in microbiology classes that's bright red, called *Serratia marcessens.* | 11 | 21 |
ELI5: How come so many Windows installs / file copies, etc get to 95-99 percent complete in 2 minutes... Then take another forever minutes to finish? | An installer has a checklist of things to do. Written simply, it will simply report what percentage of the list is complete. Problem is, it doesn't know how long each item on the list will take until it's done.
Imagine it this way. You are a robot who has been given a shopping list.
1. Bananas
2. Sandpaper
3. Beer
4. 1,000 kg of sand
5. The remote control for the TV
Your master sends you out to grab all the things he needs for the weekend. It takes you 20 minutes to go to the supermarket and buy some bananas, then you text your master "1 of 5 items bought, or 20% done." Then it takes you 20 minutes to go to the hardware store, buy some sandpaper and say "2 of 5 items bought, or 40% done." The liquor store is on the other side of town, it takes you 40 minutes to get there to buy the beer, then you say "3 of 5 items bought, 60% done."
It took you an average of 26 minutes to get each item so far, and there are two items left, so you naturally estimate that it'll take you 26\*2 = 52 minutes to finish the work.
Only you can only carry 100kg of sand at a time, so it takes you 10 trips to get it all, or 5 hours total. You finally bring it all home. Now it's taken an average of 95 minutes an item, so you say it'll take 95 minutes to get the remote. But the remote is just under the couch, it takes you 10 seconds to get it.
This is how progress bars work. Computers don't know how long work will take until they've actually done it. The items on an installer's to-do list can vary in type and complexity, and it's just telling you how *many* items have been done, not how long each item takes.
The very last item on the list might be "Double check that every file we've copied is there and the right size, no incomplete files." If you installed a big game this might take a minute or two as it checks tons of big files. If it's the last item on a 100-item list, it'll say 99% done while this is happening. Just how things work. | 356 | 463 |
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CMV: Pro/Con lists are not the best way to make a decision | Pro/Con lists are very popular for people to use but often the winner of the Pro/Con comparison doesn’t end up being what the person chooses to do. This is due to an inherent flaw with the method.. which is that it assumes equal weight of all the bullet points.
The idea behind a basic Pro/Con lists is that you have a decision to make, and you make a list of everything that’s good about it (Pro) and everything that’s bad about it (Con) and then you pick the option that has more reasons to do it.
Example: Should I go to a movie tonight?
**Pro:**
- It would be fun and I’ve been very overworked and stressed lately and haven’t done anything relaxing or fun in a long time so I need a mental break.
**Con:**
- It would cost money.
- The movie I want to see has only one showing, starting at 10:45 pm at a theatre 45 minutes away from my house. And I have to work at 5am tomorrow. Going will make me very tired at work tomorrow.
- It got bad reviews.
- It would use gas for me to get there and also put miles on my car.
- I don’t have anybody to go with and I would like to not have to go alone.
- If I wait a few months I can watch it for free online.
So as you can see here, “not going” to the movie should be the decision made because the p/c list has pointed out that there are many more reasons for you to not see the movie than there are for you to see it. However, I could feel really strongly about wanting to do something fun despite any drawbacks. In that case I would put more value in the one point in the Pro list than all of the points in the Con list combined, so I’d say fuck this list and go to the movie anyway.
The other flaw with this system is it essentially only allows you to say yes/no to one option. People use it to compare two options, which isn’t how it’s meant to be used. This forces you to decide before making a list which option is the pro and which option is the con, which defeats the purpose. All making the list does then is bolster the decision you made before making the list.
Pro/Con lists not only don’t work well for comparing two options, they also don’t work well for comparing more than two options. Many times we make decisions between more than two options, and a LOT of decision making has at least 2 options.
For example: (still using the “should I go see a movie example from above) The movie I want to see is at the far away theater with one showing, but there’s a theater closer to my house showing other movies. now you have 3 options: A.) don’t go to the movie, B.) go to the movie, or C.) go to a different movie
There are some decisions that just require a simple yes/no, so I’m not saying that doesn’t exist. But even in those cases, you still have the problem of the points having different value weights.
Two options I think are superior to the Pro/Con method are:
1. [The Paired-Comparison Analysis](https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTED_02.htm)
2. [The Decision-Matrix Analysis](https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTED_03.htm) aka Grid Analysis, aka Pugh Matrix Analysis, aka Multi-Attribute Utility Theory
EDIT: To make discussion easier, I’d like to define a few things.. there are 3 different types of lists being talked about in the comments, and it’s derailing the conversation from the one specific type of list that I intended to talk about.
1. A **list:** a simple, single-column list made for the purposes of brainstorming, with no inherent requirement of analysis or comparison.
2. A **Pro/Con List:** a two-column list that inherently requires comparison/analysis. It is made for recognizing the good and bad elements of a single factor, although it is commonly *incorrectly* used to compare more than one option. It essentially answers a yes/no question based off which list has more bullet points.
3. A **Quantitative Pro/Con List:** which assigns weights to each point, and also inherently requires comparison/analysis. This allows you to actually compare two different options and the winning option is the column with the most points.
My post is specifically regarding #2, a Pro/Con list.
It is not regarding #1 or #3. I understand and totally accept that often people conflate #1 or #3 with the term “Pro/Con” List, but I am specifically discussing the ONE type of list in which the better option is the one with the most pro’s. Arguing with me that #2 is identical to #1 or #3 is not going to change my mind because I know those exist and I am not talking about those.
#So in order to CMV, you need to argue that the best way to make a decision is by listing all of the reasons to do / not do something and choosing the option that has more reasons
In other words I’m not here to argue over what #2 and #3 *should be* named. | Making a list of factors doesn’t necessarily mean you have to pick the option with the most points.
Comparing pros and cons is a simple method and is generally superior to going with an impulsive gut feeling, hence why it is so popular | 18 | 24 |
ELI5: Why causes particles to decay? And why does it take so long for some? | Some elements for example can take millions of years to decay. Also, how can we tell their age? | The stability of an atom is determined by the interaction of several different systems
1. The Strong Nuclear Force.
This holds the nucleus of an atom together by binding the constituent parts in ways that are incredibly complex, but it's very strong at super small scales.
2. The Coulomb Force.
Thus is the positive-positive repulsion that is felt by the protons in an atom. This is the force that dominates when you go a little bit further away than where the Strong Force applies.
3. The Weak Nuclear Force.
This is the cause of the actual process of decay. This force facilitates some particles changing into others. Sometimes, those particles will make the new atom unstable, and it decays immediately.
So the overall effect is that large atoms begin to exit the size for the Strong Force to apply, and some slight change due to the Weak Force causes it to go unstable, at which point, the Coulomb Force shoots out something at great speeds.
We can tell object ages with decay because while nuclear decay is a random process, it follows a strict formula that half of whatever sample you have will decay in the same period of time. This is true of any size sample. This time for half of the sample to decay is called the "half life", so if you know the sample size now, you know how much there should have been, and you know the half life, you can calculate the time to get back to the original sample. | 21 | 22 |
ELI5: How do you grow thick skin mentally? How does a brain not care about someone's opinion? | What I always hear is "grow thick skin". I guess there should be a process to do that or a mental training. But how?
I don't talk about insensitivity or sociopath behaviour, but more like being toughy when it comes to little problem. | One thing that helps is experience, the first time someone expresses a negative opinion of someone, they have no idea what's going to result, and they're bound to wonder about all the potential results. When it's happened many times before with either nothing occurring or something positive happening (like bonding with anyone else who had the negative opinion expressed about them), the event isn't going to be as stressful.
Another thing that helps is feeling secure in your position. If someone knows that they are highly valued by others, they're not going to risk losing that relationship over a external complaints or opinions.
Finally, making the realization that when you do something embarrassing, many of the people you think noticed probably didn't actually notice, or only care for a short period of time. | 23 | 29 |
ELI5: If states have to abide by a federal ruling, how come Marijuana is legal in some states but illegal Federally? | It's because of the difference between, on one side, what states have to do with federal interpretations of the Constitution and, on the other side, how states and the federal government interact when talking about statutes. The short version is that states have no obligation to enforce federal laws, but it's not that way with the Constitution.
State courts have to treat the Constitution as the law of the state, as well as the law for the federal government. (mostly)
So, If the Supreme Court says that the Constitution says that you have to let gay people be married, than the courts of that state would have to say the same thing.
Statutes are different. Federal statutes trump state statutes, but states don't have an obligation to enforce federal statutes. So if the state legislature passes a law that gets rid of their punishment for marijuana possession, than the state cops can't/won't arrest people for it, and the federal government can't (directly) make them do it.
But, the federal government can still arrest people for marijuana possession, and they still can even in states where it is "legal" under state law, because it remains illegal under federal law. | 24 | 47 |
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ELI5: When you boil a pot of water until it all boils off, what is the whitish, dusty residue that remains on the bottom of the pan? | Is it just minerals/other impurities in the water? | The technical term for this is "Total Dissolved solids" (this assumes the water went through a filter at some point to strain out any sediment or fish or whatever, but in tap water it you _should_ be just getting dissolved stuff).
Exactly what makes up TDS in your water varies from region to region, but it's usually calcium and magnesium and carbonates. Calcium/magnesium carbonate is the most common source of "white stuff". It also makes for "hard water". There may be more sodium and chloride if you are close to the ocean and getting a teeny bit of seawater inflow. Sulfides are common in well water in some areas...you will usually smell them if they are present.
All in all, this stuff isn't harmful unless there's a huge amount of it...honestly it's probably a net benefit to get a bit of calcium and magnesium from your water. Straight up totally pure water also tends not to taste great. | 79 | 83 |
ELI5: Since plants do not have muscle fibers, how do they get flaccid when deprived of water and stiff again when watered? | Plant cells fill up with water when there's water around and lose water when there isn't. You know how when you blow up a balloon, its skin is rigid and you can bounce it off of things, but when you let all the air out it's just floppy and useless? Plant cells are basically like that, but they're filled with water instead. They're rigid when they're full of water and flaccid when they aren't. | 26 | 15 |
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ELI5: Is there a difference between an attorney and a lawyer? | A lawyer is someone trained in law, typically, it refers to someone who has graduated with the basic degree in law from a law school. "Attorney" at it root means "representative;" to be an attorney-at-law you have to be qualified to represent people in court, generally meaning you have passed the bar exam. Most people do not observe this distinction strictly. | 41 | 73 |
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ELI5: How do music streaming services pay artists? How much are artists paid? What is payment based on (number of plays, etc)? | They know what people are playing and they compile costs based on play count and cut checks to the labels on a pre-determined basis. Sometimes rates are different based on quantity and such. It all differs, but most services pay standard rates that are set by law.
Sometimes companies pay different rates depending on if they have a contract that gives the artist greater control of the streaming rights and sometimes they pay different rates for specific artists for things like exclusives.
It depends on the situation, the song, and what agreements have been struck. | 20 | 53 |
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How can water extinguish a fire, but can make a grease fire worse? | When extinguishing a regular fire, water does two things: It cools down the burning substance and it smothers it, depriving it of oxygen. Both of these things work well because the water forms a thin layer on the surface of the burning object / substance.
But when you throw water on burning grease or oil, something else happens. Since oil/grease is hydrophobic and less dense than water, the water will pass through the oil and sink to the bottom. You then have the water trapped by a layer of burning oil that is hotter than the boiling point of water. The water is rapidly brought to boil and when that happens it expands to well above 1000 times its volume as it turns into a gas.
This rapid expansion quickly pushes the oil away, breaking it up into tiny droplets. In the form of droplets, the oil has far more surface area than what it had before, giving it much better access to the oxygen in the air and therefore speeding up the rate of combustion.
So instead of a contained volume of burning liquid with limited surface area exposed to the air, you suddenly have a cloud of burning droplets, which are burning much more intensely than before. | 600 | 132 |
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CMV: Planetary Protection (the concept of protecting other planets from Earth life) is a flawed concept. | Planetary protection, for those unfamiliar, is "a guiding principle in the design of an interplanetary mission, aiming to prevent biological contamination of both the target celestial body and the Earth" (Wikipedia). The basic idea is to preserve any extraterrestrial environments that may harbor life by not accidentally introducing Earth life. This has been enforced, to an extent, by the [Outer Space Treaty](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty) Article IX: "... States Parties to the Treaty shall pursue studies of outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, and conduct exploration of them so as to avoid their harmful contamination and also adverse changes in the environment of the Earth resulting from the introduction of extraterrestrial matter and, where necessary, shall adopt appropriate measures for this purpose..."
