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2qscb4
|
why was there a west berlin? why didn't east germany just have all of berlin as it was deeply within its boarders?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2qscb4/eli5_why_was_there_a_west_berlin_why_didnt_east/
|
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"Originally, after Germany's defeat in World War II both Berlin and Germany as a whole were temporarily split between the four victorious Allies: France, Britain, the US, and the USSR. Since it was the capital and largest city in Germany, it seemed unfair at the time to give Berlin solely to Russia.\n\nBut when the Cold War intensified the Allies began to turn on each other. France, Britain, and the US combined their sectors to form West Germany and West Berlin. Bonn became the capital of West Germany and West Berlin became a (mostly) free city. The Soviets turned their sectors into East Germany and absorbed them into the Warsaw Pact.",
"East Germany tried to do just that and failed miserably.\n\nAfter WW2, Germany was divided up amongst the 4 post-war victors: US, UK, France, USSR. But since Berlin was the capitol of Germany it was also divided up into 4 sectors.\n\nEventually, the country sections from US, UK, and France became \"West Berlin\" sections. Even though West Berlin was entirely landlocked within \"East Germany\", it was still part of \"West Germany\". The East Germans (controlled by the Soviets) did not like this as their citizens were escaping into West Berlin and there was a lot of espionage occurring. The East Germans built a wall around West Berlin in 1948 (basically overnight) and prevented all road traffic from West Germany to West Berlin. The Berlin Airlift was organized by the western allies to bring in supplies. This continued for about a year, until the East Germans allowed land access to West Germany again. \n\nEDIT: typos"
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2fughl
|
Why don't we take a full breath when we inhale?
|
Like when you yawn you can take in way more oxygen then normal breathing. Why don't we take a full breath?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2fughl/why_dont_we_take_a_full_breath_when_we_inhale/
|
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"Because you don't need to exchange that much CO2 for O2. You only need as much O2 as you've burned up in C. Your lungs have to have up to ten times the basal capacity of breathing to be able to get rid of enough CO2 when you're working really hard.\n",
"Breathing is about doing two things: Getting oxygen and getting rid of CO2. They are linked; every inhalation brings your oxygen, every exhalation dumps CO2. Oxygen is not rate-limiting here. Even if you take a breath and hold it, there is still quite a bit of oxygen in that exhaled air.\n\nCO2 is a waste gas, but you need a certain amount of it dissolved in your blood; it helps you maintain proper blood chemistry (it stabilizes pH; it's why you can drink orange juice and not die).\n\nIf you breathe to full capacity on every breath while resting, you will remove too much CO2 and it will adversely affect your blood chemistry. This is hyperventilation, and can make you black out.\n\nBut you need the capacity to blow off that much CO2 from time to time; any kind of exertion will increase the amount of CO2 your body is making, and you have to get rid of that. "
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x2ikf
|
Why haven't scientists attempted to genetically alter our gut bacteria?
|
As I understand it the bacteria in our guts weigh up to two kilos, and exist throughout both intestines.
So why hasn't any progress been made on killing this off and replacing it with strains very similar but capable of breaking down carcinogens/preservatives/trans fats? Or capable of out competing E. Coli or other pathogens? With my basic knowledge of microbiology I think it's certainly possible and don't see why more hasn't been done.
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/x2ikf/why_havent_scientists_attempted_to_genetically/
|
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"The bacteria present on our skin and through our whole body from the nasal cavities, our mouths, and throughout our digestive systems are unique to each individual and started growing shortly after birth. I have read articles referring to our on-board flora as a second set of DNA. \n\nGiven the enormous and not-truly-understood impact these creatures have on us, it would not be simple and perhaps not even desirable to monkey around with too much. Killing off the existing microbial cocktail would not be a simple thing and could do untold damage in the process. \n\nHaving said all that, science has been experimenting with [fecal transplants ](_URL_0_) to aid some people that might be missing some beneficial bacteria. \n\n",
"It's getting there. The gut's population of microbes, collectively referred to as the human microbiome, is being sequenced in a large number of individuals so obtain as much information as possible about the DNA of these bacteria and what processes they are doing and how they might be helping or contributing to disease.\n\n[Human Microbiome Project at the NIH](_URL_0_)\n\nWe are just going to have to learn more before we start playing with the organisms. "
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"https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ie=UTF-8#hl=en&safe=off&output=search&sclient=psy-ab&q=fecal%20transplant&oq=&gs_l=&pbx=1&qscrl=1&fp=407ac376ff9db7&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.,cf.osb&biw=1309&bih=686"
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5lbkrq
|
how any human babies survived in early human history
|
I'm currently being dragged around babies r us by my pregnant wife filling out our registry. So much of the stuff is so concerned with being soft, safe clean etc... Which is good I guess. But when people lived in the woods and caves, how were any babies surviving? I know the infant death rate was high, it just seems impossible to keep the completely fragile and helpless thing that are human infants alive in the cruel environment of early human history.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5lbkrq/eli5_how_any_human_babies_survived_in_early_human/
|
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"My kids and I were watching some two-year-old boy in a restaurant run off while this parents weren't watching. In the old days that boy would have run off into the woods and been eaten by a jaguar/coyote/bear/whatever or died of exposure...or he would have come back as a sneakier, more capable human. Instead he got corralled by a waiter and brought back.",
"Two simple answers: a.) we're social animals. b.) We breed often.\n\nBefore either explanation though, remember that evolution has always been a steadily gradient. And that society as we understand it (even society as ancient people understood it) [has only existed for a blink of an eye](_URL_1_). And that as Kurzgesagt puts it [\"humans only 50,00 years ago were survival specialists\"](_URL_1_ & feature=youtu.be & t=297). Try to shrug off the image of helpless, squishy humans and their vulnerable babies, surrounded by predators in a dense forest. And picture instead rugged, tough, hair-covered humans...with excellent forward-facing colour vision and multi-directional hearing, armed with stone spears. Before that, sharpened rocks. And long before that, powerful arm muscles for [brachiation](_URL_0_). A fearsome opponent for any predator. Particularly in groups, which we *always* came in.\n\nBut on the *we're social animals*, remember that living in well-knit social groups brings very significant advantages when it comes to raising offspring. Many sets of eyes of ears to keep watch for threats. And many sets of arms and teeth that can be bought to bear when one is spotted. But also support structures, where fellow adults can watch over kids collectively while gathering food. Sneaking up on a group of apes is not impossible, but it's fairly difficult.\n\nAnd on the *we breed often*, remember that losses were entirely expected. As such, females would generally be producing as many offspring as resources would allow. To look at chimpanzees, every female produces 5-6 babies each. Losses to injury, disease, predation and accidents, were generally part of the plan.",
"If you look at primitive tribes today, you can see how they keep their babies alive with no modern technology.\n\nTypically the baby is kept either inside the home, or on the mother's body using a kind of cloth hammock such as [this.](_URL_0_)\n",
"Infant death rate was also higher because there were no vaccines, antibiotics, Vicks vapor rub, or socks that were as soft as rabbits fur... but to answer your main question: all the ones that lived.",
"Look at 100 year old graveyards - they're full of children. Many didn't survive.",
"IIRC, back in the day infant mortality rates were so high, they would sometimes wait to name a baby until it turned one year old.",
"Infant mortality was very high, and the human population remained very small, on the edge of extinction. We have evidence of early hominid populations which _did_ go extinct (the Denisovans, for example).\n\nIts civilization which gets homo sapiens out of our precarious state-- by being able to alter the environment, to make it cleaner and safer, to make food supplies more predictable and less diseased, we enabled the growth of the human population.\n",
"The fact that we exist as species said we did keep babies alive. What it can also tell you is why maternal protection is so prevalent, why people tend to be altruistic in their groups, view \"outsiders\" with suspicion and other prominent behaviors. They were very necessary to ensure the survival of babies since they were so vulnerable, those without these traits were less likely to pass thier genes on, which creates a strong selection pressure for these.",
"Babies were not just raised by the mother or father, the whole tribe contributed. A baby was basically always in someone's hands or attached to a body their first year of life. ",
"*Soft, safe, and clean* aren't necessary for human life. Cleanliness helps quite a bit, but softness isn't terribly useful, and *safe* is a relative term. "
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"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGiQaabX3_o",
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGiQaabX3_o&feature=youtu.be&t=297"
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25c9os
|
What type of fighting was characteristic of the Eastern Front in WWI? How was it different from the Western Front?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/25c9os/what_type_of_fighting_was_characteristic_of_the/
|
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"WW1 on the eastern front was completely different to fighting on the western front. Beginning with the Russian invasion of East Prussia in early 1915 the war was to feature constant flanking attempts and extremely mobile warfare. During the Russian invasion of East Prussia, an enormous number of almost 600,000 Russians marched into Germany looking to seize Allenstein, then move through to Danzig. Due to some excellent German manoeuvring however, a far smaller force was able to use the railway lines in East Germany to sweep around behind the Russians and completely cut them off, resulting in the loss of the Russian army. \n\nDue to the massive size of Russia and inability to fortify all ground, the war followed a pattern of attack, take huge amounts of ground, get counter attacked before being able to consolidate ground, enemy takes huge amounts of ground, counter attack and so on. \n\nThe War against the Russians was far more decisive than on the Western front. The German army did end up taking huge amounts of ground, taking all the ground up to Riga in Lithuania. Eventually though they had such an impact on the entire Russian nation that they were able to push their victory terms onto the Russians. When the Russians surrendered in Early 1918 they gave to the Germans what is now, Belarus, Ukraine, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia and Poland. "
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70enf7
|
why do some farts feel hot coming out? are they actually a different temperature than normal farts?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/70enf7/why_do_some_farts_feel_hot_coming_out_are_they/
|
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"I don't know the for-sure answer, but farts have varying degrees of hydrogen sulfide (H2S) content. Some are mainly just CO2, where others have more of the foul-smelling H2S.\n\nH2S dissolves in water (read: sweat), and is irritating to the skin and mucous membranes when it touches them.\n\nThat much I know, and can guess that the burning from a hot fart is irritation from a higher H2S content.",
"I surprisingly know this. The warm farts are the gasses like hydrogen sulfide created by the decomposition of food in your stomach while the cool ones are just regular air and/or CO2 that happened to be swallowed or trapped in your digestive tract. The warm ones are actually warmer and tend to be much more smelly. ",
"One way you can have excess gas in your digestive system is by swallowing air with your food (or carbon dioxide gas in carbonated drinks). Those farts tend to be the cooler ones.\n\nAnother way you can have excess gas is when bacteria in your gut or large intestine excrete it. Those farts tend to be the hot ones.",
"The potential of limitless knowledge gain from resources around the world that occurs within an instant. \nThis person here is asking the real questions. ",
"Also, do turds push the farts out or are turds pushed out by farts?",
"Has anyone ever answered the question \"why do I like the smell of my own farts - but not other people's?\"",
"I always saw hot farts as warning shots. Your body's like \"oh you think that smells bad? Wait a few minutes, buddy!\"",
"Follow up: which ones make the biggest flames?"
]
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1jqhng
|
alimony and child support payments.
|
It makes no sense to me.
If the woman does not have the means to raise a child, she doesn't have the means to raise a child and should not have any. If the man has no job following a divorce, he's seen as a slacker and a loser - no kids for you. If he *does* have a job, he's seen as too busy and ambitious to care for the children.
Women with jobs are seen as independent and driven, and those traits would be passed onto the kids. Women without jobs are seen as caretakers and they should be able to take on the difficult task of raising children.
I don't understand how our "patriarchal" system throws men under the bus wherever family is concerned. But simultaneously, men have all the power in the world and it's incredibly difficult to get by as a woman? Why is it that a woman "gets" part of a man's paycheck just because they used to be married?
My ex's parents were split up. Her mom made *quite* a bit more than her dad did, but he was still paying *her* for child support *and* alimony, even though they had equal roles with the children. I want to understand, but I can't find any good reason for it.
Hope you can help!
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1jqhng/eli5_alimony_and_child_support_payments/
|
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"The US Constitution requires that divorce law be sex-neutral. There's no advantage written into the law for women or special harsh treatment of men -- that would violate Equal Protection of the law. Instead, what you're seeing is the law *usually* benefiting ex-wives, and for good reason. Usually ex-wives are the ones who fairly speaking need the support, so the neutral laws *in practice* result in more orders of alimony from husband to wife, rather than vice versa.\n\nMarriage is a legal institution. The law allows you to run your own lives while you're married. But if you divorce, there are so many contentious points that the law can't stand aside anymore. When you divorce, you're inviting the law into your household management, because those conflicts have to be resolved so that everyone involved can move on with their lives.\n\n\n**Alimony** is purely between the spouses. It's about two things: support and blame. It's partly about support of one ex-spouse -- usually the wife -- who has given up partially or entirely her potential earning capacity to stay home, manage a household, raise kids. It takes time to rebuild a career, so a woman (or stay-at-home husband) needs support, at least temporarily. The other part of alimony is blame: who was at fault for the grounds for divorce. At-fault divorce is pretty rare now that almost every state has no-fault divorce, but alimony as compensation for abusive treatment, adultery, etc are normal.\n\n\n**Child Support** is about one thing only: the best interest of the child (or children). Nothing else. Each parent has to spend a certain amount to support the child. The custodial parent usually just pays out of pocket. The non-custodial parent makes payments to the custodial parent, to be spent on behalf of the child. In most states the amount owed is set by a formula, based on the income of each parent. If income levels change, you can request a change of support payments from the court. Typically it requires a substantial change, and one that was in good faith. So a non-custodial father can't get his child support payments reduced by deliberately quitting a highly-paid job and taking a low-pay one.\n\nYour ex's dad didn't cease to be her father just because he divorced her mom. He made LESS than the mom, not nothing. In a married family, money is exchanged freely and either parent can wind up paying the costs of raising a child. In a divorced family, the law makes sure BOTH parents are paying to support the kids.\n\n\nNote that payment or nonpayment of alimony or child support aren't legally related to **parental visitation** or **shared custody**. However behind a person is in paying, the child and parent still deserve to see each other. So if the custodial parent refuses to allow a lawful visit, the non-custodial parent can go to the court. If the non-custodial parent isn't paying, the custodial parent's proper action is to go to the court -- not to cut off access to the child.",
" > If the woman does not have the means to raise a child, she doesn't have the means to raise a child and should not have any.\n\nThe only thing here is that when I was married, we had 2 incomes to support the kids. After the divorce, it's now just mine, almost 1/2. Now, yes we've made many concessions and live within our means but my ex has barely made any payments and has no drive to get a real job.\n\nWhen it comes to things like school season, you're looking at around an extra $150 per child to get supplies and clothes (they're growing quite quickly now).\n\nGiven that my ex has done nothing to help in any way possible with the financial aspects of raising the kids, what justification does anyone have to say what I just quoted from you?\n",
" > Why is it that a woman \"gets\" part of a man's paycheck just because they used to be married?\n\nBecause that's what being married is, a merging of assets into one legal entity. She doesn't get a part of \"his\" paycheck, she gets a part of \"their\" paycheck.\n\nAnd you may be confusing two separate things, child support and alimony.\n\nChildren cost money, and the custodial parent will bear most of those costs. The non-custodial parent has to contribute in the form of child support, regardless of relative incomes.\n\nAlimony is awarded when one spouse makes a lot less money than the other, and was deemed to have forgone a career to keep house and raise children. If it was as you described, your ex's mother was more likely to pay alimony than to receive it. More likely wasn't getting alimony at all, just child support. If she was, she likely was making less at the time of the divorce, but their situations changed after. Another possibilities is that alimony was awarded punitively because he was determined to be the main cause of the divorce. \n\n",
"The screwing you get for the screwing you got."
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9wubly
|
what were the components of the housing crisis?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9wubly/eli5_what_were_the_components_of_the_housing/
|
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"You're going to want to do a lot more reading than a basic ELI5 if you actually want to understand it, but to put it in a relatively simple way:\n\n1. Investors always want to maximize their return on their funds. There's always a push to find high yield yet 'safe' investments. Investors don't like sitting on their cash and there's always a demand for investment opportunity. When there's a lot of cash hunting for investment opportunity, credit becomes easy to get.\n\n2. Easy credit means lower rates on loans, since loans were (and are) repackaged and sold to investors. Thus began a national drive to sell people homes, as each mortgage sold represented more investment opportunity. Banks and funds seized on home mortgage loans as a way to 'safely' get returns on investor capital, as home valuations historically rise at a steady rate.\n\n3. The incentives to sell homes caused a massive explosion in homebuilding and a loosening of risk analysis, as many people who were not financially qualified to buy homes were given loans anyway. Loans were no longer judged on their individual safety (i.e. was that individual more or less likely to make their repayment), but were cut up and blended into general investment vehicles (collateralized debt obligation), which received spurious 'safe' ratings from investment grading agencies. People who bought into the system would take out loans that were dangerous, on the basis of refinancing the home later at a safe interest rate (or simply selling it once the house appreciated a bit). This was a game of musical chairs.\n\n4. The worst performant loans (including many loans given to people who literally had no income) start to default and the collateral homes get foreclosed on, causing housing valuations to begin their collapse. This causes a chain reaction in the CDOs as the CDOs no longer were returning their expected value. This caused a massive banking panic and froze the availability of credit, which caused an economic crash that caused the marginal home mortgages to fail as people lost jobs, which further depressed home values and caused a cascading effect.\n\nThere are many books and videos and movies you can consume on this topic.",
"Lenders lent too much money to people who shouldn’t have borrowed it. Investors invested too much money with lenders that shouldn’t have had it. This made home values appear better than they were which further fueled the problems. Eventually borrowers couldn’t pay their lenders who couldn’t pay their investors."
]
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3hb8xg
|
Just how important was Gustavus Adolphus in military history? What were his major innovations in the art of war?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3hb8xg/just_how_important_was_gustavus_adolphus_in/
|
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"Oh boy, this is going to take some time, and some writing. I will need to post it several sections.\n\nGustav II Adolf (as he is called in Sweden, Gustavus Adolphus was his latin name) did bring several major innovations to the art of war.\n\n**Organisation, equipment and recruitment.**\n\nGustav II Adolf's grandfather, Gustav Eriksson (Vasa) created a set of national volunteer units, and Gustav II Adolf built on this system, creating a regiment in each county (or in case of densely populated counties, several, or sparsely populated counties, several counties per regiment). The system was formally voted into law by the estates parliament 1634, two years after the King's death. The regiment was both an administrative unit and a tactical unit - even if only about 10% of the manpower in the Swedish forces in Germany during the 30 years' war were Swedish or Finnish in origin, the regiments created a formal structure into which mercenaries were sorted - to use Swedish organisation and tactics. This was a break with the former system, where mercenaries were recruited as units and created the embryo of a national army. The regiment called up all men between 15 and 50, and free-holding farmers were divided into groups of 10, and each were to supply a soldier - often a second son to a farmer, a crofter or other man that did not own land - initially, most were volunteers, but as the 30 years' war progressed and the population noted how few returned from the war, more and more coercion had to be used to get soldiers for the regiments.\n\nGustav II Adolf also created a national arms industry, ordering three factories to be set up at Jönköping, Söderhamn and Norrtälje (the latter two got their city rights at the same time). 1622 another factory was established and Örebro, and 1624 one at Norrköping under the leadership of Louis de Geer, who was placed as a leader of all factories 1627. This process was slow and the authorities had problems getting the skilled artisans to move to the factories, regardless of this however, this created an industry that would produce standardised arms, especially muskets and pistols and high-quality gunpowder for the army. The Swedish army could thus often rely on arms that were if not interchangable at least very similar, which streamlined reload times, creating prepared gunpowder charges and thus improved the rate of fire and decreased the amount of misfires.\n\nSwedish cannon production, with the help of artisan immigrants from Wallonia helping Swedish mining and metal industry, became one of the foremost of the world. Swedish cannons were highly regarded - it can be noted that several of the guns from Blackbeard's *Queen Anne's Revenge* had been cast in Sweden.\n\nSwedish cavalry horses were small (hardly much larger than ponies - 150cm was a common height for a Swedish cavalry horses of the era), ragged, hardy and easy to train to not panic in the smoke, sound and movement of the battlefield. While Swedish noblemen were often ashamed of the low stature and small size of their horses compared to the noble horses European cavalrymen and especially nobles rode, the Swedish horses were much more able to survive periods of illness and low to no fodder than their European counterparts, which resulted in Swedish cavalry often having a lower percentage of dehorsed cavalrymen at any given time in a campaign. Lighter horses might have less weight in the charge, but they often had more stamina and lasted longer on the battlefield before they had to rest.",
"Rather than focusing on \"Why was Sweden so successful in the early modern period?\" I would like focus on, \"**How have Gustavus Adolphus' innovations been perceived over time?**\" and then answer your two questions in that context.\n\nThis is a rather complicated subject, and is intertwined with the ongoing debate on the \"military revolution\" thesis. Some historians focused on the military reforms in the context of the Thirty Years' War factor the innovations into: \n\n1. Infantry innovations: greater ratio of shot than pike, faster rate of fire, move toward linear formation, massed volley. \n\n2. Cavalry innovations: shock tactics, cross-training between cavalry and supporting infantry, move away from caracole. \n\n3. Artillery innovations: quality, mobility. \n\n4. Combined arms: mutually supporting units, cross-training, mobile formations that can react to battlefield situations. \n\n5. Professionalism: large standing army, high quality officers, high quality soldiers, and perhaps less obvious is their seeking to annihilate the enemy in battle. \n\nA lot of these were presented in Michael Roberts' famous article, \"*The Military Revolution: 1560-1660*,\" published in the 1950s, following his body of work on Gustav II Adolph. This Military Revolution paper focused on infantry and cavalry innovations, in particular the increasing power of shot infantry and the rise of linear tactics, which Roberts credited first to the Maurice Reform in the Dutch army, and then to Gustav II Adolph; and the shock cavalry tactics rather than caracole. The latter further improved the Maurice organization by the aforementioned combined arms optimizations, what with artillery and cavalry. \n\nGeoffrey Parker further argued in \"*The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West, 1500-1800*\" that it was only the infantry's increasing focus on firearms that enabled the military revolution in the early modern era, after all the Swedish were soundly defeated in Nordlingen in 1634 by a veteran, high-quality Spanish army ably led by the Spanish Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand and his cousin HRE Emperor Ferdinand, that was very much still organized and led in the \"old Spanish way\". Parker argued that it was the rise of professional army that led to the revolution, and this came about due to the appearance of *trace italienne* fortifications and the need (and ability) for states to fund large standing armies to fight the long sieges. \n\nGoing further, it was the Spanish who arguably led this development, what with their Army of Flanders and tercios of Italy. Finally, the Spanish army had also moved more and more towards firearms and away from pikes in organic fashion, which shows in numbers if not in tactical formations and operations. Many top commanders, including Spinola in the early 1600s, had asked for regulation for increasing the number of musketeers in infantry units, only for the Charles III and Charles IV to over-ride their proposals as it was seen to weaken the political influence of Spanish pikemen within the very international Spanish tercio organization. Regardless, the Spanish and Imperial formations had by then moved towards a linear formation, even if they were still centered around pike blocks, although operationally they were very distinct from the \"pike blocks with muskets and arquebus in the many *mangas* or sleeves around the pike blocks\" look of the 1560s. \n\nNow, back to your first question: **How important was Gustav II Adolph in military history?** He is absolutely very important. In addition to leading Sweden's rise in the southern Baltic coast at the cost of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, he changed the course of the 30YW by turning the tide of Imperial successes prior to the Swedish intervention. Importantly, he brought the war to the southwestern states such as Bavaria, which up to that point had not suffered war on their territory. He was prudent to not attack Vienna immediately after Breitenfeld, instead he wanted to maintain lines of communication and to form an alliance of Protestant states, possibly eventually leading to an attack on Vienna. His early success, death, and subsequent stalemate of Swedish efforts, led to France's direct intervention in the 30YW. \n\nHow was he able to accomplish all that? Of course, /u/vonadler/ has written extensively on the state reforms of Sweden, which should not be overlooked. Further, France was contributing significant funds to the Swedish effort. This became important as the original army suffered attrition and they had to hire mercenaries. In turn, the state reforms and investments were originally funded in part using the confiscated wealth of monasteries and churches as Sweden became Lutheran decades prior. \n\nAnd for your second question: **What were his major innovations in the art of war?** I won't add further, but rather I'd like to caution once again to first not lose the forest for the trees, and second to truly appreciate not only the organization of the army but rather how it fought in battle. Some will argue about the novelty of the reforms of the former, but it's very hard to argue the impact of Gustav II Adolph's contributions in the latter. Any other army will have capitulated when the Saxons fled the field in Breitenfeld. If they had not, any other army will have been overran when Pappenheim's cavalry flanked the right wing. \n\nSo, I hope this post helps put a different perspective, and this post surely leverages the great effort /u/vonadler/ has put into his post. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
4f9kjy
|
why do we have to exhale air when speaking?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4f9kjy/eli5_why_do_we_have_to_exhale_air_when_speaking/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d2719wj"
],
"score": [
9
],
"text": [
"Sound is just vibrations in the air. When we want to speak, we force air past our vocal folds, and this makes the vibrations we know as our voice. \n\nThere are three possible scenarios:\n\n(1) If your vocal folds are completely open, you will inhale and exhale without vibrating them. This is normal breathing.\n\n(2) If your vocal folds are partially closed, they will vibrate due to the air being pushed past them--this is what happens when you speak. They can take different conformations to produce different pitches and our full range of vocal sounds.\n\n(3) If your vocal folds are totally closed, you will not be able to inhale or exhale. You can still try, but nothing will happen. (This is actually important when pooping, trying to exhale against closed vocal folds will increase the pressure in your chest and push everything out. If you're curious, pay attention next time you're on the toilet.)\n\nNote: You can, theoretically, speak while inhaling as well. However, it would sound rather different and would not be as loud. But nevertheless, it's theoretically possible.\n\nTL;DR: Your voice is just sound (i.e., vibrations in the air) created when you push air past your vocal folds."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
4fwucx
|
Why do I need to eat food when taking antibiotics but I don't need to when taking pain relief such as panadol?
