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ELI5: Why after an inanimate object hurts you do you feel the urge to hit it back?

Fight or flight. Your car can’t chase you (assuming it’s not Kitt) so you’re safe to choose Fight until your brain takes back over from the instinctive reaction a human has to what our brains perceive was an attack.

I kinda worry about everyone saying OP clearly has anger issues. Like, have they never accidentally bumped their head on something and was ready to start fighting? I'm not a violent person but whenever I lightly tap my head against a corner of a cupboard or something I wanna start swinging. Like you said it's just triggering your fight or flight response. It has nothing to do with anger and everything to do with survival. If something unexpectedly causes you pain in the wild the faster you react the better. Your body reacts to the pain and wants to prevent it from happening again.

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ELI5: Why can someone be trangender but not transracial?

Think about what it would mean for a white person to "identify as black"? Does it mean cops will pull you over more often and likely as not shoot you on sight? Probably not. Does it mean you'll get passed over in job interviews? Probably not that either. Does it mean your recent ancestors were enslaved and your family dynamics are still marked by it? Does it mean your home will be undervalued by realtors when you try to sell it, or any of the myriad other forms of discrimination that black people face? If not, then what does it mean to "identify as black"? Gender is just about you. Whether you're male or female or something else is about you and nothing else, really. Your family doesn't control your gender, and neither does the government or school or your workplace. Being black isn't really about the individual. It's about the systems. It's about the family you grew up in, the opportunities you are (or aren't) given, the way you're treated by the authorities and so on. You're black because white people decided that "black" is a thing, and decided on how black people should be treated by society. Black people are not given the _option_ of choosing for themselves, of being treated the way white people are. They can't say "please don't shoot me officer, I'm white actually". So should white people have the option to shop around and go cosplaying as black people (but only ever have to experience the fun parts, while preserving all the privileges you get with being white?) Being "transracial" is really about white people saying "those black people who used to be our slaves? We still own them. I can still take anything from them that I want. I can take whatever I want from their lives and experience it for myself without giving anything in return"

>Think about what it would mean for a white person to "identify as black"? Does it mean cops will pull you over more often and likely as not shoot you on sight? Probably not. > >Does it mean you'll get passed over in job interviews? Probably not that either. > >Does it mean your recent ancestors were enslaved and your family dynamics are still marked by it? > >Does it mean your home will be undervalued by realtors when you try to sell it, or any of the myriad other forms of discrimination that black people face? > >If not, then what does it mean to "identify as black"? What does it mean to "identify as a woman"? Does it mean you're more likely to get pregnant? Does it mean you're more likely to get breast cancer? Does it mean you're more likely to have a period? Does it mean I'm more likely to be sexually harassed by men? If not, then what does it mean to "identify as a woman"? >Gender is just about you. According to who? Why is gender only about you but race is somehow about everyone else? >Being black isn't really about the individual. It's about the systems. It's about the family you grew up in, the opportunities you are (or aren't) given, the way you're treated by the authorities and so on. So if I had black skin but I was adopted by a white family, I happen to have had good opportunities, and I live in a community where I'm treated well by the authorities, etc. would that mean I'm not black? Suppose our society treated all races equally. Would black people stop existing? Because your whole argument seems to imply that being black is defined by being treated like shit by society. >Black people are not given the *option* of choosing for themselves, of being treated the way white people are. They can't say "please don't shoot me officer, I'm white actually". Ok suppose I could actually "pass" as a black guy. Suppose I could alter my looks in such a way as to convince others that I'm black, just like plenty of trans women have surgeries and hormones to make them "pass" as women. If I could make myself look black, I'd expect a racist cop to treat me just as poorly as any other black man. So with that reasoning, if I can convincingly pass as a black man, would that make me trans black? >Being "transracial" is really about white people saying "those black people who used to be our slaves? We still own them. A lot of people say the same about trans women. Plenty of trans people are accused of having ulterior motives. Why is it ok to assume a transracial has ulterior motives but it's wrong to question the motives of transgender people? And why are you assuming that it's just white people wanting to be black? What if a Native American guy identified as Asian?

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ELI5: How do massive corporations keep everything organized?

They take the tasks they have to deal with and divide them up into general categories. From there, they divide those categories into more granular subcategories, and repeat as necessary. I work for a company with >100k employees and I have 8 layers of management between me and the CEO. Anyone who has worked for a large company will tell you that it always feels like a giant fiasco of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing, and people fighting over resources and boundaries and trying to figure out who needs to do what, because as you stated at the scales of those companies there's a mindboggling amount of things that need tended to.

That’s exactly what I mean… how can so many different little factions act as a cohesive unit?

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ELI5: Why are red yellow and blue primary colors?

Because you can't mix any colours together to make red, yellow or blue. Those three have to exist to create any other secondary colours.

Yes, but why? Why are those colors the basis to the other colors?

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eli5: Why does currency value change across countries?

Think of countries like houses. If you walk into a $10,000 house with a $5 bill it might be worth more to the residents of that house. If you walk into a $1,000,000 house, the residents might not think your $5 is very valuable.

Hmm thanks for simplifying:) but isn't that what happens as a result of the currency value? Why is the worth of one house higher than the other? what determines that value?

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ELI5 How do people pay less for power by buying solar which costs upwards of $15k?

Some communities have programs that provide grants for installation or tax breaks which means the actual cost is much lower- then you look at how long before the lower or no bills you pay “make up” the upfront costs.

So it's safe to assume I would be paying both a cost monthly for the solar hardware/install as well as the power?

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ELI5: What exactly happens when we feel the need to bounce our leg while sitting for too long?

You’re anxious either consciously or subconsciously, or you have more energy stored up than need and your brain is looking to do something with it. Your body needs to do something to exert that energy either to distract you from your anxiety or to expend the energy in order to satisfy your brain. “Me caveman. Have energy to hunt. Nothing to hunt or no current need to hunt. Me not go hunting, sit and talk with family, but brain still think ‘hunt’. Me need to do something” *bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce*

What does that even mean, energy stored up? Where is it?

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ELI5: How do we fix inflation?

Inflation is not "bad," exactly do it doesn't need to be "fixed. ' Inflation is what happens when the price of good and services go up. It is " bad, " when it is rising too quickly (and what is the definition of too quickly is debatable.) There are other factors that matter and are not included in traditional GDP (gross domestic product) views of economics. The greater challenge at the moment is the traditional mechanics of control of inflation are no longer working well and have becoming less effective especially since 2007. However the problem with the mechanics of economic control are older going back to the 1970s at least. At it's core inflation is too many dollars (or other currency) chasing too few goods. Which leads to price increases. Which make things less affordable but at the same time increase the value of GDP. It is complicated to be sure but it is neither bad or good it is just a measurement of prices over time.

>it is neither bad or good How? Inflation devalues your currency.

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ELI5: Why are leggings gendered? It's not like they've got a long history of being worn almost exclusively by women like dresses, so what's with leggings?

The cut. Women probably don't need an extra gusset/dick pouch in the front, but they would need a slimmer fit through the calves, etc. If you want them to fit right on men and women, you've got to have different shapes.

And we don't have cuts for men because?

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ELI5: What is the point of the hole in the sink that isn't the drain?

Do you mean the hole all the way at the top edge of the sink? Because that is aiso a drain in case you overfill your sink

I don't want to waste water to experiment - but you cannot fill a sink past that hole?

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ELI5: How does a non-profit work?

Non-profit doesn't mean non-revenue. Non-profit means there aren't owners/shareholders who get to keep any remaining profits at the end of the year. If there is a surplus of funds, those remain with the organization to supplement leaner years (say, when donations decrease and reliance on org's services increase during a recession) or provide additional funding toward their mission (additional grants to cancer researchers or give out additional scholarships). Non-profits raise funds through donations (monetary donations, sponsorships of events, buying tickets to attend a gala, donation of goods, etc), fees (museum admission, university tuition, hospital bills), merchandise sales (gift shop sales, t-shirt sales at charity event) and such. Those revenues pay for administrative costs to run the events and do other fundraising activities, as well as fund the cause. It might be providing scholarships for inner city kids, or funding cancer research, or running a university. Employees get paid, vendors get paid, money is allocated to scholarships, grants, etc. But any money left over stays within the organization to further its cause.

But the owner of a non-profit still receives a wage from the funds the organization receives, right? Couldn't he technically increase his own salary and keep some of the profits that way? Or does someone else decide how much he's able to keep for him/herself?

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ELI5: How does a non-profit work?