I disagree with the concept of planetary protection. It provides the view that the Universe sans Earth has a 'Do Not Touch' sign on it. However, the goal of life is to spread. Whether accidentally or on purpose, life has 'infested' every corner of our planet, so there should be no reason to stop life artificially at this point.
Another argument against planetary protection, at least on Mars, is the fact that asteroid impacts have been shown to carry impact fragments between Earth and the red planet, implying that if Earth life could live on Mars, it would be already, and vice-versa.
In addition, Elon Musk (and others, of course) want life to spread to, and ultimately terraform, Mars. If the idea of planetary protection and the related OST clause were to last, even a manned Mars landing probably wouldn't be allowed. (The astronauts would need to live in-situ until a transfer window, unlike Apollo.) Now, for the record, neither I nor many astronomers believe the OST will last; it's too idealistic. However, it seems like so many people support planetary protection there is just no argument to be had (thanks, reddit!).
**In summary**, planetary protection breaks the logical path of life for sentimentality, impedes interplanetary exploration, and is overly idealistic. Reddit, change my view.
EDIT: For those who have read it, *Red Mars* by Kim Stanley Robinson examines this issue a bit more. For those who have read it, feel free to discuss it.
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> *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!* | Let's change the situation from other planets to something a little more simple.
You are an archaeologist, you get a grant to explore an ancient tomb. This tomb is SO old, that there is a strong theory that life may have **formed by itself** independent to current life. To find a new form of life would be the biggest thing to ever happen on earth. Even if that new form of life is **exactly** the same as the life we are used to, it would be world shaking to find out that **all** life seems to follow a common blueprint.
Now, when they break in and start searching, they don't follow any quarantine practices. This means, they find life in this tomb, and it looks exactly like the life they walked into the tomb with... congrats, you changed the biggest finding in human history into an obvious conclusion. If you bring your own life with you, you will always find life wherever you look.
Now, with Mars it is exactly the same, except everything is much bigger stakes. It is much less likely to accidentally bring life from earth, but finding life on Mars is pretty much the biggest deal right now. | 209 | 359 |
ELI5 How do companies get gases like oxygen and helium into canisters? | There are two ways to put gasses like He and O into bottles. Firstly, you can liquify them by cooling them under high pressure. Then you can put the liquid into the high pressure bottles, seal them, and allow them to warm up. The contents will then enter a state called 'super-critical', where they are neither liquid nor gas.
Secondly, you can take the gas and simply compress it, It will get hot as you do this, and you have to get rid of that heat. If the pressure is high enough, it will again become a super-critical fluid.
Lastly, there is another way to store and transport oxygen or helium. You can liquify it, and place it in a *dewar flask*, which is a container that is insulted by a vacuum. (A Thermos flask is a domestic dewar flask, and, indeed, they are often used to hold small amounts of liquefied gasses). The insulation is good enough to slow the boiling of the liquefied gas so that you can transport them long distances without losing too much of it. | 12 | 56 |
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CMV: I think the Internet could eventually replace universities | Universities as institutions serve a variety of purposes, but first and foremost they provide a social structure that produces and passes along knowledge in a manner that is verified and trustworthy. Universities create standards for knowledge and education by establishing *disciplines* with standardized methodologies and accepted practices, but they also encourage and award innovation as long as new ideas and methods can be properly explicated. Disciplines change, and academic professionals are rewarded for changing their disciplines, as long as their ideas can actually hold up to the level of rational scrutiny that is promoted within these institutions. Similarly, the standards of the discipline are exercised to evaluate students, and this evaluation is what gives the University degree its value in the labor market.
My question is basically this: can the internet develop to the point where it can establish this sort of standardized disciplinary knowledge independent of the institutional structure of the University? Can disciplinary knowledge also become *social* knowledge that is *freely* accessed, produced and disseminated by literally anyone that might choose to participate?
For this to be possible, I think we would need to see a couple big changes take place. First and foremost, we would need a sort of second-wave Enlightenment which would throw out the current paradigm of “alternative facts” and insulated echo chambers of information. Society as a whole would need to accept a common sense of objectivity and rationality, such that it is able to uphold its own standards of legitimacy. Bad-faith research and education would need to be quickly marginalized; but we would also need to be willing to accept innovation and new ideas, as long as they meet the standards of our collective scrutiny.
Secondly, we would need to see some sort of system of compensation that would fund research and education *as goods in-themselves*. As it currently stands, this is the biggest issue in higher education and research. During his presidency, Reagan criticized the disciplinary knowledge produced by University researchers, claiming that they were merely satisfying personal curiosity about obscure or useless issues, and using this criticism to justify a massive defunding of higher education. The legacy of this defunding has been the increase in student tuition and debt, an increased presence of private businesses on university campuses, a new focus on collegiate athletics and recreation to attract students, the co-opting of research by private interests, etc. Research and education have been re-cast as means to capitalist ends; research to provide technological innovations to industry, education to equip laborers with knowledge and/or general capabilities needed for workplace success. For the internet to become the new medium for research and education, we would need to somehow return to a social paradigm where knowledge *itself* is a valid end to pursue, and education is inherently *enriching*, and these goods are willingly funded by society without some expectation of an economic return.
Can we reach this point in our future? I would speculate that we can for a couple reasons. First, the current university system is not sustainable. There will come a tipping point where the continuous expansion of higher education devalues the degree such that it is no longer economically feasible to pursue. Secondly, while much of what we see happening on the internet is not encouraging, there are still some bright spots, and there is still the fact that the internet is very young. We have future generations that will grow up not even knowing a time before the internet existed; we can hope that these new immersed generations will make better use of the internet as a medium for research and education. We can hope that these younger generations will react against the uncertainty and relativism of our current generations, and bring about this “second-wave Enlightenment” that would need to take place.
Change my view. | Who's going to accredit degrees?
Who's going to test them?
Who's going to define thr curriculum?
Who's going to do the paperwork?
Who's going to house labs, offices and libraries?
You've just said "what if universities were replaced by the Internet", but you haven't actually said what that would look like. It's very hard to argue against something with so little substance other than to point out the lack of any planning, detail or thought into this that you've presented. | 18 | 25 |
ELI5: How do sharks sense a drop of blood in water from kilometers away? | A lot of documentaries say that sharks can sense a single drop of blood into the water from kilometers away. This way, they can find food easily. However, how is that possible? How can only a few drops of blood diffuse into the ocean and the sharks are still be able to sense everything? | Shark olfaction is fairly sensitive--although it varies by the species. They can detect very small amounts of a chemical within the water, which undoubtedly is advantageous for hunting.
However, in order for the shark to actually detect said chemical (e.g., trace amounts of blood in the water), it needs to actually physically encounter it.
So, if you cut your finger and start bleeding, it's not like sharks within 1+ kilometer distance will all start swimming towards you because they haven't actually physically encountered blood in the water. It would require a steady stream of blood leading from you to it.
Another way to think about this is how we detect stars in the sky with our vision. If a star forms today, and it's 1 million light years away from earth, we won't know that the star has formed until light rays travel far enough to reach earth (i.e., 1 million years from now). | 208 | 135 |
ELI5: How can a hacker be tracked after he's hacked a system? | Edit: Thank you everyone, it's all very clear to me now! | You can look at styles and methods of one hack and associate it with the same methods being used in other hacks with known attackers. For example, certain malware programs are known to be Russian others are known to be American. Once you know the attack methods, you can often know the attacker.
The hacker could of made a mistake and left traced that they were there. Those logs might be viable to trace the hacker's origin.
You can trace the released information backwards. Find out who has the information now, then find out where they got it from and so on until you arrive at the hacker.
If you have access to the routing infrastructure of the internet (like the US government does) then you might have the ability to track historic traffic. Giving you the ability to tell who was sending packets to where at what times.
Or it could be ways that we simply aernt aware of. | 60 | 201 |
Is Hegel's main work the Logic or The Phenomenology? Which should one read to know about Hegel's system? | It was said that The Phenomenology is disjointed so should one focus on the Logic instead? | The Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences is the full system, but its only the outline that Hegel used to lecture to students, divided into 3 parts on Logic, Nature, and Spirit. The Science of Logic covers the same ground as the first part of the Encyclopedia in more expanded form. For the other 2 parts he died before publishing any more fleshed out version, but different sections of his philosophy of spirit are expanded on in his other publication Philosophy of Right and various transcripts of lectures he gave from his students (Subjective Spirit, Philosophy of History, Art, Religion, and History of Philosophy). | 27 | 57 |
How do people find time to work on multiple research projects and publish multiple papers? I can barely find the mental capacity for one. | I'm an MSCS student who does research in machine learning. I've noticed that many people work on several projects at once (usually their own project and as a participant in another) and often have multiple papers published in venues.
Right now I'm trying to get my own research project going as I'm graduating next semester and need to write my thesis anyway, and am also involved in another project with a PhD student at my lab.
I find myself usually spending 100% of my time on this project, and my colleague seems to expect that as well. I spend the entire day at the lab working on that project, and at night I'm also constantly wondering what kind of ideas I could try out.
I've tried doing the "alternate days" thing, but I find that it often takes me more than a day to work on some ideas, and when I'm done with that there are more things to do for one project.
Maybe my predicament is the result of me being relatively junior and not trained enough, but if there are any tips that you guys could give me that'd be great. The most advice I get from my lab mates and advisor is along the lines of "everyone goes through it."
Thanks. | It just comes with experience. Time management is critical, too. Once your own project is up and running, you’ll hit points where there’s nothing to do but sit and wait for data, IRBs, reviewers, finding, etc. Those are the gaps you fill with other projects. Plus you’ll gain enough expertise to serve in more of a consulting role which doesn’t take as much time as running a project by yourself. | 50 | 102 |
ELI5: "Appropriate" margin | So on all these "business" shows like Shark Tank or The Profit they are always talking about margin and the appropriate amount of margin that a product should be making. Like "Clothes should be a 50% margin" or "food should be a 60% margin". Where do these people pull their numbers from? It makes sense to try and maximize margin, but why the standard for different product? | Comparables (other businesses in the same sector), mostly. It's more an indication of what you *could* make than what you *will* make.
Some businesses by their nature sell their goods for only slightly more than it costs them to offer them - like grocery, with average margins of 2-3%. Grocery stores make up for it by selling 200$ worth of goods to 500 people every day, and hordes of people won't shop at your store if your prices are 20% higher than everyone else's.
Other business have higher margins, often because they offer something luxury or rare or unique. Clothing, for example, can demand 60$ margins because if someone sees a dress they *have to have* they can't easily find it elsewhere - even on the internet it's hard to search for a specific *shape and color* of a unique piece of clothing.
Sometimes the margin is demanded by the nature of the business - a luxery food market like Whole Foods can charge yuppies a lot more for their food but it's also going to have to pay more for range-fed organic all natural unseasoned no-preservative blueberries, and it's going to end up throwing a lot more of it out because it goes bad. So they have to charge more, but they sell a lot less.
So they pull the numbers from other businesses that sell roughly the same thing. | 32 | 25 |
ELI5: What is the difference between a degree in computer science and a degree in software engineering? Will getting one over the other limit job opportunities? | Think of Computer Science as a science, and Software Engineering as engineering.
Computer Science generally deals with algorithms; the high level implementation, optimizations, and proofs. It's usually more academically inclined.
Software Engineering generally deals with the practical implementation; how to get the product to the customer by next Wednesday. It's usually more commercially inclined.
That said, different schools will label their programs differently. One school's CS degree could have very similar course-work to another school's SE degree. Check out the actual offerings from the school's you're looking at, and see what kind of jobs graduates from those degrees get. | 19 | 30 |
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ELI5: How is therapy effective when it is in the therapists' financial interest to keep you as their patient? | Same goes to other medical fields, I guess.
How can a doctor make you better when their job requires people to be sick? | Aside from the personality types looking to get into these fields of work there's two objective factors that would make it a bad idea to prolong treatment and they kinda go hand in hand: supply and competition.
Many therapists have lines of patients waiting to get appointments and if you have a bad reputation they will go somewhere else.
This is also the case in countries with free healthcare, but there you also have the added reason of costs. | 284 | 527 |
ELI5: How is bandwidth used? | I understand its basic principles and how it affects internet connections and speeds. But for example if I have a 50mbs connection and I have one device watching Netflix and streaming at 1080p which only requires 7mbs to accomplish, does that leave 43mbs for other device on the network to tap into?
| To add to the other reply, imagine a highway, the lanes represents the speed. You have 50mbps,you have 50 lanes. Each lanes is a one way though so only one car can go in one direction at a time. You need 15 cars going back and forth for an online game, but only 7 for a full HD movie. If you have 10 lanes used you have 40 to do other things | 18 | 109 |
What causes some cultures to adopt western styles of dress and others to forgo it? And why do men tend to adopt it moreso than women? | I was looking at [this post](http://tv.reddit.com/r/HistoryPorn/comments/1bjvhs/an_indian_woman_a_japanese_woman_and_a_syrian/) over in /r/HistoryPorn and got to thinking - why is it that the Indian and Syrian women in those photos would likely be wearing a similar style of dress today (perhaps not so fancy for the Syrian woman), yet the Japanese lady would not?
