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67edkk | The Confusing History of Bible Translations. Is there a definitive reference for this subject? | Novice here. This past weekend I was inspired to tackle a project I've always wanted to do, The History of Bible Translations.
This is a HUGE subject, so I limited myself to English-Protestant translations (save influential text). But... still... That is overwhelming.
I had no idea there was such confusing and conflicting information on the origin and influences of each translations. For now, I've gotten as far as I care to in creating a visual. I am worried my information is wrong.
**Would any of you care to point me in the direction of some authoritative resources on this?**
If you are curious of my progress, here you go:
_URL_0_
You will have to zoom, and I in no way promise its accurate. I plan on adding more notes (publishing and copyright expiration dates, gender philosophy, etc)
thanks! | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/67edkk/the_confusing_history_of_bible_translations_is/ | {
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"Hi, hopefully you'll get some help here, but do also consider x-posting to /r/AcademicBiblical for their input."
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"https://www.dropbox.com/s/3ejvk222f6460wt/Translation%20Timeline.png?dl=0"
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[]
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|
ziu64 | Was speed and violence of action during World War 2 a large contributing factor as to why it did not stabilize into nasty trench warfare like WWI? | In other words, how and what changed between WWI and WWII that made these two conflicts so different? Was it only weapons and tech, differently matched militaries, or fundamental change in the understanding of the conduction of warfare (strategies, tactics, etc.) in the commanders and officers? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/ziu64/was_speed_and_violence_of_action_during_world_war/ | {
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"I believe it was the introduction of aircraft and tanks...",
"Mobile warfare of WW2 was inevitable. Multiple factors contributed to this. To name some:\n\n- Military thought has matured enough to utilize the technological advances needed to implement [Blitzkrieg style warfare](_URL_0_)\n- Improved communication and organization afforded to concentrate, coordinate and operate large mechanized groups with relatively low level of battlefield chaos.\n- Maturity of tank and aviation technology vastly improved usefulness of combined arms approach.",
"Just to nitpick a little, WWI wasn't entirely about trench warfare. The Eastern Front, for example, didn't really degenerate into trench warfare to the same extent because of its sheer size. Also you could say that by 1918 even the Western Front became mobile again. To a large extent it has to do with innovative tactics used by the Germans. More info here: _URL_0_",
"Nobody wanted a repeat of WWI. Everyone tried to make sure such a stalemate did not happen.\n\nThe Germans developed the \"Blitzkrieg\", everyone else used a variation.\n\nArmor and airpower served to make things more fluid than WWI."
]
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|
2p1ehn | why do some people hear noises prior to falling asleep. | This happens to me and I found out it happens to others too, I just can't find why. It doesn't happen right before falling asleep, but I use it as an indicator that lets me know I'll be asleep soon. The sounds range from random noises to voices, but they go away when I focus on them.
Edit: I realized I didn't put a question mark at the end of the actual question. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2p1ehn/eli5_why_do_some_people_hear_noises_prior_to/ | {
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"As I am falling asleep I usually loose my hearing and the realization of silence startles me and then two seconds later I am asleep.",
"It could be [hypnagogia](_URL_0_)\n\nAs you fall asleep, there's a brief period where you're effectively half-awake. Similar to being in an altered state from sedative medication, your brain can't handle its shit, so you hallucinate.",
"They sound like what are known as [Hypnagogic hallucinations](_URL_0_). \n\n > Hypnagogic sounds vary in intensity from faint impressions to loud noises, such as crashes and bangs (exploding head syndrome). People may imagine their own name called, crumpling bags, white noise, or a doorbell ringing. Snatches of imagined speech are common. While typically nonsensical and fragmented, these speech events can occasionally strike the individual as apt comments on — or summations of — their thoughts at the time. They often contain word play, neologisms and made-up names. Hypnagogic speech may manifest as the subject's own \"inner voice\", or as the voices of others: familiar people or strangers. More rarely, poetry or music is heard.\n\nDoes that description fit your experiences? \n\nEssentially, your brain is partially in a sleeping state, and partially in a waking state, causing dream-like experiences while you are half-asleep. They can be visual, or as in your case, auditory. These are quite common and are nothing to worry about. They can also occur when you are waking up, which would be called hypnopompic hallucinations."
]
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[],
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnagogia"
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|
307u31 | how am i supposed to analyze the double toilet flusher buttons? | As someone that has been flushing successfully for several decades, the new flush buttons confuse me.
Almost all new toilets have two buttons to flush the toilet. One is typically larger than the other. Is the larger one made that way to indicate it gives a larger flush? Or is it larger because it is supposed to draw my eye and flush-finger to it, thereby creating a smaller flush?
Whichever it is, I can't tell. I usually have to flush at least twice anyway. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/307u31/eli5_how_am_i_supposed_to_analyze_the_double/ | {
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"text": [
"You don't have to analyze it, you can just take a few moments to Google \"[toilet button flush](_URL_1_).\"\n\nYou don't even have to search through the results, just select image results, and you'll get results like [this](_URL_0_) or [this](_URL_2_) that show labels indicating the large button is a full flush, and the small button is a half-flush.",
"ELI5:\n\nYou make peepee = press small button\n\nYou make poopoo = press big button"
]
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"http://www.kudzu.com/blogs/hot-off-the-vine/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/dual-flush-toilet11.jpg",
"https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=toilet%20button%20flush",
"http://images.oyster.com/articles/661-2010-01-marriott-dual-flush-toilet.jpg"
],
[]
] |
|
ebyuxy | Is there a particular reason why there are few islands in the Arctic Ocean? | I was surprised that the most northerly island was just off the coast of Greenland. This seems quite a large area to have no islands at all, especially given that the Arctic Ocean is the shallowest ocean.
Is it related to plate tectonics? | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/ebyuxy/is_there_a_particular_reason_why_there_are_few/ | {
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"The short answer is that it has to do with the way plate tectonics force continental basalt, which is the stuff that forms terrestrial topography like islands and continents, away from divergent boundaries in the ocean floor. Look at [this diagram of global continental geology](_URL_1_), and imagine a soup slowly broiling in a wide pan, with a foamy skin forming on the top. The skin is the earth's crust, and the foam is continental basalt. The hot soup rising underneath, the magma, pushes the skin away from the areas where it is rising to the surface, forming new skin. This process pushes the foam into concentrated areas, while the new areas of skin have no foam at all.\n\nOf course, this is overly simplistic, but I hope it was a helpful analogy.\n\nEdit: There are also anomalies in the magma system, called \"hot spots,\" which punch though the skin to form island volcanoes, like Hawaii and many of the Pacific island chains. As the crust slowly moves, these hot spots remain stationary, so over millions of years they punch new holes and create new island volcanoes which stretch out like a line in the opposite direction to the movement of the crust. That's why Hawaii's islands seem to be [arranged in a row](_URL_0_), with the older ones made smaller by erosion over time.\n\nThis happens more in the pacific because that area of the crust has very wide areas with no divergent boundaries, which would normally release the pressure of rising magma. Instead it tends to burst through as volcanoes in these areas, forming islands."
]
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"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/02/Flood_Basalt_Map.jpg"
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|
1jotka | how are the child/baby pictures of grown up actors in movies made? | Are they actual child/baby pictures of the actor/actress or of a look-alike or photoshoped or....? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1jotka/eli5how_are_the_childbaby_pictures_of_grown_up/ | {
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"All of the above. Whatever works, works. ",
"All of the above and make-up. Sometimes with hilarious results. \n\nIn Star Trek, they've shown how Wesley Crusher would look at 25. [Here's](_URL_0_) how he would look like and [here's a picture of him then/now](_URL_1_)"
]
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[],
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"http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Wesley_Crusher?file=Wesley_Crusher%252C_age_25.jpg",
"http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Wil_Wheaton"
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|
3vd5hb | How much of the uranium gets converted to energy in a nuclear bomb? | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/3vd5hb/how_much_of_the_uranium_gets_converted_to_energy/ | {
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"I don't quite know enough to give you a complete answer...\n\n\"Uranium\" doesn't get converted to energy, precisely. If you calculate the mass of an atom and then calculate the mass of all the protons, neutrons, and electrons that make up the same atom, you will find that the atom somehow has more mass. The reason is that there's a great deal of energy involved in holding all those particles together as an atom. So much energy that it's a measurable amount of mass. The exact amount is given by Einstein's famous equation E = mc².\n\nIn a fission reaction, a neutron is added to Uranium so that it becomes unstable and breaks down into a Krypton atom, a Barium atom, and three rogue neutrons. If you have a bunch of Uranium, those neutrons can go on and cause the same thing to happen elsewhere. For a bomb, these reactions are allowed to go on unchecked. But that's besides the point.\n\nThe important thing is that no protons/neutrons/electrons are converted to energy. The energy given off by the reaction comes from the fact that Krypton, a Barium, and three neutrons have less mass than the original Uranium atom. The Krypton and Barium don't need as much energy to hold all of their parts together. There was so much of that energy before that it had a substantial mass. After the reaction the extra energy is released as heat, kinetic, energy, etc.\n\nSo Uranium doesn't exactly get converted to energy. *Some* of it's mass (in the form of binding energy) was lost when the Uranium atom split into separate particles.\n\nThe amount of energy released *in an entire bomb* would completely depend on how big and how efficient the bomb is."
]
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[]
] |
||
3jkz68 | source of streaming videos | When a TV show or movie is given permission to be streamed over an online service like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, etc., how is it uploaded to the site?
I'm sure with some of the newer TV shows/movies (~2010), they already have digital copies ready to go but what about older movies and shows? Are they burned from a DVD or video tape or other medium? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3jkz68/eli5_source_of_streaming_videos/ | {
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"Most all movies are cataloged digitally. For older vcr and film movies they use special converters"
]
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[]
] |
|
4kuoxo | Has there ever been a push to ban libraries by the book publishing industry? | It would seem that it would be in the interest of book publishers to push for the illegalization of libraries since it appears to harm book sales. After all, instead of purchasing every book I read, I can just go to the library and borrow the books from there. Has there ever been a push to ban libraries by the book publishing industry? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4kuoxo/has_there_ever_been_a_push_to_ban_libraries_by/ | {
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"This answer applies to America only, because I am An American Librarian (™) and I only know the historical, professional, and legal situation for libraries here. The answer is kinda yes: publishers routinely oppose some of the work of librarians, [and others](_URL_4_), in this day and age. The modern [problems and restrictions placed on libraries with ebooks](_URL_1_) can be in some ways seen as adversarial, since they for a time believed ebook circulation would reduce sales of ebooks, they have since changed their tune a bit since 2013. [Librarians maybe are even adversarial to publishers... ](_URL_2_) But mostly no, publishers have not been substantially against libraries in any of their historic forms as buildings where people can obtain physical media objects they do not own, either for free through charity, for “free” through public taxation, or through private fee subscriptions. It’s simply not in their best interests - libraries are the single largest purchaser of their products. They sell directly to us and they give us swag at conferences to Facilitate Relationships. [And studies show library use correlates with individual book purchases,](_URL_5_) meaning library users buy more books than non-library users. People who read a lot use the library and people who do not read a lot do not, the public library has a finite budget that cannot meet the exact desires of everyone in town (or have enough copies of Hot New Book for everyone), so really it’s not rocket science that it correlates. Publishers know this. Most books people check out from the library they would have not otherwise purchased. \n\nThey also couldn’t do a darn tooting thing about public libraries (or Blockbuster) in the glorious days between 1908 and digital publishing, because of something called First Sale Doctrine. First Sale Doctrine separates the physical object from copyright basically, and means when you have a copy of an intellectual work, you can do whatever you want with its physical carrier without infringing on the author’s copyright or moral rights. I can rip out pages and literally wipe my butt with your Hot New Bestseller and call it an art project if I want, I can pull out all the tape out of a VHS and pretend it’s spaghetti as my second art project, or I can rent random people either of those objects for $5/week, and you can’t do anything about it. I can’t photocopy it, keep my copy, and give someone else the photocopy though, that’s illegal. But First Sale Doctrine is the backbone of (physical) public libraries in America. (Other countries have different legal understandings for author/publisher rights and libraries.) First Sale was, however, not established for libraries, but actually for booksellers! In the words of Joe Fox in *You’ve Got Mail,* “I sell cheap books, so sue me.” A publisher tried to set a price floor on a book of One Whole Dollar by claiming selling a book for less than they liked violated their copyright, a bookseller undercut at 89 cents, and the publisher [was then righteously smacked down for interfering with the glorious free market system.](_URL_3_) Libraries rode along on this. \n\nNow, of course, libraries existed before 1908, what then? We must look deeper into library history. \n\nThe subscription circulating library is the oldest form of populist circulating library, dating from the 18th century. It’s basically Netflix, back in the old days when Netflix was a DVD mailer primarily. They were popular with upper class women, and stocked a lot of popular fiction. These were put out of business by public libraries, over time. (Though they saw a resurgence in the era of physical A/V rentals, Blockbuster, Netflix, Family Video, all those businesses are just fee libraries.) At the birth of the public libraries movement in America, however, we’re deep in the Progressive Era, and free public libraries are for the Public Good, and the [Slovenly Masses should Bootstrap Themselves Up through Hard Work and Education](_URL_0_) etc. etc. Library collections reflected this, and were not stocking popular fiction. Library trustees were hostile to fiction in general, as it didn’t reflect Progressive values, and it’s hard to justify spending taxpayer money on a new socialist enterprise when you’re buying pulp fiction. So what are these new public libraries buying? Shakespeare, history, engineering manuals, crap like that. They were not meeting the pleasure reader, and had no interest in doing so. So you’ve got a bunch of do-gooders buying up your most expensive and harder to sell books, while totally ignoring the cheap and cheerful things you can sell easily? Why fight that, it’s gravy! The public circulating libraries’ threat to the disposable-reading publishing industry was nonexistent, and by the time libraries got into that game (and later into movies, music, and other fun non-book things), we were well post First Sale Doctrine, and they could do darn tooting about the library cutting into their theoretical *Harry Potter* sales. Not that they’d want to, public libraries are almost universally beloved by Americans, and picking on them is a bad look. \n\nSo teal deer is: no, until it became a bit of a yes when they got to neatly escape that annoying First Sale Doctrine by not having a physical carrier, but now it’s going back to “no” again as they’ve realized that ebooks are just like real books, in that the library is the biggest consumer. \n\nEdit: I am feeling guilty for stomping on the 20 year rule with ebook problems, but then I remembered the first ebook was made in 1971, and it's just the publishing industry's interest in them that's modern. But if you want to talk more about the challenges libraries are facing with ebooks I'd recommend you cross post to /r/Libraries - it's an active community and you can meet some librarians at the water cooler for some real library politics gossip. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://imagesearchnew.library.illinois.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/alaposters/id/34/rec/3",
"http://www.ala.org/transforminglibraries/frequently-asked-questions-e-books-us-libraries",
"http://www.ala.org/acrl/sites/ala.org.acrl/files/content/publications/booksanddigitalresources/digital/9780838986981_getting_OA.pdf",
"https://writerinlaw.com/2013/07/14/the-first-sale-doctrine-history-through-today/",
"http://quod.lib.umich.edu/p/plag/5240451.0001.002/--google-library-project-both-sides-of-the-story?rgn=main;view=fulltext",
"http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publishing-and-marketing/article/49316-survey-says-library-users-are-your-best-customers.html"
]
] |
|
1n2miz | When was the last time there was a single world power? | Since the fall of the USSR, the US is generally regarded as the single world power (at least until China or the EU rise up.) When was the last time that was the case. Was the British Empire alone during its height, or was it rivaled by nations like France? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1n2miz/when_was_the_last_time_there_was_a_single_world/ | {
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"While the British Empire had it's rivals, it was by far the single global power in the latter half of the 19th century. When the term \"superpower\" was first described, it was used to describe not only the United States and USSR, but also the British Empire, though due to strains of WWII, and anti-colonial uprisings in the following decades, the empire lost this title within a few years of it being defined.\n\nBefore the rise of the industrial Brisitish Empire there was no real global power. What makes a power a superpower is the ability to respond to events around the world and to influence those events to favor the home state.\n\nBefore long range communication, faster transport, and industrial capacity to feed and fuel campaigns, this just wasn't possible. One could argue this predated the full onset of the Industrial Revolution, as the Royal Navy was so well prepared, and the sea lanes were so well known to the British that communication could occur more quickly, but before the rise of the British Empire, there was just no real way or need for a state entity to project its power globally.\n\nThere were \"great powers\" that expressed regional hegemony. You can read more about the concept here: _URL_1_\n\n_URL_0_"
]
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_power"
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|
9lefh4 | why do some restaurants add an automatic gratuity for groups of a certain size even if the patrons ask for separate bills? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9lefh4/eli5_why_do_some_restaurants_add_an_automatic/ | {
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"Because not everybody tips, simple as that. Make sure a tax is added so now everybody has “to tip” and no one is tipping more than the other. ",
"But you all had the food brought out at the same time, the restaurant had to rearrange seating for your party, also large parties tend to generate a lot of noise and stay longer than a lone diner. If you took up to tables that waite person doesn't get those two tables from their section.... now imagine that that group doesn't tip. ",
"There are a few reasons for it. It takes an additional server or two away from another section or sections which could impact their tips in their section. It is also done to ensure that the additional amount of work the server(s) have to do is being compensated. There are plenty of groups that are 15+ people that will leave no tip at all.\n\nI'm sure there are other reasons and I'll let the people who work as servers explain it better.",
"The automatic gratuity isn't only because it is a large bill. It is also because of the added difficulty on the staff of having a large table.\n\nThe server has to take orders from more people on a single ticket. The kitchen has to time getting more dishes out at the same time. The bartender has to make more drinks at once than usual. Additional wait staff need to help bring out all the dishes. Having a table of more than 8 people requires a lot more effort than say 5 tables of 2 people.",
"This person just wants an excuse too leave a shit tip. It takes so much work to serve a large party, if everyone left you 1-3$ tips you lost so much money compared to busting out normal sized tables all night because large parties, stay forever, and are a pain in the ass.",
"It's obvious this person has never worked in a restaraunt. Otherwise, he's understand more about the workload. \n\nAlso, the other reason for the automatic gratuity is that when you have larger groups, often times you'll be pushing tables together from different servers sections, taking money out of one servers pocket. This is to compensate that other server for taking their workspace as well as to pay your original server."
]
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1a97kj | How many words does an average person memorize in their lifetime? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1a97kj/how_many_words_does_an_average_person_memorize_in/ | {
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"Unfortunately, I'm not able to find any journal articles that provide an accurate estimate.\n\nThe professor David Krystal [attempted to make an estimation](_URL_0_), although his methodology was flawed. He figured between 30,000-38,000. He also cited a source that suggested it was about 15,000 (McCrum, 1986).\n\nThere is a validated test called the [Vocabulary Size Test](_URL_2_), which is ostensibly accurate. However, no published studies have used it to make estimations.\n\n(Also, I think a more precise question to ask would be: What is the lifetime vocabulary size of the average person? Memorization can entail simple recognition of a word without knowing its definition, which I believe may not be what you mean.)\n\nEDIT: This is for native English speakers. And here's [another article](_URL_1_) that may potentially answer the question (suggests ~17,000).",
"An important thing to consider is that this will be highly dependent on the language under consideration. Isolating languages like English tend to have simple words -- that is, words with little internal \"morphological\" structure. Such languages will tend to have relatively fewer words. This contrasts with agglutinative languages, like Finnish, where words can get enormously complex. Wiki tells me that this is a word in Finnish:\n\n > Epäjärjestelmällistyttämättömyydellänsäkäänköhän\n > \n > \"I wonder if – even with his/her quality of not having been made unsystematized\"\n > \n\nYou might then think that a better question to ask would be \"How many *morphemes* does an average person know?\" \n\n_URL_0_\n\nBut that question is difficult to apply cross-linguistically, too. For example, in English, we use word order to convey relations between words. That's how we distinguish \"The woman loves the man\" from \"The man loves the woman\". However, other languages, like Latin or Japanese, attach little morphemes to the nouns or verbs to indicate these same relations. So these two sentences in Latin would be \"Mulier amat virum\" and \"Vir amat mulierem\". So, Latin and English are equally capable of expressing these ideas, but a Latin speaker would appear to know more morphemes than an English speaker.\n\nCheck this page out:\n_URL_1_",
"I actually think that the number of words in the english language is a poor estimator of average adult vocabulary size.\n\nAdolph and Schmidt calculated in 2003 that only 5000 words are needed to get 99.9% coverage of the English language (sorry, the original source is behind a paywall).\n\nBecause of this, I would hypothesize that most people only have a vocabulary on the same order of magnitude as that 5000 words, perhaps up to 10 or 20 thousand, but not 250,000 even nearly.\n\nIt will of course vary greatly from person to person (not strictly scientific, but there are a lot of [tests like this one](_URL_0_) that claim to test vocabulary size."
]
} | [] | [] | [
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"http://www.victoria.ac.nz/lals/about/staff/publications/paul-nation/1990-Goulden-Voc-size.pdf",
"http://my.vocabularysize.com"
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morpheme",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agglutination"
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"http://my.vocabularysize.com/"
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||
a7717x | Historical accuracy in popular media. Does it annoy you? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/a7717x/historical_accuracy_in_popular_media_does_it/ | {
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"We have removed this question because it is an open-ended question that isn't suited to our normal q-and-a format and rules. But we encourage you to post your question again in our Free-Form Friday thread."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
afchpw | how do wetsuits/diving suits keep your body warm? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/afchpw/eli5_how_do_wetsuitsdiving_suits_keep_your_body/ | {
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"A wet suit traps a pool of water between you and the ocean. Your own body heat warms that water. The thickness of the neoprene insulated that inner layer of water from ocean. \n\nEdit there are also dry suits, which keep you from getting wet in the first place, or mostly keep you dry.\n\n"
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19nqcr | What quickens the drying of blood when compared to water? | How does the process occur so quickly in comparison to water?