A non-profit has nothing to do with making profit. The name is misleading, they can, and absolutely do make profit and can have a primary goal of profit. Non-profit is a terrible terrible misleading name. It's not about making profit, its about what you can do with that profit. A non-profit is just a way to organize a business for tax purposes. Hard stop The benefit of not being a non-profit, that is you are a regular business is that you can directly give your owners money and sell shares of the company. A non-profit, really the only downside is you can't do that. The owner(s) of a non-profit can't just take money from the company. However, this is basically BS. Because in a non-profit, you can still pay wages, so you just hire your owner and pay them a wage, which is *exactly* what happens in many. You start a non-profit, and whether you work or not, you pay yourself a wage from their money. Non-profits get significant tax benefits over traditional companies and that is the reason many businesses are organized that way. It is NOT about profit.

In the US the IRS can sanction a non-profit for paying people more than seems reasonable. There is a reason that most businesses are for-profit rather than non-profit, and that's because there are a lot more regulations on how you can use your money. If what you are saying is accurate there wouldn't be any small for-profit company out there. Because why bother?

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Eli5 Why does Water Pressure increase as altitude decreases?

Like, within a body of water? Water pressure increases because of the weight of all the water above it. The water pressure in a bucket of water at sea level isn't any different from the water pressure in the same bucket at high altitude (the weight/pressure of air changes, but that has a very small effect)

How does scuba equipment survive the pressure?

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Eli5 Why does Water Pressure increase as altitude decreases?

All pressure increases as altitude decreases. The lower in any fluid you go the more fluid is above. This fluid has weight, weight is a downward force. Force over an area is pressure.

How do our bodies combat air pressure?

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ELI5 Why do we not have nuclear powered spaceships?

Risk of contamination makes surface launched nuclear rockets politically and legally, if not morally, infeasible. [NASA has a development project](https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-announces-nuclear-thermal-propulsion-reactor-concept-awards) for a space only drive; they'd be just the thing for upcoming long-range manned missions.

Why can't we minimise the risk as with any other engineering process?

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ELI5: What does it mean when its said that light "moves in a wave"?

A "wave" in the physics sense is an object whose behavior obeys the same equation that governs the movement of a wave on the surface of water. If it helps, imagine that your whole world is a flat 2D plane. Then a wave in the water being an "up and down" thing feels a bit silly to you: there's no "third direction" for it to go. Instead, you describe the "height" of the water as a numerical value associated to each point in your 2d world (where this value would be, by 3D creatures like ourselves, be interpreted as "height". And you could write an equation to describe how these numbers change that agrees exactly with how a 3D creature could model the "height" of the wave. In the same way, we can apply this same equation - with three position coordinates instead of two - to 3D space. Every point in space has a number attached to it, and those numbers change according to a law that is mathematically related to the same law that governs the height of the water on a 2D surface. A 4D creature might think of this as a "height" in a different direction than the three dimensions we can observe - but in either case, the math is the same.

I suppose I understand that conceptually, but I cannot imagine that in the context of the real world. What physical shape does the path that light takes resemble? If light moves in a direction, let's say that direction is +X on a 3D grid, then I imagine as it travels it would vary in the Y and Z dimensions. Does this vary by photon? Or do they all move together? Is there a point where all photons are at the "bottom" of the wave? If you had to aliken the path they take to a physical object in the 3d world, what would it be like?

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ELI5: What are prions?

All of life, even vague life like viruses, use proteins as the most basic tools to do work. Think of them as the hatchets, lawnmowers or keys of the celular world. They're very versatile and incredibly complex. Prions are proteins that have been accidentally let lose, out of control and are wreaking havoc in your body. And the problem is that your immune system fails to recognise them as a threat.

Do all proteins have the potential to become prions?

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eli5 How do you trace a IP address?

The simple answer to the question you’re probably asking is this: Your IP is allocated for you by the company you pay for internet from. That company records who owns what IP between what times. So to trace an IP, the government just asks the company which customer had a given IP at a given time - then they can trace it to a location. Simple as that. Anything else is just heuristic and wouldn’t hold up legally in court.

Couldn't you also read it like a return mail address from a request sent out if you know a certain packet is from that person?

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ELI5: Sometimes raindrops are misty, sometimes they’re large. Why? What dictates the nature of raindrops?

Raindrops tend to be bigger the lower they fall from and the higher the air pressure. More rain, less wind and lower clouds tend to result in bigger drops. Temperature also has an effect, because the colder water is the greater the surface tension (which makes the waterdrop more resistant to splitting up).

Got any good readings on this? Sounds interesting!

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ELI5: How do the markets remain free in an ideal capitalist society?

Ideal is entirely subjective. If you are talking "pure" capitalist society, as in one that adheres as closely to the accepted definition of capitalism as possible with no deviation, that society will end up one company owning all industries with zero worker rights and that company having power that dwarfs the governments. "Free" Market tends to refer to a market with no restrictions on business practices, thus "purer". Since the idea behind capitalism is the constant attempt to acquire more capital, that capital can be used to gain more capital exponentially, and keep others from gaining capital or taking your capital more easily, you end up getting a "rich get richer" snowball that pretty much kills competition. Without regulation, monopolies are the unavoidable capitalist end game.

But regulation will break up the vertically/horizontally integrated supply chains of big firms. Shouldn't fragmented small scale manufacturers result in increased prices? (Since you won't have economies of scale any more)

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ELI5: Why do spiders sometimes make webs on movable objects, such as bikes or terrace chairs?

Spiders don't think, they're just the result of millions of years of spiders with the best habits having the best chance of reproduction. For wheel web spiders, the basic concept is pretty simple really. Flying insects essentially ride airstreams like a surfer rides waves. That means the best place for a web is across some sort of airflow. Luckily there's a really easy way to achieve that. The spider starts by letting out an initial guideline in the draft until the airflow picks it up and the end of the line sticks somewhere. When that happens the spider will cut the end of the line it was letting out and attach it where it's sitting. Presto, the spider now has a line crossing a gap. Now the spider just has to cross that line to create a number of spokes and then create the connecting lines between the spokes. Spiders can do this pretty quickly really. A very productive web will be repaired and cleaned but an unproductive web will often just be abandoned if it breaks or clutters up. This means that every night, a lot of spiders are trying their luck by building a web someplace new. Most spiderwebs last a few days at best. And while spiders had millions of years to evolve these clever webs from humble beginnings, the first bicycle appeared only 204 years ago. Spiders really can't conceptualise the notion that a giant will show up to ride a piece of terrain down the street.

Thank you, but you miss the point about bikes. Bikes are one example of movable objects. Why would they nest on any movable objects, often repeatedly, was my question. Also, how do spiders or any animals not "think"?

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ELI5: if the universe is infinite, then by the definition of infinity there must be a planet entirely populated by clones of me, or a planet made up of toast, yet this shouldn’t be possible in a literal sense, which would disprove infinity. So which is the answer? Help me understand infinity!

Infinite didn't mean "all possible combinations" (which is why the "infinite monkeys on infinite typewriters" thing is nonsense), it means simply without end. That said, the universe is also not infinite, so it's a moot point anyway.

Wait. Why is the infinite monkey theory bullshit?

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ELI5: if the universe is infinite, then by the definition of infinity there must be a planet entirely populated by clones of me, or a planet made up of toast, yet this shouldn’t be possible in a literal sense, which would disprove infinity. So which is the answer? Help me understand infinity!

There is a a difference between actually infinite and observably infinite. The Universe is observably infinite. Because the most powerful telescope we had at the time could only see light from so far away (14bn lightyears or something) but not further than that. So we are unable to determine if there is indeed an actual edge to it. We have a new telescope being built which dwarfs the older one. This will hopefully allow us to peer even further back. So at present our theory is that the universe is xxBN years old based on the data we have, but the theory also dictates that we are not seeing the whole picture.

Isn't the problem with seeing that far that the light you see is basically still showing you the start of the universe? If you see something 14 billion light-years away that means you are seeing that place the way it was 14 billion years ago. The reason (i think) that we can't see further is because the density of "spacedust" that far away is too dense for us to see through. Please correct me if I'm wrong but i remember this being the problem there, which would mean a bigger telescope wouldn't help.

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ELI5: every minute, person A claps 60 times and person B only claps once. On an infinite timescale, both people clap an infinite number of times but A still claps more. Are A's and B's levels of infinity equal? If not, why not?

Infinity is not a value. It is a concept, i.e., that a number is so large that its precise value is meaningless. If you gave me a precise time, no matter how large, I could tell you exactly how many claps each person did, and they would be different finite numbers. But if you just say "a really long time", the answer is that both people did "a really large amount of claps". Ratios at infinity are preserved: I know that person A clapped 60 times for every time B clapped regardless of the precision of the time you give me.

>If you gave me a precise time, no matter how large, I could tell you exactly how many claps each person did Alright then. Let's go with the age of the universe up to the time of this post. How many claps from then to now?

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ELI5: Why do cars/trucks etc need multiple gears and not just a single one, like in a scooter (Vespas etc)?

