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ELI5: Why do I find it easier to jog up 2-3 flights of stairs than walk? | (This is similar to other ELI5's but I haven't quite found what I'm looking for) I think about this question daily climbing up 5 flights of stairs at school. If no one is around I jog up them because I find it easier and actually find myself less out of breath at the end. | 19 | It's because when you're moving faster you have momentum on your side helping with the force required to commit the action. Walking requires you to increase you to re-accelerate each time because of momentum lose.
| 19 |
[Bioshock Infinite] So. Was Booker always a giant racist or...? (Spoilers) | So, I’ve been replaying Bioshock Infinite.
And while playing through it again, I just remembered that (Spoilers) Booker and Comstock are the same person, but they come from two different realities.
The major difference being Comstock accepted the baptism, while the Booker we play with didn’t buy into it.
The thing is...
Comstock is a massive racist. We know this because after he dons the title of “ prophet “ he oppresses all Non-white races which eventually leads them to revolt under the leadership of Fitzroy, Black and whites are segregated in the setting of the game, and interracial relationships are greatly looked down upon.
So, was Booker always a giant racist? Or did he somehow BECOME racist after the baptism, how is that possible? | 19 | People can change, racism isn't some innate property of a person that can never change. Different life experiences and trying to fit into a group can do a lot to someone's opinion on any subject.
Also, you don't actually have to be a racist to use racism as a political tool to gain power and control. It would take a ruthless and cold person but that's not exactly out of character for any dictator. | 41 |
Direction for a nihilist. | Hey everyone. As a nihilist, I'm a little lost. Some of my core opinions to clear things up; Life is meaningless and more painful then pleasurable, humanity is going to go extinct eventually and there's no afterlife or God. I've tried other ideas and even convince myself not to believe these but I gravitate back eventually. Given this, what reasonable argument is there against suicide? Any action feels like a net loss and the only thing even slightly convincing that I've come across to live is hedonism, which still feels very pointless. I'd like direction in my life and some meaning from a philosophical standpoint because suicide isn't pleasant obviously. Any tips? | 26 | So, you might think there are some logical problems in your view, but it might help to clarify your view. Why do you think life is meaningless? Do you think anything in life is meaningful or good?
| 17 |
[META] An update on post spamming. | I really like to see a lot of new posts. It's good to see that our community has that much activity. But recently there's been an uptick in karma farmers, people who post over half a dozen questions in a short amount of time in order to get high numbers for whatever reason. That needs to stop, but people banned for it have just been making new accounts to get around it.
So, to combat this, we're taking two measures. The first measure is going to be to adjust the automoderator bot to *disallow posts from anyone with an account less than 2 weeks old* (Up for negotiation, [see this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskScienceFiction/comments/d45ue9/meta_an_update_on_post_spamming/f0898v0/) if you have feelings on the minimum age requirements.) The second measure will be getting a bot to *limit all users to only three posts a day*. That's posts, not comments.
These changes will be rolled out over this weekend and there may be some hiccups. If you're inconvenienced by this, please bear with it, the kinks should be worked out before the weekend is up. | 114 | Thank you for this change. Not too often it happens, but it annoys me greatly when it does. 3 posts on the rapid are when i get annoyed, but it seems like a good limit anyway.
Those who spampost seem to mostly post short, easily answerable questions who doesn't cause any interesting answers or discussion anyway, so good riddance. | 34 |
ELI5: If music CDs are burned with the opening tracks towards the center, how are open-world video game discs burned? | Like Fallout 4, for example. You can walk anywhere, do anything, talk to anyone, at any time. How is that all rendered onto the disc when it’s not exactly chronological?
**EDIT**: thank you everybody! I appreciate you all taking the time and I learned a lot from all of your answers! I read through each and every one. | 1,526 | Ignoring the hard drive element of modern games, for games that *did* run entirely from the disc, the non chronological nature of their storage wouldn't have been a problem. Unlike a music CD, it wasn't necessary to read the disc from start to finish in one go. (Indeed, even with a music CD, you can use track select to change the order in which it is read.) When a game needed to load more data from the disc, it would know where on the disc that is located, and start reading from that point.
There would still be some care taken with data placement - the time taken to find the correct location on disc (seek time) is a factor in the overall loading speed, especially if the system is constantly jumping around for fragmented data. | 1,246 |
[Arrowverse] How is their way of neutralizing villains even tolerated by any governing body. | By this I mean their methods of incarceration. It always drove me nuts how Flash and Arrow were just locking people up without any sense of due process. In Flash, they always lock up the villain of the week up completely in solitary. It was just a roughly two meter cube and filed away as handled. Arrow was even worse, as it involved literally trafficking them to some "uncharted" island off the coast of China. Sure. They're off the streets in a safe place. But they're is literally nothing said about being in solitary 24/7 without so much as charges let alone a trial. What gives them the right to just go "Yeah. Jinx really messed things up at the Casino. 3 people died while she was playing roulette. No. She didnt lift a finger to make it happen. She just kept placing bets and winning so the kitchen exploded. Shes locked up safely in Star Labs now. You're welcome." We're literally rioting over this kind of treatment.
Just note I'm not trying to spark a debate over what's going on currently. I'm just wondering how they can think this is the right thing to do. Fucking kill me, because I'm not going to let Cisco put me in that fucking cell indefinitely. It's a fate worse than death imo. | 30 | Flash: Initially, they have the only facility that can hold metas so they get a bit of leeway. Once an actual prison that can hold metas is built, they no longer hold people without trial in the pipeline (excet short term).
Arrow: It's a straight up black site that the government doesn't know about. Eventually Argus finds out but they are in no place to judge. | 17 |
ELI5: Why are the Lagrange points so interesting? | I've noticed quite a bit of emphasis on these points in space when it comes to astronomy. But I don't get why they are so fascinating. Or if they are exclusive to Earth? | 24 | They're not fascinating, they're useful parking spots
Lagrange points are where the gravity between two objects are equal. They occur between any two bodies in space
We like putting satellites like Kepler and JWST at Lagrange points because it let's them observe an area for longer. If they orbit Earth then they're whipping around Earth which puts them in the sun occasionally. The L2 point is always in Earth's shadow so it keeps the satellite out of direct sunlight so their sensitive equipment says cool and can spot dim planets | 20 |
Why don't phones have to be ejected like flash drives when plugged into a computer? | 25 | Because they have their own power source. They can finish/abort any write operations on battery power whereas a USB drive relies on the machine’s power source.
Fun fact: the power contacts in the USB port are longer so they stay connected last when the port is withdrawn. So it’s possible for a device to know when it is being disconnected. However, the time period of this event is possibly too small for meaningful work and/or the loss of serial communications makes it impossible/complex. | 25 |
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[DC Comics] A few questions about the Cyborg Superman. | Context: The Cyborg Superman is one of the four "Supermen" who appeared following the real Superman's death at the hands of Doomsday. Half of his body is a perfect genetic clone of Superman and the other half is cybernetic parts made from advanced Kryptonian metals. He was later revealed to actually be Hank Henshaw, an astronaut who had become an energy being whose consciousness could inhabit any technology more advanced than simple electronics after an accident in space that caused the death of his crewmates and sought to get "revenge" on Superman by ruining his reputation posthumously.
Question 1. Why does Hank Henshaw even want to get revenge on Superman? Hank is convinced Superman caused the accident aboard his shuttle, killed his wife, and drove him away from Earth society, but ALL of these beliefs are unambiguously FALSE. Superman was ON EARTH when Henshaw's shuttle crashed, he helped SAVE Henshaw's wife's life and she only eventually died by SUICIDE after losing her mind when Henshaw came back in a robot body after she thought he was dead, and Henshaw left Earth of his OWN FREE WILL because of his sadness over what happened to his crew. So why does Henshaw seem to believe the opposite of reality about these events, causing him to hate Superman?
Question 2. Why can't Henshaw control the Eradicator? The Eradicator is one of the other "Supermen" that showed up after Superman's death; in actuality, "he" is an ancient Kryptonian weapon designed to protect Kryptonians and their culture (particularly Superman's family, the House of El) from outside influences that created itself an android body in the appearance of Superman and adopted his mission after he died. There are no less than three reasons why Cyborg Superman should be able to control the Eradicator (a. He has the DNA of a member of the House of El, which its creator, Kem-El, says is the key to change the Eradicator's mission parameters, b. As an energy being, he can inhabit any technology more complex than simple electronics and use it as though it is part of his body, and c. We already know he CAN control Kryptonian technology, because he used the Birthing Matrix that brought Superman to Earth to create his first cybernetic Superman clone body) but for some reason, he can't. Why not?
Question 3. How does Cyborg Superman get the Superman DNA and Kryptonian metals to make himself new bodies when not inhabiting Kryptonian technology? Cyborg Superman often exists as a disembodied consciousness inhabiting machines, since his various bodies usually get destroyed in some way in most of his appearances, but he invariably goes back to his default appearance of a cybernetic clone of Superman with advanced Kryptonian metal parts, even when inhabiting other, usually less advanced machinery than Superman's Birthing Matrix. Where does the DNA, the clone growth systems, and the Kryptonian metal to make his new body come from when Cyborg Superman was just inhabiting, for example, a Manhunter robot created by the Guardians of the Universe? | 32 | 1. Some people, including even at one point Superman, believe that the solar explosion resulting in the tragedy of their shuttle was caused by Superman throwing Eradicator in the sun (it happened at one point when Eradicator tried to turn Superman into a 'true Kryptonian). While this isn't true, Henshaw is too obsessed to see reason.
2. Eradicator is extremely ancient weapon whose mission became preserving the last Kryptonian, and specifically got bonded to Superman during the time he self-exiled himself into space after killing Zod and his allies on a parallel Earth. It is probably sophisticated enough to detect that Cyborg Superman is a phoney. In addition, it doesn't actually listen to Superman, but tries to complete its mission of preserving Kryptonian species by any means necessary. As for his control over machinery, it's important to remember that Eradicator is an extremely ancient technology, and that it has an AI mind of its own - either of those two could make it so Cyborg Superman can't control it.
3. That's actually easy, there's plenty of databases with sequenced Superman's DNA, including Cadmus Labs and Lexcorp - many of them have abandoned cloning facilities. All he had to do was to inflitrate their computers to force them to build him partial new body. His first body had advantage of Birthing Matrix, while his future bodies were done after Superman cloning has been perfected in form of Superboy - so he probably stabilized the Kryptonian DNA with human DNA, like what was done with Superboy. | 20 |
ELI5: How did ancient civilizations know so much about the solar system with limited technology? | 1,092 | Ancient civilizations were able to track the stars and objects in the night sky. While they didn't have telescopes, they had far less light pollution, allowing them to see a lot more stars far more easily than we can. | 1,381 |
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How much weight does the planet change on a daily basis because of energy bombardment from the sun compared to losses? | 74 | Estimates for the total mass of material that falls on Earth each year range from 37,000-78,000 tons.The loss rate is only about three kilograms of hydrogen and 50 grams of helium (the two lightest gases) per second or about 95,000 tons. | 20 |
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ELI5: Why is it that when both a man and woman sing the same exact note in the same octave, the man's voice still sounds lower than the woman's? | Is it an auditory illusion (we only perceive it to sound lower), or something with the vocal chord structure? | 29 | Men have a lower Timbre (tone color) then women do. It is like comparing the sound a saxophone makes compared to a flute. Even if they are playing the same note, you can hear the difference in the timbre. | 37 |
What's going on photon-wise with shiny black surfaces? Shouldn't black absorb all the light? | While we're at it, how can something be both transparent and shiny? | 23 | All surfaces have diffuse and specular components in their reflected light. The perceived color of an object is largely determined by the diffuse component. If an object reflects very little visible light in a diffuse manner, we will perceive it as black. At the same time, the object can reflect light in a specular (directional) manner, which will appear as glossy glare for certain viewing angles in conjunction with the angle of incidence of the source of light.