|
askscience
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/4fwucx/why_do_i_need_to_eat_food_when_taking_antibiotics/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d2crssm"
],
"score": [
14
],
"text": [
"Actually some antibiotics should be taken without food, some with food, and some at specific times of the day regardless. There are a lot of physiological changes in the gut after eating that can affect the amount of medicine absorbed from the gut into the bloodstream. The recommendation of when to take a drug, **so the right amount is being consistently absorbed**, is dependent on how that particular drug is absorbed, how it is affected by certain components in food, how it is affected by acids, how it is metabolised etc.\n\nFor example: is the drug absorbed better in an acidic environment? Take it with food. Is it less effective when exposed to an acidic environment? Take it on an empty stomach. Certain components of food, such as calcium or iron, may also bind to certain medicines and reduce their absorption into the bloodstream leading to reduced effectiveness. Some pain killers like apsirin are recommended to be taken with food to reduce nausea and stomach upset. Certain foods, such as grapefruit, can interfere with a drugs metabolism leading to side effects."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
6xtfs1
|
why do you have a deeper/raspier voice, after a night out drinking? is it just an extended morning voice that lasts all day?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6xtfs1/eli5_why_do_you_have_a_deeperraspier_voice_after/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dmib7r4",
"dmicdhe",
"dmin3fn",
"dmixzv0"
],
"score": [
7,
9,
2,
3
],
"text": [
"Cause you usually talk louder when you are drunk, putting extra strain on your vocal cords\n ",
"Except that you usually have to shout at the places that we usually drink, alcohol is a muscle relaxant, and the more relaxed the voice cords are, the deeper they sound.",
"I don't spend much time in bars, but when I have, I've usually had to almost shout to be heard by the people around me over the music or whatever.\n\nIt's surprising how fast my voice degrades when I'm constantly having to speak loudly. Cigarette smoke and alcohol probably contribute somewhat as well.",
"I'm gonna go with.. you've been soaking your vocal cords in alcohol?"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
q7r9k
|
Hundred year war essay- recommendations?
|
I'm doing an essay on the first part of the Hundred years war 1337-1360 (or Edwardian war). The essay would focus on the reasons behind the French defeat. Does anybody know reliable and accurate sources? (secondary sources mainly, but if you know any primary sources, they're more than welcomed)
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/q7r9k/hundred_year_war_essay_recommendations/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c3vepjz",
"c3vm4lh",
"c3vn4j2"
],
"score": [
3,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"[The Hundred Years War](_URL_0_)\n\n[The Hundred Years War: Trial by Battle](_URL_1_)\n\nFirst for overview, second for detail.",
"Thank you for being straight forward about this being homework.",
"Id suggest reading the references section of the wikipedia article on the hundred years war, it has a rather full list of good primary and secondary sources to read."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.amazon.com/Hundred-Years-War-English-1337-1453/dp/0140283617/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1330322148&sr=8-1",
"http://www.amazon.com/Hundred-Years-War-Battle-Middle/dp/0812216555/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1330322148&sr=8-2"
],
[],
[]
] |
|
5sfwwq
|
why were milkmen once a thing in america, and why did they stop being a thing?
|
The Milkman is a standard feature in the image of a wholesome, idyllic mid 20th-century America. However, having been born in the 90s, it's only a thing I've seen in cartoons and old media. Was milk hard to store in markets or something? Why did daily milk deliveries used to be a thing, and when and why was it phased out?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5sfwwq/eli5_why_were_milkmen_once_a_thing_in_america_and/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ddepxuq",
"ddeq4q5",
"ddervur"
],
"score": [
2,
8,
2
],
"text": [
"The Milkman was a thing prior to the widespread availability of residential refrigeration. Prior to having refrigerators, homes were lucky if they had an icebox. Warm milk spoils quickly, hence the regular deliveries from the milk man.",
"Milkmen have been a thing since long before refrigeration existed. You can even see it in things like \"Fiddler on the Roof\" which is set in the early 1900s and it was a well established job for a long time before that point. \n\nThe local dairy would deliver milk every day to people who could not raise their own cows (such as city folk) and they would also sell things like butter to them. After refrigeration was developed the job still remained a fixture for a few decades because stores were not built to have large refrigerated and freezer sections. But after enough time passed new Stores were designed to have a lot of refrigerated stuff and people started to buy their milk from stores and the home delivery model became too expensive for the dairy to use as it used too many workers. ",
"* more families had cars, had two cars, and had homemakers who could drive\n* refrigeration meant that milk could last for a week or two, rather than just a few days\n* cars and refrigeration lead to supermarkets and a culture of buying a lot of food all at once rather than a little food every day or two...buying and selling in bulk made getting milk there a cheaper alternative\n\nThere are still plenty of dairies that deliver, but it is considered more of a premium product that you have to pay a good deal extra for."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
czg9t7
|
why does popcorn that's popped from the bag taste stale a few hours later, while pre-popped popcorn will taste good for weeks or months at a time?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/czg9t7/eli5_why_does_popcorn_thats_popped_from_the_bag/
|
{
"a_id": [
"eyz27uo"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"It's a combinations of factors. Firstly 'preservatives' such as Citric Acid which helps keep the oil from turning bad, it's the same thing that's in oranges which keeps those from going bad. Secondly the fat that's used in pre-popped popcorn is often trans-fat which doesn't spoil as easily but is unhealthier. And lastly the inside of the inside of the popcorn bag is coated in chemicals that keep moisture from escaping the bag, keeping it from going stale."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
1bisfh
|
If someone were to be forced into slavery what year and location would be the best for them?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1bisfh/if_someone_were_to_be_forced_into_slavery_what/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c977urz",
"c9783s9"
],
"score": [
5,
3
],
"text": [
"Under the crumbling (around 900-1258) Abbasid caliphate there was a number of states which were essentially independent, even though they relied on the Caliph's nominal authority to justify their rule. Some of those states had rulers who were slaves.\n\nThis system originated because many Muslim rulers would create military forces out of slaves because they believed that slaves would be loyal to the ruler, unlike their overly ambitious generals. What happened instead was that the slaves became loyal to their officers (the soldiers of a regiment would live together and be trained and paid by their commander, essentially forming a community of their own). Sometimes these officers, who were slaves themselves, would find a way to grab power. One such slave dynasty was the Ghaznavids, who managed to carve out [quite a large empire](_URL_0_) for themselves.\n\nSo this could be quite a good time and place to be a slave, if you were lucky. At the same time, of course, there were many slaves being worked to death in mines, plantations and the \"usual\" slave jobs.\n\nSource: A History of Islamic Societies, 2nd Edition; Ira M. Lapidus; 2002",
"This is an incredibly difficult question considering all of the variables involved (though krepps did a great job giving a potential answer.)\n\nSlaves in the same society, in the same time period, could have drastically different lives. For example, at the height of the Roman empire a mining slave had a particularly bad life and low life expectancy with almost no chance of a life outside the mines. On the other hand, an educated Greek slave could be a teacher or a doctor living a relatively comfortable life in a Roman villa, could (with permission) make money on the side and could even buy their freedom at some point.\n\nDepending on the slave and what situation they found themselves in their experience could be very different."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghaznavids"
],
[]
] |
||
1z8oz4
|
What triggers Apoptosis in the human body?
|
What makes certain cells kill themselves in Apoptosis while other types continue to reproduce? If its a chemical trigger can we reproduce it artificially to target specific cells such as cancer?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1z8oz4/what_triggers_apoptosis_in_the_human_body/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cfrjdp6",
"cfrl56b"
],
"score": [
4,
23
],
"text": [
"All cells follow a predetermined growth and reproduction cycle, and there are certain chemical triggers that the cell recognizes at 3 points during the cell cycle, if a cell is damaged it will tell will not allow itself to build some of the proteins crucial for mitosis. Some stop reproducing, others stop functioning and are recycled.",
"I'll just quote the introduction of my thesis proposal.\n\nApoptosis is a highly conserved function by which individual cells can initiate and control the process of their own demise. An essential process throughout multi-cellular organisms everywhere, apoptosis is critical for the timely destruction of damaged cells before necrosis sets in. Many factors can lead to the triggering of apoptosis, which takes place through one of two pathways: intrinsic or extrinsic (see Fig. 1). Extrinsic apoptosis requires the production or presence of factors external to the cell which bind to death receptor proteins in the membrane, triggering a cascade of proteolytic enzymes and DNases to destroy the cell in an orderly fashion (Mehlen and Bredesen 2004). Intrinsic apoptosis relies upon the failure of the individual cell's homeostasis, often resulting from irreparable DNA damage or various types of oxidative stress (Reed 1997, Green and Reed 1998). Both pathways yield the same results: cytosolic shrinkage, fragmentation of the nucleus and subsequent condensation of the chromatin. Apoptotic cells eventually disintegrate and are consumed by phagocytes (Kroemer et al. 2007).\n\nThe extrinsic apoptosis pathway is mediated by proteins expressed on the cell surface which all belong to the Tumor Necrosis Factor (TNF) superfamily (Bhardwaj and Aggarwal 2003). Upon binding the appropriate ligand on the death domain of the receptor protein, signal transduction and adaptor recruitment occurs, forming a complex of TNF, the adaptor protein FADD, and Caspases 8 and 10. Ligands consist of TNF, Fas ligand, and TNF-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL), which bind to TNFR, Fas, and various isoforms of DR, respectively. TRAIL is a highly conserved gene product of 299 amino acids which has been cloned out of humans, mice, chickens, and fish (Chang et al. 2006) The promoter region of the TRAIL gene in Zebrafish has been found to contain many transcription factor binding sites for lymphoid-specific transcription factors, as well as p53 (Chang et al. 2006). Given this, and the finding that Zebrafish TRAIL is constitutively expressed in most tissues, suggests that it may share a similar role with Human TRAIL in the apoptosis pathway. This pathway consists of TRAIL binding DR4 or 5, which causes the recruitment of FADD. FADD recruits pro-caspase-8 and -10 to form a death-induced signaling complex (DISC). The pro-caspases are catalytically cleaved and activated to destroy the cell. FasL and its receptor, Fas, constitute another method of apoptosis induction. Proteolytic cleavage of FasL, a membrane protein, yields a soluble domain which will bind to Fas, another membrane-bound receptor (Schulte et al. 2007). FasL is expressed primarily on T-cells. Binding of FasL to Fas on cells expressing the protein receptor leads to initiation of apoptosis, which can be assumed to be homologous to the pathway exhibited in humans (Griffith and Ferguson, 1997). TNFR has two isoforms, but only TNFR1 has a death domain (Bhardwaj and Aggarwal 2003). Its ligand, TNF, mediates apoptosis as well as other physiological responses such as inflammation and cell proliferation. Little is understood of the interaction between TNFR and its ligand in fish, but preliminary studies in Japanese flounder and Zebrafish have identified and characterized these genes (Park et al. 2003, Eimon et al. 2006).\n\nThe intrinsic pathway is controlled by the Bcl-2 gene family, having members of either pro- or anti-apoptotic properties. Protein products of these genes contain a few important domains, called Bcl-2 Homology Domains (BHD) 1 through 4 (Borner 2003). Anti-apoptotic members typically have 3-4 of these domains involved in their function, while pro-apoptotic members may have only one (BHD3), or several. BHD1-3 of anti-apoptotic proteins form a hydrophobic groove for the binding and sequestering of apoptotic cascade proteins and caspase activators, also constituting a site where pro-apoptotic proteins can bind and competitively inhibit this protective function (Puthalakath and Strasser 2002). BHD3 of pro-apoptotic members, instead of forming a groove, is exposed via a conformational change or post-translational modification (Sattler 1997). This allows it to bind to and inhibit the function of the hydrophobic groove in anti-apoptotic Bcl-2 members. Multi-domain proapoptosis proteins will sometimes bind to the membrane with their hydrophobic site, occluding the site from further interaction or binding to some other inhibitory molecule until activated. Activation depends on the cellular environment, be it transcription of p53 due to DNA damage, death receptor ligation from the extrinsic pathway, or other indicators of failing cell integrity. Ultimately, interaction of proapoptosis BH3-only members with anti-apoptotic members near mitochondria, as well as BH3-only protein-mediated conformational changes of multi-domain proapoptosis members, cause the formation of pores in the outer membrane of mitochondria. The resulting expelled contents act as death signalers or catalytic activators of caspase, causing cell death, termed \"mitochondrial membrane permeabilization\" (MMP) (Skommer et al. 2007, Antignani and Youle 2006).\n\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
1ri2no
|
Is it possible that, in our universe, there are entire galaxies made out of anti-matter?
|
Most, if not all, universe documentaries that I have seen consistently say that we are the remnants of this great battle between matter and anti-matter. But, isn't it possible that there is still quite a bit left, and it could have formed into an entire galaxy?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1ri2no/is_it_possible_that_in_our_universe_there_are/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cdnj4gy"
],
"score": [
10
],
"text": [
"The space between the stars in a galaxy is filled with a very thin gas - the \"interstellar medium\". Even between galaxies there is the \"intergalactic medium\" too. This means stars and galaxies aren't completely isolated in space - there's gas everywhere. This means you'll have matter and antimatter annihilating each other in the \"border regions\" between antimatter and matter galaxies. This would produce a constant stream of ~~\\~2~~~1 GeV gamma rays in these border regions, which we'd be able to detect with our gamma ray telescopes. However, we don't see this."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
rn8o6
|
Could a planet be at the barycenter of two star of equal mass?
|
Could a planet rest at the center of gravity of [two stars,](_URL_0_) so that it looked like the stars were orbiting the planet? Could the planets stay their indefinitely or would it be ejected? Would the pull of the two stars' gravity have an effect on the planet?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/rn8o6/could_a_planet_be_at_the_barycenter_of_two_star/
|
{
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"c475rpi",
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2,
2,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"This is one of five points called [Lagrange points](_URL_0_) that can be defined for any two-body system. Although the attractive forces are balanced at these points, they are unstable; if an object located at a Lagrange point drifts even slightly out of position, it will tend to wander away.",
"No, the planet would have to have formed between the 2 stars and have no angular momentum. The planet would orbit the barycenter of both stars, so it would orbit the binary pair. \n \n[Here](_URL_0_) are some interesting orbits that can be had, some which involve the planet between the 2 stars. ",
"It is possible but so unlikely (the slightest fluctuation would throw it out of whack) so as to be effectively impossible.",
"In principle, yes (it is known as a Lagrangian point), but it would be an unstable equilibrium - at that exact point the gravitational attractions from each star is equal, but given any slight perturbation it will tend toward one of the two stars. "
]
}
|
[] |
[
"http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/73/Orbit1.gif"
] |
[
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrange_point"
],
[
"http://burtleburtle.net/bob/physics/binary.html"
],
[],
[]
] |
|
2m2fs7
|
i understand that only around 35 percent of the populace votes, but what would actually change if 100 percent voted?
|
I do mean 100% of those allowed to vote in America. You would still be confronted with one of two approved packages. Two packages that are really hard to distinguish between. I just hear all the time how it's my responsibility to vote, but I don't understand how it really makes any difference. I don't mean that it makes no difference because I'm 1 voice out of 200 million. I mean it doesn't make a difference because out of 200 million choosers, I only get two choices.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2m2fs7/eli5_i_understand_that_only_around_35_percent_of/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cm0c7xt",
"cm0equb"
],
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5,
2
],
"text": [
"Turnouts above 90% are rare in countries without compulsory voting (or countries with a history of compulsory voting), but also tend to be accompanied by strong electoral infrastructure - making it easier to vote. \n\nPeople (democrats especially) would complain less about disenfranchisement and voter ID laws. \n\nHigher turnouts may lead to less extremism in how campaigns are run (and the USA - which is where I'm assuming you're from - is in a state of perpetual campaigning) as parties shift their strategy from \"getting out the vote\" to appealing to the middle swing voters.\n\nThere's some evidence that in the United States than an increased turnout would initially lead to more democrat victories, however I expect that this would decrease over time as the Republican (and Democrat) parties adjusted their strategies and policies to a new higher turnout paradigm. Overall the country and both parties policies could move (somewhat) to the left.\n\nHigher turnout is also an indication of higher political engagement which is associated with more accurate knowledge on political issues - which could lead to better, more representative policymaking overall and a lower influence of special interest groups and lobbyists.",
"The choices would change.\n\nDemographically, most people who don't vote skew liberal. More liberals voting would me more liberals elected, and both parties would have to shift in that direction to get elected."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
326siw
|
why can't planes have a streaming black box that is constantly uploaded so that it can be accessed immediately after an accident?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/326siw/eli5_why_cant_planes_have_a_streaming_black_box/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cq8fbrx",
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3,
2
],
"text": [
"Because that would cost many millions of dollars to do, and as black boxes are rarely unrecoverable, the costs outweigh the benefits.",
"Where does the data get streamed to? How long is it stored? What radio frequencies do you use? How many planes are flying at once? How do you make sure that the radio signals with not interfere with all the other planes that are simultaneously flying? How do you make sure that the signals don't interfere with other communications networks? How much does the additional hardware cost (in the planes, on the ground, or on satellites)? How do you get both the airplane manufacturers and owners to upgrade their systems (given the absolutely massive cost of upgrading an entire fleet)? How do you standardize the hardware so that it can be used by the huge variety of planes that are used? How do you deal with both national and international regulations? etc...\n\nDon't get me wrong, this stuff is probably being worked on (I would assume so), but it isn't as easy as just slapping a cloud-based box in a handful of planes and saying \"job done\"."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
b5w1mo
|
Why can our eyes handle mixed lighting better than cameras?
|
If a photographer takes a photo somewhere there is both tungsten lighting (3200k-ish) and daylight (5-6000k) you will either get very yellow indoor lights if you balance the camera for daylight, or very blue daylight if you balance for tungsten. Yet our eyes (or brain) seem to handle mixed lighting situations much better than cameras, where the yellow/blue effect is much less pronounced. Why?
|
askscience
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/b5w1mo/why_can_our_eyes_handle_mixed_lighting_better/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ejh84l0"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"Your brain does a huge amount of processing of the input it gets from your eyes. Basically, the same image is coming through to your eyes/retina, but your brain has seen that kind of lighting and scene many many times before and \"corrects\" your perception for consistency. Similar to how you have a blind spot in each eye, but your brain simply fills it in based on what's around it & input from the other eye."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
2mhhjf
|
What happened to Frankish identity in the Low Countries?
|
Looking at maps on Wikipedia, the Franks were from the area of the modern Low Countries. And modern Dutch is apparently descended from Old Frankish. So what happened to Frankish identity in those areas?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2mhhjf/what_happened_to_frankish_identity_in_the_low/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cm4jwd5"
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],
"text": [
"What exactly do you mean by Frankish identity? Do you mean French identity? Because if you look you'll find French actually is not descended from Old Frankish, but from Latin. You'd be better off asking what happened to Germanic identity in France (and I couldn't really answer you there).\n\nIf you're talking about (West-)Germanic identity, it's still there. Dutch and German are very similar languages, and there's a lot of cultural and historical similarities (don't say that to a Dutch person though).\n\nIf you're asking about why the Low Countries specifically became their own cultural unit. Well, lots of reasons, but a large part of it is simple politics. The Low Countries ended up being unified in the [Burgundian Netherlands](_URL_0_) in the 15th century. Over the course of history this territory became politically independent from its Germanic neighbours to the east, and developed its own national identity. With each of the three Benelux nations having their own idiosyncratic histories."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burgundian_Netherlands"
]
] |
|
1elc1x
|
What were the main reasons for the European revolutionists of 1848/49 to take actions?
|
The general topic of the 1848 revolutions has already arisen a few times in the last few month in this subreddit, but the the more specific question regarding the reasons why the revolutionists started rioting has not. I hope this does not violate the rules in this case.
I'm especially interested in the revolutions of the German states. However, since the revolutions were all over Europe, the situation as a bigger picture is surely very interesting, too.
I've just finished my BA thesis on a more specific question in this field and am now very interested to see how other people evaluate the origins of these revolutions as a whole.
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1elc1x/what_were_the_main_reasons_for_the_european/
|
{
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"text": [
"I can speak a bit to the revolution in the Habsburg monarchy. \n\nI think one reason is the extreme conservative leadership of the time. The ruler of the Empire was Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria. He was mentally deficient; so his adviser, hand picked by Ferdinand's father, Klemens von Metternich ruled in his name. Metternich was a very conservative politician having lived through the French revolution and Napolenoic eras was very against the possibility of a liberal revolution. He actively suppressed liberal thinking through a very thorough state censor. The censor was so thorough even the Academy of Science had difficulty getting textbooks from outside of Austria. This oppressive atmosphere lead many young liberals to want to change the system. It would be the liberal intellectuals who in fact started the revolution attempt in Vienna.\n\nAnother group that participated in the revolution were the artisans and workers in cities along with rural farmers. Industrialization was hitting the Austrian Empire and it was effecting many people's lives, and not for the better. Artisans were being driven out of work by factories who could do similar work faster and cheaper. The workers in the city were being starved (low wages and increasing food prices due to wheat crisis). In the rural setting the robot was still in effect. Peasants owed their landlord work and were heavily taxed. I think it's understandable why these people may want to participate in a revolution.\n\nThen there were the Hungarians. Hungary was an underdeveloped country at the time by European standards. Hungary would start changing before the revolutions. Count Istvan Szechenyi would start as early as 1825 to start to develop a new Hungarian identity. Previous to his reforms Hungary didn't exactly have an identity; this is reflected in the language the Magyar nobles used. They spoke German in Vienna, Latin in the government, and Slovak to the peasants. Szechenyi pushed hard for the use of the native Hungarian tongue by everyone. His ideas were radicalized by the next generation. This is definitely seen in Lajos Kossuth. Kossuth was a man who passionately wanted Hungarian independence and actively pushed for it in 1848, and somewhat achieved it. It's important to note that the Habsubrg monarchy was made up of a dozen different peoples (Germans, Croats, Slovenes, Hungarians, and Serbs). Some, like the Hungarians under Kossuth felt oppressed and wanted change. Hilariously though that was it's own issue as Hungary was essentially a island of Magyar nobles in a seas of Slavs and many of the Slavs (who were peasants) were okay with the way things were. \n\nIt was actually do to there being a half dozen different agendas in play that the revolution in the Habsburg monarchy failed, for the most part. Hungary did achieve a semblance of independence. \n\nSo there are some reasons as to why a revolution took place in the the Habsburg monarchy. Sorry if it's too simple. It's been a while since I did any research into it and did this mostly off of memory while glancing at a paper I wrote on the Viennese revolution. If you have any specific questions let me know and I can do some more research for you. Your question got me excited about the Viennese revolution so I'm going back to read my books on it again.\n\nsources that I used while writing the paper:\n\nEvans, R.J.W. “1848-1849 in the Habsburg Monarchy.” in The Revolutions of Europe 1848-\n\t1849, edited by R.J.W. Evans, and Hartmut Pogge Von Strandmann, 181-106.\n\tOxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.\n\nEvans, R.J.W. “Liberalism, Nationalism, and the Coming of the Revolution.” in The Revolutions \n\tof Europe 1848-1849, edited by R.J.W. Evans, and Hartmut Pogge Von Strandmann, \n\t9-26. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.\n\nEvans. R.J.W. `The Habsburgs and the Hungarian Problem, 1790-1848. Transactions of the \n\tRoyal Historical Society. Fifth Series. Vol. 39 (1989): 41-62, accessed April 3rd, 2012.\n\t_URL_0_\n\nOkey, Robin. The Habsburg Monarchy:From Enlightenment to Eclipse.(New York: Palgrave\n\tMacMilan, 2001)\n\nRapport, Mike. 1848: Year of Revolution. (New York: Basic Books, 2008)\nRath, R. John. “The Failure of an Ideal: The Viennese Revolution of 1848.” Southwestern Social \n\tScience Quarterly 34, no. 2 (1953): 3-20\n\nRobertson, Priscilla. Revolutions of 1848: A Social History. (Princeton: Princeton University \n\tPress, 1952).\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n**Now watch as this being my first real contribution to /r/AskHistorians be a complete failure of incorrectness."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.jstor.org/stable/3678977"
]
] |
|
1dwnxf
|
How long would the oxygen in the atmosphere last without any more oxygen production?
|
say all plants and other oxygen producing things just suddenly disappeared. how long would humans and other animals be able to live only on the oxygen that is in our atmosphere now?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1dwnxf/how_long_would_the_oxygen_in_the_atmosphere_last/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c9ujzda"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"Asked before \n\n_URL_0_"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/ieiov/if_all_the_plants_died_how_long_till_we_all/"
]
] |
|
3trvgq
|
why do web pages for cancelling services load at a fraction of the speed of the rest of the page?
|
[deleted]
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3trvgq/eli5_why_do_web_pages_for_cancelling_services/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cx8owqf"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"I feel like you should be able to work this one out on your own. \n\nThe company you're unsubscribing from probably doesn't like people canceling their subscription. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
devg78
|
why is “no.” a common shorthand for “number” in english when there is no “o” in the word “number”?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/devg78/eli5_why_is_no_a_common_shorthand_for_number_in/
|
{
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"f2z9k4z",
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"f2zw3ci"
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"score": [
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2,
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2
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"text": [
"Hi; its not actually a an O, but even if, the shorthand is called numero -- so it has an O. Source: _URL_0_",
"its a latin shorthand for ‘numero’ — similar to ‘?’ which is shorthand for ‘quaestio’ or question\n\nedit: as a result of writing this answer i checked my facts on this and it seems the ‘qo’ for ‘?’ thing is a possible but not particularly substantiated theory ... a good example i know is correct is probably ñ - > nn but it doesn’t really do a whole word unfortunately \n\nsee: _URL_0_",
"It is for the same reason pound is abbreviated as lb (from Latin libra) and ounce as oz (from ltalian onza). English borrows a lot of words from other languages. In this case, the abbreviation \"no.\" for the word \"number\" comes from the numero symbol, N° (also written as \"No\" or \"no.\"), which is in turn derived from Latin numero. As you can see, it has an o in it.\n\n-Nipun Sher, _URL_0_",
"Wikipedia says it's from the numero sign №, the origins of that are a bit unclear. It's supposed to be a combination of N for number and the Ordinal Indicator º to represent a number, but I think it's more likely just a shorthand for the latin 'numero'. \n\nThe ordinal indicator º isn't used much in English, we tend to use 2nd, 3rd etc, but you do sometimes see it (e.g. in a museum as '16º Century BC' or music as in '5º Concerto in B Minor'. \n\nIt doesn't quite seem to add up to me though, as the ordinal indicator indicates, well, that it's an Ordinal number, like 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc, rather than a Cardinal, like 1, 2, 3 etc. But normally when we say No. we mean either. (e.g. 'His finishing place was no. 7', 'Tel. No. 01654797531') Not sure quite how that leads to Nº. It may just be a shorthand of the latin 'numero' that's made it's way into our lexicon.",
"It’s from French “Nombre”, meaning Number. England was under the control of Norman French for 320 or so years. It kinda stuck.",
"To add to what’s been said already, in German it’s “Nr.” which comes from the German word of number “Nummer”.",
"Why is @ not short for around? It's probably longer to write than at with a t.",
"Number comes from the Latin Numero. Cutting out all of the middle letters, we get the abbreviation of No."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numero_sign"
],
[
"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Question_mark"
],
[
"quora.com"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
2eold8
|
how do certain companies acquire/keep a monopoly over a market (without the use of patents)? what's stopping others from providing a similar service and equalling the market place?
|
Given that most companies that have pretty much created a Monopoly are widely hated, why can't another company provide better services? They have the consumer base
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2eold8/eli5_how_do_certain_companies_acquirekeep_a/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ck1gdds"
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"score": [
3
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"text": [
"Once a company gets bigger and well-known, it's hard for a new, little company convince the public that it's better, especially when most people are already using the first one (that means they would have to unsubscribe). Remember publicity costs a lot of money."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
1gtags
|
What was our governments justifications for spying on Martin Luther King Jr?
|
With the NSA scandal in full swing, I always hear from politicians and people supporting the spying that if you aren't doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about.