Is there a medical name for blood once it solidifies? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/19nqcr/what_quickens_the_drying_of_blood_when_compared/ | {
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"Blood is composed of red and white blood cells, platelets and plasma, which itself is composed of mostly water and dissolved nutrients. What you call the \"drying\" of blood is not the same process as water \"drying\", water will dry through evaporation. When exposed to the air blood will quickly clot due to aggregation of platelets in the blood (hemostatis), but actual evaporation is likely at a similar rate to water (blood is mostly water, after all.)\n\nedit: the medical term for this process is [coagulation](_URL_0_)"
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_coagulation"
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5q9hr3 | what does a misspelled word or bad grammar look like in chinese? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5q9hr3/eli5what_does_a_misspelled_word_or_bad_grammar/ | {
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"I kind of get what you're asking.\n\nWell, first thing is, you can't \"misspell\" Chinese per se. Maybe you can get the strokes wrong or have missing strokes (Like writing 日 or 由 when you actually wanna write 田), they can be two totally separate characters.\n\nOr, you can just use the wrong character (since Chinese has limited sounds, a lot of words share the same pronunciation, like 鸡蛋 (chicken egg) and 鸡弹 (literally \"chicken bomb\", but just FYI this isn't a thing, just an example) are pronounced exactly the same, but if you wrote the latter the teacher would probably underline it, because that isn't a thing.\n\nGrammar wise, I guess the order of the words matter? Like in English. “Home I am\" is grammatically incorrect, and it's similar in Chinese. ",
"I'm a Singaporean who has been learning (Mandarin) Chinese as my second language from young, so maybe I can help. It's my first time answering a question on ELI5 so I hope my explanation is easy to understand.\n\nYou might know that Chinese uses logograms, which are like pictures instead of stringing letters together to form words as in English. Just as how pictures are drawn using lines, logograms are also formed by drawing lines.\n\nIn English, a misspelled word is one with, well, a wrong spelling, like spelling 'word' as 'ward'. I think you can agree that the letters 'o' and 'a' are both circular and thus may look similar to a person who is unfamiliar with the Latin alphabet, but they are different. Now, take a look at this three Chinese characters. 己 已 巳。They all look the same, yes? But they are really different--you can see that the vertical line on the left does not protrude out of the middle horizontal line which leaves some sort of gap or cave, or it's only drawn halfway, or it's drawn fully which closes up the gap or cave. The first character has the meaning of 'self', the second of 'already', and the third of 'snake' or '9am to 11am'. They look the same, but their meanings are vastly different. \"My friend is in hospital word one.\" Huh???\n\nWith respect to ungrammaticality, Chinese does have grammar (surprise!?). Just as in English where a word order wrong make your sentence nonsensical may, the same thing applies to Chinese. If you were to swap the positions of the first and third characters of the sentence 我吃饭。 to get 饭吃我。, you would have said that \"The rice eats me.\" instead of \"I eat rice.\" A person who speaks a language with an Object-Verb-Subject sentence structure may find it hard to get used to the Subject-Verb-Object sentence structure in Chinese, and may potentially use words in the wrong word order which leads to ungrammaticality.",
"People have mentioned the writing aspect, but no one has really commented on the grammar part of the question. I don't speak any Chinese language, but I know a fair share of linguistics.\n\nSo, every language has a system of grammar that allows you to say stuff by putting words in some framework. There are lots of things going on there that one might not immediately consider part of grammar - not only does grammar dictate what shape words take on (morphology) but also how they're arranged (syntax). Chinese is known for having very little morphology (or at least morphology as is understood from a european context) but it most certainly has syntax rules that you can break.\n\nBut to make an example governed by morphology: in east asian languages there is a thing where usually all or most nouns behave somewhat like english mass words (e.g. you can't say \"three breads\" in english, you have \"three loaves of bread\"). Using the wrong counting words would then be bad grammar.\n\nAlso there's apparently some 700 page tome on mandarin grammar. Languages are complicated once you look at the details.",
"Reminds me of when I was in school - Back in the late 90s a lot of people came to the UK from Hong Kong because of the Handover back to China, so we had a few Chinese people join us in our school. \nEnded up being good mates with one of them, and I was trying to copy a phrase he had written (Probably happy birthday or something). He laughed at my attempt, and his sister corrected it saying that my attempt was based on my friends terrible handwriting which made it nigh-on unreadable! \n\nSo, I know for sure that bad handwriting is a thing!",
"Not fluent, but i did study chinese in china. Since chinese uses symbols, while some words sound similar, you're more likely to use a wrong word (like the cake vs egg bomb example here), or use the wrong root word (讲 vs 进），than an extra stroke. But do consider i was learning chinese as a second language, not as first so it may be different. \n\nConversations tho, i learned the trick is to just say it really fast, so the wrong accents are less emphasized :)) \n",
"Chinese American here. My only example of \"typo\" was when I was in china trying to speak to locals for help. I was in Starbucks desperately trying to use their wifi but I didn't have a Chinese number to receive the pin. I went up to a girl and kicked it off with \"Excuse me, I don't have a Chinese cellphone\". Little did I know, instead of saying \"手机” which means cellphone, I said \"小鸡”. Both sound very similar to a non-native speaker. The literal translation is \"Small chicken\" but the slang means \"Small Cock\". So I went up to a random girl in China and said I didn't have a Chinese small dick. Her face went from concerned to humor when she saw I was waving my iPhone (without a SIM card) in my hand.\n\nEdit: Fixed less to small (少 - > 小) I used the pinyin shao instead of Xiao by mistake",
"I'm not sure about Chinese, but with in Japanese (which uses Chinese characters extensively, known as kanji), there's a phrase called \"henkanmisu\" (変換ミス). This refers to the type of typographical error when you select the wrong kanji when word-processing.\n\nYou type Japanese phonetically, so to type 変換ミス I type 'hen kan mi su'. The Input Method Editor which converts this into Japanese pops up a little window showing the possible kanji used in the phrase 変換ミス.\n\nNow for that phrase the IME I'm using shows only one possibility. but if I were to type 'ha', the IME shows possibilities such as 葉 歯 派 and a few others, since there's a lot of kanji that can be pronounced 'ha'.\n\nSo an example of a henkanmisu would be I want to type teeth (歯) but I misclick or hit space too often (which cycles through the options) and woops! I've typed leaf (葉) instead.\n\nNote that this only applies to typing.",
"Chinese here. One thing that people actually do and is wrong grammatically is speaking an incomplete sentence. When a sentence is really long, sometimes it would miss crucial elements, like objective or subjective. sometimes it is very difficult to tell that if a sentence consist of two or three sentences. I remember doing a lot of those questions in the Chinese equivalent of SAT/ACT but I can't really think of an example right now.\n\nmost \"typos\" would consist of using a character of the same pronounciation but different writing. It is somewhat easy to tell, unless it involves some less used characters.\n\nthe most common type of mistakes is the misuse of idioms. Unlike English idioms, Chinese idioms are usually based on some ancient text and consist of 4 characters. For example, \"空穴来风\"/empty cave causes wind means a rumor is not unreasonable. but some people think it just means the rumor is unsubstantiated, and they'll use it wrong. there are hundreds of idioms like that, and some have even changed meanings during the years. This is by far the most common \"typo\" or grammatical mistakes in Chinese imo. ",
"I'll give you an example! This is some of my graded Chinese work:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nI'm a Mandarin student in college, I've studied it for four years now. In Chinese it can be hard to figure out how to phrase things and how to order phrases within a sentence. I recently started the spring semester at my college and our first assignment was to write about our winter breaks. I visited my brother in Singapore.\n\nShe highlighted the poorly written sentences, numbered them, and rewrote them below. I'll do a literal translation of the first one:\n\nI wrote: 去年九月，我哥哥和他家人（老婆，两个孩子\u0005）都去了新加坡。我哥哥工作的公司给他们这个机会\nTranslated as literally as possible: Last year in September, my older brother and his family members (wife, two kids) all went to Singapore. My brother's working at company gave them this opportunity. \n\nShe corrected it to: 去年九月，我哥哥因为工作的关系和家人一起搬去新加坡。我哥哥和我嫂子有两个孩子。\nTranslated as literally as possible: Last year in September, my older brother because of his work connection, with family members together go to Singapore. My brother and my sister in law have two kids. \n\nI think they way I wrote \"我哥哥工作的公司\" (my brother's working at company) didn't sound so good. \n\nAlso, see at the bottom the one character in red, I meant to write 南 (nán south) but instead I wrote 男 (nán male)\nIn Chinese, the common way of typing is by using Latin characters to spell the sound of the Chinese character, and then the computer guesses which character among the many homophones you're trying to write. Looks like this _URL_1_\n\nFor the most part, we aren't taught that many grammar structure rules, we just kinda get a feel for them. When I ask my Chinese friends why a certain sentence doesn't work, they usually just say something like \"it doesn't sound right\". \n\nOne thing we are taught about sentence structure though, is that you should start with time then subject. Don't say \"I yesterday went,\" say \"yesterday I went\"\n\nInteresting tidbit, before the early 1900's written Chinese and spoken Chinese were kind of like different languages with different grammar rules. The revolutionaries in China who wanted to modernize the country pushed for people to write how they speak. So I guess in that sense, written Chinese is relatively new. Maybe I'm missing part of the story though, this is just from reading wikipedia articles.\n\nTl;dr word order, make it sound right",
"Native Chinese speaker here. Recently people in BBS argue about the usage of \"remake\" because they use this word in a meme (_URL_0_). Grammar Nazi insists the word \"重制\" is preferred, while many argue that \"重置\" is also correct, although these two spell the same and have similar meaning.",
"Chinese characters are made by mashing up [these 200 radicals next to each other.](_URL_0_)\n\nIt's possible to \"misspell\" words by writing the wrong radical for part of the character, for example writing **肢** instead of **肤**.\n\nIt's like if I wrote 'he undercat my prices'. You probably know that I meant 'undercut'.",
"I've been learning Chinese for a few years, and I've found so far that when I'm writing characters, I have a tendency to accidentally omit half the character. Most more complex characters are made up of simpler components, called radicals; for example, the character 课 means (academic) class, and is made up of the radical for \"speech\", ⻈, and the character 果, meaning fruit (often times the relationship is more clear, either by meaning or pronunciation, but there are no consistent rules). When you're writing quickly, it's easy to either omit the ⻈ radical or replace it with a similar looking one, like ⻠.\n\nedit: clarity",
"In Chinese, we have what we called [measure words.](_URL_0_) \n > \"Unlike English and most European languages, Chinese does not distinguish between singular and plural, so nouns are simply abstract in number, with context determining whether something is singular or plural. \nBut when you have to specify a certain number of something, you combine the number itself with a measure word, followed by the noun.\"\n\nIn English, you ask \"How many people?\" In Chinese, it would be 几个人 (jĭ gè rén)? \n\n几 is how many and 人 is person/people while 个 is the measure word for people. A lot of people who are learning Chinese for the first time tend to omit measure words.\n***\nAlso another common mistake would be the usage of number 2: 二 (èr) and 两 (liǎng). Using the previous example, if I was to answer \"Two people,\" 二个人 would be incorrect. The correct answer would be 两个人.\n\n二 (èr), is when you want to refer to the digit, for example when you are count from 1 to 10 or when you are telling someone your phone number.\n\n两 (liǎng) is used when quantity is involved. Like the example I showed above, two people- 两个人.",
"There's that show, 中國漢字聽寫大會, which is a bit like a spelling bee. Chinese students are told phrases or words and have to write them. \n\nBut it's like way way harder, like most of the adult audience often don't know the answer either, and they have scholars to explain why this is write or wrong. And sometimes the judges don't agree on whether the studwnt wrote correctly or not.",
"There is a word for spell in Chinese, but it would only be for pinyin or a foreign language that has an alphabet. Any paper written in Chinese above a very young age will be all in characters, not pinyin. I would say that the equivalent of a misspelling in Chinese is using the wrong character, either because of mishearing or simply not being familiar with the correct character to use.\n\nAn example of mishearing in English would be \"lacksadaisical\", because it's similar to \"lax\", which has a similar meaning. \"All intensive purposes\" is another. This can happen in Chinese, too, as some characters have a certain meaning by themselves and sort of make sense if you mishear the word or idiom.\n\n\"Misspellings\" on on a computer or phone are quite easy. Imagine autocorrect is always on -- you type a long sentence in pinyin and the autocorrect figures out exactly which characters you probably want. If you don't proofread, you can have some big mistakes. For example, \"nine o'clock\" and \"hotel\" have the same spelling in pinyin, so it's possible the autocorrect thinks you want to write \"I hotel arrived\" rather than \"I nine o'clock arrived.\"\n\nAnother \"misspelling\" would be a word that people say often but don't write, especially if the character is highly complex. The best example is that 90% Chinese people cannot write the last character of the word for sneeze (打喷嚏). In this case, using a computer or phone actually solves the problem.\n\nFor grammar mistakes, keep in mind that all languages have grammar patterns or certain words that always go with certain words. \"Be familiar to\" would be wrong in English, as would choosing the wrong preposition in Chinese after the word for familiar.\n\nStudents spend a lot of time learning Chinese characters and grammar, so I'm guessing they have fewer grammar mistakes than an English speaker would. One reason is that they spend less time on other concepts. Punctuation in Chinese is easier than in English. For example, comma splices are OK, you can just put two clauses or sentences together with a comma, like I just did. Chinese students also spend a lot less time on the organization and logical flow of the papers they write.\n\nEDIT: Spelling, of course.",
"Well, there are a few different cups of tea here:\n \n1.Misspellings happen two ways, depending on whether you're using a keyboard or handwriting: \n\nTypos (when you type the wrong key on the keyboard) will lead to completely different words coming out, which often makes the entire sentence illegible. You learn the be extra careful, since it's really hard to notice when you make one, but it changes the meaning so much for the reader; there is no such thing as a light misspelling in Chinese. You can also make typos by using the wrong hanzi because it has the same pronounciation, but that is easier for the reader to guess.\n\nHandwriting: This one is easy to do, you either get the wrong stroke in the right ideogram, or you get the wrong ideogram. 99% of the time it is so close that the reader can guess what you initially wanted to say, with few exceptions. If it's the wrong stroke, it's close enough to the hanzi to guess where it went wrong, if it's the wrong ideogram then you might notice it because it is pronounced the same (that's usually where people make mistakes). \n\n2.Grammar:\nUnless it's your L2, basically the only way to get grammar wrong is to use the wrong particle, or wrong word order, or to do that thing where you start a sentence, trail off and go into the other without finishing the first. Similar to grammar mistakes in English, the comprehensibility is dependent on how big the mistake is. ",
"Well, most other replies have offered good answers, but I have a related remark. Chinese youngsters use a sort of leet-speak on messaging services, where they replace characters with similar-sounding characters with different meanings. Where 外国人 means foreigner, 歪果仁 means crooked-fruit-benevolence, but is pronounced the same. It's kind of like leet-speak or polan-ball-speak where knowingly making grammar errors in the right way is part of the culture.",
"I've seen enough people complaining about others don't use 地的得 correctly, I believe it's the equivalent of complaining about your/you're, would of/would've.",
"Chinese here. \n\nAn example of a misspelled word:\n\n自由 < -- > 目田\n\nLiberty < -- > eye field (not a word)\n\nAn example of bad grammar: (from an interview of former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd)\n\nwrong:\n\n我参加学校\n\nI partook school.\n\ncorrect:\n\n我去上学\n\nI went to school / attended school.\n\nAnother example of bad grammar in terms of omitting some essential words denoting the tense of the sentence (tense in Chinese is implicit):\n\nwrong:\n\n你看最新的星球大战电影？ Do you see the latest Star Wars movie?\n\n我看。 I see.\n\ncorrect:\n\n你看过最新的星球大战电影了吗？ Did you see the latest Star Wars movie?\n\n我看过了。 I did.",
"Is there a version of Google or Baidu that shows corrections?:\n\n草泥马 (Cǎo Ní Mǎ)\n\n#Did you mean? ***肏你妈 (Cào Nǐ Mā)***\n\n",
"well ,firstly it gonna depend on if you writing out useing hand writing ,or does you typing out using key board at computer ?\n\nIf you hand write ,some time you can forget how to write some character .We have some idiom express that ,it say \"LIFT PEN ,FORGET CHARACTER .\"In such situations, usually you not even can remember first stroke write out that character .This happening if maybe you wanna write out some seldom use character ,such as 礋，maybe you can remember there some rock at left side ,but you forget about other side .\n\nOther time ,you perhaps write out some part the character ,but in fact it wrong .Now you have write some character not exist ,but it`s funny because maybe whomever read that just read some context ,think it correct !!\n\nUse the computer ,sometime I type out some PIN YIN ,after I select what character it suppose become ,but I mistakenly select wrong one .Now I just to look like the noob ,because maybe that character very very wrong !For example ,instead 的，i type 得！this not only the typographical style error ,but also the gramma error !",
"Have seen some answers, I have my owe point.\nChinese is quite different from English, Chinese letters develops in six shapes: 象形（picgraphs）,指事（self-explanatory characters）会意（understanding word）,形声（phonogram）,转注（focus words）,假借（phonetic loan character）, Chinese articles have ancient and vernacular style, in case of meet the poem format, a long sentence meaning always simplified into a few words, e.g. 桃之夭夭，灼灼其华 （from Book of Songs）, 桃，桃花（peach blossom ）夭夭,花草树木生长繁盛（plants grow luxuriantly），灼灼，色彩鲜艳（vivid color）, 华，同花 （flowers）,means flowers are in full bloom, beautiful in colors red in fire.\nGrammars are changeable and complicated, just like English. But learning Chinese needs two steps, Pinyin and Kanji, misspelled pinyin is similar with English, that of kanzi always in shapes, just like 日（sun） and 曰（says）; 己（自己，self） 已（已经 already） 巳（巳时 from 9:00am from 11:00am）;晴（sunny day）睛（eyes）...\nSome have different pronouciation, which is polyphone, some have different meanings which is polysemic character. There is a very interesting character \"|\"，is a polyphone polysemic letter, 1. pronouces and means like “竖”, a vertical line, also like “竖”；2.pronouces and means like “一”, one or number one; 3. if writing from top to bottom, pronouces like “衮”，means “up and down connected”; if writing from bottom to top, pronouces like “退”，is put in the opposite meaning with “衮”. ",
"You usually run into homonyms:\n\nWhen you see 大斧 which means big axe and say 大爹 which means big daddy, you get vastly different meanings.\n\nLike 宇 and 字 they look very much the same but one means universe and the other character (not part a movie but characters on a keyboard).\n\nOr 电 vs 龟，one means electricity and the latter turtle.\n\nSometimes people save time and just type quickly in Chinese, so you end up with:\n\n偶断死连 （oh do-un ss li-an) - meaning literally, partner breaks and death connected.\nWhile you actually phrase is:\n藕断丝连 ( oh do-un ss li-an) - a phrase that means when you break a lotus root, the strings are still connected. Often used to describe lovers that are physically separated but are still romantically connected. Chinese long-distance relationships basically.\n\nSo same pronounciation, really different meanings.\n\nMuch of Chinese humor can be traced on word-play like this.",
"There's lots of ways to mess up Chinese!!!\n\n**1：Pronunciation** \nThis is admittedly much more of a problem for second language speakers, but even Chinese people misunderstand each other. A new little piece of vernacular came around from a sad man recently. He was distraught and crying, so his speech wasn't clear. I'm going to write the vague pronunciation of the Chinese instead of pinyin or real characters: he said, \"nan show shiang koo,\" but many people heard \"lan shou shaing goo.\" Instead of saying \"I'm feeling shitty and wanna cry\" he said \"blue skinny mushrooms.\" Now that's become vernacular for feeling shitty and wanting to cry. \n\n**2: Misprinting words** \nThis is sometimes deliberate：这样子 can become 酱紫 because the sound is very similar. \nSometimes it's accidental, though: Most Chinese speakers (because of how Chinese keyboards type) have entered completely wrong characters into a text message, because the keystrokes are similar. For example: using a cellphone 那么不给 & 忙不给 would be written using the exact same keystrokes; however, the second variation is just wrong. Most fluent speakers recognize many common errors like this and can correct should these typos occur while reading, though. \nSometimes other accidental, too: I recently wrote a short paragraph about going to the park (公园) and I absent-mindedly kept writing 工园. The first characters sound similar, so the reader knew exactly what I meant and corrected it. Small errors like this can definitely make non-native speakers stand out like sore thumbs though! \nThere's still a whole bunch of other possible mistakes. Surely you can imagine getting any of these mixed up 我哦饿 or 头买卖实读 or 农/衣( < - yes, those two are different in meaning, writing, AND pronunciation). There's two types of errors normally Chinese error and Foreigner error. A Chinese won't confuse 农 and 衣, but when you do they'll say \"no, they're different! Gosh, you're so silly.\" When a Chinese makes an error they tend to matter-of-factly correctly one another then just move on (however, most of the time minor typos aren't even acknowledged).\n\n**3. Grammar** \nI'll give two examples, cause this has already turned into a bit of a clusterfuck (sorry). First， 刚 and 刚才 can both be tacked to the beginning of a sentence to talk about things that have \"just\" happened. Grammatically (because all sentences need verbs) 刚才 would have a verb, and that verb needs be be followed by 了. Although identical in meaning, 刚verb了 is *incorrect*. No 才, then no 了. I've NEVER been corrected on this though! I've asked people if it sounds weird after self-correcting. Some people say it did sound weird. Others claimed not to notice and went on to say there pretty much the same. Second, 的，得，and 地 are all pronounced the same, but their usages vary. In non professional Chinese people rarely write the the second and third form--opting instead to make the first version universally acceptable. \n\nA huge number of Chinese people not only don't care about grammar, but just don't understand it! It's not to say that people aren't intelligent either, but Chinese is a low-context language. Although conventional models of English tend to show that speaker and listeners bear similar responsibility for the clarity of meaning during conversation, Chinese tends to put a lot of responsibility on the listeners ability to comprehend the speakers meaning (less so on the speaker to speak clearly). It's very common for Chinese people to ask for clarification or to repeat and paraphrase an idea before a conversation is over to verify everybody has understood each other. NOT doing this FREQUENTLY leads to LOTS OF FUCKING HEADACHES. \n\nAnyway, it's 2am. I'm sleepy and this has rambled on much longer than I expected. I'll try to remember to proof-read in the morning for clarity should anybody be reading it. \n\nEDIT: OH! One more thing about grammar. In it's most simple, Chinese tends to follow the Subject + Verb + Object sentence pattern. Time and place of an idea/event go either before or after the subject. \n > > I * This morning * 10 o'clock * Go eat \n > > I * 10 o'clock * This morning * Go eat \n\n Here the second sentence's word order is wrong (grammatically speaking). It could be comprehended, but you might see the listeners eyes narrow just slightly as this will sound unnatural. Obviously the larger the grammatical error (or if there are many) the meaning will be harder and harder to discern. Just like in English the grammatical errors that sound **just bad** are not typically from native speakers. It would be like an English speaker forgetting their articles ('a's and 'the's) in a sentence.... it would just sound fucking weird and we wouldn't forget. \n\nAnyway! Original question: ELI5:What does a misspelled word or bad grammar look like in Chinese? \nCorrect: 我看懂了这本书 \nIncorrect: 我把这本书看得懂 \n\nHope this helps some. ",
"-Insert typing-on-mobile disclaimer- (Also typing this after a full bottle of wine.)\n\nSo, I'm a half-Chinese (and half-Malay) (or just full Asian with Chinese blood for those who can't tell the difference) dude from Singapore (Google it). Chinese is my third language (English: first; Malay: second), so I'm not amazingly fluent in it, but if sent to rural China, I'd be fine.\n\nAnyway, in English, and other languages that use different phonetic blocks to make a word, a misspelled word means using the wrong letter/character. E.g., 'weird' becomes 'wierd' (common spelling mistake), or 'hello' becomes 'helo' (typo/ spelling mistake). In Chinese, technically, misspelling words isn't really the same as how you normlly define misspelling.\n\nA \"misspelled\" word in Chinese can be something like a character missing a stroke/a few strokes. E.g.,咖 (ka1) vs 加 (jia1). 咖啡 means coffee (ka1 fei1; probably from the French café, but don't quote me on this), vs 加啡 (jia1 fei1), which doesn't mean anything (I think). If you miss out the extra initial 口, it's wrong, but people can generlly figure out what you were trying to say if they have some context.\n\nAnother example is using a completely wrong character that looks similar. E.g. 天 vs 夫. They look similar-ish, but have completely basis. Not an exact comparison, but think of it as being confused between 'b' and 'd'. They look similar (mirror image-ish) but are completely different in their function.\n\n(For the first example we can use 'i' vs 'j' or 'l'. The difference between 'i' and 'j' is a missing curve; 'i' and 'l' is a missing dot.)\n\nIn terms of grammar, the mistakes made are similar, i.e. word order, tenses, etc.\n\nApologies if anything I've said is wrong (I don't think so). But if someone could explain it clearer/ add on/ clarify, that would be good!\n\n(Please remember the bottle of wine in my bloodstream before bashing me. > . < )",
"Great detailed answers already posted. But I feel like I should add to the grammatical aspect by mentioning how obscure counter words can get. \n\nIn English we say \"a pair of pants\", a \"school of fish\" etc, but we don't have a counter word for maybe, \"an apple\" or \"a fish\". Well, in Chinese they have a counter word for everything, even when singular. And sometimes they can be used wrong by both learners and native speakers.\n\nFor example, counter for chopsticks: 一根筷子 (right) vs 一条筷子/一个筷子 (wrong). More obscure ones exist too, like how in English it's \"correct form\" to say a \"murder of crows.\" Like, not many people know the counter for 布料(cloth) is 一匹(same counter word for horses for some reason). And more, there are ambiguous ones too... like for example \"a murder case\" would be 一起谋杀案，but 一宗谋杀案 is also correct."