 
We use transparent shiny things all the time in everyday life! Glossy coats for printed materials are exactly this. They work in a very similar fashion to black shiny objects. The diffuse reflection is very low but instead most of that light is instead transmitted through the material. Meanwhile, the specular component can be quite high depending again on your viewing angle
 
Source: The Lighting Handbook, Tenth Edition
Edits: cleaned up phrasing for clarity | 17 |
[x-men] Do Magneto's powers shut down in heat via the Curie point of metals? | Magneto controls magnetic fields, so he can use them to affect matter that responds to them - moving metal, for example.
My understanding of magnetism includes the Curie point, discovered by Pierre Curie (husband of Marie Curie). The Curie point in a substance is when it's so hot that the magnetic properties of the particles it's made of vibrate enough that they're not aligned - their magnetic poles point in different directions from other particles, so the overall ability of the substance to respond to magnetism is negated.
By that logic, wouldn't fighting heat-based heroes (eg: Sunfire) distort the materials he's trying to affect with his powers?
Are there any scenes where that's been used to defeat him? | 22 | Depends on the version of magneto we are talking about.
At his absolute peak, he is basically a reality warper because he controls electrons themselves.
Most iterations allow him to control "metals" and his power being described as "magnetic manipulation" is just a way to describe his power and not the actual mechanism.
The few instances of "metal magnetism" magneto would not be able to if the metals were no longer magnetic. | 20 |
[Star Wars] Did Vader and Palpatine ever come across Force Sensitives in the substantial ranks of the Empire? What happened? | 49 | Simple, they were either killed due to the dangers posed by a force-sensitive or they were trained in the dark side to a degree. They would become assassins, elite guards or were simply tasked to hunt down Jedi. | 49 |
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[DC/Batman] Why does Ra's Al Ghul want Bruce Wayne to succeed him so badly? | What could he accomplish that Ra's couldn't/can't do in his centuries of life?
Side Question about Ghul: What are his interactions with Vandal Savage like? | 51 | Ra's al Ghul has extended his life unnaturally through the use of the Lazarus Pits. The Pits have the power to bring a dying man back to the prime of his life... but not without a price. Every resurrection costs you a piece of your humanity, your sanity, your very soul. After six or seven centuries, Ra's knows just what he's becoming, and that something like him will have no place in the world he is to create... but he needs a worthy successor to lead his organization, rule the world from behind the scenes, exacting justice on the corrupt and decadent, keeping the delicate balance of the world. He is 100% convinced that Batman is the only one dedicated enough to succeed him.
In Young Justice he knows and cooperates with Vandal Savage; in most other continuities, Savage is pretty hedonistic and self-centered, and not the kind of person Ra's would work with. They've partnered up once or twice, though | 69 |
ELI5: Would earthquakes be dangerous in the wild? | We all know earthquakes are dangerous because they have the capacity to cause large structures like buildings to collapse and potentially kill people, but assuming humans lived in the wild, would earthquakes simply be a minor inconvenience or would they still pose some form of danger.
(I'm referring to earthquakes that occur on land and not those out at sea that cause secondary catastrophes like tsunamis) | 21 | Potentially. If you're in a hilly or mountainous region, you have to worry about landslides and avalanches. If you're in a forest, falling trees. If you're on or near the fault line, you might fall into a new hole or crack. | 20 |
What does the thesis committee talk about when they ask the audience to leave the room? | In my department it is customary during the defense exam that the committee excuse the audience (these days by means of breakout rooms) at the start (before presentation ends) and end (after presentation is done) of the defense exam. They talk for about 5 min each time. I am defending my PhD soon and this issue is playing with my mind a bit more than it should. I wonder if anyone could let me know what is being discussed at these two points of time. Thanks in advance. | 26 | Most times we'll discuss your work, your qualifications, quick discussion of any unfinished business. But think of it like a wedding: "if anyone has a reason to stop this, speak now or forever keep your mouth shut." They want you to pass at that point.
Most times they just talk about what you'll be doing next and what lunch is gonna look like. | 52 |
ELI5: Why does the economy require to keep growing each year in order to succeed? | Why is it a disaster if economic growth is 0? Can it reach a balance between goods/services produced and goods/services consumed and just stay there? Where does all this growth come from and why is it necessary? Could there be a point where there's too much growth? | 15,275 | Well, the question will be addressed in the future, because some countries are already experiencing population decline. The growth of an economy should, at least notionally, reflect the growth of it's population - the people. A non-growing economy when population (especially working population) is growing is a pretty bad thing.
Just think of it this way, forget the economy at large and think about food. If food production remains steady and population doubles - that cannot, in general, be a good thing.
The challenge of economic management, technology and production is to meet the needs of the people and not to "achieve" certain measures. The measures are what is used to give a broad indications to allow some time for policies and resource allocations to adjust - but the measure isn't the end goal, it is a means to an end. The goal is the welfare of the populace. | 11,453 |
ELI5: Do obese people, on average, take more from the tax pot (extra healthcare etc) or add more (because they die earlier and don't collect as much pension or old age healthcare) relative to the average person? | 80 | EDIT: see lung_doc's reply below which is much more betterer than this one.
Research has unfortunately shown that healthy people do cost more to society than unhealthy people. Despite the expensive medical procedures associated with common cancers and heart disease caused by bad diet / smoking, a healthy person who lives a long full life will inevitably face these issues in old age and for is likely to need more treatment over a longer period of time. Also, longevity is an inevitable drainer on the pension pot. | 46 |
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[ASOIAF] Why doesn't Thoros of Myr and his Lord of Light bring back every member of the Brotherhood without Banners that dies? | 25 | Thoros isn't a real red priest, well he wasn't a real believer in the Lord of Light even after he was sent off to them as the youngest child of 8 siblings. he cared too much for fighting and drinking to ever take the religious part seriously, which is why he was sent to Kings Landing - King Robert shared similar interests and kept Thoros at court as a drinking companion who competed in tourneys regularly to the amusement of the King. He never swayed the King from the faith of the seven, but he never really tried because he didn't believe it himself.
when Beric fell he didn't know what to do, so he performed the rituals he had been taught as a red priest and somehow Beric woke. perhaps it was because magic re-entered the world when the dragons were born, but after that many of the tasks he used to perform just because he was a priest and was doing what he was taught actually worked - like seeing visions in the flames and actually lighting swords on fire using prayers.
he performed the last kiss many times to many fallen companions, but it only ever brought back Beric and only after they were sent out to capture Clegane.
he even refuses to use the last kiss on the body of Catelyn Stark when they find her rotting in a river. Beric passed the flame to her. he was broken after being brought back so many times, he didn't remember his own lands, his castle, his people, his fiance, he even forgot who knighted him. Thoros did him no favors by bringing him back - he was carrying out a ritual he was taught as a child - it never brought people back before and after he was worried who would come back, Beric is quoted saying "fire consumes. it consumes and when it is done nothing is left. nothing" and thats the truth and why Thoros doesn't bring back everyone. Beric is a rare case in that he was one man in a thousand who still fought for justice when he was brought back, he didn't know why or for who, but he fought for it. we see the ill effects when he passes on the gift to Lady Stoneheart who cares not for justice and just wants to see the Freys hanged - even if they had no hand in the Red Wedding.
Thoros doesn't really have control of his power, according to him his god uses him as a tool, but to us maesters it seems more likely he never really had any power and magic somehow finds its way into our lives and disrupts them. | 39 |
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Is joining the Green Lantern Corps a death sentence? | Do any of the corps die of old age or peacefully?
Edit: Or retire? | 49 | If you are the type to retire, to lack the willpower to stick to the job until you are to decrepit to do so, then you lack the willpower to join in the first place. As for old age or peacefully? Yeah it happens, but don't kid yourself, the job is inherently dangerous. | 55 |
[Star Wars] How well does Quantum crystalline armor fair in comparrison to other strong metals in fiction? | The [Sun Crusher ](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Sun_Crusher) was made out of this material, it taking a black hole to destroy it.
So when you compare with something like Vibranium or other famous metals of fiction, how good is it? | 19 | We don’t know, because we’ve never seen it breached. Even dropped into a black hole it was just kind of... lost.
It should be able to tank any form of "conventional" damage, but beyond that is unknown. | 11 |
CMV: Your ex is not your property, it’s perfectly fine for your best friend/friend to date them if they develop feelings for them | **Edit: I haven’t responded to all the comments but there are a few that truly made my re-evaluate my view! Thanks to everyone for their inputs! I replied with a !delta to explanations that made me change my view. Original post below the cut:**
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I see this everywhere in real life and in movies. For some reason, people treat their exes as “theirs” and off limits, I find that strange because you’re treating someone you used to date as your property. Even a lot of my (fairly rational) friends agree with this sentiment of “you can’t date your friend’s ex.”
Even for amicable exes, seems like there’s a “betrayal” feeling if your friends date them. I get why it would be awkward to hang out with your friend if they are dating your ex, but if your friend genuinely likes your ex and is better for them, why is it such a taboo for them to date them? As long as they wait some time for you to heal, I think it should be fine!
I’ve never had a friend want to date an ex of mine or vice versa though so that’s why I feel like I’m missing some part of the logic. Change my view! | 125 | It can create messy situations and doesn't really have anything to do with being the "property" of one party or another. In the case that is was an amicable split there is the chance that there are still feelings there for one side or the other. In this case these feelings can cause jealousy and rifts between the people because there are things and issues that go unresolved. Being caught in some bizarre love triangle is asking for everyone to hate one another at the end of it. Two, there is also the chance that, depending on how things ended, the two ex's are anything but friends and will constantly try to undermine one another in the eyes of the 3rd party just to get back at each other for shit. This also asking for everyone to hate one another.
You say that as long as you wait for it to heal, it should be fine, and in general that's probably right. But how long does that take is the question? Human emotions are fickle things and sometimes, depending on the relationship, it is something that will never heal for one party. That's not to say you can't date a friends ex, many do. But relationships are already complicated enough, being a close friend of an ex just adds another dimension of "fun" to the entire mix. | 73 |
What is "reality"? How much do we really "see", and how limited are we by our senses to the true nature of the universe | It seems that what we experience as reality is only a product of how our brains interpret the information received by our sensory devices. But this interpretation of information can vary from person to person, be affected by disorders or chemicals, and in some aspects the information received is limited. Is technology and math the only way to know true reality? And what is reality anyway?
Edit: Thanks for the replies and I understand how you may think I'm meandering into philosophy. (I happen to think philosophy is pretty much unnecessary now, but that's only my opinion) Let me try to clarify, or perhaps just make my question more confusing for you :)
I guess what I was really trying to get at is if there is a genuine 'standard' as to what reality is in a scientific sense. If in trying to understand what is 'real', how nature really works, do scientists always consider the limitations of our senses and processing abilities. Is our perception of the world around us generally dismissed and replaced by other methods due to the limitations of our brain and senses and their potential to distort what may actually be going on. I guess what I am ultimately trying to ask is if scientists consider the human perception of the universe as an accurate way to ultimately understand what is true about it, or is our perception generally understood to be flawed, and therefore replaced by other, more accurate methods of understanding. How distorted, if it really is at all, is human perception of the natural world. Is this something that is investigated and taken in to consideration when trying to understand the true nature of reality?
I understand this inquiry may be a bit 'out there', I just often wonder about how accurately, or inaccurately we perceive the universe
**Edit2**: I wanted to post this comment as it he seemed to best understand my question.
**MauganRa**
*I know that at first glance AmericanMustache's comment seems pretty philosophical, but I think there is a scientific element to it. Do we have any scientific tests to ensure that what we detect is the "complete picture" of what is around us? For instance, we can only see a limited range of the spectrum of EMR, and detect only a small group of mechanical vibrations as "sound", but there is a lot more there than that.*
**Edit3**: It seems I was not notified of a lot of your replies, which I apologize for not getting back to.
**Edit4**: This is a conversation with Richard Feynman that helped me question how we see reality. | 21 | **Warning.** You are standing *dangerously close* to a perilous cliff, off of which many a would-be philosopher-king has tumbled to an ignominious death. Take about four steps back *immediately.*
The short and direct answer to your question is that none of that could possibly matter less, and thinking about it is a complete waste of time.