What was MLK doing wrong for the government to justify spying on him and threatening him? It seems to me, of all people, MLK was someone who was all about doing the right thing. So if the Government was willing to spy on him back in the 60s, what's to stop them from spying on another person like him, trying to do the right thing in our modern day?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1gtags/what_was_our_governments_justifications_for/
|
{
"a_id": [
"canlhix"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"J Edgar Hoover personally didn't like King, which was justification enough in Washington at the time to get a wiretap. Officially though, King was accused of being both a communist and a radical. \n\nThis link [explains](_URL_0_) it a bit more.\n\n > The FBI's interest in King intensified after the March on Washington in August 1963, when King delivered his \"I have a dream speech,\" which many historians consider the most important speech of the 20th century. After the speech, an FBI memo called King the \"most dangerous and effective Negro leader in the country.\" \n\n > The bureau convened a meeting of department heads to \"explore how best to carry on our investigation [of King] to produce the desired results without embarrassment to the Bureau,\" which included \"a complete analysis of the avenues of approach aimed at neutralizing King as an effective Negro leader.\"\n\n > The FBI began secretly tracking King's flights and watching his associates. In July 1963, a month before the March on Washington, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover filed a request with Attorney General Robert Kennedy to tap King's and his associates' phones and to bug their homes and offices.\n\n > In September, Kennedy consented to the technical surveillance. Kennedy gave the FBI permission to break into King's office and home to install the bugs, as long as agents recognized the \"delicacy of this particular matter\" and didn't get caught installing them. Kennedy added a proviso -- he wanted to be personally informed of any pertinent information.\n\n > While King did have associates who had been members of the Communist Party, by all accounts they severed those ties when they started working in the civil rights movement. What's more, the FBI bugs never picked up evidence that King himself was a Communist, or was interested in toeing the party line. \n\nThe official justification was mostly related to his supposed communist ties."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/03/31/mlk.fbi.conspiracy/"
]
] |
|
8jdzxh
|
What makes some people have a better memory than others?
|
askscience
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/8jdzxh/what_makes_some_people_have_a_better_memory_than/
|
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"text": [
"Everything here people said is right. The thing you have the most control over is the technique which you employ to memorize details. However, genetics can play a role in this. This [study](_URL_0_) suggests that hippocampus size, the part of your brain responsible for storing memory, can have a direct relationship with short and long term retention. ",
"People who engage in complex stimulus elaboration integrating new info with old remember better. The role of stimulus elaboration was shown clearly by Craik and Tulving way back in 1975 and numerous times since then. ",
"There was a 60 Minutes episode about some individuals with extraordinary memories. The medical term for the condition is [hyperthymesia](_URL_1_)\n\nI remember there was an actress Marilu Henner (I remember her from Taxi) that has the condition. Here is an [interview](_URL_0_)\n\n[Here](_URL_2_) is an article from Mental Floss on the subject (Dated in 2015)\n\nWhat I understand from these sources and others. The condition is not well known due to its scarcity. It is accepted as a diagnose condition but the cause is the source of much debate.\n\n",
"Ironically, an inefficient brain can be the cause of better than average memory. Your brain tries generally to get rid of unnecessary information and tends to work very well in situations where high levels of emotional stimuli which is why eye witnesses testimony is so unreliable. But, in rare cases, people with photographic memory have brains that don't relinquish frivolous details and just have a ton of used up space in the brain. I'm not aware that its necessarily bad as I've never heard a case where its affected people negatively, but its generally considered counter to the way our brains organize and store data.",
"Hi, OP. First time actually responding to an r/askscience request. I'm surprised there hasn't been a more thorough response yet about the neurobiological basis of memory. Disclaimer: No doctorate, I'm finishing up my Bachelor's in cognitive neuroscience next month before running off to grad school. My research is mostly on language, semantic memory, and phonological information processing. Anyway, here's my best attempt at explaining the cell neurobiology of it:\n\nMemory is more than just genetics you're born with. I'm not sure how much you already know about memory, OP, but when we recall any bit of information we are reconstructing sensory information in our brains and experiencing the same sort of sensory content we have stored in one way or another. It's also important to note the distinction between different forms of memory; for example, episodic \\(e.g., recalling specific moments and episodes\\), or short term \\(e.g., the brief moment the color red is in your vision and processed\\). One way is through strengthening neural networks. Genetics is not the end all be all in neural activity, epigenetics is a thing. Its one of the reasons we aren't carbon copies of our parents. Typically though, when specific sensory information continuously fires down certain sensory pathways and through the hippocampus \\(for episodic memory\\), neurotransmitters \\(specifically glutamate\\) are constantly binding to AMPA and NMDA receptors. Its believed that NMDA receptors plays a huge role in long term potentiation \\(LPP\\), or the long lasting strengthening of neural circuits which is widely believed to be responsible for the ability to learn.\n\nTypically a neuron will fire and pass along its electrical signal to the next neuron\\(s\\) it is connected to when enough stimulation is received in the form neurotransmitters. NMDA receptors are somewhat unique in that they are both a ligand\\-gated channel and a voltage\\-gated channel. In other words, they require both an alteration in the voltage across the neuron's membrane, as well as a neurotransmitter \\(still glutamate\\). When NMDA receptors are continuously triggered, certain proteins and enzymes in the cell eventually start placing additional NMDA and AMPA receptors along the cell membrane. In other words, continuous firing of neurons make the neuron more sensitive to future signals \\(Hence, Hebb's famous saying: \"Neurons that fire together, wire together.\" This can also eventually cause a particular protein or enzyme \\(I'm blanking on the name\\) to actually transcribe changes in the neuron's DNA to produce even more receptors. Hence, what I mean by born genetics not being the end all be all.\n\nSo, now that we have neurons firing at each other, whose connections are more sensitive due to additional receptors making them more prone to passing along information, brain regions responsible for the sensations that constitute a memory are now more easily able to be triggered when receiving particular stimulus. For example, you hear a car crunch \\(say someone down the street rear ends someone\\), if you have been in many car accidents, you may recall those feelings of panic, frustrations, and images associated with it. This is especially true for fear, or other emotionally\\-laden memories. Try thinking of a memory, OP, where you felt very strong emotions. It's a lot easier to recall than a memory of you just routinely commuting to work/school. This is because the amygdala is also in play here. That's a whole 'nother bucket though, so I'll stop there.\n\nIn essence, some people have better memories partially by genetics, partially by continuous practice and conscious thought of particular sensation/stimulus, and especially because they have established an association with information and made it emotionally laden. Other more psychological studies have shown that when we associate information with ourselves or something absurd \\(i.e., I need to remember to pick up some milk after work, so I start thinking about a scene where I'm being doused by milk\\) we tend to remember it better. Probably something to do with evolutionary psych. This activates stronger pathways already in place, making it easier to remember. And of course, continuously doing this or consciously thinking about something to recall will make remembering easier as your neurons continuously fires at each other habitually. It's something you have to actively work on if you have bad memory.\n\nOkay I'm exhausted now and should really get back to studying for my anatomy midterm. Sorry for being a little all over the place. Hope this helped OP!\n\nEdit: Adding sources as suggested\n\nNMDA & LTP: [_URL_0_](_URL_0_)\n\nThere's a ton of information on the role of emotional information and memory, here's a decent consolidation of some studies: [_URL_3_](_URL_3_)\n\nMore details on hippocampal \\+ amygdala interactions: [_URL_1_](_URL_1_)\n\nVisual pathways: [_URL_2_](_URL_2_)\n\nA lot of my reference material for is from lectures, so these are a few of the many original source materials. Can't find some of the older material from my cell neurobio course, so this is the best I can do for direct sources especially since the topic is very broad and general. Let me know if there was something specific you needed!",
"Not sure if someone mentioned it already but there's a book called Moonwalking with Einstein that talks a lot about memory and goes into methods of practice that strengthen your ability to remember. If you don't want to read a whole novel then Google 'The Memory Palace'. Memory practices are an ancient method of increasing ones naturally mental efficiency. For a TL;DR on how to remember stuff better, whatever you need to remember. Visualize it, say it out loud, imagine it in a place you pass by every day, and most importantly make it a visual that is as ridiculous as possible. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3889822/"
],
[],
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlNB7dAXQEc",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperthymesia",
"http://mentalfloss.com/article/72434/9-facts-about-people-who-remember-everything-about-their-lives"
],
[],
[
"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3367554/",
"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14758364",
"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780080420042500289",
"https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/3d40/34d8ef140f7e5f1898a6ac744b6183e6e824.pdf"
],
[]
] |
||
66o74v
|
How did a medieval European raid work?
|
It is my understanding that small-scale fighting such as raids were a large part of medieval European warfare. But from what I can find, often those smaller actions are not described in any sort of detail.
So what does "looting", "burning the village" or "ravaging the land" actually entail? Who took part in such actions? How large would a "raiding party" be? How do you burn down an entire settlement?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/66o74v/how_did_a_medieval_european_raid_work/
|
{
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"text": [
"A preparatory note before we begin. John Gillingham refers to the style of warfare practiced in high medieval England and France as Vegetian. The name comes from a late Roman military writer who was enormously influential on medieval Europe. The essence of Vegetian warfare is that large pitched battles are risky and best avoided; if you lose, you lose your army, and may not be able to raise another. A combination of skirmish, raid and siege was the preferred method of waging war. Raiding weakened the opponent and made it easier to besiege his castles and strongholds.\n\nIn both *Richard I* and \"Richard I and the Science of War,\" John Gillingham includes a translation of a passage from the *Chanson des Lorrains* which viscerally describes a marauding army:\n\n > The march begins. Out in front are the scouts and incendiaries. After them come the foragers whose job it is to collect the spoils and carry them in the great baggage train. Soon all is in tumult. The peasants, having just come out to the fields, turn back, uttering loud cries. The shepherds gather their flocks and drive them towards the neighbouring woods in the hope of saving them. The incendiaries set the villages on fire and the foragers visit and sack them. The terrified inhabitants are either burned or led away with their hands tied to be held for ransom. Everywhere bells ring the alarm; a surge of fear sweeps over the countryside. Wherever you look you can see helmets glinting in the sun, pennons waving in the breeze, the whole plain covered with horsemen. Money, cattle, mules and sheep are all seized. The smoke billows and spreads, flames crackle. Peasants and shepherds scatter in all directions.\n\nWe can unpack this a bit. First, we see that the goal of the marauding army is twofold: one, to \"forage\" - that is, to steal - and two, to destroy that which they are incapable of carrying off. Foraging was how you paid for your war and kept the army supplied; ravaging embarrassed and weakened your opponent socially and economically. As to \"how do you burn down an entire settlement?\" We're talking about villages of a few dozen to a few hundred thatch-roofed wooden houses with no real firefighting capability. Step 1 is light your torch; step 2 is touch something with your torch. There is no step 3.\n\nTwo, the author informs us that the army is spread out. How far is not explicitly stated, but he refers to villages in the plural, and describes a \"whole plain covered with horsemen.\" Large armies could and did spread themselves over quite a distance. The more men in an army, the farther it had to range to feed itself. This was one of the weaknesses of Vegetian warfare - a dispersed army could be attacked and defeated piecemeal. If confronted by a concentrated defending army, the attacker would have to concentrate his own troops, which meant he could no longer feed his army, necessitating battle or retreat. This is exactly what happened at Hastings in 1066, by the way.\n\nThree, we see glimpses of a distinct division of labor. It is not explicitly stated, but we can infer that the foragers and incendiaries are lower-status men. The well-equipped horsemen, with their \"helmets glinting in the sun, pennons waving in the breeze,\" essentially provide overwatch while the foragers and incendiaries go about their work. \n\nThe size of a raiding party would vary with the resources of the attacker and the goals of the expedition; a petty lord fighting with his neighbor might lead a force of dozens, a king ten thousand. There's no one size fits all answer available."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
4y0w17
|
how did original computers translate the input?
|
I understand computers are super complex, and all the current functions are built upon layers and layers of more complexity, but how did the first computer translate the first input?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4y0w17/eli5_how_did_original_computers_translate_the/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d6jzy7k"
],
"score": [
10
],
"text": [
"The first input did not need to be translated; people programmed directly in binary. For example, machines controlled by punch cards where each position may have a punched hole or not."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
1n8gzq
|
Is it actually feasible to "sow the soil with salt" to enough of a degree to impact agriculture?
|
I just learned that this did probably DIDN'T happen at Carthage and that's why I'm asking.
_URL_1_
There is a wikipedia article but I don't think it answers my question.
_URL_0_
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1n8gzq/is_it_actually_feasible_to_sow_the_soil_with_salt/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ccgec7l"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"Most plants can only survive with a low level of salt in the soil. So plant life on a seashore is very reduced with only a few specialist plants there. \n\nIt is interesting that an oasis is only possible if there is the ability for the water to leave the soil and go on to some lower level area where it can evaporate. There the salt content would go up to a level making fields and gardens impossible. So every oasis only uses the higher fields and has a lower area that is waste and salty. If there is no drainage and no area to collect the salt the oasis will not last, you will find pictures of lakes in the Sahara on the Internet with nobody living there because the soil is salty. \n\nSo salt could be used to destroy the agriculture of an enemy by bringing it on the fields. In case of Carthage it would have been washed out of the soil after some time by rain and drainage. But it was also a very potent symbol of the well to destroy the enemy completely. "
]
}
|
[] |
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salting_the_earth",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Punic_War#Aftermath"
] |
[
[]
] |
|
3k67qw
|
Why are the equations for gravitational force, electrostatic force, and Gauss's Law all relatively the same?
|
I am currently an engineering student and I have wondered since I first took physics in high school why those 3 equations are all relatively the same to each other?
They all involve multiplying values of certain characteristics of objects relative to the what you are trying to determine about the object (i.e. mass for gravitational force, charge for electrostatic force) by a derived constant and then the biggest thing for me is that the values of the forces for all 3 of the equations are all inversely related to the square of the distance between the objects being observed.
|
askscience
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/3k67qw/why_are_the_equations_for_gravitational_force/
|
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"text": [
"because the surface area of a sphere grows with the square of the radius.\n\nbasically, the field lines are all spreading from the point throughout space....and at a given distance, you have a shell which is a sphere centered at the point. since the surface area grows with r^2, the intensity falls off with r^2.",
"also look into the Divergence Theorem, which relates the differential form (\"sources\") in a closed volume, with the integral form (\"how much passes through the surface of that closed volume\").\n\nthis applies to all inverse square laws.",
"Casually speaking, some form of Gauss' Law, from whence the r^-2 relation comes, pops up whenever \"stuff\" emanates isotropically from an approximate point source; that is, same magnitude in all directions. As others have pointed out, it's due to the relation between the volume and surface area of the sphere through which the \"stuff\" is propagating.\n\nSo it works for gravity, electric forces, but also sound pressure, radiative flux, and probably other stuff.\n\n_URL_0_",
"All good answers here but another way to think about it is that systems have analogous equations. \n\nThis is probably the most comprehensive paper but if you search \"electrical mechanical analogous systems\" you can find other stuff. \n\nAlso, it's behind a pay wall and im at home. _URL_0_\n",
"The 1/r^2 is (as explained in other comments) a result of the fact that the total flux through a spherical surface is constant.\nThe reason the flux is constant is because the force carriers have infinite reach.\n\nThis means:\n1. (Usually?) they are massless.\n2. They don't self interact (or very weakly).",
"\n\nIn QFT, interactions at a distance are mediated by \"virtual particles.\" An electron is literally spitting out virtual photons in all directions and attracts or repels another electron if and only if the virtual photon hits it. Obviously the probability of an interaction is inversely proportional to the area of the sphere, hence the 1/r^2. If the virtual particle decays as it travels out, it's possible for the force to fall off *faster* than 1/r^2, but that's the minimum. For EM, it's exactly 1/r^2 because photons don't age.\n\nThe equations for the strong and weak nuclear forces look similar too - all 4 fundamental forces can be described by [field theories](_URL_0_), although gravity's field theory is still an approximation to general relativity.\n\nGravity, BTW, isn't *exactly* 1/r^2, although it approaches it in the limit. General Relativity describes how gravity really is space time curvature. Physicists have tried to formulate a \"graviton\" to produce a field theory of gravity (which could then be integrated with the other 3) but no luck so far.)"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse-square_law"
],
[
"http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02123920"
],
[],
[
"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_equation"
]
] |
|
881vmd
|
why is it better to only pay off part of my monthly credit card statement instead of all of it?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/881vmd/eli5_why_is_it_better_to_only_pay_off_part_of_my/
|
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"text": [
"That's wrong. Pay off the whole thing. Avoid the interest. Whoever told you that doesn't know what they are talking about. ",
"I haven't heard that advice, all you're doing is giving the credit card companies more money. Pay off your card in full every month unless you can't afford to.",
"People think that it's not really considered \"using\" your credit card if you don't get charged interest. They say you won't improve your credit score that way, since you're not really using your card. Those people are wrong. I pay my card off in full every week rather than every month, and my credit score keeps improving."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
87hvc0
|
how can sound "break" something solid?
|
For reference:
_URL_0_
My question is based on this gif and the subsequent video as well as comments like "liquefying the ground" and "sound suppression system". How can sound in this instance do potentially catastrophic damage?
Apologies if my linking is bad I'm doing this on a phone at 12am and I'm quite new to reddit and this sub!
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/87hvc0/eli5_how_can_sound_break_something_solid/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dwcxgoi",
"dwd3jyd"
],
"score": [
12,
3
],
"text": [
"Sound is vibration - motion. Imagine bending something back and forth for a while, it will eventually break. Sound waves will bend anything they hit thousands of times per second. Eventually objects give in to the stress and break. The louder the sound the stronger the bending and the quicker it breaks. ",
"All objects are made of atoms (imagine small marbles that are tightly packed together). Atoms have energy, so they vibrate all the time, though this vibration is obviously unnoticeable to us. \n\nEach object has something called a natural frequency. This is essentially the speed at which the atoms vibrate by themselves, without anything else causing them to vibrate. The word we use to describe this is a 'free oscillation'.\n\nThe opposite of a free oscillation is a forced oscillation-- you're basically using another source of vibration to make atoms vibrate. Sound is the vibration of air. When you have a forced oscillation at the same frequency as the natural frequency of the atoms vibrating (so basically your sound 'vibrates' at the same rate as the atoms), the two 'vibrators' (ik) resonate, causing them to basically vibrate harder.\n\nThis harder vibration causes bonds to break and therefore the object breaks."
]
}
|
[] |
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/gifs/comments/87g0a7/emergency_fire_extinguisher_at_kennedy_space/?utm_source=reddit-android"
] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
4e27l3
|
why is that people with good singing voices (ariana grande, bruno mars, christina aguilera) can imitate other voices or singers so easily?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4e27l3/eli5_why_is_that_people_with_good_singing_voices/
|
{
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"text": [
"One of the reasons is that some people simply have better control over their voice. A lot of people can impersonate someone and recognize what they're ding that sounds wrong, but lack the ability to fix it. ",
"IMO, most musicians grew up impersonating other singers as they grew up. Just like most garage bands start off doing cover songs. \n\nAlso, confirmation bias. You are not paying attention to less famous singers who do great covers. \n\nSide note: most singer/songwriters I know are terrible at karaoke. Those who write their own music have worked on honing their own voice/sound so they aren't as good at copying others. ",
"I think it's more that people with great control over their voices usually have not much trouble with singing either."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
2filfp
|
how come when i slap a fly in mid-flight it can keep on going like nothing happened? how much force would it take to make it explode on impact and can i do it?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2filfp/eli5_how_come_when_i_slap_a_fly_in_midflight_it/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ck9lf8o"
],
"score": [
9
],
"text": [
"So picture this - a small boat floating in the ocean...little tiny two-seater boat. All a sudden this gigantic fucking oil tanker comes right at it...in front of the tanker there is a swell of water, so just before the tanker hits, the small boat will start deflecting on the swell before the actual ship hits, lessening the impact....this is the comparison of the \"swell\" of air that your hand produces\n\nNow, take that small boat and make it another tanker..the swell of water won't move it hardly at all so the tanker-to-tanker impact will be devastating...this is the comparison to mass - the smaller the boat, the more the swell will affect it.\n\nSame thing with your hand and a fly. Your hand is a tanker and the fly is that little boat. You may hit it, but the \"swell\" gets it moving away just before impact, lessening it. Conversely, if that fly weighed 2lbs, the swell of air wouldn't affect it and you'd hit it harder causing more damage.\n\nTo answer the second part of your question, unless you're hitting a 2lb fly with an iron hand the size of a pencil moving at 1,000 mph, no, you're probably not going to explode a fly no matter how cool of a party trick that would be"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
1pnd7n
|
Pre-20th Century was their any religious extremist groups? Or is this a current phenom?
|
Did people look at them as outcasts or were they accepted within their own religion? Did they carry out any "attacks" or anything?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1pnd7n/pre20th_century_was_their_any_religious_extremist/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cd42ssi"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"Wouldn't you think that the Crusaders were extremists in questing across Europe and the Middle East to fight for their faith?"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
1jg1wx
|
satanic worship
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1jg1wx/eli5_satanic_worship/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cbeamr5",
"cbeaqt6"
],
"score": [
3,
7
],
"text": [
"Modern satanism is just a funny way to troll Christians big time. ",
"\"Satanists\" dont even believe in satan, let alone worship him.\n\nIt's basically a philosophy of denying religious principals like judgement, an afterlife, a soul etc etc.\n\nSatanist have the belief of \"If you want to do it, do it\" \n\nImagine YOLO was an actual ethos"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
4jt805
|
If an electron were the size of a blueberry, how far would you have to travel to reach the nucleus of an atom?
|
askscience
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/4jt805/if_an_electron_were_the_size_of_a_blueberry_how/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d39maqu",
"d39riod"
],
"score": [
13,
3
],
"text": [
"Electrons are, to the best of our knowledge, point particles. Therefore, there is no way to discuss what kind of scale factor would be needed to get it to the size of a blueberry; that scale factor would be infinite.\n\nNow you could ask if an *atom* were the size of the blueberry, how far inside would the nucleus be. Blueberries are [between .5 and 1 cm in diameter](_URL_0_), which means if an atom were this size, the nucleus would be 50 and 100 nanometers in diameter. This is less than the wavelength of visible light (between 400 and 700 nm).",
"Let me rephrase your question a little different, and we will use Oxygen, more specifically O2. \n\nLet us assume that your blueberry is a proton (1.75 fm). The distance between the two oxygen nucleus is 121,000 fm. So from the nucleus of one oxygen atom to the next will be 690 meters (assuming a delicious 1 cm blue berry)\n\nTo put this in persoective, wolfram alpha provides the following comparisons:\n\n* 1.3 × the structual height of the world trade center\n\n* 2.8 × the length of the hindenburg\n\n* 7.5 football fields"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blueberry"
],
[]
] |
||
a91qg7
|
why do middle-eastern houses normally have flat roofs while other countries upside down v shaped?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a91qg7/eli5_why_do_middleeastern_houses_normally_have/
|
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"text": [
"Middle eastern homes don’t have to deal with the snowfall. The flat roof also helps with collecting rain water. In places that get snow they have V shapes so the snow slides off and doesn’t build up on the roof and cause it to collapse. Thirdly is material. A lot of middle eastern homes are made of brick, with timber being in short supply. It’s much easier to make a framed home out of wood than brick. ",
"The V shape helps deal with heavy rain and snow, something most parts of the Middle East don’t have to worry about ",
"Snow and rain, countries with little to no rain and no snow can use a flat roof which is easier to build, an inverted v roof is for support so snow doesn't collapse it and rain falls off easily ",
"In countries that have snow you have peaked (v shaped) roofs so that the snow does not collect deep enough to collapse the roof. That is not necessary in countries that do not get snow, though you do still have to have proper drainage so that you do not get leaks. But that too is not much of a problem in most of the Middle East due to low annual rainfall numbers. Additionally historically people would sleep on their roofs at night to be cooler and having a flat roof made that easier. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
1seb7f
|
Did Hitler make any state visits outside of Europe?
|
Basically, how far did Hitler travel on official business before and during the war? Did he ever travel outside of Europe?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1seb7f/did_hitler_make_any_state_visits_outside_of_europe/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cdwzotr"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"No, as far as I am aware Adolf Hitler never left the continent. He did travel to occupied territories during the war and occasionally visited allied countries like Finland to meet with other leaders. Before the war Hitler was at least once invited to the US by Roosevelt but he declined. Hitler preferred to send envoys instead and never met people like Roosevelt or Churchill in person. He did not speak any foreign languages (except a little bit French from his time in school) and *might* have felt uncomfortable in another country and not on his own terms. He was informed by trusted advisors about conditions elsewhere."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
mukf1
|
What are the health risks (if any) of wifi?
|
Just curious- I work in an environment where wifi is always present, would like to know if my dick will fall off in a few years because of it.