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9uedoa | The United States was founded, populated and developed by people who were not originally from America. How did anti-immigration sentiment arise from a literal nation of immigrants? How did the idea of America as a melting pot of different cultures develop in spite anti-immigrant sentiment? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/9uedoa/the_united_states_was_founded_populated_and/ | {
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"Follow-up question: at the time of the American Revolution, was there a social distinction between *recent* immigrants to the colonies compared to those having been there much longer (say, descendants of early Virginia Company or Plymouth/Massachusetts Bay Colony settlers)? In other words, was there a distinction between \"locals\" and \"the British\"?",
"I cannot answer your first question, but I can provide insights on the second.\n\nThe idea that America was built on multiculturalism appeared very early. By the 1780s, the term \"melting together\" was a widespread metaphor in use that was meant to positively portray incoming immigrants. Of course, America had just ousted a foreign power from their backs, so nationalism was running high. Hamilton, an immigrant from Nevis, argued vehemently against immigration, arguing that immigrants brought pro-monarchy and ethnic views that would undermine their new, fragile country. He also argued that America's bountiful resources and exploding population meant that America didn't need to rely on newcomers. From the Hamilton Papers, Examination Number VIII, Jan 12th, 1802:\n\n*In the infancy of the country, with a boundless waste to people, it was politic to give a facility to naturalization; but our situation is now changed. It appears from the last census, that we have increased about one third in ten years; after allowing for what we have gained from abroad, it will be quite apparent that the natural progress of our own population is sufficiently rapid for strength, security and settlement.*\n\nAt first, the two dominant parties of the time (Federalists and Democratic-Republicans) mostly agreed on keeping out immigrants. Thomas Jefferson wrote in his *Notes on the State of Virginia* in 1781 that foreigners would be anti-Democracy. However, by the turn of the 19th century, the Democratic-Republicans viewed pro-immigration policies as a great way to undermine the Federalists.\n\nSee, Hamilton and the Federalists were afraid of the French, who were at the time being led by Napoleon after the bloody French Revolution. Jefferson and the Democratic-Republicans pursued pro-French policy—and more proactive foreign relations with other countries—which included immigration. Jefferson saw immigrants as future voters for the Democratic-Republican party. As with many of these social issues, divisions in public opinion came from the very top, so voters tended to side with their party's views. So pro-immigration stances tended to saturate more educated Democratic-Republicans. The election of 1800 was a particularly nasty affair, as the battle lines between both sides slung serious vitriol to get their candidates elected. John Adams, the Federalist incumbent, faced off a challenge against Jefferson. Adams was pro-class and cultural hierarchy, while Jefferson wanted to model the country's Democracy on the new post-revolution French model.\n\nIt should be pointed out that both Adams and Jefferson saw the 1800 election as a fight over America's soul—that the election would set in stone the standards for how America would treat the subject of immigration for the rest of time. Jefferson would later write: *The revolution of 1800... was as real a revolution in the principles of our government as that of '76 was in its form.*\n\nJefferson and his Democratic-Republican allies would use the melting together metaphor extensively in their campaigning, making 1800 probably the biggest pivot on pro-immigrant sentiment for the general public as self-identified D-R party members adopted Jefferson's messages.\n\nFinally, the D-R party wasn't free from bias, and fought internally (and extensively) over what type of immigration was considered acceptable by them:\n\n*The meaning of the recently popularized concept of the melting pot was subject to ongoing debate which centered on the issue of immigration. The debate surrounding the concept of the melting pot centered on how immigration impacted American society and on how immigrants should be approached. The melting pot was equated with either the acculturation of the total assimilation of European immigrants, and the debate centered on the differences between these two ways of approaching immigration: 'Was the idea to melt down the immigrants and then pour the resulting, formless liquid into the preexisting cultural and social molds modeled on Anglo-Protestants like Henry Ford and Woodrow Wilson, or was the idea instead that everyone, Mayflower descendants and Sicilians, Ashkenazi and Slovaks, would act chemically upon each other so that all would be changed, and a new compound would emerge?* (Baofu, 21-22)\n\nThe term \"melting together,\" and other various close iterations of the same idea, was solidified in the public's vernacular as \"melting pot\" in 1908, when the play *The Melting Pot* by Israel Zangwill was released and became popular.\n\nEdit: Thank you for correctly pointing out that Hamilton was from Nevis, not Puerto Rico.\n\nSources:\n\n[_URL_3_](_URL_3_)\n\nAlexander Hamilton (Lucius Crassus), *Examination of Jefferson’s Message to Congress of December 7, 1801*, viii, January 7, 1802, in Henry Cabot Lodge, ed., The Works of Alexander Hamilton, Vol. 8 (New York: Putnam’s, 1904)\n\n“Alexander Hamilton on the Naturalization of Foreigners.” *Population and Development Review*, vol. 36, no. 1, 2010, pp. 177–182. *JSTOR*, JSTOR, [_URL_2_](_URL_1_).\n\nBlumenthal, Sidney. \"How the Heated, Divisive Election of 1800 Was the First Real Test of American Democracy.\" *_URL_4_*. Oct 2016. [_URL_0_](_URL_0_)\n\nBaofu, Peter. *The Future of Post-Human Migration: A Preface to a New Theory of Sameness, Otherness, and Identity.* Aug 2012. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.",
"The answer to the question is very related to the follow up question from u/JustZisGuy. No, not all immigrants were the same, and there were lots of tension between immigrants from different countries, different times, different classes, and different religions.\n\n\nAmerica didn’t really start off as an Immigrant country. The first colonies that were formed at Virginia and Massachusetts were formed in 1607 and 1620 respectively. Given that the modern-day USA was born in 1776, that’s 156 years of life in the continent, and enough for your grandchildren to naturalize in any country by today’s standards. Even by 1770 when Massachusetts was declared under martial law instead of more lenient taxing, most of the colonial leaders hoped to “reconcile with the British Government” rather than declare independence. By this time, the colonists weren’t colonists or immigrants anymore, but the people who were born on the east coast who built this country from almost scratch, including all the good and bad things that has happened.\n\n\nThese original colonists didn’t come here for no reason at all though. Catholicism was restricting freedoms throughout Europe and some immigrants came to escape this religious persecution to practice Puritanism (This is a completely different subject that requires a different research). Most of them came as indentured servants, slaves for pay for a predetermined amount of time, because the price to sail was too steep. These servants ranged from white Europeans to black West Africans. By the time of the Civil War, there were a continuous influx of people from across the Atlantic to the states, which all came either as slaves or indentured servants from all walks of life. \n\n\nAll the way until the declaration of independence and the civil war, the US was known in the world as a place with “class mobility”, where you can work your way into the upper class and become rich and elite. The US promised freedom to practice your own religion, your own language. The colonial Pennsylvania is a good example of how it’s founder, William Penn envisioned a utopian society where diversity would beget tolerance. \n\n\nMigration was a part of the colonial American life. Americans themselves migrated every 10 years to different colonies, including people like Bejamin Franklin, so up until the beginning of the 18th century, immigration was considered a part of American life, and even the naturalized born and raised Americans were migrating. As the number of people who came to America on their own slowly diminished, and the slaves and indentured workers were transported accordingly, the states delved into more important matters, like declaring independence and fighting for it, and the age of colonialism in North America came to an end as a baby nation with all the turmoils of making one arose in its stead, full of Protestant and Puritans who were promised liberty and riches, but received varying levels of these promises. These people were in a time where immigration didn’t have the connotations it had today. An immigrant was a self-made man who fought for what he wanted and didn’t take no for an answer. An immigrant was an opportunist, a hard worker, a strongman who took care of his family in the most ideal fashion. \n\n\nYears of life in the states slowly eroded this image of the immigrant as the settlers settled, cities grew and the economy and jobs expanded. With the constitution came law, but not yet order. Americans owned and ran American properties, and new slaves and workers shipped across the Atlantic did the blue collar work. \n\n\nThis was the type of country the US was when the conditions across Europe worsened as the US’s economy grew. Shipment of people to the states were around 60000 for more than 50 years until the famine in Ireland and political turmoil in Germany, which boosted these numbers dramatically. In 1851, there were 380000 people in the US ports of entry, a very dramatic increase in the consistent influx of humans. 2.7 million new prospective citizens entered the country in the next 7 years, and most of these people were Catholic in a time where Catholicism was hated in the US. There were stark opposition to Catholic churches and schools, but these immigrants had bigger problems. They drew hostility because of the diseases they brought with them from the old world. They were poor, just like the original immigrants but instead of improving the forests of Massachusetts into a sprawling city, they diminished its features with the slum housing they stayed in, the increase in crime rates, alcoholism and other misdemeanors. The American-Born protestants thought their English heritage was true Americanism and despised the Irish and the German. These people were called “nativists”, who believed opposition to the Catholics was necessary to protect America. The Know-Nothings, a political organization that was created by these nativists managed to become the second most powerful political organization in the nation, electing 5 senators and 43 representatives. After the civil war, nativist activity declined dramatically.\n\n\nSo to finally answer your question, anti-immigration sentiment arose from immigrants themselves because they viewed new immigrants as fundamentally different from themselves or their families. America undoubtedly was a melting pot, but this did not exclude people from making the distinction between cultures. Blacks were slaves, Irish were poor, Brits were true Americans etc. and anti-immigration is a very broad term for everyone who came to the US. Immigrants were slaves, immigrants were cheap labor, immigrants were Catholics, Immigrants were nation builders, and different groups had different expectations from these immigrants. Given all of these distinctions, it isn’t inherently illogical to say that immigrants are anti-immigration without including themselves. It is important to realize that actions have different consequences in different contexts, and some immigration is inherently more useful than others.\n\n\nAmerica, for most people, is the melting pot of the “correct” cultures. \n_________________________________________________________________________________________________________\n\n\n\nJust as an extra, here are some examples of anti-immigration that happened in the US throughout its history:\n\n\n“Yet as industrial revolution transformed the United States in the postwar years and attracted a vast new influx of immigrants, the antialien animus rose again. In the 1870s more than 2.7 million newcomers arrived at U.S. ports.”\n\n\n“more than eighty thousand immigrants from China arrived between 1870 and 1875, brought to America by companies that had contracted to supply cheap labor to mines, railways, and other enterprises needing unskilled labor. With 30 percent of California’s workforce unemployed following the panic of 1873, many workers attacked these newcomers as “coolies” willing to work for slave wages. Outbreaks of violence against the Chinese spread throughout the West, from Los Angeles to Seattle to Denver. In 1882, Congress responded to anti-Asian nativism with the Chinese Exclusion Act, which suspended immigration from China for ten years.”\n\n\n“A striking number of new nativist fraternal groups were formed, the most important being the American Protective Association (APA). Founded in Iowa in 1887, the APA had attracted a membership of 500,000 by 1895.”\n\n\n“By the end of the nineteenth century, the APA had disappeared. Nativist activism did not flourish in the first decades of the twentieth century, the years of the Progressive Era. It rose again in the form of the post-World War I Red Scare in 1919, and in the powerful but short-lived Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s. It was in the nineteenth century that antialien movements had their greatest impact in American history.”\n\n\nSources:\n\n\n_URL_5_\n_URL_1_\n_URL_2_\n_URL_4_\n_URL_3_\n_URL_0_\n\nKettner, James H. The Development of American Citizenship, 1608-1870. Williamsburg: Omohundro, 1978. Document.\n\n\n",
"The earliest exclusion and laws that occurred were focused mainly on the Chinese in the form of the Foreign Miners' Tax Act of 1850. The rise of this was due to the post gold rush economy. \n\nMany of California's new gold rush prospectors arrived to find out there wasn't much in the way left for them to make their fortunes. So while the first arrivals didn't mind the Chinese when there was enough gold to go around for everyone--when it started to run dry, the resentment began to build. The Miners Tax ended up failing and led to the dying of Chinese gold camps which led to an influx of low cost Chinese laborers in cities. \n\nCalifornia Governor John Bigler saw political value in attacking the “coolie” laborers and reinstated the failed tax. The term \"coolie\" was supposed to imply these were low skilled and low wage slave laborers who are taking American jobs for their \"master\" back in China but these people were actually free. The word itself comes from two Chinese words, “koo” meaning to rent, and “lee” meaning muscle.\n\nThis was a tough economic period in part due to the discovery of Australian gold. In 1854 the California Supreme Court declared that the 1850 statute prohibiting Negroes and Indians from testifying for or against a White person applied also to Chinese for the reason that in the days of Columbus all of the countries washed by Chinese waters had been called “Indian.”\n\nMost of the Chinese came on an arrangement similar to some of the first settlers where they pay back the trip fees plus interest with the wages from their first job. Unfortunately, this led to many of them not being able to afford to bring their wives and created an enormous prostitution industry for Asian women and comments by Americans heroes like this. \n\n > While this is being done I invite the attention of Congress to another, though perhaps no less an evil--the importation of Chinese women, but few of whom are brought to our shores to pursue honorable or useful occupations.\n\nUlysses S. Grant \n\nThe Page Act of 1875 was the first federal anti immigration law that intended to ban all \"Coolie labor\". Only the restrictions on female Asians were heavily enforced. \n\nThings got economically bad after 1877 and led to Chinese establishments being sacked and burned and Chinese being shot and hung. They saw that the Chinese had monopolized multiple manual labor industries like laundry, construction and landscaping for wages they couldn't beat and reacted poorly. \n\nIn 1882 the government passed the Chinese Exclusion Act that banned all Chinese immigration for ten years. \n\nOne of the common themes of these acts and laws that were passed is economic climate. In harsher times people seemed far more likely to lash out at those deemed different enough.\n\nIn the next two decades and in the early 1900's we started to see more of a rise of anti immigration sentiment towards southern and eastern European groups like the Catholics (Irish, Polish, Italians) as well as Jewish people though it would continue to increase after the great depression and around WW2. \n\n[Here's a random story](_URL_1_) about some Irish Orphans who weren't considered the right kind of white until they traveled across the country from NY to AZ to be adopted by Mexican-American families. That's when the fun happened and their white neighbors lost their minds at the sight of white babies adopted by Mexican-Americans.\n\n[Foreign Miners Tax documents, 1850-1867](_URL_2_)\n\n [China's menace to the world : from the forum to the public.](_URL_0_)",
"I am on break so I will give an answer quickly and will have to generalize a bit but I will leave a couple sources for further reading that I feel do this question justice.\n\n > How did anti-immigration sentiment arise from a literal nation of immigrants?\n\nBy the 20th century, the United States was culturally monopolized by the descendants of the Anglo-Saxon, Western European \"Old Stock\" originators and immigrants alike. The idea of the \"Melting Pot\" was created as a a way to promote their version of \"American\" culture. They viewed themselves as the progenitors of \"being American\" so all who came after should conform to their form of \"American\" and basically give up the ethnic culture from where they came from. The anti-immigrant sentiment wasn't so much anti *immigrant* so much as it was fear of others who are different. The Melting Pot meant that this diversity would accumulate into one distinct culture, which according to people like Horace Kallen and Randolph Bourne, is just a ridiculous idea. America to them should be a dynamic place that used its diversity (in the rise of a growing nationalism in Europe at the time) as a strength, placing American values above any one culture or ethnicity.\n\nHorace Kallen in his work *Democracy Versus the Melting Pot (1915)* describes the ethnic makeup and its evolution *at length* and does not shy away from calling this \"Old Stock\" group out for its hypocrisy. Combined with Randolph Bourne's *Trans-Nationalism*, both are great reads, delving into the idea of \"American,\" not as an ethnicity, but as a way of being. That being 'American\" was to follow a set of ideals and that retaining ones own culture (cultural pluralism) was not at odds with this. This was directly countering the idea that being \"American\" should be homogeneous culturally. \n\n > How did the idea of America as a melting pot of different cultures develop in spite anti-immigrant sentiment?\n\nPeople tend to live near like groups. As more and more immigrants came to the United States, large communities formed. In Kallen's *Democracy Versus the Melting Pot*, he explains that immigrants ultimately had to conform out of economic necessity (learning English, etc) so of course a base American culture was adhered to, but in the end, it actually allowed for cultural diversity to flourish as all of these new groups interacted and brought their norms to the US and their children and grandchildren became more culturally homogenous.\n\nAn example of this Anglo-Saxon stock forced Melting Pot was Henry Ford. [I'll just leave this here.](_URL_0_)\n\nOverall, the answer to your question is that there was a general disdain of other cultures as inferior or foreign to a large group of people who had been relatively culturally homogeneous with themselves and with western Europe until about the 1880s when America began to industrialize in earnest attracting the masses.\n\n**Sources:** \n\nRandolph Bourne. “Trans-National America (1916),” in The American Intellectual Tradition, Volume II, 7th Ed. David A. Hollinger. NY, Oxford, 2017. \n\n Horace Kallen. “Democracy Versus the Melting-Pot: A Study of American Nationality,” from *The Nation* (February 25, 1915) \n\n & #x200B;"
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"https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/election-1800-first-real-test-american-democracy-180960457/",
"http://www.jstor.org/stable/25699042",
"www.jstor.org/stable/25699042",
"https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-25-02-0282",
"Smithsonian.com"
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"http://immigrationtounitedstates.org/548-history-of-immigration-1620-1783.html",
"https://www.history.com/topics/immigration/u-s-immigration-before-1965",
"https://history.state.gov/milestones/1776-1783/declaration",
"https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/brief-overview-american-civil-war",
"https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/archive/immigration-and-migration-colonial-era/",
"https://www.gale.com/binaries/content/assets/gale-us-en/primary-sources/newsvault/gps_newsvault_19thcentury_usnewspapers_immigration_essay.pdf"
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"https://www.loc.gov/resource/lcrbmrp.t2412/?sp=1&r=-0.842,-0.018,2.685,1.652,0",
"https://www.tucsonweekly.com/tucson/the-irish-orphan-abduction/Content?oid=1087070",
"http://www.oac.cdlib.org/search?style=oac4;titlesAZ=f;idT=001482545"
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260pdc | web 3.0? | I saw something about Web 2.0 just now (I know what Web 1.0 and 2.0 are, you don't need to explain that to me) and it got me wondering about a Web 3.0. What would actually change? Moving from 1.0 to 2.0 we changed from static to interactive, so what's next? A couple of sites I found gave examples of asking complex questions and receiving answers (eg, I want to go out for dinner then see a movie, what are my options?) but the way I see it all that does is give us more in depth ways to search the internet rather than changing anything about the actual webpages. Plus, we're already seeing that sort of stuff with Siri and the like.
Sorry for the wall of text, I've had a lot of caffeine and sugar tonight. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/260pdc/eli5_web_30/ | {
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"Web 2.0 was just a catchphrase that some journalist came up with. It's just a vague, handwavey term that can be used to talk about whatever a speaker wants. Nobody spoke of \"Web 1.0\" prior to it becoming widely used.\n\nI hope we can avoid using \"Web 3.0\" in the future. The people that are actually creating and innovating won't be using it, just the guys on the sidelines and the copycats."
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9is0p4 | why does mostly the top of our feet hurt when our feet land on something hard? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9is0p4/eli5_why_does_mostly_the_top_of_our_feet_hurt/ | {
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"If you look at a human skeleton, you will see that there are long bones at the top of our feet. Those are called metatarsal bones. The force of the impact of landing hard on your feet will travel through those bones, which is painful."
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28b01y | what's the difference between the different types of anti-aliasing? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/28b01y/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_the_different/ | {
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"There's different methods involved to get rid of the jaggies with varying levels of effectiveness and performance penalties.\n\nThe most brute force one being super sampling. The image is rendered much higher than the target resolution and then shrunk down to the target resolution. This is very effective at getting rid of jaggies but is has an extreme performance penalty because you are rendering the scene at really high resolution just to shrink it down.\n\nMSAA is a simpler version of super sampling that only performs that high resolution render at certain sample points. When you see 4xMSAA that means there are 4 sample points 8x = 8 sample points and so forth. Its's a lot more feasible in terms of performance penalty when it comes to realtime graphics while still producing a nice result.\n\nFXAA is AA that uses a screen space edge detection algorithm to find jaggies and blur them. Basically It's a shader(gpu program) that can find where the edges of 3d objects are and then it can apply ablur to them to reduce the appearance of jags. Of the 3 im mentioning this has the lowest performance penalty but also produces the worst result with the final image often looking fuzzy because of the blurring.\n\nOf course there's a plethora more of techniques but hopefully you get the gist of it."
]
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[]
] |
||
5ha6ew | what do people mean when they say that all birds are dinosaurs? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ha6ew/eli5_what_do_people_mean_when_they_say_that_all/ | {
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"Dinosaurs most likely evolved into modern day birds. As an attempt to evade the auto mod I will explain why we think that. It mainly comes down to the large amount of physical similarities that the two share. We are also able to form a almost complete timeline between the two species utilizing fossils. ",
"65 million years ago a comet wiped out all the dinosaurs on earth.\n\nWell, almost all of them.\n\nA small group of feathered dinosaurs survived, and eventually evolved into all the birds of today.",
"If you were to trace a bird's family tree back far enough, you'd find an ancestor that was a dinosaur.",
"Birds are said to be evolved from dinosaurs, because they share traits that dinosaurs had, such as hollow bones which makes them light enough to fly, which some flying dinosaurs had. Their claws resemble those of velociraptors with the same bone structure. They build nests and hatch from eggs.\n\nThey both had feathers. Their lung are heart structures are similar in how they work. With obviously the dinosaurs lungs being hypothesized in how they worked. We also have genetic proof, from material that was preserved of a Dino and compared to modern birds.",
"**ELI5:** Birds are part of a bigger reptile group, the dinosaurs; just like humans are part of a bigger mammal group, the primates.\n\n---\n\nTo truly understand this statement, is important to explain phylogeny, which is the history and genetic relationships among individuals or groups of organisms.\n\nLet's take for example your family tree. You have a mother and a father. Your mother and father have a mother and a father, your grandparents. Your grandparents have/had a mother and a father, your grand-grandparents. This idea goes on and on and on... If we plot this idea, we get [something like this](_URL_1_).\n\nThe same principle can be used to understand groups of organisms. For examples, humans are \"siblings\" to chimpanzees and bonobos, the group of humans-chimpanzees-bonobos is sibling of gorillas, the group of humans-chimps-bonobos-gorillas is sibling of orangutans, that groups is sibling to gibbons. They all make a group called \"apes\", which includes humans, chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and gibbons ([Source](_URL_3_)). Plotting that idea, we get a \"phylogenetic tree\" (shown in source).\n\nApes are siblings with monkeys, that group is sibling with lemurs. That whole group, apes, monkeys and lemurs, makes the greater group of \"[primates](_URL_2_)\".\n\nApplying this very same idea to birds, by comparing the traits and genetic makeup of birds and other related organisms, then plotting the phylogenetic tree, [we get this](_URL_0_). The group \"Archosauria\" is what's commonly known as dinosaurs (although *true* dinosaurs are only those members from the group Dinosauria). As you can see from that image, the groups of birds, is contained within the group Dinosauria, meaning that birds are dinosaurs, just like humans are primates.",
"Dinosaurs were comprised of multiple different types of organisms (orders). One of these orders were Theropods, that contained dinosaurs such as the T-Rex. However, and as evolution took place one of these branches diverged and became smaller with time, eventually being small and light enough to glide, which was a huge advantage in surprising prey. \n\n\nWhen the meteor struck, they were small enough and capable enough hunters to make it through the extinction and eventually evolved into the birds we know today.\n\n\nSource:_URL_0_"
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primate",
"http://www.nature.com/nrg/journal/v15/n5/fig_tab/nrg3707_F1.html"
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||
3y6bmo | Is there any connection between Cossaks and Kazakhs? Or is the name similarity just a coincidence? | Been wondering about this for a while. Wikipedia doesn't say much, just don't confuse them with each other. | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3y6bmo/is_there_any_connection_between_cossaks_and/ | {
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"Today's Cossacks are descended from bands of escaped and freed serfs from across Russia. They generally existed near the borders of the Russian Empire, such as in Ukraine. They were afforded special privileges by the Russian Imperial government in exchange for military service and guarding the border of the Empire. Generally, an escaped serf was not allowed to be returned to his master if he managed to join a Cossack host. Cossacks are not so much a distinct ethnic group but do have a distinct culture and history. \n\nKazakhs are an ethnic group, and unless a Kazakh joined a Cossack host, the two are pretty much separate despite both existing in the Russian Empire. \n",
"Adding to /u/snakeskinjim's brief and clear post, here's the etymology of Cossack:\n\nCossack (n.) 1590s, from Russian kozak, from Turkish kazak \"adventurer, guerilla, nomad,\" from qaz \"to wander.\" The same Turkic root is the source of the people-name Kazakh and the nation of Kazakhstan. \n\nSo they share the same root word but they refer to completely different groups. Kazakh came to denote the warlike nomadic Kazakh people and Cossack became used for rebels in Russia much later on in history."