My initial gut reaction would be 'wealth', but 1) Japan seems to have adopted Western fashion before it became wealthy and 2) Certain other wealthy countries, such as the countries on the Arabian Peninsula, have become wealthy without abandoning their traditional dress.
Colonialism seems to be out, as Japan only went through a short occupation period, whereas Syria was colonized for decades by the French and India for centuries by the British.
Religion would also be out, as plenty of followers of both Hinduism and Islam seem to do fine maintaining their modesty laws with Western-style clothing.
And as a corollary to this question, why is it that men seem to abandon traditional dress so much more often than women in a culture? Whereas I can think of multiple cultures in which traditional dress would be acceptable for a business meeting for women (West Africa, the Middle East, India, etc.) I can think of very few where traditional attire would be acceptable in such contexts for men (only the Arabian Peninsula and Burma come to mind).
So what is it that makes a culture more likely to adopt Western clothing? And why do men do so more than women? | This going to be woefully short but you can break out the googe scholar for the rest. There's a good explanation from Institutional Theory. The business dress and the common western dress could be seen as the institutionalisation of a norm.
Basic idea is that societies and organisations are built on sets of norms - or ideas that are seen as intrinsically "right" and "legitmate"(Weber, 1978; Meyer, JW and Rowan, B 1977; Powell and DiMaggio, 1984). It can be anything, the language, the titles, the relationships, the dress, the food and the structure of the day.
So, once an idea is seen as giving you legitimacy with the framework of society or the organisation, that idea is then adopted and extensively enforced.
Another important idea from Bourdieu (1989, 2006) is the idea of social capital. He argues that capitalism not only create capital but the structure of it create norms and codes that are socially valuable and thus can be called social capital (Portes, A 1998, 2000; Adler, P.S and Kwon, S.W 2002. )
So put those together , take the norms that you need to accept to be considered legitimate and then consider the following of those norms a creation of social capital.
The dominant creation of norms has been the "Western" form of capitalism and that brings with it notions of social capital that are intrinsic. In both the case of colonialism , which was a direct intervention of Western norms into other societies, and international global capitalism the way you dress is an important norm and bring you social capital.
This is basically how it became "normal" to wear western cloths, especially a suit. Those who wore that attire had more legitimacy and social capital than those that did not. (Ladgegard, G 2006; Behtoui, A; 2006; Hartmann M, 2000) | 12 | 18 |
What is happening when something is sticky? What causes stickiness? Is it Viscosity? | Always wondered what is happening physically when something like honey or sugar is sticky to the touch. | If you're touching something like honey or a sugary solution, and it's sticky, it's because the molecules are forming interactions, like hydrogen bonds, with the molecules on your skin. Hydrogen bonds are what keeps oxygens and hydrogens together to form water, and they're also involved in keeping proteins and DNA together. Honey is made of fructose and glucose, which both have lots of sites that can hydrogen bond. | 51 | 146 |
ELI5:What's the difference between a Business and a Corporation? | A corporation is just an organizational structure that someone may choose when starting their business. The corporate structure has advantages and disadvantages; an advantage is limited liability for owners, meaning an owner (stockholders) is only liable for the money they willingly give to a company. The stockholders are not personally liable for any of the corporation's debts. Personal assets are also protected from a legal standpoint, so long as they aren't obtained illegally through the company.
A disadvantage of the corporate structure is double taxation. Because a corporation is its own legal entity, it is responsible for paying taxes. A corporation pays income tax, then the owners again pay taxes when corporate income is paid out in the form of dividends. | 37 | 53 |
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ELI5: Why do some electrical plugs (USA) have 1 large prong + 1 small prong and some have 2 small prongs? And then some larger things, like portable heaters, have all 3 prongs (large + small + circular prong)? | So the plugs that have a large prong and a small prong are to keep polarity correct. The plugs with two of the same sized prongs are not polarity specific. And the plugs with all three require an equipment grounding conductor (small round prong). Source: am electrician | 34 | 27 |
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Eli5: how do radios with a scanning option know the difference between static and a station that comes in? | Radio signals are electromagnetic and a radio works by receiving this energy from the air using an antenna, filtering to a desired frequency and then amplifying the audio. There will be more energy picked up when the radio is tuned to a frequency with an active broadcast signal vs when it's tuned to white noise. This means the signal level can be measured on each channel and the radio can be made to stop scanning when the signal level is high enough. | 14 | 33 |
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ELI5: Why do I feel grimy after a brief nap, but not after a full night's sleep? | Sleep happens in cycles and phases, a phase consisting from light restorative sleep to REM or rapid eye movement phases. When you take a nap for longer then 10-20 minutes, it goes into the REM cycle. The REM phase reacts badly when stopped abruptly much like a drop on a roller coaster. That's why the best amount of time to nap is 10-20 minutes, before the onset of the REM phase. Sleep on the other hand is best in multiples of 3 hours, which is how long one cycle lasts.
*TL;DR:* Naps make you feel better if 10-20 minutes, but any more makes you feel horrible. Sleep if in 3 hour cycles also makes you feel better. | 11 | 54 |
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Eli5: How do bones and other organs know what shapes to grown into? | This topic may be too complicated for ELI5. There are a lot of genes that produce growth factors, and many of these genes are expressed only at specific times and in specific places. The location and timing are controlled by other genes making other transcription factors or inhibitors or whatever, also at very specific times and places.
Sometimes growth depends not just on a growth factor being produced somewhere, but on that factor diffusing outward through nearby tissues, producing a concentration gradient. The gradient gives a sense of direction to the tissue growth.
Sometimes the shapes of growing organs are affected by the shapes of everything growing around them. Sometimes the growth of one tissue layer is faster than another, which causes them both to fold or bulge or take other shapes. Sometimes even the stretching and straining of tissues being pulled around by other growing parts triggers these tissues to make their own growth factors.
This is tangential to your question, but sometimes the shape doesn't even come from growing, it comes from dying. Fingers work that way - your hand starts developing almost as a flipper, and the cells in between where your fingers should be undergo programmed cell death. | 2,859 | 3,710 |
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CMV: I (probably wrongly) think that the republican party hasn't, in the last two decades, been concerned with improving the country. | **How about another super fun post-election bummout?**
I live in a democratic bubble, and I will freely admit that. However, it seems to me that the Republican party hasn't, in the last two decades made any significant strides for the betterment of the country. They have, [as has been well documented](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/republicans-mindless-obstruction-has-helped-create-something-far-worse/2016/03/11/46ba9022-e723-11e5-b0fd-073d5930a7b7_story.html), been most concerned with digging in their heels and making sure that the country doesn't move in any direction.
The majority of the citizens of this country [continue to make it clear](http://www.gallup.com/poll/190775/americans-say-upper-income-pay-little-taxes.aspx) that they have no interest in tax breaks for the top earners and allowing corporations to dodge their fair share, yet the republican party still insists that [Tax breaks for the rich](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/11/business/what-trump-and-the-gop-can-agree-on-tax-cuts-for-the-rich.html) are in the country's best interest. And since it seems that a majority of Americans [actually support progressive policies](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-01/majority-of-americans-want-college-to-be-free) it seems that the republican party has no interest in what the majority of the American populace wants.
When a man who many of the party leaders and vocal spokespeople for the RNC obviously thought was unfit for the highest office in this country began to win by [obviously lying](http://www.politifact.com/personalities/donald-trump/statements/byruling/pants-fire/) and [fear mongering](http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/donald-trump-and-the-politics-of-fear/498116/) they sat on the fence and didn't do anything because they felt it was more important to get their party in power than to have a man or woman of conviction in the White House. This man was the most prominant and outspoken birther. That's a really stupid position to have.
I'm not alone in thinking that conservative Americans are divisive. Every time a Republican politician makes a [racist](http://winningdemocrats.com/here-are-the-10-most-racist-things-republicans-said-in-2015/), homophobic or [sexist gaffe](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/579v4z/head_of_iowa_womens_gop_group_quits_over_trump/d8qgvww/) we're supposed to be stupid enough to accept the explanation that they don't represent their fellow conservatives or even the woldview of the person who made the gaffe. We're supposed to just ignore that this party clearly aims to represent a small portion of the people they will soon be entirely in charge of governing.
Now, I know I sound pissed (and trust me, I am to a certain extent) but what I really want is for someone to convince me that this once-great party of Lincoln is doing good instead of fluffing up its own ego by celebrating [embarrassingly small victories](http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-trumps-carrier-deal-isnt-the-way-to-save-u-s-jobs/) that in no way represent the kind of macro, country-wide problem solving that needs to be done in order to make things better. I want to hear some facts about the good that the Conservatives in this country have done, and the good they're planning to do. I don't want to hear about an expensive literal or metaphorical wall that will stop an immigration problem that most experts think is solving itself. I don't want to hear about the fear mongering about Islam and how Donald Trump will personally punch terrorists in the face.
**I want to hear about real solutions that really happened, and, political leanings aside, can be shown to have unambiguously benefited this country with quantifiable evidence.**
Please? I need this.
*Edit: I have emboldened the last bit to make it very clear what I'm looking for.*
**Second edit: /u/blalien made a great point below that I'd like to add here:**
>There are some metrics that the majority of Americans believe are good for America: more jobs, less crime, better public health, improved infrastructure, etc. The best way to achieve this is up for debate, but I think most people believe these are worthy goals, and whether or not these goals have been achieved can be broken down into raw numbers. For example, you may agree or disagree with Bush Jr. and Obama on certain issues, but in terms of economic health I think the numbers agree that Obama did a far better job than Bush.
>Setting aside wedge issues like abortion and gay marriage, there are only three possibilities:
>1. The GOP has succeeded in improving the country in quantifiable metrics.
> 2. The GOP has attempted but failed in improving the country in ways that most people can agree.
>3. The GOP does not want for the country what the majority of America wants.
**Edit #3:** it's been pointed out that my title isn't as clear about what I'm looking for as the content of my post. But as we all know, titles are not editable after they've been posted. Ahem... /u/spez? Can you fix that for me?
**Editsode IV - A New Edit:** Well it's nearly ten and I'm packing it in. But I promise that if you bring a new argument while I'm asleep l'll get to you tomorrow morning. Thanks for the discussion.
**The Fifth Editment: Thanks to /u/compounding for his wonderful explanation. A Delta has been awarded and my view has been changed. I did have some wonderful discussion, but I do need to get back to work. If I see a particularly interesting comment I will respond when I can.**
| Everyone wants to improve the country. The difference comes in what they consider "improved". Democrats, for example, hear Republican proposals about deregulating businesses, lowering taxes on the wealthy, banning abortion, etc. and they think "Why can't they just work for the good of the country", completely neglecting the idea that that IS the good of the country from your average Republican's point of view.
They DO think the country would be better off with less government regulation, with no abortion, with religion in schools, and all of the things that Democrats consider a step in the wrong direction.
And the opposite is true as well. Republicans think Democrats are just being entitled, selfish assholes when they talk about increasing social programs, expanding reproductive rights, etc. | 40 | 158 |
ELI5: What exactly is Communism? | I just can't wrap my head around it. | The noble idea that mankind should work together in equality, each giving according to his ability, and receiving according to his needs.
Unfortunately, it has historically been implemented by people who thing that they are more equal that others. A great read on the mentality behind Soviet communism is Animal Farm, by George Orwell, in which Lenin-Pig and Stalin-Pig create the perfect society on a small country farm... | 42 | 63 |
ELI5: how do we know dating something is accurate? If the materiales from which something is made are millions of years old, what difference does it make once it’s made into something? | The radioactive isotopes that are checked for with radiometric dating exist naturally in the world. The acts of molten rock churning in the Earth, or the waters mixing in the oceans, or animals eating plants, and even breathing, all increase the amounts of the isotopes found within the body.
Once the thing is no longer moving, eating, or breathing, it is no longer adding the radioactive isotope into itself, and it begins to decay.