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/mukf1/what_are_the_health_risks_if_any_of_wifi/
|
{
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2,
2
],
"text": [
"If your dick falls off in a few years it has nothing to do with wifi. Wireless internet just works through radio waves. There are no known health risks to radio waves. You're surrounded by them all day every day everywhere you go.",
"If your dick falls off in a few years it has nothing to do with wifi. Wireless internet just works through radio waves. There are no known health risks to radio waves. You're surrounded by them all day every day everywhere you go."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
1n6yg9
|
how to torrent and how to torrent safely.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1n6yg9/eli5how_to_torrent_and_how_to_torrent_safely/
|
{
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"text": [
" > How to torrent:\n\nInstall a torrent client, and go to torrent sites, click the magnetic link and add to the torrent client's queue.\n\n > How to torrent safely:\n\nDepends on what you are worried is going to endanger you?\n\n > Virus!\n\nCheck the comment section for the torrent, or get a virus scanner that lets you inspect individual files\n\n > RIAA/Government\n\nVPN's, PPP tunnels, Seed Boxes. Most this stuff is beyond the 'average internet' users grasp and would need a ELI5 just on the subject.\n\nBasically you set up a computer remotely in another country that has more liberal copyright laws (or pay to have it set up for you), and you torrent on that computer then transfer the files from that computer (in another country) back to you.",
"Pay for protection. Many companies offer the use of a VPN to mask torrenting activities (I'm assuming you are in a war torn country with an oppressive government you're attempting to overthrow by downloading the most recent episodes of breaking bad). \n\nAnyway, pay 6 bucks a month and use a private network through a self made Virtual Machine. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
3ggmti
|
What brought about the sudden switch from tricorn hats to the much taller ones in the militaries of the late 1700s?
|
It seems that around the time of the French revolution and during the American revolution most soldiers wore a tricorn hat, but by the time Napoleon came into power the much taller hats were being used. What prompted the abrupt change?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3ggmti/what_brought_about_the_sudden_switch_from_tricorn/
|
{
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"ctybkmd"
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"text": [
"Keep in mind that the American Revolution occurred in the 1770s while the Napoleonic period began about thirty years later. Fashion changes constantly and we don't expect it to be the same today as it was in 1985. It wasn't an abrupt change from the cocked hat, just a gradual heightening of the crown and a loss of width from the brim to keep proportions attractive. A [variety of hat shapes](_URL_1_) can be found during all time periods, but I'll focus on just the height of the crown to keep it simple.\n\nWe tend to expect the wide brims on 1770s hats that obscure the size of the crown, but [this portrait of Douglas Hamilton](_URL_7_) shows a sporting style that makes the crown size visible. [A miniature of George IV in 1781/2](_URL_8_) gives us another base with which to begin. [Fashion plates from 1785-6](_URL_2_) show how the crown continues to grow and can sometimes have a slightly more squared off top. A little taller [in this plate of 1790](_URL_0_). [A young French gentleman from 1791](_URL_3_). [A gentleman from 1795](_URL_5_) who has quite a sporting look. And [Joseph Wright with his family from 1793](_URL_4_). [This portrait of James Belcher](_URL_6_) is from around the time of Napoleon's first reign. It's not terribly different from the the last image a decade earlier."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://damesalamode.tumblr.com/post/3962020089/journal-de-la-mode-et-du-gout-april-1790-red",
"http://www.artrenewal.org/pages/artwork.php?artworkid=18901&size=large",
"http://www.ekduncan.com/2012/06/1785-1786-french-fashion-plates-des.html",
"http://marie-antoinettequeenoffrance.blogspot.com/2009/12/fashionable-male-nicolas-chatelain.html#.VPeRM1pdjnk",
"https://www.pinterest.com/pin/71353975319988217/",
"https://www.flickr.com/photos/12946229@N05/3644858746/in/set-72157604420180691/",
"http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/marshall-james-belcher-bare-knuckle-champion-of-england-t03431",
"https://www.pinterest.com/pin/98305204342967275/",
"https://www.pinterest.com/pin/398076054535528971/"
]
] |
|
2sbu9x
|
why don't electric guitars need to be plugged on a power outlet?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2sbu9x/eli5_why_dont_electric_guitars_need_to_be_plugged/
|
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"text": [
"Technically they are.\nThey plug into an amp which is generally plugged into a socket.",
"The guitar is basically like a microphone, but instead of picking up vibrations in the air and producing electrical signals, the pickup detects the vibration of the strings. The amp, which is plugged in, then amplifies those small electrical signals.",
"If you don't plug the amp in to the power outlet, it's not an electric guitar... It's just a guitar.\n\nBut more seriously, I'm guessing you are asking why the guitar itself doesn't need power, only the amp. It's because the guitar is essentially just a microphone (kind of). The amp is what amplified the sound and makes it louder. ",
"Well i'm not sure if i do understand your question 100%. I'll just tell you three answers. \n\n1. To really get anything out of them you need an amplifier that is plugged in. So technically the guitar is plugged in the amplifier and people even got electrocuted by playing guitar (malfunctions...).\n\n\n2. Even without an amplifier an electric guitar is very similar to an acoustic guitar. Strings, a wooden body (most of the time) and some mechanics to tune them. This allows it to just work like an acoustic guitar. You pull the strings and it gives you some music. It's just rather silent because the body isn't optimized to amplify the sound (i talk about a classic electrical guitar).\n\n\n3. Magnets, the reason why your guitar doesn't need any batteries to work. They just have the magnetic field that you need to generate a current. When the srings move through the magnetic field they change it and this induces a current in the coils (which are hidden in your pickups). This generates a very small current that you couldn't use to power a speaker, but enough to put it into an amplifier. Since the current is rather small, it's always good to use high quality cables and connectors just so you don't get any noise on it (Or just put your cellphone away while playing guitar, should be good enough for most of us).\n\n\nBut than again there are exceptions to almost all of those points. The world of guitars is ridiculous and if you ever have the opportunity to go into a really big music store take it and check out the guitars there. There's like a million and some of them have close to nothing in common with a classical guitar. And they don't just change the look or material, they change the technology or even take away the strings. Building guitars is art and it's hard to say anything that applies to all of them. Against point one you could show some acoustic guitars with inbuilt mics, they work great with or without amplifier some even have build in equalizers. The second point you could argue that today there are even string-less digital guitars, so really nothing does apply for them. And last but not least there are active pick ups that need you to put a battery in your guitar to work. So really there isn't a right answer and you could probably even find a guitar that you have to plug in because it has some fancy things build in it. ",
"Passive pickups are permanent magnets: the vibrating steel strings will send a weak electrical signal without the need for electrical power (you provide the energy by physically striking the pickups and the vibrating steel over the magnets creates a weak current). You only need power to make that weak signal loud (amplify it) - that's why you need to power the amplifiers, but not the guitar.\n\nThat said there are also active pickups which do require electricity - they're usually battery-powered though. These are ubiquitous in semi-accoustic instruments and common in full-electric guitars as well.\n\n_URL_0_"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pickup_(music_technology)#Active_and_passive_pickups"
]
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||
2z5cjs
|
How did Portugal go from being a colonial empire to Western Europe's poorest country?
|
I'll just bet it has something to do with those meddling British and their dumb Navy, but I really have to clue!
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2z5cjs/how_did_portugal_go_from_being_a_colonial_empire/
|
{
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"text": [
"The French Invasion in 1807 during the Napoleonic Wars forced the Queen Maria I of Portugal and her court to the colony of Brazil. The empires eventually split, with Pedro I becoming Emperor of Brazil, and his father John VI returning to Portugal to rule. This is a good place to start if you're curious about the decline of colonial Portugal. \n\n\nInterestingly the invasion of Portugal was, in part, launched due to the Portuguese alliance with Great Britain. The massive fleet that evacuated the court from Portugal to Brazil was only able to safely set sail because of their Royal Navy escorts. \n\nPortugal has had several financial crisis', but I assume you are talking about the 2010 crisis. That's recent, and not appropriate to the sub. To fully answer your question it would help if you were a bit more specific about what you were interested in. \n\nDo you want to know more about the collapse of the empire? Most colonies didn't actually gain independence until 1975, with Macau only gaining independence in 1999. \n\nAskHistorians might be able to help you more with the decline and fall of Portuguese colonialism, but not with the current economic state. \n",
"Adding to /u/khosikulu 's answer. \n\nThe Treaty of Tordesillas of 1494 divided the world between Spain and Portugal. A North-South demarcation line was set up halfway between Portugal's Azores islands and Spain's claimed Cuba and Hispaniola. Spain was to control lands west of this line, and Portugal east of it. On the other end of the globe, the dispute was solved by the Treaty of Zaragoza of 1494. Effectively all this gave the Americas to Spain except for parts of Brazil to Portugal, in addition to giving the Philippines to Spain. It gave the east Indies (India, Indonesia, most of east Asia) to Portugal, along with ports in Africa. \n\nAs a result, the way trade was set up between those colonies and Spain/Portugal was that Spanish ships took westward trajectories across the Atlantic, and then across the Pacific to the Philippines. Portuguese ships went to Brazil or Africa and then to the Indian Ocean and up the east Asian coast as far as Japan. \n\nSpain, or to be more precise the various possessions of Philip II and his descendants had various conflicts around the world, including against a Protestant England and a rebellious, Protestant Netherlands, starting from the mid 1500s and intensifying through the 1600s. While Spain's Army of Flanders was fighting the rebels in the Netherlands, traders from the Netherlands could still trade with Lisbon, thus they became aware of the sea routes to various Portuguese trading posts around the world. \n\nIn 1580, due to succession crises in Portugal, Spain's Philip II asserted his claim to the kingship of Portugal, thus setting Spain-Portugal under personal union. As he was at war against the Netherlands rebels and France, and eventually against England, these parties were no longer allowed to trade in Lisbon, and further they had incentive to attack Portuguese ships and posts around the world. \n\nBy that point Spain and Portugal had set up parallel trading routes with little overlap. Thus, while on the one hand Portugal now had access to sell goods to Spanish posts (including notably slave trade), Portugal was dragged into Spain's wars with little protection from Spain. In 1592 England captured a Portuguese fleet returning from Asia, thus setting the stage for England's own interest in the region. \n\nThe Dutch, previously partners in Portuguese development of sugar cane plantations in Brazil, attacked Portugal there to gain control of their own plantations. In Asia, they set up their own base in Batavia (today's Jakarta), then attacked Portugal's important posts in Angola, then in Goa, then in Japan. \n\nBack in continental Europe, Spain's commitments in the Thirty Years War led to increased taxation in Portugal, and further enmity from belligerents in that conflict. Portuguese royals and merchants saw Spain as providing insufficient help even in Brazil, let alone Asia. Thus, they rebelled and this led to the Portuguese Restoration War. Even before the the restoration was complete, Portugal had started negotiations with England and Dutch that saw Portugal re-gain supremacy over Brazil and the Dutch over Indonesia. \n\nBy the time Spain recognized Portugal's independence in 1680, Portugal was already left with a much smaller empire, most of which losses were to a former ally (England) and a former economic partner (the Netherlands). "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
41u43l
|
What built structures and natural formations would have been considered as 'wonders of the world' in the Renaissance era?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/41u43l/what_built_structures_and_natural_formations/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cz58wfg"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"...The pyramids at Giza, the hanging gardens of Babylon, the Colossus, the statue of Zeus at Olympia, the lighthouse of Alexandria, the mausoleum, the Temple of Artemis.\n\nNo, really.\n\nWestern Europe first gained access to the tradition of lists of world wonders in the very early Renaissance. The known-at-the-time surviving version of the *Greek Anthology*, containing the poem attributed to Antipater of Sidon with six wonders, was first published in the west in 1494. There were references in other classical texts prized by Renaissance scholars, too. Forty years later, the idea of the Seven Wonders had developed and cystallized in the Renaissance imagination to the point of Maarten van Heemskerck's [woodcut series.](_URL_0_) (Note that although the pyramids were/are very much still around, he clearly hasn't seen them firsthand.)"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://i.imgur.com/tRQADpY.png"
]
] |
||
2pis67
|
When did writers begin to capitalize dialogue to portray shouting?
|
For example
> "Put that down!" he shouted.
versus
> "PUT THAT DOWN!"
I noticed Fitzgerald used the former to convey shouting in The Great Gatsby, and was wondering if this was just a stylistic choice or capital words just didn't have that meaning in his time. The technique is viewed as an eyesore among some, but is definitely used, especially in casual writing.
So, when did capitalizing words in dialogue mean the speaker was shouting? When did people begin to associate capitalized letters with emphasis?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2pis67/when_did_writers_begin_to_capitalize_dialogue_to/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cmxnsk7"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"All-caps indicated emphasis for centuries, and were occasionally used to indicate shouting as far back as the 1940's (as evidenced in Philippa Schuyler's biography).\n\nThe practice became widespread in Usenet newsgroups around 1984, when one user summed it up as:\n\n > there seem to be some conventions developing in the use of various emphasizers. There are three kinds of emphasis in use, in order of popularity:\n1) using CAPITAL LETTERS to make words look \"louder\",2) using asterisks to put sparklers around emphasized words, and 3) s p a c i n g words o u t, possibly accompanied by 1) or 2).\n\nand\n\n > if it's in caps i'm trying to YELL!\n\nThe source is [the New Republic](_URL_0_), but they cite their contributing editor John McWhorter who's a well known linguist.\n\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117390/netiquette-capitalization-how-caps-became-code-yelling"
]
] |
|
3z2vsi
|
how did hollywood become the center for the entertainment business?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3z2vsi/eli5_how_did_hollywood_become_the_center_for_the/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cyiszge",
"cyit3iw"
],
"score": [
6,
2
],
"text": [
"According to Wikipedia, Thomas Edison's held the patent on the kinetiscope, and his company, located in New York, was relentless in shutting down unauthorized use, by lawsuit or seizure. To escape this, many producers moved out west, where his patent laws couldn't be enforced. They settled on Southern California because of its ideal weather and easy access to a variety of settings (beach, desert, mountains, etc.). Some of the first studios were set up in hollywood, and the industry grew from there.\n\nMore details can be found [here](_URL_0_).",
"Thomas Edison had patents for film equipment and so film producers went to California since it was far away from Edison so it was harder for Edison to exercise his control of the patent and get royalties. Also California judges were less friendly to the patents awarded to Edison ."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinema_of_the_United_States#Rise_of_Hollywood"
],
[]
] |
||
1ru88w
|
how does computer works ? how is it possible that we see stuff on your screen thanks to binary? why is it possible for us to write with letters when a computer is based on number?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ru88w/eli5_how_does_computer_works_how_is_it_possible/
|
{
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"cdqxgyz",
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"text": [
"A processor is comprised of transistors which make an off or on (0 or 1) state depending if there is a current flowing through it. It is able to do this because a transistor is made from silicone which is a semiconductor.\n\nThese gates can be arranged in various ways which make gates. You can have lots of different gates but the main ones are and, or and not gates. \n\nIn an and gate, there are two inputs and one output. If the two inputs are a 1, the out put is a 1, anything else is 0. \n\nWith a or gate, there are two inputs and one output. If either one of the inputs is 1 the output is 1. If both of them are 0, you get 0.\n\nWith a not gate, there is one input and one output. Whatever the input is, the output is the opposite. So a 1 will become a 0 and a 0 will become a 1.\n\nYou can have variations of these like xor, nor, nand but that's more advanced.\n\nWith these gates, you can put multiple together to make tasks such as adders to add two binary numbers together. These can then to simple arithmetic.\n\nAs for posting with letters when your computer works with numbers, your keyboard has a number for each letter and key. When you press the key the number is sent to your computer where the computer matches the number to a number on a character set such as ASCII or Unicode. ",
"Specifically about monitor:\n\nProcessor sends bit to one of his output ports, and device on other screen interprets them, for example (simplified, doesn't really work that way), for black-and-white screen, processor sends 1111100110011111, and 4x4 display simply shows you white 2x2 square.\n\nManufacturers agreed on specifications how to communicate and interpret different signals between devices (HDMI, VGA - are different way to tell screen what to do)",
"Yes, this thread is a week old and dead, but these answers are not exactly what I'd call simple, so I'm gonna have a crack, if you don't mind.\n\n_______________\n\nImagine you had 8 empty boxes, and some bowling balls that would fit in the boxes. For some reason, you decide you want to count using the boxes and bowling balls - every time you drop a ball in a box that's 1.\n\nSo here you are counting to 8, and it's awesome, but you want to count higher and you can't afford any more boxes. So what you do now is quite clever: you decide that each box can have a different value. You can still only put in one ball, but instead of every box just being zero or one, now box two can be zero or two, box three can zero or four, and so on, doubling the value until box eight is zero or 128. \n\nIf you put a ball in some of the boxes, all you do to get the number is add up all the values of boxes with a bowling ball inside. \n\n 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1\n [ ] [ ] [X] [ ] [ ] [X] [ ] [X] \n 128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1\n\nSo this number is **32 + 4 + 1 = 37**. In exactly the same way, we could also write this as **00100101**, with a zero signifying an empty box and a 1 signifying a box with a bowling ball inside.\n\nThis is binary counting. So while 1 in binary is 1 in decimal (our everyday number system), 10 in binary is actually 2 in decimal. And now you can participate in the classic joke:\n\n > There are 10 types of people in this world: Those who can count in binary and those who can't.\n\nSo what does this have to do with computers? Well this is simplified version of what we are talking about when we say the \"memory\" of a computer, except it has literally trillions of boxes in all different places. The RAM of a computer is just a set of boxes that get emptied every time you turn off the computer, and the hard drive is a set of boxes that *don't* get emptied when you turn off.\n\nOK, that's cool, and easy enough. But what about letters? Well let's go back to our boxes for a minute. The highest number we can make with 8 boxes is just the same as having a ball in every box, right? So that's 128 + 64 + 32 + 16 + 8 + 4 + 2 + 1 = **255**. But technically, no balls in any box is also a number: namely zero. So that means there are **256** possible numbers with 8 boxes. \n\nWith that in mind, imagine all the letters of the english alphabet, A to Z. There are 26 of them. Now you and me are playing a game where we pretend that the letters of the alphabet are actually numbers like A = 1, B = 2, C = 3, and so on until Z = 26. Now if I write you a message like:\n\n > 8 9 [SPACE] 20 8 5 18 5\n\nYou would know I actually mean \"HI THERE\". But we know about binary counting too now, so why don't we get in there and remake the number message, this time with binary. And for the hell of it, you and I decide that space is the same as the number 27 (we could choose any number here though), since it's the first number after the alphabet, so our final message is:\n\n > 00001000 00001001 00011011 00010100 00001000 00000101 00001010 00000101\n\nThat is how computers deal with letters, symbols, and numbers. The only difference is which number maps to which letter/symbol, but this is as arbitrary as you and I decided A = 1. A *doesn't actually* equal one, but as long as you and I (and anyone else that wants to understand our code) are concerned, those are the same thing. If you want to look into the different number mapping standards (and some of them are very very clever), check out ASCII (old) and UTF-8 (new, awesome and super clever)."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
fu2gen
|
how does a missile calculate it's deviation and where it shouldn't be?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fu2gen/eli5_how_does_a_missile_calculate_its_deviation/
|
{
"a_id": [
"fmaepd5"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Start small, understand 3D positioning:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nThen understand GPS, which is much more complex but essentially the same, 3D Geometry once you know points in space is trivial.\n\nBut there's a lot underlying GPS to get to this point.\n\nHave fun!"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.intmath.com/vectors/7-vectors-in-3d-space.php"
]
] |
||
1xfwi1
|
sometimes when we yawn, why do certain ones cause us to stretch and reach toward the sky which feels like our soul is being sucked from our body...and results in a yell?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xfwi1/eli5_sometimes_when_we_yawn_why_do_certain_ones/
|
{
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"cfaymo4",
"cfaz09w",
"cfazdsr",
"cfazdto"
],
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12,
4,
13,
3
],
"text": [
"Idk why but those yawns when u reach the sky and yell are fucking awesome",
"No idea but just reading that made me yawn",
"This is called *pandiculation*. It's thought to be a way for the body to realign and stretch the myofascial system (the soft tissue that surrounds and connects muscles and other organs). ",
"Does anyone else get this when they fluff heavy blankets? My boyfriend wonders if it's slight OCD, but I think it's more a combo of the weight of the blanket and throwing your hands in the air. Makes me have to stop and stretch like this almost every time."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
tyhkf
|
Why is the temperature so low in the atmosphere when you are in an airplane?
|
My buddy was flying yesterday and he made the point that, if you are technically closer to the sun, it should be slightly warmer. Could someone please offer some clarity on this?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/tyhkf/why_is_the_temperature_so_low_in_the_atmosphere/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c4qtr6p"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"I'm surprised nothing has been said yet about thermodynamics.\n\nFor an ideal gas, there is a particular relation between the volume, pressure and temperature of a gas. As you rise in the atmosphere, the pressure of the gas drops. There are some funny equations to work out to find how the volume changes, but the net effect is that as you rise in the atmosphere, thermodynamics says the temperature falls.\n\nBasically, it's to do with the pressure falling."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
4yoh6v
|
why do delivery truck drivers wear high visibility jackets?
|
I don't know if this is an international regulation but in South Africa I always see truck drivers for large supermarket chains wear high visibility jackets.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4yoh6v/eli5_why_do_delivery_truck_drivers_wear_high/
|
{
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2,
2,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"I would assume it has to do with Health & Safety regulations and legislation, I'm not sure about South Africa but in the UK, Health & Safety dictates that employees working in certain professions need to take certain precautions in their job, one of which could be the need for protective or high visibility clothing.\n\nI would imagine truck drivers wear high visibility jackets so that other drivers can see them clearly, being in truck yards and delivery depots, they walk around large vehicles with many blind spots, so to minimize the risk of getting run over they wear clothing that makes them as visible as possible :)",
"Most transport truck drivers do out of safety.\n\nThe area where trucks are stored, they load and unload goods, and the sides of roads where they might need to make emergency stops are not often well-lit. Because of this they wear high visibility safety vests so no one accidentally runs them over.",
"They wear them as a precaution. Your employer is responsible for anything that happen to you while you are working, so any sensible employer would avoid the hassle of having a driver hit by another truck by at the very least ensure that they are easier to see.\nGive them a jacket, because it is such an easy thing to do that make their job a lot safer.\n\nMany countries have regulations on high visibility clothes for roadworks and some industrial complexes have high visibility clothes as a requirement along with a safety helmet.\n\nConsidering what you achieve with just a jacket, it's really a very cheap life insurance.",
"I work at a shipping and receiving warehouse and it's company policy that anybody entering the facility needs high visibility clothing on, due to the towmotors driving around and such. This rule also extends to outside our dock area where there's other semi trucks driving around. It's just because as a truck driver your typically going to be in situations where you want to be visible and not ran over by something",
"to decrease the risk of an accident while they are walking around in parking lots etc and there are other drivers driving trucks. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
bsxpmc
|
why dont sperm banks keep sperm warm like our bodies do rather than freezing it?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bsxpmc/eli5_why_dont_sperm_banks_keep_sperm_warm_like/
|
{
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"eorli1b",
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"text": [
"Freezing it puts it into a sort of suspended animation and preserves it. If they kept it warm then they would live their natural very short life cycle as cells (about 5 days) and without testes resupply while in the bank it makes collecting it in the first place useless. Being stored warm also makes it more likely to be contaminated with atmospheric bacteria and fungi.",
"Your body is actually trying to keep your sperm cool, that's why your balls hang outside your body.\n\nUnlike a sperm bank though, your body constantly produces sperm to replace the existing sperm that degrades and 'dies'. Since the sperm bank can't do that, they freeze your sperm instead."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
55tikj
|
why do old movies have that signature soft glow around the actors when up close?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/55tikj/eli5_why_do_old_movies_have_that_signature_soft/
|
{
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"dc40ppm",
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"text": [
"I'm sure you've been waiting for 3 months for this... :)\n\nThe simple answer? Because people thought it looked pretty. Still do.\n\nWhat you're referring to is lens diffusion, which came into common use in the early 1920s. As with a lot of new technologies, people went a little crazy with it (especially in the mid-1920s and the 1930s), but it's still widely done today. \n\nGenerally, it's done one of two ways: using a glass filter that slides in front of the lens, or with a \"net\" that's placed behind the lens. The \"net\" is actually pantyhose. A lot of cinematographers swear by Fogal, an old and very high-quality Swiss brand of stockings. Both of these approaches create a haze in the light and also make the brightest points glow. One difference is that nets tend to create rainbow halos around these highlights.\n\nHere's a modern-ish example in MINORITY REPORT, which makes a lot of use of net diffusion, mostly using Fogal stockings, IIRC: _URL_0_\n\nOne thing to remember is that old films tended to use fairly long (100mm) lenses for all close-ups, which tend to exaggerate the effects of diffusion. Basically, we've just gotten subtler about this stuff.",
"Back in the day, there was no HD, so it was easy to hide wrinkles by using a lot of light on close ups and smearing the camera lens with vaseline to blur the wrinkles out. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtXdKETotbc"
],
[]
] |
||
1dr3mq
|
Is it likely there were several species of humans living on earth at the same time?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1dr3mq/is_it_likely_there_were_several_species_of_humans/
|
{
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"text": [
"Most definitely. In fact, there were periods when more than one *genus* of hominid were living in the same place at the same time. *Australopithecus africanus* and *Paranthropus robustus* both lived in Southern Africa roughly 2 million years ago. *Homo sapiens* also lived alongside Neanderthals and *Homo erectus*. (That's assuming you classify Neanderthals as a separate species, which many anthropologists do not.) ",
"Yes.\nHere's a hominid family tree (it looks more like a bush)\n\n_URL_0_\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/history_17"
]
] |
||
1xg2m6
|
a gun fires a bullet at the exact moment you drop a bullet from the same height. which bullet hits the ground first?
|
Question
A gun fires a bullet at the exact moment you drop a bullet from the same height. Which bullet hits the ground first?
Answers
1. The bullet fired from the gun
2. The bullet dropped from the fired gun barrel height
3. Both hit the ground at the same time
I believe the correct answer is 3, but I'm having trouble understanding *why*
Also what is the concept in physics? (I hope I'm wording that correctly)
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xg2m6/eli5_a_gun_fires_a_bullet_at_the_exact_moment_you/
|
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"text": [
"In a vacuum, both will land at essentially the same time, depending on local topography.\n\nThe reason is that vertical acceleration and horizontal velocity aren't necessarily linked.\n\nGravity is pulling both objects downward with the same force, regardless of their forward velocity.\n\nIn an atmosphere you may have air turbulence effects that slightly alter the result.",
"it depends on what angle you fire the gun, and the height of drop/gun.\n \nMytbusters did an episode on this. \n_URL_0_",
"In principle, both hit the ground at the same rate. \n\nAll objects fall at the same rate, roughly 32.1 f/s^2, regardless of their mass. The bullet fired from the gun is going very fast horizontally, but vertically it is falling at the same rate as the other bullet.\n\nIf you start factoring in things like wind resistance, curvature of the earth, etc it can get more complicated. But basic physics says the correct answer is (3).",
"you are correct.\n\nthey hit the ground at the same time, so long as the gun is fired horizontally.\n\nthe reason is because the bullet fired from the gun generates no lift. \nso despite its forward momentum, gravity accelerates it towards the ground at the same rate as the bullet dropped at a standstill.",
"The unspoken assumptions are for the gun to fire the bullet in a perfectly horizontal direction, anf that you release the other bullet without exerting any force on it.\n\nIn that case the answer is 3, both hit the ground at the same time. As soon as the bullet leaves the gun, and as soon as you release the bullet from your hand, the force of gravity starts to work on both bullets. It adds an identical vertical component to the acceleration and velocity to both bullets, so that both will be affected equally and reach the ground at the same moment.",
"In an ideal physics world, with a perfectly flat earth and no atmospheric resistance, both would hit the ground at the same height because downwards acceleration due to gravity is always the same."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"http://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/mythbusters/videos/dropped-vs-fired-bullet.htm"
],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
ik27d
|
Is the measure of a parsec actually useful for anything?
|
I understand fully the definition of a parsec but I cannot for the life of me figure out how such a unit of measure can be considered useful, particularly when it's only about 3 lightyears in length and thusly anything that can be explained in terms of parsecs can also be explained in terms of lightyears.