Scooters mostly have a CVT transmission or what's known as a continuously variable transmission. A lot of economy cars have these nowadays actually as theyre good for gas mileage and have gotten cheaper to manufacture. They still feel like they go through gears though for efficiency of the engine to run at optimal torque and hp based on the speed and incline and throttle.

High perfomance cars however often still need an actual gearbox as CVTs usually work with a belt drive that wouldn't withstand the immense power and torque of some modern day cars. Why do they need different gear ratios at all though? Well, in the case of trucks there is a lot of mass unwilling to be moved and you will need a lot of force to start moving it. The force your vehicle produces is a function of torque and its mechanical advantage. With a high mechanical advantage, you can get 40 or so tons rolling and shift into the next gear to accelerate, shift into the next gear, accelerate and so on. With cars the reason nowadays is either similar to trucks or they are chasing better 0-100km/h // 0-60mph times. A noteable exception would be the Koenigsegg Regera I think. Tho job of the lower gears is covered by to electromotors with the sole responsibility of low speed driving and supporting the internal combustion engine.

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ELI5: How do storage drives work?

>So I roughly get how DVDs and CDs work, from my understanding it's a laser that burns little grooves on to the disc and then reads them. Nope. An optical disc drive shines a laser at the disc, and how the laser reflects in each microscopic location is used to encode the data. At a disc manufacturing plant, a master is used to stamp or etch physical pits into a disc. But recordable discs use a dye or metal alloy that a higher-energy laser can heat to change the reflectivity. HDDs use a magnetic platter to record the data. An actuator arm moves to different locations on the spinning disc, and the magnetic polarity of each microscopic sector determines the data. SSDs store electric charge in NAND flash cells. Effectively it's like a tiny capacitor that traps the charge there. The charge state determines the data. Of course you could have just [searched for the answer](https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/search/?q=how%20do%20hard%20drives%20work&restrict_sr=1) since the exact same question is asked every few weeks.

Makes sense, thanks. Yes, I could have searched for it, but this is more fun. Every couple weeks? I found 25 times in the last seven years, from the search you linked. Every 2 weeks would be 182 times.

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ELI5 is earth is a planet why are we not in space and if it were possible to go below earth rather than above, what would we find?

Space isn’t above us. It’s around us. We are in it. Like cereal in a bowl of milk. Our atmosphere keeps us on earth and not in space.

But if we are in space how come we don’t feel the effects of it and people have not travelled to what’s below us?

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ELI5: How come, in some countries (like Lithuania) you can drive on roads with a 80hp or below tractor (TR1 driving license) without learning any traffic rules?

I'm from the US so rules are a bit different. Here there is what is called an agricultural license which allows teenagers the ability to drive tractors and farm equipment before they would legally be able to drive a car. The main thing to also consider is that when you are on private property no equipment is illegal to use even for kids. It might be reckless and dangerous but you don't usually need a license usually. So if you're a family that has your kids help you on the farm they can use your tiller or tractors, etc. The idea of the agricultural license is to allow a working kid to be able to get between the farms various fields that sometimes require a few minutes on public roads since some farms are big or have fields in different areas. Of course that doesn't mean the teenager couldn't just take the tractor miles down the road if they wanted to but that was never the intention.

So, technically, i would still be allowed to drive on public roads? Of course, my intention is to drive to the field, but the trip involves me driving on a public roads.

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ELI5:Why do mosquitos keep coming back?

If all insects just died in winter, there would be no insects at all. Depending on species insects may hibernate as adult, or the larvae, eggs or pupae will overwinter and hatch out in spring. I'm not sure which of those strategies mosquitoes use though.

This is very interesting, say for example we went into an ice age or a volcanic winter just any event that brings a prolonged winter would that cause insects like mosquitoes to go extinct? If so then maybe detonating a few nuclear bombs might not be so bad after all.

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ELI5: How does muscle memory work?

Some reflexes are actually present within the spinal cord without ever needing the brain but what we generally think of with muscle memory is due to the cerebellum. Every time you perform an action, your brain thinks of how it wants to perform that action and your cerebellum helps to coordinate it. It also cross checks what the intended action was with what you actually did. It gradually fine tunes these actions to get better and better. This is seen in practice of any physical task. Basketball for example: you try and shoot to make it in the hoop but keep missing short and to the left. Your cerebellum and cortex work together to increase the strength of your shot and move it to the right more. Thus, this is why practice improves your performance and can make it more efficient too

So can we by this deduce that prodigies are just people with a very efficient cerebellum?

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ELI5: How come you can tell when there is going to be a thunderstorm/storm based on the clouds but not a snowstorm?

A snow storm is just heavy rain. It looks way more impressive because snow is so much more bulky, but most snow storms clouds just look like rain clouds. Thunderstorms are very high energy cumulonimbus clouds that normally require a large quantity of high humidity high temperature air...that's usually not conducive to snow, at least at ground level, it's too warm. You can easily get below freezing inside a storm (that's where hail comes from) but if the ambient temperature is below freezing it's hard to get high enough humidity to power a thunderstorm. If you get very specific conditions it can happen, "thundersnow", but that's pretty unusual.

So essentially the humidity is what dictates the color of the clouds?

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ELI5:Why do human skeletons not have nose bones, when live people do?

We don’t actually have a nose “bone” beyond what you see in skeletons. What makes up our nose is cartilage. This is also what’s in your ears. Like skin and flesh, the cartilage breaks down after you die, and that’s why skeletons have that gap where our nose is.

Is that also why we're able to have nose jobs?

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ELI5:Why do human skeletons not have nose bones, when live people do?

The nose "bone" is cartilage, which is softer and rots away. You can tell its not a solid bone because your nose bone is slightly flexible if you push on it. When decay takes place, all the soft tissue and cartilage will rot away and only the teeth and bones are preserved.

That’d come handy in crime scene investigations, yeah? They should make a show about it!

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ELI5: How do reflexes...work?

While the normal nerves rosponsible for communicating Basic actions are transmitting informatorom to your Brain with the speed of about. 260 miles/h the nerves ends inform Brain of emergencies ex. Burning yourself. To prevent skin damage. These are the nerves responsible for reflexes.

Ohh okay. So technically it does go through the brain?

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ELI5: Why do songs get stuck in our head? Also, why is it usually only a small part of the song that gets stuck?

From a study on involuntary musical imagery (INMI = earworms): >The results of the present work indicate that features of a song’s melodic structure, as well as measures of its popularity and recency, can be useful in predicting whether a song becomes INMI [https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/aca-aca0000090.pdf](https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/aca-aca0000090.pdf) Apparently it's at least somewhat correlated with being recent and popular. Which isn't surprising as hearing it all the time and memorizing it probably makes it stick even more, though I'm not sure they ultimately deciphered what makes a song stick in your head as otherwise you'd get those kinds of songs 24/7.

So who am I supposed to call: Ghostbusters, J.G. Wentworth, or K-A-R-S Kars4Kids?

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ELI5: Fibonacci Sequence: what is it?

It is a sequence of numbers starting at 1,1 (or alternatively: 0,1) where each following number of the sequence is equal to the sum of the previous two numbers. So starting with 1,1 the next number is 1+1 = 2. That gives us 1,1,2 The next number then is 1+2 = 3 giving us 1,1,2,3 The number after that is 2+3 = 5 giving us 1,1,2,3,5 And so on.

What do spirals have to do with it? Is that something different?

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ELI5: Fibonacci Sequence: what is it?

Basically it's a number pattern where each sequential number is the sum of the prior two: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21 etc. Or 0 + 1 = 1; 1 + 1 = 2; 1 + 2 = 3; Etc. Taken alone, it seems arbitrary and boring, but the ratio of each number pair gets closer and closer to a very special number in nature called phi (pronounced fee), which is also known as the golden or divine ratio. Just as the greek letter pi represents the (approximate) value of 3.14 and is a special number relating to the circumference of circles, phi, which represents a value around 1.6, has an odd way of showing up in all sorts of natural phenomena. We see this ratio in spirals, such as the spiral of a hurricane, the spiral of the milky way galaxy, or even snail shells. We see it in the proportions of our own anatomy: the ratio of the successive digits of your fingers, or of your hand to your forearm is approximately 1.6 etc. There are many more examples if you do a Google image search for the golden ratio. Then universality of this relationship lead philosophers to regard it as almost like gods calling card, an artifact of the divine source code that created the natural world (hence the divine ratio). A more secular argument would say something similar but drop god from the equation and say it has something to do with fundamental forces that govern the physical world. Regardless of the explanation, it seems generally accepted that this ratio is related not just to physical phenomenon but also to our perception of physical beauty. As such it is often utilized in art, especially after the the renaissance, with lots old old famous paintings incorporating the golden ratio. even contemporary marketing firms attempt to utilize it in brand logos, believing it a sort of shortcut to creating an aesthetically pleasing image (the new pepsi logo is an example of this approach in marketing) Hope that helps!