]
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1z0bkk | why china has both an overcrowding/pollution problem and ghost towns. | I've seen a lot about China's pollution issues recently (and its highly probable link to overpopulation). But I also see random articles on these "ghost" towns where either they've been built in anticipation of people moving in or were abandoned after some market went under. Moving successful businesses (and therefore workers, families, and accommodating businesses) to these Ghost seems like a pretty obvious solution to the aforementioned pollution problem.
However I'm not naive enough to assume this hasn't also occurred to Chinese officials. The situation seems to imply they don't care much for public health. And even if the Chinese government is callous enough to not care about the safety of its citizens, the time/money lost dealing with smog and smog-related production delays (sick days, areas shutting down, etc.) would demand **something** be done.
So basically, why doesn't a government that **could** move virtually any business in the country to these "ghost" towns not do it in an effort to curb such obviously harmful pollution and overcrowding?
There must be some nuance here I don't know or understand.
Edit #1: From comments received already, problems with relocating people include: as little as 10% availability left in some "ghost" towns, lack of vehicular accessibility (including railways), and the speed at which things can be constructed.
Though these are great reasons that a plan would be difficult to form, it still seems that dispersing their population among more cities is the best answer. As of now, I still think "ghost" towns offer a ready-to-go option for people willing to move immediately, thanks to the comments already, I can see it wouldn't be a wholly satisfying solution by itself. Maybe the Chinese government has issued a statement on what their plans for handling overpopulation/pollution is? Or why dispersing the population is not being pursued more forcefully? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1z0bkk/eli5_why_china_has_both_an_overcrowdingpollution/ | {
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"The ghost towns are largely a myth.\n\n_URL_0_",
"The non-myth ghost towns are in the middle of nowhere and usually lack essential services. Nobody wants to move to a city with no grocery stores, no running water, and no fire department that's 100 miles from anywhere, no matter how cheap the apartments are.",
"Here is a really great article on what the problem is: _URL_0_\n\nIn short, the problem is structural. It's not that there aren't people willing to fulfill all those vacancies, there most certainly are. \n\nIn china the government owns all the land and rents it out to people. Consequently, most of the local governments income comes from this. Also they want to maximize the profit from the land so tilt development towards higher end housing, as opposed to affordable housing that would suit the majority of the people in china. \n\nThis works, since in China bank accounts are heavily regulated and offer measly returns. The stock market is very volatile, so there are few quality investment choices if you're wealthy. Like in America, people there see housing as a sound investment, and believe the prices can only go up. Their reasoning is further buttressed by the fact that local governments revenue is heavily dependent on property prices, so it's heavily in the local governments interest to ensure prices keep going up. (Rents and housing prices have been increasing, even with all these 'vacancies'). \n\nWhich brings to the next point. It's not so much that these houses are vacant since no one is buying them, people are buying them, it's that they're not buying them to live in, they're buying them as an investment. The people who need housing (far more numerous) can't afford the places that are being bought and built. That's why there are ghost towns and such high vacancy rates in china."
]
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2bxo1d | How does a virus like Ebola lay dormant of long periods of time and then reappear again? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2bxo1d/how_does_a_virus_like_ebola_lay_dormant_of_long/ | {
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"I don't believe that the Ebola virus is thought to have a latent state, as some viruses do (herpes and HIV). Instead, there is the appearance of occasional outbreaks in populations which could give that idea. It is believed that the virus has an animal reservoir where it is alive and well and will make zoonotic transfer to humans, where it usually spreads like wildfire. ",
"Generally speaking, these kinds of diseases have a carrier animal(s) that don't have the same or as bad adverse reaction to the disease as humans. The disease is thus able to spread itself throughout the carrier population.\n\nEventually human interaction with the carrier will result in infection, which then goes through the standard \"epidemic until it burns out\" phase.",
"Ebola does not necessarily have a dormancy. It does have potential to be an STD if someone survives an ebola infection. \n\nOther viruses, like herpes, can stay dormant by situating themselves in areas where our immune system does not regulate. In this case, it resides in part of your brain. When you are understress, cues allow the virus to move from a nerve in your brain that connects to your mouth, which is why many people get cold sores right before an interview or big presentation.\n\nWhat I just typed is only one method. HIV has a different method by inserting itself into your own DNA. This causes it to go along unrecognized for lengthy periods of time."
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9gg67k | What happened to Liberia during the American Civil War? | I know that Liberia was founded by free former slaves getting sent to Africa, but am unaware of how the colony developed afterwards. | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/9gg67k/what_happened_to_liberia_during_the_american/ | {
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"I'll sketch the history of Liberia to 1860 out; the idea of resettling freed American slaves in Africa had its seed in the 1787 establishment of the British colony at Freetown, in what is now Sierra Leone. In 1817, the American Colonization Society was founded; this group was an alliance of free blacks and whites that supported colonization. Some white supporters genuinely wanted black people to have full freedom and equality; others wanted black people to be removed from America entirely, or at least free black people. \n\nThe first 88 emigrants arrived in West Africa in 1820, looking for land to settle on. They got little help from British authorities and open hostility from local tribes. The next year, the emigrants sailed south to meet with representatives of tribes living near what is now Monrovia. The local tribes were hostile to new settlers, especially those that threatened their lucrative part in the slave trade, and the deal they signed to grant the settlers a strip of coastal territory (about 100 square miles for $300 in trade goods) was literally signed at gunpoint. \n\nThe ACS colony was governed from the small town of Christopolis by the white missionary Jehudi Ashmun, and many settlers chafed under his rule, which was sometimes arbitrary and always harshly authoritarian. Several of the black settlers forced him to leave the colony. The ACS sent a representative to negotiate a settlement; Ashmun returned, bound by a constitution and a code of laws, and the black settlers accepted his authority - out of necessity, as they were absolutely dependent on the ACS for trade goods and a flow of new settlers. \n\nOf the 4,600 settlers who landed at Christopolis (now renamed Monrovia) over the next 20 years, fewer than half survived. Disease was rampant, and the six American colonies in the region faced constant conflict with the indigenous nations. Many of the tribes in the area were relatively recent arrivals, and Liberia was contested between them; it was only the diplomatic intervention of other regional powers, and the British at Sierra Leone, that preserved the fragile settlements. The nearby presence of the U.S. Navy's small Africa Squadron prevented the Liberians from losing their control of the coast, and control over the coastal trade was a vital advantage. \n\nEven with this support, the \"black white men\" fought several wars before four of the six colonies coalesced into Liberia in 1841; one was destroyed, and the sixth colony remained under the direct control of the Maryland Colonization Society. Liberia, now under the governance of the black Governor Joseph Jenkins Roberts, declared its independence in 1847 after British traders refused to pay tariffs to the ACS, a private organization. Maryland's colony declared its independence in 1853, but the struggling nation of Maryland in Africa joined [Liberia in 1856](_URL_0_). \n\nThe new Republic of Liberia needed resources desperately, but the most important was manpower. President Roberts had appealed to the U.S. Congress to provide money and weapons so the Liberians could consolidate their control over the coast and end the slave trade in the region, thus fulfilling an important moral mission for Liberia while also breaking the power of the inland tribes, but Congress refused. Congress did direct the U.S. Navy to reinforce the Africa Squadron and turn over any slaves they confiscated to the American Colonization Society, which was still sending settlers and material support to Liberia. In the last year before the Civil War, 4,500 former slaves were resettled in Liberia. The \"Americo-Liberians\" were still a small minority in the land they claimed, numbering perhaps 15,000 at that time against a half-million indigenous Liberians (and they remain a small minority today, about 5 percent of Liberia's population). \n\nNews of the Civil War sent a shockwave through Liberia. The Navy withdrew the Africa Squadron. This had little effect on Liberia, since Britain's Royal Navy had a much larger presence in the region and was much more effective at anti-slavery patrols. \n\nDramatic changes soon came; in September 1862, the United States (after approval by a Congress largely emptied of Southern votes) formally recognized the Republic of Liberia, and signed a trade agreement the following month - but not before President Lincoln had floated, in a meeting with two black ministers, the idea of removing all black people from America entirely, resettling them in Liberia and/or Central America. When reports of the meeting were published, they met swift condemnation from black leaders such as Frederick Douglass and white leaders such as Salmon Chase. Given the private nature of the meeting, Lincoln was quickly able to declare he'd been misunderstood - but by the time the Emancipation Proclamation was announced a few months later, the alternative of deporting all black Americans had already been discussed and dismissed. It's very possible this was Lincoln's intent in the first place. \n\nDuring the war, Liberia was largely consumed with the work of consolidating its control. Fighting a series of guerrilla wars against the indigenous peoples, and gaining a workforce for its fledgling export economy, was the nation's overriding concern. Large villages were set up for \"Receptive Africans,\" mainly those uprooted by the constant state of low-grade war along Liberia's encroaching inland borders. They received instruction in Christianity, the English language, and the art of backbreaking labor to grow sugar and cacao for export. \n\nLiberia's population, of course, followed the Civil War with great interest, but mostly and correctly in self-interested terms. Liberia was delighted to receive an American consul in 1864, and to send an ambassador to the black Republic of Haiti, but it was most interested in gaining the revenues to pay off its debts and expand its infrastructure - and that meant gaining a \"civilized\" population capable of overwhelming the \"aborigines.\" The Emancipation Proclamation seemed to hold out the hope of an America which would recognize black equality - and this was ironically a serious blow to Liberia. As Liberia's President Daniel Bashiel Warner told Liberia's Congress in December 1865:\n\n > Our need of population is immediate and urgent. Our immense resources cannot be developed... simply for the want of minds and hands to engage in the necessary operations. \n > \n > ...We have again and again invited our brethren in the United States to come over and help us fill up the vast solitudes, which for centuries have remained uninhabited... My confidence remains unshaken in the destiny of Liberia. She is yet to be the asylum of the oppressed American negro and a beacon for the guidance of the benighted tribes of this continent.\n\nAfter the Civil War, black Americans did emigrate to Liberia, but in small numbers; of the almost five million black people in America, fewer than a thousand set sail for Liberia in 1866. Not even the collapse of Reconstruction could spur more than a few hundred black Americans to seek refuge in Africa; Haiti and Canada remained the most popular destinations for black emigrants. \n\n**Sources:**\n\n*Another America: The Story of Liberia and the Former Slaves Who Ruled It* by James Ciment \n\n*The Annual Messages of the Presidents of Liberia 1848–2010: State of the Nation Addresses to the National Legislature* edited by D.Elwood Dunn "
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2z9z96 | Is it possible to harness the gamma radiation from nuclear reactions in the same way we harness solar radiation using solar panels? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2z9z96/is_it_possible_to_harness_the_gamma_radiation/ | {
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"From: _URL_0_\n\n > Spent fuels and high level radioactive wastes which emit high doze of gamma rays could be a promising and long-lasting power source, if the gamma ray energy was effectively converted other forms of energy. In the present study, we have tried to convert gamma ray to electricity directly, with using silicon semiconductor cells made of p-type Si single crystal wafers with various specific resistivities ranging from 0.01 to 1000 Ohm∙cm. On both surfaces of the cell (20×20×0.5mm3), Al and Sb were deposited in vacuum to make electrodes at room temperature. The voltage-current measurement of the cells showed a rectification effect, and Al side was found to work a cathode. This suggests a Schottky junction was formed at the interface between the deposited Al and Si wafer. The cell irradiated by gamma ray in Co-60 irradiation facility in Kyushu Univ. with an absorbed dose of about 200Gy/h, and output voltage and current generated by the irradiation with external resistances varying from 200 to 100,000 Ohm were measured. The maximum electric power obtained for each cell ranged from 0.002 to 200 micro-W/m2, and clearly increased with increasing the specific resistivity of Si wafers. For comparison, a single crystal Si solar cell (2400mm2×0.5m, 0.5V×450mA in AM1.5 condition) was also exposed to the gamma ray, and its maximum electric power was 2 micro-W/m2. The output power of the present cell with high resistivity was two orders of magnitude higher than that of the Si solar cell.\n\n > Energy deposition in the Si cell during gamma irradiation was evaluated with the Monte Carlo Simulation for N Particles (MCNP) code. For Si with 0.5 mm thickness, the deposited energy was calculated to be 17000 micro-W/m2 for 200Gy/h. Comparing the output energy by the gamma irradiation, the energy conversion efficiency of the present Si cells reached about 1%. Unfortunately, the present cells were unstable even in ambient atmosphere, the conversion ratio of which decreased to less than one tenth in six months. Further development of the cells with higher conversion ratio and improvement of its stability will be discussed.\n\nSo, yes, it should be technologically possible (one day) to effectively harness the energy.\n\nAlso, we may devise some meta-materials which might be able to red-shift gamma rays into the ultraviolet or infrared ranges where we can use existing solar cell technologies."
]
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3v3r4p | why does rubbing your finger across your lips make them softer? | seriously have no idea, but it works! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3v3r4p/eli5_why_does_rubbing_your_finger_across_your/ | {
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"Anyone else try rubbing their lips with their finger after reading the title?",
"Your lips require oil or else they get chapped. Your fingers have oil on them, and some of it comes off onto your lips. It's the same concept as chapstick just much less effective.",
"I thought it was because, when you rub your lips, you rub off the top layer of lip skin. And then it's all smooth yet raw underneath? No?"
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6k7xdh | Why must we use radians (and not degrees) in calculus? | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/6k7xdh/why_must_we_use_radians_and_not_degrees_in/ | {
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"You don't have to. Radians and degrees are different units for the same thing, just like inches vs centimeters.\n\nBut since everyone else uses radians, and all the formulas are written in radians, you'd just be making your life more complicated and confusing. \n\nBut if you go to any formula that has an angle X in radians it, and replace X with X / 360 * 2π, you now have a formula in degrees.\n\n",
"It makes more sense when using trig functions.\n\nWhat's the limit as x- > 0 of sin(x)/x? Well, hey, that's 1 rad, or if we use degrees, it's PI/180. What's the derivative of sin(x)? It's cos(x) rad, or if we use degrees, it's PI * cos(x) / 180. You just end up with some clutter PI and 180 terms all over the place. It's easier to just ignore them. It lends itself well to using unit circles. It's just the arc length of an angle divided by the radius. Similar unit problems come up when you're doing rotations and translations, that's usually done in radians as well, for simplicity.\n\nIt's not a \"must\", it's more of a \"why wouldn't you make things easier?\"",
"Have a look at [this gif](_URL_0_). A radian is just a way of measuring such that :\n\nThe length of each turn around the circle = is exactly equal to the length of the radius.\n\nYou could use any units you want. Of course, the distance between the centre and the edge (the radius), is a bit smaller than the overall distance around the circle. In fact the ratio of those is 2 pi, so just a bit longer than 6 times. \n\nAnd for high school maths you typically want to divide the turn into a number that is readily divisible, so defining a complete turn is 360 degrees. But this is a human invention. The more \"natural\" way of describing it is defining the amount of turns in terms of the radius. [Again have a look at this animation](_URL_0_) it probably explains it better. ",
"Strictly mathematically speaking there are no units in mathematics. All \"angles\" are in radians, they are simply real numbers. You can interpret a real number r in R as an angle (i.e. say that r = pi is 180 degrees, etc.) but r is still just a real number. The degree-symbol ° is just itself a real number and is equal to ° = pi/180. When one writes x° one just means x * ° (multiplication of real number x by real number ° )"
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4en0jy | why do video game discs have loading screens but nintendo cartridges don't? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4en0jy/eli5_why_do_video_game_discs_have_loading_screens/ | {
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"Nintendo (or really any) cartridges never take more than a few seconds to load so there is no need for a loading screen.",
"Video game cartridges are like the solid state drives (SSDs) of the past. They had much faster data transfer rates but data capacity is much more expensive since the data is stored on computer chips.\n\nDisks are the opposite and are similar to hard drive disks (HDDs). They have slow transfer rates because they require reading of a physically spinning disk but can hold a large amount of data. This is why there are loading times for games on disk because the console has to read the disk and load it.\n\nIn the N64 vs Sony Playstation days, N64 had very responsive games with little to no loading screens. However, the Playstation could have games with movie cinematics because the CDs could store a large amount of data"
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3l2vjg | rfid protection | How does RFID protection technology work? Is it just a coating that prevents a reading or is there more to it?
Background: I have an [RFID protection wallet](_URL_0_) that I put my student ID card in. If i put it in the outside id window, it CAN'T be read by the sensors however if i put it in the inside id window, it CAN be read. I'm just curious as to why this is. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3l2vjg/eli5rfid_protection/ | {
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"At a high level, the wallets that offer RFID protection are very small [Faraday cages](_URL_0_) which block all EM radiation from coming in or going out.\n\nThe ID window is a hole in the cage, which allows the RFID signal to pass through."
]
} | [] | [
"http://ep.yimg.com/ay/yhst-88464523396784/tumi-delta-rfid-multi-window-card-case-8.gif"
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[
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|
epejuu | how do drug companies decide what the dosage should be for different over the counter medication? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/epejuu/eli5_how_do_drug_companies_decide_what_the_dosage/ | {
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"Extensive testing, through a bunch of different phases, starting with animals and, when it’s deemed safe enough and worth the effort to move into the market, on humans"
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2jo63v | why is it that we don't know much about ancient civilizations? shouldn't the information get passed across generations? | We don't know much about ancient Egypt for example. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2jo63v/eli5_why_is_it_that_we_dont_know_much_about/ | {
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"text": [
"But if Civilization gets slaughtered or decimated by illness who are they going to tell their history? Our knowledge of history is based mainly on documents. If we don't have them or can't decipher them (as was long the case with hieroglyphics) we won't know much. Also do WE document our history for future civilizations? Probably not that well. ",
"This troubles me a lot too, but really what it is is evidence of the power that writing, language, and institutionalized history has on the global retention of past knowledge.\n\nI was having a conversation with a historian friend of mine about this very topic, and he raised the excellent point of complex systems in human society being responsible for this phenomena. \n\nAbsolutely everything that gives us quality of life and infrastructure in our society today is because of our ancestors putting their effort and their livelihoods into creating those systems. After dozens of generations, the cumulative work of all of these humans becomes impossible to recreate if lost.\n\nFor instance, the fall of the Roman Empire. When the Roman Empire fell, there was a significant period of intellectual and economic regression in Western Europe that we know as the Dark Ages. There is virtually ***zero*** written historical data about this period of time, and the details of what exactly happened during these few centuries is something completely shrouded in obscurity for historians. \n\nWhile the way that the Dark Ages is talked about today is a bit of a misnomer as I'm sure ***many*** historically minded people will point out to me, (China and the East in general continued to develop during the Dark Ages) it does provide interesting perspective for us as to what would happen if our society as we know it were to collapse. If the Roman roads and legions going away could cause such a massive regression for Western Europe, how many more orders of magnitude would the tragedy be if the age of information disappeared?",
" > We don't know much about ancient Egypt for example.\n\nWe know a great deal about ancient Egypt. They left countless artifacts and detailed records of their daily lives at many levels of social strata over thousands of years. We also have records of Egyptian life by writers of other cultures (Greek and Rome. The cultures we don’t know much about are the ones that didn’t leave many artifacts and records, or whose records were destroyed, or whose writing systems and languages can no longer be deciphered. ",
"Ever played the game telephone as a kid? "
]
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embl1g | British naval doctrine | May be too simple a question for this sub, but it’s bugging me. I remember reading or hearing about a British doctrine in which the Royal Navy was expected to be more powerful than the next two navies. What’s the doctrine called or did I make it up? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/embl1g/british_naval_doctrine/ | {
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"I'm at work at the moment so I don't have my books to hand so hopefully this doesn't get removed.\n\nI actually wrote my dissertation on this! Or at least the naval arms race prior to WW1 and the development of Dreadnought class warships.\n\n\nBritain had the largest navy in the world and its policy was to ensure the Royal Navy was at least the size of the next two largest navies, known as the \"2 Power Standard\". \n\n(Carl Cavanagh Hodge (2008). Encyclopedia of the Age of Imperialism, 1800-1914. Greenwood. p. 549. ISBN 9780313043413.)\n\nApologies, I'm posting from my phone so can't really reference properly. \n\nI hope this helps!",
"It is called the “two-power standard”.\nThe times of naval superiority at low cost was at an end by growing naval competition from old rivals, such as the French, and new ones such as Imperial Germany and the Japanese. These challenges were reflected by the Naval Defence act of 1889, which received the Royal Assent on May 31 1889, formally adopted the two-power standard and boosted British naval strength. The standard called for the British Royal Navy to maintain a number of battleships at least equal to the collective strength of the next 2 biggest navies on the planet, which then were the French and Russian navies.\n\nExpert naval opinions displayed to the parliament \nin December 1888 and February 1889 provided critical views on the state of the navy. The buildup and expansion of the French and Russian navies was another factor pointing to alleged British weakness. As a result, public support for proposed naval growth grew and placed further pressure on Parliament to support the act.\n\nIn reality, the two-power standard had been informally utilized over the past 70 years and during the 1850s, Britain had briefly met it. Britain already enjoyed international naval superiority. The Act reasserted the standard by its formal adoption and indicated an ambition to bolster British naval supremacy to an even greater level.\n\nThe expansion came in the form of 10 battleships, 42 cruisers and 18 torpedo gunboats. The battleships were the centrepiece of the legislation. 8 first-class battleships of the Royal Sovereign class and 2 second class battleships, HMS Centurion and HMS Barfleur were ordered. The Royal Sovereign class was the most formidable capital ship of its day, fulfilling the role of a larger and faster battleship unrivalled by those of Russia and France. The cruisers were aimed at protecting the British supply lines.\n\n9 first-class cruisers of the Edgar class, 29 second-class cruisers of the Apollo and Astraea classes and 4 third-class cruisers of the Pearl class were provided. The other 18 torpedo gunboats served to assist and defend the main battle fleet.\n\n\nThe major rationales were military and economic. The First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord George Hamilton, argued that the size and scope of the new building programme would deter and discourage the naval ambitions of other powers. By deterring other powers’ naval growth at present, the British would be able to spend less money on shipbuilding in the future."
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30334n | "Great Game" narratives usually describe a British Empire deeply anxious about Russian expansion into Asia. How much was the opposite also true? | I was just reading Hevia's *The Imperial Security State*, and when he discusses the Great Game, it becomes clear that British imperialists were indeed very much concerned with Russian expansionism. Given that Great Britian was similarly a highly aggressive expanding power in Asia at this time, did similar anxieties exist in Moscow? To what degree was Russian expansionism aimed at countering Great Britian or other Western powers? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/30334n/great_game_narratives_usually_describe_a_british/ | {
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"can i tack on a book request for overviews of \"the great game\"?"
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bh2k4z | what makes some glass surfaces reflective while others are transparent? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bh2k4z/eli5_what_makes_some_glass_surfaces_reflective/ | {
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"Light. If an object behind glass repels photons, it reflects. If it doesnt, it appears transparent as the photons continue passed it. That's how mirrors work."