The most common form of radiometric dating is carbon dating, which is most useful for recent (within a few tens of thousands of years) artifacts made of living material, like cloth or pottery. That carbon isotope is generated by sunlight, which replenishes the amount found on the planet. | 34 | 69 |
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(In-coming Senior, Econ Major) What skills should I learn this summer? | Hello! My Internship got cancelled due to the pandemic so now I’m going to be at home during this whole summer. I was wondering what skills should I learn this summer? I was thinking of fully learning Tableau, any other suggestions?
Edit: Appreciate all the feedback! Thank you! Unfortunately, for some reason many of the comments are not showing up, hopefully this is fixed. | You could always brush up on R, Python, or STATA (depending on your preference) and do a small project. Bonus if you have a professor who is willing to answer questions during that.
Maybe you could learn GIS and how it applies to economics, and do a small project there as well.
I’m in the same boat as you, and I’m currently planning on learning GIS, doing a small project with a language I’m not comfortable with, and reading economics books. | 52 | 80 |
What is the limiting factor on hydraulic cylinder size? | Could you lift a house with a sufficiently large hydraulic cylinder and a small hydraulic pump? If hydraulic force is just pressure times surface area of the cylinder, what happens as you increase the size of the cylinder? Does that put more force back on the pump until it breaks? | Note that for a piston to sit securely in a cylinder without tipping, it has to be sufficiently long compared to the diameter of the cylinder. If you start making huge diameter pistons, you'll need them to be long, too. The volume of the piston would become huge, and it would be heavy and expensive. And hard to fit where you need it.
That might mean that you'd want many moderate size pistons instead of one giant one to lift a house. You could pipe them all the the same pump, and you wouldn't need any extra pressure because of the many pistons connected, assuming they are plumbed in parallel. You'd just need many pump strokes to move them a significant distance. | 11 | 18 |
ELI5: What is Game Theory? | Thanks for all the great responses. I read the wiki article and just wanted to hear it simplified for my own understanding. Seems we use this in our everyday lives more than we realize.
[
As for the people telling me to "Just Google it"...](http://www.siriusxmfan.net/files/theres-the-door-now-get-the-____-out_535.jpg) | Game theory is the mathematical study of strategies.
If you're playing Monopoly one day and decide you want to work out, mathematically, exactly what the best decisions at every phase of the game would be, then you would be creating a work of game theory.
It doesn't have to be a board game, though, just any situation where people are making decisions in pursuit of goals. You study the situation, the odds, the decisions people make, work out which would be optimal, then look at what people actually *do*.
So the situations game theory might study include optimal betting strategies in poker, or nuclear weapons deterrance strategies between nations, applying many of the same concepts to both.
| 976 | 1,649 |
[Harry Potter] What is the deal with wands anyway? | In the Harry Potter universe all practicing witches and wizards use wands to do magic. However, it is established that magical children can use magic innately. Why use wands at all? Maybe because they can be taken away? | Wands, and other tools, help focus the magic. To use wandless magic properly requires lots of control and training. Very few wizards, relatively speaking, can do any form of wandless magic, and most of them can only do one or two spells like that.
Children can innately do magic without wands, but they can't focus it to a certain target or repeat it the same way on command. It usually happens in times of distress and they don't even know they are doing at it at the time. | 39 | 24 |
Why wouldn't my friend's idea for "free energy" work? | This may sound like a /r/shittyaskscience question, but hear me out:
So my friend understands that virtual particle/antiparticle pairs are continuously being created and annihilated by "borrowing" energy from the future and the annihilation "repays" it back. And that when this happens on either side of a black hole's event horizon, the black hole has to "repay" the energy and loses mass while the other half escapes as Hawking Radiation.
He then reasons, that if he separates the particle/antiparticle pair with an extremely strong electric field, the energy "debt" never gets "repaid", and he has created free energy.
Obviously this wouldn't actually work, but I'm finding it difficult to argue exactly why. My reasoning is that either:
- The antiparticle would anihalate with some of the machinery to repay the energy debt
- The energy required to maintain such a strong field would create another particle/antiparticle pair that would annihilate with the original pair to get the energy back
- or, the energy required would create a black hole.
Would any of these things be correct? If not, what would be the best way to explain why this system won't work? | How do you produce an electric field? Suppose that you produce the electric field by separating positive charges from negative charges, in a configuration like a capacitor. So imagine that you have negative charges on a plate on the left and positive charges on a plate on the right, and an electric field in between. In order to produce the electric field you have had to do work on the charges to separate them; you have expended energy in doing mechanical work on the electrons and converted that energy into the potential energy between the positive and negative charges. Now suppose what happens when your E-field produces and separates a particle-antiparticle pair. The positively charged particle will drift toward the negatively charged plate, and the negatively charged antiparticle will drift toward the positively charged plate. When they reach the plates, they will annihilate a corresponding particle or anti-particle in the plate, thus 1) radiating mass-energy in the form of photons and 2) reducing the total number of positively charged particles on the positively charged place, and negatively charged particles on the negatively charged plate, so that the E-field between the two plates will be smaller than what you started with, and total energy is conserved. Since the E-field between the two plates is reduced, you can easily see that this process cannot continue indefinitely without continuing to supply energy to build up charge again on the two plates. Therefore your friend's idea does not produce free energy. | 23 | 15 |
ELI5: Why do little kids like/want to hurt each other | I just realized how mean some kids can get and I just want to know why | Empathy, like all human traits is developed over time. Because children obviously haven't had much time on this earth, they also haven't had much time to refine their sense of empathy. You know which other groups of people have under-developed senses of empathy? Sociopaths and serial killers.
The other big part of it, is that children require constant stimulation for their little cold-hearted brains. So kids will do things, just to get any sort of response. They don't quite understand that they are causing another kid agony, but they do understand that they are able to cause an effect on the other kid. | 17 | 16 |
CMV:Realism is the most accurate theory of International Relations | First, I don't think that any single theory can be 100% accurate in the social sciences. Nonetheless, I think the one theory that gets it right most of the time in IR is realism. Realism's basic tenets are
1. States are the primary actors in international politics
2. The international system is anarchic
3. All states are rational actors who seek to maximize their self-interests
4. States value security above all else
More specifically I believe that John Measheimer's offensive realism is the most accurate. Mearsheimer argues that states seek to maximize power in order to ensure their security.
I think that realism is the most accurate because historically it's how states behave. Even when people state realism is dead, as they did at the end of the Cold War, it always seems to come back as it has recently with events like Crimea. I also think that non-realist states get out-competed by realist ones which forces them to act realist.
Finally, in talking to actual foreign policy makers they seem to mostly fall in the realist camp, especially those who have been in the game for a long time. If anarchy is what states make of it, they have decided to make it realist.
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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!* | The theory of rational actors needs to be applied recursively. Byzantine fell because internal factionalism made combined military efforts impossible.
States are the primary actors, but they're neither monolithic nor alone. There are transnational companies, religions, etc. And at times politicians make sub-optimal foreign policies for gains at home.
Tldr, it's a pretty good model, because it captures a lot of behavior in a little information. But it captures 80% tops. | 15 | 25 |
What languages do you hate and why? | I've had a lot of discussions with my peers about certain languages they hate (like Typescript and Python), and I was wondering what feelings a larger community has about those and other languages out there. | i'm a software engineer and not a computer scientist, so this all comes from the view of writing and delivering working software.
i dislike interpreted languages for the most part. so python, javascript, groovy, perl, shell scripts, etc...
they're useful for quick and dirty things, but always come up short when trying to write easily maintainable code. you lose so much when you don't get compiler errors/warnings. it really only takes that first time your python script takes down prod because you forgot to write that one test case and that's something that would've been caught by a compiler in a compiled language.
the above is why i actually like typescript. it's nice to have actual classes and more logical scoping of variables in addition to getting trans-compilation errors/warnings.
i dislike java quite a bit because i've used c# and c# is just way more convenient to write.
i dislike php because old php allowed you to write such ugly code, new php is backwards compatible and i've also never really liked the way the syntax looked.
i dislike c++ because the people that write it constantly talk about performance and still write code that performs worse than it would in a managed language. not to mention all of the template and macro meta-programming that can make debugging a nightmare.
ehh, i can go on and on with dislikes. there are also likes to many of the languages i've listed. | 14 | 15 |
ELI5: How do multi-million dollar companies end up paying $0 tax? | A few ways. First thing to know is Company's only pay tax on profits, not revenue.
1. Setup headquarters in low taxing country and shift profits there. One of the big mining company's in Australia sells it's own coal to a Singapore based company they own. In Australia then pay tax on the heavily discounted rate they sold it for or possibly make a loss and pay no tax. The coal is then on sold at full rate out of the Singapore company and hey presto you've got taxed in Singapore at a lower rate.
2. There is a thing called "carried forward losses". If you make no profit in a year then you pay no tax but if you made a loss then you can use that loss in future years to offset your tax. So if a company lost $500m in a year and have taxes of $100m for the next 5 years they pay no tax. | 18 | 29 |
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CMV: Almost all Political Scientists agree that the Judicial Branch is the weakest because it lacks the power to properly enforce their rulings. In order to fix this, the Courts must be given power to impeach politicians of the other branches who ignore and fail to enforce these rulings. | When the branch was formed, Alexander Hamilton said that it lacked the checks that the other branches have (Congress can impeach a president for abuse of power and defund parts of the executive branch, and pass constitutional amendments to override the Supreme Court, and the president has the power to veto and nominates the Justices). When a Supreme Court ruling is declared, they have no power to enforce that it is implemented, an example is after *Brown v Board of Education*
Eisenhower didn't enforce any implementation until violence broke out in Little Rock, Arkansas and yet there still were segregated schools for at least 20 years after this ruling.
The checks in 'checks and balances' is the ability to overrule a branch that is becoming too powerful. Therefore, in order for the Supreme Courts to have that power, they must be able to impeach and remove from office anyone who refuses to act on these decisions.
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If you have other ways that you think will give the courts the proper 'checks' that the other branches do, don't be afraid to mention them! | The whole idea of checks and balances is that the other two can counter the third. Executive appoints SCOTUS and Legislative approves. Impeachment is made by Legislative and ~~adjudicated by SCOTUS~~ presided over by the Chief Justice, etc.
What a terrifying thought that 5 justices could remove a duly elected president on their own? Or a Speaker of the House they disagreed with?
Nope, agreement between two branches makes a lot more sense.
EDIT: Clarified SCOTUS role in Impeachment per /u/kilgoretrout71 - thanks! | 285 | 659 |
How is it possible to treat allergies by repeatedly presenting the antigene to desentize but when you vaccinate (and booster) an antigene presentation trains the immune system to fight said antigene? | A classical vaccine typically contains two things: an antigen and an adjuvant. The antigen is what you're training the immune system to recognize, and the adjuvant is a more generic substance that lets the immune system know there's something dangerous going on.
If you only give an antigen, that danger sign is absent, and the immune system instead "learns" that this antigen is not dangerous.
PS: Newer vaccine technologies sometimes don't include the actual antigen, but instead a recipe for making it (either mRNA or DNA). mRNA vaccines also don't always need the adjuvant, because encapsulated RNA itself can work as a "danger signal." | 26 | 46 |
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ELI5 Why do we cringe? | Whenever we see someone doing something bad or embarrassing we personally feel some sensation a sort of embarrassment even though we clearly did not do anything. What is the science behind this 😬? | I believe it's more along the lines of psychology rather than biology. Your body isn't functioning because it saw something--your body is reacting due to the signals sent by your brain observing something. | 10 | 15 |
ELI5: How does Turing machine capture the essence of computing? | Let's say someone wants to make a peanut butter sandwich, but has never done it before. Could you give this person a list of steps to follow that always makes a peanut butter sandwich?
Yes! It would start with something like "get two slices of bread" and go on to "open a jar of peanut butter", and eventually end with putting the whole sandwich together. Anyone who could understand your list of steps could make a peanut butter sandwich.
Now let's say someone wants to write a song that everyone they know will love. Could you give this person a list of steps to follow that always makes such a song?
You could try to tell this person what kind of songs *you* love, or teach them things about music and lyrics, but no matter what you tell this person, they might not be able to write a song that everyone they know will love.
Why are there some things that you can always make if you follow the right steps, and other things that don't seem to have steps that always work?
It is important for people who study math, logic, and computers to know what things you can always do with a list of the right steps and which things don't have steps that always work. After all, a computer can only do something if you can tell it how with a list of the right steps! (In fact, the original "computers" were actually *people* who knew the right steps to figure out the answers to hard math problems using pencil and paper!)