Wow, thanks for taking the time to comment!! I’ve lately realized that math and science are actually cool when you aren’t in an classroom, so I’ve been trying to “expand my horizons” so to speak. Are there any videos/ channels you know of that could help me in that way? Thanks again, I’m a little too tired to understand right now but I’ve copy-pasted your entire response into my notes for future reading

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ELI5 I'm not a huge drinker. People always talk about getting different kinds of drunk on different kinds of alcohol. To your body, isn't alcohol just alcohol? Sure, proof would matter, but does your body know the difference beyond that?

It's just ethanol, anyone who says otherwise is completely wrong. A few people here are stating things like subtypes of alcohol and different mixers, this is complete and utter nonsense as the psychoactive properties are negligible in the quantities consumed (other than ethanol). The only somewhat caveat to that is that doing drinks with sugar in them can make you less drunk and low blood sugar can make you feel much more drunk. The real reason is that people typically choose what they are drinking based off of their mood Bad day = Whiskey Party Funtime = Tequila "Lets get ripped brah" = "lets mix Jaegar, Fireball and jetfuel and butt chug it"....then the next morning they say, "fireball makes me act crazy"

Butt Chug? Do I dare Google that?

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ELI5: Penis pills. how do they work? are they a myth?

>how do they work? They don't. >are they a myth? Yes. Well, okay - there are a few pills that might fall into the broad category of "penis pills" are not - specifically prescription medication like Viagra or Cialis - these are used to treat erectile dysfunction, and work by relaxing the muscles and arteries in the base of the penis to allow blood to flow more easily to the penis to achieve erection. But any pill that claims to make your penis bigger is more likely than not a scam designed to play on the fear that your penis in particular is smaller than average (it probably isn't) and that you need to have a 2 foot penis to give any pleasure to a woman (you don't).

Damn you had me worried there for a minute u/maveric_gamer. So I'm ok to carry on with this 4 foot penis then? :)

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eli5: why does glass absorb infrared and ultraviolet light, but not visible light?

Materials are made of atoms. Each different type of atom, compound or molecule interacts with light differently. This is mainly because of how their electrons are arranged around the atoms and molecules. Some compounds absorb some frequencies of light and not others. The atoms in glass used for windows don’t interact with visible light because their electrons aren’t arranged in a way to do so. But they do absorb UV. That’s why they’re good for windows! Other glasses are good at absorbing X-rays and so are good to use in X-ray machines. Things to google: electronic band structure & optical absorption

I've read through all the comments and I like this one the best because it is the ELI5 (and therefore, doesn't use the p word), and I'd like to elaborate a little for those who may want a bit more. Reading OPs question I infer the context to be "glass" as in window. When we describe why I can see through a window there are a couple of things that are inferred but perhaps not obvious, and in an ELI5 therefore must be highlighted. I'll try to do that now. In this particular branch of physics that deals with the problem OP asked there is a property of materials called "the index of refraction". It's a property that's indispensable in describing what will happen when light and things interact with each other and what the outcome is. That IoR property has a lot of factors that go into determining what value it is for each type of object that light might interact with. Things like what is the object made of, how are the molecules arranged, for example, but many more factors that are advanced. The point is every material object has this IoR property and it can be found by looking it up in a table. Is that good enough?! Absolutely!! It's the same level of detail and importance as when I say this brick weighs 10 pounds. You don't have to think about how much is because of this or that, or what amount of 10 pounds is due to the energy of this or that bond type. Nope, it's all shrink wrapped for you in that one number. Understood and accepted by all...it's no different than IoR when dealing with optical phenomenon. One hyper important factor that's baked into that IoR value is geometry! Geometry? Yes! It's never said because it's understood by people in the field, but is utterly not obvious for those not in this field. The geometry of the object shape is "cooked" into the IoR!!! That's factor #1. The other factor is colour of light. Unlike something like weight, the IoR will be different for each colour, be it red, ultraviolet, whatever, for each individual material! So for each material type, and each colour, there is an IoR. That's factor #2 (geometry and all other factors are baked in there too, remember). Now, lets address the question OP had. IoR is used to tell us/calculate whether an object is transparent or not and because the colour of light is relevant, when we look up IoR for air and glass we can figure out how much gets through "STRAIGHT" with our particular geometry!! This is going to sound cold but when we look up window glass the IoR and planar shape of panes means we will "see"/calculate a result that's transparent...at many particular angles. If you look through your window at certain angles and certain coloured objects the brightness or reflection amount changes, i.e. not as/more transparent. I can literally look at my big window and find spots where it's almost completely opaque and if I take a step to the right that same spot of glass becomes transparent. Different colours, different angles can mean different transparencies and it can all be expressed in that Index of Refraction number and angles of attack. That is how light/optics "works"! Any answer more sophisticated (including explanations using the p word) will have to account for all I've written and much much more.

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ELI5: When looking straight at a light, why does the shape of it stay in your vision?

If you mean after looking at a light, that's because it burns an imprint onto the cells/nerves at the back of the eye. This is temporary in most cases, but the stronger the light source, the longer it lasts. Something like a laser (not a laser pointer, the more powerful ones) will burn the retina near permanently.

They get burned?

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eli5- Why is space black? If their is so much light every where?

Because there's very little for the light to reflect off, and the stuff that is there is so far away it doesn't reflect much back at us. Think of it like using a torch at night. Shine the torch at a tree, tree is nicely illuminated. Shine the torch in to open sky, you can see the torch light bulb but that's about it.

Makes sense but then agian space expanding right? So if it is expanding ,which it is, then would the “space” part of it be some type of matter and doesn’t all matter reflect at least some kind of light?

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ELI5 How does steroid cream worsen yeast infections on your skin?

Corticosteroids (most OTC topical steroidal creams) reduce inflammation, but also reduce your white blood cell reactions to infection. It's suppressing your immune system's ability to fight off the fungus.

How did it happen on both of my arms? I'm guessing something internal is causing it, like my diabetes or something.

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Eli5: How exactly does a bee hive work, and how does the honey production cycle work?

Beekeeper checking in - queens are produced from the same egg as workers. The egg selected to be a future queen is fed more royal jelly which changes her physiology when she is developing. Once born, she will battle any other queens to the death. She then matures for about a week, then flies off for mating. She typically mates with 15-25 drones. After returning to the hive she will start laying eggs within a week or so. At here peak she will lay approx 1,500 eggs per day. Workers are all female, but do not typically lay eggs. They have different types of roles in the hive based on age. In rare instances they will lay eggs, but since they never mated, the eggs are all male. Drones are males with no father, but a grandfather. They do no work to improve the hive. Their only function is to spread the genetics of the hive. They are driven put of the hive in the late fall since they have no value at that point. Honey is nectar that is collected, concentrated and processed with enzymes. A forager bee brings the honey into the hive and passes it to another worker. They then store it into a comb. During this time enzymes in the bee start processing the honey. Once stored the comb is left open until the concentration of water drops to around 17% and then it is capped. Workers live about 6 weeks, unless it is winter and they can live up to 4 months in the hive. Queens live 2-4 years assuming they are not killed by another queen.

Why do they create the honey? How does a bee have a grandfather but not a father?

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ELI5: What is the nature of Numbers?

This is actually a vigorously-debated divide, with intriguing arguments on both sides. Mathematician Hannah Fry did a great documentary, Magic Numbers: Hannah Fry's Mysterious World of Maths, which devotes part of its time to the issue. It was in Amazon Prime Video as of a few months ago. For my part, I think it's clear that quantities of things exist independently of our being around to count them, so at least the most fundamental elements of math are inherent to the universe. I don't think it would be possible to have anything approaching an understanding of the world without at least *some* math, so it is essential in that sense. That said, the world exists, the universe was created in the Big Bang, galaxies and all other celestial bodies evolved, an atmosphere formed on some of them, and life flourishes in an enormous variety of forms all without anyone doing a single formula. Lifeforms from tons of species' live their entire existence without ever contemplating numbers or any real mathematical concepts. So, it's not in any way essential in *that* sense. Ultimately it's a philosophical matter without any real answer.

If that is true then doesn't it just mean that numbers are Cognitive tools of Rationality? If they were more objective forms then perhaps there would be no need for a debate? If I replace "numbers" with emotions then there would be no questions that emotions are products of our mind and brain. We use Emotions to make sense of the world, solve problems and are also motivated by them to focus on some major issues (like Environmental concerns and Global Warming). So why do we then debate on numbers?

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ELI5: What do "Dissolving parliament" and "Dissolving government" mean?