That sensation you're feeling right now, that slight feeling of disorientation like a sort of dizziness? It's not deep philosophical profundity. It's just the mind's natural response to near-toxic levels of vapidness.
That's not an insult. Learning to distinguish the vapid from the profound is one of the hardest things young scientists struggle with, and a skill that the typical non-scientist has never had need to master. But rest assured, you're not on untrodden ground. The world is full of people who, at seventeen, had a thought that shook them to the core, then at twenty-seven looked back and realized it had just been silly. | 10 |
Is the Earth getting heavier? | Over millions and billions of years, I would assume the earth got heavier/more mass as meteors, asteroids and comets landed here.
Would billions of years of radiation from the Sun increase Earth's mass?
Does Earth's mass increase over time?
If so, what does that mean? We gonna move closer to the sun?
With the exception of human space exploration, do we lose mass too?
| 18 | There are two competing processes, and we don't know for sure which one is larger. Earth is probably getting lighter a bit.
Earth loses about 100,000 tonnes of hydrogen each year from the atmosphere, 1000 tonnes of helium and smaller amounts of other gases.
The amount of dust hitting Earth has been estimated to be around 40,000 tonnes per year, but with a significant uncertainty - it is not impossible that this number could be larger than the atmospheric loss.
Other things:
The energy of sunlight escapes again as light and infrared radiation, it doesn't contribute.
The interior of Earth loses energy at a rate of about 44 TW, corresponding to 0.5 gram per second or 15 tonnes per year.
We shoot a few tonnes per year into interplanetary space with rockets, and a few hundred tonnes to Earth orbit (but most of that falls down again over time).
Hydrogen from solar wind is included in the atmospheric loss estimate. | 37 |
How do scientists know that the red shift means the universe is expansing and it doesnt mean that other stars are moving away from us through empty space? | How is the red shift of stars any diffferent than the red shift i would get if I launched a rocket away from earth wirh a bright light. Both indicate they are moving away from us? | 259 | Those are both the same thing.
Imagine a round inflated party balloon with a bunch of ants crawling on it. If the ants move randomly, every ant tends to see about half the other ants moving away from it and half moving towards it, at various angles. In order for an ant to see *all* the other ants moving away, one of two things would need to happen: Either (1) all the ants would have to decide to move away from that one ant, or (2) the balloon would have to be continuously inflating. But (1) gives that appearance *only* to that one particular ant, whereas (2) gives the same appearance to *all* the ants, so, from the point of view of an arbitrarily selected ant, (2) is scientifically more probable.
In the real world, the Universe is like the balloon, and galaxies/planets/etc are like the ants. The reasoning is the same. | 116 |
[The six million dollar man/the six million dollar woman] How comes that they were both equally expensive? | 15 | They built the Six Million dollar man first so when they went to build the bionic woman they gave the same budget since it was enough last time. When you get a budget of six million dollars you spend all six million because if you only spend 5 then when you go to build your next cyborg your budget will be 5 million. | 47 |
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[Jimmy Neutron Boy Genius] Where does Jimmy get the money for all of his inventions? | A miniature rocket-ship, an underground lab, and a robotic dog that can explode and put itself back together. He appears to live in a middle-class neighborhood, where is all this money coming from? | 25 | Most of his inventions appear to be made of scrap and spare parts.
As jimmy does all the plannning and the majority of the labour himself, its only the material costs he needs to shoulder, and it appers he scavanges for it.
Its also possible he dismantles old inventions once he has used them for their purpose, reyclying the materials.
Also Jimmy is a GENIUS, well ahead of anyone when it comes to building scientific inventions, things that seem complicated to us are a solved problem to him. | 53 |
[Death Note] How Is L So Strong When He Sits In Front Of A Screen And Eats Sugary Foods All Day? | So we know that L doesn't really get out a lot judging by his posture and the darkness under his eyes. And we clearly see him eat sweets and Watari even serving ice cream to him and the police force. Plus with all the cases he has solved you don't think there would be much time for working out. So how was he able to contend with Light and even take a point blank punch in the face without flinching in their scrap? | 37 | I think you've got a false premise about L's fitness. By all accounts, he's in good shape.
He was a tennis champion in England and played a strong match against also-champion Light. He knows capoeira and probably practices regularly, which is a good workout itself, and could have easily trained him to take a punch. Also, I'd be surprised if Wammy's House didn't instill the value of a workout regimen in its graduates. | 55 |
Eli5 - how can people get stabbed or shot in the gut/torso area and have it not hit vital organs or be fatal? | 32 | The term vital organs is key. The small intestines, not a vital organ, are 22 feet long in the average adult. You also have the stomach, also not a vital organ. That being said, you can still hemorrhage after being hit in one of these organs and die of blood lose | 36 |
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[Superman] Its often shown that Superman's parents knew he would have powers on Earth. If they knew about yellow sun light, why didn't they just shine this kind of light on themselves (or any kryptonian)? | It seems like with a whole planet of supermen, an exploding star would be a minor threat...
Also I think I remember synthetic yellow light giving superman powers. Why couldn't kryponians on krypton do this?
And if it had to be starlight, why wouldn't more kryptonians just leave the planet? If there was a city on the other side of the country that would give me god like powers for just being there I would go there immediately. They seem to have the ability for intersteller travel. | 82 | Their planet was under a red sun. It would take more than just "shining light from a yellow sun" on themselves to overcome the red sun's effects.
As for why they stayed on Krypton, that varies from continuity to continuity. The big thing that has stayed the same since pretty the very introduction of Krypton as Superman's homeworld is that no one believed Jor-El that Krypton would be destroyed. | 69 |
Can somebody please explain the theory of relativity to me, like I'm five? | And why does this make faster than light travel impossible? | 41 | The first part is in the name. "Relativity". That is, everything is relative to the observer.
Imagine yourself on a train zooming along down the tracks. You bounce a ball on the table in front of you. What do you see? A ball bouncing straight up and down.
Now imagine someone is at the side of the tracks and they see you bouncing the ball. What do they see? A ball describing arcs (i.e. it hits the table and as it travels up it moves "forward" to its apex then back down to the table...the person on the side of the tracks, if the plotted its movement, would see it traveling in an arc).
Who is right? Is it going straight up and down or moving in an arc? Actually you are both right at the same time although you are both seeing very different results.
That simple thought experiment is profound when you consider the implications (e.g. two people can disagree on the order of events). Read up on "Frames of Reference" for more.
So, that is where the "relativity" part comes from but you have not specified the General Theory or the Special Theory.
The above is the Special Theory of Relativity (also where E=MC^2 comes from).
The more complex (and published after and separate) is the General Theory of Relativity.
The General Theory relates the geometry of space-time. Powerful stuff. Gave the world a new view on gravity and ushered in the likes of Black Holes.
The General Theory posits that "gravity" is the warping of space itself. Akin to a bowling ball sitting on a trampoline. If you roll a marble past the bowling ball it will be deflected like something would passing the Earth. Of course this is simplified but gives you a good idea to visualize it.
As for FTL travel it is in the E=MC^2 equation. Sorry if it is past a 5 year-old to understand but that is it. Energy and mass are interchangeable. As you increase energy (speed) you increase mass. Mass is multiplied by a really big number (speed of light squared). If you keep pushing it you find you need infinite energy to go the speed of light. Obviously there is not that much in the whole Universe.
| 11 |
Does most atmospheric oxygen come from plants or bacteria? | Both bacteria and plants produce oxygen during photosynthesis. How does the biomass of photosynthetic bacteria compare to plants, and which produces most of the oxygen that we breathe? | 44 | Actually, in terms of simple volume the vast majority of the atmospheric oxygen on earth (70-80% of it ) is created by marine algae. There are around 7,000 different species of algae on Earth and they collectively produce over 330 billion tones of oxygen each year. Since water covers about 71% of the planet it is not surprising the volume of oxygen produced is proportionate. However, when you consider the vast areas of land that support little to no plant life, it is clear that, on a basis of volume, the algae in the ocean is more productive than the plants and trees on land. | 11 |
ELI5:In a motorcycle transmission, why is Neutral almost always between 1st and 2nd gear? | and why isn't it before 1st, wouldn't that make more sense? | 28 | So that when you're emergency braking and shift down (down, down, down, down, down) you end up in 1st, rather than neutral. This way, once you're done braking and look behind you to see some guy in a truck that may not be able to stop as fast as you, you can go (rather than trying to shift into first before taking off). | 34 |
[MCU] What does it take to hold an Infinity Stone? | What is required for a being to hold an Infinity Stone in their bare hands? What about if they have gloves on or something?
It’s established that only beings of “great power” can wield Infinity Stones. But what exactly does this mean? Is it a matter of constitution and biology? Or is it something more abstract like “worthiness?”
The Red Skull is shown to be beamed away when he holds the Tesseract in his bare hands. Many others who have tried to hold the Power Stone have failed as seem by the Collector’s montage.
However, both Ronan the Accuser and the Guardians of the Galaxy together successfully hold the Power Stone. Jane Foster is mortal, yet holds the Aether and does not die. Nick Fury handles the Tesseract with gloves on without suffering ill effects. Loki, Thanos, and Ebony Maw have all been shown to hold the Tesseract in their bare hands as well.
Are all Infinity Stones equally powerful? Could Thor hold an Infinity Stone? What about Captain America? Or the Hulk? What about your average mortal like Hawkeye or Iron Man?
Additionally, how can Infinity Stones be safely stored? We see the Tesseract burn through the steel of the *Valkyrie* plane, but the Tesseract is shown to be handled by metal instruments and even stored in a seemingly plain old case without problems. Ditto for the syringe Rocket uses to obtain the Aether or the Vision housing the Mind Stone. | 68 | The Stones hurt people to the extent that their element is harmful to life. This means the Soul Stone can be held by anyone without any ill effects, because it is literally the stone of life. Meanwhile, no one with a physical constitution worse than the Hulk can hope to hold the Power Stone and live. The Guardians only survive because Peter's Celestial powers work best when he uses his heart, so Gamora, Drax, and Rocket's act of friendship moved him and gave him a brief moment of control over his powers. As for storing, the stones are generally quite hot (Fury burns his hands grabbing the Space Stone's Tesseract container), but they only start burning through steal after extensive abuse. | 68 |
[Mass Effect] Did the Reapers in the current cycle acknowledge that they could theoretically lose to Shepard? | Yes they were conventionally winning in that by Priority: Earth they were basically overrunning the galaxy but I’m referring to everything that could go wrong went wrong i.e citadel was still out of their hands for the majority of the war, the leviathans were back, they had taken some serious losses relative to other cycles, the galaxy was effectively united and their main enemy being Shepard just wouldn’t die.
Was there any acknowledgment on their end that they could have lost albeit a remote possibility? | 35 | Not on their part, but in one of the DLC the leviathans mention that Shephard is the first person in millennia the Reapers have seen as a genuine threat.
They're arrogant, but not stupid. They know things are not going as they should be. | 49 |
ELI5:Why do we shelter kids from what the real world is like instead of teaching them the reality of it? | We try to make everything fair, everyone gets a trophy, nobody fails a grade, teach them not to judge things at face value.
Then they grow up watching adults act as hypocrites and slowly realized the reality of how the world actually works. | 19 | Because life in reality is extremely complicated. Children's ability to comprehend the world around them is something that develops gradually as they age. So we simplify things greatly at first and gradually expose the child to the real world more and more as they become more capable of understanding it. | 25 |
ELI5: Marijuana potency is listed a bunch of ways at dispensaries. What do THC, THCA, CBD and Terpenoid percentages actually mean? | I'm pretty sure I know what the THC does, but really have no idea about the others and how they effect my body. | 22 | THC is the primary psychoactive chemical in cannabis. It's associate with the "high" feeling.