People who study computing call a list of steps that a machine (or a well-trained person!) can follow an "algorithm". In order to understand what things you can or can't do with an algorithm, you need to say what an algorithm is in the language of math. There was a time when people weren't sure how to do this, but a man named Alan Turing figured out a way. A "Turing machine" is what we call Alan Turing's way of saying what an algorithm is in the language of math.
Around the same time that Alan Turing came up with his way of saying what an algorithm is, a man named Alonzo Church came up with a different way of saying what an algorithm is in the language of math. We call Alonzo Church's way the "lambda calculus", and it turns out it says the same thing as Alan Turing's way, just phrased a little differently!
Turing machines "capture the essence of computing" because they give us a way to carefully describe what it means to be an algorithm. Anything that is an algorithm you can phrase as a Turing machine, and anything you can make a Turing machine do is an algorithm. With this careful way to say what is or is not an algorithm, mathematicians and computer scientists can study what it is possible or not possible for a computer to do! | 42 | 25 |
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More perspectives wanted: Choosing postdocs and balancing a dual-career/two body problem | **Background:** I am a new ST**E**M Ph.D. who is in a relationship with another new **S**TEM Ph.D., Partner (they/them/their pronouns). I defended this semester; Partner defended last. I am a mildly successful scientific researcher more known for my STEM education and diversity initiatives. My partner is an extremely successful early career researcher in their field who has successfully landed a great 2yr industry postdoc that fulfills all of their short term goals (professional development, supportive environment, indication of being able to stay on post-contract, a regular work schedule, etc.).
I have a definite wish for a faculty-academic position whereas partner values stability and tentatively likes the industry environment so far (all of 1 week in), though definitely enjoys teaching. We're currently working on the assumption that after 2-4 years here (depending on how jobs work out) my career will take precedence, moving where needed for me to secure a faculty position as long as it's anywhere my partner could find a position in their rather flexible industry.
Partner's job is in a geographical location where me finding a position is not difficult, but it may not necessarily be the absolute ideal. I am currently evaluating 3 types of positions and would appreciate it if any STEM faculty members could provide insight into what might make one type of position better on a CV (and for what type of institution) over another. Or if any of the positions would be definitely detrimental even if I followed-up with a second postdoc. And for those who have navigated the two-body problem, what your opinions are at all.
**Position A:** A postdoc at the local R1 working for a PI in a field that is doing work I find mildly interesting, but would not necessarily fit my current research agenda. Opportunities posted now but also possibly open in the future as well. Distance from Partner: none
**Position B:** A 1-year postdoc in an R1's Center for Teaching focused on STEM education and Teaching, which provides opportunities to be instructor of record on classes (not a current skillset) and do formal education research, which I attempted independently as a graduate student. Distance from Partner: 1hr commute, but able to live at "home."
**Position C:** Absolute research "dream" postdoc directly in my field at an amazing institution. Fellowship is also limited to 1 year. Distance from Partner: 9hrs.
Similar research-intensive positions are possible but also between 2.5-9hrs away and vary in reputation.
Note: I'm my entire committee's, and advisor's, first Ph.D. graduate. In hindsight I would have chosen at least one person with experience to help me navigate this process but at the same time I would never replace their support and mentoring. Therefore I turn to you. You might hear from me frequently in the next month or two.
**TL;DR: I am in a two-body relationship where my partner has secured an excellent position. I'm trying to figure out if any of the positions I am looking at will have unforeseen (or larger than foreseen) consequences on my hopeful career as a faculty member or my highly valued relationship.** | The problem with picking 1 or 2 is that in 2- 4 years when it's your turn to choose, your CV will be weaker for it and your choices more limited. In theory, it sounds good to put your career on the back burner to support your partner and so you can live with them. In practice, your CV will be compared to your peers who did take the dream option 3 and have the cutting edge research, in line with their PhD research, publications and recommendations from well known professors to bolster their applications. And your partner will be up for promotion in his current position. Maybe you've bought a really nice house. And suddenly it's never really a good time for your career to take precedence.
I say take option 3 because you already know that professionally, it is the best route to take. | 25 | 21 |
PhD student - Asked to write a letter in support of tenure; mixed feelings about professor | I am an advanced PhD student in a STEM field at a prestigious R1 university. I was asked to write a letter in support of tenure for Professor S. I've been around enough labs to know what is normal and not-normal behavior.
Professor S brings a lot of money into the university and has a large lab. I worked as a sort of consultant for a year for Professor S's lab because I have a specific skill set he needed. He paid me hourly and also provided some mentorship. He is not my direct adviser. I was considered part of his lab but not really one of his students. His tenure does not affect my career.
Professor S was very helpful to me in many non-trivial ways. I think he genuinely tries really hard to be a good mentor. That being said, working with him was very challenging. Without getting into much detail, I started to really regret not having a contract with him because he kept adding unreasonable requests to my workload that we never agreed upon. He threatened my career when I tried to decline work for him (I was declining a task I had never agreed to do originally). He doesn't take "no" for an answer... He definitely uses emotional manipulation or tries to convince you that what he wants is in your best interest. For an example, he demanded a PhD student skip a big exam for a required class to add the finishing touches to a conference poster that wasn't even due for another week. He totally derailed this student's NSF proposal by making this (frankly trivial) poster the utmost priority. He wanted it done urgently and didn't think the student's class was important.
His PhD students refer to him as a bully. They've all learned to be incredibly blunt and assertive with him. He treats students that work in his lab very disrespectfully when he is anxious or angry. He *yells* at undergrads, coordinators, and PhD students out of frustration. He will also apply unreasonable amounts of pressure to get certain tasks done without understanding the scope of what he is asking (because he's never worked extensively with this type of protocols or equipment himself). Often, due to his pressure to get things done in a truly unreasonable time-frame or without people being properly trained, things don't get done right and resources are wasted. His entire lab is held together with stopgap solutions that end up making more work for everyone in the long-run.
I would not recommend that future PhD students join his lab. I've personally managed to set boundaries with him but it was a very difficult process and I had to get other faculty members and campus services involved to defend me (which they all did). I am still extricating myself gracefully.
So, my question is, is this the sort of thing the tenure committee cares about? Is it appropriate for me to write a bad letter or perhaps just not write one at all? I could talk about the good stuff (there is some) but I would also feel obligated to mention the bad. I doubt it will matter since he brings in so much money but maybe it would be useful to have on file? My department pretends to care about students but when push comes to shove they don't.
TL,DR: Professor I work with is awful. Do I write a bad letter, a weak letter, or no letter at all in support of his tenure?
Edit: I am not sure how relevant it is, but I know that at least one of his PhD students is also declining to write a letter and has already spoken to the head of the tenure committee about it.
Another edit: Technically I was invited by the committee to, "contribute a letter commenting on his candidacy" which is a bit different than being asked to write a letter of recommendation.
FOLLOW UP QUESTION: Could it hurt me somehow if I decline to write a letter (and he knows I was asked?)? Are they kept confidential forever? | Tenure committees tend to listen to graduate students. They aren't super impactful, but they will listen.
If you have serious concerns, I'd say you should write the letter, talk to your internal graduate student association, and have the society send the letter unsigned. Academia is not like a normal workplace, and things like this can come back and bite you. | 53 | 51 |
ELI5: Why do people with much different accents than mine seem more charming? | For example, I'm an American, and all the videos I see of Australians and British people, they just seem so damn charismatic. Why? | Social status and media influence.
Ever wonder how nobody thinks the Indian or Asian accent is sexy in english?
Media told you Aussie accents are sexy and Indian accents are comedy accents.
Look at Russian accents....women speaking? Sexy....man speaking? Gangster or not sexy.....at least in the USA.
No surprise.....USA media is filled with violent Russian gangsters and sexy Russian women in need of a helpful american boy. | 13 | 24 |
ELI5: How do you drive a stick-shift?? | keep in mind i'm only 5 years old | Your car has a gas pedal, a brake pedal, and a clutch pedal. The brake stops the car, the gas speeds up the car, and the clutch allows you to level up your gas pedal.
Think of Mario Kart. Princess starts zippy and but her top speed isn't so good. Koopa starts slow but at top speed he is very fast. Mario is in the middle category. Switching gears from 1 through 5 is like switching from Princess to Mario to Koopa as you are driving. The way you switch gears is to hold down the clutch while you move the stick shift to the number you want.
If you are at a dead stop, you want to be in 1 so that you can take off fast (like Princess). Then, when you hit Princess' top speed you want to switch to 2, and then when you hit that top speed you switch to 3, then to 4, and then finally if you are getting on the highway then you want to use Koopa because he has the best top speed.
(Adult explanation: step on the clutch whenever you move the stick shift, then step off of the clutch when you've made your selection. If you don't hold down the clutch while shifting then the gearbox makes a loudass grinding noise.) | 19 | 23 |
What does it take to become faculty at a place like MIT? | Is it papers?
Is it education?
Adviser ?
Demonstrated success ?
Potential ?
All-around-good scientist?
Best-in-the field?
All of the above?
In short, what does it take to become selected as assistant professor (since associate and full professor probably changes the answer) at a place like MIT?
MIT is a placeholder here, it could be any top institution. | High impact papers, ability to get grants, interesting cutting edge work, how this work fits in with what's currently being done in the department (you probably shouldn't be in direct competition with other faculty, particularly senior faculty), and how much the faculty and chair like you for whatever the reason. | 36 | 26 |
Any way to logically explain how Werewolves can undergo nearly spontaneous metamorphosis? | Werewolves of the Underworld variety or similar. This always bothers me when dealing with Werewolves in fiction. The gain/loss in mass doesn't make sense. Rapid changing of bones, teeth and fur could maybe be possible at the cost of extreme pain if the "materials" were stored somewhere. | Obviously, the sun light, when reflected off the moons full surface, changes in wavelength to induce transformation in the werepeople. The muscles expand by rapid mitosis, also brought onto by a chemical reaction between the moon and the mutated gene in werepeople. The hair comes from the extra protien they store while in their dormant form. | 27 | 31 |
Are there tasks that can be done more efficiently by government than by private enterprise? | There is an idea in contemporary culture that businesses are simply better at most tasks than government because they are motivated by profit and literally can't afford to lose money. Are there nay tasks, though, that can ONLY be performed by a government, or that can be more efficiently done by a government? | One typical example would be natural monopolies. It just doesn't make much sense if companies all had to build their own electricity network for example.
Another typical example are public goods. Public goods are defined by being non-rivalous and non-excludable, and because of that often suffer from the free-rider problem. If you just make people pay for them via taxes, that's often a simple way to avoid that. | 54 | 45 |
Eli5: why does a person in remission end up getting the cancer back but at a more aggressive rate? | If a person in remission develops growth of their tumor, it will be made up of cells that survived their immune response as well as the treatment they received for the cancer.
This is a rather obvious point, but it's important to note. The previous tumor(s) clearly had a majority of cells that were susceptible to the person's immune system and the chemotherapy/radiation/surgery that they received. The tumor that develops following remission is going to be made almost completely of cells that were not susceptible, or at least much less susceptible to those things. For this reason, it may grow back faster or metastasize earlier. It will also likely require different types of treatment. | 22 | 39 |
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ELI5: How do birth control pills prevent pregnancy? | How does it prevent pregnancy even if a couple does unprotected sex? (I’m aware it’s not 100% effective but still) | The menstrual cycle is controlled by hormones which make sure that a single egg is released and all the processes take place in the right way. What the birth control pills does is that they replace these hormones so that you get the same hormones and a similar menstrual cycle but without an egg. Essentially you are fooling the body into thinking there is already an egg on the way. | 27 | 17 |
ELI5:Butler's Gender Performativity | I am trying to fully understand Judith Butler's theory of gender performativity and I would like some help. | The basic (and simplified) idea is that gender--what we think of as masculine and/or feminine--is performed in the ways we act, speak, dress, move, etc. and doesn't really exist outside of that performance. We learn how to perform this way from dominant culture and conventions--what someone might (incorrectly) call "normal male" or "normal female" behavior. But these "normal" qualities (and genders themselves) don't actually exist--rather, we are all repeatedly mimicking them and are rewarded for doing so (or punished for not doing so). We merely impersonate the qualities we've been taught match the gender we've been told we possess (like females being demure or males being aggressive) until those impersonations (and gender itself) become belief and seen as something natural and assumed.