It sounds worse than it is. In the Westminster system of parliament, you having to dissolve the parliament prior to having an election. In sense, the Queen (or Governor General) fires all the members of parliament. Keep in mind, the Queen or the GC does not do so unless the Primer Minister asks (in recent times). In order to replace those members, there needs to be an election. Now, the those who were "fired" can run for election and be re-elected, or new MPs can take their place. The whole procedure is more symbolic than anything else. Now, you may ask how the country can still exist without current members of Parliament? In reality, most of the government is run by the departments, and those remain unchanged. Parliament only meets a few times a year, so this period of dissolved parliament might go unnoticed in terms of actually running the country. Even after the election, the Parliament probably won't meet for official business until a few weeks afterwards. So, whenever you hear that parliament was dissolved, it only means that the first step was taken for a upcoming election.

Great response! Are there other reasons a new election is held? For example, what does it mean that a party couldn't build a coalition so new elections happen? Thanks!

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Eli5: How does health insurance work in the U.S?

It's going to depend on the specifics of your plan, but generally speaking insurance is more for catastrophic events, not day-to-day stuff. It still usually gives some benefit, for those "regular" office visits, but its real purpose is to keep you from going bankrupt due to a surprise visit to the ER.

What about something like physical therapy on my elbow? It was a minor fracture not even a broken bone, and that has been causing hella bills

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ELI5: Why are there app versions of sites for PC, when you could just visit the site?

Optimized user interface. A website that is built for a full browser may not be as easy to navigate on a mobile device. So sometimes there are mobile versions of the same site for better user experience. Carry that one step further and an app allows them company to do things that are even more user friendly. Also potentially more intrusive.

And this applies to the PC too? I downloaded the Reddit app. Maybe the apps can also be less intense on resources?

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ELI5: Why are there app versions of sites for PC, when you could just visit the site?

For YouTube, I wouldn’t recommend the app. If you use Brave Browser or anything with an Adblock, it makes the experience much better. For other things, it’s a case by case basis. Reddit seems overall better in the app, if only because you don’t keep getting the message to install the app.

Yeah, although now that I think about it, the option was "Install Reddit", then it shows up on my desktop. But it doesn't have its own folder in the programs folder, nor show up in my Installed Apps page. Maybe its not a true app?

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eli5 exactly are dryer lint traps for?

Dryer exhaust hoses [look like this](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/3c171b_c9bb21de28b646dda57fda166ae84c8d~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_400,h_311,al_c,q_90/3c171b_c9bb21de28b646dda57fda166ae84c8d~mv2.jpg), and the lint is staticky and will stick to nooks and crannies, eventually plugging up the hose and yes, creating a fire hazard. The lint trap reduces the amount of cleaning that you have to do to the hoses. Once every six months rather than every month.

Wait you have to clean dryer hoses still? Might need to check mine I’ve never done that

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ELI5: How come acid doesn’t eat through glass like it does everything else?

It does. [Etched glass](https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=etched+glass) is very common, and is generally made by using acid to eat away at the glass, while using a stencil to mask the design. For this application, they use an[ acid in cream form](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=glass+etching+cream) to make application easier. Large cities actually often have a ban against selling that stuff to minors, because graffiti writers use it to [put their tag on windows](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6b/Etching_tag_chicago.jpg), which is permanent and requires replacing the whole pane of glass to remove.

Ok then same question about the stencil. Why doesn't it eat through the stencil?

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ELI5 Why is blood red whent wet but brown when dry?

The brown color in dry blood is due to oxidation when in contact with air. Blood contains hemoglobin that contains iron molecules that oxidize when they come in contact with oxygen in the air, much like any item item will form a rust on its surface when left in the open

So your blood is rusting?

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ELI5: What is the atmospheric optical phenomenon known as "glory"?

It's a rainbow. Rainbows occur when the sun is behind your line of vision and there are water dropplets in the direction you are looking. The 360° glory effect requires the lack of terrain, so you need to be flying somehow.

Is that what this means? > The explanation for the meteorological glory provided by the complex angular momentum theory is revisited in response to comments that a simpler physical picture would be desirable. New results that confirm the tunneling origin of the glory and the roles of resonances and surface waves in this phenomenon are presented, and expressions for averaged angular distribution and polarization features are given. **Source:** *Does glory have a simple explanation* https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18026452/

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ELI5: In space there is no atmosphere. Given this, how close would you have to get to the sun to get the same level of light we have on earth?

If you mean by light solar radiation or 'brightness' you would need to get further away from earth to compensate for the diffusion effect of the atmosphere

But I thought it was dark in space?

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eli5: How do insects stick to walls?

Their feet have microscopic little hooks that act like velcro with the microscopic irregularities in surfaces. There are surfaces that can be too smooth on the microscopic level for some bugs to get enough grip on, but you generally couldn't tell just by looking.

Oh so that's why spiders can't stick to bathtubs and such?

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Eli5: what's the reason for re-shoots ?

Re-shoots can be done for any number of reasons. Both reasons you gave are possible. A whole new may be needed to explain something that the film makers missed the first time.

Are reshoots part of film making ? Does every movie goes through reshoots or it happens only if needed Sorry my english is bad I tried

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ELI5: If HDR is just a monitor having better contrast, why do games/videos have to specifically support it?

The recorded and transmitted video data has to conform to a specific set of standards that constrain the possible quality you can achieve. To get HDR, you need to use a suitable standard such as Dolby Video, which adds more precision to each pixel than would be possible in normal (non-HDR) video. If you really want to see an example, the wikipedia HDR page gives some detail as to the specific codecs used: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolby\_Vision

So wouldn't that mean in the context of games that every game should be able to support it by just using those codecs in it's graphics engine?

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ELI5: what exactly is psychosis?

Psychosis is a state of delusion. The perception of objective reality is altered, for instance by hallucinations, voices, or ideas. The person can no longer tell the difference between reality and fantasy.

Would you mind elaborating? How would one know if they are having a psychosis?

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eli5: Why do cars need gears?

An engine does not have infinite power or rev ability. It requires more effort to accelerate than to cruise. Lower gears mean that the engine is turning more times (more power) for every time the wheel turns. This gives it the extra oomph to accelerate. But the engine can only rev so high, so more gears are needed to go faster. As you go faster the gear ratio changes meaning the engine is turning less times for every rev of the wheel. This creates efficiency at high cruising speeds for better gas mileage. It only takes about 15 horsepower to keep a car going at speed, while it takes many more ponies to get up to that speed. All that being said, there is a style of transmission known as a continuously variable transmission, which doesn't change gears so much as smoothly changes the ratio as needed while driving, resulting in a smooth acceleration without changing individual gears.

CVTs are really interesting. Too many moving parts was the main problem, though, right? And people didn't like them? No vroom.

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ELI5: How does water come up through the faucets?

Essentially, yes. There is usually a water tower that provides pressure for the entire town's water system; the water up in the tower is pushing down on all the water in the pipes. When you open the tap, there's a place for that water to go, so it rushes out. The water is replaced by the water a little further up in the pipes, all the way back to the water tower.

How does the water get up to the tower? Is there an even bigger water tower to get the water up there? And what about the water in the second tower?

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ELI5: How come, given we hear ourselves differently from how we think we sound, we can reproduce musical notes accurately by singing, just by ear?

You hear your voice differently because of sound reverberating through your bones and being picked up by your ears through your skull. When you’re singing, you are trying to hit a specific note. You know you’re on because you hear the note being played, then you harmonize with that note that you’re hearing with your voice. Your ear can be trained to hear harmony and what is called “intervals” (the distance between 2 notes). Practicing pitch matching with your voice and practicing interval matching will train you to both hear what a harmony is supposed to sound like and feel what you need to do in your stomach/throat to match that sound. Then, when you do it on your own, you just mimic those feelings to produce the notes.

Really interesting - so it's as much about 'feeling' the sound when you're creating it, as it is hearing it?

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Eli5: How does lifting a house for new foundation work?

Just like how the walls and ceiling of your house has support beams that hold up the roof, it has the same support structure for the floor. When you need to replace the foundation, the worker will find the major “load” points (the places in the support structure where the weight of the load, the house, is being supported at) and use very strong steel to instead act as the support as opposed to the previous foundation (concrete slab or otherwise). The structure is inherently designed to hold up and stay together as long as the load points are properly supported and there isn’t significant damage to the support system (from, let’s say, termites eating your wooden floor support)

How do they get the beams in place?

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ELI5: Why do ballpoint pens sometimes stop working at a specific spot on paper?

Ballpoint pens needs friction to cause the ball to roll and deposit ink. If a part of the paper has been smoothed down (for example by unsuccessfully using the pen, or by some glue) then it won’t roll and there won’t be any ink laid down. Because it’s dependant on the surface of the paper it will consistently happen at the same spot.

Is there some clever way to restore friction to the paper/spot? (E.g. some sort of powder)?

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ELI5: If two photons approach each other, what is their relative velocity?

The answer is C, if photons could perceive time. The thing is, photons can’t perceive time. From emission to absorption the whole trip of any distance (across the Milky Way or across your living room) to the photon is instantaneous. I know the C answer doesn’t seem to make sense, but nether does time dilation.