Is there some sort of field where calculation in terms of parsecs is easier or more useful than calculation in terms of lightyears or even petameters (seeing as the 1 AU in parsec feels arbitrary and the year in lightyear does as well)?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/ik27d/is_the_measure_of_a_parsec_actually_useful_for/
|
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"text": [
"It is just an old measurement that old textbooks and some stubborn astronomers use. Many people have just memorized distances to certain objects in parsecs because it is what was used in the 50s and 60s.",
"I agree that the measurement is arbitrary, but it is clearly easier to talk about the distance to nearby stars in terms of parsecs because this distance is only based on their parallax. Since all other astronomical distances that we measure are based on the parallax measurements (making it the first step on the [distance ladder](_URL_0_)) this also makes it easier to compare the parallax measured distances to other astronomical distances in this common unit. The only unit that seems to me to not be arbitrary is the Planck length, but since parsecs are directly measurable we are stuck using them and then converting.",
"It's extremely useful for astronomers, who can measure an angle and instantly know for far something is. It's still used though mostly because of tradition/convention.",
"Why do you consider light-years useful when you could be using parsecs instead? :P\n\nParsecs are easier to measure (it comes directly from parallax). It's the standard unit we use. I don't know why astronomy documentaries use light-years instead.",
"Distance in parsecs = 1 / parallax over 1 AU in arc-seconds\n\nThat's why it was used. Also, measurements of parsecs are insensitive to the precision of the measurement of the orbit of the Earth, which at the time the parsec was most popular had a margin of error of several percent.",
"One thing missed in the answers is why the 1 AU as part of the definition of a parsec is not arbitrary at all. It allows you to measure the distance to a star relative to the size of the Earth's orbit, and compare those relative distances between stars and the orbital scales in our own solar system, without ever knowing the precise value for 1 AU.\n\nSo its presence in the parsec definition is not arbitrary at all, but a simple extension on the very reason the AU exists as a unit in the first place; namely, astronomers were figuring out the distance of other planets from the sun, relative to the distance of the Earth to the sun, without actually knowing for certain what that value was. Likewise, a parsec allows us to measure the distance to other stars relative to our distance to the sun in a very precise manner, and the relative distance is then turned into a \"real\" distance as we refine the value for 1 AU.\n\nEDIT: Of course in modern astronomy, measuring the value of 1 AU is no longer the limiting factor, but at the time that AUs and parsecs were introduced, the uncertainty in the value for 1 AU was still a big problem.",
"Somewhat interestingly, since the distance of an object from the sun determines its orbital period (aka \"year\"), and this distance also goes in to the definition of a \"parsec\", there is a distance from the sun where the local \"parsec\" is precisely as large as the local \"lightyear\".\n\nThe relationship between an \"orbit-local\" parsec, and an \"orbit-local\" light-year, turns out to be:\n\n1 [local-parsec] == 3.26196/Sqrt[r] [local-lightyear]\n\nWhere \"r\" is the orbital radius from the sun measured in AUs.\n\nThus, on earth, an (earth) parsec is 3.26 (earth) light-years, while at a distance of 10.64 AU (slightly outside of the orbit of Saturn), the (local) light-year would be equal to the (local) parsec.\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_distance_ladder"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
7norvi
|
how come we haven't run out of various resources
|
Think about the billions of people around the world, then the billions of various things that are built for them and the things they consume.
How come we haven't run out of some essentials yet? Like things used in construction, things used in manufacturing cars or cell phones or some other stuff.
It's just mind boggling when you think about all the trillions of little things being manufactured yearly and yet this little planet still has more in store?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7norvi/eli5_how_come_we_havent_run_out_of_various/
|
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" > yet this little planet \n\nI think there is the flaw in your reasoning. Pretty much the sum total of human existence has scratched a little bit of the surface. The deepest mine we've ever made (A gold mine) is about 2.4miles deep. The Earth's crust, which itself is only about 1% of the Earth's volume, is 20 to 30 miles thick on a continent. \n\nAnd we've been mining gold for thousands of years, yet all the gold ever brought to the surface would probably only make a cube about 70 feet on a side. \n\n\n\n\n",
"We are running low on some naturally occurring resources such as indium, but thankfully the laws of supply and demand ensure that if a resource becomes to scarce (and thus too expensive to mine/produce/purchase), we look for alternatives. As a whole, industry is very good at coming up with alternatives and resources are very rarely completely \"used up\". \n\nA fun fact relate to this - all the gold ever mined would only fill around 3.5 Olympic-sized swimming pools. ",
"One of the things you need to keep in mind is that whenever there's some sort of article talking about how we're going to 'run out' of something, what it usually means is that 'we're going to run out of something that was cheap to mine or manufacture'.\n\nTake oil - if we keep burning crude oil the way we've been doing, we'll run out of easily exploited oil reserves, but it's not as if we'll suddenly not be able to have hydrocarbons or manufacture plastics - biofuels can be repurposed for the task, at (significantly) higher costs. Helium? We might 'run out' of helium reserves and deplete all easily exploited helium from natural gas mines, but helium is output from the planetary core at a steady rate from radioactive decay, so if you really needed helium for something you'd be able to extract it, again at significantly higher cost (so probably no more balloons).\n\nVirtually no resources are *destroyed* on consumption, they're simply converted to forms that are significantly more costly to re-extract and re-use. All the metal and plastic waste in landfills could be, at cost, mined out of landfills and recycled into useful plastics and metal, at huge cost in time and labor - but it is possible and becomes economically practical when costs exceed a certain threshold. ",
"The thing about resources, is they will never run out, they will become eventually too expensive to gather as they become more scarce. \n\nFor example, there was a point in human history where oil just naturally oozed out of the ground from pockets near the earth's surface. Today, they are extract oil from incredibly deep wells out in the middle of the ocean.The price of oil has risen (ignoring the influence of government and cartels) to reflect that increased difficulty in extracting. \n\nWhat has happened as a result as of oil becoming more expensive, it becomes more cost effective to explore other energy sources such as natural gas, solar, etc. \n\n ",
"Certain resources are running short: Iridium, Helium, and sand. \n\nSand, you ask? [Yes, sand.](_URL_0_) We use sand in *everything* from houses to electronics, and the stuff we put sand in tends to last a very long time. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://www.npr.org/2017/07/21/538472671/world-faces-global-sand-shortage"
]
] |
|
216fs6
|
How were the Pyramids of Giza viewed, interpreted, and/or treated before the 1900s?
|
I've been playing a lot of Europa Universalis IV, and I noticed that The Mamluks and Ottomans were the primary occupiers of Egypt during the era the game takes place(1444-1820).
I've always thought of the Great Pyramids were something that became popular during the 1900s, so I'm curious as to how these older civilizations treated them. I'm mostly curious about the eras the game takes place in, but really anything before the 1900s is what I'm asking about.
So yeah, I'm curious as to how civilians or tourists(if they were around during that time) viewed them. If there was ever a time they tried to tear them down to make room for a settlement of some kind, or if any scholars studied them as much as I assume Europeans did in the 1800s. I'm just wondering how they were viewed.
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/216fs6/how_were_the_pyramids_of_giza_viewed_interpreted/
|
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"Well, if you want *before*, here is a passage from Frontinus' *De aquaeductu* (I.16):\n\n > With such an array of indispensable structures carrying so many waters, compare, if you will, the idle Pyramids or the useless, though famous, works of the Greeks!\n\nThis immediately followed a section describing the size and scale of a particular Roman aqueduct. Given that he leapt to the Pyramids as a standard comparison, it is reasonable to conclude that they were generally thought of as large and impressive structures, which, I suppose, makes sense.",
"I'm on mobile so a long answer is tough. But I have one tidbit you'll hopefully find interesting.\n\nBy many accounts, Napoleon (around the end of the 1700's) was very interested in the pyramids. Various stories say he went in the Great Pyramid himself, although these accounts are contradicted by at least one source. \n\nThere is a quote that comes from Napoleon during the \"Battle of the Pyramids\" (during which he defeated the Mamluks, a major blow to their 7-century control of the area).\n\nSeeking to rally his troops against the larger Mamluk force, and seeing the pyramids within eyesight, Napoleon is said to have yelled, \"Forward! Remember that from those monuments yonder forty centuries look down upon you.\"\n\nSo, at least it is fair to say that Napoleon had some sense of the history surrounding the Pyramids.\n\nSource: \"The Campaigns of Napoleon,\" by David Chandler. ",
"/u/BullsLawDan pointed to Napoleon. I'll expand on it. The antiquity of Egypt was both known and a subject of curiosity well before 1900; it was, after all, intimately connected to the Classical Mediterranean. But Napoleon, in his expedition to Egypt, took a veritable college of scholars with him to catalogue ancient and modern Egypt. The result was the [*Description de l'Egypte*](_URL_0_), a monumental work in either its original or revised editions, that appeared from 1809 onward and made an enormous mark on European thinking about ancient Egypt. It is not out of line to say that modern Egyptology was born with the Napoleonic Wars.\n\nNote too that the French arranged to get antiquities out of Egypt, while the British took some for themselves after a joint Anglo-Ottoman force retook control, further stoking interest. Timothy Mitchell talks about some of this in his *Colonising Egypt* but is more focused on modern matters. During the 19th century, several obelisks left Egypt for European capitals, donated by the Khedives (long story there) in recognition of European friendship but also to articulate a certain parity that, nevertheless, was moot after 1882 when the British took effective though unofficial control of the country."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Description_de_l%27%C3%89gypte"
]
] |
|
1kk0ku
|
How far back does calling decades 50's, 60's, 70's etc go ? Would people in the 18th century casually talk about the 50's like we do?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1kk0ku/how_far_back_does_calling_decades_50s_60s_70s_etc/
|
{
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"text": [
"Well the 1890s were \"The Gay Nineties\". Not sure how much further back they go.",
"To all those entering this thread with the intent to post, let me remind you that we are not interested in your personal anecdotes, speculation, grammatical corrections, or half-remembered factoids. Our [rules for answers](_URL_0_) will still be enforced.\n\nThank you.",
"It's worth noting that, like many practices, there are examples of decades being referred to in similar manners from significantly before the practice became popular. For example, here's an [1840s](_URL_1_) reference to the forties, and an [1839](_URL_0_) reference to the thirties and forties. The use of italics here suggests to me that this was *not* common at the time, but at the same time not confusing enough to warrant explanation.\n\nMoving later, especially to the 1890s onward, there appear to be numerous examples of decade references in writing, both in referring to near-contemporary decades and prior decades. For example, Eustace Neville-Rolfe in 1899 reprinted *Naples in 1888* as *Naples in the Eighties*, and also wrote *Naples in the Nineties*. H.W. Seton-Karr in 1889 used to \"Travels in the Eighties\" as a subtitle to *Ten Years' Wild Sport in Foreign Lands*, and here's an 1897 periodical referring to the [fifties](_URL_2_).\n\nAs unreliable as it can be at times, Google Ngrams supports the view that this became more usual, *in writing*, [around the 1880s/90s](_URL_3_). Note that certain terms of these sorts also had other meanings, especially earlier, including \"the seventies\" (Mormonism), and \"the forties\" and \"the sixties\" (Ireland). There *are*, however, definitely numerous examples of the usage in the 1890s, and very few before around that time (with many of them being mislabeled).\n\nAs for referring to decades *commonly* and in casual conversation, naming the decades, or considering them as culturally distinct eras, I will defer to other comments here.\n\n(NB. This post *is*, to some extent, just the results of searching through Google results, and as such may be somewhat at odds with the rules here. I do apologize for this, but wanted to show that even cursory analysis of primary sources can give evidence on the matter looking at it in a somewhat different way.)"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/rules#wiki_answers"
],
[
"http://books.google.com/books?id=x-bUAAAAMAAJ&dq=%22in%20the%20thirties%22&pg=PA126#v=onepage&q=%22in%20the%20thirties%22&f=false",
"http://books.google.com/books?id=7YkoAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA46&dq=%22the+forties%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=NQwQUu6oM6KEygHpjIE4&ved=0CFsQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=%22the%20forties%22&f=false",
"http://books.google.com/books?id=pQpQAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA1-PA24&dq=%22the+fifties%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=JCAQUtunLMnCyAHujoHQCw&ved=0CEAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22the%20fifties%22&f=false",
"http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=the+eighties%2Cthe+seventies%2Cthe+sixties%2Cthe+fifties%2Cthe+forties%2Cthe+thirties&year_start=1800&year_end=1900&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share="
]
] |
||
18nhsj
|
how does one not become severely injured when jumping from extreme heights into a small amount of water?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/18nhsj/eli5_how_does_one_not_become_severely_injured/
|
{
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"text": [
"Can you give an example of what you mean? It probably depends on what you mean by 'extreme' height. By and large, you *do* get injured when falling from a great height into water.",
"As the saying goes, it's not the fall that hurts, but the sudden stop at the end.\n\nThe trick, then, is to make the stop *less sudden.* If you fall onto something soft, rather than coming to a stop suddenly, you stop more gradually as the thing you're landing on deforms or displaces under you.\n\nBut water isn't all that great for this. Water is *incompressible,* meaning it doesn't squish like a pillow when you land on it. Instead it has to move out of your way, which it can only do so fast. So lowering your hand into a sink of water hardly feels like anything at all, but doing a belly flop into a pool stings like a mother.\n\nThat's why diving is hard. It's not just the fact that a well executed dive looks good and all that; it's that you *have* to enter the water in just the right way to keep from getting bruises or even broken bones.\n\nSo the short answer is that water *can* slow you down safely and effectively, but only if you use it just right. Use it wrong, and it's not that much better than plowing full-speed into concrete.",
"Did you get this from that Guinness Records gone wild episode? Like /u/Imhtpsnvsbl said, the longer it takes you to decelerate, the less likely you are to be injured. Also, if you slightly angle your body you will \"slice\" into the water, further prolonging the deceleration."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
1vn7rg
|
why do we do stupid things when we are young even though we have an idea that they are not right?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1vn7rg/eli5_why_do_we_do_stupid_things_when_we_are_young/
|
{
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"text": [
"Undeveloped prefrontal cortexes ",
"Curiosity. When you are young you may be aware of the thing but not the consequence. Also, when you are young your mind is set to not care about what will happen to your family if something happens and curiosity does the rest of the work.",
"Brain development. Brains don't fully develop, especially in males, until early to mid 20s. One of the last things to develop is automatic consideration of the consequences of one's actions. It's not that they can't think about it if prompted, they fully understand, their brains just aren't wired to do it automatically. \n\nIt may be due to an evolutionary benefit in proving oneself in youth by doing dangerous things and then the survivors settled down and had families and so then needed to consider the consequences. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
enldro
|
how is the b-2 spirit mostly undetectable by radar?
|
Does the polygonal design of the plane itself play a role in this?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/enldro/eli5_how_is_the_b2_spirit_mostly_undetectable_by/
|
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"text": [
"Yes, because of the footprint shape and the sleek design there are very few parts of the plane where a radar signal would be bounced back to its source. Radar works by sending out a signal and then waiting for it to bounce off something and come back.",
"You are probably thinking of the F-117 which looks like a plan from a 1990's video game as opposed to the B-2 which looks like a very nicely rounded boomerang. \n\nThe answer to the question though is that we understand how radar waves bounce off objects at a theoretical level and can thus engineer shapes with the objective of bouncing back as little of the signal as possible. Radar absorbent materials, and other strategies, are employed as well.",
"Imagine you're in a room with the floor walls and ceiling painted black. \n\nNow turn the lights out and imagine you have to find a mirror somewhere in this room with nothing but a headlamp. You'd think it'd be easy, just shine the flashlight around the floor walls and ceiling until you see it, however you will soon discover that you can't see anything on the floor walls or ceiling because the mirror bounces the light from your flashlight away from you. All you see is the black reflection blended in with the black background. You will only be able to see the mirror when it's facing directly towards you and you can see your flashlight in the reflection.\n\nNow take the same concept, except instead of a mirror, it's a pinball polished to a mirror finish. You should be able to find it almost immediately because there's always some part of the ball bearing that will reflect you and your flashlight back to you. As soon as you shine your headlamp on it, you'll see a twinkle from the reflection.\n\nThis is the basic concept behind stealth; certain shapes reflect electromagnetic waves back to their source better than others. Flat shapes are typically the best at avoiding this, while spherical shapes and edges will almost always cause a return.\n\n*Edited for clarity/simplicity",
"In the USAF I maintained the avionics on both the F-117A and the F-22 Raptor. The stealth characteristics of these aircraft are determined by shape and RAM (Radar absorbent material, F-117 terminology) / LO (Low observable material, F22 terminology). There are measures taken to reduce thermal footprint like exhaust. Any other answers that go deeper then that are guesses because even with the security clearance I had there are things that just aren’t discussed.",
"I was driving to St. Louis on Thursday and one of those big bastard flew over the highway at a relatively low altitude. We also see them flying very high over KC (where I live) occasionally."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
1p3tpk
|
Do i get more fluid from 1 straw or 2?
|
If I had a milkshake and used 2 straws to drink the milk shake, would I get more fluid from using 2 straws than I would with 1? or would I get the same amount?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1p3tpk/do_i_get_more_fluid_from_1_straw_or_2/
|
{
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"text": [
"You would get more. Since Velocity is dependent on the dP (pressure difference), and the pressure difference in the two straws is the same, you will have the same fluid velocity in both straws. Volume flow is equal to fluid velocity*area of flow. So you will get double the flow."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
flyqy
|
Inspired by another question: why don't Martian explorer robots include wipers to wipe dust from the solar panels, thereby making the robot more reliable?
|
As of now, they need to wait for a [cleaning event](_URL_0_) to gain more power from the panels.
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/flyqy/inspired_by_another_question_why_dont_martian/
|
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"text": [
"im guessing weight. They weigh the pros and cons of a system like that compared to the other things that weight could be used for.",
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes\n\nBut then who will wipe the dust from the wipers ?",
"I seem to recall that part of the problem is that the dust particles are statically attracted to the panels and a simple wiper wouldn't have done any good. With there being little atmosphere and much less gravity a wiper would probably just shuffle the dust around but it would coalesce back on the panels. (If you think about those times when you spill a box of packing styrofoam peanuts, they stick to everything and it's a real pain to clean up, so I imagine it goes something like that.)\n",
" > \"We looked at all sorts of ways to try to keep the panels clean: windshield wipers, transparent plastic that you could put on rollers and you could roll it off to bring new plastic into place. All of the different techniques that we looked at were big, complicated, heavy,\" Squyres says.\n",
"[Slightly relevant, silly \"Wiper Blades\" song](_URL_0_). (SFW)\n\nGood for putting your roommate (or nearest unsuspecting relative) into WTF mode. Turn up your speakers and have fun. :)\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleaning_event"
] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRrZZcb5UYU"
]
] |
|
2ya8mx
|
If all life on Earth evolved from a common ancestor, have we found separating links for completely different species?
|
Such as cats and dogs, or horses and cows.
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2ya8mx/if_all_life_on_earth_evolved_from_a_common/
|
{
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"People don't realise how limited our paleo-library is. Fossilisation is an extremely rare occurrence, so finding all the links in a phylogenetic tree is like trying to complete a huge jigsaw puzzle when you only have access to 1% of the pieces. \n\nGenetically, we can see how similar species are to each other, and then infer how long ago they diverged. For example we would share some genes with other primates that we don't share with other mammals. This is because the common ancestor of primates had these genes. \n\nSome genes are more highly conserved across life, and exhibit a much slower degree of divergence. These genes typically code for essential metabolic proteins, such as cytochrome C, which is highly conserved across all animals, plants, and some unicellular organisms. \n",
"In addition to what georgibest pointed out, there are further complications. \n\nI'm assuming that by separate links you are referring to last common ancestor, but every last common ancestor is in fact only a hypothetical common ancestor as we have no way of telling (1) what parts of the fossil record we're missing, and (2) the specific reproductive events that were going on.\n\nHowever, there are in fact good hypothetical common ancestors for a lot of species or groups of species. When discussing common ancestors the first concern is whether you're dealing with a good grouping (what biologists call a monophyletic group or clade). A clade consists of an ancestral organism and all its descendents. Cats and dogs for instance do not form a clade, as their last (hypothetical) common ancestor also numbers such animals as bears and hyenas among its descendants. Cats are dogs are however both members of the clade Carnivora and share a common ancestor in the Miacids.\n\nYou may also be getting at the somewhat different concept of transitional forms. A transitional form is not a common ancestor, but rather illustrates the morphological transition between two groups. Notable transitional forms include Tiktaalik (fish and amphibians) and and Therapsids (reptiles and mammals). Therapsids are also knows as the \"mammal like\" reptiles.\n\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
dh8kg5
|
can anyone explain to me what are those tubes for?
|
I dont know how to explain what I mean that's why here's a link to it: _URL_0_
It's a tube on a cable that's holding shopping mall logo above the entrance- there are several cables all of them connected to the ceiling above
Do you guys have an idea what those tubes are?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dh8kg5/eli5_can_anyone_explain_to_me_what_are_those/
|
{
"a_id": [
"f3k0b1w"
],
"score": [
16
],
"text": [
"They are used to tighten the cable. It's not one cable, but two and they are linked by that thing that can screw closer and make sure it has the required structural integrity"
]
}
|
[] |
[
"http://imgur.com/a/mE7UkvJ"
] |
[
[]
] |
|
1ymv70
|
Is the speed of light contingent upon the speed in which the universe is expanding at?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1ymv70/is_the_speed_of_light_contingent_upon_the_speed/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cflwlz0"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"No, the speed of light in a vacuum is always the same."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
3zd9dq
|
How frequent where attempts to overthrow the US government, throughout its history?
|
[deleted]
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3zd9dq/how_frequent_where_attempts_to_overthrow_the_us/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cyld73s"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Can you be more specific here? How do you define \"overthrow\"? Do you mean attempts to *replace* the federal government in its entirety, or do you mean to simply replace the power of the federal government in a more limited fashion? Depending on your definition, something as small as a nullification movement could be considered an attempt to overthrow the (power of, and therefore the actual) government. A bit further up that chain might be a secessionist movement. Where would you draw the line? I ask only because this would definitely change the answer. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
3yjo1j
|
How do we measure the age of ice?
|
I'm explaining (poorly) how climate change is not only real to my grandfather but explaining in laymen's terms how we can measure it. This led to me pointing out a few receding glaciers and he seems to think that ice just comes and goes. How do we know a glacier is old?
E; added *is*
|
askscience
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/3yjo1j/how_do_we_measure_the_age_of_ice/
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"It's similar to how we know a tree is old by counting the number of rings. When you take a big core out of thick ice, you can see how each layer was deposited year by year, and use this to see how old it is.",
"To date retreat of glaciers you use cosmogenic nuclides like Beryllium-10. Rocks beneath glaciers can't have any cosmogenic nuclides in them because the ice above it shields them. Once the glacier retreats higher than that rock, it is 'exposed' to the atmosphere and spallation reactions can occur, creating cosmogenic nuclides within the rock. You then divide the measured amount of 10-Be by a calibrated cosmogenic 10-Be production rate in the atmosphere to calculate the 'exposure age' of that rock, or, the time at which the glacier retreated from that point. \n\nCounting layers in ice is how we get ages for the ice cores for paleoclimate records like past atmospheric CO2 and temperature changes."