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3y51yf | what causes that "old" metallic-like smell in antique typewriters/cameras/sewing machines? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3y51yf/eli5_what_causes_that_old_metalliclike_smell_in/ | {
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"It's actually a kind of body odor. When you touch the metal, it catalyzes the decomposition of oils on your skin and makes smaller, more volatile compounds that make up the \"metal smell.\""
]
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||
7th592 | Origin of the honorable Wehrmacht reputation | It's been known since during the war itself that the German heer (armed forces) were involved in atrocities, not just the SS, so how did we in the West get the notion that their hands were relatively "clean?" Did it develop more or less organically since there were a relative handful of atrocities in the West as compared to the East (and maybe a lingering view of Eastern Europe as barbaric and Asiatic) or was it a successful whitewashing campaign by the Western Allies who after all wanted a new Germany to be their ally in the Cold War? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7th592/origin_of_the_honorable_wehrmacht_reputation/ | {
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"text": [
"While there be more to add, I think this answer to an older question by u/commiespaceinvader may be what you are looking for. \n_URL_0_"
]
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"reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5799li/did_the_rommel_myth_and_clean_wehrmacht_myth_and/d8suoyk/"
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9gsjo2 | What can we use bronze for today and why? | I was wondering what we use bronze for today and the reason for it. I cant seem to find a reason for using bronze in industrial and non-industrial purposes. | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/9gsjo2/what_can_we_use_bronze_for_today_and_why/ | {
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"Bronze type alloys are often used in places where you want low friction with steel parts. The most common example are oil infused bronze bushings for rotating parts. They are cheaper and take less space than roller bearings. ",
"The propellers on ships are commonly made from a bronze alloy. Mainly because it is very resistant to corrosion and has good machinability.",
"Bells are typically made of a [type of bronze](_URL_0_) with a high tin content which has desirable resonant properties.",
"In Train industry, the cranks made to carry 20 to 30 tons have parts in bronze in contact with steel. \nIt is not likely to wear like steel so during maintenance, only half the bearing elements are changed (very limited dismounting). \n\n\nOn board where the wieght is limited, there is stricly no bronze. \n\n\nIn hospitals, brass is tested for its bacterial killing propreties. \n",
"Bronze fasteners are used in cryogenic applications because they can contract more than the materials being joined, ensuring that the fastened connection stays tight when going from room temperature to cold. \n\nFor example, if I were to bolt two copper plates or a copper plate to a steel plate, a steel bolt wont shrink as much as the copper, and the connection will get loose. But a brass or bronze fastener will shrink closer to the copper shrink rate, and the joint will stay tight. \n\nSo why not use a copper fastener? The strength of copper isn't so great - threads tend to shear, and are difficult to machine well (compared to steel). Bronze can machine well, and has higher strength.",
"Non sparking tools can be made from bronze. Required when working around flammable materials. ",
"Bronze, while not as strong as steel, has comparable strength to aluminum and really good machinability, meaning for hard to make parts where the material is non critical, bronze makes a really great choice as it limits tool wear and machine time, two expensive elements when machining.\n\nBronze also is naturally lower in friction then steel or aluminum, which allows bronze parts to serve as bearing elements, allowing sliding or rotation with longer service lives than other metals.\n\nBronze also sticks to pretty much every aluminum and steel alloy, which allows it to be used as a brazing alloy to create joints not as strong as a weld, but certainly stronger than most other attachment methods and across multiple otherwise incompatible metals.\n\nThe softness of bronze and brass coupled with their fatigue resistance also lend the alloy to use in rivets where steel is unusable for corrosion properties, or the peening force that can be applied is limited.",
"Can’t say much for industrial, but the reason we use bronze for handles and doorknobs has a lot to do with it’s antimicrobial properties. It is actually the copper in the bronze that is antimicrobial, but it functions the same regardless.\n\n_URL_0_",
"It's a relatively small thing, but acoustic guitar strings are made from bronze.\n\nSteel and nickel (which is what electric guitar strings are made from) has a thin and wimpy tone that most folks dislike, whereas bronze has a much fuller tone.",
"Many brackets on trucks are made of cast bronze rather than cast iron as they are more ductile and can take shock loads better than cast iron. Brass is a type of bronze and is used in many pipe and tubing fittings",
"Bronze is used alot in aerospace nearly ever bushing between moving parts is bronze including critical load bearing stuff like flight controls and landing gear and allows us to replace a $1k bushing Instead of a $1m landing gear leg",
"Cymbals for drums are made from various alloys of bronze.",
"Silicon bronze screws are expensive and used on boats below the water line. They don’t corrode under water unlike basically everything else.",
"Copper has great anti-microbial properties, making alloys like bronze popular material for medical instruments & hospital tools. I think it is more of a historic thing, though, as stuff like implants and wearables have been superseded by other materials in more modern times. However, I think bronze can still be found in door handles and furniture fixtures in part for this reason.",
"Many industrial valves are made of bronze. Also many pumps have their housing made of bronze.\n\nBronze handles some tricky fluids, like seawater for example, way better than carbon steel, and are cheaper than stainless steel.",
"To add to all the uses already listed, there's a fashion for bronze dive watches now. It goes back to the heritage of bronze in maritime applications, it's inexpensive but still has a golden color, and it doesn't really corrode in saltwater. Plus some people appreciate the patina.",
"The surfaces of copper and its alloys, such as brassand bronze, are antimicrobial. They have an inherent ability to kill a wide range of harmful microbes relatively rapidly – often within two hours or less – and with a high degree of efficiency.\n\nStraight from wikipedia",
"\"I cant seem to find a reason for using bronze in industrial and non-industrial purposes.\"\nYou clearly did not look very hard. Bronze bushings are all over the place and an amazing use for the material as pointed out by another user.\n\nBronze is also used as a filler material in some types of welding (Brazing) as well as a matrix for sintered materials (compressed/molded metal powder that is heated and to form a solid part).\n\nThe type of thinking your applying here is a common trap people fall into when looking at lower tech/older materials and their applications. ",
"Nickel-aluminium bronzes are very resistant to damage caused by cavitation and are therefore used in marine applications like ship’s propellers and parts of ball valves. Also, the copper in the alloy makes it more difficult for all kinds of algae and other sea life to grow on the surface. ",
"Many have mentioned that bronze is less thermally conductive. I don't think anyone has mentioned that it is also (nearly) an electric insulator (it is technically conductive but only 7% as much as copper). For this reason, it is often used where you want a relatively hard metal that doesn't conduct. There are other (often better) options but bronze does a good job for this reason in several situations and has fairly good wear properties to boot.",
"The corrosion resistance to Seawater of Bronze alloys (and other Copper alloys like Cupronickel) makes it very useful in Marine engineering (Ships, Rigs, De-salination plants, power plant cooling etc). Valves, pumps, pipework; anything in contact with Seawater can make extensive use of Bronze and other Copper alloys.",
"There are door thresholds and elevator door sills, locks, the internals of faucets, pipes, valves and gears (like in fishing reels). Since it's corrosion resistant and can be cast or sintered into complex shapes. ",
"Bronze is often used in marine environments although it almost always has a grounding cable on it if you don't want it corroding away very quickly. Quite often, small boats and boats with salt water intake holes will have a bronze filtration vessel since it won't corrode so easily when exposed to sea water provided it's grounded so that the sea water won't corrode the metal."
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9atznv | what happens in your skin when you get calluses. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9atznv/eli5_what_happens_in_your_skin_when_you_get/ | {
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"Your skin gets tired of repairing the damage, so it over-does the repair operation - thickening the outer protective layer.",
"Podiatrist here. Thickening of keratin layer of skin - keratin is a protein that forms cross bonds in top layers of skin in this case, and being undifferentiated and dead they are great at providing protection. They are primarily caused by friction.\n\n_URL_0_ is very informative.\n\nFor true ELI5, when areas of skin are used a lot, playing the guitar for example, the skin responses to the rubbing by adding a specialised, thicker layer, due to complex biochemistry.",
"What does “starting fresh” mean? ",
"Skin feels constant pressure and hurts a lot in a certain spot so it adds more stuff to the spot to protect it better. Looks and feels funny, but it’s your skin trying to protect itself better so it can keep protecting you.",
"Your skin wants to protect itself, so you grow mermaid scales to create a barrier between you and a perceived threat to your body."
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h4f5v | Fairly inane question about microwaves (the cooking kind) | Hi clever people,
Me and dad were having a lazy night and were going to microwave these curry dishes we'd bought (they were lovely) The instructions claimed that each took 5 minutes to cook. My dad said that if we wanted to cook them at the same time we had to double it as there was twice as much. Surely this isn't true?
Say it isn't so "Askscience" otherwise I look like a total ass for arguing so fervently about it.
Thanks guys I know it's an inane question but those big brains need to relax and answer some easy questions occasionally... | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/h4f5v/fairly_inane_question_about_microwaves_the/ | {
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"Non-scientist here, but I'll try to answer your question.\n\nYes, your father is right. For different amounts of food, cooking times varies. This has to do with the way microwaves work.\n\nWhen cooking in a regular oven, the amount of food doesn't influence cooking time (at least, not in a sensible way - unless we are talking of a really crowded oven!). This happens because only part of the heat emitted is absorbed at the surface of the food you're cooking. Then the heat spreads to the inside.\n\nMicrowaves on the contrary are able to penetrate deeper. Since the food is absorbing all of the energy that the microwave emits, most foods will take twice as long if you double the quantity.\n\nThe amount of time doesn't always increase linearly, but might depend on the food composition.",
"Not true - as you could tell from looking at the cooking instructions listed right on the box. Roughly speaking, if you double the amount of stuff you're cooking, you need to increase your cooking time by something like 70-80%.\n\n[Conjecture:] Your microwave oven is a closed space with a given volume. That volume remains constant whether you have one curry dish in there or fifteen. If you have one, then your microwave will heat that dish plus the air around it. If you have two, the microwave will heat two *minus the volume of air corresponding to the second dish*. You have less \"wasted\" energy, so it takes less than twice the energy (and hence less than twice the time) to cook two dishes."
]
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2gebi7 | i get told beer is bad because it is all carbs and soda is bad because it is all sugar. which one is worse on my gut and why? | What am i supposed to drink? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2gebi7/eli5i_get_told_beer_is_bad_because_it_is_all/ | {
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"Water. You're supposed to drink water",
"sugar is a form of carbohydrate. The amount of carbs in beer differs greatly depending on the type, same as the amount of sugar in sodas",
"Beer hydrates you if you don't drink to much and it's packed full of vitamins. You ever see all that shit swirling around a bottle of good beer? Vitamin goodness. ",
"Everything in moderation, my friend. Enjoy your occasional beer or soda, don't go chugging a 2-liter bottle of coke every day."
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mfp3j | selling short in stocks, mutual funds, and margins | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/mfp3j/eli5_selling_short_in_stocks_mutual_funds_and/ | {
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"**Short selling: **\n\nYou have 100 stocks in a company that you plan on keeping regardless of what happens to its price. Lets say they're worth 100$ a piece. Now I think that the price is going to take a shit-kicking. So I tell you, 'Hey, if you let me borrow your 100 stocks for a month, I'll give them back to you and give you a bit of commission for your trouble'. You say 'awesome. Here, take them!'. So now I have those stocks, but I owe you them back in a month. I sell those stocks right away, so now I have 10k in cash. If I'm right and the stock drops to 50 the next day, I can buy those 100 stocks back at the lower price and return them to you. I make $5k, which is the difference between the lower and higher price of the stock. \n\nWhere this gets dangerous is when the stock goes *up* instead of down. Because I've promised to return those stocks and I've already sold them, if the price goes up, I still have to buy them back. So you can actually end up losing money. Lets say I have to pay 110 each for them. You don't care because you get your stock and commission, but I'm out $1000!\n\n\n**Mutual Funds:**\n\nMutual Funds: Basically, a bunch of people pool their money to buy stocks and other investments. You buy a percentage of that mutual fund. If the value of the investments that fund owns goes up, your share of the fund is more valuable. If you sell your share, you get your money back plus what the value increased by, less a commission. Mind you, it's just like a stock in the sense that it's value can drop too.\n\n**Margins:**\n\nMargins are the percentage gain you stand to make. Say you're going to sell something to a friend. You're going to sell it for $100, but it cost you $80 to get in the first place. Your margin is 20%. Or in other words, you're marking it up by 25%.\n \nIn terms of stocks, it's the difference between what you buy a stock at and what you sell it for, less fees for things like brokers. \n\nEDIT: margins aren't the percentage, but rather just the difference in what you paid vs sell for. They can be shown in trims of percentage or actual value.",
"**Short selling: **\n\nYou have 100 stocks in a company that you plan on keeping regardless of what happens to its price. Lets say they're worth 100$ a piece. Now I think that the price is going to take a shit-kicking. So I tell you, 'Hey, if you let me borrow your 100 stocks for a month, I'll give them back to you and give you a bit of commission for your trouble'. You say 'awesome. Here, take them!'. So now I have those stocks, but I owe you them back in a month. I sell those stocks right away, so now I have 10k in cash. If I'm right and the stock drops to 50 the next day, I can buy those 100 stocks back at the lower price and return them to you. I make $5k, which is the difference between the lower and higher price of the stock. \n\nWhere this gets dangerous is when the stock goes *up* instead of down. Because I've promised to return those stocks and I've already sold them, if the price goes up, I still have to buy them back. So you can actually end up losing money. Lets say I have to pay 110 each for them. You don't care because you get your stock and commission, but I'm out $1000!\n\n\n**Mutual Funds:**\n\nMutual Funds: Basically, a bunch of people pool their money to buy stocks and other investments. You buy a percentage of that mutual fund. If the value of the investments that fund owns goes up, your share of the fund is more valuable. If you sell your share, you get your money back plus what the value increased by, less a commission. Mind you, it's just like a stock in the sense that it's value can drop too.\n\n**Margins:**\n\nMargins are the percentage gain you stand to make. Say you're going to sell something to a friend. You're going to sell it for $100, but it cost you $80 to get in the first place. Your margin is 20%. Or in other words, you're marking it up by 25%.\n \nIn terms of stocks, it's the difference between what you buy a stock at and what you sell it for, less fees for things like brokers. \n\nEDIT: margins aren't the percentage, but rather just the difference in what you paid vs sell for. They can be shown in trims of percentage or actual value."
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1rl88r | why does the pitch of an emergency siren change when it has gone past you? | I wonder why the pitch of a siren changes when it is going past you at a fast speed. It sounds different when it is moving at you and when it is moving away from you. As an example Swedish siren: _URL_0_
Is there any physical explanation to this? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1rl88r/eli5_why_does_the_pitch_of_an_emergency_siren/ | {
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"The sound waves bunch up ahead of the vehicle, making out sound higher, and as it passes you, they spread out behind out, lowering the frequency. Google \"Doppler effect\"",
"[The Doppler Effect](_URL_0_)",
"I learned about the Doppler effect from Dewey on Malcom in the Middle"
]
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"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALnMzTC-144"
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[],
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"http://www.sheldonquotes.com/uploads/Doppler.gif"
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|
3jqo3b | why do we clinch our teeth while applying force? | Whenever we open a box lid which is very tight or push something heavy (like a car), we tend to clinch our teeth.
Was curious why this happens. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3jqo3b/eli5_why_do_we_clinch_our_teeth_while_applying/ | {
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"Imagine force as pressure, like the pressure of soda in a bottle. We feel the pressure because the soda is pushing against the walls of the bottle. If the cap is off the bottle, there is no pressure: the walls of the bottle are squishable. When the cap is on the bottle becomes stiff. \n\nOur bodies are the same way. In order for muscles to exert pressure, they need to be pushing against a closed container. We close our bodies by closing our vocal cords. Clenching your jaw is another way to put extra pressure against the vocal cords.\n\n\nI can give more details about why this is effective and how it works if you're interested.\nSource: I'm a speech and swallowing therapist. I work with vocal cords."
]
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2ewz96 | How did people on the dole pass their days in ancient Rome? | I am presuming this would be someone living in Rome at its height (e.g., 2/3rd century AD) who got the full ration of bread, olive oil, etc. | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2ewz96/how_did_people_on_the_dole_pass_their_days_in/ | {
"a_id": [
"ck421pl"
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"The Roman grain dole was not really a \"poor relief\"--[this paper](_URL_0_) does a really good job covering the basics. Furthermore, I don't believe that the dole would be able to cover the full subsistence of a family. So, that said, they would probably be working. The idea of a slave based urban economy has rapidly fallen out of fashion, and I strongly suspect that the desperately poor of ancient Rome would be doing the same sorts of menial, temporary labor done by desperately poor throughout urban history."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"www.jstor.org/stable/20181081"
]
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|
3rnz3m | nasa's latest announcement about mars' atmosphere | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3rnz3m/eli5_nasas_latest_announcement_about_mars/ | {
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"Mars' Atmosphere is being stripped from a tiny fraction of its' Gas every second (about 100g/seconds globally on rough estimates) due to Solar Winds. \n\nI just tuned into the Livestream myself, if you want to know anything specific, let me know, and I'll get back to you once i learn more. :)",
"EDIT: More ELI5 answer:\n\nA long time ago Mars had plenty of water flowing on its surface. Shortly after the flowing water was there Mars lost its magnetic field. The magnetic field is caused by melted metal inside of Mars moving around; the same way Earth gets its magnetic field. The metal cooled and became solid faster than Earth's because Mars is smaller and Earth has more radioactive rocks inside of it heating it like a nuclear reactor.\n\nThis magnetic field was like a shield for Mars. This \"shield\" protected Mars from the Sun. When Mars lost its shield so long ago it was exposed to the Sun's winds which blew the air off of Mars and evaporated all the water on Mars too! The water was blown off of Mars and lost to space as well.\n\nMars is still losing its atomosphere at a rate of 100 grams a second (that's about as much as a cheeseburger!).\n\nOriginal post: Mars' lost its magnetic field about 4.2 billion years ago which then allowed solar winds to, over the 500 million years, \"blow\" away Mars' atmosphere. Before that time water had been \"abundant and active\" on Mars.\n\nCurrently, from rough estimates, Mars' atmosphere is being lost at a rate of 100 grams, or 1/4 pound, per second.",
"So say it was possible to terraform mars. If the planet no longer has a core capable of producing a magnetic field..wouldnt the atmosphere we try to create just continue to be wiped away by solar winds? "
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3wolok | What did economics classes look like in communist countries, particularly in the USSR? | So, I'm an economics student and after reading some of Marx's writings, I realized how much the economics curriculum here in the US is heavily reliant on the capitalist system of economics (profit maximization, private property, etc) and it got me thinking about how different a Marxist economics course would look like. So, what would an economics student in a communist country, say in the Soviet Union, learn and what would be something that we'd learn in common and somethings that would be different? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3wolok/what_did_economics_classes_look_like_in_communist/ | {
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"\"So, what would an economics student in a communist country, say in the Soviet Union, learn and what would be something that we'd learn in common and somethings that would be different?\"\n\n\nThey learn economy as if it is all only about Marx's theory and as if Capitalism does not exist at all. You learn about classes: bourgeoisie and proletariat. You'd learn economy in connection to history and philosophy, you learn this basic concept of \"the plan\" and planning. \n\n\nThey rarely see how things are in capitalists countries, more concentration on \"the right way\" of command administrative system. Actually even now in Russia these views are not entirely gone and many old econ teachers still bring up some soviet things and mix them up with classic capitalism. For example the theory about quality (it's called there - quality management), production theories (pure math in Russia) and other areas have a connection to old USSR economy views. I was lucky to have a chance to compare because i finished University in Russia (econ major) and then i graduated from an american college (finance major) and even now i see a huge difference. Russia is very weak on economy, extremely weak. And it is all going from the way they teach it: super boring, they don't know how it works and how it supposed to work (capitalism), there is no practice at all. This is not true for huge and modern Universities in Moscow but in a province econ education is very week this days, even in modern Russia. Things were much worst in soviet union. No one in USSR in the right mind would choose to study economy, economy was strongly connected to politics. In USSR they studied practical things and concentrated on that, that is why soviet legacy could produce airspace ships and good weapons. But when it comes to \"how to make money\" or \"how economy works\", USSR had no clue. ",
"Economics classes in communist countries were generally focused much more on microeconomics and industrial planning, while U.S. courses focused on macroeconomic theory and market forces. \n\nFor example, compare U.S. based microeconomics courses(both graduate and undergraduate levels) to Eastern European microeconomic courses. In the U.S., the general focus is on consumer behavior at a granular level. We apply quantitative methods to individual behavior (e.g. game theory) to understand how individuals behave in a market. We then use these theories (e.g. rational consumer) as a foundation to scale up to market behavior analysis.\n\nHowever, in many eastern European countries, the focus of their curriculum was much more \"business\" oriented. Microeconomics courses in countries such as Russia focused on industrial planning. They used microeconomic tools such as marginal cost and revenue and so forth to determine the most efficient way to produce and price goods. This ideology is very quantitative and we still see artifacts of this skill be necessary in Eastern European and Russian mathematics curriculums (which would be a whole other topic).\n\nSo to keep things short and general, most western economics curriculums focused on market forces, consumer behavior, and demand while communist countries generally focused on industrial planning, microeconomics, and labor economics.\n\nHere is a source telling you a little bit more about the above: _URL_0_\n\nOn an additional point that I can't find a cite on, I had a macroeconomics professor in college named Richard French from George Washington University who told me that he was one of the first economists to be invited over to Russia to teach and help develop a macroeconomics curriculum. He told me that the majority of the courses were much more based on industrial planning and that the universities/governments really didn't concern themselves with the study of market principles and behavior. Again, I don't have a source on that, but I had a lot of conversations with him about the subject so if you'd like to hear more just ask.",
"In a rather odd coincidence, I happen to have a copy of a 1920s Soviet political economy textbook which had a syllabus in the pages! Hooray for primary sources!\n\n[Here](_URL_0_) we go!"
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|
arah03 | What makes the whirl pool in a sink? | [deleted] | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/arah03/what_makes_the_whirl_pool_in_a_sink/ | {
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"If you fill up your sink with the drain plugged, the water will be moving around in a more or less random way. This random motion most likely has some nonzero angular momentum about the drain. When you pull the plug, water rushes down the drain, pulling more water down behind it (by cohesive forces, water is also pushed in by pressure/gravity). As water gets pushed/pulled toward the center, it won't just go straight in, but will maintain some component of its momentum that is perpendicular to the drain. As a water molecule that has some angular momentum (momentum in a circle around the drain) moves inwards, its rotational speed increases to maintain its angular momentum, like how a tetherball spins faster around the pole as its rope gets shorter. Now, each individual water molecule will not maintain its angular momentum the whole way down the drain because there are collisions and cohesive forces between water molecules, but as the molecules interact they will tend to rotate in the same direction. If most of the water was moving clockwise with respect to the drain when the plug was pulled, the water will end up making a \"whirlpool\" that spins clockwise."
]
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[]
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|
1zrnjk | why do restaurants offer and promote "healthy options" and then give you a tiny water glass? | So one of the easiest and Healthiest decisions I have made lately is totally ditching sugary drinks in exchange for water. Now this is lovely but a ton of restaurants (specifically fast food places) offer a tiny water glass. Is there a reason for this? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1zrnjk/eli5_why_do_restaurants_offer_and_promote_healthy/ | {
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"The most expensive part of a fountain drink is the cup itself so many fast food restaurants is to hand out the cheapest container they have. ",
"For most restaurants, it's because it doesn't make money. Not only do they have to offer free water, but imagine the labor costs to bus away and wash all those cups, and the money it costs to keep the dishwasher going. Smaller dishes means less time to get everything clean."