So if you could somehow stop time, would any existing photons keep traveling? If they don't experience time at all, time stopping should have no effect on them.

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ELI5: If two photons approach each other, what is their relative velocity?

You'd initially think that they'd perceive each other as double the speed of light, but that's actually not true. The speed of light, in a vacuum is the same for all observers no matter what their speed is. So, two photons approaching each other at c (speed of light) will perceive each other approaching at c and their relative velocity will be c because the frame of reference does not matter.

How does *that* make sense?

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ELI5 why/how fire produces light?

Everything with a temperature above absolute zero radiates energy in the form of electromagnetic radiation. The higher the temperature, the more it radiates, and higher the average frequency of that radiation. At standard Earth temperatures, things mostly radiate at frequencies lower than we can see, but if things get hot enough they can start to radiate visible light frequencies. Fire is a reaction that produces lots of heat, so it raises the temperature of stuff around it to the point where it can radiate visible light.

How does temperature make things give off electromagnetic radiation? I thought that this came in the form of photons? If so, how does the heat/vibration create a photon?

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ELI5: why do we immediately not wanna do something we were going to do, when someone tells us to do it?

This is called psychological ~~reticence~~ reactance. Basically you see the command as a threat to your freedom, a trap, and immediately rebel against the idea. It’s a fascinating area of psychology. Edit: typo. Sorry everyone. Thanks to the people who pointed it out.

Is there a wait to teach myself to fight it?

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ELI5: Why can’t some marine life live in fresh water?

Because their physiology has evolved for living in salt water. It's like how you wouldn't survive in an atmosphere with very little oxygen

But what about the salt do they need to survive? I obviously know why we need oxygen but I don’t understand why salt makes a huge difference.

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ELI5: What does the binary of a computer actually look like, and how does it understand those instructions?

Binary looks like this. 00100111101001001 Binary is just a way to represent numbers with only 0s and 1s. These correspond to the concept of on (1) and off (0) inside computer chips. It's called base-2 because there are only two digits. Our usual numbering is base 10, because it has 10 digits (0-9). In binary, 10 is the same as 2 in base 10. 11 is 3. (the 1 on the right is 1, and the 1 on the left is 2, add them up and you get 3). 100 is 4. 101 is 5. 110 is 6 (4+2). 111 is 7. 1000 is 8. And on and on. There are basic operations that computers use that look at whether a combination is two 0s, a 1 and 0, or two 1s, to get results from calculations.

I understood binary already, but what are the operations, like what do they look like, and how does a computer pinpoint them and calculate, say, the next frame of a video?

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ELI5: Is my water-saving toilet actually saving water if I have to flush twice to empty it?

Typically yes. A low flow (at least in the US) is 1.6 gallons per flush. A normal toilet is 3-7. So even if you're doing 2x every time (and there's really no reason you should need to, especially for urine), you're still coming out ahead.

What happens if you have a monstrously large shit?

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ELI5 what painkillers are best for what situation?

Inflammatory pain/everyday pain: NSAIDs, typically ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin) or naproxen (Aleve) are most common. Can cause problems such as ulcers, bleeding, and kidney problems. Everyday pain (particularly in elderly) : acetaminophen/paracetamol (Tylenol). Can be hard on the liver. Arthritis pain: when the OTC pain killers don't cut it, other NSAIDs such as meloxicam (Mobic) or celecoxib (Celebrex) can be used. Easier on the stomach, harder on the heart. More intense pain: injectable NSAIDs like ketorolac (Toradol) (really hard on kidneys) or opioids. Nerve pain: not many great options, but gabapentin (Neurontin), pregabalin (Lyrica), and a class of antidepressants called SNRIs (duloxetine and venlafaxine are the parent molecules) can be used. Methadone has also been useful in certain cases. Centralized pain: this is a weird kind of pain where there isn't necessarily anything wrong, but you've been in pain so long that the pain center of your brain misfires and tells you you're in pain. Very hard to treat, but treatment is similar to nerve pain. Migraines: NSAIDs can be used OTC. Generally people need something stronger and will be prescribed a triptan (sumatriptan, rizatriptan, etc.). There are a bunch of new and interesting drugs that just came out that treat and prevent migraines. Tension headaches: A mix of an NSAID or acetaminophen, caffeine, and phenobarbital. Cancer pain: generally opioids. Can step down if the pain isn't too bad. Bone pain (usually associated with bone cancer, chemo, or bone marrow transplant): can use zoledronic acid and/or an antihistamine like Claritin or Zyrtec. This is generally in addition to opioids or NSAIDs. These are the ones I can come up with off the top of my head. It's been awhile since my palliative care and pain management rotation.

Thanks for this! As someone with a severe allergy to most (all?) NSAIDs, I find this overview but insightful and disappointing, for people like me at least... I guess we'll always have good old acetaminophen.

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ELI5: If lobsters have harmful bacteria after they die and have to be cooked alive then how come that bacteria doesn’t prevent lobster tails from being sold?

You don't need to cook lobsters alive. This is bollocks. The most humane way to kill them is put them in a fridge in a bowl of iced water for 20 minutes. This will stun it, similarly to how sheep and cows are stunned prior to killing. After that, you take it out of the water, turn it upside down and split it in half. Dead lobster. No boiling alive.

I’m not talking about cooking them alive I’m talking about buying them alive. Why can’t they sell whole dead lobsters in the store if they already sell lobster tails? The stuff about the the bacteria doesn’t make any logical sense I edited my post to better reflect my point

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ELI5: How does a switchboard work to transfer phone calls?

Back in the old days that was the only way to route calls from one place to another, by physically moving and connecting wires from one plug to another. As we advanced telephone technology we developed systems to switch us automatically without manually moving plugs, and now to a point where you can travel hundreds of mile from home and still make/receive calls with no problems, since it's wireless.

How did they narrow from one location to another? Was every single phone line designated? How did that switch board operator find someone?

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ELI5: Why are some prisons ran by gangs?

“South African here “And please anyone reading this please never visit this country don't believe the BS you watch on TV , It's extremely dangerous crime rates are off the charts” Which is strange since thousands of tourists visit South Africa each year without incident. “don't rely on the Official police statistics , They are barely recording anyway” Except the crime stats(collected by the police),which bitter South African expats like to point out to people overseas in order to sink the tourism industry.

I remember years ago, a friend of mine married a South African guy (he was good looking back in the day), anyway, some family went over to SA and he said "if a black guy walks Infront of your car when there's no other cars or you're not at lights, you run him over". This would have been, erm, I wanna say 2003 Ish? But I figured he was just a POS and turns out, he was. I'm guessing crime isn't that bad.

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ELI5: Why are some prisons ran by gangs?

South African here It's not just Prisons , Gangs and Corporations basically run the whole country And please anyone reading this please never visit this country don't believe the BS you watch on TV , It's extremely dangerous crime rates are off the charts ( don't rely on the Official police statistics , They are barely recording anyway)

I'm not too sure it's that bad, do you have any statistics to back this up, or do you just have a vendetta against South Africa?

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ELI5: What happens when you buy a domain name?

You never truly buy a domain, you only pay for a name registrar to tie that domain name to an IP adress of your choice. Basically web addressed as kind of a finite resource, if everyone could own a website name for free they would and we wouldn't have any easily human readable addresses left. So ICANN (The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) can be seen as the housekeeper of the internet, a Registry then owns a Top Level Domain (.COM, .NET etc), a Registrar then sells domains belonging to this TLD to people like you (reddit.com for example). So what you do is ask a Registry to tie you IP adress and WHOIS information to a domain name. Small portion of that fee is then shared with the Registry (Like Verisign). That is what you are paying for.

Thanks for responding. I still don’t get it at all. Why do they say buy instead of rent though? Isn’t that straight up lying to your clients? Can they take the domain from me anytime then? So confusing.

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Eli5 why do they remove the entire gallbladder instead of removing just the stones?

Because gallstones are formed by too much bilirubin in the gallbladder bile. You remove the stones, more will be formed by the excess bilirubin. Remove the gallbladder and the problem becomes nil.

I've had gallstones for 10yrs with no pain or issues. Also more stones haven't popped up so why wouldn't they remove the stones instead of an entire organ? Just seems like a money grab to me

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ELI5: How algorithms work?

An algorithm is just a series of steps that produce some kind of solution to a mathematical or computer problem. You might have an algorithm to sort a list of words into alphabetical order or find the greatest common divisor of two numbers. How they work depends on what the algorithm is doing.

So in kind of laymens terms, more or less " if this and this and this, than this becomes this or this is that"? Sorry if that didnt make sense LOL

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ELI5 Why can't we build a space station with artificial gravity?