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28625m
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what allows humans to "think" intelligently while other animals cannot? could other lifeforms develop this intelligence like us?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/28625m/eli5_what_allows_humans_to_think_intelligently/
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"Also, it was our niche to be intelligent in order to survive. Other animals didn't need intelligence to survive because they had speed, or strength, or better vision on their side. Our ability to think was our strength that allowed us to survive. \r\rSure another animal might develop our level intelligence *only* of it becomes necessary to their survival, and even then, evolution takes millions of years. The chances of that animal going extinct before its brain develop that much is way higher. ",
"\nWhat allows humans to \"think\" is language. \n_URL_0_\n",
"Not a neurologist, nor am I sure how current this information is, but one theory suggests that a major physiological player in human sentience, social interaction, etc. are von Economo neurons. These are neurons that are multiple times larger than regular neurons, and relative to other animals, humans frontal cortices have a high concentration of them. Perhaps unsurprisingly to some, elephant brains have also been found to contain a relatively large number of von Economo neurons.\n\nIf someone who actually knows what they're talking about wants to take it from here, that's pretty much all I've got for you.",
"Be careful with this label. To say other animals cannot think but that other humans can is a strong statement to make. I can not know with certainty that anyone but myself can think. Humans have developed the ability to verbally report \"thinking\" but that does not mean we all think the same. \n\nI have worked in an animal psychology lab and to say that rats do not think would seem absurd. An organism adapts and evolves to its environment. If that environment requires what you call thinking then those who have the ability to think should survive. \n\nThat being said, one of the current theories is that we developed \"thinking\" as a result of social interaction. Also humans have a larger prefrontal cortex (the front part of the brain) relative to other species. That is what is thought to be part of there reason for our \"superior intelligence\". But again, be careful what you define intelligence as. Even the brightest people can seem unintelligent in the wrong context. \n\n_URL_0_\n\nLook at the cartoon for an idea of what I mean. ",
"Sorry going out for the night but I'll try to explain this....\nThere are two main drivers for survival, intelligence, and instinct. Think of it as a spectrum with instinct on one end, intelligence on the other. Animals such as reptiles use instinct, when they're born they're programmed through their DNA with inherent knowledge, ie a baby snake can hatch out of it's egg and go off and survive populate feed etc all on it's own. Mammals on the other hand rely on intelligence. They are born and are dependent on others, father, mother, social community to teach them the survival skills the young mammal needs. Learning new things requires intelligence. If you look at the most intelligent animals aside from humans, it shouldn't be surprising that 90% of them are all mammals. For another species of animal to develop an intelligence in similar level to ours they would have to go through years of evolution with driving factors towards intelligence, such as needing to adapt to rapidly changing scenarios, greater cohesion and cooperation amongst social community etc. Have a good night hope that helped and was simplified down for ELI5 :) ",
"Probably one of the most common explanations in evolutionary neuroscience is the [social brain hypothesis](_URL_0_). Across animals, it seems to be the case that more social animals (so, animals that chit-chat more with other animals in their species) seem to have bigger brains. Obviously, bigger isn't always better (and \"bigger\" more refers to \"bigger with respect to the size of the body\"), but, at least within mammals, more social animals also do better on various tests of intelligence than other mammals, even closely related ones. Apparently hyenas are a good test group for this... spotted hyenas, who have a complex social hierarchy and tend to gather in groups, are way smarter than brown and striped hyenas. Also, spotted hyena females have pseudo-penises, and in their hierarchy every single male is below every single female. Fun times!\n\nAnyway, the reasoning goes, social animals have bigger and better brains because we (yes, \"we\"; humans, even redditors, are exceedingly social by most animals' standards!) have to try to reason about each other's intentions and motivations much more than solitary animals. This takes a lot to do. Have you ever actually tried to ELI5 to a 5 year old? Yeah.\n\nAs far as what makes *humans* different, well, that's another pickle. Language is one idea - like I said, not so much because it \"causes\" thought, but because it allows us to share information much more effectively than we could otherwise. Another idea is that we have \"theory of mind\"; basically, we can not only guess others' *actions*, but guess others' *states of mind*. So we can have knowledge about what other people know, not just what they do. That way we can both deceive and enlighten. An idea that would merge the two would be gossip, basically; thanks to these abilities, I can now tell you that I think that Barack Obama thinks that Vladimir Putin is a jerk, and that might be useful information if I see them interacting in the future.\n\nThe social brain hypothesis, and the ideas sketched above, predict that any aliens we met that were capable of interstellar space would also enjoy gossip and could probably reason about the minds of others. Hopefully we could convince them we were of sound enough mind that we should be counted as people capable of such things ourselves.\n\ntl;dr: The gossip of teenage girls is a very good demonstration of why humans are so smart.",
"Animals are exceptionally intelligent.",
"We can abstract, and we can communicate abstractions to others, but this is a quantitative, rather than a qualitative difference from animals. We just do more of it than they do. \n\nOur family has always had 3 or 4 dogs. We used to have a german shepherd cross who was kind of the pack leader. He was older than the rest of the dogs, slower because he was older, and going deaf. We were having barbecue one day, and we would often give the bones to the dogs in the yard (We lived on a farm then). We called the dogs, they all came except for the pack leader (he was sleeping and deaf, so whats he gonna do?). We tossed them the bones, all the dogs grabbed one or two. The pack leader eventually wakes up, trots over, and notices that all the other dogs have bones, he tries to take one from a younger dog, but she would just bounce away with it, and he was too old/slow to deal with it. \n\nHe starts walking over to the open field behind the yard (there are sometimes rabbits they chase there). He would go a few metres, stop and look back at the other dogs, go a few metres more, look back, until he got to the next field. Then he starts barking like crazy, pausing and looking back at the other dogs, and then barking again. All the other dogs drop what they're doing and run like mad to the field. While this is happening, the german shepherd cross takes a different, kinda hidden route back to the yard, and as all the other dogs are running around trying to find whatever the hell it was that he was barking at, he grabs ALL the bones, and goes to hide somewhere. \n\nThe other dogs eventually come back a few minutes later and sniff around where their bones were. Of course can't find them, and eventually just lie down, tired and without bones. We were all dumbfounded, having watched the whole sequence. \n\nTell me animals aren't intelligent.... ",
"There are various answers to this question. Anatomically we do have some advantageous that make way for certain things that other animal species can't. However, that alone doesn't explain for our intelligence and our developments. \n\nThere is a lot I could go into this, but I will give you a short summary. If anything needs more explanation, feel free to ask. One major thing that makes us different from animals is our non-kinship based dependency. In ELI5 version, this means our ability to rely and depend on others who are not related to us by blood.\n\nWhen a person has to work to make his shelter, defend his territory, and hunt his food everyday (like how animals live), it leaves very little time to be curious and explore new fields. You can't develop and expand when you are barely surviving day-to-day. Mankind created societies because we realized that sticking together as a group benefited everyone, as it would make it harder for thieves to rob a person who is defended by a group than a person who was living on his own. \n\nSlowly this reliance on others led to other greater things. Once certain people didn't have to worry about food or shelter, they were able to explore new fields such as science. Science was initially considered as a rich person's hobby because no one really had the free time in the past to sit around and be curious about how the world works. So in many ways the global family is what gave us the ability to develop. Remember, mankind is not great because each one of us is more intelligent than all others on the planet, but because we are intelligent collectively than all other species. \n\nThat being said, there are many intelligent animals out there like crows, dolphins, etc, but I don't think they can get very far as long as they are still competing with each other in their own species and barely surviving as such. \n\nEinstein actually believed that everyone was able to be a genius but that we had to figure out what we were good at. But that ability to \"figure out\" is a luxury for many still when you are surviving, and it does still hinder us from what we could be. \n\nDunbar's number is the number of people that one person can have close connections with i.e. can be friends with. For monkey's the number is 50. For human beings, the number is 150. Dunbar's number has been found to also increase with increase in intelligence, and so that further supports the idea that higher intelligence is related with groups, rather than one person's brain power. Mankind builds on top of each other's ideas and that's what allows us to reach greater heights than what one could have done alone in a life time. Our food, clothes, etc are all generally made by others outside of our family.\n\nI actually created a sub /r/UnitedWeStand to discuss how to create stronger bonds with others around us, and continue growing in the way that made our species so capable and intelligent. The more we create divisions and the more we force ourselves to survive /compete with one another, the longer it will be for us to progress. \n\n",
"I'm unware of many humans that \"think\" intelligently...\n\nI jest, but in seriousness from a philosophy perspective, we would have no clue if they do or not. Hypothetically, the \"base\" programming language of our brains could be 100% unique for each brain, which is entirely likely. By that logic, think of the variation of brain mechanics that would exist between species.\n\nDoes a dog who has seen and recognized himself of the mirror become sentient (self aware) in that instant, or was he already aware of the fact he existed? If he is sentient, then his brain is about on par with ours, minus a few glossy touches we have (verbal communication takes a higher brain priority, etc). The rest is just social memory. Let a child live his life in 100% isolation from the time of being a baby, and see by what measure you can find to even discover if he \"thinks\". The only thing that makes us more intelligent than chimpanzees is the step between communicating *intent* and communicating *ideas*.\n\nEvery animal can communicate when it's aroused, it's intent is to have sex. However, it's social lexicon stops short of what position. If they were able to communicate with *half* of the vocabulary of the smallest language in the world, you would see them develop war and improved tools quite rapidly, as they could question and explain things that don't exist *at the moment* (IE: it's hard to explain how an engine works to a 5 year old without having any object to *show* what an engine even is, using nothing more than grunts and nods)",
"Relevant \n\n“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” \n― Albert Einstein",
"Other animals think too. They also communicate in ways that we might not understand. Obviously humans probably have the most advanced thoughts and language compared to other animals, but yes, I believe other species *may* have the capability to eventually develop similar complex thoughts and communication, given that the ideal environmental conditions exist. ",
"Other animals *can* think intelligently. There are plenty of examples of this. Our intelligence seems to be of a different degree, not kind. \n\nAlso, some of the things people classify as \"intelligent\" for example, speech - are not available to other animals because they lack the apparatus. Yet, given the chance (For example,. sign language) gorillas can learn to communicate, though not speak.\n\nNo-one seems to think that other lifeforms could not also develop intelligence like ours, indeed some already seem to be heading down that path (social cooperation, tool use, etc.)\n",
"Almost all animals 'think' in the same manner humans do. What sets humans apart (the 'intelligently' qualifier in the question) is corroboration.\n\nwe verbally pass on the lessons we learn, as a society. Cave drawings, story telling, and then to books, and eventually, the internet. We store knowledge up as a society, and share it publicly.\n\ntechnically, you could say that what sets humans apart as being the only species to think intelligently is reddit ;-)\n\n",
"_URL_0_\n\nIt's not that animals cannot think intelligently, it's that humans tend to be resistant to the idea that not only do they already, but that in many cases, they may make better long-term survival decisions than we do. What's surprising is how strongly humans will try to reshape the edges of the definition of \"intelligence\" to argue that only humans have it.",
"I subscribe to the [stoned ape theory](_URL_0_).",
"Animals have different brains, evolved for different functions. A blanket of mental superiority completely disregards the superior spacial and working memory of the elephant, the faster problem-solving of the crow, and the [superior working memory](_URL_3_) of the child chimpanzee. If you want to see how limited some aspects of our working memory is, consider the [seven plus or minus two](_URL_2_) rule of thumb.\n\nLets not forget sensory processing, also an integral part of the nervous system - Consider the electroreception in fish, the polarised chromatic vision of the mantis shrimp, the range and sensitivity of a fly's compound eyes... We see nothing of the world some animals see.\n\nWhat we do have is a good range of cognitive adaptations, enabled by our [high encephalization quotient](_URL_1_). But brains are different, satisfying different roles. Most/ or at least many, of our individual mental abilities are beat by something else in the animal kingdom, and a lot of animals have mental abilities that we can't learn. So it's without basis to conclude 'humans 'think' intelligently while other animals cannot'.\n\n^(This post assumes we don't live in a world populated by p-zombies) [.](_URL_0_)",
"\"Intelligence\" the word is somewhat overloaded, so in discussions like this, I like to include the words \"sentience\" and \"sapience\". Neither exactly has a widely accepted, rigorously defined definition, but we can at least approach the concept:\n\nSentience is like 'awareness'. It separates things like goats and cats from viruses, microbes, plants, fungi, and computer programs. The definition I like most is \"maintains an internal representation of the surrounding environment, including a representation of themselves as an actor.\" Debate is still ongoing as to which insects and crustaceans fit this definition; or whether this neural phenomenon is exactly what we internally experience as subjective consciousness. One popular way to test for sentience was showing an animal a mirror with a speck on it. When the creature reaches for that position on themselves, you can tell they've recognized themselves and the representation of themselves.\n\nSapience comes from the Latin word for \"wisdom\", you can recognize it in the word for our species: homo sapien. A word (that sees more use in sci-fi than elsewhere) for 'sapient being' is \"sophont\". Fundamentally, no matter what definitions people have reached for, it means \"Smart like people is smart.\" That will forever remain what we mean by sapience, but some have tried out definitions to help us recognize it when we see it:\n\n* \"Tool use,\" (pretty widely deprecated now because there are plenty of tool using animals out there that don't seem to be capable of applying that generally, or just aren't very smart).\n* \"Capable in theory of planning for the future,\" (has problems with separating what's \"planning\" and what's \"instinct\").\n* \"Capable of learning new skills and communicating them to other sophonts in a persistent way.\" (Has problems from genetically ingrained talents for mimicry. Could perhaps be expanded with something about \"encoding via language\", but that gets into another can of worms).\n* \"Their internal map of the world includes recursion on their own map, separating out 'the world' from 'beliefs about the world',\" (one I like since for practical purposes it includes language as a subset, and is fundamental to reasoning; but isn't exclusive of whatever weird aliens we encounter that might be sapient but not social or planners—might just be my sci-fi bias showing).\n\nI'll also lob out there that I think it's mostly a matter of scale; quantity versus quality (though quality is in there too). We simply have *so many* neural interconnections (billions of neurons, each connected to several other neurons, each of them having separate weightings, creates a number of potential connections hard to express even in scientific notation; many orders of magnitude more than even animals with similar sized brains) that there is plenty of room to store all of the layers and layers of connotations and representations and future models predicting outcomes that underlie the behavior we recognize as sapience in people. We almost certainly don't have a magical brain fairy or a super special quantum gravity singularity neuron (almost synonyms :P) or whatever that presents a sharp dividing line between us and ravens or dolphins or elephants.\n\nApologies in advance for any factual errors. This isn't, like, my field of study. I'm simply an enthusiast.\n\nOh hey! I almost forgot a silly relevant quote: “If our brains were simple enough for us to understand them, we'd be so simple that we couldn't.” —Ian Stewart (according to the top google result)\n\nBut don't listen, it's ridiculous. Obviously one brain could not completely comprehend an entire other brain all at once (you could probably get a mathematical proof via pigeonhole principle). But at the very least there's time and space domain shifting. Different people study different individual parts over time, study their interactions, eventually we get a good enough picture of how the parts interact that we could build our own out of rubber bands and toothpicks. HP Lovecraft not withstanding, we have yet to find any special rule of cognition that says there's an upper limit to what people in general can mentally grasp because of the brain's structure; and if there were, the human brain is probably not above it. Look at general relativity, and then look at quantum dynamics. There was a time when maybe six people in the entire world fully grasped one, and then the other. Fast forward enough decades and parts show up in high school textbooks.",
"Here's a TED talk that convincingly puts it down to number of neurons, and the ability to cook food.\n\n_URL_0_",
"Here's the thing. Life is nothing more than a race to pass on your genes before something kills you.\n\nThere are many ways to run this race. Human intelligence is just one of them. The way you phrase your question makes it sound like our way is some kind of evolutionary prize. The thing all life should strive for.\n\nHumans have been around for a few thousand years. Nothing compared to say the humble roach who is going strong for millions of years without any of the mental complexity we're so proud of.\n\nOur intelligence is a gimmick. One that is working for us so far but a gimmick none the less. One among many for that matter.\n\nThere are many other animals that evolved intelligence, even if they do apply it differently than we do. There's even more life that had been succeeding for much longer than we have without any need for intelligence at all.\n\nSo could more intelligent species evolve? Sure it's always possible but it's a very, very specific trick in an enormous box of tricks so don't hold your breath.",
"I was just thinking the other day that maybe the thing that sets humans apart is not intelligence so much as creativity. Most animals seem quite content as long as their physical and social needs are met, yet we don't stop there. Our creativity allows us to imagine the \"impossible\" and our intelligence allows us to make it happen. I think creativity is really the basis of our dominance.",
"The definition of intelligence!!\n\nEvery animal see the world differently. \n\n\nEvery animal has the intelligence to thrive in it's own world. Whether that world is ours or not. \n\n\nIt comes down to how you define intelligence. \n\n\nA dog sees the world in terms of smell and sound, at a level of complexity we can't imagine. but when you look at the world from their perspective, a lot of times, \"woof\" is all there is to say!!",
"I saw a dolphin yesterday using a dead fish as a fleshlight, so I guess other animals can think intelligently. ",
"Ray Kurzweil currently has a TED talk about the development and future of the neocortex within mammals. Might be worth checking out",
"How is the top comment not NEOCORTEX? The advanced neocortex found in humans is credited with most of our capability to reason, think abstractly and process sensory inputs into episodic (timeline-bound) streams, and all kinds of other higher functionality. \n\nWhile we cannot know for certain whether animals that have a less developed neocortex (all mammals), or no neocortex (non-mammalian vertebrates) are able to think, the kind of intelligent thinking you're describing seems nearly impossible without the associated brain mass.\n\nThere are a handful of extinct hominids and hominoids that had very large cranial volume (H Neanderthalensis was ~1900 ccs vs modern humans at ~1200), although we can't examine their actual brains - or ask them.",
"Linguistics student here. For what I've researched, humans have a skill that no other creature has: language. We are the only species with the ability to ask questions; even other beings with language learning skills (parrots, apes, many mammals) can repeat and even answer questions, but they can't ask them. Humans have developed the unique ability to look for new knowledge in a non-empiric way, and that created a collective intelligence. Imagine it as the internet: every brain is a server, and some have certain information but not other. Our language skills are the Google we use to research in other servers. Other animals can't do this, though: at the very most they might just yell the information they possess and others will catch it, like Youtube ads, but if they want to obtain new knowledge they have to generate it themselves.\n\nOur intelligence, contrary to most species, is not what is in our brains, but what is in the brains of everyone around us. We can use it and process it, then refine it and return it improved.\n\nTL;DR Humans have the ability to ask.",
"It looks like the ability to take in and use information about the world (think) might be an \"emergent property\" of life as things get more and more complex. Emergence is all about allowing new, and interesting things to come out of older, more boring things. It looks like human brains are just a bit more complex, and able to combine a bit more of those older, boring things, and the part of the brain that's right behind our eyes, called the prefrontal cortex, seems to be the part that gives us that extra level of thinking. Other species don't have this part of the brain.\n\nAlso, it looks like we might be able to classify the ability to think using a fairly thorough system that includes the number of dimensions we can be aware of at a given time. Matter can only be aware of itself, and what it \"senses\" about it's own experience, or possibly the experience of itself and it's immediate environment (the stuff it's touching at the time). So a table or chair things only \"think\" in 0 or 1 dimension. But all living things can at least experience goals \"I want food!\" or \"RUN AWAY!\", and so living things can have two dimensions of thinking, with \"this is what it's like to be me right now\" as well as \"If I go over there, I might find food.\" or even \"when I went over there before there was food.\" Then social animals have at least third dimension, where they can think about three different experiences (perspectives) at a time. The social animals (like humans, other mammals, birds, and who knows who else!) have the ability to think of our own current experiences, our own goals, and the goals or current states as well, and combine these three sets of information into a sort of triangular shape of reality (like a map on a page). Finally, we humans, if we're lucky, eventually gain the ability to think about things in all four dimensions of reality (space and time), so we can create a fully three dimensional map of things in our minds, made up of four different individual experiences (in the past, present, or future) at a time. That's that special ability that allows us to design complex technology."
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"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxKrskPyBuI"
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encephalization",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magical_Number_Seven,_Plus_or_Minus_Two",
"http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822%2807%2902088-X"
],
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"http://www.ted.com/talks/suzana_herculano_houzel_what_is_so_special_about_the_human_brain"
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24ajsx
|
how does accents work? shouldn't you be able to reproduce the sounds you hear?
|
i am fluent in three languages without any "foreign" accent.
i only started learning english when i was 12 and i speak with a neutral accent.
how is it, let's say, so hard for someone to speak another language without a foreign accent if they can clearly hear what the words are supposed to sound like?
i've also been told by my friends from different places that when i try to say some of their words (korean, french, italian) i sound fluent and don't have any accents. so why do so many others have this problem?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/24ajsx/eli5_how_does_accents_work_shouldnt_you_be_able/
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"some people can sing , others are tone deaf. same applies to languages.",
"This is a recognized linguistic phenomenon. It's called \"code switching\" and you probably learned to do it at a young age. Over time, the brain loses its ability to distinguish subtle differences between phonemes (letter sounds), but in childhood, the flexibility of the human mind allows people to pick up different languages or accents more easily. African-Americans often become particularly good at this as they realize they must disguise the speech patterns of their ethnic group in order to succeed in a larger world.\n\nYou probably learned a broader range of phonemes than most people who only grow up hearing one language. Did you grow up in a multilingual home? ",
"You probably have a natural aptitude for this kind of thing, which most people don't. I'm British, but I speak German -- which I also only started learning at 12 -- with only a trace of an accent. However, when I started learning Russian at the age of 19, my teachers couldn't help laughing because I was speaking Russian with a German accent.\n\nThe truth is that getting an accent perfectly right isn't a simple matter of listening to sounds and repeating them. It's a very, very complicated process that's involved in generating speech. You have to very precisely control several things with absolute and split-second accuracy: your breathing, your vocal cords, your jaw, your tongue, your lips and so on. Tongue twisters are fun precisely because it is nearly impossible to get all those things co-ordinated properly: just the right string of consonants and vowels can cause real problems for most people. It takes a baby some months of practice to get the basic sounds right.\n\nYour ability to learn a new language normally diminishes after puberty, although that's not the case for everyone. It usually is, though. Learning a new sound requires learning a whole new set of \"settings\" for the various parts of speech production; once you get past a certain age, and this can be very early for most people, all the \"settings\" for the sounds in the native tongue are well established and practiced, and all the unneeded \"settings\" are forgotten about. And over time, it normally becomes increasingly difficult to learn new \"settings\"."
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3no9u3
|
What was the international drug trade like before the second world war?
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3no9u3/what_was_the_international_drug_trade_like_before/
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"text": [
"Do you mean pharmaceuticals, illegals or both? I can't provide an answer for either, just thought it might be worth clarifying",
"I don't have a degree in this, but I used to do a fair amount of research on the subject.\n\nMost of the mind-altering substances that are illegal today were legal as pharmaceuticals until after WWII. Marijuana, for instance, was made illegal in the 1930s as a result of a few different backlashes, including the Washington paper industry, the Colorado and Texas agriculture industries, and infamously a man named Harry Anslinger. This all came to a head with the Marijuana Stamp Act, which actually didn't outlaw the devil's lettuce, it just made it illegal without a stamp, which the government would not issue, making it de facto illegal. Marijuana grew pretty wildly in Mexico/Texas/Colorado and the west, so in terms of trade, there wasn't much regulation, but the 50s is where you really start to see marijuana being outlawed en masse.\n\nAlso bear in mind that the two world wars were what we saw as the end of an era of imperialism, meaning Western European involvement in places where the drugs grow (I know this could be argued either way, but essentially the world wars ended what we historically regard as the \"Imperialist Era\"). Having that said, the countries at times almost definitely oversaw the growth, production, and trade of substances like cocaine and morphine, especially in countries like France and England, who were closely involved with countries like China and India (morphine), and Spain, who was closely involved with Latin America (cocaine). While these slowly became regulated/produced exclusively as medicine/etc., it seems as though it was rather easy to produce the stuff in certain regions of the world.\n\nFrance had a problem with morphine (and cocaine) around the turn of the 20th century. It was basically passed out by doctors the same way marijuana is passed out by doctors in California today, and it was rampant among the wealthier classes. Opium dens were seen as classy establishments, not like today's crack houses. They sound pretty interesting. There are some really fun early 1900s French pulp stories/novels written about opium-based tourism and morphine abuse in that time. Regulation became much more stringent around WWII.\n\nEngland has the Opium Wars. I would look them up for all of that info, because it's a mess and I can't be trusted to explain it accurately, but it does show how the trading companies became tied up with government corruption and basically had a large portion of city-dwelling Chinese addicted to opium. \n\nSimilar story with cocaine, as in the means to produce was unregulated even after it was narrowed down to pharmaceutical status. It was also widely prescribed so even though it was grown, traded, and produced legally, it seems that certain doctors were pretty liberal with their prescriptions.\n\nAmphetamines and psychedelics were WWII-era drugs that weren't regulated until the 60s, along with the more serious regulations against heroin and cocaine.\n\nTL;DR: Drug trade was not really illicit or dangerous until after WWII and before it was largely unregulated and at times nationally-sponsored.\n\nI hope this answers your questions. I am sorry I cannot source: (1) I'm at work, (2) I write this with about 10 years of personal research and a lot of internet-digging. But Wikipedia should help a bit, too."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
1p1d1n
|
Given how important the Mediterranean and Atlantic campaigns were in WW2, why weren't aircraft carriers a big priority in the European theatre?
|
They're the way we mark naval power now and proved vital to the Pacific Theatre, with the Americans being saved by their spared carrier fleets in the early days after Pearl Harbour and the Japanese being damned when their carriers were devastated at Midway.
It seems like aircraft carriers would be a given for battles like Normandy, Crete, Sicily, and Britain. Close air support for landing troops could make or break an offensive, plus with all the famous battleship and submarine hunts a carrier full of torpedo and depth charge planes could deny the enemy hundreds of miles.
I'm looking at the [wikipedia category for this](_URL_0_) and it seems like Germany tried to build two but failed, the French left theirs in drydock and sent another to Canada, Italy never got hers off the ground, and the British were actually pretty productive but only seemed to use them for convoy escorts.
Given that most of the countries fighting had colonial empires and wars going on in close proximity to the sea, why is it that aircraft carriers seem so underrepresented?
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1p1d1n/given_how_important_the_mediterranean_and/
|
{
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"ccxu1l0"
],
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"text": [
"The logistics of land-based airpower was better in the European theater. They could build sizable bases near most major fronts, which allowed for the use of heavier aircraft than could be launched from carriers. As the fronts moved, air corps could be shuttled to forward bases and expect a reasonable amount of supply. Carriers in this environment would be more or less overwhelmed, and limited in their strike capabilities. The only need for carriers was what you discussed, convoy escort in the areas where there was no air coverage from Britain or the United States. This is where escort carrier groups came into play, as well as in the search and destroy function against U-boats. The U-boat factor might also be a critical factor in this, as the wolf-packs would likely target a fleet carrier before they targeted a small merchantman - whereas the IJN never used their I-boats for commerce interdiction, reserving them for fleet support. Better to leave the small escort carriers in the Atlantic to face this asymmetrical threat rather than a big, expensive fleet carrier.\n\nThe Pacific is where carriers were actually needed, with long expanses of ocean to cover which had few tenable airbases. Most of the islands which were fought over were unsuitable for air bases, with a few exceptions that became important in the strategic bombing campaign against Japan. Otherwise, if you were going to fight a tactical battle, you needed to bring your air power with you."
]
}
|
[] |
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:World_War_II_aircraft_carriers_of_France"
] |
[
[]
] |
|
1cisf1
|
How is it the "tribal" peoples of the world seem so connected, yet are so far apart?
|
I've been enjoying Kauai with my wife for about five days now. It's my first time in Hawaii. After coming home from our excellent Luau tonight, I find myself plagued by questions which can only be answered by experts in history. How is it that the "tribal" nature in so many cultures rings so similar to each other? The Native Americans, the Hawaiians, the Samoans, the Tongans, the Inuit, the Filipinos and many more, how is it these vastly different people are so very far from each other, chronologically and geographically, yet so similar in so many ways? I know we all sort of stem from a "prehistoric" or "tribal" heritage, but I am baffled by the similarities in these cultures which are separated by thousands of miles of land or oceans. Their skin color, their clothing, their beliefs in Gods etc. Thank you in advance for the time taken to answer this no doubt convoluted question.