THCA is a form of THC that is not decarboxylated and cannot be processed by the body. This is why eating pot doesn't get you high, it needs to be vaporized, incinerated, baked and bound to fat, etc. which converts it into THC.
CBD is cannabidiol, which is associated with relaxation or calming effect on the nervous system.
There are 80 other chemicals that effect the human body in cannabis but these are the main ones. | 10 |
[Predator] How long have the predators seen Earth as prime hunting grounds? How long have they hunted humans in particular? | So, going by the fact that both the Predator and AVP film universes have the predators fighting the xenomorphs as some of their “ultimate prey” despite xenomorphs being simple animals, we know predators will gladly hunt non-sapient species that happen to be tough to bring down. Predator civilization also seems to be much older than human civilization, and predators are said to live for hundreds of years at the least. Given all this, how long have the predators been traveling to Earth, and how old are their species potentially? Are they old enough to have traveled to Earth during the heyday of the dinosaurs and maybe go on a good old-fashioned Tyrannosaurus hunt (after all, Mesozoic Earth was the tropical conditions they prefer anyway)? Did they not find Earth until some time during the Cenozoic maybe? Are humans what they’ve always gone to Earth for and they didn’t get interested in the planet until humans had evolved? How long have they been hunting humans for at any rate? Cavemen were as intelligent as modern humans, just with less knowledge, they had the same intellectual capabilities as us, could plan and adapt to new situations, etc., and predators are shown to enjoy a good melee fight. Do you think the predators would throw down with the greatest warrior in a prehistoric tribe perhaps? Or did they wait until states developed with full-fledged armies who had developed martial philosophies and could understand the Predators as fellow warriors?
Or, (controversial) were humans totally irrelevant to them until we developed bombs and assault rifles? | 27 | It's unclear when the Yautja originally came to earth. It's theorized to have happened at least 10,000 years ago but only in the avp film continuity. Novel and comics continuity it appears to be similar but without any concrete information like the pre-sumarian civilization in Antarctica. Earth was for a long time treated as a lesser hunting ground with ice age animals hunted sparingly by younger hunters. The predators either uplifted humans to act as hosts for xenomorph hunts or eventually humans proved themselves as worthy game with metal weapons. The earliest known human hunt is from around the 1600s but evidence does point to earlier hunts in the mid 1200s to 1300s without much substantial evidence. That said different clans have different tastes in prey so some have abandoned earth as mega fauna went extinct and others have exclusively used it for Xenomorph hunts and others still only to hunt humans as we have developed. It's not until the late 1800s that predators began seeking out humans for prey after several humans killed or grievously wounded hunters proving themselves as challenging game instead of just dangerous when predators were handicapped. | 16 |
ELI5: They say 70% of taste is smell. When we smell, let's say a public restroom, are we actually inhaling and "tasting" particles? | 739 | What is meant by this maxim is that, contrary to what you might believe, the taste buds on your tongue don't do much actual tasting. They can detect if what you're eating is sweet, salty, bitter, sour or "umami" (a word which describes the savoury "meaty" taste of a good stock, the taste that's enhanced by monosodium glutamate). Your taste buds can't do much else.
Everything else associated with taste is in fact detected by the nose, using the same receptors as those which detect smell. This is why if you have a really heavy cold everything tastes bland: the mucus in the nose prevents the smell receptors from working. The tongue still works, though, so you can still tell if something (like the pills you're taking to try to stop your head hurting) tastes bitter.
When you walk into a smelly environment like a badly-cleaned public restroom, you are of course detecting the various complex molecules that are floating around in the air. You breathe in, the nose detects these molecules and sends signals to the brain: that's "smell".
When you eat, the food in your mouth releases various molecules that find their way into your nose where they trigger those same receptors.
So it's not so much that you're tasting the molecules that you're inhaling; more that you're smelling your food as you eat it. | 363 |
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ELI5: what is a Roth IRA, how does it work, and what are the benefits? | As a very financially illiterate person, I’m just now entering the adult world and trying to start being smart with my money. Any tips/advice on how to navigate opening an IRA would be lovely! | 23 | I has to do with when you pay taxes.
A regular IRA, your money comes out of your pay, and goes into you retirement savings BEFORE taxes. You are not taxed on this money. Later, when you are retired and you start getting payments from your retirement savings, you pay taxes on the payout.
A ROTH IRA, you **DO** pay taxes on the money, BEFORE you put them money in. But you DON'T pay taxes on the payout when get your retirement money out.
So you do you want pay taxes NOW or Later?
Some people like the idea of not being taxes now, because they think that leaves them more money now, which for example, means more actual money they can put in the account. (the more you put in sooner, the bigger it can grow)
Some people like the idea of paying taxes later, because they assume their tax rate when they are old and retired will be lower than their tax rate when they are young and working. | 47 |
[Harry Potter universe] How DO you become a "powerful" wizard? | Throughout the series only 3 people have been deemed exceptionally powerful wizards: Voldemort, Dumbledore and Grindelwald.
My question is, in a world of magic, how do you become "better" than someone else who can cast the same spell? If I follow the same path Voldemort followed, will I become just as powerful as him?
In real life we have athletes who train hard or are just genetically gifted at certain feats, but does genetics apply to wizards? Voldemort wasn't even a pureblood and he achieved all that, it makes me hard to think someone out there wasn't as dedicated as those three wizards. Or did no one really bother to be "the best"? | 63 | FYI /r/hpfanfiction has a lot of posts related to this, so feel free to check it out. While JKR’s magic system could be erratic or incomplete at times, there are enough clues to extrapolate how magic works and what it means to be powerful.
First magic in Harry Potter is an intellectual task. Secondly, it is generally agreed upon that there is no such thing as magical cores or ‘mana’ in HP. It doesn’t function like chakra in Naruto where you run out. So we can’t really say Dumbledore is powerful because he has a huge core.
So how do you become powerful? By being a gifted intellectual. Knowledge in HP translates directly to power, so Dumbledore, Grindewald, and Voldemort were powerful because of their knowledge, which allows them to control and utilize their magic in ways other couldn’t. They are the ‘PhDs’ of magic. So to become strong, you study, read, experiment, and immerse yourself in magic.
Of course, there are probably genetic traits that can make someone more gifted at magic. In real life, you could work your ass off to get a math PhD, but there are people like Tao who are just prodigies.
So why don’t everybody do this? It’s like asking ‘why don’t everybody get phDs?’ Because magic is harder than just waving a wand and saying a phrase. In canon there’s an entire book dedicated to the Summoning charm. Most wizards can’t perform a Shield charm or do a conjuration. And most wizards don’t need to. What’s the point of dedicating years of your life to learn arcane lores when a standard Hogwarts education is enough. | 68 |
Which authors are best to help me understand/deal with anxiety? | I am aware of Kierkegaard and have begun reading him. It would be great to get an opinion that differs from him, too.
Obviously I am asking this as I have discovered that I have anxiety. | 23 | Insofar as this is a thing*: Aurelius, Seneca, and Epictetus (the Stoics) are helpful guides for coming to terms with life's difficulties.
*Disclaimer: *However* there are lots of very good reasons to think that reading philosophy will not help you deal with anxiety. David Hume famously said that reading and doing philosophy made him quite depressed. (He solved this problem by hanging out with his friends and playing backgammon and not doing philosophy for a while.) Whatever you decide to read, please consider talking to someone about your anxiety - either a person who has figured out how to manage theirs in an apparently healthy way or a mental health professional who you decide you can trust. If the zest of philosophy is what speaks to you, you can even find some who are philosophical counselors. (A few lurk here.) | 21 |
ELI5: What happens to the weapons and gear of fallen soldiers? | From my inferences in modern conflict you can't just leave AK's in a foreign country because civilians can acquire them. Please explain to to me what happens to all this excess military equipment. | 45 | Hey, US Army Infantryman who is actually in Afghanistan right now here.
In an Infantry platoon it is the Platoon Sergeant's job to maintain accountability of all men, weapons, and equipment. He does this by maintaining a MAL (master authorization list) given to him by the Company's Armorer when weapons are signed out from the arms room.
When a Soldier is injured or killed during combat operations he/she is put onto a MEDEVAC (medical evacuation) vehicle, whether it be a helicopter or some form of ground transportation. Prior to the Soldier being loaded all of his equipment is stripped off of him/her and retained by the unit. If the Soldier carried a crucial casualty producing weapon, like a machine gun with a higher rate of fire than the standard M4, it will be given to the next most qualified person along with all the ammo. This is to try and maintain the combat effectiveness, AKA how many bullets you can throw at people, despite having less people.
As for the gear, after it is recovered back to a FOB (Forward Operating Base) all gear that was worn by a casualty is inspected by people certified to determine whether it is serviceable. If an item is not serviceable and the casualty is still alive the inspectors will make an effort to send the item to the casualty's home. It is not uncommon for Soldiers who received gunshots to their helmets to get to keep those for life.
Enemy equipment is another story. In a perfect scenario where we eliminate the threat and have time to investigate any enemy equipment is gathered by a TSE team (Tactical Site Exploitation) on the spot and processed similar to a crime scene. Bagged, tagged, photographed, and turned into Military Intelligence for processing so they can determine ways to fight better against the enemy's weapons and equipment.
In other situations enemy equipment is destroyed on the spot to permanently prevent the enemy from using that against us.
TL;DR Platoon Sergeant is responsible for recovering friendly equipment to the best of his abilities and repaired as quickly as possible. Enemy equipment is analyzed by Military intelligence or destroyed on the spot.
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Do people shed more hair in summer like animals? | Yes, I know we are animals, but do we lose our winter coats? Do we even have winter coats, or by using clothes has this biological feature been lost to us? | 82 | No. Hair is not shed. It's the undercoat that's shed. The undercoat is the super fluffy part of an animal. You can see it if you have a dog or cat by blowing gently on their fur so you can almost see the skin. The top coat is where you see their patterns and most of their coloration. Undercoat looks like a fuzzy, lighter color than the top coat.
Humans don't have this undercoat so we don't shed seasonally. | 18 |
Could someone explain why we only recently found out neutrinos are possibly faster than light when years ago it was already theorized and observed neutrinos from a supernova arrived hours before the visible supernova? | I found this passage reading The Long Tail by Chris Anderson regarding Supernova 1987A:
>Astrophysicists had long theorized that when a star explodes, most of its energy is released as neutrinos—low-mass, subatomic particles that fly through planets like bullets through tissue paper. Part of the theory is that in the early phase of this type of explosion, the only ob- servable evidence is a shower of such particles; it then takes another few hours for the inferno to emerge as visible light. As a result, scien- tists predicted that when a star went supernova near us, we’d detect the neutrinos about three hours before we’d see the burst in the visible spectrum. (p58)
If the neutrinos arrived hours before the light of the supernova, it seems like that should be a clear indicator of neutrinos possibly traveling faster than light. Could somebody explain the (possible) flaw in this reasoning? I'm probably missing some key theories which could explain the phenomenon, but I would like to know which.
Edit: Wow! Thanks for all the great responses! As I browsed similar threads I noticed shavera already [mentioned](http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/ko638/if_the_particle_discovered_as_cern_is_proven/c2ltv9n) the discrepancies between the OPERA findings and the observations made regarding supernova 1987A, which is quite interesting. Again, thanks everyone for a great discussion! Learned a lot! | 618 | The neutrinos got a head start.
When a supernova happens, neutrinos and photons are created at the core of the star. They start trying to travel outward immediately, but the outer layers of the star are still in the way.