]
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285uvn | In the Multiple-Universe Theory, how would some universes that have different laws of Physics look compared to our universe's laws? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/285uvn/in_the_multipleuniverse_theory_how_would_some/ | {
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"A pretty simple example would be different values for the fundamental forces. Say for example there existed a universe where the gravitational force was many magnitudes weaker than our own universe. Perhaps no stars or planets of galaxies would ever form. That would be a pretty boring place."
]
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||
6yligy | why was the recent eclipse scientifically important? | I read online that scientists went crazy during the day of the eclipse to get some important data on the corona or whatever. That I get. What I *don't* get is why is it important that the moon block the sun? Why can't we just put a vantablack circle in front of a telescope and have an eclipse 24/7?
TL;DR: Why can't we artificially recreate the eclipse in a smaller scale for scientific purposes. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6yligy/eli5_why_was_the_recent_eclipse_scientifically/ | {
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"The result would not be the same. The sun's light is being blocked from outside the atmosphere. There is only one way to do that, that being with a celestial body with the same apparent diameter. It's also remarkable because of the relative rarity with which these events happen in a given location. ",
"Well scientifically, the recent eclipse is indeed not too interesting or important, many eclipses happen and this one isn’t really unique. People hype it up though and scientists join in mainly to spread scientific awareness and interest in science.\n\nThat being said, as for your question about the corona, we cannot block the sun but leave the corona within the atmosphere since the atmosphere distorts the sunlight and makes it seem such that sunlight is coming from where the corona is supposed to be, making poor measurements, even when blocking out the center of the sun. This still isn’t that much of an issue though, mainly because we have space telescopes which exist in part because of this. "
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1c2qfc | What is it about Malaria that is making a vaccine so difficult to complete? | In my understanding, Malaria is an extremely treatable disease, but due to inability for developing countries to have a consistent supply of medicine for it, it can kill a lot of people. Is there a reason more work has not been put into creating a vaccine? Is it merely a money/politics problem, or is the medicinal difficulty that great that we can't create one? Thank you /r/askscience! | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1c2qfc/what_is_it_about_malaria_that_is_making_a_vaccine/ | {
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"Money is an issue. However Plasmodium falciparum, the parasite that cause malaria is very good at evading the immune system. Traditional vaccines \"teach\" the immune system to recognize and attack pathogens it has never seen before. This is based in the recognition of unique characteristics of the pathogen (like certain protein in its membrane). Those things the immune system see and remembers are called antigens. \n\nHowever Plasmodium has an ability called antigenic variation, it means can change its surface proteins. So whatever the immune system learns about recognizing Plasmodium becomes useless after some time. This is just one of the tricks that allows Plasmodium to evade the inmmune system. Therefore developing a vaccine is not easy.\n\nEdit 1: I'm not an expert in protozoa neither in inmmunology, so probalby someone else could give you a better explanation.\n\nEdit 2: The protein itself its called PfEMP1. Because Plasmodium hides in erythrocytes, what the immune system actually see is the infected erythrocytes with PfEMP1 in their membranes. PfEMP1 is encoded by the var gene. However there are many different copies of the var gene in Plasmodium DNA; each one a little different. Plasmodium will express only one of the var genes. Latter its progeny may express another a different copy of the var gene.",
"dont_sleep's answer is mostly correct, but is only part of the story. Actually *Plasmodium* has a very complex life cycle in which it undergoes several changes and infects several different cell types. Each of these life cycle stages presents different targets to the immune system and would require different immune responses. \n\nVaccinologists disagree on which of these stages would be the most effective to target, and so there's some duplication of effort, which, coupled with the fact that it's a disease of the third world so we spend almost no money on it, means that progress is quite slow. \n\nAlso, all of our most effective vaccines are against viruses, we actually suck a lot at even targeting bacteria (which are far less complex than *Plasmodium*). To my knowledge, the only effective bacterial vaccines we've ever made target bacterial toxins, not the bugs themselves. \n\n > Is it merely a money/politics problem,\n\nThere is definitely a money/politics problem, but who knows where we'd be if we invested more in malaria research? Remember that we've spent A LOT of money on HIV and still don't have a vaccine - and that's a virus (which we should know how to target by now).\n\nAnother problem (from my perspective) is that most vaccinologists are not immunologists, and most immunologists don't go into vaccine research. Ugh... I could clearly talk about this all day, feel free to ask any follow-ups.\n\n**TL;DR - yeah, money is an issue, but the biology is also super complicated**\n"
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4e77et | What was the first example of a major/widely recognized brand? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4e77et/what_was_the_first_example_of_a_majorwidely/ | {
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"In the 16th century Albrecht Dürer, one of *the* most celebrated artists of his time, marked his prints with a specifically designed logo of his initials. The logo quickly became internationally synonymous with his name (Dürer was one of the first artists to achieve substantial fame across Europe during his lifetime), and it was widely used to sell forgeries on the back of the \"Dürer brand\".\n\n[This](_URL_1_) is the logo (looking almost disturbingly modern), and you can see it [here]( _URL_2_) in one of his most famous works, *Young Hare* (1509). Neil McGregor's wonderful *Germany - Memories of a Nation* has an [episode](_URL_0_) on Dürer and the \"Dürer brand\", which is well worth a listen!\n"
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4zwjac | if you flew a spacecraft into a gas planet, would you go straight through it or would you hit some form of ground? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4zwjac/eli5_if_you_flew_a_spacecraft_into_a_gas_planet/ | {
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"Your be crushed by the gravity of the planet long before you reached the center let alone got to the other side.",
"It's believed that most, if not all, gas giants have solid cores. However, the pressure of the atmosphere (not the gravity) would crush your craft LONG before you got to the core. We did send the Galileo probe down into Jupiter's atmosphere, it lasted about 78 minutes before it got crushed like a bug.\n",
"That's pretty much why we've sent Juno up to Jupiter; I understand that it's going to be firing some kind of radar through the atmosphere to see what reflections come back.\n\nThere are also theories that due to the extreme pressure, the core may contain phase 5 hydrogen, a state in which it forms into a metallic structure.\n\n_URL_0_"
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2uibnw | Why can't we create artificial eyes? We're very good at optics and signalprocessing. Where is the complexity in making a "camera" and connecting it to the optic nerve? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2uibnw/why_cant_we_create_artificial_eyes_were_very_good/ | {
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"The optic nerve is a bundle of neuron axons - the *bodies* of those neurons are the [retinal ganglion cells] (_URL_1_), which are spread out in a sheet across the inner surface of the retina. So a bionic eye needs to make contact with the nerve via those cell bodies (or their dendritic inputs, or via prior layers of the retina that make their own connections to the ganglion cells).\n\nSo really what you need is not a bionic *eye*, but a bionic *retina*. The input needs to be a flat sheet laid against the inner or outer surface of the living retina - this kind of retinal implant is an [active research area] (_URL_0_), and there are human subjects out there testing the devices.\n\nLong story short, retinal implants don't work that well (though they do work). There are serious problems in building a direct electrical-neural interface that works well enough to transmit usable information (and keeps working), and problems in signal processing and transmission (the information normally transmitted through the optic nerve is already highly processed by the retina - so even if you can interface well with a ganglion cell, it matters what information you're giving it), all of which might conceivably be overcome by future technology. But at the moment, no, we do not have anything close to a good technological replacement for a dead or dying retina...",
"There have been successful attempts to connect electronic cameras to the optic processing center of human brains, but the mapping process requires the recipient of the transplant to sit at a computer and report what they see when certain neurons are triggered. There are other problems related to how the much harder artificial pieces eventually destroy the neurons they interface with, which causes the transplant to fail.\n\nThere are other issues with the retina doing a good bit of signal processing before anything goes down the optic nerve, but the specifics are somewhat understood and can be replicated by a computer as we get more information on the exact neuron mapping in the retina."
]
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ntmm1 | Why are solar panels typically blue and shiny? | It seems counter-intuitive. In my mind they should be matt, black to absorb as much sunlight as possible. | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/ntmm1/why_are_solar_panels_typically_blue_and_shiny/ | {
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"This is because silicon is best at absorbing light in the redder end of the spectrum, including infrared. Smaller wavelengths, on the blue end of the visible spectrum, are reflected more. So when the sunlight hits the solar cell, silicon likes to absorb the red and reflect the blue. This changes with different materials used to make solar cells. For instance, Spectrolab has triple junction solar cells that use Gallium indium phosphate, Gallium arsenide, and Germanium in order to cover a much wider bandwidth (it likes to absorb more \"colors\" of light), and by doing this they can reach around 30% efficiency but at extremely high cost.\n\n***Sources:***\n\n[Optical properties of Silicon](_URL_1_)\n\n[Spectrolab solar cells](_URL_0_)\n\n**EDIT:** I forgot to mention that Silicon solar cells are by far the most common at the present due to their low cost, hence my focus on Silicon. Most solar cells at some point try to target the red/infrared bandwidths since they are the most intense bandwidths coming from the sun, thus most solar cells have a blueish hue to them (though not always).\n",
"This is because silicon is best at absorbing light in the redder end of the spectrum, including infrared. Smaller wavelengths, on the blue end of the visible spectrum, are reflected more. So when the sunlight hits the solar cell, silicon likes to absorb the red and reflect the blue. This changes with different materials used to make solar cells. For instance, Spectrolab has triple junction solar cells that use Gallium indium phosphate, Gallium arsenide, and Germanium in order to cover a much wider bandwidth (it likes to absorb more \"colors\" of light), and by doing this they can reach around 30% efficiency but at extremely high cost.\n\n***Sources:***\n\n[Optical properties of Silicon](_URL_1_)\n\n[Spectrolab solar cells](_URL_0_)\n\n**EDIT:** I forgot to mention that Silicon solar cells are by far the most common at the present due to their low cost, hence my focus on Silicon. Most solar cells at some point try to target the red/infrared bandwidths since they are the most intense bandwidths coming from the sun, thus most solar cells have a blueish hue to them (though not always).\n"
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1elerk | What Gives Brass That Distinctive Smell? | I recently got an old Nikon SLR camera from my dad. As I was cleaning it I noticed the pungent, sweet odor that antique brass tends to have, especially after years of being stored in stagnant air.
I've always assumed that's just what brass smells like. But then I started think: what am I actually smelling? Are Zinc and Copper particles floating in the air, or is there some other compound that is generated? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1elerk/what_gives_brass_that_distinctive_smell/ | {
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"Not exactly your question, but people are able to smell iron after touching it with a finger, according to [this ScienceDaily article](_URL_0_). Perspiration on the skin reduces the metal into Fe^2+ ions. The Fe^2+ ions decompose oil on your skin (or a byproduct, lipid peroxides) into a bouquet of different organic compounds. \nSkin and Fe^2+ are required for the smell. Touching a drop of a solution containing Fe^2+ produces the same smell; touching the metal is not necessary. \n\nWas the brass smell strongest on your fingers?\n\n\n",
"I've wondered about this too, but I've never been able to find a definitive answer. It's possible that the kinds of molecules that stick and accumulate on brass surfaces just happen to smell that particular way, but this isn't a very satisfying answer.\n\nI've wondered whether the metal oxides that build up can to be detected with the nose when the surface is cleaned vigorously. But this seems hard to verify too."
]
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2vwmyl | how does old and worn money get out of the circulation? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2vwmyl/eli5_how_does_old_and_worn_money_get_out_of_the/ | {
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"One thing that banks do is when they see a bill that's getting too worn out is they send it back to the treasury department and get a replacement. The treasury department destroys them.",
"Banks don't keep the cash that they get as deposits. The cash is bundled up and sent back to the Federal Reserve. The Fed destroys worn out bills and damaged coins."
]
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be64sl | why do large scale fires take so long to be put out? | I'm thinking more in terms of localized fires like the Notre Dame one rather than a forest/bush fire. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/be64sl/eli5_why_do_large_scale_fires_take_so_long_to_be/ | {
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"Thats happens because of how the fire works. In order for fire to burn, you need fuel, heat, and oxygen. Now, its not enough to just locally remove oxygen or energy for a moment. You need an orchestrated effort to keep situation controlled until its all extinguished.\n\n\nIf you dont, dangerous things happen (like, for example, backdraft, if you let the fire smoulder in a closed, heated room, and let the oxygen back in - and thats how many firefighters died, too). Even house fires generate temperatures close to 1000 C easily.\n\nAnd, you cannot just drop several tens of tons of water down. You'd obliterate the building if you did so. Which kinda defeats the purpose of saving as much as possible.\n\n And im not even getting into specyfic situations like dealing with chemicals (even cooking oil fire on the frying pan - dont douse that with water, because it will be quite violent/explosive!) or high (or even standard 220V) voltage systems fires...",
"A fully burning house is more of an inferno than a campfire. \nYou can extinguish a candle with a glass of water, but if the Fire gets bigger, it also accelerates itself, more rising Gases may cause more Oxygen to get pulled in, more heat causes more Fire, and soon a much bigger amount of Fuel is at a much higher temperature and is burning itself. While wood starts burning at around 300°C, a big fire can easily surpass 1000°C and become quite hard to extinguish."
]
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2zmfpa | i'm making hot dogs in the microwave. the packaging says "1 hot dog is 30 sec but 2 or more are a minute and 10 sec" why do i have to increase time when making more than one? won't they cook the same for the time of 1 hot dog? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2zmfpa/eli5_im_making_hot_dogs_in_the_microwave_the/ | {
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"The waves have to go through more matter to do their thing. So you increase the time of exposure to the waves to compensate.",
"Your microwave oven outputs microwaves (pretty self-explanatory), for regular cooking (not defrost or simar functions), the microwave oven outputs a fixed rate of microwaves. Since there is a fixed amount, more things to cook means less microwaves for each. \n \nThink of it like putting a splitter on a garden hose to fill up two buckets, the same amount of water is coming out, but each bucket is getting half the water that is being outputted. Now, this isn't the perfect analogy because the cooking time isn't being halved, but you get the point."
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336tpy | How do fish and other marine vertebrates prevent their digestive fluids from flowing out of their mouth? | Do they have a sphincter in their throat or esophagus? Do they just produce more acids and enzymes and expect a little to leak out?
And how the mechanism different for marine mammals and reptiles? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/336tpy/how_do_fish_and_other_marine_vertebrates_prevent/ | {
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"Many fish do not have stomachs. An example that comes to mind are seahorses, which must eat small amounts very often because of this. \n\nHowever, for the fish that do have stomachs, which is admittedly the majority, they have a sphincter at the junction of the stomach and esophagus, just as people do. The sphincter is kept tightly closed at all times, except when food is being passed down the esophagus. \n\nThink about this, when you swim in a pool, can you open your mouth underwater without your stomach contents spilling everywhere? (For your sake I hope so!) It's the same with fish. "
]
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|
2x9ken | how exactly does one "evade" taxes? kinda curious how ~100 billion euros could be missed. (assuming story truth) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2x9ken/eli5_how_exactly_does_one_evade_taxes_kinda/ | {
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"When you work at a company, they keep track of how much you are being paid, and then tell the tax authority that number - so when you file your taxes, the number you say you earned had better match the number your employer told them. But... if your income isn't coming directly from a company - say you are a waitress who gets paid in tips, or you rent out a few houses, or are self-employed, or have other investments that don't have strict IRS reporting rules - then it is up to you alone to report how much you earned and how much tax you owe on it. You 'evade' taxes by reporting a lower number than what you actually should - the way you do that varies greatly by how you got the money in the first place, and how large that sum of money is, but the general gist is you simply hide income that you should be paying taxes on.",
"Just throwing this out there: lots of under the table jobs and no one filing taxes. ",
"Well those people who do that are very rich and smart and on top of that they can hire really smart bankers for them to hide their money. "
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9owmmj | Was Mozart wealthy during his own lifetime? Would he have had riches comparable to today's celebrated musicians and what kind of lifestyle do we know Mozart had? Was it extravagant? Starving artist? Or somewhere inbetween? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/9owmmj/was_mozart_wealthy_during_his_own_lifetime_would/ | {
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"Also, weren't artists sponsored by the King or something? How would one go about it? Create something, go to the castle, show it to the King and ask him for a pension? ",
"Mozart made a lot of money, and lived a somewhat extravagant life. But he was also swimming in debt as a result of poor money management and various circumstances somewhat out of his control. I answered [a similar question about his finances](_URL_0_) about a year ago, the gist of which is that while he had some periods with a lot of cash flow, he had lean years as well, and didn't necessarily budget or save wisely. It didn't help that he spent most of his time surrounded by wealthy royals and aristocrats, so he developed a pretty expensive taste in clothing. "
]
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||
3i3yfl | How did the 30years war influence trade (routes)? | I know this is a big question, but I wonder if the widespread and unprecedented destruction on a large scale of those lands in the centre of Europe, through which many important and long-established trade routes went, had equally large effects on the european trade and trade networks. For example I know the Hanseatic cities remained neutral and were already in decline, but their final downfall seems to have come in the times directly after the war. | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3i3yfl/how_did_the_30years_war_influence_trade_routes/ | {
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"There was a commercial crisis extending from central to north-western Europe as early as 1620, during the conflict's initial Bohemian phase, though the slowing of silver shipments from the New World may also have contributed. Without questioning estimates of human loss, Schulze & Volckart consider the longer-term commercial impact over-rated (_URL_0_), with trade diversion from war-torn routes (Leipzig seeming to be a major beneficiary, at least going by grain price movements - surprisingly for me as I thought it remained sluggish in population terms until a good deal later) but general revival by the 18th century. "
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4hzwq6 | How did dogs become man's best friend in western culture? | As my understanding dogs have a unusual position in western society (I'm asian). I've read somewhere that dog only become "man's best friend" culturally in the 19th century. During that period people start breeding pet dogs and sell them like products so the merchants come up with this "man's best friend" idea. Is it true? How did dogs become man's best friend in western culture? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4hzwq6/how_did_dogs_become_mans_best_friend_in_western/ | {
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"“Man’s best friend” is a colloquialism, so it sort of depends on what you mean and how seriously you take it. In a very real sense, dogs have been man’s “best friend” since their domestication, about 30,000 years ago. There are arguments that hunting with dogs increased efficiency to give humans surplus time for the flowering of culture. There is evidence that human behavior and physiology [co-evolved with dogs](_URL_1_), with similar changes to key enzymes in digestion and brain neurochemistry appearing more or less simultaneously in both human and canid lineages.\n\nSo in a very real sense, dogs have been “man’s best friend” for a very long time. They were the first animals domesticated; they had a “friend” role rather than merely a mobile meat source, in that they helped with hunting and guarding human encampments, and were socialized as “friends”.\n\nBut if you mean as a modern marketing phrase, you’re right that its popularity only goes back to the 19th century. In the early days dogs were bred for a particular need – hunting, tracking, guarding, retrieving, herding. These were working dogs. Of course, there’s nothing to say that a working dog can’t also be a friend, but if you look at breeds that were created solely or primarily for companionship, then most of them go back no earlier than the 19th century. Modern dogs are very mixed in their genetics, because crossing them with other breeds happens all the time, either deliberately or accidentally. But the 19th century is recent enough that very good historical records exist, and you can also do genetic analyses to see how breeds relate to and are derived from each other to create [trees of phylogenetic relationships](_URL_0_). And you can see that “ornamental” or “companionship” breeds are quite recent."
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7hqn1l | Why do presidents have the power to pardon? What were the founding fathers arguments for giving this power vs not? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7hqn1l/why_do_presidents_have_the_power_to_pardon_what/ | {
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"It is effectively a check on the judiciary branch in practice, and a means by which the framers sought to allow the government to show mercy. \n\nThat said, this was a controversial inclusion into the Constitution at the time. There was a deep disagreement among the Founding Fathers on whether the power should be unlimited. At the Constitutional Convention of 1787 there was a proposal made by Roger Sherman to require Senate affirmation of a Presidential Pardon. It was defeated 8-1, but it became a hotbed issue as the document made its way to the States to be ratified individually. \n\nThe anti-Federalists were adamantly opposed to the unlimited Pardon power. Their arguments rested primarily on the idea that an unlimited pardon could and would lead back to tyranny. Edmund Randolph also believed that an unlimited pardon, specifically a power that could pardon treason, would lead to tyranny. After it became clear that the pardon power was mostly supported and would be included in the final draft, without a Senate consent clause, the conversation shifted to whether there should be exceptions made for treason and/or impeachment. \n\nHowever, \"treason\" was a funny word to the delegates. England has had a long history of using \"treason\" as an all-encompassing concept, a sort of umbrella law where if someone the government didn't like hadn't broken other laws they could still be brought up on charges of treason. We know from Madison's notes that there was much discussion about whether the President's pardon power should include matters of treason. One suggestion was to reserve pardons for treason to the Senate, but this was shot down by Rufus King of MA and George Mason of VA who claimed respectively that the Senate was too politicized and already had too much power in the Constitution. \n\nThe debate among the state legislators was far more intense. Hamilton wrote in Federalist 74 that \"one man appears to be a more eligble dispenser of the mercy of government, than a body of men\". This became the core argument of the Federalists in support of the pardon. \n\nThe arguments against the pardon were from the Anti-Federalists. Specifically number 67, in which George Clinton argued the proposed Constitution provided the President with a power that would \"tend either to the establishment of a vile and arbitrary aristocracy or monarchy\". \n\nClinton also wrote:\n\n > ...His power of nomination and influence on all appointments; the strong posts in each state comprised within his superintendence, and garrisoned by troops under his direction; his control over the army, militia, and navy; the unrestrained power of granting pardons for treason which may be used to screen from punishment those whom he had secretly instigated to commit the crime, and thereby prevent a discovery of his own guilt; his duration in office for four years-these, and various other principles evidently prove the truth of the position, that if the president is possessed of ambition, he has power and time sufficient to ruin his country.\n\n\n\n",
"Follow-up: I always thought that the power to pardon seemed like an oddly royal power to be granted to the president of a government that is supposed to be the antithesis of monarchy. Did any of the Founding Fathers believe that giving presidents the power to pardon would make them too much like the very king whom they had fought a war to get away from?",
"A follow-up question: did founding fathers envision it being used as a [bargaining chip when something is wanted from the criminals (e.g., the pardoning of pirates in 1717 as a way of curbing piracy).](_URL_0_)\n"
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1y2wff | how do people get caught for illegal downloads and prosecuted? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1y2wff/eli5_how_do_people_get_caught_for_illegal/ | {
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"The overwhelming majority of people do not get caught. Piracy is treated in a similar manner to drug dealing. They let the little guys operate and go after the boss, i.e. they let you, the downloader, pirate and go after the guy who uploaded it instead. \n\n\nThere was a story about a guy who uploaded the new Fast & furious movie in the UK recently, his house was raided by armed police. They really don't care if you download it, they want the people distributing it more than anything. [Here's the story](_URL_0_).\n\n\n\nFun fact, cinema staff in the UK are given a huge cash reward for reporting people who are recording movies. I worked in a cinema for three years.",
"They look at your IP address, subpoena your ISP and get your personal information and address. The fact that your IP was downloading or uploading (or both in the case of Bittorent) is used as evidence against you.\n\nNote that recently many courts have ruled that an IP address alone isn't sufficient evidence against an individual.\n\n",
"We use BitTorrent and after downloading we erase all files and whatever and transfer the movie to our Time Capsule, well my girlfriends brother lives with us and he forgot to delete the files inside the BitTorrent program after he downloaded a few movies and since his computer was connected to our internet they used our IP address to find out exactly what was downloaded and at what date and time and sent us a warning letter. I suppose if you don't heed that letter they call the police or FBI or whatever. ",
"I had gotten a letter through my ISP from FOX once for sharing a movie. I downloaded it and seeded it (during or after the download, I forget). FOX demanded I contact them for sharing their movie in the letter they sent my ISP that my ISP forwarded to me. My ISP did not give them my personal information as it was against policy, surprisingly, and it seems FOX was hoping I would directly answer their letter and thereby give them my personal information. I ignored it and changed my downloading/uploading habits and never had another problem. ",
"First of all, nobody gets caught for \"illegal downloads.\" If you find something being distributed on the internet, you are within your rights to assume that whoever is distributing the file is the copyright holder, or has permission from the copyright holder.\n\nSome people get caught for uploading files. Generally P2P programs like Bittorrent. When you use your client to connect to the Bittorrent swarm, your client finds IP addresses of people who have the file you are looking for. \"They,\" the \"copyright police,\" use specialized clients that will find the IP addresses, log them, and then try to download an entire file from one IP address. That way, they can say that that IP address was distributing that file.\n\nOthers have answered from this point."