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1cisf1/how_is_it_the_tribal_peoples_of_the_world_seem_so/
|
{
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"text": [
"I'm still struggling over just what about them you believe is similar to one another, if you could explain in a bit more detail please. I just have a hard time seeing very many similarities between the groups you've mentioned.",
"The real question is whether they are at all similar.\n\nTo start with I should point out that the groups you mentioned are not really similar in the ways you mentioned:\n\n > Their skin color\n\nHere's a [map of human skin colours](_URL_8_). As you can see it's mostly a function of latitude, with some traces of population history in there (e.g. the Americas are more homogeneous across latitudes than Afro-Eurasia because they were peopled less than 20,000 years ago). As it happens, most of the groups you mentioned are from the tropics and so have similar skin tones. I'd also conjecture that the tropics, being one of the main theatres of western European colonisation, are disproportionately represented in our popular image of \"tribespeople\". The Iniut, however, are an obvious outlier and indeed have [lighter skin](_URL_6_) than the other people you mentioned. If you look at other peoples that could be described as \"tribal\" in recent history there's even more of a disparity, e.g. [Sami](_URL_2_) vs. [Negritos](_URL_7_).\n\n > their clothing\n\nAgain, this varies wildly with climate and cultural norms. Restricting ourselves the tropics I suppose throws up some broad similarities (i.e. people there wear less than Europeans considered decent, 'cos it's warm) but not really, cf. [Yanomami](_URL_0_), [Masai](_URL_5_), [PNG](_URL_1_). And as you might expect looking at very different climates [blows it out of the water](_URL_4_).\n\n > beliefs in Gods\n\nIndigenous religion varies far too wildly for me to even begin to get into. There is an underlying tendency across all of humanity to have a belief in the supernatural, and for various cognitive reasons we can see certain structural similarities in these beliefs, but tribal peoples are no more similar to each other in this regard than any other ethnic group.\n\nBut of course you are right that there is a *perception* of similarity stretching across the entire world. There are thousands of disparate people that get called 'tribal', at the very least. If we take a brief look at how the word developed historically, though, we have reason to be very sceptical that it actually holds any meaning. It's rooted in the fine old European tradition of going around the world and telling other people who they are and what to do. *Tribal* people are *exotic*, but unlike the *Orientals* are also *primitive* and *savage*, needing to be *civilised*. There's no actual concern for shared traits in this category, just a vague idea that lots of people around the word are similar in their inferiority. Unfortunately this is the image and the attitude that survives, in disguised terms, in a lot of the modern popular discourse about indigenous peoples around the world.\n\nA wrinkle here is that in the mid 20th century anthropologists attempted to rehabilitate 'tribe' as precisely defined, scientific terminology referring to a particular type of sociopolitical organisation. So people can always say \"hey, I didn't mean all that racist crap, I'm just talking about the *technical definition* of 'tribe'\" – which they may well be (although just as likely they're using some hazily defined variant of it because anthropology is really bad at keeping track of what its 'technical' terminology means) but that doesn't automatically make tribe a valid category. I [wrote about the problems with the anthropological concept of tribes in a question not so long ago](_URL_3_), but the long and short of it is that it's tied up with a scheme where societies historically develop through distinct levels of social complexity and that simply isn't how history or society works. It's an over-generalisation of political systems that isn't actually reflected in reality.\n\nWhich leaves us today with a slippery, historically and ethnically problematic category that gets applied to very different people in the past and present. I don't know about you but that alone is enough to convince me to throw it out of the window. But let's press ahead and consider whether there are similarities. As I said above I don't think there is an significant similarity in purely cultural spheres like dress or religion, and certainly not in biology or genetic descent. There may be something in terms of politics and economy. The structure of tribal society is quite distinct and distinctly different from our own: rather than an almighty, bureaucratic state you have fluid, kinship based political systems; rather than capitalist markets you have various types of gift economy. Concepts like 'gift economy' or 'kinship based politics' do mask a lot of variation but no more so than concepts like 'state' and 'capitalism', so I think it's a valid category in that respect (or it was, because nobody is disconnected from the capitalist world-system these days). But bear in mind we're talking on a very, very broad level: politically and economically, tribal peoples are similar to each other in the same way that Europe and China were similar to each other in the 17th century. It's a product of them having roughly the same levels of population and social complexity and therefore roughly the same decision making and distribution problems to solve, no more.",
"I think it's more representative of the perception of \"uncivilized\" people then anything else. God/supernatural belief is the norm if you don't have many generations of scientific research to explain things. Clothing needs to be limited in tropical areas, which gives you loincloths and the like, and in colder areas, animal hide is the only material readily available for insulation.\n\nAs far as the actual people are concerned, the cultures are not similar at all, despite superficial similarities in outward appearance. Most of the mentioned groups were either the target of genocide, like the native americans, or were aggresively westernized by missionaries and the like. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"http://jillyphil.net/page2/files/yanomami-tribespeople-of--004.jpg",
"http://www.charterworld.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Image-from-the-stunning-Papua-New-Guinea-yacht-charter-destination-welder-dancers.jpg",
"http://lolaakinmade.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Photography_By_Lola-Akinmade5.jpg",
"http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1ao0ro/are_tribes_really_a_thing/c8z7oek",
"http://www.sciencepoles.org/assets/uploads/articles_images/031_or.jpg",
"http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs17/f/2007/152/0/1/Masai_Tribe_by_demi2004.jpg",
"http://drpinna.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/inuit-kids.jpg",
"http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6167/6217368679_f7a8909e68_z.jpg",
"http://anthro.palomar.edu/adapt/images/map_of_skin_color_distribution.gif"
],
[]
] |
|
moep3
|
What would happen if you were to shoot a bullet through liquid nitrogen?
|
Does the extreme heat of the bullet cause some sort of reaction? Does the bullet slow down? I'm curious about what would happen after seeing a few videos recently of liquid nitrogen acting on objects of room or neutral temperature and of normal size.
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/moep3/what_would_happen_if_you_were_to_shoot_a_bullet/
|
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"text": [
"It would depend on the distance that the bullet travels through liquid nitrogen. Having used it a few times my guess is that unless there was a lot of liquid nitrogen the bullet would just be too hot and boil all of the nitrogen as it came near it. The same thing happens if you put something near liquid nitrogen for a second, it doesn't freeze instantly. The bullet would probably pass through unaffected for the most part. Of course if the bullet passed through miles of liquid nitrogen there might be a different outcome.",
"In the case of your standard round, it would create the same result as shooting normal water. A large reason bullets do so much damage is due to [cavitation](_URL_0_) which occurs when soft tissue or liquid is displaced by the drastic change in pressure that surrounds any high velocity object. In the case of liquid, the bullet creates a large 'bubble' as it travels through the liquid that expands very rapidly and as a result you get an 'explosion' of fluid. Also, because of this 'bubble', the temperature of the bullet and liquid would most likely be unaffected to any considerable degree. Liquid nitrogen is also non-flammable so it would not ignite due to the imparted energy of the bullet.\n\nThe only added effect I can imagine from shooting liquid nitrogen would be increased boiling and evaporation due to the bullets cavitation exposing more surface area and potentially making for a larger dispersion of fluids than one would see from ordinary water. ",
"I wonder if it would \"cavitate\" through the LN. [Supercavitating torpedos](_URL_0_) create a pocket of air around themselves to lower resistance and go faster... If the LN around the bullet evaporated, might it have the same effect?",
"It would depend on the distance that the bullet travels through liquid nitrogen. Having used it a few times my guess is that unless there was a lot of liquid nitrogen the bullet would just be too hot and boil all of the nitrogen as it came near it. The same thing happens if you put something near liquid nitrogen for a second, it doesn't freeze instantly. The bullet would probably pass through unaffected for the most part. Of course if the bullet passed through miles of liquid nitrogen there might be a different outcome.",
"In the case of your standard round, it would create the same result as shooting normal water. A large reason bullets do so much damage is due to [cavitation](_URL_0_) which occurs when soft tissue or liquid is displaced by the drastic change in pressure that surrounds any high velocity object. In the case of liquid, the bullet creates a large 'bubble' as it travels through the liquid that expands very rapidly and as a result you get an 'explosion' of fluid. Also, because of this 'bubble', the temperature of the bullet and liquid would most likely be unaffected to any considerable degree. Liquid nitrogen is also non-flammable so it would not ignite due to the imparted energy of the bullet.\n\nThe only added effect I can imagine from shooting liquid nitrogen would be increased boiling and evaporation due to the bullets cavitation exposing more surface area and potentially making for a larger dispersion of fluids than one would see from ordinary water. ",
"I wonder if it would \"cavitate\" through the LN. [Supercavitating torpedos](_URL_0_) create a pocket of air around themselves to lower resistance and go faster... If the LN around the bullet evaporated, might it have the same effect?"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavitation"
],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VA-111_Shkval"
],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavitation"
],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VA-111_Shkval"
]
] |
|
548kag
|
If most of the American Indians died from disease, is it fair to say that the Europeans are responsible for their genocide?
|
If thousands of American Indians died at the hands of the Europeans and an estimated**20-70 MILLION died** due to disease, would it still be fair to say that the Europeans are responsible for their genocide?
It is the Europeans who brought over the disease that led to this genocide, yes. But it seems though that even if the Europeans came in peace the diseases that they carried would still have been deadly enough to wipe out the majority of the American Indian population.
So technically speaking, the discovery of The New World by the Europeans would have led to the disease based genocide of the American Indians regardless of whether they came in peace or not... Right? Or maybe not?
If someone could shed some light on this subject it would be greatly appreciated (Also, I apologize if the term "American Indian" is politically incorrect).
|
AskHistorians
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/548kag/if_most_of_the_american_indians_died_from_disease/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d7zwcfc"
],
"score": [
9
],
"text": [
"Hopefully someone can drop by with a direct answer for you, but meanwhile, there are a few things you can read up on. First, this FAQ section: \n\n### Did the Europeans deliberately spread disease\n\n* [Where smallpox blankets really a thing?](_URL_9_) by */u/Reedstilt*\n\n* [Did Europeans intentionally spread diseases to Native Americans? Where they even aware of their actions?](_URL_2_) by */u/400-rabbits*\n\n* [Smallpox Blankets; Were they actually distributed to Native Americans, how did the distributors pull this off without infecting themselves?](_URL_0_) by */u/dimuqratiyyah*\n\nNext up, it's important to understand what \"genocide\" means, and which types of actions fall under that definition. There is a FAQ section on this topic:\n\n### Native American Genocide\n\n* [Why do we label European discovery of the New World genocide and not conquest?](_URL_3_) by */u/AlotOfReading*\n\n* [Was there an explicit policy of genocide towards Native Americans by the US Government?](_URL_5_) by */u/elos_*\n\n* [Was the genocide of the Native Americans by westerners inevitable? What are some alternate scenarios that could have occurred? What are some random chances \\(e.g. diseases\\) that influenced this?](_URL_1_) by */u/reedstilt*\n\n* [There was military involvement by the United States Army to reduce American Bison populations as a way of starving Native Americans. Some Questions.](_URL_8_) by */u/Snapshot52*\n\n... and there have been a couple of more recent posts:\n\n* [What was the motivation behind American Indian boarding schools?](_URL_6_) - by */u/Snapshot52*\n\n* [Why is the European genocide of Native Americans and conquest of North America not viewed in the same light as Nazi Germanys attempted genocide of Jews and conquest of Europe?](_URL_4_) - by */u/Snapshot52*\n\n... and there is also a FAQ section on this subject on the /r/IndianCountry subreddit: \n\n* [The Native American Genocide](_URL_7_) "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3nv2fv/smallpox_blankets_were_they_actually_distributed/cvrpkey?context=3",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2y3a4d/was_the_genocide_of_the_native_americans_by/cp6y6lm/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1xqab9/did_europeans_intentionally_spread_diseases_to/cfdppa4",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3i67aj/why_do_we_label_european_discovery_of_the_new/cue58rn",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4sihhc/why_is_the_european_genocide_of_native_americans/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2oxrhw/was_there_an_explicit_policy_of_genocide_towards/cmrkaqh",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4qw7mf/what_was_the_motivation_behind_american_indian/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/IndianCountry/wiki/faq/genocide",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4j42ag/there_was_military_involvement_by_the_united/d33w2sx",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3qslhq/where_smallpox_blankets_really_a_thing/cwi3mda"
]
] |
|
7rl2w2
|
as you grow from an infant to a teenager how do new teeth form in your gums?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7rl2w2/eli5_as_you_grow_from_an_infant_to_a_teenager_how/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dsxp7t6"
],
"score": [
7
],
"text": [
"Those teeth also develop during the embryonic stage. They erupt at a later date. This is why child skulls can be rather [spooky](_URL_0_) looking. Well, that and it's a child's skull. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://i.pinimg.com/736x/51/ae/aa/51aeaaa315309ad6f87a592eb99811b0.jpg"
]
] |
||
70hlr5
|
what effect do north korea's missiles have on marine life?
|
[deleted]
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/70hlr5/eli5_what_effect_do_north_koreas_missiles_have_on/
|
{
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"text": [
"Pretty darn small as long as they aren't exploding. Assuming their fuel was actually burned out completely, the missiles will be a good substrate for crustaceans.",
"Not much. \n\nThe ocean is very large, missiles, not so much. Oceans typically only suffer from pollution as the result of long-term human activity. Missile sized hazardous materials are quickly diluted to save levels.",
" > I am curious about what damage all these missiles going into the ocean is doing.\n\nTo make an analogy it is like flicking spit balls into the woods and wondering if the deer will possibly be able to cope."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
2elquk
|
how come scientists haven't created a device that notices a heart attack and sends a distress signal to the authorties?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2elquk/eli5_how_come_scientists_havent_created_a_device/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ck0owld",
"ck0oxui"
],
"score": [
5,
2
],
"text": [
"They have. It's a little bulky and uncomfortable so you wouldn't wear one if you're healthy.",
"They do have these features in most new heart monitors / pace makers. \nA friend of mines' father has a pretty cool one in his pacemaker that also e-mails his cardiologist daily updates."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
2mzkil
|
Does outside noises and other stimuli impact the dreams I have?
|
For example does noise from the neighbors or my dog chewing a bone all night make a difference in my dreams?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2mzkil/does_outside_noises_and_other_stimuli_impact_the/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cm97kaj"
],
"score": [
7
],
"text": [
"Yup.\n\nIn [this study](_URL_0_), they randomly spoke names as people were sleeping, which were then incorporated into those dreams.\n\nEven other kinds of stimuli will work. [Dement and Wolpert](_URL_3_) were able to successfully incorporate water and light into people's dreams.\n\nAnd then there's [this study](_URL_2_). What they did here was to present a mild electrical stimulus to the median nerve as the participants slept. The stimulation would cause the person's finger to move by activating the nerve (and provide feedback to the brain of the movement, but not the motor plan to cause the movement). Even this type of stimulus was incorporated into the participants' dreams.\n\nJust a note that none of these techniques work 100% of the time, and they were all induced during [REM sleep](_URL_1_)."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/109/463/722.short",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_eye_movement_sleep",
"http://archpsyc.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=489984",
"http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/xge/55/6/543/"
]
] |
|
kevwk
|
Are there any societies (past or present) that practice funeral preparations other than burial or cremation?
|
From my limited knowledge I can only think of 2 ways to go...burial in some sort of casket/tomb, or burning the body. Have any other cultures practiced a different form of returning our bodies to the earth.
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/kevwk/are_there_any_societies_past_or_present_that/
|
{
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"c2jtd6b"
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"score": [
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3,
14,
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6,
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14,
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"text": [
"Here's [one](_URL_0_).\n\nEdit: And a few [more](_URL_1_).",
"_URL_0_\n\nYou may also want to read \n\n\"Senilicide and Invalidicide among the Eskimos\" by Rolf Kjellström in Folk: Dansk etnografisk tidsskrift, volume 16/17 (1974/75)",
"[_URL_1_](_URL_1_)\n\nThink cannibalism, burial at sea, there are plenty of variations on burial as well. I think the most interesting is the use of scavenger animals for disposal: \n\n**Warning of somewhat graphic pictures @ bottom of page:**\n[_URL_0_](_URL_0_)\n\n",
"well, mummification is an obvious one. and yes, the Egyptians famously buried theirs, but some mummies in other places (Indonesia, Tibet) are kept topside in jars.\n\nAlso, cannibalism or carnivore-ism? (Certain tribes leave their dead to be eaten by wildlife)",
"Here's [one](_URL_0_).\n\nEdit: And a few [more](_URL_1_).",
"_URL_0_\n\nYou may also want to read \n\n\"Senilicide and Invalidicide among the Eskimos\" by Rolf Kjellström in Folk: Dansk etnografisk tidsskrift, volume 16/17 (1974/75)",
"[_URL_1_](_URL_1_)\n\nThink cannibalism, burial at sea, there are plenty of variations on burial as well. I think the most interesting is the use of scavenger animals for disposal: \n\n**Warning of somewhat graphic pictures @ bottom of page:**\n[_URL_0_](_URL_0_)\n\n",
"well, mummification is an obvious one. and yes, the Egyptians famously buried theirs, but some mummies in other places (Indonesia, Tibet) are kept topside in jars.\n\nAlso, cannibalism or carnivore-ism? (Certain tribes leave their dead to be eaten by wildlife)"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_burial",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burial#Alternatives_to_burial"
],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dakhma"
],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_burial",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funeral#Final_disposition_of_the_dead"
],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_burial",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burial#Alternatives_to_burial"
],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dakhma"
],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_burial",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funeral#Final_disposition_of_the_dead"
],
[]
] |
|
11iw8i
|
What is, in your opinion, the best thing the CIA has done? What is the worst thing?
|
What are the best books about the history of the CIA? I am looking for books that look unflinchingly at the organization, particularly the CIA's role in South America, the Middle East and here in the United States.
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/11iw8i/what_is_in_your_opinion_the_best_thing_the_cia/
|
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"By best, do you mean the \"most good\" in the sense of moral, or the cleverest, most impressive? Because both lists are pretty short, the CIA has spent most of its history being remarkably inept, at least when it comes to sexy humint stuff.",
"My favorite operation they pulled is the one that [new movie Argo](_URL_0_) is going to be based off of. Slip into Iran pretending to be film makers. Grab a couple of Americans who escaped the embassy. And then walk right on to the plane and get out of Dodge.\n\nEdit: Worst thing is arguably Operation Ajax. Without installing an unpopular Shah as a puppet leader the whole Iranian Revolution may have been avoided, the embassy wouldn't have been stormed, Eagle Claw wouldn't have been the unmitigated failure that it was, and we wouldn't be talking about a nuclear armed Iran in this election. Basically a 1959 coup that's still messing things up fifty years later. \n\nBut that's a big IF. I don't know enough about Iranian history to say if the whole revolution would have been staved off if they were to keep the leader they elected originally, but the coup is commonly cited as one of the major reasons anti-Americanism took off at that time period over there.\n",
"They supposedly helped the Dalai Lama escape from Tibet into India, but that was only after they provoked a disastrous guerrilla war against China.\n\nThe real answer is that the public only hears about CIA operations when they fuck up or cause some sort of disaster. All the \"greatest hits\" of the CIA are kept secret. You can make a list a mile long of their worst endeavors, but if the CIA does the job right, nobody ever finds out when they \"win\""
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/longform/2012/10/argo_blackwater_and_el_americano_great_stories_about_the_cia.html"
],
[]
] |
|
jhu5y
|
can someone explain to me what the spectrum is and how we are using it (4g wireless and stuff)?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/jhu5y/can_someone_explain_to_me_what_the_spectrum_is/
|
{
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"text": [
"Spectrum is “the range of electromagnetic radiation from the highest frequency to the lowest. It encompasses everything from X-rays and gamma rays to visible light and radio waves”\n\nit is measured in hertz which is the SI unit of frequency defined as the number of cycles per second of a periodic phenomenon.\n\nA radio wave of 3 hertz abbreviated 3Hz would repeat its wave 3 times every second. \n\nAll items on the spectrum travel at the speed of light.\n\nThe physics of spectrum play a part in the type of services that can be offered. For example the lower the frequency, generally the farther the signal will travel and the better it can penetrate obstacles. A good thing when we are talking about most wireless devices, particularly those that are mobile. Cell phones, radios, broadcasting, and wireless communications operate in a relatively low radio frequency. Lower frequencies also mean cheaper network build-outs and infrastructure. Thus, most of the commercial activity takes place from 30 MHz to 3 GHz. \nFor reference \n10^6 Hz = 1,000,000 hertz = MHz pronounced megahertz\n10^9 Hz = 1,000,000,000 hertz = GHz \tgigahertz\n\nWho owns the Spectrum?\n\nTechnically, the U.S. airwaves (bands) are a publicly owned resource. Like our national parks however, they are regulated by government namely the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The FCC oversees and grants licenses for companies and or entities to use specific bands/chunks in specific geographic areas. They also regulated in how it may be used.\n\nIn years past, the government distributed licenses through a lottery system. But obviously with the rise of cellular/digital services and ever increasing demands the spectrum and more specifically bands became more valuable. Thus many of those recipients started selling their licenses for millions.\n\nEventually the government caught on and in 1993, Congress authorized the FCC to sell parts of the radio spectrum. As the communications industry grew, so did the demand for spectrum. Remember, that only a small portion of the spectrum is viable for use, particularly from a commercial perspective. The demand for spectrum far exceeds availability. \n\nto see what a specific frequency band is used for and who owns the rights check out this site\n_URL_0_",
"Spectrum is “the range of electromagnetic radiation from the highest frequency to the lowest. It encompasses everything from X-rays and gamma rays to visible light and radio waves”\n\nit is measured in hertz which is the SI unit of frequency defined as the number of cycles per second of a periodic phenomenon.\n\nA radio wave of 3 hertz abbreviated 3Hz would repeat its wave 3 times every second. \n\nAll items on the spectrum travel at the speed of light.\n\nThe physics of spectrum play a part in the type of services that can be offered. For example the lower the frequency, generally the farther the signal will travel and the better it can penetrate obstacles. A good thing when we are talking about most wireless devices, particularly those that are mobile. Cell phones, radios, broadcasting, and wireless communications operate in a relatively low radio frequency. Lower frequencies also mean cheaper network build-outs and infrastructure. Thus, most of the commercial activity takes place from 30 MHz to 3 GHz. \nFor reference \n10^6 Hz = 1,000,000 hertz = MHz pronounced megahertz\n10^9 Hz = 1,000,000,000 hertz = GHz \tgigahertz\n\nWho owns the Spectrum?\n\nTechnically, the U.S. airwaves (bands) are a publicly owned resource. Like our national parks however, they are regulated by government namely the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The FCC oversees and grants licenses for companies and or entities to use specific bands/chunks in specific geographic areas. They also regulated in how it may be used.\n\nIn years past, the government distributed licenses through a lottery system. But obviously with the rise of cellular/digital services and ever increasing demands the spectrum and more specifically bands became more valuable. Thus many of those recipients started selling their licenses for millions.\n\nEventually the government caught on and in 1993, Congress authorized the FCC to sell parts of the radio spectrum. As the communications industry grew, so did the demand for spectrum. Remember, that only a small portion of the spectrum is viable for use, particularly from a commercial perspective. The demand for spectrum far exceeds availability. \n\nto see what a specific frequency band is used for and who owns the rights check out this site\n_URL_0_"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://reboot.fcc.gov/reform/systems/spectrum-dashboard"
],
[
"http://reboot.fcc.gov/reform/systems/spectrum-dashboard"
]
] |
||
2tvpas
|
How do freshwater clams get to a man-made lake when there are no other larger bodies of water nearby?
|
I live by a large pond that my dad had made about 20 years ago. There aren't really any other notable bodies of water around. Last summer I found a really big clam in the pond. How did it get there?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2tvpas/how_do_freshwater_clams_get_to_a_manmade_lake/
|
{
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"co3fi3d"
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"text": [
"I believe waterfowl (ducks, etc.) can transport all sorts of things on their feet and feathers.\n\nAlso, don't underestimate the ability of the wind to blow around propagules or adults of all sorts of living things - as the movie Magnolia taught us, rains of frogs are [a real thing that happens](_URL_0_). Clam larvae are quite tiny, and 20 years of seasonal storms is a long time with a lot of potential for random events to seed even isolated places with life."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_of_animals"
]
] |
|
1kqqgh
|
why is the scotus chosen by the senate and president and not the american people?