She so talks about drag and subversive gender performance, but that gets a bit more complicated. Is there a specific point you're stuck on? | 12 | 38 |
ELI5:How does the middle income trap work? | My understanding is that the middle income trap describes countries that have risen from extreme poverty, but not into first world status. Malaysia is often cited as a textbook example. What is the prevailing though of why this happens. | when you have an economy that has a lot of workers that can be fairly low-paid workers (compared to more 'developed' countries), companies will start up factories there to take advantage of the lower costs. The people working there will happily do so because the pay is better than might otherwise have happened, so everybody seems happy. This influx of money creates a 'middle class', who aren't rich exactly, but have more money than the traditional working class. Wages increase (as they usually do), but eventually, another country is able to provide a workforce that is cheaper again which means the upward mobility in the original country stalls. | 11 | 28 |
Can one deny the existence or importance of metaphysics while remaining intellectually coherent? | Hey all
I sometimes find that there is a dismissive attitude towards metaphysics by some people. They claim either that the term refers to nothing meaningful, or that the field itself is incoherent or of no value.
I am a lay person, so I am not skilled enough to evaluate this. But it seems superficially incoherent to me. Surely one most have one metaphysical framework or axioms from which to form their core beliefs of the world? Even if one is an ardent empiricist, if one doesn't, how can you even begin? .And further, isn't the rejection of anothers metaphysical framework itself a metaphysical position?
Thanks so much in advance. | There's a 20th century school of philosophy called ordinary language philosophy and, as the name implies, they considered metaphysical theorizing to be a misuse of ordinary language, and they contended that metaphysical inquiry results in pseudo-problems that should be recognized as such and abandoned once we realize the misuse of language. This tradition has largely fallen out of fashion since Strawson died, but there are still some contemporary adherents, such as John Searle.
So, yes, one can deny the importance of metaphysics while remaining intellectually coherent, as there have been well-respected and influential philosophers, most notably Wittgenstein (from whom the ordinary language school emerged), who have done so.
However, their attitudes aren't dismissive, but rather a result of serious engagement and consideration of metaphysics. And you're correct that the above-mentioned conception of metaphysics is, itself, a metaphysical position. To say that one does not need a metaphysical framework is to be taking a position within the metaphysical discourse, rather than separating oneself from it. | 20 | 16 |
What are the philosophical solutions to "ship of Theseus" problem of identity? Is there evidence that replacement doesn't affect or change identity? | Ship of Theseus is a thought experiment in which every piece of a ship kept in a harbor is replaced one at a time. The questions are: would the end result be the same ship or a new ship? If it is not the same ship; at what point did it stop being the ship of Theseus? If it is the same ship; would reassembling the removed pieces to form another ship result in another ship of Theseus? Surely the ship would not be in two places at once? **What philosophies argue that the result is the same ship? And how do the philosophies defend their position that replacement doesn't affect or change identity?**
Rephrasing the thought experiment to improve relevance: our bodies grow and change. The old, worn out cells are replaced one at a time. The atoms that make up our cells and bodies too are replaced. Is the end result the same human from before or a new human? **What philosophies argue that the result is the same human? And how do the philosophies defend their position that replacement doesn't affect or change identity?** | > What philosophies argue that the result is the same human? And how do the philosophies defend their position that replacement doesn't affect or change identity?
Some philosophers claim that being the same person is compatible with undergoing some degree of change, in particular, they deny that the growth or aging of their bodies carries any philosophical implication for whether someone is the same person or not. Losing a leg, same person. We identify people largely based on their physical features, spatio-temporal continuity and the relative stability of their emotional, psychological and moral characteristics. Loss of memory doesn't even disqualify many people from being the same person -- though their sense of their identity may be very different. | 16 | 57 |
[Action films general] If the protagonist actually throws a knife at someone, isn't there inherently only like a 20% change that the blade/tip is going to impact first? Getting hit in the chest with a knife handle would hurt, but it's not going to put someone out of commission | With a known distance, it's possible to get a lot more than 20%, closer to 80%. The range of possible distances is pretty small, so it's not inconceivable that Mr. Badass here has practiced across all of them. *I hear* it's all about the spin.
Furthermore, a trained thrower is not particularly attached to knives. People have thrown axes, hammers, shovels and IIRC even nails, with nearly the same efficacy. Throwing knives are just more convenient and don't fall apart after three throws - a throw is a lot stronger than a simple stab. Throwing knives are typically made of a monolithic piece of steel. | 64 | 41 |
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How long does it take an electron to orbit a nucleus? | It can be estimated from the uncertainty principle.
Δx Δp ~ ~~h~~, so Δp ~ ~~h~~/Δx.
The characteristic length scale of electron orbitals is a*_0_*, the Bohr radius.
So the RMS momentum is like ~~h~~/a*_0_*.
This is around 4 keV/c. Converting this to a speed, it's around 2000 km/s.
This is for the ground state of hydrogen, for higher orbitals and nuclei with higher Z, they'll be moving faster.
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CMV: There is nothing wrong with other cultures eating animals we domesticate. E.g. asia eating dogs. | Obligatory, For the purposes of this post I will predominantly use the example of dogs being eaten in asia because It is subjectively the most widespread and emotional example.
In the same way that we breed and hold livestock in pens to be slaughtered and eaten on a mass scale there is nothing wrong with the same thing being done to cats or dogs. I see this come up a lot, the notion that chinese culture is ethically skewed because they eat dogs. This is fundamentally no different to you eating a cow. If you're disgruntled by the notion then it is an internal issue with yourself and your ethics more so then it is with another culture.
In this case I believe that it is wrong to superimposed our western ethics on other cultures.
I believe that it is taboo because we have, as a culture bread and domesticated Canis for agriculture, hunting and companionship. Likewise other religions may have developed sacred connections to pigs, cows etc. They have no right to infringe on what we believe and nor do we them.
I do not know the popularity of this perspective, wit I welcome criticism, healthy debate and hope to reach a common understanding.
EDIT 1:
I feel compelled to make this clear, not everyone in asia actively participates in the example I have used, in fact in recent years it has become far more taboo. However like I stated this is the most emotive example of cultural differences between the east and west and subsequently the most effective in initiating debate.
EDIT 2:
My opinion had been skewed, I appreciate the effort and time you all have put into your comments.
The rationalisation is that dogs, like cats are working animals, they have been bred to work and provide companionship, and therefore to eat them, would be inefficient. I think that is the route for the argument againsed eating dogs, at least in this isolated example I can appriciate that logic. However I do not believe that it is fundamentally too dissimilar to eating any other animal, if the argument is purely one of efficiency then we would only farm and eat genetically engineered lumps of muscle. We dont. We have an entire pallet of meats and foods, and therefore upon that basis I do not believe that the west can claim any sort of moral high ground.
Subsequently, my opinion on the matter had been expertly debated, but still holds.
I'm not debating wether eating meat is right or wrong, I'm debating wether eating meats in the west is any different to the meats in the east. | (I am arguing through the utilitarian/harm-reduction axiom: the most ethical action will most greatly increase net happiness and decrease net suffering)
In Indian culture, an even more restrictive set of axioms exists. Beef consumption and cow slaughter are (rightfully) taboo, and other meat consumption and animal slaughter are (rightfully) discouraged. So it's not even universally acceptable to eat beef.
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>In the same way that we breed and hold livestock in pens to be slaughtered and eaten on a mass scale there is nothing wrong with the same thing being done to cats or dogs.
Sure, eating cats or dogs is no *worse* than eating Western livestock, but it is still an unethical act. You use a false premise (depending on your axioms): it is ethical to slaughter and consume sentient animals. This is unethical as the total happiness gained from slaughtering and consuming another sentient animal will not exceed the total suffering as a result, except for life-death situation, food shortage, etc. (which is highly uncommon in a modern context).
Western cultural norms do not justify the slaughter of Western livestock (especially in current factory farm environments), therefore they do not justify the slaughter of other sentient animals. | 45 | 236 |
Does String Theory deny the Standard Model? | It doesn't "deny" the standard model, it has to explain all observations consistent with the standard model at the appropriate energy levels. It does however, deviate from the standard model at high enough energies. Superstring theory predicts particles that aren't in the standard model, which haven't been observed yet. | 21 | 22 |
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What caused the massive spike in oxygen content in Earth's atmosphere 300 Million years ago? | The success of land plants as forests of tree-like vascular plants led to the spike in atmospheric O2 in the Carboniferous Period. This and the rapid burial of plant material in swamps that became world wide coal measures. The fossil evidence for this is the rise of very large insects, such as *meganeura* a dragonfly the size of a small bird, allowed because the capacity of the tubes that insects use to breathe was limited but could be offset for larger individuals by the higher O2 concentration. | 14 | 30 |
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How are the sine and cosine functions derived? | I understand that for certain angles, using the relationships between the sides of 30-60-90 and 45-45-90 triangles can be used to find the value of sine and cosine.
But what I don't understand is how those functions are found for different angles, like 11 degrees. In practice you use a calculator, but the calculator's answer has to come from somewhere. | There are a few different ways, but one way is to look at the circle. Take a unit circle in the *x*-*y* plane (i.e. the graph of *x*^2 + *y*^2 = 1). Any point point *p* on the circle forms a right triangle: the three sides of the triangle are formed from the line from the origin to *p* (Line R), the perpendicular line from the *x*-axis to *p* (Line X), and the perpendicular line from the *y*-axis to *p* (Line Y). Define θ as the angle between the *x*-axis and Line R. Then, define cos(θ) as the length of Line X and define sin(θ) as the length of Line Y. This is one way of defining sine and cosine. | 12 | 17 |
ELI5: Why do people start to hallucinate while they are sick or dying? | Context: A friend of our family was in the hospital for a very long time and also was in a coma for 3 months. While his wife was sitting next to his bed he kept starring to the wall. When she asked why he is doing it he told her a person ("Death/Reaper") came in three times today and he told that person to go away since he is not ready to go yet. His wife started crying in the hallway and talked to his doctor. She told her that three people died the night before. I guess it's just a coincidence, but I keep hearing those stories from people I know and I also come across them on the internet. I am pretty sure many people just come up with the stories for the clicks, but not all of them are made up.
What is the explanation for this? | The term for this is delirium. Delirium is quite complex and is defined by confusion, changes in awareness and attention. There are many things that cause delirium some of them are direct injury to the brain (stroke, brain infections, etc). Other things (infections, liver disease, medications, prolonged ICU stays) have been known to cause delirium but we don’t exactly know why. Dementia and aging are definitely known risk factors for delirium because we lose our brain volume as we age.
There are some theories out there but it is all poorly understood. The best thing we have for it is treat the underlying cause (if there is one) or try and control symptoms.
It’s a good question but unfortunately one we don’t have all the answers to. | 37 | 41 |
Why can we calculate (not measure) pi? | Understanding that pi represents the ratio of circumference to diameter of a circle, my question is regarding one (of several) methods to mathematically calculate the value of pi.
pi / 4 = 1 - 1/3 + 1/5 - 1/7 + ...
As you extend this equation it gets closer and closer to the value of pi. Admittedly it takes a ridiculous number of terms to extend it more than a few decimal places, but presumably it would continue to gain accuracy as you added/subtracted an infinite number of fractions.
My question: WHY? How does this equation relate to the characteristics of circles? Is something more profound at work? Enlighten me, please! | There is a way of approximating functions called a Taylor series expansion, where you add polynomial terms of higher and higher order to approximate the function. For example, the Taylor series of the cosine function is 1-x^2 /2 +x^4 /24 -x^6 /720... and if you calculate some values for x in radians, you'll find it's accurate if x isn't too big. You can figure out the terms with basic calculus.
From trigonometry, we know that the tangent of pi/4 radians (45 degrees) is 1. Thus, the inverse tangent of 1 is pi/4. The Taylor series for the inverse tangent function is x-x^3 /3 +x^5 /5 -x^7 /7 ... and if you substitute x=1, you're just left with that continued series for pi/4. | 1,030 | 1,967 |
ELI5: Why don't blood vessels sort of kink when we fold our knees/elbows? | Kind of like a hose | 1. The outside of each blood vessel is made of a material that has the right blend of firmness and flexibility.
2. Most blood vessels are surrounded by soft tissue that will yield first, or hard things (like bones) that will protect them from some of the pressure.
3. The interior of blood vessels is pressurized by the action of the heart. | 31 | 56 |
ELI5: Why are MRI's so huge? why didn't they get smaller in size like computers did?. | Computers went from the size of a room to fit in our pockets, so why are MRI's any different?. | MRI's require a strong magnetic field around your body. Making a strong magnetic field requires a large magnet. In some cases, the technology has gotten better and there are "open MRI" machines where what can be made smaller has been, and you no longer travel through a tunnel to get scanned. At the very least though the machine must be able to generate a magnetic field around whatever is being scanned (such as your body). | 12 | 15 |
ELI5: What is the difference between Drive, 3, 2, and 1, in an automatic car? | Very confused about this. | When you choose Drive, you are telling the transmission to choose whichever gear it feels is most suitable for the driving condition at any moment. When you choose 1, you are limiting the transmission to the use of first gear only. 2 allows the use of first and second; 3 allows the use of the first three gears. | 17 | 19 |
Could someone please attempt to explain entropy to me in a fluid dynamics context? | I have recently started a job as an aerothermal engineer and have had trouble understanding exactly what entropy is in a physical sense. I've encountered it in a few cases, for example, viewing entropy plots to locate pressure shocks over aerofoils, but I can't grasp exactly what it is. | Entropy (both in computer science and physics) is a measure of the number of possible states of a system.