Firstly the main purpose of a space station is to do microgravity research. Launching a big expensive space station just to simulate Earth conditions would be counter productive in this setting. There have however been a few suggestions for how to create artificial gravity by spinning up parts or the entire space station and create centrifugal forces that simulate gravity. There are however issues such as possible oscillations, how to dock with such a space station, how to interface rotating and stationary components, etc. In fact there was a big centrifuge module constructed for the ISS. The purpose was to be able to simulate Lunar or Mars gravity for research programs, test out designs for centrifugal space stations, conduct control experiments in space, and so on. But due to issues with balancing such a huge rotating mass inside a fragile space station it was limited in size and was not big enough for humans, only rodents and plants. Sadly due to issues with funding and delays in the construction of ISS this module was parked in a parking lot in Japan and have not moved in over twenty years. There is currently some suggestions for one of research missions with the new cheaper spacecraft that have come on the market the last decade. The plans usually involves tying a long tether between the spacecraft and the upper stage booster that put it in orbit. This configuration could then be spun up using the thrusters and therefore generating a nice stable simulated gravity at very low cost. This could be used for low gravity research, something we currently are unable to do, or even to create gravity for transit missions to Mars.

Thank you for your answer, but ideally could a space station with artificial gravity be used for space travel? There would be much less health problems for the austronauts for what i know.

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ELI5: Why is it while driving and not paying attention, you can suddenly snap out of it and have no clue where you are?

When we first are learning to do something, we have to expend a lot of conscious attention on it. Once we get used to something, we can basically "downgrade" it to automatic sub-conscious actions, like muscle memory. When we get used to driving, we can do the basic steering & operation of the vehicle essentially automatically...we don't need to focus conscious attention on it. As a result, the thing we \*are\* consciously focusing on (our "locus of attention") can wander to other things that don't involve vehicle navigation. When you suddenly pay attention enough to ask "Where am I?" you don't have any continuous stream of position like you would if you were paying attention and have to figure out where you are. Until you do, you literally don't know where you are. Allow me to stress that basic operation of the vehicle is \*not\* the same as "driving". Driving safety \*requires\* conscious attention because you need to be constantly looking for threats and assessing how you might avoid them, which you can't do automatically. So if you lapse into the "autodriving" state it can be extremely dangerous. Your reaction time to unexpected things goes way down.

How do you avoid it then? I take the same road to work and back every day and I pretty much auto-zone out so that I arrive at work or home with no recollection of the drive. I've never been in any accident and always try to drive safe. Also it's really strange that roads I've been on a million times look completely foreign at first when snapping out of it.

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ELI5 what are half lifes of elements?

Assuming you mean radioactive half-life, it's the time it takes for half the atoms of a given radionuclide sample to undergo radioactive decay. For example Tc-99m has a half-life of 6 hours, so if you start with 2g of it and wait 6 hours then 1g of it will have decayed.

Where does it go when it decays?

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ELI5: why are there a huge amount of different insect varieties, like in ants, but only a small amount of different varieties in animals such as crocodiles?

Tiny changes in those small animals allow them to fulfill different niches and avoid competition. A tiny change in a crocodiles morphology wouldn't do as much the separate it from the other croc species. Ex. A slight change in the size of a birds beak (I know I changed examples but still) will change its primary food source. A small change in a crocs mouth.. will still make it be a top predator.

Ohhh I see. So it's already specialized to many things, so new stuff doesn't make it stop doing the stuff it has?

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ELI5: Can we drink pure water? Like just H2O

Dihydrogen monoxide (DHMO, H20) can be injested in it's purest form. However you do have to be careful as injesting to much can lead to a Hyponatremia. A low sodium condition in your bloodstream and brain.

Dihydrogen monoxide? Really? You should realize that using jargon doesn't make you smarter.

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eli5: There's a dude here who can get himself drunk without drinking any liquid but just inhaling gas from the alcohol. How's this possible?

Because the gas from the alcohol is pretty much pure alcohol, if I'm not mistaken. Alcohol evaporates much more quickly than water. You notice that when you wipe something with rubbing alcohol and seconds later it's dry. So if you take vodka and huff it, you'll actually be getting quite a dose of alcohol over time. Imagine if you had something that was over 100 proof (50%).

How can he even produce the gas in the first place? He's not heating it he's just pumping air into a bottle that contains the alcohol

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ELI5: why is it that in movies/tv when a living organism is in critical condition and needing to stay alive they are usually floating in large container of liquid with tubes attached to them? How or why does this preserve something’s lifespan?

You are talking about fantasy concepts. No such things exist today. When someone is in critical condition today, that someone is in a hospital bed. If needed, they are attached to machines that help them breathe, monitor their vitals, or temporarily support say heart or kidneys.

So this idea is just a tactic typically seen in movies or tv for a mad-scientist or high-tech lab effect?

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ELI5: Why do I need periodic vaccinations against the flu and not for other infectious viral diseases like measles?

The virus mutates, so your immune system is unable to help fight off each new strain that comes out yearly. Other viruses like the measles virus don’t mutate. Directly from the CDC website. A flu vaccine is needed every year for two reasons. First, a person’s immune protection from vaccination declines over time, so an annual flu vaccine is needed for optimal protection. Second, because flu viruses are constantly changing, the composition of flu vaccines is reviewed annually, and vaccines are updated to protect against the viruses that research indicates will be most common during the upcoming flu season. For the best protection, everyone 6 months and older should get vaccinated annually.

I'm confused about the booster shots for the corona vaccines, from what I understand it's just half a regular dose that they gave before? If periodic vaccinations are meant to prevent variants of viruses doesn't that mean each vaccine needs to be different than the original one?

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ELI5 What exactly happens to the brain/body when someone gets hit so hard that they’re knocked unconscious? Why does this occur?

Imagine a soft clay ball inside a strong jar filled with water. If you hit the jar with enough force, the jar will move so fast that the clay ball can't move with it. The clay ball will hit the wall of said jar. The clay ball deforms. Replace the clay ball with brain and jar with skull. I call it "short term death"

How on earth does this answer the question?

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ELI5 Why does parallel desktop work, but bootcamp doesn't on M1?

Boot Camp allows you to install Windows operating system on a Mac computer, alongside Mac OS. This only works on Intel-based Macs because Windows is only compatible with that hardware. Microsoft does not yet make available a consumer version of Windows compatible with Apple's M1 chip. Pro: the OS is running natively on the hardware, making full use of the hardware. Con: a computer can only run one operating system at a time, so you have to reboot to switch between them. Parallels Desktop is virtualisation software. It creates a pretend computer, within which you can install and run another operating system, like Windows. Pro: you can switch between Mac OS and Windows seamlessly and without rebooting. Con: it's virtualisation, so performance can suffer. So if you want the Boot Camp experience while using Parallels...just reboot your computer every time you want to run Windows inside Parallels. I don't know why you'd want to do that, but you do you. It will still be virtualised of course, since Windows cannot natively run on the M1, so you still have the performance hit. CrossOver is completely different software. It implements a compatibility layer to allow Windows apps to run on non-Windows operating systems. Basically when an application runs, it expects certain functionality to be provided by the underlying operating system - drawing a GUI to screen, accessing file, talking to hardware, opening network connections, and much more. Different OSs mostly provide the same functionality but you need to talk to them in different ways. CrossOver sits between the application and the OS and translates those Windows function calls from the application into something the underlying Linux/Mac/Chrome OS can understand and perform. The reason not all apps works is that compatibility layers are rarely perfect, they are trying to exactly copy all of the functionality provided by an OS which is not fully documented, and will have weird quirks or edge cases, without having access to the source code of the OS.

Not directly OPs question but I’m a bit confused how you virtualize an OS on a different architecture. Isn’t that closer to emulation? I thought virtualization still ran code on the hardware itself, is that not correct?

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ELI5 What are moles and what are they for?

A mole is just a number. It's a specific number, 6.02x10^23, which happens to be a very large number. Sort of like how "A dozen" is a number that means 12. If I ask you to get me a dozen bagels, you know I want 12 bagels. If I ask you to get me a mole of hydrogen atoms, you know I want 6.02x10^23 hydrogen atoms. What the 1.008 grams means is that 1 mole of hydrogen weighs 1.008 grams. You can have a .0005 g sample because that's less than 1 mole...

Nice explanation. But if I hear just "1 mole of oxygen", the implied word after that would be "molecules", right?

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ELİ5: What does mean to be trans?

To be trans sort of means your “self” doesn’t match your body. In part, I am a man because I have XY chromosomes and I have a penis. Also, I’m a man because my “self” is male. I feel like a man. I know I am a man. My “self” matches with my chromosomes and my genitalia. A trans man knows that his “self” is male, even though he has XX chromosomes and was born with female genitalia. A trans woman knows that her “self” is female, even though she has XY chromosomes and was born with male genitalia.