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x43sx | Could an instrument be played in space? | I am wondering what would actually happen (if at all really possible) if you were to play a stringed instrument, or a drum set, etc. in space/zero gravity zone. | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/x43sx/could_an_instrument_be_played_in_space/ | {
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"Yes, but what would be the medium for sound? A taut string or drum surface will vibrate when tapped, stroked or hammered, but to transmit sound takes a medium such as an atmosphere or fluid through which those vibrations can be carried to a listener. \n\nThink of how Whedon handled sounds in space for Firefly: There simply were none if the view was from the exterior. The effect of an instrument in space is similar. ",
"If you are inside of a space ship with air in it, you could. In open space there is no air and thus nothing for the sound waves produced by the instrument to travel through. There is no sound in space.",
"Aslong as there is air, or some medium yes, otherwise no. "
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529lyr | what laws in europen union is uniform throughout? what kind of laws can vary between the member countries? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/529lyr/eli5_what_laws_in_europen_union_is_uniform/ | {
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"There are EU directives, decisions and EU regulations\n\nDirectives aim to achieve a specific outcome but it's up to the member state how to implement it\n\nRegulations are binding laws throughout every Member State and enter into force on a set date.\n\nDecisions are EU laws relating to specific cases and directed to individual or several Member States, companies or private individuals. They are binding upon those to whom they are directed.\n\n_URL_0_"
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"http://www.usda-eu.org/eu-basics-questions/difference-between-a-regulation-directive-and-decision/"
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amzpo4 | if anything is moving away with constant speed from each other, why distant objects appear faster? | Edit : I'm talking about the expansion of the universe. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/amzpo4/eli5_if_anything_is_moving_away_with_constant/ | {
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"In what context does that happen? \n\nIf you stand and look at moving objects the closer they are the faster they appear because the angular size changes faster. Angular size there size in your field of view. \n\nThe size of a object approximate half in size at twine the distance so something that move from 200m to 100m away get twice as large the same for the movement from 100m to 50m. At constant speed the time to move from 100m to 50m is half of 200m to 100m so the rate it changes size at is twice as high.\n\nEven if they move perpendicular to you the speed look faster if they are closer so a airplane in the sky do not look that fast compared to a car that drive just in front of you,\n\nSo when you look at thing the opposite to your question is true.",
"I believe you misunderstood the \"constant\" part.\n\nA galaxy only moves away with constant speed in the sense that it doenst speed up or slow down. It does not mean that all galaxies move away with the same speed.\n\nIn case you are referring to the hubble-constant, that constant is not a speed. Its not something like \"70 km/s\" , it is \\~70 km/s/Mpc. (Mpc being a kinda odd unit of distance).\n\nThis means that a galaxy at a distance of 1Mpc will move away with \\~70km/s, a galaxy at 2Mpc with 140km/s, and so on."
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247n8h | cherenkov effect: how can something travel faster than the speed of light? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/247n8h/eli5cherenkov_effect_how_can_something_travel/ | {
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"The particles that cause Cerenkov radiation don't actually travel faster than *c*, the speed of light in a vacuum, they travel faster than the speed of light in the medium in which that light is propagating.\n\nYou can kind of think of it like a sonic boom, light in water doesn't travel at its maximum speed, but rather at a fraction of it. The particles emitted from the reactor or whatever are traveling faster than the speed that light can travel in water, which causes the light to propagate at angles to them rather than straight away. Like a sonic boom, where the sound waves can't travel faster than object moving faster than the speed of sound, and so they propagate at angles to the object rather than straight away from it.",
"Cherenkov radiation happens when particles travel faster than the speed of light *in that medium*, which is lower than the speed of light in a vacuum. And that's the important thing: the vacuum speed of light is the speed that is \"universal speed limit\". Light travels faster through a vacuum than it does through a medium (water, for example), so particles can be traveling through water faster than the speed at which light travels through that medium, yet slower than that light would be traveling if it were in a vacuum."
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27hl5w | Why did Latin-based languages stay dominant in France, Spain and Italy after they were invaded by Germanic peoples? | I'm really a layperson when it comes to the history of Europe, given I've only just started reading into it. It's just something I was thinking of when looking at a book that features a sequence of maps of European countries in history. After the Western Roman Empire dissolved, Germanic tribes seemed to conquer the majority of Western Europe, the Franks especially seemed to rule for some time, so why didn't german-based languages take over? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/27hl5w/why_did_latinbased_languages_stay_dominant_in/ | {
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"There are at least two important points. First of all, Germanic incomers were few in numbers. It is usually thought that Frankish settlement in Gaul must have been in the range of the tens of thousands, on a Latin speaking population of several million (common estimations propose 5 to 6 millions in Gaul). These settlers concentrated north of the Seine, where their input is still visible in toponymy, while they seem to have been very few south of the Loire. That being said, language replacement caused by élite take-over did happen; for instance, it seems that northern England (Northumbria) never was thoroughly settled by Germanic incomers—in fact, kingdoms there probably retained their native names—but it never the less ended up speaking Old English.\n\nHere comes the crucial factor: Latin remained a language of power in Merovingian Gaul (and Wisigothic Spain, and Ostrogothic Italy). Gallo-Romans, educated in the Late Roman fashion, coming from families rooted in the most Romanised part of Gaul (Aquitaine and Provence), had a very important role: they formed the bulk of the episcopacy (which had an important political role on top on its religious cultural power), but they also contributed to the lay administration. For instance, a certain Asclepiodotus drafted laws for two Frankish kings in the late 6th century; people like Dynamius of Provence (roughly in the same period) corresponded in flowery style with Frankish administrators of the eastern court and obtained important positions. It seems clear that from a cultural standpoint, Latin won the battle. There might have been some resistance: though we don't have evidence for it in Gaul, we know that the Gothic élite (the *dokimoi* in Greek) objected to the classic education of their princes, in the early 6th century. However, this very situation shows how powerful the attraction of Roman/Latin culture could be for “barbarian” princes, and probably many other members of their “aristocracy.”\n",
"hi! fyi, you may find something of interest in this section of the FAQ (link on sidebar):\n\n* [Frankish and French](_URL_0_)"
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eem80e | why do humans have a natural tendency to seek approval? what makes humans social beings? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/eem80e/eli5_why_do_humans_have_a_natural_tendency_to/ | {
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"We evolved as such. We cannot survive well on our own, and our survival is tied to the herd. The dynamics of the herd, what we consider being social, are thus very important to our survival."
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||
8cuozx | how to properly use articles in english? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8cuozx/eli5_how_to_properly_use_articles_in_english/ | {
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"\"a\" is for a non-specific noun. If you're talking about \"a dog\" its usually just any dog. The concept of a dog. Or some random dog.\n\n\"an\" is the same as \"a\" but you use it if the following word starts with a vowel. \"I want to eat an apple\" means that I'll eat any apple you give me.\n\n\"the\" is for a specific noun. \"I fed the dog\" means that we already know which dog we're talking about, and that was the dog I fed. \"I fed a dog\" means that I fed some random dog you don't know.\n\nExample:\n\n\"I met a dog today. The dog was cute.\"\n\nI start out with \"a\" because from your point of view it was just an unknown dog. Now that we've established a specific dog (the one I met), I switch to \"the\" for the next sentence. Because we both know I'm talking about the dog I met.\n\nIf I said \"I met **the** dog today\" it would imply that you already know what dog I'm talking about. Maybe we had a conversation about a specific dog earlier. If you say \"the\" without context people will get confused and wonder if they should know which dog you're talking about.\n\nIf I said \"**A** dog was cute.\" Then I'm saying that some dog, somewhere was cute. Which is probably true! But it's kind of a useless sentence because neither of us know which dog I'm talking about.\n\nalso: wow it's really hard to describe a language while using that very same language.",
"Yes, this is a very difficult problem for speakers of Slavic languages. The general rule of thumb is that the definite article \"the\" is used when you can be sure that the person you're talking to knows exactly which individual thing you're talking about.\n\nConsider this conversation:\n\n\"I can see **a cat** in our garden.\" \n\"Wow, that's strange. What is **the cat** doing?\"\n\nThe first speaker says \"a cat\" because this is the first time the cat has been mentioned in this conversation. It could be any cat that lives nearby.\n\nBut after that, the speakers switch to saying \"the cat\". This basically means: \"the cat which we are now talking about, the cat which the first speaker has seen\".\n\nIf a new cat arrives, the indefinite article is used to mean: \"This is another cat, not the same cat we were just talking about\":\n\n\"Look at that! There's **a cat** over there as well!\"\n\nLook at these two sentences:\n\n* This is a house that Jack built.\n* This is the house that Jack built.\n\nIn the first sentence, we know that Jack built more than one house. This is only one of them. In the second sentence, we know that Jack only built one house, and this is it. Simply by saying \"house that Jack built\" we have uniquely identified the exact house.\n\nHere are a couple more sentences:\n\n* Elizabeth I was a queen of England.\n* The Queen opened a new supermarket today.\n\nIn the first sentence, we are saying that of the several queens of England there have been, Elizabeth I was one of them. In the second sentence, we are talking about the person who is at the moment the reigning queen of the country we are in -- if we're in the UK, that would be Queen Elizabeth II.\n\nThere are many more subtleties to this, but this is the most basic rule: using the definite article \"the\" is a signal that means: \"I don't have to explain to you exactly which thing we're talking about, because it's obvious.\""
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1i1v92 | How is penicillin G different from ampicillin and methicillin? | How is penicillin G different from ampicillin and methicillin? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1i1v92/how_is_penicillin_g_different_from_ampicillin_and/ | {
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"All three of those antibiotics are beta-lactam antibiotics. They each contain an identical region in their molecular structure that includes a beta lactam ring. Stemming from this core structure each antibiotic varies slightly. These modifications were made to the antibiotic partly so that they may avoid recognition by beta-lactamase enzymes, proteins responsible for antibiotic resistance which break down the beta-lactam ring.\n\nEdit: Here is the structure of [methicillin](_URL_1_), [penicillin G](_URL_0_), and [ampicillin](_URL_2_) so you can visualise the core region and the variable region I am talking about."
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Methicillin.svg",
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1c25u8 | Why was segregation in the South the most talked about? Did it exist in the North? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1c25u8/why_was_segregation_in_the_south_the_most_talked/ | {
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"The main difference in segregation in the south and north is de jure and de facto segregation. This means that in the south segregation was enforced by law while in the north it was enforced by practice or standard."
]
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[]
] |
||
1cn7sr | Interstellar travel: Could electricity be provided by solar panels between solar systems? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1cn7sr/interstellar_travel_could_electricity_be_provided/ | {
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"The power from photo-voltaic panels is roughly proportional to light intensity, so they're unlikely to be used outside of solar systems. It's more likely that [radioisotope thermonuclear generators](_URL_0_) would be used, since they are capable of reliable power output for decades. This is the same power source that is being used in the Curiosity rover and the Voyager probes."
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||
29innf | Does temperature have momentum? | If a house is heating up at 5 degrees/hour does it require more energy to stop or slow this rate than, say, a house that is heating up at 1 degree/hour?
Is there something like momentum of heat? Thermal inertia? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/29innf/does_temperature_have_momentum/ | {
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"No, there is no quantity like thermal inertia that I'm aware of. The amount the temperature of something changes as a function of time will rely on how much energy you are putting into it as a function of time. There is no path dependence, rate dependence or hysteresis to this quantity.",
"There are many ways you can compare a thermodynamic system to a physical system, and use a physical system of springs and masses to predict what will happen in a thermal system. In physical systems there is the concept of the system being under damped, critically damped, or over damped. For example, a western style saloon door will swing a few times then stop, while a pendulum will very nearly swing forever. Thermal systems are \"critically damped\" in that there will be no oscillations back and forth around the the final temperature, the thermal energy will \"swing\" once to the final temp.\n",
"just a quick point, \"heat\" is often used incorrectly in everyday language and scientifically refers to a transfer of energy in a thermal manner. temperature is a (somewhat arbitrarily) defined scale used to describe the effect of the heat transferred on a substance or system.\n\nthat being said, the transfer of thermal energy in the form of heat is not associated with a momentum because it is more of an equilibrium/entropy driven process where velocity and the associated momenta are due to kinematics (outside forces and accelerations)"
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arzoa8 | why can't we see living cells through electron microscope? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/arzoa8/eli5_why_cant_we_see_living_cells_through/ | {
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"Mostly because an electron microscope has to operate in a vacuum. Living cells don't care much for those.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nAlso, sometimes what you're looking at under a scanning electron microscope has to be covered with a very very very very thin layer of a metal (known as sputter coating) to make the image come out better, and that would definitely be counter productive to life.\n\n & #x200B;"
]
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1u4hyz | Was Caesar murdered for selfless reasons (genuine worry about tyranny), or were the assassins seeking to advance themselves? | Or even a combination of the two?
(I've been watching HBO's Rome.) | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1u4hyz/was_caesar_murdered_for_selfless_reasons_genuine/ | {
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"Apparently they were genuinely worried about tyranny and thought they would be praised for their deed.\n\n_URL_0_",
"Although all that I have read in detail on the matter was in [_Cicero_ by Anthony Everitt](_URL_2_); and while I don't have the book with me now, what I gathered is that Rome was split into roughly two factions or coalitions: republicans, or the _optimates_, and populists, or _populares_.\n\nWhile this is a gross oversimplification, they much resembled today's right and left, America's Republicans and Democrats (I'll let the undoubtedly enraged historians on this sub list all the reasons I'm wrong), in political alignment. The issues mainly concerned to whom authority should be given. The _optimates_ argued for the power of the senate and the aristocracy; the _populares_ tended to be new money, self-made men, and proponents of popular reform.\n\nThe rise of Julius Caesar as a demagogue (and the fear it inspired) on the _populares'_ behalf was not unprecedented. Just 40 years prior, [Gaius Marius](_URL_1_), a great militarist and precursor for the _populares_, became the _de facto_ leader of Rome and introduced many popular reforms. This eventually led to a civil war with [Sulla](_URL_0_), another military leader and statesman. Once Sulla gained power of the republic, he instated many measures favorable to the _optimates_ and sought to inspire a harmonious relationship between the senate and the Roman people. This, sadly, involved a proscription: a list of suspected sympathizers of the Marian cause, for whose heads a price would be paid. So the following age was not one of peace, and many of Julius Caesar's extended family were killed or under threat.\n\nJulius Caesar, then, inspired great fear in the _optimates'_ hearts when he again started a civil war and leveraged the power of the people to stage a _coup d'etat_ of the Roman government. Although Caesar and Marcus Brutus certainly were personal friends at some point, their political alignment was never quite the same. Marcus Brutus was the nephew of renowned [Cato](_URL_3_), who staunchly rejected any olive branch Caesar offered him. Any supporters of the old _status quo_ were largely driven out of the capital or were won over by the ostensible mercy of Caesar. With this kind of political atmosphere, those who wished to _regain their old power_ began to plot in secret against Caesar. This would make sense for senators who begrudgingly returned to Rome but disapproved of the new political order. In many ways, this is understandable since Caesar's aims of reforming government were no secret. \n\nNeedless to say, the leaders of the plot would have had disproportionate power if they would have been able to maintain control of the government, but there was not adequate planning from the conspirators. Neither Cassius nor Brutus could eliminate the contenders for dictatorial control (primarily Marcus Antonius and Octavian), and to be quite honest, it seems like someone else would have followed the example of Julius Caesar eventually.\n\nSo, from a rather superficial understanding of the life and times of Julius Caesar, it seems that the conspirators were fighting a political inevitability. Their motivations were self-centered in the sense that Caesar represented the opposite of their life goals, although they would have benefited more than others had they been successful in maintaining the power of the Senate.",
"Yes and no. They assassinated Caesar to forestall his monarchy (if he actually intended one), but what they were trying to preserve was a system of government where a select bunch of elite families had a lock on political power. By becoming dictator for life, Caesar eliminated the traditional competition for the office of consul and all the *auctoritas* and *dignitas* associated with it. So yes, some selfish motives were involved. \n\n\nThere could also be a self-fulfilling prophecy to it. Brutus was a distant ancestor of the Brutus who had (according to Roman tradition) overthrown the last king (Tarquinus Superbus) and since the Romans believed that these sorts of traits were passed down, those opposed to Caesar would immediately look to Brutus to commit the act. "
]
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[
"http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/14alnc/what_were_some_political_implications_of_julius/"
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"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulla",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaius_Marius_the_Younger",
"http://www.amazon.com/Cicero-Times-Romes-Greatest-Politician/dp/037575895X",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cato_the_Younger"
],
[]
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|
bgfg2g | how does someone die by swallowing his tongue? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bgfg2g/eli5_how_does_someone_die_by_swallowing_his_tongue/ | {
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"You don’t literally swallow your tongue. Basically as your on your back your tongue moves to the back of your mouth and blocks your air passage.",
"Almost 100% certain this is a myth your tounge is attached to the bottom of your mouth making swallowing it impossible."
]
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[],
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jum1h | what is the current role of the national guard? | My best friend recently joined the guard and with the state of things nowadays I really have no idea what that means she will be doing. Can someone please explain to me what exactly people in the National Guard have traditionally done and what it is they do now? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/jum1h/what_is_the_current_role_of_the_national_guard/ | {
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"To send you mail asking you to join.",
"To send you mail asking you to join."
]
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vwm5d | What were "urban warfare" tactics like before guns? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/vwm5d/what_were_urban_warfare_tactics_like_before_guns/ | {
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"They didn't really exist. Towns and cities were besieged, they were not battle zones. Once town/city walls were breached, what ensued was pretty much slaughter, rape, and pillage. ",
"As WARFTW says, if an army actually penetrates into a city to a significant degree, the battle is generally over. I suspect this is mainly for psychological reasons, as watching the enemy within the walls would have a crippling effect on morale. Generally armies would retreat to the citadel and refortify.\n\nHowever, this is not always the case. The Battle of Tenochtitlan as described by Bernal Diaz was very much street by street, house by house. Furthermore, there would be a great deal of small unit action. This is famously portrayed by Virgil during the Fall of Troy, but a more accurate source would be one Chinese text describing how small groups of organized defenders can inflict a great deal of damage on the disorganized attacker during a sack."
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sn5x3 | If Microwaves have larger wave lengths than those of Visible light, why do Microwaves heat up a food faster than visible light? | Within the spectrum of electromagnetic radiation, Microwaves are on par for 10-2 meters whereas visible light is 10^-7. If higher frequencies (smaller wavelengths) are related to energy, why doesn't visible light heat up food faster than microwaves? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/sn5x3/if_microwaves_have_larger_wave_lengths_than_those/ | {
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"The process of heating with a microwave has nothing to do with the energy level of microwaves. \n\nMicrowave ovens work under the principle of ocillation. Basically, given the right frequency of radiation, you can vibrate certain materials which in turn gives them kinetic energy, increasing their temperature. Microwaves are calibrated to ocillate water molecules, since they're the main component of much of our food. The reason why microwaves are used is that they are just the right frequency to ocillate water.",
"Visible wavelengths of light typically correspond to *atomic* energy transitions - electrons get promoted to higher energy levels. This doesn't really help you all that much if you want to heat a sample. If you shine visible light on a molecule you will excite atomic energy transitions, and will not increase the kinetic energy of the entire molecule.\n\nIf, however, you shine longer wavelengths on a molecule, you will excite energy modes of the *entire* molecule (not the atoms) - vibrational modes and rotational modes. When you make a molecule vibrate and rotate more, you increase it's kinetic energy, which increases the temperature of the sample.\n\nShining blue light on water will not make it warm up quickly. Shining infrared and longer wavelengths will.\n\nWe use microwaves because the longer wavelengths tend to force the entire molecule to move (the entire molecule responds to the electromagnetic wave). The light is a driving electric field that interacts with the dipole moment of the molecule (the electric field forces the dipole/molecule to rotate), thereby converting light energy to heat energy."
]
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7w7104 | why can a defibrillator help reset abnormal cardiac rhythms but can’t restart a heart? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7w7104/eli5_why_can_a_defibrillator_help_reset_abnormal/ | {
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"A defibrillator effectively stops an abnormal rhythm by briefly stopping the heart's activity, interrupting the irregularity and allowing the normal rhythm to resume. In a stopped heart, \"stopping the heart more\" doesn't help anything. Whatever root cause that resulted in it stopping needs to be corrected, be that a lack of blood, lack of oxygen, hypothermia, etc. Delivering a shock to the heart doesn't do anything to correct these issues. ",
"Have you ever seen an orchestra? theres one dude up there keeping beat and signaling, he's kind of a singular figure everyone can look at and make sure they're following along with everyone else, even if they can't actually hear the violas or the bass, they all know theyre playing correctly. The heart kinda works like that, there's these things called pacemaker cells which is where the electrical signal for the heart comes from, and goes through heart telling it to contract in a certain way at a certain time for optimal blood flow.\n\nImagine now, if the conductor steps down for a minute, and the cellists can hear that theyre now playing slower than the violinists, and the viola players cant tell that theyre playing faster than the bass players and it pretty quickly turns to a horrible mess of sound with no sense. In the heart the cells are all doing their own thing, and contracting at different times.\n\nThe defibrillation is like if the conductor steps up and everyone suddenly can see the right tempo and beat, and everyone gets back on track. Similarly, a defibrillator sends a new, overriding pulse through the heart to get all the cells back in line with the original pacemaker cells."
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1b5ud0 | Why do many life forms expel waste? | As in why don't we keep breaking the same material down over and over until its all gone? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1b5ud0/why_do_many_life_forms_expel_waste/ | {
"a_id": [
"c93x9m4"
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"text": [
"An organism reaches a point where it has extracted all of the easy energy and materials from a substance and it is no longer efficient to keep going. It is more cost effective to just get rid of the leftovers and bring on more easy to get resources. It's the dirty little secret of biology: we are all as lazy as our resource supply allows us to be.\n\nIn other words, why don't you save your toilet water, filter out the solids and reuse it? Because you can just flush it and get more clean water that way. Evolution favors those types of short cuts, too."
]
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dy3qgc | why can we control body functions like are hands and feet, or even when we have to pee, but we can’t control the inside of our body? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dy3qgc/eli5_why_can_we_control_body_functions_like_are/ | {
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"Because during evolution it didnt provide people with statistically significant advantage.\n\nThe way evolution works is, random mutations happen, and if these mutations help the creature survive, that creature can produce more children, passing on the mutation. Eventually, if it helps more and more creatures survive, majority of creatures end up possessing that trait.\n\nYou cant stop sending blood to pinky toe because if a child was born that way millions of years ago, that child did not have any significant survival advantage, and thus was unable to keep passing its genes.",
"There are voluntary action and involuntary action. Your brain’s core purpose is to keep you alive - nothing else matters. Therefor the functions necessary to keep you alive are automated. Your brain is in control of those complex functions and responds to your body chemistry which essentially tells the brain how healthy the body is and if adjustments are needed. That is why medical science can rely on blood tests to diagnose problems - those blood tests look for the things we know about the blood characteristics of a healthy body compared to what we know about the blood characteristics of various diseases. \n\nYour voluntary actions are the things you consciously tell your brain to do because you choose to. Knowing that the human condition of consciousness is not always perfect, the brain does allow the core survival skills to be voluntarily controlled. \n\nFor example, if you were living a thousand years ago, out hunting with your tribe, if you had to decide when to breathe and when you needed a jolt of adrenaline, while deciding which muscles to use to help your stomach digest your last meal as well as notice that your foot was cold and send blood circulation in that direction so the foot does not go numb as you stand, it would be very very difficult to catch that deer and in the end, you would likely starve to death or become sick bc you are malnourished. \n\nAn even better example would be that you have to make all of those internal bodily function decisions when you unexpectedly encountered a large predator like a grizzly bear. Odds are the need to process internal function decisions would interfere with your escape from the predator. \n\nYour brain can autopilot you body’s necessary function far faster than you can carry out deliberate conscious actions. If the internal activity that runs in the background while you do other things were to be made into conscious decisions, you would not survive.\n\nNote: none of this is absolute. There are cases where individuals have shown the ability to control aspects of their involuntary body functions. Bruce Lee trained to consciously control his breathing rate and could consciously raise and lower his blood pressure. There are other examples - many in eastern practices that focus on meditation and developing a better understanding of your body and the power of your mind."