Creating entropy somewhere means you have taken a certain path in reality, out of a great number of others. The greater the entropy increase, the greater the number of possible states your system can have. The sheer number of these new potential other states basically makes it impossible to go back to a point where the number of states were comparatively hugely smaller. Creating entropy means there is no going back in time.
Entropy can also be seen as a measure of disorder: the more the possible states of a system, the more you'll see random behavior appear.
When your fluid is laminar, little entropy is being created: your fluid has a very low number of ways to evolve. When your fluid is not laminar, when there are pressure shocks, a great number of possible states are being created. And you're likely to see turbulences.
When plotting entropy, you are basically viewing where the action takes place (where a single reality is chosen over a great number of potential states). | 13 | 71 |
ELI5: Why do fast food and casual dining places need to nickle and dime us on some things but not others? | Taco places charge for sour cream and guacamole but you can take as much hot sauce as you please. Burger joints make you pay for dipping sauces but freely dispense ketchup, mustard, and even mayonnaise. Wing places will add a price (sometimes without telling you) for ranch and bleu cheese while again giving away other free condiments. Is this to actually justify different costs or is it a money grab to squeeze every penny possible out of us? |
There are things that are considered traditionally part of the dish and things that are considered additional. A burger isn't a burger without the dressing and in order to compete you have to supply those things for free just like every other burger joint. Dipping sauces are part of a different menu item so to get it you need to pay for the difference in cost.
Guacamole and sour cream are significantly more expensive than salsa and they do not keep for anywhere near as long. Taco Bell can make salsa by the truckload and distribute it to their stores as needed. It really doesn't cost them much to produce and keeps for a long long time so they can buy ingredients when they are cheap, produce a ton and then wait out winter months or bad seasons. Guacamole takes actual manual prep and spoils very quickly as does sour cream. The price for avocado and milk also can change drastically in short periods of time so not including them in the base price of the item makes it easier to alter menus and keep things standard across the chain. Same thing applies to the wing sauces you mentioned. | 372 | 592 |
ELI5:Why do military vehicles have a longer period of usage than other vehicles? | By this I mean some planes that the USAF use were made in the 60s yet we are still using them today; however there are practically no commercially used planes made in the 60s anymore. Why is this? | Maintenance. Lots and lots and LOTS of maintenance. Most people don't realize just how much maintenance all types of military vehicles--and particularly aircraft--require. It's not at all uncommon to find aircraft, even new aircraft, that require tens or hundreds of hours of maintenance for *every hour* of flight time.
In the case of B-52s, those were all built between 1952 and 1962, and there are ~70 of them still flying. Damn near everything besides the airframe has been replaced multiple times, but those planes were just well-built to begin with.
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ELI5: How sharp is paper? | It doesn't take a lot to get a paper cut, which makes me think it must be pretty sharp, especially because paper isn't all that rigid. I'm not totally sure how to define "sharpness" but is it comparable in sharpness to a knife? If it were more rigid, where would that place it? | Sharpness, until recently, has not been a very well defined term. Unfortunately, explaining sharpness is actually more complicated that an ELI5 because it requires an understanding of fracture mechanics.
The good news is that your question can be answered without actually defining sharpness! The first thing to understand is that being "sharp" entirely depends on the shape of the thing doing the cutting. It's a common misconception that "sharpness" depends on hardness, but it does not (for anyone interested, hardness affects how sharp something can stay, but not how sharp it is). For this reason, butter that has the exact same shape as very hard steel knife is technically just as sharp as the knife. So why does this make a difference? Because this also means that if you had a piece of steel that was as thick as a sheet of paper and had a microscopically flat edge like paper (assuming that's the case), it would be exactly as sharp as the paper itself. It may not be intuitive as to what that steel piece would be like, so you can imagine it'd basically be like a very dull razor. In other words, paper is not very sharp because, as thin as it is, its edges are still very broad.
So if paper is not sharp, why the paper cuts? Think about this: if the paper wasn't gliding across your finger and was simply pushing directly into it instead, do you think you'd still get a paper cut? Probably not, since we'd end up with many, many more paper cuts if we could get them simply by pushing. But when the paper glides over your finger, it manages to cut well. The key difference is that it's much easier to break skin by tearing it along the surface than it is to break it by pushing directly into it. You ultimately don't need all that sharp of an edge to cut yourself by drawing the edge across your skin; paper will do just fine! | 302 | 694 |
ELI5: Why does the United States have more prisoners per capita than any other country? | While this is an extremely complicated question,the most significant contributing factors are "the war on drugs", mandatory minimum sentences, and three strikes laws. These function to incarcerate people for what would otherwise be considered less serious offences. | 120 | 124 |
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I believe that rather than spending money on programs for the severly mentally disabled, schools should put money into programs that can help develop those who will eventually contribute to society. Please CMV | I go to a high school in the U.S that has an extensive program for those with severe mental disabilities. I'd say there are at least three seperate classrooms and about 20 people who are employed to take care of them. I think that this is a waste of money that could be used on extracurricular programs to help develop students who will eventually contribute somthing to society. Also, when I saw mentally disabled I mean students with disabilities that cause them to lack any conceivable form of communication or intelligence that allows them to contribute anything. I'm not really sure how to phrase that, but I'm thinking of anyone who falls into the very low IQ range (70-) or is completely unable to express intelligent thoughts that they may or or may not have. I do, however, understand that people with minor learning disabilities (ASD, aspergers, etc.) are not only able to contribute to society, but are sometimes incredibly intelligent. | The goal of those programs is to help those with significant mental impairments function properly, so that they can also be constructive to society. Essentially, it's to help them get to that level of functionality that you describe those with less significant disabilities as having, and you suggest you don't have much of a problem with them.
Plus, *not* having these programs would be *worse* for society.
If the mentally impaired children you mention were placed in classrooms, the ability of the class to function would be compromised, due to the amount of monitoring required for the lower-functioning students. This would mess up the ability for *all* students to contribute to society, which it seems you favor. And if they simply stay at home? Then an enormous economic burden is placed on the family who must have to monitor and support such youth - possibly forever, seeing as they might not have the knowledge or skill to help mentally disabled children function well. Economic stress and possible unemployment, for families who only wish to help their mentally disabled children. | 23 | 40 |
ELI5:Why do law firms use the partnership model? | I'm sure the partnership model works in a lot of situations, but what makes law firms so unique for this model to be the standard? Why aren't they run like 'normal' businesses with an owner/shareholders and salaried employees? | In modern times, it is legally restricted how lawyers can organize themselves--it's viewed as a bad thing for an attorney to be under control of a non-attorney shareholder for example, considering his special duties toward clients. But that doesn't really answer the historical question.
A lawyer is a typical example of a professional. He trades on his reputation, and it's all about his abilities. You cannot separate the service from the attorney providing it--being represented by John Doe is not the same as being represented by Richard Roe. So it makes sense for lawyers to be business for themselves, albeit with clerks or secretaries assisting them perhaps.
A partnership is an extension of this model--you've got lawyers working together, but they're still individuals with clients specific to them, they just pool some of their capital and other business sources. | 44 | 70 |
Why do we expect extraterrestrial life to only be carbon-based and rarely consider alternatives? | Why do scientists seem to assume that life must be based on carbon? I understand the organic chemistry reason, and that we are carbon-based here on earth, but isn't it possible that "life" could have evolved relying on different materials?
Related, why do we focus our search and our expectations on carbon-based extraterrestrial life?
Thanks! | We may only know one kind of biology, but we know an awful lot of chemistry. And Carbon is the right kind of element to make the very complex chemicals and rapid chemical reactions that really distinguish "life" from non-life. Similarly, water is the right kind of solvent for "life" to occur in. There may be other cases out there, but carbon and water are *exceedingly good* candidates, chemically speaking, to form life | 23 | 51 |
ELI5: Why is it that alcohol does not have to have the ingredients or nutritional facts printed on the bottle? | It all depends on whether something is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA, part of the Department of Health and Human Services) or the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB, part of the Treasury Department.) Only FDA-controlled items are required to have nutrition labels. For TTB beverages, it's voluntary. There have been efforts to standardize this, but nothing's ever come of it. The historical reason for this split is simple: Alcohol has always been an important source of government revenue, much more so than food.
Distilled spirits (aka hard liquor), wine, and malt beverages (aka beer and malt liquor) are all under TTB control. This creates some peculiar exceptions. Gluten-free "beer" made with something besides malted barley is an FDA-controlled beverage with a nutrition label. Hard cider is just as alcoholic as beer, but it's not malted, so needs a label. (For some purposes, it's apparently treated as wine.) | 32 | 24 |
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ELI5: Why can't we use all the excess skin from people with extreme weight loss to treat burn victims? | With the technology surrounding grafting, why can't we take the huge amounts of skin that come from the formally obese and graft them to victims that have suffered severe burns? If skin 'typing' is an issue, it seems we could setup a global exchange - there is demand on both ends it would seem? | Your cells have specific proteins on their membranes that serve as markers for your immune system to differentiate self from non-self. These proteins can vary from person to person, although they serve the same function.
The reason you typically graft skin from yourself is that the skin will not be rejected by your immune system, where as if you used someone else's there's a very likely chance it will be rejected and cause an immune response. | 19 | 36 |
ELI5 how we can determine that tiny particles like quarks and neutrinos exist, but cannot determine what is ultimately the source of matter. | Because, in general, it's easier to know something exists than to know how it exists.
We can determine they exist 1. Because we can break things apart into them and 2. Because we can see how they interact with things.
But, of course, we can't actually see them, because they are so small, and we can't break them into smaller parts, at least not that we know of.
So while we know they are there, we don't know what they are.
I assume that was what your question was, but the wording is weird. | 22 | 33 |
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[Star wars scp universe] what would the classification and containment procedures be for Darth Vader? | assuming he brought his lightsaber with him | Class: Safe
The Force is not known to permeate the Milky Way galaxy, so a Vader on Earth is just a formidible swordsman with a plasma sword. He can be relatively easily subdued at range using any standard weaponry (lethal or less-lethal). Containment can be any room with a door strong enough to withstand his cybernetic strength. | 19 | 16 |
How do I cite a transgender author's name | Hi, everyone!
I am trying to cite an old article by an author who has since come out as transgender and changed their name. Do I cite the text using the name which appears on it (essentially deadnaming them), or do I use their new name?
I feel like this is kind of a tricky situation because, on the one hand, I want to respect the author's new name, but I also want my citations to be "correct" for plagiarism's sake. | Here’s what MLA 9 (idk about other style guides, sorry) says in section 5.15
If you are writing about or working directly with an author whose name changed and you know they do not use their former name in references to their work—for example, trans authors—list their works under the name they use, regardless of the name that appears in the source. Do not supply information about the name change or cross-reference entries, and avoid using the former name in your prose. | 559 | 320 |
What's the best explanation for the meaning behind this famous Nietzsche quote? | "He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."