Photons are rather easily blocked, even by the gaseous stellar material getting blown away from a supernova. It takes a few hours for the photons to "work their way through" those outer layers of the star and get on their way through empty space. But neutrinos barely interact with any kind of material at all, so they reach empty space almost immediately. It's that difference that gives neutrinos a head start.
If supernova neutrinos did travel faster than light, we would expect to have seen a much greater difference in the arrival time. SN 1987a happened more than 150,000 light years away, so neutrinos had an awful lot of time to outrace the light if they were going to. If the CERN measurement was accurate, then the neutrinos should have arrived about *five years* earlier than the photons.
This all means that if our supernova measurements are correct, then either CERN's measurement is wrong, or else something else more complicated is happening. | 782 |
[LOTR] Why was Frodo corrupted by the Ring? | It's largely regarded that Frodo technically failed in his question to destroy the ring, for he would, if not for the intervention of Golum, put the ring on and did the same thing as Isildur. Obviously the ring itself is constantly trying to manipulate the wearer, and likely tried to goad their desires or interests for this. However, until that point, Frodo had been relatively unscathed with a few lapses here and there. What in the end drove Frodo to fail? What desires did he have that made him want to keep the ring? | 38 | The ring would corrupt anything and anyone because that's its power. It is an evil ring made by an evil power. That Frodo lasted as long as he did before succumbing to it is a testament to his inner strength. But even Gandalf, a divine being, would be corrupted by the One Ring. | 90 |
[Supernatural] Where do the pagan gods come from? | The protagonists of Supernatural primarily fight demons and other foes from Christian lore. However, they have occasionally interacted with pagan gods.
Where do the pagan gods come from? I don't remember this ever being explained. | 70 | The pagan god Loki was revealed to be a fallen angel, Gabriel. Samhain was a demon powerful enough that the Celts just shrugged and said "yep, that thing's a god." Others may have actually been created by human worship; we know that the pagan gods were more powerful when they had numerous worshippers, and it stands to reason that some of them were actually born through repeated religious ritual. | 53 |
CMV: If and when it's feasible, hospitals should regularly do paternity tests for newborn babies. | I think that, if and when reliable paternity testing becomes cheap and easy enough, hospitals should include paternity tests in their standard protocols for delivering babies. I'm not saying that paternity tests should be *required*: the father or mother should be able to opt out. However, unless someone objects, the nurses should normally take a little swab of the baby's and the (presumed) father's spit, run a DNA test, and note the results in the baby's medical records. If the results indicate that the baby is not the father's, some responsible system for notifying him should be implemented.
The main reason is that people have a right to know who their children are. Where paternity tests are not initiated by hospitals, a man has to deliberately request one, which could seriously upset his wife, since it shows a lack of trust. So, men are left feeling forced to accept whatever doubts they may have about their paternity in order to preserve their marriages. That dilemma would be solved if paternity tests were normally initiated across the board by hospitals.
This would also eliminate the risk of men finding out that a kid actually isn't his later on in life, after he invested enormously in the kid based on false pretenses.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, falsely believing that your "dad" is your genetic parent, and that his whole family is related to you, can cause medical problems. Doctors place substantial weight on your family's medical history - determined mainly by asking you "does anyone in your family have ___?" - when deciding how to treat you. If half of your "family" is actually *not* your family, that is bound to cause you to give your doctor false information, which could lead to false diagnoses of illnesses, among other things.
I see no major downside.
Women who didn't cheat on their husbands have nothing to worry about. [EDIT: In fact, they could *benefit* from the paternity tests, since it erases any suspicions their husbands may have had.]
Women who *did* cheat at a time that creates the possibility of the other man being the father don't deserve to have their interests weighed very heavily. They knew all along that their husband might not be the father, meaning that he might be preparing to commit the crux of his adult life to raising this child based on a deception. That's an absolutely reprehensible thing for a woman to do, so how much sympathy does she really deserve upon being abandoned by the guy she tried to con? Doesn't the guy have every right to leave her at that point?
What am I missing?
*Please don't comment on the feasibility/affordability of conducting all of these paternity tests, [EDIT: nor on the accuracy] of such tests. I'm more interested in the ethical issues at hand, assuming perfect feasibility and accuracy of the tests. This also means that the current rate of paternity fraud (X% of people are wrong about who their dads are) is not very relevant in and of itself.*
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Unfaithful mothers may become scared of giving birth in a licensed hospital and seek alternatives instead.
These alternatives may jeopardize the health of the mother and of the baby. | 92 |
ELI5: How is Time Warner Cable only worth $45 Billion but a simple app like WhatsApp is worth $16 billion? | 2,393 | Valuation of companies is a very, very tricky business. TWC is actually a lot easier to value than WhatsApp, as its assets and liabilities are very well understood. As it doesn't actually compete directly with Comcast (for regulatory reasons too complicated to go into here), it was significantly just a question of figuring out TWC's net worth and expected profitability, both of which are easy to do if you've got the right numbers (which Comcast presumably did).
But when Facebook bought WhatsApp, they were probably thinking not only about WhatsApp's actual current and future revenue, but about (1) acquiring potentially valuable IP for Facebook's own use, (2) eliminating potential competition for Facebook by simply buying it out, and (3) preventing another competitor, like Google, from buying it first. That means that they were valuing the company not based simply on its current financials, but of the implications of its technology on the market as a whole. Basically, it seems that Facebook probably thought that it would likely *lose* money if it didn't buy WhatsApp. Now we value the company based on Facebook's revenue and profits, not WhatsApp's. | 1,611 |
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Mathematicians/cryptographers, what is the significance of the three-number security code on a credit card? Wouldn't it be just as effective to add 3 more numbers onto the credit card number? | 32 | This has nothing to do with math and cryptography and everything to do with practical use of cards and fraud prevention.
In short, when you read a card (whether using an imprint machine or a magnetic stripe reader), only the main number is read, not the security code. With computer systems that process credit card transactions, they are legally prohibited from storing security codes.
As a result, if someone steals the card number, they are (in theory) unable to make additional charges to the card because the card number doesn't come with the validation code, and the validation code is required to validate a transaction.
(This all gets much more complicated in the case of computer systems that perform recurring transactions.) | 37 |
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ELI5: Why would wealthy CEOs like Mark Zuckerberg give themselves a $1 salary? | 90 | So first to clear up the "salary" concept: at the executive level, the salary is often much less than the other compensation--Zuckerberg owns a lot of shares in Facebook, and probably receives either direct profit from that, or by selling them, or receives stock options, etc. as executive. When you hear about the $10 million payout that execs get, it's usually like $2 million salary, $3 million in shares, $5 million in stock options, or something similar. So salary does not actually dictate how much someone earns (see Zuckerberg's net wealth). So now the question is, why would he specifically choose $1 to be his salary?
The number 1 reason is media attention: "Zuckerberg compensated entirely by stock options" is a lot less zingy (and doesn't make him look as good) compared to "Zuckerberg earns $1 salary as Facebook CEO!". It makes it sound like he's doing it just for the company or something altruistic (despite the fact that he receives massive amounts of money outside of the salary system).
There may be some minor bookkeeping reasons for it (like it makes it easier to do your taxes if you have at least some declared salary) or helps him get the right tax break, but for that, it probably doesn't matter if his salary is $1 or $1000, as long as it's very low. That particular number is entirely for media. | 105 |
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[Star Trek] Why do humans have so many in high placed positions of Starfleet and Federation? | Weren't Humans a junior member to more technologically advanced nations like Vulcans and Andorians and so on? | 16 | There is a theory that humans are pretty much insane by any other species' standards, and that the only ones capable of herding humans and making them work together with other races are other humans. Leaders of other species simply do not know how to work with human insanity, while human leaders not only know how to do this, but can also use this "insanity" to their advantage.
Because of this, humans are pretty much always selected for leadership roles. | 25 |
ELI5: What do companies like Mastercard, Visa and American Express actually do, and why do some establishments take some and not the other? | 15 | Payment industry expert here.
The "card brands" as they are known, do surprisingly little. 1) They market their brand (commercials). 2) They operate a payment network over which transactions move (from cardholder to merchant).
And for #2, they only do a part of that (like the middle 20-40% of a transaction). Your bank (the one who issued you the card), the merchant's bank, and a bunch of intermediate payment processors all process transactions as well. Each one of them (and the card brand) take a little slice of the transaction.
The one exception is American Express. They are an issuer (they directly issue cards - not a bank). Also, they acquire merchants directly; they don't use an acquiring back or independent sales organization (ISO).
The reason some merchants accept cards from one or more card brands is because they have to pay interchange fees to their ISO or acquiring bank to process transactions. They have to weigh the cost of paying these fees with the benefit of being able to accept those types of cards. This is why so many places don't accept AMEX (because their fees are high - high cost) and Discover (not many cardholders - low benefit). | 10 |
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ELI5: If the concord Jet was so great in 1986, why don't they make a modern day version that's even better and fixes the original problems? | a 3 hour flight from new york to london. why is this not a thing, if they could do it in 1986 why, with todays technology can they not make it even better. | 167 | We could, but its still expensive and few people would pay the extra price to just get there more quickly. Supersonic flight is just naturally less efficient than subsonic and as such will cost quite a bit more. | 92 |
ELI5: Why does x86 represent a 32bit OS when x64 represents a 64bit OS? | 825 | Technically, the official name for x64 is x86-64. x86 is the name of the instruction set of a CPU. An instruction set is quite literally a set of instructions, all CPUs with the same instruction set will output the same thing for each input. x86-64 was a modification to x86 made by Intel's competitor, AMD, because x86 was 32 bit and because of this, couldn't support more than 4 GB of RAM among other things. It was designed to be reverse compatible with x86 programs.
The name of x86 originates with Intel's naming scheme, where all their early processors were named in 4 or 5 numbers, ending in 86, beginning with 8, but had their middle numbers changed. So the x stands for the numbers in the middle, like 8086 or 80486. They were given the variable x since they could be many different numbers, and that is why it is called x86. x64 comes obviously from the new 64 bit platform. | 620 |
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[Marvel] If Kitty Pryde we to run straight into Cloak's cloak while phasing, would she (A) phase through Cloak himself and end up behind him? or (B) end up in the Dark Realm inside his cape? | I know phasing works through physical planes, but does it work through magic portals (like inside Cloak's cloak)? If so, how does that work? | 22 | I'd say she goes through. Cloak's power is to open a portal, which is generally confined to the interior of his cloak, but it's still a portal. Kitty would still be affected by it, even while phased.
I do wonder what would happen though if she phased through the *outside* of his cloak while the portal was open. i.e. does the portal have a "back" if so does it still act as the same portal? Or does it only work from the single direction. | 12 |
Tools like Quillbot in academic writing | I'm currently writing a manuscript and as part of the the literature review, I discuss several studies and highlight their findings. In communicating these findings, I find myself paraphrasing components of these studies' methodologies (always citing the article, of course). When something sounds awkward in my writing, I'll feed my sentence through a tool (Quillbot AI) that refines my writing. It seems to do this through a complex algorithm that alters syntax and diction while preserving the sentence's original meaning. I find that it's quite effective, and you can run it multiple times to select the optimal iteration of your sentence. Would using a tool like Quillbot be an ethical issue? To be clear, I'm not copying and pasting chunks of articles and feeding them through the bot. I am using it to refine my own writing, which in this case involves paraphrased information from other articles. | 98 | Sounds like you’re using this as an automated editing tool like Grammarly. It’s probably ok? But, it seems more like a scale of ok to not ok instead of a binary, so it will depend on just how much of what type of work the tool is doing for you. | 61 |
Water in a vacuum, why does the boiling stop? | I have a vacuum chamber that I use for freeze drying. It works really well. Aside from the foods, I have done some tricks for the kids where I put water in a clear glass and put it in the chamber. I turn the machine on and it does what one would expect, after a few minutes as the pressure drops the water begins boiling.
But then what happens after a little bit the water stops boiling. Pressure continues to drop. The water just sits there, motionless.