So trans people are trans because they feel like to be trans?

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ELI5 what is "its Wednesday my dudes" meme refers to? I really can't understand that meme and it's versions

Its referring to the video of this guy dressed as spiderman, minus the mask and plus swimming goggles, taking a video in the mirror saying that line before letting out a memeable yell.

Then why the frog?

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[ELI5] What is with all the split seasons all of the sudden?

For streaming services, it's a way to keep down churn -- people who drop service when a show they were watching ends. For TV networks, it's done to not air shows during times when fewer people watch and/or there are other seasonal programming to air. People are more likely to miss a show because of holiday parties, other holiday related events, spending time with family, winter vacations, etc. or the network wants to run some holiday special. So basically, stop running new episodes of shows from mid-Nov until after New Years. Breaks in filming schedules can also allow actors to do movies or other projects, allow for filming schedule / seasons to catch up to plot lines

Dang, this covers most everything I could think of. Only other one is networks ordering a short season to test it's appeal. Maybe this doesn't apply to this specific line?

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ELI5 Why does adding more of the same level of spice/hot increase in the overall heat if it's all the same level of heat, just in more quantity?

When you add spice initially, it's added in smaller amounts which is not enough to feel the true heat of the spice. The more spice you add after, the closer you get to the true heat. And there will be a point of saturation after which no matter how much spice you add, it won't get 'spicier'. That would be considered as its true heat.

Okay, this is much clearer to me. So this super hot sauce that comes in the instant noodles I get, I'm assuming the one packet is enough to feel the true heat. Assuming that's true, if I ad more last that, will I get more of the flavor of the sauce while keeping the same level of heat?

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ELI5 Why do toasters have a tray to remove crumbs from the bottom, but then design the toaster so the majority of that tray’s surface area is obstructed by metal fins and bevels that are fixed in place?

There have to be parts underneath the bread to stop it from falling all the way down into the crumb tray. That would be bad because it means you'd have to carefully clean the crumb tray before making any toast or else one edge of your toast would have old, stale, burnt crumbs stuck to it. Also, that edge of your crust might toast differently than other edges since it was resting on a solid surface. For the most part, it doesn't matter if you have crumbs "stuck" on various structural bits of the toaster. But if the tray wasn't there, it'd be hard to get the crumbs back out. You'd have to turn your toaster upside down over a trash can, shake vigorously, and pray. That'd probably do more to get crumbs stuck on every random part of the toaster than you've observed happens with the current setup. As is, 90% of the crumbs end up in the tray and if you jiggle your toaster a little the rest will fall. It's a situation where "good enough" is just fine.

I’m not talking about the sort of slatted lever the bread sits on, attached to the handle, which slides down when the handle is depresses. Beneath that, between the crumb tray and the toast at its nadir, there’s like these fixed metal fins. Now that you and several people have answered, I can kind of see how the shape of them aims to funnel crumbs through the central area onto the tray, but it still seems highly inefficient. Leave the slatted lever/bread rest, leave the crumb tray, remove the metal fins that conduct crumbs into the tray? Or is there something I’m missing? (I’m assuming that whatever mechanism that holds the bread in place when the handle is depressed is dependent upon the side of the toaster frame and not the bottom, but perhaps I’m mistaken.)

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Eli5: What's Laplace transform?

In math we have groups of numbers that share properties. For instance integers are the group of numbers that can be written as whole numbers like -1, 0, 1, 2 and so on. One of the most often used groups of numbers are the real numbers. These are the numbers that are generally used in real life. They can be integers, rational numbers like 1/2 or 5/11, or even irrational numbers like pi or the square root of 2. Most functions that people use in real life take in a real number and give you back a different real number. However, there are also things called complex numbers. These numbers have a real part, and an imaginary part. This is just a different kind of number. A laplace transform turns a function with a real variable into a function with a complex variable. These functions won't be the same, but you can go back and forth from real to complex then back to real. There are some math problems where converting into the complex function simplifies the problem. So we convert to complex, then solve the problem, then convert back to real.

Can you explain what lapplachian deform does in 3d software?

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ELI5 - why do people at the equator (spinning 1000 mph with the earth) and the poles (not spinning almost at all) experience gravity the same? This feels like it would have a massive difference on just walking around!

Earth rotates VERY slowly relative to its size. Once a day, which is twice as slow as the hour handle on the clock. The speed of the surface doesn't matter, humans can't feel the speed, we only feel the change in speed, which is acceleration. And by rotating once every 24 hours the change in the direction of the speed is very small. Earth also rotates very uniformly and to same direction, so even with faster rotation, it would just feel like the gravity is weaker. This is called centrifugal force, which can be calculated for the earth: [https://i.imgur.com/PSXL6K5.png](https://i.imgur.com/PSXL6K5.png) So if we put a human on the equator and calculate how much the centrifugal force of the rotating earth makes the human lighter, it's about 2 newtons of force, which is about 200 grams lighter on earth's surface. If you would weigh yourself at the equator, you would weigh tiny bit less than on poles (if ignoring other factors).

what if the speed of earth were to be increased indefinitely at a small but noticeable rate. at what speed point would stuff start to happen? like, at what point would we notice, would we be flung off? could we spin up slowly enough to never be affected?

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ELI5 What does Neosporin do for an open wound?

The process of healing surface wounds has a really cool name: epithelialization ([pronunciation](https://www.google.com/search?q=epithelialization+pronunciation)). Scientists who have studied this process observed that [it happens more cleanly and efficiently when the wound is kept "wet"](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3842869/). In this context, wet doesn't mean wet like under water. It means a mechanism is used to prevent the body's natural fluids from drying out. In other words, preventing a scab from forming. Neosporin is mostly petroleum jelly, plus some anti-biotics. Interestingly enough, the anti-biotics aren't the primary source of improvement in healing; it's the petroleum jelly. In fact, many dermatologists (skin doctors) advise against using anti-biotic ointments like Neosporin because the anti-biotics can cause allergic reactions. You can get very similar results by following these steps: 1. Flush the wound with soap and water immediately. Yes, this will sting, but this is the best way to disinfect a wound while preserving the live tissue. 2. Apply an anti-biotic ointment during the first application of a bandage. 3. Change the band-aid twice a day. Once when you get up, and once before you go to bed. Apply regular old petroleum jelly instead of anti-biotic ointment. You'll get the same results, you won't risk any allergic reactions to anti-biotics, and you'll preserve the efficacy of anti-biotics against future infections. Prolonged exposure to anti-biotics actually contributes to resistance in populations of bacteria.

All of the responses here are assuming something important: that you can clean the wound quickly. Does treatment change if the wound is hours old?

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ELI5 if you hear the volume at the same level, what's more harmful to your ears: in ear or over ear headphones?

Given the same level setting -- e.g., the volume slider at the halfway mark -- the in-ear headphones will sound much louder because they sit very close to the ear canal. How much louder? Up to 9 decibels which is about 77% louder. So *all else being equal*, in-ear headphones will be more harmful to your ears as compared to over-the-ear models. Sources: [https://www.atlantahearingdoctor.com/blog/earbuds-vs-headphones-whats-better-ears/](https://www.atlantahearingdoctor.com/blog/earbuds-vs-headphones-whats-better-ears/) [https://www.v7world.com/us/news-events/how\_loud\_is\_too\_loud](https://www.v7world.com/us/news-events/how_loud_is_too_loud)

Don't people set the volume based on how loud it sounds? It seems strange to me to hold your volume setting on your PC constant and not the actual volume you hear.

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Eli5 If you perceive the volume at the same level, what's more harmful to your ears: over ear or in ear headphones?

From the sound? Neither. What can damage your eyes is the intensity of the sound energy, or the volume of it. In ear headphones actually put out less energy, but that energy output is much closer to the ear, making it sound equivalent to over ear headphones that might be putting out more energy, but are further away from the ear. Sound energy dissipates over distance. So, if you have the same intensity of sound hitting your ear from each, hypothetically neither should be more damaging than the other.

Forgive my poor English, I didn't mean to perceive with your eyes, reposted hopefully with a clearer title. Mods, can this be removed please?

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ELI5 - What would happen if you shot a gun in space ?

No different than shooting a gun on earth. The bullet will go roughly where you're aiming. You'll experience the same amount of recoil. If you're just floating around in your spaceship you'll be pushed backwards a bit, but not much differently than if you jumped up and fired on earth (ignoring the vertical movement). As for the bullet, it too will behave like a bullet fired at sea level. No conventional firearm propels a bullet fast enough to achieve orbit or escape the earth's gravity well. So while it will travel further and take longer to impact the earth, asking what it'll do in space isn't much different than asking what it would do if fired from the top of Mount Everest (with the exception of atmospheric drag not being a factor right away).

So if you were in orbit and fired a gun in the opposite direction, it would still go in the same orbit direction as you but slower?

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