|
Aren't most matters brought before the court about issues that arise when the senate and pres can't agree on something? Why wouldn't the American people elect these positions since they are making final judgement calls on important issues pertaining to everyday life? BONUS QUESTION: Why are these positions life-long when others have 2 or 4 year term limits?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1kqqgh/why_is_the_scotus_chosen_by_the_senate_and/
|
{
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"Because the justices of the Supreme Court are the highest justices in the land. Once they decide something, it's *decided,* and that decision can only be modified or reversed by the justices themselves. That means their jobs have very high stakes. We insulate them from the political process by making them appointed rather than elected (their appointments, of course, are made and confirmed by elected representatives) and by appointing them for life. That means they don't have to *care* what the people want and don't want. They're free to make decisions based on the law and on fundamental principles, even if those decisions are unpopular.",
" > Aren't most matters brought before the court about issues that arise when the senate and pres can't agree on something? \n\nNot that I know of. Most of the matters before the Supreme Court arise because a law - written and ratified by the Congress and President - is challenged as unconstitutional.\n\n > Why wouldn't the American people elect these positions since they are making final judgement calls on important issues pertaining to everyday life? \n\nBecause they're making final judgment calls on important issues pertaining to everyday life. Specifically, issues of a constitutional dimension, which is to say issues involving the most immutable set of rights that exist in our nation. Their allegiance is to the law - not the people.\n\nSCOTUS is a countermajoritarian authority. Its purpose is to uphold the rule of law, *not* the will of the people - that's what Congress is for. Consequently, it wouldn't make sense to have them elected. The people would just elect judges to serve their own political desires, as they do their representatives. It would be like a stadium of fans electing referees for a football game. It defeats the purpose of having a neutral, objective authority decide disputes.\n\n > Why are these positions life-long when others have 2 or 4 year term limits?\n\nThe rule of law needs to be predictable and consistent. If you have a high turnover rate in the judiciary, you'll have numerous, disparate opinions among your justices, and risk having unpredictable, inconsistent rulings.\n\nFurthermore, if a justice is up for reappointment/relection regularly, that might distort his/her decisions. If she wants to keep her job, it's in her best interest to make rulings favorable to a certain political party or constituency ahead of an election cycle. Which again defeats the purpose. Lifetime appointments pretty much remove self-interest from the decision making process.\n\nI know several states elect various members of the judiciary - even supreme court justices in some cases. It's an inferior method, in my opinion, for the reasons stated above. Source: I practice law in such a state."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
63tl9x
|
the senate "nuclear option" today. what this mean?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/63tl9x/eli5the_senate_nuclear_option_today_what_this_mean/
|
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"It is a rules change that allows a simple majority to end debate regarding the confirmation of Supreme Court Nominees.\n\nThe Status Quo is that any motion put before the US senate is subject to indefinite debate until a \"cloture\" vote is passed that ends debate and allows the motion (in this case: the motion is confirm the appointment of Gorsuch to the SCotUS) to come up for a formal yay/nay vote. \n\nThe threshhold for a cloture vote has been 60 votes, rather than a simple majority. Because Cloture *must* be passed prior to the formal yay/nay vote, it effectively allowed the minority party (democrats in this case) to block any given motion as long as they have at least 41 votes against cloture.\n\nThe new rules would allow a Cloture vote to pass with only simple majority, effectively gutting the minority party's ability to block the motion.",
"Current System: The Senate is made up of 100 members. They debate about the judge nominated for the Supreme Court until 60 of them agree that it's time to vote. \n\nNuclear Option: If invoked, only 51 senators need to agree it's time to vote in order to force debate to end and voting to begin.\n\nImmediate Relevance: Democrats don't want a vote on the current Supreme Court nominee because it looks like he will probably be approved if a vote occurs. Under the current system, they can prevent the vote from occurring. ",
"In addition to what's been said, because the Democrats employed the nuclear option previously to confirm Obama's cabinet nominations, this is kinda the last filibuster left in place. They took the chance because they were absolutely positive a Democrat would win in 2016. They didn't, though, and now the Democrats find themselves in a position (of their own making) to lose the legislative filibuster 4 months into Trump's term. ",
"You're 8 years old at a kids party with 99 other 8 yro children and a decision has to be made about what kinds of games, boy games or girl games, everyone must play. While parties usually have a near even mix of boys and girls, some parties have more boys than girls, while others have more girls than boys. This sometimes leads to cases where 51 boys force 49 girls to play \"War\" and others where 51 girls force 49 boys to play \"Tea Party\". So your community has a party rule that 60 children at the party must agree on the game, which causes more mutually acceptable games like \"Tag\" to be picked a lot more often.\n\nWhichever group has the majority of members has the ability to change the party rules. Changing this particular rule that functionally requires at least some of the opposite group to agree on the game choice is called the \"nuclear option\" because, like a nuclear bomb you cannot beat it. Whenever there are 51 boys at the party the game is going to be \"War\" and whenever there are 51 girls the game will be \"Tea Party\". This means no more \"Tag\", or \"Red Rover\", or other compromise games.\n\n/u/Sand_Trout has an excellent reply using a more formal terminology [here in the thread](_URL_0_)",
"Generally speaking you need a simple majority to confirm a Supreme Court nominee or to pass legislation Congress, including the Senate. However, there are procedural moves that can be used to bring about debate and prevent a vote. These are generally called filibusters. Because Republicans and Democrats can't get along it's common for \"controversial\" decisions and legislation to go through this filibuster process which basically prevents a vote. You can only end the filibuster in the Senate through a process called cloture which basically means you need 60 senators to agree to end the filibuster/debate so you can move on to a vote.\n\nWhen Harry Reid was running the Senate for the Democrats the Republicans filibustered a lot to prevent their proposed legislation from going through. This is largely because our political system has become so toxic that the party in charge doesn't really work with the other party anymore. They just ram through their own policy proposals which goes against the opposing party's views and the views of their constituents so they can't support the legislation/processes of the majority party.\n\nHarry Reid had enough of Republicans forcing them to constantly get 60 votes to move forward with Senate matters so he got a simple majority to change the rules of the Senate to make it so that basically anything could be voted on with a simple majority, except Supreme Court nominations meaning they'd only need 51 votes and since they had 51+ Democrat senators they could do whatever they wanted. They purposely left off Supreme Court nominations because this move was highly controversial at the time and to be quite honest, Democrats didn't need to. Republicans *at that point* were actually more reasonable. For example, one of Obama's nominees was Justice Sotomayor. The Senate confirmed her despite her history of saying things like she hoped that being a latina female made her a better judge than a white male. The Republicans didn't filibuster her and she only needed 51 votes to be confirmed. She was easily confirmed with 68 votes and some Republicans actually voted for her.\n\nIn the final year of Obama's presidency we had a vacancy on the Supreme Court and Obama nominated Garland for the position. By this point Obamacare Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) had passed and due to that the Democrats lost their majorities and their power in Congress to the Republicans. So Republicans said they would not hold any further judicial nominees during an election year and they would allow the outcome of the election to determine any judicial appointments. This isn't necessarily uncommon, in fact when Obama's vice president Joe Biden ran the Senate he withheld hearings and votes on judicial nominees far more often and for far longer than Republicans did with Garland during an election year citing the same reasons as Republicans.\n\nThis miffed Democrats a bit, but they didn't care too much because they were all extremely confident that Hillary Clinton was going to win the presidency and when she did she'd either push for Garland or put someone more liberal or an activist on the Supreme Court and then they could rub it in the faces of the Republicans for being obstinate. \n\nBut then the unthinkable happened for Democrats. Donald Trump won the election. Garland's nomination was basically rescinded and Trump would get to nominate a \"conservative\" judge to the Supreme Court. Now Democrats were furious. They feel as though the Republicans \"stole\" the nomination from them because the vacancy occurred when a Democrat was president and now a Republican is going to get to fill the role. They have been demanding Garland be confirmed by the Senate and say they will filibuster any Trump nominee. Republicans don't have 60 seats in the Senate which means they can't bring cloture end the filibuster. So today, Republicans took what Reid did the final step and made it so that the rules he put in place also extend to Supreme Court nominees. This means that Democrats can no longer filibuster Trump's choice for the court and Republicans shouldn't have a problem confirming him with a simple majority of 51 votes.\n\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
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[],
[],
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],
[]
] |
||
477k9d
|
what is the problem with marijuana?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/477k9d/eli5_what_is_the_problem_with_marijuana/
|
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"My knowledge of this is a bit dated, but the initial criminalization of drugs was part of racist efforts across the country. Opium was criminalized to attack the Chinese. Marijuana to attack blacks and Mexicans. Racists created the false narrative a kin to the lotus eaters. Industries that saw hemp as a threat to their own backed some of these initiatives. The population at large was lied to heavily by the government, press, and so on so long they believed these lies. The fuss is based on lies the public has swallowed. As those lies and myths are debunked in this modern era we are seeing laws changing.\n\nTLDR: racism.",
"really only old people are against pot. Everyone else either smokes or doesn't care much either way. the problem is that old people VOTE. In Florida we had a vote to legalize medical Marijuana we ended up with 57% yes but it still didn't pass because we needed a 60% majority....sigh...please vote..",
"in 1930, Harry J. Anslinger was named as the first director of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. He was in charge of the war on opiates and cocaine. He realized that he would have more power and a better career if he had more drugs to \"fight\". He popularized the idea that marijuana was dangerous and led to crazed behavior and crime sprees. The press, public and Congress bought what he was selling and marijuana was made illegal at the federal level in the absence of any scientific research or findings - it was later discovered that most if not all of Anslinger's \"reefer madness\" stories were fictional or grossly distorted.\n",
"I think there's more than one. \n\nNylon and paper industry didn't want competition from hemp, which is now outdated because we've found ways to produce these things cheaper than we ever would with hemp.\n\nThe pharmaceutical industry worries about a potentially free to produce drug that can alleviate headaches, nausea, aches and pains. There are hundreds of different drugs that are sold for these things. Then you also have the occasional scientific study that says marijuana can help with more serious things like cancer and PTSD. There's a lot of money to be made from cancer treatment.\n\nThe alcohol/tobacco industry doesn't want to see a cheap drug replace the ones they are peddling.\n\nPolice departments and police unions- marijuana accounts for a LOT of crime. That's more police jobs, more funding (both federal and from civil forfeiture). If marijuana were legalized many police might be out of a job.\n\nPrivate prisons- like I said, marijuana accounts for a lot of crime. Prisons get money from the state for each prisoner, not to mention free labor from the inmates. They lobby to make sure that there are lots of laws, and that the state is tough on drug dealers and traffickers.\n\nPoliticians like to have high levels of incarceration when they're in office because many Americans think they are \"tough on crime\" and \"getting the bad guys\"\n\nSo pretty much everybody that matters in the US doesn't want to see legalization. Which is why I think the legalization efforts in many states are so interesting because you can see democracy in America at work. It's a triumph of the people over corporate power.",
"Because marijuana is used by hippies and hippies are Communists and Communists are Nazis. That means marijuana is Nazis. Jeeze, how hard is that to understand?",
"Nothing. It's just cultural bias based on ignorance.\n\nAs a society, if you're banning drugs, you need to ban all of them on principle. I could accept that. But devilizing marijuana and other drugs while selling cheap alcohol is so hypocritical, I can just laugh.\n\nAtm, I stand that all drugs should be legalized or at least decriminalized. If we accept alcohol and trust in each other to consume it moderately, then we should do it for everything else...because, lets face it, alcohol is the most dangerous drug out there.",
"All of these answers that focus on U.S. companies and industries seem to overlook the fact that marijuana is widely illegal the world over, too. American influence is strong, but not THAT strong. Purely American-focused answers can't possibly be correct.\n\nSo let's consider a more basic answer: generally speaking, substances that alter your consciousness and behavior for solely recreational purposes--i.e., \"get you high\"---are illegal. Society has historically disapproved of such substances and has used a variety of excuses, some valid, some not, to ban them. Among those excuses is the idea that people with altered consciousnesses can be dangerous to themselves or others. It's uncertain to me whether this \"utilitarian\" excuse is at the root of criminalization or whether it's whether it's more of a \"moral\" thing.\n\n\"What about alcohol?\" is the common retort. Fair enough. But alcohol has a much longer, deep-in-the-race history than marijuana. And even then, alcohol is highly regulated in most countries, outright illegal in some, and has gone through periods of heavy disapproval even in places where it has been legal-- again either because of the \"moral\" issue or the \"dangerous\" issue.\n\n\"But marijuana isn't solely recreational--it's also medical!\" Again, fair point, but medical drugs are also highly regulated and generally speaking we don't legalize them for recreational purposes. For years, people argued and still argue that there are plenty of substitutes for marijuana in medicine, so it's had a harder time gaining traction than, say, opium in medical usage.\n\nTL;DR: Marijuana makes you high, and historically societies have disapproved of that either because they find it immoral or dangerous.",
"In my opinion, you can become dependent on marijuana. When you get high and do things, you just want to do things high simply because its pleasurable. Also, if you're experiencing failure or negative emotions, marijuana provides an escape from all of it. Smoking marijuana doesn't really solve the problem, its still there.\n\nSource: I'm a pothead.",
"Stan: I've been told a lot of things about pot, but I've come to find out a lot of those things aren't true! So I don't know what to believe!\n\nRandy: Well, Stan, the truth is marijuana probably isn't gonna make you kill people, and it most likely isn't gonna fund terrorism, but, well son, pot makes you feel fine with being bored, and it's when you're bored that you should be learning some new skill or discovering some new science or being creative. If you smoke pot you may grow up to find out that you aren't good at anything."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
3unspb
|
why is notre dame not in a conference?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3unspb/eli5_why_is_notre_dame_not_in_a_conference/
|
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"Money - they are a 'national team' with a tremendous tradition - they cut their own deals and don't need to share with others - ",
"Supposedly it's because they have a contract with NBC for television rights on their games. Every analyst who has commented on this has stated that they could include wording with any conference to allow whatever current deal they have to be completed. Basically they feel they are above needing a conference affiliation but in the long run this will hurt them. Your average football fan believes they should be penalized and not allowed into any form of playoffs system until they are competing at the same level with the same expectations as every other team in the nation.\n",
"Most of there sports are in national conferences. The main exemption is football. Most schools football programs join a conference for financial gain, but notre dame is a completely different animal. Most conferences have a deal where they share all of the money that the teams make every year with each other, but Notre Dame makes so much more money than any other team, so if they did join one they would lose millions of dollars each year splitting there revenue with ten other teams."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
edfu0y
|
How proton - proton fusion doesn't violate law of conservation of mass?
|
According to [this diagram](_URL_0_), first step of the proton-proton chain reaction is two protons fusing together - one of them transforming into a neutron - forming deuterium.
But a neutron is more massive than a proton so deuterium is more massive than two protons which means that we end up with more mass than we started with. On top of that during the reaction a positron and a gamma photon are created - so we have even less mass to transform one of the protons into a neutron.
So am I missing something? Or is the diagram wrong?
EDIT: not gamma photon but neutrino.
|
askscience
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/edfu0y/how_proton_proton_fusion_doesnt_violate_law_of/
|
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" > so deuterium is more massive than two protons\n\nThis is not true. The deuteron is a bound state, so there is some binding energy which contributes negatively to the total mass of the nucleus.",
"2 protons fusing at rest leaves about 400 keV to play with.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nHowever, you can certainly create heavier particles than the initial state. Take e^(+)e^(−)→Z^0 for example, which was done routinely at the LEP collider in the early 90s. It was possible because the colliding electrons had about 45 GeV of energy each. The simple sum of individual masses of bodies doesn't matter, what does matter is the total mass of the system as a whole. Its conservation is a natural consequence of the conservation of energy and momentum and the relation E^2 = p^(2)c^(2) + m^(2)c^(4).\n\nSometimes this is called \"invariant mass\", but it's nothing special: the mass of regular matter is mostly due to QCD binding energy and is much larger than the sum of the individual quark and electron masses."
]
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[] |
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton%E2%80%93proton_chain_reaction#/media/File:Fusion_in_the_Sun.svg"
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[
[],
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]
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|
3251ve
|
Why are there so many more casualties in Ancient/Classical Chinese battles than in other cultures?
|
I was reading about the warring states period and some of the battles involved literally tens of thousands of people dying in them over the course of a couple of weeks.
_URL_0_
|
AskHistorians
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3251ve/why_are_there_so_many_more_casualties_in/
|
{
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],
"text": [
"Asia, especially India and China, always had much higher population numbers than the rest of the world. Around the year zero, Asia is estimated to have 141mil. inhabitants compared to 28mil. in Europe. That might partially explain the difference in numbers. \n\nAlso the geography of China with its central loam plateau might facilitate bigger armies as it is flat and fertile."
]
}
|
[] |
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Changping"
] |
[
[]
] |
|
30jsau
|
if distracted driving is being cracked down upon more and more then how are car companies allowed to add big, distracting touch screen systems?
|
And further more, what's up with all these accident prevention warning systems and proximity censors? It's like they're implying that it's ok to be a shitty driver because now you don't have to pay attention as much.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/30jsau/eli5_if_distracted_driving_is_being_cracked_down/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cpt34o2",
"cpt3x7a",
"cpt4ssz"
],
"score": [
2,
6,
3
],
"text": [
"Those are built-in, hands-free devices. Sure, they're just as distracting but they're hands-free!",
"I think the difference between the touchscreens in cars and what people are doing to get in accidents is the amount of attention required. Those touchscreens are primarily used for gps (which has voice directions) and pandora, which requires at most a few swipes if you're switching songs, if you're good enough about it you wouldn't even need to take your eyes off the road. \n\nThe problem with distracted driving is that it's not only taking your eyes off the road, but your hands, and to some extent, your mind. Taking your hand off the wheel to reply to a text, even if the response is short means you're focusing on that reply instead of what's going on, in turn slowing down your reaction time to put your hands back on the wheel and swerve/do whatever you need to avoid an accident. Think of the touchscreens as knobs on the radio or the AC. If you can fiddle while still keeping your attention, you're fine.\n\nAs for the accident prevention, I think you're looking at it from the wrong mindset. It's not that it's saying that we're inherently just gonna screw up, so we might as well get told in advance, it's that as it is there are still some gaps in which we won't be able to detect when there's danger. Humans have blindspots, censors do not, therefore if there's a method to detect danger that we might have missed, it's an improvement, not an enabler.",
"What I don't understand is how it is perfectly legal for me to be holding a folded up piece of paper with Google Maps directions printed out on it, but illegal for me to be holding my phone with the same directions displayed."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
a5m2ka
|
how does paper chromatography work?
|
In my science book it explains how to separate dyes in a sample of ink using chromatography but it doesn’t explain why it works. I ended up losing marks in my last exam because of this lack of detail.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a5m2ka/elif_how_does_paper_chromatography_work/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ebnk3qq",
"ebnke10"
],
"score": [
2,
3
],
"text": [
"Paper chromatography work by selection size. Lighter dyes that are soluble get carried further up the paper by the solvent. So the heavier dyes stay near the origin point and the lighter ones go further. ",
"Because the different dyes have different affinity's for both the water (that would carry the dye with it) and the paper (that does not move the dye).\n\nThis makes it so that the dyes that like to be on the paper more than in the water (higher affinity for paper) will move slower across the paper. While dyes that like to be in the water more (higher affinity for water) move faster across the paper.\n\nThe difference in this so called migration speed causes the different dyes to separate."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
c1jx1v
|
how are leds brighter and more powerful, yet use so little energy?
|
Ex: Police Lightbars, they're so bright but use so little of the cars battery. Much less than the classic rotating lights.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c1jx1v/eli5_how_are_leds_brighter_and_more_powerful_yet/
|
{
"a_id": [
"erdplsc",
"erdpv38",
"erdswy5"
],
"score": [
5,
26,
2
],
"text": [
"Old style lights work by heating up a something so it glows, giving off light. But glowing things will always give off most of their light as infra red, or, if you make it really, really hot, ultra-violet. Visible light makes up a small part of the spectrum of lights, so you can't make these type of lights efficient.\n\nEfficient lights, like fluorescent, sodium or mercury vapour, metal halide, high intensity discharge or LED, use methods other than just 'something really hot', to create only light that is in the visible spectrum. When you look at it this way, even these light sources are not really that efficient - turning less than 50% of the energy they use into light. But this handily beats 'hot thing' lights which are 5 to 10% efficient.",
"You know a lot of light is invisible, right? Infrared, for example. You can't see it, but you can feel it on your skin with your eyes closed when you're standing near something really hot.\n\nTake two lightbulbs that consume exactly the same amount of electric energy, but one produces only visible light, and the other products half visible light and half invisible. The second one will look much dimmer.\n\nThe old-timey incandescent filament lightbulbs, the ones that burn your fingers to the touch, they produce mostly infrareds! To the tune of 90%!\n\nThat's why so much progress has been done. Because there was so much room for progress.\n\nLED lights produce mostly visible light. Do this is it. There won't be much progress anymore. We're there. We can focus on other things now. Cool, hey?",
"Incandescent lights work by black body radiation. Essentially, they get a piece of metal hot. Some heat gets radiated as energy. The hotter (and more energetic) the object, the more energy it radiates, and the more of that energy gets radiated at higher frequencies. So if you pump enough electrons into a piece of metal, it'll get hot enough to glow in the visible light spectrum. But you're wasting a bunch of energy by radiating in the infrared spectrum as well.\n\nLEDs emit light in a much more straightforward manner. Basically, when electrons need to lose energy, they jettison it in the form of a photon. LED materials have \"electron holes\" of a certain \"depth\" so that electrons that \"fall down\" the hole emit energy in the desired wavelength. You're basically directly converting electricity into the wavelength of light you want, instead of heating up metal to get light as a side effect.\n\nLight gets emitted by electrons when they drop energy levels, emitting a packet of energy."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
3csi7i
|
Can you burn pure oxygen if no other atoms were around?
|
If I filled a vacuumed box with pure O2 gas and ignited it, what will the products of the combustion be, assuming the molecules composing the box do not react.
My (limited) knowledge in chemistry tells me that the product of a pure combustion is CO2 and H2O but what if the carbons and hydrogens are not present?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/3csi7i/can_you_burn_pure_oxygen_if_no_other_atoms_were/
|
{
"a_id": [
"csyimqp",
"csylghd"
],
"score": [
36,
4
],
"text": [
"oxygen does not burn. combustion is the chemical reaction of a fuel, hydrocarbons, and oxygen. if oxygen has nothing to react with then there can be bo combustion. H20 and CO2 are the result of perfect hydrocarbon combustion. 1 molecule of HC plus 2 molecules of O2 produce H2O and CO2",
"Combustion (burning) requires three things: A fuel, an oxidizer, and an ignition source. \n\nIf all you have is oxygen, then you don't have any fuel source (commonly hydrocarbons), and thus, no combustion reaction can take place. \n\nWith that being said, however, you may have minor amounts of ionization depending on the type of ignition source (spark, etc)- but that is not combustion. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
n7fwg
|
(Possible dumb question) If water boils at 100 degrees C, why do clothes dry on my radiators when they are nowhere near that temperature?
|
askscience
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/n7fwg/possible_dumb_question_if_water_boils_at_100/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c36ua32",
"c36uaqe",
"c36ubtx",
"c36uc7r",
"c36ua32",
"c36uaqe",
"c36ubtx",
"c36uc7r"
],
"score": [
9,
2,
3,
2,
9,
2,
3,
2
],
"text": [
"It boils at 100c at sea level just to be pedantic. But evaporation (the process making your clothes dry) is a factor of heat, atmospheric pressure (humidity) and air movement. You do not need to boil the water off for evaporation (if that was the case we'd have no rain). Your clothes dry on the radiator because;\n\n- Temperature, the hotter the more kinetic energy in the water molecules and they will evaporate faster.\n- Flow rate of relatively cooler air over it (momentum transfer and turbulence).\n- Surface area, so spread out the clothes and allow more molecules contact with air flow.\n\nReferences;\n\n- _URL_1_\n- _URL_2_\n- _URL_0_",
"It's evaporation, not boiling. Good question though: there's no such thing as a dumb question, you learn by asking.\n\nRelatively new here so here's the wiki link, I don't know how to put it in text form: _URL_0_\n\nHere is a direct link that's specific to your question:\n_URL_0_#Applications\n\nBasically what happens is that the molecules of water are moving. Not quite as fast as when they're in a gaseous state, but faster than a solid state. Every once in awhile, a molecule or two will go up to the surface and escape the main body of liquid. This is the process of evaporation. When you add heat to that equation, the molecules speed up and more and more molecules \"jump out\" of the body of liquid. This explains why puddles dry faster when it's warmer out, but notice how puddles still evaporate when it's cold.\n\nThe distinction between boiling and evaporation is that evaporation occurs only at the top of the liquid, whereas boiling occurs throughout the liquid. This is why you see bubbles form when you boil water.\n\nEDIT: Grammar",
"Boiling happens when all the molecules of water have enough energy to become gas (at 100^o C, give or take a bit for air pressure). \n\nEvaporation happens when a single molecule has enough energy to become a gas. As molecules bump around some get slowed down and some get sped up. Sometimes the faster moving molecule is on the surface, so before it can collide again and likely lose that speed it can then fly off into the air. This loss of the fastest moving molecules reduces the average speed of the liquid water so cools it. \n\nAt the same time molecules in the air may re join the liquid water, so the net evaporation rate depends on a [number of things](_URL_0_).",
"That is not a dumb question at all !\n\nAt all temperatures below 100°C, the configuration liquid water + air is not stable because some water particles have actually enough energy to change states and become gaseous. What is stable instead is some liquid water and some gas water. The equilibrium is such that you have, in some time interval, the same number of molecules of liquid water that becomes gas as the number of molecules that go from gas to liquid.\nIn most conditions, the amount of water in the air is below the amount needed to be at the equilibrium which causes wet objects to become dry and water surfaces to evaporate. The variable wich mesures this is the water saturation: the closer it is to 100%, the less water evaporates well.\n\nConditions in which water evaporates best:\n- when temperature is higher\n- when saturation in the air is low (the air is dry)\n\n\nI feel like my explanation is horrible: can someone please rephrase it ?",
"It boils at 100c at sea level just to be pedantic. But evaporation (the process making your clothes dry) is a factor of heat, atmospheric pressure (humidity) and air movement. You do not need to boil the water off for evaporation (if that was the case we'd have no rain). Your clothes dry on the radiator because;\n\n- Temperature, the hotter the more kinetic energy in the water molecules and they will evaporate faster.\n- Flow rate of relatively cooler air over it (momentum transfer and turbulence).\n- Surface area, so spread out the clothes and allow more molecules contact with air flow.\n\nReferences;\n\n- _URL_1_\n- _URL_2_\n- _URL_0_",
"It's evaporation, not boiling. Good question though: there's no such thing as a dumb question, you learn by asking.\n\nRelatively new here so here's the wiki link, I don't know how to put it in text form: _URL_0_\n\nHere is a direct link that's specific to your question:\n_URL_0_#Applications\n\nBasically what happens is that the molecules of water are moving. Not quite as fast as when they're in a gaseous state, but faster than a solid state. Every once in awhile, a molecule or two will go up to the surface and escape the main body of liquid. This is the process of evaporation. When you add heat to that equation, the molecules speed up and more and more molecules \"jump out\" of the body of liquid. This explains why puddles dry faster when it's warmer out, but notice how puddles still evaporate when it's cold.\n\nThe distinction between boiling and evaporation is that evaporation occurs only at the top of the liquid, whereas boiling occurs throughout the liquid. This is why you see bubbles form when you boil water.\n\nEDIT: Grammar",
"Boiling happens when all the molecules of water have enough energy to become gas (at 100^o C, give or take a bit for air pressure). \n\nEvaporation happens when a single molecule has enough energy to become a gas. As molecules bump around some get slowed down and some get sped up. Sometimes the faster moving molecule is on the surface, so before it can collide again and likely lose that speed it can then fly off into the air. This loss of the fastest moving molecules reduces the average speed of the liquid water so cools it. \n\nAt the same time molecules in the air may re join the liquid water, so the net evaporation rate depends on a [number of things](_URL_0_).",
"That is not a dumb question at all !\n\nAt all temperatures below 100°C, the configuration liquid water + air is not stable because some water particles have actually enough energy to change states and become gaseous. What is stable instead is some liquid water and some gas water. The equilibrium is such that you have, in some time interval, the same number of molecules of liquid water that becomes gas as the number of molecules that go from gas to liquid.\nIn most conditions, the amount of water in the air is below the amount needed to be at the equilibrium which causes wet objects to become dry and water surfaces to evaporate. The variable wich mesures this is the water saturation: the closer it is to 100%, the less water evaporates well.\n\nConditions in which water evaporates best:\n- when temperature is higher\n- when saturation in the air is low (the air is dry)\n\n\nI feel like my explanation is horrible: can someone please rephrase it ?"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaporation",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knudsen_layer",
"http://www.conservationphysics.org/wetstuff/wetstuff01.php"
],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaporation",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaporation#Applications"
],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaporation#Factors_influencing_the_rate_of_evaporation"
],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaporation",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knudsen_layer",
"http://www.conservationphysics.org/wetstuff/wetstuff01.php"
],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaporation",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaporation#Applications"
],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaporation#Factors_influencing_the_rate_of_evaporation"
],
[]
] |
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