If I release the vacuum stir it (maybe it super cooled?) And then try again, I get little to no boiling. I tried it in plastic (less of a smooth surface so perhaps there was more condensation points) but still the same thing, no boiling.
When I replace the water with fresh tap water, it will boil again but then do the above.
What is going on? I expected the water to boil until gone. | 106 | It sounds like you're not boiling the water, but degassing it. Once all the dissolved gas has been removed from the water it stops bubbling.
What kind of vacuum chamber do you have? What pressures are you reaching?
At room temperature you need to be reaching pressures lower than something like 20 mbar to boil the water in 'vacuum'. This required pressure would likely also be driven even lower by the cooling effect from evaporation. | 161 |
ELI5: How does icey-hot work? | 38 | Creams like icy-hot (cf Bengay, Deep Heat, etc.) have menthol in them, which is the same stuff that is in mints – which is why it sort of smells like them. Menthol is a chemical, and chemicals can cause reactions in our bodies if they latch onto special nerves.
The nerve endings that menthol can latch onto (which some scientists unhelpfully named TRPM8) have been proven to help us detect cold temperatures. Normally they work by the body making its own version of Menthol whenever it feels cold, but by putting pure Menthol on them it makes it feel REALLY cold.
Now, the second bit is a bit trickier to explain, but is basically the same way. Another chemical in the cream, called Methyl Salicylate, gets broken down by the body to make Salicylic Acid, which acts a bit like Aspirin. One of the things that Aspirin does is to open up your veins to let lots and lots of blood flow through them. This is the same thing that happens when you blush, or go red-faced, and if you touch your cheeks when that happens they're hot, right? That's where the heat comes from.
Edit: apostrophe's go where? | 20 |
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ELI5: why do car batteries lose their ability to be charged after sitting unused for a while? | 29 | I believe it’s because of sulphation in the battery plates. Sulphur crystals form in some of the plates, and this damages/degrades the plates. The sulphation occurs as the battery discharges normally. When you leave a lead-acid battery to sit unused/uncharged it starts to slowly discharge and undergo this process. The damage/sulphation is proportional to the level of neglect, and even in normal use there will be a degree of this degradation with successive discharge/recharge cycles.
If not maintained properly, after a period of time the battery will reach a point where the sulphation damage is so bad that the battery (at best) can only be partially recovered. Usually, by this point, it is simply unserviceable and a new one is required. | 21 |
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Why is ice slippery? It is more slippery than other materials that seem to be equally smooth. | 20 | The answer to this is actually more complicated than you would think. It all boils down to the fact that the surface layer of the ice underneath the object is partially melted. However, the reason for how this top layer melts is somewhat of a scientific controversy. People used to believe that the pressure exerted causes the ice to melt, however, this appears to be false.
The two current theories are that:
1) The friction of the moving object causes the top layer of the ice to melt
or 2) The top layer of water molecules are unable to bind correctly to the layers underneath and thus stay in a quasi water-like state.
TL;DR There is a little bit of liquid water on top of that ice, and liquid on top of something smooth makes it slippery. | 16 |
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[The Incredibles] What happened to all the supervillains after the superheroes disappeared? | It's not like the public could just sue them into going away. Did the lawsuits only start coming in after most of the villains were put away? | 41 | Some simply stopped because the gamesmanship of fighting against the heroes was just as uch a part of their lives as it was for the heroes defeating them. Additionally, much like there were government divisions dedicated towards stopping the superheroes, there were also black ops divisions sent out towards the supervillains. Some were simply captured and brain-wiped, since the technology was shown to be available. It let them return to society under assumed names and new identities, harmless and their old lives and talents forgotten. Some were rumored to be offered positions inside of the government or other research facilities, some were said to be told if they simply left their antics alone they'd be left alone, while others were dealt with in less savory ways. Without "superheroes" acting as a countermeasure, the full weight and might of military, black ops, and other forces would be brought to bear on them, which for most was considered far more of a risk than getting beat up by another guy in a costume. A few punches from Mister Incredible was preferable to a sniper shot to the skull. | 55 |
Is it possible for a moon to also have its own moon? | 20 | It is possible for a moon to have it's own satellite, yes. Whether it would be classified as a "moon" or not would be up to the academics, but a loose definition is:
* A distinct, whole object
* A solid object
* In orbit around a more massive body
The mass of the satellite orbiting a moon would most likely be very small in relation to that moon. | 15 |
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CMV: Women who are anti-feminism do not have internalized misogyny. | First let me clarify that anti-feminism isn't necessarily anti-women's rights, but against the belief in the patriarchy and institutional misogyny. Feminists often try to silence women's criticisms of feminism by saying they have internalized misogyny. I don't believe this is the case. A lack of belief in the patriarchy can be caused by the lack of empirical evidence. Examples of misogyny and discrimination don't have to be ignored or excused (as one with internalized misogyny would be expected to do) because they do not necessarily prove the existence of a patriarchy, nor institutional misogyny. Saying a woman has internalized misogyny discredits her experience of what may be a lack of being victimized. Telling a woman she's a victim when she's not is belittling. This is what draws many women away from feminism. | 162 | >but against the belief in the patriarchy and institutional misogyny
Dont we indisputably live in a patriarchy? Men more or less control all the top tiers of industry and politics (aka the world).
Edit: ITT: a lot of people who dont understand what a patriarchy is | 53 |
ELI5: How come when it is extra bright outside, having one eye open makes seeing “doable” while having both open is uncomfortable? | Edit: My thought process is that using one eye would still cause enough uncomfortable sensations that closing / squinting both eyes is the only viable option but apparently not. One eye is completely normal and painless.
This happened to me when I was driving the other day and I was worried I’d have to pull over on the highway, but when I closed one eye I was able to see with no pain sensation whatsoever with roughly the same amount of light radiation entering my 👁.
I know it’s technically less light for my brain to process, less intense on the nerve signals firing but I couldn’t intuitively get to the bottom of this because the common person might assume having one eye open could be worse? | 17,278 | You have a blink reflex when exposed to bright light. Ideally, you're exposed to a light that's too bright and you squint or close your eyes to prevent any damage.
You might ask, "Surely only closing one eye shouldn't help, since the open eye could still be damaged, right?" And you'd be absolutely correct. This is a glitch of the human nervous system.
Essentially, this glitch occurs because your brain registers bright light by adding together the amount of light received in both eyes. If one eye is closed, that eye is receiving the same amount of light, but the brain is only registering half of the original amount.
Fun fact, some people (Ze Frank is a notable example) don't have this glitch. You can (but don't, it's not good for your eyes) test this by shining a light in one of your eyes, blocking the light from getting to the other eye, and watching to see if your non-lit pupil constricts. Normal people's pupils will both constrict if one eye is exposed to bright light. In the case of Ze Frank and others, only the pupil receiving the light will constrict. | 8,588 |
ELI5: How long does it take for food to “store as energy” (fat) within a human body? Why does the body burn muscle instead of fat when starving? | 215 | Think of fat like a savings account, and muscle mass as expenses. If you spend a little more than you take in in a particular month, you can withdraw a little from savings to cover the difference. But let's say you lose your job and have no money coming in (Starvation). Spending your savings is only going to work for so long, but you can extend that length of time by spending less money (reducing the amount of muscle mass). This way gives you longer to find a source of food to save your life. | 446 |
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CMV: Bitcoin/Cryptocurrency/Blockchain technology is NOT viable as a future currency | Greetings,
Through personal experience with Cryptocurrency trading and mining, it believe that it cannot sustain as a future currency that people use universally. It seems that at this point, Bitcoin and other cryptos are being used like a **commodity**. It hold value and people are using it for investment purposes instead of using it to buy goods. On top of that, volatility of the prices could cause goods to require a ridiculous amount of crypto (like Germany and the wheel barrel full of money) or shoot up in price where people just hoard as much as they can for investment purposes.
Is it possible that the decentralization of cryptos could stand as a prevalent technology and currency in the future? | 37 | Anything is a currency if people think it is. Humans used pretty stones as money. Then gold. Now it’s just paper. Look at diamonds. The price is artificially high. The earth has so much of it but because people value diamonds as rare the price reflects its. The US dollar bill use to be backed by gold and silver. You could take it to a bank and get that much in gold. Now it’s backed by nothing except other governments saying it is. Crypto is controlled by the people using it. The more people use it the more it will be worth and the more it will be accepted. A dollar is the government saying you can buy X amount of things with this. Crypto is the people saying you can buy X amount of this. When governments fall crypto will allow people to trade with each other without the government. Look at Venezuela, their dollars aren’t worth the paper it’s printed on so they are resorting to crypto because their government keeps diluting their money without their say. The longer crypto is around and being used the less volatile it will be. People that are just using it as an investment are hurting the market more than anything. For it to be valuable you have to use it. A diamond is just hard compressed carbon but because people use it as a status symbol, diamonds are valuable just like gold. | 22 |
[Batman TAS] What makes Joker so afraid of the IRS and jail? | He was trying to clean his name in that episode (Joker's Millions), but surely someone of his caliber shouldn't be afraid to go to jail if something goes legally awry. Does he prefer to be put in straight jacket than to be given free rectal exam in the showers?
Maybe that was merely warn kids about the real life "villain" that is the IRS, but I was asking about the in-universe reason. | 40 | Given the Joker's habit of "committing to the bit", there is a chance this is him doing a "meta joke"; Joker will poison Gotham's water supply, shoot a police chief's daughter and try to brainwash Robin, and go toe-to-toe with Batman nightly. But deal with the IRS?!? No Thank you!
In reality the Joker doesn't give a crap about taxes, buy it promotes his image of being crazy and chaotic. | 91 |
ELI5 What causes your stomach to make audible 'grumbling' noises when you're hungry. | The 'grumbling' noises that your stomach makes when you're hungry are sometimes louder than others. What causes it to be so loud that it can be heard by others? | 30 | Your tummy and digestive tract as a whole use muscles and sphincters (Valve like muscles) that contract slowly to move large masses and gas. When full, the release of gas within the tract by valves create a grumbling noise that is muffled by masses of food. When hungry, the movement and pressure release of gas isn't muffles by anything, allowing the noise to be more noticeable. | 31 |
ELI5: What's the difference between LCD, LED, and Plasma HDTV's? | ELI5: What's the difference between LCD, LED, and Plasma HDTV's?
I have no idea which one to really look at when buying a HDTV for Gaming & Netflix. They all look ok, but what's the difference? | 2,225 | **LCD - Liquid Crystal Display**
Behind every pixel on an LCD display is a set of RGB subpixels containing the liquid crystal cells. An electric current varies the amount of light the cell allows through, a color filter sets the cell as red green or blue. LCD's need a backlight, which is usually flourescent lamps.
**LED: Light Emitting Diode**
Any TV marked as LED is actually an LCD. The difference is the backlight, which uses a matrix of white LED's instead of standard bulbs. The advantage with an LED TV is that the amount of backlight can vary across the screen, increasing contrast and allowing deeper blacks
**Plasma**
Plasma TVs have each subpixel being it's own flouresent bulb, so there is no need for a backlight. Plasma had a bad reputation for "burn in" where a stationary image left on screen for a long time (like a game HUD) affected the subpixels and left a ghost image even when watching something else. Modern plasmas have technology to counteract this.
**OLED - Organic Light Emitting Diode**
OLED tvs are true LED TV's and work similar to Plasmas, in that each subpixel is an individual LED with no backlight. Like a plamsa TV this allows rich colors and contrasts, but OLEDS can be printed at much higher reolution than Plasma TVs, allowing for 4K resolution, or more subpixels per pixel. | 2,104 |
ELI5: How has coaxial, a very aged standard, stood the test of time and maintained its status as the primary way of transmitting cable and internet signals? | This has sorta been answered before. But I’m specifically interested in how coaxial, a cable type that *predated* the internet, and HD/4K resolutions, is able to handle both of those things (at the same time even).