The first sentence is fairly straightforward but I've long thought about the second one and have struggled to understand it. Thinking maybe I don't understand Nietzsche enough to understand this? I figured the much smarter people in
r/askphilosophy could help. I'm sure there's a lot of diverse opinions, would love to hear them all. | Nietzsche, like Hegel, is interested in the dialectical nature of the self, how the self and its other mutually inform one another. It is not possible to quarantine yourself in an absolute manner from what you are setting yourself against (though it's a huge psychological temptation). There is always the risk of becoming a monster when fighting monsters. But Nietzsche provides his individualist twist to this dialectical notion of the self by adding that, even if you were to set up your other as an *abyss* rather than a monster, even if you were to gaze into this big inert hole rather than fight against a bad other who is out to get you, even if you were to choose as your other NOTHING, a big lack of objects all smoothed together, an abyss, the dialectical nature of the self would still be there at the end of the tunnel, because, at the end of the day, your fight with the monster wasn't all about the monster (though that's another huge psychological temptation that Nietzsche is trying to push back against), your fight with the monster was also self-revelatory, i.e. the animating factor in our relationship with monsters is us saying "we are not that monster". So even if you stop fighting and just passively gaze into nothingness, even if you choose NOTHING as your object, the object will still be yammering on and on and on at you, because it isn't about the object dummy, it's *you*, it's self-creation that is at the heart of geist, that's where otherness comes from. It's not about the Sun, it's about *for whom the Sun shines*. Our dynamic connection with the world is more about us than it is about the world; the world talks to us even when we choose the deadest thing in the world imaginable, an abyss, because it isn't the world that's doing the yakking when the world is yakking, it's us, it's our self-creation. We love our enemies! Maintaining yourself against enemies, distinguishing yourself from what you are not, is the essence of selfhood. But it's us, it's us, it's us, we are the ones doing it. That's what the abyss brings out. The other yaks on and on even when there is no other. The self is its relation to itself as it pours out into the other, it is a self repelling against itself that pushes out as the other, etc., etc. It's geist that creates otherness and it's geist that can resolve it. Nietzsche thinks this could occur in an individual Superman purged of resentment. He would be cool with the fact that humans are like a yammering abyss, and still go on self-creating anyway without a worry in the world about such things. | 68 | 46 |
[Biology] How do antibodies work and why has there never been a case of bacterial resistance to such antibodies? | Antibodies, also called Immunoglobulins, are proteins that are secreted in response to an antigen, which is most commonly a protein of the pathogen, but can also be against a toxin.
After an immune cell of the Innate Immune System (the first responders), a Macrophage for example, engulfs and destroys the invader, it then presents a piece of it on the cell-surface via a molecule called the Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC).
In the case of Antibody production this is then presented to a B-Cell which turns into a Plasma Cell to produce antibodies specific to this antigen.
Antibodies can then work in two ways; They can neutralize the target directly by blocking important proteins on the surface, or they can prime the target for easier attack by the immune cells - The latter is called Opsonization.
Bacteria does not become directly "resistant" to antibodies, but there are several ways to avoid it:
*Mycobacterium tuberculosis*, causative agent of tuberculosis, can survive and even replicate inside phagocytes like macrophages, by disrupting the fusion of the Phagosome with the Lysosome, which is a "digestive" mechanism of the cell. The Lysosome contains various hydrolytic enzymes to break down the pathogen.
Sometimes members of the same bacterial species have different serotypes, which means that 2 strains cause 2 different antibody responses and are not affected by the response to the other.
Other pathogens, like the parasites that cause Malaria, can change their surface proteins when they replicate to avoid circulating antibodies. | 26 | 58 |
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CMV: People who can't afford kids shouldn't have them. | I've seen this sentiment expressed from time to time and quite to my surprise it often generates a lot of anger and controversy. Why? According to the USDA it costs around $230,000 to raise a *single* kid from 0 to 18, and that figure doesn't even include college. That figure averages out to a little over $1,000/mo.
*EDIT 4: I brought up these figures more to highlight the so far practically unargued point that having kids is expensive. As several people have pointed out, using the $230,000 figure is a bit misleading because that's just an average (some would say over inflated) for a certain category of people in one country; some kids will take less to raise, some will take more. So to kind of move away from a specific number I'd rather frame this issue in a series of questions. Questions like: can you afford to feed your child three meals a day? Will you be able to afford to house and clothe your child? Will you be able to cover healthcare costs when you child is sick, injured, or just needs routine check-ups? Will you be able to pay for some baseline extracurricular activities for your child so they can grow up to be a functional and well rounded adult? Will you be able to be present as a parent for your child or will you be too busy working three jobs? If the answer is "no" to these sorts of questions, that's what I'd define as not being able to afford children, not a specific $/mo.*
If, say, it was possible to engage in an 18 year lease agreement (one it's almost impossible to get out of) for a quarter of a million dollar car, costing the driver $1,000/mo for almost two decades, it would be a totally common sense and uncontroversial thing to say that people who cant afford that lease, particularly poorer and struggling people, should not enter that agreement, much less two, three, four, five + seperate agreements at $230,000 a pop. If someone is broke and struggling but also was leasing an Aston Martin and a Lamborghini, youd probably think they were making very poor financial decisions. But swap out that luxury vehicle with a child or three and suddenly people get upset when you suggest they're making poor decisions. Why? If anything, I'd think that it'd be better for poor people to pay for the car than the kid - having a kid, even beyond the sheer cost, makes your already struggling life even harder arbitrarily, and also worsens the quality of life for the child i.e. another human being; a luxury vehicle isn't going to wake you up crying every night, or your job doesnt have to be structured around what time the car gets out of daycare; the child's quality of life, in terms of health, academics, enjoyment, etc. is obviously lessened by having parents who cant actually properly afford their existence.
And then, because (rightly) we dont want children to suffer unduly or die due to their parents irresponsible procreation choices, society has to step in and help foot the bill for their wellbeing. I'm not opposed to this happening, but it is worth noting it wouldnt generally even have to be a thing if people who cant afford kids didnt have them.
**Also I'm not advocating for any kind of mandate, ban, or law. I just think it's a shitty financial decision. I think the same of a lot of financial decisions, but for whatever reason it seems there is pushback when these poor financial decisions pertain to children... I've never seen someone get up in arms over the suggestion that people who are struggling and poor probably shouldn't invest in bad timeshare contracts or whatever.** *(EDIT 6 was bolding this for emphasis - several people have responded like this paragraph didn't exist)*
Y'all know what to do. Cheers.
*EDIT 1: Should also note I'm viewing this subject through a lens of a concurrent, developed nation, particularly the US, which is where I live. Obviously in other parts of the world $230,000 could be enough to raise a thousand kids.*
*EDIT 2: We are currently experiencing higher than normal response volume. Your reply is important to us. Please be patient and a certified OP will be with you as soon as possible.*
*EDIT 3: One delta awarded so far for someone pointing out the utility and practicality of having children to stave off a low birth rate which is vital for a strong and functioning economy. My view was very much focused on individual choice and I hadn't considered societal need.*
*EDIT 5: Many people are bringing up that I ought to be more focused on creating a society where everyone who wants kids can afford them, and people have access to the education/birth control aspects of family planning. I don't disagree with those goals at all. BUT, until we create that society, if we ever do, we ought to be wise about the decisions we make in the current system, which is the gist of the OP.*
*EDIT 6: Frankly I'm not going to be able to get to all these replies, but there seem to be plenty of people chiming in from both sides of this issue, so hopefully this discussion will continue! I'll keep at this until my laptop battery dies (currently at 52%) and then I'm calling it quits for at least a few hours. Thanks to everyone for the good conversation so far.* | 1) By the time they grow into working age adults, they will on average put more back into the economy than they took out.
2) The economy needs a growing population to function.
3) Therefore the government subsidizes childbirth, even for the poor, by footing some of the expenses associated with having children.
The government should be doing more. The more spent on children early on, the more productive they will be later on. | 738 | 3,401 |
ELI5: Gases in space, do they form little spheres like tiny planets or move like earth clouds. How do they keep themselves together? | The short answer is gravity. Gravity exists between any two objects but it is weak unless there is a lot of mass. In the absence of any other forces a gas, or any other material for that matter, will form a sphere because of those gravitational forces.
If the cloud is small enough it will be subject to other forces and won't be really spherical, but with enough size it will keep its shape more. Jupiter would be a good example of that. | 20 | 28 |
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Can you Find new prime numbers by multiplying all of the known prime numbers and adding 1? | Our teacher showed us the proof to that there is an infinate number of prime numbers by using Euclid's theorem. If you add 1 to the product of all known prime numbers is it garanteed to get a new prime number? And if so why are people still looking for new prime numbers? | If you multiply all known prime numbers and add 1, you won't necessarily obtain a new prime number. Another possibility is that you obtain a number that is the product of prime numbers that are all larger than the set of numbers you multiplied.
As an example: Suppose we consider 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13. If you multiply these and add 1, you obtain 30031, which is not prime, but rather the product of 59 and 509, both of which are prime numbers.
So the application of Euclid's Theorem is not a shortcut to finding new prime numbers. But it does guarantee that there are always more prime numbers to be found.
So why do people still look for prime numbers? Here it's not so much the destination that matters, as it is the journey. The efficient computation of prime numbers can have important applications in computer science (for example in encryption). Researchers that compute extremely large prime numbers aren't that interested in the actual number they find, but more in the methods used to find it. | 45 | 24 |
ELI5: Why when we think about breathing we start breathing 'manually'? | And how do we forget about it suddenly 'automatic' breathing starts?
Thanks!. | Breathing is regulated by two different pathways, an automatic center that originates from your brainstem that controls your natural breathing when you are not actively thinking about breathing. There is also an area that comes from your cortex allows you to have active control of the muscles that are related to breathing (your diaphragm, your intercostals, your abs). When you actively try to take a deep breath/breath harder, you are overriding your autonomic breathing center, and actively using more of your secondary respiratory muscles. | 23 | 30 |
[RPGs] I just spent the afternoon walking around beating monsters to death with a club but for some reason I seem to have improved unrelated skills like bartering and lock picking... How does that work? | While engaged with monotonous physical activities, sometimes the mind wanders, reflects on past experiences, and explores the possible answers to lingering questions.
I imagine you rehearsed some conversational skills in your head and gave serious thought to the engineering behind popular locking mechanisms of the time period. | 34 | 16 |
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ELI5:Why is Pi so special and how was it discovered? | Pi was discovered initially as the specific ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. They determined that the exact ratio was not a simple fraction, though they were happy to approximate. As they explored mathematics, they determined that this ratio came about with surprising regularity, due to it's natural relation to circles and spheres. | 7,521 | 9,429 |
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Where to study Psychoanalysis?? | So I’m in my last year as a Philosophy undergrad, and I’ve become massively interested in Psychoanalysis, mainly through Deleuze&Guattaris critique thereof... so I’ve been reading a load of Freud and Lacan, and I’ve decided I want to focus on this in my masters, but I’m not sure where (UK or mainland Europe) is best to study Psychoanalysis at a postgrad level?? Thinking in terms of renowned schools and places that are regarded as the best places to study it... I’ve looked at Birkbeck and UCL in London, but would appreciate any tips!! Thanks xx | I feel like you should ask this at r/psychoanalysis, there are certainly some clinicians over there who would be willing to suggest something.
Paris VIII is the obvious answer, but if you don't speak French proficiently you must look for an alternative. | 23 | 44 |
ELI5 why are some metal objects cast while other are forged? | Depends on the application.
If the part is made in large quantities, then casting is probably more efficient and cheaper.if the part is very complex, then casting is also easier.
However, cast metal can be 'short' - meaning it has a crumb texture inside, like a shortbread. This can affect its strength.
Forged metal is usually tougher, so better suited for parts that carry a lot of stress.
Any industry that manufactures a metal part will weigh up the needs of the application versus cost, and figure out the best process.
It tends to be the case that cost cutting will result in parts being cast when they should have been forged. Cheap lever corkscrews...the handles always break because they have been cast and aren't tough enough for the physics of leverage. | 28 | 17 |
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why is it so important to keep trauma victims awake/alert on the way to the hospital, as in how does that aid in their chances of survival? | More often then not, its easier to monitor the condition of someone whose conscious. By simply talking with the first responder we know they have a viable airway and are breathing. A comatose patient is difficult to assess, as they cannot pinpoint the location of the injury, tell the medical staff how they feel, and communicate any changes in their condition. | 107 | 97 |
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ELI5 why Colors Fade in sunlight? What actually happens to the color? Does it dissipate into the air somehow? | The photons of ultra violet light from the sun interact with some chemicals that are used to create dyes and pigments (i.e. colors) in a way that causes the chemicals to change and stop having the color. The energy of the photon causes certain bonds between atoms in the dye molecule to break. | 41 | 36 |
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ELI5: What's happening between EU and Switzerland? | I've read something about immigration on Switzerland and punishment from the UE but I'd love a simpler and less subjective explanation. | In order to enjoy free trade between Switzerland and the EU they have to abide by a number of rules that apply to EU countries as well. One of which is free movement of people. Since they are putting a stop to immigration, also from people who live within the EU, they risk blowing up the free trade agreement since they don´t play by the same set of rules as EU countries do anymore. | 18 | 34 |
ELI5: Why does meat usually taste better when it's cooked? | Cooking is a way of outsourcing digestion. The heat breaks down the proteins and carbohydrates so your body doesn't have to. Carmelization of those carbohydrates produces a more pleasing flavor. The proteins become denatured and natural enzymes that might spoil it get destroyed. | 19 | 17 |
Subsets and Splits