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2kitjg | If I place two glasses, one 30C and the other 10C into a room that is 20C, which one will match the room's temperature first? | And why? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2kitjg/if_i_place_two_glasses_one_30c_and_the_other_10c/ | {
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"To first order approximation, both would approach 20 C at the same time.\n\nFrom there you need to put a correction on how the thermal conductivity and heat capacity changes. There's a *tiny* effect that higher temperatures conduct heat better, so the 30 C glass will conduct heat a little bit quicker, but more heat needs to be transferred to change the temperature as the heat capacity is slightly larger too--whichever effect wins out is material dependant--if you're really curious, look up how the thermal diffusivity of glass changes with temperature.\n\nThere's also going to be a second more meaningful correction which takes into account natural convection (density changes in the air due to temperature induces motion in the air). From this, heating bulk air is going to induce more motion than cooling air as hotter air is less [dense] ~~viscous~~[viscosity actually increases which surpresses convection]. This means that the hotter glass is might actually cool quicker by a significant amount. I don't know if 30-20C is hot enough to notice without doing the math myself, (involves the heat transfer coefficient), but if we were to make the temperatures in you example more extreme, you might be able to actually see the difference.\n\nSo in short, because convective effects, not conductive ones, the hotter glass might cool quicker. However if convection wasn't part of the system, then it'd be roughly the same time."
]
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419seq | - who are corrupt bankers and why are they so evil? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/419seq/eli5_who_are_corrupt_bankers_and_why_are_they_so/ | {
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"From an article on island\n > \n > Their crimes include market manipulation, embezzlement, and breach of fiduciary duties. Their market manipulation destroyed the country’s economy and to this day Iceland is still having to repay the global loan sharks at the IMF, as well as governments of other countries, which kept the nation operating.\n > The article explains that the prosecutions have been possible because rather than protect and reward the very institutions responsible for the collapse, and the gangsters that run them, the Icelandic government let them fail, and then created a financial supervisory authority to strictly oversee the banks.\n",
"They aren't \"evil\". Evil is a word we give to people we don't like too often. They love money, as most of us do, and have the intelligence to earn a ton of it. If they don't break laws and still are able to manipulate and do things we would frown upon, that is a problem with our laws. If they do break laws and are punished in no way and instead are gifted billions by the government... that is a deep seated problem of government corruption more than bank corruption."
]
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37y5fi | what is the difference between belarus and belarussia? | Currently watching the European Rowing Championships. Most commentators refer to tthe crews from the country as 'Belarus'. But there's one commentator who keeps saying 'Belarussia'. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/37y5fi/eli5_what_is_the_difference_between_belarus_and/ | {
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"text": [
"The country is Belarus, the demonym for people from Belarus is belarusian.\n\nIn Russian the country is called Byelorussia. \n\nEither of those possible?"
]
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s69ed | why the trend toward "sleek" and "smooth", luxurious cars? | It seems like every car/SUV/minivan made nowadays is being redesigned to be sleeker, slimmer, more luxurious (and IMO, most of the SUVs look girly, or mom-y). Why this trend all of a sudden?
On a related note, when "old-looking" cars like [this one](_URL_0_) first came out, were they considered "attractive" or "cool" looking, or was that just ignored because all cars looked similar? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/s69ed/eli5_why_the_trend_toward_sleek_and_smooth/ | {
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"They are better on gas, and we have better construction techniques that use more fluid forming techniques out of single pieces of metal. In addition to what you said. ",
"There's design trends all through history. They tend to sway back and forth between styles or driving ideologies. \n\nAlso, efficiency has a lot to do with it. Aerodynamics are a huge part of fuel efficiency and cardboard box-shaped cars aren't good at aerodynamicking."
]
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"http://static.cargurus.com/images/site/2008/08/21/15/46/1993_toyota_camry_4_dr_le_sedan-pic-49064.jpeg"
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3g5irr | how does the army national guard work? | Does the Army National Guard have boot camp? Do they pay your housing? What are incentives of the Army National Guard? Is it the same as the reserves? Do you need a diploma or just G.E.D.? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3g5irr/eli5_how_does_the_army_national_guard_work/ | {
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"I'm not sure about the requirements such as diploma / GED, but it works like this. I'm going to assume we are talking about an enlisted person, not an officer.\n\nWhen you decide to enlist in the military, you go to a recruiter and tell them that you want to enlist. You have 3 choices. Active duty, Reserves or National Guard. \n\nOnce you decide which component you want to go into, (AD, Reserves, or National Guard) you will sign up and get a date to go to Basic Training. Everyone who is enlisted goes to Basic Training. Once you graduate from Basic Training, you will go to your advanced (job specific) school. After graduating from that, you will go to your unit. If you are active duty, that unit will be at a military base where you will be stationed. Think, JBLM, Fort Bragg, Fort Benning etc... You will be provided housing and food there. If you joine the reserves or national guard, you will come back home and go to your unit for in processing. Once you have been assigned to your unit you will go to \"drill\" with them one weekend a month and 2 weeks a year. Usually the 2 weeks happen over the summer. \n\nAs far as incentives, it depends on what is in your enlistment contract. Some people get a cash bonus, some people get more money for college, some people get nothing. It all depends on your job. \n\nThe difference between the guard and reserves is that the Reserves is funded by the federal government and the Guard is funded by your state. The guard gets called up for local emergencies AND war but the Reserves is only deployed for war / training missions at the behest of the federal government. \n\nHope that helps. ",
" > Does the Army National Guard have boot camp?\n\nThe Army National Guard goes through the same training as active duty army and reserves for their basic training (where you learn the basics of being a soldier) and advanced training (where you learn how to perform your specific job in the army).\n\n > Do they pay your housing? \n\nWhile training, the ANG will pay for your housing, but when you're not training, you'll be on your own.\n\n > What are incentives of the Army National Guard? Is it the same as the reserves? \n\nThe incentives to join the Army NG and the Army reserves are different because the Army NG are a state-level organization, so each state will offer their own incentives to get people to join. The army reserves are a federal level organization and thus have their own incentives which are similar to the active duty incentives. You can search for the national guard in your state to see what incentives it offers.\n\n > Do you need a diploma or just G.E.D.?\n\nThe standards to join the active army, reserves, or national guard are all the same. A GED is sufficient.",
" > Does the Army National Guard have boot camp?\n\nYes. They go to the same basic training as people in the active army.\n\n > Do they pay your housing?\n\nIn general, no. There is such thing as full-time National Guard positions, and those people get the same pay and benefits as active duty soldiers.\n\n > What are incentives of the Army National Guard?\n\nBesides serving your country and state, their web site sums it up quite well: [_URL_0_]; extra pay, insurance and education benefits, credit toward a military retirement, and all other benefits offered to veterans\n\n > Is it the same as the reserves?\n\nIt's similar, but the focus is more on your state than your country. In general, you serve the same one weekend a month, two weeks a year. You *can* still be deployed to war if needed.\n\n > Do you need a diploma or just G.E.D.?\n\nThose requirements change based on what the army needs at the time and what Military Occupational Specialty (basically your job) you sign up for.",
" > Does the Army National Guard have boot camp?\n\nYes, Regular Army, Reserves, and National Guard all go to basic training together. A basic training platoon (depending on your job) might 1/2 Active, 1/4 Reserves, and 1/4 National Guard.\n\n > Do they pay your housing?\n\nWhen deployed, you're like any other active duty solder and get BAQ. For annual training or drill weekend, you'll be put up in the armory or barracks, or just be out in the field. You don't get any housing allowance while in reserve status.\n\n > What are incentives of the Army National Guard?\n\nRetirement (20 years in), GI Bill, VA loans, drill pay, tuition assistance, discounted life insurance, etc.\n\n > Is it the same as the reserves?\n\nIn terms of benefits, yes. Generally, in the National Guard you get the federal benefits that a Reservisit might get, plus any state benefits available. This might mean getting the Montgomery GI Bill (federal) and state tuition assistance. This was the biggest reason I joined the ARNG instead of the Reserves after active duty.\n\nThe biggest difference is that (generally) a National Guard unit is a state-based division, with all parts being made up by ARNG soldiers. This means many ARNG units are more likely be made up of combat MOSs vs. Reserves which are more of a support role for active duty. You're also more likely to deploy as a unit than a Reservist. As a disclaimer, I generalizing with these statements and everything I said can probably be picked apart.\n\nWhen you enlist, you also give an additional oath to defend your state and state constutition. In my case, this meant going door-to-door checking up on the elderly during major snow storms.\n\n > Do you need a diploma or just G.E.D.?\n\nDepends entirely on your state and how badly the manpower shortage is.\n\nSource: I served in the ARNG after I was on active duty. Was also stop-lossed in the ARNG before I ETS'd and was a recruiting assistant on ADSW while in college."
]
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3oallv | why does a scalp feel bruised/sensitive after being in a ponytail for a long time? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3oallv/eli5_why_does_a_scalp_feel_bruisedsensitive_after/ | {
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"Hairdos that pull tightly on hair, particularly in a lateral direction along the scalp, actually hurt hair follicles. If you do it too tight for too long, the ones being tugged on the most will actually die, which leads to a receding hairline. "
]
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||
634t86 | Are people Tourettes Syndrome capable of lying? | [deleted] | askscience | https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/634t86/are_people_tourettes_syndrome_capable_of_lying/ | {
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"That's a fundamental misunderstanding of what Tourette's actually is.\n\nTourette's disorder is one of a class of neurodevelopmental disorders called \"tic disorders.\" A tic is defined in the DSM-5 as a sudden, rapid, recurrent, nonrhythmic motor movement or vocalization. For Tourette's to be diagnosed, an individual must exhibit both multiple motor and one or more vocal tics that persist for more than 1 year, and the onset of the tics must have occurred before 18 years of age.\n\nThese tics are most often involuntary, but vocal tics are not \"the individual being forced to say what they are thinking.\" Rather, they can take one of several recognized forms:\n\n* Echolalia, or the repetition of the last word/phrase the individual heard\n\n* Palilalia, or the repetition of one's own words/sounds\n\n* Coprolalia, or the uttering of unacceptable words or slurs.\n\nRegardless, these vocal tics are markedly different in their delivery from normal speech; they are short, grunt-like or bark-like sounds. These vocal tics can be compared to muscle spasms (which, it must be noted, are also extremely common in Tourette's). They are involuntary and have no bearing on or relation to what the individual *meant* to do. \n\nSo to answer, your question: Yes, individuals that suffer from Tourette's Disorder can lie.",
"I have mild tourettes and I can tell you that we don't literally say everything we think. Having Tourettes means that you are forced to do or say certain things, usually called tics. And the things you do or say don't have much to do with what we think about. For example I've had a tic that I was forced to whisper \"switch\" after someone made a grammatical mistake in a sentence. And it had nothing to do with telling the truth or lying. It was just a way of expressing my frustration. I had many other tics, mainly movement and breathing tics though. And to be honest I lie A LOT, although I'm not sure if it's a lot compared to most other people because there's no way to know how much other people lie unless you fully trust them"
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slx28 | What are the advantages or lower/higher engine displacement? | For example, one of the faster road cars out there, the Pagani Zonda F has a 7.3L V12, which is enormous. However, Formula 1 engines back in the day would be V12s with something like 3.0L of displacement. What are they advantages/disadvantages of each? Also, what determines the displacement? Is it the actual diameter of the pistons, or the distance they move within the cylinders?
Thanks! | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/slx28/what_are_the_advantages_or_lowerhigher_engine/ | {
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"Higher displacement usually translates to greater torque, since there's generally an upper limit to the volumetric efficiency of a normally aspirated engine. F1 engines are small because of regulations, but they also rev roughly twice as high as the engine in most street cars. Since power is a direct relationship between torque and RPM, that's one way to extract more power out of a given displacement. Much of this goes out the window with turbocharged engines, which is why the turbo era of F1 and Group B rallying used to produce monumental amounts of power from rather small engines."
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2kb1gp | Besides energy consumption, is there a reason why spacecraft don't land vertically like old science fiction? | It makes sense to use the atmosphere to slow down since energy is limited, but if energy was unlimited, wouldn't it be safer to descend vertically and slowly? | askscience | http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2kb1gp/besides_energy_consumption_is_there_a_reason_why/ | {
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"In space jargon engineers usually talk about \"active\" or \"passive\" techniques.\n\nIn the case of the atmosphere, as you said, the main issue is propellant (in rocketry usually mass matters more than energy). But from a more general point of view, *passive techniques are usually more reliable*. They're far less likely to fail and control is much simpler. That's why usually parachutes and airbags are preferred.\n\nSo if energy/propellant mass were not an issue and I had to design a landing capsule, I would still use parachutes.",
"Vertical landings also require very sensitive controls and motion detectors, which for a rocket can be difficult to create.\n\nThat being said, SpaceX recently successfully tested a reusable vertical-landing rocket. _URL_0_"
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1hdwq1 | Was the failure of central planning in Soviet Russia due to the inherent fallacies of the system, or corruption within the government? | AskHistorians | http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1hdwq1/was_the_failure_of_central_planning_in_soviet/ | {
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"I think this is an interesting question that I don't have a simple answer for. \n\nI would break it down into time periods though to get a more comprehensive view. I'm not really an expert in pre-Soviet history but a lot of the ideas behind state planning were born or proposed in that time. They were radical and they were a response to Russian \"backwardness\". Whatever ideas were implemented by Stalin in the 1930s were, in some shape or form, articulated more intellectually by either Bukharin, Trotsky, or others. In Tsarist times Russia had a problem of hyper-centralization. Put simply, the government didn't reach into every nook and cranny of the massive country and there were huge economic problems by the time the Soviet state took power. \n\nI give this background because of the word \"failure\" in your question. If you look at industrial output in 1917 and compare it to say, 1939, the \"failure\" of state planning isn't really a reality in a strict economic sense. If you look at the question that way, then central planning most-likey saved the Soviet Union, and the system, from almost certain destruction in 1939. Of course, it took a huge human toll, with millions of deaths and a huge famine. So, if the goal was to turn a largely agrarian country into an industrial one in the shortest amount possible, than central planning was, as some argue, a necessity. If, however, you define failure in terms of human cost, then of course it was a failure. \n\nIf you are talking about the later Soviet period and the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union, then yes corruption certainly played a role, but there are those who argue for the inherent fallacies of the system. Those types of arguments are a little tricky to evaluate since they are being made after the fact.\n\nIn short, I am of the opinion that central planning saved the Soviet system in its early years and then contributed to its demise. If you are looking for more information regarding central planning in the 1920s and 30s, you are going to be focusing on collectivization literature, which is of a historical nature. if you are looking for an answer to your question in the context of collapse, then you are most likely going to be diving into mostly political science literature, as there are no really solid historical works on the collapse itself (source: tried to do an MA thesis on the subject). \n\nFurther reading / sources ...\n\nMillar, J.R., and A. Nove. \"A Debate on Collectivization: Was Stalin Really Necessary?\" Problems of Communism 4 (1976). < -- debate between two economists regarding whether collectivzation was necessary for the Soviet Union to industrialize (warning, boring).\n\nLewin, Moshe. Russian Peasants and Soviet Power: A Study of Collectivization. Translated by Irene Nove. London: Allen and Unwin, 1968. < -- one of the earliest (if not the earliest ) work on collectivization - if you are interested in Collectivization or Soviet society in the 20s and 30s focus on Fitzpatrick, Lewin, Viola \n\nMartin Malia, Soviet Tragedy: A History of Socialism in Russia (New York: Free Press, 1995). < -- where you find the argument that central planning failed due to the inherent fallacies of the system. \n\nDeutscher, Isaac. The Prophet Unarmed: Trotsky 1921-1928. The Prophet. London: Verso, 2003. < --one of the best series of books I've ever read, huge background into the intellectual underpinnings of the soviet system\n\nGill, Graeme. \"The Soviet Mechanism of Power and the Fall of the Soviet Union.\" In Mechanisms of Power in the Soviet Union, edited by Niels Erik Rosenfeldt. Houndmills: New York: Macmillan Press, 2000. < -- for an analysis of the politics behind the collapse, anything by Gill would be good..\n\nLedeneva, Alena V. Russia's Economy of Favours: Blat, Networking, and Informal Exchange. New York: Cambridge Cambridge University Press, 1998. < -- Ledeneva is big into studying corruption / underground economy from a bottom-up perspective\n\n",
"I learned in my introductory Economics class that the Soviet command economy was largely based on quota systems, which distorted incentives which would work properly in a capitalist system. For instance, lamps would be filled with lead because the factories would be paid according to tons of lamps produced. Another example was that consumer, interior light bulbs (your normal 40 watt light bulb)were EXTREMELY hard to come by. Factories were initially paid by the total wattage of all bulbs produced, so these factories produced floodlights, and when the quota was changed to the number of light bulbs, the factories produced nightlights. So to specifically answer your question within the context of my knowledge, central planning failed in the USSR due to inherent fallacies and incompetence of the system.",
"Others will come along and provide fuller answers: but, I thought I'd chip in a reading recommendation, you might enjoy [Francis Spufford's 2010 Red Plenty](_URL_0_), which manages to be a rather moving historical novel about the dreams and failures of central planning, and includes elements of both \"inherent fallacies\" and \"corruption\". (I would argue one of the inherent fallacies is precisely the increased scope for corruption, but anyway....) Also, the book has a great set of footnotes for further reading - the earnestness of architects of the system like the mathematician Kantorovich is quite heartbreaking.",
"Is that if a system motivates and enables corruption much, that can be an inherent problem in it. I.e. no system can simply expect or demand that leaders or common people will be honest: it is a huge part of the system itself to set up incentives so that it _keeps_ people honest.\n\nSo there is no such thing as \"it was a good idea but bad people abused\" it \" - a really good idea of government must contain efficient means for not letting itself be abused much!\n\nMy first hand experience of having been born in Hungary in 1978:\n\n- Probably the biggest problem was the complete lack of the population to judge or punish its leaders or select them. If you give people practically unlimited power they WILL abuse it. Minister of Defense Czinege for example used to hunt game from military helicopters, and use the military resources to hold huge luxurious feasts for his friends on the public purse. This does not sound like a huge problem, but it shows the general morals of the leaders, and the general reason was that there was nobody who could have fired him for this or cared. This is an inherent fallacy.\n\n- Our biggest tangible economic problem was debt. Money borrowed was not invested, it was basically just consumed. (A problem striking similar to that of democratic welfare societies now.) It was basically a method to keep people complactent, to not resist the one party rule and not to want to account the leaders: the standard of living had to rise to keep people complacent, even if it was based on debt. Most of the debt was simply used to import Western products, machinery etc. as it was better than ours. Mostly industrial products like machines though, as importing a lot of consumer products would have gave people the \"wrong\" idea. Which gives:\n\n- Another huge problem was the low competitiveness of state owned enterprises: poor products made expensively. Again the problem lack a proper system for motivating managers and keeping them accountable. As far as I can remember the only countries in the region who could make halfway decent products were the GDR and Czechoslovakia. In case of cars not even them. ANY Western car was considered much better than any Eastern car, with the possible example of the Zastava (Westerners know the Zastava as a Yugo and it was considered good, better than a Wartburg). ",
"I am not a historian, but I am russian and thus my answer might be of some interest to you. Central planning in soviet economy originally formed on the basis of theory of military mobilization. This is because of early years of USSR. The important thing is that production of consumer goods was always a secondary objective and it was thought of as a way to save resources. The main goal was to create a industry capable of production modern heavy weapons. The soviet economic theory stated that competition leads to waste of resources and labour. Like having 2 cafes in a small town is a waste, and it's better to build one big public cafe that will serve all the demand. Due to heavily ideologized social sciences this view became a dogma. In 70-s the system slowly started to rot. It was blind to it's weaknesses. There were little explicit big time corruption but the system just become less and less effective with every year. There were numerious attempts to reform it, to liberate at least small business, but they were not sucessfull for various reasons, for example due to absence of business culture and ideological pressure. "
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4so79j | In World War One there were examples of spontaneous truces forming along the trenches, were there any examples of this in World War II? | If so what were those examples? If not why not? Are there any examples does a more recent Wars? Has military training been adapted try to prevent it?
Note that I'm not talking about the Christmas Truce has that was apparently a top-down decision. I am referring to many incidents in which they would purposely miss their shelling and over time officers had to people around to break up these truces.
| AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4so79j/in_world_war_one_there_were_examples_of/ | {
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" > the Christmas Truce has that was apparently a top-down decision\n\nJust asking for a bit of clarification here as this is exactly the opposite of my understanding -- from what I understand the high-ranking officers on both sides were fairly horrified when they heard about the Christmas truces and they planned artillery bombardments on Christmas Eve and Christmas the following year to ensure that it didn't happen again."
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7on3ii | Is it pure coincidence that the Spanish, who were from a warm climate themselves, managed to avoid colonizing any regions of the Americas with a cold climate? | AskHistorians | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7on3ii/is_it_pure_coincidence_that_the_spanish_who_were/ | {
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"Yes, it is a coincidence. Spanish colonies were initially geared towards resource extraction, which did well in places with wealthy, established civiliations already, or in places that had the proper climate for the cash crop of the day (sugar).\n\nBourbon Spain did eventually pursue more settler oriented colonies in places with more moderate climates (e.g. modern Argentina/Uruguay), but that came much later.\n\nSide note: resource oriented colonies were viable in the colder climates as well. For example, France had colonies based on fur trading in very cold parts of North America. I don't know why Spain overlooked that type of colony, but perhaps they had their hands full with their other colonies to be concerned with that.\n\nEnglish-style settler colonies are really the odd man out in this time period, and it should also be noted that some of England's state driven ventures resembled resource extraction colonies more than settler colonies. Early Virginia is a notable example of a state-driven economic venture. Settler colonies were often driven by the migrants themselves, rather than the state..."
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cd1d8l | - where does the carbon that trees store, go? | I have seen a lot of posts where trees can save us.
Things really don't dissappear AFAIK, so if the trees eats the carbon dioxide, where does it end up?
I did not spend my attention in school to learn, sadly enough. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cd1d8l/eli5_where_does_the_carbon_that_trees_store_go/ | {
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"It becomes part of the wood (the tree's own body). Trees are made largely of carbon.",
"Trees, like all organic matter, contain a lot of carbon, in the simplest terms, the carbon absorbed by trees gets used by the tree to grow bigger.\n\nIn a bit more detail: trees harness energy from sunlight which is then used to break down carbon dioxide into carbon and oxygen. The carbon is then used to create glucose (essentially a type of sugar) which then becomes the organic matter that we recognise as trees :)",
"It ends up as part of the tree. Trees consume carbon dioxide and emit oxygen as part of the process of photosynthesis. The carbon then gets used to make glucose and a bunch of other things. All living things are made up of a lot of carbon.",
"The inorganic carbon in CO2 that trees absorb from the atmosphere is turned into organic carbon (i.e like sugars for example) through a series of chemical reactions. The process is called photosynthesis.\nSugars and other organic substances made from carbon are used by plants as a source of food or for constructing their own body (i.e growth).\n\nHope this helps you."
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