It’s just incredible. I feel like when they invented the cable type, they must not have known just how capable the standard would prove to be. | 23 | It has always been a very high information throughput media. Think about the standard cable that was sent across it pre-internet. It may have only been standard def (480p), but they were simultaneously sending dozens of streams down the line.
Because the signal is analog, they can split the data streams onto different frequency channels and handle a huge amount of data transfer concurrently.
The primary advances in the technology have more to do with the equipment hooked to the cables rather than the cables themselves. The equipment is able to use higher frequencies and filter noise better to maintain a solid signal. | 24 |
ELI5: why do suicide rates increase during the holiday season? | 17 | Christmas is usually a time when families and loved ones get together to celebrate. During the holiday season, people who are lonely feel more alone than ever because everyone else is celebrating with their loved ones while they are on their own.
Add to that that, in the Northern Hemisphere, winter is cold, dark and hostile and many countries rarely see the sun, making seasonal depression a lot more common and intense than usual. | 67 |
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[QWOP] What happened to that poor country that this is their best athlete? | Did they have a Polio epidemic or something? | 122 | The small country had a program similar to Make A Wish where this disabled athlete was allowed to compete in a small, token way in a single event.
There was an uproar among a small but very vocal and influential portion of the populace, believing this athlete would bring shame to the country and set them as the laughing stock of the world.
The remaining athletes all declined to compete, after the registration deadline had passed, and left this one Olympian as their sole representative.
At the competition itself, his competitors also bowed out, forfeiting their chance at an easy win to let QWOP, as he became affectionately known, to bring home his nation's first gold medal in their Olympic history.
It was a great show of solidarity in the face of discrimination.
QWOP was hailed as a hero of his homeland. The feel-good special they aired before the event covered most of this. It was a tear-jerker. You should try to find it on YouTube. | 123 |
[DragonBall z] would goku have beaten cell if they had continued fighting? | 31 | Goku was going all out, while cell wasnt.
While looking the fight, gohan thought that goku wasnt serious cause he knew that he himself was stronger than what his father was showing.
Gohan didnt understand that in the time chamber he got stronger than goku.
After going ssj2 he destroyed cell, but to protect vegeta he lost one arm and got weaker, while cell got stronger than before after regenerating, so in the end they were even.
The correct scale is
Goku-----》gohan ssj1-----》cell-----》gohan ss2 after losing an arm-》cell after regenerating from self exploding----》gohan ssj2 full power | 51 |
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[MCU] How different is Ego the Living Planet to say Arishem? They’re both Celestials or at least ego claims to be | 78 | Imagine a chicken egg that failed to hatch, but somehow the chick inside is able to walk around in it and roll it to get to places.
If Ego is a celestial of the same sort as Arishem, THAT is what happened with him. | 73 |
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[Star Wars] How is the Millennium Falcon so durable? | In the movies we see it ram or smack other ships (tie fighters), we see it slam and skid in the ground, all while only suffering minor skin and antenna damage. It's like a racing video game where your car is indestructible.
Is the ship actually that tough? Was the whole thing reinforced with the intent of it inflicting ship-to-ship damage? All other ships (besides the Ramships) seem to fall apart whenever they make physical contact (like a plane would).
Edit: lots of thorough, entertaining, and all-around great answers here, thank you everyone! | 41 | The falcon is made with superior materials, by a system known for tough as nails ships, modified over the years by smugglers, gamblers, and rogues to be even tougher, faster, sneakier, with better shields, guns, sensors, and enough storage for at least 42% of Lando Calrissian's cape collection.
The falcon is correllian built, and Correllians build ship hulls tough. We're talking heavy duty, capital ship class superstructure materials in a ship that doesn't even clock in at corvette class.
Remember those ramming frigates used in the Battle of Scarif? A Correllian built design still in use two HUNDRED YEARS after they entered service. Those little ships are about 50% drive by mass, and the drives are strong enough to push a star destroyer around with ease. The frames of those Ram ships were tough enough to take the strain of force from that push, and not bend.
By contrast, a Tie is a stamped-out, mass produced, cheap design with no shields and no hyperdrive.
The Falcon bashing a TIE out of its way is like bashing a toy car with a sledgehammer.
| 115 |
[Star Wars] How much free will do Jedi and force sensitive people have? | Does the force make it so that every major event is set in stone? Was there ever any possibility of Anakin not falling to the dark side or does the force demand that all of that stuff happens?
Do people in the Star Wars universe have any choice at all or does the existence of the force mean that everything that happens is pre-determined by it? | 31 | Think of this way - the Sith *will* be destroyed. Balance *will* be brought to the Force. These are the endings, so-to-speak. No matter what path we walk down, they all make their way back to that conclusion.
Every event is not set in stone as if there was only ever one way for things to work out. Could Anakin have stayed in the Light and shunned the Dark? Of course he *could* have, but he didn't. He fell to the Dark Side, and brought pain and suffering to a great many people. Had Anakin stayed in the light, much pain would have been avoided, and it stands to reason that it *could* have worked out... but that's not what happened. Not because of destiny, but because of choice. It gave way to difficult times, yet Yoda and Obi-Wan both continued to trust in the Force - despite their inability to see how it would end.
To that end, they even made bad assumptions along the way. Obi-Wan believed ending Vader was the only hope for the galaxy. Yoda believed Luke should not have been trained in the ways of the Jedi. Both believed Anakin was dead (for all intents and purposes), and that Vader was irredeemable.
Yet, despite all that, the Force did not will Vader to die, it lent Luke the strength to fight the Empire, and it was there to accept *Anakin* back to the Light once he had destroyed the last remaining Sith.
As the saying goes, "All is as the Force wills it to be." That doesn't mean that everything is set in stone - it means that eventually, when the Force demands something to happen... it will find a way to make it happen. No matter what. | 24 |
[MCU] A future version of myself just "borrowed" my Soul Stone sacrifice for 50 years. Is this still going to work? | Okay, so I was standing on the cliff on Vormir, about to toss my beloved wife off the edge, when a disheveled, distraught-looking version of myself appeared in a flash of light. He choked out something about "borrowing her for a bit", and the two of them vanished before I could react.
About 20 seconds passed, and my wife reappeared. Except this time, she looked about 50 years older, and she was alone. She tells me she led a full life and raised three kids with my doppelgänger, who recently died of pancreatic cancer.
Now, the thing is, she's still the same person, I still love her, and it's still going to tear me apart to sacrifice her. But I can't shake the feeling that future!me is trying to have his cake and eat it too. Is this going to trigger some sort of anti-cheat protocol built into the Stone, or does it only care about the love I still feel? | 78 | "Future you" isn't you, it's an asshole from another timeline; he didn't have his cake and eat it too, he ate your cake. Shoving your now old wife off the cliff still counts, and if you choose to use a time machine to go back and steal some other you's wife after the fact, that's their problem. | 77 |
[Harry Potter] Is going to a magical school like Hogwarts mandatory for non-muggles? Are there any homeschooled or self-taught witches or wizards? | 21 | Yes, in the UK at least. Lupin explains in the last book that attending Hogwarts isn't mandatory (well, except for that one year when Voldemort was in charge) and that guardians are allowed to homeschool their children if they so desire. However, this is extremely uncommon and few do it.
Guardians are also allowed to send their children abroad to other magical schools. | 29 |
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[DC] What would happen if a non-speedster like Hal Jordan or Superman entered the Speed Force by sheer brute speed? | Like in *Hal Jordan And The Green Lantern Corps #28*, which is canon, [Hal almost breaks open a portal into the Speed Force](https://imgur.com/a/S9Il0) because he's moving too fast.
What would have happened if Hal accidentally created a Speed Force singularity? | 30 | Superman Prime got stuck there for a long time, so presumably they might be unable to leave, especially if lantern exhausted his ring energy on the way in, or Superman burned through too much of his solar energy reserves. | 29 |
ELI5: Why are mostly dramatic/serious/"adult" movies always nominated for ever "best picture" award, rather than any normal blockbuster movie like Avengers, Dark Knight, Harry Potter, etc.? | 143 | The Best Picture award is for the "Best" movie, encompassing most aspects regarding film: directing, acting by the lead cast, acting by the supporting cast, writing, cinematography, score, set design, etc.
This is why Best Picture nominees usually are up for many other awards as well.
Just because Avengers and Dark Knight type movies are really cool action movies, that doesn't make it Oscar worthy. While Robert Downey Jr. IS Tony Stark, his performance as Stark isn't as good as Keaton, Cumberbatch, Redmayne, etc. | 63 |
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ELI5: How come mostly every animal in the animal kingdom as soon as its born it can walk and almost take care of itself but human babies have to be taken care of for years? | 19 | Over many generations, humans have evolved to have disproportionately larger brains than other mammals. This means they also need bigger heads for that brain to fit inside of.
Bigger heads in newborns aren’t easy for mothers giving birth. The bigger the baby’s head, the more difficult the birth and the more likely that the mother and/or baby will die during labor.
So, humans have evolved for babies to be born sooner, while their heads are smaller. This is why for the first couple months of a baby’s life, they don’t do anything besides sleep, eat, cry, and poop. They have no personalities, aren’t aware of much anything. They just want to be swaddled and have their basic needs taken care of. Essentially, they just want their womb environment recreated because that’s really where they should still be - if they didn’t need to be birthed earlier because of the head and brain size issue.
Most other animals on the other hand, have not evolved such that a large brain is the biggest priority. Out in the wild where there are lots of predators who want to kill and eat you, being able to move from birth is more critical so that a predator doesn’t get you.
Humans built shelters and other defense mechanisms like taming fire so that they had ways to protect themselves from predators besides just running away. Once these structures were in place, humans brains started growing bigger and they started being birthed earlier (over tens of thousands of years). | 70 |
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ELI5:How does our body generate heat during fever? | 78 | The exact same way it always generates heat, through something called metabolism where sugars and fats are "burned" in chemical reactions to create energy.
The difference is that when the body is sick with some medical conditions such as the flu or an infection, it is programmed to raise the level of metabolic activity to scoot your temperature up. It does this because many forms of infection and disease don't reproduce as well at warmer temperatures. But it doesn't work all the time and in runaway fevers can raise the body temperature so high that organ failure or brain damage can occur. | 44 |
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I believe that space exploration is an unjustifiable waste of resources that owes its support to childish science fiction fantasies. CMV | The reddit hivemind loves space, and NASA, and giving NASA money. I strongly disagree. It doesn't seem to me like space exploration or travel is remotely realistic or practical or that there is anything out there that can justify the cost. R+D is great, and insofar as NASA promotes it that is a fine thing, but can't we achieve that same thing more efficiently by changing NASA into a dedicated R+D program and cutting out these space projects that seem to exist only as PR?
Our own solar system is so large that it seems impossible to get outside it without altering human biology in fundamental ways and I'm not aware of anything inside of our solar system valuable enough to be worth getting people or machines to. Asteroid mining seems a laughable idea, since mining is an engineering problem and won't it *always* be easier to solve that engineering problem in earth's most inaccessible locations than in outer space.
Some people have a sentimental attachment to space programs, but I don't see that this should matter, since there are many things groups of people have sentiments about that we recognize as bad policy choices. Is it simply the case that nerds are willing to apply a different criteria when considering things they like (NASA) compared to things they don't like such as farm subsidies? | 27 | > Asteroid mining seems a laughable idea, since mining is an engineering problem and won't it always be easier to solve that engineering problem in earth's most inaccessible locations than in outer space.
No, it won't, actually. Getting something into space takes a lot of energy, but once it's there, many engineering problems become massively simplified. There's no air resistance, no corrosion, and no gravity. The amount of resources present in space makes the investment well worth it.
In addition to that, considering that we now have the ability to essentially make the Earth uninhabitable, it seems like a good idea not to put all of our eggs in once basket. | 19 |
I want to learn mathematic based economics | I have some experience in Differential Geomtry, complex analysis, linear algebra and real analysis. I wish to learn some mathematical descriptions of economical theories like capitalism, socialism etc. Could a road map to studying these be given?
Also If you have good video lecture to recommend, that'd be nice too | 60 | Mas Colell's micro textbook, Romer's advanced macro textbook, and woolridge for econometrics. You can find older used versions online or if you take the time to look maybe a free pdf online somewhere
These books are about economics/economic theory not pop-econ ideological stuff like isms. Those aren't the type of things economists spend their time thinking about | 53 |
CMV: Anita Sarkeesian is dishonest | 47 | > Yet, ironically enough given the purpose of her videos is to examine cultural and gender problems, the way she measures Princess Peaches worth as a character is by comparing her to the men around her, and as such, to a limited list of 'positive' character traits.
That's not all she does regarding Peach, though. She also points out what Peach is like when she stars in her own game: that her superpower as a hero of a game is *literally mood swings*. That's an incredibly damning argument that her portrayal is sexist as fuck. | 33 |
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[Thor/Thor Ragnorak] If Thor had had his "powers come from within" epiphany while in exile on Earth, could he have shot lightning without reclaiming his hammer? | 23 | I don't think so. At that point Odin very explicitly robbed Thor of his power, so the realization probably wouldn't have worked. Once he learned humility however, it seems that the Worthiness Enchantment relaxed a notch about that. | 31 |
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ELI5:What triggers evolution in a species? | I recently learned about cat's not drinking water near their food because of natural instincts they had developed.
This means that at some point, felines drank water and had to have died right? So how was that instinct developed/passed on if it involved something that would kill the host? | 32 | There is no real trigger... Evolution is the survival of the individual who is best adapted to surroundings. Let's say a pack of mammoths ends up in the desert. Then the amount of hair determines how well a mammoth regulates its body temperature. The overheating mammoth dies, giving the rest of the mammoths more chance to procreate and pass their amount of hair to the next generation. Basically we always evolve, but random mutations that give an individual benefits or not appear randomly, so there's no guarantee that there will be change.
You could say that change of surroundings triggers evolution to cause change but evolution itself is always there. | 30 |
ELI5: How does a human being stay in a coma for many (like 10 or 20) years, and what wakes them up? | 229 | While you are in a coma, assuming that you are being kept alive and your brain has some function, your brain devotes a grear amount of enery to repairing itself. This process is difficult and energy intensive so some times it takes many years for the brain to repair itself to a level were you can remain conscious. | 114 |
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Will we ever get back to pre-slowdown days ? When will the global economy bounce back to the 2005-06 days of fast expansion ? | Or are those days past us and we will never see such growth again ? | 43 | Robert Reich argues that until we fix the wealth inequality (comparable to 1920's robber baron days), we are going to have prolonged high unemployment and a continued decline or flattening of median income.
See his book Aftershock, p 27 | 19 |
Do you burn more calories when you're sick? | When you're sick you can experience symptoms like increased mucous production and fever. I imagine that since the body has to deal with these problems it would have to spend more energy. Anybody able to expand on this idea?
Side question: when you have a cold, where the hell does all of that mucous come from? It's non-stop!
**Edit:** Thanks for all the info guys. This subreddit is awesome! | 157 | Yes, baseline energy usage increases ~15% with each degree increase in temperature.
Inflammation dumps a lot of chemicals into your blood that fire up the breakdown of fat and glycogen stores. Basically you mobilize your body's stored energy so that it can be used to fight infection.
Side question: Your respiratory tract from the nose on down is filled with "goblet cells" that create mucous secretions. These secretions trap infectious particles, which are then carried out of the respiratory tract by a "mucociliary escalator" -- basically, the other cells in your lungs have little fingers on them that push the mucus out of your body...onto your handkerchief.
The fluid for mucous production comes from your blood. Goblet cells synthesize a substance called mucin, mix it with water from blood, and pump it into your respiratory tract. | 134 |
Why don't people bleed out during surgery? When people get stabbed they bleed out. | The title is pretty self explanatory. Surgeons cut pretty deeply. It's my understanding that people feel pain when they get cut because it is the body signalling something is wrong. So we give anesthesia to stop the patient feeling the pain. But they are still bleeding! For example, open heart surgery. Do they just close the patient up before anything too bad can happen? Or do they constantly recycle the lost blood through the patient's body artificially?
Thank you, knights of AskScience! | 146 | As you can see from the comments, there are lots of reasons that patients don't bleed out. A non-comprehensive list:
* Surgeons avoid severing major veins/arteries whenever possible, and use hemostats to control bleeding.
* Minimally-invasive surgical techniques can reduce bleeding significantly.
* The patient's blood may be captured and recycled.
* Blood may be transfused. | 183 |
[MCU] If Captain America's shield absorbs all kinetic energy, why does he sometimes get knocked back? | Just rewatching Captain America: The First Avenger, and in train scene Cap and Buckey both get knocked back by the beams. I remember reading something similar about an explosion in Avengers where someone explained changes in air pressure or something that move around the shield would still affect Cap directly, but why is it that something that only seems to hit the shield directly still sends them flying backwards? | 19 | It seems that the shield (and possibly vibranium in general) cancel and reflect/reflect heavy impacts, but do not cancel momentum or "pushing" forces nearly as well. This lets the good captain move the shield: if it truly absorbed all kinetic energy, the thing would be immobile as any force would be counteracted. It looks like there is some unknown threshold where this occurs, making blows that could damage the captain able to be blocked without stopping movement. As such, although the impact of the force is reduced, the good captain still feels part of the momentum once the heavy part of the blow has ended...so he gets pushed back. No matter how strong he is, he still has a finite weight so he simply has to move by the nature of physics (which, admittedly, tend to go a bit screwy around vibranium). Part of that is also likely due to the fact that his shield IS an alloy like /u/ojcoolj mentioned. | 26 |
ELI5:why are most European flags three stripes of color? | 23 | The tricolor pattern was born as a symbol of liberty and revolution in Europe, in the 16th century, and then gained traction in the time of the French revolution and only increased in popularity to 1848, the "Spring of Nations".
The tricolor pattern was seen as the herald of a new age, an age where the feudal lords would finally be removed, and power was instead given to the common people. Of course, such transitions were often bloody. | 28 |
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[DC] Why is Superman so beloved by everyone? | Question from a long time ago but I just remembered it
basically there's this scene in doomsday clock where superheros are banned from operating outside of there home country..Expect Superman
he's so popular that even Vladimir putin hands him a podium when he shows up at an event and praises him while doing so
why? I know he's to the average DC human being the most powerful justice leaguer and a decent person but what makes him different from every other superhero in terms of popularity? | 209 | Superman's greatest power isn't his strength. It isn't flight, it isn't heat vision, it isn't whatever the hell happened in the 50s and 60s. Superman's greatest power - the one that keeps a character created in 1938 relevant to this very day - is his ability to inspire hope. Superman is the embodiment of the idea that if you just hang on a little bit longer, dig just a little bit deeper, you'll be okay.
And the need to be okay isn't bound by country or planet or even space sector; it's universal. | 282 |
I believe that, in the absence of a deity, there is no basis for human rights or morality. CMV. | I know that there are many people who don't believe in God, but believe in human rights. I would like to understand how and why. As a Christian, my belief in human rights comes from my belief that such rights are granted by God. In the absence of a God who decides what our rights are, I don't see a reason why such rights must exist. Here's my reasoning:
1. If there is no deity (or something outside of humanity which determines human rights and moral behavior), then there is no basis to make any sort of moral claim besides human reason and observation.
2. If we can only base our morality on human reason and observation, then morality (and human rights) cannot be objective, as there is disagreement among peoples. Furthermore, even if we all agree, it does not follow that any conclusion we may come to is correct.
3. Therefore, there is no basis for human rights or morality in the absence of a deity.
Going back to point 1. If you can give me something besides a deity which is outside of humanity which could decide what our rights are, then that would satisfy me, but I don't think that irreligious people have anything like that.
My main motivation for asking is that atheists typically believe in some sort of morality and certainly believe in human rights, but I can't tell if they believe in these things because to reject them is troubling or because they can actually articulate reasons why they exist.
Edit: People have been comparing moral truth to other kinds of truth, such as scientific truth. The problem with this comparison is that we assume scientific truth to exist independently of human reason and observation. For moral truth to be the same way, there must be an objective Good which is also independent of human reason and observation. My problem is that without a God I see no reason why this Good would exist.
Edit 2: To everyone bringing up Euthyphro's dilemma, I would say that it is a false dilemma. I can't speak for other theistic religions, but Christians hold that morality is a direct extension of God's nature. Suppose each being determines what is moral for himself. Humans are mutable and imperfect, and thus our morality will be mutable and imperfect. God is immutable, perfect, and the only necessary being, thus his morality will be immutable, perfect, and objective. Moral good is then an extension of who God is. | 20 | Take a schoolyard. If there is one kid who hits another kid, children will recognize that as a mean thing to do.
They don't need a parent or adult to tell them that it is wrong. The bully might need an adult to tell them, but the victim and the other children don't.
Morality is created by men. We don't need a god to tell us to follow the Golden Rule. Every single culture and society that has ever existed has figured that one out. This is the basis of morality.
The definition as written on Wikipedia is:
>Morality (from the Latin moralitas "manner, character, proper behavior") is the differentiation of intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are "good" (or right) and those that are "bad"
The definition in Webster's dictionary is:
> beliefs about what is right behavior and what is wrong behavior : the degree to which something is right and good : the moral goodness or badness of something
Neither of these definitions say that morality needs to be universally agreed upon. Morality doesn't have to be objective. Each person can have their own moral code. Subjective morality is morality nonetheless. | 36 |
[Star Trek] What inhabited planets exist in the various Neutral Zones? Since fleet ships can't enter the Zones typically, who do they trade with? Who defends them? | 57 | Warships cannot enter into neutral zones without violating treaty, but merchant ships can. These civilian trading vessels can go anywhere they please, albeit with some possible risk as civilian trading vessels are unarmed and thus helpless against a warship.
The civilian merchant freighter, Kobayashi Maru, is perhaps the most famous example of this. It can enter any neutral zone it likes without violating treaty because it is an unarmed civilian merchant freighter. The downside to this is that it relies entirely on the goodwill of warships to not fire upon it, and to protect it should it need assistance.
Any Starfleet vessel is still a warship. Yes, their primarily mission is not war, but they still carry massive amounts of armaments and shielding. Even a Starfleet science vessel is still extremely heavily armed. They are warships in all but name.
Colonies will typically build their own militia or planetary defense forces. The larger and most established the colony, the more elaborate their militia will be. A planetary militia commonly uses sub-light ships. This makes ships cheaper and easier to construct and because these ships do not need to travel to other planets, there is no need for FTL.
Bajor is an example of an independent planet with its own militia. A planetary militia is of course completely outmatched when it comes to that of any star system spanning empire, but such a planet isn't helpless. Not entirely, at least. | 46 |
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CMV: All fines should be a percent of personal income instead of flat penalties. | Under our current system an individual can choose to break the law with minimal effective penalty, if they are wealthy enough. A store clerk, who is caught speeding, might pay 1/6th of a month's wages on the fine. A computer programmer or lawyer might pay 1/40th a month's wage for the same offense and a hedge fund manager might pay 1/1000th a month's wage for the offense.
Each traffic violation may come with a monetary fine. This fine is either punitive or not punitive in nature.
If the reasoning behind a fine is to act as a deterrent and our justice system is supposed to apply punishment equally, then fines based on percentage of total wealth or yearly income seem like the fairest way to accomplish that goal.
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One objection to this is that it would likely lead to targeted enforcement of traffic and other codes to catch a higher percentage of people at higher income levels.
Another objection is the basic fairness of having to pay $1M for a minor traffic violation.
| 11 |
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